(30...well, 35) Minute Meal Thursday!

Hey all! Cooking while Dylan is awake is always a challenge, so I usually wait until he goes down at 6 to prepare dinner for Mike and me. However, with the time change and the summer coming up, we've been trying to keep him up later, so that we can enjoy him more. This means I'm stuck cooking dinner while he's awake (unless I've prepared it throughout the day, which I sometimes d0). There are tons of meals you can throw together in 30 minutes on a weeknight that are both satisfying and healthy. The following recipe for lentils and rice is a great example of that!

Mike and I eat dinner around 7 or 8 because it's enjoyable to sit and relax once the baby's down. With the baby staying up later, quick meals are great because I can put them together in almost no time at all, and still be eating at a reasonable hour. A little aside: Mike and I started eating later when we started putting Dylan down at 6, but it's turned out to be a great little change to our routing. Eating dinner later causes us to be too full to snack all night, saving us calories and money! Nice.

I found this recipe online, but I think lentils take a little longer to cook than 30 minutes...I guess we'll see...I'll tell you the result after the recipe, because I'm writing this while it cooks. How do I know it will be good? No clue, but I'm sure it will be. Hopefully.

Lentils and Rice

makes 8 servings

1 lb. lentils (organic - $2.39 - WFs)

1 t. salt (<$.01)

1 1/2 c. dry brown rice (organic - $1.20 - WFs)

1 medium onion ($.07)

4 medium carrots, finely chopped, about 2 c. ($.64 - organic)

2 cloves garlic ($.04)

1 1/2 T. olive oil ($.36)

1 t. salt (<$.01)

1 dash black pepper ($.01)

1/4 t. red pepper flakes ($.02)

1 t. dried basil ($.06)

1 T. red wine vinegar ($.06)

1 t. salt for brown rice water ($.01)

Total is $4.88. That's mostly organic and serves 8 people. Lentils are also amazing for you. That's $.61/serving, which is so cheap for an organic meal.

1. You're going to need 2 pots of boiling water. One medium-large one that can accomodate 1 pound of lentils. The other pot can be smaller, it's for the rice.
2. Fill one pot with 10 c. water and the other with 3 c. water 1 t. salt, set both on high.
3. When the water boils, add the lentils to the big pot, and the rice to the small pot.
4. Turn lentils to medium heat and rice to a low heat.
5. Simmer the lentils until tender (about 35 minutes) and the rice until cooked (about 30 minutes).

To make the vegetables:

1. Chop onion, and finely chop carrots and garlic.
2. Add 1 1/2 T. olive oil to pan over medium heat.
3. Let oil heat, and then throw the carrots, garlic, onion, basil, 1 t. salt, dash black pepper, red pepper flakes, and dried basil.
4. Cook until onions are translucent and carrots are tender. Leave a top on if possible, as this keeps the moisture in the vegetables.
5. When lentils and rice are done combine them with the vegetables and add about another 1 t. of salt, or to taste.
6. Serve and enjoy!

This is a great recipe. It's delicious as a vegan or vegetarian main dish or a side dish to meat or fish. We ate it as a main dish with a small spinach salad. Taste before serving and add more salt if necessary.

scrimpyTips:

- This is great for a cold lunch salad.

- This can be made with barley and short pasta.

- Mushrooms would be really great in this. I may buy some and add them in tomorrow.

- This is a good make ahead, just prepare the rice and add premade lentil-vegetable mix.

Sorry this is a 35 minute meal. It's worth the extra time, though! Let me know what you think :).

Spring Spinach Salad

Ok, everyone, here it goes, the Spring Spinach Salad Recipe. This is pretty much a pantry recipe, (for me at least). These are ingredients I always keep on hand. Well, except for the greens...

Spring Spinach Salad

serves 8 as a first course

this isn't the cheapest salad to make, and is great for special ocassions.

We eat it on Easter and birthdays.

11 oz. fresh spinach, baby spinach, or baby greens (organic - $5.99)

1 c. walnut halves ($1.25)

3/4 c. raisins (organic - $.65)

1 c. vegetable oil ($.87)

3 T. balsamic vinegar ($.25)

1/4 c. sugar ($.08)

1 t. worcestshire sauce ($.06)

1/3 c. ketchup (organic - $.19)

1 clove garlic, minced ($.02)

1/4 t. salt (<$.01)

Juice of 1 orange ($.30 - Haymarket)

1 small red onion, thinly sliced ($.07 - optional...it's really good, but it makes your mouth taste like onions all day. It's good, but personally, I don't think it's worth it)

Total (with onion) is $9.74. That's $1.22/serving. Trust me, you'd pay $8 a plate for this salad in a restuarant. At least.

