Lasagne for everyone!

Tonight's Menu

• cheesy lasagne
  
• crusty garlic bread
  
• big-ass salad
  

I could swear that years ago, DH told me he didn't like ricotta cheese. So all these years I've been making my lasagne with mozzarella only. Sometimes I'd throw in some spinach and/or mushrooms, but ever since the boy child decided he liked PLAIN lasagne, I haven't even been doing that. So it's been sauce, noodles and mozzarella. No meat, no veg, no nothing. Yeah. Kind of flat and yucky, actually.

HOWEVER, DH has suddenly decided that he would be okay with trying some ricotta after all. So today I mixed ricotta (part skim) with the mozzarella and layered THAT with the noodles and sauce, and my lasagne was much closer to something resembling normal. DH declared that he liked the ricotta version better, so thank God.

Oh, and by the way? Those oven-ready lasagne noodles are the best invention since microwave popcorn.

Portuguese soup

My mom swears she has been making this sausage and cabbage soup (recipe here) for years but I don't remember it at all. The first time I remember eating it was when Malcontent Mama served it to Bookhart and me at her house on a very cold evening last winter. I've made it several times since and it always takes me back to that icy/drizzly evening and all the laughter and alcohol and broken glass. Good times! (Er, you probably had to have been there.)

Anyway, I was in the mood for it tonight so I put a pot on to simmer while the kids were at taekwondo. I leave out the kidney beans because DH is allergic to them, but in my opinion the soup is better with them in. This is a wonderful soup for cold weather -- it really warms you up inside! It's even better the second day, after the flavors have really had a chance to meld.

She's got legs

Tonight's Menu

• roasted chicken thighs and drumsticks
  
• leftover steamed rice
  
• green salad
  

There was plenty of pork and pineapple leftover from last night so I let DH have that while the kids and I had roasted chicken leg parts. Yum! I'm going to make an Asian-inspired chicken salad from the leftovers, I think. I'll let y'all know how it comes out!

Skillet supper: pineapple pork chops

Tonight's Menu

• skillet pork chops w/onion and pineapple
  
• steamed rice
  
• steamed broccoli
  

I love stir-fried pork and pineapple but I suck at stir-fries in general. No matter how I cook the meat -- in small batches, at high temperature, etc. -- it gets tough. I had some really nice, thick, boneless pork chops tonight and I was dying for some stir-fry, but it would have been a sin to ruin them with my lackluster cooking skills.

So instead, I left the chops whole and browned them in a skillet. I tossed in a chopped (into wedges) sweet yellow onion and a big can of pineapple chunks (which I had drained, reserving the juice). I added a little bit of pineapple juice to the pan, brought it to a boil, then covered the pan and turned it to low for about 20 minutes. While the chops were simmering and the veggies and rice were cooking in the microwave, I put the rest of the reserved pineapple juice into a bowl. I whisked in some ketchup and mirin (a sweet rice cooking wine) along with a little bit of worcestershire sauce (because DH and the girl are allergic to soy). Then, when the chops were done, I removed them from the pan and turned it up to high. I whisked some cornstarch into the juice/ketchup mixture and added it to the juice and whatnot in the pan. I stirred it until the sauce had thickened, then added the chops back in and covered them with the sauce.

This was really good considering I totally winged it. The chops stayed moist and juicy, the onion was perfectly tender (but not mushy), and the sauce was delicious. I'll definitely make this again. And when I do, I'll try to pay attention to the quantity of ingredients so I can give y'all an actual recipe!

Potato soup

It's been rainy the past couple of days, and that means my fibromyalgia is in flare (BIG TIME), and that means I want comfort food. This is my favorite potato soup, which I made for dinner tonight. It's very filling and very NOT healthy, so try it at your own risk. You could probably lighten it up a bit with low-fat or fat-free dairy products and turkey bacon, but I haven't tried it that way and don't intend to. It may end up killing me one day, but what a way to go!

Loaded Potato Soup

2 large baking potatoes
1/3 cup butter
half of a sweet yellow onion, chopped
1/3 cup flour
3 1/2 cups milk (okay, so I use 1%)
1/2 cup sour cream
6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 Tbs. snipped fresh chives or spring onion tops (the green part)

Bake the potatoes for about 1.5 hours at 375 degrees F. Or, you know, however long you usually bake your potatoes. Remove from oven and let cool completely. (I do this earlier in the day and stick them in the fridge after they've cooled.) Once they're cool, peel and cut them into small cubes.

Melt butter in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add chopped onion and saute until the onion releases a bit of fragrance. Stir in flour until smooth. (Yes, you are making a roux. With onions. Just go with it.) Slowly stir in the milk and continue to stir constantly until thickened. Add cubed potatoes and bring to a boil while stirring constantly, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so (giving it a stir now and then).

