Cooking Guilt

I was really, really half-assed with my cooking last week. And I know it.

We've suddenly gotten very busy at work, and combine that with waiting for the other shoe to drop in the current state of the economy, it was just exhausting. Getting home and wanting to do nothing but just veg out. It happens. And I've learned to just go with that feeling rather than try to push myself and ending up crashing and burning.

But I wanted to make it up to myself this weekend.

Headed out yesterday into the frozen tundra that the Chicago area has become to do my weekly shopping. I did make a fun little discovery in stopping by a little Italian deli that is very nearby, and I found out they do some GREAT sandwiches. Too bad they close at 6pm in the evening. But I figure if we've got a taste for sandwiches on a Friday, I can always try to stop on my way home from work.

For dinner, it was shrimp with pasta and cream sauce. Mmmm... cream sauce.

Started by making some garlic confit...



And then some tomato confit....



Add some garlic and unfortunately all of the tomato confit... I wanted to have some of it for another dish later this week, but two of the tomatoes I bought were just too darned hard to use... to the cream, plenty of salt, and break out the stick blender...



Always tasty, even though I sprung for the wild-caught American shrimp this time around and all I could taste while eating them was chlorine, but the pasta and sauce was good.

Also, yesterday, I dealt with a mess of onions and turned this....



Into this...



.. which went into the slow cooker with a stick of butter before we went to bed, and in the morning, I came downstairs to the wonderful sights and smells of this...



The weather is not going to be any kinder to us this week, so I figured for lunches, I'd do some grilled turkey and Swiss sandwiches with some French Onion soup.

One of the reasons I love doing the onions in the slow cooker (other than the Unattended Cooking Time... seriously... it took me a half hour to clean/chop all those onions) is all the juice you get. The cover traps the liquid in the cooker insert....



See? Look at all that liquid. You don't want to waste that.

Now time to play with some of the stocks I have made recently.... dumped in some veal stock, some duck stock and some chicken stock....



I also added some balsamic, some pepper, thyme, Worcestershire sauce, put the lid on, and let it cook for 4 hours on high.

Hmmm.. how do I amuse myself in the meantime??

Spice rub!!!



A bunch of spices for a rub for my ribs for next Sunday. I usually do a version of Alton Brown's "No Backyard Baby Back Ribs", but we're not fans of the spice rub he uses. WAY hot. My favorie recipe comes out of The Complete Meat Cookbook. AWESOME cookbook. If you like meat, you should own this cookbook.

Even though I have a very nice cookbook stand, I usually jot down notes on a post-it and thwap it on a cabinet to give me instruction while I cook. See??



For those interested....

2 T paprika
2 T chili powder
2 t cayenne
2 T garlic powder
2 T brown sugar
1 T cumin
1 T mustard powder
1 t ground sage
1 t oregano
1/4 cup salt (kosher)
1 T fresh black pepper

Wooo.... pretty.... it's like tasty sand art....



And then it's time to shake shake shake, shake shake shake, shake your spice rub!



I actually did a double batch.... really... have you ever heard anyone say "Gee... I just have too much spice rub around...."??? I don't think so.

Dinner tonight was chili.... mmm... tasty, warm chili.....



And with my new huge Le Creuset pot, I was able to make a double batch. Which means loads and loads of chili for freezer for later use....



So... at least for the near future... the lazy cooking nights can at least make use of my chili stockpile. Chili dogs, chili over tamales, chili omeletes (I know, it may sound gross, but it is seriously good - we had them once at Cheeseburger Las Vegas and we quickly became addicts). Really, what can't you do with chili??

24 degrees outside? Break out the summer shorts!

The dangerous cold has lifted... time to get on with life.

For me (and the rest of the people in the area) that apparently means going to the store.

Saturday was shopping day. The day started with a trip to Sam's Club. And apparently everyone was in as big of a need for toilet paper and coffee as me, since EVERYONE seemed to be at the store when I was there. I shoulda gone on Friday night.

I don't enjoy trips to Sam's Club. They didn't always used to be so bad, but as more people have gotten memberships over the years, the place is becoming as bad as Wally World. Unattended kids running around, people swarming for free samples (seriously... do you need to form a crowd three people deep for quesadilla samples?)... heck, there was almost a riot at the place with the roasted chickens by the meat... I thought some lady was going to clothesline me so she could grab the chicken I had in my hands. Ugh.

After that, the produce mart and regular grocery store were a cakewalk.

