Cooking Cheap

Back to Cooking Cheap. The specials change every week at my mega mart and this week it was Cross Rib Chuck or 7 Blade Chuck roasts for US$1.99/lb.. A little digging around and I found a boneless, nicely marbled 2 pounder. You can make a lot meals out of that if you think about it.

You can make a wonderful pasta sauce, sandwiches, tacos and of course Mom’s Pot Roast, hash, and scrambled egg mix (huevos con mancheca or migas) or chiliquiles or burritos. Here’s what I did with mine.

I finely diced one celery stick, 1/2 of a large carrot, one small yellow onion, 1 big clove of garlic and I sweated them down, med low in a Tbl of olive oil, in a oven safe pot large enough to hold the meat. When the veggies are half cooked I removed them from the pot to a plate. I wiped the pot out with a paper towel, cranked the heat up to med-high, added 1Tbl of olive oil when it started to smoke, I browned the roast on all sides. Took the meat out, poured of any left over oil, turned the burner to low and the oven to 325F

To the pan on the burner I added maybe a half cup of red wine which starts boiling furiously. I put the meat back in, and put the veggies in the wine, added the rest of the bottle (another 1/2 C) and enough water so that the liquid comes half way up the side of the roast. (I read the this was important in some cookbook). I added 1/2 tsp of dried thyme, 1/2 tsp of dried rosemary which isn’t much for the volume of meat a liquid put the lid on, turn up the burner a bit and when it was simmering, I put it in the oven where it simmered for several hours but I wasn’t ready to eat or deal with it so I turned the oven down to 250 for another hour and then 225 for another hour. I didn’t have to add any liquid but its depends on your pan and needs. I wanted a lot of juice.

I took it out of the oven and let it rest while I made my real dinner for that night. The roast is black all over but not burned, tender and delicious. The liquid is just as dark and of course the veggies have been cooked into near nothingness. When it was cool enough I emptied the whole in into a plastic container and put it in the fridge.

Next day. There’s layer of fat on the top although not as much as I expected. I put a skillet on med low and sliced half a green bell pepper into strips. I scooped some of the congealed fat off the bowl (with attached veggie bits) and used that to start the peppers sauteing. Meanwhile I fished a chuck of meat out of the bowl and where possible, cut slices across the grain. Tasting as I cut of course. The dog (Katie) seem pleased with the fattier parts that fell off the block by magic.

I put the meat in the skillet with the peppers and decided some more goodness wouldn’t hurt. The braising liquid had turned into gelatin in the fridge so I added a couple of Tbl of that to the pan and a bit of water, maybe 1/4C. I put the lid on to steam the pepper strips mostly. Stir every few minutes and when its right, I piled it onto some fresh homemade baguettes. I wanted it a little juicy to soak into the bread. If I was making eggs or tacos I’d let the skillet go drier.

I can think of lots of ways to jazz up the skillet but the point is you need braised beef. Turning down the temp is a BBQ technique. With that much liquid, at 225F you can cook it a long time. It does make a difference. Braising on the stove, it’s tricky to keep a low simmer. It’s easy in the oven.

This is not leftovers, this is a prime ingredient. Maybe I’ll dice the other half of the pepper, and do the skillet thing, Open a can of cheap marinara (Hunts for example –, try it, it’s pretty good). Break up the meat (easy to do when it’s warm), a bit of half and half some pasta and parmesan

This time I made some yeast bread, not sourdough. Mostly because I didn’t want to take two days (although the recipe called for a biga, I pretty much skipped that pat. What I wanted wanted was a “roll” for some pot roast sandwiches, doesn’t have to be sour. I used the baguette pan and a recipe from the King Arthur Flour Cookbook on loan from the library.

