Soup weather

Tonight's Menu

• Portuguese soup w/sausage, cabbage and potatoes
  

It's been really damp and chilly the past few days here -- perfect soup weather! This is one of my favorite soups for fall and winter. It's not heavy but it really warms you up and is very satisfying. The original recipe made a TON and included kidney beans, which I love but DH and the girl are allergic to. So here's my version:

1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 pound kielbasa or smoked beef sausage, sliced into half-moons
1/2 head of cabbage, chopped
about 6 red-skinned new potatoes, cut in chunks
4 cups beef broth
1 cup water
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

In a large soup pot or dutch oven, saute onion and garlic in some olive oil over medium heat until softened and translucent. Add sausage and brown it just a bit. Add cabbage, potatoes, broth, water, ketchup and vinegar to the pot and bring it to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes or so. Season with salt and pepper to taste before serving.

Really yummy and even better the second day!

Memorial Day "picnic"

Tonight's Menu

• bbq pork spareribs
  
• grilled garlic toast
  
• potato-artichoke salad
• coleslaw
  

Okay, so it was too hot to eat outside. But I grilled a lot of stuff! Does that count?

The spareribs were my usual, finished on the grill (meat side down over medium heat for 4 minutes, meat side up and slathered in Carolina-style barbecue sauce for 4 minutes, rest before cutting into riblets).

I grill everything from meat to veggies to fruit, but I think this might have been my first time grilling bread! We had some leftover boule (yes, from the book -- I SWEAR I don't have any relationship with the authors/publisher) so I cut that into half-inch slices, brushed it on both sides with olive oil (LIGHTLY -- you don't want to soak it), and grilled it over high heat until it picked up some grill marks, which didn't take long at all. Then I rubbed a cut garlic clove over both sides of each slice of bread. So easy, yummy and fresh tasting! The girl particulary loved this bread. Of course, she lives on bread, so take that with a grain of salt, maybe.

The salad was my favorite summer salad. It's finally summery enough to serve this again, yay!

And the coleslaw was my usual, except I used savoy cabbage because that's what I had.

Here's the timeline:

• Three and a half hours before serving, rub the ribs with spices and put them in the oven at 325 degrees F, TIGHTLY covered with foil.
• Make potato salad and coleslaw after putting ribs in oven; put both salads in fridge.
• Thirty minutes before serving, light grill and pull ribs out of oven.
• Grill ribs as described above.
• Remove ribs from grill; cover with foil and let rest.
• Grill bread and remove.
• Cut ribs into riblets.
• Pull salads out of fridge.
• Serve it up!

Tough cuts

Tonight's Menu

• grilled marinated steaks
  
• roasted potato wedges
• caramelized brussels sprouts
  

The steaks I made tonight were labeled "chuck shoulder steaks" and were dirt cheap, which is why I bought them. They were large but cut really thin, maybe a third of an inch. I had never worked with chuck shoulder steaks before, though I have cooked chuck roasts and shoulder roasts, and I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. Tougher cuts like this tend to need either slow cooking at a low temperature for a long period of time, or really fast cooking over really high heat for a really short period of time. I decided to go with the latter and grill them.

First, I marinated them for about three hours in a mixture of red wine vinegar, olive oil, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, a tiny bit of sugar, and a small amount of Worcestershire sauce. I think this went a long way toward helping tenderize the meat. Then I grilled them over high heat for only three minutes per side (did I mention they were SUPER thin?), letting them rest for about five minutes before serving. I'm really happy with how these came out -- they had a fantastic flavor and weren't tough at all! Success!

For the potato wedges, I just cut some russet potatoes into fourths lengthwise, plopped them onto a foil-lined baking sheet, drizzled them with olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. Then I stuck them in the oven at 425 degrees for about 45 minutes. This turned out to be a tad too long, actually -- they were chewier on the outside than I would have liked. Tasty, though! Next time I'll knock back the time or the temperature, or both.

The brussels sprouts were trimmed and cut in half, then steamed in the microwave until crisp-tender. I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, then added the sprouts along with just a bit of red wine vinegar and sugar to help speed the caramelization along. Once they had gone golden, I sprinkled on a bit of salt and pepper and served 'em up! I LOVED brussels sprouts prepared this way!

