I have a reasonable collection of cookbooks. But there is only one I turn to as my stand by, my no-fail cookbook that will probably give me a recipe for which I have all the ingredients. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook was first published in 1896 and I now have the thirteenth edition which was my only cookbook in college. It’s small, no fuss, easy (for the most part), and perfect for the current economic grocery climate. Here are a few of my favorites - I highly recommend investing in this book. Your basic fridge and pantry supplies will go far.

Something I love to do is “accidently” forget to eat all our bananas and as they get darker and more ripe, begin my plans of making banana bread. I also found a half full bag of Nestle Toll House in my pantry so I dumped those in and made a great banana chocolate bread. Here’s the recipe:

3 ripe bananas, well mashed ( I had 2, use whatever you have)

2 eggs, well beaten

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (if you have them, this is traditional, or add chocolate chips)

1. Preaheat oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan. Mix the bananas and eggs together in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda.

2. Add the walnuts or chocolate chips and stir to blend. Put the batter in  the pan and bake for 1 hour. Remove fromt he pan to a rack. Serve warm

I found a great deal on blueberries at Whole Foods this week and turned that into a week of breakfast goodies for us. This recipe is more like a scone, not a super sweet cake which I prefer with my coffee. As I was looking for recipes I came across this gem from Ina Garten - but again it’s an additional trip to the grocery store and a possible coronary from the butter. Fannie required no extra trips or cash.

2 cups white flour, divided - reserve 1/4 cup for blueberries.

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg slightly beaten

1 cup milk

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 pint blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Butter muffin pans or line with baking cups.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl. Add the egg, milk, and butter, stirring only enough to dampen the flour. Reserve a 1/4 cup of flour and sprinkle over your blueberries. Stir into batter. The batter should not be smooth. Spoon into the muffin pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

This isn't the exact dish, but it gives you the idea!

Well, it’s about 5 ingredients plus your usual suspects salt and pepper and olive oil. We’ve made this dish twice in 2 weeks. It’s cheap, really cheap and simple and the fresh oregano is a perfect winter herb. Definitely get the fresh oregano, it’s not the same with dried. The second time around I used drained diced tomatoes instead of going through the tomato peeling process you’ll see below. You could also use leftover mashed or boiled potatoes to cut down the assembly time. Chicken thighs are a cheap cut of meat, so try to splurge for the organic/free range, plus it tastes better than chicken breasts (boring!). It only serves 4, and you might want seconds so it doesn’t stick around your fridge for too long! Bon Appetit!

Crispy and sticky Chicken Thighs with Squashed new Potatoes and Tomatoes (Jamie at Home)

Serves 4

1 3/4 lb new poatotes, scrubbed

12 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on. Cut off the bone into about 3 strips per thigh

1 1/4 pounds cherry tomatoes, in the summer you can use the pretty multicolored ones.

A bunch of fresh oregano, leaves picked

Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper

Red wine vinegar

1. Put the potatoes into a large saucepan of salted boiling water and boil until cooked.

2. While the potatoes are cooking away, preheat your oven to 400F. Place the chicken thigh strips in a large bowl. Rub the meat all over with olive oil and sprinkle with slat and pepper and toss. Heat a large frying pan, big enough to hold all the chicken pieces snugly skin side down, you can also do this in batches. Toss and fry over a high heat for 10 minutes until almost cooked then remove with a slotted spoon to an ovenproof pan or dish.

3. Prick to tomatoes with a sharp knife. Place them in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for a minute or so. Drain and when cool enough to handle, pinch off their skins. Drain the potatoes and lightly crush them by pushing down on the with your thumb

4. Bash up most of the oregano leaves with a pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar, or a Flavor Shaker. Add 4 tablespoons of olive oil, a good splash of red wine vinegar and some pepper and give everything another bash. Add to the chicken with the potatoes, the tomatoes and the rest of the oregano leaves. Toss everything together carefully. Spread out in a single layer in an appropriately sized roasting pan ( I used my 13×9 Pyrex). Bake for 40 minutes in the oven until golden.

I think this is a great dish when you’re thinking of spring, of primavera. This dish is adapated from Serious Eats, and besides the bit of cream it was very healthy. I’d also recommend using wheat pasta although you don’t get quite this bright almost neon green sauce. Johnathan hates peas but ate this disguised dish gladly. Here’s how it goes:

Serves 2

1/2 pound of pasta, any kind you have

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 medium onion diced

1 package of frozen green peas

3/4 cup of cream

3 slices of Canadian Bacon cut into bite sized pieces, browned

salt, pepper, parm for finishing

1. Bring pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta according to the box - al dente is best.

2. Meanwhile, heat a teaspoon of butter, or olive oil, or I like Smart Balance in a medium skillet. Add the onions and garlic and saute for 2 minutes until they sweat. Add the frozen peas and cook another 2-3 minutes until they’re cooked through.

3. Transfer peas to a food processor or blender. Blend and add the cream until it’s thick and pulverized. Place a sieve over a small saucepan. Pour the pea purée into the sieve, pushing it through with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon. Discard solids. Over a low flame, warm the purée through. Remove from heat and season well with salt and freshly ground pepper. Optional: a pinch of ground nutmeg will accentuate the sweetness of the peas.

