ColRebCooks: Eat Your Black-eyed Peas Casserole recipe

Eat Your Black-eyed Peas Casserole

Serves 8 easily, or freeze half and have two large meals for family of four

Here’s a recipe that I made up after looking at several similar ideas online. It worked pretty well. I failed to take a photo, but it looks decent.

If possible you should buy the hamburger meat off the old meat rack for less than $2.50 per pound; buy the rice in 25-pound bags and the rice cost is about 20 cents; stock up on the black-eyed peas the week after New Year’s and you can get them for as low as 25 cents a bag, or 12.5 cents for the half-bag this recipe uses; buy the Cream of Chicken soup in the weeks before Thanksgiving or Christmas for 60- to 75-cents per can; stock up on store-brand cheese when it costs $3 a pound or less; buy the diced tomatoes on sale for 50 cents. My total meal cost was about $7 for eight very large servings.

1 lb. Hamburger meat
1 onion and half green pepper, or use one-half to one bag of frozen seasoning mix
Plenty of garlic and other seasonings to taste, added to the meat and onions while browning
3 cups cooked black-eyed peas
2 cups cooked rice
1 can Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup
12 to 16 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 can diced tomatoes
½ cup water from the black-eyed pea pot, or tap water

Optional
I’m on a semi-bland diet these days, but this dish would likely be improved by substituting a can (or maybe two!) of Rotel for the tomatoes. Alternatively you can add jalapenos and other Mexican seasonings.

Also, I think this casserole might be improved with the addition of 3 cups of cooked squash, which I will do next time.

Instructions:

1. Brown the hamburger meat and then add the green pepper and onion. Cook until onions are soft, then scoop meat into a 9x13 casserole dish, draining the fat.

2. Blend in the cream of chicken soup while the meat is hot, then add the black-eyed peas and rice (and squash if you decide to use it). Add all but 4 oz. of the cheese and mix well. Add just a little water from the pea pot or tap to make sure the mixture is barely soupy so the rice doesn’t get dried out.

3. Sprinkle the remaining four ounces of cheese over the top.

4. Cook at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until cheese starts to brown on top.

The black-eyed pea taste does get lost a little bit in this casserole, but it might be a great way to get kids to eat vegetables. Also, even though it only had one pound of hamburger meat, it tasted very meaty. Legumes and rice for a perfect protein, so this is a reasonably healthy dish even though it does have a good bit of fat from the cheese.

If schools want to improve the quality of education they can start by mandating Home Ec

    There was a time when virtually every teen-aged girl in the United States took home economics -- or Home Ec -- in high school, and often in college. They learned to sew, and most importantly, to cook.
    Boys almost never took these classes. These girls were in training to be good housewives, and as the world changed Home Ec fell out of favor. Today, Home Ec, if taught at all, is likely to be a course heavy on the teaching of abstract theories of nutrition and life skills and light on cooking.
    And yet if there is any skill needed by both men and women today it is the ability to cook cheap, simple, and nutritious meals prepared from scratch. We often hear complaints that poor people can't survive on a $500 per month food stamp budget, even with their children getting free breakfasts and lunches at school. Part of the problem is that they don't know how to cook anything but expensive convenience foods.
    A few months back I printed my Aunt Eva's roll recipe. (I cooked a batch, but they weren't as good as hers!). A gift of these rolls was something special to us when we were growing up. I think I may take another stab at them this week.
    Aunt Eva had this to say about her recipe:

This recipe came from one of my Home Economics teachers when I was in college. I have made rolls by this recipe since I married and I consider it foolproof.

    Let's be honest here. Most of us would snort with derision at the notion of a modern woman taking a home economics class in college. Yet my Aunt Eva's roll recipe probably brought her and the people around her as much joy as anything other single thing she learned in college.
    I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to enroll in Home Ec courses in college, but I am saying that most high school students -- boys and girls -- should take at least one year of Home Ec, and preferably more. The course could address a variety of topics dealing with personal living, but at least 50 percent should be spent in learning the art of cooking from scratch.
    Anyone who reads this blog knows that I am a fan of high academic standards in our schools. But our schools need to teach students the basics of how to live as well. It's all part of education.

