101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipes

I received a review copy of 101 Easy Peasy Cookie Recipes at a time when I was a bit overwhelmed with other happenings, so it's taken me a while to post this. I made their Chocolately Raspberry Streusel Bars, except I used blackberry jam since that's what I had in the frig. The girls declared them a winner and they really were very easy to mix up.

The book is nicely divided into Bar Cookies, Drop Cookies, No Bake Cookies, Rolled Cookies and Shaped Cookies. There's a nice variety of cookies in each category and some that are definitely far beyond your ordinary cookie. The recipe for Malted Milk Chocolate Brownies is calling my name next I think.

So bonus points for unusual cookies. My only quibble with the book is the layout. While the ingredients are called out nicely, the directions are all in one paragraph, making it hard to find your place.

If you want to try a few of their recipes before buying, check out their web site. You can try out Colossal Double Chocolate White Chip Cookies or their Oranges and Cream Cookies. Hmmm.... maybe the Oranges and Cream Cookies will be next. Or maybe the Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies.

This will certainly add some great variety to our cookie baking around here!

Braised Beef Short Ribs aka Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat

I stumbled upon Mark Bittman's blog the other day. He's one of my favorite cookbook authors so I instantly subscribed, of course! I have mentioned before that I rarely watch cooking shows so almost passed over his videos. I'm glad I read the comments on his post about short ribs though, as they enticed me to watch the video. And that's what I ended up cooking for dinner that night, minus the chilis. Oh, and the video that really goes with the meal is a hot fiddle tune from Uncle Earl called Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat. Where else can you hear someone singing about braised fatty meat? Hongsho rou wan sui. ("Long live braised fatty beef" according to the translation here. )

a bit of oil
beef short ribs, I used 4 but we each ate only a half
salt and pepper
an onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup of red wine
1 cup of coffee

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or some other dish you can cover and leave cooking for hours on end. Salt and pepper the ribs. With the pan at medium-high heat, brown the short ribs until they develop a bit of a crust, turning so each side gets browned, about 5-7 minutes per side. Don't crowd them in the pan; just do them in batches if need be. Remove the ribs to a plate, lower the heat to medium low and give the oil a chance to cool just a bit so you don't burn the onions. Cook the onion and garlic until soft, about 5 minutes.

Add the red wine to the pan and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring to loosen up any browned bits, and let it simmer a few minutes. Add the coffee, then return the ribs to the pan. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook a few hours, turning the ribs now and then. The meat will be falling off the bone by the time you're done, or falling apart if you used boneless ribs.

Take the meat out of the pan and turn the heat up a bit, simmering the sauce until reduced a fair bit.

These were fantastic!

Product Review: SealSaver Vacuum Sealer

The folks over at SealSaver sent me a set of their SealSaver vacuum canister sets to review. I like this idea! Instead of having to pull out a machine to vacuum seal stuff, the lids of these canisters have a built-in bellows that you move up and down to vacuum seal your food! No electricity used and no noise.

The containers can go in the refrigerator, freezer, and dishwasher. The tops should not be put in the microwave they say, but the containers themselves can be. And cleanup is a snap since everything can go in the dishwasher. These are easy enough for kids to use (and kind of fun for them as well). I did have an issue with one of the canisters not sealing and wrote to ask them about it. Here's what they said:

"The guys behind Invental Laboratory Inc. (Jeff and Eric) found that there were a small percentage of canisters where the seal wasn’t working properly. They’ve quickly addressed the issue by instructing the manufacturer to recalibrate the casting process, and they have also added a final step where the canister is manually tested before shipment to customers, ensuring the best possible seal. This has fixed the problem and they have not had any defective products since they implemented these extra steps in their quality control. Please remind your readers to always wash the canisters (remember, dishwasher safe!) before using every SealSaver.”

Their web site has a nice set of photos, recipes, FAQs, and more. Go over there to learn more or buy them, or you can buy them from Amazon as well. And they told me that if you're local to the Monterey and Santa Cruz stores, there are a few stores in the area carrying them.

Vacuum sealing will help you waste less food for sure. And marinating in a vacuum environment is great. When I first bought my FoodSaver, I made a great yogurt marinated chicken. But you can also keep vegetables fresh longer, crackers crisper, and so forth.

