A Simple Tomato Tart to Use My Garden "Bounty"

Gardening is hard, okay?  

I mean, okay.  I'm not saying it's rocket science or anything.  People have been growing their own food for centuries, and mother nature does a good chunk of the hard work for you.  But it's still a learned skill, and it takes practice to get it right. 

So let's just say, I'm grateful that I'm not forced to feed myself purely from my garden right now, because I would probably starve.  But I am grateful for the opportunity to have a garden and to learn skills that may someday feed my family. 

Anyway.  Why am I waxing philosophical about gardening right now?

Because I successfully nurtured a tomato plant that yielded...wait for it....three tomatoes.  One of which was eaten by an extremely large caterpillar before I could use it. 

So here I was, intrepid young blogger, hungry and staring down a largely empty kitchen.  What in the world can I make with two tomatoes that will feed a pair of hungry people tonight? 

As it turns out, I could make an egg-and-tomato pie

It's been a while, and I wasn't paying attention to ingredients so much as dumping things in from the fridge that needed to be used.  But I do recall it using six eggs, two slices of bread (toasted, and crumbled into breadcrumbs), my two brave tomatoes, and half of an onion.  I laid down the bread crumbs and layered up the tomatoes and the onions, then went diving into my refrigerator looking for help.  As luck would have it, I had some sun-dried tomatoes lingering in the back of the shelf that I hadn't gotten around to using, so I plopped those in too.  I also had a little bit of feta cheese that I added in. 

I beat my eggs, poured them over the top, liberally seasoned with salt, pepper and fresh basil from my garden, baked it until it was firm, and bam -- eggy, tomatoey goodness. 

Half the key to eating on a budget is learning to put together meals from what you have on hand. 

So how about you guys -- any fun culinary adventures you've had lately that showcase your ingenuity?  I want to hear about it!

How to Shop for Groceries (the right way)

Note: This is a re-post from my old blog.  I thought it was still worth sharing.  In the coming weeks, expect to see a lot more re-posts as I work on some digital house-cleaning :)

Grocery Shopping: A Surprisingly Daunting Task

Most people have gone shopping for groceries at one point or another.  It's not that difficult, in theory: you go to the store, you buy some stuff, you come home.  But it's not actually that easy in practice, and shoppers quickly realize that, without the proper strategies, they end up spending way too much money on food they won't eat.  Sound familiar?

Here's the thing.  If you don't know how to cook, grocery shopping can seem like navigating a country whose language you don't speak.  Even if you have a list, you might spend way too much money on groceries or end up with the wrong food.  Luckily, you don't have to despair!  Here's how you save money, buy healthy food and cook cheap, easy meals even if you kind of suck at cooking.

Planning Meals 

If you're not big on experimenting in the kitchen, you'll want the guidance of a meal plan.  Otherwise, how do you know what to buy for groceries?  There's plenty of ways to put together a meal plan.  You could ask the people who live with you, "Hey, what do you want to eat this week?" You can download a pre-made meal plan from one of many sites.  You can put something together from your selection of known recipes.  My mom had three months' worth of meal plans that she cycled through - write them up once, then just buy the same things every month.

If you're really budget-conscious, your best bet is to plan your menu around what you have in the kitchen + what's on sale.  This is what I do, and it enables me to eat surprisingly gourmet food on a tight budget.  Here's my process:

• Take stock of everything you have in the house.  Go through your cabinets, freezer and fridge and make note of every single item you have.  (this is a great opportunity to throw anything out that's gone bad and wipe down your fridge and cabinets, btw) 
• Look at the list and brainstorm several meals that you could make using only the ingredients you have in the house.  Write all of those down.  
• Next, look through the sales adverts for your local grocery stores.  Write down all of the sales for ingredients that you could use in conjunction with the foods in your house in order to cook meals.  
• Figure out what meals you can cook with the foods in your house + the foods that are on sale, and make a list of them.  That's your meal plan.  
• Determine what items you need to buy, both on sale and not on sale, to make everything on your list.  That's your grocery list.  
• Add up the prices of every item from the sales flyer, then add $10 - $20 (depending on what additional items you need to buy).  That's your budget. 

