August, 2012 | Real Food. Real Deals.

Citrus Tilapia

August 31, 2012 by Annemarie 11 Comments

I love it when I can get my children to eat fish. I’m not sure why, but it feels like a moral victory. A few weeks ago, I was planning to try a citrus fish recipe from Mark Bittman’s cookbook, Kitchen Express. I stopped at a new fish market, and I panicked at the fish counter because most of the prices were in the $19.99 a pound range. I took a deep breath and scanned the fish case, and I noticed that their tilapia was $7.99 a pound. “They’ll never eat tilapia,” I thought, but with no better option in front of me, I bought some. It didn’t work with the Bittman recipe, which required a “firm fillet” for grilling, so I improvised. I used the cooking method from this recipe with a simple citrus sauce.

After my nine-year-old son took his first bite of this fish, he said, “This is by far the best fish I’ve ever had.” Success! His sister liked it too, although she didn’t want to admit it. She did have more than one serving. After making it a second time, I can say that we will be putting this meal into our rotation.

Ingredients:
2 tbs. flour (use white whole wheat or gluten-free mix)
Sprinkle of salt and pepper
1 lb. tilapia fillets
2 tbs. olive oil
¼ cup fresh orange juice
¼ cup fresh lemon or lime juice (or a combination)
1 tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs. honey

Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate and dredge the tilapia fillets in the mixture.
Pour the oil into a large skillet and heat it over medium heat. Cook each piece of tilapia for about 3 minutes on each side (until cooked through). Set aside.
Combine the orange juice, lemon/lime juice, soy sauce, and honey in a medium bowl. Pour the sauce into the pan and heat through. Add the fish to the pan and cook for a minute, flipping once and making sure to cover the fish with the sauce.
Transfer the fish to a platter and pour the remaining sauce on the fish. Serve immediately.

Price Breakdown
This dish costs $9.25 to make, or $2.31 per serving. It’s a great, affordable entrée, and it’s especially satisfying for me because it gives me a simple way to get my children to eat fish.

Linking to Frugal Friday, Fit and Fabulous Friday, Fresh Bites Friday, Melt in Your Mouth Monday, Mix It Up Monday, Monday Mania, Traditional Tuesdays, Gluten-Free Wednesdays, Allergy-Free Wednesday, Foodie Friday.

Filed Under: Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free, Recipes Tagged With: citrus, frugal, Recipe, tilapia

My Summer Food Tour

August 30, 2012 by Annemarie 7 Comments

This summer, I had a few fun and unique opportunities to learn more about food from behind the scenes. Read on to find out how Cooks Illustrated comes up with its recipes and how much salt is on a Lay’s potato chip.

America’s Test Kitchen Tour

One of the cookbook-filled walls at America’s Test Kitchen

An editor at Cooks Illustrated invited me to tour their facilities in Brookline, Massachusetts. This is the spot where Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country magazines are created, as well as the location where “America’s Test Kitchen” is filmed. The first room in their building space is a massive library with thousands of cookbooks. I could spend some serious time in that room. When they develop a recipe at America’s Test Kitchen they find five other versions of the dish and test them out. Tasters sample the five versions and give feedback so that a new version with the best qualities of the samples can be developed. Cooks Illustrated and its affiliates were described to me as the “Consumer Reports of food.” They don’t allow any advertisements and they don’t accept any free products to sample. During my visit, I was able to test 3 versions of biscuits. The secret ingredient of these biscuits was mayonnaise. I’m pretty easy when it comes to biscuits, so they were all tasty to me. The test kitchen was hopping with several different chefs working on various recipes. All I could think about was how great it would be to work there – you’d never have to pack a lunch!

Frito- Lay Factory Tour

Photo courtesy of Frito-Lay’s PR company

Frito-Lay invited me to tour their factory in Killingly, Connecticut. The tour was for a group of nutritionists, food bloggers, and media folks. We heard a presentation from a Frito-Lay nutritionist about how some of the Frito-Lay products stack up against other snack foods. I was interested to learn that a serving of potato chips actually has less sodium than a plain bagel or a serving of cottage cheese. Following the presentation, we had an hour-long tour of the factory, complete with tastings of Fritos, Doritos, and Lays potato chips fresh out of the fryer. As a real food blogger, I can’t recommend that you start eating Doritos. But man, they do taste really good fresh off the conveyor belts.

