Poor (wo)man's dinner (and dessert!)

How to make a delicious dinner (and dessert!) when you have no money (or groceries):

Step 1: Open your fridge and realize you have no food, sigh heavily and close fridge.

Step 2: Open your fridge again and pull out all the food you actually have (don't be dramatic, you must have something in there!)

Step 3: Decide to make something that doesn't taste gross if you add a bunch of random crap to it, for example, stir fry, soup, or pasta...I chose soup

Step 4: Realize half-way through cooking that some of your ingredients are spoiled.

Step 5: Add other random things you find in the fridge to replace spoiled ingredients.

I followed this 5 step process and ended up with miso soup with udon noodles (linguine), daikon radish (that was bad, so I used a carrot I found at the back of the drawer), shitaake mushrooms (dried), wakame, and scallions (which are miraculously not spoiled!). For dessert I ended up with bread pudding, how cool is that?! The bread pudding rocked so here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

One really stale baguette that your sister was about to throw out, seriously, stale is good!

2 3/4 cups almond milk (that never expires, right?)

1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

4 eggs (I used 2 eggs and 2 egg whites so I could eat two slices of bread pudding)

1/3-ish cup brown rice syrup 

3/4-ish cup sugar

1/3 c. raisins (or realize you only have a quarter cup and throw in some currants, mmmm)

random spices! (Okay, maybe not random, I used vanilla extract, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice)

Directions:

Using a bread knife, cut bread into one inch cubes. Drizzle with melted margarine. Toss with raisins and currants. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, brown rice syrup, sugar, and spices. Pour over bread and let soak until very squishy! Pour into a greased 9 X 13 inch pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 45-55 minutes or until lightly browned and top springs back when touched. 

Eat a slice drizzled with honey or caramel sauce if it's not sweet enough, go back for second slice and pat yourself on the back for your resourcefulness! 

Quinoastrone!

Quinoastrone! (Must be said with an Italian accent to get full effect)

Serves 4-6

This isn't really a recipe so much as most of the contents of my fridge, freezer, and pantry in a pot, but it turned out delicious so I figured I would share. On a side note, I really need to go grocery shopping...after a several day illness I was craving soup so I created this delicious take on minestrone but instead of pasta I used drum roll please...quinoa! What?!? It's healtherrific! (healthy + terrific) and vegan too! Enjoy! If your not convinced, take a look at some of the extreme closeup shots I took of it below!

Ingredients:

1 quart "no-chicken" broth (or your favorite broth, or water if you hate flavor)

14oz can tomato sauce

2 cups water (I just refilled the tomato sauce can, yay less dishes!)

3/4 c. quinoa

1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (optional)

1/2 large onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

3/4 c. frozen chopped broccoli

3/4 c. frozen corn

3/4 c. frozen peas (or like me, realize they are freezer burned, then throw away, booooo)

pinch thyme

pinch oregano

handful chopped fresh parsley

salt and pepper to taste

Whatever other random crap you need to use up in the house...green beans, potatoes, celery, pasta, rice, other beans, apples (ok, not the last one, that sounds gross)

Directions:

Saute onion in oil in a heavy bottomed pot until tender, add carrots, saute for a few minutes. Stir in broth, tomato sauce, water, herbs, and quinoa. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add beans and frozen veggies, cover and cook for about 5 more minutes, stir in fresh parsley. That was easy, right? And if you are keeping track of that sort of thing, 1/4 of the recipe comes out to around 360 calories, 6 grams fat, 11 grams fiber, and 15 grams healthy protein!