Brats!

Tonight's Menu

• grilled bratwurst
  
• grilled potatoes and onions in a foil packet
  
• steamed broccoli
  

I did not notice until I was putting them in water to parboil them before grilling that I had actually bought BRATWURST at the store instead of Italian sausages. Heh. It's hell getting old, man. But it didn't really matter, because I cook them pretty much the same way -- simmer them on the stove in a big pot of water for about 15 or 20 minutes, then grill over high heat until the skins are nice and brown and crispy. The kids said they actually liked these better than our usual Italian sausages and both had seconds!

For the potatoes and onions, just slice some red-skinned potatoes (or some other waxy potato) and some onions into quarter-inch slices and layer them on a big piece of heavy-duty foil with some little hunks of butter, salt and pepper. Just for the heck of it, this time I stuck a wad of whole herb sprigs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme -- the song doesn't lie!) on top before tightly sealing the foil packet on all sides. I stuck this on the top rack of my grill when I lit it, and just let it hang out there while the grill warmed up and the sausages browned. It cooked for maybe 30 minutes total. Then just (CAREFULLY) open up the packet, chuck out the herbs, and dump everything else into a bowl! Easy and delicious!

Broccoli was steamed in the microwave.

Making its first appearance this season: garlicky flank steak!

Tonight's Menu

• garlicky grilled flank steak
• crispy potatoes w/garlic and rosemary
  
• sauteed spinach
  

I would like you all to know that in the course of making this dinner I changed out propane tanks on the grill ALL BY MYSELF. And yes, that IS a big deal, because the whole propane issue kind of terrifies me. (There was a bunsen burner incident in college chemistry. I ... I don't like to talk about it.) Before I got my new grill with its sexy electronic starter, I refused to even LIGHT the thing. Now that I know how to switch out tanks, I pretty much only need DH for garbage removal, bill paying and occasional sex. Whee!

Oh, but you probably want to hear about the FOOD. Fine, then.

As longtime readers know, this flank steak is a HUGE favorite here and I make it umpteen times per year during grilling season. I've told you how to make it before, but it's easy enough to repeat: just bash up some garlic, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper with a mortar and pestle, then add fresh lemon juice and EVOO until you've made a nice slurry. Make diamond cuts in your flank steak and rub the garlic-lemon slurry all over it on both sides, pushing it into the cuts. Then pop it on a screaming hot grill for 4-5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of your steak. Let rest for 5 minutes or so, then slice thinly across the grain and devour. It is the BEST THING EVER.

For the potatoes, I just cut some russets into chunks and put them on a foil-lined baking sheet. Then I drizzled them with olive oil and tossed them with some bashed-up garlic cloves, snipped fresh rosemary, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. They roasted in the oven for about 30 minutes at 450 degrees, and I stirred them every 15 minutes or so to make sure they browned evenly. Delicious!

The spinach was SUPER easy -- just fresh baby spinach sauteed in olive oil until wilted and then seasoned with salt and pepper.

This is one of my favorite dinners, and it's so easy! I started heating up the grill when I put the potatoes in the oven. (And then the grill burned out, and I had to change tanks, oy.) I put the meat on the grill when the potatoes were halfway done, then sauteed the spinach while the meat was resting. It's a no-brainer, y'all!

Just like Mom used to make

Tonight's Menu

• beef roast with veggies
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I've had some sort of rotten head cold for the past several days and now that I feel good enough to actually cook dinner, I want comfort food! I had a big hunk o' beef in the fridge and a bunch of veggies in the crisper, so I decided to make a pot roast similar to the way I remember my mom making it when I was a kid. (I could have actually called her to get the recipe, I suppose, but I enjoy trying to reconstruct dishes from memory. I'm weird, I know.)