The total for just the dressing is $1.78.

1. Combine vinegar, sugar, worcestshire, ketchup, garlic, salt, and orange juice.
2. Whisk in 1 c. oil
3. To plate salad: put down a handful of greens, a sprinkle of walnuts, a sprinkle of raisins, a few thin onion slices (if you choose to use them). Then top with dressing. You could also just put everything in a bowl and toss it with the dressing. It looks way better to plate it, though!

I hope you all enjoy this salad as much as my family does. It makes me want it just typing this recipe. Maybe i'll make it for my mother-in-law this weekend!

scrimpyTips:

- You could use canola oil or olive oil (the olive oil taste will show through, however, and it's better to just have the unflavored oil). But, if all you have is olive, it will still be good.

- This dressing would be a great glaze for grilled or baked chicken.

- Goat or feta cheese would be a nice addition to this salad.

scrimpySnack of the Week: Very Vanilla Vegan Cupcakes

Hey all! This week's scrimpy snack is vegan cupcakes with a not vegan frosting. It's adapted from an allrecipes.com recipe. If I made these for Mike for lunch, I would send them with him unfrosted, or I would frost them lightly on top and put them in a glass storage container.

I'm going to post the pictures later, I'm just running around like a maniac getting my sister's surprise birthday dinner together.

Very Vanilla Vegan Cupcakes

makes 12

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar ($.05)
1 1/2 cups soy milk ($.56)
2 cups all-purpose flour ($.30)
1 cup white sugar ($.31)
2 t. baking powder ($.08)
1/2 t. baking soda ($.01)
1/2 t. salt ($.01)
1/2 c.vegetable oil ($.44)
1 1/2 t. vanilla (.24)

Total is $1.99/dozen!

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 12 cup muffin pans or line with 12 paper baking cups.
   
2. Measure the apple cider vinegar into a 2 cup measuring cup. Fill with soy milk to make 1 1/2 cups. Let stand until curdled, about 5 minutes. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the soy milk mixture, vegetable oil and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
   
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with desired frosting.

This is a nice recipe to make if you don't have any eggs, or don't feel like using any eggs. You could also use regular, almond, or rice milk. I would make these any day, even if I wasn't cooking for my allergic nephew. They're amazing. Mine were done in 20 minutes.

I used basic easy buttercream (I don't know why it becomes double spaced from here on):

Buttercream Frosting

makes enough for 12 cupcakes frosted VERY generously

2 sticks of butter (unsalted, or one salted + one unsalted) ($1.40)

2 c. powdered sugar ($1.00)

2 t. vanilla ($.16)

Total: $2.56...That makes the dozen cupcakes $4.55 (and you'll probably have leftover frosting!)

1. Soften butter to room temperature. If it's still too cold when you need to make the frosting, put the microwave on 30% and cook it 10 seconds at a time until it's soft all the way through.


2. Beat butter and sugar, then add vanilla.
   
3. If the consistency is too stiff, add milk by the Tablespoon full.


4. Color with food coloring if you'd like. I sprinkled decorating sugar on them, too. So pretty!


5. Enjoy :D.

Watch out for pictures later! Sorry for any typos, I'm blogging at warp speed, PEOPLE!

xo

Taylor

Ten Minute Meal Thursday...ok, like 15 (but that doesn't count the time it takes to boil the water...this is active prep time)

UPDATE: I've added pictures, and changed a couple of things...the cheese was a tiny bit more expensive than I had thought, so I updated the price, and the meal took a little over 10 minutes. That doesn't count the 5 minutes the water takes to boil, though. I'd prep the garlic and tomatoes while the water boils.

Here's the first Ten Minute Meal Thursday Recipe. I'm trying to incorporate a sale item from the area, which would be the organic cherry tomatoes over at Shaw's. Stay tuned next week for another Ten Minute Meal using the $2.99/lb pork sausage at Whole Foods!

Tomato Basil Toss
serves 4

- 1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes ($2.99 organic on sale @ Shaw's starting 2/27)
- 2 T olive oil ($.24)
- 2 cloves garlic ($.04)
- 1 t. dried basil ($.06)
- 1/2 t. salt (<$.01)

- 1 dash black pepper (<$.01)

- 1 lb. whole wheat or plain spaghetti or linguine (organic whole wheat @ Trader Joe's $1.29)

-1/2 c. grated fresh Romano cheese (I really don't know exactly what this costs, since I haven't bought it in so long, but I'm pretty sure that at TJs it's around $9.00/lb which would make a half cup (which weighs 1.3 oz) cost $.73)

Total: $5.37 for a mostly organic dinner for 4! Not bad.

