Sausage and Meatballs; There is No Hidden Meaning

Pretty much all food is fattening, or it can be easily made fattening (think Rachel Ray and her pounds of CHEESE all over everything). I remember reading something somewhere, probably back in the 1990's, about how when the U.S. got into a "low-fat" food pushing mode in the 80's, in order to keep food palatable, fat was removed and replaced with sugars - probably high-fructose corn syrup, since it's the cheapest sweetener out there. By the 90's, the food industry wised up, and instead started using fat substitutes in food that the human body was not capable of digesting, such as Olestra ("warning: may cause anal leakage," thank you, Jesse).

I think that when I was growing up, I and my siblings probably had a lower-fat diet than a lot of our peers. By sheer dint of having a large number of children and grandchildren to cook for on a daily basis - there were 10 of us living at home by the time I was 8 - and a limited budget, Mom took pains to stretch the most important part of the meal, the meat. To this day, I cannot eat gawumpky (cabbage rolls) that other people make, because my mother used a much higher ratio of rice to beef than a typical recipe suggests. Mom also made the best meatballs, and she probably got 25-30 out of a pound of beef. I miss those meatballs; when we had spaghetti, I used to save the meatballs for "dessert."

A few months ago, my yahoo news page featured a video for making the "perfect" Italian meatballs, hosted by Fabio Viviani of the "Chow Ciao" feature. http://screen.yahoo.com/women/chow-ciao/ I eventually tried Fabio's method, because hell, he's cute, but I didn't like the results. It involved cooking the meatballs in sauce, with water added to the top. I just didn't care for the mushy texture; Mom's meatballs were browned first, which made them firm, and she probably drained the grease.

Mom used the broiler pan a LOT. I remember having to wash the dishes and clean that shit up. She made hamburgers with onions and bread crumbs and eggs, cooked on the broiler pan, and the grease dripped away from the burgers. She cooked her meatloaf on a broiler pan; I remember in later years, she lamented the availability of good ground beef, stating that when she used to make meatloaf (on the broiler pan) she could dip her finger in the runoff, and it tasted good, but these days, it was just gross grease.

Mom used to make Italian sausage, which I loved. She cooked it forever, for like an hour in a tomato sauce with onions, and then served it like hotdogs on these excellent hard rolls that didn't get too soft with the sauce. I remember her telling me a story about cooking for her brother-in-law Pete, for some reason, sausage with onions and peppers (no sauce) on a big grill, I suppose state-fair style.

Sausage is so damn fatty. However, since this past week I had such a disappointing experience with turkey breakfast sausage, I decided to let sausage redeem itself as delicious in my eyes/in my stomach. Plus, Italian sausage was on sale for $2.49.

I've always been a dumbass about freezing meat, but I'm getting better. I wrapped up 3 of the 5 links and put them in the freezer. The other 2 I cooked today. I used a small saucepan, filled it about 2/3 with water, added the sausage, and cranked up the heat to get it started. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying close attention and the water came to a boil. Let me tell you, it was gross. A thick layer of foamy fat formed on top of the water. I removed it from the heat, skimmed off the fat - it was so weird - and put the pan back on the burner at a medium-low heat. I let it simmer for about 45 minutes, then drained the water, which had an orangey tint which means I probably lost significant spices, but the water was greasy-looking, so I probably dumped out some more fat. I poured about a third of a jar of Newman's Own spag sauce on it, and heated that for about 15 minutes while I boiled some thin spaghetti.

I have to say, it was pretty damn good. I know it wasn't low-fat, but with a significantly smaller portion of pasta than what I might normally eat, one sausage and the spaghetti was pretty filling, especially since I'm still having bread issues so I didn't have any bread with it. I will have the leftovers tomorrow. It's probably still just as healthy as a microwave meal, and I'm sure it's much healthier than fast food. My sister could make this even healthier with her homemade pasta sauce made with fresh tomatoes.

Strawberry Fields For Never

I do so like to eat. I'm sure most people do. I know that any and all weight loss plans claim that the key is diet and exercise. But I am not able, at this time, to commit myself to a forever of never eating tasty food. I think moderation is the key.

Unfortunately, I am not much of a cook. I know that people say that all there is to it is following a recipe, but shit seems to happen to me in the kitchen. Plus, it's just me, because while I don't live alone, exactly, I am certain that human food is not good for the cats. As a result of my solitary humanoid existence, if and when I cook, I resign myself to the fact that that meal may be what I'm going to eat for a few days. Bor-ring.

