Meatball Calzone – it’s like a meatball sandwich on crack!

Tags

calzone, dough, meatball, peppers, pizza

The calzone is an ideal, bready, delivery system for the deliciousness that is meatballs.  But, you can put anything you want inside your calzone!  You could make a million variants on Italian style fillings: different sausages, peppers, and fun cheeses.  Other cuisines are an option too: if I was feeling like indulging myself, I would love to make a Greek flavored calzone with ground lamb, spinach, herbs and feta cheese.  If you wanted to make a ultra-healthy calzone, you could fill it with ricotta and veggies.  All the possibilities make my little mind boggle!

Pizza dough is really easy to come by too.  It’s quite simple to make at home; I’ve been testing out various pizza dough recipes and for this one I used Alice Waters’ recipe in ‘The Art of Simple Cooking.’  It was excellent and quite tasty, but my quest for pizza dough perfection continues.  If you’re pinched for time or want to spare yourself some work, pretty good fresh pizza dough can be found in the refrigerated section of most grocery stores at decent prices.  Also, most pizzerias are happy to sell you a little dough too if you ask nicely.

Meatball Calzone

Makes 4 calzone – cost $.83 each!

Ingredients

• 2 lb pizza dough, cut into 4 half lb pieces ($.75)
• 1 pt leftover meat balls with tomato sauce ($1.50)
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1/2 onion ($.10)
• 1/3 bell pepper ($.20)
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• crushed red pepper – to taste
• 2 Tbs minced parsley
• 2 Tbs sour cream
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese ($.50)

Preheat your oven to 400 F and put in a pizza stone if you have it.  No worries if you don’t.

Heat the oil in a saute pan and saute the onions, peppers and garlic for 5 minutes.  Season them with salt and crushed red pepper, to taste.  Add in the leftover meatballs and sauce and bring to a simmer.  If your sauce is too thick, you may want to add a little bit of water to loosen everything up and mix it all together.  Break the meatballs in half or in quarters.  Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley, sour cream and parmesan cheese.

Now for the assemblage!  This is a great thing to do with any precocious people you may be cooking with, because everyone loves flinging dough around and pretending to be a deigo. (Relax, I’m a deigo.)

Firemen sometimes like to pretend to be pizza chefs…

However you want to do it, by flinging it around or with a rolling pin, flatten out the dough to about 1/8 inch thick and spoon on about half a cup of the meatball filling, right in the middle, leaving a 1-2 inch border.

Next, fold the dough over and roll up or pinch the edges closed.  Then cut a few slits for the steam to escape.  As so indicated by my kitchen Vanna White…

Now, do that with all the dough pieces and put them on the pizza stone or some sheet trays and bake until golden brown and bubbly, about 30 minutes.  Yum!

Borscht with faux creme fraiche – in Russia, soup eats you!

Tags

beef, beets, borscht, cabbage, creme fraiche, stew

As far as beef goes, soups and stews have been the way to eat up the less tender bits since the dawn of time.  It’s perfect for those tasty little nubbins, because those bits have the most flavor.  With most meats there is an inverse relationship between tenderness and flavor.  Sure, a filet mignon melts in your mouth, but nothing beats the beefy flavor of a pot roast or seared flank steak!

For a special treat, I braised a lovely grass fed chuck roast earlier in the week and making a big ol’ pot of borscht seemed perfect for my leftovers.  I bulked up my borscht with some potatoes, making it more of a hearty stew, all the better for filling up hungry men!  If you have a lot of hungry hungry hippos to feed, a loaf or two of fresh bread would help to stretch this soup out.

For all that it’s a big, chunky, man-pleasing beef stew, the little girl inside of me loves that this soup is pink as pink could be!  Beets have that way of turning EVERYTHING fuchsia, like your hands, cutting board and whatever dish you happen to use them in.  Whenever I cook with beets, I always have to run around my kitchen doing my best Lady Macbeth “Out! Out! Damn spot!” impression before I wash all the pink off my hands.  (If you’re a fancy person that can’t risk going to work with pink hands, I would recommend wearing gloves when preparing beets.)

