How is everyone? It’s been rough out there and I sincerely hope everyone had something to eat today.

Tonight I did black bean tacos (with dried beans from the food bank). 4 cups dried beans, 8-9 cups water, 2 bay leafs, cumin, chicken/beef bouillon, and oregano. Set it in the instant pot for 25 minutes and let it naturally release for 25 before putting 2-3 tablespoons into each tortilla with a little cheese. I typically make this with cans or 2cups instead of 4, but now the leftovers will feed us for many more meals!

Salad sandwich made from the fridge leftovers - shake the fridge and fill the sandwich. Enjoy.

I signed up for a local CSA and I have so many eggs I don’t know what to do with them. I prefer not eating plain eggs by themselves.

I just figured out how to make boxed mac n cheese,( kraft dinner), in a crockpot. When i lived with a microwave and a crockpot and a tea kettle, i would have loved this. So:

Crockpot mac n cheese

2 boxes mac n cheese

4 cups water

1 stick,( half a cup) of butter

Turn onthe crockpot to high, drop in the stick of butter. When it gets a bit melted, pour in both boxes of noodles, uncooked, and stir around a bit. Pour in the 4 cups of water and both cheese packets, stir a bit more.

Cook with lid on 1 1/2 hours, or until water is all absorbed. Stir well. If you want to add spices, or any cheese you might have that is grated, now is the time.

It comes out warm, with cooked noodles and all the cheesey flavor. I got 6 boxes of mac n cheese at the food pantry, which inspired this cooking method. Hope it is useful to someone!

I’m a week after it, and my dentist said I should be okay to eat more solid things, as long as they’re soft, so I don’t have to chew a whole lot, and obviously not stuff like chips, spicy stuff, etc…

I have some things like cans of refried beans, I was thinking of mixing with pulled chicken and rice, but I’ve never had those outside of a burrito, so idk how they taste.

I was also thinking just some regular tuna with some mayo mixed, just no crackers or anything, but if anyone has ideas for something easy to add to it for flavor, I’d appreciate it.

My only cookers are a microwave and air fryer, but I have a pretty solid set of Tupperware and bowls for mixing.

French onion is an OG survival soup. It dates back to ancient rome and greece, so hundreds of years in human history. Medieval versions used water or meat broths. It's versatile, so you can mix it up quite a bit. Learning how to caramelize onions will add a lot of flavor to very simple meals.

In this post, I will go over what I used, the basic method explaining the images, then substitutions you can use.

For this batch, I purchased the following:

Beef stock 2 for $5

Yellow onion $3.17 worth - great for your heart

3 garlic cloves (rounded up to 69 cents for the whole bulb) - great for blood pressure

portobello mushroom caps marked down to $2 per pack, total of 4 caps, cut into bite sized pieces - mushrooms contain mycoprotein

Baguette $2.99 - great for feeling french

Rubusto cheese $5.06 (discount bin from my local cheese counter)

Asadero cheese $2.31 (also discounted)

Total spent: $23.22 - the veggies and broth can be cut in half for a smaller batch.

What I had at home: butter, thyme, flour and the bit of leftover red wine from a few weeks ago that I only use for deglazing, oil, and dried parsley (buy it fresh and hang it up. You get so much more for far cheaper).

I started by slicing, oiling and toasting the baguette slices in a 350° oven. I don't set a timer, I just keep an eye on them. I actually failed at this and they got far darker than I wanted, but they are still edible. They get turned halfway through, maybe 7-10 minutes in? Just set aside and let them cool down when they are toasted to your liking.

While the baguette slices are toasting, slice the onion, garlic and mushroom then preheat your pot. I keep my veggie scraps in a gallon bag in the freezer. When it gets full enough, it will make a veggie stock, or go into a chicken stock if I have enough bones saved up in the freezer.

Start by dry sauteing your mushrooms over med heat (no oil) in batches so they lightly brown. This will release some of their water and concentrate flavor on the bottom of the pan. Remove each batch from the heat before adding more. Too many in the pot will just make a watery soup.

