Questions tagged [budget-cooking]
Questions about cooking on a low budget: cheap ingredients, removing or replacing expensive ingredients, inexpensive cooking equipment.
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Should I rinse canned beans before using them?
Certainly, if I were making a salad with canned beans, I would thoroughly rinse them first. But if I'm making soup or chili with canned black beans or kidney beans, should I drain and rinse them first?...
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Never ending soup; is it actually safe?
In the poor student or youth worker days it was popular to have never ending soup; a large pot on the stove that was topped up with new and leftover ingredients when available.
Normally the pot was ...
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How do we escape the cycle of bad college eating?
Mouseover text: And yet I never stop thinking, 'sure, these ingredients cost more than a restaurant meal, but think how many meals I'll get out of them! Especially since each one will have leftovers!'
...
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Can you re-use parchment paper when baking batches of cookies?
I just finished making cookies. The dough was enough to make multiple batches. I only have one baking sheet. Every time a batch was ready, I used new parchment paper on the baking sheet. Is this ...
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A cheap piece of equipment/appliance that can help with reducing stock in a room that is not suited for cooking
I've just reduced a 4l of stock in my "kitchen" to 0.5l by boiling it over an hour.
I wrote "kitchen" with quotation marks, because that room might have been designated as a ...
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4
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Is there a way to make delicious donuts with a small amount of oil?
I like donuts but I don't make them at home because for a bowl of donuts I consume a lot of oil.
The oil gets a sweet taste to it afterwards and can't reuse it for cooking something else than cakes. ...
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10
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Are 'premium' spices worth the expense?
I have done some calculation. And I think that if I buy a jar of spice from the supermarket, it is about 25 times more expensive (it costs more and you get a fraction of the amount) that getting a bag ...
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Cheap sources of protein? [closed]
Soy meat, flax seeds and peas are probably the best known such sources. Are there other cheap sources of protein?
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8
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How can I make cheap, smooth homemade Alfredo sauce?
I've tried making Alfredo sauce several times based on a few online recipes.
It generally comes out pretty tasty, but also with one flaw: the sauce is grainy or gritty because the grated Parmesan ...
- 375
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5
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How to cook insects?
I love touring and I am trying to cut my dependency on my protein sources such as soy powder, beans and other supermarket stuff. Touring is a bit like camping but with longer distances and a bike. So ...
user2954
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8
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How can I be more frugal with salt when cooking (dried) pasta?
When cooking pasta (from dried), I currently need to add a significant amount of salt to the water to add flavour.
As the pasta itself is extremely cheap, and the water is completely free - it can at ...
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How can I know whether a potato is too old?
I have many kilograms of potatoes that are turning bad, I don't want to throw them away. The term "turning bad" means that the best-before days on the products vary between 1-4 weeks i.e. they are old ...
user2954
6
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5
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Cheaper alternative to parmesan cheese?
The parmesan cheese in pasta recipe is quite expensive.....do we have cheaper alternative??
Are there are cheddar cheese which can replace parmesan cheese?
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5
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What is a cheap but good cut of beef for grilling?
If I grill filet mignon it comes out tender and easy to cut and delicious of course but no matter what other cut of beef I grill it's like eating leather.
I've read about "salting" the meat for ...
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Do breads always have to be baked in some vessels in an oven? If yes, then what shaped vessels would those be?
Is it even necessary to use a vessel for baking breads (assuming I don't care about the shape of the bread)?
In this link for (example) French bread I saw that the dough is not in liquid form, so it ...
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What's an inexpensive substitute for Port wine?
Is there a good substitute for port? It's for a slow cooked pork loin recipe. I'm not concerned about the alcohol, but I would like to keep the cost down.
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Where can I bulk-buy cheap parmesan?
My friend planted three rows of basil in his garden to make pesto, and now we need to source roughly 25-50lbs of parmesan. With that kind of quantity, cheaper is better.
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How to use Bones in Soups?
I have now a pile of chicken bones and I have heard they can be useful in making some food. How should I preserve them and where can I use them? Should I cut them into pieces and throw them into a new ...
user2954
4
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3
answers
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small, medium or large eggs
When I buy eggs, I have trouble deciding which size is the best value.
Does any one have any tips?
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1
answer
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How can I remove bitterness from custard after adding pineapple to it?
I recently made custard with a huge amount of milk, custard powder and sugar. After boiling it for few minutes I added vanilla essence to it. After it was settled I added apple and pineapple. Then I ...
