A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Spaghetti Squash Casserole

 

A little something I took to work last week as a vegetarian (not vegan) recipe.  The protein comes from the dairy and I loaded it with a mix of mushrooms.  Like any casserole, it was creamy, but this was also deeply mushroomy with a little crunch from the buttered bread crumbs on top. Of course it would normally be a side dish but it's exaclty the kind of thing that lays gently on my stomach for the middle of the night lunches and makes a wonderful entree on its own.

Colleen, I thought of you when I made this:  no rind to peel or not peel!

Crockpot Chili: It's a Texture Thing

 

This was a learning experiment based on a 30-hour-awake day I'll share with you. 

One day last week I couldn't sleep even though I'd been up since before dawn the day before. I ended up going from 4am one day, up through all of that night, and then finally got sleepy about 11am the next day. I know. Weird. But by 10am I realized that if I was going to save us from eating icky fast food for dinner I needed a plan. I had all the ingredients for chili but by that time of morning my brain was so fried I was probably a danger with a stove.  Sort of like drinking and driving, insomnia and appliances with massive heat do not go together.

My answer:  It's a crockpot, isn't it?  The idea is to dump stuff in and forget it, right? That's what I did. I didn't brown the ground beef or saute the onions. It all went in together and cooked for the six hours I slept. I woke up to great chili.  Here's what I liked most about it:  the texture.  I've talked before about the fact that although I'm not a vegetarian I don't eat a lot of meat. I grew up in a meat-centric house so I like the taste of it but I hate the texture. One of the things I don't like about chili is having the softness of the beans and the relative hardness of the meat. I know. I know. It's strange but it is what it is.  In some dishes I want lots of texture but in foods like chili, I don't. I usually end up picking out the chunks of meat and throwing them back in the pot for Gene.  This method solved that problem.  The long slow cooking time broke down the fibers of the meat to the point that it was all a uniform texture and I liked it. So if you're like me and have a meat/texture or a sleeping/need for quick food problem, this is the chili recipe for you too.

By the way, I froze a container of this to use on coneys or for chili mac later on.  It's PERFECT for both of those dishes.

Leftovers: Vodka-Marinated Pork Roast Enchiladas

Had some of the vodka-marinated pork roast leftover from the other day and wondered "What to do? What to do?"  We'd already eaten sandwiches and still there were yummy chunks sitting in the fridge.  I hated to waste it but we were getting a little tired of it in it's current incantation. 

I remembered a trick my beautiful friend, Sher of What Did You Eat?,told me she used as a waste not/want not trick. Any time she had leftover meat or roasted chicken that she didn't want to waste, she'd grab a few tortillas and whatever else she had in the fridge for filling, make up enchiladas and then freeze them individually without sauce and keep them in marked gallon freezer bags.  Then, on nights she didn't feel like making dinner into a big a production she'd grab a couple each for her and Bob,  sauce them with whatever salsa she had in the pantry for just that purpose, layer some nice melty monterrey jack on top, and voila, dinner is served.

I followed in her footsteps except I did go ahead and sauce mine.  The batch of two became my work "lunch" one night last week and the second batch went into a foil pan into the freezer so that all that has to be done is for it to be thawed and thrown in the oven.  I ran out of tortillas at the end so the rest of the pork ended up being spooned around the sides, just more porky goodness.

There is no specific recipe for this.  But here's how I did it:  I chopped up the remaining pork roast, added the half jar of red salsa I happened to have in the fridge, and a handful of shredded cheese.  Sher used to also add any beans she had leftover, corn, potatoes, whatever sounded good to her mixed together.  I put a couple of large spoonfuls of the mixture into the center of the tortillas, rolled them up, and placed them seam side down in a sprayed baking dish.  Then I poured over a jar of salsa verde (gre) I had in the pantry and topped it with another handful of shredded colby/monterrey jack mix.  From there or once thawed if frozen, it's just a matter of baking them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes covered and then another 10-20 minutes uncovered until cheese is slightly browned and the everything is hot and bubbly.

Originally the second pan (freezer ones) were made for Auntie Miranda but since she wasn't able to drop by the day she thought she would, I just stuck them in the freezer...we'll see who ends up feasting on them, her or us, depending on who gets out of the mood to cook first.

Good & Good For You: Curry Roasted Chicken

Gene's always been game for my experiments and new recipes but once in a while he makes a request for comfort food:  meatloaf, oven fried chicken, chicken livers, etc.  This time he actually clipped a recipe out of the paper and laid it on my desk. Since he's never done that before, I really paid attention.  Honestly, when I first saw the recipe for honey mustard chicken drumsticks I was "ho-hum" but Gene loves honey mustard so of course I was going to make it for him. Then I saw the curry in the list of ingredients. I was intrigued.  I couldn't figure out if it was going to be a good idea or a bad idea and I also wondered if Gene had paid attention to the full list of ingredients, but no matter.

It's fabulous!

We'll be eating this a couple of times a month.  The recipe is written to roast the chicken in the oven but it would be great on the grill.  It would also work well for for chicken breasts even though it's written for legs, and would make for killer wings too.  I think it would even be fantastic as a glaze for whole roasted chicken or cornish game hens.  The curry spices tame the mustard in a way that lets the mustard flavor come out without the bite.  The combination of the honey, curry, and mustard is sweet and savory at the same time but without being overpowering in the savory or cloying in the sweet. 

