While not gourmet by any means, I just made Alton Brown's lentil soup yesterday. It was quite filling and very tasty. The recipe said it made 6 servings, but we sure had a lot leftover after three servings....

I was looking for healthy, yet inexpensive recipes when I happened upon this one. Our weather was cold again yesterday, so this fit the bill. I will definitely make it again.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/lentil-soup-recipe.html

Have a great day!

Not necessarily looking for gourmet, as my own lists clearly indicates.

Thanks so much!

Sometimes I use bone-in breasts but thighs and drumsticks can be super cheap on sale.
Sunday: layer peeled potato chunks, baby carrots, celery pieces and quartered onions in a big roaster or cake pan. Place chicken pieces on top, season as desired, add about .5 cup water. Roast 1.5 hours, covered for 1st hour. 1-dish meal. Refrigerate leftovers, including broth.
Later in week: take meat from bones and shred, cut leftover veggies into bite sized pieces, add more veggies (frozen mix), mix broth with water and a chicken gravy mix packet. Place all in casserole dish, cover with a pie crust (yours or not) and bake 1 hour at 350 for a yummy pot pie.

I don't care much for the legs at all, husband doesn't care either way as long as it's dark meat, which is his preference.

Just got done skinning and deboning some thighs to make shawarma for a couple of days. The meat is marinating for oven roasting later.

But this is also a very good idea, Freddie. Thank you so much!

you may wish to try the chicken shawarma recipe I did tonight and posted in the What's for Dinner thread for today. Delish!

The pork shoulder is one of the lesser cost cuts of pork.
Pulled Pork

3 sweet yellow onions (i.e. Vidalia), chopped coarse
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp, dried oregano
¼ cup olive oil
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp black pepper
1 boneless pork shoulder roast

Lay the onions in the bottom of your slow cooker. In a small bowl mix the olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Rub that mixture all over the pork roast and place it on top of the onions in the slow cooker. Cover and cook for 10 hours without ever removing the lid. Warning; the smell will drive you nuts.

Remove the pork roast from the cooker and put it on a plate, cover it with foil and let it sit while you deal with the sauce in the cooker.

Pour the sauce through a strainer into a bowl and put the onions back into the cooker. Separate the fat from the liquid and save the non-fat portion.

Pull the pork roast into shreds with two forks. Actually, it should be really tender and you may only need one fork, but… Put the “pulled” pork back into the cooker with the onions and add some of the sauce back to it, just enough to moisten it nicely. Save the rest of the sauce (it freezes nicely) for making gravy and the like.

Serve the pork with a spicy, garlicky barbeque sauce on the side.

And this:
Chicken Enchilada Casserole

15oz can Hormel Chile No Beans
15oz can Tomato sauce
7oz can Tomato sauce
7oz can diced Ortega Green Chiles, drained
3-4 cloves Garlic, crushed
1 tsp Oregano
1 tbsp Chile powder
4 cups Mexican Cheese, mixed variety, grated
6 ea Yellow Corn Tortillas
2 ea skinless Chicken breasts

Grill the chicken breasts until they are just cooked through; about five minutes on each side, or a little longer if they are thick. Allow them to cool.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Put the first seven ingredients in a large bowl and mix them well. Tear the chicken into pieces, fairly small but not shredded, and set aside.

Now you’re ready to build the cassarole, which is done in layers. Spray a glass baking dish with non-stick spray, then shart with the tortilla. Add a layer of chicken, then sauce, then cheese. Repeat as fits, but for the last layer put the cheese after the chicken and the sauce on top. If the cheese is on top it will burn.

Bake until the cheese is melted and the sauce is nice and bubbly, about 40 minutes. Let stand about ten minutes before serving. Serve with sour cream for topping.

Thank you so very much for sharing them. Nothing like tried and true recipes from this group.

i make my own bbq sauce for it, too.

1 1/2 ketchup
1/2 cup brown mustard
1/3ish cup brown sugar
cupish of water
half cupish of apple cider vinegar
about a tbsp worchestire
about a tbsp of lemon juice
salt
black pepper
onion powder
garlic powder
paprika
chipotle powder

slop it all in a pot, bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for an hour or so. this is a really vinegary and tangy sauce, but that's what i like.

i also do a balsamic brown sugar glaze for my pork roast (i make a double batch for a two-pound roast)

½c brown sugar
½c water
¼c balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp cornstarch

start the glaze about 20 minutes before you start putting it on the meat. i drain off the cooking liquid and brush one side with some glaze, cook for another 10-15 minutes, flip and brush again, let go for another 10-15 minutes. then i break up the meat, turn up the heat to high, slop more glaze on it and give it another 5-10 minutes. serve with a green veg and brown rice with more glaze on the side.

I do a very similar homemade bbq sauce.

i have it on heavy rotation here.

