Chicken Wing Pizza

The theme tonight is orange and green for Halloween, right down to dessert.

I decided to make a chicken-wing pizza, one of my favorites, but I didn't start preparing dinner until after 4 pm, and it's not a particularly warm day, to allow the dough to rise, so I scoured the internet for a "quick" pizza dough recipe - I found one that uses baking powder instead of yeast, but the rest of the recipe was almost identical to my original recipe, aka, the one I didn't like very much.  But I thought I would give this one a try.  Short version: as pizza crust, yuk.  It came out like baking powder biscuits.  And really, really dry and flaky, as opposed to "spongy" or "springy".  So I'm not even posting it here for you.



To make a decent chicken wing pizza, (on a good crust) I start by cooking some chicken.  This partial pack (1/3? 2/5? less than half anyway) of chicken I boiled on the stove to cook it.

Then I mixed up my "wing sauce".  Now, this is best made by mixing blue cheese dressing and hot sauce, but  I didn't have any blue cheese in the house so I used ranch with bacon (mmmm bacon).  I use a 3 parts dressing 1 part hot sauce ratio, and it seems to work well.

I diced the cooked chicken and 1/2 an onion and topped the pizza: sauce, then cheese, then chicken and onion. Normally, I also finely dice some celery to top this but I didn't have any of that either.


Then, we started dessert: green pistachio instant pudding (2 cups milk and 1 pudding mix)  I mixed it the 2 minutes according to the directions, then let my youngest "help stir".
We poured it into dixie cups and put it in the fridge.  This mix made five pudding cups.  To offer a little variety, I mixed up a jello mix and put that in the fridge, too, but everyone wanted the pistachio anyway.


Lastly, we mixed up our side dish: broccoli and cheese.  Although this is normally made with cheddar, I found that yellow American is "smoother", and it's cheaper, and the kids can't really tell the difference anyway.  All I did was steam the broccoli in the microwave for 2 minutes, put on 3 pieces of cheese, cook for one additional minute, then stir, add another 3 pieces of cheese, and cook for one additional minute.  Voila!



Everything was done, so we served and ate.  Again, I'm going to tell you that the crust was not very tasty.  My oldest nibbled at his until it looked like the Millennium Falcon (or so he says) and my youngest ate all the toppings off of his and "accidentally" dropped his crust on the floor.

But he liked the broccoli.  
So that's a bonus.

And the pudding was delicious.










Totals for tonight: Pizza crust was no more than $1.  The most expensive ingredient was 17 cents, and there were only six ingredients and no, I'm really, really not giving you the recipe, even to verify the cost.  It was that bad.  The cheese on top was a $2 bag of mozzarella.  Unfortunately, I used all of the mozzarella from this crazy cheap cheese purchase.  The chicken we're going to call $1.40, since it was slightly less than half of a $3.05 pack.  The 1/2 an onion was 7 cents.  The pudding was 95 cents - 45 cents' worth of milk, and a 50 cent pudding mix.  The broccoli was about 1/3 of a $1.88 pack, so 63 cents, and six slices of american cheese, sold in a 16-pack for 99 cents, would be 37 cents.  So... $1 crust + $2 cheese  +  $1.40 chicken  + 7 cents onion + 95 cent pudding + 63 cents broccoli + 37 cents cheese =

$6.42

I think that next time I'm going to buy a boxed pizza crust mix and see how that turns out.

It can't be any worse.

Apple-roasted pork steaks with orzo

So I opened up my fridge and found that I had two apples with a couple of bruises, but still usable.  Now, two apples is not enough for a pie, and I was not about to go to the trouble of homemade applesauce with only two, but I remembered this recipe, a traditional fall dinner, and even though I've never cooked it before, I decided to go for it.  Rather than look up a recipe, I just kind of invented one.  I have no idea if this is how you actually make apple-roasted pork, but the result was quite delicious.  That's probably from all the sugar.


First, I got out the leftover pork steaks from this recipe, put them in a glass roasting pan, and set the oven to 400F.  Then, I added some flavor that goes well with apples: I didn't measure any of it, just eyeballed it: 1/4 cup cider vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar, sprinkled on top of the frozen chops, and 1/2 cup water (in the pan to keep them moist but not on the chops themselves). I then sliced the two apples (skins and all) and put them on the pork in a layer.




