The Frugal Gourmom

Yeah. They are as good as they sound. Get yourself some little jello shot cups with lids and mini spoons  Like little alcoholic gelato desserts!

This Chicago weather lately has had me craving soup. I raided my fridge and pantry and found I had all the things to make this today. It’s very easy, very tasty and very healthy. Loaded with protein, veggies and vitamins and it’s extremely low fat. Only about 100 calories per bowl and 3 g of fat per bowl!!!

This is my best replica of the awesome ginger sauce that Kyoto serves with their steak/shrimp. It’s easy and healthful and so delish.

I could eat this like soup. A friend gave me a base recipe and I made 3 different batches perfecting this. My husband “Oooooh’d” and “Ahhhh’d” and nodded his head whilst grunting. I think this is pretty right on. Enjoy, my friends.

Combine all ingredients in the BLENDER and puree/liquify for about 3 minutes. Put in a container and refrigerate. Will keep for about a week and makes about 2 cups of dressing.

Trust me. It’s fan-freakin-tastic. And WAY cheaper than the $5 pint that Kyoto sells.

My son and I went apple picking last week and got some of the most delicious apples ever. Fall is my favorite season and apple crisp is one of my favorite fall sweet treats. Crunchy, sweet, tart, nutty, chewy and just plain delicious.

I got the idea from Ina Garten on her Barefoot Contessa show…it looked delicious. I’ve had a bag of lentils in my cabinet for a loooonnnng time and since it was cool and rainy today, I decided to go for it!  I’m not a fan of kielbasa sausage and I was trying to keep this on the healthful side, so I used turkey breakfast sausage in its place and just spiced it up a bit. I also prefer a thicker lentil soup, so I used my immersion blender to make it heartier. I think it turned out fantastic – my picky husband even ate it!  You can certainly leave the sausage out and use veggie stock to make a wonderful vegan/vegetarian soup as well.

• 1 pound lentils
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• about 4 cups diced onions (about 2 large onions…I used sweet ones)
• 2 chopped leeks (white & light green parts only) *See Note below.
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 2-3 cloves)
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2-3 cups diced celery (depending on how much you like celery)
• 3 cups diced carrots
• about 10 cups of chicken stock (or veggie stock…or just use water & bullion)
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 1 roll of turkey breakfast sausage
• 1 tsp fennel seed (ground up with a mortar  & pestal)
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

First off, get some water boiling.  Put the lentils in a large bowl and cover with the boiling water. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes…just to get the lentils softened. Drain and set aside.

* Note: slice the dark green tops off the leeks and then slice them up the middle with the root end still attached. Rinse them really well. They are often dirty and sandy inbetween the leaves/layers.  Then chop ‘em up

Get a LARGE pot and heat up your olive oil on medium heat. Add the onions, leeks, garlic, cumin, thyme, salt & pepper.  Cook for 15-20 minutes stirring occasionally until it’s all translucent and cooked down well.

When the onion mixture is cooked down, add in the celery and carrots and stir well. Let that cook for about 10 minutes.

While that is cooking, get your stock warmed up in a separate pot.

When the veggies are cooked up (the carrots and celery will be firm, still) add in the tomato paste. Stir it in well so all the veg are covered. Add in the drained lentils and stir thoroughly. Now cover the whole mixture with the hot stock…stir well, reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Set the timer for 1 hour.

When the timer has about 15 minutes left…get a skillet nice and  hot. Add a little olive oil and get the sausage browning. Break it all up so it’s in small bite sized pieces. Add the fennel and the crushed red pepper. Let this cook while working it around for 10-15 minutes until it’s nice and browned.

By this time, the soup should be about done. Use an immersion blender and give it a few pulses in the soup pot until it’s a thickness and consistency you like. I like mine thick, yet chunky…so I didn’t process it too much. You can also do this by taking a cup or two of the soup and blend it in the food processor or blender and add it back into the pot.

Add in the sausage and stir well. Taste it for seasoning. Add salt or pepper if needed. This will depend on how salty your stock is, so don’t over season in the beginning.

Turn off the heat and let it sit for at least 15 minutes covered so the sausagey flavor can get into the soup.

Voila! Done. If you want, you can drizzle a little olive oil and parm cheese on top, but it definitely doesn’t need it.   It’s hearty and delicious.   It makes a LARGE pot so you can feed a LOT of people with about the $10 it costs for the ingredients. It’ll freeze well so you can have yummy single servings in the freezer for cold winter days when you feel lazy.

If you’ve never tried orzo, you must! It’s little noodles that are shaped like rice I’m a big fan of the “roni” part of Rice-a-roni so it’s just perfect for me. I love broccoli and cheese together and I love bacon and cheese together…and I love mac ‘n’ cheese and I love broccoli cheese rice – so of course the next logical step would be all of those things that I adore all put together, right? Yes. Exactly. Here it is. We couldn’t get enough last night and it’s even better leftover.

First, get the  water on to boil in a large pot. Salt it liberally so the orzo has some flavor when it cooks.

