What frugal meal was your mom's go-to when times were tough?

Tomato bread

Beef consomme.

Top Ramen noodles. For dinner, scrambled eggs and toast, very occasionally.

pancakes

A terrible tuna dish she made on the Monday nights that she claimed to teach classes. I assume her job was really at a prison kitchen, because that's the only place she could learn a recipe that vile.

Beans and wieners. Basically baked beans with hot dogs cut up and mixed in. We actually loved them. I also recall a few nights where corn on the cob was considered a main dish.

meatloaf, what else?

"Spanish" Rice -- where a pound of ground beef could be stretched to feed 4 teenage boys and 2 adults. We loved it and never realized she made it so often cuz it was so cheap. We thought it was because it was our favorite.

Another blessing to count. Times were never tough enough to affect meals.

[quote]I always when I see it fancied up on Italian restaurant menus.

Laugh? Smile? Cringe? Wince?

What was the verb you left out, OP?

Pasta e fagioli.

We had it at least twice a week.

I hate it to this day.

A pack of Pall Malls, government cheese, expired bread and Milwaukee's Best. Mom just had a Darvon.

^ laugh! I enjoyed the dish enough, but I can't imagine anybody paying THAT price for something so basic.

A gnat instead of our usual fly.

Kleenex soup.

Dairy Queen hamburger and fries.

Beet borscht (her mother was Ukranian and we had tons of jars of it canned in the pantry)

Spam parmigiana

I wish I was kidding.

My mother never cooked a meal that I'm aware of. She always left it to the help, and G*d help ME if my parents weren't going to be home.

We ate so much Beef Top Ramen growing up, that it's no wonder I'm a fussy bottom who only craves beefy bare tops.

R5 - my mom made an awful creamed tuna dish that she served in puff pastry shells. It usually appeared on Monday night. It was my grandmother's recipe and was probably from the Depression. My mom loved it. My high school BF came to dinner once to meet my parents. I thought my parents were clueless and had no idea I was dating him. He loved the tuna dish and would come to dinner whenever he knew it was being served. 20 years after high school, he was killed in a car accident. My mom was talking to me after the funeral, and told me they knew from the start he was my BF. She made the dish for him because it was her favorite dish that her mother used to make.

Beefy tops with nice noodles, huh R20?

[You do realize that this is a troll, right? It does not believe what it posts. It just craves attention. You might want to stop talking to it.]

peanut butter and honey on wheat bread

Stale bread salad. Today I see it called Panzella. We didn't know it had a name. The bread used was hard as cement. It would be softened by running it under water very quickly with the excess water squeezed out. A very simple oil and vinegar dressing was used, and tomatoes from the garden.

Pasta, the cheap kind.

Free government cheese that tasted like mold, dirty laundry and Velveeta. YUUUUCKKKK!

Innards.

Tuna boats - a scoop of tuna salad (canned tuna with mayo) on a piece of toast with a slice of American cheese melted in the oven.

I think it might be the really poor man's version of r21's dish. Sweet story, BTW.

I liked beef ramen noodles...but only without butter. Butter made it too gloppy. Of course, butter was also more expensive.

Eggs!

The idea of eating this now makes me gag.

r29, that might be a small improvement over pig liver and pig's feet. Or dandelion greens.

How could I have forgotten those?

What is it, r29? An ice cube sandwich?

Me too, R17, but it wasn't because times were tough, it was because we were Ukrainian. My mom used to like to make what we called macaroni and wiener sauce. It was hot dogs cut up in sweet & sour sauce served over elbow macaroni. We used to love it.

Once I was so broke I made Kool-Aid ice cubes for Thanksgiving dinner.

So, you were pretty much on your own by age 11, too? By age 10 I used to make a pot of coffee for breakfast, and eat toast with it. That was during the week, before school. For lunch, I would make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I ate those for years. We couldn't afford cold cuts. I hated the free government cheese when that came out. If there was fruit, it would only be apples, maybe a banana. Maybe. Never anything else.

[quote]Today I see it called Panzella.

I think you mean panzanella.

Thomas Jefferson brought the first pasta machine to America after his stay in Paris and travels to Italy. When he was President, people at state dinners were impressed by the macaroni and cheese that was served as part of the meal.

ONe time my sister was so broke I borrowed $10 and when I couldn't repay it for a week, she broke down and cried because she had no money for food that week.

French toast A dozen eggs, butter and artificial maple syrup. Heaven! For 8 people.. Probably cost 2$

r37, that breaks my heart. I hope things are better for both of you. Forever!

Boiling water, salt, a hot pepper, parsley, a small onion, and a spoon of lard. All poured over a piece of cornbread. We were fucking poor.

R21, what a sweet story. R37, on top of R21's story, you made me cry.

Cabbage & noodles. I still eat it. Cheap AND filling.

Tuna noodle casserole was also a staple, as well as fried potatoes. We ate a lot of chicken leg quarters because they were / are relatively inexpensive,versatile and can be used 100's of ways.

I grew up on a farm and food was never a problem. I remember an evening when my mother was in the hospital and I don't know where my brother and sister were. My dad must have been tired and he said we were going to have graveyard stew for supper.

It's milk and butter with oyster crackers. Simple milk soup.It was a wonderful supper because my dad made it just for me.

I'm with OP, except that "spaghetti aglio e olio" was just "spaghetti". We couldn't afford the "aglio e olio" part.

Spaghetti mixed with Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce. It could have been worse, but I couldn't always eat a plateful and I'd be made to sit at the table eating it, cold, till the plate was finished.

It is, r31. It really sucked if we were out of bread.

Another staple for my single mother was tinned chopped tomatoes on toast. With some salt and pepper and plenty of margarine, I grew to actually love this.

We were never rich but thankfully never poor enough to not have food. (My parents once didn't let us have a phone to save money.)

She made excellent homemade mac & cheese and for a white woman of no ethnicity, she did a good job making her own spaghetti sauce.

I'd do anything to be able to eat one of her meals.

Like her, my favorite is tuna melts. Done under the broiler. She also made eggs and hash for my dad who loved it.

We also had a tuna casserole topped with a potato chip layer. I'm told but don't remember being served Campbell's soup for breakfast, and being served Beef-a-Roni that had been stretched with milk for lunch.

R42 Ugh. Tuna Noodle Casserole, we had that every fucking Friday during Lent. I still get the willies thinking about it.

[quote]With some salt and pepper and plenty of margarine

I would imagine you were too poor to have the margarine served from a fountain.

One time we were stuck at some summer cottage, big storm, no way to get to a store for days, no bread. My grandmother made scones on top of the stove in a cast iron pan and they were great.

I tried to replicate them several times as a starving student but no such luck.

I think I have you all beat. My mom used to make chipped beef and serve it on toast. Common name: "Shit on a Shingle"

She loved making stuff you could put on toast for some reason. Another dish I remember was Chicken a la King. It was a lot like SOS but with chicken. The slices of white bread were toasted in muffin cups so they came out looking like little crowns (a la King).

Times were never tough.

Another vote for Tuna Casserole. But unlike many here, we loved it - my mom was an awesome cook. I make it to this day but put lots of extra veggies in there. Top layer is panko breadcrumbs and some finely grated cheddar cheese.

We were poor, but we never wanted for food because my parents had a year round garden with every type of veggie imaginable. We had a salad with dinner almost every night.

We also had a flock of chickens for eggs and a goat for milk. We raised two pigs at a time and would butcher them and fill the freezer for the better part of a year.

I didn't realize how broke we were until I was an adult. I probably had one piece of fresh fruit per month growing up. We never ate dinner. My big meal was at school.

The weird thing is that I've never been sick. I've had sniffles a few times but I'm really healthy.

Oh look everyone, Gwyneth Paltrow at R54 decided to join in on the conversation.

This is an interesting thread. I hope someone remembers to bump it when Mother's Day rolls around again, because a lot of these posts are definitely worthy tributes to Mom.

I love your story, R21. Thanks for sharing it.

[quote]We ate a lot of chicken leg quarters because they were / are relatively inexpensive,versatile and can be used 100's of ways.

We weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination but my mom cooked as if we were because there were five kids and two grandkids in the house and she would save every penny she could for a rainy day.

She'd buy only the thigh part of the chicken in the trays that hold like eight of them. She'd line them up in a baking dish and pour a stripe of bbq sauce down the middle and bake them.

Her go-to meal was crumbled ground beef cooked with onion and put in a watery flour gravy. She made tortillas constantly and we ate those instead of bread. She made them with Crisco, in fact Crisco was a component of nearly every part of a meal. I eat very little when I eat at her house now because I won't eat Crisco.

Soybeans mixed with ground beef.

Banana sandwiches.

Government 'commodities' (cheese, powered eggs, bulgar, powered milk).

More often than not, we had no food; meals were very sporadic. I remember watching television as a child, when commercials for Rice-a-Roni, Kraft macaroni & cheese, Fruit Loops, etc. came on, I would memorize what I wanted to eat when we had money for groceries.

(The b/w TV was given to us.)

In grade school, I would hide in our classroom's coat closet during recess so I could eat the other kids' lunches.

Gwyneth's BF here: times were never tough but we used to have a vegetable served with the rest that my mother had learnt to love as a child during the Depression when times WERE tough and people grew it on their back fences to bulk out their meals: chayote. It's absolutely disgusting. Used to be served up in a white pepper sauce. Anyone else forced to endure it?

Crown roast Twice baked potatoes Baby vegetables Caviar Baked Alaska Handmade ice cream

and we paid for it all ourselves, no handouts for my hardworking family.

R62, that had to be tough. Wishing you no more food shortages, ever again.

Beluga caviar and lobster.

I loved Shit on a Shingle!

My mom and grandma both made some weird sandwiches, I always assumed it was stuff my grandma had eaten in the Depression and occasionally still had a taste for. Mayonnaise sandwiches; grape jelly and american cheese sandwiches; and peanut butter and dill pickle chip sandwiches are the ones I remember.

Hot dogs cut up and cooked with baked beans and served with Italian bread.

Was there anything that was always in the pantry, even at the worst of times?

I mean protein. We always had cheese, peanut butter, canned tuna and salmon.

Cream of Wheat for dinner. It felt very Oliver Twist.

pancakes

hot dogs that my mother cut up and put in heated up ketchup

We weren't poor, but definitely lower-middle class. Never went hungry, but definitely some low-cost dishes. My mother varied them; we would have mac and cheese, baked beans with hot dogs, and yes, the ever-popular (!) creamed dried beef, either on toast or - I preferred - on boiled potatoes.

She made a white sauce (I don't have a clue how to make one! Realize it's probably not that hard, but I get nervous around flour and liquid (I've never made gravy either, but my mother did, and brother does, make excellent homemade gravy.) Me: for gravy: cans or evil envelopes; when feel like dried beef: Stouffers, baby!

Bread soup, very nice BTW. Its a leftover soup with old bread.

It was called hotdish: ground beef, corn, tomato paste and sauce.

[quote]Was there anything that was always in the pantry, even at the worst of times?

Pinto beans. My mom would cook up a batch in the crock pot and the leftovers were left in the pot and put in the fridge, so they were reheated until they were all eaten and then she'd make another batch.

Eggs and potatoes.

Tuna casserole.

Macaroni and cheese and stewed tomatoes from a can.

I too never knew we were poor. My parents sacrificed a great deal to buy a house in a good school district, and I used to whine, "Why can't I have a horse? All my friends have horses!" Of course, they were doctors' kids, and learned things like dressage and hunter seat.

OTOH, I can talk pretty intelligently about horses.

This thread is depressing.

R[20]tI've nominated you for wit & wisdom!

I remember during the oil crisis of 1973 my mom would make lentils, which I actually really liked but my siblings hated. I also remember sometimes on Friday nights my mom would make grilled cheese sandwiches but she'd call them "cheese dreams" to create a bit of interest. That still makes me smile.

That's adorable R79. And makes me want a "cheese dream".

[quote]Beet borscht (her mother was Ukranian and we had tons of jars of it canned in the pantry)

You are so lucky!

I freaking LOVE borscht! Especially with a dollop of sour cream and some rye toast!

spaghetti aglio e olio are fab! so tasty, and you can cook a ton of it with less than a dollar: god bless italians!

Pork chops, corn bread, and can corn.

Red beans and rice

Mom would make pancakes or French toast for dinner, but she always made it seem like some special treat and my brother and I loved it

She'd also make this horrid meal of canned salmon, mashed potatoes, a vile gravy made from whatever the salmon was canned with and tasteless canned peas. I'm pretty sure she made that because my grandma liked it. After grandma died I don't think we had it again.

My mom used to make mashed potatoes with some kind of hamburger gravy. Like a sausage gravy but with hamburger. It was all right.

tuna noodle casserole. ugh! or she would make "breakfast for dinner," which my sister and I loved

Mom called it Eatmore, a Depression recipe. Noodles, tomato sauce, a wee bit of ground beef in a frying pan.

Later she got lavish and put bread crumbs on top.

Stale bread w/ milk and sugar.

