I need your help comrades!
I am moving on Saturday. And I need some ways to make meals. I don’t care which culture, the more diverse the better.
Here are some factors I kinda need:
- not too expensive to make (money and time)
- not a weird consistency like salad (sensory issues of autism) bread or steak has the perfect consistency
- I don’t taste that well, so the taste should be rather intense (like steak)
- vegetarian (because I think vegan will be too hard with my requirements) if it isn’t vegetarian I also take recepies but it would be better if it would be (so not stake after all)
Here are examples kind of like this:
- pizza
- pasta with tomato sauce
- garlic bread
pls pls reccomend 🥺
EDIT: Please also drop non vegitarian options, if you cant think of vegitarian stuff. My requirements are so many, it will be difficult to find something that will meet all requirements.
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Black bean burgers or at least the patties have a nice consistency and strong flavor, curries in general are cheap, fast, and can be vegan or not vegan and are also strongly flavored.
https://www.budgetbytes.com/ might tickle your fancy?
for me i’ve always had alot of congee lol which is like a rice soup/porridge, soak/wash rice and then throw it into the freezer into ice cube trays (the freezing of the water absorbed rice will shatter the rice grain) then boil that frozen waterlogged rice cube into your favourite broth. or you can use the instant pot porridge setting.
- i’ve found the easiest thing was canned chicken from costco, with some msg/chicken bouillon was the quickest broth that is my favourite. i prefer it thinned down (basically a thicker chicken soup), then you can throw toppings like veggies or bacon/eggs ontop
i guess you could follow the same process for lentils or even cut lentils into the rice soup for nutrition and stuff
Are you able to do an initial semi pricey investment to set yourself up for future meals? Cause there’s some recipes I have that cost like a dollar per meal but you gotta pay like $30-40 in groceries to have all the stuff. You’ll stretch that money to its max but there’s an initial investment. If you’re looking for cheap and easy but you can’t spend ahead that’s a different category. Also how good are you at food? Cause if say you have solid knife skills a lot of veggie stuff is quick and easy where if you don’t it isn’t as much. I’ve got a few but need to narrow things down a bit
I can make those initial investment without to much issues. But I have like no kitchen skills. Also no knife skills.
Okay, nothing wrong with that. I’m about to go to bed but can throw some recipes at you and just some general guidelines to work with like being efficient with your food and having a few meals that share ingredients. Pastas are an easy start, pizzas are easy af aside from dough but you can make a solid pizza out of grocery store naan or even pita bread. Any Flatbread thicker than a tortilla really. Burritos are also a huge one. If you have some jars and fridge space pickling is fun as hell and easy. Bowl of stuff with rice or potatoes depending on the stuff is also a good fridge cleaner.
My main overall advice is don’t be intimidated cooking wise. Unless you’re baking recipes are guidelines and even though it probably won’t be just right the first time, it’s pretty hard to make food you like with ingredients you like that you won’t find at least okay and by tasting you’ll have a general idea of what to fix the next time you make that dish and you repeat that over a bunch of meals and you’ll be fine. I’ll give some easy options that have shared ingredients and some ways to make em a bit nicer. Spices are your friend big time.
What cooking equipment do you have access to?
This week I made enough chili for four large meals, and it took under half an hour and was very cheap. Just canned beans, lentils, tomatoes, chilis + dehydrated vegetable protein + spices.
Soylent or Huel?
I don’t know these words, sorry.
These are meal replacement shakes, since you are in Germany the brand JimmyJoy would be the local(Dutch) equivalent.
They are quick and nutritious when you need something but a bit pricy per calorieanyd would likely fail your taste and consistency requirements
My suggestions would be:
- vegetarian chili
Can just use beans and no meat. Intensity of flavor is up to your taste I usually go with rather spicy but it can be mild too. Can take a bit of time but if you make one large pot it can last days and just needs to be reheated
- shakshuka
Relatively easy to make and is rather flavorful. Again here spice level is up to you
Both of these go well with bread, rice, or potatoes
I regularly eat rice, tofu, and a bunch of vegetables stir fried, relatively easy. You can also fry it to reheat it and add more stuff and seasoning, soy sauce, nuts, whatever. Pretty easy.
My go tos are Rice and Beans, Hummus and Veggies, Mujadara (lentil rice combo with onions), or some other combo of grain + vegetable + protein, whether that be a wrap, sandwich, or bowl form.
Dried goods keep well, are cheap, filling, and healthy. I use an Instant Pot to cook them quickly, and that saves money in the long run.
Examples of protein includes Tofu, Chickpeas, or even nuts.
I also add a sauce, usually a creamy sauce like Hummus or a vegan Chipotle Mayo, and keep pickled or fermented vegetables like Red Onions.
Adding these all together, you have near-infinite combos. Make your protein, sauce, and veggies on your first day, and your grains, then combine in different ways throughout the week. It’s a good, time and money efficient system.
Lots of beans and bean-like foods (chickpeas, lentils, peas, soy beans) can be made into a variety of shapes. If you have a pressure cooker you can even cook them relatively quickly in mass and freeze most of it for later. No idea how much that costs in your country, but it’s supposed to be cheap.
You can just make regular bean “soup”, or you can “fry” them in a pan (specially lentils). You can eat chickpeas like popcorn or you can mix them with flour and something sticky (overcooked rice if vegan, egg whites otherwise) and make burgers. Just remember to put something oily like olive oi or butter for taste.
You can also do some really low-nutrition despair foods by mixing wheat flour, salt, water and butter, and frying that in a pan. It’s not healthy, but it’s filling and easy to make, tastes like bread. But of course, if you add to this you can make other cool stuff like pancakes (less salt, lots of sugar, baking powder).
All of the fried stuff get a very homogeneous consistency so they might be fine for your sensory issues.
On the matter of taste, you just need a lot of seasoning.
I buy these trailmixes at the grocery store that are an assortment of nuts and dried fruit. They are a little over 5 USD a bag and contain about 1800 calories per bag.
Rice, lentils and tomato sauce does the job for me. It’s my go to lunch. Cheap, easy to make and very nutritious. Buy tomato sauce with spices already added or add the spices you like.
These are not the absolute simplest recipes, but they are nutritious, flavorful, inexpensive, take a shorter time to cook relative to other Indian recipes due to the prep ahead of time, and will serve you well. https://myheartbeets.com/category/method-cooking-style/onion-masala-recipes/
Potatoes are incredibly nutritious, cheap, and can be cooked in a million different ways! From extreme simple fried slices, to more fancy double scooped baked potatoes, there are plenty of ways to incorporate it into a diet!
Bananas are pretty cheap right? Idk but they’re delicious and can be made into bread, cookies, or chips if you have them too long.