Borscht – served with faux creme fraiche

Serves 4-6 – cost approx $1.02 per serving

Ingredients

• 12 oz beef – cooked leftovers or raw stew meat, doesn’t matter… ($2.50)
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled, 1/2 inch dice ($.30)
• 2 Tbs veg oil, olive oil or bacon grease, your choice!
• 1 onion, thinly sliced ($.25)
• 1/3 head of cabbage, thinly sliced ($.66)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbs tomato paste ($.13)
• salt
• 1 15 oz can beets, drain and reserve the juice thinly slice the beets into matchsticks ($.79)
• 2 Tbs minced parsley
• 2 Tbs red wine vinegar

• 1/2 cup sour cream ($.25)
• 1-2 tbs lemon or lime juice
• pinch salt

Put the beef in a large pot and fill with about 8 cups water (about half way up the pot), bring to a simmer.  If your beef is already cooked, simmer for a just a half an hour to an hour to make the meat fall apart tender.  If you’re starting with raw beef, simmer for a few hours to make it fall apart tender.  This is an excellent step to do in the slow cooker while you go about your busy day, I would put the cooked beef on low for 4-6 hours and raw beef on high for 6-8 hours.

Begin with the other ingredients of the stew about an hour before you want to eat.  Put the potatoes in to simmer with the beef.  (If you’re using the slow cooker, crank it up as high as it goes, or whatever setting makes it go at a nice simmer, and put the potatoes in about 2 hrs before you want to eat.)  Add in the reserved pink juice drained off of the beets.

Heat the 2 Tbs of the fat of your choice over medium heat in a large saute pan, and cook the cabbage, onion and garlic for 10-15 minutes.  Add in the tomato paste to the sauteing veggies and cook another 5 minutes, forming some good brown crud on the bottom of your pan.  Add the veggies to the cooking beef and potatoes.  Take a ladle of the beefy broth from the pot (or crock pot) and put it in your saute pan so that you can loosen up and scrape off all those browned bits and then pour it back into the soup.   Add in the sliced beets.  Let simmer for another 20-30 minutes to meld the flavor, check the seasonings and add salt to taste.   Finish the soup by adding in the red wine vinegar to give it a pleasant tangy flavor and the minced parsley.

For the faux creme fraiche, mix up the sour cream, citrus juice and a pinch of salt.  You can add a little bit of water too to make it a nice, pourable, yogurt-like consistency.  Put a nice dolop on top of your soup and dig in!  Or you can put it in a squeeze bottle so you can play Jackson Pollock on the top of your soup bowl!  I’m a big proponent of fun and interactive food. 🙂

Chocolate Pudding – for the kid in all of us

Tags

chocolate, pudding

Who doesn’t occasionally get that craving for chocolate pudding?  It’s so easy to make, plus, it’s a great thing to do with any extra plain chocolate you might have.  I know, you’re thinking “Who on Dagon’s green earth has EXTRA chocolate?!?”  But, being smack dab in the middle of the candy-themed-holiday-marathon, I have more than I know I should eat.  It all seems to go so quickly, from Halloween to Christmas to Valentine’s Day to Easter, and isn’t candy the true meaning all these holidays?  Jesus, who’s he?  Bring on the the fat man in the red suit and the chocolate bunnies! (*Please read into the sarcasm in this.  I find the commercialization of religious holidays quite ironic and depressing.*)

If you don’t happen to have any of that elusive ‘extra’ chocolate, every now and then 12 oz bags of chocolate chips go on sale for $1 at discount grocery stores, and that would be about what’s needed for this recipe.

I found that as I got older, I grew to appreciate a nice pudding skin…

Something rather important about dessert cookery is ratios or ‘baker’s percentages.’  With baked goods, it’s not only about flavor but it’s about science too; each ingredient interacts with the others to make just the right texture, whether that’s a fluffy, airy cake or a thick, creamy custard.  (That’s probably why my engineer brother-in-law makes such bomb cheesecakes, because it’s science!)  You’ll notice that all the ingredients in this pudding are proportional.  Not only are they proportional, they are specific to chocolate pudding, because chocolate is one of those magic ingredients that is solid at colder/room temperatures and melts at higher temperatures (just like butter!) and it helps to thicken the pudding.  These ratios may not work on a non-chocolate flavored pudding.

Chocolate Pudding!

Makes 6, 1 cup portions – cost approx $.37 per serving

• 4 cups milk ($.75)
• 2 eggs ($.24)
• 4 Tbs cornstarch
• 4 Tbs sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups chopped milk chocolate ($1)

The ratio is 2 cups milk:1 egg:2 Tbs cornstarch:1/2 cup chocolate.  The sugar and vanilla are dependent on your tastes.

