Recession/Poor Bastard's Food Guide - Recipes, tips for saving money, etc

[Vinegar Lover]

I have been eating this for lunch or a snack recently. High startup cost but pretty good for you and pretty flavorful, low cost per portion and will fill you up. If you're worried about micros you should probably already be taking a multivitamin or use some steamer bag veggies as a side (I wouldn't mix em in tbh unless it's like peas). Note: if you don't have an Asian grocery near you, it will be hard to find the rice and furikake. Protein can be whatever you'd like but I'd recommend scrambled eggs if you're a normie or canned fish if you're a Chad. Apologies for formatting, I'm a newfag and chronic mobileposter. I also don't usually use precision when cooking so Autists will have to cope.


Low effort "Sushi Bake" type beat

Ingredients:
Decent quality medium grain rice (you can sub a different variety but the high gluten shorter rices have better flavor and texture compared to American long grain and will take the vinegar better)
Seasoned rice vinegar (Kikkoman brand preferred)
Mayonnaise (Kewpie brand preferred)
Siracha (favorite brand)
Furikake seasoning (favorite type, I like the ebi fumi furikake)
Protein (sardines/mackerel packed in oil works good, smoked sardines work, Asian umami sardines are probably best but can be pricey, scrambled eggs would be good especially if you can work in some Japanese cooking wine or something for added savory flavor. Canned tuna or salmon could probably work but imo canned tuna can be super fishy tasting)


Instructions:
1. Wash rice until water is relatively clear.
2. Cook rice in filtered water if possible. For medium grain rice which is what I use, I recommend washing it, putting in your rice cooker, and then adding 1:1 of water and a splash more. This helps it take on the vinegar later.
3. When rice is done and still hot, add rice vinegar, about 1 tbsp per cup (or to taste). You may want to use a large mixing bowl for this depending on the volume. Stir in the rice vinegar until the grains are evenly coated.
4. Fill your bowl with rice.
5. Top with furikake.
5.5. Add your protein here. Or add it later, idk, I usually stir the bowl up after I add everything.
6. Drizzle on mayo.
7. Drizzle on siracha.
8. Give it a loose mix with a fork. This helps there be little pockets of flavor here and there to keep it interesting.
9. Eat it.

What I've found is that especially with fish and mayo, the rice is very filling. The medium grain rice seems to be especially filling compared to other varieties. Sometimes I mix a little toasted sesame oil in the rice for extra flavor. Kewpie mayo isn't required but does have a more mouthwatering flavor compared to wester salty mayos. "This is just rice with stuff on it" yeah but I guarantee flavor wise it's a big departure from ramen, chicken and broccoli, or hot dogs.

 

[Balalaika Z Bree]

it was implied in the OP, but if anyone hasn't already been doing it, learn how to butcher on your own, don't buy fillets of anything. If possible, go for bigger, fattier cuts of beef. Trim the fat yourself and you can then render them into tallow and save money on cooking oil. Doesn't matter if you do a shitty job at first, you can just make stew or stir fry with scraps if it comes down to it.

This is very good advice, I'd suggest getting what's on offer where possible, in beef, pork, lamb, etc. and cooking the meat as advised (e.g. if you have a tender steak cut, make a steak or roast, if you have a tough piece, make a low & slow stew or smoked meat. I'd advise against trimming too much of the fat, as it's key to flavour (the leaner the cut, the more you'll need the fat around the cut to keep it from getting too dry).
Buying a quarter or half a cow is going to be way too much for most people, unless you're a carnivore or feeding a bunch of people ( or have a couple of big chest freezers or a dry aging setup), but half a lamb or a smaller pig will fit into most large freezers easily, and you can always start breaking down chickens/turkeys etc. and move onto hooves later.

You won't notice it immediately, but butchering things yourself saves so much money its insane. Depending on where you live and if you wanna be a real champ, learn to gut fish. It's gross and accidentally cutting the stomach/liver during gutting can make the meat smelly, but it's the most satisfying thing ever.

EDIT: Forgot to say I'm not in the US and I forgot that you can't even get whole chicken or fish if you live in a shithole like New York. Ignore this if your area doesn't have access to whole meats.

It is definitely not for everyone, but everyone should try fishing a couple of times, from the shore and from a boat if possible, a much more important experience than say visiting a famous place or flying a helicopter/plane or something like bungee jumping or skydiving. I think gutting fish is a lot to expect from somebody with no experience with knives, if they have a protective glove or gauntlet then I'd say let them at it, once you show them a couple of times and give them a razor sharp tool that can do it easily.
With delivery services even NYC should be able to get large carcasses or parts of an animal you break down yourself, you'll just have to make sure you can fit it up the crazy stairs and/or tiny lifts in some of those buildings.

 

[toilet_rainbow]

Dollar Tree and General are terrible in terms of value. Most of their stuff is meant as single, maybe two servings. Even the usual packaged items you see at the grocery store are smaller at those places if you look closely. I find Walmart more expensive in my area than most of the grocery stores, so I rarely shop there save for a couple items.

I follow the sales. Make a list and stick to it unless you find a great manager special and can squeeze it in (e.g. like me when I found the Sweet Baby Ray's version of Chick Fil A sauce on clearance for $1.13 the other day. The actual CFA sauce is around $5). Take advantage of digital coupons if it's an item you like. If you can't take advantage of the deal before it expires, get a raincheck. If you really want junk food, buy the bigger container and divide the portions.

I personally prefer to make a big batch of something I like and eat the leftovers over the week for lunch. I brown bag to work unless I forget my lunch at home. Shop your pantry if you're able to before making a meal. I want to make a casserole later in the week, for example. I have most of the items in my house already. All I need to cook it is buy the chicken.

