FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - Sandra's Money Saving Meals: Feeding a Crowd

celtichero15003

wrote:

>It cannot be said enough; where does this moron come up with these
>prices? Two cans of coconut milk costs less than heavy cream? $10
>to buy chips and dip? Pork shoulder for $0.99 per pound?

More and more I suspect some lowly production assistant is made to do a
quick google on prices and they find the cheapest and go with that.
Maybe even inflate the lowest ever so slightly because most instances as
I just saw when I tried it myself are usally extreme when someone
actually takes the time to quote a meat price online! Or hating on
Sandra Lee! A quick run through and I saw one post on some messageboard
that listed $0.49 a pound. But I also saw someone complaining about 3.00
a pound during the holidays

I must have not heard correctly on the pricing and now realize that her
careful math was for two cans of coconut milk to $4.00 cream. What the
hell kind of dairy subsidizing inflation are they using for that? That
or they buy their dairy through a time-share. And to get two cans for
less than a quart of heavy cream I'd have to hope my local Asian market
started having a damaged can sale.

I think heavy cream sells for close to but under $3.00 a quart. Maybe a
little under. But I can splurge and getlocal dairy cream from a great
place about a half hour away that sells heavy cream so heavy that you do
not have to whip it. It comes in a plastic jar and you have to scoop it
out. I've actually served a scoop of it with fresh fruit in a sugar
waffle cup as dessert to huge raves. That sells for $3.50 a pint and
half size container.

And something else about the tricky numbers. Most pork shoulders do not
weigh 10 lbs. Maybe if they didn't use the flyer taped to the telephone
poll from Bob's Radiactive Waste Management and Pig Farm as a price
guide they would be a bit more realistic. All the ones in my freezer
weigh in between 6 and 7.5 pounds. Looking through various dictionaries
and cookbooks and they all define the should as weighing between 4 and 7
lbs. So I figure eight or nine from a big enhanced pig and a ten pounds
comes with five pickled pigs feet.

And if she thinks you can actually feed ten people with chips, salsa and
two pork tacos and call it a meal she is still the same looney asshole
she was when she put fondant on a marshmellow and called it a snack.
Nothing else to go on the taco. And did it seem like there was a lot of
corn in that salsa for just four ears? Suspiciously whole kernels that
looked even yellower in the bowl than it did on the rather lackluster
looking kernels she grilled (which would cause them to delfate a little,
no?). If i didn;t think Sandra Lee was so incredibly trustworthy I'd
swear the end result of the corn salsa had canned whole corn in it and
not her grilled sliced off mess. But then I see how incredible pristine
her supposed chopped garlic in a jar left in the fridge is week after
week despite the fact that even in oil, garlic, still perfectly safe,
turns slightly brown. And actually even when freshly chopped is nowhere
as gleaming white as hers. No doubt that is why she has the cooking show
and I'm stuck at home making meals with fresh ingredients and even when
being cost effective try to make things taste good first (or not bother
doing them).

It is fun to hear her recycle (go Green Lee!) her own phrases. Replacing
Cooking is All About Appearances with Cooking is All About Saving Money.
But if it was all about saving money, I could just go to Taco Belle and
get the family pack of soft and crunchy taco assortment for the same
price or less and use the time spent pretend cooking on, I dunno,
getting liquored up with my guests.