Quick. Easy. Very Cheap.

One night, I was hungry. I had a few things in the fridge and pantry, but not enough to make so other dinners I had planned. My main problem was a pound of ground beef that I was saving to make my family's Burger, Rice and Peas (which will be posted very soon.) At the time, though I didn't have the peas or gravy, and I didn't feel like going to the store. Instead I made a plan; use half of the burger now, and half for the Burger, Rice and Peas. This would mean I would need to fill out the burger portions in both meals, but that is something I could do. And this is that taco salad.

1/2 lbs burger
1 can black beans, rinsed
1 red onion, chopped
1 can refried beans
tortilla chips
cheese, grated
lettuce, shredded
tomato, diced
hot sauce
seasonings


To fill out the burger, I browned it up with the can of black beans and the red onion with various seasoning; cumin, pepper, hot sauce, salt. This actually came out really good. When I tasted it, it felt like a mouthful of burger, and the flavors came together as well. The rest was just a layers of ingredients and eating. Call it done.

Alright, I'm putting this up because Stew asked for it. This is the pizza dough recipe I use most often these days, copied out of Peter Reinhart's book American Pie, though lately I've been in the habit of swapping out one cup of the regular flour for whole wheat flour.

Makes 4 10-ounce dough balls (I usually just divide it into two)

- 5 cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour (I usually just use all-purpose. Most American all-purpose flours have a higher gluten content than European bread flours anyway)
- 3 tablespoons sugar or honey
- 2 teaspoons table salt OR 3.5 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil or solid vegetable shortening (I use olive oil)
- 1 cup whole or low-fat milk
- ~3/4 cup room-temperature water (Start with a little less. The amount of moisture that flour can absorb can be affected a lot by humidity. You have to kind of learn to eyeball when it's right.)

1. With a large metal spoon, stir together all ingredients in a large bowl until combined. Repeatedly dip one of your hands into room-temperature water and use it like a dough hook, working the dough vigorously into a coarse ball as you rotate the bowl with your other hand. As all the flour is incorporated into the ball, about 4 minutes, the dough will begin to strengthen; when this occurs, let the dough rest for 5 minutes and then resume mixing for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until the dough is slightly stick, soft, and supple. If the dough is too soft and sticky to hold it's shape, mix in more flour by the tablespoonful; if it is too stiff or dry, mix in more water by the tablespoonful. The dough should pass the windowpane test (i.e. you should be able to pull a small piece off and stretch it between your fingers thinly enough that you can see light through it. This tests elasticity.).

2. Immediately divide up the dough into 4 (or whatever) equal pieces. Round each piece into a ball and brush or rub each ball with oil. Place each ball in it's own zipper freezer bag (I use tupperware). Let the balls sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then put them in the fridge overnight or freeze any pieces you will not be using the next day.

3. Pull them out of the fridge and leave them somewhere at room temperature around 2 hours before you plan to use them. They should keep in the fridge for a couple of days, or around 3 months in the freezer (I've never actually tested that).

So Jeremy and I were talking about how Mike needs to take his French Toast recipe and turn it into a Boston Cream Pie French Toast. Jeremy linked to a recipe that looked damn good on this blog. I looked over the site and found a recipe that would work with some stuff I had in my house and made this.
http://cakebatterandbowl.com/creamy-lemon-summer-squash-pasta.html
Though I did make some modifications and I'm posting my recipe here.

1 lbs whole wheat penne pasta
2 large yellow squashes, chopped
2 large zucchinis, chopped
1 package stir fry chicken
1 red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup chicken stock
Juice and zest of 2 limes
6 oz greek yogurt
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
salt
pepper
olive oil

Cook the penne pasta like you know what you are doing.
Saute the squash and zucchini in olive oil and put aside until later.
In the same pan, saute the onions and in the last minute, add the garlic. Put these aside with the squash.
Cook up the chicken with a little more olive oil until brown.
About this time the pasta should be done. Drain it, and in the pot it was cooked in, add the chicken stock, yogurt, lime and basil. The original recipe said to add the cheese which I did and it just ended up get all clumpy and sticking to the spoon rather then getting creamy. I recommend adding the cheese at the very end to get good coverage. Instead you'll need to get the sauce creamy another way. You could make a roux and add that, or add the squash and zucchini and get some of the starch from them to help cream up the sauce.
Either way, mix the veggies and chicken and pasta all back together. Mix it up real good, and sprinkle on the cup of parmesan while stirring. I idea is to get the parmesean to stick on each piece of food rather then sticking to itself in one, maybe delicious, clump.

