Pantry Porn

This is my canned good pantry. I have all my dry goods in a slim tall pantry cabinet in my kitchen, which I will not photograph because even though I painstakingly re-organized it about a month ago, the kids have trashed it. I'm sure my canned good pantry will shortly experience the same thing. (Note: This is not the way I would have organized the canned goods, you can't see what's behind things. See that beige shelving unit? It's empty. I would have utilized that so I could see everything I had, like grocery store shelves. But beggars can't be choosers, the kids organized this with some supervision by Anastasia. It definitely is better than bags of canned goods on the floor, like it was before they re-organized it.)

Storm @ Confessions of A Psychotic Housewife posted awhile back asking for photos of pantries. So I'm a little late!

As a kid my Mom always had a well stocked pantry so that she always had basics on hand and didn't have to run to the store all the time. I've learned it comes in handy when I've experienced issues with delayed disability checks too. I always know I have food on hand. Last November when my check was delayed we had a full pantry and freezer to keep us fed. Had I not planned ahead, we would have been without food. Keeping a stocked pantry also helps me take advantage of sales too. I replenish items as they go on sale, so I'm paying the lowest price.

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009-2010

Chicken Cacciatore

I've had a taste for Chicken Cacciatore lately and since cut-up chicken was at a fairly good price I decided to made it on Sunday. Oh my! I've forgotten how good it is.

The recipe amounts are estimates, as I did not measure, I did it from memory from when my Italian Mom used to make it. Well, not exactly...I cheated and used canned Hunt's Traditional Sauce.

Lola's Easy Chicken Cacciatore
1 cut-up chicken (or whatever chicken parts are your favorite)
Olive Oil (a couple tablespoons for browning the chicken)
Flour (about 1 1/2 Cups for dredging the chicken)
Rosemary (about a teaspoon, crushed)
Basil (about a tablespoon)
Oregano (about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
Pepper (about a 1/2 teaspoon)
Kosher Salt (or regular salt, about 1 1/2 teaspoons)
Your favorite tomato sauce (about 32 ounces)
3/4 Cup Dry White Wine

Mix together the Flour, Rosemary, Basil, Oregano, Pepper and Salt thoroughly. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture. In a large skillet, heat Olive Oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken pieces to the pan and saute until brown. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Make your own sauce, or use prepared sauce. Pour into your crockpot. Adjust the spices if you like. I jacked up the canned sauce with about 3 tablespoons of garlic, 1 1/2 teaspoons of Basil and 1/2 a teaspoon of Oregano. Add 3/4 cup of Dry White Wine to the sauce. Stir thoroughly. Use tongs to transfer the browned chicken pieced into the crockpot. I set the crockpot for 4 hours and then turned it down to keep warm until dinner time.
(Sorry about the lousy photo. This was part of the leftovers. I should have taken the photo on Sunday, but I forgot.) I served my Chicken Cacciatore with fettucine, but you can serve it with your favorite pasta. (Sadly it was from a box, I had no time to make fresh using my pasta maker. I had to run errands all afternoon for my sick partner. Next time I hope to make my own fresh pasta to accompany this.)

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009-2010

Depression Era Cooking/Homemade Pasta...

This Homemade Pasta recipe in this post is from "Wisdom, Memories, and Recipes From The Great Depression - Clara's Kitchen" by Clara Cannucciari and her Grandson, Christopher Cannucciari. The name may look familiar if you've checked out her depression cooking videos on youtube.

A little book review before the recipe...I was a bit disappointed with the book. I was hoping for lots of depression era recipes, ways to stretch staples. Instead of that, there were colorful stories from Clara's past and not very many recipes. Of course she did include her Poorman's Dinner, which is a big hit with my kids. I also may try the Lentils with Rice. Many of the recipes I wouldn't even consider inexpensive. Meatballs, eggplant, caprese salad all call for expensive ingredients - beef, eggplant (unless you grow your own) and mozzarella balls (unless you make your own).

Homemade Pasta
1 1/4 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Large Eggs
Pinch of Salt

1. Add the ingredients to a food processor, or make the dough by hand, first pouring the flour into a mound on a clean surface. Break the eggs into the well and add the salt. With a fork, start working the rest of the flour into the eggs in the center. When the dough becomes difficult to work with a fork, use your hands to work the rest of the flour into the eggs. Knead the dough for several minutes, until it has a nice, squishy texture. You may need to add more flour as you go.

