Tasty Tuesdays: Dollar Tree Meal

***NEW SERIES ANNOUNCEMENT***
Starting today, Tuesdays will now feature a series entitled Tasty Tuesdays. Saturdays will continue to be a potpourri category.

Some of my favorite YouTube videos to watch are Dollar Tree recipes, hauls, and crafts. I'm absolutely in love with the creativity required to make things work on a budget. I am a avid lover of e the Dollar Tree. I usually find some great teacher materials, last minute birthday cards and gift bags, and for even finding overstock/discontinued makeup items. I have never really purchased any food items from the Dollar Tree besides the random box of candy or gum. I have been super curious what exactly would happen so I thought a blog series would create the perfect opportunity to try out some of their offerings. I had heard they recently added steak to their food line and I was super curious to try that out. Without further adieu, I present to you Steak Alfredo with only Dollar Tree ingredients.

Here is my food haul:

Starting from the bottom (now we're here) and going clockwise, I bought:

• 1 loaf of Garlic Bread-$1
• 1 box of Spaghetti-$1
• 1 jar of Prego Alfredo Sauce-$1
• 1 jar of Minced Garlic-$1
• 1 Sea Salt Grinder-$1
• 1 Pepper Grinder-$1
• 1 Container of Grated Cheese Topping-$1
• 1 jar of Mushrooms-$1
• 1 bag of Broccoli Cuts-$1
• 1 Package of Ribeye Steak-$1

To prepare the steak, I seasoned it with salt, pepper, and some of the minced garlic. The salt and pepper containers where made with very inexpensive plastic and the salt grinder ended up quitting on me halfway through. I did some jimmying and it worked ok after that. The pepper shaker worked well though. I fried the steak in a dry pan because I wasn't able to purchase any olive oil. They did have some there but I thought the steak would be pretty fatty due to the low price of $1; however it was pretty lean. It was an awful brown color though and the package stated it was mechanically tenderized. Sounded and looked quite concerning.

It did brown up nicely though. I was planning on using the fat from the steak to fry the mushrooms and the broccoli to give them extra flavor but there was very little fat left. I ended up dumping the whole jar of mushrooms and package of frozen broccoli in the pan. Since these were jarred mushrooms, I used the juice to help keep the food from sticking and to pick up those crusty bits of steak in the bottom. After all, the chefs say that's were the flavor is. I seasoned the vegetables with salt, pepper, and minced garlic. One way to bulk up a meal to use a lot of vegetables. Vegetables can be so tasty but easy on the budget if you don't have enough money for meat.

For the sauce, I poured it into a pan to heat up and added pepper, garlic and grated cheese topping. 

The texture of the grated cheese topping considered me as it did not smell or look like Parmesan cheese in which I am used to. It's almost a crime in my house to have pasta but no Parmesan cheese.

If you are curious, here is the list of ingredients:

I boiled the water for spaghetti and seasoned it with salt. This is when my salt shaker decided to take a break. I had to twist the cap a couple of times back and forth to get it to work. I think the salt crystals were too large for the grinder and ended up getting stuck. It was also pretty annoying to have to grind my salt into the pasta water. It took forever to get it right. I'm just used to scooping up some Kosher salt from our regular salt bowl.

The garlic bread was easy, preheat the oven to 400 degrees, place it on a tray and cook for 8 minutes. 

After the spaghetti was done (I like mine al dente), I scooped out a cup of pasta water and poured it in the sauce. Pasta water gives extra flavor and helps the sauce stick to the pasta. I then combined the sauce and vegetables with the pasta. The can of alfredo sauce would have been enough to cover the pasta but it was pretty thick and I prefer more thin sauces. If you prefer thicker sauces, add less pasta water.

I plated the pasta and vegetables and then cut up the steak and placed it on top of the pasta. I was afraid it would've gotten lost in the spaghetti and I would have to launch a treasure hunt for it. I then topped the pasta with the grated cheese topping.

Here is the meal plated up:

How does it stack up?

Against all alfredo dishes that I've had, this was probably the worst. The meat, vegetables, pasta, and bread were pretty tasty. The sauce was the culprit and was pretty atrocious. It had that nasty canned taste and needed some herbs spice, and some dairy. If the Dollar Tree had milk in stock, that would have greatly helped. I know they have their own brands of dairy products but my Dollar Tree's refrigeration coolers were out of order so no dairy products for me. The meat had a great flavor and I honestly couldn't taste the difference between that steak and ones I regularly buy from Kroger.

Score:

6/10

All in all this meal was decent and filled me up. The meat, vegetables, and bread had good flavor. Unfortunately the sauce ruined the whole dish. I do have to say though my digestive system did not do well with the meat. 

Let me know your Dollar Tree tricks and tips. What meal would you like to see next?

Happy Tasty Tuesday!

Christa