Category Archives: kitchen stories

Election on the way: Paranoia Sets In

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Maybe it’s Trump. Maybe it’s the dystopian novels I read so often. My inner paranoid streak or doomsday prepper is begging to get out and take action.

Here’s an example. Trump claimed today that if he carries Wisconsin in the primary, he’ll go to a Packer game in the fall. Does he have any idea how hard it is to get tickets? Or how long the waiting list is for season tickets? Never mind. Don’t answer that.

Our primary election is next week Tuesday. The airwaves are full of campaign ads. The one that makes me slap my forehead and shout “Doh!” is Ted Cruz’ commercial that announces he is the only one who can beat Trump. “Do the math!” the announcer demands while showing a bar graph. Frankly,  the best candidate to beat Donny Boy isn’t on the same primary ticket. Do the math? Someone forgot a variable.

I spent a bundle to restock our medicine cabinet with supplies for spring allergy season. It was costly. It would be more costly if I hadn’t stocked up and had needed a last-minute run to the store. By planning ahead, I was able to use two coupons and buy generic store brands. When all the allergic folks start breaking out in sneezes and wheezes, the shelves will be empty except for the expensive varieties.

I’ve used up the corn in the freezer. If we want corn, we’ll have to buy it from the store. We have one container of peas left, and several of beans (green and yellow). We salvaged the last two squash from the basement and noted that next year we need to cook them sooner, not later. I guess the vegetable of choice for the time being will be beans. As the summer arrives, I’ll put up more corn, an equal amount of peas, and beans? Let me think about it.

Meanwhile, I’m hearing about schools getting budgets zapped, stripped to the bone. Layoffs are rampant. My job is fairly secure, at least for the time being. I just did a promo for open enrollment a few days ago. Maybe it’ll help keep our enrollment up.

But when I go in to vote on Tuesday, I’ll have all of these issues on my mind – and more. All politics may be local, and it’s also personal. Very personal. Do I need to stock up on toilet paper? Build a chicken coop? Hide my retirement fund in a mattress?

Readers, help me silence my inner doomsday siren. Promise me you’ll do the most important prep of all: you’ll vote.

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And Still More Adventures in Slow Cooking

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It was one of Those Days. Around 3:00, I suddenly wondered if I’d actually plugged in the crock pot that morning. I’d been tired, really dragging, and thought I’d better throw something in the crock pot because I had plenty of food in the house and no excuse to order pizza. Uh-huh, that was my rationale.

I threw a few chicken breasts, a large jalapeno pepper, and a handful of cherry tomatoes – all frozen – with a little veggie broth (it was handy). I turned the switch to low and got ready to leave for the day. The plan was chicken fajitas. Upon arriving home, I would only need to shred the cooked chicken, add taco seasoning, and cook a few veggies in the steamer. That is, I would only need to do all of that if I’d remembered to plug in the crock that morning.

Everything but the broth was frozen when it landed in the pot that morning. If I hadn’t plugged it in, I rationalized, the food would be thawed, but probably still edible. Pizza would be fine. The boys would not object, I was sure.

Well? What do you think, readers? Did I have enough wits about me to plug in the crock pot and get it going in my sleep dazed pre-coffee condition?

Yes. Yes, I’d plugged it in, probably on autopilot. We had fajitas for supper, and I made ice cream later that night. Oh, and I made a vegetable broth, too, with the carrot peelings and few other random scraps. After all was said and done, I felt motivated to spend some quality time in the kitchen.

Readers, have you had moments like this? Moments when you really questioned your own actions or lack thereof, and the result could have ended up in the hands of delivery pizza?

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Slow Cookin’ Again

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That could be a country song title, I believe. “Slow cookin’, just slow cookin’ my life away.” Work with it, folks, and when you win your Grammy, make sure you tell the world that you got the idea from Daisy at Compost Happens.

But anyway, back to business. I may have set a new record last week: four days out of seven, I used a crock pot.  Monday: brunch casserole for supper. This dish of eggs, milk, herbs, and whatever strikes my fancy simmered all day on a low heat. When I got home after school, it was almost done. I cooked up maple sausages on the side, and we were ready to eat.

