Comfort Food for the No Money Blues

As a single mama with a 6 year old boy, I often suffer the affliction of the end-of-the-month-no-money-blues. Although I may crave a nice ribeye or filet mignon, I usually have to change the fare to what I have on hand until the almighty dollar comes. Here's a couple of my comfort foods at that "time of the month"

Riivel Soup(Amish staple)

1 Can Chicken Broth
1 TBLSP Chicken Soup Base
4 cups of milk
dash nutmeg
couple dashes of pepper
1 stick butter or margarine
riivels*

* For Riivels: One cup flour, couple dashes salt,1 egg
Mix these three ingredients together until some floury tiny blobs form, kind of on the mealy side.


Combine first six ingredients together in a saucepan. Heat until steaming well. Add riivels and cook approximately 8 mins more, not allowing to boil. The mealy flour coating on the riivels causes the soup to thicken slightly as like a chowder. Serve and slurp it up.




Baked Spaetzle

For the Spaetzle:
6 large eggs , beaten well
3 cups flour
1/2to 3/4 cup of milk
couple dashes of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Beat all ingredients well, being sure to incorporate a lot of air. Put batter/dough in fridge and let remain there for about an hour.

Cooking the Spaetzle:
Fill a VERY large dutch oven or stock pan 2/4 full with water. Add a couple teaspoons of salt and bring to a rapid boil. If you have a spaetzle mill, you already know how to operate that bad boy. If no spaetzle mill, take a large hole colander and a big spoon, preferably wooden. Remove spaetzle batter/dough from fridge. Start pouring this through the colander, using wood spoon to press the thicker dough through. Let strands of dough simmer for about 7 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from clumping. Remove from heat and drain out all liquid. Set aside. As the spaetzle drains, melt a stick of butter or margarine in a large fry pan. I often add a couple tablespoons of lemon juice to this. Add drained strands to butter and sautee' until golden browned on some of lumps and bumps of the spaetzle. If I'm lucky.....I also add a cup or so of sliced mushrooms to this sautee. Remove sauteed' spaetzle to large casserole dish. Pour the butter over this also. Sprinkle over top, an cheese you may have on hand, that can be grated. a much or as little as you like. Place in 350 oven for 15 min until cheese starts to bubble. Remove and Sprinkle buttered bread crumbs over top. Return to oven for another 15 mins. May serve with dollops of sour cream if availiable.


Nirvana for we churchmice, butter, starch and cheese......yummmmmmmmmmmmm yummmmmmmmmmmm

If you have them around, I like hazelnuts sauteed in browned butter with the spaetzle...unusual, but it works!

Back when hamburger was cheaper, my mom always served us "Aunt Ella's Dish". Saute hamburger, onion, a small can of tomato sauce, cooked white rice, oregano and thyme. Or "Mince and Tatties", Saute hamburger, onion and diced potatoes.

I was going to make one of these budget dishes the other day and noticed pork chops were cheaper than the beef, so I made chili with the pork instead. Soups are also always a good way to serve alot of people for a little money.

This recipe kept me from being a starving college student. Chicken livers are still less than a dollar per pound in our area and I still enjoy this:

CHICKEN LIVERS AND RICE - 2 to 3 servings

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/ 2 inch slices
1 lb. chicken livers, trimmed and quartered
1/ 4 cup flour
1/ 2 tsp. salt
1/ 4 tsp. pepper
1/ 2 cup chopped onion
1/ 2 cup uncooked rice
1 envelope instant chicken broth
1/ 2 tsp. dried basil, crumbled
1 whole bay leaf
1 1/ 4 cup water
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley (do not omit)

Cook bacon until crisp in large skillet. Combine flour, salt and pepper and dredge chicken livers in it. Remove bacon and reserve. Brown livers in bacon grease. Remove and reserve. Saute onion over medium heat in same skillet (add 1 Tbs. olive oil of needed.) Stir in rice, broth pack, basil, bay leaf and water. Heat to boiling; then turn heat to low. Stir mixture thoroughly, scraping up any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet. Cover. Simmer 20 minutes without lifting lid. Spoon reserved livers over rice but don’t stir. Put lid back on and simmer for another 10 minutes or until liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Remove bay leaf. Sprinkle with bacon and chopped parsley.

Note: You can substitute 1 1/ 4 cups of chicken broth for the water and omit the instant chicken broth packet.

Ruby,
One of our local markets here in SoIndiana sells chicken livers for $.49 a pound in 10lb tubs. We love chicken livers but normally do the breaded and fried basic recipe. Thanks for that alternative!!

Low on dough? This is the way to go!

