Scromblette with Onion, Zucchini, Tomato, and Cheddar

I used to make omelettes with vegetables and cheese and good things inside. But they always seemed to fall apart and get very messy, because I was horribly inept at flipping them. So now when I make eggs with veggies and cheese and good things, I make something in-between an omelette and scrambled eggs, and I really like it. I call them scromblettes, for scrambled + omelette. They are sort of scrambled up (I have accepted my inferior flipping skills and now make the most of the situation) but sort of flat and fluffy like an omelette. Here is a scromblette I made recently with two eggs, sauteed red onion, zucchini, fresh tomato, and 2% cheddar cheese.

Garden Veggie Scromblette!

After typing a draft of this post, I became curious about whether anyone else makes something like this. On urbandictionary.com there is an entry for “scromlette,” which reads as follows:

“Scrom-let – A sumptuous dish served only (as far as I know) at Kingfisher B&B in Worcestershire. It is essentially the bastard child of scrambled egg (scrom) and omelette (lette). It was created one bleary eyed morning after a heavy night on the good stuff as a result of a complete lack of culinary dexterity. Despite it’s shaky beginnings frankly scromlette is infinitely more delectable than either of it’s two inferior egg based parent dishes.”

So, apparently I am not the only one doing this! Scromblettes / scromlettes are happening in Richmond, Virginia and at a bed and breakfast in England. Interesting, although I could find no mention on scromlettes on the Kingfisher Bed and Breakfast website.

Scromblettes are Scrumderful (that's scrumptious + wonderful)!

Firebirds Wood Fired Grill

On Saturday, Aaron’s family came from their hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia to visit us in Richmond – the occassion was that Aaron’s birthday is on Tuesday. After some goofing around at our apartment, we all went to Short Pump Town Center, which is an upscale shopping center in the west end of Richmond. It has a Williams-Sonoma. I went there and oohed and ahhed for a good while. I didn’t buy anything, though – keen observers will notice that the word “cheap” is in the title of my blog.

We ate lunch at a place called Firebirds Wood Fired Grill in the mall. I’ll go ahead and add a disclaimer that this meal was probably not the healthiest ever (it’s Aaron’s birthday, after all). But it was cheap, since it was a birthday thing for Aaron – it was free for both of us, in fact. And as I’ve said before, you can’t beat free. Thanks, Aaron’s mom and dad!

I actually forgot to bring my camera with me to the mall, so Aaron’s mum took these pictures with her fancy fancy camera. They turned out very nicely, especially considering that it was super dark in the restaurant. So, many thanks to our guest photographer!

Aaron’s mom ordered the baby back ribs, which came with fries, cider slaw, and a moist towelette.

Ribs, Slaw, and Fries

Aaron and I both ordered the same thing. The turkey club came on jalapeno corn bread (not cornbread, but regular bread with corn and jalapenos!), smoked turkey, applewood bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato, and roasted red pepper mayonnaise. The fries were crisp on the outside and fluffy and hot on the inside. I asked for a little of the red pepper mayo on the side to dip my fries into. I believe Aaron’s mom described the fries as “worth falling off the wagon for.” I assume she means the healthy eating wagon, or perhaps the french fry abstinence wagon. Either way, I agree, although today I’m right back on again. 🙂

Those eager little hands clasped around the fork in the background belong to Aaron, who is probably thinking something like, "Please hurry up with the pictures and let me eat!"

Aaron’s brother ordered the smokehouse chicken sandwich, which came with applewood bacon, barbeque sauce, shredded cheddar cheese, and red onions. He also got a nice pile of the yummy fries, of course. This is the only photo on this post that I took, since I was sitting next to the sandwich and its owner.

The Smokehouse Chicken Sandwich

Aaron’s dad ordered the soup of the day (chicken tortilla with sour cream), and the Firebirds BLT salad, which came with roasted garlic ranch dressing. Aaron’s mom took this awesome action shot of our server grinding some fresh black pepper onto the salad. The service was excellent, by the way.

"Just say when!"

