scrimpySnack of the Week

OK everybody! Here's the scrimpySnack of the Week. I had made this once before for dessert to bring to our cousins Pat and BriAnne's place, and it turned out to be pretty delicious. Those two have a few really specific food aversions, so I'm always wondering if they're into what I'm bringing. Since they liked this coffee cake, I figured it's kind of a "go-to", so I made it again. It was better the first time, unfortunately, but I think that's because I forgot to add the cinnamon the other day :(.

You could make this in advance and freeze it, too. This way, you'd always have something for company in a pinch. If I hadn't eaten the whole thing, I would have cut nice, big, pieces and sent them to work with Mike's lunch.

Crumbly Crumble Coffee Cake

makes 1 loaf cake, serves about 10

3/4 c. butter (I know, I know, that's a lot of butter...$1.05)

1 1/4 c. white sugar ($.39)

2 eggs ($.60 ---- $.90 for me since I dropped one on the floor while baking)

1 1/2 c. yogurt (organic - $.44)

1/2 t. vanilla ($.08)

2 c. flour ($.30)

1 t. baking powder ($.04)

1/8 t. salt (<$.01)

1/3 c. flour ($.10)

2 T. melted butter ($.18)

1/2 c. packed brown sugar ($.28)

1 t. cinnamon ($.06)

Total is $3.53...not bad! That's $.35/slice. You'd pay about 8 times that amount at Starbuck's for a piece of this goodness.

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease loaf pan (or cake pan, or whatever size pan you're using).
2. Sift flour, salt, and baking powder.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs one at a time.
5. Add yogurt, mix to incorporate.
6. Add vanilla.
7. Stir in flour with as few strokes as possible (over mixing toughens the cake).
8. Melt 2 T. butter and mix with brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon...this makes the crumbly crumbles.
9. Spread 1/2 of the batter on the bottom of your pan, sprinkle half the mix, spread (carefully) the rest of the batter on top, then sprinkle the rest of the crumbles on top.
10. Bake for 1 hour at 350. I think mine took longer than an hour. It's ready when the top springs back up from a light touch in the middle. If yours is getting too golden on the top (read: burning), cover it with aluminum foil.

scrimpyTips:

- These would make great "coffee cupcakes". Just spread half the batter, add crumbles, add more batter, add more crumbles. Just instead of being in the pan they're in a cupcake tin. That's a cute idea.

- This would be great with chopped nuts and/or chocolate chips.

- I think the butter can be cut down even further to 1 cup. I didn't make it that way, but with the 1 1/2 sticks, it's soooo moist and soft, it seems like it could definitely handle losing that extra half a stick of butter.

- This is perfect with coffee and as a snack for lunches.

I'm going to make this for Easter morning, and I think I'm going to use half whole wheat flour so that Dylan (the baby) can have a few bites. I will let you know how that turns out!

Enjoy the scrimpySnack of the Week. This is a yummy one, trust me. I ate half the cake.

7 Potatoes, 7 Eggs, 2 Ways, Part 1

Yum, yum, people! SO, today I realized I had 7 large baking potatoes. In the fridge, I also had 7 eggs (okay, I had 11, but just bear with me for the sake of the story). Originally, I was going to make a potato chowder for Freezermeal Friday, but I am not so sure how potato soup freezes, and of course I didn't want to steer you wrong. So then I thought, "Oh, I'll use half the potatoes for soup, and we'll eat it in the next few days, and with the rest I'll make something else". Then I realized I didn't have any carrots or celery (this never happens, I was out of town!), so soup was out of the picture.


I finally settled on potato salad and potato and egg pie.

Potato Party Salad

serves 6 as a side dish

5 large baking potatoes (about 1 1/2 lbs, $.75 Haymarket)

3 T. chopped white onion ($.03 Haymarket)

1/3 c. mayonnaise ($.25)

1 1/2 T. Dijon mustard ($.13)

1 t. salt (<$.01)

1/2 t. black pepper ($.03)

2 hard boiled eggs (organic - $.60)

1 T. white vinegar ($.01)

Total is $1.81 for about 2 lbs of potato salad...not bad!

1. Peel and chop potatoes into large cubes (I halve, then quarter then chop a few times, resulting in about 12 chunks per potato - I don't have my camera so I can't share the pictures with you, sorry...)
2. Put them in a large pot and cover with cold water. Cover and bring to a boil.
3. Boil until fork tender (the fork goes in and out easily, and they are beginning to get a little soft...I would take them out when they're right about where you'd eat them)
4. Drain. While they're still in the strainer, cover with a dishcloth for about 5. This allows the steam to go back through the potato resulting in a great consistency. The Barefoot Contessa taught me this one!
5. In a small bowl, combine mayonnaise, mustard, salt, pepper, and onions.
6. When potatoes have sat under the towel long enough, pour a T. of white vinegar over them.
7. Toss the vinegar-y potatoes with the mayonnaise mix.
8. Chop hard boiled eggs and add to salad, mixing to combine.
9. If you'd prefer more dressing, just add more mayonnaise by the tablespoon full, and add another teaspoon of mustard for every tablespoon of mayonnaise you add.

scrimpyTips:

- This is pretty much a pantry recipe, I keep all these ingredients on hand.

