Don't Tell The Kids...

But this

is my new favorite ingredient.  See what it says there, yes, it's "Milk Free" - but do you know what's in it?  

That's right, tofu.  

You know what it tastes like?  Not sour cream because its:

ok, that's hard to read, but it says, better than sour cream - 

And more importantly - NOT TOFU -  not one bit.  I'm sure you don 't believe me, but if you are going dairy free, as we have recently had to do - try this stuff!  It will blow your mind...

I believe that I mentioned in an earlier post how much we are all missing mashed potatoes and how I was not so thrilled at the prospect of mashing potatoes with this:

HOWEVER - if you mash your potatoes with some of the (gasp) margarine, along with about a 1/4 cup of chicken stock and a 1/4 cup of 

  


the mashed potatoes come out fluffy, creamy, and amazingly good.  I made my brand new dairy free mashed potatoes to go with the ribs I had cooked up in my slow cooker for about 6 hours and my family ate them and NO ONE knew they secretly harbored tofu.  And people weren't just eating them politely.  They were not moving the potatoes around on their plates to make it look like they had eaten them - NO, they scarfed the potatoes - even my teens scarfed the potatoes.


AND THEN, when I was trying to use up all the ribs - because I had made quite a few - I took all the meat off the bone, sauteed up some onions, carrots and a bit of frozen spinach, dumped the meat into the pan when the onions and carrots were softened and the spinach had cooked down, tossed the meat around, added a bit more barbecue sauce (I'm a fan of Stubbs jarred sauce when I don't have time to make it, which is more frequent than I'd like to admit) and once again, I threw in about a 1/4 cup of

.

I served my little pork rib mixture over rice and it was glorious.  

So far I have used Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream in muffins that called for yogurt, and in frosting instead of cream cheese, and on top of my chili because, though I like sour cream, THIS is BETTER THAN SOUR CREAM.  

Just don't tell the children, 'cause if they find out, they will never eat mashed potatoes again... and dammit!  I like my mashed potatoes!

Steak & Potatoes -

I did not take this picture which is why it looks so good...

So, the other day, I called my friend Laura and invited her to the movies.  I wanted to see if she could drop everything and run to a 6pm movie with me, but she couldn't, so we planned on seeing a later show - 8:45 in Center City.  It was Sunday, and I decided I'd make dinner for the family - I grabbed some steak, and sliced some potatoes, and sauteed some green beans.  Then one daughter came home and started talking to me about the movie she'd just seen, and my husband began a conversation with me about what we were going to do with the leaves outside and my older daughter came down and declared that she wasn't going to eat, and then there was that fight.  At about 7:45 I got the dinner on the table.  We all sat down, and I played some Christmas music, and we all started talking about - actually, I have no idea what we were all talking about - but it was just one of those shiny moments that happen when you are completely involved - then the phone rang.  It was 8:28.  On the other line was my friend Laura who I was supposed to have picked up at 8:15.  She said, don't tell me you forgot.  But I did!  I had actually completely forgotten that she and I had made a plan to do something FUN not two hours before.

This is my life - in a nutshell.  I have no ability to attend.  I'm like a freaking magpie - something - anything - shiny distracts me.  I cannot hold a thing in my head: not plans I've made, not conversations I've had, not important things I'm supposed to do. Maybe it's age.  I'm getting on up there, much to my own disbelief.  Maybe it's because I have a lot on my plate with teaching and kids and - ok that's it, just teaching and kids - that seems to be enough.  But even if I make a plan for something fun - if it's not bright and shiny and right in front of my face - it flies out of my mind like a goose flees winter.

