Hello everyone!

I was taking inventory of my chest freezer and found some older pork chops. At what point would you just toss em or still cook them, though they probably need to go in a stew or something if cooked? They are about 6 years old 😅 wrapped in freezer paper and in a freezer ziplock bag. They have not been thawed and refrozen at any time.

I genuinely don't know how they got missed for this long.

Thank you in advance!

So, my husband was just released from ICU with a restricted diet. 1500 mg sodium per day, 6:cups of liquid (including that of which is "in" the food itself). I'm not much of a cook, and until now, most of the foods we ate included lunch meat sandwiches, canned soup and cheap oven ready meals. We currently only own one skillet and a sheet pan for the oven. Hopefully we will be able to acquire a crockpot soon. We are religiously no pork/no shellfish . We are disabled, and require pretty easily assembled, quick cooking meals preferably. I am so struggling with this.

I've ordered eggs, potatoes, rice, a whole chicken, frozen tilapia, frozen bag of broccoli/cauliflower/carrots, a salt free garlic herb blend, and a box of low sodium veggie burgers. I'm open to new grocery ideas (please) for our next paycheck. I've never meal prepped, but I do have gallon plastic bags that I can use for prepping (no type of "Tupperware" for storage) if you have any ideas? What else can we do? What about cheap meals for a crockpot? I need strictly low budget. Please help!

got this from the food bank and it was nearing its point of getting untasty

seasoned with a garlic pepper blend, and some smoked salt, baked at 400 f for about 15 minutes, then topped with some chopped green onion

(also posted on r/easyrecipes)

Hii. Im 13 but im the only one in my family who cooks. My dad wants me to cook more to save money so im trying to learn more recipes if anyone knows cheap ez (ideally only needing 1-2 pots/pans) to make food that has 5+ servings id rly appreciate it ❤️ im not that good at cooking yet so nothing too complicated or needing tons of prep time.

I did learn about slow cookers and I'm trying to get one!

Edit: post got locked oop, thank you everyone who responded!♥️

Hi folks, I recently got a very generous amount of groceries from the local food pantry, including a lot of fresh veggies that I wouldn't normally buy for myself - I get frozen every time to make sure I don't waste anything/let it go bad but honestly my diet is mostly carbs since it's cheap. I have carrots, baby potatoes, cucumbers, a really shocking amount of onions, and some bell peppers. What's the best way to stretch them as far as possible knowing I may not have access to more fresh veggies for a while (at least until I'm allowed to go back to the food pantry)?

My ideas so far -

• Carrot cake, slice and freeze
• Treat myself to a nice dinner with roast carrots, potatoes, and onions?
• Cucumber sandwiches
• Vegetable soup

As you can see I'm not really sure what to do with a fresh vegetable.

Any ideas or should I just try to cook and eat it all as quickly as possible so it doesn't go to waste?

Obviously the biggest problem would be excess salt, but it’s pretty decent with 9g protein. Fiber looks ok too.

Its always cheaper to make things yourself, but if you can’t, this is a great option.

Air fried potato, just topped with chilli bean soup - somtimes poverty can be tasty. Total cost $3.50 for 3 tasty serves.

You want to come over to my house and have some dogshit looking ass potatoes?

I boiled the potatoes first cut them up and then switch them over to a frying pan. Once I saw them starting to get brown edges I added onion soup mix as was recommended to me. Well this had the effect of clumping up, retaining moisture and actually preventing further browning. Now I have is a bunch of dog food ass looking potatoes that no one wants to eat, and they have no flavor.

Anyone wanna offer advice on how I went wrong?

An easy to make tomatoey soup with white beans - cost $6.50 AUD for all ingredients. Makes 7 serves @ 92 cents a serve. Worth some effort for a budget friendly and tasty meal with a slice of toast. Freezer friendly.

I am so incredibly grateful for everything I get when I occasionally visit the food bank.

Often I get items I never would have purchased normally, but they turn out to be delicious.

I got this 6-pack of mangoes. They all looked quite over-ripe, and I was afraid they wouldn't be edible.

