This BBC program ‘Take on the Takeaway’ featured a competition each week between someone ordering from a takeaway restaurant and a top chef who came to that person’s kitchen and cooked the same dish.
The judgement was on 3 factors:
The chef usually won all 3 (though speed was the closest).
(However I shall continue to patronise my local takeway because I’d rather type on here than cook :eek: )
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
For The Win
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Hmph. I always thought FTW stood for “Fuck the What?” Sort of a l337 take on WTF. Live and learn I guess.
[QUOTE=Kevbo]
As for the value of your time: When the need arises I can throw a a yummy nutritious dinner for Kevbabe and myself togethor in about half an hour. Add 10 minutes amortized grocery shopping time, and 10 minutes of cleanup, and a half an hour to actually eat. So cooking at home cost ONE of us ~1.5 hours (rounding up) and the other .5 hours. = 2 person hours. Driving to a nearby resteraunt, dining, and driving home takes a minimum of 1.5 hr, and that ties us both up, so 3 person hours used dining out. Now add in the time we spent at work so we could pay the higher resteraunt tab, and eating out burns up much more of our time than dining in.
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That’s an excellent point. In addition, since my wife works at home she often does prep ahead of time when in need of a break. Often if you cook you can interleave other tasks - like the laundry or reading the paper - with it, since you seldom need to devote every second to watching your food. Talking and having a glass of wine also.
Oh, yeah- I know that loss-leader sales at supermarkets can be much better than the warehouse club prices. The regular price on chicken (especially at my local markets) is much worse, though, and they only put chicken breasts on sale every four months or so.
Someday I’ll have a car, I’ll get flyer delivery again, and I’ll have a properly huge freezer so I can really stock up.
I can get a 12 oz. ribeye steak at the grocery store for $5.25, a baking potato for under a buck, a roll for 50 cents, and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables for around $1.50, and have a meal that would probably cost me at least $13 in a steakhouse.
[QUOTE=TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]
$6 - Chicken - I got the smallest package of white meat chicken that I could, store brand (not Purdue or Tyson or whatever).
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I can buy seven or eight pounds of chicken leg/thigh quarters (79 cents per pound) at the local grocery store. I’m in the same city as you. If you must do white meat, it’d be about 2-3 pounds for that price at the same store.
Tomatoes suck this time of year so I wouldn’t even bother buying one. But $1.50? For one? What the hell?
I think it’s 50 cents for a pack of 10 corn tortillas, still warm and fresh from the tortilleria.
Probably the same price here. I do cilantro and onions on my tacos (cilantro is 3 bunches for a dollar, onions are maybe 50 cents for one the size of your fist).
That said, you’re not using anywhere near $3.50 worth of cheese on your taco, nor $2 worth of sour cream.
How the hell do you make salads that end up $12 per person? Are you shopping at Whole Foods or something? I could make a fantastic seared ahi tuna salad for that kind of price. (Sushi-grade tuna is $13.50/lb at Isaacson & Stein’s) Or are you counting in the entire price for ingredients you only use a small portion of?
I’ve recently had to start cooking for myself for the first time (at 33, gasp) a few months ago thanks to a divorce; so I started studying this somewhat scientifically. All my life it’s been Mom and Dad, the dorm, the restaurant, the wife doing all my cooking and packing lunches. Never had to do it myself except for maybe a handful of times.
So I’ve kept a spreadsheet of what I eat and how much it costs, plus calorie content (as I am also dieting to be somewhat more attractive to Ms. Future).
Assuming a 2000 calorie/day basic maintenance diet, the absolute cheapest in-home eats are good old ramen noodles - works out to 49 cents/day. Feels like being in college again.
A good balanced daily is working out to $4.72/day so far. This is typically milk, oatmeal and banana to start, apple and tasty meat/cheese sandwich at lunch, and spaghetti & veggie sauce at dinner with some ice cream to cap it off.
I’m buying most of this on the cheap side, but not uber-bulk-cheap as I don’t need the huge volumes all by myself.
Going out, the cheapest/calorie seems to the cheeseburgers at McDonalds, which are 310 cals for 99 cents around here and I don’t even need to leave the car. $6.39 if I eat there all day on the average.
A “plate” at a restaurant is around 1000 cals for $10-12 with the tip, so figure around $22 a day if I go out to “real restaurants”.
This is in the suburbs south of Seattle BTW. I drink water only, so I guess if you’re drinking coffee or soda that would make a difference.
I want to give a suggestion for low work cooking that is pretty decent. It is not Julia Child or even Rachel Ray. Sam the cooking guy. He is very much about throwing things that are easy to get and keep around the house together for decent eating. It is very much the jar of tomatoes sauce plus some onions and half a sausage from the freezer kind of cooking. But that is decent inexpensive cooking. He has a show in San Diego and a few other places. Cheap easy cooking if you don’t care to cook and want to get off the fast food treadmill he ain’t to bad.
