Cheapskate Rural Dweller: recipe

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Spring Update

At the end of last summer, my lawn was a brown patch of drought parched straw.

Carefully watching the weather to maximize free water, overseeding with drought tolerant and heat tolerant grass, and adjusting the limited amount of water we're legally allowed to put on it...the lawn is making a bit of a comeback here in the middle of April.

The dandelion patrol has done some great things to limit those weeds but there's still quite a few mixed in with the grass but the war continues on that front.

I would be nice if my neighbors would take care of their weeds, too, since that's where the majority of the seeds come from.

I had my first session of deadheading the roses this weekend.

After, the front yard bushes look much cleaner.

Our first vegetable harvest were these onions with came from a recycled piece of an onion in the fridge (more on that later in the season).

I used them to make this delicious penne dish...

and this asparagus ham soup. You can find those recipes on our sister blog, Sunday Sauce.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

RECIPES FOR A CHEAPSKATE: Guacamole

In my seemingly never ending quest to use all of our tomatoes, this week I made some guacamole.

I could have asked my neighbor for a couple avocados but since I was thinking about this while I was at the store, I took the easy way out and bought a couple of Haas avocados, some green onions, and a lemon. I probably could have used a homegrown onion but I used it last week on another meal and don't have another.

This tomato...

...and these chiles, however, came straight from the garden.

It's a pretty easy recipe, first dice up the tomato. Take the dead skin off of two whole green onions, along with the roots. Chop it all up into 1 inch pieces.

Put the onions and the chile...I've got a very small Anaheim chile, a Thai chili, and a few serrano chiles..into a food processor and chop up into fine mixture of little cubes.

Scoop out the avocados into a bowl, add the tomatoes, and mash up like mashed potatoes. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic and another of salt. Squeeze lemon juice over everything and add the onion and chile mixture.

Add half and half or heavy cream to give a creamy taste and texture. Stir thoroughly and add salt and cream sparingly to taste.

When done, we add it to our tacos, as shown at the top. You can also use it as a very tasty dip for your tortilla chips.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

RECIPES FOR A CHEAPSKATE: Lasagna

God has given us an abundance of tomatoes this year, the challenge is to use them all.

This week, it's everybody in the pool as I make a sauce for my lasagna. I have four hybrid, 1/2 heirloom, and about a dozen cherry tomatoes leftover from last week's harvest that I need to use before they go bad.

First step, chop them all up into cubes. The cherry tomatoes will just be cut in half like I did with my pizza sauce a few weeks ago.

As I dice, they all go into a bowl, awaiting their fate. A tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom of a sauce pan is getting hot in the meantime, where I saute half an onion chopped up in a food processor.

Once the onions are translucent, the tomatoes join them along with half a cup of water, half a teaspoon of sugar, teaspoon of salt, a generous sprinkling of pepper, half a teaspoon of minced garlic, and another half teaspoon of oregano.

I bring to a boil, stirring, for ten minutes and then let simmer on low for a little over an hour.

When done, the sauce looks like this.

Next, I fry up a pound of Italian sausage and cook some lasagna noodles in boiling water for about eight minutes until slightly soft (al dente).

I oil up a baking pan with olive oil, lay in two strips of the lasagna noodles, and start to create layers. One layer may be sauce with sausage and parmesan cheese, the next sauce and ricotta cheese, the next sauce, cream, and mozzarella...it's up to you, whatever you want to put in.

Finished, I top with a generous layer of mozzarella to have a nice, melty layer of cheese on top.

375 degrees for 45 minutes, covered with foil. Remove the foil and cook for another 20 minutes. Take out and let cool for 10 minutes.

Serve and enjoy.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

We Eat What We Grow and Grow What We Eat...at least a good portion of it

At the certified farmers markets around here, it's a law that the vendors have to grow what they sell. You'll see banners at each booth with the name of the farm, the city or town where they're from, and the slogan "We Grow What We Sell."

