What We Ate November 5 -18

Monday of last week was a holiday and I took the day off from blogging, so this week’s “What We Ate” will cover two weeks instead of one. 

We've done well at eating from the pantry and freezer but I must admit that I'm pretty bored with the vegetables I've been cooking.  I'm going to have to work at stirring things up a bit in the side dish department next week.

I’m finding myself grateful for our “windowsill garden” and our sprout growing arrangement in the kitchen.  Between them they’ve provided some nice fresh flavours to liven up our meals. 

Here’s what we ate:

Monday, November 5:

• Breakfast – Peanut butter and banana sandwiches on wholewheat toast
• Supper – Spinach, onion, and roasted tomato pizza on an olive bread crust, brown sugar shortbread

Tuesday, November 6:

• Breakfast – Boiled eggs, whole wheat toast, canned pears
• Supper – Italian sausage and lentil soup, Christmas oatmeal bars (recipe coming soon to a blog near you ;)

Wednesday, November 7:

• Breakfast – Homemade yogurt and applesauce
• Supper – Savoury turnovers filled with thickened, leftover soup from Tuesday’s dinner, a salad of romaine, pea shoots (from our windowsill garden) and shredded carrot with a tomato vinaigrette, homemade eggnog ice cream topped with a crumbled oatmeal bar leftover from Tuesday’s dessert

Thursday, November 8:

• Breakfast – Oatmeal and applesauce
• Supper – Slow cooker pot roast with beer and caramelized onion gravy, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, canned peaches

Friday, November 9:

• Breakfast – Broiled whole wheat English muffins topped with grated cheddar and tomato
• Supper – Vietnamese salad rolls with peanut dipping sauce, homemade lemon sorbet scented with kaffir lime leaves and Thai basil (from a pot on my windowsill)

Saturday, November 10:

• Breakfast – Pineapple ginger muffins, cream cheese
• Lunch (we skipped supper) – Grilled beef and cheese sandwiches made with leftover slow cooker pot roast, grainy mustard, cheddar and mozzarella on homemade white bread, oven fries, carrot, raisin and apple salad

Sunday, November 11:

• Breakfast – Leftover pineapple ginger muffins toasted under the broiler and served with marmalade
• Supper – Herb and onion waffles with scrambled eggs and veggie hash, homemade yogurt and applesauce

Monday, November 12:

• Breakfast – Oatmeal and applesauce
• Supper – Home canned vegetable soup with cheese tortellini added in, focaccia (from the freezer), canned peaches

Tuesday, November 13:

• Breakfast – Toasted whole wheat English muffins with apple slices and cheddar
• Supper – Cornmeal breaded salmon fillets, homemade tartar sauce, brown rice, braised sweet and sour red cabbage, steamed carrots, warm butterscotch pudding

Wednesday, November 14:

• Breakfast – Homemade yogurt and applesauce
• Supper – Cheese omelettes, green bean and red onion salad with honey mustard vinaigrette, canned cherries

Thursday, November 15:

• Breakfast – PB&J muffins
• Supper – Fried bologna (I know, but my fella requested it), roasted potatoes crusted in homemade onion soup mix, roasted carrots and rutabaga, rice pudding

Friday, November 16:

• Breakfast – Leftover rice pudding, canned peaches
• Supper – Tomato, onion, and cheddar quiche with a crust made from Thursday’s leftover potatoes, Swiss chard, rhubarb apple pie

Saturday, November 17:

• Breakfast – Leftover quiche from Friday night
• Supper – A very unfortunate turkey, brown rice, and green bean casserole (I won’t be making that again!), shredded beet and chick pea salad with homemade thousand island dressing, leftover pie from Friday night

Sunday, November 18:

• Breakfast - Apples, cheddar slices, whole wheat toast
• Supper – Bacon and egg spaghetti (carbonara but made with bacon ends from the freezer instead of prosciutto), a salad of spinach, red onion, shredded carrot, and shredded radish with red wine vinaigrette, homemade vanilla frozen yogurt

Cheese Grits With Spinach, Roasted Tomatoes, and Poached Eggs

Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.  It’s where I live.  I love it here.

The island is not a hot bed of grit eating activity.

I point this out because, a few months back, I mentioned on my Facebook page that you can’t buy grits in the grocery stores here and my comment caused great consternation among my friends in the south-eastern US.  So much so that one of my friends - Janet O’Melia - mailed me grits all the way from Georgia.

