MacGyver gnocchi

The pace of work and home life this week continued to dictate yet again the need for dinner solutions that could be produced on a short turnaround. Gnocchi in the pantry and leftover sausage and kale in the fridge came to the rescue to help produce this cheesy gnocchi bake when MacGyver night rolled around on Thursday. 

It’s still a work in progress, but the basic infrastructure involves preheating the oven to 425F/210C; browning gnocchi in butter and bacon fat in a cast-iron skillet on the stovetop, then mixing in chopped, cooked kale and Italian sausage. I then added about 1 cup of stock and milk mixed together, and slid the whole thing into the now-hot oven to let it heat through for about 10 minutes. Then I mixed in somewhere around 1.5 cups of cream cheese, grated cheddar cheese, and grated pecorino romano, and put it back in for another 5 minutes or so. The sauce isn’t quite right yet, so I’ll be continuing to fiddle with it, but even as is, it was still pretty tasty and hit the spot at the end of a long, busy day. And since I'm on a short turnaround yet again, that's all from me for today.

MacGyver pilaf

When DP goes away, I cook differently. I do a lot of MacGyvering, and focus on using up leftovers. I can concoct a meal for two of us out of a bit of this and a bit of that, that wouldn't really stretch to feed three of us comfortably. And I can make one-dish meals, which Miss B and I will eat quite happily, but which often provoke a "Where's the rest of dinner?" expression on DP's face. (Unlike Miss B and me, DP is one of those people who 'forgets' to eat lunch, so he generally arrives home like a ravening something or other, and enjoys a bit of variety in his ravening.)

Because of this, one-dish meals are often a page-turner for me, as when I came across a recipe for a pilaf recently. But it got me thinking about pilaf as a concept, and how, like fried rice or risotto, it is really an adaptable vehicle for using rice to build a few key ingredients into a complete meal.

So, with that in mind, here's how I made my first MacGyver pilaf earlier this week:

1. Put the kettle on. (If I'd had any stock, I would have heated that instead.)
2. Put a medium saucepan on the stove over low heat, poured in a couple Tbsp (~30 ml/1 oz) of olive oil.
3. Chopped half a red onion and two cloves of garlic, added to the saucepan, let cook gently.
4. Added half a cup (~120 g/4 oz) long-grain white rice to the saucepan, stirred it to coat completely in the warmed oil.
5. Poured in 1 cup (240 ml/8 oz) hot water, added a healthy sprinkle of salt. Stirred thoroughly, clamped on the lid, and left to cook for 12-15 minutes or until all nearly the water was absorbed.
6 While the rice was cooking, I extracted from the refrigerator several containers: one containing about 2 servings of leftover grilled zucchini, one containing about 2 servings of leftover lemon-mustard chicken, and one containing quite a lot of leftover basil-cashew-parmesan dip. I chopped the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
7. When the rice was nearly done, I stirred the zucchini, the chicken chunks, and a heaping spoonful of the dip into the hot rice.
8. I dished it up into two bowls, and dinner was served! With some bread to mop up, and some carrot sticks I had chopped for us to nibble on while dinner was cooking, we were both satisfied and there was just enough left for a thermos lunch for Miss B next day.

Notes: I chose these particular leftovers to go together because they all had a fairly similar Mediterranean flavor profile (lemons/garlic/herbs/olive oil etc) which I thought would harmonize with each other, and with the dish. They did - it really worked, even better than I had hoped; plus it came together really quickly (and with much less stirring than either fried rice or risotto!). I'm now contemplating a variation for dinner this weekend involving brown rice, leftover steak with red wine sauce, and leftover green beans. The permutations are endless once you start thinking about it. The only question is: does it really qualify as a pilaf? Or is there some other catchall term that's better? Wikipedia has a whole list of 'mixed rice dishes' in the pilaf entry; the term is clunky, but the list opens up even more possibilities....