Our father hoarded money, making us think we were poorer than we were.

We later learned he was splurging on the floozies he was screwing.

Tuna Noodle Casserole. I still love it for "comfort food".

One can of cream of chicken soup, one can of peas, one can of tuna, all simmered in a big skillet, and then add a ton of egg noodles and simmer a little longer. Serve.

VERY inexpensive at the time. Made several meals worth of food.

R78 - skip the brackets. You link to a previous message by typing the "R" attached to the number. No space. No brackets.

thank you R79

Grandmom made polenta frequently. Topped with spaghetti gravy(OK, sauce, for you whiners) Sometimes mushrooms or hot sausage added. Linguini with butter and black pepper(which I still enjoy) Mom used to make "chow mein." It was at least 50% celery, some onions, and about the only Chinese food in a can back then, "Oriental" vegetables. Served with soy sauce and LOTS of rice. She made her own crispy noodles to sprinkle on top: fresh, handmade spaghetti, cut into 2" lengths and deep-fried. SOS on Sunday mornings, both the chipped beef and ground beef versions.

Two cans of Chef Boyardee ravioli with four American cheese slices on top, cooked 4 minutes in the microwave. That would be two nights' dinner.

Well R17 and R81 my whole (still embarrassing to me to this day) story is that the reason we ate a lot of borscht for dinner from canned jars in the pantry (that my grandma had made before she died) is my mom was a severe alcoholic and really hit the bottle(s!) after my dad left. It was a dinner that I at 10 years old could make for our family which was my mother, myself and my 8 year old brother -- I would have him make the toast.

She was a single mother and couldn't work and we had some money from my dad but she wasn't in much shape to shop too much. I tried to think ahead to be prepared when she did shop and my brother and I always had cereal, peanut butter in the house as well as boxed mac and cheese which I could make.

My mom wouldn't eat much at that point -- was too thin -- and I would empty our piggy bank or take pop bottles to the store to make sure there was sour cream to add to the borscht to help fatten her up. We would see my dad every second weekend and I guess he must have heard from either my brother or myself a little too often that we ate a lot of soup for dinner, because soon after that the court sent us to live with him. My mom tried her best to sober up and was better when she remarried -- a nondrinker but never really got clean.

Still I feel grateful to have known that both of my parents loved me and my mom was sick and couldn't help it. Yet, like I said I'm still embarrassed by that part of my childhood and did miss not being able to really have friends over like the other kids. The worst was having to monitor my mom with her cigarettes as she would pass out on the kitchen floor etc. -- I remember the large burn mark from one day that let me know I had to watch this. This was the days before good smoke detectors.

When my dad's union went on en extended strike, we had a lot of ring bologna. I think that was why my dad hated bologna and the union.

We had potted meat sandwiches from time to time. I liked them because my mom would mix one 3 oz can with mayo and chopped pickle for one sandwich. Once I visited a friend's house and she made potted meat sandwiches for her siblings and me. I watched in stunned silence as she made four sandwiches from that one 3 oz can, no mayo, no pickle. Times were tough, but I was spoiled in some respects.

Meat loaf and chicken cacciatore, chicken in gravy and just chicken.

chipped beef: mom would get the slices of salty beef in the jar and wash them and dry them and shred them. then she'd make a creamy sauce of milk, flour, and butter, salt and pepper, and add the beef. served on toast. my mouth waters typing this.

s.o.s.: same as above, but with ground beef, and served on biscuits. chopped hardboiled egg on top, like my dad liked it. i make this twice a year or so, and it really takes me back.

ground beef, tomato sauce, large macaroni noodles and chunks of velveeta. bake until browned and bubbling.

ground beef bread loaf: halve longways a french loaf. pick out the insides, leaving the crust as a shell. fry ground beef and onion and add dried italian herbs and garlic. add the bread chunks. stir together, add salt and pepper to taste. stuff this back in the bread shell, wrap in tin foil and bake 30 minutes. serve with marinara, sliced. so good.

oh, I'm a real fat fuck now.

I guess no one had a lesbian mom who made nutloaf.

"Gravy Train" (yes, named after the dog food) it was ground beef with some kind of gravy, puddled on a lump of mashed potatoes.

"American Chop Suey" it's been mentioned earlier in the thread. It was macaroni (usually elbow), stewed tomatoes, ground beef and cheese.

The obligatory cut up franks and beans were a staple.

I don't know that times were particularly hard. My mother was just a terrible cook.

Wow, my Dad had a good job as an engineer, but a lot of the meals described here were common things that my Mom made for dinner.

We ate a lot of cube steak. That stuff was dangerous, it would get stuck half way down my throat.

My parents were frugal. A few years before my Dad passed he showed my Mom, brother and I his investment summary - $3 million dollars. None of us had any idea, including my Mom.

Cold beetroot soup in summer

300 gr beetroots 3 hard boiled eggs 5 radishes 2 spring onions 1 cucumber lemon juice 350 ml Kefir (or natural yoghurt) 50 ml sour cream 4 slices ham of the bone dill, chives, salt, pepper

Grate the beetroots and cook them in 5 deciliters of water, add salt, pepper, 1 bay leave and one clove, sugar and a dash of vinegar for flavor. Cook until the beets are soft. Peel and cut the beets into cubes and put aside. Chop the radishes into julienne, chives, dill, spring onions and cucumber into bite sized cubes or slices. When the beetroots are cold, combine with the vegetables, herbs, lemon juice, sour cream and kefir. Salt and pepper the soup. Put it in the fridge for at least 6 hours, better over night. Serve the cold soup with quartered boiled eggs and slices of ham. Garnish with dill and chives.

A roasted chicken.

Cheap hotdogs and white rice. Hamburger or chipped beef gravy on potatoes. Split peas and cornbread. We drank powdered milk for years.

I lurv cube steak.

Alba truffles.

"Poor do"....because we were poor and making do! Macaroni mixed with a jar of stewed tomatoes from our garden. Also,hot dogs cooked in tomato sauce which we loved. We usually had these on Thursday when supplies ran low in the house the day before my dad's payday. Still fall back on poor do or some variation thereof from time to time.

[quote}The bread used was hard as cement. It would be softened by running it under water very quickly with the excess water squeezed out.

Did you buy it that way? My mother would buy "biscotti", not the cookie kind but bread that had been baked and then dried out completely. It's made to be rehydrated.

My mother was an Italian immigrant with little education and my father died when I was very young. But it seemed we ate pretty well.

Our "poor" meal was beans and biscotti, or just very stale Italian bread. My mother would cook Navy or cannellini beans in water. When they were done, she would break the dried bread into a our bowl with some crushed garlic and parsley, ladle the beans and the cooking liquid (seasoned with salt) over that and drizzle with olive oil. I really liked it.

I still make it from time to time. My Texas-born and bred partner loves it.

Truffles used to be poor men's food. Ancient Romans used them to add flavor to their dishes. During the middle ages truffles were mostly eaten by peasants.

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese with sliced hot dogs.

My brothers & I loved it.

My family is mostly Italian, so I suppose spaghetti & tomato sauce - but although it's inexpensive, I never really considered it "We're broke" food.

My mom would avoid splurging on meats though, so it was usually the cheapest cuts of everything - paper thin top round "steaks", chicken thighs, thin pork chops, etc...

Then we would always have whatever vegetables were ready in the garden - corn on the cob, roasted bell peppers, beans, etc... as a side.

With enough olive oil, fresh garlic & parsley, salt and pepper, you can make just about anything taste good. Some grated Romano takes it over the top.

I never understood why college students lean so much on ramen, when a simple pasta with olive oil & fresh garlic is so much better and just as cheap.

My mom used to make fried bologna and white rice mixed with ketchup and onions. My brothers and I loved it. To this day I love me a fried bologna sandwich !

Salmon coquettes. Mom would mix canned salmon with who-knows=what and make patties. They stunk up the whole house. I hated them.

Mom used to make a cheap dessert for us called Tutti-Frutti pudding. It had some sort of cake mix cooked with canned fruit cocktail. We ate that stuff for years.

That sounds a lot like the way I grew up, r112.

We also had a garden. Lots of tomatoes. In the fall, we would bottle the passato. I hated helping but we had tomato sauce all winter made from our own tomatoes.

We used to have top round steak fried on a skillet probably once every two weeks. In the summer, mom would chop basil and garlic, and then pound it into the meat before frying. Damn, that was good.

I buy chicken thighs now because they are my favorite cut. Breasts are too bland and legs have those ligaments that I don't care for.

I made casarecce with pesto sauce for dinner tonight. We got home around 6 and didn't feel like sending my partner to the store. I grow my own basil, so I guess we had a "poor" meal tonight, but real Parmesan, pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil adds up I guess.

We sure weren't rich, but we had plenty of food. Usually just a big meal on Sunday that Mom would work on all day...like a pot roast or baked chicken. During the week, it was usually quick stuff like hamburgers or spaghetti. Sometimes pork chops or steaks, which I never liked very much. She also did a lot of stuff in crockpots while she was at work.

I don't eat meat these days, but I would for one more chance to have her pot roast or spaghetti or sausage and biscuits.

My mother was never one to waste money on food. But I'm not bitter.

I do remember being at the neighbor's house. They had 12 kids and the older ones were cooking dinner. One piece of bread per kid with brown gravy on it.

R21, your story made me cry. What thoughtful parents you have.

Sometimes, she would substitute IRANIAN caviar.

I was appalled when this was revealed at our family Christmas ski trip in Switzerland.

That sounds like "hard tack" r109. Was a staple in the 1800's shipboard. But the beans over it and cheese - that sounds wonderful!

We were never "rich" but like r55 I grew up on a farm. So we always had plenty of fresh vegetables and fresh meat (usually chicken unless we had a cow slaughtered).

We NEVER had tuna and salmon patties were a "treat". Friday night was "leftover night" or "eat what you can find" night. We thought that was great because we could eat spaghetti O's (so decadent!).

Scrambled eggs with cooked cauliflower mixed in as an extender. Topped with a little butter and black pepper. I loved it as a kid - now it gives me gas LOL.

Our Shit on a Shingle was creamed turkey with peas on wheat toast...served every night for weeks after Thanksgiving :)

Tuna casserole, spaghetti with my mom's meat sauce, LaChoy Chicken Chow Mein over rice or noodles.

I loved the first two, so I never minded. Whenever I came home from college, I always requested both, and it made my mother so happy.

I still make tuna casserole when times are tight; it costs like a dollar per serving.

Miss ya, Mom. You did the best you could, and that was often good enough.

Chipped beef on toast was one of the many low cost meals we ate when I was a child. Didn't even know it was called shit on a shingle. Macaroni and cheese and scallop potatoes a couple of fall back dishes we would eat if Mom's allotment check didn't come in on time. Dad was often overseas as he received extra pay for being away, same with flight pay.

If anyone ever called anything I was supposed to eat "shit on a shingle" I know I would go hungry and starve rather than eat it. I just would. That's nasty.

The "shit on a shingle" came to us from military mess halls. While everyone knew the full name, it was generally called, "SOS" and everyone knew what it stood for when they were standing in the chow line.

Caponata and toast

Don't remember a frugal meal except maybe minute steak...

Once I drank milk out of a carton that a fruit loop in it. I suspect either my mother or father poured used milk from a cereal bowl back into the carton...

My mother grew up very poor. She ate at school. At home the cupboards were bare, and it was milk and dry crackers if anything. Her mother did not cook. Once a week was "smorgasbord"- cold cuts and stale rolls. And very occasionally "taco bar" - ground beef in hard taco shells. (My grandmother's circumstances have improved considerably, but still the only things in her house are Ritz crackers and rice pudding). My mother didn't set foot in a restaurant with tablecloths until she was in college.

Forty years later and she's cooked with some of the most celebrated chefs and food writers in the world, consults on bestselling cookbooks for her friends, and supplies some of the finest restaurants in Northern California with specialty produce. And her primary career of three decades was not even tangentially related to food. (And it was a demanding one, so we always ate very simply at home and were taught to cook for ourselves and each other at an early age.)

Amazed by her every day.

[quote]flag: [ww] [ff] [troll-dar] [R5] - my mom made an awful creamed tuna dish that she served in puff pastry shells. It usually appeared on Monday night. It was my grandmother's recipe and was probably from the Depression. My mom loved it. My high school BF came to dinner once to meet my parents. I thought my parents were clueless and had no idea I was dating him. He loved the tuna dish and would come to dinner whenever he knew it was being served. 20 years after high school, he was killed in a car accident. My mom was talking to me after the funeral, and told me they knew from the start he was my BF. She made the dish for him because it was her favorite dish that her mother used to make.

[see offsite link on www.puffpastry.com] by: Anonymoustreply 21t07/06/2014 @ 05:16PM

That is such a poignant and bittersweet story. Thanks for sharing R21.

