Dried Lima Bean Casserole w/ Ham and Potato

This is a winter meal if I ever had one, and beans are the most frugal of foods. It doesn't look like much and at first, I wasn't even going to blog about it, because it was too dry and bland. However, I thinned the leftovers out with some water and portioned them for freezing and, when I ran out of most everything else, I ate some. It was good. It just needed some more time, water, and reheating. Stewed things are like that sometimes. Borrowing a little from a French cassoulet, I made the beans in a crock pot, microwaved a potato to slice up and stir in, and baked in a skilled w/ some torn-up bread tossed in butter. I used a bouquet garni of leek, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary and whole peppercorns but the directions below just call for throwing in the herbs and grinding in the pepper at the end.

Serves 5.

Ingredients: 1 lbs dried Lima beans (or any white bean), 1 leek, 1 onion, 1 spear celery, one carrot, 1/4 lbs ham, 1 12 oz can chopped tomatoes, 1 tbsp. fresh thyme (or 1/2 dried), 1 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried and crumbled if whole), Add salt and pepper and olive oil to taste after beans are cooked and one baked/microwaved potato, sliced w/ skin removed.

• Pick through beans in case of rocks (I really did find a rock once), rinse and place in a pot.
• Pour in enough water to that there are two inches above the beans (if possible, use filtered water - the minerals and such in tap water can make the beans harder)
• Bring to a boil, turn off heat and rest one hour.
• Drain beans, rinse and return to the pot (or transfer to a slow cooker)
• Dice all the other ingredients and add to pot (except salt, pepper and potato)
• Add 1 cup filtered water to pot
• Cook on medium heat until beans are soft, stirring when neccesary and adding a little more water if needed*
• Add potato
• If desired, top with fresh bread chopped finely or pulsed in food processor and tossed with melted butter and/or olive oil. If you used a dutch oven or a shallow slow cooker insert to cook your beans, you can transfer it right to oven. Otherwise, use an ovensafe skillet, pie plate or casserole.

*Beans may soak up more or less water depending on exact heat, the tightness of the lid, humidity and age of the beans.

Note: Slow cookers have apparently come a long way and have all sorts of settings and timers. Mine is from the 70's, however (I found it its original unopened box in a South Philly Goodwill years ago) and has three settings: low, high, and "autoshift". The latter gets to the highest temp than cycles to low so you don't have to stir. The low setting does not work for dried beans.

Frugal Factor: $1.50 for the beans, $1.25 for the ham (I bought a whole spiral sliced bone-in ham for $3.99/pound at Thanksgiving and froze individual portions of ham), $1 for the leek, $1 for all the other vegetables. The herbs I grow, but dried would be about $0.25. That's $1/serving. Yup, beans are cheap. I like beans.

Product Reviews: The Almost Perfect Travel Mug and Water Bottle

I have been waiting 14 years for the world to develop a travel mug that can be sipped, then sealed securely in a backpack filled with important papers and electronics. They finally did it.

When I started high school, the bus came at some ungodly hour. 7 a.m., I think. Thankfully my bus driver let us bring our travel mugs on the bus. It always frustrated me that you could not just throw your plastic 7-11 coffee mug in your bag. Even when I thought it was empty, my homework still ended up stained in Lavazza (this was before a couple years before Starbucks arrived in Bel Air. After the weird German store closed in the ghostly wreck of a mall, you actually had to go "to the city" for whole bean Arabica.) I had a traditional Thermos with the little plastic cup that clicked on the top, but try drinking that at 7 a.m. on a school bus, especially when the usual one was in the shop and our bus driver had to remember how to clutch.

I have been crushed by false hopes before. There was the Nissan, which claimed to be leakproof, with a nifty little toggle button you clicked open or closed. It worked okay for a while, but then the button wore out and coffee went everywhere.

