4 on 4 Week 3

RECIPE POST: This is some sort of record in the Hagman House. This week, the entire grocery bill was $86. Can you imagine??? And it was a lot of food too boot. Now I'm still running ahead of schedule and if I'm honest I think that at the end of the month the bill will end up being around $500, unless I can convince everyone in my family to fast for the last week. Even still, I'm wildly proud of us all. We've been concious of what we've eaten, how much we've eaten. We've thrown out a lot less and have cut our grocery bill in half. I told you our grocery bill was obscene! I wasn't kidding. So even though I don't think I'll hit the $400 dollar mark, this has been a very positive experiment and I'm going to keep it going. Eventually, maybe I will hit that $400 dollar mark!.

Yummy things we had this week included Country Style Steak, mashed potatoes, steamed cabbage, pinto beans, Vietnamese Lettuce Wraps, Fajitas, Black Bean Salad (for which I've already given you a recipe), Salsa, Guacamole and the usual assortment of hummus, peanut butter wraps etc. Here are the recipes

Country Style Steak

6 pieces of cube steak, dredged in flour to which you've added salt, pepper and garlic powder. Use maybe 2 cups of flour because you'll need that to make the gravy
Olive Oil
Big Onion
Kitchen Bouquet
Water.

Lightly brown the cube steak in the olive oil. Add the onions, a cup of the flour mixture and cover the whole thing with water. Cover the pan and simmer making sure the meat isn't sticking to the pan until it is fork tender. Check on it for the first little while adding more water as necessary and making sure the steaks aren't sticking - or flour if it seems like the steaks are swimming. Once they quit trying to stick and the flour water mixture is a nice gravy consistency, you know you finally have the right ratio of water to flour. Look, this is serious Southern Cooking, there are no exact recipes, you have to feel it, which is why its called Soul Food! Depending on how thick the "steaks" are it can take 45 minutes or so until they are fork tender. Add the kitchen bouquet (maybe 2 Tablespoons) to darken the gravy, adjust seasonings eat. You can also make this with veggie burgers and its good, if strange, and I usually don't.

Lower Fat but still comforting Mashed Potatoes
5-6 Big Idaho Potatoes
1 onion slivered
2 stalks celery
1 big carrot diced
Salt, Pepper
Water
1/4 butter/margarine

Boil the potatoes and vegetables until everthing is super tender. Drain reserving the liquids. Using a hand blender blend it all up adding just teeny amounts of the cooking liquids until you get the desired consistency. Add the butter, salt and pepper. They are really good and without using milk or cream. Now some may squawk that there are orange carrot bits in them, tell them to grow up!

Vietnamese Veggie Wraps.
My whole family loves these in a way that's hard to fathom but they are refreshing, it reheats nicely and honestly they are good cold right out of the fridge. You can use rice paper wrappers if you want to go to the trouble but we like the lettuce crunch.
1 package Smart Food "Ground Beef" Original Flavor. http://www.lightlife.com/product_detail.jsp?p=smartgroundoriginal You'll find this in the refrigerated section, sometimes in produce. Don't use the Boca crumbles the texture turns out wrong
2 cans diced water chest nuts drained
1 Big Onion Diced
Olive Oil
1/4 cup minced garlic
2 in piece of ginger minced
1/2 a bunch of fresh cilantro minced and a matching amount of fresh basil and mint minced
1/2 package dried ricethread noodles cooked in boiling water for 3 minutes. Drained and Chopped
Dressing
6 TB fish sauce (if you can't find a vegetarian version let me know, I have a reasonable recipe)
2 TB Soy Sauce
1 Lime, Zest and juice
1/3 cup peanut butter (I normally use chopped fresh peanuts but we didn't have any so I substituted peanut butter and we all liked it better that way)
1 head of iceberg lettuce (look for one that is super light weight and loose feeling if you get a tight one you won't be able to seperate the leaves to use as wrappers.)
Carrot Shreds

Lightly coat a pan with olive oil and saute the onions, garlic and ginger until translucent. Add the Smart Ground, the water chestnuts and the rice threads. Stir to mix and heat. Add the dressing ingredients stir to coat all the ingredients. Then right before serving add the fresh herbs. Fill up a lettuce leaf, top with some carrot shreds roll up and eat. Serves 6 and if you add hot and sour soup you can go 8!

Salsa
16 big Plum Tomatoes, diced
1 softball sized white onion, diced
1 bunch cilantro minced
Jalapeno, habanero or what ever other chili you like in the amount you like
Cider Vinegar
1/2 package Stevia

Mix it all together and let sit. I think I probably use a 1/2 cup of vinegar but this is one of these things I just kind of "feel" it rather than measure it. You don't want it soupy but it needs to have enough vinegar to macerate the onions. For a tasty alternative add a big green pepper diced, a can of black eyed peas rinsed and drained and a small can of tomato sauce.

Guacamole
3 Ripe Avocados seeded mashed
1/2 cup of salsa (recipe above!)
Juice of a lime
1 Tb Garlic
1/2 tea salt
Put the garlic and salt into a pestle and grind until pasty add everything else and stir to blend.