Purse Pleasers

Hey, y'all. I'm just coming in from the grocery store

and do y'all hear me squeaking as I walk? That's because today I'm real, real tight

I'm going to be doing recipes that cost pennies but are big in flavor

I'm going to be cooking a blackened tilapia sandwich with a cilantro lime mayonnaise

and baked rice pudding that's going to be so good and so sweet

and a three-bean salad that's big on protein, big on flavor and low on cost

And then to wash all this down with, I'm going to be making a mixed fruit cider

So y'all come on in the house and join me because today is all about recipes

that are real purse pleasers. All right, I've got us a nice Kaiser roll

I'm going to blacken our tilapia, and I'm going to toast these rolls off

And it's going to make a wonderful sandwich. Now, come on down here

I want you to see my tilapia. It's a beautiful, firm fish

It's a white fish. It's so good. And when you compare prices against some of your basses and your groupers

this is much more reasonable. All right. Now, I've got a stick of melted butter right here

And we're going to make our blackening seasoning. And I'm going to use a fourth of a cup of paprika

two tablespoons of ground thyme, two teaspoons of granulated onion, and that's the powder, not the salt

A teaspoon of garlic powder, a teaspoon of salt, and a fourth of a teaspoon of red pepper

which is going to give it that heat that we're going to want in this

So, we're going to start... Look at this fish. It's just like a strong fish

Not real, real delicate. you know, when you're handling it. Now I'm just gonna slather this in our melted butter

and then into our blackening and then straight into the pan. And you can see I got my pan hot and it's starting to smoke

and I've sprayed that with a nonstick spray and I put a little olive oil in it

Just a little, not a whole lot. And then we're gonna cook it, gosh

no more than three or four minutes per side. Look at that

That corner of the pan was hot. Oh, it's going to start making me..

It's going to make me start coughing. Anytime we do blackening at the restaurant

you know, when I was in the kitchen cooking, it's so strong

and once it starts getting in my nose and throat, I just go into coughing jacks

Oh. All right, let me run and wash my hands. Look at all that blackening

Okay. There, that's better. Now I feel safe again. All right, so let's come on back down here in this pan

Oh, it's smelling good, y'all. Smelling real good. All right, now while that's cooking

let's come on over here because I'm ready to make the cilantro mayonnaise

And I'm starting with a cup of mayonnaise. I'm going to chop up

Hopefully I will have about a fourth of a cup of cilantro rendered after I get through chopping it

And then we're going to add like a tablespoon of lime juice. All right, let's come on over here and flip our fish

Doesn't that look just delicious? Yum. Oh

So this is going to be delicious. All right. So that looks like about a fourth of a cup of cilantro

So in the mayonnaise, that goes... tablespoon of lime juice. So this is just going to give a nice, crisp, sharp flavor

to our blackened fish, which is going to be real good. We're going to have the cool and we're going to have the hot

and it's going to be delicious. Okay Now I just going to split my Kaiser rolls and put it on my griddle Now if you notice this griddle

this is an antique. I actually found this piece at the bottle shop in Millbrook, New York

It's one of my all-time favorite pieces. It's just... Ooh, it's hot and it's beautiful

And you'll notice that I'm cooking my fish in a big old cast iron skillet

Cast iron works great for blackening fish, chicken, you know, whatever, because it gets so hot

and it distributes the heat so well. So I got everything working here

I got our fish working. I got our buns toasting. And when we come back

I'm going to put these sandwiches together and then I'm going to be showing y'all how to make the most wonderful, cost-efficient

baked rice pudding you ever put in your mouth. And later, I'm making a tasty three-bean salad

and to wash that all down with y'all, a delicious fruit cider

So I'll see y'all back in a minute. I'm in here rubbing that nickel

That buffalo's gonna cry today. See y'all back. Hey, y'all. Welcome back

In case you've just tuned in, today's cooking is all about being big on flavor and short on cost

