jeff fox wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 11:12 am An entire can of anchovies including the oil, melted into some olive oil and butter, sautéed with some garlic. red pepp flakes. Dump in a big can of crushed tomatoes and cook low for 10 minutes...one of the best pasta sauces you can make. Beats the FUCK out of that bizarre Marcella Hazan sauce that sucks. And doesn't take 3 years to make.

Tomato, butter, onion, 45 minutes. What's this 3 years bullshit?

Roasting whatever kind of chopped vegetables you can muster ( broccoli and cherry tomatoes and onions go well, also big chunks of feta and thin lemon slices if you have some) with olive oil on a sheet pan & throwing them on top of farro or quinoa is a solid meal.

If your climate allows it, planting some super productive varieties of cherry tomatoes (even in a container on a balcony or something) can improve your eating life. Often the Master Gardeners https://ahsgardening.org/master-gardeners/ in your area have the lowdown.

Saw a white people bastardization recipe online that I’m absolutely gonna try. Elote pasta salad. Basically ditalini added to elote ingredients with some chopped cilantro and green onions.

Great thread!

True dirtbag:
Kraft blue box (or generic)
Sub milk/butter for salsa.
Add a can of beans, some roasted corn if you have it and now you can split it w your partner
This has to be like $1 or $2/person

Halthy dirtbag:
Go to your co-op and get bulk steel cut oats and barley and whatever nuts you like.
Go about 2/1 ratio oatmeal to barley and maybe 3 or 4/1 with water
Add all to crock pot sunday night on low and you have a weeks worth of healthy and fluffy breakfast assuming you dont slather butter and brown sugar all over like i always do. Add fresh fruit if you can so you dont get scurvy. Yogurt works well instead of milk and sticks to your ribs a bit more.

More cheap:
Any can of lentil soup
Add indian curry powder and its faux dal maknhi

I got a smoker for christmas and am excited to try those sweet potatoes. Maybe some of these one million squirrels out here if things get real rough

Garth wrote: Tue May 13, 2025 8:11 am Great thread!

True dirtbag:
Kraft blue box (or generic)
Sub milk/butter for salsa.
Add a can of beans, some roasted corn if you have it and now you can split it w your partner
This has to be like $1 or $2/person

My man. This is exactly what I was thinking. Not offence at all the the fussier 'dirtbag' recipes, but this is a direct hit here.

Tostino's pizza, shasta soda, that type of thing. Rolling pennies to buy powdered milk four days before payday.

I would only add that carrots are very cheap and super versatile. You can do a million things with them. Broth cubes are super cheap, too (used to be 99 cents I think?). Add a potato and you're fine for a quick meal.

Isaac wrote: Tue May 13, 2025 10:06 am My man. This is exactly what I was thinking. Not offence at all the the fussier 'dirtbag' recipes, but this is a direct hit here.

I think I've posted before that you can make a barebones kimchi jjigae* just by boiling a small/med jar of kimchi in a pot of water for 15-20 minutes. Throw a brick or two of ramen in at the end and that's a meal.

*legit recipes are still pretty easy though

This is just pigsty food on pigsty food recipes thrown out as passable meals for humans all around.

YOU PEOPLE DISGUST ME!!!!*

*as he's typing and milking a sturgeon simultaneously.

Lu Zwei wrote: This is just pigsty food on pigsty food recipes thrown out as passable meals for humans all around.

YOU PEOPLE DISGUST ME!!!!*

*as he's typing and milking a sturgeon simultaneously.

bro

Isaac wrote: Tue May 13, 2025 10:06 am

Garth wrote: Tue May 13, 2025 8:11 am Great thread!

True dirtbag:
Kraft blue box (or generic)
Sub milk/butter for salsa.
Add a can of beans, some roasted corn if you have it and now you can split it w your partner
This has to be like $1 or $2/person

My man. This is exactly what I was thinking. Not offence at all the the fussier 'dirtbag' recipes, but this is a direct hit here.

Tostino's pizza, shasta soda, that type of thing. Rolling pennies to buy powdered milk four days before payday.

I would only add that carrots are very cheap and super versatile. You can do a million things with them. Broth cubes are super cheap, too (used to be 99 cents I think?). Add a potato and you're fine for a quick meal.

in our first apartment, vick and i basically only "cooked' mac and cheese with cut up hot dogs in it

in seattle early days, andy and i lived on totino's party pizzas

I don't recommend either of those two things per se, but I don't not recommend them either

this is a great thread. vick has an incredible five-can chili thing that is just browned burg meat and the right five cans of pinto beans and tomato whatever, plus the right spices. i don't know the drill though. i'll try to get her to spell it out (the exact cans etc)

Kraft Mac isn't a great deal when you actually break it down! It amounts to like a handful of pasta and some powder that tastes gross. And you still need to add butter and milk $$$. It's definitely dirtbag tho! Not quite as Econo.
But if you want a solid week of lunches for less than 10 bucks? Gotta put in the work.
A big fuggin pan of baked ziti can be done for less than 10 bucks and is crazy delicious. 1 pound box of pasta, 1 can crushed tomato, 1 can diced, garlic. This is where the bag of carrots and celery you have in the fridge comes in. dice and saute as you're starting the sauce. I've been making/adding béchamel recently and it doubles the deliciousness. Much better use of milk and butter. Tiny, barely perceptible bit of nutmeg elevates it more. Do half the sauced pasta, all the béchamel, then the rest of the pasta on top. If you wanna be mr moneybags, splurge for some ground meat and mozzarella. And this is another recipe where it really keeps getting better in the oven (to an extent). Those crispy pasta bits are the best.