Final Post: chicken and biscuits over gravy

First, a note: This will be my final post, for several reasons.  First, because I have said repeatedly that I'm running out of affordable, yet different dinner ideas.  I've done over 50 dinners for under $10 each.  Second, because the purpose of this blog (for me anyway) was to keep me writing during a slump.  I'd written a book under a pseudonym, published it two years ago, and hadn't written anything worth reading since then.  So, a fellow writer suggested keeping a blog just to keep me busy until I DID have a new idea.  Well, the slump is over, folks.  I've been working on a novel since August, am really excited about it, but haven't really had the time to write much (28 pages done in nearly 3 months is NOT good) and have been considering, for several weeks, ditching this project altogether so I'd have more time to work on my novel.  Lastly, and probably most importantly, google's "free" photo hosting service says I've reached my limit, and it won't allow me to upload any more photos without paying a service fee.  Ironically, I haven't used about 1/10th of the photos I've uploaded, and if I could "delete" them from the hosting service to make more room, I would, but I can't seem to figure out how...

So in a nutshell: 1) out of affordable dinner ideas, 2) writer's slump is over, and 3) no more (free) photo space.

So without any of the photos I took of tonight's dinner, here's the recipe and costs: (but it's much less fun this way)

First, I made the biscuits: 2 and 1/4 cups bisquick mixed with 2/3 cup milk, roll out on a floured board (I just use more bisquick) cut into circles, and bake at 450 for 8 minutes or so.

Second, cook chicken (I did a little more than a pound) in a frying pan.  I thawed the frozen chicken in the microwave, sliced the raw chicken into small chunks on a plate, and cooked them in a frying pan with just a little water to help them stay juicy.

Third, add gravy (I just bought a small can of chicken gravy for 88 cents when it was on sale a few weeks ago) to the pan of cooked chicken.

Pull the biscuits out of the oven, and cook a side dish of vegetables (I did a half a bag of frozen peas, purchased for $1.33, in the microwave with a Tbsp of butter for 4 minutes, stirring at 2)

For dessert, we had store-bought fudge-pops (generic, box of 12 for $3.29)

The prices were: $2.53 for the chicken: 1.16 lbs of boneless, skinless breast meat at $2.18/lb, 88 cents gravy, $1.05 worth of bisquick powder (I rounded up to 2.5 cups since I used bisquick instead of flour) and 16 cents for 2/3 cup of milk, plus 4 fudge pops (1/3 of the box of 12 = $1.10) brings our total to: $5.72

Again, sorry about the lack of photos.  I may or may not fiddle with this more and try to upload them.  Probably not.

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.

Seafood "Medley" (or something)

Ok, so the story behind this meal is pretty typical for "how I get my recipes"....

 

Something like three years ago, I was visiting my awesome sister at her home in Lancaster, PA.  I had told her how my daughter enjoys strong flavors: Salt and Vinegar chips over plain chips, Extra Garlic in her spaghetti sauce, how she sneaks raw onions when I'm dicing them, too... and how we had just made shrimp scampi with extra, extra garlic and she loved it.  So my sister asks if I think my kids would eat a seafood mix, and I'm all, "huh? what kind of mix are we talkin about here?"  Apparently, in any town larger than this one, (i.e., any town, anywhere)

you can buy this: (or something like it)

 

 

This bag came with pieces of clam, shrimp, "other mollusks", squid and octopus tentacles, imitation crab meat, and some things I could not identify with my eyes, which didn't even seem to be on the ingredients list.  I seem to recall my sister bought something along these lines...  and the kids loved it.  I mean, really, really LOVED it. 

 

So while I was down in Delaware for our family vacation this year, I stopped in a "Super Fresh"

(Rte 1, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware) for three, yes three bags of this stuff. 

(It was $5.99 a bag, in case you care, and the bag says it contains 5 servings.) 

 

 

To give a little more volume to the meal, I added a fairly large piece of Pollock from this bag.  I put it on my palm to show you the size.  It was one vacuum-sealed fillet, and, I kid you not, this bag of 4 fillets was $1.99, so this tasty morsel was 50 cents! (Jubilee in Coudersport, sale was over weeks ago, folks.  This is why I have a deep freezer.)

I let my oldest boy help tonight.  He's the one who wanted this meal the most, actually.  To add flavor, we used a big splash of lemon juice (probably 1/4 cup, maybe even 1/3 cup), a small splash (1 or 2 tsp) of apple vinegar, 2 heaping teaspoons of garlic, 1/2 stick of real butter, and some salt, pepper, and paprika.  I simmered the whole pan over medium/high heat (a 7 on my oven, for what it's worth) for about 10 minutes.

