Recipe review: Easy Sesame Chicken from Budget Bytes

Recipe here.

Oh my goodness, this was delicious. So, so good. So good. Did I mention this was so, so good? I believe I am in love with Budget Bytes. At first, I was predisposed to dislike it, because of the perky tone of the author, and expressions like "Ooey gooey" which I detest so much that I previously refused to make any recipe that used this revolting phrase. (Ditto "guilt free." I refuse to feel guilty for eating, and I resent the assumption that I'll make a recipe because it won't make me feel guilty.) But I have forgiven her everything, because the recipes at this blog are so, so amazing. I'm totally buying her book. Probably for my birthday, because I usually get at least one Amazon gift card.

This recipe for Sesame Chicken seriously tastes like something you'd get at a Chinese restaurant, and we all devoured it extremely quickly, especially Baby B, who pronounced it "Ummy." The sauce, in particular, is rather wonderful. The first time I made it, I forgot the sesame seeds, and it was still wonderful.

The only thing I'd change about this is the coating you put on the chicken. Mine didn't stick at all. It still tasted good, but I'd prefer it to stay on the chicken. So the next time I make this, I'm going to try dredging the raw chicken in cornstarch before dipping it in the egg/cornstarch mixture, in the hopes that it makes the coating stick this time. If it doesn't, the next time I might try plain flour, although I suspect that would make it too crispy. Oh well, whatever happens, this recipe is an absolute winner, and I add it to our regular rotation of recipes.

One more thing is that the estimated serving sizes are tiny. We finished off this entire recipe between the three of us, and although we are pretty greedy people, we're not extraordinarily greedy. And one of us is two years old. So. Yeah.

Recipe review: Chicken in peanut sauce from BudgetBytes.com

Recipe here.

This is a wonderfully filling, subtly flavored stew. It completely satisfied all my cravings for Asian food, without having to spend $40 plus tip to feed my hungry humans. If it's a little lacking in fire, that's all right--that's why we had some extra Sriracha on the side.

The only thing I'd change about this recipe is to add more chicken to it. This makes a lot of sauce, and it would be nicer to have an extra half-pound of chicken in there.

I served this with sides of basmati rice and steamed broccoli. I give it an A+.

Week's meal plan: Sunday, March 2, 2014

I forgot to document last week's meals and groceries. And now I have forgotten everything. Can I blame baby brain when my baby is more than two years old now?

This week, we had a decent amount of food left over from last week's shopping. Oats, yogurt, eggs, peanut butter, carrots, celery, oranges, cheese, etc. So this week's shopping, although there was a lot of it, wasn't that expensive.

This week's meals:

Breakfasts: steel cut oats with plain unsweetened yogurt and frozen berries, OR toast and eggs

Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches, carrot and celery sticks, apples

Snacks: oranges

Desserts: grapes

Dinners:
1) Chicken in peanut sauce from Budget Bytes, sides of rice and steamed broccoli (this makes a lot of sauce, so there will be leftovers for another meal)
2) Sesame chicken from Budget Bytes, sides of rice and steamed broccoli (probably no leftovers, because we are very greedy)
3) Spaghetti and beef-zucchini meatballs (made by Mr. B, so no recipe here) with homemade tomato sauce made by moi, will make lots of leftovers
4) Hamburgers made by Mr. B with whole wheat buns made by moi, side of roasted butternut squash
5) Miracle mac and cheese from Budget Bytes, side of steamed broccoli
6) and 7) leftovers

This week's groceries:

Fruits and vegetables:
Red grapes, 1.22 lb 2.78
0.75lb broccoli crowns, 0.96
2.35 butternut squash 2.30
1 lime 0.38
4.09 lbs Fuji apples 4.83
0.69 lbs zucchini 0.47
1.22 lbs sweet onions 1.20

Bulk:
Whole wheat rotelle 0.44
1 lb whole wheat spaghetti 0.99
1.08 lb unbleached flour 0.35
0.27 lb panko breadcrumbs 0.44
1.29 lbs basmati rice 2.32

Dairy:
Organic Valley 2% milk, 2 x 1/2 gallon: 6.76

Meat:
3 lbs chicken breast 7.39
3 lbs grass-fed ground beef 8.62*
1 lb mild Italian sausage 3.18

Cans:
Taste of Thai lite coconut milk 1.57**
WinCo brand diced tomatoes, 3 cans: 1.74

Frozen:
WinCo brand mixed berries 2.26

Etc:
Orowheat whole wheat bread 2.68

Total: $51.66


*We got this from our local organic co-op, because it really doesn't cost any more than the factory-farmed beef you get at WinCo and it tastes so much better. Also, we feel a bit better about eating a cow that at least got to eat grass, which sounds nicer than eating grain, from the cow's perspective at least.
**For reasons I do not understand, the full-fat coconut milk costs 50 cents more. I do not understand this. However, I don't mind lite coconut milk, so that's fine with me.

Observations: I think we did really well this week. I have a nagging feelings that I could do this so much cheaper if we ate more vegetarian or vegan meals, but Mr. B made a special request for more meat. He and Baby B just love their animal protein, I guess. Several of my friends have gone vegan for their New Year's Resolutions this year, but I can't do this (not that I really want to) because I'd have to make two separate dinners for my adorable carnivores. I still don't feel good about the amount of supermarket-brand chicken we're eating, or about the pork sausage, but at least I can feel better that we supported a kinder sort of cattle farming by buying grass-fed beef.

