Chicken Yassa and the Chicken Peppersoup were a rousing success! I followed both recipes exactly and not only were they perfectly simple but Beau loved both. The peppersoup was spicy and just the right thing while I am getting over this awful cold. Plus I have been craving spicy like crazy during these last couple months of my pregnancy!
I wish there were a way to make the peppersoup ingredients more accessible. There are not many ingredients in the soup and once you had them all it is incredibly easy to make; but even in my culturally diverse little city, Beau and I had to drive around for what seemed like forever before we found the perfect little African store that carried the right spices. In the first store, the one that advertises carrying Ethiopian, African and other ethnic foods, there was not much except a few exotic looking jarred foods and a lot of very American packaged foods. Then we tried Whole Foods in the vain hope that they would carry some exotic type spices. It was finally a little hole in the wall corner store in Chinatown that Beau knew of where we found what I needed. The teeny little store carried walls of African flours, grains, fish products and yes! Spices. It ended up being cheaper to buy the pre-packaged "peppersoup spice mix" than buying the spices separate and mixing them myself. The particular blend of spices in this mix is very unique and has an earthy smell in the bag and then something a little more hearty and delicious once it starts to cook. I would not try to substitute it with anything and even if you wanted to try I would have no idea what to recommend to you. If you want to make the soup I would definitely find a way to get your hands on these spices.
The yassa had no super exotic spices and was almost too easy to make. I marinated it overnight and then most of the day. Served over white rice, this was one of my favorite dishes I have made so far in my young culinary career! I was able to make both of these dishes with one whole chicken that cost us about $6, a bag of onions and a bag of lemons. Then of course the spices. I spent about $25 all together which was perfect! That includes beans and pork bones and other things. Unfortunately our shelves are still a little barren since my budget was super small to try to work with, but at least we have hearty and yummy dinners.
These dinners were so unique and fun to make. they had flavors that you normally would not find in my "American/family-style" cooking and I think it had something to do with Umami. Umami is something that was introduced to me in my Natural chef cooking course and I have been fascinated with it ever since. I have found a number of different definitions, but it was introduced to me as a Japanese flavor element that we are not so familiar with in the USA. It is the thing that makes a dish pull together perfectly or makes something seem perfectly done. Umami is the thing that makes you go "mmm...." Maybe it is a certain ingredient that without it the dish would just be boring, or maybe it is a certain technique in the dish that blends the ingredients perfectly. Both of these dishes had a certain something, and I am fairly certain that the something is Umami!
Every culture has their own version and awareness of Umami, but it is a borrowed Japanese word and it took the rest of the world a little whole longer to catch up and put a name on it. In fact, when a popular French chef named Auguste Escoffier used veal stock in his cooking, it created such a different and more savory taste than the usual sweet, salty, sour or bitter, that people thought the flavor did not even exist. They loved the food but thought that what they were tasting was all in their head. It seems so odd to me that people are more willing to believe that they made up something in their heads than just realize there might be a fifth flavor element... anything is possible right? But to these people, having a fifth flavor sense was like saying you invented a new color that no one has ever seen before. The Japanese are more open to the "impossible". A Japanese chemist named the flavor after drinking some dashi soup. Dashi is a seaweed soup that he recognized had a different flavor that is "simply delicious" but that he did not know how to identify. He called it Umami, which translates into "delicious" or "yummy". Cheese, tomatoes, and meats are in the same category.
I am so excited I was able to create Umami in my very own tiny kitchen with no counter space! (I am not joking, I literally had to go buy a little cutting board-topped cart at Target because I have NO counter space!) Give those two recipes a try and tell me if you taste it. :) You can find them in the "Yassa..." blog I wrote before this one.
Showing posts with label cheap dinners. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheap dinners. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
3 lbs of Chicken, 5 meals
I have named this blog 3 lbs of chicken after I was inspired by my dinners this past week. Being pregnant with a full time college student's baby and having recently quit my job after a back injury, I have been forced to get very creative with our meager budget.
