But how to make stroganoff? (not a necessity of life, but a craving is a craving) Soy sour cream? We aren’t much for the strategy to replace a whole food product with one with more ingredients in order to accommodate new eating habits, so I opt to omit rather than replace. I had a 1/4 lb of ground grass fed beef and a 1/4 lb of oyster mushrooms and I wanted to sop them up with creamy(ish) egg noodles. Again, I looked for vegan strog recipes (save for the cow I was using) but they all used more processed products, not into it.

What I decided to use was the base for my tomato sauce sans tomatoes. Caramelize sliced onions in olive oil to be rich and gooey, use a small pad of butter with the mushrooms because they love it. A good amount of salt, browned meat and a chopped up zucchini from the garden seemed to do the trick.

Second dairy free noodle dish that makes an easy dinner and lunch for two is based on a sauce for broccoli from Farmer John’s Cookbook.

The sauce is 1/2 c of rice vinegar, soy sauce (I use tamari), grated ginger, minced garlic, couple tablespoons of peanut oil, and a bit of roasted sesame oil. I add chili flakes to the cooking tempeh (which I start first). I also steam the broccoli (from the garden!) separately to make sure it doesn’t ovecook. Something about the oil and vinegar in the sauce together makes it so the soy sauce doesn’t stick to the pan- a personal stir fry conundrum now solved. These noodles are definitely a splurge compared to brown rice. But with four meals it works out- be sure to rinse them before mixing with the sauteed stuff (tempeh, eggplant, oyster mushrooms, carrot, cashews, etc)

                          

I sliced them up, dipped the small slices in milk then patted them in half flour half corn meal with salt and pepper mixed in. Fried in olive oil, took maybe a minute.

They were so good there was no chance to photograph the result. This is to encourage you to try these for yourself.

                          

My first check up on my jar of not so briny cabbage (prepared using the Farmer John’s recipe) found a sweet and salty sort of dry mixture that tasted nice, but clearly wasn’t fermenting.

Since it seemed like it needed a boost to really get going, I decided to go more with the Alice Waters’ version and add some “brine” and cover it with a towel.

So I let it go like this for a few more days. Well…get ready scientists out there, we have some exciting results ahead…

MOLD!

Alice instructed to “remove any scum that may appear on the surface of the brine” and then taste. Well…I can’t imagine that this is what she meant, so I’m just letting this one go. This is terribly sad. I don’t know if this happened because it wasn’t sealed or because I omitted the part (still using the influence of the Farmer John version) with the weight on the cabbage keeping it below the brine.

We’re really disappointed, but hope to repeat the process being a little more careful. If anyone has any specifics tips, or have used either recipes referenced, pleased feel free to share your thoughts.

                          

For the most part the best food for you, whole foods (grains, beans, vegetables etc) are affordable. There is much discussion about this- clearly there are some highly processed, crappy food out there that is cheaper and easier, and maybe in the short term more satisfying than whole foods. But even just considering whole cost of health problems whole/healthier foods are cheaper. And I firmly believe, with the right knowledge on where to buy and how to cook, healthy with end up cheap.

Fresh, local vegetables direct from the farmer is the way to go. You are eating well and spending so little. But, I think it’s fair to say that most people don’t know how to cook vegetables in enough ways to keep them interesting and delicious. Also, there may be things in season that you have very little familiarity with. Or you may want to cook something in particular and find it not in season and not available. Also, if you are like me (or thankfully, were) and confounded or even turned off a bit by veggies or primarily veggie  based meals.

So these books have gotten me to a place where I understand the veggies I have on hand and can think of a variety of ways to prepare them.

A lot of the blogs and sites I’ve found on eating well on the cheap aren’t so helpful to me (which motivates me of course, because it’s my favorite topic). And even though I love the Get Rich Slowly blog, I think two posts he has up on this topic are almost irresponsible. This 16 ways to Eat Healthy While Keeping it Cheap really should be taken down, or just put somewhere else with the title “how to body build while on a college budget” or something. The first two tips (which could really just be one) is switch to water. Yes, good, of course. Some of the others like eating eggs, tuna in a can, and taking a multi vitamin are fine (you can get line caught tuna, but it isn’t something your should eat everyday). But these aren’t exactly the cornerstones of a cheap and health diet. Most notably because he eats frozen vegetables as a rule. I just really hope GRS takes this down because it’s simply isn’t good advice.

