Coupons for Crap

You know just by the headline that I am opinionated about food. I supposed if I looked I could find Blogs about the joys of blue-box macaroni and cheese and instant mashed potatoes, but obviously that is not why I am here, and if you are reading this, I suspect that is not what you are looking for here either.

What has triggered this outrage is an article in Fridays paper. "Electronic coupons hook the tech-savvy". This you woman went from spending $500 a month to $300 a month on groceries for TWO people! Are you kidding me! The pictures shows a peek into her shopping bag....it is full of Blue box mac and cheese!

Processed foods are killing people. There, I said it. Too much salt, sugar, chemicals. Too little actual nourishment. Too much packaging. Too much, too much, too much!

It is expensive in so many ways.

We mouth the words that people (read Americans) need to change their diets. That we need to eat more veggies and fruits, more whole grains, less meat and less sugar and salt. Yet when you open the Sunday paper and all those advertising supplements spill out, what are those coupons for? Slim-Fast, Froot-Loops, Welch's Fruit Snacks, Taco Seasoning Packets, Pringles. Oh, and Prilosec, because heartburn is an American way of life.

What we need are coupons for carrots, lettuce, broccoli, green beans, peaches, watermelon and grapes. Coupons for the bulk bins in most supermarkets. Have those marketers that demo foods actually demo something that IS food. Cook some brown rice, saute fresh veggies and serve over whole wheat pasta. Combine some spices (organic of course) to season a chicken breast.

How on earth could someone spend 500 bucks for two people to eat in a month? Because she is relying upon processed foods. Shredded cheese is a luxury in this house. After all I got the Cuisinart for my class, I need to us it. And if I shread cheese for a recipe, I shread extra, zip it into a bag or a recycled plastic container and put it in the cheese drawer. Ready for the next use. I wash all the veggies are once and use what I need, placing the rest in paper toweling in a bag in the crisper, ready to use the next day. When I make pizza dough, I double or even triple the recipe. The extra goes in to the freezer for use later.

I work full time, yet I cook from scratch completely. It just takes desire (for good, wholesome, healthy food) and a bit of preparation to accomplish. And the outcome is a healthier family and a huge cost saving.

I said yesterday that I had those beautiful tomatoes to do something with. I believe now that I will just can them whole, available for soups, stews and pasta sauces all winter. If I come upon some more this week, I will also get some onions and peppers and make some salsa. Always a hit here.

Looking out our bedroom window this morning I realized that the plum trees actually have plums this year! Sounds crazy, but this particular variety of prune-plum seems to skip a year (or more) to actually producing a decent crop. They are not my favorite variety, because they are dry not juicy like a good Satsuma or Red plum, but they came with the house. And they will make nice jam, and I will try again to dry some as prunes. My last attempt was not all that successful. Try, try again, is my motto.

So, if you take nothing else away from this, please turn that box on its side and look at the ingredients list...check the sodium, the sugar, the preservatives. Then put it back on the shelf and go buy the ingredients to make it from scratch. Turn off the TV and spend some time in the kitchen, share the space with your spouse or kids and make dinner. It's fun, it's creative and it's relaxing. And you will actually enjoy the final product because it was made with love.

Tomato vendetta

I got the e-mail late last night. Several farmers had an excess of produce and were willing to meet at the Real Estate Office in town for an impromptu market. Since these Sunday markets are always over by the time I get off work and drive home, I was excited! I would have at least 15 minutes if I bolted directly after work. WOO HOO!

I actually was worries that I would not make it, that they would start closing up before I got there. I was not willing to risk a ticket, but I really wanted to get there...really.

I pulled in and saw that the turnout was sparse, or because of my late arrival, everyone else had gone home. I jumped out of the vehicle and yelled "am I too late?" Nope, we still have the scale out. From a distance I saw that my choices were limited but I could see tomatoes, and honestly, that was what my mission was.

I bought a ten-pound lug, some lemon cukes, some interesting summer squash and two curly cukes. As I left I asked that they have the regular Sunday markets open later, for those of us that work, and took my prize home.