Tuesday: butternut squash. Or did I make that on Sunday? It was a rather large squash I’d bought at a September farm market. I skinned and chopped a little more than half of it, added a little broth and butter, and let it cook all day on low. Yum. It was a little heavy on the liquid, so I drained it through a colander before mashing it all. Delicious.

Wednesday: I had a staff meeting after school, so I knew I wouldn’t have much time to cook. Out came the big crock, and in went the chili. Amigo added noodles and stirred the mix late in the afternoon for a good Wisconsin chili mac, and it was ready when I walked in after my meeting.

Then Saturday rolled around. Chuck was out of town, so I made something Amigo and I like that Chuck can’t stand: lamb stew. I had a container in the freezer, so I dumped it into a small crock on low. Amigo and I had it with leftover rice. It was very good, I must say, and very low maintenance.

This week promises to be busy, but not quite as busy as last week was. The crocks might stay in the cupboard. Then again, maybe they won’t.

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Season of Slow Cooking Continues

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Last week Monday: 1 quart crock, a bargain picked up for almost nothing second hand, the crock with a lid that doesn’t match because I picked it up for almost nothing…I already said that. Anyway, Monday’s crock pot task was to thaw and heat a soup from the freezer. This worked famously. This small crock is like a Little Dipper, just twice the size. It has two settings: on or off. Plug it in, it’s on. Unplug it, the crock’s off. Bean soup just sounded like a perfect addition to a new flavor from the local meat market: bacon bratwurst.

Last week Wednesday: Eating the Opponent, Arizona! We normally do this on the weekend, but we may be traveling as the weekend arrives. I modified a recipe from Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and let the flavors simmer in the crock pot all day. My Packers didn’t win, but they really invested a phenomenal effort in a dramatic and close game.

We were out of town over the weekend, so the crocks sat unused. Heck, the whole kitchen sat unused. But now, back in the bitter cold realm we call home, the slow cooker again fills the house with its flavor-filled aromas. Oh, did that sound too contrived? Sorry. 

On our way home from Illinois, we stopped at one of our favorite specialty stores near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. We stocked up with the best pot pies on the market and a number of soup mixes. I’m making the lentil and Italian sausage mix today. We had Italian sausage in the freezer (a frequent stock-up item from the Nearby Meat Market), and I knew I’d be home working on progress reports all day. A soup that cooks slowly is the perfect menu item.

To summarize: Today, Monday, there’s a soup in the biggest crock pot. Lentils, Italian sausage, homemade beef stock, and a tiny package of dried veggies are simmering together. By supper, I expect this will be exactly what we need.

So, readers, do you have any favorite soups for cold winter weather? I’d love to hear suggestions.

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Season of Slow Cooking

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Summary of the first week in my Season of Slow cooking:

Sunday’s multi-task:

  • Eating the Opponent – Minnesota, Chili with elk meat
  • New Crock Pot!

I learned how to set the new crock and found a valuable feature: when the time I’ve set for High or Low is done, the unit automatically switches to Warm. I know I’m going to like this.

Ground elk is easy to cook and resembles ground beef enough that it was a direct replacement in my chili recipe. My research showed that game meats are popular in Viking country, much like they are in Packerland. I wasn’t sure if Minnesot’ns add noodles to their chili the way we do in Wisconsin, so I stuck with basic chili instead of chili mac.

Results: Delicious. Game results: we won’t talk about it. Deep sigh.

During the first week back to school, I didn’t use the crock port very much. Instead, I put together suppers that were easy to make in the hour or two after I come home from school. In fact, on Friday I gave in to the exhaustion of the first week of January and went to a local pub for supper. Fish fry, lobster bisque soup (is that redundant?), and a tall margarita to quench my thirst – a perfect way to end the week. Next week, it’s back to normal mealtimes; the crock pot will be in the cooking cycle again.

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Slow Cooking Streak at the O.K. Chorale

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I didn’t cook in my slow cooker every day for a full year, but I did use it a lot leading up to and following Christmas. Tuesday saw bean soup with ham for supper. Thursday we had a classic – crock pot chili. Saturday night’s supper had a side dish of acorn squash cooked in the medium slow cooker. Sunday morning I experimented with overnight oatmeal, and Monday I tried out a breakfast bake for supper.

No wonder I’ve worn out almost every slow cooker I’ve owned.

The first lost the outer shell, the housing that provides heating element. One of its three feet broke off. After we threw away the broken parts, I tried planting herbs or flowers in the crock itself, but we couldn’t put holes in it for drainage (those crocks are tough).

My second slow cooker lost not a foot, but a handle. I managed to use it very carefully for a little while, but eventually the outside was so worn I couldn’t even repair it with super glue. This slow cooker bit the dust as well. Confession: the blue crock from this one is still in the basement. It’s so pretty, I feel certain there will be a way to reuse it.

The replacement for those two is still cooking – it made chili Christmas Eve. It’s wearing out, though, from the inside this time. I estimate I use either the large 6 quart crock or its 4 quart counterpart at least once a week. During tomato season, I can have several going all at once to simmer the fresh tomatoes down into a thick and delicious sauce.

I’m considering Project Slow Cooker as a 2016 project. I own five (six, if you count the little dipper) in different sizes because we use them often in our busy lives. Once a week is normal. An increase to two or three times a week would be realistic. Aha, I think I’ve found a New Year’s resolution that is an attainable goal!

Look for highlights of Project Slow Cooker here at Compost Happens. Now, readers. Do you take on new projects as the calendar changes to a new year? Share your inspiration in the comments.

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Baking the Opponent – leftovers

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Actual conversation at the O.K. Chorale – as I measured out ingredients for a half batch of Mississippi Mud Cake for Eating the Opponent, St. Louis —

Me: I’m going to have a lot of marshmallows leftover. Do you know what that means?

Amigo: S’mores?

Me: Rhubarb upside down cake.

Chuck: I was thinking Rice Krispie bars.

Me: We don’t have any Rice Krispies.

Chuck: I can fix that. Amigo, add Rice Krispies to the shopping list.

Yep, they were preparing the grocery list, and they added the key ingredient for the bars. I might have enough for the rhubarb upside down cake, too. It was a large bag of marshmallows to begin with. This might be the last rhubarb harvest, so it would feel good to make something good with it.

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Eating the Opponent: St. Louis

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If the Packers play the Rams often enough, I might be convinced to invest in a small home fryer for making fried ravioli. This time, though, we stuck with what we know we can make.

The neighborhood meat market had pork steaks on sale (coincidence? we think not), so Chuck grilled up a batch of St. Louis style pork steaks with an amazing marinade. He boiled up fresh corn from the farmers’ market and some of my freshly harvested carrots and parsnips. Oh, those veggies were good.

I made a St. Louis Mississippi Mud Cake – delicious. Absolutely delicious.

Frankly, between our menu and Aaron Rodgers’ arm, the Rams don’t stand a chance.

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Eating the Opponent goes Purple

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It was a day that wasn’t quite going right – a day to make the best of less-than-average situations. I decided to make our Eating the Opponent San Francisco from scratch instead of going to the store. We combined a home-made rice-a-roni style dish with a simple fish pan fried in butter to suggest Fisherman’s Wharf. I picked a few carrots, parsnips, and one turnip from the garden to enhance the rice-pasta dish. Rice and vegetables could cook well together, I thought.

The carrots were purple. The rice became purple, too.

Purple rice

Purple rice

It was delicious. After cooking in chicken broth, then adding a little maggi sauce, onion, garlic, and despite its hue, we enjoyed every bite.

I must remember these carrots when we play the Minnesota Vikings.

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Oooooooooh, tomatoes!

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There really ought to be a theme song for tomato season. We could sing it to the tune of Oklahoma.

But back to reality, I’ve had a lot of tomatoes become ripe and on the way to ripe. I pick most of them so we can eat them and the wild things in the neighborhood can not.

Tomatoes in the sun

Tomatoes in the sun

from left to right - ripening

from left to right – ripening

tomatoes for freezer

tomatoes for freezer

and last but not least, yellow pear.

and last but not least, yellow pear.

And there’s more where those came from, folks. Lots more.

Readers, do you have an abundance of tomatoes? What will you make with them? You can leave a comment here, and you can see more gardeners with an abundance of something on Harvest Monday at Daphne’s Dandelions.

 

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