Monday Musings on Tuesday: Memorial Day Edition May 29, 2012
Posted by Toy Lady in Home, meal plan monday.Tags: menu plan monday
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I trust our American friends have enjoyed a nice Memorial Day weekend – the weather here in upstate New York was exactly what the first official weekend of summer should be – hot and sunny.
Rain had been forecast for off and on over the weekend, but it just never really materialized. That’s all good, though – it gave Peeps a chance to pull out the little smoker – I picked up a nice pork belly last weekend that’s been curing all week – it’s bacon now.
And, of course, since the smoker was going anyway, why not use the same heat to cook a nicely brined pork loin?
It’s all pig all the time around here!
Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to make up a batch of barbecue sauce – and honestly, that’ll probably last us the summer.
Besides the fact that it makes a BOATLOAD (about 2 and a half quarts), we’re really not big condiment people. Though that may change – a little slather of the sauce on last night’s smoked pork loin. . . well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t turn it down.
Seriously, though, this is a decent sauce (it should be – the recipe is from the Dinosaur rib joint!), and, while the ingredient list looks a little intimidating, it’s mostly all stuff that’s lying around anyway, and it’s a matter of cooking the onions and peppers, then adding the rest of the ingredients and letting it simmer. Done.
And it’ll keep in the back of the fridge all summer, too.
I’ve never been much into planting flowers – especially annuals. I mean, you go out, you buy the plants, you fiddle around planting them, and then they die and you have to go through that all over again the next year.
But you know, I’ve been walking the dog every morning, far and wide, and we’re seeing so many really pretty flowers at different people’s houses, and I decided that I wanted my house to look pretty too.
So I went out, picked up some window boxes, nagged the Boy into installing them, and I filled them up with flowers (gerber daisies, I think) and vine-y things (squash . . . something) that I picked up during Flower City Days at the market last Friday, after I skipped out of work early. (Sssshhhh.)
Pretty, no?
My comfort zone is much more in the vegetable garden, to be honest.
Like . . . green beans. I planted them last weekend – 8 days ago – and they’re all up already! Is that not awesome?
Little baby kale plants are starting, too, and I saw, um, something like 2 wee little beets.
I could tell they were beets by their little red stems.
The herb garden is doing what it does – going crazy.
I’m about to have lavender blossoms any minute, the oregano needs to be cut AGAIN, I’ve got chives blossoming like crazy, and even the sage and thyme are getting in on it.
You know, I should have put the herbs in the front yard – all those blossoms and foliage – it really is kind of striking.
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. We’ve been working at clearing stuff out of the freezer – some of it’s just been there a bit too long, and, well, I guess that’s mostly it. We’ve got a new season of grilling and barbecuing coming up, so we’re certainly not going to want to be pulling a container of soup or a roast out of the freezer, now are we?
Monday - It’s Memorial Day, and, while we didn’t have any formal “thing” or anything, we still held true to the spirit of the day, and we grilled some white hots, baked some beans, and made some cole slaw.
Tuesday - We’ve still got a couple of packages of last fall’s pulled pork in the freezer – which is awesome, because I picked up a package of whole wheat “slider rolls” – we’ll enjoy wee little barbecue sandwiches (I just made sauce, you know!), and leftover beans and slaw. Maybe even some chips.
Wednesday - The Boy starts his vacation Wednesday – I’ll (maybe) be taking him to the airport first thing in the morning, and he’ll be gone a week. Sadly, I guess he’ll miss out on Wednesday’s lentil dish – we were initially going to go with the lentil loaf that we like so much, but I think a quick pasta with lentil dish instead.
Thursday - We hit a nice sale at the butcher shop this weekend (wonder why we keep “trying” to empty the freezer?) and we got a strip loin for, basically, what ground chuck would cost. And strip loin makes some fine burgers! So. . . when he’s hacking up the loin to grind for summer burgers, he’s going to hold out a couple of nice NY Strip steaks. And we’ll probably enjoy those with a nice baked potato if it’s not a thousand degrees that evening. A fresh salad, and we should be set.
