The Freezer Rules

So I was making pizza dough for Liv's visit (surprise!), and while pulling out the pizza flour, I realized I didn't have a lot of room in the freezer. How could I get my string beans from the farmer's market in if something else didn't come out?

Let's face it. Some of this food has to go.

It's hard, but these are desperate times. I have had to implement the Freezer Rules.


They're pretty simple really.

1. If you pick it up and don't know what it is, you have to thaw it and eat it for dinner.
2. If you pick it up and notice that its been in there over a year, you have to thaw it and eat it for dinner.
3. If you have more than 4 pkgs of the same thing in the freezer, you have to thaw and eat one for dinner.
   

It's sort of like playing Russian Roulette with dinner. And while these may seem like crappy rules, they're actually bad ass on every level.

1. I should be eating food I already have before I go out and buy more food. Obvious.
2. I eat the food before it really does go bad. The other day, I made some bacon for a quiche and the bacon was so old, I really did have to throw it out. It tasted funny. Not as in going-to-give-me-food-poisoning, but just not good. You see, I date most things I make and put in the freezer. My brother, who always gives me tons of venison, also dates the meat. I may think the old meat is going to be awful and tasteless, but sometimes it turns out to be delicious.
3. It's a creative challenge to figure out how to use what I've thawed. The challenge is to use it without another trip to the grocery store.
4. I cut down on the September/October grocery bill and considering that car tags, flood insurance, house insurance, and property taxes are all due in September/October, that's not a bad thing.
5. You never know what you are going to get. You may think it is chili, but it turns out to be spaghetti sauce, or taco meat, or beef stew. You may think it's chicken noodle soup, but it turns out to be stock for seafood gumbo.
   
6. If you have to eat the food you already own, you are less likely to go out to eat.

So today, I had homemade chicken and rice soup for lunch. (Hell if I remember when I made that!) Since I've decided to clean out the fridge once a week, I'm making a carrot cake with the leftover carrots I had in the bin. I didn't have walnuts for the cake, so I'm using pecans that I did have. Sure hope it's good! I bought about 20 poblano peppers, so I'm saving some for the pizza tomorrow and the rest are going into a poblano pepper and polenta casserole. I'm making it up as a go along! I have too much flour in the freezer, so I'm making pizza dough and dog biscuits. I bought a TON of yellow squash so I'm going to make zucchini bread. OK, technically, I guess it's yellow squash bread, but if you don't tell, I won't tell. I've got so much squash that I'm sure I'm going to have extra loaves of the bread. I guess I'll have to pull something else out of the freezer.

Fish for dinner!

Around the Kitchen

I'm on an organizing kick. Blame the outrageous amount of work I should be doing. Blame Liv who is moving and got me thinking about having to move myself. Blame my own foodie tendencies. But whatever it is, I'm tortured by thoughts of what I actually need in my kitchen and how to make better use of it.

I have a lot of crap in my kitchen.

A lot.

This photo belies the amount of stuff I actually have. This was shortly after I moved in. I have accumulated since then. I'm a foodie. And I'm a collector. Even though I have a big kitchen, it's getting overrun. I have one hell of a utensils drawer. And even my best efforts at organization are getting overwhelmed. It's seriously time to purge.

Anyhoo. I recently dumped recycled a lot of old cookware to Liv and other friends. And I have begun thinking about moving. I can't take all this with me. I guess I could, but I shouldn't. So, I'm trying to compile a list of things that a foodie's kitchen actually needs. Consider this a working list.

Cookware: at least one cast iron pan. Whether you get a preseasoned one from a discount store or find one in a junk shop or antique place, this is a must. Properly seasoned, cast iron skillets are virtually non-stick and are great for everything from searing meats to frying eggs. I currently have three cast iron skillets. The largest is big enough and deep enough to fry a entire chicken. Not that I fry chicken, mind you. It's much too dangerous. Someone might propose. I also have an All Clad non-stick omelet pan. I can't tell you the last time I used it. Must have been sometime before I discovered Poach Pods.

