A FRIDGE FULL OF FOOD...

Presto Pasta Nights #45: Split Pea/Alphabet Pasta Soup

For the lovely Ruth at Once Upon a Feast's weekly Presto Past Nights blogging event, I made soup. Again. But really, can you ever eat enough soup?  It's filling. It's good for you. It's comforting.  That's a win-win.  This time it's a little difficult to see my pasta so I'll show another pic. 

Not only does this soup have split peas and alphabet pasta in it, it also has yellow and brown lentils, wild rice, and barley. Then, when I made it I added onion, carrot, green and red pepper, and celery which makes it vegetarian.  I haven't decided to go exactly back to strict vegetaranism but I have decided to make most of my meals non-meat. I have to have a little wiggle room for seafood and the occasional steak.  It's like any diet. Once I say "absolutely no more of that food will ever be consumed by me again" is the exact moment when I can think of nothing else and would walk on a bed of nails on my knees to get that, so knowing myself, I'm saying that I will eat much less meat than ever before.

Just FYI,  I didn't put all of those peas, lentils, rice, pasta, etc., together but I was glad when I saw it at the Amish Store in Branson and will be buying more.  They have several dried bean/pea soup mixes that are just wonderful. With the veggies I can saute at home and herbs I can add myself, it's a full but quick meal to put together.

The mixes can also be ordered directly online from The Amish Country Store.  Most of the products are made by Missouri Amish families.

Thanksgiving turkey redux: Turkey Orzo Soup

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted!  Man, that just shows you what working the weekend and having a bad cold will do for you--makes you a lazy bones!  I've almost literally done nothing but work, sleep, and whine the last week.  I've had my cold since Thanksgiving and somewhere along the line I wasn't careful enough and gave it to Gene, who I think is sicker than I am, although I whine louder and you know what that means: the squeaky wheel is the bigger pain in the butt.

But we're finally both feeling a little better so I have no excuses but to get back to my life including cooking tonight instead of ordering out and today, with God as my witness, I will be working on my novel. That back-up cd hasn't seen the light of day in at least a couple of weeks and I originally promised myself it would be finished by the end of the year which is fastly approaching. Sigh.

But before I pull that out, let me tell you real quick about the soup I made the other night that was, as Mr Food says "Oooooohhhh, so good!", and another pasta soup for Ruth's weekly Presto Pasta Nights.  Check her blog on Friday to see this weeks round up! 

Thanksgiving Leftovers: Turkey Pasta Soup

Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast hosts a great weekly food event called Presto Pasta Nights.  She posts a round up every Friday of the previous week's great pasta dishes. 

I'm getting back into the groove of  pasta night with my turkey leftovers in a pasta soup last night.  It's all about the broth, comforting in its turkey goodness with an attention-getting mix of pasta shapes to devour.

One of the interesting little secrets about this soup was that I followed Gene's initiative and spooned it over some leftover dressing from Thanksgiving.  It may sound odd but it's really yummy, giving the soup just an extra weight and oomph, turning it from "just soup" into a full meal for Gene.

Doctor's Kitchen Monday: Veggie Patty-licious

This is the story of how these ingredients:

became dinner:

It all started with the book "Skinny Bitch" by  Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman, a "diet" book with colorful language that cracked me up and inspired me.  The book basically advocates vegan eating.  I'll be honest. The book itself didn't give me any new info.  I've heard this all before. I read Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation and I lived in Eureka Springs, which is the Taos of the Ozarks. I've heard the whole cruelty to animals speech and I do not dispute it. I just freely admit that it never before kept me away from a tall glass of milk or a medium rare filet. 

