Weekend of Cheap

Two weeks ago my roommates and I decided we needed to get our spending in check.  We’re not outrageous, but each of us had our own reason to try and conserve, at least for one weekend.  And thus, the weekend of cheap was born.  The goal was not to exceed $40 all weekend.  Could we do it?

This idea quickly turned into an obsessive frenzy.  We’re not so far away from college that this notion is unfamiliar.  We just haven’t needed to do it.  It was fresh.  Addicting.  Throughout the week we were sending emails about grocery store flyers.  Ribs are on sale.  Whole chickens for 69 cents/ lb.  Cucumbers for next to nothing.  It was time to feast.  For cheap.

In the end, we realized that planning an elaborate dinner was not the way to stay in and save money, regardless of all the sale items we incorporated.  But we ate well and drank a lot, and were merry.  I think it was really the booze that jacked the night up.  Long Island Iced Teas, no matter the quality of the alcohol you buy (we got the really gross stuff), still adds up.

Here’s what was on the menu.  Andrew made 6 racks of ribs that he rubbed down Friday night, letting them sit in glory all night and day.  He also prepared a very fresh Cucumber Salad that I remember absolutely loving.  Sadly, by that point in the evening I was already too many drinks in, and can’t for the life of me tell you what else was in that salad.  Then there was the Macaroni and Cheese.  This was my personal favorite, as it really took me back to my poor days at Emerson.  Boxed mac and cheese was my jam.  I was always adding broccoli or spinach or even beans– whatever I had in the house to throw in and make some sort of meal out of.  This is the ultimate cheap eat.  Lucky for us, Randy had 3 boxes of it just sitting in his cabinet yearning to be used.  The real low quality no name brand.  We weren’t going to be blessed with the blue box or Velveeta.  We were messing with Ralph’s brand.  We needed to enhance this.  So Andrew took said low grade mac and cheese and added a pound of bacon, substituted half the required butter with bacon fat, and sprinkled the top with panko and sliced tomatoes.  It was this gorgeous little gem that didn’t make any sense.  The additions cost more than the base, and for that I loved it.

My contribution to this decadent meal was chicken.  I had just recently learned about spatchcocking, which is just a dirty way of butterflying a whole chicken.  It’s a simple process where you take a pair of scissors and remove the back bone, thus allowing the chicken to fall open.  It’s great for grilling and I was dying to try it.  With super cheap chicken on sale, I was ready.  Friday night I cleaned and prepared my bird.  I decided on a tangy lemon marinade that I let her sit in for 24 hours.  Below is the recipe for the marinade.  It was awesome!

P.D.T’s Sourpuss Lemon Chicken Marinade

• 1 large lemon
• 9 stick of unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 1  jalapeno pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 tsp coarse salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Soak and roll the lemon.  Cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices.  Remove any seeds.  Place remainder of ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until sugar is dissolved for about 3-5 minutes.  Pour mixture into the bowl of lemons and stir.  Cool to room temperature.  Use marinade within the hour.  Makes 2 cups, enough for 1 whole chicken.

Butterflied chicken is also really easy to grill.  It’s very low maintenance.  When the time comes to use heat, prepare your bird by making sure she sits breast side up.  Apply pressure to the sides, in an effort to make it as flat as possible.  Then take a long wooden skewer and insert it in the leg, going diagonal through the breast, all the way to the opposite wing.  Do this on the opposite side as well.  This will ensure the bird stays flat on the grill.  We have a gas grill which makes it easy to control the temperature.  You want to keep it between 325 and 350 degrees.  Butterflied birds cook best under indirect heat, which simply means that there shouldn’t be a flame right underneath.  For this I lit the burner that runs on the outside perimeter and placed the chicken right in the middle.

I’m very paranoid about undercooking chicken.  I have a vivid memory that will never leave me of biting into a chicken leg that was supposedly ready to eat, and it was in fact raw.  Raw chicken in my mouth.  If only I had a picture of the horrific look on my face that night.  So because of this I am very careful about my chicken.  You want the internal temperature to be at 180 degrees.  Recipes always say ‘cook until juices run clear,’ but I’m always cooking at night outside on the grill.  This doesn’t help me.  So I poke and prod all over with a meat thermometer.  It is important with a butterflied chicken to check to bottom of the breast, closest to the bone.  When we took this darling off the grill Saturday night, we though she was done, but one slice in told us the bottom of the breasts were raw and needed more time.  I can’t even give you a timeline because it went much longer than I had anticipated.  So long, in fact, that we had already finished dinner before the chicken was done.  So I ate it for dinner the next night instead.  It is important to note, however, that this bird is going to get crispy.  Don’t get huffy.  Remember the bottom part that is facing the heat is all bone.  If that gets charred it doesn’t matter.  The juicy delicious meaty goodness is safe.  And who doesn’t like crispy skin?!

In the end, I really enjoyed how this came out.  The marinade was perfect, adding a zesty afterthought.  This would have been a great contrast to intensity of the ribs we were eating, but se la vie.  It was not meant to be.  And now I’m officially obsessed with ‘spatchcocking.’  More on my bird adventures to come.  And apologies for not having pictures of all the glorious food we ate that night.

Upstaging

I’m going to make a confession here.  I have a tendency to one- up at gatherings.  I’ll be invited to a barbecue or party and I’ll rack my brain for something to make that could have potential to be the best thing there.  It’s not that I want the attention.  That’s the part of it I don’t like.  It has to be the Italian in me or something… to just hear people talking about how they like my food.

This happened this past weekend when my friend decided to throw a barbecue dedicated to ribs.  They were on sale so we made a day of it.  Instead of deciding to make a side or something like that, I bought a rack of pork ribs and put all my efforts on those.  I made a dry rub and proceeded to make a homemade barbecue sauce to lather on top while grilling.  I needed these to be epic.  Why?  Because I’m a tool like that.  Of course I would choose to make a most excellent set of pork ribs when the host was making racks upon racks of beef ribs.

The outcome?  Awesome.  This may become the spring of ribs for this girl.

Let’s travel all the way back in time to Superbowl Sunday.  I was invited to sweet ass party and decided I needed something phenomenal.  That was a pretty loaded weekend, as there was a birthday party the night before and I knew I wouldn’t want to make anything outrageous the next day.  I decided on a very  healthy rosemary bean dip, which was excellent and homemade Kit Kat Bars.

This was a foodpress recipe.  Some chick decided to make her own, and kudos because I basically took her recipe and modified it. I’m going to walk you through this one instead of just listing it.  It’s more fun that way.  As an introduction, I had really REALLY been craving chocolate covered pretzels with peanut butter.

To begin, you line a baking dish with club crackers.  I’m talking about those buttery delicious Keebler treats that come in the green box.  And here’s where I said, “Recipe, I’m going to own you.”  I bought a bag of rectangular pretzels and added a layer of those on top of the crackers.

Next, I threw the following ingredients into a sauce pan: 2 sticks of unsalted butter, 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs, 1 cup of dark brown sugar, 1/2 cup of milk, and 1/3 cup of granulated sugar.  Boil for a couple of minutes, stirring to make sure all this fatty goodness is blending together.  Then pour half of this over the cracker/ pretzel layer.  You want to smooth this out as much as possible with a spatula, which can get a bit tricky because of the pretzels.

Then add another cracker/ pretzel layer and pour the rest of the mixture on top.  This was where I kissed the pretzels goodbye and decided enough was enough.  I added one last layer of crackers and then went for the big finish.

Get another saucepan and add 2/3 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips, and 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips.  That’s what really won me over here.  The addition of butterscotch chips more or less had me wailing in delight.

When all of these are combined and smooth, pour that all over the top layer.  I smoothed this out and attempted to cover the sides, sort of.  Then I popped it into the fridge to congeal and release all the magic that goes along with creating candy.

During all of this, I was sharing the kitchen with my roommate, who was making an epic macaroni and cheese for the party he was going to.  It was amazing that we were both able to work in there at the same time, and both of us couldn’t help but oggle the others’ food preparation.

And I will say that these were a freakin’ hit.  Who doesn’t like all of those delicious things smushed into delicate squares?  It was a definite success and I will say very easy to make.

And what was I to do with all the leftover chips?  I spent my Wednesday night melting chocolate and butterscotch chips in the microwave and then dipping peanut butter filled pretzels in there.  Sometimes you just need to indulge.