For a long time, I thought I was incapable of making stuffing that was yummy. I figured that since my drunk turkey was the bomb, if was ok if I was stuffing deficient. But the truth was, I was trying to make stuffing for vegans using shit stuffing mix from Trader Joe’s (FYI NOTHING GOOD EVER COMES FROM TRADER JOE’S. DON’T BUY SHIT THERE).

Once I gave up on satisfying the vegans and using crap stuffing mix, the stuffing got drastically better. The rules of stuffing are this: keep it simple, don’t cook it in the bird, and use tasty animal products.

What you need:
(This is to make a huge amount of stuffing. You can easily halve it to go with a chicken dinner or wevs)

2 packages of cornbread stuffing (Pepperidge Farm is good. This year I used some box of something else that was on sale. It was good too. )
celery
onions
parsley
sausage (I use 2 rolls of Jimmy Dean Sage sausage. But I have also made sausage from scratch using ground pork and that was so fucking good)
sage
poultry seasoning
thyme
salt pepper
chicken stock (Better Than Bullion is the awesomest. I can do stock from scratch but this way easier)
Butter (read the stuffing package to see how much you need)

In a large saucepan, brown the sausage over low heat so you can render out as much fat as possible.

When sausage is cooked, remove from pan with slotted spoon and set aside.

Add a wee bit of oil back into the pan to supplement the sausage grease that’s all ready in there

Turn heat up.

Add diced onions and celery. I use a whole thing of celery, including the leaves and saving the end bit to make stock later. Also I use 3 large yellow onions. Cook till onions are translucent. Add spices. Lots of spices. Then add the sausage back in.

Meanwhile, in a great big fucking bowl, pour in stuffing mix. Add chopped parsley (I use 2 bunches of curly parsley, but flat leaf is fine too). Melt butter in microwave. Measure out stock according to package directions.

Put onion & sausage mix in bowl with stuffing. Mix. Then add your stock and melted butter. Mix again. Taste. Add spices if needed. You really can’t go wrong with poultry seasoning the hell out of it. Really. And don’t forget the pepper. That little bit of bite is important.

Loosely pack the whole mix into a giant lasagna pan. Bake, uncovered, in a 350 oven for 45 minutes.

And that is stuffing so good people will whisper “It’s better than my…..” It’s also super fucking easy, so yay.

For dinner (the inaugural new apartment dinner partay) we had beef stew with mustard and mushrooms,rosemary drop biscuits and spinach salad. But not just any spinach salad.

I have gotten a bit out of the habit of making fancy salads, what with living with relatives who are, in the kindest of terms, pedestrian in their eating habits. A salad that has both leafy greens and fruit would overwhelm their palates. But this is easy and I can make it quick while things are resting on the stove.

What you need:
A bag of spinach
Large can of mandarin oranges
Half a small red onion, diced
Dried cranberries or cherries
feta

For the dressing:
balsalmic vinegar
olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed and diced
dijon mustard
salt & pepper

Mix salad makings in large bowl.

In a small glass or measuring cup mix equal parts oil and vinegar)It might not actually be equal parts. I just glug shit in till it feels right, so ymmv). Add a tablespoon or so of mustard, the garlic and salt and pepper. Whisk till the dressing is emulsified. Poor over salad and toss.

That’s it. But it will make your guests ask for seconds on the salad, no matter that the beef stew you made literally melts in their mouths. When I’ve made this at Thanksgiving, Ruth has been known to stand next to the bowl eating it with her fingers until the turkey is cool enough to eat with her fingers. People will become self-conscious that they are asking for seconds on salad. It is ok for you to make them grovel at this point.

So it’s winter, which means it’s cheap pork season. Kid and I found thick cut pork chops for 99 cents per pound (2 chops equals a pound) and we’ll be eating pork chops a few times this week. For some reason (religion, fear of undercooked pork from parents, I don’t know what) most of my friends are afraid of cooking pork and unfamiliar with what to do with it. If you find a cheap pork roast- throw that shit in the crock pot and eat up. But chops are as easy to work with as boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The thinner cut chops are more tender, but thick cut chops can be yummy too.