This is why I like simple foods like steak and potatoes.  It is the only thing that I can make when I am mightily distractible that I can do, and do fairly well, with out, well, as my 15 year old likes to say (a little too often) totally f*ing it up.  Throw the stake in a hot saute pan, on a hot grill pan, or on a hot grill outside.  Set the timer.  Flip the steak.  Reset the timer.  Take the steak off and let it rest in a bit of marinade (I like to reverse marinade because who has the foresight to marinade earlier in the day).  Flip it.  Let it sit in the marinade a bit longer.  It's that easy.

cutest freaking sous chef in the world

Potatoes are easy like this too - I always seem to have potatoes kicking around my kitchen.  (Literally kicking around because some times my sous-chef likes to stretch her long paws up into the bowl on the counter just to see what she can get - and what she usually gets is a potato which she doesn't really like, but hey, she's a dog, and it's food, so she kind of takes a few bites before leaving it under the table where it gets kicked across the room a few times before some one thinks to pick it up.)


And while your steak rests and your potatoes rest you can toss some fresh green beans in a pot of salted water.  Or frozen green beans in a pot of salted water.  Or if you're feeling ambitious you can throw said fresh or frozen green beans in a saute pan with salt, water, a little olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic and let all that simmer on a low heat until the water has evaporated, at which point in time you give the whole thing a lazy stir so the oil salt and garlic get properly incorporated with the beans.  But that's it.  That's the whole effort - and a desultory effort at that.

This is the kind of food where all you have to do is set the timer on your iPhone while you drift into the family room to watch the last half of How I Met Your Mother (which the 15yrold is obsessed with) or Adventure Time (an obsession of the 13yrold) or X Files reruns (the husband).  You can make this dinner if you are reading a really good book you can't put down which means you can only cook with one hand because you're holding the book with the other.

And this is the kind of meal I make when I have about 30 papers to grade, and I've been distracted by all sorts of shiny (ie movies with my friend... cleaning out the refrigerator ... organizing necklaces in my jewelry box) and I have to return said papers to students tomorrow.  At 8am.

I'm making a lot of steak,  potatoes and green beans these days.


My Favorite Steak

about 1 1/4 lb London Broil steak
garlic - as much as you happen to have
thyme, or tarragon, or parsley, or cilantro - what ever.
1/3 or so of olive oil.  Or grapeseed oil, or canola oil
1/4 cup of lemon juice, or red or white wine or balsamic vinegar - or any other acidy liquid you have hanging about.  My favorite is lemon juice, but red wine is also awesome.  And if you use red wine throw in a splash of Worcestershire sauce - you won't regret it.
1 TBlsp of Sea Salt, or 1 tsp of Kosher salt or table salt
LOTS of fresh ground pepper.

Heat your pan super hot.  Turn on the fan over your stove.  Oil the steak,  dash with a bit of salt, but not too much.  Grind some pepper over the whole thing.  Slap it in the pan.  (Or grill).  DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 7 MINUTES.  Then flip it over DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 5-7 MINUTES depending on how well done you like your steak and how thick the whole thing is.

Meanwhile dump the rest of the ingredients in a dish that will fit the steak.  Whisk it all up.  When the steak is done, plonk it in the dish and turn it so that both sides have been dredged in marinade.  Tent with foil and DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 10 MINUTES.  Flip the steak and let it be while you finish making the rest of the meal, setting the table, and drinking your Manhattan.

Cut your steak thinly and on the bias.


Potatoes:
Here's one way to do 'em -
New potatoes or Yukon Golds, quartered
Sea or Kosher salt
about 1/8th to 1/4 cup of olive oil

Preheat your oven to 400 or so.  Dump the potatoes in a roasting pan, a cast iron skillet or a jelly roll pan.  Swirl with olive oil and salt.  Roast for 20 min.

OR slice your potatoes into match sticks, and do the same thing, only don't roast as long.  Matchsticks will be cooked in 10 minutes


Green Beans - I don't actually need to tell you how to cook green beans, do I?

Twice Baked and Stuffed

Looks good, doesn't it? What's not to love about a stuffed potato?

Bought this huge bag of potatoes at Produce Junction for about $2 the other day, thinking I could make a meal of them for my Feed the Hungry Edition - and learned a mean little lesson: it's really hard to feed your family for $5 unless you are buying each of them a .99 cent burger from McDonalds.

