Recession Dining

Ruth Chris Steakhouse Creamed Spinach -- For Less

Vera says — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:54:11 GMT

Up until now, the best places to get creamed spinach -- the one spinach that you can get your children to eat and the one substance that you can indulge your own craving for comfort food in that isn't white or orange -- has been pricey take out at Koo Koo Roo or pricey eat in at Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Now, you can have the latter in your own home for less.

My riff on the Ruth Chris Steakhouse Creamed Spinach recipe is twofold: 1. Use fresh spinach not frozen as the original recipe calls for, and 2. At the end of the recipe, bake it. This recipe is good for four side portions of spinach. I triple and even quadruple this recipe for my hungry family. It's a big hit for winter holidays and a wonderful variation on greens at dinner and lunch.

If you've never purchased fresh spinach before, buy it pre-washed in a plastic bag. Fresh spinach that is not pre-washed is very, very dirty, and almost impossible to clean well. Buy a lot. The spinach shrinks monumentally when you cook it. Fresh vegetables cooked at home beat frozen vegetables any day. I buy mine fresh at Costco. Last week a 2.5 pound bag of fresh, pre-washed spinach cost $3.79.

Ingredients

10 ounces of spinach

2 Tbsp butter

1 1/2 Tbsp flour

1/2 Cup heavy cream

1/4 Tsp salt

Pepper, nutmeg and cayenne pepper to taste

Directions

Saute spinach and when cooked, drain liquid.

Melt butter then add flour and stir. Add cream to thicken and stir for several minutes over medium to low flame.

Combine spinach and cream sauce, season.

Tips

You can serve it now, or do as I do, which is pour the mixture into a glass pyrex container (square brownie sized glass for less spinach, rectangular 11x17 size for more) and bake in the oven. You can toss a mixture of grated cheese and breadcrumbs over the top before heating in the oven if you'd like.

A nice touch is to scoop and serve in small ramekins for elegance and structure to the otherwise mushy consistency.

This nutritious (yes, there's heavy cream, so you've got your fat and dairy in here, too) dish is MUCH cheaper than restaurant food and pre made frozen creamed spinach in a box, and it tastes glorious. I keep leftovers in my fridge and microwave as needed throughout the week.

Chicken -- Get 2 Meals From 1 Bird

Vera says — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:30:24 GMT

My favorite two meals to get out of a chicken are traditional homemade chicken soup and curried chicken salad. Here's how you do it:

Chicken Soup

Start with a whole roaster chicken. You'll spend about seven dollars depending on local sales. Zacky Farms is fine. Wash the chicken and reach inside to remove the guts and the neck. Toss them. Your children will love watching you do this. Prepare for screeches. Put the chicken in a very large soup pot and add water until the pot is three quarters full. Throw in the peeled cloves from a head of garlic and several peeled and quartered onions. If you have carrots, throw the in the pot. If you have celery, cut off the ends, cut them in thirds, and throw them in, too. Then add salt and pepper and cook for several hours with a lid on the pot. Stay nearby to adjust the heat and re-season with salt and pepper to taste along the way. After about three or four hours (I like to cook the chicken as long as possible.) and up to five or six if you'd like, take the pot off the heat and skim the fat off of the top. Then with a slotted spoon, remove the chicken from the pot. Put it in a big, mixing bowl. This will take you a while because the chicken will be in pieces and will be very soft from being cooked for so long. Now, you can add to the soup noodles like twisted egg noodles, bowties or penne, or you can make matzoh balls from the Manischewitz box mix (the best), then cook the soup a little longer so that your carbs are done. Then serve! If you want to spend a little extra, fresh dill, cut up in the soup at the last minute to preserve the taste, is a very elegant splurge.

Curried Chicken Salad

Put the chicken in the bowl in the fridge and the next day, go through the chicken tossing out skin, bones and anything inedible. Then dice the chicken; salt and pepper it; add mayonnaise and curry powder and mix well. Add raisins, chopped walnuts, dried cranberries and diced apples, as you like. The aroma of the curry is divine, and this is a very lovely, special chicken salad you can serve on romaine lettuce leaves, on top of a bed of lightly dressed greens or in a pita pocket or as a classic sandwich.

Total cost of two meals: Less than $20.