Both parents were alcoholics with no interest in me so not much in the way of real meals. Things I could make for myself from a young age; toast, cereal, if I could find money lying around then maybe a burger. I didn't realise at the time that all the neighbors knew how things were and quite often I'd be invited in for a snack or lunch. One woman made extra portions of stuff and would bring them over and put them in the freezer while my mom was sleeping it off on the couch. I hated anyone knowing how things were and never invited any friends home, but as an adult I am so grateful to those people for unobtrusively making sure I didn't starve.

Are ANY of these stories true? WTF?

Of course they are, R131, a lot of people have had very neglected and difficult childhoods. It's not hard to believe any of this.

Sloppy Joe's!

my mother's "go to" dish was Kraft macaroni and cheese. To this very day the thought of eating mac and cheese makes me want to hurl.

Yeah, let's talk about our friends and classmates who had it even worse.

My friend Mario went on and on about his pet rabbit, how it cuddled with him, all about the bond.

Then one day his mother killed it and cooked it. And he had to eat it.

[quote]I never understood why college students lean so much on ramen, when a simple pasta with olive oil & fresh garlic is so much better and just as cheap.

Most college students don't have kitchens. Ramen is instant convenience.

Your friend Mario was watching Carol Burnett reruns.

Oh, it's true R131.

R62 reminded me that food stamps and SNAP are vastly better than government commodities of the past, and how important it is for all of us who've been there to fight for food security in this richest of countries.

First grade r137. Before the Carol Burnett show existed.

R133 Sloppy Joe's WHAT, dear?

Slumgullion

Friday nights, when my dad worked late, my mom would make casseroles. Some were fun--creamed chicken on chow mein noodles with peas and celery, but she made some concoction with macaroni, cheddar cheese, ground beef, stewed tomatoes, and corn (a kind of Mexican goulash she found in a recipe book) that I christened, much to her chagrin, "Barf Casserole."

I also loathed "Swiss Steak"--would practically throw a tantrum when she made it. I must have been a trial to her!

On the other hand, she made the best fried chicken I've had (doesn't everyone's mother?) and wonderful Cornish pasties.

Times were often tough but my folks also had family with farms and ranches, so we always had entire steers and hogs in the freezer(s) even when Mom was hiding the fact that Dad didn't contribute enough for the table.

So would have stretch-it meals like tuna casserole (always on Friday, with her being Catholic, with lots of small elbow macaroni, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of tuna, and potato chips crushed on the top), and then have steak and beef tenderloin and pork chops and roasts from the freezer for the next five days running. And then we'd have Chef Boy-Ar-Dee pizza. Or "Inside-Out Ravioli," which was just elbow macaroni, tomato sauce and spinach with some ground beef.

It never occurred to us that things were being stretched, except when bargain cereal or re-used coffee grounds or powdered milk appeared (Powdered milk used to be cheap - not any more!) After all, as kids we assumed that Sloppy Joes and hot dogs and fish sticks and Bisquick pancakes and Campbell's soups were dedicated to our tastes. Which they likely often were. But my father would often have a different menu on those nights, even though my mother would eat what we ate.

We also had a lot of home-canned goods, which usually were a lot better than the commercial canned vegetables we often had. The thought of commercially canned carrots, peas or green beans now - NO.

R130 deserves the best menus possible as an adult. And I agree about the laziness (and nasty saltiness) of Ramen shit. You can eat well and cheaply. Eating crap and being poor are two different things.

HEY - when there were cook-outs when you were kids, would the kids get hot dogs and burgers while the adults ate the steaks or chicken?

My mom stopped cooking when she went back to work when my little sister entered the first grade. We learned to cook for ourselves. We made kid's food.

Most of what we cooked was kinda inexpensive. Making pizza from scratch is really cheap. Learned how to proof yeast. Cheese wasn't as expensive back then. That and an iceberg salad with thousand island dressing was a 1960s splurge!

I made fake potatoes, boiled some package chicken gravy and warmed a few packages of Buddig sliced chicken in the gravy. I created a well in the potatoes and ladled in the chicken and gravy. It was like an inside out pot pie. Cheap and easy. And we loved it.

And my mom did the dishes.

My mother was a great cook and her baked goods were fantastic. Every weekday afternoon, guys from school would walk home with my brother and me. Finally I realized, it wasn't actually for friendship, it was that plate of fresh baked cookies waiting in the kitchen. Peanut butter cookies were a favorite - and nobody died.

One day, mom got a call from a nunnery. They wanted to hire her to teach all the novices and postulants to cook for large groups for when they would be assigned to overseas schools and orphanages. As a result, her recipes went all around the globe with the nuns. She died a few years ago, but her recipes live on.

r145, how sweet a memory.

We were Catholic growing up and I used to dread Fridays because I hate fish. My mother would make filet of sole or scallops, and I'd eat peanut butter sandwiches or some other meatless meal.

Best was homemade vegetarian red sauce, with a little non-processed cheese and spaghetti noodles. She'd buy a very cheap lug of squashed tomatoes in Mexico. Since we weren't Italian, no one knew how to eat it properly. Yes, we were allowed to slurp it. I cut mine up with a fork.

Worst was supposedly healthy liver, kidneys, or broiled chicken backs. (The wealthier neighbors dissed us for eating what they called "cat food.")

r145 made me tear up.

Was this all for bread?

That reminds, me, r145, my mom had a set "routine". Every Wednesday it was "baking day". She would bake cookies, brownies, a pie or a cake for us to eat until the following Wednesday.

Man, I totally forgot about that! If we got home early enough, she'd let us lick the spoon/beaters/bowl. Ah! Those were the days!

My dad had been in the Navy, thus we were forbidden from eating spam or Shit on a Shingle even if we were broke. We often had hot dogs, spaghetti without meat, mackerel patties (croquettes), lots of pinto beans, potato pancakes, French toast.

Like R25, we had a lot of, er, "miscellaneous" meats. Innards of all kinds, chicken livers, cow brains mixed with eggs (back when you could still eat brains), plus squirrel once, frog legs, crawdaddies, stuff like that.

We are looking back to a golden age when motherhood meant caring deeply about your family. It did not mean blogging about your discontent and using your children as an occasion for your own aggrandizement.

Oh, R153, if you think my mother cared about anyone but herself, you are sadly mistaken. She was a sociopath. Hell, the woman was a nurse who "encouraged" my dad's demise.

The house became at least somewhat tolerable when she went to school and then to work full time. Staying at home to care for her kid and do nothing else made mom worse. I often wonder if these mommy bloggers might actually NEED an outlet to keep them halfway sane.

My parents always made sure that we had three meals, clean clothes, and a warm bed. We never knew that there were difficult times, and what they sacrificed for us. We were truly blessed with wonderful parents.

There are restaurants built around creamed chipped beef on toast (referred to earlier as SOS). You can get a single frozen serving (Stouffers or similar)for around 4 bucks, which I wouldn't consider on the low end of cheap convenience foods (It's not like Banquet or something). When I worked at a restaurant in the 90s, it ran about $7.99 with no sides. It was very popular with golfers for some reason. I eat it sometimes now due to nostalgia. I liked to eat it over home fries, french fries, biscuits or a bagel.

All the tuna talk is making me vomit. We had some kind of casseroles with pasta, parmesan, and sausage. Also some kind of black eyed peas and beef stew.

R153, You should have heard my mother screaming at the top of her lungs, fits of hysteria, and the crying and non-stop complaining to the few friends she actually still had that would put up with her. I will always be thankful for my very kind, but elderly next door neighbors, and the parents of my friends, for demonstrating what sane adults resemble.

Banquet frozen pot pies. Also baked macaroni & cheese: you boil up a lot of macaroni, drain it, mix it in a baking dish with lots of cheddar cheese cut into chunks, add enough milk to cover, then bake.

Tuna Noodle Casserole, and home made Mac and cheese with Velveeta, home made pasta and sauce.

[quote]You can get a single frozen serving (Stouffers or similar)for around 4 bucks

I just bought some based on that "Are you an accomplished cook but sometimes indulge in trashy food?" thread, and it was disgusting and upset my stomach something awful. But the sausage gravy my mom used to make also does not sit well with me anymore, so as a kid, maybe I could have eaten SOS without incident.

Ah yes, Velveeta! That was a treat in our house. I've always hated how bright orange and sticky it was, but it tasted pretty decent melted.

True 70s story: My mom would make a pretty frugal dinner she got from some magazine I think. It was called Foxy Franks because of yeah frankfurters aka hot dogs. (Slice hot dog down center, stuff with slice of Velveeta, wrap with one strip of bacon. Bake -- or broil? -- in the oven -- can't remember the temp or how long -- take out during last part of cooking and brush with BBQ sauce -- broil a bit. Serve on top of Minute Rice.

Anyway I was a young teen at the time and had my first major real life guy crush on a Australian hunk named Frank who was in a few of my classes. So Foxy Frank had a secret meaning to me. Liked the dinner recipe too.

My dad wasn't much of a cook, but Velveeta was a staple in almost everything. Grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, and his special cheesy meatloaf.

I'm a 60s/70s kid, and assume most of the replies here are from posters who are over 40.

Do moms still make tuna casserole and SOS? I wonder, what do moms make now, (or in the last 10/20 years) when times are/were tough?

R131 is probably under 25.

Tuna noodle casserole always was, and still is , a Lenten staple.

Do present-day mothers even bother to cook?

You had a mother?

We were very poor and usually went hungry the night before my dad's payday. Then we'd have to wait around all day, starving, for him to come home with some greasy fast food. My mother cooked a lot of offal too - cows tongue, liver, brains, kidneys. She'd get a pigs head from the butcher and roast it.

Yes, r154, those stay-at-home moms need some kind of outlet to stay connected and sane. My mom was a stay-at-home. We were told more often than I care to remember how much she resented us, and that she wished she never gave birth to us. Why didn't she just go back to work? This was the 1960s, and where we lived things really didn't change until later.

r109 and r120, the bread was Italian bread, the real kind with a thick crust, like what you would see in an Italian groceria. Gram was from Italy. The bread was just stale, very stale and rock hard. It was not hardtack.

Even now, I'm still careful with how I spend money for food. 2 spoiled,born-rich pals put this to the test.

They came over for brunch, as they often did, and I made pancakes. They ALWAYS demanded organic maple syrup. Well, this time I decide to fix them. I saved the empty organic syrup bottle and filled it with something from a dollar store! If they noticed, they never said anything. I do this all the time now.

They also said the only way they would eat turkey on Thanksgiving is if it was locally grown, organic and free-range. Yeah, right. I served the free one I got at the grocery store for spending so many dollars. No complaints about that, either.

I shop a lot at Aldi's, and I personally love the quality of their products. My friends who would never think of shopping at "that place" have eaten many a meal, prepared dish, or snack with food from Aldi's , and loved every morsel. And they don't even know that I'm a regular shopper there. Go figure!

Growing up poor, eating those make-do meals, has made every meal I eat as a fairly well-paid adult just great.

I appreciate it every time I open my store cupboard and see the packets and cans, and last night I treated myself to a good steak as I like to do once a month, and each mouthful was wonderful.

A young virgin's blood.

Banquet Pot Pies - they made me cry and the thought of them still does.

I just discovered Banquet frozen pot pies - not the beef, chicken, etc. Peach, Apple, and Cherry Berry! They're great and just the right size to spilt for two people. We top Cherry Berry with extra blueberries after its baked.

r169 - Yeah, it wasn't hardtack. And when it was rehydrated, it was like a spongy bread. I guess it's called friselle but my family always called it "biscawt"

Catholic kids back in the '60s looked forward to Friday and the Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks.

Fancy-pants tuna casserole:

Saturday lunch in winter was codfish cakes with root vegetables; in summer, salmon croquettes with homegrown vegetables.

When my dad wasn't home at night--his job kept him working nights sometimes--my mom would be a little more 'exotic' with her cooking. He wanted basic food--meat and bread and a vegetable (usually cooked with pork) or two.

When he was gone, we'd make pizzas or tacos or sometimes she'd try out a new "ethinc" recipe.

Candy and cookies and sodas were a 'treat' and were not just always in the pantry. She also refused to buy sugary cereals, so I loved it when I went to friend's houses and had Trix or Captain Crunch. I think it's why I don't have much of a sweet tooth today.

I never really thought about it, but I know they didn't have a lot of money but still worked hard and sent all of us to private school and college.

R157, I understand. You really described my mother, too. I used to think so many times everyone else's mom was normal and I was the only one with a self-centered, emotionally immature mom.

And, R168, my mom would often tell me she couldn't wait until I was 18 and could be officially kicked out of the house. I took it kind of personal.

I love Aldi's, r171.

Some people may turn up their noses, but it's a European chain (I believe started in East Germany back in the day?) and many of the products are of really nice quality for a discount grocery store: Austrian chocolates, German bread, beer and sauerkraut, Italian gnocchi and pesto, that French sparkling lemonade. You can really stock up on some great stuff if you know where to look.

(I'm actually glad if people get off on the snootiness of not shopping there: fewer crowds and more good stuff for me).

Love me some Aldi's. The entire concept is huge in Berlin. There are Aldi's and Aldi-like shops all over the city.

