Gyros.

I love Greek food. I could probably eat it everyday. I love the freshness of it. Since I've put cooking on the back burner for awhile I wanted to make something fresh and cool. I did a tweak on one of my fellow August cooks blog post about Pita Burgers.
The original recipe was to make burgers but I wanted to use things I had. Instead I  used sliced skirt steak and greek yogurt for the sauce instead of mayo. I’m not a big fan of mayo I also like the fresh quality of Greek yogurt.

I prepped the sauce first Greek yogurt, fresh garlic, 1 cucumber, and some fresh dill. I seeded and diced the cucumber and mixed all of the ingredients in the bowl and set aside to meld the flavors.

Since the steak was sliced so thin I baked it in my convection oven so it would still be juicy along with some paprika and spices.

Diced some onions (last weeks chili), tomatoes and lettuce I had lying around. Creating what ultimately became more of a gyro then burger. As soon as the steak was finished cooking I swiftly assembled them added some fresh Tabouleh salad. Viola a really quick dinner that was inspired by the pita burger post.

 

$6.67- skirt steak
$1.99- fresh dill
$2.58- greek yogurt
$.65- cucumber
$3.70- pitas
$15.59 Total

So a meal that consisted of many things I had lying about and a few I had to purchase that will feed us for two days and still fit into my budget. Yippee

I've sort of fallen off the wagon...

I am still fine tuning my eight dollar dinners. Works just kept me very busy so I haven't had time to really cook or blog about it. I have still been keeping up with my eight dollar dinners but in a more mass cooking style.  I made a pot of chili last week that fed Eric and I for a 5 days. It was the same chili I posted about before but on a larger scale. The orginal purchase went way over my budget it was about $28.00 but it fed two people for quiet a while panning out to about $4.80 a day.

This experiement has really helped me see what I spend my money on. I am also more conscious of what I buy and how much and if it can be used for other meals. 

Last nights sad dinner

My dinner last night was good, though not extremely healthy. I have to admit I was being lazy and I wasn't very hungry. Dinner last night consisted of something I would have eaten in college. A simple box of mac and cheese. It was slightly special though, it was white cheddar shells from Trader Joe's.  They were on sale last week and I picked up a box to try. It want to say that it was $1.89. So while watching past episodes of Top Chef I ate my cheap but tasty dinner. I did add some garlic salt to spice it up a bit. For dessert... an orange.

So Dinner was under $3.00. I'll work on the health factor tonight, I think I'm going to make tacos. If I can make it under eight dollars.

Dinner secret..

So I've come to realize that it is possible to do a healthy dinner for eight dollars. I've realized though that it is even easier to make a larger something and make it last for a few days. Especially during the work week. I'm very busy and don't always have or want to spend hours in the kitchen. That is where my crockpot has become a great friend.  Last week I bought a roast, a can of diced tomatoes and a can of french onion soup and an onion. I added all of this to my crock-pot along with some dried herbs, salt and pepper. I let it cook for almost 11 hours. While I was at work it was on low. after I got home I turned it on keep warm since Eric was working late. Woah, it was the best roast I've ever made. It completely fell apart.  I strained out the tomatoes and half an onion to top my roast and reduced down the remaining liquid to make a sauce. For a side I diced the potatoes and onion and roasted them in oil and seasoning until the were tender. Hands down this is my favorite easy meal. To make it even better It lasted 3 days. On the last day I bought some buns for sandwiches. The roast just fell apart like pulled pork.

Pot Roast $9.59
Can of diced tomatoes $0.79
French onion soup      $.89
Onion                       $1.00
Sweet Potato           $ 1.05
Potato                      $1.10
  = $14.42 

Buns $0.89

This super easy work week meal fed Eric and i for 3 days giving me a dinner total of $5.10 per person for two days. We couldn't eat at a fast food place for that.

Trader Joe's and Chinese

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Oh how I love Trader Joe's almost everything is somewhere around $2.50-$4.00 and so very good.   Eric and I were looking for a quick meal yesterday so we stopped by our local TJ's to get dinner. I was craving Chinese food so we decided to see what they had.  We ended up picking up Honey Chicken- $3.50 and some chicken and vegetable dumplings for $2.49. We had rice at home so viola awesome cheap Chinese dinner for $6.00. :)

*not the healthiest dinner we've made but well sometimes you just have to scratch an itch.*

Farmers Markets

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I've sort of been on a crazy hiatus from my eight dollar dinners. I went on vacation again, my Dad came over for dinner. I made a roast chicken, veggies and risotto all under my eight dollar mark, but I know the cheese Eric bought to share kicked us over our budget. It was the first time my Dad has come over for dinner so I didn't want to cheap out. My Dad was lonely My Mom and brother were still away in Michigan so I said come on over for dinner. It was good times but now I need to get on track. Bringing me to the title of my post. Farmer's markets! Unlike most large cities Atlanta doesn't have many markets, but the two we do have are really good. So this past Sunday Eric and I trooped over to the Dekalb International Farmer's market. Eric had never been before. It's an amazing indoor market with produce, food and dairy from all over the world. We decided to spoil ourselves a little and do some grocery shopping and get dinner. So for the whopping total of $27.00 We got a ton of items. Ground Lamb for lamb burgers, buns, goat cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, garlic, onions, a bag of grapefruits, two fuji apples and two nectarines, a bagette, and two danishes. (We were hungry we don't usually buy pasteries.) ALL FOR $27.00. Why haven't I been doing this all along. So cheap, so good and so fresh. I am going back soon to make sure I stay on my $8.00 a day.

Chili Dogs!

While in Washington D.C a few weeks ago. Eric and I went to Ben's chili bowl. We had a half-smoke, a chili dog half hot dog/ half sausage, smothered in chili, diced onions and mustard.  We wanted to recreate what we had there at home. We tried to do it last week but I ran out of time and homemade chili. I still had half an onion though that I didn't use from my own chili. So our version of half-smokes for dinner. Eric picked up turkey sausage. We don't normally eat this much turkey it just keeps being on sale. Fresh buns, some Hormel Chili and dessert two oranges.  For a whopping total of $0.00

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Once again I forgot to take a picture. Oy I need to step up my game. 

Eric cooked dinner this time so I'm not exactly sure of his process but it was very good.