Friday, January 29, 2010

Cook With What You've Got - Bean Salad

Last night I made a bean salad using two cans of beans (different) and a can of artichoke hearts from the pantry, some pickled red onion I had made previously, celery, parsley, S & P, olive oil and red wine vinegar. It is my lunch today, and it's not bad, I do say so myself! Pretty simple and easy, but after removing two cans from the pantry, I still don't see any new space available.

I have been trying to duplicate pickled red onions that I had at L'Albatros Brasserie in University Circle in Cleveland a while back. They were wonderful. I have made David Lebovitz and Smitten Kitchen , but I haven't hit on it yet. Next I'm going to try Thomas Keller's recipe from Ad Hoc At Home. Anybody got one they like? For me it needs a little sweetness to it, and probably a pricey vinegar!

I bought a pricey red wine vinegar a few weeks ago, and the difference between it and the regular grocery store brand is pretty amazing. I can't remember where I got it or the name, but I'll post it in the future. The expensive vinegar (at least this one) doesn't have that "bite" that others have. It is smooth, for a vinegar. I will continue on with the "pantry clean-out", so stay tuned. There's lots of beans in there!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Pork Chop Saute with Orange Mustard Sauce

This was a great meal, Pork Chops with Orange Mustard Sauce from Dad Cooks Dinner , glazed carrots (I pulled them out of the ground last night before the snow and before the sun went down; I had about 10 minutes after work!), and oven roasted potatoes. Thank you, Tami, for introducing me to Dad Cooks Dinner. I am really enjoying reading Mike's cooking tips and thoughts. And he's from Copley, so that makes his blog even more interesting. The meal was wonderful. The pork chops are from an Amish farmer that runs a food co-op that I belong to. He supplies milk, cream, eggs, butter, beef, chicken, lamb, and pork, among other things. Our group takes turns picking up the food each week and I am very fortunate that I can participate in this. I usually make yogurt from the milk, but I am going to try my hand at making cheese soon. The potatoes are from another food blog, Chocolate and Zucchini . This was the first food blog I started reading. I have added many more, it has become an obsession!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Cook With What You've Got Challenge



Today I made lentil soup from a recipe in Cook's Illustrated that I have made before. It's a great recipe, and the best part is that I had everything on hand, since I am trying to cook only with what I have. Everything was available, until I got to the 1/2 cup of white wine. How could I be out of white wine? (Guess I drank it!) The recipe calls for carrots, onions, and garlic, all of which I had, the carrots and onions from my garden, and the garlic from a neighbor, Jim Lusk. By the way, Jim grows alot of garlic and it is for sale around the end of July. More on that later. I even picked some thyme from the herb garden at my house, and just for fun, walked out to the large garden where there are still some carrots in the ground. I meant to cover them with straw before the cold set in, but I never got around to it. I thought I would have to dig them out, but they popped right out of the ground with a little tug! I picked 6, washed them off, and they actually tasted pretty good. I will have to get out there and pull some more before we get another cold spell! I used homemade chicken stock and my canned tomatoes. And I used red wine instead of white, and it tastes fine. Now I'm out of white AND red wine!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Challenge Day 4

Tonight I made seared tuna steaks from the freezer with fried rice. I had made some Wehani (whole grain brown rice) a few days ago but didn't know what I wanted to do with it. So I decided to make a fried rice, since the rice was chilled and ready to go. Brown rice doesn't make for a very appetizing looking dish, but it tasted just fine, although a bit chewy! I seared the pepper crusted tuna in sesame oil, then removed them from the pan and added soy sauce, sherry, and some sweet chili garlic sauce that I had made with hot peppers from the garden. I reduced the sauce and spooned it over the tuna. Not bad! No picture this time, it tasted good but wasn't very appetizing looking. So, I used up the rice, tuna from the freezer and even found a use for the sweet chili garlic sauce.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fusilli alla Puttancesca, or as my favorite Italian chef Lidia Bastianich calls it, Fusilli as made by Ladies of the Evening, is what I made on day two of "Cook With What You've Got" challenge. All day I planned to make a vegetarian Pad Thai with the rice noodles lingering in my pantry. I thought I had most of what I would need, (with a lot of substitutions) even found a substitute for tamarind paste, using lime or lemon juice with a little brown sugar. But a search through the pantry turned up no peanuts or cashews (must have eaten them during a pantry raid). That was the last straw, so I turned to tomatoes I had canned last summer, pasta, anchovies, and olives. These things I always have on hand. It was pretty good, but I'm disappointed that I couldn't make the Pad Thai. This challenge is going to be harder than I thought! So far, I think I've saved around $15.00, by not buying andouille sausage and shrimp for the Pad Thai. Not bad.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Day one of the "Cook with What You've Got" Challenge. Sorry, no pictures, but I made something I've been wanting to make for a few weeks, Red Beans & Rice, from the current Cook's Illustrated magazine. I had all the ingredients, since I had been planning this for some time. The only ingredient I didn't have was the andouille sausage, so I substituted some Hungarian garlic sausage that a local church makes twice a year, and a co-worker brings to work. The red beans were from www.ranchogordo.com . I had high hopes for these beans because they are supposed to be very fresh. I soaked them all day on Monday, and then cooked them for a total of 1 1/2 hours with the other ingredients, but they just never got creamy. The flavor of the entire dish was great, but the beans were not the texture that I imagined. I was very proud of myself that I didn't go to the store just to get andouille sausage, that took a lot of willpower! I used beans and rice from my pantry, sausage and chicken stock from the freezer. Also used frozen green peppers from my freezer that have been in there since 2008! (I should freeze them more often, doesn't take much, just cut them up and freeze).

Friday, January 15, 2010

"Cook With What You've Got" Challenge













Ok, here's what the inside of my pantry looks like: Many kinds of rice: brown, black, arborio, jasmine. Canned beans, hearts of palm, orzo, pasta, rice noodles, bulger, muesli, orzo, pasta, panko bread crumbs, quinoa (red & white), canned tomatoes (some I canned myself with tomatoes from the garden. There's more in there, but not without moving things around. Which might be a disaster, since everything is very precarious in there! What will I do with all this stuff? Don't know yet, but stay tuned! Oh, I forgot the three types of lentils: red, green, and black.

Cook With What You've Got Challenge

I hope you all will join me in this challenge. Believe it or not, I am planning on using some of my CSA potatoes, the only thing I have left.

And if you are so moved, consider donating some of what you don't spend at the grocery to help the victims in Haiti.

Cook with What You've Got Challenge

Thanks,

Tami