Hope everyone had a nice holiday. I’m still in Greenville, where we’ve had a bit of snow. I’m about to hit the road back to Atlanta, so hopefully it’s not too bad out there on the roads. Though we didn’t wake up to snow on Christmas morning, it contributed to a nice afternoon/evening with family.

One new tradition that my family picked up from my brother’s in-laws is having a country ham. The super salty ham is soaked for a few days in water to remove excess salt, warmed in the oven, then the fat is scored and seared. From then on, the cured ham stays on the counter for days for anyone to slice off a snack; sort of a Christmas yule log, but pork.

Wines and other drinks were had (understatement). This $35 pinot based Grower champagne was a solid value, especially for decent farmer fizz.

My father pulled a few wines with some age, including this Cab Franc from Virginia. Considering it’s 9 years old, only 11% alcohol, and from the East Coast, I was amazed at how well this was drinking. Eye opening.

The Cos D’Estournel Bordeaux may have been my wine of the night though, really good stuff. I don’t invest in Bordeaux much, but having a high caliber one with some age quickly reminds me why these wines are sought after. I love the subtly and balance.

I made pommes anna to go along with dinner. The ingredient list is this: potato, salt, butter. Slice thin, layer, cook in a cast iron skillet for 60-70 minutes then invert the pan. Super easy and the presentation is great.

My mom decided to make Beef Wellington, which she had never tried before, as the main dish of our Christmas dinner. The beef stock, madeira sauce, and the chicken liver pate/duxelles filling were all made from scratch. Helping her out in the kitchen is becoming one of my favorite holiday traditions. With the work that went into this, I was very happy to see that the dish was executed to perfection. As you can see below, it was cooked to exactly the desired temp, the puff pastry stayed crisp, and the rich flavor of the sauce and filling with the beef was a real treat.

The holidays give us a few days to get ambitious in the kitchen, I hope all of you that enjoy cooking got to have some fun with food and family.

I had breakfast at The Social House the other day while my car was getting worked on at Gordy Tire (highly recommended). It was my second visit for breakfast here. The first wasn’t very memorable, not awful, but just not good I enough that I desired to return.

This second visit was another matter.

I ordered the mother daughter reunion eggs “benny” (fried chicken, eggs, get it?) Right off the get-go, the two eggs were very unappealing looking and one egg yolk had already been punctured. The potatoes tasted reheated and the chicken had a strange day-old texture, such that I couldn’t bring my self to eat any of the bite sized pieces after the initial taste. The accompanying hash brown cake was mushy and bland. It all tasted a bit….sad.

The coffee was good and strong!

I don’t usually use this site as a platform for negative posts, but in this case, I really can’t recommend going here if other options are readily available.

Fresh off my trip to New York City, and completely guilt-ridden over the amount of money I spent, this past week I tried to eat as much food from my pantry as possible. One evening I made a quick, spicy tomato sauce with chickpeas over orecchiette with parmesan shavings. It was comforting.

I didn’t use the whole can of Roma tomatoes or chickpeas, so the next morning I was trying to think of what I could use them for, when I recalled the recipe for “eggs in purgatory” I had read in the March issue of BA. The recipe calls for artichoke hearts, which I didn’t have, but I had everything else and figured chickpeas would make a fine replacement.

This recipe couldn’t be simpler. First I diced the potatoes and boiled them. Meanwhile I sautéed onion, then garlic and thyme, then added the tomatoes, covered the sauce pan, and cooked it for ten minutes. After that, I added the potatoes and capers and cooked for a few more minutes. I estimated all ingredients as I was just cooking this for myself but also wanted to use up all my tomatoes and chickpeas. 

I transferred the sauce to a small baking dish and cracked an egg in it. Two eggs would have been better.

It cooked at 375F for twelve minutes.

Then I hit it with Parmigiano-Reggiano.

What a delicious and hearty breakfast. I loved the acidic zing of the capers. Artichokes would be a nice touch, though it was plenty flavorful and substantial without them. You could easily make the sauce ahead of time and whip this dish up in less than fifteen minutes, twelve of which are inactive so you could go take a shower, watch YouTube, make coffee…you get the point.

Last Wednesday evening a friend and I dined at Saskatoon, in the spot that housed the amazingly-fast-failure Atlanta location of Harry Bisset’s. The Atlanta location is a franchise, and I was interesting in trying their game, but I also had interest because the original Saskatoon in Greenville was the first > $10 dinner I ever paid for myself. I was a 16 year old lifeguard making $6.50 an hour, and my buddy and I thought we were big shots paying for a steak dinner.