When I have the cash I like to bread the chops and make pork chops limonata. It’s just your basic breading- flour, dip in egg wash, dip in seasoned breadcrumbs. I add lots of extra seasoning to the bread crumbs. Garlic salt (Lowrys California style with parsley- I swear by that shit. I don’t know why it’s different and better, but it is) lemon pepper, regular pepper, oregano or basil, paprika, and as much finely grated lemon zest as you can get your hands on. In a heavy skillet, heat up a generous amount of oil (if you have leftover bacon fat in the fridge, throw some of that in with vegetable or olive oil, but not bacon fat all by itself because it will burn to fast). Fry the chops. If they are thin, this will only take a few minutes on each side. Squeeze a lemon wedge or two over each finished chop for extra tangy goodness.

When I don’t have the cash, or the space, or the patience, to bread I just saute. This is the exact same thing I do to boring chicken breasts, and I NEVER have dry or bland meat. I have a meat nose in the same way that bakers have a bread nose. I can tell the doneness of a steak by sniffing it.

So how to saute cheap white meats…

In a heavy skillet, heat olive oil on high. Throw your well-weasoned meat in. Sear it on each side till it gets a little orangey-golden and then flip. Don’t play fidgety Phil with your meat. Extra flipping doesn’t help. If you’re using a cast iron or stainless steel pan, the meat will stick at first. Ignore it. Once it gets hot enough to start releasing liquid, it will unstick itself.

When it’s nice and golden on each side, you steam it. You don’t add any extra liquid. Just turn the pan down to medium low and stick a lid on it. If I am making rice to go with dinner, I usually judge timing like this- the time it takes for the water to boil is the time it takes to sear. The time it takes for the rice to cook (20 to 25 minutes) is the time it takes for the meat to steam. Halfway through the 20 minutes of steaming, I flip and check. (If you are using thin cut pork chops- this time is cut way the fuck down).

Once the meat (or chicken) is cooked through, I turn the pan back up to high to crisp up the outside or re-sear. Takes just a few minutes. If you want, while the meat is resting off the stove, you can then turn all the yummy drippings into a pan sauce. Add a little stock or wine or water, a little butter, a little flour and whisk over low heat, making sure to get all the crunchy pan numminess mixed in.

So for under 5 bucks, Kid and I had a delicious dinner of sauteed pork chops, rice pilaf and brussel sprouts. (I cheated, the rice is a Near East mix that was on sale for a buck. But pilaf is easy, use stock instead of water to cook your rice in and mix in some sauteed onions and garlic and whatever).

Now if someone can teach me how to buy fish (that isn’t tilapia or salmon) and cook it for cheap, I will heart them forever.

Have you all discovered the magic that is smoked Spanish paprika yet? Have you? Cause if you haven’t- GO GET SOME RIGHT NOW OMG WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING THERE READING THIS!!!

No seriously, I just put goulash in the crockpot and used the smoked paprika (and a little of the cheap regular paprika to round it out) and the smell is soooooooooooooo amazing I would eat a hunk of raw meat. I do not think I can wait the 8 hours for it to be done.

So I’m spending the week with Ruthzilla in Chapel Hill and it has been several days now of “let’s feed Elizabeth good food and booze”. I’ve only suffered one mild hangover, and quite honestly deserved much worse for the amount of fun that was had.

Ruthie is my cooking muse, and not in the old male sit there and be naked and inspire me muse kind of way. We play well together in the kitchen. I made her turkey breast with paprika and lemon. She made me lemon rice (hers is always better than mine). We’ve resumed our MST3000 style of watching cooking shows and today I nearly peed my pants squealing over the horrors of a Paula Dean ham and banana casserole. There are some people in the world where things are just easy when you’re around them, even if everything else around you is shit shit shit. Ruthie is one of those people to me, and because our friendship is so smooth it makes the rough patches in our separate lives a bit nicer.

But on to the recipe.

So we had a ton of leftover lemon rice. We are both used to cooking for larger groups than just 2 food geeks. We mashed it up with some bread crumbs, eggs and pecorino. Then we made patties and dusted them with seasoned corn flower. Then we fried them. Simple, easy. Took less than half and hour. We made a seasoned mayo (fresh dill, chopped pickle, green onion, garlic salt, dijon mustard) and stuffed ourselves. It was awesome.

