ODG Eats

Life has been hectic lately, so I haven't been keeping up with the post schedule. I'd apologize, but neither of us really give a shit. Anyway, I picked up a pack of pork chops on my Aldi excursion, and this meal is one of the uses I found for them. You know I love my veggies. I definitely spend more time prepping them because they'll make or break a dish faster than the meat. I went with orange bell pepper, yellow onion (looks raggedy because I've been grating it a lot lately), a radish, half a mini cucumber, a couple mushrooms, and a few cloves of garlic. My pork chop was simply seasoned with some salt, pepper, and ground sage. I tried to put a few slices in the fat around the edge to keep it from curling up while it cooked, but that turned out disastrously, as you can see. Despite the curvature, it cooked pretty well. Maybe a tad overdone on the first side (pictured above), but the underside came out better. I may have been (i.e. I was) loading the dishwasher while it...

So you remember those cherry tomatoes I cooked up a week or two back, right? A little flour, some salt and pepper, a bit of basil, some asiago, garlic, and butter sauce? Those were tasty. Those were quick. Well, those are outdated now. Life started much the same, with the tomatoes halved and stuck cut side down in some flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Oh, but what's that? A new player has entered the match? Meet thinly sliced mini cucumber. Of course we cook the tomatoes in some butter like last time . But while those are going, we're gonna dredge both sides of the cucumber slices in the seasoned flour, as well.  I didn't cook the tomatoes quite as long this time. I wanted the flour to be cooked, but still just a tad sticky. Oh, and look at that black pepper in there. Mm mm fuckin great! Once the tomatoes were out, the cucumbers went in. I let them get a little crispier than the tomato, but be careful, because those thin little bastards cook fast. After that, it was mer...

I decided to see if I could shrink my grocery budget any by going to Aldi instead of Kroger. Turns out, my bill came out about the same, plus, when I tried to cook dinner last night, I discovered that, aside from the couple of mushrooms on the top of the container, the rest were fucking disgusting. I'm gonna stick with Kroger, thank you very much. I was able to restock my cream, olive oil, and extra virgin olive oil without breaking the bank, so that was nice, at least, and, since I finally had cream again, I wanted to make gravy. I diced up a radish, some yellow bell pepper, and half of a mini cucumber and sliced the (fucking THE) mushroom that was worth a damn for my gravy veg. I also chopped up a broccoli head, diced some cherry tomatoes, chopped some parsley, minced some basil, and thinly sliced some garlic for a side. My protein for the meal was a pork chop seasoned with salt, black pepper, and ground sage. I started off by pan frying that beauty in butter.  The chop was a bit...

One thing I've been grateful for with cooking under a tighter budget is dry goods. Rice, beans, lentils, and pasta can often be bought in larger quantities, can have a very long shelf life, and don't hurt the bottom line. Needless to say, I've been eating quite a bit of rice lately. Now, to be fair, I have a rice cooker. It cost maybe $30, and I've had it for 6 or 7 years now. It's simple to use, doesn't take long, and typically cooks rice better than I can do in a pot. Now, you can just dump rice straight from the bag into the cooker, add water, and let'er rip, but let's face it: that's some shit rice. At the very least, rinse your rice. I usually pour mine into a bowl that I keep under a low-running tap while fondling the rice like a fucking weirdo. I pour the water out when it gets close to the top of the bowl (don't want to overflow and lose grains), and just repeat 3 or 4 times until the water runs pretty clear.  This second thing is not som...

If you've ever cooked on a budget, you know that veggies are much more cost effective than meat. Beyond that, I have a few vegan friends who have requested that I make some food that doesn't involve meat. Now, I know I give them shit about being vegan because meat, butter, and cheese make life worth living, but I do understand the moral, ethical, and health reasons why they may choose that way of life. I just enjoy eating flesh, eggs, and dairy.  Tonight, though, we're eating vegan. I kept it simple, because simple is often best. I diced up some red bell pepper and two radishes and thinly sliced a mushroom, then put them all in my big bowl. I sliced a few small garlic cloves, diced a handful of cherry tomatoes, and chopped some parsley and basil for my small bowl. Notice that I kept two crushed garlic cloves and the parsley stems aside. That's important. Starting off, I poured some extra virgin olive oil into my cold (!!!!) pan and dropped in the parsley stems and crush...

For the past 4 weeks, I have kept my grocery bill under $50/week. This includes not only food items, but also a new baking pan and some dishwasher detergent. I'll be doing a few posts of "budget cooking" to show a few ideas for how to keep food costs down because EVERYTHING IS SO FUCKING EXPENSIVE GODDAMN Anyway, I was feeling a mite peckish one evening around 11:30 and decided I needed a snack. Unfortunately, living on a tighter budget means I skipped getting things like Doritos, so I had to come up with something using the few ingredients I did have. I settled on a handful of cherry tomatoes, a clove of garlic, and a few basil leaves. I halved the tomatoes, gave them a light sprinkling of salt, then laid them cut side down on a plate of all purpose flour seasoned with salt and cracked black pepper. Meanwhile, I crushed the garlic clove, chopped up my basil, and went ahead and sliced a couple tablespoons of salted butter while my non-stick pan was heating up. Once the pa...