In the pots and pans department, I have found that I use three pans regularly. One is a 2 quart saucepan made of heavy aluminum. It was given to me and has no lid. Oh how I wish it did. I use a lid from another pan--which doesn't quite fit this piece--when I'm in need. Like when cooking rice. The other is a lighter 2-qt copper bottom saucepan with a glass lid. This is the lighter one. This is also usually the lid I borrow.

I think you need two medium sized sauce pans to make a standard meal. Think rice and vegetables. Yes, I do have another 2-qt. anodized aluminum pan, but I don't use it as my "second". I have no idea why. That lighter pan just fits the bill most of the time. My last pan is a cheapo non-stick 4-qt. pan that gets chosen because it has a colander built into the lid. Roughly $16 at Wally World. I gave the rest of my pans away. Oh, I think there is a stock pot in the back somewhere for when I am boiling ball jars for canning jam. It's about 25 years old. And that's it or my standard cookware.

I have several baking sheets, an embarrassing amount of cake/cupcake/bundt/angel food/coffee cake ring pans tins, brownie pans, and Pyrex casseroles, but then again, I'm a baker. I have three pie pans (two glass which are perfect for crustless spinach quiche and a ceramic one for making actual pies, assorted Corning ware that is only used for pot luck dinners, and don't even get me started on the specialty cake-deviled egg-and insulated carriers. Fancy Christmas serving ware and dishes could fill a series of posts on their own.

I really consider only a few utensils indispensable. A set of wooden spoons and spatulas. Chop sticks. A large, restaurant quality spoonula. A zester, potato peeler, a meat thermometer, a candy thermometer, and a high quality set of kitchen knives and knife sharpener. I don't own a steel, but I will one day. In my opinion, if you can't afford anything else in your kitchen, you should have the best possible knives you can lay your hands on.

Specialty stuff I couldn't live without: a dutch oven. Got this one at an antique shop.

I have two. One is a heavy aluminum and the other is an enameled cast iron. Workhorses. Go from oven to stovetop. Great for stews, breads, whole chickens, roasts, soups, and even boiling spaghetti and making stove-top popcorn. Yes, two is probably overkill, but I can't be expected to give away some of my favorite pieces. The aluminum one can double as a mixing bowl in a pinch. I like making my cookie dough in this thing because when you cycle it in and out of the fridge while a batch is baking, it keeps the dough nice and cool as you work. You wouldn't want to put a hand mixer anywhere near an enameled pan unless you had a mind to destroy it.

A George Foreman grill. Quick easy hamburgers, chicken breasts, veggie burgers, steaks, pork chops and grilled vegetables. It's a bitch to clean up and I'd probably have bought the kind with removable plates if I was buying it for myself, but it was a gift. Still, I use it. I have the $13 version. Big enough for two good sized hamburgers at a time. It's a champ. In fact, I think that's the name of this size grill. Brilliant.


A crock pot. Been around forever and still wicked popular. There's a reason. I love these things. Makes the best Italian beef ever. Chili. BBQ spare ribs. Man, the possibilities are endless. I love these things. Folks, don't get the kind that has a crockery liner you can't remove. These things are under $30 for the top of the line version. You don't want to have to work around that cord and heating element to try to clean out the crock. Crack open your wallet, because this workhorse is a savior.

Bamboo steamer. I bought mine about 25 years ago. It came in a stacking set of two. I forced myself to use just one of the two (logic was I would save the other for when #1 wears out). I'm still waiting for #1 to wear out. Who would have thought that bamboo would last so long. Only drawback? When steaming broccoli, it retains the smell. This is no way affects the taste of the food.

Put this over a boiling pot of hot dogs and you can steam your bun while your dog cooks. See? There are some perks to not using your microwave for EVERYTHING.

A high quality blender. My idea of a high quality blender is not one with a million different speeds. Mine is an Oster beehive blender with two speeds. Low and high. A high quality blender is one that can chop ice easily. Like this one.



Then there is the thing I never thought I wanted that, once I got one, I can't believe I lived without for so long.

It really is a time saver and it is a breeze to clean. If you ever have a $200 windfall, I can't recommend this highly enough.

I saved the best for last. The pizza stone.

