Cheap Meals: Eating on a budget.

We'd make pie dough, roll it out and dust it with cinnamon and sugar, then cut it into strips and roll them up and bake them into cinnamon rolls.

Chukzombi said:

For Easter weekend I decided to make some zeppoles. It's just fried pizza dough with powder sugar on top. Costs a few dollars for the pizza dough.

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Mom used to buy tortillas, cut them into triangles and fry them in oil, then toss them in a bag of cinnamon sugar. You'd destroy the bag in one sitting, fuckers were addictive.

That bread in a cast iron skillet made me think of a cheap and easy cake recipe. It does not need eggs, milk, or butter and is called Depression cake (legend has it that it got very popular in the Great Depression), also called Wacky Cake. It's great for camping (if you own a camping oven), because it does not require any refrigerated ingredients. I have made it a handful of times and it's good. The below recipe is chocolate, but I have also found Spice and Carrot depression/wacky cake recipes before.

I haven't made it in years, so cant find the original place I first found the recipe at. This is the best I could find with someone cooking with cast iron, ATM. There are plenty of the same recipes using a normal cake pan, but who wants to lug out another pan when camping?

Burns said:

That bread in a cast iron skillet made me think of a cheap and easy cake recipe. It does not need eggs, milk, or butter and is called Depression cake (legend has it that it got very popular in the Great Depression), also called Wacky Cake. It's great for camping, because it does not require any refrigerated ingredients. I have made it a handful of times and it's good. The below recipe is chocolate, but I have also found Spice and Carrot depression/wacky cake recipes before.

I haven't made it in years, so cant find the original place I first found the recipe at. This is the best I could find with someone cooking with cast iron, ATM. There are plenty of the same recipes using a normal cake pan, but who wants to lug out another pan when camping?
View attachment 522427

Wacky Cake is so EASY to make!

Depression Wacky Cake is a warm and surprisingly delicious chocolate cake made without the use of both eggs and butter.

seniorskillet.com

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I would have thought that Sugar and Vanilla Extract would have been rather expensive back in the depression?

Daidraco said:

I would have thought that Sugar and Vanilla Extract would have been rather expensive back in the depression?

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Sugar was still being produced in Caribbean, so importing it wasn't that much. Meaning it probably wasn't any more expensive than normal. So if someone wanted a cake for a special occasion, there was no getting around needing the sugar, but if you can eliminate eggs, milk, and butter it saves some money.

Refrigeration also was much rarer and required an icebox with ice deliveries. While eggs, butter, and milk of don't require refrigeration, it helps them last. So people may have stopped ice deliveries to cut costs and then stopped getting milk or butter because they couldn't use them fast enough (or just to cut costs as well).

Vanilla extract is always expensive, but the fake stuff was actually discovered in the late 1874. By the 1930s, imitation vanilla was available all over the US and production/sales took off, possibly because it was so much cheaper during the depression. If you look at what you have in your pantry at home, it's probably imitation, as it's still much cheaper than real extract. (Source)

Related public service announcement: Be aware, if the "Vanilla" Extract is super cheap and says something like "Mexican" vanilla, it's probably Coumarin (same family as warfarin), which is a blood thinner and technically banned in the US (to use as a "vanilla extract"), even though Mexican/Caribbean/South American grocery stores in the US still manage to import it.

I've never heard anyone else talk about it, but growing up we used to have 'Breaded Tomatoes' about once a week. Basically crushed tomatoes with old/stale bread crumbled up in it. Added just a little salt & sugar, and it was actually quite good. We grew our own tomatoes and canned them, so it was about as cheap as we could get.

Goulash was another frequent meal (macaroni, ground beef, tomato, onion - similar to this). Fried potatoes and onions was a great side to any cheap cut of meat.

