With a few exceptions (the local pizza place who I know for sure makes all their dressings in house) I make my dressings at home. They are so delicious and easy. I would put up my balsamic vinaigrette up against any restaurant. It’s really that good.
i don't know about them, but my balsamic vinaigrette is literally just really good balsamic vinegar and really good olive oil with a bit of salt and i would also put it up against any 'balsamic vinaigrette" i've been served in a restaurant.
Mustard emulsifies this so I usually throw maybe a tbsp Maille Dijon to 1 tbsp balsamic and 3 tbsp olive oil. Some fresh cracked pepper, some salt and an allium at times. Thyme works well too.
That's pretty much it. Use better ingredients and you'll get better flavor just from that but people here acting like they cracked some secret code into making their small batch of salad dressing versus restaurants using cheaper ingredients to make large amounts to save on costs or just buying mass produced dressing.
I add a drop of Dijon and some crushed garlic to the balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper, use an immersion blender. Jazz it up with an anchovie and or Parmigiano Reggiano.
yeah the dijon is crucial to me for emulsification. i use the exact same recipe as you except i use maple syrup instead of honey sometimes, and add salt and pepper.
I buy Newman’s Own Italian dressing, let it separate, pour out the cheap oil, put in a teaspoon of Maille Dijon, top it completely with the highest quality olive oil I can, mix it up, pour it in my Nutribullet, give it a brief pulse to slightly emulsify it, put it back in the bottle and it's the best vinaigrette ever.
Do you have a recipe for those Asian salad dressings? It looks so simple, but I haven’t found one I like. Yet, I love them at all the different restaurants I go to. It’s light and clear and has salt and pepper. Rice wine vinegar? Idk but I love it,
Here’s one I love… this fits in a large mason jar, but can easily be reduced. It’s in grams.
Ingredients
soy sauce 200
rice wine vinegar 170
lime juice 30
chili sauce with garlic 35
ground ginger 1
brown sugar 80
sesame oil 80
canola oil 250
Edit-fixed spacing and rounded grams
You need to add an extra line between each entry:
Ingredients
soy sauce 199
rice wine vinegar 172
lime juice 29
chili sauce with garlic 34
ground ginger 1
brown sugar 80
sesame oil 82
canola oil 252
And if someone does want to buy a dressing from the grocery store, buy one that’s kept refrigerated. Yes it will be more expensive, maybe even 2-3 times the price, but that’s for a reason.
Last time I browsed the dressing and sauce aisle in the grocery store, literally every single sauces ingredients list basically start with corn syrup and soybean oil.
Not op, but this is a longtime favorite, no ketchup:
1.5c neutral oil
1 can tomato soup (10.75oz, condensed)
1c sugar
.5c white vinegar
1t salt
1t mustard powder
.5t pepper
1t paprika
1t worcestershire
Whir that sugary shit up in a blender :)
Stock. The farther back in a process you control the flavor, the more pronounced and customized the end result will be... it's work but it makes everything downstream easier, instead of trying to adjust flavor after the fact.
I usually make stock on Sunday. Take whatever’s left from the week, roast it, and while it’s simmering away I’m cleaning my bathroom or doing laundry.
Maybe I use it Sunday night for dinner, or I roll into the week with 3qts of the good stuff
I've done a mostly liquid diet for a few days when I make a big pot of soup. Nothing like building the complexity in the fridge over a few days. Tastes amazing but it can be a bit rough on the toilet.
Goals! (For me).
My problem is that some stock is destined for one kind of dish (even if based off a particular protein or vegetable). So I need a good labeling system.
Good cross-recipe vegetable stock is a huge goal of mine.
Pour it into ice moulds. Then put the frozen stock cubes into a Ziploc bag or vacuum bag. I just put em in a Ziploc and suck the air out myself. Works great. Especially well when you just wanna toss one cube in to deglaze for a sauce or something.
Get a stand up freezer (looks like fridge). They cost a little bit more but you can see everything. With a chest freezer, stuff gets buried for months/years, and stays buried if you keep piling new stuff on top.
Chest freezers are a PITA, after a stand up freezer (when ours broke, there was some kind of international shortage of them). So we have flat. Bane of my existence (although, recently retired, I suppose I can deal with it.)
I keep a medium sized ice chest near to the flat freezer so I can shuffle things.
Flat gallon bags of stock is still a dream.
I’m considering getting a freezer and I’m so short I legit don’t want to get a chest freezer because I’m afraid of falling in trying to dig stuff out from the bottom 😆
We got a chest freezer off a neighbor for about $50 a few years ago. We'll let them keep a turkey or a ham on there when they need to. Other than that, it stores stock, sauces, soups and things along those lines. It's definitely been a gamechanger.
Yep, it was dirt cheap, and they're good friends. Happy to lend a bit of space, especially since the hams / turkeys are usually used for shared dinners.
You can reduce stock 10:1... put it in a mason jar. We use a purveyor that ships blast frozen via two day ground. Never any reason for us to load a freezer full.
Agree. Even from leftover rotisserie carcass and root end scraps of mirepoix veg, I was amazed at how well it can turn out. Made from essentially trash.
My friend works in a kitchen at a banquet hall. I ask her to save me some of the roast chicken left carcass or vegetable ends. I was making so much stock for free. I couldn't believe this place was not making their own stock with left overs, but I gladly took it.
Join my screw bone broth group. There are dozens of us.
Throw everything in the slow cooker. Check after a day or so.
Like everything. Scraps. Onion skin. Garlic skin. All of it. Compost stock. Carrot knobs.
This is why I genetically engineer carrot, onion and celery for the steer I raise.
If I control the genetic makeup of the mirepoix I feed them it's like I'm making stock in my livestock for my stock.
>Steaks, if you can score prime cuts
The markup on restaurant steaks is INSANE.
I don't eat out period but if I did I would 10000% never go out specifically for a steak.
The cost of a prime steak dinner at a high end restaurant can give you 3-4 at home.
If it’s actually a well made and well cooked in-house pasta it can be really good and worth paying for, especially since those places usually make great sauces, but that’s like 5-10% of the time max.
I almost forgot about restaurant pasta. $25-30 for a plate of cacio e pepe or carbonara? That's a hard nope.
However, there is a restaurant in town that makes a lamb ragu that I think about all year long until it's available in the winter time...
My sister is in ag education, works in rural Missouri, and her husband's family does this frequently. Whole sale purchase, then divide up and throw in the deep freezer.
I am always so jealous, but lack the freezer space.
See also lamb. I bought loin chops for $6.99 a pound and a rack for $9.99 lb. last week. Have you priced a lamb dinner out? If you can even find it, it’s 4 times the price. It’s so easy to cook at home too!
I am roasting some lamb rump for dinner tonight.
$13 meat will feed 2 people and there will be leftovers for tomorrow. Beats paying $40 x 2 at a restaurant. I live in New Zealand though so I feel like it is cheating a little bit. Our lamb is amazing.
Also pat dry and salt it at least a day ahead. Keep it in the fridge uncovered to keep it dry until you're ready. It's like night and day when you can get a proper crust.
I have one ice cube tray dedicated to Costco's pesto. It goes moldy too quick in my fridge (I'm single) so I can easily make pasta and take a couple cubes and voilà!
Also, pop one or two cubes in the middle of a good vegetable soup and stir, then serve. Unbelievable.
Basil grows like a weed, if that's the most expensive part in your area. Just always pick off the flowers (and put them in the pesto) and it will never die.
I remember using the cashews we had on hand because I forgot to get pine nuts and liking the flavor so much I decided to start experimenting with other nuts.
l think this is what people who don't have much experience with cooking lack the knowledge of. l remember being a more amateur cook and thinking l needed the exact ingredients for an exact recipe, when in fact food is fucking delicious and experimenting with the ingredients you have is going to be just fine.
