$5 Meal Challenge

[ImportantElements]

Hey guys, 

 

So after going through many topics here, and enjoying every single one of them, I want to add something unique here  

 

I would like to do an interesting event for you all. Or maybe even a regular thing. Since we are all big fans of food, and a lot of us love to cook, how about a small challenge ? 

 

$5 Meal Challenge  

 

Basically, all you have is Five Dollars to spend on all the ingredients. 

 

Its okay to go over just a little bit, but no more than $0.50 cents 

 

Any store, any market, any place that legally sells food counts. 

 

I figured 4 main basic ingredients like 

Salt, Pepper, Oil and Vinegar - are free. Since you cant buy very little of them. 

 

The meal has to be prepared or cooked. You cant just buy a frozen pepperoni pizza for $3 and call it a day. I would love to see your creations 

 

It wont be easy, but I think this will be super fun. Anyone can join and post here in this topic. 

 

Photos, and videos of course would be even better. 

[ImportantElements]

I'll start first. 

 

$5 Meal Challenge - Beefstroganoff 

 

So finding a beef under $5 is not very easy apparently. But I did it. 

 

I went to our local store called "Sprouts" and "Grocery Outlet" 

 

At the sprouts I found some good deal on the thin cut steak  ($2.63)

 

Very sweet price on the onions 2lbs for $1 ($0.26)

 

Got a large potato for ($0.69)

 

A few mushrooms ($0.54)

 

Sour Cream ($0.79)

 

TOTAL: $4.91 

 

This was pretty challenging, but I did it. 

 

I managed to make a tasty beefstroganoff with all this

 

 

Video of this whole process is right here 

 

 

Feel free to join me guys, photos and videos are welcome. I'll be making this a regular thing. So at least 1 Challenge a week with a video guaranteed !!!  

[Martin Fisher]

$5?

That's not much of a challenge. 

Most of my meals are $5 or less—I'm literally dirt poor!

How about a $1 meal challenge? 

Edited April 13, 2018 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

When I was in college lard was 25 cents a pound and rice was not that hard to come by.

 

[Anna N]

 It only really works for American members.   I laugh at your costs. 

[liuzhou]

As @Anna N says, your idea may be fine for members who are in the USA, but many of us aren't. $5 could buy me several meals here. I certainly made three meals yesterday for around $5 or less. Probably do most days.

Edited April 13, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I'm a vegetarian. I like vegetables and beans and brown rice. I can easily make a meal for under $1 -for two people!

[cakewalk]

Okay, okay. So why don't y'all put your money where your mouth is? The man proposed a challenge! Let's see what you got! 

[liuzhou]

8 minutes ago, cakewalk said:

Let's see what you got! 

 

Nearly every dish I have posted on the Dinner topic over years was way under $5. I can't find the challenge! I'm more challenged to come up with one that costs more.

Edited April 13, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[Lisa Shock]

I've got a couple of posts in the meal challenge thread, with pictures.

[munchymom]

I made dinner for 4 last night - lentil soup, and spinach and feta crescent rolls. All stuff I had on hand, but half a bag of lentils - $0.50, a carrot, an onion, and a stick of celery - $0.25, maybe? Big ticket item a can of Pillsbury crescent rolls - $1.25. About half a cup of thawed frozen spinach - $0.25 2 oz. feta cheese $0.75, 2 oz. cream cheese $0.50. So $3.50 for a meal which was by no means fancy but kept body and soul together, and there's still a bowl of soup and 1 crescent roll left over for me to have for lunch.

[Anna N]

8 minutes ago, Lisa Shock said:

I've got a couple of posts in the meal challenge thread, with pictures.

 We’ve had a number of challenge threads which have been great fun but they’ve also been inclusive. I don’t find this challenge to be inclusive or acknowledging various cultural, dietary, religious etc. limitations of a very diverse group of members. Doesn’t even apply equally to all American members.  I suspect that making a meal for $5 in Alaska is considerably more difficult than doing the same elsewhere in the USA. 

I admire and applaud the enthusiasm of the poster and proposer of this challenge but I don’t see it as particularly plausible. By all means for those who want to take it up — good luck. 

