“With Freedom, Books, Flowers, And The Moon, Who Could Not Be Happy?”

Low Budget Meal Ideas

So most of your paycheck is consumed with various bills & rent and you feel like you can’t afford to eat, or your a student and not only is your money limited but also your time, or maybe you’re just saving up to buy something special. Here’s a few ideas that may help you & your stomach through with more than just a loaf of bread.

Key Staple Ingredients

Powdered milk - 1kg makes about 7L, which means that you’re spending about 80c for a litre of milk. If used wisely this will last you weeks. I wouldn’t recommend it for having just a glass of milk or with your coffee, but it’s perfect if you’re making scrambled eggs or rice pudding… if you’re cooking with it basically. This milk is a make-as-you-need-it milk.

Alternatively if you don’t like powdered milk or you have to have some coffee or cereal, look into UHT Long-Life milk. They can last months without refrigeration before opening.

Rice - It’s filling, it’s cheap, and it’s incredibly versatile. Most grocers you can buy it at ~$1.50/kg

Flour - It may be time consuming, but it’s so much cheaper, and more rewarding, to make your own bread. Again it’s about $1/kg, sometimes less, and it’s generally worth it. You can store it up to a year and there’s so much you can do with it.

Eggs - Meat can be expensive, but to go without protein is a dangerous thing. They’re not too expensive, but probably the most expensive item on the list, generally around $4 for a dozen. You can eat them as is (after cooking of course) or use them in baking. They generally only last about a week before you have to start getting rid of them.

Sugar - Now this one isn’t an urgent ingredient that you need lots of, but it does help add a bit of that serotonin to your life, be it when you make a sweet loaf, add a bit to your tea, who knows. It’s generally handy to have some on hand.

Optional Extras

Bananas - If you’ve got room in the budget for more, try and get some Bananas. I know my local green grocer sells bananas which are almost overripe and pretty much only good for baking for 50c/kg when he’s got excess. I snatch ‘em up like hotcakes and make smoothies, banana bread, ice cream…. there’s so much you can do with Bananas.

Carrots - Carrots are amazing and oh-so-cheap. 80c-$1/kg, and you can chop them up to snack on, roast them, boil & mash them, grate them, carrot cake…

Oranges - I cannot express how good Oranges are for you, and they keep quite a while as well. Now making your own orange juice will chew through your supply, I wouldn’t recommend it, but slice up half an orange and take it with you to classes or work.

Onions - Not as versatile as some of the other foods I’ve mentioned but if you’ve got an extra dollar, they can help add some flavour. Fry up an onion in some oil and add it to your eggs perhaps, use it in a rice dish… It generally just helps add flavour.

Potatoes - Potatoes are something you can buy in massive bulk, which like carrots you can use in so many ways. Their shelf life is incredible but for the love of god do not store them with your onions. They go off so much faster, which you can tell when they start sprouting!

Garlic - Long shelf life and though your friends may not appreciate your breath, you can’t pass up some good old garlic bread. I’m sure there’s more you can do with it but that’s all I can think of at the moment…. mmm garlic bread.

Honey - With an infinite shelf life, it’s perfect to drizzle over almost anything for a sweet treat.

Other thoughts, if you have the space in your home for vertical/wall herb garden, something small, that’ll generally put you back at most $50 total for the pots, soil, plants, and hooks (be it for a wall or railing), but to invest in some hard-to-kill herbs like rosemary, oregano, and mint, can add something special to your dishes.

For what to do with these ingredients that I’ve listed, follow @cook-n-tell for more recipes, tips & tricks.

Also a massive thank you to my friend Baccano for helping me bounce ideas and come up with others for this post.

Coming right up!!

There’s a disturbing lack of agriculture content here.

i'm down to fuck

-ing isolate myself from everyone i love

Carpenter strikes me as someone who always has sunglasses of some sort. Like to hide as much of her face/emotions as possible. To hide any hangover (from lack of sleep) or need for a cappuccino that one might have.

The big cosplayer question of all time but do you have any inspiration for how some of our main characters dress? Is it all practical with small hints towards the faith, or full southern gothic with long skirts and tattered lace? I’m only about halfway in but itching to start making something, especially for Carpenter or the twins that we got a great description of already!!

I would trend towards practical, and am not great with this stuff anyway, but I get the impression part of the joy of cosplay is elevated realism, right? So no reason you couldn't go hard on the full southern gothic*

*although I definitely do not see Carpenter in lace or skirts. Carpenter wears bovver boots and they are the most important item of clothing to her, being used for both walking and kicking.

your unreliable narrator fucking bit me

I walked into a lab one time, feeling like I was on deaths door, and the TA took one look at me said “As long as that’s not a hangover, I’ll cover for you.”

I said “Believe me I WISH this was a hangover” he marked me present and I immediately went home and slept for 2 days.

Hey students, here’s a pro tip: do not write an email to your prof while you’re seriously sick.

Signed, a person who somehow came up with “dear hello, I am sick and not sure if I’ll be alive to come tomorrow and I’m sorry, best slutantions, [name]”.

dark academia but you live in the countryside

wax jackets (barbour or similar) with lots of pockets… you can carry so many books in a poacher’s pocket

battered leather boots that were smart once

walking through a village graveyard with the sun at your back, warming you slightly in the crisp morning

always carrying a pocketknife (opinels are preferable)

tweed jackets - practical and warm (and classic da)

sketching the animals and plants around you and pinning them up in your room

collecting insects and labelling them neatly in their boxes

finding a sun-bleached sheep skull on a mountainside and taking it home

wandering across fields and moors with no particular aim in mind, and a hip flask full of whisky to keep you warm

stone churches in tiny villages, the smell of old bibles, sun through stained glass windows

taking a stack of books down to the river to sit and read in the sun

riding your bike down to the village library, occupying the only table for the afternoon

paddling barefoot down freezing streams, trousers rolled to your knees, cutting your feet on the rocks and feeling alive

You ever hear that old chestnut about how most people neglect the part of the story of Icarus where he also had to avoid flying too low, lest the spray of the sea soak his feathers and cause him to fall and drown? You ever think about how different the world would be if Icarus died that way instead? If the idiom was to Fly To Close To The Sea? A warning against playing it far too safe, about not stretching your wings and soaring properly? You ever think about how Icarus died because he was happy?

And if I said Richard Alpert is hot? What then?

congrats, once you enter the magpod universe you are now bisexual unless it becomes important somehow.