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I’m mostly good with the whole gluten-free thing. My health has so improved since I de-glutened my life that I hardly ever cast sad eyes on crusty French baguettes or Canadian Oreos* or puff pastry.
Except.
Once upon a time, if my day had been full of printer errors and cranky clients and buck-passing coworkers, I would console myself with an order of Zip’s chicken strips. Crunchy, salty, fried to a dark golden brown – whether my crisis was occupational or hormonal, an order of chicken strips would always make me feel better.
*Random fact! Canadian Oreos are actually ten poobley times better than American Oreos. Perhaps it is the magic Mountie dust? Or the fact that they use real sugar instead of corn syrup? Either way, hand over your Oreos, Canadians, and no one gets hurt!
(Recipe after break. For chicken. Recipe for Oreos: Drive to Canada. The End.)
When I was first learning to cook –really cook, not heat up Steakums like I did in college — Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything was my bible. It’s just a really good book for beginners. Bittman’s recipes aren’t fussy and his instructions always leave room for improvisation. These days I don’t have much time to try out new recipes, but there a couple of favorites from How to Cook …. that I still turn to regularly. One of my favorites, especially when I have leftover steak (yes, that happens even in our ridiculously carnivorous household) is the Beef Salad with Mint.
My colleague, Ms. Janie Jones, can probably out-frugal me any day of the week. But even though thrift does not come naturally to me (says she whose ass is currently clad in designer denim), I too have a few Recessionista tricks up my sleeve. Read the rest of this entry »
I like to think I am a fairly adventurous eater. I’ve had frog legs and snails and many, many types of raw seafood. In fact, one of my earliest memories is happily nomming on tuna maki at age 3.
However, I regarded ground beef in deep, deep suspicion. Not because I feared mad-cow disease or prions or food-poisioning, because hello, I was six. I just found it completely disgusting (well, I liked hamburgers, if they came from Burger King.) I insisted on meat-free sauce on pasta nights, and found meatloaf to be completely unnatural — meat should not be in loaf-form! Since my parents had a two-bites rule, I once sat at the dinner table for two hours after everyone else left, because I refused to touch that loathesome thing.
Anyway, as a grownup, I’ve been slowly conquering my fear of ground meat products. I eat meaty burgers with gusto and like a good bowl of chili. But I had yet to brave the mighty meatball. But yesterday was a cold, wet, nasty day, calling for a big bowl of pasta and a bottle of wine, and for some reason, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs seemed really appealing. I threw this together based on a couple recipes I found on the internet, and it is surprisingly meatbally delicious.
Not-Scary Meatballs
- 1 lb ground beef and 1lb ground pork (making these meatballs verboten to observant Jews, Muslims and Hindus alike)
- 1 tbsp chopped fresh Italian parsley
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- a couple big dashes of Worcestershire sauce
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup breadcrumbs. (I used equal parts Panko and Italian breadcrumbs, because why not?)
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- about 5 minced garlic cloves. (I add extra garlic to everything, just in case I’m ever attacked by vampires.)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Mash everything up in a big bowl. If you have a food mixer type thing, you can also probably use that. Scoop into balls about an inch and a half in diameter, then bake at 400F for about 30 minutes or so. Serve over pasta and marinara, and pop open a bottle of wine.
Freeze the leftovers for the next rainy cold day, or the next time you feel like facing your fears.
Some people don’t eat animals. Some meat-eaters don’t eat red meat. Some red-meat-eaters don’t eat veal. This dish is not for those people.
If, on the other hand, you’re an evil omnivore, you will need:
You will need...
- veal
- onion
- red pepper
- spinach
- mushrooms
- baby Brussels sprouts
- soft goat cheese
- pepper
- basil
- oil
Sometimes I buy those mutant rotisserie chickens at Costco and we end up only eating about half as actual roast chicken. Then we’re left with another half a chicken that nobody wants to eat and I am way too much my mother’s child to just ditch it, so I make one of two things with the meat I strip off the bone: enchiladas or chicken tortilla soup. You don’t need the enchiladas recipe, it’s the one from the bottle of Trader Joe’s enchilada sauce. But you do need the chicken tortilla recipe.
muttonbreath is going to be here any minute to remind me that Che ain’t cool, but hear me out: A Chicago Irish girl takes the humble Cubano on a whirlwhind tour of Europe in an homage to the emerging global economy… and knocks out some pesky leftovers besides. Revolutionary indeed!
I must protest Miss Janie Jones’s accusation that I, as one of her fellow dorks, am a lady of taste and refinement. I mean, of course I have taste; look who I picked for blog buddies. But refinement? Do I LOOK like I have time for refinement? No, if Janie is the queen of cheap, then I am the queen of easy. (Stop snickering, you perverts. Not that kind of easy.) It’s not that I don’t have time, exactly, but I surely don’t have time in which I am not sleep-deprived, constantly interrupted, or both. Don’t plan to come to my house for cassoulet for a decade or so.
My fellow Kitchen Dorks are ladies of grace and refinement. They make beautifully lit hummus, gorgeous sorbet, delectable pies, and (inexplicably) small cakes shaped like bugs. Me, not so much. For better or worse, I am one cheap cook, and I am here with my wobbly camera and my generic spices to show you how to make The 43-Cent Burrito.
That’s mojo, specifically Cuban-style. It’s a visual pun!
First of all, run right out and get some cheap pork right now! Since the swine flu panic turned out to be so much ado about nothing (and, really, who could possibly have seen that coming?), I imagine the prices will go back up in a hurry.
This tenderloin, about three quarters of a pound, cost me $4.50, which is actually quite amazing for my extremely urban neck of the woods. Generally, if you want to pay less than $30 a pound for your meat here in the down-town, you have to either cut off the green parts or kill it yourself.
As for the mojo, I have absolutely no Cuban heritage to my credit and have, in fact, never even tasted authentic mojo. Nonetheless, I’ve had a bee in my hat to give it a try for quite some time. So why not now? Hey, even if it sucked, I’ve only drained $4.50.
Kitchen Dorkitude 