Split peas and some new veggies

Hello, all you cheap eaters!

Today we'll be talking about split peas (lentils in the next post) and a couple new veggies and veggie combos:

Split peas, (green or yellow) will cook without soaking in 35-40 minutes.  Sometimes I'll go ahead and soak for a couple hours, if only to avoid having to involve the blender when I make soup.

A very basic split pea soup can be had with just split peas, an onion, and some herbs:

2 cups split peas (soaked for a couple hours if you don't want to involve the blender for pureed soup).
1 yellow onion, minced.
3 cloves of garlic, pressed.
1 teaspoon of hickory smoke salt.
1 bay leaf
1/2 tablespoon of herb mix of your choice (my go-to blend is below).
Optional ingredients:  1 carrot,thinly sliced
1 medium potato, diced,
1 sliced rib of celery.

All I do is dump everything into the crock pot and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 8.  For a bit more flavor saute the onion in some butter or oil (or mix of the two) till they just start to brown.  Add the garlic and saute for another minute or two and then proceed with the peas and herb mix.

Please note:  If you intend to puree with a blender (stick or stand), make sure you take the bay leaf out first!  Little shards of dried leaf make for a very unpleasant dining experience.

Herb mix for split pea soup
Make a big batch and mix thoroughly, and use 2-3 teaspoons per pot.

Mix equal parts of the following herbs:
whole thyme leaves
dill
ground oregano
ground sage
black pepper
ground celery seeds
ground cumin
ground mustard seed
turmeric
and a half part of smoked paprika

If your "equal parts" is anything other than 1 teaspoon, be careful with the turmeric and paprika; experiment.

If your tastes tend more toward complex flavors and more veggies, try this version from The Dairy Hollow Country Inn Cookbook by a lady with the delightful name of Crescent Dragonwagon.  It's a bit more pricey than the basic soup but well worth the expense!

Spanish Style Split Pea Soup

Pam Cooking Spray

2 cups dried split peas  

2 quarts any well-flavored vegetable stock

1 large onion sliced

2 carrots, scrubbed and sliced

5 cloves garlic, peeled

2 bay leaves

1 box (10 oz ) frozen spinach, thawed

salt to taste

1/4 cup olive oil

3 onions, chopped

6 fresh tomatoes, chopped

2 T chopped fresh basil leaves or 2 t dried

2 T minced fresh parsley

freshly ground pepper to taste

1. spray a large soup pot with Pam and in it combine the stock, split peas, sliced onion, carrots, 2 cloves of garlic and the bay leaves.  Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low, and simmer, partially covered, 1 hour.  Add the spinach and season with salt (at least 1 tsp).  Continue to simmer another 30 minutes.  Let cool slightly and remove the bay leaves, then puree the soup in a food processor.

2. Meanwhile in a 10-inch skillet heat the oil over medium heat.  Add the chopped onion and saute until they start to soften.  

Turn down the heat to medium-low and continue to saute until the onions are wilted, another  6-8 minutes.  Turn down the heat further to very low and cook, stirring often, until the onions are caramelized, about 10 minutes more.  (watch so they don't burn)

3. Add the tomatoes to the onions, increase the heat to med-low and cook down until very thick, reducing the heat as the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat and put in the three remaining 3 cloves of garlic thru a garlic press and add to the tomato mixture.  Stir in the fresh herbs and plenty of freshly ground pepper.

4. Stir in the tomato-onion mixture into the pea puree and heat through. Serve at once, garnished with additional parsley or let stand overnight and reheat the next day.

Now, in my last post, I suggested moving beyond the same 4 veggies most of us probably depend on:  green beans, carrots, peas, and corn.  You can still eat these, but try some different preparations:  sauteed fresh green beans with garlic, pureed carrots and potatoes are two preparations I do quite often.  

There's a whole produce section to explore!  Cabbage, turnips, beets, kale, fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, and more!  And the best thing about vegetables (if you have the space, time, and gumption) is you can grow them yourself!  I've done green beans mostly; I love fresh ones and it's much cheaper to grow them than to buy them at the store.  I've got turnips in the garden this year, and really want to try beets next year (roasted beets are an entirely different experience than canned!)

