Eating the proper amount is hard. Eating when you have low time, money, mental energy, or education on cooking is even harder.
This book assumes nothing. Do you know how to turn on your stove? You are properly prepared to use this cookbook.
Just want to share it with more folks!
When I discovered this cookbook, I printed it out on regular printer paper and spent an hour or two hardcover binding it with a bookcloth spine and fancy foreign cover papers with gold foil and flocking. It looks so nice!
Then I immediately had to use it because I can manage professionally binding a shitty printout of the Sad Bastard Cookbook, but I cannot adequately feed myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This cookbook is great!
Quite possibly the most glowing review/recommendation for the book. Clearly a motivated and talented individual, but they STILL need help cooking!
In the Great Depression, it’s not like anyone was starving to death. Rather it was like they were eating flour paste and dying of malnutrition.
That we are in an era that we need the SBC speaks to how bad things are. Here in the states, we don’t have food deserts, we have food swamps, where the only thing one can get is junk food.
Your doom and gloom is catalyzed by the existence of a novelty cookbook?
My doom and gloom is catalyzed by a lot of things including, yes, a novelty cookbook that appears to be made in recognition of desperate times. It isn’t the only thing that informs my doom and gloom, and this isn’t to say I don’t have hope. But it is a Goblins at the gates of Gondor kind of situation, in which a lot of things have to go simultaneously right before we’re out of the fine mess we’re in.
I hear ya. But ive given up bearing the weight and just doing my best day by day while enjoying life.
In my case enjoying life is not something that I can simply do. I manage mental illness which features chronic suicidality, but it’s been driven into me very hard that I am at fault for my grief and trauma. But having a sober understanding of why I feel the way I do, and the social forces that drove parents, teachers and authorities to treat me the way I did helps me counter those neural processes.
This cartoon illustrates the dynamic I’ve encountered, and I hypothesize the mental illness epidemic in the US is intergenerational and compounding.
That we’re also dealing with a couple of imminent great filters the human species is unprepared to navigate hits hard for me.
Flour paste makes for great bait. You can catch a mess of small fish with dough bait.
Which is great until you get heavy metal poisoning or pfas or whatever the latest one is. My local DNR recommends eating just ONE meal of freshwater fish a MONTH because of water pollution. We are so fucked.
Mmm, heavy metals, just like Grandma ate!
There are definitely food deserts in the US.
Seriously. In Canada too. Our countries are huge but even in populated areas like LA there are well documented food deserts.
Well Louisiana sucks for all sorts of reasons. Oh, wait. You mean the city that us anglophones abbreviated twice.
All this talk about food desserts is making me hungry.
Before I had access to the internet; These were basically my, ‘Don’t die, eat something easy’ list of relatively quick foods back in the darkest, deepest depression days (turns out my brain chemistry reacts horribly to antidepressants and antipsychotics). I was just an anxious dude that didn’t know it due to being heavily medicated.
Frozen pierogi boiled then fried with a little butter & eaten with sour cream is a classic
just pointing out that the russian supermarkets have these for like $2-$3 per pound, basically ravioli. you can dump a serving into a pot of boiling water and then you’re done in a couple of minutes. can top with pasta sauce or even ranch dressing. feeds a while family for the cost of a single fast food meal.
Accepting that’s is ok to sometimes eat a frozen meal has been absolutely instrumental in helping me reduce eating out.
I got caught in the trap of perfect, trying to make tasty, healthy, low-cost meals, and then giving up when I couldn’t just do that every day with no experience.
When I went back to college with a toddler and a baby on the way. I started feeling really bad about how I was feeding my kid. I’d do stuff like chicken nuggets with some frozen veggies on the side for example. I told someone about this and they were like “no you’re feeding your kid really well. They’re getting most of their food groups in every meal and getting consistent meals”
If you’re looking for a fun Youtube channel to folliw, check out Sorted Food. They do a lot of silly food challenge videos, but a lot of them have some really good lessons for the average know-nothing cook.
Bertolli chicken parm and some garlic Texas toast is almost downright fancy, but it’s 100% dump, heat, eat.
Yeah I like mixing it personally!
