Low cost, low spoon, low time, no freezer cooking
@blip-bloop-bloop asked: How to make healthy food fairly cheaply, when the spoon bank is closed and you have no freezer
Thank you for this blog’s first ask!
Since you need food that’s low spoons and freezer-free, you’ll need food that’s preserved in ways other than freezing. That leaves you lots of options, mainly canned, dried, and pickled.
Pickled is pretty obvious- you can get a number of veggies pickled from the store, and they add great flavor/color/variety to meals without needing any prep other than taking them out of the jar. They can be relatively expensive, but they tend to last a long time since they’re so strongly flavored that you only need a little at a time. I’ll do another post on making your own pickled veggies. In order to encourage my family (of two) to eat more pickled things, I sometimes put a small dish of pickles out on the table for meals. If you do dishes by hand or the dish is otherwise spooniful, skip it and set the jar directly on the table. If you find that you really like adding pickled foods to your meals, ethnic grocery stores often have different kinds of pickled foods than your standard western grocery. Budget tip- don’t buy refrigerated pickled food unless you really like them and can afford them; the canned stuff is almost always cheaper.
Canned food may end up being a staple for you, and that’s not a bad thing. There are a wide variety of canned foods, and if you find that one particular type fits your budget really well, you can dress it up into different dishes in almost infinite ways if you have the spices. Canned food also does well in the microwave, so it can be very quick to prepare. I’ll include a couple of can-only recipes at the end of this post.
Dried foods are underappreciated, in my opinion. They include things like spices and beans, but you can also get meats (chipped beef, beef jerky, squid snacks), mushrooms, and veggies. Dried foods do take longer to prepare; options to decrease meal prep time include soaking overnight, using an instant pot, or getting a crock pot and letting it cook all day. Some instant pots also have slow cooker options.
Meat might be your biggest issue since it’s expensive to buy in small quantities. I’d encourage you to check out what dry and canned meats and fish you have access to and then learn about how to stretch those into multiple meals (I’m also planning a post on this). If frozen meat is cheaper than fresh, remember that you don’t have to keep it frozen for it to stay good. Lots of meat that we buy “fresh,” especially fish, has been previously frozen, then thawed in the fridge. To do this yourself, just put the meat in the fridge and keep it there. It will probably make a puddle, so putting it in a container or on a plate is a good idea. For fresh (or previously frozen) meat, instead of trying to stretch it into more servings, you may want to go ahead and eat bigger portions of meat but eat meat at fewer meals. For example, stretching meat might look like making a can of mackerel into four meals instead of one by having mackerel salad, creamed mackerel on toast, mackerel fritters, and mackerel doria; bigger portions of fresh meat might look like buying a pack of four chicken breasts and having chicken (prepared in different ways) for dinner three nights in a row plus a lunch in there, then switching to beans or tofu for four nights. Having a decent collection of dried spices can really help with having to eat the same thing “over and over.”
Tuna or chicken salad from canned meat on salad, bread, crackers, wraps, flatbreads
Green bean casserole (microwave)- two cans of drained green beans, one can of cream of mushroom soup, a handful of fried onions (the common brand is French’s in the US; onion powder will work if you don’t have fried onions). Combine in a casserole dish and microwave till hot. This recipe divides and doubles well too.
Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast
Dried mushroom and bean stew (all the recipes I can find have fancy ingredients that you don’t need to buy like pine nuts. Do a google, pick one you like, and ask me for substitutions if you need to!)
Fish fritters- one drained 12-oz can of fish (we find mackerel is the cheapest for us), one or two eggs, and enough flour to make a loose dough (holds together but sticks to your hands). Heat any oil you like in a pan on medium heat, make the dough into discs about the size and thickness of your palm, and fry till golden brown on both sides. Flip them as many times as you need to.
How to cook dried beans: https://www.tumblr.com/tightwadspoonies/764918865665949696/dry-beans-on-the-stove-in-a-pressure-cooker-and?source=share
Black bean soup from cans:
1 tbsp taco seasoning (or to taste)
(My husband assures me that this image does not look like AI. I hope it's not.)
