The Hazel Bloom

Feta-Stuffed Medjool Dates

Looking for the perfect date this Valentine's Day?

Sorry. So sorry. I couldn't resist. Let me start again.

We picked up some luscious-looking Medjool dates the other day, and I've been enjoying them straight out of the box and stirred into my oatmeal. I figured I should do something a little fancier with a few. This is what I came up with.

(That ended up being rather boring, I know. But I think it still beat the punny perfect-date line of thought.)

Feta-Stuffed Medjool Dates are a simple, yet sophisticated-looking appetizer sure to please the most discerning palettes. In other words: Hey! These things are pretty dang good! The saltiness of the feta is the perfect counterbalance to the rich sweetness of the plump fig. Add pecans, if you want, or don't - they add a nice extra bit of texture. And topped with honey? Swoon.

I'm ready to run down to the kitchen and make more.

Oh - speaking of dates, have you ever had a date shake? I have not. Half the reason I want to take a winter jaunt to Palm Springs someday is, I think, because I want to try an authentic Palm Springs date shake. How can that possibly be anything but insanely good?

Anyway, here's the recipe!

Feta-Stuffed Medjool Dates

Makes 12

Ingredients:

• 12 Medjool dates
• 1 cup feta cheese
• 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• Honey for drizzling
• Chopped pecans (optional)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray or lay a piece of parchment paper on it.
2. Slice the date along the top, carefully pop it open, and remove the pit.
   
    
   
   See?! there's the pit. Remove that sucker.
   
   
   
   
3. Place the dates on the cookie sheet.
4. In a food processor, mix together the feta, olive oil, and lemon juice until smooth and creamy.
   
   
   
5. Spoon about 1 teaspoon of the cheese mixture into each date.
   
   
   
6. If using, sprinkle with pecans.
   
   
   
7. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
8. Let cool for a couple of minutes, then move to the serving platter.
9. Drizzle each warmed date lightly with honey.
10. Serve and enjoy!

French Toast

I haven't talked about the Grunt Rating System lately. But trust me, it remains in full force. It was invented by my guy as a way to communicate the true male-friendliness of a particular dish.

• One Grunt Up: My guy really really likes this and deems this recipe most definitely dude friendly.
• Two Grunts Up: My guy thinks it's amazing, and he wants to eat it every day for the rest of his life. See: Drunken Pot Roast. 
• Three Grunts Up: The pinnacle of pure man-friendly excellence. Only one food shared here at The Hazel Bloom so far has received three grunts, and that is Butterscotch Pudding.

Today, I'm sharing my go-to basic French Toast recipe, which earns One Grunt Up. Yes, only one, but that's still high guy praise. After all, he is very careful when doling out even one lonely grunt. My guy takes this job very seriously.

This French Toast recipe is almost exactly what you'll find in the ever-wonderful Joy of Cooking. Just a couple small adaptations. I use a hearty, whole-grain bread to make it a little healthier. If you want healthier still, consider serving with a heap of fresh fruit instead of syrup. Yum. Note: Fresh fruit may negate the previously awarded grunt.

French Toast

Adapted from "Joy of Cooking"

Makes approx. 6 slices

Ingredients:

• 6 slices of bread (a little on the stale side works best)
• 2/3 cup milk
• 4 eggs
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (go for 1/4 if you really like nutmeg)

Instructions:

1. Beat together the eggs and milk.
2. Add the sugar, vanilla, salt, nutmeg.
   
   
   
3. Dip the bread into the egg mixture. Let soak for just a couple of seconds on either side.
   
   
   
4. Cook on a buttered nonstick skillet heated to about 350 degrees.
5. Cook both sides until golden brown.
   
   
   
6. Top with butter and/or syrup and/or fruit and/or whatever you want. And enjoy!

The Hunger Challenge: A Summary

As I'm sure you're well aware by now, last week we participated in the United Way of King County Hunger Challenge. The two of us ate on a mere $12 per day for five days. And we're not just talking about Top Ramen and Kraft mac and cheese. We did our very best to eat clean, healthy, organic foods whenever possible - not easy on a very limited budget. Not easy at all.

My main takeaway was, jeez: This takes time. It took the better part of a Sunday to plan our meals and figure out what we could stretch from one meal to the next. Time I'm sure many people who are trying to raise kids and living on a very limited budget just don't have.

Well, that was one of two main takeaways, actually. The second was, dang. I'm lucky. We've got plenty of money to eat well. And (okay, three) I need to do better at giving to those who are less fortunate. I'm going to start by giving to the Yes We Can! Project. It's pretty cool.

Here are the menus we lived on, along with a few links, tips, and other bloggers who did an amazing job on the challenge themselves.

