vegetables

Shepherd’s Pie

~ nancyruth ~ 8 Comments

This is another food item that does not require a recipe, in my opinion. You may have a family recipe tradition with particular herbs and spices or quantities but I do not. I did not grow up eating this dish although Mom served us a lot of casseroles. I have seen a variety of recipes for this and I know that I have Americanized this dish as I do not use lamb. I have made this vegetarian using lentils but Hubby does not like that much. At a restaurant in Boston recently the chef made this with a tomato based meat mixture. My step-daughter and I thought that was odd, or at least, rather unique. That chef also put a piece of puff pastry atop the mashed potatoes for an interesting presentation.

The church I attend has a rotation of serving a weekend meal at our local soup kitchen. For simplicity they serve Shepherd’s Pie as the main dish and not have a potluck by the parishioners. The recipe suggested is as follows:

  • 2 pounds ground beef, browned
  • 1 large onion, chopped and sautéed with the meat
  • 2 cans creamed corn
  • 2 cans green beans, drained
  • Mashed potatoes to cover, instant or real (about a 2 /1/2 pound bag)
  • Salt and pepper to taste

The meat and onion is put in a 9 x 13-inch pan. Spread vegetables over meat and mashed potatoes on top. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25-30 minutes.

I indulge in a delivery service of locally sourced meat and I receive a pound of ground beef each month. This month I made a Shepherd’s pie, pictured below. I do not use the above recipe although it does make a tasty dish. Mine is a mixture of ground beef with sautéed vegetables in gravy. This is topped with mashed potatoes and baked until the top is crusty but not brown. The insides will be bubbling. Cool for a short while, serve, and eat.

The type of vegetables can vary. For me it depends on what I have around but mostly consists of a bag of frozen mixed vegetables added to sautéed chopped onion. This is cooked with the browning of the meat. I then add a half cup of broth and then another half cup mixed with a tablespoon of cornstarch. This makes a moist but not loose meat mixture under the mashed potatoes. Cheese and sour cream can be added to the mashed potatoes as desired. Although it is a hardy meal Hubby and I usual have two serving each! We won’t be losing weight this way!

Chicken Soup

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

Hubby was sick with a prolonged cold, not Covid, thank you for asking. He has not been sick for years, actually since he had Covid three years ago. But this was not Covid, no fever, no sore throat. He tried researching and decided it was allergies. We had recently been to the regional agricultural fair and had wandered around the animal barns with horses, cows, sheep, goats, and hay. He recalled that he may have had an allergy to hay in his childhood. But antihistamines did not clear this up, so he went back to cold medicine. Lo and behold, he got better on the 11th day, so his cold ran just over the 7 to 10 day course.

What to feed a cold? Or is it starve a cold, feed a fever? Either way soup is the answer. Now soup is just liquid with bits of food floating about in it. I have read and followed recipes for soups but unless it uses specialized ingredients is a recipe really necessary?

Liquid: broths and stocks of multiple varieties: chicken, beef, vegetable are the most popular. Milk and cream are possibilities as well.

Bits of food: vegetables of all sorts, meats of all sorts, and combinations of the two. I don’t know of any meat soup that does not use veggies as well. Pasta and grains are a nice addition as well as canned beans. One of my favorite things is to throw open packages of frozen vegetables in the soup. This uses up the veggies and adds variety to the soup.

I made a chicken noodle soup. I had a quart of chicken broth and a package of two boneless chicken thighs. This would be the easiest. After thawing the chicken I put it in a pan of water to poach. The advantage to this is that it makes an additional chicken broth!

The key to good soup is to sauté the mire poix. My usual is finely diced celery, carrots, and onions. For a different flavor profile one could use red and green peppers and garlic with the onions. Sautéing makes these bits of vegetables more flavorful and less bland when swallowed up in pots of broth.

