Walnut Crust Honey Pie

A honey-based shoofly pie with a crisp walnut and cinnamon crust in place of pastry.  Yum!  I use dark wildflower honey rather than clover honey for the fuller flavor, but any honey is tasty-good.

I suggest Egg Beaters b/c it can be a pain to halve a single egg, as called for in the filling, whereas Egg Beaters can be conveniently measured by the tablespoonful.  Also b/c the rules of the State Fair Culinary Arts competition (in which I have entered this recipe) forbid the use of actual unpasteurized eggs in baked goods ::eye roll::

Letting the crust cool before filling is important b/c it helps prevent the Honey Volcano (I screw up so you don't have to) and gives your oven time to cool down to proper, non-burning pie-baking temperature.

This pie will freeze nicely after baking, though the crust might not be quite as crisp after thawing.

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Easy-easier-easiest: Okra

Please don't change the channel just because you *think* you don't like okra!  I studiously avoided it for a long time, but finally caved to household pressure (ie my husband) and made oven-fried okra once...I am now hooked!  It is not slimy when cooked (although it is slimy while cutting, to be completely truthful).  Okra season (NOW) makes a welcome break from the mid-summer zucchini-fest as well. 

Now for the hard-sell...Okra is low calorie when prepared plainly as in the grilled recipe below, high in vitamins K, A, and C and as well as folic acid and fiber, and is one of the most antioxidant-dense green veggies out there. 

We grow our own okra now as it's not always easy to find fresh okra at the store. Frozen is OK for most purposes, but fresh is best. If you happen to have an abundance of fresh okra, slice it and freeze it in 1-2 cup amounts (clumped up is fine) to use in stews and gumbos.

How can you not give it a go? Especially when even my veggie-avoidant 16 month old just asked very politely, using signs, for more okra? Come on people...

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Easiest-Easier-Easy: Zucchini

Who doesn't have an excess of zucchini at this time of year?  You, over there?  Well, I'm leaving some on your doorstep next.  The following shouldn't be a surprise by now...I love me some roasted veggies, but given the time of year, grilling is the way to go.  The fanciest recipe I provide here is poached from my in-laws...as my father-in-law says often and with gusto, "I could make a meal of this".

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Spiced Braised Pork Chops

Adapted from Art Smith's Back to the Table.  I was looking for a recipe that would suit bone-in pork chops and discovered Art Smith's Spiced Pork Loin with Vidalia Onion Sauce.  I am using thick-cut pork chops rather than a loin and regular onions instead of sweet, but you can make changes to my changes.  If you want to make this for a roast, make up a double batch of the braising/spice mixture and cook the roast for 1 1/4 hours. 

This sauce mixture is so easy to put together, you should consider making extra for more than one kit.  Or you can make a double batch, cook one half for dinner tonight and freeze the rest to get two dinners for one night's work.

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Hula Chicken Stirfry

49g carb per serving

This recipe is originally from the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook gifted to me, er, my son for his birthday. I made it once and the kids wolfed it down, so it's now on our do-again list.  The bonus, of course, is that it is well-suited to freezer kit organization (yay!).  The recipe below makes 2 kits, due to the popularity of the dish at my house as much as to the fact that my grocery store only carries pineapple chunks in 20 oz. cans instead of the 8 oz. can required by the OR.

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Stay-in Take-out: Pork Lo Mein

This is an America's Test Kitchen recipe originally, which means it's absolutely delicious but persnickety and step-heavy.  If you want to try it Chris Kimball's way, you can prep it ahead for same day or next day cooking with no problem...assemble the marinade for the meat and get that started, make the sauce, chop the veggies and grate/mix the ginger-garlic and set all that aside in the fridge.  But you can't freeze it ahead as a kit well, and the final cooking process comes to way more than 3 or 4 steps which my mental processing limit at 6pm.

 

So I keep the best parts of this recipe (the sauce, the cut of pork and the basic method of cooking) and reconfigure all the other parts to achieve simplicity and freezability.  If I do say so myself.  For vegetables, you'll need about 8-9 cups of veg...it seems like a lot, but it cooks down.  I park some frozen veggies in the freezer kit and plan to make up the remainder with fresh vegetables purchased the week I'll make this dinner or canned stirfry favorites like water chestnuts or bamboo shoots.  Use what you like in any combination. 

 

For the "lo mein", I've used udon, soba and whole wheat linguine, all with perfectly good results.  Just make sure to read the package directions since each type requires a different cooking time.

 

The sauce ingredients are perhaps a bit outside of the usual pantry staples, but are worth finding if only to duplicate this recipe many times over.  Oyster sauce is in the Asian foods section of even my podunk grocery stores, and it's like a steak sauce but much less vinegar-y.  Hoisin is an Asian-style barbecue sauce, and 5 spice powder is a mix of pepper, fennel, cloves, cinnamon and anise (at least my jar is).

 

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Sage Ravioli

This hardly qualifies as a recipe, but again a reminder that good food can be fast and simple.  And I've never seen directions that I'm happy with regarding browning butter.

I'd love to say that I make homemade ravioli.  My boys' great-great-grandparents were from Italy and there's an antique family pasta roller somewhere at my in-laws' house.  I envision trooping over once a month with the kids, making tons of homemade pasta and drying it while we sit around and look at old photos, the boys learning about family history and cultural heritage as much as cooking skills (not to mention the fun of hand-cranking pasta)...but that's not what we do.  Maybe someday.

So I use store-bought ravioli (or another filled pasta).  Feel free to use homemade if you make it (brava! brava! if you do).  Using pre-frozen ravioli makes this an easy freezer kit...freeze the pasta and butter in a bag or container together and either make sure to have fresh sage when you cook or freeze a handful of sage sprigs wrapped in a paper towel.  Pat the thawed sage dry before cooking...it won't be quite as crispy as fresh would be, but it's still good.

I use the highly scientifically measured amount of a "big ol' fistful" of sage leaves.  It's about 1/2 ounce if you buy them, but really...if you've got a square foot of sunny space in your yard, plant a sage plant!  This isn't a gardening blog, so I won't go into great detail, but it's perennial, retains leaves in Zone 5 through the winter (for year-round use), and is way cheaper than buying fresh herbs at the store.  And no, you can't make this recipe with dry sage out of a tin pot. 

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