Friday - It looks like we’re going to have an extra crust for pizza night, what with Vacation Boy and all. So, unless Judy shows up for dinner (always welcome!), we’ll probably do a breakfast pizza over the weekend. It’s either that, or we both have to re-calculate our part – I feed the started in the morning (150 grams of flour and 250 grams of water is just right) and Peeps makes the crust in the afternoon. Easier to just have an extra, I think.
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
In Memoriam 2012 May 25, 2012
Posted by Toy Lady in random stuff.Tags: memorial day, repost
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In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.Lt. Col. John McCrae, M.D
1915
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.Moina Michael
1915
As we go about our gardening and yard work, our family picnics and basement cleaning, opening the pools and visiting the beach, please spare a moment and remember the brave men and women who voluntarily fought and gave their all to win – and preserve – our precious American liberties and freedom.
We’ll be back Tuesday.
A little soft shoe May 23, 2012
Posted by Toy Lady in Eating Down the Fridge, Food, random stuff.6 comments
So a couple of weeks ago, I wrestled the remote control away from Peeps . . . actually, that’s not completely true. I think it was a Saturday morning or something when he wasn’t wasn’t home.
Anyway, I discovered that we had the Cooking Channel. It must be new, because I don’t think we’ve always had it. But then, I don’t spend much time with the remote control, either, so there’s that.
Not only did we have the Cooking Channel, but Mark Bittman, of The Minimalist Fame, has an actual show on actual TV now.
Who knew?
So I set up the DVR to record it – after all, I’ve read his column for years, and I’ve enjoyed his video clips, so I figured why not?
And sure enough, there’s been something every single time that make me sit up and say “huh, we should try that.”
One of the things I really like about The Minimalist is that his style of cooking is very much like mine. He doesn’t so much stick to an actual recipe as he just sort of, well, he puts things together.
A pinch of this, a handful of that – kind of the way my mother makes potato salad.
Fun fact: Did you know that Mark Bittman was, once upon a time, a writer, then an editor, for Cook’s magazine, which later became Cook’s Illustrated? Yup.
So anyway, when we watched the pasta show, and we saw him do this pasta with soft-shelled crabs, my first thought was “huh, we could do that with shrimp.”
Actually my first thought was “eew, those crabs have EYEBALLS on them!”
Then I thought about shrimp – without eyeballs. Cleaned and deveined, actually.
The kind we happened to have just languishing away in the freezer.
And I even went a step further and thought, instead of the garlic and parsley that Mark used (and believe you me, we do love our garlic and parsley!), but instead of that, what would happen if we used a few fresh ramps that I’d picked up at the market?
You remember ramps – wild leeks. The very first fresh vegetable of spring in this part of the world.
After all, isn’t that kind of the spirit of The Minimalist – taking what you’ve got and making it into something lovely?
So we took what we had – which was about a pound of shrimp and a few (four) really big, last of the season ramps.
And some knowledge – technique, if you will.
Paying attention.
The first thing we did was we chopped our ramps. We know that the bulbs are much like garlic and the leaves are kind of like an herb, in that we’re going to want to cook them at different times – the bulbs got sliced and and the greens got chopped, and they were kept separate.
Then we started heating some olive oil in a deep skillet.
Keeping in mind that the ingredients are very few, we wanted to use the best olive oil we could – we broke out the extra virgin stuff. It got heated over an ever-so-low flame, along with the ramp bulbs and a pinch of crushed red pepper.
Once that was started, in went the shrimp, and the pan got lidded.
Shrimp cooks fast – ridiculously fast. One minute it’s gray and slimy, and the next, well, it’s a curled up pink rubber band. And that is Not Cool.
We kept the flame ever-so-low — after all, we weren’t going anywhere, and we still needed to cook the pasta anyway.
And when the shrimp is done, it’s done. It will have exuded some of its moisture, but, ideally, not all of it. Take the shrimp out of the pan and don’t let it cook anymore. Cold shrimp is better than rubbery shrimp.
Speaking of the pasta.
Two things on that, actually.
The first is – finish cooking it in the sauce. The sauce won’t get watery, the pasta won’t get overcooked, and it’ll just taste better.
What sauce, you ask?
