good cheap yummy

Stay Tuned...

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:02:07 -0400

GCY IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

I am still cooking but I just can’t blog cuz the free time I have has been gobbled up by homework/work/reality television.

If I figure out how to tumblr from my phone then I’ll post pics here and there.

Thanks for following me and supporting me!!!!!!!!!!!

weekend dos

Mon, 23 May 2011 09:44:54 -0400

dinner: veggie sandwich

side of food should taste good multigrain chips, of which we have endless supply cuz john works there

1 ciabbata roll
slice of gouda
1/2 cuke, sliced
few leaves of spinach
sliced red onion
half a roasted red pepper
trader joe’s bruschetta

this was really good and yummy and cheap i think the whole thing cost me like 99 cents jk i dont remember

breakfast: power oatmeal + coffee + lemonade

flawlessly delicious, healthy, slaying your favs every morning, etc.

I volunteered at a local elementary school’s spring clean-up on Saturday morning, so I needed a good breakfast to power me through it. Oatmeal is the queen of breakfast. Absolute royalty.

dinner: healthy baked mac and cheese w/ secrets inside

what did you say? there’s no way mac and cheese can be healthy?

that’s why it’s so big… because it’s full of secrets

after!

side of quickly sauteed spinach with garlic and oil UNF

FINE i’ll let you in on the secret ingredients to this heavenly mac: artichoke hearts and tofu! surprise - it’s good for you!

lazy

Thu, 19 May 2011 22:55:00 -0400

my apologies, dear readers, for being M.I.A. these past few days! don’t take my absence as me not having been cooking - cuz that would be totally untrue! I’ve just not been able to find time to sit down and blog it out. But here I am, right here right now, sending you some good cheap yummy meals!

I’ve been subsisting on a lot of leftovers this week. As to not bore you with repeats, here are some of the new meals:

this is called the “mess-terpiece”. i attempted to flip this veggie omelet and it just splopped into a mess, I was distraught, deemed it a mess. and then john, my roommate always ready with his quips, said “it’s a mess-terpiece!” that it is, john, that it is. oh and this was dinner the other night.

oatmeal, the breakfast of champions. it’s so maliable. you can put anything in or on it, basically, and it will taste good. It probably wouldn’t taste good with olives on it. but then again NOTHING DOES I mean WHO LIKES OLIVES?! People who like gross things, that’s who!

when I finally made it home after a long day of work, surviving the MBTA, and kicking my butt at swim practice, I was pooped! I was in no mood to cook a meal let alone even eat. I took a look in the fridge, quickly scanned and a lone half-of-a-veggie-burger was waving it’s little black bean arms at me saying “me! me! eat me!” so I picked him up, popped him in the mike, made a quick salad, burnt two pieces of toast and scraped off the burnt part, and made dinner. voila, messterpiece #2

So I think the lessons to be learned from this week are:

blogging is tough. good blogging is even tougher. my posts are getting less and less well thought out and TBH IDGAF cuz this is my blog and i’ll do what I want and haters are judge judys and I don’t associate myself with those types
cooking is tough. good cooking is even tougher. the excitement of the first week kept me inspired to cook new meals. this week I’m finding myself crunched for time and falling on crutch meals like pb&js, cereal, salads, etc. Not like those are bad things (actually some of my fav foods), but I want to try and push myself to cook different meals when I have the time!
Three

Lastly, I wanted to see if any of you mystery people out in the blogosphere have a good recipe for oatmeal cookies. I have, like, a silo of oats in my pantry and I would like to make cookies with them. Preferably something out of the ordinary. Do you have a good oatmeal cookie recipe?

"Use-a the tuppaware!"

Thu, 19 May 2011 20:18:53 -0400

“Use-a the tuppaware!”

- Nonno Marino’s cooking advice

sharing is caring

Tue, 17 May 2011 00:15:00 -0400

This week’s weather is abysmal. Try to keep sun in your mind homies!!!

breakfast: smoothie

1 1/2 cup frozen fruit assortment
1/2 cup plain organik yogurt
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk (cuz, let’s get serious, what else am I going to use it in)
A handful of spinach
Tspn clover honey

blend in blender at 7am, annoy roommates, get tweeted at by boloco

lunch: soup from yesterday

took a real away-from-computer lunch break with sassy hayes and KT today, some of my fav squirrel friends at BtC which was glorious until I had to leave early cuz I forgot I had to be at a meeting…oops

dinner: pasta w/ veggies + arugula salad w/ peniz dressing

my good friend and fellow italian-american loey penizottttto came over for dinner tonight. she is one of my more erratic and unpredictable friends, so it was interesting putting her in charge of the salad. I insisted we eat the arugula I forgot I bought and after much protesting I convinced her to use it - she drowned it in the concoction of a dressing she made pictured below, I couldn’t tell you exactly what was in it but I think it’s something along the lines of sun dried tomatoes vinegar oil and too much dijon. the sauce itself was jarred tomato sauce I had freegan‘d from moveouts back in the dorm (ultimate cheap), but I spruced it up with some fresh garlic + half a zuke + baby bellas. lauren brought the whole wheat pasta.