Our side dish tonight was butter-herb pasta, but instead of making it from a bag, I just boiled some mixed pasta (roughly 1/3 box "tri-color" pasta - the kind used in pasta salad - and a large handful of egg noodles) strained it, then, in the pot it was in, melted the other 1/2 stick of butter and added several shakes of old bay and several shakes of Italian seasoning.  When it was done, I put it on a plate to serve.  You can't see or taste or smell the butter and the herbs but they were there and they were delightful.

Despite how much she liked it last time, my daughter seemed apprehensive about the meal.  But once she started eating, she had seconds... and thirds...

This one is a tentacle piece.  Yum.

and when I was passing tentacles down to my eldest, at the end, she snagged them en route.  Twice.  Needless to say, there were no leftovers.











Mystery meat.  Less yum...

Dessert was vanilla wafer cookies.  Because they were on sale at Best Buy Foods for 79 cents for the whole box.  We ate maybe 4 cookies each, barely 1/4 of the box, so dessert for the whole family was 20 cents.

Our total tonight, then, was... $5.99 mixed seafood, 50 cents extra Pollock, 1/4 of a $2.69 pack of real butter, or 67 cents worth of butter, 65 cents worth of pasta (normally I only buy 99 cent boxes but this was $1.29 for the tri-color) and 20 cents dessert = $8.01 

Even allowing for the cost of the seasonings, garlic, lemon juice, and vinegar, we're not even close to $10.  And I ate octopus.  Booyah!

Chicken and fries

This afternoon one of my kids had a doctor's appointment, so I didn't have a lot of time for dinner.  I looked in the freezer for something semi-instant and found this:
Now, I just bought this last week for $5.99 a box.  It comes with "Six to Eight Pieces".  If you can't read the fine print in the corner there, this was their variety pack, with breasts, thighs, and drumsticks.  This particular box came with seven pieces, of which, we ate four, so there's $3.43 worth of chicken.  This can be microwaved or baked in the oven; the oven takes 40 minutes and the microwave 10.  I did what my mother always did: microwave for 5 and bake for 20 (at 350, directions on the box). 

Actually, since I have a weaksauce microwave, I nuked those four pieces for six minutes.  While they were baking (on a cookie sheet in the oven) I turned on my deep fryer to make the cheese fries:

They only had to "fry" until they floated.  It took 4 minutes.  Then, I put the fries on the same cookie sheet, just on the other end.  I sprinkled on some mozzerella cheese from the bulk bag I bought a while ago, and put the whole tray back in the oven.  The large bag of fries was also on sale last week, for $2.29.  We ate about half of the bag, for $1.15.  The cheese was trickier, since I bought it in bulk so I can't even estimate "I used half the bag" or "used 1/3 of the bag".  Instead, I can say, I used two handfuls.  But, I know from experience in a pizzaria that each handful (of mine - I have small hands) is about a half cup, and that, when on sale (not in bulk) mozzerella cheese is about $5 for 4 cups.  I used one cup, so about $1.25 worth.  Let's err on the side of caution and call it $1.50



So, for dessert, I made butterscotch pudding,
which takes two cups of milk, or about 1/8 of a gallon,
which costs $3.59 right now, and the mix was 50 cents,
so the dessert (which filled five dixie cups) cost 95 cents total,
or 19 cents each.

We only had 3 of those cups (57 cents), because I had pie. Lots. Again.

So the total for tonight is: $3.43 chicken + $1.15 fries + $1.50  mozz. cheese + 57 cents pudding + 33 cents pie = $6.98



T-Bone Pork Chops with Scalloped Potatoes

Well, it's all there in the title, folks.  I started by thawing out some pork.  This was $4.40 worth of bone-in pork steaks, 42.88 ounces worth.  Roughly, that's 10 cents an ounce.  Thus, a ten ounce steak from this pack would be only a dollar.  Think about that.  Of course, that would include at least 2 ounces of bone, I'm sure.  It doesn't look like a big pack, but they're semi-stacked in there, so it's more meat than it appears to be. 

The last time I made pork chops I used sirloin steaks (no bone) and seasoned them with butter and italian seasoning.  Tonight, I used butter and cajun seasoning.  I'm a dare-devil, I know.  I used roughly 3 Tbsp butter and 1/4 cup of water in the bottom of the glass dish, to keep them moist, then shook on the seasoning right out of the jar.  I baked them in the oven at 450 for 40 minutes.  Well, technically, I baked them for 20 minutes while I got the potatoes and the dessert ready, pulled them out, flipped them over, shook on more seasoning, then baked for another 20 with the potatoes. 

