Your Money or Your Life

I'm re-reading Your Money or Your Life. I'm not sure when I bought this, but my cover's different than the one pictured at the right so I'm assuming I have an earlier edition.

I admit to not following all the steps outlined here, yet it has had a tremendous impact even so. The philosophy espoused here is much aligned with my own, about more than just food, although that is the part this web site focuses on. It isn't "do everything as cheap as possible." It's really more about value. Be aware of how much you spend on what. If you absolutely love something and it's worth the price (and you fully understand the total price) then go for it. Far better that, in my book, than eating some cheap dinner you don't enjoy at all.

Do you want to buy organic food? Then your food bill will be a bit higher (although your long term health costs may be lower!). If that's a high value to you, do it. Don't cut your food costs to sacrifice your values unless you absolutely have to in the short term. Just be aware of what you are doing. For some of us the option might be to grow (organically) what we can, buy organic and/or local when we can, and deal with the rest as best we can.

My definition of CheapCooking is to spend just enough and no more. I don't eat beans and rice every day, although, in fact, we all happen happen to love beans! I love the fact that I work at home and so I can put a pot of beans on the stove in the afternoon and we can have them that night at dinner. But we also love a good steak now and then. Still, I buy the marked-down meats fairly often so that I can splurge when it's important. At times I've been very tight with the budget. It has been a necessity in my life at various times. At this point, I'd rather spend less than more so out of habit I cruise the mark-downs. And sometimes I see something I've never cooked before marked down to some absurd price (like the $2.4x cross rib roast with a $2 off coupon affixed to it) and I use that as an inspiration to try something new. But if I've got a special dinner planned with a special menu, then I buy what I had planned--unless I see some deal that makes me re-evaluate my whole menu.

Some things start out as a necessary frugal habit and just become ingrained. I cannot remember the last time I bought canned chicken broth, for example. I just don't do it. When I was really tight, I learned to make chicken broth out of necessity. Hmmm... I could take stuff most people seem to throw away and create stuff sold for .50 cents to $1 a cup. I have a bag in the freezer and add chicken parts to it. I have a "stock stuff" container next to it, into which I throw my carrot ends, onion peels, and bits of celery. At some point, they all get thrown into a pot and voila! Chicken broth! I typically make enough to freeze one 4 -6 cup portion for soup and a few one cup portions for whatever.

So, if you're here because you've got some urgent financial needs and the food bill is the easiest thing to cut, I hope you can find some good ideas and tasty recipes here on the blog and on the main site. I just got an email today suggesting I start a bean section, and that's a good idea. If you can take a step back and want to examine a bit more than your food bill, check out Your Money or Your Life. Get it from the library. Buy it off Amazon through the link (and throw me a few pennies). Find it in your local used bookstore. I'm going through it again and realize a) how much I got out of it just by reading it and not following all the steps and b) how much MORE I could get out of it if I followed all the steps!

Oh, and the web site is in my favorite links section but in case you only read the blog, check out the Your Money or Your Life web site as well.

Fried Fish: Orange Roughy

I had gone to the grocery store earlier today for cat food and out of habit cruised by the meat counter to see what had been marked down. I could not resist the pound and a half of "boneless cross rib roast" marked down from $7 to the "club price" of $2.46, then had a $2 off sticker attached. So for 46 cents I came home with a decent looking pound and a half of beef, not sure what I could do with it. I decided to make a modified pot roast with it tomorrow night (modified in terms of size mostly). Around here, if you don't cruise the mark-downs you'll never get beef for less than $2/pound. I've rubbed it with a mix of thyme, rosemary, paprika, salt, and seasoned salt.

I'm not a big fish eater. I've mentioned this before. But my girls like fish--most any kind actually. So I periodically buy some and attempt to cook it. A while back I bought a pack of frozen orange roughy at Costco. I can't remember what I did with the first batch of it, but I remember they liked it. Tonight I pulled out the last 4 fillets (or FI-lets, as I heard it pronounced in N'Orleans many years ago) and thawed them out, with no clue as to what I would do with them.

So tonight I faced the fish. Or rather I decided to do the fish after I figured out that the cross rib roast would be best slow-cooked and I didn't have time for that tonight. I decided to go with simple over complex--almost always a good choice when it's after 5pm and you're still figuring out dinner! I decided to do a bit of a "sauce" for me though, since I don't really like fish. I cribbed this out of How to Cook Everything. What I love about this cookbook is that Mark Bittman gives you a basic recipe, in this case floured and fried fish, and then gives you some variations on the basic recipes. I also liked that he listed all the different fish that are similar and can be cooked in this method. I can never find a recipe calling for "orange roughy" but here he had listed all the fish that are similar so I could follow the timing. He lists pollock, blackfish, carp, cod, grouper, monkfish, orange roughy, red snapper, striped bass, turbot, and whiting. He says they all cook about 8-10 minutes per inch, with some variations. I never see half these fish at the local market so have no idea. But I do see orange roughy and never knew how to cook it before.