Helen’s Kitchen

I was welcomed into a cooking class at Helen’s Kitchen in Natick, Massachusetts. Helen has been teaching cooking classes for years, and she is incredibly knowledgeable. The subject of the class was vegetables, and I learned a lot. Helen advises against steaming and stir-frying, instead recommending techniques like roasting, braising, and blanching. The students in her class worked together with Helen to prepare several dishes, including green bean salad with vinaigrette and grilled eggplant. Everything tasted delicious, and I’ve tried a few of her dishes at home with great success. If you are looking for cooking classes in the Boston area, I highly recommend Helen’s Kitchen. It’s a fun, educational, and delicious way to spend an evening.

Hershey’s Chocolate World

How could I walk past this and not buy a smore?

Okay, nobody invited me to Hershey (except my mother), but I had to include this one too. Hershey, Pennsylvania is where the headquarters of Hershey Chocolate is located, although a lot of the chocolate is now made in factories around the world. There is an interesting little ride that takes you through the steps of the chocolate-making process, complete with singing cows and vats of fake chocolate. I noticed that their big rolls of candy wrappers were the same type they used at the Frito-Lay factory. I was disappointed to learn that they don’t make all of Hershey’s chocolate in Hershey anymore, but I was consoled by an enormous smore that I bought at the smore stand in Hersheypark. It was made with two chocolate chip cookies instead of graham crackers, and Reese’s peanut butter cups instead of the standard Hershey bar. I had to lay down a few hours after eating it, but it was worth every bite. (My body doesn’t do too well when I so blatantly stray from real food.)

Looking Ahead

I’m looking forward to the Boston Local Food Festival this fall. I’m one of the bloggers for the festival, and I’ve enjoyed writing about a cool local grocery store in Jamaica Plain and an innovative farm program in Vermont. If you’re in the Boston area, I hope you’ll join me at the festival on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on Sunday, October 7, 2012. That’s my 12^th wedding anniversary, but luckily my husband is a big fan of local food too!

Disclosure: I received several magazines from America’s Test Kitchen; lunch, transportation, and way too many chips from Frito-Lay; and a complementary cooking class from Helen’s Kitchen.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: America's Test Kitchen, food travel, Frito Lay, helen's kitchen, hershey

Pesto Cream Cheese Spread

August 27, 2012 by Annemarie 4 Comments

Pesto cream cheese spread is the perfect accompaniment for sweet cherry tomatoes.

I’ve got loads of basil in my garden, and even more comes home every week from my farm share. When I don’t have a specific recipe in mind that calls for basil, I make a big batch of pesto and freeze it in an ice cube tray. That way, when I want to pull out a small portion to add to a soup or defrost for pasta, I can get just the right amount. Another way I’ve recently been using pesto is this pesto cream cheese spread. I should actually call it “yogurt cheese” because it comes from homemade yogurt that I’ve strained into a cream cheese consistency. But who’s ever heard of yogurt cheese? Cream cheese works just as well if you want to take a shortcut. (Although if you have a cooler and a kitchen timer, you really should try making your own yogurt. It’s so easy!)

Convenient way to store homemade pesto

Pesto Ingredients:
3 cups basil, loosely packed
1 cup walnuts
1 clove garlic
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. freshly grated parmesan cheese (optional)
¼ tsp. salt

Combine all the ingredients in a food process and mix until well combined.
Refrigerate and use within a few days, or store in the freezer for several months.

Pesto Cream Cheese Spread Ingredients:
4 tbs. cream cheese (or yogurt reduced to the consistency of cream cheese)
2 tbs. pesto

Stir together the ingredients in a small bowl.
Spread on crackers or bread, or toss with warm pasta.

