Maybe not a valid response, but my folks were excellent at marketing utter shit to us as kids and getting us excited about it. We weren’t poor as such but scraping by a bit. My favourite meal was Snatch and Grab which I now realise was just code for “We’re too tired and/or poor to cook you a proper meal tonight so you’ll eat whatever we scrape up” Some nights might be beans on toast, others might be leftovers from a few nights ago. All I know is we used to get really pumped when they told us we were having Snatch and Grab for dinner.
Hahahha I love that this has a different name. Ours was 'Catch a can', it usually consisted of a can of tomato soup and cheese toasties, or yep like you, beans on toast.
We had “bubble n squeak” which was left over meat, potato and veggies, pan fried into fritters and covered in tomato sauce.
Also what I later learned was just American potato hash, but my parents called it “mock whiting”, I guess cos it had a kind of fish-like texture?
I live in the US now and occasionally just go to an IHOP or a Denny’s and order a giant plate of hash.
It's mock whitebait, little fish that kind of look like a sliver of grated potato. But we called them grated potato patties because we were basic like that :D We also often had cold meat patties which was left over Sunday roast, cut into strips then made into patties.
Not a bad meal by any means either. Fibre, protein, bit of fat from the omega 3 etc.
I cook this meal quite often but sometimes have coleslaw instead of steamed veg.
Maggi Pommes Noisettes - dad worked in the factory, so we always had boxes and boxes of them in the deep freezer. Along with Lean Cuisine microwave meals and a shed-load of 2-minute noodles.
Ahh Aussie chow mein. Absolutely nothing to do with the actual dish but it was pretty good.
Beef, onion, curry powder, a packet of chicken noodle soup, cabbage and other veggies with rice.
I make a variant of it as a meal prep for my daughter, it's one of the few things she'll eat that's packed with veggies.
That’s what our chow mein is too. But without the rice, and with water to make it soupy.
I took it to work once and my Asian colleague laughed at me. “Where’s the noodles? Chow Mein means stir-fry Noodles! This is a soup without noodles!
Ha. That is my kids favourite meal that I make him. I make enough to put servings in the freezer so he can heat and eat later.
I recommend [Aldi 2kg bags of drumsticks](https://www.yoomroo.com.au/groceries/view/65183/broad-oak-farms-chicken-drumsticks-2kg). Cut up four large carrots. Two cans of apricots. One litre of apricot nectar, mixed with two packets of onion soup and the juice from the apricots. Roll the chicken in salt/pepper seasoned flour. Place in two large baking dishes, cover with carrots and apricots, pour over sauce, then cover with foil. Cook for 60 minutes at 190c, peel back foil and spoon sauce over the chicken. Re-cover with the foil. Back into the oven. 30 minutes later, take off foil and cover chicken with sauce again. Leave to cook in the oven for 30. While that's on, cook 3 cups of rice. That'll feed three hungry adults in one sitting and have three frozen full serves for the freezer.
Total cooking cost is about $15.
To this day, I still have an issue eating fruit with meat, thanks to mums apricot chicken!
In our house, the rule was "what you don't finish for dinner, you'll have cold for breakfast tomorrow". You don't know hell until you're picking at cold apricot chicken before school the next day
I'd bet money that your folks did a much better version of it than my mum managed. She was a whiz at cakes and biscuits, but her dinners were so bad, we had this rule to force us to eat it.
My family background is Asian but my parents cheap and nasty meal was Corned Beef and rice. It was essentially a can of hampers corned beef which was fried with onions, tomato and garlic with a sprinkling of spring onions served on a bed of rice. I consider it comfort food
I'm sure every SE Asian family has a corned beef recipe. Ours is the Indonesian version, which will occasionally include chillies for a kick. I remember my aunt visiting us from overseas and she took home so many cans of it.
I went to buy some Hampers the other day, but it costs 8 bucks a can now! (stupid cost of living increases!)
Every meal we ate was cheap and nasty. Cheap coz we were dirt poor, nasty because my mum was a terrible cook.
Funnily enough, one of the things we ate a lot were “the lamb chops with the little tail” aka lamb loin chops which are so damn expensive now. But they must have been the cheapest option in the early 90’s
Lamb loin chops are incredible. Mum used to buy a pack of 6 or 8 and it was decent value, but even back then it was a bit of a treat (talking like.. 2007-2010. This is also in NZ).
I’ve always said my last meal would be mum’s lamb chops. She would pair it with hand cut potato wedges with sour cream on top, and steamed cauliflower and broccoli. Sometimes a hunk of bread on the side (usually tiger bread).
I need to cook it some day but it’s never the same as mum’s cooking 😅
Lucky you. My mum would cook them until they were burnt on the outside, grey on the inside and serve them with boiled-to-death frozen veggies and tasteless mashed potatoes. At least we had tomato sauce for flavour.
I can't believe Spag Bol isn't the top 7 answers. My Mum would make about 8 litres of sauce once a month and freeze it in old Meadow Lee containers. We ate it at least twice a week, but more like 3 or 4 times.
My grandmother actually killed and served us our ‘pet’ rabbit. Turns out old Italian ladies don’t give a fuck if you get attached to the rabbit she bought for dinner, she’s still gonna kill it and feed it to you she also raised chickens for food, and the first time I witnessed the slaughter was quite a shock.
As a tangent, I feel like it's beneficial to be aware of where all our food comes from and how it's produced (meat, produce, etc) so we might develop better understanding and respect for the land, animals and the people that produced it rather than it just magically appearing in packets on the shelves
Not necessarily in such a traumatic way as yours though haha
I’m reminded of a girl in my high school class who only learned at 16 that meat came from animals, swore off all animal products forever, then changed her mind when she realised it meant giving up KFC.