ANYWAY. What I did was generously season my hunk o' beef on both sides with salt and pepper, then brown it in a big enameled cast-iron dutch oven. After removing the pan from the heat, I arranged some red-skinned potatoes, yellow onions, celery and carrots, all cut in fairly large chunks, around the meat. Then I poured in some wine (a Malbec, I think -- something red, anyway) and sprinkled on maybe a tablespoon of whole peppercorns before nestling some fresh thyme sprigs and bay leaves in amongst the veggies. After that I covered the pot, stuck it in the oven, and let it cook for about three hours at 325 degrees F. It was delicious! Mom would be proud.

I put the roast and veggies in the oven right after picking up the girl child from school, and there was absolutely nothing else I had to do (for dinner) for the rest of the afternoon/evening except make the salad! How easy is THAT?

Oh, and the salad was just green leaf lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced radishes from the CSA, and wedges of tomato (ditto).

Skillet supper

Tonight's Menu

• sausage and potato skillet with cabbage and onions
  
• green salad "bar"
  

This was one of those "throw it together" suppers. I honestly had no idea what I was going to make until about five minutes before it was time to start dinner. Thank goodness for a well-stocked refrigerator!

I had some smoked beef sausage -- the kind that comes in a big ring, usually found near the kielbasa in the supermarket -- so I sliced some of that up and tossed it in a big skillet over medium-high heat with a little bit of canola oil. When the sausage started to brown, I added one small yellow onion cut into chunks and maybe 6-8 very small red-skinned potatoes cut into quarters. Once the onions and potatoes had picked up a little color I added about a cup of chopped green cabbage (you could use any kind, really) and snipped in some fresh rosemary. I stirred this around for a bit before grinding on some fresh pepper (I didn't add salt because the sausage was salty), then I added a couple of tablespoons of water to the pan, covered it, and turned the heat down to low to let it all simmer until the potatoes were tender (this took about 15 minutes).

This is one of my favorite comfort meals -- sausage, potatoes, onions and whatever veggies are lying around, all tossed together in a skillet. It's definitely not DH's favorite, but guess what, y'all? The boy child had THIRDS of this! He was crazy about it! I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even TOUCH it the last time I made it, but that was quite a while ago. Kids! They keep you guessing, that's for sure!

The salad tonight was just green leaf lettuce, shredded carrots, and sliced cucumber (out of season, and you have no idea how it pains me to buy it, but DH and the kids insisted).

Soup weather

Tonight's Menu

• potato soup w/roasted garlic and kale
  
• rustic peasant bread
  

Our CSA gave us a big bunch of kale recently so I thought I'd use it up in a soup, especially since the weather today was cold and yucky. This was totally an experiment, by the way, but it turned out great!

Earlier in the day, I roasted a whole head of garlic. I actually had to look up how to do this because I tend to be kind of an idiot when it comes to the basics. In case you're also basics-impaired, here's how I did it: peel the outside paper off of a head of garlic (leaving the paper on the individual cloves), cut off the top with a serrated knife so the tops of the cloves are exposed, put it on a sheet of foil, drizzle over some olive oil, wrap the clove in foil and place it on a pan of some sort (to catch drips, just in case), then put it in the oven at 400 degrees F for about 30 minutes. If I'd known it was so easy, I'd have been roasting buttloads of garlic all this time!

Anyhoo, if you do that ahead of time you can just let the garlic cool and then stick it in the fridge. To prepare the soup, I chopped two ribs of celery and a large carrot, then peeled and diced about five smallish russet potatoes. (I only just realized that we've been eating a lot of potatoes lately. Not sure what that's about, but hey, they're cheap! And full of potassium and stuff!) I put the veggies in a big pot and squeezed in the roasted garlic cloves from earlier (they slip right out of their skins), then added some vegetable stock to cover the veggies, along with a bit of fresh thyme and some freshly ground pepper. Then I just let it simmer until the veggies were tender.

While everything was simmering, I washed and trimmed a bunch of kale and chopped it up. When the veggies were tender, I used my immersion blender to de-chunkify the soup. You could also just pour the soup into a blender or food processor and then pour it back into the pan. Or heck, leave it chunky, if that's your thing! At this point I added the kale so it could wilt down. Then I adjusted my seasonings, adding more salt and pepper and tasting as I went.

