What did you eat when you moved out if you didn't know how to cook? (page 7)

00DAD

Rub a Dub,

I'll have to give bamboo a try.

00WIFE, my Hungarian Love Goddess, is a brunette. Had a blonde once, a few in fact. It didn't work out so well.

00DAD

Nambo

I came out the Navy in 78 and since then I have lived alone so I have honed bachelor cooking down to a fine art, for instance after a hard days mechanicing, I cooked the following:-

Open packet of German Bratwurst sausages and place on grill, turn on and leave, turn over if you remember, if not dont worry as by the time you smell the burning, they would have cooked through to the otherside anyway.

Open jar of Sauerkraut and put some on the plate next to were your sausages will go, sauerkraut is made from vegatables which apparently you need, its easy to prepare, ie you dont even have to cook it, you can keep it for years, no buying fresh down the shop and finding its gone rotten before you can be bothered to do something with it.

Enjoy,

total time spent 10 minutes, 2 minutes of which envolves you actually having to do anything.

Jim_TX

I'm not reading through all of the pages of replies, so if I am covering the initial question, and the topic has morphed into something else, I won't know it. (Until later...)

When I was 21, I decided to move out. My mom (and siblings) didn't think that I could survive (sounds similar to your mom), but I did.

It's not easy, but what I did was to get things like tins of sardines and crackers (I cannot stand sardines to this day, as a result of eating loads of them back then). Other things I bought had to survive without refrigeration, since I did not have a fridge. So, I got bread, peanut butter, honey - and would make myself peanut butter and honey sandwiches. mmmmmm

Popcorn - but not the microwave kind (back then microwaves were relatively new, and I didn't have one). I bought a hot air popper, and would use stick butter and salt. I think I had to wait until I got my fridge before I could properly store the butter.

I had to teach myself how to crack eggs - so I could fix my own scrambled eggs. It sounds funny, but I had never been taught how to do it. It's not difficult, but awkward if you're not used to doing it.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the kindnesses of a family that sort-uv adopted me and insisted that I come over for meals at their home. I guess I looked worse that I thought... only 120 pounds... but I didn't think I was doing that bad. I ate when I was hungry. Not much, but it kept me going.

I invented my own meals, later when I had more money and could afford to buy extras.

Potatoes. Eggs. Summer sausage (needs no refrigeration). Cheese. All of these things mixed together in a frying pan for a bit. Then swished out onto a plate for supper.

Tuna salad, made with pineapple, apples, cheese, and all sorts of other good bits. (Made from stuff that I had in the cupboard.)

Years later... I got divorced from the wife - solo again, I had to re-learn how to fix my own meals.

As others have suggested, get yourself some small appliances that can help you prepare small healthy meals. One person recommended I get one of those sandwich makers (this was after I got divorced years later), and I got one. Pretty neat how you can make yourself a good hot sandwich.

One thing that I also discovered was frozen fish (talapia). Individually wrapped. I would open two of those up, toss them into the fry pan with a small amount of oil, and then start the bag of rice in the microwave. Fish and rice. Yummy and filling.

I think that mothers feel that their kids cannot survive without them... but they can. You can. Good Luck.

Regards,

Jim TX

Aware!

Thank you all for your time and overwhelming responses. I did not expect this. All of you gave me great ideas to try out and on how to be frugal when I finally move out. No doubt this will help someone in the future as well. Thanks again.

rebel8

Stay away from eating a lot of prepared foods. It will get you in a bad habit. Too much bad stuff, too little of the good stuff, too expensive.

Back in the day, I got myself one of these babies. Mine has very basic recipes, but the best of all--it tells you how to select products (how do you know which vegetable to buy, is it ripe, etc.) and all basic cooking methods for that particular item. Priceless. That book taught me how to cook. And I see they are on sale for $4.44 so you have nothing to lose...except $4.44 (which is much better than 144,000, let me tell you ).

00DAD

Aware!

You're most welcome. When you're ready, ask me and I'll share some of my favorite recipes.

BTW, the one problem with becoming a really good cook is that you'll find it harder to enjoy restaurant food. My wife and I can cook almost anything better than at any restaurant we go to. When we do find a selection we really like at a restaurant we go home and figure out how to make it. With very few exceptions we can always make it better at home than at the restaurant. You can learn to cook this good too in time.

