The topic for this week's recipe carnival has been announced as being drinking. There are an infinite range or formulations; I myself have published both silly and subtle. If your purpose is to enjoy the aesthetic experience of an alcoholic beverage, there is one simple procedure I consider optimum.
Take an ordinary shot glass, rinse it with very cold water, and shake it just about dry. Fill three quarters of the way with good Scotch whisky. The broad range of Scotch is worth exploring, but I suggest Talisker as the epitome of what they are all about. Fill a small tumbler with more of that cold water, and set it on the side. Pass the shot glass beneath your nose while inhaling easily. Take a sip, let it roll over your tongue, and then swallow. Take a sip of the water. Consume the rest of the wee dram similarly, altho with larger sips. When the shot glass is empty, you are done. The purpose of the alcohol in the whisky is mouth feel, not intoxication; the consumption of more is unnecessary.
The same procedure is also suitable for other distilled beverages. America's bourbon whiskey was developed by distillers with a background in making scotch. Many people speak well of Maker's Mark, but it is a corporate premium product rather than the work of a craftsman. My suggestion is Woodford Reserve. This, and not the nonsense with salt and lime, is the right way to drink tequila. You need only start with Hornitos, altho there is even better out there if your purpose is to savor and not to excuse wildness.
We are coming to the last days of summer. I saw the official signs of this yesterday. Halloween Express is setting up their outlet in the outlot at the Fairgrounds, and Goodwill is bringing out their Halloween merchandise. The worst of the heat may have passed, but cold treats are still appropriate, and cold treats don't get much better than this one.
2 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs -- lightly beaten
12 ounces cream cheese - cut into cubes
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a large saucepan, heat the cream and milk to 175°; stir in sugar until dissolved. Whisk a small amount of hot mixture into the eggs. Return all to the pan, whisking constantly. Cook and stir over low heat until mixture reaches at least 160° and coats the back of a metal spoon.
Remove from the heat. Whisk in cream cheese until smooth. Cool quickly by placing pan in a bowl of ice water; stir for 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice and vanilla. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
Fill cylinder of ice cream freezer two-thirds full; freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. Refrigerate remaining mixture until ready to freeze. Transfer to a freezer container; freeze for 2-4 hours before serving. Yield: 1-1/2 quarts.
Timothy Leary's response to the premise of this week's Recipe Carnival was that it wasn't polite to "just say no" and thus one should always remember to say "no thank you". When gluten sensitivity became an issue in our household, I took no interest in the concerted scientific effort to develop an amaranth - potato flour cake with a texture more appetizing than the crust of an undercooked frozen pizza. I instead reminisced about the super intense flourless chocolate cake our son had baked for competition a couple of years earlier from a recipe going around at the time. The following is my wee wifey's take on that recipe, which she is still inclined to bake for the one foster-nephew's birthday, long after interest in regulating his gluten intake has, rightly or wrongly, been abandoned.
16 oz. Belgian dark chocolate or good semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups cane sugar [or 1 cup light brown sugar and 1/2 cup white cane sugar]
3/4 cup boiling water or very hot coffee
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
8 large free-range organic eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon good vanilla extract [yes, a tablespoon!]
Buttercream:
1 cup unsalted butter -- softened
2 cups confectioner's sugar -- sifted
1 cup cocoa powder -- sifted
1/3 cup water or coffee
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 10-inch springform pan by lining the bottom with parchment, and buttering it.
Break up the dark chocolate into pieces and pour the chocolate into the bowl of the food processor. Pulse until the chocolate breaks up into small bits. Add the sugar. Pulse until the chocolate and sugar turns into an even, sandy grain.
Pour the hot water or coffee slowly into the feed tube as you pulse again. Pulse until the chocolate is melted. Magic!
Add butter pieces and the cocoa powder, and pulse to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla, and process till smooth. The batter will be liquid and creamy.
Pour the batter into the lined springform pan. Wrap the outside of the whole pan with a big piece of foil. Bake at 350 degrees in the center of the oven, till puffed and cracked and lovely - about 55 minutes to an hour or even more. Use a wooden toothpick to check the center of the cake.
Place the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. The cake will deflate. Don't worry! When cooled a bit, press down on it gently with a spatula to make it even, if you wish. Or not.
When the cake is completely cooled, cover, and chill it for three hours [up to eight hours] until serving. Release the cake from the springform pan. Slice and serve.
Serve slices with drizzled chocolate sauce or a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Add a few berries or mint leaves to the plate, if you like.
Makes 12 - 15 slices. It is rich!
For the buttercream, cream the butter until smooth. Sift the sugar and
cocoa powder over the butter, add 1/3 cup water, and slowly mix
until smooth.
My son has gotten serious about grilling since he moved to Kansas City, a community which takes barbecue much more seriously than Milwaukee. I asked him to send me his recipe, but he's still experimenting with it. Instead he sent me this, which he makes whenever he's camping in the woods (including this weekend) and occasionally on the stove at home.
4 lbs potatoes
2 lbs cheap shredded cheese
2 lb ground beef
2 onions, chopped
garlic to taste
1 cup milk
Put the potatoes, peeled if thick-skinned, in a Dutch Oven with enough water to cover. Boil until soft. Add the milk and and mash a little thinner than if they were to be served plain. mix in cheese until melted and then the beef, onions and garlic. Put the Dutch Oven back on the coals. It's done when the edges are crisp.
To make at home, use half the quantities, place in a casserole dish, and bake at 400 for one hour.
Update:
A commenter asked why the cheap cheese. The answer is because he said so. My son doesn't skimp where it matters - Grey Goose is the vodka he will settle for if nothing better is available, so he must not think that fancy cheese adds anything to this dish.
There are an infinite number of tuna casserole recipes out there, for the simple reason that mixing a bunch of stuff including an efficient source of protein together and throwing it in the oven is so convenient. I even found the recipe for tuna casserole with prunes, immortalized on the old Greatest American Hero TV show, but we like this one better. It came from an old Farm Journal cookbook, and has evolved a bit since.
1 packet ramen noodles (discard the flavored salt packet)
1 can condensed cream of celery soup
1/4 cup water
1 can chunk tuna
1/4 pound unsalted cashews
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Blanch the ramen by dipping the unbroken block into boiling water for about a minute. It should still be crunchy, just no longer raw. Crumble and seperate; half goes into the casserole dish and half gets reserved. Add all the other stuff and mix well. Sprinkle the rest of the noodle stuff on top.
Bake, uncovered, at 325F for 40 minutes.
After decades of getting by with rusty scavenged lessthanwebers, I finally bought a serious grill. Still charcoal fired of course. If I want to cook on a stove, I'll do it in the kitchen. With a side chamber which makes cold smoking easy, and grills made from cast iron instead of coat hanger wire, it is well suited to gourmet grilling, but I do burgers and sauseges a lot more often than I do herb-marinated spatchcocked game hens. Whatever I grill, I use chunk charcoal and not particle board briquets, and I light them in a chimney without a drop of petroleum distillates.
Our local Lena's Market had a special last week on burger patties. Five pounds, 24 patties, for $7.99. At that price, they obviously weren't grinding up sirloins or anguses, but I didn't care, because cheaper cuts of meat have at least as much flavor, and beef heart isn't tough once it's been ground.
As per the instructions on the box, I threw the patties on the grill without defrosting. Unlike the handpressed burgers I used to grill, they never fall apart this way. I immediately sprinkled bratwurst sausage seasoning on them from a salt shaker. After a few minutes, when the tops of the patties looked well defrosted, I flipped them over. This is vastly easier with the spatula-tong combo, which is another tool no griller should be without. At this point the former bottom showed barely cooked meat between the grillmarks. I administered another sprinkling of sausage seasoning, and let them cook about twice as long. The next time I flipped them, I took advantage of the gripflipper, and waved them over a plate. The less juices you get on the coals the fewer flareups you get. One last shake of bratwurst seasoning, and then I watched and flipped them as needed so they all cooked evenly whether over hot spots or not. They didn't taste exactly like bratwurst, but they sure tasted good.
There are weekend farmers markets all around Milwaukee, We go to the one on Fondy, across the street from the original Lena's grocery, not only because it is convenient, but also because it is interesting. Many of the vendors are from the local Hmong community, and along with the greens and tomatoes which are the largest selling produce here on the North side, they offer some seriously hot peppers and other vegetables they grew in their homeland.
Hmong-style cooking, like that of much of Asia, is stir-fried. The technique is simple, you just need a heavy pan (a wok is nice but not essential), high heat, a little oil, uniformly cut vegetables, and lots of stirring and tossing. It goes fast, so you need to have all ingredients ready before beginning to cook.
1 small bitter melon
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
½ pound skinless chicken breast meat, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 green onions, chopped
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
Cut the bitter melon in half lengthwise, scoop out and discard the seeds, and dice. Toss with salt in colander and let stand 20 minutes. Rinse well and squeeze out the excess liquid, which carries some of the bitter quinine with it.
Heat 1 tablespoon oil over high heat in large, heavy skillet. Stir-fry the chicken, garlic and green onions until barely tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Remove to a bowl. Wipe out the pan and heat again with remaining oil. Stir-fry the bitter melon and cucumber until barely tender, again 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in soy sauce and sugar. Stir in chicken and heat through. Serve with white rice and hot pepper sauce.
Alice B. Toklas was the long-time companion (that's not really a euphemism, it just doesn't tell the whole story) of literary figure Gertrude Stein. She is best known these days for having included Brian Gyson's recipe for ditchweed majoun in her cookbook, but the rest of the cookbook, including the other recipes contributed by friends, are worthy of attention. The only problem is that she assumes that her readers know how to cook, so the instructions are rather vague. This one comes from Carl Van Vechten.
2 yolks of eggs
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
1/2 cup, or more, flour
Beat the egg yolks, and blend in remaining ingredients. The "more flour" gets added if the batter seems too thin, which may well be given that you will probably be using larger eggs. Make THIN pancakes (you are supposed to know how; someone hopefully is posting the instructions in this week's pancake recipe carnival).
Fill with pot cheese (no, silly, that means cottage cheese with the whey drained off; use queso blanco or ricotta), raisins, yolk of one egg, vanilla and sugar. No quantities given. Visualize enough to fill the pancakes, add raisins to cheese, season to taste and then add the egg yolk. Bake for ten minutes in rich butter.
Back when we were starting out, one of the popular cookbooks was Diet For A Small Planet, a depressing tome full of excellent recipes. The premise was that you could save the Earth by eating more efficiently, combining foods which each supply part of the protein we need. Combinations include beans and rice, beans and corn, turkey and peanut butter, and dairy and wheat. All but one of those I remember are in fact common in diets around the world, the last one manifesting itself in the theme I chose for this week’s Carnival, macaroni and cheese.
To far too many people, macaroni and cheese is one word, and refers to the stuff that comes in a box. Once upon a time when I was grocery shopping, I totally confused another customer, who asked where to find macaroni and cheese, by telling him the macaroni was in Aisle Six and the cheese was in Dairy along the back wall. Our contributors, however, understand that that there are plenty more ways to prepare this dish.
Shawn Lea, who administers this Carnival, provides us with a link to The Cheesiest Baked Macaroni & Cheese (and other recipes from Hot & Sticky BBQ).
My own wee wifey, who's recipes I used to post, now has her own blog, and gives us Lena's 3 Cheese Macaroni, a classic soul food side dish.
keewee presents Blue Ribbon Macaroni & Cheese posted at KeeWee's Corner.
Bill presents Italian Macaroni and Cheese posted at Famous Recipes.
Another Bill presents ALL DAY MACARONI AND CHEESE posted at Slow Cooker Recipes. and presents Tuna-Macaroni Salad with Orange (but no cheese) at Diabetic Recipes.
Kathee presents Low-Fat Macaroni and Cheese posted at World Famous Recipes.
Riannon at In The Headlights submitted a recipe for baked mac n' cheese like her mom used to make, and suggests some additions.
Tinker, at The Secret Life of Shoes offers Slow Cooked Macaroni and Cheese
There are other ways to do the dairy and pasta combination beyond the standard macaroni and cheese. For starters you can move beyond the standard elbows to shells or rotini. We use egg noodles in a quicky we call Noodle Goop. There are also recipes which include assorted other ingredients.
The Headmistress/Zookeeper at Heartkeeper's Common Room adds all sorts of good stuff to her Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese
Free Recipes presents Parmesan Ham and Macaroni Casserole posted at Free Recipes Online.
Michelle presents Sundried Tomato-Stuffed Shells with Sausage and Lamb posted at scribbit.
Chef Jules at Gourmet to Go submitted a recipe for Pastitsio Pie, which is sort of a Greek second cousin of lasagna. Lasagna is, of course, yet another way of doing the pasta and cheese thing.
As always, several people submitted other sorts of recipes. Nothing wrong with that as long as you don't do like I did and submit a gooey super-sweet one to the diabetic carnival.
Gillian at Food History submitted two recipes for Coleslaw. As soon as I saw the title on the submission, my first thought was that it was cool, as coleslaw goes with mac and cheese, and in fact she let me know that she was thinking the same thing.