The Saskatoon concept has long endured in Greenville, and I’m interested to see if the idea will be able to stick in a stiff Atlanta/Buckhead market, and an even tougher economy. All of our food was cooked excellently, exactly to the correct temperatures specified. Even the lamb lollipops pictured above were cooked perfectly to medium rare, and I think they are often overcooked at many restaurants, presumably due to their very small size.

We also tried the sausage sampler seen below, then the elk steak, and the game sampler entree, which featured duck, lamb, and quail. The sausage appetizer was very large, so I was glad to be sharing with another person. They were good, though I’d prefer they weren’t cut long ways and seared, as they were a bit dry. The entrees were solid too, making for an overall pleasant experience, though I wonder about the novelty factor. It was great to try elk loin, but when it comes to a steak, my heart still belongs the grain fed NY strip. I do recommend Saskatoon though, especially if you’d like to try well prepared game without getting your hands dirty with a large caliber rifle in Saskatchewan.

Disclaimer! This meal was complimentary, because I’m big time.

As part of my dinner on Friday night I made colcannon. I used the traditional cabbage, but added kale, shallot, and garlic. I would have used lacinato (dinosaur) kale, but Kroger didn’t have it.

I used Yukon Gold potatoes, with chevre, butter, and cream. Everything the body needs.

Of course, top it with some more goat cheese when serving.

When I had the leftovers at lunch I topped it with some fresh butter, which I made in my stand mixer. I tried to use the food processor method found in the local blog Whisk Away, but the buttermilk wouldn’t separate from the cream. I think my dough blade wasn’t wide enough for my mixer to effectively mix all of the cream.

The mashed potatoes were a warm up for my real lunch – the short rib special at Fox Brother BBQ. Seen below: brontosaurus BBQ.

Dude. I should have won a prize for finishing all of this.

Finally on Sunday I had to get rid of a lot of vegetables before another work road trip. I roasted potatoes, beets, celery, carrot, leeks, red pepper, and garlic in olive oil in a cast iron skillet for one hour, turning occasionally. Then I reduced the last of my stock from my Ad Hoc short ribs until it could almost coat a spoon. I then cut and seared the vegetables in a very hot skillet, plated, and poured the sauce over them. It was like fantastic beef stew, but without the beef. Also, the jus turned an awesome red wine color from the beets.

I drank the stock once the veggies were gone.

I started by making refried beans. I had some Rancho Gordo black beans soaking in a water/garlic/bay leaf mixture from the previous day. Shown beside it are the Napa-based Rancho Gordo Rosa de Castilla beans, part of a joint venture called the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc project, a partnership with Mexican bean growers to promote and ensure the survival of heirloom Mexican bean varietals. 

You can get a lot of great bean cooking ideas from the RG blog. The next day I ended up sautéing the rosa de castilla beans in bacon fat with onions. These beans are fantastic. You can buy RG beans online for $5-6 a package, or you can also pick them up at Star Provisions for $8.50 a package. $5 a package is expensive, but you get a lot of varietals that you won’t find around Atlanta, and the taste is 300% better than store brand beans.

I also ordered some Mexican oregano from RG, which has a slightly stronger and more distinct oregano flavor.

The beans weren’t quite tender yet, so I sautéed some onions and garlic, then added the beans, water, fresh ground cumin, chile powder and cayenne until they were soft and the liquid was almost totally reduced. Actually, these black beans never really got as tender as I wanted. And I cooked them a long time, probably an hour, adding water a few times.

I don’t have a masher, so I used my “mallet”, which also has the potential to be the most dangerous weapon in my kitchen. I mashed up the bean mixture, added some olive oil, and turned up the heat to finish the beans.

While all of this was going on, I also cooked some bacon and crisped potato cubes. I began creating the burritos – tortillas, then refried beans, then queso, potato, and bacon.

Followed by rice and scrambled egg. When I cooked the scrambled egg, I cooked it like an omelet, keeping it in one large piece. My thinking is that there would be less surface area of egg exposed to the deep freeze, so there’s less chance of textural issues when they are reheated.

I ended up making five burritos.

I ate one right away.

And froze the other four. I wrapped them tightly in aluminum foil. I should have wrapped them first in plastic wrap, then in aluminum foil, as the aluminum foil stuck to parts of the burritos when I tried to unwrap them later.