- This would look pretty with some chopped green onions sprinkled on top, and would be perfect to serve at a brunch!

- This is good served alongside a salad or sandwich for a dinner entree.

- This is a good microwave free lunch dish.

- You can add extra eggs, or omit the eggs entirely.

- You can add chopped celery if you like that, too.

scrimpySnack of the Week!

UPDATE: I was kind of tripping out. I wrote this recipe excluding the crumb topping, but I just ate another one, and they're pretty damn good with the topping. I'm updating the recipe and the prices to include the crumb topping - but I reduced the butter because there was too much.

Good Sunday Morning, everyone! I'm here to share the scrimpySnack of the Week. I like to write these recipes on Sundays, because that's the day when I bake Mike's lunch snacks for the entire week. If I make a dozen, I'll usually freeze half, and have the second half ready for me when I don't have a chance to bake something, or we're starving and have no other decent snacks in the house.

This week's snack is Whole Wheat-ish Organic Blueberry Muffins. The recipe makes 8 muffins, and I don't see why you couldn't double it. This recipe is a compliment to Thursday's post about using frozen fruit and vegetables.

Whole Wheat-ish Organic Blueberry Muffins

makes 8

3/4 c. whole wheat flour ($.08 - stop and shop!)
3/4 c. white all purpose flour ($.11 - WF...a bit more expensive)
2/3 c. sugar ($.20)
2 t. baking powder ($.08 - please triple check this and don't use baking soda on accident!)
1/2 t. salt (<$.01) (excuse the formatting from here...I'm stuck with a messed up keyboard - trust me it's worse for me than it is for you)

1/3 c. canola oil or other vegetable oil ($.26)

1/2 c. milk or yogurt (organic - $.19)

1 egg (organic - $.29)

1 cup frozen blueberries (organic - TJs - $1.08)

1 T. flour ($.01, to toss blueberries in so that they don't sink in the batter)

2 T. sugar + 1 t. cinnamon + 1 T finely diced butter + 1 T. flour = crumb topping ($.20)

Total is $2.51/8 crumb topped muffins...$.31 each

1. Preheat oven to 400 and prepare muffin tins by greasing them or putting in muffin cups.


2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.


3. In a measuring cup, measure oil and add the egg. Then fill with yogurt or milk to make 1 cup. You should need about 1/2 c. That's how much I needed.


4. Add the oil mixture to the dry ingredients and stir slowly until JUST combined. If you over stir muffin batter, you will make your muffins tough. So, stir them as few times as absolutely necessary.


5. Toss the blueberries with the flour. This is done so that they don't sink. This batter is so thick that they won't sink, anyways...but I also do it to keep the blue color from bleeding too much (even though it still will a bit). Toss anything that you plan to put in a muffin in flour first so they don't sink.


6. Fold in the blueberries carefully and spoon the batter into cups.


7. Sprinkle with crumb topping, or just plain sanding sugar, or nothing, if you'd prefer.
   
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Mine took 25. The picture is of my muffins, with the too buttery topping. They are a little dull looking because of my camera and the wheat flour which makes them a bit brownish.

Anyways, these are awesome and delicious. Like, SO delicious.

scrimpyTips:

- You can use all white flour, I just used half and half to up the healthy quotient. You could also add 1/4 c. of ground flax.

- You could use a mixture of brown and white sugars.

- These can be frozen.

- You can use milk, soy milk, buttermilk, or yogurt. I used yogurt and they're really moist!

- These would obviously be even better with fresh blueberries. Those would be a hell of a lot more expensive though! Props to Trader Joe's for coming through with the 12 oz. bag of frozen organic blueberries for $2.69.

Showing appreciation to a great friend...PART 2

DISCLAIMER: I know these posts are pretty girly, but guys can do this stuff, too. Do you know how impressed a girl would be if you had a nice little table set up for her??? Or how happy your wife would be to see a beautiful Valentine's or Mother's Day table???!!!

