Out of all the cookware I own, the ones I like best are made out of cast iron. They’re the most versatile cooking vessels I have. I started using cast iron 4 years ago, when I moved in with someone who preferred cast iron for a lot of his cooking. I had been wanting to try it out ever since watching Alton Brown use it to cook a ribeye. In 2006, I got my own cast iron skillets and began using them daily.
I’ve had meatballs in my freezer for a long time now, and never got around to using them. Today I decided it was time to use them for a quick lunch.
With canned plain tomato sauce on hand, making a tasty sauce to go with pasta, bread, or meatballs is really simple and fast. Today I chopped up the remains of an onion, and smashed and roughly chopped three garlic cloves, then sauteed those in some California Estate olive oil.
Once they started to get fragrant, I added a good amount of red pepper flakes, some pepper, and a bit of dried oregano. I let it continue to saute until the onions just started to brown, then I added one small can of plain tomato sauce, just enough water to rinse the sides of the can, and a glug of balsamic vinegar. I let that simmer uncovered for ten minutes.
After simmering, I tasted it, and decided it needed some sugar, a bit more vinegar, and more oregano. Once that was stirred in, I added the frozen meatballs and about 1/2 cup of water, and partially covered the pan to let the meatballs cook for 20 minutes.
When the meatballs were done, I removed the lid and raised the heat to thicken the sauce. In the meantime, I toasted some pieces of sourdough bread. It all finished at about the same time. I put the meatballs and sauce on one side of the plate, and the bread on the other. The whole meal required about 15 minutes of active work, including cleanup (nonstick pans, while not great for everything, make cleanup of simple meals very easy).
Recently I had a craving for Southern-style vegetables: cooked for a long time with a cured pork product. I saw some nice Romano beans at the market, and decided they’d be just the thing. I had wanted to cook some when they were in season last year, but never got a chance.
Romano beans are a type of broad, flat snap bean. Depending on when they were harvested, they could be suited for either fast cooking, like most green beans, or long cooking. The Southern style for snap beans is to cook them for a long time with cured pork. This recipe is my take on a standard, simple Southern recipe for snap beans.
Continue reading for a method to check if your beans need stringing, and a recipe for romano beans »
When I was young, I used to eat a quick breakfast of cold cereal, instant oatmeal, or a toaster item like frozen waffles or a Pop-Tart as soon as I got up, before rushing off to school. I was never especially hungry, but I knew I needed to eat something, because I wouldn’t have another opportunity for a meal for several hours. My first year of college, I had morning classes, and managed to get up early enough to get to the dining commons and have breakfast. Sometimes it was cereal and coffee, but often it was a larger breakfast of hot foods – eggs and pancakes, or a big bowl of oatmeal, or whatever else they had that day. After that, I started sleeping in more often, and eventually stopped really eating breakfast. When I did get up before lunch hours, I’d just have some coffee or tea.
More recently, I’ve gotten back to eating shortly after waking up. Many days, I find myself actually hungry in the morning. I think it has to do with my appetite being much better now that I’m getting adequate dialysis.
Several studies have shown that eating breakfast can help you eat fewer total calories during the day. Not only does that help a diet, but it means you probably also spend less on food. Not only that, but breakfast can often be made much cheaper than lunch or dinner. If you split your calories between three meals instead of two, and one is significantly less expensive, you save money.
I’ve worked out an example to illustrate my point. Let’s say you eat 2000 calories in one day. Let’s split that between lunch and dinner. For the sake of argument, we’ll say that lunch is constant, and you eat enough dinner to make up calories to reach a total of 2000.
Now let’s add a typical hot breakfast, and adjust the amount of dinner eaten to stay at 2000 calories total:
You can see that, even though you consumed the same number of calories, there’s a 17.7% savings when you eat breakfast. Now, that’s not considering that you’ll tend to eat fewer calories. You might still be sated enough from lunch that you won’t eat that whole cheeseburger for lunch, or maybe you’ll snack less through the day (I haven’t accounted for snacking here, but if you snack, you could potentially save even more, as snacks tend to be more expensive per calorie than full meals).
Simple breakfasts are pretty cheap. Two eggs and toast comes out to a few cents (okay, maybe 50 cents). If you utilize leftovers, it gets even cheaper. An omelette using leftovers in half-free. Oatmeal is very thrifty too, as long as you don’t pile on the butter and out-of-season berries.
I had a plan to write a great post on shopping the grocery flyers. That was April 29th. But the infection I had been fighting flared up and made me not want to work all day, then put me in the ER that night. Since then it’s just been problem after problem, and only now am I finally able to get back to posting.
Since the last time I posted, I’ve moved out of my rented room in Santa Barbara and back in with my family in LA. it’s been a month, but I still have to move all my stuff in to where I want it. Health problems have kept me from doing that, but now I’m getting better. One of my major goals in moving in is to get my computers set up in a clean, organized environment, so I can be more productive, both with my blog and the other things I do.
Also, once I’m all moved in, I’ll take over the kitchen and start doing my own grocery shopping. My eventual goal is to do all the grocery shopping and cooking for the family, with my mother willing to finance the shopping. I think the best way to get that going is in stages. First I’ll do my own shopping, with my own money, and cook mostly for myself, but in larger portions than I’d usually cook. I’ll offer the extras to whoever wants them, or leave leftovers in the fridge (which my brother will probably eat). Eventually, when more of the food in the kitchen is “mine,” I’ll begin asking for input on what the family wants for dinner, and cook dinner for everyone. Hopefully once I’m doing that on a regular basis, I’ll be able to ask for funding to buy food each week.
Once I’m fully moved in (should be within the next couple days), I’ll post again about how I’ve organized my working space. I’ll also post once I’m on my way to cooking for the household.
A great way to save money on food is to cook with cuts of meat you wouldn’t usually cook with. Some of the bony, fatty, ugly pieces of meat can be had very cheaply, and surprisingly, they have great potential in the kitchen if you know how to use them. Generally, the cheap meats have a lot of connective tissue, and are tough or hard to eat if you cook them the same way you’d cook an expensive cut.
The trick is braising. To braise a piece of meat is to cook it low and slow for a long time in a covered pot in a relatively small amount of flavorful liquid. The long slow cooking causes all the connective tissue to break down and turn into gelatin, which gives you that fall-off-the-bone consistency and nice savory flavor. Stewing is also an option – just the same method, but with much more liquid. Bony cuts contribute a lot of flavor to a stew’s broth.
Continue reading for examples, methods, and a recipe for pozole »