You can either dip the fish in flour and then fry over high heat until done (about 10 minutes total in this case, turned over halfway through) or dip in flour, dip in egg, then dip in flour or bread crumbs again for an extra crispy version, which is what I opted for (with the flour, not the bread crumbs). If you don't want the extra crispy version, just do the initial dredging in flour and skip the egg and second dip. The fish will easily flake with a fork when done. Serve with some lemon wedges and you're fine.

If you're like me and want a "little extra" flavor on the fish, make up a sauce in the same pan and pour it on the fish or serve it in a side dish if you have some folks, like my kids, who want their fish plain. I used chicken stock because I had some in the freezer but you could use vegetable or beef stock or water as well.

1 Tbs oil
2 Tbs minced garlic
1 Tbs minced fresh ginger
1 Tbs white wine or sherry
1/3 cup chicken stock
1 Tbs soy sauce
1/2 tsp chili garlic paste (or red pepper flakes or hot sauce)
1 tsp fresh cilantro, chopped

Take the fish out of the pan and wipe it quickly with a paper towel, then add another tablespoon of oil. After a few seconds it will be hot. Add the garlic and ginger and cook half a minute, about as much time as it takes to get the wine in your hands. Add the wine, cook and stir a few seconds, then add the stock, soy sauce, and chili garlic paste or other hot stuff. Pour over the fish and sprinkle some fresh cilantro over it all. I can't remember why I bought the chili garlic paste but it definitely added a layer of complexity here.

The girls loved the fish plain. I liked it with the sauce. I would have eaten it plain but I liked the flavors in the sauce. In fact, I had extra sauce and was trying to decide what to do with it, as it was quite tasty.

I served this with some steamed spinach and raw peas in the pod. Very easy. Very good. Pretty healthy I think. True to form, I ate the smallest FI-let and the girls split the extra one between them.

Hearing the FI-let in my head reminded me of one of my favorite N'Orleans stories. I used to travel there fairly regularly, during two different periods, though rarely got to spend time in the city proper. We went across the lake to Mandeville, to a computer company there. Sometimes I stayed in Mandeville, other times in New Orleans. One night a group of us are out to dinner and one of my friends, a great storyteller, was in the midst of one of his great stories when the waiter comes around with the salads. The salads are served and the waiter asks about fresh ground pepper. He goes around the table with the pepper grinder and comes to my storytelling friend, who looks up and nods at the sight of the pepper grinder. And continues his story. The waiter grinds some onto his salad, hesitates, grind a little more, hesitates, and looks at my friend. My friend is totally caught up in his story, something exciting about when he worked the Alaska pipeline perhaps, and he nods at the waiter. The waiter proceeds to add some more ground pepper to the salad. By this time, all of us at the table are watching this ever-blackening salad and my friend with great interest--but we don't interrupt! The waiter looks at my friend. He nods and continues the story. We stare in fascination. After a few more nods and grinds and nods and grinds, my friend suddenly looks down, notices the layer of pepper, looks up and says "OH! ENOUGH pepper! Thanks!" I've seen blackened fish. Blackened steak. This was my first experience with blackened salad. Which has nothing to do with the recipe. I just cannot separate FI-let from this memory.

Sausage and Fried Apples

This is one of my cheater meals. Heating up kielbasa, whether grilled or pan-fried, hardly seems to count as cooking to me. And I know they're not healthy, but they do taste good! Some nights, a treat is in order and an easy dinner is on the menu. Tonight with a child's doctor appointment squeezed in after school and before swim practice, the focus was on easy. Kielbasa and fried apples is it. Add some carbs in the form of rice or noodles if you'd like, or some green beans or sliced tomatoes to round out the meal. Something simple.

For the kielbasa, there's no recipe. Cut it into serving pieces and grill it if you'd like. The kind I buy is already fully cooked so you're really just heating it. Tonight I sliced it up and cooked it in a frying pan, just until the outside edges had started to curl up a bit. Since I'm kind to the dog as well, I threw some hot water in the pan and "deglazed it" for her after I put the sausage on a plate. She thought I was the queen of the world when I dumped that on her dog food!

For the apples... I'm spoiled right now so my recipe starts with "Go out in the back yard and pick as many apples as you want that appear to be ready to fall off the tree." I'll try to guestimate quantities but I really don't measure this at all so take the numbers with a grain of salt, as it were. I just slice as many apples as I want, put a chunk of butter in the pan and let it melt, add the apples, then sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Cook until softened.

1/4 cup of butter
3 cups sliced apples, optionally peeled but definitely cored
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup brown sugar

Heat the butter over medium heat until melted. Add the apples and stir until coated. Cook until softened, then sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar, stirring again. Let this meld, then serve with all the yummy sauce on top.

