Budget Recipes

Veggie Curry
A lot of people are afraid to cook curry, but if you have one basic spice combination that works well, you can use it with pretty much any vegetables or meat. Here is a curry tutorial–though keep in mind this isn’t an “authentic” Indian curry, since it uses green beans and sweet potatoes.

Pasta Sauce
It’s easy to make your own pasta sauce, and the sauce you make at home is far superior to most store-bought products. It’s also easy to freeze, and costs well under $10. This recipe makes enough to serve 4-6 people, with plenty left over to freeze. To make it even more hearty and healthy, keep frozen corn and peas on hand and add a cup or two of each when you’re mixing the sauce in with the pasta.

Dahl (Indian Lentils)
I’ve been making this dish for about 10 years–it’s basically the first thing I ever learned to cook. It’s incredibly cheap and easy, and it freezes well. And the best thing about it is that you can keep the ingredients on hand at all times, so this is a great emergency recipe for those times when you’re out of groceries.

Big Pot O’ Beans
This beans are approximately 10,000 times more delicious than canned black beans–and cheaper to boot. Use them in burritos, fry them up with eggs for breakfast, or put a cup of the beans into homemade chili. Or just eat them with rice, some chopped scallions, and a little sour cream (or yogurt). Freezes well.

Bread and Pizza
In my family, we call this “Sam’s Bread,” because it’s the bread my dad makes. It’s a little hard to categorize … it’s mostly a white bread, with some oats and some whole wheat flour. But you can get rid of the wheat flour altogether, or get rid of the white stuff (though I’ve never done it as an all-wheat bread). The beauty of this recipe is that it doubles as pizza dough, which makes it the base ingredient in a true budget meal. There are simpler and probably better pizza doughs out there, but they don’t double as bread dough. This recipe makes roughly four round bread loaves or two large, cookie-sheet sized pizzas.

Latin chicken and rice
A few weeks ago, someone asked me for Jon’s recipe for Latin chicken and rice. The problem is, he doesn’t use recipes, so the directions here are a little bit vague. When I asked him, “How long do you simmer it? 20 minutes?”  He said, “Yeah, sure. I don’t know.” So cook this at your own risk … but it’s easy enough that it should turn out fine even if the timing is a bit off. This probably serves four, but you can always extend the recipe by using more chicken or adding more rice. Each cup of rice requires about two cups of liquid, so adjust the broth and diced tomatoes accordingly.

Beef stew, two ways
I haven’t made beef stew in years, primarily because my slow cooker broke when I moved from Minneapolis to New York in 2003, and I’ve never gotten around to replacing it. Though I didn’t think I would need a recipe, I consulted Mark Bittman’s “Beef Stew, Five Ways,” in How to Cook Everything, my new favorite cookbook, for guidance, and I’m glad I did. His cooking times and chopping guidelines were perfect, the vegetables were cooked but not mushy, and throwing in peas at the end was a stroke of brilliance. I have two ways to make beef stew here, and this is the key to both of them: DON’T SKIMP ON THE SALT. The second method is much simpler than the first. I would say this recipe serves six people.

Two great kale recipes
I have recently found two fabulous kale recipes; neither particularly qualifies as “budget,” but both are too delicious not to share. The first is a very simple fresh kale salad from Epicurious. With this recipe on hand, you’ll ALWAYS have a use for kale, so you’ll have no excuse not to buy it. The great thing about this salad is that it lasts, fully dressed, for a couple days. A lettuce salad would wilt but the kale stays delicious. The second is a white sauce lasagna with kale, sweet potatoes, and leeks, which I found on the website Harvest Eating. It’s delicious and creative, and chances are your dinner guests have never had anything like it before. The recipe, however, isn’t presented that well and requires some clarifications.

Tabbouleh
I should preface this recipe by saying it’s not really a recipe at all; I pretty much just wing it. But that’s the beauty of tabbouleh—you can make it with whatever you have on hand. The minimum requirements are bulgar wheat and parsley, and then you can add other things in your fridge or pantry: feta, peppers, scallions, onion, toasted walnuts. For me, bulgar wheat, parsley, feta and walnuts are pantry items, things I almost always have on hand, so this is a pretty easy thing to make. (Read What’s In My Pantry for more on, well, the stuff I keep in my pantry.) Tabbouleh (also spelled tabouleh or tabouli) makes a nice light lunch, but we keep it on hand more as a snack. Since we don’t keep a lot of snacks in the house, it’s great to have something in the fridge that you can eat if you’re hungry right when you get home from work. It’s also great for a potluck.

Amazing chicken & pasta
Jon made an amazing chicken and pasta dish last night, almost exclusively with food we always keep on hand. It was truly, truly fantastic. As I’ve mentioned before, Jon doesn’t really do the whole “recipe” thing so I’ll do my best to describe his methods.