Plenty of good food for not much money

We've had some terrific home-cooked meals recently that cost a total of $15 to $20 for three people, even less when you consider that leftovers made a great sandwich, light lunch or snack.

Last Monday, we roasted a whole organic chicken (Whole Foods) seasoned with cinnamon, allspice and salt and served it with a half-pound of organic rigatoni in tomato sauce. The next night we had fluke poached in sake, okra with tomatoes and rice, all from H-Mart.

We also had drug-free Australian lamb chops, instant mashed potatoes and organic spring mix salad, all from Costco. On Friday night, for house guests, we made drug-free Whole Foods hamburgers (99 cents each on sale), served them on sturdy potato-onion rolls from Balthazar Bakery, and prepared two skin-on potato salads -- Syrian (olive oil, lemon juice, allspice and cumin) and Jamaican (hard-boiled egg, mixed vegetables, mayonnaise, black-pepper and salt).

Yesterday, my son and I both snacked on the last pieces of the organic chicken we roasted a week before. For dinner, we had drug- and preservative-free chicken sausage (sun-dried tomato and provolone) and organic salad mix from Costco and the rest of the Whole Foods organic rigatoni.

Do these chickens have a prostate problem?

Have you looked closely at the label of the fresh chicken you bring home from the supermarket? Does the phrase "retained water" appear on the label? Doesn't this sound like these birds have swollen prostates?

Don't worry. You won't find these chickens getting up during the night to use the bathroom.

For several years now, chicken farmers have been injecting their birds with a salt-water solution during processing to improve the flavor. The organic, free-range chicken I brought home from Whole Foods Market in Paramus this evening contains 5% of this salt-water solution. Readington Farms, the ShopRite brand of drug-free chicken, also contains retained water. I don't have any Murray's free-roaming chicken in my freezer, but the next time I go to Fairway Market, I'll check the label.

I can understand injecting lousy chicken, such as Perdue and Tyson, with salt water for better flavor. But drug-free, free-roaming and organic chickens already taste good. Do they need the extra seasoning, and do we have to pay 5% or more of the price for salted water?