I Want My Dinner Now!

I was sent this cookbook, I Want My Dinner Now, to review and it's got some really neat features. First, I love that every single recipe is set up so that you get the ingredients measured for either 2 or 6 servings. So if you want 4 servings you can easily double the 2 servings and if you want 3, just halve the 6 servings.

The author says right up front that you need to adjust the recipes as you go--don't go crazy trying to follow every single measurement. I wish I'd heard that advice when I was first starting out! I swear I used to measure just about everything. Now, with years of experience, I've learned you can use a bit more or less of this and that and most times the dinner comes out just grand.

The recipes are divided into chapters based upon cooking and prep time, as well as any special equipment needed. "The Fast and Simple" chapter is great when you come home and just need dinner on the table fast. On the other hand, there are times when you want to get dinner started and then go do something, whether it's take a walk or help the kids with homework. The "Toss It In The Oven" chapter covers these nights quite well.

The other chapters include one with recipes that use very few dishes (good for the nights when you assign dishes to the younger children!) and one that specifically makes use of different appliances you might have, like a rice cooker, indoor grill, microwave, and so forth.

The opening chapter on "Cooking Basics" gives you a nice reference point if you're learning to cook. This includes various ways to cook bacon (I prefer to bake it myself--much less mess!), making your own bread crumbs, cooking cous cous and eggs, as well as directions for pie crusts, polenta, and rice.

If you're a beginning cook and dealing with suddenly putting dinner on the table without much time for preparation, I think this book will be a good starting point. If you're an experienced cook, you're sure to find some recipes that spark some ideas for you and perhaps get you to add some more variety to your menu if you've gotten in a rut.

Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball

I've just finished this book and it's delightful! In fact, I kept wanting to interrupt my reading to write up a blog post about it to share it with you all, but that would have meant I had to stop reading it--and the reading won out over the writing.

Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball by Molly O'Neill is a delightful combination of a look at a family, including some family history that had an impact and the roles that baseball and food played in creating bonds and a family story. Unlike most family stories this is a story that will have an impact beyond the immediate next generation of the O'Neill family though.

Molly's father, grandfather, and great grandfather played baseball. Her father pitched in the minor leagues and his desire to have a professional ball player or two and keep his boys out of trouble set the stage. Molly was the oldest child, followed by 5 boys, and she weaves the story of her growing up (and beyond) around baseball and food. Her mother cooked elaborate healthy meals and she would sneak around to cook the processed foods and other stuff that other families ate, of which she and her brothers were denied. Luckily for us, her passion for food led her to become a chef and the stories of her kitchen work and studying in France are as entertaining as the ones of her dressing her youngest brother in a dress, trying to fawn him off as the sister she desperately wanted.

It's interesting to me to see, with hindsight, the ways that all our supposed detours and apparently odd decisions lead us to, ultimately, work we love and enjoy. Molly spins tales in her diaries, which seem to be mostly not-true her first year of college but still send her mother spinning when she reads them, writes poetry, paints, and works two jobs to put herself through college--learning to cook on the jobs that supported her. She eventually becomes a chef and then a food writer. She's written three cookbooks so far (including New York Cookbook, which sounds fascinating) and was the food columnist for The New York Times Magazine.

I'm posting this in my reading blog as well, Reading-Addiction.

Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream Redux

I'm now on a quest. Here's what I tried last night, which was good. Better than the earlier one I posted but not quite perfect. It's from The New Settlement Cookbook, which you might be able to find around used, as it's a few years old. I get a lot of good "plain old fashioned" kind of recipes out of it, including having learned how to make pan gravy from it, roast chicken, chicken paprika, and more. I think the lemon juice/vinegar combination added a lot of "sparkle" for lack of a better word. And this had more sugar than the earlier recipe. It was good.

3 small cucumbers, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup sour cream
2 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs vinegar
2 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp dried dill

They said to salt and drain the cucumber. I skipped that part. I don't pull the seeds out either.

Mix together everything but the cucumbers, then mix in the sliced cucumbers. Chill an hour or more before serving.

I did remember that the first time I made this I used one of those long thin English cucumbers. I cannot believe that alone made the flavor difference, but perhaps it did.