Queue the Hallelujah chorus. The day you receive one of these, the heavens will open up and all things good will come to you.

I'm not kidding.

Seriously, I'm not.

The other things I have in my kitchen.....well, they are nice, but I don't consider them essentials. Sure, I depend on them now and again, but for the average cook, they would be superfluous. Yes, I have a Kitchenaid mixer. Do I use it a lot? Yes. Could I live without it? Probably not anymore, but I use it to knead bread. I also have a hand mixer that I should probably pass along, but it is a retro thing and I sort of like it.

So that's it in a nutshell. The backbone of my kitchen. The stuff I'd recommend. And if I had it to do all over again, I'd not buy any of the cheap crap (I'd pick it up second hand at Goodwill), and save my money for the really top quality stuff, added a bit at a time. Now I've just got to convince myself that I can live without the rest of that stuff.

Fun Food on the Internet

Dim sum (h/t Steamy Kitchen).

Happy Mother's Day

It's mother's day. So of course, I think you should celebrate in the traditional way: invite your mother over to your house to do your lawn. At least that's the way my neighbor sees it.

In other news, Scout isn't feeling well. He may have eaten a stick or two of sugarless gum. Sugarless gum contains xylitol, which apparently can be deadly to dogs. I'm not going to say that Scout is on death's door, but he is having some pretty substantial symptoms of some problem that may or may not be the result of having eaten some gum. He goes to the vet in the morning. He has an awful cough. He acts like he wants to throw up but never does. He rattles when he breathes. He was moaning last night, but the worst of that appears over.

Isn't it great how this stuff happens on Saturday night and the vet doesn't reopen until Monday at 8? I hope there is no permanent damage. I know that xylitol is hard on a dog's liver.

To amuse myself today since I couldn't play with a sick dog, I tried out my new food processor. Ok, first I couldn't get it to work at all. I thought it was broken. It was so weird. The lid wouldn't lock into place. So I packed it back up and took it to the store and exchanged it. When I got the second one home, it did the same thing. Finally, I realized I was trying to put the lid on backwards. D'uh.
In the end, though, I made peanut butter from peanuts. That was a lot of fun. You chop up the peanuts and wait and eventually it becomes peanut butter.

To sort of prime the process,
you drizzle a small amount of oil in the mix. I added some sesame oil Then add some salt (if you use unsalted peanuts, like I did). Wait for that to puree and you have yourself a sweet little homemade bunch of pb. Awesome.




So that was the first part of lunch!

Then I made some garlic hummus. Oh yeah, you HAVE to try this recipe that I got from some friends of mine. It's amazing!


Then I made some pico de gallo. Ok, not very happy with the consistency. I guess the key is to put the tomatoes in absolutely last and then just pulse it once or twice. In any event, the flavor is fantastic. Thanks, Emeril.

Let's see. What was next. Oh, yeah, the crustless Quiche Lorraine. I actually bought some gruyere cheese today and some half and half. Of course, I have to eat a fistful of lactose pills just to enjoy that fantastic treat.

And finally, I am still making my very first batch of French bread. Baguettes even. I sure do wish I hadn't broken my pizza stone, because this is just the sort of job for a pizza stone. So, I'm using a half sheet sprinkled with polenta to keep it from sticking. The bench proof is underway right now and I'll pop it in the oven here in a few. Photos forthcoming. Unless of course, it's a big fail.

I guess the point is, if my mother was here, I'd at least be able to feed her well. And, I wouldn't make her do the lawn for me. Although, that would be a bonus.

The Problem with Being Me

I love food. I love food possibly more than I love adventure. To me, food is an adventure. Where I grew up, food was overcooked, overfatted, oversaturated, and, by God, almost always oversalted.

When I think of salt, I think of my maternal grandmother. The woman salted everything. If she ate ham, she salted it first. If you told her you already put salt in the food and maybe she'd want to try a bite first, she'd smile sweetly and shake that shaker all over her plate as though she'd never heard what you said. Oh, I used to be like everyone else. I used to salt my food mindlessly. One day in the middle of McDonalds, just for kicks, I picked up the pepper shaker and shook it all over my french fries. And then I dug in.