Still, I spent a lot less than $25 on this meal - but only if you consider the fact that I had to spend almost $25 to get there. In other words, I got about 15 small potatoes for $2, I spent $1.99 on a 16 oz thingy of sour cream and and a pound of butter cost $3. My quart of milk also cost $3. I spent $1.66 on a tiny amount of turkey and almost $5 on a pound of turkey bacon. A block of cheddar was also about $3 and as was a bag of frozen green beans. Even though I only used bits of these ingredients, saving the rest for another meal (or two) - still: what if I ONLY HAD five dollars in my pocket? And that's kind of the point, isn't it? I have enough money to make a nutritious meal because I have enough money to buy the ingredients to begin with. I didn't even factor in the salt and pepper and grapeseed oil because, since I have them at home all the time I forgot to write down their price when at the store.

So, my four stuffed potatoes plus 1/2 a bag of frozen green beans cost about $9 to make, which meant that we put $16 in our Feed The Hungry Jar.

Stuffed Potatoes (and frozen green beans - I think you all know how to cook the beans - so I'm not going to tell you...)

4 (or 5 baking potatoes, if the potatoes a small and meager looking)

1 piece of turkey bacon cut into small pieces (* see note below)

1TBLSP grapeseed oil, just enough to lightly coat the skillet

1/4 lb (more or less) ground dark meat turkey

1 cup of sour cream (if you like 'em tangy, which we do, or use less of this and more milk)

1/2 cup of milk

2 TBLSP butter

1/2 cup of mild cheddar cheese divided

Heat your oven to 450 then throw in your washed and pierced potatoes. (I use the toaster oven to cook potatoes because a)I'm generally to lazy to preheat and b) it uses a lot less energy.)

Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet (or any fry pan) and cook up the bacon until it's crisp. Take it out and saute the ground turkey in the same skillet. When the turkey is almost cooked through, take it off the heat, mix the bacon back in and set aside.

When the potatoes are done, take them out of the oven and cut them open so they lie flat. Scoop out the insides and put in a bowl (if you used 5 potatoes, save the 5th potato skin for later, but add the insides to the bowl). Add the sour cream, milk, butter and 1/4 cup of cheddar. Then mix in the turkey. Salt and pepper it to taste. Set your potato skins out on a cookie sheet and carefully (I know Nigella Lawson would say, lovingly, here) return your potato mixture to the skins. Sprinkle each potato with some cheddar, and return it all to the oven. Bake about 15 minutes until completely warmed through and the cheese on the top has gotten melty and maybe a little brown in spots.

See:

** Note: I use the turkey bacon because I find ground turkey to be a little insipid and the bacon boosts the flavor. You certainly could leave it out, just make sure to salt and pepper the turkey while you brown it.

Shepherd's Pie (yes, more pie)

Hello, lover.

I'm talking to the potatoes.

So, I've been thinking about my stomach a lot lately. It's large. It is. I know this because every time I go in for a physical my doctor discretely hands me print-outs for the Mediterranean diet and sometimes Weight Watchers. I'm your classic "apple" all belly and butt. My husband seems not to care, and I don't really care, except that it's January and every time I turn on Regis and Kelly they've got some new diet guru on and since I only watch Regis and Kelly when I'm upstairs getting into, or getting out of, the shower, I'm often a bit vulnerable.

So, a couple of days ago this guy named Jorge Cruse is on and he's talking about "belly fat," and I hear him and I think, "hey! I've got some of that!" and I decide to actually stand in front of the little tv in our bedroom and listen for once, and the guy sounds good. He's a little bouncy - a Tiggerish kind of guy - but I like what he's saying. Like it enough anyway to go over to my local Borders and read his book up in the cafe while sipping a mocha latte and nibbling on a bit of a muffin.

I took notes.

