Mexican Bean Bake with Cheesy Corn Souffle (Vegetarian)

This recipe has a lot of steps, but it’s a tasty, vegetarian, protein-packed meal that costs almost nothing to make.

Ingredients

For the beans:

• 1 lbs dry pinto beans (or some such bean) or 4 cans
• 1/2 cup rice
• 1 onion
• 2 cups (16oz) of tomato salsa (whatever’s on sale)
• 3 tbs cumin
• 2 tbs cayenne pepper (I used chipotle powder though)
• 1 tbs. oregano (Mexican if you have it)
• 2 tbs. garlic powder
• Salt and additional seasoning to taste.
• Some sliced green olives if you want them. I did, but they work better with meat.

Topping:

• 1 cup frozen corn, pulverized in food processor
• 2 cups milk
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 4 tbsp flour (Wondra works best)
• 8 oz shredded cheese (colby, muenster or jack)
• 6 egg whites
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. If you are using dried beans, cook them. I just put them right in the slow cooker, cover with water (plus 1”-2”and heat on high for several hours.
2. Cook the rice
3. Add all the bean ingredients together. You could sauté the onions first, or don’t. See if care.
4. Put it all in 2 9x13 baking dishes (or one really big one like I did).
5. Melt butter in saucepan
6. Stir in flour to make a paste
7. Whisk in milk and keep under medium heat until thickened.
8. Add cheese, corn and egg yolks and turn off heat
9. Whip egg yolks until soft peaks form
10. Fold yolks into cheese sauce slowly and carefully
11. Pour over beans and bake at 400 for 1 hour or so (until topping is set)
    

Frugal Factor: $2.50 for the cheese, $1.50 for the beans, $1.50 for the beans, $2 for the salsa, $2 for everything else. Serves 12. That’s $0.75/serving.

Carmelized Pot Roast w/ Gorgonzola Cauliflower

It’s not every day I discover a better way to cook meat, but that’s exactly what happened this weekend. I set out to make a slow-cooker pot roast. In the past, the meat ended up swimming in its juices, so I propped it up on top of potatoes. In this manner, the potatoes cooked long before the meat was fork-tender, so I drained the juices for gravy, removed the vegetables, and placed the meat in the dry crock and set the temp to high. Hours later, an amazing thing happened. As the fat and connective tissue cooked away, the beef was now slow-frying in its own fat. The entire outside of the roast browned like Carnitas, yet as I broke apart the roast with two forks, the meat was hardly dry at all. Once I tossed the chunks of meat in the gravy, I had a perfect freezer entrée.

Served here with a baked cauliflower casserole consisting of a steamed and mashed cauliflower mashed with 1 cup of béchamel w/ 1/4 lbs gorgonzola and baked at 450 until browned. Yum.

Frugal Factor: 2 lbs. bottom round roast, $4, cauliflower, $2, potatoes, $1, mushrooms $2, milk and butter, $1. $10 for 5 portions is $2/portion.

Fisherman's Pie

Thanks to Crash Kitchen for this idea, although I made no effort to actually follow their recipe. I was skeptical of an English fish pie but this creamy concoction of smoked and fresh fish was a huge hit. It's basically a shepherd's pie but with fish and a bechamel. For the topping, I tried the latest "perfect mashed potatoes" method from the OCD folks at Cook's Illustrated. You steam the peeled, cubed potatoes for 10-15 minutes, rinse them in cold water, and then steam them anotgher 20 minutes until mashable, then rice them. The result really is some insanely light, fluffy mash that's perfect for a dish like this. This method is also fasterand easier - the riced potatoes incorporate with no effrt and you don't have to wait for a pot of water to boil (just a feew cups in the steamer). Any fish will work as long as some is smoked. In fact, using pimenton (smoked paprika) in the sauce might even make up for having no smoked fish.

Ingredients: 8 med. potatoes (about 2 lbs), 1/2 stick butter, 1 15 oz can of mackerel (large bones removed and "dark meat" fed to Marcel), 1 lbs smoked fish (I smoked some whiting fillets out back and used a can of Trader Joe's smoked trout I had opened earlier for a snack), 1 leek, 4 shallots, 3/4 lbs of peas or green beans, 2 cups milk, 3 tbsp. flour (Wondra is best), Worcestershire sauce, paprika and pepper to taste

• Make mashed potatoes with 1/4 stick of butter; set aside
• Melt 1/4 stick butter butter on low heat in saucepan
• Whisk in flour and add leeks and shallots; saute a while
• Add milk and seasoning. Some people say to use warm milk, but I just crank up the heat and whisk it to death
• Add a 10 oz block of frozen vegetables such as peas or green beans (I used blanched fresh green beans because they were already in the fridge) and the fish (if your fish is raw, dice it and throw it in. If cooked, simply break apart.
• Pour sauce in greased casserole dish. Top with mashed potatoes
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes
• Eat right away or somebody else will
  

Serves 6-9 (depending on whether Dave and Heather are over and have seconds and thirds)

Frugal Factor: As prepared, this is a really frugal dish. You could go all out with cream instead of bechamel and something other than the two cheapest fish at the grocery store, but I'm not sure if it could get much tastier. 15 0z can mackeral, $1.10; 1 lbs whiting, $3.00 (plus the cost of some wood for smoking); frozen peas, $1.25; $0.35 for 2 cups milk; $0.35 for 1/2 stick butter ($2.79/lbs at TJ's - wow); $1.60 for 2 lbs potatoes; $1.50 for the leek, shallots and spices. At $9.15 for 6 servings, thats $1.53/serving.

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.