A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Halloween Food: Eyeball Rice Cereal Treats, Devil's Eye Eggs, Blood Clot Cranberry Dip, and I See You Meatballs

Bwahahahaha! Halloween--my very favorite holiday!  And a family favorite as well. No matter how old "our" kids get, this will always be our tradition: get together at Aunt Gonnie and Uncle Gene's house, eat great creepy food, dress up or dress down, take any little ones trick-or-treating the neighborhood and just hang out..

This year our creepy food was all eyeball in theme. We didn't really plan it that way but as the eyeballs piled up we just kept running with them it:  Gummy Eyeball Rice Cereal Treats,  Devil's Eye Eggs,  Blood Clot Cranberry Dip, I See You Meatballs, and just for fun, the un-eye-ball Mexican Villa Cheese Dip and Chips. There was also two crockpots full of chili and a few others goodies on the table like spinach dip, witch's pretzel/candy fingers, etc.    

 

 And now for recipes....

Scotch Eggs: It's What's for Breakfast

I first heard of and tasted Scotch Eggs at a Renaissance Festival near Kansas City with my cousin Ann. We both reacted "No way! This is so cool!"  And tasty too!  It's a great way to use up leftover hard-boiled eggs and a great presentation for company.  I also like, especially for company, that they can be prepped in advance and finished quickly for a charming presentation. 

It's Not That Complicated: Julia Child's Croques Monsieur/Croques Madame

 

While watching the movie "It's Complicated" on cable recently I found myself salivating at Meryl Streep's character's chocolate croissants, roasted chicken dinner, and something I'd never heard of before: Croques Monsieur.  In the movie she serves it to Steve Martin's character on a business-ish date while "hilarity ensues" from Alec Baldwin's character as he window peeps on them.  The dish, that they ate with knife and fork, appeared to have been baked and looked creamy and cheesy melty.  She makes reference to having learned to make this dish while in France studying pastry and the reference is repeated by Alec's character talking about how much he misses this dish and how special it was to him.

I thought to myself "Self, you need to investigate, create, and blog this wonderful cheesy thing they're spreading Dijon mustard on and eating with a knife and fork."  As myself often listens to me, I did, and I found that, like my polenta adventure, I was pretty familiar with the dish and remembered how much I liked it:  Grilled Ham & Cheese Sandwich.  That's the basic form and I've included that stripped down bare bones version as Julia Child made it.  There are gussied up versions that include baking in the oven rather than grilling in a pan, and added vegetables, eggs, and sauces, but the basic idea of the Croque Monsieur, or "Crispy Mister" is a Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich that was originally served in France in casual bistros around 1910 and has survived ever since. Why? Because it's yummy!  The key difference between a Croque and it's American cousin would be quality of ingredients.  It eschews Wonder Bread for a nice homemade loaf, Kraft American Slices for gruyere or Havarti or Swiss, and a nice ham slice. 

Crispy, hot, and cheesy, it's yummy comfort food with an exotic name.

Not Always a Dessert: Ham & Swiss Bread Pudding with Tarragon Mustard Sauce

 

When I think of bread pudding, I think of a wonderfully sweet creamy concoction created out of bread, eggs, sugar, spices and fruit.  But last night I stepped out of the plane of usual and created a  wonderfully creamy SAVORY bread pudding using that same base of cubed stale French bread and eggs, but added ham, celery, carrot, and savory spices that I served with a tarragon mustard sauce.  It was a huge hit in our house.  It has the down home tastiness of a ham and cheese casserole but with a little more downtown taste of the tarragon mustard sauce. This will be on our table again and again!

One of the great things about this recipe is that it's very versatile in the ingredients it will take to make a wonderful dish. I call recipes like this "This or That" recipes, meaning you can use this or that or some other thing and still make it turn out very well which comes in handy when you have, like the title of this blog, a fridge full of food...but not necessarily every exact ingredient for a certain recipe.

 

Ina Garten's Spinach & Cheddar Souffle

 

Aunti Miranda tortured enticed me with this pic of Ina Garten's Spinach & Cheddar Souffle she made the other night while Matt, Colleen, and the kids are in town. How yummy does that look? I can practically smell it!

