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The Kitchen Recessionista

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

Tomato-Basil Quiche.

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I’m telling you – when you want some snow in the Mid-Atlantic region, just ask me to warm up a quiche in the oven.  It never fails!  Every time I add quiche to our weekly menu plan, we get snow, either in shovel-worthy amounts or dustings.  Tonight, my friends, is no different.

The holiday season is winding down, and with it my energy is also taking a nosedive.  Thank heaven I made an extra quiche a few weeks ago and put it in the freezer for just such an occasion!
So when LeeLee called to say he was about an hour away from coming home, I simply unwrapped our prepared quiche (I’d frozen it in two layers of aluminum foil and put it in a freezer bag) and put it in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes.  
When LeeLee called to say he was about 15 minutes out, I tossed together a quick salad with the usual suspects – romaine, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and black olives – and by the time he walked in the door, the house was warm and cozy, and most importantly to my mind (and hungry stomach), dinner was ready!  And it took no time at all to prepare.
We have the tiniest freezer known to humankind, so I can’t stock it as full of homemade ready-to-heat meals as I’d like, but tonight is a fine example of why it’s a great idea to have at least one or two on hand at any given time.  If we hadn’t had this quiche, I can safely say tonight may have been a takeout or pizza-delivery night.  But because we were stocked up, we were able to eat more healthily AND save money – a winning combination!  And we have plenty of quiche left over for tomorrow’s lunch, too – snow or no snow!
Stay warm, wherever you are!
:)

Black-Eyed Peas, Collard Greens, and Cornbread.

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Happy New Year!
LeeLee and I have a few traditions for how we spend Jan. 1 each year – some go back in our families for decades, and some have begun in more recent times.  First of all, we always wake up and put a “sausage”-egg casserole in the oven (I like to make it a day ahead and keep it in the fridge until breakfast time), which we eat while watching the Tournament of Roses Parade out in Pasadena.  Then, brunch done and coffee consumed, we’re fortified and ready to tackle the afternoon event: Our annual hike at Theodore Roosevelt Island!
We’ve been making this trek each New Year’s Day (and other times throughout the year, too) for seven or eight years, and now we wouldn’t dare miss it.  Some years it’s cold and drizzly, some years unseasonably warm.  Today, it was a perfect winter day – sunny, crisp, and cold.  Many other hikers had the same idea, too – we had to wait 10 minutes for a parking space to open up!  But as usual, the hike was worth the wait, and the day was so lovely that we lingered longer than usual, taking trails we usually skip just so we could spend a few more minutes in the fresh air.
Then we came home, caught up on some this-and-that around the house, and before too long it was time for the main event: Our New Year’s Day feast!
Being Southerners, there are some foods that are simply staples of the Jan. 1 meal.  So I wasted no time in getting right to work.  I heated a pot of black-eyed peas, stuffed another deep pot full of collard greens, and mixed up a batch of cornbread in the cast-iron skillet.  Half an hour before dinner was ready, I added some rice to the rice cooker, and five minutes before dinnertime, I heated up some Tofurky Andouille sausage in a pan – which was, by the way, amazing (we’d never tried it before!).
As far as serving goes, LeeLee and I go about our plates a bit differently.  I like to stack every component one on top of the other – first rice, then collards, then black-eyed peas, and finally the sausage on the side – while LeeLee likes to keep each part of the meal separated.  Different strokes, I suppose. :)
Both of us applied a liberal amount of Cajun seasoning and hot sauce, however, with a little pat of butter to complete the scene.  Some things you just can’t live without!
Paired with a viewing of the Rose Bowl, our first dinner of 2014 was indeed complete.  I can’t think of a better tradition! 
In related news, I had a post all written up and ready to go for yesterday’s New Year’s Eve feast – but in the hustle and bustle of entertaining our dinner guests, I neglected to post it!  So look for it below. :)
Here’s to a great year!
:)

New Year’s Eve Pizza.

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Well, if it isn’t the last day of the calendar year!

