Wino "Fancy Pants" Steaks

A friend gave me 2 bottles of wine at a dinner party. We didn't end up drinking it, and I discovered I didn't like it. But, being both cheap and considering dumping booze nearly a sin, it's been sitting on my counter. I marinated a roast in it. But I wanted to try something new and I had a couple of steaks to dress up. I've heard and read about wine reduction sauces. My mom is a great cook and she works at Richard's Farm Restaurant.

I turned to my old friend Google and began a search. I had decided on a dinner of steak with a red wine reduction sauce, baked sweet potatoes and green beans. I looked at several red wine reduction sauce recipes and got a general idea of what to do and just made my own version.

Baked Sweet Potatoes:
I'm still working on doing mulitple steps and having everything done at the same time. This should have been my first step.

1. Preheat oven at 400 degrees. Wash sweet potatoes and puncture them.
2. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 45 -60 minutes.
3. Cut open and garnish with butter and brown sugar.

Wine sauce
Ingredients:
Olive oil
Fresh Garlic; chopped (You could use the minced kind in the jar)
Diced onion (I used the dehydrated kind you buy in the spice aisle)
Red wine
Flour

1. Heat saucepan on the stove
2. Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Heat the oil.
3. Add chopped garlic and onion. Let the garlic and onions carmelize.
4. Pour wine into sauce pan. (I think it was about 2 cups. I don't make it a habit to measure when pouring wine.)
5. Add a couple pinches of flour to thicken the sauce as it reduces.
6. Boil until the mixture reduce to 1/2, maybe a little more. Stir occaisionally.

Steaks
I covered the steaks lightly with a rub of olive oil, salt and pepper. As they were thin steaks, I only cooked them 1-2 mintues on each side.

Green Beans
Let's not pretend. I opened a can of green beans and nuked them with some diced onion mixed in.

Cost Breakdown
Steaks: $2.10 (Ralph's Manager Special)
Wine: $FREE.99 (You could pick up a bottle of 2 buck chuck and drink the rest)
Baked sweet potatoes: $ .34 (1/3 of the $1 bag from 99 cent store)
Green Beans: $1 (Ralph's)

$2.10
$0.34
$1.00
_____
$3.44/2 = $1.72 a person

There's NO food in the house!

The Grinch left a crumb that's even too small for a mouse! I think we've all had this thought - it goes hand in hand with "I have NOTHING to wear."

My church has been doing a series called RESET the last few weeks (click the RESET button for more details). It is a lot about finances and the recession etc. We were reminded of what the definition of "being rich" is - having more than you need. This has hit home for me. I'm so guilty of running to the store to pick up stuff when I feel like it, even if I am doing so in a cheap fashion. So, I went home and reorganized my cabinets and fridge and decided to commit to making a meal out of the smorgasbord of things I had.

I found several meal options in my stores. I decided on broccoli soup with garlic bread and salad. I had bought the can of soup on a whim and forgotten I had it. The garlic bread was leftover in the freezer from another meal, and we had bagged salad in the fridge.

I heated the soup on the stove and popped the garlic bread in the oven. I then threw a little shredded cheese on the soup.

This is what I came up with:


Cost Estimate/Breakdown
Can of soup: $1
Leftover Bread: 1/2 $1.50 box of bread = $.75
1/2 bag of salad: $1.50

Total cost: $3.25/2 = $1.63 a person

So the next time you say "There's no food in the house!" Just take a look and see what you have. You might be pleasantly surprised to see how rich you are.

Side Dishes Demand To Be a Meal

Quick little lunch post, this is easy peasy. Or you could eat it for dinner. This does not change it's difficulty level

Ingredients:
Potatoes
Raw Spinach
Pear
Feta
Dressing of choice (Optional)
Potato additions like butter, sour cream, cheese, etc

1. Bake potatoes in an oven. Or toaster oven. Or microwave. (I usually microwave for about 6 minutes, maybe more) I realize with this post, I don't really officially know how to bake potatoes. I just put them in a hot oven for a while until I think they are done. I have realized this is foolish. Here you can find many ways to bake a potato.

2. Once spuds are baked and ready, make a simple spinach salad. Slice pear and top spinach with pear and feta. Add dressing if desired. I used an Italian. Not an actual Italian - there is no pretty boy named Bonaventure (an Italian name meaning good luck) making my salads.

3. Add desired toppings to potato. I like to use plain non-fat yogurt instead of sour cream. Thank you, Jen! You really can't taste much of a difference.

Serve and eat!


Cost Breakdown

Bag of Potatoes: $1 @ 99 cent store - We'll just say this equals about $.10 a spud even though it isn't near that much.

1/4 Bag of Spinach: $1 @ 99 cent store/4 = $.25

1/2 pear: $.79 @ Ralph's/2 = $.40

2 TB of Feta: $.36 a serving (Confusing math time, GO! There are 14 tablespoons of Feta in a $2.50 container.)

I'm not breaking down the cost of dressing and toppings. The feta equation hurt my brain.

$.10

$.25

$.40

$.36

______
$1.11 a person!

So today we have learned I need to learn how to actually make baked potatoes and some info on how to name your Italian child.

Love Quesadilla

I am sorry to have deserted you for so long! Life gets busy sometimes, doesn't it? To recap my life, since we last spoke I have worked on a new musical in Hollywood titled Baby It's You. I filled in for the Assistant Stage Manager for a few days and it was a really fun show. I also have been doing some odd jobs, working on my teacher's bathroom (where I have learned how to put up dry wall, put up cement board, countersink, use a stone saw and lay tile!) and cat sitting/house sitting for another teacher. So, if you are still interested in my little blog, be excited! Because there will be several posts to come.

