Dinner's ready

កំពូលចុងភៅលេខ១
Posted by Tara Cambo on Wednesday, March 4, 2015

* * *

The Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans

A handful of the Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans will make you swoon, but I usually pair them with a piece of fine dark chocolate or a plump medjool date. I love them so much that I have issued an edict: The Pecan Bowl Shall Never Become Empty--and the Goat thankfully abides. 

In lieu of sending each of you a package of these heavenly beauties, here is the Goat's own recipe.

Goat and friends

The Goat's Butter Roasted Pecans

8 ounces raw pecan halves

3 T unsalted butter, melted

Freshly ground sea salt

##

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Toss pecans in melted butter in a small bowl with a generous amount of salt. How much salt you ask?

"I usually do about 10 twists," says the Goat of our salt grinder, "somewhere in that neighborhood."

Spread pecans evenly on a large cookie sheet and salt again. Bake for six or seven minutes.

With a large spatula, turn pecans and salt again. Bake for another six or seven minutes until they are a deep gold/brown.

The aroma that fills the house as these roast will make you crazy. The warm nuts are delicious and irresistible, but these are actually best after they've cooled for several hours. They last for at least a week or two without refrigeration.

If a goat can do it, so can you. What are you waiting for?

Merry merry, happy happy.

*  *  *

Independent cabbage soup

On this patriotic holiday, Lil' OB is away, working for the first time at a summer camp as part of the "dish crew," which is a prerequisite for becoming a full-fledged counselor in the future. The Goat is also working all day. Hence, I have the run of the joint. You might even call me Commander in Chief.

With such unprecedented freedom, I began the day with an yoga session whilst clad only in my undies. I found it liberating to say the least.

Got namaste? Hell yes!

The rest of the day stretched before me like an inviting field of amber waves of grain. 'Twas the perfect opportunity to do some cooking.

Humble hostess's attempt to recreate Hungarian Cajun cabbage soup

What you see there is a bunch of garlic, onion, tomato and cabbage that will simmer on a very low heat for a few hours. I sauteed the garlic and onion in a bit of olive oil first. I also threw in some dry mustard, cumin and salt. I have no idea how it will turn out. I sure hope it's good. As you can see, I made enough to fill Uncle Sam's hat twice over.

That vat o' goodness was inspired by yesterday's field trip: a pursuit of happiness during which the Goat and I took a seven-mile jaunt through the Summit County Metroparks (a round-trip between Botsum and Big Bend trailheads, which included not one, but two passes by a renewable energy facility that was [ahem] perfumed by 100 percent Made in the U.S.A contributions to Summit County's sewage system). Fellow countrymen, consider that to be a cautionary parenthetical.

That portion of the proceedings is not what moved me to brew up this cabbage stew.

We weary pilgrims were understandably famished after such a hike. That's when the Valley Cafe appeared before us, a veritable sanctuary. Inside, my splendid king and I were treated to an extraordinary lunch that included proprietor BJ Mikoda's mouthwatering Hungarian Cajun Cabbage Soup, which this Irish Hungarian declares to be thoroughly American and possibly within her culinary expertise.

Got certain unalienable right? Hell yes!

*  *  * 

Holy cow

That there is one-fourth of a pasture-raised Ohio cow. Well, maybe a little bit more than a fourth. My cow-purchasing mates did not want the tail, tongue, heart or liver, so guess who ended up with those?

Badass.

Now then, dearest reader, while your humble hostess is pretty damn far away from the prepper set, the anti-vax set and the crazy-diet-of-the-day set, she is starting to pay attention to what the hell is in our food. A whole helluva a lot of it ain't real pretty.

Yes, I will probably turn into Bad Erin occasionally. No, I will not wrinkle my nose rudely at your Aunt Helen's Company Surprise Casserole at the pot luck. But the Torani sugar free flavored syrups? Gone.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey man, does anyone know what the hell I should do with this heart and tongue?

*  *  *

Pig heaven

Welcome to deliciousville

Last night, the Goat and I enjoyed what might have been the best roast pork I have ever eaten. It was also one of the easiest to prepare.

I can't take any of the creative credit for this one. Here is the recipe. For all you serious foodies out there, here is the science behind it.

You're basically looking at putting a pork shoulder (butt) in a 250 degree oven for eight hours, letting it rest, and then crisping it up in a 500 degree oven for 20 minutes.

My tips:

-My roast was grocery-store-standard-issue and did not have the skin.  

-I used a six-pound roast (the recipe calls for an eight- to 12-pounder) and left it in the oven for nine hours. It was perfect. Smaller roasts DO NOT mean shorter roasting times. (Not that I ever made that mistake and served up a chewy piece of shoe leather to my dearly beloved and offspring. No, not me. Ever. Nope.)

-I seasoned the roast with (of course) Lawry's Seasoned Salt.

