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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] On ground meat patties and the convenience of slow food
  • Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:27:17 -0600


ON GROUND MEAT PATTIES AND THE CONVENIENCE OF SLOW FLOOD
http://www.oklahomafood.coop/bobsblog/

We had a simple, but very tasty, Sunday dinner.
Ground buffalo patties, seasoned with dried
rosemary, oregano, basil, and crushed red pepper,
browned, then cooked in a gravy, for side dishes
we had mashed potatoes, and cooked greens with
onion and garlic chives from my garden. This time
we crumbled some roasted peanuts into the greens,
and they were the perfect garnish. This
illustrates one of the interesting things about
local foods. You don't have to fix a fancy feast
to have a fancy meal. There are few entrees as
simple as ground meat patties, yet they are
enormously satisfying as a main meal if you use do
the seasonings correctly and make a nice gravy
using home-made stock. Fancy feasts are fine, but
they aren't necessary every day. Frugal fare is
just as satisfying. Breakfast this morning is
sausage patties with whole wheat pancakes and
jam - a finer breakfast could not be bought for
any price at a restaurant in Oklahoma City. Even
our favorite diner -- Jimmy's Egg House at NW 16th
and May - can't duplicate this simple mal.

As we first come to the local foods table, we
arrive with appetites conditioned by mass
merchandising ad campaigns and industrial
manufactured foods whose flavors and textures
derive from test tubes. In such an environment, we
crave an excessive variety of foods. We must have
something different for lunch and dinner every
day! Leftovers of such foods are not appetizing,
we must have something new! More sugar! More salt!
More fake chemical flavors!

The local foods journey slowly moves us away from
this "false food consciousness" and back into the
realm of real food, good food, basic foods,
prepared with love. As with anything else, we didn
't learn our bad food habits overnight, and we don
't learn better habits overnight either. Each year
we make thousands of kitchen decisions, as we
learn to make better decisions - one decision at a
time - we rediscover the joys and tastes of real
food. A virtue is the habit of doing good, and how
do we develop a habit? By practice.

Speaking of real food, have I mentioned lately how
glad I am we bought 40 pounds of peanuts from
McLemore farms last fall when peanuts where coming
in from harvest? They are so useful. They are so
easy to roast. (Take out of bag, put in pan, put
pan in oven.) If you don't have a Better Times
handy, which has a WHOLE PAGE about peanuts, visit
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/18peanutsmisc.htm
and learn how easy it is. A handful of peanuts is
a very satisfying and simple treat. My primary
problem is that my dog likes peanuts too,
fortunately peanuts come two to a pod so there's
one for me and one for the dog. The shells and
skins end up in the compost. We don't salt them,
we like salt but they taste fine to us without any
added condiments.

Peanut harvest will be coming up again later this
year. Everybody should stock up on peanuts. They
are a great deal priced at the 40 pound bag, and
provide a lot of value for what amounts to very
little actual work (from the consumer viewpoint
anyway; the producer has a different estimate of
the amount of work in 40 pounds of peanuts).

We're just about to the "shut down the oven for
the summer" stage. Summer is a time for flat
breads cooked on cast iron griddles. In the
summer, we move our kitchen outside. We don't use
air conditioning, and so we are very interested in
minimizing heat buildup in the house. Cooking
outside in the summer is also a good idea for
folks with air conditioners. When it comes to
energy, there is no such thing as a free lunch,
and cooking inside makes your air conditioner work
harder and gulp more ever-more-expensive energy.
Our outdoor kitchen consists of a propane grill,
crockpot, turkey fryer (which we use a lot for
canning), and a 2 burner propane camp stove. We
have an attachment for the camp stove so it can
run off a regular 20 pound bottle rather than the
expensive small bottles..

One of the items on the 'to do' list is "build an
outdoor oven," but I am not sure that project will
make it to the top of the list this year. So
during the summer, we eat stove top breads,
typically whole wheat pancakes or corn cakes. I am
thinking however that this will be the summer when
I finally master tortilla making.

BOB'S FAVORITE SLOW FOOD CONVENIENCE TIPS

The thing I hear from everybody is, "we are very
busy." I can understand that, being as how I too
am very busy. But there are things a person can do
to make slow food fit into busy lifestyles. Here
are some of my favorites. You can find recipes for
these in the Better Times Almanac, 5th edition,
http://www.bettertimesinfo.org/2004index.htm .

1. Crockpot. Put tomorrow's lunch in the crockpot
at bedtime, wake up to food ready to be packed in
lunches and taken to work or school. Bake potatoes
in the crockpot. Make crockpot oatmeal or rice
pudding overnight for a ready made morning
breakfast.

