Cottage Pie?

Hubby loves the meat and potatoes and is overjoyed that I've agreed to eat some beef now and then. One of his fave's while I was avoiding meat was a frozen organic shepherd's pie from Natures. Back in the day I too enjoyed a hearty pie so I decided to try making one for the first time.

Through my few internet searches I learned that a Shepherd's pie is made with lamb, duh! A similar pie made with beef is called a Cottage pie. Nonetheless I've decided to use a recipe from epicurious titled Shepher's Pie.

We raced home this evening to slave away over the stove for hours... ha! Seriously.

Andy took potato duty and got busy peeling, dicing and boiling the russets for good old mashers while I got to the meat of the situation. This slicing and dicing carrots and onions. Once those were sauteeing I dumped 1lb James Ranch ground round into the center of the pan of frying veggies.

This was about the time my cats began molesting my legs. In order to tame the beasts I retrieve a few choice chunks of burger and transferred those to three small plates for the boys. Simian is really the only one of the three that enjoys these kinds of treats but I feel obligated to divy a portion for all knowing full well Simian will clean up after the others. A short while later I heard Andy screaming "Nooooo!" As it turns out, the burger had a bad reaction with whatever Simian caught and ate earlier and all of it ended up on the dining room floor. Yuck!

Finding his stomach baren Simian took up his place on my leg and continued grinding and purring to no avail.

In the meantime, I'd added approximately 1 Tbs tomato paste, 1/2 cup red wine, 1/2 cup organic chicken broth, several splashes Worcerstershire, minced garlic, diced fresh rosemary and fresh Italian parsley to the sauteeing veggies and burger. This simmered for several minutes and I added some fresh ground pepper, garlic powder and salt. Cooking a few minutes more and then a taste test. Good, but I added a splash more wine and Worcerstershire :p

It all comes together, meat and veggies on the bottom, topped with the mashers to bake at 375 for 30 minutes.

Looks fantastic! I think... taking my enzymes now :P

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Tonight it’s meat. Just for you, baby, because you’re so special.

Still living paycheck to paycheck and today is one of those days I find myself scouring our cupboards for interesting ingredients. Not one to embrace normal or routine in my kitchen so I’m always looking for new ways to impress myself. Tonight I have a hankering for meatballs with some kind of sauce. Fortunately my search was fruitful and I found a pound of ground beef from James Ranch… Oh yeah! This is an easy sell to the hubby.

First, what kind? Second, what ingredients do we have? Pickings are slim so I scroll through the fave sites, epicurious and allrecipes. One recipe jumps out which calls for day old rye bread. we're in luck! We do in fact have old rye bread and it hasn’t visibly molded yet. Oh joy! The reviews look good but I’m not convinced by the accompanying cream gravy sauce so I continue my search. In the end Rye prevails.

The recipe starts with soaking rye bread in beef broth. I’ve opted for a few Tbs of 2% milk, something I saw in one of the many other recipes. From there it moves on simply enough, sautéing minced onions in butter, with my addition of three small cloves of garlic, green center vein removed. I sprinkle in some pepper and add some Worcestershire sauce because I just can’t resist. I’ve tried the healthy alternatives and they are nothing like true Worcestershire! Vegetarian, vegan or whatever I will never give up good flavorings.

While the onions were cooling I cracked one egg into the large bowl of soaking bread, keeping the egg confined to one side. I lightly scrambled the egg and then mixed with the bread. To this I added a couple pinches of allspice and a light layer of salt. The bread was soggy so it tore up easily but I ended up mashing the bread mixture into a sort of pasty substance, with no visible lumps of bread. Added the burger and tried to mix with a large fork, but eventually opted for my bare hands and it came together much better. It’s cooling in the fridge now.

Ok, so here is when the hubby nonchalantly vetoes the cream sauce the recipe calls for. No worries, we have a can of Muir organic crushed tomatoes. Besides if he wants tomato sauce I have to take it when I can get it, not being a favorite of his. My plan now is simple: chop the other half of my onion and sauté in butter. Pour in the tomatoes, add spices and simmer.

