CLEANING DAY MEALS

It's settled: Saturday is officially cleaning day. Working or not, I always end up doing all the chores leftover from the whole week on Saturdays. So, this is the best day to have the easiest meals possible. You may say "Why don't you order something in?". In this case you obviously don't know us. Saturday is part of the week-end, and we must have fresh home made meals. But I also have a plan: I figured out many ways to have home cooked meals the easy way. The obvious way is that if the weather allows it, you can grill something, whip up a salad and you're good to go. But what if it's raining, or, as it's happening lately in New York, it's too horribly hot to even open a window, let alone go outside and fire up the grill? Your only chance is to think of easy meals, that will please your family, and still don't leave you drained after a day spent cleaning and cooking. Hey, it's still the week-end, and you are also supposed to relax and enjoy yourself!

I thought of the first two dishes at my last visit to the butcher, during the week: that's pretty much what I do. I let myself go with the flow, whatever I find at the market that looks good on that particular day, I buy, then I think of what can I do with it. All the other dishes are from my "strategic reserve": the pantry and the refrigerator.

GRILLED CALF LIVER

                                         

Liver looked delicious at the butcher's. As my husband says "You can eat it raw". So I got some and asked the butcher to slice it. Since I was thinking of grilling it, I asked him not to slice it too thin: 1/2 inch, or a little thicker is fine. As soon as I got home, I prepared it. Today I am adding to my usual recipe something new, some fresh herbs from the garden. You don't need much to have a delicious meal in minutes. Depending on the size of the liver available, buy a slice per person, plus two extra. (The average slice is about 8 x 4 inches). You'll need:

Liver slices (I made 4 and 2 smaller ones)

2 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture

3 fresh sprigs rosemary + 4 thyme

2 or 3 tbsp fresh lime juice

Salt and pepper to taste

Rinse the liver slices, making sure that there is no blood clots in the veins. Transfer to a bowl. Chop the herbs as finely as you can. You have first to remove the leaves from the stems by holding it at the top, then pulling the leaves back. Add them with all the other ingredients to the liver. Mix to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from the fridge, let stand for some 10 minutes while the grill is heating up. Grill undisturbed for 5 to 6 minutes, turn until it reaches the desired donness. I served it with some mashed potatoes, from a dried package. Don't look at me like that, some of them are really really good!!

VEAL STEW

                                                    

Another item that looked really good at the butcher's was a clean cut of veal. I asked him to cube it for me. About 2 x 1 inches cubes. The night before you need to cook the veal, marinate it and keep it refrigerated overnight. The next day, while you are cleaning or doing your chores in the kitchen, you can cook the veal cubes. Just make sure that you are around while it cooks, because you still have to keep an eye on it. You'll need:

2 lbs veal cubes

2 to 3 tbsp frozen onion/garlic mixture

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp butter

1/2 bag frozen pearl onions

To marinate the veal cubes: add the onion/garlic mixture, salt and pepper to it, mix well to coat, cover and refrigerate. If you don't have time to do it the night before, you start the day by doing just that and keep it refrigerated until you need to prepare dinner.

Put the veal cubes in a nonstick covered pan, and start cooking them on medium high heat. Don't worry about it, let it cook until all its liquid is absorbed, and you get a lot of browning in the pan. Add some water and stir to release all the browned bits and you get a brown sauce. Cover, reduce heat and let cook. Waiting for the liquid to be absorbed again, you can prepare a side dish or continue with your chores. I prepared a pasta dish: just boil some pasta, when it's almost done, add to it some veggies. Today I had only some carrots, so I sliced them the size of the rotini pasta I was making and added them to the boiling pasta pot. Drain the pasta, transfer it to the serving dish, toss it with a drop of olive oil and a sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper, and some chopped basil. 

When the liquid is absorbed again in the veal pan, fold in the pearl onions and the butter. Stir for a couple of minutes, add a little more liquid, cover and let cook until the veal is tender to the fork. Serve with the pasta or even over the pasta if you wish.