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The Kitchen Recessionista

So, here we are, in a recession. Let's eat!

Resolution Recipe No. 4: Winter Pear and Stilton Salad, “Favorite Brand Name Vegetarian Cooking.”

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LeeLee and I have had this cookbook, humorously (to us) named Favorite Brand Name Vegetarian Cooking, for more than 20 years, and it has yielded a great many good meals for us over those decades. Despite the cookbook’s name, we actually rarely use any of the recommended brand-name ingredients; store brands carry us just as far!

This winter pear and stilton salad, however, was a recipe we’d never tried before. It served as the perfect accompaniment to a main course we enjoyed last week – a chik’n pot pie – and was just so downright hearty in the middle of a polar vortex! The flavors melded beautifully and provided a wintertime motif unlike any other.

I did make a few modifications to the recipe as pictured: Namely, we had no stilton, and who has the budget to just rush out for random fancy cheese in this day and age anyway, so I pulled some plant-based Babybel rounds out from the fridge and sliced those up instead. I dare say the salad was improved for the substitution! Also, instead of the sherry wine vinegar, I used a Neopolitan Herb vinegar we got last year at Una Bella Salute in Berlin, Md. – a lovely shop, and a wonderful vinegar! 

We knew at once that the final result was a total keeper of a recipe. I didn’t even have to ask LeeLee (though I did, for posterity). We loved how the sweetness of the pears melded with the mixed greens, and the mild flavor of the Babybel married beautifully with the sweet-and-tangy dressing. We ate the whole bowl’s worth – and then enjoyed another round of it later in the week!

:)

Five Frugal Things.

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From new clothes to fun food to gift cards lost and found, it’s been a frugal week around here if I do say so!

1. Our wayward Best Buy gift card: Found!
Remember the Best Buy gift card I put in a very safe place the other week and promptly lost track of? I found it! And you’ll never guess where. Even I could not have guessed where. Last weekend I did some much-needed tidying and culling of our pantry cabinets, and there it was, behind the hot chocolate – my Best Buy gift card! I have no idea why I put it in the pantry (my guess it was a hurried cleanup effort before friends came over). But clearly it was very safe!

2. I bought some new snow pants on eBay.
This year has been a snowier-than-usual winter for us here in the Mid-Atlantic region so far, and my snow pants were getting a little long in the tooth. Well, actually, they were both long in the tooth AND short in the waistline. Ahem. In fairness, I’ve had them for 20 years now, and they’ve served me well all the while. Over the past couple of seasons, however, they have felt a little, um, snug around the midsection, and this year I am sorry to report they longer fit in a fashion where I can wear them out of the house. As they are snow pants, their main requirement is to be out of said house, so I needed a new pair. One quick search of eBay and voila! Jackpot — a new pair! And I do mean new – it still has the tags on. I picked this pair up for $39; a commensurate storebought version costs more than $100. I’ll take it! Here’s to another 20 years! (And if I do lose a bit of weight, my first pair will still be here waiting.)

3. I received an Amazon gift card from a friend.
A good friend of mine gave me an Amazon gift card as a thank-you, which I immediately deposited into my account (no misplaced gift cards there!) and will use in short order I’m sure. I often vascillate between saving these funds for something exciting and special, or using them for day-to-day items like vitamins; which do you do?

4. I’m fighting an erroneous hotel bill charge … and almost winning.
Remember how a couple of weeks ago, LeeLee had to head out of town earlier than planned so we used some soon-to-expire free hotel nights to help pay? Well, what I didn’t mention was that he had a second reservation scheduled for later that week, which he was going to pay for out of pocket as usual. But due to a confluence of weather-related events he needed to come home early and thus canceled the second reservation. So imagine my surprise when a $179 “late cancellation” fee hit our bank account the next day! I called the hotel, was assured it was in error, was told they’d fix it and … nothing got fixed. A week later, I called Marriott corporate to resolve the situation, and customer service must have written to the hotel in question, because in no time I received a nastygram (and I do not use that term lightly) from the hotel advising the issue was NOT their problem but that they’d refunded my money. Sure enough, the $179 credit is now listed as Pending in my account. I’m doing all I can not to name the specific hotel, but once this is all said and done I may change my tune. (The rude email made me Big Mad.) We’ll see!