Red Beans and Rice w/sausage (or pork chops)

2 lb. good quality smoked PORK! sausage or some good chops

1 lb. dried red kidneys
2 tbls worchestershire
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp cumin (cumin, not chili powder!)
2 tbls italian seasoning
4 tbls olive oil
2 bay leaves

2 tbls olive oil
2 large YELLOW onions
1 large green bell pepper (if ya got money go for red)
3 stalks celery
5 (or 6 or 10) toes garlic
1 bunch parsley
1 jalapeno (seeded, don't forget)

Soak beans overnight in large (8-10 qt.) pot with first 8 ingredients

Coursely chop onions, b.p., celery.

Fine chop garlic, parsley, jalapeno

Put pot on stove (or in your case, sadly, the Foreman grill) without draining beans, cover and bring to a boil. Once beans come to a boil cut down to a medium simmer.

While starting beans sweat onions,celery,and bellpepper in olive oil. When onions are bordering on translucent, add garlic and cook for another minute or two. DON"T BURN THE GARLIC!

Add vegetable mixture to beans and add jalapeno

After you are done with the vegetables, halve sausage length wise and cut into 5 inch pieces (basically the length of two bites. You can cut it into bite size pieces, but the smaller they are the more they break up while browning and cooking) and brown. Remember, this is browning! You need to put them into the pan wide side down and BROWN. That crust is the key to pork goodness in this dish (You can cook the sausage on a grill as well).

Drain sausage and pat with paper towels. Add sausage to pot.

Cook on low simmer WITH TOP ON AT ALL TIMES and stir occasionally. These will take about 4 hours to cook (you will need to test as you go). When you are about a half hour from done add the parsley.

If you like your beans creamy, rather than "beany" scoop out a bowl full and mash and add them back to the pot. Or take one of those swell boat motors and mix them up that way (but don't do it in the pot unless you are trying to make red bean dip, which, if you have never had it, is pretty damn good)

Serve over rice with bread.

This whole pot of beans, even with reasonably good sausage, is not going to be much more than ten dollars and will freeze well. This will feed about 8 real hungry people or feed you about 8 times (or more if you go heavy on the rice).

The warning about the top is because beans, cooked for long periods of time, will scorch badly if top is left off. You can also put all of these ingredients in a pressure cooker and do this a whole lot faster, but that kind of defeats the purpose of "slow food".

This is a great dish and it is even better because you keep getting little reminders of your meal long after you are finished dining


Good luck

Originally posted by Mayhaw Man

Low on dough? This is the way to go!

Red Beans and Rice w/sausage (or pork chops)

This is my standard cheapie dish, Mayhaw Man. Although if I'm lucky enough to have bacon around, I use that as the grease & meat in the dish. And usually will use black beans. Add a splash of vinegar at the end. And hot sauce at the table. It's filling & good, and inexpensive. This was one of the dishes my mom used to make frequently. Its most glamourous presentation was as that New Year's Eve star, Hoppin John. Maybe glamour is the wrong word...

I never really got into this as much, but I remember eating a lot of 'Tuna Noona' ,which is your basic tuna noodle casserole with cheese & crushed potato chips/saltines/whatever ya got. Friends of the family made this a lot. Again, lots of hot sauce helps a lot.

My mom was pretty creative with cans of tuna fish. She used to make this stuff called Tuna Chow Mein...I think it was from a book called "The I Hate To Cook Book". Anybody ever hear of it? Anyway, it was canned tuna fish in a sauce with chopped green peppers served over those crispy chow mein noodles. I'll have to see if I can get the recipe from her and post it. She lurks these boards but doesn't post.

The Sundancer does not do beans. Too much pain for me. However I have used rice with everything to get a filler when I was in college. I would take a small amount with almost anything to make a meal to get me through the evening.

I really appreciate the Asian culture using rice with small amounts of chicken, beef, fish and pork along with spices to get by in life. I really like it.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

For the red beans and rice, ham hocks pack alot of flavor for almost no money.

Also, how could I forget my pantry staple, spaghetti? With butter or tomato sauce, a definite "can't even afford to walk into the store" kinda dish.

Fogwater,
If you like hoppin john you will love these things. The recipe is a little long, but not very hard, especially if you have afood processer. The only warning:do not use fresh peas, even if they came out of your mom's garden and they are the best things in the world (there is a very long story behind this and it mainly involves messing up a lot of peas and a lot of figurative egg on my face and the red ass if you know what I mean). These are basically like black eye pea beignets and we have had them for the last two years at New Years and a number of times in between.