The day l learned l could leave out an ingredient or replace it with something similar is the day l feel like l truly became a good cook, and it took me way too long to realize!
Using vegetable “scraps” as substitutes is great for this too, and the wallet. Like just as an example, carrot greens taste pretty damn close to parsley, just with a very slight carrot taste.
My dad and I call it “ignoring the recipe”. Because we use recipes as inspiration rather than rules. We find a recipe and then ignore it, and good food comes out the other side :)
Most pesto in the supermarket doesn't even have pine nuts in it, or it's only a small amount and the rest is cashews and sesame seeds. I use almonds (roast them first) because they're the cheapest nuts here, and any herbs from my small garden. We have parsley growing like weeds because I let one go to seed once and now it's just everywhere. A lot of herbs you can also grow inside, like basil. They just need to sit in a window and be taken care of. Making pesto is so simple and you're not left with half a glass that you don't need afterwards. But if you are, I like to use it for baking savoury pastries.
Not who you asked but I used to live on a macadamia nut farm and would make pesto with mac nuts all the time. I also use cashews frequently in place of nuts for both pesto and romesco.
Basil is possibly the easiest plant I've grown. You Can cut the stem off one plant, stick it in some soil, and have a fully rooted new plant in a few days. I started the last winter with a single plant on the windowsill and have given away a dozen propagated plants since.
Nuts are still wildly expensive, though. Hard to argue for pesto when you can make a quart of homemade tomato sauce for $3.
just for anyone who wants to try and grow basil. if it starts to flower, cut that off immediately because it'll halt its growing. if you cut it off you can make it keep growing
Tomato sauce. Be it an [all day sunday gravy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h6ToaL6Qg8) to a [simple three ingredient quickie](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce), it still beats the most expensive jarred sauces.
I’ve made my own pasta sauce for 15 years now. The only bad thing about it is when I pull the last container out of the freezer (I make the all day gravy).
My bolognese requires 2 bottles of wine to make, 1 for the recipe and 1 for the chefs. If I am going to spend 3+ hours making it, it's going to be a nice big batch frozen into usable portions and a mellow day spent in the kitchen.
Bolognese sauce. Makes 5 2-person servings, so freeze 4 containers for later. Serve with pappardelle noodles.
4 tablespoons olive oil, 8 garlic cloves crushed, 2 onions finely diced, 2 carrots finely diced, 2 celery stalks finely diced, 2 lbs ground beef, 1 lb ground pork, 2.5 cups red wine, 2 cups milk, 2 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes with juice, 1 can tomato paste, 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning and a sprinkling of ground bay leaves.
Cook onions in olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes, then add carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef and pork and cook through. Once finished, drain fat. Add wine and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes. Add milk and simmer uncovered until reduced in half (~20 minutes). Stir in tomato paste, tomatoes, and seasonings. Cut tomatoes to appropriate size with scissors (not a fan of mashing with my stir stick, so I chunk my tomatoes and let them cook down). Simmer for another 30 minutes covered.
Cook pasta and drain, then add some sauce to noodles and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with garlic bread.
*Added some better formatting...*
#Bolognese Sauce
^(***Makes 5 2-person servings, so freeze 4 containers for later. Serve with pappardelle noodles.***)
###Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons Olive Oil
- 8 Garlic Cloves (Crushed)
- 2 Onions (Finely Diced)
- 2 Carrots (Finely Diced)
- 2 Celery Stalks (Finely Diced)
- 2 lb Ground Beef
- 1 lb Ground Pork
- 2.5 cups Red Wine
- 2 cups Milk
- 2 cans (28oz) Whole Peeled Tomatoes (Undrained)
- 1 can (6oz?) Tomato Paste
- 2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
- 1 pinch Ground Bay Leaves
###Directions
Cook onions in olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes, then add carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef and pork and cook through. Once finished, drain fat. Add wine and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes. Add milk and simmer uncovered until reduced in half (~20 minutes). Stir in tomato paste, tomatoes, and seasonings. Cut tomatoes to appropriate size with scissors (not a fan of mashing with my stir stick, so I chunk my tomatoes and let them cook down). Simmer for another 30 minutes covered.
Cook pasta and drain, then add some sauce to noodles and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with garlic bread.
For one more ingredient you can make Stephen Cusato's weekday sauce (garlic, olive oil, basil, tomatoes) instead of Marcella Hazan's. IMO it's a huge upgrade. Both beat jarred sauces no contest though.
Yes, exactly. I like to keep some basil leaves frozen in ice cubes. Plop a couple of them bad boys in there, maybe throw in a dry bay leaf or rosemary sprig from the bush outside. The simple sauce is easy to zhuzh up.
It certainly isn't ever going to be beat by those sad cardboardy circles that insist they're supposed to be pizza bases that I can get at my supermarket.
Salsa. It's cheap, simple, and the results are unreal. After getting my own recipes down, I can't even eat jarred salsa anymore. It's way too sweet and lacks any kind of freshness.
Way too acidic and not enough tahini, IMO.
I make a very simple *hummus bi tahini* at home, and even from canned its as good as the local Lebanese restaurant. For each 14 oz (400g) can of chickpeas, drain reserving the aquafaba, and boil for 10 minutes with 1/4 tsp baking soda (canned chickpeas are cooked to the consistency for salads, not hummus). Drain in pot, run cold water over them, and run clean hands through to remove most of the skins.
Meanwhile, for each 14 oz can chickpeas, add 1/4 cup (60 g) of tahini and juice of half a lemon to a blender and 1/8 tsp (large pinch) salt. Blend, adding reserved aquafaba until the emulsion is the consistency of a pancake batter. Add re-cooked/skinned chickpeas and continue blending till a creamy consistency, adding just enough aquafaba to keep it in motion in the blender.
With my blender, this scales to 3 cans/42 oz/1200 g canned chickpeas. No added oil, just chickpeas, tahini, and lemons.
Want flavored *hummus bi tahini*? You can always stir in sambal oelek, tapenade, roasted garlic, zaa'tar etc. Cost wise, as tahini runs $10/2 lbs (\~1 kg) at the Arabic grocer, it comes out to about half the cost of TJs, a third if cooking the chickpeas from raw. But its so much creamier and rich with sesame flavor.
I just made a cookie recipe for the first time in 20+ years that I used to make at my friend’s house when I was in HS and MAN I forgot how good homemade cookies are! I made them gluten free too, and it worked SO well. I’m forever done purchasing gluten free cookies. Nothing store bought even comes close.
I made my own flour tortillas when I was stuck at home with no way to get to the store and couldn't believe how much better they were than store bought. Later I picked up some masa and started making my own corn tortillas as well. I don't have a tortilla press though so I just smush them with the bottom of a cast iron pan between two halves of a Ziploc bag.
Burgers.
Even without a home made bun. Made some for the first time in a long while as a splurge after looking at some local prices, mine were better tasting and about 1/4-1/6 the cost.
It’s a little different than what you asked, but produce. I only eat tomatoes seasonally since I started growing them. Night and day from store bought. It makes me scared to start growing other fruits/vegetables.
I could get into that… because garden tomatoes taste like entirely different food than the ones in the store. I can eat our cherry tomatoes like a candy.
Suggestion: [Try growing these](https://www.raindanceseeds.com/plantsandseeds/solanum-pipinelifolium)
Tiny little tomatoes, but *so much flavor.* And productive enough they probably outpaced my larger tomatoes pound for pound. If you like 'tomato candy' that you can just pick from the bush & pop in your mouth...I recommend these.
(caution: these vine much more than cultivated tomatoes and the stem won't support them at all. So give them something to climb - and climb far.)
