The classic split pea and ham hock recipe can be googled but I’m sure it works out cheaper than McDonalds. A ham hock, a couple of carrots and onions, stock or stock cube, a couple of cups of dried split peas soaked in water overnight. That will feed six people with seconds. And it’s probably under ten bucks if you do it right.
Another thing that’s cheap and tasty Is lambs fry. Just don’t ask what’s in it. But lambs fry is a big pile of tasty offal and lamb fat - add bread crumbs, fried onions, mashed potato, peas, corn etc. Very cheap.
You can make a vegetable quiche cheaply with some frozen pastry(or without), a few eggs, cheese vegetables(I like pre-roasted vegetables in quiches)
You plan your meals ahead and buy in bulk from specialist outfits like ALDI and save a lot of money too. And go to local seafood and produce markets to cut out the middle men. You could probably feed a family of four on two thousand dollars or halve that if you were really stretching it.
And let’s not forget about eggs. I can get ten eggs–sixty or seventy grams of the highest-quality protein there is, along with DHA, good saturated fat, lecithin and vitamins A and E–for one US dollar when eggs are on sale here. That’s my dollar menu, motherfucker. McDonalds can kiss my egg-eating ass.
[quote]jjackkrash wrote:
Good food costs money and takes time to prepare. Feeding people on the cheap requires compromises. Giving people food “fast” requires compromises. McDonald’s provides cheap, fast food, and makes compromises to do so. I personally don’t like eating there that often, but its not like its unsafe to eat or doesn’t serve a purpose once in a while. [/quote]
It is possible to have good food very cheaply. My parents both grew up poor so they knew how to get by. They used to use a lot of the cheaper cuts of meat that are best for stewing. When slow cooked in a stew or casserole many of the cheapest cuts of meat taste best and when slow cooked for several hours the meat becomes very tender. For my parents steak was almost unheard of. Only rich people could afford steak. They often couldn’t afford meat and had vegetarian meals. So they’d both live mostly on lamb because it was cheaper than beef, pork and chicken. One thing my mother used to make very cheaply and is still very cheap to make is pea and ham soup. Pea and ham soup is extremely hardy and makes a full meal. My mother would buy a ham hock - just the feet. Very cheap. Couple of pigs feet and some cheap, dried peas, a bit of carrot and onion etc. The bones are cooked with the meat and they impart a lot of flavour. When it’s nearly done you break the meat off the hocks and shred it a bit then remove the bones and gristle.
So you can still live on very good and tasty food very cheaply if you know how. Many types of offal are very cheap and can be very tasty. You just need to know how to cook and which foods are cheapest. You can go to farmers’ markets and fresh produce stalls and buy fresh food cheaply when it’s at its best and in season and fresh. Some fruits in particular are very expensive but root vegetables, greens, legumes etc are all nutritious and relatively cheap. And of course, you need to shop smart and know the cheapest options and sales and so on. But eating well and very cheaply is an option.[/quote]
I don’t dispute what you are saying. But my post addressed two components: cost and time.
And it should also be noted I’m not a big McDonald’s advocate. I was just making the observation that cheap–and fast–food generally requires some compromises.
I eat a fat, juicy burger every single day, that I make myself with grass-fed beef from a local farm market. The meat is so tasty I always literally say, “Oh God” when I first bite into it.
[quote]CLUNK wrote:
I eat a fat, juicy burger every single day, that I make myself with grass-fed beef from a local farm market. The meat is so tasty I always literally say, “Oh God” when I first bite into it. [/quote]
Yes. We refer to that in the industry as a “burgasm”.
The ground beef they use is probably better than what you buy in your local supermarket.[/quote]
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it. McDonalds beef is “100 percent USDA-inspected beef trimmings”. Which means that after the USDA inspects a carcass, and all the good meat has been cut off of it, whatever is left besides the bones (fat, tendon, cartilage, and the occasional scrap of muscle tissue) is fair game for turning into hamburger patties.
The best beef I can buy? Seriously? You mean better than grass-fed Argentine beef? Better than genuine Matsusaka or Kobe beef? Really? I don’t think so.
