This little soup container makes 10 cups prepared.

The ingredients list was as follows:

Potatoes, barley, maltodextrin, flour, beef stock, starch, potato granules, onions, carrots, bell peppers, spinach, sea salt, beef, tomato, soy sauce, beef fat, sugar, black pepper, roasted garlic and sage.

That’s quite a list–I was a bit doubtful of the soy sauce and sugar, but flavors are strange things and work in unlikely combinations, so I ran with it.

As I started boiling the 10 cups of water and whole container of soup mix, I also fried the beef, which was about $3 a pound fresh from Ledebuhr’s. After draining the fat from the mostly-cooked meat and chopping some of the green beans up, I tossed the fresh veggies in and slapped a pizza pan on top to help steam them.

Next time, I might chop the green beans a little smaller; large as they were, they still worked pretty well in the soup.

After the soup cooked for 15 minutes, I added in the beef/beans and let it boil just a little bit longer, as the dehydrated potato pieces were still a little hard.

I was skeptical about adding ground beef to soup but as the soup boiled with the beef in it, the broth took on a golden-brown color and got wholesomely thick. Not quite stew, but not as watery as regular soup, either.

As I turned the flame off and covered the soup for its 10 minute steam, I put some Pillsbury croissants in the oven to bake. On sale for $1.29 (and normally around $2) they’re a really tasty, easy was to stretch soup and make the meal little bit more interesting.

Dried beef barley soup with fresh green beans and ground beef.

The only bad thing I have to say about this soup is that when it says “Season to taste,” it isn’t kidding– there are all kinds of wholesome ingredients but spices are not one of them. After a little salt, garlic and fresh ground pepper, the flavor perked right up.

For $4.30, you can get 10 cups of soup–more than enough to feed two people for two meals–and eight or so croissants for a couple bucks more. Add in the price of the ground beef and the fresh green beans, you get a huge meal for about $10 total, which makes this a cheap and relatively healthy meal!

Our pizza was half pepperoni, mushrooms and olives, half sausage, onion and green pepper. The awesome part: it was still the same price as a regular three-topping pizza. Sweet!

The first thing I learned (to my happiness) is that in Winona, Minn. you can get away with ordering three different toppings on each half of the pizza and still only be charged for three toppings overall. Sweet.

I also found an excellent coupon code from RetailMeNot that made my sandwich free. (Some codes don’t work at some specific Domino’s stores, but they’re worth trying out. There’s a tab at the top of the Domino’s coupon screen that lets you type in a code; the code for a free sandwich with any regular-price large pizza is “sandwich”.)

According to Domino’s press release, the new pizza includes:

Crust – A garlic seasoned crust with parsley baked to a golden brown

Sauce – Sweeter, bolder tomato sauce with a medley of herbs and a red pepper kick

Cheese – Shredded cheese made with 100% real mozzarella and flavored with just a hint of provolone

I couldn’t taste much of a difference in the pizza itself; it was somewhat cold when it arrived and the middle of the pizza was kind of soggy. However, the crust does have a salty, garlic flavor, which was a great flavor. It was nice and fluffy with slightly crunchy crust.

I wasn’t impressed and was pleased to move onto my free sandwich.

Got this sandwich for free by typing in the cupon code "sandwich" and ordering one large pizza at regular menu price.

The sandwich looked and smelled good enough, and the menu boasts “tender cuts of seasoned all white meat chicken breast, smoked bacon, creamy ranch, and premium provolone cheese all loaded on an artisan Italian bread and baked to a perfect golden brown.”

This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted from Domino’s: the bread was baked to perfection, the bacon was the perfect middle ground between chewy and crunchy, and the chicken itself was a just tender enough. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be ordering pizza in the future– the sandwich is amazing, more than filling for one and costs only $5.59 alone, $6.99 with chips and a 20oz. drink.

As for dessert, Domino’s says their Chocolate Lava Crunch Cakes are “Oven baked chocolate cakes, crunchy on the outside with molten chocolate on the inside.” It’s basically a mass-produced version of the French dessert called Moelleux au Chocolat a or, according to my brother who knows strange and wonderful foods, any flourless cake that cooks on the outside and leaves a gooey delicious middle.

Domino’s version of this desert is tasty in that this-is-really-cheap-but-sweet-and-gooey way. At $3.99 for two, I’m not sure it’s worth the price though.

Overall, the best bang for your buck is definitely the sandwich. They have Italian Sausage and Peppers, Buffalo Chicken, Chicken Habanero, Mediterranean Veggie, Philly Cheese Steak, Chicken Bacon Ranch, Italian and Chicken Parm. Plenty of choices for a cheap, filling meal!

The Volcano taco comes in a retina-searingly red shell and, according to the menu, is filled with ground beef, lettuce, cheddar and “molten hot lava sauce.”

