Hooray for you, Mari Sasano.

I love squid: it’s cheap, ocean-friendly, and when cooked properly, really delicious. My mom used to make this dish with regular peas, but since I had some snow peas I decided to give this a new twist. I don’t have the recipe, so I just guessed. Results are not perfect, but it’s definitely worth another try some other time.

Start by giving some minced garlic and ginger a quick stir fry, then add peas. When they turn bright green (before they start to brown), remove. Then I added the squid. You can buy it frozen and cleaned, and you can either cut the tube into rings or if the squids are really thick. cut in half longitudinally, using a knife to score a cross-hatch pattern in the surface for quicker cooking and to prevent curling. After a minute or so, I added a splash of sake, a little veg broth, and some corn starch mixed with water to thicken.

I served it with some steamed rice and fried Japanese eggplant in ponzu– I sliced the eggplant and fried it until soft, then sprinkled some pre-made ponzu. Yeah.

I found this simple recipe in Martha Stewart years and years ago. Now I am famous for it! Well, famous in my family at least. This is what I am expected to bring to Sasano family dinners. Everyone loves it, especially Alex and Brandon! I’ve found that you can use pretty much any cheese, in any combination, and it works. Though, if you use parmesan or romano, you should ease up on the salt. In fact, for the cheddar/gruyere/romano combination I made here, I forgot to put salt in it altogether and didn’t miss it at all.

I used 1/2 lb sharp cheddar, 1/2 lb gruyere, and about 1/4 cup grated romano. Grate them all! Then add them to a bechamel– 6tbsp melted butter, 1/2 cup flour cooked together for a minute, then gradually add about a litre of milk, whisking constantly to get rid of the lumps. Then pour the sauce into a casserole with one lb of cooked macaroni. Then, mix some bread crumbs (I used panko!) with some more melted butter and romano, sprinkle on top, and bake for about 30 minutes at 375F. Take it out of the oven and let it rest a few minutes, then try to control yourself! It’s dreamy.

As a vegetable, I made a simple tomato and bocconcini salad (why not a cheese salad with a cheese main?), using some balsamic and olive oil as a dressing, with some salt and pepper to finish. Then I realized that there is nothing green on the plate, so I boiled some green beans. Beautiful, isn’t it? Make this and be a hero.

My mom has been trying out different recipes for family dinners to accommodate my little brother who has become a vegan in the last couple of years. It has been a great thing for all of us, since it’s preferable to have meatless foods that taste as good as this adapted recipe for chap chae. It’s supposed to have meat in it, but frankly I don’t miss it. The other day, my friend Kati mentioned making Korean noodles and I have not been able to stop thinking about them for days. A quick (OK, not so much) call to my mom for a recipe, and here it is.

My mom’s recipe is a bit more involved than this one (marinate what?) but this is only a tiny bit less delicious, with a lot less effort. I cut vegetables (carrots, green and red peppers, cucumber) into matchsticks and sauteed them with a couple cloves of minced garlic. Oh yeah, and dry shiitake mushrooms, which I soaked and sliced up. I got two bags of pre-washed spinach at the Save-On the other day, so a handful of that got a quick boil, then drained and into the wok. A pack of Korean noodles is like, $2. Half of that gets boiled, drained chopped, and in with the rest. Then I added a cooking sauce made from soy sauce, sugar, and sesame oil. Seriously, sesame oil (like, say, goat cheese) is a magic ingredient that makes things so good! Adjust the flavours (I added a touch more soy sauce and sesame), sprinkle on some sesame seeds, and THAT IS IT.

I was intimidated by my mom’s instructions. Just goes to show, if you want something bad enough, it’s worth taking a couple of risks.

They say, “Cheap as borscht,” but it’s more like “Tasty, healthy, easy to make, vegetarian (vegan option available) and cheap like borscht!” And most of the ingredients are the kind of thing that you have sitting around– you know, the last vegetables left in the fridge.

This recipe is adapted from Paul’s grandma’s (possible great-gran? Great-aunt? It’s not clear…). I looked in the fridge, saw half a sad cabbage, two huge beets, a wilting celery, a never-ending bag of potatoes and carrots. I took the dogs out for a walk to the Italian Centre to get onions, and I was ready.

Shred half a cabbage Peel (or not) a couple carrots, a couple potatoes, and the beets and chop. Chop a couple stalks of celery. Peel and chop an onion. Throw all that into a big pot and saute for a couple minutes in olive oil. Then  top it all off with stock (I just used water with a couple spoons of Better then Bouillon) and bring to a simmer. Cook ’til the veggies are soft, add the juice of one lemon, a little salt and pepper to taste, and some dill. I had only dried, so I used that but I’ll bet fresh dill would be awesome. Serve with a dollop of sour cream, then eat! Eat! You are so thin!

Speaking of ’50s housewife cookery, I had a hankering for meatloaf, thanks to a friends Facebook status. I think everyone should post what they’re making for dinner every night. It’s good inspiration. So anyhow, it’s another quick, easy and nourishing meal that should be in your repertoire if you eat meat. I’ll look into veggie loafs at some point– lots of dry lentils at home!

To make this one, I got some ground beef, threw in one chopped onion, some salt, pepper, a knob of soft butter, some bread crumbs, one egg,  some ketchup, and a good squirt of wasabi horseradish. Then I formed it into a loaf and coated it with ketchup, baking it for 45 minutes at 350F. This pic is of the next day’s leftovers, with previously blanched-and-frozen green beans. I didn’t bother with a starch, but I boiled some baby potatoes last night.

This particular recipe is adapted from two fussy recipes from Joy of Cooking. The butter and egg makes it super-moist, and the horseradish gives it a good zing.

Heather Havrilesky wrote this swoony article about beans quite some time ago (http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/04/18/recession/), but I’d been thinking about beans too. Cheap (“practically free”) and nutritious, vegetarian, and a largely unknown territory for me. The whole Indian food chickpea thing is part of this general trend, but good ‘ol Joy of Cooking has some beany recipes that I’ve been (heh heh) trying. There’s something delightfully ’50s housewife about this one.

Basically, you take a cup of cooked navy beans, a can of tomatoes, a cup of frozen corn, and a chopped onion and stick it all in a casserole. Season with salt, paprika, and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Throw some bread crumbs on top and bake. Thassit. Clinton and Elena came over, so I fancied up the meal with some steamed broccoli and corn bread. You can find corn bread recipes on any bag of corn bread. Whatever it is, add a cup of frozen corn to it. That’s the secret to making it seem fancy. It’s easy and I don’t know why I don’t make it every day.

Deelish! And I think the entire meal for four cost, like, $5.