We’ve been eating out a lot lately. For a variety of reasons. So I haven’t cooked much for several days. Also, I had only one “story” in the bank – the blog bank – so to speak – a post I wrote up last week, but haven’t yet posted. But yesterday I thought – hmmm – I need to use up some of the frozen stuff in the garage freezer.

You see, in July we’ll have a quarter of a 4-H pig arriving, so I simply MUST make room for this new part of a pig in my freezer. My kitchen Sub-Zero freezer, which is amply sized, is absolutely jamb-packed full. So, there’s trouble in river city. I need to make a conscientious effort to cook some freezer items. If you haven’t read my previous post about the 4-H pigs we’ve had over the years, you may want to read about it.

Therefore, I looked around at what was in there – a couple of pork roasts, some pork chops, a steak or two, a pan of lasagna from last fall and also found a flattish package that appeared to be meat, but the writing on it was smudged so I couldn’t read it. Oh well, defrost it anyway. My friend Cherrie calls these “mystery meat” dinners. And yes, this was mystery meat in some kind of sauce.

Once defrosted it appeared to be country ribs, already prepared in a thick marinade. So, I baked them, made a salad, and scrounged around in the refrigerator for any vegetables I might have. Sure enough, there was a whole head of cauliflower about a week old. What to do. Lacking key ingredients for nearly every recipe I looked up, I decided to wing it. And it was delicious.

Here’s what you do:

The mystery meat? Well, it was country ribs. They had been in the freezer for way too long, and I baked them a tad too long. But they were edible. With a lovely green salad, it was a simple, but delicious meal. I liked the cauliflower best – the truffle salt added a nice undertone that was undefinable, elusive, but very tasty.
No recipe for this one – it’s too easy.

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How did the word “yum” ever come into being? It’s not a very pleasant sounding one, to my ears, and yet I do use it. Probably too often. I don’t even like the look of the word in print, either. And yet, it conveys the meaning very well. Maybe I liked it better before Rachel Ray started using the word “yum-o,” which I think is really a rank permutation of a not-very-good word. Makes me think we can’t come up with adjectives to describe something that tastes really, really good. Something that wakes up the taste buds, or soothes them, whichever the case may be.

And surely, mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes, after all. I do enjoy them immensely. More than rice. More than pasta even, but now we know they’re not all that good for us because they’re a high glycemic carb. That means they digest quickly, turn into sugar which pours into our bloodstream faster than we’d like food to do – we want food that sticks to the ribs, but in the low glycemic way – like grains do – to sustain energy, to keep us going for hours before another meal. Like brown rice does. So these days, mashed potatoes are a real, honest-to-goodness treat. I try to slap my hands when I reach for a 3-lb. bag of Yukon Gold at the market. Once in awhile I succumb, though.

Last week I attended a cooking class about comfort foods. I’d signed up for the class months ago, and didn’t even recall the subject until my friend Cherrie and I arrived at the class. Ah yes, “comfort on a plate” it was titled. We got four recipes altogether (short ribs, these mashed potatoes, green beans, and a chocolate dessert). They were all relatively simple to make, but they sure did rate high on that comfort factor. The short ribs and mashed potatoes with the sauce from the ribs poured over the potatoes . . . oh yes. Comfort for sure.

This recipe is nothing all that different as far as prep. While the potatoes are simmering (starting with COLD water, by the way) you sauté the shallots under low, low heat, so they turn golden brown, but not burned. The potatoes are riced, if possible, tossed with a bit of cream and butter and truffle oil is poured in at the end. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

One of the students in the class asked with a low voice and eyes downcast, if the chef would remove her portion before she added the truffle oil. You don’t like truffle oil? the chef blurted out. No, she said, I don’t like mushrooms. The chef said, there’s nothing in truffle oil that even remotely tastes like mushrooms.

We know that truffles are a mushroom. A much-prized one I might add – to the tune of several hundred dollars per mushroom. But they have the most elusive, yet unique flavor. But one tablespoon of truffle infused oil in a big pot of mashed potatoes? To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even TASTE the truffle oil. But anyway, the chef said she’d give her a small portion of both so she could taste the difference. Most of the rest of us were teasing the poor young woman. She did speak up later and said she liked the one with truffle oil, so she would never disparage a truffle again! So, in case you’ve never had truffle oil, I heartily suggest you try it. You can buy very small bottles of it in some places. Or larger bottles as well.

