The beef over noodles thing

Picked up a pack of stew meat, marked down. A big pack. The Big Boy isn't THAT fond of any beef other than tenderloin, but this was on sale and hey, he's only one vote. THIS WAS SO GOOD. I used to have a recipe for something like this, lost it, then kept thinking I needed some special stuff to make this right. WRONG. They all took this to lunch the next day.

Beef Tips Over Pasta (aka Stew Meat & Noodles)
1 pound diced stew meat
28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 can beef or chicken broth
1 cup red wine
4 bay leaves
1 tablespoon chopped garlic

Heat some oil in a Dutch oven, add the garlic and lightly toast. Add the meat and saute until brown. Add the tomatoes, red wine, broth and bay leaves and bake in a 300 degree oven for three hours. Cook a package of egg noodles according to directions. Pour up the noodles to drain, put half a stick of butter in the pan and let it melt. Return the noodles to the pan and coat with the melted butter. (Scream at your kids here to LEAVE THE NOODLES ALONE. Kids LOVE buttered noodles.) Arrange the noodles on an oval platter and pour the meat down the middle. Bread. A salad. A bottle of red wine. Fruit or cheese for dessert. Life is good.

I am not a wine snob. I like good wine, I like rich wine, I like liquid wine. I do NOT do sweet, but that's just me. There are a couple of "two buck chuck" wines available here...not the real thing but Oak Hill and Five Oaks make $3 wine that cooks just fine. So there. Also, had there been a package of mushrooms in the refrigerator? They'd have been in here.

German food for now

Get thee over to Slashfood and check out the spectacular article on German food for the times. My grandmother used to make kraut, but I'm pretty sure insane amounts of vinegar were used...this article talks about simple kraut you can do at home for fun. There's also a recipe on pickled mushrooms and that sounds like a REALLY good thing.

More Leftover Turkey Stuff

Soup. Plain, minimal-ingredient soup. So good that they ate all but one cupful and The Nice Kid took that to lunch today.

Turkey and Noodle Soup
2 cups chopped turkey
1 can chicken broth
2 cans water
1 medium onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
1/2 bag egg noodles

Saute the onion, celery and carrot in olive oil for a few minutes. Add the broth, water and turkey and throw in a couple of bay leaves. I stopped here because The Inmates were at the afternoon symphony, and just let it set. When they got home, I brought the soup to a boil and added the egg noodles...the curly kind because that's what kids like. Cooked until done, salt and pepper to taste, then pulled the hot cornbread out of the oven. These kids luuuhve their mama.

And thank the Lord that was the LAST of the turkey!

Not Black-Eyed Pea Cornbread Eggs Pablo

What a stretch for a name. Supposed to be a play on Eggs Benedict but I may have pushed it a bit!

I think there is a Tex-Mex gene, and everyone in this institution has it. We could easily eat Mexican five nights a week, and never get tired of it.

There were five or six pieces of the cornbread (preceding post) left. I split and toasted them, topped each with a poached egg, melted queso from a jar and salsa. Sprinkled fresh cilantro about the plate and we INHALED them.

In fact, it was so good I made another batch of the cornbread for us to have breakfast this long weekend.

Red Onion and Gorgonzola Bruschetta

When my mother was eight years old, her mother died a week after giving birth to her second child. They were in Detroit for the "war effort," so my grandfather loaded up my mother on a train and brought her back to Tennessee, to his in-law's. The newborn stayed in the hospital for three months, and as soon as she was old enough he brought her to Mama's house, too. (Mama was 65 years old when she took in the eight-year-old and the newborn.) At one point, during the war, there were 17 people living in that house. It was a two-story Sears and Roebuck house and they were financially successful merchants but hey...17 people? Rationing? Oooh.

They told the story for years about how Mama liked chicken neck. On Sunday, when she fried chicken, everyone had a favorite piece and Mama's was the neck. It was only years later, when everyone was grown that they realized...Mama liked the neck because by the time she got to eat, it was the only piece left.

I tell that story to tell this story. (That's a direct quote from Ron White and if you didn't know that, well, you ort to.)

We had three tomatoes from the garden yesterday. Now, these are cheater tomatoes because the blooms were on the plants when we bought them and that's...just not right. You have to bloom the blooms yourself. But regardless, the taste of these (after the winter tomato famine) is divine. So here we sit...we have tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and fresh basil. We have home-made bread. This is REALLY looking good except that I birthed these babies and I know...three small tomatoes isn't even going to scratch the surface, so there better be a back-up plan. These kids are going to eat ALL of everything I make with the tomatoes so I'm going to have to have an alternative dish if I hope to get even a single bite. Hopefully, a dish that will let me have a bite of the (chicken breast) fresh tomato.

