Try changing the way you think about what makes a meal

Tag : mustard leaf
Start with the food's time: The best way to save money on wonderfullocal produce is to follow the seasons. But there's a trick tothis. Don't splurge on those first gorgeous ripe tomatoes. Everyonewants them, and the price is high. "Wait until the season's infull swing or even almost over, [then] buy in the glut," saysRose Prince, a British food writer who specializes in cookinghigh-quality food without busting the budget. With fallapproaching, now's the time to look for bins of over-ripe peachesand big bags of dirt-cheap tomatoes that farmers are struggling tosell before the first freeze. In another few months, apple priceswill drop as farmers try to sell as much as they can to savestoring them over the winter. Buy as much as you can when it'scheap, cook or freeze it, and you'll have the makings of dozens ofquick meals all winter long.
Yes, that means some extra cooking. But you don't have to slave forhours to get a meal on the table. You just need to think ahead alittle, doing bits of cooking when you do have the time. "People think cooking from scratch takestime," says Prince. "But I would argue that it buys you time." Turn those over-ripe tomatoes into sauce, asPrince does ( A Cooked Tomato Store ), and you can produce anything from soup ( Tomato and Spelt Soup ) to pasta to barbecue sauce for grilled meat in a matter ofminutes. Or cut them in half, add some chopped garlic, olive oiland pepper, and roast them in a 250 degree oven until they'rewrinkled and a bit charred, then freeze them in bags. They'redelicious all by themselves on pasta or bruschetta and give a stewmuch more flavor than commercial canned tomatoes ever could. Applesare equally versatile: Peel and core them, cook them with a bit ofwater, lemon juice and sugar to taste, and you'll have not justapplesauce, but a sauce for pork or the filling for a pie.
Plan Ahead
To minimize the extra work, do some extra planning. Figure out whenyou can most easily fit in little jobs—cutting up the meatleft on a roast or running stale bread through the food processorfor breadcrumbs. Even making broth from scratch can be done in bitsand pieces; you can start it on a Saturday morning, cover it andturn it off when you go out that afternoon, and finish up thecooking Sunday afternoon while you're watching the game, checkingduring commercials to make sure it's not cooking too fast. Orcombine cooking jobs. If you have to keep an eye on the tomatosauce simmering in one pot, you might as well have applesaucesimmering in another.
And here's one of the key tricks: Always think about more than onemeal at a time. You don't have to plan a week's worth offood—in fact, too much planning can crimp your imagination.But always be aware of the other ways you could use the food you'recooking. Cook some potatoes to go with a roast, for instance, thenmake a salad of the rest of them ( Bacon and Potato Salad with Green Celery Leaf and Cider Vinegar ) a few days later.
Reconsider your portions
To save even more money, try changing the way you think about whatmakes a meal. Take dinner: It's meat, vegetable and starch, right?But meat doesn't have to be the center, and in most of the world'sgreat food cultures, it isn't. Using meat—most of thetime—as a seasoning, rather than a main dish, will save youbig bucks on your food budget.
How to do that without a steady diet of pizza and pasta? Explorethe amazing variety of grains and beans available at your localhealth-food store or from online suppliers like Kalustyans.com . Pizza isn't Italy's only great food gift to the world; risotto isquick, flexible and not nearly as difficult to cook as most recipesmake it sound. If you add beans or cheese to a soup or salad ( Beet, Red Cabbage and Goat's Cheese Salad ) and serve it with a loaf of good bread, you've got a meal inminutes.
If cutting back that drastically on meat is too dramatic a shiftfor you to make all at once, what about exploring the wonderfuldishes you can make with the cheaper cuts of meat? A slow-cookedstew can be left alone for hours, and for a quick meal, there's alot you can do with ground meat besides make hamburgers ( Skewered spiced lamb ).
Leftovers
Another way to shift your thinking about food—and save a lotof money—is to stop throwing it away. According to the EPA,Americans put a staggering 14 million tons of food into the garbageevery year. That's about 100 pounds a person. Halting that waste,Prince says, is probably the most valuable and fundamental shiftyou can make in your thinking about food. "Pause before you goto the rubbish bin with a turkey carcass or shrimp shells or yourpeelings or a dry crust and ask yourself if it has another life,and what that other life could be."
Sometimes that's easy and often even intentional, like when you buya bigger roast than you can eat in one meal because you plan tomake sandwiches later. But the real fun is in dreaming up new usesfor unintended leftovers. Bread can be turned into breadcrumbs, andbones, shrimp shells or that head of celery you've only used twosticks from can be turned into stock ( Celery Stock ). Even tiny bits of leftover meat—from a roast or even fromhamburgers or skewered lamb—can find a second home instuffing for vegetables or in risotto.
Once asking your leftovers what else they could be becomes a habit,you'll look at your refrigerator in a whole new way. Instead ofgoing into the trash, dry crusts of bread will go into a bag in thefreezer, ready to be made into crumbs or croutons to liven uppastas ( Breadcrumbs and Garlic with Pasta ) and salads. Odd bits of leftover beef can be cooked withmushrooms and served over rice or other grains for a quick maindish ( Braised beef and Fungi ). Try pulling every last bit of meat off a chicken carcass and youmay be surprised to find you've got enough for a chicken salad ( Cold Chicken, Mustard, Dill and Cucumber ).
