Recipe: Spicy Masala Chickpeas

Readers, thanks for indulging me as I took a short break from posting. I'm thinking it would be fitting to get back into the swing of things by sharing yet another healthy, delicious and laughably cheap recipe!

Today's recipe is so vegetarian- and vegan-friendly that it hardly even casts a shadow. It takes about 20-25 minutes to prepare and feeds 3-4 at a cost of around $1.25 per serving. Enjoy!

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Spicy Masala Chickpeas

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 vegetable oil (we used canola oil)
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 14.5-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Small handful of either fresh parsley or fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:
1) In a large non-stick pan, saute the chopped onion in oil on high heat for 5 minutes or so, until onions are slightly browned and caramelized.

2) Add the coriander, cumin, cayenne and turmeric. Reduce heat, continue sauteing the onions until nearly soft, another 4-5 minutes.

3) Add the rinsed/drained chickpeas, salt and pepper, fresh parsley (or cilantro) and 1/4 cup water. Deglaze your pan if any of the onion/spice mixture is sticking to the bottom. Saute for another 5-7 minutes. If the chickpeas appear to be drying out too much, feel free to add another few tablespoons of water if desired. Serve over rice.

Serves 3-4.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Note that this dish is not meant to be a sauce: the chickpeas should be moist, but not in a liquid.

2) Spiciness: Wimpy spice readers can feel free to reduce the cayenne pepper to 1/2 or 1/4 teaspoon, depending on your level of wimpiness. We found 3/4 teaspoon gives the dish plenty of heat.

Read Next: MORE! Top 25 Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
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Hawaiian-Style Lentil Soup with Seared Spam

This week we'll share a laughably cheap recipe with just a touch of Hawaii. And yep, you read the title of this post correctly: it's got Spam in it.

Interestingly, this recipe is laughably cheap to make everywhere BUT in Hawaii. But wherever you are, you'll find this recipe easy, hearty, filling, nutritious and delicious. Enjoy!

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Hawaiian-Style Lentil Soup with Seared Spam

Ingredients:
1 pound lentils
About 12-14 cups water
Olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
1 14.5 ounce can red beans or kidney beans, drained and rinsed, optional
1 can Spam, cut into smallish 1-2 inch pieces
A generous teaspoon paprika or smoked paprika
A generous teaspoon garlic powder (or 3 cloves garlic, minced)
Hot sauce, to taste
Salt/pepper to taste
3-4 small/medium carrots, peeled and sliced into nickels
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
Rice or brown rice

Directions:
1) In a large soup pot combine lentils and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 60-90 minutes until lentils are done to your liking.

2) Meanwhile, in a separate large non-stick saucepan, heat a few Tablespoons of oil, then add the onions and cut-up Spam. Raise heat to high and saute until onions and Spam begin to brown and start to stick to the bottom of the pan (5-10 minutes, roughly). Reduce heat to medium, then add the garlic (or garlic powder), carrots, canned tomatoes, spices and hot sauce, and saute/simmer for another 7-10 minutes. Turn off heat and let stand until lentils are ready.

3) When lentils are done to your liking, add the veggies/Spam/spice mixture to the lentils, then deglaze the saucepan with an additional half cup of water. Add this deglazing liquid to the soup pot. Return lentils to a boil, remove from heat, and serve in bowls over rice or brown rice.

Serves 8-10.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Creeped out by Spam? We were admittedly flummoxed at first by Hawaii's partly ironic love affair with Spam too (not to mention it's an obvious example of a second order food, a category of food we tend to avoid). If you can't bring yourself to include this very Hawaiian touch to this recipe, feel free to substitute 12-16 ounces of any other kind of meat (sausage, dark meat poultry, chopped ham or bacon, etc. would all work well in this recipe), or simply leave the meat out for an entirely vegan version.

2) Not as laughably cheap as I'd like: Here in Honolulu, where a pound of lentils costs more than double (and a can of black beans costs more than quadruple) what we'd pay back in our home state of New Jersey, this hearty soup isn't quite as laughably cheap as I'd like it to be. However, you can still make this entire pot of soup for about $12-13 (about $1.30-1.50 per serving) even here in Hawaii. It’s not quite the 60-70c per serving a pot of lentil soup might cost us back home but, still, it's miraculously less expensive and a whole lot more healthy than even the least expensive restaurants in Waikiki.

Read Next: The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Hearty Kale and Lentil Stew

Today's recipe is so easy, so laughably cheap and makes so much food that I can barely believe it.

Best of all, I didn't even have to prepare it! Laura's been doing a lot more of the cooking over the past few weeks, and she's been working on her recipe selection, an important yet underappreciated skill in the kitchen. And unless lentils are ridiculous to you, today's recipe meets all of CK's requirements for an ideal recipe: it's healthy, delicious, easy, scalable, and doesn't cost a lot.

