Torrential rains, floods, snow, frigid temperatures. During the last three weeks we've had all four. It started the third week of December. Our office building has five stories. The lower level has doors outside and elevator access, but no stair access. It's where the mechanicals for the building are. The problem is that when Fall Creek across the street floods, our lower level is below the water level - and so is our parking lot as you can see in the second photo. The third photo is the same shot a bit later... In spite of some pretty hefty flood doors, it still floods. In fact this time was the worst flood I've ever seen. The waters came to within six inches of the tops of the doors.
Of course, that meant the heat pumps and the elevator were out. Getting to and from the office meant three flights of stairs. Annie the dog was not amused. Neither were we. Finally, the elevator started working again on New Year's Eve. We were thrilled. Then, the weather folks started talking about snow. Lots of snow. Followed by bitter cold. Did I mention that during all of this our office was under construction? We were living with a mell of a hess. Drywall dust. Noise. People in and out.
We needed to have the humongous conference table moved from it's temporary location into the new conference room. And, the admin desk up front had to be moved. Movers were the answer. Then, it snowed about five inches and they rescheduled. For a Saturday. At 7:30 am. Fortunately, they showed up because Sunday it started snowing. And snowing. And snowing. We got 11.4 inches at our house. Fortunately, Connie made a house for our three-legged feral cat, Smokey. I jury-rigged a feeding area. And, Connie plowed a path to the feeding area. Smokey was in business! Then, Monday the temp dropped to -12. Windchills were -40. The city put an emergency travel only edict into effect. They didn't have to encourage me! I was more than happy to work at home. All of my appointments were equally happy to reschedule.
Friday evening I knew what was coming. We had to go to the grocery anyway so I bought provisions to make and freeze a bunch of meals. Made a list of 30 potential dishes. Sunday morning about 8:00 I dug in. Chicken Caesar Lasagna. Chicken Green Bean Casserole. Spaghetti sauce. Lasagna. Chicken Elegante. Chicken Chili. Chicken Stroganoff. Beef Stroganoff. Black Bean Soup. Lou's BBQ Beef Stew. Three days later, we have a stocked freezer at the office. If there aren't leftovers there will now be decent meals ready to do. Things with vegetables even if I've not been to the grocery to get salad fixings. Actually, today we dug in. Last night we had some of the beef stew. Today for lunch we had chicken green bean casserole. Last night was a Mrs Huber evening. We had her cole slaw and her chicken livers. And, Jane's rice. This evening, leftover Jane's rice and some stroganoff. And, more Mrs. Huber's cole slaw. YUM!
Jane's Rice
Ingredients:
1 c Uncle Ben's original converted rice
2 c liquid - 8 oz or so of white wine, mushrrom juice plus water
1 4 oz can mushrooms
1 package dry onion soup mix
Directions:
Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat for about 12 minutes or until liquid is absorbed.
Lou's BBQ Beef Stew
1/2 - 1 lb beef cubes (I cut typical beef stew meat cubes in half)
1 T olive oil or vegetable oil
salt and pepper
1 46 oz can beef broth
1/4 c ketchup
1 T mustard
1 clove garlic minced
2 t Worcestershire sauce
dash Tabasco
2 medium onions, cubed
1 large green pepper, coarsely chopped
8 oz button mushrooms, halved
Directions:
Salt and pepper the beef. Brown the beef cubes in the olive oil. Brown them in batches so you brown them and don't steam them. Remove the browned cubes to a paper towel lined plate to drain. In a stockpot, combine the beef broth, ketchup, mustard, garlic, Worcestershire and Tabasco. Add the browned beef and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Add the onion cubes and simmer for another 40 minutes. Finally, add the green pepper and mushrooms and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve in a bowl, plain or over brown rice.
Cooking time has been short for the last few weeks. Connie played in a bridge tournament so was gone for three evenings. There was a wine tasting dinner. A couple of business related functions. A couple of social things. We'd not been to the grocery for two if not three weeks. My refrigerator was about as empty as it gets. Apples, some straggly carrots, a head of romaine, a box of mushrooms and a couple of ribs of celery that'd seen better days.