First of all, may I just ask where the time went this year?  It seems like moments ago we were off celebrating the dawn of 2013, and now it’s … dusk.  Or should I say dawn – the dawn of a new year!
Or something like that.  The whole space-time continuum thing can get me a bit turned-around from time to time.  Suffice it to say, the year flew by, as did the one before it, and so on.  In fact, the years seem to be flying by faster and faster as I get (gulp) older.  How does that work?
Ahem.  Let’s talk about something much more concrete, shall we?  Dinner!
Our friends Denise and Matt joined us for pizza tonight, and I knew I wanted to be able to entertain them during our feast rather than being stuck in the kitchen throughout the evening.  So I got started a day early!
Last night, I put together a ball of pizza dough – my trusty KitchenAid makes it a snap – and let the dough rest in the fridge all night and throughout the day today. Then, just before our friends arrived, I brought it out of the fridge and shaped it into the mold of my pizza pan.  After 12 minutes in the oven at 450 just to firm up the crust, I brought it back out, topped it with pizza sauce, mozzarella shreds, and chopped veggie burgers and sliced black olives, and put it back into the oven for another 12 minutes (again at 450).  As the pizza cooked, I whipped up a quick salad – just romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, olives, and garbanzo beans – and before we knew it, our martinis were consumed and the pizza was ready!
And so begins the last few hours of 2013.  I’ll be sure to regale you with any good stories to emerge from the rest of tonight!  And in the meantime, happy new year!  Here’s to a wonderful 2014!
:) 

Taco Night!

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From taco soup last night to “beef” tacos tonight, I suppose we’ve got Mexican cuisine on the brain this week!  Looking back, it’s a shame we didn’t serve margaritas with our dinner tonight, but then we didn’t need those calories anyway in this high-octane holiday season!
We arrived home from work (and a volunteer stint at the animal shelter) around 6:45, and by 7:20 dinner was on the table.  I put a pot of yellow rice in the rice cooker and set to work chopping a tomato and washing some romaine lettuce (and opening a can of sliced black olives – hee).  As the rice began to soften, I began to heat up some Morningstar Farms “beef” crumbles in a pan (seasoned with some adobo powder) and warmed four hard taco shells in the oven.  The rice cooker clicked off a couple of minutes before the oven timer dinged – perfect timing!  And with that, dinner was ready.
As usual, it was a fantastic, filling meal, and I regret to inform you that we’ve got no leftovers!  We came to the table hungry tonight, it seems, and the tacos fit the bill just beautifully.  Not a bad way to begin ringing out 2013!  Next up: Ringing in 2014.  More to come on that just as soon as it happens!
:)

Taco Soup.

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First of all, let’s recount the festivities of the last week!  I hope y’all had a wonderful holiday!  We surely did – we spent it here at home with my parents, who were visiting from Florida.  (Bless them for making the 16-hour car drive each way; we’d travelled for the last two Christmases and they decided to give us a reprieve for this one!)
They came bearing all sorts of goodies – from the fixins for pumpkin pie to an array of nutcrackers and Santas that Mother doesn’t have room for, from treats for the cat to a fruitcake from my very favorite bakery, The Bread Wagon in Thomasville, Georgia.  And most of all, they brought themselves, two wonderful people with whom I’m very close, two people who make me laugh and make me think and generally make me a better person.  It was a wonderful Christmas week, and I hated to see it end.  I apologize for not checking in throughout the festivities, but there never seemed to be enough time!
Now, usually on Sundays, we fire up the smoker (or in the warmer months, the grill).  But today was a rainy, messy day, and so I decided on taco soup in the good old Crock-Pot instead.  As usual, it didn’t disappoint!  It remains one of our very favorite dinners, and it was perfect on a cool, clammy night.
Also as usual, we have plenty of soup left over for weekday lunches – a perfect antidote to the feelings of post-holiday malaise we’re both suffering from at the moment!  What is it about Christmas that always leaves us feeling strangely lonesome afterward?  “It’s like the National Championship game,” my father lamented as we cruised to a national park on Thursday in pursuit of more park passport stamps.  “You wait and you wait and you wait, and it’s over in three and a half hours.”
At any rate, I know we’ll be able to count on the taco soup to get us through the week (if not the upcoming BCS title game).  It warmed our hearts and our stomachs tonight, and that’s a grand start indeed!
:)

Black Beans and Rice.

