Books and Garlicky Bean Enchiladas

I'm still unemployed, but I'm officially used to it now.  I also know the right job will come along in due time.  Besides job searching and cooking I have been reading a ton.  So I'd like to talk about Goodreads. If you love to read and haven't checked out Goodreads you should.  It's a social network of readers and authors.  You can set up a profile and keep track of all the books you've read and all the books you want to read.  People review books, there are book clubs, reading challenges, author discussions, and even a giveaway section!  This year they added a section where you could set a reading goal for the year.  Feeling hopeful I decided to challenge myself and commit to reading 75 books by the end of the year.  Due to my recent layoff I'm actually almost there!  Today I finished my 57th book (The Healer's Apprentice) and have started the 58th (The Greatest Knight).  Victory should be mine by December!  Once I've reached my goal, I'm going to post a list of the books I read this year on The Hesitant Cook.  Those of you who are interested can check out what I read and how many stars I gave the books.  I'm hoping my challenge to myself will encourage all of you to take some time and read for pleasure, it really is very relaxing.

Reading might be relaxing, but cooking can still get my blood boiling.  A recent event really set me off and I was ready to throw in the towel.  When the weather started to get cooler, I started craving Chicken Pot Pie.  The anticipation was super high and I got as far as getting the pie over to the oven, when all of a sudden it just got to be too heavy (I blame my carpal tunnel for this, although it was probably just clumsiness) and the pie ended up face down on the floor.  The insides broke through the top crust, so there was no saving it.  Devastation is what I felt after that and I didn't have any more of the ingredients to start over.  When this first happened I didn't want to tell anyone, because it was so embarrassing and I felt terrible about what happened.  Luckily, I had a change of heart and decided to tell all of you.  Now that I've told you, if something like that happens to you or has you don't have to feel so alone.  Mistakes in the kitchen happen to everyone, some more than others!

Now on to a success!

Let's talk about Garlicky Bean Enchiladas.  This is a recipe that I use a lot.  In fact not long after making these for THC, I made them again for our supper club (the theme was garlic)!  If you don't like garlic, then you might be a little crazy and you also won't like these enchiladas very much.  Not a problem for me since I can eat garlic like candy (as long as it's cooked!)  The only part of this recipe that is a little bit of a challenge for me is the frying of the corn tortillas.  Frying and I are not compatible, but this is only mild frying so I can handle it.  Another suggestion I would make is to add 3/4 cup-1 cup broth (you can use chicken or vegetable broth).  According to the recipe you need 1/3 of a cup, but from my experience the beans are too dry without more broth.  One of the items in this recipe I really love is the salsa verde.  I can't get enough of that stuff!

                                                           

Bean Mixture

fried corn tortillas, all rolled up and ready to go

                                             and now all dressed up and to the oven they go

                                                                    Finished Product

and yes that red stuff is Sriracha!

Cost:  (I l already had the oil and garlic)

Veggie Oil:  $2.29

Garlic:  $0.50

(2) Cannellini Beans:  $1.58

Broth:  $0.79

Tortillas:  $1.19

Salsa:  $2.99

Cheese:  $2.99

Total Cost:  $15.12 (Note you will have extra broth, oil, and cheese to use for another recipe!)

Not as cheap as I thought it was to make these enchiladas, but there are leftovers for lunch for a few days.  So it's worth it!  You can also make a batch of these and freeze them before you bake for a busy night when all you have time to do is throw something in the oven.  

Next up:  Potato and Leek Pizza (this was super!) I can't wait to make more!

To Make Quiche or To Not Make Quiche

Spending $160 at Wegmans and another $21 at the meat market last week put me into a depression. Why is food shopping so expensive?! I don't want to cut back on anything since I'm not really buying anything that's terrible expensive or not necessary. Okay my new obsession with Ben & Jerry's isn't necessary, but have you tried Late Night Snack? It's amazing! Salty and sweet, it’s the perfect combination. I bought Clusterfluff another Ben & Jerry’s flavor this week, which is peanut butter ice cream, caramel clusters, and marshmallow swirls. It was good, but you mostly just taste the peanut butter. I was really hoping there would be a stronger marshmallow flavor to it. Sorry to have gone off on an ice cream tangent.


This week I made a conscious effort to pick out meals that were cheaper to make. Obviously we still need to get our staple weekly items (lunch meat and Chobani for Anthony and frozen waffles and granola bars for me), but I was able to lower the total this week to $86. I'm still not sure how we can spend this much money and still fit it all in their small double basket carts, but both weeks we did! Some of the meals we are eating this week will not be blog worthy, but I needed to cut costs. So we will be having pasta with my red sauce (that I made enough of to freeze awhile back) and frozen pierogies with sautéed onions. I did find four recipes to make this week that are budget friendly.

