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Whipped this up in under an hour (mostly simmering time) using nothing but pantry items. Alternate name would be “Simple Weeknight Chili”.

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 14oz can kidney beans
• 1 28oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 tbsp butter
• Medium white or yellow onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp chili powder (the Penzeys stuff is really good)
• Pinch dried oregano
• Salt + pepper to taste

Method

1. Brown ground beef over medium heat in a medium stockpot, drain and rinse. Drain and rinse beans. Put empty pot back on the heat, add butter, onions, and garlic. Saute for 5-6 mins. Toss in chili powder, oregano, salt + pepper and continue frying for a couple of minutes. Stuff will stick to the bottom a bit, but that’s ok — it will come off later.
2. Add browned meat, beans, and tomatoes (including juices). Stir and heat until simmering. Turn down the heat to low and simmer for 25-35 minutes (or longer if you want — the longer you simmer, the more the tomatoes will break down). Done.

Serve with crusty bread and a beer.

A while ago I decided that I wanted to learn how to make bread. I have a love-hate relationship with bread, you see — I love good, chewy, fresh, crispy bread, but I hate most of the stuff you can buy at the grocery store or market. The market bread was disappointing, honestly — I was expecting great things from that and it was just boring, weak, and flavourless. Boo.

Anyhow, after asking David Humphries for a book recommendation, I picked up Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Bread Bible (Amazon.ca, Amazon.com). It is an excellent book. After pouring over the introductory essays for a few days, I skipped ahead to the “Basic Hearth Bread” recipe, and gave it a shot. It worked beautifully. I made my third loaf of it yesterday, and I took pictures of the process that are over on my flickr account. Check out the set here: making bread.

I’ve always wanted to have my own herb garden, and now that we have a house with a big yard and plenty of sun, it’s time. At the beginning of March I started doing some research and very quickly discovered that buying herb plants, particularly the number and variety I want, was simply untenable. At a minimum of $3 per plant (plus shipping, and shipping plants isn’t cheap) I was looking at a final bill of a couple hundred bucks, the majority of which was for annuals. Since half the idea is to save money by not buying fresh herbs at the grocery store (seriously, $2-3 for a small handful of wilted basil?), a couple of hundred bucks wasn’t in the cards.

Then I spotted the seed prices, which are much more in line with what I had budgeted for this little experiment. While there are a few herbs that can’t really be grown from seed, the vast majority can, and ordering from Richter’s, I got many more herb, tomato, vegetable, and decorative plant seeds that I really need for less than $50. Another $12 got seeding flats and soil, and I was all set.

Last Saturday I spent a couple of hours planting out two flats’ worth of seeds — 144 units in all, with 2-3 seeds in each. These included: Sweet Basil, Thai Basil, Lemon Balm, Chives, Cilantro (two types), Dill, Greek Oregano, Italian Parsley, Rosemary, Garden Sage, French Thyme, Yellow Currant Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Alpine Strawberries, Chinese Lantern, and four types of chiles (Cayenne, Jalapeno, Scotch Bonnet, and Serrano). I planted 144 in total because I’m pessimistically expecting a 75% failure rate, but we’ll see how it goes. There are still some herbs I need to buy as plants, including Bay, a couple of Mints, and French Tarragon. I expect I’ll also need to pick up a few Rosemary plants since those are apparently difficult to grow from seed.

Today, six days after planting the seeds, I was excited to discover the first sproutlings. The Sweet Basil, Thyme, Chives, and Oregano have all germinated, in spite of the less-than-stellar conditions they’ve had to deal with. Of course, I really have no idea what I’m doing beyond what I’ve read on a handful of pages on the internet, so we’ll see how it all turns out in the end.

Ingredients

• 1 kg stewing beef, in 1″ cubes
• 2 tbsp oil (canola, vegetable, whatever)
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 3 tbsp curry powder
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 c water or stock

Method

1. In a medium pot (with lid), brown the beef in the oil in three batches, and remove to a bowl.
2. Toss garlic and ginger into the empty pot where you browned the beef. Saute over med heat for a minute or two. Toss in the lemon juice and curry powder and cook for a few minutes (3-4). At this point the bottom of the pot is covered with browned bits of beef, ginger, garlic, and curry powder — don’t worry about that, it’ll all come off after you add the water and simmer the beef. It’s tasty, honest.
3. Return beef to the pot and stir well so the curry goop coats the beef. Add tomato paste. Cook like that for a minute or two.
4. Add water, bring to a boil, then turn heat to low. Cover and simmer for 1.5-2 hours.
5. 15 mins before serving, remove lid and turn heat up to med-high. Cook, stirring, until sauce thickens slightly.
6. Serve with rice and/or naan, and some sort of vegetable (I did garlicky-ginger sauted spinach).

Done! Yum. The curry powder is not hot at all. If you want spicy-hot curry, add as much cayenne pepper to the curry powder as you want.

I made this up the other night. I have no idea whether it’s remotely like authentic arrabiata sauce, but it’s yummy and easy.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cloves fresh garlic, finely minced
• 2-3 tsp hot red pepper flakes
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• 1 med yellow onion, diced
• 1 28oz tin diced tomatoes
• 1 14oz tin crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp salt, give or take - to taste
• Fresh ground black pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp decent balsamic vinegar

Method

1. Set a decent sized sauce pot on med-low heat and add oil. Toss in garlic and let warm up for a bit, then turn heat up to medium.
2. Throw in red pepper flakes, shallot, and onion, and saute for 3-4 mins until the onions are translucent and getting soft.
3. Turn heat up to med-high and add diced tomatoes, including all the juice from the tin. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 4-5 mins then add the crushed tomatoes. Add some salt and pepper, stir well, turn down to med-low or low, and let simmer for a while until it’s a nice saucy consistency and the tomatoes taste cooked.
4. Stir in balsamic vinegar, simmer for a couple more minutes, and serve.

You might want to start with less than 2 tsp of hot pepper flakes and adjust the recipe to suit. We like some pretty spicy arrabiata, and tend to serve this with sliced chunks of hot italian sausage, red onion, and yellow peppers over fusilli. It’s also great with straight up spaghetti and meatballs.

Update: Rob thinks it could have used a hit of sugar (1/2 tsp or so). This is possibly true.