The ground beef they use is probably better than what you buy in your local supermarket.[/quote]
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it. McDonalds beef is “100 percent USDA-inspected beef trimmings”. Which means that after the USDA inspects a carcass, and all the good meat has been cut off of it, whatever is left besides the bones (fat, tendon, cartilage, and the occasional scrap of muscle tissue) is fair game for turning into hamburger patties.
The best beef I can buy? Seriously? You mean better than grass-fed Argentine beef? Better than genuine Matsusaka or Kobe beef? Really? I don’t think so. [/quote]
Man, I love Wagyu hamburgers, even the non-genuine American kind.
The ground beef they use is probably better than what you buy in your local supermarket.[/quote]
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it. McDonalds beef is “100 percent USDA-inspected beef trimmings”. Which means that after the USDA inspects a carcass, and all the good meat has been cut off of it, whatever is left besides the bones (fat, tendon, cartilage, and the occasional scrap of muscle tissue) is fair game for turning into hamburger patties.
The best beef I can buy? Seriously? You mean better than grass-fed Argentine beef? Better than genuine Matsusaka or Kobe beef? Really? I don’t think so. [/quote]
Man, I love Wagyu hamburgers, even the non-genuine American kind.
[/quote]
Ignorance is bliss, especially when your wallet is thin. I can recall a time when I believed Crown Royal to be the finest whiskey available and dinner at Applebees was an upscale event, sure to melt the panties off of rural Indiana’s finest young women.
The lesson here is that I should move back to rural Indiana.
[quote]CLUNK wrote:
I eat a fat, juicy burger every single day, that I make myself with grass-fed beef from a local farm market. The meat is so tasty I always literally say, “Oh God” when I first bite into it. [/quote]
Yes. We refer to that in the industry as a “burgasm”.[/quote]
Well, I am aroused.
On-topic- McD is great when you’re short on time and need to eat something quickly. If I could carry around cartons of boiled eggs and containers of salt/pepper easily then I would. But I can’t, so I have to eat McD instead.
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it.[/quote]
This would make a poorer burger for me. Perhaps it’s adapted taste or whatever, but I don’t like my burgers that lean and actually prefer it to be a bit lower quality beef.
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it.[/quote]
This would make a poorer burger for me. Perhaps it’s adapted taste or whatever, but I don’t like my burgers that lean and actually prefer it to be a bit lower quality beef.
[/quote]
[quote]1 Man Island wrote:
We should turn this into a food porn thread[/quote]
Fair enough.
Here is a picture of a hot 18-year-old Latina-Italian chick devouring a 4x4 (four patties, four slices of cheese) Animal Style burger at In-N-Out, the ONLY hamburger joint I consider worthy of my time and money.[/quote]
That looks pretty good! The meal posted upthread, less so.
[/quote]
No doubt, but I think Beth possesses also the courage to throw dietary caution to the wind and eat Quarter Pounder w/Cheese on a road trip to Omaha. That’s how intrepid I think our Beth is!
As I typically buy ground sirloin, I highly doubt it.[/quote]
This would make a poorer burger for me. Perhaps it’s adapted taste or whatever, but I don’t like my burgers that lean and actually prefer it to be a bit lower quality beef.
[/quote]
Ground ribeye makes a fine burger.
[/quote]
My favourite is ground tri-tip (bottom sirloin), which is more marbled than top sirloin, so more fat. I also cook my burgers a lot less than most people, which keeps them juicy. I’ve not yet tried making my own steak tartare, but that’s next.
As for the risks of salmonella or E. coli, I merely note that I have eaten raw pork in a poor village in Southeast Asia on numerous occasions, with no ill effects. of course, there was so much chilli and garlic and ginger mixed in that every bacterium and virus in the bowl was likely dead or severely wounded.
[quote]magick wrote:
On-topic- McD is great when you’re short on time and need to eat something quickly. If I could carry around cartons of boiled eggs and containers of salt/pepper easily then I would. But I can’t, so I have to eat McD instead.[/quote]
I carry around cartons of raw eggs and either boil them as needed, or else crack a few into a glass, stir them up, and add boiling water, milk, butter and dark chocolate.