- 143
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3
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Beef Steaks : Cooking older-grade meat (C-Grade)
I'm an amateur cook and I can't afford to buy "good" steaks, so I made my own Sous Vide circulator to try and get the best out of cheap meat cuts. Thing is, where I'm from, even the less-glamorous ...
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Are cockroaches a usable source of protein?
Bear with me, this is an entirely serious if not necessarily particularly practical question :)
In The Damage Done, perhaps the best known notionally non-fiction Thai prison story (and, apparently, ...
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2
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Is there really a difference by throwing the vanilla pod in as well?
Recipes with milk and/or cream (panna cotta, ice cream, pastry cream, ...) often ask for the seeds of a vanilla pod (in Europe at least). A fair proportion of those also mention to throw the pod in ...
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Good Idea to Buy Discount Meat For Freezing?
My local stores for some odd reason sells chicken legs for about 1.5 EUR per kg, they are not old products according to the packages. I have made a lot of chicken soup lately but I am starting to get ...
user2954
3
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0
answers
1k
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How to make plain white rice less boring? [closed]
I'm a college student. I'm poor. Rice is cheap. Therefore, I eat a lot of plain white rice (medium grain).
I was wondering if there are any specifically tasty seasonings I could pick up that would ...
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3
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What ingredient, besides beans, creates a complete protein together with rice?
I want a cheap option for complete proteins, which includes rice. But I do not like beans.
Which other ingredients can I combine with rice in order to get a complete protein? I do eat meat, but I am ...
- 137
2
votes
2
answers
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Small portable grill for a studio flat?
I'm about to move into a rather small studio flat, with a pretty tiny kitchen.
I'm wondering if there's a small grill (about the size of a small gas stove, i.e, you could hold it between your hands ...
- 575
2
votes
1
answer
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How can I make milk cocoa powder so it does not stick to the top and bottom?
A package of milk cocoa powder contains "20% cocoa powder, sugar, emulsifier (soya lecithin), flavouring (vanillin)". I have tried to make cocoa milk drinks to cold milk but the cocoa stuck to the top ...
user2954
2
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2
answers
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Substitute of Celery in Harira
If Celery isn't available then what other vegetable or green vegetable can I use as a substitute for the making of Harira Soup?
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0
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Beginner chef in need of advice [closed]
I have little experience and little money. I would like to know beginner recipes that are well rounded. Sorry if this is in the wrong place, still pretty new.
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Disposable cookware
So I am moving into a new apartment tonight but the movers do not get here until tomorrow and I just realized that I forgot to bring any of my kitchen stuff down with me.
I have a set of nice ...
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3
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Which parts of a chicken are used to make chicken soup?
I boiled a chicken legs for over 2 hours in low temperature. The soup is yellow and with very soft chicken. It tastes very good after adding some salt. Which part of chicken is the most appropriate ...
user2954
1
vote
2
answers
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Way to Differentiate between Necessary vs Additional Ingredients in Recipes
I'm mostly cooking for myself and I'm inexperienced with cooking, so when I go onto any recipe website, I can't tell the difference between the ingredients & steps that are necessary to make a ...
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1
answer
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Why is Tilda basmati rice so popular? [closed]
I've never used Tilda rice before, but I'm considering trying it and I wonder if it's worth the cost. I usually use India Gate or whatever is on sale, which is almost half the price of Tilda for the ...
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4
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Looking to start cooking....but I'm a total noob. Where should I start? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What recipes should every high school graduate know how to cook?
So here's the deal: I've told myself on at least 10 different occasions that I was going to learn how to cook. ...
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2
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What are some cheap types of meat that are suitable for a stir fry? [closed]
I'd like to start purchasing more meat from organic farming for my stir-frys, but the price level for high-tier cuts like chicken breast is almost unpayable, so I'd like to look into alternatives.
I ...
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2
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What are some good homemade foods that are the easiest to prepare? [closed]
I live in a country where street-food is hazardous, 99% restaurants are unhygienic and the rest of 1% restaurants are either extremely expensive(as compared to my level of income) for everyday-meal or ...
user11357
0
votes
2
answers
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How to create a soup with frozen chicken?
I have chickens in the freezing box. How long can I keep my fatty chicken legs there until they become dangerous to eat? How should I defreeze the chicken? Can I just put it to the hot water or should ...
user2954
0
votes
1
answer
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What methods can be used to cook Skipjack tuna other than frying it in oil?
First of all I must say that I'm not a fish person but a red meat person. However I'm currently on a diet and as such I've been looking for different ways to properly cook Tuna with low fat.
I know ...
