Mine isn’t really a “Meal”, I used to put margarine spread on white bread and sprinkle a tiny bit of cinnamon and sugar on it as a sweet treat growing up.

  • will
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    1710 days ago

    Fried chick peas (I use cans since they’re more convenient, but even cheaper dried beans are fine too but you have to soak for 24h and then boil them first). But either way, seriously cheap, loaded with protein and fiber, and delicious:

    Rinse beans and dump into a large dry pan on high heat. Move them around until they have mostly dried up and just barely start sticking to the pan. Then add oil - just once or twice around the pan is plenty - and some salt. Then let them fry in that little bit of oil. Move them with a spoon every so often to keep from sticking too much.

    After about 15 min you have these golden brown crunchy and slightly salty little things. They’re great, and go with everything as a side dish.

    • snooggums
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      10 days ago

      It’s like eating with a time limit!

      Do you lay the hot dog diagonally?

  • @hansolo@lemm.ee
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    1210 days ago

    Rice and black eyed peas, cooked with some millet leaves for color. Fry slices of onion in about 1 T of oil and pour it over the top. Then sprinkle a mix of fine crushed red pepper, bullion, and salt over it.

    Most of West Africa has this in one form or another on the regular.

  • @RBWells@lemmy.world
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    1110 days ago

    Beans and rice are so healthy and cheap, with so many variations. It’s always beans and rice for me.

    • @KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca
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      310 days ago

      A can of chili over some cooked rice, add a little salt and extra hot sauce. This was my broke young adult fancy meal.

    • @JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Was considering saying the same. What are some of your favorite ways? I like refried if I have them, with cheese and cayenne.

      • @RBWells@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Just had refried beans (just cumin & salt) today in breakfast burritos (eggs, potatoes, beans, onion, cilantro, cheese, salsa - we only eat once or twice a day on weekends and cook better stuff) and yeah pintos are one of my favorites.

        Channa masala

        Black beans on yellow rice is my kids’ favorite, they love black beans.

        Red beans (cooked from dry with whatever veg we have) and long grain white rice with hot sauce like Tabasco.

        I really like pintos on brown rice with tahini sauce but nobody else in my household likes it.

        Chopped raw sweet onion on all of them.

        • @JigglySackles@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          Those sounds tasty. I’ll have to try the brown rice with pintos and tahini, i love hummus with heavy tahini. Thanks for sharing!

  • @Norin@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    If you live near or attend a large university, the real struggle meal is just food from free events on campus.

    When I was a grad student I’d show up to every event on campus where I knew there’d be food and fill up a Tupperware or two. Didn’t matter if it was connected to my department or not.

  • @rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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    810 days ago

    Rice and beans. Mine are usually white rice and black beans. Beans cooked with a little onion, green pepper and garlic. Salt and pepper. Hot sauce.

    I eat it regularly, to the point I have a tiny slow cooker that I pretty much just use to cook beans.

  • @Delphia@lemmy.world
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    710 days ago

    I once made “Povery rolls”

    I took every last scrap of leftover food, all the half bags of frozen veggies and so on from the freezer. Defrosted it all, put it in a stock pot and cooked it till it was a thick stew moved it to a giant bowl and went buck wild with the electric mixer then threw in about 4kg of self raising flour and water. The dough tasted ok, but then I did the same thing with the spice rack… stock cubes, french soup mix… the works. They tasted odd. But I rested the dough, divided them up and baked them anyways.

    Fuuuuuuuck they were amazing. They tasted like a family sunday roast dinner flavored heavy doughy roll. It made about 50 of them. I scoured the house for change and found enough to go grab a decent sized packet of powdered gravy mix.

    I was genuinely sad when I used the last ones.

  • @lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works
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    69 days ago

    Lentils. They’re a superfood. Cook them with correct technique (hardly any technique needed, honestly) and season them properly

  • @tomjuggler@lemmy.world
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    510 days ago

    Spaghetti with tomato and avocado. Add some olive oil, sunflower seeds and a bit of cheese if you are feeling rich. *Avocado is really cheap where I live, you can literally get them for free

  • Brave Little Hitachi Wand
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    510 days ago

    Used to be rice with a fried egg. In my family we call it Ghibli rice. Nowadays I just bake my own wholemeal bread and that’s the cheapest eats there is. So cheap you can afford the nice butter!

  • Milksteaks [he/him]
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    410 days ago

    Cook 2 bags of ramen and strain it. Add a can of tomato soup and some cheddar. I like to call them regrettios.

    2nd up is ghetto pizzas. Make some toast put on tomato sauce and cheese also pepperoni if you can afford it

  • Libra00
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    410 days ago

    My mom used to make my sisters and I cinnamon toast for breakfast when we were kids, pretty much like you describe only on toast.