It’s funny how sometimes the people who write into Cheap Eats are on a mighty similar wavelength. In the past couple of months I have had not 1 person, but FOUR people write in asking why I haven’t featured the lowly but economically friendly Banana yet.

The answer is: Bananas just aren’t that sexy to write about. Oh, wait. Never mind - I’m not touching THAT one with a ten foot pole. Oh, wait… now I said POLE. Hurhhh.

Truthfully, bananas are just so excellent as Cheap Eats that I put it in that category of “Save For Rainy Day, When There Is Nothing Else To Write About.”

Today is definitely not rainy, and there are a ton of other food items backlogged at Cheap Eats. But I figured I’d better write about it since there were so many people who wanted to hear about it.

The Banana - Portable. Comes in it’s own wrapper. Kid friendly. Nutritious. Exercise pick-me-up. Damn cheap. Year round imports from warmer climes. Can be used in desserts. Overripe ones can be used in Banana bread. Green ones (or plantains) can be fried (yum).

It is seriously cheap… even at places like Trader Joe’s. I was there the other day and they were selling some really nice ones for like 15 cents or something each. They can be found in ethnic markets for even cheaper. I tend to buy them green unless they’re going to be eaten the same day. I sort of like eating bananas that are just on the cusp of turning yellow. Once they start getting speckled, I hand it off to my wife.

Continue reading “Bananas Are Cheap” …

Helloooo Sodium Nitrite fans. In honor of the upcoming July 4 holiday, I decided to feature hotdogs here at Cheap Eats. But not just any hot dog. No, these are Jennie-O Turkey Franks that I picked up on impulse the other day.

Well, the main reason I picked them up is because they were only $1.00 for a pack of 10 hot dogs. I haven’t had the Jennie-O brand of turkey hot dogs before, but I have bought their packages of ground turkey quite often in the past. I’ve been pleased with the quality of the turkey. We usually used the ground turkey as turkey burgers or in lasagna or tacos.

Hot dogs are just one of those things that you have every so often even though you know how bad they are for you. It’s a nostalgia thing for me… baseball games, beach cookouts, etc. I haven’t had hot dogs for quite awhile now. I’d certainly forgotten how small the supermarket type have shrunk too. These turkey wieners are fricken TINY. Now I’m usually not one to make a big deal about wiener size (huhrr, huhrr…) but as you’ll see below, they sort of get lost in the bun. By the way: Big Buns and Small Wieners, gosh the jokes. The fun never stops, ey?

Continue reading “Jennie-O Turkey Franks” …

“I Got The Mott’s!”

I used to hear this refrain on a daily basis in high school. Cribbed from one of their commercials, this line was a favorite of a friend who used to have little cups of Mott’s Applesauce in his brown bag lunches. Yeah, remember when people used to actually bring lunch to school? I did it all through grade school, high school, and even in college (though by that time, the actual brown bag was a reusable rucksack.)

I remember that people with the right types of desirable snacks did some pretty brisk business in the School Yard Lunch Index. But I don’t think applesauce was one of those desireables…

Anyhow, for some reason or another, I felt nostalgic for those brown bag days so I decided to pick up some applesauce. Interestingly, I was going to shoot for generic store brand but it turns out that the Mott’s name brand Applesauce was cheaper!

There ain’t much “sexy” in applesauce (unless your bedroom habits are weirder than fiction). I don’t know too many people who come home from work and go, “All RIGHT! I got that job promotion! Now, I’m going to have me a bowl of applesauce.”

Still, it was sort of pleasant to just have a bowl of the stuff. At the below price of $2.50 for 3 friggin pounds of it, I would wager it’d last for quite awhile. Unless, of course, you ARE the type of person to come home every day and eat a bowl of it.

As far as taste goes, it’s pretty much just like eating an apple that’s been peeled and pureed in a blender. The Mott’s version tastes pretty decent, sort of like drinking plain old apple juice with a ton of pulp in it. Hm… that’s got me thinking if it isn’t possible to make your own applesauce. Anybody try it?

I haven’t done this myself, but I know you can use applesauce in all sorts of other applications: dessert topping, baking addititive, and of course the ever-popular Porkchops and Applesauce made famous by an utterance in The Brady Bunch.

Price: $2.50 for 3 lb. jar
Found At: Albertson’s
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

Sorry folks, my plans for Cheap Eats World Domination have been left by the wayside lately. I’ve been meaning to make a lot more posts per week, but I’ve been sidelined by some serious illness the past 2 weeks.

Anyhow, here today for your enjoyment are a picture of a Kiwi Fruit cut in half that I took about 2 months ago. Yes, I know that Kiwis aren’t what you’d normally consider Cheap Eats. But I actually got these for free. Ah.. nothing quite beats free food.

So anyhow, kiwifruit shouldn’t be confused with those wingless birds in New Zealand, nor the ton of other New Zealand - centric things it can stand for (I think New Zealanders are probably rather pissed about it being called simply “Kiwi” here in the States). This is a fruit that looks like a brown fuzzy egg on the outside with green fruit on the inside with rows of black seeds.

