Thrifty Adventures: The Great GoogaMooga

Hello Friends-

Over the next few months there are tons and tons of food festivals and events happening everywhere. I’m going to start using thrifty foodies to point out a few of them and how to navigate the scene with a thrifty eye.  Here’s the first of installment of our newest feature on Thrifty Foodies, Thrifty Adventures.

I want to call your attention to a lovely festival happening next weekend in NYC: The Great GoogaMooga Festival. What in the world is GoogaMooga you may be asking yourself?  It’s beings self-described as:

The Great GoogaMooga: n. an amusement park of food & drink; adj. something wonderfully great; excl. “oh my goodness!” or “how bout that!”

It’s happening May 19-20 in prospect park, Brooklyn and will feature 75 food vendors, 35 brewers, 30 wine makers, and 20 live performances. The best part of the whole thing is they gave away FREE tickets!  I’m super excited to be attending and checking out the smorgasbord of food options that will be there. As a thrifty foodie I need to point out that sometimes we all can’t eat at home every single day. For those of you in larger cities, food carts are a delightfully thrifty(and often gourmet) option without breaking the bank. I’ll be reporting back with some of my favorite finds next weekend but until then why not check out their website yourself!

If you go:

The Great GoogaMooga Festival

May 19-20, 2012

11am-9pm Saturday

11am-8pm on Sunday

Prospect Park, Brooklyn NY

http://www.GoogaMooga.com

Happy Monday!

~Charlie

Mini Muffin Quiche

Oh hello friends! I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend with your families. I ended up going to Philly to spend the day with some family friends but a little problem was creeping up on me. You see when you’re an actor in NYC sometime the work is infrequent so you have to keep a survival job on the back burner. Most of us have a wretched survival jobs in retail. I have a pretty lovely one and am so thankful that they play nicely with my met opera and auditioning schedules BUT this past weekend was black friday…which means they OWN you all day friday. Someone high up in our store decided that a pot luck would be a great idea for the morning. In theory it was but in execution it was not. Having people with a commute of at least 45 minutes  and a 6 am shift lends itself to everyone bringing a dozen doughnuts and calling it a day. I knew that I would want something for breakfast but  it needed to be tiny so that you could grab it in between fighting off out of control black friday clothing shoppers. Here’s a recipe for quiches made in a mini muffin tin that worked so well for an early morning pot luck.

 

 

 

Mini Muffin Quiche

4 eggs

1/4 cup half and half

1/4 cup cheddar cheese

1 package crescent rolls

 

Whisk together your eggs and half and half until you have a consistent mixture. Season with a few grinds of sea salt and pepper. Roll out the crescent dough and press together where the dotted line seams for normal crescent rolls are in the dough. Using knife cut the dough into tiny squares that will fit into your mini muffin tin(about 1 inch x 1 inch). Grease a mini muffin tin and push each square into the muffin slots leaving an indentation for your quiche filling. Fill each “muffin” with a generous pinch of cheese and top off with the egg mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until eggs have set. 

 

Chicken Divan

Happy thanksgiving week everyone! Whenever I’ve got a big week ahead of me I always like to make something delicious for the week ahead of time that will last a few meals. Casseroles. Simple and delicious- Every southern ladies favorite past time…and we all know that everyone has a southern lady deep down inside of them just itching to come out and play. When I get to the beginning of the month and I’m anxiously waiting for my ridiculous NYC rent check to clear I tend to be pinching pennies when it comes to food money. This family recipe is one my mom used to make every week or two growing up and it brings back such fond memories of family dinners in Georgia. It costs just under $10 to make and will last days (and even tastes better after a day in the fridge)

Chicken Divan

2 cans of cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1-cup light mayo

1 tbs lemon juice

1/2 bag frozen broccoli

1/2 bag frozen mixed veggies

1 cup diced cooked chicken

1/2 cup breadcrumbs

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 stick butter or butter substitute melted

 

Preheat oven to 350. Layer the veggies and chicken on the bottom of a square-baking dish. Mix together the soups, mayo, and lemon juice. Pour the mixture on top of the chicken. Melt the butter and mix together with cheddar cheese and breadcrumbs in a small bowl. Pour the breadcrumb mixture over the top of everything and spread out evenly. Bake for 35-45 minutes. Serve over rice.

