vegetable ommes anna

The kids are still an hiatus and I am still cooking. I had a bunch of veggies in my fridge that didn't have a home on my menu, but I needed to get them cooked because my CSA is coming Friday and I need to make room for the new veggies. Out with the old!

Anyway, Pommes Anna is a dish of crispy, buttery potatoes that has layers of potatoes baked in tons of butter until the cake is crispy and golden. I thought - well, why not sub veggies instead. So I took my trusty well-seasoned cast iron pan (ask me if you need to know how to season your pan - it is worth it!), layered a few rows of potatoes, added my diced, lightly sauteed corn, green beans, red pepper, eggplant, onion, garlic and zucchini, topped it with a few more layers of potato and baked it for 30 minutes and broiled it for 10 minutes.

The outcome was the aforementioned buttery-crispy dish, albeit with a  vegetable medley added that turned out to be a delicious light lunch.

I used olive oil instead of the butter and since I was not trying to 'fry' many layers of potatoes as in the original Pommes Anna, I didn't need to drench it with fat. (Not that you need to drench the original in fat anyway.) I only used salt and pepper to season it - the vegetables were enough seasoning.

Cost Breakdown:

zucchini: $1

corn: $1

onion, garlic: $1

eggplant: $1

green beans: $1

potatoes: $1.50

Total to make 6 servings:

$6.50

southern black-eyed pea soup

I made soup tonight! Black-eyed peas, southern greens and okra. Great flavors! Pressure cooking black-eyed peas are ready in 10 minutes (no soaking required). I added the onions, peppers, celery (the trinity) and garlic to the pressure cooker to cook everything in a single bang. After the pressure cooker was done I stirred in some greens - the residual heat wilted the greens just enough.

The okra needs to be used as soon as you slice it to avoid sliminess. I tossed them with some cornmeal - reminiscent of cornbread - and fried them in a little oil. 

Although the kids didn't care for the soup, they did keep saying, "Pass the okra!" David and I liked all of it.

Cost Breakdown:

okra: $3.50 

pepper, onion, celery, garlic: $2

peas: $1

cornmeal, spices: $.50 

greens: $2

Total to feed a family of 6:

$9.00