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The Kitchen Recessionista

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

Cocktail Tuesday: Moscato Mimosa.

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moscato-mimosa

OK, so I just made up that “Cocktail Tuesday” label. It’s just that it’s Tuesday, and this is a cocktail, so … well, you understand. But who knows? Perhaps this will be a trend! Maybe just an occasional trend, but still a trend.

Anyway. Last week, for Fat Tuesday, we needed a little something festive to accompany our pancakes and veggie sausage. Naturally, mimosas immediately came to mind. They’re a perfectly suitable complement to anything brunchy or breakfasty, but they also fit in just beautifully later in the day. As it was a school night, so to speak, I didn’t want to commit to an entire bottle of champagne between the two of us; but I still felt that something with orange juice would be most appropriate. It was then that I spied the new bottle of moscato sitting on the kitchen counter. A-HA! I wonder …

So with that, I opened the bottle, filled half a wine glass with the moscato and topped the second half off with orange juice. A quick stir, and we were ready to toast!

Now, I was afraid that the finished product would be too sweet for my liking – after all, moscato is a sugary wine, and orange juice is of course quite sweet as well – but I needn’t have worried. This mimosa maintained the same sweetness as the champagne version, and the overall taste was wonderfully fresh and upbeat! The flavor of the moscato mimosa is a little more mild than the original, and that was a fun change of pace. Further, the moscato version is not quite as bubbly as its friend the champagne mimosa, though the moscato does bring some carbonation to the party! I really liked the change of texture, so to speak, that was brought about by the tiny bubbles.

In short, I really, really liked this version of a mimosa and found it a very fun way to dress up a breakfast-for-dinner meal. I’ll definitely make more of these! They’re sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

MOSCATO MIMOSA

Serves many!

What you’ll need:

1 carton of orange juice
1 bottle of moscato wine

This is the easiest cocktail ever. Simply fill a wine or champagne glass halfway with moscato and top off with the orange juice. Give it a stir, and drink up!

:)

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes With Vegetarian Sausage.

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shrove-tuesday-pancakes-sausage

Happy Mardi Gras, y’all!

As is customary on Fat Tuesday, we sat down tonight to a big plate of pancakes, paired with vegetarian sausage for a bit of protein (and because we like it!). Before we go any further, I must confess that we each ate more than our share of pancakes this evening. I make two excuses for this.

  1. These were small pancakes, not those whole-pan jobbers that you get at the diner.
  2. The whole point of Fat Tuesday is to eat sugary, carby, wonderful things. Why deprive ourselves of the thrill?

I know I’ve mentioned before my newfound love of cooking pancakes in a cast-iron skillet. I must double down on this opinion here and now. I simply adore it! Who knew there was this whole world of cast-iron uses out there, just waiting to be tapped into? With just one pat of butter, I can cook an entire batch of pancakes with nary a burn mark on any of them. It’s a whole new world! What can’t the cast iron do?

So with the pancakes cooked perfectly golden, topped with butter and maple syrup, and the sausage heated up to a sensible standard, there was only one thing left to do: Eat! And we surely did, making hay while the sun shone on the waning hours of Mardi Gras. There’s not a single morsel left anywhere, I am happy to report! (But not to worry – we still have plenty of chik’n noodle soup left over from yesterday for our lunches!)

Tomorrow begins the Lenten season. But for now, for tonight, let’s live it up and let the good times roll! Eat, drink, and be merry – and if you enjoy a pancake or veggie sausage link along the way, so much the better. Laissez le bon temps roulez!

:)

Vegetarian Tomato Quiche.

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vegetarian-quiche

Before we get started with the meal talk today, first I just have to point out a little coincidence. As I searched for quiche on my own blog, just to refresh my memory as to how to make it (it’s been awhile!), I noticed this post from December 2013. Dec. 3, 2013, actually! A whole year ago, to the day! And here I am making quiche again! Time may fly, but some meals hang around from season to season. I do have to wonder, though, how many times that happens, particularly with some of our go-to dishes like Old Faithful, and I don’t even notice.

So here we are, having quiche again, and as I mentioned in my last post on the topic, I always expect it to snow when we have quiche, because during one of the first times I ever made it, it snowed and snowed. Now, I expect snow every time I bring the eggs out – a tall order, admittedly, and one that is rarely fulfilled in the non-winter months, that’s for sure.

I made tonight’s quiches – as usual, this recipe makes two, so we freeze one for later – about the same way I did a year ago. First, I drained a can of diced tomatoes and added half to the bottom of two pie crusts. Then I seasoned the tomatoes with oregano, basil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and a touch of chipotle powder. Then I poured the egg mixture – six eggs whisked with about a cup of soymilk – atop each pie evenly, then put both quiches in the oven and baked them for 50 minutes at 350.

They were both perfectly done with I brought them back out of the oven; sometimes I have a tendency to let them brown a little too much, but these worked out just great. LeeLee and I mowed down half of the first quiche (along with a side salad), leaving the rest for our breakfast or lunch tomorrow, and after letting the second one cool I wrapped it in heavy-duty foil, placed it in a zip-top bag, and put it in the freezer for later. That’ll come in handy during the holiday season, I know!

