Manly Breakfast

Every now and then I like to make a nice big breakfast for myself. As long as I promise to clean the kitchen up afterwards my wife doesn’t mind me making a mess of the kitchen. (She happened to be away for the weekend, so no negotiations were needed. But yes, I did still clean up after myself.) For this Sunday morning, I decided to make some really hearty breakfast sandwiches. We had some eggs that needed to be used up, as well as some ground pork sausage that was waiting to be used in the freezer. Yesterday I went to the local co-op and got some English muffins – Matthew’s All Natural Whole Wheat English Muffins, which I definitely recommend trying.

I simply made patties out of the sausage and fried them up in our electric skillet. After they were done, I then cooked the eggs and started toasting the English muffins. Once everything was done I just essentially stacked everything and it turned out like this:

The eggs ended up being perfect, just over-easy. For a breakfast sandwich, or anytime you’re having the combination of eggs and bread/toast, you need the egg yolk to be runny. It just mixes with toasted bread so perfectly. For this sandwich, everything mixed perfectly. It was so good but almost too much food. I did pull through though and finished them off… and then skipped lunch.

Refusing A Free Beer???

I won’t get into the ins and outs here, but this past summer as part of the state’s new budget a new law was passed limiting the distribution of Wisconsin’s microbreweries. (If you would like to read up on it, there is an excellent blog post here, from of all places a microbrewery supporting bar in Des Moines, IA.) Although MillerCoors were joined by other groups in backing the bill, which supposedly was only created to block other large brewers (Anheuser-Busch specifically mentioned) from having distribution branches in the state, it also blocks microbreweries from using channels they have used for years. While I can see the merits to stopping other large breweries from moving in, restricting microbreweries is not the way to be doing it. I will give a small bit of credit to MillerCoors for backing legislation that also blocks their use of distribution branches, but it’s quite clear they are using the law to also limit the power of the in-state competition. After all, I’ve found that for beer in Wisconsin you either have choices of Miller products or microbrews. In any case, I’ve decided that from this summer forward I am personally blacklisting all MillerCoors owned products. If you haven’t noticed which beers fall under their umbrella lately, they include:

Coors (Lite & Banquet)

Miller (High Life, Lite, Genuine Draft, Chill, MGD 64)

Keystone Light

Milwaukee’s Best

Icehouse

All Leinenkugel’s

Pabst Blue Ribbon (contract brewed by Miller)

Schlitz (owned by PBR, contract brewed my Miller)

Blatz (owned by PBR, contract brewed my Miller)

Old Style (owned by PBR, contract brewed my Miller)

Hamm’s

Blue Moon

Killian’s Irish Red

Molson

Peroni

Pilsner Urquell

Grolsch

Foster’s

Some of these are more under SABMiller, the international mother company of MillerCoors, who didn’t really have anything to do with the bill. However, it’s hard to say where the line is drawn in the line of brands.

Some of these I never really drank anyway, but still, it’s a long list of products to prohibit from my taste buds. If ever offered any of the above beers, I will graciously decline and ask for water. Yes, my principles are that firm on this that I will refuse a free beer.

Old Time Casserole

It probably doesn’t come out from just reading the title, but I just imagined Bob Seger singing, “I like that old time casserole. The kind of dinner that soothes the soul.” I’m done, I’m done…

Lately, and really over the last few months (note the lack of posts), I’ve been slacking in the cooking department. You could blame it on our apartment being really hot in the summer or more stuff going on. It’s really just plain laziness. I don’t know the last time I made something new from one of our umpteen cookbooks. I don’t know the last time I felt like I had a sense of accomplishment from making a meal. It was time I dug myself out of the rut.

How did I do that? I made Tator Tot Casserole. You may laugh and ask what’s so great about a casserole? Well, that’s almost the point of a casserole. There isn’t anything that’s jaw-dropping amazing about a dish that contains Cream of Mushroom Soup as a standard ingredient. Casseroles have good Midwestern modesty. They’re good because they are simple but delicious. And don’t forget – they’re also just like mom used to make.

