The Kid has never been a picky eater. 
Beets, bananas, and fish sticks are a few of the small list of items that shall not pass my child’s lips.
And there are two one-pot main dishes that are on the no-fly list. One is a recipe I got from my friend and former boss, Bosco. It’s a rice, chick pea and hamburger skillet.
The other dish is the scratch-made version of a treat with both rice and short spaghetti shards one might find in San Francisco. I’ve made it for years; I’ve even written about it before, but the last time I made it, I added a new ingredient. 
It’s a trick America’s Test Kitchen uses when making quick versions of slow-cooked dishes. At first blush, it seems like one of those internet hacks that sound like a life-changing miracle, but when actually attempted leaves you with regret, frustration, a wine-stained shoe, a broken bottle, and glass shards embedded in your forehead.
It’s unflavored gelatin.
See? I told you it sounded bizarre.
But hear me out. When you cook meats very slowly, the collagen eventually dissolves. That’s what lends the unctuous mouth feel to things like brisket or ribs. Gelatin’s a protein which comes from collagen.
I’ll never make this without gelatin again; it’s perfect in this dish, or any dish that needs a little silkiness.
San Francisco Cheat-2.0
1 pound 80/20 ground beef
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 pound mushrooms, sliced
2 teaspoons rosemary, chopped finely
1 teaspoon dry thyme
1 ¾ cups long grain rice
1-7 ounce bag fideo noodles (found in grocery stores’ Hispanic section)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
½ cup sherry or red wine
1 ½ cups thawed shoe peg corn
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
½ cup cold water
Salt and pepper
For broth, whisk together:
4 cups beef stock
2 teaspoons horseradish
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Splash of mushroom or dark soy
3 bay leaves
Bloom gelatin: stir together gelatin powder and ½ cup cold water. Set aside. It will harden into gelled disk.
Turn large heavy pot with lid to medium-high. Break ground beef into thumb-size pieces and drop into pan. Season. Let cook undisturbed until the portion touching the bottom of the pot browns and gets a little crust.
When the meat is browned all over, remove meat from pan and set aside. Pour out all but about a tablespoon or so of the fat left.
Add mushrooms, onions, rosemary and thyme. Cook until liquid has cooked out and veg are caramelized.
Stir in fideo and rice. Cook, stirring frequently until the rice and pasta have browned a bit. Stir in tomato paste and let cook for a few minutes.
Pour in sherry or wine, scraping up any bits on pot bottom. Let cook until pan is dry.
Pour in broth and put gelatin disk into pot. Stir until melted and liquid comes to a boil. Add back the ground beef and stir in corn. Turn down heat to medium-low, cover, and cook for 17-20 minutes or the broth has completely cooked in. 
Remove from heat, leave covered, and let sit for 15 minutes before serving. Top each serving with a pat of butter and some snipped chives if desired.
Serves 6-8.
As far as savory gelatin goes, this beats the pants off those crazy aspics from the fifties, with tomato jello studded with celery, pimento-stuffed olives, and shrimp.
But for the love of Mike, why, oh, why, would they do that to perfectly innocent food and their digestive tracks?
Thanks for your time.
I think my sister-in-law hates me.
And there grows the source of my strife.
And any so-called self-control that I may tenuously possess goes right out of the window. Soon I find myself diving into that delicious, delicious bag in a downward shame spiral that only concludes when I find myself with buttery hands and face, gazing guiltily into the now empty bag.
In salads, I use them in place of bacon. Pecans are a healthy, flavorful textural addition to rice. Ground up you can use them as a coating for chicken and chops. Ground even finer they add a rich, slightly sweet note to pastry and pie crust.
And if Leah wants to hate me some more with a couple pounds of buttered, salted pecans—I’m in.
1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour 
Thanks for your time.
My mother agonizes over each dish at each meal served at her table. An Italian girl from Jersey, she was raised with “Mangia!” (Eat up!), and “Abbondanza!” (abundance). The burning question in her mind is, will there be enough?
So, there are regularly large quantities of leftovers at my parents’ house.
Anyway, for holiday meals, my contribution is the ham. It makes a big impact, feeds a lot of mouths, but is deceptively easy to prepare. This year it was a 17-pounder.
The meat from ½ rotisserie chicken, cut into bite-size pieces
Let sit 10 minutes before serving. Serves 8.
Thanks for your time.
I’m a fan of Walgreens because of two things.
It’s a treasure hunt under florescent lights. The other day when I was in they had fancy little Batman and Superman 8 GB flash drives. Each was nine dollars and the size of a hushpuppy.
The “equipment” turned out to be a 5 GB hard drive. That’s almost 50% less capacity than the superhero drives at Walgreens.