Interestingly enough, according to Wikipedia the kiwi fruit is actually native to China although it is much less popular there. Though the one shown is a standard brown on the outside, green on the inside kiwifruit, I’ve had ones from the Chinese supermarket that are yellow on the inside which are called Golden Kiwifruit. I’m not too fond of these as they are much more sugary sweet… the tartness of the green kiwifruit is what attracts me to it in the first place.

I also LIKE those edible tiny black crunchy seeds on the inside… sort of reminds me of strawberry seeds but more crunchy. I used to peel the kiwifruit completely, and then slice, but if I’m in a hurry and the fruit is ripe enough, I just take a spoon and scoop it out.

Kiwifruit isn’t exactly cheap… you sort of just have to watch for sales. Or visit ethnic supermarkets where they’re much cheaper. But I think it’s a great alternative to getting your standard supermarket fruits, so I’m always looking out for it.

Price: Free
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10

I have been on somewhat of a Couscous kick lately.

The whole reason for the couscous thing is because I had some at my parents house a couple months ago and I’d forgotten how good it was. So the other day I just happened to be at the local Ralph’s and decided to pick some up on impulse.

I usually go to Albertsons where I’m pretty familiar with generic store and off brands and about how much cheaper they are than normal. But at Ralph’s I usually don’t have a clue. Especially the Ralph’s that is closest to me. I actually don’t shop there because the selection, variety and quality of the produce is spotty.

So when I had that hankering for couscous, I could only find one brand (Riceselect?) of plain old couscous and it was a big ass jar of it. I know they have those all-in-one-box ones but I wanted to see how the plain one was. I was pretty determined to buy couscous that day.

So determined that I ended up buying the 32 ounce tub of it and it cost me godamn $6!

Later, I found out that while that’s not super cheap, it’s not THAT bad. It comes out to around 20 cents an ounce. Since a normal serving is about 1/4 cup, you get about 20 servings in this tub. Checking online, I deduced it goes for anywhere from 10 to 40 cents an ounce… with the ready-mix ones with flavor at the top end of the range.

So what the hell is couscous? For the longest time, I thought it was an actual grain… and in fact surfing around Wikipedia showed that it IS considered a grain in countries outside the U.S. Which explains my confusion because the tub reads “Quality Durum Wheat Moroccan Style PASTA”. I believe it is made from semolina which is another name for this ground up durum wheat. Also it is called “Maftoul” in some of the other countries where it is pretty popular.

Whatever it is, it’s delicious and my absolute favorite thing about it is the fast cooking time. You just boil up water, add salt and flavorings, then add the couscous (about 1 cup for 1 cup of water). Stir few times, turn off the heat and cover for 5 minutes. Then fluff it up with a fork. Done! Much faster than making white rice.

Continue reading “Couscous” …

[Note: I’ve been having major issues with my right shoulder from using the computer too much. Oh, the evils of technology. As such, you may notice Cheap Eats posts a little shorter and less frequent in coming weeks.]

All my life, I’ve lived in an Avocado Paradise.

It’s the combination of the mild Southern California climate with my parent’s backyard avocado trees that contributed most to this paradise. Growing up, I thought EVERYONE had avocado trees in their backyards. I had no idea that they weren’t the norm for most folks. Until I moved out.

So I realized I’ve been taking avocados for granted. That realization came one day after a trip down the produce aisle. Avocados can be crazy expensive. I wasn’t about to pay two dollars or whatever the cost was for ONE squishy looking avocado. I headed over to the parents place, where the two trees in the backyard have been consistently producing fruit twice a year for over 40 years.

Some people don’t like avocados, because they are sort of fattening. Or they also don’t like the puke-green-brown color they take on after having been mashed up for guacamole and left out for awhile.

They are pretty high on my list of Cheap Eats, however. Mostly because they are free for me, but also because of their versatility. You can put them in salads, tuck them in burritos, smash them for 7 layer dip, or eat them on toast.

Continue reading “Avocados” …

Now that I’m getting up a lot earlier due to being on a much different time schedule (try up at 6:30am, bed at 11:00pm instead of 10:30am - 2:00am), I actually find that if I don’t eat breakfast in the morning I tend to fall asleep at the keyboard by ten or so.

I’m not a morning person, so I never understood those people who claimed to love getting up at 6 in the morning, going for a jog and then having breakfast by 7 am. But amazingly, the breakfast thingy is sort of working out. Energy in the morning? Amazing. So you might be seeing more breakfast related things here on Cheap Eats.

Like these Kroger brand Corn Bitz. This store-brand “toasted corn cereal” is basically a wannabe version of the popular Chex brand cereal from General Mills. You know - the cereal that everyone uses to make those Chex Holiday mixes and then try pass it off as their “main dish” at potlucks. I’m kidding… I like Chex Party Mix.

I had some serious doubts about the generic version of Chex. But it was fairly cheap for this full size box, around $2 or so. So we picked it up to try out.

As far as looks and texture goes, Corn Bitz, is pretty much the same as Chex. Crunchy, crosshatched yellow corn bits that are hollow inside. I was actually expecting there to be more than a few “casualties of war” in the box… that is, smashed up Corn Bitz. Surprisingly, the damage was minimal with most of the corn soliders quite intact.

Continue reading “Kroger Corn Bitz” …