Kevin presents 5 Minute Meals Your Family Will Love - Ready, Set, Cook! posted at More4kids Parenting. If I'd gotten to the Carnival earlier, these would have been great for Mother's Day since once they are prepped the kids can handle the final stage, leaving Mom to luxuriate. Same with your commercial dayglo orange mac and cheese, which most kids know how to make. Of course my son once blew some of his friends away by stirring the sauce till all the powdery lumps disappeared, producing a gourmet version of their usual meal.
Kevin at Technogypsy submitted an upscale beef stew, Beef Burgandy. He says "Please use a good wine. Trust me." but that doesn't mean you have to push the boat out too far, as there are plenty of decent inexpensive wines out there. Just don't use bum wine, and don't use the salted cooking wine -ever - unless you are underage and can't buy anything else. And of course, serve one of the above macaroni and cheese dishes on the side.
David Needham at Third World Country is into posole (ground hominy combined with other stuff for protein efficiency) and submitted yet another posole recipe.
Thelly's specialty is Chicken Recipes and presents Steak & Ale Hawaiian Chicken and Baked Hoisin Chicken Wings
Gerry at DiseaseProof offers a totally different approach to the concept of efficient food with Nutrient Dense Juices.
As always, you are encouraged to view everything else at the blogs of the participants, even if their submission didn't come in a format that didn't give me a handy main page link, and invited to participate yourself. Next week's theme will be pancakes (they never were just for breakfast) at a blog which actually specializes in them, but again all recipes are welcome. Send your submissions to recipe.carnival(at)gmail.com.
Update:
Martin erred and got his submission for next week in before the deadline. I saw pancakes and passed it up. Here is his recipe for Hungarian macaroni, with cheese and other good stuff.
The fact of the matter is that it has been a long, long time since I have put milk and cheese in the blender, poured the resultant sauce over cooked macaroni, and baked until bubbly in the middle and crisp around the edges. We've come up with something else, almost as crude and simple as the day-glo orange powder, but much more satisfying.
1 bag (1 lb.) medium egg noodles
1 can (10.5 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
1 bag (8 oz.) shredded cheese (usually chedder)
Cook the noodles per directions, drain, and return to the pot. Dump in the condensed soup and stir till well distributed. Dump in the cheese and stir till well distributed. We normally just dish it out for ourselves right from the pot on the stovetop.
The epitome of quick and easy, if you have all the ingredients in your pantry. The original recipe called for regular Italian salad dressing; since we happened not to have any, we went a little more flavorful as listed. If it were up to me, the tomatoes would be left out, but short of that it might be worth the extra effort to seed and dice some nice firm Roma tomatoes.
1 can black beans -- drained ad rinsed
1 can whole kernel corn -- drained
1 can black eyed peas -- drained
1 can diced tomatoes
1 bell pepper -- diced
1 bunch green onions -- chopped
2 carrots -- peeled and chopped
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup oil,
1 TBSP coarse grind black pepper,
2 TBSP Tony's spicy Italian Spaghetti seasoning
2 TBSP sriracha sauce
In a large bowl mix all ingredients. Serve chilled.
This is, I should mention, likely to be the last recipe I post which is in fact a creation of my wee wifey. She now has her own blog, and is posting her own recipes.
This is the simplest recipe I've ever posted. Not the simplest to make, just the simplest for me to post. I merely copied one I'd posted before, and made a simple ingredient substitution.
That simple ingredient substitution completely changes the character of this pie. The wee wifey learned recently that cinnamon can help control her blood sugar, and it's been turning up since then in a lot of what she eats. She asked me if I thought the extract would work in the pie she was making for this weekend's Easteroid gathering, and I suggested also adding almond, so as to emulate the Mexican hot chocolate, and it worked well enough to amount to a new recipe.
1 cup unsalted butter - 2 sticks
1 1/2 cups white sugar (very fine sugar, such as some of the generic beet sugar, is best)
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
4 eggs
1 pie crust -- (9 inch) baked
Cream butter and sugar. Blend in chocolate and flavor extracts. Beating at high speed, add one egg and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Repeat with each remaining egg. Keep whipping until fluffy.
Spread in cooked pie shell of choice and keep refrigerated
Wee wifey's notes: "I generally use a crust made from pecan shortbread cookies. The key to success is thorough beating. Beat 5 minutes after each egg for a minimum of 20 minutes total for the pie. This is what makes the pie! And yes, I use a hand mixer. To do so I sit at the kitchen table with another chair in front of me (between my legs). On the chair I have 2 large phone books on which the bowl is placed. In this position I can lay my arm on the kitchen table and hold the hand mixer -- thus I am able to mix the filling for the required 20-25 minutes and not have my "arm drop off". Be sure that you can see a clock from this position. It also helps to have the radio or TV on to make the time go a bit faster."
Please note this pie uses raw eggs. Be sure to use only fresh eggs for this recipe. Do not serve to the immune impaired.
Update:
Chilled and set up, the flavoring was a little subtler than I expected. You may wish to try 1 teaspoon cinnamon extract and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract.
For the same occasion we* also made another batch of the Italian sausage pepper and onion recipe I posted a couple of weeks ago. The suggested improvements worked as expected.
*Yes, we. I prepped the vegetables for our entire contribution, including slicing lots of onions and peeling 6 each, cucumbers and potatoes. The trick is to sharpen the peeler from the back side with a triangle stone.
Since I still don't have the exact recipe for the potatoes we'll be bringing to the Easter gathering, I'm tossing out a fun one from the mailing list. It's described as being magic, but, per Clarke's Law a crock-pot is simply sufficiently advanced technology. A rich hot fudge sauce forms while the cake bakes.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup baking cocoa
1 1/2 cups hot water
Lightly coat the inside of a 2 to 3 1/2-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Mix flour, granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cocoa, the baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Stir in milk, oil and vanilla until smooth. Stir in nuts. Spread batter evenly in slow cooker.
Mix brown sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa in small bowl. Stir in hot water until smooth. Pour evenly over batter in slow cooker.
Cover and cook on high heat setting for 2 to 2-1/2 hours or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Turn off the slow cooker. Let cake stand uncovered 30 to 40 minutes to cool slightly before serving. Spoon warm cake into dessert dishes. Spoon sauce over top.
Supposedly makes 6 servings, but you could divide it among more people if you are feeling mean.
Update:
I actually noted early in the week who would be hosting the Carnival this week, and told myself to ask the wee wifey for something suitable. She is fortunate enough not to have to cook as a diabetic, and disciplined enough to get by with a taste of her sweetwork. I totally spaced it, and by pure luck wound up at the far end of the glycemic index. A scan of my recipes category will turn up quite a few dishes which are not sickly sweet.
Could someone from the mailing list which is sending folks here leave me a comment about where you're coming from?
The extended family will gather to celebrate Easter a week late, due to work schedules as usual. This year we will be driving to the foster niece's place and our assignment is to bring Italian sausage and potatoes as well as the pies. Two experiments with aug rotten potatoes haven't yielded a winner yet, but the wee wifey found this sausage recipe online, and adapted it per the posted comments and her impeccable judgement. The two of us finished the entire test batch, supposedly twelve servings, in one afternoon, and I scraped the pot for the last of the sauce. I don't know if it was the thoretical solvent effect of the beer, but those sausages were pretty close to the melt in your mouth stage.
12 links fresh hot Italian sausage, 2-1//2 lbs.
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 red onions, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 green bell pepper, sliced
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
1/2 bottle beer
Place the sausage in a Dutch oven over medium heat, and brown on all sides. Remove from the pot, and slice.
Heat the olive oil in the Dutch oven. With a wooden spoon, scrape any lingering sausage griznits into the oil. Stir in the onion and garlic, and cook 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the beer, peppers and Italian seasoning. Add the the sliced sausage, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for forty five minutes.
There are a few detail changes we plan for next time which we expect will make the dish still better. Aldi's sells, at least around here, a package with three bell peppers, one each in red, yellow and green. Adding these after half an hour of simmering is done will let the onions carmalize while preserving the some of the color and texture of the peppers. If anyone has a good price on sliced portobello mushrooms, we just might add some of them at the same time. The heat of the hot sausages dissipated to just a tingle, which will be plenty for this crowd, but for more adventuresome palates some crushed red peppers added early or a healthy splash of hot sauce added later would not be amiss.
Update:
The multicolored peppers, cut into chunks and added toward the end cooked up nicely and added a touch of color. The sliced baby bellas added at the same time faded into the background but added a nice texture to the sauce.
The wee wifey made enough this time, in combination with pasta and meatballs our hostess provided, that I had a chance to see who well leftovers microwave. Quite nicely, thank you.
The current Chef Mojo cooking thread is about the foods we are supposed to feel guilty about eating this week because the experts have decided some ingredient or process is bad for us. The consensus is that we don't care what the food nannies have their undergarments constricted about; we will continue to enjoy our food. I noted that there are foods I feel guilty about eating, but only because my wee wifey made them for her own worknight lunches and not for me to nibble on.
2 chicken breasts
1 cluster celery
2 bags slivered carrots
1 medium onion
salt and coarse black pepper to taste
mayonaisse
Put the chicken in a microwave safe bowl, add water to cover, and put a lid on the bowl. The large Corelle bowl and the small Corelle plate are perfect for this. Flash for five minutes, cut thru the middle, discover that the chicken isn't quite cooked thru and flash for a couple more minutes.
Cut the chicken, celery and onion into little chunks, and then process in the food processor together with the slivered carrots. Any other form of carrots come out in chunks big enough to be carrot instead of flavoring. Add salt with a light touch and coarse black pepper with a heavy touch. It really perks things up. Add just enough mayonaisse to moisten and hold things together; it shouldn't be noticeable. Perfect for sandwiches or as a side for a meal, but it will end up getting eaten direct from the storage container.
This week's Carnival theme is supposed to be Irish, in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day. I've posted authentic Irish recipes now and again, but I'm not worrying about that today. They don't have light beer colored green on tap in Ireland, nor do they serve the signature dish of Milwaukee's leading "Irish pub" theme bar, which amounts to a reuben burrito. The reuben is a decidedly American way of serving corned beef, itself as American as chop suey, and the wrapper, being potato based, is probably a Swedish levsa. Besides, this recipe came to me in a dream yesterday morning, so I figure I'm supposed to post it.
Green Bean Green Pea Casserole
1 bag frozen french cut green beans
1 bag frozen green peas with pearl onions
2 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Flour
1 Cup Milk
1 pinch nutmeg
salt/pepper to taste
1/2 cup bread crumbs
Cook beans and peas separately per package instructions. Layer alternately, one half at a time, into casserole dish.
Melt butter in a sauce pan, over medium heat. Stir in flour until smooth and lump free. Add milk and seasoning, and stir until it starts to bubble and thicken. Pour the cream sauce over the vegetables, top with the bread crumbs, and bake at 350 degrees F for 1/2 hour.
My wee wifey loves what we persistantly call nanny splits. Once upon a time decades ago when we were coming back from a road trip, she spotted said desert on a truck stop menu and ordered it. They didn't have any bananas so I went to the grocery down the street and bought a bunch. She was pleased of course, but all the truckers who were getting ready to start their runs (it was breakfast time) were grossed out.
Here's a way to serve a banana split which is much more suitable for a brunch, and easier to prepare before the meal when one is serving company.
10 ounce canned maraschino cherries
16 thick slices of bread (around here they sell loaves labeled "Texas Toast" but I don't know what they call it in Texas)
8 ounces cream cheese -- softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces crushed pineapple -- drained
1/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
4 eggs
1/3 cup milk
4 small ripe bananas -- halved lengthwise
2 cups frozen whipped topping -- about 2/3 of an 8-ounce container thawed
1/4 cup chopped pecans
Maple syrup -- warmed
Cut 4 maraschino cherries in half; set aside for garnish. Chop remaining cherries. Blend cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed 3 to 4 minutes, or until creamy. Stir in pineapple, chocolate chips and chopped cherries by hand until evenly distributed.
Spray a 15x10x1-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Combine eggs and milk in a shallow bowl or pie plate. Dip one side of 1 bread slice into egg mixture. Place on baking pan, dipped side down. Gently spread with 1/8 of cream cheese mixture; top with a banana half. Repeat with 7 more slices.
Dip one side of each of the remaining 8 bread slices in egg mixture. Place, dipped side up, on top of banana Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven 35 to 40 minutes, or until tops are light golden brown and centers are set.
To serve, top each serving with 1/4 cup whipped topping, 1-1/2 teaspoons chopped pecans and 1 reserved cherry half. Serve with maple syrup.
Makes 8 servings.
Quite a few years ago, my wee wifey took professional training in cake decorating. One of her classmates was a Phillipine woman who reported that her late husband had left her a gold mine. Everyone wanted to know what it was, which led to some confusion; she knew no other meaning than the literal one. Anyway, she fascinated everyone with talk of the purple Phillipine ube yam, and its use in baking. Now that we have Asian groceries nearby herself has been looking for ube in hopes of baking a purple yam cake. When I spotted reddish sweet potatoes at the Korean market I thoughtfully bought them for her. They turned out to be completely different, almost white inside, so she came up with this recipe to use them in.