If you haven’t made Tator Tot Casserole before I definitely suggest doing so. It couldn’t be simpler. You brown a pound of ground turkey (usually it’s ground beef, but I think the turkey adds flavor), cook a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, mix those in a baking dish with Cream of Mushroom soup, and then top with tator tots. Then bake in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes or until the tots are golden brown and crispy. If you’re a real high roller, top the casserole with shredded cheese and bake it for another minute or two for the cheese to melt.

The other great part about casseroles is that there usually are leftovers. You can take them for lunch or have them for dinner the following night like we did. I made dinner even nicer that evening by making some Irish soda bread to have alongside the casserole. The two together really hit the spot when we had a cold patch of weather last week.

I will of course start consulting the America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks for some more elaborate meals in the weeks to come. I’m sure I’ll consult with Julia again on how to cook the French way as well. Until then I’m fine just making a dish with a French name.

[Note: Don’t even try to call it “Tator Tot Hot Dish” or whatever else “hot dish.” It is and will always be casserole. I may be Lutheran and may have married a Minnesotan, but they’re will be no “hot dish” in my house.]

Full of Leeks

A few weekends ago Joan and I finally got around to making Potato Leek Soup. I really wish we would have made it sooner as it was so easy to make. It’s really just three ingredients: potatoes, leeks and broth. The hardest part really was finding room in our grocery bag to fit the seven leeks that we needed for the soup. However it was fun to continually make joking puns that not only our bag “had sprung a leek” but other things around the house did too. I even held up one to the ceiling so I could go, “Uh oh, our ceiling has a leek!” (This is what my wife has to put up with everyday.)

As I said, making the actual soup was easy. First, I did a simple scrubbing of the leeks and Yukon Gold potatoes. Next, I cut the greens and the root of the leeks off. Then to get all of the dirt out of the leek’s layers, I cut them in half, swooshed them around in the sink full of water, and then let them sit in that water (an Alton Brown tip). Then after doing that with all the leeks, I dried them and chopped them. I moved them to a sauté pan and sweated the leeks until tender. While the leeks were sweating away, I moved on to the potatoes. I just simply peeled them and sliced them thinly. I suppose I could have diced them as well. The potatoes and leeks were then just thrown in the stock pot where I then added essentially enough chicken broth to cover. Next, I just let the pot simmer until the potatoes where soft. To finish things off we hit the soup with the immersion or stick blender to smooth things out and then just seasoned with salt and pepper.

Freshly cleaned produce

It’s also worth mentioning that while the soup was simmering, I still kept myself busy by making some Irish soda bread (as you can see there in the picture.) My first attempt at making the bread – and any bread in general – was done earlier in December. Both times I came out with good bread, however the second attempt went a lot more smoothly. I learned my lesson from the first time: You can never have too much flour on the board when you’re kneading. Well, I’m sure you can but I’m still far from getting to that point. Just like the soup, the Irish soda bread also is very easy to make with just a few ingredients - just flour, salt, buttermilk and baking soda. I do want to move up to making more normal bread, like a nice crusty white bread, which I’ll hopefully have time to make this week.

The bread ingredients

The dough and the board needed more flour

The obligatory cross cuts for soda bread

The very bulbous final product

A fine winter meal

My Big Sunday

Just stay with me on this tangent of a lead-in. I eventually get to food.

While most everyone else in America, and especially here in Wisconsin, was excited for the Super Bowl Sunday night, I was instead excited for soccer (or real football) that morning. I woke up bright and early at 6 am on Sunday, plopped myself in front of my laptop and watched the Scottish Cup match between Celtic and Rangers. Now, I do typically watch English and German soccer matches on weekend mornings, but typically ones that are on this early. This match though was different. This not only was a Scottish Cup match but it was Rangers versus Celtic. Not only are they cross-town rivals in Glasgow, always the top teams in the standings, and the most supported teams in the Scottish Premier League, but on top of all of that their matches pit together two longtime rivaling groups – Irish Catholics (Celtic) and loyal to England Protestants (Rangers).

