Episode 452: Go-To Meals
Matthew:
I'm Matthew.
Molly:
And I'm Molly.
Matthew:
And this is Spilled Milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all. And I almost forgot the slogan halfway through like you did a couple of weeks ago. Wow. Yeah.
Molly:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:
It's all really sinking in at this point. Just whatever we need to do to get through the episode, this part of history.
Molly:
Okay. Maybe we need a new slogan.
Matthew:
And you can't have any.
Molly:
Yes, there you go. All right, so this-
Matthew:
No, everything I just said was our new slogan. It's 90 seconds long. It's very depressing.
Molly:
Okay, great. All right. So this episode, so we're calling it on the agenda here... We've called it Go-To Meals. I've been thinking of it as repertoire meals.
Matthew:
Yes. And I was also thinking of it as repertoire. And then I tried to find the Repertoire agenda and saw that it wasn't called that. And I was like, "Okay, Abby wouldn't let us call the episode that, and she's probably right."
Molly:
Okay. So Matthew, let's talk about memory lane of go-to meals in your family.
Matthew:
So when I was growing up, I definitely remember the go-to meal that I most remember was roast chicken. And it was neither my favorite nor least favorite. It was a thing that appeared. I remember it being once a week. That might be an exaggeration. We would have to get Mom on the show, Judy Amster, to weigh in on that. And of course, definitely I remember other stuff. But when I think of what was one of my mom's go-to meals when I was growing up, roast chicken.
Molly:
And just to make sure I understand, this isn't the era before store-bought rotisserie chickens, right?
Matthew:
Oh, no. This was a home roasted chicken.
Molly:
Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. And then what do you remember what she would serve with the roasted chicken?
Matthew:
Oh gosh, always some kind of vegetable side. It could be broccoli or peas and carrots or... I'm trying to think what popular forms of potatoes I ate growing up. I don't really remember.
Molly:
Did Judy go in for roasted potatoes with rosemary, one of those things that sort of made the rounds of American menus and things in the 1990s, the early '90s?
Matthew:
Yeah, I don't really remember that.
Molly:
No? Okay. Well, so I think roast chicken was also a go-to meal for my family. My dad would always roast the chicken. And he definitely bought into the idea of rosemary roasted potatoes. So that was a thing.
Matthew:
Oh, I see. So you introduced that just so you could pay it off by talking about how your dad was a rosemary potato man.
Molly:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was the inventor of Altoids. He was an endive man and a rosemary roasted potato man.
Matthew:
Do you thing there are some people who picked up, started listening to the show maybe six months ago and believe that your dad really invented Altoids?
Molly:
I hope so.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
I hope so.
Matthew:
Have you seen the movie Romy and Michele's High School Reunion?
Molly:
I have not.
Matthew:
I've seen it. I think I've only seen it once. But for a while, back when there were video stores, we used to always rent videos at Broadway Video at Broadway and Republican in Seattle. Has been closed for many, many years because it was a video store. And every time we went in, they would always have Romy and Michele's High School Reunion playing on the TV hanging from the ceiling in the store. It was a favorite movie?
Molly:
Yes, the TV hanging from the store in every video rental store everywhere.
Matthew:
In every video store. Yeah. The two movies I remember seeing played in the store where that and Robocop. And in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, they have to come up with a story about what cool thing they did since graduating from high school because they don't have anything. And so they say that they invented Post-its.
Molly:
Awesome. Wow. What a good thing to invent [crosstalk 00:00:03:56]. Okay. But back to my dad, the Altoids inventor. Okay. So he had the roast chicken and rosemary potatoes meal. And then after that, the chicken would get turned into usually a big salad that we would eat the next night with his homemade vinegarette. And so that was kind of a one-two-punch of go-to meals.
Matthew:
We're going to talk about one-two-punches later. I like that term.
Molly:
Okay. And then my mom, I think of her go-to meal being this thing that I think she actually picked up from some diet she did in the early '80s. I don't know if this was Weight Watchers or if this was... My mom did all the weird diets, like the grapefruit diet.
Matthew:
Nutrisystem?
Molly:
I do think she did Nutrisystem. Yeah, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matthew:
I think my mom did Nutrisystem also.
