Eating Healthy/Tasty on a Budget

Do a cook day on a day off and then package individual servings. Or crock pot soup swear I can feed 4 for 2-3 off of it by myself I could get a week.

girlviernes wrote: »

Get a crock pot and make simple dishes without a million ingredients and that you can easily adjust to match what you have on hand. One of my favorites right now is indian style lentils (dal) which can be done a bunch of ways, my recipe basically is a cup of lentil mix, a cup of chickpeas (both dried), cooked up with garam masala, tomato puree, and then I throw in a bunch of root veggies and non-starchy veg (e.g., ginger, parsnip, carrot, onion, spinach, kale, mushrooms, etc.). You can use fresh or frozen.

Yum

Shop what's on sale and then cook to freeze. You can blanch and freeze most produce to use for cooking and baking later. Get end-date meat and precook and freeze for quick reheating later. See if your store has a bakery clearance rack - most breads can be frozen as well. Buy a whole chicken, eat all the meat, then make homemade stock from the bones and (and an onion or two) and eat lots of brothy soups with beans and frozen produce.

I think eating healthy is cheaper, too. It's the snack food that's spendy.
>Dried legumes are ~$1/lb and great sources of fiber, decent on protein, so tasty, and easy in the slow cooker.
>Eggs are a pretty cheap protein source. My family's favorite special occasion dinner is soufflés -- ok that's elaborate so a bad example but cheap.
>Cook a whole chicken on the weekend and use it for several meals & make a gallon of stock with the carcass and also use that for several meals. For ease, a whole chicken can go in the slow cooker and you can make the stock in it the next day. If you're cooking for one, you can portion the chicken and freeze it in its own stock. It reheats beautifully.
>One of my current favorites is slow cooker pulled pork shoulder -- that's a pretty inexpensive cut especially if you watch the sales, and it freezes really well.
>lots of folks recommend frozen vegetables to minimize waste, and those can be cheaper than fresh, too, though no less nutritious.
Best of luck!

I love taking a cucumber and cutting it long ways and the scraping out the seeds. Then I melt a string cheese and put it in the cucumber and put a few slices of deli meat on top and some salt and pepper ! I hate bread and its so filling and good! And cucumbers are like 50¢ so its extra cheap

I did the grad student routine while also gluten-free, dairy-free, egg free (etc.)
Feel free to PM me if you need or want to (grad school is its own kind of mental stamina test.)
I love and agree with all the slow cooker ideas. I also have a pressure cooker - fast!! Dried beans to cooked beans, fast. My favorite is very fast mashed potatoes. Put a little grate in and water then put in your potatoes whole. Add a peeled onion (or garlic but I also can't eat garlic without joint pain so no garlic for me.) I add a little miso paste too. Cook 10-15 minutes. Safely vent the steam / cool the top with running cold water. Reserve the cooking broth. The peels of the potatoes come right off. Use and immersion blender and blend the potatoes with the cooling broth and onion. VERY tasty and no added fat. My kids love this too. Any variation of mashed potatoes or potatoes with carrots etc will work.

I also LOVE roasted veggies. Peel and cut root veggies into 1 by 2 inch chunks. Lightly toss with olive oil and salt, pepper and paprika. Roast covered with aluminum foil until tender. Use any combination of:

Potatoes (any variety)
Sweet potatoes
Yam
rutabega
beets
carrots
onions
radish (my daughter LOVES just roast radish and potatoes but I'm not as fond of them.)
squash
turnip
etc.
I've even added quartered or 1/8th cabbage

This is very rich and filling and goes good with any meat dish.

The crockpot stewed chicken or a roast chicken would go well with this.

Turkeys go on sale near the holidays. Cook, portion and freeze. I like to make turkey, roast veggies and wild-rice stuffing enchiladas with corn tortilla shells and enchilada sauce (sounds weird, look for the recipe I was inspired by on Gluten free goddess blog).

The shredded pork is great too.

I used to make my own frozen meals to go. I'd do a main dish, veggies, and then pack a side salad or similar.

Homemade granola can be inexpensive (or if you add lots of stuff it can be expensive)
Get rolled oats (in bulk can find for $0.69 to 0.99 per pound), oil, brown sugar and cinnamon and look up a few recipes for proportions of each. Bake it in the oven, cool and add the other things you want (dried fruit, chocolate chips, etc.) I go to Trader Joe's for dried fruits and nuts. You could leave it just as the cinnamon/brown sugar granola or I usually go for sunflower seeds and raisins if I'm on a tight budget. My kids love it when I add chocolate chips.

Good luck!

Edit to add
Watch the ads. I usually bought the produce that is less than $1 per pound that week. I don't buy enough prepackaged foods to do couponing well, but maybe you do or can. I do watch for certain canned goods to go on sale, canned tomato products is the biggest one, but also canned tuna, canned chicken, broth, etc.

I make miso soup as a quick meal sometimes. A box of broth or homemade broth, a bar of silken tofu cut up, some little bits of grated carrots and some peas, a package of seaweed snacks crumbled up. Again this is something the kids and I slurp up. Can you make your own veggie rolls? I use a rice cooker (about $15 walgreens) for a lot of things including rice. It is also good for making steel cut oats, polenta, and quinoa with very little effort.

I just had fresh Blue Grenadier (fish), a boiled potato and minted peas.
Cost: around $3.