Gourmet Food on a Budget
Cranberry Couscous makes a delightful and healthful side dish. It’s quick and simple to make. It’s ready in five minutes and you can add different spices, fruit, or vegetables according to your taste. Cranberries have also been shown to be very good for preventing urinary tract infections.
This is not something for every day. Green tomatoes are wonderful in the spring before the beautiful red tomatoes are ripe – that is if you can keep from eating them!
Watermelon Basil Salad
Watermelon Basil salad is great on a hot day, for a barbecue, or when you want something simple and flavorful. The flavor combination will surprise you.
Today it was clean out the refrigerator day. You know how it is, no matter how careful you are, there is always something that hides in the very back and becomes a science experiment. Yuk! You might want to check out my Organizing the Refrigerator tips on how to avoid finding science experiments.
Then there are the little containers of pickled jalapeño peppers that come with a pizza. I think they jump in the hot pack all by themselves, because I know I never order them. That isn’t to say that I don’t like them, but I do, but I don’t like them on pizza. Still, unbidden, they find their way into my kitchen. They make their way to the refrigerator, to be included in something or eaten out of hand later, and like all small things, seem to happily find their way to the back of the fridge, right next to that awful science experiment. Since they are in brine, they don’t go bad and can stay in the refrigerator indefinitely.
So, when I was cleaning out the refrigerator today, I found day old plain cooked rice, 2 nice red bell peppers, and the small container of jalapeños. Jalapeño Stuffed Peppers it is!
Last night was the 86th Academy Awards show, and the first time Spane had watched it with me. We had seen several of the nominated movies, and he’s old enough now, at 10, to appreciate and understand the ceremony. Of course, he had a lot of questions, like “When is dinner!?”
I wanted to make sometime special for the Oscars, even though our Oscar party was just the two of us. I thought I had white wine, but at the last minute realized I only had red, and I didn’t want to miss any of the red carpet show before the awards. Red wine is strong, so it needs strong flavors to go with it. Instead of vegetable or chicken broth, I used beef broth, and blue cheese goes great with beef, and has a good strong flavor. I added cherry tomatoes to give the dish some color.
Szechuan Green Beans were featured at Harvest Inn in Glendale, now, sadly closed, but the recipe still lives in my kitchen.
I have been making these Cheesy Potatoes for the holidays for quite a long time, and even made it for Ascencia when I was Guest Chef at Mother’s Day. I have pictures of it, but not of its preparation. So, I am putting it in again, and it’s changed just a little bit, for the better, of course.
I don’t usually use canned soup, but this is the exception. The original recipe calls for Cream of Mushroom soup, but Cream of Potato soup is much better. The original recipe also calls for hashed brown potatoes, but, I think the Southern cut frozen potatoes are better as well.
This is a very simple dish to make, and I always get raves when I make it. It makes a lot, and can easily be doubled or even tripled if you have a lot of people to feed.
I don’t know why people insist on buying the cranberry sauce in the can. Making cranberry sauce from scratch is almost as easy as opening the can. In some cases, when your can opener refuses to play well with the can, it’s even easier! Sugar, cranberries and water, how simple is that? In addition, you get the fun of listening to the berries as they pop like popcorn. How cool is that?
Ah, but I can’t leave well enough alone. I have to make something special for Thanksgiving, so I’m going to doll my cranberry sauce up, put it into a ring mold, and have a lovely presentation.
When I was a little girl, going to my Uncle Bob’s house for Thanksgiving, he made the most wonderful cranberry ring with cream cheese. I loved it but never got the recipe. When I asked him about it, he said he hadn’t made it in so many years he had forgotten how to make it and never wrote it down. I’ve looked all over the Internet, but, alas no joy. So, today, I’m going to attempt to make a similar side dish. Wish me luck!
Bacon Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms are an appetizer that’s easy on your time and easy on your wallet.