Since I don’t eat a lot of meat but LOVE barbeque sauce, I often eat cannellini beans sauted with sauce. It’s also really cheap and easy to put together and great with some veggies. Next time you’re strapped for time, give this a try!

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon canola oil
1 can cannellini beans
1/3 cup barbeque sauce

Directions:

Heat up oil in pan on medium-high heat. Add beans and let them get a little color and crust on it.

Add barbeque sauce and enjoy!

It’s great with some veggies and sweet potato fries

I’m getting hungry just looking at this picture, although I realize it’s not going to look appetizing to most of you… Trust me, it’s delish.

For New Years, I went to Kim’s apartment to celebrate and gorge myself on surf and turf. Yum. I like going to Kim’s place on Saturday nights and eating gourmet meals. I even keep a pair of stretchy pants there in emergency situations (ie: eating too much – which happens more often than it should…). You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Anyway, I wanted to make some special to ring in the new year so I went straight for a Giada recipe. I’ve been wanting to make her Lemon Hazelnut Tiramisu for a while now and figured this was the perfect occasion. I also had a lot of ladyfingers in my pantry so this went right along with my cleaning out the pantry project. It also called for a healthy amount of Frangelico, which made it even better Who doesn’t love a boozy dessert??

I went to Fairway and pondered for a while over whether I should get the blanched hazelnuts or the hazelnuts with skins on it. I went with the latter, because it was $2 a pound cheaper and BOY DID I REGRET IT. Definitely one of my biggest regrets of 2011. I spent almost an hour peeling the skins off. According to Giada, you can toast them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes and when they’ve cooled slighty, you can roll them between your hands and they will theoretically skin themselves.

Not…really. However, I made another Giada dessert that required hazelnuts (recipe coming eventually) and this time, I toasted them for 12 minutes and then wrapped them immediately in a dish towel and rubbed them. I would say, I got 80% of them skinned, as opposed to 65% percent using the original method. All of this to say, if you have the option of getting already skinned hazelnuts, GET THEM. The $2 extra is worth the hassle and 30 minutes, trying to toast and skin them.

Here’s the Frangelico. If I didn’t cut off the picture, you would see that the bottle is in the shape of a monk. Awesome.

He and Mrs. Butterworth should become friends. Yum.

I obviously have a lot left over, so I plan on putting it in my hot chocolates. I will let you know how that goes

And here are the hazelnuts that took me forever to deal with.

Oh, I guess I should post the recipe…

Ingredients:

Lemon Syrup:

• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar

Tiramisu:

• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 1 (15-ounce) container mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup hazelnut liqueur (recommended: Frangelico)
• 48 soft or hard ladyfinger cookies
• 1 cup lightly chopped toasted and skinned hazelnuts
• 1 lemon, zested

Directions:

In a small saucepan, combine lemon juice, water, and sugar over medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 2 minutes, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Take the pan off heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, cream together remaining sugar and mascarpone cheese for 30 seconds, using an electric mixer.

Whip your heavy cream is another large bowl until light and fluffy – about 5 minutes. Add cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of the sugar. Continue to whip until it holds soft peaks.

Add a third of the whip cream mixture into the cheese mixture. Then, using a rubber spatula, fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Set aside.

So here’s where I stopped documenting the process because you have to get your hands dirty and I didn’t want sticky syrup all over my camera. (it’s already encrusted with flour – ick) But it’s straight-forward

Place the Frangelico in a shallow bowl. Dip a 1/3 of the ladyfingers in the syrup and line a 13x9x2 inch serving dish or any other hefty dish with them. Spoon any leftover Frangelico on top.

Spread a 1/3 of the mascarpone mixture over the cookies and top with 1/3 the hazelnuts. Pour the lemon syrup in a shallow bowl (you can use the Frangelico bowl). Dip another 1/3 of the lady fingers in this mixture and place on top of the hazelnut layer. Add the cream mixture and hazelnut layer.

Repeat one more time  with lemon syrup-dipped ladyfingers. If you have leftover lemon syrup, pour that over the ladyfingers. Add the lemon zest on the very top layer.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours or preferably overnight, so that the flavors really marinate. Supposedly, you’re supposed to remove the tiramisu from the fridge an hour before serving but I don’t have that kind of patience.

It’s light and refreshing and a perfect summer dish. The hazelnuts add a different texture but I think that if you don’t want to spend the time and money preparing the hazelnuts, it would be good without

I especially love that this is a make-ahead dish that can feed quite a few people. It’ll make a comeback in the summer for sure.

Anyway, Cesnica is a lovely braided bread with a coin cooked inside, and much like the baby in King’s Cake, whoever gets the coin, gets good luck for the year.