In other words, it's yet more proof that healthy eating doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming--or even hard! I hope you enjoy this delicious stew as much as we did.

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Hearty Kale and Lentil Stew

Ingredients:
3-4 Tablespoons oil
4 large carrots, diced
2 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
14 cups water
3 cups lentils, rinsed
4 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper
4 cups frozen kale, chopped if necessary
3-4 Tablespoons fresh parsley
1 teaspoon salt
2-3 Tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:
1) In a large stock pot, add oil and saute carrots, onions and garlic for five minutes.

2) Add water, lentils, cumin and black pepper, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 50 minutes or so, until lentils are tender.

3) Add kale, parsley, salt and lemon juice, simmer for 10 minutes more. Serve with rice or brown rice.

Serves 8-10.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Frozen kale?
We found, believe it or not, that frozen kale makes this recipe both easier and (more importantly) much more pantry-friendly. You can keep a couple of bags of frozen kale in your freezer indefinitely, for recipes like this, whereas fresh kale can go bad on you (even if you use CK's secret method for storing fresh greens!). The thing about produce and fresh greens is this: while they usually cost less than frozen or canned produce and greens, they can also impose a sense of time pressure on your recipe planning (CK followers familiar with the concept of first-order and second-order foods will instantly understand why this is). But in this case, frozen kale offers us a win-win solution: it costs roughly the same as fresh kale--a rare violation of the Rule of First-Order Foods. Still more evidence that life is lived by heuristic, not by algorithm.

2) Credit where credit's due:
The original inspiration for this recipe was Jay Salomon's Vegetarian Soup Cuisine, a cookbook we often feature here at CK because of its amazing collection of scalable, delicious and unusual soups and stews. The original source was Moroccan Lentil and Kale Stew on page 84. We simplified Jay's recipe by removing a couple of steps, and then we scaled it up and tweaked the ingredients a little. Finally, for the millionth time, buy this cookbook. It's incredibly useful for any cook seeking interesting, healthy and low-cost recipes.

6 Proven Benefits of Kale

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Almost Meatless Sausage and Chickpea Stew

Readers, just a quick housekeeping update: after today's post I'm going to take a hiatus here at Casual Kitchen for the next few weeks. I'll be back with some new posts in October!

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You can prepare this hearty, protein-packed soup in about 40 minutes for under a dollar a serving. And it makes a ton. It’s a classic example of a highly scalable recipe: From just a single, not-very-long cooking session in your kitchen, you and your family can enjoy many healthy, low-cost meals.

I hope you love this delicious, inexpensive soup recipe as much as we did. Enjoy!

Almost Meatless Sausage and Chickpea Stew

Ingredients:
4-5 Tablespoons olive or canola oil
2 onions, chopped coarsely
1 teaspoon paprika
½ to ¾ teaspoon black pepper and salt, to taste
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2-3 links sausage, cut into bite-sized chunks
3 carrots, chopped
1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
1-2 bouillon cubes, to taste
About 7-8 cups of water (enough to cover everything)
3-4 potatoes, peeled (if desired), and cubed
2 14.5 ounce cans chickpeas, drained and well-rinsed
Handful of fresh parsley (optional)

Directions:
1) In a large soup pot, saute onions, garlic, paprika, black pepper/salt and sausage pieces in oil over medium high heat until onions and sausage are beginning to brown, about 5 minutes.

2) Add carrots, diced tomatoes and 1-2 bouillon cubes, bring to a boil and simmer for another 5 minutes or so.

3) Add water, potatoes and chickpeas. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender. Remove from heat, add optional fresh parsley, combine well and serve immediately.

Serves 10.
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Recipe Notes:

1) Once again, as all Casual Kitchen readers well know, eating healthy food doesn’t have to be time-consuming, difficult or expensive. Here’s a rundown of the cost of today’s recipe:

onions: 75c
garlic: 25c
carrots: 50c
sausage: $2.00
diced tomatoes $1.00
potatoes: $1.00
chick peas: $1.20
parsley: 99c
spices, oil, bouillion cubes: ~75c

Total: $8.44, or 84c/serving.

2) A quick thought about why I borrowed/stole the phrase "Almost Meatless" and used it in the title of today's recipe. It's a sincere homage to one of the most intriguing cookbooks I've ever reviewed here at Casual Kitchen: Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond's brilliant cookbook Almost Meatless. I've featured it a few times here at CK, most recently in the unusual Almost Meatless Potato Corn Chowder, which was part of my new-recipe-a-day trial in June. If you're looking for a collection of intriguing recipes that will help you adopt a more conscientious diet and cut your food bill, be sure to take a look at this cookbook!

