You know I love to post pictures of food....
However, I've been both too lazy and too busy to either photograph or post pictures of food lately.
Still, I wanted you to know how the last few nights of meals on a budget have gone.
Last weekend, I took all my veggie and chicken scraps out of the freezer, and put them into two large stock pots (one for veggie scraps, one for chicken bones), covered them with water, and let them simmer for several hours. I wound up with over a gallon of good, homemade, "free" because it didn't cost me anything but freezer space and half an hour of work, soup stock.
It's hard for me to use up soup stock, especially chicken soup stock when I butchered the chickens myself. I force myself to use every bit of the chicken, so I know there's bits of heart and liver and kidneys in that stock. It's worse than pork how gross and dirty that stock is. Major mental block. Even worse is vegetable stock, which to me just smells like rotten, boiled vegetables. I don't know why it smells rotten to me when everything that goes into a soup stock is pristine and good, and I know it because I'm the one to put those veggies in. Somehow, once it becomes stock it nearly becomes unpalatable unless it came out of a can or a carton.
Well, I made a concerted effort to overcome those blockages this week. I made a stew of carrots, celery, onions, and potatoes with homemade chicken broth, and it tasted quite excellent if I say so myself. The trick was to cut the onion very fine, add in minced garlic, and sautee those together. I added in the carrots and celery in a rough, homey chop. and sauteed several extra minutes, until the onion started to carmelize. Then I added the potato, chicken stock, and all the herbs I could easily find: rosemary, sage, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf, and let simmer for an hour or so.
Served up "American style" with a 16 ounce steak, it would've broken the bank and possibly my last belt. Served with a 4-oz steak for me and an 7 oz steak for the other palate, it was perfect.
Last night it was too chilly to grill and eat out on the deck, even the other palate agreed, and he thinks its rather ridiculous the way Los Angeles eating establishments put gas heaters out on their outdoor patios...
So I wanted soup. Good, hot, warming soup. Not just any soup, though, I wanted good, old-fashioned, from a can chicken and rice Campbells soup. Cans are actually pretty pricey, though, at a dollar or more a can. Fortunately I still had 2 cups of chicken stock in the freezer and some random scraps of chicken all tucked into a tupperware at the back of the freezer from a week ago.
The usual soup approach ensued: half an onion, minced fine, with a few cloves of garlic, a couple carrots cut small but not minced, a couple sticks of celery, chopped. Sautee everything until nearly brown, add in chicken scraps, a quarter cup of rice, and sautee until the rice is brown, too. Add the stock and enough water to cover, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and walk away for half an hour. Yum, good eats.
Today was a different day. There are only maybe two mornings a year when I wake up thinking, "You know what sounds good? Oatmeal!" Usually the answer is eggs. When the answer is oatmeal, I DARN well make oatmeal. So I made oatmeal. It was especially good with pecans and maple syrup and black coffee to offset the sweetness. Just saying.
Lunch was some cottage cheese, an apple, carrots. and cucumber. Nothing special, just a working person's lunch.
Dinner was a feast! We had chicken shawerma with pita and lavash and tomatoes and onions and tzatziki and tabouleh. The other palate in the household had never seen a full lavash before and he brought it into the living room, "Honey, did you realize how big this is?!" "Yes, dear, just cut it in half, please."
A good night all in all, and always a good night when I can make the other palate ask pointed questions .....
As though I didn't know what I was buying and neglected to inform him
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