Cheap Ass Monday: You’ve got me all a-frittered 26 Aug 08

On Moishe, on Herschel, on Schlomo!

Joy of joys: a Cheap Ass Monday that does not revolve around beans as a source of protein! Yea, there is nary a legume to be seen here.

Okay, that is not technically true, as there are peanuts involved and it is in fact the case that peanuts are legumes and not true nuts. But shut up, because you know what I meant. Do I come to your blog and nitpick you?*

Tonight, in a slightly fancy-pantsier version of Cheap Ass Mondays, protein and fiber-rich whole grains and veggies come together in curried summer vegetable fritters with sweet chili sauce and a peanut-quinoa pilaf. Or, for the more humble minded among us, veggie latkes with quinoa. L’chaim!

*I might, but I probably have a VERY GOOD REASON.

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Cheap Ass Monday: Eat at Your In-Laws 18 Aug 08

Cost for 2: $0.00.  Score!

Meds have been increased, added, and subtracted.  Tests have been taken and statuses are being monitored.  Body parts have been poked and prodded.  Heads have been shrunken.  Feelings have been processed.  Phlebotomists have become intimate with the crook of my left arm (my arm does not reciprocate).

And things are going well, very well, although I’m a little gun shy and am still knocking on wood.

Were I at home tonight, I would have made pasta primavera tossed with some bagna cauda (a pungent saute of garlic, anchovy, crushed red pepper and olive oil).

Come Thursday night, I’m back baby.

Cheap Ass Mondays: Italian Beach Pasta 28 Jul 08

I accidentally took all of these pictures with my camera set on “foliage.” Sorry.

Tonight’s dinner is a total throwback to my childhood, and has not been modified in any way from the way my mom used to make it. It’s an odd dish, I don’t really know its origins and I don’t really expect anyone to believe that it’s good, but it’s cheap, easy, tasty and makes fantastic leftovers.

May I present to you: spaghetti pie. Yes, spaghetti pie, that’s what I said. Spaghetti + Pie. Spaghetti pie.

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Cheap Ass Monday: Cheap As Free 21 Jul 08

I am BACK. A gaping wound IS NOT ENOUGH TO STOP ME.

I’ve never had a cut deep enough that it healed from the inside out before; even though it’s clearly knitting together underneath and is no longer seeping, it still looks like I have an open gash in my hand. Grody.

Dinnertime!

Aside from a side salad this meal should be practically free, because all the ingredients should already be present in your well-stocked pantry.* Plus, it makes so many leftovers that the cost per meal is probably, like, $0.17. (I haven’t done the math yet, but I’m sure that’s pretty accurate). For this next installment of bean-based cheapass meals I bring you smoky chickpea stew over polenta fries, starring the official spice of Winter 2008** and continued TNS favorite, smoked paprika.

*Okay, fine, you had to buy them at some point for them to be in your pantry. Don’t be such a stickler; this is why you never have any fun.

**I declared this several times in comments around the foodblogosphere, so I assume it’s become common knowledge at this point.

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Cheap Ass Wednesday: Il pane della Nonna 16 Jul 08

I ate too much of this. You will, too.

I was really excited about the meal I was prepping for Cheap Ass Monday when my cheap ass glassware sliced through my priceless right hand and incapacitated me: potato focaccia with onions and a warm white bean and spinach salad. Aside from being delicious, simple and cheap potato focaccia is one of my all time favorite foods.

It’s only recently that I’ve realize that the bread I know and love is actually focaccia; my nonna, who made it in a wood-fired oven off the kitchen of the two-room shack she lived in in the middle of a vineyard just outside Brindisi, just called it ‘pizza’ and that’s what I grew up calling it.* But you don’t get to hear about all that now because of my throbbing hand.

*Important note: My nonna is not dead, she just got a little too old to live in a two-room shack with no hot water and ten thousand stray cats; hence the past tense.

The focaccia was adapted from The Wednesday Chef’s recipe, and if it can’t equal nonna’s, it’s still damn good. The warm bean salad is little more than garlic, olive oil, a tomato, a bunch of spinach, a can of beans and splash of lemon juice cooked quickly in a saute pan, so there’s your recipe. Special thanks go to Brian, who did 100% of the work while I sat on a stool and issued directions.

And that’s about all the typing I can take, so I bring you a Cheap Ass Wednesday in pictures:

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Cheap Ass Monday: Who says you gotta cook? 07 Jul 08

Yeah, I’m tired. So what?