Read Next: The Best of Casual Kitchen 2014

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy Crockpot Jamaican Chicken

Once in a while, your spouse is willing to cook dinner and give you a break. If you're the spouse who usually cooks (and if you have half a brain), you're grateful to get a day off from cooking.

Now, if your spouse is smart, he or she will find a hilariously easy recipe, make it, and then bask in quantities of credit and gratitude far beyond the actual effort involved.

I've been doing this for years, and Laura never caught on until recently. Now, however, she's started playing my game, and she's finding hilariously easy recipes herself--and even developing a knack for modifying them to make them still easier. Now she's the one basking in glory and gratitude for days after every easy meal. Very, very smart.

Today's post is one of her latest successes, and it's laughably easy, healthy, cheap and delicious. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Easy Slow Cooker Jamaican Chicken
[Modified and simplified from The Food Network]

Ingredients:
1 medium-large onion, sliced into coarse slivers
2-3 carrots, chopped
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
4 lbs bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed (about 6-7 thighs)
Salt and black pepper, to taste

1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
Juice of 3 limes (about 1/4 cup)
1 Tablespoon chipotle chiles, finely chopped
1 Tablespoon adobo sauce (from the chipotle chiles, see notes below)
3 cloves garlic, finely minced or pressed

Directions:
1) Place onions, celery, carrots in base of slow cooker, then place skinless chicken thighs over vegetables. Season to taste with black pepper and/or salt.

2) In a separate bowl, combine tomato sauce, lime juice, chiles, adobo sauce and garlic. Pour mixture over chicken.

3) Cover and cook in crockpot/slow-cooker on high for 3 hours, then reduce to low setting and cook for 1 additional hour. Serve with rice, brown rice, or a side of rice and beans. Optional: top with diced avocado.

Serves 5-6
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Recipe Notes:
1) Like most crockpot/slow cooker recipes, this dish involves little more than doing some prep and putting all the ingredients in the crockpot. Then... just wait.

2) Chipotle chiles: we just buy the small cans of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce made by Goya--you can find them in the Latin aisle in any standard grocery store. Also, note: you can easily freeze the remainder: just putting the opened can into a ziploc bag and store it in your freezer for the next time you make a batch of Smoky Brazilian Black Bean Soup or Chipotle Crockpot Chili!

3) Finally on the meat: I recommend using chicken thighs--and only thighs--for this recipe. The higher fat content of thigh meat is critical to keep the chicken moist. As a general rule, chicken breasts tend to dry out and cook quite poorly in crockpot recipes.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Simple Spicy Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

This simplified cassoulet recipe is easy, hearty and incredibly delicious. And while it may not qualify for laughably cheap, it's still pretty darn inexpensive. Enjoy!

Simple Spicy Sausage and White Bean Cassoulet

Ingredients:
3-4 hot italian-style sausage links, cut in half
1 large onion, cut into smallish wedges
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes
6 garlic cloves, pressed or chopped
½ teaspoon ground thyme
A few shakes of hot red pepper flakes
A couple splashes of olive oil (maybe ⅛ of a cup in total)
A couple splashes of balsamic vinegar (a few Tablespoons, roughly)
Black pepper and salt (optional) to taste

2 14.5-ounce cans of white beans, drained and well-rinsed
A very generous 1/3 cup white wine

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425F (220C).

2) In a large oven-safe pan or casserole dish, place the diced tomatoes, onion wedges and garlic. Then add the sausages, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and add the ground thyme, salt and pepper.

3) Cook uncovered at 425F/220C for 25-30 minutes, or until the sausages are fully cooked. Add the beans and white wine, combine well, and then place back in the oven, uncovered, for an additional 15 minutes. Serve with an optional side of brown rice.

Serves 5-6.

Recipe Notes:
1) This is a low-risk recipe with all sorts of tolerances. It doesn't matter how you arrange the various ingredients in the casserole dish (although I do recommend setting the sausages on top so they can roast nicely in the oven's heat). The ingredients and quantities are flexible. Heck, you don't even really have to sweat the cooking time all that much--five or so minutes in either direction won't matter much. All in all, this dish is nearly un-screwup-able.

2) Sausages: Feel free to go fancy here and use delicatessen or butcher-grade sausages if you wish, but we merely just used normal Italian-style spicy sausages available in our local grocery store. And they were phenomenal.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Hilariously Easy Slow Cooker Bean Stew

I can't believe how easy this recipe is. I really can’t.

It doesn't seem possible that a recipe could have this few ingredients, cost this little, be this delicious... and still be this easy. But it is. Yet another candidate for my next collection of top Laughably Cheap recipes!

I hope you enjoy this humble and hearty soup recipe as much as we did.

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Easy Slow Cooker Bean Stew

Ingredients:
1 cup white beans
5 cups water or stock
1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 onion, chopped very coarsely
A dash or two of Tabasco or cayenne pepper, optional
Black pepper to taste

Directions:
1) Combine everything in your slow cooker and cook on low for 6-7 hours. Check beans for tenderness once or twice during the last hour to avoid overcooking.