Here are some of my favorite preparations (specific prep for all of these can easily be googled):

Braised red cabbage with apples

Sauteed turnip and red pepper strips

Sesame asparagus (not really that cheap unless it's springtime and even then it's a bit pricier than other veggies)

Roasted broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots (aka California Blend; I love this with an Arabic spice mix called za'atar)

Stir fried broccoli, carrot chips, and bok choi (another wonderveggie in the produce section; use the white stem and the green leaves)

For all sorts of ideas, visit this blog.  It's chock full of great veggie preparations.  Just put the vegetable name in the search box and go to town!  Promise yourself to try at least one new veggie per week.  You may find some new favorites!

Next time on Cheap Eats:  Lentils and dal (Indian style lentil and split pea stews).

Cheap Eats tip:  My local stores often have 10 lb tubes of 80% ground beef on sale for 19.99, which is 1.99 per pound, an unheard of price!  If you like pork (and especially if you're in Iowa), ground pork is usually quite a bit cheaper than beef; at my local store, it's 1.99 a pound, vs. $3.50 to $4.00 per pound for beef.   It's usually around 70 to 75% lean, so use it in recipes that you can drain the fat off.

  

Beans, beans; they're good for your heart!  The more ya eat, the more ya.................

....well, you know!

When you have a food budget of 40-50 bucks a week per person, it means you're pretty much going to be eating a whole-foods, veg*n diet. and that means beans for protein.  

Let me join the chorus of people who try to dispel the protein deficiency myth when it comes to veg*n eating:  There is no such thing as long as you eat a varied diet.  And by "varied diet" I don't mean the same 4 veggies you've always eaten.  You gonna need to branch out!  I'll write about veggies in my next installment.

Anyhoo, beans do have a minor glitch:  They are deficient in one of the essential amino acids, but as luck would have it, grains and nuts have this amino in abundance!  This is the reason behind the beans and rice of Louisiana, Puerto Rican, and Cuban cuisines and the refried beans and corn tortillas of Mexico not to mention the treat from Italy, Pasta e fagioli!

But I'm here to talk about cooking beans.

If you're eating on the cheap, the best option is dried.  For those of you whose bean experience has been strictly canned or frozen green beans and canned kidney beans for your chili, there's no need to be afraid of dried beans.  Just make sure you soak them before you put them on to cook.  Here's a basic bean prep that covers most beans (I'll discuss chickpeas in my hummus post, later on).

1.  Place a pound of dried beans into a pot and fill the pot with water, at least 8 cups.  Let them soak overnight/8 hours (in the fridge during warm weather).  At the end of the soak, split a bean and if you see a white speck in the middle (this is just the part that's still not rehydrated), that means you need to soak longer; give it another couple hours.

2.  Pour off the water (unless you LIKE the "musical" aspect of beans!) and rinse, then add in fresh water to about an inch or two above the beans, usually another 6-8 cups.  For soup, you'll want to add 8-10 cups.

3.  Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to a simmer and cook them with your choice of non-salt, non-acidic seasonings till the necessary softness, again depending on what you're using them for.  Once they're as soft as you like, THEN you can add salt and acidic stuff.  (NOTE:  There is a debate whether salt affects the tenderness of cooked beans.  Some people have a hissy about salt being put in before the beans are done; others say it doesn't matter.  The only bean I've added salt to at the beginning of cooking is the large lima bean and they come out fine.  Maybe one of these days I'll do some experimenting)

4.  If you want to have no-fuss beans, put them in a crock pot after soaking.  Just drain and rinse, and chuck them in the crock with the seasonings and 6-8 cups of water, and turn it on low and cook till soft.
   
IMPORTANT NOTE:  If you're cooking dried kidney beans (red or white) in a crock pot, make sure you pour off the soaking water and then boil them for at least 10 minutes at a rolling boil on the stove before you transfer them to the crock.  Let's let the author of this blog explain:  "Red kidney beans contain high levels of a toxin that occurs naturally in beans, Phytohaemagglutinin (also known as Kidney Bean Lectin.) If raw or undercooked red kidney beans are eaten…well, bad things happen. Let’s just say you’ll be getting to know the pattern of tiles in your bathroom very well.  For all the gory details, check here."  And believe you me, they're pretty gory!  I can tell you from first hand experience, it is NOT a fun way to spend the evening after dinner!
If you use canned kidneys, you'll be fine without boiling; the processing takes care of the lectin.