Last week's "Thank you" brunch looked beautiful, tasted great, and was, more importantly, easy and inexpensive. I would like to show you how setting a beautiful and festive table is easy, even on a budget!

scrimpyPlace settings (These are by no means classic place settings, I just use what I have and what looks good to me!):

• I purchased 4 cotton napkins at IKEA. This is my favorite way to spice up a table setting! This site is great for learning how to fold napkins. For this particular brunch, I used the "bird of paradise", but I also really love the "diamond fold". It's a great touch for a few reasons. One being that people have no clue how you folded them, and it makes it seem like you went through a lot of trouble and/or are extremely talented. Another reason being that it's rare nowadays to eat a meal using a cloth napkin, and I think it makes the meal seem more special.
• I like to use white plates (the only plates I have...we don't have much room for all sorts of plates). I place a small plate on top of the meal plate, they are so cute and cost $1.25 each at Crate and Barrel (I used to have beautiful art-deco looking plates ($1.25/each) at TJMaxx...but I moved home for a while, and they disappeared into the black hole that is my parents' home). This plate can be used for any little biscuits, cookies, or fruit you have set out. You can then clear it and serve the meal on the plate below.
• If serving a "buffet" like brunch, with several appetizers and "pickies" then you could easily fill the whole table with food, and stack some small plates and folded cloth napkins for everyone to grab as they go.
• Since I was just serving eggs, I put one dinner fork on the right side of each plate, and a tall water glass on the left hand side of the plate. It's not shown in the picture, (because I didn't really serve those smoothies, I just put them in the brunch menu for all of you, because it's a nice touch...we happened to have enough to eat!) but if you plan to serve smoothies, I would place a small juice glass to diagonally in front of the water glass. If you are serving a dessert course, you would place a small spoon horizontally at the top of the plate.
• I served banana bread muffins at the end of the meal as a type of dessert, on a little coffee-bean platter I bought on sale at Starbuck's for, like, $5.
• There's great serving pieces at TJMaxx in downtown crossing. You can get some nice plates there that are great to have in your cabinet. You never know when you're going to need to put something on a nice platter, and when you have one, it's so fun to just break it out and use it! Other ideas for inexpensive serving pieces include Target (even though that store reallllly isn't that inexpensive), Filene's on Boylston (I believe they have home goods), and Crate and Barrel (their white porcelain is well priced, and their items stand up to use very well). It's great to get funky, seasonal, or classic pieces and mix and match them. You can dress up an cheap meal very easily with sweet serving pieces.
• At TJMaxx, around Thanksgiving time, I purchased 2 bowls that look like little heads of lettuce. They're white porcelain, and they were $2.99/each. I like to keep extra cloth napkins on hand to line these bowls, which I usually fill with biscuits or rolls. You can find beautiful bowls (these are Mikasa) for a very good price and mix and match them for a beautiful table setting!
• I also got a tall china creamer that I used for Thanksgiving gravy, so I filled that with milk for the coffee.
• I purchased a glass carafe at Crate and Barrel on sale for $2.95. I had it filled with fake flowers in the baby's room (sounds tacky but really wasn't...trust me), but I have had it in the cabinet for a while, with the idea it would be a vase. But, I filled it with ice water and it was a really beautiful touch on the table. It would be really festive to fill it with water and throw some lemon slices, raspberries, mint leaves, or cucumbers in it! It was elegant to be able to fill the glasses with cold water from the carafe, not just stick them in the sink under the Brita (you know!?).
• A cheery centerpiece is deceptively easy to create, even in a small space. We have a tall, clear glass vase (that I got gratis when I had Dylan! Thanks Megan!) that I fill with seasonal things. In winter, it's pinecones and Christmas bulbs. In the late winter, I like to do oranges, lemons, or fake flowers for cheer. In the spring, I think I would do some pretty fruit again, or maybe some tree branches (?). In the fall I fill it with apples, and for a really cool touch, I fill it with water (looks sooo cool, but if you keep it with water in it for longer than a day I'd plan to throw the fruit out...this is actually a great thing to do using dirt cheap Haymarket fruit...it's there in the pic, but I don't know how well you can see it).
  

• This picture (above) is from Thanksgiving. I actually stuck white tapers in leftover Pelligrino bottles, and spray painted bruised pears (that I had to throw out anyway) white and tied a little name tag to them. This is a really cheap, great touch, and you can use any fruit you'd like! Just go down to haymarket and buy 4 pears for $1.00, and spray paint them (which will cost you, like, $4...but you will have the spray paint for future use).
• I also got my hands on 7 votives ($.50 each) from Crate and Barrel during their post-holiday sale. They are clear with gold stars on them, and I planned to use them in my gold and pink Valentine's table...but I got to use them even sooner than I thought, for my brunch! Daytime candlelight is novel and unexpected!
  