I’ve worked at a grocery store, I’ve watched allll kinds of different food orders, and there’s some very noticeable trends.
As has been repeatedly stated upthread:
people who get the bargains, and who hit sales, and buy carefully: these guys get what seems like an endless parade of items for next to nothing, often averaging even $1 an item (or less!) including coupons and etc. they get what is clearly a week’s worth of food for 3-4 people for next to no cost. Especially with the right coupon deals, some meals come out to practically free.
On the other hand: there are people who clearly don’t care what they spend, and get what is clearly less food for upwards of $3-4 per item.
In other words: you have to figure out how to shop.
I just spent $60 monday, without trying too hard to conserve money, and I can easily make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for at least the next 5 days.
Breakfast, I have bananas, milk+cereal, and OJ.
Lunch, Sandwiches (PB+J (admittedly, this is left over from a previous trip, but that just furthers the point of leftovers), or lunch meat (variety) and cheese, with chips or goldfish, with a soda.
Dinner: Chicken quesadillas with rice, or chicken breast cooked with pasta and sauce, again with a soda.
I also have leftover from the previous trip some ramen noodles.
Thinking about it, I can probably get at least 6 days. so, 60/18 meals = $3.33 per meal.
Oh wait, looking at the receipt, I forgot that I bought a $7 prepared chicken (it was really good though!) for me and my girlfriend (sort of gf, not the topic though) to eat that night.
so $53/18 = $2.94 per meal.
Find me a place where I can eat for $3 (which still includes some disposable paper products) and I’ll be amazed.
ETA: technically, I might run out of bread, or possibly milk. Some people might think I eat a bit skimpy. To those people I say: even if you scale the cost, you’ll probably be eating more at, say, an a la carte fast food joint too, so it scales anyways.
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar]
Someday I’ll have a car, I’ll get flyer delivery again, and I’ll have a properly huge freezer so I can really stock up.
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When my daughter moved into her apartment, she discovered that the previous tenant asked the Albertson’s fifty feet away to stop delivering the flyer. She called them and asked for it back. They hand address it now to her. Cal them, they’ll be happy to send one.
I understand about the car. When I was in college getting a car saved me a ton on groceries, since we could go to a bigger store in the suburbs of Boston where the prices were a lot better than in the middle of Cambridge.
[QUOTE=Le Comte de Mortain]
You raised an issue and I responded. You make up your mind.
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My mind is made up. What part of “Start your own thread, don’t hijack this one” is tricky?
/out of chow
[QUOTE=SpaceDog]
Oh no, eat the skin. It’s the best bit. (I’m not the worlds healthiest eater).
OK, I don’t use my microwave nearly enough. How do I boil potatoes in it? In a dish covered in water? Do I cover the dish? Hot or cold water? Salted? I don’t have a baked potato button so how long do you cook them for? You could be about to save me significant amounts of time and effort.
Aye, that’s true here too. Although you’ve got to time it right so they’ve not run out. I’m guessing they make a loss on them tho’.
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To cook potatoes for American fries, salad,or creamed: if your Microwave has a baked potato button put 3 medium sized potatoes cut length wise in a microwaveble dish add about a 1/4th cup of water. Push button for 2 potatoes. If you want them mashed use the 3 potato button. You can test it a little because some microwaves are of different watts, (mine is a 1200). My kids are cooking theirs this way because it is much faster and the potatoes do not get mushy if you want them for salad or fries. I use warm water (not real hot).I do not use salt but it can be added if you like.
I cover everything I cook in the microwave. If you do not have a baked potato button you may want to start out with 3 minuets and then go every few seconds, once you have established the time then you can use that as your guide.
Monavis
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
Just like with a crockpot or a chest freezer, you have to regard your spice rack as an investment, rather than mentally adding the whole cost of that box of pepper to that one meal. I mean, I’ve probably got $50-$75 worth of spices in my cabinet at any one time.
And just take it for granted that a spice you buy for one recipe may get used in a bunch of other stuff, or it may just sit there forever after: it’s hard to tell until you’ve done a bit of cooking. I had to learn by doing that I’d go through cumin at a pretty good clip, but that jar of turmeric might not be used up in this decade.
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Spices can be frozen and kept for years. I grind my own cloves etc, because they are too expensive. I have Whole cloves I keep in the freezer and grind it as needed I use my coffe bean grinder. Works fine and is far less expensive.
Monavis
[QUOTE=Superfluous Parentheses]
Hey that’s interesting. I’ve never tried freezing rice. If I have left over (plain) rice I usually put it in a box in the fridge and when I want to use it I just boil some water, dump the rice in for a minute or so and drain it. Don’t think you can do that easily with frozen rice, though (and I don’t have a microwave).
