FOUR LUNCH-MAKING TIPS

Last week’s lunch planning worked really well, and it inspired me to aim for more creativity in the weeks to come. Do you have any brown-bagging advice? Share!

Here are some of my favorite tips so far:

1. SOUP
I was really reluctant to get a thermos, and now I have no idea why. It worked wonders. I heated some Campbell’s Wednesday morning while I ate breakfast, then I poured it into the thermos and clamped it shut. More than five hours later, the soup was still warm enough to be delicious.

2. CLEMENTINES
Can I tell you a secret? I’m almost totally convinced that clementines are the reason I haven’t gotten a cold this season. Everyone I work with has gotten sick, but so far I’ve been well. Two clementines a day, apparently, is just what the doctor ordered! Extra bonus: easy to peel and very tasty!

3. BATCHES
I like making something that can be used for a couple lunches: roast beef or brownies or homemade macaroons, for example.

4. WORK STORAGE
When in doubt, I always know I have some stuff in my desk. I keep a bag of chocolate pretzels, some M&Ms, crackers, granola bars… I don’t plan to use that stuff in my daily lunch, but if I’m ever in a pinch, it’s nice to have a backup.

More to come, I hope!

Make Your Own Pizza!

As I’ve written before, I’m a tried-and-true pizza girl, all the way. Love, love the stuff.

So for this week’s Frugal Foodie Thursday, I have to point you to a new pizza dough recipe I’m dying to try: Fast & Easy Pizza Dough from Wise Bread.

My favorite topping of all time? OK, it’s a tie:

1) sliced tomatoes and garlic.

2) BBQ chicken, sliced, with BBQ sauce mixed in with the regular sauce. YUM.

peppermint bark

Have any leftover candy canes from the holidays? Even if you don’t, you may want to find some: peppermint bark is too inexpensive–and delicious–of a treat to miss!

What you need: chocolate (I prefer a big block of dark, from Trader Joe’s) and candy canes. Yes, that’s it!

Directions: Put the candy canes in a plastic bag and crush with a hammer. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Add the candy canes to the melted chocolate, removing it from the heat. Pour the mixture onto a greased cookie sheet. Refrigerate.

Give it an hour or so, pull out the cookie sheet and break the bark into chunks. Voila: there you have it!

There are a million variations you can try, but the results will be spectacular.

For inspiration: Paula Deen,
Simply Recipes and epicurious. Enjoy!

healthy addiction

A long time ago, I read that making your bed improves your room’s look by 70%. So I started doing it, kept doing it and it stuck. Now, every morning, I roll out of the covers and, before putting in my contacts or brushing my teeth, I make the bed.  It’s routine, habitual, without much thought. So it is with my daily lunches: basically every night, I get home and eat dinner. Then, before I do anything else, I pull out my folded brown bag and make my lunch with leftovers or PB&J or whatever I can find right away. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s habit.

It works for me.

What are some frugal habits you’ve developed, and how did you do it?

BH & G

Frugal food tip for this week: do whatever you can to get your hands on the all-time best cookbook ever: The Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook.

It came recommended to me by a friend and I love it. Every recipe I’ve tried turns out perfectly, every time, without fail.

If I could only have one cookbook, this would be the cookbook.

Baking Christmas

My grandma was a master baker.

Every year, she stacked dozens of aluminum tins on the stairs to her attic. There were round ones and square ones and big ones and little ones; red ones and green ones and scenic ones with horsemen and Christmas pictures. Then, for the weeks leading up to December 25th, she hunkered down and baked: fudge, sugar cookies, snowballs, chocolate chip cookies, kolachkys, bars, peanut butter cookies. If she found out what you liked, you’d get it every year. If you were a relative, a friend, maybe even the girl who cut her hair or an acquaintance from a club, you’d get something.

When I remember my grandma, I remember her food. It’s funny, looking back, that I don’t remember anything I bought with the yearly $100 she also gave at every birthday to me, her only granddaughter. I don’t remember ever opening a wrapped gift from her–that wasn’t really her style.

