A Taste of Honey

The Mailbag

Dear Frugal Foodie: It is funny how you take a basic recipe and make a whole story out of it.  You should have a food blog like that cowboy lady from Wyoming or someplace out West.  You would probably have to get a better camera.  When will you be really famous?  Gushing

Dear Gushing:  The Frugal Foodie is blushing from your kind words and chuckling about the camera comment.  As to ‘really famous’, watch this space.  Oh, and thank you.  If everyone had just one dedicated fan like you, what a wonderful world this would be.

Dear Frugal Foodie:  Your soup recipes confused me.  2 lbs. chicken, one full pound of butter, and why is chicken in the pumpkin-pear soup?  Denise

Dear Denise:  The Frugal Foodie doesn’t want you or any other reader to be confused.  The Tuesday column (of which is now Wednesday because of a computer glitch) carries a “shopping list/inventory check” title to get you into thinking about the upcoming recipe(s).  No one should run out to the store for ½ cup of butter, and if you don’t have the equivalent at home, go buy a pound, use what’s needed for the recipe and use/freeze the rest.

Likewise, no reader should be roaming the floors of a food store looking for one item from recipe A and another item from recipe B.  Two different soups with some different ingredients and one shopping trip call for a consolidated list.

Dear Frugal Foodie:  Do you really get letters with signatures like “Sad and Soggy”?  And who is that crabby Granny O. Lebar?  Does she live in Fair Lawn?  Your town has enough problems without having a resident like that.  Proud To Live In Texas

Dear PTLIT:  Initials, town and state were the standard sign off in The Frugal Foodie mailbag letters until it became a major guessing game.  The Frugal Foodie used to get more comments of “I know who that is” than the content of the column and so reverted to the time-honored tradition of literary license you may have seen in advice columns.  Sad and Soggy is a real person, and named because a Frugal Foodie recipe turned out soggy and it made him sad.  Granny O. Lebar?  That’s a sarcastic barb at the “I eat so much healthier than you and I know it” crowd.  Say it a few times fast and you’ll get it, too.

Sweet Autumn

Our Sweet Autumn clematis on the front fence is in full bloom.  Its brightness every morning is amazing and its fragrance - beyond words.  There’s another bonus as it attracts honey bees.

The honey bee population has been in decline in recent years due to colony collapse, which impacts the cost of honey and results in higher prices for food items requiring pollination.   Seeing so many busy bees being so busy made me make a bee line to my pantry to check on my honey status.

Sweet New Year

Honey is a year-round flavoring, and at Rosh Hassanah is used in many recipes.  Sweet dishes are traditional, with autumn fruits, nuts and spices as key ingredients. Rugelach, with its smooth and savory cream cheese pastry, is so yummelicious, but can it be done differently, Frugal-friendly and also answer to a Higher Authority?

Shopping List/Inventory Check

This week’s Frugal Foodie recipe is Plum & Walnut Tart with a cream cheese pastry.  Here’s what you’ll need:

Kosher Salt

Flour

6 oz. walnuts

Honey

2 pounds fresh Italian plums

Cream Cheese – 8 ounces

Butter – ½ pound

Eggs – 1 dozen

Heavy Cream – 1 pint

Fresh thyme or rosemary (I love fresh rosemary).

Equipment:  Tart pan or mini muffin pan for 12 muffins

See you on Friday!