Here is another great salmon recipe with a Mexican twist, and perhaps the best recipe for quinoa that I’ve found yet. In case you have never heard of quinoa, it is a super healthy ancient Incan grain that makes for a nice change from brown rice or cous cous.

All of these recipes were published in the March/April issue of Clean Eating, and live up to the magazine’s (and Recession Recipes’s) mantra of consuming food in its most natural state, or as close as possible to it. Thankfully in addition to being good for you, these recipes also taste just plain delicious.

Salmon Roasted in Cilantro Salsa – Feeds 6 at $2.56 per serving
1 poblano pepper
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
2 green onions, sliced
1 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon canola or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon seat salt
6 3-oz salmon fillets, skinned

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. While you are waiting for the oven to heat up, roast the poblano pepper by laying it directly on a gas burner, beneath an oven broiler, or on a bbq grill. You want to roast the pepper until the skin blisters and turns black. I always love doing this because it feeds my inner pyro tendencies, but I get to be productive while burning things

Once the poblano pepper is totally charred, place it in a brown paper bag (I like using old grocery bags), and close it up so the pepper’s skin can loosen from the steam. Once it cools, take the pepper out of the bag and rub off the blackened skin under running water. Pat the pepper dry and then split it open and scrape out the seeds and interior ribs, and pull off the stem.

Cut the poblano into thin strips, and put them in a blender with the lime juice, onions, cilantro, oil, and salt. Whiz it all up until it becomes a puree. I like putting in a ton more cilantro and lime juice so the sauce gets really thick and smothers the salmon when it is cooked.

Place the salmon in a baking dish just large enough to fit the fillets. Pour the cilantro salsa from the blender over the salmon, and turn the fish to coat it on both sides. Bake the fish, uncovered, until the salmon is cooked–around 20 to 30 minutes–depending on how you like your fish cooked. I would start checking it around the 20 minute cooking point to see how it looks and then keep on checking every five minutes. It is kind of hard to over cook the salmon because of the salsa which helps keep things extra moist. To serve, spoon salsa from the pan over the top of each fillet of salmon.

Quinoa Sopa Seco – Feeds 6 people at 57 cents per serving
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup quinoa
Pinch sea salt
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/2 cup tomatoes, seeded and chopped (or halved cherry tomatoes)

In a medium saute pan with a lid, warm the oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and pepper and cook, stirring, until soft, for about 5 minutes. Add the oregano and garlic, and cook for 30 seconds. Stir in the quinoa, then pour in 2 cups water and add the salt.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the grains show opaque lines around the edges, around 12 minutes. Turn off the heat and stir in the peas and tomatoes. Cover the pan again and let stand until the vegetables are warmed through, about 5 minutes. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Cucumber-Avocado Salsa - Serves 6 at 26 cents per serving
1/2 regular cucumber (not English), peeled and diced
1 medium avocado, skin removed, seeded and diced
1 lime, cut in half and seeds removed
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 tablespoon red or white onions, minced
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon cilantro leaves, chopped

Place the cucumber and avocado in a medium bowl; then squeeze the lime juice over the top. Add the oil, onion, salt, and cilantro and stir gently. Serve immediately. This guacamole tastes great as a topping for the fish, but I think it can hold its own to any guac recipe so I will definitely make it again to munch on with some tortilla chips.

Tah dah! The finished meal at $3.39 per serving. Delicious, healthy, and recession friendly for sure!

I’ve been back in Texas for the last week or so catching up with family and friends, and I just got back from the incredible Central Market grocery store in Fort Worth. Central Market was chockablock full of incredible produce, including tons of beautiful mangoes that are currently in season. I bought some mangoes to make Fish Tacos for my dad and brother tonight, and thought it would be appropriate to post this recipe for Mango Parfait–the perfect breakfast, snack, or dessert to showcase all of the succulent mangoes hitting the stores right now.

This Mango Parfait recipe serves six at 71 cents per serving, and was published in Clean Eating magazine, one of our favourite healthy cooking resources.

