Recently, the family and I have had a hard week and it took me back to when I was younger and living with my aunt and great grandmother.
I didn't know it at the time, but we would eat vienna sausage and white rice all the time! I would freaking hate it and recently we did something like that.
We had to make some white rice, cook some corn beef and mix it up with some other veggies. Not my favorite and my kids have never experienced what a struggle meal is to know that it is one… just that why are we eating this today…
uhh because we want to try something new…
What was one of your struggle meal growing up?
byu/bukutbwai inFrugal
Posted by bukutbwai
25 Comments
Butter beans and cornbread. Bleh.
Pasta with margarine and cheese.
Tuna noodle casserole-it involved tuna, cream of mushroom soup, noodles, and crushed potato chips baked on top.
You already described my struggle meal so here’s another I actually like – same thing with a rice base but you thin(ish) slice spam and fry it in a pan and cut up some pineapple to go with it. Whole thing is super cheap you just have to be careful to not over salt the rice because the spam has enough sodium on its own. If you wanna make it fancier you can add some eggs and frozen veggies to the rice and fry it and put a little bit of light soy sauce over it.
We would have corned beef and rice all the time when I was a kid and I loved it. I think we typically had collard greens with it and I did that again recently and my wife loved it.
White rice with fried eggs. We ate a lot of eggs growing up.
Mac and cheese with a can of tuna. To this day smelling hot canned tuna makes me feel sick
You could get a can of fava beans for dirt cheap at the local supermarket. I’d saute an onion in a pan until soft, and I’d blend the beans with whatever I had in the kitchen at the time – garlic, tomato, salt, paprika, and thyme were usual culprits. I did this until it was chunky, and then I’d pour the blended mixture over the onions before letting everything get luxuriously thick in the saucepan. Cheap, healthy, delicious and super versatile – it was great with rice, pasta, ramen noodles, in a burrito, or as a dip for crisps. Freezes quite well too. It never felt like a struggle meal even though it cost very little.
Cream of wheat and a glob of peanut butter scraped onto the lip of the bowl for dipping
Lentil and chickpea soup over rice. Still enjoy it to this day
Kraft mac and cheese. Add some frozen peas a few minutes before it’s done boiling. Add a slice of American cheese to thicken it up.
Meat slop. When I was a poor college kid trying to bulk up and get cheap protein. 2lb ground beef, a bunch of cooked brown rice, a whole cabbage shredded up fairly fine, and a bunch of diced tomatoes. Makes like a gallon and a half, and lasted me and 3 roommates a whole week.
When I first went to college I had issues with a scholarship not being disbursed on time. While waiting for it to be sorted out, the “head cashier” in the student accounts department took it upon herself to disenroll me. I had no money, parents also had none. So no interim payments were going to be made and refunded to make her happy. This means I lost my meal plan. So for 2 weeks I ate Ritz crackers with chunky peanut butter. Along with fruit that my roommates stole from the cafeteria. Fuck that lady.
Chilli. I hated chilli as a kid cause there were so many diffrent textures and I never was a fan of ground beef. I would mostly eat the beans xD
As an adult, I like to add some pumpkin puree to make it creamer and I’ll use ground chicken instead of ground beef
Instant mashed potato with tinned corned beef mixed through, ketchup. It’s still a comfort food for me. Sadly no longer cheap given that a tin of corned beef is over £3 now! But it was back in the 80s.
Another was what we call locally ‘grey peas’…Carlin pea soup with ham hock. The dried peas were super cheap and you didn’t need much ham. Served with cheap bread. I make it myself now…a good winter staple, but I make homemade bread.
Macaroni pasta with a can of diced tomatoes in it and some salt and pepper. I ate it all through college, too…I still think it’s kind of yummy
Goulash, it was usually pasta, canned tomatoes, corn and whatever else my mom could find to throw in it.
Elderberry soup with crackers.
We did the Vienna sausages too. All use a toothpick to stick em and eat em out of the package.
Toasted bread with a slice of government cheese on top and canned tomato soup.
Potatoes, onion, and sausage all fried in a pan.
Or beans rice and cornbread.
When I was growing up in the ’60s and ’70s a struggle me I would have had some type of noodles in it. A casserole with noodles in other words.
Fritters. Take whatever you have, wrap dough around it and fry it up. Usually served with a bit of applesauce as we had some trees in backyard – so was able to can lits and lots of it
My mom shopped on Saturday, so Friday night was sometimes a challenge (6 kids). Egg noodles with butter and cinnamon sugar was one nothing-left-in-the-house meal.
Beans and weenies. Can of baked beans and chopped up hot dogs.
Tuna, peas, mac n cheese. Honestly its a comfort food for me now
Pancakes
Beef and rice. Minute rice with canned beef in gravy. S+P. Loved it growing up. Eventually, dad got a little more creative and started adding cream of mushroom.