Turkey "Shepherd's" Pie

Okay, I've heard the purists say a shepherd's pie should be made from minced lamb rather than ground beef so I have no idea what to call one made from turkey! But it was good and used up a bit of leftovers with a slightly different taste.

1 Tbs butter
2 carrots, diced
1 celery stalk, diced
1/2 onion diced
1/2 to 1 cup leftover gravy
1/2 to 1 cup turkey broth
1-2 cups chopped cooked turkey
1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley

3 Tbs butter
2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat the 1 Tbs butter and saute the carrots, celery, and onion until soft, about 6 minutes. Add the gravy, broth, turkey, and parsley and heat. Taste and add salt and pepper as necessary. Pour into a buttered shallow casserole dish (8x8 at least, but a bit larger if possible).

Melt the other 3 Tbs of butter and put the mashed potatoes in the pan, stirring until heated through. Spread the potatoes over the turkey mixture, then sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake at 350 about 20 minutes.

Thanksgiving Leftover Soup

Like most of you, I've been busy between cooking Thanksgiving for 14, having extra house guests, and--I admit--just relaxing a bit! But I love making soup from the bits and pieces in the refrigerator and freezer. Post-Thanksgiving soup is even more fun because of the variety of dishes available. Here's what I did tonight:

1/2 an onion, diced
2 Tbs olive oil
leftover green bean casserole (about 1 cup)
leftover roasted root vegetables (about 1 1/2 cups)
leftover creamed onions (about 1/2 cup)
1 quart turkey broth
1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
2 Tbs chopped fresh parsley

Simmered the onion in the olive oil until softened, then I added the leftover vegetables. The roasted vegetables were a mix of carrots, butternut squash, and onion. I also added a quart of broth, a can of tomatoes, and parsley. Simmered 20 minutes or so. Everything was already cooked so this just let it heat up and meld.

I made this as a lighter soup. Had I wanted a heavier soup, I would have added some starchy component, maybe diced potatoes, rice, barley, or beans. And perhaps some leftover diced turkey--but I'd used it all up in the enchiladas I made the other night and froze the rest earlier today.

This soup was really good. I debated adding a can of V8 juice, as I seem to have some extra since my girls first loved it and now have decided it's not all that great--right after I bought a case at Costco. I think that would have added a nice touch. I would, perhaps, next time leave out the creamed onions, or saute them early on with the other onion. They were a bit crunchy and distracting.

I might add some rice or beans when I serve this again, probably tomorrow night. I like changing soup just a bit each time it's served. Some corn and/or red peppers would be a nice touch as well.

Turkey Broth

First, the broth. I was too tired to start this on Thursday so threw the turkey carcass into a (large) plastic bag and put it in the freezer. When I was ready to make broth on Saturday, I could only fit part of the carcass, since I cooked a 26 pound turkey, so I just used the parts that would fit into my largest stockpot.

I covered it with water and brought it to a simmer. Let the grey gunk form at the top and skimmed it off, then added some of my "stock building blocks" from the freezer, including carrot ends, onion tops, and celery parts. I added a few peppercorns, some parsley from the garden, some salt, and a bit of thyme. I brought it to the lowest possible simmer, covered it partially with a lid ajar, and let it cook a few hours. I tend to undersalt broth and then add salt as necessary when I cook soup or whatever.

After turning off the heat, I pulled out the largest parts to let cool so I could pull the meat off the bones and set aside for something. I strained the rest and cooled it overnight in a large pickle jar, so the fat would settle on the top and could be easily removed.

Thanksgiving menu

I am starting a household notebook of sorts and want to keep track of the different menus I use, so I can find those once-a-year recipes that were big hits!

