Molasses Baked Beans

While I'm technically not on my endurance test anymore, I'm still using pantry items first.  The idea of leaving the oven on all afternoon was pretty hideous, but I cooked this at a low temperature.  I have a very well-insulated oven, so it didn't really heat up the kitchen.

For the most part, I followed a scaled-down recipe from food.com.  I skipped the pork because I was having this with short ribs done kalua style.  I was happy that there's no added salt.  For once, a recipe doesn't resort to it for flavor.  Yes, ketchup is salty.  That was enough.  I've been eating out too much and noticed my face getting a little puffy from all the salt.  Started having high-potassium foods and more water to compensate.

This is a soak-the-beans recipe because the ones out of the can are already cooked and will come up entirely too mushy.  Plan the day before.

1 C dry great northern beans
1 bay leaf
1/2" thick slice of onion, quartered
1/4 C ketchup
3 Tb brown sugar
3 Tb molasses
1 tsp mustard or 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
1/4 tsp ground pepper

1.  The night before, soak beans in 3 cups water.  Early in the day, drain.

2.  Preheat oven to 300º.  Into an oven-safe 2 qt casserole, place all ingredients.  Cover with 1 C boiling water.  Stir until sauce is even, cover with a tight lid, and bake for 4 hours.  Check every hour to make sure the water didn't all evaporate.  If still too watery at the 3-hour mark, leave the lid cracked slightly.  You want a thick sauce, but not dry beans.

3.  Remove from oven, discard bay leaf, and serve hot or cold

Difficulty rating  :)

Nothing Special

I went a little crazy at the market and spent about $50 restocking.   Basically, I bought anything I thought I might use in the near future that was a decent price.  Only the chicken thighs and broccoli were part of a planned meal.

The reason I'm posting something as basic as this is to show that a "special" meal (in this case, my Shabbat Shuvah dinner) is all about the attitude and presentation.  You can make something fancy, or you can present the ordinary with an air of elegance.  Half of what makes restaurant food so appealing is how it is plated.  (The other half is salt.)

I haven't been cooking much because it has been so hot.  Boiling the veggies and throwing chicken in the oven felt taxing.  I'm mostly doing dips and cheeses.  Or picking up stuff. The last thing I baked was a batch of Oatmeal Everything cookies.  Since it makes over four dozen, I just threw the rest in the freezer for teas over the next few weeks.  Don't be surprised if I don't post for a week.  Unless my cooking mojo comes back, I'm not making anything until next Tuesday, meaning the post would be the day after.  I really hope it's cool enough by then to slow-roast some pork ribs I picked up.

Garden Meatloaf

I'm going grocery shopping this morning!  I had hoped to sneak in a small batch of chicken soup with a carcass I found at the bottom of the chest freezer, but there isn't enough to round it out.  It would have been just chicken and lentils or navy beans.  I used up the last bit of onion on this.  Still, 18 days is pretty impressive for someone who shops every three to four days (the shelf life of bananas) and primarily uses fresh produce.  I'm going to clean the fridge first.  It hasn't been this empty in a year.

I pulled the first ear of corn and the largest-seeming carrots for this.  Eggy was getting jealous until the carrots turned out to be extremely small.  So I threw in the two largest eggplants instead.  This turned out to be an excellent idea.  This has to be the most moist and delicate meatloaf I've ever made.  It does not taste like eggplant, except for a lingering hint of something different.

I used rice for the filler, but did not pre-cook it.  I soaked the Basmati for several hours and put it in raw, so the juices of the vegetables and meat could soak into it as everything baked.  The rice did cook, so that experiment is a success.

*1 small eggplant, cut up
1 carrot, chopped
*1/2 onion, chopped
*1 ear of corn
salt and pepper
1 egg
1/4 C dry rice
1 lb 80/20 ground beef
*1/4 C ketchup

1.  Early in the day, soak the rice in 1 C water.  Drain and toss in the food processor.

2.  Preheat oven to 325º.  To the rice, add eggplant, carrot, and onion.  Scrape the kernels off the ear of corn and add.  Run the processor until the veggies are a coarse paste.

