# Food > Published Jan 01 2025, last updated Sep 09 2025 > By Ryan Fleck and written without LLMs! > Original manual at > Incredible writing of astonishing quality and insight - Happy Hacking! # Grocery & Meal Planning Everybody wants to eat, and sometimes life gets busy! Especially as a student with a tight budget and other high priorities, feeding yourself properly with a minimum of time and effort is crucial. Even for "adults", having a plan will help to cut down on wasted food, reduce your decision fatigue, and bring some structure to your life. Additionally - any of these meals can be split in a pinch. There are few things that are more kind and wonderful than sharing a meal and dinnertime conversation with your roommates or loved ones. We don't get much time here to figure out what is really important. > So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or > of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. > > -- 2 Corinthians 9:7 NKJV ## Tier 0: Not Dying If you are utterly devoid of motivation, broke, and just want to survive, avoid sustaining yourself on snacks and crap - go to the grocery store *once* and pick up the following food items. Following this plan will keep you reasonably well fed at a good nutritional baseline, while saving time with store-bought bread and frozen vegetables. This assumes you only have a few kitchen basics and a coffee maker of some kind. Keeping your space clean is essential to reducing the amount of time it takes to make your food. Neglecting to clean and piling up dishes and dirt is extremely demotivating, and will end with you opting for takeout and a deteriorating body. *A warm cup of coffee in the morning is important for morale.* ### Meal Plan | Day | Breakfast | Dinner *(Always make double!)* | |:---:|:-------------|:------------------------------------------------------| | SUN | Bacon & Eggs | Spaghetti and Sausage | | MON | PB Toast | Chicken stir fry | | TUE | Bacon & Eggs | Sausage skillet[^1] over potatoes | | WED | PB Toast | Bachelor style Chili over rice, pasta, or spare bread | | THU | Bacon & Eggs | Chicken vegetable pasta | | FRI | PB Toast | Ground Beef and Onion Noodles | | SAT | Bacon & Eggs | Fish and chips | - **Lunch** is always **leftovers from the night before**. - To save time you can always chop all your vegetables at once and keep them in a big tupperware. - Add frozen mixed vegetables to increase the volume of all these dishes, and/or when too lazy to chop. ### Your Kitchen To cook cheap and nutritious meals for yourself, ensure you have the following items in your kitchen already. - A clean kitchen with a functional stove and sink - Frying pan - Small pot with lid - A rice cooker (a cheap one will do) - Spatula - Cutting board - Knife - Coffee maker - Toaster (or toaster oven) - Plate, fork, knife - Rags or paper towels - Dish soap - Zip-lock freezer bags - Some tupperware containers for leftovers - Spices and other essentials: - Olive oil - Salt and pepper - Chili powder - Coffee filters - Beef stock/bouillon - Soya sauce - Sriracha / hot sauce (for your eggs) ### Shopping List In January of 2025 I purchased - Vegetables - A couple tomatoes - A bag of onions (6 or so) - Two zucchinis - Two bell peppers - Some lettuce - A bunch of carrots - An orange - Starches - Spaghetti - Bread, 1 loaf (or ~14 slices) - Asian noodles - Small bag of potatoes - Dairy - Cream, 1L - Eggs, 1 doz. - Butter, 1lb - Small block of cheese - Meat - Bacon - Chicken Breasts (4-6) - A kilo of ground beef - 6+ Italian sausages - Frozen - Mixed frozen vegetables (1kg) - Battered Cod or Haddock fillets - Dry Goods - Ground coffee - Peanut butter - Pasta sauce - Can of beans **Proof:** The receipt below is an attempt to purchase all of these ingredients to get an estimate of the cost. In January 2025, in Alberta, Canada, it cost **$136** Canadian dollars to buy the ingredients posted above - with some items like rice, coffee, peanut butter, and potatoes that will last multiple weeks. ![A sample receipt of purchase for the Tier 0 ingredients](/images/groceries/receipt-min.png?invert=true&noborder=true) ![What your cart should contain for Tier 0](/images/groceries/haul-min.jpg) ### Spaghetti and Sausage Use half of your sausage, some vegetables, and the pasta sauce to create a rich and filling pasta meal. ### Chicken stir fry Fry up half of your chicken breasts, some vegetables, and soy sauce in your fry pan. Serve over your asian noodles. ### Sausage skillet[^1] over potatoes Boil some potatoes, then fry them up in a pan with sausage and vegetables. ### Bachelor style Chili Chop up some onions and 1/3 kg of ground beef and fry them in butter in a pot. Add beans, half a bean-tin of water, crush two tomatoes with your bare hand into the pot, some frozen vegetables, and chili powder. Bring to a boil and simmer for 40-60 minutes. Serve with buttered toast. ### Chicken Vegetable Pasta Cube your chicken breasts and cook with onions, vegetables, and soy sauce in a pan. Start boiling water for pasta when you start cooking your