Category: Foodblogging

Salsa. One of my favorite snacking condiments, one of the most overpriced jars you’ll ever find on a supermarket shelf. A recent price check at my local supermarket put a small jar of salsa around $5, which is insane given the cost of materials. So let’s say farewell to absurd prices and make our own great salsa.

This salsa is so tasty, you probably will skip the chips and just eat it with a spoon.

Ingredients:

• 2 large cans of diced tomatoes. Petite diced work best, packed in water or tomato juice. Avoid anything packed in tomato puree.
• 1 bunch of fresh cilantro, finely chopped.
• 1 tbsp of pickled jalapenos, finely minced. More if you want more heat, less if you want less heat.
• 4 tbsp lime juice. Fresh is best, but from a bottle will do, too.
• 1 large onion, finely diced.
• 3 stalks of celery, finely diced.
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder.
• Salt.

Directions:

Put everything in a really big non-reactive (glass, plastic, etc.) bowl and stir. Let it sit for an hour. Salt to taste after sitting it for an hour.

Price Check:

Tomatoes will run you probably a buck a can for the large cans. You can use fresh, but during the winter months, canned will taste far better than “fresh” produce, because the “fresh” stuff has probably been shipped from the other side of the planet and is about 3 weeks old. Cilantro’s about a buck, but you might have to buy a large tin and then either dry the leftover or freeze it in ice cubes. The jalapenos, about the same, depending on the brand. I typically shop for these in the Hispanic foods section since they tend to be both better quality and cheaper than in the regular jarred and canned vegetables section. The onion and celery are about a quarter unless your produce is expensive. So for about $5 or so, you can put together the ingredients for this salsa.

Now here’s the cash savings part – this recipe makes a massive amount of salsa. Those little jars? You can probably fill anywhere from 8-10 of them with this recipe pretty easily, if not more. You will be swimming in a massive vat of salsa, and you’ll save some coin, too.

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I like tomato soup, but so many of the commercial canned soups fall woefully short. Here’s a recipe I use to make it from scratch. You’ll need a stick blender for best results.

Ingredients

• 3 large cans of tomatoes, crushed or diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp basil
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil or 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp sugar
• Optional: 1 tbsp parmesan cheese

You’ll also need a large non-reactive pot.

Directions

1. Toss the garlic and onion into the pot with the oil (or butter). Cook until the garlic and onions start to caramelize.
2. Take about 8 tablespoons of tomatoes and liquid and put into the pot. Add the sugar. Stir with a spatula to deglaze the bottom of the pot.
3. Let the tomatoes cook until they start to caramelize. Turn down the heat to low and dump everything else into the pot all at once. Be careful of splashing.
4. With your stick blender, blend until everything is pulverized.
5. Cook slowly over low heat until the soup starts to bubble – probably about 15-20 minutes. You’ll want a lid or this will get very messy, very quickly. Don’t crank the heat – while it might get to simmering faster, the herbs will have no time to season the soup. Take it slow.
6. Blend one more time while bubbling. Be careful.

Serve hot. This will store well in the refrigerator for a few days but freezes very poorly. Enjoy however you consume tomato soup best.

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A tasty treat, and useful if you’re trying to cook for a lot of people on, say, Christmas morning.

• Get a tube of fast-bake dinner rolls of any brand you prefer. Separate them out.
• Grease a 9×13 pan. Use as little or as much as needed to keep stuff from sticking to it.
• Lay out the rolls in a single thin layer on the bottom of the pan, stretching them so that the bottom of the pan is not visible.
• Beat 6-9 eggs along with a cup of shredded cheese together.
• Add in other ingredients as you prefer, such as sausage, bacon, onions, peppers, whatever makes you happy in, say, an omelet.
• Pour the mix over the rolls. Stick the pan in a 350F oven for 30 minutes or until the eggs are firm and solid at the center.
• Cut and serve the tastiest breakfast you’ve ever had for a group of people.

Special thanks for Grandma sharing this! Enjoy!

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Want to save money and still eat well? Try this stupidly simple office breakfast that’s low carb, high protein, cheap as can be, and tasty. All the materials together will probably give you about 10 days’ worth of breakfast and cost only 2 days’ worth. You’ll need:

1. A pack of fajita wraps. I tend to use a medium size.
2. A packet of shredded cheese. Jalapeno jack if you like spicy, otherwise the shredded cheese of your choice.
3. A carton of eggs or a carton of Better than Eggs. Either is fine.
4. Pinch of salt and black pepper.
5. A microwave.
6. A fork.

