A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Happy (Early) St. Pat's: Corned Beef, Colcannon, & Green Bread

Happy St. Pat's Day  a little early! I'm working most of the weekend including Monday but I wanted to share this meal with you.  Yum! St. Pat's food is one of my favorite go to for celebratory meals. Don't know why I don't prepare it more often.  Actually, the Reuben is my all time favorite sandwich and corned beef hash and eggs is my favorite breakfast. Can't go wrong with corned beef and cabbage in any form!

By the way, the green bread is a joke. It's simply my standard white bread everyday recipe that I added green food paste coloring to for some St. Pat's silliness.

As for the holiday itself, St. Patrick is credited with both driving the snakes and the pagans out of Ireland. As Ireland's patron saint, Patrick is attributed with using the abundant shamrock as a teaching tool to explain the three-in-one nature of the Trinity.

This is my entry for this weeks'  Weekend Herb Blogging, originally created by the lovely Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen.  This week, WHB is hosted by Kel of the fabulously photographed Green Olive Tree.  Check out all the other entries after Sunday evening.

Cardamom is a spice, not technically an herb, but Kalyn's focus is on all herbs, spices, or plants.  Cardamom, my favorite spice, is used quite a bit in northern European and Middle Eastern cuisines.

Ahhh...Leftovers Two Ways

When you only have two or three people in your family, sometimes leftovers can become a problem. We all love to roast whole chickens or beef or pork roasts, but what do you do with them after the initial meal?  There's always so much leftover. I found two new ways to treat leftovers.

I cooked a beef pot roast in the crock pt the other night.  At work I was thinking out loud about how to transform that into a completely different meal when a coworker said that for her family, she chunks the roast in it's gravy and serves it over baked potaotes.  Sounded great to me so that's what I did tonight.  I separated the beef from the gravy and while I warmed up the meat with a little of the drippings, I put the rest of the liquid, potatoes, onions, and celery into the blender and blended until smooth.  This became a very flavor-filled gravy that needed no thickening agent.

The potatoes I "baked" in the microwave by putting them into a unsealed freezer bag along with about a quarter cup of water and cooking on high until soft.  Then I cut them in half, smooshed the halves, and spooned over the chopped beef, gravy, and peas. It was delicious.  A one plate down home meal but delicious. We all enjoyed its different incantation.

Tomorrow night I'll take the leftover beef chunks and gravy, add some sour cream and nutmeg, and serve that over buttered egg noodles for a leftover down home version of beef stroganoff.

That's what Gene and his sister, Linda, will be eating dinner of. I've alreayd pack some of the potato, beef, pea leftovers from my plate into my new pink bento box for dinner tomorrow night. We'll all be happy withour meal.

Sweet/Sour Meatballs over Fried Rice

I served these last week when Ann and Aunt Miranda came over to lunch before we went to see Evan Almighty. Good movie, by the way. Family oriented, feel good, just one of those you walk out in a good mood on.  Of course, when we went in the theater the skies were clear. We came out to thunder and rain. Hmmm...and the ark is parked where?

Sweet and Sour Meatballs is one of my standard "go to" recipes, you know what I mean? It's one of Gene's favorites, it's the one people always ask me for the recipe at potlucks, etc.  I don't remember where the original recipe came from, I think I clipped it out of a magazine, but I've been making it for 20 years and it's gone through so many permutations scribbled on the recipe card that I pretty much claim it as my own these days.

Loaded with ginger in both the meatballs and rice, Sweet & Sour Meatballs is my addition to Weekend Herb Blogging this week, created by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this week by Chris of Mele Cotte.  Stop by later tonight for the weekly herbalicious round up!

Leftover Tuesdays: A Roast become Beef Enchiladas

There's a blogging event that caught my eye because of its practicality.  Originated by David at Cooking Chat, the idea is to show something that we all do: refashion leftovers. I found that having the event in the back of my mind actually encouraged me to think along the lines of "Now if I make this, what can I do with the leftovers besides starving Gene out with nothing new until we finish it all?"

So along those lines of thinking, this roast, dry roasted in the crockpot and simply seasoned with salt, pepper, onion and celery flakes, and a bay leaf...

...became these beef enchiladas...

by simply cubing the beef, adding a few cubed potatoes, and seasoning with cumin and cilantro.  They were rolled up into corn tortillas, and covered with a nice jarred salsa, cheese, green onions, and sour cream.  The perfect leftover dinner that didn't feel leftover.