And what I came away with is that Jorge believes belly fat is caused by excess insulin as opposed to the amount of calories you take in. He's all about cutting the sugar, and switching out the carbs for the ones with whole grains, etc., yadda yadda yadda. And then I get to the good part: he's also all about cream and butter. Not eliminating them, USING them - without guilt. Without counting them. And I almost choke on my muffin because if you told me to give up ice cream, or candy, or even (gasp) cheese cake, I'd be like, okay... (swallow)... I can maybe do that. But the moment you say no more Irish butter (which is what my physician was seriously implying) - I say $%$#@ that! The butter stays. Don't mess with my Kerrygold.

So I took enough notes to understand that it's all about keeping the sugar down and the carbs to a certain minimum and if you want to know more, you can google the guy. I'm going to think about it for a few more days, and I might go visit his book at Border's again, and if my Library gets it in the next month or so, I may even actually borrow it --

However, in the mean time, I think Jorge might like this dinner I made tonight - which was shepherd's pie made with buffalo meat. Buffalo is a naturally lean meat, which is better for you (and more interesting tasting) than your basic hamburger. (I know - classic shepherd's pie involves lamb, but ground lamb involves the extra step of asking a butcher to grind it and I think we all know how I feel about taking the extra step.) The big news with this recipe is that there's both butter and cream in those potatoes... it is not for the faint of heart. So for all you last-decade calorie counters out there, this recipe is probably not for you -- but for anyone who is (shakily) interested in banishing sugar for a while in favor of good old, all American FAT -- I say: enjoy!

(Buffalo) Shepherd's Pie

Filling:

1 lb ground buffalo meat

a swirl of olive oil

1 leek, sliced in half length-wise, then roughly chopped (then rinsed to get out the grit)

1 celery stalk

sea or kosher salt to taste

pepper to taste

1TBLSP Worcestershire sauce

1TBLSP heavy cream

2 cups of frozen peas (or spinach, or one of those veggie mixes with the peas and carrots and corn all cut up in the nice uniform dices)

Topping:

3 or 4 large potatoes, or 5 or six small red ones, peeled and cut into chunks

large pinch of Kosher or sea salt

3/4 stick of unsalted butter

1 TBLSP of heavy cream

about 1/2 cup (more or less) of 2%milk (Jorge would NOT like the milk, there's a lot of sugar grams in milk - which I did not know until I looked.)

more salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375.

Brown the meat in an oven proof hot skillet swirled with olive oil. When the meat is mostly brown, but not too cooked, take it out and pour off all but about a TBLSP of the fat. Put the skillet back over a medium flame and then add the leeks and celery and a pinch of salt. Cook until they are slightly softened, then throw the meat back in the pan, along with the rest of the filling ingredients. Stir everything around to distribute, and give it a quick taste, adjusting the seasoning if necessary.

While the meat was browning, you should have been boiling those potatoes. Put the potatoes in a big pot, cover them with cold water and a large pinch of salt, bring them to a boil and cook until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Drain, return potatoes to pot. Add butter and mash. Add cream and mash. Add milk, just enough for the potatoes to get creamy.

Now, scoop out those potatoes spread them over the meat mixture and stick the whole thing in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. (Mine needs adjusting, so it took the full 30) or until the peaks of your potatoes are golden. Let the dish rest for 7 to 10 minutes before serving.

Cozy Soup (in Real Time)

I have this sweater that wears me. It's this silvery grey soft wool, it has shiny silver thread running all though it (I'm like a magpie with shiny), it has an empire waist, 3/4 sleeves and it has little flowers around the neckline. Yeah. It sounds kind of grandmothery but it's a DKNY Jeans sweater that I bought at a Macy's one day sale for $25-- so its actually kind of cool -- but because it's DKNY it's meant to be worn by someone at least 5'9" and the size of a post, whereas I'm 5'2" (after an hour of yoga) and shaped more like a pumpkin. But I don't care because I really like it and it's warm and surprisingly cozy for a shiny/silver/flowery thing. Whenever I put it on, which is fairly often because it's cozy, my friends all say, "ooh, cool sweater," which is significantly different from, "that sweater looks great on you!" I also know the sweater wears me because my Mom says nothing when I wear it -- which means the whole thing probably washes me out and makes me look exactly like a pumpkin, a grey pumpkin, despite it's DKNY status.