Cucumber Salad with Sour Cream

I'm reminded why I started this blog. The other night I threw together a cucumber salad that had sour cream, vinegar, and dill with sliced cucumbers. My dinner guest and I could not stop eating it! I usually make a cucumber salad with just vinegar, water, and sugar. And that one's good, but the sour cream was a nice touch for a change.

Last night I thought I'd make that cucumber and sour cream salad again, but I could not find the recipe! I came here to the blog first and was mad at myself for not getting it written up and posted. Then I went through my most obvious cookbooks. I could not find one that looked familiar. I searched online and found this one and tried it. It was missing something. I added some sugar. That wasn't quite it.

I'm so mad! Do any of you have a favorite recipe? I'm growing cucumbers so will be eating a lot in another month or so! Great recipes are welcome!

Meat Sauce from Hamburgers and Cheater Garlic Bread

It's summer barbecue time, graduation party time, hanging out at the pool and barbecuing time. I love it! A friend held a graduation party for her son last week. She did a fantastic job with the food and they barbecued chicken, steak, burgers and hot dogs. And had lots of burgers left. I took some from her when she offered. The girls ate a couple for after-school snacks. More like a meal to me but they're hungry all the time during swimming season!

I was still left with a few w burgers. I thought of just throwing them into the freezer so the girls could later pull one out for a snack, but my eldest asked for pasta before the first swim meet of the season so I decided to make a meat sauce with leftover hamburgers. I invited a neighbor family over for dinner spur of the moment that night and they all proclaimed it some of the best meat sauce they'd ever had--and were shocked to learn that a) it had take me all of 45 minutes and b)used leftover barbecued hamburgers. This fed 3 adults and 3 starving children, with leftover sauce.

1 Tbs oil
1 cup diced onion (1 small onion or 1/2 a large one)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 cup water or wine or some combination
3-4 chopped leftover barbecued hamburgers
1 tsp Italian seasoning or some mix of oregano, parsley, basil, rosemary--whatever you like
salt and pepper to taste

1 pound spaghetti

Heat the oil and saute the onion and garlic a few minutes, until they're soft and the aroma is making your mouth water. Add the tomatoes, water, chopped burgers, and seasonings. Heat to a low simmer and let it cook at least 20 minutes, partially covered to avoid splattering tomato sauce all over your stove. If you need to cook it longer, just check and add more liquid periodically if you need to.

Serve over the cooked spaghetti.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, I also used up the leftover hamburger buns by making them into what I call cheater garlic bread. I love making real garlic bread with French bread, mincing garlic up and putting it in some softened butter and spreading that all over, then broiling a few minutes. For cheater garlic bread, spread whatever bread you're trying to use up (the hamburger buns were a HUGE hit!) and sprinkle some garlic powder on top. If you have plenty, some grated Parmesan on top adds a nice touch.

Now maybe someone will have ideas for me about what I can do with the leftover pork kebabs I made last night. I'd like to do something other than my usual ways to use up leftover meat: burritos or fried rice.

Cheap. Fast. Good!

I've been having fun with the new Cheap. Fast. Good! cookbook by the authors of one of my all-time favorite cookbooks, Desperation Dinners, a great book with good recipes that get on your table FAST, with few processed ingredients. They're definitely not the "dump a can of cream of mushroom soup over some meat and bake" type recipes. The recipes are creative, make good use of a variety of ingredients, and--most importantly--taste good and are quite do-able for putting dinner on the table every night.

The new book is, as far as I can tell, full of similarly good recipes. I've tried half a dozen at this point, including the coffee granita I posted earlier, which is something very similar to a dessert my mother used to make. Last night I made the meatloaf, which truly does stretch a pound of ground beef into a full meatloaf and tastes delicious! I had a meatloaf recipe I loved and will be combining that with theirs for my next one! They're "Good Old Beans and Rice" was another hit throughout, although their Chicken & Apples with Dijon Cream" was not quite as popular. But I have one child who doesn't like much chicken at all these days, so the odds were against it. I liked it! The coleslaw recipe was good, as were a few others.

