Photos of Last Week's Food

Sorry for the delay on this but I just have not had any time to upload! These days our routine revolves around coming home from work and entertaining an increasingly fussy baby (this will change when we move and we can enforce the nap schedule) and then prepping dinner/going through mail/completing all errands after we put Little One down and then stumbling exhaustedly into bed so that we can start the cycle again the next day.

I took photos, but never had the time to upload them! I know, it's tragic. Here are some of the best bits.

The spicy cabbage from the NY Times:
Alas I do not have a wok, and so my version is not as great looking as the one in the recipe.


Here it is pre and post stir-frying.

Chocolate Zuchinni Bread:

This really just tastes like chocolate cake. Some people said they tasted the zucchini, but most just felt it was a moist chocolate cake. This means it is a good way to disguise vegetables when giving to your kids, but it does have a decent amount of sugar, so I would not eat it regularly.

The real winner of the week was the Swiss Chard recipe from  Yotam Ottolenghi. Hands down the best way to prepare chard I have tried. Do not worry if you don't have tamarind - you can use a little lemon juice and an equivalent amount of prune butter.

Frugal Food: Stuffed Cabbag

This time of year is very costly for many families. The Jewish High Holidays necessitate the cooking of lots of meals, usually involving meat, fish and other delicacies. Plus time off from work! One of my favorite foods to make around this time is stuffed cabbage. Stuffed cabbage is a perfect fit for this holiday because it is warm enough to take the chill out of the late autumn/early winter, smells hearty and is very filling. It is also a great frugal option because it is combines the meat with cabbage and rice and generally goes a lot further than a piece of roast plunked down on a platter. Plus it uses ground beef which is a cheaper cut of meat than your average top of the rib or flanken - and those shrink incredibly in the oven!

Here's my cabbage recipe and photos of the batch I recently whipped up. They were devoured with compliments all around.

Cabbage:
1 medium head of cabbage
1 lb ground chuck
1 cup raw white rice
1/4 cup raisins
1 egg, beaten
1/4 tsp pepper
1 large onion, diced

Sauce:
8 oz tomato juice
4 Tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup prune butter or ouc (tamarind paste)

The key to the cabbage is this: Place the entire head of cabbage in the freezer the night before you will make the stufffed cabbage. Then right before starting the recipe, pull out the cabbage and defrost it in the microwave for a minute. This will allow you to peel off the leaves easily and cut of the hard inner rib without breaking the leaf!

Preheat your oven to 375 Farenheit. Sautee the onion in olive oil until translucent. Combine the chuck, rice, onion, egg, salt, pepper and rasins. Place a heaping spoon of meat at the thick base of each cabbage leaf. Roll the leaves up, tucking in the sides, and place them in a baking dish seam side down.


Combine sauce ingredients into a saucepan and place over low heat until it boils. Pour sauce over the rolls in the baking dish. Cover and bake for 1 hour. Uncover and bake for an additional hour.

Free Food Magagzine

I read cookbooks like novels. Food magazines are one of my favorite pass times. However I do not buy them because they are very expensive and really a luxury item. Today you can get a free subscription to Food Arts from TradePub. Just click here.

Frugal Food: Rice Pudding

Throwing out food is like throwing out money. If you utilize every item of food in your house, the savings can really add up. But we all know the challenges: picky eaters, spouses who refuse to consume leftovers, and worst of all food that goes bad when saved. A prime example of this latter problem is rice.  

Rice is a great low cost starch that really adds substance to a meal and is the foundation of many middle eastern and asian diets. Yet once it is cooked it must be consumed quickly, and is almost impossible to gauge exactly how much rice to make. I invariably either make too little, and have to cook up some more - which results in some leftover- or too much which obviously results in some leftovers. A day or two in the fridge and that once fluffy rice turns hard and gritty. This refrigerator shelf life can be extended slightly by adding some water to the storage container, but this trick still only gives that rice a little more staying power. Inevitably some of that leftover rice is going to end up in the trash bin. Heartbreaking. The answer is rice pudding.

Rice pudding is simple to make, transforms the rice into a completely new dish and tastes wonderful. Kids and adults will love this simple breakfast and dessert. To jazz things up, you may want to serve it in wine glasses, like I have in the photograph. Or serve chilled with melon slices.

Rice Pudding:

3 cups of cooked rice

5 cups of milk

2/3 cup sugar

Optional flavorings: vanilla, cinnamon, cinnamon stick etc.

Mix the rice milk and sugar together in a pot. Bring the mix to a simmer then reduce the heat to maintain the simmer. Cook until the mixture starts to thicken, usually around 30 minutes. Stir frequently, otherwise a thick skin will form on top of the pudding and you may scorch some of the rice. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking for another 15 minutes with frequent stirring. Remove from the heat and stir in optional flavorings.

Store rice pudding in the fridge. If you really love cinnamon and have the spare cash to waste you can thrown in a cinnamon stick during the cooking process to provide a real cinnamon punch to the pudding.

For a non-dairy version, you can use soymilk, almond milk or coconut milk. I have tried them all. They all work.

For a richer, less healthy pudding, use 2 1/2 cups whole milk and 2 1/2 cups half and half instead of regular milk.

If you want to try this pudding but don't have leftover cooked rice on hand, don't worry. Just cook 1 cup of rice as you normally would and then proceed with the recipe. One cup of uncooked rice will generally yield 3 cups of cooked rice.

Homemade Truffles

I used to think the best food related gifts were the ones purchased at fancy shops and wrapped in colorful shrink wrap with ribbons and bows. They were also the priciest. Somehow a store would arrange three cookies in a giant tin and make the entire thing look like it was full. They would also make a killer profit. The mark-up on food is usually huge. Add to that the $10-20 tacked on for "arranging" the food items aesthetically and you have one expensive gift assortment.

Then I read Taste of Home Gifts From the Country Kitchen. This book made me realize that not only could I make those fancy edibles by myself I could also arrange them beautifully. Plus I could give twice the amount for a fraction of the price. Life has never been the same.

Every year, around this time, we give our annual gift of homemade truffles to friends and family. The are super easy and super delicious.

Homemade Truffles:
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 Tbs. of your favorite extract (almond, orange, peppermint etc.)

Optional:
White chocolate or candy melts
crushed nuts

Melt the chocolate chips either in a double boiler or in the microwave. To properly melt chocolate in the microwave place it in a Pyrex dish and microwave it for 15 seconds. Stir the chocolate and repeat the 15 second microwave pulses until it is smooth. Alternating short pulses of microwave time with stirring is crucial to avoid burning the chocolate.

Once the chocolate is melted, stir in the condensed milk and extract. Chill the mixture in the fridge for half an hour or until it starts to harden. Shape the chocolate by rolling it into balls and placing them on wax paper to dry for several hours. Store in the fridge.

Optional tips for fancier truffles:
Take your shaped truffles, use a toothpick to pick them up and dip them in melted white chocolate or white candy melts. I like to sprinkle crushed nuts on top of almond flavored truffles and press a mint leaf on top of peppermint truffle. You can drizzle different candy melt colors or melted chocolate , or grate some fruit zest over the top as well.