Okay, pix:

Da pork after the long, slow roast

Da pork after the high-heat crisping

You can really see how the crisping transforms the crust. Now, HAD I pulled a few tasters off during the interim resting time, I would be able to verify that, while it was delicious after the slow roast, the final high-heat crisping took it to the next level.

Um ... yeah.

You'll just have to rely on the pix to see the difference that 20 minutes @500 degrees makes (it's huge).

I set that roast right on the table and the Goat and I pulled off chunks and dipped them in my homemade BBQ sauce. The result was utterly sublime--a delicate crispy crust connected to tender threads of pork. The crisped fat was unbelievably delicious and oh-so-rich.

Behold evil indulgence!

We pulled and munched our fill, and the two of us removed the rest of the meat from the bone for leftovers. And while the resulting pork sammies will no doubt be terrific tonight, that beautiful crust has to be enjoyed right after roasting. It's best qualities do not survive the refrigerator.

Anyhow, do this. Make some potato salad for a winter's eve picnic at the kitchen table. You will not be disappointed, although afterward you may be worthy of an ...

OINK.

*  *  *

Hash browns

Poor photographic representation of Erin O'Brien's hash brown potatoes

Not that I think any of you people can do this, but I'm throwing it out there just the same.

Start with three medium spuds. (Now this might freak some people out, but I used russets this morning on account of they were on sale. I don't normally use your russets. I normally use your reds. That said, those russets worked out just fine, maybe even better than fine. So there you go.)

This next part is important, so don't eff around.

Peel the potatoes and put them in a pot. Cover with cold water and bring the thing to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, turn off the flame and set your timer for five minutes. Drain the water when the timer goes off.

You can make your hash browns right away or let those spuds sit for a couple of hours (I am so down with flexibility).

Next you need to shred those mothers. I use my food processor. And I'm going to tell you something right now: You people think you understand potatoes, but you don't. You people don't know shit about potatoes. This is what I'm talking about: You grate those potatoes in a food processor? You see how potatoes are mostly goo. Your whole food processor will be covered in the potato goo. See? Stick with me and you learn something. You're welcome.

Yeah, yeah.

I use the regular shredding disc and these hash browns come out perfectly. I suppose you could use your fine grating disc, but that's your battle. What the hell do I care?

Transfer the shredded potatoes to a bowl and add a few shakes of Lawry's seasoned salt and one tablespoon of beaten egg (a whole egg would be way too much for three spuds). Gently mix the whole mess together with your hands (which OF COURSE you washed). You need a nice even coating, so get that egg dispersed through that mess o' shredded spuds nicely because it acts as a binding agent (if you can't figure out what I mean by that than ferchrissake I just don't know what.)

Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a pan (I use a nonstick because, well, I guess on some level part of me has given up. You use a cast iron pan? I respect the hell out of you). After the butter is good and hot and before it starts to brown, put small to medium mounds of the potato stuff in the pan (I use my hands). Let them brown up—about three or four minutes. You can tamp those mothers down with the back of a spatula if you like, but don't eff around with them too much.

Flame? Oh hell, I dunno. Put it up if it doesn't seem hot enough and down if it seems too hot. I probably cook these mostly on a medium high flame.

Flip 'em and brown the other side, another three or four minutes.

Behold what are the best hash brown potatoes in the land. Turn those babies out onto plates along with your scrambled eggs and bacon and have a good Sunday.

Love,

Erin

A note on today's graphic: Your humble hostess wholly admits she probably turned those sonsabitches too soon. So kill me already. When this happens, you just make sure the other side browns up nice and serve them with the best-looking side up. I mean come ON, what sort of jackass inspects the bottom of their hash browns?

* * *

Unmashed potatoes and rice is a verb

You want to know the secret to a perfect mashed spud?

You don't mash it. Yeah, I just said that. Go to hell if you don't like it. You don't mash 'em and you don't whip 'em up with your electric mixer either.

Goat displaying ricer

You rice them.

Yeah, I just used rice as a verb and I goddamn well know what I'm talking about. Good Christ already, it's not that exclusive a club: I own one of these.

That thing is so fly!

I use it on the finest setting and it makes a perfect unmashed spud every time. Maybe we'll luck out and Al the Retired Army Guy will swoop in and tell us why the riced spud is so much better than the mashed spud. And if he doesn't, just trust me on this one and get yourself a ricer.

Confidential to readers of The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts: You make those Hungarian cucumbers? You get to the part about the insufferable squeezing? You pull out this here ricer and squeeze those cukes with it? I sure as hell didn't see anything.

Shhhhh ... you dig?

Now, as if the tip about the ricer wasn't enough, I'm going to give you not one but TWO mashed spud recipes. In both cases start with a pretty soft cooked potato. I quarter or half my peeled spuds and cook them on high in the pressure cooker for 8 minutes. Those muthas squeeze right through the ricer to a perfect consistency.

1. Mix up those beautiful riced spuds with butter (figure a healthy pat per average sized spud), regular out-of-the-green-plastic-shaker parmesan (about a tablespoon per spud), milk to consistency (start small--you can always add more) and Lawry's Seasoned Salt to taste.

