Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque and Old English Oatmeal Bread

Three weeks into this blog, and we’ve already fallen down on the job. Well, partly. Audrey and I did manage to meet our Pantry Challenge goal to a certain extent: we cooked from our pantry and from the Bountiful Basket produce without buying anything more than a can of pumpkin and a bag of chocolate chips, both of which went into the pumpkin chocolate scones I made for the Law School Singles Pumpkin Palooza Bake-off. On the other hand, we didn’t eat at home nearly as much as I’d expected. On Sunday I had dinner with my sisters; Tuesday night I had dinner at a legal society function; on Wednesday and Thursday I had lunch catered by various law school functions; on Thursday I had dinner at the Pumpkin Palooza. All other meals were home-cooked but upon consulting with Audrey, I’m not sure we ever actually ate a meal together (so long as you don’t count Friday night, when we made sweet potato and parsnip fries--very tasty, but not exactly a meal). Obviously the next time we do a challenge like this, we need to do a better job of it!

To make up for last week’s failure, I have two recipes today: Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque with Carmelized Onions, and Old English Oatmeal Bread. The bread recipe is one I’ve been baking with great success for a couple of years; the soup I made up today. Both are absolutely fantastic and make a wonderful, healthy light dinner packed with fall flavor.

Roasted Butternut Squash Bisque
Ingredients
2 medium butternut squash
1 Yukon gold potato, diced
1 quart (32 oz) good chicken or vegetable broth
Olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 shake red pepper
2 tsp dried chives, plus more to garnish
Whipping cream and caramelized onions, to garnish

Instructions
Heat oven to 400°F. Lop off top and bottom of butternut squash; slice in half and scoop out seeds and stringy innards. Rub the cut surfaces with olive oil and place, cut side down, on a baking sheet lined with tin foil. Roast for 40 minutes or so, until squash is soft and pierced easily by a fork. Remove from oven and let cool until easy to handle. Scoop flesh out with a spoon and discard skins.

Meanwhile, boil potato in a little water until soft and easily pierced by a fork; drain. Combine squash, potato, and chicken (or vegetable) broth in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Pour soup into a pot and add salt, black pepper, red pepper, and chives. Heat gently over medium to medium-low heat.

Ladle into bowls and garnish with whipping cream, extra chives, and caramelized onions.

(The onions may sink, as mine did in this picture. Don't despair! They'll taste even better in the soup than on top.)



Caramelized Onions
1 medium onion
1/2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp raw sugar
Salt

Slice onion thinly. Melt butter in a skillet over medium-low heat; add onions. Saute onions for 45-50 minutes, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle sugar and a little salt over onions when they start to brown and continue cooking over medium-low to low heat until onions are well-caramelized, with deep color and sweet flavor.



Old English Oatmeal Bread (adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Baking cookbook)
Ingredients
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats, plus extra for sprinkling
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 Tbsp dark molasses
2 - 2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
1 egg yolk, beaten mixed with 1 tsp water

Instructions
Place the oats in a large bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer. In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the milk and 3/4 cup water and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Pour over the oats and let stand until lukewarm, about 30 minutes; stir often to hasten cooling. Stir in the molasses, 1 1/2 cups of the flour, the salt, and the yeast. Gradually stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough that holds its shape.

Knead by hand or with a dough hook, adding flour as needed. Kneed by hand until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes; knead by hook until the dough is not sticking and pulls cleanly from the bowl sides, 6-7 minutes. (If I have the time, I always knead by hand; it develops the gluten better, gives a more pleasing texture, and allows me to judge the condition of the dough much more easily.)

Form the dough into a ball and place in a clean, greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled, 45-60 minutes.

Dust a baking sheet with flour. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and press flat. Cut in half, knead briefly, and form each half into a ball, stretching the sides down and under. Place well apart on the prepared baking sheet and flatten slightly. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise until doubled, 20-30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425°F.

Uncover the loaves, brush with the egg-yolk mixture and sprinkle with oats, if desired. Using a sharp knife, make two 1/4" deep slashes on the tops of the loaves. Bake until golden brown, 25-30 minutes; the loaves should sound hollow when tapped on the bottoms. Unmold the loaves and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes two 13-oz loaves. Total preparation time: about 3 hours.

The Pantry Challenge

Only 3 weeks into the blog, and already we’ve decided to shake things up a bit! Last week Audrey and I did a pantry inventory, the results of which may be found here: October 10 pantry inventory.

Since we’re pretty well-stocked, we thought it might be fun to see how well we can live out of our pantry. We’ve got stuff in the fridge too, of course--assorted cheeses, jams, butter, 4 eggs, leftover Thai curry, tortillas, and so forth--and since we’re all in favor of fresh vegetables, Audrey signed us up for a week of a fruits-and-vegetables co-op, which we picked up on Saturday morning. I also bought a gallon of milk. And that, my friends, is going to be what we eat this week. We’ll make an exception for one eating-out each (since both of us are fairly friendly people, and occasionally get invited out for lunch), and if we go to eat at someone’s house of course we’ll cheerfully eat their food--and bring some of our own! Otherwise we’ll be eating from our pantry and fridge for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all this week. We’ll also break our usual update schedule of Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday; this week we’ll be posting every day to let you know how it goes!