Molly:
Oh my God. Anyway, yeah. But what this was, we called it breakfast for dinner. I think we've done a breakfast for dinner episode-
Matthew:
We have, yeah.
Molly:
... or something. But anyway, this was a frequent meal in our house, and it was steamed spinach, not even sauteed, steamed spinach with an over-easy egg and then grated sharp cheddar cheese.
Matthew:
Yeah. I remember you talking about this probably on the breakfast for dinner episode and me saying, "If I had had this presented to me as a kid as breakfast for dinner, I would have done one of those divorce my parents things."
Molly:
Yes, yes. I think back on it now, and I'm like, "I actually liked it." But my mom-
Matthew:
It sounds good to me now.
Molly:
Yes. My mom and dad would stack the things, as you can imagine would make it taste better. The fried egg, you get the yolk all up in the spinach, and the cheese melts on top of the fried egg. No, I wanted it all in separate piles, of course. But yeah, I remember liking this. And I have to say that I am grateful for the way that it paved the way to a lot of happy meals in adulthood for me of having eggs for dinner. I love eggs for dinner, and we're going to talk about that a lot here in a second.
Matthew:
We often have eggs as a component of dinner but rarely as the central thesis.
Molly:
Hm, central thesis.
Matthew:
I don't know why I said that.
Molly:
Oh, okay. Anyways, so wait, hold on.
Matthew:
It's because we started by... We said repertoire a bunch of times. That's why.
Molly:
Do you have any other go-to meals from childhood? Because I just thought of another one.
Matthew:
My dad was a steak-maker, and I remember when we got a gas grill for the first time. And so once we did that, grilling became a more frequent thing because it was easier to light it up. And so my parents would get some steak from Costco often, and my dad would grill the steak. And that was certainly a favorite of us kids.
Molly:
Do you remember what else do you'd eat with the steak?
Matthew:
No. I seem to have really vague memory of side dishes.
Molly:
This goes against-
Matthew:
The main dish remains, but the side dishes have faded into just a blur at the edge of the plate.
Molly:
This goes against every magazine's thesis about Thanksgiving.
Matthew:
Well, I do remember the Thanksgiving side dishes.
Molly:
Fine. Fine.
Matthew:
But no, I see what you mean. Side dishes are usually better than the main course, right?
Molly:
Yes, yes. I think so.
Matthew:
Yeah. I do too. Rosemary potatoes, for example. One of my favorites.
Molly:
Sure.
Matthew:
I came up with it in 1983.
Molly:
I can't even tell you the last time I bought rosemary. Now when I see it in a recipe, I leave it out because then everything tastes like rosemary.
Matthew:
I think we have some rosemary growing on our balcony.
Molly:
Oh, interesting.
Matthew:
You do have to be judicious with it, but I do like rosemary.
Molly:
I actually like it best of all, I think, in breads or even in crackers and things that as opposed to... I have this wonderful Italian soups cookbook. I can't think of the name of it right now.
Matthew:
Is it called Wonderful Italian Soups?
Molly:
Probably. Anyway, but every single recipe in it has rosemary. But if I leave out the rosemary, it's a delicious soup. And if I add the rosemary, every soup tastes the same.
Matthew:
Yeah. I know what you mean. I think of rosemary is being essential for focaccia.
Molly:
Yes. I agree. I like this. Yes.
Matthew:
It's weird how this turned into the rosemary episode. Wait, you mentioned rosemary, and now the whole episode tastes like rosemary. You're right.
Molly:
Nice one. Okay. But wait, hang on. I just thought of another go-to meal from my childhood. And this one I think of as being what my dad and I would eat when my mom was off somewhere else, like at a meeting or something that. And so generally, it would involve a hotdog in some form. Don't even start with me. Either my dad would make what he called a hot dog omelet... My dad was very good at making omelets, believe it or not. Now that I have-
Matthew:
[crosstalk 00:08:55] threw a hot dog in.
Molly:
Right. No. So he would cut up a hot dog into little coins and fold it into my omelet. And I thought this was the greatest thing ever.
Matthew:
Yeah, no. I would have thought that was Nobel Prize level genius as a kid.
