Omnomicon

I am very excited to announce the winner of Omnomicon’s second Recipe Round Robin: it’s Dixie, who can now officially call herself an award-winning Recipierre! Turns out Dixie is defending her PhD thesis tomorrow, and holy crap, I can’t even imagine the pressure. But the good news is that with grad school is over, she’ll have plenty of time to pore over her prize, this 1000 page tome that I read before bed every night (true story): The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Heavy-Duty Revised Edition

But a big ole thanks to all the Recipierres who put themselves out there with their precious family favourites (and new takes) and the Tastebuddies who eagerly made not one, but TWO meatloaves over as many weeks and shared their experiences. I’ve said it before, and I’ve no doubt it’ll be said again, but: y’all rock.

And making my job immensely easier is Dixie’s inclusion of a really neat and awesome backstory:

I grew up eating dry, boring meatloaf that my mom (who hated cooking) made, and I believed I didn’t like meatloaf. It wasn’t until I met my grandparents in college (that’s right, until halfway through college Iwouldn’t have known them from Adam and Eve) that I experienced
meatloaf worth eating. For a while it was the only thing I could cook other than omelets, so whenever it was my turn to cook for friends or bring something to a potluck it was this meatloaf.

One of my friends is ridiculously picky and still says she doesn’t like meatloaf. Unless it’s mine.

The truth is that I don’t care much for meatloaf either, so these were promising words! I think a lot of the success of this recipe has to do with creating a channel on the sides of the baking pan to drain the grease. Dixie’s was not the only recipe demonstrating this technique, and indeed, even America’s Test Kitchen agreed that draining grease was important. Without doing so, the meatloaf will get soggy at the bottom and that gross grey ground beef sludge will abound. Disgustingly.

I’m a complete jerk because I just realized, like, while typing this out, that I completely forgot the breadcrumbs! Crappish! So imagine a loaf with a bit more body. I have to say, though, I was very impressed with this meatloaf. I really don’t eat meatloaf because it’s usually totally not worth the calories, but this one, somehow . . . it’s different. I saved the leftovers and didn’t feed them to my coworkers. That’s mighty praise.

The pic on the right looks like it has an abstract face in it. If you see that too. If not, um, I must be awfully lonely tonight.

I drained like, a cup of stuff out of the meatloaf at the 45 minute mark, and it was exhilarating! Really, I suddenly felt SO much better about eating a slice of meat Wonderbread knowing that so much fat had been removed. The nice thing is that you can get the cheaper, fattier ground beef, which will baste itself as it cooks, leading to a nice tender loaf with the calorie-dense fat removed. It’s a perfect system as far as I can tell. The loaf does shrink up quite a bit; I used a 90/10 leanness, and a leaner loaf will be bigger and a fattier loaf will shrink up even more. In the future, I think I’d have used a 93/7, but any meat you want to use will do.

I did halve Dixie’s original recipe, as hers bakes 2 lbs of beef in a 9×13 pan and I am the only one home this week. I also probably eat less than 2 lbs of beef in an entire month, so eating that much in the next week just wasn’t going to happen.

Dixie serves her meatloaf with “garlic mashed potatoes and mushy peas,” and normally I’d go to great lengths to recreate this as it sounds so classic, but alas, peas are probably the one food I just hate hate hate and will not eat. I’m not even remotely picky about food, but peas tortured my entire childhood and I’m just not ready to move on yet. So I steamed up some green beans with almond slivers and enjoyed it that way instead.

And my my, what a delightful loaf of meat! Thank you, Dixie, for sharing a family gem. Take it away!

Oh oh, and hey, everyone, the next Recipe Round-Robin will be announced in about a week. We’re looking for a sweet treat this time around, so feel free to use the comments on this post to not only wax poetic on Dixie’s tantalizing recipe, but also to cast your vote for what we should do next time!

My Grandfather’s Meatloaf

the loaf:
2 lb ground beef
1 stick of celery
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 eggs
2 cups breadcrumbs
1 16 oz can of tomato sauce

the sauce:
2 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp soy sauce (packets left over from Chinese takeout work great:
use 2 packets)
3 tbsp sugar

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Chop the celery, onion, and garlic. The finer you chop, the more heterogeneous your meatloaf will be. You may beat the eggs before adding them to the mix, but I don’t. Combine the beef, celery, onion, garlic, eggs, breadcrumbs, and *half* the can of tomato sauce. I use my hands to squish everything together.
When fully mixed, place in a shallow bread tray (my grandfather used,and I still use a 13 x 9 casserole dish, having never personally witnessed a “shallow bread tray,” but I pass the term along in case you foodies have one or know where to find one). Create a channel along the sides to drain the grease.