I generally serve fried apples with anything pork. I have read about fried onions and apples but my kids would gag on the onions I'm afraid. It sounds great to me though.

Monday: Soup from Leftovers

I decided upon a soup and sandwich night tonight. The sandwich part was easy: bacon and tomato. I've got loads of tomatoes in the garden but that little nip in the air reminds me they won't be here forever so I should enjoy them now! I started the soup going ("recipe" below) then spread the bacon out on a lidded cookie sheet and baked it. My mother always fried up her bacon but I've learned that baking it is much easier and, for me, turns out more reliably "perfectly done" bacon with none of the futzing I tend to do with it on the stove. Lay it out on something that can collect the fat. You can lay it on cookie cooling trays if you'd like, although to me that's just two more things to clean up (assuming a pound of bacon). I do save my bacon grease. This came as a shock to a friend of mine. I throw out more than I save, but I save some for corn bread, fried potatoes, and a few other things. Anyway, bake your bacon. It's much easier. Lay it in a single layer on a pan that can hold the grease and bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, depending on how thick it is. This is printed, by the way, right on the package of bacon most likely. I'm continually amazed at the information you can get by actually reading the packages!

The soup... The other night I pulled out 4 cups of frozen broth. About that anyway; it was frozen in an old potato salad container from the deli. And last night I'd made mashed potatoes and saved the potato water in a jar in the refrigerator, knowing I'd be making soup one night. So I put the potato water and the half-thawed chicken broth in my soup pot and turned it on medium to melt the rest of the broth.

At this point, I typically search through my refrigerator to see what I can add to the pot. I had some yellow squash and green beans tucked away, so I threw those in. I had some leftover spaghetti sauce, something I neglected to write up here I realize. (The basic idea was to make ricotta cheese "balls" and simmer them in the sauce. They were, uh, big blobs of cheese and fell apart more often than not anyway.) I scooped out the ricotta balls and threw the tomato sauce into the soup pot.

Hmmm...Not enough veggies. I went out the garden and picked some more green beans and some fresh parsley. The yellow squash plant just had tiny babies so I left them on the vine for another day. I trimmed the beans and threw them in the pot, then went back to the veggie drawer of the freezer. Ah, the big bag of spinach from Costco. I chopped up a few cups worth and threw that in.

My youngest had come home from school not feeling well. She's not a huge fan of BLTs this year. It happens. They lose their taste buds! Actually, I understand changing tastes and while I don't bow down to them, I do try to accommodate them if I can do it within the general plan for the meal. Knowing she didn't feel totally up to snuff and remembering one of her favorite soups, I pulled a few meatballs out of the freezer and threw them in the soup and grated a bit of Parmesan to have at the table. I figured if she didn't want a sandwich, she'd do fine filling up on soup. She dug into the soup, then after eating a big bowl asked if she could have a half a sandwich, too. The headache's gone. She talked about going to school tomorrow. The power of soup!

Sunday morning waffles

I had a bit of a spree at the local Target the other day. There are some small appliances I did not have, believe it or not. Like a waffle iron. And a handheld electric mixer. I use my big KitchenAid stand mixer nearly every day, but there are times I miss the old handheld. My daughter wanted to make a cake with some 7 minute frosting the other day, which requires mixing the stuff up over the double boiler. Can't do that with the KitchenAid, as near as I know! Mashed potatoes are the other time I miss the simpler handheld mixer, since I dirty up another big bowl when I use the KitchenAid.


The waffle iron was an impulse buy, I admit it. I like waffles. I make pancakes a LOT, because they're easy, cheap, and the kids love them. Plus, I can throw leftovers in the freezer and pop them in the toaster for a quick weekday meal. But they're not waffles. And the waffle iron was only $8, so hardly a huge splurge. Of course, it makes one serving of waffles at a time, which is a pain the neck when you're feeding too many.

I saw a recipe for raised waffles in Marion Cunningham's Lost Recipes, which I was thumbing through when I was reminded of the vinegar chicken the other night. The recipes calls for you mixing up the batter, minus eggs and baking soda, then letting it sit overnight. It was nearly identical to the recipe that came with the iron, except it had you mixing it all up together and then refrigerating it overnight, rather than covering it up and leaving it out on the counter overnight. Either way, it's a nice way to have most of the work done before breakfast. I suspect the result is perhaps not all that different, but I didn't see the "add the eggs and refrigerate" version until this morning, so here's what I did:

1/2 cup warm water
2.5 tsp yeast (or one packet)
2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup melted butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1/4 tsp baking soda

Mix the warm water and yeast and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the milk, butter, salt, sugar, and flour, and stir with a whisk until smoothie. Cover and leave out on the counter overnight. In the morning stir in the eggs and baking soda. Pour the recommended amount (typically 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup) into your waffle iron and cook until done.

