Black Beans & Tea

About those turkey burgers...

2007-11-26T10:34:00.000-08:00

Making patties and burgers is a good way to prepare many different kinds of meat. For this recent thanksgiving we used turkey, but you can use basically any ground or finely chopped meat to create similar results.

Generic Burgers:
1 pound of finely chopped or ground meat
1-2 pieces of lightly toasted bread
1 egg
seasonings will vary depending on the meat used, and the desired result

Wisk the egg and the seasonings in a medium mixing bowl. Chop the toast into very small pieces, approximately into cubes, and add to the egg. Toss the meat in with the eggs and toast and mix it all together throughly. The bits of bread and egg will help leaner types of meat (like turkey, bison, or fish) stick together during the cooking process, so make sure they are well integrated.

This type of burger or patty will cook well in a pan or skillet, but will also stand up to grilling if it isn't manhandled too badly. To make larger batches of burgers, just multiply the ingredients. There are a few types of burgers that I make more than others, so I'll leave a few ideas here for you.

Turkey Burgers
ground turkey, cracked black pepper, oregano

Salmon Patties
chopped salmon, lemon pepper, sage

Grilled Crab Cakes
chopped crab meat, rosemary, salt, Old Bay

Taco Burgers
ground beef, taco seasoning, oregano

Thanksgiving Spectacular

2007-11-25T20:17:00.000-08:00

My boyfriend and I cooked Thanksgiving for my parents this year, who came to visit me from about four hours north, and we managed to hit all the great basic spots.

Our main course was turkey burgers with some Italian seasoning on top of basic out-of-a-box stuffing, covered in cranberry sauce.

I used two cups of cranberries, 1 cup of water, and a 1/2 cup of sugar. I boiled sugar nad water together, stirring frequently, then added the cranberries. Brought it back to a boil, then set it to simmer for about ten minutes. Then let it sit in the fridge for about four hours before dinnertime.

Our side dishes were yam fries-literally strips cut out of a yam, layered on each other on a cooking stone, covered in brown sugar and just a bit of regular sugar too. Delicious. We also had green bean casserole, an easy, cheap basic Thanksgiving staple.

I had also made Irish soda bread, easy and cheap!

You'll need whole wheat flour, baking soda, and buttermilk. It's seriously as easy as that. To make a small loaf, I used 1 lb of whole wheat flour (eyeballed, not measured exactly, worked just fine), two teaspoons of baking soda, and about 1 and 2/3 cups of buttermilk. Oven was pre-heated to 400 degrees farenheit.

I mixed the dry ingredients first, creating a small well in the center of the mixing bowl. I whisked the buttermilk in gradually, until I had a giant wet lump of dough. At which point the boyfriend kneaded it for a few minutes-I must encourage you to cover your hands in dry flour, as much as you can manage. It does not hurt the taste at all.

Then I placed the rounded, kneaded bread on the baking sheat, put about 1/3 cup extra dry flour on it, and cut a cross in the top with a sharp knife. Then I baked it for about 35 minutes. Divine with butter.

Marinade; easy, yummy flavoring!

2007-10-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of skillet-cooking anything and everything I can. Rather than cooking cornbread in the oven, I generally cook it on the skillet like a pancake, flipping it over and cooking each "cake" until golden-brown on each side. It's a lot easier to get into tupperware this way and to save.

Nonetheless, I skillet-cook -everything-. Bell peppers are my favorite vegetable. Usually they're pretty cheap, especially green bell peppers, and they carry a lot of health benefits. Plus, cut up a green pepper into strips and put a bit of dressing on, and you've got a quick, cheap, healthy snack! I like to use the "salad spritzer" that's balsamic vinegar and olive oil, give my pepper a few quick sprays, and munch.

But what I've also found is that bottled marinades are an easy way to flavor up some skillet-cooked foods. I'm currently in love with "Carribean Jerk" marinade. I start cooking up onions and garlic, add cut up bell peppers, and cook until the onions are just starting to go transparent, at which point I toss in my chosen meat (fish, chicken, or shrimp work very well for this) and begin cooking. After about thirty seconds (enough time for the meat to start to seriously soften and heat up) I add in about a 1/4 cup to a 1/2 cup, depending on how much I'm making, of the marinade. It adds a lot of quick flavor without me having to buy the more expensive ingredients, and one bottle lasts quite a while.

