Brown Sugar Granola

1/2 cup margarine (1 stick)
1 cup raw brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup nuts or seeds (optional)

In a large 4 quart saucepan melt the margarine, sugar and water together. Stir it well and let it simmer for a few minutes (2 or 3 minutes should be enough). Add the salt, oatmeal and cinnamon to the big pot. Remove the pot from the stove and stir up the granola. You want to coat the oats with the brown sugar and margarine, so keep stirring until everything is moistened. Put the granola onto a cookie sheet, the kind with sides. Bake it at 375° for 10 minutes. It should be a nice golden brown. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the granola to cool right there in the pan. When it is cool, break it up into small pieces and transfer it to canister. Add the nuts and/or dried fruit when you put it into the canister. Serve for breakfast in a bowl with milk or yogurt. Very tasty.

Yogurt!

I made yogurt! Seriously. I made it. From scratch! In my crockpot! This is crazy cool. And soooooo easy!

1. Take a half-gallon of organic whole milk, not super-pasteurized, but pasteurized will work just fine. Pour it into the crockpot and heat on the LOW setting for 2.5 hours.
2. Turn off the crockpot but leave it covered on the counter for 3 hours.
3. Take 1/2 cup yogurt (store bought with active live cultures or 1/2 cup from your previous batch) and stir it into the warm milk in the crockpot.
4. Wrap the crockpot in a heavy bath towel over night and wait. In the morning . . . yogurt!

You can strain the yogurt through a cloth lined sieve to drain off the whey for a thicker consistency like Greek yogurt. Flavor with honey or fruit. Yummy!! Enjoy!

Hunger Action Week – Day 4

Let me say right now, I knew in advance we were going to blow the budget big time on this one. We went camping. And there are certain things we eat when we go camping – really unhealthy, junk food things like chips and dip and trail mix made with M&Ms candy. And I could skip those things in an attempt to meet the budget, but honestly, we get to do fun trips like this so rarely and everyone needs to splurge every now and then, right? Right???

Breakfast:
French toast with homemade bread ($1.50)
Coffee with half & half ($1)
orange juice ($.50)

Lunch:
lefotver Black bean cakes with salsa ($3)

Snacks:
Trail mix – peanuts, raisins, M&M’s ($7.55)

Dinner:
Hamburgers & hotdogs cooked on the campfire ($4)
chips & dip ($5.38)
toasted marshmallows ($1.29)

Total: $24.22

Hunger Action Week – Day 3

Breakfast:
Homemade raisin biscuits ($2.50 for 13 biscuits)
yogurt ($1)
Coffee with half and half ($1)
Milk ($.75)

Lunch:
Leftovers for me (free!)
PB&J on homemade bread for R & the kids ($1.50)
oranges ($1)

Snacks:
leftover raisin biscuits from breakfast
Chai tea ($.25)
2 “bubbly” water ($.60)
Diet Coke ($.83)

Dinner:
Spanikopita ($10.77)
Corona ($1.25)
leftover brownies from yesterday

Total: $21.45

Cutting it a bit close on the budget, but the Spanikopita makes plenty of leftovers for later in the week!

Spanikopita

I love Spanikopita. This is one of the first dishes I made, back in college, that really made me feel like I knew how to cook! I’ve been making it ever since and it is always a big hit. For parties I fold it into little phyllo triangles but for family dinners it is easier to just make a casserole and cut it into squares. The kids love it, and I love that they are eating spinach – even if it is covered in cheese.

1 lb. frozen chopped spinach
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
4T olive oil
pinch ground nutmeg
salt & pepper to taste
15 oz. ricotta
8 oz. feta, crumbled
1 box phyllo dough

Defrost the frozen spinach, drain and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Saute the onion in olive oil over low heat until tender and golden, about 20 minutes. Add spinach and cook, stirring, until mixture is dry, 10-15 minutes. Season and transfer to a bowl to cool to room temperature.

When the spinach is cool, stir in the ricotta and feta. Taste and correct seasoning.