Well, Janet, I can’t thank you enough.  I’m here to tell you that you’ve made a convert of me.  I love me some grits, especially cheese grits, and have gone to such lengths to get more that one of our local grocers is now stocking them for me.  :)

Grits are whole kernel corn that has been dried and coarsely ground.  Hominy grits – the ones I’ve fallen in love with – are whole kernel corn that is soaked in an alkaline solution before drying.  This process turns the kernels white, softens the outer hull, and gives them a very mild flavour.  The ground corn (either yellow or hominy) is cooked in water or milk to make a porridge-like dish that is served with either sweet or savoury accompaniments. 

Every culture seems to have a food like grits:  a stodgy, filling, high calorie food that is both inexpensive to purchase and easy to store.  These foods vary in their raw materials - from cereal grains like oats, wheat, and corn, through rice, beans, potatoes, and other root vegetables - but their place and purpose within their cultures of origin is largely the same:  They are the food that fueled workers as they laboured in the fields.  They needed to be high enough in calories to sustain hard physical labour, rich enough in nutrients to sustain health when little else was available, and plentiful and inexpensive enough to be accessed by even the poorest worker.  Universally, they are the foods upon which cuisines are built.

My conversations with Facebook friends and my searches on the internet tell me that grits are most often served as a savoury dish and that the most popular way to serve them, by far, is with cheese.  That works for me.  I love cheese, and the added dairy bumps up the protein content of the finished dish significantly.

What I didn’t expect, and what I like most of all about cheese grits, is how comforting a dish they are.  They’re like macaroni and cheese in snuggly blanket form:  Cold weather food.  I’m having a bad day food.  Getting started in the morning with a smile food.  I’ve come to like them so much that I now consider grits a pantry necessity.

Filling, affordable, and high in protein are all attributes that recommend cheese grits as a perfect Meatless Monday meal.  I love serving mine with eggs and have experimented with adding various vegetables to the mix.  

My favourite combination so far is cheese grits with spinach stirred in, topped with roasted tomatoes and a poached egg.  The snuggly cheese grit blanket is a wonderful foil for the dark, earthy flavour of the spinach and the bright acidity of the tomato.  The egg yolk adds richness.  Some freshly ground, coarse black pepper adds bite.  So good!

Here’s how you make it.  For two people, you’ll need:

• 1 – 10 ounce package frozen chopped spinach
• 2 to 4 eggs (This depends upon how hungry you are.  It’s a filling dish so we usually have just a single egg each.)
• 2 medium sized tomatoes
• 2 Tablespoons (approximately) olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 cup milk
• 3 Tablespoons quick cooking hominy grits
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup grated, sharp cheddar cheese

On the day you plan to make the dish, set the spinach out on the counter to thaw. 

When the spinach is thawed, wrap it in or a piece of old sheet or a clean kitchen towel and squeeze as much moisture from it as you can.  

The squeezed spinach will form a fairly solid lump.  Use a fork to break it apart.

You'll only need about half to three quarters of the spinach.  Put the rest in the fridge and use it for another recipe.

Poach your eggs and set them aside to drain on paper towel.  If you’re poaching them more than a few minutes ahead of time, you’ll want to store them in the fridge.

Cut each tomato into 8 pieces and remove the seeds. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment and put the tomatoes on the lined pan. 

Drizzle the tomato pieces with olive oil, season them with salt and pepper, and toss them so that the ingredients coat each piece.  Spread them around on the paper so that there’s room for air to circulate around each piece.

Roast the tomatoes in a 400F oven for 20 to 30 minutes.  They should dry out a bit, and the skins should begin to shrivel and maybe even darken a little around the edges.

While the tomatoes are roasting, begin cooking the grits.  Place the milk, grits, and salt in a very large bowl (milk expands a LOT when it’s heated to boiling), cover the bowl loosely with a lid or some parchment, and microwave the grits on “high” for 3 minutes, stopping to stir them every minute or so. 

Return the grits in their covered bowl to the microwave and continue cooking them on the lowest setting (“keep warm” on my microwave) for 15 to 20 minutes longer, stirring every 5 minutes.  

While the grits are cooking, put a pot of water on to simmer so you can reheat the eggs.

When the grits have thickened and softened, they should look something like this:

Stir in the cheese and the spinach.  Add a generous grind of pepper and put them back in the microwave for a minute, to heat the spinach through and melt the cheese. 

While the spinach and cheese are heating through, pop the eggs into the simmering water to reheat.

To plate your meal, spoon the grits and spinach mixture into a bowl.  Top it with some of the roasted tomatoes.  Use a slotted spoon to remove your eggs from the simmering water, and place them on a paper towel to blot away any extra water.  Carefully transfer the eggs to the top each serving.

Serve immediately.