Mmmmm.

What I found was that food didn't have to have salt to be flavorful. That other spices could enhance food flavor in ways that salt never could. Salt is like duct tape. It may not be the most creative approach, but it gets the job done. After my pepper experience, salt was no longer my go-to spice. Salt was strictly back shelf. I had a world of new spices to try. I use it in cooking only when not doing so will compromise the recipe. I have found that salt is absolutely required only in some baked goods and a pot of beans. And that is how, in junior high school, I came to stop using salt as a flavor enhancer and started to develop my palate and my love of good food.

The problem with never having picked up a salt shaker since 1977 is that processed foods containing salt taste like salt and not the foods they are intended to resemble.

Here is a partial list of processed foods I find too salty to eat.

Most pork products
Deli meats
Most canned soups (worst offenders are Campbell's Chunky soup line)
potato chips
canned vegetables, particularly green beans
most tv dinners

I have found that most soups have sodium levels approaching 900 mg per serving. That's seven times more sodium per serving than the Baked Lays I like. In general, any food with greater than 500 mg sodium per serving tastes salty to me. Anything over 700 mg per serving is hard to choke down. Those soups? Forget about it.

Which brings me to today. Today, I tried to eat some deli roast beef that I purchased at Kroger. The roast beef tasted like it was saturated in brine. I paid $6.50/lb. for salty protein--the salt was so bad that I couldn't taste the flavor of the meat.

I once wrote the Campbell's company and asked them why they had to put so much salt in their soups. I told them that, IMHO, salt should enhance the flavor, not be the flavor. They wrote me back a very kind note that said they did extensive taste tests of their products before bringing them to market and the salt content of their soups was based on the most popular versions from the taste tests. They told me that the rest of America does not share my aversion to super-saturated saline solution passing for broth these days. Then they offered me 4 coupons to purchase more of the soup that I couldn't choke down in the first place.

Ahhh, America. Why don't I fit in?

Sometimes I feel sorry for you

AKA Parmesan polenta stuffed fire-roasted poblano peppers with a black bean mole accompanied by jasmine rice and a roasted finger chili salsa.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, D, why didn't you just save yourself the trouble and make a black bean ragout? Call it whimsy. And why Parmesan? (Because I can't have soft cheeses, they don't agree with me.) Rice and polenta? Yes, I think it probably was a little heavy on the starch, but...darn it...those flavors were just meant to go together.

Just a little something I threw together after a particularly productive day at the Farmer's Market.

Yeah. Sometimes I feel sorry for you guys.

Trip Prep

Hold your breath. I'm going on another trip. This one for a lepidopteran course in southeast Arizona. I'll be doing a little collecting after it's over. Which reminds me that I need to get in the herbarium today and do a little investigative work on site locations.

But today I am preparing for the trip. I started by cleaning out the fridge. You would think, having been gone the better part of two months this summer, that my fridge would already be empty. But noooooooooooo....

Today I threw out expired yogurt, salsa and spaghetti sauce with mold on it, a liquefied green pepper, and a carton of eggs that expired in late JUNE! I didn't buy groceries this week because...well...what would be the use? My fridge is empty. Needs a good cleaning.

Keeps my mind off the fella a la hot date, because I've convinced myself he's just not interested. Beckie says I'm crazy. He called last night, she says. But he doesn't exude enthusiasm, I said.

Sheesh. It is really hard being this crazy sometimes. But at least my fridge won't stink when I get back.

Road food

I realize I have a pretty weird idea of fun. And I love food. And one of my favorite things is to find adventure that tastes good. So while on the road, imagine my delight at finding this place. I mean, if a place doesn't just SCREAM adventure, I don't know what else does.


In case you somehow missed that, it's a tortilla FACTORY. Meaning they manufacture tortilla. And they let me see how they did it. There was a young guy named Hector and an older fellow who's name I didn't catch. Or maybe it was that I couldn't pronounce it. But they showed me how they make tortillas. It was interesting. But it was better eating.


OK, so what that it was only 10:00 in the morning. I was out of my time zone element. It was almost lunchtime for me. They were really nice. Hector said I could order anything from the menu. Breakfast, lunch or dinner. So I ordered this....