Note that it calls for frozen, not fresh spinach.  Frozen spinach really is one of the best deals in the frozen section.  Think of how much fresh spinach it takes to make one of those 16 oz bags--pounds of the stuff! :-)  I always have a bag of spinach in the freezer and a block of cheddar in the fridge. Can't wait to try this one.

Thanks for sharing (well...the photo and recipe) Aunti!

Pavia's Poached Egg Soup

Another recipe from Ciao Italia:  Five Ingredient Favorites--can you tell I REALLY like this cookbook?  Gene and I both loved this soup.  It's sooooooooo simple but so comforting and rich without being terrible for you.

I made two different versions. The recipe calls for chicken or beef broth.  I used chicken broth left over from a roasted chicken (so much better than canned!) and beef broth leftover from a Sunday roast where I'd taken the leftover drippings, onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes and whizzed them in the blender before freezing. This made for a thick gravy type broth. I'd not been sure what I was going to do with it but it's a perfect liquid for this soup.

I think of this as a "Sunday night, OMG, I don't want to cook" kind of soup. Hearty enough to be satisfying without being junky food or labor intensive.

And that, my friends, is the last recipe I'm going to post. Go buy this book. You'll be glad you did (like I'm glad someone gave it to me as a birthday gift!)

New Cookbook: Ciao Italia, Five Ingredient Favorites

 
Ciao Italia: Five Ingredient Favorites by Mary Ann Esposito, Host of PBS show "Ciao Italia"

I received a copy of this cookbook around my birthday and have been wanting to try a couple of things since it hit my hands. Although I enjoy cooking, and love cooking the long way around with multi-step, long prep recipes, there are times when I like to throw dinner together in an easier manner and with fewer ingredients, like on my sleep days after working all night.   Sometimes less really can be more.

The basic premise of the book, as a matter of fact, is that less can be more with a rule of five. Five basic pantry items like olive oil, dried pasta, canned tomatoes, onions, and red wine, or five refrigerator basics that include high quality cheese.  From basic items you can create simple but satisfying meals.

Yesterday was my test run. I'd worked the night before in Pediatrics and was worn out even after sleeping seven hours. (You think one cranky sick six month old is harrowing, try multiplying that by a half dozen at one time. grin. ) But even with a draggy butt, I was determined to continue my quest this year for wholesome food and not give in to the convenience of the drive thru.  Did making pasta scare me considering I'm trying to eat healthier and lose weight?  No, because my goal this year is to teach myself to eat good wholesome NORMAL food but to do it in a smart way. With pasta, it's about the ingredients and the portion size.  So many formal diets make pasta and fruit out to be evil.  NO, carbs are not evil. If anything can be pointed a finger at it's the ginormous restaurant portions that we've come to think of as normal. 

Already having the five ingredients in my pantry and fridge, in under 30 minutes last night I was able to prepare:  Coal Miner's Spaghetti (Carbonara) and the Fennel, Apple, and Carrot Salad, then I added a side of steamed squash that needed to be used and we ate divinely while hopping from other shows back over to the Super Bowl trying to espy the new commercials.  Was it just us or were they sadly lacking this year?

A note about the Carbonara.  I don't know if this is true everywhere but here in the Ozarks, Pasta Carbonara is on every Italian restaurant's menu but I've never seen a true carbonara. It's usually just fettuccine or spaghetti alfredo with some bacon thrown in.  True carbonara, like this recipe, has no cream or butter, eggs make the "sauce", and for that reason it's almost much healthier so I've included nutrition counts (and comparison alfredo counts) following the recipe.

How to describe our enjoyment of this dish. Let me see...How about like this?  I measured out my one cup of pasta and wanted more but made myself simply savor every bite.  Gene ate the rest.  I think I need to teach him how to make this!

My Nannie's Devilled Eggs

Do have recipes in your recipe box, like me, that have been handed down or that you've been making for so many years that you completely take them for granted and assume that not only does everyone else in the world make the dish but makes it exactly the way you do?  This is one of those for me.  This simple Devilled Egg recipe is exactly the way my mother taught me, and exactly how Nannie taught my mother (and Auntie Miranda).   It's a given at any family gathering at my house.  Our potato salad, Devilled Egg Potato Salad, is very similar to this as well.

