Feed the Masses

People are generally shocked when I tell them that I make my own cheese.  They become even more so when I reveal how easy it is to do. It’s nearly as easy as homemade yogurt!

Paneer is a basic acid-set, unaged “farmers” cheese common in South Asian cooking. It could be considered a cousin to the queso blanco used in Latin American cuisine.

Since it is essentially no more than milk fats separated from the whey and strained, paneer has a creamy simplicity that makes it perfect for a variety of uses.  Add it in cubes to Indian dishes such as mutter paneer or saag paneer, marinate in olive oil and spices for hors d’oeuvres, or don’t drain the whey thoroughly and mix in herbs and/or spices for a flavored cheese spread.

And did I already mention how easy it is to make? Read the rest of this entry →

If you have to pay $2 for each tiny package of basil, pesto wouldn’t be a very frugalicious meal.  But if you grow your own, or have a nearby farmer’s market (like Eastern Market) where you can buy a massive bag of basil for $3, I can tell you how to make a fairly cheap version of very tasty pesto.

I made pesto for pasta this week, but there are many other ways you could use the thick paste: as a crostini topping, stuff under the skin of a chicken you’re going to roast, mix into mashed potatoes or into sour cream for a baked potato, add to scrambled eggs, thin with lemon juice for a sauce to top baked salmon, cut with a little cream to pour over grilled chicken breasts.

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Sorry, I’ve been too busy to post anything in the past week, though not too busy to cook.

I made a full carne asada spread for a group of friends on Cinco de Mayo, which leads me to conclude that this is one of the best low-budget dinner parties you could plan.

When trying to cook on the cheap, animal protein is usually the first thing scratched off the ingredient list. But the skirt or flank steaks typically used to make carne asada are some of the cheaper cuts you can find, and this marinated and roasted slab of meat will create the centerpiece around which you build the rest of a fantastically frugalicious meal. Read the rest of this entry →

I probably shouldn’t freely admit to the exact method by which I made a massive pot of gazpacho for dinner last night. My friends raved about it, not knowing it had been created as an edible repository for all the vegetables I wanted to clean out of my refridgerator before they went bad.

I could tell you about the “traditional” gazpacho, which originated in the Andalusian region of Spain, and is typically blended smooth with bread. But you know I reject rules and any notion of traditional rigidity.  Whether you make it chunky or smooth, using the typical veg or more exotic ones–the chilled tomato-based soup can be the perfect starter or light meal on hot summer days.

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I’ve often heard people evangelize on the culinary simplicity and luxurious flavor of homemade yogurt, but hadn’t actually tried making it myself until a couple of weeks ago. With absolute certainty I can now confirm for you that making yogurt is, in fact, so easy a trained monkey could manage it with great aplomb. Moreover, it’s so rich and creamy with just a hint of tartness, homemade yogurt barely resembles the bitter gelatinous goo oversweetened with processed fruit sauce sold by the major commercial brands.

For the frugalicious foodie in us all, what makes it even better is that homemade yogurt costs about half as much as one of the major brands, while the final product is more akin to the kind of stuff you could mortgage your first born child to buy at a specialty food shop. No additives, preservatives, corn syrup, stabilizers, or ingredients I can’t pronounce.  Are you getting the hint that I’m really into the homemade yogurt now?

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Though a good kofte kebab is one of the staples of Turkish cuisine, different variations can be found across the Balkans, the Near and Middle East, and South Asia.

I call the ones I make Turkish simply because I season them with kofte spice I bought in Istanbul, but there are many different ways you can flavor and skewer ground meat.

They can make an easy dish for a picnic or hors d’ouevres for a party, served with a side of garlic yogurt sauce. Or you could do a full kebab with salad and pita as a main dish for dinner.

Continue on to read more about kofte. Read the rest of this entry →

This weekend was the birthday of one of my closest friends, so I organized a little picnic and canoing excursion for Saturday afternoon at Fletcher’s Boathouse on the Potomac.

For the second time this year, our afternoon ended up being all picnic and no boating, but whatever, it was a beautiful day with good food and fun people.

Other friends volunteered to contribute various sides and small bites to the spread, so I focused on making main entree choices for the 25 or so non-vegetarians who planned to join us.

After very little contemplation, I settled on my two favorite easy and relatively inexpensive ways to serve large numbers: roast chicken and kofte.  Either are just as tasty served cold at a picnic as they are hot out of the oven.  I’ll follow this post with one about the kofte, but continue reading if you want to know how I flavor roast chicken with paprika, garlic, parsley, and pistachios. Read the rest of this entry →

I didn’t have enough containers to freeze all the stock just I made, so it became necessary to have soup for dinner last night. Portabella bisque, to be precise.

Mmmmm portabella mushrooms. I know they’re not the first ingredient to come to mind when you think of cooking on the cheap, but I can tell you a frugalicious way to make it if you’re looking for a more sophisticated dinner menu.

Her Culinary Highness Julia Childs always reminded us that we’re alone in the kitchen, so nobody has to know if you supplement expensive portabellas with ordinary white mushrooms. Read the rest of this entry →

Yesterday was stock day.  I have one every few months after I’ve run out of frozen stock from the last batch.

I don’t consume enough chicken to have the bones necessary to make the quantity of stock I use. But a couple of friends save their bones for me too, in exchange for a promise to make them soup when they’re sick. That works out very well for me–particularly because they’re very healthy people.

Stock isn’t just for soups and stews. It can add flavor and richness to many dishes–anything with rice or cous cous, many sauces, curries, braised meats or vegetables. So it’s a necessary ingredient in any well-stocked kitchen.

But like I wrote in the frugal foodie philosophy, adding store-bought stock to everything can add significant expense.

Stock generally costs about $3 for 32 ounces at the store, but you can make a 10-quart pot of stock—that’s 320 ounces—for less than $3 in ingredients. The bones are essentially free if you save ones you would have otherwise thrown away. Since the vegetables don’t need to be at their peak of freshness, stock day can be a good time to use up the last few stalks of shriveling celery and carrots in the fridge. Read the rest of this entry →

For entertaining and everyday snacking, the simplest way to make an immediate positive impact on your budget is to stop buying pre-packaged dips and spreads.

Let’s do the math. A seven-ounce tub of Athenos hummus, for example, costs $3.29 on peapod.com, but if you do it yourself you can make more than twice that amount for less than a dollar. Plus, most store-bought hummus, including Athenos, contains high-calorie but cheap filler like corn syrup, an unnecessary amount of sodium/salt, chemical preservatives to extend their shelf-life, and uncomfortably vague “natural flavors.”

So make your own! It’s cheaper, healthier, and unbelievably easy.

Click through for directions on how to make your own salsa, hummus, baba ghanoush, muhammara, cannelini and sage dip, and Texas caviar. Read the rest of this entry →