Three Rules of Dinner for One

Rule #1:  Do not eat a frozen meal.  Even if you and your wife normally crack open a Lean Cuisine every night, don't you do it when you're dining solo.  There's just something too sad and pitiful and mothball-smelling about that.

Make Leftover Hash or Soup instead.  Inspired by Tartelette's Roasted Vegetable Soup, The Frugal Hostess recently whipped up two - Butternut Squash & Carrot, and Potato & Onion (pictured).  It couldn't be easier.

Ingredients
Vegetables you have in your house
Salt, pepper, and olive oil
Stock, milk, or cream (optional)

Directions
1.  Skin, peel, chop, and otherwise disembowel your veggies of choice.
2.  Toss with salt, pepper, and olive oil in a roasting or jelly roll pan.
3.  Roast at 375 for an hour or so.  Check on them; FruHo doesn't really remember how long.
4.  Let them cool off, and then puree with an immersion blender.  You could use a food processor or regular blender, but it's much more messy.  TFH bought her immersion blender at a thrift store for $4.67 or something, so they aren't unobtainable.
5.  If you like more soupy soup, add one of those liquid ingredients.  If, like TFH, you want adult baby food, use just a little or none.

Rule #2:  If you have to eat alone, don't be all droopy and mournful.  Make your dinner (or lunch, or dunch) even more exciting than it would be if your usual dining partner were there.  Use your wedding crystal, or your kitschy plastic-ware, or whatevs.  FruHo eats on a tray and uses garnishes, something usually reserved for dinner parties.

Rule #3: Have a treat.  Whether that is dessert, or wine, or a grass-fed New York strip steak, you deserve to have something special when you're not used to eating by yourself.  Bonus points if you revel in something your typical company absolutely despises.

The Frugal Hostess is not eating alone tonight.  But she still gets lonely. Please comment.

When Decorative Gourd Season Ends

Now that Decorative Gourd Season has ended, The Frugal Hostess continues to be dismayed by the number of decorative gourds and pumpkins she sees piled up on the side of the road.  Now that their season has passed, decorative gourds are being pushed aside like they are trash.  Unfortunately, FruHubs won't let TFH stop and rescue all of the orphaned decorative gourds she spots, but FruHo can give you some ideas for how to save your decorative gourds from an uncertain future on the street.


Soup.  This is obvious, right?  Any decorative gourd or pumpkin can be made into delicious soup.  Here's how.

1.  Hack into the decorative gourd, and remove the pulp and seeds.  Save the seeds.  Put the pulp in your compost pile.

2.  Cut the decorative gourd into several smaller pieces and arrange on a baking sheet.

3.  Drip olive oil into the center of each piece, and then add salt and pepper.  You can't go wrong.

4.  Roast in a 375 oven for an hour and a half.  Actually, FruHo will admit, she has no idea how long or at what temp.  There's a good chance she does it differently every time, because she can't remember.  So, you can't go wrong on this one, either.

5.  Let your roasted chunks of decorative gourd cool, then cut away the [TFH is suddenly having deja vous.  Did she post about this already?  If so, she can't find it in the archives, so.....] rind.

6.  Puree in the food processor or blender.

7.  At this point, you could freeze the puree if you didn't feel like eating soup.  Or, you could make soup.  Put the puree in a pot over medium heat, and add half stock and half milk, cream, or half and half.  You will need to eyeball this based on the amount of decorative gourd you have and the thickness of soup you prefer.  If you don't have stock, add all dairy.  If you don't have dairy, add all stock.  Or use some water.  Really, it's your soup; do what you want.

8.  Serving suggestions: Sauteed mushrooms are delicious with this - nice contrast of flavor - as are roasted seeds seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt and slightly crushed.  For a more decadent meal, put a pile of jumbo lump crab meat in the center of the bowl.

Sausage Bowl.  This idea comes from FruHo's friend Meg and is delectable.

1.  Cut your decorative acorn or dumpling squash in half.  Scoop out seeds and pulp.  Roast about 45 minutes with olive oil, salt, and pepper in the hollowed out part.

2.  Make a Sausage Mixture of Excellence.  This can be ground sausage cooked plain, or mixed with rice or with some sauteed peppers and onions added.  A nice garnish, also courtesy of Meg, is fried sage.

3.  Fill the squash bowls with Sausage Mixture of Excellence.  Grate some Parmesan cheese over the top, and bake for a while (like, 15 minutes or so?) so that the sausage juices soak into the squash bowl.

Looks pretty, tastes pretty.  Right on.

Other ideas. 

1.  FruHubs' risotto recipe.
2.  Roasted wedges as a side dish.
3.  Serve the puree as a side dish (like mashed potatoes), without making the soup.

A note on shellack:  It is not delicious.  If you bought shellacked decorative gourds, well, you are screwed.  Don't eat that crap.

The Frugal Hostess, like an abandoned decorative gourd, gets lonely. Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe so that you always know when a new post appears.

Holiday Soup Kitchen

Jiminy crickets, Christmas is freakin’ expensive! Even if you vow to shop sales all year, or to make all of your Christmas gifts, it is still SO expensive to give gifts and decorate. The other thing about the holiday season is that people tend to entertain, so you end up having a bunch of hostess gifts to buy and a bunch of busy, busy days trying to shop and cook and pack and party in appropriate measures. Picking out outfits for each event that are festive and stylish but still leave room for your inevitable post-hog-a-thon pooch – well, just thinking about it exhausts The Frugal Hostess.

