Gourmet Chocolate Cupcakes on a Budget

 

My first love will always be baking. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook too, but baking... those are my roots. (See above) I've been baking since my fine tuned motor skills kicked in and loving every minute of it. Some fine accomplishments have come from my love of the oven like mom's wedding cake (4 layer chocolate cake with chocolate raspberry mousse filling) and Eric will surely vouch for my cheesecakes. 

The hardest thing about baking is that it is really expensive to make it gourmet sometimes. Some recipes call for cake flour, wild flower honey or some other use-once-obscure-ingredient. It's crazy! Likewise, some of us might feel pressured to show up with gourmet treats instead of a boxed-cake-mix-cake because it seems "cheap." Well no more! 

Today's post is a delicious, dollar friendly, dessert, that does in fact use store bought cake mix AND frosting but with my little trick no one will ever know! It's all about customization. Feel free to experiment with your own flavors** but I've chosen chocolate for today, because really, who doesn't love chocolate?

Chocolate Cupcakes with Spicy Chocolate Mousse Filling and Original Chocolate Frosting

Makes: 24 Cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Total Cost: $9

Ingredients:

1 box Chocolate Cake Mix
Eggs, Oil and Water (See cake mix for measurements)
1 container Chocolate Frosting (I used the good Ol' Fashioned Chocolate)
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Instant Espresson (optional)
2 - 2 1/2 cups Spicy Chocolate Mousse (Recipe Follows)

Prepration:

Follow package directions on box for cake mix, however, add cinnamon and instant espresso to dry cake mix before adding liquid ingredients. Bake according to package directions or until a tooth pick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Using a small knife (or I used a reusable wine cork) poke a whole in the TOP of each cupcake. Do not poke all the way through the cupcake (about 3/4 the way through will do). Do not poke from the bottom because this will result in a HUGE mess. Put 1 cup of the mousse filling into a pastry bag (No pastry bag? Use a sandwich size zip lock bag. Cut the bottom corner to make a small 1/4 - 1/2 inch opening, fill with mousse and you've got yourself a pastry bag). Insert the tip of the bag into the hole in the cup cake and squeeze gently until the mousse starts to come out the top. Repeat with all cupcakes. Frost each cupcake with room temperature frosting either with a knife or pastry bag. Decorate to your liking and ENJOY! (Keep refrigerated if not eating right away, can be made one day in advance, but I suggest filling with mousse and frosting the day of the event)


Spicy Chocolate Mousse

Makes: 4 Servings
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 5 minutes
Estimated Cost: $4

Ingredients:

1 pint liquid Whip Cream
1 3.9 oz. box Chocolate Pudding Mix
1/4 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp. Ground Ginger
1/2 tsp. Instant Espresso
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
1 dash of Vanilla Extract

Preparation:  

In a small bowl combine dry pudding mix, cayenne, ginger, espresso and cinnamon. In a large bowl pour in 1 pint of cold whip cream and vanilla, then add dry ingredients. Beat until well blended and stiff peaks form (about 1 - 2 minutes). Use to fill layer cakes, cupcakes, OR spoon 1/2 cup of mousse into 4 serving glasses and sprinkle with mixed berries for a light dessert.


**The cupcakes and mousse featured above can be made in many different flavors. I made Lemon Cupcakes filled with Vanilla pudding and frosted with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting made the same way. Into the bacon craze? Try using a Spice Cake filled with Maple Mousse and topped with Cream Cheese Frosting and Candied Bacon! Or use Angel Food cake with Strawberry Mousse filling and fresh Strawberries on top. The possibilities are endless and impressive! Just don't  tell anyone they're from a box and they will never know!

Overcast Blue Cheese Coleslaw

My mom had recently been on a business trip in the midwest and had dined at a Houston’s Steakhouse with her clients. She came home craving the blue cheese coleslaw she had with her steak. After enlisting my help we started throwing cabbage and blue cheese together and finally got the recipe just right.