The thing that bemuses me, though, is how often I get compliments on the recipe when I make these for friends. Like I said, I take the recipe completely for granted and assume everyone makes them the same way. But apparently not because this is one of those dishes that, without fail, I am asked for the recipe every time I serve it outside of the family. Here it is for all of you who have asked lately that I've said "Oh yeah, I've been meaning to blog that!"

Breakfast Starts the Day off Right. Right? Right! Cornbread Frittata

 

One of the things I've been changing about the way I eat since I've been following the Mediterranean Diet path is the way I approach breakfast.  Like a lot of people I either tend to skip breakfast or eat all the wrong things.  For example, I work the night shift so when I get off shift in the morning I'm starving and ready to eat pretty much anything and everything. Technically, for nightshifters, the a.m. is our dinner time.  We eat breakfast when we get up around 4pm, lunch at 1am, and dinner for breakfast, but I've really been trying to get back into a more traditionally routine eating pattern even when I work, especially since working 12 hour shifts, we don't work a five day work week.

What I've found through experimentation is that when I choose wholesome whole grained foods for breakfast that also contain a serving of fruit and/or veggies I have a much better day over all whether I'm up or sleeping for the day.  We all know basic nutrition.  Whole grains and fresh produce last longer in our systems because they're nutritionally dense and take longer to break down, creating a more even supply of glucose instead of the normal sugar/caffeine high and low of Krispie Kremes, Cocoa Puffs, and Caramel Mocha Coffee.  Weight Watchers call these nutritionally dense foods simply "filling" foods.  I'm experimenting with a lot of different things but I'm finding, so far, that egg dishes with fresh veggies and cereals like Irish oatmeal or Grapenuts with a side of fruit hit the spot and last all morning.

Photo Diet Diary: The Chimichurri & Garlic Diet

 

Indulge me.  I've started a new diet. It's called the "Common Sense" Diet and it's of my own making.  Maybe I'll write my own book someday called "The Common Sense Diet:  Put Down the Bullshit Books and Use the Brain God Gave You by Glenna Anderson Muse."   (I like it.) 

I'm tired of reading books with complicated theories that promise that if only I will eat this and not that and take some special supplements and be a pain in the ass to every restaurant and friend's hospitality, THEN I'll be healthy, happy, and skinny. 

No, the uncomplicated truth is that if I eat good, real, fresh, unprocessed, unchemically saboutaged food then I'll be healhy(er).  Happy is up to me. No promises on skinny unless I put down the fork appropriately while getting off my ass at the same time, a complicated move here in Lazytown.  Sometimes I just need to remind myself that it's really NOT all that complicated. 

(Hmmm...I've said "ass" twice in two paragraphs. Perhaps I should have titled this the "ass" diet post.)

Here's a photo tour of my food intake from yesterday:  Gorgeous 4 oz filets with home-made  Chimichurri from parsley on the back porch. Equally beautiful 10/12 prawns sauteed in browned butter. Ceasar Salad.  Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes.  Wow.  The all garlic meal! But it was fabulous.

  

Lunch:  1/2 Price's Pimento Cheese Sandwich on Sara Lee White Wheat Bread & Musselman's No Sugar Added Applesauce

Snack:  Fiber One Oats & Caramel Bar (Really good. Too much sugar but a good alternative for other crap I could have eaten!)

Breakfast for Two:  Ham, Tomato, Potato, Green Pepper, & Onion Frittata.  This version with 4 eggs, 1/2 cup skim milk, a whole tomato, etc, and split by Gene and I, is 6 Weight Watchers points. 

By the way, I'm not much of a "meetings" person so I use weight watchers online to keep track of my food diary but I've only been to one meeting.  Ten years ago.  Never went back. I was too afraid from the gleams in the eyes and hands clasped to breasts that someone was going to speak in tongues and it just scared me a little.

That was my day with the exception of one 12 oz Coke, 2 glasses of water, and 4 glasses of iced herbal tea. 6 glasses of non-caffeinated beverages, five veggies, and having to pick fresh green stuff out of my teeth after dinner is a pretty good day in my book...