 2. Same as above, but instead of butter, use Boyajian Garlic Oil (you think I'm not serious when I specify an ingredient like that? Do I even have to say no substitutions? You people know who you're dealing with by now, right?) and freshly grated extra sharp cheddar (I use your grocery store brick-style) instead of parm (about twice as much, volume-wise), milk and Lawry's.

The thing about either of those recipes--and both will kick your ass--is that despite all the cheese, they don't taste cheesy, they just taste rich and full of flavor.

Unmashed spuds with other irrelevant items included to add visual interest to photo

One more thing: you might want to mix those spuds up ahead of time, transfer them to a casserole and heat them for about a half hour (covered) in a 350-degree oven just before serving. Your riced potatoes lose a lot of their heat in the process and don't travel as well directly to the table like your regular mashed.

Holy shit, you people do not know what you're in for.

*  *  *

The go-to spud

Goat and beef bone aft. Go-to spuds fore. Goat's homegrown beans midship.

I like to use your redskin potatoes.

You want to go and use your Idahos? Go and use your Idahos, but I'm not handing out any guarantees on that action. Smaller and flatter is better. You either know what I mean by that or you don't.

Okay, fine. I can see from here that your lower lip is quivering, so I'll explain it. A smaller spud is about as big as a regular lemon to me. When I say "flatter" I'm not talking about anything that has to do with compliments, I'm talking about a spud that's sort of flattened out. As you can see from today's graphic, you're going to be cutting these muthas lengthwise and you don't want them too thick.

Can you people understand me?

No, you do not have to peel the spuds. Yes, you can if you want. I usually just scrub 'em and cut out the eyes and bad parts.

Drop those spuds whole in enough hot water to cover them, put the pot on a high fire and set the timer for about 20 or 25 minutes (depending on size).

You can do that part in advance, even a day or two before you make the spuds. If you do, throw 'em in the fridge after you boil 'em. Then take them out an hour or so before you're ready to make 'em so they can come to room temperature.

Cut those parboiled spuds lengthwise like I'm showing, or if you have big taters, cut them into thirds. (Social discord note: if you cut the spud into thirds, the center slice will have two crispy sides and will naturally be the preferred portion. People might fight. Things could get ugly. Do the thirds thing at your own risk. For the record, your humble hostess has been known to slice a thin piece off the rounded skin-side of the spuds just to create a flat, pro-fry surface.)

Melt two tablespoons of butter in a skillet. I use a 10-inch cast iron number. Four small spuds cut in half like that with 2T of butter is about a perfect ratio.

This is where you people eff up.

When I talk about the ratio, I'm talking about having enough butter in the pan to properly fry the spuds. If you use a bigger pan with lots of empty space, 2T of butter will spread out too much. Are you still with me?

Yeah, yeah. When the butter starts to foam, put the spuds in cut side down. How long? Dunno. One of the best things about these spuds is that they if you boil 'em too much or not enough, you can adjust the frying time and heat to compensate. I check 'em after a few minutes to see if they're browning up nice. When they look nice and crispy, I flip 'em over and sprinkle them with Lawry's Seasoned Salt, which is a gift straight from heaven that I put in just about everything. Go to hell.

Let those babies ride cut side up for a couple more minutes. Okay, you're ready to roll.

These taters are great right out of the pan, salted to taste. Or you can drizzle some ranch on there or dip 'em in ketchup. Sprinkle cheddar on those bad boys or some bacon bits if you like.

Leave any leftovers on a plate on the counter and they will disappear. I like to smear the leftover spuds with herbed cream cheese spread. Does sriracha work on these beauties? You bet. You can put the leftovers in the fridge if you like and have 'em for breakfast the next morning. Just nuke 'em for a half-minute or so to take the chill off.

You're welcome in advance.

Love, Erin

*  *  *

Rich and smoky and spicy

Behold my original copy of Mom's Lecho recipe:

I still make lecho exactly this way, although I do not use Echrich sausage, but a spicy double smoked garlic sausage I buy at the West Side Market. The other day, I posted briefly on the Evil Overlord Site facebook about how I was making lecho and how the house was filled with a wonderful aroma. A few people asked for the recipe, hence this entry.

My hot peppers didn't seem quite hot enough, so I used Skyline's Hot Sauce instead of Tabasco. That Skyline sauce is hot as hell and I think it made a difference. The lecho was rich and smoky and spicy. It was, indeed, some of the best lecho I've ever made.

I do not take making lecho lightly. It's one of the things I do when nothing makes sense in the world and I don't know how to fix anything or what to do with myself. Making lecho is like going to the Cleveland Museum of Art and ambling through Armor Court or saying hi to The Thinker. It's like eating a falafel sandwich on the balcony of the West Side Market.

Making lecho resets my head. It gives me something to hang onto when I feel like I'm floating away.

