All told, the entire meal was considerably less than $2. Bacon was by far the most costly ingredient, at about $.80, the eggs were, perhaps, $.40, and the potato was about $.05.

I made some Shepherd's Pie tonight. Fresh carrots and onions, frozen peas, some Package Of Shepherd's Pie Seasoning, a bit of garlic powder, worcestershire sauce, and instead of the normal water I put in a can of Yuengling and the water, then let it boil off.
I had some leftover mashed potatoes from the other day that I threw in with some instant-spuds for the topping.

>>4320
Hm, I never made hash browns that way before, that's pretty interesting. I usually parboil the potatoes for a few minutes first. If you're not sure if they're done, cut one open and there should be a visible core that is still more or less raw. Then grate them, using the larger gauge side of the grater and fry 'em up. I learned that from some friends who own a restaurant and their hash browns are renowned. It might be too time consuming to bother with for one person's breakfast but if you're cooking for a group it's worth it.

As for bacon... I eat too much bacon. I just came from the grocery store a few hours ago actually and my roommate who was with me asked if we needed some and then said, maybe we should cut down :( There's both fresh and frozen moose here, we can eat that for a while instead. Plus he has a small game license so we may bag a critter or two if we're lucky, though he's yet to shoot anything this year.

"Food" is kind of a broad topic but... hm, well I try to keep some beans or lentils and some rice prepared at all times. If I open the fridge and those are there, that's one less bread-based meal I'll eat. Always brown rice (white rice goes better with certain things but I still consider it junk food) and beans made from scratch in a slow cooker. VERY handy device, that.

Dunno, my life used to revolve around cooking for myself and other people but I've been pretty depressed for a while and it's more a chore than a joy lately. But my ex-roommates still rave about my curry. Pretty good for a white guy, apparently.

>>4323
My method is much, much quicker. I've done just about any way you can think of...mine, the entire meal takes less than ten minutes, including pre-heating the pan. And doing the dishes.

I know brown rice is better for you...but I only stock white rice because it lasts forever. And as it's nutritionally enhanced, it's actually not that much worse. And it tastes so much better...I currently actually have two glass bowls of the stuff in the fridge. It goes with just about everything.

>>4324
Really? I actually prefer the taste of brown rice. I usually eat white for the other reasons listed, and the fact that brown is prohibitively expensive in comparison.

Atm I have a big pot of (soy) chilli sitting on the stove. I usually make a big batch each week, and that does everyone two days. I just add the spices myself (fresh garlic, fresh chillis, cumin powder, lemon juice, anything else that strikes my fancy as I'm making it) rather than than the packets. It generally tastes better, the balance of flavour in packets is too 'fast food-y' for me. Since I'm making food for other people atm, there's not too much chilli, but usually I like to make it 'colonic' level of spicy.

Other than that, the main things I like to cook are 'Singapore' style fried rice/chow mein, sweet 'n' sour. Also, I bake a fair amount, though not as much as I used to. When I was living with a bunch of girls, they enjoyed baking constantly themselves, and there wasn't a day you didn't smell freshly baked cookies/cake/muffins/brownies in that apartment. Also, they used to make pancakes constantly, including vegan pancakes just for me (pancakes are the one thing I just cannot do right...)

>>4320
Why a cutting mat?

Okay, so this is breakfasty food too, but I often make it for dinner since it's a bit time consuming but quite tasty. It's hash. Go to the store and get some vegetables. You know what they are, right? Get some onions, some potatoes, some bell or other mild peppers, and a carrot or two. Also get some preferably thick-sliced real ham (not reconstituted processed crap), some olive oil, and some eggs. You'll also want some salt and pepper, and possibly ground chili spice or pepper sauce if you want to give things a kick in that direction, and maybe some cheese.

