Labne (Yogurt Cheese)

Cutting back on my budget has, inevitably, meant cutting back on cheese. Cheese really ought to be an expensive product. To get a little perspective on food costs, I'll often think of all of the steps it takes to produce a particular food product. Cheese gets very involved: first feed must be grown to nourish the animals, the animals themselves must be cared for and milked, then that milk is condensed to produce the cheese curds, and finally the cheese has to be carefully aged. It makes sense that such a labor intensive product like cheese should be relatively expensive. But it is lovely isn’t it?

Lately I’ve been making a lot of labne to fill my cheese cravings. I can buy a quart of yogurt for just over three dollars, even though the finished volume will be about half of what you started with-- for a good quality soft cheese, that’s still a steal of a deal. All that is required to make labne is yogurt, a strainer and a piece of clean cloth. (A double layer of cheesecloth would do fine, I have a small square of linen reserved for this purpose.) Simply line your strainer with fabric, pour in your yogurt and let it stand in your refrigerator to strain for 1-2 days. The longer you strain the yogurt the more dense your yogurt cheese will be. I typically let mine sit for 2 days. This leaves you with a soft, spreadable, delicious cheese. Remember, though, that the finished cheese is only going to be as good as the yogurt you buy-- I like yogurts with a distinct lactose tang. You can also make different tasting yogurt cheeses with different yogurts (I’m looking forward to experimenting with goat labne). Labne can be used for either sweet or savory applications, so I’ll post a recipe for each. But I don't want to give the impression that you need to fuss too much to make labne palatable. It is also wonderful served very simply, either dressed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt or drizzled with a little honey.

Seeded Granola

I have done a lot of fussing with granola recipes. I wasn't able to find one that I liked (crunchy, clumps that don't dissolve at the sight of milk, not too sweet). So I was forced to fiddle until I found a method that I liked. The procedure I've arrived at is, admittedly, not the most direct. First the oats and seeds are toasted, then the whole mix is baked a second time at a lower temperature. Yes, it's a little bit fussy, but the end product is well worth the bother. I was inspired to make this particular granola after baking some wonderful seeded German ryes. I thought that the hearty seeds and spices would translate perfectly into granola. The seeds also make this granola a perfect exemplar of a home-made, cost conscious product (nuts are really the only expensive ingredient in granola; seeds are a fraction of the cost). To really save money, look for a store that sells grains and seeds in bulk; they are almost always cheaper. While I have worked out several tasty granola flavors, this is the one that I can eat every day and never get sick of. It tastes like what those packages of whole-grain-oat-honey-seed-nut bread should taste like but never do.

The barley malt in this recipe gives it a hearty, bread-like quality. Look for barley malt on the counters of your health food store near the molasses. I like my granola with fresh fruit, but if you like dried fruit, go ahead and mix it in after the granola has cooled.



4c. oats
4T. butter, melted
1c. wheat germ
1 1/4 c. seeds (any mixture of sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, flax and poppy seeds.)

2/3c. sugar
1/3c. water
1T barley malt
1tsp whole coriander seeds
1/2tsp fennel seeds
zest of 1 orange (or 3/4t. powdered orange peel)

1/2tsp Kosher salt
1/4c. All Purpose Flour
1egg

Yield: 2 quarts

Toast Ingredients: Preheat oven to 350 F. Toss the rolled oats with the melted butter. Spread oats on a sheet tray and bake for 10-12 minutes. On a separate sheet toast sunflower, pumpkin and sesame seeds for 8-10 minutes. Stir each sheet once to achieve even toasting. Reduce oven heat to 300 F.

Prepare Seasoning and Sugar Solution: Finely grind coriander and fennel in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestel. Bring the sugar, water, spices, orange zest and barley malt just to a boil and turn off the heat. Set aside.

Mix: Place oats, seeds, wheat germ, salt and flour in the processor*. (This recipe will fit into an 11 cup food processor). Process in batches if you have a smaller processor or are making a double batch. Pulse five or six times for a few seconds. Add sugar mixture and egg. Pulse the food processor until the liquid is evenly distributed.

