I like to cook pretty cheap meals anyway.  Over the past year we’ve eaten more and more meatless meals, but even when I am cooking with meat I like using cheap cuts–not just because they’re cheap, but the fact that they tend to taste better than the premium, leaner cuts.  I have a well-stocked pantry and a freezer that already has plenty of cheap food that’s ready to go.  I have spices and oils and cookbooks and knowledge that all make the job of cooking cheaply much easier.

It’s not about the budget, it’s about time and knowledge.  My job is flexible, both my wife and I work day jobs that allow us to come in a little earlier and leave a little earlier so that we can transport the kids to where they need to be.  We get our salary, and have sick days and vacation days galore.  We and our kids have our share of activities during the week that can make the dinner prep schedule a little tight, but we have the means to pick up a pizza every once in a while when we don’t want to cook.  On the weekends I can spend luxurious hours in the kitchen preparing lots of food, or elaborate dishes that don’t fit in during the week.  This is time that people facing poverty often don’t have.

Even more important than time is knowledge.  Everyone can think of beans and rice… but canned beans are relatively expensive and dried beans take hours to cook (after hours of soaking).  I know that lentils are just as cheap, just as (if not more) nutritious, and can be prepared in as little as 15 minutes.  Some of the best dishes you’ll ever eat are those that are borne out of the poor, working class people of those places.  As a great example, Indian cuisine is full of dishes that at some point were conceived by poor people who wanted to get a good-tasting meal out of cheap or bad-tasting ingredients.

Beyond learning different cuisines, people need to learn basics that can save them money.  I used paneer in a dish earlier this week that I bought from an Indian grocery store, but I could have made it myself for half the price if I needed to.  I bought bread for my daughter’s sandwiches, but anyone can whip together a loaf in 5 minutes (plus the time to let it rise and bake).  Flatbreads are even easier… like the chapatis I made on Monday.  I made enough for 6 people with 30 cents of ingredients in 10 minutes.

These are all lessons we hear everywhere.  ”Shop the perimeter of the grocery store.”  ”Avoid processed food.”  ”Learn to cook.”  But what are we doing, as a community, to make it happen?  There are classes and recipes at Common Ground as part of their Food for All program on how to cook healthy meals on a shoestring budget, and I think that’s a great start to helping educate people.  What other resources are out there right now?  How are people learning to overcome the convenience of unhealthy pre-packaged foods?

I hope that there will one day be a larger facility, a community kitchen, where people can not only learn how to make (good, healthy, delicious, cheap, easy) food, but maybe have a chance at starting their own business venture.  Community gardeners could have a place to process a neighborhood’s crop of tomatoes or pumpkins into canned goods to last for months.  I want this community kitchen to come together because people need to be sharing their knowledge.

Like many people, I have the luxury of a pantry so full I could not buy food for at least a week and still be very well-fed.  On the other hand, a growing number of people are starting to face the reality that they are struggling each week to put anything into their pantry.  That balance needs to be shifted.  As I mentioned during the Million Meals for Haiti event, hunger is a global problem, but it’s also a local problem.

There’s no single solution here, but I hope that people will do whatever they can to make a difference.  You can donate money to your local food bank, or donate your time to places that package or distribute food.  Support the Flatlander Fund in its mission to create a community kitchen for Champaign and Urbana.

Nearly 1 in 5 kids in Champaign county live below the poverty line (18.7% according to a 2008 report).  Over 900,000 Illinois residents depend on food pantries each year, a number that’s grown during this economic recession.  September is Hunger Awareness Month, but I hope that you can find a way to remember each month that you can make a difference.  I don’t know how they do it, but the thought that our food bank can turn a $1 donation into $10 worth of food for needy families is a clear example of “every bit helps.”  Try this: each month, instead of going out to dinner one time, spend a little time in the kitchen and donate some of those extra bucks you saved.

When served with rice, lentils are one of the few vegetarian sources of complete protein.  Along with their protein comes iron, B vitamins, and fiber–all very important when on a restricted diet.  Adding in some vegetables helps round out the nutrition, and ethnic stores often have inexpensive produce.  I chose some tindora (technically a fruit), available for $2.40 per pound.  If you’ve never seen or eaten tindora, I’d describe it as somewhere between okra and zucchini.

