Shepherd's Pie Recipe

2 tsp oil
1/2 an onion, diced
1 pound ground beef
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs ketchup
1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
1 cup frozen peas, partially thawed
1 tsp beef bouillon
1/2 cup hot water
1 Tbs cornstarch
1/2 cup sour cream
3-4 cups mashed potatoes
1/2 cup grated Cheddar cheese

I'm not giving a recipe for the mashed potatoes because I never really measure. I do LOVE my potato ricer though and it's the only thing I use anymore to make mashed potatoes.

Heat the oil and cook the onion a few minutes, then add the ground beef, stirring to break up. Add the garlic. Cook until the beef is crumbly and browned (no pink left).

Stir in the ketchup and Worcestershire. Stir in the peas.

Combine the bouillon and water, then stir in the cornstarch. Pour this into the ground beef and simmer a few minutes. Turn the heat down and stir in the sour cream.

The potatoes should be nearly done, so drain and mash them (or put them through the ricer), then stir in butter and milk, salt and pepper to taste.

If your skillet can go under the broiler spread the potatoes on top of the meat and sprinkle the cheese on top, then broil a few minutes.

You can also spread the meat in a 9x9 baking dish, spread the potatoes on top, top with the cheese, and then bake or broil.

Cheap Recipes

The Food Stamp Nutrition Connection has a recipe database which tells you the AVERAGE cost per serving of a whole lot of recipes. You can search for ingredients or browse by category. The costs are based on a national average, adjusted for inflation (but perhaps a bit behind right now). It doesn't show you what it costs you in your area so your actual costs may be more or less but it's a nice dataset to have for a starting point.

http://recipefinder.nal.usda.gov/

Recipe for Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

I mentioned before that I grew red cabbage in my winter garden this year. Tonight I cooked one up, using Simply Recipes' version of sweet and sour red cabbage. Very very good! I probably had less than her 12 cups red cabbage. My red cabbages are smallish. But it came out delicious and made a great side dish. The rest of the menu was

• kielbasa
• white beans
• fried apples
  

Yum, yum, yum. Perfect dinner for a cool evening. And now we're making strawberry ice cream for dessert. Does life get any better?

Barbecued Chicken and Black Bean Burritos

We often make burritos as a way of repurposing leftover meat and/or beans. And they're good. But I saw this recipe for Barbecued Chicken and Black Bean Burritos in Cheap. Fast. Good! and thought they'd be a nice change from our usual burritos. I had cooked black beans in the freezer so thawed them enough to scoop out the cup I needed and put the rest back in the freezer for later. I used the plain chicken I'd cooked up the other day.

These were sweet but not overpoweringly so. I'd tried a recipe before for sweet potato and black bean burritos and they were way too sweet for our taste. In these, the black beans were a bit sweet to begin with and the barbecue sauce added a nice complexity without making the burritos cloyingly sweet.

You could of course make this with raw chicken. Just dice it and then saute it a bit to cook it before adding the onions and garlic.

1 Tbs oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1 -2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup cooked black beans, drained
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
2 cups cooked cubed chicken
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar or "Mexican blend" grated cheese
flour tortillas

Heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic until soft. Add the black beans, barbecue sauce, and cooked chicken and heat thoroughly, stirring periodically. Sprinkle the cheese across the top and let it melt while you heat up the tortillas.

Spoon 1/2 cup or so of the bean and chicken mix onto a tortilla and roll up. Repeat 3 more times.

You could add sour cream if you'd like, but we left it out and it was plenty rich tasting.

Chicken for Later

A few days I roasted two chickens. We had part of one for one dinner, then a day later I pulled all the meat off the two carcasses, and made LOTS of chicken broth with them. I cubed the meat and then divided in half. I roughly followed an idea from Cheap. Fast. Good!. Their idea of batch cooking follows my mindset. I don't really do freezer cooking in the sense of cooking whole dishes for the freezer, but I often do stuff like this, what I call "building blocks." It relieves some of the time crunch and effort but is still flexible. I can turn the cooked seasoned chicken into

I sauteed an onion and some garlic, then added a few cups of cooked cubed chicken to it and heated through, then seasoned with some Worcestershire sauce. I packed it up and froze it for later.

They have half a dozen recipes suggested for using this up, including chicken stew, burritos, a curry, a casserole with green beans, a pasta dish, and a lo mein dish.

The other meat I left plain and made Barbecued Chicken and Black Bean Burritos for dinner tonight with some of it, then froze the rest for later. It will probably show up as a chicken pot pie or creamed chicken or King Ranch Chicken.

Happy 5th Birthday to the Blog

Wow. Somehow it slipped past me but this blog has been going for 5 years now!

Back when I started it in 2003, there were probably a few hundred food blogs online. Now there are tens (hundreds?) of thousands, I'm sure.

The format and style has certainly evolved over time. In the beginning, I rarely posted exact recipes. Now that's my normal post. I rarely remember to take photographs or remember to post them if I do actually take them, but I do find myself going back and printing off the recipes for my own binder of tried and true recipes. It's come in quite handy more than once.

