Teach me how to cook cheap food.
 

Don't mind me if I'm slightly ticked off but my mother always had this thing about thinking that I'll learn things on my own if she doesn't show me. I have to learn how to cook food by the end of December or I'll be in trouble financially. I'll stop receiving one of the checks I receive this month meaning I'll have to eat on $80 a month.

The problem is this, I was eating TV dinners because I knew that when I eat that food, I never have diarrhea. I just bought some patatoes, rice, peanuts, bread, eggs etc. I decided to cook some rice and patatoes and mix them together with a sauce I mixed with water. Well, this idea of combining the foods did not work. I still got diarrhea.

Can anyone tell me how to make sauces like gravy? I think that's the thing I could add that could stop me from having diarrhea. Does anyone have any stir-fry recipes with rice, patatoes, pasta and beans? Maybe I could add some meatballs in there if I don't have a choice. I don't even know how to cook beans. Could I add beans over rice, patatoes and pasta as a sort of sauce to stop me from me from well, you know I already said, don't want to gross you out too much.

I have to get out of this jam. :(

I wasn't eating enough vegetables until I discovered frozen vegetables.
From the freezer to the table in 6 minutes.
Fresh vegetables are even better for you, but I'm a lazy cook.

I'm not even sure about what I just read :twitchy:, but I eat a high protein diet based on meat, fish, milk, eggs, etc. Mainly I just stick with meat because it's cheaper thanks to government subsidies and I spend about $8 a day on food (2,400 cal diet and about 200g of protein), which comes to about $240 a month. I don't like cooking anything complicated so I just put it on the grill or whatever and cook it with some pam and I don't eat vegetables or fruits so I take a multi for it. Don't know how I would eat for $80 a month ($2.6 a day) but I'm guessing you'd have to go with some ramen noodles or mcdonalds value menu.

Main thing is to prioritize your budget. Food is #1 and everything else is second so take a look and see if you can drop some other things to raise the food budget. I'm guessing you shave so look into DE shaving since the blades cost around 10 cents each vs the expensive disposables.

edit try some charcoal for your stomach problem
http://www.amazon.com/Natures-Way-20...2404551&sr=8-1

$80 a month is pretty tough to pull off.

Rice and potatoes mixed doesn't sound very tasty but I dunno what about rice and potatoes would cause diarrhea. Must've been the sauce you mentioned. Maybe you have a sensitive stomach.

I like potatoes fried in olive oil with some rosemary, oregano, salt and pepper. Add some minced garlic towards the end. Two eggs over easy and some grits.

Baked potato with cheese and chili on is a good bachelor meal.

Tons of stuff can be done with rice, arroz con pollo, steamed rice with salmon, stir fry, beans and rice, etc.

There are websites these days where you can type in the ingredients on hand and they'll spew forth a bunch of recipes for you.

The cheapest meal I typically make for myself is probably spaghetti. One quart can of sauce and a pound of spaghetti is almost 3 meals (2 proper meals + 1 half meal). Sketti's about a buck and sauce just recently shot up to $1.39. That's about a buck a meal, not including parm. Let's say a $1.50 a meal.

As for the diarrhea, I'd go for a GI checkup.

Its not that hard. I used to eat on about that much money every month. Read this blog about a young couple who eat for $1 a day or $30 a month NOT eating raman noodles. They eat really healthy food to so there is no reason that cheap has to mean unhealthy. http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/

It depends mostly on your nutritional needs, but very interesting link. Is there any section with nutritional information?

There is growing evidence that frozen vegetables may actually be better than fresh vegetables.

The frozen ones are taken virtually straight from the farm to the processing factory where they are snap frozen.

The factories take from the growers on pre-arranged contracts, and often a grower's yield doesn't go anywhere else except to processing.

The freezing process doesn't interfere significantly with the nutritional value of the vegetables.

On the other hand, "fresh" vegetables take some time to transport from farm to wholesaler to supermarket. Out of season, of course, the vegetables either have to come from thousands of miles away or from storage where they have been treated with antifungal agents or kept in controlled atmosphere. Then there is the time they are on the shelf before sale.

