We live in the land of Cincinnati Chili. There are two major chains, but also lots of other restaurants that serve Cincinnati Chili and put their own spin on it. My husband loves one particular chain and before we were married would get chili dogs and chili spaghetti from there frequently. As a transplant to this area, I had never eaten Cincinnati chili, and I would have to say, at first I didn't love it. But it grew on me. What didn't grow on me was paying quite a bit for what amounts to some of the cheapest to make foods. Hot dogs, spaghetti and chili regularly come up as budget saving ideas, so why would I want to pay eat out prices? My husband's argument was that I couldn't replicate it at home. And that was true. This was before the internet, so if you didn't know someone who had a recipe, you were kind of out of luck. But then, the restaurant started selling chili seasoning packets at grocery stores, and how fantastic that was! I could make everything my husband would want to order from the restaurant for a FRACTION of what it would cost to eat out. He has not set foot in one of those restaurants in over 20 years because almost all of the ingredients to make the chili spaghetti are shelf stable, so he can have it pretty much whenever he wants.
We also do this with pizza. We don't usually order out pizza, we will eat frozen or make a homemade one. One thing I hadn't thought about, was trying to replicate other restaurant dishes, mostly because we don't get to eat out much and when we do it's always fast food. I was at the library the other day and saw a book for restaurant copy cat recipes, but when I looked inside, it was all meals from places I have never eaten. So I started looking around on the internet. One of the first people I ran across was Rebecca from Dollar Tree Dinners. I really enjoyed watching her create the meals she learned to make while working at Taco Bell. You can even now buy the taco meat seasoning and some of the sauces at the grocery store too if you want. She also features a lot of inexpensive meals in other ways. She has meals from the Dollar Tree, meals from Aldi and shelf stable meals in a bag. Check her site out!
I look forward to trying some of these, and am also looking forward to finding a few more things that we crave to recreate at home. Being able to satisfy a craving will go a long way to making living on a tight budget a little bit nicer. Do you have any restaurant knock off recipes you rely on? Please share!
Have a great week everyone!
~ Sarah
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