I set the timer for 45 minutes (I figured it would actually take about an hour) and went upstairs to sew the last of my kids' Halloween costumes.  The other two have been done for over a week now but my oldest child's costume still had a ways to go...  When the timer went off, I went back down and began the side dish: "rice".

I thought that rice would go well with this meal.  Only, since I can't eat rice, I made orzo, which is a rice substitute made from wheat.  It costs $1.50 - $2.50 a box, depending on price fluctuations.  I've had this box in my cupboard for a while, so I can't be completely sure, but I think it was $1.79.  To be safe, we'll call it $2.  I put a few cups of water in a pot and set it on high, then added my seasonings: 2 chicken bullion cubes, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, thyme, basil, rosemary, and just a dash of cayenne pepper.  When the water was at a rolling boil, I added half the box of orzo and turned down the heat.  Orzo only takes a few minutes, and you don't want to overcook it, so even though the box says 9 minutes, I set my timer for 5 minutes.  Sure enough, it was done, and I removed it from the heat, and checked on the pork.  It, too was done, and dinner was served.

We all had root beer to drink with dinner, and though two of us had seconds, nobody wanted dessert.  I'm going to call the root beer dessert, so I can factor in some cost, and because it's certainly got enough sugar in it to qualify.

Even my pickiest eater cleaned his plate.  I was astonished.

So the totals for tonight are: $2.95 worth of pork (I looked up the price from the other recipe), 88 cents apples (the bag was $3.50 and contained 8 apples, I think.  I'm sure about the $3.50, just not so sure whether there were 8 or 9 apples in the bag.) I'm guessing $1 for half a container of orzo, and maybe $1 for the vinegar and brown sugar.  The root beer was generic, $3 for a 12-pack, or 25 cents each.  We had 4, so that's $1, making our extremely-estimated total $6.83.  And in case I haven't said it already, it was delicious.

The Dark Side does not have cookies.

meatloaf and cornbread

So I have a few meatloaf recipes but one of my favorites is almost identical to my meatball recipe, but with one minor addition: cheese. 

 

 

I preheated the oven to 400, and started with a family-sized pack of hamburger: 2.83 pounds for $5.60.  I thawed it in my microwave and mixed in what you see here: 2 slices of wheat bread, torn by hand into itty bitty pieces, about 2 Tbsp of "Italian seasonings", 4 raw eggs, and 1 cup of shredded mozzerella.  I also added about 1 Tbsp garlic, 1 tsp onion powder (just eyeballing it, you could also use diced onion but my boys have been picking out the onions) and about 1/2 tsp pepper and 1 tsp salt.  Again, just eyeballing it.  I mixed it thoroughly by hand, put it in a loaf pan and packed it down, put spaghetti sauce on top to keep it moist (you can also use ketchup or gravy.  Whatever floats your boat.)  I used about 1/4 of a jar of Francesco Rinaldi, on sale last week for $1 a jar.  You only need a thin layer of whatever.

 

 

Then I mixed up the cornbread: I used 2 boxes of Jiffy mix, on sale this week at 2 for $1.19.  I needed to add 2 eggs and 2/3 cup milk to make 2 mixes, but I've found 1 mix is only big enough for my family, and I had invited a few guests.

 

 

The cornbread was done in 25 minutes, and the meatloaf was cooked on the outside but raw in the middle, so I cranked up the heat to 450 and gave it another 20 minutes while I mixed up the honey-butter (2 parts generic butter spread, 1 part honey) and set the table.  It actually needed a total of an hour, 40 minutes at 400, 20 at 450.  My oldest 2 asked for "grownup sized" plates, and that's what they got.  I thought they wouldn't eat it all but they did!

 

 

My youngest got a half-portion but he cleaned his plate.  In fact, he wanted his meatloaf ("hangabur") on a "sammich", so I put it on a roll. 

 

 

 

Dessert was microwave popcorn.  And yes, that one bag was enough for all of us.  That's a disproportionately large bowl.