Molly:
Right? Right? Yes. Anyway, so yeah. We would have hotdog omelets or cheddar cheese omelets. But hotdog omelets, or he and I would just have hot dogs, no bun, hot dogs on a plate with baked beans. And of course, he would get canned baked beans. And then he would doctor the can of baked beans. As I think we may have discussed maybe in a-
Matthew:
As we have discussed, he was a doctor. And so he had had a license to doctor anything, including beans.
Molly:
As we may have discussed in a baked beans episode or something. Yeah. My dad was a really good doctor of canned baked beans. Now, however, whenever I buy baked-
Matthew:
Was he on call? Would his beeper ever go off and somebody, "Dr. Wizenberg, there's a code in the bean department."
Molly:
Oh my God, Matthew. Good Lord. Anyway, it's interesting, though, now because I think I buy the same brand of baked beans he did, but I don't feel the need to doctor them. I don't think they need anything.
Matthew:
Yeah. Canned baked beans are pretty good.
Molly:
Right? Anyway, so yeah, but a hot dog on a plate next to a puddle of baked beans. And that would be our go-to meal when my mom was out.
Matthew:
Yeah. Still sounds pretty good.
Molly:
And it's interesting because it makes it sound my dad maybe was one of those dads who doesn't usually cook. And so my mom-
Matthew:
Yeah, it does sound like a sad divorced dad meal.
Molly:
It does.
Matthew:
Right?
Molly:
But because my dad was usually a fussy cook who used endive and things that-
Matthew:
Right. That's right.
Molly:
... this was actually really... This felt really special to me that this was the meal he and I could share.
Matthew:
Okay. Well, do you think we should play the moving forward in time noise, the wind chimes that bring us up to the present day and our-
Molly:
Is it like... (singing)
Matthew:
Yeah. I think it's exactly like that. Yeah. Okay. Abby, pull out your soundboard and play that noise.
Molly:
(singing).
Matthew:
What do you make today when you think of... How do we want to define go-to meals? Is it how frequently it appears in your rotation? Is it the things you can make with the minimal mental energy or without a cookbook?
Molly:
Yeah. Okay. So for me, I think it's one of three things or sometimes all three. Either it's something that I've made so many times that I don't need a recipe and it just feels easy and brainless, or it is something that I almost always have the ingredients for and so can throw together, or it is just something that is so popular we make it all the time. And maybe I still need a recipe for it, but it's really popular in our household.
Matthew:
Okay. Yeah. I like that definition.
Molly:
So Matthew, how about we tack back and forth based on the actual dish. So for instance, the first one I want to talk about is beans and greens. And if you have something that's at all related to this, then you could talk about that afterward.
Matthew:
I don't think I do. So go ahead. Kick us off with beans and greens.
Molly:
Okay. Wow. Let me try to get a sentence out.
Matthew:
This has left you speechless.
Molly:
Okay. So Molly Stevens, who is a cookbook author and cooking teacher based in Vermont, I believe...
Matthew:
For just a second there, I thought you were about to talk about yourself in the third person. Molly loves beans.
Molly:
Molly Wizenberg. No. Molly Stevens published many years ago now this great book called All About Braising, which is one of those cookbooks... I tend to think of braising as this concept where once you learn how to braise, you don't need a whole cookbook about it. However, this cookbook is brilliant. And I use it all the time.
Matthew:
Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. It's on my shelf right in front of me.
Molly:
It's so solid. Anyway, Molly Stevens in there has a recipe that I believe she calls braised escarole with cannellini beans or something that. It's in the front section that has vegetable braises. Well, so over time of making this dish, we have altered it slightly to make it our own. And we now call it just beans and greens. It is my child's favorite meal hands down. She asked for it for her birthday dinner on her seventh birthday.
Matthew:
Wow. You've mentioned this so many times on the show, and it never gets any more believable.
