I love all noodles, but there is something about the chewy, seemingly endless udon noodle that really does it for me. I love udon cold with peanut sauce and cabbage, room temperature with sesame oil and black sesame seed, but most of all I like udon hot with vegetables in a spicy broth. This soup is equally delicious with shrimp, chicken or thin slices of beef.

Zinfandel is among the most descript of red wine varieties, with its unmistakable bite of pepper, raspberry, vinegar, and other things sweet and tart. Its name, too, is a winner. After all, everybody likes a good letter Z to play with, and puns know no paradise like the Zinfandel business. Just listen: Artezin, XYZin, Seven Deadly Zins, Zinsvalley, Z-52, Poizin, ReZerve, Zig Zag Zin, Zip Zin 95240 (that’s Lodi), Zynthesis, Temptation Zin, Sin Zin, Zinetta, Za Za Zin, CIGARZIN, Zinzilla, Fro-Zin, Zen Zin, Zinful Delight Zin Port, and The Inzinerator.

Secondly, Zinfandel’s brief history is an endearing one. It came from Croatia, born in the Dark Age jungles of oaks, conifers and vines, and turned up mysteriously in the early 1800s in California, where it thrived in the hot, dry climate. The grape was planted widely in the delta region and the Gold Country in the mid-1800s and would become a favorite of the Miner 49ers, the star of the largest single-variety tasting in the state (the ZAP Festival), and the official state grape of California in 2006.

But then we get to the price tag, and Zinfandel tends to cost substantially more than other red wines. One reason is that the grapes on a given vine tend to ripen at different times, requiring vineyard staff to inspect the vines individually and selectively harvest the fruit. The grapes also grow quite fat, which can lead to mold growth within the bunch if any moisture creeps in. Thus, we see many $40 bottles on the shelves and $9 glasses on menus. Screw that.

It takes some digging to locate cheap ones (white Zin doesn’t count), and here are a few winning specimens of the category:

6) R &B Cellars Lodi Swingsville Zin, $11. Yikes, right? But the wine is a fantastic value and perfect for that once-in-a-while splurge. The wine hits you with its distinct cherry and red licorice flavors. Though it lacks the pronounced bite of many Zins, the basic elements – pepper and tartness – are there, with prominent flavors and aromas of pomegranate and mint.

5) Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend Sonoma Zinfandel, $9.99. Ravenswood owner and winemaker Joel Peterson, famed for his cowboy hat and penchant for looking rugged even with delicate stemware in hand, makes a characteristically peppery Zinfandel with his Vintner’s Blend at a price worth paying. The wine is acidic yet smooth, with all that zesty zing more common to high-priced Zins.

4) Mutt Lynch Sonoma County Portrait of a Mutt Zinfandel, $9.99. This is a fruity and particularly heavy Zinfandel, with cherries, mulberries and pomegranate thick on the nose. A filling mouthful of fruit, fudge and cigar smoke follows, all well-balanced and dangerously drinkable – and with the family’s squat little dog portrayed cutely on the front.

3) Smoking Loon California Old Vine Zinfandel: $8.99. One of the smoother Zins, this wine carries strong elements of burnt and toasted things, like meat and wood. The deep smell carries traces of cranberry, strawberry and peppery spices. It’s soft and mellow in the mouth, heavy on cherry and charcoal, with a suggestion of dried figs, and a wonderful smoked bacon character.

2) Forestville California Zinfandel, $5.99. This one is about as cheap as Zinfandels get, and it isn’t too bad. It smells of red fruits – don’t they all? – and the taste is best-described as black: black cherries, blackberries, and black licorice. You may even detect such subtleties as candle wax and prickly pear – wonderful notes in a wine so geographically blended as this. The name brand’s label won’t impress anyone, so keep this one far back in your cupboard, and when the hour arrives and your guests are wobbly-kneed on the good (well, better) stuff, slip this potion in their goblets. They won’t complain.

1) Crane Lake California Zinfandel, $4.99. This one is as cheap as Zinfandels get and yet quite interesting. Okay: It’s a bit pungent on the nose, but you might get a whiff of chicory and blueberries. Fascinating stuff. The flavor packs a forceful punch of strawberries and raspberry jam while the astringent tannins cloy at the mouth – but that’s okay by me. I’m personally just impressed that Crane Lake produces a red Zin at this price, and for me just tossing the juice of this noble grape about my mouth is quite enough to send me to bed happy.

Generally, I object to casseroles. When I think of casseroles I tend to think of nasty cream-of-mushroom soup-based tuna casseroles that make your whole house smell like overcooked fish for days. Casseroles are a very BrokeAss thing to cook—particularly if you are feeding a crowd, but inexpensiveness alone doesn’t qualify a dish to be BrokeAss Gourmet. This satisfying and spicy dish, however qualifies very much thanks to it’s bold, clean flavors and tender-crisp texture.

Adam’s recent comments on wine from Trader Joes certainly gets you ingestible bottles for under $10 but is there any romance there? I don’t think so! For that think further afield, let your mind wander to places you want to visit, grab an Atlas (ok, just google “world map”) and think fun, wine and sun. Where did that take you? Hawaii? Never mind, let me make a suggestion Iberia!

OK, where? You know, the Iberian peninsula down below France. Yeah, Spain and Portugal – that’s what I said. These two countries are the source of some of the best wine values in the world right now. Although both countries have achieved greater renown on the world wine scene over the past decade, they still provide great wines that don’t command big prices. You should be able to find many wines from the region in a local wine shop, Whole Foods or, I admit, even Trader Joes.

On the affordable wine front you can find excellent stuff from the Douro region of Portugal (where Port comes from) such as Charamba or Altano which should be $6-9 wherever you find them. They’re great potluck wines that can come out with almost anything, so stick one in the cupboard for whenever you need it.

If you’re preparing Gabi’s Meyer Lemon Pad Thai search out a Vinho Verde, also from Portugal. This “green wine” will have a tiny bit of bubbles to go along with a fresh crisp taste and often a hint of sweetness that will work superbly to lubricate things along as you cook for your date and then sit down to the meal. A relatively widely distributed Vinho Verde is Broadbent which you’ll almost always find for $10 or less ($7 at The Wine Mine) and there are many others in that price range.

Over in Spain you can find any number of interesting wines that you can actually think about if you feel like it (unlike Cycles Gladiator). Look for a wine from the Bierzo region made from Mencia. In the lower price range this grape produces red wines that are not too heavy, somewhat fruity with a good acidity that makes them good food pairers. One example is Cuatro Pasos which I’ve seen at Whole Foods for $12 but can be found for less.

You’ll be able to find many other examples of bargains that taste great and have a sense of place to them – look for a Monastrel from Jumilla, Garnacha from the Navarra region, a Tempranillo blend from Rioja, you get the picture. Bring out that map again and plan your next journey when you aren’t so broke.

Oh and before you visit a a wine shop or supermarket brush up on your history to make sure you know the approximate dates of the Roman, Germanic and Muslim/Moor periods of influence in Spain. I hear this is a great conversation starter with whomever catches your eye while you’re shopping. If I’m wrong you just have another tidbit of information to think about while sipping your new bargain finds from Iberia.

Crepes are one of those wonderfully impressive dishes that are actually incredibly easy and inexpensive to make. The egg-cheese-onion version is my favorite simple combination but feel free to get creative and add anything from bacon to feta to avocado.