 

 

So tonight's prices are: $5.60 of hamburger meat, 6 eggs (4 in meatloaf, 2 in cornbread) or half of a $1.89 dozen = 95 cents, 2/3 cup of milk = 15 cents, 2 packs jiffy mix = 1.19, 1 cup cheese = 80 cents, 2 slices of wheat bread (20 slices = 1.99, so 2 = 19.9 cents) = 20 cents, 1/4 of a $1 jar of Francesco Rinaldi = 25 cents, 1 "hangabur" roll = $1.49/8 (They're cheaper at Dollar General but I bought this pack at Costas to avoid the hassle of two stores) = 19 cents, and one bag of generic popcorn = 67 cents.  So, our total is: $5.60 meat + 95 cents eggs + 15 cents milk + 1.19 mix + 80 cents cheese + 20 cents bread + 25 cents sauce + 19 cents roll + 67 cents dessert =  

 

$10 even. 

 

Wow.  I couldn't have done that if I tried.  Of course, there was 1/2 of the meal leftover, (1/2 of the meatloaf and 1/2 of the cornbread) so tonight's was a $5 meal and tomorrow's will be a $5 meal.  Because my guests were delayed, and decided to eat at home.

sloppy joes and seasoned potato wedges

 

So one of the recipes I've been keeping to myself is my mother's recipe for sloppy joes.  These things are so, so tasty they may just change your mind about sloppy joes for the rest of your life.  In my daughter's words, "These are much better than the school sloppy joes, Mom."  So, Friday night, I assembled my ingredients and got started, dessert first.  As usual.

 

This recipe for peanut butter no bake cookies is the best I've ever found, and I can't even give proper credit to my source because I copied it down in my recipe file over a year ago and no longer remember my source.  But here it is:  First, I assemble all six ingredients.  Then, because speed is the key to nobakes (you don't want them solidifying in the pot or over or under cooking) I measure out in the following manner:  In the pan itself, I put 1/4 cup (which is also 1/2 a stick) of margarine and 1/2 cup of milk, which I put on medium heat until the butter is melted.  

 

While that's happening, I measure out my 3 cups of oats and put them aside in a large tumbler, and stir two cups of sugar into the milk/butter combo, dissolving it completely.  I then turn up the heat on the pan to a medium-high and set the timer for four minutes.  In that four minutes, I measure out 1 full cup of peanut butter and 1 tsp vanilla.  I also set aside a cookie sheet with waxed paper on it, keeping the waxed paper handy (you'll need about 3 sheets).  Also, I stir it a couple of times so that the sugar/milk/margarine doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.  When your timer goes, your sugar/milk/margarine should be at a rolling boil.  If not, keep it on until it is, then let it boil about a minute more. 
 

 

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in quickly your peanut butter until smooth (beat it like fudge) and your 3 cups oats, then spoon quickly onto the waxed paper, putting paper between each layer of cookies.  Then put another sheet of paper (or another cookie sheet, or both) on top of the whole shebang, and put it in the fridge to cool.  The top layer helps prevent any potential in-fridge spills, of which there are surprisingly many in my household. 

 

These cookies are large (you can make them as large or small as you like) about twice the size of an oreo.  And there were 22.  But before they were even cool I ate one.  So we'll say this recipe made 21.

 

 

Then, I started dinner: I pulled out a 1-lb bag of burger (I had bought a 2.8-lb family pack and split it into 3 baggies for freezing) but realized that it looked small in my pan, so I added another (and was rewarded for my efforts with plenty of leftovers).  While the burger was browning I diced an onion (recipe calls for one small but I only had "medium-sized" ones so at first I only diced half, but with the extra burger added the other half) and pre-heated the oven to 375 for the potato wedges.  A good rule-of-thumb is one large or 1.5 medium potatoes for an adult serving.  I used one large and three medium.

The wedges were easy: slice the potatoes "long ways" into halves, then slant your knife and cut each half into "wedge" shapes.  The "medium" potatoes I cut the halves into four wedges each; the larger potoato I cut each half into six wedges.  That gave me 36 potato wedges.  I put them on a cookie sheet, sprayed that sucker with butter flavor cooking spray (generic Pam) and seasoned them; half the tray with "cajun" and half the tray with "italian".  I did it this way because (1) my oldest doesn't like the "cajun" and (2) after half the tray, my "cajun" was gone.

Then, into the oven. 

