Back to the Pot Roast

I was talking with mia madre the other day, trying to convince her to come and see my new digs without all the packed boxes. And she says to me, "About that pot roast..."

Yes, mia madre reads the blog! And she, being a northern Wisconsin native, is a mistress of meat and potatoes. She could make the perfect pot roast in her sleep.

After we had talked through what I had done with the pot roast, she concluded that I had probably had the heat too high, especially with using my cast iron dutch oven (or my oven heats higher than the knob says, which is entirely possible). here is her method for cooking the perfect pot roast.

Start by browing the pot roast in the dutch oven on top of the stove. Once it is carmelized, add about .5 cup water and cover. Then stick it in the oven at a very low heat. This is the key. A very low heat - like 275. Add water as needed but cook low and slow until it it is juicy and moist and falling apart.

Which is braising really. Which I had forgotten about because I was sad.

Her other option? Dump the dutch oven all together and use the crock pot. She's right there. The crock pot is a gift from the goddess.

Back in the Mood

Well, I have started cooking again. Not every day. For example, tonight was a popcorn night again. But after my recent post about how I am a meat idiot, I remembered something.

It's called braising.

Getting towards the end of my sad, dry, greasy roast, I decided I had to use it up somehow. So I chunked it up and then threw in some prik king sauce, which is a spicy Thai condiment. I use the version that comes in the bag of prik king green beans (frozen food aisle at Trader Joe's). I let the meat and the sauce simmer together - which is braising - the meat cooks slowly in a sauce that allows it to become tender and the flavor of the sauce to penetrate. I then threw in the green beans, and served the whole mess over brown rice.

My god, it was delicious. The meat tasted good and was moist and tender.

I can't believe I forgot about braising. I must be a bit down. I mean, duh, it is a bassic of poor person's cooking. You get the cheapest cut of meat you can find and you work with it until it is not only edible but delicious.

Anyway, the braising got my juices going again and since then I have been cooking up a storm. I currently have a whole chicken in a pot with celery, onion, carrot, salt and a bay leaf (Greek, from Greece, sent to the state by my friend Ruth's mom who is very cool and I want to go visit her. In Greece) making a rich stock that I will use tomorrow to make Heather's extra magical chicken noodle soup of get wellness (I have the sniffles. I keep saying it is allergies but a soup remedy is never a bad thing).

A couple of days ago, I made the following recipe, which I have been eating for a couple of days - spinach in tomato sauce with mozarella.

Take a 1 pound bag of frozen spinach. Throw it in a sauce pan with about .25 cup of water and start cooking. Then throw in about .5 cup of green onions and 2 cups of tomato sauce. Cook until bubbly delicious. Then turn off the heat and throw in about .5 cup of mozarella cheese. I had some mozarella pearls, but if you just have a block, go ahead and chop it into pieces about the size of the tip of your pinkie. Serve with a nice crusty whole wheat bread to soak up the juice.

Anyway, a side note. Some folks, noting that only one of the original seven wonders of the world still exist, have decided to have a contest to pick a new seven wonders of the world. Sadly, all of the candiates are human-made, but still if you get a chance to go to the website and vote, please do. Here is the website and the list of candidates. it is going to be hard for me to choose. I personally think it would be cool if they would include natural wonders and then we could pick one from each continent. My current choices? Angkor Wat temple, Easter Island statues, the Great Wall, Petra, the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, and one that isn't listed Serpent Mound in Ohio.

Votes can be made online, at www.new7wonders.com.

The 21 finalists for the New Seven Wonders of the World, alphabetically:
1 Acropolis, Athens, Greece
2 Alhambra, Granada, Spain
3 Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia
4 Chichen Itza Aztec site, Yucatan, Mexico
5 Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 Colosseum, Rome
7 Easter Island Statues, Chile
8 Eiffel Tower, Paris
9 Great Wall, China
10 Hagia Sophia church, Istanbul, Turkey
11 Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
12 Kremlin/St.Basil's, Moscow
13 Machu Picchu, Peru
14 Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen, Germany
15 Petra ancient city, Jordan
16 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
17 Statue of Liberty, New York
18 Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom
19 Sydney Opera House, Australia
20 Taj Mahal, Agra, India
21 Timbuktu city, Mali

When it comes to meat, I'm an idiot

You might think from the few actual food related items I have posted on my blog that I am a vegetarian. I actually am not. But after this weekend's disastrous pot roast attempt – and long reflection on other disastrous attempts at meat cooking – I realized that I just am not that good at cooking meat.

What!?!?! I can see my friends now – what do you mean? What about that roast chicken? What about that time you grilled? Why the hell did I have you come to my friend's house and cook the Thanksgiving turkey if you aren't any good at it? Huh? Huh?

Maybe I should qualify. Yes, I do make an excellent roast chicken, and my turkey is never over or undercooked and it's really very easy to get good flavor with the addition of a few simple herbs. But that's because I cheat. If the cooking of meat or fowl involves a Crock-Pot or an oven roasting bag, I am magic.

And I am a Grill Mistress. Maybe that's because I am in touch with my masculine side (the grill being a traditionally male form of cooking – how silly is that?) or maybe it's because as long as you are patient and have cool friends to spend time with whilst grilling, grilling is easy. Stick the meat in a marinade, light the charcoal, wait until the coals are the right temperature, slapped the meat on, wait, and you are good to go. Grilling is really a no-brainer.

In my attempt to make a pot roast this weekend, I thought it would be simple – some salt and onions and a bit of broth in the cast iron Dutch oven and voila! So not voila. It was just bad. Dry and greasy (at the same time – incredible). I think I cooked it for too long or maybe my oven just heats too high. It tasted so salty although I did not use that much salt on it. I can hardly stand it for cold sandwiches, but I'll be damned if I will throw it out – it's $7 of good beef, and I hate to waste it. Maybe I will throw it in the freezer and use it for soup or something – just to see if I can salvage it.

I think part of the problem is that I cooked it for myself. I hate cooking for myself. I admit it. In the summer, if it's just me, I will live on corn on the cob, tomatoes, microwaved "baked" potatoes, and a little steak cooked in the toaster oven. In the winter, I will make a big pot of soup on a Sunday and eat it all week. Otherwise, I find myself eyeing the Sapporo ramen and thinking, "well, I will just cook that and nuke some veggies and maybe a frozen chicken thigh and eat that." Or I will eat cheese. Just cheese, which isn't bad per say but is very calorie dense and you need to eat a lot of it to fill you up. When it's just for me, my cooking is so boring. Which probably explains why I have gained some weight in the last year. When I cook for just me, I cook boring and boring food – I have often found – tends to be the least healthy unless you are a strict vegetarian who eats no dairy, nuts, or oil.

Sadly, I don't think I am going to get another chance to cook for anyone other than myself any time soon. My coworkers are all married or in relationships and tend to go home and spend time with their families. I try to tell myself that if I cook something cool, I can write it up on the blog and share it with all my friends around the world, but it's just not the same – and involves way too many dishes to wash afterwards, especially when I don't know if anyone even enjoys anything I am posting.

So what is a girl to do? Go raw?