Barley-lentil stew with prosciutto & dill: $1.83/serving

As mentioned in previous posts, we were gifted a family-sized CSA box a few weeks ago, and were able to make use of every single item in it…except for half a bunch of dill. (The other half went into two loaves of dill-olive bread.) Dill is pretty far down the list of my favorite herbs. In fact, it may well be at or near the bottom. It’s mostly known for going well with seafood, which I hate, and/or eggs cooked by themselves, which I also hate, leaving few options for use (other than pickles, of course). Luckily I was able to find one. Yes, it’s a stew, which isn’t exactly the most appealing meal in late August, but the yogurt and dill combine to give it a coolness that somehow seems perfectly appropriate.

Farfalle with bacon, goat cheese, rosemary & arugula: $1.77/serving

As I’ve mentioned before, pregnant folks are not supposed to eat soft cheeses—goat cheese, blue cheese, Brie, et al.—due to the risk of contracting listeria. Never mind that most commercial soft cheeses available in grocery stores are made from pasteurized milk, and that the listeria danger comes chiefly from unpasteurized milk. It’s kind of like the alcohol thing…yes, studies show a beer or a glass of wine here and there isn’t going to cause any harm, but WHAT IF? It doesn’t matter how irrational the claim. If you’re pregnant, you’ve been told not to do something, and you’re even the slightest bit neurotic to begin with, there’s no way you’ll be able to bring yourself to do it. And so it is with me and eating goat cheese that hasn’t been cooked. This means any consumption of goat cheese (and there can’t not be consumption of goat cheese; I’ve given up a lot of things, but that’s not going to be one of them) must be worked into an existing dinner somehow, like the cheese-stuffed mac ’n’ cheese pie, or this pasta, which I admit I was kind of obsessed with even before I went and got myself knocked up.

Corn & prosciutto crisp: $1.92/serving

I usually make this savory crisp when corn is fully in season and something like 5 ears for $1 (I rarely grow it myself for that very reason; it probably costs more than that to water it), but given that I had some prosciutto left over from the gorgonzola- and prosciutto-stuffed chicken breast with strawberry-balsamic sauce, I thought I’d roll the dice and see if I could find some early-season corn on the cheap. I indeed did find some, but it was hard and pale; not the juicy, yellow sweet corn I was wishfully expecting, even though I don’t recall ever seeing it before July. I ended up having to buy a bag of frozen corn, which, while never as good as fresh, certainly is better than tasteless and unripe. Anyhow, this is a great light, unexpected summer meal when paired with a salad, or works well as a side dish for grilled chicken or other meats when plain ol’ corn on the cob won’t do.

French onion soup with bacon: $1.52/serving

For some reason I’ve been really craving French onion soup this week. Trashy French onion soup—extra-cheesy, extra sweet. It’s been hot (read: not soup weather), but as anyone who’s been pregnant knows, once there’s a craving, it doesn’t ever really go away until it’s fulfilled. The budget obviously precludes going out and ordering food at a restaurant like a normal person, so my only solution was to spend part of an 80-degree day sweating over the stove. Thankfully, it was worth it. This is a much different take on the French onion soup I made a few months ago; sweeter, with a little smoke from added bacon. (In the past I’ve complained that bacon overwhelms the soup, but this time I only added a tiny bit and it was perfect.)

Roasted celery root and bacon soufflé: $1.80/serving

I make quite a few savory dinner soufflés on the $35-a-week budget, both because we can use our backyard hens’ eggs and because it’s a great blank canvas for odds and ends. This week’s stockpile consisted of a few stray frozen strips of bacon and a nice, firm celery root I bought after failing to locate any other appealing in-season vegetables. (It probably doesn’t help that I hate asparagus, which is everywhere right now. How someone decided that stuff was edible will forever be beyond my comprehension.) I knew the two flavors would work well together after the success of February’s celery root and beer soup, so I figured I’d try them out in a new format. I have to say, it definitely worked; roasting the celery root allowed for a concentrated-enough flavor to stand up to the bacon, and using bacon fat as a base for the béchamel infused the whole thing with noticeable but unobtrusive hints of pork and smoke. Très délicieux!

