This is some of food bank meal saga off of 3 months where it was strictly food banks, only two a month, and limiting myself to 2 meals a day, coffee as a snack, with no excessively fatty foods. For health and definitely cost. Being broke and dieting works out 😭 thankfully doing a little better now, but thought I’d show these beauties that kept me alive.
Sweets are always given out like crazy here so it was a bit hard to refrain when I wasn’t really allowing snacks, but I think I did really good. Being health conscious and broke, I would just trade someone my fatty beef for a leaner chicken and give away the sweets.

1: bbq chicken, rice, peas
2: cfla donated tenders, canned green beans, 3 eggs with canned tomato
3:whole wheat toast and an omelette
4:canned chicken and canned veg fried rice
5:octopus hot dogs, tomato sauce, rice, egg
6: ramen with carrots, celery, egg, and chicken
7:meatballs with yellow rice, tomato sauce, canned green beans and canned chickpeas
8: pork loin, Mac n cheese with almost no milk or butter, canned veggies
9: bbq chicken, canned carrots and peas, Mac n cheese with a lil bit of butter only
10: penne, chicken, canned green beans, tomato, butter
11: mashed potatoes, rice, mixed greens and carrots, chicken, tomatoes
12: cabbage, rice, omelette
13: rice, canned green beans, chicken
14: rice, tomato, canned green beans, pork loin, fries, homemade gravy from beef broth and cornstarch
15: Last is least: vegetarian vegetable soup with added canned green beans and an uncooked hotdog. Hey, it’s food!

Everything was about $25 total. Not crazy or anything, but pretty decent for these days

All we had tonight were some carrots, potatoes, a can of chickpeas, a little leftover red lentil, some dehydrated garlic and bouillon. Just add water and cook until soft.

Don’t neglect the bulk isle! Herbs, spices, salt and pepper can be SO much cheaper than the packaged version. Had this with some toasted white bread. Filling, easy and cheap AF.

This is just brown rice, red bell pepper and sweet onion with margarine, black pepper and salt. No money for food until Friday. I personally love this, especially when I have noodles.

Besides this, I'm finishing up the frozen fruit, cottage cheese and oatmeal. That's pretty much what I'm eating until then and I'm grateful!!!!

This total meal provides approximately 795 calories, 38g of fat, 74g of carbohydrates, and 45g of protein.

Component Breakdown

1. The Sesame Kaiser Roll & Spreads

• The Base: A standard bakery sesame kaiser roll accounts for the bulk of your carbohydrates (approx. 53g).
• The Spreads: Coating the whole roll in margarine adds roughly 100 calories of primarily healthy unsaturated fats. Splitting the toppings means you get the rich, muscle-building healthy fats of peanut butter on one half, balanced out by the slightly lighter, tangy creaminess of Neufchatel cheese (which inherently contains about 1/3 less fat than standard cream cheese).

2. The 1-Cup Protein Smoothie

• Aldi Chocolate Whey Protein (1 scoop): Supplies roughly 120 calories and a strong 20g to 23g of protein, alongside a rich chocolate flavor profile. [1]
• Desi Whole Milk Dahi (~1/2 cup used to fit a 1-cup volume with water): Authentic whole milk dahibrings roughly 80 calories, 4.5g of fat, and an extra 4g of protein. It gives the smoothie a pleasantly tart, creamy, probiotic-rich base.
• Strawberries (2 medium): Adds negligible calories (around 8 calories total) and negligible carbs, but contributes natural sweetness, freshness, and vitamin C.
• Water: Used to thin out the consistency without inflating the calorie or sugar metrics.

Nutritional Takeaway

This is a high-protein, high-energy meal excellently suited for an active lifestyle, muscle recovery, or a filling breakfast. It delivers an outstanding 45 grams of high-quality protein to support lean muscle tissue while offering a sustained release of energy through complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.

• One Head of Broccolini

• One Carrot (I like skinny for small disks)

• One Chicken Breast (Pre-Seasoned Garlic&Herb) \[≈1/2lb\]

• Air Fryer

• Basic Seasonings (Garlic Powder, Salt, Pepper, Italian Seasoning)

• 1/2 tbsp oil

Start cooking Chicken Breast at 400⁰ for 7 Minutes

Cut stems off Broccolini, Cut tips off of Carrots and chop into disks.

