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One-person cooking for people who hate leftovers

Broke Foodie — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 14:24:00 GMT

I’m not one of those people, as you’ve probably noticed. But many are. For those of you out there who need variety on a daily basis, here’s a way to do it: I call it batch processing.

Essentially you’re preparing a set of base ingredients, that can be used in a number of different recipes throughout the week. You can do this all at once, say on Sunday, or you can do it one ingredient at a time. As that one is used up, you start another. For example:

One roast chicken: the chicken itself, chicken salad, chicken fajitas, any number of soups, pasta with chicken, salad with chicken.

Black beans: chili, soups, enchiladas, black bean dip.

Red beans: pasta fagioli, red beans and rice, chili, soups.

White beans: chili, soups, minestrone, pasta fagioli.

Flank steak: steak, fajitas, steak salad, beef stew, steak sandwiches.

And so on. Most of the soups I make are vats, designed to feed two people for at least two or three meals. But you can make soup in one-serving batches, too. You can also make large batches and freeze the remainder for those nights you don’t feel like cooking—does freezing count as leftovers?

Here’s another way to look at it, using the contents of my own refrigerator/pantry as an example, putting together only one serving at a time; these are all the possible combinations, yielding much more than a week’s worth of options.

Omelet (using cheese, canned crab, bacon, lunch meat, any number of fresh or dried herbs, spinach or fresh greens) or a one-ramekin baked egg dish such as baked eggs with leeks. You can also poach single eggs in a serving of soup for a quick hit of protein.

Salad (incorporating standard items like croutons, nuts, carrots, meats, cheese, olives, etc., using balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dressing)

Grain salads (using quinoa or barley for the base, then incorporating other vegetables, edamame, cheeses, olives, and oils)

Risotto (can be as plain as cheese risotto; you can incorporate any vegetable—spinach, winter greens, beets, asparagus, mushroom, peas and tomatoes are just a few examples)

Pasta (spaghetti, linguine, penne, etc., with any number of sauces—tomato, meat, pesto, puttanesca, al fredo, etc.) Even for leftover-haters, you can make different spaghetti sauces in batches and freeze them in one-servings amounts.

Pizza (your imagination is the limit) Make personal size pan pizza using pretty much anything. Cheese, tomato sauce, whatever veggies or meat you have on hand. White pizzas, barbecue chicken pizzas, Thai curry pizzas…one batch of pizza dough will make several small pizzas. You can make several different kinds of pizza at once, eating one for each lunch during the week (for example).

Potatoes and sweet potatoes (baked potatoes, fried potatoes, fries, filler for soups, potato soup, mashed potatoes, scalloped potatoes)

A baguette (toast, garlic bread, French bread pizza, French toast, sandwich bread)

Let’s say you start your week on Sunday with one whole roast chicken, half a bag of dried white beans, two boxes of frozen spinach, a bag of salad greens, some tortillas, a jar of salsa, some cheese, a bag of spaghetti, a bag of potatoes (regular or sweet potatoes), a bag of carrots, three onions, and a dozen eggs, in addition to standard pantry items like spices and flour. From that you can produce this:

On Sunday, do this: roast the chicken. Soak the white beans for at least 8 hours, then cook on low (or in a Crockpot) overnight. In the morning, put them in a Tupperware container in the fridge. Place the spinach in the fridge to thaw. Slice and cook the onions until very soft or until caramelized, then place in Tupperware in the fridge. After the chicken is done and cool enough to handle, pull off all the meat and place in Tupperware in the fridge. Add the carcass to a big soup pot, fill with water, add some salt, and cook on low overnight to produce chicken broth. In the morning, strain out the carcass and add the broth in Tupperware in the fridge.

Sunday night: roast chicken and green salad with a baked potato

Monday breakfast: breakfast burrito with egg, cheese, spinach and salsa
Monday lunch: Chicken and white bean enchiladas
Monday dinner: BBQ chicken pizza (on one half) and cheese and spinach pizza (on one half). Eat the BBQ chicken half.

