- Welcome to another
episode of Budget Eats. It's snowing outside and
I do not want to work, I just want to stare at
these flurries all day long. The premise for this
episode is $20 budget. That's it. We're going down from 25 to 20. Who knows what will come
next, but you know what? I am not trying to cook five days in a row every single week, and so
this is our way of saying you get your content, I get my rest. Hopefully I'm not too good at my job and end up creating 18,000
meals anyway out of 20 bucks, but, you know, we'll see. I just, I don't know. And because today is a snow day, and we were alerted days in advance of it, yesterday the markets were crazy. Almost every single store I went into had massive lines. To be honest, it was not
great for social distancing, which, you know, is still
very much a thing, guys, that we should be practicing. So I went in, I grabbed what I could, I got out, skedaddled home. Considering the circumstances, I don't think I did too bad. I am a little bit worried though, because I didn't really
brainstorm this time because I didn't have time to. So now we're just gonna go with it. I think the theme to my
life now is I don't know, which they should have
taught you in school is you'll never know. And for those of you who are wondering, my hair is doing fantastic still, thank you for asking. I think y'all know the shtick by now, so let's take a look at what we got. (exciting music) Do you like what you see? Once I got home, I realized I still had $2 and change to spend, so I looked through my cupboards and I found this bag of red
lentils that I had gotten on sale for 2.99 about two weeks ago, so we're going to throw that in as well. I know the bag says 4.99, but you're just going to have to trust me, it was 2.99. And if you don't trust me, I'm going to have Zach show
you my credit card statement. Believe me, it was on sale, otherwise I would not have gotten it. For our surprise ingredient this week, I grabbed this bag of
polished wheat berries, product of Turkey. In addition to those red
lentils and wheat berries, we also got a can of evaporated milk along with one can of crushed tomatoes, one can of peeled tomatoes,
one bag of tortillas, one two pound bag of onions along with a sleeve of
five pieces of garlic, two bags of salmon scraps for a buck each. No bone broth this time, guys, we're taking a fish break. We got two carrots for about 28 cents. Ooh, that snowblowers going hard. We got one bunch of cilantro for 69 cents. We got one bag of jalapenos for a buck. One really wrinkly jicama for a buck. I've never cooked jicama before so I'm kind of excited to see. I don't even know what it tastes like, to be honest with you. I got one bag of crushed mandarins. They look a little past their prime, but I'm thinking we can juice them, use them in a little bit of salad, or syrup, or some something, you know? It's citrus. A dollar. One four count bag of sweet potatoes and one tiny butternut
squash also for a dollar. I really went ham on that
dollar discount bin, you know? And that brings us to
a grand total of 20.06. Now, let's get cooking. Day one is always prep day. We take a look at our inventory, we see what vegetables or
produce is going to go bad fast, and then we take care of those first. I definitely don't want to
deal with rotten seafood, so I think we're going to cook
off all of our salmon today. My game plan for the salmon
is to sear all of them off. This will cook the meat and make it easier to pull off the bones, and then we can save
the large spinal bones for making a little bit of a broth later. Our salmon looks particularly juicy, so I'm going to try to
use some paper towels to dab off those seafoody juices. And then we're going to place
them in our cast iron skillet over medium heat with
just the touch of oil to help them not stick completely. Can we all just acknowledge
how beautiful salmon is? For now, we're going to keep the salmon seasoning
super simple, just salt, maybe a little touch of pepper. I don't want to flavor the
entire batch any single way so that I have more room to
play with throughout the days. Aaron, can you help me
flip some fish please? - Gladly.
- Thank you. - [Aaron] That fish or this fish? - [June] This fish. - [Aaron] Okay, I don't know. (salmon sizzling) - Usually once I start to see
a little bit of that skin, a little bit of that edge
turned deeply golden, I know that the fish
should be ready to turn without much stickage. Skin should be crispy. Flesh should be opaque. And once that's done, how much color, how much goldeness is totally up to you. You'll see a lot of oil
draining out of the salmon. Just make sure that you
dump that into a bowl, save it, because we will
be using it for cooking. (skin crunching) For the cilantro, we're
going to shake it dry. We're going to chop off the
stems away from the leaves. We're going to wrap the leaves
up in a damp paper towel and put it in an airtight container. In the meantime, we're
going to take our stems and just chop it really, really fine so that it's easy to chew,
easy to eat in our salad. If you want really clean
stems free of all leaves, go ahead and strip it by hand. But if you're not so nit-picky, just chop it off at the midway point where the stem meets the leaves. Aaron, do you remember the
last time we ate jicama? It was at a raw food place
that we got a Groupon for and we ordered jicama fries and they turned out, 'cause
we forgot it was a raw place, it was just like literally
raw jicama pieces covered in this sugar free ketchup, and it was probably
one of the worst things we ate that decade of our life. Do you remember that? - [Aaron] I have no idea
what you're talking about. - Do you want to taste a strip just to jog your memory a little bit of what that experience was like? - [Aaron] This tastes
better than that did. - Oh yeah. What did they do to that? - [Aaron] They made it worse. - How? This tastes really good. It's kind of like if you took
a pear that wasn't very sweet, crossed it with a radish
that has a little bit of like that peppery kick, and then mashed it together
with the starchiness of a sweet potato. I can't tell if it's because I had garlic on my cutting board before, but this smells almost
like the faintest salsa. Can't wait to make a salad with this. So, to prep our jicama I'm just going to trim off top and bottom so that we have a little
bit more stabilization on the jicama, and then we're
going to follow the curve of that jicama with a sharp knife and just try to peel off that
tough, fibrous outer skin. This smells so good. I can't stop smelling it. It looks like a pear. Tastes like jicama. Delicious, delightful. Have I mentioned what we're
making for meal one yet? We're having crispy salmon tacos with a jicama slaw, slightly picked. For our slaw, I'm going
to chop up some jicama, carrots, jalapeno, onions. We're going to grate a garlic in there. We're going to toss in our cilantro stems. We're going to squeeze the juice
of some of those mandarins. We're going to add some vinegar for a little bit of kick, and then a little bit of salt. You know what? I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's just go with that first. Give it a taste and then we'll proceed. Needs more vinegar. (fun jazz music) We're going to let this
beauty rest in the fridge while we prepare our tacos. For our salmon tacos, what I'm going to do
is pick out the pieces with the crispiest skin parts and we're going to refry them in the pan. Can I help you? - [Aaron] Salmon tacos? - Yes, soon. - Soon?
- Go away. As I was saying, we're
going to be picking out the fattiest parts and we're
going to be refrying them in the pan with a little bit more spices. For my spices, I'm going to
go with some smoked paprika, a little bit of ground Sichuan peppercorn, steak seasoning, and ground cumin. I'm also going to be picking
out some meaty parts, picking the bones out of them, and then refrying them very briefly. Once our pan is all
oiled up with that nice, fatty, salmony fat, we're going to fry our tortillas in there. This is what we're looking
for on our tortilla. Slightly crispy, a little bit golden, slightly crunchy, but still foldable. Here's our cooked, crispy
salmon filling for our tacos. As your pan runs dry with each tortilla, just pour in a little bit of your reserved salmon cooking oil. That should flavor them perfect. Here's all the salmon meat that I managed to get off of our bones. Pretty plenty I would say. About four cups. And here is all the delicious bone that we got out of our
scrap bags of salmon. I'm going to plop these
in a pot of boiling water and I'm just going to let them cook with a tiny touch of salt until that broth is a little bit milky. I think we're ready to assemble and eat. (fun jazz music) Okay, my friend, I present to you crispy crunchy tacos with some salmon that might still have
bone in it, yes, correct. It won't kill you. Don't worry. Don't worry. Messy. - The messier the taco the better it is. There's a lot of fish
skin on this still, right? - Yes. - I'm getting a lot of that chewiness, which is really nice. - I tried to make it crispy, but I think because it's, like, gotten a little bit cold now, both the tortillas and the salmon skin have gotten a little flacid. However, flavor... - It's pleasant. It's not particularly
strong in any direction. - Mm-hm. - The salmon skin is definitely
more chewy than crispy, but it adds a nice texture. (June chuckles) - Oops. - That adds an element of fun to the meal. I had a bite with the orange, and I would say it doesn't really take away anything from the dish, but it doesn't add much either. It's just sort of like, "Ooh, I'm eating an orange slice now." - Mm-hm.
