We’ve been taking a cue from Mark Bittman’s latest book around here and making meat even less of presence than it usually is on our table. One of the things he suggests is to keep meat as a side course, not the focus of the meal. This is good for the eater and good for the environment. This week, this strategy happened kind of by accident, but it was terrific: economical, efficient, and versatile.
Remember that ham steak? That’s half of it on the plate. The kids ate only half of that, and the husband and I ate the other half. The following night, I cooked another quarter, choppped it up, and used it for our baked potato bar. Which was a big hit.
We still didn’t finish it, so the next night that leftover chopped up ham went into a country omelete with chives and cheddar cheese.
And we still had a 1/4 of the ham left. Kory and I finished it a few nights later with a potato/celery root mash & the left over pan sauce (which I had kept in a glass jar for just this eventuality). On the side we had roasted beets & puntarelle, and it was a perfect cold winter night’s meal.
That makes 4 meals (3 for 4 people, 1 for 2 people) for about $6 worth of meat, which in this house is an accomplishment.
Most of us have experienced this moment: You set the plate of food on the table. The kids eye glare at it with disdain. They groan, or turn up their noses, or pretend-barf. They say, “I’m not a (fish/meat/chicken/potato) person” or “That smells bad” or “What’s that?” (meaning, how in the hell did you ever think to cook that disgusting mess of so-called food?).
This happened at my table the the other night, in reaction to something I’ve cooked many times–a simple ham steak with a really quick country mustard sauce.
I said, “Fine, you don’t have to eat it.” But I asked them to try. And this has been my attitude of late: I let them choose what to eat. So far, they haven’t gone hungry.
On this particular night, my son braved the food first. “Huh,” he said. “It tastes better than it looks”
That was all the encouragement his sister needed, who agreed with him about the taste. I didn’t think it looked particularly bad, but I suspect it was the grain of the mustard that looked weird to them
I’m not really sure exactly what I’ve done to get my kids to be moderately brave about food. Certainly, some of it is how their wired, but I suspect some of it is habit and expectation. Certainly, it works in my favor that they like and trust each other. If one likes something, the other is more willing to try. I set things in front of them over and over and over again. I don’t argue or pander, but I give them a range of good choices. I never force them to eat, but I do ask them to try small bites of new food. Seasonal eating helps too–they expect certain things at certain times of year, and while there is sometimes a re-acclimation period (witness the ham, which I never cook in the summer), their memory is downright Proustian.
This ham is one of those fast weeknight dinners that I don’t cook too often, but it’s so easy, that probably I should.
Ham with Country Mustard Pan Sauce
Ham steak
Olive oil
Shallot, chopped finely
Country Mustard
Beer–a lager or light ale works well
Apple cider or apple juice or water
Butter
Fry the ham steak in a large skillet until warmed through, just a few minutes on each side.
Sautee the shallot in a few tablespoons of olive oil until soft.
Deglaze your pan with a few splashes of beer.
Swirl in about 1 Tablespoon of mustard
Add about 1/4 cup of cider, juice or water. The cider or juice will make it sweeter, but water works too.
Simmer until the pan sauce reduced to about a 1/4 cup. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Wednesday afternoon, after lunch. We’re hanging out, starting to think about, maybe, some Thanksgiving dinner prep. My brother-in-law calls; he’s on his way, but can’t stay as long as he expected. He’ll leave after lunch on Thursday, instead of staying through dinner.
Hmm. Thanksgiving dinner is always, in our family, in the evening: at dinner time. But we have been planning to share the meal with the boys’ West Coast Uncle Fun. We briefly consider a midday Thanksgiving meal, but that’s just never been our style. Special meals should be in the evening, with candlelight. Plus, we don’t want him to have to eat and run. It is after 1 PM. Could we get Thanksgiving dinner on the table in just five or six hours? We take on the challenge.
And so I am thankful. Thankful for the friend who loaned us her son for the afternoon so our boys were happily occupied (she thought we were doing her a favor, babysitting so she could care for her stomach flu-y daughter. I’ll keep letting her think that.)
Thankful for my mom, from whom I learned how to make brown & serve rolls, which are always ready when I need them, and who taught me to keep a light touch on the pie crust.
Thankful for my sister, who posts favorite recipes on her blog (like I do) so that we could easily produce her delicious cranberry chutney.
Thankful that no one wanted turkey. This year, after experiments with stuffed mushrooms (very good), polenta-topped roasted vegetable pot pie (excellent) and even lentil-mushroom timbales (meh), we’ve even decided to dispense with the notion of a “main.” All any of us really wants, when we get right down to it, is stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Plus of course rolls and pie. I insist on something green (you should see my son put away the kale salad). And then we make various other things to put under the gravy. It’s a lot of chopping, but nothing needs the oven for four or five hours like a turkey does. The pans of pie, vegetables, and rolls, go in and out of the oven all afternoon.
