Lesson learned, this one about simplicity

The work area in my tiny kitchen

For five years now, I’ve been knocking my head against the wall, trying to demonstrate that I can cook anything with a hot plate and a toaster oven that I could with a full kitchen. Close, but no banana. The other night we had chicken thighs in a sauce, but we didn’t eat until eight because the adjustments I had to make took more time than I anticipated.

Recipes that call for an oven-proof skillet do me in. You can’t fit a skillet handle into a toaster oven. And my largest skillet won’t hold four chi
cken thighs, so I had to brown in batches. Then transfer to an oven dish. Bake, and transfer back to the skillet to make the sauce. I now banish all recipes calling for an ovenproof skillet. Those pork chops in my freezer? I baked them without browning. Mixed a can of mushroom soup, an envelope of onion soup mix, and about a half cup white wine. Seasoned the chops with salt and pepper and poured the soup mix evenly over them. Covered the dish tightly with foil and baked an hour at 350. Lots less work.

With simplicity in mind, I adapted a recipe for salmon bowl from the New York Times. It called for short-grain (sushi) rice and fresh salmon. I used good, canned salmon (wild caught) and long grain rice because that’s what I had. Recipe said to cook it in water flavored with rice vinegar, soy, and sugar. I did not season the cooking water. Drained the meat and chunked it. I thought the avocado would get lost and didn’t waste it. I had bought broccoli slaw, which was good and crisp, but the finished dish was too fussy with too much going on. Here’s what I’ll do another time:

Salmon bowl (serves four)

Four servings of rice (short- or long-grain)

Two 7 oz. cans wild-caught salmon

1/3 Persian cucumber, sliced thin

4 green onions, sliced on the diagonal

For the dressing

2 Tbsp. vegetable or canola oil

¼ c. soy sauce

3 Tbsp. white vinegar

Avocado (optional)

Make the dressing (you may want to double) and marinate cucumber and green onion in it while rice cooks. Cook the rice according to directions on the package, though you may want to rinse some starch off first. Let it cool a bit and divide among four bowls. Add chunks of salmon—try not to flake it. Top with dressing, cucumber, and green onion. Add avocado if you want. A nice, easy meal.

This reminds me of a dinner a good friend served several years ago, before bowls were so popular. At the time I thought it quite innovative. Two of us were her guests that night.

She put rice in a bowl and topped it with a layer of black beans and then chopped fresh vegetables—I’m not sure I remember what all, but probably tomatoes, cucumber, green onion, avocado for sure. She was about to finish the bowls off with shrimp, when both her guests howled about shrimp allergies. She poured salad dressing, probably homemade, over it, and served us a delicious, satisfying meal. If you don’t make your own dressing, I recommend Paul Newman’s Own Oil and Vinaigrette (not the balsamic vinaigrette).

So that’s my lesson for today: simplify. This started out to be a blog for cooks in tiny kitchens and sort of branched out from there, but at least for today, I’m back to the Idea that you can be a gourmet in a tiny kitchen.

Where I wash dishes
Large refrigerator is to the right
And that's my kitchen in two pictures

 

 

Sloppy Joe

In a previous life a long time ago, a friend gave me a cookbook titled, I think, With a Jug of Wine. The book is long since lost in down-sizing, and the only thing I saved is the recipe for Sloppy Joe. Okay, it isn’t called Sloppy Joe in the book. It’s called wine casserole. But the first time I made it, I thought, “This is Sloppy Joe.”

There are several theories about the origin of that sandwich, generally considered cheap restaurant or lunch counter fare. Some say it began with the loose meat sandwiches of the 1930s, thought to be a Maid-Rite invention, but another story is that the sandwich was developed in Sioux City, Iowa, by a cook named Joe. There’s even a suggestion the sandwich came from Cuba. In the 1940s, you could buy a Sloppy Joe sandwich for a dime, and in the 1960s big companies began to produce prepared ingredients. Remember canned Manwich?

I don’t care about the origin, but with cool weather approaching, I’m ready for a Sloppy Joe. It’s not real popular in my house, so I think I’ll just make a batch for myself. It’s something my kids grew up eating. Sometimes I’d serve it on toasted hamburger buns, but other times I’d just serve a bowl of it, like stew.