This recipe is really simple to make: get 2 cups of plain, nonfat Greek-style yogurt (THE best yogurt in my opinion because it is so thick and tangy) and mix in 2 tablespoons of honey or agave nectar to taste. Peel and cut up one large ripe mango, and place the cubed fruit in the bottom of six small tumbler-style glasses. Top each of the glasses with the yogurt-honey mixture and then sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of shredded unsweetened coconut that you have quickly toasted in a frying pan over a medium heat. The toasted coconut really ties everything together and adds a nice crunch to the smoothness of the yogurt and mango.

Alex pulled this recipe out of a Michael Chiarello cookbook a few years ago, and we’ve been making it regularly ever since. Fortunately, he’s also posted the recipe on his web site so you can grab it. It’s definitely one of our favorites. It’s good for a side dish at a barbecue, and even better as a snack to leave in the fridge, as the flavors keep mixing an intensifying.

This recipe serves four people at 78 cents per serving.

It couldn’t be easier to make: chop your garlic, celery, onions and parsley, then put them in a bowl with the chickpeas and mix. A few notes: I usually take it easy on the red onion at first, adding more if necessary, as I think the red onion can become a little overpowering. Also, for the minced Calabrian chiles, we generally just use some hot sauce like Cholula or some ground dried red Pequin chiles. And for the champagne vinegar, we generally substitute white wine vinegar. Finally, 6 tablespoons of olive oil strikes me as a lot for 2 cans of chickpeas, so again, I’d start with less and add more if you think it’s necessary. Keep in mind these sorts of things are really suggestions, so make it work for you. I usually put in way less oil and a bit more vinegar than in the recipe to give it some bite.

I like breakfast foods, so every weekend we try to make something yummy at least one morning. I first tried this recipe for Fried Egg with Sage, Chilli, and Garlicky Yoghurt a few months ago, and it became an instant favorite. The title doesn’t quite do it justice, I don’t think, and might sound a little odd, but trust us on this one, it’s amazing. It’s good, and it’s good value for brunchy-type breakfast foods at $1.12 per serving.

I’m getting pretty hungry just looking at this photo, to be honest.

It’s pretty simple and straightforward. First, make your garlicky yogurt by mixing some chopped garlic, olive oil and salt into the yogurt. Be sure to use Greek yogurt — if you try it with plain “normal” yogurt, it won’t be too good. If you use fat-free normal yogurt, it’ll be kinda gross (as I’ve found out). And take care with the amount of garlic, especially if you plan to be interacting with anybody later in the day! Then put the butter in a pan, and once it heats up, toss in your sage leaves (I like to use a few more than called for in the recipe), and fry them for a few minutes. They should get nice and crispy, and you’ll infuse the butter with their flavor. Meanwhile, slice your chiles. We usually use Fresno peppers (sometimes called red jalape?±os), but you can use whatever you have on hand or can find, or even just some hot sauce in a pinch.

Once your sage is fried, pour off the sage-infused butter into a bowl, then start frying your eggs in the same pan so they’ll pick up some of the flavor, too. Once they’re done, put some of the garlicky yogurt on your plate, then lay the eggs on top, and sprinkle over some of the sage butter and chiles. Put more of the yogurt on the side, because you’ll want more of it. Serve with some toast, and top it with any leftover sage butter.

I often have a problem with yogurt, it’s something with the texture that bothers me, but I have no problem with this dish. The garlicky yogurt tastes great, and in combo with the chiles and sage, it’s heavenly. This dish is really quick and easy to make, as well, and I’d gladly serve it to guests. With lots of breath mints for dessert

One of the very first recipes that I learned how to make 25 or so years ago–aside from scrambled eggs–was crepes, or English pancakes as they were known in my house. I think my mum taught me how to make them so I would stop asking her to make them all time since it seemed like I was the only one in the house who really loved them and wanted to eat them for breakfast and dessert most days. The rest of the family only really ate them to celebrate Pancake Day, which is still one of my most favourite holidays.

This recipe for crepes is so easy that even a 7 year old could make them. They taste delicious and I like them best served with a sprinkle of sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice, which is the classic English way to eat pancakes. This recipe makes 12 crepes and feeds six people at 26 cents per serving.