Whisk all ingredients, except chocolate, together in a sauce pan.  Heat the pan on medium, stirring often.  In 5-10 minutes the mixture will begin to thicken slightly.  Add in the chocolate and stir until fully melted.  Heat the mixture until thick and about 165 F.  If you’re wiggly about undercooked eggs, or feeding this to anyone in a sensitive group (pregnant women, small children, the elderly, people with immune diseases) heat the pudding to 175 F.

Pass through a fine mesh strainer or chinois then put into whatever containers you like.   If you’re a pudding skin hater, cover the surface with plastic wrap.  Put in the fridge to cool.  Wait patiently, spoon in hand.  In a few hours it should be cooled and ready to eat.

Spice Roasted Chicken and Cilantro Lime Rice Pilaf – because everyone should know how…

Tags

carrots, chicken, cilantro, lime, rice pilaf, roast

I think that everyone should know how to confidently roast a chicken!  It’s inexpensive, there’s crispy skin and juicy meat, it’s perfect for company and often leaves good leftovers.  And who doesn’t love the Norman Rockwell-esque image of roast poultry on the dinner table?

Roast chicken seemed to just fall into place for dinner for me this week.  I wanted to make a nice meal for my soon-to-be-in-laws, as they were visiting.  Also, I got a big helping hand from my local Raley’s; they had a ‘Buy-one-get-one-free’ sale on whole chickens and I got some other free things because I’m in their membership card club!

If you have a larger grocery store close by, or shop at one frequently, it pays to be a member of their club card program.  I’ve gotten countless free things just because I keep tabs on all my club card accounts at my local grocery stores, most even have a website that allows you to load coupons and deals onto your card.  Combining the great promotions at larger grocery stores with the treasure hunt deals at a discount grocery store is what allows me to keep my budget in check.

I really love how Raley’s is having their ‘Something Extra’ deals for card-holders.  A few weeks ago I got some de-lish coffee and a nice mug mailed to my doorstep for FREE, and I’ve got another package of goodies on the way.  If you’ve got a Raley’s near by, go check it out.  Make the system work for you!

<img src=”https://img.tryitraleys.com/image/nuval.jpg?Type=activity&Activity=7740769510&Campaign=3047890832&Uid=2343&token=9b2da55fb2fb8435ae79e7044da0c438&#8243; alt=””/>

This week I got to try some of their new healthy products that they are promoting for free on an online coupon that I loaded to my card.  I was most excited about the flavored broth, I picked the chili and lime flavored chicken broth because it seemed like I could use it in either a Latin American dish or an Asian dish.  I thought the chili and lime flavors came through stronger than the chicken did, so it was the perfect ingredient for making some rice pilaf.

Free things just taste better!

Spice Roasted Chicken – with roasted carrots

Serves 4-6 – cost approx $1.19 per serving, including the rice and carrots!

Ingredients

• 4-5 lb whole chicken – don’t buy chicken for over $1 per lb, I got mine for about $.60 per lb overall! ($4.45)
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• cayenne pepper – to taste, I used about 1/4 tsp
• 1/2 lemon – optional ($.15)
• 5 carrots, peeled and cut in large dice ($.52)

Preheat the oven to 375 F and take the chicken out of the fridge to come up to room temperature.  Make sure you take out the exciting little bits out of the chicken: livers are great for pate and to mix into meatloaf and meatballs, the neck and gizzard is great for making stock.  I cut off my wing tips and tail and combine them with neck to make stock.

Mix up the dry spices and rub the chicken with them inside and out.  Stuff the lemon inside the cavity.  Roast until the bird is fully cooked (the juices are clear, the joints are loose and it’s all firm to the touch), this took me just over an hour at 375 F in a convection oven.  Baste the bird with it’s own fat and drippings every 15 minutes or so.  About 15 minutes after you put the bird in, take it out again for it’s first basting and push it off to one side of the pan and put the carrots underneath to cook in all the yummy chicken juices.

Any other root veggies would be delicious cooked in the roasting pan with the chicken too, I just picked carrots because they were located conveniently in my fridge.  🙂  The same goes for what you put inside the bird, any citrus would be lovely!

Cilantro Lime Rice Pilaf – yes, I too love the stuff at Chipotle so much I wanted to make my own!

