Recipe Index

Apple Streusel Coffee Cake This Apple Streusel Coffee Cake is quick and easy to make and very moist and tasty. A perfect dish for Sunday Brunch.

Asparagus and Cannellini Bean Salad This is one of my favorites picnic recipes. The lemon is bright & zingy, the beans are creamy, the asparagus is crisp, the croutons crunchy & garlicky, and a little parmesan adds some dimension & salty snap.

Asparagus, Bacon & Scallion Frittata A classic combination, great for either brunch or a light dinner with a salad.

Bargain Basement Lobster Risotto Bargain Basement Lobster Risotto! Yes, you read that right, LOBSTER!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies A great thing about this recipe is that it lets you satisfy your cravings for fresh chocolate cookies both now, and later.

Chicken and Zucchini Gratin A great, flavorful dish that, though loaded with veggies, has enough in common with mac-n-cheese and other casseroles to satisfy comfort food cravings.

Chipotle Turkey Tacos/Taco Salads with Pico De Gallo Personally, I like this best as a taco salad so I pounce on any tacos that happen to break.

Cure-Whatever-Ails-You Chicken Soup with Ravioli A soup spicy enough to pierce congested nasal passages, but the mellowness of the chicken broth and the ravioli ensure that it’s tender on throats and confused palates.

Early Summer White Sangria Sangria, particularly this lighter white wine iteration, is just the thing to both cool down in NYC and take the edge off the concrete heat.

“French" Lentil Soup Very easy and tasty lentil soup. Perfect for Fall or rainy days when you need a little sunshine inside.

Ginger Ice Cream A custard-style ice cream with a sweetly spicy flavor. A great after dinner dessert.

Grilled and Dilled Chicken Veggie Pasta Salad While I fully realize that a pasta salad is not one of those dishes you would normally think capable of being “amazing,” hand to heart, this one is.

Healthy Brownies Made with avocados & almonds, our Healthy Brownies are chocolate-y & palatable and do not taste at all of avocados. A healthy, tasty treat.

Herbed New England Clam and Corn Chowder Even though its technically spring, its going to be cold and rainy weekend here in New York: perfect chowder weather!

Hoppin' John A traditional Southern dish that, if eaten at the beginning of the New Year, is supposed to bring good luck in the coming year.

In the Pink Sangria The raspberries, strawberries and pineapple with the rosé wine give this cocktail a nice bright, fruity taste.

Jalapeno, Scallion and Avocado Corn Bread This corn bread is exceptionally moist, zesty with the peppers and scallions, lightly sweet from the honey and thick with sour cream. The avocado adds some depth of flavor, in a “what is that mystery ingredient I can’t quite place?” kind of way.

Lemon Squares A crowd pleasing dessert that will send your guests back for seconds, then thirds, and leave you with an empty plate!

Macaroni and Cheese with Tomatoes Arguably both the ultimate comfort food, and the ultimate budget food.

Mango, Blueberry and Ginger Fruit Salad So refreshing, and much more interesting than you usually get in a traditional fruit salad.

Mmmmmm Moussaka This moussaka will fill your kitchen with heady warming aromas, satisfy your cravings for stick to your ribs foodstuffs, & is the perfect recipe for deepest January.

Quick Cannellini Bean & Ham Stew The result of this recipe is a golden broth overflowing with fresh spinach, ham and cannellini beans. The perfect dish on a wet and gray spring day.

Raspberry Frozen Yogurt This yogurt is creamy, tart, not overly sweet but zingy and full of bright, vibrant raspberry flavor.

Ratatouille Buckwheat Crepes Served in buckwheat crepes, this yummy vegetable dish is economical, good for you and chic. Plus the smell of this dish in the oven is just amazing.

Resolution-Friendly Banana Bread This bread has all the delicious fragrance and warmth of the original, yet with a lot less oil and fat, so it doesn’t involve blowing your New Year’s resolutions.

Salmon Cakes with Lemon-y Tzatziki Sauce A cheap seafood treat topped w/ tzatziki, a riff on traditional tartar sauce.

Shrimp Enchiladas Verde Casserole Ridiculously simple, healthy and delicious.

Spaghetti Pie A tasty meal that’s great for kids! A bit like a deep dish pizza and much less messy than regular spaghetti.

Spicy Turkey Bean Chili Everyone needs a good turkey chili recipe in their repertoire, particularly during the dark days of January. This one has some zing to it!

Stone Stock: Vegetable Version A less salty and more complex than broth from a can or box. And it all came from items that we otherwise would have discarded. Ergo, "Stone Stock"!

Suspiros (aka Meringues) Suspiros, more commonly known as meringues, are a simple, cheap and tasty treat to make.

Tomatillo Tortilla Soup Tomatillos have a bright flavor that pops when mixed w/ cilantro & beer in this summer soup

Turkey Patty Melts If you don’t know from patty melts, they’re like the perfect union of a grilled cheese and a hamburger. Tasty, yes? Here’s our less heavy version of this Jersey Shore diner classic that we cooked up.

Vegetarian Molasses Baked Beans Heavy on the molasses, our Vegetarian Molasses Baked Beans are a perfect dish for both the dead of winter and the dog days of summer.

Veggie-ful Black Beans and Brown Rice A rice ‘n’ beans recipe that is chock full of protein, fiber, vitamins and I’m guessing those phytochemical and antioxidant thingies one hears so much about these days.

Whole Wheat Roasted Vegetable Calzones with Herbed Ricotta Our mini-quest to come up w/ a better calzone, at home, for less.

Zucchini, Potato and Scallion Pancakes with Chived Sour Cream These make a great side dish, or if the summer heat has zapped your appetite, make a lovely light supper all on their own.

