Stupid easy food for a (small) crowd

Tonight's Menu

• oven-cooked beef brisket
  
• whole-grain tortilla chips w/bottled salsa
  
• coleslaw
  

Hey, so tomorrow is my birthday and today we had my parents over to celebrate. Which presented a TINY conundrum -- I don't really feel like I should HAVE to cook on my birthday, but throwing that duty to DH kind of stresses him out since he only cooks dinner maybe three times a year. (Which is fine; we divide our labor this way ON PURPOSE because I like to cook. Just not on my birthday.)

So, I wanted to feed everyone, but I didn't want to go to any real TROUBLE about it, you know? Which is why this particular thrown-together dinner was perfect! Ten minutes of work early in the day, and then all I had to do was slice the meat and throw a bunch of stuff on the table. Yay!

For the brisket, I made a dry rub of brown sugar, chili powder, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and dry mustard. Just dump and stir -- way easy. I rubbed this all over both sides of the brisket, then put it fat-side-up on a rack in a roasting pan. I filled the bottom of the pan with water, covered it tightly with heavy-duty foil, and stuck it in the oven at around 10:00 a.m., while my coffee was brewing. It cooked unattended at 200 degrees F for about 7 hours, then I uncovered it and boosted the heat up to 400 for about 15 minutes to crisp up the fat. Sliced thinly across the grain, it was fork tender and delicious!

The coleslaw was the usual -- shredded cabbage tossed with a mixture of mayonnaise, white vinegar, sugar and celery seeds. I made this earlier in the day, too, and just stuck it in the fridge. Easy!

Here's the timeline for this incredibly easy meal:

• At least 6 hours before serving time, prepare the brisket w/rub and stick it in the oven.
• Make coleslaw and stick that in the fridge.
• Welcome birthday party guests, open presents, play a couple of cutthroat games of In A Pickle and Skip-Bo. (Assuming it's your birthday, that is.)
• 20 minutes before dinnertime, uncover the brisket and turn up the heat for 15 minutes.
• Take brisket out of oven and let rest.
• Break out the coleslaw, chips and salsa.
• Slice the brisket thinly across the grain and serve.
• Follow up with birthday cake, if you can manage it!
  

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!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Tonight's Menu

• grilled chicken thighs
  
• whole-wheat couscous w/green onions
  
• green salad bar
• King cake!
• hurricanes!
  

Hey! Happy Mardi Gras, y'all!

I told myself I was going to wait until daylight saving time (only a week and a half away now!) to start grilling every damn thing but, well, I lied. To myself. It happens. It was sunny and in the low 80s today, people -- how am I supposed to resist grilling under those conditions?! I ask you.

So yeah, I grilled some chicken thighs. They were bone-in, skin on and I just sprinkled them on both sides with some garlic pepper and Jane's Krazy Salt. I grilled them skin-side-down over medium-high heat until the skin was nice and golden brown with sexy grill marks, then I flipped them skin-side up for a few minutes, then I moved them to an unlit burner (with the other two burners turned up to high heat) and left them alone for a good 45 minutes. So, so yummy! I swear, grilled chicken thighs make EVERYTHING better (even having two members of the family on antibiotics at the same time, oy).

The couscous was packaged. I just stirred in some sliced green onions before serving. Easy!

The salad bar tonight was green leaf lettuce, sliced carrots from the garden, and more sliced green onions.

The King cake was purchased at my local supermarket bakery this morning. I'm guessing not every grocery store in the nation rolls out the King cakes on Fat Tuesday. Gotta love the South, y'all! My supermarket's version of a King cake is really just a big cinnamon roll type thing with powdered sugar icing and colored sprinkles. It's SO good, though. I'm going to have more for breakfast tomorrow with my coffee!

I improvised the hurricanes. They are NOT traditional -- I was just working with what I had. But for what it's worth:

6 oz. pineapple juice
6 oz. orange juice
1 oz. grenadine
2 oz. silver rum
2 oz. dark rum
2 oz. spiced rum (Bacardi 151 is traditional, but I didn't have any)

Shake all ingredients together and serve over crushed ice in hurricane glasses with straws. Makes about 2 or 3 depending on how big your glasses are and how much ice you use.

Woo! I am stuffed. Fat Tuesday, indeed!

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.)

Notes for next year's potluck

So hey, everyone! I hope all of my fellow Americans had a good Fourth of July yesterday. We went to our neighborhood potluck, as usual. I've been told not to show up without my extremely fattening potato salad, so I made that, but I had cut down the recipe because fewer people than usual were expected and that tiny little bowl of potato salad looked ... lonely, somehow. Sooo, I also made some zucchini bread and quinoa salad!