Prior to this above dialog, one of the other students in the class asked why the chef would put chocolate in mashed potatoes? She’d only seen truffle candy and couldn’t quite get the incongruity of mashed potatoes mixed up with chocolate. We all got a good laugh about that.

But oh so good are these potatoes. Delicious. Smooth. Comforting. Hot. And yes, yummy.
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I seem to be on a run lately with rice and pilafs. Sometimes I go for months, literally, without eating a grain of rice. I’ve had it several times in the last 30 days. A few weeks ago I made a real oldie, an Armenian Rice and Pasta Pilaf similar to Rice-a-Roni. It was scrumptious. Then, just for fun I made the real packaged Rice-a-Roni. Oh, it was icky. My DH is so spoiled – he ate one bite and left the rest. The leftovers were tossed in the garbage. That’ll teach me to try to cut corners.

For this side dish I wanted something lighter – pilaf can become a major component of the meal, and I didn’t want the rice to stand out. But just plain boiled rice is way too boring for me. I turned to my favorite chef, Phillis Carey, and her book, The Casual Gourmet Presents Fast and Fabulous Entertaining Menus and found this lemony rice that fit the bill entirely.

Salmon was on the menu, and it has a lovely sauce on the side, so wanted rice to complement it. This side is flavored with onion, saffron, lemon zest and just a bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Since I was making a huge portion to feed 12 (actually I think I had enough to feed about 20 since no one took very large portions), I gathered up all the ingredients ahead of time – I did a mis en place – the tray to “put in place” or “everything in place” for this. The onion was chopped in a bowl, lemon zested in a covered little bowl, salt and pepper measured, saffron also in its own tiny bowl, the quart container of chicken broth, the rice measured and sitting in a bowl and the timer all set to the minutes needed, just waiting for me to tap the top to start the clock ticking. All these items were on a tray beside the range, ready to go. That’s the mis en place. The pan was already on the range with the measured butter in it. So, when our guests arrived I was able to quickly make this and set the timer – without having to refer to the recipe time and again.

It was easy to do – sauté the onion, then add the rice and sauté that briefly. Then you add the broth, saffron, (and I added a jot of lemon juice), seasonings and you simmer it covered for a short time until just barely tender. Toss with the lemon zest, cheese and garnish with Italian parsley. Done.
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Without much of any equivocation, I can say that asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables. I like it  just about any way it comes – even raw – but the best prep for me is oven roasted. So when I was reading a posting over at A Year from Oak Cottage, a blog I read regularly, and Marie talked about preparing her crumbled asparagus, I perked up, printed out the recipe, and tried it.

The greatest of superlatives are needed here. Fabulous. Delicious. Moist. Pretty. Perfect. All those things. I made these for a dinner party last night, and I’d say the winning recipes of the evening were the dessert (yes, I’ll post it in a few days) and this asparagus. I made two pounds of asparagus, and there are maybe 4 spears left. Of course, I was serving 12 people, but everybody loved these, with me included.

Yes, I’ll be making these again. And again. They’re that good. I did change the recipe just a little bit – only the proportions – because I ended up with too much mayo left over, but this isn’t one of those exact kinds of recipes anyway. If you want to use less mayo altogether, as long as you rub each spear with enough mayo so the crumb mixture will stick, do so. Nobody will know it’s rubbed with mayo – it isn’t visible. Maybe you could coat the spears with olive oil and it would work too. You dip the spears in the mayo (rubbing it on with your fingers worked best), then my DH helped by rolling the spears in the panko crumb-cheese mixture. It does help to have two sets of hands since you muck up your fingers in the mayo and further muck them up if you go back and forth to the crumbs.

So, I suggest you get yourself to your local farm stand or market and make these right away quick. Asparagus season is almost over, and I’ll be making these again soon. Buy plenty because you’ll eat more of these than you anticipate!
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If you happen to need an absolute fast (and a bit flashy) but easy topping for broccoli, you’ve come to the right place. It’s so simple and easy, I’m almost embarrassed to tell you about it. Use this when you want that mound of broccoli to have a bit more flair than it does, just sitting there on a plate.

This little sauce or topping is nothing more than a mixture of bottled mayo and good mustard. The only no-no is you can’t use hot dog mustard. No, you can’t. But either the French stuff (I use Maille mostly), or any kind of Dijon. Even flavored mustards work too except sweetened mustards.

