My photo library has a bunch of pictures that don’t warrant individual posts, so today is a potpourri day.
The weather here has finally gotten above freezing. Frugal Boy only had a brief encounter with snow this winter (fingers crossed we don’t get slugged with a giant blizzard in the last 1.5 months of winter).
Shae tried her hand at making and freezing breakfast sandwiches. It is nice to have a quick hot breakfast on cold mornings. Aldi is the cheapest grocer that we have found for pre-made sandwiches, 75¢/sandwich. Ours are about equal in price.
Shae also managed to sell Frugal Boy’s Bumbo chair for $14. We paid $5 for it at a garage sale.
The grandparents visited for a few days. It is always nice to have extra hands and eyes to corral youngins.
Yesterday we did some Spring cleaning. If I call it that, will it make it Spring? Living with 24 pounds of curiosity is a great motivator to declutter and clean.
This morning while Frugal Boy was napping, we broke out our pasta roller and ravioli maker gadgets to try our hand at making homemade ravioli. Both were recent gifts and since we love pasta, especially ravioli, we determined that it was time to put them to use.
Technically, we had already made an attempt on Thursday, one that ended in complete failure. There are a lot of different recipes for a basic egg pasta and the first one that we followed had to be salvaged into wide lasagna noodles. After a couple of days and some advice from Peter Pasta’s youtube videos, we tried a different, simpler recipe.
Voila, super easy and beautiful looking ravioli!
The little squares are text book perfect. 😀
We used a basic ricotta, mozzarella, and Italian seasoning filling. The booklet that came with the attachments had some delicious sounding recipes that we will have to try out in the future.
You can either cook, refrigerate, or freeze your finished ravioli after making them. Ours are sitting in the refrigerator and we’ll boil them up for dinner tonight.
Our dough recipe was extremely simple.
2 cups flour
2 eggs
water
Dump the flour and eggs into a mixer. Use the flat beater to mix the ingredients together. One of our mistakes the first time was we tried to use the dough hook. Finally, add in water as needed to get to the right consistency. There should be small clumps/flakes and if you squeeze it in your hand, it should not fall apart.
Peter Pasta’s spaghetti video shows how to make the perfect egg pasta dough in preparation for ravioli.
He skips the dough preparation in his ravioli video (marketing his brand of pre-prepared dough mix).
I did some back of the envelope calculations and our homemade ravioli is about 1/2 to 3/5 the price of store bought. The filling is easily the most expensive part. If you make and eat a LOT of ravioli, these attachments might be frugal. One thing is for sure, they are super fun! We’re already thinking of all the different types of fillings and doughs that we can make.
Pumpkin-Sage Ravioli with Browned Butter and Pecans
Salmon Cream Cheese Ravioli with Roasted Garlic Cream Sauce
Chicken, Pine Nut, and Goat Cheese Ravioli with Traditional Red Sauce
Spinach and Mushroom Ravioli with Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce
Every week I will share our meal plan for the coming week. Making your own food is a great way to save money, explore new cuisine, and eat healthy (if you choose to make healthy foods). A good meal helps bring people together and as you improve your cooking skills you will impress more and more people! I generally use recipes as a starting off point and then experiment with different proportions or ingredients. Leftovers make great lunches for the 9-5 crowd who might otherwise have to decide between a sandwich or a pricey cafeteria.
This Week For Dinner…
Fried Shrimp w/ Steamed Broccoli, and Mac n’ Cheese
I wanted a break from white fish and due to some dietary restrictions Shae has to be a bit picky about what kind of seafood she can eat. One item that is on the ‘eat as much as you want’ list is shrimp. Tonight we tried a new way of preparing shrimp, we fried it. This is the recipe we followed (you’ll want to read the reviews as the reviewers make some important recommendations). Overall it was a fun experience if not a little time consuming because the shrimp we bought at the store still had shells on.
