Kabocha

We signed up for a half-share, which is plenty for 2 people, and picking up our seasonal, organic farm-fresh vegetables and fruits each week has made cooking even more fun than usual these last few months. Not only have we received the typical Northeastern summer bounty of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, zucchini, squash, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, and berries, we’ve also gotten some slightly more exotic offerings like garlic scapes, broccoli rabe, baby bok choy, white Japanese radishes, and this week: kabocha, a Japanese squash.

The one thing that people who join CSAs often complain about is actually one of the things I like best about it: You don’t get to choose your produce; therefore, you have to be more creative about planning your meals. Personally, I like the challenge. Occasionally, I get vegetables I’ve never cooked with before. Though more often, because it’s locally grown and I’m a Northeastern native, I get stuff that I’ve cooked with a million times. And I can see how this could be really boring if you’re not especially into cooking or if you’re a vegetable hater. But for me, when I peruse recipes from my cookbooks or the online food porn, and then I start imagining all the flavors blending together, it’s instant gratification — not unlike when Julie Powell* expounds on the virtues of baking a simple chocolate cake in Julie & Julia.

I’ve made many delicious salads and side dishes from our CSA stashes this summer, plus a few early summer vegetable soups (before the sweltering began), and an amazing cardamom plum tart and 6 extra tartlettes, among other dishes.

One specific CSA challenge that has come up for me is that I don’t associate kale and chard with summer. And don’t get me wrong; I love kale and chard — in the fall, winter, and spring. However, judging by the earthy green bundles that the CSA volunteers keep shoving into my Baggu each week, they are actually summer greens. But hot damn! We’ve had a 3-month-long heat wave in New York City, and the last thing I want to do is boil, sauté, or bake these big, tough greens in my air conditioner-less kitchen.

Yet, I also don’t have it in me to let them wilt and die, and become one with the onion skins that confetti the bottom of our crisper. In honor of the green Swiss chard that we got this week, I’m going to experiment with grilling it. And then, I’m going to toss it with olive oil, minced garlic, cannellini beans, sea salt, pink peppercorns, and shaved parmesan, and see how it turns out.

Our CSA runs from June 2nd through October 27th, and it’s a really good deal for us, especially because our grocery options are a little grim. With just a small chain supermarket one block away that seems to only ever have produce from China or Chile (Wait, is that why they call it C-Town?) and a fancy, gourmet place that accommodates the residents of the luxury condos across the nabe (= grrr expensive!), the CSA is a welcome addition. I should add that we do have a farmers’ market, but the CSA produce ends up being cheaper. We can go to the farmers’ market or one of the other places for anything we need that didn’t happen to arrive in our weekly share.

But it’s not just about the money. Joining a CSA is also about supporting local farmers and agriculture, building closer ties with our community, and committing to a more sustainable way of living and eating, even while residing in the concrete jungle of New York City.

* Incidentally, Julie Powell also lives in LIC (when she isn’t in Kingston, NY, cutting up animals).

First, there’s the opportunity cost. To get the milk, I have to drive my car to the grocery store, find a parking spot, navigate the metal cart through the crowded aisles, wait in line at the register, tell my son “no” to the half dozen items he will beg me to buy, push the cart across the parking lot to my car while trying to keep my son from running off, load up the groceries, drive home, unload. This is one of my most hated chores and it takes an hour or two of prime weekend time. If I didn’t have to go to the store for the milk, I could be using that time to do something I enjoy. So, for me, there is a big opportunity cost attached to that gallon of grocery store milk.

Second, are the costs to the environment that don’t show up in the dollars I pay at the cash register: the pollution wrought by commercial dairy practices; the diesel fuel burned to move the milk across the country to my grocery store; the noxious chemicals used to create the molded plastic container that my milk is shipped in; the energy spent to deal with my discarded milk carton which will be picked up by a garbage truck, carted to a transfer station, put on a barge, taken out to the middle of the ocean, and dumped. When you consider those costs, it makes my glass of grocery store milk a lot more expensive.

