Ham and Hot Dog Fried Rice

Why, yes, I did put hot dogs in my fried rice. It was delicious. And, for about $0.68/serving, who could argue? I don't really keep track of the ratio of spices that I put in my food when I cook, but I will tell you what sorts of good things I put in the dish.

Day-old rice
Soy sauce
Frozen veggies
Ham
Hot dogs
Egg
Garlic powder
Cayenne pepper
Chili powder
Black pepper
Salt
Onion powder
Brown Sugar

When You Were Young

I used to hate when Mom put extra noodles in the Hamburger Helper. I understand why she did it—when we were kids, my brother and I knew how to eat; we could put away two boxes of the stuff between us. Feeding just yourself is expensive—feeding kids even more so. Unfortunately, she just added noodles without compensating for how thin the sauce would be spread afterward, so we were always disappointed with this version of our favorite food.

Adding noodles, however, does save some money per serving, even if you're just using the off-brand (Kitchen Creations!) like myself. So, here is how I make my meal in a box taste just as good as the original.

• Extra meat.
  This one may sound a little silly. Why buy more meat when it's already the most expensive part of the dish? My reasoning is this: most packages of ground chuck (when you're not getting the stuff that comes in tubes) don't have exactly one pound of meat. Instead of searching for the package closest to one pound or under, I look for the package that has 1.21 pounds, 1.36 pounds. This gives you a little more meat to play with, so your extra noodles don't overwhelm the burger, and you're not paying too much extra.
• Spices.
  This may seem self-explanatory, but my mom forgot to add extra spice every time. The simplest solution is to add salt and whatever spice is most abundant in the recipe. Garlic salt and seasoning salt also work really well. I also like to at a little cayenne pepper.
• Water and butter.
  When I use most meal helpers, I tend to replace the milk with water and butter. This was not originally because it brought down the price. I started making recipes this way because the milk in my fridge was bad, and I didn't want to run to the store for more. Instead I added two tbsp. butter and replaced the milk with water. I haven't had anything taste terribly so far, so I'll continue to do this until I create something too foul for consumption.
• Noodles.
  I try not to add more than enough to make two extra servings. Otherwise, the flavor becomes too thin, which is the reason why I hated when Mom added noodles in the first place. Also, when you're boiling the noodles, add a little of the flavoring packet to the water as well as your salt. That way, just like with the noodles in the original, your new noodles have picked up some of the flavor from the sauce.

So that's how I help my meal helper go further while still tasting great. What ways do you make prepackaged food go further than the maker intended?

Product Review: Banquet Sweet and Sour Chicken

So I've decided to start a new section to this blog. I'm trying lots of inexpensive foods trying to see which ones are keepers and which ones are not to my liking (there's a part of me that wants to call them "studs" and "duds"...so I might label them as such). This will include mostly my thoughts on generic-brand offerings and frozen meals. The first victim was $1.00 from Banquet's line of frozen meals.

The Sweet and Sour Chicken

I'm a huge fan of (American) Chinese food in general. There's something about the grease-and-frozen-vegetable combo that is almost always a hit with my taste buds. This? Not so much.

I think the biggest turn off was the dark-meat chicken nuggets. Yes, they were chicken nuggets. No, I was not aware that they were dark meat when I bought them. I have never been able to stomach dark meat, regardless of how many times I've been told that it's flavor-filled and juicy. And, while I've never encountered dark meat that I liked, I've also never encountered dry dark meat which is the foe I faced with this meal.

I will tell you that the sauce was very good, and I've never met a rice I didn't like. In fact, the sauce saved the nuggets from being inedible. This particular item will never see the inside of my freezer again, but I am holding off my judgement of the Banquet line in general until I try some more of their (probably non-chicken) products.

Final Thoughts

With frozen food, I understand that you get what you pay for and that frozen meals are generally more expensive than making your own food. I also understand that half of it is so processed that the creatures the food originated from have actually changed both gender and species before the food ended up in my shopping cart. With that thought in mind, I never mind being disappointed by a frozen meal so long as I eat it all. I am also working to cut these types of food out of my life and to eat more leftovers. Of course, heating up something frozen is simple, so it may take some time to wean myself from the meals.

Days Go By

I may not have been updating, but I have been keeping track of the food inhaled. Today, then, will be kind of a mass update.

Date	Food	Cost
6/2	Granola bar	$0.35
	Sandwich	$0.56
	Frozen Meal	$1.00
	Soufflé	$0.00
	Cookies	$0.60
Total		$5.02
6/3	Granola bar	$0.42
	Sandwich	$2.86
	Frozen Meal	$1.00
	Tater tots	$0.40
	Cookies	$0.60
Total		$5.28
6/4	Granola bar	$0.42
	Sandwich	$0.56
	Bagel	$0.47
	Brownie	$0.75
	Stir Fry	$1.50
	Cookies	$0.60
Total		$4.30
6/5	Granola bar	$0.21
	Sandwich	$0.37
	Bagel	$0.00
	Stir Fry	$1.50
	Frozen Meal	$1.00
Total		$3.08

So Small Radio

Well, it's that time of night. Totals time. I'm going with something new, so it may look a little ridiculous until I finally get around to changing the CSS, but that's all right.

Food	Cost
Tater tots	$1.00
Cola	$0.65
Frozen Meal	$1.00
Cookies	$0.60
Total	$3.25

The tater tots were spread out along most of the day. They were delicious and worth every penny.

The First Week

$29.14

I'm actually quite surprised at what I spent this past week. I was expecting to use up every cent of the money that I allowed myself. Instead, I spend about twelve dollars less. I'm not going to change anything for this next week, though. I fully feel that I should take another week to look at my spending habits and see where I can improve (nutrition-wise, mostly) before I cut back on what I want to spend.

On average, I spent $4.16 per day, which is $1.84 less than anticipated. If all goes well, I would like to cut back to $4/day starting next week. I want to use the opportunity to create yummy recipes (although, I don't lie when I mention that I generally use garlic and chili powder/cayenne pepper in everything I make unless it's sweet. And even then...) on the cheap. I have so much pasta I could bathe in it, and so much rice that it would bathe in me, so many of my concoctions will probably include those as well.

I would also like to figure out a way to have a steak dinner (with mashed potatoes and green beans, I'm thinking) and my normal amount of food for under $4. That may involve some "Manager Special" meat, but it all eats the same.

Tuesday!

All right, yesterday was spent with more and more moving. I drank a lot of my life away, I'm pretty sure—in both cola and vodka, admittedly. At least the booze ended up not costing me anything because we found it in the house. What a nice going away present.

So, yesterday.
Breakfast stuffs: $0.59
Afterwork noms: $0.56
Dinnerish: $0.69

There's a part of me that thinks I should have eaten more, especially considering that only one of those totals includes food bought. I know that there were some work foods consumed, but I have no idea what. Oh the joys(?) of alcohol.