What are your favorite "Mustachian" Meals?

[Larabeth]

I know people rave about using the crock pot or other things... what are some of your favorite recipes to keep your budget low and you healthy?

[syednaeemul]

Breakfast - 2 cups of steel-cut oats with water and cinnamon - 30 cents a serve, and feels like having dessert for breakfast!

Lunch / Dinner: Prices are for Melbourne, Australia.

• Base: 2kg Beef mince / turkey mince / chicken breast / chicken drumstick - $20 max
• Vegies: 1kg frozen broccolis/cauliflower - $4.50
• Flavour: 1 jar of 400g cooking sauce: $5

Instructions: dump everything into a slow cooker, mix, leave on high for 3 hours, stir, leave on high for another 1 hour. Makes 6 meals for roughly $30, or $5 a meal. to make the meal cheaper, you can swap 1kg of meat for 1kg of vegies.

Benefits: Your protein intake is done for the day, and it's low carb.

[train_writer]

Onions are our cheapest vegetable, and healthy as well, thus: Onion soup!

5-10 onions
50 grams of butter or other oil of choice
some salt and available herbs
1-2 liter of water.
Simmer simmer the onions, add water, boil, ready!

[ooeei]

Homemade pizza!  Made 6 pizzas from scratch this weekend for my girlfriend's family for ~$20.

[Squirrel away]

I like soups as they are cheap, tasty and very filling. Rice and beans are always good together and soak up a lot of flavour.

I usually make two meals or more at a time, one to eat at the time and the leftovers to pop in the fridge or freezer for later.

[NextTime]

Homemade pizza!  Made 6 pizzas from scratch this weekend for my girlfriend's family for ~$20.

Recipe?  Do you make the dough or buy it from the grocery store?

[Fishindude]

Any kind of soup, stew or crock pot type meal.  Can eat on these for a couple days.
Particularly enjoy them if they include some game we have harvested or some produce from the garden.

[slappy]

Homemade pizza!  Made 6 pizzas from scratch this weekend for my girlfriend's family for ~$20.

That looks amazing! Way better than any homemade pizza I've ever made!

[slappy]

Check out budget bytes. It's been mentioned a ton in the forums and I finally checked it out last week. Tried three meals. My cart was so full of groceries I was afraid to check out. Turns out I came in $20 under budget! And the meals have been pretty good. I've tried 2/3 of the ones I chose for this week, and I'm looking forward to trying 2 or 3 more next week. Hopefully with the same affect on my grocery budget. :)

[ooeei]

Recipe?  Do you make the dough or buy it from the grocery store?

Make the dough.  Reply #65 on this page has the recipe: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg5635.html#msg5635

That site is a great resource, although I don't worry about stuff like water temperature very much.  I weigh out the ingredients, and use a stand mixer on them for ~10 minutes instead of the food processor. Oil up the ball and cover in a large bowl in the fridge for 1-3 days.  3-4 hours before you want pizza take out of the fridge and split into dough balls, lightly flour, and cover with a towel or plastic wrap.  Shape them gently (no more folding or kneading after they rest) by stretching, add sauce and toppings, pop on a pizza stone/steel or cast iron griddle in a 550F oven that's preheated for 40 minutes and turn on the broiler (I use a baking steel).  If possible use 100% whole milk mozzarella from the deli counter instead of the part skim stuff.  Sauce is tomato sauce with garlic powder, oregano, and salt to taste. 

Certainly not a quick weeknight meal, although occasionally I have friends over and make it after work (I spend a good chunk of the evening in the kitchen and premake the dough though).  Well worth it, and tons of fun if there are younger kids around as they can help.  A 7 year old made our sauce (with a bit of guidance).  The whole process has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get it down it can be pretty quick and easy.  We basically put the pizzas in the oven back to back (while one is cooking you make the other one, ~6 minutes per pizza).  If you want any more detail let me know, I'd be happy to help as I've made plenty of the beginner mistakes!

[Bracken_Joy]

I'll second Budget Bytes. Made this for the first time last night: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2010/09/dal-nirvana/ Even Brother, who is very "meh" about legumes, loved it.

And a LONG time favorite: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2012/10/chicken-lime-soup/

[Nickels Dimes Quarters]

I batch cook often so that I have small portions of casseroles stacked in the freezer (8x8 pans), and plastic bags with chili or soup. I buy the proteins on sale then cook up a big pot of rice for the week.

NDQ

[ketchup]

Lately I've been making different variations of this a lot.

Baked lemon chicken thighs.

Throw bone-in skin-on chicken thighs on a cookie tray with parchment paper.

Put a little lemon (or lime) juice on, and season to taste (I like using salt, pepper, garlic, and a bit of chili powder).  Optionally: wrap in bacon if you've got it.