3.  Add ground beef, egg, and ketchup.  Process again until uniform.  Spread in a loaf pan and bake until internal temperature reaches 160º, about one hour.  It's ok to drain off the juices after about 45 minutes.  There will still be enough in there to finish cooking the rice.  Let loaf sit for 10 minutes to rest and reach 165º.

4.  Slice and serve.  It may be very soft and break apart.  Given the alternative of a sturdy chunk of meat, I'm cool with that.

Difficulty rating  π

Lemon Meringue Tarts

Rooting through the pantry doesn't have to mean weird, mish-mash food.  It just means you have to look at what's in there with an open mind.

I have no idea how old the box of graham crackers is, but the "sell by" date was Jan 2013.  It's pie crust now.  One lemon off the tree, an egg before I finish them off, and the rest is pantry staples.

I had debated whether to do these as simple lemon curd tarts, but then I'd have an egg white left over.  Instead, I did a 1/4 recipe of a full sized lemon meringue pie.  Fun with math.

4 graham crackers (8 squares)
2 Tb + 1 tsp butter
sugar
salt
4 tsp cornstarch
2 Tb lemon juice
6 Tb water
1 tsp grated lemon zest
1 egg, separated

1.  To make the crust, crush the graham crackers.  You can use the food processor, but I just put them in a ziplock and ran over them with the rolling pin.  Melt 2 Tb butter and pour into crumbs.  Stir with a fork until moistened.  Press into 4 patty pans or - if you're into insanely cute kitchenware like I am - individual tartlet pans.  These are so small that you do not need to pre-bake the crusts.

2.  In a small saucepan, stir together cornstarch, 8 tsp (2 Tb + 2 tsp) sugar, and a dash of salt.  Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and water and allow everything to dissolve.  Cornstarch will clump when heated if it is not dissolved in a cool liquid first.

3.  Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly.  It only takes a couple of minutes because there is so little in the pot.  It will start to thicken and turn glossy.  Remove from heat.

4.  Beat egg yolk slightly.  Add a couple of spoonfuls of the lemon mixture to the egg to temper it, beat everything together, then return the gloppy mess to the pot.  Heat over low until thickened further, but do not boil or you'll curdle the egg.  Turn off heat and stir in 1 tsp of butter until melted and incorporated.  Divide filling between tart shells.

5.  Preheat oven to 375º.  Beat egg whites with a dash of salt to soft peaks.  Slowly add 1 Tb of sugar and beat meringue into a firm, glossy peak stage.  Top tarts with meringue and bake for 10 minutes, or until meringue is as dark as you want it.

6.  Cool tarts to room temperature before trying to remove from tins.  I left the removable bottoms on mine and served them without the rims.  You can chill the tarts to serve cold, but the meringue will start to get chewy after a day or so.  I don't recommend making these more than one day ahead.

Difficulty rating  :)

Pantry Endurance Test

I'm redoing my guest bathroom and trying to find ways to save a few dollars here and there.  It isn't a huge, expensive redo, but replacing a toilet turns into redoing the cracked floor, and of course the old wallpaper doesn't come down far enough to meet the new baseline.  And while the medicine cabinet and light are off the wall anyway, might as well get new ones…  Not redoing the vanity or shower, which would have been much more expensive than the rest put together.

So I decided to see how long I could go without grocery shopping.  After all, I eat at least one meal a day at work anyway, so we're only talking about one or two meals a day plus snacks.  My last shopping trip was on August 29th.  There's still plenty in the pantry, a few things in the freezer, and I'm getting close to harvesting carrots and corn.  There was a surprise cucumber hiding behind a rock and all the cherry tomatoes ripened at the same time.  Plus, Eggy keeps producing, even if the eggplants are on the small side.  My guess is I'll run out of OJ, milk, and eggs around the same time.  I have dinners planned until the 16th if I can harvest a couple of carrots and ears of corn.  Maybe later if I have to run from work to choir rehearsals and pick up drive-thru, but I don't think the milk will last that long.  I can do without OJ, but I need milk in my coffee.  I'm out of cheese, too.  Had a dollop of cream cheese on my nachos (home-made tortillas).  It was different, as it subbed in for both the cheese and sour cream.

