Early November

Okay. I bought a large saucepan, a smaller saucepan (with a lid). And I bought a roasting pan.



Today, I redid the pumpkin mac and cheese I blogged about last time. Silver got to hog the dog bed (foster dog has gone to a new home) while I cooked, and I followed the recipe exactly, using the cheeses called for (gruyere probably is in your grocery's deli section, not the dairy section) and even using mostaccioli pasta (it's nothing to get excited about: it's like straight elbow macaroni--no bend in the arm). Good news and bad news on the dish.

Good news: you can taste the pumpkin--a little. And the taste of the dish is okay, except--

Bad news: reserve some cheese or add additional cheese to the recipe so you'll have some to put on the top of the dish. Otherwise, you get a dish where macaroni shows blankly on the top, and the cheesy sauce is all at the bottom. The macaroni can even get overcooked while you were waiting for what the recipe calls "golden and bubbly." Last time, since I couldn't get all the cheese in the little saucepan, I put the rest on top of the dish and that looked fine. This time the macaroni looks (and is) naked.



The other thing that's strange is that the recipe calls for you to cook the butter-flour-milk-pumpkin sauce, then take that off the stove and add the cheeses and spices. Then, once the cheese has melted, you add the pasta. The problem, though, is that once you take the sauce off the burner, the 10 ounces of cheese you add just won't melt. It gets soft, but it doesn't melt unless you put the pan back on a low heat.

In the past week, I've made more chili. You know how there's a toxin in red beans--phytohaemagglutinin--that can give cramps and gastric distress if the beans aren't cooked hot enough and long enough? I've been assuming that canned red beans are safe (since preparation instructions on the can just call for heating the ingredients--not cooking the beans for a long time), but that assumption may be wrong. On the last two batches of crock-pot chili, the first serving straight from the crock-pot has given me real stomach problems, but the leftovers--microwaved before serving--have not. At first I couldn't figure out why a batch of chili would--and then would not--give me stomach trouble. But now I'm wondering if the crock-pot is failing to get the canned beans hot enough, but microwaving leftovers is correcting the problem. The next time I make crock-pot chili with canned red beans, I think I'm going to microwave the contents of the can for a couple of minutes, then dump the beans in the crock-pot to cook with the rest of the ingredients. Now that the weather is finally getting cooler around here (highs in the 60s all next week), the chili is a very nice meal. I used one can of tomato sauce, two cans of red beans, two cans of black, and a pound of ground beef (browned before it goes in the crock-pot); also onion, garlic powder, salt and pepper (I may add dried red pepper next time, if I remember). I used spicy-hot V-8 juice for the extra liquid needed in the pot.

I also made meatloaf with Mother's recipe. A friend had suggested using oatmeal in place of the two slices of bread Mother's recipe calls for. The first time I tried that, it didn't occur to me that I shouldn't use my whole-grain oatmeal. The second time, I ran the whole-grain oatmeal through the food processor first. Much better result. I also used a couple of cornbread muffins. I usually make a couple of batches of those (sweet cornbread) to eat with the chili. (They're from a Betty Crocker mix: add the mix, one egg, some milk, and some butter. The package makes six muffins.) I wind up making one batch the day I make the chili, and maybe using a muffin or two in the meatloaf right away; then, when the last of those muffins are gone, I'll make another batch to go with the last of the chili. The meatloaf is definitely comfort food for me--even more than the chili is--and I look forward to the leftovers as much as to the first serving. (My lovely microwave has a "reheat" button that heats the serving of meatloaf just right--without my having to estimate a time based on the serving size.)

Freelance work has been busier until last week (and will be busy again soon), I've been getting foster dog off to his new home (as he trampled on my last nerve), and I've been getting Silver and me ready to be a therapy team. I've got some therapy prep work I've got to do in the next week, I have some freelancing, and I'll probably have a new foster dog in about 10 days. (We don't have any boys needing foster homes, and Silver probably may not welcome a girl.) Having leftovers I can pull out of the refrigerator or freezer on the spur of the moment has been useful. I just need one or two days a week when I can cook for a couple of hours without big distractions. Today was the macaroni. Tomorrow, I'll go out and run some errands and pick up canned beans and some ground beef and muffin mix and try to get some chili and meatloaf done Monday evening.

