Why I'll never make it as a food blogger. But I'll keep trying.

It's the pictures. The pictures stump me.

I'm either going to have to start measuring things into pretty little containers, which I don't own, and thinking things out before I start, or take my husband's advice and videotape myself cooking, which is just weird, or stage photos AFTER I GET DONE.

Three words. Double the dishes. As it is, I pray to God every night for world peace and a house elf. Not necessarily in that order. I think the house elf may, in fact, help me achieve world peace.

But on to tonight's dinner, which was fabulous, and involved my soon-to-famous replacement for cream-of-whatever soup, the cornstarch based white sauce. I know I've talked about this before, but canned cream soups freak me out. They are just...weird. Chemical based badness. And of course, they are delicious, simple, and go on sale with big coupons all. the. time, so the temptation to load up my basement with several hundred of them is kind of strong. The force is strong with that one...but I am stronger...

So what you want to come up with, any time you've got a recipe that calls for a can of creamed soup, is about ten ounces of white sauce. There are actually some good recipes out there, but I just take about 1 1/4 Cup of milk, shake the bejesus out of it with three teaspoons of cornstarch, and heat it to a boil while whisking. Then I season it with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and whatever flavor I'm after-some diced mushrooms, some diced onions, some finely chopped broccoli, some chicken bullion. Probably about a half a cup of "flavor" And that's your cream soup. You'll have a little extra. It's okay.

So tonight's dinner was almost entirely assembled out of leftovers, and the kiddos loved it.

1 recipe cream soup (see above)
1 onion, diced,
1 clove garlic, minced,
2 T butter (wouldn't be a recipe of mine if it didn't have butter)
2 C leftover meat, in this case, ham, diced
1 sack frozen broccoli
6 ounces pre-cooked, whole grain pasta
1 C shredded cheese
1/4 C Italian seasoned breadcrumbs (Wegmans has a store brand whole grain that I like.)

Saute the onion in the butter lightly, until translucent, with garlic. Add the cream sauce.

Butter a baking dish. Layer the ingredients: Pasta, then ham, then broccoli, then cream sauce. Cover and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and spread cheese on top, then sprinkle with bread crumbs. No need to add more butter, but it would be yummy if you did.

Bake another fifteen to twenty minutes, or until cheese has brown bits all over and breadcrumbs are crisped. The original recipe called for cream of mushroom soup and nixed the noodles.

Next time I promise to take a picture of the sack of broccoli before I dump it. Or not.

Vichyssoise and Bad Parenting

Today, I'm a bad mom.

 It's been one of those weeks. I came down with a horrible stomach bug on Saturday. (I won't horrify you with the details). Suffice it to say, three days later and I still feel like Mr. Lovinangels somehow managed to run me over with his dying Bronco. I've managed with the kids, in some bizarre fugue state, my shiny floors covered in chalk and tiny foot prints, my children in varying states of disarray.

Fortunately, it's nice out, so they think that this has been the best weekend EVER. Miss TweenAngel had a half day today, and the kids spent the afternoon enjoying the last official golden day of summer buried in the miniature tent fortress daddy spent yesterday building, and they are happier than pigs in, well, you know.

I misjudged the amount of food we had on hand.

This is never good.

 At the end of searching through the cupboards, and a considerable amount of cursing, (remember, the kids were outside)  in a vain attempt to locate the package of chicken I knew we had, we wound up to doing meatless Monday.

Now, I have guilt.

Why, I'm not sure.  I think it may have something to do with the fact that we just ate the whitest supper in the history of the world. I'm hardwired to believe that white=bad. It may also be that I didn't CHOOSE to eat vegetarian tonight, I was forced to because of poor planning. That may be it. Or it may be because I just fed my kids potato soup for dinner.

Potatoes=Bad. Yummy, but pathetically lacking in nutrition. Now, granted, the soup was phenomenal, really gorgeous, and loaded with veggies other than potatoes, pureed to a fabulous silky smoothness and topped with cream. The little buggers were in heaven.

I served it with homemade, crusty dinner rolls, also made with white flour, from leftover dough from my cancelled Saturday night dinner.