Bake at 400F for 30-45 minutes (depending on size of thighs).  Throw a vegetable in with it part-way through (I like to do cauliflower florets) so that the drippings don't go to waste.  More if you did bacon, as there will be more drippings.

Remove from oven, let cool, enjoy, save bones for stock.

Takes about 2-3 minutes to prep, super delicious, and incredibly cheap.  This week bone-in chicken thighs were $.59/lb and cauliflower was $.69/lb.

[NonprofitER]

We're big on soups and homemade sourdough bread as our go-to cheap meals because they stretch and the fresh bread makes it feel special, even though its inexpensive. The fact that its a true sourdough (no commercial yeast) makes me feel slightly less guilty indulging in carbs at dinner. 

As a slight variation and to use up backyard chicken eggs, we do a lot of "baked eggs in Parmesan" (Bitten Word blog) and "Baked eggs with spinach and mushrooms" (Smitten Kitchen/ Epicurious), both served with sourdough bread. 

Go to soups:
Coconut Lentil soup (via Bitten Word blog)
Faux La Madeline creamy tomato basil (google)
Chicken Thai Soup (Cook's Country)
Creamy Cauliflower Soup (Cook's Country or America's Test Kitchen)
Mushroom and Wild Rice Soup - a little fussier, but worth it (America's Test Kitchen)

Agree re Budget Bytes.  Out of all the means we've tried from her site (probably 30+), there were only a couple we didn't feel like were repeatable.

Our Budget Bytes favorites:
Oven Fajitas and Oven Roasted Greek Stuffed Pitas (same concepts, two different flavor profiles, both bulked up with the addition of mushrooms and extra veg)
Black bean & Avocado Enchiladas
Falafal salad
Crockpot chicken & dumplings - not terribly foodie, but comfort food awesome
Crunchy Asian salad and variations
Slow cooker garlic rosemary beef stew

Indian inspired dishes from Budget Bytes I can vouch for:
Curried chickpeas w/ Spinach
Coconut lentils
Homemade naan
Curried potato w/ poached egg
Chicken Tikka Masala via slow cooker recipes

Soups from BB:
African Peanut Stew
Zuppa Toscana
Bean & Bacon Soup
Sweet potato tortilla soup

Also love the Edamame Miso Spicy Tuna Salad (Bitten Word blog) - we swap the miso paste for mayo in a budget pinch, great way to fancy up canned tuna (which you can get ethically sourced via costco!)

[lbmustache]

These two chicken recipes are my fav and it's super easy to make a huge batch to eat over a couple of days:

http://bakingatmidnight.blogspot.com/2012/01/soy-sauce-drumsticks.html

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2013/02/26/honey-soy-chicken-drumsticks-thighs-or-wings/

I can get a pack of 12 drumsticks for like $3-$4 on sale.

Ground turkey can go a long way for making basics feel a little more filling: tacos, pasta, etc. For example, I make a huge batch of spaghetti with ground turkey, garlic, vegetable broth, and sauce. Lasts for 2-3 days.

[Trudie]

Homemade soup with 5-minute artisan bread
Rice/risotto cooked with onions, butter, homemade chicken stock
Eggs scrambled with veg and whatever bits of cheese we have laying around
Homemade pizza

[ooeei]

Another one I thought of, leftover (or fresh) rice topped with some frozen veggies sauteed in a pan with olive oil, and a fried egg with a gooey yolk on top.  ~10 minutes, one pan, delicious.

Bonus version:  Top with leftover shredded pork shoulder (just needs to be cooked by boiling for ~4 hours) pan fried with canola or peanut oil and salt until crispy and browned.

[cats]

I have also recently been trying budget bytes and have enjoyed what I've tried so far (though I'm finding the portion sizes are a little small...I guess one active male and one active pregnant female might eat more than average though!).

Other stuff we enjoy:

-vegetarian chili
-black bean soup
-tomato and egg over rice
-a shredded salad made from grated carrots, cabbage, and any other vegetables that are cheap at the time (radish, zucchini, a little red onion etc.).  Dressing is oil, a little soy sauce and some lemon/lime/orange juice.  Add lentils, chickpeas, or black-eyed peas to make it more of a meal.  Really easy and good!  We use our food processor to grate a big tub of vegetables and it keeps in the fridge for several days (closer to a week if it is just cabbage and carrots).

