Weekly Dinner Plan #12

It's been a holiday season full of dessert, take-out, travel, guests, being a guest, and restaurants. I'm trying to re-acquaint myself with my kitchen and I'm trying to cook "clean" which is a fantastically malleable word. To me it means "not a bag of chips" and "not acquired from a drive-thru" which makes it super easy to say, "I'm cooking clean!"

Some people would say that it actually means no grain, no dairy, no meat, i.e. GPs The Clean Plate book which is absolutely chock full of beautiful pictures of seed crackers and the author in bikini bottoms and turtlenecks. You can hate yourself and know that you could look exactly like her if you would just commit to eating seeds for 30 days, but you can't because you are weak.

Full disclosure: I've only briefly leafed through the cookbook at the book store. I'm sure it's amayzing in practice. I just felt too self-conscious buying Gwyneth-food porn in public.

Here is what I'm making this week. And I'm sorry for not including pictures of myself in a bathing suit.


Monday: Roasted Whole Chicken, fresh baked bread, and Kale Caesar Salad (a bag o')


Tuesday: Tomato soup and Grilled Brie and Pear Sandwiches


Wednesday: Steak and Smashed Potatoes and Salad (bag, butofcourse)


Thursday: Pea Pancakes with Smoked Salmon





Friday: Truffle Papardelle and Sauteed Green Beans
*note: it's hard to get your hands on white truffle butter so I stock up on Trader Joe's Black Truffle Butter whenever I see it and we find it is perfectly yummy.

Saturday: Mother-in-law's Beef Stew with Cornbread

Nan's Beef Stew

From Nan:

This is the recipe that my mother used when I was a kid and I, in
turn, made for my kids. There is no real measuring so no need to fret
about exact measurements and vary amounts to the ingredients you and
the kidlets enjoy the most, e.g., more potatoes than carrots, more
carrots than celery, lots or less meat.

Although I have broken the instructions into several steps, don't let
that scare you. It is very basic and much easier than all the
typing below. Call me if you have any questions. I am tickled that you
would like to make my Hawaiian Stew and that the boys enjoyed it. 

Most important is that the meat is simmered until very tender because you
are using an inexpensive meat that is traditionally tough.

Beef Stew

1-2 lbs of beef stew meat, cubed (any inexpensive meat will do)
1 round onion, chopped
5-6 carrots, cut in chunks or sliced in 1/4-1/2" rounds
3 stalks celery, diced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 potatoes, diced in large chunks (about the size of a golf ball or less)
1/4-1/2 c. flour & enough water to make a thick paste (thickener)
salt, pepper to taste
Optional: diced fresh or canned tomatores - adds richness
Cooked rice or hot French bread with butter

1. In a 4-5 cup large pot, saute the onions, garlic, and celery in a
little oil until wilted. Remove from the pan.
2. Add a little oil and add the beef to sautee until browned.
3. Add back the onion-garlic-celery mixture.
4. Add water to cover the meat and vegetable mixture in the pot and
bring to a medium boil about 1-2 hours - check meat for tenderness
with a fork - tasting the meat after the 1st hour is always fun. Add
more water as needed to keep the meat covered and to make a good
"stew" gravy. However, you don't want to add too much water or you
will dilute the flavor of the meat & veggie liquid.
5. Once the meat is tender, add the carrots, let cook until 1/2 done.
Then add the potatoes.
6. Continue to cook on a low boil or high simmer until the potatoes
and carrots are cooked but not over done.
7. While the meat & veggies are simmering, mix 1/2-3/4 cups white
flour and enough water to make a thick paste the consistency of a
thick yogurt shake. Turn the heat up to bring the liquid to a low boil
and very gradually add the flour-water mixture in a small stream
stirring continuously so the thickener does not form clumps. As you
add the thickener check the consistency of the broth. If it is thick
enough to your liking, then don't add any more thickener. This is the
same method used to make gravies. You will be mixing the thickener
into areas of the liquid between the meat and veggies to mix the
thickener into the broth. (If you want to make more dirty dishes, you
can remove the meat and veggies from the pot into a large bowl and
leave just the liquid in the pot.)
8. Once you have the consistency of the stew desired, let the stew
continue to low boil for about 1 minutes to ensure the flour cooks
thoroughly then turn it down to a low simmer.
9. If you removed the beef and veggies while making the stew gravy,
add them back to the pot and let all the ingredients simmer together.
10. Add your salt and pepper to taste.
11. At this point, you can either turn the stove off and let the stew
sit until you are ready to eat, or serve it up.
12. You can serve the stew over rice or eat it with hot buttered
French bread. In Hawaii, we ate stew over rice and even added Shoyu
sauce.
13. GOOD TRICK: to add more brown color to your stew gravy, add
1/2-3/4 tsp. of instant coffee granules to darken the gravy. It will
not have any taste in your stew - only darkens the gravy. This is even
good when making turkey gravy for Thanksgiving or any gravy.

Hope you enjoy cooking this dish as it is so easy, best on the 2nd day
as a leftover, and great for cold weather meals, even campouts.

Tomato Soup

This is flexible, use cans or fresh tomatoes or both.





















1 Can crushed tomatoes
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 coarsely chopped onion
6 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon of thyme
1 tablespoon of oregano
1 pint of broth (I used beef bone broth)
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
a splash of cream

1) In a heavy pot, heat oil
2) Sautee onion and garlic till onion is translucent
3) Add tomatoes, whole or coarsely chopped, cook and stir for 5-10 minutes
4) Add broth
5) Use immersion blender to blend
6) Simmer to thicken to your preference
7) Salt and pepper, thyme, oregano
8) Spoon in to dish and pour a splash of cream deep in to the center of the bowl. It's fun.

Whole Roasted Chicken - NBD

I now make this almost every time we have dinner guests. It looks pretty and really says "You've been invited to Dinner." This should feed about 7 people and it is really quite easy.

It takes me 5-10 minutes to prep and then I can pretty much forget about it for an hour and half. I've created this process based on reading multiple roast chicken recipes, they are all very similar, and then doing like my mom taught me and disregarding lots of the instructions because... no one tells ME what to do. Needless to say, if you feel I am stealing, I probably am but by accident. That's just the nature of this bird.

FACT: chicken should be about 165 degrees when cooked. Get thee a meat thermometer. No more guessing games and subsequent angry post-serving trips to the microwave to turn the opalescent chicken muscles in to solid, edible chicken meat.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, thawed
1-2 lemons/oranges sliced in halfs or quarters
1 small bundle of rosemary
6 garlic cloves, or thereabouts
4-6 tablespoons of butter
olive oil
salt and pepper
any other rub you might like to try
string

Pre-heat oven to 350

1) Remove the innards
2) Pat dry
3) Salt and pepper all over
4) Stuff cavity with citrus, garlic and rosemary
5) Tie the legs together with string, this helps reduce how much steam comes out during the cooking.      The less steamy clouds emitted from the hole the better --I did that on purpose.
6) Lift the skin of the breast and slide several pats of butter in under the skin
7) Cover in olive oil
8) Cover in any rub you like or in more salt and pepper
9) Place in baking dish on top of veggies (I quarter an onion and put in a few carrots)
10) Bake for 1.5 hours (halfway through pour more oil over it)