Second Baking: Grab handfuls of the granola, squeezing and breaking the mixture into walnut sized clumps onto your sheet tray. Bake at 300 F for 30 min, stirring once -- the granola might get a slight golden hue, but do not wait for it to turn visibly brown. Let cool. Store in airtight container for up to a month.

*If you don't have a food processor, you can still make this recipe. The clumps will not be quite as solid, but you'll still have a lovely granola. Just stir the sugar mixture and egg into the oats by hand.

Vegetable Broth

A lot of the trimmings from vegetables are removed because they have a different texture. Some of these trimmings are perfectly edible (potato and carrot peels) while others are too fibrous to eat by themselves (leek leaves and parmesan cheese rinds). Either way these scraps can be used to make a wholesome, tasty broth. Broth is made by boiling a base (vegetables, meat or bones) until the essence leaches out into the liquid, leaving only a spent fibrous carcass behind. It is really an ideal use for scraps; the pieces of the vegetable with objectionable texture can still be mined for flavor. I keep a quart sized bag in my freezer and add my vegetable scraps to it until the bag is full. Then it’s time for a new batch of broth.


To make broth:

Collect your broth ingredients: I don’t follow any particular recipe for the amount and types of vegetable scraps, I just use what I have and add other elements if I think that the flavor is lacking in some respect. Generally, I like so see a good mix of root vegetables, herbs or spices and something with a solid, earthy-savory structure (either parmesan cheese rinds or mushroom stems work well for this role). Whatever else I have, I always add in a whole onion and a few garlic cloves. If you don’t have one of these groups, you can improvise and add things to round out the flavor. Use a base of 1 part vegetables to 2 parts water. I typically make two quarts of broth at a time, but you can certainly make larger batches. I do not salt my broth, but prefer to add salt later to suit the dish.

Boil the Broth: Place all of your scraps and your water a large saucepan or stock pot. Cover. Bring to a full boil. Reduce heat and boil until all of the vegetables are limp and beginning to fall apart (about an hour) Strain.

Store: At this point you can either cool and store your stock as-is or further reduce it to concentrate the flavor. I like to reduce the stock and then freeze it in an ice cube tray. Once frozen, the broth cubes can be conveniently stored in a freezer bag, and you can defrost whatever amount you happen to need.


Scraps to Save for Making Broth:

mushroom stems
parmesan cheese rinds
stems of parsley or cilantro, or wilted, sad-looking parsley or cilantro
skins and trimmings from root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, parsnips)
the root end of onions (left over after chopping the rest of the onion)
the tough leaves of leeks
celery leaves and trimmings

Extras (amounts are based on 2qts of broth):

cumin seeds- 1T
coriander seeds- 1T
bay leaves- 3-5
black peppercorns- 2t
onion- 1
whole garlic cloves- 2-4
dried mushrooms- handful

Onion Ends & How to Cut an Onion

While I was writing a recipe for vegetable broth, I realized that it might be helpful to include instructions on cutting an onion. Cutting onions seems to cause a lot of undue strife. It's not just the tears, it's the geometry. The concentric rings don't translate obviously into an even dice. If you cut an onion properly, then you leave the root end in tact (which you use as a handle to hold the rest of the onion while cutting it). Then you have a little end of onion leftover which can be saved with the rest of your veggie trimmings for broth. So without further ado: my treatise on slicing and dicing onions.



-Before you start, it is most important to use a very sharp knife. The tear-inducing chemicals are the product of a reaction that occurs when chemicals from different parts of the cell come into contact with each other. So the more you crush your onion's cells with a dull knife, the more you will be crying.

1. Halve and skin the onion. If you are preparing a lot of onions, then it can be worthwhile to soak them in tepid water for a few minutes. This will make the brittle skin more flexible and easier to peel off. If I'm just cutting one or two onions, I don't bother. Cut the unpeeled onion in half from root to stem. Trim away the top quarter-inch of the onion, and then pull the peel away from the rest of the onion. Trim away the very edge of the onion roots; you only want to get rid of the roots that are holding dirt. Discard skin and root trimmings.