I know that when I worked on an apple orchard, a large proportion of the fruit we picked was a variety that supposedly kept well. It was picked in May and kept in controlled atmosphere until November or later, when it was proclaimed as "new season's fruit". Having eaten fruit straight off the tree, I have great difficulty buying fruit from the supermarket these days.

A $3 bag of mixed frozen vegetables will do two meals for Machka and me.

"Teach me how to cook cheap food."
That's a bit like "teach me how to ride a bicycle".

There are books that will teach you the basics of cooking. In the UK and Ireland we have Delia Smith and I'm sure her equivalent exists in other parts of the world.

How to make gravy? Gravy is served only with roast meat and it involves combining the fat from the roast meat with flour and browning the mixture over a hob, then adding meat stock (you'll probably use a stock cube mixed with boiling water) and reduce (meaning boil till some of the liquid evaporates)this over the hob till it's the desired consistency.

What you have been eating up to this isn't food, it's re-heated food-like substances. Your digestive problems probably stem from a poor diet due entirely to neglectfull parenting.

Have you considered bringing a case for 'parental neglect' as a means of raising some cash?

What exactly does this have to do with touring? Are you going on a tour at the end of December? Or did you mean for this to go into Training and Nutrition?

I've lived on as low as about $15/week for groceries years ago ... mainly bread and eggs.

Cheapest foods that are highly nutritious:
1. Legumes with rice (lentils, chick peas, black beans) Small bag of beans costs $1.29 for 10 servings. Adding the rice makes this a complete protein (like meat).
2. Potatoes
3. Peanut butter (this is also a legume)
4. Oats (as in oatmeal) mix it with dried fruit or nuts for complete protein
5. Eggs

A diet of nearly all meat sounds like a recipe for diarrhea if you ask me. Not to mention the extremely high concentration of environmental toxins in meat and the increased risk of cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. There have been no studies that show that multi-vitamins are affective vegetable and fruit substitutes.

Just start with rice or pasta, throw in a can or bag of vegetables, some beans, maybe a little cheese & you're done.
A 20# bag of rice is like $5.

If you've got a few square feet to spare in your place, fresh cut lettuce or spinach contains almost all the veggie nutrients you need. Get a bag of leaf-lettuce seeds, it'll be ready in a few weeks and, with normal grazing (just trim little patches down to about 1/2in from the soil as you need for meals) a small bed of it will keep growing and last months.
Fresh food is the most nutritious. By the time it gets to the store, more that half the nutrients are lost. I used to work in produce distribution, and I gotta tell you, you're way better off nutritionally, as well as financially, growing a small garden yourself.
A tiny patch will produce plenty of fresh leaf lettuce for you, and honestly, it takes next to zero effort to attain a good bit of self-sufficiency.
A pack of seeds costs what? 50 cents?

For $80/month, you'll need to treat meat as an occasional treat, rather than a primary meal component.

Stock up on grains such as whole (or steel cut) oats, brown rice, quinoa, etc. Single servings of these grains are about 1/4 cup, so a bulk package (which is cheap) will last a long time. That will be your primary calorie source. Then keep a stock of frozen vegetables such as spinach, carrots, brocolli, etc. Buy these in large generic packages and use liberally in all meals. Eliminate all liquids except water. Buy fresh onions, peppers, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Finally a dozen eggs a week will provide whole proteins and replace meat as your complete protein source.

Finally legumes (beans) are your friend. Learn to cook batches of dried beans (lentils, chick peas, pinto beans, etc...) and add them to other dishes.

Go to the library and get a couple of books on vegetarian cooking/lifestyle and start learning to cook using those recipes as a guide. Spend a little of your food budget each month to buy spices which will help you add flavor and variety to your food dishes.

Foods high in soluble fiber (whole grains and vegetables) should help alleviate diarrhea problems, but if you've been eating frozen bricks for meals it will likely take a little while to adjust, so you may have to grin and bear it! Just remember to drink plenty of water (6-8 glasses a day at least), since the fiber can cause constipation if not accompanied by enough water.

+1

If you learn how to season oatmeal to your liking, it is a good, nutritious, cheap food. You can make loaves of bread out of oatmeal in a microwave. It's great once you learn how to do it, and a large loaf will last for many meals. Raisins, honey, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, pumpkin pie spice all go well together when making these sorts of breads. There are many other ways to season them as well.

