Outdoor Dawg Approved Cheap Home Meals

[BeastMan]

Thought this could interesting. What is a solid meal option for home grilling that doesn't dent the wallet? I'll get the ball rolling.

2 four ounce bacon wrapped beef filet from Kroger
2 baked potatoe
1 onion
1 pack mushrooms
1 bottle KC masterpiece steakhouse marinade

First off, I'm not even sure those Kroger filets are really filets at $4.99 a piece but they aren't bad. I'm
usually a meat purist and with a nice cut I would never marinade but a 5 dolla steak, hell yes I'll marinade and the KC masterpiece is good. The A1 marinades are good for cheap steaks too. Assuming you have basics like s&p, butter, olive oil, etc... You can purchase and grill this meal for 2 for right under $20. Can't beat that price.

[Johnson85]

Thought this could interesting. What is a solid meal option for home grilling that doesn't dent the wallet? I'll get the ball rolling.

2 four ounce bacon wrapped beef filet from Kroger
2 baked potatoe
1 onion
1 pack mushrooms
1 bottle KC masterpiece steakhouse marinade

First off, I'm not even sure those Kroger filets are really filets at $4.99 a piece but they aren't bad. I'm
usually a meat purist and with a nice cut I would never marinade but a 5 dolla steak, hell yes I'll marinade and the KC masterpiece is good. The A1 marinades are good for cheap steaks too. Assuming you have basics like s&p, butter, olive oil, etc... You can purchase and grill this meal for 2 for right under $20. Can't beat that price.

I think you can do better than that for $20. Last time I cooked steaks, I did large, thick cut new york strips. Cut them in half and everybody had 4-6 ounce steaks. Baked potatoes and a bag salad and it was just under $10 a head. Granted that wasn't the cost of olive oil, salt, pepper, and butter for the steaks and potatoes or the cost of salad dressing, but I also could have done the salad cheaper by not doing the prepared lettuce or by grilling a cheap vegetable. That would give you the same type meal but with a cut of meat that's quality enough that you don't have to marinate. Of course there are times where I actually like a piece of marinated meat so the cheap steaks aren't such a bad deal then.

Another cheap option for grilling for two is to buy chicken breasts and split them into twos in freezer bags with a red wine vinegar marinade. Pull them out at lunch to thaw and for dinner grill the two chicken breasts, pair it with baked potato and a vegetable, and it's a pretty healthy meal for cheap. This only works if you do a batch at a time b/c the marinade has dry mustard, soy, worsterchire, and some other things and if you mix up a batch of marinade and only do 3 or 4 breasts, it makes it more expensive.

Of course if you're cooking for more than two, or don't mind freezing leftovers, boston butt is the best bang for the buck in my mind.

[SpeckleDawg]

Catch redfish, buy a little butter and hot sauce and boom!

Let's not add up the costs of gear, boat, gas, ice, etc. It may make me sick!

[BeastMan]

Catch redfish, buy a little butter and hot sauce and boom!

Let's not add up the costs of gear, boat, gas, ice, etc. It may make me sick!

Haha. That's why I didn't say fish! Got freezers full of it but the hunt is a pretty penny!

[SpeckleDawg]

Same goes for deer too. Get a lot of meat every year, but if the costs were tallied.....

[BrunswickDawg]

2 lbs of medium GA whites, head off, $12
Box of angel hair, $.99
Head of broccoli, $2
Jar of Bertolli Mushroom Alfredo Sauce, $1.50

Blacken that shrimp in the broiler, and mix it all up. Damn good dinner for 4 at $16.49

[Uncle Ruckus]

Not grilling but this is something I do sometimes when I have several people coming for a game. Cream cheese and sausage dip and Caribbean jerk shredded chicken sliders. I can feed around 10 people for about $30 and it's pretty damn good. 80% of the work is done in the crock pot too so I get to be lazy and watch games while it's getting ready.
I fed 12 people last Friday night for under $20. Did my homemade buffalo sauce and tossed it with some store bought frozen shrimp I fried because I wasn't buying fresh for everyone, bought two 3ft long French breads to to make poboys, and sweet potatoe fries. Granted I already had the stuff to made the sauce, the rest is pretty cheap.

Ready for this weekends threads. I'm going to try something crazy with a homemade dough.

[SapperDawg]

Smoked meatloaf. Make your favorite meatloaf mix, but season the outside with your favorite BBQ rub - I find this works great with venison. Smoke it indirect on your Weber kettle until the interior hits 150 F, then paint with your favorite sauce and continue cooking until 160F....slice and serve. I poke holes in the sides of the loaf pans to let much of fat and water drain out.

I use the small aluminum loaf pans and make several at a time, and put them up in the freezer for a different weeknight meal. Pull it out of the freezer and steam it to ensure it stays moist while reheating.