5. The Leftover Revolution continues!
And what would a frugal roundup be without another mention of our wonderful Leftover Revolution? From spaghetti pie (pictured above) to tater tot casserole to a host of other leftover-friendly items, we’ve been eating like royalty over the past week! Stretching our grocery dollars while eating great food that reheats beautifully? No complaints here!

What have you been up to on the frugal front this week? Let’s hear it in the comments!

:)

Resolution Recipe 3: Banana Oat Bran Waffles, “The Make-Ahead Vegan Cookbook.”

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So far, my Resolution Recipes have been focused on dinnertime, but this week I decided to put a twist on things and service up a new-to-us breakfast recipe instead! Well, brunch, honestly, served on Sunday when we typically have a bit more time and life feels just slightly more luxurious. And what could possibly be more luxurious than waffles? Banana oat bran waffles, to be precise.

True story: I will look for any reason to use my waffle maker, which I’ve had for several years now. But another true story: My waffle success rate is pockmarked at best. Sometimes, my waffles turn out beautifully; other times, they stick and rip apart, leading me to blow a gasket. And reader, on this particular weekend, my gasket was ready to blow. We shan’t get into the reasons, other than to say many items both personally and nationally were all coming to a head at once, but there I was on Sunday morning, cookbook in one hand, waffle iron in the other, marching into the kitchen and announcing to LeeLee en route, “We’re about to have waffles. I hope I don’t blow a gasket.”

Well, reader, no gaskets were blown. Including when I couldn’t find the base to my immersion blender for a few minutes (it had fallen behind where it’s normally stored), which I felt was frankly a feat.

I attribute most of the reason for my intact gasket to this recipe, found in Ginny Kay McMeans’ The Make-Ahead Vegan Cookbook. I’ve made quite a few other recipes from the book, but never this one, so I knew Ginny Kay was the real deal. And blessedly for us all, this recipe didn’t fail me either, even despite my checkered past with the waffle maker.

Indeed, it came together in a snap, despite my failure to separate the dry ingredients from the wet and instead just lobbing them all in together before mixing with my immersion blender. And then, finally, came the test: Would the waffle maker propel me to glory, or would I blow the aforementioned gasket and storm off?

Friends! After eight minutes of cooking, each waffle came out perfectly sturdy and, well, waffle-like. LeeLee and I were both positively delighted with the outcome. The flavor definitely had notes of banana (though honestly, I’d probably add a second banana next time), and the mix of flours definitely gave the waffle a heartiness that warmed the soul. Served alongside some veggie sausage, it was a glorious brunch indeed!

So again I asked LeeLee: “Is this a recipe you’d like me to make again?”

Again he replied: “Yes!”

So we’re three for three so far. I’m so very glad our winning streak held for another week!

:)

Resolution Recipe 2: Beef and Spinach Soup With Rice, “Crockery Cookbook”

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I can’t believe I’ve never made this recipe before! The Better Homes and Gardens Crockery Cookbook has been a decades-long staple on my cookbook shelf, the very first slow-cooker cookbook I ever purchased upon receiving my very first Crock-Pot when I wasn’t much more than 20 years old. Its cover and pages definitely belie their age, all tattered and splattered, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. This is one well-loved cookbook, friends.

So it really is a surprise to me that I’ve never made this recipe for Beef and Spinach Soup With Rice. I’ve been vegetarian pretty much since I bought this cookbook home, so naturally I would have used a beef alternative even back in the day, but no … there’s no indication that I’ve ever whipped this one up! A shame, really, as the instant I flipped to it I knew I wanted to make it as my second Resolution Recipe of 2025.

And make it I did on Sunday, putting everything in the Crock-Pot as soon as I got home from my morning run and setting it to Low to cook all day. It couldn’t have been simpler: Simply dump in some Gardein beef tips, baby carrots, a diced onion, a sliced yellow squash, some minced garlic, some spices, a dollop of white wine (I had some left over for cooking), and some veggie broth and let ’er rip. Eight hour so later, the house was smelling great, and just before serving I dumped in several cups of spinach and a half-cup (more like three-quarters of a cup if we’re being honest) of Minute Rice, let it all cook for 10 minutes more and took it up. 

