Sausage, Beans and Rice

I thought I'd share an easy one-pot recipe that I got from my mom years ago.  This is one of those meals where very little prep is required, and you just wait for everything to heat through.  It's also pretty inexpensive.

Sausage, Beans, and Rice

1 lb smoked sausage, sliced in 1/2 inch rounds
2 27-oz cans Pinto Beans (NOT pork-n-beans)
1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1 bell pepper chopped
1/2 large onion chopped or 1 whole medium onion
2 cups rice (I use Minute Rice) cooked
worcestershire sauce
liquid smoke
salt and pepper

Throw everything except the rice in a large pot to heat for 20-30 minutes or until the veggies have softened some, and serve over a bowl of rice. (If I'm especially lazy, I'll skip the rice.)  Although it can be ready quickly, I like to cook it for a while to make sure the flavors have time to meld together.  For the worcestershire sauce and liquid smoke, just toss in several shakes each.  I'm convinced liquid smoke is an underused flavoring in the kitchen.  Speaking of flavor, you could also add Tobasco or Louisiana hot sauce, cilantro, jalapenos, etc.

You don't have to use two big cans of beans like I do, but at least use 2 15-oz cans.  I used to make this by first spending several hours cooking a pot of red beans from scratch, until DeeBee convinced me that canned beans worked just as well.  She was right, and I can now throw this together much faster. 

Still, every Southern girl should learn how to cook red beans from scratch.  I've said that before, but it stands repeating.

Enjoy.

Told you I was going to cook more...

A friend of mine gave us a basket of fruit and vegetables that she mistakenly ordered too much of from Bountiful Baskets.  She wouldn't let me pay for any of it, so I've been diligently trying to put it all to good use.  We're big fruit and veggie eaters anyway, so it hasn't been tough.  We've had salad, banana bread, steamed artichokes (a first attempt), and we've eaten lots of watermelon, cantaloupe, and peaches.  Thanks, Cindy!!  Today I decided to try homemade french onion soup.

Check out my reflection in the spoon.  Ha.

So I let Alan know that I would see him at lunch because "remember, I'm making that french onion soup."  Being the good husband that he is, he knew not to accept a spontaneous lunch invitation from anyone today.  So I get it all ready, time the melting of the cheese just right, and have it all plated and ready for when he walks in the door.  But he didn't walk in the door.  For 20 more minutes.  I finally called only to have him tell me he was just now getting in the elevator!  Grrr...

But it didn't matter.  Turns out that when the soup continues cooking in the oven IN the bowls you're going to eat out of, it stays REALLY, REALLY hot.  It was good and I'll make it again someday, but maybe not until winter.  I'm not a soup person, and 108 degree heat is not helping matters.  Tomorrow's forecast:  110.

Banana Bread

I've made banana bread for as long as I can remember - who hasn't?  It was probably the first thing I ever baked, and I've always used my grandma's recipe, until recently.  I just felt it wasn't turning out as moist as I'd like, so I started experimenting with other recipes.  One night I fell asleep and burnt a loaf.  Another time I didn't have vanilla and had to use maple syrup.  Once I even poured the batter into the pan only to realize I forgot the pecans.  The list goes on. 

Today I wanted to try again.  I made Momma Callie's Banana Nut Bread from "Down Home With the Neely's."  I followed the recipe exactly (or so I thought), poured the batter into two small loaf pans, and as I was cleaning up realized the recipe said TWO eggs, not THREE.  Geez Louise, what is my problem?  Is my late grandma's ghost tampering with things because I'm abandoning her family-loved recipe?!

Obviously I had to wait until the bread was ready to check the results.  I was hoping the only effect would be a positive one - that the extra egg would make it more moist.  Thankfully it was very moist and very delicious.  Click on the link above if you want to try it.  The only thing I did differently was change the baking time.  Since I made two small loaves, I baked them for only 40 minutes. 

Can't wait to warm up a big slice and have it with my coffee in the morning! 

Even less picky now.

Twice when I was little I tried sweet potatoes, and twice I threw up. It's the only food I can think of that I've refused to eat since then. I'm not a picky eater, and apologies to those this might offend, but picky eaters kind of get on my nerves. I mean, it's one thing if you've tried a lot of foods and genuinely discovered you don't like it, but it just seems to me that some people think it's cute or endearing when they turn their noses up at everything. They'll say it looks funny or feels funny or just sounds like something you shouldn't eat. Alan won't eat guacamole or any other food (if there is one) that starts with those three letters, because it sounds too much like "guano." Bat poop. Luckily Alan isn't a picky eater, so I can overlook that nonsense.

