Guest Blog – Lazy Man Cooks

Today’s Guest Blogger is MountainWestBob!

Andy’s Introduction to Bob:

Ann and I met Bob and his wife Gayle when I was in grad school back in the dark ages,  i.e., when research was done with Fortran and punch cards.  Our connection actually goes beyond being grad school buddies. It turns out that Gayle was the OB nurse on duty at Poudre Valley Hospital when our daughter Sara was born; Gayle introduced Ann to the world of newborn babies… something we really needed at that time.   Bob left grad school for Pinkerton, and because stage coach robberies were only in movies by then, his work was largely in industrial security.   The great stories he shared with me about uncovering employee theft in various industries provided wonderful examples over the years for my deviant behavior and criminology courses.  So after all of these years it was very special that Bob agreed to be a guest blogger  (following some arm twisting I must admit).

Now here’s Bob’s Introduction:

We’ve just marked 15 years of retirement. Some know more of the details, such as how we met 52 winters ago because we’d both cut the same class at the U of MN due to extreme cold (minus 30 or more) on a Monday, and how 6 weeks later, on a Saturday afternoon, I observed that “Since we do this so well together, we should get married” and Gayle responded, “OK.”

I failed in grad school due to an acquired inability to understand articles in sociology journals. Joined the old Pinkerton’s, Inc. folks and made a career out of industrial security. Everything from the home and offices of a Cabinet official, corporate headquarters, and colleges, to major slaughterhouses received the benefit of my steely gaze and wisdom.

New Mexico is our 7^th state since marriage. Gayle followed along as school and work took me on a trek from Minnesota to Colorado, Nebraska, Indiana, Illinois, and New Jersey. That made the retirement location hers to determine. We bought a motor home and visited (or at least drove through) 40 states before discovering the moderate climate, captivating culture, and enchanting geology of New Mexico; living in a minority Anglo state is good! And, good for us.

Gayle is mostly-retired as a critical care nurse, having first earned a nursing diploma, and later her BSN and MA degrees.

We’ve traveled during these years, volunteered a bunch, and use the local Y to good effect.

[We asked Bob to tell us a little about how and why he got into cooking]

What drives my cooking, besides thinking that often it’s the only way I’m going to get fed?

In my natal family, we each had to learn how to do everything. Laundry, sewing to repair clothes (darning socks, securing rips and tears, replacing buttons), cleaning house, and… cooking. Plus, of course, house repair, some plumbing, electrical repairs, construction, and basic gardening. It was a broad “domestic education.”

By second grade, I was coming home to an empty house at lunch time and had to fend for myself. My most dramatic lunch involved a decision to make waffles… I found the waffle-iron and plugged it in, got the recipe book and ingredients out and was ready. Except that I had a question. So, I dialed 411 for information, explained my predicament to the operator and asked whether I was to use a teaspoon or a tablespoon of one ingredient. She responded by explaining that if the instruction used a capital letter “T” it required a tablespoon. I thanked her, made excellent waffles, cleaned everything up and returned to school on time! We had little money, and – if memory serves – I made a batch of mapleine syrup (from a powder, mixed with water and heated on the stove – Log Cabin was a sometime-luxury.)

By the time I was 14 or 15 my parents had moved us to another house and we were renting the first place out to students. Girls. I was often there doing chores, and heard the girls kvetching about their poor cooking skills and resulting lackluster dinners. I offered to make them something nice. They accepted, and we chose a day. I prepared a nice baked chicken dish similar to a cacciatore, except it was baked with milk and or cream, probably half-and-half – my memory is a bit faded. The five girls were delighted.

Gayle and I share nearly all chores, though we each have specialties (I do any necessary trimming and spraying outdoors, she does everything connected with potted plants). We share cooking and cleaning up. Both of us have a plate-full of volunteer, exercise, and reading activities, and neither one of us wants to make the kitchen a focus of our energies. Here, too, we share, but with specialties. I do very nearly everything concerning the grill (almost all meat and many veggies are grilled), and Gayle does the same regarding our functional salads*. We focus on the goal of tasty and nutritious dishes, with easy preparation and clean-up.

*A functional salad involves real veggies and little lettuce (Editor’s note: see our blog about holding back on lettuce here).  Spinach, onion, sweet peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes combine with others as may be available, and often obviate any “need” for a separate cooked veggie on the plate. Throw chunks of grilled chicken atop one of these salads and a healthy and hearty one-dish meal is created.

Lazy Man Cooks…Easy Crockpot Chili, Easy Chicken Parmesan, and Super Simple Salmon on the Grill

Easy Crockpot Chili

The ingredients for this dish may vary, depending on our mood and availability of components.  I have included some pictures that show how I made the chili.   This is not a gourmet meal, but is a satisfying and nutritious taste treat.

For the first time, I bought ‘minced beef’ which was great… like stewing beef but maybe 1/4 the size.  I often use chicken or maybe even “beefless beef” from Trader Joe’s, but I’d spotted the minced stuff and decided on that. I lightly floured the beef adding just a couple pinches of salt and then browned it in a pan with olive oil.  The beef was quite lean so there was no oil left after the beef was browned.

