No Cooking For Me.
It's Chicken Of The Sea.

Here's one of my go-tos, which I am making today:

Beans and cornbread

Bag of pintos, washed (or whatever you like): $1.50

Put the pintos and 32oz water (you can use broth if you want more flavor), a diced onion, sliced jalapeno and a can of tomatoes: $4 in a crockpot on low for 8 hours. Since you're using a slow-cooker, no need to presoak the beans. Salt and pepper and whatever spices you want, sometimes I'll add thyme and a couple of bay leaves.

When that's done, add a can of pureed green chiles to the mix. ($2.50)

Make a batch of cornbread, I like using Corn-Kits but you can only get those in Texas ($2.50)

You can get 4-5 meals out of this for under $15. And you can take leftover beans and use them in tacos or burritos if you want, or as a side dish for something else.

I just made a package of black beans. I sauté onions, garlic, sweet peppers (lots), ham, chicken broth, fresh thyme from garden, smoked paprika, cumin.

I have a left over one inch thick pre-cooked pork loin in the refrigerator I need to warm up.
It was cooked to medium rare.
I also have one of my world famous roasted blooming onions ready to go in the oven.
How I do this is cut a line around the root end and cut the top off.
Then cut down each side from top to root end just under the skin.
This allows me to peel the onion and it still stay intact.
Then I set it on a wide mouth mason jar root down top up.
It is a very big onion.
I take a knife and cut across two ways then do it again so you have a total of 4 cuts and eight slices across the round globe of the onion.
The wide mouth jar is a stop to keep you from cutting too far down and ruing the project.
The onion is then set on top of a regular mouth jar ring root end down to make it sit up straight for roasting.
I pour a little oil on top fresh squeezed lime juice and some black pepper.
Later in the roast I will add other spices like garlic powder as the blooming onion spreads out.
I love roasted onions and as far as I am concerned not on most peoples menu enough if at all.
So if you have grown onions or have a big sack of onions think about having a roasted onion as a side not as an addition to something else.

Kitchen is closed! Sort of, sliced up a Hillbilly or was it a Pineapple or maybe Old German, who knew these all look, and more or less taste almost identical. Picked a Garden Sweet Cucumber a couple of hours earlier, chilled that, cut up some gifted venison summer sausage.

Dinner for the price of a 200 mg of sea salt, 45 grams of Aldi Mozzarella, and a ml or 2 of Balsamic vinegar.

I was making mackerel patties and totally screwed the deal up by making the mix to runny.
I was using my food processor instead of my hands as an experiment.
I decided to thicken it up with masa harina.
Never done this before.
Letting the masa soak up some of the juices as we speak.
We shall see how this works.
Maybe it will be something like a tamale mackerel patty.

Yes sort of tastes like a fried mackerel tamale patty, 'very doable, will be building and adjusting on this experiment some more.

Huge bowl of sugar snap peas from the garden, & some leftover rice.

My work mate Salazar had one of my mackerel patties today for lunch and some of my BBQ chicken the other day for lunch.
He had never heard of a salmon patty much less a mackerel patty but he liked it.
I made one can of mackerel make my supper plus lunch for two.
I had the macaroni tuna fish salad I made and he had the BBQ chicken with my ghost pepper sauce with soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce and ketchup I mentioned here on one of the threads.
The macaroni salad sans tuna fish will be finished off tonight, I had some last night for supper along with the patties.
Baked chicken thighs are in order for tonight with sides.

Had some real questions as to what I was going to make today for supper.
I decided to take some store brand V/8 juice some frozen raw shrimp I had and I needed to get rid of and spaghetti.
Added fresh ground fennel seed, black pepper, fresh garlic, garlic powder, oregano and 1/2 stick of butter to the V/8 juice.
Let simmer.
Added the shrimp to the sauce and cooked just long enough for it to curl up and took off heat.
No over cooking.
Cooked spaghetti drained and added some EVO.
Made about two cups of sauce including shrimp.
First time I have ever done this and it wont be the last.
The sauce is out of this world.

Any sauce with half a stick of butter is gonna be awesome, lol

I made something with that first eggplant - a simple sambar, with a bell pepper, onion, and some garlic. I added some millet, along with the toor dal, and cooked that in the Instant Pot, cooking those vegetables in a sauté pan, on my induction burner. I added the sambar masala to the pan the last minute, with the garlic. This was added to the dal, along with the tamarind, and a little jaggery, and simmered briefly, while preparing the tarka. That only takes about 30 sec., which is added, and mixed in, along with a couple of tb of chopped cilantro.
Eggplant and bell pepper sambar by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here it is.

Made this masterpiece from leftovers.
Tamales rice baked chicken corn tortillas cheese and lord only knows what.
Ate on it for three days this weekend.
Had no idea it was going to be so good.
Sort of a Mexican casserole.

Had some of that sauce left over.
Added more butter easy melt cheese and paprika.
Put it on some butterfly pasta.

Grilled venison and raw radish pods with hot sauce. Very good combination.

Wife made chicken and rice soup a couple of days ago. One pot might cost $6-7 to make. Feeds 2-3 people for a few meals. Fresh Homemade chicken and rice soup is far superior to a canned version and cheaper to make.

Mystery macaroni, beef, vegetable soup like stuff is on special tonight.
Price free.
Has all manner of vegetable goodies in it.
Including tomatoes, corn, potatoes, chick peas, mushrooms carrots, some leafy thing I have no idea what is (what was I thinking) and so on.
Added a double handful of paprika because it is my right to do so.
Heating as we speak as these two quarts came from the freezer.

KathyDC wrote: ↑Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:49 pm Here's one of my go-tos, which I am making today:

Beans and cornbread

Bag of pintos, washed (or whatever you like): $1.50

Put the pintos and 32oz water (you can use broth if you want more flavor), a diced onion, sliced jalapeno and a can of tomatoes: $4 in a crockpot on low for 8 hours. Since you're using a slow-cooker, no need to presoak the beans. Salt and pepper and whatever spices you want, sometimes I'll add thyme and a couple of bay leaves.

When that's done, add a can of pureed green chiles to the mix. ($2.50)

Make a batch of cornbread, I like using Corn-Kits but you can only get those in Texas ($2.50)

You can get 4-5 meals out of this for under $15. And you can take leftover beans and use them in tacos or burritos if you want, or as a side dish for something else.

If someone offered me an either or, with the "either" being caviar and the "or" being pinto beans and cornbread; I would choose the beans and cornbread every time. I cook four cups of dry beans at a time in my instant pot. I freeze some, I make bean paste (dip) with some and we eat some. I make cornbread from scratch much like the recipe worth has posted many times over the years. The big difference is the fact that I put a ton of jalapenos and fresh corn in my cornbread. The Frito Lay bean dip used to be a favorite of mine. Today, a tiny can of it costs about $2.50. I make my own from my cooked beans for about one tenth of the Frito Lay price and mine tastes better. Lunch for me is often two flour tortillas smeared with bean paste and melted cheese and chopped onion. It's all good food and cheap eating.

I'm curious how many people know what "Frito Pie" is. My wife likes to make chili. In our house, Frito Pie is Frito chips in the bottom of a bowl covered with chili and topped with grated cheese and chopped onions. I planned on buying more Fritos at the grocery store until I saw the latest price for a four ounce bag of more than three dollars. I learned a valuable lesson when I found store brand, crumbled corn chips make excellent Frito Pie without Frito's. That is cheap eating if you don't use Frito's.