Hello readers! It’s Thursday again, so it’s time for saving some cash!
Last week we did the burger thing…so this week I thought we’d tackle a common “go-to” money sucker…Chinese Takeout.
While a meal from those cute little white boxes is certainly easy and definitely cheaper than going to a steakhouse, there is still money to be saved by making the meal yourself. Here in our town, we have only one Chinese Restaurant. Some of you city slickers may have just gasped aloud, but it’s true. Just one. And to be honest, I’m kind of surprised we even have one. People here just aren’t big into culture, if you get my drift. I mean, if you can believe it, we managed to run a freaking Taco Bell out of town within something like a year. But I digress. Chinese food. Right. For two dinner sized Take Out entrees it costs us just over $20. I made us more than that…I made enough for Jon, myself, Seven (who ate his weight in it, no kidding) and enough for leftovers. My total was $3.50 for the chicken, maybe 50 cents in spices, 50 cents in sauces, a dollar for rice and another buck for vegetables. So that’s $6.50…a savings of around $13 bucks. Not too shabby.
Stirfry is easy. Simply cut up about a pound or more of chicken breast and dredge it in a little cornstarch, then place it in a hot pan r wok that you have added some sesame oil to. When it is cooked through, add some spices like red pepper, ginger, onion powder and garlic. Let that fry up a minute or two and then add this mixture – 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup soy sauce, and 4 teaspoons of sugar. Just pour that right on the chicken and let it thicken up a bit. Open a bag of frozen Stir Fry Veggies – mine were snap peas, carrots, broccoli and water chestnuts – and toss them in with the chicken and cover your pan or wok with a lid. At the same time this is cooking, be making your rice – white, brown, yellow – whatever you want. Just rice. Once everything is done, serve and enjoy! It takes so little time…maybe 25 minutes from start to finish. Hey, if you’ve got chopsticks, use them! We got ours in Thailand several years ago and I love the look of them. I imagine you can buy some pretty ones online too, though. (Not for 2 bucks for 6 pair, mind you, but pretty all the same.)
I’d like to thank all of my Twitter friends for the advice yesterday on what to do for dinner…and a big thanks to Tania of Love Big, Bake Often for her Stir-Fry suggestion. It was great! I imagine I will get around to trying all of the other Twitter suggestions at some point!
Just in case you are living in the Dark Ages and haven’t heard of National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPoMo, well, I am participating again this Month…which means 30 posts over the next 30 days. That’s right, a Post a Day. I did it last November and it really got me moving, so hopefully I will be able to do it again this time! Wish me luck! Congrats to Holly & CB for making it through the month of March!
