Spicy Hummus

One thing I've always noticed we spend a fair bit of money on is hummus.  So we instituted a new policy in our home - from now on, homemade hummus!  The first time we did it was a recipe from the Joy of Cooking that came out a little lemony for my taste.  So over the weekend I had some time on my hands and I tried to make a "spicy hummus" because my favorite brand is spicy.  It turned out pretty well.

Tools:

Food Processor

Ingredients:

2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons of tahini paste

3 hot cherry peppers, seeds and stem removed

1 tablespoon of lemon juice

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/4 cup of water

2 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon of chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

Paprika and Olive Oil for garnish

What to do:

Put all the ingredients except the garnish into the food processor and puree till smooth!  

Then garnish with the paprika and olive oil as desired.  

It will taste best after a night in the refrigerator to let all the flavors mingle - the taste difference between immediately after blending and the next day is huge, so give it the night to rest.

Chickpeas in a can are nice and cheap.  The tahini paste will run you $5 to $6 a jar, but you only use a bit at a time so it will last for a long time. The hot cherry peppers you can get in a variety of ways - I got them in a jar of about 10 for $4, and I have been using them in a variety of ways including as a pizza topping, which is a subject for another entry!

Overall you end up with about twice as much hummus as a $4 to $5 tub at a much reduced cost, plus the satisfaction of having made it from scratch yourself.  It's a habit that I will definitely be in from now on, cause it's a great snack to have around.

A Cocktail in Honor of LOST: The Smoke Monster

Part of what I want to get at in this blog is making interesting things out of what you have, without having to buy too many expensive ingredients.  By going with recipes that are mostly pantry items with one or two things you pick up from the grocery, you'll find your shopping dollars stretch farther in each week of menus as long as your pantry is reasonably stocked. 

For instance, I'm making that ribs recipe today for a LOST-watching party that we're having tonight (thematically, I think we'll call them "Locke's Boar Ribs") and all I really had to do was buy the ribs themselves which are surprisingly inexpensive.  A repertoire of recipes and a well stocked pantry also allow you to take big time advantage of sales at the grocery store.

For LOST tonight we thought it would be fun to come up with a signature cocktail to drink, and since I've been practicing my martini's lately we've got some Vodka, and just happened to have some Kahlua as well.  This is what I came up with:

The Smoke Monster

Ingredients:

Vodka

Dry Vermouth

Kahlua

An Orange

Ice

Tools:

A shot measure

A cocktail shaker

A knife or peeler for the orange

Martini  glasses

Peel the orange so you have a few strips of peel to use as garnish.

Moisten the walls of the martini glasses with a dash of vermouth.

Rim the glasses with the orange, squeezing so a bit of orange juice drips down the interior for flavor.

Fill the shaker with ice and shake about 2-3 shots of Vodka per drink in it with the ice, pouring it out into the glasses - there should be some frosty ice bits floating on top.

Pour a half-shot of Kahlua into the glass and do not stir, so it floats near the bottom in a black cloud (get it??).

Garnish with the orange peel slices.

We've got some mini martini glasses that make novelty cocktails a lot easier to experiment with on a work night, so I do a half-size version since this is strong anyway.  But as a fun thing to throw together I think it'll work great and I only needed to pick up an orange to make it happen.

Falling Off The Boneless Sweet and Sour Ribs

This is the number one reason to own a slow cooker.  There are lots of different ways to make ribs in the slow cooker, but this is one tht I like because it's incredibly easy and the only real cost is the meat - everything else is "pantry stuff" that we keep around the kitchen.

Tools:

Slow Cooker

Ingredients:

2 lbs boneless pork ribs, country style

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup cider vinegar

2 tbsp honey mustard

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

Whisk together all the ingredients in the slow cooker.  Put the ribs in, toss them in the sauce and lay them in a row.  

Cover and cook on high for 6 hours.

You can also get bone-in ribs which are a bit less expensive, and cook nicely if you put them bone side up in the pot.  But I get a couple pounds of boneless organic ribs at the grocery store for $4 a lb.  Combined with the leftover mac and cheese and some Caramelized Brussel Sprouts for a nicely rounded meal.

Caramelized Brussel Sprouts

I just ran out to the corner market to buy some brussel sprouts for this recipe ($2.02), so here it is:

Tools:

A skillet with a lid

Ingredients:

About 1/2 lb of Brussel Sprouts

Water

2 tbsp Olive Oil

Lemon Juice

Salt and Pepper

Cut the Sprouts in half lengthwise and put them in the skillet cut-side down.  Put about half a cup of water in the skillet so that the sprouts are in a shallow pool and put it on medium heat to get it simmering.

Cover the skillet and let it simmer for 7 or 8 minutes - the water should start to boil off but it should never go completely dry.

Take off the lid and increase the heat to medium-high.

Pour two tablespoons of olive oil over the Sprouts and let them cook, uncovered, for another 8 minutes or so until they are starting to brown on the underside.

Then you're done.

