Archive for February, 2009
A carnivore’s dream, these past few nights have been. Friday night we had pot roast. Which is not so much a testament to my good-wife skills as it was evidence of me being among the last to leave the set on Thursday night, when we remembered the pot roast that sat browned and prepped in the oven. (Through the magic of TV we had an already-done one to pull out for the final beauty shot.) I took it home and finished it the next day in the slow cooker while we shot Episode 5: Low-Fat Baking. M quartered some potatoes and put them on to boil so that when I got home, all they needed was a rough mash with the potato masher and some buttermilk, and a shake of frozen peas cooked up in another pot took about as long.
Saturday morning, as I may have mentioned, we shot little location segments in my kitchen. As the 8 person crew descended on the house first thing in the morning I popped some cheese biscuits into the oven, then swapped it for a ham, which after an hour or so I brushed with a mixture of brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and grainy mustard (about equal parts – maybe a little less mustard) while the guys adjusted the sound and lights. At lunch we had roast ham and biscuits, with the leftover tortellini salad I made with crumbled feta, white kidney beans, and pesto to ensure W didn’t eat eggs and toast for an entire week of lunches. Everyone was happy.
Luckily (for my colon) Sunday was the greens show, which requires us to make two big batches of tabbouleh, and so a big bowlful redeemed me somewhat. Maybe I shouldn’t have topped it with a slab of roast beef. (Just kidding. Maybe.)
Stay tuned for approximately a week of cooking with leftovers – of course leftover pot roast and roast ham are among the best things you can have too much of.
Pot Roast
There are two ways to cook a pot roast: on the stovetop or in the oven, and the choice of liquid and flavorings you use are largely up to you. Any kind of broth, wine, tomato juice, and water all work well, and I have even heard of people using coffee.
3-4 lb. chuck roast, rump roast, boneless bottom or eye of round or brisket
a drizzle of canola or olive oil
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 carrot, peeled and cut into chunks
2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
2-4 cups liquid (beef, chicken or vegetable broth, wine, tomato sauce, juice, beer, coffee…)
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, sherry or chili sauce (optional)
Season your roast with salt and pepper. In a large pot or Dutch oven set over medium-high heat, heat the oil until hot but not smoking. Brown the roast on all sides, turning it with tongs or a fork. This caramelizes the outside of the meat, adding flavor.
Remove the roast from the pot and set it aside on a plate. Add the onion, carrot, and garlic to the pot and cook for a few minutes, until they start to brown. (If you want to skip this step, just throw the veggies in with the roast. Cooking them first caramelizes them a bit, adding more flavor.) Return the roast to the pot and add the liquid and any seasonings you like.
Cover the pot tightly and simmer the roast on low heat on the stovetop or inside a 275°F oven for 2-4 hours (depending on the size and thickness of your roast). Or pop the lot into a slow cooker and set it on low for 6-8 hours.
Remove the roast from the juices and set it aside. Tent it with foil to keep it warm. Let the juices settle for a few minutes, then scoop any excess fat off the surface with a wide spoon. Strain the solids out by pouring the juices through a sieve or using a slotted spoon, or purée them with a hand-held immersion blender (or in a regular blender or food processor). Return the strained or puréed liquid to the pot, set it over medium heat and bring it to a boil. Simmer for about 10 minutes to reduce and concentrate the juices, adding salt and pepper to taste. If you like, stir in a few spoonfuls of sour cream for a creamy gravy.
Slice or shred the beef and serve it with the sauce poured overtop, preferably with mashed potatoes to catch the drips.
I’m sorry for the crumbly eatmores – I’m going to double check to see if maybe something was lost in translation – or in sleep deprivation – did those of you who had trouble use all-peanuts peanut butter? I admit to a light PB addiction – not as good for you as the natural stuff, but not as fatty as the regular Kraft. It’s a but sweeter and not as lardy, and works beautifully in these. I’ll give it another go and post an update…
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February 09 2009 | leftovers | 8 Comments »
Oops.
I blew right past Free Stuff Fridays, didn’t I? The past weeks have been a bit of a calendular blur – we’re shooting straight through the weekends too, so I’ve got the double whammy of no time management skills paired with no sense of what day it is. So instead of coming up with free loot for you last night post-shoot, I went shopping and cleaned the house in preparation for the entire crew to come shoot here today. Can I take a FSF hiatus until things resume to relatively normal on Friday the 20th? I’ll come up with something good then, I promise. I still have a backlog of the past weeks’ free stuff to ship out. Hopefully these yummy little numbers will make it up to you.
The best part of my days this week have been reading W stories at night – practically the only time I see him. Green Eggs and Ham has been one of his favourites for at least a third of his life, and we picked up the computer game version (really all rhyming and reading and stuff, not little Dr Seuss characters ganging up to take each other out) when we bought the Mac, which required about ten minutes for him to become completely adept at.