The batter is very thin. It cooks up fairly lightly. I'm not sure how to compare it to other waffles since we don't have them very often. You could keep the batter in the erefrigerator for a few days. But I opted to cook it all up and then just freeze the leftovers.

Chicken Saute with Vinegar

Marion Cunningham must really like this recipe! It's in both her Lost Recipes and The Supper Book, with slight variations. I've rarely been steered wrong by Ms. Cunningham, having first connected her name with my favorite The Fannie Farmer Cookbook years ago. The recipes vary slightly, with different amounts of butter, the addition of tomato paste, but are basically, as the title suggests, chicken sauteed with vinegar. I happen to love vinegar. The dish is not, however, overwhelmingly flavored of vinegar. There is a bite to it, a bit of tartness that's not always present with chicken.

I'd been looking for something to do with that peach vinegar I made the other day and last night decided that Chicken Saute with Indian Blood Peach Vinegar was the ticket. I also had that huge bag of spinach from Costco to play with and tried a different creamed spinach recipe that seemed much less work than my favorite. Alas, it was less work--and less result. Decent, but not great. And I'd just as soon eat the plain steamed spinach my kids adore, which is, let's be frank, much healthier anyway. They're content with some fresh squeezed lemon juice on it and think that's all spinach needs. I bow to their superior wisdom. I did just plant spinach, so we'll see how that goes.

The chicken was fantastic, however. I'm not sure I could taste the peaches in this, but like to think so. I think it would be heavenly with rice vinegar, which is a bit softer somehow. Of course, sauteed chicken is pretty dang good no matter what. Simple bone-in chicken pieces, unbreaded and untouched, fried in butter and oil till browned, then some liquid is added and the pan is covered, until the chicken is done. You may or may not do anything after that. I did this with chicken thighs because that's what I had in the freezer. If you're doing a mixture of light and dark meats, I would watch the breast pieces and perhaps start them a bit later than the dark meat pieces.

4 chicken thighs
4-6 Tbs butter and/or olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 cup vinegar (red wine, rice, peach!, whatever)
1/2 cup water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp dried parsley

Heat the oil and/or most of the butter, saving a bit for the final step. Salt and peper the chicken while the butter is heating, then brown the chicken on all sides over medium high heat for about 10 minutes. Add 1/4 cup of the vinegar plus the water. Then cover the pan and cook for another 15 minutes or so, until the chicken is done.

Put the chicken on your serving dish and keep warm. Add the garlic and cook a minute or so, until softened and smelling heavenly. Add the rest of the vinegar and cook down a few minutes. Add the last bit of butter, a tablespoon or two (and a tablespoon of tomato paste if you'd like!). Pour the sauce over the chicken and sprinkle with tarragon and parsley.

Mock Apple Pie

Apple pie? Not quite. But it's a bit different than a crisp or a cobbler and goes together in nothing flat. I've got 2 apple trees producing right now so I play with anything and everything apple. Apple butter is next on my list. I think I've got some golden and red delicious apples right now, but the trees are older than I've owned the house so I'm not positive. If you're making this with tart apples, add 1/2 cup or so of sugar. I didn't add any at all and it was delicious. In my house, something like this is breakfast material as well as dessert--a family tradition my dad introduced to the girls at a young age.

4-5 apples, cored and chopped (but not peeled)
2 Tbs flour
a dash of nutmeg
a dash or two or three of cinnamon (we like cinnamon)
the juice of one lemon

1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter

Toss apples with the flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon (and the sugar if using), then pour the lemon juice on them and stir thoroughly. Pour into a baking dish.

Mix together the brown sugar and flour, then cut in the butter. Sprinkle on top of the apples. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes or so.

Ground Beef and Spinach: Joe's Special

This is one of those recipes I've seen off and on for years, typically referenced by a nod to a San Francisco restaurant. Somehow I've only now just gotten around to trying it.

I went to Costco today. My main client's staff was at an off-site meeting so I figured this was a good day to "sneak off" mid-day to Costco. I detest going on weekends, yet always have a hard time going during the week when work is a'plenty, as it has been lately. There are a few things I almost always get there (milk, half and half, eggs, laundry soap, dishwasher soap) and other things I check the prices on and get if they're reasonable. The big huge (2.5 pound!) bag of spinach is usually a given. I personally don't like cooked spinach but my girls will both eat it--go figure. I do like a spinach salad however so we have no problems consuming all this spinach before it goes bad. Hamburger, ground round, was about $2.49 a pound--a good deal around here, so I bought the 5.5 pound package. I divided it into roughly 6 equal parts and froze 5 of them. I can pull these out later for meatloaves, tacos, meat sauce, shepherd's pie, and so forth. Sometimes I boil it up and then freeze it, but since it was a working day I froze it raw.