But it really amounts to the same thing... po-tay-toe/puh-tah-toe...


The scalloped potatoes I just made according to the directions on the box.  I mixed up dessert at the same time as the potatoes, so it would be ready when we were done eating.  And dessert was, at my daughter's request, pudding.  I bought 5 oz dixie cups, filled them with roughly 4 ounces each of pudding, since it was on sale last week at Jubilee for 50 cents a mix. (one mix filled 5 cups) Even when you count the cost of the milk, 1 gallon = 16 cups, and pudding mix uses 2 cups of milk, so 1/8 of the cost of a gallon of milk, roughly $3.50, is $0.43.  So dessert cost $0.93.

I took a few pics of my family enjoying the meal (although my eldest did not want to be photographed tonight) and was tired of my daughter's "poses", so I purposely took two pictures in a row to see what she looks like when she's actually eating. 

So dinner ($4.40) + scalloped potatoes ($1 mix + 18 cents milk) + 93 cent dessert =

$6.51

Power Outage Dinner for 4

Our power has been out for roughly 28 hours.  Last night, we drove to my father's house - he has a generator - and cooked a hot meal there.  Today, with no end to the outage in sight, we had an extremely interesting dinner for four....

It began with an ice cream feast.  I got home from work today at 2:45, and found that the three half-full cartons of ice cream in our freezer had not yet melted.  As I said, we were all expecting the outage to continue. So I got all the kids at the table with bowls and spoons, got our large camping cooler ready, and pulled out the ice cream, placing everything else in the camping cooler.  Then, while the kids were gorging themselves on sugar, I cleaned the interior of the freezer with soapy water.  (Multitasking QUEEN)

The rest of dinner began by examining the cupboards.  Lots of hamburger helper, cake mixes, cornbread mixes, pasta, pasta sauces, and much, much more that required electricity to cook.  I suppose I should add that I have an electric stove.  Yes, not much foresight there.  But it is very nice-looking.  When it's functional.

So our dinner tonight consisted of fluffernutter sandwiches, dry cereal, kool-aid, and ice cream.  With the serving order slightly skewed due to external conditions.  I am more than certain that I stayed within my $10 limit.  I did not take pics of the process tonight, but if anyone needs instructions on how to make fluffernutter sandwiches... well, you can just Google it:  the power is back!

Bratwurst and Pierogies

Tonight and Tomorrow, Ste. Eulalia's Roman Catholic church in Coudersport, PA, is having its annual church festival.  Since there is a strong Polish Catholic community around here, we usually rock out with some polka and Eastern European food, including Latkes ("potato pancakes", like a McDonald's "hash brown"), Kielbasa, Cabbage rolls, and Pierogies.  I, myself, am 1/8 Polish (as well as a mixture of mostly Irish and German, with one French and one Native American in the tracable family tree) and was raised as a Roman Catholic, too.  So this food is "ethnic food" for me.

I worked overtime tonight, and was unable to attend the festival, although it rained for much of the evening and was pouring when I got home with my kids.  Since I didn't make a dinner for 4 tonight (the kids ate at their babysitter's house) I am giving you pics of a dinner I made several months ago.

 

Specialty hot dogs (cheddarwurst, bratwurst, jalapeno dogs, etc) were on sale that week for $2.50 a pack (I hate to think what they must normally cost).  They came six in a package.  I'm not sure how much the pierogies cost (as I dug them out from the depths of the freezer, and don't remember when I bought them, much less what they cost) but I know they are frequently on sale for $2.00 a box.  I checked this week's sale fliers and Jubilee is selling generic pierogies for $1.67 a pack.  I know these ones were the good ones.  Now, the traditional Polish pierogies involve pan-frying them in butter and onions, but these were frozen and already had onions in them, so I just deep fried them.  The bratwurst, oddly enough, I pan-fried.  Although I bought hot dog rolls ($1.50 for a package of 8), the kids all wanted theirs plain.  Well, with ketchup.  But not rolls.  

I don't remember what we served for dessert that night and there are no pics to remind me but I know if I were down at the festival I'd be buying us slices of homemade pie.  In fact, that sounds delicious.  A large homemade pie can be made for about $3.50, (less if the fruit filling is free, like berries picked off bushes, maybe?  Or rhubarb?) and will last 2 nights even if every member of my family has some.  Yes, I am thinking that when I am done typing tonight, I'm gonna make a pie.