To be perfectly honest, the final product did require some additional salt and pepper, but once that was rectified this turned out to be a fantastic soup! It was hearty enough for a meal, but light enough to not make you feel overstuffed. And the prep couldn’t possibly have been easier, making it feel like a catered dish rather than something whipped up by my own hands! The Gardein tips held up beautifully after an eight-hour cook – they always do – and the rice added some lovely texture. To be honest, I think next time I’ll add a full cup of rice and see what happens.

And there will be a next time. Like last week, I asked LeeLee the Judgment Day Question: “Is this a recipe you’d like me to make again?” Once again the answer was yes.

Two weeks into the year and we’re off to a fine start recipe-wise! I wonder where this week’s cookbook will take us?

:)

Five Frugal Things.

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From free hotel nights to a cheap lunch to, sigh, even a frugal fail, it’s been a busy week!

1. We used some free night certificates for surprise work travel.
This past week threw us some curveballs in the ol’ work-travel department. LeeLee’s workweek got thrown into flux when we got word that a snowstorm was coming to town, and thus his time away had to be extended at the last minute when he decided to leave a couple of days earlier than planned so he didn’t get stuck here. (No big deal: He had plenty to do!) But since these extra nights away were likely to be an expense on our own dime, I wanted to make sure we did this as cheaply as possible. Enter: Some Marriott free night certificates! I’ve found them to be fairly difficult to use for a regular vacation, as the maximum point spend is often too low for vacation destinations, but they worked perfectly for a work trip at a lower-cost Marriott brand (the Moxy, in this case). So: LeeLee made it out of town safe and sound, and without breaking the bank. I love it! (Also, he made it back home safe and sound after the fact, and to a shoveled-out parking space, for which he owes me deeply.)

2. Lunch with a friend cost only $16!
While LeeLee was out of town, a friend and I went to try a new restaurant in town (walkable, given the aforementioned snowstorm!), and imagine my surprise to find that two (2) slices of pizza-by-the-slice came to a grand total of $16, including tip. I can’t think of the last time I went to a sit-down restaurant and came away with so much money still in my pocket! And the food was great, to boot. 

3. The leftovers remain plentiful.
I’ve intentionally gone heavy-duty into our leftover creation lately, making first-run meals that leave a lot for later. This week already we’ve enjoyed multiple servings of “steak” and ale pie with mashed potatoes, as well as Moroccan chik’n soup (pictured above), and I’m eyeing plenty of leftover-producing meals for the weekend too! Viva la (Leftover) Revolucion!

4. LeeLee found a bargain over at our local Goodwill.
Speaking of that upcoming work travel, LeeLee realized over the winter that he is deeply depleted on any and all businesswear. What better place to find some bargains than at our local Goodwill? He came home with 14 (!) various and sundry items, from collared shirts to ties to slacks to sport coats – some of which still had the store tags on! – for a grand total of $86. That nets out to $6 per garment, which is better than you’ll find on any first-run store rack. (And he looks ding-dang good, if you ask me!)

5. And … a frugal fail.
A couple of months ago, LeeLee’s beloved iPhone, his trusty friend for the better part of at least seven years, gave up the ghost suddenly and without warning one morning. He trucked over to Best Buy to get a new one – well, actually he started at AT&T (which is our carrier) and was directed to Best Buy by them, which feels weird, but whatever – and as a thank-you they sent him home with a $100 Best Buy gift card, which I immediately put in a safe place. And, dear friends, here is where the frugal fail comes in: I have forgotten where the safe place is. I know it is in our home. I know it has not walked off. But WHERE? I cannot say. Ideally this will turn back into a frugal win sometime soon, but right now, I am feeling like a pretty silly goose.

What are your frugal wins (or fails!) this week? Let’s hear about ’em in the comments!

:)

Resolution Recipe No. 1: Veggie Singapore Noodles, “Simply Chinese.”

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As I mentioned last week, one of my culinary New Year’s resolutions is that once a week, I’ll cook a new-to-me recipe from one of the multitude of cookbooks I own. So with trembling hands, I launched this challenge on its maiden voyage late last week with a batch of Veggie Singapore Noodles from Simply Chinese, a cookbook written by Suzie Lee. This is a cookbook I picked up a year or so ago during one of my pilgrimages to The Strand bookshop in New York City but had, sadly, not done much with since. I made a couple of recipes right away, but then life took over; you know how that goes.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Singapore noodles, so I knew this was a recipe that I just had to try. I’d never made Singapore noodles before in any incarnation, so with trembling hands I got to work. 

