Here are some more cheapass/healthy recipes.  I’ve posted some of this before, but I’ve made revisions, so here you go:

Tomato Soup:

Take ten tomatoes and an onion,  dice all of it, add it to a pot, turn the flame on medium, stir until it’s bubbling, add salt, basil, some sort of spicy pepper, oregano, and garlic powder to taste (or vary the seasonings if you want).  Turn the flame down to low when it starts bubbling and cook for half an hour longer, stirring every five minutes or so.  Look for cheap fresh tomatoes at farmers’ markets and seedy ethnic grocery stores (where the dirty foreigners shop), or you can use canned diced tomatoes if you can’t find any (but it won’t be as good).  Ought to come to about $4 for the pot which makes about six medium sized bowls of soup.  This is the one soup I know of that doesn’t get better the next day, but you can squeeze a quarter of a lime over a bowl to freshen up the flavor if you’re reheating it.

Tomato Sandwiches:

Chop up three tomatoes and half an onion, throw them in a pan together and sauté (or pan fry) them in olive oil with salt for about ten minutes.  Scoop the shit out and put it on bread, shake on some basil, garlic, and spicy pepper, add some mustard (any kind of mustard will do).  Be sure to pour off any remaining olive oil and vegetable juices into a container; you can use it later to make more sandwiches with a more highly concentrated flavor.  Makes three sandwiches, comes to about $2 or $3.

Red Beans and Rice (not vegan):

This isn’t a traditional recipe, it’s just how I make red beans.  Get a pound of dried red beans, soak overnight (or longer), drain, cook, drain, rinse (see yesterday’s black bean soup post for more detailed instructions on how to deal with dried beans).  Chop (coarsely) a head of celery, a whole onion, two red (or yellow, or even green if you’re cheap) bell peppers (be sure to dump out the seeds), and add all that mess to the pot.  Chop a pound of smoked sausage (Eckrich works fine and it’s cheap) into bite-size pieces and add that too.  Add enough water so that the whole mess isn’t quite covered (but almost is), turn the flame on high until it’s boiling (stir a lot when the flame is high so it doesn’t burn), turn the flame down to low.  Add (to taste, as usual) salt, spicy pepper, cumin, oregano, garlic powder (or fresh garlic, but it takes forever), basil, a tiny bit of chili powder, three or four bay leaves, and thyme.  If you used green peppers instead of red or yellow, add a little paprika (but not a lot, that shit can ruin food if you’re not careful).  Stir every five or so minutes, let it cook for about two hours (three if you want).  Serve over rice.  It’s always better the next day, and it keeps for about a week.  The whole thing should cost about $8 and make about ten to twelve substantial bowls.  Note for retarded people: don’t eat the bay leaves.  If you get one in your bowl, pick it out and throw it away or put it back in the pot.

Lentil Soup:

Made exactly the same as the red beans but you don’t soak lentils overnight, and you don’t cook them before the rest of the food (you just add it all raw and cook like normal).  And don’t add any paprika, you don’t need it with lentils.  A pound of dried lentils works fine.  Oh, and add some tomatoes (a few fresh or a couple cans of diced will do fine, even a can of tomato sauce can be helpful).

There are all sorts of ways to eat most of what I’ve listed today and yesterday.  One of my favorite things is to take the black bean soup, pour it over a baked potato (which is cheap and easy if you’re not aware), squeeze a little mustard over it (yeah, it sounds weird, but go with it), and eat that.  Or any of the bean stuff can be put on toasted bread for a sandwich (again, mustard works well).  You can put it over pasta or rice, use it as a dip, put it on a hot dog, whatever you want.