Tuesday breakfast: baked eggs with onions
Tuesday lunch: cheese and spinach pizza half
Tuesday dinner: spaghetti with cheese sauce or tomato sauce with salad

Wednesday breakfast: chicken and potato hash (maybe with a fried egg on top) with salsa
Wednesday lunch: white bean puree with spinach
Wednesday dinner: scalloped potatoes with spinach, glazed carrots

Thursday breakfast: cheese and egg omelet
Thursday lunch: baked potato with salad
Thursday dinner: chicken noodle soup with white beans, spinach, carrots, onions, and spaghetti (broken into pieces)

Friday breakfast: scrambled eggs
Friday lunch: potato soup with garlic
Friday dinner: white bean and chicken chili with spinach

Saturday breakfast: pancakes with hash browns
Saturday lunch: carrot salad with spinach soufflé
Saturday dinner: pasta fagioli with the remaining beans, spinach and carrots

Of course, there are a billion other possible dishes. Chicken salad, chicken tettrazini, frittatas, fajitas, other kinds of pizza. You could use some of the onions to make a batch of caramelized onion-jalapeno waffles, then serve those with the leftover chicken and some BBQ sauce, for an upscale version of chicken n' waffles. The more you have in your pantry, the more you can vary what comes out of it.

Chickpea soup

Broke Foodie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:49:00 GMT

Because we're saving for a wedding, this month I'll be shopping from the pantry. I won't buy any groceries at all, all month long. Between the fully stocked pantry and the box of fresh fruits and vegetables I get every two weeks, this isn't nearly as much of a challenge as it sounds. It's good to use that stuff in the back of the freezer sometimes.

In keeping with the Pantry Challenge, last night I made chickpea soup. I used dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and then cooked in the Crockpot for a while before being added to the soup. Despite being cooked twice, they were wonderfully firm and flavorful, not slimy and mushy like canned chickpeas. Nevertheless, you can use canned in this.

Saute one chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil until soft. Add 3 cans (or the equivalent) of chickpeas, 1 can of tomatoes, 3 cups or so of chicken or vegetable broth, and seasonings. I used fresh rosemary, salt and pepper, smoked paprika, and a little cumin. Let this simmer down on low, covered, for about 30 minutes. Puree part with your stick blender (or remove about half, puree in a food processor, and return to the soup). Serve with more salt and a little fresh parmesan.

Cost: using dried chickpeas purchased in bulk, 3 cans' worth was about...45 cents? Another 50 cents for the can of tomatoes and maybe another 15 cents for the onion. The broth was homemade. Total cost: a little over $1, for 4-6 adult servings, at around 20 cents each. When your soup costs twenty cents, you can afford to drink the good wine with it.

Wine from my collection: Eden Vale 2003 Claret

Broke Foodie — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:05:00 GMT

I use the term "collection" loosely, as it is really just "several boxes of whatever was on sale." I have about a case left from the various wines I bought on last summer's road trip, plus another four or five cases of assorted miscellaneous, thanks to BevMo's buy 1, get 1 for 5 cents sale. Woo hoo!

Anyway. Last night I decided to pull something from the road trip case, and thought I would start sharing what I'm drinking with all of you. First up: Eden Vale 2003 Claret, purchased at a wine shop in Ashland, Oregon last July. It's 67% Merlot, 18% Cab Franc, 11% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 4% Malbec, and retails for $29. (Okay, not the cheapest wine in my collection, but what's left of the road trip wines are going to be the high-end purchases.) Very silky, very fruity, aged in new/neutral French oak. It went surprisingly well with my leftover mac and cheese (made with stinky cheese, of course!).

Chicken and sweet potato chowder

Broke Foodie — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:41:00 GMT

This turned out to be one of my favorite new recipes. This is definitely going into high rotation.