After 10 minutes, add the sour cream, bacon, cheese, salt and pepper and stir until the cheese melts. Ladle into bowls and top with snipped chives or onion tops (you could also add a bit of extra sour cream and bacon crumbles, if you want).

Makes 4-5 servings and the recipe is easily doubled (or halved, if you're cooking for 1 or 2). It doesn't keep well because of all the dairy, so try to eat it up within a day or two. That's never been a problem around here!

Even more meat and potatoes!

Tonight's Menu

• meatloaf
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• leftover big-ass salad
  

Wow, I am totally on a beef kick right now. No idea why.

Not much to say about this dinner. It was comfort food. I told the boy that the meatloaf was basically a hamburger in loaf form (I make mine with onions, which he likes on burgers) so he deigned to try it and actually liked it! Woo!

Oh, I do have a tip, though: mix the meat and seasonings and whatnot in a big gallon-sized freezer bag instead of a bowl. Nothing to wash and your hands don't get messy! Just form it into a loaf right in the bag and dump it into the pan. Plus as long as you seal it up really good you can let the kids have at it for a bit. My girl child loves to help me mash up the meatloaf ingredients even though she refuses to eat it.

Meat and potatoes

Tonight's Menu

• pan-seared thin ribeyes w/sauteed mushrooms and onions
  
• tiny red potatoes, parboiled and then chuffed up in a hot pan with butter
  
• big-ass salad
  

Yeah, sometimes you just need a little meat and potatoes. This meal takes some prep time but is still pretty quick and easy. First I washed/cut the potatoes (into quarters; they were kind of big) and put them in water to simmer. While they were going, I cut up the onion (sweet yellow, as usual) and mushrooms ("baby bellas") and started them sauteing in a pan with some EVOO. By the time the mushrooms/onions were done, the potatoes were tender, so I transferred the mushrooms to a bowl, drained the potatoes, and added them to a hot pan with a couple of tablespoons of butter. While they were getting a nice crust, I tossed the salad (if you went to the dirty place when you read that, then SHAME ON YOU)(hee, kidding!), seasoned the steaks and quickly seared them off in a VERY hot nonstick pan.

Voila! Dinner!

In which I am sick of cornbread

Tonight's Menu

• grilled ham steaks
  
• sour cream biscuits
  
• steamed broccoli
  

I nearly always make cornbread with ham but today I was just sick of it for some reason. So I googled a recipe for sour cream biscuits and made those instead. (Super easy recipe: mix 1 cup self-rising flour, 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 3/4 cup sour cream and 2 tsp. vegetable oil; knead; cut; bake at 425 for 10 minutes or so.)

I dunno. They were okay, I guess. I think my self-rising flour was old, though. I keep it in a Rubbermaid container but just in the pantry. Next time I buy some (which should probably be TOMORROW) I'll put it in the freezer instead.

Cooking disasters: The crock pot o' blandness

Okay, so here's what happened. Yesterday I fancied something autumnal for dinner, so I did the following:

1. Peeled a sweet yellow onion (Maya Sweet, I think it was) and cut it into wedges.
2. Peeled a large Granny Smith apple and cut it into wedges.
3. Peeled three smallish sweet potatoes and cut them into wedge-like chunks.
4. Tossed all of the above into the crock pot and stirred in a bit of marsala and a couple of spoonfuls of frozen apple juice concentrate.
5. Sprinkled a boneless pork loin roast with salt and pepper and then seared it off in a pan so it had a nice brown crust.
6. Stuck the roast on top of the veg mixture and cooked the whole thing on low for 10 hours.

Can you see what I FAILED to do up there? Anyone? Bueller?

That's right. NO SEASONINGS! What the hell?! I think the fact that the garbage disposal chose to vomit into the sink when I was shoving the peels into it is what threw me off. (The trap was full. DH fixed it. Gross.)

So yeah, this was pretty damn bland. We made do with salt and pepper at the table, but there's still a lot of food leftover and I can't bring myself to waste it. So I'm left with trying to salvage this thing at the re-heat stage. Now I just have to decide if I want to go the sage-thyme route or the allspice-ginger route. Anyone have suggestions?

Oy.

DH cooks!

Tonight's Menu

• grilled ribeye steaks
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• a honkin' big salad
  

Today was our 13th wedding anniversary, and while DH and I don't really celebrate it as such beyond exchanging cards, neither were we really in the mood for leftover tortilla soup. So DH picked up some steaks on his way home from work and grilled them, and I made the potatoes and salad. Quick and easy and yummy, and we washed it all down with plenty of wine.

Both kids have become steak eaters as well, so they loved this meal too! Except the girl doesn't like mashed potatoes. What is WRONG with that child?

Tortilla soup

I have an awesome recipe for tortilla soup that calls for chicken thighs, but since DH is allergic to poultry I've had to modify the recipe to make it vegetarian. So here's my recipe, which we had for dinner tonight. The boy child even tried it and liked it!

