Sunday…lazy and quiet. As I like it.
Me and the boys.
Puttering in the kitchen.
Shredded potatoes, “drained” in a ricer…
Shredded potatoes browned in olive oil and clarified butter in a cast iron skillet with the last of the corned beef.
Making mayonnaise.
2 minutes tops.
Mayonnaise.
Napping.
And napping.
Supper together.
Sunday.
Orange…I SAY ORANGE Chocolate chip muffins!!!
Even better, they are Blood Orange Chocolate chip muffins.
Not to make light of the carnage in Ireland, etc. but here is the story from my past…
My Grandmother Ruth had an incredible memory and she knew a lot of detail about family history. As the oldest grandchild and the only girl grandchild until I was 21, I spent a lot of time with her. She spoke to me as to an adult and imparted some of the history. One of the tidbits that stuck with me was that a direct relative – maybe her great-grandfather – was an Orangeman. Orangemen were a fraternity per my current reading but what I knew about family history was that we were Protestant, i.e. Orange and the Catholic Irish wore the Green.
Fast forward to 1967-68ish and I am 12 or 13 and in charge of decorating a small bulletin board in my 7th or 8th grade science classroom. The teacher, who was also an athletic coach, left me to my own devices. I planned to decorate with green shamrocks – traditional! BUT…there was no green construction paper. There WAS orange construction paper. Ha…I would decorate per my own family history and so I cut out orange shamrocks.
My mother was called.
It was the late ’60’s and VietNam war protesting, hippies, etc. Still. I was a straight-A, goodie-two shoes student. They might have just asked me.
So here we are 44 or 45 years later and I made orange muffins for St. Patrick’s :)
And my orange cat supervised. Actually, his nose is out of joint as I kicked him out of his house/my lightbox to take the muffin photos.
Onward to more bending of U.S. tradition…
Soda Buns. The recipe is New York Times’ Melissa Clark’s riff on Irish Soda Bread. She’s Jewish.
They are actually more scone-like in flavor with a bread-like texture. Good for breakfast and good with salty corned beef, but not Kosher for Passover which begins a week from tomorrow.
The corned beef. I do NOT like the “boiled dinner” of corned beef and cabbage and potates cooked until they are all grayish. I read somewhere that the boiled dinner is not even traditional in Ireland. The last several years, I have braised the meat and it comes out wonderfully tender and flavorful…sliceable as well as shreddable. Perfect!
And for the leftovers: Pumpernickle bread for corned beef sandwiches.
St. Patrick’s Day: my way!
Bonus photo… I was shooting the food and Bear was napping. Every time I looked his way, he was a bit further off the bed. He’s been sleeping a lot with his head off but this was a full body slide.
Sunshine, temperature in the mid-50’s, a nice breeze, Bear’s surgery behind us and Bob doing well on new food and less insulin.
The light of almost Spring made the sunroom cozy and Bob took advantage of Bear’s absence from the foam bed.
Bear slept in his cool corner after a Jeep ride and a lunchtime walk.
“Hey, I’m not ALWAYS sleeping!”
No, he is not: all 4 feet on the ground with weight on both while enjoying a dinner of turkey, vegetables and sardines.
I had a Stromboli with a zesty ranch for dipping.
We all had a beautiful Friday.
A big pot of soup used to be the only kind I could make, volume-wise. I would start out thinking it was going to be a small pot of soup and always end up with more than I could eat in a week. While most freeze ok and it can be wonderful to reach in the freezer and pull out a container of soup on a cold night, I really like that first fresh bowl of soup best.
This year, I started making a kind of riff on Italian Wedding soup using chopped up meatloaf instead of meatballs. Somewhere along the way, I saw a recipe that suggested heating the broth, sauteing the vegetables and then combining the broth, vegetables and orzo (or other small pasta) and letting them simmer a bit together, i.e. marry the flavors.
I tried the saute and combine method and since I cooked the orzo ahead of time, I sauteed it a wee bit also. That worked VERY well and it made it easy to make one delicious bowl of soup.
A month or so ago, I made this pizza sauce. The recipe notes that the vinegar and garlic “make” the sauce and I have to agree – especially the vinegar. Not a huge surprise as vinegar or lemon juice (acids) added to things tend to brighten and intensify the flavors.
So…the next time I made Italian Wedding Soup, I added some vinegar which kicked up the flavor a notch.
Zuppa for one: all ingredients can be modified for individual taste and/or what is left in the refrigerator.
Today’s combo included leftover meatloaf, sweet corn, carrots and kale.
I measure 1/2 a bowl full of broth – heating that up with a spoon full of marinara. Actually, I broke a chunk of roast vegetable marinara that I froze flat in zips…so handy to break off what is needed for soup or pasta sauce.
For the vegetables and meat, I find that if I cut all up on the cutting board and think about portions on a plate, I don’t end up with too much stuff for my one bowl of soup. This is versus adding willy-nilly to the pot…then a bit more broth, etc., etc. and ending up with enough for a week!
I added the carrots to warming olive oil and ghee and gave the carrots several minutes to soften: then the corn and finally the meatloaf and kale. Into to broth with everything. No pasta today.
Add a bit of red wine vinegar to deglaze the pan and get all of the flavorful brown bits and then add all of that liquid and scrapings to the broth, vegetables and meat.
Everything into a bowl – top with red pepper flakes, croutons and parmesan. Zuppa for one!
Of course, you can make larger quanties if the soup eating persons in your house number more than one :)
***3/6 edit: I made this today using a chipotle olive oil and a white balsamic vinegar…samples from a friend purchased at a local spot that sells specialty oils and vinegars. This combo…with carrots, corn, leeks, kale and bits of hamburger (burger courtesy of Bear!) in the marinara broth – SPECTACULAR! It was spicy with a hint of sweet and just perfect.
First and most importantly! – Bob is doing well, 1 day post dental. He was my overnight snuggle-boy with less night prowling than usual and today also a bit more sedate, but ate normally and all output normal. I was told that the pain med would make him a bit groggy which explains a bit more low-key behavior, but as he is demanding food per normal and seemingly no difficulty eating…well, I am NOT worried at all.
Meanwhile, speaking of food…
Oh, yum! I used a kolache dough circle from the freezer to make a mini-kale/mushroom/goat cheese “galette” for breakfast…with a side of blood orange slices: colorful, delicious and incredibly good!
“Raw” applesauce for a mid-morning snack. I had two apples that seemed a bit…well, I was ready to throw them out when instead, I quartered and threw them in the VitaMix with a little water and cinnamon and blended. Yowza! VERY good applesauce.
The rest of the blood orange from breakfast was juiced along with a Meyer Lemon and the glass filled with fizzy water for a blood orange-meyer lemon soda. Pretty, colorful and wonderfully refreshing.
Lunch was soup. It looks pretty green, but there are red lentils and sweet potatoes in there. The green is a broccoli-red pepper-cashew-nutritional yeast “cheese” sauce. I added curry spices, cinnamon and red pepper to make a sweet-hot soup.
On to Supper.
It was time to cook burgers for Bear. Earlier in the day, I chopped up 2 spears of asparagus and put them in the jar of pickled onions and cucumbers that I had going.
Supper was a burger with melted gruyere, pickled onions/cucumber/asparagus, a side of kalamata olives and a glass of Pinot Noir.
A colorful (and delicious!!) day from the kitchen.