Now this is the type of recipe that is so easy to make that it makes you feel guilty when everyone raves about it and asks for the recipe. I’ve taken it to work functions and BBQ’s. It has become a staple at family functions and with Eric’s Pulled Pork. In fact, it has even been posted on the “Southern Fork in the Road” blog written by our good friend Holly Barnett.

Make it. Love it. Share it.

Overcast Blue Cheese Coleslaw

Makes: 10-12 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 0 minutes
Estimated Cost: $15

Ingredients:

2 bags of coleslaw mix
3/4 - 1 jar of refrigerated Blue Cheese Dressing (such as Bob’s Big Boy, found in the refrigerated vegetable section)
1 8oz container Blue Cheese Crumbles
1-2 tbsp. Bottled Horseradish

Preparation:

Mix coleslaw mix with blue cheese dressing and toss to coat. Add Horseradish to taste and toss to mix. Finally add the blue cheese crumbles and salt and pepper and toss to mix.

Serve right away. Leftovers will not keep due to the saturation from the dressing.

Enjoy!

Nicole's Bomb Flauts

Meet Nicole:

I don't know whether it's the cheap Italian-style upbringing, the constant flow of man children in my living room, or the hungriest husband and toddler this world will ever know... But I cook often and in abundance. Although we are never short on friends and family, we are often short on finances, which means buying in bulk and re-inventing that same old ground beef four nights in a row. I've been forced to experiment with countless combinations of standard back-of-the-cupboard ingredients and have come up with many crowd pleasing meals on a shoestring budget.

I love this recipe because you can use any type of meat and you don't need a lot of left overs to make enough for everybody. They also have a great crunchy texture and are easy for kids to eat!

Bomb Flauts

Makes 4 Servings

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Total Estimated Cost: $5

Ingredients:

8 Tortillas
2 cups cooked meat, shredded, chopped or ground (beef and chicken work well)
2 cups shredded cheese
1 can of black, pinto or re-fried beans
Vegetable Oil (enough to fill your frying pan to about 1/2-3/4 inches)
 1/2 cup of rice (optional)

Preparation:

In a microwave safe bowl add beans (and rice, if using) to your meat and heat in microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute or until hot. Microwave tortillas for 10-15 seconds before you assemble. This will make the tortillas more flexible to work with. On each tortilla, sprinkle a small amount of cheese down the center. Follow with meat mixture. Roll the tortilla tightly and secure with a toothpick.

In a frying pan, heat vegetable oil on Medium High heat. Once oil is hot, place flautas, flap side down, in hot oil using tongs. Rotate in pan until cooked evenly and tortilla is golden brown, 2 - 3 minutes. Remove the flautas from the oil and drain on a paper towel.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole or salsa, and of course, Tapatio. Enjoy!

 

Nicole Alexander is a mother, teacher and thrifty food enthusiast residing 

in Huntington Beach, CA. She has been one of my greatest friends for the past eleven years. 

The above recipe is one (of many) of her original creations. 

Dank Wife Pasta II

My best friend Jennifer and I met while working at Lucci’s, an Italian deli. When I literally met Jennifer she was reeling from throwing a knife at someone who worked in the take-out section with her. She was wearing a blue t-shirt that looked like it had bird crap on it and said “I hate seagulls.” Needless to say, we became fast friends and I refer to her as my wife. 

One of the weird things about my wife is that she has a lot of allergies and as a consequence, when I met her, she didn’t have as well developed a pallet as I did. I mean the girl only ate quesadillas, chicken fettucini alfredo, patty melts, grilled cheese sandwiches and the occasional turkey sandwich. She didn’t (doesn’t ?) even like mashed potatoes! Now she knows more about food then I do (she’ll be making appearances here soon enough).

Bringing me to our next recipe. When we worked at Lucci’s, Jennifer started making this pasta for us that was delicious! I used to beg her to make it (I still do) and she would always politely make it AGAIN. But I knew she didn’t like it as much as I did.

One day I was living in Berkeley or LA (or where ever was far enough away) so I had to make the recipe for myself. I ended up messing it up and the result ended up being HER favorite pasta.