I am a certified natural chef and I have held a couple of very challenging and interesting jobs in the culinary field. You would think that this would make cooking for me and my Beau much easier, but in fact it has proven very difficult to move away from the mindset that I need to buy copious amounts of ingredients and make everything from scratch. I have had to start from square one and re-learn how to do dinner when you are on a budget. This last week my answer was chicken.
...
I was a vegetarian for much of my teenage life and it was not until I left home at 19 to become a natural chef that I started to eat meat again. No, it was not because being a natural chef taught me that eating meat is particularly good for you... shamefully I admit that I began to eat meat out of a rebellious sort of spite for my peers. Having grown up in Southern California with a very open-minded family and town, the hard-core hippies of the Bay Area and their very opinionated viewpoints did not sit well with me and I could not stand to be in the same category as they were. Maybe I was grumpy from working full time and still having an empty fridge or maybe deep down I am just a bit of a bitch... whatever the reason, I eventually came to the conclusion that like it or not, meat is a fantastic way to fill up for cheap!
With a very large football player looking boyfriend, filling up for cheap is no easy task! Here are some of my most recent findings...
1. Figure out what meat is on sale and center all your meals around it
2. Don't be attracted to "buy one get one half off" type sales! If you only need one, then get one. If you keep buying more than you need then you end up spending more and it just sits in your fridge anyway.
3. Plan your meals carefully and only buy what you need!
4. Leftovers make great lunches
5. Know where the deals are! As much as it is a pain in the butt, it pays off to go to more than one store if you have to
So this last week, chicken was on sale! $2.99 a pound! Unfortunately it was not organic, and as much as it pained me to buy it, sometimes you do what you have to do. So I bought 3 pounds of it and out of that I got 5 whole meals!
Monday was a fantastic 3 ingredient recipe for chicken rolled with asparagus and cheese. Very yummy and got a thumbs up from the Beau. It was great that it had the veggies right there rolled into the main dish. I still shredded some romaine lettuce and topped it with tomatoes and dressing for a cheap and easy salad and we ate cantaloupe for dessert.
Tuesday I cut up the chicken and made a large chicken salad with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, apples and a creamy Cesar dressing. The other have of the cantaloupe was the side for this one. A little light, but very yummy.
Chicken and rice with beans was for Wednesday. This particular day I did not feel like cooking so I started to make rice, tossed in some za'ataar (an African seasoning that I happen to love) and a few other spices, then opened a can of black beans and tossed in some cubed chicken. I mixed it all up and made one pot meal. Beau said this was his favorite all week! We had plenty leftover since it was so filling and he ate it for lunch the next day.
We actually went out to eat on Thursday, but I did say I had 5 meals out of this chicken and this days meal was lunch. Chicken salad sandwiches. I shredded the chicken and mixed in some spicy mustard, mayo, celery and smooshed it on whole wheat toasted bread. Top with lettuce and vuah-la!
Last but not least, my last chicken breast was shredded and mixed in with an easy Spanish rice (just boil water with cayenne, paprika, taco seasoning, salt and pepper, add rice and cook) that I served on corn tortillas with some yummy toppings like avocado and tomato.
And there you have it! For lunches we had leftovers, sandwiches or salads and snacks were fruit or ants on a log (my favorite!). All in all I think I spent about $60 for the whole week and it was done in one shopping trip and then a trip to the farmer's market when I was out of tomatoes and avocados.
Now that we are out of chicken I am planning my meals for next week and I hope it turns out to be just as cheap and easy. I don't know what it will be yet, but I am thinking pasta...
I am a certified natural chef and I have held a couple of very challenging and interesting jobs in the culinary field. You would think that this would make cooking for me and my Beau much easier, but in fact it has proven very difficult to move away from the mindset that I need to buy copious amounts of ingredients and make everything from scratch. I have had to start from square one and re-learn how to do dinner when you are on a budget. This last week my answer was chicken.
...