The first one that I attempted was Broccoli and Cheese Quiche. Eggs are cheap, which is why eggs have been on my menu for the last two weeks. When I walked into the kitchen Sunday night, I should have just turned around and walked out. I wasn’t in the mood to cook at all. Cooking fatigue had finally set in. Not wanting to disappoint my fans (fans…yeah right) I decided to continue on with the cooking of the quiche. My experience with quiche is nil. I’ve had it to eat at brunch a couple of times, but that is about it. My thought was it’s very similar to the frittata I made last week so what could go wrong.

The first thing that needed to happen was prebaking the pie crust for 10 minutes. I just bought the two pack of frozen crust you can get at the grocery store in the freezer section. As for the filling, you start by sautéing onion until browned, than remove onion from pan and set aside. I’m not sure what’s going on with my onion sautéing skills, but I keep burning the onion a bit. We have a gas stove and I’m having trouble judging how high is too high. Medium on our stove seems like it might be the high setting for what these recipes want. There seems to be a fine line between too high with our stove and too low. It will take me awhile to find just the right spot on the knob. Next steam the broccoli in the pan with ½ a cup of water.

(a picture of broccoli, not my best effort, but most of these pictures did not come out)

Once that is tender, take the pan off the heat and mix the onion in. Then beat together three eggs, one cup of milk, and some salt and pepper. Put the vegetables in the pie crust and then pour the egg mixture on top of the vegetables, top with cheese. Bake for about 45 minutes and there you have your quiche.

Well maybe it would have been that easy if I would have used a deep dish pie crust, although the recipe does not specify using one. I had way too much filling for the pie crust that I was using; I couldn’t even fit all of the egg mixture. Luckily I was smart enough to put the pie on a baking sheet, because there was some spillage. I also put foil along the edges of the pie crust so that it wouldn’t burn. When I took the quiche out of the oven, the edges were soggy. That might have been from filling the crust too much, but I’m really not sure why it happened.

Final Product:

My thoughts: No thanks. I’ll stick to frittata. This recipe just made me so unhappy from the start. And then the results of soggy crust and no real flavor continued my unhappiness. Anthony thought the onion was a little off putting. Maybe I just need a better quiche recipe, but I have no urge to try cooking another quiche. Unless someone can change my mind, I think this will be the first and last quiche I will ever make.

The real point of making quiche is the first place was the cost, so let’s see how I did there (this is an estimate):

Small Onion/$0.24
Broccoli Crown/$1.69
3 Eggs/$0.36
Milk-/$0.23
Cheese/$1.15
Pie Crust/$1.35

Total: $5.02 (this total is assuming you already have oil, salt, and pepper)

I also had roasted red potatoes as a side, but I didn’t have to buy them they were left over from another recipe. But this meal is easily well under $10 to make.

Next up: Korean Chicken Thighs

As always if you want any of the recipes I used please let me know and I will be happy to send them along to you!

The Mark Bittman Challenge

I received "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman as a birthday gift this year.  The book has 2,000 recipes in it.  It's huge!  This book has everything in it to help make you a better cook including cutting techniques and how to make a basic sauce.  How to Cook Everything needs to be my bible.  We all know I'm not creative in the kitchen, heck I'm not even very coordinated in the kitchen.  It's a good day if I don't cut myself or almost set something on fire.  I don't want my blog to become a cheesy Julie and Julia type thing, but I do plan on getting to know this book intimately and posting about it often.  

Who's Mark Bittman?  He is a food writer for the NY Times and he is not a chef, but he wants to help people cook.  Here's a link to his column in the NY Times, The Minimalist and a link to his Blog on the Opinion Pages.  I would love to be only partially as knowledgeable as this man.  I figure I can start my journey by cooking as much from his book as I can.  Let's get this straight right away, I will not be cooking everything in this book.  Not only can I not afford to cook everything in it, I also don't like everything in it.  I'm not going to sacrifice for my hobby and eat anything that makes me shake and shiver.  My hope is that after cooking from this book, I will know the basics about how to make a variety of things and I will be able to make them without a recipe in the future.  I'm hoping for this, I didn't say it was actually going to happen.

To get myself into tackling such a big project I decided to browse some of his recipes online and I found one that sounded easy and appealing,  More Vegetable Less Egg Frittata.  I've never made a frittata, in fact I rarely eat eggs, but the vegetable part made me happy.  I'm always looking for meat-free recipes. 

Start by sauteing sliced onion (season it with salt and pepper), once its transparent and tender you can add whatever vegetables you want to the pan.  I chose a variety of mushrooms and asparagus for this frittata.  Saute them until they are tender.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with some Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.  Pour the egg mixture on top of the vegetables in the pan.  Turn the heat to low and cook until the eggs are just starting to set.

