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Recipes

Cheap Eats: Albondigas soup

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At Small Notebook, Rachel posts a beautiful recipe for New England clam chowder and asks readers for other soup recipes.

Here’s one for a Mexican-style meatball soup, which came from my old journalist friend Larry Cheek, a restaurant critic and wonderful cook.

1 pound very lean ground beef
1 raw egg
1/2 pound chorizo (optional)
one small hot chili pepper, minced (use rubber or latex gloves while handling chili peppers, especially if you wear contact lenses—don’t rub your face or touch contacts after handling chilis)
About 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
Small handful of cilantro, chopped (about 1/4 to 1/2 bunch)
At least a quart of chicken broth (more, if desired)
About 1/2 glass pale beer
Olive oil
A few corn tortillas, preferably somewhat stale

Time: About 35 minutes.

Cut the tortillas into wedges. Set aside.

Combine the beef, egg, chorizo, chili pepper, chili powder, garlic, and about 1/2 the cilantro in a bowl. Mix well. Roll chunks of this mixture into meat balls, about the size of a golf ball.

Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or small stock pot. Toss the meatballs into the hot oil and brown, using a large spoon to roll them gently until browned on all sides. When the meat balls are well browned, gently pour the chicken broth into the pot. Add some beer. Simmer the soup over low heat for about 20 minutes.

At the last minute, add the rest of the cilantro and the tortilla wedges to the hot soup and serve it up.

Cheap Eats: White bean salad

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Looks like I’m soon to be eating beans again. So I’ve been rummaging in the cookbook in search of old favorite ways to fix them. Here’s one I found in Sunset Magazine back in the days when it was really a superb resource for food and household projects. It’s very old, but very good:

White Bean Salad

  • 1 pound dried white beans
  • 2 Tbsp white vinegar (I use white wine vinegar)
  • 1 Tbsp Dijon-style mustard
  • 4 drops Tabasco (I’ve used those Korean dried pepper flakes)
  • 1/3 cup salad oil (I use olive oil or a combination of olive & some other vegetable oil)
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • about 2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil or 2 tsp dried basil
  • about 1 1/2 tsp chopped mint leaves
  • about 3 Tbsp each chopped parsley and green onion
  • minced garlic clove
  • a couple of handsful of cherry tomatoes, halved

Cook the beans: First wash them in a colander, picking them over for any that look spoiled and for any small stones. They seem to taste best if you use the long method:

The night before, put the beans in a Dutch oven and cover generously with cold water. Soak overnight. In the morning, drain beans into a colander and rinse. Return to pan and cover generously with water. Bring to a simmer or slow boil and then turn the heat to “low.” Cook until they’re tender. Time depends on how old the beans are—anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, I’d say. Test by picking up a bean or two with a spoon or fork and blowing on it. If your breath splits the skin, it’s probably done. Taste to be sure…it should be on the soft side of al dente.

If you forget the previous evening, here’s the short method of cooking dried beans:

Cover the beans in a Dutch oven with cold water. Place over high heat. Bring to a full, rolling boil and count to one minute. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and let the beans set for one hour. Drain and rinse. Return beans to pan and cover with fresh water. Bring the heat to a simmer or slow boil and then cook until tender over low heat.

Make the salad:

Mix the vinegar with the mustard. Using a wire whip, whisk in the oil a few drops at a time to make a fairly thickish sauce. Mix this and all the ingredients except tomatoes with the warm beans. Stir gently but well. Chill thoroughly—at least four hours, but overnight is fine.

Shortly before serving, add the cherry tomatoes, halved. Garnish with a few sprigs of mint, if available.

This bean salad is good on its own—makes great snacking food to keep in the fridge—and splendid when served with good grilled sausages.

Some vacation…

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I took off the four days of use-it-or-lose it time I’d accrued on top of the 267 hours of time My Beloved Employer has to pay me for if I get laid off. Tomorrow is the last of those four days.

With vacations like this, we don’t need salt mines. When I wasn’t sweltering with figures trying to calculate how (if) I can get by without a job, frantically conferring with my financial advisor,and negotiating with potential Copyeditor’s Desk clients, I was filling out job applications or throwing myself around the yard trying to catch up with several months’ worth of neglected gardening chores. Today I tackled the front courtyard: hauled three jammed wheelbarrowsful of plant trimmings and debris out to the garbage can. The other day I hauled two of the same out of the backyard. There’s still a lot to do—more pruning, more cleanup, more hauling. Today I worked until I couldn’t stand up anymore and then collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep.

