Care to share your W.I.S.E.-est recipes?

Cafe Society
1

Wholesome Inexpensive Scrumptious Easy

I find that the less of these criteria a recipe fits, the less often I make it, and vice versa. The ones that fit them all go into the regular rotation. But my regular rotation is in need of new meat (and veggies).

Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes wholesome, inexpensive, scrumptious, and easy, so I won’t bother trying to define them. If you have any recipes that are all of these things to you, please share.

Here’s one that gets raves from my cabbage-hating kids and mother. (At fifty cents a pound how could anyone hate cabbage? ) I came up with it while trying and failing to make Golabki (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls). All the flavor, none of the fuss.

Lazy Golabki
1 lb. lean ground beef
1/2 head cabbage, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped
1/2 a green pepper, chopped
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice
28oz can tomato sauce (not pasta sauce)
1 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp marjoram
1 tsp sugar

In a big pot, brown the ground beef. When it’s nearly done, add the veggies and cook til the meat is done and the veggies are tender. Stir in the tomato sauce, rice and seasonings. Dump into a sprayed casserole and bake @350F til bubbly ~20 mins.

2

4 frozen chicken breasts (the flash-frozen kind you get at Costco in a big bag)
1 jar good pasta sauce (I quite like Newman’s Own Sockarooni)
1 lb. pasta (your choice)
Decent red wine (optional)
Shredded Parmesan
salt to taste
assorted spices to taste

Put chicken breasts in a big 14" saute or everyday pan, empty pasta sauce to cover them. Fill pasta sauce jar 1/3, swirl water to get the sauce left behind, and dump in the pan; stir. Cover, simmer on Medium High heat for 30-40 minutes, turning chicken ocassionally.

If you wish to add a cup or so of wine, add it about halfway through. Depending on the kind of sauce, if you want to add a bit of flavor, add some herbs - oregano, basil, thyme, garlic powder. *Optional - you can saute some garlic, and/or onion in the pan before starting the chicken.

Toward the last 10 minutes or so, cook your pasta in a large stockpot, salting water to taste. Drain, and return to pot, tossing with a bit of butter or olive oil to prevent sticking. Not too much, or the sauce won’t stick.

When the chicken is done, remove from sauce, leaving sauce to simmer uncovered, and chop chicken up into 1" chunks, returning to the sauce when done.

Plate and serve, sprinkling Parmesan on top. Serve with a nice bagged salad (Trader Joe’s has an awesome bagged baby lettuce) with your choice of dressing, a good crusty loaf, and a glass of whatever wine you tossed into the sauce. 40 minutes, start to finish, and it doesn’t require a lot of watching after, so you can catch up on some TV with the kids while you’re cooking, turning the chicken during commercials.

I like this because it’s almost impossible to overcook the chicken - it always comes out moist, because it braises in the sauce.

3

Thanks for the recipe, Crown Prince, sounds really good. I love Sockarooni and recipes that call for a little bit of wine (I drink the rest while I cook;) )

Here’s one more. This is my eight year old’s specialty.
Carrot-Apple Salad
1c. grated apple
1c. grated carrot
1/2 c. chopped fresh parsley

3T. lemon juice
1T. oil
1t. honey or sugar

Mix the lemon juice, oil and honey/sugar in a bowl. Throw in the carrots, apples and parsley.

4

Heres one of my favourites

1 cup dry lentils (green or red)
3 cups beef stock
1 medium carrot finely diced
1 medium celery stalk finely diced
1 med onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup red wine
herbs for bouquet garni ( I use parsley, thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf)
2 tbls olive oil
50 gms pancetta diced
200 gms ditale pasta, or similar short small pasta

Soak lentils in two cups of water for 1/2 to 1 hour

In large pot saute onion, carrot, celery and pancetta on med heat until carrot is soft, about 10 min.
Add garlic & sautee’ until fragrant (do not burn) then add tomato sauce and wine. Reduce by half, stirring frequently.
Add beef stock, and bouquet garni. Bring to a boil, add lentils and simmer until soft, about 45 minutes. Add pasta (optional) cook according to package instructions.
Remove bouquet garni and serve. Hope you enjoy

5

Chicken soup (which I am eating right now)

3-6 chicken breasts, depending on how chickeny you like your soup
various vegetables (I prefer mini red potatoes - whole, carrots, celery, onions)
low sodium chicken broth (I use better than bullion but the Swanson stuff is good too)
garlic - as much as you want
any other herbs you want

Put chicken on bottom of crock pot. Cover with veggies. Add herbs if you’re using any.

