Everything’s Coming Up Budget Recipes! Volume I: Caribbean Vegetable Stew Edition.
Dinner.
Every fall, I become obsessed with food and eating. This fall, the world being what it is, I’m becoming obsessed with food and eating on a budget.
And, as I discovered last time, I am not alone!
The New York Times recently did a story on the One Dollar Diet Project blog, in which two young teachers chronicled their efforts to eat for a dollar a day, each, for a month. It sounds barely this side of do-able. The two of them are now at work on a proposal for a book that will explore the question of what it really costs to eat healthily in America. (My guess? That you can do it for about $5 a day, if you plan well and don’t eat a lot of meat.)
Chow has a “Special Coverage” section on Budget Recipes, and a lot of them look rully good.
I also enjoyed chef Kurt Michael Friese’s article on “How I Beat KFC’s ‘Family Meal’ Challenge,” in Grist.
Alison and I made the trip to Fairway and stocked up on winter-time goods. The damage was about $163, which isn’t very ‘budget’ of me, but I am hoping not to have to buy much of anything besides vegetables for a long time.
Anyway, I’m planning to procrasturbate by posting a series of budget recipes, all priced out. I’m thinking of it as a project, and here’s the reason: Like a lot of people, I have this general sense that cooking at home is cheaper than eating out, even in a place with abundant cheap takeout like NYC, but I don’t know anything about HOW MUCH cheaper it is to cook at home, or how the costs of my at-home recipes compare to each other. And so, this winter’s experiment in OCD begins.
I present to you the first thing I cooked after the big Fairway run, a version of an old recipe for Caribbean vegetable stew, modified by me (I added coconut milk and substituted corn for okra).
CARIBBEAN VEGETABLE STEW, KATHERINE STYLE
Makes: 7 servings (3 dinners, 4 lunches. Freezes well for later microwaving.)
Price Per Serving: $1.78
Ingredients:
2 cups chopped onions ($0.50)
3 cups chopped green cabbage (I screwed up and bought an organic cabbage by mistake, and it was $3.38. Ouch.)
1 fresh serrano chili, minced ($0.14)
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger root ($0.38)
2 cups water
3 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and diced into half-inch to three-quarter-inch cubes ($2.02)
Salt to taste
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice ($0.99)
1 small bag frozen corn (about 1.5 to 2 cups) ($0.89)
2 cups undrained canned, diced tomatoes ($1.89)
About half a can of coconut milk, or to taste ($0.49)
Fresh cilantro ($0.79)
2 cups of brown rice + 4 cups of water for cooking ($1.00)
OK! First, get the brown rice cooking on one part of the stove. It takes about the same amount of time to cook as the stew does.
Then, in a big pot like you’d use for soup, saute the onions in a dollop of vegetable oil, then add a splash of broth, if you have it, or water, and simmer the onions for 4 or 5 minutes.
Ad the cabbage and chili and continue to saute for about 8 more minutes.
Add the grated ginger and water, cover the pot, and bring it to a boil. Then add the sweet potatoes, and simmer 5 or 6 minutes before adding the tomatoes, corn, coconut milk, and lime juice.
Simmer it all together for about 15 more minutes. Serve on a bed of brown rice, with chopped up cilantro on top.
You’ll feel self-righteous as you eat this delicious stew, knowing that it’s vegan and that it packs five servings of five kinds of vegetables into its chunky, unprepossessing, yet festively colorful mixture. I guess you could leave the coconut milk out if you were worried about fat, but why would you do that? It’s not a lot spread out across seven servings, and it lends richness and balances out the spiciness nicely.
I love this stuff. It makes brown rice palatable, is vegetable-rich, and fills you up without making you feel gross and heavy. $1.78 a serving is maybe a little more than I expected, though if you bought regular cheap cabbage, you could get that down under a buck and a half. That’s not bad for a hot, complete meal. I’m looking forward to seeing how it compares with some of my other dinner classics!
The leftovers, a day or two later.
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