I was a vegetarian for much of my teenage life and it was not until I left home at 19 to become a natural chef that I started to eat meat again. No, it was not because being a natural chef taught me that eating meat is particularly good for you... shamefully I admit that I began to eat meat out of a rebellious sort of spite for my peers. Having grown up in Southern California with a very open-minded family and town, the hard-core hippies of the Bay Area and their very opinionated viewpoints did not sit well with me and I could not stand to be in the same category as they were. Maybe I was grumpy from working full time and still having an empty fridge or maybe deep down I am just a bit of a bitch... whatever the reason, I eventually came to the conclusion that like it or not, meat is a fantastic way to fill up for cheap!
With a very large football player looking boyfriend, filling up for cheap is no easy task! Here are some of my most recent findings...
1. Figure out what meat is on sale and center all your meals around it
2. Don't be attracted to "buy one get one half off" type sales! If you only need one, then get one. If you keep buying more than you need then you end up spending more and it just sits in your fridge anyway.
3. Plan your meals carefully and only buy what you need!
4. Leftovers make great lunches
5. Know where the deals are! As much as it is a pain in the butt, it pays off to go to more than one store if you have to
So this last week, chicken was on sale! $2.99 a pound! Unfortunately it was not organic, and as much as it pained me to buy it, sometimes you do what you have to do. So I bought 3 pounds of it and out of that I got 5 whole meals!
Monday was a fantastic 3 ingredient recipe for chicken rolled with asparagus and cheese. Very yummy and got a thumbs up from the Beau. It was great that it had the veggies right there rolled into the main dish. I still shredded some romaine lettuce and topped it with tomatoes and dressing for a cheap and easy salad and we ate cantaloupe for dessert.
Tuesday I cut up the chicken and made a large chicken salad with hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, apples and a creamy Cesar dressing. The other have of the cantaloupe was the side for this one. A little light, but very yummy.
Chicken and rice with beans was for Wednesday. This particular day I did not feel like cooking so I started to make rice, tossed in some za'ataar (an African seasoning that I happen to love) and a few other spices, then opened a can of black beans and tossed in some cubed chicken. I mixed it all up and made one pot meal. Beau said this was his favorite all week! We had plenty leftover since it was so filling and he ate it for lunch the next day.
We actually went out to eat on Thursday, but I did say I had 5 meals out of this chicken and this days meal was lunch. Chicken salad sandwiches. I shredded the chicken and mixed in some spicy mustard, mayo, celery and smooshed it on whole wheat toasted bread. Top with lettuce and vuah-la!
Last but not least, my last chicken breast was shredded and mixed in with an easy Spanish rice (just boil water with cayenne, paprika, taco seasoning, salt and pepper, add rice and cook) that I served on corn tortillas with some yummy toppings like avocado and tomato.
And there you have it! For lunches we had leftovers, sandwiches or salads and snacks were fruit or ants on a log (my favorite!). All in all I think I spent about $60 for the whole week and it was done in one shopping trip and then a trip to the farmer's market when I was out of tomatoes and avocados.
Now that we are out of chicken I am planning my meals for next week and I hope it turns out to be just as cheap and easy. I don't know what it will be yet, but I am thinking pasta...
Chicken and Asparagus Rolls
2 chicken breasts
1 lb asparagus
8 slices swiss cheese
salt and pepper
flour
toothpicks
1. Preheat the oven to 350. pound the chicken breast until it is flat and the same thickness all over. season with salt and pepper
2. layer on the cheese and then the stalks of asparagus. roll and skew with toothpicks to keep it closed
3. roll the chicken in flour. heat oil in a large skillet and brown the chicken on all sides. transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Slice into a few pieces and discard toothpicks. serve right away
1 lb asparagus
8 slices swiss cheese
salt and pepper
flour
toothpicks
1. Preheat the oven to 350. pound the chicken breast until it is flat and the same thickness all over. season with salt and pepper
2. layer on the cheese and then the stalks of asparagus. roll and skew with toothpicks to keep it closed
3. roll the chicken in flour. heat oil in a large skillet and brown the chicken on all sides. transfer to a baking sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Slice into a few pieces and discard toothpicks. serve right away
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)