Spicy Mexican Carrots

Posted on 05/23/2013 by Walter Blevins

You may have noticed—or you may not have noticed—that Cheap Bastid hasn’t been doing much cooking or recipe posting lately.  That’s not a rumor.  It’s a fact.

I don’t really know how these big muckety-muck foodie-bloggers manage to post every day with hundreds and hundreds of recipes.  My problem is two-fold.  I have to work to afford to eat and selling cars for a living not only takes a lot of time but it also seems to kill every creative brain-cell.  The second thing is that I’ve got a lot of recipes that I’ve written about and sometimes I like to cook and eat a dish again—rather than making it once, writing about it and then not cooking it again.

I’m just saying.

spicy mexican carrots done

So, onto the topic of the day—Spicy Mexican Carrots.  One thing we like about getting Mexican food is the side of hot carrots that usually comes in a plastic bag with our carry-out carne asada burrito.  This is something you’re not going to get at Taco Bell or other franchise eateries.  We love ‘em—and in true Cheap Bastid fashion I thought to myself—“Self, you can make these.  It can’t be too hard and it’s got to be cheap.”  Continue reading →

Posted in family meals, Mexican, vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

Posted on 04/02/2013 by Walter Blevins

Know what I like about baking?  It’s a little bit like Forest Gump’s “box of chocolates”.  You’re never sure what you’re going to get.

It’s a little bit messy.  You’ve got to be organized and a bit more systematic.  It’s like different kinds of art.  Baking is a little bit like “paint by numbers” because you really can’t go too far outside the lines while cooking is a bit more like abstract art–free-flowing and intrepretive.  But that’s way too philosophical.

Let’s put it this way–I like baking and find it relaxing as I escape into mixing and stirring and kneading then anticipating the tasty results.

So for Easter, I was thinking about some sort of bread to go with the dinner.  But, it needed to be something that would compliment the saltiness of ham, the gloppy starchiness of mashed potatoes and the texture of a vegetable dish.  I wanted something that would come out soft but with a bit of flavor.

Homemade Hawaiian Rolls

Continue reading →

Posted in baking, Comfort Food, family meals, party and entertaining food | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Cheap and Easy Calzone

Posted on 03/19/2013 by Walter Blevins

We love to kick back on the sofa on Friday nights, paper plates of pizza on our laps, feet up on the edge of the coffee table to watch some TV and relax—enjoying one another’s company and feasting on some tasty pizza piled with meat, vegetables and cheese.  No matter what other kind of food a person likes, pretty much everybody likes pizza.

I’ve been putting off making calzones because we enjoy our homemade pizza so much, but quite frankly doing the crust on a calzone is actually easier than working the crust on a pizza into the right shape and size.  I really envy those guys at the pizza joints who can fling the dough around, spinning it in the air and have it come out smooth, shaped right and without any holes.

But I can roll out the crust on a calzone and get really good results shaping the disc into the right size to create the filling stuffed turn-over.

Cheap and Easy Calzone

Some people like to buy pizza dough from a pizza restaurant or like to use ready-made frozen dough or even frozen bread dough.  If that’s what you want to do, be my guest.  I’ve gotten so that I like to make my own dough and it only takes a few minutes to mix everything and knead it.  Here’s my recipe for pizza dough:  http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/homemade-pizza/ Continue reading →

Posted in baking, Comfort Food, family meals, Italian, kids meals, pasta & pizza | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

St. Patricks Day Fried Cabbage

Posted on 03/09/2013 by Walter Blevins

It’s Saint Patrick’s Day “season” where once a year everybody channels their inner Irish, wears green and partakes of Corned Beef and Cabbage.  We put on this year’s broadcast of “A Quiet Man”—seemingly the definitive movie about Ireland starring that famous “Irish” actor John Wayne—and enjoy our celebration.

But how many of us actually like cooked cabbage?  Let’s get a bit more specific, how many of us like cabbage that has been boiled…and boiled…and boiled until it’s this soggy mass of pale green nearly void of both texture and taste?  It seems as though we suffer through it once a year to go along with the theme of the day and then wash it down with an obligatory green beer.

fried cabbage and sausage2

Mrs. CB turned me on to a different way of cooking cabbage that retains some “crunch” and a bit of flavor and doesn’t slither down your throat when you swallow.  She fries it, and we have found that the wok is the perfect utensil to use to make this quick, easy and (best of all) cheap dish to go along with St. Patricks Day Corned Beef.  Actually, this recipe has opened up the possibilities of cooking cabbage more than just once a year. Continue reading →

Posted in Comfort Food, family meals, frying/sauteeing, vegetables | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Homemade Lasagna

Posted on 02/15/2013 by Walter Blevins

Everybody’s got a recipe for lasagna I would imagine.  For years I just did the recipe on the back of the box.  Now I pretty much do it out of my head.  I don’t try to get fancy.  And this isn’t a recipe that my Great Grandma used to cook in Sicily or Naples or anything like that.  It’s just good old basic Lasagna with 3 cheeses and uses canned sauce.

Yes, canned sauce.  Have I ever explained why I use canned sauce rather than making it from scratch?  It’s simple.  Making it from scratch is delicious.  It takes the better part of a whole day, or longer, to simmer properly and get the full, rich flavor.  But I quit making it from scratch (which I used to do all the time) about 25 years ago when I discovered one thing.

What was the one thing?  My kids couldn’t have cared less that it was homemade sauce.  Dinners with little kids needed to be cooked quickly and served just as quickly before the little ragamuffins starved to death right before my eyes.  So I went to prepared sauce.

Homemade Lasagna

Then it took me about another 17 years to figure out that the canned stuff was not only 1/3 the price of the jarred stuff but that I liked the way it tastes a lot better—more like real tomato sauce with just a bit of acid still in it rather than the over-sweetened stuff in a jar.  There are only so many glass jars that I can stuff in my cupboards for future use anyway.

So if that’s too plebian for your taste that’s all right with me.  Because I’m the Cheap Bastid.  If you want to foo-foo your lasagna with all sorts of stuff, that’s OK too.  Have at it.  Use more expensive and better quality cheeses.  Do a gourmet sauce.  All that’s fine.  Mine tastes good and sticks to your ribs.  Plus it’s cheap. Continue reading →

Posted in Comfort Food, family meals, pasta & pizza | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments