Praise the Shortrib and Pass the Cheesy Tater

TBI’s mom comes to our house for Christmas, which is perfect for me because as much as I love to put on an affair and set a table, I don’t have room enough (or stamina enough) to do it for a large crowd for a sit down dinner.

His family’s visit (which never totals more than 5) is a perfect opportunity for me to Christmas up the house and make a meal I think befitting a holiday, but not to stress overmuch about where to put everyone and do I have enough matching plates, yada yada…

This year it was just Todd’s mom, so I overcooked. I can’t cook this kind of stuff for just three people. I can’t resist putting out appetizers for an army, and too many choices of beverage and wine.

But the main event, this year, I believe was the real star atop the culinary tree.

I made shortribs with horseradish cream sauce, adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s version, and scalloped potatoes, like Mama used to make. I did the glorious bacon (!) green beans, and cheated on the rolls (but fooled TBI’s mom with them).

This was a very easy meal to make, and I suggest that if you are looking to win someone over - man, woman, or child, you should make these short ribs. Smitten’s version was a little involved for me, so I did it sorta her way. Here’s my way, and I must say, it came out PERFECT. Better than perfect. Oh lord, I can’t stop thinking about them.

Braised Short Ribs
(I made about twice this many, but it was a little tough to do with oven space and all. And, we have a ton left over.)

8 or so short ribs (2 packages)
1 whole box of beef broth (I recommend Kitchen Basics)
1 cup of red wine (If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t cook with it)
1/3 cup of balsamic vinegar
2 minced garlic cloves
fresh thyme (or dried - whatever you got)
Kosher salt
Cracked pepper
Several tablespoons of olive oil

Step 1:
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Heat three or four tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a dutch oven or heavy stock pot until it’s almost smoking. (Sidenote: I did two different pots as an experiment. My calphalon hard anondized pot did the job a lot faster, and I ended up with a crispy outside/tender inside thing going on. The [less expensive] multi function dutch oven did fine too, and cooked slower and more evenly. Better result? I liked the ones with the crispy outside better, but it’s strictly a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, watch your food based on how much heat you think your pot holds.)

Salt and pepper your short ribs liberally, all over. Sprinkle with thyme. Use Kosher salt, kids – not table salt.

Then sear the short ribs on all sides. Smitten admonishes to not skimp on this step, so I didn’t. Get them good and brown on all sides. Here’s where it’s nice to have a heavy duty set of good long tongs. You can do this in a frying pan but A) you’re going to splatter a lot of grease and B) that’s just one more pan to wash. I recommend doing it in the stock pot.

Step 2:

When you are done searing, pour the braising liquid into the pot. That’s most of the box of broth, the vinegar, and the wine. Do not cover the ribs, because that would be making soup. It should come up about halfway. Be sure your ribs are standing bone end up – not bone horizontal. Toss in a little more salt and pepper, and your minced garlic for good measure. Oh, and some more thyme. Why not.

Step 3:

Move your stock pot to the oven. Cook there for about half an hour at 400, then reduce heat to 325. Cook for another two hours or so, but be sure to check on the amount of liquid in your pot from time to time, and be sure you aren’t charring your meat. If it appears to be falling off the bone, that’s good. If it is little black charcoal briquets, that’s bad.

Smitten suggests taking it out of the pan when it’s done cooking and putting the ribs on a cookie sheet and baking to crisp up the outside. I found that by using my super hot calphalon pan, I was able to reduce the cooking liquid and achieve that effect without the transfer.

There is not a carnivore in the world who would not tear into these babies with the abandon of a coyote with his prey. Speaking of coyotes, we saw one just sitting on the edge of the highway the other day. No roadkill around or anything. Maybe he was looking for a shortrib.

Horseradish Cream Sauce

I'm not sure if these babies could be made better, but I sure the heck did like the addition of the sauce.