2 tablespoons butter
1 pound chicken (I used four whole bone-in thighs, but any sort of chicken, cut up or not, will do)
1 medium onion, chopped
3 medium or 5 small leeks, sliced
2-3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 bay leaves
seasonings: I used salt and pepper, Italian (combo of rosemary, parsley, sage, thyme) and smoked paprika
1 cup whole milk

Melt the butter and cook the chicken for about two minutes on each side, until lightly golden (it will definitely not be cooked all the way through, don't worry about that). Remove the chicken and saute the onion and leeks until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the sweet potatoes and cook for another three minutes. Return the chicken to the pan, and add the broth and seasonings. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat until the potatoes and chicken are cooked all the way through (10-25 minutes, depending on what kind of chicken and how many sweet potatoes).

Using a nifty stick blender, puree part of the soup (or remove about half to a food processor, puree, and stir back in). Add the milk and reseason to taste. Serve.

Cost: Sweet potatoes run about 79 cents a pound; I had three large ones, which I'll estimate at two pounds for $1.58. Estimate another $1.25 for the chicken (bought in bulk) and another $1.50 for everything else (the broth was homemade, but I also threw in about a cup of white wine to deglaze). $4.33 total, and I'll get at least 8 adult servings out of the batch, for 54 cents per serving.

Tomato soup with Israeli couscous

Broke Foodie — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:24:00 GMT

I'll admit you can't really expect culinary greatness from a Crockpot. But on a rainy day, when you don't feel like cooking, this is a great way to get a good, hot meal on the table using standard pantry ingredients.

Saute one chopped onion and a few minced cloves of garlic in a little olive oil until soft. Add that to the Crockpot, along with three cans of tomatoes, a couple of bay leaves, a couple cups of chicken or vegetable broth, and a handful of the grain or pasta of your choice. I used Israeli couscous (that's the big kind), but you could use rice, regular couscous, pasta, barley, you name it. Set on low for 6 to 8 hours or high for around 4 hours.

The couscous/pasta/rice/whatever will soak up all the liquid, so add more about halfway through the cooking process (if you like a soupy soup) or leave it alone for more of a stew. Season to taste when it's done--I added salt and pepper and fresh rosemary, parsley and oregano.

Cost: three cans of tomatoes in bulk run about 50 cents each. Add another 50 cents for the onion and the couscous. $2.00 for 4-6 adult servings.

Cheap wines from Argentina

Broke Foodie — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:51:00 GMT

When the world economy finally implodes and/or as soon as the zombie apocalypse is over, I'm moving to Argentina. It remains my most favorite of all the places I've ever visited (Warm? Check. Cheap? Check. Good food and wine? Check.), and has become my retirement dream. One day I'll drop off the grid completely, and go raise pigs on the pampas or something.

In that vein, here's a great post about the excellent wines of Argentina from the awesome folks at BrokeAss Gourmet.

How to clean, reseason and care for cast-iron skillets

Broke Foodie — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:58:00 GMT

My cast-iron skillet is one of my most useful--and most used--kitchen implements. In fact, I only ever use two skillets--my cast-iron one, and a ginormous 14-inch All-Clad Copper-Core Professional. (Breathy sigh of admiration.) My cast-iron skillet is a hand-me-down, as the best ones are, but you can find new ones very easily. In fact, it's also very easy to find one at the Salvation Army or a yard sale, since most people aren't sure what to do with them. A good cast-iron skillet, properly cared for, will last for several generations.

You know it's a good one when it's a glossy black and food just sliiiiides off it. That's the beauty of cast-iron--it's a natural nonstick non-fat surface, so you never have to worry about a) chemical Teflon residue in your food, b) using fats to cook with (unless you want to), or c) your food sticking. It can go from stove to oven and back again, and it heats very evenly and strongly, which is why you should never fry anything in a pan that ISN'T cast-iron.