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We haven’t seen much of Old Faithful in awhile, so this week, as LeeLee and I submit to the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I knew I had to pay a visit to our dear friend, good old black beans and rice!  I can’t think of a meal that’s as tasty, as quick-cooking, and as filling, and I’m always so thrilled with the result.  And heaven knows I needed a thrill today!
This has been a hard week.  A week ago today, one of our friends unexpectedly passed away, and yesterday was her funeral.  By the time dinner rolled around last night, I wasn’t really in the spirit (though we did have some pizzadillas with salad in the end), and as a result I elected to postpone a lot of what I was “supposed” to be doing yesterday because my heart just wasn’t in it.
Life’s funny, you know?  Yesterday morning on a walk around the neighborhood I was thinking of our friend and what a wonderful life she’d lived, and as I walked, it occurred to me once more that life is to be savored – not endured, not checked off task by task in a great big to-do list, but to be savored, to be enjoyed, to be relished with gusto.  Our friend Vola did that and then some – and she changed this city we live in, too, and its residents, and what a legacy that is.
So last night, when I was confronted with what I was “supposed” to be doing, all of the holiday preparations and putting-togethers and baking and shopping and doing, I realized that none of it was something I would savor last night, after a day of saying goodbye to a friend and pondering the secrets to a life well lived.  So we came home, sat in front of the Christmas tree, and just … relaxed.  Read.  Talked.  Petted the cat (much to her chagrin).   I knew full well that there would come a time soon when I would love to bake something for my colleagues, my friends, Mr. Thomas the bus driver.  But last night was not that night, and there was just no sense in forcing us to do something we didn’t want to do, didn’t have the heart for. 
Tonight, today, was better.  Black beans and rice – Old Faithful – got to the table with nary a hiccup.  I whipped up some butterscotch candies after dinner – partially to satisfy my sweet tooth (I’m just like my grandmother in that regard; I have to have a sweet treat after dinner!) and partially to hand out to all of the aforementioned interested parties tomorrow.  Laundry got in the washer.  And soon I will wrap gifts, and I will love it, because I always do.  I’ll savor it all – the mundane and the extraordinary alike.  Life’s full of both.

Spaghetti and (Vegetarian) Meatballs.

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Happy birthday, LeeLee!
We’ve been celebrating for the last few days, juggling three (!) holiday parties and one (!) Heisman ceremony (on TV, not in person, but the result was well worth it), but today is LeeLee’s actual birthday, and he specifically requested spaghetti and vegetarian meatballs to headline our dinner menu.  Flattery will get you everywhere in this life, so naturally I added his request to our weekly menu plan.
I pulled out a jar of homemade spaghetti sauce – canned this summer, you may recall – and began to heat it up while I cooked the spaghetti and formed some slices of Lightlife vegetarian beef (the kind from the tube) into meatballs.  I coated a large skillet with a little bit of oil, turned the heat to Medium, and placed the meatballs in, turning them every couple of minutes so they could brown evenly on all sides.
By the time the pasta was cooked and drained, the meatballs were ready and the tomato sauce was smelling just great.  So on our plates it all went, one layer after another!  Paired with some garlic bread and a glass of wine, it was a great celebratory meal for a most celebratory guy.
In a few minutes, we’ll have dessert – a pannetone one of my friends gave me in a Secret Santa exchange.  We’ve been saving it for this occasion all weekend – a perfect end to a great birthday!
:)

Pizza Soup.

