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

Takeaways from some dinner flops

 

Last night’s dinner was not as good as I hoped—second time I’ve felt that way in a week. The menu was turkey meatloaves with mushroom gravy. Sounds great, right? In one way it was—flavor was so good I thought I was eating Thanksgiving dinner. But the texture countered that—the meatloaves were hard and dry.

This was not the first time I felt that way about using ground poultry. Some time ago I made chicken burgers that had the same texture problem, at least to me. But then I recently made turkey burgers we all liked. I can’t figure the difference. I thought at first it was the use of panko, but the ones we liked had panko in them too. So I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. One possibility is that the succulent burgers had enough mayo both in them and on the buns to add the moisture needed for softness. Here’s what I did that we liked:

Turkey burgers

½ c. mayonnaise

½ c. panko

1 envelope onion soup mix

2 lbs. ground turkey

Hamburger buns

Combine first three ingredients in a large bowl. Mix in turkey. Grill and serve with buns. We added tomato slices and mayo on the buns.

There was a takeaway last night though. The mushroom gravy was quick, easy, and flavorful.

Mushroom gravy*

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced

1-1/2 Tbsp. olive oil

1 cup chicken broth

¼ tsp. dried thyme

1 Tbsp. flour

Salt and pepper, if using low sodium chicken broth

           Here’s the thing I had never done when sauteing mushrooms: place them in a single layer in the skillet over medium high heat and don’t touch them for four minutes. They’ll get a nice browned surface. Then add thyme, salt, and pepper, and toss until they are limp and have released their juices. Toss with flour. Add broth, bring to a boil, immediately lower the heat to a simmer and let it cook until it’s thickened somewhat. This would be great served over those burgers instead of putting them on a bun.

Last weekend I cooked a polenta dish that was supposed to be like shakshuka—eggs cooked in little pockets. My neighbor, Jaimie, was here, and we both got involved in watching those eggs not cook in the oven. I got so impatient, I turned on the broiler, and the whites finally whitened. Jaimie said hers was good, but mine had sort of a tough skin on it, though the underneath it was runny and good. The eggs really didn’t add much to the dish at all in my opinion.

But the polenta was wonderful, and I’ll make it again. I had it for breakfast the next day, gave some to Christian, and then had it for lunch two days. One difficulty with my small kitchen: lots of recipes call for an oven-proof skillet, but there’s no way I can fit a skillet into my toaster oven, so I have to improvise. Here’s what I did:

Corn polenta**

2-3 Tbsp. butter

½ c. corn kernels (fresh, frozen or canned—all drained, of course)

4 c. chicken broth, low sodium

1 c. polenta (when I was a kid it was grits and we made mush out of it, but now it’s gotten sophisticated)

½ tsp. salt

Chopped fresh herbs—basil, cilantro, parsley, chopped green onions, what have you. Just throw in a good handful

Fresh baby spinach – again, a good handful

½ c. grated cheddar cheese, or more to taste

I used a deep kettle for this because polenta tends to bubble and splash. Melt butter and sauté corn. Let it cook a few minutes and then add the broth, polenta, and salt. Stir until the mixture thickens slightly, watching for those splashes—they sting! Add herbs and spinach. Stir in cheese.

Spoon this mixture into a greased pie plate, smooth it out, and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350^o for 20 minutes; uncover and bake for another twenty or twenty-five minutes. The polenta will be soft and delicious.

Serve this with a green salad for a great vegetarian light meal.

*Adapted from a Southern Living recipe

**Adapted from a New York Times recipe; image above is not mine.           

          

 

Breakfast, lunch, or supper? Try Shakshuka

 

Don’t you love saying that word? I like the way it rolls off the tongue. Shakshuka. In case you didn’t know, it’s an African dish that has become popular in this country, as have many dishes from Africa and the Middle East. And you really can have it for breakfast, lunch, or a light supper. I see it as part of a growing popularity of eggs as the main protein of a meal. You may see similar recipes called Eggs in Purgatory, though that dish sometimes incorporates more ingredients.

Shakshuka is basically tomatoes poached in a spicy tomato mixture. The name derives from an Arabic word meaning mixture. Once you get basic idea of shakshuka, you can tailor it to your own taste. For example, many recipes—there are lots on the internet—call for bell peppers, which I routinely leave out because neither my taste buds nor my stomach welcome them. On the other hand, I might slip an anchovy in there for earthiness.

Most recipes start with onion and garlic sauteed in olive oil. Cumin is the traditional spice, often given a quick sauté when the garlic and onions are almost limp, so that the spice releases its flavors. You might also add some chili powder or coriander or paprika—you want the warm spices of North Africa. Want more spice? A bit of red pepper or Siracha sauce. Stir in canned diced tomatoes, one or two 14 oz. cans according to how many you’re serving, and let the mixture simmer a bit until it thickens some.