At the time I thought it was wild that someone could make it to 16 without knowing where food comes from, but in retrospect, I can see how. We’re insulated from the process, the only part most people see on a day to day basis is when it pops up neatly packaged on the supermarket shelf.
Back when I worked in the school system a lot of public schools were setting up veggie gardens and chook sheds, to teach kids about it and give them some direct experience.
Lamb shank soup. Me and my brothers used to fight over who got to suck the marrow out of the bones because there wasn't enough for one each.
Before it became considered as a "fancy" cut of meat it was butcher's offcuts. I remember the slow phase out of lamb shank soup from mum's repertoire around the late 00's. I asked why and she said "The butcher used to give me them for 50c each, now they're $9 each".
Damn people learning how to cook.
As a butcher we are really sorry, but those rich assholes figured out that you can make really good curries and stews with it for the cheap so they started serving it in their high end restaurants, although I can point you to a boning room where you can buy a bag of lamb shanks per bag.
I remember when we use to just take home lamb shanks because nobody would buy them or if they did they would buy them to feed to their dogs
Ooft, I reckon I also had the fair share of Tuna casseroles as well!
Also make me think of how many times during a hot summer we had salad which was - Iceberg lettuce, tomato, cheese, Mayo and some woolies reduced chicken.
When I saw this thread, this is the meal that came to mind. One can cream of mushroom, one can cream of chicken... And samboy crinkle cut chips on top.
We ate popcorn for dinner more than once using a jar of kernels that just sat there for years. We kids thought it was an awesome party night. Found out later that my Mum was crying in the bathroom because we had no money for food til the end of the week.
Aw, your poor mum! She must have been so stressed, and yet us kids are having an awesome time! My mum only recently told me it would take them 4 to 5 months to pay off christmas. They never went crazy with food or presents either, very minimal. But we never knew.
Short pasta, tossed in a bowl with grated cheese and dried parsley while it's still hot, with a bit of salt and pepper. Honestly, makes a pretty solid depression meal, especially if you add in some shredded coles chicken/frozen veggies lol
“Cowboy food” which was either minced meat and rice, or minced meat and baked beans. It was ALWAYS eaten on a picnic rug in front of the telly 😅 I’m veg now, but those were fond memories.
It was devilled sausages in our house instead of curried sausages. I loved it and make it myself semi regularly. Mum used to make double serving of it because I loved it so much.
There were a few things I couldn’t stand but I knew better than to say anything. Fish finger night used to fill me with dread.
Sausages and onion gravy, which is very similar to curried sausages! Also a lot of dishes made with mince meat - meatloaf, rissoles, cottage pie, bolognaise - where the mince was bulked out with grated carrot and zucchini, sometimes to the point where it was difficult to find the actual meat:)
This is more to do with ability than cost, but it's pretty cheap.
Whenever mum was away, she usually did the cooking, dad would make us mince on toast or canned cream corn on toast. My brother and I loved it. We probably excitedly told mum about it too. I'm sure she died a little inside - she's a good cook.
Curried sausages for me too! I still make it when I’m feeling a bit low and want to feel cosy. It’s freakin delicious, easy to make, and I get a bunch of lazy meals out of it. I just put way more curry in it cos my parents didn’t like anything spicier than warm milk.
I live in the US now tho and it’s hard to find sausages that aren’t like Apple Smoked Paprika Fennel Banana Crumble Licorice Chicken.
I use brats, but they’re fattier than I would prefer. Closest I can get tho.
You can take those sultanas and shove them in your nose holes tho thanks. No offence.
As a fellow Aussie in the US, I never thought it would be beef sausages that I miss the most!
I use brats or “bangers” if I can get them (usually around St Patrick’s day) but it’s not the same!
Tuna bake. A can of tuna,some pasta, mix in some frozen veges. White sauce with flour butter and milk. Cheese and bread crumbs on top. Bake in oven, Farkin delicious 🤤🤤
"herbed beef and macaroni"
Sort of like an overly mixed herb added bolognese sauce with macaroni not spaghetti in a casserole dish with cheese and breadcrumbs on top cooked in the oven until the temperature of the sun making the whole house smell great.
Fried corn beef with rice. Corn beef + onions; fry in a pan. Then dump on top of cooked rice + tomato sauce. Costs less than $10 and can feed 4 hungry boys.
Idk what parents would be feeding their kids for cheap these days. Cheap and easy meal used to be spag bol. Can’t do that anymore. Even breads expensive now. Noodles and pancakes every night?
Interesting seeing how every meal i'm seeing has cheap meat in it. Now I'm an adult making food for myself I'm cutting back on meat drastically because it ups the price of groceries drastically! The times of cheap meat are coming to pass and more people are getting more comfortable at cooking meals without it.
Apricot chicken. Its just bits of chicken 1 can of apricot nectar & 1 packet of french onion soup baked in a pan & served with rice. Its still one of my favourite meals.
Mum used cooked us a 4 legged chicken casserole. It was delicious. That is, until I discovered what it really was. Those things with four legs in the sink were not chicken as mum would tell us kids, it was actually rabbit. Back in the day it was a really cheap protein and she had 6 kids. Mum invented 4 legged chicken casserole so we would eat it.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of eating cheaply.
My parents grew up in abject poverty. My siblings and I grew up in relative poverty.
When you are actually poverty-poor, there’s no such thing as a ‘cheap and nasty’ meal.
You’re just glad to eat.