Anyway, we're eating at this awesome restaurant in Fredericksburg over the weekend, and I get this epiphany: Try the damn sweet potatoes. You're not seven years old anymore. You might not like it, but you probably won't vomit. So I did and well...they taste like potatoes. Who knew?! So I took it one step further and told myself I'd buy a sweet potato when we got back home and try it again. I decided on baked sweet potato fries:

Yeah, I sort of overcooked them, but they were still good. I don't think I would like candied sweet potatoes or yams or whatever you call them at Thanksgiving, but I can see baking, mashing, frying up sweet potatoes from now on. They're actually very nutritious.

Makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on because of a childhood experience gone wrong?

Sauce

Discovered a great sauce for salmon:

• 1 cup apricot preserves
• a few shakes hot sauce (we use Louisiana, but Cholula's or Tabasco would work)
• 2-3 shakes soy sauce
• salt and pepper

Simmer 10-15 minutes; the preserves will almost completely thin out. It's spicy and sweet!

Pantry Meals

We've coined a new term around our house - "pantry meals." That's when I totally don't want to go to the grocery store, so much so that I'll come up with a meal by throwing things together from the pantry and fridge. We're very wasteful, a trait not uncommon among fellow Americans, when it comes to food. If you looked in your pantry right now there would probably be canned goods that keep getting shoved to the back, or better yet, saved for when some organization's having a canned food drive. So I've really been trying to use the food we have on hand instead of the constant throwing-it-out. That usually means I come up with something involving pasta, since it would be sinful to NOT have pasta and tomato sauce available at ALL times. Last night, however, I made my own version of a potato casserole. Certainly not a dish for dieters, but that wasn't my goal. My goal was to stay away from HEB.

It must have been good, because Alan had about 4 helpings. That may not be saying much though, since he could probably eat hash browns every day of his life. From a 9 x 13 pan, I think we have one serving left. Anyway, here's the simple recipe:

Green Chile Potato Casserole (because I had to give it a name)

4 slices bacon

1 can diced green chiles

3 tblsp minced onion

1 bag frozen shredded hash browns

1 can cream of mushroom soup
3/4 cup sour cream (just guessing)
1/2 cup melted butter
shredded cheese for topping
salt and pepper

I cut the bacon into bite-sized pieces before frying, cooked until it was nearing the crispy point but not quite, drained the grease and then added the green chiles and minced onion. By the way, I would have used a freshly chopped onion if I would have had one. From there just cook the bacon to your desired doneness. Then I tossed the bacon mixture with everything else in a huge bowl except the cheese. I'd go easy on the salt since the bacon's so salty already. (You're going to think you need to add liquid or more soup or something, but the frozen hashbrowns have plenty of water in them.) Spread in a slightly greased or sprayed pan and top with whatever cheese you have. I went light on the cheese, only because I didn't have very much. Bake it around 400 for 30 minutes maybe? I don't know. I would even turn the broiler on for a few minutes at the end to get some crispy action going. We ate it as an entree, but it would be a great side dish as well. Oh, and we like to add Louisiana Hot Sauce to any dish like this.

So there you go - a meat and potatoes meal.

Food, fondly

Everyone should have a specialty when it comes to cooking. Have at least one dish that you do really well that you can fall back on when necessary. Mine happens to be green pepper steak, and okay my tuna casserole is awesome, too. But neither is difficult to make or requires much finesse in the kitchen. So I don't have a lot to brag about.

Some people have taught me what I consider to be their specialties. I learned how to make beans and cornbread from Mother. In Texas, we say we're "making beans" not "cooking beans." She didn't tell me traditional measurements, but rather showed me how much salt to pour into my palm. When to add the salt is important, too: You wait until the beans' markings have faded, take one out and mash it on the counter with a fork. If it mashes easily, you're ready for the seasonings. And although I feel I make a big pot of beans that are just as good as hers, my cornbread doesn't compare. I just can't replicate it. I think that's fitting, considering she had to make cornbread countless times growing up in a poor family.

I learned how to make chicken fried steak and gravy from my stepdad, Dale. The important part is the gravy - I vividly recall him showing me how to season the drippings and flour with salt and pepper at just the right time, before adding the milk. It's perfect every time, but I'd still rather have him make it. Somehow it's just better.

