Rainy Day Lunch: Juevos Athenos

While I wanted nothing more than to run to the supermarket so I could make pies in a jar (Mrs. Scrimp shared a glorious link to the recipe from Our Best Bites), the weather is really too dismal for that. Between the rain and the wind, I feel damp just looking out my kitchen window. But it's warm enough in here, and, upon waking up this morning, I realized that our rescued poinsettias were thirsty. Dan took them home when his boss at the pizzaria got tired of having them around. There's a lush white one, a trooper of a pink one, and a Charlie-Brown-Christmas-Tree red one:

Charlie Brown was basically leafless, aside from his blooms, when we got him. On the day I took the above pictures, I was so proud of him for making little leaves! And today, while I was watering him, I discovered that he's even working on more blossoms:

I haven't had any cooking projects going lately because on Friday we were supposed to do an Iron Chef competition at a friend's house, and that got canceled. Saturday I worked from 11-7, which really killed my prime cooking hours and I ate leftovers upon getting home. And yesterday we were at another friend's house watching the Jets lose.

Today, I have all day, but admittedly, rain makes me lazier than I already am. I really want to make bread, but that might continue getting put off. I did, however, make an omelette (well, an American omelette) for lunch with the feta cheese and salsa I had in the fridge. I love omelettes because you can really do whatever you want with them and you really can't mess them up - you can make them look less than pretty, but even if you wind up with a mashed together mess, it's still going to taste good.

Start with a pat of butter in a cold frying pan; while that's warming you'll mix up your eggs.

I made a two egg omelette and I just eye-balled all of my ingredients. Omelettes are all about taste preferences, in my opinion. You put as much or as little of a filling as you like on the inside. If you're making a big omelette for a number of people, I recommend moderation on all fillings.

And what's the secret to great eggs? Why, dairy, of course! Adding a splash of milk or cream (or, like me, half-and-half) to eggs for omelettes or scrambled eggs makes for more delicious eggs (I need to do some more research into this... my dad claims that the milk helps make scrambled eggs the appropriate fluffy consistency).

I don't salt my eggs when I'm cooking with cheese (especially feta) because I think the cheese adds enough saltiness on it's own for me. Again, a matter of preference!

2 eggs

splash half-and-half (or milk, cream)
pepper (to taste)

Whisk all the ingredients together quickly with a wire whisk or a fork for a minute or two. You don't want any gooey gobs of egg poking through, basically.

When you're done doing this, your butter should be nice and melted and sizzling a little. With a spatula (never use metal tools on nonstick surfaces!) spread the butter around the pan, coating it as evenly as possible. Pour your beaten eggs into the pan. They stay fairly controlled, but you can always nudge at the edges a little to get it to stay a certain size.

When the eggs are about half way done cooking (or a little earlier if you like runny eggs... I tend to like well-cooked eggs, but I'm slowly expanding my horizons - I think I'll have to if I want to learn to make real French omelettes) you're ready for your filling. I chose:

feta

salsa (I used a smoked jalapeno salsa from Original Juan Specialty Food - I found it in the organic/natural aisle at the supermarket. Delicious! It says it's medium spicy, but if you're used to regular jarred salsa rankings - whose flavor is tame to begin with - this is more of a hot! than a medium; too spicy for Dan who is generally OK with things labeled medium spicy. Long story short: I am glad I did not buy the hot.)

Plop your fillings in the center of your omelette. While it is up to you how much of each ingredient you want, keep in mind that the goal here is to have the egg wrap around your fillings, so if you use too much you will wind up with a squishy mess in your pan and on your plate:

That's about 3 Tbs of feta and 2 Tbs of salsa.

Once the edges of the eggs are cooked to your liking and are firm enough to fold, create an egg burrito:

Ideally, I should have been able to flip this. But it was going to ooze out the one end if I did (and I did try, and it did make a bit of a mess, but it happens). So in the interest of keeping it together and not having a really big mess, I poked at it a couple of times and then just left it only for a few more minutes to finish cooking on the inside. And then I had my delicious Juevos Athenos omelette:

And what goes better with an omelette than fresh squeezes tangerine/clementine juice (these just showed up in my fridge one day after Dan had been at his mom, Carol's, house, so I don't really know which they are). I got this juicer from Dan's dad, Steve... it's awesome!

