Photos by Ellen Knuti
No time for the Park Slope Co-op and too broke for the Grand Army farmer’s market? For my (rather limited) money, the best trick for defeating the rising cost of groceries is maxing out on curiously affordable, endlessly versatile beans and grains from Goya.
Keeping them on hand can make a huge difference in the decision to throw together something for dinner instead of ordering in Thai for the third time this week. With some onions and garlic, a can of beans can become a nutritious and filling meal that pairs easily with rice, salad or any vegetable you find in your fridge. Read the rest of this entry »
©iStockphoto.com
I am a stay-at-home girlfriend. When my boyfriend goes off to work, I spend my days cooking, cleaning our two-bedroom Greenpoint apartment and trying to look good for him when he comes home. I never planned on this lifestyle; my corporate job of four years was outsourced in October when we were already living together. What was a matter of convenience before is now a matter of financial survival — while I’ve always been someone who’s really into keeping her boyfriend happy (that’s how I was raised), it’s now my primary occupation after job-seeking. I’m not alone. I was actually the third of my female friends living with her boyfriend to wind up out of work, and all of us, to some degree, adhere to stereotypically Stepfordish rules to keep our relationships afloat and ourselves sane. Here are mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Worth it? Photo from Big Red Kitchen.
Let us, for a moment, set aside the fact that if you’re a decent cook and you have decent ingredients, whatever you make at home WILL taste better than its packaged counterpart from the store. Similarly, ‘making it’ is usually a better fiscal decision than ‘buying it.’ But there’s still a gray area in the make vs. buy debate that needs to be addressed. The question needs to be asked: Is it really worth it to squeeze those 50 oranges for the Sunday brunch, or will Tropicana do? We visited supermarkets around Brooklyn to price-check a few kitchen staples. Then we explored making them ourselves and did some math. Here’s what we found. Read the rest of this entry »
Bouchon Bakery sliders. Photo courtesy of the slashfood blog.
Brooklyn foodies are praying Thomas Keller is serious about opening a Bouchon Brooklyn, which reminds me of a cooking tip from the famed chef that you don’t need to be a swell to try. Maybe it is a little hard to believe that the man behind Per Se’s $275 prix fixe menu is a penny pincher, but in a magazine interview I did with him two years ago, he cited cost as one reason never to cook with a common ingredient that may surprise you. I haven’t cooked the same since. Read the rest of this entry »
A yield from Flatbush Farm Share. Photo via Sustainable Flatbush.
Ah, CSA season once again: overflowing boxes of mystery farm-freshness, that connected-to-the-earth feeling and giant zucchinis up the wazoo. Last year we gave you the lowdown on Community Supported Agriculture in Brooklyn and why every locavore, quasi-locavore and their mother seemed to be hopping on the farm wagon. Now it’s registration time again, and there are four new CSAs on top of last year’s already impressive list. A few are already sold-out for the season, but plenty are left to help you fill those crispers. Read the rest of this entry »
The author's roommate isn't pleased. Photos by Vanessa Velez.
I have the utmost respect for my predominantly Chinese neighbors in the minimally gentrified nook of Sunset Park that I call home, but those feelings are not what drew me into the world of traditional meat drying. I was driven to investigate this little-understood foodway solely by pangs of curiosity and the stench of unemployment—not necessarily in that order.
Last winter, when I was gainfully employed, my roommate Peter and I moved into a brand new nondo. During the tour, Peter was spooked to discover that from the balcony above us hung damp slabs of meat offset by a faint glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. Read the rest of this entry »
My friend Bill, a writer, tutor and Crown Heights resident, loves going out to bars, events and movies. But like all of us Brokesters, he’s on a bit of a tight budget. So, to help balance his all-important drinking/music/movie habit with the need for food, Bill’s devised a strategy to eat on $15 a week or less.
Bill moved to New York in 2007, after finishing grad school in Philadelphia. He subsisted on frozen Trader Joe’s burritos and boxed mac and cheese until a friend suggested he get a crockpot. Even though his first experiments were a series of cream-sauced, Velveeta-slicked disasters, he discovered the appeal of slow cooking. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in the thick of barbecue season, which means if you’ve got a patch of earth, deck or roofing tar big enough to hold a grill, a cooler and a few chairs, it’s your civic duty to throw one. Or several. You think we’re going to leave this simple summer pleasure to suburbanites?
If your mind works like mine, right about now you’re considering how much it’s going to run you. And it’s true, entertaining can be a costly proposition. As the gods of thrift would have it, though, many of the staples of backyard barbecuing—beans, coleslaw, iced tea—are built from peasant-level ingredients that can be had for spare change. Read the rest of this entry »
Ana's afternoon haul. Photos by Vanessa Velez.
With salsa long the number one condiment in the U.S., the border between Mexican and American grocery stores is not as clear as it used to be. By now most people think of canned Goya frijoles as vritually interchangeable with Progresso’s. But do you know your poblanos from your jalapeños, or bananas from batatas (sweet potatoes)? If you’ve found yourself at your local supermarket or specialty store eyeing all of those colorful jars and odd-shaped cheeses, this guide is for you. Read the rest of this entry »
Will blog for drinks.