The funny thing about The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts is not just that it's funny (and it is), but the whole book is about those sorts of things--things like lecho that keep us in touch with who we are, who we've been and what we'll be in the future. My own full blown recipe for lecho is in the book, complete with all the asides and commentary that fills out a recipe, which (if you do it right) should always be more than a recipe.

Yeah, yeah, here's an excerpt of my expanded lecho recipe from The Irish Hungarian:

*  *  *

When I make Hungarian lecho (pronounced letch-oh, sometimes spelled lecsó), not only am I a control freak on the hand-dice of the peppers and onion, I get all the ingredients prepared and lined up like some miserable Next Food Network Star wannabe, which is the modern reference. If you're old school, you'll remember how the TV chefs would step onto the kitchen set and all these neat little bowls filled with chopped whatnot would be in front of them ready to go. The Cajun Cook (Justin Wilson) or the Galloping Gourmet (Graham Kerr) would make everything look oh-so-easy while we real Real Housewives knew that backstage, some poor lackey was slicing his fingers to shreds as he carved out interior pepper ribs and cried his eyes out over a pile of minced onions.

Welcome to the real world, sugartits.

*  *  *

Al's sausage

Dear friends,

Frequent Owner's Manual visitor Al the Retired Army Guy has delivered unto me this photo of his sausage, shaped no less into my own initials, EOB.

Here in Cleveland, we have a lot of sausages and believe me, I've got my share of sausage experience and then some. I know a righteous sausage when I see one and Al's sausage is top notch.

Al the Retired Army Guy

Look at the way the flesh fills the casing--it's stuffed to the perfect consistency. Al's sausage also has a lovely sheen and a respectable girth, which matters more than people think. That there is one long tube of quality. It may be the most beautiful sausage I've ever seen.

I picture Al's sausage framed by glistening threads of sauerkraut or nestled in a cozy bun with a thick bead of Stadium Mustard dressing its glorious length.

Imagine picking up Al's sausage and wrapping your lips around it. Imagine rolling Al's sausage around in your mouth!

~~sigh~~

Any woman would surely admire such a sausage. I daresay plenty of men would envy this hefty coil. It is a fine sausage of which Al should be proud. To that end, Al should display his gorgeous sausage for all the world to enjoy.

Thank you readers. Thank you Lord. Most of all, thank you Al, for allowing me to be part of your sausage's debut.

Love,

Erin

*  *  *

Not candy-ass

Behold a dish of leftover ground beef, one of spaghetti sauce and some leftover mac' and cheese.

If someone were to mix them all together and eat the resulting concoction, that would be the most non-candy ass thing of all time.

* * *

Slumgullion for Al

This excerpt from The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts (which, incidentally, is brilliant and makes [ahem] a perfect gift) is dedicated to Al the Retired Army Guy, who sometimes needs to remember things old school.

#  #  #

The slumgullion experience of my youth always started off with a pound of raw hamburger on the kitchen counter. My father would pluck a chunk from it as my mother admonished him. 

"But that's for the slumgullion!" she'd say.

Undeterred, Dad would sprinkle the meat with salt and pop it into his mouth en route to his downstairs machine shop.

Then Mom would slumgullify the wormy red mass by browning it, draining off the fat and adding terrifying ingredients. In went Monday's spaghetti, the oily onion and green pepper dregs from Tuesday's pepper steak, and the remainder of Wednesday's succotash (which included both lima beans and--god help us--hominy). Throughout the process, my brother and I exchanged looks of unified dread that culminated in silent mastication at the dinner table.

Slumgullion.

The name alone is hard to swallow. It's like a slug in a guillotine in a slum. It's an awful word the way crotch is an awful word. Who says, "Oh baby, I want to dive into your crotch"? No one says that. It's gross. "So baby, howzaboutsome slumgullion?" isn't much better.

Completely unreliable online historians trace slumgullion back to a) the watery refuse resulting from whale blubber processing, b) a dish made from slaughterhouse cast-offs in the slums of England in the late 1800s, or c) a thin stew California miners made from leftovers during the Gold Rush. Who cares which checkered past is accurate? Any one of them beats that candy-ass three-fingered Hamburger Helper glove.

Every slumgullion recipe is different. People add cheese, tomato sauce, bacon, frozen peas, macaroni--name your poison. I've heard of people using (help) canned corned beef. Others use condensed soup to tie it all together. (Admittedly, I practically deify a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom. If you can't turn one of those into dinner in 20 minutes, you're no housewife in my book. But if you transform a can of Campbell's cream of whatever into a platter of Company Chicken Supreme in a wink, you're in).

So what would Eringullion look like? Surely I could do better than that Betty Crocker broad and her boxed Cheeseburger Macaroni. Recreating mom's recipe was no fun. I needed to update and modernize the slumgullion concept while keeping it firmly entrenched in its ground-beef-and-ingredients-on-hand birthright. Even if I didn't have any leftovers, the slumgullion should feel leftovery: refrigerator round-up in a pan.

