Does cheap, healthy, convenient AND yummy food exist?

[bobthemole]

In a complete 180 degree turn from my last post (with its shameless consumerist bent) I want to deal with an issue that bitch-slaps me every time I try to balance my budget... how to eat on slave wages.

I've been spending $20-40 on food from on- and off- campus vendors each month, and that's money I could easily find other uses for. The logical fix is to brown bag my lunch everyday, but that hasnt been happening. For one thing, I'm lazy. For another, I crave novelty and I cannot eat peanut-butter on toast everyday. I've tried, but I end up throwing away the PB toast and buying a pizza. Other lazy options are grilled cheese, or egg or tuna sandwiches but I am sick sick SICK of them now.

So this is an open thread in which I beg everyone reading this to post about the food you eat on a daily basis. I need ideas and recipes on what to eat, and I'm also curious about what everyone else on a grad stipend/ undergrad allowance does. Do you eat breakfast? Brown bag lunch or eat out? Cook dinner from scratch or microwave a Lean Cuisine?

I'm especially interested on how much you care about these factors...

CHEAP - How much do you spend on food each month? On each meal?
HEALTHY - Are you hitting all the food groups? Do you follow a special diet? Do you care how much sodium, MSG or preservatives you eat?
CONVENIENT - How much time do you spend in the kitchen each week? Each meal? How many dishes do you end up washing?
YUMMY - YMMV, of course. Do you fuss over the taste? Do you need variety?



Post away!

Comments

[not-a-vampire.livejournal.com]

I easily spend that much money on this sort of food-buying you speak of. So, you have to ask yourself, is it actually worth it to you to not eat them, especially if it's only $20-$40 per month? You mention that there are other uses, but are they worth going without the food that you like to eat? From your remaks about the sandwitches you're making, I rather get the feeling that the enjoyment you get out of having a good meal every once in a while vastly outweighs the cost you mention.

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

I'm on a tighter budget than I was on as an undergrad. Spending that extra $20-40 per month puts me in the Red. And keeps me there.

[not-a-vampire.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

[ctrl-a.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I would necessarily recommend this course, especially since your primary goals (saving money while preserving tastiness) differ from mine, but I find diet shakes to be a quick, cheap, and theoretically nutritious alternative to eating a solid lunch. But I don't know if even I could really sustain that for a long time. I think I did it the summer after frosh year, but even though it was my plan at the beginning of law school, it turns out that there are enough free lunch events that I'm not really drinking that many shakes.

But I agree with Jeff that $20-40 a month isn't really that much and might be worth it.

[eaudrey.livejournal.com]

20-40 a month? that's all? I spend that much in a week, if not more. Granted, I like food, and I seem to be cooking for my two roommates and myself.
(Ok, budget looks like I spent about $250 on food this month. Again, buying for roommates, and sometimes when we go out, roommates pay for me - so it's unclear if that is the exact amount that I spend on food individually...details below)

I usually do not eat breakfast. Nor do my roommates it seems. We bought some instant oatmeal packets, and I bought some yogurt because it was on sale and i thought I should eat breakfast more often. But I never wake up with enough time to pack my lunch and get dressed and all that, and to eat breakfast. Once or twice i've brought food with me to eat once I arrive at work, but I find I'm not (too) hungry before lunch, sooo...

My lunch during the week is usually leftovers from dinners of nights before.
My roommate who works at disneyland eats food at their cafeteria which is cheap and good. She buys lunch for 2.14 each day. But I think this usually consists of a grilled cheese sandwich or a quesadilla. There are other options, but she eats very little in the first place, and is a bit picky in her tastes.

