Last week R. came over to have dinner and Dr. Who time with me and the Nerd. I also needed to restock the freezer with lunches, so I made a nearly overflowing 7 quart slow cooker full of homemade chili.
I have a 1 quart freezer bag I use for bringing dried beans up from the cellar in; and I know that it weighs out to about 2 pounds of beans when I have an even mixture of black beans and pinto beans.
So, I filled the bag with beans, rinsed them in a sieve, and poured them into a slow cooker with enough water to cover the beans by 2 inches.
The beans cooked overnight for about 10 hours, and in the morning I skimmed some of the water out of the cooker. I then added a mixture of chopped vegetables that I had in the crisper drawer, and that needed to be used up before they were bad. I added in carrots, celery, zucchini, and onion. I may have added other vegetables as well, but now I don’t remember what they were. That’s the good thing about soups and chili, you can always make it differently.
While the beans, liquid, vegetables, and spices cooked away slowly in the slow cooker all day, I went about my normal activities with a few peeks in the direction of the food.
That evening R. came over and we baked a basic yellow cake from The Gluten Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy. Silly me didn’t have any fine salt on hand, and I tried getting away with medium grain sea salt. Not such a great idea as parts of the cake were salty, but edible. The texture of the cake was a bit dry, but over all it was a good stand in for cake. The basic white icing from the same book was like slightly thinned marshmallow fluff. We all really enjoyed it. All the icing required was light corn syrup, an egg white, vanilla and cream of tartar. I was trying to incorporate the ingredients too slowly, so R. turned up the speed on the mixer and got the icing to turn out perfectly.
A couple nights later the rest of the cake was enjoyed by some dinner guests, who didn’t say a word about it tasting like a gluten free cake (but the salt was noticed, so I’ve bought some more fine salt).
To go with the chili I found a recipe for pupusas on the Maseca site. Instead of filling the dough with meats or veggies, I chose not to fill them. I simply mixed the maseca, water, and shredded Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar and created a delicious cheesy flat bread. They went over very well, and they were a great companion for the chili. I will make them again.
Mock Pupusas
adapted from Mimaseca.com
2 cups Maseca corn flour
2 cups warm water
1 cup shredded Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar Cheese
Mix the ingredients by hand in a large bowl.
Heat a large cast iron (preferably) skillet over medium heat.
Form small balls of dough and flatten them out by hand.
Add the discs to the skillet and cook until browned.
Serve.
The lovely thing about all of this food was that I had almost all of the ingredients on hand. R. brought me some mayonnaise, eggs, and sour cream for the cake. But, it was still a good lesson in pantry (and crisper) shopping.
I hope you can learn to shop your house too for delicious meals for very little cost.