Here’s how you do it. In a plastic, microwave safe dish (clean used takeout containers work fine), pour just enough scrambled egg mix (either beaten with a fork or from the carton, with or without salt and pepper) to cover the bottom. Pop it in the microwave for 60 seconds. It’ll inflate like a balloon, then deflate, which is funny to watch, but fine to eat.

On a separate microwave safe plate, put a fajita wrapper down and sprinkle some cheese on it, just enough to cover the middle. Microwave for 30 seconds or until the cheese melts, whichever comes first.

Scrape out the egg from the plastic container and put it on the cheese.

Roll it up, wait for it to cool down a bit, and eat.

It’s delicious, it’s convenient, it’s MUCH cheaper than anything you buy on a per serving basis, and it’s faster to boot than running downstairs/upstairs/across the street. Nutritionally, a high protein breakfast will deliver more consistent long term energy than a carb heavy breakfast, too.

Be sure to clean and reuse the dish and fork for extra savings.

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An interesting thing I tried over the weekend. Take a can of crushed tomatoes, add salt and pepper as necessary, then pour it all on a baking sheet and bake it in the oven at 170 degrees for 12 hours or until dry and dark. You end up with a snack that tastes like sun-dried tomatoes and handles like a fruit rollup. Cook it longer or get a cookie cutter and cut circles out of the sheet and bake at a slightly higher temperature and you’ve got tomato chips.

Unlike potato chips, these have zero fat, only as much salt as you put in (or that came in the can), and are darned tasty. For extra fun, add in exceptionally finely chopped basil before drying.

Delicious, healthy, and dirt cheap to make. Especially good if you like the taste of sun-dried tomatoes.

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If you watched my session from Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle Boston, you know that I gave everyone some homework – your favorite grilling item, sent to Justin Levy. While I have lots, I thought I’d share something slightly different. Here’s how I grill, period.

First, I use charcoal because I like fire and lighter fluid. I know lots of people despise lighter fluid as they say it gives food a bad taste. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference on a mature charcoal fire where the fire has had a chance to burn everything off.

What’s different about my fire is that I use random deadfall in my fire as well as briquets. I find that throwing lots of old wood pieces and chips makes for a plenty hot fire with rapidity, and the fireball on ignition is well worth the price of admission alone.

Take a bunch of random wood pieces and build a pile of wood in your grill.

Make sure there is PLENTY of air space between the wood pieces.

Then put charcoal on top.

Douse with lots of lighter fluid or the accelerant of your choice, then stand well, well back when you light it. Did I mention this part can be dangerous? Lighter fluid plus matches is a dangerous combo.

In about 20 minutes, you have charcoal that’s hot plus plenty of wood coals as well. You’re ready to grill, assuming you weren’t caught in the firestorm and hospitalized.

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I twittered briefly about a fast, easy dinner I was making. Suddenly a whole bunch of people wanted to know how to make it too. Here’s how.

1. Make some spaghetti, enough for 1 person for a reasonable meal. Doesn’t matter what kind, just make sure it’s washed and cool/cold. Leftover plain spaghetti works best.

2. In a large frying pan, as large as you can have, put 1 diced onion, 5 diced stalks of celery, 4 tbsp oil, and salt to taste. Crank up the heat as high as it will go. Do NOT cover.

3. When the vegetables show signs of browning/burning a bit, pull the pan off and put the veggies in a very large bowl.

4. Put 2 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp minced garlic in a pan. Melt the butter on low heat, then crank it to get the garlic to brown.

5. Throw the pasta in. Be careful of oil splatters.

6. Toss 2 tbsp soy sauce on the pasta after you throw it in. Toss quickly, then let sit on high, high heat for 3-5 minutes or until pasta browns.

7. Take pasta off heat and throw in the bowl.

8. Scramble an egg in the pan with the residual oil.

9. Throw the egg in the bowl.

10. Stir for a minute or two, and you have a stir fry!

The secret to a good stir fry is a large pan with surface area to spare and high, high heat. Don’t be shy – fire up the afterburner.

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