Every so often, I challenge myself to make dinner for under $10, not including already on-hand ingredients. This recipe meets that criteria and is a cinch to prepare. It is a great one-pot recipe for a casual dinner with friends.
Spicy Mussels
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 T. red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/3 c. chopped Italian (flat-leaf) parsley--once you have Italian parsley, I just know you'll never buy the curly stuff again!
2 1/2 lb. mussels, scrubbed and debearded
One French baguette, cut in the four large pieces
In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic (I used a garlic press rather than bothering to chop garlic, which is a pain in the neck!) and crushed red pepper and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil, cover, lower the heat to medium and cook for ten minutes.
Stir in half of the parsley, add the mussels, cover and cook until the mussels open, about 5 minutes. Discard any unopened mussels. Divide the mussels and broth among 4 bowls, sprinkle with the remaining parsley, lightly drizzle with olive oil, and serve with a piece of the bread. Better yet, prepare the mussels in a pretty pot and bring it to the table and allow your guests to help themselves.
If I'm willing to splurge and make this more than a $10 dinner, I will pick up a bottle of white wine. My favorite for this recipe is a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Take Out Fake Out: Slow Cooker Style
Winnie's Dad and I love Asian food: Chinese, Thai, Japanese, even Indian on occasion. The spicier the better. So, when I found an Asian slow cooker dish, I was sold before we even tried it. Whip this up in 15 minutes in the morning, and after work, enjoy the taste of take out without the ginormous amounts of salt and MSG or take out containers. I have a feeling this might show up on an upcoming weekly menu.
Spicy Sweet Asian Pork Shoulder
1/2 c. low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 c. brown sugar
1-2 T chili-garlic sauce (like Siracha, found in the Asian food aisle of most grocery stores, even Wal-Mart! It looks like a bright red ketchup.)
1 T. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder, optional
Kosher salt and pepper
2 1/2 lb. pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup brown rice
1 medium head bok choy, thinly sliced
2 scallion, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine soy sauce, brown sugar, chili-garlic sauce, ginger (have you invested in a microplane grater yet? If not, I implore you to do so immediately!), five-spice powder, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Add the pork and toss to coat. Cook, covered, until the pork is tender, on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
Cook brown rice according to package directions to be ready when pork is ready--the brown rice I use takes about 50 minutes, so make sure to plan ahead. Better yet, find some instant brown rice!
Fifteen minutes before serving, skim off and discard any fat from the pork. Gently fold the bok choy into the pork and cook, covered, until heated through, 2 to 4 minutes. Serve with the rice, and sprinkle with the scallions. This should serve about 4.
Now, isn't that better (and more affordable) than Chinese take out?
Spicy Sweet Asian Pork Shoulder
1/2 c. low-sodium soy sauce
1/2 c. brown sugar
1-2 T chili-garlic sauce (like Siracha, found in the Asian food aisle of most grocery stores, even Wal-Mart! It looks like a bright red ketchup.)
1 T. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder, optional
Kosher salt and pepper
2 1/2 lb. pork shoulder, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup brown rice
1 medium head bok choy, thinly sliced
2 scallion, white and light green parts only, thinly sliced
In a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, combine soy sauce, brown sugar, chili-garlic sauce, ginger (have you invested in a microplane grater yet? If not, I implore you to do so immediately!), five-spice powder, 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Add the pork and toss to coat. Cook, covered, until the pork is tender, on high for 4 to 5 hours or on low for 7 to 8 hours.
Cook brown rice according to package directions to be ready when pork is ready--the brown rice I use takes about 50 minutes, so make sure to plan ahead. Better yet, find some instant brown rice!
Fifteen minutes before serving, skim off and discard any fat from the pork. Gently fold the bok choy into the pork and cook, covered, until heated through, 2 to 4 minutes. Serve with the rice, and sprinkle with the scallions. This should serve about 4.
Now, isn't that better (and more affordable) than Chinese take out?
Monday, January 24, 2011
Menu Day
Sunday night there was a pretty big football game on television...so, Winnie's Dad requested that I buy some chicken wings for him to make on the grill. Wings are like a religion for Winnie's Dad, so much so that he was willing to stand outside in the bone-chilling cold to cook them. It was a late night last night, what with celebrating a Pittsburgh Steelers victory and their 8th trip to the Super Bowl!! So, all I've got for you today is our menu. I promise better posts later in the week.
Sunday: Wings by Winnie's Dad.