Third, are the costs to my family’s health. Many commercial dairy farms think of animals as machines that can be turbo-charged to produce more. The pixie dust they use to shift their cow-machines into overdrive is called Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). It’s a synthetic hormone that forces the cows’ bodies to produce more milk than is healthy for them. This puts enormous physical strain on the cow, which leads to infection which is then treated with antibiotics. The hormones and antibiotics get in the milk and end up in our bodies. Consumption of milk laced with hormones has been linked to cancer. Canada and the EU have banned BGH because of the significant health risks, but the FDA has not. So chances are good that it’s in my gallon of grocery store milk, and there is also a chance that consuming it could contribute to a life-threatening illness like cancer. If you factor in the health costs, the milk becomes prohibitively expensive. Can you even put a price on health?

Finally, there is the quality of the product itself. The milk in the plastic, or waxy cardboard container isn’t very fresh; wasn’t produced by well-tended cows; and is bland, and vaguely plastic tasting. So for all the effort, cost to the environment, and risk to my health, I’m not even getting a very delicious glass of milk.

But there is a solution – the milkman. I met Tom during a Saturday visit to the farmer’s market. His booth featured local milk in beautiful glass bottles. As I stood there wanting to buy the milk, but thinking about how heavy the glass bottles must be, and if I bought them, I’d have to bring them back the next week, and so buying the milk would mean that every Saturday morning I would have to get in my car and drive to the farmer’s market to exchange my empties for full bottles of milk. As I was wrestling with this in my mind – thinking about the hassle, but still wanting to buy the milk – Tom said, “We deliver you know.”

It took a moment for me to process the implications.

“We also deliver eggs, cheese, butter, and other local farm products,” Tom added. It was one of those moments where the clouds open up and a beam of sunshine emerges.

“You deliver,” I said, not fully believing it. “To my doorstep?”

“Every Wednesday morning,” Tom said, and he gave me the website address for his company, The Hudson Milk Co.. I went home and promptly signed up for my first delivery.

Now every Tuesday night I put a cooler on my front porch with empty glass milk bottles and on Wednesday morning it’s magically filled (Tom delivers at 4:00 in the morning) with farm-fresh milk, cream, eggs, and cheese. The milk has no BGH so it’s healthier for my family. It comes from a local farm, so it hasn’t been shipped thousands of miles creating a monstrous carbon footprint. The pretty glass bottles get reused, unlike their plastic counterparts that end up floating (forever polluting) the oceans. I don’t have to go to the grocery store as often, and when I do, it’s just to pick up a few things. It’s no longer an epic chore. And best of all – the milk is fresh and it tastes great! It costs a few dollars more, but if you factor in the other costs–opportunity costs, health costs, environmental costs–it ends up being the cheapest milk you can buy — and the most delicious!

If you live in Westchester, NY you can ask Tom to bring fresh milk to your doorstep too. Tell him I sent you.

I was thinking about the Americanized notion of la cucina povera one night a few weeks ago when the only fresh produce I had left in the house was an acorn squash and an onion (I live in a neighborhood with a dearth of decent supermarkets).

I would soon be setting off on a trip to the Piemonte region of Italy, and Piemontese cuisine was on my mind. In this mountainous region, which lies on the French and Swiss borders not too far from the Ligurian Sea, anchovies are a signature flavoring. I happened to also have a jar of anchovies.

After looking through a few of the books I’d been using to research my trip, this is the Piemontese-inspired pasta I concocted for dinner:

Rigatoni with Acorn Squash and Anchovy Sauce
Rigatoni colla Zucca e Salsa d’Acciughe

Makes 4 modest servings.

1 large onion
1 medium to large acorn squash
4 to 6 salted anchovies, sott’olio (preserved in oil)
1 cup of frozen spinach (or fresh, or broccoli or cauliflower, depending on your taste and what you have available)
2 to 3 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp chili pepper flakes
Rigatoni pasta
Parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Preheat oven to 350˚F

Put the pasta water on boil.

Cut the squash in half, and clean out the stringy, seedy middle part.* Stick the squash halves in a baking or roasting dish with the green rind side facing down (and the orange fleshy part facing up), and bake until the fleshy part is tender when poked with a fork. Remove from oven to cool.

When squash is no longer piping hot, peel the flesh away from the rind and cut the squash into bite-size chunks. Set aside.

Salt the boiling pasta water, and add rigatoni. Cook for the recommended amount of time (usually 8 to 10 minutes).

