Thursday, May 21, 2009

five dollar date night (sung in the tune of $5 footlongs...)

to continue our money saving plan we've invented $5 date nights where we make a dinner and maybe even dessert that costs less than $5 for the two of us and then we play a game or watch a movie at home. tonight's dinner was actually a double-date with pat & denise and ended up at less than $10 for all four of us and there was enough left over that i can take it for lunch tomorrow and pat and denise will have dessert for tomorrow too, go team! our delicious dinner was chili-cheese dogs with grilled corn on the cob and a chocolate peanut butter torte with peanut butter frosting, yum! here's how the cost brakes down:

chili-cheese dogs:
1 pkg hot dogs (on sale this week at kroger) = $0.77
1 pkg hot dog buns = $0.88
2 cans no-bean chili = $2.00 (total)
4 ears corn = $2 (approx) +butter, salt, seasoning

1 box peanut butter cup brownie mix = $2.00
1/4 c peanut butter, powdered sugar, crisco, butter (to make buttercream icing) = maybe $2 but i already had all of that in the house so there was no additional grocery cost this week!

so i started by heating the chili and seasoning it to make it delicious instead of tasting like the can and lex, my little inspector, helped by monitoring the cookingfor the corn that pat and denise brought over, we soaked the ears with husks on for about 15 minutes, pulled back the husks, removed the silks and replaced the husks. then we put them on the grill and cooked for maybe 10 minutes, rotating them to char evenly on each side, pulled it from the grill, shucked it and it was ready to go. we grilled the hot dogs at the same time so in less than 30 minutes dinner was on the table and it was sooooooo good!
josh and pat, our pickiest eaters, were even satisfied
then after dinner it was on to our free activity for the night, this week's choice: monopoly (i'd forgotten how long it takes to play but still well worth it!)
it was all laughs, even when i bankrupted pat and then josh and finally got bankrupted myself by denise. who knew that having a hotel on indiana avenue would cost the other players $1050 every time they landed on it! another good tip is to trade another player the property they want for not having to pay rent on it when you land on it, josh could probably have stayed in the game longer if i had to pay for the use of his railroads... ha! all in all, we had a great night that cost less than $10 and we were all very full and very tired and we'll be doing this again really soon, thanks pat & denise!!!

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