Molly:
Yeah. Right? Anyway, so basically what you do is you cut up a head of escarole. If you don't have escarole, I use chard. If you don't have chard, you can use kale, but then my kid won't like it. Basically, you've softened some sliced garlic and olive oil, little bit of red pepper flakes. You put the escarole in there. You let it wilt. Molly Stevens uses dried beans that she has cooked separately. I always use canned beans. And instead of cannellini, I always use chickpeas. And I just drain them and rinse them. And once the escarole is wilted, dump in two cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas and a cup of chicken broth. And I just use Better Than Bouillon chicken broth. Dump in a cup of that, put the lid on, let it ride for 20 minutes, and then finish it with lemon juice. And we eat that either with some sort of potato, roasted or boiled potatoes-
Matthew:
Maybe with a little rosemary.
Molly:
... or more often just with bread. And you finish it with a drizzle of olive oil. And you can serve it a little bit stewy if you want, or you can let more of the chicken broth cook off at the end. But it is so easy. We always have beans in the cabinet. We always have garlic. We always have olive oil. And so if we've got a head of escarole, boom, we're set.
Matthew:
Okay, so speaking of heads of things-
Molly:
Yeah. Wow. Where are we going to go here?
Matthew:
Head cheese. No, stir fried chicken with cabbage.
Molly:
Tell me more.
Matthew:
That, to me, is my quintessential go-to meal. So we usually have a cabbage, some proportion of a head of cabbage in the crisper drawer. I think currently we have three-quarters of a head of Taiwanese cabbage.
Molly:
I have the same amount of the same type of cabbage. This is so exciting.
Matthew:
Oh, I've never felt closer to you.
Molly:
Oh my gosh. This is so touching.
Matthew:
Let's do it. Let's get married.
Molly:
Okay. Okay. Listeners, we're finally going to do it. We're going to get together our two three-quarter heads of cabbage and smoosh them together.
Matthew:
And make a family that comes together around a one-and-a-half heads of cabbage all smooshed together. We're not going to break up with our current spouses because they're great.
Molly:
No. No. We are going poly, polycabbage.
Matthew:
Yeah, we're going to polycabbage. So I will take some chicken thighs and cut them into half-inch cubes and cut the cabbage roughly into chunks. And then stir fry the chicken and cabbage with always some combination of garlic, ginger and scallions, whatever sauce I feel like, usually something a little spicy. I'll put in some Szechuanese chili bean paste or another type of Chinese chili paste sometimes. Sometimes I take it in more of a Thai direction with fish sauce. But typically pretty much Chinese homestyle stir fry.
Molly:
Awesome. Do you have a recipe you've written up for this, or is this really just something that you just wing it?
Matthew:
It is really something I just wing it. I can talk through the whole thing in less than a minute.
Molly:
Well, you just did.
Matthew:
Yeah. I cook the chicken first, sear the chicken first and set it aside, then do the cabbage and the aromatics, toss the chicken back in, pour in the sauce and just make sure everything's hot and serve it.
Molly:
God, that's awesome. Love that.
Matthew:
With lots of rice.
Molly:
Yes. Okay. Well, hold on. So speaking of rice, so we tend to... Whenever we make rice, and maybe this is the case for everyone in the world who makes rice, we try to make lots of extra. Ash's father is from South Korea. And when Ash was growing up, there was always a rice cooker full of rice on the counter. I am amazed that Ash-
Matthew:
Yeah. That beeping you heard in the background a few minutes ago. That was our-
Molly:
It was your rice cooker?
Matthew:
... rice cooker.
Molly:
Well, here's the thing with Ash's family's rice cooker. They would leave rice in it for three to four days. And it would be cold rice. And they would scoop it out and eat it. And no one ever got food poisoning. And I am shocked by this.
Matthew:
Yeah. That doesn't seem the best way to do it.
Molly:
Right. But anyway, so Ash has over time convinced me because I often find that rice that's been in the fridge for more than a day I don't really want to eat. It's kind of dry and stuff.
Matthew:
But then it's time to fry it.
Molly:
Well, I know. But then what if it's been in the fridge for three or four days? Then it's really dried out. Do you still fry it?
Matthew:
Oh, you totally can.
Molly:
Well, I know. I do. But I'm often like, "Ugh, this rice is really old." Anywho-
Matthew:
But when rice is so old and dried out that it has a crumbly texture, that's when it makes the best fried rice, I think.
Molly:
Oh. Okay. I'm learning a lot right now.
Matthew:
If it's picked up a little fridge aroma, that is going to be completely masked by the seasonings.
