The Poor Cookbook: open face italian sammiches

Today let’s take a crack at a quick and easy recipe that has never failed to impress the ladies. Best of all it’s inexpensive and takes almost no preperations. let’s dive right in shall we?

needed:
avocados (fresh as we will be slicing them) x2
tomatoes (see above) x2
whole wheat bread (or your favorite bread)
Swiss chees (deli sliced)
thousand island dressing

First things first, lay out your bread slices (probably six for this size recipe) and apply a generous layer of thousand island. Next slice your avocados and put down a layer on each slice of bread. Repeat this process with the tomatoes (this can’t be tricky if your not good with a knife, takes practice), and finally end with the Swiss cheese.
Throw these into the oven on broil and let it go til your cheese is nice and bubbly and delicous. Depending on your oven, give it about 5 minutes, checking occasionally. Once ready, remove and serve hot. Makes a great side for a soup or salad meal.
Cost? : bread ($1 on a $2 loaf), tomatoes ($1.50), ovacados ($2), cheese ($1 on a $2.50 package), and dressing (you should have this but it’s usually about $2). Let’s say $6 for 6 slices. 2 slices makes a good snack or a small meal, leavin us at $2 per serving generously.

happy cooking

The Poor CookBook: Tortilla Soup

Today’s project is one of my all time favorite soups. It is also one of the easier soups to make, but does require some prep and cook time so be prepared for a little work to get this beauty ready for consumption. This is a more expensive soup to make but the results are well worth the price and the effort. Now accompany me if you will, on the journey of tortilla soup…

Ingredients:

1 Carton chicken broth/stock
1 carton beef broth/stock
1 can enchilada sauce (red, heat is up to you. i usually use medium)
2 Fresh Jalapeños
2 Fresh bell peppers
1 onion
2-3# chicken breast (tenders or whatever you like)
1-2 tortillas (finely chopped)
2 Ears of corn (or two small cans approx)

Garnish:

Sour Cream
Avocado
Corn chips
Chives (Green onions)
Cheese (mexican mix would be the obvious choice)

Before starting on our soup adventure we will need to cook the chicken. Here you have some options. I have made this recipe with grilled chicken and baked chicken, whichever suits your fancy will work here. For grilling i suggest marinading the meat for a bit to add some kick to it. I usually go with salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, lemon, lime, and cilantro for the marinade. Grill, mince, and set aside.
For baking, i rubbed the meat down with salt, pepper, olive oil, and crushed red pepper; then i baked it at 350 for about 20 minutes. Again when its done cooking you’ll want to chop it up and set aside.
For the soup we will put a stock pot on medium to medium high heat. Chop up all the veggies into soup appropriate sizes (nothing larger than a finger nail is good), make sure when dicing the peppers to remove any seeds. The seeds are where the heat from the peppers is stored, so if you want to kick up the temperature on the finished soup you are welcome to add back in some of the jalapeño seeds to taste.
Sweat the veggies a bit (this means saute’ for a few minutes to get some of the moisture out), then add in the broth/stock and enchilada sauce. You can also hit it with a little salt and red pepper to get the flavors melding together nicely. Let this come up to temperature (we are looking for a simmer here) then add the chicken, tortillas, and corn. The tortillas here will serve to thicken the soup a bit by adding flour and absorbing some of the moisture.
We will now let this medley simmer away for anywhere from 45min – dinner time. Ive cooked this soup as long as 5 hours before and allowed it to reduce, it only gets better. The veggies will get soft and mushy, if that is not your thing then don’t simmer the soup as long. Personally i don’t mind mushy veggies in soup so i let it simmer away.
I you would like to make a thicker heavier soup and keep the crisp veggies you can always allow the stocks to simmer uncovered and reduce before adding the ingredients in. This is another nicety of making this recipe is it allows you to control the consistency of the ingredients simply by adding them at different times or in a different order.

When your soup is to your liking, serve in bowls garnished with cheese, sour cream, crushed corn chips, chives, and sliced avocado. These things are not entirely necessary but they really bring out the soup and the traditions therein.
This recipe serves about 5 people, and can be frozen easily for lunches.

