The $10 Dinner Challenge

This week I was contacted by the PR folks representing Prego spaghetti sauce who are promoting their "$10 meal" campaign. They sent along a bag of penne pasta, a jar of Prego spaghetti sauce, a can of cut green beans, a bottle of garlic powder, and a small container of shelf-stable parmesan cheese (all grocery store house brands, with the exception of the beans which were Del Monte brand and the Prego, of course.).

It would be so easy for someone who always makes her tomato sauce to criticize the canned and processed choices that were sent, but with so many people trying to stretch their budget these days, I bet this combination of food items appears more often than not on dinner tables all across America. You have to make the choices that are best for your family depending on your budget. No one can fault that.

But this planted a seed in my head, and you know we're all in trouble when that happens.

Since my first thought upon receiving my food pack was, "Oh, I can do better than this for $10," I'm going to put my money (literally) where my mouth is and cook a dinner for my family of four for $10.  And I want you to join me! Together we can show that it's possible to cook a satisfying, healthful meal for $10.  If you have a larger family, increase accordingly—family of 6 you get $15.00. Family of 8: $20 and so on. I'm just asking you try, just for one meal, then you can go back to eating the bone-in rib-eyes and sipping Dom Perignon.

If you are in, simply:

1. Write about what you plan on cooking on your blog and link back to this post.

2. Cook your meal, share your budget and post your results by, say, Wednesday October 8th.

3. Come back and leave a comment on this post with a link to your post and I will compile the links and post them to my blog along with everyone else's results. 

The rules:

The meal must cost $10 or less. The only exceptions (freebies) are salt and pepper. And for consistency let's price fats (butter, margarine, oil) at 10 cents a tablespoon.

Are you up for the challenge?  I hope so!

Comments

[Kayris]

Prego is sending me their 10 dollar pack too. I prefer my homemade sauce...but I said okay because, let's face it, sometimes the jar stuff is faster and people just want to eat.

I'm in. Ten dollar challenge it is!

[Gudrun of Kitchen Gadget Girl]

what is the best way to figure out a cost-per-dinner? And can we use things already in our pantry, or is this all brand new and fresh? And can we used canned items, or does it all need to be from scratch?

This totally reminds me of a book I used to read as a kid - the main character and her friend would have x dollars to spend on dinner (usually $2.30 or something very small) and they would spend it down to the last penny. I loved that, the would often buy an avocado with the last few cents.

[porter]

I'm in...can't believe I'm saying this because I've been taking a break..life's tough right now...but we still gotta eat. I think I love this challenge mostly because when doing my grocery budgeting I never do it per meal, I always do it per week...per meal is just so much smarter no????? This challenge is going to be easy peasy for you...I think it's going to be fun to see the results. I will link back.

[Stefania/CityMama]

Great questions Gudrun! I think it can be anything you want as long as it's $10. For prices let's say the average price at a big grocery store. If you using things like a few cups of rice or flour, just do a best-guess depending on the price of the package.

[Sandra]

I will try this and let you know my results.

[Rattling the Kettle]

How much does a tablespoon of Plugra butter cost?

[Brooke Raymond]

i love you more and more every post you write. i would have had the same reaction.

[shannanb aka Mommy Bits]

This is great. I am in!!! I have been wanting to cook more and this will be a great way to get started.

[mimi]

Excellent Challenge... The ravioli I made this week only cost me $9.83 all up and I have enough left overs to make another meal for our family of four!

[Annie]

Long time reader, first time commenting. Husband is Korean, I'm Taiwanese. We stick mostly to Asian foods since it's cheaper. Tonight we're having pan-fried mackerel ( 4$ from H-mart, our local Korean market). Baby Bok Choy with garlic and oyster sauce (2 dollars), scallion pajun (50 cents at the most?) and home-made mandu gook (korean dumpling soup) (can't be more than 2 dollars, even with the anchovy base), home made kimchi (I did a cost break down of the kimchi, it was 14$ a jar at the store, we bought 2 napa cabbages and had all the ingredients, garlic, gochugaru etc, it was less then 3 dollars to make 3 big jars of it). Oh and rice (50 cents?).

Most of our meals are less than 10 dollars, which is enough to have left overs for our lunches the next day. Husband brings a bento to work and my toddlers and I eat at home. I'm sure as my boys get bigger they will eat me out of house and home, and my 10 dollar budget will increase dramatically.

We live in NYC, but not Manhattan.

[Cat Lincoln]

Screw all you home cooks, I'm doing the KFC $10 challenge: http://www.kfc.com/promos/commercial.asp

[bb]

hey stoner..err, Cat...take another bong hit and quit shilling for KFC

[QGirl]

I'm totally doing this. hopefully can get it together tonight. We just went through our budget and it is so tight! I sucked it up and took the challenge of cutting our shopping expenses and actually spent almost half of what I usually do at the grocery store. So proud of myself! But man it was hard to put back some of my favorite treats.

[erin]

Dang - I am so not up for this. I love the idea though and am looking forward to reading what everyone posts. Thank you all!

[Karen]

so...a chance to put my money where my mouth is! I cook a lot of Persian food because my family enjoys it but also because I can stretch my food budget money with what is basically stew & rice. This was a great chance for me to really look at this, thanks!

2 of our favorites are Koreshte Karafse and Loubia Polo - both work out to about $7.50 and both make enough for a second meal of leftovers. I am making Loubia Polo tomorrow, so here goes:

1 lb ground beef ($2.70), 1 lb frozen green beans ($2.50 - but usually cheaper as I buy them on sale and stock up), 1 onion ($.30), tomato paste ($.50), spices ($1.00 - lemon juice, cinnamon, turmeric), rice ($.50), total = $7.50

[katelin]

glad you got everything already! and definitely a great idea to get everyone involved. :)

[Mary]

LOVE this. hm... perhaps kimchi soup. i think that can be done easily for less than $10. even with store bought kimchi. i'm a one-pot wonder kind of gal.

[Amanda]

It took me 3 tries to get under $10! (Which totally surprised me!) I'll be back to post my results tomorrow night after dinner.

[Kayris]

My post is here.

I chose 5 dinners my family likes to eat (including sides) and figured out how much they cost. Most are around 10 dollars, but one meatless one was well over, which surprised me, but it's also all fresh stuff.

[Mary]

My post is up on my blog.
Lemon Broccoli Pasta with Greek Pizza Bread.

[Quyen]

My post is up. I made Classic Chicken Cacciatore with brown rice.

It was challenging. Very fun though.

[Mom24@4evermom]

Mine's nothing fancy, but it was enjoyed by all, and the price was right. http://4evermom.blogspot.com/2008/10/10-dinner-challenge.html

[Amanda]

Okay, I did it! Chicken and potatoes FTW.
http://nakedledger.blogspot.com/2008/10/10-dinner-challenge-chicken-potatoes.html

[Jimmie]

I did it! I heard about this from Carrisa (of AndSoSheBlogs.com), and I have made TWO meals this week that were under $10 without even trying. (I mean, we're trying to cut costs but I didn't set out to make it < $10 before I heard of this challenge.)

Here's my post:
http://poundcountdown.blogspot.com/2008/10/10-challenge-but-not-really.html

And, I should say that I'm only cooking for 2 and not 4, BUT, each meal made 4 generous servings since both of us also had leftovers for lunch the next day.

[Mary]

Forgot to add my link yesterday when I posted. Here is is
http://ainsleyandoswald.blogspot.com/2008/10/10-food-challenge-at-citymama.html