JOE's CHOICE WEDNESDAY: Bacon and Cabbage Savage!

NaBloPoMo: Day 22

WHAT?!

You people haven't seen "Onion Goggles" before?

OK, It is hard to add humor to bacon and cabbage, so I had to show you a pic of me in my onion goggles (thanks Sunshine Grandma).

Last week our visit to to CSA, Bread and Roses Farm, produced a head of what I believe to be Napa cabbage. On my drive home I was trying to figure out dinner and what I could come up with using our newly acquired farm fresh produce. A mental checklist started to materialize:

Bacon - check

Cabbage - check

Onion - check

Garlic - check

Diced Stewed Tomatoes - ohhh I hoped

As luck would have it, the diced stewed tomatoes were a "check".

Ingredients: As above...although, I guess I should add how much and what to do to the ingredients before frying them up, like a pissed off Killer T-Cell hot after our children's insulin producing and secreting beta cells.

Bacon (1/2 a package)- chopped up in like 1 inch pieces

Napa or Asian Cabbage (1/2 head) - chopped thin

Yellow, or what have-you onion (about 1/2 medium bulb) - diced

Garlic (4 cloves) - minced

Diced Stewed Tomatoes - one 15 oz. can

Directions: Cut up bacon into about 1 inch chunks and fry, stirring occasionally.

Once the bacon is cooked and crisp, add in the onion and garlic, fry until the onions soften.

Now add in the can of diced, stewed tomatoes and the chopped cabbage. Cover. Cook on medium until the cabbage becomes limp (like a beta cell defunct pancreas).

Serve in a bowl with hearty bread. This flax bread recipe goes well with this hodgepodge of a goulash.

Joe loved, loved, loved this recipe. He told me that I have the best "imagination" ever to come up with it on the fly. I actually just tweaked my friend Susy's recipe which is essentially the same ingredients, but it uses ground turkey or beef for the meat source.

Nutritional Information: SWAG it baby (thanks Lorraine). I carb counted it at about 6g/cup, which worked well with Joe's current dinner ratio.

A day-in-the-life living as a bacon and cabbage savage.

Joe's Choice Wednesday: TOMATO SOUP

NaBloPoMo: Day 15

I don't want to scare you. Are you sitting? Swallow your coffee, soda, wine, beer, or what-have-you. OK? Is your oral cavity evacuated? I am trying to save your computer and monitor screen. No need to thank me. Really. It is all in a day-in-the-life of labor for me as a mother, pancreas, wife, nurse, friend, make-up expert, 1/2 marathon trainer, fashionista...

AND...

"DOMESTIC GODDESS"...

I bet that one surprised you. Yep, I can scrub a toothpaste encrusted sink drain, sweep shoe tread clumped mud chunks, and dust spittle coated cracker crumbs with the best of them and I like to cook "healthy" food made from locally grown veggies. We belong to a CSA named Bread and Roses. Bridget, Joe, and I drive out to the farm weekly to pick-up our produce from June through October. It is reasonably priced and I get to expose Bridget and Joe to the growing process and harvesting procedures, while introducing a variety of vegetables to their diet. The past couple of weeks we have accumulated over five pounds of tomatoes from our CSA visits.

So...

As if Joe isn't enough work with the "temporary" over-time pancreas job that he involuntarily hired me for, he also loves some labor-intensive foods. His absolute favorite homemade soup is tomato. He loves it from scratch with real tomatoes. He begs for it all summer. It starts when the little nubbins of green fruit start to emerge from the yellow flower on the plant and it continues on, and on, and on, and on until the fruit is finally ripe.

Without further delay our Fresh Tomato Soup Recipe post.

This is a great recipe for this time of year. It gives you one more thing to do with the abundance of tomatoes yielded from a good growing season. AND. Yes, I realize this post is a little tame after the penis-pancreas connection and the alien abduction. I guess I want you guys to know deep down I am a "normal" person trapped in a prophane adjective and adverb slingin' comedienne's body. Smiles.

INGREDIENTS:
4 cups fresh tomatoes
1 sliced onion
4 whole cloves
2 cups chicken broth
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar, or to taste

DIRECTIONS:

Blanche whole tomatoes in boiling water for 15 seconds. Let them cool to the point of handling them safely. Then peel the skin off. Halve the tomatoes to de-seed them. Then dice the tomato flesh.

Blanching

Peeling

Peeled and De-seeded

In a stockpot, over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, onion, cloves and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, and gently boil for about 20 minutes to blend all of the flavors. Remove from heat and blenderize the mixture.

Boiling

Joe "manning" the blender

In the now empty stockpot, melt the butter over medium heat. Stir in the flour to make a roux, cooking until the roux is a medium brown. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture, so that no lumps form, then stir in the rest. Season with sugar and salt, and adjust to taste.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION: Garden Fresh Tomato Soup
Servings Per Recipe: 6
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 81
Total Fat: 4.3g
Cholesterol: 12mg
Sodium: 803mg
Total Carbs: 9.4g
Dietary Fiber: 1.8g
Protein: 1.9g

A day-in-the-life of making wholesome food for my family and my high maintenance type 1 kid.

FLAX BREAD

I have used this bread recipe on and off since Joe's diagnosis. I weigh the bread and then multiply the weight (in grams) by the carb factor (0.436) to come up with the carb count. This bread seems to work well with his blood sugar numbers.

Here is the recipe:

1 1/3 cup H2O
2 T Butter
3 T Honey
1 1/2 cup bread flour
1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup flax seed (ground)
1 1/2 t salt
2 1/2 t yeast

Add ingredients to bread machine...dry ingredients and then wet...use the rapid bake setting...(if using the basic setting, use only 1 t of yeast).

CARB FACTOR 0.436