One Good Meal, Two Blogging Events

Today being Friday, it's time for yet another installment of Frugal Fridays. This is also my entry for my first Taste&Create event. A quick description of Taste&Create - those who want to participate e-mail the founder and administrator of Taste&Create. She matches up all the entries so each person has a partner blog. Then you get to select a recipe from your partner's blog to make and post about. They in turn choose something from your blog and do the same thing.

My partner is [eating club] vancouver, a blog created by sisters TS and JS. I had such a difficult time choosing a recipe to make! The blog is full of delicious-looking recipes, but so many call for seafood and other exotic-to-me ingredients. But after a great deal of perusing (and drooling all over my keyboard, might I add), I was able to find several recipes I could actually afford to make. I showed them to Jeff and he helped me to pick the official Taste&Create recipe for this month - Curried (Easter) Egg Salad. There are definitely other recipes I want to try very soon (Cheesecake-Marbled Brownies, anyone?), but the deliciously unique egg salad is my actual entry.

And you have to have something to serve your egg salad on, right? At first I wanted to make pita pockets, but changed my mind when I found a really awesome recipe for Savory Pull-Apart Loaf. This will be one bread I'll make again and again. It was delicious and fun to make. When you see the loaf, you'll groan at what I'm about to say, but I'll say it anyway: It's the best thing since sliced bread.

And for dessert, a simple yet delicious pineapple sorbet.

Ingredient Prices:
Eggs, 4 - $0.52
Celery, 1/2 stalk - $0.10
Mayonnaise, 1/4 cup - $0.11
Milk, 1 cup - $0.27
Butter, 2 tbsp. - $0.13
Flour, 3 1/2 cups - $0.37
Yeast, 2 tsp. - $0.15
Pineapple, 1 20-oz. can - $1.00

Ingredients with negligible price:
Curry powder (this came free, it was given to us)
Dry parsley
Salt and pepper
Sugar
Green onions (from garden)
One tiny little garden tomato, and one cherry, for garnish

Total Price: $2.65


Curried Egg Salad

3 eggs
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 stalk celery, chopped
1 tbsp. dry parsley (I didn't have the cilantro called for, but that would be delicious!)
1/4 cup mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
I also added some sliced green pepper from our garden

Boil the eggs: set in saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a rolling boil, then shut off the heat and cover the pan. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Then run the eggs under cold water until they're cooled enough to peel.

Coarsely chop eggs, then combine with remaining ingredients, and chill until serving.

Before stirring - beautiful!

After stirring - gooey and delicious!

Served nestled in lettuce atop a slice of homemade bread, this unique and flavorful egg salad completely hit the spot!



Savory Pull-Apart Loaf

1 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
1 egg
2 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I substituted in 3/4 cup whole wheat flour)
1 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. active dry yeast

About 3 tbsp. Italian seasoning
1 tbsp. olive oil

Place 1st seven ingredients in bread machine in order specified by owner's manual. Program machine to dough cycle (or remove after first rise).

Grease 9x5-inch loaf pan; set aside. Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface. Divide dough into 16 equal pieces. Form each piece into ball. Cover with clean towel; let rest 5 minutes.

Flatten each ball into 4x3-inch oval. Coat both sides of dough with olive oil. Sprinkle one side of each dough oval with rounded 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning.

Stand loaf pan on short end. Lay one piece of dough, herb-covered side down, in pan. Stack remaining 15 pieces of dough in pan so that herb-covered sides of dough are touching sides of dough not covered with herb mixture. (They look a little like pancakes, don't they?)

You can see that my pieces of dough were rolled a bit too thin - they didn't quite fill the pan.

With a little creative squishing and scooting, I got the dough to fill the pan.

Cover with towel; let rise in warm place 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake 35 minutes or until top of loaf is golden. Immediately remove bread from pan and cool on wire rack.


These separate into individual pieces easier if you pull them apart while the bread is still fresh and warm. The longer you wait to separate them, the more difficult it is. Also, make sure you coat the pieces of dough really well with oil, all the way to the edges, to keep the pieces from sticking together.

Like I said, the best thing since sliced bread! :-)


Pineapple Sorbet

1 can (about 20 ounces) pineapple chunks (or crushed pineapple) packed in juice

At least a few hours before you want to eat this, open the can of pineapple. Pour into a large, flat freezer-safe container. Freeze until solid.

When you're ready to make your sorbet, take the fruit out of the freezer and let it sit out for 10 minutes to soften a little. Break up into chunks, and put chunks in food processor. Process until it is creamy.

The best part about this entire menu is that it's all make-ahead! This evening when I decided it was time for dinner, all I had to do was set the table and say, "Dinner time!" All the work - baking the bread, preparing the egg salad, and freezing the pineapple - had already been done. That's my kind of meal!