Meatball Stew

It's good to have a few recipes you can whip together that aren't dependent on fresh food. The pantry or the freezer or some combination can be a lifesaver on busy nights. Cheap. Fast. Good! came to my rescue last night with this meatball stew. I had just bought a bag of pre-made meatballs at Costco and it was nice to have a new way to use them.

I made a few substitutions. Their recipe calls for fresh mushrooms; I used canned, eliminating the dependency on fresh produce. You could also just leave them out. Their recipe also calls for a packet of brown gravy mix, which I very rarely have. At one point I did buy the large container of it at Costco but after a couple of years I'd used less than half and threw it out, thinking to buy a new one but I haven't gotten around to it. (Sometimes it's still cheaper to buy their large containers even if you throw some away!) I was just going to make a white sauce and use that to thicken the stew but then I saw the small bottle of Kitchen Bouquet Browning & Seasoning Sauce so I used that to make up a bit of gravy, using butter as the fat. I served this over rice.

1 pound frozen mixed vegetables or about 3 cups leftover cooked vegetables
24 meatballs (already cooked)
1 -2 tsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
small can of mushrooms or 8 ounces fresh, sliced
1/4 cup Madeira or Marsala wine (optional)
1/2 cup water
2 cups beef broth
1-2 cups beef gravy

If the vegetables are frozen, put them in a colander and rinse them under cold water.
If the meatballs are frozen, pop them in the microwave for a few minutes to defrost.
If you're serving over rice, start the rice cooking.

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or 4 quart soup pot. Cook the onion and garlic a few minutes of medium heat, stirring periodically. Add the mushrooms and cook a few more minutes. You want the onion to be softened and the mushrooms to be lightly cooked.

Stir in the wine, water, broth, meatballs, and vegetables and bring to a boil. Reduce to a moderate boil and cook, with the pot partially covered, until everything is heated through, about 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, make your gravy if you need to.

Stir in the gravy and cook another minute, stirring, to thicken the stew. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until ready to serve.

I served it over steamed rice and it was fantastically good. It makes a lot! The recipe says serves 6 generously and I think that's pretty accurate. I wanted leftovers this time so I didn't try to downsize the recipe. Next time, I'll play with the portions and use fewer meatballs and more vegetables.

Red Pepper Soup

I bought a gorgeous pack of red peppers at Costco the other day. We've been eating them raw (the kids favorite), cooked with some onions and scrambled with eggs for breakfast. Mmm.... Tonight I used up the last 4 with a red pepper soup. The kids thought it was good but just a tad too spicy for them, so if you have kids not used to spicy stuff you might want to cut back on the cayenne.

3 Tbs olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1-2 stalks celery, chopped
4 red peppers, deveined and seeded and chopped into 1" pieces
1/4 tsp cayenne (less next time!)
4 cups chicken broth
salt to taste
pepper to taste
1/4 cup cream (I used half and half)
sour cream for garnish

Heat the oil in a soup pot and then cook the onion, carrot, and celery about 8 minutes, stirring periodically. While they're cooking, you can fix the red peppers.

Add the cayenne and red peppers to the pot and stir, then stir in the chicken broth. It should be enough to cover the vegetables. If not, add a bit of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover partway, and cook 3o minutes or so. Turn the heat to low.

Use an immersion blender to blend the soup until smooth. You can also put it in a stand blender, 2 cups at at time and blend but be careful as it's quite hot. I love the immersion blender I have for soups.

Blend in the cream and taste. Add salt and pepper as necessary. How much you need to add depends on your taste buds and your chicken broth.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream (or creme fraiche) in each bowl.

Salsa Verde with Steamed Cauliflower

I'm a fan of little sauces and side dishes. Browsing through Vegetables Every Day for a cauliflower recipe, I found one that called for steaming the cauliflower and then mixing it with salsa verde, which I'd never made before. Anything with capers catches my eye and since my parlsey is still growing madly out the back door despite our recent freezes I tried it. Definitely a winner! I left it in a small bowl at the table to be spooned onto the plate rather than tossing it with the cauliflower. After steaming the cauliflower pieces, I put them in a bowl and put a pat of butter on them, mixing it in as it melted. The kids happily ate theirs plain and my adult guest and I happily plied on the salsa verde. I served this with a pork loin and the salsa verde was equally good with the pork!

1/4 cup minced parsley
1 Tbs capers, drained and minced
8 green olives, pitted and minced (mine were stuffed with pimentos)
1 Tbs lemon juice
3 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

The recipe also called for two minced anchovy filets but I don't do anchovies. Several people have suggested I buy the little tube of anchovy paste and use that, which I keep meaning to do.

If you like chimichurri sauce, you'll like this too I suspect.

