Feed a family of 4 with a hamburger patty

[Michael Kawalek]

Another thread is focusing on hunger in America, and some people's inability to prepare good food for themselves. I'd like people to contribute frugal recipes that can be used to feed a family at very little cost. Especially recipes that have store-able ingredients that a prepper might keep.

I'd say contribute any recipe that people can make out of common ingredients that produce a meal that can feed 4 people but costs less than a dollar per person. Meat may be included but don't add anything more expensive than a single hamburger patty. Some ingredients can be purchased in cans, but I mostly cook from dried ingredients.
I'll start out with three of my own.

Tortillas with refried beans.
Soak 2 cups of beans overnight. Discard soak water, add fresh water and bring beans to a boil. Turn off heat and place bean pot in an insulated container and let the beans steep in the hot water for a couple of hours. Reheat to boiling then put back in the container for a few more hours. Four hours of cooking/steeping makes beans soft enough to mash. Drain water and crush the beans into paste.

In a flat pan heat several corn tortillas for each person. Saute a hamburger patty in a tablespoon of cooking oil. Add salt, pepper, and chili to taste. Set cooked meat aside. Heat several tablespoons of oil in a pan and add bean paste. Saute till oil is absorbed. Put in a serving dish and sprinkle the hamburger over the top. Ladle spoonfulls of beans/burger into toasted tortillas. Garish with a bit of chopped lettuce and a chopped tomato. Some grated cheese is optional if available.


Hummus with pitta
Soak 2 cups of chickpeas overnight like the beans above. Cook like the beans. After the peas are soft, cool and remove the skins by rolling the cooked peas in you hands. Reserve 1 cup of the cooking water. After dehulling blend the peas to a paste. Add reserved cooking water to soften the paste till thinner than peanut butter. Add the juice of a lemon, salt, some garlic, and seasame butter, if available. Put in a serving dish. Cook hamburger as above and sprinkle on top.

To make pitta's, mix two cups of flour with 2/3 cup of water or milk, yeast, and one egg. Let rise. Shape the dough into 2 inch balls that are rolled into a flat circle. Fold the circle in half to make a half-moon shape and toss into a tray in an hot oven (450F) for 5 minutes. Take out when the pittas start turning brown. The pita bread is dipped into the hummus and eat at once.

Pot Stickers
Finely chop a Chinese cabbage and place in a bowl with several tablespoons of salt. Mix the salt with the cabbage till wilted and let set for 30 minutes till all the water can be squeezed out of the cabbage. Transfer the wilted cabbage to a new bowl once all the water is squeezed out. Add 1 un-cooked hamburger patty, one beaten egg, 2 chopped green onions, and one finely chopped carrot. Blend all the ingredients together to make a thick paste.

Prepare flour dough as above except without any yeast. Roll out 4" circles of dough immediately after mixing and place a spoonful of cabbage filling in the center of each circle. Fold in half and crimp the edges closed. This recipe will make about 24 large pot stickers or 48 small ones.

To fry the pot stickers, add a few tablespoons of oil to a pan and add the dumplings. Heat at high till the bottoms start to brown. Add 1/8-1/4 cup of water to the pot stickers and immediately cover to steam cook. Leave covered till the water has mostly evaporated. Flip the dumplings over and fry on the second side. Once browned add water again and steam a second time. Continue heating till the water has boiled away and then serve hot. Extra uncooked pot stickers can be frozen for quick meals at a later date.

I hope people here enjoy these dishes, and I hope they can help you put healthier, more nutritious foods on your table.

[whodunit]

Brown patty and break up into as small of pieces as possible.

Squeeze out as much fat as possible and set aside meat.

Add butter or other fat to make 4T total fat.

Add 4T flour and make a paste.

Add 2C milk and cook and stir until thickened.

Add back meat and any herbs or seasonings you like.

Serve over boiled potatoes, rice or macaroni.

[Ken Scharabok]

One box of hamburger helper creates a very large dish.

Spagetti (sp?) sauce with bits of burger rather than meatballs?