Further observations: I found myself scowling with irritation as I walked through the organic store on my way to get ground beef from the butcher. Here's the thing: I believe in all the same social and political and animal rights causes as the people who run that place, but there's something so insufferably smug about it. When I first moved to this town, before we had Baby B, I used to shop there a lot more often, but that was before the cost of daycare put us on severe austerity measures. I adored that shop. But these days, now that I'm counting my pennies extremely carefully, I feel judged by...well, I'm not sure, really, by my former self more than anyone else, I suppose! In the "old" days, I tried to get everything organic, and was baffled that some people didn't care about factory farms and pesticides and the like. Fast forward to today, and I'm mostly annoyed at the younger Mrs. B for her snotty, privileged assumptions that other people wouldn't all love to eat better-quality foods, and also for her failure to understand other people's different priorities. Sadly, I have resigned myself to feeding my family on non-organic produce, but my family also has to remain solvent, so we'll eat the conventionally produced stuff.

Here's what I really wonder about organic food. Is it truly better for you? I know it's better for the soil, and kinder to animals, etc etc etc. But I somehow manage to be shamelessly healthy even though I eat spinach and celery and apples that are no double steeped to the very fibers of their being in pesticides. Perhaps I will pay for this in years to come? Or maybe the whole thing is absurd and over-exaggerated. In my 20s, I honestly thought my health would fail if I didn't consume upwards of 20 vitamin pills and other supplements every day. But when I stopped taking them all, guess what happened to my health? Nothing! I'm just healthy. I read study after study that says vitamins don't do you any good, so I've more or less stopped taking those; all I take now is an iron pill because of my lifelong anemia.

I don't know what the conclusion to this is. Maybe I'm delusional to think that it's ok to feed my family what I do. Maybe I'm right. 100 years in the future, who will care?

Recipe review: Carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers from A Girl Called Jack

One of my absolute favorite blogs is http://www.agirlcalledjack.com. Jack Monroe is a hero--she taught herself to cook on a tiny budget and her recipes are incredibly inventive and delicious. I'd been meaning to try some of them for a while, but they're in British measurements and the battery for my scales was dead and I kept forgetting to get a new one. Well, a new one has since been acquired, so I'll be trying more and more of Jack's recipes.

This one for carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers was an obvious place to start, since it's one of her most popular. I made the recipe exactly as directed, only the bean mixture seemed a little bland when I tasted it, so I added a few pinches of salt and a grind of pepper before I assembled the burgers.

We ate them on homemade hamburger buns with some mayonnaise, ketchup, thin slices of cheddar, and some raw baby spinach. They were wonderful, with a deep, rich, savory flavor. In spite of Jack's warning that they're fragile, they didn't fall apart at all. Quite often veggie/bean burgers do fall apart, or get squished between the buns so much that they ooze out the side, but this didn't. Plus, if you don't put cheese and mayo all over them, they're vegan, and would be great for serving to vegan guests. This recipe really couldn't have been easier. Definitely one to add to our staples!

Recipe review: Miracle Mac 'n' Cheese from Budget Bytes

While reading Epicurious recently, I came across to a link to Budget Bytes, a site for budget recipes. I have spent many hours of my time trawling the internet for frugal recipes, and until now I haven't been that impressed. People seem to think that cooking frugally must include using nasty things like cans of cream of something soup, which look like vomit and smell like cat food and I don't even know what they taste like because I don't want to eat that stuff. The terribleness of frugal recipe websites was part of my inspiration for starting this blog. Well, Budget Bytes solves this problem brilliantly. Beth, the woman who writes the website, makes almost everything from scratch, and her recipes look cheap, delicious, and, best of all, entirely free from canned soups. I think she must be an amazing cook. All these recipes look like they work. I hate recipes that don't work.

The first recipe I tried was Miracle Mac 'n' Cheese. I was skeptical at first, because I didn't see how it could work. You're supposed to boil macaroni in milk? Seriously? I tried it just because I was convinced it would be a giant flop. But it was amazing! Just as easy as making the radioactive orange mac and cheese out of a box, and infinitely better. As the pasta simmers in the milk, the starch it releases helps the milk to thicken. Then you stir in your cheese and seasonings at the end. 

This is not just a time-saving recipe, it's actually the best macaroni and cheese I've made. I've been on a quest to find the perfect recipe, and I'm not at all averse to making a cheesy bechamel if that's what I have to do. But this is so, so much easier and less messy. The result is every bit as smooth and comforting as you want macaroni and cheese to be, but it doesn't sit heavily in your stomach the way some recipes do. Since the sauce doesn't have flour, it's not the giant starch trip it might otherwise be, and because of this you don't need a huge amount of cheese for it to taste good.

The only thing I'd do differently next time is to halve the amount of Dijon mustard, which did overpower the flavor a bit. However, it was still delicious, and Baby B happily ate it even though I didn't stir in any pieces of ham (her favorite food in the world). I think you could easily add a handful of frozen peas at the end, or some lightly steamed broccoli. Next time I think I might add a pinch of both thyme and nutmeg for extra savoriness.

Week's meal plan, February 7 2014

Breakfasts: steel cut oats with frozen berries and plain yogurt

Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches, apples, carrot and celery sticks.

