Where's the Beef?

Ty has been salivating over the beef stir fry with rice that is pictured on the front of the Cooking Light cook book since I brought it home last week and when I woke up Sunday morning all I wanted was a big, juicy cheeseburger (I'm not going to lie, had a few too many martinis while watching Ralphie May Saturday night). So we declared it Red Meat Sunday, we had homemade burgers & twice baked potatoes for lunch (Ty prepared the burgers, I supervised the potatoes) and beef stir fry for dinner. I figure we don't eat red meat all that often and my friend Bekah always says "If you're going to do it, do it right."

We took a trip to the grocery store to get everything we'll need for our meals this week (LOVE that this cookbook includes shopping lists). $133 later we're ready for the week. That sounds like a lot but we actually stocked up on a few things (pasta sauce, rice, Reese Puffs...) and we needed a few household items like toilet paper and trash bags. All together we actually spent $30.10 on the ingredients we'll need to cook 3 meals from the cookbook this week and many of those will be used again for other recipes (spices, Worcestershire sauce, rice, etc.). I'll break down the price per meal throughout the week, after all, part of the reason I'm doing this is to learn how to eat healthy on a budget. The only thing we did not get was couscous because it seems Food Lion doesn't carry it. I asked a manager who happened to walk by if he know where it would be and he said "What is it?" - great question because I had no idea. But I did check near the pasta and the rice and didn't see it. (Note: I Googled it and it's a type of pasta).
So we start on lunch. Baking is not my fortay, potatoes or otherwise (hence this blog) so I figured I should find out if there is more to baking a potato than throwing it in the oven. I put "how to bake a potato" into Google and low & behold, someone read my mind: http://www.howtobakeapotato.com/. This peaked my interest so I threw out a few other seemingly simple culinary feats and found: http://www.howtohardboilanegg.com/, http://www.howtocookbacon.net/, and the ever helpful http://www.howtocookeverything.tv/ (these also brought up a ton of hilarious YouTube videos, seems I'm not the only one who can't cook.) After following the potato baking instructions (note it takes about an hour to bake a spud so be prepared to wait) Ty got started on the burgers. (He also got a little fancy by seasoning & heating some cocktail shrimp for an appetizer)

He kept it pretty simple, just adding grill seasoning & Worcestershire sauce (I was on a roll with Google so I found out this is actually a fermented fish sauce - could've gone without knowing that). Once the potatoes were baked, I cut a hole in the top and scooped the insides into a bowl jack-o-lantern style. Be careful if you try this as potato skin is not as sturdy as pimpkin rind - Ty's potato boat sprung a little leak.

To the potato insides I added sour cream, crumbled turkey bacon & cheddar cheese, then I carefully stuffed it back in. Top it with a little more cheddar and back in the oven it went to get melty. We timed it up perfectly, the burgers & potatoes were done at about the same time so we dug in:

Mmm mmm mmm! Gotta love meat & potatoes. We did forget a little Bobby Flay tip about burgers: put a dent in the middle of the patty before you toss it on the grill or they shrink up and are really thick in the middle. We also went with kaiser rolls from the bakery section, definitely worth it.

A few hours and much digesting later, I started to tackle my 1st meal from the new cookbook: Beef Stir Fry with Rice. This was so simple and took maybe 20 mins total with prep and cooking. Ingredients: 1 lb. top sirloin, garlic, frozen stir fry veggies thawed, Worcestershire or oyster sauce, rice. Total cost: around $10 (forgive me for not being exact but I'm to lazy to calculate the exact cost of the amount of rice or Worcestershire I actually used. And I hate math.) I started boiling the water for the rice while I thinly sliced the steak and minced the garlic (also decided I need a sharper knife...).

Got the pan nice and hot and then threw in the meat & garlic. One thing I have learned from past cooking disasters: garlic burns really easy. And burnt garlic smells really bad. So I made sure to keep it moving around in the pan this time. Once the meat was browned I added the veggies. I didn't read that they needed to be thawed until we were already too hungry to wait for that to happen, so I added them in frozen. Didn't seem to be a problem although it did make the sauce a little runny. I also added the Worcestershire and pretty much just waited for the veggies to warm up. A few minutes later:

The verdict: Jess is down with the stir fry.

I have to say though, it was a little bland. I forgot that I wanted to try another Food Network trick (Giada maybe?) and use chicken broth instead of water to cook the rice to add a little more flavor. I added soy sauce to my rice and Ty used Siracha (asian hot sauce) and that helped. For next time though I think we'll use fresh veggies (this mix included water chestnuts which neither of us are fans of - I just Googled to find out what they are, Wikipedia says: a grass-like sedge grown for its edible corms - that is not a typo. I'm a firm believer in knowing what you're eating and if you are what you eat, I don't think I want to be a corm). We'll also try out the chicken broth/rice combo and maybe see if we can add some spices to the sauce. However, I think all together the meal was a success.

I'm on a roll here people, I'm unstoppable.

Crabby Patty

After the salmon cake disaster of '09, I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of attempting to make my mom's crab cakes - especially while she's standing over my shoulder. So, I made sure we had plenty of wine on hand.

