Videos of a 93-year-old lady cooking Great Depression-era meals are making multiple rounds on the Internet. While I liked the videos, I thought to myself: what do you people eat that makes these meals look like poor man’s food to you? I watched a few and didn’t see anything that I wouldn’t normally cook and eat on a regular non-depression day. Some of my favorite foods are simple, few-ingredient recipes that are easy to cook and hard to screw up. Low cost comes as a bonus, not a goal. Are XO Burgers or Greg’s Fried Chicken supposed to be Depression foods? Certainly not! Yet I bet they cost less than 2 dollars per serving.  Here is another recipe that doesn’t cost a lot and is easy to cook:

Ingredients:

• meat (beef, pork, if chicken – use dark meat)
• potatoes
• tomato paste
• cabbage (optional)
• salt,pepper,bay leaf

Pour a little bit of oil (olive or not) into your dutch oven or a heavy pot. Cut some onions (I used 1.5 medium onions) and saute them on a medium-low heat until they are soft and brown(ish) for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, cut your meat in a bite-size chunks. You don’t want them to be too big (you may tend to overestimate your “bite-size”  and make your meat too big to fit in your mouth), nor do you want to cut it too small (you won’t be able to taste your meat). When onions are ready, move them to one side of the pot and raise the heat to medium or little higher. In the free space, brown your meat in batches, keeping an eye on the onions and not letting them burn. Do not dump all the meat at once, it will not brown properly, instead releasing unsightly liquid. When the first batch is browned, mix it with onions, move to the side and proceed with other batches as necessary. Add salt, pepper and bay leaf. You could brown your meat in a separate skillet, but remember that dishes don’t wash themselves. Now add cubed potatoes and mix it all up. Skip the next step if you were born and/or raised in America. Add about half of a medium cabbage, sliced. Americans, get back on board here. Add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. You can also use salsa if you wish. Lower the heat, cover and cook until potatoes (and cabbage) get soft, mixing periodically. If you notice that your food is burning on the bottom, add a little water. That’s it. Delicious meal  in no time and for almost no money.

Remember: a pound of hot dogs costs more than a pound of chicken. You don’t need to be on food stamps to start eating delicious cheap meals. Of course when you “claim your check now” (actual advertisement from my Yahoo Messenger is on the left) you can go back to eating lobster, until then – stop eating crap.

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One of the milk products of my childhood that’s hard or impossible to find here is tvorog sometimes referred to as the Farmer Cheese. Instead of trying to find it, I use strained yogurt to make these tasty pancakes.
By the way, the only yogurt that doesn’t contain any extra ingredients (none) and not overpriced at the same time is this one.
As always, women who’d like to wake up to the smell of these cooking should apply in the comments section.

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Mushrooms are a big part of Russian cuisine, they are plentiful in milder climates and many people are experienced mushroom pickers. Mushrooms can be easily preserved by drying, marinating, canning or whatever else people do to store them and that makes them available year round. I like mushrooms in soups, fried, sauteed, marinated, in stews, in salads, etc. Like Pavlov’s dog I buy every jar of mushrooms I see in front of me, most of the time just to be disappointed because someone just decided to drown them in vinegar and make them inedible. Most of the local grocery stores sell regular white mushrooms or champignones. For a better variety of canned mushrooms you need to head to your local Asian store. There you’ll find a whole aisle filled with cans of exotic mushrooms. Yesterday I picked up a large can of straw mushrooms at the 888 Market in Overland Park.

Straw mushrooms have a more rubbery, chewy texture, I usually like them peeled, although some sources say that they are better and more nutritious unpeeled.

When buying and eating mushrooms you need to decide for yourself if you trust underpaid Chinese children to pick the right mushrooms for you. This blog will not be responsible for your untimely death from mushroom poisoning to which there is no antidote.

This giant can cost me six dollars. The mushrooms are packed in slightly salted water which is pretty much tasteless. First thing to do after opening the can is to drain the water.

After the water is drained the mushrooms look like this.

For this recipe you will need onions, garlic, black peppercorns, bay leaf if you have it, salt, oil and vinegar.

