Questions tagged [budget-cooking]

40 questions
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13 answers

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? Goya brand beans have recipes on the side of…
Josh
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49
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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 stored in the fridge overnight. Food items added…
TFD
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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!' Randall Munroe really hit the nail on the head…
Ricket
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24
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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 necessary or could I just re-use the same piece of…
Mien
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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 kitchen when the apartment was being built, but I'm pretty sure I see a lot…
16
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4 answers

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. I also don't cook sweets very often and if I…
John
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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 from my local Asian store. I am perfectly happy…
Jeremy French
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Cheap sources of protein?

Soy meat, flax seeds and peas are probably the best known such sources. Are there other cheap sources of protein?
user2954
9
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8 answers

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 cheese doesn't fully melt. Doing searches online,…
Walter Mundt
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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 how do you cook insects? How can I know whether…
user2954
8
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8 answers

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 times feel like throwing money down the drain as…
Bilkokuya
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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 from 1 week to 4 weeks. Some of them taste…
user2954
6
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5 answers

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 about an hour before I grill and wanted to try that…
tooshel
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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?
lamwaiman1988
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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 won't spread away if I put it straightaway in the…
Aquarius_Girl
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