OK, Give me your CHEAPEST meals.

My favorite cheap meal is a favorite comfort food I grew up with. My Bavarian mother's "kartoffelgemusse" is quick, easy, inexpensive and filling. As is the case with most recipes that have been handed down, the measurements are for the most part estimations:

It starts with a flour gravy somewhat similar to the kind used for biscuits and gravy

1/4 c butter, margarine, lard or oil (I like it best with lard), heated in a pot
1/4 c flour gradually added to melted fat until well-blended. Let it brown a bit to add color
2 c water gradually added to oil/flour, stir in well after each addition. We are going for a gravy that is about the thickness of a thin pudding so you may need more or less water.

At this point I usually add a liberal amount of pepper and Maggi, which is a German condiment similar to soy sauce but not as sweet. As I don't normally make flour gravies, one could probably go from here and add whatever seasonings one adds to a flour gravy, like salt and pepper.

Once the gravy is seasoned, add 1 lb sliced hot dogs (it's also really good with Polish sausage, but the hot dogs are cheaper) and a quantity of boiled, sliced potatoes. I don't have any idea how many pounds, but we're going for something that looks reminiscent of scalloped potatoes. Heat the mixture thoroughly and serve.

An omelet. Eggs are a complete food. You get your protein & fat. Also, potatoes will keep you alive in a famine.

Do you think whole wheat pastry flour would work with these?

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Blessings,
Jean

Around our place cornbread and milk could be on the menu for supper.
In springtime, boiled poke salet with boiled egg on top makes for some fine eating.
Use leftover chicken or turkey carcass to boil for broth. Add a scrambled egg into it when its boiling and stir. You've got egg drop soup.
For snacks, this time of year, the nuts are falling out of the trees. Go for a walk and pick them up along the way. You get exercise and food.

Quiverof10, I'm not sure. You could easily cut the recipe in half and give it a try. Worst case, you're out a little bit of time and half a cup of flour. I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Kayleigh

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"Thing"

We don't know what else to call it. It's sort of fried rice, but there's things in it which don't fit the traditional idea of fried rice at all. It's not quite a frittata or omelette.......it's just Thing.

Saute diced leftover veg in a little oil. Any of the following work, but the first four are the most important: onions, celery, carrots, cabbage, green or red peppers, peas (shell or snap), beans, cooked turnip....I've used pretty much anything except beets.

Add a handful of cooked ham, diced as small as possible to stretch it. IF you haven't got ham, you can use bacon or sausage. If you haven't got any, skip the meat entirely. Chicken just doesn't add enough flavor, and you'll have protein from the eggs you add at the end.

When the veg are just soft and the ham fat has a little brown to it, add cooked rice. Brown or white. Whatever. Quantities are totally fluid here. Use what you've got. I have substituted grated raw potatoes or cubed cooked potatoes for the rice.

Stir to coat the rice with the oil that's on the veg and ham. Then add a bit of shredded cheese. Cheddar is good.

Break a couple of eggs into this and stir until the egg is set. Again, you can use any quantity. This morning I used three eggs for a cast iron pan full of the rest of the ingredients.

This part's key to making it taste really good: once the egg is cooked, keep the pan on medium heat for two minutes or so, as long as you dare (you know how easy your pan is to clean, so decide accordingly). This give the Thing a nice brown bottom crustiness which contrasts nicely with the creamy rest of it. I suppose you could brown the top under a broiler, too, but I've never bothered.

If you have to go out and buy the ingredients for Thing, I suppose it's going to add up. But it's stuff I usually have in the fridge at the end of the week anyway, and since the quantities are so fluid, it's adaptable. A cast iron pan full makes a Sunday lunch and two workday lunches for the two of us.

kate

One more:

Saute a dark green leafy veg, cut into thin strips, in a little olive oil. I like kale or collards for this more than spinach.

Add one can of rinsed chickpeas. If you want, toast them in a hot oven (toss with a little oil first) before adding them. It's a nice touch but you can skip it if you're in a hurry.

If you have it, you can add diced cooked chicken. If not, no big deal.

Season with curry powder.

You can spread this over baked pizza dough and tuck it under the broiler for a minute or two, or eat it over rice, or just by itself. Nutritionally, it's probably my very best really cheap meal.

kate

Okay, take that spagetti sauce you got for a dollar, add 1 lb ground beef, on sale for 1.00. saute 2 carrots, 3 zucchini diced with the browning meat, or add a 50 cent can of veggies, boil 50 cents worth of pasta. Add the can of sauce to the meat/veggie mixture when veggies are soft, serve over noodles. Voila! Dinner for 4, one dollar each.

Thanks, I am going to try it this week and will post an update

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Blessings,
Jean

Tonight was a cheap eating meal. We had some left over taco meat from burritos last month that I had frozen...not quite a pound. So I mixed it with rice, red kidney beans, chooped stewed tomatoes, corn and some spicy cajun seasoning and Voila! A filling feast to feed several. In family we call this dirty rice.

One of my favorite books is Cheap Eating: How to Feed Your Family Well and Spend Less by Pat Edwards and Don Nedobeck (Paperback - Mar 1993)

You can find a copy at half.com or ebay for about a dollar. In it are lots of recipes to save money. For instance, we like pudding and pies in our family. There is a recipe in there to make a basic pudding mix in bulk. Just scoop out the mixture that is stored in an airtight container...add milk and cook like you would long cooking Jello Pudding...ad flavoring...vanilla...chocolate. Becase you began with a bulk recipe it costs you only pennies to make instead of dollars for boxes.

