Jenmenke

Road Warrior

meatless monday

The Cure for What Ails Me

Let’s call this a Meatless Monday lunch on a Wednesday, shall we?

I’m battling a bug. First it was a cold. Now it’s aches and a bad stomach. I’ve got a luscious container of leftover pot roast in the fridge, but looking at it somehow makes me feel even more ill.

How can that be?

What I want… What I want… Is…

I don’t know, but I’m hungry.

So I settle on Miso Soup. But I have no tofu. And I have no green onions. So I make do with edamame. And frozen chives.

It’s not the same. But the broth is good.

And when I am putting the chives away, I see my long-lost, frozen eggplant

It’s mild creaminess sounds perfect. So I heat some up to go with my soup

But it doesn’t satisfy like I thought. The char is too bitter for my intolerant taste buds today.

So I did what anyone in my position would do.

I ate half a sleeve of Thin Mints and laid down on the couch to watch Top Chef on YouTube. Suddenly I’m feeling a whole lot better.

The Kids Cook Mondays!

OK, so at the risk of becoming a cliché, I take on another Monday Campaign as an entire-family “New Year’s Resolution.” However, this year, I resolve to not be psychotic in my resolve.

Does that make sense?

I loved Meatless Mondays. And — for the most part — I’d say it was a success. If you know me well in the real world, it is likely that you are shaking your head right now and calling me a liar. If you are over the age of 45, you probably said it out loud to your computer.

But anyway, no, I am not a liar. I did love them, even though at times I complained, at times I failed and –in general — they were a mental pain. Why, then, do I say I loved them?

I go back to my very first Meatless Monday post. Those reasons still hold true:

Actually, I just re-read that entry and there are no compelling reasons listed. I know I wrote them somewhere, but who knows where. [Aside: oh my gosh. my eyes are just going down the tubes. I have taken my reading glasses on and off and on and off about three times in the last 5 minutes. It’s the beginning of the end, I tell you.]

If I remember correctly, my compelling reasons were something like:

  • reduce our carbon footprint.
  • discover new foods to work into our rotation
  • feel smugly superior to those who don’t participate in Meatless Mondays

So, with those goals in mind, our personal Meatless Monday campaign was a huge success.

As I’ve mentioned in a few of my recent writings, I have experienced a level of busyness the past few months unequaled to any other time in my life. [hence the infrequent updates here and the swirling motes of cat and chinchilla hair in the corners of my kitchen] For that reason, I was not able to devote any real thought to my 3rd annual Menke Family New Year’s Resolution. I just kept thinking that it would be revealed to me at the right time.

That is called faith, by the way. –And I was not disappointed.

On January 6th, Joanna (Joey) of the official ‘The Monday Campaigns‘ wrote me an email about a recipe for the Meatless Monday website. In our banter, she mentioned her new project, The Kids Cook Mondays. And while it initially seemed more suited for younger children, it got me thinking…

Yes… It would be perfect!

Photo opportunities, Embarrassing moments, and the opportunity to lord over my kids and bark out commands.

Yes, it would be perfect.

It would be lying to say I didn’t have selfish reasons for considering this new direction, however. And no, it isn’t because I’m lazy. I have no delusions that The Kids Cook will lighten my load. No doubt Morgan will be pouring over Bon Appetit recipes that require multiple trips to specialty stores deep in the hood. Charlie will require endless, normally rhetoric, questions answered. Also no doubt, ‘The Kids’ will agree on nothing, creating chaos and mayhem galore.

Don’t worry, I’m used to that.

But can you image the potential material? Maybe I should close the blog now and start the book.

No, no, I can’t write my book until I’m 80 and everyone else is dead. Hopefully except my kids and hopefully they won’t care at that point.

As usual, the reception to my message was mixed:

Charlie, who doesn’t even know what we are talking about half the time, was enthusiastic beyond words. To say he fist pumped and yelled “YES! Yes! Can we? Really? Can we?” would be the closest approximation.

Morgan, at the table applying eyeliner or something, looked up at me with half-lidded interest said, “Mom. No.”

