Toast Toppings - New Food Craze

 Note: Look for updates below.

Instead of posting each new Toast Topping combination separately, I will just add them here.

I am into a new food craze, Toast Toppings. I eat them mainly for breakfast and/or late evening meal.
 

Like Crazy Salads, you can get inventive with the various toppings.

Toast Toppings are like a mini-meal or half a sandwich. What I like is I feel I can get essential vitamins, minerals and healthy herbs and spices without having to eat full portions or three-course meals.

Toast Toppings
(Adapted from: https://www.positivehealthwellness.com/diet-nutrition/14-fillings-toast-toppings-100-calories/ , https://www.rd.com/food/recipes-cooking/toast-topping-snack-recipes/ , https://www.buzzfeed.com/tashweenali/energy-boosting-breakfast-toasts?utm_term=.jujMxRb9n4#.rx1ZPvO0KE, https://mykidslickthebowl.com/healthy-toast-toppings/, https://spoonuniversity.com/recipe/10-unique-toast-toast-toppings-that-aren-t-avocado)

Basically, toast a slice of bread, any kind, and top with a variety of topping choices.
 
I don't have a toaster. I use a skillet. I add a bit of oil and then toast slices of wheat or integral bread on both sides.

Then, I spread 1-2 Tablespoons of the following items or mixtures or other items:

Peanut Butter
-with banana slices with cinnamon
-with blueberries or other fruit slices

Beans on Toast

Black Beans and Salsa
 
Refried Beans with salsa, topped with poached egg
 
Cream Cheese with
-cucumber slices with basil
-blueberries or other fruit
-banana slices with cinnamon
 
Mozzarella Cheese slivers placed on bread slice while toasting the bottom to soften and warm, then remove and top with 1-2 tspns of canned salsa and a sprinkle of dry crushed basil
 
Scrambled eggs
 
Poached Egg with or without salt and Matcha mixture

Avocado mash with lime, garnish parsley

Avocado mash, topped with poached egg and Garam Masala

Avocado Mixture
Pseudo Pesto Mixture
Hummus Mixture
Eggplant Mixture
Mushroom Mixture
Mashed Baked Potato Mixture
 
Pictured: Toast Toppings - Mozzarella Cheese with salsa; Poached Egg with Matcha; Scrambled Egg with salsa and Matcha; and Hummus.
 
See blog for recipes for above mixtures.


Toast Toppings Updates:

12/15/18

Cream cheese with a layer of canned salmon, topped with some leftover slaw from carryout, a sprinkle of onion powder, and a few capers.
(Adapted from: https://bestfriendsforfrosting.com/smoked-salmon-and-cream-cheese-toast/)


1/23/19

Small, thin wedges of cheddar cheese, spinach, bacon bits, ground black pepper, strips of slice of jamon lunchmeat, Chile Chipotle Mayonesa, paprika...Add cheddar cheese wedges on top of one side of toasted bread while toasting other side in skillet, cover, cook less than a minute to avoid burning toast. Add cooked spinach, sprinkle with bacon bits and ground black pepper. Top with jamon strips. Add a bit of Chipotle mayonesa, sprinkle with paprika.

 Types of "Toast":

Bread, various types
Tostada
Fried tortilla, flour or maize
Pre-toasted pan/bread

1/23/19

Toast Topping: Cottage cheese, cucumber slices, onion powder, black pepper, paprika, parmesan cheese

Toast Topping - Mashed Baked Potato Mixture

Mashed Baked Potato Mixture

This is a 2-step recipe. First, cook the potatoes, then make the mixture.

Ingredients:
 
4 medium Yucatan white potatoes

4 TB Mashed potatoes
1 TB heaping, Mayo
2 Capfuls lime juice concentrate
2 TB garbanzo beans
2 Tspns paprika
a dash of vinegar
s/p to taste


Process:

Step One: First cook the potatoes.
 
Clean potatoes.
Pierce several times with a fork.
Place in microwave dish.
Microwave on High for 6-8 minutes until soft. Test softness by piercing with a fork, if the fork goes through easily, the potato is done.
Cut cooked potatoes into cubes.
 
Step Two: Make the mixture.
 
Add 4 TBs of potato cubes to a storage container.
Add Garbanzo beans.
Mash potatoes and beans until smooth mixture.
Add Mayo, lime juice, paprika, vinegar, s/p.
Stir mixture until thoroughly mixed.