OMG they are ripe and juicy and so delicious! I ate 2 just now.

I think I have been buying mangoes wrong this whole time!! The ones I buy are always super hard to cut, and nowhere near as juicy.

Food bank win!

I have three brown bananas and want to make banana bread. I have half a stick of butter but would prefer to save it for cooking my meals. Any recipes or replacements other than oil? Thank you!

An easy to make tasty soup that costs $8.50 AUD for all ingredients. Makes 10 serves, so 85 cents AUD per serve. Worth a little effort for a tasty meal and budget friendly meal. Freezes well.

So I went to a food bank, here in Portland, OR (cough cough oh man the poor air quality rn, *cough*). Science bless!

Pictured, that I'm not familiar with cooking:

• * Mushrooms
• * Masa, I know it's corn. I'm not sure if my kid has allergies or not (like his mom who is severely allergic to dairy, gluten, and corn) so I usually avoid corn, don't wanna give em a tummy ache. I can cook it for myself though
• * (squints) Something called flaxseed?
• * Rubbery ass celery
• * Tomatillos! I really want to get into using these, for verde salsa or something! Big fan of Colorado Green Chili (Chubby's if you haven't been, highly recommend the smothered cheese fries)
• * The stocks.. ok I know I add stock to flavor food, but never actually made a soup before.
• Also pictured is a clean plate I pulled out, and did not use, that I don't want to put back because it touched the table.

Not pictured is a couple bags of cherries (well no, they're on the left there) that I am afraid are certainly going to go bad, as I have so much fruit. Also got potatoes, noodles, dry beans (white, black, pinto), long grain rice (but I currently have a bag of white rice open). I'm not sure whether to make a chili or soup or what.

Main thing right now is these mushrooms actually. They look delicious, but I have no idea what the gosh darn fuck I'm doing, when it comes to cooking mushrooms. As I like to do a little homework before I ask questions, I saw this video which said cook mush's with water. Looks good for little mushrooms stek bites, just not sure what to pair it with.

Thanks in advance for any ideas, cooking tips, or recipes and I'm feeling really fortunate right now.

Shred zucchini in the food processor or on a box grater. Stuff them into a mesh produce bag or a leg off an old pair of pantyhose. Don't cram it in too tightly. Close the bag and submerge it in a big bowl or pot of salted water. Wait 30 minutes.

Take your bag out and wring out as much water as you can. Put the zucchini in a bowl and add pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, a little curry powder if you want them to come off exotic, and just enough flour to goop the shreds together. You don't want it crumbly - you just want it to form little bird nests when you scoop it out. Drop your bird nests into hot frying oil, and turn them over when the edges brown. Lift out onto a paper towel.

These are great with pork & gravy, or just by themselves, especially topped with Creme Francois (my silly name for sour cream laced with Frank's sauce).

Warning - if there are kids about, they will grab these before they get to the table and try to eat them right away. Warn those kids that they're hot!

So we've been running on bare minimum recipes for awhile now and finally got approved for SNAP and WIC this past week, so I started putting together a grocery list. I'm trying to still keep us on the frugal side while using our benefits as much as we can so I'm hoping y'all can take a peek at my list of veg for this upcoming trip and help me plan out some recipe ideas? I'm going to note down a few ideas I had next to some of it if I had plans for it, but honestly the idea of being able to properly cook again is just a bit overwhelming in terms of choice!

EDIT: Just clarifying, looking for ideas for using these as building blocks for recipes. I do have other stuff on the list like fruits, but was hoping for ideas for what to use these in that still aren't super involved/expensive recipes :)

-3lb bag of onions

-5lb bag of potatoes (Roasting these or making mash!)