Go home and find a pot and the biggest frying pan you have - if you have a wok, even better. In the pot, start boiling the potatoes. Only put in enough water to cover the biggest spud a little - more than that and you're just wasting energy. While that's going, dice up the vegetables, trying your best to avoid cutting yourself. The ratio of potatoes to your other veggies is a matter of taste, though I generally will go for about a 1:1.5 ratio (so about half as much veggies as potatoes) - they will get smaller as they cook (especially the onions). Dice up the ham too.

At this point the potatoes should be getting soft, so take them out of the hot water, dump the hot water out of the pot, put some cold water in there and put the potatoes back in until they get cool enough to handle. Then dice up the potatoes (if they're too mushy to easily dice, you boiled them too long/strongly). Put all these things within easy reach because you're going to be grabbing them fairly quickly.

Now prepare your pan to stir-fry. This sounds harder than it really is; all this means is that you heat your pan until it gets good and hot, then turn down the heat a bit and add a bit of olive oil. You don't need to coat the bottom of the pan; just drizzle it about for a bit. Now dump in your onions and start frying them. Throughout this whole process, you're going to want to be stirring quite a lot. When the onions start turning yellow-transparentish, dump in the carrots and peppers and fry them up a bit. At this point your olive oil should be mostly gone unless you added way too much, but that's okay. Add the ham at this point, and marvel at the delicious mix of colors and flavors you see in your pan. When the meat starts looking cooked, ruin it by stirring the potatoes in. As those start browning, crack an egg or two into a bowl, beat it until it has a good consistency, then mix it into your pan. Start adding your spices, then stir, stir, stir until your potatoes are good and browned. Adjust your spices to taste, then scoop some in a bowl, top with cheese and/or pepper sauce, and eat.

I usually make a pretty big batch of this intending to store most of it for quick leftovers, but then I'll end up eating the entire pan or most of it 'cuz it's just so friggin' tasty.

Sorry, no pictures. I'll try to remember to take one if I end up making this again fairly soon.

>>4327
> fresh garlic, fresh chillis

This cannot be stressed enough. Powdered garlic is OK in a pinch but it's just not the same. Powdered ginger is the worst; all but useless in my opinion.

Asafoetida is another nice pungent spice that will give some extra kick to a meal. It's not very well known in the west but if there's a sizable south Asian community in your town, wherever they shop for groceries should have it. A very small amount goes a long way!

>>4327
My house mate won't eat beans. I miss them.

>>4331
It's something i keep around for using things on the bed that are not supposed to be on the bed. Food, the netbook, etc, etc. I could have taken the photo in the kitchen, but...fuck that. Cats keep trying to steal my food up there, and the dogs are always begging.

And why this jibe about veg? And that sounds really, really good minus the onions. But I've never seen a recipe for hash that called for so many vegetables before. Interesting. A bit more nutrition can't be a bad thing.

>>4333
Powdered ginger tastes weird to me. I am not great w/ cutting it up when fresh, but it is preferable. Dry garlic is weird to me. It's too close to that garlic salt stuff that you can buy for me to be ok with using it....

>>4338
Don't cut it up with t a knife, use a cheese grater. Go along the grain as much as possible.

>>4346
...why?

>>4347
Why a cheese grater? Because it should be in pieces as tiny as possible and as >>4338 suggests it's hard to cut otherwise; you always end up biting into a chunk or two when you're eating, which is unpleasant. It should be as evenly distributed throughout the rest of the food as possible.

Why against the grain? I don't remember. I was taught to do it that way though.

>>4346
The best results I got was when using the little graters you can get for lemon rind, etc. A little time consuming, but otherwise worked a treat.

>>4347
It's kinda tough and knobbly. If you're slicing against the grain you just sort of end up hacking at it and making a mess. Of course, it's easier said that done because it's so irregularly shaped.

>>4348
See, I LIKE chunks of garlic in my food. Which is why when I chop garlic, I do everything from fine mince, for flavor distribution, to chunks, because chunks of garlic are delicious.

And...if you really want it fine, why not just get a press?