The trick with this recipe is to have everything prepped before you get started, as once things start cooking, it all comes together fast. In one pot I boiled my vermicelli noodles; in a pan, I scrambled some Just Egg, then took it out, then started stir-frying vegetables and quickly adding the spices, perfuming the entire home with a beautiful curry-chili blend. Meanwhile, I did add one thing to the dish – some gazed tofu, which I was cooking up in another pan. 

I won’t include the recipe here – Suzie Lee has a book to sell, after all – but I will just say that it came together in no time, despite some timing errors from yours truly. Also, before the dish came together I was confident that I had boiled too many noodles, but not so! The finished product had plenty of room for as many noodles as I could mix into the pan.

And about that finished product: It was a beautiful symphony of interesting flavors, from the curry powder to the chili powder to the garlic and soy sauce and even the scallions I garnished the dish with. And the flavors! They sang in concert with one another in such an unexpected way. I rarely cook with curry powder, for instance, outside of Indian cuisine, but it’s right at home in this dish. Paired with the mildness of the noodles and the sturdiness of the vegetables – and, yes, the slightly sweet glaze I’d made for my accompanying tofu – it was a lesson in culinary coordination. 

LeeLee and I each ate two helpings and were delighted to find we had plenty for lunch the next day.

“Is this a recipe you’d like me to make again?” I asked.

“Yes!” was his resounding reply.

And with that, our first resolution recipe is in the books – literally. Seriously, go pick up Simply Chinese at once!

:)

Five Frugal Things.

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Happy new year, friends! I hope your holiday season was terrific and that 2025 is off to a wonderful start. While things have been busy around here, we’ve still found ways to stay frugal. Here’s what’s been cooking!

1. I got 80 cents off per gallon of gas at my local Exxon!
Our neighborhood Exxon gas station has a deal with Safeway where if you enter your Safeway card number at the gas pump, it will lower your gas price to a certain amount based on how much you’ve spent. Well, in these rather inflationary times I must be racking up the bills, because the next thing I knew the pump was asking, “Price lowered $0.80 per gallon – Y/N?” Reader, I said Y! DO please lower my price, if you don’t mind. As I was virtually on fumes, I got my money’s worth.

2. We’ve got leftovers all over the place. All. Over the place.
Last week, we dutifully worked our way through our Chinese Christmas feast, and this week we’ve had a bounty of New Year’s-adjacent meals to enjoy day after day. First up: Chik’n gumbo on Dec. 30 (which LeeLee just finished for lunch today). Then mushroom tetrazzini on New Year’s Eve (which I finished for lunch today while LeeLee worked on the gumbo!). Then Hoppin’ John and cornbread for New Year’s Day (which we’ll finish for dinner tomorrow night). And then just tonight I made my first New Year’s Resolution recipe, which I’ll tell you all about nxt week! It, too, has yielded copious leftovers, which we’ll attack this weekend. And I haven’t even mentioned the leftover veggie-sausage-egg casserole, which I made for New Year’s Day brunch. Plenty of that, too!

3. I used already-purchased ingredients for my New Year’s Eve feast.
Now, sadly I didn’t have everything I needed for our NYE mushroom tetrazzini, but I did have quite a few ingredients already on hand (veggie broth, chik’n strips and spaghetti noodles, just to name a few), and that definitely helped me defray some costs. I also had bread crumbs on hand but completely forgot to use them on the final dish! I blame the pre-dinner martini. ;)

4. I paused my Huel subscription, saving about $70 a month.
For a long time I’ve been a proponent of Huel, a vegan meal plan that’s packed with protein and great for easy lunches. It was a staple of my weekday lunch program for months. For the past couple of months I’ve rescheduled my subscription since we’ve been so busy over the holidays, but I was getting tired of having to keep up with it and remembering to move the delivery date back another month at a time. So this month I went in and paused it so I won’t lose track. Until I “un-pause” it, I won’t have to deal with rescheduling it or paying a dime. I’m sure I’ll to back to it, but it’s nice to have one more thing off my plate (so to speak)!