jarred tomato sauce is one of my mortal enemies. soon I will attempt to recreate my mother’s sauce, stay tuned.

no comment.

candle lit dinner on the moon. look at our tablescape, sandra lee would be so proud

“rancid arugula” according to lrn. it wasn’t. I had to teach her how to properly halve cherry toms cuz she was straight up attacking them massacre style

like the proper second generation italians we are, we ended our meal sharing some coffee, a truffle procured from lauren’s pocket, and a cannoli cookie - courtesy of my uncle peppe via my dad’s care package (HI DAD I would link to the company but he doesn’t have a website) No but seriously these cookies are the best thing in the world, you should be very jealous

GCY weekend edition

Sun, 15 May 2011 22:18:19 -0400

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It’s a day for rest and reflection, on the week and weekend past, and preparation for the week ahead. I use it as a day for doing things that I want to do, for me and myself and no one else (sorry i’m not sorry). Maybe lay in bed and catch up on my favorite TV shows, read a book, play pokemon, or go out for a run in the sun or walk in the park. Today was definitely a lay-in-bed-with-the-real-housewives kind of day, since the weather in Boston is straight up depressing! This weekend was a lot of fun - but in between all the fun, I ended up cooking a lot of boring-quick meals (such as pb&js and yogurt w/ cereals) There were a few gems, though, which I’ll share below!

Here are some highlights of the better meals I made this weekend:

breakfast: omelet w/ spinach mushrooms green onions and goat cheese

pre-flip anxiety…

stetson east ain’t got nothin’ on this om

Saturday was make-your-own pizza party, to say the least!

Pizzzza
1 jar of roasted garlic pasta sauce
pre-made pizza dough from whole foods
fresh mozz + parm
various veggies of your choice

onions, asparagus, spinach, mushrooms. YUM.

half of this had just onions and serrano chiles, the other half had red+yellow peppers and onions and mushrooms

and then tonight’s dinner was a direct reflection of my mood. I was feeling pretty sickly all day - stuffed nose, seasonal allergie syndrome etc., coupled with gloomy weather - I wanted something simple. When I was young my mom would make soup and a sandwich for these kinds of days. So that’s what I did!

dinner: lemony spring soup w/ peas + rice, grilled cheese (gouda + spinach on sprouted multi-grain)

did the trick, hit the spot, very goodcheapyummy, etc. etc. etc.

All’s that was missing was a glass of Ramona Pinot Grigio.

roommargarithursday

Thu, 12 May 2011 22:26:26 -0400

Happy inaugural Roommate Margarita Thursday!!!

This is a very special holiday, where roommates come together after a very busy week of co-op, to celebrate friendship and enjoy each others company over a homemade meal and some margaritas

I spent all day thinking about this momentous occasion, so the rest of the day’s meals were quite uncreative, so forgive me for repeats.

Breakfast: plain yogurt w/ multigrain o’s + granola + frozen blueberries

I forgot to take a picture of this until post-consumption. Oopsies.

Lunch: leftover pilaf from monday

OK, I’ll admit, this was super lame. I made up for it by going to frappucino happy hour, which was by far the best (and only!) $2 I spent all week. also, I can’t-not be happy when I work at BtC!

*drumroll*

and now… the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

Dinner: Super-Veggie Burgers + Spicy-Sweet Potato Fries + MARGZ!

Step 1 - Go to whole foods, buy last-minute ingredients, visit check-out line of your favorite cute hipster cashier

Step 2 - Turn on Margarita Jueves pandora station (1 Part ‘Steal My Sunshine’ + 1 Part ‘Take The Money And Run’ + 1 Part ‘Centerfold’)

Step 3 - Make Margz

Step 4 - Make spicy-sweet P fries

Step 5 - Mash burger parts via mason jar due to blender inaccesability/non-existence of food processor

Step 6 - Nervously fry burgers in pan, praying to the gwyneth paltrow that they don’t crumble apart

Step 7 - Bedazzle your burger and enjoy!

never give up, trust your instincts!