 I'm going to parental nutritional hell. To make it worse, and to cover my poor planning, I've taken to calling the soup by it's French name.

Vichyssoise. Should mean fattening empty calories disguised as soup.

Do you think the kids will be mad when I nix dessert in favor of sliced raw veggies?

It takes a Village...

I'm making chicken curry tonight.

The kind of curry a dear, sweet staff member from good, old FV taught me to make. A lady that shall remain nameless, as I firmly believe it's quite rude to name people on the internet without getting some form of permission first. The kind you could smell walking up the hill to the cafeteria, on those special Friday nights that another sweet lady had taken the night off, and you just knew that dinner was going to be something GREAT. The best nights were the nights she let us help make homemade egg rolls... vast quantities filled, rolled, and stacked high, crispy, light, and heavenly. I wish I could remember how she made them. The only thing I remember was finishing the filling with a light sprinkle of ground peanuts before tightly rolling into a log.

I credit the ladies at the Village with my love of cooking, and restaurant work in general. I love to play the hostess, love to set up dinners, hate to clean it all up.

So tonight's curry, much like the curry at the village, features whatever veggies I can find in my fridge, which would be some potato, carrot, green pepper, and peas. Gotta clean that baby out- nine days left till the big move!

My giant crock pot reminds me of the huge electric pot that sat next to the convection oven by the back door. Oh, the experiments I pulled off in that thing, and fed to my unsuspecting classmates.

Oh, well. Nobody died.

So here's what I did for my no-stove, tribute-to-high-school curry:
in the crock pot on high:

four chicken breasts

Mixed in bowl:
1 Can coconut milk
3 T Yellow Curry Powder
2 T flour
1 T paprika
1 T ginger (out of fresh, so I'm slumming)
1 t garlic (see above note)
splash of soy sauce

Pour over chicken, cook one hour.
Add long cooking veggies,
tonight we've got half a pound of baby cut carrots,
and three small red potatoes.

Cook one hour, add short cooking veggies,
tonight, it's a couple of bell peppers.

check chicken and veggies for doneness, stir in no cook veggies, if using,
tonight, it's a half a bag of thawed peas.

Serve over long grain rice...

Yes, it took a Village to teach me to cook. Although, I clearly remember this being made with bone-in thighs and drumsticks, and I'm sure I've changed the sauce over the years, the smell takes me back to the good dinners that sweet lady used to fix us.

Man, that was one great lady.

Another one skillet winner

I know it's a winner because MissAngelPreschooler ate it. That's how good it was.

And it used the last of my propane, so I'm glad it was worth it!

ingredients
2T olive oil
4 ounces of prosciutto

3 C water and one tablespoon of chicken base OR
1 1/2 C chicken stock and 1 1/2 C water
about a 1/4 C of Marsala wine,
a couple of splashes of whole milk
2T butter
two handfuls of shredded parm
1tsp garlic powder

Half a pound of thick, long pasta, like perciatelli or bucatini
Handful of peas

Heat olive oil in deep skillet with lid, add prosciutto, torn or cut into ribbons, and saute until crisp, remove to drain.Remove pan from heat. Add the water and chicken broth or bullion, cover and bring to boil, add a couple of glugs of Marsala, . Add the pasta, broken in half if it doesn't fit, stir, occasionally, boiling for half of the time specified on the box. Add the peas, continue stirring for the rest of the specified cook time, during the last two minutes adding a couple of splashes of whole milk or cream, the butter, the Parmesan cheese, and salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste. Stir, pretty much constantly for the last two minutes, especially after you add the cheese. Remove from heat.

Allow to stand a couple of minutes to let the sauce thicken.

Now, why would you buy a mix?

Box mixes: The enemy of frugal cooks every where

I remember the first time I ever cooked.

Ever.

My mother had made her famous meltaway meat. Of this, I still quiver in fear. The lumpy, tasteless mass of protein quivered like jello, the texture resembled canned dog food. I'm not entirely sure what she did to it that made it taste so...tasteless, but I do know it often involved me scrubbing out the crockpot for sometimes days on end, only to have her repeat the mess the moment I had managed to chip the remains from the walls of her ceramic petri dish, I mean, crockpot. Ugh.

