The Colonel's Beer Butt Chicken- With Attitude

Whole chickens were 99cents a pound this week. It's grilling weather. Read on.

The Colonel's Beer Butt Chicken
1 - 3 to 5 lb. whole chicken3 - 12oz cans of beer (Your favorite kind)Seasonings: Any, All or None of the following
· Salt
· Pepper
· Garlic
· Soy Sauce
· Cajun Seasonings
· Hot Sauce
· Lemon
· Seasoned Salt
· Lemon Pepper
· Poultry Seasoning
· Cayenne Pepper
· (Basically use what you like.)
Open one of the cans of beer.......DRINK. (Fun already, huh!) Wash chicken well andremove giblets. Drain. Now rub your choice of spices inside and out. Open the second canof beer.......and insert it into the Southbound end of a Northbound chicken. Youknow, where the chicken's sun don't shine. The beer and the chicken will beable to sit upright on your grill, and that's the position you want. Cover and barbequethe chicken over a low flame (about 350 degrees) for 2-3 hours.
Wiggle the joints of the chicken's leg to check doneness. When the leg wiggleswithout any resistance, the bird is done. Remove the can of beer from thechicken. The beer should be evaporated down to a half a can of beer or less.
Enjoy your dinner with that last beer (if you're not driving) and BBQ sauce onthe side. Also goes great with baked beans and potato salad. Yum!!
Copyright © 1997, Colonel St. James

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Road Warriors

No doubt about it, travel isn't cheap, but there are always economies, large and small that will pare some dollars off your trip.

We're driving from Boston to NYC on Tuesday. For two, with the price of gas down and an economical car, driving is still the cheapest. We park on the street and observe the NYC rules.
We also stay with a friend, which will shave at least $600 off the trip for hotels. If we had to pay for a hotel, we probably wouldn't go. Our friend also serves breakfast and one dinner. We take her to dinner one night and split the meal on the third night. She has a museum membership, so we get into MOMA for $5.00 each intead of the regular rate.

We'll also save $20+ dollars taking our lunch. I'll broil/bake a chicken breast on Monday. We make sandwiches, take potato chips, cookies, fruit and something to drink. A commuter cup brimming with coffee. The chicken, chips, cookies and fruit were all on sale. We have soft drinks in the fridge left from a house guest.

You get the idea. A trip that would cost over $1000.00 is accomplished for a couple hundred. I take busses or the subway whenever possible in Manhattan. More savings. If the distances aren't too great, walk.

When you're looking at the weekly specials, consider what you may already have in the freezer/pantry and plan your meals. This cuts way down on the weekly groceries. You do shop the specials?

I found a cheap pizza stone at the Williams Sonoma outlet which will make doing our own pizzas even easier. Homemade pizza rocks. It's not dirt cheap, but if you shop for sales in the grated cheese section, you'll do all right. Italian sausage is on sale frequently. Pepperoni can be purchased in SMALL quantities at the deli. No need to buy huge amounts. Tomatoes and broccoli were on sale today. Hey, that's a good topping. You keep pepper flakes on hand, don't you? Spices, while costly, add so much interest and flavor to food.

I buy ALL my spices on line at http://www.penzeys.com/. Once you're a good customer, they send freebies with each order. You can also order very small or very large amounts, depending on your level of use. I grow sage, chives, oregano,mint,dill, cilantro,parsley, and basil. Nothing beats tomatoes with thin slices of fresh mozzarella and chopped basil with a little EVOO. Once tomato season is here, all you buy is the EVOO (from Ocean State Job lot) and the fresh mozzarella. Yum!

Can hardly wait for summer. It's 72 degrees south of Boston today, and I'm going to plant spinach and beets today. Get that garden going. Create your own compost. Coffee grounds encourage earthworms, something my mother taught me.

Pare that cheese!

23 Houseplants

How did I ever accumulate so many houseplants? I just counted twenty-three. We are wintering the geraniums over, which I've done for five years now. Saves buying new ones in the spring. I started with a beautiful hanging geranium which I couldn't bear to part with when autumn and the frosts came, so I hung it indoors. Cut it back and kept it fed and watered. It even surprised me by blooming a bit. The next year I either rooted cuttings or brought all the geraniums in. To a plant, they lived.