Large pizza = $10.  2 people @ 2 slices each, $5. Take that.

Cheap Ass Monday: Down by the Boardwalk 30 Jun 08

Not actually on, near, under, or down by a boardwalk.

I’m going to tell you right now: this post? Is not really funny. Feel free to leave if that’s a problem, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming later this week.

As you can imagine, it’s been a bit of a rough weekend; I haven’t really felt like cooking, let alone photographing and describing my meals in detail. Funerals and their associated activities are always kinda rough, and I’m not nearly far enough in the mourning process for my own father not to have all that shit get dredged up, compounding things. Blargh.

I gotta tell you, the Orthodox Jews and their burial services? I to the N to the T-E-N-S-E. It’s so…biblical, with the actual rending of garments and the shoveling and the Hebrew and the phlegm. I’m emotionally drained just thinking about it.

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Cheap Ass Mondays: A Little Fancy, A Little Schmancy 23 Jun 08

I made this dinner purely as an excuse to gloat about my egg-poaching skills. Seriously, look at that fucking thing. It’s like art.

Did I make this dinner just so I could gloat about my infinitely awesome egg-poaching skills?  I may have.  But maybe I ALSO made it so I could gloat about my willingness to make things painstakingly by hand - let us not forget the angel hair cucumbers - rather than relying on the modern conveniences that would hasten dinner’s journey to my table. Because I? Am better than you.

To wit: fresh, hand rolled and cut pasta tossed with onions, garlic, red spinach and bacon and topped with a poached egg. Proof that cheap can still be pretentious!
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Cheap Ass Mondays: Re-inventing a Clichè 16 Jun 08

Do you listen to Aimee Mann? You should, she’s really good. I have spoken.

For the second installment of Cheap Ass Mondays, I bring you variation #999,999,998 on rice and beans: Mexican-ish stuffed peppers. Can you really have a feature called “Cheap Ass Mondays” without featuring rice and beans at least 30% of the time? I’m still new here, but I’m guessing you can’t.

These peppers appeared regularly on my table back in my vegetarian days (August 6th and 7th, 2000). Yes, I was once a vegetarian, for about four years. It will come as no surprise that sausage, my Scylla, and bacon, my Charybdis, wrought the downfall of that halcyon time. Although I’m now an unabashed carnivore and committed to eating meat in a more ethical, organic, sustainable way - although I’m not always successful - I would like to bring some vegetarian favorites back into rotation for the health of both wallet and gut.

I don’t know why hot, humid weather makes me want Mexican food; maybe I figure that as long as I’m already drenching through my clothing, I can’t get any more gross and I may as well go for the full-on sweat-fest and eat spicy food. I just know that I want it, and these peppers fit the bill. Fast, versatile, cheap, filling and tasty.

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Cheap Ass Monday: Hot as Hell Cucumber Salad 09 Jun 08

Pretty.

Apparently, I don’t spend ENOUGH time on the internet, because I’m adding a new feature to TNS: Cheap Ass Monday. My grocery bills have, uh, been nudging ever so slightly upward for the past few months; I have no idea why that might be. No matter the reason, I need to figure out a way to offset some of the more obscene Smackdown costs, and I know lots of us are looking for quick, less expensive meals so we can save our money for blowout trips to the French Laundry. Or, you know, to pay the mortgage or utility bill (thanks a lot, heat wave).

So Monday will no longer merely be “Monday” but “Cheap Ass Monday,” where we endeavor to make a tasty dinner for two gluttonous adults for $5 or less. Play along at home! The rules are:

• You (me) have to actually MAKE dinner out of actual whole, fresh ingredients. The Wendy’s 99-cent menu does not a Cheap Ass Monday make. I mean, technically it does, but that’s not gonna fly around here.

• Normal pantry items that right-thinking people should have in their homes (salt, sugar, olive oil, etc) do not count toward the $5 limit.

• I am the arbiter of what constitutes a “normal pantry item” and reserve the right to stretch the definition thereof in order to meet my self-imposed dollar limit.

• Some Mondays may be skipped without prior notice if I am feeling lazy.

Cheap Ass Monday kicks off with a refreshing, raw cucumber and peanut salad. Not only is it too hot in New York to even think about entertaining the idea of considering turning on the oven, it is also too hot for humans to effectively digest complex foods. Also, the knobs on the stove may well be too hot from the ambient temperature to touch; I can’t say for sure because I didn’t want to chance it.

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