Except for the biga part I mostly followed the instructions. I used mega mart AP flour and and I weighed the ingredients. Somewhere in the book it claims that bread machine does the better job of kneading that stand mixers or manual kneading so I put that to the test. It’s a very soft (wet) dough and you don’t knead it for all that long (less than the machine would do). Then you fold it a couple of times in the first rise (every 45 minutes or an hour

The book also explained how to use the lame and sure enough, I have did get cuts that didn’t melt into the top. After cooling and slicing, the hole pattern wasn’t nearly as large as I would have expected. I think it’s the AP flour instead of the bread flour. The no knead technique does work. The bread machine really didn’t do anything I couldn’t have done with a mixing spoon — per the recipe, you don’t knead it much. For that recipe, the machine only contributed to more cleanup. I like the idea of folding the bread every 30 minutes or so, I’ll try that with the next bread flour sourdough session.

If you think volume measurements and weight measurements are the same, try using a scale to lean just how much water to add or remove to get 5.25 oz of water

That’s a lot of knowledge for just one baking session and I’m keeping the bread in the freezer, Sliced horizontally, there’s just enough bread on top and bottom for a nice (thin) sandwich. I plan to use them for hot dogs for a late night snack.

I’m starting to like my new cookbook, True Tuscan by Cesare Casella. I still think his one pound of potatoes equals 3 cups diced is all wrong but based on the Sausage Stew results, he knows something.

So I started a batch of sourdough bread today (Monday) so I can bake it and eat some with the left over stew on Tuesday. I’ll talk about the dough in second or two. I’m in the section of the book about soups and pasta and a couple of recipes cleaned out the cobwebs. Gnocchi made with old bread. Yeah that could be called dumplings is other cuisines. The light bulb turned on for me. There’s a bunch of recipes that call for old bread.

I can make more bread in my bread experiments than I want to slice and eat. It’s only a few pennies to throw it away, but thats not right and it offends the universe. Not positive Karma points, if they turn out be good things to have, the karma points, that is. Using that left over bread for Gnocchi or dumplings, that would be sweet. Mind you, making gnocchi and dumplings is not something I’ve had a lot of success with in the past. There you go. Another thing I should learn and not run from.

Tonight’s dough was odd. The normal 1/2 C active starter, 1 cup water, 2.5 C flour with a 1/2 C for bench work. It’s a very soft dough recipe except tonight is wasn’t sticky. But it was soft. I barely used 1/4 C of bench flour and I worked the be-jesus out of it. Didn’t stick to me or the board (much). Very odd. I know enough to know thats odd. What might be different is that the starter was on full charge. I took it out of the fridge, let it warm up for a couple of hours, fed it with a 1/2 C flour, 1/4 C water (I guess) and a few hours later I took out a 1/2 cup.

I also mixed the 1/2 C starter with the cup of water, almost luke warm and let that sit while I watched the evening news. I’m at a loss to explain just how that would make for soft but not sticky dough. Oh I could make something up but that’s not knowledge, it’s just a story. Then again all recipes are just stories. The worst that can happen is gnocchi makings.

Sausage and Potato Stew

Adapted from “True Tuscan”, Cesare Casella, @2005

Serves 6

My comments in [brackets]

• 3 Tbl extra virgin olive oil [less is likely]
• 1 Tbl. minced garlic [2 to 3 cloves]
• 3 whole fresh sage leaves [I used 4 smaller ones]
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper [flakes]
• 4 Cups celery chunks [ about 9 sticks, almost one bunch]
• 1 Cup red onion chunks [medium yellow onion diced]
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 lb. Italian Sausage, cut into 1/2 inch slices, still in casing, half sweet and halt hot. [2 of each]
• 1/4 Cup dry white wine [more or less]
• 2 Cups whole canned tomatoes, chopped with their juice. [One 14.5 oz can whole tomatoes, broken up by hand]
• 2 lb. Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks, (6 Cups) [ Alert! 6 cups is a lot more than 2 pounds, by a lot. I used 1.5lb's (2 medium) and that looks to be about right, compared to the rest of the dish
• 2 Cup water plus more as needed. [possibly a lot more]