Roast Turkey - Gourmet magazine, November 2003
Mashed potatoes - pretty traditional
gravy - my mom's best, with giblet broth, no recipe
Sweet potato casserole - Cooking Light, November 2003
green bean casserole - my sister's best, with crushed Cheese-Its on the top!
Roast root vegetables - How to Cook Everything
Cranberry Port Sauce - Sunset reader favorites, November 2004
Regular cranberry sauce - off the side of the bag of fresh cranberries
Dressing - Betty Crocker's old standby with sauteed celery
Spinach Salad with Pears - Cooking Light magazine, can't remember which
Creamed onions - Family favorite with no recipe, cheese sauce and boiling onions

Back to the Curry: This Time with Tofu

My earlier tofu curry was good but it lost something as leftovers, as the tofu had no firm definition. I made it again last night but fried the cubed tofu up in a bit of olive oil until it was nicely browned all over and then I added some minced garlic and chopped onions and cooked them until they were softened.

Did the usual after that, adding some red curry paste, then coconut milk, fish sauce, broth (I used a vegetable broth), green peas, bamboo shoots, and some green beans this time rather than red pepper, only because I didn't have any red pepper. I missed the red pepper; it provides a nice colorful touch and a bit of sweetness I think. I realized later I left out the sugar as well. This batch needed a bit more salt than normal (tofu being even milder than chicken maybe?) but the two adults eating it enjoyed it. I put in more red curry paste than I had before, which definitely kicked the spice notch up.

I just had some of the leftovers for lunch and it was great. The chicken curry works great for lunches the next day but the earlier version with the tofu was kind of bland. Browning it first really added a lot in terms of texture and it held up well as leftovers.

Slicing or Dicing Potatoes

In many recipes, you are called upon to slice or dice or chop potatoes. A long time ago, I learned that taking a bit of time to be methodical up-front to save a lot of time (and get more even pieces). Early in my cooking days, I just chopped wildly, rocking the knife back and forth, moving it around, until the pieces were cut. But they were inconsistent sizes. This works well when you want to mince, because you can just keep going until everything's tiny. But if you want to get some uniformly-sized slices or pieces, you need to be a bit more methodical. Generally, you want things to be of a consistent size so they cook in the same amount of time.

I slice a piece off the end to create a flat side I can lay things down on, and then slice the thing up in whatever dimensions I need.

Then I lay the thing down and slice lengthwise in the size I want.

Then turn the vegetable or fruit (in this case a potato), 90 degrees and slice across.

In this case, I was making sauteed potatoes.

Pork Tenderloin and Bourbon Marinade

Oh, yum! I love finding a new marinade. And pork tenderloins are so lean and so good and cook up so easily. I've always grilled them although I suppose one day I'll have to experiment with indoor cooking. But for now... I'm never sure when they say bourbon quite what that means since I'm not a big whiskey drinker. (I do enjoy some good Scotch now and then, the taste for which I blame on my Scottish grandfather but that could be just wishful thinking.) I made this with some Jim Beam I found in the cupboard, probably left over from who knows how many years ago. Maybe my old bluegrass days even, as I have some fond memories of my first taste of bourbon when it began snowing while we were camped up in the foothills for some festival. But I digress. First the marinade. This and the sauce came from Mom's Updated Recipe Box , one of my all-time favorite cookbooks.



Marinade:
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp minced ginger
2 Tbs oil
1/4 cup bourbon

I actually did this in a hurry the first night and then left the 2nd tenderloin to marinate overnight and the while the first was good, the second was great. The extra time really paid off. I almost always marinade my meats in a 1 gallon bag; it's so easy to turn them periodically. Plus, you can freeze them in the marinade if you're doing two of something at once. (Just don't generally thaw and refreeze raw meat. However, you can put frozen meat in a bag, add the marinade, and then put it back in the freezer. Pull it out a night or two before you want to cook it and let it thaw and it will be marinating while it thaws. I've heard this referred to as "dump cooking" because you can dump the meat and marinade in a bag and then dump it in the oven.)

Sauce:
My kids think this just needs to say "Ketchup" and I'd be done. It's the all-purpose meat sauce for them. I, however, like a bit of variety: chutneys, chimichurri, capers and lemon juice and wine, port-based sauces, and mustards. This honey mustard sauce was okay but needed a bit of something. As he has done before, my friend suggested adding horseradish. Next time, I'll use less mayonnaise as well. And probably halve this recipe, but I already used some on a sandwich at lunch and it was great! I'm thinking it will make a good base for a salad dressing as well.