This dish is super simple to make. I didn’t have any store bought bread crumbs so I ended up toasting a few pieces of old bread until they were super hard and then putting them in the food processor. Enjoy and have a sensible and thrifty thanksgiving!

~Charlie

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

This past weekend I had a houseguest up to visit me from Atlanta. As most New Yorkers know, having company can get very expensive. Besides hitting up all of the tourist attractions you’ve seen a million times, ultimately you end up eating out way more normal NYC living. I’m always SO thankful when a friend comes into town with a realistic view of wanting to know with its really like to live in this concrete nightmare. I always try to make a point to cook for my out of town guests in order to give a reality check of what living in the city is really like. It’s not at all as glamorous as your vacation and my Facebook status makes it seem–

This past weekend my vegetarian friend came to stay with me and I was excited to recreate a stuffed peppers recipe I had made for her the last time she was in the city. I used morningstar meat crumbles which taste exactly the same as ground beef but have way less fat content(and we all know that’s an important fact if we’re going to get to ‘project birth weight’ skinny right!?)

Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers
4 green peppers
3/4 cup Panco bread crumbs
1 lb ground beef or meat substitute
1 egg
1 cup Mexican blend cheese
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 plum tomato, diced
1 packet taco seasonings

Preheat oven at 325 degrees. Brown your meat in a skillet(draining the excess fat if necessary). Return to heat and add in taco seasonings following directions on the packet. In a bowl combine meat, egg, cheese, bread crumbs, beans, and tomato.  Cut off the tops of your peppers. Using a spoon, scrape out all of the inner white ribbing and seeds of the peppers. Fill each pepper with your mixture and bake in a square dish for 30-45 minutes until the tops are browned. Add some more sprinkles of cheese to the top and melt it for 5 more minutes. 

 

These peppers are super easy to prepare and leave you with time to spend with your guests. When you go to the store to pick your peppers you may be wondering about the differences between the green, yellow, and red varieties. I wondered the same thing actually because they were all at different price points.  A quick search on wikipedia shows that “Green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow or orange peppers, with red bell peppers being the sweetest.”…. Who Knew?! So tailor your recipe to how much sweet or bitter peppers your taste buds feel like dealing with 🙂

Happy Cooking

~Charlie

Pumpkin & Blueberry Pie Inspired Cookies

Living in New York and being borderline poverty stricken doesn’t really give you many reasons to celebrate—except for holidays. Fall is just the beginning of my favorite trio of holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. All holidays quasi focused on food and entertaining with friends. I love throwing a good ol fashioned southern charm holiday party. This past Christmas my friend (and future roommate) Jonah brought me the most interesting cookie combination- pumpkin cookies. These little treats had a soft cake-like consistency on the inside but were almost crunchy on the outsides. Now that it’s fall (and you can find something pumpkin at every Starbucks you pass on the 5 block walk to the subway), I figured it would be a perfect backstage treat to take to the opera. These cookies were gone long before the curtain even rose!

When 30 pumpkin pecan chocolate chip cookies disappear in 10 minutes you know you’re onto something… I started to muse about what other pie fillings could work with a fusion of chocolate chip cookies. One of my favorite impulse buys from trader joes has to be the chocolate covered powerberrys… I love that strange taste of chocolate and blueberry. Naturally it was the first thing I thought about as I stood in the baking aisle looking lost at the pie fillings. Blueberry chocolate chip cookies? Why not!?  SO of course i went on an adventure, had some friends over to be my ‘test subjects’, and started to create some Pie inspired cookies.

