Perfect fall supper

Tonight's Menu

• cider-braised pork with onions
• baked sweet potatoes
• warm apple-pear sauce
  

Hot damn, I love me some fall food, y'all. I don't know why I associate pork with fall -- maybe because it goes so well with apples? Whatever, this dinner definitely put me in a fall mood!

My sucky supermarket has pork loin on special for $1/pound from time to time, and when they do I buy a HUGE one and portion it out to freeze for later. So, this was a pork loin roast, cut down from a huge loin. Here's a recipe of sorts, based on what I did to it:

1 boneless pork loin roast (about 2-3 lbs.)
kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
olive oil
1 sweet yellow onion, chopped
1 to 1.5 cups apple cider (I didn't measure it)
1 sprig fresh sage
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme

Season the roast with salt and pepper and, in large pot or dutch oven, brown it on all sides in olive oil. Remove pork from pan and add onion, sauteing until it barely starts to go translucent. Add pork and any accumulated drippings back to pan, along with apple cider. Tie the herbs into a bundle with kitchen twine and tuck them into the pan alongside the pork. Cover and simmer for about 2 hours, turning the pork halfway through cooking time.

When pork is done, remove from pan and tent with foil. Remove herb bundle, turn heat to medium high and cook cider-onion mixture until reduced by at least half (watch so it doesn't burn). Slice pork and serve with cider-onion sauce.

The sweet potatoes were just baked in the microwave, then topped with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Or scooped up plain, if you're the boy child. He says they taste like candy even without the added sugar. What is WRONG with this kid? Heh.

The apple-pear sauce was SUPER easy. The hardest part was peeling the pears and apples and cutting them into chunks. I used some teensy pears ("sugar pears", I think they were called?) that I bought at Sam's the other day. They are SO sweet and delicious and almost at the point of being overripe now, so I wanted to use them up. I peeled and chunked maybe six of them (again, they were TINY -- the size of small plums!) along with two small-ish Granny Smith apples. I just plopped them into a pan with a little bit of water and let them simmer, covered, for about an hour. Then I went at them with my immersion blender to break them down just a bit (I left them a little bit chunky but you could do a totally smooth sauce by pushing them through a sieve). I tasted to see how sweet they were and added sugar as needed. And that's it!

I don't have a timeline for you per se, but I can tell you that I started the pork first since it had to cook for two hours. After it had been going for half an hour, I started prepping the apples and pears and I put those on for the last hour of the pork's cooking time. Since the sweet potatoes were cooked in the microwave, I put them in about half an hour before everything else was done and then wrapped them in foil and let them sit until serving time.

You all know I love to grill, but I'm so excited that fall is here and I can starting braising and stewing and roasting again. Yay, fall!

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!

Homemade lasagna

Tonight's Menu

• beefy lasagna w/homemade noodles
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Is there anything more comforting than a big ol' pan of lasagna? I think not, people. This one featured homemade noodles and sauce, and I'm not going to lie and say it was fast and easy. But it did seem a whole lot less fiddly and meticulous than the ravioli experiment, which made it FEEL easy. Ish.

Okay, for the noodles I made my usual pasta dough and just rolled it into sheets and let them dry on the counter for a couple of hours. That part WAS easy, now that I've gotten the hang of my cheap-ass pasta machine.

For the sauce, I chopped up an onion and minced several cloves of garlic and cooked them in a big pot in a little EVOO until they were soft. I kept them on a low-ish heat because I didn't want them to brown or anything, just soften. Then I dumped in a large can of tomato paste (the ones that are about the size of a soup can) and stirred that around a bit until it started to smell kind of toasted. I thinned it out with a bit of red wine (pinot noir -- it's what I had), then dumped in a huge can of crushed tomatoes. (It would have been helpful if I'd noted the ounces on these cans before I chucked them, huh? This one was about a quart, maybe? I dunno.) I was worried the sauce was still too thick, so I thinned it out some more with water, then stirred in a couple of tablespoons of sugar, some dried oregano, basil, salt and pepper and let it simmer uncovered for maybe 30-45 minutes.

