Minimal month!

This is a perfect opportunity to get to the basic idea of what the Heady Pepper was originally about - improvisation. Only these coming weeks there is the element of necessity. We're on a shoe string budget at the moment. Summer vacation, private school tuition and whatever other circumstances have led to us tightening our belts. But we can still be inventive with what we have. So here's the experiment:

Use every last bit of edible substance in the house before going on our next food shopping venture. Of course we still want to provide top lunches for our new school girl and feed our children with healthy, well rounded meals. Healthy and well rounded meets frugal and inventive. But what happens when you're down to a quarter bag of bulgar and a quarter bag of quinoa, some root vegetables, cucumber and a variety of condiments? Oh...and a couple of cans
of tuna? You get Bulgar, quinoa, tuna casserole!!! Whooopeee HURRAAHHHH!!!


Maybe not. But it tastes just fine though. Garlic and tomatoes, quinoa and bulgar toasted on the pan. Then some water to boil and cover and simmer. Then I sautéed some onions with cucumber, added rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, honey and fish sauce. Can of tuna and all set. Very nice, light dinner served with mixed greens from the garden.

I'll warn you that these next several posts will not offer anything fancy or beautiful. This is about restraint, discipline and practicality. We shall resume with finer ingredients in about a month, but for now let's see how we do.

The next dish, which actually came first is whole grain pasta in...well a chicken broth! HAHAHA. YES! One piece of chicken taken out of the freezer. A whole leg (thigh and drumstick) browned and slow cooked in a pot with some root vegetables. After around 3 hours on low heat the chicken all fell apart in the broth. The broth reduced and the pasta was added. Throw some parsley on top and some chili peppers (habenero only for me), green beans and that's done. It was frickin delicious and strange at the same time. But it worked. And there were even leftovers the next day.



Tomorrow it's definitely time to get some staples for the cabinets and see how long we can stretch the next round of groceries. Nothing fancy. Nothing exotic. Simple and cheap.

And when the time is right I may even squeeze out a video.