To begin you’ll need to follow that basic cookie recipe we all remember from our childhood(or as my sister and I called them- ‘santa cookies’):

Basic Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes around 24-30 cookies)

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 stick butter softened
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp Vanilla 

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup milk chocolate chips

 

For your “pie variations”:

Pecan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/2 cup pumpkin puree 

1/2 cup chopped pecans

 

Blueberry Pie Chocolate Chip Cookies 

1/2 cup Blueberry Pie Filling

1/2 cup Trader Joes Powerberrys

 

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Assemble the dough like normal. Using a hand mixer beat the butter until it is smooth. Add in the sugars until everything is crumbly and incorporated.  Add in the egg, vanilla, and you’re choice of pie filling and blend. In a separate bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda, and any remaining spices. Slowly incorporate them to your batter making sure you don’t go too quickly or you will have flour ALL over the kitchen. Stir in your chocolate chips and whichever additions you have chosen(pecans or powerberrys).

Bake for 16-20 minutes or until things are looking crispy. They will have almost a muffin like consistency in the middle. Cool for 2 minutes and enjoy!

 

 

I was so pleased with how each version turned out that I may experiment with cherry filling next time—-or figure out how to make strawberry pie filling? But for now 2 batches of cookies within a week is way too much for my planet fitness membership to handle! 

~Charlie

 

 

 

Spiced Corn and Summer Squash Empanadas

I cooked these about a month ago and somewhere they got lost in the mix. You could easily substitute ground beef or any other filling into these since its about to be really hard to find summer squashes… I absolutely promise that i won’t post many more of these super complicated recipes on here 🙂

Sometimes I get a little TOO adventurous in the kitchen. I have a group of friends that get together every few weeks to read plays. After the first week I managed to trick everyone into thinking it was going to become a potluck too—because who doesn’t love an excuse to get together and eat? So I had made it my personal goal to top myself every week with whatever side or main dish I was bringing to the meetings.  We’ll usually pick a food theme and this particular week was Mexican Food….So what do i decide to make. Empanadas? Really? ..not even full sized ones. Baby tiny bite sized ones !?!

These tiny nightmares ended up taking WAY more time than i had anticipated (i took them out of the oven 2 minutes before leaving) but were absolutely delicious and the hit of the party…but if you’ve got a few hours to spare and are up for a pastry challenge go for it!

Part 1: Making The Dough(recipe from BGSK):

Empanada Dough:

2 1/4 Cups Flour

1 1/2 TSP Salt

8 TBS cold butter cubed (or smart balance which i used)

1 egg

1/3 cup cold water

1 tbs white wine vinegar

 

in a large bowl combine Flour and Salt then rub the butter into the mixture with your fingers until its a combined. It will have the consistency of bread crumbs.  In another bowl beat the egg, cold water, and vinegar and then incorporate into the flour butter mixture. sprinkle flour onto a cutting board and transfer the dough kneading for about 3 minutes until it comes together. Form it into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours

 

Part 2: Making The Filling

Spiced Corn and Summer Squash Filling

1 Can of Corn

1 Summer Squash sliced into thin rounds

Bunch fresh Cilantro

1/4 teaspoon Cumin

1 teasoon lime juice

1 clove garlic

1 small plum Tomato

1 small red onion

dash of roasted red pepper (if you’re into heat)

 

Pretty much you put everything but the lime juice into a frying pan with 2 tbs of olive oil and sauté it until the flavors have had a chance to meld. Season with fresh ground pepper and salt.. Add in the lime juice and transfer to a bowl to cool

 

Part 3: Putting It All Together

 

Here’s where things start to get complicated and messy. Flour your working surface and roll out your dough out so its around 1/8 inch thin. I used a pint glass as my cookie cutter to make the rounds of dough. Cut out a round of dough, place a spoonful of filling in the middle, fold it in half and then seal it by using a fork to crimp the two sides of dough together. This part will take a few tries to get the hang of but eventually you’ll figure out the way to make these nightmare pastries stay together until they get in the oven.  Once you’ve spent over an hour making 2 cookie sheets full of little pastries make an egg wash by combining 1 egg and a splash of water together. Brush the top of each empanada, make a few slits across the top of each one, and cook for 18-25 minutes at 400 degrees

 

They were somewhat worth all the time and effort. At least they look like the real thing? I served it with some warm spicy salsa with cheddar cheese and sour cream mixed into it. I think next time I’ll be leaving the pastries to the pastry chefs. 