So, a quick total is: 19 cents for the one hot dog roll I ate, $2.00 pierogies, $2.50 specialty hot dogs, and less than $3 mystery dessert gave the four of us a dinner for under $10.

And that would make anyone happy

Breakfast for Dinner (part 1)

Often, when I want something fast and easy, I make some eggs.  Breakfast is a fast, easy meal, and so popular in my house that the kids are usually done eating before I'm done pouring drinks.  There's also so many variations on the theme that I had to label this "Part I" because I'm assuming that I'll be making breakfast for dinner in some other incarnation before long.

First, I made some pancakes; they can always be re-heated in the microwave but aren't as bad if they get cold as the eggs are.  So, as soon as I made them, I put them on a plate in the microwave; the insulation kept them warm.  I mixed up 2 cups of bisquik, but you can make pancakes from scratch with this recipe: Beat 1 egg with 1 c milk and 1 Tbsp vinegar.  Sift together 1 cup flour, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp baking powder, and 1 tsp sugar.  It only makes 5 or 6 large pancakes, so you'll want a double batch if your family eats as much as mine do. 

I should add that I started with 2 cups of bisquik, and ended up going back into the kitchen and making another batch of pancakes.  The bisquik is $5.99 a box when not on sale, and the box contains 9 cups.  I used 4 cups tonight, for a total of $2.66.  Bisquik can be mixed with water (the milk is in the mix) or milk.  I used tapwater (free) and 2 eggs. 

 

Next, I made the bacon.  It was on sale a few weeks ago for $2.50 a pack, so I bought several.  Tonight, I made half of a pack, or $1.25 worth of bacon.

The bacon, also, was placed on a microwave-safe plate and put in my oven to keep warm.

Lastly, I made the eggs.  I mixed 8 eggs (because that's how much my family eats) with some milk.  I just poured it into the bowl after the eggs were scrambled, roughly 1 part milk to two parts egg.  This is how I was always taught to make scrambled eggs.  I don't know, but I think it makes them "fluffier".  I poured the eggs on my griddle and kept stirring them right on the griddle (with a plastic spatula) until they were cooked.  Then I scooped about half of them onto a serving plate. 

To the other half, I added cheese.  You can add whatever kind you want, depending on what kind of "taste" you're going for.  Cheddar, American, and Mozzerella all have very different flavors when mixed with eggs.  I used Mozzerella tonight, because I have this jumbo bag I've been using for a while.  I just sprinkled some cheese on top, put a little water (a teaspoon or so) in an upside-down metal lid, then put the lid down on top.  The water evaporated into steam almost instantly, so the eggs didn't burn while the frozen cheese melted. 

The pancakes only needed nuked about 20 seconds and the bacon was still warm.  The kids drank milk.  I had planned on yogurt for dessert but everybody had seconds of pancakes and then were too full for yogurt.  Since I calculated the cost of the extra pancakes, I won't include the cost of the yogurt in tonight's total.

Speaking of which, 12 eggs = $1.89 and I used 10 = $1.58.  Half a pack of Bacon = $1.25,

and 2 batches of Bisquik pancakes = $2.66.  Add $1 for the sprinkling of cheese on the eggs,

and we have a total of $6.49

deep fried dinner

I am quite happy to own a deep fryer.  Sometimes, when I don't feel like putting a lot of effort into dinner, I can just drop something in.  Well not literally, or I burn my fingers with the splash-back.  Now, while deep fry items are available at most grocery stores, I almost always buy mine from Best Buy Foods across from CCMH on Rte 6.  They sell Tyson all-white-meat, hormone-free chicken products, and even though they're more expensive than generic ones, I don't feel as bad about serving my kids meat and starch with little-to-no veggies. 

This bag of Tyson chicken tenders contained 32 fingers and cost $19.71.  I ate 3 fingers (they're big).  Basic math tells me that's $1.85 worth of meat.  The kids wanted nuggets so that's what they got.  The whole bag was 2 pounds worth for $5.99.  I counted 29 nuggets in the bag, which means the 11 nuggets I made for the kids (4 for each of the older kids, 3 for my littlest one) cost $2.27.  The fries were $4.50 for 5 pounds.  I cooked maybe a pound's worth, at 90 cents.  These are big fat fries, so I didn't need to cook as many to fill up my kids. 

