Eat, DINK and Be Merry

I recently came across this recipe and decided to give it a shot with what I had on hand.  My first attempt was much less fancy, but it tasted spectacular.  The two things I like best about this concept are 1) how easily you can customize it to your tastes or a guest’s tastes, and 2) how little you need in the way of ingredients.  If you wanted to get really gourmet, you would need hardly any of each ingredient that you used — this is a great way to get rid of the little bits of this and that in your fridge.  This is all I used to make four frittatas for Mark and me to share:

As you can see, I used silicone muffin cups instead of a muffin pan, because I wanted to make sure everything fit.  I think it would have been a challenge in a standard muffin pan.  For each frittata I used one piece of thick-cut hickory bacon, one egg, one half of a thick slice of cheese (chopped), and one half of a sausage patty (also chopped).  (Confession: those aren’t real sausage patties, they’re Morningstar Farms breakfast patties.  They are so awesome that they can be forgiven for not being real meat.)

I curled the bacon around the inside of the cups and filled in with my cheese and sausage pieces:

I beat the eggs individually and poured one over each cup of ingredients, then baked the cups at 350F for 30 minutes.  If you end up with a little egg white at the top, the whites will look shiny and you may think they’re not done, but if you see the surrounding ingredients start to brown up, take them out.

They puff up beautifully as they bake.  Just give them a minute to rest and gently loosen the bacon from the sides with a fork, then pop them onto a plate.  You may lose a little bit of fat from the bacon if you don’t spray the cups, but it won’t be much.

These little protein bombs were a lot more filling than they looked.  After two I don’t think I could have eaten anything else (except dessert — I always have room for dessert).  Try it your way!

Homemade ice cream is best in months with three or more letters in their name.  Our first batch of the summer is honey rosemary with a citrus twist.  Rosemary is one of my favorite flavors and this ice cream tastes nice and light on a hot day.

You’ll need:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup milk (whole preferred but use whatever you have)
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• a couple shakes of salt
• 2 large sprigs of rosemary
• 1/8 tsp Fiori di Silicia (this is where the citrus flavor comes from)

I usually prefer no-heat ice cream recipes because I’m lazy, but this one is worth the extra effort.  Heat the cream, milk, honey, 1/4 cup sugar, salt, and Fiori di Sicilia, stirring over low heat until warm and completely mixed.  Add the rosemary, cover, and steep for 30 minutes — you can do this off the heat to be safe, or you can do this as low as your stove will go if you like a strong rosemary flavor.  I let it go without heat for the first half and then add it back in for the last 10-15 minutes.

Chill the mixture after it’s done.  Don’t be impatient/rushed and not let it cool completely, or it won’t get cold enough in the ice cream maker for enough ice crystals to form.  You won’t get enough nucleation once it goes into the freezer, and you will have to wait much longer for it to harden.  Er, or so I hear.

When the liquid mixture is done chilling, whip the eggs and gradually whip in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, then whip in the cream mixture and follow your ice cream maker’s directions (we use the ice cream attachment for our KitchenAid mixer and transfer the ice cream into two chilled Zak Designs pint containers).

Some people add the eggs when they’re heating the initial mixture, but you have to be cautious not to get it too hot.  You can also omit the eggs entirely, which I did the first time I made this, but eggs will give you a smoother ice cream and will make it melt just a little more slowly.  Homemade ice cream melts so darn fast anyway that I’ll take any advantage I can get.

What’s your favorite homemade flavor?

Pork and barbecue sauce were made for each other, but we don’t have a grill or a smoker yet, so we usually get our fix at Beaver’s.  Lately we’ve been slow-cooking pork at home and now it’s all I can think about.

I have used my mother’s country-style ribs recipe in the past, but it can be hard to find that cut of pork.  I recently learned that they’re not ribs at all, but shoulder portions cut into rib-like shapes.  Pork shoulder is sometimes labeled ‘Boston butt.’  I don’t know why they have to make this so complicated, but now I know what to look for.

This is one of the easiest things we make, and it feeds us hearty portions for two nights.  Everything is cheap — a 4-5 lb pork shoulder is about $8, two nights’ worth of green beans are about $4, a large sweet onion is no more than $2, and you can go cheap or gourmet with the barbecue sauce.  We also like to buy a loaf of fresh rosemary sourdough ($2.50) and eat it over the two nights.  Best of all, you get to eat in your pajamas.

So here we go: slice a sweet onion and line the bottom of the crock with it.  Rub the pork shoulder with salt and pepper, and set it on top of the onion.  Pour your sauce of choice on top, and cook on low for 8 hours.  It’s easiest to serve with tongs, since it will be falling apart.  Pour some more sauce on your portion.  We put the leftovers in foil and reheat them the next night (with a little more sauce) at 350 for about 45 minutes, and cook the rest of the beans.

Try it and see what you think!

Big taste, minimal effort, small price tag:

Tonight was the first time I’ve made this in a while, but it is one of our go-to lazy meals when we are tired and don’t want to go out (or eat another frozen pizza).  Our freezer is full of Whole Foods’ salmon and mahi Whole Catch, which comes in vacuum-sealed pairs of frozen filets of about 6 oz each.  They’re a surprisingly good deal, too, at under $10 per bag.  Here’s the best part — being from Seattle, Mark is a big seafood snob, but Whole Catch has his enthusiastic approval.

Assuming you’ve put the fish in a baking dish in the fridge the night before to defrost, all you have to do is drain off the water and add a splash of soy sauce, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and just a sprinkling of McCormick Mediterranean Spiced Sea Salt.  I’ve tried doing this hours before and I’ve tried doing it minutes before, and honestly there is not a lot of difference in the final product.  Cover the dish and cook it at 425 degrees for 18 minutes.

While that’s baking, you can prep and cook the fresh green beans.  My preference is to simmer them in water with just a little olive oil (keeps them crisp) and salt/pepper for 8 minutes.  Then serve it all and look like a genius.  (Bonus points if you’re not too tired to make some couscous to go with it.)

I got the recipe for this from the Kwik Kar where I last got my oil changed:

Really.  The waiting room had mostly sports magazines, so I picked up the Bon Apetit and this caught my eye.  We love fish and we eat a lot of broccolini, but we’re often too tired to cook.  Putting everything in one pot makes dinner seem much less daunting.

Don’t make my mistake of using a pot that looks like it is probably big enough, because having to switch everything to a bigger pot in the middle of the process negated the one-pot convenience and complicated the cooking time.  But other than that, easy!

I do prefer the way I usually cook broccolini, but even that requires two pots.  You almost can’t beat this for healthy convenience when it’s the end of a long day and you have already exhausted your weekly burrito allowance.  There is a little bit of prep with the limes and the shallots (and the cilantro, but it tastes like soap to me so I skipped it), but you’ll be done with that by the time the oven warms up.

That oil change a couple weeks ago was so fast that I didn’t even get a quarter of the way through the magazine.  After trying this, I almost want to go back and find out what recipes I missed…