Simple, good things

A holiday weekend! What does that mean right now? For me, it’s one more day I don’t have to pay attention to Slack or write to a deadline, and that’s good enough for me.

I’ve been making a lot of simple things, trying to use up the ingredients in my refrigerator in a timely fashion, especially since the availability of groceries here in my Brooklyn neighborhood has more or less gone back to normal. (The delivery service we have used for years was always sold out of slots for about two months, but now we’re back to being able to get a same-day slot. Thank you, Foodkick and your employees, whom we tip handsomely.)

So here are three things I’ve made recently that brought me some joy.

Breakfast

Easy as … eggs on toast.

I drink decaf for hypertension reasons, and have become devoted to one coffee and one coffee only: Kaldi’s decaf Highlander Grogg, which I first encountered in Columbia, Missouri and now have shipped from the roastery in St. Louis, because it makes me happy. I make it in a moka pot and usually add some collagen, because my poor creaky joints.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, then carefully add two or three eggs to the water and boil for exactly six minutes. Drain the water in the sink while running cold water into the pan. When the water runs completely cold, pour it out and let the eggs sit for 10 minutes.

Then peel them — and now you have sort of medium-boiled eggs, with soft but not totally runny yolks. Peel, put an egg on top of a piece of bread, and smash gently with a fork. Sprinkle with everything bagel seasoning, which you can get most anywhere, including Trader Joe’s. (I get mine from Thrive.)

On the point of bread, by the way — I usually make mine using the easiest recipe in the entire universe, a variation on no-knead bread (which takes two days to complete). Here is how it is done: dump 3 cups of flour, 2 1/4 t yeast (or a packet), and 1 1/2 t salt into a bowl. You can also add herbs or seasonings here. I sometimes add black pepper, or italian seasonings, or everything seasoning. Usually I just pour them in and stir, and repeat till it looks like there’s enough.

Then add 1 1/2 c of water and stir it together. Usually it looks a tad dry at this stage and a little “shaggy,” but that’s okay. Cover with wrap or something and let it sit for four hours. It will about double in size, provided your yeast and flour aren’t super old.

After four hours, put olive oil on the counter and your hands, and gently remove the dough (which will be sticky) from the bowl, reserving the wrap. Fold it over itself a few times a few times on the oiled counter, then cover it with the wrap again (right there on the counter) and let it rest another half hour. Immediately go preheat your oven to 450 and put a covered baking dish in there to heat up with it. I use my large ceramic dutch oven; cast iron is also really good. But the key is it needs to have a cover.

After half an hour, pull the very hot pot out of the oven, put the dough into it, shake it back and forth a couple times, then cover it and put it back in the oven. Bake for 30 minutes, remove the lid, and bake another 10-15. Take it out, let it cool slightly, and then remove it from the oven. It’s done. And it’s so good.

Lunch: tomato soup and grilled cheese

This grilled cheese has turkey in it too, which I think makes it a turkey melt? I just discovered our amazing local bagel place also delivers cold cuts and sliced cheese.

You probably know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich, so all I want to say is that someone recently told me to use mayonnaise on the outside of the bread and, oh my. (Contra the linked recipe, I didn’t use butter at all.)

The soup. It’s so easy. I adapted it from this recipe, because I don’t want cream in my soups and lots of them have it. But I didn’t have basil. That’s fine.

Also I picked this recipe because I have a lot of cans of tomatoes and I’m trying to use them up.

Heat 1 T oil in your dutch oven or heavy pot. Drop in 1 chopped onion and cook for about five minutes, stirring a bit to keep it from burning or sticking. Stir in about 3 minced garlic cloves and a little bit of salt, and cook another minute or so. Add a 28 oz can of chopped tomatoes (really diced or pureed or anything is going to be fine here, or you can use 2lb of chopped fresh tomatoes if you have them), as well as 3 more cloves of garlic and, if you have it, 2 big sprigs of basil. Cook for 15-20 minutes, till it smells good.

At this point it’s kind of thick, more like a sauce than soup. Add a quart of water (that’s 4 cups), a little more salt, and, if you have it, a Parmesan rind (I did not). Simmer (which means reduce the heat but make sure it’s still bubbling) for 15 minutes. I partly covered it at this point to keep my stovetop clean.

Now, add 1/4 c rice (I used white, and I think that’s probably best). The recipe says you can also use tapioca, which I have never in my life purchased. Cook another 15 minutes. Then either process in small batches in your blender or get an immersion blender (my favorite kitchen tool ever) and blend it up a little to get it smooth. It will still have some texture, owing to the rice. Add some pepper to taste. That’s it.

You should dip your grilled cheese in this, obviously.

Dinner: goulash

Truly a pantry story for our times. I found a pound of buffalo stew meat (like beef, but less fatty) in our freezer, and I didn’t want to make traditional beef-style stew. Stew meat is usually the tougher cuts, and you only really want to eat it in a long-braise situation. So I went the goulash route, which cooks for a long while but requires almost no hands-on work.

About two hours before you want to eat, chop two onions and make sure your beef/buffalo is in 1-inch cubes (cut them down if it isn’t). You may want to cut away fatty strips if your meat has it; buffalo doesn’t really, so it was quick.

Now put 2 t butter in a pot/dutch oven over medium heat. (I imagine you can use oil here too, but butter is delicious.) Add the onions and cook for a while. The recipe says to cook till they “wilt,” which did take about 10 minutes for me.

Add 2 t paprika (ideally the sweet stuff) to it now. The recipe says to also add 1 t caraway seeds, which I did not have. I Googled a little and ended up adding cumin seeds instead, which was great. Fennel or anise seeds would work too. You could probably also leave them out. Once the spices are in the pan, cook for 1 minute more, stirring to make sure the spices don’t burn.

This smells very good.

Meanwhile, toss your meat in a bowl with 1/4 c. flour (I used sprouted white wheat flour because it was in front of me). Try to get the cubes coated. Then dump them in with the onion and spices and cook for 2 minutes or so, stirring.

Now, add 1/2 cup of beef broth. Or, add 1/2 cup of water. Stir and scrape out the bits at the bottom of the pan. Then add the remaining 1 1/2 c of broth. Or, if you’re like me, add 1 1/2 c water and 2 t of Better than Bouillon, beef flavor. (I keep this stuff around in several varieties chiefly because my packed, shared, undersized freezer is not big enough to hold homemade broth!)

Bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and let it cook for about 90 minutes. Somewhere in there, cook some pasta. You’re supposed to use broad, flat noodles, like egg noodles, but I only had elbow pasta and it was fine. I wouldn’t use spaghetti or spaghetti-like shapes, but anything else will be serviceable.

When the goulash is done, squeeze in half a lemon or add 1 T fresh lemon juice, and some salt and pepper to taste. Serve it ladled over the pasta. It’s delicious.

And I think that day of food hits all of the food groups you need: vegetables, protein, carbs (some healthier than others, admittedly), and most importantly, flavor. It’s not elaborate, but boy, it gets the job done.