Actually, the product mart was even more fun than that.

I don't know if the deli dudes at Eurofresh read my blog or if there are just more people shopping there that are interested in what major stores seem to consider "nasty bits", but they've been hitting it off the charts lately. Since I first found veal bones there they have been excellent at usually having some out with the rest of the meat, as well as other bones for soups and stocks. I knew I needed to get my freezer chicken stock supply restored, and figured I'd just buy some wings or something and use those.

No need!

Apparently, they now sell dirt cheap packages of chicken necks and backs. Oh yeah.

When all was said and done, my meat haul when I returned from the stores....



And NOT pictures is the cooked chicken and ribs I picked up at Sam's club. Chicken will be used probably tomorrow for dinner, and the ribs are in the freezer, waiting for Superbowl Sunday.

In all the meat pictured above is two packages of the chicken necks/backs, two packages of ground beef, two packages of ground turkey (good sale), a package of turkey culets, a flank steak, mild Italian sausage, two packages of chicken wings (also for Superbowl Sunday).... and apparently other stuff, since there are more packages there than I am recalling right now. Oh yeah.. a package of country ribs. 'N stuff.

The country ribs, flank steak and sausage were for Sunday dinner.

But before that.... see anything missing?



Ah. The Final De-Christmasization of the House. Christmas tree is put away. Just as much fun as the day it first goes up.

So... um... yeah... by the time all the shopping/putting away and cleaning was done, it was late.

We ordered pizza.

Hey, a girl needs a night off sometimes.

But tomorrow was another day... the hubby went over to his folks for awhile, so I was left alone in the house. Blew threw some stuff on the Tivo and I was kinda bored. So I decided that I needed to make another big batch of Soup.

Cook More 2009: Soup, soup, soup, soup, soup, soup, soup soup!

(sung along to the Monty Python "Spam!" song)

Cheddar Chicken Chowder

I've actually made this before... long ago, the hubby and I were both home, snowed in from work, and I whipped some of this up for lunch. As I recall, I didn't exactly follow the recipe then, and I didn't follow it exactly this time.

Starting off, I only had some green pepper... not red....



See that lovely brown stuff on the bottom???



Foodies call it "fond". Anne Burell calls it "crud". I just call it "yummy stuff". You don't ever want to waste that yummy stuff on the bottom of pot. It's not icky, burned on stuff. It's goodness. Tasty, tasty, goodness.

A little bit of chicken stock and some scraping the bottom of the pan and it'll come off... making your food tasty, and your pot easier to clean....



Anyway.... I know I have cooked, shredded chicken in my freezer somewhere, but apparently it's playing hide and seek. I made several trips between the kitchen and the basement freezers, looking for it, with no luck.

And since the homemade chicken stock has not been done yet, time to go for the good boxed stuff...



Seriously... if you're going to use a stock/broth you get from the grocery store... ONLY by Kitchen Basics. I've sworn by the stuff for a long time, and I stocked up my mom's pantry with some for the week since I figured she'd be on a broth-type diet after her recent incident. After having weak chicken broth at the hospital for a few days, she was amazed at how good this stuff was.

On to the recipe.... ok... no frozen corn on hand but I think a couple cans of canned corn....



Make that one can of corn, one can of creamed corn. And apparently some pimentos that I was planning on using over the holiday to make some pimento chees that I never got around to.

In ya'll go!



Oh... and that went in with the LOG of frozen cooked turkey that I was able to find. The ever-ellusive chicken is still in the freezer, somewhere.

I have to say... this stuff was as good as the first time I made it.



Mmmmm.....



Even forgetting the crumbled bacon on top (I did use some bacon fat to cook the veg) this was darned tasty. Creamy, cheesy, and it works well with turkey.

Dinner was a snap tonight... Italian Sunday Gravy again.



This is kinda the point where you start to skim some of the fat off the surface. Big old grease slicks are not pretty, but this is still some tasty stuff.

This time I did not cut back on the garlic, and since I didn't use spicy sausage (only mild... haven't found a brand of spicy sausage that I like) I added probably a heaping half tablespoon of red pepper flakes, and wowsa... all the difference in the world. It doesn't make it "burn the mouth" spicy... just gives it a nice, overall spice and flavor. Red pepper flakes are kinda like garlic... kinda overpowering when "raw" or added without much cooking, but when you let them cook for a long time, they do some really nice things.

And with that... the weekend is over... on to the workweek. Ugh. At least with MLK Day tomorrow there is no school traffic, which adds a little less frustration to the day.