Well, when your pasta is almost done, you’re going to want to scoop a cup or so of the pasta water out of the pot before straining it. That starchy liquid will actually help thicken what will become your sauce.
How cool is that?
At this point, we dump everything into the saute pan – the pasta, the shrimp, the ramp leaves, a bit of black pepper, and the pasta water. Toss it together – yes, it’ll look thin, but let it simmer a minute – the pasta (that’s not QUITE done yet) will soak it up, finish cooking AND all the flavors will have a chance to mingle and get to know each other better.
So. . . how do you like to change up a recipe to better suit your kitchen/pantry/refrigerator?
The printable version of this recipe is right here.
Monday Musings: 05.21.2012 Edition May 21, 2012
Posted by Toy Lady in Food, Home, meal plan monday, random stuff, Rochester.Tags: I love the Public Market, makin bacon!, monday meal plan
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And here it is, the end of another weekend – a weekend that included not one, but two trips to the public market!
First exciting thing – local asparagus! I know I could have gotten plenty of asparagus (and cheaper) for the past month or so (longer, actually), but really, besides the whole doing-business-with-my-neighbors thing, it just tastes better when it was picked the day before and has only traveled a few miles, you know? I prefer to wait for the real stuff, myself.
And the second exciting thing – I picked up a lovely 3-pound slab of pork belly. And you know what that means – BACON!
The smoker is coming out for Memorial Day weekend!
And the second trip to the Public Market this weekend was for Flower Days at the Market – after all, Rochester is nicknamed “The Flower City.”
Flower City Days is when I always buy the plants I need for the garden – the entire place is PACKED with vendors and customers, and every year, I come home with lots of plants, plenty of other stuff, and wishing I’d had more cash to buy garden ornaments or signs or a hand-carved bench, or organic local horse fertilizer, or, well, any number of awesomely wonderful things available for the lawn and garden.
Finally, my herb garden is pretty set – with the exception of a couple of annuals (rosemary is, sadly, not usually perennial here, parsley is a biennial, can’t live without fresh basil in season, and I still need some MARJORAM!), I really don’t need any more perennial plants.
Though I couldn’t resist a couple of new mints – I’ve got the grapefruit mint I put in last year, and I got some peppermint (duh!) and some apple mint.
I just hope I don’t live to regret all that mint. . .
We also couldn’t resist some hanging flowers.
I know that I should pick up a few potted plants, transplant them into the hanging baskets, and I could have my own, custom, hanging plants.
But then I see them all hanging there, and they’re so pretty, I can’t help it.
Plus, I had tomatoes to plant this weekend.
However, I do plan to put together some window boxes, probably next weekend.
The Jar had his first trip to the beach this weekend – it was THAT nice!
Oh, he was such a good boy – he stayed mostly on-leash, since we’re still working on his recall skills.
Of course, he had to go into the water – he was SO EXCITED to chase that tennis ball!
But we had to keep it short, though – only about half an hour of actual swimming and frolicking. It wouldn’t do for him to over-do it his first time out this year, now would it?
Oops.
There’s an area in the back yard behind the garage that’s kind of damp and shady and cool.
Every year, the only thing that grows there are lilies of the valley. I’ve always loved them – they’re so pretty, aren’t they?
And stubborn too – they just keep coming back, even with Jar running back there trying to catch squirrels (which he never manages to do).
Our neighbors have this neat vine that grows up over their stockade fence – I have no idea what it is, but it has the coolest purple-ish-blue hangy flowers.
And I just googled “purple hanging flower” and found out it’s wisteria.
Google is cool, huh?
Kitty had her doctor’s appointment this past week – it was her annual check-up, not anything wrong or anything.
All is well with her – she’s down almost another two pounds – her current weight is now 10.6 pounds (2 years ago, she was just over 20!). The vet says she’s at a healthy weight, so she can stop trying to diet.
Her teeth look good, and she’s flea-free (I should hope so!), and we just have to drop off a fresh “sample” next week.
Several years ago, Peeps got me into Star Trek (mostly The Next Generation).
I know, you’re shocked, right?