For the meat, I browned some ground bison (feel free to use beef, turkey, whatever floats your boat) over medium heat in a skillet, then turned the heat down to low and stirred in a couple spoonfuls of sauce to moisten it. Then, just for the heck of it, I stirred in whatever was left of the ravioli filling from the other night (would you believe I STILL had some left, even after stuffing mushrooms with it?).

Then I just layered the noodles, meat, some fresh mozzarella (you could use ricotta, but DH doesn't like it) and the sauce in a 9 x 13-inch pan and baked it uncovered for about 40 minutes at 375 degrees F. It was super tasty and definitely worth the time it took to make it.

The salad bar was the same as last night.

Remind me from now on to BUY my cheese ravioli, but make my lasagna from scratch whenever possible, okay?

More adventures in pasta

Tonight's Menu

• homemade spaghetti w/quick meatless tomato sauce
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I am determined to get this homemade pasta thing right, y'all. After posting about my most recent attempt at it on my other blog, some kind readers offered tips and I incorporated those this time around with very satisfactory results!

I used the same recipe as last time (two cups flour, one teaspoon salt, three eggs -- is it weird that I have that memorized now?) but after rolling the dough through on a couple of different settings, I folded it in thirds and went back to a larger setting and rolled it through again before repeating the process a couple of times. This time I was able to get it to a #6 thickness before chickening out. My crappy pasta maker has a built-in cutter for spaghetti so I tried it and it worked! I tossed the strands with a bit of flour, then hung them on a kitchen towel over the back of a chair to dry for a couple of hours. They cooked up in about three minutes and were really, really good! Yay! Success!

The tomato sauce was my usual. And actually, it was left over from some purchased tortellini I made several days ago. It keeps well in the fridge.

Tonight's salad bar was chopped romaine and green leaf lettuces, sliced green onions, sliced carrots from the garden, and some tiny cherry tomatoes (I caved and bought some at the store, which I would not normally do this time of year, but I NEEDED tomatoes, y'all).

I am SO excited about this whole pasta thing, can you tell? If I ever get brave enough for homemade tortellini or ravioli, you all will be the first to know.

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).

Chili!

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• cornbread
  

I actually made this chili last night but forgot to tell you about it! Well, we ate it tonight too so it still counts, right?

I used Martha's recipe, as usual. This time I pretty much followed it exactly except mine was about half pork and half beef. And I used Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes. SO good, y'all. We love this chili!

The cornbread was also my usual.

And it's true, we ARE pretty much eating nothing but soup this week! I'm in a soup mood, I guess. I've suddenly come down with a rotten cold so that's not likely to change anytime soon, either!

Soup weather

Tonight's Menu

• Portuguese soup
  
• beer bread
  

It was damp, foggy and generally yucky out today, which gave me the perfect opportunity to make something I had been craving for a while -- this delicious sausage soup! It's been forever since I've made it. The original recipe calls for potatoes but I didn't have any, so I substituted kohlrabi from the CSA instead. It really made no difference at all in the taste of the soup -- it was delicious as always!

The beer bread was leftover from a couple of nights ago, just wrapped in foil and reheated in the toaster oven. Yum!

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.

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.)

Soup!

Tonight's Menu

• bean soup with ham
  
• beer bread
  

DH and I have been in the mood for bean soup, even though he's totally allergic to it (yes, in addition to poultry and soy, he's allergic to BEANS). I had a big, meaty ham bone in the freezer (left over from Thanksgiving, see: allergic to poultry) so I decided to use that up in a nice big pot of soup.

What I did was buy one of those bags of 15-bean soup mix and discard the seasoning packet. I totally don't trust those seasoning packets, man. This one had soybean oil and hydrolyzed soy protein in it, which was reason enough for me to ditch it. (I think I had somehow convinced myself that the girl, who is violently allergic to soy, would want to try this soup. HAHAHA, what was I smoking?!)

Anyway, I kept the beans, obviously, and soaked them overnight. Then I drained and rinsed them the next day and set them aside while I got to work on the rest of the ingredients.