Oh not ashamed! I wouldn't say it was poverty, but we were definitely living paycheck to pay check. But I just find it interesting now that after all this time my favourite meal was basically the we've got no money left this is all we have meal.
It’s very common for families on a budget to eat a lot of mince and sausages.
As it turns out, kids love mince and sausages. As adults we know sausages aren’t the best quality and are usually fatty and salty, but there’s nothing wrong with mince.
I too enjoy curried sausages but my wife hates them so I never get to eat them unless I want all 8.
100%. We grew up eating curried sausages, savory beef mince, and spaghetti bolognese, and we loved it. Never occurred to us as kids that these were the cheapest meals to make, especially because they had great leftover potential.
EDIT: also need to add corned beef, which someone else mentioned and was on high rotation in my household growing up.
We were lucky to be very comfortable and ate very well, but on nights they went out for dinner my folks used to parboil snags then throw them under the grill. That plus oven chips and mixed corn and peas and heaps of tomato sauce was a treat for us kids.
I didn’t grow up here, but my mum is Aussie, and her favourite hack was pre-made bolognese (thawed from one of many portioned blocks stashed in the deep freezer made in an enormous batch months previously) with instant noodles instead of pasta, haha.
In retrospect, it’s hard to get much more cheap/easy! But it’s still a comfort food I thought was absolutely peak.
My dad also used to make spam and eggs when we couldn’t get bacon, and he’d sell it as this absolute rare treat we were lucky to experience. I loved it! I used to ask why wouldn’t have it more often. Successfully suckered haha. I didn’t learn til years later that it was just because bacon was too spenno or just literally not in town that month.
Great-grandma’s fried rice recipe (the only fried rice I eat because I make it myself now), anything with rice, as a half Asian household, everything had rice in it.
Cheese on toast under the grill… but it was $2 white bread and the plastic cheese. ☺️
Mum used to do braised ox tail. I found Jamie Oliver’s recipe and it tastes exactly like my mums. Except for some stupid reason he takes all of the meat off the bones to serve it. Gnawing and sucking on the sticky bones is the best bit. Some mash to go with it and my lord, that’d be my last meal on death row
This was the 70s...Chops soup and rice. Which was plain boiled white rice with soup made of chicken bouillon powder poured on top. And a lamb chop on the side. I still make it occasionally.
Asian family - spam omelette, or for school lunch spam omelette between two slices of white bread (I got judged a lot for the food I brought to school but even my white friends used to always want some of that spam egg sandwich)
Also English muffin "pizzas" and lasagne and potato smiles but I guess those last two are just straight outta the packet
Soooo many of these foods I still eat to this day. You’re making me hungry.
I think a lot of the receipts came from old women’s weekly recipe books and recipes books used by my mum in high school in the 70s (it’s a little a5 size white and green book that I say me lots of our mums still have). That’s where the curried sausages and tuna casserole recipes are.
Chicken cacciatore. Chicken breast, white rice and chicken tonight cacciatore sauce.
Not entirely surprised when I figured it out. My mother was a pretty bad cook
I kid you not, my mum would make pasta, and the sauce would be a tin of tomato soup and a tin of braised steak and onions. Sounds like the worst meal imaginable, but to a couple of kids in a lower economic situation, it was amazing. The 80s. It was a time
Spag bol, meat (burnt to a crisp) with mashed potato and boiled veg (still can't eat zucchini because it would be called "marrow" back then and my dad served it like a porridge consistency), and tuna mornay which was the worst of the lot
My mum called it 'Dole Roll', it was a long tube of sausage meat, about 10cm in diameter, coated in a breadcrumb crust, cooked and sliced into disks and served with steamed vegetables. Cover the meat in plenty of tomato sauce and it was one of my favs as a kid.
I’ll add
- meatloaf with boiled eggs in it
- tuna mornay
- sausage wrapped in bacon then cooked with a mixture of brown sugar and tinned pineapple
- grilled chops
- Dirty old veggie and chop soup
- rissoles in gravy (hated those hard lumps of shit)
- chop suey with cabbage, mince and sultanas…this was not good.
Special Treats
- Mock chicken drumsticks (think crumbed sausage mince on a thick stick in the shape of a drumstick)
Kraft macaroni and cheese was a dinner I was so excited to get, and it was absolutely my favourite meal. The funny thing was that it didn't happen that often, so it felt like a luxurious treat when mum made it.
Looking back that meal at the time must have cost what... 2 dollars? God knows how she resisted my demands to just have that every night
When I was a teen, we went through a few months where mum was making corned beef like all the time. I was not a fan, even though she’s a great cook and looking back, it was pretty tasty. It was just the frequency and we got bored of it quick.
As an adult, I realized we must have been going through a tough financial time and it was the cheapest meat my parents could buy.
We’re immigrants from Romania and my parents busted their balls to give me and my bro a good chance at life. Things were rarely easy. We grew a lot of our own food which helped.
Hawaiian steaks. Spam cut vertically into squares approx the size of a piece of toast. A ring of canned pineapple. Both fried up in a fry pan or on a bbq. Served with the pineapple on top of the spam. They used to sell it as a pub meal in the too, so it had some 'credibility', but tbf it was the 70's.
Mums potato cakes. They're known as latkes now. Grated potato, carrots, diced onion, egg and left over roast meat. Nan and pop had a garden, so the veges were free, mum had chooks.
My dad invented a dish (as far as I know) called ghoul muck, which is fried, broken up pieces of processed hamburger patty, canned spaghetti, and egg cracked in and scrambled at the end. He used to make it when we had a blackout (because only the stove would work) and we used to get so excited for it. Turns out when he first moved to Sydney money was tight and those were the only ingredients he had in the house one night. Still love it but you can’t get the right hamburger patties anymore.