So, the point is, be on the look out for sales on versatile serving pieces that you love. I really get a kick out of being able to open up the cabinet, and pull out a few nice things (that are so nice, and were so cheap) that I get to use over and over again. You can get ridiculous deals on really nice things. If you're at TJMaxx though, make sure you quadruple check for any chips or cracks! I hate getting home and realize something is chipped. These deals help you create a beautiful and festive table time and time again, for a very small cost. A little creativity and forethought goes a long way. Your guests are sure to notice that you put in the extra effort, but will probably think you went through much more trouble and expense than you did!

What are your favorite frugal centerpiece ideas? Any ideas on what else I can put in my vase???

Bananaberry Blasts

This is a great smoothie recipe that uses 3 ingredients. It's full of anti-oxidants from the soy milk and blueberries, comes together in a flash, and looks very cool, too (it's Blueish-Purpleish).

- 3/4 c. TJs organic frozen wild blueberries ($1.35)
- 2 organic bananas - Haymarket ($.22)
- 1 1/2 c. organic soy milk ($.63)
- 1 1/2 c. water

1. Blend all ingredients until smooth.
2. Serve with a straw

scrimpyTips:

- If you have a magic bullet, you can just do this in 3 batches. Add 1/4 c. blueberries, about 1/2 a banana, 1/2 c. soy milk, and 1/2 c. water and blend. The magic bullet is great for smoothies.

Cheap and Quick Biscuits

- 2 c. Jiffy Baking Mix ($.68)
- 2/3 c. organic milk ($.24)

1. Preheat oven to 450.
2. Combine ingredients to form a soft dough.
3. Roll dough to 1/3" and cut with your choice of cookie cutter.
4. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 10-12 minutes.

scrimpyTips:

-These are really simple to make and are a great addition to brunch or breakfast. You can cut them with festive cutters (I used little hearts), and serve alongside jam, jelly, butter, cream cheese, and other cheeses. You could make a basket of them and serve a few different spreads, too.
-I used Jiffy mix, but it is very easy and inexpensive to make these from scratch, or Bisquick, as well.

Sunshine Orange Bowl

- 2 Navel Oranges ($.50 - Haymarket)

1. Take oranges and wash them (lest you eat any unwashed-bathroom hands from well-meaning produce packers).
2. Cut each orange in half and then each half into thirds
3. Arrange in a circular, sunshine-like pattern
4. Repeat with second orange

scrimpyTip:

- Let oranges come to room temperature before eating. If you eat them too cold, they will not come off the peel easily and leave you with sticky orange juice hands. Which, if you're like me (read: nuts), will likely ruin the rest of your day.
-This is a great, inexpensive addition to any breakfast or lunch table, and an easy afternoon snack for kids.

Showing appreciation to a great friend...PART 1

Things have been quite tight in my household, because my boyfriend sells mutual funds (which are basically stocks) and is paying off a steep credit card bill. Unfortunately, nobody wants to buy stocks right now (even though they should). So that means we are pretty NOT rich right now. Anyways, I needed a haircut so badly. So badly, in fact, that the last time I was home (for Christmas), my dad actually cut my hair in the kitchen. Needless to say, we don't have any money for me to get a nice haircut, so my friend Melissa offered to take me to get a hair cut. This was one of the kindest things a friend has ever done for me! It was so nice to know that you have a friend who is so generous, and wants the best for you. It was honestly one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

Since I had Dylan in July, I really haven't had too much time or energy to really put into my appearance, and I feel like crap. The hair cut did just the trick (although I still feel gross in so many other ways...hey Melissa, feel like taking me for a manicure, liposuction, and a laser facial?), and made me feel MUCH better. Who knew a hair cut could leave you feeling so refreshed? The point is, she was so sweet to think of me, and it made me feel very special so I cooked her a thank you brunch. Oh, wait! This is the best part. After she took me for the best haircut I've ever gotten, she:

• invited me over to her apartment for dinner
• got me drunk
• cooked me dinner
• got me a little more drunk
• gave me $20 for a cab home
• (oh and she babysat for free until pretty late on December 11th without even accepting cab money from me)

So, since she wouldn't accept that I was taking the T, I told her I was making her brunch with the $20. So I did. And I'd like to share it with all of you!

It doesn't have to cost a ton of money to throw a tasteful and festive little affair. Here is the menu for 3:

Orange wedges (2 navel oranges from Haymarket - $.50)
Buttermilk biscuits ($.92) with Strawberry jam ($.25)
Organic scrambled eggs ($2.43)
Organic-banana bread muffins ($2.23 - that's $.19/each)
Organic Coffee (Organic 365 Pacific Rim Blend from WF) ($.99)
Organic milk for coffee ($.37)
Sugar for coffee ($.08 - 4 T.)
Ice water ($.OO)
100% Organic Bananaberry Blasts (soy smoothies) ($2.20)

Grand Total for Brunch for 3 = $9.97
(That's $3.32 per person...with leftover muffins and biscuits for favors!)