I went to Costco today. My main client’s staff was at an off-site meeting so I figured this was a good day to “sneak off” mid-day to Costco. I detest going on weekends, yet always have a hard time going during the week when work is a’plenty, as it has been lately. There are a few things I almost always get there (milk, half and half, eggs, laundry soap, dishwasher soap) and other things I check the prices on and get if they’re reasonable. The big huge (2.5 pound!) bag of spinach is usually a given. I personally don’t like cooked spinach but my girls will both eat it–go figure. I do like a spinach salad however so we have no problems consuming all this spinach before it goes bad. Hamburger, ground round, was about $2.49 a pound–a good deal around here, so I bought the 5.5 pound package. I divided it into roughly 6 equal parts and froze 5 of them. I can pull these out later for meatloaves, tacos, meat sauce, shepherd’s pie, and so forth. Sometimes I boil it up and then freeze it, but since it was a working day I froze it raw.

I hadn’t planned a dinner tonight, figuring I’d use up something I got at the store. I debated between tacos, spaghetti sauce, and a few other things but somehow nothing was grabbing my attention. I skimmed a few cookbooks, not dead-set on the ground beef as the mainstay. I have tons of tomatoes in the garden and despite having BLT’s last night for dinner, I was tempted to do some pasta with tomatoes tonight. Then I spotted a recipe for “Joe’s Special” in one book, and “San Francisco’s Little Joe’s” in another book. One had garlic and the other had Parmesan and Tabasco, but they were basically the same recipe. Being a “more is more” kind of cook, I combined them both and used it all. Both recipes warned this was not a pretty dish. Spinach and ground beef. You can imagine. The girls gave it an expected look of horror–but having just returned from an hour and a half of swimming they were starving and had no choice but to dig in.

“Mmmmm. This doesn’t look very good, but it’s actually really good!” says the youngest.

“This is gross.” Chew. Chew. Chew. “Can I have more? It actually tastes good.” says the eldest.

I used about 3/4 of a pound of ground beef, despite the recipes calling for a pound. I served it with some bread and mock apple pie for dessert. This served the three of us (with two hearty swimming eaters) with one portion leftover. For big eaters, add more meat, serve with bread and another side dish, etc.

2 Tbs oil
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 – 1 pound of ground beef
1 pound fresh spinach, steamed or blanched, and chopped (you could use frozen of course)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
a dash or two of Tabasco sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat the oil and cook the onion and garlic until softened. Add the ground beef and brown as you break it up into small pieces. If your children swim, turn this down to low, drain the fat off, and let sit covered until they’re done showering.

Add the spinach and cook a few minutes. Salt and pepper here if you’d like, or at the table later.

Mix together the eggs and Tabasco, then pour into the meat and spinach mixture, stirring until the eggs are set. Pour the whole thing out onto a platter and top with the Parmesan. Prepare yourself for groans and set it on the table. Prepare yourself to accept accolades as well, which you’ll get as soon as they taste it if they’re at all hungry.

A bit later an email from the neighbor asked if I needed anything from the store, so I had him pick up the Catalina dressing for me. He dropped it off about 1:30 and I added it to the crockpot, stirring it all together. With the old crockpots I would have been worried about taking the lid off, but this one seems to simmer at a good clip even on low. In fact, about 5:30, after the web meeting, I turned it down to warm.

I made up some mashed potatoes and cooked carrots to go with this. About 20 minutes before dinner, the sauce for the roast looked a bit thin, although it would have been fine. I mixed together a couple of tablespoons of flour with the same amount of cold water. I took the roast out, stirred in the flour mix, and turned the slow cooker up to high. Mmmmmm! This was really good. The roast was not sliceable, instead being more like pulled pork since it just fell apart. But the flavor was excellent.

chicken parts
garlic salt
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup chicken broth

Mix the flour, paprika, salt and pepper in a pie pan or other flat dish.

Sprinkle each piece of chicken with the garlic salt, then roll in the flour. Place skin side DOWN in a baking dish. Pour 1/2 cup of the chicken broth in the pan and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Turn the pieces of chicken over so they’re skin side UP, pour the other half cup of chicken broth in the pan, and bake another 30 minutes.

I like to do a baked rice dish or baked potatoes at the same time, since the oven is on. While they’re baking, make up a dessert like an apple crisp and throw it in the oven as well. It will finish up and be nice and warm for dessert.

