Peach Salsa

Plan to make this fruity salsa early in the day or the day before for best flavor. Serve this tasty peach salsa with grilled or pan-fried pork, fish, or chicken.
Ingredients:

4 small peaches, peeled and diced
Juice of 2 limes, about 1/4 cup juice
2 teaspoons honey
2 to 3 tablespoons diced red bell pepper
1 tablespoon finely minced [...]

Great googly moogly, it’s been a big week here at the castle. (Yes, we live in a castle. The internet connection’s a little spotty, but the gruel is fantastic.) Thank you times infinity to both Lifehacker and BoingBoing, and to readers both old and new. It’s been wonderful.

And with that, the links!

1) Money Saving Mom
How I Plan My Freezer Cooking Day + Free Planning Worksheets!
31 Days to a Better Grocery Budget: Stop Making Excuses and Commit to Change
Crystal is on a massive roll this week, and listing all the stellar posts would take up about half this countdown. These two are just the first parts of ongoing series, which can be found all over her site. Get over there and start saving gazillions.

2) Get Rich Slowly: A Cautionary Tale
Oh no he di’int! Guest poster Maria spills the tale of her ex-boyfriend, an emotional and financial leech. The story is simultaneously shocking and relatable, not least because it illustrates the difficulty of maintaining economic objectivity in relationships. A great read, though some of the thread commentary might make you choke on your orange.

3) Stonesoup: Tips for Kitchen Glory – How to Get Rave Reviews for Your Cooking
In its own way, prepping a tasty meal can be a lot like standup comedy. It’s a skill (writing/cooking) with a valuable outcome (laughs/food) for which you receive recognition (clapping/burps). In this neat little post, Jules tells us how to increase the kudos.

4) Consumerist: Restaurant Bans Customer for Not Tipping Enough
Long story short: regular customer with a history of stiffing servers is charged an out-of-nowhere mandatory 18% gratuity on her party of three. She complains, and next time she shows, the restaurant refuses to seat her unless she coughs up an 18% tip. On one hand, tipping is voluntary. On the other hand, if you can’t tip, you shouldn’t eat out in the first place. (Edited because I got my facts wrong. Thanks, Krista and Anon.)

5) New York Times: Don’t Tell the Kids
Full disclosure: I had a bunny burrito once, and it was delicious. So this article on the re-emergence of rabbits as versatile, delicious, recession-ready meat made me salivate a little. Sorry, Bugs.

6) The Kitchn: How-to Tutorials Galore Home Hacks Roundup
The Kitchn comps their multitude of February posts on basic culinary skillz. As always, it’s thorough, informative, useful, and accompanied by a beautiful picture of an otherwise messy task.

7) The Atlantic: Europe to Antioxidants – Take a Hike
This one’s a bit dense, but essentially: you know how food manufacturers label their products with stuff like “A great source of ANTIOXIDANTS!” or “We shot this full of ANTIOXIDANTS, even though we’re not really sure what they do outside of foods in which they naturally occur!” European regulators aren’t standing for it. Tres bien! Molto buono! Sehr gut! However you say “very good” in Swedish!

Grist: Study suggests Junk Food Taxes May Beat Healthy Food Subsidies
Fascinating. In a recent study, psychologists created their own grocery store and told a bunch of moms to buy food for a week. They discovered two things:

1. When they lowered the cost of healthy food (simulating a subsidy), the mothers bought a little more of it, but spent the savings on junk food.
2. When they raised the prices of junk food (simulating a tax), the same women cut back on junk and bought significantly more healthy food.

It means (for the purposes of this single study) that taxing junk is more effective than subsidizing the good stuff. Hunh.

9) New York Times: Bridezillas on a Diet
Around 70% of brides-to-be try to drop weight before the big day, and about a third use dangerous methods (pills, fasts, etc.). Not good. But more importantly, can we drop the term “bridezilla” already, since it’s now being used as a code word for “engaged woman who expresses a preference about something”? Yeah, some ladies morph into buttercream-crazed harpies, but most of us are happy to be having a big honkin’ party. It’s reductive, man. (Does saying that make me a bridezilla?)

