Healthy Cheap Food

You might be wondering what on earth a Praluline is. I was too when I first heard about it. I was on a trip to Paris when I came across them in a bakery called Pralus. It’s right in the centre of Paris, not far from the Pompidou Centre (which is great for modern art, btw) so you could easily come across it when exploring the city.

The Praluline is a sweet bread which has candied nuts inside of it. I don’t know how you’re supposed to eat it but we just ate it on its own and it was delicious. I guess a piece of Praluline and a strong coffee would be perfect together because if you were to have it with a hot chocolate you’d get a sugar overdose!

This delicious bread comes in two sizes, very big and even bigger. The smaller size lasted us a couple of days and is well worth trying if you happen to stumble upon the Pralus bakery on a trip to Paris.

So I know this site is about cheap and healthy food and the Praluline and trips to Paris don’t exactly fall into those categories. But it’s nice to spoil yourself now and then and I believe that if you are going to spoil yourself you should do it with quality food using quality ingredients not junk food full of additives and preservatives. Quality over quantity is my motto!

Want something quick easy and tasty? Then pasta is for you! Start by boiling water in a kettle, once it has boiled put in a large saucepan, put on the stove and turn the heat up. Add to the pan about two generous handfuls of pasta (frusilli, penne, whatever you like) for each person who will be eating. Let this cook for about 10 minutes and regular stir it to avoid it sticking together. While you wait for the pasta to finish you start making the sauce. You will need:

- Garlic or garlic paste

- Tin of chopped tomatoes

- Herbs

- Vegetable oil (olive preferable)

Get small saucepan and pour a small amount of oil in and add around 4 crushed garlic cloves or a large amount of garlic paste. Turn up the heat and slowly add more and more of your tin chopped tomatoes. Keep in mind how many people you are making this for, you may not need the whole tin. Using a small spoon stir up the mix and start to add herbs. Oregano and mixed herbs work well. Now would be a good time to check how the pasta is doing! Once the water form the tinned chopped tomatoes has been boiled you should end up with a tasty sauce to add to you pasta. Serve and enjoy.

Okay, so my year in review post was a bit late this year, but lets take a look at some of the healthy (and not so healthy) cheap recipes of the year:

Ramaghetti

The Cheap Mac and Cheese

BBQ Pork

Corned Beef and Potatoes

Great Brownies

My Favourite Cookies

Grits Rice Porridge

Beef Chilli

I hope you enjoyed them!

I love the taste of Horchata, it’s a really refreshing drink on a warm day. It”s not only refreshing, but it’s also healthy and relatively cheap to make. It’s definitely deserves to be on a list of healthy, cheap food. Unfortunately, if you look on the web, many of the recipes for Aqua De Horchata sounds very difficult. Not to worry, I have an easier recipe.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup of rice
6 to 10 cups of water
1 can of condensed milk
cinnamon to taste
1 tsp of vanilla
sugar to taste

First off, take your 1/4 cup of rice and either put in the blender or put it in a mortar and pestle in order to break it up. You don’t really have to do this but it results in a thicker horchata.

Next, rinse your pulverized rice on time and then put your water. Bring it to a boil and let it sit covered for 1 to 2 hours so it can begin to soften up. After the wait time, boil the rice for 1 hour(covered). You are now ready to extract the rice water.

You can do this one of two ways. You can either ladled out the rice water, making sure you don’t disturb the rice at the bottom or you run it all through a cheesecloth/wire mesh. The goal is to get the rice water alone in a container.

To your rice water, you add the can of condensed milk and vanilla. Try adding 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to start off with. If you like the cinnamon flavor, you can start adding sugar to the taste you desire. You might want to start off with a 1/4 cup of sugar, depending on how much rice water you have.

Finally put it in the refrigerator and chill until it’s cold. Enjoy!

I came up with a brand new interesting recipe that it is easily made from foods that store well in the kitchen cupboard. It’s a quick and easy to prepare and best of all, it tastes great. It’s called Ramaghetti. It’s instant ramen noodles made into a spaghetti. Trust me, it tastes fabulous, it’s cheap, and it’s easy to make.

Ingredients:
Instant ramen noodles
canned corned beef
1 can of tomato sauce

First boil 6 or 7 packages of instant ramen noodles. The number of noodle packs is up to you. Make sure you don’t put in the seasoning just yet. After the noodles are finished cooking, drain off the excess water and then add the seasoning packets and mix it up. Next add in 1/2 can of corned beef and 1 can of tomato sauce. You’ll want to simmer for your Ramaghetti for a minute or two just so everything gets nice and warm and tasty.

This is very tasty and if you make it up in bulk, you can put it in a lunch for the kids. They’ll love it.

My husband just loves beef chili. In fact, it’s favorite among every one in the household. It’s easy to buy cans of chili at the supermarket, but I don’t think the taste is really that good enough.

I am interested in quality food at that why I make up all of the chili we eat. Basically, I make a huge amount of it on a Saturday and then put it in container to freeze. All I need to do is thaw it and stick in the microwave and we can have chili anytime.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

* 3 pounds lean beef, coarsely ground or cut in small cubes
* 1/4 cup chopped onion
* 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 6 cups water
* 2 bay leaves
* 1/4 cup chili powder
* 1 tablespoon salt
* 8 to 10 cloves garlic, minced
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon oregano leaves, crushed
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 3 tablespoons sweet Hungarian paprika
* 3 tablespoons flour
* 6 tablespoons cornmeal
* cold water

Preparation:
In a 6-quart saucepan, sear beef with onion in vegetable oil until beef is no longer pink. Add water, bay leaves, chili powder, salt, garlic, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper, black pepper, sugar, and paprika. Simmer, covered, 2 hours. Cool. Refrigerate overnight so flavors will mellow. Skim off the solidified fat. Reheat. Combine flour and cornmeal; add a little cold water to make a smooth paste-like mixture. Add paste mixture to chili. Cook, stirring, for about 6 to 8 minutes longer. Remove bay leaves before serving.
Serves 6.

Unfortunately, it is hard to shop for healthy cheap food. In fact, it seems like healthy and cheap are polar opposites in this day and age, and guess what, it’s probably right. Everyone is interested in convenience and that means convenience foods.

It’s hard to make convenience food cheap and healthy so makers gives you a choice, healthy or cheap. Guess what? That’s the problem. If you want cheap and healthy food, you need to make the food yourself. You need to make it from scratch with the quality ingredient. It’s easy to get cheap, quality ingredients if you check out the bulk food section of your supermarket.

After I wrote my post about Grits yesterday, I got a call up on the phone asking me how I make my Grits Rice Porridge. First of all I am shocked how many close friends read this blog. I guess I better watch some of the things I post.

Anyways, this is how you make it. First off, brown some ground beef in a skillet and set it off to the side. Next take a 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of corn grits. Put them into a large pot along with some ginger and some soy sauce and water. I’d say at least 5 cups of water, maybe 6 to start off with.

Boil it for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Next add the ground beef and a couple of eggs. If the mixture gets too think, add some water to it. Continue simmering the porridge for another 30 minutes. Everything should be nice and smooth and very tasty.