I think Aaron had a very tasty birthday lunch and a fun day at the fancypants mall. I know I did. 😀

Slow Cooker Red Beans and Rice

In the interest of finding new recipes to use with my new crock pot slow cooker, I checked out a couple of books about slow cookery from my local library. I picked up Cooking Light Slow Cooker and Fix-it and Forget-it Lightly. Cooking Light Slow Cooker is a hardcover with full-page, glossy pictures of each recipe, which I really like. I also like that I was able to get both of these for FREE at my library. (Since I’m currently working in a library and studying for my Master’s degree in Library Science, don’t be surprised to hear me toot the horn of the public library from time to time!) I just have to be careful not to spill any gravy on them.

Last night I made a recipe from Cooking Light Slow Cooker – Red Beans and Rice. You can view the recipe online here.

Red Beans and Rice with Turkey Sausage

I made just a few minor changes to this recipe. I found that the beans were pretty much cooked after only 3 hours on high, so I turned it down to low for the remaining two hours. The beans had a great texture, very creamy and bean-y. I also used some Oscar Meyer turkey sausage. I couldn’t find the Healthy Choice brand the recipe mentions, and the turkey sausage seemed to have wayyy less fat and saturated fat than anything else in the sausage department. The nutrition facts are available from www.thedailyplate.com. It also tasted delicious, and I would definitely buy it again. I used Uncle Ben’s instant brown rice instead of white rice for a little extra fiber and nutritiousness, and I splashed on a little Tobasco chipotle pepper sauce when this dinner made its way to my bowl. Oh, and in my excitement to eat, I forgot the sprinkle of green onions. I don’t think the dish suffered as a result. Aaron loved this dish, he raved about it the entire time we were eating and had two gigantic bowls of the stuff. I thought it was good, too, though enthusiasm like that was hard to match. 😀

You can view the nutrtion informaton for this dish on the same page as the recipe. It’s got 413 calories, with only 5% of those coming from fat, and a whopping 10 grams of fiber. I looked up the Healthy Choice sausage that the recipe suggests, and found that it has a little less fat than the turkey sausage I used, but just by one gram of total fat and .5 grams more saturated fat. The dish is still very lean. I also added a gram or two of fiber by using brown rice instead of white.

This turned out to be a very cheap meal. I used $0.50 of dried red beans, $0.50 of green pepper, $0.25 of celery, $0.50 of red onion, $1.25 of turkey sausage, $1 of instant brown rice, and perhaps $0.50 for bay leaf, thyme, paprika, tobasco, garlic, and whatever else. The total cost of this dish, then, was about $4.50. Even though the recipe says it makes four servings, it looks more like five to me since we polished off three servings last night (due to Aaron’s great enjoyment of the dish and hunger from not bringing a lunch to work that day) and there looks to be plenty for lunch for both of us. Assuming there are only four servings, the cost per serving is about $1.13. If you get the five servings that I came up with, the cost is even better – just $0.90 per serving. Awesome. This is one of the cheapest meals on the blog so far, if not the cheapest.

What is the cheapest meal you make at home?

Cool Pasta Salad with Lime, Salmon, and Chickpeas

As you may know, Monday nights are my nights to do what fellow food blogger Wasabi Prime has termed “MacGyver Cooking.” This term comes from a television show called MacGyver that ran from 1985-1992. If you are unfamiliar with the character for which the show is named, here is a little blurb from wikipedia: “MacGyver employs his resourcefulness and his knowledge of chemistry, physics, technology, and outdoorsmanship to resolve what are often life-or-death crises. He creates inventions from simple items to solve these problems. These inventions became synonymous with the character and were called MacGyverisms by fans. MacGyver was unlike secret agents in other television series and films because, instead of relying on high-tech weapons and tools, he carried only a Swiss Army knife and duct tape.”

MacGyver is an extremely resourceful person who uses what he has on hand (things which are usually cheap, by the way!) to solve a problem. So, MacGyver cooking, or “MacGyverizing my dinner” is something that I do almost every Monday night when all that’s left in the kitchen are a few odds and ends and I have a dinner problem to solve. This week, I had half a box of bowtie pasta (I’ll post about what I did with the other half of the box later!), two cans of salmon, a can of chickpeas, some red onion, celery, parsley, a lime, and half a bottle of that yummy Newman’s Own lime vinaigrette from the spinach salad with avocado post a few days ago. Using my santoku knife rather than a Swiss army knife (as MacGyver would), this is what I came up with:

I'm calling it "Cool Pasta Salad with Lime, Salmon, and Chickpeas."