And I knew I was golden.

Oh, I forgot about Dave. Actually I don’t think we’ve even told him about it yet. And if we did, he wouldn’t remember anyway.

So, with apologies to the movement, I will need to modify our participation. Realistically this year (I’m learning…), I know we won’t be able to do it every week. We will try, but I’m not going to be mental about it like I was with Meatless Mondays.

Also, given the teenage status of my kids, I’m not going to dictate the ingredients and be totally healthy-centric. In general, I cook very healthy. But to truly get Morgan on board, I will have to lift my ban on heavy cream in the kitchen. That just goes without saying. But true to the movement’s purpose of: “dedicating the first day of every week to health. Every Monday, individuals and organizations join together to commit to healthy behaviors that help end chronic preventable diseases.”… I promise to uphold my part of the pact and to do my very best.

Both my kids love to cook already. I just tend not to let them do it. The challenge, you see — for me — will be to really let them do it.

I’m a kitchen control freak.

But I vow I will let them cook and go down in a blaze of glory doing it.

I just hope that last line isn’t literal.

Meatless Monday 43

Disasterpiece Theater. Come along for the ride.

It started out innocently enough:

I found a recipe in an old cookbook of mine called “Simply Tuscan” for Butternut Squash Soup (I know, I know. I said I would not succumb to the temptation of making butternut soup ever again. But this was was different. I swear) with Kale and Farro.

I didn’t have any farro. I did have a big bag of millet that I’ve had for, oh… I don’t know, two years? Three years? I really need to use up this damn millet! When I googled “farro substitutes” I learned that barley is the best thing to use.

I did have barley… but I had just used a boatload of barley last week! I wanted to use the millet. And millet, I did.

I was bubbling with confidence, coming off two recent “winging-it” home runs. The kale soup from last week was AMAZING and this would be TOO!

It was simple to throw together and I left it to simmer on the stove for 40 minutes…

…while I took the wild indians for a walk in the deep snow to wear them out.

When I came back in the house, it smelled WONDERFUL!

“Hopefully,” I thought to myself, “There will be enough to bring to the family from church that I am signed up to make dinner for tomorrow.”

Oh, there was enough alright.

The millet had expanded like little pellets of popcorn, pushing the lid of the Le Cruset pan ajar. (The photo above is only after I cleaned up the mess.)

Undaunted, I transferred the bulk of it to a larger pot and a different, unblemished burner, and added more water. More seasoning. More water…

Lots more water.

I now had used over 16 cups of water spanning two large soup pots. If there was fear I wouldn’t have enough to share, those fears were now extinguished.

The problem was, it just wasn’t all that good.

So I figured I would puree at least some of it. You know, to give it the unctuous, silky texture.

In my mind, it was to be a pale, creamy yellow from the squash and potatoes. Not pea green.

Good Lord.

Back to plan A.

Dave wasn’t home and Charlie was at Robotics class, so I decided to have some fun with Morgan and promptly called her down to dinner. Here you go, hon:

If that was tomatillo salsa, I’d be all over it. But it isn’t.

She never believed me for a second. She’s just no fun anymore. I’m going to have to adopt some new, naive kids so I can have some real fun again.

After she rolled her eyes at me and headed back upstairs to spend some more time with the straightening iron, I sat down to my Plan A bowl, thoughtfully ladled into the ugliest bowl I own.

And, I made a decision.

I, Jennie Menke, would throw this abomination away. Yes. You heard me right. I am going to throw it away!

And I did. All 20 pounds of it.

I have never done anything like that before.

And that is how my kid’s ended up eating at my least favorite fast food restaurant:

While I contemplated this:

Some more of this:

While cleaning this:

Millet, we shall meet again.

(But maybe not for another couple years. After I have my strength back.)

