Luxuries - Olive Oil

Most of my luxuries entries will begin with a statement that will make many budget-conscious people cry.  Here it is:  There is no substitute for real Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Now here's the part that, hopefully, will rectify your tears:  There are ways to use less and save money.

     Let's start with an explanation of what makes Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO from now on to save my fingers) amazing.  Olive oil is made by pressing the olive fruit really tightly between stones or a similar analogue until the fat oozes out.  There are five grades of olive oil here in the U.S., but the ones you'll almost always hear and see are plain olive oil and EVOO.  Both Virgin and Extra Virgin Olive Oils are made without adding anything to the oil which pretty much explains the names.  EVOO has a deep, resonant, and fruity flavor similar to, well, olives.  It also has a beautiful scent, and a full texture.  Once it's been cooked, it also has kind of a nutty smell and flavor.
     Now, here's the problem that a lot of people on a budget have with EVOO, it's freaking expensive!  If you compare the price of regular vegetable oil to the price of EVOO, you'll find that you can buy about a gallon of vegetable oil for the price of a pint of EVOO - a quart if you're lucky.  But every cooking show/website/book in the world wants you to use EVOO in every dish all the time.  How can you balance your food budget and your gourmet needs?
     Here's a statement that will make some television chef yell at me.  (Which, you know, might let me succeed in my bucket list entry of "meet a famous chef.")  EVOO does not need to be used all the time or at the quantities that you see in your recipes.  Really.  No seriously, stop laughing.  Half of the recipes that call for EVOO are only using it because it has a high flash point and won't burn your onions if you see something shiny out of the corner of your eye.  However, if you pay attention, you can use canola oil (I don't do soybean oil) and still manage to sauté your onions until they're translucent and not spend a ton of money to do it.  The other half of the recipes that call for EVOO want it for the taste, but you don't necessarily need that amount to get the fragrance of the oil through the dish.  For this, try splitting the amount in half.  Use half EVOO and half canola.  Canola doesn't have its own real fragrance, so it's not going to interfere with your EVOO's.
     Again, you may be curious as to how to afford your bottle of EVOO on your slim budget.  All my luxuries are things I buy at the very end of the month when I have a couple of dollars left over unless  there's a sale.  Buy a small bottle to start with and see how much you use over time.  We replace a 16 oz bottle every 3 months.  That should be long enough to budget yourself enough money to buy another.  The caveat to this was a few months ago when our local Fresh & Easy (if you don't have one, petition the company) had a buy one get one free sale on EVOO.  I skipped to the store and got 4 bottles for the price of two.  It was enough to make it through almost a year.
     Another positive of EVOO is that it takes forever to go bad, if it's stored properly.  Your EVOO should be stored in a bottle with a tight cap (find a new bottle if the cap breaks or gets lost) in a place with very little light and a constant temperature.  That means, you can put it in your cabinets.  When olive oil goes bad, it has a slightly buttery taste that a lot of people actually prefer, so you can pretty much store it until it dissolves the bottle.  This means, that if you find you use a lot of EVOO and you have extra benefits sitting around, buy a big can and a smaller bottle to keep a portion in (I've just kept an empty 16 oz EVOO bottle around).

What's your opinion on EVOO? Comments? Questions? Tweet to @cookingcheap