Now the good folks at Target, the BoBo Wal Mart, are selling the Thermos E5 Travel Mug. It is an elegantly simple solution to a problem that has vexed overthinkers for decades. Unlike other pretenders, it has no moving parts. The sippy lid screws on and off is just like a regular old thermos lid. However, it has two silicon gaskets instead of one. If you unscrew it halfway, one gasket is released and coffee can be come out of the sippy holes in the middle. The second gasket seems to keep the coffee from dribbling out the side when you sip. You can sip left handed or right handed - the sippy lid is 360 degrees of flavor. Genius! Once you close the lid tight, you can shale it, hit it, drop it or put it in a bag with your laptop with no worries.

In fact, you can keep it in the bag for hours, because this thing keep jot beverages hot. I made a mug for a drive from Philly to a suburb of DC and even with the lid in the sip position, the coffee was too hot to drink until I passed through Baltimore.

There are a few downsides: The opening to pour your coffee is too small to stick a standard ice cube to cool things down a little. The mug does not fit in a standard automotive cupholder and it looks like something you should probably not try to pass through a security checkpoint. Overall, however, the best mug ever.

Notes: The Thermos E5 line also includes a 20-oz container that is NOT a travel mug, just a traditional cup-on-top model that also happens to looks like WMD. Also, upon further research it seems the Nissan brand might be using this lid design too, and in a much less bulky product but as they say, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice er... won't get fooled again." Of course, some Nissan mugs are co-branded with Thermos of vice versa, so I don't know who owns who or if it's just a licensing thing. But whatever is out there was not on sale at the City Line Target, so I dunno.

Frugal Factor: $20 is a lot for a mug. But you could spend more for a worse one (I have). Frugal isn't always about cheap. If you use this mug 15 times instead of hitting up the coffee shop, it pays for itself and if it keeps you from spilling coffee on something (or someone) important, it's priceless.

Thermos must be on a role, because they also have what I think is the world's best water bottle. Unlike the crude simplicity of the mug, this "Intak" bottle (the a has an accent I can't type so it's ponounced "intake") is more like an iPod - stylish and innovative in its design. The plastic one is BPA-free, and there is a stainless steel version too. One-handed uperation and no nipples to suck on. I was so impressed with this product after finding one at Goodwill (I know - eww - that's the last thing you want to buy there, but bleach and boiling water takes care of that) that I bought all my coworkers their own for Christmas.

It has this little clicker on it to count how many times you have emptied it into your thirstly gullet. I thought it was stupid, but my coworker Kristin, a military wife and a bit of a control freak, loves it. She also read the directions. Do you know anyone who reads the directions on a plastic water bottle?

Rant: A Beef with Bittmann

I'm sure I'm not the only one who read "The Minimalist" Mark Bittman's relatively stupid column in the New York Times. It's bad enough this guy gets paid to show you how to stir fry a vegetable in oil and garlic. He also has to make you feel bad about not being able to spend the day finding that vegetable at your local farmer's market in season. I share some of his philosophy about simple food from scratch. After all, that's what this blog is all about. I even agree you should stock your pantry, but many of his recommendations are odd, particularly what he thinks you should throw out. The whole point of a pantry is to have stuff you need in a pinch.

He wants you to get rid of your packaged bread crumbs and make your own. Well, sure. If I happen to have a stale loaf of bread, I do in fact make bread crumbs. However, it's pretty likely I'll need bread crumbs more often than I have uneaten bread. Therefore, I always keep a can of unseasoned bread crumbs in the pantry.

Out with canned broth or bouillon cubes? Well, sure, those are worse than water but I've already discussed Better than Bouillon, which, while not better than a fast homemade broth, is in fact a lifesaver - and takes up very little space.

No more canned beans? Again, in principal I would like to use dried beans and save a big pile of money, and I often do. But really, in a pinch (such as the time I added one CAN of chipotle peppers instead of one canned pepper and had to quadruple the recipe), you should always have canned beans.