Make sure your phyllo is thoroughly defosted before you start to construct the spanikopita or you are in for a headache. It is a good idea to keep the dough covered with a damp cloth while you are working.

Place 1 sheet of phyllo dough in the bottom of a glass baking dish. It is ok to let the edges hang over the sides of the dish. Brush the sheet with olive oil or melted butter, then place another sheet on top. Repeat until you have 8 layers of dough. Spread the filling over the phyllo as evenly as possible. Then top with another 8 layers of phyllo dough, brushing with oil or butter between each layer. (You could, if you are so inclined, split the filling in half and put a 3rd layer of phyllo in the middle of the casserole, but honestly that just takes too much time for me!) Brush the top of the spanikopita with butter and bake at 350 for 50 minutes or until golden.

I often split this between 2 casserole dishes – one to cook now and one to freeze for later. No need to thaw the frozen casserole. Just place in a cold over and heat to 350.

Other bloggers on Hunger Action Week

I’m a little intimidated by a lot of these blogs. Inspired, but intimidated. I’m not a culinary expert by any means. I wouldn’t even call myself a “foodie.” I’m just a mom trying to feed my family without breaking the bank. . .

Check them out – I think you will enjoy seeing how everyone is dealing with the challenge of eating for $7 a day.

• 1 Family Friendly Food
• All You Can Eat
• Big City Hippie
• Cook & Eat
• Eat All About It
• Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog
• Favorite Freezer Foods
• Fishes + Loaves
• Food Dynamics
• Foodista
• Julie Jams
• Live To Eat
• Mirch Masala
• Musings on the Path to Frugality
• NOMalicious
• Savory Sweet Life
• Seattle Metblogs
• Self Rising Flour
• The Curious Domestic
• The Gastro Gnome

Thinking about Hunger Action Week on Day 3

Yesterday was an incredibly difficult day for me. F. was sick, LG was whiny, R. was at work. And all my plans went out the window. I was ready to pull my hair out. Because the thing is, this budgeting requires planning in order to work. At least it does for me. And the stress of knowing that I couldn’t get to the market because of a sick child and no one around to help me . . . it was tough.

I went in to this challenge thinking that it would be a breeze. We live on a tight budget every day. No big deal. I jokingly told R. that if we qualified for food stamps we might actually start eating better (or at least more) than we do right now! But last night, when the stress of the day was fading, I started thinking about all the circumstances that allow me to live on such a tight budget – circumstances that make me incredibly fortunate compared to a lot of people. My husband and I both have full-time jobs, but we alternate days at work and days at home. That means I have 4 days “free” every week, and that affords me the time to do the shopping and bake bread and stock the freezer when things are on sale. We have a freezer that we can stock! And we have the means to stock it. Because the fact of the matter is that we chose to live on this tight budget. We have a choice. And while there are very hard days, and I worry a lot about what we are eating and how to make it as nutritious as possible on the least amount of money possible, the stress of those days are fleeting. Most of the time it is easy. Most of the time I bake bread because I want to, not because I have to.

But what about the people for whom that stress is not fleeting? What about the single parents who don’t have someone coming home to rescue them from whiny and sick children? What about the folks for whom it is always difficult to get to the market because they are working all the time and at the end of the day are just too tired to deal with it? Or because they don’t have a car? Have you ever ridden the bus with a bag of groceries? I did when I lived in Brooklyn, and it isn’t fun. One small bag, sure. Enough to feed a family for a week? No way.

So I’m rethinking my predudices a bit. I still maintain that is is very possible to eat very well on this budget. We do it all the time. I’m just going to take back the part about it being easy.

Hunger Action Week: Day 2

Day 2 got off to another rocky start. I went to bed last night so excited about going to the grocery this morning (yes, I am that big a dork) and another trip to the strawberry patch, but woke instead to a sick child and the need for a totally different plan for the day. No fun.