A close-up of Taco Bell's Volcano Taco. Can't help but wonder how much food coloring that takes...

Simon, who gets a Volcano taco every time we got to Taco Bell since they came out, has this to say about the flavor:

“They’re addictive– I can’t stop eating them. They’re not like any other restaurant’s ‘spicy tacos’ because the heat is much milder and it doesn’t sacrifice the flavor of the rest of the taco to make way for the spicy-ness. You don’t just taste capsaicin.”

So, not exactly lava-sauce, but still spicy enough for Simon, who loves Mrs. Renfro’s Habanero Salsa.

I, on the other hand, had the joy of Taco Bell’s new Pacific Shrimp Taco, which looks beautiful in the advertising, but worse than your average fast-food disappointment in person.

"She looked a lot more put-together in her ad..."

Now, I’m willing to give someone more credit for what they’re like in the inside, so I decided to take a couple bites of the sorry looking tortilla contraption anyway.

My friend Rich and my brother Dennis both warned me away. Did I listen? Of course not. Everyone says curiosity killed the cat. Now they can say curiosity fed the cat a terrible taco.

The taco is advertised to have six “succulent shrimp” marinated in spices topped with lettuce, Fiesta Salsa (which is pretty much Taco Bell’s excuse for pico de gallo) and Avocado Ranch Sauce.

If by “succulent shrimp” they meant “pink squeaky eraser bits,” then I would agree. The dominant flavor was the delightfully bland crunch of lettuce and more lettuce; there was a hint of spice and flavor, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the shrimp or the Fiesta Salsa.

When I picked a shrimp out to be sure, I discovered that my suspicions were true. It was just as much like an eraser as I thought: chewy, bland and a six on the I’m-horrified-to-be-eating-this scale.

Now, you might think I’m being a little harsh (“It’s seafood from Taco Bell, what do you expect?”) but let’s take a look at the price for a single taco: $2.79.

The thing doesn’t even have cheese on it, nacho or otherwise. You can get two volcano tacos for $2.38 or a Nachos Bell Grande for $2.99.

Enough chips, meat, beans, nacho cheese and sour cream for two will cost you about 20 cents more than one sad little seafood taco.

As well as Taco Bell usually does on prices, I’m surprised that they would ask so much for such sub-par seafood, and then layer it with lettuce and fancy-sounding sauces & salsas to justify the price.

As Simon’s late grandmother would have said, “You really screwed the pooch on this one, Taco Bell.”

I ended up stopping in at Hamburger-Recipes.com looking for a basic recipe that even I could pull off. I was in luck.

1lb ground beef
1 half onion grated or finely chopped
4 pinches ground coriander
4 pinches paprika powder
a little pepper, fresh ground is better
a little salt
1 hand fresh bread crumbs
1 egg lightly beaten
1 quarter beef stock block dissolved in a quarter cup water

I didn’t have any bread except some buns, so I decided against the handful of crumbs and I don’t keep beef stock blocks because I haven’t gotten around to buying organic bullion. (Thanks to Nested Newlyweds for the heads up that such a thing even exists!)

Fresh ground pepper, fresh ground coriander and freshly ground sea salt were all thanks to the awesome salt and pepper grinders my friend, Kearstin, gave me for Christmas this year. The paprika was from a nifty spice rack made to look like a rack of test tubes, which we received as an engagement present a couple years ago.

Freshly ground pepper, coriander and salt, with some paprika on the side.

After that, I chopped up half a yellow onion, beat an egg in our Canada mug and made sure the tube of ground beef was thawed. Dumping it all into the bowl didn’t exactly make my mouth water.

Egg, spices, yellow onion and ground beef.

I mixed it with my hands and split it into four patties, which the recipe instructed me to do. I’ve never made hamburgers from scratch before, so I was a little unnerved by how gigantic they were, but I also knew that beef cooked down well, so I trusted the portion command.

The hamburgers look a little more appetizing now!

After cooking them for a few minutes each side on a relatively low heat, I caved to my fiance’s prodding and made a little cut to see if they were done on the inside or not. Lo and behold, they weren’t bleeding and squealing, so I got some green buns out (Happy St. Patrick’s day, fellow Irish and/or drunkards!) and layered colby-jack cheese, lettuce, mustard and pickles onto them.

Burgers, finished and ready to stuff into our mouths! Yay!

The patties were a bit thick for the buns, which had more body than your regular fast-food burger bun and made it hard to get a bite off the entire sandwich contraption without losing half the contents. However, despite just a little too sharp an onion flavor for me, the patties themselves were tender and held together well. The blend of spices was heaven–the only thing I would change is that I might fry the onions a little bit before adding them to the burgers next time.