As I said, the above method will do for most beans you're likely to be cooking.  The amount of time needed varies with the bean, but usually around 45 minutes.  If you're in a hurry, do lentils or split peas; they don't need to be soaked and cook in 35-40 minutes.

Once your beans are cooked, they can be used for just about anything:  soup, salad, side dish.  My favorite bean for side dish (or even main dish) is the huge lima beans I mentioned earlier.  When you cook them in the crockpot, they break down and create a gravy-like broth that is heaven.  Cooked with a bay leaf and hickory smoked salt (or salt and a DASH of liquid smoke) and you'll swear they were cooked with a ham hock.  They're even thicker the next day!  A beloved aunt, now deceased, had these on the table for every dinner, no matter what.  Every time I cook and eat these, fond memories come flooding back.  Thanks, Auntie J.!

Salad beans need to be a bit firmer than soup beans and so will need to be cooked for less time.  Just drain the beans (save the cooking water to make veggie broth!!) and use according to the recipe.  

To freeze beans, just drain (again saving the cooking water for broth) and then place in freezer bags in 1 3/4 cup batches (the usual equivalent of a can of beans, but without all the sodium and other additives).   I use freezer bags rather then those square freezer tubs because flat bags are much easier to store in the freezer and also thaw much quicker.

Well, that's it for now.  I'll start with recipes in my next post.  See you then!

Cyprus diet

I call this my "Cyprus diet" because it's what I lived on while I was on a temporary duty assignment at the British base on Cyprus back in my Air Force days.

It's main feature is that it's cheap (or at least it WAS when I was there)!  Unfortunately, it's also kinda boring, so make sure you mix it up with the fruit and veggies.  It's also VERY high in sodium; to the tune of 1800 mg a day from just one item!  Thus, if you hae been sodium restricted by your doctor try something else.

Breakfast was the same every day:  A half a melon, plus 1 or 2 seasonal fruits in addition to an egg (mine were boiled because it was just easier) and a slice of whole wheat toast with butter.

Twice a day, for lunch and dinner, I had a packet of ramen noodle soup and a can of veggies (I know; ick, but like I said, I was going for cheap.  Anyway,  sub fresh or frozen if you want to) along with a grilled slice of Haloumi, the local cheese, which was de-LISH....and horrendously expensive as an import, so I usually sub in a half a can of tuna instead.  If you can get Haloumi near you, try it at least once.  It is truly amazing stuff!  It's so densely packed, you can just plop it on a hot pan and grill till browned on each side and it won't melt!

Here at home, I usually add a romaine salad with shredded carrots, radishes, and red onion slices for lunch, with a lemon vinaigrette.

You'll notice there's no meat.  Meat's expensive, so I restrict(ed) it to once a week, subbed in for the tuna, usually Saturday evening.  Here in Iowa, pork is subsidized, so I usually go for a boneless chop, but I'll mix and match if I can get it for a dollar or less for a 4 oz serving.

It all comes up to around 2000-2100 calories a day, and as I said, really cheap!  Like 30-35 dollars a week depending on what fruits you choose!

Sure it's probably not the healthiest diet you could eat, but its not a life-long thing to follow.

Cucalenco soup

I saw a request for lentil soup on a veg(etari)an group I belong to on Facebook, so instead of writing it there, I'm writing it here, so I can just give anyone the URL for this page.

So, here's my Cucalenco Soup (CUrried CArrot, red LENtil, and COconut)

1 cup of red lentils,
4 med  carrots, peeled, diced (reserve trimmings)
 2 med onion, diced (reserve peels and ends)
3 cloves of garlic, minced/pressed
14 oz coconut milk (regular, lite, or coconut beverage)
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
1 T curry powder
1 bay leaf
1" piece of fresh ginger, minced/grated

Soak lentils in 4 cups of water for at least 10 minutes;  drain and reserve soaking water.
While the lentils are soaking, prep the onions, garlic, and carrots.  Drain the lentils and add all the veggie trimmings to the lentil soaking water in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes then strain.  Measure out a 4 1/2 to 5 cups, adding water if necessary to make required amount (I usually make do with around 4 1/4 to 4 1/2).