Molly:
That's true. That is absolutely true. Okay. Well, anyways, so we have a lot of dinners where it's just rice, I know this is going to sound very boring, but rice with a fried egg on top and some furikake for the other two members of my household. I usually add togarashi to mine. And then whatever kind of vegetable we have in the fridge, we roast and throw on top of it. So a very minimal rice bowl. And then with the leftover rice, of course, we make fried rice. What you were just saying. Well, I think I found last year, but this is really solidified for me during this COVID lockdown, my favorite flavor combination for fried rice comes from this wonderful cookbook called Repertoire, which is-
Matthew:
Oh no, you said it again.
Molly:
I know. I said it again. Anyway, it's by Jessica Battilana, who is a really a wonderful cook and cooking teacher now based in Portland, Maine. And what she seasons hers with, in addition to soy sauce and scallions and all of the important things, she uses this stuff called Golden Mountain seasoning sauce. Have you ever used it?
Matthew:
I am familiar with it. I don't think I've ever used it myself. But it's a Maggi seasoning type of soy sauce and [crosstalk 00:20:12].
Molly:
Exactly. Yes, exactly.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
For me, it is the flavor of the fried rice of my childhood.
Matthew:
I think this sounds good. And I'm going to add some of this to my [inaudible 00:20:25] order.
Molly:
Yeah. I really like it. It tastes fried rice in a Chinese-American restaurant.
Matthew:
Yes, okay.
Molly:
And I'm really into that. So anyway, yeah. Jessica Battilana's cookbook, Repertoire, it's basically the companion cookbook to this episode of Spilled Milk. And anyway, I love her ingredients list and seasonings for fried rice.
Matthew:
Teenager of the show, Iris, is in the background drying out the rice for some fried rice as we speak.
Molly:
Hey, speaking of which, does Iris just lay it out on a sheet pan and let it cool?
Matthew:
That is exactly what's happening right this second.
Molly:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.
Matthew:
Further updates as events warrant.
Molly:
So talk about your fried rice.
Matthew:
I love Chinese sausage and fried rice, lap cheong. And so take a link of that and chop it up and just throw it in the pan with the aromatics. I like to get plenty of high heat on my fried rice. I like fried rice that is really well broken up and each grain of rice has gotten encased in oil and gotten a little bit of char on it.
Molly:
Okay, Matthew. Hold on. I find this so difficult to do. We also need to say for the listener, both you and I are cooking on very run-of-the-mill electric stoves. And I find it really challenging to make fried rice that actually gets crispy and the coated grains like you're talking about.
Matthew:
So I use a flat battom. Flat battom.
Molly:
Flat battom.
Matthew:
I use a flat bottom wok, high heat, get the oil smoking before I put the rice in and make sure that the rice has really been sitting out and it's dry and it's not going to cool things down by releasing a bunch of water when I throw it in.
Molly:
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Matthew:
That's all there is to it.
Molly:
I think I need to get a new wok. I think-
Matthew:
And also let it sit. You don't have to keep it moving constantly.
Molly:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I find that if I spread out the rice and press it up against the base and the lower walls of the wok.
Matthew:
If we keep going through our things at this level of detail-
Molly:
This is going to be our three-hour episode.
Matthew:
... this is going to be a three-hour episode that's every episode at once.
Molly:
Great. Okay, terrific. Let's go onto the next one then.
Matthew:
Okay.
Molly:
Matthew, how do you make burgers at home? I see we both make burgers as a repertoire meal.
Matthew:
First of all, you can listen to our burger episode, which is some previous episode. It's okay. We'll link to it in the show notes. The other night, I made the best burgers I've ever made.
Molly:
You did?
Matthew:
Everything came together. It was partly having the right ingredients on hand. But okay, I made my own burger buns from the King Arthur flour beautiful burger buns recipe I ground the meat myself in the KitchenAid food grinder attachment, beef chuck. I made some grilled onions, and I had some leftover homemade barbecue sauce from friend of the show, Kenji Lopez-Alt's-
Molly:
Dear God, Matthew.