[whodunit]

Speaking of spaghetti...

Break up and brown patty.

Add one can each tomato sauce, chopped tomatoes, tomato paste.

Add sugar and Italian seasoning to taste.

If you want to bulk it up, add some diced onion, shredded carrots, or zucchini.

Serve over spaghetti noodles.

[oberhaslikid]

I hamburger patty crumbled and browned in a skillet.Add 2 cups water 1 cup milk and 1 pkb egg noodles.Then add one can cream of mushroom soup.Stir together simmer on low untill noodles are tender.

[Delrio]

Pinto beans with a few slices of bacon.
Alfredo with half a chicken breast cut into small pieces.
SOS

Sometimes when you cook a big meal you get many leftovers out of it and that makes the cost per serving go way down.
We've cooked a $2 pork roast the other night and got three good meals out of it. Cost per serving for meat=33 cents.

[Jenn]

Thanks for this.

I add chili powder to hamburger meat- stir it in with some water after the hamburger is browned and then cook until water is gone again- for taco salad or tacos.

I toss in a can of mushrooms when using hamburger for spaghetti sauce.

[Mid Tn Mama]

All hamburger based casseroles can be stretched with mashed beans. No one will know the difference. You can do this with spaghetti and lasagna too.

[HilltopDaisy]

Split Pea Soup ~ I think a pound of split peas is still under a doller, I buy them in a 25 pound bag.

Put everything in a big pot; 2 cups split peas, one diced carrot, one chopped onion, one stalk chopped celery, about 8 cups water, 1/2 teaspoon of thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes I'll throw in a veggie boullion cube if I have them. (I do not use ham because I don't eat meat).

Serve with cornbread. Cheap, healthy, delicious and really filling.

Excellent thread!!

[Sparkey]

We're 'empty nesters' and sometimes for a quick meal/lunch or part of a larger meal we'll have soup. I am semi-retired & wife still works full time so I make 99% of the meals. We make several kinds of soups & also have a great chili recipe. For convenience & variety, several years ago I decided to freeze soup in Corelle bowls. I'll make a large pot of soup & simply ladel the soup/chili into the bowls, let them cool,set them on a cookie sheet overnight in the chest freezer & next day run a small stream of hot water on the bottom of the bowls to release the frozen chunk of soup & store them in a 1 or 2 gallon ziplock type bag in the freezer. Next time we want soup we just go to the freezer & take our choice, microwave it for 4-7 minutes & have a good bowl of hot soup. We also freeze spaghetti sauce in smaller bowls this way.

Charlie

Hilltop Daisy....we also use a lot of cornbread. We dry sweet corn on the cob, then run it through the grain mill...makes "super good" cornbread !

[HilltopDaisy]

Creamy Potato Soup ~ wash, peel and chop 6 good-sized potatoes and throw in your soup pot, along with some diced celery and onions. Add enough water to cook, and salt and pepper. Cook for 30-40 minutes. I like to mash my cooked taters just a little for texture. Add some milk or cream, and butter if you like.

[Ezekiel's Garde]

We do all sorts of varieties of beans and starch.

Black beans and rice
Cook black beans with garlic, oregano, ground cumin, and smoked paprika (or liquid smoke). Add salt when done; cook big pot of rice. Serve with salsa; may add cheese and/or sour cream if available.

Soup beans and cornbread (sometimes add turnips as a side)
I buy smoked pork hocks or shanks at the store for relatively cheap. I will put 2 pounds of beans in the pot per hock. The hock isn't necessary, but it adds a nice flavor to the beans. More garlic in the pot helps, too, if you don't use the hock.

Red beans and rice - cajun or jamaican style
Cajun - celery, onions, garlic, green peppers sauteed. Add kidney beans and water. Put in bay leaf, Worcestershire sauce, and a few drops liquid smoke. When done, serve over rice. May add smoked sausage, but not necessary for a good meal.
Jamaican - onions and garlic sauteed. Add kidney beans, 1 can diced green chilis (or use 1-2 jalapenos seeded and diced), 1 can coconut milk, thyme, and bay leaf. Cook until done and serve over rice.