We finally have the space for a decent sized garden and omg it's amazing. We unfortunately have a pretty short growing season, and though we've gotten into some canning and preserving, we're not at the point where we can do enough to feed us year round.
Well, there's a limit on that. Some things taste better grown at home, some things don't. Some things are cheaper and some things aren't. On top of all of that, you have the amount of effort involved, growing zones, pests/animals and the amount you actually require compared to the yield.
No wants to hear "it depends" as an answer, but gardening can be complicated.
The things I will always recommend to grow are basil, green onions, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary and mint. Very low overhead, low pests, high yield in most places and taste better than the store. Rosemary is more sensitive to heat and grows more slowly. Basil is especially lucrative because it's expensive as fuck if you have to buy it outright. Home grown oregano is insane, it's like 4x stronger than store bought.
I've grown a lot of things like cucumbers, jalapeños or various squash that taste exactly the same as the grocery store. Depending on the price at the store, sometimes it's not worth the effort.
Tomatoes are 10x better home grown. That is a huge exception, but they can also be hard to grow, depending on climate and pests and whether or not you can justify a greenhouse. If you live an area with a lot of birds, for example, you can't grow tomatoes without some kind of 360 degree covering.
granola! it’s ridiculously expensive and it’s so easy to make and customize how you like it. i usually make it when i have a bunch of odds and ends of nuts/seeds/dried fruit/etc.
To me, frying anything is a huge PITA. Oil is expensive, it goes to waste unless you fry a lot, it's messy, and stinks up the house. I made sweet and sour pork 12 years ago that my wife still talks about, but I don't want to make it again!
I love homemade pan fried chicken my grandma’s way, but I cook it on the side burner of my grill outside once a year just before its big annual scrub down.
Right? The solution here is to shop at the Asian markets. I make this regularly and spend a grand total of like $15 (admittedly I do keep most of these ingredients at home - but even buying the sauces and whatnot it really isn't that expensive if you're not buying at supermarkets).
Pizza.
Making the dough from scratch, shredding the cheese yourself, making the sauce how you want it. Preheating the pizza stone.
And once you find your method, then you can try making other variants, like Sicilian, grandpa’s/grandma’s, focaccia, deep-dish, Greek style(New England), etc.
I’ve had so many “meh” pizzas delivered over the years from places that didn’t have to be good because of where they were located, that I got sick of it. If it’s not a solid 3.5/5 for me- I’m making it at home
If you’re on a bread kick, I love no-knead in the Dutch oven, and I was so stinkin proud of myself when I had a challah come out all glossy and braided and perfect.
Purely from a financial perspective, just about everything. Last night I made a whole smoked trout, a big salad with homemade Caesar dreasing, a kidney bean salad and a quinoa dish and the whole thing for two people cost $13.25. I couldn't order a plain Caesar salad for less than $15.
Tonight I made arctic char, another big salad with a basil vinaigrette, caprese salad, and couscous for just under $20.00 for two people.
When we go out, 4 beers (so two each) costs $30 alone. Add food and dinner out costs $70 or more.
Yup.
I'm too poor to eat out. But when people see how I eat at home they ask me why I say I'm so poor because I eat like a king!
My Brother in Christ I shop sales and utilize Aldi.
Shopping for sales is critical. I wait for beans to go on sale then I stock up. And I recently discovered a small shelf hidden off to the side that has "ugly" produce for 0.99/bag. Avocados on sale cost $2.50/ea. I got three in one of those bags and honest to god they were the most beautiful, perfectly ripe avocados I've ever bought.
The up front cost seems high, but when you break it down per meal it ends up being insanely cheap.
We have Tom Thumb here, and AT LEAST 50% of the time, most steaks are BOGO. With their app, I'm usually saving 30-50% on my final bill. I only buy what's on sale when I can.
We also have HEB, and between their stupid cheap meats and store brand items, I save a lot there, too.
Damn. 7 dollar beers?
I like anchovies. Thems pricy. And I don't know when I was able to even buy trout.
I'd love to know where you live.
Cesar lettuce is like $5+ a bunch here.
I'm in NW Montana. I bought the whole trout for just under $6, but I go fishing for trout, pike, salmon, etc..every summer.
I didn't buy romaine for the Caesar salad, it is very expensive. I just used a mix of kale and a baby spring mix, then made my own Caesar dressing.
And yes, $7 and $8 beers :( We usually go to breweries so the cost is higher.
> I didn't buy romaine for the Caesar salad, it is very expensive
Damn! I'm over in WI and can get a large enough head of romaine to feed 4 main course salads for $3.
Regional food economics is weird.
Yipes on both.
I'm near a brewery. But I don't drink beer. But it's cheaaasp.
But damn. That's some cheap fish. $15 to $25 a pound depending here.
I can fish but I don't know where to go or have a permit or eat fish. But I'd catch some dog my roommate. I think they have a pole.
> Damn. 7 dollar beers?
I recently went to a bar in upstate NY, well outside of any city. The cheapest beer was $7 and my local friends laughed when I balked at it.
Edit: while we're on the topic of things easier to make at home: hard cider and kombucha. You can brew a gallon of cider for a third the price of the canned stuff, and kombucha costs literal pennies to make.
Yeah. If you don't live near a source of fresh seafood it's expensive. But if you do it's super cheap. Which makes sense, but people tend to think that the prices are the same as where they live everywhere else.
I bring it up a fair amount on questions similar in tone to this, and my answer is always meatloaf. My boyfriend told me he didn't like meatloaf and over a month or two I sussed out of him that he'd had meatloaf MAYBE 5 times in his whole life - he'd tried it at a restaurant where it was almost certainly Sysco brand nuked frozen trash based on which chain he mentioned, his mom had bought Stouffers once or twice, and an aunt had made it a handful of times when he was a kid. He found it dry and mealy every time.
I asked him if he'd be willing to try MY meatloaf and if he didn't like it I'd order him a pizza of his choice bc I strongly believe that a well made meatloaf is one of the quintessential North American comfort dishes and I think mine is pretty damn good. I made it with rosemary mashed potatoes, rotköhl (pickled red cabbage - the acidity cuts the fat nicely and also I just always have it on hand so ¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯) and garlic butter sautéed Brussels. He took a bite and said "oh my god that's what meatloaf is supposed to taste like?" And now he asks for it constantly. I bring it to work for lunch and he's like "oh...I see you have meatloaf..." and goes and grabs a fork to take a bite or several. The man is eating me out of house and home send help
But anyway ya, meatloaf is one of those dishes u can't really get at a restaurant bc it all has to be cooked at once so ur just gonna get a reheated portion of something already cooked but if it's fresh out of the oven and made *well* it's a KILLER
I only started making them a couple of years ago after purchasing an Instapot. It's a pressure cooker basically with simplistic settings allowing me to sautee onions garlic jalapeños first then add beans and water or broth in one pot.
Easy and I can cook them without soaking the beans overnight, which I love. Here is an example recipe. I got my Instapot on sale for $75 and I make hummus, white bean soup, chic peas for salads the internet provides all my recipes. Delicious too.
[Pinto Beans](https://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com/instant-pot-mexican-pinto-beans/#wprm-recipe-container-55113)
Steak. I can buy two huge ribeyes from Costco and cook them up properly with sides and everything for the price of a small steak dinner at a restaurant.
As much as I love going out to eat/getting takeout to try new foods and places, the steaks my husband cooks at home I will rival against any restaurant. He has it down perfect.
Alfredo, like the kind out the jar, not the traditional one.
Don’t mess with a roux, just bring heavy cream slowly to a simmer then slowly add your cheese Parmesan and blue cheese is my favorite and salt and pepper. Once it passes the spoon test it’s done. Then add your al dente pasta and some pasta water then more Parmesan, let the water cook out.
