cooks. when you couldnt cook? what did you eat?
 

i was talking to my wife last night.

when i was in college, i couldnt cook, and had no disposable money even i wanted to cook. good times!! ( oddly enough, i always had money for gas and beer. hmm.)

i recalled one memorable meal. leftover white rice, with pork and beans poured over..splash of Worcester sauce. hahahah.. i remember thinking it was pretty damn good.

there are some badass home cooks here..(maybe even a few pros?) recall any funny, depressed (by today's standards, of course), desperate meals? stuff you cooked when you had ZERO clue? maybe you were broke and spent all the money on beer and condoms.

man, i wish i had a pic of the pork and beans over rice. :D i have no idea what inspired me to use lea&perrins. maybe i was out of soy sauce.

I was introduced to good food at an early age and I've always cooked, so I never really made anything worse than ramen. In the high school and college years, I was more likely to eat out than cook. I hit Taco Bell, every day. Every day... Their food has changed so much that now I won't even set foot in one. But, I remember when they cooked a decent amount of their stuff from scratch...

I did spend two years in the dorms and inhaled metric tons of cafeteria food. I bet I ate 10,000 calories at a time, when I was hungry. "Free" food and all you can eat...

When I was a kid, I ate a ton of sandwiches. White bread, cotto salami, French's mustard and iceberg lettuce. Make a couple of those, add a couple bags of Fritos or Doritos, a healthy handful of hot peppers from the garden and a Dr. Pepper. A Snickers bar, for desert. 5 days a week, when I was working construction.

No such point in time for me. Once you are over 10 years old you should be able to cook some basic dishes just by helping with cooking in your parent's kitchen. I made a lot of spaghetti with meat sauce in college. I was able to do a lot more than that by college age, but that would always hit the spot with my roommates and the student wallet.

It amazes me how many people "can't cook". Cooking some basic dishes is very easy. You need to make it a priority that your children can cook for themselves. So they are not beholden to the crappy food industry, be it restaurants or frozen food section meals.

Of course there are some women (and men) that claim they "can't cook" because they are lazy and it doesn't match the image they portray of themselves.

G

I've always cooked, ever since I was old enough to stand on a stool and help grandma out. Rarely did my parents let me cook though. I grew up poor-ish so we had menus written out for the week and that was that. We didn't even buy ketchup. We used leftover packets from McD's. Don't get me wrong, we weren't ketchup soup poor but there were no Little Debbie's laying around.

As soon as I moved out on my own though I was cooking anything and everything because I didn't want to live on 'cream of something casseroles' my whole life.

There is one thing from back then that I still do make on occasion and that's shepherds pie. A pound of meat (turkey or cow), browned and drained. Two cans of mixed vegetables, drained. A can of tomato soup and mix it all up then top it with a couple servings of instant mashed potatoes and some shredded cheese. It takes 10 minutes to make and it's good.

My mother was an amazing, fearless cook. We tried the whole gamut of chow from Tapas to Sushi.

My wife is also an expert cook; amazing, frankly.

Me?

In college, my mantra was everything tastes better in a well made corn or flour tortilla: There is a huge difference between a Costco 60 pack and a nicely done one off.

Raman (drained), rice and beans, Mac and Cheese, yesterdays Chinese all taste better within the friendly confines of a wrap, seasoned and smothered to taste.

I was the William Jonathan Drayton Jr. of the "wrap" revolution. Book me, Dano.

I didn't know you could get Aids from holding it in your hand.

Mother would just throw things is the Pot, and when she would serve up today's mystery meat she would say, "Tabs here is your slop, Bon Appetite."

The two adjectives that could describe her culinary skills are, Fetid and Rancid.

Ohh how I miss her home cooking...Today I would gladly say to her, "Can I have another bowl of that foul smelling swill Mother."

Interesting. I grew up with Shepherd's Pie, but it was different. sauteed onions and bell peppers and cooked ground beef with cream of mushroom soup. then a layer of mashed potatos (from real potatos, I don't think I've ever had instant) and then a layer of cheese. I've since started adding some veggies to the meat and also a little cayenne pepper.

Hmm, in college, I ate at the cafeteria for 3 years, so all that I may have eaten otherwise was a snack, maybe a PB&J sandwich or more likely pizza. After I moved out of the dorms, I made all sorts of things. Nothing too complicated, probably nothing more complicated than the Shepherd's pie listed above. I frequently had salads, 1/3rd of a head of iceberg, shredded carrot or two, some shredded cheese and then probably either ranch or blue cheese dressing.

