Broke-Ass College Student Recipes

[Iduno]

Tuna was cheap as hell when I was in college. You can probably use canned chicken if that's cheaper. The problem is, sometimes you fuck up and end up with a can of tuna in oil. Here are 2 recipes that will work with tuna:

Tuna Casserole
2 cans tuna (I'd say "in water," but only a monster would put them in oil)
1-2 cans peas, or some frozen peas
Half an onion, or some carrots, or whatever to add flavor and crunch.
Some mayonnaise, enough that everything isn't dry
Noodles. Elbow Macaroni works, but whatever is cheap. I don't know how much, I didn't have measuring cups. Half of a small bag, assuming your bags are the size I used.

Boil noodles. While the noodles are boiling, chop up the onion or whatever crunchy veg you have. Drain the tuna and noodles. If your peas are still frozen, pour the hot water over them (into a colander). If you don't have a colander, hold the lid of the pot or a plate over the top and tip it to the side. Throw the noodles back into the pot with tuna, mayo, peas, and onion. Stir it up, and eat. That should make a few meals worth, so keep it in the fridge, or feed your roommates. You only need to wash one pan and one colander, so that's not bad.

You done goofed and got tuna in oil stirfry
Rice or noodles, whatever you got. Rice is cheaper.
2 cans of Tuna in oil. You might scam this off some other idiot who didn't read the can.
Frozen vegetables
Some kind of sauce. Soy works, or whatever bottles of marinade. Do you have something with citrus? You don't need so much.
Seasonings? Garlic and ginger are good. Whatever you have, or not.

Boil up your rice, then drain it. Heat up the pan, maybe open some windows, put the frozen veg in to unfreeze, then empty the cans of tuna into the pan (including oil). Stir that shit up real good until it's cooked, take it off the heat, and put some sauce on there. Maybe heat it a bit more while you're stirring the sauce in. Serve over rice, and learn to read next time.

Spicy Potatoes
1-2 potatoes, washed
vegetable oil
1/2 an onion
garlic, chopped up (if you're using fresh garlic, just slice it and cook it a bit longer, or throw it in whole)
Bell peppers, if you can get them
Spicy peppers. Dried works, if you break them up, or some spicy powder out of a can. Jalapenos if you're fancy.

Cut the potatoes up into cubes about the size of dice. Keep the peels on, because that's where the nutrients are.
Heat up the pan with oil, but not enough to make smoke.
Add potatoes to the hot oil, and stir them sometimes until they're starting to get brown on one or more sides.
Add peppers and onions, and stir a few more times until they're getting cooked
Stir in garlic just before turning off the heat, so it doesn't burn.


Other notes: you can't always afford nice stuff like this, so look for a bakery outlet store. You should be able to find stupid stuff like a rack of day old buns for $2. Keep them in the fridge, and you got peanut butter sandwiches for a week or two.

[Maj]

I've never had problems with tuna in oil. If you drain it well (open the lid with a normal can opener and use the lid to drain) it's fine. It took me a long time to get used to tuna in water because it was more bland and really dry. I don't think I've even seen tuna in oil in the last couple of years, though.*

*I do not buy my tuna at a normal grocery store, so this could just be where I shop.

[Iduno]

I've never had problems with tuna in oil. If you drain it well (open the lid with a normal can opener and use the lid to drain) it's fine. It took me a long time to get used to tuna in water because it was more bland and really dry. I don't think I've even seen tuna in oil in the last couple of years, though.*

*I do not buy my tuna at a normal grocery store, so this could just be where I shop.

Yeah, I've quit buying pretty much anything I ate in college. I do remember the tuna in water needing to be mixed with something, usually mayonnaise, to be edible. I do remember the disappointment of getting home to find out I'd misread a label and ended up with a different type of food than I thought.

Edit: it may be a regional thing? I don't think I met anyone who had ever used the "in oil" variant. Now that I'm no longer in a situation where eating meat or veggies every week is a luxury, I eat much less canned food, so I haven't had occasion to try again. Either way, I tried to get back to the idiot college student mindset as a joke.