Steak on the Grill for Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day.  We never go out to eat then, because it's crowded, noisy, frenzied, even,  and the food deteriorates accordingly.  We have a Mother's Day meal on Saturday at a restaurant of my choosing.  This year it was the Garden Restaurant at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.  Always a treat with decent food at reasonable prices and lots of good exhibits at the museum. 

For THE DAY itself, I had some sale-purchased $5 each strip steaks which we grilled.  Also grilled Vidalia onions and I made cherry tomatoes Provencal and a salad of baby spinach and avocado.  Delicious, and husband did the grilling and set the table.  The onion recipe is a keeper: Grilled Vidalia Onions

We each ate half a steak (plenty, believe me) so there's steak-fried-rice tonight.  I'll cook some Basmati rice and add scallions, the rest of the spinach and some Asian spices, garlic and a bit of cilantro.  Easy, delicious and now bordering on cheap. 

Baby lettuces have sprouted.  We eat the thinnings in salads, too, and the chives are rampant.   Sage, hit hard by the winter is recovering, and oregano is coming along.  Thyme also took a beating from winter.  Will have to replace. 

The hummingbird is back, and lots of nesting is going on right now.  The titmice are pulling the stuffing out of my wire planter and using it for nesting materials.  They are so cute (and the liner is so old) I can't be angry.


The Cheeseparer 

Hummingbird at feeder with Clematis in background

Real Men DO Eat Quiche

We had a classic quiche Lorraine for dinner the past two nights.  I make a shortbread crust of 1 cup flour, 1 stick unsalted butter, 1/2 t. salt and 2 T. half and half  Use  your fingers to blend the flour and shortening, then add salt and half and half.  Press into a 9 inch pie plate.

I used the classic bacon and swiss cheese filling.  Used more like 1/4 lb of bacon than half of pound which seems excessive although delicious.  That (sauteed until done but not crispy) goes into the bottom of the chilled crust  which you have pierced with a fork a few times.

On the bacon, add 1/2 pound grated (or cubed) Swiss cheese (I use Emmental or Jahrlsburg).  The recipe calls for 2 oz. Gruyere, but I had some leftover Mancheco and Iberico (both from Spain) and used that.  Put it on top the bacon. 

My filling calls for 4 eggs and 1 1/2 cups half and half, beaten together with a little more salt, some pepper and a pinch of cayenne.   Pour on top the cheese. 

For ease of cleanup, I line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper, and put the quiche into the oven on that.  400 degree preheated oven.  Bake about 40 minutes or until done in the center.  A bit of parsley or chives on top the filling add a bit of color but are not necessary.  Serves 4 or maybe 6 for lunch, but not at our house.

You can experiment with broccoli, spinach, mushrooms and any number of veggies, although I draw the line at zucchini.  Onion is good.  Combos are better.  With a salad, it's a complete meal.  We had salad AND broccoli last night.  Yummy.

I made a dessert of ricotta
cheese, a soupcon of sugar, unsweetened cocoa powder and instant espresso coffee powder, thinned with a bit of cream.  This is a South Beach Diet dessert and quite good.  You can use artificial sweetener if you like.

The weather is warming up and thoughts of main course salads and grilling are upon us.  Put up the hummingbird feeder yesterday.  Ah, spring! 

Classic Quiche Lorraine with a short bread crust

End of the month meals

Yikes!  Four days to go before some money comes in.  I had about forty dollars to spend at the grocery store.  The menus were two days of Chinese rice noodles with  ground pork, seasonings and baby bok choy.  Just needed the bok choy. Checked the pantry and decided on ramen for Monday and Patty Melts on Tuesday.  Off to Trader Joe's.

The Chinese meal (really delicious) will serve two for 2 meals.  What else?   Ah, the ever popular ramen, but I  never just open a package.  First of all, for a meal we need two packages, which were in house.  There are grape tomatoes, ginger and carrots and a few leaves of spinach can be plucked out of the salad mix.  And!!!  I have  a few ounces of cubed roast pork in the freezer.  All the Asian spices we keep around like soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and Sichuan pepper corns.  It will be a feast and hey, we're big into a latish celebration of the Chinese New Year, right?  With leftover for lunch.

What next?  A small package of lean ground beef in the freezer.  Just enough for two burgers.  I bought cheddar cheese, and patty melts it is.  Found a can of baked beans.  Bought more grape tomatoes and some nitrite-free bacon (so good) and spent all told, with bread, cold cuts, more cheese, onion, bananas, etc. $34.00.  A little over $8 a day for two people.  Not bad.