- You know? - Okay. - Not a bad fish taco for the 18 cents that I assume this meal cost. - A little bit more than that. - I'm adding the chili pepper so I can give you an honest grade. Adding enough chili to regular food brings it up to what a level of food a normal person would enjoy. This just gets me to the baseline of giving it an accurate assessment. Because I realized I got
to stop rating stuff lower for not being spicy enough. - After like 18,000
episodes you realize that? - Hey, better late than never. - I think you're going to give
me like a five and a half. I'm going to give myself a six and a half. Not my best work. - I agree. I'll agree with your grade. I'm standing here eating
it and enjoying it. - Six and a half.
- Mm-hm. - Mm-hm. I think primarily where I went wrong was second cooking the salmon. I kind of toughened it and
didn't really crisp it up as much as I had hoped it would. And then the tortillas
kind of just sat too long in the salmon grease. I would give the salad an 8.5 on its own. It's so crisp, so refreshing, nicely tart, a little bit salty, a little bit spicy, just so well balanced. Meal one, I wouldn't say I failed, but I definitely disappointed
myself a little bit. Now I'm going to spend
the rest of the night thinking how I could have
improved those tortillas from going totally stale. I'm going to go ahead and
let that fish bone broth just steep until that
color is nice and creamy, and then I'll strain it out tomorrow. I'm going to try not to cry too hard over my disappointment with myself, and I'll see guys back here tomorrow Good morning, guys. Welcome to Tuesday. I'm going to be honest with you, the depression is bad today, and this just means that
we're going to take our time, we're going to practice a lot of self care by drinking water and practicing
a lot of self forgiveness because it's okay to not be okay, and it's okay to not always be good. We're just going to be in our feels today. For our first meal of the day, I was thinking we could
make some fried rice. Salmon fried rice. Salmon miso fried rice. Salmon miso friend wheat? So, when I first saw this
bag in the aisle I thought, "That looks like rice. "It looks like grains of brown rice, "but it looks a little bit yellower. "I wonder what kind of rice it is." And I pulled it out and
it said, "Shelled wheat." If you've never seen wheat berries before, this is what polished
wheat berries look like, and it looks an awful lot like rice. So I was thinking, why don't we treat some of this like rice? I've never had durum wheat
as a berry form on its own, so I'm very excited to see
what this grain tastes like. Also on the bag, "Preparation: don't rinse
the product before usage." I think I'm going to rinse
the product before usage. As a rule, I don't know where these manufactured items came from. I don't know how clean the process is. And if I get it from the store and not from the source itself, I'm going to rinse it. So what I think I'll be doing
is taking half this bag, rinsing it very briefly. I'm going to let the
water come up to a boil. I'm going to lower it to a simmer, maybe cover it with a lid, and let it go from maybe
about 18 to 22 minutes. I'm guessing the reason
why they don't want you to rinse the grains before cooking is because they're so starchy, they're probably really good for binding into a porridge, thicker
consistency, kind of like risotto, but because we're going for a fried rice I'm not too concerned about
washing some of the starch off. I want my grains to be still separate, but maybe just a little
bit carby on the outside. Delicious. I'm going to let it
steam with the heat off for about 10 minutes
before I lift the lid. This will ensure that any carryover heat can get to the center of those kernels and make sure everyone
is just nice and happy and evenly cooked. It's time for a taste test. What this reminds me of
is if you took barley and you took brown rice, and you made them have a baby together. The grains are fully separate. They're not sticking together at all, unless you want them to, but each individual grain is
perfectly bouncy and aldente. I'm going to transfer
the rice into a big bowl so that we can fluff it up and let it evaporate off a
little bit of the extra moisture while we prep our other
fried rice ingredients. For the fried rice, I think of going to peel
and dice up a lot of garlic. (bowl dings) Garlic meditation is one
of my favorite meditations. In addition to some carrots,
jalapeno, some jicama. I'm going to try my best and
not over cook the salmon today. And also, miso has a tendency to burn when it hits direct heat, so just be sure that you're not cooking the miso too, too much, or you'll end up with a very charred taste in your fried rice. Miso is a fermented soybean paste that has some rice mold in there. Nice rice culture, don't freak out. It's fine, it's safe guys. And even though mine expired last summer, I think this is still fine
because fermented foods basically keep forever if stored properly. To go with this fried rice dish I'm also going to make a
quick pickle of some jicama and some onions that have been minced. We're going to squeeze one
mandarin juice in there, and then we're going to
add a little bit of vinegar as well as salt. That's it, pure and simple And a little bit of fish
sauce just for flavor. I'm also going to add in a little bit of our minced jalapenos,
just for a little extra kick in the pickles. I'm going to be using my
cast iron pan, medium heat, lots of salmon fat. Once the veggie starts
to soften a little bit I'm going to go in with my white pepper, black pepper, and turmeric. Stir that around until it's evenly cooked, and then we'll go in with our wheat. (wheat popping) Once the rice grains
look very, very toasty, we're going to go in with our
salmon as well as our miso. (mellow music) I present to you... - [Aaron] The wheat thingamabobs. - The wheat thingamabobs. Cheers.
- Cheers. (bowls clank) We're in business.
- Yeah? - Business is open.
- You like it? - [Aaron] Yes. - I have a lot of bone. I'm glad you told that one. - [Aaron] Oh God. I didn't even, like, guard for bone, so-- - It's okay. They're very well cooked. They won't kill me. Famous last words. - [Aaron] This is interesting. That usually sounds bad
when I say it first, but it's actually really
good and interesting. - Hit me with it. Oh yeah. - [Aaron] Fish sauce has a
very strong flavor, obviously, so it's brave of you to
choose this ingredient that could have overpowered
everything else, especially in combination with other fish. Yeah, these wheat berries or
whatever they are are great. I don't know why I don't
see them more often. If you guys need more gluten in your diet, if you're on a high gluten
diet, then these would be great. Substitute the gluten free food rice with. - Big opening. (June chuckles) All right.
- There you go. I think Aaron's right, the texture of these grains
are totally on point. They're bouncy, they're chewy, but they're not at all,
like, hard or chalky. They're just so nice and
pliable and gives me life. Gives me spring.
- You know how when we make fried rice,
we love to crisp it up? - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] I wonder how
this would do for that. - I tried crisping up a little bit, and they were even popping. I don't think I had enough oil in there, and because yesterday's
tacos were too greasy, I was like, "Let's ease off on the fat." - [Aaron] Yeah, this is not overly fatty. - I really like the miso in here. I think it works really well with the fishiness of the salmon and it makes it taste
a little bit less oily. - [Aaron] It's overall
a very high savory dish. - Mm-hm. Didn't need MSG in this one. - [Aaron] Wow. And there's a bouncy castle
in my mouth too with these. - Bouncy castle?
- Mm-hm. - [Aaron] For its inventiveness
using a new ingredient, and just the overall pleasure
I'm getting from eating this, you know, bouncy castle
of fishy savoriness, I'm giving it a perfect nine. - Hey, you know, after yesterday's defeat, anything above a 7.5 would
have made me exuberant. - [Aaron] Are you exuberant? Are you full of exuberance? - Can't you tell? I don't think it's so exciting
to deserve a nine for me. This is an 8.1, but you know what? Good enough. Excellent job, June. Question, what do you
want to eat for dinner? Where'd you get that? - The floor. - You want butternut squash with dinner? - Yes, do sweet butternut squash. - Sweet?
- Yes. - You want dessert for dinner? - Butternut squash dessert dinner. - You got it.