Each day's menus and cost breakdown

• The Hunger Challenge: Day 1
• The Hunger Challenge: Day 2
• The Hunger Challenge: Day 3
• The Hunger Challenge: Day 4
• The Hunger Challenge: Day 5

Budget-friendly recipes

Featured last week

• 45 Cent Potato Soup
• Black Beans and Rice
• Emerald Quinoa
• My Formula for a Perfect Smoothie

A few more to try

• Becky's Award-Winning Turkey Chili
• Crock Pot Vegetarian Chili
• Drunken Pot Roast
• Peanut Butter Noodles

Tips for trimming your grocery budget

Nothing like living on $12 per day to give you some ideas about how and where you can trim.

Plan ahead, plan ahead, plan ahead. Try to plan your week's menus the weekend prior. You're more likely to use everything you buy, and buy only what you're going to use.

Give pop the heave-ho. Soda is usually full of sugar, chemicals, or both. Substitute water - it's healthy, your body craves it, and it's free!

Go veggie for a day (or more). It's animal friendly and budget friendly.

Make enough for leftovers. When you eat last night's dinner for today's lunch, you're more likely to enjoy a well-balanced meal - and save a ton while you're at it.

Buy in bulk. Sometimes. But never assume you're automatically nabbing a bargain. Compare price per piece/ounce first to make sure you're really getting that great deal.

Speaking of bulk - check out the bulk bins for great deals. Steel-cut oats are a terrific value when purchased in bulk. And bulk spices - what a steal.

Find a few favorite power foods, and use them often. Black beans are full of fiber and protein. Popcorn's a terrific, fiber-filled, inexpensive snack. Quinoa? Don't even get me started. It's got it all.

Other bloggers who took the challenge. And who also happen to be terrific.

• Gluten Free Girl
• Diggin Food
• Dianasaur Dishes
• Savory Sweet Life
• Salty Seattle
• KitchenSink Unplugged
• Mirch Masala
• Family Friendly Food
• A Gorgeous Minute
• D's Home Food
• Cook Local
• Back to Basics
• And Brian Calvert, a repeat Hunger Challenge participant, had plenty of great stuff to say about the 2010 challenge.

Parmesan Crackers

My mom makes a variation of these with cheddar. And they are, let me tell you, a-maz-ing.

She brings them to nearly every family function as an appetizer. And when I'm not scarfing down far too many myself, I'm pushing them quite obnoxiously on other people.

She great, my mom. She sends me letters the old fashioned way - by mail. And she's so funny in them. I love writing her back the same old fashioned way, but more often than not I don't make the time. I really need to make the time.

Anyway.

I requested a few of my mom's terrific recipes, including, of course, this one. She mailed me a whole bunch of recipe cards, and this was the first. Can't wait to make more. Like Filbert Cake. A cake chockful of filberts (better known as hazelnuts).

With parmesan instead of cheddar, these cracky crackers are almost as good as my mom's. Not quite as good. But good. The parmesan is very subtle, but the addition of coarse kosher salt on top helps bring out the flavor. They're super flaky, and melt in your mouth. Sublime.

Here's the recipe!

Parmesan Crackers

Makes a 3 dozen or so crackers, depending on what size you cut them

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup milk plus 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (you're making yourself some buttermilk)
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup (or one stick) cold unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups fresh shredded Parmesan cheese
• Coarse salt (plain ol' kosher is great)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine the milk and the vinegar, and set aside.
3. Combine the flour and the baking soda.
4. Cut the butter into the flour, until it resembles coarse crumbs.
   
   
   
5. Stir in the milk/vinegar mixture, then add the cheese - mix only until combined! 
6. Turn the dough onto a floured surface, and knead briefly, adding flour if necessary. Knead only until the dough is, as my mom put it on her recipe card, "together together." Perfectly described, I'd say!
7. Role the dough out to 1/4" thick.
8. Poke the dough all over with a fork.
9. Cut dough into desired shapes.
   
   
   
10. Place on cookie sheet.
    
    
11. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
12. Bake at 375 degrees until brown.
13. And enjoy!

A Fancy Spin on Baklava

In the immortal (and slightly bastardized) words of Britney: "Oops, I made baklava again." 

The last time I made it, my guy took a few squares into the office. Janice, a fellow co-worker and all around cool gal, celebrated her birthday yesterday - and she informed my guy that she was going to work on becoming my new best friend so that next year, I'll make her a special batch of baklava for her day.

Psh. Like I could wait a year. I like her enough now. Silly girl.

This isn't a new recipe or anything. This is the same ol' Pistachio and Walnut Baklava I made before. Except... drumroll please! I added little pistachio-and-walnut "flowers!" I'm very proud, so I thought I'd share. (Hello, green flowers! I'm obsessed with green flowers.)
 