Wordless Wednesday

Leftover lunch (or dinner): fried rice

Cottage pie

Once upon a time I had a life-changing revelation while making cottage pie. It made me look at a long list of dishes from a different perspective, and led to the development of:

Roving Lemon’s Leftover Rule of Thumb: If the recipe calls for any major ingredient to be cooked two different ways in a short space of time, it was probably originally devised to use up leftovers.

The correlative effect to this discovery was that I stopped wanting to make anything from scratch that I could use leftovers to make more easily, whether it was fried rice or omelet fillings. It just seemed like too much work. I’ve gotten to the point where I won’t even make a tuna melt unless I’ve already got a batch of tuna salad sitting in the fridge.

EDF -> EDK

EDF = Eating Down the Fridge: a fun challenge where you commit to not going grocery shopping for a week and getting creative with what's already in your kitchen.

EDK = Eating Down the Kitchen: when you are three weeks away from an intercontinental move and frantically trying to consume every scrap of food in your possession, because US Customs says you can't bring it with you and you hate wasting food.

If you run out of something, you can't replace it. (Goodbye, beloved cinnamon! I'll see you on the other side.)

If you've got something lying around that you only use once in a while, you've got to figure out a way to use it up. (Anyone have suggestions for using up ¾ of a jar of cider vinegar?)

Here's one concoction I've already come up with. I expect others, increasingly bizarre, will follow.

Storecupboard shuffle couscous
The one box of couscous I had lying around was parmesan-flavored, so I went with an Italian-flavors theme. But I think this would probably work just as well with plain couscous.

Please note: all measurements are approximate.

~12 sundried tomatoes
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Italian sausage
~4 zucchini
1 box couscous
1 glass white wine
salt & pepper
pecorino romano cheese, for topping

Heat up some water. Chop sundried tomatoes and throw into about a cup of hot water to soak while you do everything else. (If yours are packed in oil, you can probably skip this step.)

Heat a large skillet to medium and add oil. Remove sausage from its casing and crumble into hot pan. Brown sausage, stirring occasionally.

While the sausage is browning, quarter the zucchini and chop into chunks. (You can also do this step earlier if you want to salt the zucchini as I describe here.) Add the zucchini to the hot pan and cook, stirring every few minutes but also leaving alone so it can brown.

While the zucchini is cooking, boil some more water. Put the couscous in a pan or heatproof bowl. Pour boiling water over couscous, cover, and leave to cook according to the package directions. (This usually takes about five minutes.)

When the zucchini has cooked to your satisfaction, throw in the white wine and stir around, scraping up any good stuff that has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat to low. Dump in the couscous and the softened tomatoes (and some of the soaking liquid if you think that would improve things; I did). Stir to combine everything thoroughly, then taste and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve, topped with grated cheese, hot, warm, or at room temperature. (Also good eaten cold out of the fridge.) Serves 4 with leftovers.

PS EDK also = the reason I'm not attempting to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year. But I'm still remembering to give thanks; see my list from last year, all still valid. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours if you're celebrating!

Last hurrah

One of the things I’ve noticed about solo parenting* is that, no matter how long the stretch, I always have almost, but not quite enough, fortitude to get me through. So that, whether it’s been five days or (as this time) forty, I reach a point, usually in the last 24-48 hours, where I think, “Yes! I’m almost done!” and then immediately think, “But I’m not done yet—there are still X (meals/cleanups/bathtimes/whatever) left to go.” And then think, “I can’t do it. I just can’t.” And then do it anyway, because what else are you gonna do?

I realize I’m probably beating a dead horse with this theme, but when one reaches this point, pretty much the only way to make life a little easier on yourself is on the food front. You can’t really skip any of the daily tasks you’re required to do as a parent—but you can produce something simple, tasty, and nutritious for dinner (that, hopefully, both you and your kid(s) will enjoy) without expending too much of your ever-dwindling mental energy. This is one of the things I turn to when I reach such a state.

