Cheap Healthy Good Turns 3: The Top 10 Recipes of Our Previous Year of Existence

Sweet readers! Don’t forget: tomorrow begins CHG’s No-Cook July. It’s all the food you’ve come to know and tolerate, minus any bacteria-killing heat. See you then!

You guys! We’ve been around for three years! Who knew that financial idiocy and an inability to cook would someday lead to a blog with over 120,000 George Clooney references?

But seriously, folks. It’s been a sweet year here at the CHG compound. Our readership remained aweradbodaciousicalsome. We even grew a little, with over a million visits since last July. We got a tad burned out. We came roaring back. We introduced Ask the Internet, which thanks to y’all, has been a thriving success/fab way to brainstorm. Our photos have become marginally better. (See here, then here.) We watched the Food Networks for 19 hours straight, and did not die. You guys totes chose my wedding beer!

Still, there’s always room for improvement, so we have to ask: How are we doing? What do you like about CHG? What do you hate about it? What would you change? Do you like my hair? The comment section awaits your wordage.

We also have to thank everybody who makes the blog possible, including MSN Smart Spending, Lifehacker, BoingBoing, Karen Datko, Donna Freedman, CNN, CBS Early Show, Time’s Money Blog, Money Saving Mom, Casual Kitchen, Kalyn’s Kitchen, Serious Eats, Get Rich Slowly, Wise Bread, Healthy Eats, Tip Hero, Thirty a Week, Brokeass Gourmet, Faithful Provisions, It’s Frugal Being Green, Paid Twice, The Simple Dollar, Owlhaven, Like Merchant Ships, and many more.

Of course, the most important part of CHG remains constant references to arcane sitcoms the frugal, healthy-like food. With that in mind, here, in the great tradition of our anniversary posts, are the Top Ten Recipes of our last year, in no particular order. (And then I promise we'll stop talking about ourselves.)

Butternut Squash Risotto
Adapted from Chez Panisse via The Wednesday Chef.
I love this thing more than I’ve ever loved a thing.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus and Turkey Sausage
Adapted from My Kitchen Snippets.
Easy, healthy, delicious. It’s a troika!

Esquites
Adapted from David Schuttenberg’s Esquites in New York Magazine.
There’s corn, and then there’s corn. This is the latter.

White Bean Dip
Adapted from Ellie Krieger.
One of the simplest recipes on the site, and also one of the best. For a while there, I was making it weekly.

Salsa Couscous Chicken and/or Moroccan Chicken
Adapted from Ellie Matthews via Pillsbury.
This recipe won Pillsbury’s 1998 Bake-Off, with excellent reason.

Hot and Sour Soup with Baby Bok Choy
Adapted from Serious Eats and All Recipes.
Comfort food at it’s warm tastiest.

Maple Morning Polenta
Adapted from Mary Ostyn.
This immediately went into breakfast rotation, and has remained there ever since. We ate it yesterday.

Sardine Avocado Open-Faced Sandwiches
Adapted from Alton Brown.
Sounds bizarre, tastes heavenly. A sublime tuna fish substitute for mayo haters.

Gingersnap Oatmeal / Oatmeal with Soy Sauce, Sesame Oil, and Scallions
Adapted from Kitchen Bitsch / Mark Bittman.
Can’t decide between savory or sweet oatmeal? Now you don’t have to.

Veggie Burgs
Adapted from Mark Bittman.
Stellar version of a vegetarian standard.

Honorable Mentions: Baked Loaded Potato Skins, Basic Tomato Soup, Breakfast Burritos, Chickpea Cutlets, Carolina Barbecue Seitan Bites, Grilled Bananas and Chocolate, Italian Turkey Sliders, Pasta with Zucchini and Chickpeas, Sourdough Sausage Stuffing, Summer Panzanella, Sweet Potato Kugel, Tofu Banh Mi, Tomato and Avocado Salsa, Veggie Lo Mein.

And that's it. Thanks again, to all you guys, and we'd love to hear about ways we can improve the experience. Have a lovely Wednesday!

~~~

If you enjoy this post, you might also dig:

• 50 Cheap and Healthy Party Foods
• A Beginner's Guide to Beans, Plus 42 Recipes
• Seriously, Eating: 40 Recipes from the Other Blog I Write For