4. Toss the pea sauce, pasta and Canadian bacon together in a large bowl and serve with freshly grated parm.

Ok, I hate to admit I liked it, but I did. Dallas BBQ here in NYC (it has nothing to do with Dallas actually) was pretty good. I’m no BBQ expert so I’m easy to please, but Dallas has a KILLER Early Bird Special. Some friends and I found ourselves near Times Square, which we try to avoid, on Sunday afternoon. The special is TWO plates for $9.99!! If you want the honey or BBQ sauce, it’s a dollar more per dish. It comes with rice or fries, cornbread, soup, and half a chicken. I was skeptical when I got pulled into the tacky massive tourist trap. But we ate a lot, including a Texas sized margarita, and didn’t break the bank even in Times Square. Early bird hours - Monday-Thursday 11:30am-6pm and Friday, Sat, Sun - 11:30am - 5pm, and they have a few locations around the city, others much cooler than Times Square.

I want to start posting about cheap restaurants and eats we find around NYC, and where ever we happen to travel. I’ll admit Johnathan and I are not great about eating out cheap - we don’t do it often so when we do, we tend to spend a little bit more. Inevitably we can’t spend $100 on dinner every time we eat out, so I wanted to start passing on what we find. My friend Jess B introduced me to this Korea Town place the other night. Korea Town is about a block long, 32nd St between 5 & 6th Ave. It’s like walking into any ethnic anywhere - lined with restaurants, all serving pretty much the same thing, so how do you know what’s good? A recommendation. Jess took me to Pho Cha at 15 W 32nd. It’s on the second floor, which makes it even better and doesn’t attract the tourists from the LaQuinta Inn a couple doors down. Jess had a large steaming bowl of ramen, and I had the same but with Udon. So good, so filling, so cheap - $5-$7!! We each had a $5 OB Korean beer (which tastes exactly like Corona - probably the same stuff). It’s a great experience, and there’s a variety on the menu - barbeque, mussels (I’d be careful there, but they were on a lot of tables), and sizzling plates of meat and veggies. But if you need a cheap Manhattan meal with a unique ethnic experience - here’s your spot!

This week’s food budget for us is smaller than usual - a good challenge I think. I also wanted to detox before the Thanksgiving hoopla. This week’s menu is going to be super simple, vegetarian (well, maybe there might be some bacon or pancetta) and I”m making as cheap as possible - while still being healthy (trust me, I know Ramen is cheap). I’ll make my own pasta - I have lots semolina flour around, do some hearty salads, maybe even make a pie crust for a quiche. So rather than selecting recipes before I venture out to the shops, I’ll spend as little as possible and make it up this week. When life gives you less money, make better food.

I’m debating as a food lover whether we’re in the best of times or the worst of times. As gas and food prices have risen, and Wall Street is sick, people have started talking seriously again about eating and cooking cheaply. This is not a new crisis for a lot of Americans, simply life as usual. For a lot of us, in large cities, and the middle class I think we’ve felt it in different ways. But this week I’ve read some interesting articles that contradict where we’re at as a food loving public long term and short term.

New York Magazine dropped its 40th anniversary issue - pick it up - even if you’re not a New Yorker. This is one of the few issues of the magazine that I’ve read cover to cover, actually really intrested in what the writers had to say. Well, you can’t put out an issue about how New York has changed over the past 40 years without an article involving chefs and the change in New York cuisine. The writers interviewed David Chang of Momofuku and André Soltner of Lutece. Both are institutions of the city and both chefs have changed how we eat here - well mostly how we eat out. They commented on the public’s taste, expectations, and buying habits. As a child of the 80’s, I’ve grown up expecting choices in produce, herbs, and meats. Soltner answers the question, Do people eat better now, saying: “Oh, sure. Forty years ago, they didn’t eat good. When I came to this country, everything had to be big! Just big. Potatoes, they had to be big. Didn’t matter that in the middle there was a hole, as long as the potato was big. And that was the only potato that you could buy. Now you go to a supermarket, you have five or six different potatoes. Not just in the specialty markets or farmers’ markets. Why? Because the people demand this. Why didn’t the farmers grow smaller potatoes? Because there was nobody to sell it to. but now, they know that with small potatoes, they can demand more money, because we chefs told them.” He also makes a similar comment about carrots, herbs, and Fairy Tale Eggplant. I have no generational perspective on this phenomenon, but feel privileged to live in such a “snobby” food culture where I expect 6 different potatoes and get them.

Today, I also received an email from The Kitchn, which was heavy on the cooking cheap/frugal vs. luxury posts. I clicked on an article that challenged people to eat for $25 a week/person, which is what a typical food stamp recipient in Illinois has to spend each week. I champion the awareness, but find it a bit condescending to just take the challenge on for a week (”to see how the other half lives”) and not make a significant change or effort to change how the system works. Before you get all upset, I would imagine, that a lot of people writing and trying this project will find themselves and their food habits changed and more aware. For a moment, I felt bad, like I was spending a crazy amount on food, which comparably I am. However, I thankfully do not have to live on $25 a week, nor do I want to eat peanut butter sandwiches and soup for 4 days. Cooking Broke, for me, is about living well - being healthy (sans most bacon recipes), and coming around a table with friends, serving them with great food and doing it on a realistic budget. Sarah from The Kitchn said, “this is a time to talk to our farmers and grocers. This is a time to plan our meals out ahead of time. This is a time to eat less meat and to use the meat we do in its entirety.”

It’s funny, we’ve never been more obsessed with food and food culture before. How many of us watch hours of Food Network, wait for the best restaurant reservations, and surf Epicurious? It’s so much fun, and has made Johnathan and I so fulfilled. But we also have the highest food prices of the last 40 years. A lot of families can’t afford meat or fresh veggies. This is an interesting time for foodies. We’ll have to see what the report is in another 40 years. Any predictions?