College Cooking Thread

[Tyro1]

bake beans are cheap as shit. Get the generic brand, and just eat them on everything. Heat them up by just putting the can on the hotplate / burner (open first)

[youkinorn2]

step one; order cheapest decent chinese takeout you can; order the best value item(s) you can, skip the crab rangoons and fried rice if you know what's good for you, and order like 10 extra white rices in the large size (this will piss them off but whateva)

step 2: eat all the chinese food, save rice for later, saran wrap it and freeze it.

step 3: make fried rice from leftover rice, add your own eggs, green onions, some spam or leftover meat bits from your chinee food, maybe some onions or green onions, etc.

that is solid eating for 2-3 days plus a lot more fried rice, and I used to be able to do it for $10-15 and it's a little more nutritious and filling than ramen.

also, porridge with the leftover rice is good shit for breakfast

[bill]

Chinese food, here, is really expensive (compared to what I've seen in the usa)...

[Akira]

That sounds absolutely disgusting

[dismalfuture]

Chinese food, here, is really expensive (compared to what I've seen in the usa)...

This might be the case. When I was in college, the main Chinese takeout/delivery/buffet place in some strip mall had a delivery menu with half orders for like $4 (enough to fill you up with rice and soup on the side, so more like $6-7 if you give the driver a couple bucks for a tip) and then full size boxes for $7 or something ridiculous. Full family sized meal with like 4 different meat and vegetable dishes for like $20 essentially, and extra rices were like $1. By far my cheapest food option, besides $4.99 walk-in Domino's on campus.

Pro-tip: Asian, Halal, Indian, those kinds of grocery stores often have produce that is cheaper than you can get elsewhere, so hit those up.

[bill]

It gets easily over 30$, here.

Chinatown ain't even cheap.

[dismalfuture]

I don't even know what ramen costs anymore though, what is it now? Price to weight ratio is better with pasta, but you gotta formulate a sauce or some sort of flavoring for it at least.

[bill]

Don't even know.. I just remember that we left empty handed because buying pastas and saving money was the best option.

[Dijonnaise]

It gets easily over 30$, here.

Chinatown ain't even cheap.

Go to soup 'n noodle on ste-cath mate, you get 3 meals worth of general tao chiken for 8 dollah

I'd be going there beginning of the week, get a plate of tao and mapo tofu and i'd be good til weekend

[blm14]

Being a (very) poor college student when I was one, and then being laid off twice have taught me many lessons in this arena.

- Tomato sauce can be made in gallon-sized vats cheaply and has many uses. Throw on some bread with a slide of cheese, toast, and you have pizza. Use on meats, on pastas, all kinds of stuff. There were two recipes that I used to do: A pretty standard veggie one, and then when I was more pressed for time, put crushed canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, olive oil, and any herbs you'd like into a dutch oven and roast in the oven. No stirring, no burning, comes out smokey and delicious.

- Chinatown, chinatown, chinatown. If your city has one, learn it, use it, love it. Learn which stands have the $0.73/pound broccoli and which charge an exorbitant $0.90/pound. I would buy miso (expensive, but lasts a LOONNNG time) and then make homemade dumplings and freeze them. A couple of bok choy, a little miso mix, and 5-6 dumplings is a GREAT meal and costs a fraction of a dollar: 1 pound ground pork ($3-4), dashes each of sesame oil and good quality soy, minces green onions (usually 8-10/$1), and a little green chillies (huge bag for $1), use the square dumpling wrappers (100/$1).

- Give up meat. It's expensive. Not really a recipe but good advice. That, and don't eat out if you can avoid it.

When I was unemployed living in brooklyn, I was getting $1620/mo in unemployment checks and paying $900/mo in rent. I think I was just about breaking even every month due to living on less than $40/week on food.

[blm14]

hahaha one year we found a back entrance to the dining hall, drilled through the locked door during the summer, and snuck in that bish for dinner every night for 6 months until they finally fixed the door at which point we hacked it again.

Dining hall + backpack + tupperware = win.