Notes on pasta and rice: I cooked the egg noodles separately and did not add them to the soup itself. We put noodles in the serving bowls and ladled the soup over. This way the noodles don’t keep absorbing the liquid and become mush.  I suppose if that happened one could put it all in a blender and make cream of noodles soup!

Local Meat: venison stew

~ nancyruth ~ 5 Comments

The son-in-law hunts and got himself a nice buck. I want him to use all the meat so he gives me some. This deer gave me ground venison and stew meat. So I made a stew.

Stews are simply soups with larger cuts of meat and vegetables and less liquid. They are super simple to make especially when using a crockpot.

  • a pound (?) or packet of meat cut into stew sized chunks
  • 4 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 2 stalks celery cut into chunks
  • 6 small potatoes cut into chunks
  • 6 parsnips cut into chunks
  • 1 medium onion cut into chunks
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • 2 cups water or more to almost cover
  • 1 Tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled and halved

Throw all this into the crockpot and cook on low for 8-9 hours. Voila!

I served this with homemade Sally Lunn bread.

Vegetable Beef Soup and 60-minute rolls

~ nancyruth ~ 1 Comment

What is for supper when I’ve used up everything in the produce drawer, the meats in the freezer are too big to thaw quickly, and I have to be at work?  It’s a cold rainy fall day so soup seems in order. But what soup to make with frozen mixed vegetables as the main ingredient? There’s not even a potato in the house!

Building a soup, as my sister says, can be an adventure in creativity.  Here’s what I found to use. I had a half a box of beef broth in the fridge. There were remains of green onions in the produce drawer. I found a bit of ground beef hanging about the fridge freezer. Earlier I had found the ground turkey and mistook it for an Italian sausage, hubby had made sausage and peppers a few weeks before, so it was still in the freezer waiting for a use.

  • Beef broth, enough to cover the ingredients in the crock pot, about 2-4 cups;
  • 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
  • White ends of two green onions, sliced
  • One garlic clove, minced
  • 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes, these had basil, oregano, and garlic seasonings
  • ¼ pound ground beef
  • ½-3/4  pound ground turkey
  • Fresh herbs, parsley and spicy oregano

I sautéed the onion and garlic with the ground meats until the meats were browned. I used a bit of olive oil in the pan as well. I put this and the rest of the ingredients in the crock pot and covered with the beef broth. I set this on low and let it cook all day.

Sixty minute rolls are a staple from the Fleischmann’s Yeast bread book my Mom gave me eons ago. These are a tasty dinner roll that does not take hours and hours to make.

  • 3 ½ to 4 ½ cups of flour
  • 3 Tablespoons sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 packages yeast; I use instant yeast which is 3 teaspoons plus a scant bit more.
  • 1 cup milk; I did not have milk of any kind in my refrigerator so I opened a can of evaporated milk
  • ½ cup water
  • ½ stick butter  = ¼ cup

Mix 1 ½ cups flour and next three ingredients in the mixer bowl. Heat the milk, water, and butter until very warm (120-130 degrees F). Gradually add to dry ingredients and beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Add ½ cup flour and beat at high speed for 2 minutes. Stir in enough additional flour to make soft dough and knead until smooth and elastic. I do all of this in the KitchenAid with the dough hook. Place in greased bowl and cover; let rise 15 minutes.

At this stage I read that that first rise is to be done by placing the dough bowl in a pan of hot water.  This is news to me! I have been making these rolls forever and have never done that. One thing about making bread and knowing how it works, I apparently mostly read the ingredients, skim over the directions, add up the rising and baking times, and just go about the business of baking bread. So this time I did put the bowl in a pan of hot water mainly because it was a cold and rainy day.

After rising, turn dough out on lightly floured board and shape into rolls as you like. The recipe gives directions for Curlicues and Lucky Clovers. I decide on Lucky Clovers. Divide dough into 24 pieces, shape into balls, put in greased muffin tins, cut crosswise into the top of the dough almost to the bottom.

Cover and let rise for another 15 minutes. Bake these in a 425 degree oven about 12 minutes or until done. Remove from pan and cool on wire racks.

