Sign Up for the Weekly Catch-Up!

The best of the blog, in your inbox.

The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Lemon-Basil Pasta.

by

lemon-basil-pasta-2

Now, if this meal doesn’t bring spring right to your doorstep, I don’t know what will!

Lemon-basil pasta has been a favorite dish of LeeLee’s and mine for more than a decade now. Once, in a galaxy far far away, TGI Fridays actually served a dish very similar to this on their summertime menu, and we both fell completely in love with it back when we lived in Tallahassee. Then, just like that, it was gone, leaving us both bereft.

So imagine our delight when, a few years back, LeeLee perfected a recipe very much like our old restaurant favorite! Some olive oil, some vinegar (sometimes we use champagne vinegar, sometimes white balsamic, sometimes regular old balsamic), some salt and pepper, halved cherry tomatoes, minced basil, diced cheese (tonight we used Parrano), and, of course, plenty of lemon juice always blend together just perfectly and meld with the penne pasta with aplomb. It’s one of the quickest, easiest, and prettiest meals we make!

And it’s easy on the taste buds, as well. LeeLee and I each mowed down two helpings (and he went back for a third – but don’t tell him I told you!). And there’s still plenty left for our lunches tomorrow. We can eat in style, right at our desks!

:)

Crock-Pot Monday: Vegetarian BBQ Chik’n and Cornbread Casserole.

by

bbq-chikn-cornbread-casserole

Here’s an oldie but a goodie, a perennial favorite meal around Chez Recessionista but yet one we haven’t enjoyed in quite some time! Vegetarian BBQ chik’n and cornbread casserole always gets you where you need to go, and in record time, too.

Now, first, a full admission. I woke up this morning and was simply in No Mood to put together something for the Crock-Pot. “It’ll take too long,” I whined to the cat, who was lying next to me in the bed, too tired to even open an eye as I spoke. “I’m too tired. I just want to sleeeeep.”

Last night, you see, a dear friend of ours was visiting from France, and we had a wonderful evening of catching-up and visiting. We were out late, and then had to settle back down for a good long time before going to bed after the fact (I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time coming home from a fun night out and then immediately going to sleep!). So by the time I went to bed, it was after midnight, which made the 6:05 a.m. alarm come mighty early this morning. And the same goes for the 7 a.m. alarm, which I set after determining that the 6:05 alarm was a bunch of garbage.

My feelings had not warmed post-shower, but I decided to give the Crock-Pot the old college try anyway and reluctantly prepared tonight’s meal. And lo and behold, the prep work took all of 10 minutes! Ten minutes, and I had a wonderful dish for dinner tonight. You can’t ask for more than that!

As ever, I used this recipe I found over at $5 Dinners about a hundred years ago, and it’s never let me down. I use only one box of the corn muffin mix for the topper and have never had a problem with it – it’s always plenty of cornbread to go with our barbecue chik’n! (On the flip side, sometimes I’ve used two boxes’ worth, and the middle turned out undercooked, even 10 hours after the fact! So use your best judgment.)

Anyway, all it takes is a mix of chik’n strips, barbecue sauce, frozen corn, and diced sweet potato, topped with the corn muffin mix (mixed up, of course, not just dry!). Flip the slow cooker to Low, then move on with your life for the workday!

By the time I got home, the house was filled with the aroma of barbecue, and all I had to do was toss a quick salad before we were ready to eat! The cornbread topping was perfectly cooked – slightly brown around the sides of the crock and golden in the middle – and the underlying chik’n mixture was thick, sweet, and incredibly flavorful. The sweet potato was soft to the touch of the fork, and the corn was perfectly crisp. What a wonderful flavor combination, indeed!

We mowed down a couple of servings apiece – plus a lot of salad, I’m not gonna lie – and were very pleased to know that we have plenty of leftovers for lunch this week. And looking back to this morning, I’m very, very glad I talked myself into getting up to add everything to the Crock-Pot despite my initial laziness. It was worth it in the end!

:)

Vegan Fish Filets With Roasted Asparagus and Couscous.

by

vegan-fish-filets-asparagus

For asparagus lovers, this is the most exciting time of the year. The stalks are as thin as toothpicks and as flavorful as all get-out, and they’re SO incredibly susceptible to any spices you add before cooking. So even though asparagus wasn’t on my menu plan when I plundered through the farmer’s market on Saturday, I just had to put a healthy bunch of the good stuff into my shopping bag. When it comes to fresh springtime asparagus, my general rule is: Buy first, figure it out later.

