Gravy's Cooking Thread

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lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

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I get all our meat at a very fine price, and I grow all the vegetables we can possibly when seasonal, and have cold storage for things like root vegetables and hearty apples, and a large quantity of deep freeze for fruits and shit. I can hundreds of quarts of shit like tomatoes, applesauce, jams, and the like. I figure we save several thousand dollars a year with our gardens and orchards.

Cooking well is a hell of a lot cheaper than eating fast food, or going out. You just have to find the things that your family likes. I, for example, need to about quadruple my applesauce production next year...
 
Vitality

Vitality

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Khane_sl said:
You don't need to be fervent about it no. But you can save yourself a lot of money by being reasonable about how you spend money on food.
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I agree with this, even with my so called Hipster Chicken I still manage to keep my food costs under 1000 a month for two adults which includes a rediculous amount of dining out.

Basically my goal at the store is to serve something close to a 3 course meal for under $20 for two. Chicken (in seattle) is my least purchased protein due to it's price here.

I mean fuck, I can get an 4-6oz oz lobster tail for the price of 1.5lb chicken.

I'd say my most purchased meats here are pork chops and crab legs.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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If you are the sole breadwinner for a family of 7 then I definitely get it. That is a lot of mouths to feed. It is also true that I have a freezer that gets filled up with beef annually and while it definitely needs quotes around the "free" it doesn't come out of my personal budget.

That said, I hope you will all dig deep and find a way to eat some beef now and then for the good of your local ranchers. You know you don't want to eat fucking chicken all the damn time.

Z3gj0C5.jpg


And yeah it's -9F right now. Putting on all the clothes today.
 
Khane

Khane

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Vitality_sl said:
I agree with this, even with my so called Hipster Chicken I still manage to keep my food costs under 1000 a month for two adults which includes a rediculous amount of dining out.

Basically my goal at the store is to serve something close to a 3 course meal for under $20 for two. Chicken (in seattle) is my least purchased protein due to it's price here.

I mean fuck, I can get an 4-6oz oz lobster tail for the price of 1.5lb chicken.

I'd say my most purchased meats here are pork chops and crab legs.
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Wait, you think spending 12 grand a year on food for TWO people is being reasonable? $10 per person for one meal? You're bleedin money man.
 
Soygen

Soygen

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Local ranchers are pretty sparse in these parts. I still eat me some beef, though!

I agree with Khane. Keeping food under 1000 for 2 people is not an accomplishment. At least not for 99% of the planet.
 
Vitality

Vitality

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Soygen_sl said:
Local ranchers are pretty sparse in these parts. I still eat me some beef, though!

I agree with Khane. Keeping food under 1000 for 2 people is not an accomplishment. At least not for 99% of the planet.
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Not clammoring for accolades on the 1k mark my man, It's roughly 8% of our anual income, if it goes above 10% I'll raise concern.

Edit: I feel like $20 bucks for an appetizer (usually charcuterie and wine) a main course and a dessert for two at home seems just fine.
 
BrutulTM

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I don't. I have done a little bit of selling direct to people but it just turned into a big hassle for how much it was making. I sell beef to local friends and relatives but that's about it.
 
Vitality

Vitality

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BrutulTM_sl said:
I don't. I have done a little bit of selling direct to people but it just turned into a big hassle for how much it was making. I sell beef to local friends and relatives but that's about it.
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How much do you usually charge for a relatively medium sized premium cut package? I'm not learned on the subject so genuinely interested.
 
Joeboo

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Made a Meatball Sub casserole last night. It turned out pretty damn well and was super easy

Basically take a can of good biscuits(like Pilsbury grands), chop up each biscuit into 6 pieces(I cut them like pizza slices to get uniform sizes) throw em in a big bowl
Take a bag of pre-cooked frozen meatballs (the small ones that are roughly the size of golf balls), throw that in the bowl.
Dump half a jar of spaghetti or marinara sauce(2-3 cups) over it all.
Sautee whatever veggies you like on a meatball sub(onions, green peppers, mushrooms, whatever) throw it in the bowl

Mix it all up to get it all covered in sauce, then put it in a 9x13 glass baking dish. Cover with a bag of shredded mozzarella, and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Damn tasty, the 1 yr old loved it, he probably ate 3 meatballs(which for him are about the size of his fist)
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

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Semihomemade up in this bitch.


What brand of meatballs did you use? I've never tasted one that didn't have a squishy texture or the inevitable gristle in 1 or 2.
 
BrutulTM

BrutulTM

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I never did any packaging, it was either a half/quarter/whole beef and you give the cutting instructions to the butcher shop. We did it for $3-4 a pound which given the cattle markets now would be losing money vs. just taking them to the sales ring. Mostly now I just sell to relatives and friends that have bought from us for years and don't really make any money on it. There's also a couple guys that come out and help me 3-4 weekends a year when I have big projects to do and I give them a quarter every year as a thank you.

If I could actually go to farmer's markets or even sell direct to people in big cities and market it as premium grass fed beef I could probably get $15 a pound as Gravy mentioned, but it gets complicated quick and I already have much more than a full time job just keeping the cows alive and fed all year. I really only have anything ready to butcher once a year and it's just a few head so going into retail isn't really practical without changing the whole way the operation works. Also even the few people I sell to now are a pain in the ass sometimes with questions about hormones and antibiotics and "what's that white stuff in the hamburger" and "I'd like the hamburger a little bit leaner" etc. Fuck it.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Gravy_sl said:
Were the biscuits soggy?
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Nope, they came out great. The recipe I found called for it all to only be cooked for 30 minutes, but the middle wasn't done, so I put it in for another 15 and it came out perfect. I think the biscuits being cut into little triangular wedges made them cook really well, they weren't too big so they didn't have any problem getting done.

Deathwing_sl said:
Semihomemade up in this bitch.

What brand of meatballs did you use? I've never tasted one that didn't have a squishy texture or the inevitable gristle in 1 or 2.
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I actually went semi-healthy and used turkey meatballs from Trader Joes. They are damn good.
 
L

Lohk_sl

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As Khane pointed out, there is no reason to bleed money. Keeping meals under a certain dollar limit is a fine goal. $5 a day is lofty, but I'll continue to work with it.

Right now, on a cut, I eat 1700 calories that mostly consist of: turkey bacon, bread, eggs, tuna, chicken breast, sweet potatoes, brown rice, peanut butter and cottage cheese. Food plus some other nonfood items totals to about $50-$60 a week. It seems too much to me. I can definitely do better.

@lanx: I've had to eat 1 cup of brown rice plus other items and I agree, it was hard to eat all that food. Unfortunately I live in small town Oklahoma where asians only exist to set up buffet places. I'm limited by the single shelf at Walmart for asian cooking. I suppose I could order it online if it's cheap enough and I don't have to be pay shipping.
 
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