Ready to mix the tomato mixture with the fried ground beef

Another first: I mixed the ingredients in a bowl! I usually just dump it all in the pot, but decided to try pre-mixing it. I added coarsely chopped garlic and onion to the tomato puree, tomato paste, and fire-roasted tomato and finally added the beef and onion.

Next up was rinsing off the canned beans. We are of that “always rinse the beans” tribe. We almost never start with dried beans, as we can never get them to the peak of prep that the canned product offers. I only used two cans of beans today… there was room in the crock pot for a can of black beans, but I neglected to buy any. Then I threw in a can of corn (frozen fire-roasted corn works fine, but I decided on the canned variety this time).

Cooking! Heating! For about 8 hours… had other activities today: did laundry, cleaned the oven, cleaned the patio (after the wind-storms of this past week), and typed the notes from our HOA board meeting. Gayle was busy, too, and she is the one that scrubbed the racks from the oven! Yea! Gayle!

Finally, it was din-din time. We ate our first al fresco meal of the season in very comfortable 75 degree weather. Served it with local flour tortillas.

We had about 4 servings left-over. which we stored in a Pyrex container (we’ve converted from plastic).

Easy Chicken Parmesan ala MountainWestBob

Recently, for company, I made Chicken Parmesan ala Bob. Remember, I’m not in competition any longer… it’s been agreed I’m one of the laziest men on earth! My cooking reflects this. This was my third try with Chix Parm and it worked.

Above is a picture of the basic ingredients.  For the sauce I chose Newman’s Own Sockarooni! I tried other stuff the first time, but it was totally wimpy and without flavor, so switched to our preferred s’getti sauce.

I used two bottles tonight for 4 people, anticipating left-overs… and there are some. What to do with the extra? Add a can of sliced mushrooms and boil up some more whole grain spaghetti noodles.

Crucial: Do not beat anything, but use a wire whip liberally with the egg! Especially: don’t beat the thighs! I prepped the thighs before the company arrived: dipping them in flour, then egg, then panko, and setting them on a platter and covering them with plastic wrap until ready to actually cook.

When the door bell rang I turned on the oven to 425 and started the spaghetti water to heat while we chatted and enjoyed some hot brie with crackers, sliced pears and apples and Melba Toast.

Back in the kitchen, I started heating the second bottle of Sockarooni and put on a skillet with some olive oil for the thighs. When hot, I dropped the thighs in for 4 minutes per side, removed them from the skillet, added about a half bottle of the Sockarooni, put the thighs back in, and carefully added the rest of the sauce.  I popped this into the hot oven for 22 minutes. When 8 minutes were left on the thighs, I put 8 ounces of whole grain thin spaghetti into the water (editor’s note: read up on the value of whole grain pasta in this Washington Post article). Everything finished at the same time, and I brought out the platter of thighs with sauce, and a bowl of the noodles and a second bowl of the extra sauce.

Note: we just cleaned the oven this past weekend and didn’t want a lot of spatters all over, so we covered the skillet with a wire mesh spatter-guard from Ikea… and it was perfect. It’s entirely made of metal, so there’s no fear of putting it in the oven.

Gayle made a nice field-greens salad with a few ripe olives and tomato slices as a garnish for the dinner and a wonderful lime panna cotta for desert, and served that with some mixed berries up top. Yum.

Our guests brought a bottle of white wine, and a loaf of local Italian-style bread that were both great!

Footnote:  It’s important to me – from my childhood training – that every “cooked” element be ready at the same time, and that it be served hot… So, while Gayle and our guests were enjoying the last of the cheese/crackers/fruit in the L.R. I went to the kitchen to fry the prepared chicken thighs and get them into the oven… and set the timer and watch for the right moment to start the pasta.

We are lookin’ forward to using the leftover thighs with some freshly prepared pasta and sauce enhanced with ‘shrooms this weekend.

On to the Super Simple Salmon on the Grill

I purchased frozen salmon from Costco (above photo) which comes in about 5 ounce partions.  We take the number of packs we need out by noon, and they are thawed by dinner. If I’m late and need to speed the process, I sometimes place the frozen packets on an inverted heavy aluminum griddle… if I recall my high school physics, the aluminum quickly works to balance the temperature between room and fillet, and the inverted griddle allows the colder air to drop away from the underside of the griddle.

Do not go to the next step unless you are really ready for dinner (or if there’s a little wait, you can cover the prepped fillets with Saran wrap).

The above photo shows the salmon on the platter with the condiments we use: Olive Oil (never heard of it as a kid in Minnesota, but use it almost daily in New Mexico), Jamaica Me Crazy (pepper-based spice mix – which has now been replaced with Johnny’s Seasoned Pepper), and capers. Note: capers have salt, so we add none during cooking although I add a bit to my portion at the table.

I use a steel fork to lift the salmon a bit, and a steel spatula to slide the fillet onto the pre-heated grill (set to medium). Eight minutes to cook! Please, no more! You don’t want them dried out.  When white material is coming out of the salmon, it’s done.  Of course, the time may vary some depending on your grill.   I’ve done a whole multi-pound fillet and left it on 9 to maybe 10 minutes. No turning or fussing! Let it cook, skin side down.

Remove to platter and thence to the plate.