Over the Counter Etiquette
by Harold Almon baesoe.com
Be at Ease School of Etiquette Austin
Casseroles are essentially a stew. Each can be picked up from most good delicatessens, or can be made by very good friends, again, I think food is to be frugal and served stylishly, and I do not cook.
Suggested casseroles
Ground beef may include almonds, chives, garlic, onions, mushrooms, sherry, sour cream, and tomatoes all simmered down.
Beef Bourguignon – you can save doing until a lot later on, when you get more money and a real stove.
You can start with you casserole repertoire with:
Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas:
2 ½ cups shredded mozzarella and/or Monterey Jack cheese
6 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
½ cup chicken broth (low sodium if you like it)
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
1 to 2 Serrano Chile peppers, stemmed and seeded
8 corn tortillas
2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus some for coating the casserole dish
1 small red onion (halved) and
A pinch of salt (Kosher is you have it.)
A pinch of sugar
1 ½ pounds tomatillo, husked and rinsed
Chicken Enchiladas what to do:
Preheat broiler
Brush 9 by 13 inch casserole pan with 2 tablespoons of EVOO.
Slice half of the onion in thin rings and set aside.
Make a tomatillos sauce: Place the other onion half, tomatillos and Serrano’s on a foil line baking sheet and broil until soft and slightly brown, turning as needed. Blend with ½ teaspoon of salt, and a pinch of sugar.
Wrap the tortillas in a damp towel and microwave until each is warm and soft.
Toss the shredded chicken with 2 cups of shredded cheese. Spoon a portion down the middle of each tortilla. Add a few cilantro leaves and roll up. Place side by side in casserole dish and broil until crisp, about 3 minutes.
Pour the sauce over the enchiladas and top with remaining ½ cup of cheese. Broil again to bubbly and golden. Garnish with onion rings, and any remaining cilantro.
King Ranch Chicken: rotisserie chicken breast and corn tortillas layered in a flavorful sauce with fresh mushrooms, Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheeses.
Tamal Azteca: rotisserie chicken breast layered with corn tortillas, tomatillo salsa Verde and Cheddar cheese.
Corn Chip Pie
Processed Cheese Product Chile Corn Bread Pie. The recipe is on the box.
Casseroles could include coq au vin, osso buco, or seafood gumbo.
Some stews are better when accompanied by a grain: wheat or rice noodles or rice, or a salad. Each can be topped with potato and browned and served. Potatoes can be reserved for fish. Meat may be cooked with dried (or can) beans. Recipes for these abound on the internet.
Frugal Side Dishes
A Roti (roasted dish) as good as it gets needs a side dish. When the Roti consists of animal protein, the side can be a starch and vegetable item. When it is a non animal protein the sides can consist of a grain and a legume for a complete protein.
A Starch Side can be a Frugal Stem Tubers Baked
An organic sweet potato can be pierced with a fork, and micro waved until it is cooked.
Organic potatoes can be pierced and “faked” in a microwave in four to eight minutes, and taste great.
Potatoes may be baked in an oven, but for little or no money you get one for each person already baked and stuff to put on it from at least one fast food restaurant.
No one needs to eat a whole big potato. Each can be cut on a bias, and shared, or the other half can be saved for later.
Potato au gratin can be made with potatoes frozen and or canned with shell pasta cheese sauce. Share it; please, no one dish needs all that cheese. Still you can try
Delmonico Potatoes
A grain side could be
Corn fresh, frozen or out of a can. It might be served mixed with a legume such as black beans. It has been seen to include diced tomatoes in this mix. It can be served hot or makes a wonderful cold salad.
Frugally speaking, instant grits can be served as a grain side and a portion of baked beans or peanut butter can make a complete protein. Grits may be served topped with a portion from a container of chili, with or without beans, or bacon bits. You can look up and learn how to make Polenta. It is essentially grits.
When entertaining look up and learn how to make a grain side or base of Couscous. In a large part of the world it is a staple dish. You can afford to make this.