1/4 c Butter or margarine - softened
1 c Sugar
2 c Cooked -- mashed Korean sweet potatoes, about 5
2 Eggs
2 tsp ground ginger
1 TBSP fresh ginger -- grated
1 can 12 oz evaporated milk
8 TBSP coconut cream powder
sweetened shredded coconut. to taste
1 Unbaked 9" pastry shell
Peel sweet potatoes. Cook and mash sweet potatoes. Cream butter in a mixing bowl; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add potatoes; beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in gingers, milk and coconut powder. Pour mixture into a pastry shell. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. About halfway through baking time sprinkle coconut on top of pie.
As I understand it, bread pudding was traditionally a way of using up stale bread. When there were twelve people in my household there was never any stale bread, so we had to emulate it via toasting. Then it was discovered that three of those twelve were gluten-intolerant and the dish fell by the wayside. Now, with pretty much just two of us here, this much of something this filling is overkill. Oh well.
2 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup onion -- chopped
6 slices of bread lightly toasted and cut into cubes
8 ounces of shredded sharp cheddar
2 large eggs
1 bottle of beer
1 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons dry mustard
salt/pepper
Melt the butter and saute the onions about 10 minutes over medium heat,
until the onions are golden.
Beat together the eggs, beer, spices, salt, and pepper.
Layer the bottom of the crockpotcrock with half of the bread cubes. Top the bread layer with half the sauteed onions, then with about one third of the shredded cheese. Repeat the layers, but don't add the final cheese layer yet.
Pour the egg and beer mixture over the solid components, making sure that all of the bread pieces are soaked. Top with the remainder of the shredded cheese.
Cook on high for 4 hours. I know 8 hours in the very slow cooker on low is more convenient but the result is mushy.
There's nothing romantic about poverty, despite what you saw in all those art films. But we loved each other, and, while you can't live on love, we got by and we were happy. We learned to appreciate some of the simple, and thus cheaper, things in life Now it is romantic to look back on those days and remember only the best of it.
One thing we had going for us was that we cooked for each other. Whatever your budget, you can eat fancier if you aren't paying others to make it for you. Guys, there's no better way to impress a girl than to make a nice meal for her. If the only way to impress her is to take her someplace you can't afford, she isn't the girl for you. This is one of the dishes I used to make back then (in the day, if you will) that went over well. It is easy to make, and has a unique ability to provide more meals later.
1 jar cheap basic spaghetti sauce
1/2 lb. basic ground beef
1 unprecooked Italian sausage
3 medium onions
no garlic
about a heaping teaspoonful of Italian seasoning herb blend
a couple splashes of oil - olive is nice, but whatever you have that isn't rancid works
spaghetti noodles
a frying pan, a sauce pan, a pot to cook the spaghetti in and some way to drain it afterwords
First of all, note that slicing onions is much more pleasant if you put them in the fridge the day before and use a really sharp, unserrated knife. Cut the top and bottom off the onions, slice them in half thru the top to bottom axis, and then peel them, taking the outermost, tough white layer along with the peel. If there is any brown left at the top or any root left at the bottom, trim that off. Slice each onion half several times top to bottom, and then several times crosswise.
Heat up a splash of oil in the frying pan over a flame which just touches the bottom of it (I have no idea how anyone cooks on an electric stove, but I reckon this would be just past medium). The oil is ready when one piece of onion tossed into it sizzles. Toss the onions in, and give them a stir and a flip (I mean stir up from the bottom, not getting them airborne) until they start turning translucent. When they do, it is time to turn off the stove, scoop them into the sauce pot, leaving some liquid behind.
Slice the sausage open, and scrape the filling out. Discreetly dispose of the casing. Heat the frying pan back up, and dump the meat back in. Stir pretty constantly, breaking up the lumps, especially of sausage meat, with the edge of the spoon. The meat is there to give flavor to the sauce, and at this stage of the game big hunks of meat aren't romantic. As soon as they do, it is time to again scoop the contents into the sauce pan, leaving the liquid behind. Dump the liquid into the middle of the toilet and flush immediately.
Now pour the spaghetti sauce intoo the sauce pan. I used to use the white label generic, but just about any basic meatless sauce will do. Even if your relationship has reached the point that garlic is not inappropriate, do not use the stuff from the 99 cent store with the artificial garlic flavoring. Run an ounce or so of water into the jar, cap it, shake it, and pour the water into the pot. Stir well, turn the stove to medium, and as soon as you see some heat-induced activity, stir down to the bottom and turn the flame down real low. Now wash your hands, and shake some Italian seasoning into the palm of one hand. Give it a crush with the first two fingers of your other hand, and brush it into the sauce. Stir again.
Now it is time to make the spaghetti. Don't make a whole lot, especially if you aren't using thin spaghetti. Feeling stuffed isn't romantic. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. A splash of oil helps keep the spaghetti noodles from clumping, and a couple shakes of salt will bring out the sweetness of the wheat. Don't bother with lots of salt. Once the water is boiling, push the column of spaghetti into it. It will will bend enough that with a little help with you can get it in without breaking it. This lets you twirl it on the fork like they do in those foreign art films, and have the fun of eating messily. As soon as the water resumes boiling, turn down the heat so the water remains active but doesn't bubble. Boiled spaghetti is mushy (and not in the teddy bears and flowers sense) and you want the kitchen smelling of sauce, not starch. Give the spaghetti pot a stir now and then, and stir the sauce at the same time. About when the box said the spaghetti should be done, check it. Pull one strand out and bite it. You want to catch it right when there is no crunch left in the middle but it still has character. Pour out the hot water, run cold water in its place (unless someone taught you this is reprehensible) and drain.
Now you turn off the light under the sauce, rinse the sauce jar again with hot water, and spoon enough sauce in to almost fill it. It won't actually can properly, but it will seal well enough to keep in the fridge for at least a week. You will have enough sauce left to make a delightful dinner for two.
It's been a while since I've done a cookie recipe, but with my son due to arrive for his first visit in over a year in three hours I don't have time to type in the one I've been meaning to post. Altho this one came from the wee wifey's Blue Ribbon Recipe list, to my knowledge it has only won a red ribbon (second place). Good enough for me.
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 (3.4 ounce) packages instant vanilla (or other) pudding mix
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda and set aside. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. If your rounded spoonfuls are per the ANSI standard, you will get 72 cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.
Chocolate or butterscotch pudding would bake tasty variants. After all, butterscotch and gooey go well together. If everybody in your crowd likes pishtosh, you could substitute pistachio for both the pudding and walnuts.
Chicken soup is widely recognized as the ideal comfort food. Nowadays it is even being prescribed for the souls of nearly everyone, woth the possible exception of vegetarians. This variety offers the added mid-winter benefit of clearing your sinuses.
Fans of Eric Flint's 1632 series may feel free to omit the nouc mam.
4 cups water
1/2 cup sliced shallots
1/4 cup minced peeled fresh ginger
5 teaspoons minced garlic -- (about 2 large cloves)
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce - nouc mam
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 15.75 ounce cans chicken broth
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
1/4 pound uncooked rice sticks or vermicelli -- (rice flour noodles)
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
2 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh mint
4 lime wedges
chopped hot red or Thai chile -- optional
fish sauce -- optional
chili oil -- optional
Combine the first 9 ingredients in a large Dutch oven, bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 15 minutes or until the chicken is done. Remove chicken from pan; cool slightly. Cut into bite-size pieces. Cook rice sticks in boiling water 5 minutes; drain. Divide chicken and noodles evenly among 4 large bowls. Ladle 2 cups soup into each bowl. Top each serving with 1/4 cup sprouts and 1 1/2 teaspoons each of onions, cilantro, basil, and mint. Serve with lime wedges; garnish with chopped chile, nouc mam or chili oil, if desired.
THe other morning, my wee wifey called upstairs asking if I had a couple bottles of cheap beer. I knew she wasn't going to drink it. All she drinks is rum and she goes thru about a fifth per decade. I understood she had a recipe which called for beer, so I didn't need to explain that I don't drink enough of it to bother with cheap stuff so I just brought down two bottles of the less expensive variety currently in inventory. The results were worthy of the sacriifice.
1 pound lentils
1 bag frozen carrot slices -- defrosted
1 bunch celery -- sliced
2 medium onion -- diced
3 heaping eating teaspoons minced garlic
4 Tablespoons olive oil
4 Tablespoons dried parsley
2 teaspoons dried dill
1 pound kielbasa -- or smoked sausage sliced thin
24 ounces beer
4 Teaspoons beef boullion
4 cups water
Soak lentils overnight or cook 5 minutes in 8 cups boiling water and then let stand for 1 hour. Drain.
Saute celery carrots onion and garlic in olive oil in a heavy skillet. Combine lentils, vegetables and remaining ingredients in a stockpot. Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 1 hour.
Makes a big pot, which I believe is a standard measure for soup production.
Variation: Substitute black beans for lentils & bacon or smoked ham for the kielbasa. Serve with a bit of sour cream and diced tomatoes. Yoou could of course add our traditional two tablespoons of sriracha, but it would overwhelm the flavor contribution of the beer.
The recipe was modified from one found in "Desperate Gourmet" by Lois Schenck. We got our copy at the library bookstore. If you can get your hands on a copy it will save a lot of googling, as it is based on the premise that you have a collection of ingredients and need to put them together into a great meal.
Update:
The Recipe Carnival is up now, at the Diabetic Recipes blog. I failed to note the theme, and simply posted a current recipe. One could substitute a light beer, but the previous lentil soup I posted would be a better idea. It should be noted that the sriracha chili sauce I often recommend contains sugar, and that when cooking for diabetics a small amount of ordinary hot sauce to taste would be an appropriate substitution.
My wee wifey learned that she is a Type II diabetic just after completing two years training as a pastry chef. She abandoned this career, since any cook needs to sample her work on a regular basis, but I haven't noticed that I've had to forego anything in the food she cooks for us. The fancy baked goods to be found in my Recipes category are made for major occasions only, and she does not allow herself more than a mere taste (which means more for the rest of us).
Avocados are in season right now, which means that it is time to make guacamole. The trick to perfect guacamole is using good, ripe avocados. Check for ripeness by gently pressing the outside of the avocado. If there is no give, the avocado is not ripe yet and will not taste good. If there is a little give, the avocado is ripe. If there is a lot of give, the avocado may be past ripe and not good. In this case, taste test first before using. Best place to buy avocados is a Mexican produce stand, the ones from the supermarket are never ripe. Besides, right now in Milwaukee, they are $.69 each at Pete's and a dollar each at the major groceries.
3 ripe avocados, peeled and seeded
1/8 tsp ground cumin
2 ripe Roma tomatoes seeded & finely diced
1 sweet white onion, minced
2 TBSP dry cilantro leaves, chopped OR 6 TBSP fresh
2 TBSP lime juice
1 tsp salt
2 TBSP sriracha sauce or a few drops of hot sauce
3 TBSP minced garlic (from a jar)
Cut avocado in large chunks and mash coarsely in large bowl with a fork. Add remaining ingredients and blend gently - leaving some small chunks is fine. Taste and adjust seasonings according to your own preference. With sriracha sauce the heat is sneaky, so take your time adding more.
For fancy presentation, rinse avocado shells out and pile guacamole into shells.
I've been planning to try this recipe for a long time, ever since I happened upon a blog post which, well, sort of suggested it.
4 cloves garlic, diced
4 medium onions, chopped
1 can black beans (nominal 15 oz.)
1 can kidley beans (nominal 15 oz.)
1 can diced tomatoes (nominal 15 oz.)
1 can tomato sauce (nominal 8 oz.)
1 pound ground beef
1 Tbsp paprika
Heat a splash of olive oil in a frying pan, and saute the garlic till it starts to brown. Add the onions, and continue frying till they start to translucify. Dump said vegetables into a large pot along with the various canned goods, turn on a medium flame beneath it, and stir.
Brown the ground beef in the abovementioned pan, stirring and chopping so as to avoid any of those annoying big lumps. Drain off the fat and add the meat to the vegetables. Add the paprika, and stir well. Ordinary paprika probably wouldn't do much by itself, but I used the smoked variety, and the result was quite tasty. It would probably be fun to serve at a potluck or a chili competition, and is certainly preferable to marrying a sibling.
There were eight people at last weekend's Christmas gathering, so the wee wifey baked four pies. The banana cream pie, classic favorite of the younger members of the household, was finished before the evening was up, but this one, a new addition to the spread, disappeared even faster. She had found it in one of the many comb-bound community compilation cookbooks she has collected, wherein whomsoever had contributed it identified it as Mom's recipe. Now it is ours, and it probably should be yours also.
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon butter -- softened
3 Tablespoons all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 eggs -- separated
1 cup milk
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice -- one good sized lemon
grated peel -- of 1 medium lemon
1 9 inch cookie crumb pie shell
The wee wifey has switched over completely from pastry crusts to cookie crumb crusts. For this filling, either basic shortbread cookies or lemon wafers would be suitable. The little electric food choppers will reduce them to crumbs in three shakes of the cammb's tail. 1-1/2 cups cookie crumbs and 5 Tablespoons melted butter, mix together and pat into pie tin. Pre-bake at 350 for about 10 minutes before filling.