Wed, 11 May 2011 22:52:00 -0400

this gloomy weather is getting me down, homies. not feeling the mid-50s-and-rainy at all. what happened to the may I know - the may that is full of, you know, spring? blech!

anyway, today (food-wise) was good!

breakfast: multi-grain joe’s o’s w/ almond milk + frozen blackberries + this really good locally made granola (aka from me)

a quick whip after A.M. yoga

lunch: after enduring much peer pressure to cheat on goodcheapyummy not even a full-week in, I resisted temptation to get falafel with my co-workers during lunch today for another intern’s last day celebration. I instead ate leftovers from last night’s dinner - which bee tee dubs was scrumptious. I got a high-five from my super-boss Katie for sticking to my guns, which to be honest, was better than any falafel tastes (even though this particular falafel place is pretty darn good)

dinner: this came out of google recipe search! I was in the mood for stir fry, so I entered “stir fry”, checked off “orange” and wala (how do you spell that anyway? like… the fancy version of Ta-da) citrus veggie stir-fry appeared! I added in: zucchini, some yellow onion, and threw some honey (kudos to John for the genius idea) into the sauce. slapped this beautiful mix onto leftover basmati from monday and into my belly it went.

I’m really happy this came into my life.

sidenote: the red bell pepper pictured above, which came from that magical trader called joe, was the most juicy pepper I’ve tasted in my life. I ate half of it as I was chopping it. I must get another one A.Q.A.P.

semi-homemade every-other-day italian

Tue, 10 May 2011 21:49:51 -0400

breakfast: oatmeal w/ dried fruit

I was watched the today show while eating this, good morning

1 1/2 cup steel cut oats
2 cup almond milk or other milk substitute besides soy cuz soy is dangeruz
1 tsp cinnamon
handful of your choice dried fruit, in my case: bananas + craisins.
also, walnuts

lunch: zandwich

this is my desk at work, shout out to my homies at be the change!

2 slices hearty multigrain bread
some greens
yesterday’s white bean dip
red pepper
red onion
cave aged gouda (no really, trader joe said it’s put in a 58degree minnesotan cave for two weeks or something)
wholegrain dijon mustard

dinner: pasta w/ asparagus cream sauce - recipe right hurr

plate courtesy 1987

as much as i love giada, and her overpronunciation of words, she can get a little cray cray sometimes with her expectations of what constitutes ‘everyday’ italian. I had to tweak her recipe a bit to reflect what I had in my fridge seeing as I don’t keep mar-ska-po-nay on the reg. I used brown rice penne instead of farfale, made a simple cream sauce with sauteed red onion, garlic, portabellas, asparagus and a bit of half-and-half (christina, it expires soon so I had to use it!). I also put in a bit of red pepper flakes for a little heat. Aside from setting off my first smoke alarm due to burning the walnuts I attempted to toast in the toaster oven… meal #6 was a success!

easy'ing into it

Mon, 09 May 2011 22:10:25 -0400

today was the first full day of good cheap yummy. it was also the first day of my online classes, and the last day of my RA office hours. thus, today’s meals were all quick ones that I could whip up in under 15 minutes!

breakfast: scrambled eggs with goat cheese on toast

The knife stands alone.

twins, basil!

the crunch of the toast combined with the creaminess of the melted goat cheese infusing itself with the pillowy scrambled eggs… divine. breakfast of champions. I would eat this every morning if I could!

also shout out to doka estate for providing this mornings coffee! still got a good reserve from when I visited costa rica last summer

lunch: yesterday’s pilaf! with some hot sauce.

dinner: salad w/ cherry toms, red onion, goat cheese, craisins, evoo+bals vin; white bean dip

simple yet sooooo good.

note to self: you shouldn’t have thrown out the food processor

ok so this bean dip came out surprisingly well and it was SOoOoO easy. cleaning the garlic and bean nonsense out of the apartment’s “margarita blender” was probably the hardest part (don’t worry roommates, It’s good to go now!). I think I’m going to use it on a sandwich for lunch tomorrow!

you go, veg coco!!

Sun, 08 May 2011 21:21:08 -0400

It’s here! It’s finally here!

My first grocery trip today was very successful! I trekked over to trader joe’s for this stuff, and then stopped at whole foods on my way back home. I bought all of the things I will need to make this week’s meals (and more!) for only $80 or so. Snaps for that!

Tonight marks my first step into the relative-personal-lunacy that will be cooking every meal for the next two months. Dinner for today (and most likely lunch for tomorrow) is Coconut-Vegetable Rice Pilaf With Peppercorns! I am making a few changes to give it a personal good cheap yummy twist. I am using brown basmati rice, added an extra carrot, threw in some mushrooms and substituting this really kickass hot sauce I bought for the pepper. I’m also not cooking it in a dutch oven and instead am just kind of doing it on the stove since I don’t know what a dutch oven is/have one.