1 cup COLD half and half
1/2 cup mayo
3 tablespoons (or as much as you like - I use more) horseradish
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper

Wisk that half and half in a smallish bowl. Don't make it into butter, but you want to thicken it a little.

Add in the mayo, wisk some more.

Add in the horseradish, salt, and pepper, and let it stand for an hour. It will thicken itself. Oooh, baby.

Best Ever Dessert

This is my all time favorite dessert. I feel that I am betraying my mother by sharing the recipe with you, because it is her famous and traditional Christmas evening treat. Still, I can't resist publishing it because it would be so wrong to hoard it all to ourselves. I mean it, people. This dessert will make you fight your grandma for the last piece.

Cranberry Pudding Cake

1 c. flour
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
2 T butter
1/2 c. milk
1 1/2 c. whole fresh cranberries

Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter using a pastry blender. Add milk and cranberries. Do not overmix--this is like a biscuit dough. Pour into a greased 9" pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with caramel sauce. I always double the recipe for the cake, but not the sauce.

Caramel Sauce

1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. evaporated milk

Combine all ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for about 15 minutes. Serve warm.

Go make it. NOW.

Bribery Meal

I needed Heather to come over and keep me on task last night, and so while I drove around and did banking and various other errands, I called her and wept and begged. I needed someone to talk to while I finished the loose ends of my purging project.

I bribed her with food and drink.

I didn't have a plan when I called her, so I had to think fast. I had a lot of criteria for this meal. It had to be something I could make fairly quickly, and with minimal mess. I also wanted to make something that would satisfy my urges for chick food and food that TBI will not eat. I had to get it in while the getting was good. And, I wanted it to be an adequate bribe for Heather.

Here's what I came up with, and it worked out almost perfectly.

1) Winter salad of butter lettuce mix (from a bag) with candied walnuts, pomegranite seeds, a few crumbles of leftover gorgonzola, red onion, and balsalmic viniagrette.

2) Crusty french baguette. My favvvorite bought artisan bread.

3) Mushroom risotto. Arborio brand makes a great "one step" one - totally a cheat but good and always comes out just right. For when you don't have time to stand and stir your risotto all night.

4) Pork Tenderloin with gorgonzola cream sauce. Ahhhhh.

And don't forget the wine.

The beauty is: I get to have it all over again tonight. I wanna go home now.

Now, About That Sunday Gravy

I have a million uses for Sunday Gravy.

Here's one I tried (read: made up) last Sunday.

I remembered while shopping in bulk at WalMart a few weeks ago that I used to really like that wagon wheel (some call it fancier names, but it will always be wagon wheel to me) pasta. I also seemed to recall, back in my early cooking days, making a spicy tomato cream sauce that I used over those wagon wheels. Nothing too fancy, but it was one of my favorite things to make and I thought because I used half and half it was gourmet.

Anyway, last Sunday I decided to use my wagon wheels, which turned out to be "mini" wagon wheels. I was crushed, thinking it would be horrible, but it turned out that after cooking them they seemed just the right size.

Here it is, as I designed it this time.

1 recipe of Sunday gravy. Portion off about four or five cups of it to freeze for later. Pour the rest into a skillet with some already browned and drained Italian sausage. NOTE: *I couldn't find any good hot Italian sausage in the WalMarts, so I fancied it up myself, adding some fennel seeds and crushed red pepper while TBI browned it. Turned out fabulous.

Add about a cup of half and half to your SG/Sausage mixture in the LARGE skillet or pot you're using, and let it simmer for awhile to meld the flavors. Do not scorch the milk. Toss in a little more cayenne pepper and fennel seed.

Make a thin layer of the sauce on the bottom of your deep casserole dish (I mean it, use something deeper than a normal 9x13 pan for this - it makes a lot!) and then dump half of the pasta in. Layer on some shredded cheese; I had a mozzarella/provolone mix that I thought was perfect for this, and maybe toss in a little parmesian for good measure, pour on half the sauce, and repeat. On the very top, pour in another few tablespoons of half and half, and then make a layer of provolone slices all over the top.

