dinner theater

I made a recipe from scratch tonight. Well, mostly from scratch.

Yet again, I was on a quest to empty our freezer… I happened to have an abundance of frozen cranberries (you gotta stock up when they’re in season!), and a bag of pearl onions, and more ground beef. I remembered a brisket with cranberries recipe from Everyday Food that I’d found a couple years ago and have made a few times that we love. How could I turn that into a recipe with ground beef?

You make it into soup! I had a beef soup bone in Andrew’s mom’s freezer (points for using up even MORE from our frozen stash!), so I boiled that and made some broth. Then I made meatballs with parsley (also frozen into ice cubes from our garden), sun-dried tomatoes and herbs.

I tried to make them as small as possible–kinda like italian wedding soup. I assembled them early in the day and then refrigerated them.

I boiled the cranberries down with a little tomato sauce, tomato paste and garlic. It smelled awesome! Can I just say that I am SO READY to have a house? I need more than two burners, and my knives need to be sharpened and I just miss my kitchen stuff. Moving on.

I rolled the meatballs in flour and browned them in a skillet, then added them to the soup. I added the last of our whole-wheat egg noodles (score!) and cooked until they were al dente.

By the time I served up the soup, the cranberries had all but disappeared.

Andrew’s face said it all when he tasted the broth–too tart! It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the “beefy” soup flavor I was going for. So much for making something from scratch! I saved the leftovers but discarded the broth; I’m going to try to find a fancy-schmancy spaghetti sauce at Wegmans tomorrow to use with it for dinner.

We rushed out the door to catch one of the last performances of “As You Like It” at Shakespeare in the Park. Each summer (for the last 36 years!), the troupe has been performing most nights (all but Mondays) in Delaware Park and it’s free. You can bring lawn chairs or blankets, food and drink. In retrospect, we should have packed a picnic dinner or picked something up on the way, as most people did. Lots of people were drinking wine. So fun.

Next year we’ll have to be more prepared with chairs (we brought a blanket from the room), sweatshirts and dinner. I so wanted to snack, but was full-ish from dinner.

We ended up leaving at intermission because we were cold and Andrew was a bit bored. I had gotten into it, but it was pretty hard to follow since it’s Shakespeare, we didn’t have a great view, we arrived late and neither of us knew the plot. Next time we’ll brush-up on the particular play before going.

We didn’t want to end our night just yet, and I was craving some hot tea, so we went to Cafe Aroma in the Elmwood section of town. Very alternative, very trendy, very “happening.” I caved and split a cupcake with Andrew, but stuck to tea to drink. I did try sips of his white mocha–YUM.

I’m looking forward to my laid-back (but hopefully productive!) Saturday!

you know you’re a health nut when…

…your dinner looks like this:

It’s Kath’s Orangey Bean Salad, only with pintos instead of navy beans (it’s what I had). Actually, it worked out perfectly because I used half the can of beans for Ellie’s sloppy joes, and planned on using the other half for this. I also had an avocado from the Southwestern Barley Salad I made a few nights ago, so it worked out quite well. I put it in my tracker and it was 350 calories.

If you hadn’t guessed already, Andrew was on his own for dinner tonight; he and his dad drove THREE HOURS to go look at tractors today. He would have had a cow if I’d put this in front of him on the table. Seriously. A cow. I’m pretty adamant about serving good, healthy food here in this house and making him (occasionally) eat things he doesn’t like, but even I wouldn’t make him eat this. He would have died.

I also brought these yummy treats to the table:

Strawberries, a bit of honey, cinnamon and some shredded coconut. I took a bite or two, but alas, was too full of beans to eat it! Blame it on this new thing I’m trying, it’s called “stop-eating-before-you’re-uncomfortably-full.”

Guess I’ll just have to save them for later tonight!

dinner x 2

I didn’t get a chance to post this last night, and my breakfast wasn’t anything worth taking photos of (although I did add frozen cranberries to my smoothie this morning–a first for me), so I figured I’d lump the photos in with tonight’s dinner.

I’ve been on what seems like a constant quest to empty out our tiny freezer here, which is filled with my stash of nuts and frozen fruits, among other things. I had one pound of beef remaining, and I didn’t want to make burgers. Sloppy Joes it was! I found Ellie Krieger’s recipe in the cookbook of hers’ that I brought with me to the hotel.

It’s made with lean ground beef, the usual ingredients (red pepper, tomato sauce), flavorings (molasses, Worcestershire sauce, etc..) and one from left field: pinto beans. As per my usual modus operandi with beans as an ingredient, I added half what the recipe called for. I do this because Andrew isn’t a huge fan of beans (who am I kidding? He doesn’t like them.), but I feel the need to at least try to stick to the integrity of the recipe, so I just use less. Or another variety altogether. Neither Andrew nor I like kidney beans, so I’ll sub pinto or white beans sometimes.

Beans fall into the “try them until you like them” category for me. There are so many things I hated as a kid that I now like (or at least don’t hate) as an adult because I’ve continued to eat them. I mean, I don’t LOVE beans, but I know they’re good for me and that they can be wonderful in certain dishes, so I eat them. And come on. How old are we? We can’t always eat only what we like.

I served Andrew’s sloppy joe on four leftover hawaiian sweet rolls that I kept intact and then sliced down the middle. They created a nice, large bun for his sandwich. I used some leftover dressing from the quinoa for a spinach salad I whipped up. It was all green (spinach, celery, green onions and cucumbers) with some dried cranberries for color and sweetness. Apparently, Andrew didn’t like the dressing (although he didn’t complain about it on the quinoa), so he pretty much turned up his nose at the salad. Oh well.

I do have another recipe for sloppy joes I’ve used before that he said he prefers, so I’ll either use that next time, or maybe I’ll come up with my own. I don’t normally do that (I really like using recipes from my cookbooks–it’s like crossing things off a list), but I really would like to make a healthy, from-scratch version that tastes like the canned stuff you get in the grocery store (because that’s what Andrew wants).

Anyone have any recommendations?

Tonight I made another of Ellie’s recipes, this time her Curried Butternut Squash Soup. Yet another meal driven by freezer contents, this one used up a bag of frozen squash puree.

Barefoot Contessa has multiple butternut squash soups, to include a curry version, so I’ll have to do a “butternut squash soup cook-off” sometime this fall to determine our “go-to” soup. I love doing cook-offs with recipes I have in cookbooks. There is just something about having made all the different versions and definitively picking a winner that gives me such satisfaction.

Both Andrew and I really liked it. It definitely had a strong curry flavor, with just a hint of sweetness. And so easy to make (especially when the squash is already cooked and pureed!); you basically saute some onions and garlic, add chicken stock, curry and squash and boil. I pureed it in two batches in my blender since the onions were still in chunks.

I served the soup with an eggplant and yogurt dish I’d torn out of a Food Network magazine forever ago. Another easy one, you just cut up eggplant, roast with shallots and garlic, then dress with yogurt and dill and toasted walnuts. YUM. Unfortunately, Andrew took one bite and declared he wouldn’t eat it, so I ate his, too. (I’d anticipated something like this, so I wisely divided up the two servings of eggplant into three smaller ones, so I really didn’t end up eating that much.)

They may not have all been home runs, but I enjoyed making them all and writing notes down in my cookbooks. I’ll be feasting on leftovers tomorrow!