Dessert was actually the drinks; since the kids had sparked this dinner by requesting McDonald's, and specifically milkshakes, so I made some with my blender.  I had some freezerburnt chocolate ice cream, so I just added some milk and puree'd it in my blender.  My daughter, however, wanted a smoothie, which I made with some ice cubes, a heaping spoon of yogurt, a splash of grape juice, a smaller splash of lemon juice, and heaping spoon of sugar.  I don't know if I did it "right" or not, but she liked it, and it was probably the healthiest thing any of us ate tonight. 

And I know that they don't teach the "food pyramid" anymore. (Seriously, they don't.) but when I was a kid we learned that starches, like potatoes and the breading on the chicken, were the biggest part of any meal.  All right, now I'm just rationalizing.

All kidding aside, dinner was $1.85 + $2.27 + $0.90 + dessert = $5.02 + dessert, which is FAR less than $10, and also far less than if I'd actually given in and bought 4 McDonalds meals.  Some nights when the kids do this I put the "meals" in brown paper bags and draw on them, or put old Dollar General toys inside, to add to the "Happy Meal" feeling.  Tonight I was lazy, I mean, justifyably tired, so we just went with something fast, cheap, and easy.  Veggies with dinner will resume Monday.

steak and corn

Tonight I just wanted something fast and simple.  Last week, corn on the cob was on sale for 50 cents an ear, so I bought 4 ears, and I still had, in my freezer, that cheap, thin steak that was on sale for $3.29/lb. 

 This week, it was even cheaper, and a thicker, juicier cut, but I couldn't justify the purchase while I still had steak in my freezer waiting to be used.  Since it's only Monday, I may buy some of the juicier steak before the end of the week.

Since I was interested in speed more than anything else, I thawed the steak in my microwave, peeled 3 ears of corn (since I knew my boys would split an ear), chopped the steak into "serving-sized" chunks, and pan-fried it with some Italian dressing and water. 

The corn I boiled for 12 minutes and served with margarine and salt.  Like I said, I was after "simple".  Dessert was a bisquick coffee cake, recipe off the side of the box.  I would recommend making twice as much crumb topping.  This wasn't nearly sweet enough for my taste.

Bisquick coffee cake recipe:  Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9 inch pan.  In a small bowl, combine 1/3 cup bisquick, 1/3 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 2 Tbsp margarine to make crumb topping.  In larger bowl, mix 2 cups bisquick, 2/3 cup milk, 2 Tbsp sugar, and 1 egg.  Spread batter in pan and cover with crumb topping.  Cook 18-22 minutes until golden brown.

In the end, I only used about 2/3 of the steak.  The rest I diced into "stir fry" sized chunks and put in my freezer for future use.  As far as costs go, the steak was $6.76.  I used about 2/3 of it, so that was roughly $4.50 worth of steak.  The corn was 50 cents an ear.  I bought four but only cooked 3 tonight, so that's $1.50.  The bisquick cake is hard to calculate but a whole box of bisquick only costs $5.99 when not on sale, and the side of the box says it contains 9 cups of mix, so I used 2 and 1/3 cups, or roughly 26% of the box, or $1.56 worth.  Since I also used small amounts of milk, egg, etc, we're going to call this a $2 dessert.  Total spent tonight: $4.50 steak, $1.50 corn, and $2 dessert = $8.00

ham and potato casserole

This dinner is both crazy cheap AND crazy easy.  I made a box of scalloped potatoes according to the directions on the box.  I bought a pre-cooked pound of ham (turns out I only needed half, so I froze the rest in a zippered bag for next time) and added about 6 ounces of shredded cheddar cheese.  It was an 8-oz bag once upon a time, that I had used a little of before, then frozen the remainder.  I also added some diced onion, but that was it.  So, to the potato mix (before baking) I added the diced ham, cheese, and onion, then baked according to the box.

With this casserole I served broccholi, steamed in a glass bowl in my microwave.  I only added a little bit of garlic salt this time, and a bit of butter.  The broccholi complemented the casserole very well.

Dessert was ice cream cones.  Again.  But it's warmer now, the kids are wearing tee shirts, and they want to go swimming and eat ice cream and do all those summer-y things that kids do.

The entire dinner took less than half an hour from start to finish, even measuring out ingredients for the scalloped potatoes.  By the way, these were the Dollar General brand, clover valley, and absolutely delicious.  The vote of confidence from my six year old: "Mom, these are WAY better than the ones the school makes.  But you should put bacon in it."

So, calculating the cost of this meal, we have: Half a ham steak, $2.44, box of DG potatoes, $1, half-pound bag of cheddar cheese: $2.50, half frozen bag of broccholi: 90 cents, and 4 ice cream cones at 38 cents each: $1.52.  All of this gives us a grand total of: $8.36