A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Broiling the Perfect Steak in Five Easy Steps

Going out to dinner for a nice steak can be just the thing after a long day, but doing the same thing at home, only in t-shirt, shorts, and no shoes, can be just the ticket as well.  Steaks are one of those things that seemed intimidating to me years ago, but it only took a little practice to gain confidence quickly.

Lots of folks are very accomplished on the grill. To be honest, I'm not so much simply because with only me and Gene in our small family, it feels like way too much work to drag out the grill for two steaks.  The answer? Broiling.

 With four simple ingredients and five simple steps, the process is painless.

Better Than Mom's (Sorry Mom!) Lasagna

 

 

Sorry, Mom, even though you were a fabulous cook, I think in this one instance I beat you at your own game. 

I love lasagna but with only two of us it's something I only get to make when we're having company.  You just can't make a small lasagna!

So for New Year's Eve, that's what I did, although I stepped up a few of the ingredients my Mom used to use, switching out ricotta and cream cheese for the cottage cheese, and using a 50/50 mix of ground beef and country sausage for my Slow Cooker Meat Sauce. 

We were all pretty pleased, patting myself on the back. The result was rich without being overwhelming and not too wet, not to dry, perfect texture. Will be making these changes always from now on.

 

Timpano di Maccheroni: The "Mythic Pasta Dome"

  

This recipe was so much fun to make!  I'd seen it years ago, a classic Italian dish made famous by Stanley Tucci's movie "Big Night" , the story of two restauranteur brothers (Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, more recently starring as Adrian Monk) whose fortunates are on the wane.  In a last mad dash, they have one "Big Night" extravaganza to save the restaurant and this is one of the dishes they served.

I served it our Dexter Dinner group to celebrate the season six premiere of Dexter. We gathered for Timpano, Death in the Afternoon cocktails, and Dexter (Apple) cake. Everything, including Dexter, was delicious!  This recipe is definitely a showstopper and very flexible. I'll be serving it again.

Several years ago, I had planned on making it for my pasta-lovin' niece Jordan's birthday party as a truly celebratory entree but at the last minute I flinched, afraid I would leave the whole family in the lurch if I messed it up, and simply served baked mostacciola instead. While the dish does have several steps, almost all of them can be made ahead and the whole dish can easily be finished early on the day of serving and baked a bit before serving.  Actually, with at least a half hour cooling time it's a great dish to take to a potluck or to serve at an open house. I only made a 2qt bowl full and not only was it plenty of food for the four of us watching Dexter that night, there were leftovers, and during the dinner, the dish was still warm to the touch 45 minutes after cutting.

As much as I sort of dreaded and anticipated and was scared and excited all at the same time about preparing this dish, it really is much easier to make than it looks! I promise.

Slow Cooker Meat Sauce for Pasta

 

The first step in preparing for the "mythic pasta dome", Timpano is to create meatballs (traditional) or chunky meat sauce for the pasta.  Although I eat meat, I've found that many times I have a little texture problem when it comes to meat and I find myself pushing away the ground beef or meatballs and eating the pasta and sauce.  I do the same thing with chili with beans: I tend to eat the beans and work around the larger chunks of meat. Not any more.  Since experimenting one time with chili by putting the raw ground meat into the crockpot and slow cooking it for 10+ hours I've found that I know longer push aside the meat. The long slow cooking breaks down those tougher textures for a silker, more homogenous sauce.  I now always make my chili and pasta meat sauce this way.  The convenience is great also: throw it in the slow cooker and forget it.  This recipe makes approximately seven cups, three of which will be used in the Timpano.  The other three cups freeze very well for another meal another time. 

Dexter Dinner: Timpano, Dexter Cake, & Death in the Afternoon Cocktails

 

Dexter premiered season six last night and we were there! Last year, my cousin, James, came over to the house on Sunday nights so we could all watch Dexter together since we were all huge fans.  We adopted Auntie Miranda into the cult and have been a Dexter Dinner foursome ever since. We always meet at Gene's and my house and I make dinner, usually using them as guinea pigs to test new recipes.  It's a win-win for me and for them and the safety net is that if it's ever is a win-lose, there's always pizza that can be delivered.

 

Literally, for years I've been wanting to make Timpano, the classic "mythic dome pasta" (Mario Batali) dish made famous by the movie Big Night from 1996 where Stanley Tucci, as one of two restanteur brothers (Tony Shalhoub is the other) makes this dish for their "big night" make it or break it extravaganza.  My understanding is that Tucci himself came up with the idea to use this recipe in the movie since it's one that his family actually makes for special occasions in real life. In 1999, following the popularity of the food from the movie Tucci's mother and the chef who consulted on the film authored a cookbook "Cucina & Famiglia: Two Italian Families Share Their Stories, Recipes, and Traditions" by Joan Tropiano Tucci and Chef Gianni Scappin.

This week I'll be blogging my version of the Timpano recipe starting with a 15 hour slow cooker meat sauce for pasta, Auntie's fruited salad and vinaigrette, the apple cake with caramel apple filling, and Death in the Afternoon cocktail created by Ernest Hemingway using Absinthe which is now legal in the U.S. again.

Let's begin with the meat sauce...

Mexican Villa Fake-out: Home-made Burrito Enchilada-Style

 

Let's start with a HUGE Thank You to Jamie D who read my original post about our hometown Mexican Villa and sent me a taste-alike recipe from the 'net for The Villa's enchilada sauce. Like Springfield-style Cashew Chicken, The Villa is a Springfield original, it's ours, and we're wild about it!