Tuscan bean soup (dried beans, kale, carrots, sage, garlic, onion) with bread
Saute garlic onions, and carrots. Add dried beans and sage. Cook until beans mostly done. Toss in chopped kale (spinach works okay too) and cook until beans and kale are both tender. May top with shredded Parm.

We eat a lot of spaghetti too. I use one of the huge jars that you can buy at Sam's or Costco (or 2-3 of home canned). Before adding the sauce to the pot, though, you need to brown 1 pound of meat (optional), 1 chopped onion, 2 diced carrots, 1 diced green pepper, 8 oz sliced mushrooms (if desired), 1 diced zucchini, and 2-4 cloves garlic. Then add the sauce. It will make a ton. We usually eat 3 full meals, plus 2 meals for dh to take to work off of it. It usually takes 2-3 pounds of pasta for this amount, and we cook as we need it. This is very cheap for us, and filling because of all the extra veggies.

Scrambled eggs or omelets for supper are a big hit here, too.

[salmonslayer]

Right now our work schedule is so hectic we try to make simple things at the end of the day. A baked potato (eat it with some butter, salt and pepper and its filling just by itself).
Spaghetti with just a light saucing of a little olive oil with minced garlic and red pepper flakes, Tri Tip steaks (I think this is a West Coast thing as I dont remember them when I was stationed in the MidWest or East Coast) which are very cheap and very flavorfull (but can be tough). Of course beans and rice of all types. We also like open faced grilled cheese where you broil the bread with cheddar cheese, sliced tomato and red onion. And of course we eat a lot of salmon that we catch and can or freeze.

[Jolly]

$1/person is easy.

Let's try $1 to feed four.

Can anybody do that?

[ronbre]

pizza...goulash...soup...stew....macaroni and cheese with a little meat crumbled in...

[HilltopDaisy]

Originally Posted by Jolly

$1/person is easy.

Let's try $1 to feed four.

Can anybody do that?

Oops! I misread the opening post, as I *was* attempting to feed 4 for $1!

Potato soup, split pea soup....

[HilltopDaisy]

Halupke casserole ~ chop half a cabbage and one onion, add a can of diced tomatoes, mix with some cooked rice. Season with salt and pepper, and if you want to add your hamburger, go ahead. Put in baking dish, cover, bake for an hour.

[Harry Chickpea]

Dollar per person? Squirrel, winter squash.
Four cents for the bullet, two cents for the squash seed. Six cents per person.

Quiche - dozen eggs 80 cents, flour 20 cents, add wild onion, four serving for $1.

Bulgar wheat - 10 cents per serving

Cornbread and catfish - one worm plus cornmeal and an egg and maybe some drippings.

Bread and milk or crackers and milk - less than $1 per 4 if you work it right.

Double cheeseburger at BK - $1/person split the burger into two and add a bun, 50cents plus a bun for two.

[Oldcountryboy]

Boardfish soup.

Catch 2 or 3 perches and nail down to a board. Place board on top of hot roof for a couple of days. When ready, remove from roof. Throw away fish and cut board into 1 inch square chunks. Place chunks in big pot and fill to almost full with water and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper. Serves many.

[Oldcountryboy]

Okay, a little more on the serious side. I have a elderly couple for freinds that are really good at making things stretch. Every once in a while when in town they will treat theirselves to dinner somewhere and wherever they eat, they always save some of their food and bring it home with them for a second meal. Take for instance if they eat at Kentucky Fried buffet, they will save some meat on the bones and bring all thier bones home in a doggy bag. To which the next day or later that evening they will boil the bones and when tender they will remove the meat off the bones and place the meat back into the stock and then add dumplings or noodles. Or they might eat steak out somewhere and save the leftovers for a pot of beef stew.

Now this might not actually cost them under a dollar, but it does stretch their money some. They also do a lot of things to stretch thier money around their place. They are very frugal people.