Some images of 2025

 This blog has become a research tool for me, along with the other family members’ blogs. This post won’t be a year in review post, though that would be a decent idea.  Just some photos from my life right now.

Problem solving

Wow, more than six years since anything has been posted here.

Well, a lot can change in six years.

For example, I have been the principal cook in my house for all of my life since I completed service in the United States Army in January of 1972.  Over that period I developed lots of staples, both things that I cooked a lot and ingredients that I used a lot.

But the deal is that I now do not need or want as much food as I regularly produced using those staples.  A very persistent problem is tomato sauce centered meals.  I mean for most of my cooking life I would fry up a big onion and a bunch of hamburger and add a jar of one of the brands of spaghetti sauce of which there were at least a couple that I like just fine (Barilla comes to mind) and refine from there.

As I cook currently any dish including an entire jar of spaghetti sauce is just way too much food.  A whole jar of sauce requires a lot of some other ingredient, most often pasta, to balance out the ingredient mixture and thus produces enough food to feed three people (or more) for at least two, probably at least three meals.  That's six to eight person meals, too much.  A lot is going to go to waste.

Half the recipe you say?

It is hard to half the recipe when commercially available spaghetti sauce (Barilla comes to mind) seems to come in only just that one size.  I tried using less than the full jar but then the rest of the jar ended up sitting in the refrigerator until it went bad.

So I rooted around in my spice cupboard and did some shopping and here is what I am going to try now.

Right, I am going to try cooking. 

That's a major historical display of spices, two or which are brand new and at least two of which cannot possibly have been acquired in this century.  Eight different brands are represented.

I discovered that I was out of oregano so that was purchased today as was the minced onion.  The parsley is quite new and that Flatiron pepper is only a couple of years old.  The basil is also of at least relatively recent vintage.  The garlic salt is only very old but the marjoram is ancient.  And help me lord, that Durkee ground thyme?

But it is just leaves and ground up leaves and this is an early stage in the experiment so I am going to go ahead and use what I have on hand.  My plan for now is to mix up what here in the planning stage I am referring to as an Italian spice mix.  I plan to pre-mix and I have another nice spice jar for storing smallish quantities of the mix.

Also there on the counter is the tomato sauce which in the new plan I will be modifying with the new spice mix.  That can of tomato sauce is also brand new purchased today.  With that amount of sauce I am hoping to do some cooking which will produce something more like 2 to 3 person meals.

It's always something.

Company Meatloaf and Butternut Squash

November blogging has often included some posts on this blog.  So when my brother commented that a cross post on the family food blog was in order after my Company for Dinner post yesterday.  , I decided to follow his advice.  That meal worked out well and having the recipe/directions here is handy -- I've used this site for its recipes a number of times.  Reasonably enough.

Meatloaf:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together, 1# or so of 85% ground beef or meat of your choice with
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup bread crumbs (I make my own in my smoothie maker/blender from a heel of good bread)
2 T ketchup
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T dried parsley
1/2 cup diced onion (I buy it diced -- lazy, I know)
1/4 cup milk
salt and pepper
garlic powder

Mix together really well.  Like squish it between your thumb and fingers until all of the breadcrumbs have completely disappeared.  (I think this is important to having a meatloaf that doesn't fall apart.)

Put mixture in a buttered loaf pan.  I used 1 T barbecue sauce as a glaze, smoothed thin with a spoon.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, remove from oven and let it rest at least 10 minutes.  Transfer to a serving plate with a spatula or serve it from the pan.

It's even better the next day as leftovers or sandwiches.

Roasted Butternut Squash

Poke the squash with a meat fork in a half dozen places.  Microwave for 2 minutes, turn over, microwave for 2 more minutes.  Let it sit while you make the meatloaf. Once that's in the oven --

Cut off the ends of the squash, cut in half, cut the halves in half, remove seeds, cut into slices.  Put a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet, drizzle foil with olive oil, smear around.  Arrange the squash slices artistically, drizzle with more olive oil, smear around.  Salt and pepper.  Bake on the rack below the meatloaf -- they'll be done about the same time, the squash cooks faster, so it works out.