Next, chop the onion, and begin sautéing it in a medium-sized frying pan with the extra virgin olive oil. Avoid the urge to add salt.

Rinse the anchovies under cold water to remove some of their overwhelming saltiness (don’t worry, they’ll still be salty). Finely chop the anchovies, and then mash them with a fork until you create a paste. When the onions begin to appear translucent, add the anchovy paste to the sauté. Stir and cook the mixture for about 5 minutes on low heat (be careful not to burn it).

Add the squash chunks to the sauté, stirring and tossing.

Sprinkle the chili flakes over the squash, and continue to toss.

Add the spinach to the sauté; stir to mix it in. Turn the heat up to medium and cover for a few minutes so the spinach can cook.

Remove sauté from heat.

When pasta is ready, drain rigatoni and toss in a bowl with the squash and anchovy sauce. When the pasta and sauce are thoroughly combined, sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Mangia!

Regional wine pairings to consider: Arneis (white) or Barbera (red)
Non-Piemontese pairings: Sauvignon Blanc (white) or Sangiovese (red)

* Seeds can be salted and toasted for a snack, or sprinkled on top of the pasta.

Free Lose it! iPhone Application

After years of working on health and fitness websites, I knew the basic rules: eat lots of fruits and vegetables; more protein, less carbs; and nothing fried. I had already started cooking more, but I needed more help than that. I decided to use the extremely popular and free application, Lose It!, which I could download onto my iPhone as a guide. The Lose It! application simply enables you to track your calories eaten and expended through exercise. You enter your weight, how much you want to lose over a specific time period, and it gives you your daily calorie allowance.

Keeping track of your calories is very eye-opening! I always figured olive oil was healthy so I would generously use it for cooking and salads. One tablespoon of olive oil has 126 calories. I started to measure it out, and realized I really didn’t need more than one tablespoon. I began making trade-offs. I ordered egg-white breakfast burritos at my local café, got ridiculed for it, but later was able to have a chocolate chip cookie guilt-free. I still went out and went over my daily calorie allowance often, but going all out sometimes made the other days of the week that much easier. I exercised more, but then was able to eat more, too. And now, a couple of months later, it’s all unbelievably become habit and my new wardrobe is complete.

Blackberry Lavender Gelato with Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

Start by making the blackberry lavender simple syrup to flavor the gelato.

Boil:
1 cup water
1 cup brown sugar
1 box of blackberries

Reduce the liquid to a syrup, and mash the blackberries. Turn the heat off and stir 1 teaspoon of edible lavender into the syrup. Let sit for 15 minutes, and then strain out the solids. Refrigerate.

In a medium pot, warm:
2 cups of milk
1 cup of heavy cream

Remove from heat when foam starts forming around the edges.

In a large bowl, beat:
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar

Beat them until they’re frothy, and then gradually pour the warm milk/cream mixture into the egg yolks, while whisking constantly.

Return the mixture to the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens slightly and coats the spoon. Remove it from heat. (Remove it immediately if you notice lumps starting to form.)

Strain the mixture into a bowl, cover it, and chill for several hours. When it’s cold, pour it into an ice cream maker with the blackberry lavender syrup and churn for approximately 30 minutes total. After about 15 minutes, add 1 cup of bittersweet chocolate chips and continue to churn another 15 minutes, or until thickened to gelato consistency.

Transfer the gelato to a container, seal and freeze it until firm.

And then, of course, eat it!

For mother’s day, my husband and son built a small garden for me. I’d seen videos like this one, about depression-era victory gardens and I wanted one of my own.

So Mike and Aidan built a small garden bed and I planted rosemary, thyme, basil, parsley, broccoli, swiss chard, lettuce, yellow squash, zuccinni, cucumbers, eggplant, and pumpkin. Yep, all that in a 5′ x 6′ plot. And yep, I don’t know what I’m doing.

In spite of my lack of skills, the garden grew beautifully.

Kim's Victory Garden

Pumpkin seeds

I’ve got three good reasons to be proud of my garden. First, the garden is economical. A packet of seeds costs about $2.50 and and I get about $10.00 worth of produce out of each packet.

