Vegetarian Entre

This is a great vegetarian dish that doesn't call for 16 ingredients, take all day to fix, and leave you with a pile of dishes.  It's a roasted garlic/cauliflower/pasta dish with pepper flakes, lemon juice and lots of Parmesan cheese.  You roast two bulbs of garlic in a hot hot (500 degrees oven)  in foil, then remove the garlic and roast the cauliflower, coated with olive oil and cut into 1/8ths in the same pan in the same 500 degree oven.  
Meanwhile you have toasted 1/4-1/3 cup walnuts. Chop after they cool.  Cook the pasta, make sauce of the garlic, lemon juice and hot pepper flakes and mix everything together and add plenty of Parmesan and serve with more Parmesan. Garnish with walnuts.
 I'm making a salad with iceberg lettuce, grape tomatoes and avocado to add some green to the menu.  Sounds good, doesn't it?   Avocados on sale lately.  Good healthy oils for you in the winter.  

We had tacos last night with all the trimmings:  bean/pepper/onion for the vegetarian guest and ours likewise, but with some sauteed and cut up tri-tip steak.  I serve lightly sauteed corn tortillas, salsa, sour cream, grated cheddar, lettuce, tomato, avocado, scallions and cilantro to make as we like.  And we sure as hell like. 

Chili Mac: a great one-skillet casserole

During the holiday rush, when shopping, wrapping, cards, and lots of baking harry us, it's nice to have a go to dish for dinner that's fast, economical and doesn't dirty every dish in the kitchen.  May I offer up Chili Mac?

My recipe is from (I think) the Boston Globe and is attributed to Keri Fisher.  Thanks, Keri, we needed this.
Keri Fisher recipes

The recipe serves 4, but we ate and ate last night and there's still more than enough for a second meal.  I just  found the recipe on the web. Chili Mac Recipe

I followed the recipe except I had diced fire-roasted tomatoes.  Noticed the cans are now (grrrr!) 14.5 ounces instead of a pound, so I added a few cherry tomatoes, chopped.  I always buy good quality ground beef from the butcher counter.  Used ancho chili powder, and the Mexican cheese blend.  It was so cheesy we didn't need extra,  Serve with a nice salad.  Ours was mesclun with cherry tomatoes and cukes and some feta cheese sprinkled thereon.

The recipe is not too spicy for kids, but not too bland for adults.  We really relished it.  Yum! 

Old Time Rice Pudding

This is an unexpectedly delicious rice pudding, due to the caramelization  of the milk and sugar.  It's from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook when I was a bride.  Use any kind of rice in the pantry.  Milk should be whole milk or 2%.  You can use  2/3 cup of brown sugar instead of the white sugar, grated orange rind instead of lemon, cinnamon or cardamon instead of nutmeg, and golden raisins or currants instead of dark raisins.  This is known as "making do" and it can yield some delicious surprises.  The first hour requires a bit of stirring, but after that the oven does its work.  Serve with heavy cream for a real treat.

Old-time Rice Pudding

1/2 cup rice
 4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. grated lemon peel
1/4 t. nutmet
1/2 cup seeded raisins.

Note:  t. = teaspoon

Combine rice, milk, sugar, and salt; pour into greased 11/2 -qurt baking dish.  Bake in slow oven (350 degrees F.) for 1  hour, stirring several time.
Add lemon peel, nutmeg, and raisins; continue baking 2 to 21/2 hours.  Makes 6 servings.  

Thanksgiving Leftovers With Style!

I make this every year, and so should you.  It tastes wonderful, and uses up lots of leftovers.  Good with cranberry sauce, too.  Long live leftovers.

http://cheeseparer.blogspot.com/2008/12/turkey-croquettes.html

The Supermarket Trifecta

Trader Joe opened a store a few miles from here.  And Walmart, also a few miles away, just added a HUGE grocery department.  The competition must have caused our local supermarket to offer a whole slew of BOGOs.  (Buy One Get One, in retail parlance.)  We saved hugely shopping at all three stores one week.  French cheese at Trader Joe's, Polish ham at Walmart, and a pound of fresh mushrooms for 88 cents at the local store, where they're having an anniversary sale.  It's not a bad trip to drive up Route 1 and hit all three stores.  We take our own shopping bags and load 'em up with bargains.  Christmas baking and shopping should be a dream. 

With pears on sale, I'm trying a dessert with pears, apple jack and hazel nuts.  Real uptown.  
Tonight we're have a classic Quiche Lorraine with Trader Joe's cheese, and bacon (BOGO) and pie crust from the supermarket. 
 Chicken Chasseur a few nights ago.  Fresh tarragon, the mushrooms (again) egg noodles.  Wine and brandy.  Cooking up a storm and loving it.  Photo of Chicken Chasseur below.  Brussels sprouts (so good for you) on sale too.  When great food is a bargain, one likes to cook even more.  

Here is a recipe from Bobby Flay  (Food Network) that is very close to the one I used. Chicken Chasseur 

Chicken Chasseur from Cook's Illustrated 

 

World's Second Best Meatloaf

The World's Best is from the New York Times,  We had the second best this week.  I pubbed the recipe before. Meatloaf with Kickass Topping.  

We ate it again this week and it was soooo good.  Changes to the original recipe:  Bread crumbs made from stale baguette soaked in a little milk, and a wee bit of parsley from the garden.  It was still wonderful and we ate the rest in sandwiches for lunch.  I think I like meatloaf sandwiches (cold) as well as meatloaf fresh out of the oven, but it's really a toss up.   I baked potatoes with the meatloaf, and we had them with all the trimmings:  bacon bits, snipped chives from the garden, sour cream and whipped butter.  Plenty of salt and pepper.  I always choose a pretty small potato, but Significant Other opts for a king sized one.  Green beans and salad round out the meal.

 We only eat this a few times a year and I always buy the ground beef (ground daily) at the butcher counter.  I would no more dream of making this with turkey than with octopus.  Sometimes ya just gotta each beef.  Lots of zinc and b-vitamins as well as protein and well, flavor.

The garden is about gone.  Age the last ripe tomato and the last cuke yesterday.  Two more little green tomatoes is all she wrote.  Pulled up the cucumber vines and made pesto from the basil plants.  Parsley about gone, from us.  Lots of mint and rosemary and sage and also oregano.  Must remember to bring the oregano in.  In never lives all winter, but hope does spring eternal.  I have to take cuttings from the coleus and cut the geraniums back and bring them in, too.  Fall chores are about the same as spring chores, without the payoff of color and good eats. 

I think the hummingbirds have migrated.  Can't decide whether to put out one more batch of nectar.  The little birds need to stoke up for their long journey.  It hurts my heart to think of them flying over the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season.  How do they make it and return to our yard and feeder year by year? 

Flocks of blackbirds massing in the treetops.  Cat is intrigued. 

The cleomes that reseeded themselves are still blooming.  What with the geraniums, coleus, and cleomes, I spent very little on flowers this year.  Trade with friends.  Gardens are for sharing.

The Cheeseparer

Real Fried Apples

My mom occasionally made fried apples.  As a young bride, I made them, too, usually with liver and onions, which my mom wouldn't have made since she hated liver from the time she had to eat lots of it because she was anemic.

