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.

Breaking the curse

Tonight's Menu

• fajita-spiced grilled skirt steak
  
• sweet potato fries
  
• steamed broccoli
  

Yes, I know. I KNOW. The combination of this particular skirt steak with these particular fries appears to be cursed, at least as far as my household is concerned. But hey, I was feeling lucky. And fortunately, tonight's dinner came off without a hitch! Maybe it's because I served broccoli instead of Brussels sprouts this time.

The skirt steak was sprinkled on both sides with a prepared beef fajita seasoning mix, then stuffed into a big plastic zipper bag with the juice of one lime and some EVOO. It marinated in the fridge for a couple of hours, then I grilled it outside over high heat for 4 minutes per side. After resting for 5 minutes or so, I sliced it across the grain into thin strips (like for fajitas). So yummy!

The sweet potato fries were the usual: several sweet potatoes peeled and then cut into fry-sized sticks, tossed with EVOO, sprinkled with sea salt, garlic powder, chili powder and ground cumin, then popped on a foil-lined baking sheet and into the oven for 45 minutes at 425 degrees F. I tossed them around with a spatula every 15 minutes or so, then turned them off and let them sit in the oven for 15 minutes before serving to allow them to crisp up a bit. I LOVE these fries; they're much healthier than regular fries and make the house smell fantastic while they're cooking.

The broccoli was just steamed in the microwave. Most of it was some Cal-Organic crappe that I bought at the supermarket, but about 15% of it was from my garden -- yay!

And now for something COMPLETELY different

Tonight's Menu

• grilled mild Italian sausages
  
• homemade egg noodles
  
• buttery green cabbage
  

Dudes! I made homemade pasta for the first time ever! I am a little excited about it, so we're going to have to discuss it first, if you don't mind. I've been wanting a manual pasta machine for AGES and I finally got one last week. It's a really cheap-ass model, which may have been a mistake, but oh well. Homemade pasta! It's all good!

I used a recipe from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. It was super easy: just combine two cups of all-purpose flour (I used unbleached), one teaspoon of salt (I used fine sea salt) and three eggs in a food processor until it forms a ball. Knead until smooth, then wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least one hour. Then divide the dough into 4-6 pieces and work these pieces through your pasta machine one at a time until they're as thin as you want them. Cut into shapes, dry, then boil in salted water for 3-5 minutes. Easy, right?

WRONG, if you have a crappy pasta machine, which I apparently do. The first batch was a disaster -- it stuck to the rollers and made a godawful mess. Eventually I got the hang of it but it required adding a LOT of flour to the dough and I was worried that the end result would be super tough noodles. I pressed on, though -- making about five pasta sheets, cutting them into 5- to 6-inch lengths and then cutting those into 1/4-inch strips. I was going for a basic egg noodle kind of thing. I shook off all the excess flour I could and then spread them on my kitchen counter to dry for about an hour before cooking.

They actually came out really good! They were super tasty and the kids both had seconds. Next time I'll roll them a little thinner -- I was so aggravated by the sticky roller issue that I only did them to number 4 on the dial, and they thickened a bit while cooking, so the end result was vaguely dumpling-like. But still very tasty! Not bad for a first effort, I think. I'm excited about experimenting with this!

I cooked the sausages inside because it was WICKED windy/chilly outside today. First I simmered them in water for 15 minutes, as usual, then I browned them off on my beloved IKEA grill pan. You can just brown them in a skillet if you don't have a grill pan, or broil them in the oven until the skins are nice and crispy.

For the cabbage, I chopped half a head of green cabbage and sauteed it in a skillet with three tablespoons of butter. I had the heat up fairly high because I wanted the cabbage to caramelize and pick up some color. When it was just the way I wanted it, I seasoned it with salt and pepper, turned off the heat, and kept it covered until serving time. It was tender, buttery and delicious! I loves me some cabbage, y'all.

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!

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!

Pasta & 'shrooms

Tonight's Menu

• spaghetti w/mushroom-herb sauce
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I am in such a rut with pasta that I usually don't even bother to tell you when I make it. I tend to do one of three things with it: spaghetti with my quickie tomato sauce, some sort of pasta shapes (penne, usually) with Knorr Parma Rosa sauce (a packet of powder to which you add milk and butter), or any sort of pasta with just butter and shredded cheese mixed in.

I know, right? BORING.

So tonight I decided to experiment. I know what you're thinking -- that NEVER ends well, at least for me -- but this time it came out pretty darn tasty! As usual I didn't measure anything, but here's essentially what I did.