Bake at 325 for 40 minutes or so, just to make sure you have warmed through and you get some nice browning on the cheese. Serve with Lazy Bitch caesar salad from the bag, and some gooey garlic bread. And then go for a ten mile run.

*I think this was really easy, and a nice replacement for lasagna, which is a little more time consuming, and is always better the next day because it needs to set up. This comes out fine, straight from the oven!

Ingredient List:
1 Box Barilla Mini Wagon Wheels
2/3 recipe of Sunday Gravy
2 1/2 c half and half
1 tablespoon fennel seeds, divided
4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 pkg italian sausage (about 1.5 lbs.)
2 c. mozzarella/provolone mix shredded cheese
8 slices provolone

Vegetable Beef Soup. Make You Some.

TBI and I like to have large amounts of food around the house, because there are lots of days we don't feel like cooking, or even getting out a knife or saucepan. Sometimes, Kraft Mac and Cheese is too much work.

Right now there is a large casserole of pasta with sausage and tomato cream sauce (more on that later) in the garage fridge, but as TBI had eaten on that for a week, I decided it was time to add another dish to the menu.

I bought stew meat, which I totally consider cheating, and it is still totally acceptable, and had TBI put it in the crock pot in the morning, on WARM. Not low, not hot, WARM. Two packages of stew meat, a cup of beef broth from the box, pour in some balsamic vinegar and some worchestershire and a healthy sprinkling of McCormick's Montreal Steak Seasoning, and voila. Five hours later you have succulent, delicious meat for your soup. If TBI hasn't eaten it all, one morsel at at time, before you get home from work to assemble the soup.

Now: make the soup. Start by having TBI peel six or seven smallish red potatoes (I think they hold up better in a soup and don't get as mealy. You could also use a Yukon Gold to the same advantage) and three or four carrots. Chop up some celery, and don't be afraid to use the leafy tops; they're gonna bring a lot of flavor to the pot.

Pour an entire box of beef broth into the pot, and add three cups of water to make more volume. Cut up your potatoes fairly small, you don't want bigger-than-bite-size hunks in your soup, and add them in, with the celery, and the carrots that you have cut into hunks on the bias.

Add a can of diced tomatoes, undrained. Last night I used a can that already had "italian seasonings" in it; whatever you have will be fine. Then toss in whatever veggies you like. I had a can of whole green beans, half a bag of frozen corn, and half a bag of peas.

Now to add the meat. I skimmed the fat off the top of the liquid in the crock pot with a ladel, and then poured the whole thing in. You want that cooked broth and salty goodness going in your soup. You want a little of the fat going in too, if you are into flavor.

Toss a couple of bay leaves (I did three, I think they do something special for the broth, and more is always better, right?), salt to taste, but be careful because the meat is salty as is the broth, and pepper. I put in a healthy amount of basil, and a dash of sage for that earthy, peasant taste.

Put the lid on it, and simmer at medium heat until you fear it will start to boil or pop over, and then remove the lid. You can eat it as soon as the potatoes and carrots are done (about an hour) but the longer this stuff simmers on low heat, the more delicious it will be.

I purchased a loooooong and beautiful crusty loaf of bread, which I warmed right on the oven rack, and it was perfect with the soup. I was looking forward to making croutons out of it later but the kitties decided they were into artisan bread and stuck their fangs in it all over while we weren't looking. Maybe you will have better luck with your bread than I did.

Cooking for One - or Many: Sunday Gravy

One thing I have discovered is that it is vital to be able to make a good red pasta sauce of your own. I am loathe to try to write my recipe here, as I have never had a recipe, and just dump things in willy-nilly, but I will do my best to give you a general idear of how I go about making what TBI and I call "Sunday Gravy".

