Meat sauce

As every month's batch of meat seems to have at least two pounds of ground beef, I needed to do something a bit different from what we've been doing so far: meatballs, meatloaf, tacos...and while this recipe isn't much of a departure from the norm, it's easy to do on a weeknight, and takes only a few ingredients, most of which are already in the kitchen cabinet.

I served this with a small amount of pasta - about 1/2 a pound to the whole recipe, and the recipe yields 4 servings. This is not a very saucy pasta sauce. I could see adding some zucchini to the mix with the tomatoes if they were laying about, but since this isn't zucchini season, that's not likely to happen. Eggplant would be a possibility, too, as would substituting sausage for the ground beef. To increase the volume, one could also add a second can of tomatoes; in that case, also increase the garlic, salt, and oregano to taste.

Weeknight Meat Sauce
Serves 4

1 Tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
1 lb ground beef (medium or lean)
3 cloves garlic
1 28 oz can whole tomatoes (or chopped tomatoes, or pureed tomatoes - whatever is on hand)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp dried oregano

Heat olive oil in wide pan. Once hot, add the onions; stir briefly, then add the beef. Break up the meat into small pieces. Saute the meat and onions until meat is browned and onions are softened. Add garlic; cook until fragrant. Add can of tomatoes. If using whole tomatoes, cut up the tomatoes into small pieces (I do this in the can with a pair of scissors). Add salt and oregano. Stir and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the excess liquid has evaporated. Cover and keep warm until pasta is ready. Taste; the mixture may need more salt. Season to taste.

Turkey pot pie

While I love Thanksgiving, I could completely leave out the turkey and be entirely content. The sides are where it's at for me - the spoon bread, the corn pudding, the stuffing...a plate full of side dishes would still be a perfect Thanksgiving. What keeps me coming back to the turkey, though - besides the expectation of its presence at the table - is the turkey pot pie I make afterward.

After the first Thanksgiving I held myself when I moved to Canada, I had a lot of leftover turkey. E, another graduate student in my lab at the time, passed along this recipe. For the super-lazy, just use pre-made pie crust; this couldn't be simpler, and it freezes well. I usually end up with two pies, since there is always lots of dark meat hiding where my less-than-stellar butchering skills can't find it when dinner is originally served.

Turkey Pot Pie
(makes 1 9" pie - double for two pies)

2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup onion
2 stalks sliced celery
2 Tbsp leftover gravy
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup of milk
2 cups chopped turkey
2 - 3 cups of frozen vegetables*
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Saute onions and celery in butter until tender. Add remaining ingredients; mix well. Put in two-crust pie. Bake at 425 degrees of 28 minutes.

*The original recipe calls for 1/2 a bag of frozen veggies, like peas, carrots, and corn. However, often these bags are enormous - and without lots of freezer space or the tendency to eat these otherwise, I use a combination of frozen peas and corn, and cut up a carrot into small pieces and throw that in, too. Use whatever you like in a pot pie.

Black forest cake

Wow, I've been neglecting this blog. Not for lack of cooking - we've been using our delicious meat share faithfully, and I've made some very good things. There's something about the lack of natural light by the time we eat dinner, though, that makes picture taking difficult - and makes going to bed much more appealing than writing a blog post.

In any case, last Saturday we made Black Forest cake in my baking class. We each made two 7" cakes; not knowing what, exactly, to do with two cakes, I brought one into work. One of the women I work with, F, thought it was so good that she asked me to make one for her daughter's birthday party this Saturday. Since the only real reason I don't bake as much as I'd like is because there aren't enough people to eat all of it, I was happy to do it - what a great excuse to try out my new skills!

Here's a photo of the results - beautifully positioned in my refrigerator. (Judge the other contents if you must.) It's since been transferred to its cake carrier and back into the fridge so the whipped cream on the outside stays fresh. This cake is better the day after it's been made, and was still equally good the day after, so it should still be excellent on Saturday for the party. The only downside of making a cake, though, is that you can't test it to make sure it's good - people definitely notice if a slice has been taken out of it!