Mince garlic.

boil water for broth (for the better than boullion, it’s pasty and needs to be mixed with water. Swanson doesn’t). Mix paste in water. Add garlic to broth. Boil til paste is totally dissolved.

Pour broth in crock pot.

Cook on high for 4 hours (at least) or low for 8 (at least - low is better, IMHO).
The prep basically takes as long as it takes to chop the veggies. It takes me about 5 minutes because I use the mini potatoes and I like my carrots and celery big.

It’s healthy, filling, and fairly cheap - especially if you buy chicken on a really good sale.

My mother makes this with frozen veggies but I much prefer the fresh ones even though it takes longer to cook.

6

Not a meat or veggie, but I offer:

The overlooked, old-fashioned Waldorf Salad.

Core and dice 2 big apples (peeling is optional).
Mix with 2 stalks of diced celery.
Squeeze half a lemon over this, and a teaspoon of sugar.
Add some chopped walnuts and some raisins, maybe a small handful of each. Then - a good big spoonful of mayonnaise. Mix and chill.

Of course you can taste and adjust, adding more of anything it seems to need. This recipe is infinitely adaptable, you can add other fruits, grapes, cherries, dried apricots, dates, pecans; you can mix with light mayonnaise, or lemon flavor yogurt, vanilla yogurt… Really good stuff!

7

I’ve posted this before, but it’s still awesome so I will repeat:

Pot roast (whichever’s on sale)
1 can cranberry sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
Salt and pepper
Bay leaf
Carrots

Combine in crock pot. Cook for eight hours or so. Voila.

You can do the potatoes in there too but I like some texture variety so I usually roast them to go with this.

8

Salinq, I didn’t mean to limit the OP to just meat and veggies. I love Waldorf salad. I do a version with chopped apple, celery, red onion, chicken, walnuts, craisins and bleu cheese crumbles tossed with raspberry vinaigrette.

Zsofia, I saw that recipe in another thread some time ago and meant to do it, then lost it. Thanks for posting it again. Next time I see a roast on sale it’s going in my crock pot with the can of cranberry sauce that’s been sitting around since Thanksgiving. I think I’ll serve roast yams with it.

Roast Yams
~3 yams, peeled, chopped
~2 bell peppers, chopped (I use one red, one yellow, because the yams are orange but it doesn’t matter at all)
~1 large onion, chopped

Spread these in a large casserole. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle ~1/4c. brown sugar, some thyme, parsley, salt, pepper and barbeque seasoning. Toss. Bake ~one hour @350 or til the yams are easy to poke with a fork.

9

I’ve posted this before but hey, you did ask.

Put some spaghetti on
Grate a handful of fresh parmesan
Drain the spag and pop it back in the pan
while still hot, chuck in the parmesan
glug over some top notch olive oil
Sprinkle in a few flaked chilis
touch of** black pepper**

stir, eat, enjoy. The meatiest non-meat dish you’ll ever have

If you are feeling fancy feel free to slice in some black olives, or shredded basil.

10

1 pound ground turkey (often can be found really cheap, other ground meat is fine)
1 small can tomato paste
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1 onion, diced fine
a couple of cloves of garlic, diced fine
chili seasonings (I go the lazy route and usually buy a packet, but use your imagination!)

Cook the onion and garlic in a skillet with small bit of oil or butter. Remove onion and garlic. Brown turkey. Add everything plus some water to stock pot or crock pot and simmer.

This is a very creamy chili-esque soup, an is suitable for some low carbohydrate plans as-is. You can also add beans, pasta, or rice if that floats your boat.

Serve with cheddar cheese, sour cream, and/or hot sauce.

11

A word for the Polish-impaired among Dopers – don’t go pronouncing this “Go - lob -key” The “L” is a Polish letter not in our alphabet, and should properly have a diagonal slash through it. It’s pronounced like the english letter “W”. In practice, the name of the dish is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, more like
“Go-WUMP-key”