Note: Any remaining potatoes can be used to make potato salad.

Spread 1-2 TB of potato mixture on toast.

Variation: consider adding mustard

Great Depression Cooking With Clara - Pasta and Peas

I had heard of Clara's cooking show on YouTube years ago but during a recent random search on YouTube, I found her videos. Also, found Clara on @food52.

"In 2007, her grandson Christopher Cannucciari began filming Clara preparing her mother's Depression meals and assembled the footage into the YouTube series Great Depression Cooking with Clara. She retired shortly after her 96th birthday and her last video was posted on November 10, 2013 (Twice Baked Potato)"  (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clara_Cannucciari)

You can find Clara's recipes and more in her book, Clara's Kitchen, Wisdom, Memories and Recipes from the Great Depression (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/claras-kitchen-clara-cannucciari/1101904999#/).

I watched several of Clara's videos. I was particularly impressed with her dandelion salad. But, her Pasta and Peas Recipe caught my attention because it was a perfect recipe to use for my leftover cooked potatoes, peas, and pasta.

Clara's Pasta and Peas Recipe
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuMkW35BwK8)


Ingredients:

1 Potato, diced
1 Onion, diced
Olive oil
1 Can of peas, drained
1 Bag of pasta macaroni
s/p


Process:

Put potatoes and onion in a pan.
Add a dash or two of olive oil.
Cook until soft.
Add peas
Stir.
Add enough water to cook pasta.
Simmer until pasta is cooked.
Season to taste.
 
Variation: add some tomato sauce.

Serve a portion on a plate, top with Parmesan cheese.


Leftover Potatoes, Peas and Pasta
(Adapted from Great Depression Cooking with Clara, Pasta and Peas, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuMkW35BwK8)

I made Clara's recipe backwards in order to use my leftovers.


Ingredients:

1/2 Bag package pasta
Water
LO Cooked potatoes
LO Canned peas
1 tsp Onion powder
2 TB Olive oil
s/p to taste
Hot sauce to taste
Topping: Parmesan cheese


Process:

Make pasta first. When ready, drain most of water.

Note: I call the pasta I used in this recipe "Octopus Pasta" because I have never seen pasta in such an unusual shape.

Add leftover potatoes and peas.
Add onion powder and olive oil.
Season to taste with s/p and hot sauce.
Stir well, cook on medium-low for a few minutes to make mixture warm.

Serve warm, top with a few shakes of Parmesan cheese

Thank you Clara.

Matchstick Zucchini and Almonds

Matchstick Zucchini and Almonds
(Adapted from: https://smittenkitchen.com/2007/08/quick-zucchini-saute/)

After bringing home a few vegetables from a local market, I needed to find ways to prepare them.

(1 dragonfruit, 1 chayote, 2 patty pan squash, 1 zucchini, 1 camote, and 1 beet)

Found an interesting zucchini recipe, Quick Zucchini Sauté,  on SmittenKitchen which I adapted to my circumstances.

Ingredients:

1 Zucchini
olive oil for skillet
a handful of almond slivers
Parmesan cheese

Process:

After cutting off the tip and end of the Zucchini, I cut it in half, then into quarters. But cutting the zucchini into matchsticks was a challenge; dicing and julienne are not skills I possess.

But, I finally got a batch of thin zucchini strips

After putting oil in the skillet, set on medium, and adding a handful of almond slivers, I had to be careful not to burn the almond slivers before adding the zucchini strips. As the recipe suggests, you are trying to toast the almonds not burn them.

Sorry for the really lousy picture. After stirring and mixing the zucchini strips with the almonds and oil, I removed the skillet from the burner.

After putting the mixture on a plate, I sprinkled it with a bit of Parmesan cheese.

But, I did not use the whole zucchini, so now I have to find more ways to use zucchini.

My First Beet

I thank two authors, Amy Dacyczyn (The Tightwad Gazette) and Jack Monroe (Cooking on a Bootstrap) for inspiring me to continue to learn how to cook on a fixed income with limited skills.

While Amy's book is not a cookbook, it contains several recipes where she illustrates how to reduce your food budget and still make nutritious meals. With Amy, I did not always have to have PB&J and potato chips for dinner or McD's sausage burrito for breakfast and lunch. Some of my favorite Tightwad Gazette recipes are "The Universal Casserole", "Apple Crisp" and "Cuban Bread."