2) Serve with optional rice or brown rice.

Serves 4-5.
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Recipe notes:
1) This recipe is so hilariously easy and so self-explanatory that all I could think to offer was a rundown of the cost:

Beans, ½ of a 1-pound bag: 65c
Onion: 30c
Canned tomatoes: 1.25
Spices: 20c
Total Cost: about $2.40, or about 50-60c per serving.


Related Posts:
The Six Core Principles of Healthy, Inexpensive Cooking [FULL ARCHIVE]
Thoughts On Recipe Development
Cookbook Review: Mollie Katzen's The Heart of the Plate
Baking for Beginners: How to Make a Sponge Cake

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Recipe: Chipotle Crockpot Chili

We've been experimenting with this recipe for a while now, tweaking it, adjusting the spices and the ratios, and I think now we've got it about perfect: This chili is thick and rich with just the right amount of smooth, smoky heat.

And like all of the recipes we share here at Casual Kitchen, this slow cooker recipe is healthy, delicious, inexpensive and really easy. I hope you enjoy it!

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Chipotle Crockpot Chili

Ingredients:
3/4 to 1 lb ground beef
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 12-ounce can tomato paste
2 15-ounce cans red beans or kidney beans
1 onion, chopped coarsely
1 green bell pepper, chopped coarsely
4 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 Tablespoons mild chili powder
2 teaspoons cumin
2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, with some of the sauce
1 cup water
Black pepper, to taste

Directions:
1) Brown ground beef in a separate pan. While beef is browning, add tomatoes, tomato paste, spices, garlic, chipotle chiles and water to bottom of crockpot and stir until well combined.

2) Add browned ground beef and all other ingredients to the tomato/spice mixture, stir well. Cook for about 5 hours on low setting. Serve over rice or brown rice.

Serves 8.
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Recipe notes:
1) Meat: This recipe contains less meat than you'd typically see in a chili recipe. That's deliberate. However, feel free to adjust the bean/meat ratio to your tastes. If you prefer more meat, you could boost the beef to as much as 1.5 lbs. If you prefer less meat, or another meat like pork or turkey, or if you prefer no meat at all, go for it. Any of these permutations will work.

2) Fat: Should you drain the fat from the beef before adding it to the recipe? Since we've been exploring highly-regarded modern nutrition books like Why We Get Fat and The New Evolution Diet, we've essentially stopped worrying entirely about cutting fat from our diet. We've found that not draining the meat increases satiety and palatability. But feel free to drain the fat away if you'd prefer.

3) Spicy Heat: If you'd like a spicier chili, feel free to add a third (or a fourth!) chipotle chile. Or, alternatively, you can add more of the adobo sauce that comes along with canned chipotles.

4) Cooking time: One of the singular benefits of crockpots/slow cookers is that you can be incredibly inexact with cooking times. Cooking this recipe for hour more (or less) on your slow cooker's low setting won't disrupt it in the least.





How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

30 Grams of Protein Within 30 Minutes of Waking Up

I know I've been kind of hard on Tim Ferriss in the past here at Casual Kitchen, but there's one idea that I got from him that changed my mornings forever:

Eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up.

It's a great dietary rule of thumb because it's simple, flexible, and easy to remember. And this easy-to-employ diet hack drives three significant benefits:

1) You'll have a steady blood sugar level for hours after eating, which helps keep you in a calm, focused mental state. This is the ideal state for creative or knowledge work, and it's helped my writing immensely.

2) 30 grams of protein will give you complete satiety for up to 3-4 hours. You won't feel hungry and you won't need to eat.

3) Finally, this is an extremely flexible rule. The world won't come to an end if you eat 24 grams of protein one hour after waking up. You'll still capture all the benefits.

Contrast this with a more typical breakfast of fruit, or worse, starchy, sugary branded boxed cereal. These foods merely put you on a hunger roller coaster, leaving you craving still more carb-rich food within an hour or two of eating. Result? You eat twice as many calories and twice as often, yet you still feel hungry. Pointless.

What kinds of foods can you eat to achieve 30 grams of protein? Here are some ideas:

A dollop or two of peanut butter (7 level Tablespoons yields about 30g protein)
2-3 fried or boiled eggs (about 6-8g protein per egg, depending on size)
3-4 handfuls of nuts (almonds, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, etc.)
A few pieces of good quality breakfast sausage
1 can of tuna (about 40g protein)
A whey- or soy-based protein shake (a typical serving size contains 30g protein)
Canadian-style bacon or ham (5-6 oz yields about 30g protein)
Cottage cheese (½ cup yields about 15g protein)
Hard cheeses (yield: roughly 10g protein per ounce)
Unsweetened yogurt (roughly 10g protein per cup)

Obviously you can mix, match and combine any of the above. Best of all, none of these food items costs very much money--in stark contrast to branded boxed cereal, which is far more expensive, far less healthy and far less filling.

