A Little Culinary Therapy on a Rainy Fall Day



It is fall and the air has shifted noticeably.  I stayed home from the office today because my first priority called me...being a mom.

My son needed time with me and I knew that I had to just be here, together.  As he sat in the office doing his school assignments, I sat writing, posting my poems, and listening to a great dharma talk on Gentleness and Fearlessness.

As the hours wended their way towards mid-afternoon, and work was mostly accomplished, a few school matters discussed, it was time to do a little culinary therapy for myself and my family.

Everyone knows Mama Jean is very happy when she takes time to be in her kitchen fixing up some life giving, nourishment for the body and soul.

Actually the therapy began this morning with a piece of grass fed chuck roast.  I used Grace's recipe (my Italian neighbor from Lackawanna who always nourished me with her cooking love).

Chuck Roast
Pat with a little flour and place in a large stainless steel pot filled with sweated onions and olive oil
Sear on all sides for a minute or so
Add salt and pepper (I love Himalayan Pink Sea Salt from Wegmans)
Put in the crock pot on low for all day (6 to 8 hours)
Add in some organic beef stock (Wegmans has good stuff Pacific Natural Foods brand)
Add in 5 to 7 carrots (I cut into 3 inch strips)
Add in 2 to 3 stalks of celery chopped with the leaves on
A few sprigs of fresh thyme (plenty of that growing in my garden)

Let that brew all day and the beef falls right apart.

We have some left over mashed potatoes, one baked sweet potato and I finished up using the rest of the sweet potatoes by cutting them up for some tantalizing sweet potato fries.

Lemon Sour Cream Cake
Sometimes you just need to end a great week's worth of homemade cooking with a homemade (or almost homemade) cake.

I buy Dr. Oetker's boxed cakes for these occasions when I just don't want to whip the whole thing up from scratch.  Just add the oil, the milk and eggs along with a quarter cup of sour cream and some lemon zest.  Then I make a quick cream cheese frosting. 

Chicken Soup
Since this week has been very conducive to comfort food cooking and eating and I was fortunate enough to have a good friend to cook for (and drink wine with) three nights this week, my boys and I enjoyed some great basic meals.

Roasted Chicken
On Sunday evening, we had organic rosemary roasted chicken with my sons' favorite veggie, oven roasted asparagus drizzled with Wegman's own basting oil.  On Sunday evening after dinner I made a hearty stock from the carcass which sat on low for 12 hours.  Using that tonight to make my youngest son's favorite chicken and egg noodle soup with plenty of fresh thyme. I made a mirepoix of carrots, onions and celery and made tagliatelle egg noodles (we love the Bionature brand also found at Wegmans).

Breaded Pork Chops
Breaded pork chops were Monday night -- also made in the crock pot after breading and browning them and I was fortunate to have that amazing chicken stock available so I put 2 cups more or less in with the chops.  They were amazing served with yukon gold mashed potatoes with a little garlic boiled in with the potatoes and green beans and butter on the side.

All in all it was a good week filled with home cooking and lots of love emanating from the kitchen. 

Now I am awaiting our dinner guest and with any luck he is bringing a bottle of wine!

Barbecued Burgers in the Crock Pot

Yesterday I threw a party in my backyard -- it was a perfect, lovely day -- sunshine, temperatures in the mid-80s, and thankfully a refreshing breeze.  My mother-in-law and her darling 24 year old granddaughter joined us all the way from Venice, Italy.  It was truly a treat to see them after 9 years. 

My cousins and their children, my Aunt and Uncle, my Mom and Dad, my brother and my nieces, along with a few wonderful neighbors and friends joined the delightful summer gathering.

The key is to have all the preparation done way ahead of time.  So for a Saturday party, the barbecued burgers were made in the crock pot on Thursday and sat marinating in the fridge in their sauce for 2 days.

I like to use organic, grass-fed beef and poultry that is free from antibiotics and steroids because if the animals aren't sick why give them all this medicine and if they are sick, well do NOT eat them!! :o)

Recipe for 40 mid-size plump burgers:

Lots of love -- remember all our food preparation picks up your emotion, thoughts and energetic vibration -- so think and feel Summer Fun and Love!

Blend about 4 - 5 pounds of meat:

• 4 packages 85% fat-free, grass-fed ground beef (I purchase at Wegmans but Tops also has Laura's beef which I like too)
• 1 package ground turkey
• 3-4 cups of bread crumbs  (I used Italian blend of bread crumbs)
• 5-7 large farm fresh eggs
• Sea salt and pepper

Chop a sweet onion (Vidalia or Mayan) and 5 stalks of celery

Saute onion and celery in olive oil (not extra virgin) and put in crock pot

I also added Garlic Scapes to the sauce --these are the shoots of the garlic bulbs growing in my garden but feel free to add some chopped garlic instead

Once all the meat is blended, form burgers and brown burgers for a few minutes on each side in frying pans with olive oil (not extra virgin)

Place burgers gently in the crock pot which already contains the Barbecue Sauce

Barbecue Sauce: (Remember Be Creative -- whatever you think would taste good, add in -- it is fun to experiment and add your creative signature -- the kitchen is a place to be creative and we are all Queens or Kings of our own Kitchens!!)

