Hi there Cheap Eaters - well, it’s Thanksgiving time already and I’m already running around starting the prep for the turkey (cooked Alton Brown style as usual) and other dishes. So, I don’t have much time to blog - in lieu of the usual wit and repartee, here are three different dish pics representing “eating out”, “buying prepared food and eating in” and “eating in from scratch”:

Ah yes, fish tacos. There’s a halfway decent place near us called Dorados that has fried fish tacos with cabbage, salsa, guacamole - $2 per taco (they used to be less). Not the cheapest, but we like these a lot as far as the fried fish tacos go.

Have you ever tried taking a pic by holding the camera in one hand and a wild, flopping half-eaten fish taco in the other? Not the easiest of things…

I often make a quick pit stop at Trader Joe’s… that is when there’s parking in the lot. For the longest time I was under the impression that this is a high-end foodie shop for those with wallets fatter than a Burger King Enormous Omelet Sandwich. However, there are certain products that are much cheaper at Trader Joe’s than in normal supermarkets. Things like mushrooms, Lactaid, arugula - I find they’re much cheaper (and more fresh) than the average supermarket.

Also, since I’m at the market anyway, I often pick up a package of their pre-made pasta thingies to cook at home for lunch - they have ravioli, tortellini, lasagna, and so-on. These Pesto Tortellini were very good, and I think the one package was about $2.25 or so. It was much more than I could eat as well. I figure an average Healthy Choice frozen dinner is $2, so why not go with the fresh stuff. Simple butter garlic sauce, with some grated parmesan on top.

Finally, this is supposed to be Chicken Chile Verde made from scratch, but it turns out I made it too salty so I had to keep diluting the heck out of it until it became Chicken Soup. It was pretty good, sort of like Tortilla Soup you get at restaurants. I often make Chile Verde Pork, but I had some chicken breast in the fridge so I decided to try that instead. On reflection, it looks an awful lot like Progresso Soup. The amount of effort I put into it versus opening a can of soup - I don’t want to talk about that. =) But I’ll try get a recipe up if I make it again.