>>4350
I do use a press for garlic (my favourite thing in the kitchen to use!). I thought we were talking about ginger... it's a bit harder to cut. I don't know how it'd fare in a press though.

>>4351
I thought we were talking about ginger too. No, you can't put it through a press either. Too stringy.

0_0. Right. I saw garlic in there, I thought we were referring to that. Yes, then, I completely agree. grating ginger tends to be the way to go.

If it's used right garlic powder's really handy. I like how it allows a lot of control over how much garlic flavor I get.

Garlic salt is ass, though.

My wife likes to use that minced garlic in the jar. I'm kinda meh on it.

>>4355
Garlic powder has it's uses, it's good for dusting something before you fry it for instance. It just doesn't have the kick of the real thing. That minced garlic in a jar is not my favorite thing either. It always tastes a little rancid or something.

I haven't used the stuff in a jar, but I'm right in thinking you mean the stuff suspended in oil? I can see why that would be kinda eh, though I bet the oil comes in handy.

Now, moving away from spices... mushrooms! Seriously my favourite, whatever kind, though I can't find much variety in the UK sadly. Lots of people I know avoid them or find them slimy, but I love their texture. Like chilli, I'm find a way to put mushrooms in everything.
Apparently they're easy to grow, but I never got a chance to do that. The rate that I go through them though, I should probably just buy a horse to keep me stored with manure for growing...

And back into spices - Jamaican jerk spice. Brilliantly easy to make, and worth making yourself to control the flavour. All you need is;

-Allspice (the ground berries not the generic spice sold under the same name)
-Brown sugar
-Garlic
-Chilli peppers (preferably Scotch Bonnet, though maybe too spicy for some)
-Thyme
-A little cinnamon and nutmeg to taste (optional, really)

I don't really know the amounts since I just sort of make it up according to my own taste as I go along, but viewing the list as a descreasing scale of ingredients works. Just don't go overboard with the allspice or the sugar, cause it can end up tasting just grossly sweet.

>>4357
you don't grow mushrooms in manure. Pressed cakes of various forms. One of the easiest ways to keep yourself stocked in delicious fresh mushrooms is to get a growing kit. I baby sat one that had Oyster shelf mushrooms growing in coffee grounds. If you drink coffee, it's simplicity itself to keep the thing growing...get a bucket, fill with used grounds, culture with the growing kit.

Any other form of growing medium needs to be sterilized, by steaming, because you don't want strange spores growing in your mushrooms. Coffee grounds are sterilized at point of use.

>>4358
Ah, I thought manure was ok (though I knew it had to be sterilised). Oyster mushrooms are a favourite, shame that the supermarkets here (and elsewhere I imagine) create the idea that anything other than button mushrooms are 'rare' and 'exotic' (and therefore expensive)...

>>4358
> Coffee grounds are sterilized at point of use.

I don't think the temperature required to make coffee is enough to kill off spores? but I could be wrong...

>>4360
For specific types of magic mushrooms..yeah. Mostly no. Sawdust, straw, that sort of thing. REALLY REALLY old dung that has lost most of the crap and is basically dense bricks of compacted straw, maybe.

>>4361
Boiling hot water kills just about anything.

>>4362
That's kinda what I meant... water for coffee shouldn't be quite at the boiling point. Makes for bad coffee.

>>4363
Optimal coffee temperature is something like 180 F. Almost all mold spores die at about 100F.

Smoothies.

If you find any recipe on the internet telling you to make smoothies using ice, you tell it to screw off. Go to the store and get frozen strawberries - Costco sells big bags of 'em for a fair price. What? Frozen fruit instead of fresh? A mortal sin, yes, but since the frozen strawberries will be what makes the drink super cold, you don't need to add ice and water it down. While you're at the store, get bananas, and maybe other fresh or frozen berries if you'd like to add them to the smoothie as well.

