What to cook when money is tight
We cut our grocery bill by about a third this week, to cover whatever car option we go with (resurrect the Volvo? Buy the Smart Car?), and ironically this means that we eat a little better: more of what we buy is cheap basic ingredients, so that more of the day-to-day hooey can be made at home rather than purchased ready-made. All our bread, sweets, and sauces for stuff are homemade, therefore yummier, if more time-consuming for someone who SHOULD be working on docent-training manuals.
Tonight: Grilled lemon-yogurt chicken (a recipe 4000 years old and still being cooked has to be good, after all), homemade pita bread, salad with a tomato and mint from our garden, and black-bean hummus (which hubbles has already requested for lunches in future-- a good sign that it turned out well).
LEMON-YOGURT CHICKEN
Marinate chicken in a sauce made from:
* a spoonful or so of pureed garlic
* half a container of plain yogurt
* two tablespoons or so of lemon juice
* a teaspoon or even less of lemon zest-- depending on your citrus cravings
* a good dose of dried herbs d provence
* smidgeon of paprika (I like Croatian sweet paprika, but I'm biased)
* salt and pepper to taste.
Chicken should marinate for three hours at least. The yogurt does wonderful things for chicken: it tenderizes the meat a bit without turning it to mush. It browns and sweetens a bit on the grill without tasting burnt. And its tang is the perfect conterpart to the sweet paprika and the bright lemon.
Yum.
Tonight: Grilled lemon-yogurt chicken (a recipe 4000 years old and still being cooked has to be good, after all), homemade pita bread, salad with a tomato and mint from our garden, and black-bean hummus (which hubbles has already requested for lunches in future-- a good sign that it turned out well).
LEMON-YOGURT CHICKEN
Marinate chicken in a sauce made from:
* a spoonful or so of pureed garlic
* half a container of plain yogurt
* two tablespoons or so of lemon juice
* a teaspoon or even less of lemon zest-- depending on your citrus cravings
* a good dose of dried herbs d provence
* smidgeon of paprika (I like Croatian sweet paprika, but I'm biased)
* salt and pepper to taste.
Chicken should marinate for three hours at least. The yogurt does wonderful things for chicken: it tenderizes the meat a bit without turning it to mush. It browns and sweetens a bit on the grill without tasting burnt. And its tang is the perfect conterpart to the sweet paprika and the bright lemon.
Yum.