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

[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.