1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbs honey (maybe more...)
1-2 tsp horseradish
salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all up and let it sit or refrigerate until serving time.

The Cooking:
As I was perusing various books for ideas on pork tenderloins, I remembered to check Cook Smart: Perfect Recipes for Every Day. This is a great book. She did what I dream of doing. Let's try this cut; let's try this cooking method. Let's redo this with this instead of that. Ah the joys of the professional. I have to fit this all in my food budget (not big as you might guess by the parent site of CheapCooking!) and we eat it all up. (Okay, every now and then something is really horrid and I throw it out because we don't have a dog right now and the cats are as picky as the kids!). But I saw used copies of this book on Amazon for $9 and you will learn a TON by reading this book. Learn from her having the money to experiment and you can just settle right on the best methods and recipes. Her basic advice was to use a gas grill for the pork tenderloins. She also suggested brining them first. I've never yet brined anything but I do want to try one day. It just wasn't last night since the tenderloins were barely thawed when I pulled them out of the frig, company was on the way over, and the girls evidently hadn't eaten in a week judging by their moaning "When is dinner ready?"

So the secret is: 7-6-5. I also love this because I can remember it! Heat the gas grill for at least 10 minutes so it's hot. Put the pork tenderloin in and cook it for 7 minutes on the first side. Turn it. Cook another 6 minutes. Turn the gas OFF and leave it in there for 5 more minutes. It was, as she promised, absolutely perfect. Not dry, not too pink, with a nice browned outside. Next time I may even follow the whole recipe and try the brining and some of her sauce ideas. They sounded good. But I'd already made the marinade above when I thought to pull this out.

Chicken and Corn Chowder

I'm not sure what makes certain soups a "chowder" and others just soup. I Google'd "chowder" and learned it came from the French word for hot water but that didn't help me much! Regardless, since I had some leftover "sticky chicken"(cooked at a normal roasting temperature) from Saturday night, I made up some chicken and corn chowder with it.

I know when I started out cooking I had to follow recipes exactly, buying weird ingredients I might use once (since I didn't cook much anyway!) and measuring carefully. Now I look at recipes as an inspiration rather than a set of directions, as guidance rather than procedure. For example, the original recipe called for chicken broth but I used mostly a very quick vegetable broth instead. Also, the original recipe called for cooking up a specific amount of bacon, then taking the bacon out and throwing out most of the grease and then cooking the onions and peppers in it. Ahem. Why not just start with some bacon grease from the can in frig? (You do save your bacon grease don't you? If you don't want it, your dog will love a spoonful of it on his dry kibble! But try frying up some potatoes in some one morning before you give it all to your dog.) Anyway, I'm not only cheap I'm lazy too--or as my friends say "very efficient!" The idea of cooking up bacon to get the grease and then throwing out the cooked bacon seems a bit strange but perhaps that's what the gourmands do...I wouldn't know. I'd either toss the cooked bacon up on top of the soup or just use some of the grease from my can and save both money and time.

So if you want to put the bacon in the soup or serve as a topping, dice up 4-5 slices or so first and drain on a paper towel when crisp, then drain the pan, leaving about 1/8 cup of grease in it. (If you're a beginning cook and don't know a lot about plumbing, a brief reminder not to throw the extra down your sink, as it will harden and clog up the pipes eventually. I usually keep a washed out food can under my sink for hot fat like this and drain into that, leaving it on the counter until I do the dishes, by which time it's usually hardened and can be thrown away safely in your garden without making a big mess or starting a fire in your garbage can.)

So here's what I did--and it is delicious!