4 tangerines/clementines gave me a nice glass of juice.

If you like your juice extra-chunky (and believe me, when it's fresh-squeezed, you might. Leave all your preconceived notions about floaty bits in your OJ at the door and at least try it unstrained once. Dan dislikes pulp in his store-bought orange juice, but he loved half-chewing on the juice I made from oranges and grapefruits last week.) don't strain it. Otherwise, if you have a colander you can half strain it - which is kind of the "grovestand" equivalent of fresh-squeezed juices, and if you have a fine-mesh strainer you can have relatively pulp-free juice. If you do strain it in one way or another, make sure to mash at the pulp in the strainer to squeeze out every drop of delicious juice.

I need to get my hands on a blender now, because I have some ideas of what can happen with this simple little tool. Think of all the cocktail possibilities..... fresh squeezed pulpy lime juice, tequila, ice, and salt? Probably the best margarita ever.... Stay tuned for that one once I get a blender!

Grocery Shopping Makes Pot Roast Happen

(Recipe below)

I think food occupies about 80% of my thought process (don't tell my boyfriend). Currently, I am at the beginning of what feels like a really long and detailed research/hands-on learning project that involves food, gardening, and in general just being a better member of the planet. I am also looking forward to growing some veggies and flowers this summer, and learning to live more seasonally. But you gotta start small, that's the really hard lesson to learn.

But, today was a great day to start, actually, because I just went to the supermarket where I spent about $170. Ouch! But I'm shopping for two, and there were a handful of items that I won't have to buy again for awhile (toiletries, olive oil, storage containers, etc.).

I can't afford to shop 100% organic/local right now, but I do what I can.

I am committed, to organic chicken broth, for example. It looks like something you would want to eat; it has body and texture. It's not the clear liquid that comes out of the can. You know, the kind that looks like someone just wrung a skinned chicken over a vat and through some of the yucky bits in for good measure.

When it comes to vegetables, I would love to shop local/organic all year round. I couldn't afford the winter season's farm share (I need to look into the spring's) and for how many fresh fruits and vegetables we eat, when it comes to $4/lb. for tomatoes versus $2/lb., unfortunately I have to go with the money saver. We just can't afford it. And if you're in the same boat, here's why you shouldn't feel guilty:
Because you're feeding your family fresh vegetables.

That's fabulous, and I believe it's the very first step any family can take when working on developing healthy eating and earth-friendly habits. The only thing I buy in a can right now are beans (and baby peas, because those are delicious)*. Why? Because those big bags of dried beans freak me out and I haven't learned how to work with them yet. But I'm excited to learn, and that's also the next best place to be after feeding yourself and your family fresh vegetables.
*I'm not sure I will ever give up certain guilty pleasures. Bad striving-eco-person? or just human?

I'm learning right now. I have never made a roast in the oven before. By nature I am actually wary of the inside of my oven (I'm not sure why, my mom always has things in the oven). I just didn't go there (save for baking and the occasional roasting of vegetables). But, because I love to cook, I needed to give the inside of my oven the attention it deserved (that's what she said). So I bought a roast! The inexpensive supermarket variety because my local supermarket does NOT have a very extensive meat selection, and like I said, I'm on a budget and really want the leftovers so I can make ravioli tomorrow (you'll want to read that post, for sure). And I'm using the dutch oven that boyfriend's dad bought for me for my birthday (almost a year ago!) for the first time (I'm not kidding, I usually stay away from the oven).

I based this loosely on a recipe in my America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (also a gift from boyfriend's dad - can you tell we share a special father-in-law/daughter-in-law bond over cooking? It's rad.) which I used mostly for timing and liquid guidelines. Then I just winged it and used what I had!

But here it is now, an hour and a half in:

It's already noticeably smaller than when I started and the two ends were up against the wall of the pot.

So How Was It?

It was delicious! The meat was shred-with-a-fork tender and well-flavored. The wine really rounded out the flavor of the sauce, it was rich (all the fat from the roast rendering into it for 4 hours..mmm) and full of meat-carrot-potato flavor.

This is the sauce while I was finishing it:

And the final product all plated and ready to serve! The boyfriend and I enjoyed it with some bottles of black and tan:


Oven-Virgin Pot Roast

1 hunk o' meat (I bought a bottom round, vary your size according to how many your serving, I picked the smallest one since there are only two of us) - test kitchen recommends tying it with twine to get the meat roughly the same size all over. I recommend this, too. But I had no twine, so I didn't do it.
some olive oil (about 2 Tbs.)
1/2 onion (or a full one, I just had a half of one) cut in half and sliced. I didn't bother chopping because we both like onions and I was feeling a little lazy.
3 garlic cloves - again, I don't think you can ever have enough garlic. My upstairs neighbor's bedroom disagrees, though.
1 Tbs sugar (it was only supposed to be 2 tsp., but luckily before I put the second tablespoon into the mix, I had the foresight to check what the actual number was, so it might be a little sweet, but the extra teaspoon shouldn't kill the whole meal. I would not have thought to do this without T.K.)
6 carrots - 3 chopped into smaller thinner chunks, 3 chopped into thick bite-sized chunks
4 potatoes (or 2-3 smaller ones) - chopped into thick bite-sized pieces (I have a small dutch oven, so I'm only making enough potatoes for the meal we're going to eat tonight since I have other plans for the leftover meat and don't necessarily need a lot of left over veggies. If you have a bigger dutch oven and/or are serving more people or want more veggie leftovers, I would increase the amount of potatoes and carrots a bit).
Celery (I don't buy celery because I can't use it fast enough)
1 cup chicken broth (ideally, 1/2 cup chicken broth and 1/2 cup beef broth, someone forgot to buy beef broth at the supermarket.... if you have a bigger dutch oven and a bigger piece of meat, increase to 2 cups)
water - as much as you need to make the liquid reach half way up the roast (Test Kitchen fact!)
1/4 cup dry red wine -(T.K. ratio, and it was perfect. It was exactly what the sauce needed to go from being overwhelmingly meaty, to meaty with a nice tang)
1/2 tsp thyme or a couple of sprigs fresh - really, season to taste, I always do. I wish I had some fresh parsley, because I would throw that in at the end also, but I feel that you can throw fresh parsley on pretty much anything and it winds up delicious.)
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder (optional)
dried parsley - fresh would have been ideal, but I had dried, and it adds a nice finishing flavor and also livened up the color of the finished product. Seriously, do this with everything, especially when it's dried because the flavor is much less intense and you are less likely to offend sensitive taste buds with a lot of strong, fresh parsley flavor (however, if I am ever your guest, please offend me with too much parsley, there's never enough).

1. Get that oil heating in your dutch oven over medium-high heat. Preheat oven to 300 F, make sure your rack is in the middle position. Take a look at your meat. Twine it if you got it - basically wrap a piece around it and tie it in a knot ever 1/2-inch or so. Pat dry with a paper towel on all sides. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
Brown the meat on all sides - about five minutes per side. NO TOUCHING. You don't have to check to see if the meat is browning. I promise it is. Just be patient and do touch if you notice it starting to smoke (lower your temperature a little).
Remove the meat and set it aside. Leave all that good fat behind.

2. In the fat, throw in all your onions and the carrots that you chopped thinly. Let them cook for about 8-10 minutes, until they start to brown a bit. Feel free to add some salt for taste - it also helps the onions release their moisture (fun fact!).
Then add your garlic and sugar and cook until the garlic smells fragrant (this will happen in less than a minute. Garlic is something you can NEVER walk away from).
Now add your broth and thyme; put the roast and any of its drippings back in; add water until the liquid is at the appropriate mid-roast level and bring to a simmer.

3. Cover the dutch oven and stick it in the oven! Turn the roast ever half hour for about 3 hours (bigger roast, more time).

4. Throw in your potatoes and carrots and cook for about an hour (whenever the meat and veggies are tender). I would continue to rotate the meat also since there's always a part of it sticking out of the pot.

5. Remove from the oven. Take the meat out of the pot and set it aside, put your veggies in another bowl. Over medium heat, add the wine to your sauce and let it simmer for a few minutes, adding whatever seasoning you need to make yourself a nice gravy. Feel free to make a roux and thicken it up even! Sauces are awesome that way, you can really make them yours.