More meat, more stuffed

This will be my only post for a while. As you are reading this, I am sitting in a plane, on my way to Madrid. Madrid! I don't speak Spanish at all well enough to be going to Madrid!

Once again, I'm sure I'm going to take pictures of every meal I eat, even though my faithful camera is now broken. For the time being, I'm borrowing one of Mama Bird's old cameras, but I'll probably have to buy a new one soon. I guess I'd mentioned doing it a few times already, so it's not too big of a deal.



But before I go, I'll leave you with one of the things I've been meaning to share for a few weeks now. I made these for friends months ago, and it's high time I shared them. I originally thought that they'd be light, that everyone would be able to eat two zucchini boats apiece and it'd be a nice healthy meal. I didn't realize how much meat that would have been for everyone. Next time I make these, I may half the meat, or at least drop it to 3/4 of a pound.

Recipe from The Homesteading Housewife
(Makes 8 servings, with 250 calories and $1.94 per serving)

4 zucchini

1 onion

1 green bell pepper

4 cloves garlic

1 pound ground beef (or 1/2 pound ground beef and 1/2 pound Italian sausage)

1/2 teaspoon oregano

2 eggs

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs

2 cups mozzarella cheese

1. Preheat oven to 375.
   
2. Wash zucchini, but do not chop stems.
   
3. Put in a pot of cold water, and bring to a boil.
   
4. Let boil 6-7 minutes or until tender, and remove and set aside to cool.
   
5. In a skillet, brown meat and add garlic, onion, oregano, and peppers.
   
6. Slice zucchini lengthwise, and scoop out seeds.
   
7. Chop extra zucchini 'meat' and add to meat mixture.
   
8. Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan, and eggs in with meat, and mix well.
   
9. Fill zucchini boats with meat, and top with mozzarella.
   
10. Bake until cheese is hot and bubbly.
    

Today's lessons learned:

• Stuffed anything is much more filling than you think.
  
• Sometimes, more meat is not the answer. But only sometimes.
  

Mother's Day Baked Ziti

The blog layout finally changed! It's got 99% less birds, 100% less stripes, and 100% more food. Looking at that picture does make me wish I had more of those tacos, though... I'll add them back onto the list of recipes I need to make. First on the list is everything I ate in England. I swear I'll get to that before it's been a full year.

I wasn't sure what I should have shared today. As the first day of my meatless month thought it'd be fitting to share something vegetarian, but I don't have anything vegetarian I've been waiting to share. I was tempted to post the last muffin recipe I have stored just to make it three muffins in a row, but I decided a real meal every now and then is a good idea too.

Not that I couldn't live off muffins. You can put fruits and veggies in those, so don't let anyone tell you a muffin isn't a complete meal.

Mother's day was almost two weeks ago, which is years in blog time. But I never shared when we cooked up for Mama Bird, and that's really a shame, because it was a very filling meal that lasted us for quite a few days.

Yes, I said what 'we' cooked up. Sister Bird and I told Mama Bird that we would take care of dinner for her on Mother's day. I originally was hoping to make her stuffed zucchini, but Sister Bird isn't quite on-board with my desire to be trying new food, so she vetoed it as soon as it was suggested. But since Mama Bird been's bragging to her about what a good cook I am now, she still wanted me to come up with something for us to make.

One thing I've learned about my sister over the years is that she loves meaty, cheesey pasta dishes. So I told her we should make ziti. She vetoed the meatless version, too. It was not a terribly healthy dinner, but you can't win them all.

We also decided to make garlic bread. If I had thought about it more, I would have prepared it differently, but I am rarely known for thinking ahead.



So I just melted some butter, minced some garlic, and stirred them together for a little, then put them on the bread. It was super garlic-y.



Luckily everyone in my life loves garlic. A lot.

So, if I had thought ahead for the garlic bread, I would not have melted the butter, but just left it soften. Then I could have stirred the minced garlic into it, spread it on the bread, and then broiled it. That would have made sense, instead of spooning melted butter and slightly cooked garlic onto pieces of bread.



The baked ziti was HUGE. I don't mean 'oh, it fed our family and we had leftovers the next day' huge. I mean it fed all four of us, Sister Bird took another fourth of it to school with her, and Mama Bird and I ate it for lunch for another four days. It was so bulky that when I put it in the oven it scraped up against the top. There's still melted cheese in the oven now, and you smell it whenever you use the oven.

