Eating Well Cheaply |
| "Eating" and "Cheaply" are not necessarily two words which people who know me would figure I could use in the same sentence. Not my friends, and not those who read
my other blog, An Obsession With Food.
However, the technology sector layoff axe has swung my way, and so I find myself trying to stretch my savings as far as possible. But I firmly believe that one can eat well
on a tight budget. After all, many so-called gourmet foods had their roots in peasants trying to make their money stretch as far as possible. Of course, something like
coq au vin is only peasant food when you're actually in Burgundy, and can more easily find cheap wine for the stew.
It just takes more time and planning. But time has become much more available. And even when I get hired again, I'll keep
cooking this way since my girlfriend Melissa and I are thinking about buying a house once we both have income again. Plus, then I'll have more money to spend on the
extravagant meals I occasionally describe on my other blog.
A note on costs: in general, I don't keep track of how much things like flour, sugar, salt, and so forth cost. When I list costs, it's usually just the items I had to buy specifically for that meal. Not always, though. If I buy a bunch of some type of fruit, and use a couple pieces here, a couple pieces there, I'll try and fill in the per-fruit cost or an estimate. Also, I usually just list costs for the first time I buy something. After that point, it counts as leftovers, since I've paid the price for it for some other dish, and the fact that I get to re-use it is a bonus. |
Crepes Friday, December 06, 2002
I haven't made crepes in a while, so figured it was time. Scoping out the farmer's market,
I picked up some leeks and apples and some salad greens, which were way frou-frou; they included
a beautiful purple kale.
I knew I had some walnuts at home, left over from something else, so I made my crepes, and then sautéed the leeks and apples until the leeks began to caramelize. While that was happening, I shelled my walnuts (with the assistance of a can of chicken broth; I couldn't find our hammer), and stirred them into the apple-leek mixture. The whole mélange got stuffed into the crepes, which I baked for 15 minutes at 350, just enough for the apples to begin to break down and the crepe to get crisp. While that was happening, I made my Basic Shallot Vinaigrette, and tore up the greens. Following my recent pattern, I grated some of our cheddar (now probably revealed as Fiscalini Bandaged Wrapped Cheddar, see An Obsession With Food), and covered the crepes with this once they came out of the oven. Then they all went into the broiler to toast the cheese on top of the crepes. While that happened, I tossed the greens with the vinaigrette, and we were ready to eat. To plate them, I put the salad on the plate, and then put three crepe bundles in the middle, arranged in a triangular pattern. The nice thing about crepes is that leftovers can be frozen. Just lay parchment or waxed paper between each crepe, and wrap everything in foil. So I've got about six crepes left for some other purpose.
Costs: always hard on farmer's market days since no one gives receipts; I should start taking notes Celery and Parsnips Wednesday, December 04, 2002
As I was busy with a million little things, dinner was very unimaginative last night. As I always do when I have
recently made stock (lots and lots and lots of turkey stock in this case), I made braised celery with parsley,
a dish I wish I had known about long ago, because it's so good. I tossed that in some rice, and then topped the whole thing
with parnsips in a white wine vinegar glaze.
All of this was left over from the previous night, except for the rice, which was in the pantry. Not
exactly my best meal yet, but filling and still fairly tasty. Parsnips are very nice vegetables to work
with, lending a bit of sweetness to their dish. That's why I opted for the vinegar glaze; a little tartness
to balance out the salt from the celery and the sweetness of the parsnip. Fish and 'snips Tuesday, December 03, 2002
While not as cheap as some of our other meals, Melissa and I managed to eat pretty well for
a modest sum last night. She has been in the mood for fish for some time, but most fish is pricey. Sand dabs,
however, which are specialties of our little part of the world, are reasonably inexpensive.I took a cue
from Judy Rodgers of Zuni Café and pan-fried the fish after dredging it in flour. I wasn't very happy with the crust,
maybe I didn't wait long enough to flip it; maybe the butter wasn't hot enough. Still, it was pretty good.
To complement it, I made a potato and parsnip purée, basically just like straight up mashed potatoes, and then blanched and sautéed some kale. To top the whole thing, I made an orange vinaigrette. For presentation, I put the purée in the middle of the plate, leaned the kale against it, and then leaned the sand dabs (2 for each of us) on the other side, laying orange slices on top of those. No wine, sadly. I walked through the wine section at Market Hall, wistfully eyeing some nice wines, but I had already spent a bit too much on dinner. Instead, we drank some of the Pilsner Urquell beer we have around the house. For dessert, we had some slices of a giant brioche I made yesterday, and some applesauce I made on a whim last week. I don't remember the exact costs of the apples that went into the sauce, and the brioche was pretty minimal, though it did use a bunch of butter and eggs.
Costs: Casseroles Are Your Friend Sunday, December 01, 2002
I have said before that poultry wings do not yield a sizeable amount of meat. But the wings off a 13.5-pound
Bourbon Red turkey yield considerably more meat than, say, a chicken. Nonetheless, it didn't yield quite
enough to not require any stretching.
When Melissa suggested some sort of pasta with sauce combination, I decided to do an impromptu "macaroni and cheese" though in this case we used gemelli pasta and mixed in turkey meat. I made a béchamel sauce (warm milk thickened with roux) and added in some egg yolks. Once the pasta was done, I drained it and put it back over heat, mixing in the sauce, and a handful of grated cheddar (the same cheddar we used for the shepherd's pies yesterday). I added Vietnamese cinnamon (my current favorite) and topped with bread crumbs. Taste-wise, the dish was quite good, but presentation-wise, well, it was a throwback to what my friends fondly call my "brown days." Pasta, melted cheddar (without the coloring agent that makes even farmstead cheddars a vibrant orange), sauteed turkey meat, and toasted bread crumbs. I guess you could tell what was in the dish, but you had to work pretty hard to distinguish the various elements. I served it with leftover cranberry sauce, which didn't work super well. The tartness was a nice balance, but the sweetness didn't work. What I should have done instead was stick a Gruner Veltliner in the fridge; the acidity on that would have worked quite nicely against the overload of cheese in the dish. But by the time I thought of it, it was too late to get it cold enough. Hmmm. Shepherd's pie and then macaroni and cheese. I know casseroles are a pretty common way to stretch ingredients, but they're not terribly exciting either. Still, we didn't have to spend any new money on dinner last night.
I did spend some money on the stock stuff I needed to make a stock out of the turkey carcass. I left
it on the stove for five or six hours, on a skosh of a simmer. I might need to reduce the stock a bit
more, but I'm eyeing the fat which rose to the surface last night. Turkey confit? Possibly. The problem,
of course, is that I'll need to get another turkey to try it, since I'll need more meat and probably
more fat. So it'll have to wait for a while, but I think the fat can live in the freezer for a while.
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