So yeah, I’m currently waiting for the rice to cook in this rice cooker that I recently acquired via the move-out donation bin (don’t judge), so I figured I’d start writing up the first food post!

Here you see the peppercorns and onions frying in oil. A lot of oil. I got scared when I put a “splash” of canola oil in and it started shooting scalding hot splatters out at me, causing me to jump and pour about a good half a cup in. Yup. Oh well.

Here it is in all it’s glory. It didn’t really taste like coconut, and I ended up adding in a bit more hot sauce and salt. Also the almonds were a really nice touch. Overall I’m chalking this one up to a learning experience - my first time in a new kitchen with a new recipe, I’m very happy with how it turned out! I also have about enough leftovers to last me about… three more meals. So that should be thrilling!

cooking every meal for the next 60 or so days, all the while working an internship + part-time job + taking two courses + living a life, is gonna be a lot of fun….right?

"you're a food snob!"

Mon, 02 May 2011 16:21:44 -0400

This past weekend, I enjoyed spending a much-needed visit home and sharing time and meals with some of my family and friends in New Jersey and New York City. The majority of these meals were eaten out, at restaurants or on-the-go, and each reminded me about how the luxury of spontaneous pre-made meals is soon to be gone from my life (at least temporarily!)

a picture of my cat, just ‘cuz she’s beautiful

The one meal I did eat at home, that was cooked by my mother, was (can you guess?) BREAKFAST! My mom is your typical middle-aged Italian mom, always eager to have guests and even more eager to feed them. My best friend Kurt had stayed with us overnight, and my mom jumped at the opportunity to make us a delicious breakfast. If you know anything about Italian-American mothers, their basic instinct is to cook enough food for one meal that if necessary could probably feed the entire neighborhood. And that’s just what my mom did!

Since I last saw her for Christmas break, my mother has “been inspired” by my slow-food-obsession (and perhaps my family movie night selection of Food Inc.) to be more conscious about her food purchases for the household. She was ecstatic to tell me about her now-frequent trips to Trader Joe’s, and the discovery of organic and “artisan” aisles in the local Pathmark. My mother’s pride of her “healthy” food was evident as she began preparing a spread of epic proportions, setting out organic greek yogurt, organic blueberries and strawberries, cinnamon raisin bagel chips with organic cream cheese, all the while slicing up challah bread to make orange zested french toast.

Everything was absolutely delicious, and I had to practice every ounce of self control not to eat myself silly. I decided against breaching the issue of portion sizes with my mother, to not hurt her feelings again, as I had already tredged down that path when I made a comment about the dangers of ultra-pasteurization of dairy, setting her on the defensive. Mom proceeded to make a comment to the effect of “well, I can’t wait to see you cook all your 156 meals, that should be funny, you’re a food snob!”

And then I declared, proudly (perhaps defensively): “Yes, I am a food snob!”, going on to clarify that it does not necessarily make me any better or worse than her, or anyone else for that matter. I simply care about the food that I put in my body, and I want the people who I love to care about it, too. I do not think that being a foodie makes me an elitist, and I definitely do not think I act that way (at least I hope not).

What I learned from this weekend home is that in my effort to live a sustainable and holistic lifestyle I need to be sure to not discredit or disregard the well-intentioned efforts of other people who may just simply be in different stages of the same journey I am on. However, whether someone chooses to eat good food or not, everyone deserves the opportunity to do so. Be sure to support your local farmers, and be vocal about your opinions when it comes to slow-food supportive legislation! Then hopefully some day, everyone can have access to good, cheap and yummy food that is good for our bodies and good for the planet!

an eggciting beginning to an eggstraordinary journey

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:04:44 -0400

I’ve begun to map out my grand master meal plan and I am getting really excited to start cooking some good cheap yummy food!

A lot of great ideas are coming out of the kitchn, a website I haphazardly stumbled upon today. According to the kitchn’s ‘about us’ page, they are

a site for people who like to get their hands dirty while they cook.

It is for those who care about the quality of their food, and how it affects the health of themselves and the planet. It is also for those who want to cook more, but are shy in the kitchen. It’s a place to dive in deep, and embrace the joy of one of our basic needs: food.

I think that about sums me and good cheap yummy up in a nutshell! One random recipe I found that I am absolutely dying to make (and EAT!) are the minimalistically-named “Scrambled Eggs on Toast”.

