As y'all know, I truly, dearly, deeply love to cook. I cook for friends and family, and I'm finally learning to cook for me, too. The one thing I don't do much of is shop. Put me in a grocery store and I'm like a mini tornado; all I want to do is get in and get out, wreaking as much damage to my budget along the way as possible.
I used to do 'meal planning', you know the sort I mean. Where you list out all the meals you're going to prepare for the next seven days, drive to the store with your 'organized by category' list - i.e., dairy, vegetables, meat, etc. - and slowly peruse the grocery aisles until every item on the list is checked off. And that is a fine and noble way to shop. Unless you happen to be me. I plan the meals, create my lists, dutifully shop to accommodate said lists, get home, unpack, and I'm ready for the week. Right? Oh, so very wrong. Let's just say I'd decided, on Saturday when I created the menus, wrote out my lists, did my shopping, and put all the food away, that Monday night was going to be lightly sauteed spinach, a grilled chicken breast, and some green beans. Great - two greens, a bit of protein, perfectly Atkins-balanced meal. Except Monday rolls around, I've had a long day, and the idea of eating anything even remotely healthy is enough to make me swear off both eating, and cooking, forever. So I order a large pizza, sausage, pepperoni, black olive. Large, you ask? For one person? Well, ever thrifty, I'll freeze most of it and take it out in two-piece increments to consume later. Except that I decide I don't want to eat the pizza alone and invite my neighbors over, and pretty soon the healthy and nutritious meal, which I've already paid for, if you recall, is a thing of the past, and beer, bourbon and pizza abound.
Ahem. Yes, so I rarely plan meals beyond, 'sure, I could eat that'.
Last night, in the spirit of 'sure, I could eat that', I dug into my refrigerator. Rather dismal sight, the inside of my refrigerator. Eggs and butter are immediately visible. There is a red box that proclaims chocolate lie within. The box misrepresents - what lie within is EVER so much better than chocolate - what lie within is a cigar from my friend Peter. Water, two pitchers, rest on the bottom shelf. The door shelves hold pickles, olives, condiments, V-8 and half and half. That is about the extent of what is readily visible in my refrigerator. The meat drawer holds three cheeses - Monterey Jack, Asiago, and Romano - as well as thinly-sliced turkey breast, bacon, and pork tenderloin. The vegetable drawers hold one head of Romaine lettuce, a mostly-eaten head of iceberg lettuce, two zucchini, two yellow squash, green beans, and mushrooms. The bowl that holds things like garlic and onions and tomatoes has three tomatoes and three gloves of garlic and one scallion. From the meat and vegetable drawer, as well as the vegetable bowl, I need to create dinner. Oh - and even though I have both rice and rissotto, this is a no-starch dinner. (See the Atkins comment above.)
Grabbing my iron skillet, I pour about a teaspoon of olive oil into the pan, put the heat on medium, and plop about a teaspoon and a half of butter (lightly salted) into the oil. While the butter is melting, I grind fresh nutmeg into the pan, add basil and thyme and a dash of white pepper, turn the heat down just a touch, and slice the pork tenderloin into half-inch thick medallions. These go into the pan, searing both sides, and then come out. As the pork sears, the mushrooms get sliced. When the pork is done, more oil, more butter, and more of the spices go into the pan, and then the mushrooms get added to the lovely butter-spice blend. Cook down slightly, and as they cook, one each of the zucchini and yellow squash get chopped, added to the butter- mushroom-spice mix. A bit more butter, but not too much, stir around. Chop the three tomatoes, add to veggie mix, stir carefully. Turn the heat down even more, let tomatoes 'stew'. As they cook, I remove the skin when it falls from the meat of the tomato. I've yet to taste anything; instead, I'm going by smell and feel. The base is now rich in vegetable juices, grounded in the juice from the searing of the pork medallions. I put the seven medallions (yes, Tuck got a pork medallion mixed in with his dinner) into the vegetable mix, being sure the pork rests against the bottom of the skillet, and cover each piece with some of the veggies. Turning off the heat, I put a lid over the skillet so that the pork will finish cooking in the ambient heat.
I serve up three medallions with vegetables, grate fresh Asiago cheese over the mix, and sit down with a glass of (diet) Iced Tea at my table to enjoy the meal.
It was so good that I'm actually going to eat the leftovers tonight for dinner - something I rarely, if ever, do, unless it's pizza or Chinese that someone else made.
Simple food, made simply ....
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