any dish that makes huge batches and stores well is a good depression meal for me. vegan chili is really good and all you have to do is chop up some veggies and dump that in a crockpot (i usually add celery, bell pepper, and shredded zucchini and cook some garlic and yellow onion!) with three cans of beans (i usually use black, red kidney, and garbanzo beans), a couple cans of crushed tomatoes, a can of tomato paste, and seasonings. leave it on low for eight hours and serve it with some rice!

there are some good cajun recipes that are a bit more involved, but they make huge portions and don't really cost too much. serious eats has some great recipes on this front. here's one for gumbo, and another one for jambalaya.