I absolutely loved eating this. The textures were so interesting and pleasing – crunchy celery and onion, al dente pasta, meaty salmon chunks, and chickpea-textured chickpeas. The fresh lime and lime vinaigrette made the whole dish tangy and bright with just a little hint of sweetness (from the dressing). It looks very pretty, too. I was very impressed with this dish and would make it again for a pot-luck or picnic in a heartbeat. There are tons of leftovers, and I’m so looking forward to having another bowl for lunch. 😀

The pasta I used was Barilla Plus, which contains more protein, fiber, and Omega-3 than regular pasta. It tastes and looks virtually identical to regular white pasta. The boneless, skinless canned salmon was Chicken of the Sea brand. All Chicken of the Sea canned salmon is wild, Pacific salmon, which makes me happy because it is much cheaper than fresh wild salmon, and the Environmental Defense Fund says that, “Salmon caught in Alaska … are among the better-managed fish stocks in the U.S. They are also low in contaminants.” They say that it is safe to have four or more meals of wild salmon per month. Farmed salmon is a very different story. The EDF warns that adults should eat no more than ONE meal per month of farmed salmon, and that salmon farms “pollute surrounding waters with waste and chemicals.” By using canned wild salmon, I can enjoy a healthy, cheap meal with one of my favorite types of fish. The chickpeas are, of course, very healthy too. Nutritiondata.com says of chickpeas, “This food is very low in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin B6 and Folate, and a very good source of Manganese.” They also taste great and have a texture that I really enjoy.

This meal was a cheap one indeed. The entire dish used about $1 of pasta, $3 of salmon, $0.75 of chickpeas, $1 of dressing, $0.30 of fresh lime, and $0.75 of celery, parsley, and onion, which brings the total cost to $6.80, if my math is right (and I’m always worried that it isn’t – Aaron will check in a moment when I get this posted, I’m sure). We will probably get five servings out of this. That means that this dish costs $1.36 per serving! You can barely buy a 24-ounce soda out of a vending machine for that. Wouldn’t you rather have a nice bowl of Cool Pasta Salad with Lime, (wild!) Salmon, and Chickpeas? 😀

Extreme Pasta Salad Close-Up!

I expect you’ll be wanting a recipe now. Here it is.

Recipe for Cool Pasta Salad with Lime, Salmon, and Chickpeas (makes about 5 servings):

What you need:

• 1/2 box of Barilla Plus bowtie pasta
• 2 5-ounce cans of wild salmon, excess liquid drained and fed to the cat
• 1 can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 3 ribs of celery, diced
• 1/2 cup red onion, diced
• 1/2 cup of parsley, finely chopped
• juice of one fresh lime
• 1/2-3/4 cup of Newman’s Own Lighten Up Lime Vinaigrette (or make your own lime dressing)
• salt and pepper, to taste

How to do it:

1. Cook the pasta in boiling, lightly salted water until al-dente. Drain and rinse with cold water, until pasta is cooled off. Place pasta in a large mixing bowl and combine with the salmon, chickpeas, celery, onion, parsley, lime juice, and 1/2 cup of the lime vinaigrette. Toss the ingredients together to combine. If the pasta salad seems too dry, add more lime vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper as needed.
2. You can enjoy this right away, if you like, or allow the salad to get really good and cold in the fridge for a couple of hours before enjoying.
3. Enjoy!

Try it. You'll like it.

Fried Egg, Tomato, Mushrooms, and English Muffin

Yesterday I had to leave Richmond for most of the day, and since Aaron and I usually spend Saturdays together, this made me feel a little sad. I figured since I was leaving in the morning, I should make a big breakfast for us both, on account of how Aaron is notoriously bad at cooking. In a big skillet, I fried a couple of eggs, some fresh tomato slices, and some mushrooms in a little bit of light margarine and olive oil. I also toasted some whole-grain English muffins. We had a bowl of organic red grapes and glasses of orange juice as well (not shown).

Big Giant Breakfast for the Boy who Can't Cook So Great.

