Kitchen Tools

I have a bit of a thing for OXO kitchen utensils. Not everything we use is from that brand, but when something needs replacement I tend to look for an OXO version.

I think it started with replacing an old, poorly made ice cream scoop with a spade, which has a wider, flat blade that makes it easier to shave off a portion from the top surface of the ice cream. After that it was a cheese grater and a pizza cutter, and I was hooked. The thick, rubberized handles are just much easier to grip and use.

When OXO expanded to other product lines, I followed. I have a couple of canisters with locking lids for storing things like coffee beans. A quick look in the kitchen drawers reveals that we also have a vegetable peeler (OXO's first product), a garlic press, and a potato masher (I don't remember purchasing that one). I also just replaced a junky old spreader that I'd found somewhere (probably a dollar store) with an OXO counterpart that has a longer, sturdier blade that is much more effective.

Recently I added a couple of small knives. I prefer working with shorter-bladed knives for things like chopping and slicing, as long as the food being cut is small enough. OXO makes a nice little mini santoku that's great for chopping veggies like carrots and cucumbers. I also got another knife with a thin, straight, serrated blade that is good for cutting tomatoes. And this measuring cup is so easy to use because of its clever design: you can see the markings while looking down on it from above.

As a side note, I read that the man who started the company passed away recently. The idea for the distinctive handles came about because of his wife's arthritis. He had been in the kitchenware business previously, running the company Copco for a couple of decades; he also had an uncle who was the founder of Farberware.

Meal Planning

We're being careful about our expenses, so last week we stocked up at the grocery store, and over the weekend we made a bunch of food.

On Saturday I made meat loaf using a stupidly easy recipe from a Boston Globe cookbook published in the 1980s. It works nicely with a blend of ground beef and pork, and the market conveniently sells a package of the two combined. For me the whole point of making meatloaf is to have meatloaf sandwiches, which taste best the next day, after the loaf has been refrigerated, on good bread.

On Sunday I made chicken breasts, cut them up, and threw them together with tortellini and some cheese and olive oil. I then added pantry items we had on hand: a can of olives, a jar of artichoke hearts. We also had some grape tomatoes, so I put those in too. You can also make this with pre-cooked sausage like Trader Joe's (most markets carry some version of it) instead of the chicken.

Yesterday the Mrs. baked chicken thigh pieces that she had marinated overnight in the refrigerator. We'll be having those tonight with salad and some broccoli. Now we basically have enough food prepared for the rest of this week. Next week we'll shop again, and I'll make another batch of slow-cooker chili, which I've been perfecting for the past several months.

SAR's Kitchen Helper: Very Easy Chili

In my household, both of us are quite capable of cooking, but neither of us is really that into it. But since I'm not working at the moment and the Mrs. is spending two days a week at an internship and one day a week on campus, I decided I should endeavor to cook something at least once a week that gives us enough for a couple of meals.

Last week I cooked some chicken breasts, cut them up, made a bag of tortellini, and threw it together with tomatoes, olives, and pesto. I'll probably do this again, but I think I'll vary it by adding some artichoke hearts and using that pre-cooked chicken sausage from Trader Joe's.

This week I decided that since it's turned cooler outside, I would make chili. I prefer to make mine in a slow cooker because it does most of the work for you. It's really easy to make good chili, and the slow cooker makes it pretty much mistake-proof. All you really have to do is cook some meat and open some cans.

Ground beef is the most common choice, but you can use ground turkey if you like (it's leaner, so less of it cooks off). I've used a meat I found at Stop & Shop called "skillet steak" that works really nicely, but I couldn't find it this time around. Once I had amazing chili that had been made using meat from a beautiful roast, but that's expensive and unnecessarily elaborate. Whatever meat you decide to use, you should get around two pounds of it.

Get two cans of diced tomatoes. I prefer the kind without peppers in them, but that's up to you. Also two cans of beans; most people use kidney beans but I like to use one can of kidney and one can of black beans, just for a little variety. Get one small can of tomato sauce; you want something that has not been seasoned to taste like spaghetti sauce. I like to add onion, but some people don't like onions. One large onion should be enough.

