gratuitous food post
YES! It is that time. Time for another Gratuitous Food Post!
For tonight's round of the GFP, we have Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs, a Rum Apricot Galette, and my mother's Vegetable Soup (but made by me, not my mother). As you might imagine, two of these dishes have meat! One of them does not. Here endeth the introduction.
01. Sweet & Sour Spareribs with Jasmine Rice & Roasted Asparagus.
Is there anything more satisfying than a last-minute, we-need-to-use-this-random-food-before-it-goes-bad, now-what-the-hell-are-we-having-for-dinner idea that actually turns out to be even better than you expected? (Well, I guess I can think of a few, but those things don't really involve food, or if they do, it's only tangential.)
Anyway, before you lose me to reverie, let me tell you that the dinner I made last night was fantastic, and thankfully disproved the woeful "I can't get no satisfaction" blues I was singing while rifling through the fridge and fretting over what to have for dinner. The contents of my fridge included: roughly three pounds of country-style ribs, a pound of asparagus, some zucchini, half a yellow squash, and a whole lot of other stuff (including one last piece of leftover rum apricot galette, and for details on that, see below). The only things in that list that are actually pertinent to this post are the ribs and the asparagus, and at this point you're probably wondering why I titled these "spareribs," when they were actually country-style and off the bone. Well, in my loose interpretation of What's For Dinner, these ribs were indeed "spare," so I think that's how I'm justifying it. I'm sure this dish would be even more delicious if I had actually had the appropriate cut of meat, and someday, when I do, I'll probably make these again.
I'm digressing again. At least this time it's related to food. So, where was I? Oh, right, standing in front of the fridge, pondering my options. The ribs have to go, I know, so that decision came pretty easy. Now the eternal question: what the hell do I do with them?
I think I've mentioned before that though my natural inclination with a mess of country-style ribs is to stick 'em in the oven with assorted spices and then dump some BBQ sauce on 'em and call it dinner, leiascully, for all her many wonderful attributes, fails to appreciate the delight that is barbecued pork ribs. I'm not really complaining, though, because thanks to this (totally weird) aversion of hers, I have now found two amazing pork recipes that I wouldn't have ever even given a second glance before.
Today's winner is from Epicurious, and it is this gem, which had everything I was looking for in a recipe: it wasn't barbecue, it wasn't a slow-cooker recipe (I've got no aversion to those, but at 3pm I was short on time), and we had (almost) all the ingredients, leaving me free to remain in my yoga pants and t-shirt and stay away from the store.
A few notes about what I did here that the recipe doesn't mention: I didn't boil the ribs, because as previously mentioned, I wasn't actually using spareribs, so there didn't seem to be a point. I also didn't use dark soy sauce, because it's one of the few sauces that we don't seem to own at the moment, so I poured in some molasses and hoped for the best. Finally, I didn't actually measure anything. I wasn't really in a measuring mood. It all turned out wonderfully, though, including the last-minute-we-need-a-damn-side-dish roasted asparagus, and I couldn't be more pleased.
02. Rum Apricot Galette
The other night, while watching Chuck, I found myself with a deep, yearning need for something in the pie family. We had sadly polished off the last of the hand pies days before with sabinelagrande, and though we've still got the makings of more of those little suckers, I just didn't have it in me to wait while dough chilled, or to fight with that frustrating-yet-delicious dough at 8pm on a Monday night.
So I poked around on my most favorite cooking site and behold! I found this recipe. I had intended to march right into the kitchen and make the apple tart that she's got pictured there, but to my dismay discovered that we only had two suitable apples. Undaunted, I made another batch of the rum apricot filling that graced last week's hand pies-- though this time, per a suggestion from leiascully, I added a little almond extract, and it worked beautifully-- and proceeded to whip up some of this dough.
This dough, you guys. There should be choruses of angels singing about this dough. It deserves the highest accolades. It's not that it's the World's Best Pastry Dough-- the hand pie dough, quite honestly, is probably in the running for that, and this one just can't compete with that one for sheer flaky deliciousness-- but it may just be the World's Easiest Yet Still Yummy Pastry Dough, and for that it as won my affection. Seriously, how fantastic is it that I looked at the internet at 8pm, declared that there would be pie in the oven before Castle came on at 9pm, and it actually happened?! That is why this is The Miracle Dough. Well, that and it didn't crack or split, no matter how I mistreated it.
