Frugal Filet

Aldi sells a bacon wrapped chuck filet for just under five bucks.  That's $2.50 per piece!  Yep, it's a cheap cut of meat and a lower quality grade.  A true cut of filet mignon would be easily three or four times as much.  Not a big deal if you are a frugal cook with a sous vide.  These two cheap cuts were cooked for two hours at 131 Fahrenheit.  For flavor, just a little oil, salt, pepper, thyme, bourbon and maple syrup was used.

The rest of the meal was made from left-overs.  A Tuscan grain salad with extra quinoa added (also from Aldi) went over a small bed of greens and was then topped with fresh orange chunks.  The potatoes were left over from a prior meal.  It's easy to let a five pound bag of potatoes go bad -- so they were cut in half and roasted all at once. Each half was wrapped in foil and stored in the fridge. We just pull them out to use for lunches, dinners and other quick meals.  For this meal, two halves were mashed up, mixed with cheese and sour cream, then baked.

Once the meat was pulled from the bag, it got a good pan searing, and was set to rest for five minutes.  Mushroom and onion sauteed in the pan picked up a lot of flavor, and then the juice from the sous vide bag was mixed in.

The meat was so tender and flavorful.  This was a delicious and frugal Friday night meal.  The estimated cost for it all was under seven bucks -- for two people!

Why go out to a restaurant when a great meal like this can be made for cheap?