Until Skinny Bitch. For some reason, the presentation whether it's simply the confrontational attitude or the multitudinous amount of swear words (which I loved, by the way) made me pay attention this time. Still, to be completely honest, it's not even the PETA speech that gets me, it's just that I suddenly thought "I've never really liked eating meat...so why am I doing it?"  I could get up on a big moral high horse and tell you that I've been enlighted and that the poor fish hurt from being hooked but that really isn't me or how I think.  We're people; they're animals. We're the top of the food chain.  I'm middle America all the way and I know it. I grew up in a family of hunters in a community of hunters.  My dad and his friends took vacation time to go out in the deer field every year.  My siblings and I all knew how to cast a fishing line practically before we could walk.  BUT, unlike a former acquaintance whose father goes to Africa twice a year to shoot big game just so he can hang heads and skins on his den walls, my family ate what dad brought down. We grew up poor and I admit my dad poached deer like crazy to put meat on our table. I still have no problem with that at all, nor do I have a problem with people who do eat meat.  On the flip side, I've known for a long time that as long as I eat a varied vegetarian diet I'll get plenty of protein and I'm very well aware that factory farms are not the same thing as hunting a deer or two out in their natural habitat for my family's personal use and to keep the deer populations from starving themselves out.  One is conservation; the other is a really poor process that's mostly about dollars not purity of food or compassion for animals. Of course, I don't like the idea of factory farming animals in cruel ways although I stop short at the argument that if we didn't eat cows the ozone  layer would be safe from cow farts. 

I know I'm simplifying but I'm doing it to keep things light not because I take these things lightly.

My point is, in a nutshell, I don't want to pretend to be something I'm not.  For me, this is all about how nice it would be to get off the protein guilt merry-go-round and not worry about it all the time. I can't tell you how many years I've spent preferring to eat a quinoa salad or a vegetable salad with a thick piece of whole-grained peasant bread but denying myself thinking I had to eat a hunk of meat. Well, no more. I'm not completely locking myself in because, quite frankly, I don't do well with ever telling myself "no" to anything without a rebellious back door to escape thorugh when I feel the need, but over the last few weeks the only animal flesh I've had is teeny amount of chicken in soup, part of a crab cake, and two bites of Gene's birthday steak.  I just don't crave meat so I'm getting off the guilt ride, South Beach and Atkins be damned.

Earlier in the year, I went on a 3 month diet with coworkers and lost 20 lbs.  Since then I've gained back 8 lbs followed by losing 4 lbs the first week I stopped eating meat, followed by I'm-not-sure-what-but-it-can't-be-good (I refuse to get on the scale) since this horrible past week where I've been ravenous at night and the voices in my head won't shut up until I feed them popcorn covered in butter and melted marshmallow at 2am.  Being inside my own head is like living out a Stephen King novel behind my eyes at times.

Home-made Noodles post Halloween

Mmmmm...fat, succulent home-made noodles just like Mom taught me.  Nothing better for these chilly fall evenings.  Now if those bums that call myself my family had saved me any on Halloween I wouldn't have had to cook a second batch! Kidding.  I did make a huge pot of chicken and home-made noodles for Halloween night but I'm nothing but flattered that they were all gone that evening.  Funny, and one of my brothers had even brought his own plastic to-go containers to scam leftovers with. Sorry, Kenneth!

So last night, Gene had home-made noodles AGAIN but this time I chose to make beef and noodles to give him a little different taste sensation.

What can I say? They hit the spot! 

I love this recipe because even though my mother and I had a rocky relationship most of my life, we were a good team in the kitchen. As I've said before, my mother was a wonderful cook and an outstanding baker. She had a cake decorating business out of our home and I was drafted at an early age, as the oldest daughter of five kids, to be her sous chef and dishwasher. As I aged I graduated in my duties in Mom's kitchen to being her baker, assistant decorator, and the fill-in chef for family dinners. That's where the noodles come in. They're not hard at all but writing down the recipe is. You know how it is with recipes you've made for years, so long and so naturally that you no longer measure anything or think about what you're doing.  It's the same with this but Halloween afternoon when I made them, I did try to pay attention and write down the details: 

New to The Daily Tiffin

I'm a new writer to The Daily Tiffin, subtitled For A Healthy Family Lifestyle blog. It's a nice place to go for current information and recipes about all things healthy.  I'll be in a revolving schedule posting about once a month showing/giving lunchbox ideas and recipes.