The flatbreads in front are chapati, made with a finely ground whole wheat flour.  Not pictured, but also on the table was some plain basmati rice.  The dal (lentil dish) on the left is a simple red lentil dish, cooked with a touch of ginger and turmeric, tempered with some cumin seeds, mustard seeds, hing, dried chillies, all fried briefly in butter.  It’s a favorite in this house, and costs only a few dollars to make 4-8 servings (depending on how many other dishes).  I’ll try to recite the recipe below.

The dish on the right is an improvised tindora curry.  It was inspired by this video made by a Chicago chef who has become a YouTube star under the name vahchef.  The tindora was sliced into 1cm rounds and fried in a little cumin and mustard-scented oil with a diced onion and then a few cloves of sliced garlic until they softened a bit.  I added a can of tomatoes and let it simmer until everything was cooked through.  More spices were added to adjust the final flavor, like coriander and a little home-ground garam masala.  While that was going, a pot of split moong dal was cooking until the lentils were tender.  I added the lentils in and let it all simmer for about 10 minutes to let the flavors meld together.

Both dishes were delicious.  Even our guests (one of whom is Indian) really enjoyed everything.  Looking back, I thought that we overspent yesterday, but our total for the day was only about $15.70 (compared to our daily allocation of $18 for 4 people).

Today I made matar paneer (a tomato-gravy curry of peas and cheese, seen above), which left plenty of leftovers.  Breakfast was similar to yesterday, and Megan’s lunch was the same.  I had food from yesterday (already counted in that total), and dinner for us included the matar paneer.  Our younger daughter had some yogurt and a banana… she ate very well at daycare today.  Our older daughter ate some leftovers from the weekend (cost accounted in today’s total).  Today’s total is only $13.69!

To be honest, this week isn’t terribly different from how I cook sometimes.  Okay, I didn’t even make it to the farmer’s market this past weekend (like I normally do), and only a couple ingredients were organic (because that’s what I had).  So far, I haven’t made any big meat dishes.  When I look at it, we’re all full, happy, and have many different flavors to keep us interested.  It may not be 100% nutritionally complete, but we have fruit, vegetable, dairy, grain, and fiber all represented.

Our Favorite Dal

The toasted spices in the tempering give this dal a rich, smoky flavor that goes well with any Indian dish, or by itself with some rice.

serves 4-8 (depending on whether it’s a main or a side)

• 10 oz. red split lentils, washed
• 1/2 – 1 tsp dried ginger powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 Tbsp butter
• pinch of asafoetida (hing) (optional)
• 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 1 tsp whole cumin seeds
• 2-4 dried red chillies
• salt

1. Put lentils, ginger, and turmeric in a heavy saucepan with enough water to cover by 1/2 an inch.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, reduce to simmer, covered loosely, until lentils are tender, about 15-20 minutes.
3. Add salt to taste, about 3/4 – 1 tsp.
4. In a small heavy frying pan, melt the butter.
5. Add the asafoetida, if using, then immediately add the mustard seeds.
6. After a few seconds, add the cumin seeds, then after another 10 seconds, the dried chillies.
7. In about 30 seconds, when the mixture is very fragrant and the seeds and chillies have darkened just slightly, dump it all over the cooked lentils and stir to combine.
8. Taste for salt and adjust, as needed.

P.S.  If the recipe seems a little daunting, don’t despair!  I hope to be starting up some ethnic cooking classes through Common Ground.  I’ll show you all the techniques and shortcuts you can use to make these kinds of dishes at home–fast, easy, and cheap.

As I touch on there, the food that grocery stores shove down our throats is pre-packaged corned (cured) beef brisket with limp cabbage.  It doesn’t have to be a bad dish, but I haven’t seen it prepared well yet.  Besides that, I’ve been trying (as Chambanamoms editor, Amy, has) to incorporate more meatless meals into our diet.  It can often be cheaper, much healthier, and if you’ve read books about how food is produced in this country (like Michael Pollan’s excellent In Defense of Food) you know that it may be a much more responsible dining option.

I had most of the ingredients for this meal already at home, but if my math is right, I can pick up everything for this meal at the coop, getting all organic produce (and supporting a local business), and still have a complete dinner for four for less than the cost of a bad piece of corned brisket at the grocery store.  And I’d still have to buy more stuff for the sides.