2. Make horizontal cuts. With the palm of your left hand gently pressing down on the onion, make a series of three or four (depending on how big the onion is) evenly spaced horizontal cuts (the cuts should be about 1/4"-3/8" apart). If you are right handed, that means the root end of the onion will be to the left and you will draw your knife from right to left, holding it parallel to the counter. Do not cut all the way through, though. Imagine a line about half an inch up from the root end and do not cut past that line. Keeping the root end in tact is the key to cutting onions efficiently.

3. Make vertical cuts. For these cuts, the stem end of the onion should be facing you. Make a series of (6-7) evenly spaced vertical cuts. Again, leave the root end in tact by starting all of your cuts a half inch away from the root end. Place the knife blade precisely where you want the cut to begin (see illustration) and press straight down.

4. Dice. Hold the onion with your left hand, curling the tips of your fingers in (this technique makes cutting safer -- your knuckles keep the knife edge away from the tips of your fingers.) It is a grip that feels awkward at first, but will actually allow you to cut more quickly once you have mastered it. Starting at the stem end, slice your onion in 1/4"-3/8" slices (this is the exciting part, when all of your diligent skillful cuts reveal a gorgeous dice!). When you get down to the end of your onion, you will be left just holding the last little bit attached to the root end. Toss these onion ends in a freezer bag with the rest of your veggie scraps for making broth.

*If you want slices of onion rather than diced onion, skip steps 2 & 3.

Ten Ways to Stretch Your Food Budget

I’ve been living on my self-imposed food budget for just over a month now, and I have so far managed to avoid scurvy, night blindness, and violent fits of chocolate envy. Between pouring over the comparative prices of bulk grains and turning my leftovers into soup, I have dutifully been scribbling notes to myself. What works? What takes a lot of time? What cuts out the most waste? Through my haphazard ruminations, some patterns emerged. The result was a handful of concrete, practical strategies: a few things to add to your culinary repertoire, a few places to look for waste, and some organizational strategies. The list seemed to round out nicely at ten, so here they are: the ten techniques I think will serve you best in stretching your kitchen budget.


Cook your own grains. Nearly every cuisine has a cereal grain for a backbone (though on occasion tubers will take on this starchy role). Western Europe has wheat; Eastern Europe, rye. Most of Asia depends on rice (though millet has even older roots in Asia). South America has corn. It matters little, in terms of saving money, what grain you’re cooking; what does make a difference is that you are cooking your own grains. The basic product that you buy (flour, milled grains) is almost always pretty cheap. What costs more money is processing. When you invest the time to cook your own rice or bake your own bread, your food budget is directly converted to the staple of your diet.

I find it much easier to manage a diet when I stick to one central grain. Right now I’m working with a wheat-centered diet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally cook a rice- or corn- centered dish. Sticking to one grain, there are just fewer things to manage -- I can easily judge if I have enough bread for the rest of the week or if I’ll need to do some more baking. That calculation is a bit more tricky when measuring a half dozen different grains and leftovers. No matter if it’s bread, millet, quinoa, rice, cous cous or dried pasta, when you cook your own grains your money is efficiently spent.

Eat Dried Beans. I know. There really isn’t anything sexy about dried beans. I don’t know what has done the most harm to the reputation of beans, their propensity to induce flatulence or the very long-standing, rather snobbish verdict that beans are lower-class food. But I adore them. I really think that our little friends in the pulse family are about as close to a superfood as anyone could ask for. Impossibly cheap. Nutritious. Capable of being stored just about indefinitely. Oh, and they are also delicious. Ok, so now the bad news. They do require specific (though not difficult) preparation (properly preparing dried beans can also minimize their wind-generating properties). It’s true that canned cooked beans are a pretty cheap source of protein too, but I think beans are so much better when you cook them yourself. It’s more than just my queasiness about the disturbingly viscous liquid canned beans are suspended in. When you cook your own beans you can add other ingredients to punch up the flavor (garlic, broth, bay leaves, spices). I promise to follow with a post detailing my tips for turning various beans into tasty dishes.

It might be a cliché that rice and beans are the staple foods of the cost-conscious. But there is real wisdom behind this trope; grains and beans are cheap and nutritious. Making them the center of your everyday meals is an easy, effective way to trim down your food budget.