When I make Sunday Gravy, I usually make quite a large amount of it, and it's enough to do a lasagna or a baked ziti or whatever it is I am making that evening, and to save and freeze another good-sized container for random food foraging at a later date.

Please do not send me hate mail if you try this and you hate it. First of all, everyone's taste in Sunday Gravy is a little different - so feel free to alter this at will, according to what you know about your particular taste. Secondly, I am making this up as I go along, especially in terms of measurements and ratios, because I don't measure anything. Ever. Which is why I don't bake.

Okay, so here's how I do it.

Get out your best heavy stockpot. We're going to make a lot. A heavy (i.e. - at least marginally expensive) stockpot is a kitchen investment. A cheap one burns stuff. A heavy one can simmer a sauce all day without a scorch. Plus, they're pretty and they make you feel like a "real" cook. Mine is featured here if you are interested. I find her very interesting.

In the bottom of your pot, drizzle some olive oil. Some = 3 or 4 tablespoons, I guess. Remember, we're making a lot. I like to use an olive oil that is basil infused for this, but usually I just have the cheap grocery store brand stuff and it works fine.

Warm the olive oil over medium heat, and when it's sufficiently hot (not crackling), toss in about a half a cup of finely diced onion. (I usually use red onion, but whatever you have around is fine.) You can chop them yourself, or you can be like me and do it in the food processor because you're lazy and you love the Cuisinart more than anything else in your kitchen.

Cook em just a little; they don't need to be translucent all the way because they are going to stay in that sauce and simmer for a very long time.

While they cook, open your canned tomatoes. I STRONGLY recommend you use Muir Glen organic tomatoes. This is one of the few times that I think brand really does count; usually I buy cheap store-brand stuff, but here you will definitely know the difference. I buy two of the large cans of diced (not pureed), and if I can get it I usually buy one that is "fire roasted" for a little extra flavor. If they have stuff that is already seasoned with garlic or basil or other italian herbs, go for it. I usually do a mix. These delicious canned tomatoes are a great sub for the real thing; sometimes even better. At my grocery store they are in the special "organic" section, but they don't cost much more than Del Monte, or other more famous brands.

Toss the suckers into the food processor (I have to do like four batches because my Cuisinart is small) and puree. Why not buy pre-pureed, you ask? I don't know; all I can say is that the time I tried that we didn't like it as much. Taste and texture were both a little off.

Toss the pureed (not TOO loose - leave a few chunks for that rustic appeal - you don't want it to look like Ragu) tomatoes into the pot and THEN put in your garlic. Now, we are big garlic fans, and probably use too much. Do whatever feels right to you. I use pre-minced stuff from the giant Costco jar. I know, I know. It's totally wrong. Maybe that's why I use so much - I am sure if I had the patience to peel and mince my own it would taste way better, and stronger. Anyway, I toss in three or so heaping tablespoons of the stuff, and reserve the right to throw more in later. I don't do the garlic with the onions because, remember, we are going to simmer this for a long time. We don't need to risk burning the garlic; we are sure it will cook and infuse its flavor just fine during the long simmering process. I also add a small can of tomato paste; somehow I think it adds texture and salt that I like to it.

Now, I like to add my herbs early, unless they are fresh, and then I add them late. Usually I just use dried herbs for this; I'm going to freeze it later, after all.

As your mixture simmers, you can throw in whatever you like. I encourage you to do a little bit of red wine or red wine vinegar - I do about two tablespoons. I do about two tablespoons (sometimes more) of dried basil, one tablespoon of oregano, sometimes a little crushed rosemary even ends up in there. TBI thinks I'm crazy but I also add one or two heaping tablespoons of sugar; I think the acid needs that sweet to counteract. Salt and pepper to taste as well. I like cracked black pepper, but whatever is in your reach will do fine.

Also, crushed red pepper. Now, how much of this you use depends on what you plan to do with the sauce. If you plan to add Italian sausage, you might use less, especially if you are able to get your hands on some HOT italian sausage, which we prefer but can rarely find a good bit of at our local grocery store. I have to get it in the city, at the real Italian grocery. So, add what you like - we like a lot.