Talapia Chowder

My sister gets credit for this one, although the basis came from a cookbook I recommended to her a few years ago. I suppose you could use other white fish, including cod or haddock, but I've been buying the flash frozen packages of Talapia at Costco and that's what I used. This fed 3 of us for dinner plus 2 lunches so far. I think there's one more serving in the frig.

8 slices bacon
1 onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
4 carrots, peeled and diced
4 potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cups chicken or turkey broth
1/4 tsp dried dill
8 ounces tilapia, cut in 1/2" chunks
5 Tbs flour
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon in a Dutch oven or large heavy pan. Remove the bacon and drain on paper towels, the crumble or chop. Saute the onion in the bacon fat about 5 minutes, until soft. Add the celery and carrots and cook 5 more minutes, stirring periodically. Drain excess bacon grease off, if any.

Add potatoes, broth, and dill. Bring to a simmer, stirring now and then, cover partially, and cook half an hour or so, until the potatoes are soft.

Add the fish and cook 4-5 minutes, until done. Meanwhile, combine the flour and milk in a jar and shake. When the fish is done, slowly pour the milk and flour mix into the chowder, stirring. Keep simmering, stirring gently, until the soup thickens.

Stir in the bacon. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.

I often fix sandwiches or biscuits if I'm serving soup for dinner, but this was hearty enough to be a main course all in one for us. And it was popular for lunch the next day! An all-around winner.

Green Beans with Sesame Seeds

Tonight's recipe is from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook. I served this with a non-recipe dish, vegetarian hot dogs sliced and heated up with vegetarian baked beans, topped with cheese. Sort of a bean and bean and dog meal I guess... ;) I should probably come up with some cutesy name for it. Bean Squared Dogs? Okay, I'll just stick to cooking. Someone else can name the menus. Oh, and dessert was an old favorite, Mocha Pudding Cake. I didn't have any walnuts though so just left them out.

1 Tbs olive oil
2 tsp sesame oil
1 Tbs soy sauce
1 tsp sugar
1 pound green beans, trimmed
1/4 cup water
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp sesame seeds

Heat the oils and soy sauce and sugar in a skillet that has a lid. Add the green beans, stir to coat, cover, and cook over medium high heat for 5 minutes or so, stirring now and then.

Uncover the skillet and add the water and garlic. Stir and increase the heat a bit so you can stirfry the beans, stirring frequently. Cook until they reach the point of tenderness you like. You want the skillet to be moist enough to not burn them, yet not so moist that they don't get any browning. Add a small bit of water if necessary.

Put the cooked beans in a serving dish and sprinkle the sesame seeds on top.

Some Ideas for Using Leftover Bread and Bagels

It's easy to throw stuff away when it's gone stale but it's amazing how much food the average household in America throws away every year. Would you believe over 450 pounds? That's about 14 percent of the food brought IN to the house. And doesn't count the food that goes down the garbage disposal or into the compost pile.

Wow.

I just posted a recipe for bread pudding that's a good way to use up some slightly stale bread. But here are a few other ideas you might want to use.

First, of course, if you have room in your freezer, slice the bagels in half and just freeze them for later. Same for bread: wrap it up and freeze it. My aunt, who lived alone the last decade or so of her life, always kept a couple of different kinds of sliced bread in her freezer so she could have some variety without wasting anything.

Make creative sandwiches. Leftover bagels can be used for tuna melts, a thicker version of French toast, and other sandwiches.

Make your own bagel chips. Slice your leftover bagels as thinly as possible, butter them or brush some olive oil on them, then bake on a cookie sheet at 325 until crisp.

Make your own croutons. With bread or bagels, cut into cubes, toss with some melted butter or olive oil and herbs, and bake until crispy.

Make your own bread crumbs. If you have a food processor, tear your bread or bagels into chunks and process until you have fine crumbs. Bake in a warm oven until dried out a bit. You can make them plain or seasoned. These will keep on the shelf for a while or even longer in the freezer. Use them to bread things for frying or to top a vegetable gratin of make a dessert like Apple Brown Betty.