By now, the burger was done and so were the onions.  I didn't have a lot of grease because this was "quality" burger, but if you do have a lot of grease, this is where you drain it off.  Now, I add the rest of the sauce to the burger, in the same pan: 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup catsup, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/8 cup (or 2 Tbsp) mustard, and 1/8 cup worcestire sauce.  Stir it all together, put a lid on it, and turn the heat down to simmer.  Set your timer for 10 minutes and check on the potatoes.  If they need stirred, make sure you re-spray and re-spice them.  If they're done, they're done.  The sloppy joes should simmer for a minimum of 10 minutes to really soak up the flavor.  If they start to dry out, add more water and stir.  (I would also add that 25 minutes is kind of a "maximum" time, too.  If you cook them any longer, you're not going to get any more flavor, and you're just prolonging the deliciousness for no good reason.)

My oldest was really

tentative at first...

But then
he devoured his food




I've already said that
my daughter enjoyed the meal

And once he pulled out all of his onions,
my youngest enjoyed his meal, too.




Surprisingly, we each only ate one cookie. 
They were quite large, but that doesn't usually stop us.




Now, for the totals: 
The burger was $1.98/lb and I used 2/3 of a 2.8-lb family pack, which makes the cost of tonight's burger meat $3.70.  A single onion (1/7 of a 98-cent 3-lb bag) was 14 cents, and 4 potatoes (out of 15 in a $1.98 5-lb bag) was 53 cents.  Let's assume 25 cents for an ounce or two of generic Pam and some seasonings.  Let's also assume 50 cents for the combined cost of catsup, sugar, worcester and vinegar in the sloppy joes. That makes the "dinner" part of tonight $5.12.

The no-bakes are tricky to calculate, but I'll do my best: 1/2 stick of margarine (depends how much it is when on sale - can range from 59 cents on a dollar saver at Costas to 99 cents to $2.50 if you buy a brand name, I'm gonna go "middle of the road" and assume $1.29/pk, or 1/2 stick = 16 cents.  If milk is $3.60/gallon, then 1/2 cup = 11 cents.  If peanut butter is $2.50 a jar than 1 cup = (roughly half) $1.25.  If oats is $1.85 at DG for a "small" container (which, according to the label, contains 13 servings of 1/2 cup each, then 3 cups cost 86 cents.  The cost of a teaspoon of vanilla is negligible; let's assume 10 cents.  The cost of 2 cups of sugar when a $2 (4-lb) bag contains (according to the product label) 454 teaspoons.  Seriously?  Well, I wasn't a math major for nothin'...  Ok, so there are 3.5 teaspoons in 1 Tbsp, and 16 Tbsp in a cup, which tells me that 4-lb bag contains about 8.11 cups.  So each cup cost 24.67 cents and 2 cups cost 49 cents.  Which is about what I would've guessed anyway... But now I know.

So this batch of 22 (ahem) or 21 very large no-bakes cost 16 cents margarine, 11 cents milk, $1.25 peanut butter, 86 cents oats, 10 cents vanilla, and 49 cents sugar, which makes them 14.14 cents per cookie.  Like I said, we only ate four with dinner last night.  In fact, we still have some, which in this house is nothing short of miraculous.

So $5.12 dinner + 4 times 14.14 cents cookies = $5.69

 

And did I mention there were left-overs? 

There were left-overs, so I'm billing this dinner as "under $5"

 

no post tonight

incoming migraine. post tomorrow.

shrimp and clams with creamy garlic shells

So I know we just had seafood last week but when I cleaned out my deep freezer (and found that last pound of cheap fish) I also found these Clams in the shell that I had purchased at least three months ago, and I thought we'd better eat them.  Turns out, I don't really like clams that much on their own.... but more on that later.


So I started by assembling my main ingredients (I put the scallops back for another day).  Pasta shells: $1 (I used the whole box even though I knew it would be too much.  Don't ask me why.)  Clams, $3.99, I counted, 22 clams inside, (we ate 13, but more on that later), and a pack of salad shrimp, $1.29.
I boiled the shells, which only took a few minutes, strained them, and set them aside.  While they were cooking, I made a creamy garlic sauce with: 2 cups milk, 1/2 stick real butter, and the following seasonings "to taste" (didn't measure just shook on what looked good)


garlic powder (not real garlic, I know, I'm shocked, too.) and onion powder (this one was because I was too lazy to dice an onion and the pasta shells were done waaaay too fast and I just wanted dinner on the table already) salt, pepper, and old bay.  Oh, and parsley, and I stirred in the shrimp and the strained pasta and let it simmer for a while.  It smelled delicious.








