Pearl Sutton wrote: Meatloaf was made up to stretch meat. Meatloaf burgers work well too. I just made us, for brunch, french toast out of home baked bread, and not many eggs.
What are your favorite recipes or ideas for stretching food when times get tough?
Well, this thread is making me remember that my dad's family grew up poor as heck, so all my childhood faves were just 'stretched out' versions of what other people would call the standard. You've heard of 'Old Money', get ready for 'Old Poor'!
I grew up on 'meatloaf' burgers, but they were just called hamburgers. I found out other people DIDN'T add breadcrumbs, egg, and a bunch of spices to their burger patties in highschool, and was (and still am) disappointed at how dry and flavorless most '100% meat' burgers are in comparison.
Passing clothes to younger siblings, or taking them apart to mend into something new is just sensible. When the fabric's too worn out to be clothes, it can be cut up and used as a washing or drying rag.
Here's some tips;
1. Add Noodles or Rice to every dish. Even if you only have a tiny portion of meat and a little bit of veggies, if it's mixed into rice or noodles with a sauce it'll kick ass.
1a. Make more noodles/rice than you need, and store the extra for tomorrow, to use a different sauce/seasoning. It's a different dish entirely, now!
2. For cheap, easy veggies: Frozen peas, Dried Beans, and Canned Tomatoes are your friend. They last forever, so you can stock up when you have a bit of money (or make your own from the garden).
3. Learn how to LONG-FERMENT veggies. A lot of online recipes are for short fermentation, and require putting in the fridge & eating within 2 weeks. Properly long-fermented and unopened containers of saurkraut, kimchi, pickles, etc. will last about a year, they'll just get soft as they get older - great for turning into flavorful soups and sauces packed with nutrients.
4. If you have a tiny bit of yogurt left (or can afford buying a single-serving cup), and a gallon of milk that hasn't gone bad, you can make MORE yogurt by mixing the two together in a pot, covering that pot, and putting it in the oven overnight (No heat! Ambient house temp only) - As long as the yogurt wasn't pasteurized, you'll get SO MUCH plain yogurt!
5. Buying oil, flour, rice, and noodles in BULK is worth the cost savings and extra effort storing it when you get home. Noodles/flour/Rice store just fine in old pickle and spaghetti sauce jars, or just wrapped up in layers of saran wrap if that's all you got. If it's watertight it's good to go.
6. Sourdough starter is worth keeping around for small batches of bread. It's got no preservatives so it should be eaten in 1-2 days, but with the sourdough starter you can always make another loaf. (or pretzels, or biscuits, or pizza crust, or focaccia, or bao, etc.)
7. When you're feeling down about money, go out of your way to use different seasoning combos than normal & make your food LOOK GOOD. Like, plate it prettily, put a garnish on it, a little drizzle of garlic oil (boil garlic into oil, strain the chunks out to eat, ta daaa garlic oil), and present it with a flourish. Even if you're just having a variant of hamburger helper for the fourth time this week, it's a morale boost to feel like you're eating something new & special.
8. STOCKPILE sauce & dips RECIPES and SPICES. Many excellent sauce recipes are simple, and can be made with super-cheap ingredients. Yogurt-lemon juice-basil/dill is excellent
My childhood favorite was just called 'Noodle Stuff'. Served hearty helpings to a family of four, with leftovers for tomorrow.
- 2 boxes cheap Mac 'n Cheese (with cheese powder packets)
- 1 bag frozen peas
- 1 yellow onion (chopped roughly)
- 1 can concentrated cream of mushroom soup
- 1 soup-can full of water
- 1 tbs miced garlic (or 2 tsp garlic powder)
- Whatever meat you can spare. Dad used half a pound of ground beef or ground sausage as default, or a whole pound if he was feeling confident about money haha.
- Salt and black pepper to taste. (we liked it peppery)
Cook the Meat in a very big pot, on medium heat.
When the meat's about halfway done, add the onion in to cook in the meat juices.
Boil the Noodles.
Dump EVERYTHING into the big pot, except the salt and pepper.
Mix thoroughly while on medium heat, until the frozen peas turn BRIGHT GREEN (cooked through, but not overdone)
Take off the heat, and add salt & pepper to taste.
It's quite cheap to make an enormous amount of filling, tasty food.
You can also adjust the recipe to add mixed vegetables if you want, or use a different type of creamy soup. It's versatile.
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Protip for all you homesteaders:
In the USA, Feral Pigeons are NOT a protected species. You can bait-trap as many as you want and take them home. Many businesses will allow you to trap their birds for free, thinking them a nuisance pest. I don't recommend eating feral pigeons directly, because long-term malnutrition and poor living conditions is an easy way to spread disease.
HOWEVER:
You can build a roosting & nesting structure (dovecote) and keep the pigeons trapped in there for about 2-3 months. (they will need to be fed and watered during this time).
That 2 months will make MOST of them set this nesting structure as their HOME.
You now have a dovecote full of adult pigeons which you can allow to free-roam to forage, and they'll come back to the dovecote at night to roost. Each adult dove will pair up with a mate for life, and if you've been feeding them good food during their first 2 months, keep their water fresh, and occasionally give your flock a handful of cheap birdseed once they're set loose, they'll actually tell other pigeons what a sweet home they have, and invite more pigeons to come roost with them in your dovecote.
Pigeons are SUUUUPER easy to gut & pluck (way easier than a chicken!), they're not bothered by losing their nest of eggs, and if you let them hatch out the chicks, the young ones are ready to harvest for meat JUST before they're fledged out fully. You can grab 'em right from the nest once they look like an adult pigeon, but before they leave the nest. (The meat is sweet and tender at that stage. If you harvest adult, flying pigeons, the meat will be tougher and have a gamey flavor... just different, not inedible)
As long as you can save up enough seed to feed them through the winter, in the warm months they become a nearly-free source of meat & eggs because they'll fly around to forage from surrounding areas. Unlike chickens, you don't have to worry as much about ground predators or neighbor's dogs getting them while free-roaming. It's generally hawks/owls/eagles that get them, but they produce enough young each year that a lil population of pigeons in your dovecote should be able to easily replace any numbers lost to predation.
Their poo is also INCREDIBLE for gardening.
All 'City Pigeons' are decedents from Rock Pigeons. They were thoroughly domesticated for meat and eggs, and to carry messages... and then at some point in history, humans lost interest in cultivating them, and released them into the wild. In America, Rock Pigeons are considered 'Feral' animals - not 'Wild'. They're like feral dogs or feral cats who were born wild and never interacted with people.
Their domestication is still written in their genes - they can tame down to be wonderfully friendly animals.