Friday night Connie was playing his last game of the tournament. I got an email from my dear friend Sue letting me know that she and Doug were going to be in Indy Friday evening. Would we like to go out to dinner? Of course I'd love to! I got home a few minutes before their scheduled arrival. They are fellow sushi lovers so I had high hopes that we'd head up the street to our favorite sushi restaurant - Tomo. Then, they walked in the door and it dawned on me. They'd left Florida several weeks ago and driven to California and now back to Indiana. They'd eaten out for too many meals to count. So, my first question was eat here or out? Sue's eyes lit up and she said home cooking would be wonderful!
Off to the freezer I went. What would thaw relatively quickly and be easy to cook? Pork tenderloin would do nicely. Then, I reached for a sweet potato. Ummm, no. It'd seen better days. Better days a long time ago. Into the compost bin it went. Jane's Rice. It's a pantry staple and SO easy. A salad with apples and blue cheese and a mustard vinaigrette. Then, our favorite new sauteed mushrooms.
New sauteed mushrooms? How in the world do you improve on a knob of butter and a bit of garlic and maybe a splash of wine in your sauteed mushrooms? You go to Epicurious and find Gourmet's old recipe published in 1999. It was probably a Cooks Illustrated where I'd read the article about the best sauteed mushrooms. Remembering the password for that site wasn't happening. So, I hopped on Epicurious. And, we tried these mushrooms. And I declared I'd never again make plain sauteed mushrooms.
I now had a plan for dinner. Thaw the pork. Slather it with Andria's Steak Sauce. (Here's a link to my post about Andria's.) Grill it. Make Jane's Rice and sauteed mushrooms. Toss a salad. Serve with red wine. Best of all? We have leftovers for Monday's lunch!
Saturday morning the four of us were off to our favorite breakfast hole-in-the-wall, Keystone Deli. As usual, Connie and I both ordered the smokehouse breakfast and didn't touch our extra crispy home fries. Those are for blue cheese potato salad for dinner tonight and lunch on Tuesday...
Tonight we're trying Tuscan Ribs from a new cookbook. They're slathered in this incredible rub and soaking it up in the fridge. The blue cheese potato salad should be perfect with them.
Saturday late afternoon we headed to Costco and Marsh. We were in the liquor aisle (shocking, I know) and we both looked at the Tanqueray. Did we need some or not? A couple walking by joined in the merriment of what's the worst that could happen? We'd have TWO bottles instead of one. We started talking about good drinks and Donna told us about one they make called a Calypso Cooler. Neither of us could remember the measurements but Connie did a fine job of making a wonderful drink! Connie promises he's going to get caught up on his drink posts. I'm not going to make the same promise about all of my recipe posts... That'd take more hours than I've got these days!
Back to Costco: While we were there, Connie picked up a bag of fresh artichokes. Now, I love artichoke hearts and artichoke bottoms. But, fresh artichokes always feel like a lot of work for very little reward. But, Connie wanted to try them so we did. I pulled out my go-to vegetable cookbook - Greene on Greens and looked at a couple of other cookbooks and decided I'd poach them in water, lemon juice, white wine, crushed red pepper and peppercorns. Then, I was on to the dipping sauce. Garlic butter didn't appeal. Green tapenade did. Another Bert Greene recipe. But, this time from The Store coobook.
Along with the artichokes, we had another new recipe. But, you'll have to come back to see that since it's my Secret Recipe post for the 18th.
So, are you ready for a recipe??
Sauteed Mushrooms
Ingredients:
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 T soy sauce
1 t sugar
2 T olive oil
10 oz mushrooms, quartered (I used cremini)
1 T unsalted butter
1 garlic clove, minced
Directions:
Mix the lemon juice, soy sauce and sugar and set aside. Pour the olive oil into a 10-12" skillet. Heat it to shimmering. Add the mushrooms and saute until they're nice and brown. That'll take 5-10 minutes. Add the butter and garlic and stir well.
