Deal-licious: Chefs Turn Cheap Ingredients Into Gourmet

We are total suckers for this kind of story! Recently our hometown alternative rag asked two local chefs to take a bag of cheap (read: not nice) groceries and turn them into something gourmet. The results were pretty impressive, and while we might not go to the same lengths (separating frozen vegetables?) it is an inspiring look at turning unappetizing ingredients into something more interesting.

The challenge, laid down by Columbus Alive, was to take $25 worth of groceries and come up with a meal for four. These groceries included such frugal classics such as ramen noodles, Kraft mac 'n' cheese, and frozen pizza. There were some more respectable ingredients, too, like apples, cabbage, squash, and a rotisserie chicken. Not a bad haul for $25.

The writer turned all this over to two local Columbus chefs, Alana Shock and John Dornback. (Full disclosure: I have eaten in both their restaurants and found their food very good.)

They both deconstructed and reconstructed these ingredients in really amazing ways! Dornback's plates looked Food Network ready, with lovely plating and garnishes.

Alana's were slightly less fancified, but she also produced a staggering array of dishes: eleven! She picked apart the vegetables in the bag of frozen veggies, and deconstructed the Kraft cheese packet and mixed it with bacon fat to make a soup she called, hilariously, The Krafty Beast.

I also loved her acorn squash stuffed with cornbread and cheddar, and her version of simplified cassoulet. I thought her dishes were pretty outstanding. (Really full disclosure here: Alana cooked my rehearsal dinner so I really am a little biased.)

It is always fun to see professional chefs, especially ones as committed to local and seasonal ingredients as these two are, doing such witty and inventive things with ingredients like these. Take a look at the full piece!

• The Cheap Issue: Deal-icious - Chefs make over cheap ingredients into gourmet dinners

Thanks for the tip, Jeff!

(Images: Jodi Miller/Columbus Alive)

Comments (5)

I think I'd be more interested to see what they'd make if they could choose what to spend the $25 on. It seems like that would be more helpful for people who are maybe just beginning to cook at home and grocery shop.

It seems like this was less an article teaching frugal cookery than an experiment to test chefs' creativity and ability to reverse engineer.

The article points out that the provided groceries were "recreational convenience foods," presumably designed to eliminate the need for effort or skill, not serve as a foundation for something labor-intensive and fancier-looking, but offering the same net nutrition. It's also not totally clear to me that those processed foods ARE actually cheap relative to their country cousins.

Then again, if there's no farmers market or even grocery store in your neighborhood, just a big box store, yet you have the cooking bug, then maybe this article could inspire you to work on your skills regardless.

Sometimes I add curry and cayenne powder to mac and cheese and suddenly it is spicy curry! add a green veggie and a protein and that's dinner.

To this day, I don't get how Kraft dinner can be considered a 'cheap' food. My MONTHLY food budget as a student was 25$. For the price of a box of KD (1$ on special) I could buy enough lentils and brown rice at the bulk food store to make a month's worth of meals.

I ate well on that 25$. It might not have been varied or gourmet, but it was a heck of a lot more nutritious and economical than KD.

Traveling, you make a great point. I'm kind of sick of these "Challenge: feed 2 people on a measly $60!" type of articles. Granted, it's nice that this one is different and the chefs had to make some great food from crappy ingredients. I know I'd use those $25 much differently, but I think there should be more education on how to buy and cook with inexpensive, whole foods ingredients rather than "dress up your easy mac" tutorials.