Breakfast for Dinner

It's funny how excited people get when they're given the option to have breakfast for dinner.  Or even breakfast for lunch.  Places like the Waffle House pretty much bank on the fact that people love breakfast and will eat it any time of the day.


I imagine it hasn't always been like this, though.  I would think 50 years ago when the dutiful wife stayed home to raise the kids and take care of the breadwinning husband, part of her job was to make a really great breakfast.  So I can picture her waking up every morning, going downstairs, getting that coffee pot going and then making eggs, bacon, and toast to serve to her husband once he's got his suit on and ready to go to work.  In that context, why would you ever want to have breakfast for dinner?  You have breakfast for breakfast every day and having eggs a second time in one day would just get boring.


Today, it's rare for me to make a really nice breakfast.  Typical these days for me is to have some sort of oatmeal.  And although I do sometimes go a little crazy and get non-instant oatmeal so it actually takes me a few minutes to make, this is about as wild as I get and certainly taking the time for eggs, bacon, or anything else is out of the question.

Which is why I, too, get excited when it's time to have breakfast for dinner.  One of my favorite breakfast items is the waffle.  There's something great about waffles and they can be made in so many different ways.  Last night, I created my own concoction from a few things I had on hand.  The base of the batter was a simple mix from Stonewall Kitchen (I could write a number of posts just on different recipes and mixes), their pumpkin variety.  I've found the pumpkin variety to be a bit too pumpkin-y for my taste, so what I did was combine their mix with an equal portion of Bisquick.  I also added some vanilla and eggs.  That gave me the batter:

For those observant folks, yes, I am again drinking wine from a juice glass.  Tonight's selection is actually a port.  More on why I had the port out tomorrow.

Once the batter was made, it was time to put it in the waffle iron, wait a few minutes, and bam, a beautiful waffle:

As a side, I poached an egg just because one waffle doesn't typically fill me up.  But there you have it, breakfast for dinner.

Now, I don't typically mention dessert, but I will today just because I was using one of my new toys.  From Grandma Marty, I got a milkshake maker.  Now, this isn't some sort of Williams Sonoma $250 milkshake maker made to look like a vintage one.  This is the real deal and it makes some great shakes.  Last night was pretty simple: strawberry ice cream, milk, and a little Hershey's syrup.  Very good.  The great thing is that it makes the shakes the perfect, thick consistency.

Until tomorrow, happy eating!

Leftover time!

So it's pretty clear that most of these things I make could feed a small army.  While it's possible I could actually have a small army staying at my place, the reality is that I make these large recipes for two reasons. 

The first relates to a problem almost any single person living alone would say: recipes for small portions don't exist.  Well, obviously that's not entirely true, as there are entire cookbooks devoted to dinners for one or two.  But at the same time, it's hard to roast a chicken that only feeds one or two, so there are times when it's just not possible to make something small (I suppose I could roast a quail, but then it sure would be hard to stuff it with a lemon).

The second (and real) reason I try to make large portions is that they create leftovers!  Leftovers are, in my opinion, one of the greatest things in the world.  I mean, for last night's meal, I had roasted chicken and potatoes with a side salad -- and it took me five minutes to make.  I don't know how people lived prior to microwaves; I use mine all the time. 

Leftovers are also perfect for lunch.  Increasingly, I am trying to avoid eating things like sandwiches or frozen meals for lunch.  I will eat them some, but processed foods tend to have such unhealthy ingredients and almost always have high levels of sodium.  As Jamie Oliver so deftly pointed out: if you read the side of a carton and there's anything you can't pronounce, it's probably not that good for you.

And so, without further ado, I present last night's dinner:

Delicious, healthy, and ready before Fritz could finish his business outside.  Leftovers: A good thing.

Slow cookin'

Growing up, my parents never used a slow cooker to make dinner.  This is, I think, a little surprising because they both worked.  It seems like for working parents who may not really want to cook every night or who don't necessarily have the energy to, the slow cooker is a gift sent from above. 

For those of you who have never used a slow cooker, let me explain the basic principles of how it works.  You put a piece of meat in the cooker.  You turn it on, cook the hell out of it, and 10 hours later, you have a delicious dinner waiting for you.

Wait, you must be thinking to yourself, there must be more to it than that!  Well, yes, of course it isn't quite that simple, but it's pretty darn close.  The meal you see below literally involves three items: a packet of Italian seasoning, apple cider vinegar, and a hunk of meat. 

Now there are a lot of more interesting meals you can create in a slow cooker, from soups to dips to anything in between.  And they don't all have to involve cooking the living daylights out of your food.  Or even the use of meat, as the astute readers of my blog might enjoy the irony of having me discuss my dilemma of eating meat one day and then the next, I'm making a 3 pound roast. You'll see I use the slow cooker quite often, usually around the middle of the week when I know I'm going to be tired and just want to have something ready when I get home.