Both pasta’s are called Dank Wife Pasta and, before now, the only way to tell the difference between them was who was asking for it. If I’m asking, I mean her pasta, if she’s asking, she means mine. Now we’ve got one and two. I’ll let her share her’s later… But here’s mine for now. Enjoy!

Dank Wife Pasta II

Makes 2 - 3 Servings
Prep Time: ½ hour
Total Time: 50 minutes
Total Estimated Cost: $7


Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 packet Grill Mates Dry Marinade: HERB (It’s in the soup section, see package for directions)
-Vinegar (see marinade packet)
-Oil (see marinade packet)
-Water (see marinade packet)
½ package of pasta of choice (I like penne or spirals)
Salt & Pepper
Parmesan Cheese

Preparation:

In a large ziploc bag make marinade according to package instructions. Place chicken in the bag in the marinade. Zip close and coat chicken. Let marinate at least ½ an hour. If possible marinate over night.

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Place chicken in a glass baking dish with all of the marinade from the ziploc bag. Bake chicken for 12 minutes or until the middle of the thickest part of the chicken breast is no longer pink. Don’t worry about destroying the chicken by cutting into it - you’ll be cubing it in a minute anyway.

In the mean time, set a large pot of water to boil. Salt and oil the water to keep from boiling over. When the water reaches a rolling boil, add the pasta. Cook until slightly undercooked. Drain. DO NOT RINSE. Add the pasta back into the pot.

Cut the chicken into bite sized cubes. I do this right in the pan it’s cooked in, carefully. Put the chicken into the pot with the pasta and pour the marinade left over in the cooking pan over the pasta.

Salt & Pepper to taste.

You can add grated or shredded Parmesan if you like.

Serve with bread or a side salad.

Enjoy!

Spring Time Blues Pasta Salad

Recently, after the loss of our cat Max, my boy friend and I found ourselves doing a little shopping at Home Depot. Now you know you're depressed when Home Depot is your idea of retail therapy when your in your twenties, but regardless, there we were walking around red plastic lawn furniture- which we bought- when we stumbled upon the BBQ section. Minutes later we were carting out our new $79 charcoal grill/smoker and the previously mentioned lawn furniture.

I don't even want to talk about the experience of putting the stupid grill together because it was that frustrating but in the end we decided that a BBQ was necessary to brighten our spirits.

Now, no offense honey, the spectacular part of this meal had nothing to do with the grill. The BBQ atmosphere inspired me to make some delicious pasta salad on a whim, which consequently created the concept for this blog. Cheap, easy to make and above all, oh so good.

Enjoy!

Spring Time Blues Pasta Salad

Makes 6-8 Servings
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours, 20 minutes
Total Estimated Cost: $8.00


Ingredients:
1 package tri color spiral pasta (grocery store brand runs around $1)
1 each green and red bell pepper
1/4 large red onion (I used the rest for burger toppings)
1 cucumber
1 bottle Italian salad dressing (I lucked out and got a pretty good one for $1.75)
Salt and Pepper

Preparation:
Cook pasta according to package instructions. Under cook just slightly. Drain.

While your waiting for the water boil for your pasta, wash your veggies. Take the tops off of both bell peppers and clean out all the seeds. Cut length wise into 1/4 - 1/2 inch strips.

Then cut strips into one inch sections, set aside. 

Cut the onion into three or four 1/4 inch rounds. 

Then cut the rounds to be about the same size as the bell peppers. Set aside. 

After you have drained your pasta DO NOT rinse it. Alton Brown taught me that when you rinse off your pasta, you rinse off some of the starches. These starches allow pasta sauces to adhere to the pasta giving you greater flavor. Pour the pasta into a nice big salad bowl and pour about half of the (cold) dressing over it. Toss to coat. Add your bell peppers, onions, salt and pepper to taste. Toss again.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

While your chilling the pasta salad peel the cucumber and cut into 1 inch thick coins. Cut the coins in quarters. Uncover the pasta salad and add about half of whats left of the dressing to taste and the cucumbers. Toss to coat.

