Category: Veggies

these have veggies

Instant Potatoes from bag

This one is super easy. Follow the directions on the bag. 

I added extra garlic powder and dried parsley (like ¼ of a cup each) that I found at the back of the spice drawer. Nothing like expired spices to add that extra flavor. I also put a stick of butter in it. Yes, a stick, but I did make two family sized bags so adjust as you see fit. 

My kids have never liked mashed potatoes. This was no exception. I made it to go with my Ribs and perhaps a bit of nostalgia. We had instant potatoes often as kids. Tasty, tasty nostalgia. 

chefmckean

Bean and Kielbasa Stew

This has become a staple in our house because of a purchase I made in the spring of 2020: I signed up for a Community Support Agriculture share of heirloom beans along with all the veggies. So we got a pound of beans a week. 

Dried beans. 

So many beans. 

What you need:

Dried beans that you soak overnight. It doesn’t fucking matter as long as it is more than 6 hours.

Kielbasa or something like it. Ya know, precooked sausage-like hotdog or machine-separated meat in a casing. 

Onions

Garlic – more is better

Other veggies (see Variations below)

Herbs (see Variations below)

Flour. Probably about a ¼ cup… you want a good coat on the shit you’re cooking

What you do:

Choppy chop the onion and garlic – make these small.

Choppy chop the veggies to bite sized pieces.

Choppy chop the kielbasa to bite sized pieces.

Use a big pot!

Put oil in the pot, when it is hot add the kielbasa and brown it. (Maillard (it’s the caramel-look meat gets when you brown it…the more you know) effect for the win).

Once the sausage is browned add the onion and garlic and sauté till the onion is transparent (like my jokes).

Add in other veggies. 

Now for the fancy technique. It’s called Sange and it means to throw flour on your cooking food to thicken the sauce. So you dust (coat) the things in the pot with flour. You have to do this BEFORE you add any liquid or you will get clumps! And by coat I mean don’t be a pussy and put in enough flour to cover the things. Not so much that there are balls of flour on the bottom… that’s a sure way to get chunks. 

Stir that around a bit, and then dump in the beans and the water they soaked in. Yes the water they soaked in. After googling all things dried beans I found out that you soak them to shorten cooking time by about 20 min and that the water that you soak them in has bean-y flavor so use it. If you are going to soak them for 8+ hours to reduce cooking time by 20-30 min, use the damn water. 

Add more liquid so that everything is just barely covered. Sometimes I use stock, sometimes water, sometimes it’s a reason to open wine. (Like I need a reason.) 

Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer (tiny little cute bubbles for those unfamiliar with simmer; just put it on the lowest setting you have).  Stir it or the damn thing will stick to the bottom and burn. 

Cook for at least an hour, but I’ve let go as much as four with occasional stirring. Taste it and salt till it is good. I’d wait to salt till the end cause you are reducing liquid and if you salt at the beginning it’ll end up salty. Kind like me after a few drinks. 

Enjoy with crusty bread slathered in butter. I’m going to keep a running list of the variations I’ve done below and link to the photos on Instagram for your enjoyment. Like I said we have this almost every week and I can’t do the same thing forever. Although I do tend towards Kielbasa. At least that’s what I call it so the kids will eat it. You can use any machine separated and seasoned meat in a casing. 

Variation 1 –

Bean – Yellow Eye Bean

Sweet potatoes, cabbage, thyme, oregano, fennel, marjoram 

Kielbasa

Variation 2 – 

Bean – Appaloosa 

Potato, cabbage, basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram

Variation 3 – 

Beans – Large Lima Beans

Potato, carrot, celery, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika

chefmckean

Roasted Potatoes

What you need:

Boiler potatoes: I like purple. I mean, they‘re purple!!! White, yellow and red also work if you want to be boring.

Olive oil; and this is key: more than you think is sensible.

Salt

Oregano: again more than you think is sensible (see Instagram video)

Cut the potatoes into bite sized pieces. Put in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and oregano.

Dump it on a sheet pan. (Don’t want to clean? Use parchment paper!)

Cook until brown at 4000F. If you want to toss you can…I tend to leave them alone.

Eat up!

My husband demands the dousing of these potatoes in lemon. He’s not wrong.

My kids love it and so it became the go-to potato in our home.

I have Elizabeth B to thank for this. She has the luxurious lifestyle of an academic that allows her to travel to Greece. She shared this one night at our home. Incidentally, that night our son invited her to his room and said, “I want to take you to my bed”; and “I’m going to turn off the lights.” He was 2. Her husband was “traveling”. I’m not sure he “knows about this”.

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Bean and cheese mini tacos

Beans – add cumin and garlic powder.

Cheese – get the good stuff.