Dinner is served!

Soulard Veggie Stew, my way

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

We got gifted fresh garden vegetables and then got the weekly produce delivery. There were lots of tomatoes and some were eaten in salads and on sandwiches. A big hearty thank you to all the gardeners out there!

Soups and stews are an easy way to use up vegetables. I went through my handy-dandy Soulard Market Cookbook and found a veggie stew. This sounded good so this was the plan for the weekend, along with home baked crusty bread. For the bread I am making a French baguette.

For those interested, Soulard Market is St. Louis’ oldest public farmer’s market operating since 1799. It is a fabulous place to visit on Saturday mornings when visiting family in the area.

Basically vegetable soup can use any vegetables you have hanging about. For this recipe I substituted okra for the eggplant, added a green pepper, used veggie broth for the water, omitted the tomato paste and brown sugar. I used several hefty shakes of a dried Italian seasoning since my basil plant is pretty much useless.

  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 2 medium potatoes, diced
  • 2 carrots, cut in rounds
  • 3 okra, sliced in rounds
  • 1 rib celery, chopped
  • 1 small green pepper, diced
  • 2 shakes of salt
  • several hefty shakes of Italian seasoning
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 cups, or thereabouts, chopped tomatoes,
  • 1 medium zucchini, sliced
  • 4-5 quartered tomatillos
  • about 1 cup broccoli flowerets
  • 2 cups vegetable broth

First sauté a Mirepoix of the onion, one carrot, celery, garlic, and bell pepper in a bit of olive oil for about 8 minutes. I chose to cook this soup in a crockpot so I added the potatoes and the other carrot to the pot first. Add the Mirepoix and the other vegetables ending with the zucchini and the broccoli. Add seasonings. Add 2 cups of vegetable broth. Cook on low for 7-8 hours. Very nice soup!

(The original recipe instructs to put all vegetables except zucchini and broccoli in a large Dutch oven with the seasonings and liquid and bring to a boil. Then reduce to simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Then add the zucchini and broccoli, a can of tomato paste and 2 Tablespoons brown sugar and cook until broccoli is tender.)

quiche

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

So I was going to have some friends over for lunch. I picked the day of the week that was supposed to be sunny and reasonably warm so we could sit and visit and eat outdoors. Outdoors is more Covid-safe than indoors. As 2020 would have it though, the day was rainy, rainy, and rainy! So the lunch visit did not come together which is probably just as well. Indoor eating venues are not particularly the smartest choice these days. So it worked out that two friends weren’t feeling well (Covid negative, no worries!), another one was having a crisis in her work environment, so we cancelled.

I had already made a pumpkin cake to which I had added chocolate chips, walnuts, candied ginger, and dried cranberries. I was planning a crust-less quiche for lunch and decided to go ahead and make this.

My quiche “recipe” is two cups milk/cream and 4 eggs. Everything else is up to the cook. This was made with evaporated milk as I did not have “real” milk and am not certain “fake” non-dairy milk sets well in custards. I fried up some bacon for this and added the red pepper since only Hubby and I would be eating this.

  • 4 eggs
  • 12 ounce can of evaporated milk, topped up to two cups with plain unsweetened almond milk
  • about 6 ounces frozen spinach
  • one smallest red pepper, chopped
  • about four inches of bacon, diced; I hacked off a section of frozen bacon.
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Start oven to 350 degrees F.

Fry up the bacon. Drain the fat and put the bacon bits in the bottom of the 8-inch square baking dish. Add the onion, red pepper and spinach to the pan and sauté until the onion is softened. Add this mixture to the pan with the bacon and stir together. Meanwhile beat the four eggs with a fork and add the milk and stir until combined. Pour this over the veg and bacon mix in the dish. Oh, before that sprinkle the cheese over the veg. Bake for 35 minutes until nicely set. Let cool in pan about 10-15 minutes and then cut and serve. Yum! The leftovers made a nice breakfast the following day.