Meatless Monday 42

Fall Barley Risotto

Mmmm. I did it! I finally made a winner. Here’s the thing. In busy times, I tend to do some version of the following for dinner:

  • around 3:30pm when the kids get home, and having lost all track of time, I get up from my computer and look in the freezer
  • I take something out and plop in in a bowl of water to defrost
  • then I forget about it until…
  • somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 pm when one of the kids needs to be somewhere: band, soccer, robotics, yearbook…
  • at which point I usually tell Charlie to have a bowl of cereal, or
  • tell Morgan to stop eating ice cream (or macaroni and cheese or some other large dinner-type substitute)
  • then, I start driving
  • when I return around 8pm, I
  • quickly and randomly throw something together from the defrosted item in the sink and anything I can find in my fridge

It doesn’t leave a lot of room for recipe research. I does leave a lot of room for improvement.

Maybe I have been made delusional from watching Top Chef to think that I, too, can throw some interesting ingredients and flavors together to create a harmonious and delicious meal in 40 minutes or less.

Yes, delusional.

Because it hardly ever works when I wing it. But there is always the exception. And Meatless Monday 42 is just that. The bummer, of course, is that I don’t document anything. I might take one picture and then as the cooking spirals downward, I stop. I mostly laugh.

And drink red wine.

So, I can’t really relate this recipe to you verbatim. But I can tell you the basic outline and structure of the dish. It certainly wouldn’t suffer from variations in ingredients or quantities. The fact that it is a barley risotto, rather than a traditional rice risotto, is simply because after having set my sights on squash risotto, I found I did not have enough rice to make it. Nothing new there. But I did have enough pearled barley. I had tried making a barley risotto sometime last year that was rather disastrous, but I did not let that distract me! Ed on Top Chef made a risotto out of corn! So there!

Here is a comparison of the grains. As you can see, they are somewhat similar. But guess what? Pearled barley (and squash, for that matter) takes over an hour to cook! I didn’t have an hour! (It was already 8 pm at this point, mind you.) So I got out the pressure cooker and dumped the barley in with water (about 2 cups more than the basic recipe on the package called for), a bit of wine and plenty of salt and got it cooking while I put two sweet potatoes in the oven at 425 and sauteed some shallots.

In my brain stem, I felt a familiar stirring: I think I have actually heard of a risotto made entirely in the pressure cooker. Anyone else know of something like that? I know I’ve never tried it, but based on how the barley turned out, I can certainly see promise in concept. The barley was perfect, and the water had turned somewhat risotto-ish — as if I had been stirring it all along.

Anyway, I used water for the broth, rather than stock, because sweet potatoes (or squash) are rich enough. To the sauteed shallots I added a couple of cloves of garlic, then the 1/2 cup of risotto rice I had left in the container. Next, I added about 1/3 cup of white wine, stirring all the while as I normally would with risotto. When the barley was done (after about 15 minutes), I dumped half of it (I froze the other half. Do you have any idea how much two cups of dried barley actually makes? It’s INSANE!) along with it’s cooking liquid into the pot and simmered it with some slivered sage leaves.

When the sweet potatoes were done, I added those to pot, gently stirring to break them up. When everything was cooked to al dente — and barley is very forgiving in this respect, I added about 1/2 cup of finely shredded pecorino and garnished each bowl with a little more. The main spice I used was sage, but in retrospect I would choose rosemary. For whatever reason — and I normally LOVE sage — on this particular night the smell reminded me of cat pee. It seriously bummed me out.

I would also probably choose butternut squash over sweet potato if given enough time to roast it. The sweet potato was good — and very similar to squash — but had a vibrant, Tang-like color that wasn’t all that appealing. I continued to add more pecorino romano, which I have come to love more than aged parmesan, probably because I am cheap. But I really do love the flavor. It’s not quite as strong or sharp. Or something.

Of course the next day NOT being Meatless Monday, I added one small, but spectacular, topping for my lunch: Leftover pot roast!!

Sacrilege!

Meatless Monday 41

Coconut Green Curry with Snap Peas (and Shrimp)

My original intent had been to lump this recipe with Meatless Monday 40 and compress the agony into one post.*

“But that’s not how I roll.”

I just hate that saying. So I just had to say it.

