Monthly Archives: July 2014

Administrative

The Budget Epicurean on vacation

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Hello blogosphere!

I know you will be so disappointed to hear, but the Budget Epicurean will be taking a short hiatus. But you may say, taking vacations is not frugal! Nay nay. Vacations help keep one inside the budget I will retort. Planned or spontaneous, taking a break from the day-to-day can help to relax, recharge, and keep the frugal fires burning.

Sometimes, we all stumble, despite our best intentions. This is usually due to stress and being overwhelmed. Whether it’s family, friends, work, or personal life, when you are too busy to think straight you are more prone to mistakes. You give in and have a jumbo muffin, latte, fruit, another latte, and a doughnut, just to get through the morning. You forget to pack lunch and have to buy a cheeseburger and fries in the car on the way to a meeting. You didn’t prepare and need to purchase travel-sized things at an inflated price. You’re just too tired to cook, so looks like it’s pizza for the fifth time this month.

You also sometimes need a break from being frugal to avoid “frugal fatigue”. This is what happens when you are being good and sticking to a budget, making your own food, not eating out or going out often, and all in all being frugal for a long time. It’s like cheating on a diet, the more extreme you begin the faster your willpower wears out. Frugality is a way of life to be sure. If you go from upper-middle-class lifestyle of eating out constantly, new toys, new clothes, trips, etc. and jump right into a cabin in the wilderness where you grow and shoot all your own food, you will break in about a week I’d guess.

To avoid frugal fatigue, it is perfectly fine to ease yourself in, and take mini-breaks. When you save an extra $100 in one month, go ahead and allow yourself one Starbucks run. If you make your own laundry detergent, and buy no new clothes for a year, I’d say you deserve the running shoes you’ve been eying. Planned for or occasional small indulgences are the icing on the cake of life.

Therefore, it is essential to take a break once in a while. Especially in the US, we pretty much work ourselves to death. Down time is essential to overall health and well-being. An occasional indulgence and/or respite is often just what you need to push through or recover from a particularly crazy phase of life, a big project, a family event, whatever.

With that in mind, this blog’s author is taking a much-needed break from all things normal, including internet and this blog. If all goes well, we will be back in full force come August. See you on the sunnier side! 😉

~BE

 

Beverage

Tropical Sunrise Shots

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Summer is a great time for tropical drinks. Vodka is wonderful and orange juice is good for you, so make a Tropical Sunrise shot! You can also use tequila for a Tequila Sunrise. Perfect for beach parties or patio sitting, it gets you in the summer mood.

Ingredients:

  • 1 oz tequila
  • 1 oz orange juice
  • Splash grenadine or cherry juice
Step 1: Pour cold orange juice into a shot glass. Then carefully pour vodka on, if slow enough they won’t mix and will create two layers. I used raspberry vodka because that’s what I had and it adds another fruity flavor.
Step 2: Slowly pour in a dash of cherry juice, which should sink to the bottom. It makes a layered, colorful shot that’s delicious and pretty!

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Please enjoy responsibly.

Informative, Review

Honey, you’re so sweet

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“Honey honey, how you thrill me, ah-hah, honey honey”… ABBA had it right. Honey is thrilling, and delicious. Produced by the humble honey bee, it is an ancient sweetener and medicine.

How is honey made?

Honey begins as flower nectar. The flowers make a sweet, sugary liquid for the purpose of attracting insects, like the honeybee, to them. In this symbiotic relationship, the bee gets a treat and the flower gets its pollen spread. The pollen sticks to the bee’s furry body, and it can carry the pollen miles away to fertilize another flower.

The worker bees bring the nectar back to the hive, where they store it in the honey combs. The sugars are naturally broken down, and evaporation turns the liquid into the thick, gold goodness we know as honey. Humans have found ways to harvest excess honey while not harming the bees and leaving more than enough for the hive. Good news for us all!

Watch this clip from How It’s Made, in less than 5 minutes, explain how honey is made, harvested, and bottled in our modern world. You could also check out Ford’s Honey Farm, or the National
Honey Board website for more info.

What can you do with honey?

Honey is a versatile thing. Honey is a great, natural sweetener. Thus, you can use it to replace sugar or other sweeteners in many things. It can be used as a sweetener in beverages and baked goods, such as a sweetener and binding agent in granola bars, or mixed with balsamic vinegar and drizzled over strawberries.