For more leftover ideas, check out the round up by this month's host, Mary at Ceres & Bacchus (love that blog name, don't you?) after the 23rd. 

Vegetable Beef Soup Warms You Up on Cold Days

With temps in the 30's most days, my bones feel chilled most of the time even with the furnace running.  I think it's more pshychological than physical so I needed something to make my head feel warm.  The answer? Soup. Something hearty and beefy to "thicken the blood".  Beef vegetable soup fits that need.

On a side note, let's see if we can encourage (in the comment section) Aunt Miranda to divulge her Beef Vegetable Soup recipe and maybe even a photo.  She has a killer veggie soup that is not one of those "clean out your fridge" recipes and it has a somewhat secret ingredient.  It's one of those subtle things where you say "This is the best veggie soup I've ever had...but I can't quite pinpoint why..."  And then when she tells you, you're like "Ohhhhhhhhhh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeahhh....I can taste that now. Normally I hate those but they taste great in this."  If you guys can whine, weedle, and wade your way into her heart (or guilt), I'll post her soup as soon as she sends me the recipe and pic.  Deal?

Seasoned with bay leaf and fresh rosemary, the soup is my addition to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's weekly herb blogging event.  Check in with Kalyn to view the round up all of the herby dishes being cooked this week.

Happy Birthday to Me

That's right. Today is my 42nd birthday.  I'm wondering what kind of day it will be.  Two years ago I spent my 40th birthday in the microbiology lab until 10pm.  Last year I was in the Respiratory lab all afternoon. Can't even remember what I did that evening.  No labs this year. No work.  Just a play day.  I'll be reporting in as the day unfolds just because it's a mystery to me too. The only plans I have right now are lunch with Aunt Miranda and Cousin Ann. 

I'm interested in seeing what life brings today because normally my birthday depresses the hell out of me and I hate celebrating. I'm usually in a bad mood until the sun goes down and then I perk up a bit.  It's not an age thing, it's a what have I accomplished with my life thing. I know I've done fine in my careers as far as hotels, cakes & catering, and now the hospital.  It's the one big one, the elusive one that gets me down. Each year, I think "But I haven't published a novel yet."  True again this year. I still don't have the first draft finished even, but it's halfway there and I can see the good in it.  I've published a recipe of my own in a national magazine this year. That's a step in the right direction.  I've published one of my best poems in an incredible medical literary journal.  I'm proud of that.  I didn't win but I got decent reviews for my best script so far in a well-respected screenwriting contest.  I published scientific research in national respiratory care journal, that's a major accomplishment and honor.  (Thanks to Aaron and Doug, the world's greatest program/clinical directors!)  All of that helps dull the edges this year.  It tells me that I can do this but I have to work incredibly hard this year to get that novel finished and marketed, to start writing new screenplays using all the skills I've learned from the first ones, and to keep plugging away at the small projects: articles, essays, and poems.  I have to keep sending projects out no matter how many rejection slips I collect because I have taste now for when they say "Yes."  I know I can do it.  I just have to keep plugging away every day.

So this year isn't as bad as the birthdays in the past.  I was even "up" enough last night that I made my own birthday dinner: Strip steaks with goat cheese and mushroom merlot sauce, spiced roasted fingerling potatoes with spiced yogurt dipping sauce, fresh steamed broccoli, and homemade bread.  I'm even making my own birthday cake, which I'll be posting later.  I'll be blogging about them all as I have time this week.  Today we'll start with the steaks...

Strip steaks with a dollop of goat cheese, and a thyme, mushroom, merlot sauce.

 

The steaks with its sauce using bay leaf and fresh thyme is my entry this week in Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen's Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted this week by Ulrike of Kuchenlatein. Swing by after Sunday to see the great round-up of herby deliciousness.

The Comfort Foods Keep on Playing

Last night we had taco casserole for dinner that our neighbor gave me the recipe. I'm sure this is something that everyone but me has but I'll give the recipe after the click anyway.  I was thinking last night that I'm kind of the anti-casserole queen and I was wondering why.  When I was growing up my mom made a few casseroles but not that many. She's not with us anymore so she's not around to ask why. I'm not sure if she didn't like making them, or more likely, if it was because dad was such a meat and potatoes kind of guy. We ate a lot of fried chicken, pork chops, ribs, etc., with separate potatoes and veggies. Then, in my adult life I did a dozen years in the hotel business, mostly in convention and banquet planning, so again, my whole menu planning experience was all about thinking in terms of entree:  steaks, chicken, chops, veal, etc., starch side:  rice, potatoes, pasta, etc., and vegetable sides, the more high falutin' the better. 