As for cost, these burgers are a much better deal than any fast food chain:

• 1lb ground beef that cost $1.88 on sale
• Various spices which came to about 50¢ total
• 1 egg out of a dozen that cost $1.29
• 1/2 onion that came from a bag of 3lbs on sale for $1.00
• Green buns which I bought at $1.88 for 8
• Pickles, cheese and lettuce, which in total cost approximately $1.50

That’s $8.04 for four burgers which is rounding up–for that price I would have had to use all three pounds of onions and all eight buns.

If you stack a bag of chips on top of those four burgers, you could easily feed four people for about $10. Not bad!

The decorations are unassumingly Southeast Asian, and the lighting is soft, yellow and warm. The restaurant itself is connected to a small Asian Market, which sells everything from seasoning packets to foreign candy to Milkis, a milk flavored soda, which I plan to do a feature on next week!

The menu was very simple but easy to navigate, and the prices made me look twice: a bottomless glass of soda for .75¢. No kidding. There were also chop sticks, soup spoons and a modest basket filled with all sorts of sauces and hot pastes.

Tableside at Chong's Noodle House in Winona, MN.

I decided on crab rangoons as an appetizer because the sauce and filling flavor variations are always interesting from restaurant to restaurant.

Crab Rangoons at Chong's Noodle House in Winona, MN.

The rangoons themselves were crispy at the tips but not burnt to a crisp– the filling was an amazing sweet, creamy and mildly onion flavor. The crab flavor wasn’t overwhelming and the onion flavor went amazing with the sweet and sour sauce, which I suspect was made in the restaurant.

I’ve never tasted or seen sweet and sour like it. It was a little thinner than the regular pink slop you usually find in Asian restaurants and had a soft golden-pink sheen and small spices floating throughout, leaving behind a pale, sweet flavor without being cloying. Sadly, my photo does it very little justice.

Three of these tasty pastries (with awesome sauce) cost me $2.00.

Next, I decided to order seafood Pho soup, which is normally served in the beef variety. The menu boasted that their pho seafood had shrimp, imitation crab, and squid with rice noodles.

Seafood Pho at Chong's Noodle House in Winona, MN.

The shrimp was excellently cooked, and there were both tiny sea animals and calamari rings. The noodles were a perfect match to the somewhat salty broth as well. Pho is traditionally served with vegetables that the person eating the soup can add at their own accord.

Cilantro, lime, bean sprouts, green onions and jalapeños for adding to seafood pho at Chong's Noodle House in Winona, MN.

In my personal taste, I think the soup is better without these additions, as I dislike most of the flavors in question. The soup and broth can stand on it’s own–but if you’re feeling more adventurous, do give it a try as it’s the most authentic way to eat pho.

Now, for the best part– this gigantic bowl of soup, at least four times the size of an average cereal bowl, is considered a ‘small’ on the menu and costs $5.25. The beef pho in a small is 25¢ cheaper.

If you got the soup with a water and no appetizer, you could certainly still fill up for around $5.

As it was, four people went to Chong’s Noodle House and bought three bottomless sodas, two appetizers and four main entrees for $30.73, after tax. At about $15 a couple, Chong’s is a cheap, interesting and delicious date!

A final check for four at Chong's Noodle House in Winona, MN, is a friendly thing indeed!

New items like Fish and Chips, Dixie Dippers and Friend Green Beans are featured in a slightly fuzzy looking pale green-and-cream background. The whole menu looked like the foods were trying to manage self-esteem issues with over-touched glamor shots.

Some old favorites were blasted completely off the menu—search as I might, I could not find any onion rings. What I did find was a suspicious item called the Onion Tangler Basket.

I asked my very polite waitress Liz what exactly they were and she said, “Crispier, smaller versions of onion rings.” I decided to take the leap.

Is it just me, or do they look a little bit like deep-fried worms?

I was expecting burnt slivers of onion but to my surprise, they tasted awesome. The days of scalding your impatient tongue on a long, slimy string of half-cooked onion are a thing of the past.

Onion tanglers are thinner and crispier, with less breading than traditional onion rings, and come with a side of Chipotle ranch. The Chipotle ranch wasn’t very impressive (big color difference, little flavor distinction) but the rings themselves barely needed sauce in the first place because the breading was less overwhelming and the onions themselves were sweet.

The only downfall of this appetizer is the price: a basket of them is $5.99. Yikes.

I have a feeling this appetizer was conceived of with health-conscious people in mind—onion rings are clearly better for you if they’re thin, have less breading and cost a fortune, aren’t they?

On a positive note, Perkins still knows how to rock the totally ridiculous dessert for two.

Mmm, diabetic coma waiting to happen.

That's a whole lot of blended fruit smoothies.

The bottles in the foreground contained pomegranate and acai juices, so the price was a whopping $4.29 a bottle. Needless to say, I decided on something a little less…how to put this lightly…absolutely ridiculous.