Jack inspires me to try new recipes. While I don't always succeed, today, I cooked my first beet. Beets fascinate me. The only beets I have ever had are pickled beets in a jar. A real beet looks odd to me, while it has a beautiful shape, it is the color of dirt and it's hard for me to imagine how to cook it so someday it could become a pickled beet.

(1 dragonfruit, 1 chayote, 2 patty pan squash, 1 zucchini, 1 camote, and 1 beet)

The beet is at the bottom of the picture. I went to a local market and picked up a few vegetables and a dragonfruit. I continue to try and increase the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables I eat, so I have to learn to prepare them.

I used Jack's recipe "Jacket Beetato" (https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/13/jacket-beetroot-recipe/) as inspiration to try and cook a beet. In essence, I cooked the beet like a potato.


Cooked Beet

I just washed the beet bulb and pierced it with a fork in a few places. Put it on a plate and microwaved it on high for 5 minutes.

I cut and quartered the cooked beet and peeled off the skin. I ate a few bites plain. It was good with that beet sweetness.

While the beet was cooked, not sure it is totally mashable. Do not know if I microwaved for 1-2 minutes more it would have been easily mashable.

I saved the remaining beet chunks. I do not know what I will do with them later. At the moment, I don't have much to top cooked beet with that seems suitable but I will bet cold beet chunks will taste good, too.

El Apapacho Cafe

El Apapacho Cafe

Calle 62 x 41 y 43
Centro, Merida, Mexico

Open: Lunes, Miercoles - Viernes noon to 10pm, Sabado y Domingo open at 9am, closed Martes.

El Apapacho Cafe is a spunky place. Wait staff are friendly and attentive, they greet guests and serve them with fresh cool water along with the veggie-friendly menus.

Menu

Large selection of hot and cold teas, cafe, fruita de Agua.

Sample menu items:

Sopas, huevos de patio al gusto
Chilaquiles
Con huevo o Pollo
Tecola o tecolotes
Enfrijoladas
Enchiladas
Tacos, mezcla de hongos
Bistek a la Mexicana
Filete de pescadoo filete de soya

From 30 - 150$

My favorites are: molletes, pan con frijol y queso con de salsa Pico de Gallo, y quesadillas con queso or queso con lechuga, crema.

(molletes, pan con frijol y queso con de salsa Pico de Gallo, y sandia de agua)

There's indoor and outdoor patio seating at tables for 2-6 or more.

Original artwork decorate the walls. There are bookshelves with used and new books in a wide range of topics, including books for children, and an emphasis on women's issues.

There are games to play, and crafts, like jewelry, for sale, and a gallery space upstairs.

El Apapapacho Cafe also holds various music or art events.

Jack Monroe, Cooking on a Bootstrap, Introduction

Early in my search for easy, frugal recipes, I found Jack Monroe, author of A Girl Called Jack, a cookbook of 100 recipes for people on a tight budget.

 

 Jack Monroe, Cooking on a Bootstrap, Introduction

 

Jack has a witty, intelligent, creative way of explaining how to make her budget recipes. Because of her style and creativity, she has become a media darling.

She has been invited onto a variety of talk shows. She has written for several publications including a cooking column for The Guardian. For example: Tips for Students How to Eat Well for £3.50 a day (Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/sep/20/how-to-eat-well-for-350-a-day-by-the-scrimping-experts)

Jack has published several more cookbooks and continues to create budget recipes on her website, Cooking on a Bootstrap.

On her website, she also highlights her experiences as a single mother living in poverty. She shows people the harsh difficulties of being poor.

"There’s nothing fun and exciting about missing days of meals, with the heating off all winter, the light bulbs unscrewed, selling your sons shoes and drinking his formula milk that the food bank gave you. Try it for a month at least, if you really want to get an idea. Two months. Two years. Unscrew your light bulbs, turn off your fridge, sell anything you can see lying around that you might get more than a quid for.

Stop going out. Walk everywhere, in the pouring rain, in your only pair of shoes, with a soaking wet and sobbing three year old trailing behind you. Drag that three year old into every pub and shop in unreasonable walking distance and ask if they have any job vacancies. Get home, soaking, still unemployed, to ‘dry out’ in a freezing cold flat. Put two jumpers on and worry about how you’ll wash them, take them off, and put a tshirt underneath. You can wear the jumpers all week, and change the tshirt twice.