I hadn't planned a dinner tonight, figuring I'd use up something I got at the store. I debated between tacos, spaghetti sauce, and a few other things but somehow nothing was grabbing my attention. I skimmed a few cookbooks, not dead-set on the ground beef as the mainstay. I have tons of tomatoes in the garden and despite having BLT's last night for dinner, I was tempted to do some pasta with tomatoes tonight. Then I spotted a recipe for "Joe's Special" in one book, and "San Francisco's Little Joe's" in another book. One had garlic and the other had Parmesan and Tabasco, but they were basically the same recipe. Being a "more is more" kind of cook, I combined them both and used it all. Both recipes warned this was not a pretty dish. Spinach and ground beef. You can imagine. The girls gave it an expected look of horror--but having just returned from an hour and a half of swimming they were starving and had no choice but to dig in.

"Mmmmm. This doesn't look very good, but it's actually really good!" says the youngest.

"This is gross." Chew. Chew. Chew. "Can I have more? It actually tastes good." says the eldest.

I used about 3/4 of a pound of ground beef, despite the recipes calling for a pound. I served it with some bread and mock apple pie for dessert. This served the three of us (with two hearty swimming eaters) with one portion leftover. For big eaters, add more meat, serve with bread and another side dish, etc.

2 Tbs oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 - 1 pound of ground beef
1 pound fresh spinach, steamed or blanched, and chopped (you could use frozen of course)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
a dash or two of Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the oil and cook the onion and garlic until softened. Add the ground beef and brown as you break it up into small pieces. If your children swim, turn this down to low, drain the fat off, and let sit covered until they're done showering.

Add the spinach and cook a few minutes. Salt and pepper here if you'd like, or at the table later.

Mix together the eggs and Tabasco, then pour into the meat and spinach mixture, stirring until the eggs are set. Pour the whole thing out onto a platter and top with the Parmesan. Prepare yourself for groans and set it on the table. Prepare yourself to accept accolades as well, which you'll get as soon as they taste it if they're at all hungry.

Steamed Green Beans and Yellow Squash

From the garden of course...

A friend questioned me the other day about why I so seldom steamed vegetables. And the answer is:

I don't know.

Habit I suppose. I'll cook up vegetables in a bit of olive oil and/or butter, some minced garlic or garlic salt, some herbs, some white wine and/or chicken broth or vegetable broth. But I rarely steam. So tonight I steamed.

The vegetable combination was based purely on what's in the garden right now. I had tried and tried to get green beans growing back in the spring and the dang snails ate or birds ate everything that popped its head out of the ground, so I gave up. I had built cute little tepees out of garden poles by putting them in the ground in a triangular shape, then tying the tops together about 8 inches from the top. There they sat, a testament to my green bean (and pea) failure this year until I noticed a green bean plant climbing one a while back, having evidently snuck past the birds. I let it go, convinced I'd never see beans because of the heat at this point. But I've now harvested three dinners worth of beans off that plant. This weekend, in fact, I planted more green beans around the other tepees and we shall see what happens. Actually, they were rainbow colored beans, rather than purely green. Youngest was with me at the nursery and we have rainbow colored everything! (Radishes, string beans, bulbs...)

So I steamed the beans and yellow squash but then they looked so plain sitting there. I couldn't resist. I drained the pot and threw the vegetables back in with a bit of butter and garlic salt. They were delicious! I have a bit leftover which will find its way into the soup I'll be making sometime this week.

Spaghetti with Shrimp & Ricotta Sauce

Ricotta cheese was on sale "buy 1 get 1 free" and they were the large containers. So 2 large containers ended up costing me less than one smaller container, which was still more than I needed. I take opportunities like this to explore new recipes. Eldest is tired of chicken. Around here chicken is today's hamburger, in terms of cost per serving. For example, a whole chicken at .89 a pound yields about 2.5 servings per pound, making each serving cost approximately .36 cents, where I'm lucky to find decent ground beef on sale for less than $2/pound, which with 4 servings per pound is equal to 50 cents/serving. Plus, I can use the leftover chicken parts to make broth and easily get a quart or two of good broth out of it. But I digress...

I saw some frozen shrimp on sale and decided to please the eldest with something. She'd happily just eat them plain, of course, or dipped in cocktail sauce. I found a recipe that used ricotta cheese to make an Alfredo-like sauce and decided to kill two birds with one stone. The sauce came out quite good. Plus while looking for it I found recipes for ricotta pancakes, ricotta cookies, and innumerable pasta recipes, plus the Soprano-made-famous ricotta pie.