For the curious, here’s the website for the co-op: Bountiful Baskets. They’ve got locations all over the Intermountain West and the Pacific Northwest. As you can see from some fairly exotic fruit offerings they’re not a local CSO (Community-Supported Agriculture) group, but they’re both cheaper, fresher, and friendlier than most local grocery stores. As they explain on their Current Offerings page:

In the conventional basket we focus our buying as follows: High Quality, Low Cost and As Local as Possible… So, how hard do we try? Pretty hard! Most bananas are from Central America or the Carribbean and are grown by a couple gargantuan conglomerate growers. We get all of our bananas from small farmers in central Mexico. This saves the co-op between $4 and $7 a box, keeps money with small farmers, and helps keep the carbon footprint small.

So, what did we get from our Bountiful Basket? Quite a lot!

Bountiful Basket booty:
1 pineapple
2 pomegranate
1 large bunch bananas
7 green apples
4 pears
1 bag red grapes
4-5 parsnips
~1 lb yams
2 romaine lettuce
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch broccoli
4 tomatoes

Cost: $19.50 first-time user (normally $16.50)

Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

My mom makes the best chimichangas I’ve ever had--baked, not fried, filled with shredded beef and green chilies, served with chunky guacamole and sour cream on the side. These are not hers. But they’re a quick approximation on a Friday night, and they’re pretty darn tasty fresh from the oven or eaten cold for lunch the next day. They can even be frozen and then reheated--and they’re miles better, healthier, and cheaper than the frozen variety you’ll find at the grocery store.

Beef, Bean, and Cheese Chimichangas

Ingredients
1 lb extra lean ground beef
1 onion, diced
1 can diced green chilies
1 tsp cumin (plus more, to taste)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 can refried beans, heated
10 flour tortillas
1/2 cup grated colby jack cheese
butter-flavored cooking spray

Instructions
Saute onion over medium heat. Add beef, chilies, cumin, salt, and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, until beef is completely cooked. Remove from heat. Spray tortilla on both sides with cooking spray; place a dollop of refried beans in the center, then a few spoonfuls of the beef mixture. Fold into a neat packet and place seam-side down on cookie sheet. Bake at 500°F for 8-10 minutes or until golden-brown and crispy, turning halfway through. Enjoy with fresh guacamole smeared on top.





Cost
0.78 1 can refried beans
1.38 1 package tortillas
2.98 1 lb 90% lean ground beef
0.78 1 can green chilis

Total: 5.92

The onion, cheese, cooking spray, minced garlic, and seasonings all came from fridge and pantry, so I'm not sure what the added cost is--less than a dollar, I'd guess. Let's say $7 total. Since we used ginormous burrito tortillas, that made 6 chimichangas (with enough filling left over for 2 burritos). Use smaller tortillas, and you can easily get 10-14 chimichangas. It works out to about a dollar a serving...so I guess it's not actually that much cheaper than the frozen version. But it's definitely better!

Quick Mid-Week Dinner

I came home today after a stressful day of work and decided that I needed a proper meal. I certainly didn't have the energy or patience to get make anything fancy, either. Nothing in the pantry inspired me, so I turned to the freezer.

Where, lo and behold, I discovered some chicken tenders we'd frozen last week.

Now, if you haven't discovered the miraculousness that is chicken tenders, head over to your local grocery store immediately and bask in their glory. They're pretty much just a single-serving sized portion of chicken breast, and as such they are a serious blessing for singles. Normally I just buy a pack at the store, divide them into servings, and freeze them for use at my leisure. A perfect example of this is my dinner tonight.

Ingredients
2 chicken tenders
1 1/2 cups bagged salad
1/4 avocado, cut into chunks
Croutons
Salad dressing
Seasonings

Instructions
Coat chicken tenders with seasonings of choice. (We have three different grill seasonings--I used Montreal Chicken.) Cook on medium heat. When finished, given chicken a rough dice. Place salad on plate. Top with chicken, avocado, and croutons. Add a splash of salad dressing to finish it off.

No cost breakdown for this tonight--I honestly don't know the cost of anything but the salad and croutons.

I've made this salad--or variations thereof--many times before. I like it because it takes only fifteen minutes or so, and it's very easy to customize and refresh. All you need to do is switch out the seasoning or add different toppings.  It's also easy to scale up if you're feeding more people than just yourself.

Give it a try next time you're short of energy but wanting a hearty meal!

This week's groceries

This week we needed to stock back up on some staples (flour, sugar, ground pepper, and various peppers), which threw us over our $20 goal.

October 16, 2010 WinCo
1.58    5 lb flour
1.63    Spreadable margarine
1.23    2 can Progresso soup (yay coupons!)
1.98    2 lb baby carrots
2.28    1 loaf marble rye
2.43    Grapes
1.98    1 bagged salad (Dole Spring Mix)
0.99    3 green bell peppers
1.16    2 red bell peppers
0.78    1 yellow bell pepper
1.79    3 lb sugar
1.48    croutons
2.21    ground black pepper

21.52    Total



We have some fun food posts coming up on Tuesday and Thursday. Unfortunately the last week has been hectic for both me and Mary Beth, so we haven't been able to really set a meal plan, much less cook together consistently. 