But what I do remember are delicious, homecooked meals on glass plates while we watched I Love Lucy. I do remember homemade spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. I remember cookies; oh, I remember the cookies. Not only did she bake for me, she baked with me.

Grandma gave me my first cookie lesson, and from the first time I licked the bowl and sampled chocolate chips, I was hooked. She taught me to enjoy food and to give other people that enjoyment. She taught me to savor, to embrace, to love.

She gave me something that I could keep even after she died. She gave me a way to feel connected to her, even now, almost a decade after she left me.

I’m baking Christmas this year, the way she did, the way I always will.

Frugal Lunch #1: Salad

Most of my work lunches are repackaged leftovers of a dinner the night before. Sometimes though, I eat something for dinner (scrambled eggs? cereal? hot dogs? chocolate cake? yes, embarrassing) that just doesn’t package and/or reheat well. When that happens, I have a growing arsenal of other ideas that are easily made with things we usually have in the house.

Yesterday and today? my salad, special blend.

Ingredients:
Lettuce
Leftover meat (chicken or turkey)
Dried cranberries
Nuts (walnuts or pecans)
Cheese (optional)
Dressing (Briana’s Blush Wine for me)
Side: bread (pecan raisin, Italian, crostini, crackers)

Directions:
Grab a tupperware container and put in freshly washed lettuce (I especially enjoy romaine). Top with chopped leftover meat, nicely chopped as you like it. Add the berries, nuts and cheese; then top with dressing. Snap on the lid, and you’re good to go.

I usually also pack some toasty bread, along with whatever sides I can scramble up.

Enjoy!

Ethnic on the Cheap: Bohemian Food

The Background

Imagine. The six of us sitting at the round table, covered with a wiped-clean plastic pink tablecloth, O telling a joke, flirting with the waitress. In the midst of our glasses and plates, a small white vase works as centerpiece, with a carnation and baby’s breath inside. There are people all around the restaurant, many in their 60s or older, with a few children running around here or there. There’s a salad bar, I think, 1970s-style decor and a waitress dressed in the quintessential server garb: a collared shirt tucked into a skirt that hits just below her knee, suntan nylons, white gym shoes. Her arms are strong, experienced. O learns her name and will use it throughout the meal. He orders cow tongue, says it just like that, and we kids grimace. This, if you don’t recognize it, is my childhood. We’re eating out with family friends, an older couple who were like grandparents to my brother and me.

These friends of ours, no longer living, were originally from Czechoslovakia. They introduced my parents to a lot of things: summers in Wisconsin, fishing, supper clubs, Bohemian restaurants. Mostly, I remember the svickova.

A Lost Cuisine

I can’t understand why so many people today will do Japanese, Greek, Indian, Thai, Chinese—all in the name of ethnic—but have never tried Bohemian. It’s a tragedy, for sure.

Bohemian food is delicious—can I even explain? It’s cheap—under $10 buys you an entree, a soup/salad, coffee, and a dessert. The atmosphere isn’t much: you’ll probably feel a little time-warp when you see the pastels or wood-paneled walls in a lot of these restaurants; but the quality more than compensates.

What You Must Try

1. Svickova (pronounced Sveech-ko-vah): Pickled beef in the most delicious sauce. So tender, so soft, so completely delicious. Get it with bread dumplings to mop up the extra sauce.

2. Koprova (pronounced Ko-prah-vah): Similar to svickova, koprava is also pickled beef, but in a sauce that resembles a dill flavor. Again, go with the bread dumplings, not the mashed potatoes or anything similarly familiar.

3. Kolachkys (pronounced Ko-lah-ch-key): Remember, dessert will be included with your meal. They’ll probably offer you other choices like apple strudel or chocolate pudding, but try the kolachky. It’s a pastry-type cookie with jelly instead. There are all sorts of flavors; I prefer apricot or raspberry.