1 tsp butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pinch red pepper flakes
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup milk
3/4 pound of shrimp
1 tsp dried parsley
1 pinch nutmeg
1/4 cup grated cheese

Start a large pot of water to boil and add the pasta (spaghetti, fettucini, whatever) at some point during the below process so it's all done at the same time. If you're unsure, cook the sauce and leave it on low to keep warm while you cook the pasta. It's more important that the pasta not sit around than the shrimp.

Heat the butter in a saucepan and cook the garlic and red pepper flakes a few minutes, until the garlic is softened. In a small bowl whisk together the ricotta and milk, then add to the pan and stir until warmed. Mix in the other ingredients. If the shrimp is raw, heat at a very low simmer until cooked through. If the shrimp is cooked, just heat through.

I actually used cheddar cheese here and it was good. The recipe I started with had you adding frozen peas and Monterey Jack cheese (or Sonoma Jack as I would call it, being raised there!). I think Parmesan would actually be the best but I was lazy and had a spot of cheddar to use up.

The girl who doesn't like shrimp loved the sauce and was happy. The girl who loves shrimp was happy to have extra shrimp. The recipe I started with said it served 6 but the three of us wiped it out except for a bit of leftover pasta. My girls are good eaters and had just finished an hour and a half of swimming but I don't think they ate two portions worth--and I know I didn't. I served it with a side of green beans and yellow squash. Of course, they did still have room for the leftover peach pie.

Peach Vinegar

My reading lately has been made up of things like This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader, In the French Kitchen Garden: The Joys of Cultivating a Potager , and Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area & Coastal California . To top all that off I was thumbing through an old favorite, Stocking Up : The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide. All of these are highly recommended if you want to expand your garden a bit. There's some wonderful connection between growing your own food and cooking it. In fact, I can't quite imagine enjoying cooking so much if I didn't have some connection to the production of some of it.

As I began making the peach pie I looked at the the stainless steel bowl I use to hold my kitchen waste until I walk it out to the compost pile. There's some frugal gene in me or something that is bothered by waste. I remembered reading about making peach vinegar with the skins and pits so went off to get Stocking Up : The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide and refresh my memory. I tied up the peach pits and skins in some cheesecloth and simmered in 2 cups of white vinegar for 15 minutes, then cooled off and poured in an old mayonnaise jar and refrigerated it. I am hoping the white vinegar will work. I've got a half a dozen kinds of vinegar in the pantry and stumble when something calls for "vinegar" without being specific. I buy white vinegar by the gallon for cleaning and cooking and laundry. I'm also hoping I won't need to actually "can" this if I refrigerate it. I do have canning jars out in the garage and am thinking of pulling them out for some applesauce at least, although it's been a few years since I actually canned. The freezer is so much easier--but, I have to admit, with Katrina in the news, I think about losing electricity. Having just had a failed refrigerator, I am leery of depending on electricity for emergency supplies.

So any suggestions on what to do with peach vinegar? It smells heavenly. Well, if you like vinegar, which I do. Marinades come to mind...

Sunday Dinner: Peach Pie for Dessert

My youngest asked yesterday if we could have a "nice Sunday dinner." I have gone back and forth on this. I like the idea of ending the weekend and starting the week out with a nice dinner. I went through a period of eating in the formal dining room, setting a more formal table, and eating a more formal dinner on Sundays. I've also rebelled and declared Sunday dinners to be soup and sandwich night, with childhood memories of the same. At one point, I switched our pizza nights to Sunday but I could never quite get into that. On the one hand, I have more time on Sunday, since I don't "work" that day. However, my life is such that usually we usually clean the house Saturday mornings (another childhood echo),I run errands or we do a bit of shopping, and we entertain guests more often than not. Sundays become the day for outside chores, which might mean a trip to the hardware store or nursery, some planting, some pruning, and so forth.

Today, for example, I paid bills in the morning, balanced checkbooks and the like (two accounts since I'm self employed), finished up some stray laundry from yesterday, and then ran out to Orchard Supply for some plants. I want to do a bit more of a fall/winter garden than I normally do. Remind me not to take my youngest to the nursery again! I came home with some bulbs (make that like a hundred!), some snapdragons, which my kids have always called dragon snaps which makes me think of gingersnaps to keep on the food topic, some verbena, transplants for broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, and spinach plus seeds for rainbow colored beans, lettuce, carrots, beets, and turnips. She helped me plant some of them...

I came in from the garden totally wiped about 3pm and spied the basket of peaches I'd picked yesterday before my eldest offered to make the cake for dessert. They were very ripe and needed to be dealt with, so I decided I could get away with an easy Sunday dinner if I had a peach pie for dessert--hence the beginning of this longish entry. And in the spirit of CheapCooking, I mixed up 3 pie crusts at a time and popped one in the freezer for another day. I also put the extra peaches in the freezer for smoothies another day.