1. Coat bottom of stock pot [or dutch oven] with olive oil. Add the garlic, sage and crush red pepper and saute over medium heat [ medium low] until the garlic begins to color. Add the celery, carrots, and onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste and saute the vegetables until they begin to soften, 10 to 15 minutes
2. Add sausage and cook 8 to 10 minutes.
3. Add the wine and reduce by half
4. Add the tomatoes, potatoes and 2 cups water [to cover]. Season with salt and pepper [Not much]. Simmer the stew for 1.5 to 2 hours, stirring occationally and adding more water if the mixture becomes too thick. The Francesina is done when the potatoes are very soft and falling apart. Spoon the stew into bowls and serve.

[Cecil now:]
The idea is that the potatoes thicken the stew as they break apart from long cooking. Simmer uncovered, I guess. I happen to have fresh sage in the garden that hasn’t died from cold. Once it gets established it handles a lot of abuse.Snipping a top off in winter is nothing compared to the destruction I bring in the spiring

This dish turned out it very very good. I recommend it. Easy, inexpensive, seriously tasty. I was worried that it was too much celery. Nope. It just mostly disappears into a lovely, slitghtly tomatoey broth with the fat from the sausage and the starch. The chunks of meat have a nice texture (chew). It’s a wonderful balance.

I haven’t actually made this yet, but it sounds good for a Tuesday dinner and it cleans out some stuff in the freezer and fridge. I’ve got some smoked chuck roast in the freezer, just a few ounces but it goes a long ways. Left over pot roast would be a decent substitute. I’ve got some dried shitake mushrooms that are many years old. Some green onions that have a day or two left in them and some bargain bin pepper jack cheese that’s not going to keep much longer either. This would also give a change to use my new scale to impress your with my precision.

Filling:

1. Defrost the beef
2. Rehydrate the mushrooms for an hour or two. Squeeze dry, remove stem.
3. Dice beef and mushrooms,
4. saute in a small amount of oil, toss in a minced clove of garlic and the chopped white parts of the green onions. Cook a little bit. Might use some beef soup base (bullion) if it gets too driy
5. Let cool (or fridge it for later)
6. Mix with grated pepper jack cheese before using.

My hope, no, my plan is that the mushrooms will get a bit of the smoke flavor and be less blah. If soaked long enough, they may even get an appealing texture. The jack cheese should mellow down and meld the mixture when baked. The onions and garlic are there because it’s onions and garlic. The pepper part of Pepper Jack will probably get lost, but it won’t hurt anything if it stays around.

Now for the part I don’t know yet. If I had left over store bought tortillas (mine where a lot of green colored so I tossed them), but if I did have some them I’d just make four enchiladas. I do have a lot of masa flour and tortillas aren’t hard to make. And home made ones don’t make good enchiladas in my experience and it would take 6 home make tortillas get the surface area of 4 store bought.

I’m already experimenting with the mushrooms, let’s go for it. Make the tortillas and let them dry in a towel for some number of hours, Might want to bake them a a little faster (higher heat, less time). Then do the filling (including the defrost time) and fry them a little longer. By longer I mean an extra 5 or 10 seconds per side.

They aren’t going to roll up (the homemade problem) so stacked New Mexico style would be the way to go. I have the dried pods to make a real enchilada sauce (and I need to use them one of these days) but I think a chili powder gravy would be less stressful on me (and cheaper) and if it all turns to chilaquiles in the oven I’m not out the pod costs.

A soft fried egg on top would complete the New Mexico style. I’ll probably forget that.

[Next Day]
[Short Version]
Not so good

[Longer version]
Shitakes and Smoked beef don’t go together all that well. I used too many dried mushrooms. I ate all so it’s not bad but it’s nothing to write home about. I did get the tortillas correct. You can use homemade tortillas for enchiladas, so that’s good to know but store bought is probably better.