How to make a complete 3 course meal using nothing but the cheapest of ingredients. This is genuine budget cooking.

Hey, everyone. This was a fun little experiment I tried out earlier in the year and I thought this community would be the best place to share it with. The idea is simple - to make a complete 3 course meal (that is, some appetizer, main course, and dessert) using the cheapest of ingredients. I defined "cheapest" as whatever was the lowest price in a given category of ingredients. The goal was to demonstrate how to eat cheaply, and how the cheapest of ingredients can be used to make edible (and actually, delicious) food. Anyway, here's what I found:<br><br>**Appetizer: Potato and Onion Fritters**<br><br>First, the appetizer. The cheapest potato ever is the Russet potato (26 cents/lb.), and the cheapest onion is the yellow onion (69 cents/lb.). You can slice these up and fry them in the cheapest oil, which is store brand canola oil (4 dollars/gal.), for a crispy potato and onion fritter. This is extremely delicious. For bread, the cheapest bread is store brand white bread (1.50/loaf). You'll need an egg (12 cents apiece) to hold everything together. This will cost you 30 cents.<br><br>**Main Course: Beef Stew**<br><br>The main course is a beef stew. The cheapest cut of beef is boneless beef short ribs (3.19/lb.), which is extremely delicious in stew. The cheapest potatoes are Russet again, the cheapest carrots are regular orange carrots (60 cents/lb.), and the cheapest onion is the yellow onion again. You'll also need some beef broth. The cheapest beef broth is bouillon cubes (3 dollars/72 count), which you can use to make the broth. This will cost you 2.34.<br><br>**Dessert: Oatmeal Cookies**<br><br>The dessert is an oatmeal cookie. The cheapest oats are the store brand bags of rolled oats (2.50/4lbs.), the cheapest peanut butter is store brand creamy peanut butter (2 dollars/40 oz. jar), the cheapest sugar is store brand granulated sugar (1 dollar/4 lbs.), and the cheapest eggs are store brand large eggs (1.75/dozen). This will cost you 36 cents.<br><br>**Total: 3.00**<br><br>So adding all this together, you get a full 3 course meal for 3 dollars. And, if you want to make this even cheaper, you'll notice that you don't need a full pound of beef or full loaf of bread to make this. Cutting everything down to the bare minimum required will probably cut the price in half.