In case you want to try a similar endeavor, just prep a bunch of pistachio halves and cut some walnut "centers" while the baklava is baking. After pouring the honey syrup on, set the nuts into the baklava.
The nuts should stick fairly well because of the honey.

As you'll see, I also just chopped some nuts up and sprinkled. It's another great way to dress up your baklava.

Not that baklava isn't plenty heavenly enough naked.

The Hunger Challenge: Day 5 (aka: Last Day!)

Woo hoo, we're almost there! Today's the last day of the Hunger Challenge.

I guess my reports have been mostly optimistic, but I'd be lying if I said this experience was anything close to easy. I knew I was signing on for limited choices. I knew we'd have to plan very carefully, and stick to that plan.

But I didn't realize just how rigid I had to be with my choices, and what a pain that would be. There was no budget left to stop and pick up a coffee, to change the meal plan at the last minute because black bean soup just didn't sound that great (I was getting dang sick of black beans). Or to come up with something else for dinner because a hunk of cheese had gone missing.

Not fun!

But we're almost there, and over the course of the week, we gained new perspective, that's for sure.

Last night for dinner, we used the rest of the leftover Emerald Quinoa - I chopped up a small onion and a couple pieces of celery, mixed it into the quinoa, stuffed some green peppers (on sale for 58 cents each) with the mix, and baked at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. It was great!

But I wanted dessert. And I couldn't have it. So I brushed my teeth. Very good for the diet!

Here's our menu for today - Day 5 - the last day of the Hunger Challenge.

Friday's Menu

Quantities are per person, but cost is total for both.

Breakfast - $3.50

• Coffee and powdered non-dairy creamer - $0.50
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter on one slice of whole wheat toast - $0.60
• Pineapple-banana breakfast smoothie - $2.40

Lunch - $3.50

• Quinoa-stuffed pepper - $1.50
• Oven-baked chicken breast (only one for the meat-eater, made an extra with last night's dinner) - $2.00

Snack - $1.50

• String cheese - $0.90
• 1/2 an apple - $0.50

Dinner - $3.50

• Whole wheat penne pasta with spaghetti sauce (from a jar) - $2.50
• Spring greens salad - $1.00

TOTAL (for two): $12.00

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Whew!

Coming soon: A recap of our experience.

My Formula for a Perfect Smoothie

Smoothies, when done right, are basically like an excuse to drink a milkshake for breakfast. Granted, they're fruity and not, say, chocolate peanut butter in a styrofoam cup with a deliciously squeaky straw, but I think you know what I mean.

As a part of the Hunger Challenge this week, I included smoothies for a couple of breakfasts. Partially because the organic frozen berries I bought weren't the cheapest in town, they've been a little pricier than some other items on our menus. But they're such a terrific, fairly complete, and fast breakfast on the go, that I fit 'em in.

Yum!

We've been making Banana Berry Smoothies this week, but just about any fruit will do ya.

Here's my formula for a perfect smoothie.

Perfect Smoothie

Serves 1

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces (or 1/2 a container) of vanilla yogurt
• The juice of one to two oranges (one orange for thicker, two oranges for a little thinner)
• 1/2 banana
• 1/2 cup frozen fruit (we've been using raspberries and blueberries, but you can throw in whatever you want. Mangos and strawberries are awesome, for instance. Just cut a bunch up and freeze!)
• 3 - 4 ice cubes (not necessary, but I like 'em)

Directions:

This is VERY LABOR INTENSIVE. Are you ready?

1. Dump everything in the blender
2. Blend until it's smooth.
3. Pour in a cup.
4. Drink.

Okay, I exaggerated a little. 

Oh, and feel free to add some wheat germ or some flaxseed if you really want to amp it up. Me... I've decided I'm not terribly fond of the added texture. It ruins some of the milkshake-like ambiance, know what I mean? But seriously, if you can be less of a baby than me, go for it!

The Hunger Challenge: Day 4

Day 3 of the Hunger Challenge! We ate fairly well again today, but it was a bit more of an exercise in willpower - I worked from home, and that's usually an excuse to majorly graze. But grazing wasn't on the menu - if I were living off of food stamps, I likely wouldn't have any food to graze on. So - no grazing.

Dinner, though, was delicious - I made a nice budget-friendly black bean soup in the Crock Pot. The soup was going to be accompanied by pepper jack quesadillas, but at the last minute I realized we were out of cheese - it got eaten on Sunday. Luckily, I had some cornmeal on hand, and cornbread wasn't a budget-buster. 

I was planning to post the black bean soup recipe - it's a definite keeper - but computer problems led to a disappearing recipe. So I'll recreate and post some other time.

Meanwhile, here's a photo.

It tastes better than it looks! Really. Promise.

Anyway, here's today's menu. And later today, I'll post the recipe for the breakfast smoothie we've been enjoying the last couple of days.

