A kind of Ragu - I guess

On Friday my dog got into the drawer where we keep the Benedryl and Motrin. Somehow she opened this drawer - all on her own - and managed to get the child proof top off the motrin and swallow some. At first, I thought she'd only gotten into the Benedryl, but it turns out she must have gotten into the Motrin too because by Sunday at 3am she was wildly drinking water and peeing every few minutes. Smith took her to the doggie hospital. Yesterday Mads and I drove down to see her, and had to wait an hour before they could bring her out and by the time we got back home we were so cranky and tired (plus Mads had a test she was freaking out over - did I ever freak out over a test in 5th grade?, no, I don't think so...my kids are so much more stressed than I was) that we ordered Chinese.

Have I mentioned that she's my sous-chef? I think I have. It's hard to cook when she's not by my feet.

Today, the Vet Hospital told me I could pick her up at 3pm. One of the beautiful things about having a 13 yr old is that she can walk over to the elementary school, pick up the 11 yr old and walk on home. Of course Em forgot her key this morning and I had to drop it off at the elementary school (because Middle School is a little like prison and won't let you see your kid at all during the day). So, I left later than I wanted, then got lost on the way, then got to the Animal Hospital and had to wait for the dog to be released, then drove home in rush hour traffic, and walked in the door only to fight with the girls because they'd been watching TV all afternoon and wanted to watch EVEN MORE because TV is like heroin when you're a pre- and a teen and the more you watch the more you absolutely must watch. Those two would watch TV 'til their eyes bled.* And they weren't even watching good stuff - like the Simpsons, or The Office (their usual fare) - but total crap - ie: Wizards of Waverly Place and Look Alike. God.

At least it wasn't "My Super Sweet Sixteen."

I wanted to make meatloaf tonight. I wanted to make meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans with orange slices (from the Lee Brother's new cookbook). Because I'd established a craving for this. But by the time I got back, I only had 40 minutes before Em's guitar lesson and that is simply not enough time for meatloaf.

So I made another one of my "throw it all in one pot and hope for the best meals" - and this one turned out ok and I decided to call it "Ragu" - after a recipe in a Nigella Lawson cookbook that has very little resemblance to the one I made up tonight, but what the hell.

Before I even started to make dinner tonight I needed a little bit of this:

Because it's been a crappy week. And it's only Tuesday.

*(by the way, Mads declares she wouldn't watch TV until her eyes bled, she'd play on the computer until her eyes bled - so, my bad)

Once again, I had all this stuff in the fridge that I wanted to use up: some 2 week old baby peppers - not quite wrinkly; cauliflower; some ground bison; some frozen green beans; an onion. Tossed it all in and it wasn't half bad. The beauty of the thing was that I didn't have quite enough meat for a whole meat loaf, but throwing it all in a pan with a pile of vegetables stretched the meat far and wide so that there were even leftovers for Smith to bring in the next day. Oh, and I threw these itty bitty potatoes I had left over from that bag of potatoes I bought last week into the toaster oven at 425. They were so small they cooked in about 40 minutes.

I went a little wild with the pictures today, so bear with me.

Not Nigella's Meat Ragu

1 lb of ground meat (whatever you've got: bison, turkey, chuck)

1 yellow onion

1 or 2 carrots (I chopped up a pack of baby carrots just to get them out out out. I get so sick of baby carrots - I don't know why I ever by them, no one ever eats them - and they're always dry as dirt)

1/2 head of cauliflower

frozen green beans snapped in half

1 tblsp of Worstershire

1/2 - 1 cup of Chicken broth

3 sprigs of fresh thyme (if you have it, which I did tonight)

1 bay leaf

Salt and Pepper to taste

sour cream (optional, but nice)

Pull out your biggest skillet and brown the meat in a little swirl of olive oil. Brown your meat, take it out, swirl in more olive oil if need be, return pan to heat, dump in onions, cook until almost translucent, dump in rest of vegetables except green beans (if frozen, if they're fresh dump them in now), add Worstershire, broth, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste. Bring up to a simmer, and cook a few minutes until the vegetables are tender-ish (the cauliflower will be crispier than the rest, but I like it that way). Return meat to pan along with green beans. At this point you can either add the sour cream and stir it into everything, or you can plop it on top of the whole thing later.

You could also add a good handful of shredded cheddar if you have it, or maybe a little chutney (I didn't have either one. Damn.)

Here's the finished thing:

Here's pictures of the girls hands, because they liked these pictures and asked me to put them in:

And here's my sous-chef cleaning up:

I missed her.

Glad she's home.

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.

3X Chicken - Part III: Creamed Cabbage a la Martha

So, the other day I'm at a school meeting and I happen to mention to my friend Sheryl that I was about to post again, and she goes: Not more chicken!

Crap.

Yes, more chicken - because I promised I'd tell you what I did with that last bit of chicken from two weeks ago. (Dear God! Two weeks? How'd THAT happen?)

But after this chickeny story, I promise to do something else, because actually I've made quite a lot of other kinds of food since the chicken but I just haven't had time to get it all down. I do occasionally work, you know. Over the past 2 weeks I've had a newsletter to create, and some long-time clients who need help with manuscripts. Plus my Ladies! - which is this little creative writing group I lead. Very fun, and we haven't met in a long long time and I've missed them dearly. And then, of course, there's been THIS:

which means girls home from school and everyone wants cookies. Which I made. And which (I promise, Robin) I'll post. Soon. I will. Really soon.

Alright: down to business. That last bit of chicken, which was already poached (if you remember) and some of which was made into soup, was finally added to a very tasty, though rich, cream cabbage dish I stole borrowed from Martha, (and for which there will be no picture because I am a spaz and deleted it by mistake.) (Also, I tried to find a link to the recipe at MarthaStewart.com, but it wasn't there, so if you want the original recipe you'll have to get your hands on the January 2010 issue.)