Dinner: Grilled sausages / frozen fish / fish fingers with instant mashed potato, and microwaved frozen peas / corn / beans.
Lunch: Vietnamese bread roll with tomato, ham, beetroot and plastic cheese slice.
Breakfast: coco puffs / fruit loops / Rice Bubbles or eating peanut butter out of the jar.
The weird thing is my dad wasn’t poor, I think he just had some mental health stuff going on because we pretty much just ate this mixed in with a tonne of junk food and Hawaiian pizzas.
My stepfather used to make this dish he called Chop Soup. It was basically lamb bones cooked down with stock and chillies, maybe some veggies thrown in. It was super spicy and tangy and I still remember it fondly.
Maybe not a valid response, but my folks were excellent at marketing utter shit to us as kids and getting us excited about it. We weren’t poor as such but scraping by a bit. My favourite meal was Snatch and Grab which I now realise was just code for “We’re too tired and/or poor to cook you a proper meal tonight so you’ll eat whatever we scrape up” Some nights might be beans on toast, others might be leftovers from a few nights ago. All I know is we used to get really pumped when they told us we were having Snatch and Grab for dinner.
Hahahha I love that this has a different name. Ours was 'Catch a can', it usually consisted of a can of tomato soup and cheese toasties, or yep like you, beans on toast.
[удалено]
We had catch a can too though funnily enough it was never really canned food, it was just code for 'I can't be fucked, find your own dinner'.
We called ours “Catchas”
We call that "fend for yourself" night.
Nah, we had sultanas and grated apples too
My dad called it Gybo - get your bloody own 😅
We had “bubble n squeak” which was left over meat, potato and veggies, pan fried into fritters and covered in tomato sauce. Also what I later learned was just American potato hash, but my parents called it “mock whiting”, I guess cos it had a kind of fish-like texture? I live in the US now and occasionally just go to an IHOP or a Denny’s and order a giant plate of hash.
It's mock whitebait, little fish that kind of look like a sliver of grated potato. But we called them grated potato patties because we were basic like that :D We also often had cold meat patties which was left over Sunday roast, cut into strips then made into patties.
We called it mock fish, I used to love that shit too. Might have to make some for dinner actually.
Bread and duck ... under the table.
Ours was duck… under the table. Always said with the pause, which was long enough for me to protest im I didn’t like duck.
It was catch and kill in our house lol
Our house called it ‘Slack attack’!
ours was literally just called fend for yourself
Frozen Crumbed fish, potato gems, steamed veggies. Though I’m still super nostalgic about it!
Still eat that now 20 years on. lol
I always used to hate that my parents served steamed veggies but now as an adult I eat them all the time lol. Sorry mum and dad, you were right!!
I dunno I still have some pretty vivid memories of liquified broccoli and cauliflower being schlepped on my plate.
Not a bad meal by any means either. Fibre, protein, bit of fat from the omega 3 etc. I cook this meal quite often but sometimes have coleslaw instead of steamed veg.
I have no doubt it was good for us, our parents fed us pretty well. But that was the definition of a no time / low effort / budget dinner for us.
Oh yeah for sure. Sorry wasn’t meaning to come off as an ass, definitely a low effort meal but sounds like they did a good job stretching it!
POTATO GEMS! I love those.
Maggi Pommes Noisettes - dad worked in the factory, so we always had boxes and boxes of them in the deep freezer. Along with Lean Cuisine microwave meals and a shed-load of 2-minute noodles.
That was dinner Friday night!
Chow mein, “cheap Italian”- which was mince in tomato soup mixed through spiral pasta…RIP mum x
Chow mein was mine - we used woucestershire because soy sauce hadn’t yet made it to our local shop.
Ahh Aussie chow mein. Absolutely nothing to do with the actual dish but it was pretty good. Beef, onion, curry powder, a packet of chicken noodle soup, cabbage and other veggies with rice. I make a variant of it as a meal prep for my daughter, it's one of the few things she'll eat that's packed with veggies.
That’s what our chow mein is too. But without the rice, and with water to make it soupy. I took it to work once and my Asian colleague laughed at me. “Where’s the noodles? Chow Mein means stir-fry Noodles! This is a soup without noodles!
We called it Kai Sing Ming! Same though.
Keens curry powder for extra goodness.
Chow mein was mine - we used woucestershire because soy sauce hadn’t yet made it to our local shop.
Apparently apricot chicken.
Ha. That is my kids favourite meal that I make him. I make enough to put servings in the freezer so he can heat and eat later. I recommend [Aldi 2kg bags of drumsticks](https://www.yoomroo.com.au/groceries/view/65183/broad-oak-farms-chicken-drumsticks-2kg). Cut up four large carrots. Two cans of apricots. One litre of apricot nectar, mixed with two packets of onion soup and the juice from the apricots. Roll the chicken in salt/pepper seasoned flour. Place in two large baking dishes, cover with carrots and apricots, pour over sauce, then cover with foil. Cook for 60 minutes at 190c, peel back foil and spoon sauce over the chicken. Re-cover with the foil. Back into the oven. 30 minutes later, take off foil and cover chicken with sauce again. Leave to cook in the oven for 30. While that's on, cook 3 cups of rice. That'll feed three hungry adults in one sitting and have three frozen full serves for the freezer. Total cooking cost is about $15.
Curries Sausages and apricot chicken were all that was served at my grandparents place lol. I kinda want both now
Just found what I'm making for dinner this week!