My article is here:  Legumes to the Lunchbox Rescue  and then fell free to wander around for lots of great information.

First Day Back at Work: Lunch Box Meals are Back Again

Lunchbox contents from top to bottom, left to right:  Protein snack bar, Crystal Lite individual pack, Protein shake, Cold Sesame Noodle Salad with Peanuts and Parsley, fresh pitted cherries, zuchinni sticks, baby carrots.

Last night was my first night back at work at the hospital (respiratory therapy) in right at three months.  For the two people I haven't whined to I had a knee injury followed by an incredibly long diagnosis journey, followed by surgery exactly five weeks ago.  Last night was my first night back on the job and it was a doozy.  But such is life. Right now my life revolves around Aspercreme and ice packs.

Since I'm also back to wanting to take good, healthy meals to get me through my shifts rather than go to the cafeteria...I know. You'd think a hospital cafeteria would focus on only extremely nutritious food but the sad fact is no one would buy it. We have a nice salad bar and they do serve a poached fish several times a week but I wasn't consistently seeing or buying what I should be eating so, like a lot of people, I brown bag it. Or in my case, I cute little Japanese bento box it.

IF I can find foods that are fast, satisfying, and pretty in my fridge. Otherwise, it's a challenge.

Last night's lunch fulfilled all three.  The cold sesame udon noodle salad was inspired by Sher, at What Did You Eat's Spicy Sesame Noodles with Peanuts and Basil. That photo looks so inviting to me that I had to make it even if I didn't have all the ingredients in the cupboard.  Real creativity in the kitchen, mine at least, is brought on by cravings, a skimpy pantry, and an unwillingness to go to the grocery for one or two items.  So my Sesame Noodle Salad with Peanuts and Parsley sved my day. Or dinner. Depends on how you look at it.

The best part was the entire lunch took less than fifteen minutes to prepare and I was on my way.  It's all about a little juggling. While the noodles boiled, I prepared the vegetables for the salad and the rest of the veggies in the lunchbox.  By the time the noodles were cooked, everything was packed, the dressing for the salad was made, and all I had to do was toss it all together and scoop it into the bento.  You can't beat that with a stick, like my grandmother always said. Have no idea what it means but it feels right for this case.

My lunchbox noodle salad is my entry this week in Ruth of Once Upon a Feast's weekly Presto Pasta Nights event. Check her blog Friday to see all the pasta dishes being served up this week.

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!

My first Run in with Truffles

Who knew that these four simple ingredients could serve up a homey, comforting, light meal?  I do now. 

Last night Gene was out helping a friend move a bunch of furniture so  I was left on my own for dinner.  Just yesterday morning I was saying I'm determined to get back into fresh meals packed with nutrition most of the time and away from grabbing something drive-through or take-out.  Last night was the first challenge of my new resolve/rededication.  I chose a simple pasta over a burger and I'm so glad I did.

The four ingredients above complimented each other perfectly.  I tossed the warm pasta that I had boiled in salted water with a splash of chicken stock with a couple of Tbsp of omega-3 loaded walnut oil and a few drops of truffle juice.  Then I re-seasoned the pasta with the very finely ground and light Maine lemon salt.  At that point I could have stopped. I couldn't wait to dig in because the smell, woodsy and citrussy, made it an act of willpower to finish grating a little truffle and asiago on top, let alone taking the time to photograph the dish. But even with "all that", once the pasta was cooked, the whole dish took less than five minutes to put together.

You know what really surprised me?  As light and subtle as that pasta was I ate less than half (but all of the truffle bits) and was well-satiated for the evening.  I've never had truffles before so I have nothing to compare this too, but what I ate I really liked and the walnut oil set it off well.  The only word I can use to describe the taste is woodsy.  Sort of along the mushroom line but not exactly, something primordially satisfying to the senses.

