Comfort Food-

After being sick like a dog for 4 days, I decided I was well enough to eat something hardier that chicken soup and crackers.

I had roasted asparagus, mushroom risotto and veal chops.

Roasted asparagus is very easy and comes into season at this time of the year-

Cut the last inch off the asparagus spears and lay out flat on a cookie sheet

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

for one pound of asparagus put into a small bowl:

1/2 cup of grapeseed oil
2T of walnut oil
2T mirin
a few dashes of soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

whisk together and pour over the asparagus

roast for 12-15 minutes ( should be enough for small spears)

check to see if they are done enough - they should not be limp

Enjoy

Handy Dandy Side Dishes-

Part of a fabuolous meal is the non protein side dishes


Here are some favorites:

Veggie-

peas with garlic and butter

roasted asparagus

wilted napa cabbage with hot mustard dressing

stir fried yellow and red peppers

steamed broccoli with herb butter

mixed green salad with toated pinenuts and golden raisins with balsamic vin




Starch-

drop biscuits with honey

warm potato salad with bacon dressing

blueberry cornbread with hard sauce

mushroom risotto

sage stuffing

thick garlic toast


I try to shop in season (cheaper prices at the market)

A Simple Elegant Meal

There are days when I do not want to slave over a hot stove but want a truly satisfying meal. Everyone has favorites that can be pulled together in a pinch. Here is one of mine.

Herb Roasted Pork Chops, Risotto, Spring Mix with pomegranate vinagarette.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, put in cracked black pepper, rosemary and a little adobo seasoning.
Cover the prk chops and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes and test for doneness. If needed, bake until the juice from the center of the pork chops run clear.

White the oven is heating start the risotto. I use a prepacked risotto mix. It will take about 25 minutes total.

Spring Mix is found in the packaged salad section of your grocery store. There are about 20 different kinds of lettuce in spring mix so I do not get bored with the taste.

Salad dressing is one of those things that folks have very strong opinions on. This is one I have in the fridge right now so I use it. Please dress your salad with what floats your boat.

At the Market-

Going to the market is like a safari - it it full if trphies to be bagged and pitfalls to be avoided. The best thing to do is to shop for the canned goods first then meats, produce and then frozen. This is because the folks that plan supermarket know that any extra shopping will occur when you come in and see all kinds of goodies that are not on your list.

To get away from this, you should walk briskly to the first aisle and avoid the perimeter until you have the bulk of your purchases in the basket.

Once all the dry/canned stuff has been gotten, You can head over to the produce section. There is already visually less space for you to pick up all the extra things that they have in the endcaps on the perimeter of the markets. After your produce is wrangled, head to the meat section and pick up what you need. Once the meat is in the basket, you need to realize that you shouldn't dally and get home quickly. The reason that the frozen section is last is that it will help keep the meats cold until you get home.

Before you go the market - Pt 2.


I have always liked food shopping. I realized this shortly after the chore was foisted on me by my father in high school. In a former part of my life, I lived with five other women and I did the weekly shopping for 9 out of the 10 years I lived there.

The first thing you need to realize is that you will not be able to get everything at one store. I regularly go three places every week to get the shopping done because every store has different things on sale every week. In the summer, I go to local farmer's markets. Once a month, I do a paper goods run at somepalce like Walmart / Kmart / Target. One one of the three regular markets is not in a direct line between home and work but I love the hot bar in the store and until recently, it was the only place I got raisin challah so the extra ten minutes once a week was well worth the trip for the weekend breakfasts. But I digress and will get back on track.

You need to get the circulars for what will be on sale when go you. In my neck of the foods, the sales run from Friday - Thursday. In the Wednesday paper, next week's food circulars come out. The best way to stretch your precious food bucks is to develop menus around what is on sale that you will actually eat.

After looking through the circulars, decide what you will purchase at what store. I understand every now and there might be some fanatastic unadvertised specials, but let them surprise you instead of expecting them.

If there is a few extra quarters in the budget, it is a good idea to stock up on shelf stable staples.

How to navigate in most supermarkets-

For folks who have not been used to shopping for themselves - these few rules will help you

Before you go-

1. Make sure you are not hungry when you go food shopping. It is amazing how much more stuff you have to buy when you are hungry.
2. Saturday is the hardest day to shop. If it is the only time you can go, be there by 8AM or wait until 6:30 PM. The first and the fifteenth will be busy most of the day. On any typical Sunday, noon -3Pm should be avoided.
3. Have a list of essentials written down. Take a pencil / pen with you and cross off what you have and keep a running total of what you have spent.
4. Coupons are your friends but only if it is something you typically use or a new product you want to try out.

Why the Blog-

The idea for this blog has been rolling around in my head for a while. When chatting with a friend about how tough the time had gotten, she remarked " I have been poor all my life. If I have to be poor for another year or two, it will be just fine."

Something clicked in the back of my brain. In my catering phase of life, as part of a kitchen crew, we had to create a working kitchen in an open space, plate and serve a great four course meals and then have the space look we were never there when we left.

Being "frugal" is also a way of life for most college students. I went college late and was basically broke for 4 years- the last year I walked 45 minutes a day to get to class because I had to save my tokens to get to a part time job. That was one of the best years of my life.

A few years ago, I was out of work for the first time in my adult life. It took a long time to get a job and what little I did have had to go a long way.

In the past few months, my love for cooking and crafting has been regalvanized. I am doing this blog to show my nieces and nephews that all it takes to look great, eat really well and have a great space is a little ingenuity, time, a cast iron skillet, a glue gun and duct tape.