Snacks: raw fruits and vegetables

Desserts: grapes

Dinners:
1) roast chicken with sides of steamed broccoli and peas
2) homemade pizza with leftover chicken, ham, rosemary, and mozzarella, side of steamed broccoli
3) America's Test Kitchen roasted ratatouille (not available online) with a simple risotto (makes enough for two meals)
4) macaroni and cheese with ham, peas and broccoli (makes enough for two meals)
5) some kind of lazy dinner involving soft-boiled eggs on top of basmati rice, side of peas...?

This week's groceries:

Fruits and vegetables:
Broccoli crowns 0.63
2 lbs carrots 0.98
2 zucchini 0.57
1 head celery 0.98
Eggplant 1.78
3.25 lb Gala apples 3.19
1.3 lbs onions 1.27
1 head garlic 0.48
2.73 lb green grapes 7.86

Bulk:
0.15 lb rosemary 0.39
0.2 lb cumin 0.71
0.02 lb thyme 0.57
0.68 rotini 0.57
1.38 lb rotini 0.57

Meats:
1 small chicken 7.39
2 ham steaks 1.98

Frozen:
1 lb green peas 0.95
12 oz frozen mixed berries 1.84

Dairy:
Organic Valley 2% milk, half a gallon 3.46
12 oz evaporated milk 0.98
Nancy's low fat yogurt 2.37
1 lb Tillamook medium cheddar 4.98
Frigo part skim mozzarella ball 3.68
Free range eggs 2.46

Etc:
28 can diced tomatoes 0.78
Sara Lee 100% whole wheat bread 1.98

Total: 56.33

Observations: This was moderately economical, but I guiltily wonder if we shouldn't eat so many grapes. Then again, Baby B loves them, and am I going to fuss at this child for loving fruit?

Macaroni cheese with broccoli, ham, and peas

I am on a quest. Two, actually. One is for the perfect veggie burger (I came pretty darn close with my chickpea burgers). Another is for the perfect macaroni and cheese recipe. 

I didn't like macaroni and cheese as a child. My parents used to make it with a cheesy bechamel sauce, which I found too rich and heavy. I have a certain fondness for that electric orange Kraft boxed stuff, but only when I have a hangover, and I don't have those any more now that I'm a responsible adult. 

Then I discovered this recipe, which not only tastes better, but is rather easier than making a bechamel. I adapted it from an America's Test Kitchen recipe, making a few changes and additions. The original called for tabasco sauce, which I found overpowering (plus, I much prefer sriracha). It also had three cups of cheese, which I found overwhelming. I made it a few times to get it right, and I think I managed.

Additionally, I find this a useful vehicle for getting my daughter to eat enough. I figure she's pretty good at regulating her appetite, and I never force her to eat when I think she hasn't had enough, but I've noticed that she's always in a better mood the next day if she eats a decent amount of dinner. Most people's kids will eat anything if you douse it with enough cheese, but mine isn't a cheese addict, although she likes it. Instead, Baby B will eat whatever if it has little pieces of diced ham in it. I know ham is not exactly health food, but if you use it in small amounts as a condiment, it's better than making it the focus of the meal. I mean, macaroni and cheese is hardly health food either, so.......

Serves 4 exceedingly hungry people, or stretches to two meals for our little family of two adults and one toddler.

2 cups rotini or other pasta shapes

2 oz butter (around 50g)

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups freshly grated sharp cheddar

a 12-oz can evaporated milk (don't use the non-fat stuff, it doesn't work)

1/4 teaspoon sriracha

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 ham steak, cut into tiny pieces

1 cup broccoli florets

1/2 cup frozen peas (no need to defrost)

pinch of thyme

salt and freshly ground pepper

Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until not quite al dente.

While the pasta is cooking, steam the broccoli lightly, adding the peas at the last minute to flash-defrost.

Mix the eggs and half the evaporated milk with the sriracha, garlic powder, thyme, and mustard, adding a few good grinds of pepper. 

When the pasta and vegetables are ready, drain them and place them back in the pasta pot with the butter over low heat until the butter melts.

Now add the eggs/milk mixture, together with half the grated cheese. Raise the heat to medium, and cook, stirring, until the sauce starts to thicken. Gradually add in the rest of the evaporated milk and cheese until the sauce is thick, hot, and creamy. Add the pieces of ham and heat through.

Pizza

I never go out for pizza. There really isn't any pizza I can get in my town that tastes as good as homemade. I think there's this myth about pizza that in order for it to be any good, you have to have a pizza oven and a pizza stone, etc etc. Well, that just isn't true; I don't have either and mine turn out pretty well. Pizza stones are pretty cool, but they cost money and take up space, and I have neither, so I make my pizza on a baking sheet. I know that authentic pizza dough is supposed to be thrown up in the air until it forms enchanting and perfectly even circles, but I'm terrible at this, so I use a rolling pin. If any Italian nonnas are scandalized by this, they are welcome to come to my house and make my pizza for me. Until then, I am totally unrepentant.

