A little foreplay goes a long way

Last week, I started my summer evening math class.

Calculus. Advanced calculus. On lovely summer evenings. As a matter of fact, yes, I am a masochist who enjoys having no life. Strangely enough though, having no life requires a lot of planning and forethought. I’ve got a tight bit of time between work and school to cook, eat, and do a bit of homework. Cause it’s not like I’m going to be doing homework at 10:30 at night after class. Yes, 10:30 at night. I love my life.

Believe it or not, I was actually smart enough to do a bit of cooking ahead on the weekend.

I made and froze a spaghetti sauce (with a few variations) that Recipe Guy likes. Some day I’ll make it again and show you the variations, not the least of which minimizes the number of dishes required (holy crap it’s tasty, but holy crap the dishes!).

The day I ate it, Wednesday, I boiled water, cooked pasta, and dumped the thawed-in-the-fridge-all-day sauce into the pot. I added a little extra cream to encourage the delicious sauciness of this dish. (wine would work too, but I’d somehow managed to run out)

I also prepared a vegan lentil and eggplant stew that requires variations of its own before I post it. On the day I ate it, Thursday, I let it thaw in the fridge, heated it in a bowl, and served it with a warmed pita bread and a couple olives.

And was running late and didn't take a pic. Dammit.

So, that was two dinners down. Friday, I don’t have class so I’m not going to worry about it, but I still had two days of cooking and eating dinner in about an hour.

One way to minimize cook time is with a crock pot. You can do all the preparation the night before, stash it in the fridge, and put it on to cook in the morning before you leave for work. The trick to this is remembering to actually turn the crock pot on.

Red beans are an awesome crock pot recipe. Yes, I made them on the stove in that version, but I’ve done them in the crock pot more than a couple times. Works just fine. And, if you make the rice on the weekend, dinner is waiting for you when you get home. Just add parsley. Yes, I like parsley.

Precooking rice also works if you’re planning a stir fry.

Stir fries are superfast cooking meals. But they are a little heavy on preparation time with all those fresh veggies to chop. But, since I was chopping the veggies for Monday’s Red Beans on Sunday, I also chopped the veggies for Tuesday’s stir fry.

Stir Fry In Advance

What you need:

In advance:

• Half an onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 small head of bok choy
• 8 mushrooms
• A handful of beansprouts
• 1-2 tsp cornstarch
• ½ c water
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp fresh chopped ginger
• ½ tsp sriracha (aka cock sauce) (optional)
• ½ tsp sugar

Um, that pic includes the red bean stuff... you'll just have to ignore those parts.

On the day you eat it:

• Peanut and sesame oils
• 1 small lean steak, like inside round or flank
• Rice that you cooked a couple days ago

What you gotta do:

In Advance:

Rinse, and chop all the veggies to the size you prefer. I like things a little smaller than bite sized. That way, I can eat a few pieces at a time, and they cook a little faster.

The beansprouts can just stay in their bag until the day you cook.

Store the chopped veggies in an air tight container or large ziplock bag.

Combine the cornstarch, water, soy, sugar and ginger in a small container or bag, and store it next to the veggies.

On the day you eat it:

Don’t forget to take the steak out of the freezer in the morning or the night before. Let it thaw in the fridge and don’t worry if it’s still a little frozen when you start cooking, it’s easier to slice steak thinly when it’s a little frozen.

When you get home from work, put a large pan or wok on the stove with a bit of peanut oil and sesame oil in it. While the oils heat over medium high, slice the steak thinly against the grain.

Takes about 2-3 minutes to slice the steak and heat the pan.

Drop the steak in the hot hot pan, the cutting board in the sink, and grab the veggies and sauce from the fridge.

The steak should only take a few minutes if the pan is big enough and hot enough, and if the steak is sliced thin enough.

So, we're at about 6 or 7 minutes now.

When it’s started to lose its pink, open the veggie container and upend the contents into the pan.

If you want these to cook a little faster, throw a tablespoon of water in with them and cover the pan.

That takes about 3 or 4 minutes.

Once the veggies are softened and the meat has lost its pink, give the sauce one last shake and dump it into the pan. Give it a stir to spread it around, add more water if necessary.

Stir in the beansprouts and put the lid on.

One minute to add and stir.

Turn off the heat and nuke your rice.

3 minutes for the rice.

You should be at about the 13-15 minute mark here.

Once the rice is warm, top it with the fast, healthy dinner that you just cooked in 15 minutes.

What's the fastest dinner you've ever made?

Taneasha's Crazy Cross Country Road Trip Part Two

So where were we?  Oh yes, we left off with my late night arrival in Fredericksburg, VA.  For those of you who missed the first installment of my cross country road trip, moving adventure, you can read it here.  So apparently the tornadoes didn’t get the memo that we were going to stay in Fredericksburg for a couple weeks.  Although they did follow us into Virginia, they continued on up to Massachusetts without us.  I’ve had enough of tornadoes to last me a lifetime.  Now, to be honest, I don’t think I got a fair representation of Fredericksburg.  I can pretty much sum up my experience there as OMG HOT!  I’ve experienced 100° before, but combine it with 90% humidity, and you’re dealing with a whole other monster.  Otto didn’t seem to mind.  He just wanted to take a nap on the grass every time we went outside, and what choice do you have but to stand there and let him? 

Since this is a food blog, though, I’ll try to concentrate on that rather than the extreme heat.

One of our first meals in Fredericksburg was at an expensive German restaurant. 

Now, I’ve never had German food, so this was a first for me.  After hearing the specials, I said, “I’ll take that one.”  It was a something schnitzel.  Basically, thin, breaded pork chops, with mushrooms, bacon, and cheese, in a chive cream sauce. 