It's been annoying Mama Bird quite a bit. Happy Mother's Day?



These pictures were extremely rushed, because we were all quite hungry by the time it came out of the oven. Well, I saw all of us, but maybe it was just me. It's so hard to tell sometimes.

Overall, it was a little sweet for me. I don't care for sweetness in most main dishes, and although I think my family agreed it was slightly sweet, no one else had that problem. Don't get me wrong: this was still a meaty, cheesy, pile of delicious pasta. I would have just upped the red pepper flakes and most likely included Sriracha if I had been making it for myself and friends instead of Mama Bird. I also think this was really closer to 16 servings than 12, but we had eaten signifcant salads and a fair bit of super garlic-y bread before we really got into it.

Recipe from Simply Recipes.
(Makes 12 6 ounce servings, with 441 calories and $2.37 per serving)

1 pound ziti pasta

1 pound ground beef, pork, sausage, or a mix

1 onion

3-4 garlic cloves

3/4 tablespoon basil

1 tablespoon thyme

1 tablespoon rosemary

1/2 tablespoon red pepper flakes

32 ounces marinara sauce

1/2 pound mozzarella cheese

1 cup ricotta

1 cup parmesan

1. Preheat oven to 350.
   
2. Bring a pot of water to boil, and cook pasta.
   
3. Brown the meat, adding onion and garlic whenever desired.
   
4. Add herbs once meat has been browned, and stir well.
   
5. Cook about a minute, then add tomato sauce and bring to a simmer.
   
6. Spread a thin layer of sauce in the bottom of casserole pan.
   
7. Spread half of the ricotta over the sauce.
   
8. Mix some of the sauce with the pasta, and then add to pan.
   
9. Spoon the remaining sauce over the pasta, and layer with cheese.
   
10. Bake in the oven until top is browned, about 20 minutes.
    

Today's lessons learned:

• When putting stuff in the oven, make sure there's enough room for it. If not, move the racks down.
  
• Don't get cheese inside the oven, it will smell like burning for weeks.
  

Meatballs don't need to be slow cooked.

Today was an inspirational experience for me. I went downstairs to elliptical (just some basic intervals), and couldn't find my sports bra. I looked through the dryer, the washer, the baskets of clean (and dirty) clothes, and came up with nothing. So I grabbed a towel instead, and headed to my shower, smiling to myself and thinking 'oh well, what difference is missing one day gonna make?'

Then I thought about how I hadn't run on Friday, or on Saturday. I felt slightly guilty, but hey, I was busy both days, and there just hadn't been time. And then I realized if I skipped today I'd be my third day off. And then I thought about what a easy thing it would be to just stop running altogether and go back to lazing around everyday. And then suddenly it was easy to go find a bra, and went and did my running for the day.

It's interesting to think how easy it'd be to stop trying to lose weight. But I am too vain for that.

The rest of my weekend was not nearly as inspirational. If anything, it was a little disappointing. I may not have done a full year of cooking in my slow cooker, but I think my friends might say that I get overly excited when I get to use mine. It feels like lazy cooking: do a little work, then sit around and smell the food cooking all day, and bask in compliments when it turns out well. What part of that doesn't sound great?

So when some of my friends were getting together over this weekend, I decided that I wanted to cook. I had been craving meatball subs all week, and seeing as it was a group of guys, I figured they'd be more than happy to have some simple subs. But I didn't want to be cooking while we were hanging out, so I had the genius idea to make them in the slow cooker.

I don't think anyone was surprised by this turn of events.

But since we were meeting at someone's parent's house, they suggested I doubled the recipe so we could offer his parents dinner as well. And we all agreed that yes, we definitely had to do that, because it'd be rude to use their kitchen without offering them any food. After some more minor debates about how many meatballs I could expect each of them to eat (I was assured that it was more than I thought they could), we decided that just doubling the recipe would be the best way to go. As I was standing in the grocery store, holding four pounds of meat, I thought to myself, 'Wow, 4 pounds of meat to feed maybe 10 people?' I probably should have thought it through a little more.

My first concern came when I finished putting all the tomato and onion and garlic in the slow cooker, and realized there was no way that it could possibly hold that much sauce and four pounds of meat. It also looked awfully thin. But it smelled good, and I just turned it on and let it go for four hours. Then when I came back, I admitted defeat. There was no way four pounds of meatballs would fit in my slow cooker, as big as it was.

