Anybody who knows me knows that I love a good deal. But through all of our financial negotiations in our marriage, Hunter and I have realized that we each operate very differently with money.
My husband can spend hours deliberating on a purchase and finding the most bang for his buck. He often wants to prioritize buying something that will last a long time and serve us for years down the road, even if it is not the cheapest option currently.
Meanwhile, financial decisions come down to exactly one thing for me: Does the price tag make me want to keel over? If so, do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
The “keeling over” bit often is only enhanced by the question, “Is what I’m buying worth the hours it took me to earn this money?” Sometimes, a chair just isn’t worth 20 hours of my life.
But my spending habits change when it comes to groceries. Grocery shopping is non-negotiable. Everybody has to eat, no matter what. But that doesn’t mean I can’t squeeze every bit of value out of the groceries we buy.
After all, everything tastes better when it’s homemade – and affordable.
Whenever I can without compromising quality, I almost always buy off-brand or generic products. I try to buy non-perishables with the lowest price per ounce. I shop weekly coupons and digital deals at every grocery store.
But my biggest grocery store rule: Don’t buy anything that will go unused. A deal isn’t a deal if I wouldn’t otherwise buy the item to begin with, and it ends up going bad in our fridge.
This week, I came across a deal that felt too good to be passed up, though. Chicken for 99 cents a pound. But they weren’t parts of the chicken I would typically buy. Instead of chicken breasts or thighs, it was drumsticks or a whole chicken.
I walked a few laps around the grocery store while deliberating with myself whether I wanted to purchase the chicken at all. Ultimately, I was too intimidated by the whole bird to buy it without a recipe in hand. As a still fairly-new home cook, I honestly wasn’t sure what I’d do with it.
But drumsticks? I’ve eaten plenty of those. With way too much personal confidence, I went ahead and bought them, recipe or not.
I’ve been cooking drumsticks ever since in a variety of ways. This first recipe that I’m sharing was a five-ingredient slow-cooker barbecue chicken recipe I originally found on Eating on a Dime.
I adapted it to increase the amount of seasoning, since I usually prefer a hefty dose of flavor on anything I cook. Plus, I was cooking with more chicken than the recipe originally called for.
It was quick and easy, and we honestly hadn’t eaten barbecue in a hot minute, so it was nice to mix it up.
But really, the most satisfying part of the whole meal was biting into this delicious, juicy chicken and knowing that it hadn’t broken the bank.
In fact, my bank account personally gave me a high-five and congratulated me while eating this meal (This is a joke, and I am still sane, I promise).
I’m still working my way through my chicken purchase, so please, if you have other ideas, send them my way! I’d love to try more recipes using what I already have.
But for now, all I can tell you is that this chicken recipe is delicious, and it didn’t make me keel over. A win is a win.
SLOW COOKER BARBECUE CHICKEN
Ingredients
4 pounds chicken drumsticks
3 Tablespoons paprika
3 teaspoons cumin
3 teaspoons garlic salt
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
Directions
■ Combine paprika, cumin, garlic salt, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Roll each drumstick in the mixture, before transferring to slow cooker.
■ Pour 1 cup of barbecue sauce into slow cooker. Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours until tender and chicken is cooked through.
■ When finished, place the chicken on a baking sheet lined with foil and cooking spray. Brush half of remaining barbecue sauce on the drumsticks and broil until they begin to brown, about 1-5 minutes. Remove from oven, flip and coat with remaining barbecue sauce before broiling again for another 1-5 minutes.
■ Serve hot. Enjoy!
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 38 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