Matthew:
... homemade pulled pork, oven pulled pork recipe. And we had American cheese. So it made cheeseburgers with grilled onions and homemade barbecue sauce on homemade buns. And I don't think we even need to hear about your burgers at this point.
Molly:
Matthew, I just want to say what the hell is a go-to meal for you if it involves making every step from scratch? That's fascinating to me.
Matthew:
That is not how I make burgers most of the time.
Molly:
How you usually do it?
Matthew:
So usually, it will be whatever ground beef is in the freezer and the $1.19 for eight buns, QFC brand, American cheese. And that's it.
Molly:
Great. Okay. Because what-
Matthew:
Maybe some A1 sauce. That is my go-to burger.
Molly:
I have been doing is much more that. It is almost a Smashburger type thing where we just take whatever meat we've got. I usually have Franz hamburger buns, which I because they get nice and squishy.
Matthew:
Oh yeah. And I love things that are nice and squishy.
Molly:
Me too. And yeah, I'm not trying to make it rare or medium rare. I'm just trying to get some nice color on the outside. And they come together so fast. There's a great recipe on New York Times cooking that we can link to. I think they call it diner hamburgers or something.
Matthew:
Okay, yeah.
Molly:
But it's a good template for just really quick stovetop Smashburgers.
Matthew:
Okay. So speaking of ground meat, I'm really nailing these segues today, one of our biggest go-tos is burritos or tacos with crispy shell tacos with homemade taco meat, which we talked about at length on, I think, the hard taco episode and the taco salad episode, and homemade salsa usually. But if we don't have homemade salsa, jarred salsa is fine too. And then the next day, we'll take the leftover salsa and make chilaquiles.
Molly:
Ah, your one-two-punch.
Matthew:
One-two-punch.
Molly:
Okay. One thing I noticed as I was making this list of my go-to meals is that the majority of our go-to meals in our household are vegetarian-
Matthew:
Ah, ours are not.
Speaker 3:
... which is not something that I consciously think about. It's just the way it's happened. For instance, our favorite pasta to make at home, which, again, I always have the ingredients for, is cacio e pepe, which is just generally some sort of a long noodle. And again, this is-
Matthew:
You're generally some sort of a long noodle.
Molly:
This is an Americanized version.
Matthew:
Sure.
Molly:
I don't want to get into talking about what it would be like if we were actually eating this in Rome. We make it with spaghetti, Pecorino Romano, freshly cracked black pepper. And then the recipe that I use, which, again, is from Jessica Battilana's cookbook, Repertoire, does use some Parmesan cheese, which I know is sacrilege to some. So yeah, mixture of those two cheeses is how I it best. It is so good my child calls it our macaroni and cheese.
Matthew:
Oh, nice.
Molly:
And I love it. It's so fast, and I always have everything for it. And it pleases me immensely.
Matthew:
Okay. There are two different segues I could call upon here.
Molly:
Oh, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?
Matthew:
Okay, I'm going to go speaking of long, Americanized pasta dishes, there are two spaghetti dishes that we make that are favorites. One is a spaghetti carbonara, which we make in a very non-Italian way in that we cook it in a skillet and it has cream in it, but it is good. And also usually just use bacon, smoked bacon, rather than pancetta-
Molly:
Pancetta.
Matthew:
... or guanciale. And then we make this dish called Solerno style spaghetti, which is spaghetti with lots of garlic and olive oil and black pepper that is then topped with a fried egg and Parmesan cheese and topped with a fried egg and lots of crispy breadcrumbs.
Molly:
Oh, that sounds really good.
Matthew:
It's so great. And when I say lots of crispy breadcrumbs, I think we usually double the... We make a recipe that's supposed to serve four and double the amount of breadcrumbs. And that's what we eat for three people.
Molly:
Oh my God. Would you share this recipe, please?
Matthew:
I think I can do that.
Molly:
Okay. All right. There was another segue that you were going to get to from cacio e pepe.
Matthew:
Oh. Or alternatively in another universe, speaking of our macaroni and cheese, baked pasta in the style of Al Forno restaurant, which we talked about a lot on the Crusty Corners episode.
Molly:
Yes. Yes. I want to finish out my list of go-tos with the simplest ones. Actually, all of these are quite simple. So as I said earlier in the show, we do a lot of eggs for dinner. And lately something we have been doing... Does your household have a whole bunch of dumb names for different egg preparations?