But there is a bright spot... hopefully tomorrow I'll get my copy of Polish Heritage Cookery... someone in the hubby's family needs to make pierogi from scratch, and I've decided that is me. I know his dad's mother was always the great cook of the family and she used to do all this stuff... someone else needs to bring it back. I *WILL* be doing some type of homemade pierogi for Easter.

Weekend Update

Been a busy weekend around these parts. And the weather hasn't helped.

We were expecting a big snow to start coming through on Friday night, and in anticipation of that, I made a quick stop at the store on Thursday night to get provisions to do some frozen pizzas for dinner on Friday (my weekly "no cook" night). I already suspected I was coming down with a cold thanks to our petri dish of an office, and by Friday morning when I made it through the first round of snow and got to work, all I wanted was for it to be 5pm so I could go home and crash in bed for the night.

No such luck.

I'd talked to my mom on Thursday night and she mentioned she was feeling a bit... um... blocked up. What she kinda failed to mention was that she was kinda in pain from it. When she got up on Friday she was in a lot of pain, so she called in to work and went to see the doctor, and her doc did a CAT scan on her right away (his office is at a diagnostic facility). She went to go fill a prescription and while doing that, the doc called and said it was likely that she had an infection in her colon due to diverticulitis. He suggested maybe going over to the hospital that afternoon to have it checked out, and she did, and they ended up admitting her to the hospital and putting her on IV antibiotics and fluids.

I left work as early as I could, met the hubby at the house, and we headed to the hospital. Met my bro & sis in law & the kids there and visited with mom for a bit. She was not doing well, but glad she was at least there and hopeful to get better.

The roads were terrible on our way home, we picked up some McD's because it was on the way home. We didn't get home until pretty late.

We'd planned to go by on Saturday afternoon, but when I called my mom, my bro & fam were just leaving and she said she hadn't slept the night before and just wanted to try and get some sleep. I liked that plan so much, I decided to crash myself. I slept on and off for the entire afternoon and into the evening, and when my mom called she said not to bother to come by since the predicted snow went way longer than expected and roads were a mess. Hubby confirmed they were a mess when he came back from the hot dog stand down the block with a chili dog and some of their awesome chicken rice soup for me.

We did go to visit mom today (after I made a quick run thru the grocery store to stock up on some stuff for her, then we went to her house to clean up a bit, let the dog out, play with the dog, and pack some more clothes for her) and I'm happy to say that she was doing and looking MUCH better, finally getting at least liquid food, and should hopefully be going home tomorrow.

Hey... lady,... is there a point to this?

Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Blame the rambling on the cold brain.

So....

Cook More, 2009: Week 2 - The Dinner Edition

Tonight is a night I'd usually just not cook. Too tired, my brain is mush, if I tried to handle one of my serious knives I'd likely lose a hunk of skin. But I am lucky enough to have a pretty well-stocked freezer.

A recent blog post by Michael Ruhlman talked about a Mark Bittman NYT article talking about the "new" gourmet pantry, and Michael Ruhlam went a little farther to talk about things people keep in their freezers.

I'm a huge fan of the freezer, because on a night like tonight, nothing is more wonderful.

I made fried eggplant on New Year's Eve, and when I'm gonna fry eggplant, I make it a point to make more than I know I'll use, since it freezes wonderfully for the purpose of making a quick eggplant parm later down the line. I knew before we even left the house that I was sick of eating out and I wanted some nice, home food. I pulled the eggplant out of the freezer before we left, and while doing the shopping for my mom I did pick up a loaf of french bread, but I also almost always have a demi-baguette in the freezer.

First up.... Cheesy Garlic Bread. Yum!

I almost always have fresh garlic on hand, and I am still in butter-overload mode in the fridge. Didn't follow the recipe exactly, I melted all my butter while cooking the garlic since I didn't start with room temp butter.



Bring on the bread.....



I actually split the loaf into quarters... I baked off half of the loaf tonight, and stuck the rest in the freezer. When one taketh from the freezer, one should replace-ith what one taketh....

Mmmm... in it's garlic, cheesy glory....



On to the eggplant....



Layers of sauce, parm, romano and mozzerella go in between each little layer of eggplant....



Ready to go into the oven.....



I actually just threw it in the oven while the garlic bread was doing it's magic, but I've been known to (OK, I usually) throw it in the mircowave to heat it through.



Mmm.... eggplanty goodness.