Chili today...

...and hot tamale.



Today's chili is

1 pound of browned ground beef
1 can of red beans
1 can of black beans
1 tablespoon of chili powder
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
The onions I had left from this week's meatloaf
And--instead of cans of tomatoes--enough V-8 juice to cover everything in the crock-pot (about half of a 48-ounce bottle).

Cooked in the crockpot on high for 3 hours, low for another hour.

And I made more cornbread muffins. Tonight's chili came on two of the muffins. I've got four more muffins and plenty more chili for leftovers.

Crock-pot Chili (from craftaceousperiod--Scraplyn on Ravelry)

The other day, Craftaceousperiod posted her recipe for crock-pot chili.



When I was growing up, chili always had beans. We never even called them "red beans" or "kidney beans". At our house, they were "chili beans." So I wanted to add beans to this recipe. I didn't have a bag of dried beans to cook, but I did have a couple of cans, so I added one can to this recipe. (There's a toxin in some beans--especially bad in red beans--that can be a problem if the beans aren't cooked at a high enough temperature. Crock-pot cooking generally won't get hot enough, so red beans need to be cooked separately, then added to the crock-pot. Or you can just open a can...)

I had a large onion, rather than a medium one (from my store's "locally grown" produce section). I like onions, but I started chopping this thing and it seemed to go on forever. I used a little more than half of the onion; I chopped and refrigerated the rest.

My skillet (for browning the beef) wasn't large enough to do all the beef at once. I did it in two batches. The good news: the front left stove-top
burnerelement worked just fine. (And it only took me 13 years to test that.)

Not so fine was the state of the spoon rest I had on my stove. I put the metal tongs on the rest for a moment, and they melted a spot. Really? The spoon rest--and its cheap kitchen gadget black plastic brethren--are in the trash now. (The back of the pieces said heat-resistant to 400F. Um, I don't think so--) I've put an old Corning ramekin on the stove to serve as a spoon rest. It's shallow, so spoons won't fall out of it, and it's nice, safe Corning that's rated for inside the oven.

I used to have a set of double-ended measuring spoons, and the bowls of the spoons were shaped like this:



I don't know what happened to those spoons, but I'm definitely going to shop for a new set of these. It's silly to have fat, round spoons that won't fit into a spice bottle.

And I learned that if you start cooking at 3am, your dogs won't bother to get out of bed to see what you're doing in the kitchen.

I have some boil-in-bag rice I'll cook in the microwave to put the chili on. I have the plain white rice, Jasmine, and Basmati, which I bought just to try them out. The Jasmine is lovely, and I can eat it plain and unseasoned. I'm not as fond of straight Basmati, but it should be just fine under the chili.

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Chili over Basmati rice, with shredded cheddar and sour cream

The chili is very good. The spice combination is good--not too hot.

For me, though, maybe less of the crushed tomatoes. Despite stirring the crock before it started cooking and again before I dished up, I'm encountering some mouthfuls that seem to be plain tomato, without the seasoning.

I've had a bowl (for breakfast). I've turned off the crock-pot and I'll let the contents cool some before I package them for the freezer and the refrigerator. Meanwhile, the little nap I had between 5:30 and 8:15 (when the timer for the chili went off) is not going to get me through the day. I'm going to take another nap while the chili cools enough to be put away.



(Mostly) well-behaved foster boy came over when I had the chili. I told him "no," and he laid down as close as possible to nap. Move over, Peter, and I'll join you.

Note: After I ate a serving of about 1¾ cup, I let the chili cool while I took a nap. When I woke up, I packaged four batches of leftovers. Each package was 2 to 2½ cups so this made about 10 cups of chili.

The Crock-pot Pot Roast

Sorry, not many pictures for this one. There's nothing special to look at, anyway.