I love ramen, but I don't think I ate it that often.

chef boy-R-Dee.
nuff said.

i tried to eat a can of mini-ravioli a few years back. it was shockingly bad. i bet i've eaten damn near five gallons of the stuff in my youth.

I was fortunate to grow up in a family of truly incredible matriarchal cooks. Italian great grandmother made all the pasta we ever ate and had a 1/2 acre garden with everything you could imagine. Her deep dish sheet pan pizza could be the foundation of a chain of restaurants, sadly the recipe was never written down. Polish grandmother made the best chicken fricassee with the lightest, tastiest dumplings imaginable. And many Polish delicacies.

I was fortunate get a job washing dishes at a French restaurant summer before junior year. Worked 40 hour weeks during high school and soon moved up to prep and then on the line working with classically trained French chefs. Senior year high school I was the chef garde manger at what could have been a 1 star Michelin restaurant.

Good times.

Food is the best metaphor for life. I don't recall ever eating average food.

My mom was a great cook and we lived in many different states and enjoyed everything from Chinese, Cajun and soul food. Lots of meat and taters.

When I first moved away from home I used 99% of every penny I had to move and pay the first and last months rent, deposits on utilities, and renters insurance. My apartment was a whopping $95 per month furnished. It was a DUMP. I had single digits in my checking account and was real happy to get paid every Friday.

On many days before payday I was down to some good gummy rice, with a dash of Kikkoman on top. Friday night was big splurge, I would put a can of soup on top of the rice instead of Kikkoman. I was living on literately a nickle per day for food. Potato soup was common.

I knew I could go hang out at grandmas house on Sunday and she would invite me eat Sunday supper. That was my big wonderful meal for the week.

After a year I had enough money saved to move into a nice condo and start eating better. That first year was memorable only in remembering how much it really sucks to have no money. My only credit card was an American Express. It had to be paid off each month.

Frozen pizzas and burritos. Lived on that stuff for a while on next to nothing. I started working in a kitchen and always ate at work or brought home something. For a while I just overcooked frozen chicken breasts and microwaved frozen veggies.

My standard dinner through grad school was 2 packs instant ramen, 1 can tuna, 1 can corn. I was a one-meal-a-day guy. Plus junk food.

I have no memory of being unable to cook

My mother's cooking made me want to learn how to cook and at a young age.

When I first moved out of the house there were a few days I was really broke (working min wage, not a broke college student, just a broke full time gas station jockey) and meals were made with a pack of Ramen noodles and a squirrel or two from a friend's grandparent's property (they'd provide rifle and ammo as long as I got the squirrels out of the momma's garden!)

We were at Sam's wholesale not long ago and we saw to boys that looked like college freshmen. They saw the Ramen noodles display and it was a case of them for like 5 bucks. One kid said to the other "DUDE, look, a case of Ramen for 5 bucks." The other kid replied, "No way, dude, I am gonna get two of them." and they each loaded up. They sounded just like Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure. I bet they were real dang sick of Ramen noodles after a month.

One absolute truth, if you are really hungry, all food tastes great.

One of my buddies taught me one valuable lesson. When you are invited to someones house, eat everything offered, compliment the cook more than once, ask for seconds of something they have lots of, and you will be invited back. It is a great way to try other peoples food if your stomach is tough. Some can cook, some are just going through the motions. I have had some great meals, but a few BAD meals. One lady served tuna casserole and I honestly think it must have been cat food she used for the "tuna", it was horrible. I got full really fast for some reason. I would have to go a few more days of fasting before that crap smelled or tasted good.

nice!! some of you all got in the spirit.

the rest of you that were born with a spatula coming out of your butt, can suck it. :D

Thats funny. Just reminded me of our similar time with cheap pancake mix from sams/costco. That stuff is so cheap, just add water! I think we had pancakes twice a day at 1 point. I was so sick of pancakes it took a few years to get over that.

Hard to beat a PB&J - especially when the bread is fresh.

Tunafish......chicken salad......grilled cheese......simple salad with iceberg lettuce, croutons, and dressing.

Mac and cheese.

Soup.

Burgers.

Even a store bought burrito.......nuked for 60 seconds.