Produce is really important. The concern is not just achieving the right balance of foods for a healthy diet (which does need a lot of plant foods), produce is also essential in making your daily meals satisfying, varied, and interesting. But produce can also be tricky. It is often expensive. It’s unpredictable. It goes bad. I’ve found this to be such a critical area of concern that the next four tips largely address how to buy produce in a cost-effective manner and use it before it goes bad-- though many of the same principles apply for meat and dairy.


Juggle fewer balls. Sometimes maintaining produce feels impossibly complicated. Bananas, pears, kale, potatoes, tomatoes, avocados somehow make their way into your fruit bowl or vegetable drawer, looking so innocent and promising. But then they unexpectedly turn on you. The avocados and bananas are not ripe when you need them, and overnight they turn into something brown and sticky, like clay. Kale turns yellow and bitter while spinach dissolves into a slimy green sludge. It is really, really hard (even for experienced professionals) to gauge exactly when fruits and vegetables will be ripe, and for exactly how long they will last. I think that the easiest thing you can do is to simplify the equation for yourself. Do not buy a lot of produce that has a narrow window of time when it is palatable (fresh greens, avocados, bananas, pears, berries, stone fruits). All of these foods make their own schedule; you have to be ready to act when they are in their prime. If you’re buying too many types of demanding produce at once, you are setting yourself an unpredictable culinary obstacle course. The solution? Buy less, (particularly less types at once). You can also simplify your tasks by buying fruits and vegetables with longer hold times (apples, citrus fruits, root vegetables, onions, winter squash). Buying in this manner does mean that you might have to go to the store a bit more frequently to supplement your fruit or salad greens, but I think it is a worthwhile trade-off for not throwing out your priceless plant foods.

Buy Seasonally. This tip gets bandied about quite a bit in discussions about eating ecologically. Again, it is one of those tips that makes some rational sense -- when less of your dollar is spent on shipping costs (and all of the involved processes to grow and transport produce out of season) your dollar is converted more directly into food. Depending on your source, seasonality can also apply to meat and seafood.

Make your own preserves. A dear friend of mine recently confided to me her childhood memories of canning. It was an all-day affair. In the heat of summer, endless sweaty hours were spent boiling jars, and pitting, skinning and cooking the pounds of slick, wet fruit. It was an activity that left the whole family distinctly cranky.

Let me first say that this is not the type of preserves that I am talking about. In fact, I use the term preserves rather loosely. I would include freezing extra vegetables and simply cooking fruits or vegetables to store in the refrigerator -- anything that extends the life of your produce is some type of preservation. And some of these techniques are phenomenally easy. Tossing cooked or raw vegetables in a simple brine at least triples how long they will last in your fridge (you don’t have to sterilize jars if you’re just making pickles in your fridge!) And if you cook fruit with sugar you can similarly extend its life span. Of course, I’m not arguing against canning your own peaches, but making preserves doesn’t have to be a complicated, intimidating project. And some of the simple things means of making preserves can save you a lot of money by avoiding spoiled produce.

Save useful scraps. A lot of the trimmings of vegetables and fruits are useful ingredients in their own right. This is such a rich topic that I’m making it an ongoing discussion/exploration. I will follow with posts about what scraps are useful to save as well as how to use them. It is surprising how much goodness you can wring out of leftover trimmings. The calculation on this one is obvious: turning scraps that you would normally throw away into delicious food is as close as you can get to making something from nothing.


Consume luxury foods sparingly. I’ll admit that this is the one that scared me. I am fully guilty of making food purchases in the thrall of an exotic or unknown ingredient -- I have bought sapodillas and cold-pressed pumpkin seed oil without the slightest idea as to what I was going to do with them. So it was with some amount of trepidation that I weighed and calculated the cost of ground espresso that it takes to make my morning latte (a habit which I have cut back on, but not eliminated). I would term “luxury” anything that has to either travel from a long distance, or is a highly concentrated product. Wine, beer, liquor, cheese, cream, chocolate, coffee: these are all goods with truly unique qualities but they are made precious by either the great mass of care (and sometimes a lot of raw food matter) that goes into their production, or their unique origin. So far, though, cutting back on the expensive foods hasn’t really bothered me. After my first two-week budget, I had enough money left over to buy myself a cheap, but enjoyable bottle of red wine (thank you, Trader Joe’s for your well-selected, affordable wines) and a bar of good chocolate. Consuming these items sparingly has, for me, actually made them a bit more enjoyable. Call me crazy, but spreading a thick pat of pasture-raised butter on my morning toast or nibbling on a small square of dark chocolate with my afternoon tea leaves me feeling that I eat very richly indeed.


