Easy and Delicious French Onion Soup!

Want a delicious dinner that's as easy to cook as it is on your wallet? Try my French Onion Soup!

You will need:
3-4 white onions, cut thinly in rings
2 cartons of low sodium beef broth
salt and pepper to taste
2 bay leaves, crushed
3 stalks of celery
3 tbsp good red wine
2 cloves of garlic, grated or through a garlic press

Method:
1. Start melting about 1/2 a stick of margarine or butter with equal parts of oil in a large soup pot at medium-low
2. While the margarine is melting slice your onions in rings, thinner than typical onion rings. As soon as they are cut put them into the pot. Do the same with the garlic and celery.
3. Your vegetables will look like you have too many, but don't worry, the onions will cook down from about 4 cups to less than 2. Cook your vegetables down for approx 30 minutes until they are caramelized to your liking.
4. When your onions are cooked season with salt and pepper, and add your crushed bay leaves.
5. Turn your stove up to medium-high and add all of your beef broth and wine.
6. Let simmer for about 20 minutes before serving!

This soup is good on its own or with a strong cheese and piece of toast! If you're going to serve your soup with toast I suggest rubbing a little garlic on your toast before putting in your soup. Also, make sure both side of the bread are toasted, that will stop your bread from getting soggy in the soup.

Networking, and finding a food community!

When I started my grocery budgeting networking via the internet was not as popular. Although I was also not that interested. While I was starting the budgeting process what I needed the most was to hear from other people what they did with budgeting, I needed to read recipes, basically I needed a community of support.

In September I started searching for some networking devices. I found tons!
1. Twitter! Tons of chefs and financial advisors have twitter pages that you can follow. Many celebrity chefs will post recipes, pictures and links to videos. Also, most of them reply to your "tweets"
2. Facebook fan pages. Lots of chefs have facebook fan pages. Although these are likely not run by the chef themselves there are usually thousands of people that follow and that respond to eachother.
* my personal favourites for the top two are Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Pasta Channel, CookingwithAmy and Offal_Chris.

3. Look for your favourite chef's website. Most have a community you can be part of to submit recipes, as well as see recipes from other members and the chef's themselves. I've recently joined Paula Deen's community. www.pauladeen.com. She sets up her community accounts similar to a facebook or myspace page, basically you can give as much or as little information about your self for others to see. Once to twice a week Paula and her team post a webisode where they challenge their community members to submit their versions of the recipe. They post the best looking and tasting ones on the website.

4. Finally, search youtube!

Cheesy Pasta for Cheap!

As I mentioned two posts ago I was going to try making Jamie Oliver's Camambert Pasta this week. I tried it last night and I was pleasantly surprised. This is a recipe that could be easily adaptable as well.

The recipe says to take a round (from 4-8oz) of Camambert and bake it with garlic, rosemary, pepper and olive oil (only 1 tsp of oil), for about 25 minutes. When its baked pour onto cooked pasta, preferably rigatoni noodles.

As a budgeter I did not buy real camambert, it was over $10! Instead I got Le Petit St Paulin, which is a french soft cheese made in Quebec. This cheese wasn't as strong as Camambert but it was still good. The only thing that I didn't like about this cheese choice is that it does not melt the same way as a softer cheese like Brie or Camambert. This cheese melted more like mozzarella which made it more awkward when mixing with the cheese... BUT, it was delicious!

This is definitely something to try, and definitely something to cook for a party! Any soft round cheese would work well for this recipe, and the good thing with that is if you don't like stronger cheese you could choose something like a brie and mix in more herbs!

This is a must try!

Not Spending at Work

I am a woman who can be easily persuaded by what those around me are eating, or purchasing. This is something I have worked very hard at over the past year and I think I've finally conquered most of my cravings and spending during the day. Most of this was because it was effecting my budget as well as food choices for when I got home after work.

Here are some tips:
-Pack enough food for the day that will make you full. For me I usually only need a piece of fruit (try bananas, their filling), sandwich and snack for later
-Bring extra tea or coffee for the day, especially if you're close to a Tim's or Starbucks!
-Drink lots of water!
-If you are hungry towards the end of the day pack protein filled foods, like a meatier lunch, or tofu as a snack!
-keep minimal cash on you when at work, and try not to use debit or credit as its really easy then to spend

Apologies for the delay. Heres a good one!

I apologize to everyone for my inconsistent posts recently. I've just returned from a trip home for Christmas and have some great new ideas and budgeting recipes.

Firstly, I received Jamie Oliver's new book " Jamie's Food Revolution". This book is incredible and is highly recommended. The basis of the book is to teach people how to make classics easily and while on a budget. Although some of the ingredients are not as commonly found in Canada or the US they are easily substituted with different foods. I tried two of his recipes for a new years party, Homemade Chicken Chow Mein and Sweet and Sour Pork. These recipes were incredible, budget friendly and super easy to put together. They didn't taste exactly like what you would get from take-away Chinese but I thought they were better. The only suggestions I had for the dishes after making them was that the Chow Mein needed a little more soy, and there were no changes for the Sweet and Sour Pork.

The book focuses on helping people make great gourmet dishes at lower costs. This week I'm going to try Camabert Pasta. It is simply baked Camabert Cheese with garlic and herbs poured on pasta. I'll let you know how it goes!