Matthew:
[inaudible 00:28:18] whole lot of dumb kids hanging around. I was like, "I used to."
Molly:
No. So okay, whenever we make fried eggs... We've only recently started calling them fried eggs. We used to call them flat eggs because that's-
Matthew:
I remember that. That's so great.
Molly:
That's what June used to call them. But I was a little bit sad the other day. So June is just beginning orthodontia, and she has to eat soft foods. And so we made a list of soft foods. And I was really sad that what she wrote on it was fried eggs, not flat eggs.
Matthew:
Oh, not flat eggs. Yeah.
Molly:
We've turned a corner.
Matthew:
I remember one time I came to your house and you made June flat eggs. I love the term so much.
Molly:
So lately, we've been eating a lot of cheesy eggs, which obviously this name is not unique to us. But anyway, scrambled eggs with some Tillamook sharp or extra sharp cheddar folded in at the very, very end. I love these with nice amount of cracked black pepper on them.
Matthew:
I think I'm going to have that for lunch. Of all the things we've talked about so far, that seems the most accessible that I could throw together for lunch. And yeah, that's going to happen.
Molly:
Yeah. Well, so okay, a dinner I've been throwing together lately is cheesy eggs, which make that on the stove, throw a pan of bacon in the oven. So bacon, cheesy eggs, and then either a big salad of whatever greens, cucumber, stuff we have or a whole bunch of blanched green beans tossed with whatever seasonings and stuff. So yeah, cheesy eggs and bacon plus vegetable has been at a once a week dinner for us lately.
Matthew:
That sounds very good. You can almost call that breakfast for dinner.
Molly:
For dinner. The other thing that I personally find so satisfying is I think Elizabeth David once wrote about the pleasure of eating an omelet with a salad and a glass of red wine for dinner.
Matthew:
Yes. I know she talked about that because we did a 12-minute bit about it a couple months ago.
Molly:
I don't remember that.
Matthew:
It was about what books she wrote after that. I enjoyed that bit very much. I hope someone else did too.
Molly:
I don't know. But anyway, left to my own devices, my go-to meal, I think for at least most of the summer, warm weather months, would be scrambled eggs, cheesy or not, and a big salad, red wine and some sort of bread.
Matthew:
I did not eat enough breakfast this morning. I had just a small commercial yogurt.
Molly:
I'm so sorry, dude.
Matthew:
I'm getting so hungry. I want a scrambled egg. I'm going to have lunch. Also, I'm starting work at 11. So I think I'm going to have lunch of cheesy eggs at 10:50.
Molly:
Wait. I want to say-
Matthew:
[crosstalk 00:30:57].
Molly:
... one other vegetable.
Matthew:
I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to shut down the show, but I sort of was.
Molly:
No, you were trying to shut down the show. I know what you were doing. So in general, I am a big fan of just roasting whatever vegetables we have. I think we talked about roasted kohlrabi recently certainly, roasted cabbage. Anyway, I occasionally will cook vegetables on the stovetop. Don't do it all the time. But one of the things that I love to do is a recipe from Rachel Roddy, who is a British food writer who lives in Rome. And she wrote this recipe.
Matthew:
Third cousin of Rowdy Roddy Piper. I think I said that last time also.
Molly:
She wrote this recipe on her blog a million years ago. I just think of it as Rachel's zucchini, but you basically slice zucchini into quarter-inch thick coins. While you're doing that, you are softening a couple of whole garlic cloves in olive oil, and then you fish the garlic cloves out. So you've got this garlic scented olive oil. You cook the zucchini until it's nice and brown on each side and soft. And then you tear a whole bunch of fresh basil on top and eat it.
Matthew:
Wow. That sounds so different from anything that I ever make for dinner but also sounds good. I would you to make it for me someday.
Molly:
Yeah. It's very what I would cook for dinner.
Matthew:
It is. And that's good. If we made a list of a dish and who makes it, Molly or Matthew, I think our listeners would get 100%.
Molly:
Oh, big time. Big time. We should do that sometime for our listeners.