Bittman says "out with bottled lemon juice." Last time I checked, lemons were up to $1 each and go bad in a couple weeks in the crisper, while lemon juice is $3 for a quart and lasts for a year. Fresh lemons are nice, but when you suddenly want a light salad dressing, lemonade, or whatever, you need a jug of lemon juice in the fridge. Of course, that means I'm more or less with Bittmann on avoiding pre-made salad dressing, except sometimes I'm lazy so I have some of that too. It also keeps for a year.

Mr. Minimalist says dried basil and dried parsley are "worthless." He's absolutely right. But then he says dried dill is great. I've tried it... it's not. I keep some frozen dill in the freezer. It keeps pretty good, and imparts wonderful flavor. As for rosemary and thyme, they are indeed useful dry, but rosemary grows indoors in a pot (albeit in strange shapes) and my thyme is still going strong in the garden.

Out with imitation vanilla? Well sure, just the real vanilla extract for me. But no, Bittmann, I am not buying vanilla pods in bulk.

Out with tomato paste in a can so you can use it in a tube? I'm with the guy in principal - it's a pain opening a can when you only need a tablespoon. But in reality, a can of tomato paste can be had for about $0.33 while those tubes cost $4 for half of what's in a can. You're better off throwing away the rest of the can than using the tube. Better bet though is to freeze tablespoons of tomato paste on a piece of wax paper, then put them in a bag to save.

Okay, rant over. I agree with Bittmann that you should always have real maple syrup, bacon, whole chunks of Parmesan (although Regiano has been a bit steep lately), anchovies (to his "in olive oil, please" I will add, but the ones that are rolled up in the jar, since you can't close those weird cans), and winter squash.

Rant over, back to recipes. I'll have to come up with my own pantry list soon.

Black Bean Stir Fry Sauce

I love black bean sauce. No, not like Mexican black beans, I mean the stir fry sauce made with salty fermented soybeans found in those Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants that are authentic, upscale or both. The recipe below is enough for one four-serving dinner, but I like to quadruple the recipe and freeze portions in little containers (or zip lock snack bags) so I can make a quick stir fry any time.

That's what I did the other night. I had some frozen chicken breasts and green beans, so I fried them up and threw in a frozen cup of black bean sauce. I had to thin out the sauce with a little more water and soy sauce.

Here is the recipe for one portion of the sauce:

2 tbsp peanut oil, 2 tbsp fermented black beans (rinsed and drained), 1 tbsp garlic (minced), 1/2 cup chicken or veg. broth (or sub. soy sauce for half the water), 1 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp rice wine, 1 tsp sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch

• Heat a wok or heavy skillet over medium-high heat (or, if making in bulk, use a saucepan).
• Add the oil, the black beans and garlic. Stir-fry about 12 seconds.
• Dissolve the corn starch in some of the stock then add it and the rest of the ingredients
• Bring to a boil, sauce will thicken.

Makes about 3/4 cup sauce.

Notes & Substitutions: If I don't have rice wine, sherry or vermouth do the job. Fermented/Preserved Black Beans are sold in small jars and cans at most Vietnamese/Chinese Groceries but I've never managed to find them in the Korean supermarkets, even though the Korean soft tofu restaurant I go to includes them among their many pickled specialties. Sometimes I can only find them mixed chili peppers, which can be too spicy. However, if I get them without any chili peppers, it's not spicy enough and I add pepper flakes or chili sauce. Here is a place to buy them online, although I have never ordered from them: http://www.yesshopnow.com/item.asp?ItemNum=10172

Venison and Butternut Squash Stew with Dried Cherries over Quinoa

I haven't posted here for a while as I have been eating through the last few months of frozen food to make room for the 1/2 hog that I am splitting with my uncle (so that's 1/4 hog... good thing Marquita mailed us BBQ sauce for a Christmas present). So as a heritage hog somewhere in Lancaster County whiles away his last free-ranging days (perhaps occasionally looking over his shoulder) I'm back with some more recipes.