Mix up a bit of mayo, maybe 1/4 cup for 3-4 people, or up to 1/2 cup if you’re serving 5-6 people, and spoon in one or two tablespoons of mustard. Mix up, then TASTE IT. It should have a pronounced mustard taste. Add pepper if you’d like, but it’s fine as is. If you’re hesitant because of the guesswork in this, dip a tiny bite of broccoli in the sauce to try it, then decide if it needs more mayo or more mustard. Put a large dollop of it on top of your just steamed broccoli. Kids love it. Adults love it too. I don’t even use a recipe – it’s just the mayo and mustard to your proportions.

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Only vaguely do I recall when Rice-a-Roni came on the market. Way so many years ago. 1958 to be exact. It was a time when food producers were coming up with just the beginnings of boxed mixes. Cake mixes had been around for awhile, but not much of anything else. I thought the rice mixture was quite good. Tasty for such an easy combination in a box. But then the food police told us about sodium, and I began noticing how much was in lots of the foods I purchased. There still is a lot of sodium in many prepared foods. I started avoiding those products, especially after the medical experts told us we were only supposed to consume a max of 2,000 milligrams a day. It’s easy to consume double or triple that if you eat out and/or eat pre-packaged foods. Because Rice-a-Roni was so high in sodium I stopped buying it. By the way, it’s now owned by Quaker Oats.

Beginning in the late 1960’s I started avoiding nearly all packaged and ready-made foods altogether, in favor of making things myself, adding only fresh food, fresh vegetables, my own herbs and spices. And I’ve continued to adhere to that with only a few exceptions. There are a couple of cake mixes I do use for some family favorites. I do buy an occasional frozen vegetable, some Trader Joe’s mixes (that contain no additives or preservatives). And once in awhile I buy Pillsbury biscuits because I have one recipe that is just so good and easy. I try to buy organically fed meat. Sometimes I buy organic produce. Not always, depending on the quality or freshness of it.

Having done a search for this posting today, I discovered that the combo of rice and pasta is an Armenian thing. I thought it was Italian, but no. The founders of Rice-a-Roni actually created it from something served to them by an Armenian neighbor. Thus, the rice boxed mix was born. And why they must add so much sodium to it is beyond me. But they sure enough do.

Because I always walk right past that boxed mix section in my grocery store, I’d forgotten all about the rice/noodle combination until a recipe was printed in my local food section last week. Labeled Carrie’s Rice, it is identical to hundreds of other pilaf recipes out there on the internet. Some add mushrooms, garlic, maybe some dill weed, pine nuts perhaps, but they all contain noodle-type pasta or orzo, white rice, butter, onion and chicken broth. Some recipes brown only the pasta; others brown both pasta and the rice. If you use low-sodium chicken broth, as I did, you’ll likely want to add some salt to it. And you can vary the amount of butter. Many recipes call for a full stick of butter for 1 cup of rice and 1 cup of pasta. I cut it down by half, and think that was still too much. So I’ve reduced the amount even more in the recipe below. It’s a very quick side dish. The kids will like it, and since you’re doing all the cooking of it, you know exactly what’s in it. Unadulterated rice, pasta, butter and canned broth. Maybe some onion, and/or garlic too.
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So many people discount parsnips. They look at them in the grocery stores and think they look like anemic carrots, and pass them by. But they’re actually sweeter than carrots, and have a really delicious flavor when roasted. I simply forget about using them, so was delighted to be served them recently. This recipe is quite easy – whether or not you have all the fresh herbs to add at the end or not. It’s obviously better with the compound butter, but if all you have is butter alone, make these anyway.

All that’s required is to cut up the carrots and parsnips into thin squarish matchsticks, toss them with a tad of olive oil, roast them in a hot oven for about 40 minutes, toss with butter and herbs and you’re DONE.

I liked them so much I created a dinner around them a few nights later. We were having the last dinner with our son-in-law, Todd, before he left to drive home to his family. So I decided to have a really special dinner. Here’s what I prepared:

Ribeye Steaks with Amazing Glaze – these steaks, oh my, oh so good. I’ve posted about these before, have made them several times. A marinated and grilled steak, served with the thick red wine-based reduction.