The night before, I had been busy writing all day and had no plan for dinner.  A quick peek into the freezer.  Ah!  A bit, but not much frozen turkey white meat.  A turkey neck and a turkey backbone.  I made stock out of the latter, using carrot, celery, onion, bay leaf and salt and pepper.  I also had some frozen turkey gravy and a frozen pie crust.  Leftovers from Thanksgiving. Hmmm.  Can we do a turkey pot pie? 

Took the meat off the neck and back, and strained the stock.  In a pan, I browned more onion and carrots and the celery, then added the stock and cooked the veggies a bit.  When they were almost tender, in went the gravy.  Made a nice thick sauce, and I dumped the turkey into the pot, too.  After I cut it up, it seemed like more, a kind of miracle of the loaves and the turkey.  Added a handful of frozen peas.  So handy for impromptu cooking.

Lots of pepper and a bit of salt.  The gravy had been homemade and well seasoned.  I put the turkey/gravy/veggies mixture into a glass pie pan and laid the crust on top.  Crimped it and slashed a few holes.  Put the whole business into a 400 degree oven until the crust was golden brown and the gravy was bulbbling up thru the vents. 

We ate this with some fresh broccoli from the vegetable drawer and it was really delicious.  The moral of this story is that it pays to save leftovers, label and date them, and freeze.  Just like the pork that will go into the ramen.  A well-stocked pantry is a cook's best friend, and those bits and pieces of leftovers can become a meal.  

You can make a good fruit salad out of apples, oranges bananas and dried cranberries.  Add a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of sugar.   Of course berries or fresh pineapple will make it even better, but you can "make do."

"Making do" is something my parents who both survived the depression learned to do.  Not a bad idea for our times either.  

We gobbled the pot pie down before I could take a photo.  By the way, if you don't have a pie crust, mashed potatoes will do, either homemade or from a box.  Here's a photo with cut up pieces of pie crust if you have a dish too big for one crust.  Be creative. 

The Cheeseparer

Earla's Old Time Potato Stuffing

Earla's Old Time Potato Dressing (may also be eaten as we did in my childhood, as a stuffing). Ready in one hour.  Serves six or more.  From allrecipes.com by Lauren Buckner with a few changes by moi. My mom made this.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped fine
3/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup (or more) butter
1/4 turkey or chicken broth (or veggie broth)

8 slices day old white bread, cubed with crusts removed
3 cups mashed potatoes (you can cheat and use prepared dry potato flakes to make 3 cups)
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 t. poultry seasoning  (I'll used fresh thyme, summer savory, and the herbs that constitute poultry stuffing).
1 t. kosher salt

1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
1/4 t. ground nutmeg (I always do fresh)

Directions:

1. In a skillet, saute onion and celery in butter until tender.  Remove from the heat; stir in broth.  In a large bowl, combine bread cubes, prepared potatoes, egg and all seasonings.  Sir in onion mixture.  If mixture seems dry, add more melted butter or broth. Transfer to a greased  2-qt. baking dish.  Cover and bake at 325 degrees F. for  40 minutes.  Uncover and bake for another 15-20 minutes until the top is browned and a  meat thermometer reads 160 degrees.  You can also put a little extra butter, salt and pepper on top and place under a broiler until browned and bubbly.

Bok Choy with Beef

Sometimes I find myself with one smallish (less than a pound) steak in the freezer and two hungry diners.   The best thing to do with this is a stir-fry dish, and we're particularly fond of baby bok choy which cooks quickly and offers the nutrition of the cabbage family.  I'm providing a link to the recipe, but I never cut my meat that finely.  I tend to leave it in 1/2 inch cubes and   by the way, cut the extra fat off.  We always have dry sherry and Asian sesame oil in the pantry (two staples of Asian cooking), so except for the bok choy, you''re home free.  Sometimes I have fresh ginger, but if not, a smallish piece does not break the bank.  I like to serve this with a salad of lettuce with fresh oranges and a mild oil and lemon juice dressing.  We always have fresh oranges, too.  A well-stocked pantry is a cook's greatest asset.  Well, maybe some kickass recipes and her cast iron skillets.

The lone pork chop can also provide a stir fry entree, as can a few random shrimp or even some left over tofu.  A paltry amount of chicken will also work.  We keep Basmati rice on hand, as well.  If you don't have quite enough meat you can always scramble an egg into the mixture.  If mushrooms are on sale, they will work well, too, as will green beans or broccoli.  Spinach, too.  Combinations are endless, so you are not always repeating yourself and everything is cooked up fresh and tasty without the expense of a Chinese take out meal.  I have been keeping Siracha sauce in the fridge, too.