BLACK-EYED PEA FRITTERS WITH HOT PEPPER RELISH


These fritters are called akara in Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and akla or koosé in Ghana. They're eaten as a snack, side dish, or breakfast, served with a hot pepper relish (ata). We think they make a great hors d'oeuvre.
Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 9 hr (includes soaking time)

For fritters
1 cup dried black-eyed peas
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh habanero chile, including seeds
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 tablespoons water
6 cups vegetable oil

For relish
4 red bell peppers (1 1/2 lb), chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh habanero chile, including seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 cup peanut or vegetable oil

Special equipment: a deep-fat thermometer

Soak peas for fritters:
Put peas in water to cover by 2 inches and soak 8 hours. Drain in a colander.

Make relish:
Purée bell peppers, onion, tomatoes, chile, and salt in 2 batches in a food processor.

Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then stir in purée (use caution as it will splatter). Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until most of liquid is evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool to room temperature.

Make fritters:
Purée peas, onion, and chile in food processor until as smooth as possible, then blend in egg and salt. With motor running, add 3 tablespoons water and blend until smooth and fluffy (add remaining tablespoon water if necessary to form a batter just thin enough to drop from a spoon).

Fry fritters:
Heat oil in a 4-quart heavy pot (preferably cast-iron) until thermometer registers 360°F. Working in batches of 8, gently drop tablespoons of batter into hot oil, using a small spoon to scrape batter from tablespoon. Fry, stirring constantly (to prevent fritters from browning too quickly), until golden, about 2 minutes, then transfer to paper towels to drain. Return oil to 360°F between batches.

Makes about 36 fritters.


Gourmet
January 2002

My no money and no time days led me to a tuna casserole which consisted of a can of tuna, a can of cream of chicken soup and a small can of drained peas, mixed together with wide, wide egg noodles. It's really rather wonderful.

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with a can of drained tuna mixed in was another fave. Or I would put together a batch of breakfast burritos--eggs, potatoes, refried beans, cheese, salsa, sausage, and heat and eat one every night until I was bored to insanity.

Another fave was steamed broccoli, steamed rice and black eyed peas with jalapenos. (not all mixed together)

Funny how I still love all this stuff...

Cheap bacon, oven-baked to crispy goodness, served with heavily-butterred white toast, many (4+) eggs, and maybe grits if I feel ambitious.

Biscuits with honey or jam, or pieces of ham frizzled in butter until the ham gets tough and dry (ie, turning wet ham into something more country-style)

Homemade mashed potatoes, with lots of butter (butter is almost always cheap at one grocery store or another up here), and hamburger gravy (milk gravy made from the hamburger drippings and fond, with the hamburger crumbled and mixed back in), with lots of black pepper.

Split-pea or navy bean soup with Misc. Pork Products (I like picnic "ham").

A budget/quick fave in college was something I think is called Tomago Gohan (sp?), which is hot rice from the rice cooker, with a raw egg broken into it and stirred until it sets, seasoned with soy sauce and chili paste.

If I'm feeling really pathetic, nothing seems to perk me up like tomato soup made with half milk and half water, and multitudinous grilled cheese sandwiches on white or sourdough (or cottony "Italian" bread from the supermarket), with a smear of mustard, toasted very low and very slow to a very deep golden brown. Sadly, cheese kills me, so it tends to make me feel even more pathetic, which makes it a suboptimal Comfort Meal.

Eric

My favorite (and frequent) North Carolina sustinence was a bowl of pinto beans with the inside part of corn bread crumbled in, some potatoes fried in a cast iron skillet and a big onion, sliced tomatoes (when available) and sauerkraut or turnip greens. We would take the crust of the cornbread, slather on butter and top with a slice of the tomato and/or onion. On Sundays (when my mother had time to cook, which she didn't have during the week because she worked in a textile mill) we would slice off some of the country ham from the 2 hogs we butchered every year, chase down a chicken, fry the drumsticks, thighs and breasts, make dumplings using the remaining parts of the chicken and eat like kings. The pintos were good for warming up 4 or 5 times if we had used a big pot initially, and they got better with each warm up as they softened and produced more pulp.

Even today, if presented the option between this meal and offerings from the finest, most highly rated restaurant or steakhouse, I would choose the mountain meal. My wife tells people that I prefer pintos to steak, and she is just about right.