We transferred it to a bigger slow cooker, and I plopped the meatballs in, pleased that they (barely) fit. What I didn't think about was that this new crock pot wasn't warm at all. It took it an hour to warm up, and by then everyone was starving and the meatballs were nowhere near cooked. So we transfered everything to a big pot and just boiled them for 10 minutes, and then feasted. And boiled some canned pasta sauce because mine was just too thin to put on subs.

The meatballs tasted fine. But the experience was certainly saddening. This was yet another 'I'd like to try this again because I messed up' recipes. I'm collecting far too many of those.

Chile Verde

Yesterday, I made chile verde from A Year of Slow Cooking. I've made an effort to be more frugal in my groceries, as I usually decided I wanted to make something then go buy all the ingredients. So I decided to start watching the sale items for the week and then make something based off that, or at least based off what meat was on sale. Before we went to England (more on that later) last week, I bought almost five pounds of chuck roast with no idea what to do with it.

And to no one's surprise, I ended up on A Year of Slow Cooking, and picked that. I had never actually touched a tomatillo before, and I went the extra mile and bought fresh sage and cilantro. I spent probably an hour and a half hand-chopping all the fresh ingredients the night before, knowing I'd never do it in the morning.

Well, I did use the chopper-thing, so I guess I can't say I chopped it by hand. But it did take me almost an hour and a half.

It looked amazing the next morning, and it smelled great even after it had only been in for a few minutes. I was concerned that the meat would dry out since there wasn't much moisture, but it sank during the day and Mama Bird stirred it a little too.

Boyfriend Bird told me I needed to start learning to plate food, if I really wanted to be a foodie. I stuck my tongue out at him, but then spent a little time trying to make it look pretty. I think I had succeeded before I just drizzled fat all over the burrito-taco, but since I didn't have great lighting and had to use flash, I don't think it looks great anyway. So Boyfriend Bird decided to one-up me.

I maintain that it wasn't fair because I had rolled my food up, so it wasn't a great comparison, but he just said I should have thought of that. He wanted me to make sure that I pointed out the artistic way he drizzled his fat in loops. I told him I'd be sure to point it out.

As for the food, though, I was somewhat disappointed. I didn't think it had tons of flavor; I would have found it bland if not for the rice. I'm hoping that having it sit in the fridge for another day will have made it better, but we'll see. I think I may have added too little spices, as I had almost an extra pound of meat in the pot. But even still, I'm not convinced. I'll see if it's better now that it's sat.

New Year's Cooking

I have been bad at cooking since New Year's. And even worse at dieting, truth be told. I made it halfway to my goal- 20 pounds down, and 20 to go!- but I've been eating terribly for the last week and a half. So I've gained two pounds back, which has lead me to the conclusion that I need to start running. Of course, I won't be doing that right now. We have a family vacation coming up, so I'll be starting running after we come back from that. Hopefully Netflix will help me along.

But, I wanted to continue my health crusade with my morning muffins at work. Mama Bird got me a cupcake holder for Christmas, so I can safely bring muffins into work in the morning without wasting bags, or letting them get squashed. Of course, most muffins aren't healthy, so of course I tried to make something healthy. So I made cornbread muffins from The Hillbilly Housewife. I was a little curious by it not having sugar, but figured that she knew what she was doing.



The tops of the muffins collapsed, and I thought it was funny. I grabbed one while they were warm, and took a big bite. I barely managed to finish chewing it, and tossed mine in the trash. Sister Bird didn't believe they could be that bad, and also did the same thing. Boyfriend Bird insisted they couldn't be that bad, and said if I kept them for him then he'd take them home with him and eat them.

I told him he was very, very wrong, but held onto them since he was coming for dinner that night. He arrived, and forced himself to eat a whole one while I laughed at his horrified face. He was very, very sweet about it, but finally admitted that yes, he did not want to take them home, and they were pretty bad.

Luckily, the stew I made went over very well.



Using both Rotel Original and taco sauce was too much for my family, and they thought it was almost overly spicy. I thought it was quite good, and would make it again. I might use more potatoes and carrots, as I thought it could have used a little more veggie. But we also used beef tenderloin, so I think I just wanted more stuff to balance up the meat.