 

Happy Cooking!

~Charlie

Veggie Crockpot Lasagna

The Italian Marketplace in Bronx, NY.. Sensible Prices and a Killer Lunch that tasted almost as good as being in Italy...

Oh Hello! Last week i had an unexpected few days off from survival job, my show at the met opera, and my random television work schedule so i went on an culinary adventure up into the Bronx.  Well actually i went to the zoo but when i got hungry i was NOT paying $9 for a grilled cheese that had been sitting under the warming lamp all day being neglected…. After some quick searching for the best food in the bronx via Time Out NY I realized that I was a frightening 8 block walk through the bronx from Little Italy.  SO off I went from the Bronx Zoo’s Congo Rainforest to East 187 Street and Arthur Avenue.  The Bronx’s Little Italy….Eventually I ended up in an Italian Market complete with dried food hanging from the ceiling, a man selling hand rolled cigars, gelato, and the most quaint hole in the wall cafe where I had

a most delicious and thrifty $10 lunch(----more than enough for dinner leftovers)

the most delicious and cheap lunch of Gnocchi Bolognese(for under $10). Surrounded by a crowd of italian speakers It was definitely the Eat Pray Love moment of my week.  Knowing very well that I was having a small gathering of my opera castmates over to dinner the next night I decided what a better way to spruce up my italian meal than to buy from the source itself 😉

….Let me just start by saying: you’re going to get tired of reading all of my crockpot recipes because there are a whole bunch coming up. It really is my favorite way to cook when i’m super busy running all over manhattan and still want to eat something when i get home with minimal effort.  SO this brings up Crockpot Lasagna…. You’re probably saying “you can make lasagna in a crockpot?”..because that’s exactly what I said and what everyone else says whenever i make this for people. I just love this recipe because its quick, yummy, and can feed a whole bunch of people. It has become my go-to whenever I’m having a dinner party with a new group of people who haven’t had it before. I’ve modified the original recipe that i got from A Year Of Slow Cooking to be Veggie Friendly because you never know what kinda dietary paths you’ll cross when you’re cooking for new friends…

Crockpot Veggie Lasagna

1 Box of Lasagna Noodles

2 Jars of Pasta Sauce

1 Eggplant (sliced into thin slices)

1 Bag Frozen Broccolli

1 Pint Mushrooms

—-pretty much any other veggies you have laying around. I’ve thrown in summer squashes and peas before too

16oz Mozzarella Cheese

1 Container of Ricotta Cheese

 

In a 6 quart Crock Pot pour some sauce onto the bottom followed by a layer of noodles. You’ll have to break up the noodles to get them two fit because a crockpot is an oval shape and not square like a pan. Smear some ricotta on top of the noodles followed by a layer of veggies, a sprinkle of the mozzarella, and then another layer of sauce. Keep on repeating until  you fill up the entire crockpot and end on a layer of noodles with sauce and cheese on top–  take 1/2 cup of water and shake it up in the sauce jar and then pour it over everything.

 

Cook on low heat for 6 hours or so–if it looks like the noodles on top are getting cripsy you can push them down into the sauce after a while.

 

I love this recipe because you can make it the night before and just pull it out and start it on the way out of the door in the morning.  🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Harvest Stew

Buying local y'all---even in NYC

Happy October Everyone!