Second, the garden is good for the planet. No fossil fuels were used to harvest, ship, or sell this produce. I simply walk out my back door with my kitchen scissors and “snip,” I’ve got veggies for dinner.

But the biggest bonus is the sheer pleasure of growing my own food. I had no idea it would be so much fun. The feeling of accomplishment when I harvested the garden’s first yellow squash defies description. I stir-fried it with garlic, butter, basil, and thyme and served it with angel hair pasta. Yum.

So, if you’ve got a backyard, plant a veggie garden. If you live in an apartment, put a pot of basil on your sunniest windowsill. It will be worth it. Trust me.

Basil

Yellow Squash

Red Leaf Lettuce (left), Basil (lower left), Broccoli (right), Eggplant (upper middle)

Cucumber

Tasting Table – The writers of Tasting Table keep me filled in on all sorts of NYC foodie fodder. Their mission is “to deliver the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters,” and while that usually inspires worth-the-splurge editorial (in this city, anyway), Tasting Table also offers a fair amount of frugally-minded suggestions for everything from recession-friendly dining deals and cheap $2 tacos to drinks at Depression-era prices and recipes for culturing your own curds.

Epicurious – Because I like making food and assembling meals and I like pairing them with wine or cocktails (and I even like to do all of this on the cheap, whenever possible)…

…because it’s often cheaper to prepare my own food than to pay someone else to do it…

…and because Epicurious sends me recipes from Bon Appétit and Gourmet (which I no longer buy)…

I am a longtime subscriber to the Epicurious newsletters. They currently offer 2 versions. The first, Recipe Flash, is more food and recipe oriented, while the other, Tasting Notes, focuses on wine reviews and pairing recommendations.

Fodor’s Travel – While Fodor’s may still be suffering from its reputation as, well, your parents’ travel guide, I urge you to look at Fodor’s with a fresh eye. Their editorial and design has really changed for the better over the last few years. And I’m not just saying that because I sometimes write for them (though not for their newsletters). I recommend checking out Fodor’s because their editorial focus has shifted to include more sophisticated drinking and dining coverage, a better range of offerings (in general), more compelling features, full-color guidebooks, and a vibrant community. Fodor’s isn’t as interested in traveling on the cheap as they are in getting you the most for your money, but with that being said, their newsletters often offer value-conscious features that are beneficial for both the tourist and the local, alike. Here are a few recent ones for our fellow New Yorkers:

• New York City Deals: Fine Dining for Less
• New York’s 12 Best Free Summer Events
• Cheap NYC Lunches: Fodor’s Top 5 Favorite Food Carts & Truck

EuroCheapo – I admit it: at any given moment, I’d rather be in Europe, and that’s why I love EuroCheapo’s reminders about how easy – and sometimes surprisingly satisfying – it can be to travel or live like a cheapo over there. EuroCheapo newsletters feature suggestions for cheapo (and often free!) fun things to do, as well as cheapo places to eat, cheapo places to stay, and cheapo ways to get around in both major and off-the-beaten path locations. While EuroCheapo has recently experienced a few fancy upgrades (they now offer hotel & city guides for 28 cities, as well as budget flight, car, and rail finders on their site), their newsletters still have a real DIY feel to them with helpful insights and authentic snapshots from cheapos on the go.

Daily Candy – It’s not a specifically frugal guide to anything, but sometimes whatever cool “candy” they’re promoting fits the bill. Especially on Sample Sale days. One of the best things about the Daily Candy newsletter – aside from how cheekily it’s written – is how it faithfully informs you when, where, and which designers are hocking their goods at a discount. Why pay full price to look fabulous when you can splurge just a bitty bit (or a biggy bit, depending on the designer – ahem, Fendi)? If you can slip out in the middle of the day with some cash and the balls to stand up to any feisty fashionista that tries to get between you and your new skinny jeans, you have the potential to win big.