The recipe calls for sautéing the meatballs but I’ve decided to bake some of the meatballs and then freeze for later use. Once the sautéed meatballs were done I removed and set aside. I quickly sautéed the additional onion and a bit of garlic and then the tomato puree, and add a bit of Worcestershire to the sauce. The bottle says “unlock the possibilities” and it sure does! The sauce now consists of pureed, crushed tomatoes (Andy doesn’t like the chunks), sautéed onions, garlic powder, a mix of dried Italian herbs and the little bits of burned meatball left sticking to the pan.

The tomato sauce will simmer for nearly 10 minutes while the frozen garlic bread bakes. We are limited to carb accompaniments and between spaghetti and linguine, linguine wins. Sure wish we had a veggie or two to go with this…

We’ll have to settle for sippin’ on warm tequila tonight as I’ve just finished our very last Ska ESB. I’m laying down the law tonight, he’s watching disk one of two, Gone with the Wind. Ha!

We ended up pan frying 8 small meatballs and the smallest ended up falling apart. The other 20+ smallish balls are baking in the oven at 400 with our loaf of garlic bread.

We were off the ball a bit and forgot until just a few minutes ago about cooking the pasta. The water is hopefully near boiling by now as we have ten minutes until most systems are a go…!


For some reason, I’m the “when in doubt add a dash of cayenne” type. The sauce is simmering and the meatballs are cooling on the side. Hubby has ground some Parmesan and is downstairs preparing the movie.

Twelve minutes later the alarm goes off and the bread is done. So are the meatballs, I think, so I shut off the oven leaving the baked meatballs until I’m ready for them. The pasta is still cooking and therefore so is the sauce. The plates are out and I’m famished.

The point of it all

I suppose I could be seen as picky, or as a food snob. My husband has commented that I intimidate him in the kitchen; that if he were to cook, I’d be stalking behind him secretly critiquing. That is total BS.

For me, food consumption is multifaceted:

First, I love the taste of food I don’t just love to eat. I love the act of cooking and for me, someone lacking artistic abilities, cooking is my art. It’s being pleasantly surprised by something visually as well as through taste, smell and feel. Of course when I was younger I was less experimental but more often than not I was at least willing to try something. The list of things I will not eat is very, very small, i.e. headcheese and other noxious items.

Secondly, I have a theory : the cleaner my food is the better it is for my body, the easier to digest both physically and mentally. It really just comes down to caring about what I put into my body. From a not young enough age I realized it was in my best interest to keep myself on a pedestal. I do not mean that I look down my nose at others, more that I hold myself to a certain standard. Why is simple. We’re all going to age and at some time we will all die. From here to there I want to be as healthy and active as possible. I want to enjoy all the years. I’m 34 now. The days of my wanton youth are gone to some degree. If I’m lucky enough to be here to see the ripe old age of 90 as my maternal grandmother just hit I certainly want it to be a comfortable journey.

I have a younger friend, we’ll call her “Emma”, who has been repeatedly dealt a shitty hand. More often than not she finds herself looking forward to her death to some degree. She does it all wrong. Shit food, smokes a ton of menthol cigs, drinks into oblivion, etc. She doesn’t care about her health in the least. She laughs in health’s face… really it’s more of a shrill cackle.

But that’s her and I’m me.

For me finding a new recipe and working it out is a bit like my writing. I get an idea, a hankering for something so I let my mind wrap around the idea. Do I have the things to make it work? If not, can I improvise? Are the ingredients interesting enough to peak my curiosity?

This brings me to the point of this blog. I like to write as much, if not more than I like experimenting in the kitchen. I need to write more. I want to write more. The ladies in my writing workshop have been talking about getting published. One woman noted how much easier it is if you are known, whether through your online rantings or through actual publications. So here I am experimenting in this new world of blogging.

While I hope that you the readers will not only help me to find and nourish my voice, I also look forward to sharing some of my fantastic adventures and most likely a lot of hard learned lessons in the kitchen.