- Okay. - Bye. Thank you. I don't know about you, but I'm super excited to
do dessert for dinner, because boy oh boy, do
I have an idea in mind. So on the back of this
bag of shelled wheat, there's a recipe for Noah's Ark pudding, which seems just basically like a very delicious rice pudding. Because I grabbed a
can of evaporated milk, we can now make "rice pudding." I'm pretty excited, honestly,
because I think we can just chuck everything into
the pot and let it cook until it's nice and creamy. And it's very hands-off,
which I would love. I would love hands-off right about now. So I think what I'm going to
do is just prep my sweet potato and my butternut squash,
chunk them into cubes. You can definitely use a peeler, but you'll see that there's a lighter, thicker skin underneath
the superficial skin. If you leave this on, it'll be slightly tougher to chew. While still edible, might
not be pleasant in texture. But if you use a knife, you can make sure that you're exposing that
bright orange skin underneath. That flesh is nice and tender and creamy. Alternatively, you can just
use a peeler, of course, and peel away slightly more of the flesh until you expose that inner
orange flesh, either way works. For the bottom portion, I like to split it in
half after it's peeled and then scoop out the seeds. We can save the seeds and roast them for a little crunchy
topping on our rice pudding. I would also make sure that
you take out this hard core. It's very fibrous and
not at all good to eat. (bright instrumental music) We're gonna ahead and
add in a cinnamon stick, and, I don't know, 20-ish cardamom pods. We're going to crush them very lightly and then put them in the pot. Cracking them open helps
them infuse better. So we're going to cover the
pot with our evaporated milk and some water, and turn
the heat on very medium. I don't know what very medium is, but I think you know. I'm going to add in a pinch of salt along with about three
cups of our cooked wheat. Sweeten it to your
desired level of cavities. I'm going in with about a quarter cup. The key to pan roasting seeds is to flip, and toss, and turn often. The more you turn, the
more even the heating. The longer you let us sit, the more likely it's to burn on one side. Keep your heat low and do not walk away. As far as the seeds go, I want
to hear some of them crack. (seed pops) I want to hear some of them pop. (seed pops) I want one of them to
assassinate your eyeball. They will blow open, they will lose their moisture, and then that's how you know
they're crispy, crunchy, and ready to snack on. (bright instrumental music) Now, I know rosewater can be quite a controversial ingredient, mainly because some people
think it tastes like soap, especially if you use too much of it. It kind of triggers a
cilantro-esque response where some people just can't
handle it, which I get, but me and Aaron, we love some rose water or orange blossom water in our desserts, and I'm going to slip a
little bit of this in, 'cause, you know, it makes me feel pretty. I need it today. Not too much, just a tiny little splash. After simmering away for about 40 minutes, it's looking nice and
silky, sticky, creamy, all of the good stuff. And also, my house has
never smelled better. Or rather, you know, my studio apartment that is way too tiny for two
people during a pandemic. But hey, making do. We're going to turn the heat off and we're going to let
it cool off a little bit, and then we're going to
enjoy the hell out of it. Today we have a sweet thing because I'm super
depressed and I need sugar. And so, what we have is wheat berries cooked with evaporated milk
and a quarter cup of sugar, along with some sweet
potatoes and butternut squash, and it's flavored with cinnamon,
cardamom, and rosewater. - Wow. Gourmet.
(June laughs) - Mm. Mm! Mm. - This is great. - I love it. It's like sweet comfort food. - [Aaron] What are these
wheat things called? - They're just wheat berries. - Wheat berries is my new favorite thing. I want to experiment with
them in everything now. - You like it? - This is a great dessert. Before I grade this,
can I add more cinnamon? - Yes.
- Okay. - Or pumpkin pie spice. I didn't spice it enough for
you with 20 cardamom cloves? - I was hoping for more cinnamon. - Mm, okay. - But that's an easy fix. - You like it?
- Mm-hm. You can tell I like it
'cause I'm still eating it. I give this... Oh, I just ate a whole cardamom pod. Yum. I give this another nine, because-- - A perfect nine? - A perfect nine, yeah. Yeah, these wheat berries
are just a fun ingredient and you found a way to use
them both savory and sweet in ways that both taste delicious. It's hardy food. It's peasant food.
- Mm-hm. - I'm going to go out and
work the cold fields now plowing migraines my grains. - Go, work.
- With my oxen. - Goodbye.
- Okay. - Bye farmer. I'm really digging the
textures in this bowl. Everything is so creamy, but the grain itself is
somehow still toothsome. Still a little bit aldente, and then you have the
creamy bits of butternut and sweet potatoes are starting
to fray and fall apart, and it just kind of melts into your bite. And then you hit it with
that surprise crunch from the pumpkin seeds, as well as the surprise cardamom pods, which is a little bit strong, but also absolutely
delightful and fragrant. Day two I think was relatively successful. I'm pretty happy with how
both dishes turned out. I'm not even going to start
thinking about tomorrow because right now I just
want to go to sleep, so that's what I'm going to do. See you guys in the morning. (dramatic music) Truly no feeling like crying
first thing in the morning. Good morning guys. It's a Wednesday. I'm crying not because
of depression today, but because of onions. They are very potent. I'm prepping some veggies as I'm watching the last Budget Eats
video for video approval. So, you know, today's a busy day. All right, let me fill you in a bit on what's going on here. For our first meal
today, I am going to make a chilaquiles inspired dish. Usually those tortillas
for chilaquiles are fried. I just don't feel like frying today. I have a lot of meetings. I'm a busy man. I'm going to use this opportunity to make things spicy for Aaron. We're going to throw in some jalapenos, we're going to throw
in some ground chilies that I have left over from our
Thanksgiving budget episode. We're going to throw in
some red pepper nice tasty. Everything's going in. Plus, once I turn the oven on, you know I'm going to be
roasting some other things too. So we're just going to
push everything in there and let them cook. I'm only going to be seasoning
these tortillas on one side because I don't really want the
side that's touching the pan to burn with the spices on them. We're relatively high at 375, so I don't want that high heat
to toast them prematurely. And a little salt. I'm going to recommend
that you've rub your spices really well into the oiled tortilla, what way you can evenly distribute all of the flavor particles. (timer beeping) (energetic music) I'm going to roast off our remaining butternut squash from yesterday. I'm going to roast up
some garlic, some onions, and also those salmon broth fish bones. You know I kept those. You know I'm going to
toast them into chips. You know I'm going to eat them. (energetic music) I'm going to save the flesh
of the jalapenos for a salsa, and the seeds and the
pith I'm going to chop up, and this is going to go into the sauce. We're going to let that
get nice and toasty and we're going to bloom the spiciness out of that membrane and seed. I'll also add in our remaining carrot just for a little touch of sweetness and texture in the sauce. I'm going in with about a
teaspoon of ground cumin, half a teaspoon of smoked paprika, one teaspoon of ground coriander, one teaspoon black pepper,
one tablespoon ground chili, one tablespoon gochugaru, as well as one teaspoon dried oregano. We're going to stir those spices until they're nice and toasty, maybe about 30 seconds or so, and then we're going to
go in with our garlic, onions, our seedy jalapeno
innards, and our carrot. (energetic music) (timer beeps) Then we'll go in with our canned tomatoes, our sugar, and our sambal. (energetic music) It's a little spicy, so we're going to add the
juice of one mandarin. (energetic music) About halfway through the bake I'm going to turn all of my vegetables to make sure they're getting
golden on both sides. We're going to pop them back into the oven for another 15 minutes,
a total of half an hour. I got a little bit
distracted with my meeting, so these got a little bit dark. At 20 minutes I think we went
a little too hard on the bake, but I think they're just
under being burned, so. (tortilla crunches) Let's use 'em. To help balance out the toasty notes of my toasted tortillas, I'm going to go in with two
untoasted tortillas, you know, just to add a little bit of
that pure corn flavor back. I'm going to be reserving one of this crunchy tortilla for topping. (energetic music) #Veryspicy. If Aaron still needs chili on top of this I truly have no idea who he is anymore. He's definitely not human. For our jalapeno salsa, in
my little tiny food processor we're just going to put in our onions, jalapeno, cilantro, salt, blitz. To help the salsa turn a
little bit finer in texture I added the juice of one mandarin along with one tablespoon
of vinegar for acidity. Nice. Our butternut squash is nice
and roasty, golden, and mushy. We're going to plop in
our butternut squash along with half of that roasted onion and two cloves of roasted garlic, and we're just going
to let it whiz in there until it's nice and
smooth and crema-esque. To help this one blend a little bit better I'm just going to go ahead
and add a little bit of water to thin it out. It's nice and sweet, a little bit earthy, a little bit oniony, slightly garlicky, and just overall pleasant, and I think it'll do a lot to quench our spicy, spicy tongues. Fire, put it out. How hungry are you? - Very.
- Okay. I'll give you a big serving. (energetic music) - [Aaron] I've been hearing
you moaning in agony all day about the heat of this. - Don't tell me it's not spicy. - [Aaron] Is it supposed to be spicy? - Oh my God. No (beep) way. - [Aaron] What exactly were you tasting when you were yelling, and crying, and moaning in agony.