I am also deeply, deeply in love with fat-free pudding.

Soup Time!

2007-10-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

It's fall now, and that means it's time for soup! I'm sure most people could make one huge wall of soup-text here, but I'm gonna keep it simple with an easy recipe for Potato Soup. I'll also throw in a side of Drunken Cornbread so you will have something to eat with the soup, and because it is awesome.

Mmm-tato Soup
Ingredients:
8-10 Idaho baking potatoes, depending on size (a 10lbs bag usually costs $2.50)
1 quart of milk (I prefer skim)
3 tbsp of butter/margarine
Enough Basil, Oregano, and Black Pepper to make you happy
6 shakes of your favorite hot sauce.
Salt

To begin cut the potatoes into bite size pieces (or smaller if you like) and place into a 2 quart saucepan, preferably leaving the skins on. Cover the potatoes with cold tap water and mix them around in it with your hands. You should notice some of the starch in the potatoes coming out (the water gets a little frothy) and this will help keep the soup from boiling over. Drain the cold water. Repeat this step at least once more, or until the water remains reasonably clear .

Once the surface starch has been rinsed away, set the potatoes to boil. Let them boil until they are almost done, they should be soft and easily squished.

Drain the water from the potatoes, and slowly add in the milk and butter. Turn the heat down to avoid burning the milk.

Add the herbs, pepper, and hot sauce and bring the soup up to a high simmer.

When the soup is served it is a good idea to have some crumbled up bacon and cheese to add to it, though this is not at all necessary. Now that that's worked out, on to the Cornbread!

Drunken Cornbread
Ingredients:
1 pkg of cornbread mix (I use Jiffy, it costs $0.33)
1 can of Mexicorn (regular sweet corn will work just fine)
1 can of beer (use a light colored beer like Budwieser, dark beers and lagers don't work as well and have better uses)

Make the cornbread as the packages suggests, however replace all liquid with beer. Anytime the recipe calls for milk or water just ignore it and add beer instead. Then stir in the corn before you pour the mix into the baking pan.

Bake until it's golden brown on top (usually at 350, but follow the package instructions) and viola, Drunken Cornbread.

Tea: Nature's Soft Drink

2007-10-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

Growing up in a town with very bad tap water, I developed a (very expensive) aversion to anything that comes straight out of a faucet. Now, while this can generally be remedied with a slice of lime, orange or cucumber, let's face it: most of us drink shit that is ludicrously sweet.

And expensive.

And unhealthy.

An 8 oz "serving" of Coca-Cola (and most other sodas) has 100 calories. But no one drinks just 8 oz of soda at a sitting. One can is 12 oz and a standard plastic bottle is 20 oz.

And while I'm not one to count calories, it's still empty ones.

Juice is not much better. Many juices have more sugar (and more calories) than soda, although they often (not always) have vitamins to make up for it. Sports drinks and "designer" flavored waters generally fall into this category as well-- Glaceau's VitaminWater has approxomately 150 calories per bottle.

The only true "water" I've found in my sampling of designer waters has been the delicious and unsweet Hint. But Hint costs about $2 for a small 20oz bottle. Great for a treat, but not for every day, that's for sure!

And you may notice that I'm not mentioning diet drinks. This is because I firmly believe aspartame is a tool of the devil. Come on, guys, seriously. You don't want that in your bloodstream.

There's a way around this, and it's cheap, yummy, and requires minimal clean-up. And you probably have it in your house already.

It's called tea.

Long a staple of the Southern set, most of us above the Mason-Dixon don't brew our own iced tea or expect it set out on restaurant tables. But I've got to give a hand to them, sweet tea is just about the cheapest thing you can drink next to tap water, and you can sweeten it to your own taste, which means that if you don't like sweet drinks, you can just have...un-sweet tea. Even if you sweeten it, you don't need half as much sugar as is in your soda.

How do you brew your own iced tea? If you really need me to tell you, well...I generally boil a pot of water, put it in a dishwasher-safe plastic pitcher with a lid (it won't melt!), add sugar immediately (I use about 1/3 cup of sugar for one big pitcher) and then plop in three tea bags. Then it goes right in the fridge. In a few hours, I have myself a great big pitcher of tea.

