Extreme Budget, Day Twenty-Eight - Chili Dogs

I hope everyone had a great Christmas Day and dinner. We had a very unstressful Christmas and now have the job of getting back to normal (well, as normal as we aren't). The cat needs shots, the The Nudge needs glasses and a haircut and mama needs a break. Were you like me and made 3 trips back to the house because I remembered I forgot something and still arrived in PA without the chicken liver paté and the sauce for the banana souffles.....sigh!! I hope you forgot nothing and remembered to enjoy the day.

If you need something easy, simple (because we all know you will be out getting all those 50% off bargains and will not feel like cooking), and great tasting, make a platter of chili dogs. Yes, hot dogs.
You could even buy pre-made Chili (but you did not hear that from moi). This is always a GO TO in my house when I do not want to prepare anything, plus The Nudge is a lover of hot dogs. Keep a package of dogs in your freezer, and you will be very happy they are in there.

I am a bad blogger. Does anyone really care that we had chili dogs for dinner? Does anyone care that for the last three weeks I have spent less than $25.00 a week on food? I don't think so.
Unfortunately I made a promise to The Nudge and for 28 days we are in extreme budget mode.
This post is less about the meal (no recipe required) and more about the cost. The whole concept behind my extreme budget is to use every bit of food and waste nothing.

This family friendly meal uses the last of my three bean chili and an onion. I bought four 100% beef hot dogs for a buck a piece and with the four potato hot dog rolls the total cost for this meal was $5.65.

There was hominy in the chili so I ran it through the food processor and pulsed it until everything was the same size. The result was a sweet & spicy hot dog chili that will go great with the crunchy skinned hot dogs which I will grill in my panini pan till the skins pop and split open. YUM!

I know it doesn't sound like a well rounded meal but the chili in itself with the beans and hominy was completely balanced by itself. If I had thought about it I would have bought a vinegar based coleslaw but I will chop some of these and put them on the dogs. Now we're talking.

If you are like me, you go through periods where you could a hot dog a day and then once you get your fill, you won't eat them again for months. I do know that some kids only meat is hot dogs. My nephew would only eat hot dogs, yogurt smoothies and Velveeta Mac n Cheese until he started school, then he added pizza.

I guess I had my share of hot dogs this year but this dog was great! The chili didn't hide that deep beef flavor in these wonderful beef dogs (and yes, hot dogs can taste beefy).

I won't eat any other dogs but these because I am spoiled and I have a great butcher.

Well, this was a good extreme way to end the 28 days. I ended up 2 bits under my $100 budget.

Yay, me.

Next year my whole format will change.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a wonderful New Year's Eve. I will post while I switch over to Word Press, but I will leave the URL on the very last page of this blog when I am totally switched over. The name is not changing but the URL is, so see you next year (hopefully). I have heard of a few glitches moving to Word Press and I hope mine is a somewhat smooth transition.