Dinners. I cook. Occasionally, Brittanie volunteers to make something. This usually consists of mac and cheese casserole (mac and cheese plus a can of peas and a can of tuna. Actually, quite tasty methinks, as long as it's not every day=p), or reheating of the frozen food, or hamburger helper, or a recipe of mine under close direction and supervision (or, at least a lot of input time-wise) by me.
Cooking takes a long time. At least an hour each day. I also cook mainly from scratch. We also do not have a very well toolified kitchen. (ie: I'd love it if we had more counter space, and a larger than 5x11 cutting board=P). To clean, we use a dishwasher. This is convenient because there are many people, and out pots and pans can go in there, too. Except, I am the only one who ever remembers to load, run, and empty the dishwasher anymore=P I know my roommates will do it, because they've done it in all the time before I arrived, but I want my dishes clean in a timely manner, damn it!
I try very hard to eat healthy. This makes Brittanie happy, because she is overweight, and is tempted by evil things like mcdonald's and pizza. I feel like a mother, asking if everyone's eaten their vegetables. In fact, i would like to keep more fresh veggies in the house (Brittanie and Trisha seem to live off of canned veggies, when they do eat veggies), but as I am the only one who eats and prepares them, it is difficult to keep enough variety and to eat them before they spoil. Anyway, Brittanie is happy because I am an excuse to buy milk, even if she only remembers to ditch the soda and drink the milk occasionally. Her tendency is to go get McDonald's on the way home or while out on errands. I insist on tasty things like the Citrus Salmon at Mimi's, and she likes this dish very much, too, so she is glad that I push for the healthier food restaurants instead of the default carl's junior or taco bell.

ewen is not concise enough

[eaudrey.livejournal.com]

Trisha is a very picky eater. She'll eat apples, but not oranges. Carrots, but not broccoli. doesn't do pasta or seafood. etc. etc. But, despite her likes, if food is put in front of her, she'll attempt to eat it because she knows she is supposed to eat. We are working hard to figure out what it is she actually enjoys to eat so that we can provide that. Apparently her mother was a very inventive cook (ie: mystery meat). She also does not eat much. And she refuses to cook. She complains that she can't cook well (and yet, she knows how to make soft serve ice cream and hand dipped corn dogs quite well as a result of her work), thus, she won't try to cook anything because it just comes out tasting bad. She resorts to eating what we cook for her, or microwaveables.
Thus, my shopping trips often include trips to the frozen foods section, to insure that there will be food for Trisha to eat when I am not cooking. Because if we don't feed her, and there is no easily preparable and tasty food, she will not eat. Brittanie is also of the heat-and-serve mindset when she is in a rush. I think I can cook something tasty just as quick as it takes to microwave or oven frozen foods, but...
So yeah, my grocery bills may reflect the fact that I buy groceries for three. But on the other hand... sometimes we go out on the weekends, and a few of my meals get paid for by others. But more often, we go dutch;o) (I rarely pay for others food while out, because Brittanie will pay for Trisha, and Brittanie only has plastic and never carries cash, so unless she's forgotten her wallet, she usually gets herself.) But if we go to a nice restaurant, Ewen often splurges ^^; Luckily, we don't go out to nice places too much.


Ewen likes variety, and likes tasty foods=) Ewen hopes that asian-tendencies means a more starch and vegetable focused diet. Ewen's parents have hypertension, thus Ewen does not utilize much salt(or other spices), since this is what she grew up with. Ewen also likes tasty and exotic foods that may make her food bill higher. Ewen also bakes very much, or at least she buys lots of chocolate chips and butter for the making of cookies, which are not as cheap, although flour and sugar are. Ewen gets very carried away in supermarkets, because Trader Joe's is awesome and carries too many tasty looking things that call Ewen's name=) Ewen likes to make sure her roommates are well fed, and thus purchases much food in thought of them that she might not otherwise normally purchase for herself.
On the other hand, Ewen is slowly trying to go through the roommates' collection of cupboard foods. This includes many canned vegetables and canned soups, as well as cardboard boxes of hamburger helper type foods, or shake and bake. The latter requires purchase of meat at the grocery store, which results in purchase of many other things because ewen likes buying food=) Ewen likes fresh fruit juices=) Occasionally, Ewen cooks in bulk and stores the leftovers and eats them later. Right now, there is a tupperware of 3-servings of rice, a tupperware with 3 servings of chicken, a green onion pancake (there were 4), and some egg rolls from previous cooking adventures. This would last ewen at least a week of lunches at work, but Ewen likes cooking and may create other things in the meantime.

Ewen hopes to curb her food spending (well, all her spending, really). New developments and observations will be reported as they are discovered.

Good luck=)

[bobthemole.livejournal.com]

To clarify, the 20-40 refers to food I eat outside the house. My dinners, weekends, snacks are provided by my wonderful meal program, aka my parents. But my lunches on school days are my responsibility, and I'd like to stop relying on vendors to provide that.

The mac and cheese casserole sounds interesting and easy! I'll try it sometime.

[yami-mcmoots.livejournal.com]

Dinner: sauteed veggies + starch (usually pasta, sometimes rice or barley) + sauce (usually tomato, sometimes teriyaki). Or mac'n'cheese, which I buy in huge quantities whenever it goes on sale. My roommates and I split a local farm share, which enforces a certain amount of variety on the vegetables (and by "variety" I mean "chard").