So now, here I am an old lady in my 40's :-) suddenly during these few weeks of crappy weather carnage on a child-like joyous quest for simple casserole comfort food recipes because, quite frankly, I'm really enjoying making and eating them. It's giving Gene and I a whole new dining experience.  Sometimes you simply get bored and want something different for a while so I've been going back to the more comforting one casserole dish type meals with gusto.  Okay, albeit, going back to them only with better vegetables and less Campbell's soup than what I'm told on most of the recipes, I admit. My chicken and rice the other night had no soup in it and all fresh veggies and it was very good. I'll be making it again. It's perfect and perfectly easy, especially with going back to work and having less time to spend in the kitchen. 

This taco casserole recipe, I'm sure, has been in a million women's magazines but I got it from the neighbor. It was simple, quick, and really tasty, sort of a cross between chili and frito chili pie. Best of all, it used up the half bag of tortilla chips I was sick of looking at on the counter.

Hmmm...that works

You know, so many times dinner in the real world isn't about being gourmand or about trying new recipes or even digging out Mom's recipes from the box, it's about standing in front of the fridge staring at the hodge-podge of ingredients and leftovers and thinking "What in the hell can I make out of this and how can I do it inside a half hour so I can have the extra time to go work on my novel or a poem or an article?"  That's food in the real world. 

Well here's one of my successes. Remember the fajitas I through together the other night for myself when Gene was working? Well those were in the fridge and I needed something quick for his dinner because I went out bowling, yes bowling, with some gal friends last night and knew I'd be eating a dinner of popcorn and St. Louis products.  So, if you cook some egg noodles in beef broth and when they're nearly done, you reheat the fajita mixture, reseason it, and spoon in some of the broth leftover from the noodles and let it reduce....you get beef and onions over noodles and it was very tasty.  Had I added sour cream it could have been a short cut version of stoganov but Gene hates sour cream...and cheese, by the way, what a freak, right?  Sweet, kind, generous, but doesn't like cheese or sour cream. That's just wrong.

Anyway...beef and noodles:

Fajitas for one, please

This is just a quickie post.  No big deal. Well, to me, maybe. I'd never tried making fajitas at home so this was more of an experiment than anything else. Gene worked last night out of town so I was on my own for dinner and didn't want to go out or eat cereal.  Had a small lean sirloin steak, an avocado, and an onion to play with and thought "What the heck?"  You're probably thinking I'm an idiot but I'd just never really thought about it before.  So I sauteed the onions, seared the steak that I had marinated in worcestshire sauce and hot sauce, sliced it, and threw it back in the pan for a minute more...the only thing I would do differently next time is to put the steak on at the same time as the onions so they don't cook down as much as they did. Even with the meat being medium at best the onions weren't crunchy enough the way I like them for fajitas.  Then I simply opened a can of refried beans, sliced the avocado, and added a bunch of jalapenos. Simple.  Since I ate 1/2 an avocado I decided to deny myself the cheese and sour cream.

I had no idea fajitas were that simple but I'll be doing it again. Super quick dinner and it beat getting out last night. I sat and ate while watching two episodes of Dead Like Me on Sci-Fi. Great show. There was even plenty of meat leftover for Gene to have for lunch today.

Oh MY! Frito Chili Pie in the Sky! Mid-month WOBAT

For mid-month WOBAT, I made Frito Chili Pie:

It may be obnoxious in concept but don't even think about trying to tell me it doesn't look yummy to the tummy.  As digustingly fat-riddled and bad for you as it can be at times, like when you go get it from Sonic, you don't have to make it out of a can and it can lean more towards a taco salad kind of meal.

This is my little variation on the theme. I started with my idea of Frito Chili Pie from childhood, which is almost a camping phenomenon where you heat up canned chili and spoon in into individual Frito bags and eat it right out of the bag, and then made a left turn at a casserole recipe a roommate of mine in college (the first time), cough-twenty-cough years ago, used to make called Sour Cream Chili Bake, and ended up with what Gene and I ate for dinner last night.  No way could it be considered "diet" but take a look at how I made it and see if you don't agree that Frito Pie might have gotten a bit of an unfair bad rep over the years from people making it with obnoxious ingredients.