[BeastMan]

These are great so far gents

[SapperDawg]

This is kinda OT, but relevant to the discussion. Being a young family with two working parents, one of the things that is most important to us - as it is to many families - is spending quality time together after work each day. Meal prep and cooking takes time, though, but we don’t want to sacrifice a home cooked meal for the sake saving a few minutes on the front and back end of meal time. When I look at the lines at the fast food establishments on my way home, I can tell not everyone is making the same sacrifice.

Back to family meal nights. What we have found works well for us is every six weeks or so, I spend an entire day with meat on the smoker. We cook country style ribs, meatloaf, pork loin, pulled pork, sausages, meatballs, pork steaks, chickens…pretty much everything you would think of putting on a smoker and more. We then spend some time the next day dividing these into meal size portions and packing them with our vacuum sealer, then off to the garage chest freezer for storage.

One of my issues with pre-cooked meats, even leftovers, has been trying to figure out how to evenly reheat it while maintaining flavor and texture. For a long time, I was dropping the vacuum sealed bag in a pot of boiling water and letting it go until I thought it was ready. I had mixed results with that method, especially on larger cuts of pork and chicken as it seemed the center would not get thawed. Again reading on the forum one night, I caught a conversation about steaming meats to reheat. I tried it out, and it works perfectly, and keeps them moist and tender. I now have two dedicated steamers that insert into pots we already have, and can say that these and my cast iron skillets are the most used item in our kitchen.

For our weeknight meals, we come come, pick a protein course right out of the freezer, unseal and toss it in the steamer, get a vegetable and other side prepared and we are eating within about 30 minutes. Note that these meals taste just like they came off the grill.

This method of weeknight meal prep has significantly de-stressed our evenings, and provided us some grocery store savings by allowing buy-in-bulk for the meats during the smoking weekend.

[jbjones]

I do cheap every day. I normally cook on the weekend for the majority of my weekday meals. Mostly, I do it for my lunches that I take to work.

1 Turkey Breast (bone-in/boneless doesn't really matter) = ~$12 for a ~3 pound breast
A few bucks in seasonings (I use Conecuh Pork/Poultry and rub it with local honey)
Brine overnight, smoke to 164 (My last 4 turkey breasts have taken less than 3 hours). Wrap in foil and let it rest a few hours.

I use my slicer to make nice big sandwich slices. There's my lunch for the next 7-8 days. Add some tomato, lettuce...yeah, I can't wait for 11:30 to hit.

Edit: And I'll second Sapper's method. I've had a few meals there at his joint that were re-heated/steamed and it's fantastic. Something I'm taking a serious look at.

[Uncivilengineer]

Can't get any cheaper than Chicken Thighs. Use this recipe to make them taste like $15/pound fillets.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/myron-mixon-s-world-famous-cupcake-chicken-365437

[BrunswickDawg]

Sapper - what you talk about is the hardest thing. My wife owns her own business which means long/odd hours, and my state agency work meant a lot of nights doing public event/meetings stuff. So we always seemed to be scrambling. Kids also tend to be adverse to leftovers, so making them seem like fresh cooked meals is big. About the only thing leftover I have always been able to get mine to eat are boston butt, tacos, and spaghetti. The slow cooker probably saved our marriage at times (just kidding, but man did it help).

Now that it is starting to "cool off" in South GA, I'll start breaking out the slow cooker to do chili, gumbo, red beans and rice, and a terrific shrimp and corn chowder. My son and I will typically do the prep work (he is sous chef) the night before and I dump everything in before I leave for work. Now that the kids are in HS and there stuff, there are many nights when we all eat at different times - but dinner is ready to go. I'll eat the leftovers for lunch, and sometimes we freeze and then eat again a couple of weeks later.

[SpeckleDawg]

Good stuff here. It is definitely tough to balance work/time at home with both of us working and having a toddler. I usually fry fish one night a week (vacuum sealed, so easy to thaw), which doesn't take long. We often do an easy fajita recipe (chicken, bell peppers, onion, seasoning) that also doesn't take too long, as well as a few other easy dishes like spaghetti or tacos. I may have to try the whole day of cooking and freezing method.

[Barking 13]

I've been spoiled with $5.98 / lb ribeyes at the local store for a couple months now.

It may cost about $50 bucks, but you guys have probably seen my kabob pics on here before. I'll make a busload (20 or so) of them with chicken, pork, beef, and sausage, with peppers, onions (red and sweet) , cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, sometimes squash, etc. , and some 3/ $1.00 ears of corn I grill in foil. I'll cook them on Saturday or Sunday and we'll eat on it all week.

[MSUDawg4Life]

Not a full meal, but:

Crawfish Baked Potato

http://acadianatable.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Stuffed-Potato-Main-680x453.jpg
(http://acadianatable.com/2015/04/20/crawfish-baked-potato/)