Now you know what you can eat for the week, you know what you need to buy to make those meals, and you know how much money it's going to cost to buy it.  There should be no surprises at the grocery store if you do this.  If you want some help getting inspired, you can use the Supercook link on the right side of my blog to plug in ingredients and get ideas for food.

Once you get to the grocery store, pretend you're on a game show called "Find a better price."  Look at the item on your list, then see if you can get the same or comparable items for an even better price.  You'd be surprised at how often the advertised products aren't even the cheapest version in the store.  If you clip coupons, you can also cross-reference your grocery list with your coupons to get more savings.  (I don't do this, for reasons I've discussed in the past).

 Tips For Success

When you're planning meals, writing a grocery list and going shopping, there are a few things you can do to improve your odds of success:

• Learn about your staples.  Staples are items that you need to always keep in your kitchen because they serve as the base for so many other foods.  Every household will have different staple items depending on what type of foods they eat frequently.  In my house, staples are pasta, canned tomatoes, rice and frozen vegetables.  Every time I run out of those items, I know I need to buy more because they make up the core of so many things I cook.  
• Plan meals around your protein.  Proteins, especially meat and dairy, are going to be the most expensive items on your list.  Plan your menu accordingly.  If meat's on sale, pick whatever is the best deal and buy that one item.  Find ways to stretch that one item into several meals.  For example: If whole chickens are on sale, you might want to buy one and roast it one night, then shred the leftovers for tacos another night, then cook the bones for stock and make soup a third night.  
• Don't buy more fresh foods than you can deal with.  If you don't eat them in time, fruits and vegetables will go bad very fast.  Plan to eat the most delicate of them early in the week.  If you find an excellent deal on them and buy in bulk, make a plan to preserve them.  It's super easy to make small batches of jam or refrigerator pickles, and pretty much anything can be frozen if you do it right.  
• Learn what substitutions you can make.  If you get to the store and they're all out of zuchinni, it pays to know that you can cook crookneck squash or Mexican gray squash in pretty much exactly the same way.  Try to get as wide of an idea of what foods taste good together and what can be substituted in the dishes you like to cook, and be flexible with your list.  

So, there you go.  A few tips from me on grocery shopping.  Is this the only way you can buy groceries and save money?  Of course not.  But it's my method, and it works pretty well.

If you have any questions, I'll happily answer them!  

Cooking Lesson: Anatomy of a Recipe

I blogged recently about the importance of seasonings and a few of the more common flavor combinations.  Mastering seasoning will get any would-be cook well on the way to making tasty meals, but it can only do so much.  So, today will offer a "meatier" (pun intended) lesson on cooking: The Anatomy of a Recipe.

Now, none of these rules are set in stone, and you can play around with them once you get comfortable.  But when you're looking through your cabinets, trying to think of things to eat, it can be extremely helpful to know, "What can I combine in order to make food happen?"  It's what makes the difference between "food" and "a meal."

Components of a Meal

Each meal should consist of:

• A protein source 
• A starch 
• One or two vegetables
• Some seasonings 
• Maybe a little bit of fat to tie it all together

That's not too hard, right? 

The ratios aren't set in stone, but I find them to be helpful.  They help you, for example, avoid eating "starch with a side of starch" (a pitfall I am particularly prone to) and make the whole "balanced meal" thing pretty easy.

So, when you're looking at your cabinets, how do you decide what elements are what?  Here's a handy guide!

Categories of Food in Your Kitchen 

 Proteins 

• Meat, including red meat, fish and poultry
• Legumes like beans and lentils
• Soy products like edamame and tofu
• Nuts and nut butters 
• Eggs 

You can sometimes combine two protein sources.  This is often a good idea if you have one strongly-flavored protein (bacon, ham, sausage) and one lightly-flavored protein (tofu, lentils).  If you couple a flavorful-but-pricy protein with a cheap-but-filling protein, you can make a huge meal with very little cost. 