There’s a phenomenal amount of work around this place that Gerardo doesn’t do, for the grandiose $75 a month I pay him. Grr! I asked him to trim the Texas sage in front. He nipped off about three twigs, far as I can tell. I cut it down two or three feet—quite a trick to do that without turning the thing into a futbol. I like my desert plants to look like desert plants, not like sculptures of soccer balls, but that doesn’t mean I want them to run amok.

Day before yesterday (was it that long ago?) I shoveled the last of the moribund flowers out of the poolside flowerbed, spaded the compost from the bin into the soil, and chuffed the bin full again with new plant debris. Having decided I’d better have some food growing if I was about to be out of a job, instead of flowers I planted beets, chard, carrots, red scallions, and bush peas. And one hopeful tomato, not likely to produce before the frost—but nothing ventured: it was only a couple bucks. One of last spring’s tomato plants survived the summer (a rarity!) and is blooming, so it may produce before winter nips it back.

The package of bush peas held many more dried peas than I had room to plant. Then the light dawned: around the base of the queen palm! Of course! It gets watered by the bubbler that overflows onto the queen palm from the Meyer lemon, and the palm’s trunk is a natural trellis (tho’ supposedly trellissing is optional for these plants). This meant I had to dig up the desert landscaping to plant the peas, which I really didn’t want to do. So I troweled little “cups” into the crushed granite, cut open the fabric ground covering underneath, planted the each seed in the dirt, and then packed the cup with a mix of dirt and potting soil. This was a chore: those guys who landscaped the backyard dumped four or five inches of Madison Gold Minus Three out there. Digging it up is not a joke. The result looks pretty ugly, but the plants should cover it up, and after they’re spentit should be easy enough to shovel the gravel back in place.

I also filled a big pot with soil and planted a bunch of the peas in there. Pruned roses, cut back some other plants, fertilized and watered roses, dug the dead clover and dichondra out from between the flagstones. What killed that stuff? Gerardo thinks it didn’t get watered, and I will say: it was dry. But it’s been thriving all summer—just suddenly keeled over. Pearl mites?

The watering system doesn’t seem to be working. A couple of sections are nonfunctional. So…why are my water bills through the roof? I suspect there’s a leak somewhere.

Coping with that is more than I can deal with just now, and so I think I’ll probably shut it down and drag hoses. Argh.

Cleaned the hummingbird feeders, made new hummer food, reloaded and rehung the feeders.

Backwashed the pool, refilled the filter with diatomaceous earth, treated the water. It needs a chlorine shock treatment, which I will administer once it’s REALLY too cold to swim. We’re right at the verge of that: this afternoon it was mighty crisp, but it still felt soooo good after spending four or five hours sweating in the sun.

Today trimmed part of the desert willow (didn’t do it much good; had to get the saw out to cut one limb) and the Texas ebony. Invented a system for tying the bougainvillea to the block wall without drilling into the wall and without gluing hooks to the wall. Pruned the bougainvillea and tied it up. Pruned the Texas sage. Cut my foot open on a cactus; bandaged foot, dug out spines; drove one spine in too deep to get it out. Trimmed back the palo brea and the vitex. Hauled heavy metal chairs back and forth. Moved the rustic (read “rusty”) iron crucifix from behind the boug and figured out how to hang it on a different wall without having to drill another hole. Dug the dead grass and weeds out from between the flagstones. Took the scissors and trimmed down the overgrown, leggy, dried-out Mexican primroses. Jammed two communal garbage barrels full of trimmings and plant debris. Left an incredible mess on the ground to shop-vac up after resting. Repaired the pool cleaner & got it running again.

And now I need to get up and finish the job. But first must dig the out the thorn, which hurts.

Ain’t homeownership grand?
EveningUpdate
Fed dog; dog evidently not annoyed by spinach (human having run out of preferred veggies), which she normally picks out and daintily sets on the floor: food dish emptied and chased around the kitchen floor. Dug cactus spine out of foot, accompanied by some profanity. Dragged shop-vac to front courtyard to inhale up leaves, compost, and dirt. Cleaned out four clogs, left courtyard looking about 110% better. Paused to feel smug. Dumped plant debris, compost, & dirt into compost bin. Cleaned out shop-vac; washed filter (did you know you can actually rinse out one of those expensive paper filters that come with shop-vacs? yesh!). Put shop-vac away.
Fired up BBQ; cooked a couple hamburg patties and some freezer-burned mystery meat for dog; cod filet for human. Incredible dinner: how did this happen?
Accidental Wonderful Dinner
You need:

§Charcoal grill
§Charcoal
§Hardwood chops (hickory chips were on hand)
§Filet of firm-fleshed fish such as cod or salmon
§1 cup rice (I used converted; you could use regular white or brown rice but try to avoid instant rice…ick!)
§Olive oil
§21/2 cups water or broth; a little wine or sherry optional
§Chives or other herbs
§Asparagus
§Tarragon or other herb, to taste
§Small blob of butter or splash of olive oil
§Tinfoil
§Your favorite way to light coals
§Fresh lime or lemon
Step 1: Start the charcoal. Set the hardwood chips to soak in cold water.
Step 2: While the charcoal is firing up, pour a little olive oil in the bottom of a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add a cup of rice. Let this turn golden brown; stir now and again. Pay attention: once the browning starts, it can move right along. When the rice is evenly brown throughout, add2 1/2 cups of some sort of liquid. Since I was sharing this with the dog and I had no chicken or beef broth, I used water only. If no canine roommates are in the offing, mix and match to your taste. Sherry is a nice blandishment; so is white wine. Combine about 1/2 cup of either with broth or water. Whatever: add to the rice when the rice is browned, turn the heat down to medium-low, and set the timer for about 25 minutes if you’re using converted or about 35 or 40 minutes if you’re using regular white or brown rice.
Step 3: Wash and trim the asparagus. Set it on a sheet of tinfoil. Add a small blob of butter or a splash of olive oil; top with pinch of tarragon or any other herb that suits your fancy. Wrap tightly in tinfoil.
Step 4: Check on charcoal. Pour yourself a glass of wine or beer. Supervise in a desultory way until the charcoal is ready to use. At that point, place charcoal in grill (if it’s not already there; I use a chimney, so have to dump charcoal into the BBQ when it’s covered with white ash). Drain water off wood chips and toss wood chips on top of charcoal. Place grill over delicious charcoal and wood chops.
Step 5: Place the tinfoil package of asparagus over the heat. Rub a little olive oil over the fish and put the fish over the heat. Close the cover.
Step 6: Continue drinking and supervising. Keep an eye on the rice: don’t let it burn dry. When you flip the fish over, also flip over the tinfoil package. Watch rice.
Rice, fish, and veggies should get done at about the same time. Test fish by gently pushing apart with a barbecue spatula. It should flake but not be dried out.
Step7: Retrieve fish and asparagus from grill. Serve on plates with rice and juicy cut lime or lemon. Add some chives to the rice, if available, or dried herbs and a little butter. Be prepared for dog, if available, to try to sponge dinner from humans.
Step 7: Eat. Enjoy.
And so to bed.

Cheap Eats: Cold cucumber soup

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I have an inordinate fondness for cold soups, especially in the summertime. This one is addictive. It’s a Middle Eastern concoction called xergis:

You need:
3 cucumbers
3 scallions or 1/2 small onion
1 clove garlic
5 cups good-quality plain yogurt
1 tsp. olive oil (optional)
4 tsp dill weed
1 tsp salt
pepper
blender
large bowl

Mix the ingredients together in a large bowl, and then purée about 1/3 cup at a time in the blender until smooth. Chill. Serve in soup bowls with a sprig of mint or a sprinkling of chopped dill, parsley, or coriander. You also can serve it in glasses as a drink.

The stuff is utterly delicious. As a side benefit, it delivers an enormous thwack of calcium, about 386 mg. per cup. You can cheerfully drink two cups without feeling at all put upon.

Cheap Eats: Easy, yummy cabbage

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A couple of months ago, a commenter on one of the many PF blogs I read-believe it was The Simple Dollar-asked how you make cabbage. This elicited several recipes for boiled cabbage and hot dishes. All of these are delicious. But I didn’t see any that resembled my favorite. Here it is.

To make a side dish of two to four servings, you need:
1/2 head of cabbage (I happen to like red, but green is just as good)
1 apple
1/2 onion
about a tablespoon dill weed or dill seed
about 2 teaspoons fennel seed, or more, to taste
a little cumin, about ¼ to ½ teaspoon, to taste (optional)
a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg, if desired (highly optional)
a little dried or fresh thyme, if desired (optional)
small amount beef broth or water
splash of red or white wine, if available
dash of vinegar (add to taste)
Tabasco sauce (add to taste; very optional)
|salt and pepper to taste.
olive oil or butter
frying pan

Cut a head of cabbage in half. Put one half back in the refrigerator for future use. Take the other half and slice it thinly, crosswise, to create a “shredded” effect. Chop the onion coarsely. Cut the apple in quarters; cut out and discard the core. Chop the apple coarsely (no need to peel it, but you can if desired).

Skim the bottom of the pan with olive oil or melt a pat of butter in the pan. Place the chopped onion in the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-high heat. Cook the onion until softened. Personally, I like to turn the heat down to medium and allow the onion to cook until it’s slightly caramelized — this makes the onions nice and sweet.

