This Reminds Me

Archive for the ‘Tasty Eats’ Category

Ever since I’ve run my own household, I’ve kept an open spiral notebook on the kitchen counter – and woe be to the person who moves it.  I want it right there.  All.  The.  Time. My family and best friends know how I love unusual or kewlio notebooks.  I’ve received notebooks as gifts from the University of Houston (our alma mater), UTSA (Rachels’ school), Southwestern University, etc.  And when I’m out of the neat ones, I pop open one of the multi-packs I buy at Target’s school clearance sale after Labor Day.

When I need to write a school note, or stuff a reminder note to myself in my briefcase, or scribble quick directions, or – most often – make a grocery list, I don’t want to search for paper.  I want it right there.  All.  The.  Time.  With “my sheet” on top.  Anyone in the house is welcome to pull out a sheet UNDER mine – but leave mine alone.  And leave the notebook on the counter.

This is the notebook sheet on the counter right now – my ongoing grocery list.  I just jot stuff down through the week, and really load it up Friday night after my trip to Costco (and before HEB on Saturday.)  The girls know that if there is something they need, yelling it at Mom doesn’t work.  Write it down.  Otherwise – forget it, because you know I will.

I do have a system.  Sam’s is before or after Wednesday night church, because it’s right next door – usually after because they still sell one-gallon jugs of milk instead of double packs, as Costco has started doing (yuk – who has room for two gallons of milk at a time?)  Costco is Friday night for the big stuff and recurring non-perishables, like meat, shampoo, paper towels, etc. and please be home to help unload.   Saturday is HEB, especially for produce – it’s the best.  There’s usually a trip to Wal-mart at least once a week for art supplies or whatever but our bus stop is in the parking lot between it and Costco, so, not so bad.  I love Target, but it’s not especially convenient, so that’s a treat.

Julia – who knows how crazy I get whenever anyone moves my notebook – surprised me tonight with her own grocery list.  “Mom, I used your notebook but put it back.  Your list didn’t have enough room for all I needed.”  So I’m thinking – omigosh, she has some horrible school project due with poster board, paint pens, modeling clay, etc.  But no, none of that.  Just her version – addressed to “Dear madre” – of what I need to purchase this weekend.

“AND OTHER COOL SNACKS” – indeed!

You know – her list is a lot more fun than mine.  Maybe I’ll send her to Costco Friday night.  But she has to leave my notebook on the counter.

Keith hasn’t fed our koi since mid-October, 2010.  If you feed them when the water temperature is below 55 degrees, they can’t digest the food – which expands in their innards and makes them go pop.  The weather has warmed up – as has the water – so time to feed them, right?  Only they wouldn’t eat.  So this little video clip shows the fish, but not them rushing to the surface frantically to snatch the first morsels of the year as was my plan.  Sigh.

Fish aren’t the only things around here that (eventually) need to eat.  Keith and I start talking the weekend’s cooking mid-week before so trips to Costco, Sam’s and HEB can be worked into the crossword puzzle that is our family’s schedule.  Tomorrow, Keith wants to make some special toasted cheese sandwiches he’s seen created on a cooking show (being on disability gives a guy plenty of time to watch Emeril, Alton, etc.)  And what goes best with toasted cheese sandwiches?  Tomato soup!  At least my kids have always thought so.

I’ve tried several tomato soup recipes and finally distilled them into one of my own.  Everyone who has tried it has liked it – and I’ve served it plenty’o'times.  So here’s the recipe.  It takes about an hour to fix, and the only bad part is the clean-up.  You have to wash your food processor, blender, a big cooking pot and big bowl.  Other than that – it is very, very easy, as you will see.  And tasty, as you’ll see if you make it.

Ingredients?  Nothing fancy.

-  A handful of baby carrots, or two big peeled carrots

-  2  medium-large onions

-  2 28-oz. cans of crushed tomatoes

-  1 can of tomato paste

-  1 qt. of chicken stock or broth (I like stock better)

-  1/3 cup flour

-  3 bay leaves

-  2 tsp. basil

-  1 tsp. oregano

-  1 pint half’n”half (or cream or milk)

-  1 stick butter

-  Dash of pepper

-  Dash of powdered garlic

May also want some garlic salt.  Depends.  I usually don’t add this until the very end, after I taste it.