• Recent/Current Sample Sales
• Upcoming Fendi Warehouse Sale

3 Prosecco Cocktails (+ a cordial glass of strawberry mint syrup)

It’s easy to be a frugal foodie in Italy. Food, for the most part, is pretty cheap. And wine, I noticed when I was living in Rome, was sometimes even cheaper than bottled water (though it should be noted that free drinking water is available from water fountains all over the city, so there’s no need to ever even buy water). When I moved back to NYC from Rome a couple of years ago, I realized that the Italian way of thinking about gastronomy had gotten to me. Simple, seasonal, fresh, and delicious food is both a basic principle and something to be celebrated there. Italians are passionate about eating and drinking; meals are rituals; and the way things are done matters. A mere 2 ounces of carelessly prepared espresso is sure to cause a fight at the bar; pasta cooked a moment past al dente is unforgivable.

One of my favorite, celebratory Italian foodie/drinky rituals is the aperitivo. It’s sort of the Italian equivalent to our American “happy hour” or the French aperitif, but rather than getting a little bowl of salted nuts or pretzels with your drink, you’re presented with a veritable buffet of Italian delights – for no extra charge. This can range from a modest antipasto of sliced meats, cheeses, bread, olives, and vegetables sotto aceto (under vinegar, a.k.a., pickled) to a feast of bruschetta, pizza, pasta, cous cous, grilled vegetables, fried zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovies, marinated sardines, prosciutto with melon or figs, caprese salad, fresh fruit, and more, depending on which bar or enoteca you go to. It’s a fantastically frugal way to dine out (not that you’d actually want to miss out on a full Italian meal) or just to sample regional specialties – all for the price of a cocktail.

Prosecco Normale

Prosecco is a classic aperitivo drink. If you’re not familiar with it, prosecco is a dry or off-dry Italian sparkling or semi-sparkling wine. Here in the U.S., it’s sometimes known as the poor man’s champagne, since at $9 to $35 a bottle, you can drink it on the cheap. It’s my aperitivo favorite and the inspiration for my deeming the early evening hours of aperitivo – 5 to 7 p.m. – prosecco o’clock. Campari drinks and cocktails with other Italian bitters (Amaro, Cinzano, Cynar) are also quite popular. And for some reason, so are mojitos, though they’re a long way from home.

ROMAN APERITIVO

If you’re lucky enough to be traveling to Rome and want to try the real thing, these are a few of my favorites places for aperitivo and an unadorned glass of prosecco:

Freni e Frizione
http://www.freniefrizioni.com
Via del Politeama 4-6 (near Piazza Trilussa in Trastevere)

Enoteca Ferrara
http://www.enotecaferrara.it
Piazza Trilussa 41 (in Trastevere)

‘Gusto Wine Bar
http://www.gusto.it
Piazza Agusto Imperatore 9 (near Piazza di Spagna & Piazza del Popolo)

DIY APERITIVO

Potluck Aperitivo at Casa di Jen

Hosting an aperitivo can be a fun and frugal way to spend a “happy” hour with friends. It’s an early evening event that requires nothing more than an alcoholic beverage and some nibbles – much less labor-intensive and also less costly than a full-fledged dinner party, and everyone is freed up afterward to go enjoy their dinner and other nightlife plans.

What You’ll Need:

1. Prosecco – Ideally, your prosecco should be served in champagne flutes.
2. Nibbles – You can pick up some tasty no-prep-required nibbles (prosciutto, salami, cheeses, olives, bread/crackers, sliced veggies, fruit, etc.) or prep some of your own small plates to serve. You could also host a potluck-style aperitivo and ask your guests to bring something to share (extra prosecco, if nothing else).

FRUGAL & FANCY

If you want to try your hand at a bit of mixology, you can take your bubbly to the next level by making prosecco cocktails. They may not be as artisanal as the ones concocted by expert mixologists, but they also won’t be as expensive. The great thing about prosecco is that it goes very well with many fruit and floral flavors.

Some Fixings for Prosecco Cocktails

Prosecco Juice Cocktails

• Fill ¼ of the flute with juice (or more, if you like) – orange, peach, berry, cherry, pomegranate, passion fruit, lychee – and fill the rest of the glass with prosecco.
• Garnish with fresh fruit, either on the rim or dropped into the glass.

Prosecco with Muddled Berries

Prosecco Cocktails with Fresh Fruit

• Muddle fresh fruit, such as raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blood orange, black cherries, grapefruit, star fruit, melon, plums (or even a cucumber), and fill ¼ to ½ of the flute with muddled fruit and its juice (or strain it so you just have the juice if you prefer your cocktail senza solids).