Put 1 cup of sieved flour in a large mixing bowl and add 3 eggs. Pour in enough milk to make the batter quite thin. I never measure the amount of milk, but rather eyeball it. It is better to err on the side of too thin than too thick–the thinner the batter, the thinner and better the crepes.

Place a frying pan to warm up over medium heat. You can use a variety of different things in which to cook the pancakes, including butter, vegetable oil, and even though it sounds gross, Crisco works really well for making pancakes. Be sure to add enough so the batter won’t stick when you place it in the pan. If you add too much oil, don’t worry because the first pancake will soak up all of the excess and you can just throw it away. I always plan for my first pancake to be a throwaway one and am pleasantly surprised if it comes out edible

Once the butter or oil has heated, pour in some of the batter and swish it around so a thin layer coats the bottom of the pan. Turn over the pancake with a spatula once the edges of the batter begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. The bulk of the cooking gets done on this side so when you flip it, you only need to quickly brown the other side. The first side always ends up a beautiful golden colour (see above) and the second side looks more spotty–don’t be too alarmed, they will still taste great and you can hide the spotted side when you fold or roll up the pancakes.

You can either make the pancakes and eat them immediately, or you can let them cool and then reheat them in the oven on a low heat. This reheating option works really well if you are making them for dessert at a dinner party. You can make them before your guests come over and then reheat them filled with whatever you want to stuff them with after you finish dinner.

The options on what to put inside your pancakes are only limited by your imagination! The night I made these crepes, I made one with grated chocolate and dulce de leche, and the other with fresh strawberries and a bit of grated chocolate. I topped them off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and they were a huge hit with our guests and Carlo.

I also love the classic French combo of nutella and banana crepes too! Don’t forget about savory fillings: some sliced smoked salmon, cream cheese, and dill make a perfect brunch filling option.

Have fun with your pancakes and don’t get too discouraged if they don’t turn perfectly the first couple of tries, practice certainly makes perfect when it comes to making pancakes.

I found this recipe in a newspaper in England probably about 10 years ago and go through phases of being able to locate it. I’m currently in the “no clue where it is” phase and can’t find it online, but I’ve made it so many times that I don’t really need it. In any case, this is an easy, light pasta dish that tastes great at dinner and even better the next day cold.

What you’ll need are some tomatoes — I usually try to find the small ones still on the vine, but just about anything will work, from plum tomatoes to cherry ones. Just try to find some decent ones that have some flavor to them and aren’t hard as a rock. You want roughly the equivalent of 5 or 6 plum tomatoes. I used 11 of the small ones this time around, and probably could have used a couple more. Then grab some pitted black olives (like kalamata), some garlic (a clove or two), olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and some pasta. Penne works best, but you can use whatever you’ve got around (like the penne and bowties we had). You’ll need a pound or a little under. This recipe feeds six people either hot or cold at $1.16 per serving.

First, get your tomatoes going. Put your oven at 400, and while it’s heating up, put your tomatoes in a small baking dish with a handful (or two) of the olives and some sliced garlic. Drizzle some olive oil and balsamic over everything, then swirl it around a bit and season with salt and pepper. Put the dish in the oven for roughly 30 minutes. It’s more important that your tomatoes get nicely roasted than any specific time. You want them to soften up completely, and their skin should start to split and wrinkle.

When you think you’ve got about 10 or 15 minutes left, cook your pasta to al dente. Drain it, and put it back in your pot, then remove the stems from the tomatoes and dump everything in. Stir it up, breaking up the tomatoes as you go. The hot pasta will suck up some of the juice, oil and vinegar while the rest makes your sauce. Check for seasoning again, add a little more balsamic if you like, but not too much. Then enjoy.

Like I said, this stuff is even better cold the next day as the flavors will have mixed more and concentrated a bit overnight. This recipe makes a nice pasta salad, too, a little different than the usual creamy or really oily fare.

Last week we had a brief cold snap in Vegas, where it actually snowed in some parts of the valley (yes, snow in Vegas in April = totally crazy!). Anyway, Carlo and I were craving some stick-to-your-ribs cold weather food before the temperature here quickly heated up to 90 degrees like it did today. I ended up making this hearty  Texas Beef Brisket Chili that was on the front cover of Bon Appetit magazine in October 2008. As usual it warmed us on a cool night, even if it may not exactly classify as a Texas Chili.*

This Texas Beef Chili recipe feeds 8 people at $2.42 per serving.