2-3 Tbs bacon grease or butter or oil or some combination
1 onion chopped *(See note!)
1 red bell pepper, chopped *(See note!)
2 Tbs flour
5 cups broth (vegetable or chicken)
2 cups peeled, seeded, butternut squash in 1/2" cubes
1 potato, peeled and chopped
1 tsp thyme
16 ounces frozen corn kernels (or fresh if you have it!)
1/2 cup milk or half and half or cream, depending on your decadence level
1-2 cups cooked leftover roast chicken, chopped
1 cup chopped green onions
3-4 springs fresh parsley, chopped

Heat the bacon grease and cook the onion and half the red pepper about 10 minutes, until soft.

Add the flour and cook, stirring, another 2 minutes or so.

Add the broth, squash, potato, and thyme and mix. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer about 10 minutes, until the squash and potato are soft.

Stir in the corn, milk, and the rest of the bell pepper and cook about 10 more minutes. Stir in the chicken, green onions, and parsley and simmer 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with the bacon and more green onions for garnish if you like.

The original recipe called for cilantro but mine never took off this year for some reason, whereas I have a huge plot of parsley so I use that freely in most everything these days. It is wonderful having it fresh just out the door. But if you don't have a garden spot, buy it fresh and stick it in a glass of water in the frig and it will keep quite a while.

This has so far served the 3 of us (1 adult, 2 children) for 2 meals with plenty left for my lunches this week. I served it as more of a main dish last night with some pasta and just a cup before the main dinner tonight. I really like the squash in it and it is a beautiful soup to look at.

* Frugal note: Both onions and peppers can be chopped and frozen when they are on sale, then pulled out for cooking as needed. They will not be good fresh as they will lose their crispness but they're great for stuff like this. I used the last of my frozen bell peppers for this alas.

Broth - It's Not as Complicated as You Think

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had run out of chicken broth. I was going through the freezer and frig while I made up my menu for the week and did find 1 cup of chicken broth. My menus are always a goal, something to aim for, and a source of inspiration when it's 6pm and I suddenly break free from the computer because the children are making noises about food again. They are not set in stone, however. But I do try to look at using up some of what I've got, look at what's on sale, and experiment with something new. Not necessarily in that order.

I was also browsing through a few magazines from last year, Taste of Home and Gourmet actually. And I saw a chicken-corn chowder recipe that sounded good. It was appealing partially because I'd bought a butternut squash last week to experiment with and then not done anything and this soup had some in it (although I'm now left with half a butternut squash in the frig if you've got some good ideas to share). At the store I was pleased to see some chicken broth on sale for 33 cents a can, which should have been 16 ounces but was of course 15.5 ounces since they shrunk the cans a few years ago. (Like a 2x4 that isn't a 2x4 anymore!) I bought a few cans thinking to augment my homemade broth (I need 4 cups of broth for the soup), but then once I was unpacking the groceries it occurred to me that chicken broth was a pretty good staple to have in the pantry for emergencies. Mind you, I haven't had any canned broth in the freezer in years but suddenly it seemed vitally important!

But I wanted to make this soup. I thought initially of just substituting water, since the soup was chock-full of vegetables and would probably have plenty of flavor anyway. But I decided to do a cheap and quick vegetable broth instead. In the freezer, I always have a container or freezer bag of vegetable bits to use for my chicken broth, usually the ends of carrots, celery tops, and onion peels and ends. (I also have a separate container for bits of leftover vegetables that I think would make a good kitchen-sink type soup.) I'd made mashed potatoes the other night and saved the potato water in an old pickle jar in the frig. So I pulled out the potato water and the vegetable container and began plopping bits of carrot, celery, and onion in about 8 cups of water (the potato water plus plain water). I added a few bay leaves, some salt, some thyme, and some peppercorns. Perused a few cookbooks and saw that if I'd had any zucchini, turnip, or leeks they would have made good additions (actually I do have leeks in the garden but didn't feel like going outside and digging one up), and probably the longer you cooked it the better. But I simmered what I had while I started the rest of the soup and thawed the one lone cup of chicken broth.