Speaking of free-range, my uncle also recently brought over a few pounds of venison from his wife's nephew in Virginia. Some people may blanch at eating Bambi's mother, but hunted meat is probably the most humane solution to "the omnivore's dilemma." I won't subject you to further ranting on the subject (that's Ted Nugent's job) but I will share an easy slow-cooker recipe.

The ingredients, if not the preparation, are based on a wonderful meal I had in New Orleans in November of 2004. My wife and I got tip from a staffer at Tipitina's to go up the street to this Dick & Jenny's. We arrived at the tucked away clapboard restaurant just as they were opening. Jenny led us to a pine table with mismatched wrought-iron chairs. Dick was in the kitchen. They had a few New Orleans-themed dishes on the menu but it was a cold night and I ordered the special, a seared venison loin over acorn squash with a cherry wine reduction.

Our meal arrived on mismatched plates with a cruet of wine, and I was so engrossed in my meal's surprising melding of flavors that I did not notice the crowd forming in the waiting area, a shed/indoor patio packed with folks on lawn chairs drinking wine and having a good time. Apparently Dick and Jenny's was a poorly-kept secret among the locals and they didn't take reservations, so we were lucky to get there early. Dick and Jenny apparently sold the place soon after the flood. Some say the magic is lost. (For all you Philadelphians, think Django).

Recipe: Venison and Winter Squash Stew over Quinoa (six servings)

Long hours in the slow cooker make the venison fork tender and the squash nearly falls apart. That, along with the dried cherries and spices, makes the dish reminiscent of a Moroccan tagine, so I served it over quinoa, a super-healthful whole grain that cooks up very similar to cous cous and stands up to a heavy sauce better to boot. Those without a slow cooker can instead use a dutch oven or a deep skillet with a tight-fitting lid. Just put it in the oven at 225 and check it a few times and add some water if needed. Even more than other stews, this tastes better the next day. In fact, I got a late start so the meat in mine was still a little tough at bed time Sat. night. I was too tired to let it cool long enough to put it in the fridge, so I just left it in the pantry overnight (this being winter, my unheated shed pantry was 34 degrees).

Ingredients: 1 1/2 lbs. venison roast, 1 butternut squash, 1 red onion, 1 apple, 1/4 lbs. raw sage breakfast sausage; 1/4 cup dried cherries, 1/2 cup port; a 2" cinnamon stick, 2 tsp. dried thyme, 1 tsp ground allspice, ; 1/2 tsp paprika, 1 tsp. salt.
1 1/2 cups quinoa, cooked with dried fruits (cook like rice - use 1:1 ratio of quinoa to water on stovetop, 1:3/4 in a rice cooker)

• Peel squash, cut in half, scrape out seeds and slice into pieces about a half inch thick and one inch long and toss in the crock.
• Slice onion coarsely and toss that in too, along with the cherries, port and seasonings and toss .
• Cube the venison and place on top of the vegetables. Break up the sausage and put it on top
• Chop venison into 1" pieces and put it on top of the squash (don't stir it in).
• Break up the sausage and crumble over the venison and. Cut the apple in half and put both halves on top, skin up.
• Cook for 6 hours on low, 2 hours on your slow cooker's highest no-stir setting (the long, slow heat cooks the meat, while the squash requires higher heat). When done, the squash should be almost falling apart and the meat fork-tender
• Salt to taste and serve over cous cous or quinoa. When cooking either one, toss in a few more dried cherries for added yumminess.

Notes and Substitutions:

• If nobody has hunted you some venison lately, you have two choices. You can spend a little extra to buy some from a tempermental man with antelope blood on his apron or you can use stewing beef or lamb from the store. In either case, if the meat you buy has fat, you may want to then omit the sausage - it's needed to provide to baste the venison, which is quite lean from running around the forest, not often a problem with farm-raised meat. Add some more of the herbs and spices to compensate for those in the sausage though.
• If you don't have any port, any light-bodied red wine (like pinot noir or Beaujolais) will work with a tsp. of sugar. You could even use Manischewitz (without the added sugar!).
  