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs butter
• 1/2 small onion, small dice ($.10)
• 2 cups long grain white rice ($.46)
• 3 cups chili and lime flavored chicken broth – any type of broth would be nice here too (free!)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 bunch cilantro, minced
• salt – to taste

Melt the butter in a pot that has a lid.  Saute the onion in the butter for 3-5 minutes.  Next, add the rice and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Add in the broth and bring to a simmer, toss in the bay leaf too.  Cover and leave to simmer for 15-20 minutes.  When the rice is all cooked and all the liquid is absorbed, fluff the rice up and mix in the cilantro and some salt to taste.  Simple and tasty!

Black Bean Pozole – Sunday Soup-Day continues!

Tags

bacon, black beans, hominy, pozole

This delicious soup definitely appeals to my love of toppings.  There’s no better way to jazz up some soup than sprinkling little yummies all over it!  Traditionally, pozole is served with shredded cabbage, thinly sliced radishes and lime wedges.  I chose to keep the lime and radish, add some cilantro and substitute the cabbage for some thinly sliced broccoli.  I liked how the broccoli kept the same crunch and slightly bitter taste of cabbage and looks like little flowers too!

This pozole is healthy, hearty and filling.  I used black beans to bulk up the soup, and so that I wouldn’t need to add the stewed pork that is traditional in this dish.  But, to keep a nice and ‘porky’ flavor, I used some bacon (yum!).  If you happen to be of a non-pork eating faith or a vegetarian, this soup is great without the bacon too!

Black Bean Pozole

Serves 4-6 – cost approx $.94 per serving

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups dry black beans ($.75)
• 8 slices bacon, thinly sliced ($.50)
• 1 onion, medium dice ($.15)
• 1/2 green bell pepper, medium dice ($.35)
• 3 ribs celery, medium dice ($.16)
• 1 jalapeno, small dice – remove the seeds for a mild heat or keep them in if you love the spicy side of life ($.10)
• 5 cloves garlic, sliced ($.10)
• 2 Tbs tomato paste ($.15)
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp dry oregano
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 8 cups vegetable stock
• 1 large, 29 oz, can of hominy, drained ($.99)

Toppings

• cilantro leaves ($.25)
• sliced avocado ($.50)
• thinly sliced radishes and broccoli stem ($.25)
• lime wedges ($.20)

Soak the black beans the morning of the day you want to make your soup.  When you start to make your soup in the evening, rinse the beans and put them onto  simmer while your prepare the ingredients.

Start the soup by rendering the fat out of the bacon in a large pot over medium heat.  When the bacon is all crispy, fish it out with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat in the pan.  Next, saute the onion, bell pepper, celery, jalapeno and garlic for 5-10 minutes.  Add in a pinch of salt for good measure.

Add in the tomato paste, oregano and spices, stir constantly for 2-3 minutes.  Now add in the vegetable stock and scrape the delicious crud off the bottom of the pot.  Bring to a simmer and taste the broth so that you can adjust the seasonings.  Drain the black beans that are simmering on a back burner and add them to the soup along with the hominy.  Continue simmering for 15-30 minutes, or until the vegetable are fully cooked and the beans are soft.

Now you’re ready to dish out a bowl of goodness and go bananas with all the toppings!

Sushi 101 – All you can eat, without spending all you’ve got!

Tags

california roll, how-to, japanese, sushi

In my experience, restaurant sushi is as delicious as it is expensive, a very special treat to indulge in.  However, simple and tasty sushi isn’t something terribly difficult or costly to make at home.  This little ‘Intro to Sushi’ course is great for those of us who want to eat some sushi and still keep a little green in our wallets.

I’m keeping it simple on my homemade sushi night for several reasons.  First off, I’m no expert; I’m familiar with Japanese American style food but in no way an expert in traditional Japanese fare and I only know the basics.  Second, it’s winter in the mountains and I’m far too lazy to drive over the passes to go to an Asian market for specialty items and vegetables.  Third, I don’t have a deep fryer, fancy gadgets or any specialty equipment for making tempura items or super flashy rolls.  Lastly, I’m on a budget!  I don’t exactly have the cash to fill us up on fresh sashimi.  This dinner costs more than my average weeknight meals do, but it’s certainly less than you’d pay at a sushi restaurant!

This little menu is great for both types of sushi beginners.  It’s only a few types of rolls to learn and perfect you skills on for the amateur sushi chef; and if you’re new to eating sushi, these rolls aren’t filled with any strange or expensive ingredients and there’s no raw fish.  Make a night of it and learn to make sushi with your friends!  Even if some of your rolls look like ugly ducklings (some of mine certainly do!), they’ll still taste like beautiful, delicious swans in your tummy.

