Cheap Meals: Eating on a budget.

Noodleface said:

I don't like cutting garlic because the smell lingers on my fingers for days no matter what I do

I'm Italian though so that might just be my BO

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Hey it'll keep off the vampires, and perhaps those that wear small hats, but perhaps they are the same thing.

Gavinmad said:

I'm also not a great fan of already minced garlic but storing your own minced garlic in olive oil is fine, just tip the spoon against the side of the jar so you're leaving most of the oil behind.

Best thing to do if you don't want to deal with one or two cloves at a time is to make garlic confit then scoop it out of the oil, mash/puree, and freeze into cubes. It's pretty common to include rosemary but you can do just garlic and olive oil if you want. You can use the infused olive oil that's left over for more cooking rather than discarding it.

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Furry said:

In texas, knock your tomatoes over and grow smaller tomatoes to get a lot more fruit. To get big tomatoes to reliably grow you need to shade them and water them a lot, or they just don't fruit well. Pain in the ass.

San marzano tomatoes grow great in texas.

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I didn't have much involvement in the garden, my wife has a green thumb of death, but she seemed to have been doing a pretty good job. Just sort of left her to do whatever and would try to check up. She was working her ass off on it though, and I know she's as bummed as I am.

I bought like $60 worth of seeds and then she left them outside and they got rained on. I had a whole bunch of different heirloom tomatoes I think that I had bought, various peppers, squash and cucumbers and stuff. That kind of pissed me off.

I think part of the problem we're having it is the backyard just gets a little too much shade, but she was pretty damn diligent of everyday constantly watering. I constantly told her when did you miracle grow. I just know that's what my parents used to always use and they would always get a Great harvest. We did the whole compost pile and everything and got the soil prepped, but no dice with the tomatoes this year.

I don't even know what seeds we had going because she basically took all of those seeds that were salvageable from the destruction, and just dispersed it through the beds.

Out of the soil on the backyard is a lot of sand and I think it's probably acidic from all of the pine needles that drop. I honestly don't know, just spitballing after watching some YouTube videos.

I was really looking forward to a ton of tomatoes this summer but doesn't seem to be the case.

What's good winter crop that I had to be looking at getting ready, obviously here in Texas?

I somehow conned my wife and to run into the grocery store to get stuff for broccoli, chicken and cheesey rise casserole.

I don't necessarily know how it happened, but it's awesome. I felt like shit all day because of allergies, and I'm sure this isn't going to help me any but God damn doesn't sound good.

Super cheap, utterly delicious...

Lanx said:

dehydrated garlic is sliced and put in a dehydrator, then if you want garlic powder you take that, then grind it up.

so if you sprinkle a few slivers, it looks like real seasonings i guess.

i know ppl use that who can't slice garlic, but don't want the chopped garlic in the fridge, use the dehydradted minced garlic

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Yeah you just use it as an aromatic and typically put it into oil to help release the flavor.

It's good but I don't think it's as great as fresh.