1. Put on pot of boiling water and salt it well (with, like, more salt than you'd think, about 2 T./pound of pasta).
2. Slice garlic cloves into thin slices and cut tomatoes in half.
3. In a large (preferably nonstick) skillet, heat garlic, oil, basil, salt, and pepper all together at the same time on medium low (if you add garlic to a hot pan it will burn on the outside and stay raw on the inside). You could sprinkle in some red pepper flakes here if you're looking for spice (1/4 t.)
4. Your water should be boiling now, so put in the whole package of pasta.
5. Once garlic is just barely golden, add the tomatoes. Cook for about 3 minutes over medium high heat, or until they start to soften a bit.
6. Ladle out 2 or 3 ladlefulls of pasta water into the skillet and allow that to simmer together on medium until the pasta is done.





7. When the pasta is done, drain it and add it to the skillet (turn off heat), tossing to coat with tomatoes and oil and such. You can add the cheese during this final toss, or add it to each bowl after it's served.

scrimpyTips:

- If you garden in the summer (I'm doing containers on the fire escape!), this is a great go-to meal. It'd be even better with fresh basil from the garden :).
- Reserve some of the pasta water, and if the pasta looks a bit dry try adding another ladlefull of pasta water.
- Taste this before taking it out of the pan, the recipe may under-do the salt. I figure everyone has different taste and you can always add a bit more in the end (however, it's always important to try to season your food to your taste while it's cooking, because salting something while it's cooking brings out and enhances the natural flavors of ingredients, whereas adding salt at the end mostly tastes salty).
- This is delicious leftover and cold, perfect for a microwave free lunch
- You can slice the garlic and tomatoes beforehand and store them separately so they're ready to go when you are
- This is easily made vegan with the omission of the cheese

- Add the cheese in very last, if you add it in while the skillet is hot it gets stringy

The next Thursday meal is going to be a 20 minute meal. I'm going to include the time it takes to make the pasta...10 minute meal is actually a little misleading...

All Hail the first Freezermeal Friday!

my camera isn't too good with food pics (neither am I)


Welcome to Freezermeal Friday! I'm so excited you're here and I hope to help you prepare a healthy, organic meal that you and your family can enjoy in a pinch. This serves 4 hungry adults over brown rice ($.81).

Black Bean Confetti Chili

1 28 oz. can organic tomatoes ($1.67)
1/3 bag dried organic black beans (about 2 1/2 c. prepared) ($.66)
2 cloves garlic ( $.04 - Haymarket 5 heads garlic/$.75)
1/2 medium onion ($.07 - Haymarket bag of 13 onions/$1)
1 T. olive oil ($.24)
1 T. salt (<$.01) 1 dash black pepper ($.06)

1 t. dried basil ($.06)

1 t parsley ($.06)

1 1/2 t. cumin ($.28)

1T. chili powder ($.06)

1/4 t. cayenne pepper ($.06)

1 c. frozen organic corn ($.99)

1. Finely chop the onion and garlic and add it with the oil, salt, pepper, basil, and parsley to a pot on low heat. Half of this medium onion chopped is about 3/4 c. Keep the top of the pot on to keep the moisture in, if you don't the moisture will evaporate and your onions and garlic will burn. Here is a picture of what I consider a medium onion:

Here is another picture portraying what I consider to be the easiest way to peel an onion:

I cut off the ends, slice the outermost layer, and then peel it off, along with the skin! (God, looking at these pictures makes me realize how badly I need a manicure. Good thing my mom is taking me out for one when I visit her in NY next week - thanks Mom, love you!).

2. Cook the onions and spices and garlic and oil until the onions are translucent.

3. Add can of tomatoes and stir together. Add cumin, chili powder, and cayenne (which can be omitted or increased for personal preference).

4. Simmer the tomatoes and spices for 10 minutes and then add the beans. Continue to simmer for about 20 minutes on low, or until the consistency is to your liking.

5. This makes about 4 servings for dinner for adults. To freeze, portion out in your bag(s) of choice, and bring them to room temperature by either leaving them out (maybe on the windowsill with an open window) or putting them in a cold water bath (make sure those bags are sealed well, or you'll be damn sorry).

