The wife is out for a week and it is time to cook. It's always time to cook, though, because I have chosen the role of cook in our household, but when the wife is not around the rules of the kitchen change significantly. This is primarily because the sink can only hold so many dirty dishes. It's a common design flaw of modern kitchens. Also, cooking for myself, I don't particularly care how balanced the dish is, whether it looks nice, or if I made it already this week. All that fru-fru goes right out the window. It has to taste OK, go together without too much thought, and by-and-large go by a few simple rules:
1) Will it make me a fat bastard? More to the point, will it make me more of a fat bastard than I already am? Since I lift big metal things recreationally, I should take in approximately 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. I'll aim for seventy grams per meal. The meal should also avoid crap carbs like potatoes and rice, and crap fats like shortening and margarine. It shouldn't have too much of either fats or carbs, no matter how high-quality, and preferably not too much of both at the same time. A lot of both at the same time is also known as a biscuit, or as I fondly call them, obesity tablets.
2) Can it be prepared and eaten using one item of cookware? Preferably a piece of cookware that is also simple to eat out of? This is to avoid covering every horizontal surface with dirty dishes that have to be maniacally cleaned in the last two hours before said wife's return. In the heat of the moment, I had once considered renting a pressure washer for this, but I know that if I did, the temptation would be too great to turn its formidable nozzle on every other soiled surface in the house: toilets, bathtub, litterbox, linens, etc. The results would take some explaining, a lot of flowers, possibly a lawyer and body armor.
3) Does it cost more than gas? I spend about five bucks a day on my commute, so that rules might not go for people that, say, bike.
Once you say "no" to all these questions, one of the perfect foods left is lentils. Fast cooking, tasty, macronutrients evenly split between protein, fiber, and carbs, there's nothing they can't do. We won't be seeing a lot of that today. Sorry to be such a tease. If you want to see saged lentil burgers on homemade brioche with chiles and chevre, you'll have to wait a bit. It's a good dish but it's not what we're after right now. For today, if you want to see cheap and easy lentil pots, you're set.
Sausage and Lentil Pot
½ package Jenny-O turkey breakfast sausage, diced.
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sage
1 tsp cumin
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon olive oil
A word about the turkey sausage. Jenny-O turkey sausage comes in tubes from Wal-mart for something like a buck fifty a pound. It’s easier to dice it while frozen. Wal-Mart has a random selection of ground turkey products that are usually pretty good, including this "italian flavor ground turkey product" that's pretty good and is a buck a pound. Strangely, the "italian flavor ground turkey product" is incredibly fiery- I mean thai hot- while the "mexican flavor ground turkey product" is fairly mild (and also tasy and, like its italian cousin, also a buck a pount, but totally unsuited to this recipe).
Brown the sausage in the olive oil until brown. Add onions, cook until translucent. Add everything else. Cover tightly, cook on low heat for an hour. Eat out of pot while reading Garth Ennis' Preacher.
Chicken and Lentil Pot
½ cup lentils
1 onion, chopped
1 chicken breast or chicken parts (approximately 14 oz)
1 tablespoon garam masala or other curry powder
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup cauliflower, chopped. Frozen is OK
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 cup broth, bouillon, or other seasoned liquid
1 tablespoon ghee or butter
Melt ghee in pot. Brown chicken in butter. It's OK if it's frozen. You just want the flavors from the browning, and the chicken will cook through while the lentils are cooking. Add onions and carrots, cook until onions are translucent. Add everything else. Cover and cook on low heat for 1 hour. Eat out of pot over Grant Morrison's Invisibles.
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2 comments:
Because Glenn brought ten sausages to the Super Bowl party, I am forced to eat the ten bratwursts I bought on Saturday, and to do so within a week's time. Last night, I sliced a potato into wafer strips, and cooked a strip of bacon in a small dutch oven. I then browned the strips in the bacon grease and chopped the bacon into tiny bits and mixed it in the potatoes. Then I browned two bratwursts, added some sauerkraut and about four ounces of beer, covered it and baked it in the oven for 30 minutes. Ate it with a beer and mustard.
Anyway, the pot's still in the sink 24 hours later, because I can get away with it.
That's pretty gorgeous. It sounds a lot like a Super Bowl Choucroute Garnie.
I should take advantage of this pseudo-bachelor period to make up some fermented sauerkraut.
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