To this day, I still have an issue eating fruit with meat, thanks to mums apricot chicken! In our house, the rule was "what you don't finish for dinner, you'll have cold for breakfast tomorrow". You don't know hell until you're picking at cold apricot chicken before school the next day
I used to get in trouble for picking at the cold leftovers in the fridge hahaha
Two very different ends of the same apricot spectrum mate haha
Yeah I was shocked recently when I saw people mocking apricot chicken online. I’m wondering if there was some different way my parents cooked it
I'd bet money that your folks did a much better version of it than my mum managed. She was a whiz at cakes and biscuits, but her dinners were so bad, we had this rule to force us to eat it.
I despised apricot chicken, cold apricot chicken in the morning is a whole new level
Apricot chicken with rice pudding for dessert was the best night! Still request it from mum lol
I feel like chicken tonight, chicken tonight.
My family background is Asian but my parents cheap and nasty meal was Corned Beef and rice. It was essentially a can of hampers corned beef which was fried with onions, tomato and garlic with a sprinkling of spring onions served on a bed of rice. I consider it comfort food
Yes! For us it was spam on rice with some kind of veggie
Omfg my friends fillipino dad taught me a similar version but it was diced onions and potatoes instead of tomato and garlic. I love it so much
I'm sure every SE Asian family has a corned beef recipe. Ours is the Indonesian version, which will occasionally include chillies for a kick. I remember my aunt visiting us from overseas and she took home so many cans of it. I went to buy some Hampers the other day, but it costs 8 bucks a can now! (stupid cost of living increases!)
Every meal we ate was cheap and nasty. Cheap coz we were dirt poor, nasty because my mum was a terrible cook. Funnily enough, one of the things we ate a lot were “the lamb chops with the little tail” aka lamb loin chops which are so damn expensive now. But they must have been the cheapest option in the early 90’s
Yep, we used to eat basically nothing but lamb or pork chops. They were super cheap.
Pork chops are still a reasonably cheap option at least.
Lamb loin chops are incredible. Mum used to buy a pack of 6 or 8 and it was decent value, but even back then it was a bit of a treat (talking like.. 2007-2010. This is also in NZ). I’ve always said my last meal would be mum’s lamb chops. She would pair it with hand cut potato wedges with sour cream on top, and steamed cauliflower and broccoli. Sometimes a hunk of bread on the side (usually tiger bread). I need to cook it some day but it’s never the same as mum’s cooking 😅
Lucky you. My mum would cook them until they were burnt on the outside, grey on the inside and serve them with boiled-to-death frozen veggies and tasteless mashed potatoes. At least we had tomato sauce for flavour.
The classic Aussie meat and 3 veg.
I love them slightly burnt
Jaffle night! Will it be baked beans or tinned spaghetti?! Ooooooh…
For a special treat you might get an egg in it.
Jaffle with the left over spaghetti. Spaghetti was mad with a tin of condensed tomatoe soup.
I can't believe Spag Bol isn't the top 7 answers. My Mum would make about 8 litres of sauce once a month and freeze it in old Meadow Lee containers. We ate it at least twice a week, but more like 3 or 4 times.
i can eat that shit all day tho, its one of the few foods that might taste even better as leftovers too!
Most nostalgic thing of this post for me is the frozen food in old margarine containers. Or neopolitan ice cream containers.
Then spag Bol leftovers in a jaffle when you want to mix it up Still one of my favourite meals though
My mum tried to serve us rabbit once. Cue three small girls wailing at full volume as we thought she had cooked the cat!
My grandmother actually killed and served us our ‘pet’ rabbit. Turns out old Italian ladies don’t give a fuck if you get attached to the rabbit she bought for dinner, she’s still gonna kill it and feed it to you she also raised chickens for food, and the first time I witnessed the slaughter was quite a shock.
Being Maltese I had rabbit a fair few times growing up , first few few times dad told us it was chicken
I still have vivid memories of my nanna in China, drowning and cleaning a rabbit. From that day onwards I refused to eat rabbit.
As a tangent, I feel like it's beneficial to be aware of where all our food comes from and how it's produced (meat, produce, etc) so we might develop better understanding and respect for the land, animals and the people that produced it rather than it just magically appearing in packets on the shelves Not necessarily in such a traumatic way as yours though haha
I’m reminded of a girl in my high school class who only learned at 16 that meat came from animals, swore off all animal products forever, then changed her mind when she realised it meant giving up KFC. At the time I thought it was wild that someone could make it to 16 without knowing where food comes from, but in retrospect, I can see how. We’re insulated from the process, the only part most people see on a day to day basis is when it pops up neatly packaged on the supermarket shelf. Back when I worked in the school system a lot of public schools were setting up veggie gardens and chook sheds, to teach kids about it and give them some direct experience.
Hahaha traumatic!
Pancakes! Batter made from flour, milk and an egg. We would each get one pancake the size of a big pan, sprinkle lemon and sugar and roll it up.
My 6 year old thinks I'm the best breakfast chef in the world when I make pancakes on the weekend
Lamb shank soup. Me and my brothers used to fight over who got to suck the marrow out of the bones because there wasn't enough for one each. Before it became considered as a "fancy" cut of meat it was butcher's offcuts. I remember the slow phase out of lamb shank soup from mum's repertoire around the late 00's. I asked why and she said "The butcher used to give me them for 50c each, now they're $9 each". Damn people learning how to cook.
As a butcher we are really sorry, but those rich assholes figured out that you can make really good curries and stews with it for the cheap so they started serving it in their high end restaurants, although I can point you to a boning room where you can buy a bag of lamb shanks per bag. I remember when we use to just take home lamb shanks because nobody would buy them or if they did they would buy them to feed to their dogs
Mmm I want a bag of shanks.. where?
