Eating at home really does save a fortune

After reading Trent's comparison of homemade burgers vs McDonald's burgers earlier in the week I have been having a burger craving. Reading everyone comment's on that post on how to make great burgers at home is what really did it.

Now, two weeks ago we went to a restaurant here because I had a $10 coupon and we got burgers and fries and the total with tip was $16 and some change.

Last night I couldn't take the burger craving anymore and went to the store for ingredients. Here is what we got:

• a bag of crinkle fries because I didn't want to take the time to cut up potatoes ($2.99)
  
• 2.5 pounds of ground chuck ($4.98)
  
• a head of iceburg lettuce ($0.99)
  
• 3 tomatoes ($0.85)
  
• a 8-pack of wheat buns ($2.59)

For a total of $12.40 spent.

Clearly that was cheaper than going to the restaurant with a $10 coupon. But the funny part is what we made with the food.

• two burgers and fries and salad for dinner last night
• took the rest of the meat and made a meatloaf at the same time for dinner tonight (should be 3 meals for 2 people)

And there are leftover buns, tomatoes, lettuce and french fries. So, at a minimum that is 4 meals for less than the cost of one at a restaurant.

Granted, we already has swiss cheese and mushrooms at home for the burgers. And we already had the meatloaf ingredients. But I still doubt we spent over the $16. And since we made it we know what is in it, so no extra calories were snuck in like at restaurants.

And did I mention that the burger was way tastier than what I've had at the restaurant?

For the burgers we added a little A1 steak sauce, a little pepper and a little garlic powder to the meat before making the patties.

For the meatloaf we took the rest of the ground chuck (about 2 pounds) and added some oats and some cracker crumbs (instead of bread crumbs), 1 medium chopped onion, 1 egg and a little A1 steak sauce. We cooked it on 350 for 30 minutes. Then we took it out and drained the grease. Before putting it back in the oven we put some A1 steak sauce on top and cooked it for an additional 10 minutes. And that will be dinner tonight! (If you follow this recipe you may need to adjust your cooking time as my oven seems to be hotter than most and takes less time that previous ovens I have used)