I chose onion, green pepper, a can of creamed corn, one of RoTel's original tomato concoctions, three old potatoes, (each with a host of gnarly eyes), some Worchester sauce, and a mysterious seasoning called "Rich Brown" that costs 50 cents for a box of eight packets at the discount grocery. This darling concoction of MSG, maltodextrin, onion powder, caramel color, spices, disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate was, according to the package, "a delicious broth and a seasoning that brings out the best in food flavors." I am all over that, I thought.

Unlike the Hamburger Helper experience, as soon as I started making the slumgullion, familiarity washed over me. You're home, assured a soft voice inside my head as I doused the diced onion with Mazola. Why, this was innate. Even the creamed corn that I had included as a mandatory "yuck" ingredient formed a beautiful golden pool when I poured it atop the beef. The slumgullion terrors of my childhood were all but gone, a harmless wisp. By the time I added the canned tomatoes and chiles, I was grinning from ear to ear and singing "Slum-gull-yon. Slum-slum-slum-gull-yon" to the tune of "Girl from Ipanema." I sprinkled a packet of Rich Brown over it all and sighed contentedly.

Ten minutes before dinner, I moved through the house like an old-fashioned hotel page. "Slumgullion minus ten," I lilted. "That's slumgullion minus ten."

If I thought the Hamburger Helper instilled fear in my kid, the slumgullion was sheer terror on a plate. She stared at it wordlessly.

I transformed into my mother. "Eat your slumgullion," I said. She wrinkled her nose and took a bite, swallowing over a gag.

"Oh, come on," I said, "it's delicious!"

"Not bad," said my dearly beloved before taking a sip of Matthew Fox cabernet ($3.29/bottle at the discount grocery). "It's nothing special, but it's not bad."

I let his shocking assessment settle for a moment while blinking at him in disbelief.

"Nothing special?" I said indignantly as I rose to get another helping. "What do you mean 'nothing special'?" I turned from the stove to see my daughter quickly set down her plate, from which she'd dumped three-quarters of her slumgullion onto my husband's dish. "It beats the hell of that miserable Hamburger Helper!" I said.

Silence.

"Well?" I said, "doesn't it?" My eyes shifted between my husband and daughter. "Beat the Hamburger Helper?"

My kid cowered before my arched eyebrows. "Um ... " she peeped. I glared in disapproval then turned to my splendid king with pursed lips.

"The leftover Hamburger Helper was better the next day," he said in a conciliatory tone. "Maybe the slumgullion will be better tomorrow."

I let "better tomorrow" float in the air for a handful of beats as my chest pumped short angry breaths and I glowered at him.

"Well. You. Miserable. Goat." I finally said, pronouncing each word in a low deliberate voice. Then I stood.

"Honey?" said the Goat. "I didn't mean anything." He paused, waiting. "Honey?"

"Nevermind," I said in a high thin voice, then sniffed and retrieved my shoes from the steps.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"Nothing."

"Mom?"

"Forget it." I tied my shoes with force and stood, set my jaw and squared my shoulders. As my family asked after me, I stepped out the front door and began walking the earth, never more alone.

*  *  *

Let them eat pizza

Behold one of my homemade pizzas:

This one is piled with fresh mozzarella, sausage (original Bob Evan's from the tube, browned in advance), Mama Gallucci's pizza sauce and black olives on one half (the Goat detests olives and I love them). I use my trusty Panasonic bread machine to make the dough (2 1/4 cups bread flour, 1 t. salt, 1 1/2 t. olive oil, 3/4 cup water, 1 t. yeast)

Garlic press that looks like a speculum.

Sometimes I push a few cloves of garlic through my garlic press that looks like a speculum and let them soak in a bit of olive oil for a couple of hours. I add that to the Ma G's pizza sauce in order to make an extra-garlic version of my pie. Sometimes I buy extra-thin sliced Boar's Head sandwich pepperoni and cut it into sixths and cover the pie with the darling little triangle-shaped pieces, which will crisp up into some kind of serious heaven if you bake that mother proper in a reeeeeeally hot oven.

Yes, you always have to use a pizza stone, preheated for at least 30 minutes in a 500-degree oven. I use a pizza peel and a parchment paper trick to get the pie on and off that hot stone. There's probably stuff I'm forgetting, but tough luck. After all, it took me years to get this good at making pizza and you have to pay at least some of your own dues.

I am so enamored with my homemade pies that carry-out leaves me flat (except for the sheet pizza [authentic Italian style with a delicate sauce and not too much cheese] that they sell by the slice at the little Italian deli where I buy the Boar's Head pepperoni).

Hence, the usual joy that inflates most Americans when faced with the prospect of carry-out or delivery pizza is for me, well ... eh, no thanks.

