Pesto, White Bread and Muffin Observations…

Sadly, or not sadly depending on one’s particular perspective, I have no books to blog about at the moment. It has remained however, quite the busy week what with the deaths of Farrah and Michael Jackson and an overabundance of basil in the garden. I would have thought I might be a bit more traumatized given these are two of the biggest Generation X cultural icons but I find, although saddened for their families, a bit underwhelmed by it all. Whether Michael continues moonwalk or Farrah never wears her red bathing suit again really has no affect on my life as I can’t moonwalk nor wear a bikini. Well, I could I suppose, but really, why put us all through THAT? Other things, like the economy and Ani’s somewhat tenuous employment, do have a rather constant place at the table though. So, in our painfully slow, yet consistent effort to lower food costs, eat more healthy and eat less processed food we tried several experiments this last week that I thought I might share with friends.

Garden update:

As some of you know already, we have an small indoor garden where we are experimenting with what will grow inside where pollination in nil and the sunporch can get hot enough to bake cookies. So far herbs like basil, oregano, dill, rosemary and mint are growing well. In addition the jalapenos and  cucumbers are thriving. The tomato plants are enormous but have declined to flower making the “fruiting” portion of this years event rather unlikely. Unless we are developing a strain of Virgin Mary tomatoes and I’m not holding my unholy breath on that. Those additional plants that were a bit of a failure: The blueberry bush which died so quickly it was as though I had murdered it on purpose, the strawberry plant that burns far too easily and the spinach that sprouted and then weakly fell over like a row of junior high nerds. The previously mentioned herbs, however, are growing at a fantastic rate given judicious applications of fertilizer and earthworm tea from the local farmer’s market and I decided I HAD to prune them before the sunporch began attracting small predators and an understory. Sooo…

Recipes:

Ani has been making the most amazing sourdough bread from a sponge we are nurturing in the fridge. We have discovered there is something very zen about making your own bread. It’s even more zen when you remember that for a really good sourdough loaf up here it’s between $5 and $7 a loaf whereas you can spend the same amount on flour and get dozens of loaves. AND you get to sample them slathered in butter while warm from the oven.

At the beginning of his summer vacation we assigned Chad the task of making dinner twice a week and his first meal was hamburgers and potato salad. Not too terribly taxing BUT I helped him to make homemade hamburger buns since none of us can agree on which hamburger buns we like and it pains me deeply to pay for round wonder bread. Turns out the quick 40 minute recipe for these buns is fabulous! We made enough to have extras for tuna fish sandwiches the next day. I do recommend making 8 buns from the recipe, not 12, unless you are making sliders. Here is the recipe:

Homemade Hamburger Buns

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water (110° to 115°)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 to 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Directions:

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add oil and sugar; let stand for 5 minutes. Add the egg, salt and enough flour to form a soft dough.
Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 3-5 minutes. Do not let rise. Divide into 12 pieces; shape each into a ball. Place 3 in. apart on greased baking sheets.
Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Bake at 425° for 8-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Yield: 1 dozen.

Our next experiment was pasta sauce. I needed something that would use up a good portion of the herbs:

Garlic-Herb Pasta Sauce

Ingredients:

• 3 15 oz cans diced tomatoes
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1-15 cloves of garlic, depending on your tolerance
  
• Several handfuls of fresh basil leaves
• 1 handful of oregano leaves
• 1 tsp fresh chopped rosemary
• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
  
• 1 tsp chili powder
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• dollop of red wine
• dollop of worcestershire sauce
• Sea salt to taste
  

I simply ran all this through the food processor until it was smooth and then simmered it on the stovetop on low for an hour until the flavors were married. Then we popped it in the freezer and froze it. Chad declared it excellent and thought it would taste equally good on pizza.

We also made pesto which was a bit of a challenge since I did not have a number of the “key” pesto ingredients. Those of you who are purists please look away. I didn’t have pine nuts so I substituted walnuts. I’m also out of olive oil until our next Costco trip, so I was forced to use canola oil. Not a preferred ingredient, BUT even given the limitations we had the pesto turned out AMAZING. We had some on our scrambled eggs this morning and Ani nearly tackled me trying to get more. So, improvise away….

Make-Do Pesto

Ingredients:

• Large handful fresh basil leaves
• Large handful fresh oregano leaves
• 1/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 3 fresh garlic cloves, peeled
• Sea salt to taste
• Vegetable Oil

Place basil, oregano, walnuts, parmesan, garlic and salt into the food processor. While processor is running slowly drizzle oil into the mixture until it reaches the consistency you would like. Pesto can be eaten immediately or frozen into ice cube trays for later use.

Lastly I thought I’d throw in some of our money saving methods that we’ve adopted in hopes of either giving others some ideas or getting suggestions from you’all about what you do. So if you have any ideas or methods to add, please do so. Brilliant ideas are always welcome!

Money Savers

• Checking the Grocery Outlet before going to the market to see what we can get on our list at a significant price reduction. This week we scored on 2 huge containers of Skippy peanut butter ($3.99 for 2), Dial anti-bacterial shower gel ($3.99 ea), Ben & Jerry’s Organic Ice Cream ($1.50 ea), 3lbs Barenaked Granola ($8.99) and fair trade coffee bean ($5.99 lb).
• Making beans in the crockpot and then freezing them with the bean broth. Significantly less expensive than canned beans, better tasting and just as fast to use in a meal.
• Finding recipes online for what we previously considered the “throw-away” parts of the vegetables we get at the farmer’s market. This week we are making a soup out of radish tops.
• Purchasing in bulk from Costco about once every 3 months. We use bins and such in our pantry to store huge bags of potatoes and onions. Using up the existing boxed and canned foods in the pantry has given us more room for bulk products.
• Making muffins from the dregs of cold cereal left when you get down to the end of the box. (Hence my raisin bran muffins that I’ve renamed bowel movement muffins).
• We sprung for a new chest freezer in order to take advantage of reduced price meats. It also gives us a place for bulk frozen foods like corn and peas as well as the gallons of berries we pick during the summer. it’s also nice as I often make more for dinner than we can eat and this way I can package up the excess for a night when we don’t want to cook.