This is hardly original, but last night I pulled some chili out of the freezer, put it into an 8×8 pan, grated about 4 ounces of cheese and sprinkled it over the chili, made a batch of batter for the best corn muffins in the world, poured that over top of it, and cooked the whole thing for about 30 minutes at 400, until the top was set and the chili was bubbling up around the edges of the cornbread. It was extremely tasty, and I finished it just in time to take some to class for dinner (my masters program teaches its classes in the evening. Next semester, thankfully, there will be no night classes, because I’m doing an independent study with an undergraduate class.) It reheated nicely a little while later when Jeff wanted dinner, and still later when I got in from class and wanted seconds.

My only complaint (and most of why I’m posting about it, since the Internet is my memory these days) is that I got the chili to cornbread ratio off; I forgot that the cornbread was going to rise like crazy, so instead of chili and cornbread, we had cornbread with some chili. It was still extremely tasty, but I’ll want to adjust that ratio next time. I also wonder how this would do in the slow cooker - if I made chili in the slow cooker, then made up the corn muffins and dropped them into the chili to cook for the last hour. I think the muffins would steam and come out very tender, but I’m not sure. Anyone else ever tried this?

Monday night, we made hamburgers. I got 6 burgers out of the pound of beef instead of 4, like last time, and there were no complaints, so I think at this point, we’ll stick to doing so. Doing so means an extra lunch serving out of the leftovers, which is never a bad thing, and that we go down to about a $1 a burger from $1.20 apiece. ($1 for locally grown grass fed beef on thick homemade buns and extra-good cheese. This, folks, is part of why we don’t eat much fast food anymore.)

Wednesday night, we were invited out with some friends from my grad program. We thought we were just going to go out, have a couple of drinks, and then come home and cook dinner, but we ended up having a great time and staying out later than we thought we would - much later than it would have been practical to cook the scheduled dinner (Italian sausage and risotto). We ate some French fries at the bar, and then I scrambled Jeff a couple eggs when we got home, and fed myself frozen pancakes (homemade - if you ever have leftovers when making pancakes or waffles, freeze them. You have an almost instant breakfast or snack ready.)

So, things have gotten a little behind here at Chez Nitty Gritty. Let’s see how quickly we can recap this past week and get it caught up.

Sunday, we did tossed salad. Local hydroponic lettuce, local greenhouse tomatoes and green peppers, organic carrots, local hard-boiled eggs, and homemade croutons from the tail end of a loaf of bread machine bread. (I don’t think I’ve talked about croutons yet. Cut up whatever old, stale bread you have that’s not green yet into cubes - I like large, restaurant style ones, but one of the great things about making your own croutons is that you can do whatever you like - and toss on a baking sheet with a little olive oil and whatever spices you care for. Bake in the oven somewhere between 350 and 400, depending on what else you need to bake, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until brown and toasty. Dead easy, and much cheaper and better for you than croutons from a box.) Dinner was around a dollar apiece and took about 20 minutes to put together, including boiling the eggs and making the croutons. Jeff also had some leftover lasagne.

Monday night, we did chili in the crockpot and cornbread. Monday was a late class night for me, so I made the cornbread in the morning before I headed up to school.

- 1.25 cups milk, buttermilk, or yogurt (you can fake buttermilk by mixing 1.25 cups milk, gently warmed, and 1 tablespoon white vinegar. It’ll sour in about 5 minutes)
- 2 tablespoons butter, olive oil, lard, or bacon drippings
- 1.5 cups cornmeal
- 0.5 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 egg

Heat the fat in a small skillet, and pour into your baking dish (I used an 8×8 Pyrex, which I put into the oven at 125 to keep the fat warm.) Meantime, combine the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another; mix the wet into the dry until everything is combined well (if the mixture seems a little dry, add a little more milk). Pour over the fat in the baking pan, set the oven for 275, and bake about 30 minutes, until the whole thing is slightly browned and firm.

This was pretty good; it wasn’t perfect - my ideal cornbread is more moist and sweeter than this turned out. However, it wasn’t at all bad. We have about half the pan left, that I think I want to turn into cornbread stuffing for lunches this week.

The chili was as simple as chili gets - about a pound of ground beef in the crock pot with half of a 28 ounce can of tomato puree, a little water, and some garlic powder, salt, pepper, and chili powder. There was just enough left for a lunch portion the next day, and Jeff said I should make more next time. The beef, milk, cornmeal, and egg were local, and the flour and tomato puree organic. Total active prep time was 15 minutes, and it ran about $3.50 for the two of us, including the leftovers.