10) Weight Watchers: The Most Flavorful Cheeses
Fellow OPs, you have a friend in cheeses. Sweet/savory piece via Words to Eat By’s own Debbie Koenig.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

AV Club: Taste Test - Durian
Denizens of The Onion try the world’s stinkiest fruit and document their reactions. My favorite: “It looks like a bunch of baby aliens inside. I keep expecting them to turn over and say ‘mama.’”

Food Politics: Research Alert - Childhood Obesity and How to Fix it
Marion Nestle: compiling relevant articles about a significant political initiative, so you don’t have to.

Chicago Tribune: New charge on dinner tab is in bad taste
Some San Francisco eateries are adding surcharges to bills, claiming they’re for the waitstaff’s health insurance. It’s kind of like the IRS taxing you, “for our kids education.”

New York Times: The Claim – To Cut Calories, Eat Slowly
Grandma was right. Again. In fact, the only thing she was ever wrong about was this newfangled rock & roll.

NY Daily News: Rich Icelandic couple sued by former tenants for installing ‘ugly’ Ikea kitchen
Unrevealed in the article: the rich couple’s names are Tyler Durden and Marla Singer.

Slashfood: Does Cooking Make us Human?
Ha! Suck it, monkeys!

AND ALSO

“This Too Shall Pass” by OK Go
This is all over the interwebs, and deservedly so. MAKE Magazine designed a complex, delightful, four-minute Rube Goldberg contraption for OK Go’s latest video, which appears to be filmed in one take. Mind blowing.

(Photos courtesy of Make Friends with Food.)

Thank you so much for visiting Cheap Healthy Good! (We appreciate it muchly). If you’d like to further support CHG, subscribe to our RSS feed! Or become a Facebook friend! Or check out our Twitter! Or buy something inexpensive, yet fulfilling via that Amazon store (on the left)! Bookmarking sites and links are nice, too. Viva la France!

First off, I want to thank everyone for the flood of adjunct comments and emails that I received most my terminal entry! I rattling can’t impart how such every of your hearty wishes means to me. This journal has been a huge conception of my chronicle ever since play it most eight months ago. It’s brought me so such joy and happiness. I’ve never been so passionate most anything before in my entire life, and I’m depressing most having to place it on the backwards burner for a while…But I verify you that I am disagreeable rattling hornlike to queue up whatever posts so that I crapper ease continue to deal recipes with every of you patch I’m away. So, gratify don’t conceive that I’m feat to desert blogging every unitedly until June. The posts will be spasmodic and less frequent. But I prospect that I’ll be bill here and there, so not to worry! I’m compassionate if I afraid whatever of you into thinking that I was feat completely MIA for threesome months straight! It’s genuine that I won’t hit a kitchen and won’t be healthy to cook, but I’ll hit recipes/pictures ransomed up so that I crapper ease journal occasionally patch I’m in Cali. =)Ok, so onto today’s recipe! These look same some dull older youngster butter cookies, right? Wrong! They’re what I same to call “Peanut Butter Cookies Surprise!” What’s the info ingredient, you ask? Tee hee. You’ll never guess! And you probably won’t modify believe me until you wager the travel by travel photos for yourself, but it’s hour other than:KETCHUP!Bet you did a threefold take, didn’t you? =) And I look the prototypal abstract that came to nous was “yuck!” hehe. Because I undergo that’s meet what I thought, too, when I prototypal saw the recipe.Ok, so here’s how this full peanut-butter-ketchup-cookie abstract came to be: terminal week, a man blogger, Mike of Good Things About Living discover West, emailed me a picture of the following condiment bottle that he came crossways patch grocery shopping:I was directly intrigued and went to the website to analyse discover the recipes. WOW. Incredibly, they place condiment in a lot of favourite desserts! I’m talking: apple pie, cookies, and cakes! The PB cookies were so especially foul sounding that I had to heat them immediately- meet to, you know, prove that they were disgusting. lol.So Mike and I decided to do a collaborative journal send where we’d both essay digit of the condiment cake recipes and place on the same day! That way, we crapper permit our readers undergo how TWO condiment course recipes panned out! Fun! So attain trusty to analyse discover his journal for Spice Ketchup cookies.Ok, here goes nothing! In the fiber of unearthly kitchen experiments, I give you: PB Ketchup Cookies!It started discover innocently enough. Combine the parched ingredients.In a removed bowl, toiletries unitedly butter, sugar, and youngster butter.Now comes the info ingredient! And an egg. Eww. I was definitely opinion thoroughly displeased at this point! hehe. =)But it every integrated unitedly quite nicely, and I couldn’t smell the condiment anymore. I took it as a beatific sign and touched correct along.Combine the parched ingredients until well incorporated.Place rounds onto a parchment paper unsmooth cake sheet.Dip a subfigure into whatever flour……then advise it into the dough.Make lowercase “tic tac toe” lines on the cookies with your fork. Then imbibe them into the 375F oven for most 8-10 minutes.When I proven these, I rattling carefully place 1/4 of a cake into my mouth. As did Hubby. We were expecting it to be entirely disgusting, but to our surprise, it wasn’t! =)They actually tasted same some older PB cake and you rattling couldn’t detect such of a difference unless you knew it was there. There was meet a sliiiight suggestion of something, and it tasted more same a spice than anything added - not same condiment anything!The crumb of the cake was nice, though! It was caretaker soft and had a great texture. Wow, who would’ve intellection to place condiment in a PB cookie!Are these meliorate than regular PB cookies? Probably not. They’re toothsome cookies, but not superior in some way. But wouldn’t it be recreation to heat up a collection and hit your friends essay to surmisal what the info ingredient was?? I undergo I had recreation doing so! They’ll be in so such damper when you verify them that you meet fed them a cake prefabricated with ketchup! =)All in all, it was a pretty recreation experiment! And they were pretty yummy, as every PB cookies are. Give it a spin meet for fun!Click HERE for the recipe.
Read more….

