Three Meals, Four People, $10 : Strictly for Grownups

When we were in college, one of us used to eat on $5 a week, which went for vatfuls of frozen orange juice and enough onions and bacon to fry with our rice at every meal. We are quite aware of meat loaf for a crowd, and how to stretch a buck’s worth of lentils and groats and garlic. We know exactly what to do with a ham bone or a seven-pound pack of chicken backs.

But for us, the challenge was to come up, for $10, with a day’s worth of meals that were--though not necessarily nutritious--delicious and intensely flavored, elegant enough to serve to friends.

In the process, we discovered some things that we instinctively knew but had never quite checked into. A lump of imported grana , for example, is about the same price as the equivalent amount of “parmesan cheese” from the horrid green cans--and provides much more flavor. A good country loaf, though expensive at $2, is infinitely more pleasurable--and hardly more expensive, really--than an insipid $1.59 loaf of supermarket whole wheat. Better ingredients are purer-tasting, so you don’t need to use as much of them. And if you speak up, even at a supermarket deli, counter people are usually delighted to cut you a walnut-size chunk of cheese or a dollar’s worth of pancetta .

Our biggest frustration was finding inexpensive fresh herbs. Grown in pots on the windowsill, thyme and sage are practically free; basil is hardly more expensive (unless you’re making pesto); rosemary and bay laurel are common in hedges; wild fennel is a ubiquitous weed. In the supermarkets, though, the cheapest basil we found was 79 cents a ratty bunch--the price of three pounds of onions! (We used a 25-cent bunch of cilantro instead.)

For breakfast, we lightly toasted slices of country bread in the oven, rubbed one surface of each piece with a cut clove of garlic, topped them with eggs fried in olive oil and sprinkled them with peppery crumbles of crisp-fried pancetta .

For lunch, a hearty garlic soup, thickened with eggs and grated Italian cheese, served with a rustic bruschetta --more garlic-rubbed toast. This time, the bread was topped with red sweet peppers--we found them at three pounds for a dollar at the Armenian supermarket Ron’s--that had been sauteed in olive oil with salt and plenty of garlic and tossed, still warm, with cilantro leaves (or in flusher times, basil).

Dinner might start with an antipasto of the garlicky sauteed peppers, if there are any left over from lunch (there should be) and continue with bowls of bucatini all’amatriciana --hollow “spaghetti” with tomato, onion, chile and pancetta . In a good Amatriciana sauce, pancetta acts more as an exotic spice than as a meat, so there’s not too much overlap with breakfast. We followed this with a simple green salad tossed with a strong, mustardy vinaigrette and fresh walnuts that had been shelled, toasted for eight minutes in the oven, and chopped. Dessert was an easy, rustic flaugnarde , sort of a puffy pear pancake, from Paula Wolfert’s “The Cooking of South-West France.”

GARLIC SOUP (From Richard Olney’s “The French Menu Cookbook”)

1 quart water

1 bay leaf

1/8 teaspoon dried sage leaves or 2 to 3 fresh sage leaves

1/8 teaspoon dried thyme leaves or 1 sprig fresh thyme

10 to 15 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled

Salt

1 egg

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons freshly grated grana cheese

Freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup olive oil

Bread crusts, dried and broken up, optional

Bring water to boil and add bay leaf, sage leaves, thyme, garlic and salt to taste. Cover and cook at gentle boil 40 minutes. Strain liquid through sieve, discard herbs and pass garlic through sieve into liquid. Adjust salt to taste.

Combine egg, egg yolks, cheese and pepper to taste in bowl. Whisk until creamy. Slowly pour in olive oil, whisking constantly. Continuing to whisk, add garlic liquid by ladleful. Stir egg-cheese mixture with garlic liquid, then transfer to saucepan. Whisk soup over low to medium heat until slightly thickened, enough to be no longer watery.

Pour soup over handful bread crusts in heated tureen and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

199 calories; 157 mg sodium; 195 mg cholesterol; 19 grams fat; 3 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 0 fiber; 86% calories from fat.

FLAUGNARDE (Batter Cake With Fresh Pears)

(From Paula Wolfert’s “The Cooking of South-West France”)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups (about) unbleached all-purpose flour

Salt

1 cup milk, warmed

1 tablespoon dark rum

2 sweet pears, such as Anjou

2 1/2 tablespoons butter

Powdered sugar

Lightly beat eggs in mixing bowl. Sift together flour and salt. Add to eggs, stirring. Add 2 tablespoons warm milk. Mix until egg-flour mixture is completely smooth. Gradually stir in remaining warm milk and rum. Strain mixture through fine sieve and let stand 1 to 2 1/2 hours.

Peel, core, halve and thinly slice pear. Pour batter in well-buttered, straight-sided 9- or 8-inch cake pan. Place pear slices on top of batter, then scatter bits of remaining butter on top. Bake on lower rack of 450-degree oven 15 minutes. Lower heat to 400 degrees and bake 30 to 35 minutes, until well puffed and golden brown.

Loosen cake around edges with spatula and lift onto serving dish. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve within 5 minutes. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

199 calories; 113 mg sodium; 94 mg cholesterol; 7 grams fat; 28 grams carbohydrates; 6 grams protein; .6 gram fiber; 31% calories from fat.

BUCATINI ALL’AMATRICIANA (Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s “Classic Italian Cooking”)

2 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons oil

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

2 slices pancetta, cut into matchstick strips

1 pound tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, or 1 1/2 cups canned tomatoes

1 serrano chile, thinly sliced, or 1/2 to 1 dried hot red chile, chopped fine

Salt, pepper

1 pound bucatini, cooked al dente

1/4 cup freshly grated grana cheese

Heat butter and oil and saute onion until pale gold. Add pancetta strips and saute until fat melts. Add tomatoes and serrano chile. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until fat separates, 20 to 25 minutes.

Mix together cooked bucatini and sauce in serving bowl. Add cheese and mix thoroughly. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

596 calories; 265 mg sodium; 20 mg cholesterol; 18 grams fat; 90 grams carbohydrates; 17 grams protein; 0.85 grams fiber; 28% calories from fat.

Ochoa Menu

BREAKFAST

Eggs fried in olive oil with bits of crisped pancetta , served on oven - toasted country bread rubbed with garlic

Coffee

Milk

LUNCH

Sauteed red peppers on bruschetta

Garlic Soup

Iced tea

DINNER

Bucatini all’ Amatriciana

Green salad tossed with toasted walnuts

Batter Cake With Fresh Pears

Iced tea

SHOPPING LIST

Purchased at Grand Central Market, Ron’s, Ralph’s, Andre’s Italian Imported Foods in Hollywood and La Brea Bakery

4 red peppers at .33 per pound: .41 2 heads garlic at 1 pound for $.99: .24 2 brown onions at .25 per pound: .22 2 Anjou pears at .49 per pound: .44 1 head romaine lettuce at .49 per head: .49 1 package (1 pound) bucatini : .89 1 dozen large eggs: .99 1 quart milk: .45 1 stick butter: .50 1/8 pound pancetta : 1.04 2 ounces grana cheese: 1.66 1 small loaf country white bread: $2.00 5 fresh walnuts at $1.09 per pound: .07 1 pound Roma tomatoes at .33 per pound: .33 1 bunch cilantro: .25 TOTAL: $9.98 Staples: flour, 1 bay leaf, 1 tablespoon dark rum, powdered sugar, oil and vinegar, salt, pepper, mustard, dried herbs, coffee, tea