It is cooked slowly in tomato, pepper, onion, and celery. The tomato helps to tenderize the meat. The flavor of this is incredible, totally understandable that it was so popular with Mrs. Cleaver’s crowd back in the day.  One thing I changed that I really loved was I added a chopped Poblano pepper in place of the bell pepper. Added just a touch of spice, and caused my tastebuds to pay attention.

I got the round steaks for 50 percent off on clearance. You know, have some recipes that you can pull out when you find a great deal like that. For the eight of us this Swiss steak dinner was less than five dollars. I was happy and so was my budget.

In a tough economy it is a good idea to browse cookbooks from the earlier decades of the 1900s for frugal recipes. So many of them have been forgotten. I hope you will give this a try. You can make it in the oven as I did here, or in a slow cooker.

Swiss Steak

• 3 to 4 pounds of round steak
• 2 slices of bacon
• 1/2 cup flour
• 2  1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• Drippings from bacon
• Olive oil as needed
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 poblano pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped carrots
• 2 lbs canned organic tomatoes
• 1 cup water or beef broth

1. Preheat the oven to 300
2. Cook the bacon until crisp, remove bacon from pan but leave drippings
3. Pound meat until thin with a tenderizer
4. Mix flour, salt, and pepper
5. Dredge the meat in the flour
6. Add about 2 tbs of olive oil to pan with bacon drippings
7. Heat oil  until it shimmers a bit, add steak
8. Fry until just golden
9. Flip and fry on the other side.
10. Repeat with all steaks. You may need to add a little more olive oil
11. Lay steaks in a 13 x 9 inch pan
12. Cover with crumbled bacon, peppers, carrots, onions,  and celery.
13. Pour tomatoes over  and add broth or water.
14. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours.

Serves 8 (freezes well)

image: Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights

One thing that I get asked over and over again is how much groceries cost us.  The cost more since I have been working because I tend to buy some things I used to make form scratch but for our family of 8 (which includes at least 3 very big eaters) and three cats and a dog we spend about 600.00 a month.

Now, that does not include milk or eggs because we have goats and chickens for that.  The total bill for animal feed, including hay, runs about 60.00 a month.  That gives us 3 1/2 gallons of organic milk a week (at the moment, in the spring it is more and in a month or so the does will be dry until spring), and about 15 organic eggs a day in the summer and 9 eggs a day in the winter months.  I think I save about 80 dollars a month by having the animals.

All in all I think that I am pretty frugal..but I am sure there are lots of people doing better than I am.  Anyway, one thing I have learned to do is to create a meal from something I find on clearance.  For example, I got this piece of beef on sale for 30% off the lowest price..which made it $2.13

Obviously on it’s own it isn’t enough to make a meal for 8 people on.  But with a few additions it is filling, yummy and the whole meal, including green beans and salad as  sides, cost less than 1.00 a person…AND everyone was stuffed.

This is my entry for Presto Pasta Nights.  Ruth (Once Upon a Feast) is hosting this week so be sure and check out the great pasta ideas that everyone came up with. Pasta is a great way to fill up kids and save money, too!

Fajita Casserole 

serves 8 to 10 generously

1 lb bag of pasta, any shape cooked

1/2 to 1 lb of beef, sliced thin as for stir fry.

1 green pepper, chopped

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 tbs or more Fajita seasoning

1 tsp cumin

1 jalapeno, sliced (optional) or 1 tbs chipotle chopped (optional)

1 large can diced tomatoes

1/2  cup shredded cheddar

Sprinkle the beef with fajita seasoning and allow to stand for 30 minutes or up to several hours covered in the fridge.

Saute with the garlic, peppers, and onion in a pan until the meat is cooked but still tender.  Add tomatoes and cumin and pasta and simmer until heated through.  Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and serve.

Let’s recap…

meat-2.13

tomatoes 1.29

cheese .50 maybe

vegetables and spices 1.00

That works out to just over 61 cents per person…

images:marye audet

Post from: Baking Delights

This is my entry for this week’s presto pasta.  It’s kind of embarrassing because it is so simple that there isn’t even really a recipe.

A few weeks ago I was given a large amount of on-the-edge tomatoes.  I tossed them in the crockpot with garlic, basil, oregeno, onion, and various other sauce ingredients, let them simmer for several hours, and then pureed them and canned them in quart jars.  It was alot of work but I was so glad to have created 8 quarts of free spagetti sauce base!

Things have been nuts around here with the last quarter of the cookbook (sprint, Marye, sprint!) and Matt starting college and totally messing up my schedule…again.. I miss the days when the kids were small and life was predictible.  Anyway..for the first time in memory I have things like leftovers in the fridge. I know, I know..it is so WEIRD!

Yesterday we had a little of this and a little of that…some zucchini but not enough for a meal, part of an onion, a couple of green peppers…..I immediately thought of a fresh pasta sauce with all of those great vegetables tossed in.  There is almost no way I can give you a recipe for this because I used homemade sauce, and then leftovers…but you can do the same thing.  The best way to put this together is to use the crockpot on low for about 4 to 6 hours.

Lots of great vegetables do well in a pasta sauce, so when you have one limp carrot, for example, chop it, grate it, or slice it and toss it in to the sauce. Vegetables that I have used are:

• zucchini
• yellow squash
• carrots
• celery
• spinach
• onion
• shallots
• leeks
• mushrooms
• okra
• peppers of all sorts
• eggplant
• tomatoes
• chopped green beans

Add whatever you like to the sauce and toss in some basil, oregeno, salt, pepper, garlic, a stem of rosemary, about 2 tablespoons good olive oil…cooked leftover meat..shrimp…whatever …(told you this was easy)…

After it has filled the house with an incredible aroma for several hours,  cook enough pasta a la dente for your family and spoon the sauce over the pasta and serve…

This doesn’t even feel like a real recipe..LOL!

It is a great way to get rid of all the leftovers and have an easy meal that everyone will love!

Image:Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights