Salsa

Watch out! I got a digital camera today. First picture had to be of the garden tomatoes.

When I first started cooking I wanted exact measurements for everything. Even salsa. But now, I realize that you use what you have, you vary it depending on what you're doing and whom you are serving--and maybe you just feel like something a bit different one day so you change it! Here's my best guess on my current basic salsa:

1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped white onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
salt to taste

If you want add:

• 1 Tbs lime juice or lemon juice, although I really prefer lime
• chopped jalapeno pepper, seeded (start with 1/4 cup and add more if you like it hot)
• 1/4 cup chopped cucumber for extra crunch if you like
• more garlic or onion or cilantro, depending on which way you lean

Goes great with Cold Avocado Soup, chips, burritos, scrambled eggs...

Cold Avocado Soup

I find myself turning again and again to The Taste of Summer : Inspired Recipes for Casual Entertaining during the summer. Some of the recipes, of course, are quite good year-round, but the focus on warm weather foods and summer produce is quite nice. Tonight, I had a few gorgeous ripe Haas avocados around. I love putting some in a turkey sandwich for lunch or adding to my usual summer breakfast of toast and tomatoes by spreading half a very ripe avocado on my toast prior to placing the tomato slices on top. When I saw the recipe for Chilled Avocado Soup it intrigued me. I enjoy gazpacho once or twice, but admit to getting tired of it fairly quickly during the summer. Last year I tried a chilled cucumber soup that did nothing at all for me. But I'm an optimist. Cold soup in the summer  sounds too good to pass by.

This one surpassed my expecations--creamy and cool, full of flavor. I did take the trouble to make some fresh salsa to go with it and think that made all the difference. In this case, I added cucumbers to my normal salsa recipe, as suggested in the sidebar here.  That and a dollop of sour cream were added to the soup just before serving and it was delicious!

2 ripe avocados
3 cups chicken broth (homemade if possible)
2 Tbs lemon juice *
2 Tbs chopped chives (I used 1 Tbs dried; I'm sure fresh would be much better!)
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt to taste

Blend the avocados in a food processor and add add all the other ingredients and blend until smooth.  Chill a few hours before serving.

Serve with a spoonful of sour cream and a spoonful of salsa.

Easy Ice Water Spruce Up

Do you serve a pitcher of water at the table with meals? To add just a touch of flavor and a burst of color, put some slices of fruit in the pitcher. My latest is to combine lemon, orange, and cucumber slices.  Very pretty. Very easy.

Blueberry Pancakes

Blueberries are on sale around here. My kids love them plain, in cereal, in pancakes, and in smoothies. This morning we made blueberry pancakes. Just take your favorite pancake recipe and pour the batter on the grill. Once the pancakes have started to bubble, plop the blueberries (washed of course) onto the top of the pancake and use the spatula to press them in a bit. Flip over when the bubbles start to stay open.  Cook another minute or two. 
 
What? You don't have a favorite pancake recipe? Here's an easy one.
 
1 cup milk
5 Tbs butter
2 eggs
1 cup flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
 
Warm the milk and butter until the butter is melted. Let this cool a bit or else it will cook the eggs when you add them.  In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until well beaten. Add the cooled milk and butter and stir. Now, most recipes will tell you to blend the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl, then add the moist ingredients. But I've found that if I just sprinkle the dry ingredients around on top of the wet ingredients, then stir them together it works just fine. You don't want a big clump of baking powder or salt somewhere, so just sprinkle them around rather than pouring them in.
 
This works for plain pancakes as well, of course. But the blueberries do add a wonderful flavor!

Chalupas

Fry some corn tortillas in a bit of hot oil until crisp and drain on paper towels.

Put the fried tortillas on a baking pan and turn the oven to broil. Spread some refried beans on each tortilla. Top with some sliced avocado, salsa, and grated cheese. Broil until the cheese melts. Sprinkle some chopped lettuce on top.

Refried Beans

Oh, why have I never made these before?! These were incredibly good, incredibly easy, and other than a bit of planning ahead and letting the beans cook (mostly unattended time), pretty darn fast as well!