I found out it is also a law that those banners appears at each booth and the agricultural inspector will write you a fine if you don't.

No such law in our backyard garden but I assure you we try to make the best of our harvest. Each year, we'll have some winners and some losers. Last year, the losers almost completely took over but we did have a few bright spots.

This year, the tomatoes are pumping out so much fruit, it's hard to even think about losers right now. We are having a record tomato season, my friends.

I've given some surplus away but I'm trying to eat as much as we can, too.

The heirloom tomato vine (pic at top) is slowly producing but when it does, the fruit is spectacular.

This giant globe, we sliced up.

Then we put it on roast beef sandwiches...it almost looks like another kind of very rare cold cut.

We served with chips and some pico de gallo that I made with some other tomatoes from the garden and homegrown chiles. Delicious! The rest, I am using for a lasagna sauce for another recipe post later.

Darryl

RECIPES FOR A CHEAPSKATE: Cherry Tomato Pie

I've been blessed with a lot of cherry tomatoes so I'm going to use them. I picked sixteen off of the plant today.

I'm going to make a cherry tomato/bacon pizza pie with them.

First, I slice each one in half.

Then marinated in olive oil for a day.

With a can of San Marzano tomatoes, some salt, garlic, and oregano (also from the garden), I boiled it for 20 minutes, then simmered for 2 hours. Near the end, we added a teaspoon of sugar.

I was going to buy a premade pizza dough from our local Italian deli but my wife insisted on making a homemade dough. Also, my son insisted on pepperoni on top, so what started as a tomato pie ended up being a pizza with a really delicious, fresh tasting sauce.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Recipes for a Cheapskate: Stuffed Pasilla Chiles

First harvest of 2015!

These two chiles came from this plant that I gave up on two years ago. It's a survivor, though, and it starting to to produce some great looking peppers.

The chicken wire is to prevent squirrels from eating the leaves. They don't care for the fruit but will decimate the leaves if I don't do something.

So here's what I'm going to do...

Slice an opening down the middle of each chile and cook on a comal (a hot flattop).

Once they're blistered up pretty good, try to remove the membrane that sits on the outer layer of the chile.

Fill each one with cream cheese and bacon.

Cook right on the grill on indirect heat.

Serve and eat.

It's kind of like stuffed bell peppers but I find the taste richer, a bit spicier, and they don't give me heartburn like the bell peppers do.

Recipes for a Cheapskate: Chile Relleno Omelet

I'd given up on this plant months ago. Every time it'd grow a bit, the squirrels would come and eat it. I hadn't even looked at it in months and, when I did, I saw these two little pasilla chiles on it.

Finally, I had a semblance of an edible crop. Not a bunch, but just barely usable.

After harvest, I fry 'em up in a dry pan til the skin blisters.

Next, I need to scrape off as much of the outer membrane as I can.

I go out and pick a couple of serrano chiles off of our other plant.

Everything is diced up together and, with a little cheddar/jack shredded cheese mix, put into an omelet.

Here's the delicious result.

Sufferin' Succotash!

Well, I'm back. Sorry that I had to take a little hiatus there but there was a family medical emergency that consumed us and my blogging time was one of the things that had to take the hit.

I've got a three-day weekend due to Labor Day so I'm scrounging in the garden to see what I can find.

There's some sweet onions, ready to go (above) and some chiles.

I pick a few and head over to Fresh and Easy (that's Tesco to my UK friends). In the day-old bin, I find some good looking summer squash and some grated carrot at marked-down prices.

I add the last of our zucchini, some baby gold potatoes, chop up an onion with three of the chiles.

It all goes into a recycled plastic bread wrapper (yes, we try to recycle everything here).

Throw in a dash of olive oil, some salt and pepper, shake up in the bag to mix everything up and coat well. Then I empty it on a sheet of foil paper.

Grill it on indirect heat for half an hour and serve with our entree. In this case, a very tasty flat iron steak.

Entire meal is around $6, shared with two people, most of that coming from the meat.