We’ve made this recipe before and substituted heavy cream in place of half and half. My Cheesehead wife has some strong opinions when it comes to what kind of dairy should be used in a recipe. All I know is that the end result is a rich, creamy, yummy dinner.
Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza
While making a pizza at home takes longer than ordering carryout or popping a frozen pre-made pizza into the oven it is a fun experience. For starters, you can put anything you want on your pizza. Getting dinner ready is one of the first things that we do together as a couple after a long day of work. Trying out new recipes, improvising, and working together can almost be a date in itself! The last time we tried to make our own pizza we followed this recipe.
Tacos
I don’t have a specific taco recipe this week. However, I do want to try out a new local supplier of authentic corn tortillas. Here is a newspaper article talking about the new business. At 75¢/dozen I can’t afford NOT to try out some fresh corn tortillas!
Snack Food…
Trail Mix (aka M&Ms with obstacles)
We make our own batches of trail mix because it is cheaper than buying it from the store and we get to decide what goes into it. The great thing about making your own trail mix is that you can decide how expensive you want it to be. If you want a cheaper mix, use more peanuts and raisins. If you want a more lavish mix throw in dried blueberries, walnuts, almonds, cashews, dried pineapple, etc.
Our mix consists of:
Peanuts
Raisins
Dried Cranberries
Dried Blueberries
Dark Chocolate M&Ms
The one warning about trail mix is when it comes time to share with others. There are very strict rules in our house that cherry picking (eating just one thing) is forbidden. The easiest way to solve that is to dish out smaller portions and making sure everyone has their own container.
Baby Cupcakes & Baby Brownies (work treat)
Shae has been doing a lot of baking lately. Occasionally she bakes goodies for her coworkers. I usually taste test.
Every week I will share our meal plan for the coming week. Making your own food is a great way to save money, explore new cuisine, and eat healthy (if you choose to make healthy foods). A good meal helps bring people together and as you improve your cooking skills you will impress more and more people! I generally use recipes as a starting off point and then experiment with different proportions or ingredients. Leftovers make great lunches for the 9-5 crowd who might otherwise have to decide between a sandwich or a pricey cafeteria.
This Week For Dinner…
Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup
I’m trying out this recipe with some substitutions. I personally love crockpot recipes but I know there are some doubters out there who claim it isn’t “real” cooking. Think whatever you want, I will continue to enjoy hearty meals that are ready when I’m hungry even if I spent the entire day working.
The changes that I made to the recipe include using dried beans instead of canned (we talked about the benefits of using dried last week). I also used a small bottle of wine instead of beer because neither of us drink beer and Kroger apparently doesn’t sell single bottles anymore. I made my own taco seasoning instead of using a packet. If you read the ingredients list on the packet you’ll see that it is usually just chili powder, cumin, and preservatives. Those spices are super cheap and as an added benefit you don’t have to worry about MSG or any other weirdo ingredient. Finally, instead of using chicken breasts, I used boneless chicken thighs. Thighs are a dark meat. White meat, like breasts, tend to dry out faster and in my opinion have less flavor than dark meat.
Stir Fry
If you’ve never made a stir fry before, you might want to find a recipe, otherwise just throw together the usual ingredients (rice, veggies, chopped up meat, & sauce) for a super easy meal. We have a small oriental grocer within walking distance and they carry all kinds of sauces at prices that put the big chain stores to shame. Check around and see if you have any ethnic grocers. The owner/clerks are usually happy to help you pick out some items to try.
Pot Roast & Mashed Potatoes
Here is another slow cooker recipe. Throw a pot roast (or really any kind of beef roast), potatoes, carrots, onion soup mix, and cream of mushroom soup into a crockpot and set for low for 7-8 hours or put in the over at 350 for 5 hours.
Crab Stuffed Flounder
This is another new recipe we’ll be trying out. You could substitute any white fish in place of the flounder. Here is an example of the same recipe using haddock.