Mmmm. And that was a chili-rich salsa. Not for sissies or people with ulcers.

And then I ordered this.

Chicken chimichanga with beans on the side. When it arrived I had to run back out to the car to get my cheese pills. I was living by a thread on this trip, I tell ya.

I cleaned my plate. I didn't want to eat again until about 11 pm that night. And in case you wondered, the pills worked.

One must remember that they aren't fool-proof. And when roughing it on research trips, playing fast and loose with the lactaid rules can be a very dangerous thing. When the pills fail, as they did on me in eastern Utah...well, suffice it to say that a new camp shovel was demanded after that afternoon. And that was the result of "mystery milk", meaning I'm not sure what I ate that had milk in it, I just know that something did. Just remember that if Mr. Utah DNR had shown up only a few moments earlier, we might have been having quite a different conversation than the one about botany we shared.

But I was home free after this tasty treat from Hector and that other guy's Tortilla Factory.

Oh, and if you are ever in Moriarty, NM, make sure you go to the BBQ joint. It smelled like a little bit of heaven.

Cooking for my adoring fans

If you are ever in Chicago, go to any grocery store and find these. This is not a suggestion, this is an order. For the low, low discount price of between 25 and 30 cents, you can get a little slice of heaven. These are El Milagro corn tortillas. They come in a paper packet. Sometimes they are still warm from the delivery truck. It doesn't get any fresher than that. Just pick up the package and take a deep breath. Breathe in that heavenly corn aroma. If you put them in your car, they fill up your car with that scent as well. If you walk out with less than 10 packages for the return trip home, you have incredible self control. El Milagro corn tortillas are--as they say--just one trick up D-master's sleeve.

I like cooking for Beckie. She raves on about my cooking. She brags to her husband about my cooking. Now maybe you'll say Beckie is such a fan because she's from Tennessee and I'm from Kentucky and we share similar tastes. And while it's good, Southern cooking tends to be pretty low-brow. Quite a bit of it is po' folk food. Soup beans, corn bread, and cheap cuts of meats. Seasoning depends heavily on pork fat, onions, ketchup, and salt. Now if I was going to cook Beckie a meal to remind her of home, I'd probably have cubed steak and onions, green beans cooked in a pool of bacon grease, cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet greased with more pork fat, real butter, and mashed potatoes. Wash it all down with a Coca-Cola.

And not that that isn't good eating, but I don't cook like that much anymore. My life is too sedentary. And anyway, it isn't the home cooking I do that Beckie likes the best. Beckie is a fan of the foods I picked up from friends and restaurants and when my interests led to experimenting in my own kitchen. One of the recipes I really like to make is a variation of one my ex taught me. He called them American tacos. Browned hamburger and onions, no sauce. A sweet tomato chili sauce laid down on fresh El Milagro corn tortillas, followed by meat, cheese, a mild or medium picante, lettuce, tomato, more onion, avocado, sour cream, and black olives. When I make them today, I skip the cheese, sour cream (for reasons obvious to those who know me), and black olives, and I make a taco sauce for the meat. What can I say? I'm a fan of cumin. I guess that makes them just regular tacos. I served them to Beckie and her son Payton once when they came over with cherries from her mama's tree and we spent an afternoon putting up some awesome cherry jam.

The Tennessee faction went wild over the tacos. They looked a bit like these.


While my favorite part is the El Milagro corn tortillas (BTW, this picture is just using Ortega shells not the heavenly El Milagro corn tortillas--there really is no comparison) , the thing Beckie liked so much was the fact that I put refried beans in the meat mixture. It's a trick I picked up in needing to freeze things for later use. I just dumped the leftover refried beans into the meat, stirred it up a bit and froze it for later use. Saves time, pans, and tastes great.

You never know when a little something is going to go over big with your guests. In any event, it's fun to cook for people who appreciate your effort. Beckie can eat at my house anytime. And I promise I won't skimp on the corn tortillas.


Oh, and if I'm really feeling sassy...much like I was today...you might just get this for dessert. h/t Pioneer Woman.