A rotisserie chicken ($10.00)
A bag of chicken tenders ($5.00)
Five bags of frozen veggies ($5.00)
A jug of Ragu pasta sauce ($4.00)
A bottle of mango daiquiri mixer ($3.50)
A two-quart bottle of juice ($3.00)
A bag of white rice ($3.00)
A large can of fruit cocktail ($2.70)
A 10-pack box of instant oatmeal ($2.00)
A bag of tortilla chips ($2.00)
A bag of dried cranberries ($1.60)
Two boxes of Jello ($1.60)
A bag of black beans ($1.50)
A quart of chicken broth ($1.50)
A quart of vegetable broth ($1.50)
A box of rigatoni ($1.00)
Small bottle of hot sauce ($1.00)
Small packet of cilantro ($1.00)
A packet of instant mashed potatoes ($0.90)
Total: $51.80
So I'm thinking of using my two weeks of relative isolation (without access to Harvard dining services) as a sort of pilot run for independent adulthood, insofar as shoving tortilla chips into my mouth qualifies as independence. (Hey, I didn't say that I'd have to do a good job!) Putting together a budgeted grocery list for ten days was a fun challenge: I think the key is figuring out what your bodily needs are and finding ingredients that are versatile enough to meet them while not forcing you to live off of canned tuna every day. Googling BudgetBytes and Good and Cheap helps, too.
Things I found? Frozen veggies are cheap, healthy, and really easy to throw into anything. I just dumped an entire bag of stew vegetables and a quart of vegetable broth into my slow cooker (yes) to improvise a quick base for veggie soup. Throw in some shredded chicken - this was how I justified buying a $10 rotisserie to myself (the bones of which make great broth/stock, or so I've heard) - and that's basically lunch for the next three or four days! In fact, I'd say that I almost regret buying the premade broths, just because it seems like that money would have been better spent on more frozen vegetables and meat, but at $1.50 a quart it wasn't a total wash.
Other things I'm trying to think about: how does not having access to spices limit my options? I could make, like, so many things interesting if I just had cinnamon, pepper, and a few other things to flavor with. Had I had the option of throwing things into my oatmeal, I could have gotten the raw stuff ($1.50 for 13 servings) instead of the instant packets ($2.00 for 10 packets), and that's a small difference, but I imagine there are situations in which that would be super helpful. Lucky for me that my dorm kitchen has a few things included; part of how I justified buying the tortilla chips was the unopened jar of salsa waiting for me in the fridge. I do think that I did a good job of covering basics/staples, but I do wonder if in a week I'm going to be sick of chicken tenders.
(I also made room for a few treats, like the Jello, the mashed pertaters, and the daiquiri mixer, which I possibly can't imagine any use for...)
Things to remember for next time: try and think about what's already in the pantry and work with that; try and buy ingredients that'll allow for a range of cooking techniques (slow-cooking, frying, baking, broiling...); flavors are very important, so figure out how to diversify your flavor palette! On the bright side, I covered breakfast pretty well, I'm going to have a ton of protein and fiber in my system, and I managed somehow to make this happen for just over $5 a day. I also lugged all of this home in the rain, carrying three bags in each hand, and it was the most painful, sweat-inducing physical activity I have experienced since 2013, so...yay?
Things I want to try making next time: chili, jambalaya, gumbo. Baked fish would be realllly good if I just had the vegetables to go with them (plus some lemon). ALSO this is totally a spontaneous late-night idea, but it would be fun to try and do weekly dinners next semester, both to stretch my culinary skillz and to make more social space for people. I don't know, man. I don't know.
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