By the way, keep your sesame oil refrigerated to keep it fresh.  Tip compliments of the food network.

Tonight we're having the third evening of potroast.  I mis it up by varying the starch and the veggies.   We still have a few tomatoes ripening on the kitchen window sill, but alas, the end is in sight.  Don't ever recall a summer where the tomatoes multiplied for four whole months.

So here is the recipe, and for heaven's sake don't think you have o use filet.  Any tender cut of steak will  do.  Ye gods!  Tenderloin.

Bok Choy with Beef 

Here's the skinny on bok choy:  Nutritional value of bok choy

The Cheeseparer
 

Lunch for two for 26 cents!

Do you eat Ramen?   The noodles are my granddaughter's favorite lunch and we by them 12 packs at a time.  By themselves, with just the noodles and flavoring mix, they aren't much, but zowie, can you make them super-tasty.

I like to use part chicken broth if I have any in the fridge for a richer broth.  We chop scallions and mince ginger for the broth.  Cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered.  Thin, thin slices of carrot and/or celery.  Mushrooms, if you have them and like them.  Herbs like cilantro and chives do well.  Little bits of chicken, pork, beef or shrimp can be added.   I chopped a little kale into ours yetserday.  Baby spinach works well, too. 

The end result is a really delicious soup with plenty of healthy veggies.  I always beat the package with a meat mallet to break up the noodles so they are neater to eat, but if you like to slurp them, well, omit this step.  A few frozen peas work well.  Use your imagination.

A hint of curry or red pepper is not amiss.  Sesame oil and soy sauce add resonance.  Hey!  You can cook!

If you're broke at the end of the month, ramen is cheaper than cold cuts  or the salad bar, even cheaper than boxed mac and cheese.   

27 Better Ways To Eat Ramen

Taco Salad Always Pleases

We are eating through the contents of the kitchen freezer this week.  All the ice cream is gone.  I had some frozen steak leftovers, good quality stuff, some from a restaurant meal.  What do make?  Somewhere, I thought I had a steak salad recipe calling for red peppers and black beans.  I couldn't find nothin'.  Grrrr.  What I did find was my ancient taco salad recipe using ground beef, onion, iceberg lettuce, kidney beans,tomatoes, grated cheddar and avocado. 

Hmmm.  Substitutes!  The steak for the ground beef, Boston lettuce and romaine for the iceberg. Black beans for the kidney beans.  The pantry provided the cheese  and the makings for the dressing (dynamite) which was 1/4 cup mayo, 1/2 cup sour cream, and a 3 oz. tin of chopped green chilies which I drained.  Mix together and chill.  Very tasty. 

I had already purchased a smallish red pepper and an avocado.  Had leftover red onion.  I roasted the pepper and the onion for a few minutes to take the rawness off of them.  We also had tortilla chips.  And homegrown tomatoes, small yellow cherries and bigger red ones. 

Looked like a lot of ingredients when assembled.  The recipe said serves 4 and there were two of us.  I served the lettuce separately and also the crumbled tortilla chips.  Used only 1/2 the avocado, and yesterday we had a second meal that tasted as fresh as the first.  Cut the meal up into 1/3 inch cubes.  It went a long way.  This is meat as flavoring, not meat as main course.  Dressing on the side.

Having a well-stocked pantry saves lots of trips to the store:  we had on hand
1)  the beef
2)  onion
3)  cheese
4)   all ingredients for the dressing
5) tomatoes from the garden
6) some cilantro which I forgot the first time and added the second meal.  
7) I chopped up a couple scallions, too.
8)  tortilla chips
9)  black beans 

I bought one smallish red pepper and one avocado and got 2 meals out of the taco salad.

Forgot about a jalapeno in the veggie drawer, but the dressing gave the salad a nice pop of flavor.

This would be a delicious vegetarian meal without the steak.  

I always have onions, cheddar, tomatoes, tortilla chips and black beans.  Also mayo and usually sour cream.  The diced chilies were a serendipitous pantry item.  

Main dish salads are "da bomb" in hot weather, like soup is to cold weather.  No issues with getting enough veggies either.  Shrimp, chicken, beef--all are ideal for summer salads.

Next we travel from Mexico to Italy. Stay tuned for my chicken pesto salad.  

The taco salad looked pretty much like this:  I didn't go overboard with the cheese.