I don't remember anything particularly vile, but we never wasted food and my mom was a magician with leftovers. A roasted chicken would become Chicken a la King the next night, and if there was anything left, chicken fried rice the next. Then the carcass would become chicken noodle soup. We'd also have cabbage and noodles frequently as a side dish. I think my mom put sour cream in it.

This is how I cook today - I cook one or two meals a week and use leftovers to make lunch and dinner throughout the week.

My mom always cooked from scratch with the exception of chicken with Uncle Ben's long grain and wild rice, topped w/Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. That always gave me a headache, probably from too much sodium and MSG in the rice flavoring and soup.

r176 Never heard of this style of bread, but it seems to be similar to the German ZWEIBACK, also meaning baked twice.

Aldi got in trouble with the German Labor authorities for their regimented staff rules on using the lavatory. Staff were able to access the washroom at designated times only, to minimize loitering. Female staff who were menstruating were made to wear a headband to indicate to store managers that they required lavatory access outside the designated times.

Tuna fish casserole, which actually isn't that bad, but since we had it so much, I can't stand even the thought of it.

Cheese on crackers. Melted cheddar cheese, with flour and dry mustard, poured over Premium crackers.

Loved it!

Every once in a while I make a tuna noodle casserole. It's a weird nostalgia craving.

R182: Totally agree, I LOVE Aldi's...found the quality to be great & it's literally half the price of Publix, the big supermarket chain here in South Florida.

The produce, dairy & frozen foods are particularly good values. A gallon of milk at Publix is $4.60 right now, & $2.50 at Aldi's.

Everything in Aldi's offers that kind of price difference, vs Publix.

[quote]I too never knew we were poor. My parents sacrificed a great deal to buy a house in a good school district

Then you weren't poor. Your parents could buy a house and you went to a good local public school? YOU WEREN'T POOR.

Hamburger Helper with very little hamburger and lots of helper.

Lobster tails, filet mignon, artichoke, oysters, truffles, oh man times were tough

[quote]Slumgullion

r176, the type of bread used was just stale bread. It was common Italian bread that was so old it was rock hard. Most people would have tossed it in the trash. We ate it. It was NOT hardtack, or zwieback or anything else. It was just a regular loaf of bread that was so old it was like a brick.

R176: Friselle are actually baked to be very hard, they're not stale. They're used in dishes like zuppa di pesce, where there will be alot of liquid that will soften them, yet add their peppery flavor & maintain that hard-ish consistency.

Scrambled eggs with hot dogs cut up into it. Rice a roni with hot dogs cut up into it.

My mom made tuna casserole occasionally and I really liked it. I also loved it when she made tacos from this kit that included a bunch of hard taco shells, a jar of "taco sauce," and a packet of "taco seasoning" that you used to to season the sautéed ground beef filling. We would grate cheddar cheese and chop up iceberg lettuce, onions, and tomatoes to use as toppings. As a Midwestern kid who had never encountered real Mexican food in my life, I was convinced this meal was both delicious and nutritious. I was not nearly as impressed with the vile Chung King chow mein in a can my mother sometimes served, and did not realize until I went away to college that Chinese food could actually taste good.

Cheap meals when my father wasn't home included grilled cheese sandwiches with canned soup, and "breakfast for dinner" meals such as pancakes or waffles with bacon and sausage. These meals I heartily approved.

The stories of horrible Moms on this thread really explain the amount of misogyny on this board.

I'm sorry for all of you that had to deal with that. You deserved more.

R130 I was in the same boat. My father died of alcoholism when I was 8, then my mother died when I was 10. I posted this months ago on here that I was raised by my grandmother. I remember the government blocks of cheese. And the powdered milk. My grandmother made the best food. Lots of shit on a shingle and beans n corn bread. Funny looking back on it I never considered it low class or poor people's food. We were happy to eat!

[quote] Your parents could buy a house and you went to a good local public school? YOU WEREN'T POOR.

You might have a point about home ownership, but some kids living in poverty do attend decent public schools, especially in areas where a single school draws students from multiple neighborhoods. In any case, poverty is relative—I'd guess the poster you replied to simply meant her family had much less money than neighbor families—and there's no need to turn this into the Poverty World Cup, as though a contribution can't be interesting unless the poster was once among the Top 5 Deprived Children of DL or something.

Meatloaf stretched considerably with Ritz crackers with a green bean center.

I LOVED it.

In our house, times did not get tough. The roast was another story.

I can see where you're coming from R198 but for me it made me really grateful to the neighbor ladies who looked out for me - people that would be denigrated as fraus on DL. I've been called a frau cunt on DL more than once when I've disagreed with a rampantly misogynistic statement. And it wasn't just my mom, my dad was a raging alcoholic with a very controlling personality, I think he was the reason mom drank. But you're right, I suspect a lot of the misogyny is a Mommy, Dearest scenario.

What it DID do was give me a peculiar relationship with alcohol. I don't drink very much at all and only ever socially but I watch those I'm in relationships with for any signs of over indulging. I'm too worried about what is actually normal social drinking. It makes me into a nag and I see it in myself and dislike it but I'm too anxious to stop doing it.

I found a website called Miserly Moms (no, I'm no frau) and several of the recipes are similar to what my mom made.

One of the touching things about this thread is the understanding some of you have about your alcoholic mothers. I'm not talking about the physically/emotionally abusive ones. Instead, I mean the moms who really tried to be good but were sick. My mom was an alcoholic and it was a lifelong battle for her (it killed her in her 50s). But she would stuff the fridge with as much cooked food as possible knowing that some nights she would just not be able to cook. It was heartbreaking but I never went hungry.

[quote]I mean the moms who really tried to be good but were sick. My mom was an alcoholic and it was a lifelong battle for her (it killed her in her 50s). But she would stuff the fridge with as much cooked food as possible knowing that some nights she would just not be able to cook. It was heartbreaking but I never went hungry.

Your post at R204 and the others have me in tears. There were so many limited parents who wanted to do better that they could have.

And the other assholes who only cared about themselves.

How does a disease like alcoholism (not interested in a debate, just going by the AMA def.) lead to such possible neglect where people, children are left dead? I must be stupid to not understand...

Don't turn this into yet another goddamn fucking frau thread. It is possible to discuss difficult aspects of one's childhood without crying as you type, becoming insufferably maudlin or otherwise being revolting and pathetic. Seriously, just stop it or take it to iVillage.

My mom used to boil cans of sweetened condensed milk to make caramel. They boiled in a huge pot of water for a long time. Then she'd put some on a slice of pineapple, sometimes with canned whipped cream on it and call it Depression Dessert. Apparently her parents made it during the Great Depression and she'd get a craving for it every once in a while.

She hated margarine and wouldn't have it in the house, another remnant of the Depression. She said they'd get a container of fat (lard?) with "yellow buttons" they's blend into it for "butter color" but no flavor.

[quote]My mom used to boil cans of sweetened condensed milk to make caramel.

Hell, I do that now!! It's delicious. I use that to make arequipe sauce for cuatre leches cake.

Is there some reason you don't simply make normal caramel or even bother to take the sweetened condensed milk out of the can before cooking it?

My mother didn't know any better but I do.

My mother worked 4 nights a week starting when I was nine, and I put TV dinners in the oven at 5 pm so they'd be ready at exactly 5:30 when my father got home from work. He ate 2, I ate ones years later I saw the nutritional info on the TV dinners and it was like 180 calories per dinner. I never ate the "dessert," which was always some kind of apple-flavored or cherry-flavored square of melted liquid.

So I was basically eating about 150 calories for dinner every night. No wonder I weighed 88 lbs when I graduated from high school.

[quote]Don't turn this into yet another goddamn fucking frau thread. It is possible to discuss difficult aspects of one's childhood without crying as you type, becoming insufferably maudlin or otherwise being revolting and pathetic. Seriously, just stop it or take it to iVillage.

Sadly, the car, hose, garage trick didn't work out so well for your parents. And us.

[quote]Is there some reason you don't simply make normal caramel or even bother to take the sweetened condensed milk out of the can before cooking it?

Needs the self-gratifying danger of a possible exploding can...

Thomas's English muffin "pizza." Some people ate this as a snack, but for us it was dinner. Cut a muffin in half, toast it. Then put some tomato sauce on top, and two thin slices of mozzarella. Broil until chesse melted.

I remember having tuna noodle casserole (we loved it), fish sticks, banquet frozen pot pies, those three course frozen dinners, and french toast for dinner. Never occurred to me that my mother was trying to economize. it was a welcome relief from steak and lamb chops, which I hated.

my mother made pizza out of Pilsbury crescent rolls placed flat on a cookie sheet

Baked ham n cheese sandwich!

Grease a large rectangular baking pan -- put down a layer of Wonder Bread -- then layer of cheap cheese slices -- then layer of cheap ham slices -- then more Wonder Bread -- then beat a couple eggs and drizzle that all over it -- then bake til it's cooked and the top is golden brown.

YUM.

Beefaroni: ground beef, elbow macaroni and jarred tomato sauce. Brown the meat, boil the macaroni, dump it with the sauce into a frying pan and simmer covered until it's a big gooey mess of crap. Onto this I would dump copious amounts of "Parmesan cheese" (powdered nothing from a green cardboard canister sold right next to the dried pasta) just to make it slightly edible.

We also had Steak-Um cheesesteaks and hot dogs (different nights) at least once a week. Both meals had Ore-Ida fries (baked in the oven on a cookie sheet) as sides. I actually loved those meals and still sometimes get hot dogs and ore-Ida fries when I'm at loss for dinner ideas.

When my dad was out of work we ate lots if "breakfast for dinner" meals like eggs and bacon or pancakes. Actual breakfast was cold cereal so these meals were a treat.

[quote]Is there some reason you don't simply make normal caramel or even bother to take the sweetened condensed milk out of the can before cooking it?

It actually works better if you remove the condensed milk from the can and bake it in a pan. The can boiled in water technique is not only dangerous but it's an iffy method.

As I said earlier about the arequipe sauce, that was in the directions.

I make it in my asparagus steamer (tall pot that I don't use for asparagus anyway).

You simmer it, not boil.

I've done it for years. Never had a problem with exploding cans. It's probably possible if you let the water get below the line of the can or boil it too long at too high a heat.

Some people do it in their slow-cookers.

Yes r218. I looked up recipes and in a matter of minutes every one that used an unopened can said the water must completely cover it. And simmer

If you're going to use the cook in the can method, you must not leave it unattended.

The shrapnel incidents come about when the water ceases to cover the can completely. It's easy to get sidetracked or otherwise distracted, or fall asleep. That's when disaster happens.

Or you can pour the condensed milk into a pie plate and bake it, for better but drama-free results.

There was an old pressure-cooker recipe printed on the Borden label. I guess it killed so may people they stopped printing it. But it made it caramelize into a caramel jelly that pushed out of the can like cranberry jelly.

It appears that people did not let the whole thing cool down for a day for the pressure in the pressure-cooker AND the can to reduce.

[quote]It was called Foxy Franks because of yeah frankfurters aka hot dogs. (Slice hot dog down center, stuff with slice of Velveeta, wrap with one strip of bacon. Bake -- or broil? -- in the oven -- can't remember the temp or how long -- take out during last part of cooking and brush with BBQ sauce -- broil a bit.

My mom would wrap the hotdog in a canned biscuit or one of the canned croissants if she felt like being fancy.

[quote]A roasted chicken would become Chicken a la King the next night, and if there was anything left, chicken fried rice the next. Then the carcass would become chicken noodle soup.

My mom would take the half-eaten chicken off our plates and finish it herself. Then tell us we were 'ungrateful THINGS.'

I love this thread. 🍵🍗🍝

That hot dog thing with the velveeta and bacon at R222 - my boyfriend just sent me a picture of those he got of Facebook. He wants to make them. I KNEW Facebook was evil.

Those are known as "francheezies" in Chicago.

Little Friskies

Hominy grits with corned beef hash was a favorite breakfast. Cod fish cakes was another favorite.

Every Saturday night was franks & beans.

My mom made a really good Macaroni & Cheese, using spaghetti instead of elbow macaroni. Her secret ingredient was dry mustard. I have the recipe, and now it's not a bargain meal because cheese is so much more expensive.

My family was Portuguese, and on holidays like New Years, my mom made a dish called Jag (Jagacida).

Mom went back to work when I was 10 and my youngest brother started school. I was therefore introduced to Messrs. Stove, Washer, Dryer, Shopping Cart, et al. And she became a dis-interested parent.

My frugal go-to meals were boiled hot dogs, French fries as a main course, or cookin' bags that were either sliced beef or turkey in a gravy. They cost 10 cents in the '70s and were frozen. You put the whole bag in a pot of boiling water and served over bread. There was never money for deli meat or snacks for lunch. I generally baked on Sunday afternoon and made 2-3 cakes for lunch treats. As a kid, I picked wild blackberries and grapes and learned to make jelly. I would can enough jars to get us through a year of lunch sandwiches for five of us.