Monday: Maple-Glazed T-bone steaks and a green veggie
Tuesday: Bacon, Egg and Cheddar Cups and "breakfast" potatoes (I love breakfast for dinner!)
Wednesday: Firecracker Chili in the slow cooker and corn bread
Thursday: I have a meeting. Winnie's Dad is on his own.
Friday: Spaghetti with homemade Bolognese Sauce, veggie
Sunday: Wings by Winnie's Dad.
Monday: Maple-Glazed T-bone steaks and a green veggie
Tuesday: Bacon, Egg and Cheddar Cups and "breakfast" potatoes (I love breakfast for dinner!)
Wednesday: Firecracker Chili in the slow cooker and corn bread
Thursday: I have a meeting. Winnie's Dad is on his own.
Friday: Spaghetti with homemade Bolognese Sauce, veggie
Friday, January 21, 2011
Food Review Friday
Just as Mondays are Menu Mondays here on Winnie's Mom Makes (can we all agree to call it "WMM" from now on? So much faster to type!), Fridays are officially declared Food Review Fridays. Thanks to a smooth week, I was able to make all the meals that I had planned. Winnie's Dad's favorite meal, I think, was the Shredded Beef and Bean Soft Tacos. Though the soft taco shells that I purchased were pretty flimsy. Lesson learned. I won't buy that brand again. My favorite meal of the week was Sunday's Spinach, Pea and Pesto Pasta. On top of being downright delicious, it was a one-pot meal! Easy preparation and clean up makes a recipe a winner in my book. There is almost nothing worse than returning to the kitchen after a great meal (and long work day) only to have tons of pots, pans, and mixing bowls to clean up. Winnie's Dad always offers to clean the kitchen up after dinner; however, to him "after dinner" often means in the morning. Of course, I could leave the kitchen messy and let Winnie's Dad take care of it in the morning. Because one of my biggest pet peeves is to be greeted by a messy kitchen when I enter it, bleary-eyed, in the morning to make my coffee, I usually do the post-dinner clean up. It also would not be fair of me to resent Winnie's Dad for not helping me after dinner. He offers to do it in the morning. I say no. End of story. No resentment and no "keeping score". Anyway, on to the recipe.
Spinach, Pea and Pesto Pasta
8 oz whole wheat thin spaghetti
2 cups frozen peas
1 cup part-skim ricotta
1/4 cup prepared basil pesto
2 T. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon
1 bag pre-washed baby spinach
Cook pasta according to package directions, adding peas during the last two minutes of cooking. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup of pasta water. In pasta cooking pot, stir together ricotta, pesto, Parmesan, lemon zest and juice. Add pasta and spinach. Toss to combine. If necessary, slowly stir in reserved pasta water to desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serves 4-6.
For some added protein, this dish would be great with some grilled or even rotisserie chicken mixed in.
Spinach, Pea and Pesto Pasta
8 oz whole wheat thin spaghetti
2 cups frozen peas
1 cup part-skim ricotta
1/4 cup prepared basil pesto
2 T. grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp salt
zest of 1 lemon
juice of half a lemon
1 bag pre-washed baby spinach
Cook pasta according to package directions, adding peas during the last two minutes of cooking. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup of pasta water. In pasta cooking pot, stir together ricotta, pesto, Parmesan, lemon zest and juice. Add pasta and spinach. Toss to combine. If necessary, slowly stir in reserved pasta water to desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serves 4-6.
For some added protein, this dish would be great with some grilled or even rotisserie chicken mixed in.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Couch to 5k Progress Report
I am happy to report that the Couch to 5k Program that I told you about a few weeks ago seems to be just what I needed to get me back on the track to the kind of fitness I miss. In these early weeks, I have added one more workout to each week. So, instead of three workouts for each "week", I am doing four, just until I feel my stamina increasing and my morning-after soreness diminishing. I found a great, free play list to download that has verbal cues for the different parts of the workout. There are a few play lists available on itunes, but I am a big fan of "free." Week 2 includes a 5-minute warm-up walk and then six intervals of 90 second jogging and two minutes walking, ending with another five-minute walk. With the track that I use covered in several inches of snow, I have improvised and created a loop around the high school at the end of my street. The sidewalks are shoveled and salted, unlike most neighborhood sidewalks, so I don't have any worries about traction.