Price Breakdown
The batch of pesto costs $3.36 to make, or $.42 per tablespoon. The pesto cream cheese spread costs $.96. It’s enough to generously cover four pieces of bread, so it comes out to $.24 per serving. This is a great, nutritious alternative to store-bought spreads, which tend to be full of preservatives. You won’t need any preservatives if you make this spread – it will be gone in no time!

Linking to My Meatless Monday, Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesdays, What’s in the Box?

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: gluten free, pesto cream cheese, Recipe

Blueberry Lemon Bread

August 24, 2012 by Annemarie 10 Comments

I love having healthy treats on hand that my whole family can enjoy. This blueberry lemon bread works well as a snack at school or a quick bite after school. I like to freeze one of the mini-loaves so I can pull it out of the freezer on a day when I’m too busy to bake. My children do eat gluten, but I think it’s good to give them a variety of grains, and they don’t even notice that they’re not eating wheat here.

Ingredients:
2 cups gluten-free flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ tsp. salt
2 eggs
¼ cup coconut oil
¼ cup applesauce
1/3 cup maple syrup
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease two mini-loaf pans.
In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients.
In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, coconut oil, applesauce, maple syrup, lemon juice and zest.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir to combine. Fold in the blueberries.
Transfer the batter to the 2 loaf pans and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Alternately, you can use one regular loaf pan (bake for 45-50 minutes) or a muffin pan (bake for 20-25 minutes).

Price Breakdown
This recipe costs $4.55 to make, or $.40 per serving. Pre-packaged gluten-free snacks are expensive, and their ingredient lists typically contain highly processed ingredients.

Linking to Allergy-Free Wednesday, Gluten-Free Wednesday, Real Food Wednesday, Whole Foods Wednesday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Eat Make Grow, Simple Lives Thursday, Keep It Real Thursday, Gluten-Free Fridays, Show and Tell Saturday, Made From Scratch Monday.

Filed Under: Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free, Recipes Tagged With: dairy free, gluten free, Recipe

Vegetarian Times Deal: $.66 per issue

August 23, 2012 by Annemarie Leave a Comment

Plum District is offering a great deal on Vegetarian Times magazine. You can get a one year subscription (9 issues) for just $6. I have discovered so many great recipes from this magazine!

Click here for details.

Filed Under: Deals Tagged With: Deal, frugal, vegetarian times

Iced Tea with Lemon Sorbet

August 21, 2012 by Annemarie 19 Comments

This month’s Recipe Redux challenge is to replicate a dish from a vacation, but make it healthier. I didn’t have to go back far to come up with my idea for this recipe. Earlier this month, I enjoyed a family vacation to Hershey, Pennsylvania. I ate a lot of chocolate, as you might imagine, but the one thing I was most inspired to replicate was a drink my husband ordered at the Hershey Pantry. They served him a glass of unsweetened iced tea with a scoop of lemon Italian ice floating on top. As the Italian ice melted, it sweetened and “lemoned” the tea. It looked great in the glass, and it tasted even better. As the frugal one in the family, I of course just ordered a glass of water with my dinner that night. But I kept thinking about that iced tea. . .

So here is my homemade version with lemon sorbet as the topping. And I’m happy to report that the cost of my version, which serves four, is less than what we paid for that one drink at the restaurant.

Ingredients:
3 tea bags
6 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (about 4 lemons)
½ – 1 cup honey
½ cup water

Steep the tea bags in hot water. I like to fill a pitcher with water and tea bags and put it outside for about 3 hours on a hot summer day. You could also just boil some water on the stove and insert the tea bags until the tea is as strong as you like it.
To make the sorbet, stir together the lemon juice, honey, and water. If you have an ice cream maker, churn the sorbet according to the manufacturer’s instructions and freeze for at least 2 hours in an airtight container. If not, simply freeze the mixture in an airtight container without churning.
Divide the tea among 4 glasses. Top each glass with a generous scoop of sorbet.

Price Breakdown
The cost of this batch of iced tea with lemon sorbet is $2.64, or $.66 per serving. The restaurant version of this drink costs $2.75 per serving, and I can only imagine what ingredients were used in their Italian ice.

Check out the frothy sorbet residue as the specimen gets slurped up.