Its finally changed into Fall here in New York City. Fall is absolutely my favorite time to be living in this city. You’re finally past all the hot mess that is a sticky summer in Manhattan. The Leaves start changing, starbucks gets pumpkin spice lattes, farmers markets start to get tasty seasonal offerings, and you can finally go for a bike ride around the neighborhood without sweating through your shirt. Really- Fall has so much to offer culinary wise with season transitions into Winter Squashes and hearty stews.

This past week I went on an adventure down to the Union Square Greenmarket where I visited local vendors and collected almost all of the ingredients for this Harvest Stew recipe courtesy of A Year Of Slow Cooking.. Crockpot cooking was MADE for the fall. With all of the beautiful weather outside who wants to stay inside when you can frolic carefree through crunchy leafs and come home to the smells of a home cooked meal?

Harvest Stew

1 pound ground chicken 

1 yellow onion, chopped
3 chopped garlic cloves
1 can kidney beans, rinsed
1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped
3 red potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 acorn squash, peeled and chopped
1 whole can Rotel Tomatoes(with the juice)
4 cups chicken broth
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp all spice
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all of the ingredients into a crock pot. Stir to break up the ground meat and incorporate all of the spices. Put the cover on, turn it on low, and check back in 7-9 hours

This stew has almost a sweet undertone that was so lovely on a crisp night.  I was so thankful to have my mini prep food processor(-seriously only $25 at target and worth every penny-) to help chop up everything. The prep time was the worst part of this recipe. And that pesky acorn squash: let me just make a note that its way easier if you poke it a few times with a knife, microwave for a minute or two, and THEN try to cut it open. Me and The Squash were having a battle in the kitchen and it ended with seeds everywhere!

The Stew makes enough to serve 4-5 people so i ended up having it for lunch the next day and freezing the rest for another day.  I served it with some cheddar cheese on top and some Cornbread muffins..(You can spruce up the Jiffy Boxed mix by adding 1 cup of Mozzarella cheese to the batter before cooking and they turn out so crisp and delicious)

It maybe cost $15 to make this stew— Defiantly glad to have saved some money and supported local farmers 🙂

 

 

 

“Mediterranean” Eggplant

Oh hello everyone–

before i mixed everything together

I absolutely love eggplant but they are usually way too big to use all in one meal. Here’s something i whipped up using up most of the leftover veggies hanging out in my fridge from the veggie lasagna i made earlier in the week.

 

 

 

 

“Mediterranean” Eggplant

1/2 Eggplant cubed

handful of baby bella mushrooms

1/2 small onion

1 clove of garlic

1tbs of oil(or smart balance type butter)

basil, sea salt, pepper

2 tbs hummus

 

heat up your oil in a frying pan and sauté the onions and garlic for about a minute. Add the mushrooms and eggplant into the mix stirring frequently. season with your seasonings. Add hummus to the mix before serving.

 

It was a tasty and not so bad for you lunch after a day at the gym. 

 

Happy Cooking!

~charlie

Swiss Chicken

Sometimes its wonderful to make some southern home cooking—-and who doesn’t love butter? Here’s a recipe that is super easy and quick to prep but cooks long enough that you can get your apartment cleaned up 🙂 It’s been passed down from my sister through me and now to you…. It has everything a good southern lady should have in her pantry(butter, cream of chicken soup, and wine)

 

Swiss Chicken

 

 

1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup(i used the herb blend)

1/4 Cup of White Wine

Salt/Pepper

1/2 Bag of Croutons 

4 slices Swiss Cheese

4 Chicken Breasts

2 tbs melted butter

 

 

 

 

 

 

wash and dry the chicken breasts and then place them in a casserole dish. place a slice of cheese on top of each one. Mix together the wine and cream of chicken soup and then pour mixture on top of chicken breasts. placed crumbled croutons mall over the top and drizzle with melted butter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes covered, uncover and cook for 15 more

 

 

I served mine with brown rice and some steamed broccoli because the chicken’s sauce has so much flavor that i didn’t want to overpower it with anything else.  I also used a smart balance instead of butter and it all turned out fine.  Enjoy!

~Charlie