The yolk oozed its yellow goodness onto the plate, where it mingled with the hot tomato juices and was sopped up with the crunchy English muffin. Aaron’s favorite part of the breakfast was the mushrooms, which soaked up a lot of flavor while sauteeing in the pan with the other good things.

My favorite part, of course, was the egg. Aaron admitted that he cannot cook an egg sunny side up. He says that when he attempts it, the top does not get cooked at all, but the bottom burns. I admitted that I have real trouble cooking an egg over-easy, because I always manage to break the yolk. Sunny side up is no problem, though, as you can see!

Readers, over the next couple of days I will be extremely busy. Tomorrow I start a new job AND I have my first day of online classes for my Master of Library Science. If you do not see another post from me until Wednesday or Thursday, or if my heart explodes from the stress of it all before I get to post again, please enjoy these breakfast photos. I will be having more eggs tomorrow morning to give me the energy to face The New Job and The New Classes all in one day. 🙂

Spinach Salad with Avocado, Turkey, Swiss Cheese, and Tomatoes

Also known as “It’s too hot to cook!” dinner. The night before last, I wanted to eat something cool and refreshing, so I made a couple of salads for Aaron and me. I don’t know whether Aaron also felt like eating something cool and refreshing, but he eats what I make and always seems to enjoy it. This meal was no exception.

Spinach Salad with Avocado, Turkey, Swiss Cheese, and Tomatoes

For each salad, I spent $0.50 for the avocado, $0.50 for the spinach, $0.25 for the tomato, $0.75 for the cheese and turkey, and $0.25 for the dressing, which was Newman’s Own Lighten Up Lime Vinaigrette (tastes amazing with avocado!).  That means this meal cost about $2.25 per person. Not bad!

I love avocado – it’s great on sandwiches, in sushi, in salads, and as guacamole. I could eat it every day and never get tired of the cool, buttery, avocado-y flavor. It’s also a food I like to include in my diet for health reasons. According to nutritiondata.com, one cup of avocado contains 25% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C, 40% of the daily intake of fiber, 30% for folate, and 39% for vitamin K. Wikipedia states that, “Avocados also have 60% more potassium than bananas… [and] have the highest fiber content of any fruit.” So, you can always expect to find lots of avocados on my plates and on my blog. 🙂

Something interesting I’ve just noticed… I always write “avocados,” but wikionary.org says that “avocadoes” and even “avocadi” are both correct. I’m curious to see what you think, dear Reader.

Let me see if I am smart enough to figure out how to add a poll…

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

Since lately I’ve been dreaming about comforty foods like warm soups and tender pot roasts and the like, I picked up a crock pot from my local Target to help make such things possible in my own kitchen without the hassle of boiling something on the stove for four hours. So far, I am extremely happy with my $16 Target Crock Pot Slow Cooker. Yesterday it very successfully cooked a beef pot roast with potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery for me!

Crock Pot Roast

I noticed that my local grocery store had beef bottom round on sale for $2.99 / pound. Although I don’t know much about different cuts of meat, on account of being a vegetarian up until about nine months ago (me eating meat was a Christmas miracle), the picture in the sale paper looked like something that could be made into pot roast. After some research into meats used for pot roast and basic crock pot cookery, I was ready to give it a try.

I bought a 2-pound chunk o’ meat for about $6. In this dish I also used some red potatoes that cost about $2.50, $0.75 worth of carrots, a small onion for about $1, $0.25 worth of celery, and about $0.10 in garlic. That brings the total cost of this dish to $10.60, if my math is right, although this provided more than one meal, as we will examine shortly! Here’s how I cooked the roast and veggies.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast Recipe, serves two plus sandwiches and leftovers:

What you need:

• a two-pound roast, any visible fat trimmed away (I used bottom round)
• 1-2 pounds of small red potatoes, washed and halved, unpeeled
• 4-5 carrots, washed and cut into 2” chunks
• 1 white or vidalia onion, thickly sliced
• two celery ribs, washed and cut into 2” chunks
• 3-5 garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup water
• salt and pepper, to taste
• a large-ish slow cooker

How to do it:

1. In the bottom of the crock pot, place the carrots, potatoes, celery, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Season all sides of the meat with salt and pepper. Place the meat on top of the vegetables. Place the onion slices around the sides and on top of the meat. (My thinking here was to have the onion juices cook into the roast… yum.)
3. Pour the water into the slow cooker. Put the lid on and turn the cooker on “low”. Cook for 8-10 hours, or until the meat and potatoes are cooked and very tender.
4. Serve and enjoy!

