Pennies from Heaven...The Closet?!

While cleaning out one of the closets the other day, I found an old stock pot filled with pennies and wrapped rolls of nickels and dimes that we have been lugging around with us since we moved out of Brooklyn in 1990. It's insane to think that this pot-this incredibly HEAVY pot has been moved in and out of 3 different apts. and has held a spot in the closet of our present dwelling for the last 9 years! It was clear to me that action needed to be taken, and that action was... to take this pot-this incredibly HEAVY pot out of the closet and put it on the table.

Where it sat for 3 days.

Friday the 17th of January 2003

Tom: "Why is the pot full of pennies still on the table?"

Deb: " There's nickels and dimes in there too, under the pennies"

Tom: "Ok, why is this pot filled with change still on the table?"

Deb: "I am taking the pot-o-change to the market today and dumping it into the Coinstar machine and buying us some dinner!

Ogre: I doubt there's going to be much for dinner, there's mostly pennies.

Beautiful Princess: "There's $24 dollars just in wrapped nickels-I bet I can buy dinner and then some.

Doubting Thomas: "doubt it."

So, the Beautiful Princess...(ahem)- so I bravely set out for the supermarket, the change wrapped in 4 plastic bags and tucked away all cozy in my wire wagon with the training wheels (the wagon that 10 years ago I vowed I'd never be caught dead schlepping around town).The Coinstar machine, which is normally not being used 99.9 percent of the times I've been in the market was the place to be Friday night. There was a line for Pete's sake. When it was finally my turn I dumped all the change into the tray and had a blast feeding it slowly into the little slot, mesmerized by the electronic counting thingy above my head...365 pennies....567 pennies......243 nickels.....118 dimes. After all was dumped in and counted, the stock pot had held over $90 dollars in pennies, nickels and dimes! I was able to buy fixings for dinner, a butterflied leg of lamb, 6 pounds of oxtails for stew, and way more groceries than 2 people can consume in a month. Luckily I had my trusty wagon with me to help cart all the groceries home. Moral of the story- Never go food shopping when you're hungry and carrying a pot full of change.

Dinner was sliced steak, cooked the way Alton Brown says steak should be cooked which is in a hot hot hot cast-iron pan, the steak sprinkled with a little bit of kosher salt, then seared for about 5 minutes on each side (so that "the crust" can form) then finished off in a 500 degree oven for approx. 10 minutes, removed and let to "rest" before slicing. Mmmmm, now that's "Good Eats". I served the steak with a creamy horseradish sauce that I didn't make, I used Golds brand. I let 2 cups of chicken stock, 2 tablespoons of butter and a capful of olive oil come to a boil and then added some cous-cous, immediately turned off the fire and let the cous-cous do it's thang on the stove, fluffing it after 7 mins. (I love the fluffing part). I sauteed mushrooms and onions in butter until they reached a deep brown color, then added some Tawny Port using the liquid to scrape up the bits of crusted oniony goodness from the bottom of the pan. The weakest part of the meal was the salad. I had wanted to serve asparagus but somehow in my shopping frenzy I forgot to buy some, so I made a salad from leftover iceberg lettuce and chickpeas. I made a dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey and mustard. The dressing tasted pretty good, but it wasn't the right match against the other bolder flavors of the meal. Oh well, at least we used up the lettuce and chickpeas. Dessert was Klondike ice cream bars-eaten on the couch while watching the movie Himalaya . Written by Deb on January 18, 2003 12:53 AM