Now, on to the nitty-gritty.  One of the things I do know about Japanese food (and culture!), is that it’s about having great basics as a foundation then building a great dish with quality ingredients.  So, make some nice sushi rice, learn to make a solid roll, and fill it with whatever things you like.

Sushi Night!

This dinner serves 4, making approximately 3-4 small long rolls and 2-4 hand rolls per person.  Cost only $1.97 per serving!

Sushi Rice

Ingredients

• 3 cups Short grain sushi rice ($.89)
• 1/4 cup Sugar
• 1/3 cup Rice vinegar

RINSE THE RICE, SEVERAL TIMES, TILL THE WATER IS ALMOST CLEAR.  This step is important (because my Mom and Grandma say it is) and it warrants the gratuitous use of Caps Lock.  Cook the rice as per your rice cooker’s directions.  When it’s hot, put the rice into a wide, shallow container to cool it down.  I used a 9″x13″ baking dish.  Combine the sugar and rice vinegar in a small bowl and microwave it for about 30 seconds then stir it up.  Heating up the mixture helps to dissolve the sugar a bit.  Drizzle the mixture over the rice and use a spatula to gently stir the rice, this serves two purposes: to mix it all up and to cool down the rice.  Cover with a damp cloth and let cool completely at room temp.  No need to refrigerate.

Take a second to look and see if your rice vinegar is ‘seasoned.’  Either way, taste the rice to see if it needs salt or what not.  Trust your tongue!

Veggie and Egg Rolls

Ingredients

• 2 carrots – simmer 2 minutes in salted water with a small piece of ginger in it, then blanch in cold water ($.10)
• 1-2 cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced ($1.25)
• 1/2 avocado – thinly slice as you go along, so that it doesn’t turn brown ($.50)
• 4 eggs – make a scrambled egg omelet, however you like your eggs ($.56)
• 1/2 package, 5 sheets, sushi nori ($1.04)
• Sushi Rice

So, I realized that I don’t have a little bamboo mat for rolling the sushi, but a gallon sized zipper bag with a thin catalog inside works pretty well!  (I used the Victoria’s Secret swimsuit catalog, if that’s of any importance…)

Before you start, lay out everything you think you’ll need.  Here’s what I thought I’d need.

Aside from the ingredients, you need: a cutting board for a work surface, a scary sharp knife (for cutting the finished rolls), a regular knife (for cutting ingredients), scissors, a small bowl of water (for cleaning your fingers), plastic wrap, a ‘rolling mat’ (or magazine inside a ziplock).

Start by laying down a square of plastic wrap.  Lay a rectangle of nori (if you have large square sheet, cut them in half) on the plastic.  There’s a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ side to have on the outside, but honestly, I can’t remember which is which.  I have a hunch it’s purely aesthetic.  Put a very thin layer or rice down, leaving a 1/4″ gap at the top of the rectangle.  Use a very light touch, don’t mash the rice down on the seaweed.  Then lay your ingredients in the middle of the rice.

Use the plastic and the ‘rolling mat’ to make the edges of the rice meet up, and the uncovered gap of seaweed will seal the roll closed.  Use the ‘rolling mat’ to give the finished roll a firm, all over squeeze.  It helps if you get a cute fireman to assist you.

Spicy California Rolls

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb of imitation crab – for me, it’s one of the things I can barely taste the difference on if it’s in a preparation like this.  If you’re feeling spendy, and want to treat yourself, go and get some real crab meat! ($1.75)
• 1/4 cup mayo ($.25)
• Sriracha hot sauce – to taste
• 1 Tbs cilantro, minced
• 1/2 avocado ($.25)
• 1/2 package, 5 sheets, sushi nori ($1.04)
• Sushi Rice
• Toasted sesame seeds – optional topping
• Seaweed seasonings – optional topping

To make the filling, shred and mix the imitation crab with the mayo, Sriracha hot sauce and cilantro.  Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Begin this roll by laying a rectangle of nori down on a square of plastic wrap.  Cover the entire rectangle of seaweed with a thin layer of rice.  You can put some sesame seeds on top for decoration.

Flip the seaweed over then put your fillings in.  I like the crab mix, cucumber and avocado.  Make sure you don’t over fill, less is more!

