Food

$7 a Day??

March 22, 2011 0 Comments

Via Glenn Reynolds, things like eating on $7 a day articles really get me going. There are five of us here. That would be $245 a week! Luxury! Riches! We can afford about $100 a week

, for somewhat tortured values of “afford.” Call it maybe $3 a day, then, for a person. So lucky that three of them are kids, though they’ve become a challenge to afford to feed despite their size and bodily non-fussiness about what they’ll turn into fuel and additional mass and height.

What that means is not cauliflower, not much Trader Joe’s (though that’s a good place for allergy friendly food, a part of the challenge of eating cheap I won’t even get into here)

, not a lot of fresh food, and devotion of more time than might otherwise be the case.

It means you buy certain things in bulk, which costs up front but extends your stocks later. It means less variety than might be the case. It means paying attention to sales or who has what at everyday best prices, but balancing that against gas and time required to go farther rather than nearer for a given thing or three.

You want inexpensive? Rice. Dry pinto beans. Flour. Store brand old-fashioned oatmeal. Dry lentils and peas. Generic goods from the store with the best unit price, based in part on what it is and how well it will feed the kids. Cheap meat. Cheap pasta. Cheap sandwich bread. Lots of sandwiches. Tuna as somewhat of a luxury, for variety.

It means you sweat over the price of cheese, but cheese is a staple, an ingredient in or centerpiece of so many meals, you can’t do without readily. Cheap means a pot of chili made with dry pinto beans and beef that was on sale for $1.99/lb. Cheap means burritos made with flour tortillas you made yourself for a fraction of the store bought cost, refried beans you made yourself, rice, maybe some corn, the cheapest meat you could get, some cheese, and sour cream at the best price you can find. Now, in reality convenience wins much of the time, even here, so it’s canned refried beans most of the time, and even store bought tortillas, though homemade are better (whereas I’ve never made refried beans as good as our favorite store brand). Burritos are a good cheap eat, as they are filling and can stretch meat and cheese further than some dishes. Pasta stretches food, too.

Yes, some of this is not as good for you as other things, but the lower you can go on some items, the more you can afford healthier items and treats.

There are some surprises. Making your own bread doesn’t save all that much. It’s just yummier. Potatoes are relatively expensive. A batch of mashed potatoes takes 5 lbs and will leave only a little left over. It’s the allergy boy’s favorite food in the world, but is mostly supplanted by rice.

It’s hard when you need to buy spices, but those are necessary for making the food tasty and interesting, and represent a low cost per meal in the long run. When we got food stamps for a year, it felt like we were swimming in grocery money. The kids were smaller, and I couldn’t use the entire $400-odd in a month, even splurging. While I buy all the 99 cent spices I can, some aren’t available that way, and food stamps made that easier. Then they sort of jerked us around and kept us off of them, which has been tough at times, and gotten worse as our income fluctuated back down. We probably qualify for a couple hundred a month, and I’m waiting to hear on our latest attempt to bother applying. Having any self-employment income means you may almost as well not bother. But I digress.

The point is, $7 a day may not be up to the standards people of means are used to, but it’s actually a substantial amount of grocery money. Thus I find these challenges amusing, or even disturbing, because they seem so unserious compared to the reality out here.

Food, Meme, Shopping

Coconut Milk

March 20, 2011 1 Comment

With Henry’s allergies to dairy and all nuts, he has to use soy milk. It’s a good thing he likes all things soy! To him, soy butter is as yummy and natural as peanut butter is to most of us. And he hates sunflower butter, which is vastly better. We tried rice milk along the way, but that seems to be little more than water.

Yesterday I noticed for the first time coconut milk in Walmart, in the same case with soy, nut, rice and organic milks. It was a buck more (speaking of which, at the rate milk has gone up, the differential with soy seems less onerous), but I decided it might be worth a try, and could picture it being better in something like cake. When I make a cake free of eggs and dairy, instead of all water, I generally use half soy milk and half water. Not that it matters, since he has developed tolerance enough to eat cake with eggs and/or milk baked into it, just as the allergist suggested. Yet we’ve come to like the special recipe cake better. Though ironically I cannot make it taste good in chocolate, despite chocolate being the original recipe I adapted. But I digress.

I bought one, and this morning it was time to open a fresh milk, as his old soy milk is expired. Presumably, since it’s hard to tell, besides just throwing it away after the recommended 7-10 days. The only way I seem to be able to tell, since it doesn’t develop an odor, is to taste it. If I feel like retching within the next moment or so, it’s definitely bad. My body knows what my nose and taste buds can’t discern.