I added some more parmesan to my bowl to serve but it wouldn't have been necessary if the parmesan was creamy to start with.

I really enjoyed this pasta dish. I've had dishes similar with the veggies and cheese and creamy bits. But the addition of the lemon juice, or lime juice in my case, and the yogurt is really nice. It helped to bring out the saltiness of it all.

This is one of my favorite comfort foods. It's a recipe that my mom made often that I have modified a little. I think my mom's original recipe only had the macaroni and cheese, with a side of lil smokies and applesauce. I mix in the sausages, and added the veggies. I didn't for the picture, but I usually cover the top with applesauce. I know people think that is strange, but the sweet tang of applesauce goes great with the salty tang of cheese and sausage.

1 lbs macaroni
1 package beef cocktail sausages
1 head broccoli, chopped
1 small bag frozen peas
1 lbs medium to sharp cheddar, shredded
1 1/2 cup milk
3 Tbs butter
3 Tbs flour
salt
pepper
Applesauce (not pictured)

Start a large pot of water boiling and add a good amount of salt to help cook and season the pasta.

In another pot (or microwave safe dish) start to make a roux. Melt the butter, add the flour, cook for a minute or so for the flour to 'brown'. Add the milk and keep heating and stirring often until it makes a thick sauce. Add salt and pepper and slowly add the cheese while mixing until you have a good thick cheesy sauce.

Meanwhile, heat the little sausages in the microwave on medium high power for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until plump.

When the salt water is boiling add the pasta and cook. About a minute before the macaroni is done, add the broccoli and peas and let it come to a boil. Drain the water. Return the pasta to the pot, mix in the cheese sauce, and sausages. Mix it up real good.

Serve with a few spoonfuls of applesauce on top. Eat. Get fat.

This is mostly just the random stir fry dish I learned from my mom but I did things a little different. For one I used a bunch of fresh veggies, though it ended up not making too much of a difference. And two, I used a premade stir fry package from the store. It did come out a bit better then the typical soy sauce and garlic salt that is the typical seasoning of my mom's stir fry, but the biggest difference is that the packaged seasoning had corn starch in it which turned into a bit more or a light gravy and helped the veggies and rice stick together.

1 package stir fry seasoning
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 onion sliced
1 carrot sliced
1 corn
1 green bell pepper
Handful of mushrooms, sliced
1 head broccoli
1 lbs chicken, cubed
1 cup rice
2 cups water
1 Tbsp salt
oil

I always start with the rice just to give it enough time to cook up. Put the rice, water, and salt in a medium to small pot, boil, turn down to low, and put the top on for 20 -30 minutes.

Follow the directions on the stir fry packaging (for me it was mixing the seasoning, water, soy sauce, and sugar and let it sit until the meat was done.
Fry up the chicken with some hot oil until cooked. Add all the chopped veggies and add the seasoning mixture. Stir it up a bit, and but on a top to let the veggies steam to tenderness. Stir again before serving to coat all pieces with the gravy. Serve.

If you thought adding blue food coloring was cheap, how about tweaking the tint on the picture of the food?

Here, for your gall bladders delight, are my greasy contribute to the Blue Party; Blue cheese batter dipped Cordon Blue.
(also in the picture is a deep fried cornbread. Because what else are you gonna do with a ton of batter and hot oil but fry things)


Chicken breasts cut into small strips
Bacon
Veggie oil

Batter:
1 cup all purpose flower
1 cup ice cold water
1 handful of ice cubes
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese.

So I was aiming for a tempura type batter here. The recipe for that is the same as above just without the spices and blue cheese. I also originally planned on making a blue cheese dipping sauce, but the blue cheese I got was really crumbly, almost a powder. Instead I mixed it into the dry portion of the batter. The flavor came through in the end, so that was good.
The rest was really easy. I had the small cuts of chicken that I sat on one end of a piece of bacon that was laid out. I rolled it up, stuck a toothpick in it, then cut the extra length of bacon off to be used in the next bit of chicken. I ended up getting about 4 little rolls out of each strip of bacon.
I then dipped it into the batter, and dropped it into a pot of hot veggie oil for about 3 minutes. The end product wasn't really what I would call fine dining. In fact, I only ate about three at 6pm, and wasn't hungry again for the rest of the night. Normally, when deep frying, the layer of batter creates a barrier to the oil as you well know, but when inside of the batter is bacon, that barrier doesn't really matter. It just traps the bacon grease in. Also, I could only taste the blue cheese and bacon, and not much else.

Finally, here is a non-tinted picture of the goods.