• Dried cherries are hard to find and rather pricey, but their deep flavor and tart nature are worth it. However, you could substitute other dried fruits such as prunes, currants and raisins.
• Many slow-cooker recipes ask you to brown the meat and sometimes saute the veggies before placing in the slow cooker. However, simply keeping the meat on top of the vegetables in the crock serves much the same purpose without dirtying another pot.
• By the way, although it would be a very different dinner, a can of chick peas (liquid and all) could actually substitute for the meat and make this vegetarian.
  

Frugal Factor: The venison was free for me, but supermarket chuck roast is running $3.29/lbs at the right now so let's say $5 (I have no idea what Sonny's charging). The squash could have been got cheaper but it was $2 at the co-op where I also spent $5 on a bag of cherries and used about 1/4 of the bag, so that's $1.25. Everything else I already had, but I would overestimate the cost at $2.50 for the apple, onion, port, quinoa and spices. At six servings, that's $1.79/serving (or $0.96 with the free meat).

Greek Moussaka w/ Ground Lamb and Eggplant

When I made last week's lamb stew, I ground some of the trimmings and extra meat to make moussaka, the custard-topped mixture of spiced meat and eggplant that I loved as a child, when my parents would take me to one of the Greek restaurants on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore (my favorite one closed decades ago but Ikaros is still open - the link is worth following for the intro alone).

The recipe I followed (although halved) did not quite give me the results I wanted. I was able to salvage the meat filling by adding more allspice and cinnamon, plus lemon juice and oregano, but the real problem was the tomatoes. Upon further research I have found that more authentic recipes call for the tomato paste but not the fresh or canned tomatoes. I have written a revised recipe below.

Note: Moussaka has four steps and, from start to finish, will take you several hours and dirty 4 pots or pans. Luckily, you can either do the first three at the same time or each can be done separately and refrigerated prior to assembling and baking the final product.

Moussaka:

Ingredients: 2 eggplant, 1 pound ground lamb or beef, 2 onions, 4 tbsp. tomato paste, 1/2 cup red wine (I actually like marsala for this), 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp allspice, 1 tsp. oregano, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup grated cheese, olive oil, 4 cloves garlic
2 Cups Bechemel: 1/4 stick butter, 4 tbsp gravy flour, 2 cups whole milk, 1/4 tsp nutmeg (if grating fresh, use only 1/8), dash Worcestershire.

Equipment: 1 saucepan, 1 frying pan or dutch oven, 1 whisk, 1 spoon, 1 casserole dish, 1 cookie sheet

Step 1:

• Peal eggplant and slice into 1/4 inch slices.
• Salt eggplant slices, wait an hour, rinse
• Toss eggplant in olive oil and roast under broiler until browned (15 min or so)

(meanwhile...)

Step 2:

• Warm 4 tbsp olive oil in 12" pan on med. heat and add all spices and herbs (borrowing from Indian cooking here)
• When spices become fragrant, add meat and brown, then break up as much as you can
• Add wine and tomato paste and lower hear, stirring and continuing to break up meat.
• Preheat oven to 350 and keep stirring occaisionally while you continue to the next step ( Eventually, you want a relatively dry with meat broken up almost to a paste.)