I chopped up half an onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and sauteed them in some olive oil in a BIG pot. Before they were able to get any color on them, I tossed in two whole fresh bay leaves, several chopped leaves of fresh sage and a bunch of fresh thyme (all from my herb patch), along with maybe half a teaspoon of smoked paprika and half a tube of sundried tomato paste (1.5-2 tablespoons). Feel free to use regular paprika and plain ol' tomato paste from a can; I was using what I had. I stirred that around for several seconds until it started to smell AMAZING, then added the ham bone to the pot and dumped in the beans, along with a quart of vegetable broth (Pacific Organic -- again, it's what I had) and another quart of water. While that was coming to a boil, I stirred in some chopped fresh parsley (from the herb patch again!) and a tablespoon or so of brown sugar. I know, that sounds weird, but brown sugar goes great with beans and ham, y'all. TRUST ME.

Once it came to a boil I reduced the heat to low and just let it simmer away uncovered all afternoon. After two hours I removed the ham bone, scraped off the meat and diced it, then added the meat back to the pot. At that point I tasted the broth and adjusted the seasonings somewhat, adding the juice of half a lemon, a bit of salt and some freshly ground pepper. Altogether I cooked it for about 4.5 hours, tasting and adding more salt/pepper as needed and removing the bay leaves at the very end. Some of the beans broke down and thickened the broth quite a bit so that it was almost stew-like, which is just how I like it. If you like your broth a little thinner and your beans with more shape to them, you might want to only cook it for about 3 hours. Just be sure to taste, taste, taste as you go -- it's the only way to know when it's done to your liking and to get the seasonings right!

The girl wouldn't touch it, and DH had just a little taste, but the boy and I LOVED it and went back for seconds. I stirred just a tiny bit of sriracha into my bowl and washed it down with a cold glass of unfiltered apple cider and it was heavenly!

The beer bread is a favorite here. I only use half the butter called for in the recipe and it comes out just fine. This time I used Shiner Hefeweizen for the beer and it yielded a very tasty loaf that went great with the soup.

I expect this soup to be even better tomorrow, so guess what we're having then? Yep, leftovers!

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.

Pork roast

Tonight's Menu

• cider-braised pork roast
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• sauteed cabbage w/mustard
  

Oh, people. If you're wondering where I've been the past couple of weeks, I'll tell you: I've been hobbling around with a sprained ankle! It hasn't been much fun, to say the least. DH has been taking dinner duty while I've been recuperating, and while he certainly made a good effort, he ... well, he doesn't really cook. So, er, there hasn't been much to report as far as our dinners go. But FINALLY I'm off the crutches and able to be up and around long enough to cook a decent dinner, so that's what I did tonight!

The pork roast was a ginormous bone-in pork butt. You could also use shoulder or something of that nature -- basically a big ol' hunk of well-marbled pork. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and then browned it on the stovetop in an enameled cast-iron dutch oven. Once it was browned on all sides I took it off the heat, poured in a 12-ounce bottle of hard cider (Hornsby's Draft) and just a bit of water, then arranged the following around the roast: four big sprigs of fresh rosemary, several sprigs of fresh thyme, a couple of bay leaves (all from my herb garden), a chopped onion and a handful of whole peppercorns. Then I covered the pot and stuck the whole thing in the oven at 225 degrees F for about six hours. The house smelled AMAZING while it cooked and it was soooo tender!

When the roast was done I removed it from the pan (in pieces; it was falling apart!), shredded it and set it aside. Then I poured the pan juices through a mesh strainer to remove all the herbs and whatnot, poured the juices back into the dutch oven, and used flour to thicken it all into a delicious gravy on the stovetop. SO good! It didn't even need added seasoning thanks to all those herbs.

For the cabbage, I just chopped half a head of savoy cabbage (that's the crinkly one) into chunks, then sauteed it in a skillet with a couple tablespoons of butter until it was nice and wilted. Then I seasoned with salt and pepper and stirred in maybe a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard. Easy and delicious!

Okay, can we talk about mashed potatoes for a minute, y'all? Longtime readers know that I tend to skimp when it comes to this dish. I don't like the nasty powdered kind, but I LOVE Ore-Ida's frozen mashed potatoes that you heat in the microwave and then season to taste. Well, suddenly I can't find them anymore! All the store had this week were these new "steamers", which are just cubed, peeled potatoes that steam in a bag in the microwave. You still have to add milk, butter, seasonings, etc., and actually mash them yourself. I went ahead and bought them anyway, but it was hardly worth it. They were tasty, but didn't save me much in the way of work. I guess I'll be making mine from scratch from here on out. Curses!