When was the last time you got fried apples in a restaurant?  In spite of New England's apple harvests, I don't see fried apples.  Apparently Cracker Barrell has them, but they're gunked up beyond recognition. 

I looked on the web and did not find the authenticity I had hoped for in the fried apple recipes.  Why not?  Some of them had the apples chopped us?  No way.  You slice them thinly with the peels on.  Others had great quantities of sugar added.  Another heresy.  You only need about 1 teaspoon for two apples, or 1/2 t. per apple.  Maybe a smidgen more with Granny Smiths, but don't go overboard.  Cinnamon is not required or desired.  We are not having dessert here, we are enjoying a side dish with pork, a mostly savory side dish.  So don't make a crustless apple pie in a skillet. No sirree.

We used Cortland apples recently and they don't brown nicely or get all that tender, but they were tasty.  Here's what you do for real fried apples:

Heat 1 T. unsalted butter and 1T. canola oil (the yin and the yang) in a large cast iron skillet.   Arrange 2 thinly sliced apples with the peeling still on (more fiber, don't cha know?) in the skillet.  Cook over medium heat until apples become softish.  Sprinkle with a little salt and 1 t. sugar.  Cook and stir until apples start to brown--if this doesn't happen turn up the heat a bit, but watch carefully or they will burn.  When the apples are cooked and have a pale caramel color, remove from heat and serve.  Great with anything pork.  Now wasn't that easy?

 In the fall, apples are cheap and will keep for a time, refrigerated.  When past their prime, make applesauce (super easy in the microwave) and if they go bad, throw them out in the snow for the squirrels and watch the fun.

Yours in cheeseparing frugality,


The Cheeseparer

A German Food Weekend

We were going to the Oktoberfest, but I had misplaced a financial document that had to be located in the very messy home office, so instead we went to the German deli and picked up a pound of bratwurst and some good rye bread.  I buy sauerkraut (imported from Poland or Germany) at Ocean State Job Lot for chump change.  We had a huge can and the makings of a meal.  So much kraut was leftover, that I dug around in the freezer and found two pork steaks (or were they boneless ribs?) and two sausage (provenance unknown) and fried them up and braised them in wine and added to the kraut.  Cooked two big potatoes with jackets on and let cool, then chopped them up and fried them in canola oil with lots of chopped onion.  Better than the first night.  We ate the leftovers tonight.  Also sliced, using the Cuisinart, a couple cukes and made a salad with onion and a sliver of yellow pepper.  Salt, pepper, and sour cream and mayo thinned with a little of the white wine I put in the kraut and the sausages.  And dill.  Cukes play nicely with dill.

Sauerkraut needs to be massaged a bit when you take it out of the can.  If it's overly salty, rinse it.  You can add back the liquid with wine or chicken broth or a combo of both.  I always cook a couple strips of bacon, chopped,  a bit of onion and then add the kraut and the wine to that.  Toss in a bay leaf, some caraway seed, grate an apple if you feel industrious, and sprinkle with a little paprika.  I always dump a tablespoon of brown sugar, but if the apple is sweet, you may not need this.  Cook as long as you like, and keep adding wine the kraut becomes dry.  It just gets better and better.   Nestle the cooked  meats (short ribs would work if you aren't into pork)  into the kraut.  Slice the rye bread thinly and provide soft butter.  This is a meal that will live in your memory and it rids the freezer (night two) of odd bits of meat.  Never will remember where that sausage came from.  An adult child, perhaps?  Who knows? 

Gute Essen. 

the Cheeseparer, who found the missing document at the bottle of a pile of paper, as expected.  Luckily, it was in the first pile.  Is your home office messy?  How do you keep it tidy?  Inquiring minds would like to know.  

Potato Salad Three Ways

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As a kid I would never touch potato salad or anything potato-y except French fries and potato chips.  When I lived in Houston as an undergrad at Rice University, there was a fabulous Jewish deli in “the village,” a cute shopping area not far from campus.  Alfred’s was a small town girl’s indoctrination into matzo balls, kreplach, and sardine platters to say nothing of the delicious meats like pastrami, especially, piled high on the rye bread for a stunning sandwich.  I discovered olives that didn’t come in a can.  The potato salad always came on the plate with a sandwich.  When you’re away from home, you’re more likely to try foods that you would never touch with a ten-foot pole at home under  your Mom’s gaze.  I tried the potato salad.  Tasted good!  Who knew?  Alfred’s had a roast chicken with the stuffing under the skin that was totally to die for. 

Once the cultural barrier was broken, I ate Chinese, Mexican, Indian and Middle Eastern.   French, too!  It was four years of culinary adventure as well as academic learning.   I don’t recall the details from many of the courses I took, but I sure remember the food.

Here are three potato salad recipes.  The first is from my mother-in-law, a German woman from Silesia, now Poland.  I know the ingredients sound a little weird, but the whole is way better than the sum of its parts.  It’s great with bratwurst and grilled German treats. 

Omi’s Silesian Kartoffel Salat:

3 lbs. potatoes

1/1 lb. mayo

¼ lb cold cuts, diced.  We always used bologna

2 dill pickles, diced

2 apples, diced

1 medium onion, diced

3 Tablespoons capers,

½ cup of vinegar or pickle juice

1/8 lb. cooked bacon with fat

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together.  I prefer potato salad chilled.  Great for a party. 

Another German potato salad, this one from the late, lamented German restaurant in New York City, Luchow’s.

Note: no mayonnaise! 

Luchow’s Potato Salad

2 lbs. potatoes

½ c. beef stock or bouillion

½ cup onion, minced

 6 Tablespoons wine vinegar (red)

6 Tablespoons canola or peanut oil

1 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black peppr

1 egg yok. 

Wash and scrub potatoes; boil in jackets until tender.  Let cool until they can be handled.  Peel and slice thinly.  Pour stock over to be absorbed by the potatoes; add onion.  Mix remaining ingredients; beat smoothly together and pour over the potatoes.  Garnish with finely chopped parsely.  Serve warm or chilled.  Serves 4.

Potato and Pea Salad with Chive Aioli  (from July 2001, Gourmet)

8 servings

3 lbs. small red-skinned new potatoes,

unpeeled

3 T. white wine vinegar

3 celery stalks, thinly sliced

1 ½ cups frozen green peas, thawed

1 c. mayonnaise

6 T. chopped fresh chives

1 T. Dijon mustard

2 garlic cloves, pressed

¼ t. cayenne pepper

Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling,

salted water until just tender, about

25 minutes.  Drain.  Cool.  Cut potatoes

into quarters.  Transfer to large bowl;

add vinegar and toss to coat.  Mix in

celery and peas.

Whisk Mayonnaise, 5 T. chives, mustard,

Garlic and cayenne pepper in a small bowl

to blend.  Add to potato mixture and toss.

Season generously with salt and pepper.

Cover and chill at least one hour to allow

flavors to blend.  Sprinkle with remaining

1 T. chives and serve.

The garlic and cayenne give this an intriguing little kick

These recipes would be great to take to a potluck.  Most people like potato salad, excepting my pre-eighteen-year-old self.  Note the ingredients do not break the bank.  Cheap, if fact.  How can you lose?  Email me if you like them!  

