Friday, May 05, 2017

Coinage du jour - 05 May 2017

bouillon logic (n)

A method for deciding whether or not to make stock from scratch.

"With no bones and little in the way of vegetables at hand, it was a simple matter of bouillon logic to use boxed stock for the soup."

that is all

Thursday, May 04, 2017

Carnage du Jour - 01 May 2017

This is more an homage than a carnage.
Making some food for Mom while Dad was in the hospital (he's home and doing well, thanks), I thought she might go for something from the past. You know, comfort food.

Thus began the search in Grandma E's cookbook for the Johnny Marzetti recipe.
I didn't find it there.
So ... it must be on one of the 3x5 cards in the recipe box.
Nope.

Alrighty then. I remember that it had equal parts of tomato and cream of mushroom soup, browned hamburger, and kluski noodles. How hard could it be?

It wasn't hard at all, as it happens.

In a large skillet I browned a pound of ground chuck (pro tip #1 - I always salt the hot skillet before adding ground beef to brown; go ahead, try it), adding a bit of minced onion to give it a bit more flavour.
I added to that 1 can each of tomato and cream of mushroom soup (I started with a part of each, but it was clear I needed all of it, so that's the recipe now) and mixed it thoroughly.

While all that was happening, a well-salted pot of water had boiled and received a bunch of kluski noodles (sorry, I can't be terribly precise in my amount here - perhaps half a 16oz bag or so?), bringing them to just shy of al dente. (pro tip #2 - pace Alton Brown, I always add a bit of vegetable oil to my pasta water; I have no doubts it prevents clumping and sticking.)
The noodles were then stirred into the meat and sauce mixture and then scooped into crocks for later heating.
We ate our portion on 02 May after giving it a head start in the microwave to take the refrigerator chill off it and then final heating under the broiler to get the good crispy bits that really ought to be there in the normal straight from mixing it to a casserole in the oven method.
It was quite tasty, and brought back memories of family - just what comfort food is meant to do.