I was seriously craving lemonade last night, but we had no mix. And then I thought about it: those lemonade mixes are probably crap—lots of sugar and no real lemon anything. And I wondered, is there a lemonade recipe with lemon juice, bottled or real. Turns out there are several. Also turns out bottled lemon juice has more than lemon juice in it, but even it has to be better than the powdered crap, right? Not having any lemons on hand, I used the bottled juice for the following recipe.

Sorry no picture. I don’t have any pretty glasses for one.

Lemonade
1 3/4 c. lemon juice
1 1/4 c. sugar
2 c. cold water + extra to make 1 gal.

Combine sugar & 2 c. water, heat until sugar melts. Mix with remaining ingredients, stir well. Adjust sugar and lemon to taste. Pour and add ice. Makes 1 gallon.

Kinda wondering if I can make limeade the same way. Limes are a bit more expensive though, so I’ll have to wait to find out.

I’ve also heard combining the lemonade with mint leaves makes a nice combo, but I’ve not tried it.

As much as the family likes Impossible Cheeseburger Pie (and as easy at it is!), it was time to do something different with the hamburger meat this weekend. We hadn’t had burritos in awhile, but I wasn’t sure if we had the cheese, so I decided to try to do something a little different this time.

Recipe found at Food Network.com.

Black Bean Salsa
2 c. Fresh Black Beans
4 c. Chopped Tomatoes
1 c. Finely Diced Red Onion
1/2 c. Chopped, Fresh Cilantro*
1 TBL. Chopped, Fresh Parsley
4 Cloves Garlic, Minced
1 Lg Jalapeño, seeded, finely diced (Opt)**
Salt & Pepper to taste
3 TBL. Lime Juice
1 TBL. Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Place Black Beans in 8 c. salted water, bring to a boil, and cook until tender (takes about 1 1/2 hours or so). Rinse in cold water and cool.

While beans cool, prep remaining vegetables and herbs and combined. Add salt and pepper. Add beans. Add juice and olive oil and mix until well combined. Can be served immediately.

This salsa is quite versatile and can be used for more than a chips and salsa snack. We used it as is on burritos (no cheese needed—had lightly seasoned ground hamburger, lettuce, the salsa, and sour cream) and the kids LOVED it. This morning, I heated it up and had it with an egg for breakfast….

We’ll definitely be making this again. In fact, this is one the kids almost demanded I keep the recipe on to make again.

*I probably put in closer to 3/4 c. I think most ingredients can be adjusted to taste.
**We didn’t find the jalapeño necessary, but anyone wanting a little more heat might like to put it in.

Unlike my husband, I’m not a “throw things together and see what happens” type when it comes to food. I want to play with food and flavors, yes, but I don’t have the knowledge of what ingredients do to try things without some kind of structure or starting point. And the Chef and I have enough of a limited background (just because of financial limitations, really) that we need to expand our basic understanding of food and flavor in general as well as needing to explore cultures we’ve never tried before. He takes more risks than I do because he’s a natural chef. He doesn’t measure and recipes are something he reads and “sort of” follows. Me, I am far better at following a recipe than winging it. Most of the time (we won’t get into my issues with meringues and how they don’t like me). And, really, I think that’s where we should start: know what a recipe is supposed to taste like before you change it. I think most people would agree with this when it comes to cultural foods they aren’t familiar with, but I think it should go for any unfamiliar recipe. How can you tell if a recipe even needs changes if you haven’t tasted it as is?

That all being said, I’m finding most recipes, even ones I like, seem to “need” adjustments. There’s this Minestrone that we LOVE, and we still made changes to the recipe (so that we love it even more). And it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a general, no name chef(s) or a big name in the industry who authored the book/recipe. One of the things that’s been fun about Chef being in culinary school (other than getting to taste his creations when he brings them home) is talking about food and how to rework a recipe, what we think it needs, how to make the plate look better, and so on. I may be a recipe cook, but he wants my input on what we try, what we can change, how to make something look or taste better. I can’t always get specific and say it needs a particular ingredient, but he still seems to get what I mean and can go from there.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to try recently is polenta. Polenta is basically a cornmeal mixture. Kinda like grits, but not so southern and tends to be smoother in texture. Last night we tried Pork Loin Chops with Golden Delicious Apples and Onions on Polenta with Honey out of Rachael Ray’s Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats—A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners. This is a quick and easy meal that’s not hard on the budget: most items it asks for are pretty common in the kitchen (I figure if it’s in our kitchen, it won’t be hard to find in other kitchens because we’re on a limited budget and don’t buy much in the way of unusual or gourmet ingredients). It did ask for an instant polenta, which we didn’t have, so we used regular corn meal instead. From what I’ve seen of polenta recipes, it just meant a longer cooking time. While no one was particularly wowed by it (and the grand baby wasn’t at all impressed with the onions), we’re willing to try it again with some changes:

The dish was all yellow and brown. There was no real color to it at all. So we’re thinking next time of using red delicious apples or red onions instead. I’m leaning towards the apple change more than the onion change because red onions have a stronger flavor than the brown ones we used last night. With the amount of onion used in the recipe, the red onions might end up being a bit much in the dish. We also decided it needs a side dish, probably some green veggies. We’e eating smaller servings, and the dish did accommodate us, but it just isn’t filling enough all by itself. And a side dish would, again, give the plate more color as long as you don’t go with cauliflower.