I cook differently now than I did just a few years ago -- for a bunch of reasons.  I may do this a few more times this month, just to archive some of those changes.

15 minute meal

Cooking for two people is challenging these days, and eating out -- which used to be my fall back position when I didn't want to cook -- is difficult for a number of reasons.  I've been looking through the frozen food section of the grocery store for ideas, and this is one I've used a few times now.

Mostly I follow package directions, though for the cauliflower rice I saute a little onion in butter in the pan.  Maybe a little olive oil and some salt and pepper, too.  It adds maybe 5 minutes and isn't really necessary.

Any riced cauliflower would do -- I planned to make "fried rice" cauliflower, with soy sauce and eggs mixed in, but all I had in the freezer was the stuffing flavor.  (It tastes nothing like stuffing, but it is tasty with little bits of cranberry in it.)  I found it at WalMart, just in time for the holidays, I guess.  JB is a fan of this meal -- there's a beef and broccoli version that he also likes by PF Chang.  The package says it is supposed to feed two, but we always have enough left over for JB to have it for lunch the next day.

Boxing Day

I made this on Boxing Day.  This was so good that it has a definite chance to become a Boxing Day tradition.

We do not have the exact correct pan and rack combination for this but the roast fits into one of the pans that we do have and I just spread a few carrots on the bottom of the pan in lieu of a proper rack to lift the meat off the bottom.

Remove meat from refrigerator about two hours before cooking is to begin.

Preheat oven to 550.

No liquid.

Place roast in oven, immediately reduce heat to 350.

Roast 18 to 20 minutes to the pound for medium rare.

Increasingly as I mature I subscribe to the use of a meat thermometer.  A thermometer really does give better results than just guessing.  130 for rare, 140 for medium.  Remove from oven and let it rest for long enough to finish other preparations.

For information purposes I note that the pictured piece of meat cost about $45.

Cabbage, sausage and noodles

This is going to be a previously never done, at least by me, triple post.

I am going to post this here today because I am making it here today.

I am also going to ante-post it to the date when the pictures were taken when I made this meal in Michigan in September.

And I am going to post it to the family cooking blog because this is cooking that I did (and am doing today) for members of the family.

So to start with, this is a pretty basic meal for which you might have most of the ingredients already on hand.  What you might not have is a cabbage.  I didn't have one today so I went out and got one.  Cabbage is a favorite here and I am always open to ways to introduce it into the regular rotation.

Here's what it looked like on September 12 in Michigan.  Note the most excellent slicing knife (the black handle) and the most excellent paring knife (white handle).  Good tools lead to good results.

So what we have there is a head of cabbage, a large onion, a ring of kielbasa, olive oil, butter, a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes and some ribbon noodles.

Basic stuff but it IS going to be good.

Start with the polish sausage, the white knife renders it into slices.  The slices go into the big pot with a healthy dollop of olive oil.  What we seek is the traditional "browning".

The slicing knife makes its first appearance to produce large onion pieces, I like my onion pieces large.

The browning has gone on for a bit, the onions are now added.  Here is where I also throw in that half stick of butter.

At this point the big pan is beyond the merely browning stage and is now in the starting to add flavor stage.  At this point butter is good.

The slicer has been busy again (what a great knife!).  About half of the cabbage has been reduced to cooking size.  The polish sausage and onion mixture looks like it could easily support some big pieces of cabbage.

Throw in the cabbage, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, enough time to steam cook the cabbage.

Time to start the noodles.  I cooked the whole package but I intend to use a little bit less than half.  The rest will have to be consumed in other ways.  Too many noodles overwhelm the cabbage.  You want some noodles but need to keep in mind that this is a cabbage dish.

Time to start throwing it all together.

