Ghetto Cuisine

One pack of Raman of your favor choice. Cook the noodles according to directions but right at the end crack a raw egg into it. Squirt of sriracha and pour into a bowl with the flavor pack in the bottom. Let sit 5 minutes for the noodles to soak up everything.

Fart Bean soup

In crockpot dump two cans of Rotel tomatos plus about 4-6 cans of whatever canned beans you like. Cook for 2 hours on low before dumping in some browned sausage and noodles (I prefer about 4 oz) to thicken to taste.  Don't drain any of the cans so that the flavors can mingle. 

PB & J, slap it in the air fryer for a few minutes, and wallah, gourmet sandwich.

1 lb. ground beef

1 can Irish potatoes - diced or sliced

1 can baked beans.

It's a meal.

Get one of these to cook the Ramen bricks , works great , then add seasonings ....

The Rapid Ramen Cooker is the world's fastest, easiest, and healthiest way to eat ramen noodles. Heat and eat right out of the cooker, cooks perfect ramen noodles in half the time. The Rapid Ramen Cooker is reusable and easy to use, rinses out easy and is dishwasher safe.

My cheap goto is a cup of rice, a can of tuna, and some hot sauce or soy sauce depending on what I feel like that day. Having a rice cooker also makes this a complete no brainer: cup of rice, cup of water, let it do its thing and then food appears.

This thread seemed to be heavy on the mac and cheese.  Count me part of the Kraft is crap camp.  It's so cheap to make it from "scratch" that it makes no sense.  All you are really buying with the Kraft is a box of preportioned very low grade macaroni, and a packet of cheez dust.  You can do better, 3lb bags of macaroni or other noodles are cheap, and so is cheese in the amount you will actually use.  Usually I will have it baked, but sometimes I fry it, which is also good.

californiamilleghia said:

 healthiest way to eat ramen noodles.

 

Have you ever looked at the nutrition label on Ramen?  78% of your daily sodium per brick means there is no healthy way... 

Vigo red beans and rice packet
Skip the oil suggestion on the package and Add andouille sausage at the start of cooking
Throw peeled shrimp in for the last 3 minutes

Delicious jambalaya substitute

In reply to ShawnG :

Occasionally I enjoy a nice can of Chef Boyardee, and keep a few cans in my locker for emergencies. During a blizzard a few years ago I was criticized for picking up a chunk of Parmesan cheese and a fresh bread from nice Italian grocery and "wasting" it on a can of Beefaroni.  Pretty much everyone else was sharing some company supplied peanut butter and off brand deli meats so I don't think I was doing too badly. 

Streetwiseguy said:

californiamilleghia said:

 healthiest way to eat ramen noodles.

 

Have you ever looked at the nutrition label on Ramen?  78% of your daily sodium per brick means there is no healthy way... 

I seem to be in the minority here in that I just throw away the flavor packet. That makes it considerably healthier. 

Ramen and queso make a decent budget mac n cheese if it's all you have in the house. 

Something has changed with Kraft since they went all "natural colors and flavors". It doesn't setup right, it doesn't taste right anymore either. Rural king, Trader Joe's, Aldi, their boxed mac n cheese are pretty good. 

We've always kind of alternated between home made and boxed though. Prefer baking home made for the crunch around the edges, always with a good bit of hot sauce. 

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

most of the salt is in the seasoning , otherwise its  spaghetti pasta

so put you own seasoning on it.......

In reply to RevRico :

I used to make two packets of noodles for one packet of flavor, and use the leftover flavoring on rice.

One of my wife's favorites is "Rocks and grass": Combine one can green beans, one can boiled potatoes, heat up on the stove or microwave until warm.

My own contribution is bean quesadillas. Take a can of black beans and mash with a potato masher. Spread on half a tortilla, cover with your choice of cheese (or whatever cheese you have around the house), and fry both sides in a little canola or peanut oil in a frying pan until the tortilla is crispy and the cheese melts.

Not a meal but a desert... Concocted in my younger days... Perhaps whilst under the influence....

Povcake. Take a couple of slices of crappy white bread, spread the first slice generously with Nutella, next slice you can spread with peanut butter if you please. Put it on the first slice, like a regular sandwich. Spread the lid with more Nutella. At this stage, you can go another layer or two if you're reaallllyy "hungry"(stoned) or sharing with some "lucky" individual, otherwise, smother the whole lot in canned whipped cream. To garnish, dust with drinking chocolate and/or chop up/grate whatever chocolate you happen to have(frozen Snickers or crushed up malteesers were a personal fave)

In reply to barefootskater :

When I lived in Wichita, a hot link sandwich with the spicy sauce from the local BBQ shack was always good for what ailed you.

James May currently has a Foodtribe series on 70's British food.

I have to say, I've made a couple of the sandwiches now and they're not bad.

Good bachelor chow when I'm not cooking for both myself and the wife unit.

914Driver said:

1 lb. ground beef

1 can Irish potatoes - diced or sliced

1 can baked beans.

It's a meal.

This sounds pretty tasty.

What's up with canned potatoes?

Mayhe showing age, but I used to live on them when they were on sale 99 cents for a five pound bag.  That 99 cents got stretched a lot..

Knurled. said:

What's up with canned potatoes?

 

Mayhe showing age, but I used to live on them when they were on sale 99 cents for a five pound bag.  That 99 cents got stretched a lot..

Unfortunately ghetto otherwise known as low income people don't have access to fresh food. Are you going to lug several bags of fresh food on the bus or buy the can stuff they have on the corner convenience store shelf? So not only do you not get fresh food but you also pay more for your food. 

In reply to Stampie :

I would have a friend drive me to the store.

Otherwise, yeah, shopping with a backpack sucks.

In reply to Knurled. :

Sorry but I work in communities that I never have problems finding a parking spot because no one has a car. 

Until you live in some urban areas it's hard to understand how difficult simple tasks like grocery shopping can be.  Thankfully NY has been encouraging fruit stand owners to set up in poorer neighborhoods and take food stamps but it's still not easy to shop in many places.  

In reply to Stampie :

No, I get it.  When I was operating unemployed and with no driver's license (the two were related), the nearby options for buying food were craptactular.  Packets of ramen that were 20/$1 at a grocery store were 89 cents each.  I did what I could shopping by bike and I leaned on friends to take me shopping on occasion.

OTOH, canned anything is really expensive.  It's good for storing 6 months of food in advance.

In reply to Knurled. :

Yeah I'm not trying to come down on you. Just easy for those like us to not realize how difficult life can be. I can tell you this, low income people are great about using what resources they do have. I love working in those communities because they truly are GRM people at heart. 

In reply to Knurled. :

Since you have a rice cooker I'll start back with what I ate in college.

One cup cooked white rice with a can of Campbell's chunky soup poured over it.  These days I prefer yellow rice and some of the spicer soups. One simple dish I love is a small packet of yellow rice cooked with a can of Rotel hot tomatoes. I think it needs an extra can of water to make up the difference. Once done I top with some kimchi. 

In reply to Stampie :

I'll do the Cambell's chunky soup over noodles.

A staple at home was egg noodles, tomato soup, and a can of tuna.  Serve with buttered bread on the side (well, margarine: butter was something you used for baking, margarine was for everything else).  So good, yet simple.