Good, Fast, Cheap

Choose two. That was the motto of a biotech company some years ago. I think it's a good motto to use in the kitchen. GOOD, FAST food is not cheap. CHEAP food can be GOOD food. I can't think of examples of FAST CHEAP food. And it very much sums up the philosophy I bring to my own cooking.

I'm going to mention some good, cheap things I like to cook, but then talk about our "clean out the fridge" dinner from last night, because I had fun making it, and it shows how you can play with a limited number of ingredients and get great variety in your cooking. Good, cheap things include beans, and tougher cuts of meat, like shoulder, (I LOVE cooking shoulder of lamb, or pork). Polenta, relatively speaking, is not slow food, but it takes longer to cook than other starches you would think of in the same ilk, such as the famous thirty second couscous.

Now, to the fun part. The dinner. On the menu were scallops, rice spinach, and a salad. Rice and spinach aren't that expensive , although the spinach was red s tem spinach from the Farmer's Market. Scallops are expensive. I think I paid 14.00 for a pound of them. But there's no waste.

Now, simple sauteed scallops, boiled rice and sauteed spinach is a fine, easy dinner. Here's how I kicked it up. I looked at what else was in the fridge. I had some pancetta, some spring onions, and the end of a bottle of white wine. Butter, too , and olive oil.

I put some oil in a pan, and fried some pancetta until it was just crisp, and drained it on paper towel. By doing that, I had two, new flavor elements to add to the dinner: the pancetta itself, but also, the flavored oil. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: adding a bit of a pork product to most things will make them taste better. So while the pancetta was draining, I took the oil, and poured off most of it. Spinach has so much water in it, that you don't need much. I had stemmed the spinach, so it was ready. I tossed it into that little bit of oil that was left, with two cloves of garlic. In less than five minutes, the vegetable was ready. I had the pot of rice cooking, and I had tossed a pinch of saffron in it. After the spinach was done, I took that spring onion, sliced it, and cooked it in about two tablespoons of butter. It didn't take very long to get soft, and I just tossed them into the rice, leaving the butter behind in a non-stick pan.

When the rice was done, it was time to get to the scallops. I had dried them, and salted them. The butter was already hot, and I just heated it a bit more, so I could do a very quick sear. When the scallops browned nicely on one side, I flipped them and they were done in five minutes. After I had plated them, I took the last of that wine, poured it into the pan and had a quick pan sauce. The pancetta went over the spinach, and dinner was done. Fast and good, not cheap, and augmented with some tasty bits of things. Green salad followed. VOILA.

Now, there are options you have here. For example, I could have put the fried pancetta into the salad. I also could have used the onions on the scallops. Spring onions are mild, so they wouldn't have overpowered the fish. And instead of water in the rice, I could have used chicken stock, and used more of it to finish the sauce for the scallops if I didn't want the wine in it.

See what I mean? Ultimately, Good, and fast, without worrying very much about cost, is not that hard to do. Bringing your food to a new level with tasty bits like the onion and pancetta is the fun part. Play with things . Make connections. And HAVE FUN. If you're not having fun, get out of the way and let me mess up your kitchen for you