SIMPLE & TASTY

Sassy's meatloaf~mac & cheese~tuna-noodle casserole~chicken thighs & beans~ground beef & beans~merely thinking about drinking~what I'm watching~a lamb tale

Usually once a year around the winter holidays, I love a feast, as tricked-out as you can get with rare ingredients, prepared with achingly perfect techniques, served with an over-the-moon wine with an enchanting story behind and poured into elaborately cut-not-pressed-glass crystal, served on coolio china, eaten with glistening silverware by best friends spirited up with joy. Truthfully, as I write this, it’s kinda exhausting just thinking about such a meal, too.

I thirst all year round, however, for simple, tasty meals. Increasingly in the coming days of cold weather I want these meals, maybe a couple times a week. I crave a delicious dinner I don’t have to think about, shop for, prepare much, cook very long, or clean up after. They come pretty closely to “a comfort meals,” way more than just comfort food. Think of your cast iron skillet, casserole dish, baking dish, loaf or frying pan. Think of “One Pot Wonders,” the simpler the better. Most of these meals mean leftovers that can be better than the original!

While all the meals below seem colorless and are one shade of brown or another, it doesn’t matter that they’re not pretty because they are such easy and such delicious recipes I’ve come to depend on.

Sassy’s Meatloaf

It’s named after my wife, who—bonus!—does the cooking, too. And her meatloaf can be frozen for several future days of fabulously fabulous sandwiches. Here’s her recipe: a pound each of ground beef, pork, and veal mixed together. Chopped onion and carrot, an egg, a splash of milk, bread crumbs and a glog of ketchup. Place in a loaf pan and top with ketchup. Bake at 350 for an hour plus. Drain off excess fat.

Meat loaf the day after . . . ready for a sandwich

Mac & Cheese

One of the most reliably interesting and creative web pages on the web is Leite's Culinaria. On it can be found numerous variations of mac & cheese. I’m also especially fond of the Anne Byrn Between the Layers’ “How to Make the Best Mac & Cheese” recipe.

Some people cook it on stove top but I’m an oven guy. I like to use a blend of cheeses when making it for a creamier sauce. If your recipe only calls for one, swap out half of it for another cheese. Fontina, an excellent melter, is always a good option. Others: shredded mild white cheddar, mozzarella, Gruyère—a favorite, Cantal, pecorino sheep, or Gorgonzola. In some recipes, crème fraîche is added, or heavy cream or milk, and eggs. Italian sausage, hot or sweet, is a good addition. And I like to sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs (either fresh or panko) with some melted butter and scattered over the pasta. If the top of your mac & cheese doesn’t brown as much as you’d like after about 25 minutes at 350 degrees, stick it under the broiler for a minute before serving.

Mac & Cheese: Do children or adults like it better?

Parents make this one for the children I know who love mac & cheese or often grab a box of Annie's Organic Cheddar Shells. They can be combined with peas, small plum tomatoes cut into quarters (to make them small and bite-sized), and crumbled bacon. One variation calls for cauliflower and meatballs. The trick here is to use riced cauliflower to hide it. Another variation is one with broccoli and chicken apple sausage. It’s good for a side dish to pair it with another kid-favorite, chicken nuggets.

Whether or not you are curious about how the whole mac & cheese thing in the U.S. began, it’s a story to tell your kiddos. Here it is. The dish was introduced to America in the 1800s by James Hemings, the slave chef of Thomas Jefferson, who served it at a State Dinner in 1802. Jefferson, while visiting France, fell in love with the dish and brought home recipes for it and a pasta machine. I’d sure like to see that pasta machine someday. Oh, we also have Jefferson to thank for fine wine and ice cream, french fries, Parmesan cheese, and champagne.

Chicken Thighs & Beans

I make this one. Into my newly purchased 2.4-qt Staub ceramic oval matte black baking dish I pour a couple glugs of olive oil. In to the center of the dish go 3 to 4 chicken thighs, bone-in or boneless, skin on. Around them, Navy beans, topped with chicken bone broth. Pour one can or more of Navy—a small white with a mellow and creamy flavor, Great Northern, or cannellini—beans (drained or not) around the sides of the dish. Top the beans with chicken bone stock/broth. Salt and pepper, especially heavy with the salt on the chicken to crisp the skins. Bake for 1 hour at 375 degrees. Remove the thighs and a portion of the beans for your partner who may not like the beans really hammered to a brownness and crispness just this side of totally dried out. This makes a delightful day-after meal having amply buttered the beans and reheated with the thighs.

Chicken thighs & beans, delish the day of and for days after, too

Tuna-Noodle Casserole

This one dates back to my childhood. I asked my two younger sisters for confirmation of what Mom cooked us. Yup, she made it, plus a Chinese chow mein casserole with celery. One of my sisters hated it! Mom also made skillet-braised pork chops with mashed potatoes; meat loaf; chocolate pudding; and a lovely Danish raspberry jello.

Piping hot tuna-noodle casserole right from the oven

I start my tuna-noodle casserole with noodles, hefty ones—not spaghetti-sized or hollow—such as linguine or elbow. Cook and add to a bowl with chunks of American cheese, canned mushroom soup, and your favorite solid white albacore tuna. Ya, I know, if I had any game at all I’d make my own roux, but all these dishes are definitely of the “no-game” variety. I always use tuna in water for this recipe, whether in the 4 oz can or larger, depending on the amount of pasta I’m cooking up. The more pasta, the more tuna. For this batch I used ramekins, which I buttered and coated the insides of with widely available panko bread crumbs. Into the ramekins goes the mixed-together uncooked ingredients, on top of which go more panko. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 min or until brown and to your liking. This dish is better the next day than on the first one, with the smattering of butter all over it.