You can use pretty much ANY tea you want-- and this is the great part. I generally use green jasmine or peppermint herbal. You can make your iced tea with caffeinated or decaf teas. You can even mix up the teabags to get the exact flavor you want, or add in some mint, lemon, or other herbs. You can sweeten it with brown sugar, honey, or corn syrup if you prefer it to white sugar. Or with an alternative sweetener like Splenda that isn't as gross as aspartame.

But is tea really as cheap as soda?

Let's look. I just went to my grocery store, where I bought two boxes of tea: Stash Peppermint at $2.65/20 bags and Twinings Four Red Fruits Black at $2.99/20 bags. Since I use three bags per pitcher in a pitcher that is approximately 2 liters, I am getting 12 liters of iced tea (6x3=18 tea bags) for $3 at the most. So $3/12= $0.25/liter. A 2-liter bottle of Coke at the same grocery costs $1.99 regular price, so that's $0.99/liter. Even if I splurge and get some super-fancy $6/20 bags tea, that's still $0.50/liter. So iced tea-- even iced tea made with top-shelf gourmet brand teas-- is way cheaper than soda. And phenomenally healthier for you.

If you're really on a budget, many tea brands sell boxes of 100 tea bags for between $2.99 and $5.99, making the price $0.09-$0.18 plus the incidental cost of whatever you use to sweeten it and a 2 liter pitcher, which will cost you about $5.

Fall Season is slowly killing us all

2007-10-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

And for those of you who would rather avoid as much as you can of the sniffly season, I've got a few natural remedies for you that have worked ridiculously well for me.

First: put garlic in everything. Make the homemade garlic bread, cook it in pasta, put it in anything you can. Garlic is ridiculously helpful when it comes to being sick!

Secondly: I got my cold last Thursday, and have since been drinking a lot of Traditional Medicinals seasonal tea sampler.. The sampler includes Organic Echinacea Plus, as well as Gypsy Cold Care, Throat Coat, and Breathe Easy. I have mostly had Gypsy Cold Care as well as Breathe Easy, with some of the Organic Echinacea plus. I put at least a tablespoon, usually two of honey in each cup of tea.

My cold?

Basically gone. In three days, when normally it takes about a week or two.

Now this might not be proof that it worked, but at least it gave it a good hearty try.

So I highly reccomend Traditional Medicinals. They make other tea as well, including Organic Mother's Milk (to help with lactation), Organic Green Tea with ginger, and Organic chamomile.

Website:
http://traditionalmedicinals.com/

-Kittens

Breakfast Smoothie: Strawberry-Banana

2007-10-15T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm up this morning and about to go make me some breakfast, but I thought I'd share this smoothie recipe real quick. If you've got a local farmer's market, that's always a good place to hunt out fruit.

Right now strawberries are still a fairly good deal at Wal-Mart, as well as bananas.

This recipe makes enough smoothie for about one and a third people, so feel free to adjust!

Strawberry-Banana Smoothie
Ingredients:
1 banana, cut into about 1/2 inch long chunks
About six strawberries, cut into small chunks
1 cup vanilla soymilk
2 tablespoons nonfat vanilla yogurt
2 heaping tablespoons strawberry jam, for sweetness
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup crushed ice

Blend well, until smooth. Pour into a tall glass and there you go!

I usually make this with a bagel or something fairly small as far as other breakfast foods. It keeps me feelin' good for a while.

-Kittens

Pasta w/pumpkin sauce, easy garlic bread, and pumpkin smoothies

2007-10-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm getting this thing started. I'm Kittens, I'm 21 and a college student currently in her senior year. I've spent much of my college career living on cafeteria food or ramen and chips, and have only this year really pushed myself to eat healthier. Especially since I'm now living off campus, my meals are really up to me. So I plan to share some fairly simply, cheap recipes. Most of my groceries have been bought at Wal-Mart (hey, don't hate, I'm poor). When I can, I buy from the local sustainable market as well as the local Neighborhood Co-Operative Grocery, which supplies locally grown organic/fair-trade ingredients to my community.

If you've got the cash, I definitely suggest looking into it.

My very first entry on actual food!