Drag yourself to the cooker to pour some pasta into a pan, pour some chopped tomatoes on top, and try not to hurl it across the room when your son tells you he doesn’t like it – because there is nothing else. Nothing else at all.

I was cold, exhausted, only forcing myself out of the depths of choking depression to smile at the children’s centre workers because I was scared they can see how numb and dead I felt, how I went to bed at night tormented by thoughts of suicide. The endless self-chatter: ‘Your son would have a better life without you. You’re a drain on society, the state, your family and friends.’ I slit my wrists in the bath and horrified, came to, wailing and sobbing on the floor because I knew I’d hit the fucking bottom. Again.

You’re grateful for the tea and sympathy but you just want everyone to leave you alone and to stop asking if you’re okay. Because you’re not. You’re full of rain and heartache and anger and despair and it’s starting to seep through the cracks in the kept up appearances, seeping through the tshirt sleeve and you need to get out of there.

The rain isn’t miraculously any less wet when you don’t have a coat with a hood, or an umbrella, or three quid for the bus. That rain still soaks you to the skin, and your three year old, too." (Source: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/06/27/the-difference-between-poverty-and-poorface/)

She also criticizes how media make a game of trying to live on £1 a day.

"Poverty is not a 24 hour challenge. It is a world of endless nothing. It is depression, despair, darkness. It is having no light at the end of the tunnel, like being stuck down a well, waiting to die.There is no planning for the future because you don’t believe you really have one. There are no savings accounts, no rainy day funds, no contents insurance, no health insurance, no investment in your own self, your own health, because to invest financially, nutritionally, or emotionally is to look forward. Poverty only looks at its own feet, in too-tight shoes that let in the rain, it drags you downwards, and inwards, and I speak from bitter, horrible experience..."

I particularly like Jack's approach to creating recipes for those in poverty. She recognizes that not everyone has the same level of cooking skills or have access to various cooking equipment.

"In other circumstances, people may lack cooking facilities, in houses of multiple occupancy, student halls, domestic abuse and homelessness shelters. They may have shoddy landlords renting them inappropriate and ill-equipped homes, or their cooker may have broken and they simply don’t have the ready money available to fix it. I have readers who are literally cooking in a bedsitter, or on a camping stove. Some people have no saucepans or cooking equipment. Some people lack the confidence to try new recipes and ingredients; if you have no money or a bare storecupboard, trying new ideas is a risk – if it goes wrong, you end up with no dinner at all. (Source: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/06/27/top-5-tips-for-eating-healthily-on-a-budget-and-the-limitations/)

She also recognizes that many people are on restricted diets and/or do not live near grocery stores or farmers markets.

Initially, being a "Best Selling" cookbook author did not made life easier for Jack. At this point in time, she has not received any royalties from the sales of her cookbook. In addition, she has to fight off aggressive abusers on social media and elsewhere.

Yet, Jack fearlessly addresses how politics and government policies directly affect the poor. She continues to write articles, serve on panels, and support various charities. She calls out "Conservatives" who try and use her as an example to others living in poverty.

"...And finally – I took exception to the Conservatives holding me up as some kind of role model because, it was their policies that left me hungry, cold, almost homeless, moving house seventeen times with a child under my arm. I ended up severely mentally ill, referred to psychiatrists, and still recovering several years later. I tried to kill myself four times that I remember under austerity policies, being continuously maliciously investigated for my benefits (curiously always coinciding with me writing something negative about the local Council on my well-read political blog I wrote from the gallery of the local public meetings), having housing benefit withdrawn over a dozen times, leading to my eviction from my home, and in such horrific debt it took two books to finally emerge from the other side of it. Not credit cards or frivolity; but water bills, bounced gas and electric, rent arrears, and bank charges. I still can’t even open my own front door, scarred as I am by penny pinching pissy policies devised over £39 breakfasts by those who think nothing of spending £6,000 of taxpayers money on a dining table for their second home while loftily declaring that the poor can live on 1% of that figure for an entire week. To be used as their ‘poster girl’ for frugality by such obscene hypocrites offends me to my burned and shattered core." (Source: https://cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/17/my-ready-meal-is-none-of-your-business/)

 A simple web search for Jack Monroe will illustrate many of their interests and activities. 

 

Most people are disconnected in many ways from the food they buy. Food is political.

 

 

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Monroe

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/jack-monroe-low-cost-recipes

 

https://cookingonabootstrap.com/