Creamed Chicken, Spinach and Cabbage

1/2 head of cabbage - MS recommends green, but I had a head of Napa, and I think you could use anything. My cabbage was very tender - but if yours is one of the crunchier type, I suggest a quick par-boil, the instructions for which are below.

2 cups of fresh baby spinach (you could do this whole thing with spinach as far as I'm concerned - and just about any amount is fine, adjust seasoning accordingly)

3 TBLS of unsalted butter

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 small onion, diced, or 1 leek cleaned, trimmed - using white part only

2 cups warm milk (Martha says use whole milk, I use 2% Lactose Free, and it was just FINE)

1 cup of shredded cooked chicken

1/4 cup plus 1 TBLSP finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese (or just use Parmesean if you don't have this)

1 TBLSP finely grated lemon zest (about 2 lemons - and if you don't have lemons don't panic - you can leave them out all together and it will be ok, OR you can instead of lemons grate about 1/8 tsp of nutmeg into this.)

Preheat oven to 350. If you need to parboil the cabbage: bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add cabbage, cover and steam until tender, about 5 min. Drain and cool slightly.

If your cabbage is a tender variety, just rinse it and the spinach, make sure all grit is gone. Give the greens a good shake and pat them dry with paper towels, then cut them into strips - taking the spine out of the cabbage first.

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan, add onion or leek, stir over low heat until soft. Slightly raise temp, stir in flour and cook until bubbling but not brown. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly until it's incorporated into the flour and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, and add 1/4 cup cheese and lemon zest, then fold the cabbage, spinach and shredded chicken into the whole thing. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon into a shallow casserole dish (Martha recommends 6 cup capacity - but I have no idea how big the one I used was: every thing fit and fit fine, that's all I know.) Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of cheese over the whole thing. Bake about 30 - 35 minutes or until it's slightly browned and bubbling. Let stand a bit - 5 or more minutes - before serving.

It's hard to write about my own dinner when so many are going without it

Haiti reminded me, but it's not just Haiti, it's here: Philadelphia is one of the "hungriest" cities in the country.

I forget constantly that I'm lucky. I can buy Cheerios: I don't have to buy the cheap no-name cereal. I can put whatever cut of meat I want on my children's plates. When I run out of milk I jump into my car and drive up to the Acme for more. My girls are 13 and 11, and even at this stage, teen and pre-teen, they can't stand to be hungry for even one second so I often have apples and gum and cereal bars in my car. Just sitting around my car.

I give money - to Philabundance, and, recently, to a Hospital Albert Schweitzer, 90 miles outside Port Au Prince (click here to donate - your money goes directly there, and is not filtered through other organizatins) and I bring canned goods and cereal to our church (when I remember to) - which then gives donations to a Philadelphia community center. But I don't know. There is something so easy about doing these things. What am I teaching my children about helping others -- that all you have to do is write a check?

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I went online and found this story about The Power Of Half in the NYTimes - by op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristoff. It made me think of hunger - what could I do without to help alleviate the hunger in my area? My 13 year old and her friends in our Sunday school will fast one Saturday in March to call attention to world hunger - which is awesome - but it's only once a year. What if we did something like that as a family once a week? Ok, not fast. That wouldn't work with my two. But we could do something smaller on a regular basis, such as forego meat and dessert, and put the money we would have spent on that food toward hunger in the Philadelphia area. We all talked about it at dinner and decided that we would calculate what we spend per night on a home cooked meal and one night a week spend only a quarter or less on dinner for the family, donating the rest to a charity that fights hunger. The girls are I are going to do the shopping together, too, so we all really understand what things cost. I've read that the "average" middle class family of four spends about $20-$25 a night on dinner (That seems like a lot!) Can we we make a nutritious meal for a family of four for $4 or $5? It is a challenge when things like a head of broccoli cost $3 or more depending on where you buy it. And another question: does it count if I have to go far out of my way to shop at the cheaper market? Should I factor gas into the equation? I kind of feel like I should.

So this is what I'm doing - it's a process and we'll see how it goes. I'd love to know: how are you all talking with your families about Haiti and hunger and poverty?

Chicken x 3, Part Deux

I feel the addition of French in the title up there adds a little something doesn't it? (Even if that addition is the painful memory of a Charlie Sheen movie I walked out of way back in the early '90s.)

So, remember all that left over chicken and that little bit of broth I cooked the chicken in last post? I made it into a very nice soup.

See? Here it is:

It's got carrots, and some spinach and a very light grating of ginger. I whipped up a biscuit to go with it. I didn't use all the chicken, though, used only 1/2 of what was left.

Here's what I did:

Chicken Soup with Spinach and a bit of Ginger

1 small onion, chopped

1 carrott

1 clove of garlic

1 tsp fresh ginger* (or so - to taste)

1 large bunch of spinach, washed and torn into rough pieces

Left over chicken, shredded

Left over broth - I had about a cup (which should be pretty flavorful by now after sitting around a night and day)

4 cups of stock (I had some in the freezer, but feel free to use something from a can or box)

In a large dutch oven or stock pot, sautee your onions in a swirl of olive oil. Throw in the carrot and let the onion and carrot soften up. Throw in the garlic and the ginger, just for about 30 seconds or until fragrant (they both burn quickly, so pay attention), throw in the spinach and let it wilt. Toss in the shredded chicken and the stock. Taste everything. You may want to add more ginger, and it will surely need salt and pepper.

By the way - I haven't said this in a long time, however, just about everything I make serves 4 - unless I say in the recipe that it serves more or less.