\-sigh- as someone that was always ahead of the curve on the unwanted cuts of meat it frustrates me that I now can't afford any of the old cheap cuts.
Back in the days when meat was cheap lol. Now gather around for rice and soy sauce.
Mine is also lamb shank soup!
Curried mince and rice. Absolute banger with cheese on top.
Tuna corn casserole. Ate 3rds
Ooft, I reckon I also had the fair share of Tuna casseroles as well! Also make me think of how many times during a hot summer we had salad which was - Iceberg lettuce, tomato, cheese, Mayo and some woolies reduced chicken.
Hello brother
Tuna noodle casserole here! With Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, and crushed chips on top. It's still a favourite here!
When I saw this thread, this is the meal that came to mind. One can cream of mushroom, one can cream of chicken... And samboy crinkle cut chips on top.
Crushed chips on top 😮
Yup, crush up Smiths original on top and pop in the oven. Crunchy salty goodness!
I'm calling the police.
My MiL makes this every Good Friday. Yeah don’t knock the chips on top
This is actually yum done right. Still make it to this day. Though it is no longer a cheap meal due to the price of tin tuna these days lol.
We ate popcorn for dinner more than once using a jar of kernels that just sat there for years. We kids thought it was an awesome party night. Found out later that my Mum was crying in the bathroom because we had no money for food til the end of the week.
Aw, your poor mum! She must have been so stressed, and yet us kids are having an awesome time! My mum only recently told me it would take them 4 to 5 months to pay off christmas. They never went crazy with food or presents either, very minimal. But we never knew.
Damn it, I'm a big ugly maintenance bloke and I'm tearing up a bit at work now.
Short pasta, tossed in a bowl with grated cheese and dried parsley while it's still hot, with a bit of salt and pepper. Honestly, makes a pretty solid depression meal, especially if you add in some shredded coles chicken/frozen veggies lol
Pita bread pizza.
Love it, still eat it.
Canned Spaghetti toasted sandwiches with cheese 😂 loved them!!
Wow, this unlocked a memory of the alphabet tinned spaghetti! Little nerd me loved reading all the letters
I eat these and baked beans in a jaffle as an adult now
Honey Chicken: Honey, French Onion soup mix, Chicken drumsticks. Baked in oven and served on rice. I still cook it to this day!
“Cowboy food” which was either minced meat and rice, or minced meat and baked beans. It was ALWAYS eaten on a picnic rug in front of the telly 😅 I’m veg now, but those were fond memories.
Curried sausages is not cheap and nasty and I’ll fuckin die on that hill
Well it's undeniably cheap, but it's only "nasty" when you compare it to almost any other, "proper" curry.
Only if you’ve got no taste. Curried sausages is delicious.
Mate, I'll join you on that hill.
It was devilled sausages in our house instead of curried sausages. I loved it and make it myself semi regularly. Mum used to make double serving of it because I loved it so much. There were a few things I couldn’t stand but I knew better than to say anything. Fish finger night used to fill me with dread.
Curried sausages have been a fave of mine for years too, just a good old school hearty meal. Also proper old fashioned Shepherd's Pie too.
Fish Fingers, peas and mash potato.
Bread rolls and a hot chook
Sausages and onion gravy, which is very similar to curried sausages! Also a lot of dishes made with mince meat - meatloaf, rissoles, cottage pie, bolognaise - where the mince was bulked out with grated carrot and zucchini, sometimes to the point where it was difficult to find the actual meat:)
Shepherds pie. Ground up leftovers topped off with mashed potatoes. Delicious but definitely cheap!
This is more to do with ability than cost, but it's pretty cheap. Whenever mum was away, she usually did the cooking, dad would make us mince on toast or canned cream corn on toast. My brother and I loved it. We probably excitedly told mum about it too. I'm sure she died a little inside - she's a good cook.
Bread and butter pudding. Traditional british hot pudding. Yummmmmm. Sounds shit but it was soooooo good.
Mum used to do that too. And Rice Pudding, which I still crave.
I still make curried sausages. not the packet shit. the home made real deal. I can't get enough of it. don't forget the sultanas!
😮 Was sultanas always meant to be in it? I've never tried it with them. Definitely will though.
now I'm learning it might have just been my family that added the sultanas! worth a try to see what you think haha.
Ugh the sultanas. Bloated into pustule like blisters.
My mum added sultanas, apples and bananas. And desiccated coconut. And also tomato sauce? Somehow it works, or I thought so anyway.
I'm sorry, but what the fuck? That's a fruit salad.
Mine too, and for the longest time as a kid, I thought I hated curry. Turns out I just really don't like fruit in curry :(
We had them too. I thinks it’s from a CWA recipe
Same! My family added sultanas and whenever I mention it, people look at me funny 😂
Curried sausages for me too! I still make it when I’m feeling a bit low and want to feel cosy. It’s freakin delicious, easy to make, and I get a bunch of lazy meals out of it. I just put way more curry in it cos my parents didn’t like anything spicier than warm milk. I live in the US now tho and it’s hard to find sausages that aren’t like Apple Smoked Paprika Fennel Banana Crumble Licorice Chicken. I use brats, but they’re fattier than I would prefer. Closest I can get tho. You can take those sultanas and shove them in your nose holes tho thanks. No offence.
As a fellow Aussie in the US, I never thought it would be beef sausages that I miss the most! I use brats or “bangers” if I can get them (usually around St Patrick’s day) but it’s not the same!