I like to include fish into our diet at least once a week if I can. There is a tremendous variety of seafood to tickle your tastebuds and there are some health benefits such as omega 3 fatty acids (good for your brain), low cholesterol (good for your heart and circulatory system), and it is an excellent source of protein.
Living in the Midwest makes it difficult/expensive to get fresh seafood so much of what we eat has been frozen. Regardless I still think the benefits are worth the slight loss in flavor and available variety!
Snack Food…
Bananas!
Did you know that a banana can set off a highly sensitive radiation detector? It’s true! Bananas are loaded with potassium, a naturally occurring radioactive element. Don’t worry though, and don’t stop eating bananas! You would have to eat nearly 4 million bananas in a year before you succumbed to radiation poisoning.
Every week I will share our meal plan for the coming week. Making your own food is a great way to save money, explore new cuisine, and eat healthy (if you choose to make healthy foods). A good meal helps bring people together and as you improve your cooking skills you will impress more and more people! I generally use recipes as a starting off point and then experiment with different proportions or ingredients. Leftovers make great lunches for the 9-5 crowd who might otherwise have to decide between a sandwich or a pricey cafeteria.
This Week For Dinner…
Pork & Shrimp
Shae’s employer hosts six (give or take) picnic dinners during the summer. Each dinner features a different cuisine and is catered by an area restaurant. Tickets typically run around 5-6 dollars and include a full meal plus dessert. If you want a cheap dinner date, keep a lookout for local events where you live. It isn’t too uncommon for some organization to be having a dinner of some sorts!
Bacon Bolognese (with Saffron)
I put the saffron in italics because although the original recipe calls for it I’ll be omitting it due to cost. This recipe comes from a cookbook we checked out of the public library.
Ingredients:
4-5 slices of bacon, finely chopped
1 medium-size onion, finely chopped
1 pound ground pork
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (I’ll probably use a teaspoon or two of dried)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (I always omit salt when making recipes)
12-14 oz orecchiette (little ear-shaped pasta) or medium-six macaroni
2 generous pinches saffron threads crumbled
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino romano cheese, plus additional cheese for serving
Directions:
Cook the bacon in a large deep pot or saucepan over medium heat until it begins to brown and some of the fat is rendered, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the onion and cook until the onion softens, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the ground pork, parsley, and garlic and cook until the pork is lightly browned, about 8 minutes, breaking up any chunks of meat with a wooden spoon, adjusting the heat as necessary if the pork browns too quickly, and stirring occasionally.
Stir in the crushed tomatoes with their puree and the bay leaves, oregano, and 1/3 cup of water. Cover the pan and let come to a boil. Then, reduce the heat as necessary and let the sauce simmer, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens and the flavors blend, about 25 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaves. Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste.
Bring 4 to 5 quarts of water to a boil in a large pasta or soup pot 10 to 15 minutes before the sauce is done. Salt the boiling water. Add the orecchiette and crumbled saffron threads and cook until the orecchiette is al dente, following the package instructions. Set aside 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water, then drain the orecchiette.
Return the orecchiette and the reserved pasta cooking water to the cooking pot. Immediately add the sauce and the pecorino romano cheese and toss to mix well. Serve the orecchiette with more pecorino romano on the side.
Squirrel’s Great Beef Steak Recipe
I’m making some room in the freezer this week. That means its time to eat some sirloin steak. Here is the recipe I want to try. I haven’t made up my mind yet as to what kinds of sides I want to serve. What do you think? Sweet corn and ??
Pizza (frozen or homemade)
It’s cheap, quick, and sometimes you just need a break from cooking.
Snack Food…
Texas Caviar
This delicious salsa alternative can be made a dozen different ways. Shae’s Aunt gave us a recipe that is packed full of beans, corn, and other goodies. I like it because it uses vinegar instead of a heavier dressing that some recipes call for. Google around for “Texas Caviar” and find a recipe that you like! If you want to be extra frugal, consider buying dried beans instead of canned. They are a little bit cheaper but do take quite a bit longer to prepare.