Every once in a while, my wife and I have what we like to call Cook Day. The theory behind cook day is that we can spend an entire day cooking some of our favorite recipes that we know will feeze well. At the end of the day, we freeze most of the meals we cook, resulting in dinners and lunchs for several months to come. We just take the meals out (already packaged into single or double servings -- and I suppose two and a half for the baby soon enough), thaw for a day or overnight, and cook on the stove or in the oven.
Ideally, Cook Day should be thematic. That is to say, the recipes should feature some similar ingredient lists. Preparing meals with some common ingredients saves alot of money for us. This is particularly pracitcal with seasonal foods or herbs that don't preserve very well. When you buy a bunch of Parsely for example, it's nice to make several dishes that have Parlsey in them, instead of using the 3 tablespoons required for your soup, and putting the rest into the Rotting Drawer of the fridge (hospice for veggies I believe).
Thematic Cook Day has not really occured yet here at the GrayClements household, but Thematic Menu week has. Although it only happened once, Nicole thought out our meals for a week in sucha splendid fashion that we were both in awe, and still reminisce about the touch of genius that came with that week. I can work more on that later.
Ok, so this past Cook Day wasn't a Thematic sort per se, although beans seemed to come up quite often. We sort of got our list ready ahead of time with only three real criteria --1. we needed to use some of the side of beef we had purchased (I'll give a whole blog to beef and ingredients) and 2. we needed a little more clean protein in our diets, and beans are so easy and tasty (who cares if they are 'incomplete' proteins?? They sure beat a jr. bacon cheeseburger from wendy's any day) and 3. some of the jalapenos were ripening and I wanted to use them.
Our list came out with the following; Split Pea Soup, Senate Bean Soup, Smoked Salmon, Shepherd's Pie, Chili con Carne, Pot Roast, and Goat Cheese Burgers.
We started cooking at about 8am, and I think we finished up by around 9:30pm (with everything put away in the freezer by 10pm or so). I knew when we started that it was going to be a long day, but since we had some smoking to do, it sort of stretched out longer than I had even anticipated. It was worth it.
To start things off, I had to thaw the meat. So, on Friday (Cook Day was Sunday) I put a 4 pound roast, 4 pounds of precut stew meat and 2 pounds of ground beef into the Beer Fridge to thaw. (The Beer Fridge is normally very sparsely populated as I use beer for entertaining and cooking mainly, with wine being my libation of choice). The Beer Fridge is a mini dorm-size fridge from when my brother went to college, and then I inherited after that. I might give a whole blog entry to the Beer Fridge as well.
On Saturday we made a list of all the ingredients that we needed to get from the store. We always have to go to two stores to buy groceries -- Kroger for most things, and Eat's Natrual Foods for all dried beans and whole foods like that (Yumm!). We also had to go to the garden to pick our peppers (although this wasn't exactly necessary) and some fingerling potatoes (a must have).
So, on Sunday morning we started cooking. The baby went down, and we jumped in with vigor. We started with the pot roast, the split pea soup, and the beans for the chili and the senate bean soup.
For the Pot Roast, we opted for the quick and easy Crock Pot (although I don't really see how it's any easier or better than just tossing the roast in a dutch oven in the oven). I think if we had planned on baking something as well, this would have left the oven open. As it was, we could have done either way. So, we rinsed the roast (I don't know why, but I HAVE to do this, it's like an OCD habit need for me or something), salt and peppered it, and chucked it in the crock pot. Onto that we through an onion (or two) about two shallots (we got about 20 BIG shallots from our garden this spring), some dehydrated carrots (check for an ingredient blog later), some celery (with the leaves, ALWAYS with the leaves), lots and lots of garlic, some thyme (from the kitchen herb garden) and a couple of bay leaves (so elegant I feel dirty using them). Then we set the pot in the dining room to stew. We forgot to plug it in for the first four hours, so it took ALOT longer than it should have. Tip: ALWAYS plug the crock pot in for best results. Ours doesn't have this warning on it, so we learned the hard way.
Next came the soaking of the beans. For Senate Bean Soup, we needed a pound or so (about 2 cups) of navy beans (or other small white beans). For the Chili con Carne, we wanted to add some Kidney beans (although the recipe doesn't call for it). So, in two separate pots, we dropped the different beans. Then, we filled the pots to two inches above the beans with boiling water. Let that sit for about 2 hours or so, and the beans are 'soaked'.
Since the peas for the split pea soup require no soaking (I don't believe peas are actually beans), we just went ahead and started the dish after the beans had started soaking. The recipe I use for this is from the Joy of Cooking and is wonderful. I HATED peas as a kid, but those were those nasty, sweetly bitter sticktoyourmouthanddryyouout things in a can. Yuck! Actual fresh peas are like dipping your hand into a Halloween candy bag and getting something healthy for you. After you eat a fresh Sugar Snap pea, you have to look around and see if the cops are coming because it tastes so good it should be illegal. Anyways, split pea soup tastes of pepper and ham, with a thick, green (or yellow -- i'll explain) sauce that doesn't taste like what everyone thinks peas taste like. There are little hints of onion and carrot and a blend of aromatics that meld together into something that can only be described as 'heartily good'. MMMMM!!
Basically, to make split pea soup, you boil the peas with a smoked ham hock (that they pretty much give away in the grocery store) for about an hour or so. Then, you clena up the ham hock (chop it, remove the fat, and discard the bone). Chuck the meat and some celery (again, with the leaves), some onions, carrot and garlic back into the pot with the peas. Add some spices and simmer for another hour. During the second simmer, the peas start to disintegrate and change into a thick pasty sauce. The soup will separate a little when cooled, and again when reheated on the stove or in the microwave. Not a problem, just stir and enjoy.
If you can handle the extra calories, a good hunk of bread with butter goes a long way with a bowl of split pea soup.
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