Baking rice has a slightly different texture than when it’s cooked on the stove. I saute some onion in a bit of olive oil, then add the rice and saute it for a minute or two. Add enough chicken broth (two parts broth to 1 part rice) and some seasonings. For a cup of rice, I’d typically add 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp each of dried basil, sage, marjoram, and thyme. Stir it all up and transfer to a baking dish, if necessary, cover, and bake for an hour somewhere between 350 and 400.

I pulled some chicken broth from the freezer, about 6 cups, and started microwaving it to melt. In the meantime, I heated 1/4 cup or so of olive oil in my soup pot, peeled and chopped and onion and added it to the pot and left it to soften a bit while I fixed the rest of the vegetables. I had a yellow squash from the garden and a few tomatoes from the garden, so sliced and diced them. When the onion had softened a bit, I put the chicken broth in, although half of it was still frozen. It melted quickly enough and when it started simmering I added the yellow squash and carrots.

I looked through the refrigerator and saw the leftover cooked carrots from last night, a small bowl of chopped lettuce from tacos the other night, and a bit of leftover salsa. I added them all to the pot.

I debated about adding some rice or pasta but decided on lentils instead. They cook up quickly and are healthy–what a bonus! I threw in half a cup or so.

I added some chopped parsley and dried thyme, salt and pepper, then tasted. Once the lentils were cooked, about 30 minutes later, I pronounced it done and served with some grated Parmesan at the table.

Later, I spied some leftover pinto beans from the same taco night and thought I might add them tomorrow night or for my lunch tomorrow. I like adding a bit as I serve the same soup again so it tastes a bit different each night.

The other day I made a cobbler with them. We just ate the last of it tonight. You can see the red color. In fact, I intially wrote “cherry” cobbler after looking at the picture. They are a bit tarter than a regular peach, but are a nice freestone fruit. I added a bit more sugar to the cobbler mixture to account for the tartness.

I may have just added a new Sunday chore to my list and will need to make a batch each week. Adding these cooked and spiced peppers into my turkey sandwich made all the difference between having a “turkey sandwich,” again, and having a great lunch!

Basically, you slice a thin (1/2″) piece of round steak and pound it even thinner (to 1/4″). Then you dip it in flour, dip it in egg, and dip it in flour again (or cracker crumbs) and fry in oil, bacon grease, lard, or whatever fat you have lying around. I happened to spot lard at the grocery store, although I swear I was not even looking for it. But once I saw it, I decided to try it. I have been tempted before to try pie crusts with lard and I may now have an excuse. But tonight I just fried the steaks in it.

I’m not sure where to give the credit (the lard, the meat, the frying, the seasonings) but these chicken fried steaks were out of this world. So simple and so good! My eldest, who dislikes chicken at the moment, was not all fond of the name of the dish but once I assured here there was no chicken involved, that it was merely named after the style of cooking/frying, she dug into it and pronounced it wonderful.

If you haven’t pounded meat before, I find it easiest to place the meat between two pieces of plastic wrap and use the flat side of a meat tenderizer or I suppose anything else heavy and flat. Just whack away at it until it’s as thin as you like.

4 pieces of round steak, cut 1/2″ thin and pounded to 1/4″, about a pound total
1 cup flour
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 eggs
3 Tbs lard or other fat

If you want gravy:
2 Tbs flour
2 Tbs diced onion or 1 Tbs dried onion flakes
1 and 1/2 cups milk or milk and chicken broth or milk and water mix
salt and pepper to taste

Pound the meat and set aside. Heat the fat in a frying pan large enough to hold 1 or 2 steaks.

Put the egg in a pie pan and mix it up. If you like, you can add a bit of milk or half and half or water. Put the flour and seasonings in another pie pan and stir together.

When the fat is hot, use two forks to lift a pounded steak into the egg and coat it, then over to the flour and coat it on both sides, pressing down slightly to make it stick. Put the steak into the fat and cook for about 2 minutes on each side. Remove to a plate and keep warm until all are done.

To make gravy, drain off all but about 2 Tbs of the fat. Add the onion and cook a minute, then sprinkle the 2 Tbs flour over it and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes or so. Slowly add the liquid, mixing each addition in so there are no lumps. You can use a whisk for this or one of those springy things my girls called the “bungee mixer” to get the lumps out. Stir constantly a few more minutes, until it cooks down to the thickness you like.

