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?

Someone give that girl a sammich

No, I dont' think it's quite over. The Mayhem that is. This is one hell of a long month.

Taneasha is still on the road, still plagued by the strangest weather. Srsly, the woman is like some kind of tornado magnet. Me, I've decided that working full time over the summer isn't enough. I have to do school too. Evening calculus, here I come. Well, I do school full time and work part time the rest of the year, I should be able to pull this off, right? Right??

Feeding myself in the 45 minutes I'll be home between work and school three nights a week for the next 8 weeks is gonna be fun. I'm going to do a bunch of cooking ahead, have actually started with that and no, Taneasha, I didn't remember to take pictures /hangs head in shame/. I do however have pictures of a meal that commonly goes unappreciated.

The sammich.

Humble, yet satisfying, and creators of very few dirty dishes, these things have for some reason become some kind of good-enough meal, something we sigh and resign ourselves to. But really, what beats a couple slices of bakery fresh bread made with locally grown organic whole grains with a crusty exterior and tender inside carefully cuddling an infinitely variable collection of delectible meats, savoury cheeses, perfect veggies and just the right amount of condiment. Ha. Who says purple prose is dead?

Fresh bread is an absolute requirement for me and sammiches. I'll give it two days and then the rest of the loaf is relegated to toast (now there's a meal to sigh about). Besides, when you're craving egg salad, you really need fresh soft bread. It's squishy and gooey and way too likely to ooze all over your palms if it's not on the right kind of bread.

And I was craving egg salad. And I am completely unable to control cravings. And because of that I sometimes don't take anywhere near enough pics. But, I mean, it's a freaking sammich, I think you can figure it out without the visual aids.

Egg Salad Sammich

What you need:

• 2 slices of the freshest bread ever
• 1 egg, boiled for about 10 minutes
• 1-2 tbsp mayo
• salt & pepper & butter
• Optional, at your discretion, to your taste, and depending what you happen to have in the fridge at the time:

• minced chives or green onion
• red onion
• pickled onions
• pickled asparagus
• hot pickled beans
• picked pickles
• olives, black or green
• dill, thyme, basil, tarragon, marjoram
• chili powder, cumin, caraway, paprika
• bacon
• horseradish
• ham
• capers
• sundried tomatoes
• jalapenos, pepperoncinis, banana peppers
• what else is in your fridge?

What you gotta do:

Peel and mash the boiled egg. Mash it first. Don't add the mayo yet, you don't know how much you need!

Add the other stuff to the bowl. I had some cipollini onions in balsamic vinegar (if you've never had them, find them, they're fabulous),

bacon of course, and some dill that I'd dried and jarred last summer.

Once you've got all your goodies in the bowl with the egg, start adding the mayo. And by mayo I mean real mayonaisse, not some kind of weird whipped salad dressing. And by start, I don't mean plop it all in there. Too much mayo will totally kill an otherwise awesome egg salad. And once it's in there, there's no getting it out. Start with a teaspoon or two and mix it in completely before you add the next one. For once I'm going to say that wetter is not better. You don't want the creamy goodness on your hands as you're trying to eat.

Shred yourself some lettuce. Shred. Don't try to lay a whole leaf of iceburg on top of egg salad and expect it to work. For one, iceburg is useless and flavourless. At least use romaine. And shred it as finely as you can. Stack them, roll them, and slice them into tiny hairs of lettuce. Egg salad is actually one of the more delicate things you can put between sliced bread; you don't want to go overpowering it with huge crunchy chunks of leaf.

The matter of butter on bread is one of great debate. Some need it, some hate it, some want it on one side only, some only need it if there's no mayo... holy crap. Do what you want. Me, I need butter on sammiches and on toast. Regardless of what else is on there, I need the butter. You, you do whatever your little heart desires. This is your sammich.

Start assembling your masterpiece. Butter, mayo, whatever you want on the bread. Next, the egg salad. I don't spread mine all the way to the edge because I know it's going to squish a bit. Now, the delicately sliced (and apparently very shiny) leaves.

Cut the sammich any way you want. Or don't. This is a very personal thing and everyone seems to like them done differently. Who am I to tell you how best to arrange your meal.

The only thing I will insist on is a pickle. Every great sammich needs a pickle. Yes, you could have a few potato chips, maybe some carrot sticks, but even with those on the side, you need a pickle.

Okay, I'll admit it, that is definitely not the best looking sammich I've ever made. That was a muffaletta, which I promise to make for you some day. This though, this is dinner. No, not lunch. Sammiches are dinner too.

What kind of sammich do you eat for dinner?