I plopped that lug down and started peeling a tomato almost immediately. Sliced thick with a sprinkle of the Korean salt we just got at "H Mart", a generous grinding of black pepper, I presented the plate to M like it was gold. We could both smell the delicious aroma. And that first taste, amazing.

I am sure this sounds stupid, but I really have not tasted a great tomato this year. I couple of OK tomatoes, but nothing hot out-the-garden great. This was pretty darned close.

When I was really young, we used to drive from our home in Morro Bay to my Grandparents home near Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It was a long drive, and I always threw-up at least once, so it was painful in many ways. My getting sick would annoy my Father, we would have to stop and shuffle people around, ending up with me in the front seat. And no matter what, the car always smelled. Why I did not start out in the front seat is beyond me.

But getting to Grandma's was worth it. She had, of course, been cooking all day and there were good things to eat. Snacks really, but Hungarian snacks. Kolbasz, cut on the diagonal, homemade pickles, fresh bread and as a treat we would get a dribble of Apricot Brandy in an adult glass. Looking back, I can see that we were being helped into slumber, so the adults could play cards. But it was so cool.

The next morning Grandma would be up early making breakfast; huge bowls of fruit, maybe pancakes, maybe the softest fluffiest creamy scrambled eggs ever. Bacon. And a pot of coffee that she made by pouring boiling water over grounds in a filter. She always ground the beans with a grinder that was attached to the wall, and had a long cranking handle. And we ate on special dishes; pale green glass that I learned much much later was depression glass. Coffee was served to everyone, even us kids. Though I think mine was a tablespoon of coffee, two of sugar and the rest cream. I just felt so grown-up!

I could hear Dickey-Bird singing his cage in the "outside" room, what would be considered a mud-room. I do not know how many "Dickey-Birds there had been, but each and every one was raised from an egg by Grandma. And they all sang. Beautifully.

After breakfast we went into the yard. I thought it was huge, probably not, but it was narrow and went as far as Grandpa's "shop". The old one-car garage (if that one car was a Model T) was where he did his wizardry with wood and created beautiful furniture. We were not allowed into the shop except with rare exception. That was Ok by me; there was scary machinery in there!

Grandma and I went into the garden. There was dill and squash and grapes and the most beautiful flowers. Grandma almost never picked those flowers. She just loved them in her yard. But the best by far was the tomatoes. We searched for those nasty tomato worms and to see how they were ripening. And then, I was allowed to pick one and eat it right there in the yard. Nirvana.

So I have a lug of tomatoes, the day off and I need to decide what I will do with them. Stay tuned.

Cucumbers Galore

They just started appearing in the break-room. Shopping bags of cukes. I would take a couple, not wanting to appear greedy, but then the next day when I would peer into the bag, none were gone. After several days, I just took the bag on my way out.

I had the first batch thin-sliced and in a brine for a couple of days. Thank heaven for that additional fridge in the outside pantry. (OK, so we have a small pantry in the kitchen, four cupboards in the laundry room, a full closet with all those crazy appliances you collect over the years and the "big" pantry, which is a strange narrow room that someone added to the house who-knows-when. It has the fridge, a chest freezer, and loads of shelving for all the goodies we "put-up" and buy.) I honestly expected son (G) to finish them. He said he wanted to, but somehow didn't. And when I get home from work at 10pm or later, I just am not up to it. But this week my boss was on vacation and I worked the morning shift. I came home, read the Sunday paper, had a cup of herb tea and then finished the pickles, Bread and Butter pickles.

I wandered around the net looking for an interesting recipe. Honestly, I do not believe you can mess up B&B pickles. But I needed some idea of ratio of suger, vinegar etc to the number of cukes I had. I found

http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/search?q=pickles

I like the way Drew Kime writes, I decided to use his recipe. It seems as if Drew cooks a bit like it do; make the best of what you have, and live with your mistakes. I like that.

Check out his site. Some very cool stuff there.