Quesadillas for Dinner

Vera says — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:10:56 GMT

Quesadillas are a wonderful way to make a meal that is cheap and delicious. Flour tortillas are the basis for quesadillas. Buy the large size. Melt some butter in a frying pan or griddle and place the first tortilla in the pan, then lay down a layer of cheese. I like to use muenster because it's mild enough not to drown out the simple, distinct taste of the tortilla. If you'd like a plain cheese quesadilla, put the second tortilla on top, and wait until the bottom tortilla is lightly golden brown, then flip the quesadilla until the second tortilla is equally golden brown. When it is, lift the quesadilla out of the pan or griddle with a large spatula and let it cool on a cutting board until you can slice it in four to six pieces.

Make a better quesadilla

Prepare the quesadilla as above, but before you put the second tortilla on top, add a layer of a meat of your choice. You can use leftover steak, sliced very thin. You can use leftover chicken, diced. You can even use leftover fish like salmon, cod or tilapia.

Vegetables are great in your quesadilla, too. Dice a tomato and chop some cilantro and sprinkle them on top of the cheese for a Mexican style quesadilla. Virtually any vegetable will work well here. Avocados are especially traditional.

Serve with a side of salsa, guacamole, or sour cream. And if you're feeding hungry people, include side dishes of rice and refried beans.

The One Egg Omelet

Vera says — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:07:25 GMT

Eggs are an economical way to feed yourself and your family and a quick way to cut your breakfast budget in half is to move away from the fluffy omelet and embrace the one egg omelet, an omelet that I think tastes better and prepares more efficiently than any other multiple egg omelet. Use a small frying pan that has an even cooking surface. Generously butter your pan and while the butter is melting, whisk one egg. When the butter has melted and is evenly distributed over the cooking surface, pour the one whisked egg into the pan. Very soon, if not immediately after, lay half a slice of cheese on the egg "island". Not a whole slice, but half. You'll save money this way, too. The one egg omelet does not stick to the pan when you fold it over the way a multiple egg omelet might. The omelet will cook faster with one egg than with two or three, and you'll be cutting your cholesterol and your fat by halving your egg and cheese intake.

The omelet serves up beautifully, much more like a French omelet than one that you'd find at IHOP that has height like a cake or a souffle. For a lovely presentation and even more flavor, chop up half a tomato into small pieces, sprinkle with kosher salt and toss with a few torn and washed pieces of cilantro or parsley. Serve the tomato cilantro mixture next to or on top of the omelet and toast a bagel to accompany your budget breakfast. Follow the one egg omelet lifestyle and you'll get 12 breakfasts out of a dozen eggs instead of just six.

Gratuitous egg joke:

Did you hear about the octo-mom special? Fourteen eggs, no sausage, and the guy next to you has to pay.

Stop laughing, and eat your omelet.

Cut The Cost of Pesto -- Presto!

Vera says — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 14:06:18 GMT

Has anyone else noticed that the price of already pricey pesto has crept upwards in recent months? I have! The standard Buitoni Pesto Basil in the plastic container with the green lid is now $5.49 for seven ounces and even the store brand is up to $4.99 for the same quantity. I stopped buying it because it was too expensive until one of my teenagers decided to become a vegetarian. Suddenly, pesto was back on my radar. Store bought pesto is easier and cheaper than homemade pesto via a mortar and pestle. And I remembered the first time I tasted pesto at a dinner party in New York City when I was working in publishing (read: broke) with other young women in the pink collar ghetto who refused to suffice style or socializing because of a publishing house paycheck. When I was first served the economy dinner party fare, the spaghetti in green sauce, I was overcome by the intoxicating aroma of the pesto. Basil has a fragrance that is only enhanced with a good cheese and buttery pine nuts, as it is in pesto. Pesto tastes amazing. It is a uniquely flavored comfort food and a great option to red sauces for pasta.

So here's how you get to keep cut your pesto cost in half: Add milk. Yup. That's it! Dump the pesto into a sauce pan, and add milk as the pesto heats up to stretch the pesto and create a creamy pesto-alfredo type sauce. My suggestion is start pouring and tasting. You decide how thin you want the sauce. The more milk, the more you stretch your pesto. You can add an equal amount of milk to pesto for a thinner sauce or less for a thicker sauce. The result is actually a much better sauce than straight pesto on pasta.

Decadence: Feeling flush? Instead of milk use half and half. This is what was used when I was originally introduced to at that dinner in Manhattan. The consistency is thicker and more lush to the taste.

