Cheap, Easy & Semi-Healthy Recipes
This section is pretty thin. Tho there are plenty of recipe sites on the web, even the ones tailored to easy recipes require more time than I’ve generally got and more ingredients than I usually have laying around. You don’t save much money if you’ve got to run to the store to get extra ingredients. I suppose I could learn to plan ahead so that my shopping list contains the ingredients I’ll need, especially since most of the recipe sites will print out a shopping list of their recipes for you. But it hardly seems worth the effort since a lot of the time it seems you can get frozen food at Costco for close to what it would cost you to make it yourself. However, here are a few simple recipes that seem pretty healthy, don’t take much time and use ingredients you probably have laying around.
Hamburger Helper. It’s tasty and easy to fix but you don’t need all that meat. Half the meat called for and you’ll be fine. Some say you can substitute ground turkey or chicken for ground beef and still have it taste good. To spread it even further, for less, use 3/4 of the meat called for but add an extra cup or two of noodles to stretch it out. Some of the discount stores have generic versions that I’ve heard aren’t bad, but I haven’t tested them.
Super Ramen. Start with one package of Chicken Top Ramen. Bring water to boil, add egg (stir first if desired), add noodles and sauce packet, add half a handful of frozen mixed veggies, some leftover meat if you got it (diced turkey dogs will also work well) and wait three minutes. Serve with a slice of cheese on top. Cheap, semi-healthy, and a full meal in less than five minutes.
Awsome Ramen: Cook the Ramen per instructions and add a can of chili.
Cream of Ramen. Use 1.5 cups milk instead of water. Heat slowly so as to not scald the milk. This is the only recipe I know where the lowest setting on your microwave is actually useful. Add other ingredients (veggies, meat, cheese, eggs) as desired.
PB&Sweet, Two slices of bread with peanut butter on one slice and some sort of sweet thing on the other - jam, jelly, honey (my favorite), syrup, or even sugar. Marry the two pieces. For a little variety microwave for 5-10 seconds or lightly toast each piece of bread first.
No bake chocolate oatmeal cookies:
* 1/2 cup margarine
* 1/2 cup milk
* 2 cups sugar
* 1 cup chocolate chips (or butterscotch, or M&Ms, or 1/2 cup hot chocolate mix)
* 3 - 4 tablespoons of peanut butter
* 3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract if you’ve got it
Preparation:
Put the margarine, sugar and milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil. While you’re waiting for it to boil put everything else in another bowl. Once you’ve got the liquids in a good boil let it continue to boil for 90 seconds. Then add the hot mixture to the dry goods (oatmeal and chocolate chip mixture) and stir well. Drop spoonfuls onto wax paper and let cool. It may take hours for them to get firm but you can test them once they cool a bit.
If you like that then you’ll probably love About.com’s Top Ten No Bake Cookie Recipes - but most take ingredients you probably won’t have lying around.
Tuna or chicken salad. Buy a mixed bag of lettuce at the store. Add 3 tablespoons of mayo to a can of tuna fish (tooter fish) or chicken, mix it into the salad with nuts (walnuts if you want to splurge, peanuts if you don’t) and add some cheese if desired.
Breakfast sandwich - The geezer got this Egg & Muffin Toaster that creates great breakfast sandwiches in less than five minutes. All you need is an egg, a sausage patty (they make veggie ones if you’re so inclined), some bread (english muffins if you want to splurge), and a slice of cheese if you want. Break the egg, season with salt and pepper, and let the machine do the rest. It will cook everything so it’s all done at the same time. They’re great. I’m hooked. And the machine also serves as a normal toaster, egg poacher, or hard boiled egg cooker as well. Very cool, and healthy.
Got any recipes of your own? Please share them with us in the comment box below. We’d love to hear from you.
Bank on it.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:38 am
How about TV dinners?
You can get a wide variety of meals for really cheap prices. Lasagna, enchiladas, etc.
=)
December 12th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Bake a large potato in the microwave or oven. Open it up & either mix into the skin, or scrape out potato & mix in a bowl, bit of grated cheddar, plain white yogurt, S & P, chopped scallions, parsley flakes. Can add cubes of chopped ham or crumbled bacon (but bacon is expensive).
Also, cook some real old fashioned oatmeal, the kind that takes a long time. Add a chopped apple or other fruit, cinnamon, butter, nutmeg, allspice. Tastes great, very filling.
Brown a chopped onion in some butter. Add white rice & stir while toasting it a bit. Add chicken broth, twice as much as there is rice. Add some parsley flakes–bring to boil, immed. turn down to low simmer & cover pot. You may also brown some hamburger meat, or sausage, with the onion. If it lets off a lot of grease, drain some before adding the rice. That is some meat, not a lot–you are adding flavor not lots of expensive meat.
Invest in a shelf of real spices & herbs; buy them one at a time if you have to. They will make plain cheap food taste much better.
Buying frozen meals & other prepared foods costs more than buying real food & cooking from scratch. And it does not really take more time to make food that is better for you & *costs less*!!!
We were broke grad students with a baby & we know how to stretch dollars & food. Do what your grandparents did during the Depression—eat more potatoes & rice & noodles! Make the meat a flavor you are adding to the dish.