My grandparents were fortunate to have pensions, as well as social security after they retired. They went shopping every second Thursday and would then stop at our house with a box of food and treats. And my grandmother, who was not a good cook, would make a pot of chicken thighs for us every weekend; enough for two meals. I loved my grandparents. We struggled, but it would have been much worse without their contribution.

I posted about my misfortune on the Write Your Parents Biography thread:

My Serbian-Slovak mom moved to the US after married my 55 year-old father when she was 21, preceded by the happy accident that was to become me.

She was incapable of cooking anything. Seriously. She couldn't even heat up a tv dinner (later she would confide in me that it was due to her incomplete understanding of English, but I have a hard time believing it).

However, she did spend most of the day at home (lounging in her underwear), so she would buy food from time to time. Staples included:

Generic rice crispies and corn flakes

Egg Noodles (yes, she could boil water, but it was a task she usually delegated to one of the kids)

Sour cream (which we would eat with noodles)

Extremely pasty, bland soda bread that she bought for $1.00 or something from two nuns who lived down the street in an apartment (which I felt like was a feeble attempt to ingratiate herself with them)

Butter

The ceremonial wheat people bring to the church to eat on funerals and religious hoidays.

R230 - even generic cereals were probably a luxury to your mom.

Maybe, r231. It was probably a lot easier to master than the stale bread, cheese, and sour cream concoction her mom used to make for her in the old country.

Koljivo is a boiled mess.

1] Toast the nuts.

2] Use granular sugar, not powdered, and make a caramel, stir in the toasted nuts, and make a nut brittle.

3] Break into small chunks and put into a food processor and process to an almost fine "nougatine" powder,

4] Throw the boiled wheat into a clean processor bowl; coarse chop.

5] Dump into a large bowl, stir in the brittle powder.

The two Maillard reactions of toasting the nuts and browning the sugar really improve this horrible, ancient recipe.

When I was a child, I was told it was the ground up bones of the dead people commemorated.

My English-German whitebread childhood friends Mike and Jim thought that tortillas were the most exotic bread they'd ever eaten. They'd spend the night sometimes and my mom would make an extra stack for them to take home.

The kid she liked least. That changed right before we got on the TV.

R233 - that's like Kutia, which Ukrainian Orthodox eat on Christmas Eve (Jan. 6th). My mom makes it every year as part of the 12 dishes.

R206, you reminded me of my mother doing something similar. I think she took the condensed milk out of the can but she heated it until it became caramel, and poured it over baked apples. She'd core and slice apples, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on them, stand them up in a casserole with a little water and bake them.

She'd also have fried apples as a side dish, with onions that had been cooked long enough they were sweet. Dad and I would take apples to lunch with us, mom made apple tarts with homemade (thus cheap) crusts. A bag of apples lasted us a long time and was very cheap.

Grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell's tomato soup.

That was some good comfort food, R238. If I wasn't terrified of carbs, I'd still go for dunking my grilled cheese in my Campbells tomato soup (made with milk, of course).

My mom's Midwestern version of tacos: Ortega hard shells, browned ground beef (no seasoning), chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce, and salsa from a jar if we were really lucky. Build it yourself!

I live in L.A. and have an abundance of authentic tacos all around me...but I sometimes miss those times.

Instant mashed potato and ketchup sandwiches.

My folks were also on food stamps and government commodities for several years. My sister, bless her heart, would make Bisquick pizzas using canned tomato sauce and shredded government cheese. Dessert was often also constructed from Bisquick, a kind of soft sugary scone - we called them "glops" because the were just glops of batter on A cookie sheet, LOL. I remember that getting to go to McDonalds/Burger King or ordering Dominos on payday was a really big deal and we would look forward to it.

Childhood poverty sucks, no doubt about it, but at least we got some good stories out of it.

We knew the money was tight whenever we had "orange/yellow" nights.

Tater tots, fishsticks, mac and cheese, canned corn, etc...

Red and green can be expensive colors in the food world.

Sometimes my mom would make "donuts" by taking a canned biscuit, cutting out a hole with a pop bottle top, deep frying in CRISCO (ugh) and rolling in sugar.

R243=Bobby Deen

Polish sausage and sauerkraut Hamburger Helper

She worked 2 jobs for most of my adolescence & would buy crap like Tombstone pizza, Michelina's dinners, Kraft mac & cheese or Hot Pockets for my brother & I to make for ourselves. Luckily my grandparents lived nearby to ensure we occasionally ate a piece of fruit or a vegetable.

This thread explains the often hyper progressive liberal bent of this site.

You all grew up poor & eating government cheese.

lol

What the fuck? My parents had a job. Even hillbillies hunt possum. What was your momma a welfare queen that gut stuck by Reagan?

We were on a rotation of the entrees already mentioned, usually with side of canned or frozen vegetable:

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Hot dogs in beans

Also, Grilled cheese with tomato soup

Fish sticks and tater tots

Shake N' Bake chicken

Spaghetti and Italian sausage

R246 = Shitstain

R249=Shawnetta Nelson, from the Section 8 Housing in Vegas thread.

r247=typical Republican. Really.

Some of the meals would have been perfectly acceptable---even fashionable---in the 1950s and 1960s when canned and frozen foods were still hot.

That said, almost everyone on this thread has mentioned that their parents worked. Hence, the bland, unhealthy food.

The ones who's parents didn't work seemed to have it better---even though they had less money, they were more creative!

Seriously, re: r245

I knew very upper-middle class kids who ate the same stuff not because their parents worked two jobs, but obviously because they couldn't stand to be around them. They were indulged and got to choose the food they ate, which, not surprisingly, happened to be hot pockets, Tomstone, etc.

True, R252.

I never recall getting allowed of those fun single-serving frozen things. That sh*t was too expensive.

Only a Swanson's TV dinner, once in a while. Salisbury steak, corn, and a brownie. ...What a treat!

To this day I miss some of the Swanson TV dinners the company made circa 1960s. They still used mostly real food in their product back then but they had dinners they don't make now like delicious good size crispy fried shrimp with a great cocktail sauce. They had a Mexican dinner with the most delicious enchiladas and pot roast with sweet and sour red cabbage. Yes they were always very high in sodium but at least they were delicious and were made with real food. God only knows what that turkey and fried chicken are made with today.

I remember my grandfather used to eat 3 at a time (this was before Hungry Man). He was skinny as a stick but man could he eat and not just TV dinners.

Things were so tough, mom bought penny candy on layaway.

Mother's day bump

Cheese

My mother bought what was on sale and stretched it as far as she could, but we always had dinner on the table. She packed us a lunch every day, usually PBJ and a piece of fruit. I liked strawberry jelly so if that was on sale she'd get that for me and would make my siblings have grape.

When times were tight she made a lot of potted meatballs - ground beef meatballs browned on the stove and then cooked in a gravy made from the pan drippings and fat. It made the whole house smell bad - meat fat and onions. But it was always served with mashed potatoes which I loved.

Noodle Barf Casserole: Noodles, tomato sauce, ground beef, sour cream. All mixed up and then baked.

Creamed Chipped Beef on noodles. In some sort of white cream sauce.

We went on vacation with family friends who had 3 kids in the family and not a lot of money--"camping" in wood-stove heated cabins in the mountains. My parents coached me on being nice and not commenting on money or food; we had always had plenty of both (even with my miserly father--as tight as a weddin' gown in a shotgun wedding).

The first night it was FUCKING FRIGID in the cabin and it was their family's turn to cook. The mother put together par-boiled noodles, browned stew meat with lawry's salt, and a jar of pace picante sauce--called that goulash. I actually seem to remember liking it, which is strange because I was spoiled little bitch back then.

Boiled noodles and milk, or my favorite, boiled noodles and canned tomatoes. I can remember my mom picking us up from nursery school after working all day, making us "dinner" then starting her laundry & ironing. My dad worked as an orderly at night after being school all day. They saw each other on weekends...

Hot dog soup-boiled hot dogs in the boiled broth.

r263 Thank you, Judy Tenuta.

Creamed tuna on toast.

Bread salad (panzanella). Oh, how I laugh when I see that on Italian ristorante menus! Polenta and garlic and olive oil sauce, too.

Beans and rice. Dandelion greens. Liver and onions. Other types of innards. More beans and rice. Pasta and plain marinara.

How could I forget: bread fried in hamburger pan drippings. I actually liked it, and still do.

"Goulash" a/k/a "Hamburger hotdish". Macaroni noodles, ground beef, stewed tomatoes, salt, pepper. Super basic. She would make a big pot and store it in Corningware for the week. Lol.

It's pretty boring as she made it, but I liked it. I've made it healthier (leaner beef or ground turkey) and spiced it up a bit - jalepenos, some different spices. I still love the original, but she rarely makes it anymore (and I only see her 4 times a year, so chances are slim).

[quote]Sometimes my mom would make "donuts" by taking a canned biscuit, cutting out a hole with a pop bottle top, deep frying in CRISCO (ugh) and rolling in sugar.

My mom made no marketing efforts, lol. She always had frozen dough in the big freezer. Would cut off pieces, throw them in deep fryer, roll in sugar. We called it "fried dough". Yeah, it was "cheap" but compared to other sweets, it did the job just as well.

We had some tight times and my mom was a mediocre disinterested cook. But she never made an meal identifiable as frugal. I don't remember any regular and obviously meagre dish.

Macaroni and cheese or Spam and mayo on white bread with Campbell's Vegetable Soup.

A plate of hot chips. Mum would put a table cloth on the floor and tell us it was a picnic, and we'd share the plate. I realised later that our treat was actually because we only had potatoes in the house.

Tuna and rice, which I still enjoy now and then. Tuna, rice, curry powder and cream of celery soup.

Anchovy paste sandwiches on round white bread. I think those tiny jars are still very cheap.

My Mom was one of five sisters and you could go from one house to the other and get almost exactly the same, delicious meal. Grandma taught her daughters well.

Mom was a magician in the kitchen. I don't remember a truly bad meal being served by her and we was po!

Lots of canned veggies put up in season. Tomatoes, something called mustard pickle that I did not partake in because it was just too much for my delicate palate. Scallions, corn, and rhubarb in the garden with the tomatoes.

I used to make a meal out of the canned, stewed tomatoes and her home made bread. It was a bread sopper's delight. She made the loaf of bread in "slices" so that you could just peel off an individual section.

Breakfast fare was not unusual at suppertime. We three boys loved it all.

RE: slow cooked cans of sweetened condensed milk. This is a standard recipe for dulce de leche. I was taught that having the sealed can prevented the liquid from evaporating, making a caramel of the right consistency. It is no longer a good idea as the insides of cans are now plasticized, but the latinos I grew up with, ate with (and had sex with their sons) still do it. I will admit that there is really nothing better than dulce de leche made this way--I still make it in the can occasionally.

There were many tough times when money was scarce during my childhood. I am French Canadian. We would often eat a bowl of Habitant Pea Soup. The amount of sodium in that canned soup was off the charts. We would have white bread with the soup and sometimes to drink, if we were lucky, Freshie (Canada's equivalent to Kool-Aid). The lemon-lime flavour was my favourite. Again, if we were lucky, for dessert we would have a Jos. Louis, a type of cheap snack cake.

I did think of another. We did have some poor meals ourselves, come to think of it, Mom would occasionally get HORRIFIC migraines (related to the double vision she later developed); those night we would eat white bread dipped into peanut butter mixed with honey. I am not sure why my dad didn't grill something those times, but I suspect he was boycotting as he thought she was faking it. She wasn't.

Not dinner but lunch. My mother would get the thinnest sliced salami possible at the supermarket deli counter. To this day I can't imagine how they got the slices so thin they were practically transparent. Then she would put one layer on white bread so stale it was probably well past the expiration date.

I will never forget trying to chew those godawful sandwiches in the school cafeteria.

This thread inspired me to sautee cabbage tonight until it's perfectly caremelized. I have some Kimchi in the fridge, so I may spice it up a bit. Yum!

"...meal was your mom's go-to..."

Telling us to 'go to' a friend's house to eat.

Pineapple and Xanax.

A rich man.

If I won the lottery I'd still eat franks n' beans and spaghetti aglio e olio.

A can of Dinty Moore beef stew.

Fried egg and bacon sandwiches. Loved 'em.

My mother was a Texan, so we had chicken fried steak, and a lot of beef.

Pork n Beans and franks. She'd chop up a small onion and add a teaspoon of mustard for garnish, and a bag of generic brand potato chips. Kool Aid or instant lemonade. No soda.

My mother was big on family recipes.

[quote] My mother didn't set foot in a restaurant with tablecloths until she was in college

Sorry, but your mother wasn't poor if she went to college. She'd have gone out to work like the rest of us poor folks

My mother told me not to bother to try and get a scholarship, because she wouldn't have the money to pay for food for me to eat and I wouldn't be able to come home on school breaks because I wouldn't have a car and my parents wouldn't have the gas to come and get me.