And yet.

And yet, The Frugal Hostess always wants to have a holiday party. She is a Hostess, after all. It just seems like such a good idea – people are in a partying mood and the house is already decorated. No one minds if you bring a hangover to work a couple of times in December, and everyone needs an excuse to wear something glittery. So, what kind of party won’t annoy your friends or result in your suicide during the holiday season?

Why don’t you host a Holiday Soup Kitchen? (For your friends, rather than the poor. Or both.  Although they may be hard to distinguish.) This is the world’s most relaxed party.

Step One: Invite friends via email or Facebook. Make sure everyone can see the guest list, because you’re going to ask everyone to bring the most hideous gifts they received, and you don’t want hurt feelings. TFH suggests a time frame like 4:00pm to 8:00pm and some obvious wording about how people can stop in before or after other obligations.

Step Two: Get out or borrow a slow-cooker or two and make three kinds of soup (recipes and suggestions to follow). All of these soups can be made ahead and frozen, so FruHo would make big batches for a few weeks leading up to the party – half for you to eat, half for you to freeze.

Step Three: Go grocery shopping. In addition to the soup ingredients, you should buy a wedge of Parmesan cheese, a block of cheddar, oyster crackers, Fritos, sour cream, onion, and hot sauce to garnish the soups.

For side dishes and/or hors d’ oeuvres, choose two or three of these:

Raw Broccoli and Cauliflower with Blue Cheese Dip

(or cooked with butter and cheese. What? It’s the holidays.)

Collard Greens – great way to use leftover Thanksgiving ham bone

Green Salad

Sweet Potatoes – baked whole, fried, or roasted in wedges

Sliced Apples with Caramel Dip

Arrange the soups and sides on a buffet. The Frugal Hostess likes to use her kitchen table for this, since it’s close to the kitchen (duh), but you could use a sideboard, your coffee table, a kitchen counter, or a piece of plywood resting on saw horses. Just be sure to put a cloth over that last one. Have all the food out when the guests arrive.

For dessert, you will probably have an assortment of holiday baked good lying around the house. There is no shame in that game, Dear Readers. Arrange whatever you have on a platter or two and be done with it. If you haven’t been so blessed by the God of Fruit Cake and Sugar Cookies this year, this is an easy option. Get a big bag of oranges (should be cheap this time of year, since they’re in season) and a box of peppermint sticks. Not candy canes – get the softer, chalky sticks. Punch a little hole in the orange and push the peppermint stick inside. Arrange them on a tray and serve. Tell your guests to suck the orange juice through the peppermint stick – sounds gross, tastes great. Add some hot chocolate or cookies or something and call it a day.

Step Four: Organize your entertainment.

Gift Exchange: Set up a white elephant game for the unwanted regifts. If people are dropping in and out, tell each guest to drop one off and pick another one up to take. If your guests are there for the duration, play the game. Seriously, no one ever really remembers the rules for this. Everyone picks a number to determine what order the gifts will get selected. Number One picks a gift. Number Two picks a gift and can either keep it or steal the gift from Number One. House rules you will want to set: a gift can only be stolen a certain number of times, and the person who gets Number One gets to choose one last time after everyone has gone. Fun, fun, fun. (This game is the ONLY THING The Frugal Hostess misses about working in an office.)

Alternatively, you might want to ask guests to bring a toy to be donated in lieu of a hostess gift, or you might want to swear off any type of gift-giving. Whatever you decide, be gracious about it. Say something like, “We all have enough gifts to buy. Please consider your presence present enough and don’t bring a hostess gift,” or, “If you can’t stop yourself from bringing a hostess gift, how about a toy for a tot instead?” The point is to keep it inexpensive, not to boss people into making a charitable donation.

Music: Please, please, please, for the love of God, create a playlist of super-unusual and rarely heard Christmas music, or don’t play Christmas music at all. You are so much cooler than the average bear, so there is no doubt that you can whip up something appropriate but not annoying.

Children: If you are going to have children at your party, please make an area with an activity or two for them. You can set up a DVD player in an upstairs bedroom or put out a full array of craft supplies, but don’t expect that children won’t be bored out of their minds (and thus act like assholes) if you don’t think about them. They are your guests, too, and they deserve to have fun at a party as much as the next guy. Same goes for pets. The Frugal Hostess recommends giving your pet a new toy or bone when you have a party, as well as running your hyperactive dog around the block 40-60 times before guests arrive.

Other notes: This is a casual party, so don’t mess with people by listing the dress code as “Sparkly Casual” or “Dressy Low Key.” Just call a duck a duck and say casual. The Frugal Hostess would wear a velvet jacket, white tee-shirt, jeans, and boots to this party, maybe with more jewelry than usual. If people bring you gifts, you do have to write a thank you note, even if you asked them not to bring gifts. If you don’t normally decorate for Christmas (or don’t celebrate Christmas), put out a bunch of candles everywhere to set the tone for good times (and hide your dirty floors).

Soup recipes tomorrow!

The Frugal Hostess loves parties. It's true.  And embarrassing.  Please comment. You can also join the Frugalistas on Facebook for exclusive content, follow on Twitter @frugalhostess, or subscribe so that you always know when a new post appears.