Elementary Chef

A very quick and hearty meal is taco soup. While spring is nearly here, there are still plenty of cool nights to enjoy a bowl of soup. Taco soup is fairly easy to make. All you need is to gather your favorite foods and begin. Here is how I make taco soup.

1 pound lean ground beef
1 can corn
1 cup salsa
1 can black beans
1/2 can green chilies
1/2 chopped tomato
1 packet ranch dressing
1 packet taco seasoning

Brown the ground beef and add all ingredients into a big sauce pan. Then add a couple of cups of water or more if desired. Then let soup cook for twenty minutes until it begins to thicken. Serve with tortilla chips in lieu of crackers. Also add grated cheddar cheese and sour cream on top of individual servings if desired.

Some may think that gardening is too big of a task for them to tackle. But the truth is that even with a small space, you can garden. While it will cost money, you can grow you own food. In fact, by rotating crops you can plant something year round.

A small tiller will help to break up the ground easily. You don’t need to buy one as you can usually rent it. A raised bed can make it super easy to garden without having to break up the soil.

Even if you have no planting experience, there is plenty of free help available. Check with your local cooperative extension service(or at least that’s what it is called in our state) as it is a wonderful resource to learn about planting and getting seeds. Also invest in a copy of the Farmer’s Almanac for more great planting tips. It will list the best times to plant based on the phase of the moon. There is also the handy, dandy, Internet that is full of great websites that deal with gardening.

Gardening is not only a good way to put food on the table but can be therapeutic. Working with your hands in the soil can help ease tension and make you just feel good. Imagine providing great tasting organic foods for your family. Best of all it’s food that you grew - nurturing it from a seed to cooking it for your family.

So even if you have a small backyard, you can have a garden that can provide delicious, fresh vegetables for your family.

This past weekend I bought a breadmaker at a rummage sale. I was very excited because it is something I’ve wanted for a while. I was glad to get one cheaper than they retail since I wasn’t sure just how much I will use it. I’ve had it less than a week and have already made three loaves and will make my fourth one today.

The Sunbeam breadmaker came with a manual/recipe book. There are several bread, jams, and dough recipes. There is even instructions on how to make pasta using your breadmaker.

The first loaf of bread I made was from a mix, so it was pretty easy. The others were from recipes in the manual. They have all turned out really well. I enjoy the sweet breads more, of course that isn’t surprising to me since I have a huge sweet tooth. In fact, I think the whole set is sweet.

This weekend I will try to make some cinnamon rolls since the manual also includes glazes. It all sounds so delicious. I want to make some dough to use to bake our own hot dog buns. I may never buy bread again. If that does become the case, then this $15 purchase will be well worth it.

The loaves are pretty tall and this breadmaker is about 10 years old. I’m not sure how they have improved over the years. Some breadmakers I believe have a way to make longer loaves instead of tall loaves.

I’m really enjoying my breadmaker so much that if something happens to my current one I will buy one at full price.

There are some dishes that I think about making but never have some ingredients. It’s made me realize that there are some items that I need to have on hand at all times. After Hurricane Katrina, I really saw the benefits of having a well stocked kitchen with stores closed for a few days and supplies limited even after they reopened.

So now I like to keep a few things on hand. I should probably keep more but there just isn’t room right now. I always keep can goods on hand like corn, favorite beans, tomato soup, and pasta. Basically I keep on hand what we eat fairly often.

To start stocking up on food, I just buy an extra can each week. Or sometimes I will buy more if there happens to be a sale. Sometimes I go through our cabinets to take an inventory of what we have since it is easy for items to get pushed around. I hate it when I buy something I already have just because it was pushed out of sight.

In my dream kitchen, I will have a pantry that is basically a closet for food. But until then, I will just have to make due with having a smaller stocked kitchen that includes basically food we eat practically every week.

