You may have eaten at Slanted Door or even at Out The Door either at the Ferry Building or at San Francisco Centre, but you're going to want to try OTD Bush in the Fillmore. In addition to many of the dishes that Chef Charles Phan is famous for such as Vietnamese Spring Rolls and the Jicama and Grapefruit Salad or the Chicken Claypot, OTD Bush offers something else entirely. Breakfast!

I love breakfast but let's face it, going out for breakfast in this town usually means American fare, dim sum or maybe Mexican food. Now there is something new, Vietnamese food. At a press preview I got tastes of a lot of deliciousness. Hats off to Pastry Chef Chucky Dugo for a whole bunch of sweet and savory treats to dig into. I was crazy about the crunchy-on-the-outside, fluffy-on-the-inside Beignets, Crepes with apples, Warm Banana Sticky Rice with toasted coconut and sweet and savory style pate choux pastries. The little puff pastries were still slightly eggy on the inside, just the way I like them.

For breakfast traditionalists, there are several different egg dishes, including a Fried Egg with p�t� and baguette. The Coconut Pull Bread was a big hit with almost everyone but I found the filling a bit cloying. For a pre-opening event the food was amazingly good. I do hope guests warm up to the comforting Chicken Porridge flavored with rau ram, crispy shallots and black pepper. It's just the thing when you are feeling a bit under the weather. Prices on the breakfast menu range from $3 for steamed buns stuffed with gingery chicken, mushrooms or pork to $13 for the Poached Sun Hill Farms Eggs with braised Niman Ranch brisket and crispy potatoes. Most dishes are under $10.

Like the other locations OTD is modern and clean. This location features cool blue green tile, warm wood, marble counters and an open kitchen that runs practically the whole length of the long and narrow space. Lunch and dinner menus look promising as well. I just hope my dyslexic brain can be convinced that the servers t-shirts don't actually proclaim them as sufferers of OCD.

OTD Bush
2232 Bush St @ Fillmore
San Francisco
415.923.9575

Last week I was one of the judges at the National Beef Cook-Off. It's one of the top culinary contests in the United States, held once every two years with $70,000 in prize money. It was interesting to see what contestants included in their recipes. Trendy ingredients and "superfoods" like walnuts and pomegranates made it into multiple recipes. There were familiar flavors like balsamic vinegar, chipotle and blue cheese, and more exotic ingredients like pistachios and quinoa.

I tasted 15 dishes culled from about 2,000 entries. In each category there was a clear winner and a very delicious dish that anyone could make at home. Should you be interested in entering a cooking competition, the most common mistakes that contestants made were:

* Under seasoning the food, some dishes really needed salt

* Not paying attention to texture, some dishes were very mushy

* Not having a satisfying balance of flavors--too rich or too little acid

* Not cooking the beef for the right amount of time

* Using too many ingredients in one dish creating muddled flavors


In the end, simplicity won with a dish in the Live Well with Fast & Convenient Grilled Beef category. Sonoma Steaks with Vegetable Bocconcini combines Summer vegetables--zucchini, bell peppers and grape tomatoes with grilled steak and mozzarella. It would be great for a pot luck or barbecue dinner. It has very few ingredients but uses some innovative techniques including doctoring the herb marinade from the bocconcini mozzarella balls and microwaving the mozzarella balls to take the chill off and soften them just slightly.

Most of my favorite dishes came from the teen category. I enjoyed the Rustic Beef Caldo which I will cook longer than the recipe indicates, and the Southeast Asian Steak Salad. I also want to try the Sicilian Beef Short Ribs but I would replace the grape juice with a dry red wine.

I was honored to be included with the other judges, Betsy Wray, editor in chief (pictured), Cooking Pleasures magazine; Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jackie Plant, food and nutrition director, Woman's Day magazine; and Niesha Lofing, food and family writer, The Sacramento Bee. Past judges of the contest include Julia Child and James Beard.

To learn more about how long to marinate beef and the best cooking methods for each cut, visit Beef It's What's for DInner

More:
Michael Bauer's blog post

"Beef ambassador's" videos

There's no getting around it. If you want to eat cheap and healthy food, peanut butter is a natural choice. I know some people can't stand the stuff, but I rather like it. What I don't really like are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. This year during the Hunger Challenge I didn't buy any jam, but I did splurge on some bananas at about 30� a piece. Because they are large, I only needed a half a banana to make this sandwich. I like it open face, but you could easily slap another piece of bread on it.

The good thing about eating something like this is that it's tasty, filling and nutritious, but also well under budget, allowing more money for other meals. But this like almost all my meals is starchy and while it might satiate my hunger it doesn't give me as much energy as I would like. Living on a limited budget is all about making choices. It's not terrible, but left to my own devices I might choose this sandwich no more than once a year.

Last year I took the Hunger Challenge a week before the official dates. This year I shopped for the Challenge, cooked for the Challenge but my schedule made participating for one full week really hard. Because my career involves food--especially developing recipes and writing about food, there were just too many events that got in the way. Within the space of two short weeks in addition to my regular workload, I had dinner with several clients and colleagues, I worked on seven recipes for two corporate clients, got ready for a food blog conference, made two guest appearances at writing classes, celebrated the Jewish New Year, and judged a national cook-off (more about that later). I'm not trying to make excuses, but I do realize that if I was on limited budget I would not have been able to do all those work related but fun food oriented things.

Don't get me wrong, I ate plenty of Hunger Challenge meals these past two weeks, I just wasn't able to give the Challenge my full attention. But I do hope my experiences and posts helped to raise awareness. Thanks for sticking it out with me during a couple of tough weeks.

Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich
1 serving, about 34�

Ingredients

1 slice whole wheat bread, 19�
1 Tablespoon peanut butter, 10�
1/2 banana, 15�

Instructions

Spread bread with peanut butter, top with thinly sliced banana.

As I mentioned in my first Hunger Challenge post this past Sunday, carrots are a bargain. They are nutrient dense, much cheaper than salad greens and can be served so many different ways. Last year I missed eating salad during the Challenge. This year I was determined to try to come up with some kind of a budget-friendly salad and carrots came to the rescue. All my recipes last year were for one pot style meals. They are easy on the wallet but don't allow for much variety on the plate.

Remember those carrot and raisin salads you ate as a child? I really didn't want to make one of those. This has more of a tangy profile than a sweet one. It's inspired by a Moroccan version that I found in Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I'm particularly pleased with how this recipe turned out. It goes well with sandwiches and as a side dish but can also be served as a snack. I can actually imagine making this beyond the Challenge.

Food isn't just a source of nourishment. Food provides comfort, adventure, and a means for sharing experiences. Day after day the Challenge reminds me not so much of being hungry, but of feeling deprived. I miss chocolate and tea and dessert and fresh fruit and salad and the sharing of a really good time around the dinner table.

Carrot Salad
Make 6 servings about 43� per serving

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds carrots $1.47
Juice of 1 lemon 69�
2 Tablespoons olive oil 36�
1 garlic clove, minced 6�
Salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin or to taste

Instructions
Combine the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic and cumin in a serving bowl. Slice the carrots into 1/8th inch thick disks. Toss the carrots with the dressing, season aggressively with salt and taste.

When I saw the Lentil & Potato Curry recipe in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook I thought it would be a budget friendly recipe. I can't seem to shake the idea that potatoes are inexpensive. The truth is, they are not. Organic potatoes, the only ones I could find at Whole Foods, were $1.49 a pound. One large potato? About a pound. But potatoes are high in Vitamin C and B6 and leaving the skin on provides good fiber so they are a good pick when it comes to nutrition.

I don't know about you, but I can barely cook anything without onions and garlic. I couldn't help but notice Bittman's recipe was missing those two crucial ingredients so I added them. I was able to get away with buying a very small portion of lentils in the bulk section. Sometimes buying a larger package is more economical but in this case it wouldn't have saved me any money. Can half a cup of lentils and one potato serve two people? In this recipe it can.

Lentil and Potato Curry is a bit like stone soup, the more stuff you add to it, the better it's likely to be. I'd love to serve it topped with a dollop of yogurt, a bit of chutney, a sprinkling of chopped cilantro, some rice and a fresh green vegetable like spinach, but staying on a strict budget means making sacrifices.

Lentil & Potato Curry
makes 2 servings about $1.38 per serving

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon vegetable oil 5�
1/2 onion, chopped 75�
2 garlic cloves, mashed 10�
1/2 cup brown lentils 36�
2 cups water, or more as needed
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder (I considered this pantry supplies)
1 large potato, cut into chunks $1.49

Instructions

In a large saucepan heat the oil over medium heat. Cook the onions for 8 minutes or until soft and golden. Add the garlic and curry and saute for another minute. Add the lentils and water. Simmer partially covered for 15 minutes. Add the potato and cover pan. Gently simmer for 15 minutes or until lentils and potatoes are cooked through. Season with salt and pepper. Optional: top with yogurt and cilantro.

Eating on a budget is possible, but it's not exactly exciting. To be honest, despite my success with recipes I developed last year during the Hunger Challenge I didn't make any of them again after the Challenge was over. They were too plain, sad reminders of a week of limitations. My desire this year is to coax maximum flavor out of inexpensive dishes and not rely on my old standbys, bacon and parmesan cheese. The Challenge seems to be turning me into a vegan.

One recipe I've been trying to rethink is pesto. In this version I replaced basil with parsley, took out the cheese and olive oil, used pumpkin seeds in place of pine nuts and used a bit of bread to give the sauce some texture. I credit cookbook author Sally Schneider with that idea. She uses a mixture of bread and water to create creamy texture that tricks you into thinking you are eating something made with oil or fat. The nice thing about this sauce is that in addition to using it on pasta, you could also serve it with chicken, vegetables or even fish, assuming you caught some that is.

The pesto was pretty good on angel hair pasta with a sprinkling of toasted bread crumbs on top, an Italian "cucina povera" technique. It acts as a stand in for parmesan cheese because it is crunchy and a little salty. I will admit, without the parmesan this sauce does need more salt than conventional pesto. Since pasta can be found for 99� a package or about 25� a serving I leave it up to you to decide if you want to add a drizzle of olive oil..

Parsley Pesto
About 1 cup, 6 servings about 34� per serving

Ingredients

1 bunch parsley $1.49
1 garlic clove, smashed 5�
1/2 slice soft bread, wheat or white 10�
2 Tablespoons raw pumpkin seeds, shelled 40�
1/2 - 2/3 cup water or more as needed
Salt to taste

Instructions

In a dry (no oil) non-stick pan over medium heat toast the pumpkin seeds for about 2 minutes or until they begin to lighten in color and get crispy. Roughly chop the parsley and stems, trimming the very end of the stems off. Put the water in the blender first, then add the parsley, garlic, pumpkin seeds and the bread. Whirl until pureed, adding more water if necessary. Season to taste with salt. Serve over pasta, chicken, bread, etc.