6. Oh, I should've mentioned this before, but if I go back and add it the whole recipe will be ruined because I'm on my fiance's computer that is a little messed up --- LABEL THE BAGS WITH SHARPIE - include date the food was cooked, how many portions are in it, and what it is.

7. Lie the bags flat (so they take up less room and are easier to manage in the freezer) and allow them to freeze. Lying them flat also allows them to freeze quicker, reducing the chance that the food in the middle will grow bacteria before it's frozen.

There's your first scrimpy Freezermeal! I hope you enjoy it. Here's some tips to make it even better:

• You can add a pound of any type of ground beef to this. Just brown it in a pan and add it to the tomatoes with the beans. It will then serve 8 I think...right? (if you do this let me know how many hungry adults it serves)
  
• I love to add sour cream and hot sauce on top of mine.


• It's good on over orzo pasta, too.


• You could add chunks of grilled chicken to it, too.


• To reheat, just soak bag in hot water and dump the frozen brick into the pot and warm over low until hot. I don't have a microwave but I'm sure micorwave defrosting it wouldn't be too difficult. You could also leave the bag in the fridge in the morning and it would probably be soft by the time you got home.


• Excuse the picture, but we ate it last night and I forgot to take the picture. There's rice all mixed in and it just doesn't look as pretty without the dollop of sour cream (and garnish of chives). My bad, OK people? I have a baby...so that's my excuse, I'm busy! PLEASE excuse the formatting problems, too. Again - I don't have my computer and this one's keyboard is broken!

TOTAL: $5.07/4 servings which is $1.27/serving. Not bad. If you're not into organic this would be, like, half the price...but go organic, it's better for you!

Whole Foods Product of the Week

I think that I will start posting a few of my favorite Whole Foods deals. I used to be totally against Whole Foods. I thought it was such a waste of money to shop there, and thought that everything there was ridiculously over priced. However, with a little investigation, I've found that there are several (countless - really) products that are an incredible value.


Whole Foods has a great website that highlights their services. My favorite feature is that you can call up at 617-723-0004 and ask for Serena Hsu and schedule your own tour of the store. They also have pre scheduled trips through the store to highlight certain values. I'm sure they go through the baking aisle and show you how cheap the flour is.


Anyways, the store is full of overpriced goods, but is also full of healthy values. (And if you can afford the nice expensive stuff - you can be sure it's preservative free).


My pick of the week is the organic 5 lb. carrot bag for (drumroll please) $3.99. Uses for these bad boys include:

- making fresh carrot sticks. This is a place where you can avoid a processing step and do it yourself, thus saving money. In the beginning of the week, I cut up an entire container of sticks. To save even more time, you could put them in individual containers or baggies (you're better off reusing a glass container to avoid throwing away all the plastic bags) and just grab and go throughout the week. I use them in Mike's lunches and we snack on them before dinner. They're so healthy and they really fill you up and curb your appetite before dinner.

- making baby food. Dylan goes crazy and loves him some carrots. I take aforementioned sticks and chop them up, but them in my steamer pot and steam until softened. I then pop them in the magic bullet (you can use the food processor or even the blender - but have fun cleaning the blender...I hate cleaning the blender) and voila! Baby food, fresh and organic. Just a note about making your own carrots...there is some concern over making your own carrots for baby food dur to nitrate content. To avoid this and make your own carrots safely, don't worry, just don't add the steaming liquid to make the puree, add fresh water...and use organic carrots, of course. I think all baby food should be made with organic food because babies' little bodies are much more sensitive to all the pesticides.

- roasted as a side dish or vegetarian main dish. Just drizzle them with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper (and dried parsley, or oregano, or garlic powder) and roast in the oven at 350 until golden on top. These can be made into a vegetarian main dish by adding brown rice or quinoa and a salad.

- it's always great to have carrots around to make a soup. You just add celery and onion, and you have your own little base for a soup (more on that this week).

- they're just great to snack, snack, snack on! When reheating leftover soup, I sometimes throw some fresh carrots in so that they are nice and crisp in the soup (when you reheat soup, the original carrots can be pretty soft).


These carrots are one of the most affordable organic options at Whole Foods, and one of the most versatile vegetables I use. I buy a bag a week and enjoy every single carrot. Go buy a bag and let me know how you use them up!

(By the way, Mike just told me I was going "blog wild"...that's a good one).