The downsides of cast-iron: because it heats very evenly and strongly, it will stay hot for a long time. I've pushed it to the back of the stove before, forgotten about it, and then burned myself on it twenty minutes later. And (here's the sticking point for most people) you can never, ever, ever put it in the dishwasher. That will ruin it.

Fortunately, cleaning a cast-iron pan is a snap. If there's extra grease/residue in the bottom, wipe it out with a paper towel or cloth towel. Then wipe it down with a damp sponge. That's it. Make sure you never leave it wet--wipe it down with a dry towel, or put it back on the warm stovetop to dry. Some people will use a very small amount of dish soap while wiping it down, but the whole point of a cast-iron pan is to absorb all the grease and fat from the food you cook in it--that's what creates the nonstick coating. The grease fills in all the ridges of the pan and gradually cooks in, creating that shiny black coating. Soap will remove the grease, and if you're not careful, will make the next thing you cook taste faintly of soap. Over time, all the leftover bacon fat/butter/olive oil/whatever will bake into the pan, creating the nonstick qualities. (In fact, back in the day, many people had a cast-iron skillet they NEVER cleaned, at all. If you use it every day, you don't have to worry about the leftover fats turning rancid, and the best cornbread I've ever had was baked in a never-cleaned, bacon-fat-laden cast-iron pan.)

Occasionally, even I don't clean it properly and a rust spot will form. If you see a rust spot, or your food is sticking to the pan, it needs to be reseasoned. You can use Crisco for this (or lard, if you want to be really authentic). Simply coat the pan, inside and out, with a good quarter-inch layer of Crisco. Spread some foil inside your oven and lay the pan upside-down on top of the skillet. Set the oven to 300 and leave the pan in there for an hour. Turn the oven off after an hour, but leave the pan in there until it's cooled to room temperature. When you pull it out, it will have that primo glossy black coating. Repeat as necessary.

Fried plantains

Broke Foodie — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:19:00 GMT

I L-O-V-E love plaintains. For those of you unfamiliar with plaintains, they're those big black banana-looking things. They are in fact closely related to the banana, but need to be cooked to be edible. They manage to be sweet and savory at the same time, and can do double duty both as breakfast and as a side dish.

Fortunately, frying up a mess of plaintains is quick, simple, and super-yummy. You want the outside to be black all over and soft. If they're mostly yellow when you buy them, just let them sit out on top of your microwave for a couple of weeks until they ripen. When they're ripe, they'll peel like a banana. Cut them into slices and fry in about half olive oil and half butter, until golden-brown on both sides. Sprinkle a little sea salt on top and enjoy.

Beet and beet greens risotto

Broke Foodie — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:36:00 GMT

I've always had a troubled relationship with beets. My mother used to make me eat pickled beets as punishment, so for most of my life, I loathed beets. (For good reason--pickled beets are gross.) I veeeeeerrry sloooooooowwwwly came around to non-pickled beets. For fellow beet-haters, I recommend starting with golden beets. They're less, you know, beet-y, and they're a lovely golden color that doesn't stain nearly as much as regular beets.

Yes, beets stain. Therefore I also recommend peeling them before you roast them--unroasted beets won't stain your hands, your knife, and the rest of your kitchen bright red. (But fun fact--if you eat too many beets, you'll pee purple. There's a dye in beets that your body can't process.) There are many fun things you can do with roasted beets--add them to a salad with a little goat cheese, or mash some up with your potatoes to produce pink mashed potatoes, or turn them into a risotto, as here. I added the beet greens along with the beets, because the bitter greens help cut the beet-y sweetness of this dish. That, and the three handfuls of parmesan cheese.

Saute one chopped onion in a little olive oil, then add a cup to a cup and a half of arborio rice when the onion is soft. Let the rice toast for a minute, then deglaze with a couple cups of white wine. Keep stirring. When the wine is absorbed, start adding chicken or vegetable broth, a cup or so at a time, and let each addition mostly absorb before adding the next. About ten minutes into this process, add the chopped roasted beets (I had four small ones) and the chopped beet greens. Another ten minutes should produce soft, tender rice. Add three handfuls or so of parmesan cheese and stir in. (That's FRESH grated parmesan, not the cheese-flavored dandruff that comes in the green Kraft can. Cheese is too good to eat fake cheese.) Add a healthy dollop of freshly grated pepper and sea salt.