At this point the soup was basically ready so I decided to make a garnish of sorts. All I did was chop up some nice, thick, smoky bacon (Pederson's apple smoked, of course) and crisp it up in a skillet. Then I removed the bacon to paper towels to drain and tossed some fresh sage leaves, which had been washed and VERY thoroughly dried, into the hot bacon fat so they'd fry and get crispy. I quickly removed those and let them drain as well. To assemble, just ladle out some soup and top with the crispy bacon and a couple of sage leaves.

This was really good! The bacon and sage kind of made the whole dish, though, which made me wish I'd just added those at the beginning! Oh well, live and learn.

The bread was purchased at the store and heated up in the oven. I totally forgot to make bread dough today! That's on the to-do list for tomorrow.

Easy supper

Tonight's Menu

• baked potato "bar"
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Sometimes, you just want something easy. Also, sometimes you don't have any food in the house because you've refused to go shopping while everyone was on vacation. Heh. This was perfect for our last dinner before school and work started back up again.

And it was extra easy, because I forgot to put the potatoes in the oven ahead of time and ended up doing them in the microwave instead! D'oh! I used to not like the way our microwave did baked potatoes (it has a "smart" setting for them) but tonight I finally dug out the instruction manual and read the cooking guide. D'oh, again! You're supposed to wrap the potatoes in foil when they're done cooking and let them sit for 10 minutes or so before you crack into them. They came out perfect, and so fast!

Toppings for the potatoes, set out in little bowls so everyone could make their own to their liking: butter, sour cream, shredded cheddar, crumbled bacon. I would have liked to add chives to the mix, but I didn't have any, and didn't think of green onions until AFTER. Oh well.

Tonight's salad, also done bar-style: torn romaine lettuce, chopped celery, shredded carrots, and GORGEOUS multicolored radishes (sliced) from the CSA. It's what we had. Our cupboards are nearly bare!

Happy 2009!

Tonight's Menu

• pork and sauerkraut
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• mixed greens w/black-eyed peas
  

Hey, everyone! Happy New Year! This is our traditional New Year's Day dinner, more or less. When I was growing up in the midwest, everyone ate pork and sauerkraut (or cabbage in some other form) on New Year's Day. But down here in Tejas, they are all about the greens and black-eyed peas. So, I combine them, just to make sure we're covered.

The pork was a big Boston Butt roast that was labeled bone-in but turned out not to have a bone at all. I seasoned it liberally with salt and pepper, browned it on all sides in a big enameled cast-iron dutch oven on the stovetop, then removed it from the heat and made sure the roast was turned fat-side up.

Then I opened a big jar of sauerkraut (I like the jar kind better than the canned kind; I don't know why) and drained off most of the liquid before distributing the sauerkraut around the pork roast in the pan. I poured on a bit of apple cider and then sprinkled on some brown sugar and tossed it with the sauerkraut, leaving the meat more or less uncovered. Then I popped a lid on the dutch oven and threw the whole thing in the ACTUAL oven at 225 degrees F for about 5.5 hours. For the last 20 minutes of cooking time, I uncovered the pan and cranked the heat up to 400 to crisp up the roast. The pork was falling-apart tender and delicious! And the sauerkraut was awesome, too. I was worried it would get mushy from cooking that long but it didn't, whew!

The mashed potatoes were from scratch. I know! It's a new thing for me! (I used to use Ore-Ida's frozen mashed potatoes religiously, but they discontinued them. Bastards!) I guess I should tell you how I make them, though it's really not exciting and I'm betting your mashed potatoes are way better than mine! I just peel some russet potatoes, cut them into chunks, simmer them in water until they're tender, then whomp them in a mixing bowl with some butter, milk, salt and pepper and go at them with the electric hand mixer. I know some people add cream cheese or sour cream or roasted garlic or whatever, but to me mashed potatoes are just a vehicle for the gravy (or sauerkraut and pan juices, in this case) so I like to keep them fairly plain. I dunno. I'm weird.

Anyway, the greens in our beans 'n' greens were from this week's CSA box. They gave us a bag of something they call "braising mix", which is really just some baby greens that you would want to cook rather than eat raw. I recognized rainbow chard, beet greens and mustard, but I'm really not sure what all was in there. No matter, though -- it's all good!

