Boil a cup of water, stir in half a cup of whole wheat flour, cover the pan and turn off the heat and let it sit for five or ten minutes.
Around the world and throughout history, the variations of PORRIDGE are practically infinite. More water, milk instead of water, cook longer, add fruits or nuts, use entirely different grains either whole or cracked or ground. It’s boiled grains, and variations of boiled grains have existed all over the world for as long as people have been boiling water. Depending on the particular grain being boiled, variations of ingredients and techniques, different versions are called porridge, oatmeal, cream of wheat, congee, risotto, frumenty, wheatina, tsampa, gruel, grits, polenta, mush, or any of many other names. You can use wheat, corn, rice, millet, quinoa, oats, barley, whatever you got.
I jazzed up my boiled flour with peanut butter and sunflower seeds, and poured milk on it. It tastes good and it’s filling and it costs less than what you can get for six recycled aluminum cans. Add a 10 cent egg and you’ve got a healthy, nutritious breakfast for about a quarter.
I call them salmon patties, but Chef Buck thinks “salmon cakes” sounds better. Also, I leave in all the gross stuff, because that’s good for you and provides important nutrients, but the gross stuff makes Chef Buck’s face look sad. We do agree on one important thing though — “You can kind of adjust it however you want it.”
You probably don’t need to worry about whether you are getting enough protein. The Centers for Disease Control says that most Americans eat more than enough protein. Still, even though there is some protein in a lot of the foods we eat every day, including whole wheat bread and oatmeal, protein can often be the most expensive thing on the grocery list.
If you’re paying for a lot of meat, fresh salmon fillets and boneless, skinless chicken breasts, then yes, that’s going to cost a lot of money, but there are lots of other choices you can make for healthy, high-quality protein that won’t cost very much:
Canned Fish: Tuna, OK, but other canned fish is even cheaper. Sardines, Mackerel, and Salmon are some of the healthiest proteins you can get, and they’re awfully cheap when you watch carefully and find the best prices. I stock up on canned mackerel at dollar stores when it’s a dollar or so a can. Salmon is a great deal at about two dollars a can. Sardines at 80 cents a can are good — though I recently bought two cases of sardines at my local Asian grocery, and got them for 40 cents a can.
Milk and Milk Products: A couple of glasses of milk go a long way toward providing a person’s daily protein needs. Yogurt is excellent nutrition, too, and it’s even way cheaper if you make it yourself. Same goes for kefir and easy cheeses like cottage cheese and fromage blanc.
Organ Meats: Liver – At least two of the big chain grocery stores in my city sell chicken livers for $1.48 for a big tub. Beef liver can be kind of expensive depending on where you get it, but at a Mexican grocery store near me I can sometimes buy beef liver for less than a dollar a pound. Kidney is another organ meat that you may find at very low prices in the meat section of your grocery store, along with Beef Heart. These organ meats are high in vitamins and minerals and are especially good for you. (They’re big in the Paleo-Diet world, too, but that’s OK. You can enjoy them anyway, even without being a douche.) Can’t see yourself eating this stuff? Yeah, well, you’re not in the minority here. But it’s actually important for your nutrition, and as Mindy, at TooManyJarsInMyKitchen.com, writes:
“When I first found out about Nourishing Traditions and started reading through that book, I saw, with some horror, the section on organ meats. My first thoughts were that no matter how good they are for me there is no way I will EVER be eating any of these! Did anyone else have the same reaction?” — Mindy
Whole Chickens: also chicken thighs, and leg quarters
Tofu: Depending on where you shop, tofu can be quite inexpensive. Tofu is one of the few things I buy at Whole Foods, where it’s cheaper than it is at the regular stores. I like tofu and it can be a good cheap source of protein, but the subject of protein in tofu is kind of confusing for me. It’s got less protein per unit mass than beef, but if you consider protein per 100 calories it has a lot more.
Amaranth: Similar to Quinoa, but without the public relations hype. Amaranth is one reason I go to Whole Foods now and then, because I can buy it there in the bulk foods section. It’s healthful and easy to cook, aaaaaaand one more thing…. it pops!
Of course, you can also cut down on the expense of meats. Ways to save money on meats:
Sprouts cost dollars in the grocery store. If you put a couple of dimes worth of alfalfa seeds or mung beans in a jar today, and spend about two minutes a day rinsing them for the next few days, you can have a big container of sprouts later this week.
If I were to go buy hummus right now, it would cost me about $9 a pound. If I put some dried chickpeas in a bowl with water now, and let it soak overnight, then tomorrow I can make hummus for less than $1 a pound.
When I saw split peas on sale for 69 cents a pound the other day, I bought 10 pounds. I’m not going to eat them all this week, but I will have them when I want them from time to time over the coming months.
The part of your brain that tells you you are hungry now is a more primitive part of your brain than the part that you use to think ahead and plan for when you will be hungry in the future. The part of your brain that says “Me hungry. Me pay whatever they ask for food now” is stupid compared to the part of your brain that says, “If I take five minutes today to do something that will produce food tomorrow, I’ll have some very nice food tomorrow and won’t have to pay much for it.”
Want to use more of your brain? Think ahead about your food.
In fact, you can go further with this idea. If you think of these things as training in delayed gratification, you could come to consider soaking beans and making bread and growing sprouts to be training routines toward learning something important about living. At the very least, when you learn to do these things you’ll eat a lot healthier and save a lot of money.
The first time I remember encountering a deliberate variation of Eggs Benedict was 30 years ago at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio, and the dish was called “Buckeye Bennies.” I think the variation was that they added spinach. Since then I have seen all kinds of variations, from Hawaiian to Californian to a nice version at a hotel in Pittsburgh where they use crab cakes as the bread layer and call it a “Baltimore Benedict.” You can make your own versions, too.
If you put the various elements of the dish on different parts of the plate, you’d just call it a “country breakfast” or something like that. After all, what’s so special about ham and eggs with toast, right? But stack them up on each other in what amounts to an open-faced poached egg sandwich, and suddenly it’s “ooh, la la!”
Sometimes it’s just a matter of arranging things on the plate and giving it a nice name.
I think I’ll call this one “Doctor Benedict’s Eggs.” Homemade whole wheat bread topped with steamed collard greens, poached egg, and a tomato-y pasta sauce. (A while back I found vodka pasta sauce on clearance for $1 a jar. I have lots of it.)
You can do it any way you want. Use a bagel, use a pancake, use a pile of torn up tortilla, if you like, for your breadish foundation. Use spinach, use alfalfa or mung bean sprouts, use broccoli, use Brussels sprouts. Add ham or fish sticks or salmon smoked or nova. Heck, people are out there using mahi-mahi, hamburger, and kahlua pork and calling it some kind of eggs Benedict, for yolk’s sake!
Then there’s the sauce. Use whatever you want. Or to be more precise, use whatever you have. ( I would ordinarily avoid the Hollandaise, myself.) Some suggestions I’ve seen are creole sauce, salsa verde, creamed spinach, and country gravy.
Here are some other people’s variations on the theme:
“Milk, eggs, peanut butter, pasta,
dried beans and other legumes, unprocessed chicken, oatmeal, potatoes and onions are all cheap, healthy, nutrient-dense foods.” Brian A. Cobb