There is not a rivalry in sports that even comes close to Celtic and Rangers. Visiting players routinely have had death threats yelled at them by fans, saying something to the effect that if they score, they’ll be killed. (Some fans of course do this to get into the players heads, some probably are actually serious.) Rioting, maybe better described as all-out brawls have happened at the stadiums. People have died because of encounters after matches. Don’t even think about going into a Rangers pub wearing any green, or a Celtic pub wearing any red or blue. For that matter, don’t even go into some neighborhoods wearing the other team’s colors. While it has gotten better in recent years, fans still have to be seated in separate sections of the stadium on match days. This may sound more or less normal, but there is also a ten to fifteen seat buffer zone between the two groups, with security guards stationed every two rows on each side of the buffer area.

The match itself was brilliant, the best match I’ve ever watched by far. Not only were the fans of both sides in full voice with their choruses of team songs and cheers, but the play on the pitch was just outstanding. Rangers had the momentum in the first half, which was only helped by Celtic’s goalkeeper being sent off with a red card and making them have to play a man down. At halftime break, the score was 2-1 in favor of Rangers. In the second period, Celtic was now in charge even with one less man than Rangers and they were able to draw even. Matters got worse for Rangers and one of their strikers received a second yellow card and was sent off. After that however, things more or less evened out and the game finished a draw, albeit with eight yellow cards and two reds. The two teams, and the two groups of fans, will meet again in a few weeks to decide who moves on in the Scottish Cup.

With all of that excitement so early in the morning, I was glad that I decided the day before that I would make a full Scottish breakfast for myself once the match was over. I can’t say that it was an official Scottish Breakfast (according to the Wikipedia article) as it did not contain any black pudding or haggis. (As a side note, I have not had haggis but have had black pudding which I do quite enjoy. Also, if you do not know what black pudding is, I suggest doing a Google/Wiki search on it. Just saying.) My breakfast ending up consisting of the following:

Two fried eggs – Cooked over easy

Baked beans – These were just your store brand generic style baked beans from a can. Maybe they were the wrong type, maybe they weren’t. If someone knows what type I should be using let me know.

Grilled tomato – I ended up just putting these on the electric griddle instead of grilling them. It wasn’t ideal, but we don’t have a grill or grill pan, just a George Foreman, and I wasn’t even going to get that out for just three slices of tomato.

Bacon – This was good meaty bacon that we got at the co-op the day before. It really should have been rashers for this or Canadian style bacon. However, bacon was something Joan would eat out of all of this so I just stuck to good normal bacon. Like there’s anything wrong with that anyway…

Oatmeal sausage – I had this in our freezer. My parents make a batch of it from time to time; the recipe handed down on both sides of my family. It must be a German thing apparently. I just eat up the stuff, but Joan doesn’t even like the look of it. With that said, she should be really glad it wasn’t haggis. I would like to try haggis sometime, but really I don’t mind the missing organ pieces and the lack of a sheep’s stomach.

English Muffin – First of all, this of course wouldn’t be called an English muffin in the UK, just a muffin. Second, I don’t think I really should have had this as part of a Scottish breakfast. Toast would have likely been more standard or a dense scone as the mention on Wikipedia, but I really enjoy the English muffins we get at the co-op. I feel like a good soda bread would be really good too.

Tea – Of course I had to have tea. However, because of poor planning, I made Scottish Breakfast tea the morning before. Not wanting to make the same tea two mornings in a row, I instead made River Shannon Blend, an Irish breakfast blend. It was definitely good, but it did not make as hearty of a cup as Scottish breakfast teas always do.

All in all, I think I did a decent job. It maybe wasn’t as traditional as it should be but it was enjoyable to eat and enjoyable to make. Plus, I used the electric skillet all to myself, because I made that much food. Oh, and did I mention there was bacon?