I’m attempting to feed my 6-foot, 205-pound fiancé for one week for $25. This is our story.

Folks, we’re done. Wrapped. Fini. If this experiment was The Beatles, today is Let it Be. (Or Abbey Road, depending on what country you occupy.) We’re mostly pretty triumphant, and came in a penny under the $25, which I will now frame and hang in the shower.

There’s a ton coming tomorrow - conclusions, a shopping list, an exit interview – so we’re gonna cut straight to the numbers and a few notes tonight. Hope they’re informative, and we’ll see y’all soon!

DAY 7 TOTALS: 2575 calories, 98.3 g fat, 43 g fiber, $3.72
GRAND PRICE TOTAL: $24.99

BREAKFAST
2 servings Maple Morning Polenta: 516 calories, 9.2 g fat, 8.2 g fiber, $0.63
1 banana: 121 calories, 0.4 g fat, 3.5 g fiber, $0.23
TOTALS: 637 calories, 9.6 g fat, 11.7 g fiber, $0.86
PREP TIME: 10 minutes

LUNCH
1 serving Traditional Mashed Potatoes (skim milk): 250 calories, 9 g fat, 3.7 g fiber, $0.17
1/2 serving Easy Vegetarian Bean Chili: 122 calories, 3.3 g fat, 4.6 g fiber, $0.35
2/3 cup mixed baby greens: 5 calories, 0 g fat, 1 g fiber, $0.20
1/2 tablespoon olive oil: 60 calories, 6.7 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.06
1 teaspoon red wine vinegar: 0 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.01
2 ounces chicken breast: 62 calories, 6.8 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.21
3 Snickerdoodles: 450 calories, 20.4 g fat, 1.5 g fiber, $0.30
TOTALS: 949 calories, 46.2 g fat, 10.8 g fiber, $1.30
PREP TIME: Made most of it during breakfast, plus 5 minutes

