u/mildy_enthralling

I feel like we’re all trying to make our dollar go further and I would like to know where you all feel you can get a good meal for around ~$20 in Pasadena? Here’s some of mine:

- King’s Row $20 burger and boilermaker: you get a single cheeseburger, onion strings, a Miller High Life and a shot of Jameson. Yea after tip and tax it’s more like $25 but still

- Korean street toast at Cordova Cafe. Under $20 without a drink and it’s big enough you can save a portion for dinner

- Ry’s Poke Shack: it’s been a while but I think the double portion with a couple of extras and no drink is under $20. Don’t take me at my word though and check the menu!

I finally had Cheesesteaks by Matú today and while it was delicious and I really enjoyed it, I cannot justify $24 for a cheesesteak regularly.

Where can I get a good, reasonably priced cheesesteak sandwich? Also don’t necessarily mean authentic. I’ve never been to Philly though I’d love to go, I’m a SoCal native who just really loves cheesesteaks.

Normally when I make tomato soup, I buy a bunch of beefsteak tomatoes, roast them in a Dutch oven with quartered yellow onions and a sliced head of garlic with olive oil, salt and pepper at 425 degrees for 1 hour. I then use my immersion blender on the roasted veggies with chicken broth, oregano, coconut milk and basil (if available). It comes out okay.

Today, I wanted a single serving of tomato soup so I used sugar plum grape tomatoes, a couple of cloves of garlic and about a quarter of a shallot in a mini Dutch oven (shoutout to Mom for the great gift!) At 425 degrees for 15 minutes and blitzed it with chicken broth, oat milk (didn’t want to open up a whole can of coconut milk for a single serving) and oregano. And it was so flavorful! It was delightful. I have to know what was the key that made my single serve so delicious. Was it the grape tomatoes? The oat milk? The shallot?

Also fwiw, I probably should have roasted the veggies a little longer as some of the tomatoes didn’t blend that well. But I was hungry. The little Dutch oven was also so small that the immersion blender was kinda causing overflow once all the liquids were in there.

Help me make my large batch tomato soup just as good as my small one!