[dismalfuture]

yeah wtf is up with cats going in for dinner and only getting a slice of pizza

the fuck; the dinner itself is 13 bones and change

bets rape that shit and sneak some extra food concept

pretty much, and the food is always complete shit. Plus the $15 meals only go to pay the football and basketball coaches their millis, so fuck em.

word up blm14, baby bok choy and gai lan are pretty good buys when you need greens. My local place (super ghetto chinee market set up as a money laundering front for the massage place next door) used to have them for like $1.50 a huge bag (like 20 or more baby bok choys) and also have some sort of Asian beer that they wouldn't bother carding me for, so I always had cheap beer when I was 19 that didn't taste terrible, often times it was Sapporo black label tallboys for a really decent price, I can't remember, but like $2.50 a bottle or something. Good old days.

I also liked (and still like) toasted sandwiches; in college I'd buy the $75 cent loaf of store brand white bread, a pack of generic cheese singles, and a cheap jar of jalapeno slices, and put them in the hot sandwich press. Nacho sandwich. Sometimes if I felt ballin I'd get some ham, maybe some tomato and onion slices in there, maybe some real cheese, etc. You can go a lot further with those things than one would think (google 'Jaffles' to get your mind blown), they're espcially good accompaniments to soups, so you can essentially put together good cheap winter time food for like $2 a hearty serving or less. Plus someone always has a hot sandwich maker they'll just give you, or they only cost like $12 at a Walgreens or something.

[dismalfuture]

It's 5:45 am and I am thinking about running out and grabbing a hot sandwich press, white bread, cheese singles, and some jalapenos.

[dismalfuture]

Super ghetto, delicious hot sandwich ideas if you got one of them jawnz:

-canned chili, cheese single = chili cheese sandwich

-thin layer of baked beans, ham slice, cheese, maybe a fried egg if you want, and ketchup - English breakfast sandwich

cheese, jalapenos

-canned beef stew

-ham, cheese - obvious

-turkey lunch meat, canned cranberry sauce, swiss - hood monte cristo

-some leftover french fries, brown gravy from the packet or extra from a chicken place, some white meltable cheese - poutine sandwich

-pizza sauce (from a jar, which is always cheaper than spaghetti sauce) white cheese, lunch meat ham, few baby spinach leaves, some dried herbs if you ballin - pizza sandwich

-mashed potatoes and gravy, some cheese, some jalapenos, ham - baller's delight

[Dijonnaise]

pretty much, and the food is always complete shit. Plus the $15 meals only go to pay the football and basketball coaches their millis, so fuck em.

word up blm14, baby bok choy and gai lan are pretty good buys when you need greens. My local place (super ghetto chinee market set up as a money laundering front for the massage place next door) used to have them for like $1.50 a huge bag (like 20 or more baby bok choys) and also have some sort of Asian beer that they wouldn't bother carding me for, so I always had cheap beer when I was 19 that didn't taste terrible, often times it was Sapporo black label tallboys for a really decent price, I can't remember, but like $2.50 a bottle or something. Good old days.

I also liked (and still like) toasted sandwiches; in college I'd buy the $75 cent loaf of store brand white bread, a pack of generic cheese singles, and a cheap jar of jalapeno slices, and put them in the hot sandwich press. Nacho sandwich. Sometimes if I felt ballin I'd get some ham, maybe some tomato and onion slices in there, maybe some real cheese, etc. You can go a lot further with those things than one would think (google 'Jaffles' to get your mind blown), they're espcially good accompaniments to soups, so you can essentially put together good cheap winter time food for like $2 a hearty serving or less. Plus someone always has a hot sandwich maker they'll just give you, or they only cost like $12 at a Walgreens or something.

My fav is ciabatta bread (replace with any kind of white bread if you don't have any), chicken, lots of honey, sriracha sauce, a slice of swiss cheese, throw tat in the hot press and there you go, next level panini. I always have a big batch of cooked chicken in the freezer, so it takes about 5 mins to prepare.

