Home Cured Ham
Yes, I know. Lately it’s been all things pork. Well we have a lot of pig! Thanks Jessie! Not that I’m complaining. And I certainly never get tired of pork. So, if you’re sick of pork then just go away. Because you’re raining on my…
Month: April 2019
Single Mom Chronicles April 13th
I’m late. Again. In more ways than you know. Ha! Ok, enough about my meno. When I’m not sweating, I’m freezing. I’m over it. I’m over so many things. Like dishes. I think every single parent knows the perils of cooking at home when it…
Trader Joe’s And A Steak
I have a bit of a condiment problem. I collect, covet, and borderline hoard condiments. I’m often heard exclaiming about a found bottle of catsup or whatever that I thought I was out of. Vinegars? I got twenty. Oils? So many. Hot sauces? All of them, all of the time. I can’t even count all the Asian condiments. My condiment habit is a secret indulgence and I just can’t quit it.
Which brings me to Trader Joe’s….an institution of condiment enabling that really eats into my budget. Sure, I go there for the fresh peas or the lemon verbena bar soap and end up coming home with things like truffle mustard and yuzu hot sauce. And weird pasta. Did I mention I have to drive one hour one way to get there? I’m that dedicated.
So last night, Hubs and I decided last minute to grab some steaks after brunching all day with Dawn and Rudy. I reached for my regular stuff to put on the meat for an hour only to discover I was out. Panic ensued. How could I be out?! I’m never out! What is happening to me?!?! Silent scream. I had to think fast. The entire steak eating experience was in immediate peril!
I grabbed the Trader Joe’s coconut aminos and soaked all the meat, including the fat edges. Then I grabbed Trader Joe’s umami powder and liberally coated one side and topped all that with fine ground pepper. I let the steaks sit for an hour on the counter, broiled them, and served them with a big fat ceasar salad complete with anchovies. We ate it while we watched the season premiere of GoT.
The pan juices made an insane dip for the steaks. I’m definitely doing it again. You need to do it, too. We ate them so fast that we completely spaced getting pictures of the finished dishes. In fact, this might be my new favorite way to eat steaks. It had this beefy, very slightly sweet and salty heaven that I could not stop eating. It was perfect with the garlicky salad. Salad tip: replace the parmesan cheese in your ceasar with celery to cut fat and salt without cutting flavor.
Trader Joe's Condiments Steaks
Ingredients
- Coconut aminos
- Umami seasoning blend
- Black pepper
- 4 steaks of your choice
Instructions
- Liberally coat the steaks in the coconut aminos on both sides. Sprinkle one side of the steaks liberally with the umami powder. Repeat with the black pepper and let the meat sit for at least one hour at room temperature.
- Broil or grill the steaks to the internal temperature that your family enjoys. Serve with a crunchy salad. I did!
*This post was not sponsored*
The Mackerel’s Happy Accident
I was having one of those days where the simplest things went wrong. The parchment paper wouldn’t tear. My fancy egg container didn’t fare well in the dishwasher. I couldn’t open anything. The gas tank was left to me empty and I had food to…
My Stuffed Pork Loin
Fewer things bring more joy than a perfectly cooked pork roast. It should be juicy and have crispy browned textures all at the same time. I love doing this roast with pork belly, but a whole pork loin is hard to pass up. Sure, it’s…
Ratatouille In Style
Ratatouille is one of those dishes that has a million variations. Sauce or no sauce? What kind of sauce? Peppers or no peppers? Some even have potatoes! Sliced or chopped, baked or simmered, the list goes on and on. I personally prefer a tomato and pepper sauce with sliced veggies on top and baked in the oven. I absolutely love the addition of a vinagrette at the end…thank you, Thomas Keller!
With a simple hand mandoline and a few tricks from Keller, you can have delicious ratatouille on a lazy weekend. We took ours for a Sunday dinner with Elizabeth and Brian. It went perfectly with the kale salad and the sausage pasta. And it just looks beautiful. I think we ate the whole thing!
As varied as the ingredients and methods are for ratatouille, so are the spices. No offense to Thomas Keller or anything…I mean the man IS beyond my talents….I just don’t think plain thyme is the way to go. Regardless of all the ways I’ve made ratatouille, it is always with herbs de provence…the one with no lavender. Anything else is blasphemy. Fresh is grand, but I used dried because I’m lazy and it was just fine.
I did, however, roast my own peppers. You could be really lazy and just use a jar of roasted bell peppers, but I like the fresher taste of just roasted peppers and they hold up better. And there’s no weird jar flavor to muck up the sauce. And there must be sauce. It’s half the dish! It’s almost sad to make this dish in any other season the the height of summer because there’s no fresh tomatoes yet. Soon……very soon, though!