The Cheeseparer  with OldBroad blogging today. 

Classic Gazpacho from Gourmet - 1964

I suppose this recipe can be considered "vintage."  It must have come from the first Gourmet I ever encountered.   I've been making it since the early days of marriage, or at least since a blender entered our happy home.  Assume a food processor would work this as well. 

This is a great recipe for August, when the garden is bursting with cukes, tomatoes, and parsley.  Maybe you grow peppers, too, in which case you almost have a free meal. 

Gazpacho

In the container of a blender, combine 5 very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped, 1 green (or red, orange or yellow) pepper, seeded and chopped, 1 onion, chopped, 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley, and 1 garlic clove, crushed.

Cover the container and blend the mixture until it is almost smooth. Stir in 1 1/4 cups tomatoes juice, 3 T. olive oil, 1 T. vinegar, 1/4 t. paprika, and salt and pepper to taste.  Chill the soup thoroughly.

Serve the gazpacho in individual, chilled soup bowls.  You may serve diced tomato, peppers, cukes, etc. all peeled and seeded as above.  Homemade croutons are also a nice accompaniment.

Last fall when we were in Spain we ate Gazpacho for lunch every day and never encountered the same recipe twice.  Always different, always good.  And we didn't gain any weight due to the light lunch and all the walking.  Seville's was best in my opinion.

We're serving a thin-sliced Polish ham with ripe melon (99 cents at our supermarket) and eggplant salad.  It's easy to eat healthy in the summer.

Bon Appetit! 

The Cheeseparer

Photos to follow!

Going Bananas

We were gifted probably the world's worst banana bread this week, and I fed it to the little herd of Scottish Highland Cattle who are very big on that kind of food.  This banana bread looked all right, but it had no taste of bananas, it was dry, and there were weird "off" flavors of cinnamon and who-knows-what.

People, banana bread is a slam-dunk, and I am here to provide you the World's Best Recipe, bar none, and probably the world's simplest.  The recipe was given to me years ago when I had a baby and we lived in an apartment in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.  Right under the O'hare Airport instrument runway and across from United Airlines Flight Attendant Training Facility.  The Elk and their grove were down the road and there was a pump where you could fill you own water bottles

  Nita’s Banana Bread

1 cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
3 ripe mashed bananas
3 Tablespoons sour milk, buttermilk, plain yogurt or sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups white flour

Cream butter, add sugar, mix well and add bananas.  Mix salt, flour and baking soda and add to banana mixture alternating with sour milk.  Mix together lightly.  Pour into a 9 x 5  inch greased loaf pan.  (Non stick is great!)
Bake in slowish (325 degrees Fahrenheit) for 45-60 minutes, until tested inserted in middle comes out clean.   Cool on rack and remove bread from pan.  Eat and enjoy.
A handful of blueberries or raisins may be added after dry ingredients.


Please don't do anything dumb like substitute margarine or oil  for butter or only use 2 instead of 3 bananas, or you will not longer be baking the world's best, and in fact you may be baking the world's most ordinary.  Just a friendly word of caution.  And for God's sake, don't substitute applesauce for the butter or anything culinarily criminal like that.  Or we can no longer be friends.

The Cheeseparer

Wardrobe Malfuctions

This is not what you think.  All season long I have been considering (and reconsidering) buying a black jacket, because my old one is looking a bit shabby.  Thinking maybe I would try the new resale shop in town.

Last Saturday morning I woke up with the sudden knowledge that I bought a nice black jacket last year.  How, I don't know, but I'd forgotten it.  We had a busy, hectic, not to say traumatic spring this year, and well, I forgot.  Not in the bedroom closet, nor in the guest room closet, but hanging there in the cedar closet, in a dry cleaner's bag with my favorite skirt that I had also forgotten. Wore both to the MFA to the Alex Katz show, feeling very elegant.   


Normally, it would have been in the guest closet, because neither of the fabrics were wool, hence they didn't need to be in the cedar closet.  This morning, I woke up trying too remember when my grandmother had died.  1963.  How could I forget?  A stressed mind plays tricks on you.  I'm unstressing and hence, remembering stuff. 


In the days of yore, I kept an inventory by season of summer and winter clothes, with the age and condition of each garment.  When I stopped working, I no longer kept the inventory.  Now I'm thinking maybe it should be revived.  The nice thing about this is that you can cast you eye over what you have and the age and condition, and make some fill-in purchases.  No doing what I did this year and buying a new top for really old pants.  


There are many ways to be frugal, and clothes come right behind groceries.  Recently I have discovered The Sports Authority which has name brands of sportswear at good prices.   The chain had always flown under my radar.   Ocean State Job Lot always has good "lounge pants" at  $ 5 - $6.  Add a Walmart Faded Glory T-shirt for $5 and you have yourself a great set of pajamas for $10.00.  


Frugally yours, 


the Cheeseparer

Pesto Alla Genovese

Pesto alla Genovese

2 cups fresh basil leaves, stripped from their stems, coarsely chopped and tightly packed. 

1 t. salt

½ t. freshly ground black pepper

1-2 t. finely chopped garlic

2 T. finely chopped pine nuts (or walnuts)

1 to 1 1/2 cups olive oil

½ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a blender or food processer, combine basil, salt, pepper, garlic, nuts and 1 cup of olive oil.  Blend at high speed until the ingredients are smooth, stopping every 5 or 6 second to push herbs down with a rubber spatula.

The sauce should be thin enough to run off the spatula easily.  If too thick, blend in as much as ½ cup more olive oil.

Transfer the sauce to a bowl and stir in the grated cheese.

Poach chicken breasts, cool and cut into bit size pieces.  Add a few spoons of pesto and mix well.  Serve on lettuce or as part of an antipasto. 

You can also mix the chicken and pesto with cooled pasta and fresh tomatoes for a delicious main course.  Serve with French bread.

The Garden Brings Forth Food

Yes!  Finally ripe tomatoes, cukes, loads of herbs.  I made pesto Genovese today.  Last night I poached a large chicken breast.   Used part of the pesto to toss with bite-sized pieces of chicken, and cooked a pound of pasta, small-ziti type, and chopped up 3 ripe tomatoes.  After draining and cooling the pasta, I added the chicken with pesto and the tomatoes.  This is a yummy cheap (this time of  year) meal.  Chicken breasts are always on sale, and the basil was from the garden.  I grated an ancient piece of Romano cheese on my microplane.  Used walnuts instead of pine nuts.    Great taste.  The pesto makes the chicken so flavorful.  We also had a green salad with romaine, cukes and avocado, all on sale.  Photo tomorrow.   This would serve six.  

Tomorrow I'm making a sponge cake that is then cut into pieces, frosted and rolled in chopped peanuts.  This is an ancient recipe that a  friend told me about eating years and years ago.  I found the recipe.  Apparently my mom made it.    Trying it out on the family.  

The critters were eating the tomatoes, and I put out some moth balls in little cat food containers among the tomato plants.  Suspect the cheeky chipmunks.  Lots of birds lately.  Hard to keep the feeders full. 