My experience is that a couple of cans of stewed tomatoes are going to provide just exactly what this concoction needs.

Mix it all together, you can probably turn off the heat at this point.  Everything is warm, it will continue to cook on its own.

I don't have this today but in Michigan we had the ingredients for a highly qualified person to produce a side salad.

Sausage, cabbage and noodle hot dish with fresh salad.

The pictures are from Michigan and today in Minnesota we did not have the salad.

It was really good both times.

Winter Salad

It seems that I can't blog to my regular blog on my tablet. I want to use the tablet for trips, so here I am.  It will at least be a recipe post today, as I learn how to post photos here.  This is a tasty salad, our first experience with it was in Florida this January.  NCW made it, but the recipe came from her daughter-in-law. (Also a north country woman.)

This salad has been very popular with JB as well.  Here is the ingredient photo.

(That wasn't as easy as I had hoped.)  But the recipe is pretty simple.  I rough chopped the cashews, and used about a third of a cup of the nuts and peas, about a fourth of a cup of cranberries, and a handful of finely shredded mozzarella.

Park

Colder near the lake.

Learning to blog from my tablet.🤔

Variation on an old favorite -- Feta fish with tomatoes and baby bellas

Cross Listed from Santini60.Blogspot.Com

Since returning home from his stay in Holland Hospital, JB has a new set of dietary restrictions.  Specifically, he is on a very low sodium diet.  Two days spent preparing his food and counting grams has been instructive, and it turns out that if you cook all of your own food from scratch, sodium is a relatively easy thing to control.  Tonight's dinner, for example, was based on the old family recipe for Jim's fish, but with a twist.  Feta cheese has a lot of sodium in it -- but it provides a lot of flavor.  So my approach was to use a couple of tablespoons of feta along with a Roma tomato and a handful of baby bella mushrooms for the topping.  (That works out to a tablespoon of feta for each fish fillet, and a half of a Roma tomato each, plus some chopped up mushrooms.  I added some dill, and ground a little pepper onto the fish.)

Here's the mixture ready to go on the tilapia.  Just enough feta for flavor.  Bake it at 375 for 20 minutes if the fillets are frozen.

I stir fried a carrot and some broccoli, based on Emmy's recipe for kale and carrots.  I didn't have the courage to add garlic, though.  I wasn't sure how it would work with broccoli.  It turned out quite well without it.

I think Jimi would approve of the changes -- and it paired quite well with the carrots and broccoli.

Sesame Chicken

One of my all time favorite American-Chinese dishes is Sesame Chicken. So delicious, and so very, very bad for you. Breaded and fried chicken that is then coated in a sticky sweet-spicy sauce? Probably not health food. So when Andy and I discovered a recipe in our Joy of Cooking for Sesame Chicken that looked much healthier, we decided to give it a shot. Here's the recipe as we make it:

The cast of characters. If you can't find Tahini Paste where you live, creamy peanut butter is a good substitute. However, you can then leave out the sugar. 

Step One: Boil a large pot of water and add the 3 bone-in chicken breasts. Cook 8-10 minutes until complete.

Step Two: While that is going on, do the following:

Step Three: Chop up one green onion/scallion and grate about that amount of ginger - it should be about 2 teaspoons worth when grated.

Step Four: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup tahini paste (or peanut butter) and 2.5 TB sesame oil until well combined.

Step Five: To the tahini/sesame mixture, add the scallions, ginger, 2.5 TB soy sauce, 1 TB white vinegar, chili paste/Sriacha to taste (optional - I used a bit less than a TB), and 1 tsp sugar. 

Step Six: Whisk until well combined.

Step Seven: Remove chicken from boiling water and allow to cool a bit until it can be handled; Shred the chicken and add to the bowl with the sauce. Mix thoroughly.

Step Eight: Serve over rice of your choice, we went with brown, and some veggies on the side. Ours was sauteed kale and carrots with garlic.

Enjoy!