Poverty Food Tip of the Day - A fruit and a bread

[FrodoSwaggins]

I could write a lot of these, but here's just one:
You can rehydrate dried fruits, like raisins and craisins. Raisins are much cheaper of course.
Some people swear by soaking them in some hot water for 2 minutes. Other people like to put them in the fridge in water overnight.
After that, you can use them for baking and know that you will have fruit in the bread or cake and not hard lumps. This is especially relevant since I'm sure we'll all be baking soda bread for St. Patrick's Day in a week or so.
Soda Bread Recipe

• 2 cups all-purpose flour ($0.27)
  
• 1/2 tsp baking soda ($0.01)
  
• 1/2 tsp salt ($0.06)
  
• 1 cup water (could use milk)
  
• 2 table spoons of a cooking oil
  

Optional:

• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
  
• 1 cup raisins (rehydrated)
  

Sacrilegious:

• Walnuts
  
• A shot of Anisette
  

Stir the dry ingredients in a bowl. Then add the wet ingredients. Sugar is "to taste." You can add some crushed nuts or substitute craisins if you prefer (moneybags!). No need to KNEAD. Dump your dough into a slow cooker on high and stick a knife in it after an hour to see if the center is cooked. For most slow cookers, a DOUBLED recipe (4 cups flour, etc) will provide a more appropriate sized loaf.
Serve warm with cheap-ass margarine because this is a poverty food (butter good of course).

[gorzek]

Poverty food tips I have lived by:

• You can stretch a box of Hamburger Helper (brand or generic) by adding whatever other dry pasta you have; you can double the serving count that way and the sauce will generally be fine.
  
• Get a rice cooker (you can probably find a used one easily) and the biggest bulk bag of white rice you can; you can make a meal out of rice plus whatever else you have laying around, for next to nothing (you can get white rice for a dollar a pound or less, dry).
  
• Stores often put expiring items on deep discount; a lot of these may be freezer-friendly. Stock up!
  
• If you've never been to an Aldi and there's one near you... you will be surprised just how much cheaper it is on staple goods than your neighborhood grocery store.
  
• Block cheese is cheaper than pre-shredded. You can also slice it yourself, with a cheap cheese slicer or even just a potato peeler.
  
• You can make a stew out of almost anything, including the cheapest vegetables (and maybe meat) you can get at the store. Enough salt and paper and it won't really matter what's actually in it.
  
• Canned biscuits make great pizza crusts and you can make pizza for fraction of the cost of buying one.
  
• If you ever cook meat and have grease left over, remember you can use this for a soup base. Is it healthy? No! Will it keep you alive? Yes!
  
• If you drink coffee but you never make it at home, you would be surprised just how cheaply you can make it at home. Instant coffee and an electric kettle can do a lot, cheap. (This is what I do.)
  
• If there's a farmer's market near you, they may often have better deals than your local grocery store.
  
• There are sites like this which show you how to make good meals off of very cheap ingredients: https://www.budgetbytes.com/
  

[FrodoSwaggins]

"Canned biscuits?" "cooking meat?" OK ROCKEFELLER
But seriously my biggest poverty cooking tip is learn to look at unit price and convert units in your head:

• $1.60 a pound is $0.10 an ounce. Anything that costs more than $1.60 a pound costs more than $0.10 an ounce.
  
• Anything over $3.20 a pound is over $0.20 an ounce.
  
• 12 ounce box of pasta? 1 pound box of linguini? 16 oz box of farfalle? Who gives a shit, we're converting that out to per ounce!
  

Also though, use soda bread dough for everything, it'll work for bread, rolls, biscuits, pretzels, pizza, etc. 
You have to thin it out for pancakes with additional water and it won't fry right without an egg mixed in (still eats fine though).
For cakes, look up any microwave cake recipe, like this one:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
  
• 1 cup white sugar
  
• 8 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
  
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
  
• ½ teaspoon salt
  
• 2 cups water
  
• 8 tablespoons cooking oil
  

That's 20 minutes in the oven at 350 or 1 hour in a slow cooker on high. Doesn't come up well on the stovetop unless you have a dutch oven. You could use the same mix for cupcakes, or leave out the cocoa for a white cake. Half the cocoa and a splash of beet juice for red velvet.
I like to make that up as a chocolate cake in the oven with rehydrated craisins and crushed walnuts mixed in. I cut the cocoa too otherwise it can be a bit much.

Edited to note Budget Bytes is a fantastic resource by the way.

This post was last modified: 03-03-2025, 08:12 PM by FrodoSwaggins.