- The red soggy part. The red soggy part. I'm flaming up in the back
of my throat right now. That's why I gave you
jicama, to cool you down. - [Aaron] Kind of tastes
like an ice cream sundae. What are the crunchy bits on top? More tortilla cooked differently? - Yes. There's three kinds of tortillas in here. There's two raw ones that
I didn't do anything to, just tore up. And then there's eight
that were a little bit overly toasted in... What? - [Aaron] It was a fiber of some sort. - It's just from the
butternut squash, dude. Fiber. Literal fiber, okay. Anyway. - [Aaron] Is fiber good for you? And what's this? - That is a jalapeno, onion, cilantro, vinegar, orange salsa of sorts. - [Aaron] That's really good. - Yeah. - [Aaron] This is a brilliant dish. - You like it? - [Aaron] It's not particularly spicy, but I mean, it tastes great. Chilaquiles are one of my favorite foods. - It's gonna hurt me if I
finish my entire portion, man. The green salsa is
delightfully fresh and cooling, kind of, against the red,
saucy, warm tortillas. (June clears throat) Excuse me. - [Aaron] It's a beautiful dish. I love the colors. Red, white, and green. There's a little bit of
heat starting to build. I do be feeling-- - Just now? (June coughs) - [Aaron] Pull through, June. - [June] Oh my God. Ah! - [Aaron] My feeling is an 8.5. I think you would have
gotten another perfect nine if I tasted it fresh. But I'm tasting what
I'm tasting as it, 8.5. - Okay. Guys, I'm going to have
to do a rule break. (dramatic buzzer sounds) I'm really suffering here. I have some sour cream
that expired in January. I think it's still good. Dairy helps. Let me just make sure that we won't die from eating this first. - [Aaron] Be real. Even if it was well
expired, you'd still eat it. You'd be like, "Oh, it's cheese now." So what's the main source of heat in this? - There's four types of chilies in here. There's jalapeno and I added some sambal. I also added ground Chinese dried peppers as well as gochugaru. How is your mouth still alive? It's coming out of my nostrils, this pain. - [Aaron] Pain coming
out of your nostrils? That's new. - Okay, you know what? That is so much better
with the sour cream. It just adds a little bit of creaminess to tamper down on the acidity
of the tomatoes in our sauce. And then it also kind of
slides across the texture of the soggy tortillas perfectly so that you don't just have
like a soggy piece of tortilla, you kind of have like this almost... It reminds me of a grilled cheese almost. - [Aaron] Yeah. It's overall better with
the sour cream for sure. - Mm-hm. I am enjoying this way more now that I have some dairy. What are you doing? - [Aaron] This is definitely
not part of the budget, but do you need it. - Now? In the middle of my... Oh my God. - [Aaron] How much does that help? Can we do ice cream sammy week where you just make ice
different variations of ice cream sandwiches? - Oh my God, that's so good. Sugar and dairy is helping me recover. I'm not sure how my digestive
track is going to do after this meal eat. Eat now, think later. That's my role. I'm going to take a break and we'll meet back here for dinner. I'm going to wait until the fire inside me dies down a little bit. Guys, I forgot about these. It's our ocean graveyard this time. Be careful, the bones are quite sharp. I would go with these spinal ones. Do you think this will give us cancer too? Is it ash? - [Aaron] Gives me deliciousness. - Mm.
- Good snack. - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] You should package that. - But people might choke
on it and then sue me. Look at how pretty that is. I'm not going to
recommend that you do this because there is a good
chance that if you don't chew these properly, you either poke a hole
through your gums... It's edible, and it's kind of delicious, and it's crunchy and toasty, and calcium. An 8.5 out of 10. I lied. I didn't take a nap, but now I'm back and I'm thinking about dinner. I think after that fiery lunch we're going to need a
hefty, refreshing salad because it's still burning guys. I'm thinking to all of
our leftover ingredients. We still have jicama. We have cooked salmon. We have cooked wheat berries. We also have a lot of onion,
and jalapenos, and cilantro. So what I think I'm going to do is chop up all of our veggies very simply, slice the jicama, mince some onions, slice some jalapenos,
throw it all in a bowl with our wheat berries and our salmon, and then we can toss it with
a simple little vinegarette. We don't have a lot of it, but we still have some of
this salmon cooking oil. I'm going to be adding a
little bit more olive oil to this bowl and we'll whip it up with some grated garlic, along with some apple cider vinegar, go in with some Dijon mustard maybe, a little bit of salt,
a little bit of pepper. You want to whisk your dressing until it looks like it's
silky, and emulsified, and smooth, and creamy. Nice and perky, a little bit garlicky. Just the way I like it. (funky music) Could this possibly be the easiest and fastest meal I've
ever made on Budget Eats? Maybe. You excited for some salad? Eating a salad with a spatula
is really inefficient. Mm. Mm! All right my dude, dinner is here. Cheers. - [Aaron] Are there bones in this again? - No, I picked through them.
- Okay. - There's no bones. - [Aaron] It's been a bony week. It's just been bone after bone. I'm not making a joke,
it's just the salmon bones. - [June] What do you think, chef? - Salmon salad?
- Salmon salad. - [Aaron] With wheat berries. - With wheat berries,
cilantro, some jicama, some onions, some jalapenos,
and a vinegarette. - [Aaron] Those fancy lunch
restaurants in New York where your food comes in one of those compostable cardboard trays
and they charge $20 for it? - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] This is what
they would serve there. This probably costing like
12 cents for the whole bowl. It's a nice, healthy salad. - Does it taste good? - [Aaron] It tastes good. - Good. - [Aaron] Is good good enough? - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] There's nothing bad here, which means it's good. - You have a grade? - [Aaron] Good out of 10. - I think it needs a little bit more acid and a little bit more salt. Do you agree? - [Aaron] I was thinking
it needed black pepper. - Do it.
- Okay. (pepper grinding) - Oh, salt. See, I knew you wanted salt. - [Aaron] Yeah, salt and black pepper. - Oh, you went for the
fancy Portuguese sea salt. - [Aaron] Portuguese sea salt. This is chamomile vinegar.
- Oh, okay, fancy. - With mother in the dropper. - I don't need that fancy. Can I just get like three
more of those please? It's tiny. I thought you said you didn't need acid. You change your mind? - Just trying it.
- Trying it. Sure you are. - Better for sure.
- Mm-hm. If there's anything that
I learned this week, it's that salmon oil is super fatty. It's almost like twice
as rich as other oils in the same amount. I used less than a tablespoon of that leftover salmon
oil in this dressing and you can taste the
heaviness in that salmon oil in this dressing, which is
why we needed more vinegar. (June sighs) If you know why salmon oil tastes so rich, let me know down below in the comments, 'cause I want to learn. - [Aaron] 'Cause it's meat fat. And it's good. Is that an answer? - I'm going to give
myself an 8.7 out of 10, because I love this meal so much. It was so easy and fast to whip together. It's so satisfying to eat. It's just like a complete meal. What are you crinkling back... Whoa. Urfa? Urfa pepper? - [Aaron] Urfa biber. I have no idea how to say that, but it's this Turkish
chili that's delicious. - Can I try some of yours? Whoa! Mm. Mm-hm. - [Aaron] I'm not crazy just
dumping chili on everything. - That is so nice and smoky, and also a little bit salty too. It gives it such a rich flavor. - [Aaron] It's really weird. I don't think this pepper has-- - I'm peppered out today. - [Aaron] I don't think
this chili has salt in it, but it tastes really salty and savory. I've noticed that every
time I've used it in food. - So good. - [Aaron] I give this a
seven pre my modifications, and 9.1 after. - Chili pepper, salt, and
vinegar upped it by 2.1 points. - [Aaron] Yeah. So this is now my favorite
thing of this week so far. No.
- Mm-hm. - Really?