So, what I did was chop up some bacon (Pederson's Apple Smoked -- I have become addicted to this bacon!) and half an onion and toss them in a skillet until the bacon was nearly crisp and the onions had a bit of color. Then I added the greens (which I had washed, drained, and given a whirl in the salad spinner) and let them wilt down just a bit. I added a small amount of water to the pan, then covered it and just let the greens steam/braise down until they were nice and tender. Most of the liquid cooked off, and at that point I added one can of black-eyed peas that had been rinsed and drained.

After I'd tossed the beans and greens around enough that the beans were heated through, I sprinkled on just a wee bit of apple cider vinegar and some brown sugar and stirred until it was all incorporated. This is my favorite treatment for cooked greens -- well, the kind that don't have to be cooked very long, anyway. It has kind of a sweet-sour effect that plays nicely with the smokiness of the bacon and the earthiness of the greens. I added a bit of sriracha to my portion at the table and it was FANTASTIC!

Anyhoo, there you have it! The last of our decadent holiday feast meals for the next couple of months, anyway. Now it's back to quinoa and tilapia and other healthy crappe like that! (Just kidding.)(But only a little.)

Fall supper

Tonight's Menu

• pork chops with apples & onions
  
• steamed potatoes with brown butter
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It finally looks and feels like late fall around here, what with the brown leaves and the chilly dampness and whatnot. I am all about pork, onions and apples in the fall.

What I did was season some boneless pork chops with salt and pepper and then brown them in a skillet with just a wee bit of EVOO. I removed the chops and set them aside, then added sliced Granny Smith apples and onion slivers to the pan, tossing until they had picked up a bit of color. Then I poured in maybe half a cup of water (you could use cider, white wine, stock, whatever) and added some fresh thyme and thinly sliced fresh sage leaves. I laid the chops on top of the apple/onion mixture, covered the pan, and let everything simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. SO yummy!

For the potatoes, I cut some small red-skinned potatoes (you could use any waxy potato) into quarters and steamed them in the microwave. While they were steaming I put a couple of tablespoons of butter into a small pan on the stovetop over medium heat, swirling the pan every so often until the butter had melted and JUST started to turn a golden brown. You'll need to watch it really closely so the butter doesn't burn -- you want to catch it just at the point where it starts to turn golden. I sprinkled some chopped fresh parsley over the potatoes, drizzled them with the brown butter, sprinkled on some salt and then tossed everything to coat. These were really good and a nice change from our usual chuffed potatoes.

Tonight's salad bar was butter lettuce from the CSA, grated carrots, sliced cucumber and fresh snow peas. Easy!

Can you tell I'm making an effort to cook with more herbs from my herb garden lately? This time of year I tend to rely on rosemary and thyme exclusively, forgetting that I have a bunch of other stuff out there that isn't dead yet! The sage was a nice accompaniment to the apples, onions and pork; and the parsley really brightened up the potatoes. Now I need to find something to do with fennel tops -- mine are going nuts!

My favorite soup

Tonight's Menu

• loaded potato soup
  
• freshly baked bread
  

It's been chilly in the mornings here the past couple of weeks (finally!) and that means I'm craving comfort food!

I love, love, LOVE this potato soup. It's the only potato soup I make. I use full-fat dairy in this but you could lighten it up and even use turkey bacon if you like. It wouldn't be as GOOD, but whatever floats your boat!

The bread was just a boule from the book.

Perfect fall supper, if you count potatoes as a vegetable. Which I do.

Which is to say, no more OUTDOOR grilling

Tonight's Menu

• grilled NY strip steaks
  
• baked potatoes
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Hey, I almost forgot I have this nifty IKEA grill pan thingie! So I can still grill SOME things; I just have to do it inside, on the stovetop.

These NY strip steaks were about an inch thick. I just seasoned both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, then popped them onto the grill pan for about 4 minutes per side. I let them rest for a good 5 minutes or so, tented with foil, to come up to medium rare before serving. Easy!

Potatoes were baked in the oven and served with butter, sour cream, shredded cheddar and crumbled bacon. Also easy!