My dish is this week's entry in Ruth's, of Once Upon a Feast's, weekly event Presto Pasta Nights.  Run by her site later in the week for more great pasta ideas for the week.

New Mostaccioli Recipe & Some Housekeeping Items

First of all, after giving that shortcut mostaccioli recipe a week or so ago right after my knee surgery, I decided to do it again only in the longcut version and using a couple of new recipes.  The first is my reworking of a recipe for Olive Garden's Alfredo recipe (by the way, you gained 5 lbs and got 10 minutes closer to your future heart attack just now from simply reading the word "Alfredo") and a new spaghetti sauce spice mix I put together for a friend who's having severe emotional distress about Paris Hilton's incarceration Lawry's decision to stop production on "Spatini" spaghetti sauce mix. 

My friend, Cindy, wrote me asking if I had any idea where to find a copycat recipe and after combining a few Googled recipes, don't know if my mix will exactly match Spatini but after tonight's trial run I know it's pretty good.  I made up a batch of the mix for her to try out before investing a paycheck in McCormicks' since she doesn't keep all twelve, or whatever, herbs and spices individually in her cabinet like I do.  I put them in a pretty little jar and shipped them off to her today.  I suppose most people would have gone the whole way of finding a small box, grabbing some newspaper to crumple, and pack the jar in but I'm much too lazy for that. I simply masking taped the jar lid to make sure it didn't come off (not screw on) and walked it in naked in my hand to my local UPS Store.  I've used them a lot for gifts when I don't have time to wrap. For a couple extra bucks they'll wrap, pack, and track your parcel across the country. 

Let me share with you what I learned today.  Imagine you were me, walking in to your local UPS Store with a clear jar chock full of dried greenish "herby" bits...and all the workers at the counter are college aged...and there are several customers in the store around you....now.....just think about that for a moment in a way that I didn't as I obliviously trotted in and said "I need to mail this to Woonsocket, please."  And then the kid at the counter with a big grin that I was sure in my naivete at the time would make him employee of the year because he was just so darn friendly, asked "What is it?"  And I, being stupid, answered "Just some home-made stuff for a friend..."

Cindy, the Narcs will be waiting for you when you pick up that box.  Sorry, dudette.

So here is the dinner, not as pretty as the other mostaccioli pic, but tasty none-the-less, and the recipes for both the Alfredo and the home-made, wink wink, Spatini are after the jump.

With all the herbs in the non-Spatini Spatini mix, especially my favorite Italian trio of basil, oregano, and thyme, the mostaciolli is my entry this week for Weekend Herb Blogging, created by the wonderful Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen, and hosted this week by Rachel of Rachel's Bite.  Run by her blog later in the week to see all the herby dishes being created around the world, most of them hopefully legal.

Now on to some other miscellaneous stuff that I keep either forgetting to talk about or little things I just want to throw in here:

1)  I remember a little while back I was asked what my new camera is and I keep forgetting to say.  It's no big deal at all but I appreciate the asking.  I did have a Kodak something or other for several years but it has been slowly dying for the last year. I finally got fed up, went to a local camera shop, told them what I use it for which is basically not much. I'm not a big photographer so I just needed something super easy that takes decent pics and that I can't screw up. Really. That last part was the most important.  I just want it to read my mind and give me what I want. Is that too much to ask of an inanimate object?  Much the same as what I want from my husband.

I ask for so little in this world.

So when I talked to the nice man at the counter, Itold him I could only spend up to $200, fully expecting for him to sneer and get on the intercom and point me out as being a lily livered lost sales cause, but instead,   he said "you don't really need to spend that much.  I can get you a basic little Nikon that will have more functions and better pictures than what you have now and I'm pretty sure you'll be happy."  He was right.  It's just a little Nikon Coolpix L10 ($120) and I love it.  Takes better pics, has some zoom, takes video, all things my other cursed camera didn't do.  I am happy.  And I'm personally going to petition God to let him in heaven without hassle because he's the first salesman in my life who didn't lie, didn't only show me items that were at or over my budget, and he was nice.  Nice, I tells ya.  I've never really met a nice salesman before.