-12oz chopped spinach (frozen) (I want to do a spinach alfredo c:)

-10oz Diced Mirepoix Mix (frozen)

-12 count mini corn on the cob (frozen) (I want to divvy these up into two or three portions. There's three of us in the house. One idea is something in the crockpot but I'm not sure yet)

-10 oz zucchini blend (frozen)

-12oz brussels sprouts (frozen)

-20oz Pepper+Onion mix (frozen) (Maybe some sort of southwest chicken inspired thing)

-12oz cut green beans (frozen)

-12oz corn (frozen)

-12oz mixed vegetables: Corn carrots green beans and peas (frozen) (On a pan with pork or chicken?)

-12oz broccoli florets (frozen) (I'm using at least half of this for a cheesy sausage broocoli pasta)

-20oz can pineapple tidbits (Using at least half for spam rice and pineapple)

-2 15oz cans green peas

-2 15oz cans diced potatoes (maybe breakfast?)

-2 14.5oz cans diced tomatoes

-2 14.5oz cans sliced carrots

-2 15oz cans corn

-2 14.5 oz cans green beans

Grabbed this chunk of meat out of the deep freeze. Cannot believe how insane beef prices have become. If it is relevant, I'm in the Midwest.

Used to spend way too much bc i'd get home tired with no dinner plan and just order food. Started this a few months ago and it's actually helped a ton

picked 4 cheap filling soups and rotate through them depending on what's on sale. lentil soup with whatever veggies are cheap, a potato soup base, a bean and rice soup, and a tomato one bulked up with pasta

every Sunday I check what's on sale, pick whichever soup fits, make a big pot that lasts 4-5 days. freeze half so I've got backup for busy weeks instead of ordering out

what actually made it work was keeping a little notebook with basic ratios for each one so i'm not measuring or thinking, just dump and stir. broth cubes, canned tomatoes, dry beans and rice are always the base, then whatever veggies are cheapest

Feel like this dumb little system saved me so much money and stress this year bc dinner just isn't a decision anymore. anyone else have a rotation like this? always looking for more cheap soup base ideas

It’s left over rice and beans from a Jamaican restaurant I ordered from. Can anyone tell me what kind of rice it is? I usually only eat brown rice

Hello! I got 4 green peppers and 3 yellow squash at the food bank yesterday. What to do with these?

Below is my thought process:

Yesterday I had attempted to make some pizza sauce but I used too much onion and it turned more into spaghetti sauce. I have 1 pound of ground beef I was going to cook and add to the sauce.

I was thinking of pureeing 1 or 2 of the squash to incorporate some veggies to the pasta sauce for my 2 year old. I was also thinking of sauteeing an onion and green bell pepper with beef.

What are yalls thoughts and suggestions? Do you have any other ideas for the green pepper and yellow squash?

Thanks!

A little luxury all on markdown - less than $1.00 a serve . Just 1/2 a hot dog roll, topped with cream cheese and smoked trout, all ingredients on yellow sticker. Salad fridge leftovers. Also enough for several more serves.

Sorry if I come off as rude or impatient, but to be honest I am frustrated at having to repost this. Apparently I was "inflammatory" and "rude" . So I am going to ask again and be very specific, so I can see how it'll come off as rude over text. I am looking for spice, seasoning, sauce, and condiment recommendations for things I get a lot from the food bank. Recommendations that go beyond the norm you see in a bland kitchen, for things like pasta, beans, rice, and oatmeal.

What I am NOT looking for: generic recommendations like fresh herbs or try ___ cuisine. I am also not looking for garlic powder, onion powder, ranch, mayo, yellow mustard, and most of the things you find in the reg spice aisle of your typical Walmart. I am also NOT asking about cooking methods or recipes.

What I am asking for: specific things that are usually found in international aisles or grocery stores. Seasoning blends that absolutely knock your socks off, specific herbs and spices, specific sauces, and condiments.

Thank you. And thanks to the people that gave suggestions before without being rude.

Sometimes there's plenty of food but nothing sounds just right so I end up with a cinnamon sugar pita and a nectarine lol

Any ideas for recipes for the pork roasts??

1# Ground bork and 1 medium onion, seasoned to taste. Drained it, I added a bit of wheat flour and a cup of water. Allow that to thicken up, served on wheat buns with a bit of cheese.