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Whew – what a busy weekend, indeed!  We did a lot of eating at home, but between football (my beloved Seminoles are going to the national championship game!) and Christmas parades, I had no time to blog!  To be truthful, this week promises to be just as busy, but that’s all right.  On weeknights, I can carve out a bit of time, no matter the hectic schedule.
LeeLee had an evening meeting tonight, so I knew time would be running short to get dinner on the table.  My trusty Crock-Pot came to the recipe, as always, this time with a batch of pizza soup. 
I first wrote about pizza soup – a recipe I pulled from Stephanie over at A Year of Slow-Cooking – a couple of years ago, and since then our love affair with this meal has only deepened with time.  I’m not sure what it is about it – its tomatoey tang, its addition of pasta, reminiscent of minestrone, its hearty sausage and pepperoni and mushrooms throughout – but pizza soup is always a welcome guest at our dinner table.  And on a night like tonight, when one layer of snow and ice is melting off and another batch is on its way before dawn tomorrow, I couldn’t ask for a more piping-hot dish to stick to our ribs.
And in true Recessionista fashion, this recipe makes a Crock-Pot full – giving us plenty of servings of leftovers to carry us through the rest of the week!  Now that’s what I call a pizza party.
:)

Moroccan Chik’n Stew.

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Last night was positively balmy – a far cry from the wintry weather I was expecting when I added this stew to the weekly menu plan!  But the aromas emanating from the kitchen, the blend of wonderful spices mingled with tomatoes and onions, more than made up for the weather-and-cuisine disconnect.
This Moroccan chik’n stew is one I’ve made since the early 2000s!  It was a challenge when I was first trying to improve my cooking skills – primarily because I insisted on following every part of the recipe to the letter, which is not always the path to success – but over the years it has gotten easier and easier.  Last night, for instance, it took me about 10 minutes to prepare everything before the stew simmered for another 35.  Not a bad return on my investment!
The recipe goes like so: Drizzle a large pot (I like to use my Le Creuset French oven) with olive oil and turn the heat to Medium.  Add your vegetarian chik’n (we used Quorn cubes for this one) and let it begin to soften.  In a couple of minutes, add a diced onion to the pot and cook for five more minutes, until it becomes translucent.
Then, add a teaspoon each of salt, cinnamon, crushed red pepper, ginger, curry powder, and cumin, and stir around for half a minute or so until it becomes fragrant.  Finally, add two cans of stewed tomatoes, a cup (or more) of baby carrots, and three-quarters of a cup of raisins.  Bring to a boil.  The stew is going to look dry at first, but take heart; the liquid will continue to increase as you cook!
Stir everything around well to blend, and then put a lid on your pot and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Wait 35 to 45 minutes, and ladle it into your snowman bowls!
:)

Spaghettini With Arugula, Soy Bacon, and Egg.

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This is a meal I’ve made only once before, and after whipping it together in 30 minutes flat tonight, I wondered why I haven’t made it more often!  When I first wrote about it in January, I remarked that we quickly deemed it fit for company.  So why haven’t we made it for company – or at the very least ourselves – in the nearly 12 months that have followed?
Well, I have no good excuse.  But I won’t let such a delay occur again!
Tonight, as I surveyed my weekly menu plan, I had a decision to make – make a quickly assembled but slower-cooking stew, or make a meal that requires a bit more hands-on help but that could be brought to the table within half an hour.  The latter won out, and before I knew it my spaghettini was boiling nicely and the soy bacon was cooking in the bottom of the Le Creuset!  Once the bacon was done, I removed it from the heat, added a minced shallot, parsley, and chives, and then tossed everything with the drained pasta, adding the arugula fistful by fistful until the ingredients were nicely combined.
After I brought the pasta to the table, I put two eggs on to fry, and within three minutes, they were ready to top our plates, sitting comfortably atop the spaghettini and then topped with some grated Parmesan.
The end result was as divine as I remembered it from last January!  Man, oh, man.  The creaminess of the egg blended beautifully with the bite of the arugula and the slightly sharp shallot, and the herbs (plus some red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper) really brought with them a burst of flavors.  Served with a glass of wine (red for LeeLee, white for me tonight), it made quite a delicacy indeed!
:)