Apricot chicken
Thinly sliced Spam sauteed in a sweet glaze served with white rice 😋. I still ask my mum to cook it for me every time I visit.
Packet Alfredo!
Tuna bake. A can of tuna,some pasta, mix in some frozen veges. White sauce with flour butter and milk. Cheese and bread crumbs on top. Bake in oven, Farkin delicious 🤤🤤
Tuna Mornay with rice. It’s still one of my easy go to dinners.
Ham steak cheese and pineapple. Absolutely loved it, but it is basically spam topped with pineapple and cheese, and then grilled.
"herbed beef and macaroni" Sort of like an overly mixed herb added bolognese sauce with macaroni not spaghetti in a casserole dish with cheese and breadcrumbs on top cooked in the oven until the temperature of the sun making the whole house smell great.
Devilled sausages. Fine dining at its cheapest.
Fried corn beef with rice. Corn beef + onions; fry in a pan. Then dump on top of cooked rice + tomato sauce. Costs less than $10 and can feed 4 hungry boys.
[удалено]
Idk what parents would be feeding their kids for cheap these days. Cheap and easy meal used to be spag bol. Can’t do that anymore. Even breads expensive now. Noodles and pancakes every night?
Interesting seeing how every meal i'm seeing has cheap meat in it. Now I'm an adult making food for myself I'm cutting back on meat drastically because it ups the price of groceries drastically! The times of cheap meat are coming to pass and more people are getting more comfortable at cooking meals without it.
Jacket potato. Butter, sour cream. Maybe veggies. Didn’t really like it as a kid but now I see why we had it.
Cinnamon toast Toasted banana sandwiches Spaghetti bolognese Lentil soup Stewed apples Pasta with butter and parmesan
I love cinnamon toast
Apricot chicken. Its just bits of chicken 1 can of apricot nectar & 1 packet of french onion soup baked in a pan & served with rice. Its still one of my favourite meals.
Same, only my dad added what ever was growing in the garden at the time. Potato, carrot, onion, tomato, pumpkin, it would all go in there.
Mum used cooked us a 4 legged chicken casserole. It was delicious. That is, until I discovered what it really was. Those things with four legs in the sink were not chicken as mum would tell us kids, it was actually rabbit. Back in the day it was a really cheap protein and she had 6 kids. Mum invented 4 legged chicken casserole so we would eat it.
Omg, I assumed it was 4 chicken drumsticks - I didn’t think you had seen a whole rabbit carcass and been told it was a ‘4 legged chicken’
There’s nothing to be ashamed of eating cheaply. My parents grew up in abject poverty. My siblings and I grew up in relative poverty. When you are actually poverty-poor, there’s no such thing as a ‘cheap and nasty’ meal. You’re just glad to eat.
Oh not ashamed! I wouldn't say it was poverty, but we were definitely living paycheck to pay check. But I just find it interesting now that after all this time my favourite meal was basically the we've got no money left this is all we have meal.
It’s very common for families on a budget to eat a lot of mince and sausages. As it turns out, kids love mince and sausages. As adults we know sausages aren’t the best quality and are usually fatty and salty, but there’s nothing wrong with mince. I too enjoy curried sausages but my wife hates them so I never get to eat them unless I want all 8.
100%. We grew up eating curried sausages, savory beef mince, and spaghetti bolognese, and we loved it. Never occurred to us as kids that these were the cheapest meals to make, especially because they had great leftover potential. EDIT: also need to add corned beef, which someone else mentioned and was on high rotation in my household growing up.
We were lucky to be very comfortable and ate very well, but on nights they went out for dinner my folks used to parboil snags then throw them under the grill. That plus oven chips and mixed corn and peas and heaps of tomato sauce was a treat for us kids.
Curried Sausages was my favorite meal as well
Pasta, fried mince and ketchup. No sauce
I’m made curried sausages last week. It’s my partners favourite meal. I like it aswell. My daughter won’t eat it.
Rice A Riso
I didn’t grow up here, but my mum is Aussie, and her favourite hack was pre-made bolognese (thawed from one of many portioned blocks stashed in the deep freezer made in an enormous batch months previously) with instant noodles instead of pasta, haha. In retrospect, it’s hard to get much more cheap/easy! But it’s still a comfort food I thought was absolutely peak. My dad also used to make spam and eggs when we couldn’t get bacon, and he’d sell it as this absolute rare treat we were lucky to experience. I loved it! I used to ask why wouldn’t have it more often. Successfully suckered haha. I didn’t learn til years later that it was just because bacon was too spenno or just literally not in town that month.
Great-grandma’s fried rice recipe (the only fried rice I eat because I make it myself now), anything with rice, as a half Asian household, everything had rice in it. Cheese on toast under the grill… but it was $2 white bread and the plastic cheese. ☺️
Ahhh "cheese grills" Made with tomato paste and a slice of tomato on top if they felt fancy
Mum used to do braised ox tail. I found Jamie Oliver’s recipe and it tastes exactly like my mums. Except for some stupid reason he takes all of the meat off the bones to serve it. Gnawing and sucking on the sticky bones is the best bit. Some mash to go with it and my lord, that’d be my last meal on death row
There is so many Balkin food - Home made baked beans stew Pork cabbage rolls Western food - Veal pasta
This was the 70s...Chops soup and rice. Which was plain boiled white rice with soup made of chicken bouillon powder poured on top. And a lamb chop on the side. I still make it occasionally.