I'm just fixing to put my blackened tilapia together. I'm fixing to make a sandwich from that

And, you know, fish can be very, very expensive. Well, I've chosen a tilapia today

because I want to give my family a wonderful fish sandwich, but I don't want it to break the bank

So that's why I chose tilapia. So I've taken my Kaiser rolls, I've split them in two

and I've toasted them on my griddle. And now I'm putting onto my bread

a wonderful cilantro lime mayonnaise. And now look at this fish

Yum. Now, you can put anything on this sandwich you want. If you want to serve it with lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions

you can put anything you want to on it. But I think I'm just going to use just the straight cilantro and lime mayonnaise

Now, I have made to go along with my sandwich today a mango chutney

Now, you can buy this already made in the grocery store or you can just make it yourself

It's real, real simple to make. Oh. Doesn't that look yummy

Now, you can put your salsa straight on your sandwich or you can put it on the side of your plate

Either way, you know, you can eat this with a fork or you can do it just like that

Look at the juice coming out of that fish. Mmm. Mmm. Oh, it's so good, y'all

Michael loves blackening. But speaking of what Michael loves, come on down here

I'm gonna show you something he really loves. You know, this brings back such sweet memories to me

I remember my mama taking leftover rice that we'd had the meal before

and she would mix it up and make a wonderful rice pudding

and it's so, so economical to make, but so delicious to eat

Now I'm going to start with three eggs. Ooh, I can't forget about that tilapia sitting down there

It was so good. All right, I'm going to give them a light beat

and then I'm gonna add 2 1⁄2 cups of just whole milk

All right, now to this, we're gonna add 3 1⁄4 a cup of sugar

Now to our rice pudding, I'm gonna add 1 cup of cooked rice

and 3 1⁄4 of a cup of raisins. and then a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring

All right, so I'm just going to mix that up real good. You can see how thick those eggs have made it

It's going to be like a custard. All right, now I've got a 9x9 bacon dish that I've sprayed

so that it won't stick, and I'm just going to pour it into my dish

Gonna make sure those raisins are kind of distributed easily Now come on over here with me to the back stove because I going to set this down in another casserole dish

There we go. All right. Now, to ensure that this doesn't get too hard

I'm going to sit it in a water bath. And I'm going to bring that water up to the bottom of my baking dish

So we're going to put our rice pudding in the oven. We're going to bake it on 325

and we're going to bake it for about an hour and a half. And I know y'all are probably out there in TV land saying

Paula, Paula, where's the cinnamon? Where's the cinnamon? You can't make rice pudding without cinnamon

Well, not to worry. We're not done with this yet. And when we come back, y'all, I just looked outside

and there's something breathtaking going on outside in my backyard. When we come back, I want to show you what that is

And we're going to finish up this rice pudding. And later, I'm making a delicious three-bean salad

and to top it all off, a wonderful fresh fruit cider. Can y'all see that out there

Right now, it's a full moon, which really affects the tides here on Turner's Creek

and this is the highest I've ever seen them. It's actually come up over our wall

and it just blows me away when I walk out there and I see all this beauty

In fact, while y'all were gone, I ran out there and I saw dolphins feeding on the other side

It was just wonderful. All right, so I just wanted to show y'all that because it doesn't happen every day

and I'm just thrilled that y'all were here while it was high tide

So anyway, I'm going to make a recipe, you know, that's been around for 50 years

and I guess you can say I'm here to defend this simple recipe of three-bean salad

And it's one of those dishes that's very cost efficient. Now, I've taken one can of wax beans

I've drained those and rinsed them. And now I'm going to take one can of dark red kidney beans

and I'm going to rinse those out. And then one can of green beans

And the reason I'm rinsing these is, you know, I just want to kind of wash the canny taste off of them

But by the time these marinates, you'll never know that they came from a can

Okay, come on back down here with me. All right, so don't all those colors look beautiful