Now, simmer this sucker as long as you can stand it. Stir it with a wooden spoon now and then. Your house will smell like Grandma Luisa's kitchen (who is Grandma Luisa? I have no idea) and the temptation to eat it by the spoonful will likely be overwhelming.

So here's the (vague) list:

3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/3 to 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
2 large cans of Muir Glen tomatoes, one fire roasted
1 small can of tomato paste (also get a good brand)
3 tablespoons garlic (if it's the pre-minced stuff - otherwise, use less)
1/3 cup red wine or red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons basil
1 tablespoon oregano
whatever italian herbs you have on hand, fresh or dried
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
salt and black pepper to taste

simmer simmer simmer, stir stir stir.

Now, I use this when I do all manner of pasta dishes, and we love a good big batch of something like Lasagna or Cavatelli to cuddle up with on a chilly Sunday night. But what I REALLY love is pulling the leftover out of the freezer when I'm all by myself, and pouring it over whatever shape of pasta my heart desires, and topping the whole thing with some fresh parmesan or mozzarella, and feeling like my little quickie dinner is a gourmand's delight. I have been known to butter up a piece of sandwich bread and sprinkle on some thyme and garlic, and toast it under the broiler to finish off the italian night for one I've whipped up for myself. And all of that, once you have your sauce, will take about five minutes total. You can barely heat a frozen Weight Watcher's tray in that time.

The Pioneer Woman

You've heard me babble about this woman on my other site. You are tired of her. Frankly, so am I. She's got it too good. She cooks too much. There's no way she has time to do all she does. And yet...

I go back. Every day. I wait to see what she'll feature on that cooking site. I make the things she makes. I do, in fact, learn from her. Most of all, I appreciate her brand of cooking, which is regular with a little upgrade. She doesn't make over-fancy dishes. She cooks regular things, some of which I already make (which makes me feel good about myself - always a website plus) and some of which are things I can totally see wanting to make, and knowing that my husband will eat. The food usually has a touch of class, but she's not afraid to use common ingredients - ones she can find in her small hometown grocery store.

I think the way she organizes her recipes is totally useable, and the pictures - oh, the pictures, she takes of the process. My sister and I agree that our favorite is always her "cast of characters" post that is the first photo of every post. It features all of the ingredients, sort of piled up and stacked, ready to be used, and somehow it always has all this character and appeal, and I feel confident that what she's getting ready to make, I too, can make. Her writing is a little overmuch sometimes - I think she thinks she's quite cute. But it's not that distracting, and sometimes I do even chuckle a little despite myself. Don't let her writing get in your way; her cooking is still pretty freaking good.

If your computer is slow, this is not the site for you; those gorgeous pictures she stuffs her posts with take a minute to load.

From her site, I have made:

• Cheesy Olive Bread - most excellent and fattening glory, if you like olives, which, in fact, I do.
• Spicy Chicken Legs - good, but only so-so, and I even kicked up the "spicy" quite a bit from what she suggested.
• Cinammon Rolls - I'd say these are above average but not excellent. I think it's the fact that she uses baking powder AND baking soda in order to avoid kneading... it's just not my favorite taste. But that's just me; I think most people love em.
• Pumpkin Puree - It will probably turn out to be a good thing, but my instinct is that I should have buttered and salted the pumpkins before baking. Or something. It remains to be seen.
• Wings/Wing Sauce - perfect, but, like, how hard is that? It's a standard wing sauce recipe.
• Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich - you know what? It IS really good. And cheap and easy to make.
• Crash Potatoes - simple. fast. delicious.
• many, many more...

Generally speaking, it's a site for the everyday cook who wants delicious things to feed an entire family. The food is decidedly midwestern, which I find comforting, and it's usually at least a little bit fun.