Maybe in a laboratory kitchen there’s some measurable water movement but salty and crispy skin is possible. Those grocery chickens are notably salty and the skin is pretty dry & crackly if you get one that hasn’t been sweltering under the dome for a few hours (though those are still good, lol). I think that the rotating cooker does contribute more than apparent at keeping things dry; drippings (fats and watery juices) fall far away from the birds and the rotating keeps it basted but also prevents pooling within the bird and promotes the draining. The grab&go grocery chickens are magnificent products, really. However, maybe they’re not possible to make in a typical home kitchen.
And that’s just the skin and beyond the benefits of brining the meat.
Pity all those grocery machines don’t have potato and lemon chunks floating around under there with the chicken drippings. Might as well put in some thyme sprigs and oregano & some fresh parsley for serving.
Somehow I missed that this was talking specifically about the skin. The Thomas Keller recipe leads to skin that–well, I have to fend my wife away from the roast, lest she snap pieces of skin off and eat them like potato chips. “THAT’S DINNER!” I say as she crunches happily.
I make a lot of soup. Chicken/veg, tortellini/veg, black bean are the latest three. I have a sibling who gets a batch of produce from a local farm every other week during growing season and a lot of that ends up in soup too. People have talked about buying a whole chicken but that’s a lot of food for us and we don’t have a ton of freezer space.
Did the OP indicate a tolerance for leftovers? When I was in school, I’d cook all my lunches on Sunday. The plan was to freeze some portions and exchange them for old frozen ones for variety, but I rarely had my act together and ended up eating the same thing every day. I started making my own humus back then because I was going through so much of it and the premade stuff was expensive.
I’ve made risotto in my pressure cooker. I don’t know that it would pass muster in Italy but whatever; I like it. I don’t make much else in there unless I have a poultry carcass for broth.
Has anyone mentioned a vacuum sealer yet? It creates flat packages that stack easily in the freezer. You can do dry (pot roast, chicken parts) as well as wet (soup.)
It saves so much money simply by not having to throw freezer-burned meat away.
Yep, you’ll not only eat much cheaper, you’ll eat much healthier.
If you feel you need guidance and structure to take the big step, you can sign up with one of those meal services like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, etc. You can choose the size package you want based on how many family members you’ll be cooking for. I did Blue Apron for about six months, and I kept all the recipe cards that came with the packages. Now, I have about 40 recipe cards in reserve for quick and tasty meals.
I mentioned jarred spaghetti sauce upthread. Here’s the example I was going for:
I went to the grocery store yesterday, which is a small local neighborhood store, not a big discount chain. Hunt’s 24oz garlic-something or something-garlic spaghetti sauce in a can was 2 for $3 or $1.69 individually. Prego’s 24oz garlic-something or something-garlic sauce in a jar was $2.99. The Rao’s 24oz garlic-something or something-garlic sauce was $11.99 a jar. The big discount store would have all off this cheaper by a bit, I’m sure.
So simply looking around the shelves and finding the cheapest version of essentially the same product can do wonders for stretching your budget. The flavors will be different – I personally prefer the Silver Palate spaghetti sauce and am willing to pay the extra $1.30 or so over the Ragu price to get it – but when pinching pennies is your goal, there’s definitely ways to pinch while not resigning yourself to eating cold cereal 3 meals a day.
I like the Aldi crunchy fillets shown below. They’re the same fish and breading as sticks but different plank shapes. I think a box is about $4-5 per 10. Two on a kaiser roll or squishy burger bun make for a nicely proportioned sandwich. The silicone baking sheet makes cleanup effortless.
Again, not eating out every meal is laudable and much less expensive as you’ve pointed out.
A number of us are pushing home-cooked, either fully personally prepped or half-prepped foods.
A number of us are pushing various higher-quality premade foods, of the heat and serve variety.