Bread Pudding

This would be best with slightly stale substantial bread I think, but it came out great with some not stale whole grain white bread too. If you like rice pudding, you'll probably like this. It's the same basic custard cooked with bread instead of rice. Some folks remove the crusts on the bread for stuff like that. I take it as an opportunity to turn the ends of the bread, which are often not the favorites for sandwiches, into something everyone will happily eat.

3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
6 slices bread, buttered on one side

Preheat oven to 350. Put a kettle of water on to boil.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, and salt.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk until scalded (just below the boiling point). You'll see bubbles forming around the edge. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly pour the egg mixture in, whisking all the while. Stir in the vanilla and raisins.

Place the bread, buttered side up, in a 9x9 pan, just fitting in a few layers as evenly as possible. Pour the milk and egg mixture over the bread.

Fill a 9x13 pan (or something else that will hold your 9x9 pan) half full with boiling water. It's easier to slide your oven rack out, put the larger pan on the rack, put the pan with the bread pudding in it in the larger pan, then pour the boiling water in the outer pan so that it comes up to the halfway point of the smaller pan. Slide your rack carefully back into your oven. Close the door and bake for 30 minutes or so, until the custard is set.

Here's a Quick Way to Save Money on Your Food Bill

Running into a month where money's totally tight and you need to do something drastic to avoid spending money? Here are some quick tips.

Make an inventory of what you have on hand

Look in your pantry. Look in your refrigerator. Look in your freezer.

Make a list of every meal you can make based solely on what you've already got in your house.

How many meals can you come up with? Will you have leftovers from one dinner enough to provide lunch the next day?

• Can you bake bread or muffins with what you've?
  
• If you've got a bit of plain yogurt and some milk (even dried), you can make yogurt.
  
• Most anyone can make a good soup from from leftovers or whatever you have around.
  
• Little bits of meat and vegetables can become calzones
• If you've tortillas, make quesadillas (or make your own tortillas)
  
• Leftover chicken can become chicken pot pie
• Leftover meat of any kind (or just veggies) can become fried rice

You get the idea. And in the future, these ideas might provide some incentive to save those bits of leftovers rather than throwing them away.

Okay, how many meals did you come up with without having to buy one single thing?

What can you make by buying just one more thing?

Get creative. If you just had X, you could make Y. Scour your old cookbooks. Look in the more "complete" ones that often have great ideas for using up stuff. Search the web with phrases like "leftover chicken recipes" or go to a site like Cooking By Numbers and list what you've got. They'll give you some great ideas. Other good are Expendible Edibles, Hillbilly Housewife, plus this site of Ramen Recipes. Student Cooking in the UK is another good source.

Shop the loss leaders

By now you probably have nearly a week's worth of menus. Pull out your grocery ads. Or go online to the SundaySaver. If you're not vegetarian, use my Cost Per Serving Calculator to see which cuts of beef, chicken, pork, or fish really gives you the best buy for your money. Plug in the sale price and compare the cost per serving. Then think how you can stretch that even further by lessening the amount of meat you use for a serving. Stretch it with fried rice, soup, burritos, and casseroles.

And even if you aren't vegetarian, think about some great vegetarian meals you can make. A pound of dried beans around here is usually just over $1. Pinto beans and cornbread will fill you up cheaply. Or cook them up and refry them for chalupas. If you've got eggs, make a quiche. Broccoli and tofu with peanut sauce over rice is cheap and healthy. Many of these vegetarian recipes could become a main dish or be combined to make a complete meal.

Don't forget breakfast

Make breakfast burritos if you've got some eggs and potatoes. Leave out the meat if you don't have any.

Do you have cornmeal? Cook up some cornmeal mush the night before, put it in a loaf pan and refrigerate overnight. In the morning slice it and fry it, topping with maple syrup or brown sugar. Make your own granola. Make pancakes and serve with maple flavored syrup. Heat up some tomato soup or make grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast. Think outside the box--just don't go spend $5 on a box of sugared nothing.

I hope this was helpful. I know lots of folks are feeling the money-crunch again. I started this web site and blog when I was out of work and needed to cut back on every penny I could. Many people spend more on food than they need to so I hope I can help you cut back on this area that you can control, to some level, so you can spend the money where you need to.