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Most things can be frozen, I freeze milk (when it is on sale) eggs freeze well, one can use a ice cube tray. I freeze flour. cake mixes that I get on Sale for .50 cents some times I pay 89 cents. I freeze Muffin mixes etc. even tomatoes can be frozen if used in a sauce. I used to freeze cocoa, I freeze coffee, so I buy a lot when it is on sale,juices etc. If one eats out and has to drive to a restaurant the time and cost of driving must also be considered in the price of eating out.
Monavis
I have to agree with most of the posters. Buying in bulk is generally the key.
I just have to say I wish food in Australia was as cheap as it is in the US. The $6 figures people are throwing around here wouldn’t even get you the meat and sauce for a stir fry here (Meat is $12/kg from the supermarket). In fact, it costs about $15 for the ingredients for a stir-fry to feed myself and my fiancee, and that’s with only 300g of meat.
It’s not a hell of a lot more expensive to go to the local Chinese Restaurant and not only keep someone employed, but get food that tastes nicer than any Chinese meal I could ever cook, and more importantly, doesn’t have lots of dirty dishes and cleaning up involved afterwards.
A Steak Sandwich at a cafe or bistro is about $12- not much more than it costs to buy the ingredients and make it myself, and even a Bacon & Egg McMuffin meal costs less than the ingredients would if I tried to make one at home- And it’s a lot faster and less hassle for us to eat out rather than keep a fridge full of ingredients that invariably goes off before we can use them because of our work schedules…
[QUOTE=monavis]
To cook potatoes for American fries, salad,or creamed: if your Microwave has a baked potato button put 3 medium sized potatoes cut length wise in a microwaveble dish add about a 1/4th cup of water. Push button for 2 potatoes. If you want them mashed use the 3 potato button. You can test it a little because some microwaves are of different watts, (mine is a 1200). My kids are cooking theirs this way because it is much faster and the potatoes do not get mushy if you want them for salad or fries. I use warm water (not real hot).I do not use salt but it can be added if you like.
I cover everything I cook in the microwave. If you do not have a baked potato button you may want to start out with 3 minuets and then go every few seconds, once you have established the time then you can use that as your guide.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks, I look forward to giving that a try.
[QUOTE=monavis]
Spices can be frozen and kept for years. I grind my own cloves etc, because they are too expensive. I have Whole cloves I keep in the freezer and grind it as needed I use my coffe bean grinder. Works fine and is far less expensive.
Monavis
[/QUOTE]
Or just go over to the local Indian or Middle Eastern shop, where you can buy sacks of prices for the same price (and better quality) as McCormick’s (biggest ripoff). As an example, I don’t know what the typical going rate for whole cloves is, but at Big Apple Grocer online, a 1.25 ounce jar of McCormick’s whole cloves sells for $9.99. I have a half pound of whole cloves for $1.99 sitting in my cupboard.
Another example: I like making Thai curries. Coconut milk is something like $2 or $2.50 at the Jewel/Dominick’s. Same can at the Thai grocer? 50 cents. I think VCO3 just needs lessons on where to shop and how to shop.
[QUOTE=AskNott]
Whole pork loins are on sale every few weeks. They come in a big vacuum-packed lump. The butcher in most stores will slice it up for you for free. It’s really one long muscle, folded in half for the package. Tell him an inch thick. If you’re grilling, an inch and a quarter. Again, freeze them except for tonight’s meal. The pork loin is just about the finest part of a piggy, and if you buy the whole thing, it’s astonishingly cheap.
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Just wanted to second the pork loin recommendation.
We eat a lot of pork chops, but for some reason we never got in the habit of using this cut. I know whenever I went to a pig roast I made sure I was hanging around when they pulled the tenderloin. Yum-mee!
My kids are all tremendous carnivores, and as they have gotten older, it can be pricey to get a hunk of meat large enough to satisfy them. On New Year’s Day, my wife decided to go with the tenderloin. $20 bought three tenderloins from the local butcher. More than enough to gorge 6 adults and late-teens, with enough left over for a light stirfry lunch the next day.
I can’t imagine how much it would cost to get a pork dinner anywhere near that quality in a restaurant. Simple and fast to cook too!
Tenderloin is now on our regular weekly meal rotation.
[QUOTE=pulykamell]
Or just go over to the local Indian or Middle Eastern shop, where you can buy sacks of prices for the same price (and better quality) as McCormick’s (biggest ripoff).
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You don’t even have to leave the supermarket. Just shop over on the “ethnic foods” or “International” aisle. That’s where I pick up most of my Mexican spices, at prices that are maybe 1/10 of what Spice Islands or McCormick’s charge.