Take the back of a wooden spoon and make little holes or nests in the sauce, according to the number of people you’re feeding—most people will eat one or two. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Cover and cook until eggs reach the desired degree of doneness—I like them soft, still runny a bit, but many prefer them almost hard. Sprinkle dish with chopped parsley or green onion, maybe some sliced avocado. Serve immediately with pita or baguette slices—something to soak up that sauce. Breakfast potatoes make a nice accompaniment.

For a variation, look online for a recipe for green shakshuka, which abandons tomatoes in favor of a spinach or chard base and incorporates cilantro and serrano chiles. This version, less common, can be topped with chopped fresh dill and of course avocados are almost a must.

The one problem, for me, with shakshuka is that no one else in the household will eat it (they don’t like poached eggs), and a whole skillet of the sauce is too much for me. Recently I ran onto a recipe for shakshuka for one and decided to try it. It called for marinara sauce as the base and chickpeas, which I don’t particularly like, so I substituted. It did seem to me that marinara sauce moved the recipe across the Mediterranean to Italy, so I decided on Italian spices. But opening a jar of marinara for one serving sounded a bit wasteful. I used a small can of tomato sauce. Since I was mixing cultures, I dusted the top with pecorino. Here’s what I did:

Shakshuka for one

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 green onion, chopped

1 large garlic clove, pressed or minced

¼ c. tomato sauce (freeze the rest for a winter soup)

¼ c. black beans

¼ tsp. mixed Italian herbs—you could just use oregano

Tiny pinch of red pepper flakes, and I mean tiny

1 large egg

Pecorino, grated

Sauté the onion and garlic in oil; add seasoning and sauté one minute. Do not let the garlic burn. Add tomato sauce and simmer a bit to thicken. (I put it into an oven-proof ramekin because with so little sauce in the skillet, it wasn’t deep enough to make a nest.) Crack the egg into the sauce, which may still be thinner than you’d like, and kind of push it around so that the egg is surrounded rather than floating on top. Take care not to break the egg. Sprinkle with grated cheese and bake at 350 until egg is set to the firmness you want.

I really liked this! For my next adventure with poached eggs, I’m going to try a base of polenta with lots of cheddar and a few chopped vegetables in it. Stay tuned.

 

 

What do I do with this chicken?

 

Rotisserie chicken is one of the modern conveniences I’ve really come to appreciate. For a while, I was a bit resistant—yes, it tasted good, but it was such a chore to skin and bone it. I’d bring it home from the grocery, stash it in the fridge, and try to ignore it for a few days. Then Jordan taught me a hack—bone it while it’s still warm from the store. Meat slides right off the bone. So much easier! Now we keep one or two baggies of chicken, boned, skinned, and diced, in the freezer. Want to make a casserole? Just whip it out and defrost.

One night recently I was expecting a dinner guest from out of town, not one of the regulars on my patio happy hours or dinners. I wanted to make a good impression, but it wasn’t a steak-and-twice-baked potato kind of an evening. So, I decided on a chicken casserole. Then I had to choose between two favorites. Here’s what I did:

Baked chicken salad casserole – serves four to six

2 c. chopped chicken

3 hard-boiled eggs, grated or sliced (your choice—I prefer sliced, because I like getting chunks of hard-boiled white)

2 cans cream of mushroom soup

½ Tbsp. lemon juice

¾ c. mayonnaise

2 tsp. salt

2 c. chopped celery

4 tsp. minced onion (I used green onion)

Potato chips, crushed

Layer the chicken and eggs in a 9x13 pan. Mix everything else separately and pour over the meat and eggs. Top with crushed potato chips and bake at 375^o for 30 minutes. Watch and don’t let the chips burn.

I halved this—sort of guessing on the generous side at the mayo and lemon juice. It served two for dinner and gave me enough leftovers for two lunches.

Strangely enough, the other recipe on my mind was also a baked chicken salad, but this with curry. I used to fix it frequently when I had teenagers and have more recently used it as a company dish.

Curried chicken salad with broiled topping – serves four to six

3 c. cooked chicken, diced

2 c. celery, diced

½ c. thinly sliced green onions

1/3 c. vinaigrette dressing

2 tsp. curry powder

¾ c. mayo

½ c. sour cream

Salt and pepper

2 c. finely crushed potato chips

1 c. coarsely shredded sharp cheddar

Combine first chicken, celery, and onions, and marinate in salad dressing, refrigerated, one hour. Blend curry powder, mayonnaise, sour cream, salt and pepper and combine with chicken, celery, scallions. Cover loosely and chill. Put in shallow broiler-proof baking dish. Cover salad with mixed chips and cheese and broil about three minutes until cheese melts. The goal is to have a cold salad topped with melted cheese and chips. If you happen to be so lucky as to have a Corningware dish in an appropriate size, you can use it and go straight from fridge to broiler. Otherwise, it’s best to spoon the chilled salad into an ovenproof dish before adding the topping.

Serve with a green vegetable, such as broccoli, asparagus, or green beans, and bread if you wish.

Enjoy!