Do try the pesto.  I used a recipe very similar to Emerill's.  I've been harvesting dill, oregano, and rosemary, along with basil, mint and sage.  Parsley, too.  Garden is jungley from all the rain.  

Onward

 

Chicken Chausseur

Hadn't been to the grocery store in ages.  Getting hair done (finally) late this afternoon, so better get something cooked or ready to cook.  Freezer only offers bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, a BOGO (buy one get one).  I have a voluminous file of recipes, and would you believe the chicken is divided into:
1)  rotisserie chicken
2)  boneless breaks
3)  Bone in breasts
4)  roasting recipes
 5)  recipes calling for a whole chicken


I dig out the bone-in breast recipes.   Find Chicken Chausser which calls for mushrooms which I have (none too fresh) and canned tomatoes.  Also calls for a shallot, but I can substitute a couple scallions and a garlic clove.  I don't have any broth but have a boullion cube and a little aspic from 2 former rotisserie chickens.  


I get started and the smell is pretty good.  Skin doesn't look too great so I remove most of that.  Brown chicken, mushrooms, add brandy, etc.  Decide to try the package of spaetzle from Ocean State Job Lot.  


A mere scrap of lettuce in the fridge, but there are a couple organic carrots, 1/3 of an English cuke, 5  big grape tomatoes, and said lettuce.  I add dill, oregano, basil and  a bit of mint and toss.  Looks and smells good.  Nice colors. 


The chicken sauce is a little salty, but the spaetzle needs salt, so that works out good.  Chicken very tasty, salad good, spaetzle a nice change.   We eat it for a late lunch instead of dinner.  


In the pantry there was oil, brandy and the substitutes for the shallot.  I always keep canned tomatoes around.  The salad was delicious, by the way.   It was damned near soup from a nail.  


 Breast halves were big enough for a second meal, and I have some ideas for the other package of breasts.  Even without skin, the breasts browned up  nicely. 


BTW, I have found the true secret to dieting.  You can eat absolutely anything you want.  Just eat less.  I've dropped 7 pounds with NO HUNGER.  Small helpings and no seconds except on fruits and veggies.  Fruit salad rocks in the summer, and todays salad of leftovers was a winner.  

The Chicken Chasseur recipe was from an old Cooks Illustrated magazine.  Anything calling for wine And brandy is bound to be pleasing to the tongue.


The Cheeseparer

Mexican Soup Week

Last week we had several main dish salads.  This week we're doing soup.  I find salads or soups as a main course are wonderful for weight control.  We always have a salad with the soup and soups can be both nourishing and filling.  I've noticed that soups that call for 4- 5 cups of chicken broth can be less than frugal if you have to buy the expensive broth.  Make your own from scraps if you really want to save.  


Here are two yummy recipes for Mexican soups.  We enjoyed them both. Yucatan Style Chicken, Lime and Orzo Soup  
This soup is not sour in spite of the lime juice.  Leave in pith and seeds of the pepper according to how hot you like it.   We garnished with sour cream and used tortilla chips instead of bread.     It's very colorful with the tomato, cilantro and pappers.  


Here's another:  Black Bean Soup with Chorizo and Chicken     The chorizo flavors the whole soup, with mild hints of thyme and bay leaf.  We used our neighbor's thyme ("Pick some any time!" )    I garnished this soup with cilantro, too, for color and flavor.  No use having a whole bunch go to waste.  We put avocado in the salad.  It wasn't quite ripe when we brought it home, but a short stint in a plastic bag with an apple was all it took.  You do know this trick, don't you.  Apples emit a ripening agent that will help other fruits to ripen.

Work in the garden and a walk in the coolish June day.  Rewarded myself with watching soccer, golf and baseball.  And the soup!  

Yours in frugality, 


The Cheeseparer 

The Frugal Cook's Garden

Gardening In A Small Spot

Of course you grow your own tomatoes, right?  Even a sunny balcony can grow great patio tomatoes.  A bit of alley, anyplace there's sun and soil or room for a container can be a garden.  I always grow great heaps of herbs.  Parsley, natch, cilantro, mint, oregano, dill, basil, sage, thyme.  All are easily grown.  Mint and oregano always prosper like weeks.  Dill reseeds itself every year.  Thyme keeps faithfully over the winter as does sage, which can be harvested until Christmas.  We also like to grow cukes and sometimes peppers.  I failed to grow tomatillos.  Chives are also reliable and add delicious flavor.  


We grew some nice mesclun this spring, which I always added to the salad.  Unfortunately, the critters ate most of the spinach.  We got a little.  Must have some healthy bunnies.  


Onward, 


The Cheeseparer

The Humble Meatloaf Always Pleases

This is slightly fancier than my mom's old recipe, but it calls for the topping of ketchup, mustard and brown sugar she always used.  I took this meatloaf, served cold, to a party last night and folks gobbled it up.  Nice and firm, it cut neatly and easily into small portions.  


I always buy ground beef at the butcher counter, because you can't be too picky.  85% lean yields a tasty meatloaf.  I used marjoram and thyme instead of the sage.  Pick the herb(s) you favor.  Used part scallions, part regular onion.  The cupboard yielded only panko bread crumbs, so I used that. 

Not only do you go to war with the army you have, you often cook with the ingredients on hand.  


This was the first dish I learned to make.  My dad learned to expect it when my mom couldn't cook.  BTW, I substituted cilantro for parsley, being too lazy to go out and cut parsley in the rain. 


Meatloaf tastes good with baked potatoes,  almost any veg. and a green salad.    Sauteed cherry or grape tomatoes (with garlic and herbs) are always a colorful side dish, should they be on sale.   Carrots, also give great color.  Remember, we eat first with our eyes. 


Here is where you'll find the recipe:  Better Homes and Gardens Meat Loaf
I think the recipe was around when God was a boy.   Enjoy.  


The Cheeseparer

Naan Takes the Cake

Home Made Naan

I made a spicy red lentil soup yesterday, and decided to try some home made naan bread.  Food processor needs parts, so I couldn't make the recipe I had picked out earlier.  Another recipe made 14 helpings and called for more flour than I had in the house.  Found this recipe on the food network: Naan Indian Flat Bread


I made it with poppy seeds, but next time (and there will be a next time) I'll do the garlic naan.  Pretty simple and the dough was not that difficult to work with.  Only one rising.  Also found a non-yeast recipe.  I didn't have any plain yogurt, so I substituted 1/2 sour cream, 1/2 low-fat buttermilk, and that seemed to work.  Tasted great.  You do need a cast iron skillet and make it on top of the stove.  No hot oven on a hot day. 


The lentils were red ones from Whole Foods.  Our supermarket only has the plain brown.  No French, no red.  
I served a salad and we were so full we didn't need dessert.    Enough of everything left for tonight, which is my writing group night, so I have to leave the house early. 


We're having soup week this week, always good for the loss of a couple pounds.  Also lost two during salad week two weeks ago.   I will post the soups later.  The lentil one is so old it may not be on the web.  Just the right amount of spice. You are basically making  your own curry powder.  