A teaspoon of honey in warm milk will help rid you of insomnia, at least I believe so. A tablespoon (or four) of honey makes a warm cup of tea positively sing. Honey can be used in cooking as part of a tropical marinade, in a dressing for coleslaw, or as a snack like putting honey on a sweet potato.

I got my awesome honey from Bjorn’s Colorado Honey at the Cherry Creek Farmer’s Market which I recently reviewed. You can find them in Boulder, CO at 845 Mohawk Dr. or many Colorado farmer’s markets. The woman running the stand was very kind, and passionate about bees and the good they do in the world.

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Her company not only sells local raw honey, but also makes many beeswax products and proplis based cosmetics. What is propolis? you may ask.

According to Wikipedia, propolis is a resinous mixture bees collect and use to seal small gaps in their hive. Larger gaps are usually sealed with wax. Beeswax is used in many cosmetic products, but propolis largely has gone to waste. Until now.

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I tried a sample of this hand cream, and it truly is wonderful. It instantly makes your skin feel smooth and supple, and smells clean without any perfumy fragrance.

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The honey itself was only $10 for a 16 oz jar. To order some yourself, email pontus. jacobson @ gmail. com. The viscous liquid gold is wonderful on just about anything; particularly drizzled over yogurt, granola, and fresh seasonal fruit.

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Honey nutritional facts

Honey is more than just sugar. Per 1 tbsp, it has about 60 calories, zero fat and cholesterol, 17 g of carbs (16 of which are sugar), but also has trace vitamins and minerals, as well as antibacterial properties which may help the healing process for cuts or bites.

Honey also has beauty benefits. The Huffington Post lists 9 “sweet” ways you can use honey in your beauty routine for frugal fixes, from dry hair to chapped lips.

It is a popular belief that honey can help cure seasonal allergies. The logic behind this claim is that bees use nectar and collect pollen from the flowers which are blooming in your area. Thus the honey will contain small amounts of this pollen. When you eat local honey, your immune system recognizes these foreign particles and fights them. Then when you encounter them again in nature, you should be fortified with pre-made anti-allergens.

The problem is, that is false. Simply eating small amounts of local honey cannot cure allergies. Reasons include the fact that bees carry back many types of pollen and contaminants, so you cannot have honey made from say only ragweed pollen. Also allergies are typically caused by allergens blowing in the wind, not the kind the bees collect on their bodies. This just means honey belongs in your kitchen, not your medicine cabinet.

For official information, visit the Mayo Clinic website, WebMD.com, or How Stuff Works: Health page.

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 What is your favorite way to use honey?

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Dips and Sauces, Fish, Healthy

Lemon Pollock with Olive Tapenade

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Fish is healthy and delicious, especially white fish like Alaskan pollock, but it can be bland or boring. Some think this is a negative, but I see it as a huge perk. Fish is the perfect neutral, like a flattering beige sweater or couch. You can dress it up however you like, and it goes well with all types of spices, cooking styles, toppings, and side dishes.

Tapenade is a classical Provençal French dip slash topping. It has also been growing in popularity in other areas of the world, like Greece and the US. The base ingredient is olives. The rest of the ingredients vary by location and chef. Typically, capers, olive oil, garlic, and anchovy fillets are also involved. But there are plenty of variations in which you don’t need anchovy, or no olive oil. (I had sardines, not anchovy, so I used that instead. And it turned out fine.)

Ever since I bought a jar of pimiento and a jar of kalamata olives, I’ve been wanting to make olive tapenade. I finally put it on my meal plan, and made it with some white fish fillets. It was indeed everything I ever dreamed it would be!

It is an amazing topping for fish, but I imagine there are so many other possible uses. Spread on crusty bread slices, a condiment for a sandwich, in pasta like pesto, a dip for crudites, a stuffing for poultry, or as a salad dressing. The possibilities are endless! And it keeps for some time in the fridge, as long as you pour a thin layer of olive oil on top to preserve it. So make a big batch.

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Photo from Joyful Abode

Ingredients:

  • 3 white fish fillets
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 4 tbsp fish sauce
  • Salt + pepper
  • 1 cup rice
  • 1 can diced tomatoes

Olive Tapenade

  • 2-4 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 cup olives, pits removed
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 1 anchovy or sardine fillet
  • 4 tbsp lemon juice

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Step 1: In a frying pan, place the three fish fillets and cover with lemon juice & fish sauce. Cover with a lid and let cook for 5-7 minutes, then flip. When fish is fully white and flakes easily with a fork, it is ready. Season as desired.

