Korean fried chicken: $2.12/serving

Fried chicken can be expensive. Not only is there the cost of the chicken itself, there’s also the copious amount of oil used to fry it in. But did you know you can re-use fryer oil several times, even if it was used to cook meat? Just strain it when you’re done and store it in the fridge or freezer. This way $4 worth of oil (provided you’re already buying it inexpensively in bulk) becomes $2 or even $1 worth. Also, while it’s cheapest to just buy a whole chicken and cut it up yourself, it’s often possible to find packages of drumsticks on markdown—not a lot of people seem to buy them, especially the big packages of 16 or more, so be on the lookout. When you see them, take them home, package them into manageable portions, and freeze them. This particular version of fried chicken was born of just that: a package of drumsticks on major markdown, plus a bounty of garlic harvested from my neighbor’s yard. (The pineapple was not on sale, but I’m going to invoke the pregnancy pass for that one.)

Baked rice with currants and chickpeas: 77 cents/serving

Every now and then I like to go through the cupboards and challenge myself to use up the various little baggies of bulk odds and ends I’ve accumulated over time. Sometimes the yield can get a little random, as was the case in the most recent cleanout: half a box of currants from whole-grained stuffed cabbage rolls and a little baggie of dried chickpeas from creamy farro & chickpea soup. Thankfully I remembered seeing this recipe in Claudia Roden’s The Food of Spain; it’s sort of a vegan/vegetarian paella, which of course is up my alley given that I don’t like seafood; it makes a ton, which is perfect for lunches for the week; it looks cool coming out of the oven; and it’s truly delicious—currants and garlic are not something I would’ve thought to pair, but now that I’ve tried it I can’t believe it’s not used more often.

Roasted garlic soup (in a bread bowl): $1.65/serving

I had the opportunity to do a bit of grocery shopping during our recent house-sitting vacation in San Francisco, and I’m sure it surprises absolutely no one to hear that food is not only fresher in the city, but it’s cheaper, more varied, and easier to locate than in the supposed food-friendly mecca of Portland. I don’t think we went in a single market in any neighborhood that didn’t offer something either totally random yet useful (a liquor store that sold fresh kimchi and baklava), spectacularly weird (cellophane-packaged dried snake), or shockingly inexpensive (super-fresh garlic bulbs, 10 for $1). Garlic is one thing we definitely stocked up on to take home, especially since garlic bulbs average between 33 and 60 cents each here. To celebrate, I decided to make what is probably my favorite soup of all time.

Roasted garlic & rosemary grits soufflé: $1.05/serving

This is not only a diversion from my usual cheese soufflé, but it’s the first soufflé I’ve ever made with store-bought eggs. Words cannot describe how much I hate this. The days are now officially too short for chickens to lay without artificial light, and I’m not about to risk burning the house down—or the coop itself—with an extension cord snaked hither and yon through the yard. I know it’s a natural biological process (the lack of eggs, not the house burning down), but I still hope that somewhere deep in the chickens’ tiny pea brains they feel a little bit ashamed.