Saturday, February 26, 2011

Supermarket Sticker Shock

This morning's Boston Globe heralded the bad news that anyone who has shopped for produce already knew.  Prices are up!  Lettuce and tomatoes are outtasight!  


Rising Food Prices  


You may want to consider making slaw or carrot salad for a while.  Vitamin C is in cabbage and potatoes and orange juice is still a good buy.  I always loved the carrot salad with raisins and canned pineapple.  Root vegetables are still reasonable, i.e. carrots, rutabagas, turnips (yech!)  potatoes and parsnips (yum!).  Carrot soup is delicious, so think outside the box.  Lettuce is a quick crop and should be back in the stores at a reasonable price in a few weeks. 


Oh!  Did I say "cool weather crop"?  Now is the time to think GARDEN!  You can do lettuce, peas, and spinach while the temperatures are still cool.  Of course February is waaayy to early in New England.  We had more snow last night.  But consider. 


Soup and stews are an excellent way to cook cheaper.  Chicken and dumplings anyone?  Our supermarket had whole chickens for 99 cents a pound.  Consider eggs and the main dishes of frittata, omelet and strata.  Some wonderful soups use cabbage as an ingredient.  Look up the Yakisoba recipe on prior posts.  Onions, Carrots and Cabbage, all cheap.  And use one pork chop instead of two.  


There are always ways to economize, and with oil and food prices rising and the instability (understatement) in the Middle East, it may be time to hunker down.  Again.  


Read your supermarket flyer and plan a week's menus around the sales.  But you already do this, don't you?  Make  your own muffins.  So easy.  Spend the weekend cooking and baking and week nights won't be such a madhouse.  Get the kids involved.  Make Mexican or Indian.  Try some vegetarian dishes, like curried chick peas.  So good, so cheap.  Instead of a salad serve slice carrots and cucumbers.  Be creative.  Be cheap.  


Make your own pizza and save!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Leveraging Leftovers

Last night we ate at a new Chinese place in the neighborhood, and ordered too much, which is to say we brought most of one vegetarian fried rice and a chicken/shrimp/pork fried rice home. 
But it wasn't enough for the (this week) four of us.  I dug out my recipe file and found the recently made yakisoba with pork and cabbage.  I needed to buy the good Chinese noodles, a pork chop and cabbage.  Not too pricey for four.  We reheated the (copious) fried rice and I  divided the yakisoba into vegetarian (no pork) and meat.  We had a delicious dinner for just a few dollars.




Tomorrow I'm cooking the world's best macaroni and cheese, so I bought mild cheddar and condensed milk.  There's going to be a kickass dessert.  Chocolate Pecan Pie.  How do you like them apples?  I have a gigantic bag of pecans in the freezer, and so tomorrow's dinner will be good, good, good.  By the way, we're having broccoli and salad, too, so it won't just be a cheese/chocolate frenzy, although there is nothing the matter with that.

Here is Emeril's recipe.  Not the one I am using (an old New York Times Sunday Magazine one), but Emeril's recipe's rock. Chocolate Pecan Pie from Emeril

Yours in frugality, 

The Cheeseparer  

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Blood Oranges and pork chops and rum cake

Last year I ate blood oranges for the first time and loved their sweetness.  Our supermarket had them on sale (a rare occurrence), and I bought four.  Found a recipe for pork chops and oranges and did a riff on it, because the recipe called for Mandarin oranges, and I'm substituting blood oranges with some blood orange juice.  I cooked them with the boldly seasoned rice and I browned the chops with more seasoning (this is a Penzey's recipe, so naturally spices are called for).  The recipe also did not call for browning the chops, but it seemed to me that this would improve the flavor.

Penzeys Pork Chops with Oranges  


I'm also making a few organic carrots (so delicious) and a salad.  We can eat it for two nights, always a plus. 

My Significant Other's birthday is Tuesday, and I promised I would make him his favorite meal, beef Stroganoff.  Who remembers beef Stroganoff?  Raise your hand.  Years ago it was on every "continental" menu, and now the only place I know where one can eat it is at a pricey Back Bay Russian restaurant.

I found a sale (can you believe?) on beef tenderloin, so we have a pound of filet, some dried mushrooms, onion, cognac, and real sour cream.  I'll serve it with buttered noodles, peas and carrots and salad.  Iceberg lettuce was requested.  Except for the Stroganoff, the menu sounds rather pedestrian, but ordinary can be good, and it won't compete with the main course.


We have a busy week and I promised (fingers crossed) to make the favored marble cake (Marmorkuchen) at a later date.  It's totally from scratch to the point of beating the yolks and whites separately.  A true labor of love.  What could I make instead?


Recently, going through all my mom's old recipes, I came across her rum cake recipe.  She always made this for Significant Other and I do recall that it was very tasty and he relished it.  I had never realized that the cake was from a mix, with oil and pudding and eggs dumped in with some dark rum.  The glaze was delicious, too. 


I am not a cake-mix person, but I remembered the cake and my mother so fondly, that I thought what the hell?  It must be fate, because the grocery store had cake mix on sale for $1.00 and the pudding was cheap, too.  This is the first time instant pudding has crossed our threshold. 