Tomorrow it’s omlettes and farmers markets and maybe see a band or two. It is nice to be social, but it’s even nicer to be social with one of my favorite people ever.

I’ve been eating everyday. Ruthie mentioned in an email that it might work better if I concentrated on feeling less burdensome than on the eating thing. And she’s right. I’ve eaten for like 5 days now because I cooked every one of the meals. If I do the work of cooking, I feel less bad about eating. I feel useful.

Tonight I made lemon rice with garlic shrimp. We’d had a shrimp ring in the freezer for ages and for less than 5 bucks we got the stuff to make everything. I also threw together a pineapple upside down cake (from a box, in a rectangular pan! It was weird. Pineapple upside cake doesn’t come in a box and it gets cooked in a cast iron skillet! But it was still good). The shrimp was supposed to be my uncle’s treat for their wedding anniversary, but he shared. And who knows how much longer we’ll be able to eat shrimp.

Who knew the whole Lizzie is a kick ass cook thing was an anti-ED tactic?

So lemon rice. It’s cheap. It’s easy. It’s actually Ruthie’s recipe.

Make a bunch of plain rice, white or brown, doesn’t matter.

In a large skillet saute a diced onion or two and a mess of chopped garlic in either olive oil or butter till onions are a wee bit brown. DON’T BURN THE GARLIC!!!!
Chop a bunch of either parsley (flat or curly) or cilantro or baby spinach. Add onions and chopped greens to warm rice. Drizzle with olive oil. Add lemon juice (and zest of you’ve got it) to taste. Add salt and pepper. Toss, taste, add lemon or salt as needed.

For such a seriously simple side dish, this makes everyone go YUMMO.

(The shrimp was just sauted in a shit ton of brown butter and garlic with a wee bit of salt and tossed with dried cilantro at the end. it took 5 minutes.)

My fried rice recipe has been evolving since high school. I finally have it perfect, though it is not at all traditional. But it is better than the Poverty fried rice recipe.

Trade Mark alert! When I have shared this recipe in the past I have noted that you must call this “Lizzie’s Awesome Fried Rice” when you make it. Just because you are in bloglandia does not mean that my spidey senses won’t know if you forget the “Lizzie’s Awesome Fried Rice” tittle. I will know. And the kitchen gods will smite you for your hubris!

You need

A half pound thick cut pepper bacon (If you buy a full pound, you can make it twice)
3 or 4 carrots, diced
3 or 4 celery stalks, sliced
2 medium onion, chopped
6 to 10 Brussel sprouts, chopped into shreds or a half a small cabbage
a dash of veggie oil
cooked rice (I make this for 10 people at a time, so I make 5 cups of rice in the rice cooker or about 10 cups cooked)
a little bit of better than bullion chicken flavor (I don’t know if this actually does anything, but I’ve been doing it every time and everyone loves this recipe so much I am loath to change it)
red pepper flakes
soy sauce

First- start your rice, use the better than bullion in the rice water

While rice is cooking, in the biggest skillet or wok you have, cook the bacon SLOWLY over medium to medium low heat. You want to render out as much fat as you can. That is why slowly.

While bacon is cooking, chop veggies. Put carrots, celery and onions together, keep sprouts or cabbage separate.

When bacon is done, remove from pan and add a dash of veggie oil.Turn heat up to high and toss in the carrot/celery onion mix.

Add a dash of red pepper flakes and some soy sauce.

Cook until the liquid is nearly gone and the onions start to brown a little

Add sprouts and another dash of soy sauce (this is a soy sauce delivery vehicle)

Cook until sprouts are browned

Chop bacon and add to pan

Add rice to pan and stir stir stir. Your arms will ache, keep stirring. Add some more soy sauce so that the rice gets a lovely carmel color and picks up all the bits of bacon fat and crumbles from the bottom of the pan.

Serve.

Watch your friends and loved ones ohhhhh and ahhhhhh over magically delicious dinner.

This is the first time in many many years that I am not hosting carb-fest. Ruth is off at grad school, friends are all in Seattle, and I am here with family and decidedly not in charge of any carb-fest planning. It’s weird. Who will eat an entire plate of deviled eggs? Or fix yummy alcoholic beverages? Or worry that something might not be vegan (despite the fact almost everything I make at Thanksgiving-except the turkey, deviled eggs and last years sausage stuffing- has been vegan for years)!