And with that, another year of quiche is upon us. I can’t think of a better wintertime treat!

:)

Pancakes and Vegetarian Sausage.

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Happy Mardi Gras, y’all!
Shrove Tuesday (aka Fat Tuesday) (aka Mardi Gras) is upon us again, and as usual, I whipped up pancakes and vegetarian sausage for dinner.  LeeLee and I have been enjoying our pancake tradition for years, and I’ve had it on the menu plan for several weeks now in anticipation of today. 
A couple of years ago, I used my cast-iron skillet to make a batch of pancakes, and my world has never been the same!  The nonstick properties of a properly seasoned skillet can’t be beat – not even my Teflon omelet pan is as smooth!  One pat of butter is all it takes to help an entire batch of pancakes (about 15 small ones in all) cook with pitch-perfect precision, with not a lot of babysitting from an often-distracted cook such as myself. 
For my whole life, I’ve had trouble getting pancakes to cook evenly throughout the batch – the first few always turn out so very nicely, golden and light, but by the end, I’m struggling to keep each cake from burning, and/or cooking on the outside but remaining raw on the inside.  The cast-iron skillet has changed the whole game for me.  No longer do I worry about burning the final rounds of pancakes!  No longer do I fuss and fight with them to ensure they’re all cooking evenly.  The skillet handles the heat so well that I can rest assured that the whole batch will come out nicely, and it hasn’t let me down yet. 
And so it came to pass that dinner was on the table with nary a burn mark, the pancakes fluffy and golden, the sausage heated up and ready for action.  We topped the cakes with butter and syrup – this IS Fat Tuesday, after all – and down the hatch they went!  When we rose from the table, there wasn’t a crumb left on our plates, but we weren’t hungry, either; a winning combination indeed.
Let the good times roll!

:)

Pantry Cleanout, Day 2: Huevos Rancheros.

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This pantry-cleanout week is getting good!  On tonight’s docket: Huevos rancheros!
We love huevos rancheros, and we love breakfast for dinner.  So as I scanned the fridge, freezer, and cabinets and saw we had all the fixins right here at home, I knew we had to hop-to.
I had half a package of corn tortillas in the freezer, so I pulled four of them out (two for me, two for LeeLee) and heated each one in a nonstick skillet for a minute or two on each side.  Once they were heated, I arranged them on our plates and went on to the next step: Heating up the refried beans.
We had half a can of beans left over from Sunday night’s dinner, so I heated them up in the microwave in the bowl I was storing them in.  Once they were warmed through, I spooned half atop LeeLee’s tortillas and half atop mine, topped each plate with cheese and some jalapeno slices (from the same jar we used last night), and cracked two eggs into the pan to fry.
Four minutes later (I know, I should cook them for less, but I’m paranoid about undercooking them!), the eggs were fried, so I carefully transferred one egg apiece to our plates.  I arranged two sausage links on each plate, as well, and then rang the dinner bell (figuratively – but wouldn’t it be FUN to have one of those old-fashioned triangles they used to ring for dinner?).
LeeLee was happy to see one of his very favorite brunch dishes on the dinner table instead, and I was tickled that I had everything I needed on hand to concoct another pantry meal!  And dinner went down quite smoothly – within 10 minutes, we’d wolfed everything down, leaving only the faintest veneer of yolk on our plates.
I’m learning a lot from this week of cleaning out my pantry – can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!
:)

Tomato-Basil Quiche.

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I’m telling you – when you want some snow in the Mid-Atlantic region, just ask me to warm up a quiche in the oven.  It never fails!  Every time I add quiche to our weekly menu plan, we get snow, either in shovel-worthy amounts or dustings.  Tonight, my friends, is no different.

The holiday season is winding down, and with it my energy is also taking a nosedive.  Thank heaven I made an extra quiche a few weeks ago and put it in the freezer for just such an occasion!
So when LeeLee called to say he was about an hour away from coming home, I simply unwrapped our prepared quiche (I’d frozen it in two layers of aluminum foil and put it in a freezer bag) and put it in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes.  
When LeeLee called to say he was about 15 minutes out, I tossed together a quick salad with the usual suspects – romaine, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, and black olives – and by the time he walked in the door, the house was warm and cozy, and most importantly to my mind (and hungry stomach), dinner was ready!  And it took no time at all to prepare.
We have the tiniest freezer known to humankind, so I can’t stock it as full of homemade ready-to-heat meals as I’d like, but tonight is a fine example of why it’s a great idea to have at least one or two on hand at any given time.  If we hadn’t had this quiche, I can safely say tonight may have been a takeout or pizza-delivery night.  But because we were stocked up, we were able to eat more healthily AND save money – a winning combination!  And we have plenty of quiche left over for tomorrow’s lunch, too – snow or no snow!
Stay warm, wherever you are!
:)