Easy Vegetable Beef Soup
Fans of Milwaukee Consumer on Facebook know that we recently polled our readers to see what kind of soups they like to make in the winter. You might be wondering what does soup have to do with saving money?
Turns out that soup is not only a great way to stay warm in the winter and make for a great low-cost meal too!
Over the course of the next month or two we’ll be featuring a number of low-cost soups, including recipes from our readers. If you’d like to send us a recipe to consider, we’d love to have you contact us.
Slow Cooker Easy Vegetable Beef Soup
Jennifer over at Green Bay Consumer posted a recipe for Slow Cooker Easy Vegetable Beef Soup last fall and I’ve been meaning to try it ever since. During my last shopping trip to Aldi I picked up most of the ingredients for this soup. (I had a can of diced tomatoes and some spices on hand.)
Ingredients and cost:
- 1 lb. ground beef (I used ground sirloin. My cost came out to be about $3.60 a pound.)
- 14 oz. beef broth or stock ($1.29 for a 32 oz. can…so I used about $0.56 worth.)
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 10-16 oz. mixed veggies ($0.99)
- 14 oz. can of diced or crushed tomatoes (Let’s assume a cost of $0.80.)
- 1 can condensed tomato soup ($0.49)
- 1 Tbl dried minced onion
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
The total cost of all my ingredients was $6.44.
As the name of the recipe suggests, the soup was extremely easy to make. I browned the beef, drained the fat, and added it to a 4-quart slow cooker. I added the rest of the ingredients and cooked it about 3 to 4 hours on high.
The soup was good. However, I think I could have made it a lot better had I followed Jennifer’s recipe closely. I highly recommend you bookmark or print Jennifer’s Slow Cooker Easy Vegetable Beef Soup recipe and follow her tips on brands and optional ingredients that add more flavor. I ended up using a little hot sauce to give the soup some extra flavor. Next time around I will be following her advice. Although the additional ingredients will increase the cost of the soup a little bit, it will still be a very economical meal.
The best part about making a large quantity of soup is leftovers! We only ate half of the soup, so I froze half of what was left and the other half was for lunch the next day. I know there will be a time in the next few weeks where I won’t have the energy or the time to cook, which will make for a perfect opportunity to reheat this soup for a quick and easy meal!
Subway: All Footlong Subs $5 in February
Subway restaurants is lowering the price of all regular footlong subs to $5 starting today. The promotion is scheduled to last for the entire month of February.
The discounted subs are in addition to subs on the the regular $5 menu. Premium subs, like The Big Philly Cheesesteak, are not included in this promotion. Participation may vary by location.
Free Burger King Onion Rings This Weekend
Head to Burger King this weekend and receive a FREE order of value-sized onion rings!
This offer is available Saturday and Sunday (February 4 and 5), while supplies last. Of course, there is a limit of one offer per person, and it is only available at participating Burger King locations. This offer is not available during breakfast.
You can read more about this promotion on the Burger King Facebook page.
The Top 5 Milwaukee Area Fast Food Value Menu Deals
Please enjoy today’s guest post written by our friend Nick from DudeFoods.com. We asked Nick to find the best deals on value menus around the Milwaukee area.
(DudeFoods is one of our favorite locally written blogs, focusing on unique, and oftentimes hilarious ways to prepare and eat various foods).
Whether they refer to it as the Dollar Menu like McDonald’s does, the Everyday Value Menu like Wendy’s or the Why Pay More Menu like Taco Bell, all fast food restaurants have them and they’re the pinnacle of cheap eats. I’m talking about the value menu.
Recently Milwaukee Consumer asked me for my top five fast food value menu deals, and although prices can vary not only from city to city but from location to location as well I think my picks should be pretty universal no matter where you live.
The McDouble (McDonald’s) Even though they dropped the second piece of cheese from their one dollar double cheeseburger and renamed it the McDouble a few years back, this is still a great deal. I mean, a regular cheeseburger on its own at McDonald’s costs 99 cents so why not just pay the extra penny and get two beef patties instead of one? Oh, and if you absolutely have to have two pieces of cheese on your burger, their double cheeseburger is still available for 29 cents more.
The Jr. Breakfast Burrito (SONIC Drive-In) This was an easy pick just based on the fact that SONIC serves this delicious value menu item all day long. Aside from one random rogue McDonald’s that I found that serves pancakes and breakfast burritos from open to close there’s really no other fast food restaurant around where you can enjoy breakfast for lunch or dinner.
The Jr. Ham & Cheddar Sandwich (Arby’s) Granted, their value menu items may be WAY smaller than most other fast food restaurants, but if you’re looking for a cheap alternative to the burgers and chicken sandwiches that populate most other value menus, Arby’s is the place to be with their value Jr. Ham & Cheddar and Jr. Roast Beef sandwiches.
The Frosty (Wendy’s) I don’t know what it is about the Frosty, but chocolate shakes from other fast food restaurants don’t even come close in terms of taste, and the best part is that you can still buy a small one for only 99 cents. If you’re a true Frosty fan though Wendy’s has an even better deal going on right now where if you donate a dollar to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption you receive a key chain which in turn will get you a free Jr. Frosty (with any purchase) every single time you stop at Wendy’s until the end of the year.
The Entire “Why Pay More?” Menu (Taco Bell) Yeah, I know that not picking one specific item is sort of a cop out, but how can you choose when Taco Bell has so many great choices for so cheap? In fact, they probably have the best value menu out there with numerous items as low as even 89 or 79 cents. On top of that, their value menu is what Taco Bell routinely uses to introduce new items for 99 cents or less. While other chains keep their value menus the same for months on end, Taco Bell’s is routinely changing. In fact, it’s always sort of crazy to me when Taco Bell customers will order some of the $3 or $4 single menu items, when for the same amount you can order four items off their value menu and end up completely stuffed.
So now I leave it up to you Milwaukee Consumer readers. Do you agree with my picks? Disagree? What are your favorite fast food value menu items? Please leave a comment and let me know!
50% Off a Three Course Dinner at Bunkers Nostalgic Lounge
One of today’s offers on Groupon is for Bunkers Nostalgic Lounge & Eatery in West Allis. Carol Deptolla included Bunkers in her list of Milwaukee’s top 30 restaurants for 2011. Deptolla notes that as of September 16, Brad Clark is no longer the chef at Bunkers. However, that won’t stop us from taking advantage of today’s deal.
With this offer from Groupon you shell out $31 and get the following in return:
- Select one appetizer (up to a $9.95 value)
- Select two entrees (up to a $17.95 value each)
- Select one dessert (up to a $7 value)
- Two wine tastings (up to a $5 value each)
The fine print states there is a limit of two per person and you may buy one additional as a gift. There is a limit of one Groupon per table and the Groupon expires August 30, 2012. The offer is for dine-in only and is not valid for nightly specials.
This deal is available for purchase on the Groupon website through Friday, January 20th.