Now all this talk about pickles started me thinking about my Grandmother. I guess I am old enough that we always called her Grandma, none of those crazy names I hear, or like Nana (husbands Mother) or MeMa (my Mother). She was the consummate cook. She left her native Hungary when she was 16. She went to New York City by ship, where she worked as a cook for a Jewish Rabbi. It wasn't until I was much older that I learned from my friend Brenda that much of what I had learned at my Grandmother's apron were Jewish dietary techniques. And we nor she are Jewish. Isn't life weird?

Grandma always made pickles. Always. I do not think I ever saw a store-bought pickle in her home. And she never used vinegar. Always a piece of rye bread under a plate, under a brick all covering the huge crock (which is sitting in my living room right now) which was full of the cucumbers she had grown in her garden. And those pickles! Oh my, they were great! Salty, crisp, covered in dill and always pickled whole. They were great! Did I say that twice?

I laughed out loud when Drew talked about measuring over the pot and putting in a bit too much Turmeric. Every morning, or nearly every morning, I make what my husband refers to as "sludge" for the two of us. We are both having stomach issues, he far more than I, and after he used one of the OTC acid things that had a list of side-effects as long as your leg, we started using some more holistic approaches to the issue. The sludge is a mix of turmeric (we are up to a coffee scoop worth), ground flax seed, Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar, Kombucha (I make my own, maybe I'll write about that someday), a small amount of juice, sometimes some protein powder and various other things. At first drinking turmeric was an eye-opening experience. It is not so much hot as it is bitter. But I will say this, when I have this in the morning I have no issues with my gut, period. And Michael has decreased his problems immensely. So regardless of the taste, we do it.

Back to the cucumbers. Today the bag had even more, and I noticed some zucchini too! Sneaky little devils. I like zukes. I love them raw actually. But I will be curious if the next bag has more zukes than cucumbers!

So we are contemplating getting some fresh Dill tomorrow and making some Grandma pickles.

I am sad because we did not get a garden in this year. Just too many problems, and Michael's health made in impossible for him to garden. And I just did not have time. Or energy. So I am extremely grateful to the mystery gardener who so graciously left bags of cukes in the break-room for the pickin'.

Turkey in August! Asian Inspired Brine

So now you are thinking this gal is nuts. Who in their right mind would even think about turkey when it is 100 degrees outside.

Every year around Thanksgiving markets have their specials for turkey. Buy so many dollars in groceries, get a free turkey. I always take advantage of these sales; sometimes I have the butcher cut the turkey in half and we roast a half during the winter and maybe cut the other half up for stews, a small roast or soup. Frequently I take one down to the local foodbank. When I manage to get a couple (if I ever have that much room in the freezer), I love to brine one and smoke it.

The bird we prepare at Thanksgiving is always prepared one of two ways. It is either boned and roasted flat (with the stuffing under the bird. The best way to prepare for a group...so easy to carve) or brined with the Chez Panisse's Turkey Brine Recipe.

So here I was on Wednesday, hanging into the deep freeze trying to figure out why the darned thing was so full. Rummaging through the half-loaves of bread, the bags of chicken stock and the totally unknown plastic containers I came upon the turkey. Taking up considerable room, room that could be filled with blueberries, I yanked that puppy out of there and put it into the pantry fridge to thaw.

Fast forward three days and the making of the brine.

Chez Pannisse's is always the first choice, but when I went to the baking cupboard I could not find the juniper berries. Odd, because I do not remember using all of them last year. (Guess where hubby found them, under the lip of the cabinet on the floor. Now who would have dropped them and not picked them up???) So, what to do?

I started rummaging through the regular spice cabinet. Yes, I have two different cupboards for spices, savory and sweet or baking spices. Some spices-herbs fall into the either-or category, but there are some that get less use around here and they go in the baking cupboard. But I digress. I needed something different to brine this turkey and I need it now.

