Compromise, cut corners to scratch out two meals

Dishes had to be altered or scrapped altogether for us to meet our $18 budget.

Amano initially wanted to make lasagna with homemade "spice cabinet" sausage. Since ground meat is typically pricier than whole cuts, he was going to buy a cut of pork and grind the meat himself.

But the bottle of wine he had his eye on -- a magnum of Livingston Cellars chianti -- was on sale for $5.49 at the Jewel. Nowhere near exquisite but drinkable and enough for six, the "kind of wine I would serve in a tumbler," he says. So he got the wine and ditched the meat, making it a vegetarian lasagna.

Amano also needed pork for the rillettes and the sausages wrapped in brioche on the hors d'oeuvres menu.

He'd hoped to make both the sausage and brioche by hand but decided that would be too time-consuming. Off the menu that went. In its place: lemon cookies. Amano needed just one lemon for that, and it was on sale for 25 cents.

The Jewel didn't carry pork butt for the rillettes, so Amano opted for a 1-pound piece of boneless pork roast for $2.05.

Shallots, to go into the dip for the crudites and the salad dressing, were available only by the bag. So he bought a very small Spanish onion for 50 cents.

Instead of buying ginger ale for his Spiked Ginger Ale, Amano bought a knob of ginger for $1.03 to make his own ginger simple syrup. The cheapest, smallest bottle of vodka cost $2.79 -- perfect, as Amano needed only a splash in each glass.

Though Amano made his own bread for the dinner party menu (a three-pack of yeast at Edgewater Produce was $1.49, nearly a dollar less than at Jewel), he ended up buying a baguette for $2.19 at Jewel to make into crostini for the hors d'oeuvres menu.

But much to our delight, Amano still had a little money to play with for that menu. So he threw in a container of roasted chickpeas he spotted at Edgewater Produce.

They were green, festive and, best of all, $1.32.

Janet Rausa Fuller