The Easiest Cheapest Way to Get A Bunch of Meals From One Source

I want to discuss with this blog the very best, cheapest way to feed a two-person household for about six to eight meals.  Of course, the first thing I must disclose is that M and I don't mind eating the same thing for five or six meals in a row.  Most of the time this is because what we make is so tasty that we enjoy getting to have it continually, but if this is not your cup of tea then I totally understand and just know that this will still feed you for as many meals, just more spread out.  The best thing about these meals, besides the price (which I was and you will be probably pretty impressed with) is that they keep for a while in the fridge and are absolutely freezable at almost every step in the process, so it's a great way to plan ahead for busier weeks.  The way to do this is a way most people have known for a very long time but I wanted to explain how M and I did it because, first of all, I think it will be useful for me to have a place to go back to to reference and second of all, duh, bragging rights.
The secret to all of this, in case you had not guessed it yet, is a soup.  Soup is a great way to make a bunch of food fast and in bulk, and it's also great to eat meal after meal because with each hour it has to steep in itself the flavors become richer and more delicious.  Soup in a crock pot, which is the way I recommend making it, is even better because after you finish chopping and pouring, all you have to do is set it and walk away.  Earlier this week I woke up and chopped up a few carrots, sticks of celery, chunks of chicken and two onions and I was set for the rest of the week's worth of meals.  It was spectacular.
To do this right you start with a whole chicken.  I used this blog as a reference for cooking it, and I highly recommend it for other recipes as well.
Wait until whole chickens go on sale, which they are wont to do for often less than a dollar a pound.  I got about a five pound chicken for under $4, which is the cheapest you'll get pretty much any edible meat.  So that's the first cost: the chicken.

Chicken: $3.80


Scoop out the insides of the chicken (gross, mine didn't come with them already in a nice little bag so that was less than fun) and rinse it inside and out.  Then season it both outside and inside the cavity.  I used garlic salt, pepper, oregano, basil and a little bit of paprika.  Then set the crock pot on low for 7-8 hours or on high for 2 and low for 4-5.  Don't add water or anything, just let the crock pot do its wonders.  This will make your first meal: juicy, falling off the bones chicken.  We had ours with vegetables and biscuits.


16 oz. Frozen Vegetables: $1
24 Homemade Biscuits: about $2

So there you have it your first meal costs at MOST less than $7 for two, or $3.50 a person.  I say at most because there is no way you are going to eat all of the chicken; in fact you will probably eat about or less than half between the two of you and in fact I'm counting on that fact.  Save all of the meat and put it in the fridge to use later.  Also be sure to SAVE ALL THE BONES and skin and other parts of the chicken you have no interest in eating (other than the giblets, which you can either throw away or use in other recipes).  After dinner is done put the chicken carcass, bones and excess pieces back in the crock pot.  You will not have gotten rid of the juices that are in the bottom and you'll leave them there.  Add enough water to cover all the chicken pieces--about 5 to 6 cups.  Set the crock pot on low and leave on overnight.  If you wish you can add seasonings like thyme and oregano in the crock pot as well.  You will wake up not only to your kitchen smelling like chicken, but an entire crock pot full of homemade chicken stock.
Because it's hard to tip a crock pot over and pour its contents into anything, first use a slotted spoon or small strainer with a handle to scoop out the biggest pieces of bone.  Then use a large ladle to scoop the rest of the broth into containers (we used big yogurt containers) with a strainer balanced on top.  There will be lots of little chunks of chicken and seasonings and you don't want to keep any of them.  Figure out the best way to strain the stock with the supplies you have.  Then put your stock in the fridge for a day.  Feel free to eat some of the leftover chicken and biscuits on this day, but don't eat too much of it; you'll want it later for soup.  (Remember we have still only spent seven bucks so far and it's day two.)
The next morning skim the fat that has gathered on top of the stock and either throw it away or save it to make more biscuits later.  Then pour back into the crock pot.  You will not need to use all of the stock you have for the soup--you should put 1/2 or 3/4 part water for ever 1 part stock.  Put the rest of the stock in the freezer, unless you have immediate plans for it.  Chop up 3-4 carrots, 1-2 onions and 3-4 stalks of celery and the rest of your chicken and put it all together in the crock pot with the stock.  Mix in whatever seasonings you'd like: I used basil, salt, pepper and thyme.  Set on low and leave it for eight hours.