If you're eating on the cheap, paring that cheese, in other words, ethnic food rocks.  


Berries have been on sale and we've had good fruit salads, and they are soooo good on my morning Cherrios.  We try to eat whole grain cereal without much sugar.    Shredded wheat is the best and I have a coupon.                                                                    

South Beach Diet Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

With a cool breeze and a cool day, we stoked up the grill tonight for a South Beach Diet Recipe.  Of all the diets I've ever been on, this diet has the best recipes.  Tonight's consisted of boneless, skinless chicken breasts grilled with tons of veggies:  mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, summer squash, and anise.  We also grilled two small ears of corn.  Veggies were tossed with a mixture of olive oil, parsley, garlic, basil and some fresh oregano from the garden.   Enough for two nights.  We're having strawberries later this evening.  We've already had orange juice, tomatoes, banana, and olives.  Lots of fruits and veggies.  Not cheap but the peppers and mushrooms were on sale, as was the corn and strawberries.  Do plan your menus around the newspaper specials and you'll save lots.  
Remember, fresh food is better for you than processed food.  Costs more and takes more time, but at least you're standing or walking in the kitchen and not sitting on your butt.  Think of the advantages. 


I was in Atlanta last week, where the kitchen contained nothing but "light" vanilla soy milk and a ton of bagels.  Some peanut butter and honey wheat bread.  I cooked potato pancakes, tacos and a cheese omelet.  I made it with Mexican eheese blend and Parmesan and it was dynamite.  Making your own tacos is totally delicious and healthy.  We ate some Indian food in Roswell that was spectacular.  Best Indian food I've had in years.  A little place with too few people.   Too bad.  


 We drove back from NYC yesterday and stopped at Wilson's Barbecue in Fairfield, CT.  Pulled Pork to die for.  Potato salad had no sugar, a huge plus, and the coleslaw was tasty.  But oh, that pulled pork.  Mega-yum!  


The Cheeseparer

Pork and Meatball Soup

I found this recipe in Saveur.  We got 4 servings out a half a pound of ground pork.  And they were delicious, too. 
Romanian Meatball Soup


The recipe calls for common, i.e. cheap ingredients like onion, carrot, celery, canned tomatoes, etc.   It also calls for 2 Tablespoons of paprika.  I use 1/2 t. hot paprika, 1 T. smoked paprika, and 2 t. regular paprika.  The hot paprika (be careful) gives the soup a lot of zing.  Red peppers were on sale at the market, so this was an excellent week to make the soup.  The rice gave the meatballs a nice texture.  We thought this was a keeper. 

Men Of A Certain Age

This post doesn't deal with frugality so much as keeping your life in order,  Lately, some men I know have died:  expectedly, unexpectedly, and sort of expectedly.  All of these elderly gentlemen were widowed or (most of them) divorced.    Guys, if you are over 70, toss the porn collection.  Get rid of the "conquest" scrapbook with nude photos of your past and present lady friends.  Your children do not want to see this when they clean out your stuff.  You probably have by far too much stuff that you should think about getting rid off.  Do it today.  If you must keep photos, put them in a password protected file on your computer.  Memorize the password. 

When you become old, don't collect more stuff.  Begin divesting yourself.  Get rid of all the junk.  You have too much.  My father (who did not have one of these funky "collections,") filed his junk mail.  Yup, a file cabinet with junk mail.  Haband slacks comes to mind.  Why?

My folks moved a lot, but they had eye drops dating to 1941.  Can you imagine?  Luziers cosmetics from when we lived in Denver back in the day.  A moth eaten mink stole.  Yucko!  In the heat of a Phoenix June, I got up at 4:00 a.m. and worked until 9:00 when it just became too hot.  Cleaning stuff out.  It was brutal.  At least, I didn't encounter evidence of anyone's sex life. 

Toss it!  Burn it!  Shred it!  We had a neighbor in Illinois, again an aging gent who threw his porn collection out with the trash--three days early.  It also discarded pocket knives, inner tubes and items attractive to young boys.  Every parent in the neighborhood had to look under their kids  mattress and in the back of the closet.   Do NOT put it out with the trash. Think of your neighborhood reputation.  You don't want to be known as "the old porn."

Stuff is just stuff.  It is mortal like us, and you can rid yourself of tons of stuff and still have too much.  We are in the process of cleaning our the home office in our basement.  No porn, but lots and lots of paper.  Lots of paper.  Maybe tons, I don't know.  It's disappearing, little by little. 

By all means if you like, hang on to the valuable antiques, the paintings, the gold jewelry.  Someone will want those.  Books, not so much.  Photos:  organize and label.  Except for the naked lady friends.  Discard those photos, pretty please with sugar. 

Now let's talk about something more fun.  Lake Tacos.  Tomorrow is tacos day.

Easter for a small group--going Whole Hog

If you have a small crowd, well, hardly even a crowd, but 4-6 people eating Easter dinner at your house, you may not want to deal with a whole ham, or even half a ham.
What is the definition of eternity?  Two people and a ham.  My mother, who loved ham, did not think that funny.

When the group for Easter dinner is small at chez Grapeshot, we eat Smoked Pork Butt and Spinach Gratin.   Serves 4-6.  Recipe is so old (from the New York Times of yore), that it's not even on the Internet.  Fancy that.  I have to freakin' key it into ye olde blog.  The New York Times had dynamite recipes when Craig Claiborne was food editor.  Nowadays,  I   really pick and choose, but the  upside down rhubarb cake was to die for.                   

 Smoked Pork Butt  and Spinach Gratin

1 1/2 pound smoked pork butt, soaked in warm water for 15 minutes and the netting removed.

For the spinach mixture
1 onion, minced
2 10 oz. pkgs frozen leaf spinach, cooked, drained squeezed dry and chopped.  I start off with the chopped.
1 cup (or less) heavy cream

1/2 cup dry white wine combined with 2 T. minced fresh parsley leaves
1/4 fine fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
melted unsalted butter to taste

In a large saucepan, cover the pork but with cold water, bring to a boil and simmer for  1 hour and 30 minutes.
Drain the pork, let it stand for 15 minutes and cut it into 1/2-inch slices.  Save the ends for ham and eggs later in the week.
Make the spinach mixture:  In a skillet, cook the onion in the butter over moderate heat, stirring, until it is softened. 
 Add spinach, tarragon, salt and pepper, and cook the mixture, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until the mixture is thick. Add salt and pepper.   Spoon the spinach mixture into a buttered 2-quart gratin dish or shallow casserole.
Arrange the pork slices over the spinach mixture, bush them with the mustard mixture and sprinkle them with the       bread crumbs and the Parmesan,   Drizzle  the butter over the dish and bake the gratin in a preheated 350 degree oven   for 35-40 minutes or until the top is golden.  Serves 4 - 6.

This recipe is made with inexpensive ingredients and tastes delicious, even a little French. 

If you absolutely cannot resist a  large ham, you can make the following week seem less like eternity with  a ham, broccoli and potato casserole, (see Cooks.com)   or a broccoli and ham gratin. (Food.com).  There's always ham and eggs and various delicious ham sandwiches, like a Croque Monsieur. (Simply Recipes)   Chipped ham on toast?  Well, maybe that's going too far.