I posted cooking instructions here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/11574459

As per this link I strongly recommend going with stone ground, rather than hominy grits as the two just aren't the same. Bob's Red Mill grits are my favorite. You'll also find them sold as stone ground polenta. They are also imported from Italy labeled as Bramata.

The great thing about grits, other than being both tasty and incredibly inexpensive, is you can add all sorts of other ingredients to them and wide variety of flavors. You can also serve them as a porridge, or form them into a cylinder or smooth them into a cookie sheet and slice them into 1" or so cakes and reheat them or fry them in oil. They keep in the fridge for a long time.

The Italians do all sorts of things with them. Often they will serve them as cakes with marinara or some other sauce with shrimp or other meat on top of them. They will use them like a pizza crust and serve sauce and toppings on them baked in the oven. I've seen them as a topping for casseroles baked in the oven. Sometimes I spread them out on a plate and top them with refried beans, a fried egg, cheese, and peppers or salsa. You are only limited by your imagination.

No doubt about it, and I do love them, but even as a gal of Italian heritage, I still love them best served 'northern'.

Thank you so very much. Greatly appreciate your suggestions.

First, serve it soft, laced with grated parm, EVOO, orange zest, whatever.

Then, pour the rest into a loaf pan to use for other meals, cut into slices and fried crispy. Delicious.

We like to eat it with peel and eat shrimp and some slaw. But it's great enough to be its own meal, too. (as you know)

hot grits or rice with butter, milk or cream, and sugar just about any time. Rice served that way was in my mom's breakfast rotation. Inexpensive way to feed that many kids.

Cold cereal used to be, as well. I still love it as a snack or even a light meal, but can't buy it often any more, can't get over the cost of it these days on top of the ever more slender boxes that hold so much less.

She put rosemary and feta into the grits, spread the cooked mixture on a cookie sheet to about 1/2" thick, and chilled it. Then she cut out little rounds with a biscuit cutter. At the event she reheated them slightly - they were delicious! I told her if she called them "polenta cakes" everyone would think they were gourmet stuff.

The only thing special about the grits was that they are locally grown and milled for the landmark historical country store down the road from us.

Just like Native Americans have been doing for centuries!

I just wing it, but this recipe looks pretty close to what I make. The main difference in my version is that I use diced tomatoes rather than tomato juice or sauce. And sometimes -- okay, usually -- I add Frank's hot sauce.

http://www.food.com/recipe/kusherie-egyptian-rice-and-lentils-134402

Last edited Sun Mar 29, 2015, 07:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Big Frank's Red Hot fan here. Only bottled hot sauce I buy. Though if you have an Aldi's grocery nearby, the brand they sell, Burman's, is pretty dang close if not dead on.

I used to be a die-hard Tabasco fan. As a young girl, I dreamed of marrying a prince from Avery Island. (I'm not kidding.) But a few years ago, I met Frank, and it was love at first taste. And much to my surprise and pleasure, Frank's Red Hot is one of the cheapest hot sauces I can buy in Toronto. Just the other day I found the 680ml bottle for $3.49. Canadian! That's like, two and half bucks US. As I'm sure you can imagine, I stocked up.

It does more than add heat, but what I can only describe as a much brighter flavor than the others. I will sit here with a bowl of chili, oyster crackers and the bottle. I don't want to mix it in, so I put the crackers on top )so they don't get soggy) and the Frank's on top of those so I get all the flavors of everything.

I will roast the chicken first, then pull the meat off the bone and freeze that in smaller packages for chicken and noodles, enchiladas, chicken tetrazzini (sp?), chicken and dressing casserole. Then I throw all the bones, skin, etc. in a pot and cover with water, simmer on low until you have a rich broth. I have cooked this for 8-10 hours, sometimes overnight. Strain the broth, and pick through the bones for little bits of meat and those chewy things (cartilege?) which I salvage for the dogs. I make sure to feel through every single thing that goes into the mix to make sure there are no bone fragments. Sometimes the ends of the bones will be soft and I will mash those up, too. The cats are not crazy for them like the dogs. I put this stuff into little containers and freeze, then pull them out as needed to dress the dogs' dinners.

One of my late father's friends always made what she called "soft bones" for Dad's dog. She would cook them in the pressure cooker and the bones would just disintegrate. Lady-the-dog thought it was the best stuff in the world. Dad died 8 years ago and Lady is still with me. The friend that cooked the soft bones is still alive, too.

The chicken or turkey tetrazzini has become a family favorite, esp. with the kids. It is just a pasta casserole with chicken pieces, celery, onion or garlic, a white sauce and usually broccoli, water chestnuts, red peppers. Will look up that recipe and post it.