I tasted the broth after 30 minutes or so, expecting it to be bland but was surprised by how much flavor was in it! It needed a bit more salt, which I added, and then I saw my glass of cheap white wine (Sea Ridge from Safeway, the $3 Chuck equivalent, but only the Chardonnay is worthy IMHO) and added a splash of that as well. I let it simmer a few more minutes, tasted again, and I took out what I needed to top off this soup recipe and let the rest simmer (after adding enough water to replace what I had removed) while the soup cooked. I'll freeze this in one cup portions and may be a convert to using vegetable broth in many things.

The lesson here, to me, is to keep things simple. When I'd read about making vegetable broth before it seemed to involve copious amounts of vegetables I didn't happen to have on hand, roasting said vegetables, then simmering for hours. This seemed like way more work than my simple chicken broth which I make when by bag-o-bones in the freezer reaches a certain size and I throw in whatever vegetable ends I've collected in my vegetable scrap container in the freezer. This was a very quick and dirty broth that had a substantial amount of flavor given I was using what most people tossed in the compost pile (or worse yet, in the garbage!) and was flavorful in the time I spent preparing the rest of the vegetables for this soup, which I'll post later. I probably could have tossed a few chicken bones in there had I been desperate for some chicken flavor, or even a spoonful of chicken bouillon. But I didn't, and it was really quite good.

Green Beans with Peanut Sauce

Here's a different one, for me at least. I didn't measure a whole bunch so I'll try to approximate here.

1 Tbs soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
1 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp peanut butter
1/2 pound green beans
2 tsp oil

Mix everything but the green beans and oil. I toasted the sesame seeds by heating a dry frying pan and toasting them that way

Heat the oil and fry the green beans quickly, until just crisp-tender. I used frozen green beans and they came out good, although I'm sure fresh ones would be better. Mix the beans with the other ingredients and serve.

They had a nice Asian sort of flavor with the peanut butter and sesame seeds. I'd do maybe a little more soy sauce and garlic next time. I used chunky peanut butter by the way because I bought some by accident and the girls don't like it. I think it would be good with either.

Leftover Potatoes: Baked and Mashed

I made baked potatoes the other night for dinner but one child didn't eat hers so I was left with an extra, which I stuck in the frig. The next morning at breakfast the same child begged for sauteed potatoes (just peeled, diced, and fried in a bit of olive oil and butter usually) but they take a while to cook and it was a school morning. I said no initially but then opened the frig to get my egg out for my breakfast sandwich and spied the lone potato sitting there. Told her she was in luck.

Quick Hash Browns
Just to make it taste extra good, I diced up the leftover baked potato (peel and all) and cooked it up in a bit of bacon grease.

Potato and Egg Sandwich
It smelled and looked so good I stole about a quarter of that fried potato and decided to scramble up my egg with it. I threw in a few bits of cheddar cheese and put it all on the English muffin I had toasted. Boy it was good!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A few days later I made my new favorite meatloaf recipe and made mashed potatoes to go with it. Actually, I made the Potatoes Romanoff due to one daughter's urging when she saw me cooking up the potatoes for mashing. We had some leftovers and I spied them in the frig when I reached in for my egg this morning. At first I thought I might use them up tonight by making potato croquettes, adding an egg and mashing them into patties, dipping in bread crumbs and frying them, sort of the poor man's Tater Tots.

Mashed Potato and Egg Sandwich
But then remembering how good the potato and egg sandwich had been the other day, I pulled out the bowl of leftover potatoes and grabbed just enough for one patty and mashed it together. I already had some butter melted in the frying pan for the egg so I added a bit more for the potato and plopped it in when it was melted. Cooked it until it seemed heated through and was just a bit crispy on the outside, then added the egg to the other side of the pan and did a "country scramble" (where you just scramble the egg in then pan rather than beating it with a bit of milk in a separate bowl before cooking). Toasted the English muffin, put a thin slice of cheddar on it, put the mashed potato pancake on top, then added the egg to that, and topped with the other half of the muffin. It was very good! Totally different texture with the mashed potatoes rather than the diced, but equally tasty.