Cost: a bunch of beets will run maybe $1.50. Arborio rice is around $6.00 for a large box, and the good parmesan in bulk is about $12.00 a pound. The amount of rice used would be about $1.00, and maybe another $2.00 worth of cheese. The broth was homemade, and the onion (bought in a twenty-pound bag, in bulk) would be another, what, 10 cents? Around $4.50 total, and this will easily feed four adults as a main course, at $1.13 per serving.

Kale gratin

Broke Foodie — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:00:00 GMT

Unfamiliar vegetable? Cover it with cheese and breadcrumbs. Mmm...cheese.

1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup Parmesan
1 bunch kale, roughly chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup grated gruyere or Swiss
salt and pepper to taste

Boil the kale until bright green (about 1 minute) and drain. When cool enough to handle, squeeze out all the extra water and add to a mixing bowl with the cheeses. Mix loosely. Meanwhile, bring the cup of cream to a boil and then reduce to low immediately. Let reduce for a minute or two. Add the salt and pepper and garlic to this and remove from the heat. Add the kale mixture to a shallow casserole dish and pour the cream mixture over it. Distribute the breadcrumbs over the top and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.

Cost: A bunch of kale runs approximately $1.50 at the supermarket. The cream and cheese I purchased in bulk, so around $1.50 for those. $3.00 total, will serve two as a main dish or four as a side dish.

Black bean vegetable chili

Broke Foodie — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:19:00 GMT

Feel free to leave out/substitute/add in other vegetables as you see fit. This is definitely a dish that can stand up to experimentation. (It's also a dish that can happily absorb all those vegetable remnants hiding out in your refrigerator.)

1 cubed eggplant
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup olive oil
2 diced onions
2 diced zucchini
1 diced red pepper
1 diced yellow pepper
4 large chopped garlic cloves
8 cubed plum tomatoes
1 cup vegetable broth
1 cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup fresh basil
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 cups cooked black beans
1 1/2 cups corn
1/2 cup fresh dill
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 bag cooked lentils
1 can garbanzo beans
sour cream for garnish

Let eggplant sit in colander over sink, heavily salted, for one hour, to leech out the bitterness. Pat dry. Heat 1/2 the oil and saute onions, zucchini, peppers and garlic on medium-low for 10 minutes. Cook eggplant 10 minutes with rest of oil, add to the rest. Add tomatoes, broth, 1/2 the parsley and the rest of the spices to the veggies. Cook on low for 30 minutes. Add rest, cook 15 minutes. Serve.

Glazed carrots

Broke Foodie — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:06:00 GMT

I participate in a CSA (community-supported agriculture), which means I pay $177 every three months to an organic farm, and every other week I get a huge Rubbermaid bin full of organic fruits and veggies. (Which works out to $29.50 per box--not bad for a Rubbermaid bin full of organic fruits and veggies.) In the last box, for example, I got two heads of lettuce, kale, broccoli, a bunch of beets, a bunch of carrots, a bunch of leeks, 12 oranges, 4 apples, 3 boxes of strawberries, a bag of peas, and a couple other things I can't remember off the top of my head.

So, the carrots. A big bunch of lovely purple-and-yellow carrots, fresh out of the dirt. I cut off the tops (carrot greens can substitute for parsley in most dishes) and decided to make glazed carrots for dinner last night. Glazed carrots being merely a delivery system for a sugar, butter and Grand Marnier sauce, you understand. I peeled the carrots roughly (that accounts for the wonderful technicolor look to them) and started the glaze.