Recipe and Nutritional Information after the jump

About REC(ession)IPES

We decided to start this blog after my husband was laid off. I've been working for awhile now at finding, creating and tweaking inexpensive and tasty recipes that are also good for you. If you're like me, you're sick to death of reading what promise to be articles full of gourmet on a budget recipes only to find that they're all pasta sauces. Don't get me wrong, I love a good pasta and for sure it’s cheap, but it's not the healthiest thing to eat every darn day. Particularly if you no longer have the metabolism of a 19 year old. And just to make it a little more challenging, we currently live in Manhattan. Which means that we have both a tiny kitchen to work with (really, it was converted from a former closet) and exorbitantly high grocery bills.

We're hoping others can benefit from our quest to eat healthfully and well on a limited budget. Particularly since as of this writing, it doesn't look like things are going to get a whole lot better any time soon...


A Note about our Amazon Store:

Pursuant to new FTC guidelines, we feel compelled to notify you that if you click on an item we recommend and purchase it immediately from Amazon, we get a small commission on the sale. But you knew that already, didn’t you? If not, consider yourself informed: whenever any site directs you to an Amazon store, more often than not if you purchase one of the items recommended, they’ll get some money back from Amazon. Make of that what you will, but you may want to ask yourself “With the immense number of items available on Amazon, why would anyone select items that they didn’t actually think were worthwhile to recommend?” You can assume instead that our selection of products stems exclusively from sexual favors we receive.*

* Federal Humor Commission required disclosure: That was a joke.
Recipe and Nutritional Information after the jump

What is a "NY $"?

You'll note that the currency in which we list prices is "NY $".

That's a Manhattan dollar. As you may have heard, prices here are higher than anywhere in the US, and are up there with London, Paris and Tokyo in terms of highest prices in the world. If you don't live here, I can pretty much promise you that you can make these meals for cheaper than I can. First frugality tip? Don't live in Manhattan. (Advice we fully intend to act upon once we get this little thing called a "lease" sorted out: Brooklyn, here we come!)So if you live in a more sanely priced area, the prices listed are what you're looking at paying on the outside, and probably a good 25% over what it'll cost you.
Recipe and Nutritional Information after the jump

What's the Buzz?

Slashfood: "Lobster Risotto - Feast Your Eyes"

No, that claw is not a scary Halloween trick. Look closer; it's actually a very tasty treat.

Because the price of lobster is so low right now -- almost half of what it was more than a year ago -- the bloggers over at REC(cession)IPES were able to add a little luxury to this simple, creamy risotto... (10/30/09)

Slashfood: "Loaded Latkes - Feast Your Eyes"

As we transition from summer to fall, it's the perfect time to pair prime vegetables from each season.

And these zucchini, potato and scallion pancakes from Rec(ession)ipes beautifully capture the colors of autumn, while sneaking in the last tastes of summer... (09/10/09)

Slashfood: "Stunning Sangria - Feast Your Eyes"

Times are tough, but that doesn't mean we should stop sipping on drinks like this stylish sangria. In fact, an uncomfortable economic climate might be just the reason to sit down with a lavish-looking cocktail or two... (08/06/09)

Slashfood: "Ginger Ice Cream - Feast Your Eyes"

Looking at this makes us want to dive headfirst into a vat of thick, luxurious ice cream and spend the entire summer there.

The idea of ice cream on its own is refreshing enough, but the idea of ginger ice cream -- presented here by the lovely duo behind Rec(ession)ipes -- is a particularly palate-cleansing one...(04/30/09)

BlissTree: "Blogsurfing Saturday with a NEW LOGO!!!"

Recessionipes used one of my favorite flavors, ginger, in an ice cream recipe she adapted from David Lebovitz. You have to love a blog where the bloggerista breaks the costs down for ya to per serving. Way to go! (04/29/09)

Examiner.com: "REC(ession)IPES.com - a great website to help stretch your food budget"

"In today's economy, I don't think there is a website more relevant than this one when it comes to cooking. As you can see from the clever title, this site is all about creating recipes in this time of recession..." (04/20/09)

Blisstree: "Blogsurfing Saturday"

Rec(ession)ipes has a recipe for Asparagus, Bacon and Scallion Frittata that looks great. I like egg recipes..our chickens never seem to stop.(04/18/09)

Cookpad: "ラタトウィユ入りそば粉のクレープ"

ラタトウィユをクレープの中に？頭いいなあ、彼女！友達のサイト　http://www.recessionipes.com (04/18/09)

Recipe and Nutritional Information after the jump

Our Methodology

Our goal here is to provide you with some idea of what it will cost you, if you leave for the store right now, to put this meal on the table tonight. To that end, we're not including pricing for, say, pepper. You have pepper on hand already, right? (If not, I'm not sure why you're reading a cooking blog in the first place... unless being out of work is just THAT boring. Shudder.) We'll mark these ingredients "staple".

In the event that some ingredient is a little more unusual, we'll mark it as a staple but also tell you what it will run you to pick it up if you don't happen to have it. Since our goal is to capture your out of pocket costs, we're also going to tell you what it will cost you to buy a full quantity of something, not just the part you'll use.

Personally, I *hate* recipes that leave me with leftovers of perishable items. So if a recipe calls for only a half a head of cabbage, we'll tell you what the whole head is going to cost and factor that in. (Sure, I can and will come up with other uses for the rest of that cabbage. But when something comes up and I'm not home to cook the next few nights, and then we inevitably end up sick to heck of cabbage after eating the original recipe more than once in the first place... As my lovely though unemployed husband can attest, almost nothing makes me as batty as tossing out spoiled food. As my mother used to say, its like throwing out money. And did you pick up on husband being out of a job these days? There will be none of that throwing out money around these parts! And really, if anything, probably one should *recycle* paper and metal money anyway...)
Recipe and Nutritional Information after the jump