Check out the Seasoned Mom’s old fashioned recipe with crushed potato chips on top.

Ground Beef & Beans

I only use B&M Baked Beans with molasses, pork, and spices, in that cute, pudgy 18 oz glass jar, if you can find them. I can’t! The canned 16 oz beans are sufficient and great, too. The easy peasy recipe: a pound of ground beef, a can of beans, some chopped onion.

Here’s why I only use B&M: Not all brands of baked beans are the same. There is immense variety in sauce recipes, with some brands using tomato, maple syrup or brown sugar or molasses, and some pork. Sometimes mustard, vinegar, or garlic powder. And the beans themselves can vary. The pea bean variety, also known as the Navy bean are B&M’s white legume that gets its name from the fact that the U.S. Navy has served it as a staple since the mid-1800s.

Not quite sure why this is so delish but it must be the bean seasonings

Ground beef meat-to-fat percentages can be 93-7, 90-10, 85-15, 80-20, or 73-27, all depending on your preference. Then there are grades of beef: prime, choice, select, and standard. I’m not picky and I’ve never had a bad dish.

Other Simple Dishes

-I like the above beef recipe so much, but I wonder what lamb or veal or ground chicken thighs might taste like

-Tater tots and breaded fish sticks. Who doesn’t love them?

-White chicken chili from cooking and baking superstar Anne Byrn

-Another recipe is chicken and stuffing or Thanksgiving dinner in a bowl, from The Seasoned Mom in her Virginia Farmhouse Kitchen. (I’m gonna try this in a pot!)

-Macaroni and beef casserole

-Chinese noodles with tuna and cashews

-Creamed chicken on toast with peas

-One of my hit parade no-cook meals is a can of tuna in olive oil with raw scallions

Merely Thinking About Drinking

A Bourbon is a member of a French family founded in 1272 to which belonged the rulers of France from 1589 to 1793 and from Spain and Naples and the two Sicilies from then to the late 1800s. A Bourbon can also be a person who clings obstinately to old social and political idea, specifically an extremely conservative member of the U.S. Democratic party usually from the South.

A bourbon is also a rose (Rosa borboniana) with upright growth with shining leaves, prickly branches, and clustered large flower.

And, of course, bourbon is also a whiskey distilled from a mash made up of not less than 51 percent corn plus malt and rye. This is one I occasionally dream about drinking, but only one, in particular, Pappy Van Winkle. Well, maybe even Arby’s. Arby’s? you ask. These products—rare as hen’s teeth!—of both distilleries are enveloped in absorbing stories. Pappy, because it’s almost impossible not to covet. Arby’s, because it’s so improbable from “We Have the Meats” folks. Just why am I telling you about stuff you can’t buy? Well, the hunt can be a big part of the fun. Hint: a decade ago, you could experience an entire Pappy tasting four miles up a hollow in East Tennessee. But that tasting is no longer offered. Or, just maybe you’re such an avid bourboner you might covet your name on a bottle. If so, the Arby’s distiller is someone to call.

Port Wine

Having watched V is for Vino’s video on port and Portugal, plus having read an article about port in the San Francisco Chronicle, I’ve started experimenting with ports other than vintage, an old standard I’m a little familiar with. One of them, Fonseca "Terra Bella" Reserve Port, is absolutely delicious . . . and a steal around $10. Another, Taylor Fladgate LBV 2016—a late bottled vintage ready-to-drink alternative to vintage port—isn’t nearly as charming to my palate, even though both are rated in the low 90s by critics. On with the adventure. Next up is white port.

What I’m Watching

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy has been on Sunday nights on CNN this fall. The current season’s episodes are: #1 Venice, #2 Piedmont, #3 Umbria, #4 London, #5 Calabria, #6 Sardinia, #7 Puglia, #8 Liguria. The Liguria episode, the season’s last, was aired October 30, but all episodes of this enchanting series are available on YouTube.

A Lamb Tale

While simple recipes such as those above are weekly staples in my house, when I itch for something fancy every once in a while, I itch as if I had rolled in a bed of poison ivy.

Which brings me to this unusual grocery store story. Seems like most customers and most butchers and clerks at this neighborhood find surprisingly know each other more than casually. Such familiarity sometimes extends to greeting each other by name. On a recent weekend, I went in shopping for lamb loin, a pricy, uncommon luxury but worth every penny I pay for it. I just don’t want to pay for it very often. And the trouble is, I’ve found it in only two grocery stores anywhere near me.

In store #1 they want you to buy a whole package of local, frozen loins, 1 1/2 to 2+ pounds at $35/pound, which is too much lamb and too much cash—$50 to $70—for both me and my wife. In store #2 they have lamb tenderloin frozen 1.5 to 2+ pounds for $24/pound, which is still too much lamb and too much cash—$35 to $45—for both me and my wife, a big improvement, but from New Zealand, which matters. Enrique— the butcher at #2, when hearing about what I referred to “a guy down the street” or really store #1, a noteworthy competitor—hospitably came up with a solution.

“You buy half,” he proposed. “Since I love it, I’ll buy the other half!” I cotton to U.S. lamb so I’m gonna take #2’s deal back to #1 to see if he’ll bite . . . .

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