Like I have fresh sour dough bread I made this morning. I then like to use said bread to spoon in store bought curries, pasta sauces, peanut butter, and jelly. Or sometimes I’ll use it as bread for a frozen fish patty to make a sandwich. I also have a big things of rice and beans I made that I will sometimes just plop into a tortilla and call a meal.
That’s the depression due doctors don’t want you to know about.
For any sweet pierogi, sprinkle some sugar on top of the sour cream or mix it up properly if you want to be fancy. So damn good.
I don’t even boil it. Just put it in a frying pan with some butter, put a lid on it, and cook it at a low temp for 20 minutes.
I can make a pasta meal under $6 that’s generally made to last. The only determining factors is what additives you can add to it. My poor man’s meal consist of the pasta (those $1 ones at wal-mart), tomato sauce (my choice has always been Tomato/Basil/Onion kinds) now the fun part is the additives themselves.
I’ve gotten imitation crab legs ($1 for the snack kind), croutons, chopped turkey franks .etc anything. You can just add damn near anything to the pasta that’ll get you through a bit. I’ve only recently been adding frozen chopped spinach to the dishes, boil them up, dump them in.
All for a reasonable price. I don’t usually pay anymore than $8 for a complete meal.
I don’t get this one, surely you can just buy pasta sauce instead and it’s exactly the same steps but better 🤔
Pasta and ketchup is a common meal in Paris according to the one French Netflix show I watched where they ate it and never commented about how absurd it is.
Maybe French ketchup is different than American ketchup?
Probably doesn’t contain corn syrup.
Almost certainly
It’s almost certainly Heinz, and in no permutation you cannot find everywhere else in the world.
Would be a great reaction meme if you took out cooking and centered the remaining text
I’ve been trying to learn more about GIMP, so here you go.
Oh wait, was I supposed to leave it slanted?
Dear diary, today the internet delivered. Cheers to your GIMP learning journey!
Works either way, nice work.
Ay, DIY gimp skills make a homemade meme truly tasty
I don’t like ketchup like that. Fires, sure. Burger? A little. This? This is fucking gross. I also knew someone that put it on their pizza. On the inverse, I can eat yellow mustard straight
Ahh this is not a “go buy” something recipe.
This is a “If you are thinking of not eating because you feel like you have nothing to eat, eat this instead”
This is for people who might not have pasta sauce in their pantry, but most people will have ketchup in the fridge.
100%, some of these recipes are “scavenge for food with things in the back of your fridge/pantry”
Or packets from a fast food restaurant
i once had a long article in a pre-internet punk 'zine about the different meals you can make with free food like condiments… salt pepper water ketchup mustard relish honey etc. it also taught how to use toothpaste as hair gel.
it was eye opening.
It doesn’t happen to still exist does it? Sounds like a very interesting read
i don’t have it. it was at Moby Disc record store in the 1990s, maybe someone collects 'zines.
I’m gonna try to search for it later today. Any details you can add would help a ton
paperback, like half a 8.5 x 11. cover was blue and included a drawing of a payphone. the zine also included punk album reviews.
i see archive.org/details/zines has a ton of sinilar
PBnJ. 3 ingredients.No cooking. Get lost with any cook book.
Incoming: peanut allergy
Skip the PB.
Nutella?
Do I look like I’m made of money?
my favorite depression meal is an easy rice and beans. buy those flavored rice sides that come in a bag, chicken flavor is a good default option. cook it per instructions, then throw in a drained can of black beans and whatever frozen veggies sound good. don’t even bother heating up the beans or veggies, there’s enough heat in the rice that everything ends up nice and warm. just give it all a stir and you’re done.
the rice sides have enough flavor to make everything taste good as is, but there’s definitely room to toss in whatever spices are within arms reach that sound good.
My favorite depression meal is drugs and sleep.
Sometimes I have this just for fun, as a treat.
And my absolute fave depression breakfast is waking up on the sofa still drunk, just in time to get ready for work
Instant Noodles Carbonara
Cook instant noodles in a pan. Chuck an egg in and mash it about a bit.
When the water is nearly all gone, chuck in a load of cheese (I use strong cheddar and grated mozzarella) and a couple of chopped up Peperamis. Mix it all about until the cheese starts burning.
Eat that shit.
To add my own bachelor chow to this
Meat of some kind these frozen vegetables And KD
What’s KD, precious?
Mac & Cheese, the polite weirdos to our north call it Kraft Dinner.