There is also some wisdom scattered throughout the book in short articles about ways to save money. I have some quibbles with some of it but overall it's decent. I do like the fact that the authors tried to follow the government's thrifty meal plan budgets for a week using recipes from the book to see if they could. They each share the menus they followed for the week, which is good to study. It's tough to eat cheaply today without sacrificing your health tomorrow. It takes time and planning, something most people on the tightest budgets are probably lacking as they scramble to earn a modest living. I do know though that I've lived within this budget at times, although I don't right now since I don't have to. And I have people on my CheapCooking list who do better than this every week. So it is do-able.

I personally would have liked to see all the articles gathered up front or in back rather than having them scattered, but perhaps people are more likely to read them in small doses. There is good information in here but it feels a bit scattered to me.

So, in my humble opinion, the book is no More with Less Cookbook or Feed Your Family Fast, Healthy Meals on $10 a Day. It is not aimed at the die-hard "really need to cut back to the minimum" folks. But if you're not used to watching your food bill at all and need to pay attention, there are a lot of useful tips. The basics of menu planning, loss-leaders, making your own stock, utilizing a freezer to your advantage, shopping warehouse stores, and more are adequately covered. The recipes cover a nice range of preparation styles, meat and vegetarian options, seasonal dishes, pastas, sides, and sauces.

Definitely a recommended book for those wanting to learn how to cut their grocery bill and still put more than "beans and rice" on the table every night.

Cold and Sweet: Coffee Granita

This tastes so good you'll be making extra coffee just to have leftovers! Basically it's sweetened coffee with milk or half-and-half frozen. The trick is to keep stirring it while it freezes so you don't end up with one big chunk of frozen coffee.

Feel free to adjust the proportions. This was just about right to fill an 8x8 baking pan.

4 cups cold coffee
1 cup sugar
1 cup cream, half-and-half, or milk

Stir until the sugar is dissolved (or add it while the coffee is still warm and then chill). Pour the chilled coffee mixture into a pan that can go in your freezer. Set the timer for 30 minutes or so and stir the mixture. Keep setting your timer and stirring until it's frozen but broken up into small shard-like pieces. If you have leftovers, they'll freeze solid but you can scrape them with a fork to break them up again into pieces.

Edited to add: How long this takes depends on how deep the granita is, how cold the coffee is when you start and how cold your freezer is. Allow 2-3 hours in the 8x8 dish I used, but if you poured it into two containers so it was shallower it will freeze faster and be easier to stir.

Monthly menus

Almost anyone who cooks for their family, every day, day in and day out, will tell you that the actual cooking is not the real chore. It's deciding what to cook! Here's a whole bunch of monthly menus to inspire you!

Creamy Custard Pie

The recipe I got this from called this a Cheesecake Pie, but it tastes more like a rice pudding pie, without the rice. It uses cottage cheese as the base, but you blend it up. The recipe suggested using a blender, but that didn't work for me. It just sat there without getting mixed up so I put it in my stand mixer. Food processor probably would have been even better, to get it even creamier. But this worked.

unbaked pie crust for a 9" pie

1 cup cottage cheese
2 rounded Tbs of flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 450. Roll the pie crust out for a 9" pie pan and put it in the pan.

In a blender or food processor or mixer, blend the cottage cheese until creamy and smooth. Put it in a mixing bowl, if it's not already there, and add the flour, sugar, salt, and eggs. Mix until smooth. Add the milk and stir it in slowly. It will be very runny so watch out for splattering!

Pour the custard into the pie shell and sprinkle with cinnamon. It has a good chance of boiling over so if you have one of those pie drip pans this is the time to use it! I like to pull the oven rack partially out, put the unfilled pie down on top of the drip pan, then pour in the custard. It's easier than carrying a pie full of liquid across your floor! However, if your racks are at all sticky, you could spill some custard trying to slide the rack back into the oven. Just move it slowly.

Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300 and bake at least another hour. I baked mine another hour and 15 minutes and it was still pretty wobbly in the middle. However, as the recipe promised, it did firm up as it cooled.

I brought this to a ladies' luncheon today. Kind of risky to bring an untried dish I know... but it got rave reviews from the women. I actually baked two because I knew my kids would complain if they smelled pie and didn't get any! They liked it as well. I didn't tell them it had cottage cheese in it.