Rice can be served informally, as a grain bed or side. It can be made in a microwave, and served. What to do:
Place 1 cup of rice in a microwavable cereal bowl. Add 2 cups water. Add salt and butter. Cook uncovered for twenty minutes. Check it at fifteen minutes. You can cover it for the last four minutes. Adjust for the speed of your microwave. You are done. Then let it rest for five minutes and fluff. You can wait to add the salt. Note: rice can be rinsed and then allowed to soak for 20 minutes prior to cooking it. I got this tip from a recipe on a bag of Basmati.
For presentation, get a cup and wet it, and press a serving of rice into it. Turn it over, and plop the rice out. That’s how to serve rice.
Not expensive enough? You can use Basmati or Hinode rice.
You can elect to serve and eat Brown rice, or Whole Grain or Wild rice. For color you can add slices of tomato.
Rice may be served with beans. The combination of legumes and grains is highly touted as the way to provide a whole protein. In each culture there are combinations of this dish. I like one as the topping for the other.
Wheat can be served as a grain bed or side. Informally Spaghetti can be served as a grain bed or side. Each can be made in a microwave, and served. What to do:
Place water in a microwavable cereal bowl. Boil for 9 minutes. You can break the spaghetti in half. Add pasta; ensure all of it is under water. Cook uncovered for 9-12 minutes. Adjust for the speed of your microwave. You are done. Scoop it out. Add salt if you want. Do not rinse.
Glo's Angel hair Spaghetti Pasta:
Angel Hair Spaghetti
1 yellow onion
1 zucchini
1 squash
2 tomatoes each cut into bite size pieces
garlic and
meat sauce
Cook the pasta, brown the veggies if you want, and treat the rest like a stew. Mix in all in. Let it simmer until you want some.
Thanks Glo.
You can elect to serve and eat whole grain pasta.
Informally, Mac and Cheese can make a grain side dish. There are microwave pasta makers.
Mac and Cheese may be may be made in a large soup bowl.
Fill bowl almost to the top with water and boil it in the microwave for nine minutes. Stir pasta in the water. Boil rapidly, stirring occasionally, 8-9 minutes or to desired tenderness.
Scoop out the pasta into another bowl. Dress the pasta with ¼ cup butter or margarine, ¼ cup of milk and the contents of the pouch. Mix thoroughly and serve.
To each pack, you want to add a processed cheese product. You can add more than one cheese. You can put in a little of the good stuff Blue cheese, Chevre or Gouda.
You could omit the cheese, add cold cooked green peas, make Mac and Peas, and have a complete protein. You can serve it hot or cold.
Pizza can be a side dish. It can be cut and served in squares. It can be drizzled with EVVO of Safflower Oil.
Amaranth is a highly nutritious grain that can be served in lieu of a traditional grain as a side dish, “and the plant itself is extremely attractive and useful.”
“Millets are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for both human food and fodder,” that can be served in lieu of a grain as a side dish.
Quinoa is edible green leaf product that has grain-like, gluten free, edible seeds, a source of a complete protein that can be served in lieu of a grain as a side dish. Nutritious yes, not as frugal now as it use to be.
Frugal tip: Store gains in air tight: old peanut butter, jars with a bay leaf
My Palate® Almon Hitt – Whole Grain Viscous Fiber
Barley -S VF Bulk
Bran
Buckwheat Bulk
Buckwheat Bulk
Corn Chip Pie
Succotash
Corn Polenta
Corn Salsa
Cous Cous Bulk
Millet Bulk
Oat Bran Cereal - VF
Egg Noodles
Noodles R Like Organic
Noodles Maruchan
Noodles Ramen-R
Rolled Oats VF Bulk
Rice No GM
Rice Low Arsenic Bulk
Basmati Rice Bulk
Basmati Rice Bulk
Brown Rice*D Bulk
Hodi Rice Bulk
Rice Noodles
Popped Rice
White Rice
Wild Rice
Rye Berries
Spaghetti
Angel Hair Spaghetti
Wheat Pasta*WG-*D G
My Palate® Almon Hitt – Mock Grain Analogues
Amaranth Bulk
Arrowroot Bulk
Flax Bulk
Quinoa
Sorghum
Soy
Tapioca
Teff
Triticale
Gluten Free Flours
Bean, Corn, Potato,Soy,Rice,
Casseroles
Mac and Cheese Truffle Oil
For each item you consume know the recommended
• Portion
Serving Serving size
• Calories
Legume sides such as beans can be freshly made, frozen or come from a can. Each can be enhanced with your signatures spices. Legumes can be
Black beans: (these mix well with corn and diced tomatoes and lime vinaigrette dressing, especially when allowed to chill overnight.)
