The “Freshman 15” Now The “Covid -19”

Remember when you went off to college and pretty quickly put on 15 pounds from the dorm food and regular beer drinking? Now, many of us are “Sheltered in place” and eating pretty well with threat of the coronavirus and Covid-19. Hopefully, we can avoid getting sick and all we get is a few extra pounds (AKA “The Quarantine 15) from eating well.

Last night we splurged a little with:

New York Strip grilled to a perfect medium rare
French Fries
Chopped “Three Hour” Salad
Pan Roasted Shishito Peppers
Caramelized Onion
Phelps Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

Talk about all the food groups!

Steak

We don’t eat a lot of red meat. When I get the green light to grill a steak, I like to work with a thicker cut of New York Strip. We bought a whole loin from Costco with our bulk shopping at the start of the lock down. I cut it into steaks that were 2 inches thick. The added thickness widens the window to get it cooked to the perfect medium rare.

French Fries

What is not to like about homemade French fries. The French really know how to make them. I will never forget my first trip to Paris and getting fries at a Bistro and thinking: These are better than McDonald’s. Growing up in the states, my gold standard for French fries were found under the Golden Arches. After working with a French chef, I learned that the Bistro in Paris and McDonalds both know the magic secret to a crispy fry. YOU HAVE TO COOK THEM TWICE. The key is to pre-cook them, let them cool and then finish them quickly in hot oil. It works every time.

3 Hour Salad

My daughter Jennifer has renamed my Romaine Wedge Salad with Gorgonzola Aioli as the “3 Hour Salad”. The combination of:

Roasting homemade croutons
Sautéing bacon
Whipping together a Gorgonzola aioli
Prepping a combination of green onion, olives and grape tomatoes with live oil and vinegar
Chopped Romaine Lettuce

What takes me about 30 minutes, will take Jennifer 3 hours. There is something to be said about trying to cook while at the same time keeping an eye on three kids under the age of 6.

Shishito Peppers

These are easy to make, taste great and add a perfect amount of zip/color to your plate. I love that they add the zip without too much heat, The funny thing is that 1 in 10 will have a real pop of heat, but that isn’t exactly a bad thing,

Caramelized Onions

These were a last minute addition. It just so happened that we have a lot of onions from our “Buying In Bulk” exercise. A wonderful offshoot is you will add something different

Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon

Talk about a little splurge. Phelps is one of our favorite vineyards that we first visited back in the 1980’s. Do their wines taste better to us because they remind us of a wonderful afternoon in an idyllic setting 40 years ago? Probably! Past that, Phelps makes a pretty tasty Cabernet.

We can’t eat the way we did last night or we will be adding and unwanted Coivd-19 POUNDS. But, we certainly had a pretty good meal last night. Tonight, may be a pan seared chicken breast with extra vegetables. Being “Sheltered in Place” doesn’t mean we cant eat well.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

“Shelter In Place” Bulk Buying

The Covid 19 pandemic has changed our lives, at least for awhile. The purpose of this blog is to outline how we have changed the way we plan, purchase and prepare for meals in the “Shelter In Place” mode of operation.

I had become my father. My dad was a college dean, but when he retired he would decide what he wanted for dinner and then head off to market daily. There is one big difference between me and my father. He had lima beans with every meal. Me, I haven’t had a lima been since he died, but I do like going to the market.The good news is that the coronavirus pandemic has broken me of that habit. We are now in the mode of buying basics in bulk (Costco) for a month worth of meals and then weekly trips to the market (Kroger) for fresh vegetables, milk and eggs.

There are three keys to buying in bulk. Planning, Creativity and Flexibility

Planning

To have any chance at making buying in bulk successful you need a plan.

Rough Meal Plan

From there I created a rough shopping list:

Shopping List Outline

One key thing about buying in bulk is that you don’t get to scale your purchases to meal time needs. I have found that it makes sense to “portionalize” the bulk quantities. For example, if you buy chicken breasts at Costco they come in 2 and 3 breast units. We use one breast at a time, so just breaking down the pack and wrapping the breasts individually just makes sense. It also makes it easier to store in the freezer and defrost when needed

Creativity

One thing I hear all the time is: How do you know what to make? In a blog from awhile back I listed the top sources of menu ideas:

Restaurants
Travels
Markets
Books/Magazines
Internet

https://impromptufridaynights.com/the-top-5-sources-of-dinner-party-menu-ideas/

Living in our current “Shelter in place” mode rules out the top 3 of the 5. Thank goodness for the internet. At times like this, we certainly have time to try something different.