This year a friend told me to take cuttings of his coleus. I now have a great plant to put outdoors this spring, bushy and colorful. I kept the scented geranium indoors for two years. Houseplants attain sentimental value, particularly when one arrives on the heals of illness. I have a sansevaria that came that way and is 27 years old. It even bloomed once.

One Christmas cactus is even older. I rescued plants from offices when people left or were laid off. Maybe you can tell where this is leading. With a little (but not much) work and forethought, you can have lots of cheap plants, free plants. And this blog is all about cheeseparing.

Another thing I do is take some of the plants outdoors in the summer and put them on the porch. They really thrive in the moist New England air with some (not full) sun and frequent waterings.

This week I'll divide my dianthus, and I've already found a home for some of the divisions. A tray of seedlings are growing in the kitchen window. Last year we had the most fantastic heirloom beets. This year the garden will be geared more toward veggies except for a few big pots of flowers. A seed packet of nasturtiums always pays dividends.

It's always interesting to see what reseeds itself from year to year. If you aren't doing some gardening, even indoors in pots or containers, you're missing the boat. Food, flowers, nuturing and relaxation. What could be better?

The Cheeseparer

Cheap Vacations

The Cheeseparer has been paring cheese, vacation-wise. First in Washington, DC and then in Europe? Europe, you say? How can you pare cheese in Europe?

You can use frequent flyer miles if you have them, which is what we did. We flew off-season, and enjoyed some nice spring days in Germany. Who knew?

You can visit relatives if you have them, which is what we did. You can limit purchases to stuff that is cheaper in Europe, which won't be much, but we can home with a few treasurers: jam, mustard, plastic notebook sheets. Well, that's about all.

You can find hotels out of town where you can stay for 79 Euros including breakfast. No hair dryer and "Tricky Ricky" soap and shampoo (I am not making this up) but a big room and a good breakfast with the chickens crowing and the sheep bleating. How cool is that?

We found good buys on meals, too. A bratwrust in Thuringer on the street fills one up for the rest of the day and is cheap. If you need a bouquet to take your hostess, that is even more reasonable.

Of course if you have no miles or relatives, it would be best to stay home or whatever. We're having chicken and vegetable soup tonight. There are numerous good quick breads that can be made from Bisquick. We will also eat a fruit salad which is moderate and healthy. Don't ever discount your health.

I do hope you're going to plant a garden this summer, even if it's only a few patio tomatoes and some pots of herbs. We'll discuss this in more detail in a few weeks.

By the way, I actually stood in the kitchen where the photo for this blog was taken.

The Cheeseparer

Use What's On Hand

Do you have ingredients on hand leftover from your Christmas baking? You do bake for the winter holidays, don't you? I will be really upset if you buy store bought cookies loaded with everything but flavor. Get thee behind me, transfats.

I was in a mood for dessert last week, and we didn't have any cookies. Thought I might bake some, but I told myself I couldn't go to the store. Thumbing through the cook books, and guess what I found? Chocolate pecan pie?!

Zowsa! I had everything or I could do an easy no-brainer substitution. It was soooo good. And we were good, too. We sliced it into ten slices and had 5 days worth of desserts. At no cost. The chocolate and pecans were still on hand from Christmas. It was rich; it was delicious and the price was right. If you have butter, sugar and flour on hand, you can always make shortbread. A few nuts or raisins or dried cranberries and your options expand.

So: stay away from store-bought and bake cookies or pies. Life will be good.

Paring Cheese Tonight

The supermarket had breakfast sausage links for $2.89 a pound. I found a BOGO on cherry tomatoes. Two nice-sized potatoes left from the 5 lb. bag I bought a while back. We're on for dinner!

I make cherry tomatoes fines herbes. I still have my rosemary growing in the living room window, and I dried oregano from the garden. Add to that, dried chives, thyme and chervil with a couple of finely chopped scallions and some olive oil and we're good to go. The tomatoes brighten any table and are even good for you. What's more amazing they have FLAVOR!

The sausage I fried in a non-stick skillet.

For the potatoes, I chop a small onion and a clove of garlic and put that to soften in some bacon fat. Then I chop up the potatoes and add them to the hot grease. At the end, I beat up two eggs and pour on top the potatoes and cook until done.

This is a tasty meal and we have enough sausage and tomatoes for breakfast tomorrow, along with the English muffin I forgot to toast tonight.