Wow!  It really was as good as it sounds.  For one of my sides I chose creamed corn, which was simply amazing.  One day I’ll have to figure out just how it was made.  Unfortunately, I can’t test it out on hubby.  He won’t touch corn with a ten foot pole.  But speaking of hubby, he had a steak and scallops.

Yes, they did use flowers for garnish and yes those mashed potatoes were piped decoratively onto the plate.  I told you it was a fancy place.  Oh, and the potatoes… seriously, why can’t more restaurants make them that good?  Well, leave it to my husband to ask for 57 sauce in a place like that.  The waiter had no idea what he was talking about.  “Catsup, catsup?” he asked.  I still laugh about it now.  He went to ask the chef what sort of sauce he recommended for the steak and returned with a slice of compound butter.  Ha! 

Anyway, you can’t go to a German restaurant and not have bratwurst, right? 

Ok, so I’m not actually a fan of sausage, but hubby said it was fabulous.  I just helped myself to more of the mashed potatoes. 

So, after that came a week of mostly pub fare. 

Yeah, that pretty much means food that’s been battered and fried.  On the plus side, I did get to try fried pickles. 

And this fish sandwich was so good, I even went back for another one.  Seafood is not something most places excel at in Utah.  Not surprising for a landlocked, desert state, I suppose.  

For the weekend, we decided to head down into North Carolina.  Why North Carolina you ask.  I’ll tell you in a minute.  First, came Richmond, where we stopped for some ‘real’ fried chicken. 

Lee’s was supposed to be THE place for fried chicken.  Unfortunately, I got the chicken tenders, which were good, but a bit tough. 

In hind sight, I should have gone with the regular fried chicken.  Hubby said it was the best he’d ever had. 

Ok, so back to North Carolina.  Being that close, we had to take a jaunt down there so that hubby could surprise his father.  No, not see his father.  Meet his father, as in, for the first time.  I’ll give you a minute to take that in. 

*whistling*

Yeah, it was that cool.  There are no words to describe the happiness it brought all around.  After a brief meeting, we asked to have breakfast with them the following morning, and a little bird told me Dad was so excited to see his son, he didn’t sleep a wink that night.  They were the kindest, most welcoming people I’ve ever met, and the experience will stick with me forever. 

Whew.  Let me just wipe the tears away now, and we’ll get back to Fredericksburg. 

So, after weeks of restaurant food, we were just dying for a home cooked meal.  Having kitchen appliances, but no real kitchen basics, we opted for frozen orange chicken from Trader Joe’s.

Spooned over some frozen, cooked in the microwave rice, it wasn’t half bad. 

And I have to say, pulling rice from the freezer and having it ready for the plate in 5 minutes and every bit as good as cooking your own… seriously awesome.  Me thinks I will be doing that more often. 

Finally, our last weekend before leaving Virginia and continuing on toward our final destination, Massachusetts.  That weekend we spent visiting Washington D.C.  We didn’t have nearly enough time over the course of the two days, but after two long days of lots of walking in hot, humid weather, I nearly died. 

Pack everything back into the car, it’s time for the final leg of our trip.  Our first food stop was in Philadelphia.  If you’re going through, you have to get a Philly cheesesteak, right?  And if you’re going to stop, you might as well get the best.  Depending who you ask, that would either be Geno’s Or Pat’s.  Well, we chose Pat’s. 

We parked half illegally, and hubby hurried over to get us one.  Now, to be honest, I wasn’t really that excited for it.  I’m not big on steak, and I’m especially not fond of cheese whiz. 

Oh.  My.  God.  Without a doubt, the most amazing sandwich I’ve ever tasted in my life.  It would even be right up there with the best things I’ve ever eaten.  How could I have been so wrong?  Now I’m trying to come up with some reason we need to go back down there so I can have another. 

After Philly, we continued on to New York City.  Katz’s was a place hubby had always wanted to visit, but never actually thought we would.  Well…

 

I ordered a brisket sandwich, which was good, but didn’t hold a candle to the cheesesteak.

They served us a whole variety of pickles.  Interesting. 

We also ordered a bowl of mazza ball soup because that’s another thing you can’t get in Utah.  Neither of us had ever tried it before.  Boy was it good. 

Lastly, came the main attraction.  Hubby ordered the pastrami sandwich.  I’m not big on pastrami, but it was the best I’ve tasted. 

Hubby says I’m crazy and it was far and away the best sandwich ever made.  We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.  But New York isn’t done yet.  No, we didn’t get pizza, but I did track down the Wafels & Dinges Truck.

Well, it was actually a cart, but I was so excited for it that I just jumped out of the car when I saw it.  Middle of New York, no phone, no plan, just waffles on the brain.  We were in major traffic, so hubby couldn't stop or anything.  I just had to track him down after I got what I wanted. 

Unfortunately, I ate the whole thing before pictures ever even crossed my mind, so I just had to take these from their website.  Without question one of the top three in my best thing I ever ate list.  I had ‘De Throwdown’.  It’s a liege waffle with spekuloos and whipped cream on top… something I’d seen on the Food Network.  Spekuloos is a yummy spread made from basically graham crackers.  It has the consistency or icing, sort of, but OMG, sooooo good.  If you’re ever in New York, track down one of the Wafels & Dinges trucks or carts.  I promise it’ll be worth the effort.

 

Finally!!  We have reached our destination!  Man, was that a long journey.  We’re still homeless and eating restaurant food almost exclusively.  Not a lot of great cooking can come from a tiny, unstocked, hotel kitchen.  I’ll show you next week something you can make.  And I have to give a special thanks to Hubby’s friend for feeding us two fabulous home cooked meals since our arrival.