The back-up plan was SO good that it shared center stage and everyone was fed and happy. I didn't have to do without my share of the fresh tomato and the kids were ecstatic about some onions. Go figure.

Sweet Onion Bruschetta
1 red onion, very thinly sliced
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Roasted garlic
Good blue cheese
I heated a cast iron griddle, poured in some olive oil and let it get hot. I added the sliced onions (I love me a mandelione) and turned the heat down. While I was fooling with the other stuff, I let the onions wilt, stirring them occasionally. After a while I poured in about two tablespoons balsamic vinegar, sprinkled some kosher salt and black pepper and stirred. I left the onions on low heat and stirred them every now and then.
I sliced the bread I had about one-half inch thick, smeared it with roasted garlic and then brushed it with olive oil. Toasted it just until it was no longer soft and then topped it with the onions. I sprinkled the onions with blue cheese (this was the last of the Point Reyes I got for Christmas...I had frozen the last handful) and toasted the bruschetta to soften the cheese. When we got to the table I realized...I'd been a little stingy with the cheese so we added more and popped them under the broiler again.

Oh, Lordy. I should do this more often. Summer time and the livin' is easy.

Fresh Berry Cobbler

Southern Living published a recipe for an easy blackberry cobbler in the July issue, which came last week. We have ACRES of blackberry bushes, which is what happens when you have a farm and you don't...farm. Every year, one weekend day, we pack up and go pick blackberries. Picking real blackberries off wild bushes is NASTY...everything bad you ever read about it is true. There are chiggers in them thar bushes. There are mosquitoes above them. There are snakes lurking in the depths...the saving grace is that when you have a pack of kids, the snakes tend to leave as soon as they hear the commotion. Those that are too dumb to slither off make themselves fair game for the dogs...and that's a whole 'nother entertainment committee.

ANYWAY. The recipe in the magazine looked interesting...I hate that cobbler topping where you take one cup milk, one cup flour and one stick butter, mix it all together and pour it over a dish of canned peaches. I HATE that stuff. This topping, however, had more of a crumb texture so we decided to give it a try. (For a family that doesn't usually do dessert, this season is a LOT of fun.)

Problem is, blackberries won't be ripe until the week of the Fourth. We have some bushes in our side yard, and they're pretty loaded, but only with bright red (re: not ripe) blackberries. So we took the last of the peaches from the peach farm, about 1/2 cup raspberries the fat little toad next door hadn't poached, and about...12?...ripe blackberries and made a cobbler. Nice, very nice. Not nice enough that when we pick the first real batch of blackberries I won't have to do that double crust, prebaked interior crust, lattice thing, but still really...nice.

Easy Fruit Cobbler

Lightly grease an 8-inch square baking dish and fill with four cups of assorted seasonal fruit. We had peaches, raspberries and blackberries. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Stir together 1 egg, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup all-purpose flour, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. (I added a couple of gratings of fresh nutmeg into the topping because...that's what I do.) Sprinkle over the fruit and drizzle with 6 tablespoons melted butter. Bake at 375 degrees for 35 minutes, or until lightly browned and bubbly. We served ours in a bowl, with a scoop of Blue Bell vanilla bean ice cream alongside, slowly melting and seeping into the fruit.

Summer is good.

(The picture is one The Not Nice Kid drew of the blackberry bushes when she was four. We use it on the labels when we make jam.)

What's for supper? Toasted Ravioli & Mini-Burgers!

Oooh. Potluck worked out last night!

We had cheese ravioli a couple of nights ago, and had some un-sauced leftovers. And so, because it seems like every time the weather gets above 55 degrees someone around here starts squalling for grilled hamburgers, last night we had toasted ravioli and mini-burgers.

I don't get the mini-burger thing but then, maybe that's why I'm not a marketing genuis. And the problem last night was that while I had the mini-burgers, I didn't have the mini-buns. So recipe hunting we went and things worked out beautifully! We snacked on the ravioli as soon as The Big Boy got home, then he and The Not Nice Kid grilled the burgers.