Tonight's salad was green leaf lettuce with shredded carrots, sliced cucumber, and sliced radishes from the CSA. Easy some more!

Sometimes the simple things are best, yo.

Bison loaf!

Tonight's Menu

• meatloaf
  
• twice-cooked potatoes
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Okay, I'm just going to come right out and say this: I've been buying ground bison instead of ground beef. Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. My local supermarket carries it and it doesn't cost much more per pound than the "natural" ground beef I had been buying, plus it's supposed to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol AND it's free of growth hormones and antibiotics. Best of all, it's darn tasty!

So this meatloaf was made with ground bison. I didn't measure anything -- just tossed a pound of ground meat into a large plastic zipper bag, then dumped in some dry bread crumbs, an egg, some chopped onion, some chopped fresh parsley, garlic powder, salt and freshly ground pepper. I also added about a tablespoon of bottled barbecue sauce, just for grins. Then I kneaded the bag until everything was mixed thoroughly.

I prepared my loaf pan by spraying it with cooking spray, then covering the bottom with a sprinkling of brown sugar and a drizzle of ketchup. I read a recipe years ago for meatloaf prepared with this sweet glaze on the bottom of the pan, and I've been making it that way ever since. It sounds weird, but it's so good! Anyhoodle, then I dumped the meat mixture into the pan and, just because I was feeling EXTRA NAUGHTY, I layered strips of bacon on top. (I know, right? I'm pretty sure I negated any health benefits of using bison vs. beef in this recipe, but whatever.) Then I just popped it in the oven at 375 degrees F for about an hour. It was really yummy -- I haven't made meatloaf in forever and it's a total comfort food for me. Perfect for a day when I was feeling kind of gross.

The potatoes were a variation on my usual chuffed potatoes, except that this time I used russet potatoes (instead of the waxier red-skinned variety) and cut them into bigger chunks. I simmered them for about 20 minutes in a pan of water, as usual, then cooked them again in a hot skillet with butter to get them nice and brown and crispy on the outside. I also sprinkled in a bit of garlic powder along with the usual salt and pepper at the end. Delish!

Tonight's salad bar was mixed lettuces (I had a moment of weakness and bought a bag of salad mix last week when DH was out of town and it was just me and the kids at home) with sliced green onions, sliced celery, and thinly sliced carrots on the side.

More ribs!

Tonight's Menu

• baby back ribs
  
• chili potatoes
  
• tangy apple coleslaw
  

Why yes, ribs ARE all we ever eat around here! Thank you for asking! (Hee!)

These were pork baby back ribs; I'm not sure of the weight but it was a rack of 14 ribs. I rubbed them on both sides with a mixture of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, dry mustard, dried oregano, salt, pepper and a wee bit of garam masala. Then I stuck them on a rack in a roasting pan (I had to cut the rack of ribs in half to make them fit) with a bit of water on the bottom, covered the pan tightly with heavy-duty foil, and popped them in the oven at 300 degrees F for two hours. I finished them on the grill like this: meat-side down over high heat for about five minutes, then flipped to meat-side up and basted with bottled Memphis-style barbecue sauce. As soon as I basted them, I turned off one of the burners on my grill, turned the other two burners to low, and put the ribs on the unlit burner for about 10-15 minutes, just to bake the sauce onto the ribs. They were tender and delicious, and honestly, they probably would have been fine without the sauce. What can I say, I like messy ribs!

For the potatoes, I just cut some unpeeled baking potatoes into chunks, tossed them in a foil-lined pan with some EVOO, and sprinkled them with salt, pepper, chili powder and garlic powder. I popped those in the oven at 450 degrees F for 30-35 minutes (this was after the ribs came out), stirring every 10 minutes or so, until they were nice and crispy. Yum!

The coleslaw was kind of an experiment. I wasn't in the mood for my usual creamy coleslaw, so I went the vinegar route instead. I actually paid attention to what the heck I was doing so I could write this one in recipe form for a change! Yay, me!