My Twist On Keller's Ratatouille
Ingredients
- 3 cans petite diced tomatoes or 4 cups peeled seeded, and chopped fresh tomatoes
- 4 red bell peppers roasted peeled, seeded, and chopped
- 1 half large onion chopped
- 1 giant clove elephant garlic minced
- 2 medium zucchinis
- 2 japanese eggplants
- 8 roma tomatoes
- 3 crookneck squash
- 1/4 cup olive oil plus 2 tablespoons
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons herbs de provence
- 2 tablespoons smashed pink peppercorns
- Cooking spray
- Kosher salt
Instructions
- In a saute pan on medium high heat, saute the onions in the olive oil until sofrt, about 15 minutes. When they just start to brown, add the minced garlic. Continue cooking for about 2 or 3 minutes, then add the diced tomatoes and a teaspoon of kosher salt, all the pink peppercorns, and 1 tablespoon of herbs de provence. Lower the heat to simmer, stir to combine, and cook for about 30 minutes.
- Add the chopped roasted red pepper, stir to combine, and let the sauce simmer on the lowest setting for as long as you can. I let mine bubble away for about 2 hours, stirring every so often to prevent burning. I was busy doing chores while this cooked.
- Mandoline all the squash, eggplant, and roma tomatoes in the same thickness, somewhere around a quarter inch thick. Cover the bottom of a large casserole dish with some of the sauce. Arrange the vegetables over the top. I did a zucchini, crookneck, eggplant, tomato arrangement.
- Preheat the oven to 250. Lightly spray the finished casserole with cooking spray. I use the Kirkland brand because it's non GMO, etc, etc. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of herbs de provence over all the vegetables. Cover the casserole dish with parchment paper and place in the center of the oven. Bake for 2 hours or 1 hour on convect.
- Meanwhile, take 1/4 cup of the pepper and tomato sauce and whisk it with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt, and 2 tablespoons of really good balsamic vinegar. Pull the casserole out, brush it with the vinaigrette, and return it to the oven uncovered for about 30 minutes or 15 minutes on convect. The leftover sauce can be used to make an amazing salad dressing or a dynamite sauce on a pizza.
Instant Pot Pork Tacos And A Can Of Coke
During the week, I like to keep it as simple as possible. We happen to be sitting on a surplus of pork and we had been running around doing errands. I cut a roast in half, browned it in the Instant Pot with some onion,…
Living Room Do Over
As many of you know, there are aspects of this house that we live in that would make one think you had actually stepped into a slide out in an RV whilst in our living room. A slide out in an RV from the eighties,…
The Bee Problems Have Arrived
Notice anything wrong in that picture above? No, it’s not out of focus and this isn’t a post about pruning. Yes, the flowers ARE so beautiful! But there’s no bees. Not a single honey bee in the blooms. I thought maybe they might just be sleeping or something. Or maybe it’s too wet. Or still too cold. A few days later, still not a single honey bee in sight. I went next door to investigate.
Our little farm is…or was… pollinated by a wild hive next door. Our lovely neighbors left the hive alone and let it coexist with them in their backyard. They confirmed that the hive left when we thought they had just splintered off. I was devastated. We will not have any fruit on the trees this year. And just when I had discovered that wonderful yellow plum tree in the backyard. What now?
Luckily, I have a friend that has a couple of hives..the fabulous Diane. She has graciously offered to let me borrow a hive for the farm. Life saver! In the interim, we’ve both been looking around town and we aren’t seeing any bees anywhere else, either. It’s kind of scary. She’s in a bee club and made some inquiries. It seems there were huge hive losses during the snowpocalypse. And, as we discovered, the wild hives have left. Many of the local farms are starting to wring their hands. Diane thinks it might be all the giant vineyards moving in from California, but I’m not so sure.
I suspect this is going to push produce products prices that rely on bees here locally through the roof. We’ve enjoyed low costs on so many locally grown produce for as long as I’ve lived here that it really hasn’t occured to me that it could change. I think the orchards will probably suffer the most. We could see the end of many U-picks. Time will tell.
In the meantime, I’m on a paid waiting list for a hive. Diane directed me to the local bee box maker. The hives will arrive at the end of April. I’ve been so spoiled with a wild hive next door and now I’m going to have to add bees to my chores list. I know, I know….poor me and all my whining. I’m actually pretty grateful to have the opportunity to even have a hive at all.
Now, I have to bone up on all my bee hive maintenance skills. It’s been about eight years since I’ve done it. It’s like a riding a bike, right? Just lie to me. My farm is depending on me. All the eggplants, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and squash are in severe peril right now. And the peas! We need to save the peas! I can do this! What I AM looking forward to is getting Hubs into a beesuit so I can take pics.