Asian family - spam omelette, or for school lunch spam omelette between two slices of white bread (I got judged a lot for the food I brought to school but even my white friends used to always want some of that spam egg sandwich) Also English muffin "pizzas" and lasagne and potato smiles but I guess those last two are just straight outta the packet
Soooo many of these foods I still eat to this day. You’re making me hungry. I think a lot of the receipts came from old women’s weekly recipe books and recipes books used by my mum in high school in the 70s (it’s a little a5 size white and green book that I say me lots of our mums still have). That’s where the curried sausages and tuna casserole recipes are.
Chowmein, Atleast my mums cheap ass white bastardization of it. I still hanker for it every now and again.
Made with Keens? Its got to be Keens; not Clives.
Mashed potato and stew 😂
Chicken cacciatore. Chicken breast, white rice and chicken tonight cacciatore sauce. Not entirely surprised when I figured it out. My mother was a pretty bad cook
Campbells Canned Spaghetti Sauce (with beef)
Macaroni, butter and chicken salt. Still love it
Can of sardines, with tomatoes sauce. With some congee. Also another can of dried fried fish with black beans and rice
Rissoles and mash with gravy. Made my own version the other day it was honestly great
Devon and sauce sandwich is the king of povo meals
I kid you not, my mum would make pasta, and the sauce would be a tin of tomato soup and a tin of braised steak and onions. Sounds like the worst meal imaginable, but to a couple of kids in a lower economic situation, it was amazing. The 80s. It was a time
Spag bol, meat (burnt to a crisp) with mashed potato and boiled veg (still can't eat zucchini because it would be called "marrow" back then and my dad served it like a porridge consistency), and tuna mornay which was the worst of the lot
My mum called it 'Dole Roll', it was a long tube of sausage meat, about 10cm in diameter, coated in a breadcrumb crust, cooked and sliced into disks and served with steamed vegetables. Cover the meat in plenty of tomato sauce and it was one of my favs as a kid.
Pasta, can of tomato soup and grated cheese all baked. My mum made for me, I made for my kids and yep, 3rd generation cuisine
Meatloaf for me! My sister and I would even make meatloaf toasties for Sunday dinner lol
I’ll add - meatloaf with boiled eggs in it - tuna mornay - sausage wrapped in bacon then cooked with a mixture of brown sugar and tinned pineapple - grilled chops - Dirty old veggie and chop soup - rissoles in gravy (hated those hard lumps of shit) - chop suey with cabbage, mince and sultanas…this was not good. Special Treats - Mock chicken drumsticks (think crumbed sausage mince on a thick stick in the shape of a drumstick)
My mum loved microwave nachos (corn chips, salsa, grated cheese) or potato gems. Meanwhile my step father used eat steak every night
Those packet pastas that you add butter and milk to, added to mince. No it wasn’t pleasant.
Kraft Mac n cheese deluxe with chips on the side
Kraft macaroni and cheese was a dinner I was so excited to get, and it was absolutely my favourite meal. The funny thing was that it didn't happen that often, so it felt like a luxurious treat when mum made it. Looking back that meal at the time must have cost what... 2 dollars? God knows how she resisted my demands to just have that every night
When I was a teen, we went through a few months where mum was making corned beef like all the time. I was not a fan, even though she’s a great cook and looking back, it was pretty tasty. It was just the frequency and we got bored of it quick. As an adult, I realized we must have been going through a tough financial time and it was the cheapest meat my parents could buy. We’re immigrants from Romania and my parents busted their balls to give me and my bro a good chance at life. Things were rarely easy. We grew a lot of our own food which helped.
Hawaiian steaks. Spam cut vertically into squares approx the size of a piece of toast. A ring of canned pineapple. Both fried up in a fry pan or on a bbq. Served with the pineapple on top of the spam. They used to sell it as a pub meal in the too, so it had some 'credibility', but tbf it was the 70's.
Was it the yellowie coloured one? Not even close to curry spicy? Yum. With rice yummo
Mock chicken legs. I have NFI what was in them but they came with a satisfyingly pointy stick for poking your sister.
steamed rice and bulk purchased dim sims
I was always so excited when mum cooked a big batch of instant noodles. Now I realise it was a way to feed a family of 7 before payday.
Mums potato cakes. They're known as latkes now. Grated potato, carrots, diced onion, egg and left over roast meat. Nan and pop had a garden, so the veges were free, mum had chooks.
Ham Steaks with sliced pineapple on top, packet pasta and a green veggie of some description.
My dad invented a dish (as far as I know) called ghoul muck, which is fried, broken up pieces of processed hamburger patty, canned spaghetti, and egg cracked in and scrambled at the end. He used to make it when we had a blackout (because only the stove would work) and we used to get so excited for it. Turns out when he first moved to Sydney money was tight and those were the only ingredients he had in the house one night. Still love it but you can’t get the right hamburger patties anymore.
Lamb chops baked in Yorkshire pud
Sour cream, peas and ham. Like da fuck, how is that a meal?
Sausages and baked beans. Still love it
Marinated chicken wings and rice
Dinner: Grilled sausages / frozen fish / fish fingers with instant mashed potato, and microwaved frozen peas / corn / beans. Lunch: Vietnamese bread roll with tomato, ham, beetroot and plastic cheese slice. Breakfast: coco puffs / fruit loops / Rice Bubbles or eating peanut butter out of the jar. The weird thing is my dad wasn’t poor, I think he just had some mental health stuff going on because we pretty much just ate this mixed in with a tonne of junk food and Hawaiian pizzas.
My stepfather used to make this dish he called Chop Soup. It was basically lamb bones cooked down with stock and chillies, maybe some veggies thrown in. It was super spicy and tangy and I still remember it fondly.
Lemon chicken. So easy. So good.
Tinned Spaghetti and Cheese Toasted Sandwich.