I have a picture I'll post later. These are more of the Indian Blood Peaches which are ripe NOW. I need my fruit picker to reach the highest ones. I made a big pie and froze another quart of sliced peaches. To easily skin the peaches, drop them in a pot of boiling water for a few minutes. The skins will slip right off.

6 cups peeled sliced peaches
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs butter

Slice the peaches and mix with the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

Line a pie pan with one pie crust. Pour the peaches onto it, then top with another crust. Cut slits in the crust or cut your initial or stamp out a few decorative cuts with those cute little pie crust cutters. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes. If the edges of your pies tend to get too browned, cover them with foil for the first 30 minutes.


The rest of the dinner was baked chicken thighs with some "shake and bake" type coating, steamed broccoli, and rice.

Family Dinner Party: Flank Steak et al

I had another family over for dinner tonight. It was one of those fairly spontaneous things that works out to be perfect! Sometimes, we try to line up dinner and we end up months out and then someone gets sick or something else comes up and we need to postpone and reschedule. My friend had emailed earlier this week and a few days later I answered and mentioned a possible Saturday dinner, knowing it was totally short notice. But it worked! Their kids are 4 and 6. She had mentioned that they liked broccoli but she was worried that they were kind of picky about some food. I enlisted my kids help in trying to come up with some ideas and here's what we ended up with, which turned out to be perfect! Everyone ate well and seemed happy. Dinner was a tad later than I'd planned but I blame that on the excellent conversation and cocktail hour! Flank steak is one of my fallback company dinners. A bit of marinade makes it flavorful and it cooks up easily on the barbecue in about 12-14 minutes total.

Marinated flank steak
Steamed broccoli
Green salad
Tomato salad
Ancini pasta with ricotta
bread with blue cheese-pecan dip
chocolate cake

I started the flank steak marinating about 1pm, when I got back from the grocery store. There are any number of easy marinades. The simplest I know is my mom's old standby of lemon juice, olive oil, minced garlic, and parsley. It still is delicious. I went with a bit of a different one today:

2 Tbs red wine vinegar
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs olive oil
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
pepper to taste

I use a bag to marinade steak in because it's so easy to lay it flat in the refrigerator and turn it over periodically. It works just as well to lay it in a dish and turn it, of course. I do find the meat absorbs a bit more flavor if I make some thin (1/4"?) slices across both sides before marinating.

The green salad was simply some chopped romaine lettuce, sliced yellow pear and regular red cherry tomatoes (from the garden), chopped carrots, and sliced green onions. That's just what I had around. I had some bottled dressing, a blue cheese vinaigrette that was really good.

The chocolate cake was a mix, but still great. My eldest had wanted to bake. I keep a small supply of boxed cake mixes on hand for this, bought when they're a dollar or less. I haven't actually done the math comparing the cost but that seems reasonable to me--plus it makes my children willing to bake AND do the dishes. The leftovers will go for lunches and after-school snacks.

I like to note down what I cook for company and what works and what didn't. In this case, I could have done a bit more ahead of time and been more prepared but overall it worked great. There wasn't too much last minute work and everyone had seconds--a sure sign of success.

Pork Roast in the Crockpot with Cranberry Gravy

I had originally planned to do this delicious sounding recipe with a pork roast studded with 40 cloves of garlic or somesuch, then roasted in the oven with a few things. But life got in the way. I had errands to run one evening after work and didn't get started soon enough. The next night I had neighbors coming over for dinner so I thought I'd do the pork roast then, but I had a full day of work and a 4:30 web meeting which I expected to last an hour or so. So about 10am that morning I decided I should throw the roast in the crockpot. I remembered a favorite beef roast recipe with cranberry sauce and decided to do that. I put the roast in the crockpot (as an aside--the newer ones sure cook way hotter than the old ones!), sliced an onion and put it on top, then went to pantry for the cranberry sauce, which was fine, and then I went to the frig for the Catalina dressing. Oops! Remember when the frig broke and I threw everything out? I'm still not finding things I count on in the frig! I debated running out to the store, but that somehow seemed like cheating. I decided to use the cranberry sauce and add a can of cream of mushroom soup I saw in the pantry. It must have been on sale because I usually just make my own for stuff like that, but in this case it came in handy. I mixed the cream of mushroom soup with the cranberry sauce, the jellied kind, and threw it over the pork roast and onion.

A bit later an email from the neighbor asked if I needed anything from the store, so I had him pick up the Catalina dressing for me. He dropped it off about 1:30 and I added it to the crockpot, stirring it all together. With the old crockpots I would have been worried about taking the lid off, but this one seems to simmer at a good clip even on low. In fact, about 5:30, after the web meeting, I turned it down to warm.

I made up some mashed potatoes and cooked carrots to go with this. About 20 minutes before dinner, the sauce for the roast looked a bit thin, although it would have been fine. I mixed together a couple of tablespoons of flour with the same amount of cold water. I took the roast out, stirred in the flour mix, and turned the slow cooker up to high. Mmmmmm! This was really good. The roast was not sliceable, instead being more like pulled pork since it just fell apart. But the flavor was excellent.