Two weeks in to the new year, I am feeling pretty good about my progress. I was supposed to do Week 2, Workout 2 on Sunday but ended up too enthralled by Ricky Gervais on the Golden Globes. On a side note, I do not understand what all the apparent fuss is about. When you hire Ricky Gervais, don't you know what you are getting? Did the Hollywood Foreign Press think they hired Ellen Degeneres? I thought he was hilarious. Sure, some of the jokes may have hit too close to home, but if you can't laugh at yourself now and then, I say, "lighten up"!
But, back to my running...Since I missed my workout on Sunday, I should have hit the pavement on Monday, but fell asleep watching some silly television show and woke at 10:30--a little too late to exercise. Plus it was raining a little too hard. So, on Tuesday I was more vigilant. As soon as I got home from work, I changed in to my cold-weather workout clothes so that I was ready to go as soon as the clock struck 9:30. It was raining a bit, but it felt good to get out in the elements. Tonight, I am due for another run, and hope the snow that they are calling for either arrives later than expected or has stopped by 9:30. I'll let you know how it goes.
In any event, I have set a goal of running in a 5k at the end of March and plan to register for it after I make it through Week 4 of the program. I also plan to register for Pittsburgh's Race for the Cure, which always takes place on Mother's Day. I will run that in honor of my Gramma, who is a breast cancer survivor (and the great cook from whom my great-cook mom learned). I wish I had learned about this Couch to 5k thing sooner. I now realize that I was pushing myself too hard in the early weeks of a new self-designed running program: too many miles, too fast a pace, and not enough rest days. All of that inevitably led to injury and frustration, which in turn led to another "failed" attempt to get back in to shape. Not this time my friends. So, if you see me in April and May, ask me how my races went. I'm counting on all of you to help me meet my goals.
Two weeks in to the new year, I am feeling pretty good about my progress. I was supposed to do Week 2, Workout 2 on Sunday but ended up too enthralled by Ricky Gervais on the Golden Globes. On a side note, I do not understand what all the apparent fuss is about. When you hire Ricky Gervais, don't you know what you are getting? Did the Hollywood Foreign Press think they hired Ellen Degeneres? I thought he was hilarious. Sure, some of the jokes may have hit too close to home, but if you can't laugh at yourself now and then, I say, "lighten up"!
But, back to my running...Since I missed my workout on Sunday, I should have hit the pavement on Monday, but fell asleep watching some silly television show and woke at 10:30--a little too late to exercise. Plus it was raining a little too hard. So, on Tuesday I was more vigilant. As soon as I got home from work, I changed in to my cold-weather workout clothes so that I was ready to go as soon as the clock struck 9:30. It was raining a bit, but it felt good to get out in the elements. Tonight, I am due for another run, and hope the snow that they are calling for either arrives later than expected or has stopped by 9:30. I'll let you know how it goes.
In any event, I have set a goal of running in a 5k at the end of March and plan to register for it after I make it through Week 4 of the program. I also plan to register for Pittsburgh's Race for the Cure, which always takes place on Mother's Day. I will run that in honor of my Gramma, who is a breast cancer survivor (and the great cook from whom my great-cook mom learned). I wish I had learned about this Couch to 5k thing sooner. I now realize that I was pushing myself too hard in the early weeks of a new self-designed running program: too many miles, too fast a pace, and not enough rest days. All of that inevitably led to injury and frustration, which in turn led to another "failed" attempt to get back in to shape. Not this time my friends. So, if you see me in April and May, ask me how my races went. I'm counting on all of you to help me meet my goals.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Reflection
Do you ever have those moments where you think, "how did I get here?" Not in the physical sense of being lost and not knowing where you are. But, in the sense of wondering whose life you are living? I had one of those moments the other night while driving home from work. I glanced in my rear view mirror as I was braking in traffic, hoping the car behind me didn't end up in my trunk. That quick glance brought on all sorts of thoughts. How on earth am I 34 years old, driving a sedan, on my way home to make dinner for my husband? Am I really an attorney? Do I really live in a place other than Columbus? None of these thoughts were accompanied by feelings of regret, disappointment, or sadness. Rather, it was simply a reflection on how quickly life passes by us. And, on how we can plan and dream and hope for one thing, and get something altogether different, and if you are lucky, better. I grew up with this idea of what my adult life would be like. And though I'm exceptionally happy with my real, full life, it looks nothing like what I imagined it would. And, as I realized that, I also realized that I'm perfectly okay that the specifics of my childhood dream for my adult life didn't come true. Of course the simple parts did: wanting to be happy, wanting to feel fulfilled in a career, wanting a loving husband and great friends, and wanting to be healthy.