Shortly afterward, the idea hit me. I knew I had a bag of Gardein vegan fish filets in the freezer just waiting to be used. And what goes better with fish – or “fish” – but asparagus? A pot of couscous rounded out the trio and provided a bit of a base for the rest of the dish.

The other positive thing about this particular pairing is that it takes very little work to pull off – a benefit indeed after a long day of work and then an hourlong volunteer shift at the animal shelter! I confess I was in No Mood for anything complicated by the time I got home, and this menu fit the bill on that as well. The hardest part was snapping the tips off the asparagus stalks!

The fish filets baked for about half an hour, and I added a pan of asparagus (lightly coated with cooking spray and topped with a generous helping of chipotle seasoning) to the oven in the last 15-or-so minutes. Shortly after that, I brought my couscous to a boil and let it sit, firming up, until the rest of the meal was ready!

When there were just a few minutes left in the baking time, I put together another batch of my new favorite Old Bay-oli, which you might remember from a week or so ago. This time I went even heavier on the Old Bay, and I must say the aioli was none the worse for wear!

Then it was time to eat. And I must confess to you that we were both hungry after our day’s adventures! There is not a shred of fish, nor asparagus, nor couscous left for leftovers. But we didn’t care. The food was so good, we couldn’t stop ourselves. And I must say that after years and years with no decent vegetarian fish options, we’re still gorging a bit on the good stuff!

I know that soon the asparagus will thicken up and become woody, and then the season will come to an end. So we’re enjoying it while we’ve got it, any way we can!

:)

Crock-Pot Tuesday: Vegan Hoppin’ John.

by

vegan-hoppin-john

A day late, here comes this week’s Crock-Pot creation! Tonight, I pulled a favorite page out of my personal dinnertime playbook and put a batch of vegan hoppin’ John to excellent use.

I’ve used this recipe from over at A Year of Slow-Cooking for ages now, and it’s never disappointed! (Obviously, instead of using regular sausage I always use a veg version – tonight’s choice was Tofurky Italian sausage links!) Simply put all of the ingredients – sausage, black-eyed peas, Rotel (or its generic knockoff, as we use), collard greens, salt and pepper, instant rice, and veggie broth – together in a slow cooker, stir it up as best you can, and click it to Low for the better part of the day! (I’ve cooked our hoppin’ John on High for as little as five hours and on Low for as many as 12 with no ill effects!) By the time you get home from work or from a day otherwise carrying on with the business of life, dinner’s ready and waiting. Oh, how I love that about the slow cooker!

Now, A Year of Slow-Cooking blogger Stephanie O’Dea’s recipe calls for you to soak the peas overnight in a container of water, and I must admit I’ve always followed suit. But after yesterday’s little situation, wherein I woke up in the morning only to realize I’d neglected to soak the peas and thus punted the meal to today, I decided to wage a little experiment. What if I didn’t soak the peas first? I often don’t when I’m cooking them on the stovetop. Wouldn’t 10 hours in the Crock-Pot tenderize them up nicely regardless?

So in the dried peas went along with everything else, and I went to the office with crossed fingers, hoping for a successful (and edible) result by the time I got back.

Wonderful news! The black-eyed peas were perfectly soft when I arrived home, hungry for dinner, and the rest of the meal wasn’t any worse for wear as a result. It may have been a touch less “soupy” than it sometimes is, but we didn’t mind that one bit! All of the flavors mingled perfectly and the peas were as perfect as they’d have been if I’d soaked them all night. Hooray for efficiency!

It probably goes without saying that LeeLee and I are both crazy for Cajun and Southern meals, and this hoppin’ John was no exception. We enjoyed two helpings and are only too thrilled to know that we’ve got plenty more for lunch the next few days! I love a recipe that feeds an army – or a couple for a week.

:)

Vegan Taco Salad.

by

vegan-taco-salad

Now, I know this is supposed to be a Crock-Pot Monday, but I had a bit of a technical difficulty with regard to some dried black-eyed peas, so this week’s slow-cooker creation will have to debut tomorrow instead. In its place, I present you with one of our favorite meals: Vegan taco salad!

Taco salad makes the rounds fairly frequently around here, and it’s a cinch to put together – perfect for nights like this, when I’m off to tai chi class in short order. I heated up two taco bowls in the oven and then warmed up a can of beans and a package of ground “beef” (in two separate pans, of course!) on the stovetop. I added some adobo seasoning to the beef to give it a little extra pop and kept a close watch on the beans, which are prone to burning on the bottom if you’re not careful.

