The weather’s getting warmer and sunnier and it’s time to start thinking about warm weather dishes and cookout and picnic food.
One of my favorites is summer slaw. What I love about it is that I can make it in about 5 minutes and toss in whatever I have on hand along with green cabbage. Plus, I use a very simple “dressing” which provides the kick and freshness of citrus and which allows you to put the slaw on an outdoor table and not worry about it getting too warm—there’s no mayo in this.
The San Diego area isn’t really famous for any specific “cuisine” like St. Louis ribs or New England clam chowder or Wisconsin bratwurst. If this area is known for anything it’s for embracing a dish out of Baja, Mexico—the fish taco.
Here the Baja-style taco has been turned into an “art form”, especially thanks to a small fast food chain called Rubios. You can get fish tacos at any number of “mom and pop” Mexican eateries too. Mexican food guru Rick Bayless even dedicated his show on PBS a couple of weeks ago to the quest for the most authentic fish taco recipe in Ensenada, Mexico.
So, recently Mrs. CB and I got a hankering for fish tacos. Do you ever get a flavor going in your mouth for a certain dish that’s just not going to go away until you eat it? I do all the time. And that’s what happened this last week with us and fish tacos.
My father had a favorite “endearment” for me, his youngest son, when I was a kid. At various times, he’d look at me a say, “you’re just a gravy sopper”. This was especially true when Mom would cook pork chops and there’d be 2 boys and my Dad elbowing one another for the privilege of dredging a slice of bread in the bottom of the pan to “sop up” those greasy bits of goodness before sitting down to devour a thin chop cooked to the consistency of a roofing shingle.
For Easter, I grilled a turkey breast and wrote about it here: http://www.cheap-bastid-cooks.com/grilled-turkey-breast/
I justified cooking a turkey breast on the grill based on the $.99 a pound special that Target had going on turkey breast Naw, what I really, really wanted was mashed potatoes and homemade gravy. A mountain of mashed potatoes with a liquid avalanche of thick, tasty gravy oozing down the sides.
You can make this gravy with beef or pork or turkey or chicken. Just reserve pan drippings and follow these simple instructions.
It just takes a few minutes—less than the time you need to let your turkey breast or pork or beef roast rest prior to eating. And if you do that, you won’t be tempted to cut into your meat too soon and drain all those terrific juices that a being absorbed back into the meat. Continue reading
You know, I don’t think I’ve ever done turkey on Easter before. It’s just not a “turkey holiday”, which is kind of a ridiculous way of putting it, but I’ve never thought about it before. Anyway, my grocery store had half hams for 87 cents a pound if you bought $25 worth of groceries. But we weren’t going to be spending that much on our last visit. And Target had turkey breasts for 99 cents a pound.
Done deal. We like turkey breast and haven’t had one since Thanksgiving. Of course, in our quest for a bargain, wouldn’t you know that we ended up going to 2 different Targets. The first one didn’t have any on the Tuesday before Easter and the second one did. So, we burned up an extra half gallon of gas (2 bucks) to pick up a turkey breast.
For the last several years, I’ve cooked turkey breasts on the grill. (Oh, by the way, there’s only 3 of us—often just 2—to cook for so a turkey breast at 7 ½ to 8 ½ pounds is perfect). On a holiday like Thanksgiving, grilling leaves plenty of space in the oven for other dishes and makes the timing easier. And quite frankly, grilled turkey breast is quicker than doing it in the oven. Continue reading
I love simple food. Even better I love tasty, simple food that’s cheap. But there are times when I’ve scratched my head and wondered what to do with that last lonely pork chop forlornly shivering in the freezer or what to do with that last serving of roast that’s slowly aging in a plastic container in the back of the 3rd shelf in the fridge.
That’s why to me fried rice is the ultimate leftover. You take a little of this and a little of that, some leftover meat and rice and you’ve got dinner.
There are a lot of places (think Asia) where fried rice is a staple. There’s always leftover rice and bits of vegetables and meat. Enough when combined to feed a family. When my kids were growing up I managed to feed 4 with one pork chop or a couple of chicken thighs or one chicken breast. The kids really loved it when I’d do ground beef with chopped up tomato and salsa for “taco fried rice”. You’re only limited by your imagination and what you have on hand. Continue reading