Use the plastic wrap and the ‘rolling mat’ to close up the roll.  Again, use the ‘rolling mat’ to give the finished roll a firm, all over squeeze.

If all this seems like too much of a pain in the patootie, you can just make some simple hand rolls.  Take a small square (1/4 of a sheet) of nori, put all your goodies inside, then roll it up like a cone.  Much easier.

Now use your dangerously sharp knife to cut the rolls while they’re still in the plastic wrap.  Remove the plastic, grab some chopsticks and chow down.  See?  Sushi night at home is totally awesome!

Mexican Chorizo Strata – got any leftover mashed potatoes?

Tags

casserole, chorizo, leftovers, mashed potatoes, strata, sweet potatoes, Tex Mex

I went a little overboard with the mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving.  I had guessed that some extra firemen would be coming and potatoes often are effective for filling up growing boys.  As it turned out, all my bonus firemen were all suffering from ‘The Bottleneck Flu’ (as my Unofficial Mother-In-Law called it) and didn’t lay waste to the mashed potatoes as I expected they would.  To my freezer the leftovers went…

Another reason for the excess holiday potatoes was a little spiteful, I’m ashamed to say.  Last winter my fireman brought home the biggest, wettest, knottiest rounds of wood for us girls to learn how to split wood on, out there with an axe out in the 15 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.  So, for a little retribution, I wanted him to experience one of the more unappealing tasks of my trade and told him to peel upwards of 20 pounds of potatoes in preparation for our Thanksgiving feast.  Sweet revenge was mine at last.

Now, I just have several containers of mashed potatoes filling up my infamously full freezer.  So I came up with this strata (a layered casserole) in another, possibly futile, effort to clear out my icebox.  It’s a good framework casserole/strata to put anything in, make it with whatever’s clogging up your freezer.  🙂  You can also tailor the strata to what you have, making more layers of whatever you have the most of.  If you don’t have chorizo, ground meat with taco seasonings would be a great substitution.

Mexican Chorizo Strata

Serves 4 – cost approx $1.19 per serving

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 10 oz package of pork chorizo ($.99)
• 1 onion, medium dice ($.12)
• 1/2 bell pepper, medium dice ($.50)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno, minced – optional/versatile, leave the seeds in if you’re a spice-aholic, de-seed for mild spice or omit if you’re a sissy.  ($.10)
• 2 cups frozen corn kernels ($.58)
• 2 Tbs minced cilantro

Layers

• 6 oz cheese – I got string cheese on sale this week, it melts great! ($.74)
• 6 small sweet potatoes, peeled and very finely sliced ($1.24)
• 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes ($.25)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Begin by making the filling, heat a saute pan over medium and begin to cook the chorizo.  In a few minutes, when the lovely, orange fat starts to render throw in the onion, bell pepper, garlic and jalapeno.  Saute for 5 minutes, turn off the heat then add in the frozen corn and cilantro.

To assemble the strata, start by preparing a 9″ x 13″ baking pan with spray grease.  Layer up the ingredients however you like.  Here’s how I did it.

• sweet potatoes
• 1/2 of the chorizo filing
• 1/3 of the cheese
• sweet potatoes
• mashed potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• 1/2 the chorizo filling
• 1/3 of the cheese
• sweet potatoes
• remaining 1/3 of the cheese

Bake covered for 30 minutes and uncovered for 15 minutes, until golden and delicious.

Creamy Mushroom and Barley Soup – Sunday Soup-day in the Laboratory!

Tags

barley, beef, cream of mushroom, mushrooms, sausage, shiitake, soup

This is what I would call a ‘Franken-soup.’  It’s not a traditional cream of mushroom soup, it’s not a beef and barley stew; it’s made of bits of different things, thrown together by this mad scientist of a cook.  It’s its own strange and delicious, mish-mosh soup.

I really like how, if you simply omit the sausage (or cook it separately) you can make a great vegetarian soup to serve to a mixed crowd.  It’s hearty and filling, and, dare I say, even suitable for game-day?  Don’t worry, it’s man-approved; my fireman called it both ‘rich’ and ‘a keeper.’  This soup is really creamy and decadent tasting, but, aside from a little butter, there’s nothing in there that’s bad for you.