They have the same bulk receipes for cake mixes, dressings, taco seasoning packets (you control the sodium) etc. I love the book and cannot imagine life without it. You should check it out.

My dear friend and neighbor has eight children and she can stretch a chicken. She takes a few chicken broiled chicken breasts and chops them up into a skillet of olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, onion and italian seasonings...she tosses this hot mixture with pasta and some parmesan cheese...side with a salad and it is an awesome meal. The kiddos eat this up big!

The key is to use your imagination and use what you have and waste nothing. Always make more than enough and keep the leftovers...freeze them or use them but never lose them. Keep practicing and before long you will be a pro!

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Blessings & Shalom,
Mrs. De Jesus

A favorite comfort food comes to mind. Spaghetti with stewed tomatos. I like mine with a little butter. Add some bread and you got a meal for under $3.

Also, something we call "the concoction". Cube a couple potatoes and cook them in a frying pan with some butter. Cut up a few hot dogs and add green beans and a little salt and pepper. Delicious and only a few dollars to make.

Single and on my own: Ramen Noodles and parm. cheese (don't even think about it.. BLECH!) Cost was cheap though. No, not balanced, but I had about $20 a week after rent was paid.

My fav by-my-self meal: Spaghetti, with a ton of parm cheese and butter. Or a baked potato, ton of butter and maybe some ranch dressing... not very healthy lol! But great energy boost in the afternoon. Not sure you could buy this stuff for under $1, but it's stuff I always have here anyway, so more like using up leftovers than actually buying something.

With kids, I find our biggest expense is meat. If I carefully make sure no one eats more than they should, that cuts costs by quite a bit. I also get lots of veggies from my dad's garden (grow some myself, too, but still a newbie so it's pathetic lol)

I like French toast for a cheap/easy meal. We have chickens (go through $12 in feed every two weeks.. which is $6 a week among 18 girls) Have some fruit with it, and it's balanced. I also like to make pancakes (when we are desperate lol). Cut up some apples, and add it to the mix. My ds hates that, to be honest, but it is healthier. And with the aforementioned eggs again, balanced.

Wolf Mom- I completely understand what you are saying. I agree- but we have to eat. I don't know about the other folks on here, but my dh doesn't make enough for us to live comfortably (and buy all the organic whole foods I'd like to.. my fav is oatmeal bread, but at 3x the cost of regular wheat, well..), and we don't qualify for any assistance. I work very hard to balance meals, but that doesn't mean my kids EAT balanced every day. My ds hates fruit of any sort, and often he'll have a pb&j sandwich rather than eat what I've cooked.

Anyway... that's not a criticism. I think you have a valid point. But we all do the best we can when times are tough. I highly doubt we are the only family that's struggling right now.

Meghan

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This is an awesome post and I am getting a lot of ideas from it. My mom made this when we were kids and I still make it once in awhile for my family. There was 3 of us kids and mom and dad and we usually ate this with tomato soup or any other kind of soup. This is when spam was relatively cheap. I can find it at Aldi's now pretty cheap but spam seems expensive to me now.

Spamburgers

Take 1 can of spam and grate it. Take 1/2 block of velvetta or the generic brand (this is what we used) and shred that on the grater. Pour about a cup of catsup into the mix and mix it all up. Spread on hamburger bun halves and toast them in the oven until melted. I just loved eating these as a kid and there were hardly ever any leftovers! And if there were we would eat some up for breakfast or lunch the next day.

Well, there's pork & bean sandwiches...pretty good, too!

Mon

1) Take a can of whole tomatoes, roast them in the oven with a tiny bit of oil, salt and pepper. Top with a little bit of cheese and some bread crumbs if you have them
2) PB&J
3) egg scrambles- eggs are cheap, cook them with some inexpensive veggies. For savory meals, an onion + a sliced potato + a couple of eggs, all cooked together is quite good.

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Today we had one of our standby cheap lunches: stirfried shredded cabbage seasoned with black pepper, eggdrop soup, and rice. If we want the extra protein, we have a tin of sardines cooked in soysauce and slivers of fresh ginger root, too. Probably not to most people's taste, but we ate it a lot when I was a child. Sometimes we had gizzards cooked that way instead of sardines, but I prefer the fish.

Hoppin John.

Take some cooked rice (I like brown), add a can of beans (I like black). Into the pot goes some green onions. Have a left over strip of bacon or two or a small chunk of ham that you dice up. I put a dash of hot sauce on it. Great stuff, and the price is right.

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"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson

We are using a lot more pasta, rice, and potatoes. Then we always have hamburg. I buy it at walmart it comes in 5lb rolls. There are about 3 types. and we usually buy the middle one it is based on how much the fat content is. We tried the least expensive (most fat) and really didn't care too much for it then we started with the other and it is much more to our liking. There is always something that can me made with hamburg. Buy chicken on sale. Now Walmart has some small chickens that a reasonable priced and for the two of us that is about 3 meals. If we have company we can cook up two.
I enjoy reading others money saving recipes as they are great. I also make baked beans which gives us quite a few meals.

RenieB