Notes regarding Michael and Kraut

Okay, one of the most difficult things to get Michael to eat is any kind of sauerkraut. On the other hand, I make a lot of collard kraut. I love collard kraut, but Michael, not so much. Not this year, but next year, there will be all kinds of Kraut — kale Kraut, turnip Kraut, cabbage Kraut, mixed Brassica Kraut — and I have to figure out ways to get Michael to eat it.

This is what I made tonight, and Michael ate it happily.

Open and drain a jar of Kraut. Add the drained Kraut to a pan containing a pound of fresh Polish sausage and water enough to boil it all. Cook this until the Polish sausage is properly parboiled. Remove the sausages and finish preparing them as you desire; tonight, I cut them in half longwise and lightly fried said to give them crispy outsides. Chop a whole onion, sauté it in a combination of butter and olive oil. Again, drain the Kraut, and add it to the sautéed onions. Continue sautéing until the mixture is lightly coated with olive oil and butter in the onions tender. Spice it in a way that will be compatible with the Polish sausage seasoning; I used pepper and a balti spice blend. Since the Kraut will still be slightly salty even after this cooking, don't add salt. If the individuals eating this feel it needs more salt best to let them add their own.

Michael enjoyed this quite a lot he chopped up his sausage into little bits mixed it all into the Kraut and onion side dish and when I asked him if I should remember how I did this, he said yes.

Obviously he said yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, right?

Howdy!

I decided to follow eRecipecards because I would like to see how he does with his "52 Ways to use a rotisserie chicken" project. I have a similar frugal struggle going on, but it's more like "Ways to use EVERY LAST BIT of what you bought."

So, when I cook greens, I drag out an empty peanut container, and pour the potlikker into it. Why? Because empty peanut jars are usually only empty of large piece of peanuts. There is usually a bit of salt and a palmful of small peanut pieces, which, with the potlikker, makes a nice base for cooking rice or other grains. You get a little salt for flavoring, you get a little peanut for flavoring, and you capture all the vitamins and goodies from the greens.

Canned veggies or sea creatures? Pour that canning broth into a jar and save it, and yay, you've got the salt and flavoring base for a pot of beans.

I have not had to buy stock for a while. That is the nature of my project: all the ways the bits left behind can be made to serve. Or made, to be served up. ;-)

Other odd frugal things: replant the root base of onions and leeks into your garden, and ta-da, you get more onions and leeks. I anticipate a greatly reduced need to buy onions and leeks. :-)

But that isn't strictly cooking, so I will move away from that to a squash dish I made the other day:




SPICED ZUKES

1. Chop about 4 cups of fresh zucchini. Sauté in about 2-4 tablespoons of olive oil.
2. When the zucchini has begun to soften, add two chopped tomatoes, lightly sauté, and then add enough water to lightly simmer--1/4 to 1/2 a cup.
3. Add 1 tablespoon of Auntie Arwen's Sheik of the Desert Ras el Hanout.
4. Cover and let simmer until sauce is reduced and zucchini is cooked through to your liking.

Simple. Good.

Chitown Taters Soup

Back from vacation and slowly moving into the cooking habit.

This was an accident that made Michael say, "What is this? This is delicious!"

I thought I'd better write it down.

Base:

leftover noodle broth--Michael had prepared himself some egg noddles, and buttered and salted the cooking water--totaled about 6-8 cups. There appeared to be about two tablespoons of butter in the water. It leaves a pleasant flavor and so I added the following:

2 large carrots, sliced
4 large potatoes, chunked, skin on

Bring to a boil, and then simmer until vegetables are almost done. Add

2 onions, peeled and chunked

Simmer until onions are soft. Add

1 cup fat free sour cream or sour cream substitute
1 tablespoon of Penzey's Chicago Steakhouse blend.

Blend in. Now, mix

1-2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water

until lump free in a separate bowl, and stir in to simmering soup to thicken. Taste. You may need to add a little more of the Steakhouse blend, and a little more salt at this point--adjust according to your taste.

This produces a soup that has a touch of smokiness and a touch of pepper. Michael ate 3 bowls. I ended up adding about .5 tablespoon of the Steakhouse seasoning and about .5 t of salt after the cornstarch; the addition of the cornstarch does reduce the strength of the spices, and as I love spicy food, I added more of the blend and only a touch more salt, as I tend to not like things with much more than a hint of salt.