2. Cut the dough into six equal pieces and flatten each piece with a rolling pin. Pre the dough through your pasta machine, folding each piece in thirds as you roll it through. Keep pressing the dough through the machine until you achieve the desired thickness. After each rolling, lay out the dough on clean towels, making sure the edges don't touch. Rest them on the towels for about 10 minutes, giving them some time to dry out.

3. Pass the dough through the cutter of your pasta machine or cut by hand. Cook the pasta to the desired doneness and toss it with your favorite pasta topping. Just be careful, homemade pasta cooks much faster than dry. You really only need to warm it---probably not more than 3 or 4 minutes at most, depending on the thickness and shape.

I've been wanting to make homemade pasta for awhile now. This past weekend I snagged a Popeil Automatic Pasta Machine from my local www.bookoo.com for just $15. That's less than 1 meal out. I'll be honest, I'm a sucker for those infomercials and I'm amazed that I never did buy one when the infomercials first came out. According to those original infomercials (1990's), homemade pasta costs 25-30 cents per pound, a bit more now, but still a bargain, you can't beat the taste, and it's fun too!
Sunday night I made Chicken Parmigiana with homemade Vermicelli. The reviews were rave! We haven't had homemade pasta since going to a local (very pricey) italian restaurant. The meal at a restaurant would have easily cost $18.95 per person. Everyone in my family is now offering suggestions on what kind of pasta to make next.

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009-2010

What's for dinner when I don't feel like cooking?

Check my home canned stash.

BBQ'd Pork (also called Pulled Pork)
I got the recipe from Mom's Cafe Home Cooking - Homecanned Barbeque Pork. I did make one modification though. After the meat was done, I removed the cooked roast from the cooking liquid, pressing out as much liquid as possible, removed visible fat and then refrigerated the roast separate from the cooking liquid. This allowed me to remove the excess fat from the cooking liquid/sauce and remove any fat I missed on the roast. Then I shredded the roast with 2 forks, added the de-fatted cooking liquid/sauce, heated it to a boil, stirring to insure consistent temperature, and then canned per Garden Gnome's instructions. As you can see from my jar, very little fat.

When we opened the jar we spooned it into a saucepan, heated to a boil and served on white bread. (That's what we had, and since this was a last second meal, there was no time to make rolls with the bread machine.) This was just as delicious as if I had made the roast the very same day. Nice and moist and flavorful. I actually canned it last summer. Delish!

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009-2010

New Year's Eats

Some foods that are traditionally eaten on New Year's Day are Hoppin John and Smothered Collard Greens. Both are supposed to bring prosperity and good luck. I started making Hoppin John a couple of years ago. This year was my first attempt at Smothered Collard Greens.

I use Emeril Lagasse's recipe for Hoppin' John. Our son was a bit upset with me for not adding smoked sausage like I did last year. Oh well, you go with what you have and what you can afford, right? For the Smothered Collard Greens I kind of combined parts of 2 recipes I saw online. I made a lot so that I can serve the leftovers with ham on Saturday.

Lola's Smothered Collard Greens
3 bags of Pre-washed Collard Greens
1 Ham Hock
8 ounces of Bacon cut into small slices
Kosher Salt (a good amount, about a tablespoon, more or less to taste)
Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning (to taste, I used about a teaspoon) (You can substitute any hot sauce.)
Medium Size Red Onion Sliced
water

I started with the Ham Hock in about 3 cups of water and added in Collard Greens as they wilted and continued to add more as there was room in the pot.

In a frying pan I cooked the bacon until crisp, then removed and reserved. In the bacon drippings, I sauteed the sliced Red Onion until transluscent, but not yet browned.

I then added in some of the Collard Greens and cooked them in with the onions and bacon drippings. I then added the bacon.

Then I removed the Ham Hock (I added that to the Hoppin John) and poured the contents of the frying pan into the pot of Collard Greens and let it simmer. It's done when the Collard Greens are a deep green in color and are soft.

The Hoppin John is always a hit because my kids love all kinds of soups and beans. The Smothered Collard Greens I wasn't too sure of, however, our son went back to refill his plate with the Smothered Collard Greens 4 times! I'm hoping he doesn't eat the leftovers for breakfast!

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009-2010

Sfinconi

Sfincioni is like a cold Italian pizza. There is really no other way to describe it. I’m not exactly sure how my grandmother made it, as I never actually saw her, but this is my best guess based on how it looked and tasted.