Slice the onions and peel the garlic, put as much as you feel like – you cannot over-onion this recipe. Then put your ingredients in the jar. You can do it in layers or not, especially if you are not taking pictures.

In retrospect, a better idea would be to mix it up before putting it in the jar. Oh well. The marinade is not supposed to be over salted  or too acidic. That’s why I am not giving any measurements, adjust it to your own taste by mixing salt, oil and vinegar. It should be slightly more vinegary than you’d like because the taste of vinegar weakens a little bit. Do not try to be Rachel Ray – olive oil solidifies in the fridge and I cannot guarantee the result with any specialty vinegar. Regular corn or vegetable oil and plain white vinegar will do just fine.

You are done. The marinade should cover the mushrooms.

Do not hesitate to try the mushrooms and see if you like the taste. If not, add more of whatever is missing, usually salt or vinegar.

Leave in the refrigerator for few hours or overnight. Then add as a condiment to any dinner, for example, freshly cooked BBQ riblets.

Add a cold glass of kvas and enjoy!

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Cue the soundtrack:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp-ATy9tkrg

By the way, I can watch the girl on the right for hours, something hypnotic about her dancing.

El Camino Real in Kansas City, KS was recently listed as the number one on the Kansas City’s Top Ten Cheap Tacos list, which I am following as if it was a list of the 10 commandments of cheap food. After several visits to the place  I would agree that it’s undoubtedly one of the top taquerias in the metro. I usually avoid the word “authentic” because, as I have mentioned before, I have never had a meal in Mexico outside the feedlots for the pasty fat people otherwise known as resorts in Cancun. However, if I had to imagine what the Mexican people eat at home, it would be something like what’s served at El Camino Real.
Over the past several years my idea of the “real” Mexican food has evolved to exclude anything with puddles of melted cheese and mountains of lettuce, not that there is anything wrong with that. The type of Mexican taco I came to like is a simple mound of filling on a small corn tortilla with cilantro, onions and pico de gallo served with it or on the side. Sometimes you will get a lime but that’s as fancy as it goes. The secret is in simplicity which is what I appreciate in any food.
At El Camino Real the kitchen area is open so I was able to annoy the cooks hanging around and taking pictures. This is the first place where I saw the tortilla-making contraption and was able to capture its operation on-camera.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bVCsBijFHA

The process is pretty simple. After tortillas are rolled…

…they go on the griddle…

…some pork “al pastor” is cut off

the spit and mixed with pineapple you can see above it …

…few more minutes of cooking…

…and done!

On the left-hand side you can see al pastor, on the right side is asada – steak and on the top is the lengua – tongue.
Here is another photo slightly turned:

You can see the rest of the taco selection in the menu:

The place is clean and has plenty of seating. I was able to park right outside of the door but there is plenty of non-metered parking in the area. On both of my visits, there was at least one English-speaking person in the restaurant, usually the waitress. If you dine in you will get complimentary chips, salsa and pico de gallo. Carry-out didn’t come with chips or pico de gallo, but I didn’t ask. They did send plenty of chopped cilantro, onions, salsa and limes.

3 tacos and a Mexican Coke (which is now sold at Costco, at least in Midtown) ran up to $6.48, a little price to pay for what the greatest restaurant critic of all time (to be left unnamed) called “the best tacos I had in my entire life”

*I used Google Translate, I am not exactly sure El Camino Real is The Royal Road

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As much as hate and avoid various meet-ups, tweet-ups, social events, flash-mobs, actions with noble goals and everything that comes with it, it’s totally different when I do it.

Instead of participating in anything, just stop by and have a donut at the John’s Space Age Donuts in Overland Park this Wednesday from 8 to 10 (or whatever time works for you).

This Wednesday, May 19th, wasn’t picked at random. It’s the Soviet Pioneer Day. On this day a certain chain opens another location just down the the street, so an old donut shop which has been around since 1967 can use a few more customers. John’s Space Age Donuts are better anyway and I am buying the first dozen.

Besides free donuts (if you are fast), there may be local celebrity sightings, and you will enjoy not being part of the herd stampeding to fill up on the mediocre East Coast pastries.

Facebook page is here.

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