I’m going to sit here and write this until I am done. It is 11:23 am. I am so badly anticipating my lunch of leftover fried rice from last night that I am hoping it will be motivation enough.  (I had to leave a blank space in front of the word “enough” (now underlined) because I cannot think of the word that I want to use! It is at the tip of my tongue, and this happens to me several times a day. My vocabulary has left the building. It is driving me crazy. Hopefully, by the time I am dying of starvation and desire for my fried rice, it will come back to me.)

[I came back to the space before “enough” and had to give it another 30 seconds. Then I remembered — motivation! So happy. Yesterday I couldn’t come up with the word “alienates.” I am fearful for my future. Is it menopause?]

As much as I love my Aroy-D brand green curry, I didn’t know about it until well after my foray into green curry recipes. Today’s recipe is a forerunners to the discovery of my favorite green-curry-in-a-can, Aroy-D. I am a bit ashamed to say that I have never actually made my own green curry paste, as urged in The Big Bowl cookbook, where this recipe is adapted from, though. They claim you will never know how good it can be until you make it yourself.

But I hate shopping. And I really hate hunting for obscure ingredients.

And so, I have never made curry paste. Because, as you might imagine, there are a lot of obscure ingredients required when making it from scratch.

Instead, when curry paste is called for, I’ve used Thai Kitchen brand. It’s pretty good. They changed their recipe years ago, though, which really ticked me off. It used to be made fairly mild and you added your own heat. Back when I had toddlers, that was a must. We couldn’t serve them green curry inferno, now could we? So I always just added more spice to Dave and my dishes. It was a real problem when they changed it while my kids were still young. My solution was to hold way back on the paste and complete the recipe, take portions out for them, then stir in the rest of the curry paste for Dave and I. It worked well, but it still made me mad.

I hate when manufacturers of green curry paste do that, don’t you? It puts them on par with bra and underwear makers. Victoria Secret recently changed the cut of their “low rider bikini.” Suffice to say, I am in Hell today.

So anyway, this was my first favorite green curry recipe. I know shrimp isn’t an option for vegetarians, but it counts as meatless for me. Vegetarians can substitute tofu, or just make sure to coat it with cornstarch and sesame, since those flavors are such a big part of this recipe and the cornstarch slightly thickens the sauce.

*Agony being the retelling of the tale, not the agony of Meatless Mondays. Just so we are clear.

Coconut Green Curry with Shrimp and Snap Peas

  • 2 cans light coconut milk
  • 40 medium raw, deveined, shell-on shrimp, peeled*
  • 2 T cornstarch
  • 1 T sesame oil
  • 2 T fish sauce
  • 1 T lime juice
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, less if you have a nicely seasoned wok
  • 1 large sweet red pepper, julienned
  • I have no idea how many sugar snap peas: If you are a counter, then figure 20-25, Cut fat ones on the diagonal
  • 2 heaping Tablespoons of green curry paste (or to taste)
  • 1  c chicken stock*
  • steamed jasmine rice
  • chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Put the coconut milk in a saucepan and simmer over medium heat until reduced by half. This takes about 20 minutes. If you don’t have the time, then skip this step but reduce recipe to 1 can. Broth will simply be thinner.

Toss the shrimp with the cornstarch and sesame oil and set aside. Stir together fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Set aside.

Heat wok up to smoking point and add oil. When hot but not smoking, add the shrimp and cook until barely translucent, about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from pan leaving any remaining oil.

Add the peppers and snap peas to the wok and toss over high heat. Push to the side and add the curry paste, mashing it with a fork, then add the chicken stock*. After a minute or two add the coconut milk. When hot, stir in the shrimp and fish sauce mixture.

Serve over hot rice and sprinkle with cilantro. Serves 4 with the requisite container of leftovers for my lunch the next day.

*I sometimes use stock made from the shrimp shells in place of chicken stock. You just save the shells from the shrimp and add to 2 cups of water and simmer until reduced to 1 cup. Strain the shells. I encourage you to try it. It allows you to feel superior, smug and frugal all at the same time. In the photo below, I tried to get even fancier. I added the shells to the coconut milk, thinking I could save myself one more dirty pan. I don’t recommend it. It is too hard to strain. It allowed me to feel inventive, smug and stupid, all at the same time.