Where to Find It

I can’t speak for areas outside Chicagoland, though a quick Google or Yelp search should get you answers, but in my neck of the woods, do try:

Bohemian Garden (this link even takes you to a coupon)
Bohemian Crystal
Little Bohemian Restaurant

waste not, want not: cooking by numbers

(This is weekly post #2 in the Frugal Foodie Thursday series.)

Personally, I think there’s a lot of satisfaction in using things up. When I squeeze the last drop of shampoo out or force one more bit of toothpaste from the tube, I take joy in knowing I used it to its fullest; it wasn’t wasted. I’m like this with a lot of things (brown lunch bags included) but with nothing more so than food.

A few weeks ago, my parents were out of town. They’d left food in the refrigerator and pantry (there’s always food in the refrigerator and pantry), so I figured with a little planning, I’d have enough to get me through the week. The first thing I did was clean out the fridge. I took everything out, figured out what was expired and tossed it (I hate throwing away food. If I could figure out a way to control the over-purchasing habits of certain unnamed members of the household, I would. The biggest problem we seem to have is our not knowing what we have. I’ll organize, but it never lasts).

Then I started deciding what I could make/eat. Right away, I made myself a shmorgasboard of cottage cheese, cheddar cheese and crackers, and iced juice. I had fruit for my lunches and recently expired milk I’d boil into pudding. Once things were neatly organized, using food up was easy. If/when I get my own kitchen, I would love to be OCD about using up what I buy; I’d love to stockpile main ingredients and be uber-organized about knowing what other things to get weekly. I’d love to know how to really stretch the food I buy, rather than wasting it.

Just last week, I came across a cool site that makes pantry/refrigerator-raiding easy: Cooking by Numbers. The way it basically works is you check off the items you have to work with, and it provides all the recipes that correspond. It will give recipes that ONLY use your ingredients, if at all possible, and it will provide recipes where you’d just need to pick up one or two things. Sounds like a dream come true to me!

Spacca Napoli in Ravenswood

(This is weekly post #1 in the Frugal Foodie Thursday series.)

For months, Friday nights have been pizza nights. My brother and I started this tradition last winter in an effort to find the best pizza in Chicagoland. We’re big pizza fans—I, more than anyone. I could eat it every day: cold, hot, toppings, no toppings. And since I’m feeling especially daring, I might as well tell you my culinary exploits have involved my making every imaginable substance into its own kind of pizza. Crusts I’ve tried: store-bought dough, homemade dough, pita, Italian bread, crackers… I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say, each has its pluses and minuses. Each, that is, except the one I’m about to describe.

I should also tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, that, while I wouldn’t refuse it of course, I don’t especially prefer Chicago-style pizza. Call it sacrilege if you must, but this Chicago girl likes her pizza thin-crusted, Neapolitan-style. Blame it on world travel or perhaps my Italian grandmother. Either way, this is how it’s got to be.

A while back, Chicago Magazine did an issue that highlighted the best Neopolitan-style pizza places in Chicago. We’ve tried as many as we could. Some have been good, some great—but none could top Spacca Napoli, the first we visited and I daresay the best pizza in the city.

When you go, if at all possible, get the Pizze Margherita. It’s covered with just enough ripe tomatoes, Italian mozzarella, fresh basil and perfect olive oil. The crust is soft—not too soft, but easy to break off and chew, and crunchy—not cracker-crunchy but crisp. The flavor is sweet in a deliciously olive oil way, which, I’ll just say it, is the best kind of sweet in the world of pizza. It’s pizza perfection and, top this: it’s ready in minutes. Their ovens cook it up quickly and I mean quickly.

Other reasons to visit: a beautiful atmosphere, complete with al fresca dining, should you choose; great service—our waiter was completely charming; and easy parking just a block or so away.

Even more! Stop by their website, where a 25% OFF coupon will work for lunch Wednesdays or Thursdays through the end of the year. For dinner, I spent around $12, but I’ll admit I just drank tap water; I don’t know if the lunch menu’s even more affordable, but with the coupon, what could you lose?

Make plans to visit this incredible spot soon. I know you’ll love it.