Today is grocery day as well as meal planning day. I guess I should do the meal planning before heading to the grocery store to make things easier on myself. Since we are dieting, I have been trying to cook at least three dinners a week. Here is a rough schedule of my meal planning:

Monday

Breakfast - Biscuits/Turkey Sausage (same all week)

Lunch - Eat at Mom’s and husband eats out (same all week)

Dinner - Frozen meal(going to grocery store late in the day)

Tuesday

Dinner - home cooked meal (Taco Soup)

Wednesday

Dinner - frozen meal(hubby usually hangs out with friends)

Thursday

Dinner - frozen meal(hubby has evening class)

Friday

Dinner - eat out(this week it’s fish on Fridays during Lent)

Saturday

Lunch - something quick like hot dogs, chicken salad, sandwiches.
Dinner - home cooked meal (manicotti)

Sunday

Lunch - eat at Mom’s
Dinner - leftovers at Mom’s (or meatloaf)

This week I will probably buy another 2 pounds of lean ground beef and hopefully get three meals out of it. I might do a meatloaf one day with potatoes and vegetables. Another recipe that I haven’t done in a while is taco soup. Now is the time to eat soup before it gets too hot to enjoy it. Another dish that I think I will do is manicotti as my husband loves it. So besides my two pounds of lean ground beef I will also need some turkey sausage. That will keep the calories down in the manicotti.

Now to gather my recipes for the week and make the grocery list. For some recipes I already have at least a few of the items, so hopefully this week’s grocery trip won’t break the bank.

One kitchen appliance I’ve been wanting for a while is a breadmaker. This weekend I happened upon one at a rummage sale for $15. It was still in the box and had written on it used 1 time. When breadmakers first hit the market, they were pretty expensive. Now they have come down in price. I thought $15 was a good deal especially on an appliance I may or may not use.

There is a lot you can do with a breadmaker. There’s the obivous - making bread - but you can also make dough, jams, and pizza crust. There are breadmaker mixes that make making bread very easy. The manual also has several bread recipes. We tried one today for a bread mix. Tomorrow I may try a plain white bread to start off with something simple.

There are apparently two cardinal rules when making bread in a breadmaker. First, use room temperature water and second, measure your dry and wet ingredients very carefully. Remove any excess off the top of dry measurements and sit the measuring cup on the counter to check liquids.

If I had known how versatile a breadmaker was, I would have probably bought one sooner.

Mashed potatoes are one of our favorite foods. My husband loves them and so do I. Even the girl loves them and will eat them when she won’t eat anything else. My husband loves the instant mashed potatoes that I’m not a fan of. I didn’t grow up eating them so it’s taken 14 years of being together for me to finally come around to actually serving them every now and then.

But to me mashed potatoes are made from scratch. One of my favorite variations of mashed potatoes is garlic mashed potatoes. Oh they are so yummy. I could eat them and nothing else for a meal.

When I make garlic mashed potatoes, I start by making mashed potatoes but with a slight difference. I leave the skin on the potatoes. So after washing the potatoes, I cut them up in cubes so they will cook faster.

Once the potatoes are done, I mash them up and add butter, sour cream, and garlic. I have garlic in a jar instead of the garlic cloves since I don’t often cook with garlic. Sometimes I even use garlic butter. I melt butter and add some garlic powder. Then I add it to the potatoes. Garlic powder is cheap if you get the generic store brand. It’s good to have around to add the garlic flavoring but don’t have any garlic on hand.

Garlic mashed potatoes give plain ole mashed potatoes a culinary makeover. It’s also very simple to pull off garlic mashed potatoes. Just add a touch of garlic flavoring(or more if you really love garlic) to really spice up those dull mashed potatoes.

We are eating healthier and trying to lose weight. One way to cut back on calories is to eat lean ground beef instead of ground beef.

Lean ground beef has less fat and calories than ground beef. I bought two pounds of lean ground beef at the grocery store this week. Although part of me balked at the $8 it cost(twice the cost of ground beef), I knew that it was better for us. I hate when I dismiss more expensive items at the grocery store but won’t think twice about spending nearly $20 eating fast food. I just need to prioritize our spending. Eating at home is always more affordable and healthy.