Carrots: $0.65
Onions: $0.75
Celery: $0.45


If you want to make this a chicken noodle soup, add the noodles in an hour before the soup has finished cooking, or half an hour and set the crock pot to high.  We made homemade linguine to put in our soup, but I recommend if you do this cut it to about 1-2 inch lengths to make serving easier.  Re-season at this point as well because the flavors of the original seasoning will have melded into the others and grown more subtle.

Noodles: about $1.50


And, just for the heck of it, let's say you make more biscuits to eat with the soup.  Assume you're not sick of them yet (we aren't).

24 Homemade Biscuits: about $2


Enjoy your soup!  At this point we have spent about $12 on two to three meals, or 3 dollars per person, per meal.  But that's not the only the last meal this will make.  M and I have enjoyed three meals so far of the soup and we have enough for one to two more still in the fridge, PLUS the 3+ cups of stock in the freezer.

Total Cost: about $12
Total Meals: about 6
Cost per person per meal: $1


And THIS is how we can afford to live on $30 a week grocery money!

Stecca Bread

As a wedding gift from M's boss we got a fantastic book about an easy no-knead method of baking bread written by a baker with a popular bakery and sandwich shop in New York. The book is really great: clear, understandable and offering a unique hurry up and wait method of bread baking that produces an amazing product. Though most of the breads featured in My Bread (by Jim Lahey) are not ideal for sandwiches they taste just great on their own or with a bit of butter and honey. We have been eating the bread from the recipes with soups, chicken pies, lasagnas and other dishes for lunch and dinner and just on its own for breakfast for weeks now. It's gotten to the point where I'm baking it every or every other day. Fortunately it's so easy that it doesn't crowd my mornings or make me feel like I'm doing way too much; instead, I feel like I'm doing almost nothing at all. I pretty much have the recipes memorized at this point.

The one issue with the book is that most of the breads offered need special equipment beyond the standard kitchen's supply. The most used item in the book is a dutch oven, which we were given with the book (SO generous) but other recipes also call for a pizza stone, a pizza peel, and a Römertopf French Bread Baker, none of which we have. The lovely thing about this recipe is that it requires none of the above: all you need is a rimmed baking sheet. Stecca has basically emerged as our favorite bread of the bunch; it needs a little more work than some of the others, but it is light and flavorful enough that we eat it on its own and often go through the entire batch in a single day. I think we maybe had leftovers once. Maybe.

The thing to remember with this bread (as with all the breads from this book, which I highly recommend) is that though there is little actual labor there is a LOT of waiting time. I generally stir up the dough for the first rise at about 6 or 7 pm so that it can rise all night and be ready to go when I wake up in the morning. This recipe is slightly adapted from the original with what I have learned works best for me from making it a couple of times a week for the last month. I took a lot of pictures when I made it this morning so that it would be easier for everyone else to try.

Adapted Stecca Recipe (makes 4 "sticks", or loaves):

• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 3/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups water
• olive oil
• coarse salt

Mix together the flour, table salt, sugar and yeast in a medium sized bowl. Add the water and mix well. Cover with a towel (I always use a cloth napkin, because it will come in handy later) and set aside for twelve to eighteen hours. DO NOT try to make it rise any faster, it is vital for the bread to work that it rises a minimum of twelve hours. This is why I like to mix it up at 6pm, because by the time I wake up the next morning at 7.30 it's ready to go. Before rising it should look like this:

The next day the bread should look like this, having about doubled in size:

Using a floured spatula, scrape the dough out onto a HEAVILY FLOURED surface. If it is your first time making it, I suggest not using the table top but flouring a cutting board instead. Sometimes this dough will come out incredibly viscous and difficult to work with and you have to have enough flour to be absorbed AND keep the dough from sticking. If you have enough it should form fairly easily into a ball-like shape, looking slightly flattened. This is what mine looked like this morning, but other times it has been far flatter than this so don't worry about it:

If you have put down enough flour not only will you have a workable dough that you can pick up without fear of it oozing through your fingers, you will also have a ton leftover. Never fear! Sweep this excess flour off of the work surface and sprinkle it onto a towel or cloth napkin that is NOT fuzzy. I find cloth napkins work best for this; in fact I now have one specially set aside for baking bread with. A tea towel or dish towel will work as long as it does not have fuzzy fibers everywhere; they will stick in the bread and it will turn out gross. Anyway, using your extra flour flour the tea towel like you did your work surface. You should not need quite as much flour as you did before, but if the excess is not enough don't be scared to add more. Pick up the dough and flip it onto the dusted towel so that the creased part of the dough (from when you formed it into a ball) is on the bottom and the uncreased part (which was previously the bottom) is on the top. If it is still sticky sprinkle a bit more flour on top and then fold the napkin or towel over it for a second rise. Set a timer for an hour and a half.