My mom was a great cook and if we had frugal meals, I never noticed. I did have a problem with lunch one time. Our school didn't have a lunch program. We all brown-bagged and ate in a cafetorium where we could buy milk. One day I complained to mom that my sandwich was ham and swiss cheese with mustard which was too much like the ham and american cheese with mayo that she made the previous day.

The next day, I got the sandwich out of the lunch bag and opened the two slices of bread and there was just ketchup. I thought the meat fell out and must be in the lunch bag. No! The guy sitting across from me asked what was wrong. I said, "I must have dropped the meat from my sandwich on the floor." So, suddenly there's six 7th graders standing up from the table and looking on the floor. Naturally, the nun came over to see what we were up to. I started to tell her and suddenly remembered I had complained about my lunch the previous day. When we all sat down and she walked away, I could see her shoulders shaking as she was trying to hold in the laughter.

That night, she phoned my mother and told her that she related the story of the ketchup sandwich during dinner at the convent and all the nuns were roaring wih laughter. I never again complained about my lunch.

This is for the guy wondering what the under 40 crowd ate:

Salami wraps with raw spinach and mustard

Stir fry of whatever was in the fridge over rice

Pasta with italian dressing on it

Stouffers mac and cheese

When chicken was on sale mom would make three chicken thighs--and a lot of rice. She'd spice it up with onion and garlic and pepper flakes, and then mince up the cooked chicken and stir it through the rice.

One night dad while drunk again, started yelling that he was tired of eating this same garbage every night.

Mom screamed at him, "We'd have money for food if you weren't always out drinking and whoring with your drunk drugie friends."

Dad grabbed the pot of food and threw it at her. Fortunately she ducked and it went flying across the kitchen and landed smack dab on top of the stove without spilling a grain of rice.

We all sat there looking at that pot and then looked at Dad who was staring slack jawed. Mom said, "The devil thought he was going to win tonight." Dad went upstairs to sleep it off.

Beans and rice or grits and whatever was around. That was fine. The thing I couldn't consume was when she got the idea of stretching cola by adding tea to it. Beyond nasty. That frugal experiment didn't last long.

A big pot of soup beans and a pan of cornbread. Of course, the house was quite smelly after that meal, but it was cheap and could be stretched out over a couple of days.

A roasting chicken that was bought at expiration date for dirt cheap. That bird got roasted, turned into chicken salad then into soup stock.

Cabbage and noodles--haluski.

Peanut butter and honey on whole wheat bread.

Funny story R288. Your mom sounds kind of awesome.

Under 40 here and I remember huge pots of homemade tomato and potato soups with toast. They were cooked on Saturdays and would last 2 or 3 days.

ramen noodles

The beauty of southern Italian cuisine is that it is delicious, inexpensive, and so good for you. I envy those of you who grew up eating it.

[quote]Sorry, but your mother wasn't poor if she went to college. She'd have gone out to work like the rest of us poor folks.

My father was extremely poor and never went to a restaurant until college either, but he went on the GI bill after serving in the Marines.

Oscar Meyer hot dogs, sliced into pieces with a side of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Sometimes, we'd slice the hot dogs into pieces and spear them with a pretzel stick. We called it the "trailer park" dinner because it was so inexpensive and quick/easy to make!

We had potatoes with our beans and cornbread R292. One day they would be mashed, the next day would be stewed and so on. We always had a large garden, called a truck patch and usually only ate meat on Sundays. We were the healthiest kids around. I had my first steak in college.

[quote]Sorry, but your mother wasn't poor if she went to college. She'd have gone out to work like the rest of us poor folks r287

My Great Grandpa was a dirt farmer, his wife a schoolteacher who was required to resign the day she married.

They sent seven kids to college.

I was born in the late 70s and there were a couple times in the early 80s where money was tight. My parents say we weren't poor, but I recently found out government assistance was used once for a very short period during the Carter years. They just looked at it as temporary and said others had it far worse.

Needless to say, we had a lot of of the meals posted here and we liked them. As kids, we didn't know better.

My parents didn't come from rich families, so I assume some of these recipes were handed down and it's just the way my mom knew how to cook. Even when my parents moved up to the upper middle class, we still ate the same.

One thing that I never liked, but remember was the Chili Billy. It's a can of chili con carne spooned into bags of Frito chips. Horrid!

If I went to a cousins house to visit, that is when I really saw how poor people ate. My aunt would make hot dogs chopped up in jello or ground beef mixed with eggs. Meanwhile, her husband was having a steak and everybody else ate like peasants.

I really appreciate the food my parents provided, even if it wasn't Steak and Lobster, it was a full real meal that made sense.

Grew up in Alaska, so our extra freezer was usually full of halibut, red salmon, king crab, and deer.

In high school though, our house was stocked with ramen noodles so that us kids wouldn't eat up the pantry after school. I ditched the gross flavor packets and made my own recipes.

R267 I never understood parents who wouldn't help to support their kids in college. Knew a few people whose parents also discouraged them from college, telling them instead to work, and this when money was not tight. Why wouldn't they want their kids to have a better life than they did?

R303, this hard for many people to understand, but a lot of parents take secret pleasure in undermining their kid. Saw it today in the grocery store.

My mother had it rough growing up. She once told a story about a period with my grandfather was absent from the dinner table. This went on for months. She later found out he deliberately stayed away so the kids would have more to eat. He was skipping dinner and breakfast. He'd eat lunch at the factory.

Mine was spaghetti, Country Crock margarine, and Parm Cheese from the green can.

Beans and Rice w/hot dogs.

My father was a piece of shit. He gambled away money stupidly. I can remember my mother making "stew" and he would eat the meat, and we'd end up with carrots, potatoes and gravy, which we sopped up with white bread. Lots of white bread.

The one thing we did get was lots of milk. There were three of us. We'd have "sandwiches" with white bread and ketchup or white bread and mayo. Oh. We ate lots of eggs too. Once a week for a treat we'd get an apple.

This went on for about four years that I remember. Then they got divorced, we went to live with our grandparents and my mother got a job. My father died of cancer when I was 19. Good riddance.

There's an undercurrent of anger and bitterness cropping up in this thread. There needm't be. If you can't fill your bellies with food, fill them with optimism as we did.

When we were children, we were Five Little Peppers, all huddled around the fireplace for warmth, while mumsy read to us from the light of the fire.

We would huddle close together, eating dry toast, sipping weak tea, with some of Granny's special peach preserves, and imagine the Christmas goose we would get.

Each day we would all contribute the lose change we found to the coffee can, and at the end of the week we would see how much we had. We knew we would have enough in a few months, for a most splendid Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.

And we would eat our fill for a week. Our fill, do you hear me! As much as we wanted! Filled to bursting! Yes! All of us! It would be such fun! We haven't et so good since Ma shot Pa and cooked him!

You know, we were a working class family. My late father used to get so pissed off in the 90's when he heard all these references to "the middle class" from the politicians.

His reaction was "WTF is wrong with saying "working class?" That's what we were. My mother had a clerical job in a large office, and my father worked on the line at an automobile factory.

We weren't rich. There were three kids, and grandma, so all our meals were "frugal" by today's standards. An Indian co-worker of mine says the standard of living in the United States is so high, even poor people live better than the poor in other countries.

A large can of Campbell's chunky soup over minute rice

City chicken - a cylinder of mysterious pork on a stick, breaded and fried

Government grilled cheese on day-old white bread

On-Cor and instant mashed potatoes

Buttered noodles

And generics of all of the above when times were really really tough.

[quote]Sorry, but your mother wasn't poor if she went to college.

Sorry, but back in the 60s, costs in state colleges ranged from $50 to $90 for a semester. If you lived in the same town, there was no need for food and housing costs. You could pay for a semester by baby-sitting.

An Italian version of shakshuka: leftover sauce, fried egg. Delicious.

We were never poor but we never threw out food and it had to stretch. Usually dinner was the next day's lunch for all of us.

We never had breakfast, though. It just wasn't a thing in our house. We had coffee, even when I was a little kid. Added some milk and dunked one Stella d'Oro cookie in for a treat. It's still all I want for breakfast after a tall glass of water.

Pancakes Barbara

My mother had two main "Friday Meals" (as she called them)

1. Chicken and Rice. (one cup of instant rice made in the microwave mixed with a can of cream of chicken soup and two cans of chicken) Always with a can of LeSeuer peas

2. Fancy Potatoes (a baked potato broken into pieces with frozen broccoli drowned in Stouffer's Welsh rarebit sauce)

I didn't realize until I was on my own after college that we had those meals because we were flat broke by the end of the month, and back in the day you could get all of the ingredients at the beginning of the month for about four dollars.

[quote]I've done it for years. Never had a problem with exploding cans. It's probably possible if you let the water get below the line of the can or boil it too long at too high a heat.

So there ARE people who are dumber than I was in the kitchen.

if you go to kfc, you can get a free water and ask for honey packets and they will give u a couple and you can save it for later, for something sweet but you need to get a new person each time or they might say they are out. one really sweet lady gave me four packets last week. i think she knew i was kwinda hungry.

rice and lentils and bagged coleslaw...

Canned salmon patties.

Meat Loaf: A pound of ground beef mixed with half a box of crushed Zesta saltines and ketchup.

My mother fed me popcorn for dinner many, many times when I was little. It was cheap and it filled my stomach.

Hamburger Helper.

Yes R318 !! We had those fried with peas and Mac and cheese. Ketchup helped.

We never had hard times, but my parents were extremely neglectful and sometimes I had to cook dinner for myself and my brothers. The only thing I could make was English muffin pizza, which is just what it sounds like: tomato sauce and cheese (usually Swiss, because that's what was in the fridge) over the muffins. Grated cheese on top and sausage if there was any.

You'd think there'd be tender feelings among us as a result, but we all hate each other's guts.

Also, it's "spaghetti agl'olio," which is simply the pasta with olive oil and grated cheese. It's probably the cheapest filling dinner you can make that isn't a jalopy version of food.

R322 - the previous poster was correct. Spaghetti aglio e olio. That's spaghetti with olive oil and garlic. Often crushed red pepper was added. Sometimes Italian bread crumbs were sauteed in the oil.

Bump

I love how expensive Olive Oil was part of everyone's spaghetti for poor people. How fancy.

R296, The very best of the frugal meals was a lug of overripe tomatoes from Ti Juana (we lived in Sand Diego) made into vegetarian red sauce. It was served over cheap spaghetti with a little cheddar cheese, and accompanied by a basic green salad with more tomatoes and oil and vinegar dressing.

It was strange looking at tomatoes in the grocery store that didn't have spots on them and weren't misshapen. They didn't taste nearly as good either.

No, we weren't Italian and so never knew how to eat spaghetti properly. Finally a grade school girlfriend showed me the correct way; no more slurping.

Thanks to the poster up thread who introduced me to Haluski, very delicious, simple and satisfying. I added bacon, and man was it good! And inexpensive.

While I was walking my pooch it occurred to me that my mom used ta make Ring Tum Ditty- there's a blast from the past! Another good oldie, I think from the'20s.

Sounds good, R328.

Cheddar cheese on spaghetti? Who does that? I'm not even Italian and I find that bizarre.

Stone Soup, if we could afford them.

Pasta puttanesca.

.

dogshit

Straight scotch

.

Hamburger Helper

Boogers, toenails and earwax. And pancakes. Wiffout da syrup. Cuz weez po'.

That rig tum ditty shit from Paula Deen looks like barf.

Rice covered in Maggi Seasoning to our personal taste.

[quote] a can of cream of chicken soup and two cans of chicken) Always with a can of LeSeuer peas

Canned chicken?

Spaghetti with meat sauce or Chicken and Rice casserole, made with Golden Mushroom soup and Lipton onion soup mix. A sodium bomb but I love it to this day!

My grandma wasn't poor but her version of spaghetti was cheap. She'd brown a pound of ground beef and an onion in an electric skillet, then dump in two cans of Franco American spaghetti and chop the noodles up a little. Then we'd eat it with slices of white buttered bread.

Now I miss her so much.

Squirrel was always plentiful and a nice diversion from possum.

American chop suey

Fish Sticks and Tater Tots

A hideous concoction made with Bisquick called Upside Down Hamburger Pie.

Adobo

Campbells Bean with Bacon soup.

The need to do this was because of the lack of time rather than good food because my Dad grew much of our food, as well as harvesting deer, squirrel, and fish. But in a pinch Mom would make instant mashed potatoes and mix in Spam cut into small cubes, and sauteed onion, green pepper, and celery.

"Bacon Delights" -- and there was nothing delightful about them.

White bread Cooked bacon Mayo Slice of cheese food Slice of tomato Too much McCormick black pepper

Combine all ingredients on the slice of bread and place under the broiler.

When they make you want to throw up, they're ready!

My Mom went to night school (college) to get her degree after my Dad divorced her. My sister and I would make spaghetti and use the sauce at the link. While it is now available in liquid form, in the 70's it was sold dry and you had to mix it with water. It was fine dining to two kids, ages 10 and 12.

