Cheap, easy and a quick go-to meal, if you ask me. Who needs bread, when you can knife-n-fork it? You’re not losing any flavor, just a bit of texture–but really, who likes soppy, gloppy bread? No one. Skirt steak is substituted for the normal cheesesteak meat: ribeye. Skirt steak is cheap and equally as tasty. If you can’t find skirt steak, use ribeye, if you can afford it, or use flank, sirloin or london broil–just make sure to slice it as thinly as you can. And oh, did I mention, leftovers galore?

I have a difficult time talking myself into making ceviche at home. Even though we’re not far from the coast here in Columbia, South Carolina, it is quite difficult to source fresh, wild ceviche-makin’ seafood. Insert lightbulb overhead. Why don’t I just pre-cook some seafood like shrimp and scallops, chill it and then make the tasty “broth” to go with. Wonder if you can tell the difference, we sure couldn’t.

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s probably because you don’t live in the South. This is completely, 100% Southern. What’s funny is– I have no idea why that’s so. I don’t really associate curry and cilantro with the South–but hey, I didn’t make this up. It’s usually got some bacon in it and served over rice, but for budget and time’s sake, I didn’t use bacon– I did, however, saute the chicken in bacon renderings. My favorite.  As you can see from the picture, we used drumsticks. I strongly advise you to follow the recipe below and use boneless chicken thighs (skinless, if you want) because drumsticks, as cheap as they may be, take forever + a lifetime to brown and cook through.

Do these taste like what your mama used to make? No. Are they soft and chewy or thin and crispy? Nope. Are they delicious, cheap and easy to make? Abso-freakin-lutely. They’re not cookies, but cookie-like, so we’re gonna go with “bakies.” This is pretty much the cheapest and quickest way to make a Paleo cookie–I mean bakie. Why? It’s a throw together recipe with very small quantities of the expensive stuff (almond flour, almond butter) and no eggs. Maybe your eggs aren’t expensive, but my eggs, straight from the farm, are $3.50/dozen; I really hate recipes that call for like 5 eggs at a time. Now that I think about it, these are actually…Vegan, cringe.

More sausage! Brandon was supposed to make dinner tonight and well, I kind of took over. He wanted breakfast for dinner and I’m totally in to that, don’t get me wrong. Problem is, we’re going out of town, out of the country actually, for the next 5 days and I had some stuff I wanted to use up in the fridge.  So we melded our ‘wants’ and came up with this beauty.

The grocery store I most frequent, 14 Carrot in Lexington, SC (for those of you local readers), makes a few salads and what-nots for the ready-made deli case. They’re really those wacky kind of foods like tofu, wheat grass quiche and mock chicken veganaise salad. Bleh! They never, ever look appetizing.  I took a look at the ingredients of their Kale salad, cringed, and then decided I’d try to riff it. The result: literally 10 minutes from prep to mouth, made and served in one bowl, and tastes like the seaweed salad we order (and pay $4/serving for) when we go out for sushi. It’s a refreshing, cold, crunchy bowl of happiness.

So it’s 9:00 p.m., I have nothing planned for dinner, as we just got back into town that afternoon and, we’re both pretty darn hungry. I try to keep my pantry and freezer well stocked (post about this to follow), so that I can always have something to throw together in a pinch. Turns out, most of my “pinch” proteins are sausage. Brandon says to me, ” You can’t post that! These people have got to be tired of sausage!” I’m like, “Impossible!”  Are you guys tired of sausage? I love sausage. Let me count the ways:

1. You choose the size: crumble it, patty it up or links
2. Economical
3. Lots of flavor without having to add spices or herbs
4. Tons of different types of flavors:  Sweet, Smokey, Mediterranean, etc.
5. Any ground meat can make a sausage: duck, chicken, turkey, beef, piggy
6. You can’t overcook it

How would you like a fish that tastes like crab, cooks quickly but isn’t finicky about being cooked perfectly and is very affordable? BAM! I have found it…it’s called skate wing. Wild skate wing, $3.99 a pound at Whole Foods! I thought, this is just a sale. Go back to a different Whole Foods, (months later, as we do not have a Whole Foods in Columbia, and go there every few months to stockpile their wild seafood) and it’s the same exact price!