They all sound good, but I'd completely forgotten about chicken and dressing casserole! Thanks so much, japple!

cumin and a little garam masala or other sweet curry spices to the dressing, and I think it adds a lot of great flavor. I find that I crave curry seasoning, so I add it. Some folks don't care for the taste, but I know that my grandmother always added turmeric to her own homemade pickles as well as poultry seasoning.

I guess I need to start doing this again! When I prepare vegetables, especially aromatics like carrots, onions and celery, I save the parts that are cut off, sometimes throwing them into a bag in the freezer to accumulate enough. Then when I put bones and skin from a chicken or turkey in to make broth I add those trimmings. They add flavor to the broth and since it will be strained, it doesn't matter if they are the pretty parts.

During the period when my hands didn't work very well so cutting up chicken was dangerous, I got in the habit of buying skinless, boneless chicken breasts instead of whole chicken. I'd bring home the package, season the breasts, throw them in a low side pan in the oven and bake them until just done. I could manage to cut them up and freeze the cooked chicken in 1.5-2 cup batches. Those are easy to pull out the day before, and add to a quick cook combo of flavored rice or noodles and a bag of frozen vegetables.

Even when one or the other of my arms was in a brace, I could talk my husband through making a decent dinner (which would last the two of us two or three days) with this pre-planning.

But I miss homemade stock and need to get back to making it!

It's a dish my Mom used to make.

1 lb of hamburger, browned in skillet
1 green pepper, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 med onion, chopped
1 can or small bag of corn
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
salt & pepper
McCormick's All Purpose Salt Free Seasoning

Simmer until done.

Sounds much like what I put together for Johnny Marzetti, except no corn. Then toss it with elbow mac and add cheeses. Thank you so much for sharing.

My son loves this recipe and it lasts for days.

1 15 oz can Goya Black Beans
1 15 oz can Goya Pink Beans
1 15 oz can Goya White Beans
1 15 oz can small kernel white corn
1 green pepper chopped
1 red pepper chopped
1 yellow pepper chopped
1 med onion finely chopped
Balsamic Vinaigrette Dressing
McCormick's Salt Free All Purpose Seasoning

Toss to coat

Spurred me to remember the black bean salsa I so enjoy, with a squeeze of lime. Grazzi!

Enjoy the first meal of the chicken dinner...reserve the leftovers and make hearty chicken stock with the carcass. From that one could make chicken pot pie, chicken noodle soup and/or chicken salad....

as has been previously mentioned. Thank you nonetheless, Farpoint. Appreciate your participation.

Also buying more than one chicken at a time is not always an option, either. Which was why I was asking for inexpensive not inexpensive by the serving. Sometimes it takes money to save money and that money isn't always there.

Spicy Italian Sausage Pasta Bake

1 pound bulk Italian sausage. Sweet, spicy, any combination therof. I most recently made it half sweet and half spicy.
1 onion sliced
1 green pepper sliced
1 pound rigatoni noodles
2 jars of a nice vodka sauce. Buy a good one.

Fix the rigatoni per package directions. When cooked, rinse well, then sprinkle with kosher salt and a few twists of the pepper grinder.

Meanwhile, cook the sausage and drain.

Cook the onion and green pepper in some olive oil until they look right.

Combine all the cooked ingredients in a large enough casserole. A lasagna pan is a good size.

Now dump the vodka sauce and mix well. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. If you want you can top with some Parmesan cheese – buy the good stuff, the kind you have to grate yourself – on each serving.

Serve with some Italian bread or, better yet, make garlic bread, and a nice green salad.

If wine seems like a good idea, get a nice chianti. Unfortunately, a good chianti isn’t cheap, and you really don’t want to be drinking a cheap one. If you haven’t already made friends with some staff at a good liquor store, now is the time to be thinking about that.

I make a pretty good homemade spaghetti sauce, and this sounds like it would work well with it.

I don't happen to do home made spaghetti sauce, but since you do I feel quite confident it would be wonderful with this recipe. You could probably also vary the meat somewhat, but I think some sort of sausage, preferably a spicy one, would be best. Because I use a spicy sausage in this, I don't include any other herbs or seasonings, but again, you could add in what you think would work best.

This is a recipe I use when I'm doing my feed the homeless stint. One of the things that's been most interesting about that is that I've learned to cook in large quantities, something I never did before.

Oh, and this recipe freezes up very well. I currently have one portion sitting thawed in the refrigerator, which I'll heat up in the microwave tomorrow or the next day, and three other (two portions each) cartons in the freezer. I happen to live alone, so when I cook it needs to either be in amounts I can finish in one or two meals, or something that freezes well.

I love to cook. I think I'm a pretty decent cook, and in any case I do love my own cooking.

There are such good suggestions on this thread that I bookmarked it. Of course, I have to add my two cents, although I fully realize some of my tips might only work for someone in my situation.