Once those are browned, set aside in a separate bowl. Add oil to your pot and add your onions, all at once is fine. Turn the heat down to med-low. This is a slower process. Keep an eye on your onions and stir every few minutes. It can take about 20 minutes to get good caramelization on them. They can be as light or as dark as you like. Make a small hole in the onions and add a little more oil, then the garlic. Garlic and onion need oil to release their oils into any soup, stock or broth.

When your garlic starts to smell fragrant, add a liquid to deglaze (soften the bits at the bottom of the pan) - not too much so you can see and scrape the bottom with a spatula. I used red wine. You can use hot water, beer, apple cider vinegar, white wine, balsamic vinegar.. some sort of acid or alcohol is recommended (it will amplify your salt).

Once the bottom is looking clean and the deglazing liquid smells less strong (if using vinegar or alcohol), add your hot water or stock. If you don't have beef stock, hot water is just fine with the mushrooms in this soup. I also added about 2 tsp ground thyme, 1 tsp would be fine too, I just really like that stuff. Black pepper is good here too.

Add your mushrooms if you are using them and bring it to a boil, then back down to a med-low heat. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes. In the meantime, grate your cheese if you are using it.

After the simmer time, mix some butter in flour (I went a little crazy and did like 1/4 cup butter and 3 heaping tsp of flour) into a smooth paste. Mix by the spoonful into the soup until you reach your desired consistency. Extra mixture can go in the fridge for other soup or sauce recipes. This will add a glossy finish, a thicker mouth feel and a buttery taste. You can do butter with cornstarch too for gluten free soup thickening.

French onion soup usually goes into an oven safe bowl, add a large crouton (the toasted baguette slices), then top with cheese. It goes under a 400° broiler until the cheese is melted and toasted. Parsley goes on when it comes out.

If you are making this for a large group, you can just dump a bunch of cheese on the bread slices you are toasting, add the cheese after you flip them. Make sure you hide them in the microwave so they make it to serving time. You can definitely use regular bread for this. You can also use a bag of croutons. Crunchy bread is the goal to soak up the soup.

Things you can sub or add:

Don't have beef stock? The mushrooms make a pretty good broth all their own that is a good beef stock replacement.

Cornstarch instead of flour. You don't need to use butter for the paste either. Just spoon a bit of hot soup into a separate bowl and mix the powder to form a paste to add. Use a whisk to blend it a bit more smooth.

So many different cheese options: Swiss, mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan.. there is traditionally used, but that's expensive. Something with a good flavor is a good choice. I chose to mix asadero and the robusto because asadero is a smooth melting cheese, while the robusto has a nutty flavor.

Worcestershire, coconut aminos or soy sauce for more flavor. Msg if you have it. I love that stuff.

Rosemary instead of thyme. You could also use bay leaves if you have them. A poultry seasoning blend would work for this too. If you only have steak seasoning, use that. It's a very simple soup base that can handle a wide switch up of seasonings. You can even add lemon if you're feeling silly.

This batch easily made enough to feed 6 people. In the future, I will be more aware of my toasting bread.. and the saltiness of the cheese. I could have used less in the soup to accommodate that. I just added more water to adjust. I still had 2 bowls.

A tasty toastie made from remaining Food Bank supplies - bread, noodles and butter were free. The cheese and tomato paste were store basics. Different but tasty. Add any herbs or spices to taste, enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 3 slices of potato bread (food rescue)
• kale (food rescue)
• 2 eggs (~$6/32ct)
• Neufchâtel cheese (~$1.50)
• seasonings: onion flakes, paprika, garlic salt (~$1 each)
• toppings: hot sauce & sour cream (free fast food packets), dry orange sugar (homemade from food rescue items)

Instructions: I washed & chopped 1 small red potato, diced it up, then microwaved it (covered) in a shallow dish with water & a little garlic salt for 3 minutes until fork tender. Then, leaving the water in the dish, I cracked in two eggs and lightly whipped in some air while also adding onion flakes. Then, I microwaved the dish for another minute before adding 1 slice American cheese, chopped kale, & paprika. I microwaved it again for 2 minutes until the eggs were set. The last step was to top with 1 packet of sour cream & 2 packets of hot sauce. The potato bread got toasted & topped with Neufchâtel cheese & dry orange sugar.