Meatless Monday 40

Normally this stuff just flows from my fingers without pause. But it is confirmed. I officially dread writing about Meatless Mondays.

This post has been half-finished for over a week now. And I won’t let myself post anything new until I get it done. The agony… of bad pictures and uninspired writing.

But you have to give me kudos for trying. And trying I am still. The past two weeks we have had two — actually three — meatless dishes. But remember, oh yee of actual vegetarianism: I consider fish and shellfish to be meatless. So I know that negates at least one of the dishes for the truly hardcore.

And, as usual, I lack photos. The days are getting shorter here in Minnesota. A lot shorter. And we eat late. I mean really late. I’m not all that concerned about photography when I’m frantically trying to get dinner on the table before 9 pm.

I’m also not a writer dedicated to showcasing my photography to the point of making meals in the middle of the day in order to style the dish and photograph it on a sublime background in the pleasing light of the setting sun. Do you know how many people actually do that? It is truly mind boggling. You can go ooh and ahh over their posts. Here’s a funny irony: my friends shake their heads at me and say “Where do you find the time…” and I shake my head at all those beautiful photos on those beautiful blogs and say “Where do they find the time…”

No, I grab the closest camera and snap. Flash and all.

Did you know that flash photography is the horror of all horrors? Seriously. Another little known fact for all you non-food-blogging types. Which, I hope for my sake, are most of you reading this.

But I have  two Meatless Monday winners that I haven’t posted before, so I should at least share the basics. The first, Meatless Monday 40, is a dish I tried to replicate from the old Sidney’s Restaurants here in the Twin Cities. They made this spicy sausage with peppers in tomato cream sauce which I just loved. I came up with a recipe that I thought came fairly close. Of course it wasn’t quite as good, because I could never knowingly use as much cream as they did and still enjoy eating it.

That’s probably why we all like to eat out so much. Because ignorance is bliss. Well, I guess I can’t slap that generalization on The Pioneer Woman who starts every recipe with a pint of cream and a stick of butter, but she is a CATTLE RANCHER, for goodness sake. I sit on my butt all day doing graphic design for free. I have to live by different rules.

Anyway, I recently made this for Meatless Monday, sans the italian sausage. The sausage was sadly missed but the dish was still surprisingly good.

Spicy Penne with Tomato Cream and Sweet Red Peppers*

* The photo shown above does not show this incarnation of the recipe. It shows Meatless Monday 36, when I made it with sage and yellow peppers and lots of oregano. It wasn’t nearly as good, though I did love those big pasta tubes! I recommend the following version of the dish. While the recipe is not precise, the herbs are more subtle and the red peppers more plentiful.

  • 1 lb Penne or Rigatoni pasta, cooked al dente in salted water
  • 1 small onion diced
  • 1 clove fresh garlic minced or 3 cloves Garlic Confit mashed
  • 1-2 cups of diced or pureed tomato — canned or fresh or combo — amount depending on your love of tomatoes
  • ~ 1/2 cup  half and half or cream — amount and type depending on your love of a flat stomach
  • 1 t red pepper flakes
  • 1-2 t sugar
  • 1 sweet red pepper sliced into skinny strips– green works if it is winter and red peppers cost as much as truffles.
  • 1 t dried thyme (or 1T fresh)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup fresh pecorino shreds — or parmigiano  if you are rich

Obviously there is no rocket science here. Saute the onion in a bit of olive oil over low to medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic and saute another minute, then add the tomatoes, thyme, salt, pepper and sugar and cook on low for a bit — maybe 10 minutes or so. About 5 minutes before serving add the peppers and cream. I like my peppers to stay firm and not be mushy. If you like them soft, add them earlier. Don’t let the cream boil.

Toss the half pasta with the sauce, adding pasta until you get the consistency you like. (I use about 3/4 of the pasta usually and save the rest for eating with butter. mmm). Sprinkle pecorino over and serve hot!