Found the not Canadian
That doesn’t sound too hard. Most people are not Canadian.
Either Kraft Dinner (Mac and cheese) or Kentucky Deluxe. Either way is sad.
what about craft dinner is sad? like I know it’s not top notch but i can’t say I ever felt like it was a bad thing
Some heavy hitters here
Have you been reading my diary?
I’m so guilty of both
Ah, I’ve been making these recipes for decades. It tracks with my cooking skills.
Warning: do NOT overdo peanut butter on a spoon if you have a dry mouth
Pros: high protein food
Cons: makes a spoon dirty
Suggested improvements to recipe: note to thoroughly lick spoon clean, or use a finger to swipe up the peanut butter.
Why is the spoon dirty? Just lick it until it’s clean of peanut butter and put it back in the drawer. /s
Nah, let your dog lick it clean since they have cleaner mouths than us filthy humans. Whenever I’m done eating I just let my dog lick the plate/bowl/whatever clean and then it’s good to go back in the cupboard.
/s
This was the premise of one of those ‘that really happened’ reddit stories.
Use napkin for remaining peanut butter before you put it in the sink. Then it will make the spoon less intimidating to wash.
For me, I’m more concerned about getting bacteria into the highly nutritious PB. If you’re only eating one spoonful then fine. I wouldn’t stick a spoon that’s been in my mouth back into the container though. I have done this “meal” though, but I scoop how much I want into a bowl first. Maybe drizzle some honey or something onto it.
Butter knife it onto some crackers. (I prefer Ritz.) The knife never goes into the mouth so I can keep using it. Does make a mess on the counter or table if you don’t use a paper towel or plate(or bowl) to catch most of the crumbs. Guess you could eat over the sink…
Mix up your PB&J in a bowl. That shit is fire. Raspberry preserves are very good
I need this book.
Click download! PDF is free.
I want PAY
There is a link to buy a physical copy if you like.
I substituted a knife for the spoon and I feel like it still came out ok.
As long as it’s not a fork you’re good.
Works for crunchy. Any thick peanut butter really
Tastes like it has a little extra iron in it
That’s the blood from the cuts in your tongue.
It’s not as funny when you point out the joke
★☆☆☆☆
Substituted a knife for the spoon and caulk for peanut butter. Awful taste, horrible recipe. Do not recommend. Would put zero stars but it won’t let me.
Karen, MO
Best is when you’re at the end and you bring out the spatula. It’s like a mini Christmas.
You know you were gonna have a second serving anyway, may as well just skip the trouble and have both at once.
That is the most important tool in my kitchen.
Some days, you need a reminder that eating anything is better than eating nothing.
Seeing this post prompted me to cook for myself, thank you for sharing this valuable resource 😊
I had no idea I was qualified to be a cookbook author.
Okay this made me tear up and is perfect. Peanut Butter On A Spoon is a large percentage of what i have been eating lately. I feel seen.
Some days, or weeks, it’s enough!
Maybe shake it up from time to time with something else from the book, but I understand where some months eating enough to keep the stomach pains away is just all that can be done.
Yes! Very luckily my health flares only seem to get real bad for a few days at a time nowadays, so i do have some “real food” mixed in, but as a person who has been struggling with shame about eating less well than i wish i could on those days it is very nice to be reminded that food, literally any food at all, is good enough and in fact an act of love toward myself. Excited to peruse the book for some more ideas
Page 19.
"Kinda Like Pad Thai
Peanut butter and sweet chili sauce mix together to make something which tastes kinda like you’d imagine Pad Thai sauce would taste if you’ve never had Pad Thai before. It’s delicious. Real Pad Thai is even more so."
This is actually a great book! I don’t like cooking so this is right up my alley.
Thanks for sharing! I feel like I know some folks who need this in case of emergency. Will be passing it along to several friends…
Best one: pasta in a rice cooker. Game changer
Wat. How?? I need this hack
Tell me more!
Me too!
Guys it’s literally in the completely free to download book linked in this post, called exactly what it’s called here.
Okay so what can’t be cooked in a rice cooker? I do oatmeal in it too.
I don’t recommend making ice Cream in a Rice Cooker.
Challenge accepted!
Missed opportunity to send them a link to this post.
Rice cookers the microwave of the 21th century