My only regret is that I didn't trust this dough as much as I should have, and I dumped a little too much flour on this dough when I went to roll it out, because I assumed (wrongly!) that like other pastry doughs, it would need it. It did not, and next time, I'll know.
03. My Mother's Vegetable Soup
Let me begin talking about this soup by saying the following: this is not fancy food. It's not made with anything special, unless you want to get all squishy and count love as a special ingredient. While we definitely believe in quality here at Chez Erin & Mary, we also believe that we're graduate students and sometimes frugality has to win out, plus, I'm also a firm believer in Comfort Food, which is part of the reason that I love to cook for other people in the first place. Cooking for other people, for me, is mainly about two things: comfort and community. Sharing a meal with someone satisfies more than just a need to consume some food. Sometimes you also need a meal that would, if it could, reach out and give you a big hug and tell you that everything will be okay.
I'll stop before I get my emotions all over you, but the basic idea with this soup is that sometimes in early autumn when we get those first few days of beautiful cool weather, all I want to do is curl up with a good book and happy memories from my childhood. There are a few standard recipes in my mental cookbook that represent those memories. This is one of them.
This is one of those recipes that you make a million different ways. If you're concerned about space/number of pots (or if you want to take the vegetarian option), this is an easy one-pot recipe-- you just brown about a pound of ground chuck/turkey (I used turkey) with an onion in the same pot that you'll use for your soup, and then you drain off all the grease before you add the veggies.
Speaking of veggies, this has pretty much whatever you want to put in it, because it's also one of those recipes that you make with what you happen to have. This incarnation has corn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peas, green beans, onion and ground turkey, but you can add whatever you like-- when I make it just for me, I throw in some lima beans, because (though leiascully disagrees, they are delicious), but the basic idea is that you put in whatever veggies you may have, dump in some tomato sauce (one 14.5 oz. can or 2 smaller ones), add some water until you think it looks like soup, and heat it up. Toss in some spices (my mom always uses a little basil, some salt, some pepper, some garlic powder and some Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning, so that is, predictably, what I use, but I never measure), add the drained meat/onion mixture (or, if you're vegetarianally-inclined, the Quorn or Morningstar crumbles work great here), stir it around, let it sit and bubble and think about life for awhile, and you have a soup!
It's cheap, it's fairly fast, and it's so much better the next day. Mmm.
For tonight's round of the GFP, we have Sweet & Sour Spare Ribs, a Rum Apricot Galette, and my mother's Vegetable Soup (but made by me, not my mother). As you might imagine, two of these dishes have meat! One of them does not. Here endeth the introduction.
01. Sweet & Sour Spareribs with Jasmine Rice & Roasted Asparagus.
Is there anything more satisfying than a last-minute, we-need-to-use-this-random-food-before-it-goes-bad, now-what-the-hell-are-we-having-for-dinner idea that actually turns out to be even better than you expected? (Well, I guess I can think of a few, but those things don't really involve food, or if they do, it's only tangential.)
Anyway, before you lose me to reverie, let me tell you that the dinner I made last night was fantastic, and thankfully disproved the woeful "I can't get no satisfaction" blues I was singing while rifling through the fridge and fretting over what to have for dinner. The contents of my fridge included: roughly three pounds of country-style ribs, a pound of asparagus, some zucchini, half a yellow squash, and a whole lot of other stuff (including one last piece of leftover rum apricot galette, and for details on that, see below). The only things in that list that are actually pertinent to this post are the ribs and the asparagus, and at this point you're probably wondering why I titled these "spareribs," when they were actually country-style and off the bone. Well, in my loose interpretation of What's For Dinner, these ribs were indeed "spare," so I think that's how I'm justifying it. I'm sure this dish would be even more delicious if I had actually had the appropriate cut of meat, and someday, when I do, I'll probably make these again.
I'm digressing again. At least this time it's related to food. So, where was I? Oh, right, standing in front of the fridge, pondering my options. The ribs have to go, I know, so that decision came pretty easy. Now the eternal question: what the hell do I do with them?
I think I've mentioned before that though my natural inclination with a mess of country-style ribs is to stick 'em in the oven with assorted spices and then dump some BBQ sauce on 'em and call it dinner, leiascully, for all her many wonderful attributes, fails to appreciate the delight that is barbecued pork ribs. I'm not really complaining, though, because thanks to this (totally weird) aversion of hers, I have now found two amazing pork recipes that I wouldn't have ever even given a second glance before.