 Starch

• Rice
• Pasta
• Bread, including tortillas
• Potatoes in all of their myriad forms
• Polenta
• Oats and oatmeal
• Quinoa and any other exotic whole grains you want to experiment with

Starches often provide the bulk of a meal.  They exist to serve as vehicles for sauces and seasonings, and they play well with  proteins.  If you're eating legumes, you'll need a starch in order to provide necessary amino acids to create a complete protein.  Also, they're delicious. 

Vegetables

• Greens like spinach, collards, turnips etc. 
• Summer and winter squashes
• Brassicas like cabbage, broccoli and brussels sprouts 
• Root vegetables like carrots, turnips and sweet potatoes
• Basically anything else you find in the produce section

If you need help eating more vegetables in your diet, try substituting your starches with veggies.  For example, serve sauces over a heaping plate of vegetables rather than pasta or rice.  You can also substitute the primary protein in a meal for a vegetable.  For example, making a spaghetti sauce with mushrooms or squash instead of meat.  Bear in mind, though, that vegetables tend to have few calories, so you might not feel full or satisfied if you load up on veggies alone. 

Fats

• Oil, especially olive oil
• Butter 
• Lard and other animal fats
• Cooking sprays
• Mayonnaise and other spreads

You need fats for certain kitchen applications.  They prevent foods from sticking when you cook them by providing lubrication between the food and the pan.  They encourage browning and carmelization.  They add some extra flavor to your food.   They make a water-resistant barrier to protect starches from breaking down and getting soggy.  They conduct heat for frying and hold foods together for baking.  If you want to stay on the healthy side, I recommend butter (in moderation) and decent olive oil. 

Putting it All Together

So, let's take what we've learned and apply it to the simplest food item imaginable:  A sandwich! 

Sandwiches are great.  They're easy to make, easy to eat, and you can feed yourself with them even if you're not so great at cooking. 

The necessary components of a sandwich: 

• Some kind of bread to hold it together: A pita pocket, a tortilla, slices of any kind of bread imaginable
• Some kind of protein to put inside the bread: Lunch meat, hummus, slabs of roast animal, grilled tofu
• Some vegetables:  Lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, mushrooms, whatever
• A fat to spread on the bread and keep it from getting soggy: Butter, mayonnaise, cream cheese, yogurt

So here's your homework for today.  Go through your fridge and cabinets and pull out some likely ingredients.  Classify each one as a protein, starch, vegetable or fat.  Put them in discrete piles.  Then assemble a sandwich (or multiple sandwiches!) from what you find.  Note the results. 

Not every sandwich combination will taste good, since some flavors don't play well with each other (a topic we'll discuss in the next lesson!) but this will generally help you experiment and keep from starving.  

Cooking Lesson Number One: Seasonings Are Your Friend

So, I have a friend.  Bless her heart, she's a wizard with animals, a rock star at packing and tells a hilarious story.  But the poor thing has never properly learned to cook.  Fortunately, she has a husband who can pick up the slack, but they work opposing shifts, and I can't very well let her starve while she's alone.  Besides, she's desperate to save some money around the house, and food is the best place to do it -- but only if you know what you're doing. 

I half-jokingly told her I'd take her under my wing and teach her to cook.  I figured I could include my culinarily-clueless boyfriend in the lessons and kill two birds with one stone.  But as I started thinking about it, I started to realize that maybe other people could use some help.  Plenty of my friends can't cook, after all, and the friends who can often express interest in doing it more inexpensively.  So I decided, maybe I should blog a few of my lessons, to make them easier to share. 

Lesson the First: Seasoning is Your Friend

When it comes to 'seasoning,' the very first thing you need to think of is salt.  You need to put salt on everything.  You also probably need to use more than you would imagine.  Contrary to what you might think, salt (when used properly) doesn't make food taste salty.  It just makes the food taste more....delicious.  It amps up the dial for every flavor that crosses your tastebuds.  It's a complex chemical reaction that takes place in your mouth and exists, evolutionarily, to ensure you eat enough sodium (which is necessary for multiple bodily functions). 