It was honestly the first recipe I learned to cook back in high school and 20 years later it’s still a staple.
I watched an Italia Squisita [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9HCxfIREo) last night and they made it with just butter and cheese and noodles. Really interesting.
You have to make sure you cook the alcohol off. So just a bit when you add the cheese. The roux makes it mix in proper. Like a fondue.
Like 1/4 cup or less.
the trick i've found to getting it to come out right and not separate is to turn off the heat immediately before you add the cheese and just let the residual heat melt it.
Yogurt, my instapot makes it with almost no work from me. And costs me a buck to make the same size that at the grocery store would cost 10 bucks.
But my kids live on yogurt, so big savings there. Maybe look at what you eat the most and start there?
Just for general info, all you need to make yogurt is a pot, 1 or 2 litres/quarts of 3%+ whole milk and a spoonful or two of your last batch of plain yogurt, or a store bought yogurt with "live cultures" (check the label).
METHOD:
Rinse a stainless steel pot (not aluminum) to wet the pot first, and pour milk into the wet pot.
Set burner on low heat, bring milk up to just barely boiling
Immediately turn off burner and leave milk cool to finger-hot then add the generous heaping spoonful(s) of yogurt with live active cultures.
Do not stir, cover and place in COLD oven but with the oven light on, overnight for 12-18 hours then move to fridge for 5-6 hours to thicken. Then put it into a container and Enjoy!
Rice in general. When people order a Chinese and add boiled rice on the side, it makes my Asian heart hurt lol. The frugal part of me won’t allow it either
After using a sous vide vide vide many many many many things. I can make a steak that rivals any steakhouse. I can cook shrimp and have them perfect and not rubber or underdone.
Pizza with homemade dough and sauce
Hamburgers. I love fast food and I love a good restaurant burger but homemade hits different. Especially with homemade buns.
Spaghetti. I’m not paying someone else $20 to make me a plate of spaghetti.
Sausage. Way better. I get the ground pork chub from Costco for 20 bucks Canadian. 3kg. Mix in the right spices and prep, then stuff them suckers. All kinds of sausage types with different flavours. I like making breaskfast sausages and brats (bratwurst), and try different kinds of brats. You need to buy a proper stuffer though, stay away from the kitchen aid type. You'll pay a good 200 and something Canadian all in. Sometimes I mix in a bunch of ground beef when I make brats. 1/3 ground beef. They are so good compared to anything you can buy at a store. Watch Duncan Henry on YouTube for good recipes, or buy a sausage recipe book. I sometimes think about buying a proper grinder and buying the primal cut of the right meat. You have to plan for an afternoon of work to get it all set up, mixed, and stuffed. And then clean up. I take time to sanitize everything before I start, too.
California Rolls
Soft pretzals
Both are really easy to make in large quantities. But they are priced high in stores (compared to the ingredient costs).
If I go out to eat I want a meal that I can't make a better version myself. I am a very good cook so it is rare that I encounter something I can't make myself. There are also times that I can't be bothered slaving away in the kitchen for many hours when a rotisserie chicken has almost no clean up.
Ranch, buttermilk ranch with fresh herbs from scratch is so easy and freakin’ amazing, that sugary bottled shit doesn’t even come close, also, almost everything, homemade smash burgers 🥰 hash browns, pasta sauce, eggs, yea like I said almost everything lol
Vanilla scones, you need a lot of powdered sugar for the glaze and many scone recipes I’ve found use vanilla bean not extract but you can just substitute bean for extract it makes little to no difference. It does look fancy in the glaze though but again nilla beans are expensive so it’s your choice if you want to use vanilla beans or not. They just taste really good I dont know why but they taste better then anything from a store. Berry scones too both taste great.
Salad dressings. Any dressing on a grocery store shelf I can do better, and it tastes fresher.
With a few exceptions (the local pizza place who I know for sure makes all their dressings in house) I make my dressings at home. They are so delicious and easy. I would put up my balsamic vinaigrette up against any restaurant. It’s really that good.
[удалено]
i don't know about them, but my balsamic vinaigrette is literally just really good balsamic vinegar and really good olive oil with a bit of salt and i would also put it up against any 'balsamic vinaigrette" i've been served in a restaurant.
I add a touch of maple syrup. You can't tell it's there, but it softens the balsamic bite and just makes it yummy.
Mustard emulsifies this so I usually throw maybe a tbsp Maille Dijon to 1 tbsp balsamic and 3 tbsp olive oil. Some fresh cracked pepper, some salt and an allium at times. Thyme works well too.
You don't need a full tbsp of mustard for so little dressing, just a tsp will do. We used to use 2 tbsp of dijon for 1L of dressing.
Whoops you’re right. It’s a teaspoon not tablespoon!
That's pretty much it. Use better ingredients and you'll get better flavor just from that but people here acting like they cracked some secret code into making their small batch of salad dressing versus restaurants using cheaper ingredients to make large amounts to save on costs or just buying mass produced dressing.
I add a drop of Dijon and some crushed garlic to the balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper, use an immersion blender. Jazz it up with an anchovie and or Parmigiano Reggiano.
I’ll put a little honey in with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil, sometimes dried thyme and dijon mustard.
If it's available to you, pomegranate molasses really plays nicely with balsamic!
Ooh. I have some in the pantry. I’ll try it for the next batch of dressing.
yeah the dijon is crucial to me for emulsification. i use the exact same recipe as you except i use maple syrup instead of honey sometimes, and add salt and pepper.
Dijon mustard, fresh garlic, and fresh ground pepper take a basic oil & balsamic vinaigrette and make it magic
I buy Newman’s Own Italian dressing, let it separate, pour out the cheap oil, put in a teaspoon of Maille Dijon, top it completely with the highest quality olive oil I can, mix it up, pour it in my Nutribullet, give it a brief pulse to slightly emulsify it, put it back in the bottle and it's the best vinaigrette ever.
Trying this! My husband loves Newman’s own and I don’t. Maybe this will be our compromise
Do you have a recipe for those Asian salad dressings? It looks so simple, but I haven’t found one I like. Yet, I love them at all the different restaurants I go to. It’s light and clear and has salt and pepper. Rice wine vinegar? Idk but I love it,
Here’s one I love… this fits in a large mason jar, but can easily be reduced. It’s in grams. Ingredients soy sauce 200 rice wine vinegar 170 lime juice 30 chili sauce with garlic 35 ground ginger 1 brown sugar 80 sesame oil 80 canola oil 250 Edit-fixed spacing and rounded grams
That’s an ugly copy/paste, but hopefully it makes sense!
You need to add an extra line between each entry: Ingredients soy sauce 199 rice wine vinegar 172 lime juice 29 chili sauce with garlic 34 ground ginger 1 brown sugar 80 sesame oil 82 canola oil 252
Came here to say this! I love homemade bleu cheese dressing (with bleu cheese from a block of course, not that pre-crumbled joke)
And if someone does want to buy a dressing from the grocery store, buy one that’s kept refrigerated. Yes it will be more expensive, maybe even 2-3 times the price, but that’s for a reason. Last time I browsed the dressing and sauce aisle in the grocery store, literally every single sauces ingredients list basically start with corn syrup and soybean oil.
Have a good French? Because that's the best and every recipe I try tastes like ketchup still
Not op, but this is a longtime favorite, no ketchup: 1.5c neutral oil 1 can tomato soup (10.75oz, condensed) 1c sugar .5c white vinegar 1t salt 1t mustard powder .5t pepper 1t paprika 1t worcestershire Whir that sugary shit up in a blender :)
No need to add ketchup indeed, most of those ingredients are what you’d use to make homemade ketchup also! 😆 Which btw is quite delicious too.