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Step 2: While fish cooks, place olives in a blender or food processor. Meanwhile, boil the rice in 1 cup water and 1 can of diced tomatoes, not drained for 20-25 minutes, until fully cooked.

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Step 3: Blend the olives. Add the garlic, sardine, lemon juice, and a few tbsp olive oil. Blend, adding extra juice or oil as needed to make it smooth.

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Step 4: Place a scoop of rice on a plate, add a fish fillet and a smear of the tapenade topping.

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I got a little creative with the plating. Which do you think looks best?

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The fish is tart and moist yet firm, and is a perfect canvas for the olive masterpiece. The level of saltiness will depend on which type of olive(s) you use, I had a combination of green pimiento and kalamata. You can omit the sardine or anchovy fillet if you don’t have it or don’t like it, but I think it adds an extra layer of “seafood” taste, and since they were packed in tomato paste they also added a subtle tomato flavor.

This is a great, healthy alternative to something like mayonnaise or hummus, with lower fat and carb content yet a huge hit of flavors. Take a walk on the Mediterranean side and try some tapenade today.

 

Snacks, Vegan, Vegetarian

Less than 5: Honey Sweet Potato Snack

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Happy almost 4th of July! Whether you are having a small family get-together, a backyard BBQ, or going out to a picnic-and-fireworks party, enjoy our independence from the Crown and be safe! I’m sure there are overwhelming amounts of recipes involving burgers, apple pie, and anything red white or blue flooding the internet. So I went another way: to highlight a simple, humble veggie that I think doesn’t get enough attention.

Little bright orange jewels, so good for your health, sweet potatoes are more than a Thanksgiving side dish. Any time of the year, they can add nutrients and fiber to your diet and become an easy side dish or snack, even a main dish or dessert.

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Sweet potatoes are one of nature’s best sources of beta-carotene, the provitamin-A carotenoid. And an adequate supply of Vitamin A ensures  proper growth and development, immune system function, and healthy eyesight. Vitamin A deficiency is estimated to affect roughly 1/3 of children under the age of 5 worldwide, leading to developmental problems, eyesight deficiencies, and blindness. However Vitamin A is fat-soluble, not water-soluble, which makes it harder for your body to get rid of excess, leading to the possibility of toxicity if over-supplemented. Always ask a doctor or physician before starting a supplement regimen.

Not all sweet potatoes are orange, they can also be purple due to anthocyanin pigments. These molecules have important antioxidant properties and anti-inflammatory properties. World’s Healthiest Foods states: “Particularly when passing through our digestive tract, they may be able to lower the potential health risk posed by heavy metals and oxygen radicals.”

They also clear up the common confusion: sweet potato vs. yam. They can be very similar in terms of size, shapes, and skin colors, though they both come in a variety of flesh colors. Turns out, sweet potatoes are FAR more common in the US than are yams, so at a store it is pretty safe to assume you are buying a sweet potato, even if a sign says “yams”.

Anywho, sweet potatoes were on sale, and I wanted to incorporate more into my diet, so I bought a few. Luckily they keep for a long time so I could figure out what to do with it. Turns out, these can be the simplest snack ever. Simply take one to work with you, and whenever you need a tide-me-over between lunch and quittin time, or breakfast and end-of-board-meeting, pop it in the microwave, top as you please, and you have a filling, healthy snack. This is a sweet treat, though you could go savory instead with, say, goat cheese.

Ingredients:

  • 1 small-med sweet potato
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • -or- 1 tbsp sugar + 1 tsp cinnamon

So simple, just stab the potato a few times with a fork to let steam escape. Microwave the potato for 8-10 minutes, until soft. Break it open, drizzle on some honey, and enjoy! With about 100 calories per cup, this is a super healthy choice all around.

Try using sweet potatoes anywhere you would use regular potatoes for extra fiber and vitamins. Make sweet potato chips, roast chunks in the oven as a side dish, boil and mash them with some brown sugar and butter (just be careful of amounts, it’s easy to overwhelm the health benefits with sugar and fat!), throw some into soups, stews, and curries. See how you can creatively add some sweet potatoes into your 4th of July festivities!