So good!
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This post is linked to Gallery of Favorites hosted by The 21st Century Housewife and Premeditated Leftovers, to The Pity Party hosted by Thirty Handmade Days, to Foodie Fridays hosted by Rattlebridge Farm, to Foodie Friends Friday hosted by Tracy at Busy Vegetarian Mom, Robyn at Robyn’s View, Angie at A lil Country Sugar, Michelle at From Calculus to Cupcakes, Marlys at This and That, Lois at Walking on Sunshine, Lindsey at Family Food Finds, Cindy at Cindys Recipes and Writings, Cynthia at Feeding Big, Jodie at Binomial Baker, Erika at Chef Picky Kid, R Dawn at Spatulas on Parade, Jutta at Hungry Little Girl, Kelly at Adorned Well, to Foodtastic Friday hosted by Not Your Ordinary Recipes, to Farm Girl Friday Blog Fest hosted by Fresh Eggs Friday, to Foodie Friday hosted by Home Maid Simple, and Simple Living and Eating, to Strut Your Stuff Saturday hosted by Six Sisters' Stuff, to Nifty Thrifty Sunday hosted by Nifty Thrifty Things, to Weekend Potluck hosted by Sunflower Supper Club, Life As a Lofthouse, 4 Little Fergusons, The Country Cook, Meet Penny, The Better Baker, to Your Great Ideas Saturday hosted by Or So She Says, to Think Pink Sunday hosted by Flamingo Toes, to Sumptuous Sunday hosted by Addicted to Recipes, to A Marvelous Mess hosted by Marvelously Messy, to Craft-o-Maniac Monday hosted by Craft-o-Maniac, to Busy Monday hosted by A Pinch of Joy, to Manic Monday hosted by Bobbi's Cozy Kitchen, to Mix It Up Monday hosted by Flour Me With Love, to On the Menu Monday hosted by Stone Gable,  to Delicious Dish Tuesday hosted by  Full Time Mama, Coping With Frugality, and Mama Chocolate, to the Tuesday To Do Party hosted by The Blackberry Vine, to Cast Party Wednesday hosted by Lady Behind The Curtain, to Wonderful Wednesday hosted by Printabelle, and to Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage.

 

 

    

    

 

 

   

 

 

Why You Need This Stuff in Your Kitchen: Evaporated Milk

Evaporated milk.  

It's so Granny's Pantry, Dirty Thirties, Great Depression, isn't it?  

Old fashioned.  

Not something modern folk use, or stock in their pantries, right?

Well...Actually, no.

Evaporated milk is a very useful ingredient to have on hand. It stores well, it's versatile, and it can provide the means both to add flavour and to reduce the number of calories in many dishes. 

Unlike sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk has no sugar or corn syrup added.  It's simply milk that's been cooked until some of the moisture evaporates out of it, in the same way one reduces liquids when making a sauce.  Once reduced, it's canned. 

Like regular milk, evaporated milk comes with a variety of fat contents.  Full fat evaporated milk contains 3.25% milk fat but you can also purchase evaporated milk with 2% milk fat or evaporated skim milk, with no milk fat at all.  Because all three taste pretty much the same, I opt for fat free.

When making a dish that calls for fresh milk, you can substitute half evaporated milk and half water for the amount of fresh milk called for in the recipe.  (If your recipe calls for 1 cup of fresh milk, you would substitute 1/2 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup water.)  

There's an opportunity to add an extra layer of flavour here: Simply substitute a flavourful stock for the water in the dilution.  

Voila!  Extra chicken (or beef, or seafood, or vegetable) flavour in the background of the dish; perfect for supporting the main ingredients.

You can also use evaporated milk as a substitute for buttermilk, by adding a small amount of acidic liquid (lemon juice or vinegar) when diluting it.  

For every cup of buttermilk called for in your recipe, measure 1/2 cup evaporated milk into a 1-cup measuring cup, add in 1 to 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice, and then fill the cup to the 1 cup mark with water.  

When making a recipe that calls for buttermilk but will work well with some added fruit flavour, substitute 1/2 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup of almost any fruit juice for each cup of buttermilk.

Undiluted evaporated milk can be substituted in many recipes that call for cream or light cream.  It'll lend the same consistency to the finished dish while adding considerably few calories.  

Watch for coupons or case lot sales when shopping for evaporated milk.  If you're able to purchase it with a coupon or on sale, evaporated milk usually works out to about the same price ounce for ounce as fresh milk.  Well worth watching for, and keeping on hand. 

Individual Apple and Eggnog Trifles

We love a good cake at our house but there's this weird thing that always happens with the last piece:  Neither of us wants to claim it.  I think we're just being polite and leaving it for our loved one but, whatever the reason, that last piece often sits on the plate until it goes stale.  

It's kind of forlorn looking, that last piece of cake.  I once remarked to my husband that it reminded me of the orphan who stands unclaimed at the train station in some Victorian era novel.  My fella said that was an awful lot of drama to invest in a dessert, but somehow the name stuck.  That last piece of cake will be forever called "the orphan" at our house.

