In 2005 I purchased a book called The Volumetrics Weight-Control Plan by Barbara Rolls {non affiliated Amazon link there btw I get no funds if you click} and it has given me a tried and true family favorite recipe.  Basically she asks that you take some pasta and about 4 mins before it is done cooking throw in some veggies.  Her recipe calls for green beans, broccoli, carrots, celery, and a red pepper.  Then you drain the whole kit and kaboodle and toss with some pressed garlic, a glug of two of olive oil, salt & pepper, and shredded parmesan.  Some fresh basil too.

I like cooking my veggies with the pasta and tossing in the seasonings afterwards for a customizable pasta primavera.  My children, being picky, dislike one vegetable or another.  None of them will eat the celery.  Only one will eat the red pepper and one will shrug at the green beans.  The youngest hates cooked carrots. Basically they only agree on the broccoli and pasta.  Fair enough.

Actually come to think of it the youngest likes the green beans and not the broccoli.  Sigh.  Well never mind.  Regardless of the picking through the veggies for stuff they like all the kids will eat this which is more than I can say for a dish of just broccoli or just carrots or just cauliflower or just green beans or just *insert seasonal vegetable*

Lately I have been on a cauliflower kick so made it with chopped cauliflower, broccoli, and green beans.  I threw in a can of cannelloni beans for protein since my eldest won’t touch chicken which was the main course that night.  I left out the parmesan since she also tinkers with being a vegetarian and figured people could sprinkle on their own.  Quantities of veggies is also customizable.  The other day I filled up my largest mixing bowl full of veggies: sugar snap peas, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, peppers  and tossed it in with about 3/4 lb of pasta.  About 4 times more veggies than pasta.   The recipe calls for about an equal amount of raw veggies and pasta so I really upped the volumetrics of the recipe ;D

Anyway I felt like snapping a picture since I thought it looked nice and  figured that, since the picture didn’t look totally horrendous, I would share my basic recipe.

bon appétit

The shawl if off the needles but instead of blocking I have spent the day scrubbing shelves and walls in the basement. This is the kids area overlowing with stuffed toys, blocks, legoes etc in addition to housing our main Television and DVD collection. Oh and the computers. Really very filthy. Since there is no knit fodder I turn to cooking fodder. Dessert fodder.

Last Friday I made Doce de Leite or Dulce de Leite depending on where you are from. Doce de Leite is a childhood sweet that seems to have become popular in the United States recently. Or at least popular enough that Burger King is offering Dulce de Leite cheesecake and jello pudding offers Dulce de Leite flaver. Neither of these commercial offerings compare to my childhood memories. First off lets talk about texture~ Doce de Leite was most often served as a curdy mix kinda like a very soft tapioca pudding. Sometimes it was a smooth creamy mix similar to a thin butterscotch or caramel ice cream topping. Now I happen to have a cookbook called Brazil by Christopher Idone. I don’t recommend this book at all. The Piccadillo is all wrong as is the Farofa and the Black Beans that are the main ingredient of Fejoida. At least my mother would never cook beans with pigs feet and beef tongues and other icky lesser cuts of meat and her farofinha was more than sauteed in oil meal. Let me assure you that the recipe for Piccadillo aka Pinky Dinky I shared earlier is not made with steak or seasoned with mace and other ‘sweet’ spices. As I said All Wrong. Still in the back was tucked a recipe for Doce De Leite and the ingredients looked right even if a bit sparse. Here are the instructions per the book: 4 c Milk and 2 c Sugar put in a copper pot and over a boiling water bath. Stir 10 mins to dissolve sugar and cook, stirring occassionally, for an hour and half. Stir constantly for an additional half hour.

Where should I begin? Well I don’t own a copper pot and wasn’t about to drop a couple hundred just to make dessert. Nor do I own a double broiler so I turned to my handy dandy crockpot thinking constant steady heat with heavy ceramic bowl to prevent scorching or whatever. 2 hrs later I still had what I had put in~ sugar milk. Turned up the heat and waited another 2 hrs and still sugar milk. Took off the lid thinking maybe the whole liqued preservation factor was hindering my curdling and browning of milk and no go. Sugar milk. I decided patience had to be a virtue in something and waited another 2 hrs. Cream colored sugar milk-no longer milky white but a bit off white. Time to call the mommy.

Here is her correct recipe:

2 parts WHOLE MILK to 1 part sugar. You MUST use whole milk. Luckily I was. Place the ingredients in a heavy saucepan if you have one otherwise any regular pot would do. Bring ingredients to boil. Turn down heat to bare simmer and stir occasionally for 2 hrs. It should be a camel colored mix and have reduced significantly. If you want the curdy mixture which is more American in sensibility[Americans tend to look at the non curdy mix as a topping ~ its a thick creamed soup consistency] then add a ‘few drops’ of lemon juice just when the mix has come to a boil. Not enough to make the milk sour but enough to start the milk solids seperation from water reaction. Also flavor with a cinnomon stick or a few cloves. My mum used to season with both together and thats what I did. Much better than the sugar milk flavor I was dealing with before. Also another optional thing is to add whipped til stiff egg whites after the milk mix has boiled and the heat has been reduced. Depending on how much milk how many egg whites. Since I had no plans to add egg whites I didn’t inquire further and I really don’t recall my mum doing this part as a child but she said thats what some people do in Brazil. I had a nice camel colored coats the spoon mix within 2 hrs~ more like an hour and half and covered and placed in fridge where it thickened up a bit more. The lemon juice didn’t work for me probably because it had already changed from milk white to off white by time I got it on the stove. Try it you might like it. And I assure you the milk content makes it more healthful than any commercial butterscotch or caramel topping you can purchase. Of course you could just scoop some into a bowl and serve with a spoon. We ate it both ways over here this weekend and yummsters. After my waistline recovers a bit I will remake it aiming for curdy goodness.