Cost: stock ($2.50/per), enchilada sauce ($2), assorted veggies (approx $6), chicken ($3.50-5), tortillas ($1.80), avocado ($2). I am leaving out the sour cream and cheese as they are garnish and should be on hand in the kitchen to begin with. This totals our soup out around $20, and at 5 servings they cost about $4 a piece.
Again a more expensive meal, but totally worth it and rather healthy. This cost can be brought down by reducing the amount of meat (or cutting it completely if your not into the whole meat eating thing), and/or getting canned veggies instead of fresh.

Happy cooking

The Poor CookBook: Mexican Hamburgers

This is one of the more racist dishes I’ve learned over the years. Just kidding, but seriously it always makes me feel a bit out of place mashing an American staple with classic Mexican preparations. I feel the ends justify the means with this one, as it is a rather tasty way to get your burger on. Lets dig in shall we?

Ingredients:

4 Hamburgers (Beef pattys to be specific. You can make them by hand, or the frozen ones work just as well. You could even sub in some veggie burgers if thats your thing)
Tortillas (burrito size)
1 Can refried beans
1-2 Can(s) green chili
Cheese

The prep here is pretty straight forward once you know what you are going for. Cook up the burgers, heat the beans and get your frying pan ready to… well fry actually. The next few steps are where the magic happens.
Grab a hot tortilla, throw some cheese and beans in there, right in the center, then plop down the burger patty, fold around the tortilla shell to close, then toss in onto the pan and begin pan frying the exterior. Once the shell is well browned on both sides, transfer to a plate and smother in green chili.
I usually garnish with a bit of cheese here, sour cream, and maybe some cilantro if you want to get fancy. For being quick and relatively easy this is a great crowd pleaser.

This recipe is (obviously) for about 4 wraps, ie: 4 people.

Cost: Burgers @1/4# ($2.50), tortillas ($1.80), beans ($2), green chili ($3), cheese ($2.50). Now, we are using half a package of tortillas and partial package of cheese, so lets call the total at about $9.50 being generous. With four servings that puts each plate at about $2.30.

Now thats an affordable poly-ethnic delight

The Poor Cookbook: Beef and Buiscuits

So the traditional recipe is creamed hamburg and drop biscuits. Its basically beef gravy and biscuits. I made this dish for the first time completely wasted and still made it out right. So here it goes:

Creamed hamburg:

1 onion
6 Tbsp Flour
2 Dashes Worcestershire
4 knorr beef boullion cubes in 1/2 cup hot water
1 1/2 cup of milk
1.25-2 lbs ground beef

Chop onion and fry until soft then set aside. Brown beef and add onion. add flour, and bullion. Add milk and simmer until thick. You can add some salt and pepper to taste, i used garlic pepper and sea salt. turned out rather well.

Biscuits:
2 C flour
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup Crisco or butter
4 t baking powder
2/3 c milk
1/2 t cream of tartar

Mix them by hand in a large bowl, dollop onto a cooking pan and throw it into a 425 degree oven until golden brownish. you are good to go.

To serve crumble up 2-3 biscuits into a bowl and add the gravy beef to taste. This should serve 3-5 people. In the beef mix you can add extra milk and flour til you get the desired consistency. The concoction will taste a bit overpowering but mixes well with the biscuits. For a little kick add some hot sauce and cheddar when you serve and MM MMMM is it tasty.

Cost analysis:
2 lbs of beef at a local king sooper comes out to $6, assorted ingredients should total less than $.50 per serving making your cost per serving $2.00 or less per serving and youll have leftovers. Its rather delicous

happy cooking

The Poor Cookbook: Breakfast Wraps

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That being said i usually skip it due to time constraints. But if i end up with a spare 5-10 minutes i can make a cheap easy meal to go that we all know and love, breakfast wraps.

Needed:

Eggs (2-3)

Cheese (shredded or whatever)

Bacon (2 slices)

extras (veggies like diced onion, potato, etc)

First step is scramblin our eggs. If you dont know how to do this you probably shouldnt be near a stove top. But for sake of being thorough; crack your eggs into a bowl, take a fork and whip that sh*t til its a uniform color/consistency. At this point you can beat in some milk (i like whole) to taste, and i usually add my salt here (Janes Crazy salt is a must).
Heat your pan til about medium/medium high, butter evenly, and add eggs. You can swish your eggs around til they are all cooked or for the more advanced cooks try to keep the eggs combined by cooking one side completely then flipping to the other. This will make plating them and eating them easier. During the final stages of cooking add your cheese on top of the eggs giving it some time to melt.
Its a good idea to have the bacon frying on the side so this all finishes at the same time, but if you dont have a spare pan to do so just pop the eggs in the oven til your bacon is done.
Now arrange in a tortilla, fold and go. If you decided to fry up some veggies in the interim now would be a good time to add them.