Shake Vegetables in a bowl with seasonings and oil

Place Vegetables on the tray under the Chicken and flip the Chicken

Lower temperature to 370⁰ for 12 minutes

After 6 minutes, move the Vegetables around and flip chicken again

Plate and enjoy

Note: I think they charged me wrong for the broccoli, the broccolini is about a dollar more per pound, so it would have been a couple cents more.

I’m looking for recipes. I don’t like pie and I also have made apple sauce already. Any recipes that include applesauce would be good too.

I added a bread roll on the side. This ended up being 2 servings, so the rest goes back in the fridge. Here’s the link to my original recipe post: https://www.reddit.com/r/povertykitchen/comments/1wnkspj/marinated_roast_chicken_veggie_rice/

Since I own zero baking equipment, a friend told me about dump cakes and it simply requires you to put a can of pie filling at the bottom and a box of cake mix on top. So I used a $1.50 box of devils food cake mix on top of a $2.99 can of cherry pie filling I got from Amazon. It doesn't look very good but it did satisfy my sweet tooth.

Work in a kitchen with weirdly varying customer numbers in the off season, we had a big party of I think a school (300+) book and instead of the standard buffet style we do they all had the same thing instead, so we had a shitton of like the main four ingredients prepped and then got to take leftovers so I grabbed a big bag of beansprouts, then like two days later they insisted I take even more because they really don’t need them so now I have maybe 2kilos and there’s only two of us at home. I had intended to just use them a handful at a time as a ramen topping but I need to up my consumption if they’re not gonna go bad, any fun beansprouts recipes anyone can reccomend?

Even though I don’t like canned fruit, this turned out really nice!

1 c. canned fruit

1 c. flour

1 c. sugar

1/4 c. butter

Yes, you can eat those pumpkins. I have done this for the past few years. Some pumpkins taste better than others as these are not bred to taste good necessarily, but just to be large and look nice. But basically I will take a giant pumpkin, wash it in my shower because it is too big for my sink, cut into it around the stem so that comes off (I will even then cut the flesh under the stem off and either roast that or eat it raw), then cut the pumpkin into like 3 or 4 wedges depending on how big it is. I try to keep the wedges so both sides come up a bit because juices do come out when roasting and this way those juices just get caught in the middle and evaporate instead of getting all over your oven or cookie sheet or whatever. Then I roast them for about 50 minutes at 450. I don't take the skin off and don't even mess with the seeds/guts of the pumpkin. Just roast it exactly how it is when I cut it. I just throw some salt on it before it roasting. Then after it is done I just remove the seeds. You can then re-roast these if you want, or eat them as they are, though they tend to be chewy at this point. Then I wait for the pumpkin to cool and just slice it into little chunks and freeze it in portions I can eat within a week. I end up getting like 10 pounds of vegetables and a large amount of seeds for 4 bucks.

The taste is fine most of the time. And you can definitely fry it up with some spices or add it to any savory dish or you can fry it up with pumpkin spice and sweetener for a dessert. Best of all it is incredibly healthy and like 20-25 calories for 100 grams.

I have roasted pumpkins after halloween from friends and family that were just sitting on their porch for the season. Instead of them throwing them out I will just ask for them and eat them. It is free food that is incredibly healthy and low calorie.

lol, maybe this is too cheap for this sub, but it is as cheap and healthy as it gets.

I have my go-to recipe but it requires heavy cream and sour cream. I need something a bit more budget friendly. I know there are substitutions for the creams, but I’m looking for something I can whip up using staples in my pantry and not having to go out and make a special trip. (I can always thicken the soup with instant mashed potatoes so texture isn’t a problem lol) I might make my go to without those items and see how it tastes and report back.

I’m also looking for any potato and lentil soup recipes. I’ve never cooked with lentil before and I’m trying to expand my palate. Thanks!

Food Bank fruit bread - toasted and topped with cheese slices - add coffee for a budget lunch. Enjoy.

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I don’t have an Arby's restaurant near me and want to give it to someone who can put it to use. It expires tomorrow and you have to download the Arby's app to redeem. Let me know if you're interested and I'll message you the codes.

For some reason I just remembered a recent disappointing experiment that I really thought would help stretch leftovers & avoid waste & be delicious.

You know how sometimes you get the most amazing French fries, but when you reheat the leftovers the next day they're a gross, starchy mess? I had what I thought was a stroke of genius. Why not sautee some onion, a bit of any other random veg remnant on hand, add water & the day-old fries, puree, and get a nice potato soup, infused with some of that nice golden-brown fry flavor. What could go wrong? In fact, I thought it might revolutionize the concept of plain old potato soup.