Minimize Processed Food. This is a tough one. So much has been done by all parts of the food industry to make prepared foods convenient and appealing. Often we’re just trying desperately to keep up with overburdened schedules; adding extra culinary tasks seems like an impossibility. I don’t have any easy fix. The calculation is simple though: if you turn basic ingredients into food yourself, you pay for the ingredients. If you buy a food that is processed, you pay for the ingredients plus the processing plus the packaging and marketing. Making food in your own kitchen is just more economical. There are a few products that particularly kill me with the markup. For instance cereal and crackers are fairly basic, grain-based products; the cost of the raw materials in them is very low. The pre-made packaged varieties, however, are not so cheap. Some of these items are pretty easy to make at home (I promise to follow up with my recipes for crackers and granola soon). The absolute worst culprit in this regard, though, has to be soft drinks. Really, any bottled drink. The cost is particularly egregious when you consider that you are getting almost no nutritional value for your money.


Make allowances for your eating and cooking habits. I’m betting that most people have some eating or cooking foible. I need to have a snack in the afternoon. If I don’t then I get hungry and surly, and when I get home from work I eat a big snack and spoil my dinner. For a while I tried to work around it -- maybe I should eat lunch later? drink more water? Sometimes this would work, but all too often I found myself popping out of the office to grab a snack or reverting to my cranky, dinner-spoiling habits. So for me the solution is simply that I need a little snack. By planning for this, I can make sure to bring my own snack rather than buy some expensive, not-very-nutritious tidbit. Your allowances need to meet you wherever your foible lies. Perhaps you need to always have a soup or pasta in the freezer for when you are just too tired to cook what you had planned. If you’re having a tough time keeping up with your cooking, then it is worth taking a good hard look at where and when you turn to prepared foods or take-out. Anticipating this ahead of time can keep you from needing to turn to these more expensive options.


Improvise. I think the truest measure of a good cook is how they react when something goes awry. And there will always be unpredictability in a kitchen. Ingredients will be missing. Unexpected bushels of zucchini and eggplant will materialize. Guests will show up unannounced. To make the most of these opportunities, you need to be nimble. I find that flexibility comes from equal parts expertise and gusto. So, yes, it is absolutely important to bone up on your culinary knowledge. Read and talk endlessly about food -- many of my best ideas have sprung from meandering discussions. But I can’t overstate how important it is to experiment. Be a little reckless. It is easy to feel pitted into one of the cook stereotypes: either you are some sort of domestic prodigy-- effortlessly turning out four course dinners served on time around a tasteful hand-made centerpiece, or you are the buffoon-- instantly all thumbs whenever there is a knife in hand. Neither of these images is very helpful. Anyone can learn to cook; but it does take practice. And a little fortitude. The biggest barrier to improvising in the kitchen seems often to be a lack of confidence, not a lack of culinary ability. And the only reply I have is to just dive in. Take on bigger, more involved projects. Try new techniques that you’re unsure about. Having a broader set of skills will serve you well when you inevitably have to deal with something unexpected. It seems my final suggestion has turned into something of an argument for home cooking. I can stand behind that. Cooking at home is likely the best single move you can make to get good food for less money. Cook at home to save money. Cook for sustenance. Cook for pleasure. Cook unapologetically. But do, do cook.

Citrus Peels

Very often I’ll need the juice of half of a lemon for something; the remaining shell need not be neglected. The peel is, in many ways, the most interesting and useful part of a citrus fruit. It contains the fragrant, flammable citrus oil, and a lot of handy pectin to boot. There are a few different uses for citrus peels, and they require different preparation. Lime peels are an exception to a lot of the rules of citrus peels... you can’t dry or candy them (a difference in the chemical composition of their skins makes them turn brown and leathery). You can, however, shave the zest off and save it in the freezer until you have another use for it. I feel compelled to mention that I have read some very alarming reports about pesticides used on citrus fruit trees seeping into the oil of citrus fruits, making the peel of conventionally grown citrus a bit questionable. For whatever its worth, I only use the peels of organic citrus.