That said, you've probably heard about how sodium isn't so good for you.  It's true that, in high quantities, it can cause hypertension and plenty of other problems.  Here's a secret: The sodium that's hurting you isn't what you're putting on the food you're cooking.  It's the hidden sodium in processed foods.  If you cut those out and focus on cooking food from whole ingredients, you don't need to worry about salt. 

One other thing: Most of the frenchy-froggy chefs advise you to use kosher salt.  This is because it has a bigger surface area and dissolves better.  It's also easier to measure, and tends to have a cleaner taste.  But it is a little pricier, and I won't hold it against you if you use regular table salt.  I've been known to do that plenty of times myself. 

Herbs and Spices by Cuisine

Once you've mastered the salt thing, it's time to tackle herbs & spices.  You can get a long way with an empty pantry but a full spice rack.  Below are some of the more common cuisines along with the herbs and spices they use, as well as some of the other common ingredients that go into these recipes.  If you're starting with a bare spice rack, you can pick the cuisine you cook the most of and focus on buying just those spices.  You can also skim through to see which spices show up again and again, and buy those first. 

A few notes: 

• Herbs are the green leaves and stems of plants, and many of them can be grown at home.  Spices are usually seeds, berries or bark, and they're mostly grown in exotic or far-away places.  
• Herbs can be used fresh or dried.  If you're using dried herbs, add them to the dish early on so they can infuse the dish with flavor while it's cooking.  If you're using fresh herbs, add them toward the end so they don't get slimy and wilted.  
• Herbs and spices both lose potency over time.  Try not to store them too close to the oven -- the heat will cause them to lose flavor quickly.  Replace them frequently.  
• Save money on herbs by buying them in bulk.  You can usually buy plastic bags of herbs and spices on the Mexican aisle of a supermarket for a fraction of the price of the name-brand containers.  
• Start small with any new seasonings you try.  You can always add more later, but you can't really take it back if you put in too much.  Start with a quarter-teaspoon of any new spice or herb and work up from there as necessary.  
• In addition to their yummy flavor, herbs and spices have various health benefits associated with them as well! They've been a key part of, er, herbal medicine since the dawn of time.  

Mexican Cuisine:
Examples: Chili, fajitas, enchiladas
Herbs & Spices:  Garlic, cilantro, oregano, cumin, chili powder, paprika, black pepper (these last four I refer to as "chili spices" in recipes I write for myself). 
Other Common Ingredients: Peppers, tomatoes, beans, rice

Asian Cuisine: 
Examples: Stir-fries, fried rice
Herbs & Spices: Garlic, ginger, black pepper, soy sauce, five-spice powder, Siracha
Other Common Ingredients: Vegetables, tofu, rice, noodles

Italian Cuisine: 
Examples: Pasta dishes
Herbs & Spices: Garlic, oregano, parsley, thyme
Other Common Ingredients: Pasta, tomatoes, polenta

French (and gourmet American) Cuisine: 
Examples:  Roast chicken, meatloaf
Herbs & Spices: Rosemary, thyme, marjoram, sage
Other Common Ingredients: Onion, carrot and celery (aka mire poix, or the start of any good soup), wine

Mediterannean Cuisine: 
Examples: Roast lamb, gyro meat
Herbs & Spices: Basil, parsley, marjoram, oregano
Other Common Ingredients: Olives, chickpeas, feta cheese

There are lots of other combinations to learn -- like those in Indian, Middle Eastern or North African cuisine -- but they are perhaps not as useful to the beginning cook.  Pay attention to seasonings in recipes you find and you'll start to realize which ingredients are responsible for what flavors. 

The valuable thing about this brief list is that it helps you determine what a dish will taste like (if reading from a recipe) or what type of flavor profile to give something (if experimenting in the kitchen).  For example, if you start with tomato sauce and add oregano, parsley and thyme, the results will probably be a pasta sauce.  If you took that same tomato sauce and added cumin and paprika, you'd be well on your way to making chili.  By knowing -- even vaguely -- what you're starting with, you know more or less where you'll end up.