Grex Cooking Conference

Item 244: Cheap Eats

Entered by cmcgee on Fri Jun 15 14:51:13 2007:

34 new of 158 responses total.


#125 of 158 by cmcgee on Fri Sep 7 15:59:55 2007:

I got bored being such a nerd, so I made a simpler rule to follow: 
don't pay more than 15 cents a serving for your main protein source.  

I posted those maximums in the other item.  

As long as the meat is on sale for that price per pound (or can, or
whatever) or less, you won't be paying more than 15 cents a serving.  

This obscures the really cheap, good buys, but at least makes perusing
the weekly ads a bit easier.  


#126 of 158 by slynne on Sat Sep 8 01:17:43 2007:

Looks like someone is going to be eating a lot of peanut butter ;)


#127 of 158 by slynne on Sat Sep 8 01:18:46 2007:

Actually, now that I think about it, that someone is *me* because I am
kind of short on money because of changing jobs and stuff and I happen
to LOVE peanut butter :)


#128 of 158 by cmcgee on Sat Sep 8 01:21:17 2007:

Peanut butter, eggs on sale, and I'll try to get back to posting the
best buys for the week.  

Notice that tahini is the same price as peanut butter.  Tahini and
garbanzos and garlic = hummus.  


#129 of 158 by slynne on Sat Sep 8 01:43:57 2007:

Yeah. I like Tahini a lot too but I am more likely to make a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich than I am to make hummus. Although I really
like hummus and garbanzo beans are pretty cheap. 


#130 of 158 by denise on Sat Sep 8 12:54:32 2007:

What IS tahini?


#131 of 158 by cmcgee on Sat Sep 8 13:07:15 2007:

ground up sesame seeds


#132 of 158 by denise on Sun Sep 9 00:30:11 2007:

Ah, ok; cool, I like sesame seeds [and hummus, as well].


#133 of 158 by edina on Mon Sep 10 16:01:23 2007:

I never buy hummus anymore.  It's too expensive, considering that it 
costs maybe $1.50 to make a good pint of the stuff.


#134 of 158 by mary on Mon Sep 10 17:44:28 2007:

Recipe!  Recipe!  (said to the tune of Author! Author!) ;-)


#135 of 158 by edina on Mon Sep 10 17:56:11 2007:

For hummus?

Lord...I think I can remember it - I make it enough.

Drain one can of chickpeas.
Toss into food processor.
Add 1/4 cup of water
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup of tahini
Cumin and Salt to taste

My secret ingredient is that I take 1 head of garlic, cut off the top, 
wrap foil up around it after pouring about 1-2 TB of olive oil into 
the cut top.  Roast it for about 45 minutes and then let it set.  I 
squeeze the softened garlic into the rest of the ingredients, flip 
that puppy on and let Cuisinart do the work for me.  

I get raves every time.  I've made it with raw garlic (as the recipe 
calls for) but it gives it the bite at the back end that I just don't 
like - almost horseradishy.  Roasting the garlic really gives the 
recipe some depth.  

But see now why I won't buy it?


#136 of 158 by cmcgee on Mon Sep 10 21:23:13 2007:

I use 1/2 cup of tahini and leave out the olive oil.  


#137 of 158 by edina on Mon Sep 10 21:29:55 2007:

Yeah, it's definitely to taste/preference.  I just know that I can't 
stand raw garlic.


#138 of 158 by keesan on Mon Sep 10 22:05:51 2007:

A potato masher can be used instead of a food processor.  The kind with a flat
end that has holes in it, not a loopy end.  We add spearmint.


#139 of 158 by edina on Mon Sep 10 22:20:12 2007:

You're right - it could be.  But to be honest, the food processor 
makes such quick work of it and it's at a uniform consistency, that I 
wouldn't do it by hand.


#140 of 158 by cmcgee on Mon Sep 10 22:22:13 2007:

That's my experience too, edina.

Using the potato masher has resulted in a gritty texture that I find
unpleasant.  


#141 of 158 by keesan on Tue Sep 11 00:40:26 2007:

The potato masher is much easier to clean and takes up less kitchen space.
You can also use a manual gadget with a chrome plated cone (with various sizes
of slicing perforations) and a handle - feed things in the top, turn the
crank, they come out sliced or chopped to different finenesses.  The finest
setting works on the chickpeas.  Or a 'meat grinder'.


#142 of 158 by jadecat on Tue Sep 11 00:47:00 2007:

resp:135 I'd buy that. ;)  Hmm, or maybe take the recipe and figure out
how to make my pseudo-food processor thing work.... That could be fun too.

resp:141 but they don't make the neat noise.


#143 of 158 by edina on Tue Sep 11 02:12:37 2007:

Re 141  I think you mean a foodmill.  I'd love to have one.  

Sindi, please remember that I am not the luddite that you are when it 
comes to my kitchen stuff.  While I don't have tons of gadgets, the 
ones I have are ones I truly love and use (Kitchen Aid, Cuisinart, 
crock pot).  They really do make my life easier.

All I need is a blender....


#144 of 158 by slynne on Tue Sep 11 02:18:36 2007:

I am glad to know that one can make it with a potato masher though
because I dont have a food processor. 