I eat breakfast. Often oatmeal, lately I've been doing full-on french toast with bacon and tea - it's only an extra 20-30 minutes and makes a huge difference in my day. I used to keep packets of instant oatmeal at my desk for breakfasting...

Lunch is leftovers from dinner, or a frozen meal (I like Healthy Choice) supplemented with yogurt and/or fruit, or I'll eat out (which, sadly, I've been doing 3-4x weekly...)

I have a hard time remembering to eat enough protein; hard-boiled eggs are good additions to lunch but only if I'm thinking ahead.

I end up with ~$100/mo. from Safeway, another $20 for the produce share (which isn't really a full supply of produce), $20-$50/mo. impulse purchasing from Whole Paycheck on my way home, and then $100/mo. again eating out for lunch... I'm still floating on my corporate whore money so the budget crunch hasn't really hit yet.

[mintyq.livejournal.com]

Cost: you'd have to ask jesse, but around $125 per person per month eating in. However, I'm known to splurge to try something new or if food I like is on sale. if we wanted, we could probably get it under $60 each, but the sacrifice wouldn't be worth it to me (I'd rather cook something new than go to a new restaurant, and restaurant rib-eye is always about $20 per pound so it's cheaper to buy it at the grocery store). We brown-bag our lunches from leftovers every day. Grow veggies in my backyard (tomatoes=easiest, & since they are so $$ at the store, best value for work), and buy lots of ones are on sale that I can't grow. I cook from scratch. Per-meal cost varies, depending on what I've made. I've posted a couple of recipes so you can see more clearly where the costs go and what's cheap and what's not-so-cheap.
Healthy: I try to make it well balanced. I buy lactose-free milk, special yogurt (one of the splurgy items), and try to avoid MSG. Otherwise, no restrictions. I probably eat too much fried food, but it’s quick; we go through lots of olive oil.
Convenience: I like to cook, but weekday meals must be under 35 minutes. Jesse does dishes, and would probably say I get too many of them dirty.
Yummy: a MUST. As for variety, I'll eat the same thing about 3 days in a row, but not 2 meals in a row unless it's dessert. If I make a really big meal, we freeze leftovers as lunches we can grab when we are rushed. It's a quick way to add variety.

Stir-fry veggies w/ meat or tofu in choice of hoisin, soy, cream-pesto, tomato sauces; serve over rice, spaghetti squash, or pasta, which can also be stir-fried. $1 worth of pasta (1lb), $1 worth of broccoli (1lb), $.25 worth of shredded carrots (2 carrots), $.50 worth green onions (half bunch) and ~$0.50 worth of hoisin or bulgogi sauce makes 4-6 large supper servings, depending on how hungry, so about $0.60 per meal. Meat rapidly increases the cost, but when I find chicken here for $.49/lb, I buy a lot and freeze it. Tofu also freezes fairly well and usually I can find it for under $1/lb. Prep time: 15 mins by hand, or 5 mins w/ food processor. Cook time: 10 minutes. Sample sauce recipe: 2tbsp sugar, 2tbsp soy sauce, 2tbsp (rice) vinegar (or 1/2 tsp white vinegar), clove minced garlic or dash powdered garlic, dash powdered ginger. Mix well. If doing meat or tofu, add five minutes for marination at beginning. Uses 1 pot for pasta and 1 skillet. Frozen veggies are often cheaper than fresh, so keep that in mind.

Also, we use a crock pot alot; it takes about 5 minutes to throw everything in there and when you come home, it's done. Or we do it overnight and make our lunches up in the morning. Sample: 3 lbs beef (about $5), 4 carrots (about $.50), 6 potatoes ($1), celery if you like it (~.50), couple spoonfuls of water, and you have about 8-10 servings of pot roast, more if you have veggies or bread on the side, so that's about $0.70 per meal.

Stuffed squash--not so cheap, but cheap if you have company coming over (it looks like more work than it actually is): microwave 2 c chicken stock (1 can, $.70, or you can make it at home from leftover carcass) for 2 mins. halve 3 acorn squashes ($2). Place in covered microwave dish w/ water and cook for ten mins. In meantime, mix chicken stock, tbsp margarine, 2 chopped carrots, chopped browned onion, browned ground turkey (meat, $1.25 lb, sausage $2/lb), and stuffing mix ($2.5/large bag, or make from leftover stale bread or croutons). Add spices (sage, bay, thyme, rosemary) to taste. When squash are fork-tender, stuff w/ stuffing and serve. Makes 6-8 servings (i can usualyl only eat about 1/3 of a squash, and jesse is really full after 1/2 squash), so about $1/serving. Serve with something green.