Food snobs may look down their nose at this dish, but I have to tell you, I have a hard time doing that

because this is great. It'll last in the refrigerator, and if you're just giving your children a sandwich

you can always give them a scoop of three-bean salad, and you know that they're getting protein

and they're getting nutrients, you know, and I can't look down my nose if a dish can do that for me

Now, to our beans, I'm going to add a half of a diced red bell pepper

and a few tablespoons of minced purple onion. Now, to this, I'm going to add a cup of sliced mushrooms

Now, your mushrooms, you'll want to make sure that you don't put these in water to wash them

you'll just want to take a damp rag and just wash them off because mushrooms are full of water

And you don't want them to come mushy, so just wipe them off with a damp paper towel or a dish rag

So there we go. That's perfect. You know, and this is one of those salads

that you can really put anything you want to in it. Now we've got to have our dressing

So I'm going to start with a half a cup of vegetable oil

Three tablespoons of a wine vinegar. You can play around with your dressing, too

If there's something that you'd rather have in your salad dressing, add it

You know, it's all about hitting your palate and putting in ingredients that you really like

All right, now, to that, I've added one tablespoon of Dijon mustard

and now I'm going to add two tablespoons of Greek seasoning. And that Greek seasoning's going to give it a nice flavor

Now I'm just going to pour our marinade over our beans and our mushrooms

and I going to put this in the refrigerator and I going to marinate it for about four hours because it takes time for all those vegetables in there to marry in with that dressing

that we've made. All right. So in our serving bowl that goes. Beautiful, beautiful

and I've made it four pennies. Just pennies. All right. Let's get back to our rice pudding now

Look back here. I baked it for an hour and 45 minutes

Does that look delicious or what? Now, I mentioned that y'all were probably sitting out there

yelling Paula, Paula, you forgot the cinnamon, you forgot the nutmeg. Well, we're gonna put that on now

I'm gonna use a fourth of a teaspoon of nutmeg and I'm gonna add half a teaspoon of cinnamon

And I'm just gonna mix those together. And then using a little tea strainer

I'm just gonna dust the top of that with cinnamon and nutmeg

Doesn't that look just out of this world? Mmm. Oh, it's like a custard

Yeah, it looks like an egg custard, y'all. Look at that. Because you noticed

that I didn't use a whole bunch of rice. Mmm

Wowee. It doesn't look like it costs just pennies, does it

Mmm. Mmm. So good. So cheap to make. Mmm

I promise it'll bring back childhood memories for you. I'm going to take another quick break

and when we come back, I've got to make something that will wash

all this wonderful food down with. Good old mixed cider that's going to taste so good going down

but it's going to be easy on the old purse. So I'll see y'all back in a minute

All right, I promised y'all a mixed fruit cider to wash down all this good food with

Now, I'm going to put into my pot one quart of apple cider

One quart of pineapple juice. Ooh, look at that thick, rich stuff from our cider and our juice

All right, now I'm going to throw in two sliced lemons, one orange thinly sliced

Looks delicious already, doesn't it? And I'm going to throw in three cinnamon sticks

Now, I'm just going to let this simmer for about 30 minutes

And once you get it hot, you can throw it over in your crock pot

and that'll keep it nice and warm, but you don't have to worry about it ballin' over

Now, before you serve it, you would want to take out all your cinnamon, orange, and lemon wheels

Smells delicious. It'll have your house smelling totally yummy. In no time

All right. Now I'm just going to slice me a couple of extra orange wheels

Going to split them so they'll hang on my glass. Y'all come down here with me

And let's look at everything we fixed today. I want to go ahead and pour me a little cider

And I want to taste our bean salad. Mmm. I just love that

It's so good. And I like the fact that it's savory and not sweet

So I hope that y'all have enjoyed today seeing some of these recipes that are a little on the old side

and very, very economical to make And as always, America, you know that I send you love and best dishes from my kitchen to yours

Mmm