#145 of 158 by slynne on Tue Sep 11 02:19:41 2007:

Actually, I lied. I just remembered that happyboy left one when he moved
out. But I would have to get out my step ladder to reach it as it is on
top of the cupboards. Plus it is probably crazy dusty. 


#146 of 158 by keesan on Tue Sep 11 03:07:48 2007:

We have an assortment of food processors and blenders.  Jim modified one to
grind styrofoam into little bits to pour into his walls.  We played with them
and prefer the hand tools - quieter, simpler, easier to clean.  We don't
process large amounts.  The food mills (we have several models) make potato
pancakes faster than a hand grater (and don't grate my hands).  You can also
grate carrots and rutabagas into the pancakes.  What is this item about?


#147 of 158 by denise on Tue Sep 11 03:21:58 2007:

You don't look at the top of your screen or can't scroll back to see?

If you're inferring that the item is drifting by talking about these various
gadgets [which CAN be discussed in the gadgets and gizmos item], perhaps we
can get back on track and use the current discussion and discuss ways we can
use such items to create the things we want with our gadgets in order to save
some $$ on our food bill.  [There ARE creative ways to get items back on
track. :-)  Or just mention that you want to get back to discussing whatever
the item topic actually is [and then start an item for whatever the topic is
drifting to]. Easy enough to do.  [Granted, I do realize that we all drift
in various items from time to time, as we do in real-life/real-time
conversations and sometimes it needs to get back on track...]


#148 of 158 by edina on Tue Sep 11 03:52:07 2007:

Tonight I made a homemade stovetop lasagna.  I had seen them make it 
on America's Test Kitchen (what can I say?  I'm a Chris Kimball 
junkie.) and it looked easy and interesting.  It's basically homemade 
hamburger helper.  It's pretty easy - sautee onions, add your meat to 
brown, add in two cans of 14 oz. diced tomatoes, making sure you have 
4 cups of the tomatoes with juice (add water if not).  Break up a box 
of lasagna noodles stir it up, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add 
some grated parmesan when it's done and nestle some dollops of ricotta 
on top, put the lid back on and let the ricotta heat through (you 
should have turned the heat off).  Finish off with some fresh basil.

I made mine with turkey, sauteed some mushrooms and zuchini with the 
onions, forewent the ricotta.  Dave loved it.  It makes plenty for 
leftovers too.


#149 of 158 by jadecat on Tue Sep 11 12:31:54 2007:

that does sound pretty tasty...


#150 of 158 by keesan on Tue Sep 11 13:53:15 2007:

I am using backtalk from a linux console and cannot scroll back because mdacon
is defective in that respect.  If I were using a VGA monitor (vgacon?) I could
type Shift-PgUp (on my older monitor which does not have PageUp - I edited
some file to reassign key values).  Is there some way to use backtalk itself
to scroll back?


#151 of 158 by edina on Tue Sep 11 15:53:17 2007:

Ok Sindi - it's one thing for me to wax on poetically about my love 
for my cuisinart in this item.  It's another completely for you to 
talk linux speak, which has absolutely no culinary bearing.



#152 of 158 by denise on Tue Sep 11 17:01:38 2007:

[I have no idea, Sindi-re response 150; I think one of the other 
conferences would be more appropriate to discuss the hows and whys of 
various computer languages. In my earlier comment, I assumed that, as 
people read through items with responses, they actually looked at each
new  item with a response in it as it is displayed at the time-as, at
least in  some programs, you can/do see. Apparently some don't allow to
scroll back,  which I didn't know about.]  So lets get back to this, the
cheap eats  item.


#153 of 158 by keesan on Tue Sep 11 17:38:43 2007:

You probably see different things using the web interface than if you ssh to
grex and access the conferences with backtalk/fronttalk.  I see only the
response I am reading or writing and however much of the material above it
fits into 25 rows.  Someone asked why I did not scroll up - I cannot.
I explained why.  


#154 of 158 by slynne on Tue Sep 11 17:45:58 2007:

I have been reading the conferences by web for so long that I think I
have forgotten most of the commands but I *think* that if you type 'h'
at the Respond or Pass? prompt, it will display the item header


#155 of 158 by denise on Tue Sep 11 18:50:53 2007:

[I'm going to go ahead and enter a separate item for computer and other 
unrelated stuff that people want to discuss here in the food conference,
 ok?]


#156 of 158 by cmcgee on Tue Sep 11 18:53:07 2007:

skip it denise, there are plenty of other conferences where that is much
more appropriate.


#157 of 158 by keesan on Tue Sep 11 23:28:53 2007:

h worked, thanks.  I might experiment with the rest of the alphabet.


#158 of 158 by cmcgee on Wed Sep 26 16:37:05 2007:

Back to ad-scanning:

This week's best bargains at Meijer

Meat is less than  15 cents an ounce.
Vegetables and fruit are less than 10 cents a serving.
Lists are ordered lowest to highest.  

Apples .88* 
Grapes .99

Cabbage .33
Winter Squash .33

Chicken thighs .79
Ground round 1.79


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