My moment...she had come down with a "migraine" and needed to lay down. She needed me to "finish off dinner."

I was happier than a pig in, well, you know.

Laying on the counter, a packet of lipton alfredo noodles.

I put on my serious face. This was the big leagues. The moment that everyone tasted MY noodles. Oh, I could hardly wait.

I read the directions, then reread them. I followed them EXACTLY. Measuring the margarine, milk, and water as though my life depended on it.

Did you see my mistake? Because to this day, I don't. I followed the directions on the package, only to have my mother have a panic attack because I used margarine. Evidently, it was optional, (in those days, that was NOT printed on the directions.) and EXPENSIVE

As a (much) older cook, I wonder why we even had those packets. Even on sale they are ridiculously priced for what they are. A little bullion, a couple of seasonings, a four hundred percent mark up. It's scary what people will pay good money for.

On one of my favorite sites there is a certain amount of devotion to a certain meal product hawked by a four fingered hand. There are whole threads devoted to a favorite flavor...and again, I wonder why. Especially when I see "Italian Shells" ranks around the most popular flavors.

Seriously?

Ok, besides the ick factor, (have you READ the ingredients) and the price factor, (upwards of two dollars for barely three portions), Italian Shells? The easiest thing on the the planet, and, possibly the cheapest.

Check out my remake:

pasta
1 lb ground beef or sausage
1/2 lb whole wheat short pasta
2 C premade pasta sauce, or season a 16 oz can of tomato puree to taste.
2 C water

Brown beef or sausage and drain. Add sauce and water, bring to a boil, add the pasta. Return to a boil, simmering for 7 minutes. Do not cover. Let stand five minutes.

At this point, I usually sprinkle some shredded cheese on it and call it a day. However, I have the feeling the cheese sauce makes it for some people, so...

take 1/2 C milk and blend with 1 tsp cornstarch until smooth. Add 1/2 teaspoon garlic, bring to a boil. Stir in two to four tablespoons of parmesan cheese. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired. Drizzle over pasta.

Serve as you would your favorite box mix. Gloat in the fact that it cost less than half the price. Yay, YOU!

Do you have a favorite box mix you'd like a cheaper alternative to? Let me know in the comments!

And I digress...What's for dinner?

One day, many years ago, when Mr. Lovinangels and I were young, and broke, and hungry, I went into the kitchen to see about some food. I had exactly five things in my refrigerator- italian sausage, cheddar cheese, milk, potatoes, and beer.
Did someone say soup?

The recipe has morphed, time and time again, as we quickly learned never to be THAT broke, and that planning meals is a positive thing. This is the final product, the one I send to potlucks, etc.
I have to say, this is the one thing my family has asked for over and over. It's not a fussy recipe, either, as long as you follow the basic theory. Of course, you could do it without the sausage, or even the beer, but why would you want to?

4 tbsp butter or oil
1/2 C flour
1 capful of cajun seasoning.
1 lb bulk sausage, or remove sausage from casings.
half a bag of hash browns o' brian
1 quart of chicken broth
1 quart of water
1 bottle good quality dark beer (if you are insisting upon using light, please find a different recipe)
1 good couple of glugs of milk.
half a pound of nice, white, sharp cheddar, shredded.

Melt the butter or heat the oil in the soup pot, add sausage, breaking up with wooden spoon, until cooked. Add flour and continue stirring, until a blonde roux has formed around the sausage.

Shut off the heat if you have a gas stove, and pour in the beer, stirring constantly. Turn heat back on and stir, stir, stir, until the beer begins to thicken.
add the hash browns, seasoning, stock, and as much of the water as you need to just cover the hashbrowns, then pour in the milk, just enough to color it creamy. Continue stirring until it's nice and thick, and taste. Season with salt and pepper and lower heat, to a nice simmer. Now, begin adding the cheese, slowly, one handful at a time, allowing each handful to melt almost completely before adding the next. Taste after the third handful, and adjust seasonings. You can add all the cheese or a portion, and then let it set for a couple of minutes so you don't burn the roof of your mouth off.
Serve with more shredded cheese to pass.