Badger's Tangy Apple Coleslaw

1/2 head green cabbage, shredded
1-2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and shredded
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. celery seed
2 tsp. canola or other mild vegetable oil

Toss the shredded cabbage and apples together in a medium bowl. Whisk the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl or glass measuring cup and pour over the cabbage mixture; toss to coat. Chill for at least 2-4 hours. Can be made the night before. Serves about 4-6 people.

This was way yummy and made a nice change from my usual coleslaw. The vinegary dressing was a great complement to the richness of the ribs!

A lovely night to grill

Tonight's Menu

• grilled pork chops
  
• crispy potatoes and onions
  
• garlicky grilled zucchini
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It's been SO NICE in the evenings here lately. Temperatures in the upper 70s or low 80s, no humidity, and now that the sun has moved south, my back patio and grill are once again in the shade for the later part of the day. Heaven!

Soo, I have been grilling. These were pork loin chops on the bone, which I just sprinkled with Jane's Krazy Salt and garlic pepper, then grilled over high heat for about 4 minutes per side. SO yummy!

The potatoes were a variation on my "chuffed" potatoes, but with onions added. I get a lot of requests for detailed instructions on the chuffed potatoes, so here is exactly what I did. First, I cut several small red-skinned potatoes in half. You could also cut them in quarters or eighths depending on how big they are. Put them in a pot and add enough water to cover the potatoes by about an inch. Then put them on the stove, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer them for about 15 or 20 minutes before draining off the water. You want them pretty tender, but not mushy.

Then melt a couple of tablespoons of butter in a skillet and add the drained potatoes. (I also added half of an onion, cut into slivers, this time but you could leave that out.) Toss the potatoes around in the butter over medium-high heat until a nice brown crust forms on the outside. The more violently you toss them around, the more crust you'll get. Once they've gone nice and golden brown on the outside, season with salt and pepper and serve! They should be soft on the inside -- if not, then you didn't simmer them long enough in the first step. Of course, you can adjust that to your liking if you prefer a firmer potato.

That's all there is to chuffed potatoes!

For the zucchini, I bashed up a couple of garlic cloves in my mortar and pestle, along with a little kosher salt. This acts as an abrasive and makes it easier to really smush the garlic into a pulverized paste. Then I mixed a bit of EVOO in with that to make a really garlicky oil. I cut a couple of zucchini into quarter-inch slices lengthwise, brushed them on both sides with the garlicky oil, then sprinkled with a bit of pepper. Grill them off for maybe 2 minutes per side over high heat and they're done! The boy LOVED these and I don't think I've ever seen him eat zucchini before except in quinoa pilaf!

Tonight's salad bar was torn green leaf lettuce, sliced celery, shredded carrots and wedges of tomato from the CSA. My kids STILL stubbornly refuse to eat salad since I switched from the pre-bagged greens. But DH and I are loving our salads lately!

Another catchup post

Oh, people! I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. Sorry about that! I have not been making much of anything new for dinner, but have instead been revisiting some cool-weather favorites. (Yes, I KNOW it's still in the 90s here. But the calendar says September so I am cooking fall food anyway!)

Here's what we've been eating the past couple of weeks:

• Martha's chili
  
• Baked potato soup
• DH's favorite Swiss steak
• Shrimp and sausage gumbo with fresh okra from the CSA
• Grilled Italian sausages
• Chicken fajitas (it's finally COOL enough to grill in the evenings!)
• Lots of homemade pizzas!

The CSA has been giving us various shelled beans (this time it was a big bag of butter beans) and I've been mostly cooking them up with bacon, onion, brown sugar and vinegar because we LOVE them like that.

We've also gotten some winter squash lately and at first I had no idea what to do with it! These are sort of the "ugly pumpkin" variety squash -- vaguely pumpkin-shaped but all mottled and weird looking on the outside. (Er, I mean weird in a GOOD way. My taste in squash is similar to my taste in shoes, apparently.) I finally decided to cut them into wedges, plop them into a baking pan (after scooping out the seeds), drizzle with honey and cinnamon and bake them off at 375 degrees F for about two hours or until they were really soft and tender. They were delicious and my house smelled AMAZING while they were cooking! I've been eating them as a side dish with various meats, stirring them into oatmeal along with raw pumpkin seeds or slivered almonds, and now I'm wondering how they'd be in muffins and/or pancakes.