It does take time to be a good cook, but it's fun and you eat three times a day anyways, right?

Mostly we stay home and cook for each other. The upside is we can drink as much as we want with dinner and don't worry about DUIs!!!

Mangia,

00DAD

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

Aware! Just get a few of these Bachelor Chow Buckets. Everything else is too complicated...

Iamallcool

Aware, you can try to apply for a part time job at a much healthier restaurant and you might get some good free meals by the way.

Jadeen

Check out freecycle.org to see if you can find pots, pans, utensils, and dishes for free.

Scully

Anyone can learn to make soup from scratch. It's pretty cheap to make, filling and there is a sense of pride in being able to make it yourself.

Any time you cook chicken save the bones/carcass to make broth. You can keep your broth in the freezer and take it out as you need to use it. It is the basic ingredient of a lot of soup recipes. What you'll need to do is take the chicken carcass (all the meat taken off the bones) and put it in a big pot (4-6 quart size). Peel a carrot or two, a stick of celery or two, an onion or two, some garlic cloves and add them to the pot. Add water to the pot to cover all the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer gently for 30-45 minutes. Then you're going to strain the liquid into another container and discard all the bones and cooked veggies. That's your broth.

You can do this with chicken bones, beef, pork, shells from shrimp and so on.

If you want to make a roasted vegetable broth, take a bunch of veggies (I try to clear out my veggie drawer in the fridge regularly, so I use up the older stuff this way) carrots, onion, celery, garlic, mushrooms, zucchini and so on - whatever you like - and toss them with a little bit of olive oil in a roasting pan. Turn the oven on to 275-325 F and roast the vegetables for about an hour. Then take them out of the oven and add them to a pot of water, bring to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Strain out the veggies, and what you have left is vegetable broth.

To make a simple soup, start with a few strips of bacon, chopped up in a big soup pot. Start cooking the bacon, then add chopped onion, celery, carrot (chefs call this combination "mirepoix"). Let the vegetables cook gently, then add some chopped garlic and a bay leaf. Open a can (28 ounces) of diced tomatoes and add to the pot. Open a can of red kidney beans, drain off the juice and rinse them before adding to the pot. Add some more chopped veggies (leftovers will do). Add your chicken broth. Bring to a boil and turn the heat down to simmer. Let it cook until the vegetables are starting to get tender. Add some chopped potato or elbow macaroni and let it cook for 10-15 minutes until the potato/pasta is al dente. Add some chopped parsley or cilantro, whatever you like. You can add some leftover chicken if you want or leftover sausage or anything else you like. This will make a big pot of soup for you to enjoy for several days, so you could leave the meat out when you first cook it, and then add some meat just before you have a bowl of it. The time it takes to chop the vegetables is an investment, because you'll have quick and easy meal for several days.

If you have a slow cooker, you could do up a recipe of soup on the weekend (leaving out pasta if you plan to use it because it will go mushy) put the crockery in the fridge over night and then start it in the morning before you leave for school and it will be almost done (10 minutes for the pasta) when you get home.

Same goes for chili. Brown your ground beef, chop onions, celery, garlic, rinsed beans, diced tomatoes and seasonings, etc. Add them all to the crockpot and pop in the fridge overnight. Start the slow cooker on low in the morning and you'll have an amazing batch of chili for several days.

If you want to roast a chicken in the slow cooker, you can do that too. Just have all your ingredients ready in the crockpot in the fridge and set it up first thing in the morning on low and your dinner will be ready when you get home. Spend a little time de-boning the chicken after cooking so you can make some fresh chicken broth, and use the leftover chicken for your soup or for chicken sandwiches. $10 for a whole chicken may sound like a lot of money, but you can stretch it over several meals and it becomes very economical.

For lunches and stuff: hard cook some eggs for egg salad sandwiches, have tuna on hand for tuna sandwiches. Grilled cheese sandwiches go great with soup. Make sure you have fresh fruit (apples, oranges, bananas) for portable snacks. If you aren't allergic, pop some almonds into a small baggie to have a bit of a protein boost through the day. If sandwiches get boring, you can always switch from bread to tortillas to make a wrap.

Anything you can make from scratch will be healthier for you and less expensive than pre-made convenience foods.

What did you eat when you moved out if you didn't know how to cook?

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