Nowadays me and the wife can afford to eat whatever, but our cheap/easy meal is usually rice & eggs, or a quick sandwich/salad with fridge leftovers.

gLobal said:

I've never heard anyone else talk about it, but growing up we used to have 'Breaded Tomatoes' about once a week. Basically crushed tomatoes with old/stale bread crumbled up in it. Added just a little salt & sugar, and it was actually quite good. We grew our own tomatoes and canned them, so it was about as cheap as we could get.

Goulash was another frequent meal (macaroni, ground beef, tomato, onion - similar to this). Fried potatoes and onions was a great side to any cheap cut of meat.

Nowadays me and the wife can afford to eat whatever, but our cheap/easy meal is usually rice & eggs, or a quick sandwich/salad with fridge leftovers.

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Sounds like the original poor man's version of Fried Green Tomato's.

Grew up on a farm with Dairy cows on one side, Beef Cattle on another side, and cutting horses for show in the back. So some of this stuff I've heard of, but some of you guys that lived in the suburbs and cities when you were little have ate some shit that I've never heard of. Frog Legs, Snapping Turtle, and Rabbit is all around here, and still sold in some of the smaller stores.

Theres a store near my stepdads family, old German Baptist area (buggies and shit) and it has no clerk. Goes completely off the honor system. Prices are listed on the stuff, and you leave the cash in a register. They have all of that country shit in there. Damn if they dont have some of the biggest damn produce Ive ever seen, though. I dont know what theyre doing for fertilizer, cause it cant be no regular old Miracle Gro out there. We're talking scraping the bottom of the barrel for pennies kind of living for some of those folks.

3lbs of chicken thighs thawing. This thread stove in looking for super simple rather than being told to make 10 ingredient burritos.

Any suggestions what to do with it. Used up my Thom Kha soup I'd used the last tray on. I think the last time I tried to cook chicken and just slather bbq I messed up and had it come out a bit tough. And I like meat so tender it's like spoon food just about.

Sludig said:

3lbs of chicken thighs thawing. This thread stove in looking for super simple rather than being told to make 10 ingredient burritos.

Any suggestions what to do with it. Used up my Thom Kha soup I'd used the last tray on. I think the last time I tried to cook chicken and just slather bbq I messed up and had it come out a bit tough. And I like meat so tender it's like spoon food just about.

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I assume since it's thighs, they still have the bones. If so, chicken and rice casserole is fast and simple.

Burns said:

I assume since it's thighs, they still have the bones. If so, chicken and rice casserole is fast and simple.

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I might be remeber wrong since I took it out of deep freeze but I believe boneless

Sludig said:

I might be remeber wrong since I took it out of deep freeze but I believe boneless

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Bones and to a lesser extent skin, make a large difference in flavor on white meat. Since it's dark mean, it has enough grease that the skin doesn't matter, but the bones do.

For boneless, I usually find a flavor packet or marinade to stick it in for 24 hours. I've used so many marinades and ate so much boneless white chicken, that I don't think any of it is "good" anymore so can't recommend anything.

With this chicken thighs I decided naw, I've been saddened by my bbq in the past. That oven w/ vegetables is too kinda boring middle america probably for me unless I'm doing full on w/ a biscuit layer and gravy.

So I winged some teriyaki. Got wild onions outside and chives that are basically wild. Onion/carrot. I kinda almost wanted some sweet corn too. Though more a ramen thing. Had these noodles wife never got around to using so sounded good to use over a rice bowl though that woulda been good for all the extra sauce.

Not sure how much was maybe a little extra oil, veggy moisture, and just using 1/4 of a bottle of Batachan teriyaki sauce. I was worried about under coating etc, but didnt really leave room/think about trying to simmer it down thicker should aid in coverage anyways. Still extra sauce wasn't too runny and did ensure the noodles were coated as well.

Not sure how cheap it counts, since it broke down to about 5 servings/meals seemingly. $10 3lb of chicken, 2-3 in vegetable sauce seasoning etc, then whatever the noodles were which I imagine was bare minimum $3 and I think woulda been more like 6-8. ~4/serving

Of Course I'm ultimate jew and if I lived alone it would still be like rice and beans.