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

[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.