We also have a special challenge for us next week, and we're very excited to tell you all about it when the time comes.

Hearty Vegetable and Sausage Pasta

When it comes to food, “cheap” doesn’t have to mean “tasteless,” and it certainly doesn’t have to mean “unhealthy.” Audrey and I make a variation on this pasta dish at least once or twice a month. It’s nutritious and delicious, and one recipe can easily feed two people for three or four meals. It’s also astonishingly quick--less than 30 minutes from fridge to table!

One of the things I love about this recipe is how versatile it is. You never have to make it with the same vegetables twice! Use those gorgeous speckled eggplants from the farmer’s market or that elderly-but-still-firm zucchini at the back of the fridge. Leftover roasted carrots and cauliflower from last night’s dinner, chopped up small, add some excitement in flavor, color, and texture. Substitute Italian sausage for the chicken sausages, or use regular ground beef instead. (Just make sure to precook the meat if it isn’t already.) Jazz it up and enjoy!

Hearty Vegetable and Sausage Pasta

Ingredients

1 medium zucchini, thinly sliced
1 medium bell pepper, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
Other vegetables as desired (yellow summer squash, eggplant, carrots, etc)
2 sundried tomato chicken sausages, precooked, sliced
1 jar good pasta sauce (we like Bertolli’s and Classico, usually the “Tomato and Basil” variety)
Dried oregano
Dried basil
Fresh basil, to garnish
Fresh parmesan
1/3 box whole-wheat pasta

Instructions

In a large saucepan, saute the sausage. (You can use a little olive oil to keep the sausage from sticking to the pan, if you like, but since you’ll be adding liquid later I generally don’t bother). Add vegetables and saute until soft. Pour in pasta sauce; season to taste with dried oregano and basil. Let simmer while you prepare the pasta according to package directions--this will help the sauce thicken and develop the flavors. Top with fresh shaved parmesan and serve with crusty baguettes or hot garlic bread (look forward to a baguette recipe coming next week!)


Cost
$0.50 1 zucchini
$1.00 1 purple bell pepper (or save even more by going green!)
$2.08 1 jar Classico pasta sauce
$2.19 2 sundried tomato chicken sausages
$0.33 1/3 box Barilla whole-grain rotini

$6.10 Total

This total is a little deceptive, because I didn’t calculate the cost of the dried oregano or basil (pantry staples), the fresh basil (from a $3 plant on our back porch which I’ve had for weeks and have used for countless meals), the carrots and cauliflower (left over from dinner a few days ago) or the fresh parmesan (about $5 for a large triangle which we’ve kept for months and used for even more meals; like many hard cheeses, Parmesan keeps a very long time!). The bread was homemade; I’ll have both the recipe and the cost breakdown up next week.

Keep in mind that this recipe not only served the two of us, but it did so for dinner the first night, Audrey’s lunch the next day, Audrey’s dinner the day after that, and dinner for both of us a few days later. That works out to about 6 servings, which means this costs just a little more than $1 per serving. Pretty good when your dinner budget’s only $20 a week!

And now it begins...

Greetings, dear readers! Today is a historic occasion—Twenties on a $20 is now open and ready for business.

We have just one goal: create healthy and delicious dinners on approximately $20 a week. We'll be posting recipes, tips, advice, meal plans, and more, for college students, young professionals, and new couples on a budget! Food is one of the most important—and fun—things in our lives, and we want to share our enthusiasm with other people.

Audrey is a full-time editor for a crafting company, and Mary Beth is a third-year law student. Together, we fight hunger three days a week: Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. (Those are our normally scheduled days—please understand that as a young professional/law student, there are occasionally late nights at the office or awful deadlines.)

Mary Beth and I typically go food shopping every Saturday. Since we do a lot of cooking together, the food that ends up in our cart falls into one of three categories: Mary Beth, Audrey, and Both. The Both category is what we’ll be talking about most since this blog is geared toward our dinners together. We typically don’t spend much on our personal food—in fact, any big expenditures on that side usually involve us feeding other people.

Every week we’ll post an itemized (sans tax) grocery bill so you can see what we bought and what we plan on doing with it.

So without further blathering, here is our shopping list for this week:

October 9, 2010

WinCo

1.78    1 gallon skim milk
2.08    1 jar Classico pasta sauce
0.78    1 can refried beans
1.88    1 jar Newman’s pasta sauce
2.18    1 qt Pacifica tomato soup
0.98    1 box Barilla whole grain penne
2.28    1 loaf marble rye bread
1.38    1 package tortillas
2.98    90% lean ground beef
1.98    1 bagged salad (Dole Spring Mix)
18.30    Total

Farmer’s Market
0.50    1 yellow squash
1.00    2 zucchini
1.00    2 green bell peppers
1.00    1 red bell pepper
3.50    Total

Total Spent: $21.80

Look forward to Thursday, when Mary Beth with post something far more interesting!