Pasta and Ricotta Cheese: Kids' New Favorite

My girls love this little tiny round pasta I buy to make what we've nicknamed Frog's Eye Soup. It's basically just chicken broth, carrots, and little tiny pastas. Sometimes I buy the little alphabet pastas for fun, but usually I use this tiny little round one, called ancini di pepe. (By the way when I just Googled ancini di pepe it seems to be very popular in some strange sounding salad with pineapple. I'm having a hard time imagining that.)

Yesterday for dinner I decided to use up the last of the ricotta cheese I had and made this very easy pasta dish I read about somewhere with the ancini di pepe.

1 cup ancini di pepe pasta
2 tsp butter
1/2 cup ricotta cheese

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water until done, about 9 minutes. Drain but reserve a bit of the water in case the pasta is too dry at the end. Mix the pasta with the butter and ricotta. If it's too dry, add a bit of the hot pasta water to moisten.

Served this with some leftover cream of broccoli soup that I'd made a few days ago. It was a big hit with the kids.

New Favorite Meatloaf--or an Ode to Worcestershire Sauce

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Pure comfort food for me--although I have to admit it's not one of my kids' favorites. Still, sometimes they have to suffer! This came from one of the freezer cooking lists I'm on, although I, of course, modified it a bit. First I halved it. I can never figure out these two pound meatloaves. I mean, 1/4 pound of ground beef is a good serving size if there's pleny of other food so a 2 pound meatloaf is about 8 servings for me. I don't like leftovers that much! Someone should publish a cookbook of just meatloaves. Maybe they have already... If so, this should be in it! I'm instantly attacted to anything with Worcestershire sauce in it, of course, as I've admitted before. Worcestershire chicken, Worcestershire shrimp, Pulled Pork, Crab Cakes, Welsh Rarebit/Rabbit--even the family favorite hamburger recipe.

My mother's meatloaf recipe had the right idea, but didn't carry it far enough. More! I have must have more Worcestershire. And the topping idea of maple syrup and ketchup was inspired.

1 pound ground beef
1/2 onion, minced, or 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1/8 cup (or maybe more?!) Worcestershire sauce
dash of salt and pepper
1/4 - 1/2 cup bread crumbs or crushed Ritz crackers or oatmeal

Mix it all together--but don't overmix.

Topping:

1/8 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup ketchup

Divide between 6 muffin tins (sprayed or oiled) . Spread a bit of the topping on each and save the rest to serve at the table. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until done.

Note: If you're a 2 pound meatloaf kind of person, double this and bake in a loaf pan for an hour. You might delay putting the maple syrup and ketchup topping on until after the first 30 minutes.

Acorn Squash Baked with Maple Syrup

In my continuing desire to expand my vegetable repetoire, I bought a couple of winter squash the other day. Tonight I was fixing baked potatoes and some chicken breasts that had been frozen in a marinade. I decided squash would go well and could be baked in the same oven. Efficiency! Often I cheat with baked potatoes and microwave them until they're almost done, then pop them in the oven to crisp up the skin a bit but tonight I baked them the whole time, starting off at 400 and figuring on an hour.

I read a few recipes for acorn squash and while the cooking methods varied slightly, almost all of them had maple syrup and butter or oil. You could bake the squash whole (piercing it first I presume), then cube and toss with the syrup. You could cut it in a half, scoop out the seeds, lay cut side down in a dish, adding a little water, and bake it, then cube it, and toss. You could half it, lay it down and cook it in water, then stuff it with various things. You could cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, slice it crosswise in 1" slices, toss with the sauce and then bake. That's what I chose to do, partially because I'd already sliced it in half and cleaned it out by the time I went to look for a recipe.

The funny thing was that each recipe called for 6 pounds of acorn squash or 6 squash to feed 6 as a side dish. That seems like a lot of squash! It was just the three of us here (myself and two children) and we ate about half the squash. (I bagged and frozen the rest for soup some creative night.) Do other people really eat a whole one of these as a side dish? Or was mine just extra large? Anyway, here's what I did and the girls declared it only "okay." But I did notice that they ate a fair serving and the elder one went back and had seconds. When she saw me watching she said "I didn't have any fruit or anything at lunch so I thought I should have more. It's not that bad." Here's what I did.