Next, get a smaller saucepan out to make the cheese sauce. Put it on medium heat and add the butter. Once it starts to melt, add the diced onion and cook for a few minutes until it becomes translucent and fragrant.

Use a small whisk and whisk in the flour to the butter/onion mixture. It will be pasty (like glue paste) and let that cook for about 30-45 seconds. SLOWLY whisk in the milk a little at a time while you whisk until it’s all incorporated. Bring to a boil stirring often – it will thicken. Taste it and add salt/pepper so it has a lot of flavor – remember, you want it very flavorful  because you are adding it to a blank slate of pasta. Once it’s thick (after about 5-10 minutes) turn off the heat. Let it sit for a few minutes.

Add your orzo AND your fresh broccoli florets to the boiling salted water and set the timer for 10 minutes.

Back to the sauce – use your whisk and mix in the grated cheese until it’s melted in. Taste it again. Is it bland? Add salt (or more cheese if you want).  Now crumble up your bacon and add it to the cheese sauce. Let that sit (NO HEAT) until the orzo and broccoli are ready.

NOTE: the reason we don’t want heat on the sauce once the cheese is in there is that if it’s overcooked and over worked…the cheese will separate and become gritty and curdy and not very appetizing. We want smooth velvety sauce.

Once the 10 minutes is up, drain the orzo/broccoli mixture. Don’t rinse it!  Add it back to the pot and pour all of the cheezy bacony sauce over the broccoli and  orzo. Mix it very well. The broccoli will fall apart and thoroughly mix in with the orzo and cheese giving it the authentic look of those boxed mixes (haha) – taste it.  If it needs salt, add more. Best after it sets up for 5-10 minutes.

I’m telling you…man, oh, man. It’s gooooooooood.   My picky husband loves it, my 4 year old loves it and so do I!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am not a baker. I have a hard time making things work when I try to make up a baking recipe. I borrowed this from www.MyBakingAddiction.com (she has a lovely blog) and just slightly tweaked it.   I have a ton of blueberries to use up and we are sick of the delicious blueberry muffins. Too much of a good thing can be sickening.

Ingredients

• 1 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsalted very cold butter
• 1 egg – beaten
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract – I used a leftover vanilla bean that I had on hand from making my gelato a few weeks ago.
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• zest of two lemons
• 4 cups fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spray a 9×13″ baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In the bowl of your large food processor (or a large bowl), pulse or mix together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, salt, lemon zest and baking powder.

In a small bowl, whisk the egg and vanilla together until combined.

Pulse the butter into the flour mixture until crumbly (or cut in with a fork/knife/pastry cutter if using a bowl). Then add the egg/vanilla mixture in and pulse a few more times (or just mix it in with the fork if you don’t have a food processor). The dough will be crumbly.

Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, stir together 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust.

Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

Yeah, they are as fantastic as they look. Sweet, tart, a hint of lemon that isn’t overpowering at all (I’m not a huge fan of lemon-flavored things either) and would be fan-freakin’-tastic with a big ol’ scoop of vanilla ice cream.  These are somewhere between a blueberry coffee cake and a sugar cookie with blueberries. Deeelish.

Stop buying boneless skinless chicken breasts! They end up dry 99% of the time and are expensive. You can get bone-in skin-on chicken breasts for between $.99/lb and $1.49/lb most of the time and they turn out SO MUCH BETTER! Moist and tender and flavorful. I usually cook about 4-6 at a time and clean them up and bag ‘em for dinners all week.

Get yourself a nice pack of chicken breasts with the bones and skins.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Place the breasts  on the baking sheet and rub with a little olive oil.  Sprinkle with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Put ‘em in the oven for about 45 minutes (depending on their size, it may take more or less time – use your thermometer – they should be about 170 – 180 degrees)

That’s it! Take them out and let them cool for about 15-20 minutes. Remove skins, take the chicken off the bone, dice up and bag. Voila! Easy, scrumptious, juicy and cheap chicken for making all sorts of awesome dinners all week long.

I’m using mine for Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps tonight (http://thefrugalgourmom.com/?p=87) and perhaps some tacos later this week.

I’m sick and when I’m sick? I tend to bake. These muffins are killer. I altered a recipe a bit that I got from a gal named Colleen on Allrecipes.com – I tried hers first and then made my version according to how I like my muffins. Enjoy!

Makes 8 large muffins

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup of whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup 1% or higher fat content milk
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries – Yes, please use fresh! They make a difference.
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• a scant 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tbsp butter, cubed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners – I prefer to use a silicone muffin pan.
2. Combine all  purpose & whole wheat flour (1 1/2 cups), 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top (I prefer to use a large ice cream scooper) and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. Crumb Topping: Use a fork to cut/mix together 1/4 cup sugar, scant 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 2 tbsp butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.
4. Bake for about 25 minutes in the preheated oven.

I like my muffins crunchy and domed on the top, so I usually bake them about 25-28 minutes.   OMG.  So very tasty. Crunchy, sweet, moist, soft, tart and comforting.  You will love them.