Banana pudding is my paternal grandmother's specialty (in my mind anyway). Mema made banana pudding for me and DeeBee everytime we visited, it seems. She never used instant pudding but rather made the from-scratch recipe on the box of Nabisco's Nilla Wafers. I use the same recipe today and refuse to try an instant version. Maybe it's more for sentimental reasons, but I hope I always take the time to get out the double boiler and make it slowly.

Breakfast was my dad's specialty, and probably still is. He didn't wait until Saturday or Sunday for a big breakfast. If he was so inclined, I'd wake up on a school morning to a full blown buffet - eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and my favorite part - he'd add freshly sliced tomatoes and avocados. Doesn't it just make you feel good when someone cooks a big meal for you? I know kids tend to take things like that for granted, but I truly remember loving Daddy's breakfasts. I hope I told him "thank you" at the time.

Funny how memories associated with food are so powerful.

P-U

Did you know that if you cook vegetable soup with lots of cabbage all night long in your crock pot, that when you wake the next morning your whole house will smell like poo? Me neither!

Tuna Casserole

It's perhaps my favorite comfort food, and yeah, it doesn't hurt that it's extremely easy to make. I don't why or when I started having mine with a sour pickle, but it's a must-have accompaniment! I add whatever cheese I have on hand that needs to be used up - this time it was sharp cheddar, gruyere, and a small amount of Velveeta. I also add cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, milk and butter, and always have to have crushed Lay's potato chips on top. Any interesting recipes out there for this simple classic?

Four Foods on Friday

DeeBee participates in "Four Foods on Friday" every week, so I decided to join in this time. Mostly, I can't sleep and need something to do! If you want to play, go to Fun, Crafts, and Recipes.

#1. Share a recipe for something Italian.

FRIED RAVIOLI

Man, that Giada De Laurentiis knows what the heck she's doing. I watched her make this on Everyday Italian, and it's been a house favorite ever since!

Olive oil, for frying
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups Italian-style bread crumbs
1 box store-bought cheese ravioli (about 24 ravioli)
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 jar store bought marinara sauce, heated, for dipping

Pour enough olive oil into a large frying pan to reach a depth of 2 inches. Heat the oil over medium heat until a deep-fry thermometer registers 325 degrees F. While the oil is heating, put the buttermilk and the bread crumbs in separate shallow bowls. Working in batches, dip ravioli in buttermilk to coat completely. Allow the excess buttermilk to drip back into the bowl. Dredge ravioli in the bread crumbs. Place the ravioli on a baking sheet, and continue with the remaining ravioli.
When the oil is hot, fry the ravioli in batches, turning occasionally, until golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the fried ravioli to paper towels to drain. Sprinkle the fried ravioli with Parmesan and serve with a bowl of warmed marinara sauce for dipping.

#2. Jam, jelly, preserves, marmalade, fruit butter or butter. What’s on your toast or bread? I like all of the above but usually have strawberry preserves or grape jam in the fridge. My favorite guilty pleasure is to have butter AND jam on toast. You might see some butter in my preserves jar and some preserves in my butter container. Oops.

#3. What’s your favorite Kellogg’s product? I have to go with good ole' Frosted Flakes.

#4. Do you like liver? What about liverwurst? Honestly, I don't want to know if I like it or not. I won't try either. Have you seen how much blood liver holds? Gross.

Inventory

It might be time to reevaluate how much cereal we eat. OR, not let Alan go to the grocery store by himself. I'm leaning towards the latter. We have thirteen boxes for three people. And I've been so busy eating my senior-citizen-high-fiber cereal, that I've lost track of how old that box of Frosted Flakes is.

CONvert

Although I'm eating a little healthier, I am in no way a health food nut. I like flavor, which usually means adding some butter, salt, and yeah, the occasional pat of bacon grease. And I'll admit it, I tend to make fun of people who are health food nuts. You're not like me, i.e., you're kinda weird.

However, I decided to try the new Egg Beaters with yolk and was pulled a little further over to the dark side where those people who do good things for their bodies live. If someone had scrambled up and served these "eggs" to me with a little salt and pepper - I would have never known they weren't the real thing. And when you compare the nutrition numbers, it's so worth it.

Salmonella be damned!

I don't care. I went as long as I could without tomatoes. It was slim pickins' at the grocery store, but I managed to come up with enough tomatoes to make a batch of salsa. (We only go so long in this household without salsa.) So I made a batch Wednesday night, and the next day I had a dentist appointment. That meant I couldn't have chips and salsa for breakfast Thursday morning because come on, you can't have onion breath when you go to the dentist.