ASIAN INSPIRED BRINE

2 1/2 gallon cold water
2 c. Kosher Salt
1 c. sugar (plain white poison)
2 tbsp. Star Anise, broken
1 whole garlic head, separated, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp. gourmet peppercorns
1 tbsp. Trader Joe's 21 Salute

Line pot or other container large enough to hold the turkey with a food-grade plastic bag.

In another large container, combine water, salt sugar, anise, garlic, peppercorns and seasoning. Mix with a non reactive spoon until salt and sugar are completely dissolved.

Put turkey into bag, cover with brine (you may need to add more water to bring level of brine over all of the turkey. Close the bad removing excess air with a twist-tie. This time, like most of the times I brine something I used a second bag to reduce the chance of a flooded refrigerator. Not sure I want to find out what two or three gallons of salty water would do in the bottom of our refrigerator and then on the floor.

Put entire mess into refrigerator. Brine at least 24 hours. This bird went several days past that because we were so darned busy. Remove bird from brine, rinse and at this point you can either roast it in the oven, or using indirect heat, cook on BBQ, or as we did, fire up the smoker and at a very low heat, let her roast away.

SMOKING THE BIRD

Mesquite lump charcoal (bought in Oregon at "Cash and Carry", similar to
Smart and Final in California). Chunks of oak and mesquite smoking wood. We use chunks of wood when we smoke something that will be in the smoker several hours. Soak the smoking wood in water for several hours or overnight. However if you can only get the smoking wood in the small chips or wafer or almost sawdust form don't panic, just soak some and wrap it up in aluminum foil and when you add it to the fire just poke a few holes in it. Make sure you have your charcoal chimney, newspaper and matches and internal thermometer all ready.

This is where, usually, my husband comes in. He loves his equipment and even though I know what to do and can hold my own, I love for him to be the "finisher", so to speak, on my projects. Besides, I worked that day and I could not be here to tend to the fire and the smoke as necessary.

The bird is placed on a vertical turkey roaster. In a disposable container let soak several chunks of wood of your choice that work for smoking. We used a mixture of oak and mesquite. Allow to soak at least 1/2 hour but hours or overnight is even better. (We keep a licorice container on hand for this, when done pop the lid on and save for the next time). If you cannot find the chunks of wood go ahead and soak the fine chips or wafer smoking wood and then wrap in foil. Pierce just before tossing onto the fire.

All ready to start? Place an assortment of sizes of lump charcoal into the chimney. Wad up one piece of newspaper and put under the chimney, place chimney onto rack in the bottom of the smoker (firebox) and light the paper. A small grill in the bottom of the firebox provides better airflow giving you a better fire. Get a beer (ok, if it isn't Saturday, a nice cup of tea) while the charcoal lights. This is surprisingly quick, less than 10 minutes and should not be more than thirty minutes. Dump the nicely lit charcoal into the fire bowl, toss on some of the wet, soaked smoking chunks of wood (or your foil pouch of smoking chips), put the three-quarter filled water pan on, put the grill on above the water pan, put the bird on the rack, and make sure the bird and rack balance on the grill and then smack the lid on, turn down the vents to get between 170-180 degrees and leave it alone. Check the temp and adjust in thirty minutes. Monitor the temperature but you don't need to hover there and chase your desired temp, adjust and give it time to reach and stabilize at the new temperature.

In 2 hours or so, check the fire bowl, add more lump charcoal if necessary. In another couple of hours, add more smoke chips and charcoal if required. If your temperature goes higher than you want with the fire low you might be low on water. Keep doing this until at least 5 hours have gone by. Then and only then, lift the lid and check the internal temp of the bird, away from any bones, with a meat thermometer. 180 is a good temp. With luck you will not be there quite yet, throw more wood on, more charcoal on and check your water level, don't let the water level get too low! If you keep the temperature in the middle of your smoker's smoking range and out of the higher heat ranges your bird can cook eight, ten or even twelve hours and come out tender and moist. Allow the bird to sit a bit, ha, like you can do that! But for nice slices of breast that is a good idea. We just put it into a roasting pan, tear off the legs, munch on the bits that fall off and enjoy the heck out of this.