Street taco sized tortillas.

Heat beans, spread beans on tortillas, sprinkle cheese on top.

Broil fuckers until cheese melts.

Top with things you like.

My kids like olives. My husband likes things that have to be chopped, screw him, he can chop is own damn green onions.

That’s it. IDGAF today about anything complicated.

Tonight I accused my dad and husband of needing a pap-smear to sleep with…I meant c-pap…they both snore.

Given that Freudian slip I thought I should drink more. They advocated for water. I catapulted… I mean capitulated.

chefmckean

Roasted tomatoes and garlic

This is one of my favorites! It is an easy and fucking tasty combination that can be used in versatile ways.

Take cherry tomatoes of different colors (because it looks pretty goddammit) and peeled garlic (I like to buy the bags so I don’t have to spend hours peeling garlic). I don’t mean one clove or even one head. You want about 1/3 as much garlic to your tomatoes. So for 2 small containers of cherry tomatoes it’s probably close to 3 heads of garlic.

Toss the garlic and tomatoes in olive oil and salt and put on a sheet pan. I use parchment paper because, like all good mothers, I don’t like to clean.

Put in oven at 3500 F until the tops of everything are light brown.

This dish just makes me happy. In part because it’s really hard to fuck up! The most likely way is to burn them, so…don’t. And it always tastes good.

You can eat them:

  • Straight as a side.
  • Put them in pasta with a little more oil and salt and parmesan.
  • Put them on bread (focaccia, ciabatta, Baggett, whatever you fucking want) with mozzarella and basil as a meal (depending on how big a piece of bread you use.) Look on Instagram for my last use of this dish.
  • Any fucking way you want.

chefmckean

Spring Rolls

Spring Rolls are a fucking pain in the ass. My father now understands why you pay for these fuckers.

Plus, my kids are shits. Well 2 of the 3 are. The girl ate these things up. My husband goes nuts for them.

The beauty of these pains-in-the-ass is that they are low calorie, delicious, and filling. They aren’t difficult to make, but they are fucking tedious.

Cut veggies and fruits into sticks: like avocado, mango, cilantro, green onion, cucumber, and carrots (buy the sliced ones and save yourself some sanity in the already-insane prep).

For protein use cooked shrimp you have leftover from the office Christmas party that has been sitting in the freezer. Or imitation crab. Or you could go vegetarian, too.

Follow the directions on the rice paper wrapper. It’s like making small, fiddly burritos with a tortilla that tears easily. Fun, fun, fun!

As we’ve seen before, my husband is convinced it’s all about the sauce. I apparently made one years ago and didn’t write it down so now it lives on in his head as a standard I’ll never achieve. Thankfully, there’s nothing else in our marriage like that.

Here is an easy sauce or two:

  • lime, honey and ginger – mix together till it tastes good
    • lime, honey and sambal – mix together till it tastes good

See the theme?

Turns out that for 6 people you need more than one package of 14-16 wraps (even if there are 2 kids who only take one bite—my husband thinks I’m misremembering this, but did he do the cooking? he can STFU). So I substituted the leftover nori we had from “sushi” night (that’s another “disaster” I’ll write about). This was a horrible idea. Nori in small amounts is delightful, like around sushi rolls. Making fiddly burritos with it is awful, and I can’t emphasize this enough. It’s chewy and smelly and we ended up shaking the insides out into bowls to eat with a fork. It worked; not what I planned but still edible.

Since I still had all the filling I made ceviche out of it to use up the shrimp and crab. Chopped up all the last bits, mixed with the lime, honey, ginger sauce I had left, added more lime. Next time I’m doing this from the start and skipping the fucking rice paper folding. Meaning, I won’t do the fiddly wrapping again (my husband can make his own damn spring rolls; he loves ceviche anyway). It’s not like the kids will eat it in either form. And I still have a shit ton of veggies leftover that might turn into fucking slaw.

chefmckean

Risotto

This is another staple in our home. I know it sounds fancy and hard but it isn’t…

Arborio rice.  Look at the package to determine how much you want to eat.

              We eat about 3-4 cups of dry. (There are 5 of us and 3 keep growing up. I won’t mention how the other 2 of us are growing)

Bone broth – NOT stock. Bone broth is about the same price and has a ton of protein and other nutrients in it. Stock is just flavored water. I tend to use chicken because it’s mild. You need about 4 cups per cup of rice. 

Given the 4 cups of rice and 12 cups of liquid my family eats 16 cups of risotto…they are growing kids and leftovers are good for lunch or dinner two days later (god forbid we eat the same meal two nights in a row!).