There’s no shortage of worthy ways to be charitable this time of year, but you’d be hard-pressed to find another that says “Made for BK” quite like this. Open Source, a Park Slope gallery/creative space, is looking for a few good cooks to staff its Open Source Food Kitchen every night in December. For a fourth year, the gallery’s running its month-long free kitchen where a volunteer comes in each night, whips up a meal, and 15-20 starving artists dig in. The site says fellow artists usually don the chef hat, but really, anybody’s welcome to come in and cook. Read the rest of this entry »
Photos by Ellen Knuti
No time for the Park Slope Co-op and too broke for the Grand Army farmer’s market? For my (rather limited) money, the best trick for defeating the rising cost of groceries is maxing out on curiously affordable, endlessly versatile beans and grains from Goya.
Keeping them on hand can make a huge difference in the decision to throw together something for dinner instead of ordering in Thai for the third time this week. With some onions and garlic, a can of beans can become a nutritious and filling meal that pairs easily with rice, salad or any vegetable you find in your fridge. Read the rest of this entry »
©iStockphoto.com
I am a stay-at-home girlfriend. When my boyfriend goes off to work, I spend my days cooking, cleaning our two-bedroom Greenpoint apartment and trying to look good for him when he comes home. I never planned on this lifestyle; my corporate job of four years was outsourced in October when we were already living together. What was a matter of convenience before is now a matter of financial survival — while I’ve always been someone who’s really into keeping her boyfriend happy (that’s how I was raised), it’s now my primary occupation after job-seeking. I’m not alone. I was actually the third of my female friends living with her boyfriend to wind up out of work, and all of us, to some degree, adhere to stereotypically Stepfordish rules to keep our relationships afloat and ourselves sane. Here are mine: Read the rest of this entry »
Worth it? Photo from Big Red Kitchen.
Let us, for a moment, set aside the fact that if you’re a decent cook and you have decent ingredients, whatever you make at home WILL taste better than its packaged counterpart from the store. Similarly, ‘making it’ is usually a better fiscal decision than ‘buying it.’ But there’s still a gray area in the make vs. buy debate that needs to be addressed. The question needs to be asked: Is it really worth it to squeeze those 50 oranges for the Sunday brunch, or will Tropicana do? We visited supermarkets around Brooklyn to price-check a few kitchen staples. Then we explored making them ourselves and did some math. Here’s what we found. Read the rest of this entry »
Bouchon Bakery sliders. Photo courtesy of the slashfood blog.
Brooklyn foodies are praying Thomas Keller is serious about opening a Bouchon Brooklyn, which reminds me of a cooking tip from the famed chef that you don’t need to be a swell to try. Maybe it is a little hard to believe that the man behind Per Se’s $275 prix fixe menu is a penny pincher, but in a magazine interview I did with him two years ago, he cited cost as one reason never to cook with a common ingredient that may surprise you. I haven’t cooked the same since. Read the rest of this entry »
A yield from Flatbush Farm Share. Photo via Sustainable Flatbush.
Ah, CSA season once again: overflowing boxes of mystery farm-freshness, that connected-to-the-earth feeling and giant zucchinis up the wazoo. Last year we gave you the lowdown on Community Supported Agriculture in Brooklyn and why every locavore, quasi-locavore and their mother seemed to be hopping on the farm wagon. Now it’s registration time again, and there are four new CSAs on top of last year’s already impressive list. A few are already sold-out for the season, but plenty are left to help you fill those crispers. Read the rest of this entry »
The author's roommate isn't pleased. Photos by Vanessa Velez.
I have the utmost respect for my predominantly Chinese neighbors in the minimally gentrified nook of Sunset Park that I call home, but those feelings are not what drew me into the world of traditional meat drying. I was driven to investigate this little-understood foodway solely by pangs of curiosity and the stench of unemployment—not necessarily in that order.
Last winter, when I was gainfully employed, my roommate Peter and I moved into a brand new nondo. During the tour, Peter was spooked to discover that from the balcony above us hung damp slabs of meat offset by a faint glimpse of the Manhattan skyline. Read the rest of this entry »
My friend Bill, a writer, tutor and Crown Heights resident, loves going out to bars, events and movies. But like all of us Brokesters, he’s on a bit of a tight budget. So, to help balance his all-important drinking/music/movie habit with the need for food, Bill’s devised a strategy to eat on $15 a week or less.
Bill moved to New York in 2007, after finishing grad school in Philadelphia. He subsisted on frozen Trader Joe’s burritos and boxed mac and cheese until a friend suggested he get a crockpot. Even though his first experiments were a series of cream-sauced, Velveeta-slicked disasters, he discovered the appeal of slow cooking. Read the rest of this entry »
We’re in the thick of barbecue season, which means if you’ve got a patch of earth, deck or roofing tar big enough to hold a grill, a cooler and a few chairs, it’s your civic duty to throw one. Or several. You think we’re going to leave this simple summer pleasure to suburbanites?
If your mind works like mine, right about now you’re considering how much it’s going to run you. And it’s true, entertaining can be a costly proposition. As the gods of thrift would have it, though, many of the staples of backyard barbecuing—beans, coleslaw, iced tea—are built from peasant-level ingredients that can be had for spare change. Read the rest of this entry »
Ana's afternoon haul. Photos by Vanessa Velez.
With salsa long the number one condiment in the U.S., the border between Mexican and American grocery stores is not as clear as it used to be. By now most people think of canned Goya frijoles as vritually interchangeable with Progresso’s. But do you know your poblanos from your jalapeños, or bananas from batatas (sweet potatoes)? If you’ve found yourself at your local supermarket or specialty store eyeing all of those colorful jars and odd-shaped cheeses, this guide is for you. Read the rest of this entry »
