How to Tenderize Cheap Meat?

Meat is often the biggest budget buster (say that 10 times!).  High quality steak and beef comes at a premium price. Usually you read to put it in a slow cooker and the 5-6 hours will often soften up any cheaper cuts of meat and make them tender. However, for those of us that are not big on a slow cooker, or decided 2 hours before dinner they want to make beef, slow cooker is not going to work.

My mom (are you reading) always taught me to put the meat in water, turn up the heat until it starts to boil, cover and turn down the heat to a low simmer for about 1 hour. Add fried onions, garlic, ginger (all natural tenderizers). After an hour, turn up the heat and let the extra water evaporate and add salt, pepper and any spices or flavor you want. It works so well!

Since I always have frozen spinach on hand, I'm going to add spinach to mine. Remember to add salt and pepper at the very end, as salt inhibits the meat from getting soft. Do you have any tips or tricks, other then the slow cooker for tenderizing meat? I'd love to hear them!