Onion – 1 large cut into tiny pieces, you know so the kids can’t see the difference with the rice. Just to be clear onions are vegetables and count as a “hidden” food.

or

2 shallots – this is for traditional saffron risotto. What is the difference you ask? Well shallots have a milder flavor that doesn’t overpower the saffron. That’s all.

Other veggies:

~Yellow squash (2-3 depending on the size) – blended or tiny diced…it “hides” well with saffron and also doesn’t overpower it.

~Roasted red peppers and roasted garlic – I’ll do another post on how to roast these things. Cut ‘em up tiny.

Parmesan cheese – NOT the powder crap

White wine – I like sauvignon blanc for risotto.

Butter (1/2 stick)

Spices like saffron, turmeric, paprika. It depends on the veggies and your tastes.

Salt

Sauté onion (or shallot) in oil and some salt.

Once they are translucent and smell nice you can add other veggies till they also smell nice.

Add all of your rice.

You don’t add all your liquid at once. The idea is to watch the rice absorb the liquid until it is cooked. Start adding the bone broth just enough to keep things wet and stir often. Add more broth when the rice gets dry looking. Add in the spices and some salt.

You keep adding liquid and tasting until the rice is al-dente (which means you can bite though it but not so soft you don’t need teeth) add a cup or ½ bottle of wine, cheese and butter to taste, these are finishing flavors. Cook a bit more till the alcohol has cooked off (or add later and cook off less wine—the kids fall asleep faster with a bit of wine-y risotto). The wine, parmesan and butter are finishing touches and totally up to your tastes, just like the salt.

I tend to finish the bottle while cooking (I mean half went in the risotto). So I always get 2 or 3 more to have with dinner, yes I’m sharing the bottles mother… there is a reason this is a family staple. It also allows me to tell my husband I have to “cook” for the next hour (I’m stirring, tasting and drinking).

See notes on the wine choice. It isn’t just about being cheap.

Also because I’ve now added 1 onion, 1 pepper and a head of garlic (or 3 squash) I’ve almost got an equal ratio of rice to veggies…including the bone broth you’ve now got a one-pot-complete meal: veggies, protein, starch. Boom. Mom-win!

Finally, I’m sorry to all the “hidden veggie” recipes I used to deride pre-child. I now understand you on a level I previously could not. Parenting will do that.

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Pesto Pasta

Pesto Pasta is a staple in our house. My kids like cheese ravioli with pesto on it. They go around shouting pesto, pesto, pesto pasta to the tune of Macho, Macho Man. It’s cute and fucking annoying and loud. I usually kick them out of the house so the neighborhood can enjoy their “song”.

Package of ravioli or tortellini of your choice. Follow the directions on it.

Pesto. 2 choices here. Make it or buy it.

~If you buy it… open and dump on cooked pasta, stir and eat. enjoy spending money on something you can make for ½ the cost. Fucking bourgeoise.

~If you want to make it you will need:

Basil; like, tons of it. Sometimes I use kale with other herbs because I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) that gives me so much fucking kale I can’t even.

Nuts of some kind; pine nuts are pricey so use walnuts or almonds and tell me you can taste the difference.

Parmesan cheese (not the powder crap).

Garlic. Like a head of garlic. any recipe that calls for one clove is bullshit. Always make it a head. If you want to be a pansy only do a few cloves.

Olive oil and salt.

Blend it all together till it tastes good. Use the oil to make it not clump up and burnout your blender/ food processor.

Stir it into the pasta.

I’ve tried sausage ravioli…that went over like a load of bricks. My kids only do cheese and pasta combos. Lasagna, mac and cheese, cheese ravioli…so at least this way they get a few more greens in their diet. It also freezes well, which is why I have bags of kale pesto in the freezer. I mean it’s good to support the local farms but for fuck’s sake the amount of kale, sweet potatoes, beets, and okra I get is unreal. Anyway if you get shit-tons of kale it can be made into a pesto. Add some other herb like basil or oregano) to hide the kaleness of it. You can always give it to the neighbors and pretend you are a nice person instead of just pawning excess food off on people…I’ve never done this.

chefmckean

I fucking hate salad

Yesterday I fought with my husband over everything and nothing. today I laid in bed hoping he would miss me… he did but also still took care of the kids. Then I got up and gave my side of the anger story… then he was upset… then we did our own thing and then we talked and we’re fine… Dinner tonight was salad. I fucking hate salad… so much chopping… at least the kids ate it.. mostly… along with pizza rolls… cause I didn’t want to cook.

Recipe:

leaves of something

veggies you like (cut the fuckers up)

leftover meat (fish, chicken, steak if you have it, preferable less than a week old)

salad dressing your family tolerates (for us this involves 3 fucking types, another reason I hate salad)

pizza rolls – follow the fucking directions on the box (if you want to feel less awful get Annie’s or some other organic kind of junk food)

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