Creamy Mushroom and Barley Soup

Serves 4-6 – cost approx $1.30 per serving

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup pearl barley ($.75)
• 1/2 stick butter, divided use ($.30)
• 1 onion, medium dice ($.17)
• 1 leek, white part medium dice ($.50)
• 3 ribs celery, medium dice ($.17)
• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 6 oz mushrooms, cleaned, caps thinly sliced, reserve the stems – I got some nice shiitakes from my Mama-Bear-in-Law’s farmer’s market, but use whatever you like! ($3)
• 1/4 cup All Purpose flour
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• 2 cups milk ($.38)
• 2 Tbs parsley, minced
• 1 Tbs thyme, minced
• salt and black pepper – to taste
• 1 12 oz package of fully cooked beef sausage, thinly sliced ($.99)

Put the barley in a pot and cover with water 1-2 inches and boil until tender, about 30-45 minutes.  Drain and reserve.

Heat 2 Tbs of butter in a large pot over medium heat.  Saute the onion, leek, celery, garlic and mushroom stems for 5-10 minutes.

Add in the flour and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the flour is golden in color (a blonde roux).  Add in the vegetable stock and bring to a simmer, simmer gently for 30 minutes or so.  Next, puree the mixture until very smooth.  (I find an immersion blender works best.)  Now, strain the puree through a fine mesh strainer or a few layers of cheese cloth.  This step is optional when considering the flavor of the soup, but does a great deal to making the texture of the soup smooth and velvety.  Bring the strained broth back up to a simmer.

In another pan, heat another 1-2 Tbs of butter and saute the mushroom caps.  Next, add in the sliced sausage and heat up and brown slightly.  Add the mushrooms, sausage, fresh herbs and milk to the simmering broth.

If you want to increase the thickness of your soup, you can add a beurre manie.  This is similar to a roux, all you do is mix equal parts room temperature butter and flour to form a paste.  Then you stir the paste into a simmering liquid and it gets thicker.  I added about 2 Tbs of beurre manie to my soup to get the consistency just right.

Boring fact: Beurre manie is French for ‘worked butter.’

Adjust the seasonings in the soup, adding salt and pepper if necessary.  Lastly, mix in the barley and you’re ready to grab your spoon and slurp away!

Pasta con Sugo Puttanesca! – for those who like it fast and easy…

Tags

capers, garlic, olives, pasta, puttanesca

So, I caused a ruckus at work last week because of my Italian speaking skills.  We ran some delicious Pasta Puttanesca as a lunch special, and my delightful Mexican co-workers had a pretty good idea of what the word ‘Puttanesca’ means and I confirmed their suspicions that it does indeed mean ‘Prostitute-style-sauce.’

The wait staff was equally entertained by the whimsical story of this pasta sauce’s origins.  The culinary urban legend is that the ladies of the night, somewhere in southern Italy, would make this sauce and the wonderful, rich smell would waft out their windows and tempt potential customers into spending the night with them.  The conversation quickly degenerated from there…

Perhaps the real reason that this dish was rumored to be made by Italian working girls is that it is an easy and delicious dinner that can be made quickly when one has a busy night, so to speak.

As a firm believer in alternate sources of protein, I added some lentils to this dish.  I especially liked how the lentils calmed the flavors of the capers and olives so that they were more muted than typical in this dish because I’m still warming up to pickled things like olives.  On that note, because I don’t absolutely love all olives yet, if I’m going to eat them, I’m splurging on some nice ones.

When getting nice olives it’s important to check the deli section of your grocery store (either the olive bar or the olives available in the deli case) as well as in the jarred olive and pickle aisle.  I noticed that, for Kalamata olives, the price per pound in the deli case was about the same as the drained weight of the jarred olives.  I chose the deli case olives because they were already pitted (less hassle for me and I’m not paying for the pits) and because I could buy only what I needed for the recipe.

Pasta con Sugo Puttanesca – served with ciabatta bread

Serves 4 – cost approx $1.49 per serving, including bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup lentils ($.43)
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 5 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 onion, medium dice ($.17)
• 2 Tbs capers ($.40)
• 1/4 lb olives, rough chop – about 1/2 cup ($2.07)
• 1/2 -1 tsp crushed red peppers – to taste!
• 1 Tbs anchovy paste – substitute soy sauce if you’re vegetarian
• 2 Tbs tomato paste ($.16)
• 1/2 cup red wine ($.20)
• 1 lg, 28 oz can crushed tomatoes ($.88)
• 1/2 tsp dry basil
• 1/2 tsp dry oregano
• 1 lb pasta ($.89)
• 3 Tbs minced parsley