When the onions are cooked to your taste, add the sliced-up cabbage. Stir this around to start softening it. Add the cut-up apple and the spices of your choice. Stir to mix well. As the cabbage gets to the point where it’s softening, add a little water or beef broth; if you have it, splash in a little wine. Turn the heat to low, cover the pan, and allow the cabbage to simmer gently until it is cooked to your taste. I prefer not to overcook mine; this takes about 20 minutes, but it can sit on the stove for a fair time without harm.

I like to grind the fennel, dill, and cumin seeds in a molcajete –– a mortar & pestle — but this is not necessary. You can use ground cumin that comes in a jar or whole cumin seeds, if you choose to add cumin at all. As you can see by all the optional ingredients, this is a very forgiving dish. You can pretty much combine anything that makes you happy and still come out with a tasty product.

Last time I cooked cabbage — and took this picture right after adding the cabbage to the pan — I sliced the onions instead of chopping them. Onion rings are a little unwieldy for this dish. I think cutting the onion into chunks is better.

Just before serving, adjust the seasoning by adding a light splash of vinegar and a little salt and pepper. Taste it. Add more vinegar and, if desired, a few drops of hot sauce for zing.

Serve this with a mess of grilled sausages and some crispy French or Italian bread for a great summer meal. It’s also really good with roast, grilled, or fried chicken; awesome with roast pork or with grilled or fried pork chops; and good to eat on its own.

Cheap Eats: Dine in, not out! Shoulda had shrimp

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M’hijito came by the other day to eyeball the house I was thinking about buying. Feeling flush over the $150 his current attempt to kick the nicotine addiction is saving him this month, he invited me out to dinner.

I’d just bought a mess of gorgeous shrimp at Costco and offered to cook that. He said no, he’d rather go out to eat.

O.K. So we went to a neighborhood restaurant, where the menu was loaded with yup-sounding items ranging in price from $10 for appetizers to $20 and up. He said the food was all right but not as great as the menu sounded. We each ordered a beer; he asked for the seared tuna and I got a pork quesadilla.

For fourteen bucks, the pork quesadilla consisted of a wheat tortilla (about 2 cents worth), a small handful of pulled pork (available in bulk at Costco, probably around 50 cents or a dollar’s worth), some melted cheddar cheese (maybe 5 cents worth?), and a sprinkling of barbecue sauce (negligible). Unless it’s annealed onto spareribs, I’m not fond of barbecue sauce (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu), so I found this creation unappetizing. Beer was good, though.

M’hijito said the tuna was less than top quality (I tasted it: indeed, it was a bit strong) and not seared but scorched.

Neither of us came anywhere close to eating everything on our plates. He took the leftover quesadilla to eat at home, but since he left for New York City at 5:30 the next morning, the stuff presumably will go to waste. The tab, plus tip: $60!

For a fifth of that (or less), the two of us could have had the following:

Shoulda Had Shrimp

  • 4 to 6 large shrimp per diner
  • one juicy lime
  • 1 or 2 fresh tomatoes, depending on number of servings
  • spaghetti (enough to serve all diners)
  • dried herbes de provence or fines herbes, if you have it; or a little dried basil or marjoram
  • fresh basil, if you have it
  • fresh parsley, if you have it.
  • 1 or 2 cloves garlic (to taste, and depending on number of servings)
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • shredded Parmesan or Asiago cheese

Peel the shrimp and, if necessary, devein them. Lay them in a single layer on a plate or in a shallow bowl. Squeeze the lime over them, being sure each shrimp gets lime juice all over it. Allow to stand for 20 minutes or more. If you leave them to marinate longer than a half-hour, put them in the refrigerator.

Dice the tomatoes and sprinkle a little salt and pepper over them; mix in any dried herbs you decide to use. If you have basil, chop it up. Chop a little parsley. Peel and mince the garlic.

Bring a kettleful of water to a boil. Cook the spaghetti al dente.

While the spaghetti is boiling, skim the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil; heat over a medium-high flame. When the oil is hot, add the shrimp. Toss around until they turn bright pink; do not overcook. Add the garlic while you’re stirring the shrimp. When the shrimp appear to be almost cooked, pour any lime juice left in the marinating dish into the pan, and then add the tomatoes. Stir quickly. Add the basil (if you’re using it) and parsley at the last minute.

Apportion the cooked spaghetti among the diners’ plates and top with the shrimp mixture. Garnish with cheese, as desired.

You could serve the shrimp with rice instead of spaghetti. Or hold the starch and simply stir-fry or grill a combination of your favorite veggies (maybe some sliced zucchini, a few pieces of onion, and some sliced bell pepper?) to go with.