[mm1970]

Mains:

Beans and rice (Mexican style) - eat them in bowls with cheese and toppings.  Good with roasted cauliflower.
Curried chickpeas over rice (chickpeas, onion, curry spices, tomato paste)
Fried rice (rice, carrots, peas, sesame oil, eggs, maybe chicken)
Chili (1 lb of ground beef, and lots of beans, onion, peppers, tomatoes) with cornbread
Homemade bread with soup.  Soups can be carrot-ginger, moroccan lentil, sweet potato roasted pepper, creamy tomato, chard and potato, butternut squash (depends on what is in season and cheap that week).  Black bean soup.
Pasta with butter and parm, or pasta with tomato sauce
Bean burritos or tacos or enchiladas

Vegetable sides: depends on what is on sale.  Many of our mains incorporate veggies.  Otherwise:
carrots and hummus
Stir-fry veggies from frozen (Mixed broccoli/carrot/cauliflower) with coconut oil and sesame oil and soy sauce
Sauteed green beans (from frozen)
Roasted cauliflower
Steamed broccoli
Salads

Fruits: bananas, apples, oranges mostly

Breakfast:
homemade bread or muffins.  Bagels or English muffins from the discount rack. Smoothies.  Occasionally oatmeal, though I'm not great at that these days, I'd rather make a smoothie.  Egg frittatas.  Husband eats raisin bran every day.

[Philociraptor]

For breakfasts, nothing beats eggs and bacon/chorizo for price to satiety ratio, plus it keeps your body in fat-burning mode until lunch time.

For lunches and dinners we eat a ton of sweet potatoes and vegetables, we typically buy whatever's on sale (less than $1/lb). Roast em, steam em, mash em, grill em, you pick. For protein we batch cook chicken thighs, shepherds pies, and pork roasts. Most proteins are cooked on the grill or in the oven. We'll make some tilapia or cod from time to time on the stovetop as well.

A typical day for me looks like this:
Breakfast: 3 eggs + 2 slices bacon
Lunch: 8 oz chopped chicken thigh or pork + 1 cup sweet potato hash/mash + 1 cup broccoli/cauliflower/cabbage
Dinner: Same as lunch, maybe with a bit more sweet potato after a hard workout.

[MsPeacock]

Basically everything/anything from Budget Bytes. I do my meal planning from the book and website, with an occasional homemade pizza thrown in (although she has a recipe for that too).

A few of the regulars for me from that website are the lemon-pepper chicken with orzo and several of the "one pan" meals that basically involve ground beef, seasoning, and noodles all cooked up hamburger helper style (but way tastier).

[Aussiegirl]

Make the dough.  Reply #65 on this page has the recipe: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg5635.html#msg5635

Certainly not a quick weeknight meal, although occasionally I have friends over and make it after work (I spend a good chunk of the evening in the kitchen and premake the dough though).  Well worth it, and tons of fun if there are younger kids around as they can help.

My DH makes pizza base from scratch.  He makes bulk  and then he freezes the left overs wrapped in cling wrap in meal size portions.  On the day we are going to have pizza, he just takes it out of the freezer in the morning and then its ready to roll out in the evening for dinner.  Quick, simple and delish!

[Larabeth]

These all sound really awesome, thanks!

[Cornbread OMalley]

I like ready-made salads put together from lettuce and spinach in bags (I recycle the bags when empty).  I add strawberries, blueberries, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, sometimes add a bit of salsa for dressing.  I usually top off the salads with grilled salmon, swordfish, an occasional pork loin, and very seldom NY strip.

I also make my own chicken broth for use in cooking brown rice or quinoa, which then I eat with a can of chicken breast.  I also enjoy daily my sweet potato baked.

[tj]

These two chicken recipes are my fav and it's super easy to make a huge batch to eat over a couple of days:

http://bakingatmidnight.blogspot.com/2012/01/soy-sauce-drumsticks.html

http://www.alexandracooks.com/2013/02/26/honey-soy-chicken-drumsticks-thighs-or-wings/

These look amazing! I gotta try these. Thanks for posting.

[Larabeth]

Sounds like I'll be hitting up budget bytes for meal planning!

[PatronWizard11]

Quesadilla

Just 2 tortillas and some cheddar or any kind of cheese.

[MandalayVA]

Eggs.  Scrambled eggs were the first thing I learned to cook as a wee lass of five, and all this time later it's still my quick go-to dish.  If I'm going nuts I put cheese in them. 

[kpd905]

We make big batches of chocolate chip peanut butter granola for breakfast.  We make 1-2 weeks worth at at time.

Recipe is here: http://minimalistbaker.com/peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-granola/

Cut back on the chocolate if you want to make it healthier.

[intotherealworld]

No knees bread - Google the NY times recipe. It costs maybe 20c per loaf to make.

2 loafs per week = $6 saving per week = $300 saved per year

[Jeremy E.]

Oatmeal with Nutella

[RWD]

Chili Roasted Potatoes

[JimLahey]

I like to bake a couple of chicken breasts and eat them with brown rice. I put lemon pepper seasoning on the chicken and then I cover everything with Frank's to add a little heat.