I followed the zucchini bread recipe I found here, except that I left out the nuts (DH and the girl are allergic to tree nuts) and added just a bit of grated orange zest to the batter. Oh my GOD, y'all! This is some damn good zucchini bread! It's almost more of a spice cake than a bread because it has a really fine, cake-like texture. The boy child is flat-out addicted so it's a good thing this recipe made two loaves (we only took one to the potluck). I will have a freezer full of this stuff before zucchini season is over, mark my words!

I totally winged it with the quinoa salad and it turned out to be the sleeper hit of the potluck. Go figure! I was afraid nobody would want to touch it, but I haven't gotten that many raves over a dish since ... er, the first time I showed up with that fattening potato salad, probably. I wasn't measuring but here's approximately how I made it.

I had some plain, unseasoned, cooked quinoa leftover from dinner the night before -- I'd guess it was maybe a cup and a half, cooked. So I dumped that in a bowl. Then I took a large-ish cucumber, peeled it, cut it in half lengthwise and scraped out the seeds with a spoon before chopping it into a relatively small-ish dice (not a PERFECT dice -- you know me -- but I was going for more or less uniform pieces). I dumped that into the quinoa along with about 1/4 cup chopped (small, again) red onion and 2-3 sliced scallions, green tips included. I had some colorful bell peppers (yellow and orange) in the crisper so I diced up just a bit of those for color (like maybe 1/4 of each pepper -- not much) and tossed them in. Then I went out to the herb patch and snipped a handful of basil, flat-leaf parsley and mint, brought it inside, washed and chopped it and tossed it into the bowl with everything else. Finally I seasoned it with salt and pepper, then shook some fresh lemon juice (NOT bottled) and EVOO in a jar and poured it over, tossing the quinoa mixture to coat. There was only a small amount of dressing -- not enough for it to pool up in the bottom of the bowl or anything. I just wanted to moisten and loosen everything up a bit while giving it a hint of that bright lemon juice flavor.

This was SO GOOD! Seriously, everyone raved about it (and asked what the heck quinoa was, and where they could buy it, and how to cook it...). There were no leftovers so I am going to have to make another batch just for me. This would make a fantastic lunch -- quinoa is really high in protein, and when you add in all the veggies, that's a complete meal as far as I'm concerned!

Of course, now I'm stuck bringing both the potato salad AND the quinoa salad to every neighborhood potluck henceforth (and probably the zucchini bread, too) but I don't mind.

No corned beef here

Tonight's Menu

• Guinness roast beef
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• buttered cabbage
  

I literally dreamed up this beef recipe. At night, while I was asleep. I know. I'm a freak.

What I did was take a big ol' beef roast (I think it was either chuck or shoulder), season it with salt and pepper, and brown it on both sides in a skillet. Then I whomped it in a baking pan with about a tablespoon of whole peppercorns, one chopped onion, three large bay leaves and a bottle of Guinness stout. Cover, cook in the oven at 250 degrees F for about 4-5 hours, then remove from oven. Take the beef out of the pan (it will be falling apart, if you're lucky) and set it aside to keep warm. Then pour the pan juices through a mesh strainer into a saucepan, discarding the onion, peppercorns and bay leaves. Whisk a bit of flour and water into the pan juices, bring to a boil, and cook until the gravy has thickened. Serve alongside beef.

The mashed potatoes were Ore-Ida frozen, jazzed up with butter, salt and pepper. I know, my Irish ancestors are all rolling in their graves.

The cabbage was half a head of savoy, chopped into large-ish chunks, then steamed in a pan on the stove (just add a couple of tablespoons of water to the cabbage, then cover and simmer) until crisp-tender. Then I tossed in a big knob of butter, some salt and freshly ground pepper. Then I poured myself a Guinness and forgot that I'd left the stove on. Heh. It didn't burn, thank goodness, but it got a bit more caramelized than I was really going for. Oh well, it was still good.

I don't usually talk about dessert on here, but you all have to bear witness to the degree that I half-assed this thing. I knew I should make SOME sort of special dessert, it being St. Patrick's Day and all, but I didn't want to mess with cookies or cake or anything like that. Besides, by the time I thought of dessert, the meat was already in the oven on low heat so I couldn't have baked anything anyway. I had just about decided to run to the corner drugstore and pray that they had a box of lime Jello (what? it's green!) when I remembered some no-bake cookies that I used to make for my kids when they were little. I knew they involved oatmeal somehow, and oatmeal = Irish! It does! Shut up!