This protein-based meal technique is easy to remember and it easily solves the "what do I want for breakfast?" problem. Try it, and let me know what your results are!

Related Posts:
Eat Less, Exercise More Doesn't Work. Wait, What?
How Do I Follow the Wheat Belly Diet?
Why Box Wine Is Better
How to Blind-Taste and Blind-Test Brands

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Recipe: Roasted, Toasted Garden Barley Pilaf

This recipe is really good, really easy and really cheap. It takes just 15-20 minutes of active cooking time, and the cost is a hilariously low 40c a serving.

This hearty and delicious dish can serve five or six as a main course, or it can serve up to eight as a side. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

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Roasted, Toasted Garden Barley

Ingredients:
6 Tablespoons butter, in all
1 ¾ cups barley
1 medium onion, chopped or slivered
2 stalks celery, chopped
1-2 carrots, cut into medium-thick slices
2 cups bouillon plus 2 cups water

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350F/175C, and bring the bouillon/water mixture to a simmer. Meanwhile, melt 3 Tablespoons of the butter in a nonstick pan, add vegetables, and saute on medium heat for 5 minutes, or until beginning to soften. Transfer sauteed vegetables into a 2-½ quart (2.3L) casserole dish.

2) Melt the remaining 3 Tablespoons butter in the same nonstick pan. Add barley and saute on medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until the barley is lightly browned, about 5-7 minutes. Combine barley with sauteed vegetables in the casserole dish.

3) Pour the hot bouillon/water mixture over the combined barley and vegetables. Bake for 1 hour at 350, cover for the first 30 minutes and uncover for the remaining 30 minutes.

Serves 5-6.
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Recipe Notes:
1) A few ideas for variations/substitutions:
Use mushrooms and onions for the sauteed veggies.
Add in ¼ cup currants or dried cranberries before baking.
Add in ¼ cup cashews or almonds before baking.
Or, simply feel free to add whatever veggies you have on hand, or whatever happens to be on sale in the store.

Spice modifications: add ½ teaspoon thyme for a homey variation, add ½ teaspoon cayenne for a spicy variation, or perhaps add ½ teaspoon garam masala for a curry-style variation.

2) Outrageously cheap: At about 40c a serving, this recipe transcends "laughably cheap" to the point where I need to invent new phrase. Maybe "outrageously cheap?" Let's go over the costs:

Barley 75c
Onion 25c
Celery 30c
Carrot 20c
Butter 50c
Spices/bouillon 10c
Total $2.10, or 35c-42c per serving.

Once again: don't think you can't eat healthy, hearty food on very little money. You can. Enjoy!

Related Posts:
Easy Beet "Pesto"
Easy Chicken In Tomato Sauce
Easy Curried Chickpeas and Tofu
Baking for Beginners: How to Make a Sponge Cake
The Risotto Blogroll: 20 of the Internet's Best, Most Delicious Risotto Recipes


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Recipe: Risotto Primavera with Asparagus and Green Peas

This laughably easy risotto recipe is adapted from of my favorite new cookbook: Mollie Katzen’s The Heart of the Plate. It’s delicious, inexpensive, and you can get it on the table in around 30 minutes.

[PS: If you’re interested in more risotto recipes, be sure to check out Casual Kitchen’s Great Risotto Blogroll!]

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Risotto Primavera with Asparagus and Green Peas
[Slightly modified and simplified from The Heart of the Plate]

Ingredients--Vegetables:
1 Tablespoon butter
About 1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed, cut into 1-½ inch pieces
1 garlic clove, minced
1 ½ cups frozen green peas
¼ teaspoon salt

Ingredients--Risotto:
5-6 cups mild stock (vegetable, chicken or beef) OR 1 buillon cube with 5-6 cups water.
1 Tablespoon butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 ½ cups rice (purists require a risotto-style rice like Arborio: we used regular rice)
½ cup white wine
½ cup grated parmesan cheese
Fresh ground black pepper

Directions:
1) Bring the stock/bouillion to a simmer in a medium-sized pot. While stock/bouillon is heating up, melt the butter in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add the asparagus and garlic, cover, and partially cook for 1-2 minutes. Don’t overcook! Then, add the frozen peas (it’s okay if they’re right out of the freezer), re-cover, and cook for just 1-2 minutes more. Remove vegetables from the pan, cover them, and set aside.

2) Using the large saucepan you just cooked the vegetables in, add another 1 Tablespoon butter and the finely chopped onion, and saute on medium heat for 5 minutes or so, until onion softens.

