Rabbit Hole - break down of curry soup from scratch vs store bought

 Join me on my rabbit hole of the day.

So I was searching for meat that was on sale. Side note I didn't find any and got way off track. I kept seeing adds for Misfit Markets. It was everywhere, adds on insta, adds on youtube, adds in my sidebar. So after seeing it for the hundredth time, I finally decided to give it a look. Let me save you the trouble. Unless you are looking for strictly organic (in which case I have no clue) it's absolutely not worth it. Most of the products are more expensive than our local WinCo (at least what I came across). But as I was purusing, I saw a ready-to-eat meal for coconut curry. $4.19 for a 2oz container of soup. 2 oz! That's 1/4 cup. Ok oz doesn't always transfer clean, so let's go with the other info 57grams ok that's closer to 3/4 cup. But that's still $4 for about 1 ladle of soup.

So the question is, what would it cost to make this at home? Let's give it a shot. 

I went roughly off this recipe. Now, the best part is I had everything I needed, so it didn't cost me a single cent. Just helped me use up some stuff sitting in my pantry. And with a sick teen, I figured the extra garlic, onion, and turmeric would probably be good. 

Ingredients (all prices are from walmart.com and generic) 

▢1 cup chopped onion $1.88/7 = $0.27

▢1 cup chopped carrot $1.92/2lb so $0.25

▢1 tablespoon (30 g) finely chopped garlic cloves (2 or 3 cloves) ) $0.64/3 = $0.21

▢⅓ cup (80 g) Thai red curry paste, ( I used the powder so $0.05) 

▢½ teaspoon ground turmeric

▢¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

▢Salt

▢1 cup (205 g) red lentils $2 for a dry bag / 1/4 - $0.50

▢3½ cups (1 l) vegetable broth, or water

▢1 13.5-ounce can (400 ml) coconut milk (not light)  $3.65

Total $4.93 But we also added rice $1.77/32 oz /4 = $0.44

So, rounding up this dish cost about $5.50 and it made 8 cups of soup. Added bonus, my house smells amazing! 

Tip: 

• Don't be scared of using dry beans. Toss them in the crock pot and let them cook all day. Drain and freeze in single portions for later. It's like canned but half the price. Also you can pressure can dried beans and forgo the cooking altogether. Dry beans are way cheaper and don't have any extras. 
• Broth is so easy to make, either use bullion or boil down those chicken bones from the last meal. I just grabbed a $5 chicken from Costco (can't pass it up). Crock-pot the bones all night with other veggie scraps and there is your own broth at no cost.
• The paste definitely has a much richer flavor than the powdered curry. It's only about $4 and you only use a little at a time so totally worth it. 
• Most any recipe will work with what you have on hand if you are just a little creative. 

So where is your favorite place to get ground meat besides the forest? 

MEATBALLS 

is it worth it?

So I found this recipe for baking meatballs. I've always found it to be more labor-intensive than I was up for. But if this works, it could be a game changer...I think. My whole house loves meatballs, toss them in pasta, in sandwiches, in soups, even just heat and eat on their own as a little appetizer. But with the prices of meat skyrocketing I'm just curious, is it worth it. Today the obvious answer is yes, because I have left over groud beef that needed to be used up and wasn't sure what to make with it. But would I go out and buy it? I'm going to break it down here. 

This is the recipe I was looking at. Meatballs in a Muffin Tin

Though I often shop at winco or costco I'm going to be price checking on walmart just because their website is easier to navigate and the prices are very similar, usually. 

1 pound of ground beef - $5.50 - 8.00 depending on fat level

most of the other ingredients are things I would normally have on hand or are easily substituted.

1 pound of meatballs - $8.47 for 32count  but that's a 2 pound bag. 

The math ain't mathin' because I just made 24 with some left over of about a pound. None of these are very big... The only thing I can think of is that being froze caues them to weigh more? 

The thing about making it from scratch is you know exactly what's in it. But for the prise it's a hard beat especially because where I buy them, they are often on sale for $4 a bag. So I think this one is still up in the air. Either way with a house full of hungry teenagers, it's a good thing to have on hand.