Anyway, I found the recipe! (If that link doesn't work, search Allrecipes.com for Carolina Delights.) So I made them. I couldn't even be arsed to make them into drop cookies; I just dumped the pot of goo into a 9x13-inch baking dish (which made for REALLY thin bar cookies -- you might want to go with an 8- or 9-inch square pan instead if you try this at home).

For an extra measure of Irish-osity, I drizzled them with an icing made from powdered sugar, milk and green food coloring. Oh hell yeah, I did.

If I were Catholic, I'd have to go to confession over this, y'all. But I'm not, so I believe I'll just have another Guinness!

Slainte!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Tonight's Menu

• red beans and rice with sausage
  
• cornbread
  
• sauteed spinach
• banana bread pudding with caramel-rum sauce
• hurricanes (virgin, or not)
  

So hey, everyone! It's Mardi Gras! And I am SO STUFFED. Let's get right to it.

The red beans and rice were from a mix (Vigo). I KNOW. Shut up, it's only once a year. I've tried making them from scratch and I actually like the mix better. I did add half a pound of sliced beef sausage to them, though.

I've given you the cornbread recipe before.

Fresh baby spinach was just sauteed in a skillet with EVOO until wilted, then seasoned with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.

Okay, now the bread pudding! This was sort of an experiment. I was going for Bananas Foster flavors, without having to flambe anything. This is how I made it:

1 loaf stale French bread, cubed
2 bananas, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup butter, melted
5 eggs
1/2 - 3/4 cup brown sugar (I didn't measure it)
1/4 cup dark rum
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
2.5 cups hot milk
cinnamon
nutmeg

Okay, toss the bread cubes and bananas into a casserole dish, pour the melted butter on top, toss with your hands or a big spoon, and set aside.

In a mixing bowl beat the eggs until well combined. Beat in the brown sugar, rum, vanilla and salt. Slowly add the hot milk, beating constantly. Pour this mixture over the bread cubes and bananas, pushing the bread down into the egg mixture to make sure it's all covered. Let sit for about 5 minutes so the bread can absorb the eggs/milk.

Sprinkle with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg, then bake uncovered at 375 degrees F for about 35 minutes or until set. It will poof up like a souffle and be a bit jiggly, but it shouldn't be runny once it's cooked.

For the caramel-rum sauce, just combine one can of sweetened condensed milk with a tablespoon or so of dark rum in a saucepan. Put it over VERY low heat (or use a double boiler) and stir occasionally until the mixture has thickened and become a light golden brown. This will take a while. If it gets lumpy (mine did), just push it through a sieve. Serve alongside the bread pudding. This is a really easy way to make caramel sauce if you don't have any heavy cream lying around.

The hurricanes were also kind of an experiment because I didn't have some of the necessary ingredients (like passion fruit syrup). So here's how I made those.

6 oz. pineapple juice
6 oz. orange juice
4 oz. guava nectar
juice of one lime
2 oz. grenadine

Combine all of the above for a "virgin" version of the drink. Strain over crushed ice into a hurricane glass and garnish with a wedge of orange and a maraschino cherry. This makes a couple of servings.

For the non-virgin version, add 1 oz. each dark and light rum to each glass and stir.


I am not claiming that this is in any way an "authentic" Mardi Gras meal, but it was yummy!

Triple Layer Brownie Cake

As promised, here is the recipe for the boy child's birthday cake, which he made all by himself with very little help from me. It's from an old issue of Taste of Home magazine.


Cake:
1 1/2 cups butter (no substitutes)
6 squares (1 oz. each) unsweetened chocolate
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. salt

Frosting:
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) semisweet baking chocolate
3 cups whipping cream
2 milk chocolate candy bars (1.55 oz. each), shaved

Melt butter and chocolate together in a microwave or double boiler. Stir in sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla, flour and salt; mix well. Pour into three greased and floured 9-in. round cake pans. [NOTE: Do NOT think that if you are using nonstick pans, you can just spray them with baking spray and be done with it. You really do need to grease and flour the HELL out of them if you want the cake layers to release at all. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.] Bake at 350 degrees F for 23-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (The cake layers will be thin; they don't rise much while cooking.) Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For frosting, melt chocolate in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Gradually stir in cream until well blended. Heat to a gentle boil; boil and stir for 1 minute. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours until mixture reaches a pudding-like consistency, stirring a few times. Beat until soft peaks form. Immediately spread between layers and on top and sides of cake. Sprinkle top of cake with chocolate shavings. Store in refrigerator.


