One of my favorite things to eat is fresh spring rolls so I have them at least once a month in various forms.  Although Eric loves them too, he’s not a huge fan of eating the same things several times in a row.  That’s where this salad comes in helpful.  If I have a bunch of noodles, julienne sliced veggies and lettuce in the fridge, I can throw this salad together in two minutes! Read more

The pilot series of the Healthy Cooking on a Tight Budget Program has been completed!  One purpose of the classes was to provide recipes using ingredients that are commonly turned down at the Food Bank because people don’t know how to use them.  The first item on that list was dried beans.  On my first day at the food bank the director handed me a couple bags of dried beans and I stared at them with a similar apprehension.  I know how to use them in soups and comforting winter time recipes, but what about in the summer?  Fortunately my friend Elise had the perfect recipe to try. Read more

Yesterday I promised you my first poached egg recipe, and today I deliver!  I could not get the idea of poached eggs and asparagus out of my head.  I don’t think I’ve ever had the two together before, but after the massive success of the asparagus frittata, I knew eggs and asparagus are definitely a happy pairing.  So it just made sense to try using poached eggs, one of my favorite ways to eat an egg. Read more

I’m always on the lookout for easy asparagus recipes.  Asparagus is one of those vegetables Eric and I can’t get enough of, so I buy it in huge quantities, then find myself frantically working it into every meal to use it before it goes bad.  Often that means a lot of roast asparagus and using it in pasta, risotto or curry.  Then I got an incredibly useful cookbook in the mail called The Vegetarian Option, and found this inspired recipe for an asparagus frittata. Read more

When you’re on a tight budget, shrimp is a rare treat.  Even buying them in bulk usually leads to a price tag of 25 cents a piece, which means when you eat them you typically want something spectacular.  Sometimes I’ll chop up 2-3 shrimp a person and stretch them in a salad, curry, or soup.  But one of my favorite ways to eat shrimp is hot off the grill. Read more