Make friends with leftovers and how you can remake them into something new with just a few new ingredients. Leftover take-out can make a decent casserole. Leftover oatmeal can turn into a good bread. Slice leftover spaghetti to fill a sandwich or pan-fry it. - ThreadSky

amazonchique.bsky.social • 29 days ago

Make friends with leftovers and how you can remake them into something new with just a few new ingredients. Leftover take-out can make a decent casserole. Leftover oatmeal can turn into a good bread. Slice leftover spaghetti to fill a sandwich or pan-fry it.

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amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

This leads into the most useful tip for stretching a food budget: Don't waste the little bits. Trimmings and skins off onions, celery, carrots, herbs, etc can go in a baggie in the freezer and made into veggie stock when you have a day off. Same with all your bones and leftover bits of hard cheese.

amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

If an ingredient is about to go off, you can get a few more days out of cooking it (or with veggies, pickling it) and use the cooked version in another dish.

amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

Bread heels, leftover rice, and chopped onion all freeze well enough to chop up later and stretch ground beef in meatloaf, burgers, sauces, tacos, etc. If you're worried about losing some of that meaty flavor, add diced mushrooms (which also freeze well), which tend to be cheaper by volume than meat

amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

As for specific tip, your cheapest options for protein tend to be tofu, mushrooms, and canned fish.

Tofu is easy & cheap. The secret to cooking it is to NOT think of it as a meat-substitute. Soft/silken tofu is more like eggs; scrambles up nice in a pan with salt, a oil, and some herbs/spices...

amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

While firm tofu you need to drain and then marinate (in almost any sauce you want) to give it flavor. Then you can pan fry if for sandwiches, stir fry it, or toss it with a little oil and roast it under the broiler. The crispier it gets, the better! I love throwing it in a waffle iron.

amazonchique.bsky.social•29 days ago

Mushrooms are great.
I thought I hated them when it turns out crimini/portabello mushrooms just taste like ass. Shitakes, oysters, wood ears, enoki; they're all different textures & flavors. Super easy to pan-fry down into flavor-chunks with a little oil and salt and maybe a splash of alcohol...

tinyfrightening.bsky.social•29 days ago

Costco has tofu CHEAP

kineta.bsky.social•29 days ago

Firm/extra/super hack is to grate it with a box grater and the crisp it up in a pan. After it crisps, add your sauce/seasonings. It can be a taco, a rice bowl, “meaty” pasta sauce. It’s so versatile and easy. First got that idea from Bon appetit's soy scallion tofu bowl.

mistresscaution.bsky.social•28 days ago

Don't just drain your tofu! Press it! With paper towels between two cutting boards. Toss it with cornstarch to make it crispy.

But definitely press it!

chrysscott.bsky.social•29 days ago

Firm and extra firm tofu can be frozen for months. It changes the texture, but in a good way.

stegosarahs.bsky.social•29 days ago

Waffle iron tofu 🤯 a genius move

gullvei-heid.bsky.social•29 days ago

📌

carolkroeger.bsky.social•29 days ago

And legumes!

theredking.bsky.social•29 days ago

Also, if you can afford it and have a large freezer, you can do what me and my partner did -- go in with friends to buy most of a cow from a farm that does their own butchering.

We usually only have to buy beef that one time a year and it saves us a ton.

alchemic-punk.bsky.social•29 days ago

Frozen meat holds up to 8 months, not a full year, but yes.

komickrazi.bsky.social•29 days ago

Cheapest proteins are usually legumes and pulses like beans and lentils. You can buy dried in bulk for super cheap. Soak then cook on stovetop or rice cooker. You can toss beans/lentils in anything from soups to salads

spunkypuca.bsky.social•29 days ago

And if you really do want to still do meat doing more pork, especially loin (not tenderloin, just plain loin) is way more affordable and has been mostly missed by people. Learning to braise leg thigh quarters, and make skin into cracklin also really stretches the budget.

andrewagill.bsky.social•29 days ago

This is great advice!

I hope you don't mind me dropping a recipe here but Half-Veggie burgers are (a) cheaper & (b) tastier than pure ground beef

https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2015/08/14/half-veggie-burgers

(it says to use bell peppers, but use mushrooms if it's economical)

lachevron.bsky.social•28 days ago

Nice thread. For survival a bunch of cases of pasta and an extra freezer to fill with meat, cheese and coffee. I make cheese sauce and freeze it to use up milk so it doesn't go to waste. Doing this you have to have the right bags and know how to put the cheese in the bags without making a huge mess.

gamerstavernshow.com•29 days ago

I also recommend doing this with some meats for convenience. I often buy boneless skinless chicken breast in bulk, then diced and saute it. Freeze a serving size in a freezer bag and I can just toss it in a dish straight from the freezer to let it reheat.

papafazuul.bsky.social•29 days ago

Hard cheese in stock? Like Parm and Romano?

kerrylh.bsky.social•29 days ago

IKEA has a free downloadable cookbook about using trimmings and odds and ends.

https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/files/pdf/58/9f/589f2b5d/the-scrapsbook.pdf

spunkypuca.bsky.social•29 days ago

My husband is vegetarian so we only do this with veg, but we get a full stock pot of free vegetable broth around once a week. This is a great tip.

joeauerbach.bsky.social•29 days ago

This is a big one.

Night one: make lots of chicken and rice. Side of frozen green beans.

Night 2: cut up some of that leftover chicken, add to rice with frozen spinach and a curry sauce.

Night 3: The rest of the thicken and rice can go into a pot with broth and veg for soup.

etc.

kayladares.bsky.social•29 days ago

I turn a LOT of bits of leftovers into soup. Add some additional spices to round out, it's great.

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