I offered Henry the choice of coconut milk or soy on his cereal. He picked coconut and there was much excitement. Then as soon as I’d opened it, he said no, he didn’t want it, didn’t like it. He refused to taste it to be sure. If I’d never told him and just opened it, he’d have had no clue it was different, and might have loved it. Duh! I thought he’d be happy to try it, but he’s busily being 3, and some. Most stubborn person I know, too.

I poured a small glass so I could taste it. Man, what an improvement over soy milk! You can taste the coconut flavor, in fact it tastes much like the liquid from the hollow of a coconut, which when I was a kid we got all excited to have, despite it not, in reality, being that good. We called it “coconut milk,” but apparently that’s not the correct term.

Sadie wouldn’t taste it, after championing the new milk to Henry. Maybe that would have helped. He refused, simply declaring he didn’t like it. Valerie drank the whole thing and declared it awesome. When offered more, she opted to try it as chocolate milk. I flavored it heavily, since the coconut flavor came through. She hated it as chocolate milk. I drank it. It was good, but different. Might be better as strawberry. No word on how it would be with lime.

So… I guess I’ll be baking! Or doing something with it, even if I’m the only one who eats it. And I probably won’t buy it again, or if I do, won’t tell Henry what it is before serving it. Why fight to serve him something that costs more?

Allergies, Dairy Allergy, Food, Kids, Shopping

Food Stretching With Pea Soup

March 29, 2010 1 Comment

It’s the season for ham to be on sale. While I didn’t go completely frugal, opting for a spiral cut ham at $1.39/lb rather than an uncut shank or butt ham for less, I do try to make the most of it.

There are all the ways ham can be served. With a meal as the meat centerpiece. With eggs. In a sandwich. But my favorite, using the bone and more of the meat than some people traditionally would, is to use the remnants of the ham as the basis of a pea soup.

I always loved my grandmother’s pea soup, and my mother has taken over doing a good job of it. What surprised me is the first time I ever made one , some 4 – 5 years ago, it was better than any pea soup I’d ever had, matriarchal or otherwise.

That was having no clue how to make one, and as usual taking my cues from recipes online. I’ve varied it, but basically it’s the same deal. I boil the bone and attached meat at some length and ultimately get it off the bone, then cook dry peas in the resulting broth with meat, maybe adding additional meat. There can be onion if I have any. There can be shredded carrot for variety, if I have any and feel like it. Seasoning is mostly the smoky meat and the flavor inherent in the peas, but besides some onion it’s most likely to involve bay leaf, maybe some garlic. I believe I’ve put in some red pepper flakes before, as I would for certain beef dishes.

I like split peas for cooking speed, and don’t mind the mushier texture. Turns out my grandmother prefers whole peas. The time I tried them, it seemed like they took forever to get done. She actually starts with them and adds the meat, where I automatically started by cooking down the meat, as I would with a chicken or turkey carcass to make broth/soup. I like lentils so much, I’ve been tempted to make a lentil soup with ham, but have yet to try it.

Ham is easier to deal with than poultry, in terms of separating out the bone/joint pieces later. My chicken soup almost always has a piece of bone lurking somewhere. Have yet to figure out a foolproof method. For that matter, have yet to settle on a method I prefer for separating the bones after cooking a chicken carcass into submission. Perhaps the closest I’ve come to foolproof was to use a pasta insert that came with my big stock pot, allowing me to pull the solids entirely out of the broth easily, then pick through and throw in what belonged in the transformation to soup. But I digress.

One of my projects for the day is to make pea soup. Thought I’d make a note of it here, since it fits the theme.

Do you make soups like pea soup, chicken, turkey, or otherwise to stretch more food out of what might be marginal leftovers or discards? Any other stretching ideas?

Food, Participation

Eggless Tempura-Style Chicken

March 26, 2010 1 Comment

My brother recently mentioned having made tempura-style orange chicken, which led me to look online to find out what exactly tempura was, since I’d not to my knowledge had it before.

I learned that tempura is Portuguese-inspired Japanese, foods fried in a very thin batter coating. I recently tried a batter coating for strips of chicken and ended up replicating, except for having seasoned the batter, Chinese restaurant chicken fingers. The kids loved it, and I figured the batter was a way to stretch the limited amount of chicken.

