I'm doing a crash course in frugality these days. So I'm borrowing pages from Monkey's playbook and patting myself on the back for today's grocery jaunt. For a single yuppie foodstamp (AKA a $20 bill) I think I probably netted close to 2 week's worth of groceries.
The dented produce bin yielded:
a Japanese Kabocha squash, a giant yam, or is it a sweet potato? , a russet potato, a pomegranite, a bag of apples, a head of cabbage, 3 large zuchini, and a small bag of artichokes. Total cost: $5.09.
The giant warehouse store yielded:
a 9-pack carton of sliced pork loin and 3 1/2 pounds (2 loaves) of high-fructose corn syrup free, whole wheat, multigrain bread. Total cost: $14.86.
Now I have to figure out what to do with the stuff. I've never cooked a yam in my life. I don't crave the orange vegetables. The mashy texture and cloying sweetness have always been a big turn off for me. But, I can put on the macho and figure something out.
The Epicurious website had two kabocha recipes that looked promising. The first was for a soup made with baked kabocha puree, the other is for a mash flavored with garlic and thyme. I could also follow my recipe for curried pumpkin soup, subbing in the kabocha for the pumpkin. Since I'm only cooking for me, I may just bake that sucker and make both soup and mash. I'm sure I'll have several servings of each recipe.
I'm still perusing yam recipes. I have 2 cookbooks dedicated to vegetable cookery, and a giant Deborah Madison tome of vegetarian cooking for most, in addition to the 69 other cookbooks on my shelf. There's gotta be something somewhere.
Meanwhile, I'm half-surprised I got the pork chops. I don't really eat pork unless it's at one of my semi-annual dim sum outings, or one of the heavily spiced, cured Italian sausages. I think I may have cooked a pork chop exactly once in my life. But I'm horribly tired of chicken, and I'm trying to reduce the amount of cow consumption. Since I'm busting out of my vegetable rut, I may as well try different protein options as well. At least from my reading, I know that pork, yams, squash and cabbage are said to have an affinity for each other.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
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6 comments:
Try this - peel and grate the sweet potato/yam/orange-fleshed tuber, along with a carrot or two, another root veggie of your choice (I'm partial to parsnips), mix in an egg (or two egg whites if you want to go low fat/cholesterol), a bit of flour and season as you like (fresh ground black pepper, sage and a bit of salt are good). Form the whole thing (or half the whole thing) into a roundish, flattish cake, fry it in a medium-hot skillet for seven or eight minutes a side (with a bit of oil or fat-free cooking spray, natch), serve hot and topped with whatever you like - applesauce and sour cream (or fat free Fage brand Greek yogurt, which in the opinion of Mle and myself looks, feels and tastes almost just like sour cream but is fat free).
Yams/sweet potatoes are good with black beans and ginger. Burrito fillings, soups, what have you.
Doo-liloo - that sounds like a root vegetable latke. Yes? I bought a carton of your fat free fage, but I remain dubious. Sour cream and mayonnaise have always been anathema to me. I remain skittish, but may try the yoghurt in one of the squash based soups.
Pork + potato can make a good vindaloo or random curry. Serve over rice.
Cabbage and apples makes some sort of eastern european dish that's usually served with pork, right?
all eastern european dishes are made with pork and cabbage. Fer serious.
For the sweet potato thing I like peeling and cubing it and roasting it with red pepper, garlic, rosemary and olive oil. Make it savory to offset the sweet. It would go in a pork curry too. Mmmmm....
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