Start by putting the lentils on to boil in a small pan and putting a pot of water on to boil for the pasta.  The lentils need to simmer for abut 20-30 minutes to become tender, so this can work while you prepare all the other ingredients and make the sauce.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large pan.  Saute the garlic for 30 seconds, or until fragrant.  Next add in the onion, saute 5 minutes or until the onion is translucent.  Next add in the capers, olives and crushed red peppers, saute for a minute before adding the anchovy paste (or soy sauce if you’re going full-veggie mode) and tomato paste.  Saute together 2 minutes.  Now, deglaze the pan with the red wine, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan.  Add in the crushed tomatoes, dry herbs and cooked, drained lentils.  Now the sauce is done but be sure to simmer for another 10-15 minutes (Hey, that’s about the time it takes for pasta to cook, hint hint.) and adjust the seasonings if necessary.  As many of the ingredients are quite salty, you may or may not need to add salt.

Salt the pasta water and add the pasta, cook to about 75% done-ness as the sauce simmers.  (This time may vary depending on the type of pasta you use.)  Scoop out a cup or so of pasta water and drain the pasta.  Add the pasta to the sauce to finish cooking to al dente.  If the sauce looks too thick, you can thin it out with a little of the reserved pasta water.  Now you’re ready to eat!  Mangia!

Indian Braised Chicken with Rice and… – The Cabbage Conclusion

Tags

cabbage, chicken, curry, indian

And now this little exploration into cabbage can end the way it started, with my awesome Mama-Bear-In-Law.  A few weeks ago, she inspired me to post several cabbage recipes and now I’m finishing up my head of cabbage with an Indian meal.

My fireman went down to the Bay to run a marathon (He kicked butt and won his age division!) and to take his Mama on a date in The City, but the two of them were kind enough to spend some time to picking out some fresh veggies for me at their local farmer’s market.  It’s such a treat to have farmer’s market goodies, as it’s far to snowy to have a year-round farmers market up here in Tahoe.

This dinner is surprisingly American at its root, it’s braised chicken with rice and a vegetable.  The spices in this meal are simple and more warming than they are spicy, making it a good dish for a someone who is wary of Indian cuisine or for someone who doesn’t have a whole cabinet of Indian spices! (Yet)

Simple Indian Braised Chicken

Serves 3 – total meal cost approx $1.51 per serving

Ingredients

• 3 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1 onion, thinly sliced ($.09)
• 1 Tbs ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 Tbs coriander seeds
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 pinch smoked paprika
• salt – to taste
• 3 chicken thighs ($1.30)
• 1 bunch Swiss chard, leaves and stems thinly sliced ($1.50)
• 1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock

Begin by heating up the vegetable oil over medium high heat in a large saute pan.  Saute the onions until golden and translucent, 3-5 minutes, next add in the ginger, garlic, coriander and dry spices and saute 2 minutes more.

Heating the spices helps to open up their flavors.

Season the chicken thighs and then brown them on both sides in the pan with the onions and spices.  Add in the Swiss chard to saute, one handful at a time (just because it won’t all fit, if you have a big enough pan, feel free to add it all at once).  Lastly, add in the stock and bring to a simmer.  Cover the pan and let braise for 30 minutes, stirring the mixture and turning the chicken a few times during this process.  Check the seasonings, adding salt if necessary, and enjoy!

Cabbage with Mustard Seeds

Ingredients

• 2 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 serrano chili, thinly sliced (optional)
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 head of cabbage, cut into 1″ pieces ($.64)
• salt – to taste
• 1/4 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped

Heat the vegetable oil in over high heat, when the oil is nice and hot, add in the mustard seeds and cover.  In a minute or so, you should hear popping, similar to making popcorn, once the popping starts, add in the serrano chili and turmeric.  Saute 1 minute.  Next, add in the cabbage and saute about 3 minutes, add some salt.  Add in 1/4 cup of water and cover the dish, cook covered for 5 minutes, or until fully cooked.  Take off the heat and stir in the cilantro.  Now crack yourself an IPA and dig in!

Fun Fact!  India Pale Ale was developed during the English occupation of India.  In order to get the soldiers their ale, the English brewers had to add a whole bunch of hops as a preservative (and as a flavoring) so that the beer wouldn’t spoil on the long trip to India.