Sunday breakfast

When we can afford it and we have the time, we like to have a decent breakfast on Sunday, a break from the rushed breakfasts of the weekdays. We have grits occasionally, but bacon, eggs, and biscuits are a must. We still haven't perfected cooking bacon (sometimes it burns, sometimes it's a soggy around the edges), but as long as you get decent bacon it usually turns out all right. Spending a lot of money isn't necessary, but looking for something that says "smoked" is a must. Technically American bacon should always be smoked, but some brands like to skimp to save a few bucks. Most stores have store-brand bacon that's pretty darn good if you find the right variety.

Eggs are a little easier. I like mine scrambled, so that's usually the way we both have them. I generally just use a fork (not a whisk) and a cereal bowl or other small mixing bowl. If you like your eggs runny they're not too difficult, but if you're like me and can't stand the sight of eggs glistening wetly, it can be hard not to overcook them so that it tastes like you're eating sawdust. The most important thing to remember with eggs and anything that's time-sensitive (e.g., meat) is carryover: food doesn't stop cooking just because you take it off the heat. So even if you like your eggs totally done without a hint of liquid, take them off when they're still glistening (but not at all runny). I promise they won't still be wet when you dig into them. Besides some salt, my favorite egg accompaniment is Piment d'Espelette, otherwise known as Espelette pepper. It has a wonderful smokiness and isn't too spicy. It's a bit pricy (at the above link $15 for a 25-g jar), but unless you use it every day a small jar could easily last all year. We bought ours over six months ago, and are just now getting to the end of it, even after using over a tablespoon in a single night of crazy Basque cooking. Trust me, it's worth the little bit extra. But of course some freshly ground black pepper won't go amiss either.

Biscuits are one of our standbys (stands-by?) because all you need is flour, butter, milk, and a bit of baking powder and salt. Most recipes call for all-purpose (AP) flour or even a mixture of AP and cake flour for a very soft, low-protein dough. I prefer a little bit of heft, so I use bread flour, and even so the biscuits end up pretty darn light and fluffy. The following recipe is my adaptation of the recipe from the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking; if you do a lot of home cooking it's a must have. (c. is cups, t. is teaspoons, T. is tablespoons.)


2 c. bread flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
3/4 t. salt
6 T. cold butter, cut into small cubes
3/4 c. milk


Preheat the oven to 450. Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add the cubes of butter and cut them into the dry ingredients. I use my hands, but if you're worried about the butter melting too much (this is why it has to be cold), you can use a utensil of your choice. The mixture should be fairly homogeneous if you want classic fluffy biscuits, or you can leave somewhat larger chunks of butter (no larger than a pea) if you like flakier biscuits. It should look something like this.


Add the milk and stir (I use a wooden spoon) until combined. Flour your hands and the counter or a cutting board (I do this on a big wooden cutting board for easier clean up) and roll or press (I just used my hands) the dough to about 1/4 thick. Cut the biscuits into whatever shape suits your fancy. I generally do round ones by flouring a drinking glass and using that to cut out rounds of dough. Square ones are easy to do with a knife. Keep rerolling the dough out until you've used it all. The last biscuit will of course be a little lumpy and irregular. Place the biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet close enough so that they're almost touching. I had no idea this made a difference until I tried it. Keeping the biscuits close helps them rise more fully and the result is a much more delicious and fluffy biscuit. For more even rising press down the centers a little with your fingers, otherwise the biscuits will be domed on top. Stick in the oven for about 12 minutes (keep an eye on them starting around 10 minutes, since all ovens cook a little bit differently).

Introduction

Especially in these times of financial stress, it's nice to know how to make cheap, good food. My wife and I give ourselves a weekly grocery budget of $60, within which we have to come up with 42 meals -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both of us. (Really this is more of a grocery store budget, because with this $240 a month we also have to get light bulbs, plastic wrap, garbage bags, paper towels, etc. etc.) My wife doesn't mind ramen, but I can't stand it, and neither of us will touch spam. And nobody wants to eat soup every day.

So the question is, can you make good food with fresh, local ingredients on a budget? Unfortunately, the answer is no. A green pepper costs $1. The cheapest meat out there still costs $3/lb., and that's for ground beef in a tube that's 27% fat. But that's not to say you can't have good things once in a while, and make do for the other meals. This blog is about how to do just that.

I'll post recipes that we make here (and where we got them), both in the original versions and however we actually ended up making the dish. I'll also post methods and equipment we use to make them, as well as photos whenever possible. I make all of our bread products (sandwich bread, baguettes, bagels, crackers), so probably several posts in the first month or so will be about bread.

The two key things that I believe are important to remember with eating on a budget are:

(1) Most things are cheaper if made at home.
(2) Not everything is cheaper if made at home.
Those are the two maxims we live by.

For instance, cereal (hot or cold) is one of the cheapest breakfast items, and one which is far more expensive to make yourself. I generally go with cold cereal that's between 10 and 30 cents an ounce, while my wife mostly eats store-brand oatmeal. Between the two of us, that's never more than $10 a week on breakfast, less if we have anything left over from the previous week.

I'll wrap up this intro post with one final tip about recipe sizes. Recipes which make only 2 or 3 servings are almost always much more expensive per serving that those which make more. Recipes which make a bunch of servings are great and often cheap, but when I eat things every night, I tend to get very tired of them and avoid them like the plague, which is a great way to ruin cheap dishes. We usually shoot for dishes that we'll eat for 2-3 nights, so around 2-3 dinners per week.

That's all for now, I'll post the first recipe this weekend.