Melt around 3-4 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and add a couple tablespoons of sugar. Stir this around until it incorporates and starts to look vaguely syrupy. Add 1/3 cup or so of chicken broth and a healthy dollop of Grand Marnier. Add the carrots and stir occasionally, until the sauce has cooked down and started to coat the carrots.

Homemade sandwich bread your kids will actually eat

Broke Foodie — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:19:00 GMT

For years I avoided making my own bread. I had irregular success with it--sometimes it worked, sometimes I got a charred lump of something that might once have been Play-Doh. Then I discovered the no-knead bread recipe, and lo, bread-making was always a 100% success. Ever since, all my homemade breads have been of the artisanal loaf variety. I use that bread for everything--sandwiches, toast, croutons, French toast, everything. Lately I've been experimenting with adding different flavors--fresh rosemary, whole wheat flour, cracked peppercorns, etc.--to the dough.

However. Children will not eat free-form artisanal bread dusted with parmesan and fennel pollen. I have no idea why. Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I can understand some hesitation at the crust, but bread is bread, right? Apparently not. Suddenly all my bread-making efforts were for naught, when faced with a 10-year-old who proclaimed that "REAL" bread was white, flavorless, had no crust, and came from a plastic bag.

Some further investigation yielded that he would happily eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for every meal, every day. "Well," I thought, "at least PB&J is marginally nutritious." Certainly it's a lot more nutritious than the frozen processed crap he gets at his other home. But the poor kid's bloodstream is already about 87% high-fructose corn syrup, so I stocked the pantry with organic peanut butter and homemade strawberry and blackberry jam. No high-fructose corn syrup in sight. (And, p.s.--if you peel the label off the homemade blackberry jam and tell the kid it's grape, he'll eat it.)

But the sandwich bread was still problematic. I'll be damned if I buy Wonder Bread for ANYONE. If you've looked at the list of ingredients on a loaf of white bread recently, it resembles the documentation of the Geneva Peace Accords. A couple of months ago, I bought a package of plain old white hamburger buns from Sam's, used some, and tossed the remaining few into the pantry. Last week, I unearthed them, hiding behind a jar of macaroni, and discovered that in the intervening months they. had. not. changed. at. all. Not one bit. They weren't moldy, they weren't stale, they were exactly. the. same. I was horrified. My homemade bread, sans all chemicals and preservatives, starts to go stale within a matter of days. And God knows how long those buns sat on the shelf at Sam's before I bought them. I didn't want to buy a loaf of white bread filled with all those chemicals and preservatives and high-fructose corn syrup, regardless of the 10-year-old star of approval, but I also knew any bread would have to come out of a plastic bag.

So, I went to Whole Foods and bought one of those organic, preservative-free loaves of white bread. Cost: $4.99. The last time I paid $4.99 for a loaf of bread, it had truffles in it. But he ate it, happily, complete with organic peanut butter. So I kept the plastic bag that bread came in. And I turned to this recipe, courtesy of my favorite frugalist at The Simple Dollar, for a wee bit of bread-making deception.

And it worked! The recipe produced a loaf of soft, evenly dense white sandwich bread, with a very soft, thin crust. I sliced it into relatively even slices, slid it into the plastic organic bread bag, and threw it in the fridge. He ate it happily, with organic peanut butter.

Now if I could only get him to eat the crusts.

Anyway, the great thing about this recipe (other than the pictures, which are very helpful) is that it will in fact produce a loaf of white sandwich bread that is near-identical to Wonder Bread, without all the sawdust and carcinogens. Plus it actually tastes like bread. Some notes on the recipe: you do actually have to knead it for 15 minutes. This breaks down the glutens and helps the loaf to form that smooth, evenly dense grain that sandwich bread has (unlike the big open weave of artisanal bread). And I would recommend letting it rise in the loaf pan a little longer than it calls for. The very center of my loaf still had the telltale fold in it, but I just ate those slices myself. A little more rising would have taken care of that.

Cost: using the flour and yeast I bought in bulk...maybe 30 cents? A vast improvement over $4.99. That's even an improvement over $1.19 Wonder Bread.