First mission: Ingredients. I was told we'd need the following: Crab meat, mayo, mustard, cream cheese, Old Bay, 1 egg, Capers

Lucky for me (and my wallet) mom already has a can of crab meat. The mayo, mustard, Old Bay & egg I already had, but the cream cheese & capers would require a stop at the grocery store. As I walked into Food Lion, I started to think: If I was a caper, where would I be? My gut reaction - condiments....Capers 1, Jess 0. Next thought: I know they come in a jar like artichokes, lets check there....The capers are winning and I'm getting annoyed - this is exactly why me & cooking don't get along, I don't like complicated. So what else comes in a jar? Pickles!...No luck near the pickles. Since I've gotten it in my head that I'm going to be independent in this endeavor, instead of asking someone I start wandering around hoping I'll run into the elusive capers. Right as I start to admit defeat, I stumble upon the Sun of Italy Italian Foods section (it has its own sign) and ta-da: take that capers. Why my Food Lion has a section devoted to this particular brand of Italian foods is yet to be determined....So capers - check, cream cheese - check. But the sight that made all apprehension of my pending culinary doom melt away as I walked up to the checkout line: the little old lady in front of me (think Ellen Dow singing Rappers Delight in the Wedding Singer) & her 12 pack of Milwaukee's Best. No food, just beer. Brought me back to my days in Mechanicsville :)

Moving on...Aunt T (short for Tammy) & mom show up at the house bearing crab meat and more wine (always brings a smile to my face). If you're wondering why my mom never taught me how to cook before, that question should be rephrased: Why had I not learned to cook from my mom before? Because I'm a bigger fan of eating food than making it, so when someone else is making it, all I care about is eating it.

We start by setting out all the ingredients (OK we really start by opening the wine...but you get the idea). The nice thing about this recipe is all I really needed were the ingredients, their measurements & to dump them in a bowl. (e-mail me if you'd like the full recipe!) I was then instructed to mix these thoroughly so no one ended up biting into a blob of mayo.
While doing this my mom gave me a little background on how she's developed this recipe: She learned some from her mom, some of it was trial & error and the capers & cream cheese was something she learned while eating crab cakes at the Mills House in Charleston, SC.

I got everything well mixed, now comes the part I don't like: making the patties. I'm not fond of this critical step for 2 reasons: 1. I don't like getting my hands dirty :) and 2. my patties never look pretty. Going the independent route I try the 1st one without mom's coaching (I have to note that it is incredibly hard for her to stand by & watch, we joke that she's like Monica on Friends: she likes things done the right way, and the right way is her way. Oh and she's very competitive, especially at pool....she once "taught" my friend Logan how to play by kicking her ass and following it up with "Rack 'em loser!" so I was not at all trying to make mine look better than hers). After 3 minutes of me, the crab cake and a little grumbling I decided to let her show me some technique. I learned I was being too nice to the crab cake, it needed some tough love to make it look appetizing. My 2nd attempt was much better:


Attempts 3-6 went well and I even had a little leftover to make make a little mini guy, although mom warned that we'd need to watch him because he'd cook faster.


Into the oven they went, 400º for 20 minutes, then flip them for another 10 or so. While those are doing their thing, now comes the dangerous part, playing with knives. I decided to make a salad using romaine lettuce, diced tomato, diced red onion, feta and homemade red wine vinaigrette - fancy right? The dressing was really simple, I just mixed olive oil, red wine vinegar and this garlic & herb seasoning mix. I'm happy to report that no fingers were lost in the making of this beautiful salad:


Mom's advice on dressing: go light, start with just 1-2 tbsps. drizzled on the lettuce before you add the toppings. Toss it well and add more if needed, but you'll be surprised how little you actually need once you toss it.
Now its the moment of truth, mom, Aunt T, Ty and myself sit down to this lovely looking spread, but we all know looks can be deceiving....


The verdict: Jess CAN cook crab cakes :) and the salad was pretty good too.



Ty's Take: "I liked the crab cakes, but I don't like capers. I thought the they were cooked very well and the texture was perfect. I've had some that are too soft or gooey and these were just right. I also like the salad, I didn't think I would like the dressing or onions, but it was very good." (Jury please disregard the capers comments as my boyfriend's dislike for them should have no bearing on the initial ruling)

After dinner Ty wanted to show us a little gratitude by whipping up milkshakes for dessert, but the subject of the perfect chocolate milkshake has always caused debate between us: what makes a better chocolate milkshake, using vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup (apparently that's called a Black & White among the milkshake elite) or using chocolate ice cream? Ty's a black & white fan, I say its a freaking chocolate milkshake, shouldn't the base of it be chocolate? The compromise (or my way of getting what I want), I bought a carton of 1/2 vanilla, 1/2 chocolate :) and it was delicious.

Ladies, start your ovens

I can’t cook and it’s becoming a problem.

It's a problem for my wallet, my confidence and my boyfriend who is forced to either endure whatever disaster I put on the table or heat up another frozen pizza. Not to mention my determination to eat healthier, healthy food is not on the delivery menus in my area.

This week alone I have single handedly managed to turn a simple salmon cake recipe into something resembling dry dog food, a seemingly easy cheese sauce into a watery cheese soup and incinerate a poor unsuspecting chicken breast. And its only Wednesday.

Having heard my whining long enough, my mom & my boss, Linda, have decided to intervene: Mom is going to help me prepare 1 meal a week under her watchful eye. Linda has gifted to me the Cooking Light 5 Ingredient, 15 Minute Cookbook (basically Cooking for Dummies masquerading as a real cookbook). The goals are simple: don't burn the chicken while Mom is watching & don't burn down the house trying to cook 2 meals a week from the cookbook.

This experiment starts tomorrow night: my house, my mother, crab cakes & a salad.