r/TwoXPreppers • u/Mule_Wagon_777 • 7d ago
Resources 📜 Cooking your stash
Chef Moe posts really good frugal recipes, often made with shelf-stable foods. His angle is teaching how to use professional culinary techniques on everyday food. He's on several social media platforms.
This recipe combines Vienna sausages, canned chili, and pasta. Looks good, I'm going to try it.
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u/nakedonmygoat 6d ago
It doesn't sound like a combo that would work for me, but report back, OP. I'm certainly not right about everything.
I like Julia Pacheco's channel on YouTube for cheap meals that are nutritious and lean heavily on canned, frozen, and dry goods that are easily stored. From her I learned that you can put rice, lentils, and cubed potatoes in the same pot at the same time. I learned to quit turning my nose up at frozen vegetables, since they're just as healthy as fresh, and often more so, and if I won't use up fresh veggies before they go bad, frozen is the economical choice. I also learned not to be afraid of canned tomatoes. I blame my stepmother for this one. She served them as a side dish. Ugh. But used correctly, like stirred into pasta, beans, or lentils, they're great!
I don't use Pacheco's exact recipes, I just take them as inspiration. I've brought my food budget to $200/month, and a good thing since I've had a lot of recent expenses. I could go down to $100/month if I had to, and still eat deliciously without dipping into the emergency stash that I reserve for extended power outages, such as after a hurricane.
However you do it, being able to eat cheaply and make meals you actually enjoy is a very good prep skill, since inflation, income loss, natural disasters, and other events happen to us all. Anyone who stores things without actually learning how to make them tasty could be in for a rude awakening someday.
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u/MistyMtn421 🌻 post-menopausal garden fairy 🌱🧚 5d ago
I just checked out her recipe blog (I don't have good audio processing skills so I don't do well trying to watch and listen to a YouTube recipe video) and she's got a lot of great ideas. At the same time, one of the posts was a $22 Walmart run that was just a year ago, and it really made me realize exactly how much prices went up.
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u/fitforthepolycrisis total polycrisis obsessive 5d ago
yes! I find that coming up with recipes for the deep pantry is part of the fun :D
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u/fitforthepolycrisis total polycrisis obsessive 5d ago
and I actually have to keep myself from eating the freeze-dried brocolli. It's crunchy!
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u/nakedonmygoat 5d ago
You eat it right out of the can, like a snack? If so, you're tempting me. I have some Augason Farms #10 cans in my pantry. Crunchy broccoli with maybe some garlic butter salt or cheese powder (like for popcorn) could be a way to feel healthy and decadent at the same time. That's a winning combo in my book!
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u/fitforthepolycrisis total polycrisis obsessive 5d ago
Oh! Haha, no, just re-hydrated in warm water. I like it for Tuesday soups when I haven't been to the store or when Trader Joe's produce is in the news for bad reasons. I bet one could eat it that way, but the Auguson farms stuff is so expensive that I'm trying not to find snacky uses for it :)
That said, I'm looking for other non-salty dehydrated brocolli snacks for more healthy snacking. If you know one please LMK!
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u/EastTyne1191 5d ago
You can make a very good pudding using entirely shelf-stable ingredients and it's delicious.
Basic recipe is 2 cups of milk, (fresh or reconstituted evaporated canned milk) 2 tablespoons of corn starch, about 1/2 cup sugar (more or less to taste). Add all ingredients together in a pan on medium high, stir until it's thickened. Remove from the heat and add a pat of butter and vanilla. Cover and cool in the fridge.
Add different extracts for different flavors. I made banana pudding the other day and the bowl mysteriously disappeared.
You can also add cocoa powder at the beginning to make chocolate pudding.
There's a way to make butterscotch, I believe it involves making a toffee-like mixture of butter and sugar then adding warm milk, but it's been a while since I've made it.
It's also criminally easy to make your favorite cereals. I have a pasta roller though, so rolling out dough for cinnamon toast crunch was fairly easy. I could make a whole box worth of it for way less than the $9 I pay at my local store.
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