The recipe was this one: To Die For Crock Pot Roast.

My roast was about 3 pounds, rather than the 4-5 pounds recommended in the recipe. And I added potatoes, carrots, and onions, none of which are in the original recipe (despite the photo from the website). A number of reviewers on Food.com refer to how salty their roast was. Mine wasn't salty. In fact, it needed salt--and it wasn't very flavorful.

My mistakes:

• To cut back on the saltiness, I cut back on how much of the dry seasoning mix I used. I rubbed my pieces of roast (I'd cut it into quarters before I started, so I could divvy it up easily for leftovers) with the seasoning mix. Then I added the half-cup of water the recipe called for. I added vegetables. Then I took another half-cup of water, added some of the seasoning mix, and poured that over the vegetables. The crock-pot (it's a 3½-quart size) was full to the top.
  
  Now I know that crock-pot cooking will tone down the seasonings substantially, so you need to use more seasoning than you think--or partially cook the meal, then add seasoning.

• I didn't cut my vegetables small enough, and they took an eternity to cook.

For the leftovers, I thawed/heated the roast and vegetables (and the liquid from the pot) for each serving. Then I put everything back in the crock-pot with more of the seasoning so that the seasoning might flavor the food and so that the vegetables would be more thoroughly cooked.

The vegetables did eventually cook, and the seasoning flavored both the vegetables and the meat. It never became too salty.

But by the end, you didn't taste anything but the seasoning. Onions, carrots, potatoes, and meat all tasted the same--"seasoned".

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So how do you make a crock-pot pot roast with all the vegetables and get the vegetables to cook thoroughly and to taste like themselves? Do you cook things separately and then combine them? (That sort of defeats the purpose of a crock-pot, doesn't it?) Or is a pot roast just something that isn't going to work well in a crock-pot if you want your roast to have vegetables.

What I've Got

I've got a mix of old and new here...and the old is very old.

This condo was built in the early 70s. The first owner was a bachelor who lived here until 2000. During his time here, he updated the refrigerator, water heater, and dishwasher. Since I've been here (from April 2000), I've replaced the garbage disposal, the water heater, and the kitchen floor.

That leaves the kitchen stove (and matching overhead exhaust fan/light).



I've Googled "vintage GE electric oven" and I think this model first came out in 1964. It's an undersized ("apartment" sized) stove with push buttons to control the elements. (I grew up calling those things "burners." Surprising how prophetic that term turned out to be when I was trying to cook.) I've never used the stove-top in the 13 years I've lived here. That pretty tea kettle? All I've ever done is dust it. When I want hot water, I've used the microwave. Not long after I moved in, I discovered that half the cookie sheets I owned wouldn't fit in the oven so I gave them away. All I have left is a couple of warped, stained sheets that don't fit comfortably; they scrape the walls from side to side, and if you put them in front to back, you can't close the oven door. (I think new cookie sheets will be on my wish list for Christmas. 17" x 18" is the limit; my current pan--that scrapes the wall--is 19" including the handles.) I've only ever used the oven to heat frozen pizzas. I don't know if the self-cleaning cycle works since I never got the oven dirty. (The running joke was, "I don't clean the oven. I just dust it.") I know the timer and clock don't work. And there's a light switch (front left corner of the door), but I can't find anywhere inside the oven that you could put a lightbulb. I have an oven thermometer hanging from the rack inside. I think the oven cooks pretty close to the set temperature.



On the top of the oven is a list of suggested cooking temperatures for various items. They have the temperature for cooking a turkey, which I'm pretty sure is a joke. You couldn't fit a turkey in this thing.



So I microwave. This microwave is about two years old, and it's wonderful. The sensors judge the proper time for baked potatoes, popcorn, reheating food, heating beverages. Built-in turntable. I love this thing--which is good, because if it lasts as long as my previous microwave lasted, I may be cooking on this for the next 14 years or so. Just to make things clear, household appliances generally like me. My TV was new in 2000. My washer and dryer were new in 1985 or so. I've never had to place a service call on any of those things--and I have dogs, which means lots of dog hair in the washer and dryer. (The only thing I have problems with is laptops.) My condo even has the original--circa 1970--air conditioner and furnace. And a home owner's warranty.



