Category: Food For Thought

The family loves the traditional corned beef and cabbage dinner, so it’s mandatory on St. Patrick’s Day. Only problem is, I’m less of a fan of the traditional boiled dinner approach. Frankly, the potatoes, carrots and cabbage boiled in the cooking water are just OK, not really especially tasty. The corned beef takes a long time to boil. Then you have the hassle of taking it out of the pot, keeping it warm, cooking the potatoes and carrots, taking them out, cooking the cabbage…. It just doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried cooking the corned beef in a crock pot, but then you still have different cooking times on the veggies. So this year I tried something different and it worked so well, I’m sticking with it. Dinner cooks in two hours, with not much prep or fussing, so I got to enjoy the day too.

The corned beef cooks in an Instant Pot or pressure cooker in two hours. Meanwhile the beer braised cabbage bakes in the oven, also for two hours. An hour in, you can start cooking the mashed potatoes on your cooktop. I boil some Yukon gold potatoes, peels on, cut in large chunks, until tender. Drain, add a cube of softened butter, a little garlic power, salt to taste, and enough milk to get them to the consistency you want. Mash with a potato masher, don’t whip them with an electric mixer.

Carrots also cook in one hour, so you can start them with the potatoes. I cut them in thick matchsticks, coat with a little avocado oil, and sprinkle with a little seasoned salt. If you have a second oven, bake them at 450 degrees, stirring after 30 minutes. When they start to char, I add a couple tablespoons of butter and a light sprinkle of brown sugar, then back in the oven to caramelize. If you don’t have a second oven, you can cook them with the cabbage, but add about 15 minutes to the cooking time.

The only problem with the holidays is it’s just impossible to eat all the stuff you want to make. I’ve made the Christmas jam. Still have to make some rum cakes to give to friends. Make some hard cider for the first time and it turned out really good. Last night I made a tiny half batch of eggnog so it would be a “one and done” event. So many things to eat, so little room!

I had to go digging for the eggnog recipe, so I’m going to post it here. I’m happy to share anything good, but mostly I just want to make it easier to find the next time I want to make it.

Now to make some homemade egg noodles, baklava, zeppole, cheesecake, toffee………..

Mr. Man wanted a turkey dinner. Well, if you’re going to have turkey, you need dressing (stuffing), and not that stuff from a box. And you’ll need gravy. And since you have gravy, you have to have mashed potatoes. Then of course you need a vegetable, maybe two. And some rolls. And a nice dessert just to put a cap on the whole shebang. And now that you have all that food, you need some people to help you eat it so you won’t be eating leftovers all week. And before you know it, it’s Thanksgiving in July. All that because Mr. Man wanted to cook a turkey breast. But nobody complained. I think everything I cooked I’ve already posted recipes for, but I’m going to add the old green bean casserole, which everyone demands, and for which I should mention a couple of little tips to make it as good as it can be.

Since Covid we haven’t been eating out in…OMG…has it been a year?!!! No wonder we’re all sick of cooking. I’d slap a baby for even a McDonald’s burger if I didn’t have to cook it.

Anyway, since we’re restaurant deprived, I try and fix something good when the kids come over for Sunday dinner. Last night it was Italian. We had lasagna (which I also haven’t made in over a year), garlic bread knots (from my OMG pretzel recipe), The Big Salad (in case the lasagna was crap), and green beans.

I was just winging the lasagna, but the family pronounced it my best yet. Course, it may have been the quarantine talking. At this point, we’re glad to eat almost anything we don’t have to cook. So although the family liked it, maybe you should be suspicious…Enjoy!

It’s that time of year. This weekend we made caramel apples. OK, I got stuff ready, Angela did the work. But I made dinner while she was cooking caramel, so I should get some props for that.

At first blush, this seemed like a fool’s errand. Angela doesn’t really like caramel much. Merl & Jace love caramel, but think putting it on an apple totally ruins perfectly good caramel. Me, I’m Italian. I love everything. But surprise, surprise, everyone loved the apples. We tried sweet and tart and decided Granny Smith apples were the best.