Heat a soup pot over medium heat for 2 minutes.  Toss in the onions (NO OIL!  Don't worry; you won't miss it!)  and saute over medium high heat, stirring often, until onions start to brown, about 10 minutes, adding some water when the onions start to stick a bit.  Add the broth, lentils, carrots, coconut milk, 1 tsp salt and bay leaf.

Cover and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer partially covered, until carrots are tender, about 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile in a small skillet, heat 1 T oil over medium heat.  Add garlic, ginger, curry powder, and cilantro.  Cook, stirring often, until fragrant, about 2 minutes.  Add to soup.

Remove bay leaf* and in a food processor or blender, puree soup in batches (a blender produces a much smoother textured soup).  Taste and add a bit more salt if desired. Serves about 6.

*Make sure you remember to remove the bay leaf!  Bay leaf shards are NOT pleasant to swallow.  I can't remember how many batches of this soup I've ruined because I forgot to remove the leaf before I blended it.

New tech and card games

There's a lot of talk out and about concerning the death of social interaction among today's youth because of all the electronic goo-gahs that are available. Just sitting around and shooting the breeze is a thing of the past (supposedly).  I've seen it happening in my own life, but thank goodness I've been able to keep it at bay for the most part.

One "death" I'm particularly sad over is that of the "card party."   For you young'uns out there, people used to get together in the evening and play card games.  There'd be snacks and lots of "chewing the fat" or chit-chatting to go along with the card games.  We'd get to know each other a little bit better and have fun while we did.

So, for the benefit of the younger generations, who seem to have a phone or tablet or something like it connected to their hand, here are some card games that I like to play:

1.  Canasta.  there are plenty of websites that have the rules on them, so I won't reiterate them here

2.  Crazy Rummy.

3.  Euchre.  I particularly like Cornish euchre (not sure if that's the actual name).  You use a joker and it's the top trump card, even over the right bower.  After the second round of biddng for trump, if still nobody names a trump suit, the hand is played as a "no trump" hand with the joker as the only trump card.

4.  Kings Reverse.


Any others that people like to play out there?

Free (sort of) veggie broth!

Way back in March, I promised some postings about veg*n and cheap eating.  Since then the current events of the year (politics) have dominated my online life but now I'll return to the eating part like I promised!

Anyway, my parents used to trim up carrots, radishes, and celery for a "relish tray" which they kept in a Tupperware.....well, box is the only way to describe it.  Anyhoo, they (I assume) always just tossed the carrot peels and ends and the celery bits (you know the ones I'm talking about:  those dried ends where the celery ribs were cut to fit into the bags at the store, plus the--pardon my French--the white part of the ribs down at the butt end of the whole stalk) and celery leaves in the trash.  A while back, I realized that the veggie broth that I wish I could buy at the store, but didn't because it was so expensive, could easily be done at home with those veggie bits!

So, here we go!

Now, I know we all use carrots and onions in our cooking (right??), so when you trim them up, just save the ends and peels and stray bits in a gallon freezer bag plus any other veggie bits that are used during the week.  (One big caveat, though:  DON'T use anything from the cabbage family!  That's broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohl rabi, etc.  They produce a bitterness that just ruins things).  I've used radish ends, daikon bits, turnips (when they aren't waxed, which is rare where I am), and other veggies I happen to have used that week.
There are some prep hints though:
Carrots:  I use organic ones that are a dollar per pound at a local store, scrub 'em.
Onion: don't use the skins from yellow onions; they'll darken the broth and give a rather "dark" flavor.  I usually use white onions anyway.  Red onions in broth don't usually work unless you're making a beef or lamb dish anyway.  I usually peel away the outermost layer of the onion (it's usually a lot tougher than the inner layers) and use that as well.
Celery:  Wash the bottom ends of the ribs!!  And by all means, use the leaves!  That's the best part.
Garlic:  peels, ends, the mush left after you put a clove thru the garlic press, and I usually smash an extra clove or two for each pot of stock.
Lettuce:  Yep, lettuce!  Specifically the bottom of Romaine lettuce heads.  Just chop it off and toss it in the pot.
Fennel:  don't use this.  Licorice soup just doesn't sound appetizing!
Turnips:  I usually only use turnips in beef stew, so don't have much in the way of trimmings for a pot of stock, but it works fine if you only have 1 or 2 turnips' worth of peels and ends in a pot.
That's pretty much it, that I can think of.  By far, my veggie broth is usually just onion/carrot/celery with garlic.