• 1 small can of Tomato Paste
• 4 cans of chopped or crushed tomatoes (I would use fresh but not in season yet)
• 1 package of Pomi brand tomato sauce (This is made in Italy of Italian tomatoes which really are the best tomatoes I have ever tasted in my life -- Pomi brand is available in Wegmans and Tops but you can use any brand of sauce)
• 1/4 cup of Worsheshire Sauce
• 1/2 cup of Ketchup
• 1/4 cup of Blackstrap Molasses (I love Molasses and it is full of iron and adds a nice zip)
• 1 bottle of Wegmans Organic Barbecue Sauce (use any kind you like or have in your cupboard)

I cook on low all night in the crock pot -- about 6 hours
I transfer to the fridge when the crock pot has cooled a bit
Then the day of the party, I put on low to heat all the way through for at least 3-4 hours

Enjoy!

Happy Mother's Day -- A Glance Back Over the Week

It was a busy week, aren't most of them, compounded by a head cold for my ten year old, myself and my partner. We slogged through it with our noses to the grindstone. On Thursday, Cinco de Mayo and my parent's 49th wedding anniversary, I decided we ought to celebrate with a Cherry Cobbler. This day demanded some celebratory act in the kitchen. I had some fresh frozen sour cherries -- they were pitted and ready to transformed with a bit of baking alchemy into the best cobbler ever...at least, that I have ever tasted.

Inspired by the events of the week and the day at hand, I whipped out my phone and googled "Cherry Cobbler." First one to come up was a five star rated allrecipes.com. Simple, less than 6 ingredients if we don't include the french bean vanilla ice cream. With a stick of butter melting in the 9x13 baking pan in the pre-heated oven, the recipe was a simple combo of flour, eggs, milk, maple syrup, brown sugar, and sour cherries. Easy! Delicious! Heavenly over ice cream straight from the oven. We all enjoyed it.

Just Making the Dinner Decision is Relief

So, once the decision is made about what to have for dinner -- partly based on what's stocked in the fridge or pantry or what needs to be prepared before it goes bad -- a great relief washes over me. Having been up more than half the night with a croupy 10 year old, I was happy for some relaxation that cooking offers me and needed to prep something before being overcome by the need for some sleep.

This past week I decided to cook up some more ribs having purchased from our local farmer both pork and beef ribs -- all grass fed, pasture raised. I had gone perhaps a bit overboard with my purchase of ribs this week. But the beef short ribs were defrosted and needed to be cooked up. So I concocted another recipe with an Asian inspiration. I put the short ribs in the crock pot along with a marinade of rice wine vinegar, low sodium soy sauce, maple syrup, black strap molasses, orange juice, crushed red pepper, fresh ginger and garlic along with hearty our of a store bought (from Wegmans) marinade and carrots and red cabbage.

Brewing all day, the short ribs and veggies were sweet, succulent and fall off the bone tender. I served them with steamed green beans and mashed potatoes. The gravy was a perfect combination of sweet and tangy with just a hint of picante. True comfort food for a cool spring day after a night of coughing and very little sleep.

Mama Jean's Kitchen Musings

Last weekend I needed to decide on a Sunday meal. No checking email, or blogging, or getting bogged down by machinery. Sundays are family days. That means coming up with ideas to be one with my boys and cooking up some healthy and delicious food. So as I watched my 10 and 13 year old boys run with 5 of the other neighborhood children, I got down to work in the kitchen.

First off, I whipped up some brunch of homemade waffles made of spelt and King Arthur flour with a handsome helping of black strap molasses in the batter. I peeled a pineapple for some fruit and sauteed bananas in local New York maple syrup -- the real stuff. My boys and two of their friends came in for a hot brunch. In Western New York we have had a grumpy wet and cold spring. So hot meal was good for the kids.

Then with pineapple available I threw together a sour cream pineapple cake. I had an organic box vanilla cake mix and added some chopped pineapple and sour cream and blended all until very smooth. I made a cream cheese frosting adding a tablespoon or two of pineapple juice. With that in the oven, I turned to the meal preparation for Sunday evening. I had shopped the day before at our local farmer and picked up baby back pork ribs. Using two separate crock pots, I simmered a barbecue sauce with more black strap molasses and real maple syrup as well as a smaller crock pot of ribs and sauerkraut and sweet onions. The aroma of these crock pots stewing all day filled our home.

My parents joined us for a feast and the ribs and pineapple, sour cream cake were hits with my family.