Last night's meal was Italian Beef sandwiches, a specialty of Grandma Marty.  You literally put a 3 pound roast in the slow cooker, pour the seasoning and vinegar on top, and cook it for 10 (or more) hours.  When you get home, this is what you'll find, a pot full of deliciousness:

Anything that cooks this long falls apart the second you touch it, so it shreds beautifully to make a sandwich.  Throw a few banana peppers on top (if you like, I actually don't), and you're good to go:

To try to redeem this meal a little, I made a large bowl of fruit to go with it!

This is one of the easiest meals to make if you are having a group of friends over because it's easy, makes a ton, and tastes delicious.  

By the way, for those of you wondering, you'll notice I use a slow cooker bag.  These are, I believe, a true testament to American inventiveness and wastefulness.  They are, as the name implies, simply plastic bags that you put in your slow cooker so that when you're done, cleaning literally involves picking up the bag and throwing it away.  Genius.  I don't use these for everything I make, but for things like this, I throw caution to the wind.

Animal Rights with a side of eggplant parmigiana

I, like just about everyone else in the world, have always loved animals.  I have had a dog my entire life, as well as the occasional bunny, hamster, bird, and fish.  I even had a pet turtle for one day, earning perhaps the dubious distinction of being the only person to ever have a turtle successfully run away.  It was this love for animals that drove me, at the tender age of 12, to participate in an anti-fur demonstration outside the flagship Nordstrom store in Seattle.

You see, I had just discovered that there are people in the world who buy fur coats--fur coats that are made from animals!  Shocking!  What an egregious act, I thought, and one that surely deserved more attention.  And so, along with my best friend from school, we joined a group of protesters, were handed anti-fur signs, and headed to Nordstrom.

Sidebar: Looking back, it's quite amusing that this random group of hippies had no problems letting two unknown 12 year olds get into their Vanagon, drive us to downtown Seattle, hand us anti-fur signs, and send us on our merry way.  Incidentally, getting into a Vanagon of strangers is but one of many things I wouldn't recommend your child do.

Sidebar #2: I love that this anti-fur demonstration was happening in Seattle.  Seattle is one of the most liberal cities in the country and, on top of that, is generally not that cold and mainly damp.  Not exactly prime fur wearing territory, but what did I know?

So for the first hour or so, the protest was going well, as far as I could tell.  We were walking around Nordstrom telling people not to buy fur and generally speaking, everyone agreed with what we were saying.  Then things took a terrible turn.  As I was standing out there telling everyone who was walking by about the horrors of wearing fur, a woman came up to me and asked me why I was protesting fur while wearing leather shoes.  Crap.  Even my 12 year old self realized I was caught being totally hypocritical.  After all, there I was, demanding that people avoid wearing fur because it's cruel to kill animals for clothing... and I was wearing leather shoes.  So I quickly retorted: "Oh, these aren't leather.  They're just really nice fakes."  "Really," the woman replied, "Nike makes fake leather shoes?"  She chuckled and went on her way.  She was right, of course, Nike didn't make fake leather shoes, but saying that all the cool kids wore Nikes and canvas shoes were out of style just didn't seem like as good of an answer as "they're fakes."  Needless to say, this was my last fur protest, as I was unwilling to stop wearing cool shoes and couldn't reconcile wearing leather while protesting fur.

A similar conflict has arisen in me in recent years as I've learned more about our production of meat.  While we like to believe that happy cows really do come from California and that the meat we eat enjoy lazy days in the sun before dying on their own right before being put into the deep freezer, the reality would appear to be anything but that.  And so I have begun to wonder if being an animal lover and meat eater is hypocritical, just like wearing leather shoes and boycotting fur was.

I will leave my full thoughts on this for another day.  For now, it's enough to say that my thoughts about meat have forced me to begin to explore more vegetarian meals.  This is not something I excel at, as almost every cookbook I've ever used might have a vegetarian section, but it's typically quite small.  And so part of my goal for 2011 is to experiment more and start creating more vegetarian main dishes, which brings me to last night.

I decided that one of the easier dishes one could probably make is an eggplant parmigiana.  Here's what I did, and I think it turned out pretty darn well.  I began by roasting some eggplant slices for about 15 minutes:

Once they were roasted, I put a base layer of a basic tomato sauce, then added a layer of eggplant, then more sauce, freshly shredded mozzarella and parmigiana cheese, and some basil.  I repeated that for a few layers, then topped it with some bread crumbs I made in the toaster oven by just cutting up some bread I had on hand:

This is the final result after it baked for about 20 minutes or so:

And then here it is plated with a nice salad, and dinner at my place is served:

I have to admit, this was really good and with meals like this, I could see how you could replace a lot of meat in dishes. We'll see how I do during the rest of the year as I attempt to do this with more and more frequency.
 

