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.