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

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=)