It is cold and grey here. I haven't made short ribs yet, a dish I associate with winter, with the kind of weather we're just starting to see. There were flurries yesterday or the day before. I don't remember. It doesn't matter really.
Regardless short ribs were on my mind and while I was at market today shopping for ingredients for tonight's dinner I decided to kill two birds...actually, two cows with one stone.
Tonight, we're having meatloaf; a dish I've never made before. I was at the dog park last week when a fellow dog parker extolled the Cooks Illustrated recipe so I figured I'd give it a shot.
There are a few more steps to it than I am normally used to, meaning more effort and more advance planning. Frankly, the dishes I typically revel in have a minimum of ingredients but a ton of taste. So when it comes to something like Cook's Illustrated meatloaf with tons of ingredients and steps I tend to shy away. I also wonder if June Cleaver went through the type of things Cook's Illustrated requires you to do in order to make the perfect meatloaf ever made. I suspect not. I suspect June could whip together the ingredients and have it in the oven in twenty minutes and still end up with a crusty loaf, nice glaze and all sorts of compliments from her men, Ward, Wally and of course, her Beaver. (Really immature joke there but I couldn't resist.)
The sixties gal I can't imagine making meatloaf is Lovey Howell, from Gilligan's Island. Can you say "reservations"? Like she ever cooked!
Anyway, I digress. My challenge is to come up with food everyone likes and to not get into ruts with my cooking. Lately Buddah (a code name for one my daughters -- she came up with it) has been jonesing for casseroles. I suspect both Buddah and Mary Douglass are a little tired of "pieces of meat" or "pieces of fish" or "pieces of chicken" or...you get the idea. (If not, the next word was "pork".)
My job tonight is to convince Buddah that meatloaf is a casserole sans the casserole dish. I'll let you know how that works out.
Salad: Arugula with shaved parmesan and a lemon dressing. Probably the simplest and my favorite salad. A couple lemons, making maybe a quarter cup of juice and a half cup of olive oil. "EVDO" to quote the Sarah Palin of the Food Network, Rachel Ray. Is it me or do her recipes stink?
Side Dish: Roasted Asparagus
Incredibly simple -- aspargus on a cookie sheet or armetale. Drizzle with olive oil and kosher salt. I added the zest of one of the lemons I'm using for the salad to add a little flavor. (Debby firmly believes that there is almost no food product that cannot be improved by the addition of lemon. Ask any waiter within a five block radius of her office. She basically orders iced lemon flavored with a little tea for lunch on a daily basis.)
Side Dish: Smashed Potatoes
No peeling, which is appealing. Throw red potatoes and salt into cold water bring to a boil and cook for 20 minutes. Dump the water. The heat from the pot gets rid of all the moisture which is a good thing. Then add milk or sour cream and or butter. I'm adding some fresh parsley as well. You can eyball the amount of bad stuff you add and they're pretty difficult to mess up.
Main Course: Cook's Illustrated Meatloaf
If you go to Cook's Illustrated and you search for meatloaf the first recipe that comes up is the one I tried. It has gelatin in it, which I had to buy. I ended up accidently throwing out the bag that had the gelatin and when it came time to add it in I couldn't find it. The good news was I distinctly remembered not putting it away so after a few minutes of fruitless searching I went to the trash cans and found the box. It was a CSI kind of moment. Me rooting through the garbage for evidence....
Any how, the recipe has a fair number of ingredients and frankly right now I'm skeptical. Particularly because of the glaze for the meatloaf, a combination of brown sugar, ketchup, cider vinegar and corriander. When I was making it, the color brought me back to the Islander.
The Islander was the first and for a very long time, only "Chinese" restaurant in the town of Vernon Connecticut where my parents grew up and where I lived for the first seven years of my life.
The Islander, in reality was a polynesian restaurant, with architecture, decorations and menu seemingly based on a stay at the Polynesian Resort at Disney World, before the renovation.
The restaurant had palm trees, a log "bridge" across a stream...well it had probably been a stream at one point but now was as dry as my father's sense of humor. (Inside joke.)
I ate there often when visiting my grandparents who continued to live in Vernon/Rockville even after their son and daughter drove up the turnpike to Washington. I often went there for lunch with my Grandfather George. And I always got the same lunch special every time: Sweet and Sour Pork, an egg roll and a perfectly-shaped mound of the whitest rice money could buy.
And I love it. What wasn't to love? Deep fried egg roll with shredded lettuce, a few chunks of some meat product for show, coated in a mainly sweet and a little sour sauce.
Deep fried pork nuggets swimming in a sea of more sweet sauce...which brings me back to the meatloaf glaze.
Stay tuned until tomorrow for a follow up on the meal.
Oh, because I was cooking retro, I listened retro: Ella Fitzgerald Live In London.
This is a later album in her career and not particularly outstanding. What attracted me to it in the first place was the opportunity to hear Ella sing "You've Got A Friend". As some of you may know, I am a little obsessive when it comes to music, particularly finding unusual covers of songs.
Anyway, here's the song list and if you're interested in hearing it let me know.
Sweet Georgia Brown
They Can't Take That Away From Me
The Man I Love
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Everytime We Say Goodbye
You've Got A Friend
Lemon Drop
The Very Thought Of You
Happy Blues
The Man I Love
It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
Everytime We Say Goodbye
You've Got A Friend
Lemon Drop
The Very Thought Of You
Happy Blues