If you wanted, you could make a gravy in the crock pot. Just take out the roast and veggies and turn the crock pot on high, with the lid on. Meanwhile, mix a few tablespoons of cold water with 1-2 tablespoons of cornstarch. When the juices from the water, meat, and vegetables are boiling, add the cornstarch mix to the liquid and stir until thickened. I would have done this for this meal, but after smelling the delicious food for hours and hours, I simply ran out of patience and had to eat! Can you blame me?

I didn’t know much about the nutrition content of bottom round, so I went to nutritiondata.com for help. According to that site, 3 ounces of bottom round, with the lean meat only (remember to trim off any excess fat prior to crock-potting it), braised contains 182 calories, 7 grams of fat, and 2 grams of saturated fat. When you compare that with the filet mignon I ate while on vacation (excluding the hollandaise sauce!), this is pretty good, since 3 ounces of the filet, broiled, contains 232 calories, 15 grams of fat, and 6 grams of saturated fat. We won’t even talk about the hollandaise.

Today I had plenty of roast beef left over, so I made Aaron and I roast beef melts for lunch. Can I still call it roast beef if it wasn’t actually roasted?

Open-face Roast Beef Melt with Muenster Cheese

To make these, I places two slices of whole wheat bread on a baking sheet in the oven, set to broil,  and toasted them very lightly on both sides. Then I removed the bread and spread the top side with light mayonnaise, placed some beef on top of the mayo, and topped it with a slice of orange-rind muenster cheese. Then I put the sandwiches back into the oven and broiled them until the cheese was melted. These were delicious and extremely satisfying. I’m happy to report that I still have enough roast left for another three sandwiches. So, my $6 roast will provide about 8 servings of yummy protein for Aaron and I (for those of you who are counting, Aaron had seconds of the initial pot roast and veggies meal).

Also, the crock pot itself was a bargain with an added bonus – it came with a new toy for Pigeon.

Brown Rice with Sugar Snap Peas, Cashews and Pineapple Teriyaki Sauce

Ah, it’s Monday again, and that means tomorrow is the big grocery shop day. I actually haven’t been to the grocery store since we got back, so it was pretty slim pickins in my kitchen. But I did have some instant brown rice, a bag of frozen sugar snap peas, a jar of roasted cashews, and a can of crushed pineapple, and with the addition of some soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, rice vinegar, and sriracha sauce, this is what I got:

Brown Rice with Sugar Snap Peas, Roasted Cashews, and Pineapple Teriyaki Sauce

I was feeling lazy tonight, so this influenced my cooking (which is also influencing my decision not to write a formal recipe!) – I threw the cup or so of instant rice into a pot with water and cooked it until there were about five minutes left, then added the frozen sugar snaps. While that was cooking, I mixed half of the small the can of crushed pineapple in a bowl with about 2 Tbsp. of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp. of rice vinegar, 1 Tbsp. of honey, 1 tsp. of the hot sriracha sauce, and a few drops of sesame oil. When the rice and peas were done cooking, I mixed in the pineapple teriyaki sauce, helped myself to a bowl, and topped it with roasted, lightly-salted cashews.

This was a really tasty dinner, considering the fact that I haven’t been to the grocery store in about two weeks!

Outer Banks Vacation Wrap-Up

I realized this afternoon that I still have a great deal of pictures I want to share on the blog, but I don’t really want to put them all into separate posts spanned out over the next week or so, since I plan to start cooking (and blogging about!) healthy tasty cheap things again this week. So, here are the remaining photos from my week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Our first morning at the beach house, we had a giant breakfast of pancakes, sausage links, and bacon. The pancakes were from a mix I had never seen or used before. The dry Bisquick mix is in a plastic jug-shaped container, so all you need to do is add water, shake, and pour the pancake mix onto the griddle. This worked great since no one had been to the grocery store to buy eggs, milk, and so forth at this point, and they tasted good, too. All in all, a pretty nifty product.

