Steak and Dinnerly

[bill_schubert]

A trip to the store yesterday shocked me yet again.

True to our omnivore nature, Dana and I have steak maybe once a week.  We're going to die from red meat consumption.  At 68 I'm good with that.  Whatever diet I've been on for 68 years has been working so I'll keep it up.

But price may do what health concerns don't.  I priced a Prime beef ribeye that we'd normally get and it was $28.  Since there are two of us that would work out to $56.

This past Friday Dinnerly charged my credit card $55.31.  For that I get:

1 — Low-Carb Roast Pork and Apricot pan sauce with Spiced carrots

2 — Low Carb Baked Tilapia with zucchini, tomato, and corn

3 — Brown butter steak with Lyonnaise sweet potatoes

4 — Garlic butter chicken with french fries

That is four meals for two people for the price of two steaks.

It boggles my mind.  As I've said before the food from Dinnerly is not quite at the level of Hello Fresh or Home Chef but at about two thirds the price it is damn good, always with a vegetable, and easy to make.  

I'm hoping the inflation is transitory despite the fact that Powell stopped using that phrase (an unsettling development in itself).  I don't know who can afford Prime Rib that costs over $189 for what would serve three or four people one serving each or $28 steaks meant for one.  HEB has a prime rib on their site (18 lbs) that costs $370.  I'd be scared to cook it.

OK, enough Monday morning economic terror.

Comments

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Cut one ribeye into two, and serve two people modestly?

Actually, for the past several years including the pre-pandemic times, I've often stood in line at the supermarket checkout and watched and listened to the transaction ahead of me, and wondered how people with two or three children can live if they're spending $250 or more per week., those grocery carts holding a literal mountain of groceries/food.
How can they afford to eat?

And that was then. Now, isn't.

[amw.livejournal.com]

Having never looked at the steak section of the shops, probably ever in my life, i had no idea steak was this expensive. That feels like the price you'd pay for a fully-cooked steak in one of those steakhouse restaurants with dark furniture and green walls. I know there is really fancy beef from Japan that costs a fortune, but i always figured steak was pretty cheap given how often people eat it, and how many restaurants serve it, even in sandwiches with cheez whiz. Arguably, beef should be significantly more expensive than the equivalent amount of chicken (or even pork), given its carbon footprint, so perhaps the prices now are just starting to reflect the real impact?

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Long chain of events some of which will revert but some of which never will. Production was disrupted in 2020 w/ Covid and since farmers could not get what they needed to get for their cows (futures, really) they culled the herds and sold what they could when they could. Now that demand has risen the prices reflect the herd size. I think feed availability and therefore price has some to do with it too.

All of this I was aware of but still shocking to run into it in the store. Probably just as well for us. Smaller portions and less expensive, lean meat.

First world problem. Worst case I become more of a vegetarian, banish the thought.

[timbear.livejournal.com]

All meat is expensive here right now what with the double whammy of Brexit and Covid supply chain issues. However, here's how I rationalise spending so much on steak ...

I really like steak and even though it's now about twice what we were paying for it a couple of years ago we can still afford it so I will continue to buy it. We're getting long in the tooth and life is too short to deny ourselves nice things for no reason other than they are a bit spendy.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm with you on that logic. We'll do the same, I'm sure.

[sleepybadger.livejournal.com]

YIKES

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

I just paid $6.90 for less than two pounds of ground beef, which is shocking to me as a person who remembers ground beef as being an affordable option. I am glad we don't really like steak.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

My surprise at your comment led me to look up the price of mince (ground beef) here in NZ. I don't eat it myself so I didn't know the exact price but I was just marvelling at how cheap $6.90 was when you said it was expensive! Turns out the price here for decent-quality mince from our cheapest supermarket chain is $20.99 per kilo (2.2 pounds). People have been complaining here too about the rocketing price of meat, although food here is very expensive anyway compared to the US. There are no agricultural subsidies here and local prices reflect our export prices. All our beef is free-range and grass-fed too which also makes a difference. Nevertheless, mince is normally considered a budget option.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Wow! Even accounting for the exchange rate (US$6.90 is about NZ$10.22) that is a lot to pay. Our beef industry is subsidized by our government and I wish it weren't! Not that I want to pay more, but I don't want my tax dollars going to subsidize cattle ranchers.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Now I am curious about that brown butter steak — is there a lot of meat per person, and is it good quality steak?

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Not sure if THIS (https://marleyspoon.com/media/pdf/recipe_cards/96684/R-96684_-_Brown_Butter_Steak-CV.pdf?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=tam&utm_campaign=engagment_display_lc_kitchen_prep)link will work or not. Let me know.

We haven't received it yet but it will be about 4oz very lean steak. 1 sweet potato, an onion, a small chunk of parmesan, some chicken broth concentrate and steak seasoning.

This is what they all do. I pan fry the steak (I've got that down) and use the same pan to make a nice sauce to go with it. In this case they have a bunch of stuff to go with the sweet potato too. It looks like a good recipe for both.

Note: No bread or starch other than the sweet potato. It's a 580 cal meal with 34g of fat and 37g of carb with 31g protein. Not a perfect meal but pretty good. And it will taste great. I may throw in some peas for color.

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

The link works! That looks like high quality steak to me (though I would cook it more — I know, heresy!). Looks like a good meal to me. Your posts about these dinner services always tempt me to try one of them.

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

I am really glad now that I bough a 1/3 share of a quarter of beef this summer. Those steak prices are. Scary.