The Yin and the Yang of Home Cooking

 We all know (or should know) that eating at home is cheaper and also nutritionally sounder than eating out all the time.  Yet, why is it so hard to plan menus, shop and prepare the food?

If we had unlimited time, budget and calories, then no problemo.  But who does?  Anyone who has time and budget constraints and a desire not to increase in girth has some real juggling to do. 

At Chez Cheeseparer, we have all these limits, plus we love food.  If you “ate to live” there would be one less ball to juggle.  Here’s how we go about it the process of shopping and cooking.

First, I pore over the weekly specials in the flyer of the stores where I shop most.  This helps with menu planning and money saving, because you can center your menu around the produce and meat sale items.  This week, for example, whole chickens and chicken breasts were on sale, as well as cranberries, all varieties of squash, pears and apples.  Oh yes, and avocados. 

Southern Cornbread

Puerto Rican Rice and Beans - yum!

I decided to roast a chicken on Sunday, and save the leftover for chicken enchiladas on Tuesday.  On Monday, we’ll have curried butternut squash soup.   Maybe on Wednesday, too.  An omelet on Thursday and I can scrounge in the pantry (always well stocked) on Friday.  Keep your eye on the calendar for nights where time is short (for us that’s Monday) or you’ll be eating out.  None of the my selections are complicated, and they are all tasty.  A cinch, right?

Wrong!  The store has no poblano peppers for the verde sauce for the enchiladas.  I make some substitutions but when I arrive in the Mexican aisle there are neither canned tomatillos and nor verde sauce.  I will have to go to another store.  On Tuesday, I’ll be in Wellesley and can stop by Whole Foods which will likely have poblanos, maybe even tomatillos and/or some canned tomatillos or sauce.  By now, I am mentally committed to enchiladas verde, one of my faves in the world of Mexican food. 

Tomorrow we will trek to Walmart before my soup coupons expires.  They sell for $1.50 per can what everyone else sells for $2.38.  Plus I can save 25 cents off per can with the coupon.  We had an expiring coupon for cat food at Petco today, too.  Thisbe is diabetic and has to eat “Atkins for kitties” food, low on carbs, high on protein.  I jump through hoops to get it.  

So what we have this week is a shopping time suck, a decent budget and moderate calories.  I have done pretty well, and we have replenished the pantry after a) Hurricane Irene and b) a two-week vacation.  The larder was pretty bare when we got home.   

Tonight we are eating the pictured meal, Puerto Rican rice and beans and homemade Southerns corn bread with stone ground corn meal, no white flour, no sugar.  So good, so healthy. No problems with that meal except I almost burnt the beans.  Did not set the timer, always a mistake.  A portable kitchen time can save you endless headaches and burnt food.

Eat hearty and well,

The Cheeseparer 

 

Bean Soup and other Comestibles

We're been paring cheese like crazy.  Earlier in the week it was Chicken Tortellini Soup with spinach and mushrooms, and today I made bean soup from scratch.  So good, so cheap. 


I had planned to cook the beans with some turkey kielbasa which  I always get as a two-fer, but when the "kielbasa" thawed, it was a Chorico.  Thanks heavens it wasn't a banana.  I do freeze overripe bananas, and when I get three, I make banana bread.  Amazing the difference that extra banana makes.  It takes the bread to a whole new level.



The chorico made the soup even more delicious than usual.  Recipe was 3/4 lb. of navy beans, one large onion, chopped, 3 cloves garlic, 4 slices chopped thick-cut bacon, the chorico (about 12 oz) and 1 can low-fat low-salt  (14 oz) chicken broth and 1 14 oz. can garden vegetable broth.  I usually add carrot, chopped, but I forgot.  I added 1 t. dried thyme for more flavor. 


  I serve this with homemade southern-style cornbread.  This is a recipe, at least 200 years old, that calls for only corn meal (stone ground is best), buttermilk, egg, salt, shortening (your choice), baking soda and baking powder.  NO SUGAR.  It tastes so good and so wholesome and a little whipped butter on it just hits the spot.  Sugar in cornbread is a yucky New England tradition like flour tortillas that must be cast out.



We had a salad with the rest of the spinach bought for the soup, grape tomatoes and a good Caesar store-bought on sale dressing.  I've been saving between 20-30 percent every week at the grocery store and am psyched! 


It really helps to plan menus around the specials, especially the meat and the produce.  


Slowly, but surely, I'm getting caught up after the holiday.  How about you?  We ate the last of the frozen cheese twists on Monday.  So nice to have hors d'oeuvres in the freezer, and cookies, too.  I froze some of each recipe of the cookies I baked, and we had them well into January.  


The oven thermostat crapped out early in January, and we cooked on the stovetop for a few weeks.  The stove was 22+ years, so it did need to be replaced.  I got a fancy Kenmore with a nice warming oven (where bread can be proofed) and a convection oven and a fancy burner in the middle that takes a griddle.  We'll be cooking up a storm to figure out how everything works.  


I did pork tenderloin two ways right off the bat.  We get them as two-fers, and I made cutlets out of one and served them with a red currant/wine sauce (mega-yum) and stuffed the other with a bread stuffing mix left over from Thanksgiving.   Made a rosehip jelly sauce for that.  These cheap Ocean State Job Lot jams make good sauces, too.    A bit of broth, a little wine, some seasonings, and maybe a tablespoon of jelly make a great sauce.    Don't be afraid to experiment. 


Yours in frugality, 


The Cheeseparer