Frugal Sides

After drooling looking over the posts from the last food carnival at The Nourishing Gourmet, I have to say that I serve my family a rather limited menu!  New grains are at the top of my list and I have a post in the works for tomorrow.  One thing I do know, though is that some sides can be meals, and vice versa, but when you try to stick to local fresh ingredients it keeps your costs down (easier to say and do now that it’s summer.) 

Here are a few of my favorites to go along with Keeper of the Home’s  Frugal and Nourshing Side Dish Carnival.  Many of our side dishes are actually steamed or fresh veggies, salad greens, and fresh fruits.  These are beyond the steam and serve variety.  Click through the link to find many more ideas!

Tomato Cucumber Salad

An old favorite that I’ve altered to make it a bit more friendly to a Nourishing diet.  Mom uses Miracle Whip and White Sugar.

In a large bowl combine:

3/4 cup homemade mayonnaise

1-2 Tbsp of raw vinegar

something to sweeten (we usually use Stevia)

Salt and pepper to taste.  It should be tangy and sweet at the same time. 

Add to the bowl:

one onion chopped

two cucumbers, peeled, halved, and sliced

two Roma-type tomatoes halved and sliced

Mix well and refrigeratefor at least a half hour before serving to allow flavors to blend.

Creamed Spinach

Don’t say yuck until you’ve tried making it fresh at home.

Chop two shallots (or one medium onion) very finely as well as a clove or two of garlic.  Saute in a 50-50 mix of olive oil and butter (2-3 Tbsps of each) until fragrant and translucent.  Lay your generous (as in lets go ahead and fill up that skillet) amount of spinach on top of this mix and start to gently stir and turn it as it wilts.  You don’t want it to still be crunchy, but you also do not want it falling apart either…just nice and wilty.  Here’s the best part, the cream.  I skim some off the top of a jar of milk and add it in.  Sometimes I use more, sometimes less…I’d say 3/4 to 1 cup of cream (use heavy cream if buying from the store.)  Now all you need is some salt and pepper and anything additional that might float your boat.  I’ve tried and like to put a scrape or two of nutmeg on this, cayenne is also good if you are careful not to over do it.

Roasted Herb Potatoes

Easy as anything and tasty too.  You’ll want a hot oven, about 400 degrees and you’ll need to watch them until your used to cooking them.  The size I cut mine seems to take about 30-40 minutes to get crisp outsides, not burnt, but still fluffy inside.

Quarter your potatoes, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with chopped herbs of your choice (rosemary, thyme, parsley, whatever floats your boat), and if you like give them a sprinkle of cheese when they come out of the oven. 

Dump Soup

Doesn’t everyone love Dump Soup?  It is similar to stone soup…but not.  Instead of promoting community this soup promotes an emptier fridge.  Yeah, so they are pretty different. What is Dump Soup?  Well, it’s like leftovers but better.  Here’s how tonight’s Dump Soup came together:

I knew I had about 1/3 of leftover roast in the fridge along with two big handfulls of broccoli and the onions, carrots, and juices from the beef.  So I took one of my handy CCO’s out of the freezer…

What, you don’t know what a CCO is!?!?  Well it is Carrots, Onion, and Celery all diced up, frozen and ready to go.  Many times I find these things half used in my fridge and I’ll just go ahead and chop them up and put them in the freezer in 1 1/2 cup portions.  I usually end up with two or so a chopping session.  Ok, back to dump soup. 

So I take a CCO out of the freezer and dump it into a hot pan with some butter to saute.  While doing that I am boiling some water for brown rice macaroni noodles (it sounded good and we’ve not had rice at all this week.)  Once the CCO was tender and fragrant I diced some tomatoes that needed used up, added it to the pot, and let that cook for a bit with some salt and pepper.  Then along with some herbs I dumped in all the other odds and ends from the fridge.   About then it was time to drain the noodles.  I decided I needed half the batch so I oiled the others and put them in the fridge for tomorrows supper.  The other half got dumped into the pot with all the leftovers.  All that was left to do was to add broth until it was the right soupiness for our liking and let it simmer so the flavors could meld a little. 

There you have it, Dump Soup! It is frugal (the only thing “new” added to it was the broth and the noodles) and nourishing (bone broth, good beef and veggies, brown rice pasta, and fresh herbs.)  As usual it turned out wonderful andthere is enough leftover to go with a nice salad for a lunch sometime this weekend.

Smashed Red Potatoes

Perfect for this time of year as the new potatoes are being harvested and simple as can be.  Just boil or roast your potatoes until fork tender (not too mushy, though.)  Put in a bowl and mash a little.  Drizzle with your favorite oil (we like using our rosemary olive oil for this), sprinkle with good salt, add a few grinds of pepper and you have a wonderfully tasty side that was easy to make and didn’t create alot of dishes.

Cauliflower Casserole

 This one takes a little bit of time but you will not be sorry.  Every year we anxiously await the cauliflower to make this dish!

1 med head of cauliflower broken into small florets

3 eggs separated into whites and yolks

1 cup shredded cheddar

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 tsp of ground mustard

1/4 cup butter

2 tsp flour (sprouted whole wheat or flour of your choice)

1 cup milk

1/4 cup bread crumbs

Preheat oven to 400 and grease a 9×9 or 8×8 pan or 2 quart dish.

Boil cauliflower in a couple inches of water for 6 minutes, needs to turn tender. Drain and set aside.

Melt butter in pan, add flour and cook for a minute or two over low heat, slowly stir in the milk and bring to a boil. Add seasonings and most of the bread crumbs. Remove from heat, stir in cheese, egg yolks, and then cauliflower.

Whip egg whites until stiff, fold in cauliflower mixture carefully. Transfer to prepared dish and sprinkle with remaining bread crumbs. Bake 25-30 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Zucchini Patties

This is a recipe we’ve made for years and altered a little after reading Nourishing Traditions.  My mom made these when we were kids (minus soaking the zucchini and good oils) and we’d line up in the kitchen eating them nearly as fast as she fried them!

Shred two med zucchini’s, soak in water with some salt for about an hour. drain and then roll in a kitchen towel to soak up extra moisture. Meanwhile, chop a small onion, add to it 2 eggs lightly beaten, a cup of break crumbs, 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan. Add in zucchini, make into patties and pan fry in a mix of olive oil and butter. Serve hot and fresh.  Goes great with chunky tomato sauces, fish, and my favorite is with steaks.

And last but not least, this weeks meal plan has a wonderful recipe for Strawberry-Banana Ice Cream.  Using our farm eggs, real milk and cream, and hand picked berries…it doesn’t get any better than this for summer!