Good food on a dime

What with all the normal college expenses ““ course
readers, rent, $300 Han Solo action figures ““ it’s easy
for money to run out unexpectedly. Then you have to trim costs by
cutting unnecessary items ““ hair dye, liquor runs, textbooks
““ from your budget.

But there are very few times when it’s OK to skimp on
food.

Say you get back to your apartment one night after a long day on
campus, flip on a light switch … and nothing happens.

Say you try the switch next to it. Same thing: pitch
darkness.

Smashing your shin on a ““ is that the coffee table?
““ as you feel around for the floor lamp, you hear the voice
of your roommate:

“Power’s been off since, like, 2 o’clock,
dude.”

Inquiring further, you figure out that despite the increasingly
frequent red notices, he hasn’t paid the electric bill in
three months. None of the apartment electronics are functional,
your bank account balances are almost negative, and your roommate
has spent all afternoon slurping melting ice cream instead of
phoning the Department of Water and Power.

Now is the perfect time to skimp on food.

Even though you’ve both called your parents for an
emergency money transfusion, the cash won’t get to you until
the next day. You can’t microwave any of your formerly frozen
foods and you’re extremely low on groceries, but you still
need a cheap dinner.

Then you remember the one-pot rice and beef recipe handed down
to you by your penny-pinching second cousin.

The electricity’s out, but your gas stove will still turn
on. This could work.

Before you start, grab a flashlight and tape it to the kitchen
wall to get some light in your workspace ““ maybe this way,
you can avoid some Keystone Kops moments.

Measure one cup of uncooked rice and one and three-quarters cups
of water into a large pot.

Assign your roommate to rummage through the freezer for a pound
of thawing ground beef while you coarsely chop an onion and a bell
pepper. If you’d had some time or money to go shopping, you
might have thrown in some chopped fresh mushrooms or thinly sliced
summer squash, but the dish will be fine without them.

Stop your roommate from gnawing on an uncooked pizza pocket, and
remind him to keep looking for the meat.

Add the chopped vegetables to the pot. Pour 16 ounces of tomato
sauce over the vegetables and rice.

Reach into the freezer and pull out the pound of raw beef
yourself. Pinch it into bits and add it to the pot. Throw in a
tablespoon of mustard and mix ““

“Can I stir?”

““ or allow your roommate to mix until all the ingredients
are distributed evenly.

Cover the pot, and set it over medium heat. Leave it alone for
20 minutes.

Removed from the ability to watch television, surf the Internet
or even see anything outside the radius of the flashlight beam,
your roommate starts to get antsy. “Can I stir
again?”

He can’t because lifting the lid for any reason will
destroy your meal.

“But it’s boiling over!”

Do not lift the lid. Do not stir. Lower the heat and move the
pot away from the flame for a minute. Return it to the heat when it
is no longer overflowing.

When the 20 minutes are up, add salt and pepper to taste. Now
let him stir.

Dinner turns out to be pretty good, and there are leftovers for
the next day.

Maybe you’ll even make this when the electricity is back
on.

Raab will make you a dessert if she writes a column based on
your recipe. E-mail her one at lraab@media.ucla.edu.

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