After ninety minutes have gone by, make sure there is a rack in the middle of your oven and set it to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Pull out a rimmed baking sheet (the book recommends 13 by 18 but a bit smaller or bigger works too) and oil it with vegetable or olive oil. Set your timer for an additional thirty minutes. At the end of that half hour your dough should be finished rising again and it will look something like this:

Isn't that pretty? Now take a large, sharp knife and flour it. Use the knife to cut the dough into four equal and separate pieces.

Now take each piece individually and stretch it so that it reaches from one end of your oiled baking sheet to another. Stretch all four on the same sheet, with at least about an inch between them. I like to pat them down a bit with my fingers to even them out, but they are not going to look uniform so give that up before you start.

Brush the loaves with olive oil and sprinkle with the coarse salt. We don't have a pastry brush so I just fill a teaspoon and dribble it over the dough, then spread it with the back of the spoon. It takes about 1/2 to 3/4 of a teaspoon per loaf for me. Don't be scared of the salt, either, if you end up accidentally putting too much on you can brush it off before eating and it will still taste great.

Put the tray in the center of the oven and set your timer for fifteen minutes. If the loaves look golden and crusty after baking that long take them out; if they don't leave them in for a bit longer. When they are done baking turn off the oven and leave the tray on the stove for five minutes before transferring the loaves to a cooling rack. Let cool at least half an hour before eating; they are still baking after they have come out of the oven! Enjoy as a snack, with some soup or for a delicious savory breakfast. As I've said M and I have not yet found a need to even put butter on this bread. It's absolutely amazing.

Brown Sugar Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

So salted caramel can't really be called the "it" thing anymore I suppose since Starbucks has it (and with that I am officially a hipster) but it is still mighty delicious. I adapted this recipe from two recipies in Betty Crocker's FANTASTIC Big Book of Cupcakes which was given to me by a lovely friend at my bridal shower. It is absolutely worth it if you love cupcakes, not just for the recipes but also for the tips and the fact that every cupcake recipe has a corresponding frosting recipe that gives you pretty darn close to the exact amount you'll need for perfect frosting. It's been super helpful not to have too little or way too much frosting around (though having too much can be fun, I suppose). The salted caramel frosting on these cupcakes is FANTASTIC, though it doesn't turn out quite like frosting I'm used to: I ended up having more to mold it to the cupcakes than spread it. But it tasted amazing. M even asked me after a bite where I had gotten the caramel from. And it was also far easier than I had ever anticipated. To be honest I only tried this recipe because M promised to wash the dishes afterwards, but it was not complicated and only took a bit more time than your average cupcake. Absolutely worth it!

Adapted Brown Sugar Cupcake Recipe (makes 12; if doubling only add 1 egg):

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease or line the muffin pan. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a microwave safe bowl. Cut the butter into the bowl and add both the brown and granulated sugar; mix a bit before putting into the microwave until the butter is half melted, about 30 to 45 seconds. Mix until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla and milk and stir. Scoop into muffin tins. I used a little less than a quarter cup per cupcake, filling each at least 3/4 full. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15-22 minutes. Mine were done after about 17. Pull out and place on racks to cool.

Salted Caramel Frosting:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• kosher or coarse salt

In a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. When it is melted whisk in the brown sugar. Keep whisking continually until the mixture begins to boil, then add the milk and stir it in well. Continue stirring until it returns to a boil, then remove from heat and let cool for about thirty minutes. This is actually pretty great because it allows both your frosting and your cupcakes to cool at about the same time. The mixture should look something like this:

When the thirty minutes are up add the powdered sugar gradually, mixing thoroughly. I'd recommend against using the whisk to mix in the sugar because it gets all caught inside and is very annoying.

Frost the cupcakes like you normally would and sprinkle a small pinch of the kosher salt on top. Use your judgement on this; I was nervous about it but M thought I got it just perfect and I think they came out quite well.

Anyway I highly recommend these cupcakes; the flavors work very well together and the frosting really does taste like you plopped a giant golden caramel right on top. I love the salty/sweet thing, but if you want to skip the salt step go right ahead, the cupcakes will still be delicious.