My birthday was the 20th of this month and DH gifted me with something I've been wanting FOREVER -- a 6-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven! So I foresee a LOT more soups/stews/roasts in my immediate future. Hooray!

Oven goodness

Tonight's Menu

• oven-cooked beef brisket
  
• baked potatoes
  
• coleslaw
  

This was a really easy dinner. With just a bit of prep up-front, this will cook all day with no interference from you. You can even make the coleslaw the day before!

For the brisket, I made a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, ground cumin, dried oregano, salt & pepper and rubbed that on both sides of the meat. Then I sort of improvised a roasting rack by putting crumpled balls of tin foil in the bottom of a roasting pan and laying the meat, fat side up, on top of that. I poured a bit of water into the pan (around, but not on top of, the brisket), then covered it tightly with foil and put it into a 225 degree oven for about five hours. That's it! All you have to do is take it out of the oven, let it rest for about 10 minutes, then slice it thinly against the grain and serve. Easy!

The potatoes were likewise easy -- they were wrapped in foil and baked alongside the roasting pan for the last 3 hours of cooking time. I put out butter, shredded cheese, sour cream and chopped cooked bacon so everyone could fix their own potato however they liked it.

I would have served some freezer pickles along with this meal but I forgot to take them out of the freezer ahead of time. D'oh!

Indoor picnic

Tonight's Menu

• oven-cooked pork spare ribs
  
• chuffed potatoes
  
• coleslaw
• freezer pickles
  

We were expecting rain today courtesy of Hurricane Dolly, but not much materialized. I planned an indoor dinner just in case, though!

I bought a HUGE rack of pork spare ribs at the grocery store. These are cheaper per pound than baby back ribs, at least where I live, and I think they're tastier (probably because they have a lot more fat). I cut the rack in half so it would fit in my roasting pan, then rubbed it all over with a mixture of brown sugar, garam masala, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and cayenne. I put the ribs on a rack in the roasting pan, added a bit of water to the bottom of the pan, covered it tightly with heavy-duty foil and stuck it in the oven for about three hours at 300 degrees F. Then I uncovered the ribs, boosted the heat up to 425 degrees F, and let them get nice and brown for 20-30 minutes. I didn't bother basting them with sauce; just served some on the side (bottled). They were falling-apart delicious and the girl had seconds!

Chuffed potatoes were the usual, as was the coleslaw.

The freezer pickles were sort of an experiment. Our CSA has given us quite a few pickling cucumbers lately and I wasn't sure what to do with them because I have NO desire to get into the whole canning thing. My mom used to can stuff and it seemed like a huge pain in the ass. I just don't want to mess with it at all. So I tried my hand at freezer pickles instead, and it was way easy! I used the top recipe on this page for this batch of pickles. I think they're pretty darn tasty -- kind of sweet/tangy. I'll probably try a more ambitious recipe for my next batch, but if you're new to freezer pickles like I am/was, that's a pretty good recipe to get you started!

Grilled pork

Tonight's Menu

• grilled spicy pork tenderloin w/mango salsa
• roasted chili-garlic potatoes
• quinoa salad
• green salad "bar"
  

Okay, this was pretty darn easy.

Tenderloin recipe is here. Mango salsa is here (except I used THREE mangoes, and a jalapeno from the CSA). Quinoa salad is right over here. The salsa and quinoa salad were made ahead of time; they'll keep for a few days in the fridge.

For the chili-garlic potatoes, all I did was cut up four LARGE red-skinned potatoes into bite-sized chunks and toss them into a baking pan. Then I drizzled on some EVOO, tossed to coat, and sprinkled them with some kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder and chili powder. I roasted them at 475 degrees F for about 40 minutes, stirring them around every 15 minutes or so. Delicious!

Tonight's salad bar was purchased mixed lettuce, sliced carrots, sliced cucumber from the CSA, and cherry tomatoes also from the CSA (oh, the potatoes were CSA goodies, too).

Very yummy and summery!