Considering your comments about being able to cook but normally not doing so, which is more helpful. Or do you want more options in the middle (hacks such as par-cooking chicken, and then throwing in a pot with Rotel and rice until the rice is done completing the dish)?
All ideas are welcome as I hope there are other readers who may be able to benefit from so many great suggestions too.
I think I needed a giant mindset change and this was in service of achieving that goal. Ideas for a meal that I can eat 3 days in a row works well. That way I stay out of the store and only have to cook twice a week. Well, except for an easy omelette kind of thing.
My freezer is small so freezing doesn’t work well for me.
I’m very phasey- I’ll make/eat something 3-7 times a week for a few weeks- and it’s currently pan fried boiled potatoes.
A pound of small white boiling potatoes (Size B) in salted water, pulled a little firm. Chill overnight, uncovered. Slice half the potatoes cold, 3-4 ‘coins’ from each spud and peel loose skin. Plop into a medium skillet with some olive oil, s&p, 2 sprigs of thyme. Flip after they dry up a bit and pick up some color, 10 minutes? Allow to brown on the flipped sides. Squeeze in some lemon juice and cover to let the juice steam resoften the crispy potatoes. Turn off heat and keep covered till cool enough to eat. They should be lemony, salty, finger-food-firm.
I use the better olive oil for this saute. Last night, I tossed in a handful of bread end cubes and they developed a wonderful chewy surface that wasn’t tough or hard. I can’t wait to make it again tonight with the second half of the potatoes.
The cost is pretty low. The potatoes have been two 2-lb bags for $3 and are washed so straight into the pot. I’ve been on a thyme kick, it’s just so tasty. The fruit market here sells fresh herbs for 99 cents or less. Thyme is a lot more durable than some, drying instead of rotting.
On reread, that should be ‘a silicone baking…’ The the makes it sound like it comes with one.
That’s a good self-reflection to have. Different people like and enjoy different things, and some love to have the same thing for days, and some can’t stand it.
Okay, considering what you mentioned about limited freezer space, I’d suggest going with more shelf-stable but still easily prepped foods. I’d also suggest that you consider either an electric pressure cooker or a slow cooker/crockpot. You wouldn’t need both, but both are great options for cooking pretty good-sized quantities of food which you can then keep in the fridge for 2-3 days and enjoy.
I have both, and of the two, the pressure cooker is more flexible, but generally also more expensive. A slow cooker is -cheap- but, well, slow, and less flexible, and requires more pre-planning. So, pick what works better for you, or none at all!
Back to dishes you can make and nom on for days, since you’ve brought up omelet’s a few times (yes Discourse, I’ll use the more common American spelling just to shut you up!) - consider an egg and potato frittata. In a skillet (cast iron works great) brown some cubed potatoes (very cheap) with whatever oil/fat you like, along with seasonings (seasoned salt plus cayenne), set aside, and then brown/soften whatever veggies you have lying around (frozen works fine) such as onions, chilies, red bell peppers, mushrooms, again what you LIKE.
Beat 6-8 large eggs (depending on the size of your skillet) with 1/2 a cup of milk, and add any spices you might like (red pepper flakes, cilantro, salt, pepper). Once the skillet has cooled, take everything out and carefully regrease it. Then everyone into the pool, the potatoes and veggies first, as well distributed as possible, along with say a cup of shredded cheese of choice (hold back a small handful). Pour the eggs in, and throw the skillet in a 375F degree oven for 30 minutes before you start testing for doneness. When just about done, toss the last handful of cheese on top along with any fresh herbs you might have left on hand, brown and serve.
With eggs and potatoes, you’ll have a really filling meal on the cheap for days. And you can use it to take care of any leftover veggies you have lying around. Alternately, you can use a hack like I mentioned earlier and in place of veggies, use a can of (well drained!) Rotel as a hack I mentioned earlier.
For more detailed instructions, and a handful of specific combinations:
As a representative option. Although they get the frittata to set first on the stove before going into the oven, but that’s a fair choice as well.