Using a spoon, cream sugar & butter until well mixed. Add flour, salt, egg yolks and milk; mix well. Add lemon juice and peel; mix well. In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; gently fold into lemon mixture. Pour into pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour or until lightly browned and a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool.
The original recipe specified storing in the refrigerator, but since the eggs are completely cooked this isn't mandatory if you are serving the pie within a day or so.
In Heinlein's one swashbuckling novel, Glory Road, the Hero carries a sword inscribed with the motto Dom Vivimus, Vivamus ("While we live, let us live"). As for myself, I would prefer a fork incribed Dom Eatimus, Eatamus. It would have been perfect for consuming what the wee wifey made for our dinner l;ast night. A lot of what is sold as Alfredo sauce, and many of the recipes out there, would be more accurately described as Fred sauce, but this is the real deal and it doesn't take much effort to prepare. Metabolizing it is another story, which we leave as an exercise for the reader.
1/2 cup real butter
1 pint heavy whipping cream
2/3 cup Parmesan/Romano cheese -- freshly grated
2 heaping teaspoons minced garlic (the boughten bottled stuff)
salt (to taste)
freshly ground black pepper
1 dash cayenne pepper
1 lb. fettuccine
fresh parsley -- chopped
Prepare fettucine pasta as directed on box. Drain; melt a pat of butter on still-hot pasta or stir in several drops of olive oil to keep pasta from sticking. Stir to coat evenly.
Meanwhile, in a saucepan over low to medium heat, melt the butter. Add cream, garlic, and cayenne.
Simmer over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens.
Remove saucepan from stove and stir in cheese.
Serve over hot pasta. Sprinkle on freshly ground black pepper. (Ground Peppercorn Medley - red, green and white adds a splash of color and flavor). Garnish with parsley.
There is a brand of packaged fresh garlic upon whose packaging is the assertion that there is no substitute for fresh garlic. This is often true, but in this recipe it would require, in addition to the labor of mincing, and of sautéing in the melted butter before adding the cream, but also greater precision as to timing and temperature. I assure you the readymade stuff was perfectly effective.
The cookbook's title is Are You Hungry Tonight? As I figured when I saw it on the library pickup list, it is a collection of recipes with links to Elvis Presley. Chicken à la king was a popular dish even in my neck of the woods around the time Elvis was playing Vegas, but I haven't seen in it on a restaurant menu in ages. Back then, comfort was a higher menu priority, and I offer this up as comfort food.
1 TBSP butter
1-1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" pieces
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1-1/2 cups sour cream
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp paprika
2 TBSP white wine
1 5 oz package frozen mixed peas, pearl onions and mushrooms
4 TBSP Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
Warm a large non-stick frying pan, and melt the butter in it. Saute the chicken pieces over a medium flame, 4 minutes on each side. Sprinkle on the salt and pepper, then stir in the sour cream, soy sauce and paprika. Turn the flame down to low, and cook until the sauce is hot but not boiling. Add the wine and cook for another minute. Add the mixed vegetables, which were supposed to have been cooking per package directions while the rest of this was going on. Remove from the flame, and spoon/pour into a 1-1/2 quart flat baking dish. Top with the Parmesan, and stick under the broiler for about 4 minutes so it gets a hint of a crust.
The Elvis cookbook says to garnish with toast points, 6 slices of white bread toast cut into 4 triangles each, but that's a little too retro for me so I just serve over flat noodles. Altho our standard 2 TBSP of sriracha would be overkill, a couple teaspoonsfull in the place of the paprika warms things up without totally changing the character of the dish.
Where we lived in Chicago, there was a cheap greasy carry-out eatery down the street. The men of Middle Eastern appearance down 35th from us in Milwaukee serve a better Italian beef sandwich than this Italian place did. The most memorable thing about the place was the neon signs in the windows identifying what they served. Because of the way they were arranged, the place was known as "Chicken Pizza". They didn't serve such a delicacy, but my wee wifey developed one.
1) pizza base -- whatever you want: pre-made like Boboli, box like Jiffy Mix, frozen bread dough defrosted or your own homemade.
2) white sauce: 1 TBSP butter 1 TBSP flour: make a roux (melt butter and stir in flour until smooth). Add 1 cup milk and 1/8 tsp each white pepper & salt. Stir constantly, bring sauce to a boil. Boil for 1 minute (to eliminate starchy taste). For a larger pizza use 1-1/2 TBSP butter & flour and 1-1/2 cup milk & about 1/4 tsp each white pepper & salt.
3) cheeses: shredded cheese (mozzarella) and parmesan
4) chicken breast cut-up, diced onions and minced garlic
Make pizza base & place in pan or on pizza stone. She likes to pre-bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Spread white sauce on pizza base. Sprinkle a bit of mozzarella cheese on white sauce. Saute chicken. onions and garlic. Spread over sauce/cheese. Sprinkle rest of mozzarella over chicken mixture and sprinkle parmesan over all. Feel free to add any herbs, spices you like. Bake for 20 minutes.
If you don't want a white pizza you can use bottled spaghetti sauce instead of white sauce and add any other vegetables such as green peppers & mushrooms, etc. to the chicken mixture. Another variation: substitute swiss cheese for the mozarella & eliminate the parmesan.
Here's another easy soup the wee wifey made in the crock-pot. Yesterday morning she threw it together after I drove her home (the first big snow storm would of course hit on the one night she doesn't get a ride from a coworker) and went to sleep. By the time my project manager decided the weather had cleared enough to send us home early it was ready. I have to admit that it isn't the prettiest soup out there, but it sure is tasty and filling.
1 pound Italian sausage -- sliced into medallions
1/2 cup diced onion
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 can chicken broth -- (48 fluid ounce)
1 package frozen sliced carrots -- (10 ounce)
1 package frozen chopped spinach -- (10 ounce)
1/4 cup uncooked pearl barley
2 tablesoons sriracha sauce
If you are using uncooked sausage, put it in a microwave-safe bowl, cover with water, and flash for two minutes, This will firm it up enough that you can cut 3/8" slices which will make the browning more consistant.
In a skillet over medium heat, cook the sausage, onion, and garlic until the sausage is evenly brown. Season with Italian seasoning. Remove from heat, and drain well.
In a slow cooker, mix the sausage mixture, chicken broth, carrot, spinach, barley and sriracha.
Cover, and cook 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.
There's an old joke about sushi, to the effect that "I took some home, fried it up, wasn't half bad." Turns out the same is true of Steak Tartare, and the result is quite tasty. Eating finely chopped or ground, highly seasoned uncooked beef is something of a New Year's tradition around Milwaukee, but I was already grossed out by the thought before we moved here. I'm the sort who responds to a rare steak by claiming to have seen cattle recover from worse wounds than that. Highly seasoned, however, is always popular around here, so I didn't hold this recipe's origin against it.
1 pound freshly ground beef - high end lean steak based stuff, not the $.99 pound family pack stuff I usually buy
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon mustard - Dijon or suchlike
1 teaspoon whatsthishere sauce
2 teaspoons sriracha sauce
4 anchovy fillets - chopped
2 tablespoons capers -drained
6 tablespoons finely chopped onions - sharp not sweet
salt and pepper to taste
Divide the ground beef into six equal portions, and press into three inch diameter patties. Use a burger press if you shoud happen to possess one.
Beat egg yolk, mustard and sauces together. Mix in the chopped and drained stuff. Grind pepper and sprinkle salt over one face of three of the burger patties, and scoop one third of the filling thereupon. Spread the filling to close to the edge, lay the reserved patties atop, crimp the edges and press evenly. Using the burger press again would be elegant.
Cook as you usually cook burgers, to an internal temperature of 160F. I got the concept from the cookbook included with a beta-test convection oven which did not reach the mass market, but prefer to grill burgers by sprinkling salt on a hot skillet so they don't stick before some fat renders out. I myself use no other salt; you may wish to back off on the salt to taste if using this method.
Depending on how long I need tomorrow, I may work more hours this week than any time since I was on straight salary. I only have three sites to drive tomorrow, but one is by Manitowoc and the other two are in the Fox Cities. So woithout further ado, here is a Curried Lentil Soup the wee wifey threw together a couple of weeks ago. Originally, split peas were called for, but the seasoning works well with the substitution. It is simple to make and the recipe she emailed me needs little editing.
16 oz dried lentils
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 medium white onion -- diced small
2 Tablespoons fresh ginger -- minced
3 cloves garlic -- minced
8 cups water -- or chicken stock
1 carrot to grate in at the end (optional)
Spice blend
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 teaspoons salt
generous pinch cinnamon
* 2 Tablespoons sriracha sauce - optional but we use it in almost everything
Saute the onions in the olive oil at medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and spices. Saute 2 more minutes.
Add the water and stir well. Add the lentils. Cover and bring to a boil.
Bring heat back down to medium, let soup simmer for about an hour and a half, until lentils are tender. For split peas an hour should suffice but it wasn't long enough for this batch. If you like a creamier consistancy, run about half thrru a blender or run a wand blender thru it. Grate in the carrot and serve. You can garnish with fresh cilantro if you have it on hand.
The national chain grocery where we buy the majority of our food had a special on pre-packaged ground beef a couple weeks ago. They just resctocked, so we exercized our raincheck and got three, three pound, chubs for $.99 a pound. The wee wifey decided that as long as she was going to break them up into single meal packages, she would put them up as meatballs, and made three batches in keeping with the following recipe.
3 pounds ground beef
3/4 cup fine dry breadcrumbs -- or cracker crumbs
1 teaspoon celery salt -- to 1-1/2 tsp or regular table salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
* 2 Tablespoons sriracha sauce -- or other hot sauce to taste OPTIONAL
1 small onion -- chopped or 1/4 cup dry onions
* granulated garlic -- to taste
3 large eggs
3 Tablespoons dried parsley
Note that if you use crackers you don't need to use salt. One sleeve of saltines yields one cup of crumbs. Unless everyone you serve likes a little heat it is probably better to add the hot sauce only at the next stage. Sriracha is subtle enough that this batch had it in both.
In medium bowl, combine all ingredients; mix well. Shape into 1 1/2 to 2 inch balls using a tablespoon measure slightly heaped. For cocktail meatballs, aim for 1 inch diameter with a smaller measure. To brown in oven, arrange in un-greased shallow baking pan; bake at 400 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until browned.
Once cooked, the meatballs can be frozen for storage. Freeze'm first, the wee wifey laid them in an aluminum pie pan, and then bag. That way they don't stick together. Defrost by simmering in sauce or soup.
Tonight she used some of those meatballs as an ingredient in a big batch of beef barley soup. The commercial condensed version is one of the few canned soups I like; this is infinitely tastier.
1 1/2 pounds meatballs
3 medium onions -- chopped
* up to 4 cloves garlic to taste -- minced
1 bunch celery -- diced fine
* 2 green pepper -- seeded and chopped
6 cups water
4 cans beef broth -- (14.5 ounce) OR equivalent in water & beef soup base
* 2 Tablespoons sriracha sauce -- optional or use your favorite hot sauce to taste
2 cups quick-cooking barley
4 cans diced tomatoes with garlic and onions -- (14.5 ounce) undrained
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons celery salt -- or garlic salt
2 teaspoons dried basil -- or Italian seasoning
2 teaspoons instant coffee -- optional
2 Tablespoons sugar
In a Dutch oven, cook onions and celery until vegetables are tender; drain. Stir in the water and broth; sriracha sauce & meat balls & bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Add barley; cover and simmer for 10-20 minutes or until barley is tender. Stir in the remaining ingredients; heat through.
If you do not care for celery, as has been reported by comment to a previous recipe, carrots could be substituted. Frozen ones could be added at the final stage; diced fresh ones would need to be included at the start. Note that soup base, and not boullion, was called for. There is a real difference in quality. We use the Watkins brand, which the wee wifey's great-great grandfather once peddled from a horsedrawn wagon, added to the water per the packaging. Boullion has more salt and less flavor, which means adjustment is needed. The optional instant coffee serves to bring out the beef flavor - you don't taste coffee - and is part of said adjustment. The sugar serves to balance the acidity of the tomato. This batch contained two cans broth, two cans water with soupbase, coffee, no salt and all optional ingredients.
The quantities listed produce a large batch of soup. If we have any left (I ate three bowlfulls for dinner and more this morning) it should freeze quite nicely and can be defrosted in the nukerwave.
Note - details edited after posting - the wee wifey read it on her downstairs computer.
Jeff has decided that as a single guy he needs to learn how to cook for himself, and has spun off a blog where he can ask his readers for recipes and advice. One of the topics he raised recently was meatloaf. My comment was descriptive of a meatloaf specific to my wee wifey's preference, but I was reminded of one which was a hit with the younger crowd.