So be it. Eat either too impatiently and the bubbling cheese will peel the skin from the roof of your mouth. For in every act, something is lost and something is gained. Droughts give way to floods. Wheat shimmers in the sun somewhere in between. A low animal roots in filth; a heifer lows in a meadow afar.

You chew; the slaughterhouse looms.

*  *  *

What a crock

One of my trusted associates sent me the following recipe on April 25 in the year of our Lord, 2012.

*  *  *

Do this when pot roasts are on sale. And buy two of 'em. Giant Eagle had them for $2.99/lb last week, so for right around $13, I got a shit ton of beef.

Brown those bastards in a Dutch oven. I just throw them in the pot and rotate them so all the sides are nice and brown, even the thick side parts.

Some people add a little oil to the pan, but I think that complicates things. It takes like 5 minutes to get them crispy-ish if you do it over high heat.

Then you throw them in a crock pot. Take a packet of Italian salad dressing seasoning - the kind you're supposed to mix with oil in a fancy cruet to get Italian salad dressing. I've never done that. Sprinkle that sodium-infused, probably-MSG-laden mystery powder all over the browned cow. I like to do both sides, but whatever. And then you pour in a can of beef broth - I use the fat-free, low-sodium stuff, because I think the regular stuff is way too salty, but don't make a special trip to the store to buy it. I don't think you'll die if you use the regular broth, just drink more water with dinner.

Cook that stuff in the crock pot for a lot of hours. Like, 10. When it's done, you take two forks and shred it up. Throw it on the rolls you made from your pepperoni roll dough recipe. Au jus, because of the broth, and oh man, is that stuff good.

And since you made two roasts, get this - you can freeze the rest and you have another dinner just waiting for you on a day when you feel like you might die if you don't eat some truck-driver food.

Seriously, Erin, this mess is tasty. 

*  *  *

Naturally I found my associate's recommendation intriguing, and I would have immediately undertook the task save for one glaring obstacle.

I did not have a crock pot.

The starkness of that admission stands alone and I will not embellish it with further commentary.  That said, although I am frugal, we are not penniless. I could easily afford a Cuisinart PSC-650 6.5 quart stainless steel programmable slow cooker or one of the lesser models, but frankly, purchasing a new crock pot struck me as obscene. After all, I live in suburbia: a land rich with duplicate gifts and redemptive garage sales. I'd find one used.

Although it took a few months, I finally unearthed this beautiful object at a yard sale and procured it for five dollars.

Experienced crock pot.

Although I plugged the unit in to verify operation before handing over my wrinkled bill, I did not thoroughly inspect it. And when I got it home the Goat discovered a tiny nick in the cord, which he reluctantly repaired.

"Maybe you should buy a new one."

"It's fine!"

Crock pot repair courtesy of Goat.

With everything newly intact, I sought out one three and one-half-pound pot roast, one packet of Good Seasons (You make it fresh!) and a can of beef broth. Although my associate feared the addition of oil as a complication, I browned the meat in rendered bacon fat nonetheless; and then followed the rest of her directions to a tee.

The result? Incredibly tender meat piled on one of my homemade rolls drenched in a rich and salty poor-man's au jus. I sprinkled sliced scallion on mine and the Goat had his straight up.

This was easily one of the best sandwiches I've ever had the pleasure of constructing, or more succinctly:  

This mess is tasty!

For all you boppers out there

~~Note to readership: today's clip and title have little to do with the content of this post, which is instead dedicated to egregious self promotion. Your humble hostess simply felt the time had come to properly credit her numerous "boppers" references to the film The Warriors~~

For all you boppers spread out there across the purple mountain majesty that want a signed copy of The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts, I've finally got some hard copies. Send $20 to the address listed below and I'll send you a book. Please include your address and any special dedication instructions.

Erin O'Brien
PO Box 470167
Broadview Heights, OH 44147

For all you boppers closer to the great North Coast, I'll be signing and reading books at Mac's Backs on Coventry on March 24 at 7 p.m.

For all you boppers who really want to hear me gas on, I'll be conducting two workshops as part of the 21st Annual Western Reserve Spring Writers’ Conference at Lakeland Community College on Saturday, March 31. I'll bestow untold amounts of brilliance in my sessions: "Writing Food Memoir," and "Unleashing the Power of Google Docs."

For those who dare to doubt me, I HAVE unleashed the power of Google Docs and I KNOW how to write food memoir.

This post is done.

* * *

One size fits all

While researching this article, I encountered Aldo's, a tiny Italian restaurant in Brooklyn (Ohio, that is). Spurred by a long history of rave reviews, the Goat, Lil' OB and I had dinner there.

Placing a forkful of Aldo's lasagna deluged in their homemade marinara upon my tongue was a life-changing experience.

There were the sauces that came before this moment and there is this sauce. Let there be light.

Thus began my intrepid search for an authentic marinara recipe. I have not replicated Aldo's yet, although I've not yet tried in earnest. But I did find this with the embedded recipe, "Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter."