*******

Something I discovered that you probably already know: heat your pasta bowl in a very low oven (250 or so) for 10 minutes before tossing your pasta in it. I was always afraid to do this with my big, pretty bowls. But as I get older, I don’t care as much. Maybe it’s because I have more bowls. Anyway, IT MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE and keeps the pasts SO FRICKEN HOT for so much LONGER. It makes me feel like I’m eating it in a restaurant where I never fail to marvel, “How the heck do they get the pasta this hot?” Now I know.

Meatless Monday Catch-Up

Meatless Mondays 28 – 38.

I know you all just think I fell off the Meatless Monday wagon. That I am too ashamed to even admit it.

But you are wrong.

We’re still doing Meatless Monday. I just haven’t been writing about it. There are several reasons why:

  • They have been lame.
  • They have been lame.
  • And, they have been lame.

Remember when I said I wanted to do no repeaters?

Fail.

Remember when I said having plain noodles or rice was a cop-out and I wouldn’t do it?

I’m a hypocrite.

Remember when I said we’d — all of us — be eating Meatless Monday together, even if it wasn’t on a Monday?

I was on drugs.

But I’m a stubborn one. I’m not giving up. Just yesterday, I was busy stewing up a Meatless Monday enchilada recipe for dinner to be made with my freshly made green tomato sauce.

This isn’t tomato sauce made with unripe, green tomatoes.

Rather, it is made with the variety of tomato (Green Zebra and Green Grape in this instance) that is green when it is ripe:

A delicious, delicious variety. Probably one of my favorites.

And one that should never, ever be made into tomato sauce.

And yet I did, because what the hell else am I going to do with two buckets full of them? They’ll rot before we can eat them with fresh mozzarella. Not to mention that if I ate that much mozzarella, I would start to look like a log of the stuff myself.

What to make with green tomato sauce, what to make with green tomato sauce…

Green enchiladas! Yes! (I mean, that would look OK, right? Sort of like salsa verde??)

What to add, what to add…

Those extra frozen red beans from the batch I made in June!

And it was all downhill from there. The red beans had big chunks of chorizo that I had forgotten about, wrecking my Meatless Monday plans (yeah, I know it was Sunday, just go with me here). The addition made the sauce a sick orangish color that looked like vomit. So I figured, what the heck, I’ll add some of these chicken legs… The very legs that had been holding up one of my roosters up about three hours before.

And I sat there stirring that ungodly brew, sort of crying about those stupid roosters and thinking of becoming a full-time vegetarian.

Seriously. There is nothing like butchering your own meat to push you over the edge.

Wait. That isn’t accurate. I’m sounding way too cool. You are probably thinking, “Wow. She killed them herself?” No, no, no.  I’m a ninny. I always think I can do it, but I actually can’t. It’s happened several times out here. Me thinking I can kill any number of varmints. But I never can.

I do hunt upland birds, but I think I can do that because there is always the chance I will miss them. A good chance. It’s certainly never a sure thing.

Going into the coop, where I have fussed and carried on to keep the chickens safe and not afraid of me. To go in grab them and kill them? Nope. Sorry. No can do.

That’s what dads are for.

My dad.

It was the nicest thing he’s ever done for me. I know it was hard for him because he babies my chickens even more than me. He offered to help since he had the time. I knew he didn’t really want to do it and yet I let him do the whole dang thing. Dave was finally obligated to help him once he realized it was really happening. He didn’t want to look like a ninny, either. But the truth is, no one really wanted to do the deed, Dave included.

And I hid in the kitchen wringing my hands.

What a weenie.

I did do a brave thing later on. I actually cooked a couple of the legs.

And it made me sad. I’m not going vegetarian, but it does seriously make you consider every bite.

Every dang bite of every morsel of chicken. You gettin’ my drift? Chewing chicken has never been so hard…

So, for Meatless Monday tonight I had this:

It might have been the best one ever: Blue cheese on triscuts with red wine. Just me and my blue cheese with a book and some wine.

Meatless Monday suddenly took a turn for the better.