​Many of you live in households were vegetarians and non-vegetarians coexist. That requires cooking ingenuity when you create meals. Like so many other recipes on “Meals We Steal,” it’s not too hard to do when you think about it. Plan ahead. Add meat judiciously or set aside a portion of the dish before you add meat. That gives you options. Given this “Time Of Covid,” options seems to be a good solution to many difficulties we encounter.
 
Two weeks ago, I pulled together the following meal to provide that veggie and non-veggie option. As usual, I started off with a quick theft, and chose as the base two cans of Progresso Cream of Mushroom soup, rather than cooking a batch from scratch. While it warmed up, I sauteed a bag of spinach, half a chopped yellow onion and half a container of sliced mushrooms in butter. That alone smelled spectacular.
 
On the side, I microwaved six chicken sausages. When the veggie mixture was ready, I dumped that into the soup and let it congeal for ten minutes. Turned off the heat and served that batch to the vegetarians. Sliced the six sausages in half and put them in my bowl of soup. Done. Everyone’s happy.
 
Remember: There are quick and easy solutions to the problems we face. Don’t get bogged down.

​Sorry that I haven’t posted for a while, folks. Life takes over. New recipes don’t emerge. A virus overtakes us.
 
But last week I made an awesome combo to share with you. If you have a Costco nearby, stop there and pick up their refrigerated barbecue pork package. You’ll also need a pound of elbow macaroni, 2 lbs. of shredded cheddar cheese, a yellow onion. Simple stuff.
 
Follow the directions on the pulled pork BBQ to heat it up. Chop up about half a yellow onion. Boil the mac.
 
When the pork is done, season with your favorite BBQ sauce. Here’s what makes it better to me: add yellow mustard to taste. It gives the sauce a bite, and lessens the sweetness. This is key. Stir it together and microwave.
 
Key to differentiating the mac and cheese is the onion. When the noodles are boiled, add the chopped up half onion and stir vigorously. Then slowly add a pound or more of the shredded cheese, continuing to stir. If it doesn’t all mix in, use the microwave to melt it more together.

When done, here’s the next curveball: I layered jalapeno peppers on my plate, then the BBQ, then the mac and cheese, and microwaved that for about a minute. To give it your special significance, choose something you like for that bottom layer. Perhaps it’s coleslaw. Maybe it’s collard greens. I don’t know. Try a veggie you like and see how it tastes.
 
The onion, cheese, BBQ, jalapeno mixture is pretty damn good. Try it.

I just consumed Wisconsin brats on the back deck. Do you think cheese was inside? Absolutely.

Marinate the brats in beer and onions. Tonight, I sauteed yellow, orange and red peppers with a white onion. The peppers were on sale. Put a little oil in the pan and when the mixture gets soft, it's done.

Grill the brats. If you can't do that, then you're not a chef. Get out of the kitchen. 

Layer the brats on the pepper/onion mixture. Let the dogs outside to roam. Grab a beer. Life is good.

My wife loves Chipotle. I constantly think about how to make her happy by preparing meals she enjoys.  So....

She was returning home from a recent trip and I bought a marinated pork loin and grilled it to feed her with a classic Chipotle-like bowl. 

Buy some rice that you can quickly heat (Spanish) to layer the bottom of the bowl. Chop some lettuce on top of it. Mix frozen corn in with black beans and cumin, then simmer and slop that on top of the lettuce. Buy some guacamole and put a couple spoonfuls inside the bowl, but off to the side, so you can mix in as desirable.

Thin slice the pork, then shred it, as desirable.  Layer on top. Yum. 

If you like peppers and onions (I do, my wife doesn't), you can dice some up (I used orange and yellow peppers and a white onion), saute them, then put on top of the pork. Serve with Neuman's medium salsa and sour cream (salsa for me, sour cream for my wife). You could chop up and add cilantro, too, if you like.