Linking to Fat Tuesday, Traditional Tuesdays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Frugal “I Did It” Tuesday, Whole Foods Wednesday, Real Food Wednesday, Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, Allergy Free Wednesday, Healthy2Day Wednesday, What’s in the Box?, Keep It Real Thursday, Eat Make Grow, Simple Lives Thursday, Gluten Free Fridays, Frugal Friday, Fit and Fabulous Friday, Fresh Bites Friday, Show and Tell Saturday, Monday Mania, Make Your Own Monday, Melt in Your Mouth Monday, Mix It Up Monday.

Filed Under: Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free, Recipes Tagged With: frugal, iced tea, lemon sorbet, Recipe

Chocolate Sourdough Cake

August 19, 2012 by Annemarie 7 Comments

Sourdough and I go way back. Fifteen years ago, my friends Kara and Ben came back from a year of volunteer work in Alaska, and they brought home with them an old Alaskan sourdough starter. Having finished my own volunteer year in the San Francisco area, I was a big fan of sourdough and I wanted to make my own sourdough bread. Ben gave me a portion of the starter with detailed instructions about the care and feeding of the starter. I didn’t know how to take care of anything but myself at that point in my life, but I did my best with that little starter. I made the same bread recipe over and over, and I never even looked for another recipe. After some time, the starter got relegated to the back of the refrigerator as life got busier and I stopped making bread. I eventually threw the starter away.

A couple years later, I wanted to try again, so I got another bit of starter from Ben. I made that same bread recipe many more times, until life again got busy and I had my first child. The starter sat in the back of the fridge for a while again, and eventually made its way into the garbage. Nearly a decade later, I have recently found myself thinking about sourdough once again. But this time, I’m part of an amazing blog community that has educated me on the health benefits of sourdough bread. The fermentation process involved in making sourdough bread breaks down the phytic acid in gluten, so people with gluten sensitivity can often enjoy sourdough. Nutrients in the bread can be more easily absorbed because the phytic acid is broken down, and the bread doesn’t mold as quickly as would a typical loaf of wheat bread because of the fermentation process. Also, did I mention I love the taste of sourdough bread?

I was so excited to learn that I could make my own sourdough starter with nothing but flour, water, air, and time. I followed Cristina’s starter instructions (from An Organic Wife blog), and they worked perfectly. I now have a bubbly little starter on my counter waiting for me to create some great food. Apparently it’s best to wait 6 weeks before attempting a bread recipe, so I’ve tried a couple other things while I wait. I made a pancake recipe that didn’t come out well. The kids said they were too dry, and my husband said they tasted like pretzels. That’s not exactly the flavor I’m going for when I make pancakes. Then I tried some biscuits, but I didn’t have enough starter and they came out like bricks.

I decided it was time to bring chocolate into the sourdough scene. Anything tastes good with chocolate, right? This chocolate cake recipe is adapted from this recipe at King Arthur Flour as well as this recipe from GNOWFLINS. My cake uses maple syrup as the sweetener, and it’s not very sweet. It’s more of a snack than a dessert cake. It tastes delicious, and you can’t tell it’s got sourdough in it.

Ingredients:
1 cup fed sourdough starter
¾ cup water
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 cup maple syrup
½ cup melted coconut oil
1 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
¾ cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix together the starter, water, and flour in a bowl. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit overnight.
In the morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 inch pan.
Mix the remaining ingredients together, and then add them to the starter mixture.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Price Breakdown
This cake costs $5.53 to make. It contains 16 servings, so the cost per serving is $.35. This is a delicious snack that you can feel good about eating.

My bubbling starter

Linking to Monday Mania.

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: chocolate sourdough cake, frugal, Recipe

Free Healthy Living Book for Kindle

August 17, 2012 by Annemarie 3 Comments

Here’s a free book for your Kindle that we could all use. Click here to go to Amazon and order Healthy Living for free! These deals can disappear quickly, so make sure the purchase price is still $0.00. I look forward to reading this book, which offers a holistic approach to healthy living.

Thanks, Healthy Life Deals!