We like this recipe a lot - it tastes great and makes you feel good about eating your greens.  It's also handy to know because it goes with so many other things that you can mix and match it with.  So if you don't know what green vegetable to get to go with a meal, give this one a try.

Macaroni with Four Cheeses

Today we are making a slow cooker recipe for Macaroni with Four Cheeses.  This is a splurge recipe, because of the cheeses it calls for.  Gruyere is an expensive but delicious cheese that melts wonderfully and since this is our first time making it we didn't want to skimp.  Many homemade mac and cheese recipes will just call for Cheddar, and so I think this can be adapted to be a lot cheaper.

Here's the breakdown with the grocery store costs of what we bought:

Tools:

A pot

A slow cooker

Ingredients

1 lb elbow macaroni  $1.59

half a stick of butter ~$0.50

4 tbsp of flour

4 cups evaporated milk (the kind from a can, about 3 cans worth)  $3.75

1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp mustard

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp  ground pepper

12 oz (3/4 lb) of sharp Cheddar, shredded (I like the higher end kind) $6.00

8 oz (1/2 lb) of Gruyere, shredded $9.00

1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes, drained $1.00

8 oz fresh mozzarella $4.00

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 oz (1/4 cup) grated Parmesan   (or get bread crumbs with parmesan already mixed in)

Okay so right off the bat you're looking at this and thinking "$20 of cheese ain't exactly cheap!"  And it isn't, but the cheese part of this is the 'spare no expense' element of the recipe.  We can substitute less expensive cheeses (Swiss for Gruyere for example, and buy lower end Cheddar, a bag of shredded mozzarella instead of fresh, etc) and the price can come down.  But today we wanted to go big since it's Sunday dinner.

The other thing is, this makes TWELVE CUPS (!!) so we are going to have leftovers for sure.  So this is dinner tonight for two plus two or three lunches, assuming I keep to my New Year's resolution of eating more reasonable portions...  Break it down and we're talking $5 a meal, even after making some kind of vegetable side (Caramelized Brussel Sprouts sound pretty good).

So all in all this is a flexible recipe in terms of cost and it will keep on giving in the form of leftovers, which is budget-friendly.

On to the instructions:

Boil the macaroni until it's just getting al dente.  Rinse it off with cold water and drain it off to the side.

Melt the butter in the pot and stir the flour in, letting it cook for a couple minutes.

Then add the evaporated milk and stir until it boils (the recipe calls for evaporated milk because regular milk would curdle in the slow cooker).

Add the Worcestershire sauce, mustard, salt and pepper.

Turn off the heat and stir in the Cheddar and Gruyere.  KEEP STIRRING!  If you let it sit for even a little bit, the cheese can start to burn and you get black chunks that although they remain delicious are not appetizing.

Mix the macaroni in with the cheese sauce.

Spray a light coating of cooking spray on the slow cooker pot.

Add half the macaroni and cheese mixture to the slow cooker.

Layer the drained diced tomatoes on top.

Layer the Mozzarella on top of that.

Put the other half of the macaroni and cheese mixture on top of that.

Mix the Parmesan and bread crumbs together and sprinkle it over the top (we added some extra bread crumbs to make it extra crunchy).

Set the slow cooker on Low for 4-5 hours, and then eat!

Update:  This turned out tasty (although I might add some spices next time) and we've got probably 7-8 servings packed up in our fridge now, which I am about to eat one of for lunch. So plenty to go around, which definitely cuts down on the cost factor.

Chicken Pot Pie

For a first entry, an old favorite that is really cheap, easy to make, tastes great and also makes for good reheated leftovers.

Tools:

A regular oven

A cookie tray

A pot

Something to cook chicken on, like a George Foreman.

Ingredients:

2 pie crusts (they're usually sold in two-packs)

1 can of cream of chicken with herbs soup (condensed)

1 bag frozen mixed vegetables

About a pound of chicken

Pre-heat your oven to about 350 degrees.

Cook the chicken however you like (I use a George Foreman type grill)

Throw the cream of chicken soup into a pot with the mixed vegetables and start heating them up.

Cut up the chicken into bite size pieces and mix it in with the vegetables and cream of chicken soup.

Once the filling mix is warm enough (i.e. no longer frozen) pour it into one of the pie crusts.

Take the second pie crust out and put it upside down over the top of the first crust, to form the top.  Press down all around the edges so it is sealed and cut a slice in the top for steam to escape.

Put it on the tray and stick it in the oven for about 25-30 minutes, until the top starts to brown a little.

Take it out, let it cool for a bit and enjoy.

You have lots of leeway in terms of ingredients, depending what you like in your pot pie and this is really easy to play around with.  If you like mushrooms (I don't) you can use cream of mushroom soup instead.

This keeps well as leftovers in a tupperware container and will feed you for a couple of meals.  It can cost as little as six or seven dollars to get decent ingredients, and everything but the chicken will keep for a long time so you can keep pie crusts, frozen vegetables and condensed soup around and just buy the chicken when you're ready to make a pie, or use leftover chicken from another meal!