* The state of mind described here is why I don’t refer to what I have to do intermittently as ‘single parenting’: because I’ve done enough solo parenting to be pretty certain that parenting on your own all the time is a whole different ballgame.

Creamy pasta tricolore
I forget where I first came across this dish (Jamie Oliver? a newspaper?); the original ‘recipe’ was scribbled on a piece of scrap paper that I used until I knew it so well that I didn’t bother looking at it anymore. All amounts are approximate; use your judgment as to how much of everything you want in the mix.

Olive oil
2 containers grape or cherry tomatoes**
1 clove garlic
1 large package/2 bunches spinach
1 package (1lb/500g) short pasta of your choice
1 log fresh goat cheese
Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano cheese, to taste
Lemon juice, to taste

Put pasta water on to heat. Wash and halve tomatoes. Wash and slice spinach. Mince garlic.

In a large frying pan, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil on medium. Add the garlic and sauté briefly, then add the spinach. (You may need to add to the pan in batches.) Cover the spinach so it can wilt. Check every couple of minutes and stir to ensure that it is wilting evenly. When it has wilted consistently, season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and stir to combine. Leave on a low heat, uncovered, to allow some of the liquid from the wilting to evaporate.

When the water boils, salt generously and cook the pasta al dente according to package instructions. Before draining, reserve about 1 cup of the cooking water.

Drain the pasta in a colander and then return to the hot pan. Drizzle with some olive oil to keep from sticking, and then add the goat cheese, cutting it into chunks as you go. Add the tomatoes and spinach and stir to combine. Continue stirring until the goat cheese has melted, adding a few splashes of pasta water if desired to create a consistent coating for the pasta. Season with pepper, grated cheese, and lemon juice to taste. Serve immediately.

Serves 4, probably with some leftovers--this is pretty filling.


** This is very good with fresh tomatoes that cook a little in the heat of the pasta, but it’s even better if you oven roast the tomatoes beforehand.

Quick fix

I mentioned recently how solo parenting, among other things, was messing with my kitchen motivation. It’s kind of embarrassing to acknowledge that sometimes, much of the thrill of cooking is about audience reaction. When the audience, worn out from preschool and the prospect of no dad at dinner yet again, saves her most enthusiastic response for a box of Annie’s Mac and Cheese (imported by the management at colossal hassle to the invaluable crew across the Pacific), is it any wonder I’m going for the quick and easy options at the moment?

Pasta with sauteed zucchini and bacon
If you have a few minutes earlier in the day, chop the zucchini, sprinkle it with coarse salt, and leave it to drain in a colander (see photo). Rinse and shake well before using. It’s not essential but it speeds up the cooking time and intensifies the flavor of the zucchini. The angel hair pasta isn’t essential either, but it cooks in two minutes. What more could you want when you’re trying to get dinner on the table?

2-4 pieces bacon, chopped into small pieces
4 small zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut in chunks
1 clove garlic, minced
250g/8oz angel hair pasta
Olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
Lots of grated pecorino romano or parmigiano reggiano cheese

1. Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.
2. In a large frying pan, cook the bacon on medium heat, stirring regularly. When it starts to crisp and render fat, add the zucchini. Continue stirring regularly, but let the zucchini rest for a few minutes at a time to get brown. If it starts to look done and the water hasn’t boiled yet, turn the heat down to low and keep stirring.
3. When the water boils, add a good handful of salt, and then the pasta.
4. While the pasta is cooking, add the minced garlic to the bacon and zucchini and stir again.
5. Before draining the pasta, take out about half a cup of the cooking water and reserve. Drain the pasta and return to the hot pan.
6. Drizzle olive oil over the hot pasta and toss—this is so it won’t clump. Throw some black pepper and cheese on too.
7. Add the bacon/zucchini/garlic mixture, and more pepper and cheese to taste. Also pour in a few splashes of the pasta cooking water to bring everything together. Keep tossing.
8 Serve immediately, with more black pepper and cheese at the table.

Served 1 adult and 1 child with ample leftovers.