Not for the faint of palate my latest video recipe, Dirty Rice uses pungent chicken liver. You can call this recipe The Dirtiest Rice.
For a local taste of Dirty Rice I get mine from Popeye's Fried Chicken, or when I'm in Gonzales, Louisiana visiting my Mom, they sell a tasty one at Lamondola's Supermarket. But it is a traditionally mild version, made with ground meat and a hint of chicken liver (if any liver is used at all.)
You gotta have the guts to handle pungent liver. Some think it disgusting, I think it's sexy, almost naughty in texture and taste.
I always saute and chomp the liver that comes in a giblets package stuffed in the cavity of a whole chicken or turkey. Add a chicken liver next time you steam a cup of rice to see if you like a mild version of Dirty Rice.
Sauting onion, bell pepper, and celery help sweeten Dirty Rice. This contrasts nicely with pungent chicken liver.
Liver is not for everyone, just try getting your kid to eat it. Just the intense funky smell alone can turn some diners off.
Most Cajun Dirty Rice recipes call for ground pork to temper or neutralize the intense liver flavor - I go the opposite direction and leave out ground meat. Of course, it's okay to add half liver and half ground meat for this recipe.
If you can't stand liver, then make a mild Dirty Rice with half a pound of sauteed ground meat. And you can use beef, pork, or poultry.
Recipes also direct you to add cooked rice to sauteed liver and veggies. For this version, I steam rice with sauteed veggies and liver.
The look of Dirty Rice comes from cooked chicken liver. You see specks of "dirt" which are chicken liver pieces. When sauteed correctly, chicken liver is very tender and so soft that it can break down like soft bread crumbs. The overcooked liver is dry and powdery. Steaming liver with rice keeps the liver moist.
Onion, celery, and bell pepper are cheap anywhere. Even chicken liver showed up once in the bargain bin of my neighborhood chain grocery store, Ralph's.
You can make a traditional Dirty Rice with half chicken liver and ground meat, or go ahead and get down and dirty with my version of the Dirtiest Rice.
Dirty Rice - VideoPlay it here, video runs 4 minutes, 30 seconds.
1 pound Chicken Livers - okay to use half a pound of liver and ground meat, like pork, beef, or chicken. For a mellow Dirty Rice use 2 or 3 chicken livers, only.
Rice - 2 cups. Brown and/or white rice. I cook the rice with sauteed liver and veggies.
Water - 4 cups for cooking rice.
Celery - 1 rib of celery chopped
Bell Pepper - 1 bell pepper chopped.
Onion - 1 whole onion chopped.
Garlic - 1 tablespoon chopped.
Vegetable Oil - 1 tablespoon.
Cajun Seasoning - 1 teaspoon.
Black Pepper - 1 teaspoon.
Directions
Add oil to a medium heated pan or pot with a cover.
Add the Cajun Trinity of veggies, that is, chopped onion, bell pepper, and celery.
Saute and stir veggies for about 5 minutes until soft.
Add a tablespoon of garlic and saute for a minute.
Sprinkle with a teaspoon of Cajun Seasonings and black pepper. Okay to use regular salt.
Make a clear area in cooked veggies and add chicken livers. Cook chicken livers until done, about 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Okay to remove veggies when sauting livers.
When chicken livers are firm, you can break them apart. The cooked texture is crumbly so livers will separate easily using the edge of a large spoon, knife, or fork.
When chicken livers are done and crumbled, add rice with 4 cups of water. Stir to mix veggies and livers with rice and water.
Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cover Dirty Rice and steam for 20 minutes.
Uncover and stir Dirty Rice to loosen any that is stuck to the bottom of the pot and to mix any rice that may not be cooked through. Turn off the heat and cover Dirty Rice for 10 to 15 minutes. Rice will finish cooking even with the fire off.
Ready to eat after the final covered stage. I like hot sauce on my Dirty Rice.
October is a scary month. And my nightmares are from things that go bump in the kitchen!
But don't worry, the Ghastly Gourmand has a pumpkin patch full of recipes for all you ghouls and gals, so keep checking back to see what I have in my creepy cupboard.
For Halloween, I have a special treat, creepy meat recipes that are devilishly delicious. And, if you have leftover pumpkin flesh then visit me here for a couple of unique Pumpkin Recipes.
So for the next few weeks keep coming back to the Creepy Cheap$kate, then next month it's back to being just a regular Joe knocking around in the kitchen creating tasty treats for anyone on a budget.
So I'll raise a cup of coffee to you and this ghostly month.