Okay, first chop up half an onion (I like the sweet yellow ones; you do whatever) and saute it in some EVOO until it starts to get tender. Then add a couple of minced garlic cloves to the pan and stir them around just until they start to release their aroma. DO NOT BURN THE GARLIC.

Dump the onions/garlic into a blender or food processor and add the following:

3 tsp. dried cilantro (or 3 Tbs. chopped fresh)
4 tsp. fresh lime juice
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1 14.5-oz. can of Del Monte Petite Diced Tomatoes With Zesty Jalapeno (try to get this exact item if you can - RoTel is NOT an adequate substitute)

Whiz all that together until the lumps/chunks are the size you like. Then dump the whole lot into a pot and add two 14 oz. cans of vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer.

While the soup is simmering, heat about half an inch of oil (I use canola; you do whatever) in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cut five corn tortillas (the soft ones) into strips and fry them in batches in the oil until they're crisp and only LIGHTLY browned. Drain them on paper towels and sprinkle with salt. By the time the tortilla strips are done, the soup will be done.

Here's how I like to serve it: put a handful of tortilla strips in the bottom of the bowl, ladle the soup over them, then top with shredded Monterey Jack cheese, diced avocado and dollops of sour cream.

This soup is SO YUMMY and I swear it helps cure head colds and bad allergies and whatnot. Which is why I made it today. Achoo!

Fragrant (ha!) flank steak

Tonight's Menu

• garlicky grilled flank steak
  
• steamed broccoli
  
• green salad w/carrots and tomatoes
  

We liked this flank steak so much the last time I made it that I decided to make it the same way this time. It's SO EASY and the great thing is that you don't have to plan ahead and marinate the steak! Just mash up some garlic cloves, salt, lemon juice and EVOO, rub it all over the steak, and slap it right onto the grill. YUM! You would not believe how flavorful this is! And the huge mortar and pestle my parents got me for my birthday came in VERY handy! (You could probably use a food processor, but WHY? A mortar/pestle is so much fun and it's worth buying one JUST to make this steak! Really!)

Pork and sauerkraut

Tonight's Menu

• crockpot pork roast and sauerkraut
  
• mashed potatoes
• candied carrots
  

This was a relatively easy dinner to make thanks to the crockpot. I drained a jar of sauerkraut, dumped it into the crockpot, and stirred in a grated apple. The I browned a pork roast in a skillet and sat that on top of the sauerkraut. The whole thing cooked for about 11 hours on low and was sooo tender and yummy!

The mashed potatoes were my usual frozen Ore-Ida. They really are good! I swear! They totally taste like homemade when you jazz them up with seasonings and stuff.

The carrots were likewise easy -- I just dumped a package of raw baby carrots into a bowl, added a little water, covered and nuked them on my microwave's "hard vegetables" setting. Then I melted 2 Tbs. each of butter and brown sugar together in a skillet and tossed the carrots in the mixture until they were coated. Yum!

Beef stew

Tonight's Menu

• beef stew with onions, carrots, potatoes and peas
  
• Pillsbury twisty garlic breadsticks
  

It was clear and cool when I woke up this morning, so I decided to make beef stew. Even though it ended up getting into the 90s.

I'm guessing pretty much everyone knows how to make stew, but here's how I do it: Shake some beef stew cubes (Dear HEB grocery store: Those were SO NOT "extra lean", assholes. Love, Badger) in some seasoned flour and brown them in a big pot with a smidge of oil. Do it in batches so they actually get brown and crusty on the outside. Then take them out and add some onion and garlic to the pot. Stir around just until the garlic releases its fragrance (DO NOT BURN THE GARLIC, IT WILL SUCK), then dump the meat back in along with some red potatoes (quartered or whatever) and whole baby carrots. Add enough beef broth, red wine and/or water to just barely cover everything. Sprinkle in a little thyme and float a bay leaf on top. Bring it up to the boil and then immediately turn it down to a simmer and let it go for a couple of hours. You can cover it or not, I don't care. If you don't, try to check on it a few times to see if you need to add liquid. After a couple of hours, stir in some frozen peas and about a tablespoon of Dijon mustard. Let it keep cooking until the peas are warmed through, then remove the bay leaf and serve with some sort of bread-like thing.

It freezes well and is yummy leftover, too.

Sandwich night

No actual menu tonight; instead we had a sandwich bar kind of thing. I set out the following:

• whole-grain bread
• whole-wheat sub rolls
• sesame hamburger buns
• honey ham
• two kinds of turkey (oven roasted and mesquite)(this is all prepared lunchmeat, by the way -- I didn't COOK a turkey, much less two of them and a ham!)
• American cheese slices
• shredded cheddar (hey, it's what we had)
• cooked bacon (two slices per person)
• sliced tomatoes
• fresh basil leaves in lieu of salad greens
• sliced avocado
• condiments (mayo, two kinds of mustard, ketchup because DH insists, etc.)