I like syrup on everything in this picture!

On Tuesday night, we had dinner at the Colington Cafe. I already posted our appetizer and entrees, but I haven’t gotten around to the desserts yet – until now! Aaron’s dad ordered the “Tollhouse Cookie Pie”. I am not sure what this was doing at a French restaurant, but it looked mighty tasty. I suspect it was made from a recipe similar to this one.

It's got cookie AND pie AND ice cream.

Aaron and I felt like something a bit more French-ish, so we split a creme brulee. It was so, so good. I was pleased to see lots of little specks of vanilla bean in it. I’m not sure what the triangular cookie on top was, exactly, but it was chewy and sweet. We used it to scoop up the smooth custard.

Creme brulee, moments before being cracked with my spoon.

One night, Aaron, his brother, two of his cousins, and I played mini golf at a place called Lost Treasure Golf (their website is obnoxious, but I’ll link to it anyway!). While we were waiting to buy our game, we noticed this sign and were all pretty tickled by it.

"DO NOT COMB ROCKS" -we tried our best not to!

That same day, we ate at a place called Sooey’s BBQ in Corolla, NC (which is pronounced kuh-RAH-luh, by the way). Aaron ordered the pulled chicken barbeque sandwich, which came with one side dish. He picked baked beans. The barbeque was the delicious, vinegary North Carolina variety, my favorite! If this picture is a bit blurry, that’s because he was whining for me to hurry up and take the picture – he was very eager to eat this. 🙂

Sooey's Barbeque Chicken Sandwich

Aaron’s dad ordered the pulled pork barbeque platter, which came with two hushpuppies and two sides. He picked collard greens and macaroni and cheese. This plate reminded me a lot of the pork barbeque plate I got at the Virginia Diner. It looked really good, especially the hushpuppies.

Sooey's Pulled Pork Barbeque Platter

I love chicken salad, so even though this was primarily a barbeque restaurant, I couldn’t resist the smoked chicken salad sandwich. The smoky chicken was mixed with mayo, celery, and onion, and served on a bun with lettuce tomato and onion. I picked macaroni and cheese for my side. This was delicious – my only complaint is that sad little loop of onion. A would prefer a nice slice of onion to a thin ring.

Sooey's Smoked Chicken Salad Sandwich

A closer look at the chicken salad sandwich

One day we took a trip to the northern part of the Outer Banks. Once you reach a certain point, the paved road ends and you have to drive on the beach, so only four-wheel drive vehicles are allowed (and even then, some people still get stuck in the sand). Aaron’s dad drove us down the beach in his ginormous pickup truck. It was sort of drizzly that day, so the beach looked rather gray. Still, it was neat to get some pictures of the beach with no human beings in them.

Northern Outer Banks

Before coming to the Outer Banks, I had absolutely no idea that feral horses inhabit the islands. We drove around the unpaved sand-roads for a while and actually found a small group of the horses grazing by the side of the road. The horses are descended from Spanish mustangs that may have swum to shore after shipwrecks. Wikipedia has a very interesting article about the Banker Horses.

Feral Horses on the Outer Banks

On another excursion (this time to Manteo, NC), we had lunch at a diner called Big Al’s. Since it was a diner, ordering the 1/2 pound bacon cheese burger with fries and a coke seemed like the thing to do. I was so full after eating this meal that when we got home half an hour later I immediately fell asleep and stayed that way for a good portion of the afternoon. Next time, I think I will order the 1/4 pound burger!

Big Al's Bacon Cheeseburger and Fries

That’s pretty much it! I had a great time eating and playing in the Outer Banks. Can’t wait to go back.

Mojito

While on vacation, Aaron’s uncle was nice enough to make me a mojito! I drank this with the Frogmore Stew from the previous post. It was especially delicious because the lime flavor in the mojito matched the flavor of the limes that we had thrown into the stew pot. It was cool and refreshing, and I thought it looked very pretty sitting on the counter in the beachy afternoon light.

Cold and Delicious!

He made the mojito using Rose’s Mojito Mix, rum, ice, slices of fresh lime, and some torn mint leaves. I would like to make these at home sometime soon.