Put your carrots and your chopped onion into the food processor and really grind them up.  Melt the stick of butter, and add the carrots and onion to it, stirring occasionally on low-medium heat for 2 or 3 minutes – until it’s all soft.  If you skip grinding your carrots and onions, you have to cook them a lot longer.  It’d rather grind and wash than stand and stir.

Now add the 1/3 cup of flour to thicken it up.  Stir continuously for about 3 minutes.  Notice the color lightens.

When it’s nice and thick – add the chicken stock, crushed tomatoes and the seasonings.  Stir and let it simmer about 10 minutes on low heat.  Looking prettier!

Here’s the messy part.  Remove the three bay leaves.  Scoop out about a cup – maybe a cup and a half – of soup base.  Put it in your blender, and liquefy it.  Really pound it.  That liquid is hot, and your blender is going to spray it up to the top.  So for goodness sakes, don’t scoop in more than a cup or so of the liquid.  Nothing says a trip to the ER like hot tomato puree in your face.  When it’s liquefied, pour it into a big bowl.

When the base is all liquefied, stir in your dairy.  The soup will lighten color.  And now’s the time to taste it.  Does it need a little garlic salt?  This batch did, but some batches haven’t.

Voila!  A gallon soup tomato soup, plus a lunch-sized jar.  Well, it would have been a lunch-sized jar except…..

My favorite stirrer decided she wasn’t waiting until tomorrow to enjoy a bowl.

The koi may or may not eat tomorrow – but we’re sure going to.

We stay home for New Year’s Eve. It’s Amateur Night, and we don’t want to be on the roads. Instead, we play games. Download a movie. Guzzle age-appropriate sparkly grape juices. Usually enjoy a few (supervised) sparklers in the cul de sac. But regardless of what we do or don’t do – there’s a constant in the celebration.

It’s “Dad’s Ravioli,” which Keith has served on New Year’s Eve for more than a decade, ever-improving it each year. In years past, he’s rolled his own pasta. He’s had pasta air-freighted fresh. He’s experimented with fillings. But in the last couple of years, he’s settled on an optimal (to date!) filling and prep method, as shown here.

I always tell my girls, “Marry a man who can cook.” Mine can!

We top the pasta with “Mom’s Alfredo,” which is a mix of green onions and garlic simmered in chicken stock and butter, added to sour cream and tangy shredded cheeses. I’d share the recipe if I had one. I just taste along the way. Keith’s also making Veal Marsala and Chicken Parmesan. This year, the vegetable is spinach sauteed with garlic. And homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert, topped with homemade dulce de leche. I will have a bit of ice cream with my dulce de leche, which calls my name every time I open the refrigerator door.

At midnight, we usually have “crackers,” too – the pull-apart cardboard tubes with a surprise inside.

After Christmas at World Market, we found crackers wrapped in Russian nesting doll paper, plus two Russian nesting doll candles. The one box of crackers and two candles were all they had. Sigh. I would have bought more. Russian-themed “anything” is hard to find in San Antonio.

So what are you having for dinner tonight? Be sure to take the new poll – it’s near the bottom of the left nav bar.

Happy 2011!

Keith and Lois met Alton Brown- my fave Food Network guy – at an Austin book signing in 2005 - I’ve always been jealous.

The night I posted this bog - June 9, 2005 – was also the night I broke 1,000 blog hits. So exciting!  I ran upstairs every half-hour just to see the counter advance.  Now I get about 1,000+ hits a month.  And I run a lot less.

Tonight Keith and I went to an Alton chat session and signing at The Twig book store.  Major fun!  And way better than a mere signing.  So take that, Lois!

The Twig ordered 300 copies of “Good Eats – The Middle Years” for autographing 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.  They sold out by 5:30.   Alton answered questions from the arm-waving members of the audience – including me.  I asked, “How many kids do you have, and do they cook?”  Alton responded that he and his wife had three children, all embodied in their 10-year-old daughter who was sometimes a 24-year-old woman, sometimes a 3-year-old boy and sometimes a herd of wild animals.  He said as her hormones began to swing, he saw more and more personalities living inside her.   Keith and I totally got that.  And Alton’s 10-year-old daughter doesn’t cook.  Ours – on the other hand – has advanced to preparing single servings of Kraft Mac’n'Cheese.

When he signed our book copy, I told Alton I’d fallen in love with him during the episode in which he smoked bacon in a junk yard.  He nodded sagely and named the episode - “Scrap Iron Chef.” Some day – not sure when, but some day – Keith and I are going to do that.

Now – what to cook this weekend?