Oh well, I guess I'll deal. I'm just SO GLAD to be back in the kitchen!

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.

Using up the CSA veggies

Tonight's Menu

• sausage and vegetable stew
  

This might better be called Kitchen Sink Stew, because I'm pretty sure I threw everything but that into the pot! I am determined not to let any of our CSA veggies go to waste and a stew seemed like the best solution, particularly since I knew the leftovers would freeze well.

So here's what I did. First I chopped up a pooload of veggies: onions, garlic, celery, sweet bell peppers, zucchini, pattypan squash, and a variety of mixed eggplants (ichiban, rosa bianca, some skinny white ones and some skinny green ones). Plus we had a tomato that didn't travel well in the CSA box, so I chopped that up as well, along with some unidentified greens (some variety of chard, maybe?).

Then I browned off a chub of bulk pork sausage (Pederson's breakfast sausage, in this case) in a big heavy pot, breaking it up as it cooked. I was all set to drain off some of the fat, but this particular sausage didn't render much out at all -- I actually had to add some olive oil to moisten everything up! With the sausage still in the pan, I added the onions and garlic and stirred everything around really well until the onions had gone just a tiny bit translucent. Then I added the peppers and celery and stirred those around a bit until I could smell them.

Once the sausage, onions and peppers were all happy in there, I dumped in my mixed squashes and eggplants, along with my chopped tomato and greens, about a tablespoon of tomato paste, one small can of crushed tomatoes (Muir Glen Fire Roasted, in my case), two cans of water, and maybe half a cup of dry white wine. Then I sprinkled on a good teaspoon or so of dried oregano, a healthy pinch of salt, and several grinds of fresh black pepper. Stir, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for about an hour or until the veggies are nice and tender. Taste it and adjust your seasonings before serving.

I thought this was absolutely delicious! So fresh-tasting from all the veggies, and the sausage and tomatoes made it nice and hearty. If I had it to do over again, I would have peeled the rosa bianca eggplant -- the skin is a little tough on that one, even though the flesh came out nice and tender.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that the kids wouldn't even touch the stuff, and DH didn't much care for it. But then, he doesn't like squash, peppers OR eggplant and this stew was chock-full of all of them. Oh well. I froze a bunch of it and will look forward to having fresh vegetable stew all winter when those yummy summer vegetables are gone!

Short ribs!

Tonight's Menu

• slow-cooked beef short ribs
  
• steamed rice
  
• green salad "bar"
  

It's finally fall, and that means short ribs! Our favorite recipe is this one from Allrecipes.com. They slow-cook in the crockpot all day -- what could be easier? I used boneless short ribs and thickened the gravy on the stovetop instead of in the slow-cooker (my crockpot is ancient and doesn't do high heat well), but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. Yummy!

The rice was steamed in the microwave, and the salad was left over from last night. WAY easy!

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!

Slow-cooked comfort food

Tonight's Menu

• beef short ribs in the slow-cooker
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• sauteed cabbage
  

We had some wicked thunder and hail storms roll through here last night, leaving us with mostly overcast skies and slightly cooler temperatures today. As luck would have it, I had bought some beef short ribs this week and decided to fire up the ol' crockpot for some comfort food!

We love our usual short rib recipe (found here) so much that I couldn't bring myself to deviate from it. Except I sort of did anyway. I didn't bother to dredge the ribs in seasoned flour before browning -- I just sprinkled both sides with salt and pepper and browned 'em off naked. And I was out of chili sauce, so I substituted ketchup. I also laid the sliced onions on top of the ribs and poured the rest of the mixed-together sauce ingredients on top, instead of adding the onions to the sauce. But other than that, it was the same as usual, and every bit as delicious!

The mashed potatoes were frozen Ore-Ida, doctored up with some butter, salt and pepper. Shut up.

For the cabbage, all I did was take half a head of plain old green cabbage, core it, chop it into chunks, then saute in a mixture of EVOO and butter until it was tender. I let it get a bit of caramelization for extra flavor. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and dump into a serving bowl. Easy!

Tomorrow it's back to grilling. Oh yes, best beloveds.