- Mm-hm. - Just because of spicy though. - [Aaron] No, I think it just
tastes like it's health food but it's really satisfying
at the same time, and that's really hard to do. And you did it. June lied to me. I almost died. - It was kind of my plan. I think today was a resounding success. We had a great lunch. We had a great dinner. And now... Now I'm going to go take a nap. Or will I? I'll see you guys tomorrow. Yes, Tess. Yes, I do. Welcome to Thursday. That chilaquiles really did a
number on me through the night and I'm not feeling too good. I'm sure you can tell. So, today for lunch, I
think I'm just going to go with some simple,
soothing, comforting food. There's a dish from the Indian
subcontinent called khichdi. I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that right. And if I'm not, please let me know down in the comments below
the right way to pronounce it. Thank you so much. Usually it is a dish made
with lentils and rice, and you simmer it into a
porridge-like consistency. It's flavored very simply, but you can also add whatever
vegetables you want to it. Depending on the region,
depending on the family, the recipe combos are endless. The simplest version
following Ayurvedic traditions and guidelines is just rice and lentils, turmeric, and salt plus water. That's it. Today I'm going to add a
few more spices to that mix just to flavor it up somewhat, but I'm going to keep it fairly simple and absolutely no chilies in this one because my hands are flaring up so bad from all those chilies. I know Aaron's going to
hate it, but you know what? It's mushy, it's nice for me. I'm going to treat myself today. I really don't want to turn on any lights, but I guess we have to. Here we go. So I'm going to go ahead,
rinse off my lentils, give them a nice, good soak, and then I'm going to
take the wheat berries and use those as a rice substitute. Because they're so bouncy, I want to kind of chop
them in half a little bit, so I'm going to give them
a pulse in my Vitamix just so that they get a
little bit more broken up and they can get even
more mushy in the texture. Now, because the packaging
on this wheat tells me to not rinse the product before usage, I'm going to take
advantage of it this time because I definitely don't
want a damp grain in my mixer. We're going to go into the
Vitamix with this unrinsed. I'm going to grind about half
cup of it for our khichdi, and then the rest of them
we're going to turn into flour. And now that I've fully woken
Aaron up with the Vitamix, I say we go ahead and make
some lentil flour too. Now, if I had premeditated
this flour making process I probably would have
rinsed these yesterday and then left them out to dry overnight, but they look relatively clean to me. And if we grind it down to a fine powder even the hardest tooth
breaking grit should be okay. Probably not good to eat,
but you know, compromises. (blender whirring) As the red lentils are soaking, periodically give them a stir to ensure that nothing is clumping
together at the bottom and all the water is soaking
all of the legume evenly. For my version of khichdi, we're going to go and
make some garlic chips. This way, we'll have some oil that's infused with garlic flavor and a little bit of a crunchy topping that we can put on later. I'm going to slice my garlic real thin. I'm going to heat my pot
with a thin layer of oil. For my oil, I'm going to be
using these sample packets of coconut oil that we got
probably two years ago. Keep mixing while they're still in the pot to ensure even heating. You don't want any pieces to burn. And as soon as they turn lightly
golden like this, pull it. Even if some pieces look white, you don't want any of
the pieces to get burned. Once they turn brown,
it's not very delicious. To add a little bit of
meatiness and substance to this I think I'm going to go ahead and peel and cube one sweet potato, just for a little added sweetness. Healing powers. I'll also add in about half cup of our open can of crushed
tomatoes from yesterday. I think this will add a nice
little height of flavor to it. As for my spices, I'm
going to go ham on them. I'm going to use 14 spices in my khichdi. Now, obviously, if you don't
have all these spices at home you don't have to use all of them. You don't even have to use any of them. Just put some turmeric
in, put some salt in, you have a very basic version of khichdi. However, today I have all
these spices in my pantry, so I'm going to put all of
them in, because why not? Treat yourself. We have some ajwain seed,
which is a little bit bitter, a little bit citrusy, a little bit oniony, and it's absolutely delicious
when used with other spices. We have some kalonji, AKA
nigella seed, AKA black cumin. It goes by a lot of names. I don't know why it has all these names. Then we have some of our repeat players: ground cumin, coriander, fennel seed. We have some fenugreek seeds, which are a little bit
curry-like in flavor. Then I'm going to go
in with some cardamom, cracked black pepper, and ground cinnamon. Then we have ground ginger, white pepper, and turmeric obviously. And last but not least,
we have some stinky boys. We have some asafetida, which I can even smell it
through the closed container, as well as some kala
namak, AKA black salt. Both of these have like a sulfuric smell, so they kind of smell like gas. But hey, we like cheese, which smells like smelly socks and feet, so we like weird things, you know? And they taste good to us. So, once we have our garlic oil we're going to maintain
the heat on a medium low, and then we're going to toss
in all of these 14 spices. Once they're toasty, about
30 seconds to 45 seconds in, you're going to move fast. We don't want any of these spices to burn. That will lead to a bitter taste. In go our sweet potatoes,
our soaked wheat, our soaked lentils, as
well as that tomato. I'm going to use about half cup. We're going to add some
water, enough to cover. Just bring everything up to a boil and then lower it to a summer. We're going to cover it and just let it go for maybe 25 minutes until everything is nice, and
soft, and easily digestible. I know you guys like recipes. I know you guys like exact amounts. But when it comes to things
like khichdi and kanji there really is no prescription for how smooth and
liquidy these things are. It's totally up to personal taste. If you like it looser, just
add a little bit more water. And if you like it chunkier
and, you know, more solid, just add less water. Cook it off until it's the
right consistency for you. During the 25 minute simmer time I would just unlid
occasionally and give it a stir to make sure nothing is
sticking on the bottom because we don't want burning. We just want smooth, soothing soul food. We're going to taste for seasoning. It's hot. I think as is it's quite nice. It's salted, but not salty. It's nicely flavored. Everything's very soothing. There's a little bit of curry
flavors going on in there, and the flavor is almost
like mashed potato, but with nice little bouncy pieces of our cracked wheat in there. The tomato is adding a
nice little bump of acidity that's turning more into
savoriness than tartness, and I think a little
bit of cilantro on top will make this really nice. (funky music) I love the textures. The sweet potatoes have
completely fallen apart. They still hold a little
bit of shape in the bowl, but once they meet your mouth
it's just pure creaminess. You crunch down on a little
bit of that fried garlic chip and it's just comforting heaven in a bite. I know that this is nowhere
near the spice level that Aaron prefers, so
I'm going to give him some homemade fresh
chili oil and some sambal so that he can, you know, top it to his own desired needs. How are you feeling? - [Aaron] Hungry. - Are you ready for some mush? - [Aaron] Mush! - That's mine. Yours is in there during there. - [Aaron] June, this looks like food you would have made anyways. - [June] Yes. - [Aaron] Whether or not
you were working today or-- - Correct. - [Aaron] Doing any Budget Eats week. - It's mush food. - [Aaron] This is literally something... I think you've made this
hundreds of times already. What was that in there? - Cardamom.
- Okay. How many times this
week have I bitten into a whole cardamom pod? - It's good for you. Don't worry about it. - [Aaron] I think this is your mush plus like jazzed up to, like,
normal people food tastes. - That's good.
- Yeah. - So it's not just like jail slop. - [Aaron] Not just jail slop. - It's flavorful slop.
- Exactly. So is this an Indian dish? What is it called? - Inspired by the dish known as khichdi. I think I'm pronouncing that close-- - [Aaron] I don't think you are. I don't think you're
pronouncing it right at all. I think you knew I
wasn't going to love it. - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] But I like it. - Okay.
- Yeah. - You want to put some spicy? - Yes.
- Okay. Did you like the garlic chips at least? - [Aaron] I do. These are perfect. Yeah, I like when they're
still a little bit of rubbery. If you fry garlic too
much, then, you know, it loses a lot of that garlic essence. This is going to be the deciding bite, 'cause it's the perfect bite. - Yes, it has sweet potato too. - No it doesn't.
- Good job. - Yeah, on the bottom of your... - All right. Well, I obviously like it
better now that it's... What are you doing? I would give this a solid 7.2. - Wow.
