Top 9 Recipes of 2016

As for year end lists, my Top 9 Recipes of 2016 is one you can really sink your teeth into. And all of my top picks are deliciously cheap to make. Just click on any recipe name to see the original 2016 blogpost, or play any embedded video below. The ranking order is random and not by delectability, so go ahead and dig in!

1. Cherry Pancakes
Let's start out with breakfast. I've been making pancakes with fresh fruit lately. Try mixing seasonal fruit into to your favorite pancake batter.

Cherries take a couple of slices to remove the seed, and you only need 2 or 3 cherries per pancake. So give my Cherry Pancake recipe a try next cherry season.

2. Huevos Rancheros
My favorite breakfast lately is Mexican-style Huevos Rancheros. It's really easy to make with fried eggs, refried pinto beans, and cheese topped with your favorite store-bought salsa, all resting on a couple of heated corn tortillas. You can get the ingredients cheaply, even canned refried beans, at your local grocery store.

My homemade recipe is so good I had to make a stop motion animated recipe video for it. So check it out below - warning, make sure you have eaten beforehand as the imagery is mouth-watering.



3. Chicken & Basil Stir Fry
I like to use fresh herbs whenever possible. Usually you only need a few sprigs or a small clipping. My next Top 9 Recipe of 2016 is a pungent Thai-style Chicken & Basil Stir Fry that's quick and easy to make.

I usually buy a whole basil plant and use some leaves as needed for Italian pasta sauces, but for my stir fry recipe I almost use a whole basil plant! Make some rice to soak up the basil and chicken flavored sauce, too.



4. Korean-style BBQ Chicken
During summertime I fire up the gill almost every weekend, and boy do I have a scrumptious Top 9 Recipe using cheap chicken called: Korean-style BBQ Chicken.

It's all about the marinade. The dominate sweet and salty soy flavors are a perfect savory combination. And copious amounts of minced garlic takes the marinade over the top. Korean-style marinade is a nice change from typical tomato-based BBQ sauces. So click on the recipe name above to get all the tasty recipe details. And add extra bonus points as this recipe is Wife Approved!

Korean-style BBQ Chicken

5. Peach Salsa 
Serving chips and salsa to greet guest for a party? Then try my Peach Salsa for a fruity change of pace. If you are from the South then you can get plenty of this stone fruit cheaply during peach season in late summer. Plus, the ingredient list is a short one.

Serve my Peach Salsa with blue corn chips for extra festive color.

6. Trump Orange Chicken
I threw my whisk into the bombastic U.S. Presidential race last year with my tasty Trump Orange Chicken recipe. I have to say it's the greatest and most beautiful recipe of the year...absolutely fantastic. Only short, lying, low-energy, small-fingered, ugly, crooked, and nasty people would disagree.

If you voted for Trump then celebrate the new POTUS by making my glazed, orange-hued, fried chicken entree. Or, if you think Trump is a pathological liar, narcissist, con man, chauvinist, whining crybaby, pompous ass, and bully, then just change the name from Trump Orange Chicken to plain Orange Chicken. My recipe is delish by any name or political persuasion!

7. Homemade Chili with Beef & Beans
Slow-cooking soothes the soul. There is nothing like the kitchen fragrance from a large pot of Homemade Chili with Beef & Beans. And I don't have to point out how inexpensive pinto beans are. I also use one of the cheapest cuts of beef out there called beef shank. This recipe is money in the bank.

So get out your favorite Chili toppings - I like chopped onion, melty cheese and crunchy Fritos Corn Chips!

I usually get most of my 99 cent ingredients at my local 99c only Stores, but lately I've has some good luck shopping at Dollar Tree. I came up with a Top 9 Recipe using bargains I scooped up from there.

Click on any photo to see larger.

8. Homemade Italian Sausage & Black Olive Pizza
Using breakfast sausage and some Italian herbs, I came up with a homemade Italian sausage, that tops my single serving pizza. The other Dollar Tree pizza finds include: black olives, tomato pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and small precooked pizza crusts (2 per package) - all for a dollar per ingredient. That's a lot of dough savings!

 Make sure to click on the name Homemade Italian Sausage & Black Olive Pizza to see the recipe.

9. Mashed Potatoes
The last recipe I made in 2016 was classic Mashed Potatoes. Potatoes are one cheap ingredient - sometimes even less per pound than brown onions.

Everyone know how to make Mashed Potatoes, right? Well if you are a cooking newbie, then check out my stop motion animated recipe video below and see how simple it is to make.



It has been a fruitfully abundant year of recipes here at the Cheap$kate Chateau. I did the heavy lifting for you, so now all you have to do is pick a recipe link and save yourself some hard earned cash by trying out any of the above. And if you have a favorite recipe of mine, then leave a comment to share.

And make sure to keep checking in here from time to time. I create yummy-looking blog posts with a dollop of humor, and while my tastes are cheap, my recipe flavors are top shelf!

Pizza Deal of the Day - Celeste vs Jeno's

Welcome to the real Hunger Games, with a battle royale between 2 pizza purveyors, Geno's and Celeste. In my latest Deal of the Day it's mini pizzas going mano-a-mano and the winner gets the Chintzy Award for Best Cheap Pie. This is cuisine made for dorm room keg parties and minimum wage workday lunches.

I picked up each single serving pie from the frozen deli case at this 99c only Store for 99.99 cents (or $1.) The pizzas are the perfect size for lunchtime appetites. I got the same toppings of cheese, pepperoni and sausage on both. Normally I like a pizza hot from the oven, but for this meal showdown, I am going with the quicker microwave preparation. -- following the box directions.

Celeste
There is more tomato sauce and chunkier meat topping -- so you can really taste the Italian sausage and pepperoni. -- Celeste is a winner in the meat category. Also, larger lashings of mozzarella cheese make individual bites varied, as ingredients are larger but spread out more. And the tomato sauce, while plain, binds all the flavors together.

There is a silver crisping plate included.

Jeno's
Italian herbs shine through in the tomato sauce. But the meat toppings are hard to discern, due to the small sizes. While Jeno's has a uniform flavor profile as all the parts are almost blended together in a pleasing way.

Funny, but Jeno's did not have a silver microwave crisper, so I used Celeste's.

I'm sure both single serving pizza would benefit from oven baking, but at my job (and most dorm rooms) there is only a microwave oven. So this is a test in real-world conditions. In both cases, the crust is a little mushy as expected, but they share a pleasing yeasty dough flavor.

Both pies are the same size and thickness. Jeno's looks like it has more toppings, but looks are deceiving. So on a scale of 1 to 9, 9 being best, I give the Chintzy Award to Celeste, with a 6 rating. I preferred the chunkier sausage topping and larger treads of cheese. I also liked the simple tomato sauce flavor.

While Jeno's is the loser, I give them higher marks for a more intense overall Italian herb flavor. And I would buy both again for a cheapie lunch. But I am always on the lookout for a better single serving chintzy pizza. If you know of one, then do leave a comment about it and I'll look for it.