This week the New York Times had an article about how people have gone back to such stalwart old favorites as cube steaks. Remember cube steaks? They had a recipe and I was salivating. I used to cook cube steaks when my kids were little. Hey, the kids are gone, but the idea was tempting.

Today, Shaw's in Mansfield had cube steaks--a generous package and it was a manager's special with $3.00 off. Couldn't resist. Looks like it will make two dinners. They had mushrooms for a dollar, so I grabbed a package of those, too, to saute and serve on the cube steak.

Cheap eats can be both quick and tasty. The cherry tomatoes would also be great with the cube steaks. And we have a nice acorn squash which wasn't cheap.

It's hard to save on produce, so one has to bite the bullet sometimes. I'll let you know how the cube steaks tasted.

We're been getting adequate beef (and therefore zinc) all winter, and so far, no one has been sick although we've been exposed plenty and we take public transporation. (see prior post)

Friday night the Green Line of Boston's MBTA was packed so tightly that if someone had sneezed, twenty-four people would have caught cold.

Wash your hands and eat some beef. It doesn't have to be a lot and it can be nice and lean.

The Cheeseparer

Cook At Home versus Eat Out

Before the economy tanked, we ate out about once a week, everywhere from The 99 to upscale downtown Boston haunts. Now we eat out half as often, and we're very choosy about where we drop our dimes. Would they were only dimes!

Of course for the cook, fewer meals out means more work: shopping, food prep and (Yuck!) clean up. However, the right attitude and compiling the savings can work wonders. Instead of our weekly meal out, we have a nice, FAST dinner at home.

Last night we had scallops, and I have to tell you that instead of paying $120.00 (food, 2 glasses of wine, tax and tip), we spent about $20.00 for everything. The most expensive item was 3/4 pound of scallops for $12.07. I could have eeked by with 2-3 ounces less. We had scallops provencal (from the Food Network recipe of the Barefoot Contessa), fresh buttered broccoli, herbed rice, and mesclun salad with cucumer and tomato. We each had a glass of red wine. I calculate the whole meal cost less than $20.00.

The whole dinner went together in a half hour, and I had two pots, a skillet and the salad bowl to clean up. Not too bad.

Steak is another option, especially when it's on sale. Asparagus is on sale this week. I buy Basmatic rice in five pound bags, and it lasts for ages.

We would have had leftover valentine's day port wine ice cream, but the scallops were really filling. All that lean protein. Great herbs in the rice. Yum!

A roast chicken is also a good option, as is shrimp. All can be low cost healthy fare.

I believe in red meat twice a week winter and summer for keeping your immunity high. This is my RX for getting through winter, especially. That and a flu shot and washing one's hands regularly. Sleep a lot. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and veggies.

When oranges are on sale, we stock up. An orange sliced on a bed off lettuce with a drizzle of dressing makes a great salad. Add a few slices of avocado and yowza! I don't buy avocados when they are 2 bucks a pop.

Avocados were 4/$5 at the supermarket yesterday. We get two meals out of one, which puts it into the cheap range. Healthy oils, too. Do not neglect healthy oils.

If you have an ice cream maker, you can enjoy premium ice cream, sherbet, ice milk and frozen yogurt for half of what you pay in the store, and so much better. It makes a very special dessert.

Tonight I am taking a lemon poppyseed cake to a potluck. It will cost less than $2 to make, and serves 12. Pick your recipes.

By the way, I am very big on Penzey's Spices. http://www.penzeys.com/ Penzey's has a great web operation, catalog and some stores. The best thing is that you can buy spices in all sizes from minute amounts to big jars depending on your individual use. Or without jars. They have some great rubs and mixed blends for marinades and grilling.

Once you're a customer, you get a free sample in each order. The vanilla and peppercorns are soooo reasonable, and the prices make up for the postage. Be really smart and split an order with a friend or two or some folks in the office.

Living cheap is living creatively. It can even be fun. And definitely tasty.

I'm making cauliflower soup with a curry flavor. We eat it an lunch with some breadsticks. Cauliflower was on sale. Buy chicken broth on sale and some good curry powder from Penzeys. You can also make your own curry powder if you have a fully-stocked spice cabinent. Remember, creative is the operative word. Pare that cheese

Bon Appetit!

The Cheeseparer