I really have no idea when an egg is set, but I'm assuming it's when it's no longer liquidy.  Once it's barely set you can put it under the broiler for a few minutes to finish it off. 

Finished Product:

My thoughts:  Oh yeah baby!  Something I finally really like.  I loved that there was a ton of veggies in this and only a small amount of egg (I used 3).  I left the asparagus a little crispy because I knew the rest of the dish was going to lack crunch.  Of course something always has to go wrong and I made Jiffy Corn Muffins to go with this and managed to somehow put 1 cup of milk in the mix instead of a 1/3 cup.  Oh well.  They were still edible, they just didn't get big. This was a great recipe and I am very excited to try some of Bittman's other recipes. The Mark Bittman Challenge is on!

Next Up:  Spiced Coconut Lentil Soup (Not Mark Bittman's recipe, but we all know how much I LOVE coconut so I had to try it!)

The Sloppy Joe's from my Youth

I'm not so sure these ARE the sloppy joe's I remember my mom making for me when I was a child.  A while back I had asked my mom if she had or remembered the recipe for the sloppy joe's she made.  She told me she remembered that she got the recipe from a bottle of A1 sauce.  So I went to the A1 sauce website and found their recipe for Clean and Simple Sloppy Joe's.  This has to be the recipe, because I can't imagine that A1 has made up new recipes for sloppy joe's. 

This was simple and fast which made me a very happy camper.  First you brown the ground beef, then drain the excess fat.

Next add one chopped onion and one chopped green bell pepper, saute until softened. 

Once that's done you add 3/4 cups of A1 sauce, 1/4 cup tomato paste, 1/4 cup of beef stock, and chili powder cook on medium heat for about 15 minutes. 

Lots of steam in this picture!

Then it's done.  I heated up some frozen tater tots and brussels sprouts for side dishes. 

Final Product:

My thoughts:  Oh childhood how I miss you.  Lately I have been reminiscing about the food of my youth.  This whole meal took me right back to being a kid.  So simple and yet still delicious.  This sloppy joe might have been the best one that I have made.  Anthony really enjoyed it too.  I give this recipe an A and encourage you to try it on a night when you don't feel like slaving away in the kitchen.  The flavors were really good. The steak sauce made it a little sweet, but it was still savory enough that it didn't bother me.  I have my doubts as to whether or not this recipe is exactly what my mom used, but it's possible I just can't remember the flavor as well as I thought I could. 

Once in awhile it's nice to have a meal that is super fast and easy to make.  And it's great if it can take you back to a happy time in your life.  I've been eating PB&J and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with Frito's on the side and that brought me back too.  Although it makes me realise I really didn't eat very healthy when I was little, thank goodness for a fast metabolism and lots of playing outside!

Next Up:  More Vegetable Less Egg Fritatta-my first attempt at making a Mark Bittman recipe.  I'm very excited. 

Beer, Sausages,and Potatoes...Some of My Favorite Things

Hello everyone I'm back!  My classes are done, so I can cook again.  It felt really good to get back into the kitchen.  I might almost say that I even missed it.  Almost.  The expensive grocery bill kind of spoiled my enjoyment of returning.  $181!  Granted it wasn't all food products, but I would say the majority of the bill was food related.   We finally got out to the meat market (Triano's) that is in our town and it was a really good experience.  We got a bunch of chicken, ground beef, and Italian sausages for around $13!  I was impressed and will definitely be going back there.   


For my first foray back into the kitchen I decided to try out a Martha Stewart recipe.  I'm not sure that I've ever actually tried one of her recipes before, so I figured I might as well try it out.  The recipe is Beer-Braised Sausages and Warm Potato Salad.  As I mentioned in the title of this post:  Beer, Sausages, Potatoes these are a few of my favorite things! (And so is the Sound of Music!)


This was an easy recipe to follow, the only issue I ran into was browning all sides of the sausage.  I got the first three sides browned, but the part that curves was really hard to brown.  I ended up breaking one of the sausages a little bit trying to do it, so I finally just gave up. 

Next you add the thinly sliced onion and cook that until it's softened. 

Then you add the beer (12 oz of pale ale), red potatoes (I quartered mine), water, salt, and pepper.  You bring that to a boil and then cover the pan and lower the heat to medium and cook until potatoes are done.

Once the potatoes are done (15 minutes for me) remove the sausages (keep them warm) and take the potatoes out of pan and toss them in a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, and parsley. 

The last step is returning the cooking liquid back to a boil and reducing it down to about 1 cup of liquid. 

Once that's reduced put the sausages back in to heat them up and you are finished.  After you put the sausage and potatoes on a plate, drizzle half the sauce on top and serve the other half of the sauce on the side.