To cook the clams, I followed the directions on the pack: In the same pot that I'd cooked the shells in, (because they were now strained and in the pan with the shrimp) I put: 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1 Tbsp of vinegar, 1 Tbsp vegetable oil, and 1 tsp diced garlic, then put the clams in and put on the lid over high heat for 4 minutes "until shells opened".

Then, because I wanted something green, I shredded just a little bit of lettuce.  I guess you can call it a salad, seeing as we put dressing on it, but it was just lettuce in a bowl with dressing.  

Maybe it was a garnish?  I'm still not sure.  Anyway, it kinda rounded out the plate.

Emily's the only one who liked it enough to ask for seconds, and between the four of us, we only ate 13 clams, so I took the remaining 8 out of their shells and mixed them in with the leftover pasta and shrimp.

Which is just as well, because when my ex finally got here, he ate about half of the leftover seafood, and all of the remaining lettuce, leaving me with one adult serving as "leftovers".

Dessert was chocolate-marshmallow ice cream cones in waffle cones this time.  

*yum*  

Except for the youngest, who wanted applesauce.

So, the total for tonight: $3.99 clams, $1.29 shrimp, $1 pasta, 1/4 a head of lettuce (purchased weeks ago for I don't remember how much but I think it was $1.39 but we'll be generous and round up to $1.60) for 40 cents, 3 ice cream cones is tricky: the waffle cones are 12 for $2, or 17 cents each, just eyeballing the amount of ice cream we used it looks like maybe a 10th of a container, and the ice cream was on sale $2.50, so that would be 25 cents worth of ice cream in 3 cones, but again, I'll be generous and double that, and call it 50 cents, and the applesauce was 1/8 of the container (he had a 6-oz yogurt cup full and it's a 48-oz container) which originally cost $2.50 as well, so 1/8 of that is 31 cents, 2 cups milk cost 44 cents, and a half a stick of butter cost 25 cents, since I bought a 4-stick box for $1.99.  The seasonings weren't more than 50 cents, making our total: 

$9.19

For five servings.

And that was rounding up a lot.

(not beer) battered fish

So I wanted something fast and easy, and I found the last of this crazy cheap fish in my deep freezer the other day, so I had planned on making beer battered fish.  Now, I don't usually have beer in the house but I thought for sure one of my friends or neighbors nearby would have at least one can to sell me.  And I didn't want to buy a six-pack just for this.  So I searched around for a recipe for just "battered fish".  There wasn't one in any of my five cookbooks, but I found this beauty on the internet.  The batter was not as light and fluffy as it would have been with the beer, but the only alternative would've been dragging all 3 kids into a bar  to get a six pack, or into the beer distributor to buy a case.  Not. Gonna. Happen.

 So I thawed the fish and decided to slice an onion and make battered onion rings.  All you do is mix: 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup baking powder (yes, CUP), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup water.  Mix it thoroughly, and dredge your fish and onion rings through it.  Now, the online recipe said to fry them in a pan of oil.  I just turned on my deep fryer and fried them there.  Should've done them in a pan.  Why?  Because any molecules of loose batter are now semi-permanantly stuck to my deep fryer basket.  And the edges where it initially boiled over.  By the way, only takes 3 minutes on 375 for the fish, 2 for the onion rings.

So in five minutes of cooking (and roughly 10 of prep) I had a complete meal for my kids.  Only I realized the boys might not eat the onion rings.  So I made some broccoli (about 1/3 of a bag) for the boys.  It's healthier anyway.  It turns out everyone had some of everything.  Which is fine by me.

All done, mom!  What's for dessert?

When the broccoli was cooking in the microwave (a little butter and garlic salt, nuke for 3 1/2 minutes, and voila!) I stirred up some instant butterscotch pudding:  2 cups milk and 1 packet of pudding mix, stir for 2 minutes, pour into tupperware (or in my case, dixie cups) and chill.  By the time we were done eating, the pudding was ready.