What I'm finding is that I still look longingly at the weekly grocery ads, thinking what I could make with what's on special.  But I do have loads of food on hand that I should prepare before stocking up again.  Most of our food waste as a nation is what we throw away because it spoiled before we could eat it.  It's an expense, and somewhat immoral when you consider those who do not have enough to eat.

But I really do miss grocery shopping.  I already started a list for when this ends.

Summer Picnic at Home

It was hot in late August, as it often is.  Combined with closing shifts and not having time to cook, I decided to do a picnic-style dinner.  Sprouts carries pre-made patés.  They also had cantaloupes on sale for 48¢ each.  A wedge of brie, a loaf of fresh bread, and some pre-cooked mini eggplants later, I had the fixings for a no-cook meal that only needed some red wine to make it elegant.

If this looks like a lot of food on the plate, it was.  It was a nice snack-style assortment of fruit, veggie, meat, and dairy.  This is the kind of meal you eat slowly, enjoying the contrasts in flavor and texture.

I hope everyone enjoyed their summer.

Hash Browns

When I go out for a fancy breakfast, the main dish may be what I order, but I'm really there for the hash browns.  Crispy, slightly greasy, over-salted hash browns.  I'm not even all that into potatoes, and tolerate fries as a tradition with certain foods.  That's one of the reasons Passover is so hard on me starch-wise.

Making them at home is another matter.  The frozen ones taste great and cook up somewhat quickly, but they are much more expensive than they should be for something so simple.  You're paying someone else to clean the food processor.

This is basically Alton Brown's Man Hash Browns, with my own variations and substitutions.

Warning, these take a while.  That's another thing about getting them at a restaurant: minimal wait.

1 large Russet potato, about 1 lb
2 Tb rendered bacon fat or butter
salt, pepper, and paprika to taste

1.  Scrub the potato clean and cut off any eyes, but leave the skin on.  Either shred in a box grater or run through the food processor's shredding attachment.  Rinse, then dry on a kitchen towel.  Keep the towel closed while you heat up the pan.

2.  Preheat a 10" skillet over medium heat.  Melt bacon fat or butter and swirl around to coat the pan evenly.  Spread dried potato shreds evenly in pan.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and paprika.  Cook until browned and crispy, about 15 minutes.

3.  If you're talented and have two wide spatulas, you can flip the whole thing to brown the other side.  My attempt was less than successful, but I finally got all of the sections turned over.  You don't need to season the second side because it has most of the bacon grease on it.  Cook until browned and crispy, another 10 to 15 minutes.  Serve hot.

Difficulty rating  :)

The Grill Pan

I wanted to get a grill pan at the beginning of summer, but they seemed too expensive for such a specialized item that would only get used a couple of times a year.  Then there was one in the half-off, end-of-season section at Target and I decided to go for it.  It's supposed to be for cooking pizza on the grill, but can be used for anything.  Besides, bbq-ing pizza?

Brussels sprouts are not an obvious choice to serve alongside burgers, but I really wanted to try out the pan.  And grilling or roasting the sprouts until they are slightly charred is my favorite way of having them.  I only wished I had remembered I was out of parmesan when I was at the market.  Besides, whenever I light up the grill, I want to make the most of the charcoal.  I also made the grilled polenta for dessert.

One little caveat, keep some oven or grill mitts handy.  The handles get hot.  Yes, I was stupid.

And this has nothing to do with my most recent grilling session, but I took this photo of the corn while the charcoal was getting up to temp.  I have about four ears for sure.   I'm fine with them being small, since I usually cut my ears from the store in half.  I'm just hoping they grow healthy.