3) Add the rice and stir until coated. Then, add the wine. Continue to stir until the wine is absorbed, about a minute or two. Then slowly ladle in the simmering stock, one ladle-full at a time, stirring frequently. Continue gradually adding the stock until the rice is creamy and al dente, about 18-20 minutes.

4) Turn off heat. Add the parmesan cheese and the vegetables, and gently combine everything well. Season with fresh ground black pepper to taste.

Serves 4 generously as an entree.

Recipe notes:
1) We used an extremely mild bouillon-based stock of just one chicken bouillon cube in about 5-½ cups of water. The risotto came out perfect: not too salty-sodiumy, with a mild and delicious flavor that complemented, rather than overwhelmed, the vegetables. This is a convenient shortcut if you don’t happen to have homemade (or worse, store-bought) stock handy.

2) Feel free to include other vegetables! My girl Mollie suggests using snap peas, snow peas or even fava beans. For an optional garnish, consider adding fresh mint leaves or a few strips of lemon zest. Enjoy!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy Curried Chickpeas and Tofu

Readers, I bring to you today a laughably easy recipe that can be made in under 20 minutes for about $1.25 per serving. It's a modified version of a recipe from the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home (an exceptional cookbook, by the way--I recommend it). After testing it here at Casual Kitchen, I've simplified the recipe to make it even easier for readers.

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did!
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Curried Chickpeas and Tofu

Ingredients:
One medium onion, coarsely chopped or slivered
2-3 garlic cloves, chopped or pressed
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper flakes (or 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper), to taste
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
Fresh ground black pepper and (optional) a dash of salt, to taste
12-14 ounce block of firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 14.5-ounce can chickpeas, with liquid kept in reserve
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes

Directions:
1) Saute the onion, garlic and hot pepper flakes (or cayenne pepper) in the olive oil on medium high heat for a few minutes until softened. Add cumin, coriander, turmeric and black pepper.

2) Add the tofu, stir gently until combined. Then add the chickpeas, along with about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the chickpea liquid from the can. Stir gently, and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes, combine well, and simmer for another 5 minutes. Serve immediately over rice or brown rice.

Serves 4-5.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy Beet "Pesto"

I adapted this striking beet pesto recipe from Jules Clancy's amazing book Five Ingredients, Ten Minutes which just this month was re-released by Penguin Publishing.

The shocking bright red color alone makes it stand out far above all other spreads and dips. And there's something particularly interesting in the flavor contrast between the beets' natural sweetness and the sharp bite of parmesan cheese and garlic. It's perfect: an easy-to-make spread that "beets" store-bought junk food by a country mile.

And I promise you, put this out at your next party your guests will inhale it. I can't believe there are recipes out there that are this easy and this delicious.

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Beet Pesto

Ingredients:
10 ounces cooked beets (a 15 ounce can, drained)
2 garlic cloves
2 ounces walnuts or pine nuts (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup)
3 ounces parmesan cheese (about 1/2 to 3/4 cup)
2-3 Tablespoons olive oil
A few shakes of salt, to taste

Directions:
1) Add drained beets, garlic, nuts and cheese to a food processor, pulse till blended well.

2) Add olive oil, a splash at a time, until your spread reaches your desired consistency. Garnish with optional dried chives, and serve with simple crackers or fresh veggies.

Serves 4-6 as an appetizer.
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Recipe Notes:
1) You'll notice slightly vague volume measures for the ingredients above. Don't worry: it's on purpose. The great thing about pestos and spreads is you can adjust the ingredients until you get the taste and texture you want. Too thick? Add more oil. Too thin? Add more nuts or beets. Want more bite? Add another garlic clove or more parmesan cheese.

2) Nuts: I recommend using a mild, high-fat nut and walnuts or pine nuts are ideal. I'd recommend against using drier nuts such as almonds, or strong-tasting nuts such as peanuts.

3) Feel free to use fresh beets! I used canned beets simply because it was a cheap and easy solution, but if you have time, beets you've cooked (or even grown) yourself would be even more flavorful. Also, separately, keep in mind that a 15 ounce can of beets, once drained, will contain about 10-11 ounces of beets, which is exactly the amount this recipe calls for.





How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy White Bean Spread

This White Bean Spread is so laughably easy I feel like a complete doofus for waiting so long to write about it. This recipe is as simple as it gets: it's perfect for a super-healthy snack, great as a delicious, filling appetizer, and it's so hilariously cheap you'll feel like you're cheating the system by making it.

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Basic White Bean Spread

Ingredients:
About 2 cups of cooked white beans (see below for directions, see also note #1 below)
2 Tablespoons lemon juice, to taste
2-4 garlic cloves, to taste
Fresh ground black pepper, cayenne pepper and salt, to taste
2 Tablespoons olive oil, to taste
1-3 Tablespoons reserved liquid from cooked beans

Directions:
1) Cook white beans according to directions below. Drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid.