Cost analysis: Tortillas (16 pack) ~$3, eggs $1.75 (12), bacon ~$2, and cheese ~$5 (2-3 packs). Now again we are not using the entirety of any of our ingredients, and through proper application of mathematics we can conclude each wrap will cost about $1.15 per 3 egg wrap.

The Poor Cookbook: Quesadillas

Lets take a look at another college food staple, quesadillas. Its cheap, easy, and rather fulfilling to make these at home with the right tools and foresight when purchasing ingredients.

Needed:

Tortillas (bigger the better)

Cheese (shredded works best but deli but will work)

Meat (i usually use diced ham, lunch meat works as well)

Pan

Butter

So making these is pretty straight forward. Heat your skillet to medium or just above, throw some butter on and follow it with a tortilla. Now you have to make a decision; you can either A) make a half size by folding this one tortilla in half, or B) make a full size by topping this tortilla with another and flipping the whole thing over which takes some skillz.
Depending on your size decision lay down your first dusting of shredded/sliced cheese. For half size sprinkle cheese over approx half the tortilla (duh) or for full size go crazy with it. After your first layer of cheese is down apply the meat to your liking (thats what she said), and then top it off with some more cheese. Having cheese top and bottom will keep our ingredients in the quesadila whilst turning it.
Now comes the fun part, brown the tortilla on the first side. If your making a halfy you will want to fold the tortilla as soon as all your ingredients are down, for a full size obviously there is no folding. On the half size once your first side is brown flip her over and repeat this process (you may want to add somemore butter to keep the shell from burning). The full size is a bit more challenging. Toss on the second tortilla and prepare to flip. My method here is to take a plate, set it carefully onto the quesadilla (fingers + hot skillet = pain) then pick up the skillet by the handle and flip it over so the quesadilla is plated. It is now rather simple to re-butter the pan and transfer the quesadilla from the plate back to the skillet to brown the other side.
Whatever path youve chosen we should now be looking at a delicious meal, hot and ready to be consumed. Now for our cost analysis:

Package of 12 burrito size tortillas ($3)
Diced Ham ($3)
Cheese ($2-5)

Now we are only using a max of 2 tortillas per meal, which is 6 meals from one package making our tortilla cost $.50 per meal. If we assume our ingredients will be used evenly then the meat and cheese will follow suit, leaving us at approximately $1.50-$1.75 per full size quesadilla. Thats a tasty value.
Of course this recipe has alot of room for experiment. Personally i like to throw in some pepper jack cheese, and all color of lunch meat can be substituted for variety. If you want to dice up some union or tomato into the mix that is always welcome, and of course when this meal is plated i suggest a good spoonful of sour cream and salsa to match. These extras are also extra $$ but well worth the investment.

Happy cooking

The Poor Cookbook: Hot&Sour Ramen

Ah ramen, the staple of college diets nationwide. coming in at a steady 12 cents per package or $3 for 12 packs at most local convenience stores, this dirt cheap stomach filler will be keeping students alive for years to come. Acknowledging this fact Ive decided to offer some easy home recipes to spice up your ramen experience.

Hot & Sour

1-2 packages of ramen
1-2 tsp of cholula (or similar hot sauce)
1-2 tsp of Ketchup (to taste)
1-2 tsp Franks Red Hot

Prep here is pretty straight forward. Cook as directed on the package. Pour out as much of the cooking water as necessary to give a full flavor from the flavoring included with the ramen. I used the chicken flavor, its my favorite.
Add your flavoring and various spices. Ive tried variations with Crushed Red Chili and dashes of garlic pepper/salt. All provide plenty of warmth to the soup. The Ketchup is a good counter for the heat, and adds a distinct tang to the broth (hence sour).
Of course you can experiment with this recipe by combining different spices in the broth to create new variations (soy sauce or teriyaki for an asian kick, seaweed, deli ham, etc). You also have the option of any ramen flavor and combination there of.
For instance, one could mix a chicken package and a beef package, then hit it with some garlic pepper and enchilada sauce for a kind of mexican concoction. Let your imagionation go.

Happy cooking