Google is your friend. There are tons of recipes and ideas if you do some searches.

Quick breads are also cheap and easy to cook. You can buy (high-protein) bread flour in bulk from a food co-op. Bulk prices are often better.

If you can get an inexpensive rice cooker somewhere (or for Christmas), it makes rice cooking very easy. If you buy rice in large bags (20, 25, 50 pounds) you can often get a better price.

Watch for sales, and loss leaders, at your local stores.

You can do quite well nutritionally with 5 minute oatmeal, peanut butter, pinto beans, eggs, rice, potatoes, pasta and a couple of glasses of vegetable juice a day. Seasonings are a relatively cheap way to liven up this diet. I'd think $80/month would be reasonable buying store brands in bulk. Maybe even less.

There's usually a soup kitchen somewhere that would feed you a meal a day. I ate at one on a recent tour just for
fun. Good food, good company. I left a nice donation.

Don't forget dumpster diving. Now that is an art form.

First off, reading the OP post, makes me curious on what is going on. My suggestion would to be to go to your church if you attend one, and ask the pastor for some help on your situation. Hopefully they can help find someone to teach you. People telling you how to cook, is not going to teach you how to cook. Your going to need someone to show you, help you, be there to answer your questions.
Second, if you are only going to eat off of $80 a month, you are going to be hungry most of the time. Why are you limited to $80 for food?

I suspect it was an accident to put this thread in the Touring forum. The OP mostly likely meant it to go into the Training and Nutrition forum, and is probably wondering why the thread he posted doesn't show up.

As for what else is going on, perhaps the OP is a student returning to school in January. If so ... there are always oriental noodles!! Can be served alone or with tins of tuna or chicken. Quick and easy ... and inexpensive. Carrots are also usually fairly inexpensive, so serve up the oriental noodles with a carrot for some fresh veg content.

My advice would be to get a part-time job at a smaller independent restaurant - do anything they want and ask for leftover food at the end of your shift. If you work hard and are polite you can get a lot of your food needs there plus add $$ to your $80 budget.

They may even show you how to cook if you ask nicely.

Homeless people are also good at budget eating. You may want to spend 72hrs on the street with one and learn some skills.

If you learn better with videos, there are plenty of cooking videos on the web. Video.google.com seems to pull up more than youtube.com, especially when you follow the suggested (or linked) side-videos for a few generations.

If you learn the ropes with coupons, you can often save some money that way. They often appear in local papers, and there is often one day of the week when they are especially plentiful. Online coupons can also be good. Some stores let you double-up with the coupons, and you can even get things for free this way (and occasionally even get some money back with rebates).

If you are not a good cook, there are some devices that chimp-proof the cooking process. Microwaves are extremely convenient and easy to use. Rice cookers and slow cookers and other devices pretty much do the cooking for you. They can be purchased for surprisingly little money if you shop around a bit.

There are easy, user-friendly video tutorials online.

Someone please tell me this is a joke.

Patatoes (sic) and diarrhea ain't no joke!

A bag of potatoes and a bag of onions go along way. So does a bag of rice.
Fresh veggies are easy. Get a steamer insert and they'll taste great steamed.
Some frozen veggies are better than others, Corn, Green beans, Lima beans. Mix em' up.
Meat. Chicken with the bone on is cheaper and I think it tastes better.
Buy some pork chops, or cut up chicken, pack them separately each and freeze them.
Hamburger has a lot of uses, Burgers, chopped steaks, chili, tacos, etc.
Bookstores have cookbooks full of recipes that have four ingredients of less. Usually easy too. Helps you keep variety going...

Also ask girls to help you cook. There's a lead-in that I wish I thought of when I was single.

Uh, what? If this is actually serious, apply for food stamps.

Well, thanks everyone for the information. I thought I should post this here since I thought people who do touring might be able to make cheap, nutritious meals while on the road. I'm in Canada so I can't apply for food stamps. My financial situation MAY last only for several months but maybe not. I know I WILL have to eat on $80 a month for a while though.