2) Add two generous cups of the cooked white beans to a food processor. Pulse a few times, then add the lemon juice, garlic, pepper and salt. Blend thoroughly. Then, add the cooking liquid and olive oil in increments of 1 Tablespoon each, until you're happy with the thickness of the spread. Adjust seasonings to taste.

3) To serve, place spread in a small bowl, make a well in the center and pour a small amount of olive oil in the well. Shake a generous few shakes of cayenne pepper or paprika over everything to add a splash of color. Serve with crackers and/or raw veggies.

How to cook dried white beans:
Cover beans with 3-4 inches of water in a large soup pot. Let soak overnight. The next day, rinse the beans, then cover with 3-4 inches of new water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1-2 hours, until the beans are done to your liking. Drain, reserving some of the liquid to adjust the thickness of the bean spread.

Serves 4 easily as an appetizer.
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Recipe notes:
1) Dried or canned? Readers, it's really easy to cook your own dried beans. But if you're pressed for time, or (like me until recently) slightly intimidated by the idea of dealing with dried beans, you can feel free to substitute a 1-pound 13-ounce can of canned white beans. Drain the beans, reserving about a quarter-cup of the canning liquid (you'll use it to adjust the spread to your desired consistency), rinse the beans in a colander and you're good to go.

2) Modification ideas: A standard white bean spread is modest, mild and simple, but there's a gazillion ways you can modify it and jazz it up. Consider adding handful of leafy greens, like spinach or swiss chard. Or a handful of fresh parsley for color and an extra flavor nuance. Some versions of this recipe call for roasted garlic, which adds still more nuance.

Of course, the possibilities with spices are endless. A half-teaspoon of ground cumin. A few shakes of cinnamon or nutmeg. And obviously you can bring the heat: chipotle pepper for a smoky hot flavor, or a full teaspoon of cayenne pepper for a five-alarm white bean spread.

Readers, if you have your own spice or ingredient variations, please share them in the comments!

3) Help! I cooked a 1-pound bag of white beans and I'm drowning in beans! One pound of dried white beans (which is just over 2 cups of this magical fruit) leaves you with a lot of cooked beans. Your beans will expand to nearly 3x their volume as they cook, leaving you with 6 cups of cooked white beans in total.

So here's an idea: cook a full 1-pound bag of dried beans. Use 2 cups of cooked beans for your spread, and then use the remaining 4 cups for two separate recipes: a batch of Easy Minestrone Soup and a double batch of White Bean and Kielbasa Soup. Wham. You're sitting on a week's worth of food.

4) Laughable cheapness alert: In other words, this single pound of dried white beans not only produces a healthy and delicious bean spread, it also can go on to be the foundation ingredient for two different soups that collectively feed up to 15 people. All from a cute little bag of beans that cost perhaps $1.29.

5) Finally, this is what the bowl looked like 30 seconds after I set it on the table.

No, I'm not married to a pack of wolves... I'm married to a perfectly nice, petite woman who briefly lost control of herself when I set this down in front of her. See? I'm telling you, it's good.

Related Posts:
The Hummus Blogroll: 17 Easy To Make Hummus Recipes 
Feta Walnut Dip
Garden Pasta
Moroccan-Style Carrots
The 25 Best Laughably Cheap Recipes at Casual Kitchen


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Garlic Sundried Tomato Soup

You can put this Casual Kitchen original recipe on the table in about 30 minutes, with fewer than 10 minutes of prep time. And it tastes even better as leftovers the next day.

The flavorful combination of butter, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic and onions in this striking soup is absolutely heavenly. And the chickpeas add a healthy protein source to complete this inexpensive, delicious and laughably easy meal.

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Garlic Sun-Dried Tomato Soup

Ingredients:
2-3 Tablespoons butter
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
Ground black pepper, to taste
About 1/2 cup of sun-dried tomatoes (in oil), chopped
1-2 teaspoons dried basil (to taste)
2 to 2.5 cups water (more or less according to desired thickness of soup)
1 chicken bouillon cube
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
About 3/4 of a 15-ounce can of chick peas, drained and rinsed

Directions:
1) Melt butter over medium heat in a stock pot or large saucepan. Add onions, saute on medium high for 2-3 minutes, until translucent.

2) Add black pepper and garlic, saute for another 2-3 minutes. Add sun-dried tomatoes and dried basil, saute for another 2-3 minutes.

3) Add water, bouillon and diced tomatoes, stir well. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

4) Optional: Ladle some (or all) of the soup into a blender or food processor (or use an immersion blender) to puree. Puree thoroughly or just pulse a few times, according to your preferences, then return the pureed soup back to the pot or saucepan.