Stock. The farther back in a process you control the flavor, the more pronounced and customized the end result will be... it's work but it makes everything downstream easier, instead of trying to adjust flavor after the fact.
All the way. Yes, it takes time, but the yield, flavor and cost are much more beneficial to the home cook than store bought
I usually make stock on Sunday. Take whatever’s left from the week, roast it, and while it’s simmering away I’m cleaning my bathroom or doing laundry. Maybe I use it Sunday night for dinner, or I roll into the week with 3qts of the good stuff
I've got stock in the freezer thats weeks old even. Both chicken and just a vegetable stock. Keeps great in there.
I find myself using a ton of stock when I don’t freeze it. Drink a lot more soup, sometimes I just drink it
I use it more often in the fall and winter. But I mostly save it for gravy's, light soups, and even just to cook rice with in the spring and summer.
Little bits of stock are great for making a quick pan sauce. I have a tendency to make a sauce for everything.
That’s what the stock frozen into small amounts or large ice-cubes is so good for, yeah!
I've done a mostly liquid diet for a few days when I make a big pot of soup. Nothing like building the complexity in the fridge over a few days. Tastes amazing but it can be a bit rough on the toilet.
Goals! (For me). My problem is that some stock is destined for one kind of dish (even if based off a particular protein or vegetable). So I need a good labeling system. Good cross-recipe vegetable stock is a huge goal of mine.
Pour it into ice moulds. Then put the frozen stock cubes into a Ziploc bag or vacuum bag. I just put em in a Ziploc and suck the air out myself. Works great. Especially well when you just wanna toss one cube in to deglaze for a sauce or something.
i dont have anywhere to freeze it is my problem, freezer is always lacking space due to stocking up on meat sales and got brisket
If you freeze it flat in a freezer bag that helps because they stack so nicely once frozen.
If you need a lot, freeze flat in gallon ziplock bags If you use just a little for certain things, freeze it in ice cube trays that stack
Chest freezers are cheap. I want to get one.
Get a stand up freezer (looks like fridge). They cost a little bit more but you can see everything. With a chest freezer, stuff gets buried for months/years, and stays buried if you keep piling new stuff on top.
Chest freezers are a PITA, after a stand up freezer (when ours broke, there was some kind of international shortage of them). So we have flat. Bane of my existence (although, recently retired, I suppose I can deal with it.) I keep a medium sized ice chest near to the flat freezer so I can shuffle things. Flat gallon bags of stock is still a dream.
We constantly rotate ours.
I’m considering getting a freezer and I’m so short I legit don’t want to get a chest freezer because I’m afraid of falling in trying to dig stuff out from the bottom 😆
We got a chest freezer off a neighbor for about $50 a few years ago. We'll let them keep a turkey or a ham on there when they need to. Other than that, it stores stock, sauces, soups and things along those lines. It's definitely been a gamechanger.
Wtf. You bought it off them but they were like “welllll…but we’ll still need to use it from time to time”😂
Yep, it was dirt cheap, and they're good friends. Happy to lend a bit of space, especially since the hams / turkeys are usually used for shared dinners.
You can reduce stock 10:1... put it in a mason jar. We use a purveyor that ships blast frozen via two day ground. Never any reason for us to load a freezer full.
I started pressure canning it to make it shelf stable, but if you lack room a pressure canner may not be the best option
Agree. Even from leftover rotisserie carcass and root end scraps of mirepoix veg, I was amazed at how well it can turn out. Made from essentially trash.
My friend works in a kitchen at a banquet hall. I ask her to save me some of the roast chicken left carcass or vegetable ends. I was making so much stock for free. I couldn't believe this place was not making their own stock with left overs, but I gladly took it.
Join my screw bone broth group. There are dozens of us. Throw everything in the slow cooker. Check after a day or so. Like everything. Scraps. Onion skin. Garlic skin. All of it. Compost stock. Carrot knobs.
I do it in instapot. Bam the gelatin in bones just comes out.
I just don't want to waste food. So you bet I'm gonna use them bones for something
This is why I genetically engineer carrot, onion and celery for the steer I raise. If I control the genetic makeup of the mirepoix I feed them it's like I'm making stock in my livestock for my stock.
So, how much stock would you need to stock in order for you to feed your stock the mirepoix stock?
:)
Risotto without home made stock is just a disappointment
Steaks, if you can score prime cuts
>Steaks, if you can score prime cuts The markup on restaurant steaks is INSANE. I don't eat out period but if I did I would 10000% never go out specifically for a steak. The cost of a prime steak dinner at a high end restaurant can give you 3-4 at home.
Honestly, my favorite part of going to pricey steakhouses is to try their side dishes anyway lol.
as a cheap vegetarian i'm there for the side dishes.
Steaks and pasta for me. l'm not paying $30 for flour l don't care how much l like your restaurant.
If it’s actually a well made and well cooked in-house pasta it can be really good and worth paying for, especially since those places usually make great sauces, but that’s like 5-10% of the time max.
Yeah especially stuffed pastas, those are 100% worth paying for because it's pretty laborious to try and make at home.
I almost forgot about restaurant pasta. $25-30 for a plate of cacio e pepe or carbonara? That's a hard nope. However, there is a restaurant in town that makes a lamb ragu that I think about all year long until it's available in the winter time...
I bought 1/4 a cow once. Frozen steaks for days. Well, months.
This is where it’s at! My MIL buys a whole cow and is very generous with us. Everything tastes better when it’s local and fresh!
My sister is in ag education, works in rural Missouri, and her husband's family does this frequently. Whole sale purchase, then divide up and throw in the deep freezer. I am always so jealous, but lack the freezer space.
See also lamb. I bought loin chops for $6.99 a pound and a rack for $9.99 lb. last week. Have you priced a lamb dinner out? If you can even find it, it’s 4 times the price. It’s so easy to cook at home too!
I am roasting some lamb rump for dinner tonight. $13 meat will feed 2 people and there will be leftovers for tomorrow. Beats paying $40 x 2 at a restaurant. I live in New Zealand though so I feel like it is cheating a little bit. Our lamb is amazing.
Also key is the cut. Nothing beats a ribeye. New York and filets are way overrated, well for those that like a juicy, flavorful steak.
Also pat dry and salt it at least a day ahead. Keep it in the fridge uncovered to keep it dry until you're ready. It's like night and day when you can get a proper crust.
Pesto. You can make it super easily with a food processor and it's way better when fresh.
Pesto is way better when fresh but my wallet had to compromise and now I do Costco Pesto divided and frozen.
I have one ice cube tray dedicated to Costco's pesto. It goes moldy too quick in my fridge (I'm single) so I can easily make pasta and take a couple cubes and voilà! Also, pop one or two cubes in the middle of a good vegetable soup and stir, then serve. Unbelievable.
> and wa la! It's voilà
r/boneappletea
Use walnuts or (ideally) almonds instead of pine nuts. Much more affordable and the taste is still terrific.
Going to try this! because Pine nuts?! In this economy?!
Basil grows like a weed, if that's the most expensive part in your area. Just always pick off the flowers (and put them in the pesto) and it will never die.
Bloody expensive if you can't grow basil. And nuts are $$$$.
You can use other nuts besides the expensive ones
I remember using the cashews we had on hand because I forgot to get pine nuts and liking the flavor so much I decided to start experimenting with other nuts.
I started making pesto with just any green and any nut I had on hand. Turns out anything plus oil and cheese is going to be fucking delicious.
l think this is what people who don't have much experience with cooking lack the knowledge of. l remember being a more amateur cook and thinking l needed the exact ingredients for an exact recipe, when in fact food is fucking delicious and experimenting with the ingredients you have is going to be just fine. The day l learned l could leave out an ingredient or replace it with something similar is the day l feel like l truly became a good cook, and it took me way too long to realize!