Here is a frozen burrito. The frozen bean end looks gross. I cooked it in the microwave for three minutes at 70% power. Don’t ask me why I selected 70%. I’m slightly neurotic about choosing microwave power levels. I come up with all sorts of internal justifications regarding why I chose a particular setting. “I’m warming up a pint of chili? Well Jimmy, we don’t want to cook the exterior of the chili, we want to slowly warm the chili, followed by a quick nuke to ensure the chili surface is hot enough to melt shredded cheese. Let’s go four minutes at 40%, followed by sixty seconds at 100%”.

Guess what, they were pretty good. I ate one almost every day for the following six days, and I never noticed a degradation of quality from day one to day six. The eggs didn’t even taste weird. I wish I had used more cheese, which I think helps balance out the rice and beans, which get a bit dry upon reheat. But additional salsa helps with that too.

I drive to South Carolina one morning every week, so these were especially convenient for that trip. Right before I jettisoned Atlanta, I microwaved the burrito, wrapped it in foil, and went on my way. It was still warm by the time I hit Monroe, GA.

Burrito success!

I was disappointed with my effort, it was too much to tackle at once, and I should have done more ahead of time. The celery root can easily be cooked ahead of time and reheated. Same goes for the short ribs. I also didn’t let the short rib sauce reduce enough. When I did that the next day, the sauce was freaking incredible. Recommended.

Fried chicken has seen more of a presence in my kitchen lately, and almost every time I make slight variations to the brine ingredients, the length of the brine and buttermilk stage, the spices used for the coating, and even the way I cut up the chicken. I was interested to see what choices Ad Hoc made in these areas.

I created the brine the night before, though the chicken didn’t go into the brine until the next morning as Keller doesn’t recommend brining for longer than 12 hours. I’ve always brined at least 18 hours, so that’s one change right off the bat. Once I cooked this brine, the lemon smell was very prominent, and the mix of the lemon aroma with the fresh herbs was intoxicating.

Keller offers up instructions on both an eight piece and ten piece cut. I went with the ten piece cut, though the step where I’m to remove the breasts from the rib cage didn’t make sense to me and it took more effort to remove them than I expect was intended. Also, I used a very small chicken (as recommended) and the breasts looked small, so I didn’t cut them in half as instructed, so I ended up with eight pieces instead of ten.

As mentioned, Keller recommends a smaller chicken, as he believes this provides a better ratio of chicken to crunchy coating, which is of great importance with fried chicken. I chose a 3lb Poulet Rouge Fermier from Whole Foods. At $3/lb it is relatively expensive compared to mainstream brands, but $9 isn’t an outrageous amount to spend for a NC bred, free-range bird.

For the pavé it is recommended that you use the largest potatoes you can find, though I didn’t read that part until after I returned from the store. I ended up with smaller russet potatoes, and I was having difficulties getting full slices with my cheap mandolin, so many of my sheets of potato ended up being short, or thicker on one end. I only purchased three potatoes and I had to toss a number of partial slices, so I ended up not having enough full slices to fill the baking dish.

The finished layers hung out in cream/salt/pepper as I completed cutting the rest of the potatoes. Once done, I assembled the layers into two rows. I tried to make them fit as evenly as possible, but with my lack of slices, conformity was problematic.

The parchment covered the potatoes, then I covered the whole dish in aluminum foil, and cooked the potatoes for two hours in the oven. Once it was done and cooled, it went into the fridge for six hours. As instructed, I cut a piece of cardboard to fit on top of this dish, then wrapped it in aluminum foil, and placed a bunch of cans evenly on the cardboard to press the potatoes down while in the refrigerator.

When it was time to cook that evening, I removed the potatoes from the parchment, and cut the potatoes into rectangles.

Then the potatoes were seared, cut side down for 2-3 minutes each, then plated with a dollop of butter.

The problem with this dish was that I didn’t layer the potatoes high enough, so the cut side was too thin, and they kept falling over. Also, if the layering had been perfect, the presentation might have been as wonderful as pictured in the Ad Hoc cookbook. Other than that, these were very cool. While the potato was compressed, the very thin layers were still discernible, resulting in a pleasing texture when eaten. I will definitely try this again. I think this is one of those dishes that takes some “touch” and will improve with practice.