(meanwhile)

Step 3:

• In heavy saucepan on low heat, melt butter.
• Whisk in flour and nutmeg and stir until flour mixture pulls away from the pan (or starts to burn)
• Add milk, whisk furiously and crank up the heat, continuing to whisk ever minute until mixture begins to summer (many recipes want you to warm the milk first and slowly whisk it in a 1/4 cup at a time. It takes longer and dirties another pot, but otherwise has no noticeable effect)
• When thick enough to coat edge of a spoon, take off heat and wait a minute
• Then, whisk in three egg yolks and a dash of Worcestershire.
• If it gets too thick, whisk in a little bit of milk but don't put it back on the heat after yolks are added
• Add grated cheese
  

Step 4: Assembly

• Oil casserole dish
• Layer half the eggplant slices on the bottom (some recipes call for bread crumbs to line the pan first but I would rather have more sauce than pasty bread crumbs in my food)
• Spread meat evenly
• Layer the rest of the eggplant
• Spread bechemel over top
• Place in oven on 350 for 45 minutes or until browned. You may need to rotate
• Allow to cool - when no longer warm but still hot, cut into squares and serve.
• (an arugula salad tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, pepper and feta cheese would be nice)

Frugal Factor: Good thing this recipe is easy to freeze because it takes forever to make it. As for money, It was 1/4 of the leg of lamb I bought for $19. Let's just say $5. Tomato paste, $0.50; 1/2 cup wine, $1; eggplant, $2 at discount produce place, $4 at supermarket; milk, $0.50, butter, $0.25. Flour and spices are pantry items; let's say $0.50. This recipe made 8 portions so that's $1.22-$1.46 per portion.

Jewish Stuffed Cabbage (Vegan)

This is the first vegan recipe I have posted here so far, because I had a pack of tempeh in the fridge. Usually I use cooked lentils. Of course, any ground meat would work too, but in that case you would brown it, drain the fat and remove from the pan before sauteing the other ingredients. In either case, for a firmer texture, add a beaten egg to the finished rice mixture before stuffing the cabbage. Also, I use vegetable juice rather than the traditional plain tomato juice here. It's mostly tomato anyway but it's a little more flavorful and it has extra vitamins, both especially important in a vegetarian dish. If you're a vegetarian though, make sure not to get "100% vegetable juice" not "vegetable juice cocktail" which has beef broth in it.

Stuffed Cabbage Recipe

Ingredients: 1 cup rice, cooked (not a cup of cooked rice), 8 oz coarsely diced mushrooms, 1 8-oz tempeh block crumbled, 1 savoy cabbage, 3/4 of a 48-oz vegetable juice (or plain tomato, either way drink the rest), 1/2 cup lemon juice (or vinegar), 1/2 cup brown sugar

• Cook 1 cup rice
• Cut core from lettuce and boil in a pot 15-30 minutes until very tender and cool under the faucet
• Combine 32 oz vegetable juice with 1/2 cup lemon juice and 1/2 cup brown sugar
• Saute onion, grated carrot, diced mushrooms and crumbled tempeh. When tender and browned a little, add the cooked rice and 3/4 cup of the vegetable juice mixture
• Pour half remaining veg. juice mixture into large casserole dish.
• Break apart cabbage into the large (and small) individual leaves
• Place 1/4-1/3 cup of rice mixture in center of leaf. Tuck sides over, then roll. You can press it together a bit to form it into a roll. Place in casserole, and continue until done. At some point you will realize you have too many cabbage leaves for the remaining rice or vice versa. Deal.
• Pour remaining veg juice mixture over cabbage rolls and bake uncovered at 350 for an hour, checking to make sure they don't burn (they won't).

Frugal Factor: 8 oz Tempeh; 2.99, 48 oz bottle/can vegetable juice; $1.49, 1 cup Jasmine rice; $1 (est.); carrot ($0.25?); onion, $0.30; 8 oz mushrooms (I spent $1 at the produce discounter but at Shop Rite it's $3); 1 savoy cabbage, $1.00; 1/2 cup brown sugar, $0.22; 1/2 cup lemon juice, $0.22 (based on the 32oz bottle, which at $1.79 is $0.40 cheaper than the little 7 oz one the looks like a lemon). $8.17 for 7 servings or $1.17/serving ($1.45 if I had bought the shrooms at the supermarket). As is sadly the case, using meat in place of healthful, sustainable tempeh and mushrooms would likely reduce the cost.