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Review

Winery Review: Balistreri Vineyards

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Long known for its microbreweries and beer, Colorado is gaining traction in the winery business. Many small, local wineries have been sprouting up all over the Front Range and growing in popularity. From the Manitou Springs Wine Festival to the Denver Urban Wine Fest and  Denver International Wine Festival, to the Colorado Mountain Winefest in September, the Colorado appreciation for fermented fruit is gaining momentum.

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“The Colorado Association for Viticulture and Enology (CAVE) is a member-based association that exists to encourage and support enology and viticulture in Colorado.” If you’re interested in viticulture, especially in the state of Colorado, check out their extensive website.

One local winery that has been a huge success since it’s opening in 2011 is Balistreri Vineyards, located at  1946 E. 66th Avenue. A local family business, they have been awarded medal after medal in local, national, and international wine competitions. Originally farmers, then owners of a large greenhouse, the family realized the cut flower and potted plant industry near home was taking a turn for the worse. They decided to tear down the dozens of greenhouses and build a little wooden building to house the beginnings of their winery.

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This is the back of the winery in the winter. A large yard space is surrounded by a terraced walkway which is wrapped in lights in the winter and greenery in the summer. There is a raised stage on which bands could perform, or a couple could say their wedding vows.

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Inside the remodeled and expanded building, there is a giant hall to hold a few hundred guests, a fully functional kitchen, and a beautiful picture-perfect staircase leading up to the bride’s and grooms chambers. It is a perfect set-up for a wedding, and so picturesque to boot.

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This is just a sampling of the many award-winning wines Balistreri has produced. They specialize in bold, fruit-forward reds and dry, refreshing whites. If you go in the tasting room you can sample their entire line-up of wines. “The Winery is open for Wine Tasting, Winery Tours & Lunch seven days a week from 11:00am-5:00pm.”

The tours are fascinating and informative. All wine-making and aging is done in house. The basement is filled floor to ceiling with giant oak barrels, housing future Balistreri wines.

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These barrels are majority American oak, with a few specialty barrels from time to time for seasonal and special wines. For example, two barrels that previously housed whiskey hold future port at the moment, to give unique flavors and aromas to the finished products.

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They also hand-fill and cork all their wine bottles here, with huge ancient metal machines.

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And the final, finishing touch: a swirl of wax to seal the top of the bottle. Keeps it fresh, and classy.

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Demonstrating how to wax the bottle.

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After your tour and/or tasting, if you’re feeling hungry or too buzzed to drive home yet, they have a wonderful lunch menu with everything from small tastes and cheese trays to full meals of salads, sandwiches, and pastas.

IMG_9435 These are the bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almonds. They were sweet and a little bit salty, absolutely delicious. Every plate is served with fresh ciabatta and dipping oil.

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This is the roasted pear salad with dried fruits, goat cheese, candied nuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. The bed of arugula provided the perfect bite to the sweet fruit and balsamic, and I’m a sucker for anything with goat cheese.

The service is quick, and they are very attentive. Water glasses are kept refilled, and you can of course have a glass of any of their wines with lunch. Oh, and if you go on the tour after the tasting, they will pour you a glass of your favorite to take with you!

The location is fabulous, with the exception of the overall location. They family farm was in the same place for decades, but around it has sprung up the industrial heart of commerce city. Thus, the picturesque porch and trellises surround a lovely sitting area, right next to which drive giant semi trucks and various construction vehicles. The business next door rents cranes, whose long metal bodies you see peeking over the winery’s back fence.

I have not attended any special events, but I know they have many. A wine and dinner with a projected romance movie, live music, and harvest festivals are only a few of the yearly offerings. Check their website often for updates.

They also have a wine club, which offers two levels of membership, access to new releases and special edition wines, and great discounts. Especially if you live in the area you should consider it, as you get even more discounts for picking up your wines rather than shipping them.

 

Overall, I would rate Balistreri Winery as:

  • Taste: 8
  • Atmosphere: 8
  • Value: 6

As a reminder, for reviews the evaluations are based on:

  • Taste: 1 (wet toast) – 10 (your taste buds have died and gone to heaven)
  • Atmosphere: 1 (gas station bathroom) – 10 (best you’ve ever experienced)
  • Value: 1 (not worth it) – 10 (super duper deal)

All opinions are those of the Budget Epicurean. Please enjoy responsibly.