chicken. Combine everything and toss in your frying pan. ### Ground Beef and Onion Noodles Cook up ground beef, onions, and soy sauce in a pan. ### Fish and Chips Boil up some potatoes for less time then usual. Slice into wedge fries and stick them into the oven beside the fish you bought - and follow the instructions on the battered fish box. ## Tier -1: Goblin Mode If you want to subsist entirely on mostly cheap, frozen, or prepackaged foods in the healthiest way possible, consider going to Costco and picking up the following items. - Huge bag of onions - Huge bag of carrots - Six pack of pre-portioned ground beef - Package of frozen chicken breasts - A crate of asian noodles - A crate of spaghetti - A bag of meatballs - Lots of frozen vegetables ### Pasta with Red Sauce - Toss in frozen vegetables and meatballs (6-10) and boil - Toss in pasta - Drain and toss in red sauce ### Beef and Onions - Brown onions in a frying pan with olive oil and set aside - Cook ground beef - Cook noodles - Combine with hot sauce ### Chicken and Rice - Cook ch # Breads Making your own bread is a great way to break away from the white-flour and chemical preservative cocktail that is industrial bread. A bread machine or Kitchen-Aid mixer will help a lot. If you have a bread machine, simply follow the provided recipes. If from a thrift shop, it is easy to find the manual for an older machine online. ## Sourdough If you'd like to make artisan bread by hand with natural yeasts - which are very flavorful and last longer without moulding - make sourdough. With your starter, mix in one of the following ratios: | Ratio | Peak Time | Note | |---------|-------------|--------------------| | 1:1:1 | 3-4 hours | | | 1:5:5 | 6-7 hours | | | 1:10:10 | 10-12 hours | Let rise overnight | # Cookies # Pie ## Butter Crusts Or *pie dough* - enough for two pies. **Ingredients:** - ½ pound butter - 2½ cups flour - ½ tbsp sugar - ½ tsp salt - 7 tbsp ice water **Instructions:** 1. In food processor, pulse dry ingredients (flour, sugar, and salt) 2. Pulse in butter. Cut the butter into ~1cm² chunks, throw them into the food processor, and tap the pulse button until coarse crumbs form. Not long. 3. Check to make sure there is no tough disk stuck to the bottom of the food processing chamber. 3. Pulse in water. Stop when clumps form - longer will destroy the flaky texture 4. Divide into two balls and refrigerate 5. Chill for 45m-1h From [ryanfleck.ca/2022/homemade-apple-pie](https://ryanfleck.ca/2022/homemade-apple-pie/) # Breakfast ## Bacon and Eggs The American classic. **Ingredients:** - Bacon - Eggs **Instructions:** 1. Place strips of bacon in cold pan 2. Turn to medium heat and cook bacon 3. Place bacon in corner of pan and add eggs 4. Plate and serve **Enhancements:** - It's also very nice to slice up a tomato and lightly fry that at high heat alongside the eggs. At this point you are halfway to an English Breakfast. ## Pancakes Simple whole wheat pancakes. Makes enough for you and some leftovers. **Ingredients:** - 2 cups whole wheat flour - 1 tsp baking powder - ½ tsp baking soda - ½ tsp salt - 2 cup buttermilk *(2 cup milk & 2 tbsp vinegar)* - 2 eggs - 4 tbsp melted butter - butter for greasing the griddle **Steps:** 1. Whisk dry ingredients (in KitchenAid) 2. Combine wet ingredients separately 3. Combine wet/dry *until barely mixed and still lumpy* 4. Fry in pan or on griddle with butter at 375F From [fifteenspatulas.com](https://www.fifteenspatulas.com/whole-wheat-pancakes/) [^1]: "Italian Sausage Skillet" - 5-Ingredient Cookbook p. 60 # Entertaining ## Appetizers ### Mama K's Spinach Dip Based on [tastesbetterfromscratch.com/spinach-artichoke-dip](https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/spinach-artichoke-dip/) - really impressed me and my friends at a couples' dinner once upon a time! **Ingredients** - 14oz can of artichoke hearts, drained and chopped - ½ cup sour cream - ½ cup mayonnaise - 8oz cream cheese (brick) - ¾ cup loose grated parmesan cheese - 1 clove of minced garlic - ½ cup spinach - a thawed and squeezed brick - 1 tsp worchestershire sauce - 1 tbsp lemon juice - garlic salt - pepper - italian or greek seasoning **Steps** Generally - mix all the ingredients together and bake! 1. Preheat oven to 350°F 2. Combine all the ingredients above and a ½ cup of the parmesan cheese - turn until the mix is smooth - add spices to taste 3. Pour into baking pan and top with rest of parmesan cheese 4. Bake for 20 minutes unitl hot/bubbly and serve with warm bread **Notes** - Make it ahead of time (up to two days) and pop it in the oven when needed. - Thaw the spinach ahead of time, or you'll need to work to slowly pull apart the frozen brick! # Meats ## Chicken - Chickens are very easy to butcher yourself. ### Chicken Wings - Use "shake n' bake" and toss in the oven at 450 for 20 + 20 + 10 minutes - Toss in sauce (before or after) and throw in an air fryer for 20 minutes > Thank you for reading! > Find more content at > Source page: > Site index: [llms.txt](https://manuals.ryanfleck.ca/llms.txt)