Black eye peas, as part of a whole protein, but I think it does and I like them over rice.
Endamame
Garbanzo beans
Green beans Green beans, and diced tomatoes mix with an Italian dressing make a great side cold. It may be heated, and then you can add onions to the mix.
Red Kidney beans
Lentil peas
Lima: these bean and corn make a complete protein, and can be obtained frozen as a bag of Succotash. You can serve
Pinto or Pinquito beans, baked or barbequed.
Other legume choices include Soy beans: the only stand alone complete protein, Split Pea, Swordjack or White beans. All beans provide fiber. Beans and peas can be found in a bag or can as a side or a soup.
My Palate® Almon Hitt – Legumes Protein Carb Fat
Legumes high in soluble fiber: roughage can be beans and peas.
Legume Fiber
Cooked Beans
Adzuki Bulk
Pinto-D Bulk
Anasazi P Refried
Baked Beans
Scarlet Runner Beans
Black Beans-D Bulk
Soybeans
Bush Beans Bulk
Split Pea
Cranberry Beans
String Beans Bulk
Endamame
Falafel
Fava Catinelli
Garbanzo Beans-D Dried
Green Beans
Kidney
Lentils Bulk
Red Lentils
Green Lentils Bulk
Lima Beans
Navy
Black Eye Peas
Peas
Green Pea Bulk
Sword jack
White Beans Bulk
When the Roti is an animal protein pick one starch item as a side.
A Starch Side can be a Frugal Stem Tubers Baked
An organic sweet potato can be pierced with a fork, and micro waved until it is cooked. Organic potatoes can be pierced and “faked” in a microwave in four to eight minutes, and taste great.
Potatoes may be baked in an oven, but for little or no money you get one for each person already baked and stuff to put on it from at least one fast food restaurant.
No one needs to eat a whole big potato. Each can be cut on a bias, and shared, or the other half can be saved for later.
Potato au gratin can be made with potatoes frozen and or canned with shell pasta cheese sauce. Share it; please, no one dish needs all that cheese. Still you can try
Delmonico Potatoes
When the Roti is an animal protein pick one vegetable item as a side. You can omit the grain and or the legume side and pick two vegetable sides to be more formal and still be frugal.
Asparagus can be had frozen and in cans. Looks good, but know this, this can make some people odiferous within thirty minutes. Engine search this.
Collard greens, Kale, Mustards greens, all come frozen and can be heated in a microwave and make suitable sides.
Raw Cole slaw can be served as a salad. What to do: search engine it and get the Kit. You can get the soup kit, and shred the cabbage, about the size of rice. Then omit the mayonnaise, or substitute it with Rice vinegar or white vinegar. Let it marinate. Add raisins if you want. You can thicken it with a little corn starch, thanks Pam. You can buy the Deli container of slaw.
Informally crudités can serve as your vegetable side.
Onions are to be sautéed and served on top of rice (or burgers, chicken, liver, or steak.)
Spinach leaves can be served as a side dish or as the bed for the main dish.
You can grill your vegetables, such as asparagus. Vegetables may be steamed. You could oven roast vegetables such as carrots. Vegetables might be creamed, but that can be saved for when making soup.
Artichokes good as they are, can be served right out of a jar. You could only guess how rich in fiber and magnesium they are.
There will always be a place on the side of a plate for mushrooms: Enoki, King Oyster, Maitake, Matsuktake, Oyster Reishie, Shitake, to name a few.
Remember Julia’s tip: give them room; when sautéing mushrooms give them space to brown. Some have been seen served stuffed. For the recipe see each marketer.
Some might serve Seaweed Arame Dulse, Hijiki, Kombu, Mozuku, Nori, and Wakame as a side dish. Just because I think I can spell it, does not mean I have a recipe.
No comments:
Post a Comment