The caramel recipe is one handed down by my Aunt Violet, who was hands down the best cook I’ve ever known. It makes great candy for Christmas gift giving too, so we’ll probably be making some caramel again in December. Check out the recipe variations.

We haven’t eaten out in six months due to Covid isolation. We’ve all been craving the food at Kenji’s, a little Mom and Pop place that makes the best food, especially their tempura vegetables. So last night, I took a shot at a mock Kenji’s dinner and scored a hit.

I made my lettuce wrap chicken, omitting the water chestnuts, adding toasted cashews, and serving over steamed rice. We also had Maangchi’s easy bulgogi. You should check our her Youtube videos, website and cookbooks. She a hoot! www.maangchi.com

But the highlight of the night was the tempura vegetables. OMG! I only made our favorites, sweet potatoes and broccoli, but that was enough to send us into food comas. The dipping sauce was also judged by my very critical family and pronounced amazing. Far cry from the Asian dish I made last week that was almost inedible. Hey, win some, lose some.

Trying to get recipes posted, but it’s slow going. As I’m only organizing recipes for my own use, and maybe a few friends and family, there isn’t much motivation. Also, I haven’t been doing a lot of great cooking lately as we’re trying to lose weight. I doubt anyone wants a recipe for most of the low carb crap we’ve been eating.

When I do cook something good, it’s usually when we’re having somebody over for dinner, then I’m too busy to take any photos. I guess I’ll post some recipes with no photos, maybe some to be added in one of these days.

I’ve also been experimenting with Keto type recipes. I need things I can fix for guests that are diabetic & gluten intolerant, and also things we can eat that are low carb/lower calorie. Mostly desserts are the problem here. If I happen to find anything that is at least tolerable, I’ll post it. Like this keto chocolate chip cookie recipe.

I’m already making plans for Turkey Day, and giving serious consideration to what desserts I should make. Every year, in addition to other desserts, I make the mandatory pumpkin pie. In keeping with tradition, everybody eats a sliver of pumpkin pie, mostly as a vehicle for a big blob of homemade whipped cream, then they move on to bigger and better things.

I’m thinking this year, I’ll just buck tradition and make a pumpkin praline torte instead. Still pumpkin, still whipped cream, but with pecans…and carmelized topping….and, well, yum!

Then, because you just can’t never have enough dessert, I think I’ll make a berry tart, probably an apple pie, and maybe something chocolate, just to cover all the bases. Maybe some brandied, chocolate covered cherries. I usually make those for Christmas, but since I’m bucking tradition, why not just let it fly?

Dang, I guess I’ll have to make a turkey and some other stuff before I can have dessert. Bother. Hmmm…you think that will be enough dessert for ten people????

I asked Mr. Man what he wanted for his grand Father’s Day dinner, and he picked hamburgers. Huh? That means he and/or Jace would be manning the grill because that’s not my territory. If you do a job good, it’ll be yours for life, and I already have enough jobs. So I just tell Merl what a great griller he is, and stay out of the way! Yeah Merl, nobody grills like you……:)

That doesn’t mean I’m completely off the hook. I still get prep, clean-up, and everything else in between. I thought the burgers should have a little sumpin’ sumpin’ so I cooked up some finely diced onions and mixed them into the meat along with some garlic and seasoned salt. (1 tsp per pound). Then just before they were done, we brushed some bbq sauce on and cooked them a little longer until it carmelized. By the time we added bacon and cheese, I could feel a coronary coming on.

While the boys were at the grill, I figured they might as well grill some corn on the cob. Sure, why not? Meanwhile I was inside (where the air conditioning was) frying up some beer battered onion rings. Some of Merl’s favorite baked beans rounded out the meal for him and Jace. Angela and I had some green salad. The boys were welcome to join us, I made plenty, but they were working on clogging all those arteries.

Just ice cream for dessert, because there’s always room for ice cream. My dad said it just melted and filled in all the cracks. Any excuse to eat ice cream would do.

So there you have it. I don’t know if it was a special Father’s Day, but we were all especially stuffed.