Meals on the cheap?

[DOC]

I was wondering what kind of good meals you are making now on the cheap. I'm talking Ramon Noodle Recipes, fried lunch meat... As long as its good and cheap please share it with me.

I'll start with one of my favorites.
Mashed Potato's with Ramon Noodles as the gravy.
(I pour out all the water from the noodles before I add the flavor pack BTW. It gives the noodles a kick.)

I just made Chicken Flavored Noodles with sliced fresh mushrooms. Hmm good stuff.

[ChunkyMonkey]

Fried some sweet onion.. eat it with some steamed rice or ramen noodle. Buy some cheap rice topping in Asian good store..and sprinkle your ramen or steamed rice and done.

Few childhood food that will always be around me... dried meat, dried fish, dried veggie, tons of rice. They are great food for emergency events too.

[hurley842002]

(I pour out all the water from the noodles before I add the flavor pack BTW. It gives the noodles a kick.)

+1 on pouring out the water pre flavor pack. Also, some cholula or similar hot sauce, mixed into the Ramens, is quite tasty. Not sure what type of budget you are on, but what I used to do, is buy spaghetti noodles in bulk, and when I say bulk, I mean the biggest package possible. I'd buy some spices and LOTS of tomato sauce. That would make me spaghetti dinners for awhile, and in the end, it was quite cheap. On the weekends you can add some ground beef or something as a treat to yourself (yes I used to be poor enough, that adding ground beef to my spaghetti was a treat). I used to do lots of vienna sausages, fry them up or eat them cold. I will see if I can remember some other things I used to eat, but its been awhile.

[Irving]

I have a friend who bought a whole turkey and ate that for a week.

I like to put a dollop of butter in the Ramen, the spice packet, and some Frank's Red Hot. I also pour out some of the water. You'd be surprised how simple spices like cilantro and oregano can make Ramen easier to eat over long periods of time.

If you scramble an egg and put it in the water about two minutes before the noodles are done, it comes out kind of like Chinese Hot and Sour (the consistency, not the taste). Put some fresh spinach in the water as you are preparing it (so it has like 30 seconds to simmer) and it is pretty good and different enough that it is almost like eating a different meal.

[hurley842002]

You'd be surprised how simple spices like cilantro and oregano can make Ramen easier to eat over long periods of time.

That's the great thing about Ramen Noodles, Variety of flavors + All the other stuff you can add to them = Hundreds of ways to keep your taste buds somewhat happy on the cheap.

[DOC]

I make some noodles and add an egg while its in a rolling boil. Its kinda like an egg drop soup like was mentioned earlier. And its pretty good too. I like eggs they always seem to supercharge me but always the next day after I eat them. Go figure?

[hurley842002]

I make some noodles and add an egg while its in a rolling boil. Its kinda like an egg drop soup like was mentioned earlier. And its pretty good too. I like eggs they always seem to supercharge me but always the next day after I eat them. Go figure?

The good thing about adding eggs to Ramen, is it gives good nutritional value to a not so nutritional food item. I would definitely think of some other nutritional items to add to your Ramen. Just because you are eating on the cheap, doesn't mean you have to cheap out on the nutrition, especially if you have kids.

[4gunfun]

A couple I like to do are the 10 lb. bag of chicken leg quarters at wal mart. I think they are up to $5.75 or close to that now. Alot of cleaning but.... BBQ them all up for diner, have lunch the next day and then de bone them and make a chicken soup or caserole too. Next one, buy a $15 ham and have 3-4 meals on that too. Diner, scalop potatoes, sandwich's you get the picture. Yes and cook a whole turkey and eat all week.

[Irving]

If you still don't have power, you can pretty easily make one of those camp stoves we were talking about in the other threads. I made a package of Ramen noodles on mine when I tried it out.

[DOC]

I like rice. Spaghetti is another of my favorites that even in better times I can make that into a gourmet meal with different kinds of meat.