Today is National Taco Day, the most hallowed of culinary days in my cocina (kitchen.) I can have tacos morning, noon, and night. So read on and you'll know what I mean - just click on any taco name, or highlighted text, to see all the tasty details from my blog post recipe or review. And click here to see local National Taco Day specials.
In the morning it's spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs and refried beans nestled into a warm corn tortilla.
Breakfast Tacos
And my Chorizo & Egg Taco is about as cheap as you can get. I get Mexican chorizo from the 99c only Store natch, and all kinds too, like beef, pork, and even soy (which is a recent favorite.) Eggs still show up at my local Dollar Tree.
*Click on any recipe name to see the original blog post recipe or review*
And for Breakfast Tacos, it's all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar, but sometimes I just gotta go for it and make my own Homemade Salsa, and it's easy to do.
My Mango Salsa recipe with yummy photos and tasty text is right here, but you can check out the video below:
I'm ready to party on this auspicious day, and when this cheap$kate does it you can bet pennies will be pinched without a sacrifice in flavor. For my backyard soirée, it's my favorite taco: a slow-cooked pork Carnitas. Just check out my video below to see what I'm writing about.
I buy a 5 to 6-pound budget pork shoulder, and I can get a couple dozen tacos out of it, too.
And boy it's the perfect budget recipe that your friends and neighbors will line up for. You let them do most of the work -- they get to build each taco to suit their taste. I like to set out some chopped onion and cilantro. You can make your taco bar any way you like, go ahead and add a bowl of shredded cheese, chopped lettuce, and tomato, and a cheap jar of salsa, too.
Some palates can't handle pork so I noticed at my local Latin grocer's deli case they serve Carnitas made from Turkey. Well, it works, especially the 99 Cent Chef recipe way. I make mine flavored with Mexican Cola. Sweet and succulent slow-cooked turkey leg meat will have you coming back for Taco seconds.
Chicken is one cheap protein. My Chicken Tinga recipe will have your guest coming back for seconds...and thirds! Chicken Tinga is a stew simmered in tomato sauce with a can of spicy chipotle peppers, but you can make a mild version with a can of enchilada sauce.
Chicken Tinga
One of my most unique tacos came about one summer while on vacation at our spectacular national parks in Utah. I stopped to eat and had an Indian Frybread Taco. Frybread is flour dough that's rolled out and deep-fried. You top the frybread with chili beans, lettuce, tomato, and cheese.
Frybread Taco
Carne Asada, or grilled steak, is a favorite taco of mine. Just make my marinade for thinly sliced steak, let it sit for an hour, then slap it on the grill. After the Carne Asada is done you chop it up and serve on a corn tortilla
Carne Asada Taco
The marinade is a simple mix of lime juice, oil, cilantro, cumin, garlic, salt, and pepper.
Drive anywhere in Los Angeles and you will see taco trucks, sidewalk taco vendors, and taquerias on almost every street. And I've stopped at most of them. What follows are a few of my faves - with a few recipes I cribbed from them, too.
When I moved to Los Angeles over 40 years ago, I discovered the taco truck. Boy, have they evolved over the years. In the beginning, it was just hamburgers and tacos made with ground beef. Well, that all changed about 9 years ago when a hotel chef named Roy Choi, who was down but not out, rebounded from couch surfing to start Kogi Taco Truck.
A fellow co-conspirator came up with the idea of a Korean taco, and Roy Choi assembled the taco ingredients of Korean barbecue short ribs with a kimchi-style coleslaw, served on corn tortillas. His truck was an instant hit, and Kogi jump-started the ongoing nouveau taco truck renaissance.
Kogi is still around and I still love them. Check out my video below, where I hang out night and day, for L.A.'s most uniquely mouthwatering taco.
Inspired by Kogi's mashup of Korean BBQ and Mexican Tacos, I came up with the Loxaco, which combines Jewish and Mexican cuisines.
A Loxaco is comprised of homemade lox (cured salmon) in a fast food crunchy taco shell topped with cream cheese and thin sliced red onion. I introduced this preposterous concoction at a book signing in Libros Schmibros, a lending library in East Los Angeles. How did it go over with book lovers? The following video is a twofer, you get a recipe plus a literary happening scene -- even the late great food critic Jonathan Gold makes an appearance - while his wife and kid tried them Jonathan gave them a pass )-:
After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheques like the Egyptian or New Beverly Theater, on the way home I swing by Leo's Taco for a few al pastor pork tacos. They just cost $2 and the line can be long, now that the word is out.
This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.
I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning when the Border Grillwas in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their neuvo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.
My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video, I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestines. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious about how gringos react to offal.