The flavor I settled on was called “Green Machine” and proclaimed there was no added sugar and had a natural blend of 5 different juices with ‘other natural flavors and ingredients.’ Having heard that as of 2003, the USDA food grade standards allow ‘other natural ingredients’ in the ketchup label to stand for a certain allotted number of bugs, my eyebrow always goes up when I see it on other labels.

After pouring the drink into a glass to examine the texture and color (thick and opaque green… Yikes…), I turned to the back of the bottle– those ‘other natural ingredients’ are grass, spinach, algae and parsley, among others. There was also a list of how many pieces of fruit, approximately, I was going to ingest while drinking the smoothie. Seeing words like ‘banana’, ‘apple’ and ‘kiwi’ cheered me up considerably.

Mmmm, grass.

After steeling myself and finally taking a drink, I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted sweet and multi-layered, but not overly so, and there was no hint of salt or grass. (Yes, I actually do know what grass tastes like. Gross, right?)

The texture isn’t even that bad– you simply have to keep in mind you’re drinking a smoothie, not a soda, and it makes a lot more sense to your mouth.

The vitamin and potassium levels of the drink are really good for you, and the no-added-sugars thing really keeps this drink on the healthy end of somewhat-overpriced beverages.

At $2.99 a bottle, I would buy this again but only as a splurge snack or quick breakfast replacement.

My only warning is this: drink it well chilled. Finishing the glass half an hour later was not a lukewarm experience of the pleasant kind.

At the Subway location in Winona, MN, I was able to get a six inch roasted chicken breast on Italian herb & cheese with pickles, black olives, lettuce, tomato and salt (can’t forget the salt) for $3.25. They also have a side deal, which includes a 21 ounce drink and one choice from their menu of sides:

• A cup of Dannon’s Light & Fit yogurt
• A small bag of Subway apple slices
• Two cookies
• A bag of chips

The drink and side is a $2.50 package. I don’t know about you but yogurt feels like a breakfast food and pre-packaged apple slices from a company that specializes and bread, meat and cheese didn’t exactly sound appetizing. That left me with one choice (if you’re having cookies for lunch, you must have less obnoxious food conscience than I do): chips.

The selection of chips ranges from Lay’s Baked lines, to salt and vinegar to good old guilt-ridden Doritos. I chose dill pickle chips, because they’re delicious and that’s all there is to it–sour and salty food of the gods.

A 6" roasted chicken breast sub, dill pickle chips and lemonade...sounds delicious, no?

This meal was just as filling as my counterpart’s foot-long sub and left me feeling like I had a good healthy lunch, rather than feeling like I was going to go into a food coma from eating a whole loaf of bread with some meat and shreds of vegetables crammed into it.

The total meal comes out to $5.75, before tax, but that’s still not bad for a hot sandwich, some tasty chips and free refills. Oh and don’t forget the guilt-free fast food aspect– that’s priceless.

"LIKE...OMG, 4 MEE? NO WAI!"

These awesomely awful things were found at (probably not a big surprise here) Wal-Mart. What is love coming to when we’re too lazy to let other people spell out our sentiments for us?

Something that was actually surprising about Wal-Mart, however, were the other Valentine’s goodies I heard of through a friend: chocolate-covered fortune cookies. Like any good food-curious individual, I had to hunt them down.

When I found them, I was pleasantly surprised: they weren’t smothered in waxy brown glop masquerading as chocolate, there were tastefully tiny heart sprinkles and a bag of a dozen was only $3.00.

The package doesn't do the cookies much justice, but you can never judge a book by its cover, no matter how transparent.

Upon taking one of the cookies out, I was charmed by the little sprinkles, even if half of them had fallen off due to poor packaging methods.

The chocolate looks very dark, but in fact has a smooth, milky flavor that mixed well with the subtle sweet crunch of the fortune cookie.

A closeup of the interesting confection.

The final test for me was whether or not the fortune cookie really had a fortune inside– I was not disappointed. After managing to crack the generous coating of chocolate and cookie beneath into two pieces, and after eating the entire cookie, I finally looked at my fortune and it told me to “Smile! A frown may turn others away.”

Happy Valentine’s to you too, sarcastic fortune cookie.

All they’re asking is that people give a small donation to Give Kids the World, which is a “non-profit organization that exists only to fulfill the wishes of all children with life-threatening illnesses and their families from around the world to experience a memorable, joyful, cost-free visit to the Central Florida attractions, and to enjoy the magic of Give Kids The World Village for as long as there is a need,” according to their website.

The Perkins location in Winona, MN will be serving from 6am to 11am–pancakes, donations and all-around feel-good fuzzies. What’s to lose? Just make sure you call your local Perkins to see whether they’re participating or not before busting down the door and demanding free breakfast food.