Equipment Guide: Cellfire

Hey folks! I found a new way to save money through the Southern Savers site we discusssed yesterday. The product is called Cellfire and it lets you send coupons to your cell phone, which can then be displayed on the screen for the clerk when you check out. Of course, it only works with their partner stores, but since they include Kroger, Gamestop, Sears and a bunch of fast food restaurants, you're certain to get some use out of it. Go to their website here to check it out.

One more thing: you can also load coupons onto your Kroger Plus discount card, if you don't have a cellphone that works with Cellfire. All you have to do is hand over the card like normal, and the coupons work automatically.

Recipe: Mashed Potatoes

This one's really simple guys, but also really tasty. Mashed potatoes form an important part of several other recipes we'll be covering in the future, so I felt it was important show you how it works now.

Ingredients:

4 or 5 medium potatoes (or more smaller ones or less larger ones)

3 Tablespoons butter

1/3 cup of milk or a couple splashes of heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Here's how it works:

1. Wash and peel the potatoes (some people like to leave the peels on, but I don't like the
texture).

2. Cut the taters up into bite sized pieces

3. Dump the chunks into a pot and cover them with water.

4. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.

5. Drain the contents of the pot through a colander (one of those bowl looking things with the
holes) and dump them into a large mixing bowl

6. Using a hand mixer on a slow setting, mix the ingredients until smooth. Try not to over mix, or the potatoes will come out gluey.

You can spice the dish up a bit by adding garlic, cheese, or any number of different ingredients. Experiment a bit. The mashed potatoes are delicious on their own, but they offer a great opportunity for creativity.

Equipment Guide: Southern Savers

Hey folks! Sorry about the lack of updates recently. Life gets in the way sometimes, but it should be smooth sailing from here on out!

Today's Equipment Guide covers a site a recently discovered called Southern Savers. Every day these good folks post sale items, coupon codes, and deal summaries for a variety of grocery stores. From the name you can probably guess that they focus on southern grocery stores, but one of the main foci (plural of focus!) is Kroger, which is a nationwide company.

Check it out!

Tomorrow: More Recipes!

Equipment Guide: Breadmaker

Note: Sorry guys, your humble chef has been stricken with the flu for the past several days. I apologize for the interruption in service.

So, you want to make pizza, but are discouraged by the time and effort it takes to make dough? You like hot, warm bread but are far too lazy to go through all the steps yourself? Good news! Man has invented a solution: the bread maker!

Man, I never new how useful one of these bad boys was until i got one for myself. I mean, sure, I liked homemade pizza and all that jazz, but making dough is just so much darned work! Now, with the bread maker, you just throw all the ingredients in the bread pan, hit a few buttons, and you're done!

Personally, I love hot, homemade bread, so that's what I use it for most often, but as I mentioned above, its perfect for homemade pizza dough, calzones, banana bread, rolls, buns or any number of recipes that require you to make dough first. You can even use it to mix dough for chicken pot pies!

Cost: I got my bread maker for about $40. You can probably get one cheaper if you shop around at consignment shops or the Goodwill. Once you have yeast and flour, you can make all kinds of dough and bread for literally pennies!

Iron Rations: Chicken Breast

Iron Rations is another new segment here on Food of Eating, +1. Iron Rations will feature, quick, easy, lazy-as-hell meal ideas, rather than full recipes

Sometimes, you get home from work, or gaming or the gym (HA!) and you're tired, hungry, and feeling lazy. Obviously, easy recipes have their place (one of them is here!) but sometimes you don't feel like dealing with measurements, multiple steps, or tons of dishes to clean later on.

One solution, my friends, is the world's greatest convenience food: frozen chicken breasts



These bad boys have literally hundreds of uses, but one of my favorite lazy meal tricks involves them and yesterday's topic, the George Foreman Grill.

Here's the deal:

1. Come home, pull out one of the chicken breasts. Pop it in the microwave for a few minutes on the defrost setting.

2. While the meat is thawing, plug in your George Foreman and let it heat up.

3. Once the meat is thawed, plop it down on the George Foreman for approximately 5 minutes. Cut into the breast. If there's any pink left in the center, leave it on the grill for another minute or so, then check again.

4. Once the pink is gone, remove it from the grill, add it to a plate with some canned or frozen veggies, sprinkle on some seasoning (I like Seasoned Salt or Lemon Pepper Seasoning) and enjoy!

See? That took a total of about 10 minutes, and the only dishes you dirtied were the grill and a few utensils. This is one of my favorite quick dinner options, because its tasty, easy, and actually pretty good for you.

Cost: A bag of store brand frozen chicken like the one in the image is about $7, and you get approximately 10 breasts to a bag. That means your meal set you back about $.70, plus whatever veggies or salad you had on the side.

NOTE: Do NOT leave any pink in the middle of your chicken. Pink in a steak is good, pink in a chicken breast is a recipe for a failed fortitude save and a visit from the Salmonella Dragon. Also, wash your hands after each time you touch the raw chicken. See above.

Equipment Guide: George Foreman Grill

If you're a bachelor of any sort, odds are you probably live in an apartment. One major problem with apartments (cooking wise) is that in most areas it is illegal to use a gas or charcoal grill on the premises.

The solution?

This bad boy:


The George Foreman Grill is a life saver to bachelor's everywhere. Since you can't use a real grill, this will help fill the void.

Burgers, hot dogs, chicken breasts, even whole steaks can be cooked on one of these grills, inside, and perfectly legally. The inside part is especially handy for the geeky among us, who are known to burst into the flame upon contact with bright sunlight.

Clean up is pretty easy too. Since all the cooking surfaces are non stick, you just use the little plastic doohickey in the box to scrape the surfaces clean, wipe down with whatever kitchen cleanser you have laying around.

The George Foreman has one final advantage, especially important in these uncertain financial times: its cheap. You can get a grill big enough to cook a small steak or a couple burger at once for about $20 bucks.

One warning: The Teflon on the cooking surfaces eventually wear out. I had to replace my grill after about 2 years, but at $20 a pop, that's not terribly taxing.