Pizza Dough (I make pizza dough using the dough cycle on my bread maker.)
1 Can of Tomato Paste
Sliced Onion (sweet yellow or red onion)
1 Can of Anchovies (optional)
Olive Oil
Dried Basil and Dried Oregano (or Italian Seasoning)
Grated Parmesan, Romano or Pecorino Cheese
Cornmeal (for dusting the pan)

The dough is baked on cookie sheets (or baking pans of similar size). I make a pizza dough in my bread machine. (I have also in years past used the boxed pizza dough or the Pillsbury.)

Olive oil is drizzled on the cookie sheet and cornmeal sprinkled, before putting the pizza dough on the cookie sheet. The dough is pricked with a fork so that you don’t get large air bubbles when baking.

Brush the top of the dough lightly with tomato paste (not a lot, I think this was another way of being frugal, just a bit brushed on for flavor).

Sprinkle with dried basil and oregano.
Place slices of onion on top.
For those who like anchovies, add some anchovies over the top.
Grate a good quality parmesan or romano or pecorino cheese over the top.
Lightly drizzle olive oil over the top.
Bake at 400 degrees until done. (In a stove that would be probably 20 minutes.)
This is served cold or at room temperature.

It’s perfect for Christmas Eve because it can be made a day or 2 in advance. It gives the hostess the opportunity to join in the fun or go sneak off upstairs to wrap a few gifts.
It looks so good I want to make some today, but you have no idea how much time it takes to cook in a Nesco Roaster. I think 2 trays, cooking 1 at a time took almost 3 hours. We still don't have our stove hooked up. Between the holidays and the snow it's impossible to get a hold of a handyman around here.

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009

Superb Cowboy Stew

Now that the garden is on hiatus, I thought I would start posting some frugal recipes. I've reserved several books from the library on Depression era cooking and I can't wait for them to arrive at my library so I can check them out, try out some recipes and share them with you.

This recipe I got from Stephanie @ A Year Of Slow Cooking, which by the way is an awesome site for crockpot recipes. Stephanie got it from The Adventures Of The Headless Family.

I've made this several times and it's always a hit with our kids. In fact the other night night when I made this our daughter said it was 'great'. Then our son said "No, it's superb. That's better than excellent."
I made several modifications based on what I had on hand. First off, I was dividing a 5 pound package of ground meat. To stretch it further, I took about 3/4 of a pound and added about a 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of Oatmeal. Threw it in my KitchenAid mixer with the mixing blade on a low speed to combine it. (I then browned the meat/oatmeal mixture as usual. No one could tell I did this and it did not affect the flavor.) Then I mixed the rest of the meat in 3 batches with 2 Eggs, Oatmeal, Worchestershire Sauce, a bit of Catsup, Onion Powder and Garlic Powder and formed part of the meat into 1/3 pound Hamburger Patties using a Hamburger Press. I made 5 1/3 pound burgers and the rest of the meat went into a very large loaf pan for meatloaf.

I only had Diced Tomatoes with Onion and Peppers, so I used that.
No stores near me carry Ranch Beans, so I substituted Chili Beans. (Use the beans and the sauce.)
I used a 4 ounce can of El Zapato Tomato Sauce.
1 can of Butter Beans, drained.
1 Can of Garbanzo Beans.
A sprinkle of Cayenne Pepper Powder (about a 1/4 teaspoon.).
Instead of adding water I used the liquid from 1 can of Potatoes.
I was out of corn, so I skipped it.

Here is the recipe from A Year Of Slow Cooking:

Cowboy Stew

1 pound browned hamburger (can use turkey)

2 cloves chopped garlic

1 can tomato sauce

1 can diced Italian seasoned tomatoes

1 can corn, drained

2 cans whole baby potatoes, drained

1 can tomatoes with green chilies

1 can Ranch Style beans (with the baked beans in the grocery store)

1 cup water

sliced jalapeno peppers for garnish (optional)

This makes a lot. Make sure that your crockpot is at least 5qts.

Brown the hamburger with the chopped garlic cloves on the stove top. Drain the fat. Let sit in the pan for a bit to cool.

Open all of you cans, and dump them into the crockpot. Drain the corn and the potatoes, but add the rest of the can liquid to the crockpot.

After adding all of the can contents, add the browned meat and a cup of water. Stir with a spoon to mix a bit.

Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours, or on high for 4-5. Soup and stew tastes better the longer you cook it, so opt for the longer cooking time if you can.

Garnish with sliced jalapeno peppers, if desired. (Both the kids and I added lots of jalapeno peppers, but that photo didn't turn out.)

You can serve this with homemade biscuits or even better...cornbread.

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009