Now when you want some smoothie action, you toss four or five frozen strawberries, a banana, and maybe other berries in a blender, top it off with milk (not water!), and blend that sheezy until smooth. You'll probably have to pulse the blender a bit at first to break up the strawberries. If it turns out too thick, blend in a little more milk. Bam, a full-flavored smoothie. In the mornings, if you drink one of those along with a bowl of granola and yogurt or something, you've had more nutrition in a single meal than some people have in several days. Hells yes.

>>4367
> Frozen fruit instead of fresh? A mortal sin

There isn't a fresh strawberry within 1000 miles of me so if I wanted one right now, it'd have to be frozen :p I did find some wild ones growing a few summers ago but it's anything but summer here at the moment. Actually the thought of eating frozen anything makes me shudder right now.

>>4367
Yes! Frozen strawberries are perfect for smoothies (really any kind of frozen fruit, because I don't make 100 smoothies a week so buying a load of fresh fruit is rather expensive). A bit of spinach is always good in smoothies too.

Really it's canned fruit I would turn my nose up at, the syrup it gets suspended in makes everything over-sweet.

>>4367
I'd really doubt your argument on how much nutrition this has. Banana. A few strawberries, milk. It's fruit, it has a lot of sugar, and a few vitamins.

But yes, it's delicious. Get some good protein powder and toss it in and you've got a one stop meal.

I have a bunch of frozen strawberries, cherries, and raspberries in the freezer...that i froze myself. Stock up on fresh fruit when it's cheep, slice it, layer it between wax paper on a cookie sheet, stick in freezer, separate and bag.

> I'd really doubt your argument on how much nutrition this has. Banana. A few strawberries, milk. It's fruit, it has a lot of sugar, and a few vitamins.

The strawberries have C, the bananas have potassium, the milk has A, D and calcium. Add a bowl of granola or other decently healthy cereal and you've got decent fiber at the very least. Now compare that to someone who has just a bowl of Froot Loops, gets an Egg McMuffin and coffee at Mickey Dee's, or even skips breakfast altogether (my God, how could you!?), and eats similarly well for other meals in the day, and I stand by my statement.

>>4372
"you've had more nutrition in a single meal than some people have in several days". THIS is what i'm calling bullshit on.

Not "more nutrition than most peoples breakfasts" but "more nutrition than they get, period, in several days".

Ok, sure, there are some people who do nothing but eat out of McDonalds, i'll grant you, but that's pretty fucking rare.

>>4373
I assumed he was using hyperbole, but it DOES disturb me how poorly a lot of people eat. I'm not talking about poor people who can't afford to eat well either; as for the aforementioned Froot Loops, shitty breakfast cereal such as that is one of the few things keeping a lot of North Americans going because it may be a lot of starch and sugar but at least it's fortified a little. That is to say, empty calories plus a few vitamins is better than mere empty calories with nothing added, which is what idiots would be subsisting off of otherwise. You can live pretty well on a careful food budget, it's cheaper than living off of junk (exceptions to this are people who live in really remote places where not much grows, and fresh ingredients are scarce... quality food is very expensive in some parts of Canada for instance). It just takes time and a little planning. How many of the same people who buy Pizza Pockets, etc because they "don't have time to cook" manage to find time to spend two hours a day glued to youtube or playing with their facebook?

While we're on the topic of food in general, do any of you keep gardens? I live on a registered farm but it's small and all the planting and stuff was done before I moved in last summer so I didn't have much hand in any of that and it's not a topic I'm an expert on or anything. I kept a garden at my dad's place years ago but it didn't fare too well. But as for this place, there's kale, beets, lettuce, carrots, garlic, that sort of thing. Potatoes failed hard this year for some reason or other. Oh and there are 5 or 6 hens for eggs plus a noisy rooster, I was posting about them in another thread a few days ago. And honeybees too. Some of the vegetables get sold at a farmers market during the season but the only really profitable thing that was grown here this year wasn't food, it was... pretty flowers. Well actually you can eat some of those too, and some of them are tasty :3

Here's a pic from uh, maybe August or September? The field is covered in a foot of snow now though... it's a very different place here in February.

one of my wife's relatives sent her this, fuck year

Scoop of yogurt, a handful of frozen strawberry slices, a smaller handful of frozen cherries, and a banana. Tasty, tasty smoothy.

made burgers tonight.
Ground chuck was on sale so I used that. Minced some onion, mixed it in the meat with garlic powder, worsteshire (whatever) sauce, salt and pepper.