That doesn't seem interesting enough really, but hey, what do I know, I'll take it. I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks.
When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats that you would not normally taste.
Tripas (intestine) Taco
Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$kate video review of Tacos El Primo.
Deep-fried Fish Tacos are one of L.A.'s great culinary contributions. These battered depth charges of crunchy perfection are based on the street food of Baja Mexico and other coastal communities. If you like British Fish & Chips, you will love Fried Fish Tacos.
Fish Taco
The battered fillets of fish are typically served on corn tortillas and topped with a white crema and chopped cabbage. I have my own recipe for Fish Tacos you can see by clicking on the recipe name.
And this is the best taco deal in town: Today (Wednesdays) is $1 Fish Taco day at Tacos Baja! Yeah, that's what you heard - don't believe me? Just watch the video below and see it for yourself.
Celebrate National Taco Day with me today. Hey, celebrate it any day now that I've shown you a slew of taco recipes you can make easily and cheaply.
And, what the heck, I'll end with a queasy taco review, from of all places, Jack In The Box's 2 for 99 cent tacos...ugh, watch it with a barf bag.
I have too many World Vegetarian Day recipes to list right here, so it's best to enter the words "vegan" or "vegetarian" in the "Search" window on the right side of the top area of my food blog to see them all. If you have a favorite vegetable or fruit you can enter that name in the same window, too.
Any way you cut it, there is a lot to choose from and I think you will like my delicious inexpensive recipes listed below. Read on and click on any highlighted name to be directed to the original recipe on this food website.
Some of my vegetarian recipes include butter, milk, cheese, and yogurt. All those ingredients are cheaply substituted with vegetable oils, almond milk (also oat, soy, hemp, etc.,) or soy and oat yogurts. New substitutions for meat and dairy are arriving in grocery stores every year.
Click on any photo to see larger.
I'll start with a recipe that requires some mashing and a toaster, Avocado Toast. A soft, ripe avocado served simply with toast is easy and quick to do. I get my bread from the discount bin at my local big-chain grocer and avocado from my local Latin market. Avocado Toast has moved beyond trendy to just plain normal.
Everyone likes Mashed Potatoes and I do too. Nothing to this recipe really, and it will taste just as good with a milk substitute. I like a lot of fresh ground black pepper in mine.
Grilling or roasting veggies are a favorite of mine. Roasted Brussels Sproutsbecome tender and almost nutty in flavor. I add a drizzle of olive oil and season with salt and pepper before roasting.
You can almost grill any veggie including Bell Pepper, Zucchini, and Sweet Potatoes and I've done them all, just click on a veggie name above to see how I do it.
Beans are part of my next recipe list. I eat them every week. I slow-cook them but you can speed things up if you have a pressure cooker. I do like having the long-simmering smell of legumes as they tenderize.
In Louisiana, Cajuns like their Red Beans with white rice. I have a dear friend who has a great veggie version. I got her to show me how she does it and I'll share her recipe with you. Check out our fun time together in the kitchen making Ms. Patti's Red Beans and Rice recipe.
White Beans are also on the menu in Cajun Restaurants and local fast-food joints. I make mine with a lot of veggies including carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and herbs. Check out myVegetarian White Beans recipe video.
I was raised on Tex-Mex-style Pinto Beans. We had them withMexican Rice and flour tortillas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. usually with meat, seafood, or eggs. But lately, I've been having beans with brown or white rice and a big shake of hot sauce. Check out my Homemade Mexican Pinto Beans video to see how I make them.
My next favorite bean recipe is Cuban-style Black Beans. I've been making this recipe the most, lately. It is a favorite of my wife, Linda. The main flavoring is a sweet and sour addition of a little sugar and vinegar. This yin and yang pull of flavors really makes this recipe especially delicious. I also add bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Again it is an easy recipe that I think will make it to the top of your favorites list?
Canned Beans now come organic and vegan. Drain them and make a no-fuss Warm 3 Bean Saladadding some fresh herbs, chopped onion, tomato, and a little oil and vinegar. Mash Pinto Beans with some of the broth and you have quickieRefried Beans.
I have a slew of Salsas to try including Ancho Chili,Mango, Tomatillo, and Red Chili. Click on any recipe name to see the original blog post text and photo illustrations.
I've been making fruit-based Salsas recently includingPeach, Mango, and Kiwi Salsas. They are sweet, cool, and spicy. I brought my Mango Salsa to a few parties and it is always a hit and goes very fast.