For starters, I LOVE BREAKFAST. It’s by far my favorite meal of the day. Secondly, I LOVE scrambled eggs and toast. Scrambled eggs was a staple of mine growing up - my mom always made fantastic scrambled eggs, adding just the right amount of milk to make them the perfect “ribbony, damp” pile of yellow fluff. And toast is great, but toast made of rustic italian or ciabbata bread is GREATER! Throwing goat cheese, black pepper and chives into the mix just send me over the moon. I’ve decided to start my journey with this meal - a great twist on a tried and true favorite! Is it May 9th yet?

I’ll definitely be checking back on the kitchn more frequently, for inspiration and motivation throughout the daunting task of entering the arena of my kitchen!

gotta cook 'em all

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:46:00 -0400

On May 9th I will be officially living in my first real person apartment for two months, as I finish my internship at Be the Change, Inc. and take two online courses via Northeastern University. This is a pretty big move for me, as I will, for the first time in my three years at college, not be living off a meal-plan-supported, dining-hall-sustained diet. I’ll have to learn to find every piece of food I that I eat, myself. Sure, many college students have had similar “i’m hungry now what” situations, but when their tummies rumbled they probably turned to a microwave and popped in a cup of noodles. I, for one, aim to go a different route!

Not really my apartment, but very very similar!

For two months - 8 weeks - 52 days - I will cook 3 meals a day - 156 meals in total - that are good, cheap, and yummy. These three words will serve as my guidelines for the journey. My three-wise-men; my power-wisdom-courage; my simon-paula-randy; my padma-collichio-randomguestjudge.

Good

I define good food as being food that is ALAP, AOAP and AMFAP. As Local As Possible, As Organic As Possible and As Meat-Free As Possible. I have fairly recently been swept into the slow food movement whirlpool, and I’ve given up fighting to swim out. There are many reasons we, as humans, should aim to eat “Good”, and I’ve spent a lot of the past year talking, thinking, and reading about those reasons. It’s time I walked the walk - or ate the eats, if you will!

Cheap

I am a college student (virtually incomeless) on scholarship (broke) paying rent (too much) living in Boston (expensive) interning at a nonprofit (next-to unpaid). Thus, I need to keep within a budget when embarking on my new way of food life. However, I recognize the importance of prioritizing my spending. I constantly bark at my parents and friends that when it comes to spending money on good food ”if you don’t pay for it now, you’ll pay for it later” (aka, if you eat cheap crap today, you will feel like cheap crap tomorrow). As Americans, we spend less of our income on food than we do anything else we buy. I really value living a healthy and holistic life, and if I’m buying food that is super-cheap, it’s probably super-processed, which does not mean that it’s “good”! I am giving myself a food budget of $550 a month, which works out to around 20 dollars per day, or $7 a meal. This may not be “cheap” in many frugal peoples’ (my father) mind, but to me this is a number I can live with!

Yummy

Hippy foodie tendencies began early

In my list of favorite things, food is pretty high. When I prioritize my day, I place “eating” well ahead of “sleeping” “being on time” or “exercising”. I’ll be eating lunch and thinking about dinner. I go to bed dreaming about tomorrow’s breakfast. Looking back at my life, food has always played the starring role. Whenever I hear the song “River of Dreams” by Billy Joel, I’m reminded of a memory of my sister and I eating chicken McNuggets in the backseat of my mother’s town car in the parking lot of our town’s McDonald’s on a rainy spring day. Food has that ability for me, to elicit very real, lucid memories. I remember my mother, aunts and grandmas always stressing about what to cook for the next holiday, birthday party or get-together. I connect every social or family gathering with some sort of food component, whether the center of attention or the sideshow distraction. Food is so ingrained in my being that there were many times growing up when I would insist that my future saw me being a chef of sorts (and one early childhood ambition to be a “7-11 slurpee man”, whatever that is). There is just something about food that, for me, is magical. I want every meal I make in these two months to be a new memory for me to look back on with a smile.

Good bye, Stetson East!

In the next two weeks leading up to “No D-Day” (the day I can’t eat at the dining hall anymore), I will be preparing for this foodventure by doing as much planning as I can. May and June will be extremely busy for me OUTSIDE of ‘good cheap yummy’, with interning three days a week, work-studying in the NU Pride office here/there, and keeping up with two all-but-imaginary online courses. I need to go into this battle with my best artillery. By “No D-Day”, I want to have planned out the majority of the meals that I will cook, the ingredients I’ll need to buy, and lemonade plans for when life hands me its genetically-modified lemons. It will be tough, but I know that if I keep focused, I will learn more about myself than I ever knew before! Good cheap yummy, here we go!