Usually tempura is made with eggs, flour and cold water. The cold matters to the chemistry, much the way hot presumably mattered in my recent test of a faster flour tortilla recipe. The egg apparently doesn’t, because I found it is possible to make tempura without it.

I’ve learned that the best way to arrive at recipes or adaptable inspirations for dishes that contain no dairy and no eggs is to include “vegan” in the search. It seemed kind of odd to search for vegan tempura, but in addition to its most common use in seafood, tempura is also used for vegetables, which I look forward to trying. I’ve had that kind of thing in a restaurant, if not by that name, with cauliflower, squash and broccoli.

Here is what I did…

2 Cups flour (Too much, for 3 chicken breasts, could halve it or use more chicken, or whatever you’re using this on.)

2 Cups cold water (I put ice cubes in it ahead of time.)

2 Heaping teaspoons baking powder

1 Teaspoon or so of salt

A little oil – maybe a tablespoon or so.

Season as desired or not at all. I used a bit of red pepper, a dash or so of garlic powder, and a bit of black pepper.

I deiviated from strictly tempura by crumbling some Ritz crackers fairly fine and dipping one side of most of the pieces of chicken in it. I also considered using oatmeal similarly.

No deep fryer here. Enough oil in a frying pan, nice and hot, to be able to cook one side then turn it over.

I cut the chicken into very small strips and chunks, the better to cook fast and go with the lightness of the batter.

I put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mixed them together with a whisk. Then I poured in the water and oil. Started with half the water and mixed, then the rest. You might watch how it seems and back off or add to the amount of water. Stirred it thoroughly. It bubbled a little and looked a lot like pancake batter. I ended up just drowning all the pieces of chicken in the batter, pulling each one out and putting them in the pan one at a time in two batches. I ended up frying a small patty of batter and crumbs from the batter that was left on the crumb plate. That was yummy and suggests possibilities.

This is very much a keeper. We inhaled it. On one of the recipes I saw for vegetable tempura, it said serve and eat immediately lest the batter get soggy. With the chicken I’d also say eat it sooner than later, because it isn’t as good in texture after it sits a while. Tastes good though. The vegetable tempura recipe also said dredge in flour before dipping in batter. I can see that being useful for veggies. Chicken worked without. Would it have worked better with? Not sure.

Since I have never had tempura in a restaurant, and in fact the only Japanese restaurant food I’ve had is noodles, I can’t compare. Even if it’s not “real tempura,” it’s so good I can’t wait ti try it again.

Allergies, Egg Allergy, Experiment, Food, Recipe

Flour Tortillas Without the Wait? (Updated)

March 18, 2010 0 Comments

I’m thinking about making flour tortillas and went back to look at the recipe with a critical eye, thinking there was a wait time involved. Sure enough, it was 3:00 when I started looking it up, and from kneaded it calls for at least 3 hours on the counter before forming into balls, rolling and cooking. I thought I might do it anyway, being at a loss for what to make if not burritos, but decided to look up other recipes to see if the wait is a universal.

It’s not.

I found this great video, which if nothing else shows good rolling technique:

For a moment I thought she was going to say put the little balls in the fridge, or let them sit out, but nope… immediate gratification.

What is fascinating about this video and at least one written recipe I saw is that they call for baking powder. Our recipe does not. I have to wonder if that makes the difference.

Maybe, but what it definitely does is make the tortillas in the video puff up like balloons, shades of what a pita recipe is supposed to do in a high temperature oven and with a thicker form of flatbread. (Flatbread variants fascinate me, and it’s logical that they were invented in various overlapping forms in various cultures and regions.)

At any rate, great, fast video, different technique than you’ve seen here in our traditional recipe and method. My burrito plans would appear to be saved. It’s at least worth a try, to see how they come out. Perhaps I’ll update later with results.

Update:

They were easy to make and it worked basically as advertised.  It was convenient, doing them so quickly.  It made about 16 smallish tortillas and only 2 remain.  However…. They don’t taste nearly as good as the recipe that leaves out the baking powder but has a 3 hour rest time.  I’d love to come up with a happy medium, where they are faster and easy to work with – these seemed to roll out better, though weather conditions favored it – while also being as tasty.