I used the two pounds of lean ground beef in spaghetti and hamburgers. The hamburgers were huge. I made big, thick patties - knowing that they would shrink some. They really didn’t shrink at all like ground beef so we had some really thick burgers. Next time I can use about half a pound for burgers and then use the other half pound for another dish. So that’s three meals for $8 meat. That’s not bad at all.

I enjoy ground turkey but it is so dry that you really need to add a lot of flavor to it. At least with lean ground beef, you still have lots of flavor, just less fat. Also clean up from the hamburgers was so easy. There was hardly any grease in the skillet.

Lean ground beef can help with dieting because it will cut your fat and calories of some of your favorite dishes. It also is easy to clean up since there isn’t a lot of grease.

Spaghetti makes a wonderful meal for several reasons. It’s easy to cook. It takes about 20 minutes. And it can be really cheap. My mom always made spaghetti on grocery day since she was always pressed for time. Here is how I make my spaghetti.

1 box of thin spaghetti(I use about half a small box or 1/3 or a big box)
1 lb lean ground beef (you can use ground beef, turkey, chicken..)
1 can Hunt’s meat spaghetti sauce

Get a sauce pan and fill with water. Bring water to a boil. At the same time brown beef in a skillet. When water comes to a boil, add spaghetti. Let cook until spaghetti is at the tenderness you like. When beef has browned, drain off any grease. Once you have drained your spaghetti, add it to the beef in the skillet. Next add spaghetti sauce.

Let spaghetti simmer on low for 5 minutes before serving.

I like to use thin spaghetti since it cooks faster than regular spaghetti. Sometimes I even use Angel Hair pasta since it cooks up really fast.

We always have Parmesan on hand to put on top of the spaghetti. When I was a kid, I would always use good ole American cheese. I would place it on the bottom of my plate and then add the spaghetti,. The spaghetti would then melt the cheese and boy was it delicious.

Add some garlic bread and you have a great meal that was fast and easy. You can make spaghetti for under $7 - probably even cheaper than that depending on the ground meat.

One kitchen tool that is a must is a good, seasoned cast iron skillet. It is so versatile and will last forever. Cast iron skillets become a family heirloom. It can be quite challenging to break in a new cast iron skillet, but it is definitely worth the trouble.

When I first bought my cast iron skillet, I heeded my mom’s advice. Cover the skillet with cooking oil or grease. Place it in the oven for an hour at 350 degrees. Then repeat. I can’t remember how many times I did this but it was at least three. I still would have problems after cooking, so I would season the skillet again. My husband would even put it through the dishwasher(!) and the skillet could come out clean - rusty but clean. But after a good seasoning or two, it was back to normal. If your cast iron skillet begins to rust, put it in the oven on a very high temperature for 20 or so minutes. Then you should be able to clean the rust off.

After washing a cast iron skillet, be sure to dry it thoroughly before putting it away. Also after using your skillet, coat with oil once it’s dry after washing. I don’t have to do this anymore but when a skillet is new or if you have rusting issues, then you should do this.

My skillet is in need of a good season as food is beginning to stick. One thing I love about my cast iron skillet is that I have treated it poorly in the past but it survives. It’s definitely one kitchen tool that is a must for any cook.

Now that it is the season of Lent, there are days that we have to abstain from meat. Ash Wednesday is one of them. It really shows us just how much meat we eat when we have to think of meals without it for a whole day.

Breakfast usually isn’t that bad but lunch and dinner are harder. Fish is our old standby followed by the cheese pizza. I have never cooked fish before. My husband use to when he was on the Lean Bodies diet. Getting really fresh fish is rather difficult around here, too. Usually we just get fish already cooked when we eat it.

We either order cheese pizza, buy a frozen one, or make a pizza. Homemade pizza is the best. There are other non-meat toppings we could get but I don’t like any of those. Now my husband will eat practically anything on a pizza except anchovies.