Spinach Salad with Scallops, Bacon, and Cider Vinaigrette

I'd about given up on Cooking Light recipes but they may have won me back with this one. Both my girls loved it and it went together quickly and easily. I used frozen bay scallops rather than the larger sea scallops and just cooked them a bit less. I think it would be better with the larger scallops but the cost was nearly double.

Notes: I used apple juice rather than cider and didn't have a shallot so just chopped up a bit more red onion instead. They say it serves 4. I made it with just enough scallops for the 3 of us and had just a bit of spinach left over so if you've got hearty eaters, I'm not sure about the "serves 4."

1 cup apple cider
2 tsp sugar
4 slices bacon
1/4 cup finely chopped onion or shallots
1 Tbs cider vinegar
3/4 tsp salt, divided
1/3 tsp black pepper
1 Granny Smith apple, sliced thinly (about 1 1/2 cups)
1/3 cup red onion, sliced thinly
6 ounces raw spinach leaves
1/4 tsp curry powder
1 1/2 pounds sea scallops
2 tsp olive oil

Pour the apple cider or juice in a small saucepan with the sugar. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, until it's reduced to 1/4 cup or so. Remove from heat and set aside.

Cook the bacon in a skillet until crisp, then lay on paper towels. Pour off the fat but leave about 1 tsp in the pan to cook the 1/4 cup chopped onion in. Cook until soft, just a minute or two. Pour the reserved cider mix from above into the pan. Add the cider vinegar, 1/4 tsp salt, and pepper. Stir. This is your dressing.

Chop or crumble the cooked bacon. In a large bowl, put the spinach, bacon, apple slices, and red onion slices. Toss together. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well.

In a small bowl, mix the last 1/2 tsp salt and the curry powder. Sprinkle this over the scallops. Heat the 2 tsp oil in the skillet and cook the scallops over medium high heat until done. (3 minutes per side for the larger ones; less than that for the small ones.)

Divide the salad among 4 plates and top each with 1/4 of the scallops.

Just Released: eBook of Side Dishes

Side Dishes

This $7 e-book has over 50 side dish recipes from the blog and web site that will quickly become your favorites, including breads, beans, potatoes, and a variety of vegetables. I've gathered up my favorites so you can have your own side dish cookbook to spark your imagination at dinnertime.

Cuban Black Beans .... and Rice of Course!

I was making this fantastic Cuban Pork Roast for dinner tonight and wanted some Cuban Black Beans to go with it. I Googled and saw the pattern:

some sugar
some vinegar
some alcohol (wine or rum)
some sauteed onion, green pepper, and garlic added after an hour of cooking the beans in water
dried herbs including oregano and a bay leaf for sure, cumin possibly
hot sauce either at the table or in the beans as they cooked

So here's what I did.

1 pound black beans
water to cover plus 2" (I didn't measure)
1 green pepper, chopped

1/3 cup olive oil
another green pepper, diced
1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

1 Tbs salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 rounded teaspoon sugar
1 bay leaf

3 Tbs red wine vinegar
1/4 cup rum

Soak the beans and the first green pepper in the water. You could do this overnight. I just threw the beans and the chopped green pepper in the water this morning and left it there till 3:30pm when I came down to start them cooking. I did drain the beans and add new water. That's optional. Just make sure you cover the beans plus 2" of water when you start them cooking.

Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook an hour.

At some point during this time saute the second green pepper, onion, and garlic in the olive oil until soft.

After the beans have cooked an hour, add the cooked pepper, onion, and garlic to them. Add the salt, pepper, oregano, sugar, and bay leaf. Cook another hour, covered, at a simmer.

Stir in the vinegar and alcohol. One recipe called for 2 Tbs wine, which I hardly think would be noticeable. Another called for 1/2 cup dark rum. I went for something in between. I used rum in the marinade for the pork, so I opted for the rum but slightly less than 1/2 cup, although I think the 1/2 cup would have been fine. Cook, covered, another hour.

You're probably left with a lot of broth at this point. Take the cover off and simmer until it thickens up. Use a potato masher to mash up some of the beans to thicken it.

These were really good! I served them over white rice with the sliced pork. What a feast.

In another day we'll have Cuban Pork Sandwiches with the leftover roast. I saved the juices from the roast to make the mojo sauce.

Braised Red Cabbage and Onions

I grew red cabbage in the garden this winter. It's quite pretty but then I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it! I picked the first one yesterday and turned to Vegetables Every Day: The Definitive Guide to Buying and Cooking Today's Produce With over 350 Recipes, a great source of vegetable recipes that another food blogger recommended. (Sorry, I can't remember who to thank for the great referral!). His original recipe called for 1 medium head red cabbage which was supposed to yield about 10 cups sliced cabbage. My cabbage was a bit smaller so I cut portions down accordingly. I didn't measure how many cups it produced but would guess about 6.

2 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small head red cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook about 8-10 minutes, until golden and soft. Add the garlic and cook another minute, then stir in the cabbage and season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover and cook, stirring periodically, about 5 minutes.

Add the chicken broth, stir, cover, and cook until the cabbage is tender, another 10 minutes or so. Uncover and cook until the liquid evaporates. Stir in the parsley and balsamic vinegar. Taste and add more salt or pepper if needed.