1 lb ground beef
1/2 lb bulk italian sausage
1 cup oatmeal
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp Italian seasoning blend
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 egg, beaten
1 cup commercial spaghetti sauce
8 oz grated cheese
Combine all ingredients, beef thru egg, and 1/2 cup of the sauce. Form into a loaf and set in a 9x13 paking pan. Bake at 375F for one hour and remove from oven. Drain off whatever grease you can. Spread the remaining sauce on top, and cover with the grated cheese, which can be straight mozzerella, or a pizza or Italian multicheese blend. Return to oven for 10 more minutes to melt the cheese.
I've been posting green tomato recipes lately, but there are other overlooked vegetables in season right now. There is probably no food crop produced in the United States which is used less efficiently than the big orange squash.
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp grated ginger root
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2/3 cup water
1 pound pumpkin, peeled and chopped
1 carrot, sliced
1 potato, chopped
1 green banana, sliced
1 whole Scotch Bonnet (or Habenero) pepper
Start by preparing the various vegetables. The pumpkin should be a small "pie" one rather than a porch monster, and the pepper should be left whole.
Heat the oil in a large pan. Fry the onions for a couple minutes, add the garlic, and fry for another minute. Add the seasonings and stir till they are activated. Add the tomatoes and stir till a thick sauce is formed.
Add the water, and stir to the bottom of the pan so all the sauce blends with it. Add the vegetables, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Remove the pepper before serving; it will have done its job.
We went to Lena's Market, further into the 'hood, to take advantage of their cheap cuts of meat, and a special on jars of hot Southern chow-chow relish caught my eye. I almost bought one, till I looked at the label and noted that the prime ingredient was green tomatoes. I'm more accustomed to Iowa chow-chow, made with corn. The recent frost had just brought in the green tomato harvest - my friends who grow them to harvest after they degrade to red give me whatever is left on the vine.
Quantities are based on what I had on hand. I used three red onions and three yellow ones, for a touch of color, but in any case you want to use sharp ones rather than sweet. The cabbage was a white one. We've been adding two tablespoons of sriracha to almost every recipe lately. It adds warmth and interest that proportionately smaller amounts of ordinary hot sauce doesn't. If the goal was a hot relish I would have added a few chopped hot peppers to the veggie mix, and mixed real well to avoid heat concentration.
6 medium onions - chopped
1 medium head cabbage -chopped
14 green tomatoes - chopped
4 green bell peppers - seeded, deveined and chopped
2 red bell peppers - seeded, deveined and chopped
1/2 cup salt
1 tbsp celery seed
2 tbsp mustard seed
1 1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp cumin
2 tbsp sriracha sauce
2 cups cider vinegar
2 cups white vinegar
1 cup water
4 cups sugar
Combine the chopped vegetables in a large non-reactive pot, and let sit overnight. Drain off all the resultant brine. This makes the relish much crisper.
Combine the remaining ingredients in a second large non-reactive pot, and simmer until the sugar is fully dissolved. Stir in the chopped vegetables, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and simmer for another ten minutes. Pour into warm, sterilized canning jars and can per your best practice. One of the chow-chow recipes I found while working this up suggested just turning the jars over so the contents heat the lids. I suppose that may be genuine and old-time, but I would always advise at least a boiling water bath if not a pressure canner.
Two of the values of the Crock-Pot, or any of the slow cookers from rival manufacturers, are that they operate unattended and tenderize tough cuts of meat. Assemble a few cheap ingredients before you go to bed, toss them in and turn it on before you go to work, and come home to dinner. Here's an old standby which is a prime example.
1 pkt spaghetti sauce seasoning
1 can cola (can be generic but don't use diet)
1 roast (e.g. a 3 to 5 pound chunk of beef marketted for roasting)
potatoes, onions, carrots to taste
Trim obvious fat off the roast. Scrub carrots and potatoes (but do not peel), discard the ends of the carrots, and cut into chunks. The little red potatoes which are ideal for this don't have eyes you need to worry about. Cut the onions into quarters and discard the tough outer skin. Place roast beef and vegetables in crockpot. Pour spaghetti sauce and cola over all. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 4-5 hours. Serve with sauce, piled on a plate. The leftovers can be sliced up for sandwidges.
If you want to get fancy you can substitute
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons hot sauce
or other seasonings to taste for the commercial spaghetti sauce packet. Some recipes also call for browning the roast in oil before putting in the crockpot, but sealing in the juices isn't exactly relevant. The cola provides not only flavoring, but also a tenderizing effect greater than you would get from water. There are similar recipes using beer; the major change is subtler seasoning such as bay leaf or whiskey.
It's getting to be the dried bean time of year. During the summer we use canned beans, but now having something cooking all day is no big deal. The slow cooker is a great way to do things with beans; the ever popular "set it and forget it" really works.
The wee wifey made this for dinner the other night. The recipe said it would feed fourteen as a side dish. It certainly wouldn't serve four teens as a main course. Serving just the two of us, there wasn't ANY left over. She's going to double it next time.
1 lb. dried red beans
6 cups water
1 bellpepper -- chopped
2 onions -- chopped
3 celery stalks -- chopped
1 Tablespoon garlic -- minced
1 lb smoked sausage -- sliced
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 Tablespoons sriracha sauce -- (or any hot sauce to taste)
salt -- to taste optional
Place ingredients in Crock-Pot. Cook covered on high for 7 hours or until beans are tender. You can mash up the beans a bit to make the texture creamy
Serve over hot cooked rice, which can be prepared quickly in the microwave per the method I posted last week.
Update:
I've gotten some questions from commenters regarding this recipe. If you don't like celery you can leave it out, or, if it is the texture you dislike, one commenter suggested using celery in pieces large enough to pick out. What we really have here is a cooking procedure. Beans, sausage, water and stuff you like. You could substiture pinto beans or vega beans, chorizo or bratwurst, and whatever vegetables and seasonings those you feed will eat, and the process will still work. Because of the long cooking time and large amount of water, no presoaking of the beans is required.
No, it isn't a traditional Greek recipe. It isn't Greek at all, and that isn't the real name. The first time the wee wifey served it to me I misheard "The Colonel's Lady's Ham" and have maliciously persisted in misidentifying it ever since.
The recipe was found, under the original name, in "The Compleat I Hate To Cook Book" by Peg Bracken, one of the first of the now obiquitous quick and easy few ingredient cookbooks. We've added garlic and green pepper, and doubled the original recipe. Given that it the leftovers are delicious as a cold nosh straight from the fridge this produce just enough for the two of us. It would probably work just as well as a side dish for a banquet.
1 pound ham -- diced or cut into fork-sized chunks
4 Tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic -- minced
2 onions -- chopped
1 green bell pepper -- seeded and chopped
4 teaspoons flour
2 cup sour cream -- or yogurt
1 pound mushrooms -- sliced
Saute ham, onion and garlic in butter until onion is tender, adding green pepper partway thru. Sprinkle flour on top and then stir in. Turn heat down to low (this is why real cooks use gas stoves). Gradually stir in sour cream and mushrooms. Stir conscientiously for a few minutes while this thickens.
This is traditionally served over rice. To make the rice: Put 1 cup rice and 2 cups water in a good sized bowl. The wee wifey likes the Watkins Chicken soup base, and adds a well rounded tablespoon of it to the water. Otherwise just use a couple of chicken boullion cubes or leave it plain.
Place a plate on top of the bowl to cover it (we use the large Corelle bowl and the small Corelle plate; they match up perfectly) and nuke for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes check it. Our microwave cooks it nicely in three 5 minute increments. The microwave where she work is bigger and takes only 12-13 minutes total to cook. Check after the 10 minute cooking time to decide. If the rice looks pretty well cooked, nuke it in 1 or 1-1/2 minute intervals. After you have learned how your microwave works you won't need to futz so much with microwaving rice. The 5 minute cooking times seem to work better than nuking it for 10 minutes or 15 minutes.
The standard quick bite around here for the last few weeks has been something which the wee wifey developed, to which I have given the name pizzadilla. We used to create complete homemade pizzas, and more recently we've enhanced frozen pizzas with sliced olives and onion and extra cheese, but with our lax eating style (we almost never have meals at home) these result in considerable leftover. Instead we take
1 pound Italian sausage meat OR 1 pound hamburger + 3 TBSP Italian sausage seasoning
2 green peppers diced
3 onions diced
3 garlic cloves minced
and brown and saute everything together. The advantage of the seasoned ground beef is that it breaks up much finer than the bulk sausage. Drain agressively; she dumps it all in the colander and squish squish squishes the grease out. This gets stored in the fridge, and when we get hungry we take
flour tortillas
bottled spaghetti sauce
above-listed meat mixture
mozarella cheese
combined in the above order, flashed for one minute, folded over and allowed to cool till the cheese isn't a hazard to the roof of the mouth.
She had this in mind when a sandwich from her own childhood, from her father's side (they've been American for over 300 years), showed up on one of her recipe mailing lists. The combination is commonly associated with Elvis Presley, who went too far by having it fried, but it wasn't unique to him.
flour tortillas
marshmallow fluff
peanut butter
sliced banana
One banana should be enough for three or four mini-burritos
Fold ends over and eat.
This in turn led her to try adapting a recipe from her decades as a Girl Scout leader.
whole wheat tortillas
peanut butter
mini marshmallows
mini chocolate chips
Microwave for one minute. Fold ends over and eat.
My coworker's cherry tomato bushes produced so abundantly this year that he picked me a bunch while still at my preferred stage of ripeness. I had a neighbor back in Chicago who pickled green cherry tomatoes in vodka, but this was the same fellow who lost ownerrship of a popular Lincoln Avenue tavern because he drank up the profits so I'm not going to follow his example. Instead I've tuned a recipe the wee wifey found among the half million in her Mastercook=formatted CD library.
7 lb small green cherry tomatoes
8 garlic cloves
4 celery stalks
4 hot red peppers
4 tbsp pickling spice
4 cups water
1/4 cup pickling salt
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups white wine viinegar
Twist the petals off the top of any tomatoes on which they remain, and cull any bruised or mushy ones. Preheat and sterilize four widemouth pint canning jars in boiling water. Pack 1-3/4 lbs. cherry tomatoes in each of the hot pint jars. To each jar, add two garlic cloves, a jar-length segment cut from the top end of a celery stalk, a hot red pepper, and a tablespoon of pickling spice. Combine water, pickling salt and vinegar. Heat to just short of boiling until salt is fully dissolved. Fill jars to 1/2" from top. Can per your best practice or store in the refrigerator. Allow a month or so for flavor to develop.
My wee wifey developed this from a recipe which called for canned red tomatoes and canned diced chilies. Altho salsa verde is usually made from tomatillas, there was some green tomatoes in the kitchen I hadn't decided what to do with, so she had at it.
1 large yellow onion -- chopped
2 cloves garlic -- crushed
8 green tomatoes -- diced
2 jalepeño peppers -- seeded
1/2 tsp ground red pepper
1 TBSP chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1 cup water
2 TBSP sriracha sauce
1 TBSP soy sauce
Saute the yellow onion and garlic, in a large saucepan. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes, until the onion softens slightly. Add the tomatoes, chilies, and the spices; Stir. Cover and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. Add the water and the soy sauce. Cook, stirring, until thickened. Add a little more water if sauce becomes too thick. Cumin and heat work very nicely together, but she wound up making a double batch because the finger peppers from the farmers market were hotter than jalepeños. and it needed correction. The posted version is changed accordingly.
Despite what Barnaby was told, you can make chutney without mangoes, m'boy. Green tomatoes are in season right now, and their texture and tartness make a perfect start for this classic relish.
1 pound green tomatoes
1 large cooking apple
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 cup sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
2 medium-sized onions
1 green bell pepper
3 green chillies
2 cup malt vinegar
2 tsp salt
Coarsely chop tomatoes, onions and apple. Dice green pepper, removing stem, seeds and white pith. Slit open chillies, remove seeds and chop flesh finely.
Place all ingredients in a microwave-proof bowl, cover with a loose-fitting lid or pierced plastic wrap (steam needs to escape during cooking), and cook on HIGH until mixture thickens (approximately 15-20 minutes).
Serve, refrigerate for up to two weeks, or can per your best practice. The book from which I got this recipe called for canning in the microwave, but I am not comfortable recommending that. I found a couple other green tomato chutney recipes, which differed most noteably by simmering the ingredients on the stove top rather than flashing them. Cider vinegar can be used instead of the malt, but since chutney reached these shores by way of England I wouldn't. Brown sugar can be used instead of white for a little more flavor and a little less sweetness. Raisins or chopped celery can be included, coriander, allspice and cumin can be used in small amounts, and anyone who has followed my recipe postings knows that I won't stop at one clove of garlic or seed all the chile peppers.
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.Acting on Ayn Rand's advice, the British government has created 3000 new criminal offences. Among them are 300 new sexual offences, one for each page of the Kama Sutra, but there is also a ban on Polish Potatoes. As a symbolic act of civil disobedience, I am posting the following recipe from my wee wifey's mother's family.