I do cheat a little regarding the seasoning: I buy one of those "chili kits" (they're usually near the salsa) because the seasonings are already mixed and you can just use however much makes it taste the way you like. Like I said above, easy and foolproof. These kits also come with cayenne pepper, which I don't use, and flour to thicken the chili, which I do use.

Cook the meat on the stove first in some olive oil, with salt, pepper, and maybe a little oregano and garlic powder. Cut up the onion and throw that in with the meat. While it's cooking, open all the cans. Dump everything in the slow cooker. When the meat is done add that and turn on the cooker, then add the seasoning. Stir everything up really well, then go away. Come back and stir once in a while. Follow the kit's instructions on adding the flour. Let it cook for at least three hours, probably four.

Serve with shredded cheese on top and cold beer.

SAR's Kitchen Helper: Easy Summer Meal

Hungry? Yes. Yes is always the answer to that question. But it's difficult to come home from work and be motivated to put together a decent meal, especially during the summer. So I thought I'd try something a little different and share an easy recipe I like to make when it's warm out.

You will need the following ingredients: cooked chicken, pasta, tomatoes, red onions or scallions, olives, cheese, and salad dressing. I'll get to the specifics and quantities in a moment, and there are also a couple of variations of how you can make this.

The easiest way to get cooked chicken is to go to the grocery store and buy one of those rotisserie chickens. If you already have leftovers in your fridge that's perfect. Last time I made this I didn't have any leftovers, so I pulled a couple of frozen boneless chicken breasts out of the freezer and cooked them first, which adds some time but allows you flexibility in preparing the chicken the way you like it. You should end up with at least two cups of cut-up chicken, maybe even three.

For pasta I like to use fusilli (the ones that look like corkscrews) or farfalle (bowties), but you can use whatever kind you like. Let me just point out, though, that bigger ones like ziti don't make sense to use in this recipe. And no spaghetti, smartass. Don't bother with anything fancy; as long as you cook it properly (which is to say, al dente) it will taste fine. I like to use Barilla boxed pasta. Cook the whole box, but use only about 2/3 of it for this. Set aside the rest and use it for something else (tough to go wrong with olive oil, garlic, and cheese). Don't cook only 2/3 of the box, because you know you'll eventually end up with a bunch of orphan boxes cluttering up your cupboard or pantry.

Grape tomatoes cut in half work nicely, but you can use the vine kind or whatever, maybe you're even growing tomatoes in your yard. I like the grape ones because that pint container is just the right size for this. (It's true that Virgos like precision, but this isn't anything that calls for a lot of careful measuring, so I just wing it.) Likewise, one can of olives, split into halves, is fine. You don't need as much onion as you think, so get a couple of smallish ones and just dice them up. I like to use feta cheese in this, but some people don't like it. That's a great thing about cheese: there are so many different kinds. If your cheese isn't already conveniently broken into small chunks (like feta is), you'll want to do some approximation of that. (Optional: something like celery or cucumbers, for a little variation in texture and additional nutritional value. Just dice them up like the other stuff.)

Is the pasta done yet? I hope you were paying attention and didn't overcook it. Drain it and put it back in the pot or a really big bowl, and start throwing in all the other stuff. After you add each item, add a little bit more dressing and stir well. This helps everything get coated nicely. I recommend an oil-based dressing like Italian, Caesar, or Greek, because they are flavorful, coat well, and aren't too heavy. You wouldn't want to use a creamy dressing, that would just be too heavy, blech. Paul Newman's dressings are great, I almost always use one of those.

That's pretty much it. If possible, prepare it ahead of time and refrigerate before eating. You may find that, like chili, this tastes better after a night in the refrigerator. One other variation I do once in a while is to use salami instead of chicken. Ask at your deli if they will cut you a hunk of Genoa salami and not slice it. Take it home and dice it up. Five or six ounces of salami is probably plenty, and if your deli clerks know what they're doing they will know how much to cut. I kind of prefer scallions when I make this with salami, but you can take it in whatever direction you feel like. Obviously, if you're a filthy hippie vegetarian you won't be using any meatish stuff anyway, but the rest is safe. Dig in...