Really Late Wordless Wednesday Post

You have to squeeze the sausage out of the cases. It's the grossest thing in the whole world. Like milking a cow for meat.

Break it up with a wooden spoon. This is not a job for plastic. Unless you like to eat plastic, and then, that's up to you.

Add flour and seasonings. I like a cajun blend, but I'm out. So I went with paprika, garlic powder, white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and oregano.

and this is what happens when you don't know how to take an "I'm cooking food shot."

You want the flour to kind of brown on the bottom of the pan and stick. There's a fancy French name for this. Means YUMMY. When flour is browned, pour in beer and once cup of water.

Stir until thick, add both stocks and hashbrowns O'brian, bring to a bubble. Simmer ten minutes. In hindsight, I will never put frozen hashbrowns into a bowl again, as they fused into any icy mass that required chiseling. Over a pot. Of steaming, boiling liquid. With Sausage grease. I may have scars.

Bring to a boil. This will thicken as it simmers. Just keep scraping the bottom of the pan as your stirring to get the yummy fancy french word stuff off the pan and into your soup.

If it's not thick enough, add some corn starch to one cup of milk and shake in a tupperware container. Don't ask me how much. About a heap. If you held a gun to my head, I'd say three tablespoons, but you just want the soup thick enough to hold the cheese.

Add the cheese in hand fulls. Again, it's not really a science. More of a taste.

I'd go with about 8 ounces...this time if pressed.

Serve with biscuits...

You can be real cute about that if you want.

And there's your soup. I used a ridiculously dark beer, and got dark soup. It happens. Also, I've written this recipe out on here before. It's good. It's also different every time I make it.

The bottom line is sausage+flour+beer+broth+potatoes+milk+cheese+seasoning= so freaking good. Now, go play with it. Make it your own.

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!

How to Get Your Man to Cook...Every Day of the Week.

My Husband and I spent the better part of the first five years of our relationship fighting.

About chores.

I love to cook, love it... but I hated that the entire burden of nourishing our two bodies was placed squarely on my shoulders.

Literally. He would eat "snack stuff" all day long.

Snack stuff. I still don't know what that actually means. In my head, it means my daughter perched on the chair next to him, while they both pig out on chips and soda.

*sigh....or flat out *curse depending on my mood.

Later on, much later on, it occured to me that he and I...we don't speak the same language. I say, "you need to have lunch before I come home."

He hears, "there are five drive thrus in between where we have to go and home. Sweet!"

The constant nudging made me feel like a control freak. In reality, though, I didn't tell him what was in the kitchen, I expected him to go out, poke around, find something he wanted to eat, and fix it.

The male brain hears "Drive thru! Much easier. Saves five steps."

So, we've compromised. I no longer leave him to plan a meal for himself or the kids, and we cut our drive thru budget by 7/8ths. Now, it's a fun treat, not a panicked stop to fill bellies for lack of better planning.

And, it turns out, he is perfectly willing to cook. I used to joke that meant spaghetti or tacos, but the man is really accomplished at man food.
As in, grilled food.

Therein, lies my rescue. I simply pick up large packages of simple meat, and let him have his way with them on the grill. Usually that just means salt and pepper, which is perfect, because the rest of the week, the leftovers are easy to work with. Yesterday, he fired up the grill and made sausages and corn, and I'll take the leftovers today and make spaghetti, along with a breakfast casserole for tomorrow. (We leave for the beach bright and early.) I make french dips out of leftover steak, and grilled chicken just has so many uses it isn't funny. It doesn't require a lot of supervision from me when I have a stack of grilled meat to work with, and (I think) he enjoys it.

Win, win!

So, I guess he's not technically cooking every day of the week, but it feels that way since I have such a head start on things. Plus fighting with that grill is not my thing, and I've been more than guilty of ordering takeout on hot days to avoid turning the stove on.
Of course, the other option is marry someone who likes to cook all the time

Do you have a strategy to get your man to cook?

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.