Bananas are still cheap despite everything.

 

[Yeeted Teet]

The Poorfag Resource Thread has a lot of recipes in it, as well as advice on how and when to cheap out in other areas.

 

[Yaks]

Working on updating the OP. Site is slow as balls.

 

[1962s Godzilla]

One thing i can recommend if you want to cut prices even more and don't mind investing a few hours into:
If you live on the countryside you can find local Mills that sell their own grains, cereals and wheat.

You can buy entire sacks of wheat and then grinding them on an electric grinder for wheat whenever you need them, or you could ask them to grind them for you, but that would result in always going there for grinding, fresh flour don't last as long as grain. Not to mention not everybody will do this and will just sell the flour, which is still super cheap in bulks, but will definitely go to waste or worse, attacked by bugs, if not prepared in the near future.

I have used an old electric grinder lent to me by my uncle but you could invest in one of the cheaper ones for about 100 bucks or find one at a local thrift store.
I can say that I tried this only once two years ago during the pandemic (I'm a lazy nigger on this regard) and about 220 pounds/100kgs of filtered untreated wheat costed about 70$ / 75€ which could potentially result in abt 200pounds of flour, i bought one of the "smaller" sacks of 25 pounds of wheat berries.
After opening the sack it's recommended to store them in special buckets with lids that contains them and keeps them from weevils and such, like one of these:

This is an extreme case scenario of course, but the return on investment in the long run I believe could be great, and the quality of the product will definitely be much higher.
In any case still a better investment than buying that clown sponge food that is "Wonder bread" or getting ripped off at Whole Foods.

 

[missnaptime]

missnaptime's chili/burrito/insert ambiguously hispanic thing here:

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

Spices: (please make sure you have most of these. they carry the recipe.)
- Paprika
- Chili flakes
- Chili powder
- Cumin
- Turmeric
- Soy sauce/salt
- PARSLEY.
- Pepper
- small amount of honey if it's a good month, or on a bad one, 2 satchets of sugar that you can pick up from a coffee shop (optional but i prefer it)
- tiny bit of oil (for frying your garlic and onions in, butter also works)

The actual filling:
- onion. bigger the better. doesn't matter if it's red or white, just make sure its in date.
- GARLIC. again, the bigger the better.
- bell peppers
- tinned tomatoes (chopped)
- tinned kidney beans

HOW TO SCRAN:
- get big pot. dice, chop and throw in your onions and garlic, cook on high heat stirring until translucent.
- add bell pepper, cook for additional 5 min, turn down heat for this for another 5 min.
- add your toms, add your kidney beans DRAINED.
- add seasoning. the reason why i haven't added metric amounts is because i tend to eyeball it. if you think you have put enough cumin, parseley and paprika in, you probably haven't. don't overdo the honey or the salt. stir through.
- medium heat, stirring occasionally for the next 10/15 min, or whenever you can be decided it's done.

this recipe is pretty easy to scale up or down, as to serve yourself a big meal with leftovers for the next day it's essentially the following ratio.

1 onion + bell pepper to one tin of toms and kidney beans,, half a big bulb of garlic,

bell pepper optional if poor hours are a kickin'; but it helps add some variety. top this with cheese if you've got it. good in wraps. add rice to make it even more bulked out (in a sep pot, obvi)

 

[Pickman's Modeling Agency]

missnaptime's chili/burrito/insert ambiguously hispanic thing here:

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

Spices: (please make sure you have most of these. they carry the recipe.)
- Paprika
- Chili flakes
- Chili powder
- Cumin
- Turmeric
- Soy sauce/salt
- PARSLEY.
- Pepper
- small amount of honey if it's a good month, or on a bad one, 2 satchets of sugar that you can pick up from a coffee shop (optional but i prefer it)
- tiny bit of oil (for frying your garlic and onions in, butter also works)

The actual filling:
- onion. bigger the better. doesn't matter if it's red or white, just make sure its in date.
- GARLIC. again, the bigger the better.
- bell peppers
- tinned tomatoes (chopped)
- tinned kidney beans

HOW TO SCRAN:
- get big pot. dice, chop and throw in your onions and garlic, cook on high heat stirring until translucent.
- add bell pepper, cook for additional 5 min, turn down heat for this for another 5 min.
- add your toms, add your kidney beans DRAINED.
- add seasoning. the reason why i haven't added metric amounts is because i tend to eyeball it. if you think you have put enough cumin, parseley and paprika in, you probably haven't. don't overdo the honey or the salt. stir through.
- medium heat, stirring occasionally for the next 10/15 min, or whenever you can be decided it's done.

this recipe is pretty easy to scale up or down, as to serve yourself a big meal with leftovers for the next day it's essentially the following ratio.

1 onion + bell pepper to one tin of toms and kidney beans,, half a big bulb of garlic,

bell pepper optional if poor hours are a kickin'; but it helps add some variety. top this with cheese if you've got it. good in wraps. add rice to make it even more bulked out (in a sep pot, obvi)

Thank you for resurrecting this thread and this sounds tasty

 

[AnOminous]

- small amount of honey if it's a good month, or on a bad one, 2 satchets of sugar that you can pick up from a coffee shop (optional but i prefer it)

Something I've seen in some specialty shops is these "honey straws" which are a tiny plastic tube with a little bit of honey in it, often as low as five for a dollar. Worth getting if you want a tiny amount of honey for a recipe and don't want to drop $10 or whatever for an actual jar.

Don't get hornswoggled with dollar store fake honey that is mostly corn syrup, though. If it's a dollar it almost certainly isn't real honey.