- Mm-hm. - We have like enough
leftovers for yet another meal of the same dish, and I think
this is a really great way to stretch your budget, because I only used about a cup
and a half of soaked lentils and half a cup of dried wheat berries, and that's enough to serve four. So, get on this khichdi deal. Next up, noods. Folks, I do believe the time has come for us to use our salmon broth. And for our salmon broth, I think the perfect thing
to put in there is noodles. And because we have durum wheat that is now ground into flour, I don't see why we can't
make noodles ourselves. Let's give it a try. I've never worked with
this type of wheat before so I don't know how it's going to react. I don't know what the
gluten situation is like. So what I'm going to do is take a cup and three quarters of flour and then I'm going to pour
some boiling water in there. I'm going to see how it sets
and we'll work from there. I'm guessing it's going
to have the consistency of pasta dough, which, you know, is a heartier type of noodle. Very, very dry dough. Probably not going to be able to pull it. We're probably going to need
to roll it out and cut it. Why boiling water? Well, usually when I make
dumpling dough in Chinese cuisine there is hot water going into that dough to kind of set that dough
and make it more pliable, a little bit more toothsome. I just like that texture, so I'm seeing if we can mimic
that dumpling skin texture. Basically, hot water sets
the gluten right away when it comes into contact with the flour, and it kind of gels the
starches in the flour, so then you have a softer noodle that isn't quite so elastic,
but it's quite toothsome. For our dough, in a large bowl I'm going to put in our flour, a little bit of salt, and
stream in our hot water. Once I see some dough clumps like this I'm going to go in with
my hands and knead it. And if that dose still feels
really dry and crumbly, I'm going to add in a little
bit more water at a time. Just maybe one tablespoon max until that dough feels nice and cohesive. Once your dough looks like
this where you can poke it, it doesn't stick to
your hand, it has cracks but still feels pretty nicely moist and not dry and crumbly, we can just put it away in a container, seal it, and let it rest
for about 30 minutes while we make our broth. I just tasted the salmon broth, and do you see how fatty
this is on my lips? My goodness. Let me think about this. If you ever need lip balm,
just eat some salmon oil. Okay, I think to balance out the fattiness of the salmon broth, we're going to need to go in with some of our canned plum tomatoes. I'm going to probably plop two in, along with some raw garlic, and just let it seep into
that salmony fatty goodness. I'm also going to be
adding in some spices. I'm thinking a little bit
of ground white pepper, a little bit of black pepper, along with a little bit of miso. And then we should chop
our carrots and jicama and just slide those in there for a little bit of crunch and vegetables. I also found some cut up onions
and jalapenos from yesterday and I'm just going to
dump it all in, guys. (fun jazz music) So, Aaron's favorite pasta
shape is the bow tie, and I'm going to try to make some bow ties out of this dough. Basically, I'm going to take our dough, I'm going to put cut it into quarters, and then I'm going to work
with one quarter at a time. I'm going to be rolling it
on a wooden cutting board very, very thin, about
one eighth of an inch to one quarter of an inch. It all depends on how thick
you like your pasta to be. Then I'm going to use
this little pinwheel tool that I bought five years ago
and I've never used it since. I'm going to be trimming
the dough into strips and then making tiny
little one and a half inch by one inch pieces that I'm
going to pinch the middle to kind of seal that bow tie middle part. And then I'm going to use
chopsticks to kind of push that in and seal it completely so
that it doesn't unravel. (fun music) Time to give our soup a taste. I think it tastes pretty good, but it needs a little bump of flavor, so in we go with MSG and the remaining green Sichuan
peppercorns that I have. That got the job done. (fun jazz music) (timer beeps) (fun jazz music) Cheers.
- Cheers. Is this salmon soup? - [June] Yes, salmon bone broth. - Salmon broth.
- Yeah. June, you and you made
my favorite cut of pasta. - [June] I did, bow ties. - [Aaron] 10 out of 10. - [June] Farfalle. - [Aaron] That it has
a really good texture for being fresh pasta. - [June] You don't like fresh pasta? - [Aaron] Well, usually
dry pasta is more aldente. I feel like fresh pasta, because it already starts a bit mushy, just becomes more mushy when you cook it. But it is a really good. How did you make this a bow tie shape? - I guess you'll have to
watch the video and find out. - [Aaron] Magic? Did you use magic? Be honest. - Do you think I did a
good job on shaping them? I think they look pretty. - [Aaron] You did a good
job on the whole meal. This is delicious. - Yeah?
- Yeah. - Woo! - This is great. This is a 9.5. (June gasps) - What? No.
- Yeah. Yes.
- No! You're right, it should be a two. It's a two. - So, I'm not a huge fan of fresh pasta, just because I feel like I kind of like the more bounciness. - [Aaron] That's what I said. - Yeah, the more light, bouncy,
airy feature of dry pasta. But... - [Aaron] You did well on this somehow. And this is not just homemade pasta. You ground the freaking wheat. - This week I learned
how to use salmon fat. It's unlike other bone broth fats. - [Aaron] It's really a story
of personal growth for you. You're like those salmon
swimming up the waterfalls and they jump, and the
first one jumps and misses, and that was the first day's meal where I just gave myself--
- All right. Thank you.
- Immediate acne from the oil. - We still have half a tray of pasta left, plus the dough from our trimmings. I'm going to roll these out. I'm going to put this in a
box with some additional flour so they don't stick next to each other. I'm going to put them in the fridge... Freezer. I'm going to put them in the freezer and I'll see you guys tomorrow. TGIF babes. All right, in case you haven't noticed we have a lot of lentils to use guys, so we're going to be making
lots of lentil dishes today. We still have quite a
bit of canned tomatoes. We still have some of our salmon scraps that I pulled off the bone from our broth. And then we have lentils. I think we just got to mash them together and bake them into salmon
falafel-y type things, and then put them in a red
sauce , and then scarf it. Hopefully it tastes good. A lot of lentil meatball
recipes that I found online used cooked lentils. However, red lentils turn
really mushy really fast, so I'm thinking of making
a falafel adjacent meatball where we just grind up
the raw soaked lentils, and let's hope it bakes and gets cooked. So, to make these meatballs, I'm going to food process
all of our ingredients. My Vitamix is very wide on the bottom. It doesn't get all the food
items evenly dispersed. It's just a pain to work with
sometimes in small batches. So instead I'm going to be
using my tiny food processor and we're just going to mix
the ingredients as they fit. I'm going to process half an
onion, one whole jalapeno. Once again, I'm going
to be saving the seeds and the membranes to go into our sauce and make it slightly spicy. Perfect addition. The rest of our cilantro. (blender whirs) Our cooked salmon. (blender whirs) Two cups-ish of lentils that were soaked. My food processor was way too small for two cups of lentils, so I think I ended up with about maybe a cup and a half
of lentils in there, and I just ground it up
until it's kind of like... I don't know what this is. You see what this is? This. Instead of normal salt, we're just go in with some flavored salt. I have some Mediterranean citrus. Perfect. (fun jazz music) In terms of cohesion, it's not doing too bad right now, but I want to make sure
that they don't fall apart, so I'm going to go in
with maybe two tablespoons of lentil flour for
now and then we'll see. All right, I think that helped somewhat. Now, I don't recommend doing this at home because none of this is actually cooked, but you know, the salmon isn't raw, so I'm going to taste it. Tastes pretty good. Nothing like a shot of raw beans to wake you up in the morning, you know? I think I'm going to go
ahead and just keep adding in some more tablespoons of lentil flour until this mixture gives me confidence that I can shape it without too much pain. All right guys, about half
a cup of lentil flour later I think we have the perfect mixture. If I scoop it, it holds its shape, it doesn't immediately fall off, and it's still nice and moist. Let's shape. Oh, and I almost forgot one
tablespoon of this tomato sauce going in just for a little umami bump. Meanwhile, we're going to
preheat our oven to 400 degrees for these meatballs. I'm going to be brushing
my tray very lightly with extra virgin olive oil. And I'm going to keep brushing
the tops of these meatballs with some oil as well, just to ensure that we're getting a nice little browning and a non-stick release. I'm not really looking
for the world's most perfectly round meatballs here, so I'm just going to be
using two large spoons, fairly round, they can
compliment each other. I'm going to dip them in water to ensure a non-stick
release from the spoon, and then I'm going to scoop out a meatball and then we'll shape it with
the spoons on the sheet tray. (timer beeping) To make our red sauce, I'm
going to keep it really simple because mainly we just
don't have that many ingredients left anymore. So I'm going to take our
remaining half of the onion, chop it up, along with
some cloves of garlic. We're going to saute that
in a little bit of olive oil until it's nice and soft, then we'll go in with our canned tomatoes. I'm going to use all of the sauce, and then I'm going to reserve
maybe two plum tomatoes just in case we want to
eek out another meal. We're going to let those
tomatoes break down a little bit. Let them cook, let them marry. Those jalapeno seeds are very spicy. I'm going to go ahead and squeeze this in. Herb salt. (fun jazz music) (timer beeping) (fun jazz music) The balls are out. 20 minutes. They look super, super deeply
golden on the underside, a little bit toasted and
dried out on the top. The only way to know if
they're actually cooked is to break one open and taste it. They smell lightly salmony. Ooh, that's a bone. Shh, don't tell Aaron. They are cooked. They have a vaguely fish
stick flavor profile. It kind of reminds me
of like public school lunch cafeteria fish sticks and you can smell it
from maybe 80 feet away. The lentils are nice and
creamy and soft on the inside. It's not too dry and it's
also not too sloppy mush. I think it's a perfect consistency. (fun jazz music) If I may say so myself,
those taste pretty darn good, and I think the only thing
that can make this better is if we have meatballs and spaghetti. We don't have spaghetti, but we do have those
bow ties from yesterday. I gave them a nice little
freeze for longer storage, but you know what? I think we can cook them today. Aaron is currently
preoccupied with his work, so instead of boiling these
and risking over cooking them, I think what I'm going to
do instead is saute them very lightly in olive oil
in our cast iron skillet I'm going to get them
really nice and toasty, and then I can pause the
cooking whenever I need to so that I can heat it up for Aaron later. While our oven is still warm, I'm going to spread out our
frozen pasta on a sheet tray and just slide them in
there on the off oven, wait for them to defrost a little bit, and then we can cook with them. While Aaron is plugging away,
I'm getting a little hungry, so I think what I'm going to do is make myself a little treat. Do you remember the wheat
pudding that we made? It tastes surprisingly like rice pudding, which made me think if I blend it up with a little bit of ice and
a little bit of mandarins, we could make a creamsicle horchata. Now, to simulate that
orange creamsicle vibe, we're going to need the
zest of the mandarins. That's because all of the essential oils in the skin of the citrus fruit is where all of that
nice fragrant flavor is. So, I'm going to go ahead, zest the three of those
peels into the Vitamix. I'm going to plop in a little
chunk of our wheat pudding. Oh, and a little extra cinnamon of course. And then I'll put some ice. I'll juice up those mandarins inside, whizz it up, and we'll taste it. (fun jazz music) So refreshing. So creamy, lightly
sweetened, slightly tart. Needs a little more cinnamon. That's too much. I'm going to go give this to Aaron. Aaron is almost ready to eat, but our meatballs have gotten cold, so I'm going to turn the oven back on. I'm going to slide them
into warm them up slightly, and then I'm going to
make some tortilla chips because we have a lot of those left and I'm thinking with our
remaining tomato sauce, onions, jalapenos we can whip up a salsa. Chips and dip. By now our pasta is fully defrosted. Let's go ahead and give them a saute. Just going to season them with a little bit of salt as they cook. Once your pasta looks nice and toasty hit it with a little bit of water. This is basically the same concept that we do when we make pot stickers. You sear the bottom first,
get it nice and crusty, and then you steam it to
help it finish cooking all the way through. We're going to wait until all the water basically evaporates
and cooks into the pasta and goes into the air, and
then we'll taste the pasta. If it still needs a
little bit more cooking we'll add in a little bit more water. Adjust it as you see fit. The inside if you want it aldente should still be a little bit
of white and raw in the middle. If you want it fully cooked,
go ahead and keep adding water. Aaron likes his pasta with a super bite, so we're just going to
let that water boil off, get golden on the crusty bits, and then pull and put it into
our sauce with our meatballs. (fun jazz music) - [Aaron] So these are meatballs? - Yes, kind of.