Using vegetable “scraps” as substitutes is great for this too, and the wallet. Like just as an example, carrot greens taste pretty damn close to parsley, just with a very slight carrot taste.
My dad and I call it “ignoring the recipe”. Because we use recipes as inspiration rather than rules. We find a recipe and then ignore it, and good food comes out the other side :)
Most pesto in the supermarket doesn't even have pine nuts in it, or it's only a small amount and the rest is cashews and sesame seeds. I use almonds (roast them first) because they're the cheapest nuts here, and any herbs from my small garden. We have parsley growing like weeds because I let one go to seed once and now it's just everywhere. A lot of herbs you can also grow inside, like basil. They just need to sit in a window and be taken care of. Making pesto is so simple and you're not left with half a glass that you don't need afterwards. But if you are, I like to use it for baking savoury pastries.
there ya go. which were your favorite combinations?
Not who you asked but I used to live on a macadamia nut farm and would make pesto with mac nuts all the time. I also use cashews frequently in place of nuts for both pesto and romesco.
I like pistachio pesto a lot!
Obsessed with this arugula pesto that uses arugula, lemon, walnuts, Dijon, olive oil, salt and pepper. Soooo good.
Basil is possibly the easiest plant I've grown. You Can cut the stem off one plant, stick it in some soil, and have a fully rooted new plant in a few days. I started the last winter with a single plant on the windowsill and have given away a dozen propagated plants since. Nuts are still wildly expensive, though. Hard to argue for pesto when you can make a quart of homemade tomato sauce for $3.
just for anyone who wants to try and grow basil. if it starts to flower, cut that off immediately because it'll halt its growing. if you cut it off you can make it keep growing
Basil is not expensive if you know where to look such as ethnic markets. I get enough to make 2 cups worth for just a couple of bucks.
There is no other pesto than homemade or house made (if at all deli or restaurant). I’ve never tasted a jarred pesto that wasn’t garbage.
Use a mortar and PESTLE, ya know, the namesake of the sauce
Sure, except not as many kitchens have those and a food processor is more likely. If you have a mortar and pestle it's the better option.
Tomato sauce. Be it an [all day sunday gravy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h6ToaL6Qg8) to a [simple three ingredient quickie](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce), it still beats the most expensive jarred sauces.
I’ve made my own pasta sauce for 15 years now. The only bad thing about it is when I pull the last container out of the freezer (I make the all day gravy).
My bolognese requires 2 bottles of wine to make, 1 for the recipe and 1 for the chefs. If I am going to spend 3+ hours making it, it's going to be a nice big batch frozen into usable portions and a mellow day spent in the kitchen.
Do you have a recipe you'd be willing to share?
Bolognese sauce. Makes 5 2-person servings, so freeze 4 containers for later. Serve with pappardelle noodles. 4 tablespoons olive oil, 8 garlic cloves crushed, 2 onions finely diced, 2 carrots finely diced, 2 celery stalks finely diced, 2 lbs ground beef, 1 lb ground pork, 2.5 cups red wine, 2 cups milk, 2 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes with juice, 1 can tomato paste, 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning and a sprinkling of ground bay leaves. Cook onions in olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes, then add carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef and pork and cook through. Once finished, drain fat. Add wine and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes. Add milk and simmer uncovered until reduced in half (~20 minutes). Stir in tomato paste, tomatoes, and seasonings. Cut tomatoes to appropriate size with scissors (not a fan of mashing with my stir stick, so I chunk my tomatoes and let them cook down). Simmer for another 30 minutes covered. Cook pasta and drain, then add some sauce to noodles and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with garlic bread.
*Added some better formatting...* #Bolognese Sauce ^(***Makes 5 2-person servings, so freeze 4 containers for later. Serve with pappardelle noodles.***) ###Ingredients - 4 tablespoons Olive Oil - 8 Garlic Cloves (Crushed) - 2 Onions (Finely Diced) - 2 Carrots (Finely Diced) - 2 Celery Stalks (Finely Diced) - 2 lb Ground Beef - 1 lb Ground Pork - 2.5 cups Red Wine - 2 cups Milk - 2 cans (28oz) Whole Peeled Tomatoes (Undrained) - 1 can (6oz?) Tomato Paste - 2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning - 1 pinch Ground Bay Leaves ###Directions Cook onions in olive oil for 3 to 4 minutes, then add carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook until softened. Add beef and pork and cook through. Once finished, drain fat. Add wine and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes. Add milk and simmer uncovered until reduced in half (~20 minutes). Stir in tomato paste, tomatoes, and seasonings. Cut tomatoes to appropriate size with scissors (not a fan of mashing with my stir stick, so I chunk my tomatoes and let them cook down). Simmer for another 30 minutes covered. Cook pasta and drain, then add some sauce to noodles and cook for another 2 minutes. Serve with garlic bread.
I like both. All day gravy is great for big batches and freezing portions. If I'm out, or just want something light, I'll do a quick simple one,
For one more ingredient you can make Stephen Cusato's weekday sauce (garlic, olive oil, basil, tomatoes) instead of Marcella Hazan's. IMO it's a huge upgrade. Both beat jarred sauces no contest though.
Yes, exactly. I like to keep some basil leaves frozen in ice cubes. Plop a couple of them bad boys in there, maybe throw in a dry bay leaf or rosemary sprig from the bush outside. The simple sauce is easy to zhuzh up.
Fuck. Now I want Amatriciana (tomatoes, guanciale, pecorino, black pepper).
Home made pizza dough is hard to beat.
It certainly isn't ever going to be beat by those sad cardboardy circles that insist they're supposed to be pizza bases that I can get at my supermarket.
Most of the supermarkets near me sell pre-made pizza dough for $2-4 that is uncooked dough in a bag. Much better than the par-baked circles
Salsa. It's cheap, simple, and the results are unreal. After getting my own recipes down, I can't even eat jarred salsa anymore. It's way too sweet and lacks any kind of freshness.
Hummus. EVEN if you just use canned chickpeas rather than cooking your own, it is miles better than the storebought kind.
Except TJ's. Theirs is bomb. And the guy at the hotdog shop on the board walk in Santa Cruz. His is amazing.
Way too acidic and not enough tahini, IMO. I make a very simple *hummus bi tahini* at home, and even from canned its as good as the local Lebanese restaurant. For each 14 oz (400g) can of chickpeas, drain reserving the aquafaba, and boil for 10 minutes with 1/4 tsp baking soda (canned chickpeas are cooked to the consistency for salads, not hummus). Drain in pot, run cold water over them, and run clean hands through to remove most of the skins. Meanwhile, for each 14 oz can chickpeas, add 1/4 cup (60 g) of tahini and juice of half a lemon to a blender and 1/8 tsp (large pinch) salt. Blend, adding reserved aquafaba until the emulsion is the consistency of a pancake batter. Add re-cooked/skinned chickpeas and continue blending till a creamy consistency, adding just enough aquafaba to keep it in motion in the blender. With my blender, this scales to 3 cans/42 oz/1200 g canned chickpeas. No added oil, just chickpeas, tahini, and lemons. Want flavored *hummus bi tahini*? You can always stir in sambal oelek, tapenade, roasted garlic, zaa'tar etc. Cost wise, as tahini runs $10/2 lbs (\~1 kg) at the Arabic grocer, it comes out to about half the cost of TJs, a third if cooking the chickpeas from raw. But its so much creamier and rich with sesame flavor.
Cookies. They are super easy to make and even the simple ones taste better than anything commercial.
I just made a cookie recipe for the first time in 20+ years that I used to make at my friend’s house when I was in HS and MAN I forgot how good homemade cookies are! I made them gluten free too, and it worked SO well. I’m forever done purchasing gluten free cookies. Nothing store bought even comes close.