I'm putting him on my Christmas card list. 

He's my new best friend.  He, on the other hand is wishing he'd never sold me a camera because as my new best friend I emailed him pics of my new $4 Walgreen's thong sandals and asked for his opinion of if they make my toes look fat.  He didn't answer so I guess that means they make my toes look cute.  Right?  You see the logic here?

2)  In the realm of--Isn't this cute?--I finally ate (okay gave to the nieces) the last of the turtle cookies my fantabulous co-workers got for me following my surgery and at the bottom was this way cool cookie holder. I've made cookie bouquets before of my own using a basket and floral foam but check this out:

How cool is that? It holds something like 21 cookies!  So the next time I make a cookie bouquet for a sick friend there's going to have to be a return deposit on the container.  You know, something along the lines of "give this back or I'll burn your house down".  You know, something just stern enough to be listened to.

3)  Along the lines of alwasy be prepared and do so months in advance, I'm going to offer all of us some family Christmas party advice. Oh, nothing I thought of myself, but it is a great piece of advice that I found in a magazine at my surgeon's office.  It was so inspired to come home with me that it ripped itself out and made its way magically into my purse when no one I wasn't looking.

So heed this this wisdom on how to cope with horrifying family holiday parties because it was bought at the price of my integrity. From the November 2005 Oprah, and God knows anything Oprah prints is true because Oprah is God herself,

"The single best way to cope with familial turmoil is to give up the hope that your relatives will suddenly become cornucopias of emotional health.  It's true.  Your family of origin should give unconditional love, wisdome, and insite. And this will happen right after your hamster publishes its novel.  Instead of yearning for the a perfec tfamily, listen to teach Byron Katie, author of the book I Need Your Love--Is That True?  "If I had a prayer," she writes, "it would be this:  God spare me from the desire for love, approval, and appreciation.Amen."  This sound sharsh if you've never experienced freedome from these desires, which comes when you accept yourself."

I do believe that, so much so in fact that I will stand up in front of all of you right now and say that I no longer desire anyone's love, approval, or appreciation, if that's alright with you.

4)Check this out--The City Bakery in LA is selling Paris Hilton cupcakes complete with nail file (okay popsicle stick but I LOVE the fun of these). I found the pic/story on the famous TMZ website. Check them out. They're much better at reporting celeb news than Perez Hilton and they don't kiss Miss HIlton's "buttchops", as my deaf niece referred to her "buttocks" today.  www.tmz.com

5) And for our final little goldmine of the day...remember back when I did that really stupid thing and made those oils with the fresh herbs?  Then remember when I came back and told you to really, really, really, NEVER do that thing with the fresh herbs in oil?  Yeah, well, remember when a couple of you smartasses (Kyleen and Sher) said "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if you grew a biological weapon and then photographed it for us?"

Do I deny you people anything? Of course not.

So here you go, kiddoes.  Photographic proof that putting fresh herbs in oil is a really stupid thing to do. Well, to be fair, putting them in isn't stupid if your intent is to poison someone but since that's not real high on most people's to-do list, we can put it firmly in the stupid category for the biggest proportion of the population.

Look, rejoice, and revel in all that botulism can be when left on the window sill unchecked.  Yum!

See what looks like cutesy cotton all around the thyme?  That would be clouds of noxious bacteria.  Put it down and walk away.

See all those little specs of white on the peppers?  I have no clue on this planet without a plate of agar what the hell that is.  I'm guessing probably nothing high on the county health inspector's "good" list.

The two on the left were both canola oil. The two on the right were olive oil. The olive oil subjects fared a little better with no visible bacteria.  My personal guess is the acid in the olives is keeping the bacteria in check but don't quote me on it.  But hey, my name's not Mikey and I'm not eatin' it.  Tomorrow they all get tossed.

So the next time you feel like emulating me on something like this, think harder.  But most of the rest of what I do won't get you into too much trouble.