Thank you, freezer, from keeping me from more french fries tonight.

Skip the workout, bring on the cooking!!

I was bad today. I didn't work out when I got home.

And there was a new episode of Ghost Hunters International after dinner, followed by the newest episode of Top Chef.

Sorry, elliptical, I still love you, but Ghosts and Food win.

So... during commercials... I can update on the recent goings-on in the kitchen! Way more fun.

I'm trying out a new little project here for 2009.... one of my goals is to cook more. Really, this is going to mean making more lunches for myself. So far, I've made 3 things.

Well, bring it on, lady!!

Cook More 2009: Lunches, Week 1 - Veg out!!

Tamale Lentil Casserole

A friend (hey look Jane... you're famous - or is that infamous? - now!) mentioned this recipe and I had to hunt it down... I've got loads of lentils on hand for some reason, and I was happy to see it used a taco seasoning packet. I'm trying to break myself of the habit of using them, and I had one lone "Hot Taco Seasoning" packet left in the cupboard.

The lentils... simmering.... it smelled wonderful....


Lentils, ready to be topped with the cornbread mix....



And the cornbread topping goes on....



Into the oven. Easy enough to do... a lot of unattended cooking time. And out of the oven....




Ooops. Um, lentil mixture bubbled through the top. Oh well.

It did actually hold together somewhat well in slices after it cooled a little....



My serving... with some homemade quac (I had an avocado to use), sour cream and olives (I did work out that day, I swear, so I could eat those things).



Overall... pretty good. I used a Jiffy cornbread mix, and I found the cornbread to be a little too sweet for my tastes. But boy... is it hearty... you wouldn't think it was meatless. The leftovers have been very tasty this week.

On to recipe number 2....

Thai Soup

I have made the chicken version of this several times and love it, and I did intend on doing it with chicken, until I saw some tofu on sale at the market. I don't have anything against tofu - it's not tofu's fault it has no bacon in it - and I do enjoy it in Asian soups. So, bring on the tofu!!

My mis en place....



The stalky-thing... lemon grass. A couple shallots. Two cans of coconut milk, fish sauce, chicken broth (ok, so it's not TOTALLY veggie, but I had the chicken broth on hand and wasn't going to spend money on veggie broth when I already had chicken broth on hand), some leftover lime, panang chili paste, cilantro, and some shitake mushrooms.

First the broth... one can of coconut milk, some fish sauce, the stock, the shallots, some cilantro (not too much for me, I'm not a cilantro person), the lemon grass, and I threw in the stems from the mushrooms since they were cleaned. Simmer that for ten minutes, then strain off the soilds, return the liquid to the pot, add the sugar & chili paste & additional fish sauce, and continue on....



Mushrooms, tofu and bean sprouts, ready to join the party....



What's that... the picture above is why you hate tofu? Me too. I accidentially bought non-firm tofu, so I couldn't really cube it up like I wanted. Oh well.

Add the mushrooms to the stock, simmer for a couple minutes until they're cooked....



Bamboo shoots! Dive on in!!



Add tofu and let it warm through....



My tasting portion....



Very tasty. The original recipe calls for button mushrooms and if I'd used those and the firm tofu, you might not even be able to tell the difference between the mushrooms and the tofu. And the bean sprouts were surprisingly good... a nice crunch, and a nice alternative to noodles or something else.

Baked Falafel

No recipe here. I had a package of falafel mix that I needed to use up. I did follow Ellie Krieger's method of baking them though.



Falfel mix, meet water. Go hang over in the corner for about 15 minutes while the oven comes up to temp.

Made my patties, threw them in the oven.

Ta-da!!!



I've tried baked falafel before and have been very disappointed... not so with these. Maybe a little dry, but still tasty and crunchy (when the hubby came in and saw me making these tonight, he asked what I was doing, and I replied "Making crunch patties!" since a day without a Simpsons reference is pretty much unheard of around here).

On to my own tzatziki recipe... started with a half a cucumber in the food processor. Since that bowl was already dirty, I plopped my greek yogurt in there along with some garlic, salt and pepper, and mixed away....



This will become watery. Which is one reason I usually throw it in a container lined with several coffee filters... the water will drip down to the bottom and it won't water down your sauce. If you're serving it right away, just drain the cucumber for a little while. I won't be eating this until tomorrow, so it'd be watery by then if I didn't have a draining system figured out.



There you go, kids. Three things that make multiple, tasty lunches, and they don't even involve bacon. Who'da thunk??