Roasted Asparagus – baked at 450 for about 8-9 minutes, tossed with olive oil, S & P

Applesauce Spice Cake with Caramel Icing – I posted about this recipe a few weeks ago. It was much enjoyed by everybody who tasted it. Very moist, wonderful caramel icing.

and then, I made the following:
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If you didn’t know from the title, you might think this is a bowl of cream of wheat, cream of rice, maybe mashed potatoes, or perhaps light colored polenta. It’s none of those, but it’s so gosh-darned good. Not only is it a vegetable, but low calorie and low fat as well. Until a year or so ago I would have counted cauliflower as one of my least-chosen vegetables. Not that you asked, but my others vegie dislikes: green bells, turnips, cooked celery, rutabagas. For the record, you’re not likely to see a single recipe for any of those on this-here blog [grin]. Just about any other vegetable and I’m happy. But Kalyn, over at Kalyns Kitchen, had me try a couple of cauliflower dishes that just turned me into a cauliflower lover. One is a pan fried one with mushrooms and bacon. Another a twice baked cauliflower (like mashed potatoes), then there was another twice-baked one similar to that, and just recently I found a recipe in Cooking Light for a tandoori style one too.

The other evening I was doing barbecued country ribs for dinner, which, by the way, were just awful – from Costco and so tough I couldn’t eat mine. Had two bites and the rest went in the trash. So for dinner I ate this cauliflower and a salad. Between us, we ate the entire cauliflower, which should have served about six people. The cauliflower I had purchased was on the small side, so that surely is why. I’d have been delighted to eat leftovers, but no, not this time.

The recipe comes from Patricia Wells’ book, Vegetable Harvest, which I bought on recommendation from some other food blog I read. I simply don’t remember which one, so can’t give any credit for the suggestion. Patricia Wells has lived in France for decades. She’s an American, but writes for several culinary magazines I read, and she’s written several cookbooks. This one was published in 2007.

The preparation of this was really simple – cut up the cauliflower into florets, simmer in milk and salt, then puree it, adding in some of the milk mixture you cooked it in. Add a bit of nutmeg and butter, and you’re finished. From cooking to table was about 15 minutes total. I used the cauliflower stem too, just cut it up into smaller pieces so it would cook through. To tell the truth, I like to eat the cauliflower stem raw, but decided to add it to the pot instead.

It had a very soft, creamy consistency. I happened to have added too much milk, but it was still good, I just had to serve it in a bowl. And, as I mentioned above, if I didn’t think about it, it could have been very soft, creamy mashed potatoes or polenta (which I make infrequently, but love), so decided this could easily be a bed for some of the proteins I make with a light sauce. The dish is low in calorie and very low in fat. I’ll be making this again and again. I liked the little bit of nutmeg in it too. Maybe next time I’d sprinkle some parsley on it, since it’s a bit bland looking otherwise.
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Smashed potatoes seem to be very popular these days. We like to eat the skins (on the smaller, red potatoes), and we like the texture of smashing them in general. We like the fact that they’re lumpy, kind of, and not smooth and silky like traditional mashed potatoes. They’re also a bit more interesting to look at than mashed potatoes. So, there is a lot to like about smashed potatoes.

But then, you combine them with all the elements of a loaded baked potato, and there is a marriage made in heaven. It never ceases to amaze me how it is that certain foods have a true affinity for one another – like potatoes and sour cream, peanut butter and jelly, oil and vinegar, chocolate and raspberries, bacon and tomatoes, tomatoes and mozzarella. You know, that kind of thing. So, the marriage here is potatoes, leeks, bacon and tomatoes. Then you add a dollop of sour cream to the combination and it’s sublime.
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Cauliflower sometimes gets short shrift. I do like it. But I don’t like it plain, steamed. It just doesn’t seem to have much going for it – to my taste buds anyway – just plain. So I enjoy trying new and different ways to make it. This recipe came from Cooking Light, June 2005. I found it online also, to somewhat mixed reviews (only two; one liked it, the other liked it but found it too much work).

Since my DH does all the dishes, usually, I don’t worry much about how many pots and pans I’m using when I cook. A nice thing when I’m in a frenzy getting dinner on the table. But this used an excessive number of pans and bowls and dishes. And it took an inordinate amount of time to make. There are several steps to it. It tasted very good. Everybody liked it (we had friends over for dinner) – in fact everyone went back for seconds. If you’re a particular lover of cauliflower, you’ll likely enjoy this dish a lot. And perhaps the amount of work involved won’t bother you much. The rest of the meal wasn’t too labor-intensive, so I didn’t mind spending more time on this.
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