I had a bit of an OCD fit over the short winter break, and went through two of the three freezers in our house. I threw away a lot of food that was past good. Some frozen meals that were labeled as expiring in 2007, some meals I recall my mother making right after the end of the school year, some bags of things that had been ripped and were completely frostbitten... and the worse, finding somehow a bottle of red wine had exploded in the freezer and I had to clean the sticky up. Mama and Papa Bird were very, very appreciative, though, and now we have a checklist of everything in the freezers and when they'll expire. We're working through it slowly, and it makes me happy.

I've had a lot of ideas for things I'd like to do with this blog. Self challenges, things like that. Things like using that homemade ice cream maker to make a big vat of vanilla ice cream, then making a bunch of homemade syrups and just trying them all out. I also really want to go through all of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and cook everything from there that sounds interesting. That, however, will take a right long time. It's also really hard to find those episodes anywhere without buying the DVDs, and while I like the show, I don't think I like it enough to buy it. So hopefully I'll make more use of this. =)

Mongolian Beef, a love affair

This picture was taken with my phone, so it's really not a great picture. It is Mongolian Beef from A Year of Slow Cooking, one of my favorite cooking blogs. The modifications I made are down at the bottom of this. Her blog is the only cooking blog I really follow, aside from TasteSpotting, which I don't consider a blog. I made the sauce and cut the flank steak at home, and then took it to Statt Bird's apartment, where I cornstarch'd the meat and then plopped in all in the slow cooker for about six hours. I stirred it far too often.

But my friend's apartment smelt like delicious slow cooking flank steak, garlic, onion, along with soy sauce, ginger, red pepper flakes, and more.  This was my third time making it, and it has never failed to amaze.  I also made a bed of white rice and steamed broccoli to go along with it, although I didn't make enough broccoli or rice. We didn't have a big enough pot for more than three cups of rice, and I had six heads of broccoli. A bird friend I wasn't expecting also came, and although we had more than enough meat (which I did not expect at all), we did not have enough sides for everyone to get as much as they wanted.

Overall, the Mongolian Beef was a success. One of my bird friends (who I believe I will dub Jujyfruits Bird. He'd understand.) had me send his girlfriend the recipe, and she assured me 'if he says that it's really good twice, then he really likes it.'

After dinner we were going to just play games and then I was going to make apple dumplings around 10 or so. We ended up going to a local game night and playing Killer Bunnies. The game made no sense, largely because the directions were far too complicated, and I didn't really enjoy it much at all. It also meant we didn't get home until 11, and I was in no mood to eat the dumplings at midnight or later, so we didn't do them. We may tonight.

Today, aside from going to Statt Bird's again, Boyfriend Bird and I are going to make pizza bagels (again), and do who knows what for dinner. My only goals for the day are to finish my writing for NaNoWriMo, make the dumplings, and take a shower when I am home. I'd like to also play some Fable, or do some reading, but. I know how my life gets out of control.

Thanksgiving this week! I am in charge of making appetizers for Mama Bird, although I will be at Boyfriend Bird's house before our Thanksgiving dinner. I will probably get her to try to slow cook things. I am becoming a slow cooking monster.

Mongolian Beef from A Year of Slow Cooking
(Serves 4+, approximately $12.25 per serving)

Ingredients

1.5 pounds flank steak

4 cloves of chopped garlic

3 sliced green onions, and an extra you'll never remember to put as garnish that will eventually be thrown away in frustration when you find it a month later.

1/2 an onion, diced

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup white wine

1/4 cup cooking sherry

1/2 tablespoon white wine vinegar, or red wine or whatever random 'flavor' of vinegar you have

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon molasses

1 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon black pepper, or however many grinds you want until you get bored.

1.5 teaspoons red chili pepper flakes

1/2 tablespoon peanut butter

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

Directions

1. Add all ingredients except the meat and cornstarch to slow cooker.
   
2. Slice meat into thin strips, or little chunks.
   
3. Toss meat in bag with cornstarch, coating as best you can.
   
4. Put meat in slow cooker, stirring slightly to coat in sauce.
   
5. Cover and cook on low for about 5 hours.
   
6. Serve over rice with broccoli, or whatever veggies you're after.
   
7. If you remember, garnish with extra green onion on top. You will never remember this step.
   

Today's lessons learned:

• Sometimes you don't need or want dessert. This happens rarely.
  
• It is okay to walk away from a bad board game.
  
• I need to learn to better judge how much food I'm making.