I’d definitely have rented my garage to the bootleggers though, and taken the rent in booze.

You’d be amazed how many meals can be made from a single whole chicken if you use all the parts (and reduce your portion size). Cooking simple meals is very economical if you buy raw unprocessed ingredients, and generally more healthy than eating processed or restaurant food. I suspect that the recession will lead to more people cooking at home, resulting in decreased obesity rate in the US.

Named for the Canadian prime minister who stood back and let the country starve.

Good on ya old girl!

You can picture a family of eight eating every last drop of that after a days work in a farm field…. and being thankful for it!

“It was really humbling to watch Clara cook pasta with peas. Actually, her family was fairly lucky as there were many that couldn’t afford to add tomato sauce or cheese to the recipe.”

My mom was born in ’36.

I’ve never seen the technique of boiling the pasta up with potatoes. Hmmm… I think pasta all by itself is so good you don’t need to add anything. But that’t a neat way to bulk up the meal.

My standard college grub was a tomato-potato soup. Boil up a few potatoes, add a jar of spaghetti sauce, rice and beans and a head of cilantro. It ends up getting very very thick after a couple of days in the fridge, and that’s when you spoon it up into a tortilla and make a mash-wrap.

Oh, and don’t peel the potatoes! Hello? Vitamins!

This is kind of weird to watch, because it is a more luxurious meal than I have been able to afford at times in my life.

$1.00 soup mix (dried barley, split peas, lentils, beans)
$1.50 carrots and/or parsnips
$1.50 potatoes
$0.50 onion and celery
Savoury, sage, thyme, salt, pepper (say $0.50 max in spices)
Whatever you can afford in meat (stewing beef, turkey, chicken, ham, or other), or substitute legumes. (The turkey I’m using was $24 but most of the meat has already gone to other things.)

Simmer the meat, onion, spice, and celery for an hour. Add the remainder of the ingredients and simmer for 2 hours. Add frozen or canned peas and corn in the last 20 minutes for extra veg and flavour.

That’s supper for two people for a week (at least) for $15-20. The only problem with this is sometimes it’s too thick.

I, uh . . . a few years back I found a big box of instant soup cups. Left out by the dumpsters. Low carb vegan instant soup cups . . . probably bought by a dieter who got sick of them after a week.

They weren’t wet or leaking or covered in bugs, so I took them. Once in a while I toss the contents of one of the cups into my rice cooker with a cup of sliced carrots and a half cup of rice and two cups of water. Sometimes, diced chicken breast. After the cooker has done its work it all turns into a nice casserole.

Much better than listening to endless amateur sous-chefs talk about some trendy crap they just forced themselves to eat.

Amazon.com Review
A collection of essays by one of America’s best known food writers, that are often more autobiographical or historical than anecdotal musings on food preparation and consumption. The book includes culinary advice to World War II housewives plagued by food shortages, portraits of family members and friends (with all their idiosyncrasies) and notes on her studies at the University of Dijon, in France. Through each story she weaves her love of food and passion for cooking, and illustrates that our three basic needs as human beings–love, food and security–are so intermingled that it is difficult to think of one without the others. The book won the 1989 James Beard Cookbook Award.

Eggs are an excellent source of relatively low cost, very high quality protein. They’re also good sources of vitamin D, without relying on ocean fish.

The scare over their cholesterol content from the 80s has been basically debunked – eggs are not bad for you.

Mixed legumes are probably cheaper, but getting carnivorous types to switch to completely vegetarian eating, even when the budget is on the line, can be hard.

But hey, maybe I’ll try that recipe, with a bit of curry powder and cayenne pepper.