All this and the house stays cool.

The first night we are turkey sliced with sesame green beans, and a nice Asian rice side. The next night, hot turkey sandwiches on garlic-sourdough bread with homemade cranberry I also found in the freezer and quick mashed potatoes and gravy. Tonight we will have turkey stir-fried with the lovely greens I found at the farmers market in Lake O. Smoky, juicy turkey. Nummy.

A note on the charcoal: Hubby thinks that the "natural" lump charcoal is the only way to go, no chemical smell and taste. There are several good brands and the big names in briquette charcoal are also selling lump charcoal so go to the trouble to find some and use it. I'd check out the local restaurant supply houses for the big bags at a far cheaper price per pound.

Write What You Know

Every time I have read about writing or taken a course in writing, the one thread is always to write what you know. I have pondered that concept, and pondered it to death and decided that I had just better do it...write that is, not run a marathon.

I have been seriously cooking since I was 9 year old. Seriously. My Mother went back to work, I mean a J.O.B. not the drudgery that is being a Mother and housewife, and I was the only girl. Sometimes she would leave a note "there is a pound of hamburger in the fridge, make a meatloaf" and sometimes there was no note but a full deep-freeze in my Fathers workroom in the garage.

This really was back-in-the-day, before 2000 stations on TV. In fact, we got exactly ONE with our rabbit ears and on that one station I watched Grahame Kerr, Julia Child and I do not remember who. Of course, Kerr was not really a good influence for a 9 year old girl, but it was not until I was much, much older that I realized that he was pretty much blotto during every show. I guess the fact that he ran on stage and JUMPED over the chairs surrounding the dining table should have been a clue. I thought it was because he was British! Let's just say that I was pretty sheltered and had NO IDEA!

But those shows inspired me. No simple meatloaf for me, no sir-e-bob! I would make meals that would dazzle, would make people sit up and take notice. I would fix Gourmet food. And in the process would completely trash my Mother's kitchen.

I served meals in courses. I set the "Big" table with all the best china, multiple glasses and the good silver (it was just silverplate but it was the good stuff to me). I used the tablecloths, the cloth napkins (tho on a regular basis we used cloth because Mom felt we always had a load of clothes going and what was a few napkins to add to it), and cut flowers from the yard.

Now as far as the messy kitchen, that is a product of my own margional kitchens through the years. Mother always had great kitchens. You are probably wondering why that kitchen thing is plural. Well, we built a lot of houses over the years, and moved a great deal. And the kitchen was always the focal point of those houses. We had one kitchen that had a BBQ built into the family room wall. It was great! And the steaks that my Dad produced on that BBQ, amazing! We had bread boards as large as the hood on a car, we had marble for pastry dough. Huge pantries, windows that opened onto the patio, onto decks. They were always amazing.

The kitchens that I have had over 30 years of marriage have been sketchy at best. Several apartments, my MIL's home, one fairly good kitchen in Madera and now my current kitchen which is burnt-orange (that alone should tell you the vintage) and much too small for anyone, much less three people who love to cook. And the oven only has one rack!

But cook we do and if I could learn to throw things away (but it might have a use later), clean up (I do much young-adult son...say no more), and always, always something pending. The cukes that are sitting on the sink waiting to become bread and butter pickles, the bag of Bagels that are waiting to be cut and put into the freezer, 12 kinds of hot sauce on the counter, blueberries, canning jars..it just goes on and on.

Frazzled because I have gone back to work full-time, since my husband became disabled and we need health insurance. Frazzled because I always have 12 things to do and time for 1. Frazzled because life is frazzling, isn't it?

I want to ask you to come around now and then to see what's cooking, what grains of information I might have for you. I love to cook, I feel that what we put into our bodies is important not just for nourishment but for the pure pleasure and the sharing of ideas and tastes. I am always looking for new foods, new ways to prepare things, new exciting tastes. I think I do pretty well producing some quality food from my messy kitchen, hope you think so too.