1 acorn squash, halved and seeded
1 Tbs oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
salt and pepper to taste

Cut the squash crosswise into 1" slices after cleaning it. Mix the sauce together, then toss with the slices. Pour it all into a baking dish and bake about 30 minutes at 400, maybe a bit longer. I just put it in until it looked almost done, then put the chicken in a baking dish and baked it ten or fifteen minutes.

Sausage and Kale Soup

I love having soup in the frig that I can have for lunch or as an add-on to dinner. At the grocery store this week I saw a big bag of cleaned and chopped kale and remembered that I still had some sausage in the freezer that should be cooked up pretty soon. Normally I would have made something like this with kielbasa but the brattwurst worked out well too. This is very thick between the kale and the rice, very filling and "complete dinner" like too! It caused me to use up the last of my homemade chicken broth. I seem to be going through it faster than I collect bones these days.

1 tsp olive oil
6 ounces sausage, kielbasa or brattwurst or whatever sounds good
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 pound fresh kale
3 cups chicken broth
4 cups water
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 tsp dried marjoram
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup uncooked white rice

Saute the sausage, onion, and garlic in the oil until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add everything else but the rice. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 15 minutes. Add the rice and simmer another 20 or so, until the rice is cooked.

I thought this was good but I think it would be better with kielbasa, with the stronger flavor enhancing the soup.

Tofu Curry

More coconut curries.... This time we used a firm tofu rather than any meat. Sauteed some onion and garlic in oil, then added a tablespoon of red curry paste and stirred it around. I put some of the tofu in at this point to fry it a bit. I think next time I'll fry the tofu first, so I don't have to worry about the garlic and onion getting overdone.

Added the coconut milk and simmered a few minutes, then added a can of bamboo shoots, some frozen peas, some frozen chopped red pepper, the rest of the tofu, some chopped basil from the garden, 2 spoonfuls of brown sugar, about a tablespoon of fish sauce...and I think that was it.

I neglected to take a picture but it was wonderful!

Beyond Grilled Cheese

Earlier, I'd written about our experiment with grilled cheese sandwiches, using olive oil and broiling them rather than butter and grilling. The other night, my same friend was over and I was making grilled cheese sandwiches again, and using up some leftover soups and chili as well. He'd stopped by the store for some American cheese, which the kids like, and wine for us. I'd already pulled out my jar of sweet butter pickles, which I remembered he liked as much as I did. I had slices of bread laid out on the cutting board and my griddle heating up. I got one batch going on the griddle and then he said:

"Gee, some peanut butter and a dill pickle inside one of those would be good." Now, peanut butter in a grilled cheese would, quite frankly, have never occurred to me. But when the first sandwich came off the griddle, he opened it up and slipped a dill pickle slice inside, then smeared some peanut butter on the outside. It was actually quite good! The kids were too hungry for us to continue experimenting and they all declined to taste the experiment. But he and I started brainstorming a whole list of things we could add to future sandwiches. The first step, we agreed, would be to put the peanut butter on the inside before grilling. Other ingredients we were thinking about included capers, applesauce, other cheeses of course... maybe some sauteed apple slices...

Red Chicken Curry

I wasn't overly impressed with the beef and red curry, but I think it was the steak that was the problem. Last night I combined a few different curry recipes to come up with a red chicken curry that was delicious! I would have added a can of bamboo shoots if I'd had them around, but that's the only change I would make.

1 Tbs oil
1/2 onion, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
1-2 Tbs red curry paste
8-10 ounces boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in 1/4 x 1 x 2 inch strips (easiest if partially frozen)
1 can (16 oz) coconut milk
1-2 Tbs fish sauce
1/4 cup fresh basil, sliced
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/3 chicken stock
1/4 cup peas
1/2 cup sliced red peppers

Heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic 1-2 minutes. Stir in the paste and fry for 30 seconds. Add the coconut milk and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the other ingredients and simmer for 10-15 minutes.