Entertain without fear

A week never passes when we do not have folks over for a meal. We have been doing this for fifty years. I am amazed that so many people we know, old and young, rarely invite people to share a meal at home with them. They are scared! The food will not be great, the house will not be clean, somehow they will be found wanting. Not true.

First off, nothing can beat an invitation to a friend's home for a meal. This is the most intimate thing friends can do for each other. No one actually looks at the cleanliness of a home they are visiting (unless there is a severe hoarding issue). All you need to do is stash the pile of newspapers and have the bathroom sink mostly clean. Put out a roll of paper towels and you're good. Forget the dog hair on the couch.

Think low lighting. (You are not interrogating terrorists!) Turn off that ceiling light over the dining table. Light a candle. Set the table with your best feng shey. No matter if things match.

But the food? (you whine). O.K. Do something you know how to do, something easy. Take into account whether you are entertaining vegetarians or omnivores, or a mix. The thing is, the people you are entertaining for dinner really want to be here in your home to see YOU. They are not after the perfect gourmet latest thing. They would be perfectly satisfied with grilled cheese sandwiches and a cup of soup!

If you want to do more, think of a stew type of thing you can make ahead, add a salad and some bread and fresh fruit for dessert.

The worst mistake you can make is to have a dinner so complicated and requiring so much time that you are in the kitchen while your guests languish in the living room (with the dog hair!) wondering where you are. Believe me, your guests would rather have you there with them. Your guests would love to share some take-out from a Chinese restaurant - way better than waiting for the frantic hosts in the kitchen who are braising the perfect asparagus.

When you invite your guests, please don't make them wait interminably for the meal to begin. Tons of cheese and snacks before the dinner depresses the appetite and expands the waistline. If you have to attend to the last preparations of the dinner, have your guests be in the kitchen with you. And have a bunch of raw carrots and pepper slices on hand.

Have courage! Invite friends to a meal! Remember that this is not a job interview and you are not applying to college. Relax. Sharing a meal is the best!

Monday dinner for four

We cook for the love of friends and family. Grandpa Andy cooks and I am the great booster and the one who runs out to the garden for the vegetables. I am the washer of the greens and the after dinner kitchen cleaner - and who could mind this chore, considering?

For family tonight we had baked salmon, brown rice, quick cooked kale, and a salad of yellow peppers, avocado and cucumbers in a vinagret dressing. For dessert tonight, though we normally don't have it, we had a lemon pudding with local strawberries.

The only thing about this meal that couldn't be done in a standing start in less than 45 minutes was the pudding. Andy had made it earlier in the afternoon.

To begin, we had four small salmon fillets, about 1 and1/3 pounds in all. He baked them in a 350 degree oven on an oiled cookie sheet for 15 minutes. Before he put the salmon on to bake he cooked the brown rice for 35 minutes or so, according to the directions on the package. While that was cooking, and before the fish had to go in, he chopped the cukes, orange peppers, scallions and avacado slices and dressed this with a dash of rice wine vinegar, a splash of olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper and let this salad meld. Then he chopped the fresh kale and put it into a pan with a bit of water, popped the top on and put the fish into the oven. By the time we'd had half a glass of some great New Zealand wine (and I had knitted another three rows of the baby blanket I am making), it was time to light the candles and sit down to dinner.

With a dinner like this, talk flows. Then, we serve the lemon pudding and strawberries. This lemon pudding is a recipe we got from a dinner guest several weeks ago, who brought it! Once in a while you get a recipe from friends that is so amazing, it immediately goes into one's lexicon of great food. And so it is with Vivian's lemon pudding.( I will share this recipe with you when I get security clearance from Vivian.)

Our dinners are pretty easy to make, not time consuming, and rarely involve recipes. They are about good whole food, and good whole love too.

The first thing about great home cooking is the desire to cook for the ones you love. The next thing is to use wonderful fresh ingredients, and the best thing is to enjoy these meals with congenial people.

Food is life!

Simple Sunday night dinner

Here is the menu for tonight:

Scallops on a bed of polenta.

Fresh steamed brussel sprouts.

Green salad of red lettuces, mizuma, walnut pieces, garlic vinegar dressing.

Fresh baked bread.

Here are brussel sprouts from the garden, just steamed for about four minutes. Nothing to compare to the ones you buy in the supermarket. These are so sweet and crisp!

I promised Grandpa Andy that I would not get food political in this blog. However, I must point out that anyone can grow a few vegetables, and what could be more local? Brussel sprouts, a member of the brassica family along with broccoli, collards, kale and other greens, are so easy to grow, no pests, very beautiful and bountiful. Not to mention, the very best you can eat for health! If you don't grow any vegetables you can visit farmstands or farmers markets or look carefully in your local grocery store. Whatever you do, you need to get the freshest possible vegetables you can.