Oh Well. I say, it's good to have something cozy that wears you because it takes the pressure off. Which brings me to soup. Soup, while it doesn't wear me (though I've been known to wear IT), is the definition of a cozy and pressure free dinner. Tonight, because it's a perfect fall evening -- chilly and crisp -- I'm going to make soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

This afternoon I am baking bread for sandwiches (click "bread" for the recipe) and right now I am roasting cauliflower for a potato-leek-cauliflower soup I intend to make when I get back from Em's voice lesson. I've got stock (made and froze last week) defrosting in the fridge, and I have about six little russet potatoes and one leek. When I get home I plan to chop the potatoes up into pretty small pieces, saute the leeks with some fresh sage and a bit of thyme.

Oh - timer just went off for the bread and I just took it out and it's all sunken in -darn! And it looked so pretty after it's second rise. I must admit, the dough was a little wetter than I usually let it be, so that's probably it. Cauliflower looks good though -- just took it out of the oven and it's nice and goldeny, but not too mushy - it still has a decent amount of crunch.

Heading out to the voice lesson now. Wearing the dowdy-only-on-me-sweater.

I'm back. Diced 3 potatoes and and one small leek and threw it all in a pot with my stock two minced sage leaves and a stalk of thyme and pinch of sea salt. It's simmering now. It'll take about 10 minutes for the potatoes to get tender.

Time for a glass of wine.

Ok - potatoes are tender. I fished out the thyme stem, then stripped a bunch of fresh thyme leaves into the soup. Tossed the roasted cauliflower into the soup. More salt, a bit of pepper, a squeeze of half a lemon. A lot of people would then blend this soup up either with a hand blender or in a blender -- but I'm not going to because my kids hate creamy soup. Weird. Anway...

While the soup rests, I'm going to grill the sandwiches (half cheddar, half mozzarella).

Sandwiches are done, ladling soup into the bowls. I'm more squeezing lemon into Smith's and mine because the girls can only tolerate so much lemon.

The sandwiches are really good dipped into the soup.

So there's my evening. Mad is finishing homework, Smith and Em are doing dishes, I'm finishing my cozy soup blog, curled up in my sweater and and an old pair of jeans, large wool socks, dog on my lap. Yes.

Potatoes, mashed and otherwise

It is very difficult for me to adequately stress the necessity of potatoes.  In my house, though we don’t eat potatoes every day, we could: it is the one starch my children never grow tired of.  Pasta, bread, even rice you can only fix so many ways; potatoes are versatile.  For instance, last night I made a chicken stew for my parents.  My mother is gluten intolerant, so I’m in the habit of making a separate flour-free portion for her.  The recipe called for 3/4 cup of flour to thicken the sauce.  No can do for Mom, so I whisked some leftover mashed potatoes into hot broth instead.  The sauce thickened up nicely, and no one was the wiser.  I’ve been toying with the idea of keeping a box of those powdered potatoes on hand for just such an emergency.  If I do, I’ll let you know how they work as a gluten free sauce/gravy thickener.

Potatoes are good.  When I was younger living in New York City and continually strapped because I kept spending any leftover salary on Joan & David shoes, I used to stop at this little knish shop on the corner of 5th and 13th street.  A hole-in-the-wall was spacious compared to this shop, which was made up of a counter, a guy behind the counter and an oven to warm the knishes his mother had made earlier in a kitchen in Brooklyn.  If you didn’t get there before 6:30pm, they’d be sold out, and there was always a long line of yuppie guys in rumpled suits grabbing a knish to snack on before hitting the bars.  For me, the knish was dinner.  At about $1 a knish it was filling and economical.  I particularly loved the cheddar and spinach combo.  I’d wrap my dinner in several napkins and nibble at it while walking home.  If I didn’t have a buck, 25 cents bought a single potato from the bodega on the corner which I could bake at home and eat with butter, or, if the cupboard was completely bare, with just a bit of salt.  I was never so skinny, and I never again had such beautiful shoes.  I owed it all to my utter love for potatoes.

