Guilt me into blogging...

So, I am talking with my mother last night and she starts teasing me about how I have not posted since January 6th. Sheesh. One problem with following a budget is, it's most economical to make one or two large dishes for the week. So that's what I've been doing. This week was Dry Curry, because it sounded good, and Swedish Meatballs, because I needed some comfort food. Dry Curry isn't a very appetizing name, but it's a very delicious meal. Swedish Meatballs have a very bad reputation, but when made properly are delicious, not grease ridden blobs. Let's hope the family does not attempt to remove my heart for sharing the recipe for one of our family favorites.

Dry Curry

1 tbsp oil
2 to 3 medium onions, finely chopped
5 to 6 carrots, peeled and finely diced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 tofu blocks (soft)
3 cans tuna, drained
5 to 7 curry roux blocks
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 c cilantro, chopped

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat, then add oil.
Once oil is hot, add the onions, carrots, and garlic.
Cook until onions start to get soft.
Add tofu, breaking it up with the back of a spoon, and tuna.
Make sure that the tofu and tuna are chopped up and evenly distributed in the pan.
Add curry blocks and cook, stirring often, until curry blocks melt and blend into the dish.
Taste. If more curry is needed, add them and allow them to melt.
Add salt and pepper and stir in the cilantro.
Serve over hot rice.


Swedish Meatballs
1 lb ground turkey or beef (I use turkey because I like lighter meatballs)
1 stack of saltine crackers, crushed
1 egg
dash of milk
1 small onion, finely chopped
salt and pepper
about 1/2 a nutmeg, ground

Place all ingredients in a bowl and mix together well with your hands.
If using turkey, add 1 tbsp of oil to a large skillet. Do not turn on the heat.
Shape meat mixture into balls smaller than a golf ball, but larger than a ping pong ball.
As each ball is shaped, place in the center of the oil, then slide to the edge of the pan.
Once the pan is full (which may be before all the balls are shaped), turn heat to medium-high.
As soon as the meatballs start to brown, turn the heat down to medium and start turning. The goal is to brown all sides.
As the meatballs shrink, add more to the pan and brown.
Once all meatballs are browned, spread evenly in the pan.
Add about 1/2 c of water to the pan and cover. Turn heat down to low and let meatballs steam until centers are no longer pink.

Comfort Food pt.1

One thing I'm hoping to explore with this blog is the concept of comfort food. Anyone who has lived in another culture for some time will understand how one starts to crave certain meals from home that are unavailable. When I was living in China a coworker took a trip home and was kind enough to bring some herbs back to China for me. These herbs helped me make some decent (but by no means fantastic) meals for other expats. These meals were received with rave reviews mostly because it had been so long since any of them had had a home-cooked home meal. (I really must work on my vocabulary.) I find the close relationship between culinary culture and identity intriguing and I would like to work toward collecting comfort food recipes from a wide range of people, along with their best attempt to explain why that meal is comfort food for them and their family.
In my family, meatloaf is a standard in the area of comfort food. Typically we serve meatloaf with mashed potatoes (or simply boiled ones) and carrots. As you can see from the background, my father also adds ketchup, but he is the king of sauces. No meal is complete without extra sauce in his book. Meatloaf is a winter comfort food. It's something that my mom would make regularly when we were children. As kids, we were rather unadventurous eaters. (For example, our idea of vegetables included carrots, corn and peas, on occasion. Green beans were okay too.) The smell of meatloaf baking has a way of warming me up. It makes me think of chilly or downright cold weather and the satisfaction of a hot and substantial meal filling me up. Now, my mom, to make the meat fill more bellies, told me to add a whole stack of saltine crackers. Apparently she now only adds 1/2 to 3/4 of a stack of crackers, which she told me with a "duh, I've been doing that forever" tone.
I can't complain, because a lot of times they will ask what recipe I used to make such-and-such meal and I inevitably forget to add that I also doubled the herbs and spices or halved this, or added this for more flavor, and "didn't you realize that when you looked at the recipe??" I think the secret of a good cook and the reason nobody can get a meal to taste exactly like mom's is because she told you which recipe, but to know how she ACTUALLY makes it. You have to watch her make it. Otherwise you'll not do something that she's always done and forgotten to tell you about. Most likely it's been so long since she's actually looked at the recipe that she will assume that her embellishments are on the card.

Meatloaf

1 lb ground beef
1/2 to 1 stack saltines
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 egg
8 oz can tomato sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place the ground beef in a bowl.
Using a rolling pin, crush the saltines into a fine meal.
Add saltines, onion, egg, a dash of tomato sauce, and salt and pepper to the beef.
Mix thoroughly (the best method is using your hands).
Pour about 1/2 of the remaining tomato sauce into the middle of a cast iron pan (either dutch oven or one with a lid).
Gather the meat mixture into a ball and toss gently between your hands to make a large meatball.
Shape into a football shape and place in the tomato sauce.
Pour the remaining tomato sauce over the meatloaf.
Cover and cook until done (about 1 hour).
Serve with boiled potatoes (or mashed) and cooked carrots.
If there are leftovers, meatloaf sandwiches are difficult to beat. Two slices of homemade white bread, slices of chilled meatloaf, salt and pepper (butter if you're really looking for decadence).

Split Pea Soup

Here is the split pea soup. Not exactly the most appetizing looking dish, but delicious nonetheless. [I will refrain from inserting any unnecessary movie references here.] We decided to save this dish for the night that I worked (a rare occurrence while I'm attempting to find full-time work and doing random temp work). Next to it are some Dare whole grain crackers. Very tasty. For dipping into this soup they are far superior to saltines. Though, there were individuals in our household who chose buttered saltines. I prefer those with tomato soup (canned, but with extra black pepper). Here is our family "recipe" for split pea soup. We tend to... "some of this" and "some of that" for a lot of our well-known recipes. Don't most families? I know it's almost impossible to get a straight recipe out of my sister-in-law's parents for any of their Puerto Rican dishes. I think perhaps I'll have to spend some time hanging around their kitchen and forcing them to show me how to cook. I never can get the Pollo Guisado right. It's either completely tasteless or way too salty. But I digress. Didn't I say a while back I was giving you the recipe for split pea soup?

1 smoked ham hock
4 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1 bag of dried split peas

Place the ham hock, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaves and salt and pepper in a large stock pot.
Cover with water and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for at least 3 hours (add water if necessary, but if you have the heat low enough you shouldn't have to). We typically start this part in the morning and let it cook slowly all day, thus, it requires a weekend day or someone to be home. Or, you could make the stock one night and continue the next night with the following:

Add the split peas and enough water to cover an inch or so.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until peas have cooked thoroughly.
Add water to prevent burning, if necessary.
You can remove the bay leaves, or be lazy like me and leave them in. If someone tries to eat it, they'll quickly realize it isn't exactly fun to chew on.
Remove the the ham hock and bits of meat that have fallen off. Let cool a bit, then shred, removing as much of the superfluous fat as possible.
Return the meat to the pot and heat a few minutes.
Serve.