Other cheap and easy meals include: pumpkin sausage sauce with pasta; beef stroganoff; pad thai; spaghetti; risotto; anything alfredo; anything parmesan; hummus, baba ganouj, and pita; black beans and rice; n layer nachos; falafels; sausage and potatoes; 3 bean salad; cream of mushroom soup; cheese and broccoli soup; chowder; stews; chicken curry (spicy), green bean salad; caesar salad; pink stuff; meatloaf; spinach salad; orange chicken (not like hovse food); roast chicken (easy but definitely something to make on a weekend).

[snoflakes.livejournal.com]

So, you know I love food, so variety and tastyness are very important. In terms of cheapness, the only way I think I survive is we have this store called the milk pail, which is a european style market which has ridiculously good and cheap veggies. I would guess for the two of us we spend $15-$20 there and maybe $40-50 at Trader Joes in a week, and then I occasionally have to go to Safeway for something I can't get a Trader Joes. And now there's a new whole foods nearby, so I have to stop myself from going there too often. I would say we spend more total than most people, but we try to do healthy things like have fish at least once a week, lots of vegetables, and few prepared foods. We both make our lunches and we go out for dinner once (sometimes twice) a week I'd say.

I've also been trying to be more healthy, by trying to eliminate most crappy processed stuff, high fructose corn syrup (which is in way too many foods), preservatives, and trying to have fresh tasty foods, like real (not processed) cheese and fresh veggies and fruits and lots of whole grain foods. It does take more effort to cook and is a bit more expensive I think, but I think it's worth it.

So, since lunch is your predicament, this is how I do it (I had the same problem with eating campus food too often, and realized I could be spending a lot less). First, I have this INCREDIBLY AWESOME lunch box. Pretty much is has 4 little containers, a rice bowl, a soup bowl and two other small ones. It forces me to have 4 interesting things every day, so lots of variety. It is a bit expensive, but I think it was worth the investment.

What I've been doing recently is on Sundays I make soup for the week, like leek and potato, butternut squash, mushroom, or hot and sour soup (this weeks) and bring that in the soup bowl. In the large container I have veggies like baby carrots, hearts of palm, sugar snap peas, celery, red bell pepper, etc or a salad. I will sometimes have hummus for these in one of the little containers. I then have grapes or a cut up apple (add some lemon juice so it doesn't brown) for fruit, and normally some tasty cheese. I've been splurging at the milk pail weekly on really nice cheese, then have an ounce with lunch every day (this week it's a semisoft goat cheese in a rind, I got a half pound for three bucks). Some of the soups are super easy to make, and I can send you recipes if you want. Also, if there is leftover stir fry or indian food (which we love making on the weekends) I have that and make extra rice to pack with me. Other things I've put in the little containers include nuts, types of lunch meat, olives, raisins and other things I can save for afternoon snacks.

If you want any recipes (many of the soups are easy, and some are one pot soups), or if you ever need dinner ideas let me know. I love coming up with recipes ideas and food things :-)

[snoflakes.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to mention that my lunches are pretty cheap normally, veggies and fruits aren't too bad and soups I make are pretty cheap. Literally a lot of soups are really easy/cheap, like buy a butternut squash, cook, puree and soup! Also I do things like make my own hummus (cheaper and tastier).

In additon, I like this because I get in more food groups (I get a fruit and a veggie (two if veggie soup). I tend to have whole grain cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, and whole grain pasta or rice or couscous or something for dinner, so that's how I work in the grains.