This Lent I would like to branch out from our regular Friday, meat-free meals. Baked potatoes or a corn casserole are two dishes that are definite possibilities.

I’m sure with a little research I can find a few different ideas to help keep meatless Fridays from becoming predictable and boring.

Today is Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. It’s a time of indulgence as tomorrow begins Lent - a time of reflection and sacrifice. A lot of Catholics and non-Catholics give up something for Lent. A lot of times people give up something food/drink related. So today is the day to enjoy all those things you plan to do without for the next 40 days.

We will be eating out less and hopefully taking that money and giving it away - one of my Lenten promises(be more charitable). So today is all about celebrating. We are going out to eat tonight, so I don’t have to cook today. I get to pick where we will eat. It’s a tough decision because part of me just wants a greasy hamburger and part of me wants to go to a buffet just to eat.

I have been waffling on my diet for a few weeks, so Lent will be the perfect time to get back on track. That means I will be cooking more healthy meals and buying nutritious snacks. You can’t eat it if it is not in the house.

Thursday I will go grocery shopping as tomorrow is Ash Wednesday - a day of fasting(1 regular meal and two smaller meals). I know I will be hungry and if I go to the grocery store hungry I will spend way too much money. That will give me a few days to find some recipes.

Do you like the grilled taste of food but don’t have a grill? That is our situation as we just don’t have room for a grill right now. One product that is great for giving that off the grill flavoring is Liquid Smoke.

You can use it in your oven on your favorite foods to give them that grilled taste. A lot of people also rave how well Liquid Smoke works with tabletop cookers like the George Foreman Grill.

I have found that Liquid Smoke really helps to liven up chicken. It really helps to add flavor to bland chicken. You can marinate meat in it when cooking in the oven or add it to meat for cooking on top of the stove.

Liquid Smoke is also pretty cheap costing around $1 for a small bottle. It usually can be found near the barbecue sauces at the grocery store.

We usually have a lot of whine at lunch at our house. She’ll want ice cream, cookies, and crackers instead of eating ‘real food.’ The food habits of a toddler are hit and miss. Some days she eats just what she is suppose to while others she will barely eat anything. All this while running everywhere she goes. If I had that energy I would get so much more done in a 24 hour period.

When at the bookstore, I love to look at the cookbooks. On our last trip I noticed one that we dedicated to cooking for kids. Mostly it was desserts that are presented in a cute way like animals. I remember when the Jello-o cubes were the cool dessert. Now there are animals made of cakes and cookies and more.

One lunch tip I had read that I really liked was to use a muffin pan. In fact I think there is a meme that is all about it. Basically you serve lunch in a muffin pan - pretty much like the bento boxes. You mainly use finger foods. I had though about trying this since I could serve her beloved crackers but also serve cheese and ham. If taking 10 minutes to work on food presentation works to get her to eat it, then I’m all for it.

It’s amazing that when the toddler was younger she would eat pretty much anything put in front of her. Now she is more picky and won’t eat some of her favorite foods from just a year ago. I definitely want to serve more of her old favorites to her so that she will rediscover them. By using a muffin pan or being creative with lunchtime, maybe she won’t revolt too much when it is on the plate.

My family hates leftovers and is one of the reasons I don’t cook as often since I can’t stand to throw out food. I can’t eat all the leftovers by myself and the same meal gets old the third time around in a week.

My husband doesn’t mind leftovers as long as they look different than from the first meal. I have learned that when I have leftover chicken to make chicken salad. When I have leftover roast beef that I need to make barbecue roast beef. My mother-in-law always took leftover mashed potatoes and would fry them in butter - making a potato cake for breakfast. So he will eat leftovers but they just need to be served differently.

Vegetables can be thrown together in a soup. Those are the best soups anyway that contain all the favorites of the family.

There are many dishes that can be made with leftovers. So when you are meal planning, consider which foods you may have plenty of after dinnertime. Then you can use it to make something to serve later.

So how do you serve leftovers? Do you have to dress them up or does your crew willingly eat whatever is put in front of them?