Serve the chicken fried steaks with mashed potatoes and the gravy and some sort of vegetable. Tonight I did another squash and onion and tomato saute.

Postscript: I hadn’t realized that frying was the theme of Is My Blog Burning this month until I read some of my favorite cooking blogs this morning. At Our Table is the host so go check out the other honest entries, as opposed to my happenstance one!

Today I made chermoulah. This is a recipe I found in Fine Preserving: Jams and Jellies, Pickles and Relishes, Conserves and Chutneys and Brandied Fruits for City and Country Cooks. I had actually begun to collect cookbooks long before blogging. When I moved into this house, with its 14 fruit trees, I was struck by the idea of canning. My own mother had canned a variety of home grown produce and fruits when I was growing up, everything from stewed tomatoes to applesauce and jams. I guess it just seemed natural that I try my hand. I found this book and bought it, long before I knew who MFK Fisher was, although in fact it was her annotations that made the book interesting to me. I’ve made a spiced cherry jam that is to die for, lemon marmalade, and chermoulah, peppers cooked in oil and vinegar, MFK Fisher’s favorite in the book as well as my own. When I saw green peppers on sale at the grocer, I remembered this recipe and made up a batch today. Like MKF Fisher, I like to make mine with a mixture of different colored peppers, although you could more easily just make it of a single color. The original recipe calls for green peppers only.

You cook up sliced peppers and whole garlic cloves in a mixture of olive oil, vinegar, paprika, coriander, salt, and pepper, then refrigerate. Serve it as a side dish, an appetizer, or whatever. If you’ve got some crusty French bread, the oil and vinegar mixture is to be sopped up with the bread. I could easily make a meal of the chermoulah and bread.

1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp ground coriander
salt and pepper to taste (1/4 tsp each maybe…)
2 peppers, seeded and sliced into 1/2″ strips

Cook this all together over a low heat. I do it so that the oil is barely making bubbles. The original author, Catherine Plagemann, says 15-20 minutes. MFK likes it a bit crisper and does 10-15 minutes. Cool and refrigerate. It should be eaten within a few weeks, although, like MFK notes, it never lasts long enough in my house to push that time limit.

Today I did one batch of green peppers and one of red peppers, then combined them afterwards. It is a beautiful concoction, in addition to tasting heavenly!

My original plan was to make a quiche tonight, because I had lots of eggs and was going to do something vegetarian. But then one of the girls asked for macaroni and cheese. That sounded too heavy but I said I’d do pasta and something. I put the pot of water onto boil and went out to the garden. I picked some cherry tomatoes, both red and yellow pear ones, some small yellow crookneck squash, and some basil. I was thinking of a pasta primavera kind of thing, so I heated up some olive oil and chopped half an onion and a garlic clove and started them sauteeing.

While they were cooking, I sliced up the yellow squash and halved the various cherry tomatoes, then sliced up the basil into thin strips. (I know there’s a word for that but I cannot think of what it is. Chiffonade maybe?) I also sliced up some baby carrots (from the grocer alas). I added them all to the onions and garlic after a few minutes. They smelled good–and even better after I added some seasoned pepper and salt. As I was pouring a glass of cheap white wine ($2 Chuck: this is CheapCooking after all!), I figured the wine would help the vegetables so added half a glass to the pan.

When I put the wine back in the frig, I spotted the leftover tarragon chicken from last night. I chopped up one of the pieces and added it and some of the leftover sauce to the vegetables. When the pasta was done and drained, I put some on each plate and topped with the leftover vegetable chicken mixture.

One child had not liked the chicken last night. I think it was the tarragon. Of course, she actually doesn’t like chicken these days so it’s hard to tell. But she loved this dinner tonight! Maybe it was the fact that the chicken was not the focal point, but merely an accent. The other child had liked the chicken last night and also loved this dinner. Both pronounced it a “repeat”–our highest praise.

I’m afraid I won’t be able to fix it again, exactly the same of course. Such is the bittersweet reward of dinners like this. All I can do is make note, as I’ve done here, and hope that I’ll be similarly inspired some other night when everyone’s starving and I’ve not much time to put dinner on the table.