Since I have a thing about wasting food, rather than allowing it to waste away abandoned on the cake plate, I try to use "the orphan" to make a dessert that will feed the two of us.  These trifles are such a dessert, made from the last piece of my applesauce spice cake, a couple of apples I had in the fridge, and the eggnog my husband sneaked home while I was at work one day.

To make Individual Apple and Eggnog Trifles, I first made the apple filling.  I used:

• 2 Gala apples, peeled and cut in a half-inch dice (about 2 cups)
• 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Minit Tapioca

I stirred all of these ingredients together in a medium-sized non-stick saucepan.

I let the apple mixture rest for a while so that the sugar could draw some of the juice out of the apples.  

When there was some juice on the bottom of the pot, I heated the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring it occasionally to keep it from sticking, until it came to a boil and thickened.  The apples were cooked through but still had a bit of bite to them.  

I set the apple mixture aside to cool to room temperature, and then made the eggnog pudding.  

To make the pudding, I used:

• 2 cups of ready made eggnog 
• 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

I whisked these ingredients together in a small saucepan and then stirred them over medium-low heat until the pudding came to a boil and thickened.

As soon as the pudding thickened, I removed it from the heat.  

I covered the pudding with plastic wrap, making sure that the plastic was sitting right on the surface of the pudding (this prevents a skin from forming), and set the pudding aside to cool to room temperature.

Once both the apple filling and the pudding where cooled, I assembled the trifles.  

I removed the frosting from the cake and discarded it, then crumbled the cake into small-ish pieces.

I put a layer of crumbled cake into the bottom of each glass, then a layer of eggnog pudding.  I topped the pudding with a layer of apple filling, then added another layer of cake and another layer of pudding.  

The trifles needed to rest in the fridge for a couple of hours to chill completely.  The rest helped the pudding to set up more firmly and to blend the flavours.  

When I was ready to assemble the trifles, I whipped a cup of heavy cream together with a teaspoon of powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, until the whipped cream made stiff peaks.  

To finish the trifles, I put the whipping cream into a piping bag with a large star tip and piped it onto the top but if you don't have a piping bag, spooning the cream on top will work just fine too. 

As a final garnish, I grated a little nutmeg over the top of the whipped cream.  

Pretty, aren't they?  

They tasted really good too.  :)
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This post is linked to Gallery of Favorites hosted by Premeditated Leftovers and The 21st Century Housewife, to The Pity Party hosted by Thirty Handmade Days, to Foodie Friday hosted by Rattlebridge Farm, to Foodie Friends Friday hosted by Tracy at Busy Vegetarian Mom, Robyn's View, Marlys at This and That, Lois at  Walking on Sunshine, Lindsey at Family Food Finds, Cindy at Cindys Recipes and Writings, Michelle at  From Calculus to Cupcakes, Cynthia at Feeding Big, Jodie at Binomial Baker, R Dawn at Spatulas on Parade, Angie at A lil Country Sugar, Erika at Chef Picky Kid, Amber at Mamas Blissful Bites, to Foodtastic Friday hosted by Not Your Ordinary Recipes, to Farm Girl Blog Fest hosted by Fresh Eggs Daily, to Strut Your Stuff Saturday hosted by Six Sisters' Stuff, to Nifty Thrifty Sunday hosted by Nifty Thrifty Things, to Weekend Potluck hosted by Sunflower Supper Club, Life As a Lofthouse, 4 Little Fergusons, The Country Cook, Meet Penny, The Better Baker, to Think Pink Sunday hosted by Flamingo Toes, to Your Great Ideas Saturday hosted by Or So She Says, to Sumptuous Sunday hosted by Addicted to Recipes, to A Marvelous Mess hosted by Marvelously Messy, to Craft-o-Maniac Monday hosted by Craft-o-Maniac, to Busy Monday hosted by A Pinch of Joy, to Manic Monday hosted by Bobbi's Cozy Kitchen, to Mix It Up Monday hosted by Flour Me With Love, to Delicious Dish Tuesday hosted by Mama Chocolate, Full Time Mama and Coping With Frugality, to Tuesday To Do hosted by The Blackberry Vine, to Cast Party Wednesday hosted by Lady Behind the Curtain, to Whatcha' Whipped Up hosted by DJ's Sugar Shack, to Look What I Made hosted by Creations by Kara, to Wonderful Wednesday hosted by Printabelle, to Thursday's Treasures hosted by Recipes for My Boys, to Tastetastic Thursday hosted by A Little Nosh, to Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage, and to Foodie Friday hosted by Simple Living and Eating.