When the taco shells were ready, so were the beans and beef, and I rolled up my sleeves to start the assembly line. In the bottom of each shell I placed a hearty helping of beans, then a layer of beef, then several handfuls apiece of lettuce, then several cherry tomatoes, and finally topped everything off with a dollop of vegan sour cream and a handful of Daiya pepperjack shreds. Served with a little salsa on the side (and, as is customary for me, a nice helping of nutritional yeast on top of everything!), it was a feast!

We popped out our TV trays – as has become Monday’s tradition – and ate our fill while catching up on the news and an episode of “The Golden Girls.” (It’s a guilty pleasure. Don’t judge!) And now I’m certainly fueled-up for tonight’s tai chi! And LeeLee is fueled-up for a night with the cat. Not a bad way to spend some energy!

:)

On Couponing.

by

coupons

Every year or so, I go through a phase. I examine our expenses long and hard and decide that our grocery budget – whatever it might be at that precise moment – has got to be cut. There are so many ways to do more with less, I tell myself (and LeeLee). Surely we can do better than $X.XX a week.

And with that, I turn back to coupons. For a while – quite honestly, for the last couple of cycles of this phase – I became a couponer possessed, clipping out deals for items I don’t even use and then trying to figure out a way to integrate them into our pantry. Some might call this putting the cart before the horse. Or perhaps shooting first and asking questions later. However you want to phrase it, just know that I haven’t always been a responsible coupon user, getting swept up in the excitement of a “good deal” only to get it home and realize that, since we don’t eat Fill-In-The-Blank with any regularity at all, my purchases actually weren’t good deals after all.

This time around, however, I think I’ve finally seen the light. This time, my horse is sitting in the stable and I’m about to hook the cart up. (And no, I’m not going to take the shooting analogy above to its logical conclusion!) I’ve realized – three years after starting these little occasional experiments – that what I really ought to do is simply clip coupons for the items I actually use. I know. I KNOW. What a novel concept, right?

And so it came to pass that today I added a few select coupons from the Sunday circulars to my slowly growing new collection, and then I matched them up – in all of five minutes; this did not take hours, people – with the deals at Safeway and Harris Teeter and determined that the Harris Teeter deals were just a bit better for my needs today. (Among other sales, they had buy-one-get-one on Tostitos chips as well as salsa, and it just so happened that I had a coupon for the chips, making them even cheaper!)

Once I’d partaken of the BOGO sales and matched a few coupons up to reduce prices even further, I’d lopped $40 off of my final bill. Forty dollars! Now, I know some of these savings are from baked-in “deals” – that is, using the club card to give an inflated sense of savings – but even in a more cynical view, I saved at least $30 with all the BOGOs I enjoyed today (including some items I didn’t have coupons for, such as coffee). And that’s not too shabby in the final analysis.

I used just a hair over half a dozen coupons in my transaction today, which was eminently sensible and restrained. And I was thrilled to learn that Harris Teeter doubles coupons up to 99 cents, meaning I can double my savings in many cases! That’s not a bad way to sweeten the pot, that’s for sure.

So for the moment, consider me back in the couponing game. But this time around I’m a kinder, gentler version of my former couponing self – a Compassionate Couponer, if you will. And I will.

I’ll report back as the weeks go by and let you know how the savings are coming along!

:)

Vegan Halushki.

by

vegan-halushki

Well, if it isn’t sweet halushki!

We haven’t had this meal in quite awhile – much too long, if you listen to LeeLee. So tonight we made up for lost time and enjoyed a big old batch of the good stuff, from macaroni to shredded cabbage to mushrooms to diced onions, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. And well after we’d enjoyed our fill, there was plenty – and I mean plenty! ­– to keep for leftovers.

I stumbled across my first halushki recipe years ago over at The Urban Vegan, and over time I’ve played around with the flavors somewhat, adding this or subtracting that. But when the chickens come home to roost (as it were), I always go back to The Urban Vegan’s original. The flavors are on point, and the dish is sublime in its simplicity. (There is one difference, however: I do often top my version with a hearty helping of nutritional yeast at the table, though tonight I was out. Sad face.)

As I said, the dish is simple, but wonderful. It’s amazing how just a few ingredients can meld and sing so loudly and beautifully when they come together! This meal is light-tasting – that is, not especially “saucy” – but incredibly hearty, and quite filling without leaving you to waddle from the table in exhaustion. It’s one that we bring out for more special occasions (New Year’s Eve, often) and also one that we enjoy any old night (like tonight). Although I suppose that tonight is a special occasion, when you get right down to it! It’s the only May 6, 2015 we’ll ever have.

I’m looking forward to the leftovers already! Once we get past the quesadillas, that is.

:)