Toasted Ravioli

16 large square cheese ravioli (mine were already cooked)

2 eggs, beaten with 1/4 cup water

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup pecan meal

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Vegetable oil for frying

Mix breadcrumbs with pecan meal and seasonings. Heat vegetable oil in skillet, to about 350 degrees. Dip the ravioli in the egg wash, then the crumb mixture and ease into the hot oil. Fry until lightly browned, turn and brown the other side and drain on paper towels. Serve with marinara sauce or, since we didn't have marinara sauce, pizza sauce works!

Mini-Burger Buns

1/2 cup cream

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup butter

4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 package yeast

2 tablespoons sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons salt

1 egg

Mix cream, buttermilk, water and sliced butter in a mixing bowl. Microwave just until warm and butter has softened. Using dough hooks, mix in 1 cup flour, yeast, sugar, salt and egg. Mix until combined, then add remaining flour one cup at a time. Knead until smooth and elastic. Let it rise for about 45 minutes. Then punch it down, divide into 24 balls and put them on lightly greased baking sheets. I flattened them to where they sort of looked like biscuits, but next time I think I'll leave them a little fatter. Let rise another 30 minutes, then bake for 12 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

These were so GOOD! I actually cut the salt to one teaspoon and added 1/4 cup finely grated Asiago cheese. And according to several recipes I looked at, if you use instant yeast you can skip the first rising.

That character thing again

It snowed here Friday night and snow in Alabama ranks right up there with...rewriting the constitution. So the kids and I brought out the blow-up bed, put it in front of a window, raised the blinds and opened the drapes and turned on the outside lights. So that everytime we woke up during the night, we could see the white flakes hurtling down through the light.

God throws you these little moments so that, during the course of REAL LIFE, you don't throttle your offspring.

Last night we decided to make homemade pizza. Not complicated, on-the-grill, roast up some vegetables pizza; just...pizza. For some reason we've never owned a pizza stone and last week we were re-gifted with one so...homemade pizza it was. The Nice Kid went online to find a good dough recipe and a little while later I realized she was making the dough and coming back into the den to look at the computer every 60 seconds. When I asked why, turns out the computer wouldn't print out her recipe. When I asked why again, it seems she had disconnected the printer to hook up her iPod and had forgotten to reconnect the printer. (When I fixed everything this morning, I got three color copies of a recipe for pizza dough.)

Then I realize she's making the dough with her hands instead of using the dough hooks and she's not skilled enough at this yet to approach the dough from a well-floured vantage point and we have the mess from HELL all over the kitchen but hey, it's just pizza dough. Bread, water and yeast are pretty hard to mess up.

Why do I still say things like that?

The dough didn't rise. Or, didn't rise in the time it was supposed to. The package had been opened and there was 1/8 teaspoon missing, and that shouldn't have made an enormous difference but still...the dough wasn't rising. We ate something else and then about an hour later I looked and the dough had made some progress so we decided to go for it.

Mistake number one: "Sprinkle the surface generously with cornmeal" isn't a suggestion and you need to make sure your child understands the extent of "generously." Mine didn't. So when we got ready to slide the pizza onto the heated stone...it wasn't budging. It could be lifted in sections but we didn't want sections, we wanted a pie. Didn't work that way. After a few hilarious moments while she juggled the hot stone and I disfigured sections of pizza, we just scooped and prayed. We had a...lumpy...looking concoction but think about it: Bread, sauce, pepperoni and cheese. We're having a loaf. A foccacia. This will work.

Into the oven. We played with the temperature and timing a little so that the thick parts had a chance to at least get done, without totally burning the thin spots. It looked pretty good. Not showpiece good but in-your-mouth good.

Mistake number two: Double check. Double check about forty times because I don't care how much time and effort and good flour and happy oil you put into bread of ANY type...you gotta have salt. And believe it or not, salt is secondary for taste because it's FIRST for texture. And somehow, in the not-printing-out-the-recipe and the not-paying-attention and the trying-to-also-talk-to-Carrie Ann-on-the-phone, TNK forgot the salt.

She announced it wasn't that bad...sort of like a pretzel pizza. The Not Nice Kid ate the pepperoni off the top.

I mixed a drink.

So here, not building character in any form and wasting about ten dollars worth of pepperoni and cheese sits...The Lump Who Came To Dinner.

The kitchen still looks like a hurricane came through and I have no idea how to get this stone clean but as they headed out the door for church both kids announced..."We're going to try again tonight!" I hope there's extra bourbon.