Our household cheapo-nuthin-to-eat-raid-the-pantry-meal is:
Tuna Marinera:
1 can Italian tuna in olive oil(don't use the white stuff....tastless)
1 15 oz. can chopped tomatoes
2 Tblsp olive oil
1 or 2 cloves chopped garlic
2tblsp chopped onion
chopped black(kalamata) and/or green (cocktail)olives
a squirt of anchovie paste
a squirt of tomato paste
chopped basil
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes to taste

Saute the garlic and onions, add remaining sauce ingredients, and cook till thickened.
boil water for linguine, and add tuna to sauce. Serve over pasta with grated cheeze.

My college no-mo-money recipe was:
1 can refried beans
some salsa
some jack cheeze
1 bag of tortilla chips
1 quart of cheap beer

Put the beans in a small casserole, top with salsa and cheese, pop in the oven til it gets hot.
Open beer, and eat.

Hillbilly, you have surely described some fine eats in your post above. Only thing I'd change is a good mess of purple hull peas for the pintos (if available; if not, the pintos would be fine) and would add (again if available) some boiled okra. Vibration guy has described some really good eating, too.

Hillbilly - beans and cornbread, you can't get any better than that. The mainstay of my poor, college years was black-eyed peas and cornbread, thanks to my grandmothers care packages with her home-canned peas.

I ate nothing else for a solid week once, but I still love them!

I made this Grandma-ish staple last night...cheap, easy (hey this soup sounds tawdry) :) and you can add as many veggies as you want, canned or fresh:

Hamburger & Veggie Soup

Brown 1 lb. ground beef w/ some onion & garlic in skillet; drain.
Put beef mixture in large soup pot.
Add: 1 small can corn (can be fresh from cob)
green beans (fresh or canned)
peas
diced carrots
diced summer squash or zucchini
mushrooms
lima beans
diced potato
more chopped garlic
1 can diced tomatoes with juice
2 cans beef broth or bouillion
herbs/spices (I used fresh oregano, some red pepper flakes &
thyme)
salt/pepper/extra water, etc....

Simmer until potatoes are tender; about 15-20 minutes. Can cook longer on low heat if you want. Freezes & re-heats beautifully. Serve with cheese biscuits, or Saltines and slices of sharp Cheddar cheese. Thanks Grandma!

When times are tough, I buy bacon and pasta- that way I can make pasta carbonara on one night and pasta all'amatricana(sic?) the next.
Both are super cheap to prepare and so delicious that I feel like a big shot when I serve them.
pasta all'amatricana: 1 tbl olive oil; 4 strips bacon, chopped; 1 large red onion, diced; 1 clove garlic, minced; 1/2-1 tsp red pepper flakes; 1 28 oz. can tomatoes, chopped, with juice; 1/2 c. water; 1 tsp sugar; 1/2 tsp salt; pasta...Heat oil, add bacon and onion, saute til onion is golden. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook one minute, stirring. Add tomatoes, their juice, water, sugar, and salt. Simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened (about 30 minutes). Toss with pasta.

I'll second the carbonara, another family staple. Between that and our ceasar salad, we fly defiantly in the face of the raw egg scare. (I'll let you know the address of the local hospital, in case it comes back to bite us in the butt :0 )

I'll third the carbonara. It is an after soccer, can't eat until 9:30 staple at the Mayhaw Man household. We don't use bacon though, but a product very similar. In South Louisiana we have a pork product called tasso (usually shoulder or very lean bacon cut into chunks and smoked at very low temps for several days, Richards (Reeshards) makes a very fine easy to find commercial brand) that is a great sub for bacon or procuitto or parma or any other dried ham.

As far as the raw eggs go, I figure in the hot past they cook enough to not worry about them. At this point in my misspent life, I feel like I can live through a raw egg or two.

In fact, I am taking sandwiches to the Tulane game tommorrow night that use tasso as a sub for ham in spicy ham salad. Hopefully it will be a bit below the 95 it has been everyday this week. Supposedly it will be in the 80s this weekend (that's fall football weather here in the hot humid gulf coast)

Hillbilly: Where are you from???? That meal sounds EXACTLY like what my Aunt Margurite would fix us up at the farm in W.VA Sometimes if we were lucky we'd get FRESH fried chicken, and I do mean fresh!
Liketoeat: Ditto on the purple hulls! I'm waiting on a bushel of white acres right now, a pot of those with a few pods of sliced okra......mercy.

I also make a hamburger soup!
Simmer 1 clove garlic, 1 med. onion in small amout of oil till tender. Add 1lb ground beef, crumbled. Brown, drain. Place in same pot add diced potatoes, 1 can tomatoes, bag mixed veggies. Cover with tomato juice and 1c. water. One bay leaf, 1t sweet basil. Salt and pepper to taste. Simmer til veggies are tender. Rolls with butter or crackers.
I make this in the winter WITHOUT the potatoes and freeze it. When I 'm ready for some, I take a container out, put it in a pot on low heat, boil up some fresh potatoes, cook til almost done then add them to my soup. Freezing potatoes......YUCK! Unless, someone knows something that I don't.

