Louisville Restaurants Forum

Lower your brows folks. There is some entertaining reading and an interesting recipe for roasted poor man‘s pork shoulder about half way down (poster "vargas").

(lots of F-bombs.....consider yourself warned)

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1h2q9g/what_is_your_best_poor_recipe/

Ray,

Interesting topic ( aside from the article ).
So what IS your best cheap recipe, folks? One that tastes great but doesn't cost much?

Mine is to make dinner with really high quality dried semolina pasta ( Rustichella, Martelli; DeCecco in a pinch). It really makes a huge amount of difference in taste, for a few bucks extra for the whole family. Top with your own homemade sauce ( really cheap) , or one of the excellent jar sauces you can get now ( Mario Batali, ComeBack Inn, Rao's- I think Dave's in over-priced;), add salad and some good bread and you've got a great cheap dinner for 4.

Deb

Ramen noodles...no matter what you do with them, they still taste like poverty.

Ketchup sandwiches ! Yum

If you don't like lima beans, read no further. On the other hand . . .

Spray large skillet with cooking spray (Pam).
Saute 1/2 cup each of chopped onion and bell pepper in skillet.
Slice a link of turkey polish sausage into fat "coins".
Push the sauteed onion and bell pepper to one side of skillet and spread the sausage slices in the remainder of the skillet and brown, then turn.
Pour a bag of frozen lima beans over the veggies and sausage. Add salt and pepper to taste with about a half-cup of water. Stir, cover and simmer for 20 minutes over low heat until beans are done. Remove cover and allow excess liquid to evaporate.

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Cheap and very filling. Low fat. High protein and lots of fiber too.
No idea what to call this but it's a staple around here.

Cheapest thing is to roast a whole chicken, which I think I just saw at Kroger for $0.95.. Eat most of it as Chicken and chicken salad, abd boil the carcass to make soup. Can probably eat for a week or so off of that.

I easily feed my family on $20 for days.

whole 5-6 lb chicken - $6
one 10# bag of potatoes - $3
2# bag of beans - $2
3# bag of rice -$2
20 count bag or tortillas - $2
2# of frozen veggies - $2
onion, green pepper, garlic, cilantro - $3
(Thanks to this very forum i buy most of this at Aldi's, and the prices i list are a bit higher than they actually are!

Make sofrito with by blending onion, green pepper, garlic and cilantro
first day - roasted chicken with mashed taters and veggies
second day - boil chicken carcass. i use the water for rice not soup. pot o' beans. both rice and beans are flavored with sofrito.
third day - leftover rice and leftover beans. mashed beans with rice in burritos.

That's three meals technically under $20.. since there are still some dry beans, uncooked rice, and plenty of potatoes left.

I keep pasta as a staple in my home. I love taking a can of clams, (drain and reserve the clam juice) sauté some onions and garlic in butter, add the clam juice and reduce by 25% , add some milk or half/half reduce some more add clams at the very end and just heat through. Little salt and pepper, splash of left over white wine or vermouth if ya got it. Dump it on the pasta. ( or you can omit the milk and use lemon juice instead.)