Thankful for my brothers and my dad, siblings-in-law, niece and nephew, none of whom had much to do with this particular meal, but always figure in my thinking about food, family, and celebrations. I’m looking forward to our next big feast together!
And most of all, thankful for my husband, who has no problem cooking any meal, any time, but really kicked it into gear Wednesday to produce Thanksgiving dinner a day early. He started our in-no-particular-order to do list to make sure we got everything onto the table:
We sat down to dinner at 6:30, at a table decorated with Eli’s flower arrangement, and — so happy to have the meal on the table and my family gathered round — I did not think to take a picture of the spread. But trust me when I say it was delicious, and I hope yours was, too.
This recipe comes straight out of Lidia’s Italy–I have what seems like and endless stream of recorded programs, which I generally don’t get around to watching. But this weekend I did and on Sunday I made this simple, comforting pasta. It has 5 ingredients and comes together in the amount of time it takes to cook the pasta–which means it’s also perfect for a busy weeknight. It’s also made from ingredients: pasta, garlic, day old bread, olive oil, oregano–that you will very often have on hand. You can watch Lidia cook it for Al Roker here (and add spinach to the basic recipe). My adaptation is below. It’s faithful to the spirit and the technique of the basic recipe, but it was a rainy Sunday, so I wasn’t about to go out for bucatini, though I would have liked to, and I didn’t have any oregano dried, so I substituted parsley and sage, which may be nontraditional, but was very good. I added a side dish of cauliflower roasted with olive oil, whole garlic cloves, and seasoned bread crumbs, which would have been just as good tossed in the pasta.
Spaghetti with garlic and bread crumbs
adapted from Lidia Bastianich
1 lb spaghetti
3/4 loaf day old bread, shredded into coarse crumbs (use a box grater or your food processor; you might have to cut off some of the hard crust)
lots of thinly sliced garlic (about 6 large cloves, but to your taste)
olive oil
4-5 sage leaves, chopped finely
1 T parsely, chopped finely
salt
Bring water to a boil. Salt and cook pasta.
While pasta is cooking, pour about 1/4 cup of oil in heavy pan. The oil should coat the bottom of the pan
Cook garlic for a minute or two, until it begins to soften.
Add bread crumbs and cook, stirring occasionally, until bread crumbs are nicely toasted. You want them nicely browned, so they have some crunch.
Add sage & parsley (or dried oregano), stir.
Turn off heat.
When pasta is finished, drain and add to the pan, tossing to coat.
Part of last week went like this: party, school, party, no school, faculty meeting, teacher conference, mother/daughter date, soccer, soccer, soccer, birthday party. We barely had time to breath much less cook something new for dinner. In between all this? Final edits of the page proofs were due for my book. We’ve been eating a lot of leftovers. And tacos.
I know that we’re not the only ones being bombarded with a mad rush of events right now because a friend (who’s son is a just few days younger than Finn) had exactly the same schedule of family/kid birthday parties and tag team round of soccer games. We all go through periods like this, where the events of our lives crowd around us like dementors, threatening to suck all the happiness out of the things we’ve actually chosen to do. And here’s the thing: all of the things we were doing, they weren’t chores. I love my job. I love going to my kids games & they love playing. What’s more fun than a birthday party? Or seeing your grandparents? Or a day off from school where you can mix purple potions and see how they react to various household baking supplies (and them dump them on the only good carpet in the house…? The steam cleaning I could have done without, but everything else….? Times like this I have to remind myself that most of what we do makes us happy, and we have to make time just to breathe and sleep and come together.
Last weekend we did it this way: On Saturday night, we got home from soccer in the dark & sent the kids directly to showers to wash the grime of sweat and the soccer field off them (& before the any-minute-now meltdown could get worse). They emerged clean and calm in pajamas, and we sat down to quiche (made earlier in the day & ready to go), green beans (cooked while they were showering), fresh bread, and white beans heated gently with garlic and olive oil (a perennial favorite). I lit candles.
And they got a kidtini for the first time in a long time. The only thing new about this recipe was the presentation.
Bubbly water, raspberry Torani syrup, clementine slice in a sugar rimmed glass
Kory and I had prosecco cocktails, my first drink in 3 weeks, a celebration of turning in the final final version of my book. (Sugar cube + Bitters+Prosecco + lemon twist). Things actually slowed down and for forty-five minutes or so, we just relaxed, ate, enjoyed doing nothing. Outside, it was very dark, but those life sucking dementors? They were nowhere to be found.
