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The Kitchen Recessionista

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

Red Beans and Rice.

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“What are we having for dinner tonight?” LeeLee asked me earlier today.  “I hope it’s something light,” he added, surveying (as I had not one hour earlier in my own mind) the scene of our weekend behavior, which teemed with pizza and Thai.

He looked very relieved when I replied, “Red beans and rice with a chik’n patty!”  If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 10 years in this marriage, it’s that red beans and rice is always an acceptable dinner.  Always!
And so, with half an hour to work with, I put the rice into the cooker and opened a can of dark red kidney beans, seasoning them as I like to do with Cajun seasoning (Tony Chacherie is our brand of choice!).  The beans simmered as the rice steamed, and once the rice cooker clicked off, I put two Morningstar Farms chik’n patties in the microwave and heated them up for several minutes.  The microwave dinged as the rice finished steaming, and I flicked the stovetop off – and we were ready to sit down to dinner!
It was, as usual, a comforting, hearty, tasty, and healthy meal – one that filled us up without weighing us down.  Sadly, there were no leftovers, but that’s all right too – another signal of a meal well-liked!

:)

The New Podcast Episode Is Up!

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Hi, all!  Another podcast has seen the light of day.  In this one, I talk about:

  • Adventures in vegan cheese-making
  • The importance of a senior cat fund
  • And, finally, a long-awaited rigatoni update!

Thanks for listening, and please let me know how I can make these better! Operators are standing by. :)

Some show notes:

The vegan cheese-making cookbook I cite is “The Non-Dairy Formulary,” by Skye Michael Conroy.

In order, the music used in this podcast is …

“Twinkle Toes” by Jared C. Balogh

“Be-Bop” by the Nicolas Chientaroli Trio
“Auf de Anderen Seite” by the Wolf Nilson Trio
and “Please Take a Breather” by Jared C. Balogh (a blog favorite! :))
:)

Noodles With Stir-Fried Tofu and Broccoli.

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Back!  Told you I wouldn’t be gone long. :)
What’s more, I’ve returned with glad tidings from the kitchen.  The meal we made tonight – noodles with stir-fried tofu and broccoli, from Nava Atlas’ The Vegetairan 5-Ingredient Gourmet, which is one of my favorite cookbooks ever – was filling, easy, and, most importantly, tasty.  Paired with some frozen spring rolls, it made for a perfect Thai-restaurant evening right here at home!
I began by boiling a pot of udon noodles, and as they neared their completion, I lightly fried a pan of diced firm tofu.  When the tofu cubes were nearly browned to my liking, I added a bag of (frozen, then steamed) cut broccoli and let the flavors mingle a bit.  I’d drained the udon by this point, so once the pan was heated through to my liking I tossed the noodles with a hearty helping of peanut sauce and just like that, we were ready to eat!
The result was fantastic.  Nava Atlas never lets me down, and tonight’s recipe was another winner!  LeeLee and I both went back for seconds, and one of us (I’m not naming names, but follow my eyes) even went back for thirds.  To say nothing of the spring rolls, which we also demolished.  Ahem.
So, in short, another winner!  And in Recessionista fashion, with five easy ingredients, it was another money-saver, too.

:)

I’ll Be Right Back!

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Hello, friends!  I know I haven’t posted in a week, which is a crime, and I apologize.  I’ve been trying to juggle my continuing podcast education (the second episode is nearly ready!) with writing, and, well, you can see how well I’m doing with that. :)  Just wanted to check in and let you know I haven’t abandoned the blog!  I’ll be back right away. :)

:)

Bean Quesadillas.

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This quesadilla recipe is one I’ve been using since at least 2001, and it’s my favorite by far.  I first made these bean quesadillas in my first solo apartment – no roommates, no hassle! – and though I haven’t made them quite as much over the last few years, they have a very soft place in my heart.  There’s just no better quesadilla recipe in my arsenal – period!
Tonight, I put some rice and seasoning in the rice cooker and then got to work on the quesadillas.  First, I chopped an onion and a jalapeno pepper and added them to a pan (coated with cooking spray) and let them cook until they were crisp-tender.  Then I added a can of pinto beans and a can of black beans, some garlic powder and cumin, and let the mixture cook for five minutes more.  Then I added some halved grape tomatoes and let them cook down a little bit – just until their skins were slightly wilted.
Then, I added several spoonfuls of the bean mixture to a flour tortilla, topped the mixture with Daiya pepperjack vegan cheese, and folded the tortilla over on top of itself.  I repeated this three more times – because my baking sheet can handle only four of these at a time! – and cooked the quesadillas at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.  By the time they were done, so was the rice, and we sat down to eat!
The final result was fantastic, as ever.  Just tasting the bean mixture reminds me of times past – a comforting feeling indeed.  And I look forward to being comforted again tomorrow – because we’ve got plenty of quesadillas left over!

:)

Three-Bean Chili.

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I’ve owned my current Crock-Pot for going on 15 years, and the novelty of coming home to an already-cooked dinner never gets old – never! 
Tonight I tried a new chili recipe for the first time, another from the venerable Robin Robertson’s Vegan Planet.  Robin never steers me wrong, and she didn’t in this recipe either!  The combination of black, pinto, and kidney beans with a huge can of crushed tomatoes, plus some tomato paste for sweetener and some jalapenos for spice, mingled beautifully with the diced onion, bell pepper, and chili powder.
LeeLee had to work late, so I was on my own come dinnertime.  As a result, I pulled out the ol’ TV tray, cracked open a beer, and poured a generous layer of Fritos in the bottom of my bowl, ladling several heaping spoonfuls of chili on the top.  I garnished the meal with some Daiya mozzarella shreds, and with that, I dug in! 
The results were fantastic.  I loved the sweet and spicy combination, with just a little saltiness brought in by the aforementioned Fritos.  At first, I was a bit concerned that I’d miss the meat analogue – many of my chili recipes call for vegetarian burger crumbles – but I didn’t miss it a bit.  In fact, I found the chili to taste lighter and fresher as a result!
Once I was finished with dinner, I pulled out two plastic containers and filled each one to the brim with leftover chili – one for LeeLee for later (and for leftovers), and one for the freezer for a later dinner.  I’m looking forward to defrosting it already!