Eat Your Vegetables!

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

In my endeavor to eat healthy and lose weight I am trying to put more vegetables in our meals. I find it difficult to eat the daily recommendations of 5 servings of fruits and vegetables. That is unless I eat a salad which is 2-3 in one. In winter I find it harder to find salads appealing. I don’t hold to the idea of restricting vegetables in my quest. I will eat peas, potatoes, and carrots and not consider them too starchy, even though they might be. Beans are a vegetable and I am talking the canned variety of kidney, pinto, garbanzo, and the like. Even corn.

To this end I have been renting books from the library searching for interesting and easy ways to add fresh and frozen vegetables to our meals. We usually add frozen mixed vegetable to noodles, leftovers, chili, and casseroles. We dry roast them in a skillet with onion and seasoning too. But now I am looking for variety.

Jacques Pepin and Julia Child are two of my favorite chefs for reading about them and their recipes. My neighbor gave me her extra produce from one of those produce delivery services that touts themselves as reducing food waste. I hope it is true. There were two misshapen but perfectly good butternut squash. And there was a recipe for Butternut Squash Sauté in More Fast Food My Way by Jacques Pepin (page 136). So I made that. Hubby had the task of peeling and cutting the squash and almost cut his finger off doing so! The dish was tasty. I did not take a picture of it; we ate it. And then I put the leftovers in a recipe for Lentils and Sweet Potatoes using the squash as substitute for the sweet potatoes. I did not take a photo of that one either.

Here is a photo of a vegetable dish: French Style Peas

This recipe is from One Pot Vegetarian by Sabrina Faude-Role. I modified the recipe a bit using baby broccoli instead of spring onions and used homemade vegetable broth instead of a vegetable stock cube. And it was tasty! Who knew one could cook lettuce!

  • Frozen peas, I had half a bag so about 1 ½ cups
  • One bunch baby broccoli, stems and all, chopped
  • 1 carrot, peeled and sliced
  • 8 ounces vegetable broth
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • A grind or two of pepper
  • 6 lettuce leaves

Put everything in a sauce pot, bring to boil, and simmer for 15 minutes. Voila!

Now I have many many cookbooks and many have vegetable recipes. The glory of renting books from the library is trying them out to determine if any are worth getting for one’s own kitchen library. That one pot book is for me. It is not Vegan but all vegetables; and grains and pasta and a few more things like plant based proteins. There are even some desserts.

Quinoa casserole: inspired by Betty

~ nancyruth ~ 2 Comments

To be fair my 1978 edition of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook has no mention of quinoa anywhere in it. Not that quinoa was not known but it was not the superfood in popular cooking at that time. We older people struggled to learn how to pronounce the word.

I was actually looking for a recipe for sausages and rice that did not have tomatoes. We had been eating out at an Italian restaurant weekly and I wanted something differently seasoned. I also wanted something with vegetables. The following meal is inspired by Betty’s Rice and Corn Bake, page 109. That recipe is basically rice, corn, cheese, eggs, and milk. Mine is a little different.

  • 2/3rd pound chicken sausage link cut into 1 inch pieces and sauted. The sausage I had was flavored with spinach.
  • 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables; I thought about using only corn but I like color in my foods.
  • 4 cups cooked quinoa; I had thought about using brown rice; maybe next time.
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 tsp dry mustard
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tomato, sliced

Cook the quinoa as directed by the package. I cooked what I thought was the amount for 4 servings: 1 cup quinoa in 2 cups of water. Cook the sausages in a bit of oil. Heat oven to 350 F.

Now combine. First mix the vegetables, quinoa, and sausages in greased 2 quart casserole or baking pan. Sprinkle cheese on top. Combine eggs, milk, and seasonings. Pour this over the food in the pan. Place slices of tomato on top. Now bake for 40-45 minutes.