Making pizza dough is really much easier than you think it is. I use a half recipe of my basic bread dough, top it with a simple sauce and whatever vegetables and meats you like, and some grated cheese. It doesn't take that long. If you want, you can make the dough ahead of time and freeze it, provided you have room in your freezer. (Mine is tiny, so I wouldn't.)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

Dough:

1 teaspoon instant yeast granules

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 cup warm water

1 1/2 cups bread flour (plain will work if you don't have bread flour)

Sauce:

2 tablespoons tomato paste

4 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon (freshly) ground pepper

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

Toppings of your choice: some suggestions--1) thinly sliced cooked potato, rosemary, and roasted garlic; 2) cubed cooked chicken and sliced tomatoes; 3) sliced cooked ham with sliced mushrooms and shredded raw spinach (make sure it's dry)....

plus a couple of handfuls of freshly grated mozzarella, and, if you like, freshly grated parmesan

First, make your dough. Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl to form a dough, and knead it for 2-3 minutes, adding more flour if the dough seems sticky. Leave to rise in a warm place until the dough has risen to twice its original size. (It doesn't matter if you don't let it rise this long. 30-40 minutes should do the trick.)

While the dough is rising, make your sauce. Mix the ingredients in a small bowl, stirring until smooth.

Now preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare a 9x13 baking sheet by lining it with baking paper. Knead your dough briefly to get the air out of it, then roll it out into a rectangle with a rolling pin and place it on the baking sheet.

Spread the sauce evenly over the crust, then your toppings, then your cheese. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the underside of the crust is lightly golden. Leave for 5 minutes before cutting into slices.

Variation: if you are feeling particularly gloomy and want to indulge yourself, you can make stuffed crust pizza. Just roll mozzarella string cheese sticks into the edges of the crust, and pinch the edges to seal. Then add the sauce, toppings, and cheese and bake as normal.

Healthier variation: replace half the flour with whole wheat flour and a teaspoon of baking powder (to reduce any possible heaviness to the texture).

Recipe review: Crock pot balsamic pork roast from Skinnytaste.com

Recipe here.

So, I bought two large hunks of pork last week. The first week, I made the Slow Cooker Filipino Adobo Pulled Pork from Skinnytaste.com. That was good. Oh, my goodness, it was good.

That left one of the hunks of pork in my freezer, so this week I pulled it out to make the balsamic version. This was, I think, very nearly almost as good as the Filipino Adobo version. The great advantage is that all the ingredients apart from the pork were things I tend to have in my cupboards anyway: balsamic vinegar (I always have it on hand to make salad dressings and things, but it takes me about 3 years to use up a bottle), Worcestershire sauce, etc. I don't usually have honey, because I find it too sweet for pretty much anything, really, but a friend had given me some locally-made stuff and I was eager to find uses for it.

The only criticism I have of this is that it came out a little dry. I think next time I might try to find a cut of pork that's more suitable for the crock pot, i.e. a tough old thing full of connective tissue or something. My idea of perfect meat is the kind that falls off the bones in impossibly tender pieces. The sauce for this recipe, however, was perfectly delicious--the right combination of sweet, salty, and acidic. We served it over white basmati rice, with a side of coleslaw.

Whole wheat, cranberry and pecan pancakes

Sometimes I crave pancakes. And then I remind myself that this couldn't possibly be healthy. And then I remind myself that I could make whole grain ones, and everyone knows that whole grains are healthy. (Let's not talk about all the maple syrup I want to put on top, shall we?)

This morning, I considered making my whole grain apple pancakes, but the thought of all the preparation and apple-grating made me feel very apathetic. So I invented a new recipe, and it came out wonderfully. I've figured out that the trick to making baked goods with 100% whole wheat flour (rather than a mixture of whole wheat and white) is to put yogurt or buttermilk in them to lighten the texture. So many whole wheat baked goods end up dense, heavy, and leaden, with a nasty taste. Yogurt fixes all that--it makes things fluffy and gives them a delicious tang of acidity.These pancakes aren't really sweet, but the cranberries and pecans give them a wonderful flavor. Next time, to add to the complexity of flavor, I might halve the cinnamon and add 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cardamom and ground ginger, and a pinch of ground cloves.

This recipe makes 10 pancakes, which was more than enough for two adults and one toddler.

Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (I prefer no-aluminum baking powders)
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
About 1/4 cup dried cranberries
About 1/4 cup small pecan pieces

In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients. In another, larger bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, yogurt, and vanilla. Tip the dry ingredients into the wet ones and whisk until just combined.

Heat a large cast-iron or non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Brush the surface with oil or melted butter. Using a 1/4 cup measure, place scoops of the mixture into the pan, 3 or 4 at a time. Wait until little bubbles start bursting on the top of the pancakes. Sprinkle a few cranberries and pecan pieces on the pancakes, then quickly flip the pancakes over. Cook until the pancakes are golden on both sides and cooked on the inside.

Serve topped with maple syrup. And sliced fresh fruit, if you are still clinging to any pretense of a healthy breakfast.

Week's meal plan, January 24, 2014.

And...we ran out of money again. This time it wasn't really our fault; there was a mistake with paychecks and we'll get the money eventually, but for now, we have run out of money. Which means that I have to shop with a credit card (boooo!). Which means that I can't shop at WinCo, because they don't accept credit cards. My only other choices are Walmart and Safeway. I despise Walmart, so I picked Safeway.

Not everything at Safeway is expensive, but on the whole, it's a lot more than a budget store. I spent more than I usually do, and I really didn't buy that much, because I didn't need to (I already had plenty of staples such as oats, a large hunk of pork sirloin in the freezer, rice, yeast, balsamic vinegar, tortillas, frozen strawberries, etc).