Hmmm ... adjectives? Try intense and lush and simple and sublime. The beauty of this recipe is that anyone can make it. To that end, spreading it around the world is like slipping diamond rings on the fingers of every peasant girl and silken robes around her work-weary beau's shoulders. When you twirl your angel hair in a puddle of this sauce and place it ever so reverently in your mouth, you will inflate with breath and turn your eyes skyward.

Why can't everything in life be like this?

Behold:

You will need:

-Two cups whole, peeled, canned plum tomatoes, chopped, with their juices (about one 28-oz. can, preferably Italian and without citric acid)

-Five tablespoons unsalted butter

-One medium yellow onion, peeled and cut in half

-Salt to taste

Combine the first three ingredients in a medium saucepan. Add a shake or two of salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Adjusting heat as necessary, cook uncovered for about 45 minutes at a very slow steady simmer until droplets of fat float free from the tomato. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and salt as needed.

That's it.

The recipe says to discard the onion. But therein is another bit of magic. Of course you don't discard the onion! You pluck it from the pot, cursing as you burn your fingers and, as it drips with this rich tomatoey buttery sauce, you eat that onion right out of hand over the sink. Who says there's no such thing as heaven on earth?

So there's your xmas gift, admittedly regifted from Molly Wizenberg who regifted it from Marcella Hazan, but I have a feeling the spirit of an old Italian cook, full up with love, is smiling somewhere out there in the ether and thinking, that's exactly right, girls, keep passing it along.

Merry merry and happy happy.

Love,

Erin

* * *

The real can opener and sloppy erins

*  *  *

Don't get me wrong. I love the name Manwich.

Whoever came up with that name is a bona fide genius. Manwich. Talk about something you can sink your teeth into. And before we get started in earnest, let me come clean right up front and say that I've purchased my share of Manwich. I've browned the ground and poured the sauce, spooned the result onto buns and called it dinner many times.

Frankly, I probably will again. But in this perfect world that is my blog, the creation of a sloppy joe would always include the following scene and would not result in a sloppy joe, but in a sloppy erin:

You dig that? That there is your real can opener and let the world know that when I first met the Goat, it was the only can opener he would use. Yes, I have a manual clamp-and-turn can opener (that I keep in this drawer). No, I don't have an electric can opener.

Enough already. Let's go.

Finely chop one medium regular yellow cheap onion, one large rib of celery and a half a green pepper, (you could use a red pepper, or even a combination of the two).

Get a pound or so of ground beef and throw it in a skillet. I like to get about a pound and a quarter of the regular 80/20 ground beef because it has a better flavor than your very low fat ground beefs (I love that I just typed "beefs").

Now throw all those raw chopped veggies in with the raw beef. Yes, this is counter-intuitive. No, I don't care. Put them in there. I'm serious.

Start browning that unearthly combination up. Get making with the spatula proper, chopping and turning until the beef is cooked through.

Drain time. You want to put a lid over this mother and pour off the fat, that's your gig and I'm not stepping on it. Roll how you want to roll. On account of using a fattier meat, I don't make with your pour-off-the-fat method, but spoon it all into a sieve and push out the excess fat (Al the Retired Army Guy is probably calling the police right now to report me over that one). All this cooked and drained crap goes into a clean two- or three-quart sauce pan.

Now add a couple shakes of pepper, about a teaspoon of salt, a couple shakes of Worcestershire (good christ that's a queer word to type), a tablespoon of red wine vinegar (and you people know by now that if I list a measurement like that, I'm pretty serious about it [read: DO NOT PUT TOO MUCH VINEGAR IN THIS]), about a quarter cup of ketchup, a half tablespoon of sugar and one eight-ounce can of tomato sauce.

If you're like me, you don't have an eight-ounce can of tomato sauce but you do have a miserable little can of tomato paste that will not succumb to your regular clamp-and-turn can opener--a reality that undoubtedly stymies lesser housewives on a daily basis from coast to coast, but (as indicated by today's graphic) not your humble hostess (thank you, Goat).

Yes, the opening of a can of tomato paste is the only time I employ the Goat's old-time can opener. Maybe that says something about me; maybe it doesn't. Maybe you could say the same thing about the fact that I normally do not have a can of tomato sauce in my pantry. Don't complain, because those two twists of fate are what delivered this here recipe unto you. (Imagine me, seeing that can of tomato paste and that old can opener and thinking: I cannot keep this can opener and this recipe for sloppy erins to myself.)

Quit getting side tracked.

Mix your tomato paste with an equal amount of water. That there is your tomato sauce substitute. Add about a cup of it to your sloppy erins.

Stir everything up and taste that mother. Add more salt, sugar, vinegar (careful!), or tomato paste/sauce as needed and then bring that baby to a low simmer. Cover and and let it ride for about a half hour, then behold the finest not-sloppy-joe-sloppy-erin mixture you will ever eat.