2. Baked potatoes in the fridge. Use them as
ingredients in casseroles, mash them, shred them
into homemade hashbrowns for a quick breakfast..

3. Make two freeze one. If you're geared up to
make a casserole, bread, pie, or cakes, make more
and freeze or refrigerate them for quicker eating
later.

4. Dough bowl in the fridge. Fresh bread for a
week (depending on the size of the bowl and your
household).

5. Batter bowl in the fridge. Pancake snacks at a
moment's notice.

6. Cooked ground meat in freezer - patties,
meatballs, crumbled.

7. Frozen or refrigerated roux. When you make
roux, make 2 or 3 times what you need, and freeze
or refrigerate the rest. Use small airtight
freezer containers.

8. Frozen or refrigerated stock. Quick soups,
sauces, gravies, marinades.

9. Frozen cooked beans. Freeze in meal sized
containers.

10. Frozen spaghetti sauce with meat and veggies.

11. Herb garden at your kitchen doorstep.

12. Bulgur wheat.

13. Cooking days. Every so often, set aside a
"cooking day". Prepare foods and stock your
freezer for quicker eating later. When fresh fruit
is coming in, make pies (many pies of course!) and
freeze them for cooking and eating later.

FUN SLOW FOOD SNACKS

1. Home-roasted peanuts.

2. Deviled eggs.

3. Onion rings

4. Macaroni salad

5. Pancakes (add some cocoa and have CHOCOLATE
pancakes with pudding sauce or peach jam.)

6. Pudding.

7. Oven fries

8. Cobbler

9. Whole wheat chocolate sheet cake

10. Pizza pockets.

11. Deviled cheese

12. Whole wheat brownies.

13. Whole wheat cookies.

14. Beef, venison, or buffalo jerky.

15. Muffins.

SLOW FOOD EQUIVALENTS OF JUNK FOODS

1. Instead of french fries, make oven fries! Slice
the potatoes into bite size chunks, rinse, put in
bowl with some oil and your favorite seasonings
(we use dried Italian herbs, crushed red pepper,
and garlic powder), make in 375 degree oven until
done (20-30 minutes).

2. Instead of cheese whiz, make your own deviled
cheese! Use 1 part shredded cheese, ½ part cottage
cheese, and ½ part mayonnaise, plus a couple of
spoons of mustard (a flavored mustard is best,
such as Prairie Gypsies or Peach Crest Farm make),
and whatever seasonings you like. We add some of
our infamous habanero salsa. Use your blender or
mixer to get the texture right.

3. Instead of"snack cakes", make your own muffins,
cookies, cobbler, or a whole wheat chocolate sheet
cake.

4. Instead of store bought pizza pockets, make
your own! Use any recipe for pizza dough, cut it
into circles, brush them with olive oil, place
some filling in the center, moisten the edge, fold
over the dough and seal. Bake. Eat them hot from
the oven and freeze some for later quick eating.

5. Store-bought fake maple syrup. The typical
"maple syrup" sold in stores is actually corn
syrup with some color and industrial flavorings.
Yuck. Make your own fruit sauces, or simply use
jam or jelly on pancakes.

6. Instead of buying bean dip, use your own
refried beans. Add some barbecue sauce, chili
powder, garlic powder, and if you like it hot,
some habanero salsa. Whenever you make beans,
always make extra, freeze in small portions for
eating later. With your own refried beans, you can
also make the equivalent of canned hot dog chili
sauce. Add a little beef stock to get the
consistency right, and season like bean dip.

7. Instead of stove top stuffing, use your own dry
bread and flavorful homemade stock.

FIVE USEFUL TIPS FOR THE SLOW FOOD FRUGAL KITCHEN

1. Save bread for crumbs, stuffing, and bread
pudding. In fact, when you bake, make extra so you
will have some to dry to these purposes. Crumble
the stale bread onto a cookie sheet, cover with a
cloth, and let them dry. Store in airtight and
rodent proof containers. Use as needed. Never buy
stove top stuffing again!

2. Save broth/drippings from meats. If you won't
be using them within a day or so, put them
immediately into the freezer in small airtight
containers.

3. Save bacon and sausage fat for gravies. Keep in
an airtight container in the fridge.

4. Always make extra gravy, use the leftover gravy
in a sauce for another meal the next day.

5. Plan leftovers for later meals. For example,
one pot roast can yield (1) a Sunday dinner, (2)
hot beef sandwiches for lunch the next day, and
(3) gravy and bits of meat for a soup or
casserole.



Robert Waldrop, Oklahoma Food Cooperative










  • [Livingontheland] On ground meat patties and the convenience of slow food, Tradingpost, 04/18/2005

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