I, and every kid I knew rode in the back seat of a car that didn’t even have seat belts, let alone anchored, padded, car seats made of space age polymers. We rattled around station wagons like BB’s in a Pringles can. My folks had a VW bug, and when the car was filled with riders, they’d fold me into the little cubby behind the back seat—right above the engine. I often rode in the same spot in our next car, a pinto; which was eventually recalled due to fiery explosions that occurred when the rear bumper was tapped.
Pill box hats, 15 cent Cokes, and Captain Kangaroo have all gone away, and that’s a crying shame. But some disappearances are nothing but good.
Thanks for your time.
It looks like the release day of the new iphone and a 90% off shoe sale all in one little store in one little strip mall. It’s a scene from a dystopian apocalyptic epic. There are hundreds of cars and thousands of eager ham-seeking missile-people. In the run up to ham-eating holidays some locations even have off-duty constables directing traffic.
My mom is the kind of person that if she had $10 and you needed $20 and a lung, she would rip out a lung and steal ten more dollars. So, if I could at least take the ham procurement off her list during holiday craziness, I at least had to try.
Very little of my ham came from that culinary mad scientist.
So, two or three weeks before Peter Cottontail shows up, I call Regina at King’s Red & White (305 E Club Blvd Durham {919} 220-2192). Everybody in the Bull City that knows good food shops there. And what Regina don’t know about meat ain’t worth knowing.
I wish you and yours a very Happy Easter. And I hope you get all the chocolate you can handle (I never in my life met more chocolate than I could handle).
2 cups jelly, jam, or marmalade, warmed and strained or 4 cups of the soft drink of your choice, reduced (cooked at a rapid boil) by half 
*match nuts to glaze, peach/peanut, orange/pecan, cherry/almond etc.
Equipment needed:
Thanks for your time.
There are two absolutes concerning this confection.
Butter, for greasing pans 
So here’s where the panic comes. The batter will be thin. I mean thin like the consistency of heavy cream thin. When you make the batter, you’ll think you’ve screwed it up. You haven’t—it’s fine, I promise.
6 ounces semisweet chocolate 
A word of caution about the frosting: although I am always on the “more is better” bus, this philosophy will not work here. The amount of chocolate in the recipe is perfect. If you add more, as the frosting sets, it will get hard and crack, ruining the beauty of your work. Don’t do it.
Better “get” going.
Back then, smoking was enthusiastically promoted by just about every authority figure because North Carolina=tobacco. It was looked upon as support for the state.
In the late eighties, I smoked clove cigarettes for a few years. They were expensive and available only at specialty tobacconists.
Over the years, smoking became less and less socially acceptable. Here’s an illustration of that.
In 2003 Petey broke his leg and needed surgery (here at Chez Matthews, we are nothing if not graceful). Smoking wasn’t allowed inside the hospital, but a smoky, damp hut was situated in a secluded part of the hospital grounds.
I’m ashamed to say it, but even the humiliation of that sleazy promenade didn’t make me want to quit. But soon, something else would.
One drug was originally made and used as an anti-depressant. It took a while to get in your system and made some people feel like they sleep walking through their day.
I started taking the pills, smoked up my last pack, and waited for the horrible attitude, ensuing alienation from family and friends, and eventual relapse.
And I and my house both smell a lot better.
They say when you’re drowning there comes a point when you give up fighting, a sense of peace envelops you, and then it’s all over.
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salad:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Take your favorite store-bought biscuits (I’d use Bojangles’ biscuits; but you can use any you like, up to and including canned biscuits) and paint the tops with melted butter. Sprinkle each with a spoonful of sugar and put under the broiler until it browns and bubbles.
Well over a month ago, I got an email from The Kid with a link to a giant clearance sale. It was J Crew and Madewell, at the state fairgrounds. The suggestion was to get Gramma and Grampa up from Greensboro and we’d all attend.
So, I’m down with J Crew. And I love Madewell. We decided to go.
I really need to go to the flea market more often. I had forgotten all about one of my very favorite vendors: the Italian Ice cart.
My ice was the unorthodox flavor of chocolate. Most people outside of Jersey don’t even know ices come in chocolate. But it does, and when done right, as this was, is a deep, rich, not too sweet celebration of cocoa.
The company is Heavenly Beezzz (not a typo, that’s how it’s spelled). It is now and forever, officially the best pimento cheese ever. The Kid thought so, too.
They’re at the fairgrounds every week, or you can check out their website at WWW.Heavenlybeezzz.com.
Thanks for your time.
I kept thinking.
My version of the sauce contains mushrooms, garlic, Marsala, and enough cream to supply Starbucks for weeks. It’s as rich as Lady Gaga’s wig maker and as caloric as a day at the state fair.
In the end, I decided to try something new, and once more use my unsuspecting family as guinea pigs. I would make twice baked stuffed potatoes, but use rice instead of potatoes.
1 ½ cups uncooked long-grain rice
But hey, go nuts. You know, actually nuts would probably be pretty darn good in the rice.
bull city mom 