Blogging in the Kitchen while Roasting a Chicken

Although I have a laptop, I rarely actually use it unplugged. I just like having the "lap" part work when I write up stuff at night, sitting back on the couch or watching tv. Today I'd gone to Costco and bought, among other things, two whole chickens. Not a great price, but I really need some chicken broth, hence I really need some chicken bones and necks and backs! I'm roasting one chicken for tonight. I thought about roasting two, conserving the oven energy and all that, but I wanted to make them two different ways. So one is now marinating, hence the reason for this title. I'd never gotten around to printing off the marinade for whole chicken I used a while back and loved. So I unplugged the laptop and once I'd gotten the first chicken in the oven, I mixed up the marinade by following my own blog post. Now I've written this with the laptop on the kitchen counter (away from the sink and active work!), while basting tonight's chicken. Quite useful actually!

For the chicken in the oven, I'm following a recipe in How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food, one of my all-time favorites, although this is a new recipe. But how can you really go wrong with roast chicken?

I'm roasting the chicken with some red potatoes, cut in half. He has you start the chicken, breast side down on a rack, at 450 fro 10 minutes, with the potatoes mixed with half the olive oil and seasonings mix. Then you spread some of the olive oil on the chicken, turn the chicken breast-side up (still at 450), baste with more olive oil, and bake another 7-10 minutes at 450. Then, baste again, turn the oven down to 325, and cook, basting now and then, until the chicken is done, about an hour total (so another 30 minutes or more. This chicken's on the large side (over 4 pounds), so I'm cooking at 350. Call me chicken--pun intended. But I wanted to eat somewhat close to 7pm, our normal dinner hour. I don't think this bird would be done in an hour if I didn't raise the heat a bit.

Ah, the olive oil mix:

6 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs chopped fresh herbs or 2 tsp dried. Choose from thyme, rosemary, marjoram, oregano, or sage
salt and pepper to taste

1.5 to 2 pounds small red potatoes, or cut larger ones into roughly 1.5" chunks

Double Lemon Avgolemono Soup

Reading Eating Suburbia's post about lemons and chicken made me want to try my hand at some Avgolemono soup. I'm in the same position of having a lemon tree totally loaded with lemons. (Although the lemon tree right next to it, a different variety, is sparse. Go figure.) Coincidentally (or not) I had just picked up a Greek cookbook at the grocery store. Frankly, I'm surprised they don't try to sell more cookbooks at the grocery store. I mean, you're there to buy food and are usually thinking about what to cook as well... Anyway this isn't a full-out review of this cookbook, The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking, since I've just tried the one recipe. But it came out good! I halved it, not wanting a lot of leftovers and I used turkey broth, although her recipe says to use chicken broth, fish stock, or lamb stock. I had turkey stock in the freezer so that's what we ate. (Although it made me realize I'm nearly out of chicken stock now, left with just 2 1-cup portions in the freezer so it's time to make more!) I also used rice rather than orzo because that's what I had.

4 cups lamb, fish, or chicken (or turkey!) stock
1/4 cup rice or orzo
2 eggs
3 Tbs lemon juice
salt to taste (depending on your broth)

Heat the stock to a simmer, stir in the rice or orzo, and cook until done.

In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk until foamy, then whisk in the lemon juice. Stir in a cup of the hot broth while whisking. (Always add hot to cold, rather than cold to hot, to avoid nasty unpleasant things!)

Turn the heat off the broth and slowly whisk in the egg and lemon mix. Do not let it boil again.

Yum! But 3 Tbs of lemon juice is not helping much to use up my lemons. I am trying not to pick too many because if they last through the freeze, they'll stay good on the tree for months and that's much easier than juicing and freezing the juice. We usually have lemons about 9 months out of the year.

But if you have any more lemon juice recipes to suggest I'm open to suggestions. Also for oranges, although usually we eat those up with no problem and they've never frozen.

Cuban Roast Pork Sandwiches

Immediate following the recipe for Cuban Roast Pork in The Complete Meat Cookbook was one for Cuban Roast Pork Sandwiches. These were fantastic! Made me want one of those pannini grills. These made me realize that while I enjoy good sandwiches away from home, I rarely take the time to make good ones at home. These may start a new trend.

If I'd read this recipe first I would have saved some of the pork juices from the roasting pan to mix with the mayonnaise. But I didn't. So I mixed up their "mojo sauce" instead.

1/2 cup olive oil
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Make the mojo sauce by heating the oil and garlic and cooking until just lightly colored, just a minute or two. You don't want burned garlic. Stir it often and watch it sizzle a bit but don't let it darken too much.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients, then put the pan back on the heat for another minute, stirring. Cool the sauce. You can keep it covered in the 'frig for a week.

To make the sandwiches, gather:

thinly sliced leftover Cuban Roast Pork
mojo sauce or leftover juices from the roast
mayonnaise
sliced Swiss or Fontina sandwiches (I used Fontina)
slices of ham or prosciutto
thin slices of tomato (not in season here so I left them out)
slices of pickles
slices of red onion
good French rolls

Mix the mojo sauce into some mayonnaise, about 1 Tbs mayo and 2 Tbs mojo sauce per sandwich.