Bento boxes!!=D

[eaudrey.livejournal.com]

Yay awesome lunch boxes=)
Story!
Okay, so now that I know this budget is only for lunch, that makes things a lot easier;o) But yeah... to eat on less than $1-$2 a day for lunch, you definitely need to be making your own food. minta's suggestions sound great=)
Anyway, so when I was living at home, my mom used to pack our lunches. She would always pack a turkey sandwich, and half a sliced red delicious apple, and a drink. Sometimes I would get fuji apples, which made me happy, or grapes. And occasionaly maybe a small bag of doritos. But that was not quite enough variety, sadly. By high school, I got pretty tired of this. So I told mom what I really wanted was food like we had at dinner - like whatever leftovers she would keep from the night before and would usually cook up for herself at lunch. Thus, I got much tastier food, just the way mom made it=)
So we went out to Ranch 99, or some other asian supermarket place, and my mom bought me an asian lunch box. It is exactly like Sandy's. I had no idea what the thing was, but my mom was all excited that I wanted to take my lunch like this=)
It's all in a thermos-y thing, but mine wasn't all that insulating... but if you heat up your soup in the morning and keep it in the bottom, it helps to keep it warm. My mom would make miso soup, which is pretty much just hot water, a little bit of seaweed, and miso powder stuff. Of course, Sandy has pointed out lots of other tasty soups to use=) Sometimes I had egg drop soup - my mom got paper packets at the asian food store of the dried seasonings, and it's basically hot water, some various dried seasonsings(I don't know how to make it from scratch - we just bought those packets at the store, which are pretty cheap and make a gallon of soup - I think they're made by Knorr), a little cornstarch as a thickener, and a beaten egg. Soup is tasty and filling=) Then, there was a container where my mom put in the leftover rice, and then on top of that I would get a bunch of random things, being whatever we had for dinner last night (random vegetables and pork or chicken stir fry). Luckily, by this time, we had finally graduated to the world of microwaves, so this was really easy for my mom in the morning - she just dumped things into the microwave, and then into the lunch box.

I have to agree with the frozen veggies comment. And I think they're tastier than canned, although my roommates don't seem to notice and will eat the canned stuff=P
The comment about meat increasing the cost is definitely true. I remember buying food for Ass Tea and like half my budget went to the meat (beef, chicken, salmon, smoked salmon), and the rest of the stuff (esp. the baking goods) was really cheap. Processed meat is cheaper (ground beef/etc), and I know sometimes they mark stuff down if they need to sell it sooner rather than later, so since I'm usually cooking that night I just grab that stuff, cook it all and freezer/refrig the results.

[fenugreek.livejournal.com]

If you're lazy and cheap like me and you don't want to deal with cooking gourmet meals each night and yet you wish you could be eating gourmet meals each night, you might try power-cooking the weekends. I make hella stuff in bulk and freeze it so that I have a variety of tasty things on tap that can go as lunch or dinner. Variety is key so you can space things out or else things get old.

You can keep things cheap by cutting down on meat and basing your power-cooking on what's on sale at the time. I find that the protein can be made up in the form of tofu. My prefered lazy-slob way of preparing tofu is to slice up a 1/2-lb chunk and drizzle soy sauce and sesame oil over it, no cooking, fewer dirty dishes.

Dishes that I've found work well for power cooking:

---ratatouille (french veggie stew--to make it cheaper and healthier, start with any recipe, cut out the bell peppers, double the eggplant, 3-4x the zucchini, use canned tomatoes, and only use a minimum amount of oil--ingredients cheaper in summer)
---sauce bolognese (meat sauce for pasta, tasty and cheap any time of year if you start with basic sauce from a jar and spiff it up with your own herbs, adding butter makes it better, tastes better after being frozen, not particularly good for you)
--butternut squash soup (chicken stock + butternut squash, could season in the onion/cream/thyme direction or the ginger direction, cheap in fall)
--vegetable soup (another french classic--start with carrots, potatoes, leeks (not always cheap in the US--could substitute onions), and bouquet garni (tossing in a handfull of thyme will do), you can augment this with whatever other crap you have lying around (celery, frozen green beans, leftover pasta, ham, turnips, leafy green things, etc...)
--tajine: moroccan dish--brown cheap meat (chicken, mutton/cheap lamb work well, maybe beef but I've never tried), pile on potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips, and either (prunes, almonds, cinnamon, ginger) or (green olives, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, ginger), add water, cover, and steam until veggies are done.

You can complement power food with fresh stuff, maybe leafy green stuff.

For lunches I like to do leftovers or pasta--seasoned with olive oil, butter, bolognese, or pesto ($2 at trader joes, I get 6-10 servings per jar), or soba (reasonably priced at trader joes but much cheaper at asian markets) seasoned with soy sauce, rice wine, and sesame oil.

I think the key to lunch is making stuff that doesn't feel like lunch (ie cold sandwiches that remind you of elementary school)