I like a recipe with just two ingredients and my Mushrooms Sauteed in Coconut Oil fits the bill.
I guess you could call this an anti-recipe video and it's a pretty recipe too, just check out the bright yellow mushrooms I picked up. And while there's nothing to it, you will still like the simple flavors of my latest Cheap$kate Recipe video.
I chose these mushrooms because they showed up at my local 99c only Store. Called Champignon Mushrooms, they have a mild flavor similar to white or brown button mushrooms. I was expecting a more pungent taste like shitake or oyster mushrooms. But that's okay, the more flavorful Coconut Oil shines strongly through.
Click on any photo to see larger.
Normally, I would saute mushrooms in a little butter, but I know my vegan visitors like a budget recipe too. It's fun to mix it up with flavorful cooking oils.
The mushrooms I got came in a sealed package and as a large root segment. I split the mushrooms into smaller segments for easier sauteing. I used a tablespoon of oil. You only need to cook them until soft and tender - just a couple of minutes on each side.
If you like mushrooms caramelized, then saute on one side without moving them for about 3 minutes, and flip mushrooms once to finish for another minute.
For the last couple of years, Coconut Oil has been showing up at my local 99c only Store and even the Dollar Tree. Like the name says, Coconut Oil has a distinct flavor, so if you don't care for coconut then you can substitute any oil like Olive, Peanut, Walnut or even Avocado Oil. I've noticed Coconut Oil can be semi-solid like butter or it is liquid, I think it depends on the temperature.
I like sauteed mushrooms plain. I could have added them to a hot soup of 25 cents per package ramen with veggies and topped with a boiled egg; or add them to a medley of button mushrooms for an earthy Mushroom Soup (like I did in this recipe, here.) But they don't show up cheaply very often so I just wanted to enjoy them sauteed in Coconut Oil.
My Mushrooms Sauteed in Coconut Oil can be served right out of the frying pan, or add them warm on a fresh green salad or a fave protein. They can also go into your favorite pasta dish.
When you find mushrooms on sale then give them a quick saute in Coconut Oil for a tasty snack or add to a fave entree.
Mushrooms Sauteed in Coconut Oil - VIDEO
Play it here, video runs 3 minutes 10 seconds
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.
Ingredients (1 to 2 servings)
Fresh mushrooms - about 4 to 5 ounces. I cooked with mushrooms I found on sale, called Champignon, but okay to use regular white and brown button mushrooms or any favorite you like.
1 tablespoon coconut oil - Okay to use any tasty veggie oil you like.
Salt and pepper - optional. I did not season this recipe, but you can.
Directions
Prepare mushrooms. If there is dirt then brush or scrape off. Discard dried or old stems from any mushroom cap.
Slice or break apart mushrooms into bite sizes. You can leave them whole or break them apart after sauteing.
Over a medium-hot pan coconut oil, then add mushrooms.
Depending on the size of mushrooms you can saute each side for a couple minutes each, until soft and slightly browned. Saute about 3-5 minutes total. Time will depend on the temperature of the frying pan and the thickness of the mushrooms.
A quick saute is what you want - it's best not to overcook mushrooms.
Fresh from the microwave my latest Deal of the Day is a White Castle Original Slider from my local Dollar Tree. You get 2 tiny dinner roll sized burgers, so you could say I'm living small, not large!
This Cheap$kate Dining Deal is fromWhite Castle, the first hamburger chain in the United States started in 1921. The chain originated in Wichita, Kansas started by Walt A. Anderson. You can read White Castle's interesting history by clicking here.
I never had a White Castle Hamburgeruntil I moved to Los Angeles. And that first bite was over a decade ago when you could get them at a pop-up fast food joint on Hollywood Boulevard, as a promotion for the release of the movie "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle."
Now I sometimes get them at, of all places, The New Beverly Cinemain West Hollywood where they are sold as a movie concession meal alongside hot dogs, They are heated up in the microwave and sold two at a time for a few bucks. If you are a movie buff then The New Beverly Cinema, that's owned and often programmed by Director Quentin Tarantino, is the place to be.
Typical White Castle Burgers are simplicity itself - just a bun, fine-chopped onions, pickle, and a thin hamburger patty (but no pickle in frozen versions like below.)
I see packages of them now in grocery frozen deli cases, and lately, at my local Dollar Tree store - two burgers for a dollar! I immediately grabbed a couple of packages to do a Deal of the Day cheap$kate review for you.
Ralphs Supermarket frozen boxes of White Castle.
Click on any photo to see larger.
White Castlefrozen sliders are the most popular ones on the market. They are sold cooked, frozen, and need to be reheated. These frozen versions do not have pickles since microwaving is involved - pickles and extreme heat are not meant for each other, but you can always add your own gherkin slices when the burger is ready to eat - kick them up a notch with a slice of American cheese.
White Castles are much smaller than I am used too - these burgers are closer to Happy Hour sliders. And that's okay with me.
The buns are actually white bread dinner rolls, and light and springy to the touch, even with microwaving - which only takes a minute or so. The buns hold up quite well and did not get soggy being zapped.
