I had a friend that worked at a processing center where they made hot dogs. College kids watched the pieces of meat go buy on a conveyor belt and where supposed to pick off anything that didn't belong. If something really gross went by (like a dead rat) no one wanted to touch it so it fell in with the "good" meat.
My default cheap/lazy meal is a box of Pasta Roni (Fettucine Alfredo was my fav) and dice up a chicken breast, season it, and pan fry it. You could probably throw in your veggie of choice (broccoli would be a good match) too. I basically swore off frozen food so this was the substitute. And quite frankly it's probably not that far off from something you get at Chili's anyways. Also a cheap but great side dish is cutting up some potatos and sprinkling the instant onion soup mix over it w/ some olive oil and baking it in the oven. In college my roommate turned me on to those frozen entrees for families. I forget which brand it is, but they have a 2lb lasagna for $3. You will be stuffed if you finish it all in one sitting, although I don't think I would want to eat more than 1 in a week.
I'm thinkin' the 1 lbs. bags of noodles for like $1.50 - $2.00 at Asian markets have some good recipes out there... I don't have any, but it's a start.