Matthew:
Yeah, we should. Why should we get to take all the quizzes?
Molly:
That's true. That is true, Matthew. Okay, wait. Do you have one more thing you want to say?
Matthew:
Pizza.
Molly:
And then we'll wrap up this marathon. Pizza.
Matthew:
It's just pizza.
Molly:
Pizza.
Matthew:
Usually pan pizza because I think that's the best pizza you can make at home. I'm making some Detroit pizza this week. It's going to be great.
Molly:
Yeah. Go back and listen to what was the episode where we talked about Detroit pizza?
Matthew:
It was Pan Pizza.
Molly:
Oh my gosh. So that pan pizza that you make is so good. And I have said to myself so many times-
Matthew:
Self.
Molly:
"Self, make that Detroit style pizza," and I never do it because I don't do a whole lot of multi-step cooking these days.
Matthew:
But really, you just have to get the crust ready a day or two before.
Molly:
I know.
Matthew:
And the rest just comes together in a few minutes.
Molly:
I know.
Matthew:
The day you're going to make it, you have crust just sitting in the fridge. Other than that, you're going to spend 11 minutes on dinner.
Molly:
You're so right.
Matthew:
I'm so right.
Molly:
I even have yeast in the fridge right now.
Matthew:
Yeah.
Molly:
Okay. All right, fine. I'll do it. Great.
Matthew:
Okay. So we're cabbage buddies. We're soon going to be Detroit pizza buddies. That's that's going to be our honeymoon.
Molly:
We're burger eaters.
Matthew:
We're burger eaters. That's really what makes us unique, is that we both... We're both fond of burgers.
Molly:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Matthew:
That's what brought us together originally for the show.
Molly:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matthew:
We also apparently both like cheese and eggs.
Molly:
Yes.
Matthew:
All right. You can find us at spilledmilkpodcast.com and facebook.com/spilledmilkpodcast where we want to hear what's your number one go-to meal.
Molly:
Yeah. Please tell us because I feel I've learned so much about what the potential of everyday cooking from you. Maybe you're going to start cooking zucchini like I do.
Matthew:
I feel that's something you would say in a very formal interview or a eulogy.
Molly:
Oh, geez. Well, Matthew for your birthday, which, hold up, your birthday is tomorrow, Matthew...
Matthew:
Yeah. It was also tomorrow in a previous episode because we rearranged the episode order, but that's fine. My birthday could always be the day after you're listening to the episode because then people will just keep sending me birthday greetings and nude selfies and stuff.
Molly:
Well, hey, everybody. Matthew's birthday is August 28th. I have been preparing for Matthew's birthday a list of all the things Matthew has done for me.
Matthew:
I was joking about the nude selfies. Don't do that.
Molly:
Anyway, one of the things that I'm-
Matthew:
Not in a shaming sort of way. Just I don't need them.
Molly:
And I plan to use this list of things that Matthew has done for me as a springboard to my eulogy for Matthew.
Matthew:
Thanks. Oh, wait. So people who are attention detectives, I know you've been compiling evidence since episode one of-
Molly:
Molly's intent to kill Matthew.
Matthew:
Molly's intent to murder me. This case just broke wide open.
Molly:
It did. You're welcome, detectives. All right. You found us wherever you found us.
Matthew:
You found us where you found us.
Molly:
You can leave us a review if you want. Apparently it's helpful. That's what they always say on podcasts.
Matthew:
That's what they always say. What's definitely helpful is our producer, Abby Cerquitella.
Molly:
We could not do this without Abby Cerquitella.
Matthew:
And until next time, our beepers are going off. There's some sort of bun emergency.
Molly:
What?
Matthew:
Nevermind.
Molly:
What the heck was that?
Matthew:
Remember earlier, your dad would get called away to a bean emergency because he was a bean doctor?
Molly:
Oh yeah, but it wasn't a bun emergency.
Matthew:
I was trying to think of another food so I wasn't just saying the same thing again, but bun emergency could be an actual doctor thing.
Molly:
I'm Molly Wizenberg.
Matthew:
Oh no. And I'm Matthew Amster-Burton.
Outtake (Matthew): I got these vocal pastilles that opera singers use called Vocalzone.