6 tablespoons butter
8 ounces kielbasa
2 medium potatoes -- peeled, thinly sliced
1 large onion -- thinly sliced
1 large golden delicious apple
Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a wide frying pan over medium heat. Butterfly the sausage (slice almost thru lengthwise) and cook until browned on all sides. Arrange on a warm serving dish; keep warm.
Add 4 tablespoons of the butter to pan; add potatoes and onion and stir well. Cover and cook, turning often and adding more butter, if needed, until potatoes are tender (about 15 minutes).
Remove lid and continue cooking until potatoes are browned; arrange with sausage; keep warm.
Peel and core apple; cut into 1/2-inch-thick rings. Melt 1 more tablespoon butter in pan; add apple rings and cook until lightly browned on both sides. Arrange with sausage and potatoes.
Serve with horseradish and a serious mustard.
The prunana (also spelled prune-nana) is a flavorful and healthful fruit, rich in fiber and potassium. It is exceptionally messy to eat out of hand, and therefore the best way to serve it is in a pie. Because of the nutritional value, it is commonly served as a followup to the combination I built last week's recipe post around, which is why my wee wifey brought it to my attention.
1/4 cup butter
1 tablesp. flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup prune juice (water in which prunes were plumped)
1/4 cup honey
1 cup plumped prunes, chopped
1/2 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
8" baked pie shell
1 cup sliced bananas
Melt butter, blend in flour and salt, add prune juice and honey. Cook, stirring constantly until thick. Add prunes, lemon zest and juice. Cool. Line pie shell with sliced bananas and cover with prune cream. Chill. Before serving, spread thin layer of whipped cream or whipped topping over the pie if desired.
When I happened upon this recipe, I thought immediately of my wee wifey. I expect it to make her cringe. The nursing homw where she is employed has changed hands about once a year in the time she's been there, and changed its name once along the way. The food service menu remains unchanged, dating back to the time when people who would appreciate a liverwurst and onion sandwich had not yet passed on to another sort of facility. Third shift can always tell when dinner was l&o; everybody's blood sugar is low because they haven't eaten. It isn't really the filling I'm looking to share as much as the packaging. I'd never seen the word "bundle" applied to a filled pastry before, but the Germanic empenada offers a number of possibilities.
1 recipe rye bread dough*
horseradish
mustard
8 - 1 oz slices liverwurst
8 - thin slices onion
8 slices bacon - crisp-cooked, drained and crumbled.
Split the dough eight ways, and roll out into five inch diameter circles. Spread with horseradish (not the pansy hr-flavored mayo) and mustard (original recipe called for the yellow stuff; I'd use Dusseldorff-style) to 1/2" of the edge. Place a slice of liverwurst between the centerline and the edge, and top with onion and crumbled bacon. Fold the dough over, and crimp the edge with a fork or a special single-tasking edge-crimping tool. Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour, then uncover and bake at 375 degrees F (or the equivalent in the temperature scale left over from the French Reign of Terror) for 18 to 20 minutes. Yield - eight bundles (hooda thunk?).
Any filling one might put between slices of rye bread could be substituted if liverwurst and onion don't hum to your crowd. Corned beef, drained kraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing would make a reuben bundle. Ground beef and onion lightly browned together and swiss cheese would make something you couldn't exactly call a patty melt bundle. It might, depending on the etymology of the root sandwich, be a joe melt.
*Rye Bread Dough Recipe
These means enough dough to make one loaf. If you are aren't already a baker you probably wouldn't be taking this on anyway. Anything from pumpernickel to your version of Slicing Tomato Hint of Rye would work.
The wee wifey found the recipe in Country Woman magazine. She is in fact pretty much of a country woman, for a lifelong city dweller who rejects my notion of moving to blue mailbox country. She made some revisions based on our tastes and inventory, and that is the form in which it is posted.The maagazine said it would serve six but the 2 of us went thru it all in 24 hours.
1 can kidney beans -- (16 ounces) rinsed and drained
1 can red beans -- (15-1/2 ounces) rinsed and drained
1 can black beans -- (15-1/2 ounces) rinsed and drained
1/2 bunch minced fresh cilantro -- stems not included
1 1 tsp ground jalepeno pepper
1/2 bunch green onions -- sliced
1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil
1/4 cup or jalapeno vinegar
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt -- or 1 TBSP garlic powder
In a bowl, combine all of the ingredients. Toss to blend. Cover and refrigerate until serving.
This recipe is really a framework on which many variations can be built. For example, the black beans were my suggestion, and took the place of blackeyed peas. Any sort of canned beans except the wax ones which ruin so many bean salads could be used, and once the cool season gets here the hardcore could start with dried beans and do the whole simmer thing.
The original called for 1 jalapeno pepper -- seeded and chopped* but she'd already done that once this week for a batch of fresh salsa. The powdered jalepeno gave just the right heat for us. Other options for the heat component include smoked paprika or chili powder (or Penzey's heatless chili con carne seasoning if you are entertaining wusses).
The jalepeno vinegar was homemade. All of last year's end of season closeout peppers were cut into rings, and have been steeping in a gallon of cider vinegar ever since. The original simply called for cider or red wine vinegar and she also considered using her homemade garlic vinegar
*When cutting or seeding hot peppers, use rubber or plastic gloves to protect your hands. Avoid touching your face or other sensitive body parts.
Update
We made another batch, in anticipation of Sunday company. I experimented with the smoked paprika, and at 1-1/4 teaspoons it was starting to make an interesting contribution to the flavor. For more adventurous palates than those I seasoned this batch for, one might continue adding and tasting.
It occurrs to me that diced bell pepper would be a suitable addition, especially in assorted colors. Diced regular onions, sweet or sharp, could be substituted, but the green ones really seem right.
This recipe comes from our foster niece, sister to NP et al. She makes this for the holidays but we had it for dinner earlier this week. Very easy and very, very good. She clipped the recipe from somewhere, but she can't remember where.
5 to 6 medium red or yellow potatoes, sliced thinly (5 or 6 cups)
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can Rotel diced tomatoes with green chilies
8 oz shredded cheese (2 cups)
salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 7 to
9 hours. Serves 4; more at an event with other side dishes. When we all get together a double batch is standard. The recipe per Beppy calls for process American cheese. My standards call for sharp chedder. Anything in between, or the new-fangled shredblends, would also work.
Here's another barbecue sauce recipe the wee wifey sent me. It's a lot simpler than last weeks, and will not be as unusual outside of its home territory of North Carolina.
2 c Cider vinegar
2 T Sugar or brown sugar
2 t Salt
1 t Fresh ground black pepper
1 t Cayenne or hot red pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and stir to dissolve
the sugar. Serve at room temperature or chilled. The sauce keeps
indefinitely.
The instructions she found are not complete. First of all, the ingredients should be combined at least a day ahead of time so the viniger has a chance to absorb them. The serving instructions merely hint at the fact that this is a finishing sauce to be served with slow-grilled meat, rather than to be used while cooking. If you wish to use it that way, omit the sugar. This results in the Eastern North Carolina hog baste. In the western part of the state, conversely, they add ingredients, starting with ketchup and sometimes including mustard, whatsthishere sauce, liquid smoke or grilled onions. If you really want to get creative, we're experimenting these days with smoked sweet paprika. Substituting it for the cayenne pepper would be subtler than throwing in that smoke stuff that always talks back to me.
The cellular network I signed up to verify and optimize is finally up and running, six weeks after the start date originally discussed. Yesterday was our last weekday off together for rather a while so we went out for breakfast. The wee wifey ordered what she usually does when our fast breaks anywhere fancier than the Parkview; chicken fried steak. As we were dining I suddenly had an insight. This must be how that Chinese food I hear about, chicken fried rice, is made.
Cook the rice so it is sticky. Japanese sushi rice is ideal. Roll large spoonfuls of rice between the palms of your hands to form spheres. Dip the riceballs in buttermilk and then dredge thru a breading of finely crushed cornflakes with salt and pepper to taste.
Melt vegetable shortening in a cast iron skillet and heat to 350 degrees F. Fry the rice the way you would fry chicken, or steak.
If you decide to try the recipe modification Crystal suggested, I would strongly recommend using the good stuff.
My mother always translated "kugel" as "pudding", but her standard one, sweeter and without nuts or seasoning, was always served as a main course side dish. Altho she was often inclined to experiment with recipes, a mainstay like this was always made the same way. That's why I stayed with the bow tie noodles (varnishkes) instead of the ordinary egg noodles which this recipe called for when we found it; radical change is all well and good but you have to remember the basics.
1 16 ounce container of sour cream
1 32 ounce container of small curd cottage cheese
6 large eggs
2 cups currants
1.5 cups chopped walnuts
6 tablesoon Indian (yellow) curry powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
1 12 ounce package bow tie noodles
mix sour cream, cottage cheese, eggs, currants, 1 cup of walnuts, curry powder, salt and pepper together. allow to stand to let flavors develop.
pre-heat oven to 350. butter a 9"x16"x2" pan.
cook noodles in boiling water. drain and add the previously mixed ingredients. mix well. pour into pan and sprinkle with remaining half cup of walnuts. bake for about 1 hour, until set.
Beth Who Will Be Obeyed, facilitator emeritus of the Recipe Carnival, expressed great interest in my recently posted, attention intensive, caramalized onion recipe. When I scanned thru the slow cooker recipe collection looking for something to suit this week's Carnival of the Crockpot, this one jumped out at me. She can just wander into the kitchen every hour of an otherwise busy afternoon and still enjoy the same sort of luxury come serving time.
3 lbs onions -- peeled and thinly
- sliced on the vertical
- (about 6 medium onions)
3 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cracked black peppercorns*
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 French baguette loaf, cut in 16 slices
2 cups shredded Swiss or Gruyè�re cheese
*For a sharper pepper note, coarsely grind black pepper, to taste, after the onions have finished cooking.
To make crostini: Preheat broiler. Brush baguette slices on both sides with olive oil and toast under broiler, turning once.
1. In slow cooker stoneware, combine onions and butter. Stir well to coat onions thoroughly. Cover and cook on High for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until onions are softened.
2. Add sugar, salt and peppercorns and stir well. Place two clean tea towels, each folded in half (so you will have four layers) over top of stoneware, to absorb the moisture. Cover and cook on High for 4 hours, stirring two or three times to ensure that the onions are browning evenly, replacing towels each time.Turn off slow cooker. Stir in thyme and balsamic vinegar.
3. Preheat broiler. Spread onions evenly over crostini and sprinkle cheese evenly over top. Place on baking sheet and broil until cheese is melted and brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately.
Last weekend's belated Easter feast featured, along with the ham recently described, a couple of our standards and a couple of new recipes being tried for the first time. Both of the new recipes were great successes, altho ordinarily they would be not be used in a single context together.
Pineapple Casserole
This one was chosen simply to complement the pineapple ham. It is exceptionally simple, and would be a good one to assign to a young cook as a first contribution to a major meal. As posted where we found it, the pineapple was to be ring slices, layered. The chunks make it easier to prepare, serve and eat, and I don't think the reduction in elegance is significant.
2 large cans pineapple chunks -- drained
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tablespoons flour
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese -- shredded
1 sleeve Ritz crackers -- crushed
1 stick butter -- melted
Mix pineapple, sugar, flour and cheese. Place in casserole dish. Top with crushed crackers. Pour melted butter over casserole. Bake at 325 F for 20-25 minutes.
French Carmalized Onions
This one, on the other hand, requires an experienced cook, both because it requires patience and attention and because it is liable to burn if you don't know what "about to burn" looks and smells like. I would strongly recommend using a gas stove rather than an electric one for this recipe. I always do, but this is one where it really makes a difference. Raising and lowering the heat during the cooking process helps release the natural sugars in the onions, and a gas stove gives much better response for temperature control. Note that the onions should be quartered before slicing, as otherwise you wind up with stringy rings.
3 lbs. onions -- sliced 1/8" thick
8 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt & freshly ground black pepper
Melt the butter in a large skillet, add the onions. Cover and cook over low heat 30 minutes.
Remove cover, raise the heat, stirring to keep the onions from sticking. As soon as the onions begin to brown - in about 10 minutes - lower the heat.
Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Remove cover, raise the heat, stirring to keep the onions from sticking. Cook for 10 minutes.
Cover and cook for 10 minutes.
Add the vinegar, salt and pepper. Turn the heat to high and stir with a wooden spoon until the vinegar is evaporated ~ about 5 minutes.
This dish can be made in advance. To reheat: cook over low heat for 10 minutes.
The foster-niece who will be our guest at this Sunday's belated Easter feast (she and the wee wifey both worked last Sunday) likes canned ham baked with pineapple as the festive main course. Jewel had a spectacular price after Easter on huge bone-in shank hams so we decided to try a variant on the theme. We also decided to try the Acadian Injectors which had been sitting in the kitchen drawer for donkey's years. Between a 10 pound shank portion and a 12 pound shank portion we injected a 64 oz. can of pineapple juice, putting an entire syringeful (I'm guessing around 30 cc) every couple of inches. One thing we learned is that the good injector, with a proper metal Luer lock on the needle is worth the extra pittance. the cheap one snapped off early in the shooting up of the first ham.