DINNER
3 jumbo eggs: 287 calories, 19.3 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.63
1 medium potato (5,7 oz): 157 calories, 0.2 g fat, 3.7 g fiber, $0.11
1 tablespoon veggie oil: 124 calories, 14 g fat, 0 g fiber, $0.09
1/3 onion, minced: 15 calories, 0 g fat, 0.5 g fiber, $0.10
1/2 cup spinach: 15 calories, 0 g fat, 0.5 g fiber, $0.10
1 banana: 121 calories, 0.4 g fat, 3.5 g fiber, $0.23
TOTAL: 719 calories, 33.9 g fat, 8.2 g fiber, $1.26
PREP TIME: About 30 minutes

DESSERT
2 servings Roasted Chickpeas: 270 calories, 8.6 g fat, 12.3 g fiber, $0.30
TOTALS: 270 calories, 8.6 g fat, 12.3 g fiber, $0.30
PREP TIME: 35 minutes, mostly roasting

NOTES

• Dinner was a spinach frittata, home fries, and a banana. I loves me some frittatas because they’re easy and look good. Which is also how I like my men. (HAHAHAHA sorry.)
• He’s a big fan of breakfast in general, but the Maple Morning Polenta was a real hit with the Husband-Elect. I don’t know if it’s the taste or his love affair with corn products, but I’ll take it.
• I finally kicked the Chili tonight. Henceforth, it will be called Infinity Chili.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Fattening!: Over 150 Ridiculously Easy Recipes for the Super Busy
by Devin Alexander
2,718% Sales Rank in Books: 54 (was 1,522)
Release Date: March 9, 2010

Buy new: $13.49

(Ranking is updated hourly. Visit the Movers & Shakers in Books list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Review & Description

From the New York Times Bestselling author of The Biggest Loser cookbooks: amazingly simple, super-speedy, and decadent recipes that taste sinful but are 100 percent guilt-free
 
Devin Alexander lives by the motto that “twenty minutes in the kitchen can save you 3 hours on the treadmill!” The chef and author of The Biggest Loser Cookbook  has maintained a weight loss of fifty-five pounds for almost twenty years by transforming the decadent dishes that we all crave into fantastic lo-cal indulgences.  Now, she shows us how to make those mouthwatering favorites in mere minutes. Because—let’s face it, we want what we want and we want it NOW!
 
With simple, super easy-to-follow recipes for delectable dishes such as Unbelievable Easy Chicken Parmesan, Carmelized Apple Buuter-Topped Pork Chops, Bacon Cheeseburger,  and even a Peppermint Brown “Pizza,” you can now whip up fantastic, slimming meals in the time it would take to go through the drive-thru.Featured Recipe: Chicken Breasts with Goat Cheese and Fire-Roasted Tomatoes

This dish is exceptionally easy to make and worth every second. That said, there is one thing to note: Be careful when checking the chicken for doneness. The tomatoes will likely drip into the chicken. If you cut into the chicken or poke it with a fork to test for doneness, be sure it’s not the liquid from the tomatoes making the chicken look pink even if it’s not.

Ingredients

• 4 (4-ounce) trimmed boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Sea salt and pepper, to taste
• Olive oil spray
• 1/2 cup canned, drained, diced fire-roasted tomatoes or fire-roasted tomatoes with garlic
• 2 ounces (about 1/2 cup) goat cheese crumbles
• 2 tablespoons finely slivered fresh basil leaves, or more to taste (optional)

(Serves 4)
Hands-on Time: 7 Minutes
Hands-off Time: 5 to 9 Minutes

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Place a medium ovenproof nonstick skillet over high heat. When it’s hot, lightly mist the skillet with spray and immediately add the chicken side by side to the pan so it does not touch. Cook the chicken just until it is golden brown on the outsides, 1 to 2 minutes per side.

Remove the pan from the heat and top each piece of chicken evenly with about 2 tablespoons of the tomatoes, followed by about 1/2 ounce of the cheese. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake the chicken until it is no longer pink inside and the cheese is melted, 5 to 9 minutes. Top evenly with the basil, if desired. Serve immediately.

Makes 4 servings. Each (1 topped breast) serving has: 171 calories, 29 g protein, 2 g carbohydrates, 4 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 72 mg cholesterol, trace fiber, 198 mg sodium

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