Just toss everything in a pot with a couple bay leaves and some salt and pepper, and cover with filtered water.  Boil/simmer for 30-45 minutes and strain (the strainings are great for compost!)  I have a 4 quart slow cooker and just fill it with water till it reaches the brim.  After you strain the veggies out, run the broth thru a couple layers of cheese cloth or an ultra-fine strainer, and it's ready to use in your recipes.  I usually add enough water to make an even four quarts of broth and store it in pint containers in the freezer.

For chicken broth, it's pretty much the same recipe, except you add in the carcass of a chicken, of course.  I usually get a rotisserie chicken 2-3 times a month, and when I do, I just take the meat off the bones and put the bones, and skin, etc in with the veggies.   Yes, you'll have to skim the fat off if you're doing fat-free (refrigerating the stock works easiest; the fat just lifts off), but that's a small price you pay for some great tasting chicken soup!

Why "hate speech" must be protected speech

Youtube is a wondrous thing!
I watched a panel discussion with (among others) Milo Yiannopoulos a British GAY man, which discussion took place at  UMass, Amhurst on April 25, 2016, during which Milo gave the best example of the truth of the title of this blog post.

Milo spoke about the BNP, the British National Party, a far right (some would even say "fascist") political organization within the UK, which espouses racism, homophobia, and every other bad "-ism" that frightens modern day Social justice Warriors so much.  It was led by (in Milo's words) "a very odious character called Nick Griffin."

He told the audience that for a rather long while, the British media was "boycotting" the BNP; BBC did not report on their activities or opinions and neither did any of the British press.  The people of the UK heard NOTHING about the BNP or Mr. Griffin, the party's leader, other than the sanitized, out-for-votes, soundbits put out by the BNP itself, and thus the party won control of many local councils (the Brit version of city councils and county supervisor boards, etc), and they were growing and getting more control in more local councils, mostly out of anxieties of the public about immigration and the changing nature of local communities.

Then came the day when the media embargo ended.  The BBC had Mr. Griffin appear on the show "Question Time", an hour long discussion program.  As Milo stated, "as anyone with any brains at all would be able to predict the BNP evaporated.   When the British people saw what this guy who ran this party was really like, they stopped voting for that party.  A couple of years later, the BNP is no longer a force in British politics.  This is why it isn't just important to give a platform to ordinary speech, but it's important to give platforms to ALL speech, because 'sunlight is the best disinfectant'".

The best way to deal with people you don't agree with, with people with odious opinions and beliefs is the full glare of the spotlight.   As I've said before in this very blog, the only way to root out bigotry and prejudice and discrimination is the market place.  If we silence the bigots and the racists and the homophobes and all the other favorite "bad guys"of all good and decent people, then society, out of ignorance that they are doing so, will continue to give money and validation to these vermin.  Let them spew their hatred openly.  If they do it loudly enough (and we all know they will because they just LURVE hearing themselves pontificate!) and often enough, more and more people will know exactly what they believe and, more importantly, **Who. They. Are.**  then more and more people will cease their support of these bigots.  If it causes a small uptick in actual discrimination then that must be tolerated for the long-term benefit of getting these people out of positions of power in society.  Any worries about mass discrimination happening are baseless.  This isn't the 1940s and 1950s etc. any more.  There are vastly more people that are non-racist, non-bigots now than in the Jim Crow days.  Plus (and this is the important part) without government-sanctioned discrimination (Jim Crow was, above all,  a set of LAWS) there would have been much less discrimination in the 40s and 50s and early 60s than there actually was.  Even more so today, there are vastly more non-bigots around than before, so any fears of massive uptick in discrimination is just a steaming pile of BS.

You want bigotry and discrimination to stop?  Shine a light on it.  Expose it for the hate that it is and the good people will respond appropriately.  Hide it, cover it up, and silence it, and it will just fester and never go away.