Each ham was cooked separately, in a covered roaster which was lined with lumnum foil. We poured a cup of cola (cheap store brand; I doubt name brand would have made a difference) over the ham before starting, and another halfway thru. Roasting was done at 400 degrees F. Twenty minutes per pound produced a ham which might need a little more cooking in near the bone; it is going to get sliced and grilled on Sunday. Thirty minutes per pound produced a ham which was a little overcooked at the periphery, but was falling apart tender. Both tasted absolutely delicious during initial experimental nibbling.
By the way, if I have the time I will make up a batch of my previously posted pineapple barbecue sauce for the grilled ham and the burger patties which will also be part of the feast.
Update:
I grilled the ham without any sauce, and it was a great success. Next time, however, I will not trim before grilling. The few bits of fat I left turned into the finest pork crackling I've ever tasted.
Here's another winner from the wee wifey's collection of Blue Ribbon Recipes; sure to make as big an impression on your guests as it does on contest judges.
Honey Pecans for Garnish:
1 cup pecan halves
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 cup vegetable or peanut oil
In a saucepan, combine pecans, honey, and water, and boil for 5 minutes. Drain pecans and return them to the empty saucepan. Sprinkle with sugar and toss over medium heat for 1 minute. Remove from heat and continue tossing pecans with sugar until they are evenly coated. Set pecans on wax paper for 15 minutes to dry.
Heat oil to 375 F and deep-fry pecans for 2 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and dry on a linen towel (as they would get paper towel fibers stuck all over them).
Sugar Icing
4 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons dark rum
powdered sugar
Beat butter with rum; add enough confectioners' sugar to make a stiff icing of piping consistency.
Note: You may use whipped cream in place of icing, but really shouldn't
Filling:
1 cup pecans -- coarsely chopped
1/2 cup plus 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter -- at room temperature
1 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup cooked pumpkin (canned is 0.K.)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons dark rum
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 baked 9-inch pie shell
Preheat oven to 450 F.
Mix chopped nuts, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and butter; spread in bottom of pie crust. Blend milk with cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg. Mix pumpkin with eggs, 2/3 cup brown sugar, rum, and ginger Then mix together with milk and spices. Carefully spoon filling into baked pie crust. Bake 10 minute. at 450 F, then reduce oven heat to 350 F and bake for 35 to 45 minutes longer, or until filling is set. Let cool completely. Garnish with sugar frosting and pecan halves.
The first time I ever failed to find what I was looking for via a search engine, I was seeking recipes for old-fashioned desserts related to cobblers, known as slumps and grunts. This was back when Alta Vista was still on Digital's servers and we had to walk uphill to and from school. I like pretty much any combination of filling and topping, which is why I snagged this one off the wee wifey's Blue Ribbon Recipe mailing list. Given that there is a fish, as well as a food format, called a grunt, one could get really silly. Or maybe one could have a tuna cobbler fix the shoes made from herring boxes which Clementine wore.
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed vegetables (from 1-lb bag)
2 cans (6 oz each) tuna, drained
1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
1 jar (2 oz) sliced pimientos, drained, if desired
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup boxed biscuit mix
1/3 cup cold water
1. Heat oven to 400°F. Spray 1 1/2-quart round casserole with cooking spray.
2. In 2-quart saucepan, stir frozen vegetables, tuna, soup, milk, pimientos, relish and lemon juice until well mixed. Heat over medium heat 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are thawed and mixture is hot and starts to bubble. Pour into casserole.
3. In medium bowl, stir biscuit mix and cold water with fork until soft dough forms; beat vigorously 30 seconds. Drop dough by 4 spoonfuls onto tuna mixture; sprinkle with paprika.
4. Bake uncovered 20 to 25 minutes until biscuits are golden brown.
This soup is served at the yearly "Missions Luncheon" at the church my wee wifey attends. I don't know if it is simply a favorite of a committee member or represents something served at a soup kitchen somewhere. The only difference would be whether the canned salmon is fancy red sockeye or the cheaper pink stuff.
1 cup celery -- chopped
1 cup onion -- chopped
1 cup green pepper -- chopped
2 cloves garlic -- minced
6 Tablespoons butter
2 cans 14-1/2 oz chicken broth -- OR 2 chicken boullion cubes and 2 cups water
2 cups uncooked potatoes -- diced & peeled skin left on
2 cups carrots -- shredded
3 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 1/4 teaspoons dill weed
2 cans 14-3/4 oz cream style corn
4 cups half and half
2 cans 14-3/4 oz salmon -- drained flaked bones & skin removed
In large saucepan, saute celery, onion, green pepper and garlic in butter until the vegetables are tender. Add broth, potatoes, carrots, salt, pepper and dill; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover & simmer for 40 minutes or until the vegetables are nearly tender. Stir in the corn, cream & salmon. Simmer for 15 minutes or until heated through.
Fast, easy, delicious. All three, no "pick any two". The wee wifey has taken this to the Easter Brunch at church and always got compliments. She likes to use strawberry applesauce. You could also use our previously posted hot cinnamon applesauce recipe to make the one ingredient; omit the teaspoon of cinnamon. By the way, we are going to some sort of church meal tonite, guyship, fellowboat, whatever, and will be bringing two PPR items, the copper penny salad and the elotes corn salad. Hopefully they will be as popular with the other guests as they are with search engine users.
15 ounces pineapple chunks drained -- 1 can
20 ounces applesauce -- 1 jar
15 ounces apricot halves* drained -- 1 can
11 ounces mandarin oranges drained -- 1 can
21 ounces cherry pie filling -- 1 can
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
*cut the apricot halves into smaller pieces (or find canned apricot pieces, which could be less expensive. Either way, inspect for shards missed in the mechanical pitting).
Mix everything together, pour into 9x13 pan. Bake off for 1 hour in 350 degree oven.
After baking, you can can it using a hot water bath. Or, if you prefer, after baking, it is possible to can it using a hot water bath.
A while back, Jane Galt posted a series of essays regarding how a person of limited means could, with a modicum of effort, eat quite well. Chicken breasts figured in the recipes, and rancorous debate about the Fate Of The Poor figured in the comment section.
In Milwaukee, Lena's Food Markets have been "Serving the community for 40 years." The community they serve is the largely black, largely poor North side of the city. They have a fleet of mini-vans with which they provide transportation home for anyone spending $40, thereby shooting down one of the Fates mentioned above. The meat department specializes in not offering meat containing up to 15% of a solution of water and salts, and always has a spectacular bargain or two. A couple of weeks ago they had pork neckbones (great base for an all-day soup pot) for $.39 a pound, and boneless skinless chicken breasts, $.99 a pound. We haven't the time or the mouths for a major soup project, but we stocked up on the chicken.
Simple Salsa Shicken
4 chicken breasts
1 cup salsa
lumnum foil
Trim about an ounce off the thinnest edges of each breast, and reserve. Jab the chicken a few times on each side with a fork. Lay each breast on a sheet of foil, pour 1/4 cup salsa on it and flip it so there is some sala on each side. Don't worry about any even coating. Fold up the foil to make a sealed packet around the chicken, and bake for 20 minutes in a 350F oven.
When you open the packets, some clear juice will pour out. If you can reserve this, you avoid a mess and have a bit of another ingredient toward:
Tom Kha Kai
16 ounces Chicken stock ; or broth (some from above if available)
2 medium kaffir lime leaves ; rolled to release the flavour
1 ounce lemon grass (citronella) ; bruised to release flavor
1 tablespoon sliced thinly galangal
4 tablespoons fish sauce ; or to taste
2 tablespoons lime juice ; or to taste
4 ounces chicken breast ; cut into bite size
5 oz coconut milk
8 small Thai Chillies ; slightly crushed
1 tablespoon cilantro leaves ; - for garnish
Heat the stock, add the lime leaves, lemon grass, galangal, fish sauce,and
lime juice. Stir thoroughly and, bring to a boil. Add the chicken and
coconut milk, bring back to the boil, lower the heat to keep it simmering
and cook for about 2 minutes (until the chicken is cooked through).
Note that the number of red chillies is a personal choice. The 8 suggested above is about mid-range. Don't go past that your first time unless you routinely ask for four-star heat at the Thai restaurant. Some suggest substituting ginger for galangal. They are not interchangeable. I keep a jar of pickled galangal in the fridge, and slice as needed. That, along with all the other supposedly exotic ingredients, are bought at the C&J Vliet Street Grocery, closest food store to my house.
When I was about ten or twelve years old, the first food franchise arrived in Chicago's isolated Hyde Park neighborhood, the one which offered an impressive number of ice cream flavors. Going there was a special treat for my younger brother and I. I don't recall his preferences, but I quickly settled on the licorice ice cream, because it looked like molybdynum sulfide grease, and the mandarin chocolate sherbet, because I absolutely loved the flavor combination. In fact, I loved the combination of orange and chocolate so much I took it upon myself to create a mandarin chocolate cake, which in fact turned out quite well.
1 chocolate cake mix, and additional ingredients as called for on the box
orange juice
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
Prepare the cake batter per the box instructions, substituting orange juice for half the liquid. Fold the mandarin orange segments into the batter. Bake per the box instructions.
Originally, this cake was served as is, but it can be further improved. Prepare it as a layer cake. We do this by baking in a single pan and then slicing in half with a long-bladed knife. We have a special knife on adjustable legs made by Wilton but find it more trouble than it is worth. Spread orange marmalade between the layers, and goop the cake up with chocolate orange buttercream.
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 oz. orange liqueur
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over hot, but not simmering, water (this is why glass cookware is so nifty). Stir in the liqueur and set aside. Whisk the eggs and sugar over simmering but not boiling water until thick enough that the whisk marks hold their shape. Remove from heat and fold in the chocolate. Beat in the butter a chunk at a time until very smooth. Chill until stiff enough to spread evenly.
The buttercream recipe is adapted, at the wee wifey's suggestion, from Pamala Asquith's Ultimate Chocolate Cookbook. If I didn't have my own recipe for the Chocolate Carnival, I would have tried the Molé Cake from the back of the book. It is a main course "chocolate cake"; the first ingredient listed is 2 pounds of chicken bones.
A subscriber to one of the recipe mailing lists my wee wifey runs cited an obscure Bible verse, apparently found in Second Thomas, which reads "Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, eat." Many churches operate on this principle; indeed many cookbooks containing recipes of shareable recipes call themselves Church Supper cookbooks. The potluck is not, however, a Biblical event. We've attended Wiccan and New Age potlucks, G-dless Communist potlucks, and even plain old neighborhood potlucks. In a sense every week's sharing of recipes is a virtual potluck, but I've made a dish to pass this week's theme.
Wenchypoo posted an essay on The Dying Art of Scratch Cooking If the power went out, many people would starve to death--they are so dependent on microwaves and drive-thru windows. These are the people who bring the soda, the cheese trays and the frozen Belgian mini-eclairs. Take these people in hand and share some of the easy recipes found in the Carnivals with them.
Christine Torres at Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea brings Baked Sausage & Egg. One church my household attended held a brunch potluck every Easter at which the participants rang the changes at this concept, but if you're weird like her and love eggs for dinner there's nothing wrong with that.
I posted a Mexican-style Chicken and Rice dish which has always been a hit. We've also served some of my previous postings, hummus, elotes corn salad and dragon wings at potlucks. These are the sort of dishes where you have to tune the seasoning to the taste of the crowd. My son wants the dragon wings to be hot enough to jump over for luck on Samhein, but I have to remember that many of my neighbors up North here in covered dish country think highly seasoned means putting dill in the sour cream.
Shawn Lea at Everything and Nothing posted her recipe for jambalaya, a traditional throw-together get-together dish.
Riannan of Riannanworld brings us Susan's Hamburger Casserole. It is patently not a low fat dish but that's ok. You can worry about those fat grams when you're at home.
Jennifer at Keewee's Corner brings a Hot Chicken Salad. If your butcher is out of the rare hot chickens, the boneless skinless ones make a good substitute.
Joan at Oasis of Sanity brings an easiest rice pilaf which is no doubt much better than that stuff from a box!
Mensa Barbie welcomes us with Risotto Delicata with Sage
Jane Dough at Boston Gal's Open Wallet brings Easy Curry Chicken and Rice
The rightwingprof of Right Wing Nation submitted two different posts full of Mexican goodies. One way to organize a potluck would be to split these recipes between the participants.
Josh Cohen at Multiple Mentality presents a collection ofSpam Recipes. Not so much a recipe as an interesting -- and unexpected -- place to find them.
David Needham of Third World Country brings a Quick Quasi Stroganoff which sounds plenty good enough. Save the prime flank steak chilled and angle sliced across the grain for another occasion.
Virgil Rogers, the Redneck Gourmet, shares his recipe for moussaka, with enough detail that it isn't eggplant lasagna, not that there would be anything wrong with that.
Trouble at Dubious Wonder brings the Easiest and Best Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip. Easiest and best are important parameters for any recipe, especially for a potluck.
Soups are a hearty and satisfying dish for a food-sharing meal. Do keep in mind that they are not practical for an event where people nibble whilst socializing.