For every cup of cooked pinto beans you want to turn into refried beans, heat up a tablespoon of bacon grease. Drain the beans and add them to the pan, mashing with a potato masher. Keep stirring and mashing until they're the consistency you want, more dry than wet. Stir in some Tabasco sauce if you'd like.

Easy Pinto Beans for Soup or Refried Beans

I made some very simple and very delicious pinto beans yesterday from Feed Your Family Fast, Healthy Meals on $10 a Day. After rinsing them off a few times, I did not soak them but just cooked longer since I was in and out of the house all day and that suited my schedule better.

1 pound pinto beans
1 onion, quartered
1 Tbs chili powder
1 ham hock (could also use a few strips of bacon)

Put the beans in a pot, remembering that they will swell to about 3 times their dried state once cooked. Cover with two inches of water. Add the onion, chili powder, and ham hock. Bring to a boil, stir everything, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover loosely and cook until done. Mine took about 3-4 hours but then it was so close to dinner I just let them continue. I served them as is, like a simple bean soup. Very delicious and about as cheap and delicious as you could hope for! At about 10 servings per pound of beans and a 1.50 for the ham hock, the base price for this is about 30 cents a serving. Make up a batch of cornbread to go with it and you have a great simple dinner.

Tonight I'm going to take some of the beans out, fry and mash them in some bacon grease, and make refried beans for chalupas.

Steak Marinades

Okay, steaks are NOT cheap. But if you're going to splurge, get the most of the meat! Sometimes, all I like to do is sprinkle garlic salt and seasoned or plain pepper on the steaks a few minutes before grilling. Other times I like to marinade them.

I like to use a freezer bag to hold the meat and marinade. Just flip the bag over in the frig periodically, without having to uncover the dish and turn the meat over. You can also freeze meat with the marinade, making it easy to mix up a big batch of your favorite marinade and then have it a few times over the next few months.

Here are a few ideas:

1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup Worcestershire

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2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tbs minced parsley
salt and pepper

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1/4 cup red wine
1/4 cup vinegar
2 bay leaves, crushed
salt and pepper to taste (1/2 tsp each to start)

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Teriyaki:

1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/3 cup sherry
1/2 tsp pepper
1 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup pineapple juice
2 Tbs brown sugar
1 onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced

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For roasts:

3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can beer
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
1 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs lemon juice

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Great for beef kebobs:

2 Tbs rice wine vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs sugar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt

Chimichurri Sauce

This book is a great source of recipes for entertainng or just for your everyday dinners. As with the earlier Desperation Dinners, it is focused on making things easy for you. In the first book, all the recipes took about 20 minutes from start to finish (although they sometimes started assuming you already had the water boiling!). Here the emphasis is on planning things ahead where you can and doing preparation work before your company arrives so you can relax and enjoy visiting rather than go crazy in the kitchen at the last minute!

I think one of the tricks to entertaining cheaply is to serve a variety of side dishes and many of them can be made ahead of time, like this chimichurri sauce. You can barbecue one cut of meat and offer a variety of salsas, sauces, or chutneys to go with it. People have fun experimenting with new things and you get to a lot of the preparation ahead of time rather than at the last minute. Barbecue a tri-tip or splurge on some rib eyes and serve some chimichurri sauce on the side. It goes equally well with chicken or pork. Just spoon some over the meat.

If you want to be especially frugal with this recipe grow your own garlic and parsley. I also have a lemon tree, which makes this sauce nearly all home-grown. This is one of the few things where my food processor gets used. If you don't have one, try mincing the parsley and garlic, then mixing everything else together in your blender, scraping it down so everything is blended.

Warning: This is for garlic lovers!

1 cup fresh parsley
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1/2 olive oil (use the virgin here; you want the flavor)
1-2 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp dried red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper (or more to taste)

Chop up the parsley in your food processor, scraping down periodically. Add the garlic cloves one at a time and pulse the food processor on after each one. Add the oil, lemon juice, peppers, and sat and blend until mixed, about 5 seconds.

You can refrigerate this until dinner is served!