I'm going to freeze half for company coming at the end of the week.  Two people and one big cake is asking for weight gain, although I'm sure the neighbors would be thrilled with a couple slices. 

I just bopped out to the web, and sure enough the recipe was there.  Do try it.  Read the reviews.  Cooks always have good ideas. 

Bacardi Rum Cake 

Yours in frugality, good taste and sometimes even shortcuts  

Friday, February 11, 2011

Tips from Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart didn't always have houses in East Hampton, Connecticut and Maine.  As a young woman she learned frugality, and although today she has no need to pinch pennies, she still understands that saving and frugality are Good Things. 


Food Saving Tips From Martha  


Fresh herbs are expensive and oh so tasty, so do pay attention to Martha's tips on how to save them.  Herbs also contain micro-nutrients that we all need.  I hope  you have an herb garden every summer.  I use the basil, sage and oregano that I dry all year round.  The oregano is particularly tasty.  Alas, I cannot keep a rosemary plant alive in the house after bring it in in the fall.  This year's died early.  Once I kept it going until March and then it died.  What is my problem?  


We are eating white chicken chili that rocks.  Made totally from scratch without cheese or sour cream from fresh peppers, chicken and herbs.  Google White Chicken Chili and Cook's Illustrated.  It's not often low cal food tastes so good. 


Yours in frugality, 


The Cheeseparer

Monday, February 7, 2011

Hobo Slang

Off topic, or OT as we say in the writing listserves.  I am always intrigued by colorful speech.  My dad came from Texas and my Mom from central Kansas, and they both spoke with lots of idioms that came from the farm, speech that would now be somewhat, well, inscrutable.  My mom always said, "I went to bed with the chickens," meaning early.  Something that would never happen was "she will wait until the cows come home."  Bad cows!   My dad, when something was too difficult said, "It's too wet to plow."  He called a big knife a "toad stabber" and big shoes "gun boats."  I love it 


For some interesting expressions and phrases, try The Hobos Dictionary




Good stuff.  Language is a living thing.  


We had our "traditional" Super Bowl meal of meatloaf, roasted potatoes and broccoli yesterday.  I always make meatloaf, because it is easy to eat while watching TV.  The Pack is Back!  


I made guacamole from an old Mexican cookbook (Elena's) and it was wonderful.  Full of onion, tomato, cilantro, jalapeno and fork mashed (still chunky) avocado.  I made my own chips from corn tortillas.  Better than packaged.  


Happy Monday.  Do you think they're getting any work done this morning in the offices of Green Bay?  Water cooler time!  


The Cheeseparer

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Beef Vegetable Barley Soup for cold winter dinners

My Homemade (no knead) Focaccia rocks with soup or stew or pasta
I've been making soup every week, and we never get bored with it.  Soup has many virtues:  cheap, easy, tasty, nutritious.  I found a good deal on "petite sirloin" at the supermarket, and used two of them, about a pound as the basis of a beef-vegetable-barley soup.
 Cut the meat into small bite-sized pieces, and brown well in canola oil.  I added a bit of onion and 3 cloves of smashed garlic and browned that, too. Add water and/or broth and cook until meat is tender.  Doesn't take long with sirloin.  Before cooking the meat add a soup bone, thyme, marjoram and a large bay leaf to the cooking liquid. 


When the meat is tender, add more onion, carrots, celery, and a 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes.  I think some mushrooms would also go well.  Cook the veggies until almost tender and then add 3/4 cup barley.  My barley took longer to cook than the package indicated, so make sure to cook it long enough.  Add more water or broth (vegetable broth will do) if you are getting stew rather than soup.  Salt and pepper if you've used low-salt broth.  (I do).  Maybe a bit of paprika.  More spices?   Is the meat tender?   Correct seasonings, as they say.  I sprinkled some fresh parsley on it before serving, because we eat with our eyes first.


We ate this with a salad and multi-grain rolls.  Southern corn bread would work, as would garlic bread.  This is a cheap meal that offers a lot of nutrition.  We had chocolate chip cookies for dessert. 


Being snowed in, I find I'm watching a lot of TV.  The Good Wife, Big Love, and PBS are my current faves.   And the food show.  Guy Fieri really rocks. I loved his tailgaiting football eats show this week.


Tonight we're eating the remainder of the beef-barley soup.  With garlic bread.  And more salad.  And maybe a banana caflouti. 

We have a movie and the rest of The # 1 Ladies Detective Agency to watch. 

I'm saving $30 as we speak by washing some sweaters instead of sending them out at $5 bucks a pop.


Tomorrow we're having a gourmet diet recipe.  I know that sounds like an oxymoron.  It's a chicken pie that calls for a mashed potato topping instead of crust.  The potatoes are mashed with low-fat sour cream and chives.  I've made it before and you have no clue that this is a reduced calorie meal.  I think perhaps some cranberries would work as a side.  And the rest of the caflouti for dessert.  The pie calls for chicken breast,  shallots, mushrooms, carrots, celery and peas and parsley.  Low fat broth and white wine make the sauce.  Some herbs like thyme and tarragon, a spoonful of sherry and a sprinkle of nutmeg are added before baking.  This is Gourmet, remember.


Stay warm and dry and get creative if you are stuck in the house with weird or incomplete ingredients.  You may astonish yourself with the yummy eats you can concoct.