Dried adobo chiles are a sure fire way to add some heat and spice to the chili. I added a dried chipotle in there for some extra smoky heat too. Be sure to keep the liquid from the chiles so you can add it to the chili in case it needs some extra liquid towards the end of the cooking.

We have made this recipe before with brisket, but we couldn’t find any cheap brisket this time so I bought some beef stew meat. I just kept an extra eye out on how the meat was cooking so it wouldn’t dry out and it worked out great. It ended up being super tender and there wasn’t as much fat in the dish since the stew meat is a leaner cut than brisket. I also cut out the bacon called for at the beginning of the recipe. I feel like I’ve been on a bacon binge this past month and I thought my arteries would appreciate a break from the saturated fat!

* Note from Carlo: I find it a bit silly to call chili with butternut squash in it “Texas Chili”. That said, this is still really good.

I bought another cauliflower from the Farmers Market thinking that I was going to make roasted cauliflower soup, but Carlo found this interesting recipe for Whole Baked Cauliflower with Tomato and Olive Sauce on Jamie Oliver’s website.

Whole Baked Cauliflower with Tomato and Olive Sauce makes enough for four people and costs $1.28 per serving.

For those who don’t like anchovies or are vegetarian, you can omit them and I think the sauce would still taste great. The anchovies just add a nice bit of saltiness to the tomato sauce, but you can keep that flavor by adding a few extra olives into the mix.

The cauliflower made a nice simple side with the roast chicken that Carlo made for a pretty easy and healthy dinner.

We had some cauliflower leftovers and I thought they would make a great pasta topping since the sauce is so rich and flavorful. I really enjoyed this dish as a pasta sauce and think it is a great way to get kids to eat some extra veggies as a replacement for plain marinara sauce. Next time we make this baked cauliflower, I will definitely be sure to have extra leftovers so we can have another quick and easy dinner on hand by just simply boiling some pasta.

We will be getting back to regular posts this week on Recession Recip.es after a few trips and the slowest internet possible last week, so stay tuned for more tasty but cheap recipes.

Okay, I have to admit that I was ready to hang up my cooking apron when I was making this because I kept on having major puff pastry issues, but the end result was too beautiful and yummy not to share in the hopes that those with better puff pastry karma would have no problems!

This Tarte Fine of Beetroot and Goat Cheese is a frilly type of dish suited to a girls’ lunch with lots of white wine, but even Carlo thought it tasted good after it had sat in his lunch box for a couple of hours.

The recipe says it makes 2 portions, but I think you can easily make it into 4 lunch-sized portions at $2.24 per serving.

I roasted my beetroot without reading the recipe properly, so they aren’t cut into thin slices. I think you can roast your own beetroot, or even use beetroot out of the can since that is perfectly sliced to make the fish scale pattern on the tart.

Round one of the puff pastry incident. Note to anyone trying this recipe: do not roll the hell out of your puff pastry because it will not puff, and do not put frozen puff pastry in the microwave in an attempt to defrost the pastry faster–you will only end up with a oozing mess of a puff pastry sheet. Do handle the puff pastry with care and ALWAYS let it thaw properly by sitting it on the counter for 40 minutes. If you do this, it will love you in return.

The tartes just out of the oven. It really isn’t worth the price to get heavy cream to use for the egg wash, so just use some normal milk in the wash from your fridge, or worst case scenario–just use egg yolk and water.

Last weekend were were invited to a barbecue and needed to bring along a side dish. We scoured all of our cookbooks looking for a crowd-pleasing recipe. We found this recipe for Warm Potato-Tomato Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette in Michael Chiarello’s Casual Cooking. The results were so good, we skipped the bbq so we could have it all to ourselves ;P

This Warm Potato-Tomato Salad with Dijon Vinaigrette makes 6 servings at 62 cents a piece.

It’s easy to make — just take care not to overcook the potatoes, you’ll want them to stay firm so when you toss them with the vinaigrette and tomatoes, they don’t fall to pieces.