The other thing we wanted to change was the polenta. The honey made it nice and sweet, which was fine, but it needed something more. (As an aside, the grand baby called the polenta “cake!”. lol) Most recipes that flavor the polenta go for Parmesan cheese, but the Chef and I are both not too sure that would work in here. I suggested some garlic, but he’s not too sure about that. Maybe some cinnamon? We’re not sure, but the polenta needed something more. We’re open to suggestions.

It’s interesting that the Moroccan food we tried a few nights ago didn’t garner as much discussion. The one big thing that came out of that was that fried eggplant wasn’t our thing, and it had nothing to do with the spices used on the eggplant. The texture of the eggplant itself was unappealing to pretty much everyone in the house. lol We’re not giving up on eggplant entirely; we just need to find other ways to serve it (especially since one of the kids wants to go vegetarian when she moves out).

As for the book, we have a number of recipes in it marked for us to try. Most seem to along the same lines as this one—quick and easy with common ingredients. Our one complaint about Rachael Ray’s recipes is her heavy use of Parmigiano-Reggiano. This is an expensive cheese that’s pretty much out of our current budget.

Next time we try the recipe, I’ll post a picture. I think the changes we want to make will make it more visually appealing than it was this time around.

Having a practicing/in training chef in the house doesn’t mean gourmet food all the time, especially in our house because finances are very tight. We just finished 9 weeks of chicken and fish because that was the primary proteins he worked with in class. Mind you, it was GOOD chicken and fish, but it definitely left us wanting something else. To keep within our budget, we had to buy primarily what he needed to practice with: whole fish and whole chickens. But we still managed a little pork, some steak fajitas (using skirt steak, which is fairly inexpensive), and played with some soup ideas using leftovers (we did buy some shrimp for a recent soup idea, but it will probably be awhile before we can play with that again just because of the price). One thing that helps us is the local farmer’s market chain. The produce and meats are cheaper there than anywhere else, though I think the quality is a little lower too. Still, it keeps us in fresh fruits and vegetables and allows us to buy fish and seafood when we never could afford them before. We rarely use frozen veggies anymore, which I think also means healthier eating for our family.

It’s harder to try out recipes from new cultures even with the farmer’s market though. Spices aren’t cheap, and that’s where we seem to run into a problem. I do look up substitutions, but not all spices have a good substitute that will convey a similar flavor and using a substitute takes away from the authenticity of a dish. Since our chef wants to work with authentic flavors of various cultures, I’m going to have to find a way to slowly build up our spice selection to accommodate him. Not easy to do on a very limited budget like we have, but something he needs to expand himself as a chef.

This week, we’re also dealing with everyone being sick, including the chef. Being a chef is hard work. Cooking good food takes time and the chef is on his feet the whole time he’s working. Yesterday we had pre-packaged foods for dinner because our chef was just too sick to cook. Today he worked on a new soup we’re tinkering with for the restaurant, then he had to take an extended break because it tired him out. And we know the soup needs some work, but because our sense of taste is off from being sick, we’re not sure what kind of work it needs.

My goal is to work on something new each week. My original plan was to buy ingredients specific for that something each week, but our budget may limit that. I’ll have to work with ingredients we use all the time anyway: sugar, flour, etc. Stuff we always keep on hand and that isn’t that expensive. At least until our chef is working again, the things I can play with will be limited. This is okay. Unlike the chef, I’m not in culinary school, so starting with simpler recipes with easy to find ingredients is probably the best way to go anyway. He’s promised to show me what he learns in his next set of courses (Foundations of Baking & Pastry!), but that’s assuming he has the time to. If he gets a job, which we need him to do, he probably won’t have time, and I’ll be teaching myself anyway.

But, you know, the limits haven’t been all that big a deal for us. We’re already exploring foods we’ve never tried before and using ingredients in ways we’ve never thought of before. In the last few weeks we’ve created a new potato soup for the restaurant, tried a couple of Moroccan dishes, made a new cookie with ingredients we had on hand, and started working on a new soup. Cooking within limits doesn’t have to be boring. You just have to be willing to go beyond the boundaries of what you know.