It's all good....:)

When I went to Trade School in Toledo I lived on Kraft Mac n cheese with salsa mixed in. I did work at Wendys though so I had creative license at the end of my shift to make whatever I wanted to take home. I'm pretty sure I invented the baconator

Getting older is terrible isn't it? :D:D:D

I have many go to’s like PB&J (whole grain bread, chunky, blackberry), but one of my favorites is a boiler bag of rice and a can of Bush’s baked beans w/onions and some hot sauce. Mix it all together in a Jethro bowl and it is food nirvana! Damn, I want some right now!

My buddy Louie would heat tortillas by laying them directly on the electric burner of the stove and stuff them with chopped up hotdogs and canned corn. It was tough being poor!

Yep, sounds familiar, especially the EL Cheapo frozen burritos!

You Boyz sound like you ate high on the hog haute cusine....

I am wondering if you Boyz ever thought of where you could get Squirrel meat in Tijuana to make a stew?

hahah..

mac and cheese with salsa is actually very good.

luxury!


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I know! My wife (girlfriend at the time) thought it was gross.

If I wasn't feasting on burgers and chicken sandwiches after work at Wendys, or eating Mac n Cheese with Salsa I was eating spaghettios or beef ravioli from a Chef that put stuff in a can at grocery stores. Boyardee is a funny last name.

You can do a lot with a baked potato

I still love Chef Boyardee Ravioli! Mom never bought it, so when I got older, I bought it myself, still do. In my younger days, I would eat that, vienna sausage and rice, and vienna sausage with pork and beans.

Sardines on saltines!!!

One of my all time fav winter time bachelor meals was a hot bowl of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup, added a cut up baked potato, and a few large clumps of Cottage Cheese.
Yum!!!

I was a "latchkey kid" for two working parents so I would come home from school and put together the traditional family dinner roast, meatloaf, turkey, starch, veggies whatever but that did not translate at all to cooking for one in college while poor. it was like starting over.

Worst thing I did was stay with my widowed grandfather in the summer who barely cooked. I learned steakumms on waffles, frozen burritos and carried that into college. When especially poor I would microwave a potato and put mustard on it or cook white rice and sprinkle bacon bits on it.
I knew how to cook a shrimp stir fry but seafood and veggies were expensive and cooking for one went hand in hand with poverty for me.

I was a bachelor for most of my life and developed a few go-to "no cook" cooking recipes.

Cut couple of pieces of bacon into 1/4 wide strips, fry until crisp. Take all but about a tablespoon of the grease out of the skilled. Add 1/4 cup of diced onion and fry until they start to get soft. Dump in a can of Campbell's pork and beans, add the bacon back in, season with a little bit of mustard and Worchestershire sauce.

Kraft macaroni dinner with a can of tuna added.

Cook two cups of penne pasta. While it's cooking put some olive oil in a skillet. Add half a chopped carrot. Dump in a can of diced tomatoes. Dump in the pasta, add some parmesan, eat it out of the skillet.

Browned hamburger with pork and beans dumped on top. Add a little barbeque sauce if it's a special occasion.

Avacado stuffed with tuna salad.

^^^
Yes.
Avocado stuffed with Cottage Cheese. ;)

I did not meet my wife until my late 30s and I got married at age 38 so I had a long period of bachelorhood.

After I bought a house on a single income I realized I was "married" to the house. Most of my income went to house payments, and household expenses. I stared shooting weddings as a second income and that helped a ton.

Anyway, I learned a cast iron dutch oven with a small cheap rump roast and lots of taters and carrots cooked for hours made the carrots and taters and onion darn tasty. Eat all the carrots and taters, add more carrots and taters and onions, cook again with the same roast. After all that, the meat was tender and pretty good.

One of my favorite go to cheap meals was a whole chicken. I used my large Green River Works knife to slice the chicken in half. Every chicken I got had that gross colostomy bag inside the chicken that I just threw away. Throw the halved chicken on the outside gas grill with the burners on low, and the chicken on the other side so the flames are on the side with no chicken dripping on it, no flames. 20 minutes turn, 20 minutes turn, 20 more minutes. EAT. Chickens were under 3 bucks back then.

'twas a time when peanut butter on toast was my idea of a hot meal. In college Raman or spaghetti were the staples.

Cooked and plump Costco deli chicken is $5.
Notice cooked supermarket chickens in the same packaging for $7...
they look like they died crossing the finish line.

Pasta and ground beef.
Then get creative with whatever else you want to throw in.