Some of the other posts there on food and eating are fine, but I think the concept is much simpler that these discussions admit. To cut and paste the quote of 2008 on food from Michael Pollan’s newest book:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

So what about this?:

• start with fresh local veggies: get a range from leafy greens to solid squashes. Have a list of what you will always have on hand like onions, garlic, and green- then go with what looks good and inspires you.
• then stock up on a variety of beans and other legumes (like lentils)
• Also have a good stock of a variety of grains from the instant pastas to the more lengthy rices then to flours that you can use to make breads, crusts, tortillas etc from scratch.
• Then fit in more complex protein sources. I eat a good variety of fish. I will buy a whole chicken to make stock to keep on hand and then have the stewed meat for a few other meals. Only grass-fed beef and only this and other meats occasionally.
• Avoid buying items that are “one use”. Make sure any packaged (including bulk) goods are able to be stretched over many meals. Figuring what packaged items you can manage to do homemade is a great adventure, from cookies to yogurt, bread to sauerkraut.
• Indulge in treats like a nice cheese, wine, desserts etc. Just keep them special by limiting. Start shopping by meal then fill in.

Bulk is beautiful!

                          

Sauerkraut:

Two of my favorite cookbooks, the Art of Simple Food (Waters) and Farmer John’s Cookbook; The Real dirt on Vegetables, have recipes for homemade sauerkraut, and both tout the health and taste benefits of fermenting cabbage and other vegetables.

(note: both books are excellent resources for a variety of veggie-specific recipes. Very helpful with things that are in season with which you are not so familiar and ways to branch out in techniques, like braising, gratins, unexpected baked-good ingredients etc…I personally really appreciate this format)

The process for fermentation was a little different in each book. I leaned more towards the Farmer John method as it was framed as very traditional and involved pounding, which sounded fun. Waters’ process was simple enough, more about “working the cabbage with your fingers” than pounding and then adding extra “brine” if the working with the fingers didn’t produce enough liquid.

Well, Farmer John didn’t say anything about the amount of liquid, just to pound until you got some. Waters says to add a salt water mixture if there isn’t enough brine to cover the cabbage and even to make sure the cabbage stays submerged by weighting it down with something (a rock or whatever).

So, in the spirit of experimenting. I decided to go only by Farmer John and just see what happened. I started with less cabbage than called for, but sort of thoughtlessly added about as much salt and caraway seeds. So we’ll see. I’ll check on it in a few days and report with the taste. After this batch is eaten or composted, depending on the result I will try Water’s version.

Cabbage cut fine
and fermented in a brine
Made of its own juice, with salt.

(So it seems a little dry, but since the recipe doesn’t specify I am trying it out without my own changes- I will check back in)

Wait! There is more cabbage ahead!

Braised Savoy Cabbage:

From The Art of Simple Food this cabbage dish is sort of perfect; savory, crunch,and open to variations- my favorite. I decided to go with one of her listed variations that browns wedges of cabbage in olive oil. Then add garlic, a bay leave, thyme, salt and pepper. Having just picked up some beautiful fennel at the market yesterday I wanted to try out using the stalks/leaves- so I chopped up one stalk and threw that in too.

Immediately the kitchen filled with an earthy sweet fragrance- I was sort of taken aback actually by how delicious it smelled so quickly. Some glugs of wine go in and it cooks for a little while. Then stock is added (or water, but I prefer stock, and at 4 bucks a box it’s cheaper to just boil a whole chicken).

The cabbage needs another 15 minutes to get tender. In the meantime I pan fried two chicken sausages. I can’t pan fry without ending up throwing in a de-glazing liquid of some kind (usually white wine) and finishing whatever was frying with a quick pan sauce. All sorts of brown bits stuck from the sausage. Waters suggests putting some red wine vinegar over the cabbage when done. Instead I put the vinegar into the sausage pan (after the sausages were done and on their plates. Scraping up the good stuff and hearing that perfect hissing sizzling of the pan sauce, I poured it all over the dished out cabbage. Boy, it really turned out well. The whole process was maybe a half hour.

My fiance had the wherewithal to put some mustard on the table and that was it. Some leftover bread with a little butter served well to soak up the remaining liquid on the plate- too good to let it go to waste.

Indicative of how fast this was to prepare, there are no pictures of the process…and I could barely take a photo fast enough to catch the final product before devoured.