I had a sub roll with mayo, brown mustard, mesquite turkey, shredded cheddar, bacon, tomatoes, basil and avocado and I may not eat again for a week. Damn, I'm stuffed!

The boy had a peanut butter sandwich on whole-grain bread and two slices of bacon. Oy. He was excused from needing a fruit/veg because he ate a whole can of pears (in juice, not syrup) before dinner.

The girl had a sesame bun with bacon and American cheese. And some raw baby carrots.

I have no idea what DH ate except that it was on a sesame bun and probably involved ham since he's allergic to turkey.

I usually do sandwich night when I don't feel like cooking. Although by the time you get everything out and slice the veggies and whatnot and then put it all away again, it's almost as much work as a full meal!

Too damn much trouble

Tonight's Menu

• trout fillets sauteed in EVOO
  
• quinoa
• shredded brussels sprouts with onion and bacon
  

I got this brussels sprouts recipe out of a magazine (Oct./Nov. 2006 Eating Well, page 35) and it was extremely tasty, but I don't think I'll make it again because it took FOREVER. Basically you slice up a pound of fresh brussels sprouts (do you have ANY idea how long that takes? well, double that and you're close) and a small yellow onion. Fry two strips of bacon in a skillet, remove the bacon, and dump the onions and a dash of salt into the drippings. Cook those on medium-ish until tender and starting to brown, then add 3/4 cup of water and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard to the pan, scraping up any browned bits. Then add the sliced up brussels sprouts and cook those, stirring often, until they get tender. Stir in a tablespoon of cider vinegar, crumble the bacon and sprinkle that on top, et voila! Really yummy, but damn is it labor-intensive.

On the plus side: DH, who usually avoids brussels sprouts, liked this stuff and would probably eat it again. And also, AFTER he ate it and I complained about how long it took to make, he asked me why I didn't just use the food processor. D'oh! I kind of forget we have one sometimes. We have a little one that I use to chop nuts, but I rarely drag out the big one. I mean, a knife is a lot easier to clean, you know? So I dunno. I really don't think I'll try this again, but I never say never. Cabbage is a lot quicker and easier to chop up, even WITHOUT a food processor, and it tastes about the same.

Delicious pork!

Tonight's Menu

• roasted pork chops with onions and potatoes
  
• gigantic salad
  

Holy crap, I didn't realize it had been a week since I posted! Sorry about that! Um, I think we had a lot of leftovers, along with more fajitas. Last night we had cavatappi marinara. I've posted my marinara recipe before, on my other blog.

Tonight I cut up some red potatoes, wedged an onion and tossed them with olive oil, salt and pepper and some freshly snipped rosemary. I spread that out in a baking pan and then rubbed some pork chops with the same oil/salt/pepper/rosemary mixture and laid those on top. Then I roasted the whole shebang uncovered at 400 degrees F for about 45 minutes. The chops got a little dry because they were thin, but after two glasses of rosé I didn't much care.

Red meat is yummy

Tonight's Menu

• pan-seared thin ribeye steaks
  
• mushrooms and onions sauteed in butter (you could use olive oil, but that would be wrong)
• roasted asparagus
  

I was feeling a little anemic, so it was time for some beef. I'd happily eat steak every night if I didn't think it would kill me.

Beer brats

Tonight's Menu

• beer brats with onions and brown mustard on whole-wheat rolls
  
• leftover cold salad of new potatoes, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil, and marinated artichoke hearts from Friday
  

Beer brats are so easy, y'all. Cut up a big onion, toss it into a pot with half a stick of butter (or a whole stick if you like to live dangerously), add 4-5 fresh bratwurst and cover with beer (preferably a German or German-style beer). Let 'em simmer for 20-30 minutes, then take the brats out and brown them on the grill (I used the Foreman tonight because it was threatening rain outside). While the brats are grilling, bring the beer mixture up to the boil and let it roil away until it reduces just a bit. Then take it off the heat and add the brats back in until you're ready to serve them. Yum!

Roly poly fish heads

Tonight's Menu

• grilled rainbow trout fillets
  
• a cold salad of new potatoes, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil, and marinated artichoke hearts
  

Okay, so tonight instead of sauteing the trout fillets in a pan with EVOO, I stuck them in a wire basket and grilled them. This was a moderately successful experiment in that the fish cooked just fine and tasted good and everything; however, the fillets stuck to the grill basket something awful despite the fact that I brushed them generously with EVOO before putting them in there. Argh. I think I'll leave grilling for heartier fish like salmon and tuna, and go back to sauteing my trout.

It's almost getting too late in the season for this, my favorite summer salad. The tomatoes just aren't quite up to par anymore around here, alas.