At my elementary school, we were often subjected to “glazed carrots,” which somehow combined the worst elements of candy and vegetables. Simultaneously tasteless and grossly sweet (even to eight year-olds), a lot of glazed carrots wound up in the dumpster behind Duncan Chapel Elementary.
Needless to say, I am wary of sweetened carrots. But, sick of [...]
Archive for the ‘Cheap’ Category
Carrots, Braised ‘n’ Glazed
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged carrots, braising on September 4, 2008 | No Comments »
New Potatoes
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Recipe, Vegetarian, tagged potatoes on September 2, 2008 | No Comments »
I thought for years that “new potatoes” was just a silly name for a specific breed of potatoes. It’s not. “New potatoes” refers to any kind of freshly dug potato. Despite their image as the most seasonless of all vegetables, potatoes actually are available fresh during the summer and fall.
Fresh potatoes, which Claire used in [...]
Warm Corn Salad with Sungold Tomatoes and Red Onion
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged tomatoes, red onion, salad, corn on August 28, 2008 | No Comments »
As Claire pointed out to me yesterday, we’ve been on a pretty salad-focused kick here at Food Junta, a lot of said salads involving tomatoes, corn, warming, or some combination thereof. But this salad was so good, I had to share it. Repetitiveness be damned.
Though I’m pretty sure this is a common-ish dish out there [...]
The Ultimate B.L.T. (and A & E)
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Raves, Recipe, tagged avocadoes, bacon, eggs, lettuce, sandwiches, tomatoes on August 17, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This may be the most brilliant thing I’ve ever made. And one of the easiest. And now that I know how brilliant and easy it is, one of the most destructive, as I will now be eating it on a really regular basis, and it might be best saved as an occasional treat. But no [...]
Pretty Thai for a White Guy
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, tagged shopping, thai on August 6, 2008 | No Comments »
Do you like delicious meals that are also easy to make? Well, do you also like sweating while you eat? Because if so, I’ve got something you’ll love: Thai food!
My own relationship with Thai food was born in part out of convenience. For the past year or so, I’ve been living in [...]
Semi-Homemade: Soup
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Raves, Tips, tagged soup on July 31, 2008 | No Comments »
I don’t even know if this counts as semi-homemade, but I make “semi-homemade” soup all the time, so it seemed worth sharing with the world. What is semi-homemade soup? It is soup that would be plain and boring if just heated up out of the carton, but is instead delicious and wonderful because you’ve added [...]
Cuban-Style Mango Salad
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged mango, onion, salad on July 27, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Fruit in salad is usually one of my bigger food no-no’s. Not as big of a no-no as fruit and chocolate mixed together; a bigger no-no than, well, a lot of other things. There are exceptions, of course, to every rule. I love Cadbury fruit and nut bars, for one. And I don’t mind pears [...]
Just Can’t Get Enough: More Garlic Scapes!
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged dip, garlic, white beans on July 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I discovered scapes a few years ago when I lived by Union Square and regularly wandered through the green market. I bought my first bunch and put them in a glass of water on a counter in our living room – I wasn’t sure what to do with them beyond contemplate their slow-twisting cues.
I [...]
Chok boy!
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged bok choy on July 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Bok choy is delicious. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. My first encounter with this Chinese vegetable left me thinking that I hated it, but this turns out to be because the bok choy that was served to me had been boiled for about a week and a half and the clearly depressed individual [...]
An Old Standby, With a Roasted Twist
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Recipe, Vegetarian, tagged pasta, tomatoes on July 16, 2008 | No Comments »
Summer and the fresh produce it brings to the market means a wide range of new possibilities in the kitchen, but even when there’s so much to choose from - and sometimes especially when it’s so hot - we all can get lazy. And when I get lazy, I cook pasta. Usually pasta with tomato [...]
Squashes
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Recipe, Vegetarian, tagged squash on July 14, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Many people think of squash as a winter vegetable, or at least I do. But summer squashes - the best known of which is zucchini - are a terrific vegetable that bear little resemblance in taste to their hearty winter cousins.
Summer squash is quick and easy to prepare, but unlike many vegetables, it is actually [...]
Pickles of a Different Color
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Vegetarian, tagged carrots, pickles on June 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s summertime and picnic/cookout season is in full swing. And for those of you interested in showing up to the party with something aside from a six-pack, here’ a quick recipe for pickling carrots (or other vegetables).
Pickling is in vogue these days, I think because it has a sort of back-to-the-land feel to it. A [...]
Spring Supper Part 2: Salad Days
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged mustard, salad, salad dressing on June 9, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Lettuce is available year-round from greenhouses (and from Mexico), but this is the season when the variety and quality at the market increases exponentially. A big salad is a great and easy way to round out a meal for company, and I’ve got a dirty secret to share about dressing.
Well, not that dirty.
First, let me [...]
Semi-Homemade: Couscous
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Quick, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged couscous, sauté, yogurt on June 4, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So, semi-homemade strikes again, this time with couscous. What is couscous? Anyone who has ever been to a Middle Eastern restaurant is probably vaguely familiar with it, but you may not know that it is actually pasta (not rice, or grain, as one might suspect). Cooking raw couscous (is raw the right word here?) is [...]
Food Junta Hits the Road: Portland
Posted in Cheap, Home Cooking, Raves, Recipe, Tips, Vegetarian, tagged beets, goat cheese, greens, lentils, Portland on May 16, 2008 | 1 Comment »
So, before going home, I actually made a weekend stopover in Portland, Oregon, both to visit a friend and to check out the restaurant/farm/local food scene I have been hearing so much about for the last couple of years. The city — filled with microbreweries and food co-ops — did not disappoint, and the farmers’ [...]