Today's winner is from Epicurious, and it is this gem, which had everything I was looking for in a recipe: it wasn't barbecue, it wasn't a slow-cooker recipe (I've got no aversion to those, but at 3pm I was short on time), and we had (almost) all the ingredients, leaving me free to remain in my yoga pants and t-shirt and stay away from the store.
A few notes about what I did here that the recipe doesn't mention: I didn't boil the ribs, because as previously mentioned, I wasn't actually using spareribs, so there didn't seem to be a point. I also didn't use dark soy sauce, because it's one of the few sauces that we don't seem to own at the moment, so I poured in some molasses and hoped for the best. Finally, I didn't actually measure anything. I wasn't really in a measuring mood. It all turned out wonderfully, though, including the last-minute-we-need-a-damn-side-dish roasted asparagus, and I couldn't be more pleased.
02. Rum Apricot Galette
The other night, while watching Chuck, I found myself with a deep, yearning need for something in the pie family. We had sadly polished off the last of the hand pies days before with sabinelagrande, and though we've still got the makings of more of those little suckers, I just didn't have it in me to wait while dough chilled, or to fight with that frustrating-yet-delicious dough at 8pm on a Monday night.
So I poked around on my most favorite cooking site and behold! I found this recipe. I had intended to march right into the kitchen and make the apple tart that she's got pictured there, but to my dismay discovered that we only had two suitable apples. Undaunted, I made another batch of the rum apricot filling that graced last week's hand pies-- though this time, per a suggestion from leiascully, I added a little almond extract, and it worked beautifully-- and proceeded to whip up some of this dough.
This dough, you guys. There should be choruses of angels singing about this dough. It deserves the highest accolades. It's not that it's the World's Best Pastry Dough-- the hand pie dough, quite honestly, is probably in the running for that, and this one just can't compete with that one for sheer flaky deliciousness-- but it may just be the World's Easiest Yet Still Yummy Pastry Dough, and for that it as won my affection. Seriously, how fantastic is it that I looked at the internet at 8pm, declared that there would be pie in the oven before Castle came on at 9pm, and it actually happened?! That is why this is The Miracle Dough. Well, that and it didn't crack or split, no matter how I mistreated it.
My only regret is that I didn't trust this dough as much as I should have, and I dumped a little too much flour on this dough when I went to roll it out, because I assumed (wrongly!) that like other pastry doughs, it would need it. It did not, and next time, I'll know.
03. My Mother's Vegetable Soup
Let me begin talking about this soup by saying the following: this is not fancy food. It's not made with anything special, unless you want to get all squishy and count love as a special ingredient. While we definitely believe in quality here at Chez Erin & Mary, we also believe that we're graduate students and sometimes frugality has to win out, plus, I'm also a firm believer in Comfort Food, which is part of the reason that I love to cook for other people in the first place. Cooking for other people, for me, is mainly about two things: comfort and community. Sharing a meal with someone satisfies more than just a need to consume some food. Sometimes you also need a meal that would, if it could, reach out and give you a big hug and tell you that everything will be okay.
I'll stop before I get my emotions all over you, but the basic idea with this soup is that sometimes in early autumn when we get those first few days of beautiful cool weather, all I want to do is curl up with a good book and happy memories from my childhood. There are a few standard recipes in my mental cookbook that represent those memories. This is one of them.
This is one of those recipes that you make a million different ways. If you're concerned about space/number of pots (or if you want to take the vegetarian option), this is an easy one-pot recipe-- you just brown about a pound of ground chuck/turkey (I used turkey) with an onion in the same pot that you'll use for your soup, and then you drain off all the grease before you add the veggies.
Speaking of veggies, this has pretty much whatever you want to put in it, because it's also one of those recipes that you make with what you happen to have. This incarnation has corn, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peas, green beans, onion and ground turkey, but you can add whatever you like-- when I make it just for me, I throw in some lima beans, because (though leiascully disagrees, they are delicious), but the basic idea is that you put in whatever veggies you may have, dump in some tomato sauce (one 14.5 oz. can or 2 smaller ones), add some water until you think it looks like soup, and heat it up. Toss in some spices (my mom always uses a little basil, some salt, some pepper, some garlic powder and some Cavender's All Purpose Greek Seasoning, so that is, predictably, what I use, but I never measure), add the drained meat/onion mixture (or, if you're vegetarianally-inclined, the Quorn or Morningstar crumbles work great here), stir it around, let it sit and bubble and think about life for awhile, and you have a soup!
It's cheap, it's fairly fast, and it's so much better the next day. Mmm.