Good and Simple Chocolate Cookies

Made these last week.  Gave some to the neighbors and froze the rest.  I am sorry to say that we kept defrosting a few at a time and eating them.  I had some chocolate leftover from Christmas baking.  This is a recipe that would lend itself well to half-butter, half-shortening.  I would use those bars of Crisco that are shaped like quarter pounds of butter.  Half and half will yield a nice crisp cookie.  If you're not into crisp, use all butter. 


You can leave the dough in the fridge for a few days and bake the cookies as needed.  These are really good.    I don't know why they're called chocolate "macaroons," but that's their name.  Do not expect a standard macaroon.  I think the recipe is an old one from The New York Times.  I daresay that I'm an old fogey, because the older recipes are the best.  


Chocolate Macaroons


1/2 cup shortening
4 squares (ounces) unsweetened chocolate
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour 
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt


Confectioners' sugar. 

1.  Melt shortening and chocolate in top of double boiler. 
2.  Stir in the sugar.  Transfer to a bowl and beat until the sugar is no longer grainy.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Note:  This is a good workout for your arm.
3.  Fold in the flour sifted with the baking powder and salt.  Chill the dough at least three hours.
4.   Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. 

5.  Shape teaspoons of dough into balls.  Roll balls in the confectioners' sugar.  Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake 10 minutes.  The cookies will be soft when taken from the oven.  Cool on a rack 

About 5 dozen  
I used parchment paper on the cookie sheet and that worked, too.  I'm sure this recipe predates parchment paper for home cooks.  


Bon Appetit!

More Chicken Soup for the Pocketbook

Chocolate Pecan Pie *

We have a low-cal cheap quiche that it going into it's second night.  I've also made some of my chicken soup with found everything and a big pot of homemade broth with chicken leftover from a Dr. Atkins low-carb menu.  We'll finish the quiche for breakfast and the chicken soup for lunch. 


Leverage your cooking.  One of the ways to do that is to read the grocery ads and cook for the week by buying the specials.  For example, this week our supermarket had steak, chicken breasts and kielbasa on sale.  Roast beef in the deli.  Baby carrots and slice mushrooms.  Hey, those would be good with steak.  Some spaghetti sauce over the chicken and you have the makings of chicken parm.  The Kielbasa lends itself to grilling or cooking in a big heap of saurkraut and veggies.  Cheap veggies, like carrots, potatoes and onion.  Yukon Golds were on special.  Good with steak and with kielbasa.  Fruit salad with strawberries, bananas, apple and oranges.  All on sale.  Make a dinner salad with oranges, too.  Maybe a rice pudding using on sale milk.  Go for it!  


Every week I save between $10 and $25 by using coupons and buying specials.  And we eat well, thank you, with very few processed foods.   You can, too.  It takes a bit of menu planning, and this you can do during commercials or whenever.  Doesn't take a lot of time.  $25 a week is $1300 a year.     That's a new computer, a nice little vacation or money socked away in the savings account.  Or just eking along to get by.  Healthy eating, too.  You can do this.   Give it a whirl. 

* Pecans were a gift, chocolate left over from holiday baking, homemade crust.  Every now and then we all deserve a treat.  Remember that nuts, while not low-cal, are nutritious.  


The Cheeseparer

Bon Appetit Scores a hit with Pappardelle, Pancetta, Brocccoli Rabe and Pine Nuts

We tried this dish  last night and agreed that it was even "company worthy."  So tasty.  In a weird twist, the pasta (imported Italian pappardella ($3.99) cost most than the meat ($ 2.00 worth of pancetta).  There's something about this combination of flavors that really hit a home run.  On the web site, some cooks advised cooking a fennel bulb (or half) with the onion, and I think that would make it even yummier.  Always look for ways to incorporate more veggies into your food.
Serve with a salad.  The price of lettuce has gone down a bit.  You can also make carrot salads and cabbage salads.  Or serve a half grapefruit instead.  Cucumbers with a bit of yogurt or sour cream and some dill make a wonderful salad.  Grapefruit and avocado?  Yowza!   My grandma made a salad (Waldorf) with apples, celery, walnuts and some mayo.  Think outside the "leaf."   


Dynamite Recipe  


To save gas, we're working extra hard to combine trips.  Just think and plan ahead, sometimes difficult until it becomes habit. 

Kielbasa BOGO

Kielbasa BOGO!  Does that sound like the name of a rock band or what?  For readers who never worked in the retail industry, a BOGO is a "Buy One Get One," also known as a "two-fer."  Roche Brothers, the supermarket where I shop, sometimes has a BOGO on Kielbasa.  We like the lighter turkey Kielbasa because it is less greasy and lower in calories.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love ribs, fried chicken, heavy cream, etc., but when you have a chance to cut some calories and not lose any flavor, go for it! 