Pork neck bones were only item on the old meat rack, so I'm using the meat in a lentil soup

    I did a quick swing by Kroger this morning in hopes of finding some deals on the old meat rack. The only thing they had was pork neck bones marked down to 50 percent off, so $3.56 for 3.5 pounds.
    I've never cooked a pork neck bone before. They look a little like some of the ribs I've seen, so I thought maybe I could barbecue them. I got on my phone and did a quick Internet search and found where someone suggested I could simmer them for several hours and the meat would fall off the bones. The meat could then be used to make a lentil soup.
    So I came home, chopped an onion fine, sauteed it and some mushrooms in a quarter-stick of butter, added 12 cups of water and a couple of big teaspoons of beef base along with rosemary and other spices, and then added the pork neck bones to simmer. They are simmering at fairly low heat even as I type.
    I've never cooked lentils before, but the package says they only need about 20 minutes. So late this afternoon I'll fish out the pork neck bones, remove any remaining meat and continue to simmer the broth until suppertime. I'll throw in the lentils 20 or 30 minutes before it's time to eat. Some recipes call for a can of diced tomatoes. I'll let Lucy decide on whether or not to add any.
    Check back late tonight and I'll report on how it was!
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    UPDATE: I promised an update on how dinner turned out. It was good, and the neckbones had a lot of meat on them. However, I had to dip out the bones and sort through the meat and mushrooms by hand. Even then some little bones got through.
    Next time I will use smoked pork rather than fresh and strain it. I'll lose the meat doing this but still get all the flavor. While straining I'll saute the onion and mushrooms, pour the liquid back in and let it simmer for an hour. The mushrooms do add a lot of flavor, but have to be simmered.

We'll see how making the Coq au Vin ahead of time works

    I'm ready to stick a roasting pan of Coq au Vin in the oven. Of course, it's after 10 p.m., which makes things a little late.
    I was at Sam's Club the other day and bought a big package of chicken legs, which is what I use for Coq au Vin. This dish has to be prepared a bit ahead as it needs from two to five hours to cook. As a practical matter it means I have to prepare it in the morning, when I'm not at my best. On Monday and Tuesday I had a terrible cold, and on Wednesday I just never got around to doing it.
    I wasn't about to let roughly 24 chicken legs go bad. So tonight I fixed the kids the Mahatma Saffron Rice and cream of mushroom soup casserole. I then immediately started on the Coq au Vin, which I stuck in the fridge to await our next evening meal.
    I'll cut to the chase. Tomorrow's supper is ready. All I have to do is stick it in the over. The only question in my mind is whether it will be as good after sitting for 15 hours in the fridge. It might be better!
    I'll post a comment to let anyone interested know how it turns out.

Menu ideas to please the kids and protect the wallet

¶Jinny travels quite a bit and cooking for the children often falls to me. Sometimes they don't like my cooking, but more often they don't like my menu choices.
¶I like to serve spaghetti with meat sauce and hamburgers with French fries. A family of three or four can enjoy either for under $5, which is music to my ears and wallet. Unfortunately, the children are of the opinion that I serve these entirely too often.
¶Few things are more dangerous to the family food budget than not having any idea what to prepare for supper. That's when the restaurants start beconimg, with their no-work meals that cost five to 20 times as much as a meal prepared at home.
¶We decided to have a family meeting to make a list of things the family can have for supper without too much work. Perhaps not understanding the purpose of the meeting, Ash suggested that one of our meals should be dinner at Proud Larry's.
¶Ah, what a teaching moment! I explained that a family of four couldn't eat at Proud Larry's for less than $60, and the tab could easily top $80. A meal cooked at home, on the other hand, costs from $5 to $20.
¶Here are some of the supper items we came up with. I am often at a loss as to what to cook, so now I have a list to refer to. I almost always buy my meat off the discount rack and usually stock up on staples when they are on sale. So cooking at home can be really cheap!

Here's our list:
Baked Ziti
Shepard's Pie
Pot Roast with potatoes
Steak and potatoes
Beef Stroganof (Hamburger Helper okay!)
Coc au Vin
Fried Shrimp and fries (from the freezer section)
Tacos
Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni
Poppyseed Chicken (just as good without the poppyseed)
Lasagna (homemade or frozen)
Breakfast for supper
Burgers and fries
Cube Steak (I have no idea how to cook this or exactly what it is)
Chicken Spaghetti or Ro-tel Chicken
Grill cheese and tomato soup (children's idea)
Chicken Cordon Blue (bought frozen in packs of one or two)
Hot dogs and fries or chips
Shrimp or mushroom risotto
Spaghetti (the children say I cook this way too much)
Kabobs
Grilled/BBQ chicken
Ham
Chicken or Turkey with dressing
Chicken Marsala
Chicken Tetrazzini
Fried Chicken
Friend pork chop
Fish sticks and fries
Fried or grilled fish

I'll likely update this list and post a few of our favorite recipes in the near future. Not that they're anything special; just recipes we've found in various cookbooks or online.

For tonight we're having a pot roast I bought off the discount rack a couple of months ago for less than $4. Tomorrow night we're going to grill some large boneless pork chops that I bought this weekend off the discount rack for $5.05. Hopefully we can limit our dining this week to ColRebSez's kitchen.