Stir-fried cabbage with ginger, chilies and rice: 70 cents/serving

This is not the first time I’ve set out to prove that if you have a head of cabbage, 20 minutes, and some pantry staples, you have a meal (see: pickled cabbage stir-fry, white beans and cabbage), but it bears repeating because this dish is so surprisingly good and involves so few ingredients. And in addition to costing under $1 per serving, it’s versatile—B. had leftovers the next day on bread with a fried egg on top and declared them even better than the night before. It may not be the photogenic bowl of food, but part of this is because the cabbage is so well-cooked and deeply flavored that it doesn’t even look like cabbage anymore, let alone taste like it.

Polenta with mushroom bourguignon: $1.37/serving

You may have noticed a dearth of beef recipes in the lineup lately. This is because it’s been quite some time—months, actually—since I’ve been able to locate a new cache of beef for under $2.99 a pound. There’s none left in our chest freezer, and grocery store discount- and sale-bin searches have come up empty. Thankfully, this beefless beef bourguignon was so satisfying that I hardly miss it. Mushrooms have a lot of the same flavor compounds as beef, so they make a fantastic (not to mention healthier) substitute in both this recipe and many others that call for beef. Try it!

French onion soup: 84 cents/serving

I am, admittedly, a French onion soup fanatic. I order it whenever I spot it on a menu, whether it’s an upscale French brasserie or a strip-mall Red Robin, and I’m constantly trying to perfect my own version. I’ve tried recipes with bacon (overwhelms everything), recipes with Vidalias or Walla Walla sweets (too cloying), recipes using a mixture of chicken broth and beef broth (too thin-tasting), red onions versus yellow onions, $25-a-pound Gruyère versus store-brand Swiss cheese, you name it. The perfect French onion soup, in my mind, should be beefy and full-bodied, cheesy but not all about the cheese, and redolent with caramelized-onion flavor without being too sweet. And, at long last, I believe I’ve been able to strike that balance, using an ingredient I actually had set aside for another dish.

Spaghetti with bacon & greens: $1.76/serving

What many people out there might not know is that the kitchen in our house, which was built in the early 1940s and is otherwise very charming and spacious, is about the size of a very small walk-in closet. There are 4 very small cupboards, requiring us to keep most of our gadgets and pots in the basement, and the counter space comprises about 2 square feet—enough room for one plate or one pot, with the stove and edge of the sink serving as auxiliary work surfaces. As you can imagine, this prompts much teeth-gnashing on my part, as well as constant dishwashing diligence. Sometimes, due to circumstances beyond our control, the latter does not get done, as was the case this weekend. Therefore, this may not be the most inexpensive meal we eat this week, but it’s certainly the quickest and easiest. It doesn’t take but 20 minutes from start to finish—and I mean “start” as in taking the package of bacon out of the freezer, not putting food in a pan. Any pasta shape or type of greens are suitable, and you could even swap out the bacon for Italian sausage and balsamic vinegar for a few splashes of white wine if that’s what you have on hand.

Celery root and beer soup: $1.43/serving

When we were in San Francisco a couple months ago, one night we ended up at Outerlands, a restaurant in the Outer Sunset that happens to be known for its soup. As I’ve mentioned before, celery root is one of my favorite root vegetables of all time, and there was actually a celery root soup on the menu. Our neighborhood stores at home do not carry celery root, so I was practically beside myself. When I ordered it, however, I tasted plenty of cream and salt, but no celery root to speak of. It could’ve been potato soup for all I knew. This experience has been bothering me for two months. I knew if I could just get my hands on some celery root, I could make the very celery root soup I wished I had had that night. And believe it or not, dear reader, this weekend I found some celery root. It was probably the most paltry, mangy, past-its-prime celery root in the state (at least, of the celery roots not currently residing in a dumpster or landfill), but to me it was victory.