Share your secret "Cheap to make but actually pretty nice" recipes or meal tips.
Share your secret "Cheap to make but actually pretty nice" recipes or meal tips.
I've started cooking some red lentils in some beef stock, adding them and some breakcrumbs to mince meat to pad the meat out a bit (and hide some extra veg in the meat). With meatballs you cant even tell the difference. What are some of your hacks/tips/tricks?
Chicken and rice is one of my favorite meals.
Bone in, skin on, chicken thighs. Cook in the crockpot all day (with occasional stirring, every few hours) until the chicken falls off the bone. Add salt to taste as wanted. My bf likes to use half water and half Swanson chicken bone broth inside the crockpot.
Next, debone the chicken and set it aside. Use the broth to boil the rice.
Finally, add the chicken back in. Enjoy.
Side note: it cooks faster with babysitting it and stirring every few hours, but it’s totally fine to set it up in the morning and leave for work. Just make sure to stir it when you get home.
Would it work ok in just a regular slow cooker?
Yup! That would work just fine 👍
wow this is now top of my list to try to make
Enjoy!!
Oh yeah, my time to shine:
Jaffle iron, wholemeal bread, hot sauce, and the fancy Heinz beans when they're 1/2 price on sale.
Red lentils, cumin, paprika, pepper, soy sauce. Boil for 15 minutes and you have curry.
Frozen veg of choice, packet Singapore noodles, massel laksa stock cube. Way better than instant noodles for about the price, microwave together for 3 minutes, easy.
Loaded fries. Coles fries in the airfrier, TVP microwaved with soy sauce paprika and pepper, sauce of choice, 1kg Coles hummus.
Sweat down leafy green of choice, in the same pan fry garlic, ginger (jarred) anf chilli flakes in canola oil. Add Coles microwave rice.
Let me know if you like these, I'll dump more after work
fancy Heinz beans
As in baked beans? How do you do them in the jaffle without making lava! Any time I've tried a baked bean toastie its ended with sauce covering every inch of the house, and a filling so hot in china syndromes through the core of the earth. Also whats TVP in the loaded fries? But yeah they all sound like winners I'd love to hear more!
Thank you!
hot lava tostie
Jaffle iron is required to seal it in, and you only need a tablespoon and a half of beans. Many people go overboard, this ain't toastface over here.
TVP
Textured Vegetable Protein is defatted soymeal (the byproduct of soy oil production) and can be used as a mince substitute. Cheap and easy to hydrate.
I reckon if you reduce the amount of liquid (sauce) you add in with the beans, it will retain its structure much better. Get the beans out on a spoon, let the sauce run off them a bit back into the can, add beans to the bread, repeat.
This is not really a hack or trick, it's just something people skip over a lot these days:
Always reuse scraps for broth/stock/soup. Everytime you cut up your vegetables, put all the ends and unused bits in a freezer bag. They will add a lot of flavour and nutrients when slow cooked with the leftover bones (from roast or fried chicken, for example). Then just strain the liquid and use it for whatever you want.
Time/temp/liquid ratio?
if you have a slow cooker - enough water to cover, and then half more, turn on low, leave for 6 hours or until it smells good.
I don't really have a set method. Just add some water, come back a few hours later and see how it's going. If it needs more and adding more won't weaken the broth too much, I'll add more. It's a long and slow process at a low heat, so there is room for error and plenty of opportunity to find a solution.
Baked loaded sweet potatoes.
Basically cook a sweet potato, then open it up and stuff it full of things you like (beans, corn, sour cream is a good one).
Lately, I look up the woolies and Coles catalogue and see what veggies are on special. Then I ask chatGPT for meal ideas featuring those veggies.
This week was rattatouie risotto because courgettes were cheap, and last week was kumara and black bean chilly.
Microwave potatoes with skin on until completely soft (flip once). Break them up to your liking with your knife or fork.
Broken open or cut in larger pieces - Crack a small tin of drained tuna over the top (I like tuna in oil - add mayo if desired), or top with baked beans. Or add cheese and zap again to melt.
Smashed with a fork or cut into smaller pieces - Stir through oil/marge, salt and pepper, and paprika (smoked, sweet or hot) to season the potatoes.
Otherwise fry the pieces until crispy, push them to the side of the pan and fry a couple of eggs to go with them.
Mash a large pot of potatoes your usual way. Salt, pepper, milk, butter etc. Drain and flake a large can of tuna in oil, mix it through the potatoes. Scrape it into a large casserole dish and top with grated cheese.
Bake at 180 or 200 Celsius until the cheese is melted and/or golden. Steam frozen vegetables while that’s in the oven. Serve with tomato sauce for kids or if desired.