Buttermilk cornbread

Broke Foodie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:21:00 GMT

Also known as "skillet cornbread," because this is cooked in a cast-iron skillet. Which, for my money, is the only way to cook cornbread. A good cast-iron skillet will already have a built-in layer of bacon grease (that's what it's there for! To flavor the cornbread!), and, come on, isn't that the most appetizing-looking cornbread you've ever seen?

The Northern version of cornbread is typically sweet and not very dense, essentially a corn muffin rather than cornbread. This is incorrect. Every good Southerner knows that cornbread is a salty delivery system for fresh butter, and should be generally flavored with bacon grease.

2 cups yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 - 2 cups buttermilk
3-4 tablespoons bacon fat, lard, or vegetable oil

Sift the dry ingredients together, and add the eggs and buttermilk. Mix into a loose, soupy mass. Heat the fat or vegetable oil in a cast-iron skillet until smoking. Swirl it around the pan, then add to the batter and mix in well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes, or until brown spots begin to appear on top. Serve hot.

Cost: a small bag of yellow cornmeal will run about $1.59; two quarts of buttermilk are about $3.59. Assume around 50 cents each for the cornmeal and buttermilk, 17 cents each for the eggs, and everything else should already be in the pantry. Around $1.30 for a big ol' pan of fresh buttermilk cornbread, which will yield at least 8-10 servings. For a true Southern experience, crumble it up into a glass of buttermilk and eat with a spoon.

A bit of shameless self-promotion

Broke Foodie — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:06:00 GMT

Broke Foodie now has a Facebook page! Follow the link to the left. If you'll be my fan, I'll be yours! Also, read me on Twitter!

Frugal kitchen tricks

Broke Foodie — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:20:00 GMT

Part of saving money in the kitchen has to do with kitchen maintenance, as well--it's not just about the food. Here are some of the ways I save money--oh, and p.s., save the earth as well.

1. Quit using paper towels. I keep a roll around for the gross stuff, like cleaning up bacon grease and cat puke, but otherwise I don't touch them. I have a stash of cloth towels, dishrags, and cloth napkins. These clean up spills and dirt just as well as paper towels, and they can be washed and reused. I might go through a roll of paper towels every two or three months.

2. Use a dishrag instead of a sponge when possible. I love those little green-backed scrubby sponges, but dishrags last forever (see above). I keep a sponge around for the tough scrubbing jobs--but you can throw the sponge in the dishwasher when it starts to get gross. Kills the germs AND cleans the sponge, extending the life of the sponge for at least another few weeks.

3. Quit buying cleaning supplies. I hate using harsh chemicals to clean things--they smell weird, they're expensive, and plus my cats are always drinking out of the toilet, so I don't want any chemical residues in there. Baking soda and vinegar will clean pretty much everything. "No way!" you cry. "How will baking soda and vinegar clean better than 409, or Soft Scrub with Bleach, or Tide Daily Shower Cleaner with New Fresh Lavendar Smell?"

One of my favorite blogs is The Simple Dollar--see this post for some of the many household uses for plain old boring white vinegar. You can use vinegar instead of fabric softener, or instead of Jet-Dry and fancy glass cleaners in the dishwasher, or instead of Windex (bonus: you can use newspaper and vinegar to clean your windows, works just as well as Windex and a paper towel and see? You just saved a paper towel!). Got a clogged drain? Pour baking soda and vinegar down the drain, cap it tightly, and wait a little while. A paste made of baking soda and a little water will clean just about anything, including grody toilets, mildew, and rust stains. Put baking soda on the carpet instead of carpet cleaner, put it in the litter box to cut pet odors, put it in shoes to cut shoe odors. More uses for baking soda here.

I've tried making my own dishwasher detergent, but turns out I have hard water, so I had to go back to the storebought kind. But if you don't have hard water, it should work for you.

