Just remembered something...No Chicken-Chicken Gravy over rice. You take chicken broth, add it to a roux to make a gravy, season with Chicken seasoning spice or poultry seasoning, cajun seasoning, etc. serve over rice.

Another one. Twice baked potatoes. We do ours in the microwave. Bake them. Cut the tops off. Scoop out the middles leaving 1/2 inch "crust". Mash the middles with milk and some cheddar. Restuff. Top with chopped broccholi or spinach or sweet peppers. Add the potato 'lid" . Reheat until cheese is melted and it's warmed through.

I'm looking in my book because I've never been "poor poor," but I've been a student.... you can also tell that I don't have a huge appetite most of the time, but since things are mostly homemade they scale okay!

Things I'd make in my student/single days:

Buy refried beans and a canned vegetable on sale.  Spread refried beans to "butter" tortillas or bread, warm up in microwave, microwave half a can of veggies.  Put rest of beans and veggies in fridge for later meals.  Refried beans on a tortilla also roll up well for an out-the-door snack.

Scrub up a potato, break open, add some broccoli florets, microwave maybe 10 mins.  Put a couple of T. cottage cheese on top, or add some chunks or shreds of cheddar.  You can also microwave corn in the husks; I always look forward to sweet corn season!

Hard boil some eggs and slice or dice them, get a big head of lettuce, a couple of tomatoes, and maybe some carrots, black olives, shredded cheese--whatever little thing you can find for a "treat."  Eat several salad meals out of this.  (I don't like salad dressing, but vinaigrettes can be very cheap to make.)

For a switch from the usual spaghetti, capellini pomodoro can be made with a can of diced tomatoes and a package of angel hair pasta. I started making this after going to Olive Garden with my family and realizing that the dish we'd paid $9 for was probably something even I could learn to do!

The "More With Less" cookbook notes that if you are going to celebrate with ice cream, you might as well make it your meal instead of adding it on top of all of your dinner calories.  Bananas, nuts, and chocolate are a good combination in my mind.  Also, on a seriously hot day you can add various things to milkshakes for more flavor and nutrition.

Jello salads are a holiday tradition in my family, but they also taste wonderful when it's hot out.  Orange jello salad has shredded carrots and pineapple added to orange jello.  Green jello salad has cottage cheese and pineapple added to lime jello.  You can also add jello to anything you're using for homemade popsicles.

Lentil barley stew (with tomatoes and rosemary) really fills you up and is easy to pull out of the pantry.  (My apartment had a crazy fridge, and I was a busy person, so I was a big fan of stuff that wouldn't go bad quickly.)

Know how to "soup up" any convenience foods you buy on sale... e.g. add peas and tuna to mac and cheese, add white beans and herbs to spaghetti sauce.

Stuff the two of us eat now:

As someone above mentioned, dhals are great.  For the timid, you can start with Two Can Curry.  Rinse and drain a 15 oz. can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans).  Heat a little oil in a large skillet, and sauté some diced onion in it.  Add a clove of minced garlic, then add maybe 2 t. curry powder.  I like to add a 1/2 t. extra cumin.  Stir the beans in, and add a 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes (undrained).  Heat, stirring, and add salt to taste.  Also easy+good: Pakistani Dhal, #269711 at RecipeZaar.

Farmer's skillet: start frying up 3-4 c. cubed potatoes, then add 1/4 c. onion, then 2-3 T. minced garlic, then 3-4 eggs and a couple of cups of veggies (red peppers, diced tomato, ??) plus any meats you want for flavoring.

Quiche is good if you are good with crusts!  Preheat to 375 degrees (190 celsius).  In the crust I put a couple of cups of cut veggies (usually cut up broccoli, cauliflower, and peas), then I pour over them a mixture of 3 eggs, 1 c. milk, 2 T. flour, at least 1/2 c. shredded cheese, a dash of pepper, and usually some dill and some caraway.  Bacon is also a nice addition if you have some handy.  I sometimes make D shred the cheese as it feels like it takes forever some times.  Bake for 45 to 60 min.  It will kind of rise in the middle but it may be a bit soggy yet on the inside when you first pull it out.

D makes excellent WW pancakes.  I would give you the recipe but we don't know which box his recipes are in.  )8  He also makes various ad hoc stir fries but even something I can do we like a lot: 1-2 lbs. frozen broccoli stir fried with some garlic, ginger, soy sauce, and a chopped red pepper, served over brown rice.

Another use for that ham bone is green string bean soup (or 4-6 oz. ham otherwise).  You cook it till tender, then add 3 c. cubed potatoes, 3-4 springs summer savory, 1/2 c. finely diced carrots, and 1 lb. (or 2 cans) green beans. At the end you stir in 2 T. sour cream (or butter if you don't have sour cream) and salt to taste.

Red peppers stuffed with celery, rice, etc. and baked are surprisingly filling.

Here's another favorite poor man' "side dish". Personally speaking, they are so filling, they could be the main course and perhaps sided with a favorite vegetable, fruit or salad. Potato croquettes. All you need are some potatoes, 1 or 2 eggs, salt, pepper, minced onion OR onion powder, dried parsley flakes, flavored bread crumb and parmesan cheese (grated). Boil potatoes, mash em up. While still warm, add salt, pepper, onion, grated cheese, parsley, and a couple of handfuls of flavored bread crumb. To this add the beaten egg (s). Taking a tablespoon, at a time, make mounds and carefully roll into flavored breadcrumbs as a coating. Place in fridge for about an hour to firm up. Fry in skillet till golden brown (use veggie or canola oil). Carefully remove and enjoy! Janet

Pantry raid nights -

(Not exactly a recipe, but fits in with this topic):

A few times when food was running low, or we only seemed to have part of what we needed for a meal, rather than head to the store to buy more, I'd have the family raid the kitchen cabinets with me, and their job was to create something new and off the wall. My dd10 had fun being creative this way, and we saved unnecessary shopping trips a few times.

Buttered Noodles with salt/pepper. Fried Bread slices for breakfast, remove the crust, butter each side, and fry. Taste like the breads in the restaurants.

 I cook the egg noodles, melt the butter in a fry pan, add some garlic and fry up the noodles. my family loves this. Babs

Babs, the garlic is the key, isn't it!

 Fried Stuffing balls...I made this today. I took one of those off brand stuffing mixes, the chicken flavored that we ate with dinner yesterday and I added flour to the leftovers, and formed them into balls, dredging it with enough flour so that it doesn't stick, and then fried it in oil. I ate two for lunch and then served four of them with dinner. My daughter hates stuffing/dressing but she loved this and its a poor man's recipe because all the other fried stuffing balls have all these added ingredients and mine was just flour, it works just as well..

Porr man's Onion rings-take cornmeal and mix with flour, cut an onion an seperate each ring. Dip into water, then flour mixture, then back into water and again into the flour mixture, fry in oil. Drain, and serve with ketchup.