More recipes from Penzeys

I feel like I hit the jackpot with the new Penzeys catalog - www.penzeys.com. I have made 4 recipes from it - recipes that I feel are practical and doable and relatively inexpensive. As well as the Garden Rice Salad I made the other day, I made Jake's Summer Tomato Salad to go along with pizza which was a nice after church lunch..

It was just mixed salad greens, cherry tomatoes, chopped celery and some marinated mozzarella cheese balls. Our adult daughters and their husbands were here so that made it extra special.Used my own dressing though. I use roughly 1/4 c olive oil, 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp sweetener, 1 -2 tsp spike or other seasoning (sometimes taco seasoning, sometimes Italian seasoning) and pepper.

Tonight after work I made the Black Bean/Sweet Potato stew and I made Torta Pascualina (Argentine spinach pie) for tomorrow. I come home for lunch from work most days so like to have leftovers.

I fudged the recipes to make them simpler though since I am really tired after working in the garden every night after work last week, all day Saturday and after work Monday.and working at work all day today too. I think my husband will like the Torta Pascualina best. He likes anything as long as its pie!

Black Bean Sweet Potato  Stew
2 cans black beans (.69 X 2 = 1.38)
2 sweet potatoes, chopped (1.89)
1/2 leftover packet beefy onion soup mix (.35)
1 can diced jalapenos (.89)
ground cumin (.10)
chili powder (.10)
paprika 9.10)
salt
1-2 cups water
Simmer 20 minutes.

Total Cost  4.81 (I'm going to just use 10 cents for each little measure of spice)

Torta Pascualina
1 double crust pie shell (I used store-bought unroll and bake pie crust - (3.27)
Mix following ingredients:
1 bag frozen spinach, microwaved, drained and squeezed (1.00)
2 TB olive oil (.25)
1 onion (I just used dried onion flakes and soaked them in the olive oil rather than sauteeing an onion in the oil) (.10)
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (.10)
1 tsp oregano (.10)
2 eggs, beaten (.22)
1-2 cups grated swiss cheese (2.89)

Unroll 1 crust into 9" pie pan
Put the mixed ingredients into the crust
Top with the other crust.
Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes

Total Cost (7.93)