For a long time, I've relied on single-portion microwave meals. I've tried the Weight Watchers (TM) and Lean Cuisine (TM), and they taste like lightly-seasoned cardboard. There doesn't look to be a big calorie difference between the "diet" microwave meals and the regular ones, so I usually get Stouffer's something or Marie Callendar's or whatever is on sale. Honestly, they only taste slightly better than the diet stuff, but still. It seems like most of the microwave meals -- including the diet ones -- are loaded with some sort of pasta. I'm sure it's because it's a cheap filler, meant to camouflage the sorry portions of meat and vegetables.

At times, I've thought, "I can make pasta. Surely, I can make pasta-based meals and freeze them myself." But really, should anyone be eating pasta more than once a week?

I decided to try to learn to cook by watching tv. Because I refuse to pay for cable, I'm limited in this area to Saturday PBS shows (and AVG tells me Lidia's website is infected), which only air on Saturdays, and the Monday through Friday Rachael Ray show.

I really tried to like Rachael. She's sweet and bubbly, right? She's irritating. When I started watching, she was about to go on hiatus and have throat surgery. I told my tv, "you know what, bitch, if you didn't shout all the damn time, maybe you wouldn't need surgery. Why do you shout? You have microphones. Tell the crew to turn them up if you don't think people living on ice stations in Antarctica  can hear you."

Aside from Rachael's voice, there's the format of her show to hate on. Why can't she just cook? Why does she have to have "guests" that have nothing to do with food, whose asses she kisses in the most embarrassing ways? The very worst are the audience/fan makeovers. Every time, Rachael drops her jaw in the MOST unsurprised fashion. OMG, I don't recognize you! I bet Taylor Swift took "surprised face" lessons from her, because TS's awards show expression is almost as patently fake.

There must be a good part to the Rachael Ray show, and it must be the cooking, right? WRONG! Four out of five days of the week, her main recipe features approximately 12 ounces of cheese per suggested serving. Three days a week she says that she and her husband John -- her very, very short husband John -- will eat the entire meal between themselves (with a bottle of wine to class it up).  Yes, because Shoney's doesn't serve wine. And once a week, Rachael cooks the BEST burger ever. Sometimes it has cheese on the inside. Sometimes it has macaroni and cheese on top. Sometimes Paula Deen is there and she laughs and says, "we're goin' to jail for this, y'all."

I swear, it would be healthier to eat fast food five days a week than to serve the "that's what's for dinner tonight!" recipe that Rachael serves up.  Honestly, Hamburger Helper does it cheaper.

OK, I'm finished with Rachael. On to me.

My very smart sister told me to buy meats, divvy them up, and freeze them. Last month, my local Meijer had fresh skinless boneless chicken breasts on sale for $1.99 a pound, the catch being that only the family pack size was on sale. I wrapped each piece (I guess each is a half-breast?) in saran wrap, then put them in a big freezer bag, and pushed as much air out of it as possible before zipping it up. I must have done that ok, because almost a month later, the two pieces I pulled out to defrost on Sunday night had no signs of freezer crystals on them.

I found this recipe http://allrecipes.com/recipe/baked-garlic-parmesan-chicken/detail.aspx to try. The page allowed me to change the number of servings to 2, and I followed those quantities except that I used an entire clove of garlic, and -- due to my aversion to commercial bread -- I used 12 smashed low-fat Club crackers instead of bread crumbs, and only 2 tablespoons (FU RR) of grated Parmesan (I used the kind that comes in a canister). I sprinkled a little cumin in there, too, since it just seemed like chicken should have cumin. My finished product looked less like the main recipe photo and more like this:

I'm paranoid about meats, so I left it in the oven an extra 6 minutes, and then cut one of the pieces open to verify that it was cooked through.

This was the most delicious chicken I have ever cooked. I expected it to be dry, but it was pretty damn moist for white meat. I ate a piece with a serving of microwave corn (I know). It was a pretty big portion, so I have to wonder if that calorie count of 281 is accurate.

My problems with the recipe have to do with the breading. It was a little soggy on the bottom. The recipe didn't call for flipping the chicken while baking, so I didn't, but I have to wonder if maybe I should have? I used cooking spray to grease my pan, and I really don't know if that means turning it would have led to sticking. Also, when i cut into it, the breading sort of fell off, so I forklifted breading with each bite. How do you keep the breading from falling off?

I figured I would save the second piece for the next day. However, later in the evening, it called to me, and I ate it cold from the fridge. I think I will file this recipe under Crack Chicken.