For easy and relatively inexpensive, a bag of frozen pasta (ravioli or tortellini) plus a jar of sauce makes an insanely easy meal. Add some frozen veg while cooking the, pasta, if you like.
If you are eating a lot of beans, an electric pressure cooker is your friend: you can do dried beans in less than an hour. Cheaper than canned, and you’re not shipping water weight like you would with cans. Many of them can do double duty as slow cookers (ours can, though we have never done so).
@Beckdawrek mentions leftover rice for fried rice; it’s also good for rice pudding. And you can take a can of soup and pour it over some rice for a more filling meal, if perhaps a bit light on protein. To solve THAT, you can freeze small amounts of something with protein (e.g if you cook some ground beef, put a little in a zipper bag in the freezer to add to other stuff later).
Rotisserie chickens seem to be loss-leaders at many grocery stores. They cost about the same as a raw roasting chicken (to be fair, they are usually smaller than the raw ones). One of them can feed you for several days. a day or two eating the meat, then pick it off and throw it into something else (see above), or even turn the carcass into soup stock. That’s a lot of extra work - most of it not hands-on, but it does take time. Some ideas here: 12 Ways to Turn a Rotisserie Chicken Into a Week’s Worth of Meals | SELF
Or you can buy that raw chicken and roast it yourself - which will give you more food for the same money, at the cost of more hassle (trussing / roasting, cleaning up the pan afterward). @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness already posted the recipe we use - about as simple as it gets.
I disagree with this advice. The problem with cheap ingredients is that 90% of them are 90% as good as the expensive ingredients and 10% of them are 10% as good. If you’re an experienced cook, you know how to avoid the landmines but for a beginner cook, you’re playing a random roulette where a single bad ingredient can sabotage an otherwise solid recipe and you’re not experienced enough to know, when you don’t like a dish, is it because the recipe is bad, you made it poorly, the ingredients were bad or it’s genuinely not something for you.
If you’re just switching from eating out to cooking, you’re already saving enough money, don’t try to optimize. For your first time around, pick the name brands and ingredients on the upper end of median. Try to give yourself as easy a time as possible to produce tasty food so you avoid feeling discouraged.
If you like the dish and want it in regular rotation, then try it with cheaper ingredients to see if affects the quality. Think about it this way, if you like a dish, you’ll probably cook it 100+ times so overspending the first ~5 times you cook it is really a rounding error. If you don’t like a dish, you’ll cook it once so how much did you really save cheaping out that one time?
Also, don’t try and do too much. I believe they did a study where they went into normal people’s houses and logged what they actually cooked and found that the average family has about 5 - 7 dishes that form the bulk of what they cook. People who just start out cooking think they need to learn 30 different dishes and it’s exhausting and they get burnt out when you really just need a solid core repetoire that you enjoy eating and you could make by instinct.
That’s the one we always use. The meat doesn’t taste salty at all. Possibly the high temperature + shorter roasting time prevents the worst of the vulcanization! Drippings might be a little too salty, if you are trying to make gravy.
I’ve made chicken roasted in a salt crust, also - basically several pounds of rock salt, held together with water and a little egg white, completely encasing the chicken. Takes heavy weaponry to crack that crust after it’s done (our sharpening steel just barely does the trick). The meat is incredibly moist, and does not taste oversalted at all. The skin is not crisp (I don’t think so; it’s been years since we made it), and there are no usable drippings, but it’s easily the tastiest chicken I’ve ever cooked. I don’t recommend it to the OP, because it truly is a lot of hassle.
Probably beyond the scope of the OP’s interest at the moment, but that’s true as far as seasoning goes, but for some uses you need to use a specific type - because kosher salt measures differently than generic table salt (I learned that the hard way when making brine for a turkey), and your results might not be as expected. As far as a spoonful here or a dash there, any sort will work. Table salt also usually contains iodine, which is a useful nutrient.