[munchymom]

I think as a thing to do for fun it's okay. Constraints can lead to creativity.  Maybe the challenge should be what's the best meal you can make for $5 - or to make it more relevant to places with differing costs of living, how about the best meal you can make for the local price of a Big Mac?

[KennethT]

$5 is certainly a challenge here in Manhattan where everything is more expensive... Also, lots of dishes that I make use things like fish sauce or whatever which can't be bought in small quantities, except for Red Boat, which is extraordinarily expensive and I haven't had the nerve to pull the trigger on it yet.  But even still, my $3/liter of fish sauce works out to like $.001 per serving.  Also, many of the curries I make may cost $20 worth of ingredients (many of them have to come from who knows where, and there isn't a lot of competition for it) but that batch of curry is good for usually 4 meals for 2 people (so 8 servings) - I can't justify doing all work for 1 meal.

 

While I understand weinoo's philosophy, I looked at the OP as a challenge of how to eat well for very little money, not just to eat for sustenance. I would hardly compare beef stroganoff to rice and beans.  I was pretty impressed he could pull off a stroganoff for $5.

 

Exactly munchymom - I think that's a great idea!

Edited April 13, 2018 by KennethT (log)

[liuzhou]

On 13/04/2018 at 7:42 PM, munchymom said:

how about the best meal you can make for the local price of a Big Mac?

 

I know where you are coming from and want to agree, but McD's "food" is one of the more expensive options here. It isn't just a case of simple exchange rates.

Edited April 25, 2018 by liuzhou (log)

[Martin Fisher]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

...Red Boat, which is extraordinarily expensive and I haven't had the nerve to pull the trigger on it yet

 

VitaCost is the cheapest source I've found.

They sometimes run a food sale, 20% off an order of $50 or more—with free shipping.

 

Red Boat salt is also useful.

It's expensive, but ships free.

A little goes a l—o—n—g way!

 

Squid brand is my 'everyday' fish sauce.

$2.00 for a 25 fl. oz. bottle at Wegmans.

[heidih]

Holy crud kids! - it is just a discussion idea; not a suggested lifestyle.  I think $5 is a bit artificial as food costs vary per posts above. Our food costs in the US are very artificially low in some aspects. My sister in Australia goes into shock every time she visits Los Angeles. That said, I have had some of my most enjoyable and inspired meals when challenged by my pantry. I keep a very minimal food supply which is stupid when you live in earthquake country but I love food shopping     Last year I was housebound for a week and chose not to ask friends to deliver groceries or to use a delivery service. I foraged greens from the property which were abundant since we had a true rainy season for a change. I got in touch with simplicity and clean flavors. I pulled out Patience Gray's "Honey From a Weed". I brewed tea from the citrus blossoms. I used my citrus fruit for both flavor and acidity. I certainly spent less than $5/meal and I ate very well. Butter, oliv oil, beans, some pepperoni hidden in the freezer,  pasta, homemade bread, eggs, and other simple things lovingly prepared and eaten when hungry are soul satisfying. Admittedly I used the lone can of Cream of Mushroom soup my stepmother left behind....and I liked what it did to some dishes!

[Jaymes]

6 hours ago, Anna N said:

 We’ve had a number of challenge threads which have been great fun but they’ve also been inclusive. I don’t find this challenge to be inclusive or acknowledging various cultural, dietary, religious etc. limitations of a very diverse group of members. Doesn’t even apply equally to all American members.  I suspect that making a meal for $5 in Alaska is considerably more difficult than doing the same elsewhere in the USA. 

I admire and applaud the enthusiasm of the poster and proposer of this challenge but I don’t see it as particularly plausible. By all means for those who want to take it up — good luck. 

Well...having lived in Alaska...if you can include the contents of your freezer, which is most certainly full of moose, caribou, deer, salmon, halibut, grayling, etc., and, if it's summer, the contents of your garden, and the jars of preserves from your foraging, blueberries, blackberries, lowbush cranberries, etc, I'd say it's a snap. 