• Garnish, if you wish.

Prosecco with Strawberry Mint Simple Syrup

Prosecco Cocktails with Flavored Simple Syrup

• Make a simple syrup by boiling 1 part water and 1 part sugar until the sugar is dissolved. You may add chopped or crushed fruit, herbs (mint, rosemary, sage, thyme, or Japanese shiso), or other ingredients, like vanilla beans, ginger, lemon, lavender, or fennel to the syrup. Just be sure to strain the solids after they’ve served their flavoring purpose. Let syrup cool at room temperature or in the fridge.
• When syrup is cool, add it to prosecco according to your taste.
• Garnish, if you wish.

Prosecco, Calvados & Sugar Cube

Prosecco Cocktails with Spirits

Fill ¼ of the flute with one of the following liqueurs/bitters/spirits and then fill the rest of the flute with prosecco:

• Cassis (currant flavored; used in French Kirs)
• St. Germain’s Elderflower
• Poire William (pear flavored)
• Chambord (blackberry flavored)
• Limoncello (lemon flavored; also lovely with a little rosemary simple syrup)
• Calvados (apple flavored; a little sweeter if you add a sugar cube)
• Cointreau (sweet & bitter orange; also nice with fresh-squeezed orange juice)
• Campari or Amaro (bitters from citrus peel; garnish with lemon peel; also refreshing with a little grapefruit juice)

Prosecco Tea-sers
I don’t know if anyone else does this (or would drink this), but a few summers ago, I decided to start adding teas that I’d brewed (and cooled) for iced tea to prosecco. It seemed to me that the delicate flavors of fruit, berry, and floral teas would result in a light and pleasant riff on the more traditional prosecco cocktail. I like it, but you’ll have to taste for yourself.

• Brew the tea. Let it cool, and then fill ¼ to ½ of the flute with tea and the rest with prosecco.
• Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Of course, if you want to get even more creative, you can experiment with any combination of juices, fruits, flavored simple syrups, spirits, or teas.

Prosecco Punch

Jen's Prosecco Punch

You can also make a big batch of prosecco punch from any champagne-based punch recipe or just fill a bowl with prosecco and a delicious combination of fruit juices (spirits optional). When I make punch, I usually prepare 2 kinds of oversized ice cubes to keep it cold. I make frozen juice cubes (so the punch doesn’t get too watery when the ice melts) and I also make regular ice cubes with berries and citrus slices frozen into them because they look pretty floating on top of the punch.

If you would like to share a favorite prosecco cocktail recipe or if you know of any other great aperitivo spots, please send them my way. Salute e cin cin, amici!

Each class at The Social Table has a specific theme, hosts eight people, and costs $65 per person for appetizers and a 3-course meal. Wine is BYOB, giving you the option of grabbing a bottle from home, picking up a bottle or two of Trader Joe’s Two-Buck Chuck, or stopping by your local wine store for one of Frugaltopia’s recommended Vino Cheapos. It may be a cooking class, but the wine is important, as you spend much of the class eating, drinking, and chatting with your classmates and Rebecca. Although not inexpensive, this cooking class is a great way to celebrate a birthday with friends, learn some new cooking tips and tricks (I can now expertly crack eggs and separate the yolks and whites), and meet some new people who appreciate food as much as you (or I) do.

The dinner theme for my class was “An Italian Dinner Party” with a menu of: Fried Spicy Eggplant, Roman Style Polenta, Pollo alla Diavolo, and Fresh Berry Crostada. The recipes are simple and require only 5 to 6 ingredients. Many of the ingredients are used in at least two recipes, and most ingredients like olive oil, bread crumbs, and red pepper flakes, you’ll likely have in your cupboard already.

All the dishes were delicious, but my favorite recipe was the Pollo alla Diavolo, the Devil’s Chicken. Besides the satisfaction of learning to cook a whole chicken (as to date I had only cooked pre-cut chicken breasts), the dish proves to be cost-effective (since there are few ingredients and a whole chicken is cheaper than pre-cut breasts and parts), easy to cook, and healthy.

