Spaghetti and Meat Sauce for tomorrow Lime Pudding Tonight

We enjoyed the roast pork tonight with potatoes and salad. So now for tomorrow's prep. I'm making the tomato meat sauce. I make a simple one, but you can add more peppers, some mushrooms, more onions, zucchini, yellow squash. The vegys disappear into the sauce.
Root vegys like potatoes and members of the cauliflower family don't really go well in this dish. I do add diced carrots since it's a sneaky way to get them into the family.

Red Meat Sauce

• In largish pot, put in 2 TBP olive oil and heat to medium. Add 2 mashed garlic cloves, 1 minced carrot, 1/2 thinly sliced pepper, and up to 1 minced onion. Cook gently( do not brown the garlic as it will taste terrible. ) until beginning to turn color.



• Add 1 lb ground beef and cover with 1 can tomato puree. Add enough water to cover meat.



• Simmer gently , partially covered for 30 minutes until meat and vegys are cooked through



• Set any portion aside that you are planning to freeze now, BEFORE adding the herbs. Freezing changes the concentration and flavor of herbs.



• Add herbs like oregano, rosemary, bay or thyme . If the sauce is too acid, add small amounts of brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon at a time or add lemon peel or cumin- I have no idea why the lemon peel or cumin works but it does take that sharp taste away.

Tomorrow I will cook the spaghetti squash in the microwave. If you have never had one, it's a strange vegetable. The inside is filled with long , delicious edible strings that look like spaghetti. It's a nice change from the wheat kind.

Lime Pudding

Limes were cheaper than lemons at the Weis market this week.

• Open 1 can sweetened evaporated Milk into a bowl



• Add the juice of 2 limes with a bit of grated rind to the milk and stir. The mixture will thicken almost immediately.



• Layer banana slices and this pudding into 4 fancy stemmed glasses for a pretty and fast dessert.

Friday Night's Dinner: Black Beans and Rice

I made another quick vegetarian dinner last night, since daughter was off to a friend's later that night. On Friday's I clean out the refrigerator, using whatever leftover vegys and cheese bits are left. This dish uses up all the non starchy vegys left.

Black Beans and Rice. I first learned of this dish under the probably pollitically incorrect name of Moros and Christianos when I lived in Spain. The black beans and white rice make a stark, moderne image on the serving plate. It's a very filling dish that can stand up to hot flavors and strong spices. Feel free to add more and different vegs to the bean mix. Add more hot peppers if you like them( I don't)
The basic recipe for 2 very large dinner servings or 4 side dish servings:

• Boil 2 cups water with lemon peel and 1/2 tsp salt
• in frying pan or largish pot, heat 1 TSP olive oil on medium and add 1 clove garlic, some spring onions, 1 tsp turmeric powder, red pepper flakes, 1/2 small diced zucchini, yellow squash or handful of spinach. You want a quick cooking veg here that will absorb the yellow color. Cover and cok until garlic is cooked.
• Add 1 cup rice to boiling water, lover heat and set timer for 13 minutes
• remove garlic turmeric mix to a small bowl, Set aside
• Into the frying pan, place one can rinsed black beans, and a cup of quick cooking vegs such as 1/2 of a small zucchini, yellow squash or spinach cut into large chunks, or 1 cup of cherry tomatoes,or 1 can of rinsed peeled tomatoes, or 1 cup of corn. Cover and lower heat to cook vegies and heat beans through.

Make a ring out of the rice on a serving plate. Spoon the black beans and veg in the middle or the ring. Top with the bright yellow turmeric and minced vegs.

Snazzier versions:

Sausage

Cook strong flavored chopped sausage or baked ham chunks in low heat. Add chopped red, green and yellow peppers. Add some hot peppers as well. Add the black beans to this mix. Add cherry tomatoes. Heat through and serve over rice with the turmeric sauce.

chicken Nuggets and Rice tonight- Mac and Cheese tomorrow

For tonight's dinner-Cut up chicken breasts breaded and fried, with plain rice
Okay, I'm putting lemon peel, and butter in the rice and will garnish with fresh parsley.
For tomorrow, it's mac and cheese with ham bits and peas. It's not really a make ahead dish since my version takes only 15 minutes.

Fallafel Dinner and new Lemon Custard

So last night,as planned Fallafel and fancy rice for dinner. Cliced cukes with Rosemary for a salad. Lemon pudding was an afterthought.
The first thing I always do when cooking is put the water for rice or pasta to boil. That's what takes the longest time.

Frangrant Rice for 4

put 2 cups of water to boil. add 1/4 tsp salt
when boiling , add 1 cup rice, 2 TBSP chopped dried apricots or white raisins to pot , lower heat to simmer, cover and start timer.
at 10 minutes, add handful of snow peas into pot, 2 chopped scallions, chopped lemon peel
heat 2 more minutes, turn off heat but leave covered. Rice is done in 2 additional minutes,.