I got the chicken ready to fry right before I finished the potatoes. I removed the chicken pieces from the brine, then went with the Ad Hoc method of coating the chicken – spice/flour dip, buttermilk dip, second spice/flour dip. I’ve never gone with an intermediate buttermilk step and was interested in how this thick, sticky coating would hold up. The spice mix was interesting too – it had tons of garlic and onion powder, and a fair amount of cayenne and paprika for spice.

I used a bit too much oil in the frying. The pieces were almost fully covered, I aim for 1/2 to 3/4 chicken coverage.

I cooked the chicken in two batches, then fried some thyme and rosemary in the oil and plated. Frying the herbs had the side benefit of making my used oil smell good, instead of the burnt smell from the chicken coating.

While the coating was vastly different than what I’m used to, the chicken was definitely up there with the best I’ve had. Just like pizza, I think it’s tough to call it “best ever” because it has to do with your preference in style. The chicken meat itself was salty enough, so the twelve hour brine did it’s part, and it remained very juicy and tender. I was glad I spent the money on the quality chicken, each piece could be almost fully eaten without bumping into hardly any fat or tendon.

The crust was almost a like a shell surrounding the chicken, instead of becoming one with the chicken exterior/skin, but oh what a crust it was. The heat was there for sure, but it wasn’t over the top, and I think what I thought was an excessive amount of garlic/onion powder really differentiated this chicken. People were curious what was in the spice mixture because it was so interesting. And crunchy. Really, you could just fry this batter up sans chicken and eat it by itself. Hey, what you do behind closed doors is your business.

Try Keller’s recipe. You can find it online (I don’t like posting recipes from published works). You may go back to your traditional recipe, but you won’t be disappointed.

I wrapped up the leftover wing and thigh and had it for lunch the next day. Look at that grease stain in the paper. You know it’s gonna be good.

Please don’t go.

Once again, thanks to Broderick for the handful of photos in this post (the good ones) that he took.

day 5 lunch: enchiladas with cheese, potato, green pepper, chicken breast, homemade sauce – cost: $2.08

breakfast day 6/7: Spanish omelet – cost: $0.81

My last two meals of my “week” were the enchiladas I had for lunch on Friday and the breakfast I had on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of my meals were provided for me due to a wedding, which I’ve mentioned many times in my posts in this series, as if that’s a good excuse.

Honestly, I think my Eat on $30 week was a bit of a failure. I managed to eat 16 meals using $15.61 worth of food, with $20 layout in cash. I have a bunch of eggs, chicken, scallions, celery, carrot, tortillas, and cheese left, but getting through week days is no problem. Being creative, frugal, healthy, and sober is relatively easy during the week. Making it through the weekend, when you want to cut loose, is another story. I can’t say that I feel like I challenged myself like the other participants did, but I did learn a lot and hope that some of these learned values will rub off on me. I think they will.

I am not actually sure how to summarize my thoughts on Eat on 30, especially after reading such great wrap-up posts from Tami, Use Real Butter, and Trouble with Toast. So here are some random thoughts on what I did to Eat on < $30, challenges, and takeaways.

Eat on $30 Stuff

• The Sunday paper has lots of coupons, but you can find just as many great manufacturer coupons on coupons.com and via slickdeals.net.
• My key ingredients for inexpensive meals: legumes, rice, whole chicken, pasta, eggs, and potato.
• I became much more cognizant about not wasting food – all leftovers not immediately eaten went into the freezer. Bones and celery/carrots ends became stock. Livers became pate.
• Planning and cooking healthy meals took more time than I had available . Now think about people who are working double shifts.
• Without a strong desire to cook, and/or a solid set of culinary skills, coming up with intriguing and tasty meals can be tough. I was “up to the challenge” so to speak, as I knew it was a short period of time and thought it was fun. I bet after only two weeks this novelty would wear off. And I love to cook.
• Dining out isn’t possible without severely cutting into the grocery budget. Most people have to dine out sometime, at the least pickup fast food, due to various circumstances in their lives. For example, many of the people I work with have thirty minutes to eat their lunch. If they forget to bring their lunch from home, then they have to pickup something quick, and now they have less money for groceries. Every instance of this scenario, which can realistically happen multiple times in a week, impacts the person’s ability to buy fresh food to cook/eat.
• This challenge saved me a ton of money during the week, and when I bought my first meal out (Indian food in Little 5 Points), I felt great.
• The ability to stretch food and save in creative ways is an art form. I enjoyed talking with friends and reading blog posts about all of the various meals and savings that are out there within the Eat on $30 constraints
• Tami from Running with Tweezers is awesome. She cares so much about these issues, and she has successfully created a platform that has reached a lot of people. I know I probably disappointed her with my inability to fully meet this challenge, but her message has not fallen on deaf ears. I hope I can follow through and continue to be a more responsible eater, but most importantly, I need to give my time to this cause. My girlfriend’s family once invited me to help them serve food at a shelter on Ponce, and it was very rewarding. The people there were amazing. I think the reason I haven’t donated my time at this shelter since my last visit is because I haven’t thought about it. And now because of Eat on $30, I’m thinking about it. Hopefully you are too.