Pollo alla Diavolo
Serves 4
from Rebecca Goldfarb of The Social Table

1 medium Chicken, 2 ½ to 3lbs.
1 cup Olive Oil
1 Lemon juiced
3 Garlic Cloves crushed
1 tsp Chili Flakes
Salt and Pepper

Wash the chicken well. Place chicken breast side down and remove backbone and wishbone at the bottom of the bird with kitchen scissors. (Those scissors in your knife set are for these types of tasks, not for cutting fresh flowers, which is what I usually do with them.) Turn the chicken over and, using the heal of your hand, press down on the breastbone to flatten (warning: you’ll probably hear a crack when you do this).

Mix the olive oil with the lemon, garlic and chili flakes. Season the chicken with salt and pepper, and then place it in a shallow dish and toss with olive oil mixture. Turn to coat evenly and let sit a minimum of 30 minutes.

Broil chicken, starting bone side down for 20 minutes. Turn over and lower the heat, and then cook for an additional 20 to 30 minutes until the meat registers an internal temperature of 160 degrees. Baste with the marinade from time to time and serve with lemon wedges.

This chicken goes well with any side dishes – polenta, potatoes, sautéed spinach, broccoli rabe, anything.

Buon appetito!

Molasses, Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Scones

In spring and summer, brunch is practically a team sport for many New Yorkers – one requiring endurance, stamina, and the competitive ability to meet up with friends on a Sunday morning and wait, on average, for 20 to 40 minutes for a table while sleep- and caffeine-deprived. The prize? A bottomless cup of coffee, Bloody Marys and Mimosas, Eggs Bene, and hours of sundry brunchy deliciousness. Admittedly, not a bad payoff.

Surely, there are many tempting brunch deals to be had in the boundless food Mecca of New York City, especially these days, but that’s another post. I’ve been spending these early spring Sundays brunching in. Well, not “in” exactly. I take brunch on my deck, surrounded by my recently planted flower, herb, and vegetable garden, and a wild grapevine that has aggressively wrapped itself around the perimeter and is threatening to take over my entire outdoor space with its many shoots and tendrils and flowering buds.

No matter how simple or elaborate a brunch I prepare, the one thing I always include is some kind of fresh-baked scone. I love scones! And I know there are many crumbly, delicious scones – both sweet and savory – to be had in New York City. I especially like the ones at Once Upon a Tart, Tea & Sympathy (which I lovingly refer to as “Tea & Hostility”), and The City Bakery, to name a few. But the Frugaltopian in me suspects that for the same amount of money I’d spend on a single scone, I could bake several – if not a whole batch – in my own kitchen. And you know what? It’s totally easy and it takes only about 20 minutes from start to finish, thus making it a frugal use of my time, too.

Here’s a new riff on a basic scone recipe that I baked this weekend:
Molasses, Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Scones
Makes 8 scones

Scones:
2 ½ C unbleached flour
1/4 C brown (or cane) sugar
1 T baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 t salt
5 T butter, cold & sliced
1 egg
1/2 C buttermilk, milk, or soymilk
2 T molasses

Topping:
1 T unbleached flour
3 T brown (or cane) sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 T butter, cold, sliced

Preheat oven to 425˚

Combine the dry ingredients for the scones, and then cut the butter into the flour mixture with a pastry cutter until it gets crumby (or better yet, use a food processor – much quicker). Don’t overwork the dough; it’s important for the butter to stay cold until it gets into the oven. Add the egg and liquids. Mix together. Gather dough. Plop 8 scones down on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the dry ingredients for the topping and cut the butter in (or pulse all ingredients together in the food processor). After the scones have baked for 8 to 10 minutes, slide the baking sheet out of the oven, gently press down the top of each scone with a tablespoon, and then sprinkle the topping mixture over each scone. (Use good aim and try to keep the topping on the scones because otherwise the sugar/butter mixture will burn quickly on the baking sheet.) Slide the scones back into the oven and bake for another 2 to 5 minutes, until you can stick a toothpick into a scone’s center and it comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Note: If you can’t finish a whole batch yourself, you can freeze your leftover baked scones and heat them up for breakfast or teatime later.
Summer Dessert Tip: You can also use these scones (with or without the topping) in place of biscuits in a simple strawberry shortcake. Mmm!