To dry citrus peels: Use a vegetable peeler to shave off the outer layer of peel. With a needle and thread string the strips of peel onto a length of string. Hang the string of peels up in a well ventilated area, and the peels will dry in a few days. Dried peels can be stored indefinitely in spice jars. Dried strips of citrus peel can be added to stocks or soups to brighten the flavor, You can also use them to make your own flavored tea. You can turn the dried strips into powder them by whizzing them for a few seconds in an electric coffee grinder. The resulting powder can be added to baked goods or sprinkled on top of a cappuccino.

To save citrus peels for marmalade: If you only need the juice of an orange or lemon, you can use a course grater to remove the zest and some of the peel from the outside of the fruit. Then you can juice the fruit as you normally would. Again, wrap the zest well and freeze it until you have enough to make the preserves of your choice.

To save citrus peels for candying or jams: Scrape away the inside of the fruit so that all you have left is the spongy white peel. Throw it in a bag in the freezer until you have accumulated enough to make a batch of candied peels (I promise to post a recipe once we reach prime citrus fruit season).

Saving Scraps

If you are cutting your vegetables in a very formal, French manner, there is a prescribed, unvarying system. Your cutting station contains three bowls: the first bowl contains the whole, unmanipulated plant matter; the last bowl contains the finished, geometrically cut product; the middle bowl contains everything you have scraped, cut and peeled away in the process. Savvy cooks know that there is a lot of useful stuff that gets thrown in that middle bowl (and usually subsequently into the trash.) Turning those scraps into useful and delicious food is a really easy and rewarding way to stretch your food budget. It certainly gives me the feeling that I have performed some feat of wizardry- making something delightful from nothing. So this is the beginning of what will be an evolving list of useful scraps to save, accompanied with recipes and tips about how best to use them.

Pappa al Pomodoro

It is, I will admit, a little late in the season to feature a tomato and basil dish. Tomatoes are at the end of their harvest, and most of the basil has flowered and taken on the stronger anise notes of maturity. But I was still able to get a pint of beautiful local multicolored cherry tomatoes for a pretty cheap price. So why not cling to those last vestiges of summer produce while they are still available? Beside all of that, I’m nursing a nasty cold right now and I’ve found myself in need of some comfort food. And this dish is comfort food at its best. I had not heard of pappa al pomodoro before I lived in Italy. Even though most Americans have not grown up with this Tuscan classic, after eating a few bites you might feel like you’ve been eating this your whole life. It is one of those gems of northern Italian cuisine: simply prepared, economical and satisfying.

My version uses cherry tomatoes (which are not exactly traditional), but cooking them for a few minutes breaks them down and you are spared the additional tasks of chopping and seeding. I find it is much easier to obtain consistently tasty cherry tomatoes rather than, say, plum tomatoes. If you happen to have other tomatoes on hand, you can certainly use them for this dish. If you are using larger tomatoes and want to be fussy (as I often do), you can scoop out the seeds and coarsely chop the meat of the tomato.



Yield: 2 servings

olive oil
1 large clove of garlic, finely minced
1/2 red onion, diced

A small handful of basil leaves, snipped into strands
2 c. stale bread pieces
2 c. cherry tomatoes
1 1/2c. broth (vegetable or chicken)

1/2 tsp. salt
freshly ground pepper
olive oil
parmesan cheese


Cook the Vegetables: Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, cook for a minute and then add the garlic. Cook until the onions are starting to look translucent. Add the whole tomatoes and chopped basil. Cook for about 5 minutes over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to break up the tomatoes.

Cook the Bread: Once the tomatoes have broken down, toss in the broth and return the mixture to a boil. Add the bread. Cook, stirring frequently, for another five minutes or so until the bread has broken down and the mixture has thickened.

Season & Serve : Add salt and pepper to taste (remember that the parmesan cheese is also salty). Serve with a drizzle of olive oil, fresh black pepper, a few fresh basil leaves and parmesan cheese shavings. This dish can be eaten hot, tepid or cold.