I make a middle Europe dish, (so homey, so comforting) with the Kielbasa.  I take 1-2 pounds of sauerkraut and rinse it (get rid of some of the salt).   Saute an onion, diced, a carrot, also diced in oil/fat of your choice until tender.  At a small portion of chopped tomato,  1/2 of  an apple, diced, the sauerkraut, the kielbasa,  (one pound, cut in half), some dry white wine, a little chicken broth, some caraway seeds, paprika (regular or smoked).  Cook as long as you can, adding more liquid if necessary.  If you are feeling carefree, saute a couple slices of chopped bacon to get your fat and cook the bacon with the kraut.   

Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes and a green salad.  This would make an excellent slow cooker dish.  I don't have a slow cooker, but maybe you do.  The sauerkraut becomes mild and savory and the concoction is actually rather mellow.  Add a clove or two of garlic if you like.  Improvisation is good.            

This will serve 4 if you aren't piggy.  Make the salad big.  There should be enough sauce in the kraut to nap the potatoes.  This is tasty and cheap.  My shabby little secret.  I use Hungry Jack mashed potatoes.  I know.  I know.  The more cream you put into them, the better they taste, but I try to stifle this impulse.  

The Cheeseparer    
 

Chicken Soup for the Pocketbook

Chickens were .99 cents a pound, so I grabbed one for the freezer.  It's turn arrived last night.  I cut out the backbone, rubbed it with some spices (onion powder, granulated garlic, cumin and paprika with generous salt and pepper,)  and I browned the skin side  in oil in a cast iron   skillet.  Tossed in a quartered onion and put the skillet to bake at 350 degrees along with a casserole with carrots and parsnips and more onion with butter, oil and a little chicken broth.  Salt and pepper, natch.  The chicken cost $3.54 and half of it was left due to ingesting a large salad with lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avocado and ranch dressing topped with dill.  


So. . . chicken soup!  I took the meat off the bones this morning and cooked the bones with carrot, onion, celery tops and a bay leaf.  When it came time to make the soup, I sauteed onion, carrot and celery, and then added the broth and some extra broth from the fridge.  Cooked the veggies, then added peas and the already cooked leftover veg from last night, chopped chicken, some dry mushrooms soaked in hot water and their liquid, the "jus" from the skillet last night with all those tasty spices in it, and some leftover rice that I'd defrosted.  More salt and pepper.  A little more water.  Taste until just right.  


Made that kick-ass salad again and served up the soup with  toasted English muffins.   Very toothsome.  And there's leftovers!    Six servings of high-quality protein for .59 cents per person.  Can't beat that.  And all those wonderful vegetables.  Last night I had saved some leftover  rum glaze for a cake and we heated it up and poured it over ice cream.  Died and gone to heaven.   
The Boston Globe now always offers two meals, one using leftovers from the first.  This is just smart and of course, frugal and tasty and time-saving and even delicious.  That's a lot to like.  I could have made chicken fritters or something Mexican.  Leftovers are versatile.
Yours ever in frugality and downright cheapness. 


The Cheeseparer

Don't Cry Over Sour Milk---Make Waffles

This morning the milk was sour, and I quickly changed dinner plans to use the rest for waffles.  A combo of milk and orange juice and some orange rind will go into the waffles.  I make the waffles with low-fat Bisquick.  Can't tell the difference and I am such a picky person.


I serve the waffles with orange sauce.  When I'm in a hurry, the sauce is made with mandarin oranges, but tonight I'll make it from scratch.  I have a blood orange with the peel partly gone and some clementines.  Use what you have and save. 


Here is the sauce recipe. It's also good on pancakes and French toast. 


Orange Sauce: 

1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar (or a little less)
1/4 t. salt 
1 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons of grated orange rind
2 tablespoons butter
1 orange, sectioned


Sour Cream or cottage cheese. 


Combine cornstarch, sugar and salt in saucepan.  Blend in orange juice gradually; add orange rind.  
Cook over medium heat until mixture comes to  boil, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and add butter and orange secions; heat. 
Serve over hot crisp waffles spread with sour cream or cottage cheese.  

A slice or two of crisp bacon would not be amiss.  Great for Sunday Supper. 


This recipe is from (I think) the Chicago Tribune in days of yore.  I made it right away, and the kids liked it too, always a plus.  When I served it to my parents, my  mother announced in a big huff, "I am not putting cottage cheese on waffles!"  Hey ma, don't knock it t'il you've tried it!  Talk about a generation gap. 

Last week's chocolate pecan pie.  No, the crust isn't burnt, it's chocolate.

You can basically clone the recipe and use strawberries, blueberries or (Yum!!) a combo.  Sometimes you cook with the food you have.  Or make pancakes.  It usually works out well. 

Call me The Cheeseparer