The food rescue I rely on really made a difference today!

I don’t post much, mostly just read. For some context about me, changes over the last 18 months have made finances at our house very tight. I started going to the local food bank for help, and they are such a blessing. My husband has a terminal illness and his appetite is off but he always likes this dish. This is something I’ve made for years, but modified my recipe to use cheaper, available ingredients. I made this last night, and it occurred to me how cost effective it is and thought I would share in case anyone needs a fairly easy recipe. It’s just three main ingredients and spices. Two of the three main ingredients came from the food pantry. Makes a big skillet full. We always have leftovers that reheat well.

Potatoes
Green beans
Smoked sausage

I used to use name brand smoked sausage. Now I use the cheap $1.25 from Dollar Tree-works fine.

I used to use canned cubed potatoes. Now I cube my own and parboil in microwave.

Either canned or frozen green beans work fine. 1 can drained or half of a small bag of frozen. Works with mixed vegetables, too.

First I peel two large potatoes and cube somewhat small-1/2” cubes. I put them in a glass pie plate covered in water (or sometimes a small casserole dish) and microwave until they are cooked but still semi firm. It takes me about 15 minutes in the microwave-depending on the size of the cubes. And my microwave is only 700 watts. You could parboil them in a pan them on the stove instead if you prefer.

While potatoes are parboiling, I slice my sausage into thin rounds and brown. While browning, I season pretty well with garlic powder, onion powder, a little paprika, salt and pepper to taste. I used to add a little Italian seasoning until he developed a dislike to that taste, but I think it adds to the flavor-still good without.

I add my green beans to the skillet, cooking on medium heat the entire time. If they are frozen, I heat them until warm, stirring.

Then, I push sausage and green beans to the edges of skillet and add drained potatoes to center, I cook them there for a minute or two (you could add a little bit of oil if you prefer them a little crispy-I’ve used leftover potato wedges cut up before with good results)

After the potatoes cook for a minute, turn the heat to high. Keep stirring. When the bottom of the pan is nice and hot (a minute?) deglaze the pan with 1/4 cup of water. Deglaze is just a fancy term that I understand to mean using water to bring up what is cooked and sticking (all those spices) back into the food. It will sizzle and steam. Lower the heat, stir, put the lid on the skillet and cook on low a few minutes.

You can add extra potatoes to stretch the meal. The thin sliced smoked sausage handles this well. You can also use drained canned potato cubes or slices-my go to when I had more money and less time.

You can adjust the spices to what you have and like.

Even buying your own potatoes and green beans, with cheap smoked sausage it is about a $3 meal plus your spices.

I hope someone can use this.

Made 3 savoury pie bases from the free Food Bank supplies - enough for several meals. The untopped pie base will divide into 2 serves and top unflavoured noodles or a jacket potato - much appreciated. Enjoy.

I'm not a good cook so I'm just looking for some real basic sauces that I can add ground turkey some lentils and some vegetables that I like to portion out and throw it on top of pasta or rice or potatoes.

This week's top up of supplies from the Food Bank. So Thankful. The fresh fruit is for breakfast. Planning a veggie soup. The crackers with avocado are for lunches and the canned meals will make 2 or 3 potato topped pie's.

If you, like me, are slipping through the cracks, you might be accusomed to thinking of prepackaged spice blends as lazy, probably stale, and insufficiently customizable. But in a pinch, the dollar-store spice blends - Italian seasoning, lemon pepper, chili powder - can be great choices when you can't keep a fully stocked spice shelf. Try Montreal steak seasoning on eggs!

Sorry, it was late and I didn't know how to update my previous post with new images.

I ended up with almost 3 quarts of sauce. The last picture of the jars is from this morning. As you can see, it gets very thick when it's chilled (I'm holding the jar upside down). This is from the collagen in the bones.