This is a fantastic meal, high in protein and incredibly tasty, better than Chipotle. If you're good, you can have this meal on the table in 10 minutes. Be efficient. Your wife will bow down to your cooking abilities.

One of the problems with pizza is the carbs. Cut them out. It's  easy.

I just pounded the following meal. You can make it with the added ingredients you want, but the basic stock is shredded mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce, oregano.

Having finished walking the dogs on a Friday afternoon, and with a nice Bloody Mary simmering in my brain cells, I decided there was no need for extra carbs. So let's go for pizza on a plate.

Bacon and onions are my favorites. I pulled out some marina sauce we had left over in the frig, sprinkled some oregano on a dinner plate, mixed it all together and microwaved for 30 seconds. Then I sauteed a quarter pound of bacon, throwing in some chopped onions for the last thirty seconds.

If you like mushrooms or sausage, or green peppers, then go ahead and saute them to add to your personal favorite no carb pizza.

Over the marina/oregano mixture, I threw the bacon/onion and then ladled massive amounts of grated mozzarella cheese on top (check out those pictures below), and microwaved that puppy for 90 seconds. OMG. Cheese oozing with tomato sauce, bacon, onions. Nirvana. It was hard to eat it in more than 10 seconds.  And you can feel righteous.

Yabba Dabba Dooo, says Fred Flintstone. I just fired up some Curry Cauliflower Bratwurst. We moved to Wisconsin almost a year ago, and it seemed appropriate to add brats to a dish.

This afternoon I went to see “War of the Planet of the Apes.” I can’t recommend the movie enough. But before heading to the theater, I was considering what to cook for dinner. My wife is on the road. I can make anything I want.  I thought, “Curry.” Then, you have to figure out what to add.

So.

The next step was what do I like, and what would make the dish more flavorful, tasty. I figured cauliflower, onions and carrots. But what should the meat stock be? Ground beef? Chicken (the most logical, but I’d eaten it too much lately)? Pork? Hot dogs? 

I started thinking about brats. Great flavor. Mixes well with others. Why not? Wisconsin!!!!

So I bought a package of brats, carrots, cauliflower, an onion. I chopped the veggies and steamed them for 10 minutes (standard procedure). In a large sauce pan, I threw in several large spoonfuls of sour cream, curry powder, milk, fresh chopped thyme, and the sliced up brats, and let it simmer. Once the veggies hit their ten minute mark, I tossed them in the brats and sour cream/curry mixture.  Bam, the dish was done.

Damn good. Mix it over rice. Your wife will love it.

​Potato soup is not hard – potatoes, butter and cream basically – but I found a way to make it even easier:  It’s called Costco.
 
Ha.  Costco has awesome pre-made potato soup in two plastic containers, enough for a family of five.  But you can improve on this.

Heat up the soup, boil two whole potatoes with skins on for 20 minutes after you quarter them. If you want the potato “feel” to be harder rather than mushier, decrease the boiling time.  As you simmer the soup for about 10 minutes, add some butter at the end, then the potatoes you are boiling after you mash them to a consistency you enjoy.  Extra cream or skim milk is also a good idea, as is a touch of garlic and pepper.
 
I did not add bacon for our feast, but it sounds like a good idea, so while you are boiling the potatoes, you can fry up some bacon to your personal taste, then cut up and add to the pot.  It’s almost like mashed potatoes on steroids.
 
When you are ready to serve, garnish with diced green onions and grated cheddar (or your personal favorite) cheese.  Parsley is another option if you are daring.  Do not serve with bread, as you’ll overflow on starches.  Have sour cream ready on the side.
 
Prepare a crisp salad, call the family in, and chow down.

When it comes to defining success in cooking food, it all depends on what others think of your dish.  That being said, this is another failure.

At a Chamber of Commerce meeting this morning, one of our local members raved about the following dish, that her entire family loved it, so I had to try it.  But, what her family liked didn’t apply to ours.  I thoroughly enjoyed the meal, but got no positive feedback from the rest of our family.  So be warned before you take this recipe on.