I did manage to bake a loaf of honey wheat sandwich bread – though not in time for lunch as I had hoped. My plans for homemade yogurt and granola were put on the back burner for another day. Oh well. After a very long day, R. came home to watch the kids and I was finally able to do the shopping. I had planned to make Spicy Grits with Chorizo and Leeks but the grocery store was out of leeks! Ugh. I was so tired it was really hard to focus and come up with a new plan. It definitely would have been easier to order a pizza! Thank goodness for quick and easy pasta sauces. The sauce is bubbling on the stove right now. A loaf of rustic bread is baking in one oven, brownies are baking in the other, and the kitchen smells fantastic. Life is good. (And we will have the Spicy Grits later in the week – as soon as I track down some leeks . . . )

Breakfast:
Whole wheat toast and honey ($.50)
Chai tea ($.25) 
yogurt ($1) 
oatmeal ($.25) 

Lunch for me & the kids:
2 Boca chicken patties ($2)
3 carrots ($.45)
3 oranges ($1.50)
Diet Coke ($.83)

Lunch for R.
potato chips, a honeybun and a Coke from a gas station ($5)
This is definitely going to wreck my budget! 

Snacks:
homemade honey wheat bread with peanut butter ($1)
milk ($.75) 
Corona <don’t look at me like that – it was 5pm and had been a very long day!> ($1.25) 

Dinner:
Pasta Puttanesca ($7.85) with homemade bread  ($.75)
Brownies ($2)
milk for kids

Total: $25.38

R.’s stop at the gas station for lunch definitely put me over budget today – and for no nutritional value at all! Fortunately we were so under budget yesterday that our weekly total should still be in good shape. I hope . . .

Hunger Action Week : Day 1

I’m not off to a very creative  start . . .

Mondays are always scrounging days in our house – I shop on Tuesdays because it fits my schedule (and doesn’t eat in to beautiful, relaxing family weekend time) but it means we always start the week with cupboards a bit bare. So we start the first day of Hunger Action Week with boring and predictable, if tasty, budget meals. I’m going shopping in the morning, so the rest of the week will be more interesting eats!

Breakfast:
Cheese grits ($1) and orange juice ($.50)
coffee with half & half ($1)

Lunch:
leftovers (free!)
organic milk for the kids ($5 per gallon = $.75 per day)
tap water for R. (free!)
“bubbly” water for me ($.30)

Snacks:
yogurt for me $.50
2 Laughing Cow cheese wedges for the kids ($.56 each – $1.12)
“bubbly” water for me ($.30)
Diet Coke for me (I know I shouldn’t but it really helps get me through the afternoon!) ($.83)

Dinner
Manischewitz Bean soup mix ($2) with 1 shredded chicken breast ($2) and homemade bread ($.75)
milk for the kids
Corona Light shared by me & R. ($1.25)

Grand total for day 1: $12.30

Well below our $22 allotment, but not terribly healthy or well-balanced. Keep in mind, please, that I am not trying to be overly skimpy here. This is the way we eat, and it isn’t perfect. No green veggies today and no fresh fruit. That’s what happens at the end of the grocery cycle. Tomorrow will be better.

The Curious Cook – Yogurt Begins With an Outbreak of Good Bacteria in Your Kitchen – NYTimes.com

 

I’ve fallen in love with making my own bread. Perhaps yogurt could be the next obsession? I remember my mother making homemade yogurt in some sort of nifty little countertop contraption . . . anyway, this sounds yummy and worth a try!

RIGHT now my kitchen is teeming with bacteria, and I’m doing everything I can to make them feel at home. They’re lactic acid bacteria, the ones that ferment milk into yogurt and buttermilk, cream into crème fraîche. I’ve been making all of these, as well as milk thickened with reputedly beneficial “probiotic” lactic acid bacteria. And getting to know viili, a Finnish fermented milk that reminds me of the Japanese soy product natto. It’s slithery.

 

 

I’ve made my own yogurt nearly every week for more than 10 years, beginning with a starter given to me by a friend from yogurt-loving India, and using the last spoonfuls of one batch to make the next. It’s a satisfying ritual of continuity and caretaking. And the yogurt is less expensive and better than anything I can buy. It’s free of stabilizers, sweeteners and waterlogged fruit, and it’s fresh tasting and tart, not sour. I start every day with a bowl of it. . . 

Read the full article here.