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty246

Hillbilly: Where are you from???? That meal sounds EXACTLY like what my Aunt Margurite would fix us up at the farm in W.VA Sometimes if we were lucky we'd get FRESH fried chicken, and I do mean fresh!
Liketoeat: Ditto on the purple hulls! I'm waiting on a bushel of white acres right now, a pot of those with a few pods of sliced okra......mercy.

I grew up in the mountains in the northwestern corner of North Carolina, near Virginia and Tennessee (and stayed there for 45 years). I was referring to VERY FRESH chicken in my post. I would literally catch a chicken (young rooster) or two, butcher,"pick & clean" them on the spot and take them into the kitchen.

When I was little we would have lentils and pasta. Simply lentils cooked until soft, but not falling apart, mixed wih spaghetti that had been broken into 2"-3" pieces before being cooked. It's one lb pasta to one package of lentils. It was served a little soupy, topped with olive oil, and the best part, a bunch of carmelized sauteed onions. Poor food from Puglia, Italy.

We also had ziti and broccoli -- the preferred version was made with bacon and the garlic cooked in the bacon drippings. We always had it served with bread crumbs sauteed in olive oil until brown. I only learned later, the peasants used bread crumbs instead of cheese because they had to use the stale bread and cheese was expensive...

egg noodles with onions fried in butter & stewed tomatoes on top, you can slice up some smoked sausage & add it in with the onions while they are cooking, basic but filling & generally something the kids will eat.

Rusty, hope you've gotten to enjoy that mess of purple hulls and the okra by now - and that you had an onion and some cornbread to go with 'em. And I know exactly what you and Hillbilly mean about those "couldn't be fresher" chickens - catching, cleaning, cooking, & eating them!

I agree with Eric. My favorite cheap comfort foods are grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell's tomato soup with milk. Homemade macaroni and cheese is also good and a homemade milkshake. Fattening but so satisfying.

Hillbilly, you and I are practically neighbors, and from the vittles you've talked about eating, I wouldn't be surprised if we were even kin somehow, LOL. Pintos, cornbread, 'taters, onions, home grown 'maters...there's no better eating anywhere. Did y'all season the pintos with a piece of fatback? We did... I don't do that now, for obvious reasons, but that's the way real pintos are supposed to be cooked. I'd be willing to bet you've had country ham, homemade biscuits, and "pore joe" gravy for breakfast on a many of those cool mountain mornings, too. When grandma made the chicken and dumplings, she would make the dumpling dough and lay it out on the table to dry out, then drop it into that rich buttery chicken broth...oh yum, I'm suddenly starving!

quote:

Originally posted by skylar0ne

Hillbilly, you and I are practically neighbors, and from the vittles you've talked about eating, I wouldn't be surprised if we were even kin somehow, LOL. Pintos, cornbread, 'taters, onions, home grown 'maters...there's no better eating anywhere. Did y'all season the pintos with a piece of fatback? We did... I don't do that now, for obvious reasons, but that's the way real pintos are supposed to be cooked. I'd be willing to bet you've had country ham, homemade biscuits, and "pore joe" gravy for breakfast on a many of those cool mountain mornings, too. When grandma made the chicken and dumplings, she would make the dumpling dough and lay it out on the table to dry out, then drop it into that rich buttery chicken broth...oh yum, I'm suddenly starving!

Did we use fatback? Is a pig's butt pork? That was just standard fare up in Wilkes County. If we're not kin, our mamas learned to cook from the same books. And you can still eat like that for a lot less money than by opening cans and shrink wrapped packages of "pre-prepared" food.
I used to get some fine eats down Salisbury way, too. College BBQ out near the VA hospital (Blackwelder's, too), and some of the stuff that the Ketner's put on the table.
And it was interesting to read Michael's recent review of "Keaton's" out on Woodleaf Road near Cleveland, NC. Seems like the boy does know good food when he gets it.

quote:

Originally posted by Cosmos

I'll second the carbonara, another family staple. Between that and our ceasar salad, we fly defiantly in the face of the raw egg scare. (I'll let you know the address of the local hospital, in case it comes back to bite us in the butt :0 )

Back when the raw egg scare started I stopped using five raw eggs in my carbonara. I dropped to one and added the equivalent of four eggs with Egg Beaters. It was just fine that way. In the past few years, though, I've gone back to all eggs.