I’m back in Atlanta, but as Tami mentioned in her Eat on 30 announcement post, I am in a wedding for one of my good friends this weekend and there are all sorts of related parties surrounding the event, beginning with last night. Last night I had to head directly from SC to the taqueria themed party, hence my lack of a post.

I feel guilty that I am going to these free food/wine parties, which is why I’m trying to keep my budget under $24, or even lower if possible. In addition to last night’s party, I will be fed for free tonight, tomorrow lunch, and tomorrow dinner. That gives me a total of four free meals.

Through this morning, which is my fifth day as I’m one day behind the rest of the Eat on $30 crew, I’ve used $12 worth of food. I only spent $20 on groceries, but I already had certain things in stock, like canned diced tomatoes, and I’m waiting to see if I end up using them before I count them as $ spent. It does look like I’m going to be left with quite a bit of food on Sunday though, I’ve hardly made a dent in my chicken and eggs.

There are no pictures from Thursday’s food, but here’s the quick run-down:

• Breakfast – two scrambled eggs with 1oz cheese on a corn tortilla – cost: $0.39
• Lunch – I made this along with breakfast, then nuked it in the microwave at work – pasta with sautéed zucchini and tuna – cost: $1.52
• Dinner – felt super guilty as I ate a catered meal provided by Taqueria del Sol :-(

For breakfast today I made chilaquiles with fried potatoes, using an easy enchilada sauce I made before I left town. The meal came out awesome.

breakfast 5: chilaquiles with fried potato, jack cheese, fried egg, scallion, green pepper, and cilantro – cost: $1.26

Also, my family has a Slovak background, and though generally considered a Polish dish, dumplings are also native to Slovakia. I’m pretty sure I’m genetically predisposed to loving dumplings filled with some sort of mixture of potato and cheese, often fried and served dripping in butter. Then again, who wouldn’t like that? Now, I can’t imagine that Paula butters up her pierogis, but I don’t actually plan on eating pierogis on my ride tomorrow.

I had never made pierogis from scratch, so I did a quick search online, found a variety of recipes, and quickly came up with a plan.

First I started the filling – I cubed a russet potato and boiled the pieces for about ten minutes. Once they were drained I mashed them with jack cheese and Fage yogurt. There was way too much filling for the amount of dough I made, but hey, extra mashed potatoes.

Making the pierogi dough is very similar to making traditional pasta. I had two cups of flour, two eggs, a splash of olive oil, and 1tsp of salt. As I started mixing in the flour into the egg, I also worked in 1/2 cup of warm water into the mixture. Once the dough was smooth, it was wrapped and put into the fridge for thirty minutes.

Then I cut the dough into fourths…

Then again into 1” pieces.

The pictures are inconsistent here because I had to play around with the contrast as I was taking the photos late at night. Anyways, to make the dumpling I would flatten out the piece with my palm, then take the flattened piece and pull it from the outside like I would with pizza dough until I could get it as thin as possible. The pieces would tear on occasion though and I think using a pasta roller would be much faster and more consistent.

I sealed each pierogi by pinching the ends, then using a fork to make the impressions on the edge, really just for aesthetics.

Once your water hits a rolling boil, add the dumplings, and turn down the heat just a bit so it won’t reach a rolling boil again. You don’t want the dumplings to tear apart.

The next set of photos are from the the following day, because these photos came out much better. I’ve been saving bacon fat lately…

…so I warmed some up in a cast iron skillet and started frying chopped bacon. When the bacon was almost done I added the pierogis.

Below are the pierogis plated with some bacon and some hot bacon fat poured over.

They were delicious, with my only complaint being that the dough was a little too thick. Using the pasta roller should help. I look forward to making these again. One great thing about this recipe is that you can really use the “kitchen sink” approach and use almost anything in the filling. Cabbage, beef, or onions all come to mind.