Crappy weather = chili for dinner

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• beer bread
  

You know, I was never conscious of how much the weather affects my cooking mood until I started keeping this blog. Today it was rainy and just kind of gross, so I made chili. It was a chili sort of day, I guess.

Once again, I riffed off of Martha Stewart's chili con carne recipe. This time I actually followed the thing pretty closely for a change, except that I used all beef for the meat and I didn't add any salt at all until the very end. Oh and I used my favorite Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes, which are so awesome in chili because of the added smokiness.

Beer bread was the usual also, using only 1/4 cup butter instead of 1/2. Because it makes me feel all virtuous, that's why. We LOVE this bread, y'all. We don't drink that much beer around here, but I've taken to buying it just so I can make this bread. Is that wrong?

Apart from the sliced green onions we used to top the chili, I couldn't be bothered to make a vegetable tonight. Some nights are like that!

My favorite food

Tonight's Menu

• grilled fresh Italian sausages
  
• "kitchen sink" veggie saute
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Oh dudes. I do so love me some sausages. These were fresh (non-cured/non-dried) Italian sausages that were labeled as "sweet" but were actually pretty dang spicy. I didn't mind, but DH and the boy were not altogether happy with them, I don't think. More for me! I just simmered these in water for about 20 minutes to cook them through, then finished them on the grill pan to crisp up the skins a bit with some sexy grill marks. Dead easy.

The saute was one of those clean-out-the-vegetable-crisper deals. I cut up some sweet yellow onion, a red bell pepper, a couple of little zucchinis, and a hunk of green cabbage and just sauteed the whole lot in EVOO, adding a bit of fresh thyme, salt and freshly ground pepper near the end. Again, very easy, apart from all the chopping. I absolutely love sauteed veggies and could eat them at every meal, regardless of the actual veggies involved.

Salad was the usual -- a bowl of mixed lettuces, with small bowls of grape tomatoes, sliced cucumber, and sliced carrots alongside so folks can mix their own.

Chili today, ... uh, still chili tomorrow, probably!

Tonight's Menu

• chili con carne
  
• beer bread
  
• green salad "bar"
  

A cold front blew through central Texas last night, leaving us with chilly temperatures and a blustery wind today -- perfect chili weather! My go-to recipe for chili is this one from Martha Stewart, but I have yet to actually make it exactly as written. Here's how I made today's version.

canola oil
2-3 lbs. beef shoulder or chuck, cut into teensy dice (not quite a mince, but almost)
1 large sweet yellow onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs ancho chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 (28 oz.) can Muir Glen Organic Fire-Roasted Crushed Tomatoes (feel free to use whichever crushed tomatoes you like, or whole tomatoes whizzed in the blender)
2 (12 oz.) bottles beer (use a beer you would actually drink; I went with Dos Equis Amber)
coarse salt
1 Tbs white vinegar

Okay, once you've chopped/diced/minced the hell out of everything, begin browning the beef in batches in a big pot with a little canola oil. You'll be removing each batch of meat to a plate as it gets browned, and adding more oil as needed. Once all the meat is browned, dump the onions and garlic into the pot and stir over medium heat until they've gone a bit soft (DO NOT burn the garlic!). Then add the chili powder, cumin, oregano and bay leaf in with the onions and garlic, cooking and stirring for about a minute until it all goes nice and fragrant. Add the meat back into the pan, along with the tomatoes and beer. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 2 hours or until the meat is tender and the broth has thickened a bit. Remove the bay leaf, salt to taste and stir in the vinegar (I have no idea what the vinegar is supposed to do, but Martha says to add it and I must obey). I serve this with shredded cheddar and sliced green onions on the side. Yum!

The beer bread is SO super easy to make, and so good! I use this recipe (with only 1/4 cup of butter) and it comes out perfect. Again, you will want to use a beer you would actually drink. DH is a fan of wheat beers and they work really well in this recipe. Tonight it was a bottle of Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat, which made the bread a little bit sweet and almost cake-like. Delicious!

Astute readers will note that tonight's dinner contained THREE BOTTLES of beer. And that's not including the beer with which we washed it all down. Perhaps that had something to do with how delicious we found this particular meal!

There was no leftover bread, but quite a bit of leftover chili. Tomorrow's dinner: Frito Pie!