Warm Corn Salad

We had corn on the cob left over from our Mother's Day BBQ.  And I know I won't eat 6 ears before they spoil.  And I know Derek doesn't do any leftovers very well.  So...

I cut the kernels off 3 and froze that corn for another time and used 3 for for my evening's meal.  Derek is working late tonight so I'm cooking just for me and can make stuff that he wouldn't like.  He's not much of a vegetable guy... and I'm dying craving them!  That's the long, if not totally polite, way to say he wouldn't even get close enough to sniff something like this, let alone take a taste.

Oh well, that means there's more for me!

After a quick shopping trip because I didn't have most of these ingredients just sitting here waiting and a few minutes chopping stuff up I was ready to cook my dinner.

I was even more ready to eat my dinner.

And yes, I ate it all!  Don't judge.

At least not before you taste my Southwest-inspired culinary masterpiece...

Warm Corn Salad

Cut the kernels from 3 cobs of fresh corn into a large non-stick skillet. Add 2/3 cup chopped onion, 1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper and 1/4 cup butter. Saute until onions are soft. Add very finely minced jalapeno to taste and 1/2 of a small can of medium or mild diced green chiles. Toss to mix. Add 2/3 cup (more or less) chopped fresh cilantro, the juice of 1/2 - 1 lime (depending on your taste preference) and salt and pepper to taste. Toss. Sprinkle with crumbled cotijo cheese (a Mexican cheese quite similar to feta in texture but with a slightly milder flavor - I substitute the feta if I can't find cotijo and it works just fine!).  Serve either hot or cold - I like it best warm, but not steaming hot - as an accompaniment to BBQ ribs, grilled steak or chicken.


(Hints and confessions:  My corn was already cooked this time, so I added it after sauteing the onion and pepper and broke it apart with my fingers so it could just reheat with the other ingredients.  If you have a choice, get the really bright deep yellow corn.  It gives a better contrast against the white cheese so the dish looks prettier.  And yes, you can use frozen corn kernels to make this.  If you buy one of those 1 pound-ish sized bags, double the other ingredients for this recipe and use the whole bag.)

More Planned-Overs

...and some not so planned.

Surely you've heard the word 'leftovers."  In some households it's almost a dirty word.  Not in my house!  I plan for leftovers.  So much so that I've started calling them planned-overs.  This week's example is the white chicken enchilada dip I made yesterday in the slow cooker.  Yes... it's party food.  And no, I wasn't having a party.  It sounded tasty and since there's no one else around to force me to act like a grown up responsible adult, when I want party food for dinner I make party food for dinner.

But the recipe kind of made a lot for one person.  So today I made it into creamy white chicken chili.  And to borrow a silly made-up word from Rachael Ray... yummo!

Here's how I make white chicken enchilada dip...

Place 1 chicken breast in the slow cooker and  cook until the meat is cooked through.  Break it into small chunks or shred right in the pot.  Then add 1 pint green salsa, 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 can diced green chiles, appx. half a package of dry ranch dressing mix and 1 brick of cream cheese.   Add a bit of water if it is too thick as everything melts and starts to bubble.  (My green salsa was home-canned out of green tomatoes... same recipe as red tomato salsa, just used the green ones.  It's not as liquid as what you buy in the store.  It's not as liquid as my red salsa either.  I guess green tomatoes don't have quite as much water content?)   When it's all come together nicely, I add 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese and stir it in until melted and incorporated.

This dip is yummy with corn chips or Ritz crackers or (and this is my favorite) a crusty extra-sour sour dough bread broken into bite size chunks.

To turn the leftovers into creamy white chicken chili all I did was start the dip warming up again and add 4 cups of pre-cooked navy beans (depending on how much left over you have, you might need more or less beans) and enough chicken broth to get the consistency where I wanted it.  A cup of corn would have also been a good addition, as would sliced mushrooms and finely diced zucchini.  And a sprinkle of chopped green onions on top would be a pretty garnish along side some cheesy garlic bread, again made out of sour dough.  Something about the pairing of green salsa flavors and sour dough bread seems extra good!

Yummy food for early fall!  And cheap, too.  All my ingredients cost around $6 and I'll end up with 5 complete meals.

The $12 beef roast

Grocery shopping yesterday, I purchased a nice beef roast with the challenge in mind to see how many meals I could stretch it into.  The purchase prince was $12.06 at my local Walmart Super Center.

Final tally:
3 meals with roast beef, steamed vegetables (potatoes, carrots, celery, onions) and gravy
2 packages of slices to each make a BIG roast beef sandwich
1 package of shredded beef mixed with BBQ sauce (easily 2 sandwiches worth)
3 very large dishes of beef stew
3 packages of beef broth for future soup making (like French Onion Soup later in the week!)

All but the one meal of roast beef, vegetables and gravy that I ate for dinner last night went right to the freezer.  Counting it... that's 13 meals from the one roast.  I think that's pretty darned frugal!

And in all honesty, the beef stew dishes are big enough that I could easily scoop out about 1/3 and add some more vegetables and a topping of pie crust or biscuit dough and make an additional pot pie meal from each of them... stretching my grand total to 16 meals.  Not a huge fan of beef pot pie though so we'll have to wait and see if that happens.

Yes, I am only feeding 1 person.  If you have a family, you'll obviously need more of everything but should be able to achieve the same per portion cost results.

How did I do it?

My slow cooker is the key!  (It's similar to a crock pot except it will brown meat and is a little smaller overall.)  I came home from shopping and got it hot enough to brown the roast on both sides.  Next, on top of the meat, I filled it with onions chopped into approximate 2 inch pieces, baby carrots and celery stalks cut to about the same size as the carrots.  When these vegetables were partially cooked, and there was room to add them, potatoes cut into approximate 2 inch pieces went on top and I filled the cooking chamber up with water.  Added a spoonful of beef base for flavor and let it all simmer for a few hours.  Oh... it smelled so good!!

When all was cooked, I removed almost all the vegetables to a bowl and set the meat to rest on my cutting board.  Then I used my hand blender to puree the remaining vegetable pieces, added more water to the slow cooker and seasoned the broth to my liking.  While it was still relatively cool, I ladled out 3 zipper bagsful and put them in the freezer.  While the remaining broth was reheating to a boil, I cut, divided and packaged the meat and vegetables.  Then I added a slurry of cornstarch mixed with water to the boiling broth and spooned out gravy on the 3 meals of roast beef and vegetables.  Then I added the portion of cubed meat back to the pot with the remainder of the vegetables, a couple of chopped tomatoes (probably the last of the season from this year's garden) and some frozen peas and corn, and let it simmer while I ate my dinner.  After the stew cooled I packaged it and added it to my freezer stash.

Now, I get to reheat and enjoy the fruits of my labor over the next month with frugal, healthy, tasty, quick meals.  Hard to beat that plan!!

Next up I'm going to try it with the $10 family pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts I found on sale for cheaper than a whole chicken...