Cheap Chinese

What do you do with one pork chop?   This was my quandry.  It was a meaty boneless chop, and I decided to make an Asian dish.  Didn't get around to cooking the rice until late, but I did fry up two  pieces of bacon and scramble an egg.  I had a few chicken scraps that I had leftover from a rotisserie chicken, what our supermarket calls Five Buck Cluck, because on Thursday, it's reduced to $5.00.  
We had some mushrooms, celery, various kinds of onions, and I bought some green beans for 99 cents a pound, the remainder of which will be used tomorrow.  Cooked up the rice and started sauteing.    And slicing and chopping.  Started to smell really good.  Added some sesame oil.  Parboiled the beans, yada, yada.  Made a nice salad of romaine and oranges.   Concocted some broth from the pork chop frying and the bottom of the chicken container.  Thickened with a bit of cornstarch.  Added a dash of Chinese hot pepper sauce and some soy.  Final touch was the bacon, egg and a few sliced almonds.  Yum!  Enough left for lunch. 


I saved a few mushrooms to put into the Swiss steak tomorrow.   We do eat well, but I am finding it difficult to buy a week's groceries for under $100.00.  We are all stocked up on frozen items now, and have some meat in the freezer.  Plenty of pasta and canned soups.   Company coming for a week the first of the month, so some extras have been purchased.  Still . . 


Round steak on sale for $3.39  per pound.  I  pound it, flour it, and saute it in some canola oil.  Add an onion, the mushrooms (remember the mushrooms), an 8 oz. can of tomato sauce, some dried marjoram, and plenty of salt and pepper.  We'll have asparagus, green beans, mashed potatoes and a salad.  Good deal on romaine today.  My sales slip said I saved $35.00.  Not too bad.  


It's a struggle, isn't it?  I spend a lot of time looking at the specials and planning menus.  Of course it pays off in the long run, but the effort isn't fun.   We splurged on fresh rhubarb.  I'm taking an upside down rhubarb cake to a party on Saturday, and we'll have some rhubarb cooked with strawberries, raspberries and cranberries.  


In Europe in the summer, esp. in Germany and Austria, there's a red fruit dessert called "rote gruetze" or red groats.  Very healthy and nutricous.  We never find red currants here, but we concoct our own take on the dessert and it's invariably delicious.  


I worked in the garden today.  Almost 80 degrees and a beautiful day.     The beds are ready for planting, and I'm doing just that tomorrow:  mesclun lettuces, spinach and dill.  The lilac that took a direct hit from a big oak during Hurricane Irene is looking pretty good.  My wild ginger is spreading and the heath has bloomed all winter, a first.  Crocus blooming and daffodils ready.  Forsythia coming soon.  I never remember a spring this early.  Somebody steals the suet out of the bird feeder every night.  Ants in the house.  Spring!  




The Cheeseparer


The orange cat constantly escapes but is pretty good about coming home soon. 

First Grilling of the Season

The Boston area and all New England has experienced a mild winter and an early spring.  Tonight we are grilling some chicken breasts--a BOGO (buy one get one).  I'm grinding up some dried chili peppers and various seeds--cumin, corinander and kummel (can't think of the English word, only the German) along with garlic, olive oil, and kosher salt. 


I have a parsnip, 1/2 turnip, carrots and boxed mashed potatoes which I will make into a root vegetable puree.  Cherry tomatoes gratinee (on sale, natch) will round out the vegetable selections.   You can never eat too many veggies.  Serve two or three every night.  You won't eat as much meat.  Shop the sales, naturally, and buy something that can be spread over several meals or used as "ingredients."  


After this we're having a soup of red lentils.  Lentils are nutritious and reasonable and although most recipes are vegetarian, yours does not have to be.  A bit of chicken sausage, bacon or kielbasa is all it takes.  Think "meat as flavoring."   


With shrimp on sale I made a fab shrimp bisque with rice as a thickener.  Not bad calorie-wise and tasty with white wine, brandy, and part of a fennel bulb.  Also leeks.  I used my immersion blender to make a nice puree.  Think about this when shrimp are on sale.  Complex flavors and a nutrition for less than fast food prices. 

The Dinner Party

If you weren't making the feminist art circuit in the late-seventies, early eighties, maybe you missed The Dinner Party,


Broaden your education a bit, O.K.? 

Now let's talk about food, not china.  Ye gods  Every time I set foot in the supermarket the prices are higher.  It's become expensive to cook even, well, soup, for example.  This week I made a Russian peasant soup, Shchi.  It basically consists of cabbage, sauerkraut and broth, with a few seasonings.   The meat is short ribs, no  longer cheap, but oh so flavorful.  A half-gallon of broth costs a lot unless you are using overly-salty bouillon cubes  or making your own.  I got the kraut and the cabbage both on sale.  The onion and garlic and the celery rib were cheap.  Of course, we are eating this soup for three nights.  The sour cream we garnish it with was also on sale. 


I have invited some neighbors for a dinner party this weekend.  When I invited them, I asked about likes and food allergies.  Two people don't like fish and one man is lactose intolerant.  Hmmm.  There goes the cheese plate.  So what are we having?  I'm making a well-seasoned mushroom spread that will be served on toasted slices of baguette.  The other appetizer is an unMexican salsa served on endive leaves.  This will double as a salad, and it looks pretty yummy.  The main course is Boeuf Bourgignon, that old dinner party standby, served with noodles and green beans.  I'm making a rum cake with no milk or cream (coffee and rum instead) for dessert.   So no seafood, no dairy and the menu sounds pretty good.  

We've been eating internationally this week, with Chinese and Spanish as well as Russian dishes.  I made a delicious Spanish Cod recipe.  Unless you like tilapia, fish is an expensive item.  The cod was on sale for $8.99.  Scallops were on sale for $15.99.  Jeeminy Criminy, those don't look like sale prices to moi. 

Bought tuna at Walmart this morning.  Have you noticed the contents of the cans are less and less?  The latest was 5 ounces.  You really can't serve 2 people with 5 ounces (more like 4 once the liquid is drained off) of fish.  So of course one must buy 2 cans, which would better have served 3 rather than the two of us.  I mix the tuna with a little chopped scallion, chopped celery, chopped parsley, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, a little chopped pickle, and a big spoon of mayo.  With some chips and cherry tomatoes and a few crudities, it hits the spot.  

Significant Other found great wine glasses at Building 19 here in the Boston area for $3.00.  They fit in the dishwasher quite well and look rather elegant.  This is the third time he's gone back and bought more.  I sneered that he would NEVER find them again today, but there, they were.  

I looked at some great Italian shoes at a fab price, ones that fit my feet, but they felt like walking on a bed of nails, I kid you not.  Didn't buy, of course.  Rats. 

Shopping is a crap shoot, but I have found something that takes pet stains out.  The upholstery on our dining room chairs is ancient, and starting to show its age.  No idea how to replace this wonderful Danish wool fabric.  Don't think it's possible.  Ah well.  How many cats have raised hell on it?  Impossible to count.  