One scene that’s always ticked me was this one where Worf tries prune juice for the first time:
Now I, being a fan of prune juice (and prunes in general, for that matter), love the idea of the big, strong Klingon ordering his prune juice several times over the course of the next several years.
So when Woot offered this shirt a couple of weeks ago, I knew it had to be mine.
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. I don’t know what the week will bring, schedule-wise, but I know that the week before a long weekend tends to bring unexpected work things. And we’re looking forward to a somewhat unsettled week weather-wise, at least until later on, so . . . we’re playing it safe. Mostly.
Monday - Clearing out the smoked stuff, getting ready for summer – we’ve got one last package of pastrami, and I picked up a loaf of good rye bread at the market. Boy Peeps’s homemade pastrami is good! We’ve got lots of leftover mac salad, too, and a green salad would go nicely, too.
Tuesday - We had a quart of Meaty Beans in the freezer that’s got to get used – while it’s not exactly seasonal, I’ll eat these pretty much any time, especially since they’re already cooked! I didn’t see any respectable greens at the market this week, so . . . we’ll figure out something for a vegetable, because we are NOT having just meat and beans.
Wednesday - We’ve got a surplus of eggs in the fridge – first they were on sale, and then, the past two weeks, I’ve had coupons for a free dozen eggs at the supermarket, so, well, we’ve got eggs. And we haven’t made Spanish tortilla in SO SO long. . . only we’re going to use homemade Mexican chorizo. We’re crazy like that.
Thursday - We’ve been trying very hard to enjoy at least one meatless (or mostly meatless) meal a week – and while you’d think Wednesday’s tortilla would qualify, we’re also going to try Fine Cooking‘s Grilled Chickpea Burgers – we have everything for them in the pantry but the pitas (and the cilantro, but we don’t care for cilantro anyway), and I suspect, what with the smoker coming out next weekend, we’re may have a meat-heavy weekend, so . . .
Friday - It doesn’t look like we’re going to have much in the way of leftovers, so pizza night will likely be pretty old school – definitely some cheese, and maybe a bit of pepperoni for me. (By the way, the leftover everything-bagel pork tenderloin was fantastic on last week’s pizza.)
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
Carnitas! May 18, 2012
Posted by Peeps in Cooking, Food, Home, random stuff.1 comment so far
We love taco night in our house. Come to think of it, I’ve always loved taco night.
Up until the last few years, to me tacos have always been ground beef with seasonings, most likely from a little envelope. And please don’t get me wrong. They’re mighty good. Maybe not so authentic, but who cares?
A few years ago, my wife and I started to experiment. There was a chicken taco recipe that we had when we had our shop. It was pretty good, but it wasn’t amazing.
We’ve tried different spice blends and all sorts of cooking techniques. And they’ve all been fine. But that’s about all.
Then we tried carnitas. What is that? Seasoned pork shoulder that’s been either braised or roasted until it’s falling apart then shredded. It’s then crisped in either a hot oven or in a skillet.
I’d certainly heard of them before, and I seem to recall trying them in some restaurant somewhere a while back. But they apparently didn’t make much of an impression.
The first time we made them at home, we used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. We tend to trust them. And it was very good.
But like most of their recipes, it’s a bit complicated. And it tends to dirty more pans than I generally approve of.
And them my wife found this recipe. We didn’t tweak it, screw with it, adapt it, nothing. We tried it as is and it was fabulous!
We now have our go-to recipe for taco night. A little cheese, some diced onion, some shredded cabbage and we’re good to go. The sauce you make by reducing the braising liquid is incredible, if a tad messy. But you can fix that by mixing some of the sauce with some sour cream. Heaven. Don’t bother with salsa or commercial taco sauce. Not with this.
Leftovers from this recipe work in all kinds of ways. Oh, and it works with a chuck roast instead of the pork shoulder in case you have issues with pork. It’s not quite as good, but I won’t turn it down.
And if by chance you don’t happen to have a pressure cooker, you could do this in a covered Dutch oven in a low oven for a few hours and get almost the same results. But I can’t think of a better reason for going out and buying a pressure cooker. Sure, why not now? You’ll be able to start making the best tacos of your life that much sooner.