So. Today my boyfriend and I had a rare day in which both of us had the day off, which of course led to a lazy, lazy morning. When it finally came time to eat, I'd found a recipe for pasta with pumpkin sauce I wanted to try. I was missing a few of the ingredients, but we went right on ahead. So I have my own version of Pumpkin Penne Pasta!

Easy Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce
Ingredients:
1 can pure pureed pumpkin (DO NOT USE pumpkin-pie filling for this) (less than a dollar at the Wal-Mart)
Penne Pasta (any pasta really will do) (I bought a huge bag at Sam's Club for incredibly cheap-enough pasta to last a couple of months at least)
3 cups chicken broth (Wal-Mart, cheap)
half a regular-sized onion (Bought a bag at Wal-Mart)
3 gloves of garlic (Got a bag of about twenty-five heads of garlic at Sam's Club)
Tabasco (or other hot sauce) (giant bottle from Sam's Club)
1 cup skim milk (whole milk or heavy cream will make it saucier, use the same measurement) (Wal-mart's cheapie brand)
One heaping tablespoon of butter (Country Crock Light-one of my splurges)
Dried oregano (fresh will also do) (bought a giant spice dispenser at Sam's Club for ridiculously cheap)
Pumpkin pie spice (bought at Wal-Mart, more expensive than I would have liked, but, I also use this to make Pumpkin smoothies)
Salt & Pepper (Bed, Bath & Beyond: one in which you crack the salt and pepper yourself. Another splurge, but the difference in taste is worth it.)
Grated parmesian cheese (Wal-Mart, cheapie brand)

I ended up using enough pasta to make about four servings. you can add or subtract amounts all on your own. In any case, I got the water salted and set it on to boil. While it was cooking, my boyfriend cup up half an onion and the cloves of garlic.

Once the water was ready, I poured the pasta in and let it cook. Then I heated up a tablespoon of olive oil in a fairly large skillet. (I reccomend using the largest skillet you've got; this makes a lot of sauce)

I sauteed the onions and garlic until they had gone soft. I salted and peppered them, then added the three cups of chicken broth, the can of pureed pumpkin, a good four generous splashes of hot sauce, the cup of skim milk, and a few dashes of pumpkin pie spice. I forgot to add the butter until later, but adding it at the start is a good idea too.

Once it was all stirred together, I turned the heat down to low and let it simmer. The original recipe (which called for heavy cream) said it would only take five minutes; but at twenty we decided toc all it a day and use what sauce we had.

We poured the sauce over the saucepan of pasta and then kind of tossed it all together until the pasta was totally covered in sauce.

After that, we dashed the top with dried oregano (the boyfriend's idea) and added grated parmesian cheese. And ta-DA, a meal!

Now if you're looking for a side and you like garlic bread, but you're tired of buying that stuff that's covered in butter from the store, here's an easy way to make your own. My friend Becca showed me this.

Easy Garlic Bread
You'll need:
Whole-Wheat bread (white can also be used, but I don't recommend it): I tend to use about four slices, but that's for two people. Adjust accordingly to fit your meal needs.
Garlic cloves: I only needed one, but again, adjust accordingly.
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Take your slices of bread and tear into roughly rectangular chunks. Drizzle each small piece with olive oil, then add salt and pepper to the top. When each piece is covered, place into oven. Leave for ten to fifteen minutes. When you pull them out, CAREFULLY rub each piece with your garlic clove until they are heavily flavored. Then add them as a side to your meal!

If you leave the pieces of bread for twenty minutes, you can also have homemade croutons-just don't add the garlic.

If you simply toast the pieces of bread without adding anything to them, they make good bread-chips for dipping in olive oil or dip at a party.

Pumpkin Smoothie

Ingredients:
One can pureed pure pumpkin (starting to see a theme here?)
1/2 cup Vanilla Soymilk (I use light soymilk, regular milk could also be used with the addition of some vanilla flavoring)
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 cup chopped ice

Place all ingredients into a blender. Blend until smooth, then pour out. This is a good, filling breakfast smoothie. If you're eating them for dessert, top with some whipped cream and pie-crust crumbs and you've got a healthy smoothie that tastes just like pumpkin pie!

That's all I got for this first one! So heidy-ho, y'all.

-Kittens

Testing

2007-10-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

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