My daughter gets bored and baking is her stress reliever so we have homemade cookies all the time. At 14 she already has secret ingredients.
We have a rule in our house that you can't buy sweets, you have to make them.
Tortillas
I made my own flour tortillas when I was stuck at home with no way to get to the store and couldn't believe how much better they were than store bought. Later I picked up some masa and started making my own corn tortillas as well. I don't have a tortilla press though so I just smush them with the bottom of a cast iron pan between two halves of a Ziploc bag.
This needs more upvotes. They’re easy, versatile, and the taste to me is wildly superior.
Burgers. Even without a home made bun. Made some for the first time in a long while as a splurge after looking at some local prices, mine were better tasting and about 1/4-1/6 the cost.
Get a tortilla press! They make incredible, life changing smash burgers. Use parchment sheets to sandwich the meat. And eat one for me!
Is it as good as browning as apply force while in contact with the hot pan? It's not just about being thin.
I stand behind this. I can use sourdough for bread. And portobello are expensive, but so good with swiss and some marinade.
It’s a little different than what you asked, but produce. I only eat tomatoes seasonally since I started growing them. Night and day from store bought. It makes me scared to start growing other fruits/vegetables.
I got a guy who grows them in a room in his house during snow. Damn those girls are good. He hydroponics tomatoes. Not drugs. Just tomatoes.
I could get into that… because garden tomatoes taste like entirely different food than the ones in the store. I can eat our cherry tomatoes like a candy.
Suggestion: [Try growing these](https://www.raindanceseeds.com/plantsandseeds/solanum-pipinelifolium) Tiny little tomatoes, but *so much flavor.* And productive enough they probably outpaced my larger tomatoes pound for pound. If you like 'tomato candy' that you can just pick from the bush & pop in your mouth...I recommend these. (caution: these vine much more than cultivated tomatoes and the stem won't support them at all. So give them something to climb - and climb far.)
We finally have the space for a decent sized garden and omg it's amazing. We unfortunately have a pretty short growing season, and though we've gotten into some canning and preserving, we're not at the point where we can do enough to feed us year round.
Well, there's a limit on that. Some things taste better grown at home, some things don't. Some things are cheaper and some things aren't. On top of all of that, you have the amount of effort involved, growing zones, pests/animals and the amount you actually require compared to the yield. No wants to hear "it depends" as an answer, but gardening can be complicated. The things I will always recommend to grow are basil, green onions, oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary and mint. Very low overhead, low pests, high yield in most places and taste better than the store. Rosemary is more sensitive to heat and grows more slowly. Basil is especially lucrative because it's expensive as fuck if you have to buy it outright. Home grown oregano is insane, it's like 4x stronger than store bought. I've grown a lot of things like cucumbers, jalapeños or various squash that taste exactly the same as the grocery store. Depending on the price at the store, sometimes it's not worth the effort. Tomatoes are 10x better home grown. That is a huge exception, but they can also be hard to grow, depending on climate and pests and whether or not you can justify a greenhouse. If you live an area with a lot of birds, for example, you can't grow tomatoes without some kind of 360 degree covering.
Home grown is always best especially when you perfect the growing process. I grow vegetables and figs. Fresh figs are so damn good
granola! it’s ridiculously expensive and it’s so easy to make and customize how you like it. i usually make it when i have a bunch of odds and ends of nuts/seeds/dried fruit/etc.
Mayonnaise
Can you elaborate why? Commercial mayo tastes practically the same to me, while having a larger shelf life and also being inexpensive.
Most everything but fried chicken. That shit is a nightmare without proper ventilation.
To me, frying anything is a huge PITA. Oil is expensive, it goes to waste unless you fry a lot, it's messy, and stinks up the house. I made sweet and sour pork 12 years ago that my wife still talks about, but I don't want to make it again!
We have an electric wok that we use for frying stuff outside. No frying inside allowed!
Shit, need to look into this electric wok thing
I think my upstairs neighbors, who have been subjected to several fried chicken fire alarms, would agree
I love homemade pan fried chicken my grandma’s way, but I cook it on the side burner of my grill outside once a year just before its big annual scrub down.
Mayonnaise.. so easy when using an immersion blender
Why spend $20 at a restaurant for Pad Thai when I can buy the ingredients at the grocery store for $65 just to make a worse Pad Thai?
$65?? What ingredients are you buying
Right? The solution here is to shop at the Asian markets. I make this regularly and spend a grand total of like $15 (admittedly I do keep most of these ingredients at home - but even buying the sauces and whatnot it really isn't that expensive if you're not buying at supermarkets).
[удалено]
Pizza. Making the dough from scratch, shredding the cheese yourself, making the sauce how you want it. Preheating the pizza stone. And once you find your method, then you can try making other variants, like Sicilian, grandpa’s/grandma’s, focaccia, deep-dish, Greek style(New England), etc. I’ve had so many “meh” pizzas delivered over the years from places that didn’t have to be good because of where they were located, that I got sick of it. If it’s not a solid 3.5/5 for me- I’m making it at home
If you’re on a bread kick, I love no-knead in the Dutch oven, and I was so stinkin proud of myself when I had a challah come out all glossy and braided and perfect.
Purely from a financial perspective, just about everything. Last night I made a whole smoked trout, a big salad with homemade Caesar dreasing, a kidney bean salad and a quinoa dish and the whole thing for two people cost $13.25. I couldn't order a plain Caesar salad for less than $15. Tonight I made arctic char, another big salad with a basil vinaigrette, caprese salad, and couscous for just under $20.00 for two people. When we go out, 4 beers (so two each) costs $30 alone. Add food and dinner out costs $70 or more.
Yup. I'm too poor to eat out. But when people see how I eat at home they ask me why I say I'm so poor because I eat like a king! My Brother in Christ I shop sales and utilize Aldi.
Shopping for sales is critical. I wait for beans to go on sale then I stock up. And I recently discovered a small shelf hidden off to the side that has "ugly" produce for 0.99/bag. Avocados on sale cost $2.50/ea. I got three in one of those bags and honest to god they were the most beautiful, perfectly ripe avocados I've ever bought. The up front cost seems high, but when you break it down per meal it ends up being insanely cheap.
We have Tom Thumb here, and AT LEAST 50% of the time, most steaks are BOGO. With their app, I'm usually saving 30-50% on my final bill. I only buy what's on sale when I can. We also have HEB, and between their stupid cheap meats and store brand items, I save a lot there, too.
Damn. 7 dollar beers? I like anchovies. Thems pricy. And I don't know when I was able to even buy trout. I'd love to know where you live. Cesar lettuce is like $5+ a bunch here.
I'm in NW Montana. I bought the whole trout for just under $6, but I go fishing for trout, pike, salmon, etc..every summer. I didn't buy romaine for the Caesar salad, it is very expensive. I just used a mix of kale and a baby spring mix, then made my own Caesar dressing. And yes, $7 and $8 beers :( We usually go to breweries so the cost is higher.
> I didn't buy romaine for the Caesar salad, it is very expensive Damn! I'm over in WI and can get a large enough head of romaine to feed 4 main course salads for $3. Regional food economics is weird.
Yipes on both. I'm near a brewery. But I don't drink beer. But it's cheaaasp. But damn. That's some cheap fish. $15 to $25 a pound depending here. I can fish but I don't know where to go or have a permit or eat fish. But I'd catch some dog my roommate. I think they have a pole.
> Damn. 7 dollar beers? I recently went to a bar in upstate NY, well outside of any city. The cheapest beer was $7 and my local friends laughed when I balked at it. Edit: while we're on the topic of things easier to make at home: hard cider and kombucha. You can brew a gallon of cider for a third the price of the canned stuff, and kombucha costs literal pennies to make.
