Weeks 4-5

August was a looooong month. Although the month is over, I'm still pursuing my challenge for another week, since I had many opportunities wasted with a broken fridge. The cravings have been getting worse. The other day, I put a patient of mine on a diet (meaning I recommended foods and liquids that would be safe for her to eat), and I was just about to break as she was ordering grilled cheese and tomato soup. However, I've stayed strong, and I've made some great things:

Corn Chowder with Sausage and Vegetables (adapted from here)

This is what you do when you get 9 ears of corn from your CSA and need something to do with them. I must say, though, that the kernels of corn were so tender, you could just bite them off the ear without cooking them first.

What you need:

• 6 cups of cubed potatoes
• 3 cups water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2-1 lb pork sausage
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper, chopped
• 1/2 jalapeño, chopped
• pinch red pepper flakes
• 5-6 ears of corn, kernels removed (see picture below for a neat trick for removing kernels)
• splash white wine (which, according to Michael, every soup can benefit from)
• 1/4 cup half and half
• salt and pepper to taste

What you do:

1. Boil potatoes in water with a bay leaf until tender.
2. In the meantime, brown sausage and onions in a medium-large saucepan.
3. When the sausage is brown, remove, and add the green pepper, jalapeño, carrot, and red pepper flakes, and sauté and soften in the sausage fat.
4. Add the corn and cook for a couple more minutes.
5. Add the sausage back in and deglaze the pan with the white wine.
6. When the potatoes are tender, mash them a little bit in their boiling water. Add potatoes and water to veggies.
7. Add the half and half and heat through.

Michael and I found ourselves listless and bored on a Saturday night (during the second time that my refrigerator was broken). We had some bacon left over from omelets that I had made him that morning, and Michael came up with the idea of making meatloaf (something I had never partaken in before). He had had a couple delicious meatloaf sandwiches before at Monty's Blue Plate Diner, and had found a recipe for their "Meatloaf of the Gods" in their cookbook, which my roommate owns. It calls for oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs, which worked for me, as I was not prepared to make bread, dry it out, and then turn it into breadcrumbs. Our major roadblock was the ketchup. 1 cup needed for inside the recipe and some for putting on top. I had about 1/3 cup of tomato paste in the (working) freezer from our enchilada escapade, but that wasn't going to be enough to suffice. We spent a good 30 minutes racking our brains, trying to figure out what else to do, looking up steak sauce recipes and such, until I realized that I had some homemade barbeque sauce hidden in the freezer from some ribs that Michael and I made after winning them in a Meat Raffle last fall. The combination was perfect; not too barbeque-y, not too tomato-y. I shall say, my first meatloaf experience was a good one.

The next day, I made some pita bread. Man, there is nothing like the smell of fresh bread in your kitchen. I made these with a 2:1 ratio of bread to whole wheat flour, but I think next time I'll either do 1:1 or 1:2. With these, I had made the mistake of forgetting to remove the top rack of the oven, after moving the bottom rack as low as it goes and placing my pizza stone in there (don't worry, Maggie, I keep my pizza stone near the floor). I could only fit two pitas on the stone at a time, and flipping them was a bit of an ordeal. However, they turned out wonderfully, and it was quite fun to watch the pitas puff up. The pitas were great for use in meatloaf sandwiches, which constituted my lunches for most of Weeks 4-5.

This week, I also made Cheez-It style cheese crackers (recipe here). Unfortunately, they didn't last long enough to be captured on my camera. I learned a lesson while making these: do not make them at 10:30pm and decide that it'll be a good idea to use the time while they're in the oven to brush your teeth. Your kitchen will emanate scents of baking cheddar, and you will not be able to resist testing them (you need to make sure they're at a good level of crispness). You won't be able to eat just one, and the cheddar will overrule your teeth-brushing, and you will need to repeat it. I shared these with coworkers, who were amazed at the taste and simplicity, but I was unable to give any to Michael, who consumes more Cheez-Its than any other human I know. I'll make some just for him, maybe for a first day of (grad) school treat.