One of my favorites on nachos or as a side to shredded pork tacos are pickled jalapeños. The heat of the peppers and the twang of the vinegar add vibrancy to rich, fatty dishes. But, my preferred brand (Mrs. Renfro’s, if you’re curious) goes for about 6 bucks a jar.

I picked up a pound of jalapeños over the weekend for about a buck fifty, and, with a little guidance from the always informative Ruhlman (and his new partner in crime Michael Symon), I’ve got a jar ready to go for under $2 and about 10 minutes of work. And I’m confident they’ll be better than store-bought.

I challenge you.

I was thinking today. Cooking at home, more or less from scratch (no boxes, cans only where appropriate) is cheaper, healthier (unless you add bacon to everything, like I do), and better tasting. Not an original thought, certainly, but one I had.

We are currently, to use an economics term, a bunch of broke-ass bitches. And, to use a public health term, a nation of lard-asses. Cooking at home is good your health, financial and otherwise. On to the challenge.

Each Monday (or whatever day works for you), you have three tasks. Post pics, and use the hashtag #mondaymeals if you could be so kind.

1. Make a cheap meal, from scratch, that makes you smile. This isn’t a contest; it doesn’t have to be fancy. You just have to like it, and it has to be cheap. Split pea soup with ham? Sure. Pasta with homemade marinara? Absolutely.
2. Make enough to bring for lunch on Tuesday.
3. Do one thing to facilitate quick/easy cooking later in the week. Make stock with aging veggies, roast a squash and stash it in the fridge, or clean and de-bone a big package of chicken thighs. Do whatever is going to make dinner later in the week easier to make than buy out.

Who’s in?

via Nathan

Though, I would be more than happy to make it a contest. With the cheapest, best looking, best tasting meal being the winner.

On the topic of recession gardening, though, I’ll mention a book that every impoverished gourmet should read - Lean Years, Happy Years, by Angelo Pellegrini - essentially a manifesto for downturn inspired reconnection with food sources. Get it for free from your library or buy a used copy.

• Empty plastic bottles - $0.00. Scavenged from recycling bins on my way to the nursery.
• Culinary herbs - $2.95 a piece. The cost less living than they do dead!
• Potting soil - $5.00.

With the bottom cut from the bottle, a little duct-tape to reinforce the holes I punched in each of the four sides, and a little struggling to get the plant fed through the neck, I have a reasonably elegant and space-saving upside-down hanger. Worried about drips? My mints, growing directly below, are happy to get the water.

Apparently, this technique works well for tomatoes, and the internet abounds with advice on upside-down planters.

As an impoverished gourmet, I couldn’t let that happen, so in the grand tradition of morning-after-champagne-cocktails, I employed the citrus maneouver. My current citrus of choice is the meyer lemon, which combines all the best parts of a kumquat (mild, sweet rind), a lime (floral bouqet), and a lemon (lemonyness). The juice of one of my meyer lemons mellowed out the Moscato, whose sweetness in turn brought out the full flavor of the lemon. A spritz of club soda on the top brought the drink from ‘puckering’ to ‘quenching’.

• Buy in season - This is a huge, huge money saver, when you make your meals based on what’s cheap/available vs. what a particular recipe calls for you can save enormous amounts of money
• Pack a lunch - This should go without saying, the lunch you pack is going to be fractions of the lunch you can buy, and you can make it healthier
• Stock up - savings for buying in bulk are significant, if you run out of room in your cupboards start storing cans under your bed (you’re not using that space anyway)
• Avoid bottled water - Even if you dont care about the environmental impacts of bottled water, it’s absurdly expensive, you’re much better off getting a water filter and filling up a reusable water bottle. Further most bottled water is most likely not any cleaner, more sterile or safer in any way.
• Cut down on the Lattes - This one wasn’t on there, and of course it’s your choice, but brewing coffee at home can save a bundle, and with lattes is easy to mimic the majority of lattes you can buy. Just do the math for a second, (1 $3.25 latte/day×(5 days/week)×(52 weeks/year)=$845 year on coffee. That doesn’t include a tip. You could buy 2.5 complete organic locally grown fresh butchered pigs for that much money.

via - Fark