This made for a tasty and filling dinner. Hubby and I like to have “dinner in a bowl”. I deliberately arranged the tomato slices to make four servings. This was a lot of food and I wanted to insure two meals.

After thoughts: This is a lot of quinoa. I should have cooked 1/2 the amount. Actually I think brown rice may be a better choice for more appealing texture.

“Butcher’s Wife’s Pork Chops”

~ nancyruth ~ 5 Comments

This is my version of the titled recipe in my French Feasts cookbook. This is cooking without really measuring and just adding as one goes along. Here are the ingredients as best I can estimate.

  • 2 pork chops, end cut
  • 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 2-3 Tablespoons of olive oil, divided
  • 2-3 strips of bacon, chopped
  • 1 sweet onion, chopped
  • 1/2 cup shredded carrots
  • 1/2 cup sliced roasted red peppers, from a jar
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1-2 cups fresh spinach

Bread the pork chops while heating 1 Tab of olive oil in cast iron skillet. Salt and pepper them as well. Cook these until crispy brown about 3-4 minutes per side over medium heat.

Meanwhile, cook bacon in another skillet and add the onion. Add some olive oil as needed. Toss in the garlic and cook this for at least 5 minutes until the onion begins to soften. Now add the carrots and red peppers. Add salt and pepper to taste, or just some pepper. The bacon may be salty enough. Cook this for another 5 minute so the vegetables have softened. Stir this a few times. When this has softened enough for your liking put the spinach on top. Cover this with a lid and cook another 5 minutes to wilt the spinach.

IMG_2120

I served this with plain quinoa. After plating our dinner it occurred to me that I should have spread the quinoa over the plate, added the pork chop, and placed the cooked vegetables on top. Oh well. It was a nice meal, so much so that we sat at the kitchen table to eat instead of on the couch in front of the television.

The vegetables and quinoa would make a nice vegetarian meal, just leave out the bacon. And the vegetable quantities could be increased very easily.

Enjoy!

Chicken Vegetable Casserole

~ nancyruth ~ 3 Comments

Greetings my dear readers! This is an updated version of a casserole I used to make when I first started a family many years ago. I am not sure where I got this but it is one of those canned soup recipes. And back then I used canned soups. I don’t anymore and haven’t for a long time. I have learned how to make my own cream sauce. I thought I would share this with you all. I had thawed chicken thighs and didn’t want to do another lemon chicken recipe. So here is what’s for dinner.

Original recipe: 2 cans cream of mushroom soup, 2/3 cup mayonnaise, 1 pound large cut vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, shredded cheese if desired, and one cut up chicken.

Here’s my update:

  • 8-10 medium sized chicken thighs; I wanted to be “healthy” so took the skins off.
  • 1/2 super large bag of frozen Normandy style vegetables: zucchini and yellow squash, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower; use at least two pounds of large cut vegetables. You could cut fresh vegetables for this as well.
  • (I could have added about  4 ounces of mushrooms but the ones I had smelled too earthy for my liking.)
  • 2 cups chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • generous sprinkling of seasonings of your choice; I used Herbs de Provence; it is my new go-to herb mixture
  • 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt; I threw this in at the last minute to add a creamy “healthiness”
  • 1 cup shredded cheese; I used a mixture of cheddar.

Super simple to make: heat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray your 9×13-inch baking pan with cooking spray, or oil it if you prefer. Place your vegetables in here. Place your chicken on top of the vegetables. Make your sauce.

Melt the two tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan. Add broth. Sprinkle on your seasoning or herbs. Mix the cornstarch with the half-and-half. Add to pan and bring just to boil. This will not be thick but on the verge of thickening. Pour the sauce on top of the chicken. This looked thin to me so I smeared the yogurt on top of the chicken. Sprinkle the cheese over this.

Bake for at least one hour. Test chicken for done-ness with meat thermometer: 165-175 for thighs.  Dinner is served. This has your vegetables and your protein. Rice or egg noodles could be a side which would be nice with the sauce.

Enjoy!