:)

Introducing: The Kitchen Recessionista Podcast!

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This is what I’ve been doing instead of blogging this week. :)  Give it a listen and let me know what you think!

Some show notes that didn’t make it into the audio …

The music — all of which is fair use — is provided by:

Jared C. Balogh, “Horizontal Draft” (Free Music Archive)

BJ Block and Dawn Pemberton, “What Comes Naturally” (Free Music Archive)

“Subway Downtown Local 6 Announcement” (Freesound.org)

Thanks for listening! I’d love to incorporate your thoughts, ideas, questions, and comments into the show, so don’t be shy!

Pizza Bandiera With Salad.

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I got home from work tonight at a decent hour, perfectly energetic and ready to go.  But when I looked in the fridge and prepared to pull out the ingredients for tonight’s planned meal – a perfectly good choice – I just … didn’t want it.  Could not fathom the idea of eating a Chinese stir-fry with rice!

No, pizza was what I wanted, and fast.  Thank goodness we had this pizza bandiera on the menu for later in the week! 
The funny thing about this dinner substitution is that the new choice saved me no time.  I still had to prepare the vegetable mixture – a sautee of onions, bell peppers, tomatoes, wine, salt, and pepper – and prebake (and then bake-bake) the pizza dough.  And prepare the salad.  As well as wash two forks, because our silverware drawer was completely bare!  (The dishwasher is running as I type this.  It’s been a bit of A Week for being only Tuesday.)
I’d say I’ve never made this particular recipe – originally from Vegan Planet – before, but there’s a little red star by it in my copy of Robin Robertson’s wonderful cookbook, so clearly I have made it at some point or another.  It must have been years ago, though, and must not have made the impression this one did – because I think I’d remember a dinner as good as this one!  I was skeptical that the flavors would mingle well enough to make a good sauce-and-topping combination, but those fears were quickly put to rest when I tried the final product.  LeeLee and I both loved the mixture of sweet and savory, of mild and spicy, that this sauce provided.  And paired with a fresh lettuce-and-olive salad (I felt like another tomato on the dinner plate would be one tomato too many!), it was a great dinner indeed.
So, in short, we subbed one good but less-sought-after meal for another that we really, really wanted, and we didn’t have to call for takeout or spend any additional time on meal prep.  It’s a win-win!  (And not to worry.  That erstwhile dinner will show up soon enough. I’ll let you know when I make it!)
:)

Raw Stuffed Peppers With Avocado Fries.

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After last night’s Super Bowl extravaganza (we went to a friend’s house – I brought along a layered bean dip), LeeLee and I were feeling rather sorry for our nutritional state in the light of day today.  That was all the excuse we needed to put together one of my favorite raw meals – Ani Phyo’s stuffed peppers with a side of avocado “fries”!
I’ve written about these peppers before; they never disappoint.  (I see that last time I blogged about this meal, I neglected to take a photo.  Today, I’ve remedied that!)  I always forget how much time is saved when making a raw-food meal – there’s no cooking time to contend with, only hands-on prep!  And in this case, the food processor did most of the work for the cashew cheese that tonight’s Cubanelle peppers were stuffed with, so I can’t even take most of the credit for the preparation.
I did, however, make a few tweaks to my avocado-fries recipe, and LeeLee (never a huge avocado fan) was very pleased with the results.  This time, I sliced up an avocado into strips and then placed them in a bowl, adding salt, pepper, chili powder, and nutritional yeast to taste.  The chili powder made the difference for LeeLee this time around!  He’s even put in a request for another round of avocado fries ASAP.  I’ll take it!
Perhaps tonight’s raw meal will counteract the carby, potato chip-filled sins of last night.  Either way, we enjoyed dinnertime regardless!
:)

Pinto-Bean Tacos With Rice.

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Inspired by our recent Great Pantry Cleanout, I’m proud to say that tonight’s meal would have been right at home in our great experiment!  Indeed, the entire dinner only required some fresh vegetables from the store over the weekend to make it complete.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with freezing unused items – for instance, last week I froze some leftover canned artichokes as well as half a block of tofu.  Along those same lines, after our most recent taco night I also decided to try freezing our leftover taco shells, which always seem to go stale in the cabinet and then find their way to the garbage can.  That’s an incredible waste of food over the long run, and I knew we could do better.
So tonight, as the rice (seasoned with a packet of Goya seasoning) finished cooking and the pinto beans (seasoned with some adobo powder) bubbled on the stove, I pulled four shells out of the freezer bag and heated them up at 325 for about seven minutes.  Once the time had elapsed, the moment of truth arrived: Would they taste stale?  Freezer-burned?  Otherwise “off”?
No!  They tasted just like taco shells should!  Fresh, crispy, and corny.  :)  So we stuffed them to the brim with pinto beans, lettuce, tomato, sliced black olives, diced onion, and some Daiya pepperjack shreds, spooned some rice on the side, and chowed down!
So, score one for the freezer, and score another for the ongoing installments of the Pantry Cleanout Project.  I can easily see the a Cleanout Meal making an appearance in our menu plan at least once a week – and now that I know of yet another item that’s easily freezable, I’ll be even more prepared going forward.  Saving money, avoiding waste, and eating well – it’s hard to go wrong!
:)