Your very favorite as-cheap-as-possible recipe

[pegkerr]

I am starting to compile the grocery list for the week, and since we are retrenching, I am looking for rock-bottom price recipes. Nutritional main dish recipes that you actually like. Kid-friendly and easy a particular plus.

I remember one we ate pretty often when I was a kid, a fondue recipe we called "Blushing Bunny." I think I got it from Camp Fire Girls. Why the weird name? I think it is meant as a sort of sideways joke, a tip of the hat to the better known fondue "Welsh Rarebit," which a child might hear as "Welsh Rabbit."

Take a can of Campbell's tomato soup. Do not dilute it. Stir in one egg, well beaten and shredded cheddar cheese (I think we'd put in somewhere between a half cup to a cup or so). Heat gently until hot and thickened. Serve by pouring over toast and eat immediately. I think this serves 2-3, depending on whether you are serving kids or adults.

Like I said, I remember loving this one as a kid, but when I mentioned this one to Delia, she wrinkled her nose in disgust when I made the mistake of telling her the ingredients list. I know that adding the egg to the soup sounds disgusting, but when it is stirred in and heated up, you really can't tell it's there at all. It just is there to add protein and thicken it, I guess. I might make it anyway and insist that they try it at least. It is certainly dead cheap.

Mom used to serve spam and rice pretty frequently, but I'm not quite tempted to revisit that old memory. Rob remembers dinners of fried boloney when he was growing up, but I don't think he's nostalgic for that one, either.

How about you? My kids are picky, but give me your best shot anyway.

Edited to add: All three hate onions, broccoli and mushrooms. The girls hate potatoes (yes, potatoes!), brown rice, and bell peppers. Delia hates cooked tomatoes, cooked apples and cooked oranges and is very unpredictable about meat. She has tried and rejected a number of meat substitutes--impossible to predict, but she doesn't seem to like tofu-based products very much. She is hit or miss on most other vegetables, but less likely to eat them if they are cooked.

Fiona would eat nothing but carbs (pasta) if I let her. White, of course. I prefer whole wheat pasta, but they are much more reluctant to eat it.

Beans are also unpredictable. Rob will eat lentils, pinto beans and kidney beans (reluctantly); girls will not. The girls adore baked beans, however. Go figure. Rob will eat green beans (even canned!), girls, there is no predicting.

Rob will eat kale reluctantly, girls will not.

Edited to add again: My personal favorite suggestion, among all these comments, is moony's suggestion that I teach the girls basic photosynthesis: "You're hungry? Go stand in the yard for an hour."

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The trouble with inexpensive food is that it costs a lot in time. I mean you can make your own baked beans for about 10% of what canned ones cost, but it takes 12 hours soaking and then three hours cooking. Also, it isn't healthy, you pretty much can't do both at the same time.

And cheese is expensive! Tinned food is expensive! I've fed three people on fifteen pounds a week, and those things were just out of reach -- cheese was a rare treat.

Almost everything I cook has onions in it, and so isn't much use.

But how about "2 meals for 4 from one chicken"?

You buy a chicken for about $10. You prod it with a fork, sprinkle salt&pepper and whatever herbs they'll sit still for and roast it for an hour at 200C/400F. When it's nearly done, you tip all the fat it has created into a wok on medium heat, and add finely chopped carrots and whatever other vegetables they'll stand, garlic if that's OK, and 3 ounces of white basmati rice per person. Stir, a lot. Boil a pint of water and add a tablespoon of soy sauce. When the rice starts to show signs of sticking slowly add this water so it can absorb it as it cooks. Meanwhile, the chicken will be done. Cut up all the breast meat, including the skin, and add it to the wok. Refrigerate the rest of the chicken. When the rice looks like rice, and all the liquid has been absorbed, serve, calling it risotto. You're basically eating a pile of rice with some bits of meat and veg, but it's surprisingly tasty and filling, and as it has cheap root vegetables and rice, which is essentially free when bought in bulk, you can consider that the whole meal for four cost about $6.50.

The next morning, take the rest of the chicken and put it in a large saucepan. Cover it with water. Add an ounce of pearl barley per person and some salt, and bring to the boil. Add carrots, rutabaga and whatever else in the way of cheap root vegetables they'll sit still for, also herbs. Simmer at a low boil for an hour and a half. You can not do this in a microwave, you need a saucepan and time. When it has cooled, remove the bones if your family are picky about bones in their food like mine. (If I'm eating it myself, I just spit the bones out as I go.) Half an hour before you want to eat, heat it up again and when it's boiling, add macaroni-type pasta and let that cook in the liquid. Call it chicken stew. This also can be considered $6.50, or $7.50 if you serve it with bread... or you can make soda bread to go with it, and you can call it $6.75. (Will they eat soda bread? Want a recipe?)

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

That's true, I realized afterwards that I spend more on cheese than I do on meat.

And the time/money tradeoffs are significant. So the more you keep everyone informed (and involved?) about the goals, in the non-stressful times, maybe the fewer complaints you will be dealing with when push comes to shove. Like maybe it's important to spend a little more on prepared food on the nights you're stretched thin, or maybe your priority is that on a night you can have family dinner with no karate, you can serve something familiar and popular.

Definitely it's not a time for trying to expand eating horizons of people who are resistant, or to be spending time/money making anything expensive or fancy for everyone because you want to eat it yourself and you hope they might like it. But that doesn't mean depriving yourself of foodie delight - when you have time, you can make a filling dinner of ordinary stuff with a couple of servings of something more challenging on the side, eat one yourself, and look forward to taking the other one for lunch if no-one else expresses an interest. Pasta tossed with oil and parmesan, baby carrots, and a few garlic shrimp for example.

One of my food budget customs (as a not picky adult, previously feeding voracious teenagers) is that I never try to economize on vegetables. Because even the out-of-season fresh ones aren't very expensive compared to cheese and meat and frozen lasagna and take-out lunch, and the more likely I am to eat vegetables, the better.