Tuesday, we did a repeat of the tofu salad tacos, along with wild rice and a simple carrot and apple salad. Organic ingredients included flour, tofu, carrots, and apples, and the lettuce was organic. The rice was some that we’re using up from our previous eating habits, so I’ve no idea where it was from. Cost was comparable to the last time we did this dinner, but the time was longer, partially because the rice takes awhile to cook. I wasn’t tracking the time very well, because I drafted my cousin into helping, and we were socializing while we cooked.

Wednesday was a pseudo-new recipe. I say that because it wasn’t much of a recipe. I took a 3/4 pound pork tenderloin, sliced it up into medallions about a quarter of an inch thick, and pan-fried them in a little olive oil, along with a liberal dousing of black pepper, salt, and thyme. I served the medallions up with a topping of garlic butter and sides of roasted potatoes. The potatoes, pork, and butter were local (from our own homemade butter). Active prep time was about half an hour, mostly accomplished while the potatoes were baking. There were enough leftovers for me for lunch the next day and for breakfast the day after (I minced the pork finely, and tossed it and the potatoes in with a bunch of other stuff and two scrambled eggs), and the whole thing cost about $7.

Thursday, I was supposed to have a late class, but class got canceled. We did tossed salad again.

Friday, we were scheduled originally for pizza. However, our cheese vendor wasn’t at the market by the time we got there on the 24th, so we decided to do beef ribs, which had been on sale. However, we had friends coming in from out of town, and the flight got rescheduled from a midnight arrival to noon, and our package of ribs was just enough for two people, not four. We updated to taco pie, and decided to just bite the bullet and buy some decidedly non-local cheese, before one of our merry band remembered that another of our merry band doesn’t much care for ground beef. Being picky on a few select food items myself (I hate beans, to name one), I try very hard to serve people food that they like. We decided to fix lasagna. However, as it approached dinner time, a sudden craving for Thai food descended, and so our friends took us out and fed us a veritable feast at a locally owned non-chain Thai restaurant. Dinner was delicious.

Last night, Saturday (the 3rd), there might have been a frozen Tombstone pizza incident, but if there was, I’m not telling. :) If there was such an incident, it was our first in about 6 months. Plans are underway to experiment with making our own frozen pizza, since that would be infinitely superior to Tombstone. (One good thing about the Tombstones is that they don’t use hydrogenated oils.)

This week I’m on spring break, which means that blog posting (hopefully) won’t be neglected, email will be caught up on, and there’s some new recipes coming up. The week after, we’re going to do a week of make ahead meals with mostly local and organic foods, which should prove interesting.

Saturday night we did hamburgers. The per person cost was a little less than normal, as I turned the pound of beef into 6 burgers instead of our normal 4; I was planning leftovers for Monday, and wanted one burger for me and two for Jeff for each night. The fact that the burgers were a little smaller than normal wasn’t terribly noticeable, something I should remember the next time we’re doing burgers.

The dough for the hamburger buns was a surprise - I had originally run it up on the previous Thursday, but we ended up getting invited out that night. I had gotten the dough up to the part where it would be split into buns, so I threw it into a bowl with a plate over it and into the fridge. If it kept, great, and if not, I would run up another batch. Saturday, the dough looked fine, if a little stiff, so I pulled it out and let it sit on the counter while I ran the oven at 200 degrees for about five minutes. I turned the oven off and let the dough rest on a metal cookie sheet for about half an hour. It loosened up perfectly, and from there I just followed the recipe for forming the buns, letting them rise, and baking them. It’s good to know the dough will keep for several days.

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Dinner Sunday night was tacos, something that I’ve posted about several times already, so there’s no need to go into details again there. However, I would like to add that we had about a cup of leftover taco meat and three leftover tortillas, which I turned to my advantage for lunch today. Half the taco meat got heated up, and went into a bowl with a little shredded cheese, a bunch of lettuce (we’ve been getting local hydroponic lettuce from our farmer’s market, two huge heads for $5. They’re gorgeous, and the greeens keep for weeks, though I think we’ll eat both heads this week), and a bit of chopped up tomato (we’re lucky enough to have hothouse tomatoes at our farmer’s market). Two tortillas went into the toaster oven, and after they were toasted, got crumbled up on top of the salad, and the whole thing got finished off with about a tablespoon of blue cheese dressing that we had lying around. It took about five minutes to put together, and scratched my taco salad itch nicely. This is a great example of how leftovers can make excellent lunches, and can be transformed to prevent boredom.

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However, Monday night, I wasn’t worried about boredom. I got in from class, and my leftover burger went straight into the microwave and the bun into the toaster oven. Less than five minutes later, I had dinner, with almost no effort from me. After being at school almost 8 hours, this was a good thing.