5. I spent time this week mapping out my 2025 financial goals – and what it will take to get there.
Granted, this isn’t bearing frugal fruit today, but if I stick to my plan I know it will this year. Like any house, our financial house has some rooms that are company-ready and some that are out of order! My goal this year is to shore up those less-company-ready rooms and keep the better-looking areas humming along. This will require an increased savings rate as well as more aggressive debt paydown of our auto loans, but plans are taking shape for us to make it a reality. I’m strangely looking forward to it!

What do you have on your frugal docket this week – and for the new year? Let’s hear it in the comments!

:)

In Preparation for the New Year.

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We took a little pre-Christmas and post-LeeLee’s-birthday jaunt to New York City a week or so ago, and it was there amid the cookbooks in one of our favorite bookstores (Kinokuniya on Sixth Avenue) that I had a Revelation.

There I stood, trying to convince myself that I did not in fact need a new cookbook, reminding myself that I have dozens of cookbooks at home, many of which have barely been used. And then it hit me: What if I made one new-to-me cookbook recipe per week for all of 2025?

Friends, the thought hit me like a lightning bolt. YES! YES! I knew immediately I had to do it.

The thought is still with me several days later, which means now it’s a real thing. And so on the train home I began to come up with some rules of engagement. See how this suits you.

Hope’s One-New-Recipe-Per-Week Resolution for 2025:

1. Select one suitable recipe per week, from a cookbook I already own.

2. This recipe must not have been made by me in the past, no matter how long ago or how poorly the initial attempt.

3. Any unused recipe will do. Sometimes that may be a full entree, other times a side or beverage or salad, etc.

4. If I miss a week, I’m not going to stress out.

In typical Type A fashion, I am already trying to plot the first few weeks! How will I choose the cookbook? The recipe? Will it be calculated, or luck of the draw? Time will tell. But I’ll be sure to keep you posted throughout the process – with the good, the bad AND the ugly!

Do you have any food-related resolutions you’re cooking up (so to speak)? Let us know in the comments!

:)

Five Frugal Things.

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From travel savings to apparel discounts to leftovers (of course!), it was a surprisingly frugal week!

1. We used some Uber gift cards for our trip to the train station last week.
LeeLee and I took a little pre-Christmas trip to New York City – just a three-hour train ride away from us – and while NYC is never a cheap trip, we always manage to cut expenses where we can. In this case, we were able to take a free-to-us Uber ride to the train station on our way out of town thanks to some leftovers from Uber gift cards wonderful friends had sent us after LeeLee’s surgery a couple of months ago. We’d used the initial portion for meals, but the overage gave us a free trip! I’m sure our friends won’t mind. :) 

2. Speaking of New York: LeeLee got a winter jacket on deep discount.
As part of LeeLee’s birthday present, I offered to buy him a new jacket, which he’d been wanting for a while. What better place to spend a few hours shopping than Macy’s on 34th Street? This ended up being cheap entertainment, honestly, as we enjoyed playing on the wooden escalators and wandering the floors. But finally LeeLee found a new jacket to replace his 20-year-old (!) go-to. I must admit I bit my lip a bit when I saw it was a $250 Tommy Hilfiger model, but my sadness turned to joy when we realized it was hanging on a sale rack for $74.99! If he can get another 20 years of use out of it, we’ll all be winners.

3. Our gas bill was lower this month compared with a year ago!
Just when I thought I’d been overusing the furnace this month, a happy surprise: Our gas bill is indeed lower this December than last. I don’t intend to take a victory lap about this – we need to cut where we can! But I am thrilled nevertheless.

4. We canceled our Apple TV subscription (again).
I could have been more frugal in the first place on this, I’ll admit: We only had Apple TV so we could watch the Peanuts episodes over the holidays. Apparently there is a free weekend to view each of the three big Charlie Brown shows, but I managed to miss the first two, so we’ve been paying for Apple TV since just before Halloween. But that ends today – or, more accurately, on Dec. 31, when our subscription lapses.

5. We are deep in the heart of the Leftover Revolution this week!
From veggie enchiladas on Christmas Eve to a Christmas Day feast of Chinese food, we’ve got more leftovers than we know what to do with! Actually, we know just what to do with them: Eat them! For the rest of this week and well into the weekend, we’ll be feasting on leftovers and feeling so happy about our lot in life.

What frugal finds have you had this week? Let us know in the comments!

:)