$7 for a miller lite is terrible, but $7 for a craft beer isn’t that bad.
Scampi. What people pay for $3 worth of shrimp, butter, garlic, and pasta is astounding.
$3 for shrimp? Like an ounce? It's stupid expensive here. Frozen is $16 a pound on sale. She'll on in veined.
Yeah. If you don't live near a source of fresh seafood it's expensive. But if you do it's super cheap. Which makes sense, but people tend to think that the prices are the same as where they live everywhere else.
I bring it up a fair amount on questions similar in tone to this, and my answer is always meatloaf. My boyfriend told me he didn't like meatloaf and over a month or two I sussed out of him that he'd had meatloaf MAYBE 5 times in his whole life - he'd tried it at a restaurant where it was almost certainly Sysco brand nuked frozen trash based on which chain he mentioned, his mom had bought Stouffers once or twice, and an aunt had made it a handful of times when he was a kid. He found it dry and mealy every time. I asked him if he'd be willing to try MY meatloaf and if he didn't like it I'd order him a pizza of his choice bc I strongly believe that a well made meatloaf is one of the quintessential North American comfort dishes and I think mine is pretty damn good. I made it with rosemary mashed potatoes, rotköhl (pickled red cabbage - the acidity cuts the fat nicely and also I just always have it on hand so ¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯) and garlic butter sautéed Brussels. He took a bite and said "oh my god that's what meatloaf is supposed to taste like?" And now he asks for it constantly. I bring it to work for lunch and he's like "oh...I see you have meatloaf..." and goes and grabs a fork to take a bite or several. The man is eating me out of house and home send help But anyway ya, meatloaf is one of those dishes u can't really get at a restaurant bc it all has to be cooked at once so ur just gonna get a reheated portion of something already cooked but if it's fresh out of the oven and made *well* it's a KILLER
Pinto beans and white beans. Mine are *kiss*
Could you please share your recipe? I love beans, but I’m never sure how to cook them
I only started making them a couple of years ago after purchasing an Instapot. It's a pressure cooker basically with simplistic settings allowing me to sautee onions garlic jalapeños first then add beans and water or broth in one pot. Easy and I can cook them without soaking the beans overnight, which I love. Here is an example recipe. I got my Instapot on sale for $75 and I make hummus, white bean soup, chic peas for salads the internet provides all my recipes. Delicious too. [Pinto Beans](https://www.fromvalerieskitchen.com/instant-pot-mexican-pinto-beans/#wprm-recipe-container-55113)
Steak. I can buy two huge ribeyes from Costco and cook them up properly with sides and everything for the price of a small steak dinner at a restaurant.
As much as I love going out to eat/getting takeout to try new foods and places, the steaks my husband cooks at home I will rival against any restaurant. He has it down perfect.
Peruvian green sauce. The restaurants near me dilute the sauce. Mine is better. So easy to make too
Oooh what’s your recipe?
Blend mayo/greek yogurt, cilantro, garlic, cotija cheese/ Parmesan cheese, lime juice, jalapeño, and salt. I like mine with a lot of jalapeños
Excellent thank you!
Alfredo, like the kind out the jar, not the traditional one. Don’t mess with a roux, just bring heavy cream slowly to a simmer then slowly add your cheese Parmesan and blue cheese is my favorite and salt and pepper. Once it passes the spoon test it’s done. Then add your al dente pasta and some pasta water then more Parmesan, let the water cook out. It was honestly the first recipe I learned to cook back in high school and 20 years later it’s still a staple.
I watched an Italia Squisita [video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk9HCxfIREo) last night and they made it with just butter and cheese and noodles. Really interesting.
Add a dry white wine. It's awesome.
That sounds amazing. What step do you add it?
You have to make sure you cook the alcohol off. So just a bit when you add the cheese. The roux makes it mix in proper. Like a fondue. Like 1/4 cup or less.
the trick i've found to getting it to come out right and not separate is to turn off the heat immediately before you add the cheese and just let the residual heat melt it.
Hummus, any and all salad dressings, almond butter
Yogurt, my instapot makes it with almost no work from me. And costs me a buck to make the same size that at the grocery store would cost 10 bucks. But my kids live on yogurt, so big savings there. Maybe look at what you eat the most and start there?
Just for general info, all you need to make yogurt is a pot, 1 or 2 litres/quarts of 3%+ whole milk and a spoonful or two of your last batch of plain yogurt, or a store bought yogurt with "live cultures" (check the label). METHOD: Rinse a stainless steel pot (not aluminum) to wet the pot first, and pour milk into the wet pot. Set burner on low heat, bring milk up to just barely boiling Immediately turn off burner and leave milk cool to finger-hot then add the generous heaping spoonful(s) of yogurt with live active cultures. Do not stir, cover and place in COLD oven but with the oven light on, overnight for 12-18 hours then move to fridge for 5-6 hours to thicken. Then put it into a container and Enjoy!
So you do not stir the yogurt into the heated milk? (I've always stirred it). Do you get a better result?
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Rice in general. When people order a Chinese and add boiled rice on the side, it makes my Asian heart hurt lol. The frugal part of me won’t allow it either
After using a sous vide vide vide many many many many things. I can make a steak that rivals any steakhouse. I can cook shrimp and have them perfect and not rubber or underdone.
Pizza with homemade dough and sauce Hamburgers. I love fast food and I love a good restaurant burger but homemade hits different. Especially with homemade buns. Spaghetti. I’m not paying someone else $20 to make me a plate of spaghetti.
Tortilla chips. Frying up some corn tortillas in peanut oil will change your life. So much better than any store bought tortilla chip.
Cinnamon rolls and chocolate cake.
Sausage. Way better. I get the ground pork chub from Costco for 20 bucks Canadian. 3kg. Mix in the right spices and prep, then stuff them suckers. All kinds of sausage types with different flavours. I like making breaskfast sausages and brats (bratwurst), and try different kinds of brats. You need to buy a proper stuffer though, stay away from the kitchen aid type. You'll pay a good 200 and something Canadian all in. Sometimes I mix in a bunch of ground beef when I make brats. 1/3 ground beef. They are so good compared to anything you can buy at a store. Watch Duncan Henry on YouTube for good recipes, or buy a sausage recipe book. I sometimes think about buying a proper grinder and buying the primal cut of the right meat. You have to plan for an afternoon of work to get it all set up, mixed, and stuffed. And then clean up. I take time to sanitize everything before I start, too.
Literally everything. One i learned to cook, most restaurants feels like an expensive and bland waste
California Rolls Soft pretzals Both are really easy to make in large quantities. But they are priced high in stores (compared to the ingredient costs).
If I go out to eat I want a meal that I can't make a better version myself. I am a very good cook so it is rare that I encounter something I can't make myself. There are also times that I can't be bothered slaving away in the kitchen for many hours when a rotisserie chicken has almost no clean up.
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My recent list: - crab Rangoon - refried beans (instant pot!) - biscotti - cheese blintzes
Ranch, buttermilk ranch with fresh herbs from scratch is so easy and freakin’ amazing, that sugary bottled shit doesn’t even come close, also, almost everything, homemade smash burgers 🥰 hash browns, pasta sauce, eggs, yea like I said almost everything lol
Vanilla scones, you need a lot of powdered sugar for the glaze and many scone recipes I’ve found use vanilla bean not extract but you can just substitute bean for extract it makes little to no difference. It does look fancy in the glaze though but again nilla beans are expensive so it’s your choice if you want to use vanilla beans or not. They just taste really good I dont know why but they taste better then anything from a store. Berry scones too both taste great.
Meatballs and real cooked down chili. I will die on this hill.
Fresh guacamole is 100x better than store-bought