- Sort of. - [June] Kind of, sort of, yes. - [Aaron] Okay. It's a bit dry. - Yeah? (Aaron mumbling) Get some sauce. Did you get some sauce? - [Aaron] That's better. - Yes. That's why I put it all
on the same plate for you so that you could eat them together. - [Aaron] From now on I won't
ignore anything you say. - Do you like them?
- The meatballs? - [June] Yeah. Everything, man. But sure, give me meatballs first. - [Aaron] Do I like the meatballs? - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] No. Do I like the rest of the stuff? Yes. My immediate thoughts are this
would have been a great dish if it was just your pan
fried pasta and this sauce. The meatballs, I think it's
hard for the sauce even to get over the dryness going on here. - [June] Okay. - [Aaron] Is this a whole
piece of garlic right here? - Yes. - Okay, 10 out of 10.
- Just for you. (June laughs) - [Aaron] Yeah, for me, I grew up eating my mother's delicious
Italian style meatballs that's veal, pork, and beef, and they're just so rich,
and juicy, and fatty-- - Yes, I know. - [Aaron] And just, you know,
moist when you squeeze-- - These are a little bit healthy. - [Aaron] Yeah. - Too healthy. - [Aaron] This is basically
like lentil patties. - They are lentil patties, but salmony. - [Aaron] Yeah, okay. You see, if you called them
lentil patties at the start my expectations would
have been set differently. - All right, sorry. See guys? Lower your expectations,
greater fulfillment. So I'm sorry, let me
reintroduce this dish to you. Here we have some salmon lentil patties soaked in a delicious
lightly spiced red sauce with pan fried fresh bow ties. - [Aaron] Okay. Oh, I love these lentil patties. They're way better than normal
lentil patties I've had, which are (beep), but these
are good lentil patties. They're (beep) meatballs,
but good lentil patties. - Thank you.
- Yes. - I think if I used the salmon on day one these meatballs would taste a lot fresher, but right now they have that
sort of like frozen fish taste. As far as using the ingredients go, I think I did a fantastic job. The pan fried pasta is
a little bit crispy. - [Aaron] Every one of the meals this week I'm dodging salmon bones left and right. - Foiled yet again. I feel like Wiley Coyote here trying to kill the road runner, but the road runner always escapes. - [Aaron] There's faster ways to do it than hoping I choke on the salmon bone. - I know, but then I go to jail for it. - Just stab me with one
of your great chef knives. - Not worth it. Is it filling? Yes. Is it delicious? The sauces is. The pasta is nice. The fish balls... They have integrity. - Ask me what my grade is with this dish with meatballs. - What is your grade with the meatballs? - 6.5. - What is your grade
with the lentil patties? - 8.1. - Okay. One thing that I am extremely surprised by is the salmon balls
don't taste that spicy, but the sauce does. And the sauce has the membranes and the seeds from one
jalapeno and that's it. I didn't any other spicy component
and it's like insanely... I'm sweating. My tongue is a little bit on fire. Aaron is drinking water, so, you know. - [Aaron] That doesn't prove anything. - Oh, sure it doesn't. (Aaron coughs)
(June laughs) Our golden chips are out of the oven and they look mad crispy. (chip crunches) Yum. All right guys, for our snacky salsa, we're just going to go
into our food processor with the remaining of our tomatoes, a little bit of onion,
half my huge jalapeno, and then we're going to go
in with a little bit of salt and a little bit of vinegar. And now we're going to
eat it with the chips and we will all be happy, finally. That's pretty good. - [Aaron] That's a good (beep) salsa. That's like an instant salsa. - [June] Instant salsa. - [Aaron] I just saw you
put that (beep) in there like a minute ago and
suddenly you have salsa. - Yup. Oh, that's spicy. Ah, fire. Oh my God, you know what I forgot to add? Garlic. Garlic! How could I have forgotten that? It's never too late guys. Never too late to correct your mistakes. Here we go, the proper salsa with garlic. (chip crunches) All right guys, I know we still have an incredible amount of lentils left, but I think this is going
to be our final meal. The reason being, while we still
have a lot of lentils left, which means I can make
you all sorts of different lentil soups and stews for another year, we have very limited ingredients
as far as other things go. We have odds and ends like our
roasted garlic, our onions. We have half of our jalapeno. We have some raw onions. We also still have a few
pieces of tortilla left as well as two sweet potatoes, and we have our five mandarins. And we still have some of this durum flour that we ground down. It's going to be an interesting last meal. What I'm currently
leaning towards is making a hummus of some sort out of the lentils. We can put our roasted garlic in there, we can put some raw garlic in there along with our roasted
onions, maybe some spices. I'm going to cover it
with water just barely so that we don't get it too soggy. We want the lentils cooked but not completely slushy. For the sweet potatoes, Aaron has been moaning and
nagging about fries all week, so I think I'm just going to cut them up and roast them until they're kind of crispy crunchy on the outside and make some sweet potato fries. And if we have hummus and fries, we can either eat that on its own, or we can make a wrap. I have to say there are
few things I love more than just a pure flour flatbread, and I think if we can try to
make a durum wheat tortilla to wrap all of our hummus
and fried sweet potatoes, let's do it. But you know, I don't want
just any flour tortilla, I want a tomato flavored one. And because we still
have some of that sauce leftover from lunch, I think I'm just going to put that into the durum wheat tortilla dough and see how that comes out. Let's go ahead and make this dough first so that it can rest, and then we can go onto our hummus. For the dough, in a medium large bowl we're going to dump in
our remaining durum flour. Along with that flour,
we're going to go in with half a teaspoon of salt, half
a teaspoon of baking powder, along with two tablespoons of olive oil. I'm going to mix that in with my hands until everything's evenly distributed. After that, I'm going to
stream in some boiling water. If it feels too dry, just keep in mind that we're still going to
go in with a little bit of our tomato sauce, so that
we'll add some moisture too. After our tomato sauce goes in, I'm going to knead it with my
hand until a dough emerges, smooth, supple, and slightly oily. Once that dough holds the shape
of your finger indentation completely without sticking to your hands, you know that you have the perfect dough. We're going to slide that
ball of dough into a container and let it rest while we
make our hummus lentils. For our lentils, it's really just whatever I have left on hand now. So in a pot, I'm going to go in with a little bit of olive oil. I'm going to go in with my roasted onions, a little bit of raw onions. I'm going to go in with a
little bit of roasted garlic, a little bit of raw garlic. I'm going to go in with
a little bit of jalapeno, not too much. And then I'm going to
add in a lot of lentils. I'm probably going to go in with four cups because I want to be able to control the consistency of my lentils. I definitely don't want too much water in there to begin with. I can always add more later. I'm also going to add in
there some ground coriander, ground cumin, as well as steak seasoning for salting purposes. For a little bit of a smoky kick, I'm going to add in just shy of a half teaspoon of smoked paprika. We're going to bring
everything up to a boil, clamp a lid partially ajar on it, and wait until everything's
smooth and creamy and cooked. If you're using a cheaper pot like I am where the metal is super
thin on the bottom, just make sure you unlid occasionally, maybe every three to five minutes or so, and give it a stir to make sure nothing is burning on the bottom, because boy oh boy, have
I burned many a pot. Because I soaked my lentils, these take super short amount
of time to cook through. I'm at eight minutes now
and they're already done. You'll know that your lentils are ready to come out of the pot when
if you stir, they turn creamy. As long as you keep stirring,
they should be breaking down. If they're not breaking down, they're not yet ready
to be creamy hummus yet. I'm going to take it off the heat and then I'm going to plop
my entire pot into a bowl of large cold water. Into a large bowl of cold water. This will help it cool down faster because nobody wants hot hummus. In the meantime, we can
prep our sweet potato fries. For a little extra fiber and vitamins, I'm going to be keeping
most of the peel on. I'm going to trim away the spots where it looks dingy and blotchy, but for the most part, if it looks clear, we're going to keep it. For ease of wrapping and eating, I think we're just going
to keep the traditional... Shoestring fry shape here. My goodness. (exciting music) We're gonna put our fries on our tray. We're going to brush it with olive oil. We're going to salt it very lightly. Maybe a little bit of spices. We're going to throw it into our oven. that has been preheating at 375. (timer beeps) At the 15 minute mark we're going to take
out our sweet potatoes. We're going to give them a
little shake, a little toss, flip them around a little bit, and then put them back into the oven until they're nice and crispy. Our fries are nice and
golden, hopefully crunchy. Eh, kind of. Aaron, do you want a fry? These are obviously not fried
fries, they're baked fries, but I figured you should try one before they get less crunchy. They're kind of gummy in the center. - [Aaron] Yeah. - [June] Not very crunchy on the outside. - Not Crispy.