Grandma's Chicken and Baked Rice

This is one of the few recipes I have that's been handed down. My mom had this on a newspaper clipping I think, that she'd gotten from my dad's mom. It's so simple and yet so good! Whole chickens were on sale so I bought one and cut it up, throwing the neck and back into a freezer bag that's slowly getting filled with parts for chicken broth. I'm not great at cutting up chickens but I'm getting better. I typically cut it into the usual wings, legs, thighs, and breasts--and then cut the (half) breasts in half again, giving me 10 pieces rather than the usual 8. Sometimes I don't bother cooking the wings and just throw them in the soup bag as well since they're not a favorite of anyone's.

chicken parts
garlic salt
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup chicken broth

Mix the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a pie pan or other flat dish.

Sprinkle each piece of chicken with the garlic salt, then roll in the flour. Place skin side DOWN in a baking dish. Pour 1/2 cup of the chicken broth in the pan and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Turn the pieces of chicken over so they're skin side UP, pour the other half cup of chicken broth in the pan, and bake another 30 minutes.

I like to do a baked rice dish or baked potatoes at the same time, since the oven is on. While they're baking, make up a dessert like an apple crisp and throw it in the oven as well. It will finish up and be nice and warm for dessert.

Baking rice has a slightly different texture than when it's cooked on the stove. I saute some onion in a bit of olive oil, then add the rice and saute it for a minute or two. Add enough chicken broth (two parts broth to 1 part rice) and some seasonings. For a cup of rice, I'd typically add 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp each of dried basil, sage, marjoram, and thyme. Stir it all up and transfer to a baking dish, if necessary, cover, and bake for an hour somewhere between 350 and 400.

Soup from the frig and garden

I need a soft dinner tonight. My eldest had new bands put on her braces and is a bit tender. Tuna melts fit the bill. I had some leftover hamburger buns so used those for the "invalid" rather than our usual English muffins. At the last minute...well, sometime during the last 45 minutes or so I decided to make some soup as well. Soup and sandwiches are a favorite in the winter although not normally in the summer. But I wanted to get some vegetables into the kids and soup's always an easy. They're getting a bit tired of sliced (fresh from the garden) tomatoes or sauteed squash and tomatoes. And dang, I just now remembered that I found a few green beans on a late plant and was going to add those to the soup but forgot! Anyway, what I did hardly amounts to a recipe but does go to show you a) how to use up some bits and pieces of leftovers and b)how to use some miscellaneous fresh vegetables.

I pulled some chicken broth from the freezer, about 6 cups, and started microwaving it to melt. In the meantime, I heated 1/4 cup or so of olive oil in my soup pot, peeled and chopped and onion and added it to the pot and left it to soften a bit while I fixed the rest of the vegetables. I had a yellow squash from the garden and a few tomatoes from the garden, so sliced and diced them. When the onion had softened a bit, I put the chicken broth in, although half of it was still frozen. It melted quickly enough and when it started simmering I added the yellow squash and carrots.

I looked through the refrigerator and saw the leftover cooked carrots from last night, a small bowl of chopped lettuce from tacos the other night, and a bit of leftover salsa. I added them all to the pot.

I debated about adding some rice or pasta but decided on lentils instead. They cook up quickly and are healthy--what a bonus! I threw in half a cup or so.

I added some chopped parsley and dried thyme, salt and pepper, then tasted. Once the lentils were cooked, about 30 minutes later, I pronounced it done and served with some grated Parmesan at the table.

Later, I spied some leftover pinto beans from the same taco night and thought I might add them tomorrow night or for my lunch tomorrow. I like adding a bit as I serve the same soup again so it tastes a bit different each night.

Indian Blood Peach Cobbler

I keep forgetting to take a picture of the peaches I have growing in the yard, Indian Blood Peaches. I got a few comments about them a while back when I mentioned them. I have two trees, started by a neighbor years ago and given to me, each in a separate coffee can. He told me to leave them in the cans for a year and then plant them. I had a cherry tree die in the meantime so planted one where it was and the other back in a bit more shade than it would probably like. But, with 14 fruit trees in a small suburban lot, beggars don't get to be choosers. Both trees produce, but the one in the shade actually tends to break off branches more often and produce smaller fruit. They're tricky to time as they seem to reach perfect ripeness and then fall to the ground within about 5 minutes. But they are delicious!

The other day I made a cobbler with them. We just ate the last of it tonight. You can see the red color. In fact, I intially wrote "cherry" cobbler after looking at the picture. They are a bit tarter than a regular peach, but are a nice freestone fruit. I added a bit more sugar to the cobbler mixture to account for the tartness.

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