First I sliced some crimini mushrooms (these are sometimes called baby bellas) and minced some fresh garlic. I melted some butter over medium heat in a skillet, tossing in the mushrooms and garlic and letting them sweat out fairly slowly without picking up any color. Then I added some fresh thyme, some minced fresh rosemary, salt and pepper and just tossed it around a bit (this smelled AMAZING) before adding in some heavy cream (left over from the pork and gnocchi the other night). I let that simmer over low heat until the cream had thickened just a bit. Then I drained the spaghetti (which had been cooking all this time) and dumped it right into the skillet with the mushroom sauce. Toss, throw on some chopped fresh parsley, and serve! This was really pretty darn tasty and a nice change from our usual boring pasta dinners!

The salad was still boring, though -- just green leaf lettuce and sliced carrots from the garden. We ate up the last of the CSA greenhouse tomatoes last night when I made hamburgers so this salad was even more bare than usual!

Cookbooks to the rescue!

Tonight's Menu

• mustardy pork chops w/gnocchi
  
• green salad "bar"
  

Whoops! Didn't mean to disappear on you for a couple of weeks there. Would you believe I got sick AGAIN? This time with some nasty fever virus thing that mutated into a sinus infection. Fun! So yeah, there's been a whole lot of takeout pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches happening around here.

HOWEVER, tonight I did something different. I have a metric ton of cookbooks but I've realized lately that I hardly ever actually cook from them! Determined to remedy that, I was flipping through Nigella Express looking for something that would use ingredients I already had on hand and came up with this one. It wasn't bad -- I don't usually cook bone-in chops in a skillet without braising them because they always end up tough and dry, and these did, but the sauce made up for it somewhat. The gnocchi were just packaged (I DID have to go out and buy those, and the cream), boiled quickly and then tossed in the mustard cream sauce.

Tonight's salad was just green leaf lettuce, wedged tomatoes (greenhouse-grown, from our last CSA box) and sliced carrots (from my garden!).

Did I tell you all we let our CSA subscription expire? We picked up our last box last week. We just weren't keeping up with the supply of vegetables, and I HATED wasting them. I've decided to redouble my efforts to feed us from my backyard garden, along with making more frequent trips to our local farmer's market(s) and food co-op. We'll still be eating local food as much as possible, never fear!

Typical weeknight meal

Tonight's Menu

• spiced pork tenderloin
  
• whole-wheat couscous
• sweet and sour red cabbage
  

I'm feeling MUCH better today so tonight I made what is pretty much a typical meal for us.

The pork tenderloin recipe is here. It's pretty easy and a nice "bridge" entree between cold-weather oven meals and warm-weather grilling meals.

The couscous was just made according to the package directions. The final vote is in for our family on the couscous: the boys prefer it to quinoa, while the girls have the opposite preference. Go figure!

The sweet and sour cabbage is a favorite of mine, but it's been ages since I've made it. It's really pretty easy, though it does require some babysitting while it cooks.

Sweet & Sour Red Cabbage

1 small onion, halved lengthwise then sliced cross-wise
1 Tbs canola or other vegetable oil
1/2 head red cabbage, shredded (ours was from the CSA)
1/2 cup water
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper

In a large skillet, saute onion in oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, cover pan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until cabbage is tender. Uncover pan, turn heat up to high until all liquid has evaporated.

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!

Couscous FTW!

Tonight's Menu

• citrus shrimp w/couscous
  
• green salad "bar"
  

For the past two nights we've been eating pork spare ribs (with chuffed potatoes the first night, beer bread the second night, and coleslaw BOTH nights) so tonight I wanted something light. Or lightER, anyway.

So, I had two pounds of raw, peeled, deveined, individually quick-frozen shrimp, which I thawed in a colander by running cool water over them. Super easy.

I juiced two oranges (from the CSA) and two limes (from the grocery store), added three minced garlic cloves and a couple of tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) and marinated the shrimp in this mixture on the counter for about 15 minutes while I made the salad. ALSO super easy!

Then all I did was cook the shrimp in a skillet with EVOO in a couple of batches before setting them aside in a serving bowl covered with foil to keep them warm. I dumped the rest of the marinade into the skillet along with a couple of green onions that had been thinly sliced on the diagonal and brought that to a boil, letting it reduce a bit and seasoning it with some salt to taste. Then I added the shrimp back to the pan, tossed them around in the sauce to coat, and drizzled on just a TEENY bit of raw, local honey (Goodflow, for you Austinites) before dumping them back into the serving bowl along with the sauce.

The couscous was a whole-wheat, organic variety that I prepared according to package directions. Timing-wise, I started the couscous while the skillet was heating up for the shrimp, then dumped the first batch of shrimp into the skillet when I turned off the heat for the couscous. If that makes sense. It will if you have a package of couscous handy.

The salad bar was just organic green leaf lettuce, sliced organic cucumbers, and shredded organic carrots. I know, with the organic! Here is the thing: we hardly ever eat out, so the money we save not eating in restaurants lets us buy organic produce more often than not. I'm not going to insist YOU do that, I'm just telling you what WE do and how we manage it. Organic produce ain't cheap, yo.