- But-- - Taste great.
- Yeah. I think it's got really good flavor. Mm. That one looks fun. I found an uber crunchy piece. In the meantime, we're going
to roll out our tortillas. As you can see, after it's rested there's a little bit of gluten development and it's nice and elastic. I'm going to divide our dough into fours and then I'm going to roll
each of them up into a ball, flatten the ball, and then
roll it out with a rolling pin until it's pretty thin. I would say an eighth of an inch, but let's see how far we get. When rolling out dough of any sort, if you're trying to keep it circular, rotate that round often. The more often you rotate it the more even your rolling will be. To cook these tortillas, I'm going to set my trusty cast iron pan over a medium-low heat, and we're just going to go on that pan until the bottom gets
a little bit dried out and maybe slightly browning. As soon as your pancakes
come out of the pan and onto a plate, cover it with a paper towel
so that they don't dry out. If you have your heat
on the right setting, as soon as you start to see the surface of the dough bubbling,
that's a good sign to flip. Once you flip it cooks really
fast on the other side. You're going to see some
brown spots, it's ready. Once our lentils are cooled off I'm going to hit them with some
raw onions, some raw garlic, roasted garlic, as well as our
jalapeno seeds and membranes, and I'm going to process it in batches until everything's smooth. Oh, that's spicy. You may be asking, "June, you
have a very expensive Vitamix. "Why are you not using
that to do your hummus in?" Well, guys, I have the wide Vitamix. It beats a lot of air into it without moving the mixture
efficiently sometimes. And besides, I don't really
like a fluffy hummus. I like my hummus to be slightly grainy, a little bit textured, with grit. Kind of like this. I present to you our red lentil hummus dip with a drizzle of olive oil, some of our remaining garlic chips, some cilantro, and some gochugaru on top. I think that looks pretty delightful. (exciting music) Are you ready? As usual, our last meal requires
a little bit of assembly. - [Aaron] Is it because it's
the just put together crap from whatever you still had lying around? - Actually no. This time it's not leftovers. - [Aaron] Okay. - We have sweet potato fries, baked, and we also have tomato durum tortillas, and we also have some hummus,
but it's actually lentils with a lot of different
onions, jalapenos, garlic. And then you have toppings
like raw jalapeno, raw onions, cilantro, pumpkin seeds. - [Aaron] It's a beautiful hummus. Is this lentil hummus again? - [June] Mm-hm. Don't be too greedy, you might not be able to close it. You like it? - Mm-hm. - Mainly because I'm just
eating straight up jalapenos. - Well, yeah, it's for you. I did pretty good. The textures are really nice. - There's a lot of sweet
elements of this wrap. The hummus is a little sweet, the tortilla's a little sweet, sweet potatoes are obviously sweet. - Mm-hm. - But those fresh
jalapenos in there make it an exciting sweetness and
exciting overall flavor. - I didn't add sugar. There's no sugar. - Mm-hm. Just the natural sweetness of
the ingredients is coming out. And you know what my favorite
thing is about this meal? - Hm? - I'm not constantly worried
about choking on salmon bones. - [June] It's such a pleasing bite too. - Did you get this idea from
the halal trucks in New York that sometimes put fries
when their falafel wraps? - Mm-hm. How's this for a last meal? - Like ever? - Maybe. - Yeah, you never know these days. - I like my fries. I like my cilantro. I like my crunchies. - [Aaron] So this was $20 a week? - Mm-hm. - [Aaron] Do you have anything leftover? - Yes. Lots of red lentils. We've got lentils up there and then inside random leftovers, and also a lot of mandarins, as well as some tortillas and salsa. Ooh, how would salsa tastes on this? - [Aaron] Forgot about this. - [June] I know, salsa's great. - And I was looking forward to
eating this when I got back, but here I am. - Better?
- Mm-hm. - [June] Yes. - [Aaron] It enfreshens it a lot. - [June] Enfreshens it. Can I have a grade, chef? My battery's running out. - Mm, I don't know. it's not like mind blowing, but it's good. Maybe an 8.9. - [June] 8.9's pretty good, dude. - [Aaron] Mm-hm. - I also have some of our
leftover pasta sauce from lunch. Mm! That's good in there too. Throw all the crap in here. I'm in love with all the
textures in this one. I think the soft flour
tortilla is really nice with the crunchiness, and then the creaminess of the hummus, and then just all the random pickles and all the flavors are sweet, and tart, and salty, and slightly spicy. And nothing's overpowering and it's just nice to consume. I'm going to give myself
I think an 8.9 out of 10. Can you recall what your
favorite meals are this week? - I can't remember what
I did five minutes ago, so probably not. I think my favorite was the wheat pudding. - [June] Did you like the horchata? - It was fine. It was a bit fibrous. It was a bit too fibrous. - Oh, interesting. - Because you did whole blended oranges. - Oh, too thick? - Too thick, yeah. - I think my personal favorite was the miso salmon fried rice. Basically anything that
used the wheat berries I was a huge fan of. I love the jicama salad with the salmon. And honestly, the khichdi was great. I needed it after that
day of fiery chilaquiles, and it saved my life. I think for the chilaquiles
we had great potential. If I didn't let it sit for too long it could have been crispier, and then maybe if I
didn't use so many peppers I would have survived, but I died that night and
I was reborn the next day. And, you know, a
different version of June. - Better? - What do you think? - You're okay. - Okay. I truly hope you enjoyed this week. I thought on $20 I wouldn't
be making nine meals plus two snacks, but I did. Do you think next time
we should go down to 15? - I don't think there's a limit to how far you can go down. You still ended up with a
lot of leftovers for this. You still made like, so, many meals. We got to get you doing,
like, 99 cent weeks, 12 cent weeks. - Are you making a third wrap? - [Aaron] Yeah. - You said you didn't like it. - [Aaron] Who said I didn't like it? - Well, it wasn't on your favorites. - Just because something isn't... You have a tendency to think that if something's not
my favorite, I hate it. - Right. - Sometimes things are just good enough. - It's true. And with that, stay hydrated. I'll see you guys next time. Please get more sleep than I do, because it's not sustainable. Goodnight. (exciting music)
