1. You can stretch damn near anything, in terms of cooking. A broth becomes a soup when you add a can of beans and it becomes a stew when you add a can of beans and a cut up potato (or any other starch).
   
2. Making a bread, a cake, anything that's baked? OFTEN you can bulk up the recipe by adding rolled oats or additional flour. Many baking recipes are very forgiving and you won't need to increase your leavening agents (baking soda, eggs) until you approach 2x the original recipe. If you batter / dough looks dry as a result of bulking up, add a little more water (SLOWLY!).
   
3. On the reverse side: don't forget if you're cash strapped, you can cut back. Oil substituted for butter. Cheaper oils for more expensive. Less eggs or egg substitutes (careful). Water instead of milk typically does no harm save for a bit of flavor.
   
4. Back to bulking up recipes, don't forget to add pasta or rice (3/4 to fully cooked) to soups, sauces, and anything else you can. A cut up onion is cheap and goes a long way too, while adding flavor.
   
5. Baked goods can often be modified by the addition of nuts and dried fruit (raisins, craisins). 
   
6. Not a "bulk up" tip, but don't forget that you can make a variety of desserts that consist of little more than slow cooking rice or oatmeal with a lot of sugar, topped with whatever fruit you have on hand.
   

(04-15-2025, 12:04 PM)gorzek Wrote: One tip I remember from childhood: powdered milk is dirt cheap. It's not quite as good as the real thing, but if you're mainly using it for cooking it's fine.
It's not great for cereal, but if it's all you got it's all you got.