[Emergo]

I live in Houston. Where do i look to find cheap, healthy chicken to use for slow cooking?

[Emergo]

Doesnt cooking in a slow cooker make the food unhealthy because the food is immersed in its fats during cooking? Or same nutrients overall?

[Larabeth]

Oatmeal with Nutella

OK, I'd be tempted to never eat anything else ever again!!!  Hahaha

[wealthviahealth]

Lentils! they go with just about anything and are dirt cheap.

[soccerluvof4]

Oatmeal with raisins and nuts (walnuts or pecans usually or sliced almonds) eat at least 5x's a week

[MandalayVA]

Doesnt cooking in a slow cooker make the food unhealthy because the food is immersed in its fats during cooking? Or same nutrients overall?

Fats aren't unhealthy.

[Parizade]

I like to buy a pound of bacon and make a month's worth of lunches with it.

1/4 lb goes into Red Beans and Rice - 6 servings
1/4 lb goes into Split Pea Soup - 8 servings
1/4 lb goes into Succotash - 6 servings
1/4 lb goes into Navy Bean Soup - 10 servings

I can cook all this up on a Sunday morning, freeze it in individual serving containers and voila! 30 days of inexpensive and delicious lunches.

[Larabeth]

I like to buy a pound of bacon and make a month's worth of lunches with it.

1/4 lb goes into Red Beans and Rice - 6 servings
1/4 lb goes into Split Pea Soup - 8 servings
1/4 lb goes into Succotash - 6 servings
1/4 lb goes into Navy Bean Soup - 10 servings

I can cook all this up on a Sunday morning, freeze it in individual serving containers and voila! 30 days of inexpensive and delicious lunches.

Yum.  I should thaw the bacon I have frozen and do the red beans and rice this way...

[CATman]

I didn't know so may people here get recipes from Budget Bytes.

http://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/03/coconut-vegetable-curry/

I took this recipe and modified it a bit to serve my own tastes. I pack it with whatever veggies I'm feeling at the moment or can get at the farmer's market so it's seasonal and packed full of good stuff. I make mine in a giant pot and it makes 4-6 servings depending on how you portion it out.

[stlbrah]

A common balanced meal of mine is:

rolled oats + banana
2 baked chicken thighs
plain brocolli

That twice per day and protein shakes which cost me about 30 cents which I buy slightly after expiration is my diet plan as an athlete

[cheddarpie]

Posting to follow and I'll add my own when I'm not on my tiny keyboard.

[Lanthiriel]

Homemade pizza!  Made 6 pizzas from scratch this weekend for my girlfriend's family for ~$20.

Recipe?  Do you make the dough or buy it from the grocery store?

FYI, this is hands down the best and easiest pizza dough I've ever made, and it only takes 20 minutes. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crust/

[Larabeth]

Homemade pizza!  Made 6 pizzas from scratch this weekend for my girlfriend's family for ~$20.

Recipe?  Do you make the dough or buy it from the grocery store?

FYI, this is hands down the best and easiest pizza dough I've ever made, and it only takes 20 minutes. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crust/

AWESOME. Good to know. I've been wanting a decent dough recipe, though for some reason I don't think to look at All Recipes.

[aperture]

I am pretty new to cooking for my family, so I posting to follow.

[Parizade]

buy 1lb of ground turkey, make 12 healthy and hearty meals:

Use 1/2 lb to make the barley stew recipe on the Quaker Barley box - 6 hearty servings (the box says 12 1-cup servings, I really need 2 cups for a meal)
Use the other 1/2 lb to make turkey and lentil ragout to serve over whole grain pasta - 6 servings

Takes about an 90 minutes prep and cooking time. Freeze in individual serving containers and you have 12 hearty main dishes.

[ooeei]

I live in Houston. Where do i look to find cheap, healthy chicken to use for slow cooking?

HEB usually has good prices (look at the freezers on the floor rather than the fresh stuff in the wall freezers), or you could probably go to about any asian/mexican market and get it there too.

[thef0x]

Falling off the bone pork:


Hit your local asian grocery store. 

Buy yourself:
-- fatty pork w bone in
-- ginger
-- garlic
-- soy sause
-- rice vinegar
-- honey
-- mustard
-- veggies you've never eaten before
-- rice


Throw everything but the veggies into an electronic crock pot (instapot, wut wut), and set that bad boy for 70 minutes.

Make rice.

5 minutes before both are done, blanch the veggies.

Serve the meal with rice, veggies on side, covered by the sweet tangy pork.

Holy hell, it's so good.

If you're pro, marinate the above over night and throw it on the grill first. 

Huge hit with my 20 something guy friends, cheap as fuark, and extremely filling.

Love me my asian grocery :)
-d