When you start shopping and cooking this way, you may discover thatthat the benefits go way beyond savings on your food budget. Whenyou ask the farmers at your local farmer's market about the foodthey sell—how long the season lasts, and how to cookit—you'll not only learn a lot, but you'll make friends. Atrip to a farm where you can pick your own fruit can be a funexcursion for the whole family, and making a few months' worth ofjam together afterwards is a great way to get the kids interestedin cooking. If you join a food coop, you'll save money, but you'llalso meet people who share your food values—and maybe some ofyour other values as well. And when you invent ingenious new waysof using food you might otherwise have thrown away, you won't juststretch your budget. You'll stretch your imagination.
A Cooked Tomato Store
4 1/2 lb. over-ripe tomatoes
3 peeled garlic cloves
8 tablespoons olive oil
Basil leaves
3 tablespoons tomato paste
Salt and pepper
Sugar if needed
Halve the tomatoes and put them in a pan with the garlic, sixtablespoons of the oil, and a few basil leaves. Bring to a boil,then turn down to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes. Add the tomatopaste and the remaining two tablespoons of oil, bring back to aboil, and simmer for another 30 minutes. Taste and season with saltand pepper, adding a little sugar if the sauce is notsweet—this is often the case with tomatoes that have ripenedin a box and not in the sun. Put the sauce through a food mill orwhiz in a food processor until smooth. Store in bags, jars orcontainers in the fridge or freezer until needed.
Bacon and Potato Salad with Green Celery Leaf and Cider Vinegar
20 new potatoes
8 slices of bacon
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
6 fl. oz. olive or sunflower oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoons water
A handful of celery leaves, finely chopped
2 shallots, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cook the potatoes in boiling water until just tender but not toosoft. Drain, cut each one in half and set aside. Meanwhile, cut thebacon slices in half and cook over a medium heat for about tenminutes, turning once or twice, until crisp. Put the sugar,mustard, oil, vinegar and water in a bowl and mix until wellcombined. Stir in the celery leaves and shallots. Taste and addsalt if necessary, then season with black pepper. Put the potatoesin a big bowl, throw the bacon slices over the top, and pour overthe dressing. Mix well. It doesn't mater if the bacon slices breakup—that way it just tastes better. Serves four.
Tomato and Spelt Soup
Heat equal quantities of tomato base and stock or water (about ahalf cup of each per serving). Add two ounces spelt per person,simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, then season to taste and ladle intobowls. Serve with grated pecorino or Parmesan and a splash of oliveoil.
Skewered Spiced Lamb
2 1/2 lb. ground lamb, not too lean
2 green chilies, deseeded and chopped
A large handful of coriander, chopped
A large handful of mint, chopped
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon raisins, chopped very fine
1 garlic clove, chopped
Combine all the ingredients, making sure that the herbs and spicesare evenly spread through the meat. Wrap the mixture aroundskewers, then barbecue or grill on a high heat. Serve with pita orother flatbreads and plain yogurt with more chopped mint andcoriander.
Beet, Red Cabbage and Goat's Cheese Salad
8 medium beets, whole, with a bit of stem
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 small red cabbage, cut into thick slices, then shredded into1/4 inch pieces
7 oz. goat's cheese with an ash rind, sliced and broken intobite-sized pieces
A little extra virgin olive oil
Crushed dried chilies
Sea salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the beets, untrimmed, in aroasting tin and add the vinegar and oil. Roll the beets around thetin to coat them with both, then cover with foil and bake for 45minutes. Remove the foil and continue to bake for another 15minutes, until burnished and tender. Allow to cool. Divide theshredded cabbage between four plates. Slice the beets—thereis no need to peel them—and pile them on top of the cabbage,then scatter over the goat's cheese. Pour a little oil onto eachsalad, scatter a pinch of the crushed chili on top, and finish witha little salt. Serves four.
Celery Stock
Chop the celery, and put it, especially the leaves, in a big panwith a tablespoon of butter. Cook over a medium heat for about fiveminutes, then add about a quart of water and bring to a boil.Simmer—not too fast or the water will evaporate—forabout 30 minutes. Part-liquidize it, then strain, pushing every bitof juice through the sieve. The stock will not have all the flavorof a slow-made meat stock, but it will be useful for other soups,and better than using water. You will also have used up that bendycelery.
Breadcrumbs and Garlic with Pasta
(If possible, use orecchiette pasta for this dish because thelittle, saucer-like shapes catch the breadcrumbs so neatly.)
1 lb. broccoli, broken into florets
1 lb. short pasta
2 garlic cloves, crushed
5 tablespoons fresh or dried breadcrumbs
5 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, to serve
Bring a large pan of water to the boil and add salt. Put in thepasta. Five minutes before it is done, add the broccoli. Fry thegarlic and breadcrumbs in the oil until golden. Drain the pasta andbroccoli and return them to the pan. Stir in the breadcrumbs andgarlic, season with salt and pepper, and serve with gratedParmesan.
Braised Beef and Fungi
For four people, fry about one pound finely chopped cooked beefwith one finely chopped onion and two chopped garlic cloves. Addtwo pinches of dried thyme, a wineglass of white wine, and ahandful of dried porcini that have been steeped in boiling hotwater until soft (add the soaking water too). Simmer for an hour orso and serve over cooked grains. (Use fresh mushrooms instead ofdried, if you wish, and add a mugful of stock.)
Cold Chicken, Mustard, Dill and Cucumber
Approximately 14 oz. cold cooked chicken
1 cucumber, peeled, deseeded and sliced
For the dressing:
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
5 fl. oz. olive oil
Leaves and any soft stalks from 6 sprigs of dill, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper