Cheap dinners that actually pwn

[Cosimo]

Is chopping vegetables out of the question? Cuz it's really easy. And tasty. Half the time I cook, it's noodles + browned ground beef + onions, garlic, and tomato sauce (from a jar or can). Or chicken (usu braised).

Tonight, dinner was bread and butter, blue cheese, and olives.

[poincaraux]

Calzones-

1) Find a good pizza dough recipe (I like the ones that use some milk). Start it going and use quick-rise yeast (takes ~15 minutes total to rise). Make up balls of dough that are ~1/3 pizza sized (this is for large calzones .. if you're not really hungry, you'll have leftovers)
2) Chop up whatever leftover veggies you have in your fridge.
3) Get cheese, peperoni, etc. if you have them.
4) Dust baking sheet with corn starch or flour.
5) One piece at a time, roll the dough out into a circle, spread a little olive oil in the center.
6) Pile the ingredients on 1/2 of the circle, leaving ~1/4" border, fold the dough over the top (you'll probably have to stretch it, but don't pile stuff so high that it rips), pinch the edges over to seal them, spread a little olive oil on the top, sprinkle on some salt (rock salt if you have it), place on cookie sheet.
7) Cook at something like 350 until top is browned and hard to the touch.

Try it sometime. It takes ~15 minutes to prepare, 10-15 minutes to cook, tastes great and tends to really impress people.

I spent a year doing volunteer work in Chicago making $110/wk and I lived on these things. Well .. these, ramen and free lunches at the grade school where I was working.

I'm also a fan of the pre-packaged Indian and Thai meals at Trader Joe's. I bought them for a camping trip once. They come in foil packets that you drop in boiling water for a few minutes. Super easy to prepare, clean up, etc. And, if you run out of fuel, you can eat them cold. They were good enough that I keep them in lab for when for when I'm too lazy to make myself lunch the night before.

[Trump]

The hot dog and refillable sodas at costco for $1.50.

[IggyWH]

I used to make these when I was young :

Toast 1 slice of bread
Put a piece of cheese on it and pop it into a microwave for 10 seconds (just to melt the cheese)
Slice up a hard-boiled egg into thin slices and stuff your cheesey toast

Makes a kickass breakfast sandwich

[gumpzilla]

In the ramen w/ category, I'll pretty frequently make ramen, ditch the spice packet, and add chili powder, dried basil, a little hot sauce, soy sauce and broccoli. Pretty good.

In the less cheap/less easy category, I find that couscous (pretty damn cheap in bulk) can be pretty good if you have some stuff to put in it (using a cooking fluid other than water does good things, too.) I recently marinated some lamb (not so cheap, but I think other things would work here as well) in olive oil, wine and crushed garlic for a little bit, and then cooked the lamb with some pepper and onions (all cut up into stir-fry sizes) in a pan with a pretty substantial amount of the marinade in there as well. I cooked the couscous separately and then dumped it in and stirred it around. The chunks of meat and vegetables change up the texture, and the couscous does a nice job of soaking up the tasty fluids in the pan.

[Aces McGee]

I'm pretty sure that once you get involved in folding dough, you have moved beyond the "easy" threshold.

I think this recipe would fit better in a "Dinners that are easier to make than you think" thread.

-McGee

[rusellmj]

Tuna Helper. Boil the pasta and veggies in the cheesecloth bag, rinse w/ cold water, add mayo, (although I use chicken) tuna. Pwn. Slap the leftovers between two pieces of bread.

[poincaraux]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm pretty sure that once you get involved in folding dough, you have moved beyond the "easy" threshold.

I think this recipe would fit better in a "Dinners that are easier to make than you think" thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a fine line, but you might be right. To the OP: find someone who knows how to bake and have them show you how to make the dough. After that, this really is easy. If you're stuck eating cheap food all of the time, it's worth learning how to make something like this.

[ThaSaltCracka]

I could make dough if I really wanted to. I am not limited by talent or experience, rather I am limited by time and laziness. I have mad skills man.

[malokoman]

grilled cheese with bacon and a small slice of tomato