Only buy the specials. I learned this from my mom, who did this all her life!

I travel to various campuses in my job, as my school has five campuses and I teach at three of them. I know which grocery stores are on the way, so I'll leave for campus a little early or stop by the food stores on my way home.

I have the grocery stores' web sites bookmarked on my computer, so know what the specials (loss leaders) are. I make a list and run in, buy the special, check for any other bargains, and leave. The trick is to stick to the grocery list and not get tempted by all the beautiful displays that are at regular price. Took me a while to learn that lesson.

Another thing I do is stock up on specials. Admittedly, this takes a little "working capital," but once you lay in a basic supply of things like canned tomatoes, etc., you can afford to almost always buy at the sale price from then on.

So that's my idea for saving money on food.




Cher

Recently I did buy two pot roasts on a buy one get one, offer. The second one is still in my freezer and I think I'll be fixing it toward the end of this week.

As much of a pain as it must be to have to travel as you do for work, you do get the benefit of being close to several different grocery stores, and I bet you are incredibly good at buying the specials at each store. Good for you.

I have learned, quite to my surprise, that the local Sprouts (a sort of Whole Foods knock-off if you don't already know it) is often the cheapest store for almost everything. Like veggies. Or ice cream. I just love Dreyer's Butter Pecan. The meat that they stock. I should ask them why they never carry pork. I love pork. Also, they used to have baked goods I liked and then those disappeared. Sigh. The past two weeks they've been re-configuring certain parts of the store, including the wine section, and I did talk to the store wine manager about why I was unhappy with that.

Did I mention I love to cook?

I know! I love the whole bit: the recipe shopping, the shopping, and the cooking. I don't even mind the cleanup, as long as I can listen to a podcast.

Sprouts sounds great! And it is a nice advantage to be able to go to only one store for everything. I'll bet your store manager was secretly flattered that you know as much and care as much as you did to say something. From working in business, I know they pass those comments along to the management they report to.

I actually don't mind my traveling; I kind of enjoy it. The hardest part is sticking to the list. I always travel routes through the woods, etc. Never have to sit in traffic, as I go at unusual hours.

I recall my mom, shopping for groceries. She probably still does this, actually. She'd get her circular which had been delivered to the house, her notepads, and her recipe books and she'd plan it all out. A real list-maker and planner, she is! And you know what they say about the apple...


Cher

Last edited Tue Mar 31, 2015, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

a disorganized mess, IMHO. They said they were trying to make all Kroger stores alike, but I liked our old one better. It had things in logical places. Now I can't find anything. And they switch stuff around from time to time. I think they do it to try to keep shoppers in the store longer. I go in with a list and try to stick to that so I won't spend $$$ on impulse purchases. I know there is some kind of conspiracy afoot, because I have recently left my list at home on 2 occasions and came home with stuff that I would NEVER buy

Both can be frozen and offer weeks worth of varied meals. I just took one out of my freezer that I got around Thanksgiving. It's a little 12 pounder but I will make Turkey salad, Turkey tetrazinni, Turkey soup and maybe some enchiladas. The enchiladas and soup freeze well too!

and it's my usual go to around these holidays since it will feed us for the entire week, but the lowest price at the local grocery was $1.39/lb. Aldi's had a ham shank a couple of weeks ago for .99/lb. I wanted to get it then, but husband is not all that fond of ham, he'll eat it about once a year because he knows I love, love, love it. But since he really wasn't all that into it, I didn't go get it.

Aldi's may have had them cheaper this week, but didn't want to drive all the way into town yesterday to get one, so didn't even look at their ad this week.

ETA: Just looked and yep, .99/lb again this week. Going to have husband stop by to see if any left on his way home from work tomorrow. He said he could eat it for a couple of days. So can freeze the rest in small portions for other uses.

I actually really like using the left overs in pasta. It is really good in a baked ziti with a spicy red sauce or in white lasagna with asparagus or spinach.

I just used the last of the Christmas Ham a few days ago in some lentil soup.

Our Turkeys weren't marked down at all here in PNW. Hams were down to 1.29 a lb. I didn't get one. I'm waiting for the Pork shoulder to come down. Then I usually buy a whole one and have them cut it in half for me . We love pulled pork and there is this Korean recipe that I just found that I'm antsy to try.

Ham with pasta and peas is also rather a regional Italian classic. Good either hot or cold with a little onion and a vinaigrette. Enjoy!

I figure I can get several uses out of one ham since he isn't fond of eating very much of it just baked, and no doubt will be making a slow cooker full of pintos, or possibly lentils, this weekend with the shank bone I have in the freezer. Will also mean having my fav breakfast, what has always been referred to in my family as Ham'n. Nicely browned ham slices, over medium eggs and well done hashbrowns, once served all mixed together (one of those childhood thangs.)