Thursday's Menu

Quantities are per person, but cost is total for both.

Breakfast - $1.40

• Coffee and powdered non-dairy creamer - $0.50
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter on one slice of whole wheat toast - $0.60
• 1/2 apple, sliced - $0.30

Lunch - $2.50

• Leftover black bean soup - $2.00
• Leftover cornbread - $0.50

Snack - $1.90

• String cheese - $0.70
• One apple - $1.00
• Fruit leather - $0.45

Dinner - $5.70

• Quinoa-stuffed green peppers - $2.50
• Dave's Peace Bomb bread - $1.20
• Some sort of non-fancy baked chicken breast (for one) - $2.00

TOTAL (for two): $11.50

Unrelated - isn't a pet in a cone of shame the saddest thing ever? Poor Tigger came home from the vet today and is bewildered, sad, and downright pissed off.

And actually, this could be somewhat related, because if I had to live off of food stamps, I likely could have never been able to afford his veterinary care. (And now he's on the mend! Woo hoo!)

Emerald Quinoa

I've sung the praises of quinoa before. Yet I'm tempted to sing them again.

It's just really such a super food. And it's full of tummy-satisfying protein. And it's healthy. And I love it.

But I'm sure you gathered that by now.

Today I share a recipe for something I call Emerald Quinoa.

It's a super simple little dish - quinoa, lots of chopped parsley, lots parmesan cheese, and a few touches of butter and salt to give it a glow.

I based this (very loosely) off of the Emerald Rice recipe in Ingrid Hoffman's Simply Delicioso cookbook. Which is a great cookbook - I love it - but in it, she waxes poetic about being obsessed with food and eating constantly and she's gotta weigh like a buck oh five. If she didn't seem so likeable, I'd hate her. 

This recipe is great for the Hunger Challenge - low cost, high payoff. We're enjoying it in our Days 2, 3, and 4 menus. We'll see if I'm still so in love with quinoa after Day 4.

Emerald Quinoa

Adapted from Ingrid Hoffman's Simply Delicioso

Serves 4-5

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 1 small bunch (about a cup or cup and a half) fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 cup fresh parmesan cheese, grated (Microplane zesters work wonders), plus another 1/2 cup or so for topping
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Rinse and cook the quinoa according to package instructions. Let cool a tad.
2. Mix in the parsley, 1 cup parmesan cheese, butter, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Pour into an oven-safe casserole dish.
4. Top with remaining 1/2 cup parmesan cheese.
   
   
   
5. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 - 15 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted and it begins to brown just slightly on top.
6. Serve warm, and enjoy!

The Hunger Challenge: Day 3

Day 2 went pretty well. With a yummy breakfast smoothie, a big bowl of potato soup for lunch, and a surprisingly satisfying dinner which included a great quinoa dish I'll post later today, I think we did pretty well, all told. I must admit we went without the salad at dinnertime, and instead had two packets of Amy's little bunny cookies for dessert. But hey, the goal is to keep it under 12 bucks, right? Diet guilt is another matter. (Today I'm working a pineapple nugget or two into the menu for after dinner to satisfy my sweet tooth. It's all I had money left for!)

Here's a photo of my guy's dinner from yesterday. It's certainly worth noting that we had to go very cheap on breakfast ($3.50) and lunch ($2.20) to even be able to work one piece of chicken in there for him. While we ate fairly decently yesterday, I'm not sure I'd do this well on a daily basis!

 
And here's our menu for today!

Wednesday's Menu

Quantities are per person, but cost is total for both.

Breakfast - $3.50

• Coffee and powdered non-dairy creamer - $0.50
• Healthy breakfast smoothie made with yogurt and berries - $3.00

Lunch - $3.00

• Leftover emerald quinoa - $1.00
• Oven-baked chicken breast (only one for the meat-eater, made an extra with last night's dinner) - $2.00

Snack - $1.15

• String cheese - $0.45
• Two celery stalks - $0.20
• Apple - $0.50

Dinner - $4.00

• Black bean soup - $2.00
• Pepper-jack quesadilla - $2.00

Dessert - $0.25

• A couple small hunks of pineapple - $0.25

TOTAL (for two): $12.00

You may have noticed a trend by now - this week's menus is big on leftovers for lunch - and tomorrow, I'll even be using the quinoa to stuff a few peppers for our main dish. We do this all the time - not just for the hunger challenge - make extra dinner, then pack it up to take to work for next day's lunch. We save a bunch of money, and always have a healthy lunch on hand.

Another tip: Eat what's in season. Yesterday's menu included parsnips, often a steal this time of year. Our roasted parsnips side dish cost us maybe $0.75 total. (Added benefit: Roasted parsnips are yummmmmmy!)