Cassoulet

I have been a fan of this dish for years. I first had it in Paris, but never got around to making it. The traditional preparation is based on duck fat, duck confit, white beans, chicken and sausage or mutton. In scrounging through my cabinet and freezer I had

A bag of dried beans my niece gave me for Christmas a few years ago
3 lamb chops with freezer burn
Chicken breasts, bacon and sausage from my Costco run

Somehow, we don’t have a ready inventory of duck fat or duck confit. So I substituted bacon fat for the duck fat and away we went. It was a 2-day process as the beans had to be soaked over-night. The result was a very tasty dish. Regretfully (and subconsciously) we didn’t get a photo. While I would have liked to have one for the blog, it really didn’t look great. But, it tasted great and was enjoyed both by us and a grateful neighbor.

Back to my first Cassoulet in Paris, I ordered a bottle of white wine thinking poultry pared with white wine. The waiter very politely (and directly) told me the vin rouge was the proper paring with duck. Of course he was right.

Flexibility

When you are not going to the store every day, you will invariably have to improvise on ingredients. Who has an inventory of duck fat? Bacon fat worked fine. With the 30 different ingredients in the Cassoulet, you have to trust me that no one could tell that bacon fat was used instead of duck fat. Besides, how many of us really know what duck fat tastes like.

Costco Purchases

Kroger Purchases

Wine Purchase

Summary

The bottom line is that with a little planning, creativity and flexibility you can eat really well for a month for under $600. Beyond that this exercise provides an insight into how I think, as twisted as that may be.

It’s Just A Chicken

It is truly amazing of what you can do with a few ingredients and a little time. As the world turns inward with the coronavirus pandemic, a whole new spectrum of culinary options unfold. Our week started with the social distancing mandate that ended my practice of daily trips to the supermarket. After stops at Costco and Kroger we had the basic ingredients to keep us well fed for a month. In hindsight it was amazingly cheap.

The availability of basic groceries was really pretty good in Memphis. I was talking to friends out on the eastern end of Long Island NY and they referred to finding eggs to scoring eggs. It was almost like finding eggs was like finding drugs. At Costco I even bought a two month supply of toilet paper (one Costco pack) with no problem. The cost of buying groceries in bulk was inexpensive considering it will feed us for a month.

The one Roast Chicken dinner had a cost of $7.30.

(Apologies for this over analytical recap of ingredients, but you can take a guy out of financial analysis but sometimes you can’t take the analytic out of a guy)

Not only did the roast chicken feed 3 people well, it became the genesis of four additional entrees that will provide at basis for at least another twenty meals.

Just A Chicken Meal Plan

The prep time for the Roast Chicken meal was 20 minutes. After peeling and chopping, I added the vegetables to the bottom of the pan with a good sprinkle of kosher salt, freshly ground pepper and 2 cups of chicken stock. Then we roasted the chicken at 400 degrees for an hour and 10 minutes. When the chicken was done, I plated it along with the vegetables. I then added another cup of stock to the pan, scraped up the brown pieces, reduced it by a third and then thickened it with corn starch. Voila!

After dinner, the leftover chicken went into multiple directions.

The chicken carcass went into a pot along with celery, onion, carrot, potato and water to make a very tasty soup for the next night.
A portion of white meat was set aside for Declan’s (16 months old) lunch (see below)
The remainder was shredded and boxed off to become the basis for the lasagna and ravioli

This guy loves his Gramp’s cooking

In the end, we had a wonderful chicken dinner. The beauty of this type of cooking is that not only can I feed my family, but I have been making up care packages to drop off with less culinarily adept friends. So while we are not exactly socializing over a meal with friends, we are practicing social distancing and making a few friends pretty happy. Its not Just a chicken.