GREAT recipe and very good for you.  It's  a wonderful change from boring old grilled chicken breasts.

By the way, Gene, feel free to clip any recipes you want to out of the paper! I'm game.

Kitchen of Light: Vodka-Marinated Pork Roast

 Last weekend I played around with a couple of new cookbooks. This pork roast recipe came from Kitchen of Light by Andreas Viestad of the PBS cooking show of the same name. The cookbook is just as fun to read as it is to cook from so far so I'll be making more dishes from it soon.

One of the things I liked about this recipe is that the vodka based marinade seemed to more effectively carry the herb flavors into the center of the meat than other oil/acid marinade combinations I've used in the past.  There was no taste of vodka or alcohol but the fresh herbs seemed brightened by the alcohol as a base.

There was a cute story attached to the recipe where Andreas said he made it for the show Scandinavian Cooking in Svalbard, an Arctic island north of Norway.  He said that out of all their supplies to prepare the dish, the only thing that didn't freeze was the vodka.  I'm thinking he's lucky he had any left for the recipe. I think in the Arctic I'd be downing the hooch to warm up.

Great Potluck Recipe: Cream Cheese Brownies

 

(For you, Barb!)

This is one of those great potluck recipes where you can keep the main ingredients in the pantry on hand for any time you need it.  It's basically Chocolate Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, a church basement recipe made from a cake mix and a few things from the fridge, quick and easy. I took it last night to work for our going away party for Tom and ended up not only sharing it with the dept but we had one mom in Peds who'd had a really looooooong week with her sick child so after he went to sleep I snuck her in a small plate with a large square of this and whispered "Better than valium" as I handed it to her.

Welcome Fall: Apple Pie in Finnish Cream Pastry

  

Welcome Fall!  I love fall with it's cooler days, smells of leaves and fireplaces and a bazillion scents of different apples in the produce section.  Yesterday, I decided to celebrate that apple smell in a big way. I also decided to take a new cookbook out for a walk around the block.

I've lately been thinking about my heritage, Swedish on both sides with lots of Norwegian, and a little Irish and Scottish mixed in.  I guess I can't regret something I didn't have a hand in, so instead let's say that I miss that my family has no Scandi recipes handed down from the Great-greats.  I wish I had some little "My great-great grandmother's sweet buns" or some such recipe in my repetoire but since there isn't I decided to explore on my own and find some new traditions based on other people's old ones.  One of the books I chose was The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas.  Finnish by birth, her parents immigrated to the northern states where she lived in a primarily Scandi community.  She's since traveled and lived in several Scandi countries, collecting favorite recipes along the way.

While I departed from her apple pie recipe when it came to filling, I absolutely loved, highly reccommend, and will use again the cream pie crust.  Rich but very flaky, the pastry was the perfect counterpoint to the crisp clean taste of the apples.

Knitting for the NICU Sept '09: Jordan's Hats

 

While I have been stuck on the same swaddling blanket for the NICU all month, and just ran out of yarn with 12 more rows to go, my girl Jordan has been on the ball with her hats.  Love these two in red with counterbalancing colors. 

I have to brag. Jordan is my 17-year-old niece who is passionate about our NICU and Africa hat projects.  At the same time she whipped out these two hats over the last couple of weeks, she's also started her senior year in high school and is working two afternoons a week at the local "Etc" store for the school district where the teachers go to pick up extra supplies that have been donated for projects.

That's my girl! I'm so proud of her!

Good & Good For You: Slow Cooker Anasazi Beans

Anasazi beans are named for the Native Americans who inhabited the four corners area of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.  Anasazi, a Navajo word that means "the ancient ones", were most likely the original cultivators as crocks of the dried beans had been found in the cliff homes of these Indians in the early 1900's.  The return of the popularity of the bean in the last couple of decades casts a bit of a mysterious shadow, though. Supposedly out of cultivation for 1500 years, one story attributes new crops to an archeaologist in the 1980's who found a store of the them and successfully regrew them.  However, most botanists would say that germination on beans is only about 50 years so it's more probable that the beans had been grown here and there in the southwest until picked up by enterprising boutique bean growers.

 Because of it's similarity in taste to the pinto bean one of the more quietly (pun) interesting fact about the anasazi bean is that the specific type of carbohydrate that induces flatulence during digestion in other beans is only present in a quantity of less than 25% comparably.

Good & Good For You: Cucumber Salad with Boiled Dressing

 

Had a lovely dinner with cousin Ann and Aunti Miranda the other night.  We originally were supposed to meet at a restaurant but without remembering that fact, I started a pot of Anasazi beans in the crockpot AND THEN Gene said "Weren't you going out to dinner tonight?" Crap!  You know how it is. Memory's the second thing to go with age and who knows what the first thing is.  So that prompted a quick couple of emails... "Uh...wanna free meal?"

I really enjoy spending time with them and it was fun to have a little girls' dinner and hang out in the sunroom without a noisy restaurant of folks all around us. And yes, btw, we did let Gene eat but he had business in Marshfield and didn't get back until after we'd finished.