LA Pasta

When I first moved to LA after college, I was broke.  Like seriously broke.  I had moved out there with what seemed like an enormous $1500 in the bank account -- a sum that was quickly reduced to nearly nothing after finding an apartment and paying my first month's rent plus security deposit.  Fortunately, my first apartment was approximately the size of a Yugo, only without all the nice amenities, so I did still have a little money left after paying the landlord.  I was not sure when I was going to find a job, though, so I needed to make that money stretch.

Most apartments in LA don't come with a refrigerator (you're expected to bring your own!) and mine was no exception.  Because of the lack of funds, I was unable to purchase one and so it made eating a bit of a challenge.  After all, I couldn't buy anything perishable.  To make matters worse, I only had one pot to cook with.  While this sounds like the start of a Top Chef challenge, there were no trips to Whole Foods on my horizon, as the closest grocery store to me was Jons.  Now, for those of you who've never been to LA or have only visited, you probably think I just put a typo in and meant to write Vons.  After all, Vons is a large grocery store chain that many people use.  Except that is not where I went; I went to Jons or, as we liked to call it, ghetto Vons.  The place makes Food Lion look upscale.

And so began my routine of going to Jons to figure out what I could make while spending the least amount of money.  Here's what I came up with: large boxes of dried pasta were, of course, really cheap, so that's where I began.  Of course, eating Jons spaghetti plain would have been rather bland so I needed some sort of sauce to go on it.  Jars of marinara sauce were an option, but I generally didn't need that much sauce for the amount of pasta I was making, which, without refrigeration, was just the minimum I needed to eat at each meal.  I also recognized that I should be eating vegetables.  My solution?  I would buy a can of Campbell's vegetable soup and use that as my marinara sauce.  What?  That sounds disgusting, you're thinking, and you'd be right.  It was a watery disaster.  So, to make things a little more palatable, I would also buy a small can of tomato paste and mix that in with the pasta and soup, thereby making a thicker sauce.  And that, my friends, is what I survived on until I finally started working about a month later.

Incidentally, it would be another year before I finally got a fridge.

With that in mind, it's clear I've come a long way since those first apartment pasta dinners, which is what I made last night. Last night's dish began with some onion, garlic, and olive oil in a pot.

After things became translucent and fragrant, I added some tomatoes and basil to make the beginning of my sauce.

That simmered for about 20 minutes or so before I added in some cream:

Meanwhile, I've been baking some spicy turkey sausage, which I'm about to cut up to go into the sauce:

Throw in the turkey sausage, some blanched peas, fresh cheese, and we have a nice sauce to go on our pasta:

At last, we have the final product all pulled together.  With this, I had some fruit (apple and orange) and a salad (what I would call my house salad because I make it so much -- lettuce, carrots, celery, broccoli, etc) tossed with a raspberry vinaigrette.  And yes, I hadn't quite finished off the wine from the night before, so I stuck with it.

At some point in the future, I'm going to have to try to recreate those first pasta dinners and figure out a way to make them good (if possible).  For now, I'll just stick with this.

Good old fashioned chicken dinner

As I was thinking about starting this blog, I had to decide what dinner I should start with.  I decided that there is something really fantastic about a chicken dinner.  This used to be the quintessential American Sunday dinner and, since I was starting this on a Sunday, I thought it only seemed appropriate.

To make this, I began with some fingerling potatoes, rosemary, thyme, lemons, and olive oil.  You know, for me, there are really few things better than the smell (or taste!) of fresh herbs:

Once the potatoes were ready, I salted and peppered the inside of the chicken, then stuffed it with a lemon, more thyme and rosemary, and garlic.  I rubbed the outside with olive oil, put it on top of the potatoes, and it was ready for the oven.

While the chicken was going, I made a simple beurre blanc sauce, which consisted of shallots, peppercorn, and a bay leaf being cooked in white wine.  Once that was reduced, I added butter and this was the result:

 After about an 1:45, the chicken was ready to come from the oven. 

I then cut up the chicken and plated it with the potatoes.  I added some green beans with the beurre blanc sauce and there you have it, a wonderful Sunday chicken dinner.  And yes, you can see a juice glass at the top of this picture filled with some of the white wine I used to make the sauce.  Classy, I know.

 

Welcome to my kitchen!

Hello and thanks for checking out my blog.  Food has always been important to me and I've decided to start this blog so I can share my love for food with others.  My plan is to update it daily with what I made the previous night (or, at the very least, what I ate).  We'll see how this goes... and I hope you enjoy the ride.

Happy Eating!
Temple