Cover and refrigerate again for about an hour or until nice and cold. Enjoy!

Can be made a day in advance. I actually like it better the day after!

Step One: The Basics

Before I dive into recipes and conceptualized dinner parties on a budget, I want to set a base down.

When you're young (or old) and starting out on your own it can be hard to set up a kitchen with all the things you need to throw together cheap meals in the future. However, this basis of supplies is necessary for the type of cooking my friends and I will be conquering.

Take a look at the following list of basic kitchen supplies you should always have on hand:

Olive Oil
Vegetable Oil
Butter
Eggs
Flour
Sugar
Brown Sugar
Hot Sauce (I prefer Cholula)
Mustard
Mayo
Parmesan Cheese
Garlic
Soy Sauce
Pam
Baking Powder
Baking Soda
Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper
Spices (a good starter is a spice rack from someplace like target)
-Cinnamon
-Garlic Salt
-Lawry's Seasoning Salt
-Herbs de Provence

This seems like a lot, right? The good news is that most of these items are cheap- especially if you buy the store brand. A good place to start is at a Target or Wal-Mart that has a grocery section.  These stores tend to charge WAY less for everyday items like these.

DON'T go buy all of these at once. I have two strategies for making these purchases more bearable...

1. Buy as you need. When you need flour for a recipe buy it, but not the little one. Spend the extra $2 and buy the huge one (and store left overs in your fridge). It'll add $2 to your grocery bill today but the 15 times you use flour after that you won't spend a dime! 

2. Buy on rhythm. Most people grocery shop once a week. On that grocery trip, along with the items you have to buy, buy one thing you don't need off the list above. Maybe you don't need baking soda this week but by adding the $1 expense to your normal groceries, you'll have it when you do need it, without feeling like your spending a lot of money at one time. This is also a great tool with purchasing spices, which can be very expensive. 

All good foodies know that it's not just about the food you make but how you make it. It is important to have the proper tools to do what you need to do. These items can get expensive too, but keep in mind that at Target, Wal-Mart, Ross, Marshall's and Kohl's you can get any basic kitchen counter top appliance for under $20 and the rules above work for these items too! Keep your eye out at garage sales too! Don't make that face! Just because an item is cheap does not mean that it does not work as well as others. My boyfriend and I bought a new slow cooker for $25 at Target recently and it works like magic!

The moral of the story is don't get frustrated because of your lack of finances, let it inspire you instead to do things creatively. Alton Brown says that a kitchen tool is a wasted tool unless it can multi-task and save you money!

An Introduction

When I was one month old, my mom hired a live in nanny from Brazil to take care of me while mom ran her own advertising agency. Cleu (Cloud without the D) didn't understand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or boxed mac n' cheese. When I was little I ate cauliflower and brussle sprouts. In fact, when I started packing my own lunches, at age ten, I frequently brought asparagus to school. Needless to say no one ever traded lunches with me. 

One time, my mom and I went to Palm Springs with some family friends and while the adults sat drinking wine on the patio, mom gave me the task of ordering room service. When the food came everyone got exactly what they asked for, burgers, except me. I ordered salmon. I was eight and it was delicious!

My foodie-ness has been twenty-four years in the making and has had it's highs (seven course Italian fine dining in San Francisco) and its lows (top ramen with a side of Los Angeles tap water). I've run the gauntlet of food and I've realized over the years that you don't have to have a lot of money to eat great food. Look at me! I'm an unemployed college student living off eight hundred dollars a month and I eat great food!

So I've decided to put together a collection of recipes that are delicious, yet light on the pocket book. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it has to be disgusting... We're talking amazing pasta salads, pulled pork that melts in your mouth and delicious cream puffs!

I can't conquer my goal without the help of some of my friends. Every perspective will be covered! Be it a young mom cooking for her toddler and husband, my favorite lesbians, or even my boyfriend who thought he couldn't do anything but grill!

So follow along for the dinner parties, BBQ's and that last day before pay day meal! It should be one hell of a ride!