Spread the insides of the rolls with mojo sauce, then layer the meats, pickles, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Put the top on and spread a bit of butter on both sides of the roll.

Grill in a sandwich press or pan and cook over low heat, about 5 minutes per side, pressing down with some weight. I used a big cast iron skillet. You want the meat warmed and the cheese starting to melt. My girls loved these, although I left out the onions on theirs. And I liked them so much I made another for lunch the next day, using the last of the pork roast.

Student Cooking in the UK

Cooking healthy on a budget while doing your studies at the same time can be a challenge. Student Cooking in the UK is set up with some great articles on sharing kitchens, pooling food money, learning to cook, and more. No matter where you're living and studying, you're sure to find some good info here.

Cuban Roast Pork

I bought a pork roast the other day because they were on sale and have proceeded to make two seemingly similar but very different-tasting dishes.

The roast was a bone-in cut. I wanted half it to make pork carnitas again, so cut the roast roughly in half. They came out as delicious as always. I served them with corn tortillas, diced avocado, refried beans, cheese, diced red onion, lettuce, and sour cream. Mmmm.... Had some of the leftovers for lunch today and they were fantastic!

I wasn't sure what to do with the other half of the roast. I browsed through a few cookbooks. I also remembered that a while back I asked for ideas about what to with a pork roast and got a ton of great-sounding recipes from readers. I eventually settled on this recipe for Cuban Pork Roast, partly because my oranges are in full swing right now and I'm always looking for ways to use some up. This is from The Complete Meat Cookbook. I had a neighbor over for a glass of wine on New Year's Eve and it turns out she knows Denis Kelly, one of the authors, so the book was sitting out ready to catch my eye!

I did marinate this for a day and a half, which I'm sure had something to do with the totally fantastic flavor! I did not serve it with black beans and fried plantains. I made some brown rice and some green beans with garlic, one of my favorites. So I essentially had the same meat for lunch and dinner but it sure didn't taste the same!

Marinade:
2 Tbs minced garlic
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cup rum (recipe called for dark; I only had light)
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup lime juice
3 Tbs olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper (recipe called for 1 tsp and next time I'll do that.)

1 pork roast, bone-in or boneless, 4-6 pounds (but I just did half a roast)

Mix up the marinade. and marinate your roast overnight. I like to use gallon-sized bags to marinade meat like that. You can also freeze meats in the freezer bags with the marinade. Just pull the meat out of the freezer to defrost the night or two before you want to cook it. This is a great way to take advantage of some of the deals at the warehouse stores.

If you remember, pull the roast out of the frig an hour or so before you start cooking. I forgot to do this so added a bit of time to the cooking.

Preheat the oven to 325 or 350. (The recipe calls for 325. I forgot to pull the meat out AND it was going to be a late dinner so I cooked it at 350 and it came out great.)

Put the roast on a rack in a roast pan and pour the marinade over it. Bake 1.5 to 2 hours, basting now and then. If the juices in the bottom of the pan evaporate, add a cup of water. Check with a meat themometer and pull the roast out when it hits 150 degrees F. Cover with a foil and let it sit for 15 minutes or so, while you cook up your side dishes, set the table, etc. Carve the meat into slices.

My youngest could not get enough of this. The eldest liked it as well, just not quite so intensely. I'm thinking tomorrow I'll stop by the store for some good sandwich rolls and try the next recipe in this book, Cuban Roast Pork Sandwich with Mojo Sauce, essentially olive oil, garlic, orange juice, and cumin. How could you go wrong? Pork, prosciuto (which I'll leave out), Swiss or Fontina cheese, red onion, and dill pickles. Mmmm.

Beef Noodle Soup

One you've made the beef broth, making the soup is easy. You don't really need a recipe for soup, of course. It almost always comes out good unless you blend too many flavors, kind of like blending colors--too many and you just end up with grey. Leave out the tomatoes if you don't have them or don't like them. I personally think the carrot/onion/celery things is nearly required, but if you don't have or don't like one, just leave it out. This is a very simple soup once you have the broth, and you could of course use store-bought broth. That's what I've done in the past.

1 Tbs oil
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 tsp thyme
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes with juice, or half a can is better if you'll use up the rest later
2 quarts beef broth
1 cup or so chopped or shredded leftover beef (from making broth if you made your own)
2 cups egg noodles or other small pasta
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped, or a few tablespoons dried
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil and saute the onion, carrots, and celery a few minutes. This is pretty much how all my soups start! Add the thyme, broth, and meat and bring to a simmer. Cook 15-20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Add the pasta or egg noodles and cook as long as the pasta says to cook, stirring now and then.

Stir in the parsley and taste. Add salt and pepper as needed.