So our total for tonight was: $3.29 for 1 pound of crazy cheap fish, 2 onions (out of a 98 cent pack of 7 onions) 28 cents, 1/3 pack of frozen broccoli (1.88/pk) for 63 cents, 2 1/2 cups milk (55 cents), one pack instant pudding (50 cents), and probably another 50 cents worth of flour and baking soda, giving us a total of $5.75

And there was enough left over to give a full adult serving to my neighbors.

Even though they didn't have any beer.

Chicken drumsticks and potato chips

The theme for tonight is "finger foods"



These "chicken wings" are not actually wings; they're drumsticks from the Crazy Cheap Chicken purchased for $1.18/lb.  And they're huge.  This pack of 12 drumsticks was purchased for $4.24.  If you can't tell the size from this photo, 2 drumsticks would be an adult serving.

 

Before I even began to cook the wings, I made dessert: I've been saying that I couldn't find any more 99 cent brownie mixes; they're all $1.50 now.  But THIS was $1 a few weeks ago (I bought several). 

 

Unfortunately, this is a "snack size" mix, so even though the package says "makes 12" the batter was spread really thin.  Even after baking, it was only about 1/4 inch thick. To thicken it up, I had a little fun...

I made a peanut butter layer by mixing 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup sugar, and one egg, and spreading it over the cooked brownies.  Then I put it back in the oven for about 5 minutes more.  (When the peanut butter layer cooked, its color lightened a little).  Then, I sprinkled most (probably 80%) of a bag of chocolate chips on top, and put it back in the oven to melt.

 

 

 

While the brownies were cooking the first time, I sliced three potatoes (out of 14 in a $1.99 bag) into thin strips and set them in a glass bowl to soak up some vinegar and salt (to make salt & vinegar chips, of course).  It didn't work -- they should be marinated in the fridge overnight for that -- they just came out tasting like regular homemade chips.

 

 

I turned on my deep fryer and put in the drumsticks, setting the timer for 15 minutes.  Drumsticks should be fried a minimum of 12 to make sure they are completely cooked.  Even when the timer went off, I thought they looked a little pale, so I did them for an extra 5 minutes to be safe.

 

Now, I had looked up a recipe for "asian hot wings" (kind of like a general tso's flavor, with honey, ginger, hot sauce, and a bunch of other stuff).  I didn't have 3 of the more exotic ingredients so I made several substitutions.  They didn't come out bad, but my storebought BBQ sauce was better and less time consuming, so I'm not going to repeat the recipe here.  Trust me, it wasn't worth the effort. 

 

I made 12 drumsticks in 3 flavors tonight: 4 in my homemade asian sauce, 4 in storebought BBQ, and 4 in a "spicy ranch" (3 parts ranch dressing to 1 part hot sauce).  Out of the 12 (very large) drumsticks, we ate 5: 2 for me, 1 for each kid.

 

The wings were a hit!

 

 

 

My daughter and I had the chips.  My boys didn't like them so much...

 

The face he made after tasting a chip.  Seriously.

 

Tonight's total: $1.77 worth of wings (5/12 of the pack which cost $4.24) + $1.50 worth of sauce (no real way of judging the cost of the homemade sauce but the more expensive between the ranch and the BBQ was the BBQ, and that was $2.  I only used 1/4 of the bottle on the 4 drumsticks, so if you figure I would have used 3/4 of a bottle on all 12, and that the BBQ was the most expensive, then I spent about $1.50 on sauce) The potatoes used to make the chips were 3/14 of a $1.99 bag, or 43 cents, and the vinegar and salt were probably another 10 or 20 cents.  Heck, let's call it a quarter.  The brownie mix was $1, the peanut butter, egg, and sugar probably 50 cents, and the chocolate chips were $2 a bag, and I used an estimated 80%, or $1.60's worth.  There were 12 brownies, of which we ate 6 when all was said and done, so that's half of $3.10, or $1.55, making tonight's total: $1.77 wings + $1.50 sauce + 68 cents chips + $1.55 brownies = $5.50

Crazy cheap AND delicious!  This calls for another brownie!