4. Use less. You can use about half what the manufacturer recommends, on all cleaning supplies. I fill the dishwasher cap up halfway, I use about 1/8 cup of laundry detergent per load, I cut dryer sheets into quarters and use 1/4 dryer sheet per load. My dishes and clothes are just as clean as if I'd used more, and it saves money (and chemical backwash into the water supply). Speaking of laundry detergent, I buy the five-gallon bucket of generic at Sam's Club. It gets my clothes just as clean and fresh-smelling as Tide. Cost: $14 for five gallons. At 1/8 cup per load, even at 4-5 loads of laundry per week, it'll last me a year.

Leftover Magic: Further uses for things you never knew there were uses for

Broke Foodie — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:52:00 GMT

1. Pickle juice. When you finish the last of the pickles out of the jar, save the pickle brine. Slice up a cucumber and add it to the brine. In 2-3 days, you'll have new pickles. Repeat ad infinitum.

2. Potato water. After cooking potatoes, don't pour it down the drain. Use it to make bread--as in this Potato, Parmesan and Cracked Peppercorn No-Knead Bread.

3. Squeezed-out lemon halves. Drop one in your garbage disposal--keeps things smelling fresh and lemony!

How to make your own vegetable stock

Broke Foodie — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:03:00 GMT

Because I don't buy pre-packaged products, my kitchen waste is pretty minimal. So I noticed whenever I threw an onion end into the trash can, invariably I ended up having to take out a half-full bag of trash in a few days because it reeked so abominably of onions. This method keeps stinky garbage to a minimum, and also keeps regular garbage to a minimum: a gallon Ziploc bag in the freezer.

This bag holds all the vegetable waste I generate. When it gets full, I make a batch of vegetable stock. Here are some of the things that can go into the bag:
Onion ends and peels
Garlic skin
Celery ends and leaves
Carrot ends and peels
Potato peels
Mushroom stems
Leek tops
Stems from herbs, chard, spinach, etc.
Brussel sprout ends
Tomato cores
Pea pods
Corn husks and ends, and corn cobs
Anything soft, mushy, spotted, half-spoiled or otherwise suspect (but only half-spoiled--if it's moldy or stinky, just throw it out)

And so on. Fill a large stockpot with water, dump in the full Ziploc bag. Add salt and a bay leaf or two. Cook on low overnight. In the morning, strain out all the vegetable bits, and pour into jars (if you're going to keep it in the fridge) or Ziploc bags/Tupperware (if you're going to freeze it). Tons of fresh, homemade vegetable stock, essentially for free (since you've already bought all the things that go into it). Then reuse the Ziploc bag! Never buy stock again!

Americans are estimated to throw out anywhere from 10%-40% of the food they buy. That's right, 40%. Imagine if your grocery bill were suddenly reduced by 40%. Using (or reusing) every edible scrap that comes into your household is like getting that magical reduction in your grocery bill.

Plus, no more stinky garbage.

Buttermilk-honey dressing

Broke Foodie — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:26:00 GMT

I can't find fresh shrimp in San Diego but I can find fresh goat's milk and fresh buttermilk. What's that about?

So anyway, I have a half-gallon of buttermilk to experiment with. Expect some buttermilk recipes coming up.

Whisk together:
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons honey
some minced garlic or garlic powder
salt and pepper, cayenne pepper
minced scallions if you have it
Add 1/2 cup or so olive oil to this in a slow, steady stream, whisking all the while.

Red quinoa, spinach and feta salad

Broke Foodie — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:38:00 GMT

Any color quinoa will work, of course, but I felt like using red.

I didn't really measure anything (shocking, that). I made a batch of quinoa (1 cup dried) and added most of a bundle of fresh spinach. I then added a small handful of feta cheese, a couple tablespoons each of olive oil and red wine vinegar, and some diced shallot and garlic. A little cumin and salt and pepper on top, then mix it all together. It makes a great you-don't-need-a-microwave lunch!