Potatoes are the ultimate comfort food, are they not?  Particularly when it's been raining for several days and I want something hot and filling.  My convection/toaster oven bakes up a crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside russet or Idaho potato in about 15 min.  A little Irish butter, and I am over the moon.  Last week I had a lot of leftover mashed potatoes because we’d had people over for dinner and I wasn’t sure how much they’d eat.  (My husband is always remarking that I never make quite enough... I’ve been working hard at changing that reputation...and have perhaps gone a bit overboard.)  Of course, I could always warm them up by sticking them on a burner and adding a little more warm milk, but that seemed like the easy way out.   Perhaps because so many of my friends have been planning Passover meals, I found myself thinking of potato pancakes.   Could I make pancakes out of my left over mashed potatoes?  Would they hold together?  

I mixed the potatoes with some shredded cheddar, flattened about 1/2 a cup of this mixture in my hand, dipped them in a whisked egg then dipped them in breadcrumbs.  Then I fried them up in a bit of olive oil until they were golden and crispy.  As Emma would say, OMG!  Friends, I can tell you my little mashed potato pancakes not only held together, but they were unbelievably yummy and satisfying.  Almost as satisfying as that perfect hot knish from my salad days.  Almost.  

Now if I could only find a way to recreate those perfect little Joan &David pink and white spectator pumps...

Basic Mashed Potatoes (feeds family of 4 with leftovers)

4 Russet or Idaho potatoes

1 cup of milk (I use 2% lactose free milk, but you can use anything)

2 tbslp unsalted butter

Kosher salt to taste

white pepper to taste

Wash and peel potatoes.  Cut into chunks that are all about equal in size.  Stick into a large enough pot and cover with water.  Throw a little salt in the water.  Bring to a boil and simmer until you can easily stick a knife or fork into the potatoes.

Meanwhile, warm the milk over low heat.  (** sometimes I stick a smashed garlic clove into the milk, then I discard the clove before I add it to the potatoes.  You can also use the same amount of chicken stock if your family has lactose issues.  Your potatoes won’t be as creamy, but there will be more protein)

When your potatoes are done, mash them up -- I’ve got a nice heavy potato masher from OXO that Maddy loves to use, but a fork, a large spoon, the back of a ladle, anything will work here.  Then add your milk and butter a little at time until your potatoes are as creamy and buttery as you want them.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Mashed Potato Variations

I know people who use 1/2 cup milk and 1/2 cup sour cream -- and people who leave out the butter and add some shredded cheddar.  Very delicious.  Some parsley tossed in is good (my girls hate parsley, but perhaps yours don’t).  Bacon, of course, the perfect addition... Oh, and you can always throw several carrots in the water with the potatoes, or parsnips, or turnips and mash them up with the potatoes and milk. Roast a yam or a sweet potato, scoop out the flesh and toss it in the pot with the boiled potatoes. The possibilities ... Good Lord I’m hungry now!

Crazy Leftover Potato Pancakes

Left over mashed potatoes however much you have

Cheddar cheese, shredded 

1 or 2 eggs

2-3 cups of breadcrumbs

Kosher salt

Olive or Canola oil

Mix the mashed potatoes with the cheddar and form into small not-too-flat(1/4 in?) pancakes.  Crack the egg(s) and whisk ‘em up in a bowl or pie plate.  Dump the breadcrumbs in another pie plate and add a little salt.  Set your oven to warm and pop in a paper towel lined cookie sheet.  Heat the oil in a skillet or saute pan until it is shimmering.  Carefully drop your potato pancakes in and let cook until golden on one side, then turn.  This won’t take more than a few minutes.  Put the cooked pancakes in the warming oven and cook the next batch or batches.  It all depends on how many leftovers you have.

We actually ate these as a vegetarian meal one night -- with some sauteed broccolini and a salad.  Plates were cleaned and no one was hungry until breakfast.