Week's meal plan:

Breakfasts: steel cut oats with plain unsweetened yogurt and frozen strawberries OR eggs on toast

Lunches: peanut butter sandwiches, apples, carrots, celery, cheese. Leftovers, if we have them.

Snacks/desserts: grapes, oranges, cheese

Dinners:
1) Crock pot balsamic pork roast from Skinnytaste.com, sides of basmati rice and coleslaw
2) Leftover pork and coleslaw wraps
3) Almost-Foolproof Roast Chicken with baked potatoes and a side of coleslaw and/or frozen peas (and will make the chicken carcass into stock in my slow cooker)
4) Chicken pot pie soup from Skinnytaste.com, side of Easy White Bread made into buns (I'm going to make 9 and freeze them so I have enough for 3 meals).
5) Leftover soup and buns.
6) Cheese and tomato pasta bake, side of frozen vegetables
7) Carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers from A Girl Called Jack (one of my absolute heroes!) with more of the homemade buns and a side of frozen vegetables.

This week's groceries:

Fruits and vegetables:
1.77lb navel oranges 1.75
1.21lb cabbage 0.83
1.75 lb celery 1.73
4.04 lb russet potatoes 2.79
3.84 lb Fuji apples 6.87
1 onion 0.58
1.66 lb carrots 0.81
8 oz white mushrooms 1.99
1 head of garlic 0.50
2.5 lbs red grapes 7.48

Dairy/eggs
Lucerne large eggs (12) 2.09
1 lb Lucerne medium cheddar (block) 3.99
Mountain High plain unsweetened yogurt 2.79
2 x Safeway Organics half gallons of milk 7.18

Meat:
1 whole chicken, reduced a lot because it had reached its sell-by date: 5.85

Frozen:
Pantry Essentials 12 oz mixed frozen vegetables 0.79

Misc:
1 can Safeway brand red kidney beans 0.89
1 lb Safeway brand macaroni elbows 0.99
5 lbs Safeway brand unbleached flour 2.39
Safeway Organics crunchy peanut butter 3.79
Safeway brand 100% whole wheat bread 1.99
2 cans Safeway brand diced tomatoes 1.38

Total: 59.45

Observations: I was so annoyed about having to use a credit card that I was in a bad mood for the entire time I was shopping, until Baby B decided to entertain me by singing a song of her own invention about our dog's bathroom habits. I was secretly worried that someone was going to call me to the front of the store to collect my Worst Mother of the Year 2014 award.

Some things at Safeway really are cheap. I have no problem with spending a dollar for a pound of macaroni. They have the best peanut butter in town (I refuse to eat peanut butter that's full of hydrogenated oils, or contains palm oil). But some of their produce really is more expensive. $7.48 for a bunch of grapes that don't look half as fresh or as nice as the WinCo ones! And their organic milk costs more than the organic milk I get at WinCo. And I really don't like the Lucerne brand for eggs and dairy. Their store-brand canned beans are vastly more expensive than WinCo's. I felt that I bought fewer groceries than I normally do, but it cost more. I'm not saying Safeway is a rip-off. It's a good store, and I like many things about it, such as its really good butcher/fishmonger department. And I know that WinCo only doesn't allow credit cards so it can keep its prices cheaper. But I'm still grouchy.

Cheese and tomato pasta bake

This is a very simple, very convenient vegetarian dish that is popular even with small, picky people. And very comforting and filling when you're tired and hungry and cold. The topping is a cross between a quiche and a cheese sauce, and is far more satisfying than the usual baked pasta topping of grated cheese only.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb pasta (rotelle, farfalle, penne, macaroni elbows, etc)
1/2 a recipe tomato pasta sauce (if you don't want to make your own, buy it, but get a good one)
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Boil the pasta in a large pot of boiling water to which you've added at least a tablespoon of salt. (This is to flavor the pasta. Don't worry that it will be too salty. It won't.)

While the pasta is cooking, whisk the eggs, milk, grated cheddar, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

Drain the pasta and mix it with the tomato sauce. Decant the whole thing into a large baking dish. (I used an 8x8 square one with tallish sides.) Spread the egg/cheese mixture over the top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or longer, until the egg mixture is cooked and golden. Leave the dish to rest for 5 minutes before cutting into it.

Serves 4-6.

Toaster-baked whole wheat flatbreads

Some of my best recipes come from flops.

This week, my meal plan included homemade whole wheat hamburger buns. Inspired by something I read on the internet about freezer cooking and baking, I decided to make the dough up until the second rise, and when the buns were the size I wanted them, freeze them for later baking.

Big mistake.

When I got three of them out of the freezer, they already looked a bit sad. Baking made them deflate altogether, leaving us with hamburger buns that looked more like large chips. My loyal husband may even have laughed at how silly they looked. My pride was greatly dented.

Loath as I am to throw anything out, however, I decided to see what would happen if I dropped one of the remaining buns frozen into the toaster on a high setting. That's right, the toaster--I don't have a toaster oven.

Well, it was amazing. It baked right there in the toaster, coming out deliciously golden on both sides, with a moist, tender center and a texture rather like pita bread. It didn't even deflate as much as the ones I'd put in the oven. Now how's THAT for a budget recipe? You don't even have to heat up your oven! A couple of minutes in a hot toaster, and you have lovely fresh bread for dinner. Yum!