Filed Under: Deals Tagged With: deals, free kindle book, frugal

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

August 15, 2012 by Annemarie 12 Comments

This is the time of year when I get lots of tomatoes from my farm share. They don’t all come at once, though, so I need to use them up four or five pounds at a time. Over the past few weeks, I’ve made gazpacho, tomato sauce, and Panzanella. Last week I froze my tomatoes because I didn’t have time to use them before we went away. One of my favorite toppings for pasta is sun-dried tomatoes, so this week I made oven roasted tomatoes. This method was adapted from a recipe in the cookbook, The Homemade Pantry, as well as from Heidi’s technique at Lightly Crunchy.

Ingredients:
4 lbs. tomatoes
1 tbs. olive oil
Several basil leaves
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
If the tomatoes are small (e.g. grape, cherry, Roma), cut them in half. If they are larger, cut them in quarters.
Place the tomatoes cut side up in one layer in a baking dish. You may need more than one baking dish.
Sprinkle the tomatoes with olive oil, basil, salt, and pepper.
Roast the tomatoes until they are dry. The small ones will take 2 or 3 hours, while the large ones will take 5 or more hours.
Refrigerate and use within 3 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

Price Breakdown
If you’re growing your own tomatoes and basil, this recipe costs next to nothing. If you need to buy the tomatoes, you should be able to get them for $1 a pound during the height of the growing season. At $1 per pound, the recipe costs $4.10 for 18 ounces of roasted tomatoes. This quantity of bottled sun-dried tomatoes costs $9.98, which is more than twice the cost of the homemade version.

Linking to What’s in the Box?, Keep it Real Thursday, Eat Make Grow, Fresh Bites Friday, Healthy Vegan Friday, Frugal Tuesday Tip, Wellness Weekend.

Note: This post contains an affiliate link.

Filed Under: Gluten-Free/Dairy-Free, Recipes Tagged With: dried tomatoes, food, frugal, Recipe

Homemade Vanilla Extract

August 13, 2012 by Annemarie 18 Comments

I bake a lot, and it seems like every recipe for baked goods includes vanilla extract. I wince every time I buy vanilla extract because it’s so expensive. At my Stop and Shop, it costs $9.99 for 4 ounces of their store brand extract, or $2.50 per ounce. I’ve wanted to make my own vanilla extract for a while now, and I finally got around to ordering vanilla beans. Some extract recipes call for using lots of vanilla beans, but I thought I would try using just one and see how it came out. After making my first batch with one bean, I decided to go with 2 beans in future batches. I felt funny going into a liquor store and buying vodka, but I did it. I’m so happy that I finally got around to doing this, because it’s such an easy, cost-effective way to get vanilla extract.

Ingredients:
2 vanilla beans
8 ounces cheap vodka

Slice the beans open lengthwise and scrape out half the paste. Use the paste for another recipe. I made vanilla ice cream, and it tasted incredible!
Place the spent vanilla beans (with half the paste still in the beans) in a clean jar and cover with the vodka.
Put the jar in a cabinet and forget about it for a month.
After a month, open the jar and see if it smells like vanilla or vodka. If it still smells like vodka, put it away for a few more weeks and try again. When you get that nice vanilla extract aroma, you can start using it. (Mine started smelling like vanilla after 3 weeks.)
Top off periodically with more vodka. This should last for many months. When it stops smelling like vanilla, replace the beans or add another one.

Price Breakdown
I bought the cheapest vodka I could find: one liter for $7.99. With this vodka, the price of my homemade extract is $3.92 for 8 ounces, or $.49 per ounce. The store brand vanilla extract at Stop and Shop is $2.50 per ounce, which is five times more expensive than the homemade version. The amazing thing is that you use the half-spent vanilla bean for this extract, so you can use some of the paste for another recipe.

Note: You can buy single vanilla beans online here for $2 per bean, shipping included. If you want to buy vanilla beans in bulk, Amazon has lots of options. Also, Beanilla has wonderful vanilla beans for just $1 each if you buy 25, shipping included. I bought the flip-top bottles at the Container Store.