But I’ve got recipes for you peeps anyways.

(vegan) Smokey green beans

Get a large mess of fresh green beans.
Snap off ends.
Blanche (quickly dip green beans in a pot of boiling water- count to 30, then plunge green beans into ice water. Yes, this is a pain in the ass but you can and should do this part ahead of time)
Dry green beans on a paper towel- this is important.If they don’t dry all the way you get those nasty soggy green beans that no one likes.

Right before serving in a large skillet-
toast almond slices over mediumish heat. You just want to heat them until you can smell them, and they burn fast. Remove from pan and set aside.

Put a wee bit of olive oil in the pan, heat to high. Throw in green beans and drizzle liberally with liquid smoke and salt. The liquid smoke will get very smokey.

Cook for just a few minutes until the liquid smoke is evaporated and the beans have a few smokey brown patches on them. They should still be firmish- not limp. Mix with almonds and serve.

Whipped Sweet Potatoes (can be vegan if you use soy milk and fake butter)

Wash sweet potatoes, rub with olive oil, wrap in tin foil and bake at 450 until fork tender. I usually do one large sweet potato for two people, but these are really good so you may want to do more.

When fork tender- unwrap the foil and then skin the hot potatoes. Put mushy potato stuff in a large bowl. Just like with mashy potatoes, add a bit of milk and a lot of butter. Also add in a good large glunk (RQ technical term for a fistful) of brown sugar. You can now either mash with a potato masher or whip with a beater. Once smooth, do a taste check. It may need more brown sugar. And a little cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice or nutmeg wouldn’t hurt either. If you want to be real fancy, you can mix in some pralines, but I like this better than the marshmallow fluff sweet potato casserole version.

Like many poor peeps, I have been known to make what I fondly call white trash pie, though you all may know it by the name on the side of the Bisquick box- impossible cheeseburger pie. At my old place I used to have to save a piece for my neighbor Karen every time I made it (I didn’t exactly follow the recipe of the box, I never do). In return she brought me chicken every time she barbecued.

Well we had a mess o’ leftover ground beef and some veggies needing to be used. But we wanted something a wee bit different from the old Bisquick version and were way too lazy to make tacos.

Enter Jiffy corn bread mix.

Preheat the oven to 400

In a large (biggest you’ve got) cast iron skillet, brown some ground beef.

Season the fuck out of it. Garlic salt, red pepper flakes, chili powder, a little cumin, some black pepper.

While the beef is browning, chop an onion or two, a bell pepper or two, a jalapeno if you’ve got it and that’s your thing. Cook till onions are translucent. Remove from heat.

At this point I added one diced tomato that was on its way out and some fresh corn sliced off the cob. You could also add olives or a can of green chilies.

Then cheese- lots of yummy shredded cheese. We used sharp cheddar, but I’m sure a jack cheese would be fine.

Use 2 boxes of jiffy corn muffin mix and make according to the directions. Let it sit in the bowl for a minute or two to get its puffiness going.

Spread corn muffin batter over beef mixture and sprinkle with more yummy cheese.

Bake until the muffin crust is cooked and golden brown (not just the cheese being brown).

Let sit for a few minutes then dig in.

Apparently this is the best thing I’ve ever made, judging by how fast it disappeared last night and how many people came back for seconds and thirds. It’s a recipe I pulled out of my ass right before we went to the grocery store to shop for impromptu barb-b-que fixins.

I used a mix of wild and brown rice (cause wild rice is expensive). Just cook it like you normally would either on the stove top or in a rice cooker.

Then in a large bowl add

cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half
an entire bunch of green onions, chopped (including the green parts)
a bunch of chopped flat leaf Italian parsley
a couple of large heads of garlic (I was lazy and didn’t mince the garlic but just diced it)
juice from 3 or 4 large lemons
crumbled feta cheese

Normally I’d make the dressing from scratch, but I was all ready on my second Moscow Mule so I cheated and used some bottled Italian dressing (Newman’s Own).

Add rice to the chopped veggies, drizzle with salad dressing and add salt and pepper to taste.