So yes, I made this recipe up in order to use the name. But it has turned into one of my favourite things – I adore deviled eggs (really, who doesn’t?) – imagine them plumped up with salty ham and earthy spinach, but actually lighter on account of more stuff and fewer eggs yolks and mayo. If you are at all a fan of all things eggy or hammy or cheesy, TRY THESE. Seriously.
Also – they aren’t at all finicky. You don’t need to wait for a party or feel the need to pipe the filling decoratively into the egg white halves – you likely couldn’t, anyway. And forgo the old-school paprika sprinkle – just go with black pepper.
Green Eggs & Ham
6 large eggs
1 tsp. canola oil
2 slices deli ham, chopped (or a bit of leftover roast ham)
A handful of fresh spinach or chard, chopped
1 Tbsp. light mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Place the eggs in a medium saucepan. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Cover, remove from heat and let stand 15 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water until cool. Peel and slice in half lengthwise. Remove yolks and set 3 aside for another use, or feed them to your dog.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saucepan set over medium heat and sauté the ham for a minute. Add the spinach and cook for another minute, until wilted.
In a medium bowl mash the 3 yolks with the mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper until smooth. Add the spinach mixture and stir until well blended.
Stuff egg white halves with filling and serve immediately. Makes 12.
Per egg half: 55 calories, 3.7 g total fat (1.1 g saturated fat, 1.5 g monounsaturated fat, 0.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 4.5 g protein, 0.8 g carbohydrate, 111 mg cholesterol, 0.1 g fiber. 61% calories from fat
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February 07 2009 | leftovers | 24 Comments »
OK. This has nothing to do with dinner, and I didn’t even make them today. I was going to take advantage of it no longer being 2008 and skip a post, holding off on any renegade thoughts for Friday, but all this enthusiasm over the prospect of Eatmores reminded me that I actually do have a recipe for these chewy, chocolatey energy bars (for lack of a better word – energy really refers to calories, but I can’t call these granola bars, nor really cookies or squares) – these are no-bake cereal bars held together with a chocolate and peanut butter goo that closely resembles our beloved Eatmores. More so than the previous peanut truffle fudge recipe, which is soft and chocolatey without the requisite chew (“a good chew – and peanuts too“) of an Eatmore.
So here’s a Free Stuff Friday Eve freebie for all. If you wanted to, you could eliminate the dried fruits and grains and everything else, leaving only the peanuts, and boosting their quantities. (Of course because these are relatively good for you, you can Eat More of them.)
I really adore these. They are perfectly portable too – ideal for wrapping individually and tossing in your bag to take with you wherever you need to go.
Crispy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
3 cups Rice Krispies or Special K cereal
1 cup oats
1 cup chopped dried fruit (such as raisins, cranberries & apricots)
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1/4 cup ground flax seed (optional)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup light peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
In a large bowl, toss together the cereal, oats, dried fruit, peanuts and flax seed.
In a small saucepan, combine brown sugar, cocoa, peanut butter and honey over medium heat and stir until completely melted and smooth. (Alternatively, you could do this in the microwave.) Pour over the fruit and cereal mixture and stir until evenly coated.
Press into a 9” x 13” pan and chill until firm before cutting into bars. Makes 18 bars.
Per Bar: 173 calories, 5.1 g fat (0.9 g saturated fat, 2.3 g monounsaturated fat, 1.6 g polyunsaturated fat), 31.3 g carbohydrates, 0 mg cholesterol, 4.1 g protein, 2.6 g fiber. 25% calories from fat
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February 05 2009 | leftovers | 26 Comments »
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” – Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food (both highly recommended reads)
This is some of the best advice I’ve heard.
Today, it was more along the lines of: Eat food. Way too much. Mostly cheese.
We taped the cheese episode today – a fantasy of mine really, but I felt rather like crap upon coming home. We have to taste our way through each segment (4 of them), and run through each one twice, plus cutaways (all those snippets of close-up chopping stuff, turning on the burners, grabbing stuff from the fridge etc. that you see on food shows but don’t really notice) – and then there’s the small matter of eighteen or so different chunks of cheese lying around as leftovers beside pots of fettuccine Alfredo and grilled cheese sandwiches. So I didn’t really stop when the cameras were off, although I did slow down a bit, and tried to ballast all that cheese with some walnuts and prunes and broccoli.
I grazed through the day and Mike fended for himself at dinner, W slept through it and ate plain popcorn and dried apricots upon waking up and wanting to watch Wall-E.
Later, as I was checking email and reading Green Eggs and Ham for the kajillionth time (it is good speech exercise, luckily) I remembered the chocolatey peanuty stuff I made the other day in response to a craving for a Cuban Lunch – do you remember those waxy peanut and chocolate bars that came in little ruffled rectangular red paper cups? I think they discontinued them before I was 10, but I remember my mom buying them, along with sponge toffee (still one of my favourite things ever) at the little grocery store by our house. I hadn’t thought of them in eons, and then one day something triggered a memory lodged somewhere deep in my brainpan (weird what you hang on to while more important stuff is jettisoned off to oblivion after a week and a half) and I had to make some out of the chocolate chips and salted peanuts in my cupboard. This stuff is softer than the old-school Cuban Lunch, more like a truffle than like fudge, but I didn’t know how else to describe it. Decidedly not low fat or calorie, but cheaper than therapy. And honestly, these require less than 5 minutes of actual work. (If you can call stirring and pouring work.)