So far, I seem to be feeling fine. I am not, in any way however, encouraging the rest of the world to take such chances with their health. I just have needs and had to satisfy my salsa addiction.

Deprivation is not for me.

In my quest for eating healthier, which for me has meant eating a LOT of fruits and vegetables, I've also been trying some low calorie foods. I don't typically enjoy "light" or "fat free" varieties of anything, but here are some substitutes (mostly snacks) I've tried lately that are so close to the original fattier versions that I might as well go the lighter route:

Lay's Light chips
Ruffles Light chips
Baked Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Aunt Jemima Whole Wheat Pancake Mix (and use egg whites instead of the whole egg)
Triscuits Reduced Fat

The one I was most surprised by was the Cheetos. I love Cheetos and was pretty sure the baked version wouldn't stand up to the original, but they're pretty good! What I'm waiting for however, is Baked Fritos. Come on, Frito Lay!

By no means am I eating as healthy as I should. I like food and I like food that is bad for me - mexican food and pasta are my favorites. But I am eating better, drinking more water (bleck!) and getting some exercise. Will I see a difference when I put on my swimsuit? No. I'm no longer delusional. But surely my body is getting something out of adding the good things and cutting back on the bad.

Smokin' hot

I've gotten to where I love roasting vegetables - squash, zucchini, tomatoes, asparagus, green peppers, you name it. Besides being a healthy way to eat veggies, it also seems to be the most flavorful. So how charming of my Brady Bunch non-self cleaning oven to start smoking up the kitchen every time I set the temperature over 350. Someday this oven, along with its vintage stovetop counterpart, will be replaced. But for now I'll just keep opening the windows and running the venthood fan when necessary. If anyone has good roasting tips or ideas on foods that are good roasted, let me know!



I'd take this over a steak any day.

Finally, no french fries

Alan and I went grocery shopping yesterday without a list and no plans for dinner. This is usually a bad idea. But we walked around the store grabbing this and that and were pleasantly surprised at the meal we planned. We had sockeye salmon, grilled squash, bruschetta (little toasts with apricot jam, soft cheese and prosciutto...perhaps we copied this from Food Network) and blackberries. No special marinades, just drizzled almost everything with olive oil and salt and pepper, and poof! Fine dining! Check out the fancy plastic china.



My favorite was the squash - much more appetizing than it looks.

So I'm a cooking nerd

Have you ever had leftover spaghetti or goulash that when you reheated it the next day, you found the sauce to be a little dry? Check out this 4 oz. packet of tomato sauce! You can just throw this in and not have to worry about opening and wasting a larger can. This is what happens when you send your husband to the store, and he comes back with all varieties and sizes of an item because he's not sure what you really want. And in this case it turned out cool.



I hate grocery shopping so much that I told Alan I'd do the laundry, ironing, and cook dinner if he'd do the grocery shopping. Okay, so I didn't end up doing ALL of that, but the ironing alone makes that a fair trade.

Um...

Look, this is just the way nature produces the butternut squash. You have a dirty mind. Or have you recently watched Superbad, too? If you have, then you're excused from your immoral thoughts because there's no way you could have just watched that movie and not thought of such things. Anyway....the butternut squash. The vegetable that took me half an hour to peel, slice open, clean out, and cut up. That's a LOT of time in the kitchen cutting up one vegetable, and I'm not exaggerating. And get this - it cost $8. Yes, it was a four pound squash and yes, it turned out to be heaven in a gourd, but still...$8 for a single vegetable?

I can only hope that some frozen food manufacturer out there has done all the work for me and has mass produced this veggie all chopped up in a nice convenient bag. Because that creamy mashed butternut squash we had with dinner tonight? Wow. It was that good. But not good enough that I'll buy another one of those phallical looking vegetables and go through that again. Oh, I forgot the best part. A very elderly lady behind me in the checkout line took one look at my gourd and said, "Well, it looks like you're going to have some fun with that squash."

I don't make this stuff up.

Joy in a jar

It seems forever ago, but back when Alan lived in Ft. Worth, I would drive or fly down to see him every once in a while. I developed a routine of going by Albertson's before leaving town and scooping out a little bag of either buttered popcorn or caramel apple jelly bellies. That's the only time I would buy them. So the other day when shopping at the now monstrosity that is HEB, I came across their brand new display of jelly bellies. So shiny and new and inviting....I couldn't resist. So I got both flavors.

Dinner time and I'm hungry

Is there a job that pays you to cook, and then eat the food you cooked? Cause that's the job for me. I'd give up teaching in a second for that job.

I think I could live on pasta and sauce.