Hard-up recipes continued from "Must have items for your kitchen"

Now when I started posting about this I had mentioned that you needed these items at all times in your kitchen:

BUTTER

flour, now I prefer self-rising especially when down and out

eggs

sugar

milk

basic spices, salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, cinnamon

mayo

baking soda

BUTTER, wait I already said that....much needed!

oil, i prefer olive oil for most things

random spice packets, taco, stew, ranch anything

Now in addition to this would be items that you try to have in your kitchen, things like potatoes. I like to always keep steamer vegetables in my freezer, the store brand and some that have noodles or rice in them. They can be found for about a dollar or a little over.

When we moved I didn't have much for ingredients in anyway. I had a log of hamburger and 2 large bags of chicken tenders. And about 7 of the steamer vegetables packages. I took my crock pot spice packets and made soups that would last a few days. We had an italian crock pot meal that called for chicken and tomato paste and stock, I didn't have stock or paste, So I improvised and I took my chicken tenders and boiled them in water for an hour adding water as I went and added the spice packet. I then added a bag of the vegetables and rice steamer, I didn't steam it i just used it frozen to make a soup out of it. Lasted us two days.

I then had a mexican crock pot spice mix and didn't want chicken again, even when you are down you want to spruce it up at least a little bit. I browned the hamburger with the spice mix and added water and another steamer vegetable mix.

At one point I even took enchilada mix (only had half a packet left, taco seasoning) and made a hamburger and chicken tender soup with vegetables.

I boiled my chicken tenders and boiled with salt to make what I could of a chicken stock. Melted some butter with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and mixed in a few tablespoons of flour, making a roux. I then added some "chicken stock" and a tiny bit of milk and made a gravy, I made it extra thick added the rest of my "chicken stock", added what small amount of rice I had, and some gumbo vegetables (again a buck in the freezer section). And I had a rather tasty but simple chicken soup, not as flavorful as the chicken soup I have listed, but this is about when you don't have all the vegetables or the money to go get it, but want to have an idea for something to make. I then took some self-rising flour and mixed with some milk until a batter was made and dropped in the hot soup to make "dumplings", now they don't puff as much as a normal biscuit but it still is something more substantial to the meal.

I then came down to my final meal of the week before payday and all I had was a half a gallon of milk, a carton of eggs, some frozen spinach, half a cup of cheese and half a ranch packet. I took the eggs and beat them with the milk and ranch packet. I then added in the spinach and made scrambled eggs with spinach, and the ranch really added something special and gave us one last meal before payday.

Another great thing to use is baby food, some of you just cringed right? Well its not as bad as you think, some of the food that had tomato in it or rice I would add a jar of squash or carrots. Sometimes I even snuck in some sweet potatoes. If you have applesauce you can add it to your pancakes for some extra umph. Yogurt will work in pancakes too.

Now more with the above items, you can make biscuits, pancakes, eggs in the middle of a blanket(that is another recipe I will share in its own post), french toast (if you have bread). If you have potatoes you can make a very plain potato salad. Chicken salad with just some mayo and an apple. Scrambled eggs.

And pancakes and eggs or biscuits are always good emergency meals.

Hope this helped to stir up some ideas.