When my oldest daughter, then married a few years, called from Austin one night for the recipe, I sent it to her. She reported that Brandon, her husband, said, “It’s good, but it’s not Sloppy Joe.” Megan wrote, “I guess I’m the only one who grew up thinking red wine is an essential ingredient of Sloppy Joe.”

Note: this is a repeat. I’ve probably posted this several times, but it’s that good. And if you’re relatively knew to my posts, maybe it will be new to you. If not, maybe this will jog your memory that it’s Sloppy Joe weather. Here’s what I did:

Judy’s sloppy joe

1 lb. ground beef

1 15-oz. can of beans (any kind you want), rinsed and drained

½ c. chopped onion

½ c. diced celery

2 Tbsp. bacon drippings (If you can bring yourself to use it in this health-conscious age, use vegetable oil, but the bacon flavor really makes a difference; I keep a small jar of bacon drippings in my fridge.)

¼ c. ketchup

1½ Tbsp. Worcestershire

Dash of Tabasco

1 tsp. salt

⅛ tsp. pepper

¼ tsp. oregano

¼ c. dry red wine

1 Tbsp. A-1 sauce (If I don’t have this, omit it; I can never tell the difference.)

Cook onion and celery in bacon drippings. Add beef and brown. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 20 to 30 minutes. Serve in buns (there’s that loose meat connection) or in bowls. Good accompanied by chips and/or a green salad.

 

How to bake an egg--and like it!

 

Ready to eat

I was this many years old before I learned how to bake and enjoy an egg for supper. I don’t remember my mom ever baking eggs, so that’s probably why I didn’t. I was only so-so at poaching (seemed to take forever and half the time I fished them out too soon, even though I like them fairly runny) and frying (I couldn’t do over easy without breaking the yolk). But one night I ran across simple directions for baked egg and thought I’d try it. Now a baked egg is one of my favorite “you’re on your own” suppers. Here’s what I did:

Simple baked egg

½ slice good sourdough bread

1 large egg

Salt and pepper

1 tsp. cream or milk

Grease a small ramekin well. Toast sourdough bread and butter both sides (toasting makes it crisper as it soaks up the egg). Shape toast into ramekin until it forms a lining on bottom and sides of the dish. Carefully break egg into the center of the ramekin, being sure to keep the yolk whole. Add salt and pepper and pour cream or milk over egg to keep it from drying out.

In process
note hole in center

Bake at 350° for 12-15 minutes, until yolk is set but still runny.

That’s the straightforward version, but once I saw how easy that was, I decided to fancy it up a bit. Fry a strip of bacon, crumble and let it drain a paper towel, while you shape the toast. Then add a bit of cooked, chopped spinach and a nice bit of grated cheddar. Dot with butter but leave a hole in the middle for the egg. Add the egg and cream and bake as above. Serve garnished with bacon. Without the bacon, you might garnish it with paprika or scattered microgreens.

Ready for the oven

A baked egg can even help you use leftovers—diced ham or chicken, sausage, various cheeses, maybe corn. It’s pretty much up to individual taste. Today I was contemplating leftovers from a full dinner last night—roast chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and fresh broccoli. I decided to bake an egg, using the potatoes and broccoli and the grated cheddar left from chili night a couple of nights ago. I was going to garnish with microgreens, but I learned a lesson about them—they do not keep. So I sprinkled paprika and had myself a good lunch.

A gourmet side note: Recently I did something I had done in a long time. I had enough leftover chicken to make chicken salad, but instead of dicing it, I whirred it in the food processor until it was flaked. Then I dressed it with salt and pepper, lemon juice, and just enough mayonnaise and sour cream to bind but not enough to make it soupy. The flaked meat gives the salad a whole different texture and flavor. I used to do the same thing with ham and tuna. I think I was being lazy about getting the processor out, but no more. A neighbor once said, doesn’t it just make it mush? The answer is no—it makes dry flakes (drain canned tuna, of course.)