I have a 70s Rival 3100 crock-pot that I got from my mother. The 3100 is 3½ quarts. I also have the original handbook as well as a 1975 book called Crockery Cooking by Alexis Durrell. There's some rust on the crock-pot's outside metal, and this is not the original lid. Also, the ceramic inside can't be removed. But it works.



And I have a dehydrator: a 9-tray Excalibur. And The Dehydrator Bible--my one cookbook published in this century. I know I need to get some parchment paper to use in the dehydrator. I want to make healthy snacks for me--and for the dogs. (You can make your own yogurt? Really?)



In a bottom cabinet--because I don't have counter-space--I have an elderly Oster blender and a pre-2000 Conair food processor. I love that the Oster blender parts available in stores today will fit this old blender. And I used the food processor a few months ago, when I needed to grind kibble for an aging and finicky greyhound. (And yes, that box beside the food processor holds a springform cake pan. I used that many, many years ago to make a cheesecake. I haven't looked in the box lately, so there's no telling what shape that pan is in.)



I don't have a lot of pots and pans--and very little space to store them. I have the two cookie sheets that need to be replaced. A six-inch cast-iron skillet (souvenir of Pittypat's Porch restaurant in Atlanta, found in my mother's basement when she moved last January) that needs to be cleaned and seasoned. I have a small, no-stick skillet (the right size for scrambling eggs--except that I usually cook eggs in custard cups in the microwave). There's a small, battered, ugly saucepan the right size for heating a can of something or other; I've kept the saucepan around so I'd have something I could use in the fireplace in case of a long-lasting power outage. I have two Pyrex loaf pans, a 2-quart Anchor Hocking casserole with lid, and a Corning casserole dish (about 1½-quart, I think). All can be used in the oven or the microwave, but none of them are rated for the stove-top, so I'm going to need to invest in some sort of stove-top pot. (Double boiler?) I've got a set of 3 Corning glass mixing bowls (microwavable); and in one of the kitchen drawers I think I have a little hand-held mixer. I have plenty of measuring cups and spoons; also tongs, a strainer, a flour/sugar sifter, spatula and gizmos (potato/carrot peeler, egg separator, etc.).



And I have cookbooks. The New York Times Cook Book is dated 1990. The Microwave Cookbook dates to my first microwave oven (about 1988?). The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook is dated 1980. Keep It Simple is 1981. The Dehydrator Bible is 2009.

I need to learn about crock-pot cooking: Can you modify most recipes to work in the crock-pot? Is there a trick to knowing how much water to add, knowing whether everything can cook at once or some things need to be cooked separately?



For instance, I have packages of dried beans and peas and packages of rice. Can these cook in the crock-pot? I've glanced at the recipes, and they call for a tablespoon or two of olive oil (which I have) and some water. Do I change any of that to cook them in the crock-pot? I've made one dish in the crock-pot and was disappointed in it (that'll be another blog post), and right now I've got a potato, some minced onion, two tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of a seasoning mix in the crock-pot on low.

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Please feel free to chime in. Do you have a favorite link for crock-pot recipes? Recommendations for what kind of pot I should look for for stove-top cooking? A favorite dehydrator trick? Talk to me here--or just talk back and forth to each other, and I'll eavesdrop. I have friends and relatives who cook. Help!



Also: I have some white sugar and some Demarara organic sugar. I have salt, black pepper, some red pepper, garlic powder, and a few other spices. I have white vinegar and Vigo olive oil. I don't have flour or cornstarch or things like that. I don't have pasta on hand (beyond boil-in-bag white rice, Jasmine, and Basmati). What kinds of staple ingredients should I lay in so I'll be able to cope with average recipes? (Please keep in mind that I don't know one flour from another.) I have a couple of empty countertop cannisters (the other cannisters hold buttons), so what should I put in the empties?