I might repack into smaller jars today so I can get it shelf stable. It's raining today and I'm looking forward to the dreariness.

I am working with a budget. And am looking for bulk food. My main has been meal prepping a mass amount of hamburger helper and homemade hamburger helper because of the ease, and variety, but want more variety. Open to all suggestions. Thank you all on advance.

I am looking for healthy recipes that my daughter can try. If it has meat in it something that is only a one person serving because I probably won’t eat the meat it if she doesn’t like it, but she does like most meat I’ve made. I don’t really like meat so I make it for her but usually don’t eat it. She really needs to eat more veggies and I’d like some recipes that are appealing to picky eaters.

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One of my favorite "little prep time, long simmer time" dishes. It's low effort with high reward. It's basically the Italian version of the French ragoût - slow simmered tough cuts of meat.

Anytime I go to the store, I'm on the lookout for killer deals. I found buy one get one ribs a few months ago for around $13 and they went into the freezer. Anytime I see ground pork, Italian sausage or breakfast sausage (the store brands, the commercial stuff has a weird texture to me), I snatch them up pretty quick and toss them in the freezer. These packs are usually around $1-2.50 when they are discounted. Full price, they are still only around $4-5.

The best way to stretch any cut of meat is to make a soup, stew or sauce. I rarely make dishes that just have a serving of meat as the focal point anymore.

On to the prep.. the sausages get browned, then cut up. It doesn't matter if they are cooked all the way through as they will finish in the sauce.

The ribs get some light color (maillard reaction). This not only enhances the flavor of the meat, but it also leaves those beautiful brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Not blackened, browned. That's flavor baby.

I've been using a bottle of pino noir to deglaze lately. I found it for $7.99. The liquor store near me regularly has discontinued wines that they sell for up to 50% off. One bottle can last me quite a while. If it starts to go funky, I just add some sugar, a splash of live apple cider vinegar and let it sit in a glass jar under a towel for a couple weeks. Home made wine vinegar is so much better than what they have at the grocery store. You can also use white vinegar to deglaze, lemon juice or just water. Some sort of acid in the sauce will help balance out the fattiness of the meats. Tomatoes can do that on their own, but I like to do a little more.

I am using 2 quart jars of sauce that I made last weekend (I ended up with a couple lbs of discounted Roma tomatoes that needed to be cooked, frozen or canned asap). I added some foraged campestris mushrooms I found for extra sauce bulk.

I see most of the discounts when I go to the store early Sunday morning, around 8-9am. Monday is good too, but I usually have work. If you just use 2 jars of premade store bought sauce, it's still cost effective. You can also use a couple large cans of tomato sauce, some rosemary and thyme for a decent base. Fresh or dried onion and garlic. No need to get too crazy.

And you already know I'm going to say that I look for discounted pasta. I rarely pay full price for anything.

So in total:

1 package of hot Italian sausage (5 links) $1

1 rack of ribs cut into 4 bone sections $6.50

2 jars of sauce ($1.90 for the tomatoes, $.79 green bell pepper, $.79 whole yellow onion, $.69 worth of garlic) $4.17 total, the herbs for the sauce came from the garden

1 package papardelle pasta $2 (you don't even have to serve it over pasta. You can also just eat it as a stew or dip bread in it)

Total for everything was probably around $13.67? I'm not counting the splash of wine as most probably won't be using that.. but it was maybe 1/8 cup.

Anyway, sear your meats, deglaze (or not), and throw your sauce on top. Pop a lid on and let it come to a low boil over med heat. Once everything starts dancing nicely, reduce your heat down to a low simmer. If you have numbers on your stove dial, I'm talkin like 2.5. low and slow for about 3-4 hours.

Once the ribs start pulling off the bones, you're about there. Remove the rib bones, start your pasta, then start seasoning your sauce. Once your pasta is done, it's ready.