I’m not even sure what to term it.  It’s kind of a version of Shepherd’s Pie.  Get 2 lbs. of ground beef, a can of cream of mushroom soup, a small can of onion crisps, a pound of green beans and a bag of frozen tater tots.  Simmer the ground beef with your favorite flavorings (I like using Mesquite Liquid Smoke).  Steam the green beans until tender, but not too soft.

When the ground beef is done, spread it in 11 by 17 casserole dish, layer the green beans on top, then the onion crisps, followed by the green beans.  Cover this with the tater tots.

Heat the oven to the temp listed on the tater tot package.  Lightly salt the potatoes.  Put the mixture in the oven and cook for the time listed on tater tots.

Last week, we visited our older daughter at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.  On Saturday night, after she left us to head back to her dorm, we stopped to have a drink at the Tavern in the Archer House, a terrific place to sit and have good conversation with others.

The bartender ordered the special pizza of the day.  It looked good.  I asked what it was.  “A Rueben flatbread pizza,” she answered, offering me a piece, with I rapidly consumed despite having just finished dinner and an ice cream cone while sitting in the park down the street.

The pizza was so good that I had to make it.  It’s very simple.  Last night we enjoyed my version.  Here’s how it goes:

You’ll need some thinly cut pastrami, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, a white onion, tomato, Thousand Island dressing, Mozzarella cheese and a pizza pie (I bought a pre-made one).

Lightly brush the pizza pie crust with olive oil.  Heat it in a skillet so it is lightly browned.  Preheat the oven to 450.

Coat the crust with the Thousand Island dressing (cover the dough, but not thickly).  Layer the onions, sauerkraut and onions to your taste.  I separated the pizza in half and added more of the sauerkraut and onions to my half, leaving the other side open for my wife and our younger daughter.

Slice the tomato  and put it on your mix, then cover that with the pastrami, grated Mozzarella and the sliced Swiss (you can do grated or sliced).  Place in oven.  Check in eight minutes.  We left it in for 10 minutes and it was about right.

Victory.  It’s hard to get a thumbs up from everyone in our family, but this one came out a winner.  Remember you can personalize to your family’s taste buds, so experiment with the best ingredients, but the core is the cheeses and pastrami.   Enjoy.

I saw this recipe in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.  The picture sold me.  It showed some lightly-crisped golden brown patties on a bed of lettuce.  So I read the story, saw that the dish was kind of a potato pancake, but a staple of the Passover Seder table.


We made the dish last night and it was yummie, but agreed as a family that it could use some additions, so here’s what you need and how to do it:  2 pounds of leeks; 2 large boiling potatoes (not russet) peeled; 3 large eggs, beaten; 3 tablespoons matzo meal; 8 strips of bacon; on-half cup of grated Romano or Parmesan cheese; salt and pepper; vegetable oil for frying.

1.        Wash the leeks carefully, slicing them vertically to remove all of the grit.  Dice the white base and the palest green part of the leaves.  Parbroil for five minutes in salted water.  Drain.

2.       Fry the bacon.  Slice into smaller pieces and set aside.

3.       Boil the potatoes until they are soft.  Drain and cool.  Using a potato masher or food processor, mash the potatoes.  Add leeks, blending them in well.  Add eggs, matzo meal, cheese, bacon, salt and pepper to taste.  Form mixture into approximately 12 patties.

4.       Pour oil one-half inch deep in a heavy frying pan.  When the oil reaches 375 degrees (medium high-ish), drop the patties into the oil, 2-3 per batch.  Fry until golden brown on each side.  Drain on paper towels.

We served the patties with sour cream to dip, and ketchup, as kind of a cross between potato pancakes/hash browns French fries.  We added a side salad for diversity.  That was our dinner while we watched pre-recorded Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.  The cakes were light, crisp outside texture and soft inside.  Filling and tasty.  Try them next time you want a casual family dinner.