Gourmet side note #2: I’ve discovered a web site I really like. It’s called Kitchn. The site features cooking and cleaning hints and ideas along with new products, but it’s the recipes I really like. The producers apparently have a deal with Aldi and Trader Joe, because they frequently feature their products, both to buy and to include in recipes; Costco, occasionally. Kitchn is now one of those emails I read every morning.

 

 

It’s chili weather!

 

When evenings start to get just a little cool my first thought is, “It’s chili weather!”

I was a northerner the first twenty-some years of my life, and chili as I knew it can from a can. I don’t think we even knew about Wolf brand, the Texas king of canned chilis. The great, late Frank Tolbert, chili-head extraordinaire and organizer of the first Tolbert Chili Cook-off which spawned cook-offs across the nation, even recommended Wolf Brand. There’s an entire book about the brand, and lots of stories, like the woman who took the slogan “Just heat and eat” literally and put an unopened can on the stove burner. When it exploded, the company paid for the restoration of her kitchen. Or the store in South Texas that stocked the chili with the dog food because the staff didn’t speak English and saw the wolf on the label. And every Texan can still hear those sonorous tones, “Neighbor, how long has it been since you had a big, thick, steaming bowl of Wolf Brand Chili?”

Wolf Brand wasn’t the only thing I learned when I did the research for a book titled Texas is Chili Country. There’s the history--Mexicans are disdainful of chili and adamant that it did not come from their country. In truth, the dish originated around the cousie’s campfire in cattle camps and on drives. The cook used what was handy—beef and herbs or spices found on the prairie. The tomatoes came later.

Along with the history, I found how many different dishes fell under the umbrella label of chili. Beans or no beans? Vegetables? Straightforward chili powder or an array of spices? Cubed steak? Ground beef? Vegan? Turkey or chicken? Venison makes a great pot of chili, although the girls in my family uniformly objected to the texture. You can make chili in various colors—verde, or green, or white with chicken or turkey.

A friend recently wrote me that years ago when she moved to Houston the second day she was there, a Texan shot a bartender because the latter had put beans in his chili. All I could reply was that Texans are particular about their chili. One of my neighbors is a chili purist and a goes to the mother of chili cook-offs at Terlingua every year. We had a mini-cook-off in my kitchen one night. His chili was pieces of beef floating in a spicy, thin red sauce. Mine, he said disparagingly, was a good meat-and-bean stew, but it was not chili. As a northern transplant, now of some fifty-five years, I admit my chili is mild and tentative, but it is hearty, easy, and soul-warming. For those who like beans and want their chili on the mild side, here’s what I did.

Judy’s Mild and Tentative Chili

1 lb. ground beef

1 large onion, chopped

2 large cloves garlic, chopped

Enough oil to sauté onion, garlic, and beef

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce

1 cup beer, or more if it gets too thick

4 tsp. chili powder or to taste

½ tsp. Tabasco

2 tsp. salt

2 c. canned beans, rinsed and drained

Brown onion and garlic; add hamburger and cook until all pink is gone.

Add everything else except beans and simmer for 60 to 90 minutes. Stir occasionally, and add more beer as needed (you’ve got that open warm beer anyway). Taste and add more chili powder as needed. Add beans and heat just before serving.

A word about beans: these days I prefer pinto beans, but I used to use Ranch brand, rinsing off the sauce. Some people like black beans, which work perfectly well.

Many people, Texans and otherwise, crumbly saltines into their chili. My family likes to top it with chopped purple onion and grated cheddar. Another new innovation: this fall I think I’ll pickle the onions. Just slice thinly, separate into rings, pack in a jar, and cover with a mixture of ½ vinegar (either cider or red wine) and ½ water. Let marinate in refrigerator at least overnight.

Sorry to be so commercial, but I can't resist adding a buy link. Read all about the history, the first ever chili cookoff, the later battle between festivals, and recipes galore. A fun book to research and write. Hope you find it fun to prowl through.

 

Amazon: Texas Is Chili Country: A Brief History with Recipes: Alter, Judy: 9780896729469: Amazon.com: Books