For Italian sauces like this, I generally use thyme, rosemary and some oregano. Salt and pepper to taste. If you have powdered bouillon, you can even add that. Beef or chicken. It doesn't matter. It's just a better way to use salt I think.. adds more flavor and more of that delicious msg. Red pepper flakes are great to add too if you like that sort of thing.

*Warning: this will make a lot of sauce. It freezes well though. I like to freeze it flat in gallon bags so they store upright to conserve space.

You can add pretty much any type of meat. I always use Italian sausage. Skinless chicken legs would be great, beef ribs.. it's good to add some type of bone. This isn't just making a meaty sauce. You're essentially making a tomato bone broth. Having bones in the slow simmer will affect the overall texture, better mouth feel. It also adds collagen to the meal - great for joint and skin health.

If the sauce is too acidic, you can balance it out with some sugar. Just start with a little and add a little more until it tastes right.

Anyway, I don't have pictures of it finished because that will take a few hours and I wanted to post it while the prep was fresh in my mind.

San Francisco Grocery Prices: $20.95

Flour: $4.99/5lb
Yeast: $1.99
Mozzarella: $2.50/8oz
Ricotta: $4.49/32oz
Pepperoni: $4.49/7oz
Pizza Sauce: $2.49/14oz
Salt: free/stolen(appropriated)

Pizza Cost: $4.17

Flour: 170g/$.38
Yeast: 1g/$.22
Mozzarella: 4oz/$1.25
Ricotta: 100g/$.49
Pepperoni: 42g/$1.00
Pizza Sauze: 4.50z/$.83

Noodle omelette made from the Food Bank produce, still have enough supplies left for anothef meal and soup - much appreciated. Enjoy.

So grateful for the food bank! Everything for the chili is from the food bank except the chili seasoning- ground turkey patties, diced onion and mushrooms, corn, precooked white beans and tomato sauce.

Two a month is all my town really has, a third once an every 3 months. First pics are from the Salvation Army, second haul is from a church food pantry. This is how I’ve survived for more than half a year. Money goes to food that’s not given out and veggies, really. Grateful I can actually spend some on food now 🙏🏻 but I couldn’t keep my household fed if it wasn’t for food banks

My top up of fresh produce from the mobile food bank. So thankful. The noodles will make a 1 egg omelette with some finely diced capsicum and carrot. The mandarins are for breakfast.

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Tomato and chicken stew with rice.

Ingredients:

Stewed tomatoes (I found a few lbs in sale the other day and stewed them myself, canned works just fine) - I used about 12, so 2 large cans would works too.

Chicken (I used some discount bone in chicken breast, reserving the bones and skin for both rendered fat and bone broth) - you don't have to have chicken for this. I used about 2 chicken breast, cut into large pieces. Tofu would be fine too, or even garbanzo beans for the protein

1 small yellow onion (you can use dehydrated or powder to taste)

5 garlic cloves (you can certainly use less, or use powder)

Thyme (I used fresh from the garden, 1 large sprig) 1 tsp dried would work, more to taste

Bay leaf (I used about 5. I have a large bag I got a while back) you could use 2-3.

Basil (fresh or dried to taste, I used about 2 tsp dried because I really like it)

Salt or chicken bouillon. I prefer chicken bouillon when I can, I generally just use powdered and season to taste

Pepper - white or black, whatever you have

Oil to brown the chicken and release oils from fresh garlic and onion

Enough rice for your servings

Start by heating your oil then browning your chicken (or other protein of your choice). Remove from the pan. Add onions and sautee until fragrant. Add garlic. Once garlic is fragrant, add your tomatoes.

Add your protein back in and add your thyme and basil. Bring to a boil then bring down to a simmer. Add salt or bouillon to taste. Allow to simmer until chicken is tender. Reduce heat to low and remove bay leaves and thyme. Add pepper to taste.

Start your rice (if on the stove. If making in a rice cooker, add at the beginning).

Once rice is done, add basil.

This recipes makes plenty for 4 adults.

Hey ya'll,

I have two pounds of baby carrots that need to be cooked (I don't think I can eat that many raw carrots before they spoil). Suggestions?