This cake is SO GOOD and so unbelievably rich. You seriously need to serve it in like half-inch slices or smaller because it's like mainlining fudge. We made it one evening, refrigerated it overnight, and served it the next afternoon and the brownie layers and frosting just kind of fused together into a solid slab of chocolatey perfection.

I think I need another piece RIGHT NOW.

Happy New Year!

Tonight's Menu

• pork spare ribs with sauerkraut
  
• mashed potatoes
  
• sauteed baby spinach with blackeyed peas and bacon
  

So hey, everyone! Happy New Year!

In my family of origin we always ate pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day. I don't know why, we just DID. Every single person in my family, on both sides. I'm relatively certain they all still do.

I usually do a pork loin with sauerkraut in the crockpot, but this year I got a wild hair and made SPARE RIBS with sauerkraut in the crockpot! I know! Crazy! All I did was cut the spare ribs into slabs of 3-4 ribs each, salt and pepper them, brown them off in a skillet, then stack them in the crockpot (making Xes with them as I went). I drained a jar of sauerkraut and kind of dumped it on top, poking it down in the spaces between the ribs, then sprinkled a little brown sugar on top. Cook on low for 9-10 hours and Bob's your uncle. WAY yummy, too!

The mashed potatoes? FROZEN ORE-IDA. The boy child ate about four helpings.

Now we come to the Texas portion of the meal. Down here, they are all about the blackeyed peas and greens on New Year's Day. I dunno why, something to do with money or good luck or something. I don't question it. I just DO IT. Because you HAVE TO.

So anyway, what I did there was to chop up a couple of slices of bacon and brown them off, toss in some (rinsed, drained) canned blackeyed peas, then add two packages of fresh baby spinach and let it wilt down, tossing it constantly to work the un-wilted leaves to the bottom. You need to do this in a big pan, but it'll cook down to almost nothing. When the spinach was wilted to my satisfaction, I stirred in some red wine vinegar and a bit of sugar, then seasoned with salt and pepper. Delicious!

So. What did YOU have for dinner tonight? Any traditional foods for good luck in the new year?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today's Menu

• herbed roast turkey
  
• honey-cured ham
  
• cornbread dressing
• rolls
• sweet potato casserole
• mashed potatoes and gravy
• caramelized brussels sprouts
• green beans with bacon and onion
• cranberry sauce
• pickles, olives and cheese
• pecan pie
• pumpkin pie
• German chocolate cake
• birthday cake
  

I am SO STUFFED, y'all.

Okay, Mom made the turkey, dressing, gravy, pecan pie and German chocolate cake so I don't have recipes for those.

[UPDATE! After the tryptophan fog lifted, I remembered Mom said she got the cornbread dressing recipe from Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee. Et voila! Mom made a few substitutions, though: veggie broth instead of chicken, and celery instead of water chestnuts. It was SO FREAKIN' AWESOME.]

I made the ham, which was just a honey-cured boneless spiral-cut ham from HEB that needed to be heated for an hour. The rolls were Rhodes frozen rolls (they're little frozen balls of dough that have to thaw and rise before baking), the mashed potatoes were Ore-Ida frozen (they are AWESOME), the cranberry sauce was canned (I added some freshly grated orange zest to the whole-berry sauce and it made a ton of difference), the pickles were from a jar, the pumpkin pie was from the recipe on the Libby's canned pumpkin label, and the birthday cake was from a mix.

I used Emmitt Smith's sweet potato casserole recipe. This is the second year I've made it and it's SO GOOD. I can't make any other recipe now. Props to Emmitt!

The caramelized brussels sprouts were new to me this year. I followed this recipe from Allrecipes.com except that I cut the sprouts in half before steaming, omitted the onion and used toasted almond slivers in place of pistachios. It was DELICIOUS. I will definitely make this again!

I made the green beans the way I always do: chop up some bacon and saute in a Dutch oven until nearly crisp, toss in some chopped onion and saute until the onion releases its fragrance, then add fresh green beans and cover with water. Toss about a tablespoon or so of brown sugar into the water (trust me) and bring the whole thing to a boil, then cover and simmer until the beans are as tender as you like. Drain and serve. Yum!

I seriously will not have to cook for at least two weeks thanks to all the leftovers. Which is good because I don't plan to eat anything for days. Oy.