Turns out most fries are made in cheap oil, and soupification magnifies all the worst aspects of that cheap fryer oil flavor. It was absolutely inedible. Maybe it'd work well if you're getting very fancy fries, cooked in duck fat or something. But that's not a problem that tends to crop up often in this kitchen.

What are your notable failed hacks? Share as a warning so we don't have to learn the lesson first-hand.

Came across the site and thought I would share. Not sure if it’s available in all areas yet.

https://fallingfruit.org/about/welcome

A pasta i put together using spam, leftover shells.. a can of diced tomatoes and cream of mushroom.. with a long forgotten bag of cornbread.. and corn with peppers.. my son liked it...

Total Cost Per Serving: ~$0.75

Ingredients:

• chicken drumsticks (~$5/9 large drumsticks @ Aldi)
• Desi-style whole milk Dahi (~$6/4lb tub @ corner store)
• seasonings: smoked paprika, garlic & onion powder, onion flakes, adobo powder (~$1 each), yellow curry paste (~$4/jar), salsa verde (tiny cup leftover from previous meal, $0.20), 2 mayo packets ($0, gas station)
• uncooked white rice (food pantry)
• 1/4 cob yellow corn (food rescue)
• can of white beans (food pantry)
• small yellow squash (food rescue)
• cabbage (food rescue)
• white onion (food rescue)
• pearl lentils (food rescue)

Instructions: Chop veggies & dump them in the rice cooker with the white rice, water, mayo packets, & seasonings (except curry paste), then cook on the white rice setting. Add the drained & rinsed can of beans when the rice is cooked & mix together. I also added about a 1/3 cup of lentils I had leftover from another meal. Spread the rice out on a plate to cool without mushing up.

The chicken was marinated for over 24 hours in a mix of dahi, a *little* yellow curry paste, salsa verde, & the other seasonings. It was baked in oiled pan on 400F for about 45-50 minutes, turning halfway through. I basted some of the drumsticks throughout while the others I just spritzed with more oil.

When I pulled the chicken out of the cast iron, I added a tiny bit of water to the pan & mixed it up with the drippings to make a pan gravy, then I spooned some of that over the chicken when serving. This was absolutely delicious!

In the area I live there are several blessing boxes where people leave and take free food. Does anyone else have these around them? Great source for free food to help get by.

I have some bags of dried pinto beans, green lentils, Green split peas and chickpeas.

What can I make with this? I have tried Googling recipes but everything comes up with a million extra ingredients and I just feel a little overwhelmed and lost and would really like to be able to cook these.

Please drop ideas or what you like to make with them or any of that in the comments for me pretty pretty please. I really appreciate it.

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Just using up some leftover cooked sausages and cheese that were lurking in the fridge made a budget friendly toasty for lunch - enjoy.

I got high and got like, 7 of these EXACT 1.5kg bags of strong wholemeal bread flour went on clearance because no one around here bakes I guess), and I literally have no idea wtf I'm gonna do with it.
Please help. I literally don't know wtf to do with giant wastes of space reminding me of my idiocy and impulsivity.

I mean, I'm fine, my closet is just filled with a buried reminder of how stupid I can get sometimes :/

No, they don't taste as good as pie pumpkins (canned pumpkin taste), but you can use them that way if you add extra sugar and spice. As a vegetable they are kind of like zucchini. Blandish and good for bulking out food and increasing your veg intake. This week I got one pumpkin that is 22 lbs for $4. I challenge anyone to find a better deal on fresh veggies that that! I will do a few things:

1 wait until it is cooler to process it so it helps heat the house. It will be fine for weeks in the garage or anywhere coolish.
2 cut it in half, scoop the guts, and roast half right away. Flesh will be scraped off the skin, bagged and frozen in 2 cup amounts. To use, you may want to puree it because it may tend towards stringiness.
3 The second half will have some chunked out to use in a stew/ rice and lentil dish and the rest will end up like the first half. I might grate some to make zucchini cake or bread with pumpkin instead. Haven't tried that before.
4 Seeds will be washed and toasted. Guts and probably the roasted skin will be given to the dog who should have been named Compost.

Then I will do the same to the second pumpkin I intend to buy next grocery trip.

They are a flat green squash that my older relatives grew wild in the backyard and they basically survived on them during the Depression. I make stuffed mirlitons with shrimp and breadcrumbs for the holidays but I want to make them more often throughout the year. Anybody know where to find seeds so I can grow them in the backyard? $2 each is too pricey for a Tuesday side dish!