[heidih]

Yup - Kim Severson in her memoir "Spoon Fed" describes salmon as the zucchini of Alaska  

[Jaymes]

2 hours ago, heidih said:

Yup - Kim Severson in her memoir "Spoon Fed" describes salmon as the zucchini of Alaska  

Funny, but boy is that the truth. Everyone has too much of it. Everyone is always trying to get rid of it. Do not even entertain the notion of going to a party and not doing your share of eating to help the cause. I really liked the home-canned smoked salmon versions the best and didn't mind hauling home cans of it as "party favors" when we left the party. 

 

But always on the hors d'oeuvres, snack, cocktail, buffet tables there were big platters of salmon. And halibut. I remember telling my husband that I felt like I was being entertained as though I were someone's large house cat. ☺

Edited April 13, 2018 by Jaymes (log)

[kayb]

OK. I'll offer this as an official eGullet challenge (insofar as I have any authority to offer anything official on behalf of eGullet, which I don't).

 

Cook a meal for one for $5.  You may exclude from the $5, but must specify its source:

• Pantry staples (flour, sugar, oil, spices, etc.) (If you bought an item (say a spice) you don't normally use, specifically for this dish, it doesn't count as a "staple." )
• Refrigerator staples (butter, milk, any cheese you keep on hand as a matter of course, refrigerated condiments you keep on hand as a matter of course)
• Foraged foods (hunted game, wild-caught fish, foraged greens and fruits, etc., no matter what you spent on that trip to Alaska to catch that salmon or shoot that moose)
• Self-gardened or self-raised foods (vegetables, fruit, chickens, eggs, livestock, no matter what that chicken cost you to feed or that ear of corn cost you to raise)
• Self-preserved foods (canned, frozen, otherwise preserved from self-foraged, self-raised or self-gardened stuff only.

Recycled leftovers should be presented as a cost factor based on what the original element cost (a third of that steak I cooked last night and didn't finish).

 

Again, all the above must be specified as to the source of the excluded item. We can all impute at least a ballpark figure to the cost of the moose you shot in Alaska, if we're interested.

 

Yes, the playing field will not be level. It ain't a contest. It's an exercise, or I think it will become so, in what we go to when money's tight, or what we look toward when we're lacking either inspiration or the motivation to go to the market. I will guarantee you I will eat more asparagus once my beds start producing, for instance; the size of the asparagus bed will be an indicator of how much I love the stuff. If it's nasty and you just don't want to get out, you're going to cook from what you have on hand.

 

If we're lucky, it'll become a resource for "Oooohhh, if I kept THAT around the house, I could do THAT with it when I wanted to." Which is one of the wonderful things about eGullet, and the reason my pantry and fridge are so damn crowded. 

 

I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what y'all come up with.

 

[Martin Fisher]

11 minutes ago, kayb said:

Cook a meal for one for $5.  You may exclude from the $5, but must specify its source:

• Pantry staples (flour, sugar, oil, spices, etc.) (If you bought an item (say a spice) you don't normally use, specifically for this dish, it doesn't count as a "staple." )
• Refrigerator staples (butter, milk, any cheese you keep on hand as a matter of course, refrigerated condiments you keep on hand as a matter of course)
• Foraged foods (hunted game, wild-caught fish, foraged greens and fruits, etc., no matter what you spent on that trip to Alaska to catch that salmon or shoot that moose)
• Self-gardened or self-raised foods (vegetables, fruit, chickens, eggs, livestock, no matter what that chicken cost you to feed or that ear of corn cost you to raise)
• Self-preserved foods (canned, frozen, otherwise preserved from self-foraged, self-raised or self-gardened stuff only.

 

 

In that case 99% (or more) of my meals are less than $5.

And, we all define the term 'meal' differently.

I eat more than my 90 some year old, 90 some pound, vegetarian, semi-pescatarian, British friend Mary.

[ElsieD]

18 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

 They were moved, as expected.

 

To where?

[Martin Fisher]

10 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

To where?

 

What constitutes a good eGullet food challenge?

[liuzhou]

I posted this already on the Dinner topic, but thought I'd stick in here as an example.

Fresh stir fried ramen noodles with pork, shiitake, cordycep militaris (the orange things), green chilli, red chilli, garlic ginger, Chinese chives, coriander leaf, Shaoxing wine and soy sauce.

 

 

Cost (excluding cupboard staples such as oil, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine etc.): $1.60 to serve 2.