This fish deserves two paragraphs of copy. It’s a flat fish with lots of meat on both sides. So it’s like a 2-for-1 kind of deal. The meat forks off like string cheese. The “bones” look more like fingers. It’s quite odd, but it’s a very tender texture with a crab-like, delicate taste. I hope, if you ever see it in the seafood case, you give it a try. The two skate wings pictured above weighed around 2.5 lbs total and were kept in the freezer for about a month before we cooked them.

Ingredients

• 3T + 2T fat
• 2 skate wings
• S&P
• 1/2 lb. fresh spinach
• 3-5 gloves garlic, finely chopped

Method

In a saute pan over medium high heat, melt about 3 T fat. Pat the skate wings dry with a paper towel and sprinkle with S&P. Place the wing in the pan and saute for about 7 minutes, flip once you see a little bit of color and saute on the other side. You shouldn’t see any pink or redness, if you do, cook it longer.

For the spinach, use the same saute pan and saute the garlic in about 2 T melted fat. Add the spinach all at once and let it sit for about 2-3 minutes. Then use some tongs or a spatula to turn it over so the fresh spinach gets wilted. This should take less than 10 minutes.

This was inspired by my love of pizza, my lack of ingredients in the fridge and a shortage of time. This look about 10 minutes to put together and another 20 minutes to cook. This is LITERALLY a 30 minute meal. Kids would probably love to customize each mini meatloaf with their own pizza “mix-ins” !

Ingredients

• 1 lb. Italian sausage
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 handfuls almond flour
• Various pizza type mix-ins, finely chopped (we cleaned out the fridge–green onions, banana peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, green olives)
• If you’re going to use onions, garlic and/or mushrooms, you need to pre-cook them as they stay crunchy (garlic, onions) or release too much too much water (shrooms).
• 1/2 can pizza sauce

Method

Preheat oven to 400ºF.

In a medium bowl, mix together the sausage, egg yolks, almond flour and your choice of mix-ins. Fill a muffin tin about 3/4 of the way up with the meat mixture. Top each mini meatloaf with a spoonful of pizza sauce.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

Who doesn’t like Emerald Cocoa Roast Almonds? Maybe you haven’t read the nutrition label, maybe you have. Let me inform you these babies are sweetened with sucralose–the ambiguous name for Splenda. Like we posted on Crash Course on Sugar, Splenda is a calorie-free sweetener BECAUSE we cannot digest it–read diarrhea and the likes. So yes, we’ve added sugar to this recipe. But please understand these are not overwhelmingly sweet, in fact, I think the sweetness is quite subtle and find the cocoa “crust” on the outside of the almonds to be the most addictive part of this snack—not the sweetness. Also–this is a great recipe for your kiddies to help out with!

Ingredients

• 2 c raw almonds
• 1 egg white
• 1/4 c water
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 c cocoa powder
• 1/2 c powdered sugar

Method

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg white, vanilla extract and water.

In a zip-top bag, add the powdered sugar and cocoa powder. Seal the bag and shake it around to get everything incorporated.

Add 1 cup of almonds to the egg whites and use a slotted spoon or fork (or nature’s fork–your hands ) to coat all the almonds. Then using your “fork” put all the almonds in the cocoa/sugar zip-top bag. Seal it well and shake it around to coat all the almonds.

Place the almonds on a baking sheet and repeat the steps above with the other cup of almonds. Don’t worry if you get the cocoa powder on the baking sheet–it won’t do any harm.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

If you’d like them a bit sweeter, you can add the cooled, roasted almonds to a zip-top bag along with a few tablespoons of powdered sugar and toss them around.

Keep the almonds stored in a zip-top bag.