Eat your vegetables: Buy a handful of loose grape tomatoes. You'll cut your costs noticeably by purchasing only a handful of the loose fruit (yes, tomatoes are a fruit) rather than a pre-measured plastic box full. Wash and slice these in halves, then toss in with the dressed pasta. Want more? Toss in a small can of pre-sliced, drained black olives as well.

Dinner for 2 to 4 is under $10.

Steelhead Trout -- The Other Orange Fish

Vera says — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:10:03 GMT

Salmon is a great fish, but it's expensive for most people now, selling at approximately $6 to $10 a pound. This doesn't mean you have to give up fish. Insead, try steelhead trout. Buy it fresh and you'll be shocked at how good it is. The orange fish that looks just like salmon costs half the price per pound. It has a lighter taste -- it's a little less fishy than salmon. Prepare it the same way you would salmon. I like to bake it in a lemon, butter caper sauce for a fresh taste. Or if you'd like a rootier flavor, slice an onion thin and a yellow pepper thin, and layer the onion and pepper slices over the fish with some fresh, thinly sliced garlic cloves. Bake the fish in a glass pyrex dish covered tightly with foil to keep the moisture in until the fish seems done.

Finishing touches:

Caesar salad lite. Slice up a head of romaine lettuce and toss it in a ceasar dressing. I prefer Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Salad Dressing. Leave out the anchovies and croutons. Who needs 'em? Keep the focus on the simple greens.

Quick, homemade garlic bread. Buy a $2 baguette from your local market in the fresh bread section. Slice the bread with your fabulous serrated bread knife (an essential in my kitchen) then butter the bread, sprinkle with store-bought garlic salt, wrap in sections in tin foil, and bake for ten minutes or until crunchy.

Sparkling water. Swap out that expensive Perrier for a 99-cent bottle of club soda and serve in wine glasses. (Or crack a bottle of your favorite cheap Chardonnay in winter or a Pinot Grigio in summer.)

Dinner for two without wine: $10.

30 Percent More Bagel

Vera says — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 03:54:45 GMT

Breakfast just got cheaper without getting blander. Instead of cutting your bagel in half for the shmear, cut it in thirds. Duh, right? Not so fast. The trick here is a good serrated knife and a good bagel to begin with. My carb of choice is Noah's bagels, which I buy for $4.99 a dozen at Costco. Sometimes they're so fresh, they're still warm. Once home from my Costco run (the equivalent of Army bootcamp) I bag each bagel individually in a plastic bag and freeze all but a couple that will be eaten within days (this only moments before lapsing into a Costco run induced coma). When I'm ready to serve, (having miraculously come out of the coma with only a nap as remedy -- note to self: alert Mayo Clinic) I cut the bagel in thirds and toast. The slimmer bagel slice fits in a standard toaster better than the half, so you won't burn those crumbs at the bottom or any ragged edges on your bagel slice.

Dos and Don'ts

DO NOT slice bagel in thirds and bag the slices. They are not as good as if you bag the whole bagel and then slice the bagel in thirds as needed.

DO use a good knife and watch your fingers. Cutting in thirds requires dexterity. Economy is not for the oafish among us.

DO defrost bagels for ten seconds in your microwave if you're using the singles you've frozen. After ten seconds, the bagels will be the perfect texture to slices into thirds and toast.

DO note that you will be eating fewer carbs if you choose this bagel breakfast method, but beware of slathering extra shmear. Keep it lite and you'll eat better, cheaper and healthier!

Arugula, Raddichio, Endive --- and Mac and Cheese??!?

Vera says — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:40:45 GMT

You betcha! Pair an old standby, like macaroni and cheese from a box with a chic salad and a cheap wine, throw in some candlelight and you've got dinner for one, two or six. Of course, if there are six, you're probably going to want to throw in some chocolate milk, as well. The trick here is to use the one dollar box of mac and cheese, but toss a salad with endive, arugula and raddichio -- all very exclusive leaves that are very expensive if you buy more than you need. For one or two people, buy the smallest head of endive, and the smallest head of raddichio (that's the red and white stuff) you can find. Purchase only a handful of arugula. These leaves are usually about $9 a pound, but if you only purchase a little, your salad is fabulously bitter and fresh to offset the cheesey mac. Use a very light dressing. I recommend Paul Newman's Own Light Italian Dressing. Hit up Trader Joe's for their Charles Shaw two buck chuck, which should be going up to three bucks any day now. If you serve the wine very cold, it should be fine. Cost for 2 people: under $10.