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons active dried yeast
2 teaspoons sugar or honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (or any other kind of oil; olive tastes best)
1 1/2 cups white bread flour (bread flour has a higher gluten content, but plain all-purpose will work too)
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Whisk the first three ingredients together in a large bowl. Leave for ten minutes in a warm-ish place, or at least a place where there aren't any cold drafts, until the yeast starts going into fluffy bubbles.

Sprinkle the salt over the mixture and add the olive oil. Give it a stir.

Whisk the two flours together in a medium bowl.

Add 2 1/2 cups of the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon to form a ball of sticky dough.

Turn the dough out onto a generously floured counter top and knead the dough for around 5 minutes, adding the extra half-cup of flour little by little to stop it sticking to the counter. You know you've kneaded it enough when the dough is smooth and satiny-textured and doesn't stick to the counter or your hands. (You can also use a standing mixer with a dough hook for this.)

Wash and dry your bowl, then coat the inside with a little oil. Place your dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a clean towel, and leave it in a warm place until the dough has roughly doubled in size. Depending on how warm the warm place is, this can take as little as 30 and as many as 120 minutes. If your oven has a bread proof setting, you can put it in there. Make sure, obviously, that you use a metal or glass bowl if you do this.

When the dough is risen, knead it again briefly to get some of the air out. (It will make a satisfying whoosh.) Divide the dough into 9 equal pieces and shape the into rather flat buns. Place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Let the buns rise in a warm place for a little while, but keep an eye on them, because you don't want them to be so thick you can't get them in the toaster.

Now put the baking sheet in the freezer and let the flatbreads freeze through. When they seem completely frozen, place them in an airtight bag or container, and put them back in the freezer. They will keep perfectly well in there for a couple of weeks.

When you need them, take out a couple of flatbreads and place them in the toaster (don't defrost them first--you don't want a sticky mess of dough baking onto the insides of your toaster). Put your toaster on a medium-high setting, and toast/bake the flatbreads that way. Keep close watch on the toaster--you don't want this to burn. You'll figure out pretty quickly what setting you need to have the toaster on for this to work.

Slather the freshly-baked, freshly-toasted flatbreads with the toppings of your choice--butter, cottage cheese, hummus, whatever! Not to blow my own trumpet, but this is seriously one of the best inventions I have ever made.

Recipe review: Nigella Lawson's peanut butter hummus

Recipe here.

I was about to junk Ms. Lawson altogether, because too many of her recipes don't work. This one, however, works brilliantly. Seriously, it's the best homemade hummus I've ever had. I like hummus well enough, but I'm not going to buy the ready-made stuff (too expensive) and I'm not going to make my own using tahini, a foodstuff that costs a lot of money and which is, I think, detestable. It's so...oily and nasty and evil-tasting. I understand that hummus needs something oily and nasty in it, but tahini is so expensive and I'm so broke and and and and...

..and then I discovered this recipe that subs creamy peanut butter for tahini, and adds Greek yogurt--genius!--for a texture and taste that are at once comforting and milder-flavored. (I used plain, not Greek yogurt, because I don't care for it. It was still delicious.) I don't like huge amounts of raw garlic, but the amount in this recipe is perfect. This tastes wonderful on toast and sandwiches. Even Baby B ate some.

In short, Nigella and I are friends again. I'm not going to do any more of her pastas or her baking, but I'll trust her on spreads and dips.

Things slow cookers are and aren't good for

Things that slow cookers are brilliant for:

1. The top virtue of having a slow cooker is being able to make homemade chicken stock that's rich and delicious but doesn't half evaporate the way it can if you do it on the stove in a pot. I feel sorry for anyone who has to buy chicken broth. Why spend a few dollars when you can get your own for free, provided you've made a whole chicken recently? Or you can make vegetable broth from your old vegetable peelings and whatever old vegetables you have lying around looking a bit sad and wilty.
2. Slow cookers are also wonderful for making dried beans. Canned beans are cheap; dried beans are practically free. Some beans (black-eyed peas and black beans, for example) don't need any soaking, and some take less time to cook than others. But for really hard, long-cooking beans like chickpeas, a slow cooker is great because you can throw them in and forget about them all night and all day. Simply soak your chickpeas in lots of water overnight in the stoneware of your slow cooker. The next morning, drain them and rinse them off. (Don't be tempted to cook them in the soaking water. Beans release some kind of...gas thing...I don't really know what it is, but you mustn't do it. You've been warned.) Fill the stoneware up with fresh water, turn the slow cooker on low, and cook them all day. Or cook the on high for three hours or so.
3. Stews with cheap cuts of meat. The ones that have lots of connective tissue and fat, etc. These respond really well to slow cooking, because all the nasty bits more or less melt away. The meat falls apart off the bones. It's tender and delicious. Best of all, the cheapest bits of meat work best here. You don't want to cook a more expensive cut, like a pork tenderloin, all day in the slow cooker, because it'll just dry out. The cheaper the better here, I think.
4. Tomato pasta sauces. The kind that need a lot of simmering. The flavors get so much richer with slow cooking at a low temperature, even when the quality of your tomatoes would shock an Italian nonna.

Things that don't work at all... You know, there were certain recipes that I really, really wanted to work in a slow cooker. But they don't.