Spoon your sloppy erin on buns (scoop out a bit of the bread from the inside of the top half of the bun to take some of the sloppy out of your sloppy erin). Scoop it up with crackers. Have it on regular bread. Put a shake of Frank's Hot Sauce on there or Tabasco if you like.

No, I didn't take any pictures of the sloppy erin. No, you didn't miss anything (they look just like sloppy joes), but in lieu of a sloppy erin pic, here is photo of a woman who just tasted her first sloppy erin.

Happy Friday.

* * *

An Irish American recipe

~~~~

Ingredients:

Boiled potato

Salt shaker

~~~~

1. Stand in front of kitchen sink.
2. Assume the expression of a cow watching a passing train.
3. Grip potato in one hand
4. Grip salt shaker in the other.
5. Sprinkle salt on potato.
6. Eat salted potato.

*  *  *

Perfection, methinks

Take some leftover sauerkraut (as in previously roasted with pork), bagged bread and a healthy squirt of Sriracha sauce. Fold it up and call it lunch.

To use I term I normally detest, that's how I roll.

* * *

An Irish Hungarian and four-potato creamed potatoes

* * *

Dear readership, your humble hostess hereby announces her forthcoming book, The Irish Hungarian Guide to the Domestic Arts, (Red Giant, December 2011). Your humble hostess could think of no better way to celebrate this blessed event than by posting a recipe, so here: enjoy a steaming bowl of creamed potatoes.

* * *

Get four goddamn potatoes.

Regular size, maybe a little bigger than regular. No, I have no idea how big regular is, maybe about the size of your fist. Use red potatoes for chrissake. That's your best potato. Yes, I know the price has gone through the roof. No, I don't want to hear about it.

Peel your potatoes and cube 'em into about 1/2" pieces.

This is where the beauty blooms: For one thousand years, I was making a version of this recipe with about seventeen pounds of potatoes in my huge industrial-size pan. I was grating cheese. I was slicing those spuds with surgical precision. I was layering and measuring. I was dotting with butter and sprinkling with flour.

I'd fool around making all those spuds For. Eh. Ver. in order to have a mountain of leftovers we'd be eating For. Eh. Ver.

It sucked.

You're not doing any of that. You're going to put those potatoes in a casserole, which will probably not be nearly as cool as the enameled cast iron  Descoware "Autumn Leaves" one-and-a-half-quart casserole that belonged to my Gram Soos and that you're beholding in these here pictures.

You know what? You use an old-school Anchor-Hocking covered dish glass casserole that was made in Lancaster, Ohio, and not only I will respect the hell out of that, I'll confess that I've been known to make those god-awful boxed scalloped potatoes in my own one-and-a-half-quart Anchor-Hocking casserole that I've had since time began. Yes, I would make my four-potato creamed potatoes in the Anchor-Hocking. No, I wouldn't make god-awful boxed scalloped potatoes in my Descoware.

Are you people following me?

You can add the following ingredients in any order. No one cares.

Salt,* about two tablespoons Parmesan (dry, straight from the green plastic shaker), about two-and-a-half tablespoons flour, two tablespoons butter, and a few shakes of dry parsley.

Yes, that is Penzey's parsley in a shaker that originally housed shitty discount grocery parsley. This, people, is called re-purposing and it makes me modern. It makes me enlightened. It makes me youthful. Kiss my ass.

*Yes, per the photo I use Lawry's seasoned salt. The sad fact is I use it all the time. Lawry's is my go-to seasoning. I use it in soups and stews. I sprinkle it on a chicken before roasting. I throw a few shakes into my marinades. There. Now you know.

I have no idea how much Lawry's I use in four-potato creamed potatoes. What? Maybe a half teaspoon to start? You want exact science, call Bill Nye.

Stir everything up and add some milk, enough so it starts to pool up. I don't know how much, which is why you get this picture.

Give it a stir and put it into the oven, 350 degrees, uncovered.

Check those spuds every 15 minutes. Give them a stir each time. You might need another shake of salt. Start checking for doneness* at at about the 40 or 45 minute mark.

*Doneness is doneness. It depends on the spud's moisture and starch content. It depends on how old those spuds are and how big your cubes are. All of this is part of the advanced class, but don't worry about it. Just take a cube out of there and test/taste it yourself for chrissake. These can take up to an hour to cook

You might need to add a bit more milk if it gets too thick. GO EASY. You can always add more milk but you can't take it out of there (not that I know from personal experience or anything like that about putting too much milk in and trying to correct the situation by using a shallow spoon to scoop some out from between the spud cubes to no avail and negating the "creamed" assertion all together but serving them anyway).

These glorious creamed potatoes will rock your face off. They are superfine on their own or next to a grilled steak or pork chop or barbecued chicken.

If a serving of spuds survives the meal, you can be sure your Goat will spy them in the fridge the next day and offer to "Eat down the leftovers," like he's doing you some sort of selfless favor when in fact he's thrilling over the prospect of those day-old spuds.

Okay, so maybe for him, you start with five potatoes.

* * *