Peanut Truffle Fudge
3/4 cup half & half (or full-on whipping cream)
3 cups chocolate chips
1 cup salted peanuts
In a medium pot or microwave-safe bowl, heat the cream (on the stovetop or in the microwave) until barely simmering. Remove from heat and add the chocolate chips. Let it sit for a few minutes, then stir until smooth. Stir in the peanuts.
Spread into a loaf pan and chill; cut into squares or strips or trim bits and bites off and just eat them. (Not too much.)
Speaking of exercise (or was I? I can’t remember) my early morning workout regimen lasted exactly one day. Monday I was up early and did my stint at the gym, but by the end of the day we were half an episode behind and the following days I had to be out the door at 6:30 to make my call time, which would have meant being up at 5 to squeeze in even a brief visit to the gym. Having not been in bed early enough (and both nights up with either boy or dog) it was a choice between sleep and gym, and my brain, as you well know, does not function well without sleep. With an entire crew working around Ned and I, I felt obliged to be as cognizant as possible.
Despite the cheese and new-school Cuban Lunch I have managed to stay the course and am teetering at the brink of 200. A point I never thought I’d have to cross back over again, but I am happy that I’m not back to working my way down to 300. I’d love to hear how you are all doing. I finally heard back from the Superstore, and so am going to schedule Book Club for the week of the 23rd?
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February 04 2009 | leftovers | 21 Comments »
Lou loudly alerted me to the most wonderful surprise yesterday afternoon – a FedEx package full of maple syrup products from Manon’s sugar shack in Ontario. Two jugs of the pure stuff – which gave me ample opportunity to hold them up chest height and have Mike admire my jugs in a way he hasn’t in a very long time – plus maple butter, apple butter and maple sugar. I’m pretty sure I saw a tear of pure joy run down Mike’s cheek.
And so since this is the last weekend I won’t have a 7:30 am call time (we’re shooting every day until the 18th) until the weekend of the 21st, I thought I’d make waffles in homage to this wonderful syrup and in order to stash some away in the freezer for more streamlined mornings for M & W. I made them pumpkin waffles in an attempt to inject at least some nutritional value – I imagine W is going to be eating an awful lot of grilled cheese and eggs on toast over the next couple weeks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Myself – I have lofty plans of getting up über early, going to the gym and reviewing our script for the day on the elliptical trainer, then coming home, showering and getting to the set (with coffee) by my 7:30 call time. How long do you think that will last?
Plus tomorrow I’m going to try to make cinnamon buns to bring to celebrate the first day of shooting. You know, get us all off on the right food before we share close quarters for more than two weeks. My plan reminds me of the time I baked cookies for CBC in the morning and was running late so had to bring the whole cookie sheet in the car, with a spatula and plate, and transferred them from sheet to plate at a red light. At least I gave the guy in the truck beside me something to tell everyone at the water cooler that day. I’ve seen people doing their makeup in the car, reading, even working on their laptops. But baking cookies?? (Have I mentioned my absolute lack of time management skills before?)
I will, by the way, answer your weight loss queries tomorrow night too. I know if I get into it now I won’t be up in the morning early enough to pull off my delicately choreographed gym-study-cinnamon bun-shower-work regime. Come to think of it, I suspect late nights on this blog has a lot to do with my shaky time management skills…
Pumpkin Waffles (or Pancakes)
This batter makes great waffles, but can be ladled into a hot skillet to make pancakes as well. If you’d like to use freshly grated ginger instead of powdered, add it to the wet ingredients instead of the dry ingredients.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
pinch allspice
2 cups milk or buttermilk
3 large eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin purée
¼ cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and allspice. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk just until blended.
To make waffles: preheat your waffle iron, spray it lightly with nonstick spray or brush it with oil, and cook according to the manufacturers’ directions. (I use a scant ladleful – or about half a cup – per deep Belgian waffle.)
To make pancakes: preheat your skillet over medium heat; spray with nonstick spray or brush with butter or oil, and then wipe it off with a paper towel. (This way you’ll get your first pancake right, rather than the first one being a “tester”.) Ladle on about ¼ cup of batter and cook until a few bubbles start to break through the surface and the edges appear dry. Flip and cook until golden on both sides.
Keep pancakes or waffles warm in a 250°F oven while you finish cooking them. Serve warm topped with blueberries and maple syrup; leftovers can be popped in the toaster for a quick weekday breakfast.
Makes about 10 waffles or 15 pancakes.
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February 01 2009 | bread and breakfast | 36 Comments »
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