How to make tomato sauce

Hey! Making red sauce is a great way to keep dinner costs down. I buy my organic tomatoes at Whole Foods. Their diced organic 365 brand are $1.79/can. I paid $1.67/can when I got the Muir Glen ones on sale 3/$5.00, but I'll use the $1.79 price since that's what you, the reader, can pay all the time, regardless of the sale. It's really easy to make a tasty red marinara style sauce. The sauce is so versatile. I make it, eat it over pasta once, make a lasagna or baked ziti with a little bit more of it, and then have pasta once again, or make meatball subs! You can also freeze it if you have extra, and always have an emergency dinner on hand with a little pasta, or half the recipe! My recipe makes a nice sized pot of sauce. Enough for 8 meals of spaghetti. Add in some meatballs and you've got yourself a good time (my family is from Italy, and they put raisins in the meatballs...this is delicious, try it!).

So, I am going step by step here so you can see what I really do. To test it out, I'm going to have Mike try to make it based on the blog. I will update you on how that goes!

First I cut up an onion. Here I used red, but I really prefer yellow. This was just what I had. It happened to be a cup. Most baseball sized onions will produce a cup. I chopped it like so:


I then add these to the pot along with:
2T sugar
2T olive oil
1 t salt
1 t dried basil
1 t dried parsley
1 dash black pepper

Like so:


I then pop the top on these bad boys and let them cook until they begin to become translucent. The top helps keep the moisture in. Once they become see through, you can take the top off and continue to cook everything. The liquid will evaporate, and the onions will soften and brown a bit, and that's what you want!

By the end of this step, your sauce will look like this:


At this point, you add two 28 oz. cans of tomatoes and then fill the cans up with water and add that. For a total of 2 cans of tomatoes and 2 tomato cans of water. That's confusing. But it's not. Your pot will look like this (but a little fuller because this is only with one can of water added):


(You may say, "my pot looks nothing like this". And I will tell you that we are talking about two very different types of pot, my friend).

At this point, you crank the heat up to high and put a top on it to get it up to a boil nice and quickly. Once it's boiling, take the top off, lower the heat, and allow it to simmer and reduce to the thickness you'd like. You simmer it longer for a thicker sauce, shorter for a thinner sauce.

At the end, if it is too "tomatoey", I like to add a tablespoon of butter, which isn't traditional and kind of a cheat, but whatever. Oh, yeah, and P.S. this has no garlic in it. I never liked making it with garlic, and my 94-year-old Grandma from Italy was watching me make it...I told her that I didn't put garlic in it, and she exclaimed she didn't in hers, either! Wow!

This whole process takes about 2 hours I'd say.

So the ingredient list is:
2 cans tomatoes, organic ($3.58)
1 c. onions ($.07 - Haymarket)
2 T. extra virgin olive oil (doesn't have to be extra virgin...$.24)
2 T. sugar ($.04)
1 t. salt ($.01)
1 t. dried parsley ($.01)
1 t. dried basil ($.01)
1 dash black pepper (<$.01) 1 T butter, optional a couple shakes of red pepper flakes (for spicy heat - to be added to onions and oil in the beginning of cooking - optional) Grand Total: $4.06 (with the butter), $6.04 with 2 pounds of spaghetti ($.99 at both TJs and WF). That would serve about 4 hungry people twice (or 8 hungry people once). That means that it's actually $.76/serving. Wow! I will come back to share my Italian bread recipe with you, too!

scrimpySauceTips:
- You can half this recipe to make enough sauce for 1 box of pasta.
- You can use this sauce for so many things: Chicken parmesan, Eggplant parmesan, Baked ziti, Lasagna, Stuffed shells, Calzones, etc...
- This makes a great freezer meal. Just freeze half for a quick weeknight dinner,
- You could use this for pizza, I'd just add an extra T, of sugar, and reduce it until it's thicker.
- I like this sauce thin and smooth. To get it thin and smooth, I use an immersion stick Braun hand mixer. You can also put it in a blender. Just be sure it's cooled off because the heat could blow the top off.
- If you like it thick and chunky, use diced tomatoes and just serve it as is. And if you only have whole tomatoes, just crush them in your hand before you add them to the pot.
- You can use any type of canned tomato: seasoned, crushed, pureed, whole, you name it!
- I have heard that all soups and sauces are better if given some time to rest. So usually, I'll make this at 3 pm, let it sit on the stove off the heat once it's done cooking, and then heat it up while I cook the pasta around 7 for dinner.
- It's good with a sprinkle of grated Parmesan or Romano. I use Romano because it's so much cheaper and serves the same purpose. Again, when I have money, it'll be Parmesan. And it'll be the expensive Parmesan.