Soups and veggies blend well together. French Onion Soup uses caramelized onions as the main ingredient. It is served with melted cheese on top that you can leave out, it's rich enough. Earthy and pungent Mushrooms make some of the best soups. You can use cream, but any fave milk substitute works fine.
A Mexican soup loaded with veggies is called Calabasitas. It is made with corn, squash or zucchini, tomato, and chiles. It is finished with cheese that you can leave out to keep it vegan.
How I love the tomato. I try to grow them unfortunately with limited success. Whether store-bought or homegrown, tomatoes are the central ingredient in the next list of recipes.
Gazpachois an Italian soup made with blended fresh veggies and herbs -- no cooking needed, just a blender to puree. It's comprised mainly of fresh tomato, cucumber, bell pepper, garlic, and herbs. It's so refreshing and quick to do.
Bruschettais a crunchy appetizer served on toast. It's an Italian version of Mexican salsa and tortilla chips. Made with fresh chopped tomato, basil, garlic, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil, it's simply delicious.
You can buy veggie Marinara Sauce in a can or jar cheaply and I have cooked with my share. But I prefer to start with canned tomato sauce and add my own garlic, onion, and fresh herbs. It doesn't take that much longer to do, just a bit of chopping and sauteing. Homemade Marinara Sauce seems lighter to me and less salty.
How about Brussels Sprouts or Kalewith Pasta? I use butter but you can substitute it with olive oil or any favorite veggie oil. For a bit of crunch heat up your favorite nut like Cashews, mix with a little garlic, and heat in olive oil and you have a rich Cashew and Garlic Pasta.
Steam any favorite veggies and mix them with macaroni or any tube and short-cut pasta for a versatile Veggie Pasta Salad, and it keeps in the refrigerator to serve cold, too.
My Cajun nephew Zak has some serious cooking chops and came up with a wild Cajun Tuscan Premivera Pasta. Again butter is used that can be substituted with olive oil, but you cannot replace the Cajun Seasonings, or you have to call it something else!
I worked in the Biz so you know I have a Cinema-inspired dish called John Cassavetes Red Pepper, Olive Oil, Garlic, and Pasta. Cassavetes the director has influenced my more, shall we say, rough and tumble videos that are loose and simply presented - no fancy stuff, just like my recipe mentioned above.
Fruit + salad is a refreshing combination. Try out myPear and Spinach Salad with Creamy Herb Dressing. I use milk and yogurt, but you know they are easily swapped out, right? I actually like Almond Milk and yogurt made with oats.
My Watermelon, Mango & Spinach Salad needs no substitutions as the vinegarette is simply veggie oil and lemon or lime juice. It is a perfect summer salad.
Warm Corn, Tomato & Cilantro Saladis made with frozen corn. You could use drained canned corn too. It is a salad served at room temperature. Kick it up a notch and use fresh corn.
Potato Salad is a summer staple and my recipe is one you will like no matter what part of the country you live in. I have Mom's Cajun Potato Salad version for your viewing pleasure below.
I make anEasy Coleslaw throughout the summer as it's so easy to buy a package of precut cabbage with carrots.
Mix in a bit of veggie mayo and it's ready to serve. I have a tasty, sweet,Pineapple Coleslaw, too!
I even dined in a Local Nursery one time...only in the service of showing their tasty selection of fresh fruit trees and tomato plants.
I often start my day with Yogurt and Fruit. Buy local and seasonal fruit when it is most flavorful and cheapest in price.
It couldn't be quicker and easier than slicing a banana or mixing in some Blueberries or Strawberries.
I'm a big fan of Chinese Stir Fry, everything from Veggies to Fried Rice. The basic ingredients use soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, ginger, and garlic. I like to stir fry Bok Choy which tastes like cabbage only milder. You can stir fry Broccoli, Cauliflower, and any favorite veggie you like.
A basic rice Stir Fry is made with cooked rice that has been chilled for a few hours or overnight so it can hold up to frying, otherwise, freshly steamed rice will get too mushy. I quickly make my Stir Fry with a medley of frozen veggies like a package of peas and carrots.
Eggs are often part of a rice-based Stir Fry, but you will not miss them really. Crumble in some tofu as a tasty substitution or slice a block of tofu into larger chunks and make tofu the main ingredient.
You can also use cheap dried ramen noodles. Just cook them according to the package directions. Drain and add them to a hot pan or wok and stir fry them like you would with cooked rice. I made Tofu with Snow Peas Stir Frythis way.
I like how Korean restaurants have a medley of veggie small-bites or Banchan. A favorite is a sweetCucumber Salad.
Keep checking back as I am always adding fresh vegetable and vegan recipes.