Fallafel for 4

• soak 1 lb dried chick peas in water overnight ( done last night)
• process plumped peas with 1 bunch of parley (or spinach or mint) in food processor
• place wet mix in bowl, add 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking powder and about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of bread crumbs
• add enough bread crumb ( or flour) to be able to shape 2 " patties
• Fry in 1/4 inch of oil turning when medium brown.

Lemon Pudding

Okay this turned out to be a weird recipe, but it works.

• Pour one can of sweetened condensed milk into a bowl
• Add the juice of 2 lemons, about 1/3 of a cup. Mix the 2 well

This mix will get firmer and firmer as you stir it. It's very lemony and very sweet at the same time. I saw this recipe as a pie filling in the 1970's Joy of Cooking and tried just the filling part. It's very very very rich. If serving as a pudding, I'd serve 1/4 of a cup with some whipped cream, maybe a bit of cream cheese or chopped mango on top. I'm going to play with this recipe since it was so easy. I wonder if it works with orange juice or does it need more acid that that?

Tonight's Chicken Casserole and Egg custard.

Dinner went off without a hitch, which is good since we were hungry! Dinner was in 20 minutes. Chicken casserole in the oven at 350, some raw carrots for the veg and a quick stove top custard for dessert.
Okay, dessert was not part of the plan but... it's really nasty outside and custard is so homey.

Egg Stovetop Custard
in top part of a double boiler mix over boiling water

• 2 cups of milk
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar
• pinch salt
• tsp of vanilla or other flavoring

Whisk constantly for about 6 to 10 minutes until the custard thickens. DO NOT let this get really hot, 'cause then the egg bits poach and you have a wet sandy texture to the custard.

You can also put these in custard cups, place these in baking pan filled 1/2 way up the cup sides with water and bake for a while in a 300 degree oven . I don't usually do that. My favorite quick custard is a cornstarch one made in the microwave. Each microwave oven is different so you have to record the times the first time you make it to get the recipe perfect.

Microwave Blancmange

The trick to this recipe is to make a cornstarch paste with NO lumps in it before adding all the milk

• whisk together in a microwave safe bowl 1/3 cup of cornstarch and 1/2 cup of sugar.
• measure 2 cups milk and 1 tsp vanilla or orange flavor.
• add very little of the milk, maybe a Tsp to the starch and mix very well. Get rid of the lumps
• Keep adding milk very slowly-and mixing until you are sure there are no lumps left at all then whisk in the rest of the milk

Microwave at full power for 2 minutes, then check the pudding. If the mix is not yet hot, microwave at 1 minute intervals until pudding starts to set on one side of the bowl.. Record the time it took. Whisk pudding and return to microwave at 30 second intervals. The pudding is done when it is thick and no raw cornstarch flavor remains. Record this time too.

Pour into pretty cups and refrigerate until firm. It tops well with fresh fruit or with chocolate syrup drizzles.

Notes

When you make the pudding again, set the timer for the time it took to start setting. When the buzzer sounds, whisk the pudding, return to microwave for second time interval.

In my first microwave, the times were 3 minutes, stir and reset for 1.30 minutes. In my new one, it takes 5 and 3 minutes. Go figure.

I like it best with orange flavoring. My nephew prefered this as a warm drink rather than letting the pudding cool in the fridge.

Tomorrow's Chicken Casserole Done

I boned the cooked chicken, and since I was there... I cooked rice in some of the stock, and cleaned up the kitchen. While the rice was cooking I made a simple white sauce:

• 1TBSP Butter whisked with 1TBSP flour on a medium hot pan
• add about 1 cup hot stock a little at a time whisking constantly
• herbs and spices and salt to taste

I mixed the slightly undercooked rice with the chicken, about 3/4 cup of chopped tomatoes and the white sauce in a greased casserole dish, then covered everything with crushed saltines.

Tomorrow when I come home, all I have to do is pop this in a 350 oven until warmed through, boil some water , then drop in some sliced carrots, and as soon as the carrots are soft, drop in a handful of snow peas. Dinner is done!

A few notes

I love leeks! The green made a nice ingredient in a stock. The all white part just dissolves in soup , so you can get a really nice leek and potato cream soup.

All this can be done with canned chicken stock- I just usually make my own since - well, I have the chicken bones right there anyway.

I was going to make the casserole with potatoes instead of rice, but well, I didn't feel like peeling potatoes again today. I'd made Spanish potato omelets for lunch.

Snow peas are hellishly expensive, but we like them. Usually in a casserole like this I use frozen mixed bagged vegys. They are good, nutritious and reasonably priced. The only drawback sometimes is that the combo of carrots, corn , peas and green beans I like can sometimes be a little sweet.

Finally, I don't mention how I spice things up. I tend to like herbs more than fiery spices , but any of these recipes can take the addition of hot spices and more herbs. In this case I used a lot of Rosemary for example, since that's what I have on hand. It goes well with chicken.