Everyone needs to eat pure food, nothing processed, just cook from scratch. Eschew the middle aisles of the supermarket, perveyors of manufactured food with more than twenty ingredients (mostly fake and certainly sodium and sugar laden and fattening)

So, we eat these wonderful meals every day. It doesn't take much time or effort. Combined with major daily exercise, we are healthy and fit.

And collards growing in the garden are such magnificent artistic creations!

So, in addition to our very own sprouts, we have a wonderful salad of mostly red lettuces and red mizuma with tomatoes and walnut pieces.

For the main dish we have sea scallops that were frozen. You can get some quite excellent everyday seafood in the frozen food department of your supermarket. Just get a few of these frozen seafood packets- scallops, salmon, tilapia, tuna, whatever, and stash them in the freezer for a quick and delicious meal. Tonight G'Pa cooked the thawed scallops in a pan with about a teaspoon of butter, some lemon juice, and a bit of salt and pepper. He cooked some yellow corn meal (polenta) and we spooned the scallops over this.

The bread was made (by me!) from a New York Times recipe I saw in the Tampa Bay Times food section last week. So easy!

Let us know if you need more specific cooking directions and tips. Happy eating!

Saturday night leftovers

Here's dinner tonight for just the two of us. We are having pork ragu on a bed of pasta and a salad of fresh greens with apple slices.

The ragu: Grandpa Andy found two very small pork chops in the freezer. He cut them in small pieces, sauteed these in a tiny amount of olive oil with some diced onions and six cloves of garlic (he always uses a LOT of garlic). He found some leftover red sauce in the fridge (one of those tupperware containers I was about to throw out) and mixed this altogether in the frying pan. He put on a pot of water to boil for the pasta (which was a mix of leftover small amounts of twists and other shapes). I brought the greens for a salad from the garden. Tonight these were baby spinach leaves, a few chard leaves and some Asian greens. Andy added some apple slices and a handful of blueberries. We forgot to add some walnut pieces. Then he made a dressing of a bit of good olive oil, a splash of rice vinegar, salt and pepper.

When the pasta was done, about twelve minutes, he put it in a bowl and arranged the ragu on top. We set the table, lighted the candles and sat down to a delicious and very inexpensive meal.

So, here we have a satisfying meal, very nutritious, low fat, eye appealing.

A note on salads: We have salad every day and it is never the same! There is always a bed of some sort of greens. It can be any kind of lettuce or leaves you have. Then you can add other vegetables- tomatoes and cukes, of course. But also beets, turnips, fruits, nuts and grains. Your salad is the mainstay of good nutrition and tastiness.

We never have dessert unless we have company, and then Andy will pull out all his stops and make a dessert souffle or an apple strawberry tart. Yum!

So, just look in your fridge and see what's there. It could be the makings of a pretty decent and not expensive meal.

GrandpaAndycooks: imagination and a sharp knife

Some years ago when we were both working full tilt, I quit cooking! I had done it for so long, and I had no more imagination left for this task that happened every day. I hung up the pots and pans and that was it! I was up for the clean-up, but I no longer had any interest in the preparation of food. I had cooked through the infancy of my kids (Happy Baby Grinders), picky eaters, kids who had to eat on athletic schedules, and having to think of meals I would do after work that would accommodate the huge caloric needs of teenagers. I was done.

So, enter Grandpa. Here was a person who had intense interest in the joys of food. Soon he was doing the grocery shopping. He cheerfully accommodated the vegetarian needs of our last child and our family needs for only fresh whole foods.

We retired from our usual work and came to live in the country where we have an expansive vegetable garden -fodder for the chef!

The most amazing and cosseting thing to me is having someone cook for me and our friends. Sometime in the afternoon Grandpa asks me what I can harvest from the garden. Maybe it is beets, or kale, or carrots. Always greens for a salad. Maybe peapods. Whatever it is, that's great,( even turnips) he'll use it. When I go up to the main house from where I work in my studio at the end of the afternoon, I never know what's for dinner. Often I bring the salad greens, always different from day to day.

I wander into the kitchen full of wonderful smells. And I have no idea what's for dinner tonight! Heaven. I set the table with candles and flowers, paying attention to the table setting.

Tonight we are having a frittata with baby artichokes, garden salad with mostly baby spinach and some cucumbers and the last of our garden tomatoes. Left-over bread has become toasted delicious nuggets brushed with good olive oil and garlic. Just an ordinary supper.

What Grandpa Andy cooks is what anyone can cook. In this blog you'll get some recipes and suggestions about how anyone can make really good meals from scratch and imagination.

You'll learn how to cook healthy meals from scratch without relying on tedious recipes.

Stay tuned. Eating is a great adventure!