This meal got an enthusiastic thumbs-up from the entire family, which is INCREDIBLY rare around here. Even DH, who is a self-proclaimed couscous-hater, declared that it worked great for soaking up the yummy shrimp sauce and really complimented the dish. YES!

I am SO full of myself right now, I can't even tell you.

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).

Using up the CSA veggies (again!)

Tonight's Menu

• oven-roasted pork chops and sweet potatoes
  
• buttery cabbage
  

We only get a CSA share every other week (our choice) and we end up using most of it pretty quickly, but there are always a couple of long-storing items left over right before the next pickup day. Tonight we still had a lovely head of plain green cabbage and a couple of sweet potatoes in the fridge, so I threw together this meal.

What I did was take a couple of sweet potatoes and cut them into lengthwise wedges. I didn't bother to peel them first or anything, just cut them up and chucked them into a foil-lined roasting pan. Then I threw in four nice, thick boneless pork chops. I drizzled everything with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper, then snipped some fresh rosemary onto the chops. The pan went into the oven uncovered at 400 degrees for about an hour, until the potatoes were tender and the chops were cooked through (with crispy fat around the edges -- unhealthy, but SO YUMMY).

For the cabbage, I cored a small head and cut it into wedges (it yielded about 8). I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat in a heavy skillet and carefully laid the cabbage wedges in cut-side down, not moving them until they had browned on the bottom. At that point I flipped them so the OTHER cut side was down and let them get nice and brown on that side, too. (Don't sweat it if they fall apart a little bit -- they'll still taste good!) Then I reduced the heat to low, added a couple of tablespoons of water, covered the pan and let them simmer for just a minute or two before turning off the heat altogether. They sat, covered, until the chops and potatoes were done, and I seasoned them with salt and pepper before serving.

This was a super easy but delicious meal, and a great way to use up some winter veggies!

I couldn't help myself

Tonight's Menu

• grilled chicken thighs
  
• steamed Texmati rice
• crunchy vegetable salad
  

We had gorgeous weather here yesterday so I decided I wanted to grill outdoors for supper. I know! Crazy! It meant eating a little earlier than usual so I wasn't grilling in the dark, but oh dudes. I have SO missed grilling!

The chicken thighs were boneless and skinless. I just sprinkled them with prepared fajita seasoning, then marinated them in a mixture of fresh orange juice, fresh lime juice and EVOO. I grilled them about six minutes per side over high heat (they were pretty big) and they were DELICIOUS! I am really looking forward to longer days so I can get back to grilling on a regular basis. Of course, you know by September I'll be sick of it and craving roasts and stews.

The rice was just steamed in the microwave. Easy!

I was channeling my inner Jamie Oliver with this salad. I was tired of green salad but wanted something fresh to go with the grilled chicken. So, what I did was slice up some carrots, celery and radishes in the food processor (using the slicing blade, NOT the knife blade) and then I sliced some green onions and chopped some broccoli by hand. I whomped it all into a big bowl, added some chopped fresh parsley and cilantro, then drizzled on some fresh lemon juice and EVOO and seasoned it with a bit of salt before tossing it all together. It was really good! Nice and crunchy and fresh-tasting, just like I wanted. Mint would have been a nice addition, but mine all bit the dust after our first frost.

The radishes, broccoli, cilantro and the orange I used in the chicken marinade were all from our CSA. The parsley was from my own garden. I've also got thyme and rosemary going strong out there, along with my bay tree. I love using fresh herbs in winter!

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.)

This meal is cursed

Tonight's Menu

• grilled skirt steak
• sweet potato fries
• caramelized Brussels sprouts w/lemon
  

Tonight's dinner was a duplicate of our dinner from October 11th which, as you can see if you follow that link, featured a number of mishaps.

This time I decided to grill the steak indoors on the stovetop using my beloved IKEA grill pan (not only was it dark when I started dinner, but it was extremely windy and chilly). Also, I peeled the sweet potatoes into a bowl rather than running the peels down our wonky disposal. So far so good, right?

Wrong!

My portable kitchen timer, which I use EVERY SINGLE NIGHT while preparing dinner, decided to crap out on me while the meat was in the grill pan. I was attempting to grill it for 5 minutes per side -- one minute more per side than when I grill it outdoors, to compensate for the fact that the stovetop grill pan isn't covered like the big outdoor grill is. I put the meat on, set the timer for five minutes, turned away to unload the dishwasher, then checked the timer when I was pretty sure at least four minutes had passed. The display said I still had four minutes left to go! Wuh? The timer was running, but it was taking several seconds for each SINGLE second to tick down. Argh!

Fortunately I discovered it in time to save the meat, but still. I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't make this meal again! As delicious as it is, I think someone is trying to tell me something!

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!