When Mom was home, she generally made fresh dinners but we had the occasional fish sticks dinner.

r341 I'll go you one better, that is to say, worse. Many moons ago, 1974/75 or so, you could buy fried chicken in a can. Small pieces of actual chicken, fried, in a can. Yes, it was as disgusting as you might imagine. One taste was all that was needed to make that assessment. WHAT. WERE. THEY. THINKING?

R349, what you've described is basically an open-faced grilled cheese, bacon and tomato sandwich. Gotta skip the mayo though.

I still have this for breakfast every once in a while but I make mine this way:

Slice of white bread Slice of cheese (American but I prefer cheddar) Put in toaster oven on broil until the cheese softens Remove and put a couple slices of previously cooked bacon on top But back in the toaster on the tray on broil til cheese bubbles

Yum!

Here's one long forgotten until tonight, don't ask me what made me think of this; I wanted something simple and good: Hobo Dinner- 1/4 lb ground beef patty, or whatever 1 small onion sliced thin 1 small carrot sliced 1 potato sliced, layer in a tinfoil packet, salt and pepper, squirt a bit of ketchup or BBQ sauce, seal and bake for 45-50 minutes @350. Surprisingly good and super fast.

bump

R353 that is an toxic aluminium stew, R353. Hope you didn't eat it too much or your brain is going to rot of Alzheimers.

I love government cheese.

balogna cups. Take balogna, stick it in a muffin cup, glob on some instant mashed potatoes and sprinkle with grated parmesan (the cheap kind with woodpulp added). Bake.

Wedge of iceberg lettuce, wedge of lemon, a small fast food style paper cup with blue cheese dressing instead of ketchup.

White bread with the centers removed and eggs put in them, fried on the stove and served with a couple slices of pickle.

My dad was paid once a month, so my mom really had to stretch a budget. Hot dogs with Franco American Spaghetti/Macaroni and Cheese.

I can relate to the OP's post. For us, it was polenta. Whenever I see this on a restaurant menu, I laugh to myself.

That photo of ring dum ditty or whatever at R329 looks like vomit.

Tuna fish roll-ups. If it wasn't Friday, it could be canned devilled ham roll-ups instead. I still like them.

Haluski

Government subsidized 'rations': dried beans, powdered eggs, dried beans, powdered milk, dried bulgur, cheese, dried beans, dried beans -

(I bought a new LR4 today.)

Wow, so many memories of meals from the posts. I, too, had fish sticks and tater tots, tuna casseroles and chopped up hot dogs mixed with foods. Also, fried bologna, or pork chops, or, yuck: liver and onions. I never eat those now. A particularly bad winter when I was well aware our family was broke, we had deep-fried potato fries every night. That was it. Thick cut fries with ketchup and a glass of milk or Kool-Aid, and sometimes the Kool-Aid would be unsweetened due to a lack of available sugar.

Aglio e olio was my mom’s go -to also. She also made a mean pasta puttanesca and her fried eggplant was the best ever. My favorite, though, didn’t have a name that I recall. She sautéed anchioves and garlic separately, heavily mashed them together into olive oil, then drizzled them over lima beans on a bed of pasta. It was my favorite.

Kraft macaroni and cheese, of course.

A fry up made from leftovers: cold potaos, whatever cold meat or sausage we had, chopped onions. Fry everything in a pan and serve with a fried egg.

Al dente pasta with a lot of garlic and tiny shreds of lemon, topped with fast fried squid.

Apparently it was cheap, but it was delicious.

I'm British, so practically grew up on beans on toast. Also, cheese on toast, scrambled egg on toast, packet soup with homemade dumplings, plenty of mashed potatoes, campbells meatballs, tinned ravioli. My Mum also made a lot of pies with her homemade pastry to make a little bit of meat into a meal big enough for the whole family. Probably the most basic thing I've ever eaten was when I lived by myself and that was stock made from oxo cubes with cubes of bread.

Home-made soup: carrot, turnip, dried veg broth mix (basically dried diced potato, split peas and barley), and a couple of stock cubes. This would be turned into a huge pot of soup which was enough for two meals for four. It was filling and really warming in the winter, when our house was freezing!

By UK standards, my parents were dirt poor when I was growing up but I never really noticed at the time. I remember my mum eating cold porridge, and there were definitely times when we were glad of government/EU surplus which was given to the poor (cheese and a revolting tinned stewed beef), but they never let us notice just how bad things are.

Looking back, I can see just how much my mum and dad struggled to give my sister and I the things that our friends took for granted. Christmas was always a struggle for them but we always had presents (even though mum and dad spent the bare minimum on each other) and Christmas dinner was always the best meal of the year.

Mum and dad brought my sister and I up to expect a better life than they had. They were wonderful people and I miss them every day.

There were several, but the one that sticks out in my mind: Spaghetti with sliced HOT DOGS in the sauce - haha

Dandelion greens, either as a cooked vegetable or raw as a sandwich filling.

My mom was pretty much raising us alone. My dad was always late with the child support, if he paid it at all. The meals were things that were easy to make after she got home from work and were usually on the cheap side. That being said, we never went hungry.

Frozen fish sticks and French fries. Ground beef and noodles mixed with Campbell's tomato soup rather than jarred tomato sauce. Scrambled eggs and toast.

Meatloaf.

Wow, I am the OP of this thread and forgot completely about it, but glad to have seen it bumped up a month before Mother's Day! Ironically, I am on my way to eat at mom's house..

Mac and cheese.

macaroni and cheese with some sort of cheap meat like hot dogs are ground beef. we liked it. when money was tight we didnt really suffer but we knew not to ask for things like steak or going out to eat, even to a burger drive in. I don't think we ever got super poor because my dad had a a professional job but he wasn't so highly paid so there were crunches trying to have a "middle class" life of sorts. I had neighbours with less money and they always had food on the table too. The "oil crisis" was a think and prices went up and there were some foods and lifestyle things that were rare for a few years then my mom went to work for a double income.

Aldi's tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches with government cheese

Egg salad sandwiches

Fried egg sandwiches

Pork sausage patties with a bowl of cornflakes

Government bacon sandwiches

Cubed "steak"

Fried chicken legs

White bean soup with leftover meat

Van Camp’s beans on toast.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

R380 a lot of that sounds like it could be tasty.

Pinto or white beans, potatoes and cornbread.

Elbow macaroni, with canned crushed tomatoes and bacon. It was actually pretty tasty. We hardly ever had it, as my father was an engineer, and always had a good job that paid well. It was something my father loved, and I suspect he had as a kid, growing up during the depression.

Since I'm eating it, Italian sunday sauce. I used to think it was not frugal, but considering how many people it feeds and lasts, it is.

Tuna casserole for seven, with one two cans of tuna, a box of elbow macaroni, a can of cream of mushroom soup and crushed crackers or, in high times, potato chips for a topper, baked at 350 for 45 minutes.

A friend in high school, with his two younger siblings, were practically abandoned by their parents when he was in seventh grade and Mom moved in with a boyfriend and Dad spent every night and weekend with a girlfriend. Dad had a good job but would leave almost nothing for food, and the kids had to figure it out for themselves. They would have canned chicken and dumplings for their special meals and a lot of bologna on white bread. Off-brand cereal and powdered milk. Candy bars.

But they would go over to their grandmother's house on Fridays for Musgo. I asked what that was and my friend said she'd open the refrigerator and anything that had been in there a while was pulled out a dropped into a pot together and heated. It had to go. Must go. Musgo. He described some of the combinations. Later he'd invite me to go and I declined, with thanks.

Rigatoni. Toss with tomato soup and shredded cheddar. Top with bacon and bake.

I didn't think of it as frugal at the time but we did rely on hunted game and fish Dad caught. Squirrel, rabbit, deer. We thought we were lucky if we had crappie, bass or non-muddy catfish, but we ate a lot of carp. Spitting buckshot out eating a piece of squirrel is a childhood memory. Ping!

A banana.

Please tell you me left the road kill for the Clampetts!

Spam with potatoes and onions with a breadcrumb and mustard crust topping. I still make it to this day. Partially because it brings back my mother. Mostly because it's really good. Spam's gotta be crisp.

Times were never tough so I don’t know- sorry.

R391, are you Hawaiian?

r21 - that is a nice story and I am sure a wonderful memory

"hoover gravy" basically flour mixed with left over bacon grease, poured over biscuits

We weren't extremely poor, but at times money was just not available. So, we got commodities. I use to love the canned pork, beef and luncheon meat. We had Brown beans, fried potatoes and cornbread. The closer to payday we maybe had pork neckbones, boiled with cornbread. We always had koolaid,all flavors. Maybe day before payday just biscuits and water gravy. What I would give to eat those neckbones and my mom's biscuits and gravy again. But on payday we always had fast food burgers or home fried burgers ,as my dad loved hamburgers. Sometimes he'd let us get whatever we wanted. I really cherish those times and those memories.

Dans Dairy Queen drive thru. hamburgers n fires for 4 was 12 bux, in 1970

good foood

Singapore noodles

Things that I loved but never knew were so cheap to make. (and still are.)

Virgo brand Red Beans & Rice with smoked sausage cut into medallions added in at the same time as the rice. Lima beans with smoked sausage instead of Smoked neck bones (I have never liked neck bones). Cubed steak with mashed potatoes and stewed squash with cheese. Chicken tenders browned, then cooked with a can each of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken served over rice.

My dad was actually the better cook and in my memory he cooked most of the time. Her signature dish was her meatballs, and she'd spend a couple of hours making them when the mood took her. She started branching out the last few years of her life (she died at 42) and was becoming a much better cook.

When I started cooking at around 15 my meals would cost $35 or more to feed the three of us. I was always a good cook, but until the last ten years or so, was elaborate. Mama never baked anything that didn't come in a mix, I was baking things from scratch as soon as I had my own place. I bought a Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer and began making my own icings etc. I just knew when I found the right man that my cooking was going seal the deal. Now I'm headed towards 40, still single and I get the urge to cook a full meal a couple of times a year. Cooking for one is expensive and I got tired of running food to relatives before I ate because I knew that I would never finish it all by myself in the span of a couple of days. I cook the above things fairly regularly, especially when I'm tired of eating take out food. I just can't justify spending large amounts of money to eat at my desk alone.

She didn't have enough time but PANCAKES!!

We certainly weren't rich, but we did eat a lot of the stuff mentioned here, but I think a lot of it was because my mom sometimes just didn't feel like cooking from scratch...we'd have hamburger helper or basic spaghetti a lot, or frozen dinners. I also remember a lot of canned salmon croquettes, which I hated.On the weekends though, especially Sunday, she'd always cook something "big" like a big pot roast with vegetables and cakes or pies.

My dad was not an adventurous eater, but sometimes she'd let us kids make tacos or pizza or something and give him something else.

I thought we were really boring, but I realize we were fortunate especially after reading responses here. I'm really sorry for those of you had to go hungry. I hope you are all better now.

Flour tortillas with margarine at least twice a week.

S.O.S. (Shit on a Shingle) - basically, chipped beef on toast, except with ground beef.

My dad HATED it, because that's apparently what they served in the Army during WWII.

I, personally, loved it - and every once in a while I still make it. The ultimate in comfort food. (My husband isn't too fond).

2 Burgers/2 fries/2 dollars at Hardees/Carl's Jr

Those huge blocks of "the gubamint" cheese worked wonders. Whatever you ate it with seemed to stay in you longer than normal. Effective constipation.

syrup n butter spread on bread

momma called it Sop

we loved it

We had bread and butter with sugar sprinkled on it. We loved it as well. I

We used to fish the olives out of mom's 3rd martini. By then, she wouldn't notice - and at least we'd have 'dinner'.

I am italo- so, no frugal meal for this family

Pencil shavings with tomato sauce.

I forget the details but she would sometimes make a simple boiled/steamed cauliflower or brocolli and cheese sauce dish that tasted pretty darn good.

Any left over vegetables - like a shrivelled carrot and half and onion from the fridge - lightly steamed then roasted in bite sized pieces in the oven with small pieces of sausages and liberally coated with olive oil, garlic and herbs.

Canned chickpeas steamed and mashed with olive oil and thyme with a bit of ham or pancetta.

Olive oil fried eggs on polenta.

Mother's Day is coming up and I like bumping this thread this time of the year...

Hamburger helper.

R399, I'm laughing that you said $35 to feed 3 of you in a discussion about frugal meals during hard times. I would venture to say you haven't eaten many beans and cornbread meals in your lifetime.

[quote] R165: Tuna noodle casserole always was, and still is, a Lenten staple

Yes, here also.

Ours had potato chips on top. I was oblivious to it all but have heard from my siblings about it as an adult.

I have fixed your punctuation, R165, least the Evening Punctuationist have a heart attack.

LOL@R414 - I know right? Try $1.50 feeding four in early 1980's. .50 for the franks, .50 for the spaghetti, and .50 for the jar of sauce. Spaghetti with sliced hot dogs family of four.

This canned corn that had bits of red pepper in it was called Mexicorn and she would fry it in a pan with ground meat. It was cheap and I always loved it.

