cheap Archives - Quirky Cookery

Chili for a crowd – 21 quarts for under 10 bucks

beans, cheap, make your own, oamc, once a month cooking, recipes, soup, tomatoes | May 16, 2012 | By Jessi

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2 bags (32 oz. each) pinto beans - $3.50 (Aldi)

3 pounds ground meat (beef, pork, turkey…whatever you feel like) - $3-6 (Catch it on sale)

Several cans tomato products (sauce, paste, diced, stewed, fresh) - $3?

Spices, weee! – Do you really need a price check on this?

Total — $10-$15

This is another reason I don’t do these sorts of posts. I have no idea what was put in that particular pot of chili. Those were complete guesses and vary a lot based on how it’s made each time.

What I do know, though, is that whether you prefer mostly meat and no beans….soupy or thick….tomatoes or no tomatoes…chunked meat instead of ground…. spicy or mild…

No matter what, 21 quarts of chili is a lot of chili. O.o

Based on a cup serving, that’s 84 servings…

Which means a large roaster pan of chili like this (or soup, meal, whatever) will not only feed you tonight and tomorrow….but once frozen, you’ll have meals for months for those lazy nights where you don’t feel like cooking. Add it into your OAMC rotation and you’ll be set for a while.

And for potlucks, fundraisers, etc, it’s a great way to push out a lot of food for a small amount of money. Turn it into chili dogs for something more substantial or serve with corn chips, crackers, or bread. It can easily be turned into a chili casserole, too, to stretch it even farther and get more bang for your buck.

4 gallons of pinto beans cooked in a crockpot roaster

Adding meat to huge slow cooker of tomatoes and beans

Saltine cracker chocolate toffee candy – Quick, cheap, and delicious

candy, cheap, chocolate, crackers, dessert, desserts, recipes | September 7, 2011 | By Jessi

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You know when you see a recipe a few times and it looks good, but eh, doesn’t sound like it’d be as good as the creator seems to make it out?

And so you don’t make it, you don’t make it, you don’t make it, and then one day, you say “What the heck? Why not? I’ll try it.” and it turns out to be so awesome that you’re kicking yourself for not making it sooner?

Yep, that’s what this is like.

I’d seen it a few times, it looked cool, but meh, I’m not a huge toffee fan and I don’t make candy, and well, come on, crackers?? Eh.

But it’s delicious and sooooo easy to make.

And well, it’s awfully cheap, too. These are pictures from the third or fourth time I’d made it and you can see that I just took the chocolate scraps from almost empty bags of various kinds of chocolate. Normally I’d only use chocolate chips, but here, I even used unsweetened baking chips and chocolate chunks. It’s sweet enough overall that I didn’t even notice a difference.

I actually don’t know what exact recipe I used. After the first time, I kinda eyeballed it each time and went from there. Oops. But this one looks pretty close to where it likely started:

Saltine Toffee

1 1/2 sleeves saltine crackers (sprinkle what ever doesn’t fit in the pan on top after)
1 – cup butter
1 – cup light brown sugar
1 – 12 oz package chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay crackers in a flat layer in a 9×13 pan. Melt butter and sugar together and bring to a full boil. Boil for 3 minutes. Pour over crackers and bake for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle on chocolate bits of whatever you prefer, and spread with a spatula. Crumble some crushed saltines over the top, or you can even use chopped nuts if that’s your thing.

Mommy’s Kitchen has some great step-by-step pictures, too, if you’re the type who likes to see what to expect every step of the way.

And really, the crackers are a huge surprise when it comes to the success. They soak up the sugar mixture nicely, leaving you with a slightly crispy, salty base covered in chocolate. If you want a more candy-like texture, let them cool and break into randomly sized pieces.

Good luck waiting that long, though. The only reason I got pictures of them like that is because it was the second batch of the day. :P