I’m not posting the recipe for a couple reasons. One, I can’t find it anymore. Two, it wasn’t one of my raging successes. It tasted really doughy and while it was good toasted, it’s not a light, fluffy bread you can consume on it’s own. It may very well have been my oven since it’s terrible, but who knows… I did want to blog about it, though, so I could show it off and because I spent a collective 6 hours, making the darn thing.

But first, I was really nervous about baking the coin so I took the question to Facebook. One of my friends suggested wrapping it in aluminum foil and another to just insert it after it’s baked. I also Google-d a bit and found that you can brush it with hot water and baking soda to sanitize it. So, of course, I did both.

I found a quarter (a Hawaiian one since that’s where my parents got married) and soaked it in baking soda and water.

And then I wrapped it in tin foil.

My brother ended up getting the good luck and when he unwrapped it, we found that the baking soda had totally corroded the quarter. Yuck.

And while we’re talking about Christmas (yes, it’s a month late), I thought I would show you my Christmas nails.

Aw, yeah.

And here are some pictures of the process. It’s useless to you, I know, but just humor me.

Ta-da! Too bad it didn’t taste as good as it looks. Nevertheless, I did eat my fair portion – heavily toasted, slathered in butter, and soaked in jam. It’s a Christmas miracle that I didn’t gain ten pounds over the holiday…

This pasta takes all of 15 minutes to make so it’s definitely a weeknight meal

Ingredients:

3 strips of center cut bacon
1 cup frozen peas
2 servings of whole wheat spaghetti
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook pasta according to the directions on the box. You can use any kind of pasta!

Also cook peas according to package. Usually you just throw them in boiling water for 4 minutes. Heat a pan on medium heat and add bacon that’s been cut up in bite-sized pieces. Add peas.

Heat until everything is fully cooked and heated through. Add pasta.

Sprinkle cheese on top.

Devour.

Yum.

We had a potluck at work so I searched the internets for a simple, healthy, vegetarian, and CHEAP dish that wouldn’t taste simple, healthy, vegetarian, and cheap Enter: Smitten Kitchen. I swear, I can never go wrong with Deb’s recipes.

I used her spinach and chickpeas recipe thinking it would be easy since they are basic ingredients, but finding paprika ended up being quite a challenge. I finally found it at a tea and spice store on the Upper West Side.

I made some modifications, so here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bag of spinach (baby spinach works, too)
1/2 cup canned tomato sauce
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 baguette, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put sliced baguette on baking pan and brush with some olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

Place a large saucepan over medium heat and half the olive oil. When it is hot, add garlic and cook until nutty brown. Then add the spinach with a pinch of salt (in batches, if necessary) and stir well. Remove when the leaves are just tender, drain in a colander and set aside. A lot of moisture may come out so you can just throw that away.

Add other half of the olive oil to the pan, heating over medium heat, and add the chickpeas and tomato sauce. Throw in the cumin, red pepper flakes, and red wine vinegar. Season with salt and pepper.

If the consistency is a little thick, add some water. Add the spinach and cook until it is hot. Check for seasoning and serve with paprika on top, or on crostini.

Dunzo!

This is a great appetizer but can also be made as a side to a protein dish.

After looking up a LOT of budget, bean recipes, I realized that a good amount of them required bacon. Bacon itself isn’t very cheap but you can use just a few slices to flavor a dish, like this Bacon Chickpea recipe I found somewhere (probably Cooking Light). Whenever a recipe calls for prociutto or even ham, I substitute it for bacon because…well…I love bacon (who doesn’t?!) and I never use a lot of it at once so I usually have some in my freezer.

This recipe is quick, easy, and so delicious.

Ingredients:

4 slices center-cut bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 -4 cups of cooked broccoli
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

Directions:

Heat a large pan over medium-high heat. Add bacon and saute until cooked through – about 4 minutes.

Add chickpeas, oregano, red pepper, salt, and pepper. After the chickpeas are fully coated in the bacon oil, add broccoli and saute until thoroughly heated.

Sprinkle with grated cheese and serve!

You can also add some chopped onions into this recipe if you’d like. Just add the onions with the bacon and then follow directions accordingly.

However, they were not fudgy AT ALL. They were cakey and crumbly. And I still have mixed feelings about agave nectar. I’m not convinced that it’s that much healthier than sugar and it can have an aftertaste in certain dishes. I don’t think I’ll be making this again but as far as brownies go, they’re pretty healthy.

So if you’re feeling like a cakey brownie and don’t want all the fat and sugar and bad stuff that usually goes into it, you should make this.

Ingredients:

2 cups spelt flour
1 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup light agave nectar (you can also use brown rice syrup)
1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup soymilk
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet choclate chips, divided in half
PAM spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 11 inch baking dish with PAM.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.

In a medium bowl, whisk maple syrup, oil, agave nectar, coffee, soymilk, and vanilla. I actually just used vanilla soymilk so didn’t add the extra vanilla extract.

Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Pour half of the batter into your baking dish and sprinkle with half of the chocolate chips. Pour the remaining batter into the dish and again, sprinkle with chocolate chips.

Bake until a knife comes out with just a few crumbs adhering to it, about 30 minutes. Let cool.

Now that I’m writing this recipe out, I wonder if I baked it too long?

In any case, it came out pretty and my co-workers enjoyed it as a sweet treat. That’s all anyone can ask for, right?

I found Margot Restaurant, which was nearby and therefore would take very little time to get to my door, and gave it a try since it had gotten some good reviews. We had been joking about fried chicken for the last…oh…two months, so the fact that it had fried chicken on the menu was clearly a huge draw.

Here’s the spread:

… for two people… who JUST ATE.

The fried chicken was, as expected, delicious. With some lime juice, it was perfection.

Here was the pepper steak that came highly recommended. It was… meh. Good but not anything to write home about, although I suppose that’s essentially what I’m doing.

The man on the phone INSISTED I get this rice and peas dish. Thank goodness I listened because it was my favorite out of everything we got. Salty and delicious with a hint of… lime juice? Divine. I ate it for two more meals.

Excuse the blurry picture. I was VERY excited to eat it.

We also got some straight-forward rice and beans, which were also very good. I think all of this food came to be just $22 so it was definitely a win.

If you’re ever in Harlem (which for most of you will be never), you should give it a try – although I hear the actual restaurant is pretty small and has very little seating. So… if you’re ever at my apartment, let’s order from Margot again. Consider this your invitation

This “recipe” hardly warrants a blog post, but it’s what’s going on and it was ridiculously good. In fact, I’ve had it twice since I “made” it last week

It’s quick, easy, delicious, nutritious, and CHEAP. Beautiful, beautiful words.

Ingredients:

1 serving of whole wheat thin spaghetti
1 Tablespoon unsalted butter (maybe a tad bit less)
a little less than a Tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese
a pinch of red pepper flakes
a pink of salt
1 1/2 cups of blanched broccoli (cut your broccoli, boil some water, throw it in for about a minute, rinse with cold water, and drain)

Directions:

Boil pasta according to directions on the box.

Drain and put it in a bowl.

Add your butter and salt (unless you’re using salted butter, in which case you don’t need the added salt)  and mix it up.

Add broccoli and sprinkle with red pepper flakes and Parmesan.

Eat and enjoy!

I pulled this recipe out of Cooking Light magazine in November of 2007 and finally got around to it 4 years later. Worth the wait? Oh, yes.

This is a super easy recipe to put together but it takes about 45 minutes from start to finish because wrapping the ravioli can take some time. If you’re having guests over for dinner, this is a must. Apparently, you can assemble the ravioli a day ahead and store them in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
2 Tablespoons whole wheat breadcrumbs
2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
25-30 round or square wonton wrappers
1 cup fat-free milk
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons butter
3/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
3 Tablespoons of any kind of nut (optional)

Directions:

Dump the pumpkin puree onto some paper towels and spread, covering it with some more paper towels. Let it sit there for 5-10 minutes so that some of the moisture drains.

(Clearly, not the most appetizing of images…)

And here are the wontons I used. I think I ended up finding them at Fairway. Surprisingly, Whole Foods didn’t have any.

In a medium bowl, mix together the pumpkin, breadcrumbs, Parmesan, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. It gets pretty “dough”-y and firm.

I used my mini-scooper (such excitement) to get consistently sized pumpkin-y goodness.

It was also great because you don’t have to scoop with a spoon and then use your other hand to scrap the spoon into the wonton. Being able to scoop up and dispense the pumpkin mixture with one hand ended up being really key. But no worries if you don’t have this in your kitchen. It probably only saves about 5 minutes…

So, you just take a wonton wrapper and then wet two of the edges with warm water.

Scoop a teaspoon size dollop of the pumpkin mixture in the middle…

Fold over and press FIRMLY.

After you’re all done making all of the ravioli, fill a pot with water and bring to a simmer. Add batches of ravioli (not more than 5 or 6, depending on how big your pot is) and then cook for about 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and spray with a little cooking spray so they don’t stick together too much.

For the sauce, all you do is combine the milk and flour in a small saucepan, stirring with a whisk so you don’t get build up on the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil and then remove from heat. Add the butter, stir until melted, and then stir in the Gorgonzola.

Place a  serving (6 raviolis, which is about 300 calories – FYI) in a shallow bowl and pour about 3 Tablespoons of sauce over it. You can also add some nuts on top for some crunch.

I seemed to have a LOT of sauce left over so I drenched my veggies with it, too.

This recipe is slightly time-consuming but SO delicious! I love the pumpkin-flavor with some cheesy goodness. Give it a try! (like, on a Sunday)