1. Bread in the slow cooker--it sounded like a low-maintenance dream. But the texture comes out all wrong and it doesn't brown--you have to put it in the oven under the broiler anyway.
2. Anything involving putting uncooked pasta in. I'm sorry, pasta is just better when cooked perfectly al dente the old-fashioned way in a large pot of boiling salty water. I really wanted lasagna to work in the slow cooker, too, but it's just not as good as making it in the oven. It just isn't.
3. Onions. I heard you could caramelized onions in a slow cooker, so I tried it. The texture comes out all wrong, and the taste is watered-down and dull.
4. Oatmeal. I know a lot of people like making overnight steel-cut oats in a slow cooker, but I find it rather like eating some awful sort of glue. I have a much better way of making overnight oats. You should try it.

Where I shop

Further to yesterday's post about how the so-called "budget" stores really aren't that cheap, I thought I'd share this article about WinCo, the supermarket I use the most. Unlike Walmart, WinCo isn't a giant nightmare of commercialism, which is part of why I like it. It has lots of bulk bins (I adore bulk bins) and a decent, if not encyclopedic, range of produce and products. There are few luxury goods, but since I write a blog called The Penurious Kitchen, I think that's probably a good thing. The store-brand products are usually as good as, or better than, the name-brand versions.

There are a couple of things that are inconvenient, of course. Sometimes they run out of certain staples--for example, last week I couldn't get bread flour in the bulk section--and they stay out of stock for weeks on end. (For the past six weeks I've been unable to buy new tights there, which is very annoying.) Sometimes their dairy products are dangerously close to their sell-by date. Their meat products are mostly factory-farmed, which is why I typically buy meat from local vendors or the organic foods co-op I belong to (and believe it or not, this stuff is actually comparable in price to WinCo's products). You can't pay with a credit card, but then again, that's also probably a good thing for me, since it forces me to spend real money and not the imaginary, plastic kind.

These issues aside, it's a far pleasanter experience than shopping at Walmart, the employees seem happier, and it's far, far cheaper. Walmart had better look out, because I seriously never, ever go there, and I can't be the only person in the American West who feels this way.

Recipe review: Slow Cooker Filipino Adobo Pulled Pork from Skinnytaste.com

Oh, my goodness, this was good. It really couldn't be easier, it makes lots (enough for at least two meals for our little family), and fills your house with a wonderful salty-acidic-meaty smell. The texture was perfect, and the sauce heavenly. Big hunks of stew-type pork are really cheap, and they go a long way.

We ate this with brown basmati rice and some steamed vegetables. In two days' time, we're going to have it on hamburger buns with a few toppings. This is what a slow cooker does best.

Recipe review: Nigella Lawson's macaroni and cheese

Right, that's it. Nigella, it's over. I'm breaking up with you. I thought I loved you for several years because of your supremely wonderful caramel croissant pudding. I felt very bad for you recently, when your privacy was grossly invaded by the media and your husband turned out to be altogether quite ungentlemanly. But Nigella, three of your recipes have been absolute flops in the past few weeks, even though I loyally followed them to the letter. So I have decided to stop trying your recipes. I'm taking all my books by you to the second-hand shop. My kitchen shelf is very small, and it's just not worth it. I'm so sorry. I really do still like you as a person.

This macaroni and cheese recipe looked tempting. It really did. But it tasted like a bland, stodgy quiche full of macaroni. Even the pinch of nutmeg did little to improve the taste. Baby B pushed hers around her plate and requested more broccoli so she could fill up on something else. I suppose the most pleasant by-product of this failed meal was that my child ate more broccoli. Hmmmm.

Adding another recipe writer to my list of people whose recipes don't work...Martha Stewart, Bobby Flay, I'm looking at you...

Frugality tips: stores that are a big rip-off

I spend a lot of time reading frugality blogs and Googling for money-saving hints, and I see a whole lot of rather crappy advice. It's thought to be cheaper to shop at dollar stores and Walmarts than other places. I can say, however, that I've tried doing this, and it's flat-out wrong. Now, I know dollar stores and Walmarts are just a fact of life in America, and although they're evil as hell, there are plenty of things you can do that are more immoral than shopping there when you're broke. You won't get any judgment from me, I promise. But it simply isn't cheaper.

I know this isn't the case in every town, but if you want to go to the Walmart in mine, you have to have a car, otherwise you wouldn't be able to get there. It's a way out of town in a non-residential area, and if you walked there from any residential area, it might take an hour. I suspect most of us don't have an hour. The public bus doesn't, as far as I know, run there, so it really isn't accessible for people on low incomes. Strike one. (The Dollar Tree in our town is in a residential area, so assuming you lived nearby, you could walk there.)

Next issue: their stuff really isn't cheaper. Yes, you could buy some cheap clothes at Walmart that may or may not fall apart very quickly, but assuming you're in my town and you have transport, there's a good Goodwill next door where you could buy much better clothes, albeit second-hand, for half the price of Walmart clothes. And don't even talk to me about the dollar store. I went in there a few weeks ago for party supplies (we had an afternoon tea party for Baby B's birthday) and it was awful. There were shelves and shelves of canned food for a dollar each, which seems like a bargain until you realize that products of an equivalent quality can be bought for 75% or 50% of that at the budget grocery chain I shop at. I looked around at other products, such as paper plates, napkins, and the like, and realized that they were actually more expensive than equivalent qualities and quantities from other stores.