5) Finally add the drained and rinsed chickpeas, briefly return the soup to a boil, then serve. Garnish with a few (optional) fresh parsley or basil leaves.

Serves 4 as a main dish, serves 6 as an appetizer. Can be easily doubled.
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Recipe Notes:
1) Admittedly, sun-dried tomatoes add some cost to this dish, but they're worth it. They have an intense flavor and they add a layer of nuance that takes this recipe beyond a simple (and potentially boring) tomato soup. Sun-dried tomatoes in oil will keep for practically forever in your fridge, so I encourage buying a larger container to help lower your per-unit costs. Yes, you'll pay a higher up-front cost, but your future per-recipe costs will be far lower. Plus, you'll have the option, at any time, of making Sun-Dried Tomato Risotto or hilariously easy Citrus Orzo Salad with Sundried Tomatoes.

2) Vegans! You can veganize this recipe easily. Replace the butter with olive oil and replace the chicken bouillon with vegetable bouillon.

3) Step 4, the pureeing step, is totally optional, and here at CK we're not sure ourselves whether we prefer this soup pureed or unpureed. It's good both ways. Honestly, I'm leaning toward the unpureed version--in part because the cleanup is easier. I'm curious to hear readers' opinions on this step as you attempt this recipe.

4) What kind of fool writes a soup recipe that calls for just 3/4 of a can of chickpeas? Well, me. I'd normally have you add the entire 15-ounce can of chickpeas to the soup, but a full can overwhelms the recipe a bit. Chickpeas are a secondary ingredient, not a central ingredient here. However, if you really, really love chickpeas and simply can't get enough of them, feel free to add them all in. I guess.

Finally, wondering what to do with the remaining 1/4 can? Snack on 'em while you're cooking. Chef's privilege.

5) Okay, let's break out the green eyeshades and calculate this recipe's cost:

Butter: 15c
Onion 20c
Garlic 10c
Sun-dried tomatoes $2.00 to $4.00 (tough to put a strict value here, YMMV)
Diced tomatoes $1.50
Chick peas 89c

Total cost: from $1.21 to $1.71 per serving. Enjoy!

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

Easy Chicken In Tomato Sauce

This recipe is inexpensive, easy to make and delicious. Which means it hits the Casual Kitchen trifecta I look for in all of the recipes I feature here.

There are other variations of Chicken in Tomato Sauce elsewhere on the internet, but the version I bring to you today is stripped down to its barest essentials, with basic ingredients and just three easy steps. And it's perfect, in the way that only a simple homemade recipe can be. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

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Chicken In Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:
3 Tablespoons olive oil
5-6 chicken thighs, skin on and bone-in
To taste: ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, kosher salt

3 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes
1 medium onion, slivered
3-4 cloves garlic, slivered
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
Fresh basil leaves, optional, for garnish

Directions:
1) Season chicken generously with cayenne, black pepper and kosher salt. Heat the olive oil to medium-high in a large oven-proof skillet, and fry the chicken, skin side down, until crisp and golden, about 5-7 minutes. Flip over and fry for 3-4 more minutes, then remove chicken from skillet and set aside.

2) Add onion and garlic to skillet. Saute until tender and beginning to brown, 4-5 minutes (preheat oven to 400F/200C in the meantime). Add diced tomatoes and oregano, deglaze the bottom of the skillet, combine well and bring to a boil.

3) Set the chicken thighs into the tomato mixture, placing them partially submerged and skin facing up. Place oven-proof skillet in oven and cook for 25-30 minutes at 400F/200C. Serve immediately, garnished with fresh basil leaves.

Serves 4-5.
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Recipe Notes:
1) If you don't have an oven-proof skillet, don't worry. You can use a regular deep skillet to fry the chicken thighs and prepare the sauce. When it's time to put everything in the oven, simply transfer the tomato sauce into a casserole dish, place the chicken thighs in/on the sauce, and then bake uncovered according to the directions. Yes, you'll have an extra dish to wash, but that's better than seeing your favorite non-oven-proof skillet spontaneously combust in your oven.

2) Drumsticks. You could also consider using chicken drumsticks for this recipe, but I would not use chicken breast meat. This recipe functions best with a higher-fat dark meat.

3) Spice adjustments. Feel free to reduce the salt, add more cayenne pepper, or modify the spices in any way you see fit. But I'll be honest, this dish works as it is, modestly, without strong, over-the-top flavors. This is simple home cooking at its best.

4) Cost. Finally, and best of all, this dish costs just $1.25-$1.50 per serving, depending on how attractive a price you can manage to get on chicken thighs. Thanks to a gigantic sale on chicken thighs in our grocery store, our cost worked out to $5.36 for the entire recipe--a per-serving cost of just $1.07.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
For those readers interested in supporting Casual Kitchen, the easiest way is to do so is to do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site. You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.