Onward.  We are cleaning out and pounds and pounds of paper are being conveyed out of the home office to the dump.  Recycling rocks. 

The Cheeseparer  

Grocery Shopping Considerations

Making out the weekly shopping list is work, but a little thought will take you a long way towards nutrition and saving money. 

Marble Cake from an old German recipe (Marmorkuchen)

Considerations:  store specials, weekly budget (ours always decreases as the month progresses) nutrition and weight control.  Other considerations are food in the pantry or freezer and time.  These considerations are always a balancing act.  We shop mostly at two stores, the one where we shop weekly and the nearby one where we run into get bread and milk when running low.

Sometimes we make a run through Aldi, Walmart, Whole Foods or Trader Joe's.  I like Aldi for it's excellent coffee, Walmart for its prices on granola bar and canned soup (Select Harvest is minimally processed and tastes wonderful.) 
Whole Foods is good for hard-to-find produce and other items, and Trader Joe's for cheese, crackers and some produce.  We also shop Ocean State Job Lot for pasta, jam, capers, and stuff like artichoke hearts.  You can't be sure of finding what you need, but if you do, the price will be terrific.  Ocean State always has the Red Mill brand at good prices.  We also love the Danish reduced sugar jam when its available. 


This week we needed to be frugal as well as weight watching. (The pictured cake is one of the reasons for diet week). I started Monday's dinner with a 12 ounce ham steak from the freezer with 1/2 head of caulifower and a nice salad.  We kept a few ounces of the ham out for the next days breakfast of eggs, ham, tomatoes and onions all cooked up together. 


The next night I made the South Beach Diet White Chili with on-sale chicken breasts.  We had a big skillet of homemade cornbread which served us well for three days.  In addition to corn meal, it had scallions, cheese, jalapeno and frozen corn in it.  Made with buttermilk.  Yum!  I do love good corn bread.  Always use stone ground corn meal and cut down or eliminate the sugar.  Use more corn meal than white flour.  Now you're cookin'. 


We had a second meal of the chili, always better the next day.  Salad of orange slices and avocado with the chili.  Yowza!  Have dropped 2  pounds already, what with 2 workouts and a walk. 


Tonight we're having curried cauliflower (the other half) and garbanzo beans.  Fried apples.  The rest of the cornbread.  


Tomorrow a Dr. Oetker's pizza, (from the freezer) so yummy and just the right size for two light eaters.  Saturday I'll buy a few Asian veggies for a stir-try of steak and veggies.  There is one small strip steak in the freezer.  I always have rice and Asian spices around.  I'll buy a few mushrooms and a broccoli spear or two.  None of these meals are difficult or time-consuming.  We like trying new recipes like the vegetable curry.  Try to include one or two vegetarian meals into your week.  And at least one "meat as flavoring"  like the stir-fry steak.  


If you shop the weekly specials with an eye to what is already on  hand, you'll be surprised how some lovely menus can come together.  The planning takes time, yes, but you can do it during commercials or while waiting for the soup to boil.  Go thru your recipes.  Try new foods with new ethnicites.  Eat cheaply and well.  


The Cheeseparer

Pasta with Sausage in a Vodka Cream Sauce

This recipe serves one, but I double or triple it depending on the number of hungry mouths to feed.  It is absolutely delicious and you can use an ordinary brand of Vodka.  Serve with Italian bread or grissini (thin break sticks).  Add a green salad.  One day you'll be famous for your chef skills.  Pasta with Vodka Sauce and Sausage by Emeril Lagasse


Spaghetti, Italian sausage, and most of the ingredients are often on sale.  Don't skip the heavy cream, by the way.  You can used a good grade of canned sauce and add vodka and cream.  I jazz it up with a bit of fresh garlic.


I just returned from New York, where the living is not cheap, nope, but as always, there are ways to economize. 

We visit Aldi

In December, during a visit to Hudson, NY,  we visited an Aldi supermarket.  You may not know, but it is a German company, and when the owner died, he was the richest man in Germany.  Aldi has been on our shores for a number of years and actually owns Trader Joe's.  


We have a relative in Chicago who shops at Aldi, and when we found a store in Hudson we decided to check it out.  Excellent Dresdener Stoellen, a famous German Christmas bread that usually has a famously high price, but Aldi's and Trader Joe's were excellent.  We also found coffee (a pound plus) for $4.45 and it was excellent.  


We discovered there is an Aldi 22 miles from us, not exactly a hop, skip and a jump, but within driving distance.  Today, being out of coffee, we investigated the store, in Raynham.  


Aldi is not like other stores.  You pay a quarter for the shopping cart, and when you return it, your money is also returned.  This takes away the need for the cart jockey roaming thru the parking lot.  You also bring your own bags and boxes to Aldi to pack up your groceries, which you must do  yourself.  Payment is by debit card, cash or food stamps.  


Are you getting the idea?

We  grabbed the good coffee and also a dozen eggs ($1.49) and some butter cheese with dill.  Admired the beef filets wrapped in bacon.  A good deal with a fancy dan dinner at home.  Canned goods were cheap. Also, stuff like rice in bulk packages.  I didn't recognize any of the brands.  They must have their own.  Spotted an "All Natural" ice cream that looked good.  We also bought 2 lbs of carrots and a chocolate bar.  I picked up 3 scrubbing sponges for 99 cents and that was it.  The produce looked pretty good.  Someone probably from the local firehouse was buying in quantity.  


Life every other store in the country, Aldi's had lots of chips and salsa.  We think it would be a good place to shop once a month to stock up on staples.   It's not Trader Joe's (very limited selection of cheese), but the products were definitely cheaper than a regular supermarket.  Hard to compare with Walmart, because Aldi's has their own brands.  If they are as good as the coffee and the stoellen, you will want to try them.  


Speaking of chips and salsa, I happen to like bean dip.  It's an endangered species.  Just plain old Fritos Bean Dip.  Our local grocery doesn't carry it, and I have to trek to one of the big Shaw's or Stop 'n Shops.  Just moving through the store is the equivalent of a workout.  It cost $2.99.  Salsa seems to have become the dip du jour, but I do confess to liking bean dip.  


On Super Bowl Sunday, I could actually just go without, but Significant Other likes his chips and dip before the game.  The Super Bowl party we were going to was cancelled, so we're staying in with our favorite Super Bowl Sunday Menu:  Meatloaf with Marjoram,  twice baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, buttered carrots and salad.  I went all out and made a cranberry cake with a lemon glaze and a cranberry-orange compote.  It rocks.   Made it for the holidays.  Twice.  That good.  


Living in the Boston area we are naturally Patriot fans, and it will definitely be a white-knuckle stress-filled evening.  One needs comfort food, yanno?  


I'll report back on my next trip to Aldi.  We'll sample a few more products.  The cheese is good, by the way.  The world would be greatly diminished without cheese. 


On to more profound thoughts, 


The Cheeseparer

What Is It With Meatballs?

What is it about Meatballs?  ©

Let's start with the basics.  What is a meatball?

A meatball is made from an amount of ground meat rolled into a small ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as breadcrumbs, minced onion, spices, and possibly eggs. Meatballs are usually prepared and rolled by hand, and are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce.