Even if the weather here is warming up, nothing says comforting like a stew.  It’s too bad that most stews cook so long that everything can end up tasting the same.  This meal came together while thinking about making something that was quick and easy, yet packed with lots of flavor (something many vegetarian meals lack).

You can read about how we introduced a lot of flavor into the stew, with umami flavor bombs like soy sauce.  Root vegetables are easier though, since you can just throw them in the oven.  Parsnips are one of my new favorite vegetables, and one that most people overlook.  They look like carrots, but are usually a pale yellowish color on the outside.  You can peel them and treat them just like carrots, but they are a little starchier, which lends well to roasting.

Roasted Parsnips

side/garnish for 4

• 8 parsnips, carrot-sized, a little less than 1 pound
• olive oil, to coat
• salt and pepper, to taste
• 2 T flour

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Peel the parsnips and cut on the bias into 1/4 to 1/2-inch slices.
3. In a bowl, toss parsnips with olive oil, salt, and pepper, until they are all coated.
4. Add flour, and toss to give each slice a good dusting of flour.
5. Spread out on a (foil-lined for easier cleanup) sheet pan, and roast for about 30 minutes, or until they soften and the edges start to brown.

We all know that potatoes and cabbage are very traditional Irish staple ingredients.  There is an old dish that is typically served around Halloween, according to Wikipedia, called colcannon.  It really boils down to mashed potatoes with cabbage (or kale).  Most recipes I’ve seen have you boil the cabbage.  This is a travesty.  Boiling cabbage tends to make it soggy and limp, devoid of flavor.  Worse yet, most recipes suggest overcooking it, which makes it stink and taste bad from the sulfur compounds it contains.

Here we use just a little water with a little oil, steam until it’s soft, then saute it to add some flavor.  I like to leave my cabbage with just a little crunch, but if you like it softer, go ahead and cook it longer.  One great kitchen gadget in use here is a potato ricer, which looks a bit like a giant garlic press.  After you cook your potatoes, cut them in half, put them skin-up in the ricer and press down.  The peel is left behind like magic.

Colcannon

serves 4

• 2-3 pounds of potatoes, scrubbed
• 1/4 – 1/2 head of cabbage, thinly shredded
• 2 T oil
• 6 T butter
• 1 c milk
• salt, pepper, to taste

1. Boil/steam the potatoes until cooked through, about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of your potatoes.  Drain and allow to cool slightly
2. Add the cabbage, the oil, and 1/2 cup of water to the pot, cover and steam over medium-high heat until cabbage begins to darken and soften, about 5-10 minutes.
3. Remove the lid, allow the water to evaporate, then sautee the cabbage with the existing oil until it is as soft and browned as you like, about 5-10 minutes.
4. Lower the heat to low and add the milk and butter.
5. Pass the potatoes through a ricer or food mill, or mash by hand (which would require you to peel them first).
6. Add potatoes into the pot with the cabbage and stir to combine.
7. Taste and adjust texture with more milk and/or butter, and season with salt and pepper.

Potatoes are the perfect foil for stews, as they absorb a little of the liquid and add more heft to the plate.  Plus, well, I just love mashed potatoes!

I hope you find yourself trying some new meatless meals this year.  You may save some money, you may get a little bit healthier, and you’ll be eating with a little less impact on the environment.

I made these a while back for dessert after the Okonomiyaki dinner.  The video makes them look very easy, but they are a lot of work with a lot of short windows of opportunity where things can get really screwed up.  Of course, I had to make this as hard as possible for myself, so I made my own anko or sweet red bean (azuki or adzuki) paste first.  The recipe I used was from a book I had out from the library, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art.

Anko or red bean paste

Once the anko has been made (or, more often, purchased), you envelop the strawberries with it.  You want to made sure your strawberries are clean and completely dry, otherwise the anko will slip around instead of sticking like you see in the video.

