Pasta Al-fake-o

I was craving a creamy pasta without all the fat of alfredo. I also had some left over vegetables from the vegetable tofu stack I made the other night. So, I decided to whip up a cheap, quick pasta dish for dinner.

Cost: $5.00 (all I bought was sour cream, mushrooms and pasta - otherwise I used leftovers)

Yield: Serves 2-4 depending on how many veggies you have

Ingredients:

• Pene pasta
• mushrooms gallore
• roast red pepper, cooked squash & carmelised onions 
• two tomatoes
• low-fat sour cream
• parmesean cheese (I had some lying around)
• fresh basil
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

• Cook pasta according to package instructions
• Meanwhile, saute garlic in olive oil, then add sliced mushrooms
• Then add other veggies and saute 'til cooked through. Season with salt to taste.
• Mix sour cream with finely chopped basil. Season with a little salt and sugar to taste. Note: this is sort of an acquired tatste. You may just want to use regular alfredo sauce
• Drain pasta and toss with a little olive oil and the parmesan cheese

Assembly

• Put a genrous serving of pasta on each plate
• Top with vegetable mixture
• Drizzle sour cream mix on top
• Garnish with fresh basil and more freshly grated parmesean cheese

Tony's Pizza

I keep telling my friend Tony I'll give him my amazing pizza crust recipe.  It's truly the best one I've ever used.  Note, I use high-grade flour for this crust and it really makes a difference. Use the best you can get for optimal results!

Cost: Not much. This uses ingredients I always have in my pantry.

Yield: Two large pizza crusts

Crust Ingredients

• 2 1/4 tsp yeast
  
• 1 1/3C warm water (hot from the tap)
  
• 1 tsp sugar
  
• 3 1/2C high-grade flour
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 2 T olive oil
  

Method

• place yeast and sugar in large bowl with warm water. Let sit in a warm place until happy and frothy.
• Then add olive oil and salt to yeast mixture.
• Slowly add flour, stirring well until you can't stir any longer, then dump out on lightly floured counter-top and knead until smooth and elastic.
• Place in warm place until double.  If you've got time, punch down and let rise again. This is optional.
• Divide dough into two equal portions.

Pizza Assembly

• Pre-heat fan-forced oven to 220/400f (you may need to adjust for your oven)
• Shape crust to desired size/thickness.
• I sprinkle cornmeal on a pizza stone for baking and love the results.
• Top with desired toppings and bake 'til cheese is bubbly and crust is golden brown.

I'm currently addicted to pizza Margerita. Good quality tomato sauce (not paste - I make my own with tomato sauce, garlic, basil, sugar, salt and olive oil to taste), cubes of buffalo mozzarella and a handful of fresh basil. The pizza in the picture also has some olive tapenade I had lying around. 

Yum! Note: this dough gets lovely and elastic and probably would be thrown/twirled quite well. I'm just not brave enough to try so I role/shape the crusts by hand!

Vegetable & Tofu Stack

Tonight I was craving vegetables. I also had a limited budget but had been drooling over menu offerings of a couple of fine dining establishments around the world. So I took inspiration from something I saw and made my own version. Ta-da, I call it the 'Jack Stack!'

It was wonderful. Very filling and satisfying. I ended up with extra vegetables that I'll use up tomorrow in a salad for lunch. And the bonus was it only cost $12 to buy the ingredients. Though, it helped that I already had a bit of feta begging to be used up. And, of course, a well-stocked pantry!

Ingredients: 

• Extra-firm tofu
• 2 Potatoes
• 1 yellow onion
• Pre-cooked squash/pumpkin (I used 1/2 a butternut) 
• Large red bell pepper (capsicum)
• Feta cheese
• 2 Portabello mushrooms
• A ripe avocado
• One tomato
• Extra virgin olive oil, aged balsamic vinegar
• Sea salt & black pepper
• Fresh basil & salad greens for garnish

Method (as best I remember)

• Roast red pepper & let "sweat" in ziplock bag 'til skin peels off easy (or you could buy pre-roasted red peppers but what's the fun in that?)
• Cut vegetables/tofu/feta into pieces of similar size and/or thickness
• Lightly parboil spuds
• Grill tofu in olive oil for a few min on each sides 'til golden brown
• Place tofu, mushrooms, onions, and squash in a pan, drizzle with olive oil and bake in 180c/350f oven 'til warmed through and onions are soft

Assembly

I put a generous handful of salad leaves on each plate, then alternated layers of veggies and tofu. To make serving easier, use a bamboo skewer to hold the stack together. 

Garnish with a little more olive oil, some chopped tomato, a few hunks of fresh avocado, fresh basil, salt and pepper and a generous drizzling of a balsamic reduction. I made this by lightly simmering some balsamic vinegar until it got nice and thick. 

This is a very forgiving recipe. Use whatever veggies you have handy and experiment with seasonings. You could also use fresh mozzarella cheese or even grilled halloumi. 

Serves 2 as a main meal, or probably 4 as a first course if you made them smaller. 

Enjoy! 

Welcome!

The decision to create this site came after a long, meandering conversation about food with someone who calls himself Jack. Jack knows a thing or two about the appreciation of good food (and good food conversations). By a curious coincidence, my name is also Jack. Sort of. I too know a thing or two about the appreciation of good food (and good food conversations) and seem to be having more of these lately. Viola, yet another internet food blog is born!

I'm trying to live much healthier and more frugally at the same time. This has required some creativity in the kitchen. I'll be posting recipies for healthy and cheap (and delicious) meals as I come across them.  Whenever possible I'll indicate how much the ingredients cost me. Note: when I do this I'm going to assume you have a well stocked pantry with all the "basics". More on that later.

Of course, things won't always be cheap (or healthy) but hopefully they'll always be delicious. I'll post pictures as often as possible, and use labels that'll hopefully make the site easy to navigate. 

So from one "Jack" to another, thanks for the inspiration to do what I've been meaning to do for a while. Now, there's dinner to prepare!