Food, Pointer, Recipe

Accidental Chinese-Style Chicken Fingers

March 17, 2010 0 Comments

Last night I had some newly bought boneless chicken breasts from a $1.99/lb sale at Hannaford , wanted to use them, make it fast, be different and please the kids, and wanted to stretch them as far as possible. I sometimes make fried chicken with a dry coating based on flour and/or oatmeal, but for some reason – perhaps recent talk of making allergy-free pancakes sometime (after I get syrup for them) – I thought of making fried chicken strips in a batter coating. Hadn’t done that before.

I searched and found this recipe for eggless Chinese shrimp batter, which seemed like just the thing to adapt for chicken.

It looked like too little, so I doubled it. I also used soy milk instead of water, initially, then mainly water to thin it. It was way too thick. We’re talking a lot of extra liquid, perhaps almost a cup on a recipe that when doubled called for half a cup. I cut up two boneless breasts into thin strips, picturing relatively short chicken fingers. Dipped them in the batter and fried them in oil deep enough to cook one side, flip them and the other side. Deep fryer would presumably be better.

They came out nearly perfect, except I seasoned the batter and it came out a bit odd. To me. The kids loved them. It may have come out odd because I grabbed the poultry seasoning and poured some in, then found the poultry seasoning toward the back of the cabinet and realized I’d used the nearly identical container of ginger. At that point I’d have been better off leaving it the ginger, salt, pepper, garlic powder and pinch of red pepper, not adding poultry seasoning and rosemary. Oh well.

The other problem? No dipping sauce! I love dipping my Chinese chicken fingers, which they looked identical to, in duck/plum sauce. Kids didn’t care, but I decided to try whipping up something fast. Used a little red plum jam, less grape (would have used more plum and no grape but that is a closeout item and a favorite of the kids we may not find again any time soon), some water, lemon juice, soy sauce, brown sugar and ginger, heated briefly in the microwave and stirred into a thinner liquid than I might have preferred. It worked, except for being too strong on the grape flavor. If I plan these ahead sometime, I’ll make or buy something better.

The batter made me think I could do something similar to make fritters. I could also see adding oatmeal for a crunchy fried chicken batter, taking it away from the Chinese style.

Stay tuned for further experiments, and perhaps pictures, which are still on the camera.

Dairy Allergy, Egg Allergy, Experiment, Food, Kids, Pointer

Sweet Potato Fritters Experiment

December 4, 2007 0 Comments

A couple days ago I came up with an idea, inspired by plain old potato hash browns Deb made not long ago, and the zucchini fritters I tried. Why not something has brown/fritter/potato pancake-like with sweet potatoes?

So I risked one modest sweet potato on an experiment. I peeled and then shredded it into a bowl. I diced finely a couple slices of s small to medium onion

, guessing correctly that it would go well. I added an egg, just a dab of oil, a couple heaping tablespoons of flour, a glop – probably a couple tablespoons – of maple syrup, and a handful – probably a quarter or third cup – of brown sugar. Also a dash of ginger and about half the size dash of nutmeg. Mixed it all thoroughly, which gave me something about the right texture.

I cooked flat round globs of the mix in some oil in a frying pan until they seemed to be done, which due to sugar caramelizing tended to mean they were unexpectedly dark. Flipped a couple times as needed and then put them on a plate.

I would love to say they were perfect, but they need further experimentation. However, I was on the right track. They were delicious, if too sweet and too caramelized, and got raves from Deb, who thought the onion was inspired and in perfect proportion. Since onion itself tends to fry up sweet, it’s not as weird as it might sound.

Doing them again, I would probably cut the syrup and/or brown sugar out almost completely, relying on native sweetness. I was thinking the sugar would also contribute to holding them together in patties, but it probably wasn’t enough of a factor to matter.

I’ll have to try it again soon, as I still have a few sweet potatoes that will need to be used. It does make a good sweet potato extender. One small to medium potato was enough for the four of us to have plenty. It’s also a taste sub, at least with so much sweetener, for candied sweet potatoes, but with less work. We had them with oven barbecued chicken (par cooked on the stoved, smothered in sauce of my off the cuff making, then baked at length, drumsticks for me and the kids and boneless breast for Deb), mashed, and corn.

Experiment, Food

Fish Stew

November 26, 2007 1 Comment

In reading A Meeting At Corvallis, mention of fish stew (which would have to be the same as a fish chowder) served in a restaurant made me crave something like that, which seems odd but there you go. Having been into making soups and stews lately, it seems that much more intriguing.

Have you ever made such a thing? Any recipes or tips to share?

I would think that would make it possible to use fish that might not be as good served another way.

Food