I grew up wanting to be a doctor. For as far back as I can remember, that was my career plan, I think under the naive impression that being a doctor would automatically guarantee financial security (that was before I had any idea about the burden of student loans). I thought I'd marry my high school sweetheart by the time I was 25 and be done having babies by 30. I'd live in Columbus, have weekly dinners with my parents, and be the best of friends with the friends I had had since elementary school. I don't know where my "dreams" about my adult life came from. I suppose I dreamed of marrying a high school sweetheart because that is what my parents did. The genesis of the rest of my dreamed-up adulthood is a mystery to me.
Decades after this dream of mine developed, the life I'm living is exceptionally different and better than I could have anticipated. This despite the fact that I'm not a doctor. I didn't marry a high school sweetheart and at 34, I don't have any children. I don't live in Columbus and don't get to see my parents as often as I would like. And, other than through the miracle of facebook and high school reunions, I'm not in touch with my friends from my childhood.
All these thoughts went through my mind the other night in the blink of an eye. In another blink of the eye, I was right back to the present, thinking about what was on the menu for dinner and all the tasks I had on my weekend to-do list. It may be easy, in those moments of reflection, to dwell on all the could- and should-have-beens; you can dwell on the fact that the neighbors down the street have a nicer car, a bigger house, and go on grander vacations; you can feel like what you have is not "enough". But, that is defeatist and the surest way to feel unhappy. Instead, I try to live in the present, to be happy with what I have and not be defined by the possessions and jobs and lives of others. Sure, we can dream and hope and plan and work for a better future. There is nothing wrong with that. But, feeling like a failure for not having the life you dreamed of as a naive teenager or even twenty-something? Not in a million years.
I grew up wanting to be a doctor. For as far back as I can remember, that was my career plan, I think under the naive impression that being a doctor would automatically guarantee financial security (that was before I had any idea about the burden of student loans). I thought I'd marry my high school sweetheart by the time I was 25 and be done having babies by 30. I'd live in Columbus, have weekly dinners with my parents, and be the best of friends with the friends I had had since elementary school. I don't know where my "dreams" about my adult life came from. I suppose I dreamed of marrying a high school sweetheart because that is what my parents did. The genesis of the rest of my dreamed-up adulthood is a mystery to me.
Decades after this dream of mine developed, the life I'm living is exceptionally different and better than I could have anticipated. This despite the fact that I'm not a doctor. I didn't marry a high school sweetheart and at 34, I don't have any children. I don't live in Columbus and don't get to see my parents as often as I would like. And, other than through the miracle of facebook and high school reunions, I'm not in touch with my friends from my childhood.
All these thoughts went through my mind the other night in the blink of an eye. In another blink of the eye, I was right back to the present, thinking about what was on the menu for dinner and all the tasks I had on my weekend to-do list. It may be easy, in those moments of reflection, to dwell on all the could- and should-have-beens; you can dwell on the fact that the neighbors down the street have a nicer car, a bigger house, and go on grander vacations; you can feel like what you have is not "enough". But, that is defeatist and the surest way to feel unhappy. Instead, I try to live in the present, to be happy with what I have and not be defined by the possessions and jobs and lives of others. Sure, we can dream and hope and plan and work for a better future. There is nothing wrong with that. But, feeling like a failure for not having the life you dreamed of as a naive teenager or even twenty-something? Not in a million years.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Menu Day
Mondays are officially declared "Menu Day" here on Winnie's Mom Makes. Since I have told you about my menu-making/grocery-shopping routine, I have decided to share my weekly menus with you on Mondays. Then, on Fridays I will share reviews, photos, and the recipe from our favorite meal of the week.
Sunday: Spinach, Pea and Pesto Pasta
Monday: Shredded Beef and Bean Soft Tacos (a slow cooker recipe)
Tuesday: Rosemary Chicken and Balsamic Glazed Onions
Wednesday: Pork and Pepper Stir Fry with Brown Rice
Thursday: Slow Cooker Sloppy Joe's and Green beans
Friday: Open (leftovers or a dinner out)
Sunday: Spinach, Pea and Pesto Pasta
Monday: Shredded Beef and Bean Soft Tacos (a slow cooker recipe)
Tuesday: Rosemary Chicken and Balsamic Glazed Onions
Wednesday: Pork and Pepper Stir Fry with Brown Rice
Thursday: Slow Cooker Sloppy Joe's and Green beans
Friday: Open (leftovers or a dinner out)
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