Using Jamie's sauce I created our own Burritos Enchilada-Style last night and we loved them. In a private email Jamie had said "When the chili seasoning hits the sauce your nose will know it's The Villa."  Yup, sooooooooo true!  Not that we won't be ordering from the restaurant itself anymore but it is a nice home-style meal as well that I got a huge kick out of creating. It will be fun to make it for friends or family sometime and see if I can fake them out.

Nieces and Nephew Summer Slumber Party: Easy Cheesy Mac for a Crowd

 

Once a year or so we try to have a big slumber party with all three of our nieces and our nephew.  Two of them live here in town but the other two live about an hour away with their mom. Just because of work, school, life in general, we don't get to see them as much as we would like but we all know how it is, right? But we do try to have an overnighter when we can so that we can do an Aunt Gonnie and Uncle Gene and the kids thing where it's more about hanging out and catching up with what's going on in their lives.

One of the things I've learned over the years is to try to put aside the OCD "party" definition in my brain that tends to make all things including food and house cleaning into a spectacle so big that by the time my guests/friends/family arrive I'm so tired from over-working myself that I didn't use to enjoy the "together" part of getting together as much as I should have.  These guys are my nieces and nephews. They know I'm not a perfect housekeeper and they don't want a meticulously Martha Stewart set table or gourmet food so this family casserole my brothers and sisters and I were raised on is perfect fare for the occasion: quick and easy to make and yummy to eat. I even made it up the day before so that all I had to do was slip it in the oven when I went to pick up the kids at my brother's and then my sister's house.  We grew up with Mom (Karen) calling it "goulash" but it's not the traditional Hungarian dish of chunked meat with vegetables, it's an Americanized version from the 50's, I believe, that's made with hamburger, macaroni, and a tomato sauce.  Gene's mom had a recipe for it in her recipe box called "Chuckwagon Macaroni". The recipes follows the jump, along with lots of fun dorky pics.

Feijoida is Good by itself but Better with a Friend

 

Invited to lunch yesterday by my friend Teril, I was served a Portuguese treat I'd never had or made before:  Feijoida, a thick multi-meat stew that her husband, Stan, had brought back a love for from his LDS mission to Brazil. Americanizing it slightly, Teril's version is very close to what he ate in Brazil. Originally, Feijoida was a stew created by the African slaves brought to Portugal and all of its colonies, including Brazil.  The stew primarily consisted of black, white, or pinto beans (depending on the country and region), simmered in large clay pots along with a mix of cast off meats available to the slaves:  beef tongue and pig ears, tails, and feet. Thankfully, the stew Teril fed me was made from beef chuck roast, smoked sausage, and bacon.  I hope. More modernly, the stew is served over rice and may be accompanied by additional smoked sausages, kale or collard greens, hot sauce, and sometimes deep fried bananas.

Chris's White Trash Shepherd's Pie Lives Again! The Redux

 

Chris gave me the original recipe for this as "tater tot casserole" but we renamed it White Trash Shepherd's Pie. However, that being named, don't dismiss it.  This is quick, comforting food at it's best and the kids will eat the vegetables to get to the tater tots!

Why the redux?  Not only did I substitute more veggies instead of just the green beans from the first go 'round, I played with the meat as well, using ground deer meat (it's not high falutin' venison if the deer is shot by you or yours), sausage, and bacon.  The difference is a good thing, Martha would say.  More nutrition plus more flavor.

Big kisses to my brother, Hal, for sharing the deer meat!

Another thing I like about this dish, besides the down home country goodness, is that it's a pantry dish. Everything you need is in the pantry and the freezer so not only do you not have to run out to buy ingredients, it's perfect for nights when you have no plan, don't want to cook (quick to put together), and just want something that isn't high brow. I know Gene and I can't be the only ones who crave a church basement-type casserole now and then!

Pantry Meatloaf with Country Bob's Sauce

 

We invited James over last night for dinner and to watch the premiere of the new season of Dexter.  For the menu, I went with comfort food:  Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Corn, Green Beans, and Dinner Rolls.  Gene and I together make a decent meatloaf but we played around with some stuff last night to create this one that was a big hit with all three of us. We're calling it "Pantry Meatloaf" because, duh, so many of the ingredients came from the pantry including Country Bob's All Purpose Sauce.  We started out with the ground beef and the eggs. Then when I reached for the bread crumbs I decided to try cornbread stuffing mix instead. While I was doing that, Gene walked by and added Country Bob's to the ground beef.  Gene used to use Lipton onion soup mix in his bachelor meatloaf but I only had Knorr Vegetable soup mix a couple of meatloaf dinners back and decided to use it which worked out really well....all in all the recipe turned out to be a success so I'm now "writing it down" so we won't forget what we did so we can do it again next time on purpose. 

(Spoiler Alert!)

I liked the opening show of Dexter.  Certainly not as high emotion as last season ended with Dexter and Trinity's love/hate relationship (so glad John Lithgow got that emmy--well deserved!) but it was a nice tribute to Rita.  Loved the last line where he admits he loved her. He finally realizes he can feel.  I also liked the way they set it up to be an exploration of his new role as primary care-giver to the kids and also that he's going to be in deep doo-doo again from within in his own department. He thought Doakes was tenacious, but Quinn hates Dexter for knowing he's a dirty cop. Should prove interesting.  Actually, I was chuckling, thinking Dexter's biggest challenge is going to be winning over Astor. 

Love this line from an earlier season:  "How many more bodies would there have been had I not gotten to those killers? I didn't want to save lives, but save lives I did. Motivation aside, I think Harry and Lundy would agree on this one. "