Now, I realize that no one has the time to go shopping in five different places in search of bargains, so I'm not going to recommend that. But I do think you can almost always do better than getting your groceries at Walmart. Even in the enormous megastores, they have less variety and lesser quality of goods than just about anywhere else, and it simply isn't cheaper. It just isn't. I've never heard of a Walmart having a bulk section, either, which is really about the best thing you can have when you're trying to be frugal.

I do think a number of chain stores deserve praise, however. I don't do most of my shopping at Safeway, because it's generally very expensive, but they have store-brand baby supplies that are about half the price of anything anywhere else. When Baby B was born, we started using Pampers diapers because that was what they'd used at the hospital. (I briefly considered using cloth diapers, but a two-month bout of postpartum depression quickly nixed that plan.) And because my desperate attempts to breastfeed failed (and trust me, I spent eight weeks of misery trying everything in the world to breastfeed that baby), we had to use formula, and because at that time she was lactose intolerant (though she isn't any more), we had to get the soy kind, which costs far more. It was seriously expensive until we discovered that Safeway's store-brand diapers cost half what Pampers and Huggies do, and that they--may the angels in heaven smile upon them--do a store-brand soy formula that costs less than half of what Enfamil does. I share this information with all my friends who have babies, because it really does save you money. At one point, we were spending $90 a week on Enfamil soy formula for our hungry little bug. Safeway saved us from total penury, I can tell you.

Week's meal plan, January 18, 2014

Last week's meal plan went really well. Everyone liked all the recipes, and no one hurled food across the room with a shriek of "Ucky!" this time. (That's Baby B, I hasten to add, not my husband!)

This week I actually had lots and lots of food left over, but no meat or milk, which meant I couldn't eke out another day's worth of meals on what I had. Well, I could have, but some toddler in my not-too-distant vicinity has a milk-drinking habit to think about, so I really did have to go shopping. Supplies left over were: half a block of cheddar (that plan of not buying pre-grated cheese is really working--we've definitely stopped throwing cheese on every meal, which is surely healthier as well as cheaper), half a block of cotija, about half a cup of yogurt, half a cup of cottage cheese, a tiny bit of sour cream, nine eggs, enough rice (both brown and white) for several more rice meals, plain flour, whole wheat flour, tortillas, some frozen mixed berries, frozen peas, frozen green beans, a can of tomatoes, about a pound of carrots, half a head of celery, and a broccoli crown. So this week's groceries didn't cost a whole lot.

This week, my stomach heaved at the thought of trying to think up more things to do with chicken. So I decided we were having pork for a few meals, and chickpeas for a few more (since I have this newfound love of chickpeas). I could only get the pork in a big pack of two hunks, so I'll freeze one and use it some other time. Super economical, anyway. We've made the pulled pork recipe before, and we all liked it, and it made absolutely loads of food that could be spread out over several meals, so I don't mind spending nearly ten dollars on something that will go so far.

Meals this week:

Breakfasts: steel cut oats with frozen berries and yogurt OR eggs on toast

Lunches: sandwiches with peanut butter OR Nigella Lawson's peanut butter hummus, apples or oranges, carrots and celery, raw almonds

Snacks: fruit, nuts

Dinners:
1) Slow Cooker Filipino Adobo Pulled Pork from Skinnytaste.com, over rice, with a spinach salad
2) using leftover pork, we'll make wraps with tortillas, cottage cheese, spinach
3) using leftover pork, we'll make sandwiches on homemade whole wheat hamburger buns; side of peas
4) Chickpea, tomato and spinach curry, side of rice
5) Chickpea burgers on leftover homemade whole wheat hamburger buns, side of green beans
6) Nigella Lawson's macaroni and cheese, side of broccoli
7) Zucchini soup from Skinnytaste.com with toast and Nigella Lawson's peanut butter hummus (using regular yogurt, not Greek, because none of us likes Greek yogurt and we don't want to have to use up the rest of a container of it)

Dessert: grapes

This week's groceries:

Fruits and vegetables:
2.85lbs navel oranges 2.51
3.15lbs Fuji apples 4.03
1.75 lbs red grades 5.04
16 oz spinach 1.48
1.73lbs zucchini 1.52

Bulk:
0.84lbs macaroni elbows 0.71
1.23lbs dried chickpeas 1.29
1.27lbs steel cut oats 0.80
0.7lbs raw almonds 3.89

Dairy:
1 gallon Organic Valley 2% milk 6.92
Nancy's low fat yogurt 2.37

Misc.
Apple cider vinegar 0.96
Can evaporated milk 0.78
Sara Lee 100% whole wheat bread 2.28

Meat:
3.75lbs pork sirloin 9.84

Total: $34.58. But really, I had so much food already that it would have been at least twice that if I'd had to buy everything I needed.

It's weird, but writing down what I buy each week always gives me this guilty feeling. Guilty, because I'm supposed to be proving how little I can live on, but I buy things that technically are luxuries, like grapes, which aren't really the healthiest fruit, but which we all like. And guilty, because I haven't become a vegan or given up mainstream meat products (though I don't buy factory-farmed beef, or any seafood at all now). And guilty, because I always have food left over at the end of any given week, which makes me feel like I"m doing this project wrong.