There is a sprinkling of finely chopped onion for a little extra texture. Because of microwaving they lose some crunch, but you can still taste slight onion rawness. It reminds me of a Big Mac's use of minced onion - they are there to compliment, not overpower, like typical thick sliced onion can (In-n-Out burger fans know what I'm talking about.)
There is no ketchup, mustard or mayo, so add your own if desired.
Since the bun is small, the hamburger patty is too. These hamburgers are meant to be eaten in two or three bites - not enough heft to take the time for savoring too deeply. Most peculiar is 5 holes punched into the beef patty. I Googled to find out and the reason is the meat cooks evenly, yea right, sounds like phony baloney to me, more like it's to use less beef per patty!
The ground meat is lightly seasoned and has a slight onion powder flavor. The patty is very thin, so don't get these if you are jonesing for a meaty meal. But what is delivered by White Castle is still satisfying - especially for the Dollar Tree price point of $1 for 2 slider/burgers!
So, on my Cheap$kate Dining Scale of 1 to 9, 9 being best, I give deli case White Castle Hamburgers a solid... well watch the video below for my rating!
White Castle - Video Review
Play it here, video runs 2 minutes, 56 seconds.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.
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 blogpost recipe or review.
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.
And for Breakfast Tacos, it all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar, but sometime 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.
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, that 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.
After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheque 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 a $1.25, and the line can be long, now that the word is out.
This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.
I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning when the Border Grillwas in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their neuvo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.
My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestine. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious about how gringos react to offal.
That doesn't seem interesting enough really, but hey, what do I know, I'll take it. I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks.
When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats you would not normally taste.
Tripas (intestine) Taco
Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$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 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.
Wake up and smell the coffee, it's National Coffee Day on September 29. Google this day and see what specials your local coffee houses are offering.
At my first job out of high school I drank my coffee black. Now I like milk and real sugar in my morning coffee.
I used to drink coffee at night when first I moved to Los Angeles, mainly to stay awake during my night classes in film and television, after my 9 to 5 job. Now I don't drink it at night as it interferes with my beauty sleep.
In my 20's I added boiling water to a cup of freeze-dried coffee from the jar, but now I go for ground coffee in a vacuum-sealed can from Ralph's grocery store. Sometimes I spring for fresh ground from beans carried at our local Trader Joe's grocery market. My girlfriend prefers Whole Foods coffee beans so I go with her selections these days -- as you can see I can handle any type of coffee, from 7-Eleven crusty pot flavor to a Starbucks frothy cappuccino!
One of my favorite song lyrics is from Carly Simons's top 40 hit "You're so Vain" and it goes: "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee..."
And this Budget Barista likes coffee as much today as ever, especially when a free donut is offered on this auspicious day byKrispy Kreme Doughnuts. And they are introducing a coffee glazed donut. and donut flavored coffee -- too much of a good thing is right up my alley.
I like their plain glazed donuts the best. Other donut stores carry fancier ones and extravagant ones, but for the price, Krispy Kreme is my go-to donut.
Orchid Donut by DK's Donutsin Santa Monica, California.
So on National Coffee Day, whether it's cloudy or sunny, get a steaming cup, however you like it!
Click on above image to play my coffee for breakfast video.
Fresh fruit and yogurt go well together in my latest recipe video, Mango and Yogurt.
Pre-mixed yogurt with fruit is too sweet for me. It's easy enough to peel and slice Mango to mix into yogurt. I use half a Mango per serving or small yogurt container.
A ripe Mango is super sweet fully ripe. They are quite easy to peel, then just slice off the soft flesh into bite-sizes to add to your fave yogurt.
Mangos are ripe when soft to the touch, kinda like an avocado. I have gotten Mango that goes from green to bad on occasion, sometimes they will not ripen right...oh well. But when they do they have the best flavor.
I peel a Mango by just slicing into the skin, top to bottom about 4 slices per Mango. That is usually enough to then peel each segment of skin to reveal the orange flesh underneath. Then you just slice off the flesh until you hit the large flat/oval seed.
Living in L.A. Mango is easy to get and cheap, too. I get mine at my local Latin grocery store, Superior Grocers.
Click on any photo to see larger.
As for yogurt I just use plain. Vanilla and other flavors are usually too strong and often have added sugar. But, if you like a certain type on sale then use it.
Sometimes an unusual brand will show up on sale like this creamy French-style yogurt called "oui" made by Yoplait. It was so good I got half a dozen jars. They also had a lemon-flavored that held up well with the addition of sliced Mango.
As with any new find at a 99c only Store, I will try it in the car parking lot, and if it's good then I head back to get a whole bunch more. I've learned you gotta be impulsive there or it may be gone an hour later -- snooze you lose.
So do check out my latest stop-motion animated video. There's really nothing to this recipe and anyone can make it. Sometimes less is more, for a perfectly delicious Mango & Yogurt.
Mango & Yogurt - Video
Play it here. Video runs 55 seconds.
My YouTube video link for viewing or embedding, just click here.