Side note. I am sitting in my teacher's house watching her TV and there is an "Encore: Love" movie channel. Awesome, I know. But riddle me this: why is Superbad playing on it?

Back to the point. Back to blogging.

My friend Jordan came to a party with the most delicious veggie dip. I couldn't get a hold of him, so I decided to guess at the recipe. It turned out to be a decent dip (though not at ALL as good as Jordan's), but and even better quesadilla filling! Quesadillas are one of my 2 year old niece, Violet's favorite foods and once even held one up and informed us it was a "Love Quesadilla" her mom Jen made her.

Ingredients: (Makes 4 quesadillas)

1 can Sweet Corn
1 can Beans (I used Ralph's Organic 3 bean)
Shredded cheese
Tortillas
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Citrus Juice of sorts (I used Orange and Lemon Juice)
Salt and Pepper (to taste)
1 Tomato



1. Open both cans of corn and beans. Drain and put in a mixing bowl.
2. Add 1/2 cup of juices - Use your own discretion here. Do you want a more sweet or more tart flavor? I'm sure you've noticed I subscribe to the "throw a bunch of crap in a bowl and see if it turns out delicious" system of cooking.
3. Add 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil, using your personal discretion yet again.
4. Salt and pepper to taste.

Now here is where you can use this as a dip. I found it to be a nice cold summer substitute for hot dips. But, I was not 100% satisfied. I let it sit in the fridge for a day and marinate.

Quesadilla continued...

5. Heat pan on stove. Depending on your pan type, you may or may not need non-stick spray. I found it made my tortilla greasy. Ew. Cover 1/2 of tortilla with mixture, top with cheese. Fold over tortilla. Flip when it seems appropriate. This can be difficult. Don't worry if some spills out. It will remain delicious.

6. Serve with tomato slices. Or whatever suits your fancy.

COST BREAKDOWN
1 can of Sweet Corn (99 Cent Store): $1
1 can beans (Ralph's): $1
Bag of Tortillas (99 Cent Store): $1
1/2 Bag of shredded cheese (Walmart, $1.98): $.99
1 Tomato: $1

$ 1
$ 1
$ 1
$ 1
+ $ 1
________
$ 5/4 = $1.25 a person

I know that a lot of the ingredients I listed aren't on the cost breakdown. This is where we come to a little tough love. There are things I like to call essential ingredients. Sometimes you have to make an investment. Much like the $20,000 additional loan I just had to take out for my last year of grad school. Only on a much smaller scale. Olive oil won't be $20,000. And if it is, leave the store immediately. Once you've made the investment, it will sit around your kitchen waiting for you to use on your next adventure. Again, much like my degree will be sitting around waiting for me to use it.

On that note, here's to eating on a budget!

Chicken Schmarmesan

Now that you have clipped your coupons - or maybe just thought about it - let's make a meal! Do you think it's too expensive to have friends over for dinner? Lies. Bold. Faced. Lies. How about dinner for 4? Tonight, I made dinner for Zell, Chuck and myself. (And someone gets leftovers for lunch tomorrow!) Did I mention it only cost $1.80 a person? I ate this a lot growing up and I have since deemed it Chicken Schmarmesan. A poor man's version of Chicken Parmesan, this is both delicious and easy to make.

For this meal you need the following ingredients:

- 4 Chicken Patties
- 1/2 bag of Pasta
- 1 can spaghetti sauce
- Shredded Mozzarella
- 1 bag broccoli

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Make sure to check that there isn't already anything in there. Some people just keep pans in there for storage. But once, in high school I didn't check and someone had put one of those grocery store roasted chickens in there. By turning the oven on, I managed to melt the damn container. My house smelled like burnt melted plastic for about a week and a half. And lest we forget, Carrie Bradshaw uses hers for her sweaters. And no one wants baked cashmere.

2. Place Chicken Patties on cookie sheet. Bake them for 15 - 20 minutes, flipping 1/2 way through.

3. About 5-7 minutes into baking the chicken, put a pot of water on to boil. Once boiling add pasta. Once pasta is cooked, make sure to drain. Spaghetti soup would be gross.

4. At some point you should heat the sauce. This can be done in a sauce pan or the microwave. I put mine on simmer when I put my pasta water on to boil. I would advise you not to heat your sauce on high. This creates little volcanic eruptions in the sauce which get all over the stove. And unless your stove is marinara colored, this is annoying.

5. After you flip your chicken patties, make the broccoli. I cheated and made mine in the microwave. And you couldn't even tell.

6. About 5 minutes before the chicken is done, open the oven and spoon sauce onto each patty. Then sprinkle cheese on top of the sauce. Now, close the oven. Bake 5ish minutes or until cheese is brown.

7. Now your meal is done! Serve on plates and make sure all burners are off.




COST BREAKDOWN
*note: This meal may have been cheaper if I had gone generic, but I was feeling super classy today.

1 Box Frozen Tyson Chicken Patties $3.20
- Originally $4.49 (Ralph's Card - $.49, - $.40 coupon/Doubled)

4 oz Kraft Shredded Mozzarella Cheese $.99
- 8 oz bag $1.98 at Walmart

1/2 bag of Pasta $.50
- 1 small bag of pasta $1.00 at 99 cent store

1 can (26.5 oz) Del Monte 4 cheese Pasta Sauce $1.00
- At 99 cent Store

1 bag (16 oz) of Ralph's Brand Frozen Broccoli $1.50

$3.20
$ .99
$ .50
$ 1.00
+ $ 1.50
__________
= $7.19 total/4 = $1.80 a person


Responses from the Critics backslash Dinner Guests:

"This is neither 'the wrong stuff' or 'garbage'. This is frozen food, and yet, delicious!" - Zell

"Parmesanerific? If that's even a word..." - Chuck