Turned out pretty good.

My roommate started to pan roast a chunk of moose tonight, then got called in to work and asked me to babysit it. I chopped up an onion and threw in some soy sauce which was about all I could find here. I was expecting something bland yet sustaining, but it turned out to be very tasty in its simplicity. And more tender than I expected.

nom nom nom

Dinner tonight was a simple affair because I was feeling lazy. Still, lots and lots of veg in a stirfry was tasty enough anyway...

How's about some spaghetti sauce made with real tomatoes? Keep your can opener in the drawer.

Get four big tomatoes or six-ish medium-ish ones. Dice them up, retaining the liquid (food processors or blenders are good for this if you have one handy). Some recipes will tell you to strain out the seeds, but I think that's obsessive-compulsive. Put the chopped tomatoes in a pot and heat 'em up. While they're cooking, mince some garlic and throw that in the pot too, along with a splash of olive oil and oregano and pepper to taste. Set the heat so the sauce is slowly boiling. It's gonna take a while for the tomatoes to turn to mush, and you're going to want to be stirring the tomatoes often. While they're cooking, fry up some ground beef or equivalent. (ProTip: ground turkey is tasty and low in fat. I used it all the time when I was in the US.) When it's done, take it out of the pan and put it on some paper towels to soak up some of the fat (if necessary). Chop up some onions, peppers and possibly carrots, and fry those up in olive oil in a clean pan. If the tomatoes are still "chunky" and not "goopy" at this point, set the fried veggies aside with the meat and add them when the tomatoes are ready. Start boiling the noodles while the sauce is finishing off (don't forget to stir it, and you should also be seasoning to taste). Drain the noodles and top them with the sauce. It can sometimes be tough getting the noodle/sauce ratio right, but you should err on the side of having too much sauce since making more noodles is less of a pain than making more sauce. Put it on a plate or in a bowl, top with parmesan, and eat. Put the leftovers in the fridge and either nuke them or fry them for a bit in a pan with a little olive oil to eat whenever.

Like in the picture, you're probably not going to get the rich red you'll see with jarred spaghetti sauce or canned tomato paste, depending on what kind of tomatoes you end up using. Don't worry about it - flavor is king.

Oh, mushrooms. I forgot to mention mushrooms. You want to add them to the sauce late in its cooking - don't try to fry them with the onions.

Here's a close-up of the end result. Yeah, I like to eat it with chopsticks 'cuz I'm a weeaboo (and also chopsticks are easier to wash than forks).

>>4420
Is it just me, or did you use the shallow skillet method of making pasta in that image? Looks divine, though

>>4422
Well, it's a very deep pan. I don't have a proper pot at the moment, so I use that pan when I need to do stuff that involves boiling water and such. It works well enough. I actually used that pan to cook the tomatoes in and used the shallow pan to cook the meat and veggies in, then transferred the tomatoes into the shallow pan (enough of the water had boiled off by then) so I could use the deep one to cook the pasta in; washing each pan between each use. It's partly because I'm too cheap to buy more pots/pans and partly because I don't have much room to store them anyway.

>>4423
Actually it's the first time I've seen anyone else really USE the method. I do it all the time. Cuts the cooking time of pasta down by scads, and if you need to make a cream sauce, the concentrated starchy water is a great base.

>>4425
I do it quite a lot with a wok instead of a regular pan. In fact, I make pretty much everything in a wok that I can. You can kinda split the difference between a regular pot and a pan with it, so it's great.