Meatballs are an old food.  The ancient Roman cookbook Apicius included many meatball-type recipes. Every cuisine contains meatballs, from the Afghans to the Vietnamese.  Most everyone likes meatballs. 

The word  "meatball" has even entered the language as slang.  In slang, unlike cuisine, meatballs get no respect.  Meatball" is an insult for a stupid, clumsy or dull person. Meatball is also a slur for a woman who is short and stout.  The Urban Dictionary has page after page of references to "Meatball," most of which I could not read aloud in public. 

Meatballs have invaded the movies, too.  "Meatballs" was a 1979 film; the first time Bill Murray had a starring roll.  A recent kids movie I saw with my granddaughter is  "Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs."  

The folksinger Josh White wrote a famous song called, "One Meat Ball."  It's about being poor, hungry, and ashamed.    Another song kids sing is:  On top of spaghetti, which is really about a meatball. 

What is it about meatballs? 

My first memory of meatballs was as a ten-year-old living in Lakewood, Colorado.  One day, out of the blue my mom, who hadn't an Italian bone in her body, made spaghetti and meatballs.  I thought this was the tastiest food I had ever eaten.  For years I begged her to make this dish again, but she seldom did.  It was probably too much work.  No canned sauce in those days.  Certainly no frozen or prepared meatballs.  Everything from scratch.  My mom preferred to make fancy desserts.

On my first trip to Italy, I learned spaghetti and meatballs weren't on the menu, at least not together.  I also learned pasta was eaten before the main course.  The combination of spaghetti and meatballs is actually Italian-American, served in so-called red sauce restaurants. 

Craving meatballs, I always sought out restaurants that served red sauce food. Once my husband and I and our two little boys were in Denver.  I had always heard of a good Italian restaurant there, Smaldones, reputed to be owned by the Denver mob.  We looked up the address in the phone book and drove over. Looked like a bar.  Walked in anyway.  Everyone in the place turned and looked at us.  We were obviously "foreigners."  That didn't stop the help from being exceptionally nice to our kids and us, too. We sat in a booth.  They brought a high chair for the youngest kid.  The pasta was excellent. Good Chianti. Tasty succulent meatballs.  Cheap, too.  We congratulated ourselves for being adventurous. The Smaldones are long gone, but the restaurant is still in business.

Another memorable meatball experience took place in Kendall Square.  When I began working there, the Red Line T stop was a gaping hole in the ground, and the Marriott was under construction.  A lot of cheap restaurants served MIT students and us working stiffs--the F & T Diner where the steelworkers drank Boilermakers on Friday, Alexander' s Cafeteria where the keypunch operators ate.  Remember Key Punch?  I thought not.  Where I liked to go was Vinnie's sub shop.  Meatball subs! Nirvana.  A nice Italian roll with three golf-ball sized meatballs smothered in marinara sauce with a generous topping of cheese.  Vinnie's was a typical place takeout with gruff men at the counter.  Once someone asked for mustard on his meatball sandwich.  Vinnie himself refused the request, "I'm not puttin no mustard on meatballs."  Bravo, Vinnie. 

My kids loved spaghetti and meatballs, too, and I made this more often than my mom, but not regularly.   Then I discovered the world's best meatball recipe, Sicilian meatballs.  The ingredients are simple, and everything is fresh:  parsley, garlic, grated cheese.  

Swedish meatballs are also renowned.  If you visit the IKEA cafeteria, you can eat tasty inexpensive Swedish meatballs.  Don't miss the ligonberry sauce.   I have a handout for Swedish meatball recipes, too.

Sometimes I prepare a Mexican soup called "Abondigas."   Guess what?  It has meatballs Pick up a recipe for that, too.  If you have it, use fresh mint instead of cilantro.  Albóndigas are thought to have originated as a Berber or Arab dish imported to Spain during the period of Muslim rule. Spanish albóndigas can be served as an appetizer or main course, often in a tomato sauce, while Mexican albóndigas are usually served in soup with a light broth and vegetables. 

Did you know there are even vegetarian meatballs?  A misnomer, to be sure.  Maybe we should call then food balls. I made some and brought them along today. 

So, what is it about meatballs? 

What's not to like? They're tasty, cheap, not too hard to make. When you eat meatballs, you're eating culture and history, too, not just food.
Grab a recipe or two and whip up a batch.  Your kids will love you. Let them help.  You can even make tiny meatballs and put them on pizza.  Now there's a thought.  Food for thought.

Fellow Toastmasters, I hope I've given you some insight into meatballs.

Happy Chinese New Year

Ah, the year of the dragon!  We celebrated in style.  Most years we celebrate the Chinese New Year chez Cheeseparer, a long family tradition dating back to when Nixon went to China and was served chicken and walnuts.  The Chicago Tribune printed a recipe.  So delicious we make it to this day.  Simple, too.


This year we went with Szechuan cuisine, with Gong Bao Chicken and Spicy Szechan-style eggplant. Yummers.  To cool the palate I made a salad out of iceberg lettuce and clementines, both on sale as was the chicken.  And we had rice, of course.  For dessert, something I hadn't made in years:  pineapple fritters.  Whole Foods had pineapples for $2.50 each, a great deal.  We had it in fruit salad yesterday and the fritters today and  there's enough fritter batter and pineapple for some breakfast fritters.  


Here is the recipe for the main course: Gong Bao chicken


The peanuts add lovely crunch, and the red pepper and the Sichuan peppercorns add heat, but it's not so hot you have to move the tissue box to the table.  There's enough left for a light dinner tomorrow.  My eggplant recipe was for 2 eggplants, so I cut it in half.  Both recipes called for ginger and garlic (both healthy seasonings) and I cut the garlic cloves and ginger root on the mandolin to get really thin slices. 


I always keep soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger,  and scallions on hand.  Dried red chiles and Sichuan peppercorns, too.     Rice, a given.  This means that with the inexpensive staples, we can have stir fry at the drop of a hat.   Shrimp, beef, and pork are good, too.  Whatever is on sale, with whatever veggies are cheap at the market.  


You know the drill. 

Celebrate the year of the dragon with your own Asian feast.  I use cast iron skillets instead of woks.

Saturday we're having goulash soup, one of our all time faves.  A little beef or  pork go a long way in soup, and it contains onions, celery, carrots and potato.  Bell pepper, too.  Sometimes tomatoes.  It's easy to eat our veggies when we cook in other cuisines.  

What cuisine have you cooked in lately?  


The Cheeseparer

Paring Cheese

I haven't been posting, alas, but I've been trying cheap new recipes, learning even better how to produce delicious meals from what's in the pantry, and cleaning out old emails, my desk, my file and trying to come into 2012 leaner if not meaner.

Tonight we're having a Mexican flavored chicken sausage (on sale and a coupon) with refried beans (in the pantry) and corn tortillas (in the freezer). I have some lettuce, and grated cheese to put on the bean tortillas. Only thing we bought was grape tomatoes which we needed anyhow. An orange salad (orange are cheap this time of year) will round out the meal. Tasty and cheap.

Repeat after me. Tasty and cheap.