I saw an ad on TV for Applebees's 2 for $20 deal. It says for the price of cooking some boring terrible food at home, you can get a sweet deal by coming to Applebee's and getting great food for 2 people for only $20 plus tip and tax ($25 total). I'm paraphrasing...but that's the gist. I wonder if it is true? I don't really know what it costs to cook at home. Let's find out.
All costs listed below are apporximate because you always have to put in some initial money to amass all of the ingredients, but you can use them more than once. Anyway, no more excuses, let's see who wins.
Last night we had Panko crusted tuna steak, with a beet salad, squash,regular salad and bread.
Panko-crusted Tuna:
Tuna: ~$24, but we only ate half so let's say $12
Panko Bread Crumbs: $1.59 for a bag we've had for over 6 months. $0.50
Served with Wasabi and Soy Sauce: $0.50
Beet Salad:
2 Fresh Beets: $0.25
1TBSP Heavy Cream $0.25
Pinch White Pepper $0.10
Acorn Squash: $0.59/lb we had about a pound. $0.59
Regular Salad:
Lettuce: $3.59 for fancy organic salad mix from Whole Foods. Makes 3 salads. $1.20
Radishes: $0.25
Celery $0.25
Olive Oil: Trader Joe's Greek Olive Oil $8.99 for a Liter. 2TBSP=$0.27
Balsamic: Also from Trader Joe's but I couldn't find the price. Let's say $0.25
2 Slices of Bread: $1.00
Total: $17.41
At Applebee's you get an appetizer which we didn't have. But we could add in the Martinis that we had before dinner. If you don't know Lukusowa vodka, you should take a look. It is by far the best Martini Vodka, and its cheap enough to use as a mixing vodka too.
Dry Martini
4 shots (6 ounces) Luksusowa Potato Vodka: $15 for .75 Liter (25.35 ounces) : $3.55
4 Good Big Olives: $1.00
HighDef Grand Total: $21.96
Applebee's Grand Total:$25.00
Applebee's 0, HighDef 1
Maybe this isn't a fair comparison. What we should do is cook one of Applebee's dinners and see how much it costs to do it at home. Look for fiesta lime chicken coming up...
I'm gonna have to check out that vodka. How cheap is cheap?
ReplyDeleteSomething else to consider in your calculations is time. Granted, like me, it sounds like cooking is something you enjoy but time is still money. Try to figure out how much time you spend cooking and compare that to how long it would take to get to and from Applebee's, and how long you think you'd have to wait before the first appetizer/drink arrived.
Good call. I'll add it into the next calculations. Having never been to Applebee's can you give me an approximate time that it would take?
ReplyDeleteThe Vodka is about $15 for a .75L bottle.
also the power to cook everything. And I don't think you can cut the food costs in half just because you don't eat the whole thing. You still had to buy the whole thing. Does the Applebees meal include dessert?
ReplyDeleteThe Applebee's meal is just appetizer and entree. I only cut the food price in half because we froze the rest of the tuna for another meal some other time, if we had cooked it and not eaten it, then I could see your point. But here we bought tuna for 2 meals. In future calculations I'll add in the power costs.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. Did you wear 'flair' while serving yourselves ?
ReplyDeletedumbass! hahahahaha
ReplyDelete