That’s what she calls it. I think it’s more ‘vegetable soup’. The SO likes to get a bunch of canned veg from the dollar store and make a soup out of it. She doesn’t have a ‘recipe’, but just throws it together. I think it’s basically a couple of cans of chili, a couple of cans of corn, a couple of cans of green beans, and a couple of cans of Rotel’s salsa. There might be a couple of cans of mixed vegetables too, but I’d have to look to see if there are any carrots in it. I didn’t notice any last night.
I wouldn’t call it ‘chili’, but it’s pretty good. And I don’t have to cook! She also made some cornbread. I always used a cast iron frying pan for my cornbread, but she uses a glass baking dish. She tried the cast iron frying pan this time. It came out a little overdone, but that’s OK. I like the crispy bottom you get in the iron pan. Nothing like soup and cornbread when the weather starts getting cold!
Sounds a bit like simple pasta fagioli with a southwestern tilt.
(Two cans of cannellini, two cans of diced tomatoes, two cups of beef broth, 1 can of other beans - black, navy or my fave pinquitos - two cups of small dry pasta, simmer, serve.)
Not sure I’d eat anything from the dollar stores, though…
And it’s not all off-brand stuff. I don’t shop there as a rule, but I’d rather pay a dollar for Pop-Tarts than three-something at the supermarket next door.
If those “Pop-Tarts” have any Chinese writing on them anywhere, I wouldn’t eat them if I were you! Too many Chinese knock-offs in the dollar store for me to trust their foodstuffs. Cleaning supplies, sure. But not food.
My dad makes something like this, and it actually comes out pretty good. He doesn’t do mixed veggies, though. What he comes out with looks like a chili and sorta tastes like one. Of course, my dad works at a wholesale grocery company, and gets a lot of leftovers from there.
I do use mixed veggies with soy sauce and maybe some extra protein thrown in to make a soup that I think tastes pretty good.
There is a steady tide of counterfeit goods into this country; only a fraction is stopped at the ports and borders. Most of it is nearly indistinguishable, at the packaging level, from authentic products. They don’t put “Made in Xinhao” on the back, in Chinese or any other language.
It sells somewhere, and I doubt the major grocery chains buy their goods from shady resellers.
I buy some food from the dollar store. Dollar Tree sells a New Orleans style spice mix that is my go-to spice for many different things and my favorite general use spice mix of any available at any price. I also like their diced garlic in a jar and a some of their pickles and hot sauces. You can buy canned stuff from them as well. There isn’t anything wrong with them but they aren’t an especially good deal and sometimes even cost more than a real supermarket running a sale.
Prob’ly 'cause I’ve not been in a dollar store in a long time.
That’s what my dad called 'em. Sort of the grocer version of a scratch ‘n’ dent furniture store. Never had any issue with them except one box of obviously rancid cereal.
Major dollar store or discount chains like Family Dollar, Dollar General, Fred’s, etc sell real, honest to goodness brand names as well as their ‘private label’ lines (also made by legitimate manufacturers like Kraft or Kellogg’s or whatever). It’s not like the FDO or DG merchandiser hangs out by the docks waiting to buy a cheap cargo container off the latest ship to come in.
Because of their market penetration (Dollar General alone has almost 12,000 stores in the U.S.) they can often get concessions from the food producers in terms of price and sizing, which is why you can often get the same product at a cheaper price. Often, the size and price are the same but the dollar store capitalizes on customer convenience - you can be in and out of the Family Dollar with your (real) Pop-Tarts before you’ve parked and crossed the lot to the entrance of a Super Wal-Mart.
I have a client who owns several dollar stores.
Every month or two, he gets a couple of containers of goods from China. He’s told me he’s never quite sure what he’s getting before-hand so he has to be quick on the uptake when it comes to putting out ads and circulars. He’s also specifically told me that what’s labeled “Colgate” toothpaste in his stores isn’t actually Colgate, but it sells for a buck and he gets it for WAY cheap and people buy it. Every single thing he sells in his stores come off of containers of stuff shipped directly from China.
Fake Colgate, containing potentially toxic ingredients and lead.
So, yeah, no. Some stores really do sell legit “bent and dent” products and that’s frugal and fine. But many, if not most, don’t.
The trick with things like canned and frozen fruit and veggies is that they can get around country of origin if the product inside is mixed. So a can of beans, carrots and corn only has to list where it was actually packed together. So it can just say it was packaged in Mexico when actually the beans came from China, carrots from Thailand, and corn from India. A can of just beans has to list where those beans came from.
I only came across this information when there was a recall of organic mixed fruit that was packaged in the US, but the actual berries inside came from four different countries and the problem was hepatitis A in pomegranate seeds that came from Turkey. But the package only listed the US distributor.
The only way to be sure your packaged food isn’t from China is to buy only single-item contents.
It was called “Cooldent”. Not “Colgate.” The claim was that the brand name stuff is so well forged that you can’t tell the difference. So far, that claim remains unsupported.
But your client is why I don’t buy food or toothpaste at independently owned 99+ Dollar Everything Less Than $5 and Up! kind of stores. The story you linked to doesn’t name names, which tells me they probably didn’t make it to Dollar Tree or Dollar General or Family Dollar, as that would have been newsworthy.
I don’t know about the dollar store stuff, except I used to get stuff like hair clips there when I had really long hair, and went through pins and barrettes by the gross.
But, I do make “fake chili” a few times a year when I’m feeling lazy…Aldi stuff. 2 cans “chili beans,” 2 cans Rotel or equivalent, a pound or so of ground meat or “pot roast” meat, garlic, a whole ancho chili or 2, onions, handful of cumin, some Chachere’s spice, oregano, and cilantro if I have it. Maybe that bell pepper that’s withering in the corner of the fridge. It’s pretty good. Throw it all in the pressure cooker for an hour, serve with cornbread or PB bread or saltines, sour cream and shredded cheese on top.
She also made some cornbread. I always used a cast iron frying pan for my cornbread, but she uses a glass baking dish. She tried the cast iron frying pan this time. It came out a little overdone, but that’s OK. I like the crispy bottom you get in the iron pan. Nothing like soup and cornbread when the weather starts getting cold! 