And for ramen, my gf introduced me to indomie dry ramens, they're heavenly with an egg thrown in the mix

[dismalfuture]

honey sounds ballin, I would probably throw some microwaved frozen chicken nuggets (like two to each sandwich side recess, so 4 per sandwich if possible), the honey, some Frank's hot, and press that together, always a low-budget southern food hot sandwich press sandwich concept

[poly800rock]

i used to do boca burgers on foreman grill. loved em. still do actually

[dismalfuture]

cheap frozen burger patty microwaved (from the frozen 20-patty packs that cost like $4), brown sauce or ketchup, a fried egg = Japanese hamburg steak hot sandwich

[dismalfuture]

Is Wendy's chili still on the 99 cent menu? You could probably make three or four of the chili cheese hot sandwiches, get filled up for like $3, and whenever you want. That is good value.

[jyoni]

dismalfuture has some seriously solid input on this topic.

I want to try everybody's ideas, even condiment theft. Maybe do a low-budget cuisine month.

[dismalfuture]

My in-dorm cafeteria was only like $7 a meal, but it was based on points that basically equaled a dollar in fast food restaurant terms, so a sub was 5 points, a cup of soup a point, and french fries or chips a point, fuck that for a dinner, right? Especially when it didn't taste as good as a real food place. I feel for you dudes in college now, it's not a good time to be in college, economically.

[willy cheesesteak]

dis, i'm also taking your idea of boostin them big ass bottles of condiments.

could use some free parmesan and oregano.

[dismalfuture]

dismalfuture has some seriously solid input on this topic.

I want to try everybody's ideas, even condiment theft. Maybe do a low-budget cuisine month.

I actually spent a lot on food in college (always a weed smoking lazy 20 year old dude concept) but I am proud of all the ghetto foodstuffs I created, they're probably more useful to me now than anything I learned off the poseur academians who tried to drop knowledge on me for $12K per 24 hrs. Those jawns honestly tasted better than restauarant bought foods, at the time. Stealing condiments and saving sauce packets is pretty key too. You should never have to buy soy sauce, ketchup, mustard, salt and pepper, taco sauce, parmesan tobasco or hot pepper flakes (if you're ok with stealing from the billionaires) or A1.

Try getting your hands on a sandwich maker and hit up some of my hot sandwich recipes, your food will be on lock til March or April and you'll spend like $1500 on your food for the next 6 months if you're dedicated. I think might actually try this out to see if it works again for real, in today's economy.

[dismalfuture]

If you're on a food budget, ask for extra everything whenever possible, and then ask for extra everything again.

[dismalfuture]

The boosted parmesan and red pepper flakes dudes, that is like the genesis of ghetto foodstuffs, you can make a decent aglio olio with those, some pizza sandwiches, spice up some shitty spaghetti sauces, use the pepper flakes in some asian steez, use the pepper flakes on cheap steaks, they are so useful. You could marinate really cheap steaks exclusively in stolen/saved condiments - s and p, red pepper flakes, maybe a real thin layer of mustard.

[dismalfuture]

winq and I raped Costco's foodcourt and had like 24 services of silverware for a dinner party once, you gotta be resourceful and hit up the rich older brothers in these times.

[timber]

I usually buy really cheap fruits/veggie from a neighborhood grocery store, and then all of my box/can foods from a big box store like walmart or whatever. Also buying spices in bulk is 100x less expensive.

I'm such a bad cook but I'd rather spend $1 making dinner than go out for $10+/meal.

We eat lots of rice + veggies, banana bread, cereal, teriyaki stir fry, tuna melts, random veggie salads, spaghetti, potatoes and when it's on sale: salmon!

[willy cheesesteak]

i've boosted shot glasses, cocktail glasses, and those heavy duty beer mugs before but never thought about the bottles of condiments lying around at restaurants...pure genius.

once my friend walked out of grey's papaya with one of them big ass plastic jars with the pumps fulla mustard, shit was so hood. dude walkin around the street with like 10 lbs of mustard, size of a little toddler, lulz.

[jyoni]

"the genesis of ghetto foodstuffs"

Definitely got to try this. I doubt I could keep my girl on board for more than a month or two, but shit, unspent money speaks for itself.

[dismalfuture]

^ be picky about your stolen condiments though cuz, the glass 57 bottles just get refilled all the time and are 5 years old. Stick with packets of ketchup for that kinda stuff, but grab the parmesan, the chili flakes, the tobasco (green, red, and chipotle) from Chipotle, but yeah anything in packets is good.