Recipes for Day 6, eating on $30/week

I was going to use Day 6’s post to share the contents of my pantry with you, in the hopes that you’d get something out of it, or at least find it interesting.

But seeing as I have an exam tomorrow, I feel like I need to put the effort into studying instead.

However I will share two recipes from today to attempt to make up for my poor time-management.

Today was mostly a day of leftovers, supplemented in part by ingenuity. I had my dad over for a Thanksgiving lunch and an hour beforehand I decided that I’d like to make some dressing, seeing as it’s completely delicious.


I brought up allrecipes.com and found a recipe that I figured I could work with. I halved the recipe and subbed at least half the ingredients for something else and I came up with a delicious recipe that I will be using again very soon.

Vegedible’s Any Day of the Year Dressing

1 loaf of slightly stale bread, torn or sliced into cubes
2 cups of hot water
1 tsp veggie bouillon
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tsp Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
¼ tsp thyme
½ tsp rosemary
pepper to taste
½ cup fresh crimini mushrooms, quartered (optional)
¼ cup dried cranberries (optional)
½ cup chopped hazelnuts, pecans or walnuts (optional)

1. In a large bowl, combine bread cubes with thyme, rosemary, mushrooms, berries and nuts.
2. In a separate bowl or measuring cup, mix water with bouillon, nutritional yeast and Bragg’s. Once seasonings are dissolved, taste the stock and adjust as necessary.
3. Pour stock over seasoned bread cubes and make sure all the bread is thoroughly moistened using a spoon or your hands (more fun with your hands!)
4. Transfer sticky bread to a greased loaf pan (or you can try shaping it into a loaf and just wrapping it in greased foil). Bake for an hour at 350 F, checking after 45 minutes.

Note: If you’re making this recipe with less than a whole loaf (i.e. to use up the rest of a loaf) just adjust the cooking time at the end to make sure nothing burns.

I used the rest of the challah which, as you know, was getting pretty stale and it was a wise choice. Yum! I didn’t take a photo because a) it was pretty messy and b) it was so tempting to eat it immediately, which we did.

Forgot about this photo yesterday!

As I write this, I am actually making a pizza. I got a craving about an hour ago and again, brought up allrecipes.com to see if there was a reliable-looking recipe for quick pizza dough.

Indeed there was! And this is my adaptation of it, plus quickie toppings. This recipe is perfect in many ways: it is as delicious as you can make it: easy toppings that you might have on hand include cheese, olives, peppers (pickled!), spinach, and mushrooms. Plus, it takes as long as it would take you get a pizza delivered, at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, it's far better for you than those awful frozen ones. Yeah, read the nutritional information on those monstrosities. 45 per cent of my sodium in 1/8 of the pizza? No thanks! Plus, once you read my eventual post on stocking the pantry, you'll always have the dough ingredients on hand.

Vegedible’s Late-Night Pizza Craving Recipe
Makes 2 personal-size pizzas

For the Crust
1 package active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar
1 cup warm water (not hot!)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 tsp vital wheat gluten (optional)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

For the sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
2-4 tbsp water
dried Italian herbs
pepper
hot sauce
dehydrated onion
dehydrated garlic

For the toppings
Whatever veggies and cheese is in your fridge :)

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.
2. Combine water, sugar and yeast and let sit until foamy, about 8 minutes.
3. Stir in flours, oil and salt until it’s difficult to stir, then knead with your hands for about 5 minutes)
4. Let rest for 5 minutes while you make your sauce.
5. Combine tomato paste, with half the water and your desired spices, adding more water until you achieve desired consistency.
6. Divide dough into two. Using your hands, start to shape one ball of dough into a circle, stretching at the edges (or you may roll with a rolling pin, or just spread out on a greased pan).
7. Place dough into greased pan of your choice. I chose a 9x9 pan with 2-inch sides. Create an raised edge if you like.
8. If you make a thicker crust, spread your sauce and then bake the crust for 5 minutes before putting the rest of your toppings on, so the bottom won’t be soggy before your toppings start to burn.
9. Spread the rest of your toppings, then pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes!

Of course, you don’t have to use whole wheat flour in that recipe, I just thought I would try to get a little extra fiber in this late night snack.

Breakfast

• Cup o’ coffee
• “holiday bread” of some sort. It was delicious! Many fruits in it. Was a treat from mum

Lunch

• slice of mushroom pie, roasted sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and challah dressing
• couple of bottles of Rickards Red
  

Dinner

• chili

Snack

• Pizza…heehee