Once the butter is absorbed, add the lemon juice mixture. Stir well. Allow to cook for a few minutes so the liquid is absorbed.
adapted from Gourmet via Epicurious
After a LONG day of travel, we finally got back from Cape Cod last night. I love going out there to see Greg and Matt and their girlfriends, Mary and Jessie. But, cooking in Auntie Barbara's kitchen is a bit challenging. Over the years I've added critical items like a grater. But, there are still a LOT of items missing. Like, knives that really cut. And, soup spoons. And a grabber that's not in two parts... So, I consider it to be kind of like camping. We started with the kids favorite meal - Chicken Caesar Lasagna. It's easy to make and is a family favorite.
Chicken Caesar Lasagna
one rotisserie chicken
1 or 2 jars alfredo sauce
1 or 2 packages frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 jar roasted red peppers, chopped
1 tbs lemon juice
9 lasagna noodles
1 pkg grated 5 Italian cheese
Boil the lasagna noodles. While they're boiling, pick the meat off the chicken. Mix it with the sauce, spinach, roasted red peppers and lemon juice. Schmear a bit of the sauce mix on the bottom of a 9x13 glass baking dish. Lay 3 lasagna noodles over that. Top with 1/3 of the sauce mix, followed by 3 more lasagna noodles, and so on until you have three layers. Bake at 350 for 45 min. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake for another 15 min.
The next night we wound up at our favorite pub to watch our Colts and have dinner. Captain Parker's has won all kinds of clam chowder cook-offs. We started with cups of that, of course. I had a little piece of the best prime rib I think I've ever had. Tender, flavorful, juicy. Perfect. Turns out the Captain was there and wandered in to say hello. He wound up giving us a couple of their mugs as mementos.
Friday, we wandered toward Sandwich (the quintessential New England town) stopping at various galleries and book stores and shops. I was on the hunt for a couple more Christmas presents and some stocking stuffers. Found them! On the way we saw a sign for LOBSTERS. So, we found it on the way back and meandered up the driveway. Turns out the guy has a tank on his front porch packed with lobsters he caught that day. YUM! The "tree" in the front yard was a mountain of lobster pots strung with lights.
Saturday we had glop and roasted broccoli. Another family favorite with a newbie - to them at least. It's the 4th time we've made the roasted broccoli in a month!
Glop
What a name for a dish. This started when I was in 8th grade cooking class. We made a dish with macaroni, tomato juice, hamburger and cheese. Over the years, I've tweaked the recipe more than a bit.
1 lb ground round
1/4 c Andria's steak sauce (believe me - this is the best - order it online)
1 package Kraft mac and cheese, prepared according to directions
1 can diced tomatoes with their juice
2 tsp basil
10 oz Cracker Barrel extra sharp cheddar, grated
Brown the ground round with the Andria's. Drain the liquid into a fat strainer and pour the good stuff back in. Mix everything else in and enjoy!
Sunday was Lou's Barbecue Beef, Jane's rice and clean up the kitchen for five salad. Lou's BBQ Beef was in the 10/26/09 post. Jane's rice was what we always had as kids with fried chicken livers. That was a huge treat - still is. But, now, I fix Jane's rice with lots of different things. It's kind of a haphazard recipe - no specific instructions. You'll wind up with about 3 cups of rice so you'll want to start with about a cup of uncooked rice. Uncle Ben's converted is the best. Take a measuring cup if you're more comfortable using that to determine the amount of liquid. I've done this one so long that I just eyeball it. Drain a 4oz can of mushrooms - pieces and stems - into the measuring cup. Add white wine for another 1/3 -1/2 of the liquid. Then, use water for the rest. Dump the liquid, rice, a package of dry onion soup mix and the mushrooms in your saucepan and cook until the rice is done. If it starts to get too dry, pour more wine or water in. Chef's choice!