The mochi dough is made with sweet rice flour (also known as glutinous rice flour).  It’s not actually sweet, nor does it contain gluten, it’s just referring to the different type of starch in the glutinous rice it’s made from (sticky amylopectin instead of amylose).  The most popular and widely available brand that I’ve seen and heard of is Mochiko.  You basically mix it with sugar and water to make a sweet pasty slurry then steam it for a while.  Once it’s been cooked it is very sticky and stretchy.  The texture is unique, and changes quickly.  As it dries, it firms up and will not stick together well any more, so despite being way too hot to handle with your hands, you have to divide the dough and carefully cover the anko-covered strawberries.  Place on corn starch (or powdered sugar) so that they don’t stick, but brush off the excess as it can make the outside too dry.  You can see my mochi that I made… they’re messy and misshapen.  The small ones just have the anko inside (no strawberry).

They are really a treat.  As you bite into them, you pass through the chewy layer of mochi dough and the sweet sticky azuki bean paste to get to the strawberry inside.  The mochi dough is nice, but it’s really just a containment system for the filling.  The strawberry and red bean flavors combine into something that is definitely greater than the sum of the parts.  This recipe is not for the faint of heart, but if you’re feeling adventurous (or see ichigo daifuku in a store or restaurant near you), give them a try.

Ichigo Daifuku

One of them was roughly the shape of a pointy cucumber, slightly ridged, and covered with bumps. Having seen pictures before, I knew this was a bitter gourd (also known as bitter melon or karela). Having seen Lisa’s post on Champaign Taste, I knew I would have to try it out and report back. They are in the same botanical family as gourds, and as such, have some seeds and a little pulp that needs to be removed before cooking them. They are, as the name suggests, bitter, but in a pleasing appetite-inducing kind of way, like a Campari aperitif.

Being an Indian vegetable, I looked a little online, but eventually I knew I wanted to use some recipes from my go-to vegetarian recipe source, The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking. It had a handful of recipes listed under karela in the index under bitter melon. The first one I tried was called “Potato Patties with Crunchy Bitter Melon Chips” or Aloo Karela Tikki. Think crunchy potato blini, studded with fried vegetables. You boil some potatoes and peel them. Then you trim (the ends), clean (the seeds/pulp), and chop the karela. Fry it in some oil until it’s GBD. I tried the karela at this point, and it was good–crunchy, chewy, a flavor similar to properly-fried okra with a little bit of bitterness. The rest of the dough comes together with some salt, cayenne pepper, whole wheat flour, horseradish, coconut, and lime juice. Shape into patties and fry it up. Some people garnish a blini with sour cream and caviar. I spooned on some plain yogurt, and added some chives from our garden.

They were great. The karela was there, but in the background. This dish is more about texture and the balance of some simple flavors instead of showcasing the karela. I was pleased with the result, but wanted a more bitter melon focused dish, so I chose one called “Pan-Fried Whole Bitter Melons with Cashew Stuffing” or Kaju Bhara Karela (from the same book).

In this recipe, the karela were handled as a hardy vegetable. They are cut open, cleaned, sprinkled inside-and-out with salt and a little sugar to draw out some moisture and bitterness, then par-boiled for 10 minutes. Then I stuffed them. The mixture was ground cashews, coconut, brown sugar, turmeric, cayenne pepper, whole fennel, cumin, and coriander, moistened with a little yogurt. The recipe has you tie them up with (cotton) sewing thread, but I didn’t have that so I used my kitchen twine in the classic method (used previously on chicken). I did try just wrapping it around and tying, like they mention in the recipe, but I think my method worked much better.

This was definitely a showcase of the bitter gourd. It had a distinct bitterness that takes some getting used to, but I thought it was great. It was so different from other things I’ve had. The creamy, nutty filling balanced out the bitterness quite well, and adding the suggested squeeze of lime juice brought out more of the flavors of the filling. The recipe says that you should use baby karela, which would probably cut the bitterness somewhat (mine were almost twice the size they call for). I’ll definitely make something like this again, but maybe tweak the filling. The filling as-is would also be great with green bell peppers.

Part of what I like about trying new things is the new experience I have. Whether it’s new flavors or new techniques, whether it works or not, trying something new is exciting. The way new experiences can open my mind to new ideas building and improvising from that point. What new things have you tried? If you want to try one of these new recipes, I strongly recommend buying the book (it’s like 800 pages with a lot of information), but I’ll share if you leave a comment or email me.