Mix the mustard, soy sauce, sugar, and the rest of the tomato sauce in a small saucepan and heat gently. Pour half of the heated mixture over the loaf. Bake the loaf covered for 45 minutes. Take the loaf out, drain the grease. Add the rest of the sauce to the loaf and bake uncovered for 30 more minutes. Drain the
grease again. Allow the loaf to stand for 10 minutes before serving.

nutrition summary: I have absolutely no idea. Since a lot of fat is drained out during the cooking, and having no way to quantify how much of that was actual fat and what was other juices, I really am unable to calculate calories for this dish. Given the grease draining, I’d assign this a health score of “not that bad for you.” Suggestions are always welcome.

AVOCADO:
it will never be in season around here. and yet it never goes out of style . . .

So it would appear that the rest of the country has easy access to local produce for more than 3 months of the year. Must be nice, assholes.

Okay, I lied, nobody’s an asshole, I’m just super jealous. I was raised in the classic suburban white girl tradition of New Hampshire. And to us, the concept of vegetable seasonality was . . . simplistic. We had corn on the cob once a year, my mom made zucchini breads in August (and froze about a dozen), we went apple picking in September and in October we’d choose a pumpkin to carve as a family. The rest of the year we enjoyed carrots, potatoes, apples, oranges and frozen vegetables. My  mom and dad will no doubt read this and lay the guilt on how I make them sound like SUCH bad parents who never fed their kids ANY vegetables, which is not the case, the point here is that seasonality just never stuck with me.

So last year it occurred to me that maybe corn doesn’t get harvested on a single day of the year, and also, what is that day anyway, and hey, plants *do* grow in Massachusetts, so logic would dictate that some of them are edible, right? Perhaps this . . . what do you call it . . . agriculture? thing?? had made its way from the Midwest to our humble corner of the country? This must make me sound horrifically stupid, but really, I’d never seen a well-stocked farmer’s market (they have terrible hours around here, like middle-of-the-afternoon-on-a-Wednesday hours), and the most local veggies I’d seen were singly sold on the side of the road. After much searching, I found Berberian’s Farm in Northborough (no site, no link) and caught up with everyone else that the freshest food is local and that fresh really does make a difference.

This summer I’d like to document an answer to the question that popped up for me only last year: so what’s in season?

On May 13th, it was this junk:

(I do use the term “junk” loosely) We’re looking at radishes, arugula, asparagus, rhubarb and mint.

Needless to say, I did try to think of some clever recipe using only these ingredients, but you know, they really just don’t go together very well, and what’s more, the way I eat them isn’t very interesting. For example, I steamed the radish.

And while its Barbie appeal was heightened significantly, it didn’t taste like much of anything other than maybe overboiled summer squash, so I salted and peppered and ate it on the side with this.

And you can see how I couldn’t in good faith make an entire blog post about this because it’s like cheating . . . wait, what’s that, Bitten Word? Martha had a recipe for poached eggs on asparagus? Wow, either I’m next in line to wear that lady’s heavy crown, or she’s out of actual recipes, because “place poached egg upon steamed asparagus” is not exactly what I would describe as a “recipe” so much as “an idea I came up with on the fly and I’m sure I’m not the first.”

Still, it was really good. Recipe: toss your ‘spargus with 1 tsp olive oil, roast at 500^o for 5 minutes while you fry an egg, then salt & pepper & sprinkle with lemon juice if desired and place the egg on top. The end.

Alright, so I did manage to get these big ole honkin rhubarbs though, and I did manage to come up with a recipe for them, and it’s not even strawberry-related! I know, I’m so original, right? First though, check out how huge they were!

The length of my arm, they were! This was the only way I could think to fit them in my lens, as it does not zoom and I’m sick of that overdone depth-of-field bullshit. Anyway, then I chopped ’em up.

Add a healthy dose of sugar because these things are as sour as lemons.

Then stew them for a few moments, make some oatmeal, and enjoy as follows. This makes an excellent breakfast or dessert, complete with vegetable, protein, and fiber. There’s no fat unless you want to add some, it’s easy to make vegan with some yogurt substitution action, and even if you don’t give a shit about any of that diet stuff, you will still like it. The rhubarb tastes just like pink lemonade, there’s just enough oatmeal to make it feel like a real dessert and the yogurt offers a neutral contrast in flavour and texture. I have to say, it far exceeded my vision!

 

 

Healthy Rhubarb-Parfait-Cobbler-Type-Thing
This dessert (or breakfast) has a rosy blush that can aid a young lady in her pursuit to maintain her girlish figure. In other words, it looks nice and ain’t bad for ya!

2.5 c (about 1/2 lb or 4-5 feet) rhubarb stalks
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c dry oatmeal
3/4 c water
1 c yogurt (fat-free, Greek, full-fat, your pick!)
1/2 tsp sugar (in addition to the sugar above)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Rinse the rhubarb, then chop into 1/2″ chunks. Toss with 1/2 c sugar. This is easiest to do in the saucepan you’ll be cooking in—lid it then swirl it around til the chunks are coated. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring every minute or so. You’ll notice that even though you started with no extra water in the pot, suddenly all the rhubarb surrenders its water and you’ll have a kind of stew. Whenever you stir, give one of the chunks a fork to see if it’s tender; as soon as that happens, turn off the heat. It should happen within ten minute or so (if not, try medium heat for a little while, but keep an eye out for burnt bottoms!).

