First Grilling of the Season

The Boston area and all New England has experienced a mild winter and an early spring.  Tonight we are grilling some chicken breasts--a BOGO (buy one get one).  I'm grinding up some dried chili peppers and various seeds--cumin, corinander and kummel (can't think of the English word, only the German) along with garlic, olive oil, and kosher salt. 


I have a parsnip, 1/2 turnip, carrots and boxed mashed potatoes which I will make into a root vegetable puree.  Cherry tomatoes gratinee (on sale, natch) will round out the vegetable selections.   You can never eat too many veggies.  Serve two or three every night.  You won't eat as much meat.  Shop the sales, naturally, and buy something that can be spread over several meals or used as "ingredients."  


After this we're having a soup of red lentils.  Lentils are nutritious and reasonable and although most recipes are vegetarian, yours does not have to be.  A bit of chicken sausage, bacon or kielbasa is all it takes.  Think "meat as flavoring."   


With shrimp on sale I made a fab shrimp bisque with rice as a thickener.  Not bad calorie-wise and tasty with white wine, brandy, and part of a fennel bulb.  Also leeks.  I used my immersion blender to make a nice puree.  Think about this when shrimp are on sale.  Complex flavors and a nutrition for less than fast food prices. 

Valentine's Day Blast the Frugal Way

We spent $102.00 at the supermarket on Friday, including $17.00 for two beautiful bouquets of red and white tulips.


Eating out on Valentine's Day is usually a horor show--crowded, with bad service and nervous, overdressed couples.  We find it's much more enjoyable to go out before or after the event, or like yesterday, sit at the bar in Chestnut Hill at Paparzzi, drinking good pino grigio and eating carpaccio and focaccia, and fine Italian soup. 

 

You can see what we ate with our $ 102.00 which includes groceries for the rest of the week, too.  If we had gone out for this meal at a nice restaurant, I calculated we would have spent $175.00 for two with tip, tax, wine and four courses. (A salad of lettuce, artichoke bottoms, cherry tomatoes and cucumber is not shone.  I made everything from scratch, a labor of love, but hey, it's Valentine's day.  The crepes were delicious.  

If you have eggs, milk, flour and fruit you can do scrumptious crepes and cafloutis.  I used an on sale package of frozen stawberries and made a sauce with cornstarch, a little sugar, orange juice, orange liquor and a dash of brandy.  The crepes are filled with cream cheese (on sale) and powdered sugar.  The recipe made 12 crepes, which means we have three luscious deserts for  Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  

The stuffed chicken breasts are from Rachel Ray and there is enough for tonight and extra stuffing for some stuffed shells later in the week.  

The shrimp bisque was made with on-sale shrimp and their shells, and I splurged and bought leeks and a fennel bulb.  Again, enough bisque for three days and was it ever good.  I use cheap white vermouth when a recipe calls for white wine. 

Yes, I spent a good portion of yesterday in the kitchen, but having (delicious) food for 2-3 days is a good tradeoff.  Living cheaply does not mean living poorly.  Give your creativity free rein.  

Happy Valentine's Day and President's Day from The Cheeseparer