This isn't my house.  It's a few blocks away, and I thought it was totally amazing.  They trained their squash vines up on the roof!  I'm not sure exactly what they all are.  I think some are zucchini and there may be butternut squash.  Really hoping there's enough pumpkin in there to make the most awesome Halloween decoration ever.  You can see on the left that they trained the vines up a trellis until they were long enough to toss on the roof.  It's actually a very good idea.  The leaves won't get sprayed with water and form mold, and there are probably fewer pests up there.  It provides shade insulation for the house against the summer heat.  Getting the fruit down is another matter.  I have a rock roof, so this won't work for me, but a handy person who has limited garden space and no fear of heights could do this easily.

Fruity Coffee Cake

Thanks to everyone else's availability, I've been closing at work lately and having split days off.  It's a horrible schedule for a morning person, and even worse for preparing interesting dinners.  However, I'm not falling asleep during choir rehearsals and I get to have elaborate breakfasts.

Instead of making my apple coffee cake, I decided to blow the last of the canned nectarines on this one.  It wasn't going to be enough to flavor an entire cake, so I added a small container of fresh blueberries for the top half.  I think this makes the cake healthy…ish.  There's fruit in it.  Other than that, it's the same recipe, minus a little sugar because canned fruit is sweeter.  Since that post was five years ago (!), this isn't so much a rerun as a reminder.

Crumb
1/4 C flour
1/4 C quick oats
dash nutmeg
2 Tb sugar
3 Tb butter

1.  Stir together flour, oats, nutmeg, and sugar.  Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.  Refrigerate until needed.

Cake
1 C flour
1/3 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
1/4 C melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 C milk
1 15 oz can sliced peaches (since you can't buy canned nectarines) drained
1 5 oz container blueberries

1.  Preheat oven to 350º and butter an 8" square or 9" round cake pan.

2.  In a bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.

3.  In a separate bowl, combine butter, egg, and milk.  Stir into dry ingredients until just combined.  Do not over mix, and it's ok if there are dry patches.  Add peaches and stir to distribute.

4.  Pour out batter into baking pan and spread even.  Rinse blueberries, remove any lingering stems, and distribute evenly over top of cake.  Sprinkle top of that with the crumb topping.

5.  Bake for 50 minutes.  Turn off oven and let the pan sit in there another 10 minutes in the residual heat.  Remove from oven and cool completely before trying to turn out, or serve from pan a lot sooner.

Serves 6 to 8

Difficulty rating  π

Cucumber Gazpacho

I was massively skeptical when most of the "cucumber gazpacho" recipes I found included yogurt.  In gazpacho?

Guess what… it works.  The soup isn't overly creamy and has a distinctive bite, even though I skipped the hot sauce myself.

I'm not calling this "white gazpacho" because it came out green.  Also because I didn't cut the cucumber with honeydew or green grapes.  There were a lot of cucumbers to use.  The herbs add to the flavor enough to give it depth and not taste just like cucumber.

And it only takes minutes to make!

*1 lb cucumber
*1/2 C fresh parsley leaves
*1/4 C fresh mint leaves
1 C water or vegetable broth
*2 stalks green onion
*2 Tb white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
*2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp salt
dash pepper
tobasco or other hot sauce to taste
2 Tb plain yogurt (Greek ok)

1.  Peel cucumber and chop into bite-sized pieces.  Also chop the green onion.

2.  Put everything except the last four ingredients into the blender.  Pulse until large pieces are broken up, then run until smooth.  Add yogurt and run again to mix.

3.  Taste, then add salt, pepper, and hot sauce as needed.  Remember that flavors will dull as the soup is chilled.

4.  Keep soup cold until ready to serve.  Chilling the bowls is a good idea.  Garnish with more yogurt, parsley or mint leaves, or cucumber slices.

Makes 4 small appetizer servings

Difficulty rating  π