Final Product:

My thoughts:  This meal was okay, but not great.  There wasn't anything wrong with the recipe, but we used a beer that was just way too bitter.  I think you can get away with a normal ale.  I'd like to use Yuengling if I make this again.  I also highly suggest adding sourdough bread to this meal.  There was a ton of sauce and using the sourdough to soak up all of the liquid would be super.  Also because the sauce was so bitter you couldn't taste the dressing on the potatoes, which was sad because the tanginess of the vinegar would have gone nicely with the beer. 


It was easy.  It didn't take as long to cook as I thought it would.  It wasn't labor intensive.  So try it out if Beer, Sausages,and Potatoes are some of your favorite things too!


Next up:  My first Mark Bittman recipe, More Vegetable Less Egg Frittata and the Sloppy Joe is back!  This time I think I might have finally found the recipe that my mom used to use when I was little.  Can't wait to try it!

Eggplant...Finally!

Stress has overtaken my entire being. One surefire way to help me distress is watching reality television. Thank goodness there is a ton on for me to watch right now. Two reality food shows have started this week Next Food Network Star and Masterchef. There isn’t anyone on Next Food Network Star that has grabbed my attention yet. There is a woman with an absolutely horrible accent. I’ve never heard anything like it. It makes my ears hurt. Check it out just to hear that accent! Masterchef on the other hand has some interesting characters! There was a Scottish woman who was gushing over Gordon (of course I would too!) and he seemed to love her too. Some crazy bearded back woods redneck served the judges alligator. I was impressed, I miss southern food! And then there was the crazy who served sushi off of a naked woman. This confused me completely. So that’s my short and to the point recap of the reality food shows I'm watching now.



Cooking probably isn’t something I should do to de-stress. We all know that it just gets me hyper and usually pretty annoyed. Of course during a particularly stressful day, I decided it was time to try out cooking eggplant. This is my second attempt, the first being The Sandwich That Made Me Cry debacle. I found this recipe on a blog that I read daily Cheap, Healthy, Good. The recipe is Roasted Eggplant with Mushroom Tomato Sauce. There was no way I was going to try to make another sandwich. My sandwich cooking days are over! I cannot tell you how important it is to read through the entire recipe before you start cooking. When will I take my own advice?! I remembered that the eggplant had to be salted and than it sits out for 30 minutes after being sliced (I didn’t know why I was doing this, but apparently it draws out some of the bitter liquid. Very interesting I had no idea this was done!). So I paused Housewives of Orange County and sliced and salted the eggplant.


After Housewives was over I went back into the kitchen to continue with my cooking. Don’t forget to rinse off all that salt!! Thank goodness I didn’t. You broil the eggplant for 8 minutes, flipping them once. While the broiling was happening I chopped a green pepper and onion and I sliced some mushrooms. Of course since everything I do in the kitchen is very slow the eggplant finished cooking before I was done chopping. I was also pretty distracted by the ants that had invaded my living room that day (part of my stress!) and I felt the need to check 50 times or so to see if they were still there (they were and they still are! ) By now it’s was about 6:30 and I was starving. So I grabbed a skillet (heated the oil of course) and put the onions, peppers, and mushrooms in it with some garlic, Italian seasoning, hot pepper flakes, and salt. You cover the skillet and cook this until most of the liquid is gone, then you uncover and cook another couple of minutes.


Meanwhile you get a baking dish ready and spray it with some cooking spray. Once the mushroom mixture is ready you pour half of it into the baking dish, than put ½ of the eggplant layered over that, and add some ground pepper. Spread half of the tomato sauce onto the eggplant, and add half of each of the cheeses (I used mozzarella and feta). Then you go back and do the same thing again (like lasagna), but don’t add the mozzarella cheese this time. Now you have to bake this and that’s when I realized the huge mistake I made! This thing is supposed to bake for 60 minutes! Are you kidding me?! I turned my eyes to the clock and it was 7!! Yikes I wouldn’t be able to eat until 8. This is why you MUST read the recipe through once before you start cooking. I was devastated, but alas I put it in the oven and watched some more reality television (I also snacked on some leftover Crab Rangoons). Once the 60 minutes is up you add the mozzarella and let it get melted and bubbly in the oven for about 5 minutes.

 Final Product:

                   (I just love that little mountain of feta in this picture!)


Even though I had to wait a millennium (between the debacle and the cooking time) to eat eggplant, I was very happy I tried to cook it again. This recipe is great. Once again I over did it with the cheese (you think I would stop and think before putting cheese on my food!), but it was super delicious!! I will be making this every time Anthony isn’t around for dinner (if I don’t order take out)! And there is enough leftover (if you are eating single) for lunch for 2 days at least!! Loved it! If you like eggplant, mushrooms, and red sauce try this out! Finally something I was really happy with. Next time I will remember that I have to cook it for an hour though and start the process earlier. It's a perfect dinner for those who want to eat vegetarian once in awhile!