In one of tinseltown’s oddest casting decisions we were supposed to believe that Robert Redford would ever have to pay for sex. A cool million. We all remember that movie don’t we? And what does Demi do with all that money…? Roll in it of course. While I didn’t win the Lotto or hit some major jackpot gambling I do have yarn. I was so down that the only solution was doing the Demi.

Yesterday I didn’t knit a single stitch but I shopped for yarn~shut up about the goals already~, did the Demi, and made Goulash. My best friend between the ages of ummm 19 to 30 was Loretta. She would still be my best friend if she hadn’t moved to Ireland and we lost track of each other due to moves on my part and her general unreachability. I’ve said this before but I will say it again-If you are extreemly talented at tracking people down give me a ring since I do have her sisters, BIL, mothers, and brothers name and they have been in the military. Anywho Loretta’s mom taught me to make Hungarian Goulash which I modified for my husband’s no carbing self and had last night. Here is the original recipe and my modification follows. Pretty tasty.

Hungarian Goulash ala Pat F: Chop up some bacon and onion and fry on lowish heat together til bacon is crispity and the onion is translucent. Chop up several carrots and lotsa potatoes and throw them into the pot. Feel free to add celery if you feel like it. Slice some polish or smoked or keilbasa sausage and throw that into the pot too. Cover with water by several inches. Add spices the only one being a necessity Hungarian Paprika plus whatever catches your fancy . Its a soup/stew so let simmer for an hour or so. As with most stew-y foods the longer the better. You could even make it in the crock pot but I never have.

OK Elka’s modifications to humor hubby: Chop up some carrots and an onion and caramalize. I don’t have bacon sue me and the carrots were richer this way. I did miss the bacon tho hmmmm. Add sliced sausage { I made a skillet meal} Sprinkle liberally with Hungarian Paprika, pepper and some sorta green herb {Itl seasoning last night but whatever catches my fancy at time works} I resisted the urge to add garlic. Garlic is King. When the sausage is hot and starting to get crispity brown edges add some frozen corn-maybe a third or half a bag. If the food is starting to dry out and stick to pan go ahead and add a little water~the more water you add the longer your gonna cook cause this isn’t soup, stew or goulash but some sorta hash without potatoes. OK heap up a plate for hubby and serve with mashed potatoes for kidlets. Add any leftover tasty root type of veggies chopped to your portion ~ beets yummm and more carrots from dinner night before for me.

Don’t forget a salad for something crisp and clean tasting!

Elka the lousy cook

I have been struggling with icky stuff so not much knitting over here but yes on cooking and food. So here are a couple of recipes~ probably not purist but how I learned them from my mom.

Piccadillo[mispelled I am sure] commonly refered to as Pinky Dinky:

Brown a lb or so of ground beef and drain if you feel like it. Throw in some pepper, a bay leaf, something green like oregano or basil or italian seasoning plus a splash of worcestershire sauce if you have some. Smash a clove of garlic with salt in your morter and pestle. Plenty of salt like a tsp. Add to beef mixture with some water @ a cup {make sure to swish the morter with water to get the garlicy salt mixture} Throw in some cubed potatoes ~3 or 4 and maybe add some tomato paste or a cut up tomato or tomato sauce if you have some. Cover and cook for half an hour or so until pots are tender. Meanwhile cook some white rice. When the potatoes are tender throw in some frozen peas a handful or two. Stir in gently. You can use cooked peas but I like them crisp so let the heat of beef mixture cook them. Yes go ahead and turn off your stove unless there is absolutely no ‘gravy’ in which case you will add some more water and let simmer a bit to get beefy flavor. Now if you want to get fancy {for company ha ha ha} dice an egg and toss in gently and garnish with green olives. I do neither of these things. OK mound your plate with some white rice. Create a crater in center and spoon in the Pinky Dinky. Carb out why don’t you and think about how you feed your family of 5, with some left over for your, and your kidlets, lunch the next day, for next to nothing :^>

Beef Milanese[again mispelled but eff its food OK]

Take a cut of steak. A thin cut like beef round or flank steak. Nothing fancy. Pound it to the bejeebers with your meat tenderizer. Thats why you want a thin cut…very hard to get from thick cut to paper thin trust me. Cut out any disgusting fat or sinnew areas. A normal sized steak will expand into 3 times its size and will be divided along these lines into smaller steaks. Salt and pepper. Go ahead and use garlic salt if you feel like it. Now dip the pieces into an egg wash and then bread with Progresso Italian Seasoning bread crumbs~ my personal favorite since its what mum used. Meanwhile you have been heating a skillet. With some oil in it~not too much just enough to coat the bottom. When your skillet is hot enough to make water dance add some beef to it. If you got the ultra thin cut of beef and didnt’ find any fat so left it in a huge piece that will take up the whole pan but normally you will fit 2 or 3 pieces in the pan. Flip the beef over in about 2 mins and cook an additional 2 mins on other side. The beef should be golden brown and if you did a good job with your mallet ummm beef tenderizer then it should be cooked through as well. Serve with some rice or noodles{we like Vigo yellow rice with real saffron over here} and a salad. Some rolls too if your a bread eater which I am not despite the ideal meal containing both rice and potatoes in same dish {see above} A lb of steak will feed my family of 5 for 2, count em 2, meals and the beef will stay in fridge raw for 2 or 3 days cause its been salted so pound away.

Elka the budget eater saying ttfn knitbuds