While that’s cooking, prepare the oatmeal. I microwaved mine because um, the stove was kind of already taken. 1/2 c oatmeal to 3/4 water. The oatmeal package will say otherwise; tell it to take a hike. Microwave 2.5 minutes.

Also, mix the yogurt with the vanilla and remaining sugar.

To assemble, we’re really just dividing everything into rough fours: 1/4 c rhubarb, top with a generous tablespoon of the oatmeal, then finish off with 1/4 c yogurt.

 

 

nutrition summary (for 1 serving of 4): 185 calories, 1g fat, 2g fiber; about 3 weight watchers points

Hey thanks for your feedback if’n ya left it, the conclusion I reached is that this unbroken machine requires no fixing, to reword a popular turn of phrase. 

Anywho, due to unrelated technical issues, a new post will be up tonight. Til then, a preview:

So a few weeks in, how do you feel about these daily photos? Are they cluttering up your rss feed, do you look forward to them, are the photos even good enough to stand alone like this? Am I just stroking my own ego with this feature??

Additionally, I feel that by allowing comments on these single images, it either makes people feel obligated to comment every day, or deters them from commenting on the bigger posts, which I should hope would be more discussion-worthy.

I’m currently considering two options on these subjects:

1. Giving the daily noms their own subdomain with their own rss feed so people who only want full recipe posts will only get the those, but still have the option to subscribe to both feeds.
2. Leave comments open only if I feel like my little blurb or the photo might warrant discussion.

Agree? Disagree? Additional insight? Since I’m just as happy continuing as-is as switching things up, I leave it to you.

 

Comments are open.

I was absolutely flattered to to have my Blueberry and Cheddar Pancake Stack painted by Lisa of The Lunchbox Project. This is one of my favourite Omnomicon images, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who likes it. On a related note, the very existence of this painting strokes my ego like whoah.

    

I don’t tend to incorporate many action shots because kitchen lighting isn’t very conducive to that kind of thing. But occasionally I’ll manage a good one.

A few months back I thought it would be cool to experiment with sprouting mung beans and share the process. It’s a pretty simple one: soak beans for about 12 hours, drain, then keep in a jar in the dark for a few days, rinsing every 12 hours or so, until—tada!—bean sprouts.

This method is foolproof only if you possess an innate ability to plan ahead and are able to couple that with a daily attention to detail.

Unfortunately, I possess neither. I am, however, completely in love with this specific colour.

So I tried to sprout these TWICE, and each time made it to the point where things were looking promising.

And then both times, I forgot about the damn things in my cupboard until they were oversprouted and bitter and not very edible.

And even though they weren’t edible, they were so pretty.

Good news, though! Steph of ::steph chows:: did a nice little writeup of her far more successful experience with mung beans, which echoed much of the research I had done in sprouting my own.

Here’s hoping I’m a better farmer in my CSA’s fields this summer, eh?

So if you’re not the comment-reading type, you may have missed this awesome comment from Jasmine, who, rather than pontificating from the opposite side of the globe about how to sprout mung beans, actually hails from that side of the globe and shared some excellent knowledge:

Hi! Here in asia we call these mung beans “green beans”, and use them to make sweetened, ‘cooling’ soups to ward off the heat of summer. Job’s tears (we call them “barley”) and mung beans, together with sugar and some fragrant pandan leaves, put into a pot and on a slow boil will make this humble beverage.

We also sprout mung beans until they are about 2 inches long — they are called “beanstalks” and added into clear soups or sauteed (you may have seen them in “chow mein” or fried noodles). Although you can buy these from your local Chinese grocer’s, I imagine. We sprout them by getting cotton wool (the kind you use for your face will do), soaking it in water and putting those little beans in them, near the sun. Water daily and they’ll grow!

Addendum
Oh, sorry to mention — I’m from Singapore … and here are some local dishes where mung bean sprouts are used!

http://www.noobcook.com/2008/03/11/bean-sprouts-with-salted-fish/

I love reading Omnomicon because I really see what people on the other side of the world is eating! (sorry if all that I’ve said is super ass-vicey)

Jasmine, your comments are not only welcome, but TOTALLY appreciated! And it goes without saying that Omnomicon loves having you for a reader, much of my aim is to gather all kinds of different perspectives on the food I present!

I have an interest in food cultures outside the US (and even outside my little corner of the country), but unfortunately it’s difficult for me to know that the info I am able to gather is even remotely accurate. Next time I’m whipping up a batch of Pho, I’m totally going to try Jasmine’s suggestion. Thanks again, you’re a doll!

I am still not a vegetarian. Nope. Here’s one of the manifold reasons why.