Milksteak. Steak boiled in milk, over-hard. Serve with raw jellybeans

Years ago I heard a PSA on the radio for proper nutrition, involving a very poor black woman telling her child that since they had no money, all they were going to have for dinner that night was bread fried in bacon grease.

So I'm driving along in my Volvo and I start thinking about that fried bacon grease bread. And—being a bacon grease aficionado from WAY back—the more I think about it, the tastier it sounds. And by the time I get home, I can't wait. I take my little can of bacon grease out of the fridge, put a tablespoon or so into a cast iron skillet, get it good and melted, and throw in a piece of Wonder bread. I fried it until it was lightly toasted.

It was fucking DELICIOUS! I went on to make 3 or 4 more slices.

I, too, grew up in meager circumstances, but our "poor food" was usually boring shit like the aforementioned tuna noodle casserole, hamburger meat variations, etc. We NEVER had the luxury of bacon grease-fried bread. I think it's ironic that a PSA telling me how to eat better actually turned me on to probably one of the unhealthiest meals on the planet.

Homemade baked beans, scrambled eggs, lettuce and tomato.

The butcher at the the town's IGA would sell Mom pork bones for a few cents. She would buy a big can of hominy. Both in a deep pot with water to boil a couple hours. That was the "soup" that we had with toasted white bread, or Minute rice.

Minute rice with maple syrup.

Boiled slices of kohlrabi with butter and salt.

Toasted cheese sandwiches (toast and government cheese) with a can of tomato soup diluted with a can of water and a can of milk.

My mother hated wasting food - my siblings and I still joke with her about her admonition about “children starving in Armenia” in the 70’s when we groaned about some dinner or being made to finish. So everything was used and eaten, I don’t remember her ever throwing out any food.

Roast chicken would eventually become her version of “Chicken a la King” - carcass stripped of every bit of meat, reheated in gravy with peas and carrots and served over white rice.

Meatloaf was stretched by mixing in Bell’s Stuffing mix with the ground beef. This could wind up as sandwiches or broken down, fried with butter and garlic, and added to sauce for spaghetti bolognese.

Pot Roast with the carrots and onions would make its final appearance over extra wide egg noodles.

Ham, always scored and baked with pineapples and cloves, would be diced and mixed into macaroni and cheese, or used in omelettes.

Roast beef became hot open faced sandwiches.

Being Catholic, and Mom being old school, she kept the no meat on Fridays all year. Fish cakes and spaghetti, mac n’ cheese served with tuna salad or vice versa were her staples. Mom couldn’t cook fish tho, but if my father was there, he’d make sole or flounder. I remember he’d always soak the filets in milk before frying them up. Fish suppers were always served with boiled potatoes, and leftover boiled potatoes would be fried up with onions in bacon fat for breakfast over the weekend.

I also remember breakfast for dinner. Corned beef hash and eggs, French toast or pancakes with sausage patties, Irish black pudding, rashers, sausage, from the Irish butcher with eggs.

I’m pretty much my mother’s son now - I hate wasting any food and will use every bit however I can. Every dinner has a protein, starch, and veg. I’ll cook something “big” on the weekend that I’ll use for 2-3 more dinners. I still love some of mom’s staples that I’ll recreate for myself and savour every mouthful 😋

Chef boy r dee, “beefaroni” and also kraft Mac and chees..

Bu to be honest, I only remember this when I was in junior high. My mother worked evening shift as a nurse,so my dad had to make us dinner. I don’t think it was that we were going through real rough times, I just think my dad couldn’t cook. He would also order us pizza and fast food a lot.

We were comfortably upper middle-class, so I can't answer.

Love this thread!! Our go to was a can of van Camp’s Pork n beans cooked with onions and sliced hot dogs, served over rice.

My mother was born in 1939. She said hers was milk and rice: that’s right - soft, cooked rice soaked in milk. She said it was delicious.

When are you all gonna mention the frugal stuff?

[quote]When are you all gonna mention the frugal stuff?

—Darfur Orphan

Are you thinking of Dung Beetle Helper?

McDonald's. Only she fried the hamburgs herself and the roll was Wonder Bread that had been put in the toaster. Was awful.

When y'all re talking about government cheese, are you just talking about the big blocks found at the market, or was it actually cheese handed out by a government agency?

R429

Hash in various ways from whatever was left over in the fridge was a frequent frugal meal. Nothing was ever wasted or thrown away.

My grandmother used to make and freeze pierogies. Even today, you could make a month’s worth of potato/cheese purifies for $30.

whole wheat bread, peanut butter, honey

*pierogies not purifies. Damn autocorrect

Did you cry when you rode the bus on the way to food bank?

ketchup soup

Orange chicken, or some sort of stir fry...noodles...sometimes confit.

"""Goolosh"""". Egg noodles, browned hamburger meat, and beef gravy cooked in a stovetop skillet. This was way before hamburger helper.

That actually sounds good, R438.

This thread is so sad. IT is evidence that we need to expand the Food Security System to protect all of us. Humans need food.

Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast, it is dried beef with gravy on toast. My dad loved that shit, he was like a pig in mud when ever mom would serve it but I hated it, I would just fix myself either a grilled cheese or a PB&J. I found it completely disgusting.

Pasta with chick peas or pasta with peas. Covered in as much Romano cheese as we wanted.

R425, for breakfast, leftover rice from the night before, heated up in the microwave, cooked with milk or soymilk and raisins and cinnamon.

Oscar Meyer Braunschweiger liverwurst and onion on white bread.

One thing should be noted for any young people here who have never experienced 'meal frugality' - first, the cost of food was a lot higher in the 50's and 60's. In the 70's, inflation made prices of food go up every few weeks.

So yes - there were a lot of families - even solidly middle-class ones - that had to make cheap meals.

Meatloaf made with 1 part ground beef, 9 parts fake Ritz Crackers. Instant potatoes au gratin on the side (if we were lucky).

Michelina frozen dishes, Budget Gourmet, Patio burritos

How is it that there are so many DLers who grew up sometimes kind of poor? You walk around and it's not like everyone is lacking food. I don't get it.

'Triggered,' here -

Can't answer -

Interestingly I ate a lot of spaghetti aglio e olio, fried baloney, swordfish etc. as a kid.

"How is it that there are so many DLers who grew up sometimes kind of poor? You walk around and it's not like everyone is lacking food. I don't get it. "

Welcome to Intro to 20th Century Poverty.

Your first paper will deal with the subject, "Bitch! History Isn't All About You." 10 pages, typed, double spaced, with references from several sources.

"Tuna Teasers". You take a can of tuna, whip up typical tuna salad with all the celery and onions and stuff. Spread that over some cheap hamburger buns or whatever bread you have. Put a dollop of tomato sauce on each, and sprinkle the "real" Parmesan in the green Kraft can over the tomato sauce. Broil until the cheese is toasty and browned. I still do this once in a while when I feel homesick/nostalgic. I've made it for friends and they don't get it. LOL!

Any of you Eldergays remember Mock Apple Pie on the back of the Ritz Cracker box?

Anyone ever try it?

[quote]Interestingly I ate a lot of spaghetti aglio e olio, fried baloney, swordfish etc. as a kid.

"Swordfish", r450?

Pasties. Sometimes with beef, pork, sausage or venison, but sometimes just potatoes--with ketchup and cold milk.

Peanut butter bread--italian bread with thick creamy Jif on it and cold milk

I loved both these dinners.

It depends on where you take your walks, R448. Maybe all is well in your neighborhood but not everyone lives there.

R448 read R445 to understand.

Peas and eggs; spaghetti and meatballs; anything with chicken thighs, usually cacciatore, over pasta.

We really need to increase the food benefits people get, all Americans. It is so sad. It could be you, your children, your grandma. COME ON, give empathy and democracy a try.

Hamburger and mushroom soup. It was vile.

We grew up solidly middle class and never had to endure anything like some of these posts. But it does give me a better appreciation of what my parents provided for us.

But i wanted to say to OP r1 that my mom's spaghetti aglio e olio is one of my families favorite dishes. I've never associated it with poor food - it's just simply delicious. It is now a staple in my home as well.

I still eat spaghetti aglio e olio every so often, lol. Pasta goes a long way if you’re trying to budget. Too bad I don’t have the same metabolism as my teenage self..

Either franks and beans, or some kind of pasta with cream of chicken or mushroom soup, with maybe a little leftover beef, meatloaf or chicken.

We were reasonably OK and were never starving, but these are what I'd call "Wednesday before dad's payday" meals. In those days Mom could write a check on Thursday and buy groceries; Dad would get paid Friday and deposit his check, and the check would hit the bank Monday. So it was usually that Wednesday that we were down to three pieces of bread, a bag of microwave popcorn, a few cans of soup, leftovers, and whatever other shit no one wanted to eat

[quote] Oscar Meyer Braunschweiger liverwurst and onion on white bread.

OMG that was my mom's favorite.

I personally loved something called chicken roll. It was sold in a deli loaf, and tasted somewhat like a rotisserie chicken, but deliciously fatty and salty. I'm sure it had things in it that were terrible, but it was yummy. Weaver's was best, but no longer made, sadly.

My mom used to make a stuffed hot dog where the hot dogs were split and stuffed with a mixture of mashed potatoes mixed with a little Miracle Whip, pickle relish and hard boiled egg then baked. Sometimes topped with a little cheese if we had it. Another version was tuna melts stuffed in hot dog buns and baked.

They were OK kids food but my dad wasn't wild about them.

Both my parents grew up dirt poor, married young, and we were taken care of before school by one of our grandmothers. Both my grandmothers had huge gardens and preserved foods for winter. So even when money was tight, we never felt deprived.

We had a veg garden too, and used to have corn, tomatoes and squash pretty regularly from it. My grandmothers would can a lot of stuff. Some stuff I liked and other stuff was too pickled/sour for my tastes as a kid.

I admit to occasionally eating ramen now because I crave the taste or the seasoning sometimes. I usually make a mini pasta salad out of it - strain the water, add the seasoning and put a small piece of chicken in, maybe a slice or two of tomatoes, and a spoon of mustard, low fat mayo or some kind of salad dressing. (These days I buy the ones that are 25 percent lower sodium, though.)

bump

Lentil soup.

When I was little, in 1971 I think, we had a hard summer. I remember that hamburger was 19 cents a pound and we had a garden. So every night for over a month we would have a hamburger patty, half a slice of Wonder bread with margarine, and vegetables from the garden. Unfortunately my mother was a lousy cook and the hamburgers were often like charcoal briquettes and the vegetables were cooked to mush. It made a big impression on me to remember the details of that.

Fortunately as an adult I was solidly middle class until the last couple of years since I've been on SSI, $750 monthly. Now my EBT benefits are $95 monthly and that doesn't stretch all that far. I supplement with dollar menus and 99 cent taco Thursdays at Taco Time.

R447, or anyone else familiar, what is/was "Budget Gourmet"? Sounds interesting...Having not grown up in the states; I am curious if this was a fast-food chain, or a brand of food bought at the market

French toast. Nobody complained.

Various bean soups that were cheaply made from scratch and delicious! Sometimes even with a little leftover ham or turkey leg meat.

Breakfast for dinner.

Tic tac salad. A lettuce leaf, tic tacs crushed and mixed with ketchup stolen from McDonald’s and sometimes a slice of raw onion.

I grew up working class, but I don't remember my mom skimping on meals. There was always an abundance of good healthy foods as well as desserts, such as layer cakes, ice cream and cookies. My mom also bought Dannon yogurt. I used to love Dannon's Prune Whip and Vanilla flavors, guess I was a weird kid, especially as yogurt would be my dessert! lol

I don't remember crap like Spam or other super cheap foods in the house. My mom always cooked fresh food. As I'm part Italian, we did eat pasta, but usually as a side dish to a meal of meat. I didn't even know what Spaghetti-Os were until someone in high school said they loved them. The idea of canned pasta was alien to me.

In fact, my mom made roast beef and London broil way too much. I hated meat, I stopped eating it in my late teens, I always ate more vegetables than meat. As a small kid, when I was forced to eat meat, I would cover it in gravy. I find the taste of meat repulsive. Even adding spices doesn't help.

I guess we always had a lot of food in our household because both parents worked. Until I went to a private high school in Manhattan, I didn't realize I was working class.

[quote]Various bean soups that were cheaply made from scratch and delicious! Sometimes even with a little leftover ham or turkey leg meat.

I love soup, that was another meal my mom made. She knew how much I hated meat, yet I did and do still eat chicken. She made chicken stew, same as beef stew but with chicken stock, chunks of cubed chicken and lots of vegetables. I'd always garnish the soups with grated cheese. I still love lentil soup. my mom made it with spinach.

btw, I don't know how my mom did it. She worked all day, yet always had a fresh meal daily. I think she'd prepare some meals on the weekend then freeze them, because there was no way she would be able to do all that prep after a hard days work. My father never lifted a finger to help.

Happy Mother's Day mom!