DeputyHeadmistress at The Common Room brings two versions of Split Pea Soup (which she has taken to a potluck before) and a muffin recipe.
Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye brings Pork Soup (Potée bourguignonne)
Marsha Hudnall at A Weight Lifted brings a Southwest Grilled Chicken Soup
Taleena at Sun Comprehending Glass brings Oxtail Soup
Cathy at Chief Family Officer brings Colleen's Bread Machine Recipe for Whole Wheat Bread which will be perfect for mopping up the last of everything else.
muse at me-ander announces The Very First Kosher Cooking Carnival! and includes some recipes suitable for sharing with everyone.
And for dessert, Punctilious, who has graciously taken over administering this Carnival from its creator, Beth Who Will Be Obeyed, threw together some yogurt sundae bars.
By the way, where we used to live in Chicago, potlucks weren't very common, but when the dominant nationality was West Virginian, some of this would show up now and then and get passed around.
Enjoy it all, and share with your friends and neighbors.
Update:
Brian B of Memento Moron showed up late with his Savory Wild Rice. That's OK, it happens a lot at potlucks and people are still hungry. Besides, his dish wouldn't fit the chocolate theme of next week's Carnival.
I asked the wee wifey to send me this recipe, because it is perfect for the potluck theme I set for the Carnival. It turns out she had never written it up in Mastercook format, so I got an entire blogpost out of her:
This is one of my potluck, as well as at-home, recipes. Easy and cheap to make. Everyone loves it & asks for the recipe. The nurse I work with at night made it for her family and EVERYONE including the picky eaters AND her mother-in-law went for seconds & thirds. She came back grinning ear to ear and said "that's a keeper" and her family normally doesn't like rice. I originally got this off of Christian TV years ago and it was originally made with instant rice but I've adapted it a bit.
Salsa:
Rice:
Chicken Broth (may need, may not)
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast -- cut up in about 1" pieces
Frozen Corn
Onion -- diced
Green Pepper -- diced
Garlic -- minced
a bit of oil
Cheddar cheese
ground chili pepper -- optional
You will need 2 cups of salsa per 1 cup of rice. If you don't have quite enough salsa you can use chicken broth to get the 2 cups liquid to 1 cup rice ratio. I generally bake my rice in the oven or the microwave. I find stove-top cooking tends to burn. If baking in the oven place in a 9x13 pan & cover with foil. Bake for about 45 minutes at 325-350 stir 2-3 times during the baking to keep the top rice from getting crunchy. You can make 3 cups rice & 6 cups salsa in a 9x13 pan. To make in a microwave put your ingredients in a microwave safe container (I use a rubbermaid storage container). Loosely put a top on or wax paper on top. Microwave on high in 5 minute increments. Stir after each 5 minutes. It should take about 15-20 minutes to cook up. After 15 minutes, if the rice is still a bit soupy I would recommend recommend microwaving at 60-90 second increments until done. Once you have done this once you will know what the total cooking time is for your amount of rice/salsa in your microwave. You will still need to cook in 5 minute increments because you will want to stir.
While the rice/salsa is cooking ... cook the frozen corn. Use as much as you like. I tend to use the biggest bag of frozen corn I can find, but let your taste be your guide. Obviously, when done, drain the corn.
Saute the onion, green pepper, garlic & chicken. I generally use 2 onions, 1 green pepper (sometimes 2), 1# chicken breast and 1/4 cup diced garlic (yes you read that right, let's just say that Dracula isn't stopping by for a visit to our house any time soon). I prefer very little chicken, but sometimes I'll put in quite a bit of chicken, so it really depends on how much chicken you want in this dish.
When everything is done, mix everything including the cheddar together. We like cheese here so I use a good sized bag. Stir until the cheese melts.
I don't use salt & pepper in this dish as there is salt in the salsa & chicken broth. If you want salt, add some, although no one I have given this recipe to, does add additional salt. If you like things spicier add some ground chili pepper to taste.
This re-heats really well.
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She is correct that it reheats well. She'll make as large a batch for the two of us as for the entire third shift at work. I've found that if I sprinkle a little water on it and put it in the nukerwave for a couple three minutes in a closed container it steams up good as new.
Altho most people think of beets when borscht is mentioned, when I was growing up it always meant this hearty beef and cabbage soup, which was one of the best things about winter.
1 lb. beef bones
1 lb. soup meat
6 cups water
1 can tomatoes
1 small head of cabbage, chopped into chunks
1/4 cup raisins
2 onions, peeled and chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 lemon, the juice therefrom
2 tbsp sugar
Where we buy our meat, they sell packages of beef bone, sawed into segments 1-1/2 inches thick. We actually buy them for the canine to crunch on, but they are almost perfect for soup. I remember there always being a joint end in the kettle but I don't see those now. The butcher also sells soup or stew meat, already cut into chunks. The cheaper the cut of meat, the better the flavor. Boil the bones and meat in the water for an hour and a half, skimming the stuff which rises to the top every so often. I don't recall that my mother removed the bones at this stage but you might as well. People aren't that understanding any more.
Add everything else but the lemon and sugar, and simmer for at least an hour. Leaving it on the stove while shoveling the snow would be perfect. Add the sour and the sweet, cook a few minutes more, and serve in big bowls with a dollop of sour cream.
You could just use canned beef broth and water, and put everything in the crock pot. My mother would look down her nose at you but the meal would be just about as satisfying.
When we give presents, we don't tend to give food. The people we give presents to wouldn't make soup from a jar of artistically layered beans. Most of them wouldn't even consider such a jar a worthy decorative object. Similarly, I suspect that if I gave away my homemade pickles they would, as an act of undue caution, be quietly flushed away. Our baked goods are well received,but as our style of baking runs to the more temporal, cakes rather than cookies, they are for immediate sharing rather than gifting.
We are generous with gifts of food, but we do it in another context. My wee wifey and I are, as they say in her theology, unequally harnessed. She an active churchgoer, and food is a part of her church activity. In addition to providing fellowship nibbles as a member of the carbohydrate committee, she participates in the
church community of support for its members by preparing meals for those households whose usual cook is otherwise occupied. Make-ahead casseroles are ideal for this purpose. Also ideal are the metal baking pans with plastic covers available at Family Dollar. By using these, or Pyrex from the thrift store if we have any in inventory, we relieve the giftees of any obligation to track our dish whilst avoiding the tackiness of the crinkled foil pans.
Sausage-Rice Casserole
Double Batch
2 lb uncooked bulk sweet (mild) and/or hot Italian sausage
1 cup onion -- chopped
5 cups white rice -- cooked
2 cans chopped green chile peppers -- (4 oz) drained
2 can mushroom stems and pieces -- (4 oz.) drained
2 cans condensened cream of chicken soup -- (10 3/4 oz.)
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups cheddar cheese -- (6 oz) shredded
Single Batch
1 lb uncooked bulk sweet (mild) and/or hot Italian sausage
1/2 cup onion -- chopped
2 1/2 cups white rice -- cooked
1 can chopped creen chile peppers -- (4 oz) drained
1 can mushroom stems & pieces -- (4 oz) drained
1 can condensened cream of chicken soup
1 cup milk
3/4 cups cheddar cheese -- (3 oz) shredded
1 Cook sausage and onion in a 12-inch skillet until sausage is brown, stirring to break up sausage; drain off fat. Note that altho we go for the hot sausage, recipients of such meals tend to prefer the mild. Adjust accordingly.
2 Meanwhile, in an extra-large bowl stir together rice, chile peppers, and mushrooms. Stir in soup, milk, and cheddar cheese. Stir in cooked sausage mixture. Divide large batch evenly between two 2-quart baking dishes; small batch makes one. Cover and chill for up to 24 hours. Advise recipients to bake, covered, in a 350 F oven for 65 to 70 minutes or until heated through. Lumnum foil should be substituted for the plastic lid on the cheap baking pans at time of baking.
Chicken Potato Casserole
10 oz. can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup milk
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
1-1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
3-1/2 cups frozen hash brown potatoes
1-1/2 cups frozen peppers and onions
1-1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1-1/2 cups crushed potato chips
In a medium bowl, combine soup, sour cream, milk, chicken and 1-1/4 cups cheese. Spread three-quarters of this mixture in a greased 2-quart baking dish.
Sprinkle hash browns and peppers and onions over the top of the casserole and press down lightly, then top vegetables with remaining soup mixture. Sprinkle with remaining cheese
Wrap casserole in freezer wrap or heavy duty foil and freeze. Reserve potato chips in pantry. To thaw and bake, let thaw overnight in refrigerator. Uncover and bake at 350 degrees F for 60-70 minutes until bubbly. Then top with crushed potato chips and bake 5-10 minutes longer.
This week's recipe carnival has appetizers as a theme. I've never understood the concept. Other than certain brownies I've never eaten anything which made me more hungry. I just read yesterday that heating hot spicy food before a meal actually leads you to eat somewhat less; the claimed waking up of the tastebuds means it takes less to satisfy you.
Be that as it may, I do enjoy the various nibbles commonly served at an entertainment. My favorite is hummus. At its most basic it is easy to eat because of texture and mouth feel, it is highly nourishing because of protien balance, and best of all it is a wonderful basis for flavor experimentation.
The basic recipe consists of
2 cans (15 oz) garbanzo beans - not drained
1/2 cup tahini
2 tablespoons olive oil
Smoosh them all together till smooth (once upon a time this was done by hand) and serve with wedges cut from pita bread bread warmed in the oven (or even crackers).
Garlic (most recipes call for a piddling two cloves) and lemon juice are a basic addition, along with a sprinkle of parsley or the like for garnish, but you can go much farther.
The simplest variant we've made resulted from careless shopping on my part. The wee wifey put garbanzos on the shoping list, and I bought the Goya brand, with a Mexican style seasoning to the canning liquid. The unplanned flavor worked out quite nicely. One can similarly substitute other canned beans. Of the ones I've seen suggested, black beans would be far more interesting than Great Northern beans.
Then you can start getting exotic.
2 cans garbanzo beans
1 cup Artichoke hearts
6 cloves garlic
Juice of 2 Lemons
1/2 teaspoon Paprika
1/2 teaspoon Cumin
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon White pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
Combine all ingredients but the oil in the bowl of a food processor, turn on, and slowly drizzle in olive oil as the ingredients are being processed to a creamy consistency. Thing is that altho I consider fresh artichokes worth the effort, canned artichoke hearts don't do much for me. They might impress your guests.
Other recipes suggest cumin, coriander and other seasonings, or jalepeno or habenero peppers. You can add them a little at a time, tasting until it suits you or you think it will suit your guests. If you are expecting my son, just go ahead and add the whole handful of hot peppers.
Most unusual is a recipe I found labeled as hummus pesto. actually, it falls somewhere between the two.
15 ounces garbanzo beans, drained -- reserve liquid
1 cup chopped basil -- packed
juice of 1/2 Lemon
Put garbanzos, basil, and some of the lemon into bowl. Puree using blender.
Add lemon juice until consistency and taste are pleasing. If too thick, you
can add some of the reserved juice. You could substitute cilantro, or depending on the people, occasion, and local laws, the extra ingredient in the above mentioned brownies, for the basil.
Because hummus is such a perfect seasoning substrate, you could go in any other direction. Cake spice, Chinese 5 spice, rogan josh, or whatever you think might stimulate people's appetites. Have fun with it
Pickling is the process whereby vegetables, usually cucumbers, are pickled, thereby turning them into pickles. This process serves first of all to deter spoilage, and secondly to do interesting things to the flavor and texture. Refrigerator quick pickles depend on the refrigerator for the preservation, and thus focus on flavor and texture. This particular recipe manifests as a salad, but imparts a modicum of pickling in the process. Because it uses sufficient liquid as to cover all the cuke slices, draining, or serving with a slotted spoon, is recommended. Altho I haven't tried it, dumping the cucumbers and liquid into a bowl full of salad greens, and/or including sliced onions along with the cucumbers, would move the dish further into the salad category.
3 large cucumbers -- peeled, sliced thinly
1 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 dash red hot pepper
1 dash dried parsley
1 dash black pepper
1 dash basil
Combine all ingredients except cucumbers and heat until sugar melts. Note that we found that a quarter teaspoon, rather than a dash, of the flavoring ingredients, is not excessive. Pour over cucumbers. Store in airtight container. Improves noticeably for at least 24 hours, so make it in advance of serving, and keeps well for several days.
My various pickling posts have been popular search items, but many people are put off from trying to make pickles by uncertainty about canning. Both pickling and canning were developed as ways to preserve food before the invention of modern refrigeration. Today you can enjoy the flavor and texture benifits of pickling without the complications, altho it will limit your storage capacity. If you are going to pickle for the fridge rather than the pantry there are quick pickling recipes which won't tie up space while curing. I have been slicing carrot strips and sticking them in the brine of commercial pickle jars for decades, but the impact is minimal. It takes more than that; just not what it takes for a slow-cure pickle. The red version of the following recipe comes from Quick Pickles, by Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby & Dan George. I worked up the white version to suit the Veteran's Day Carnival theme. There is of course no blue variant.
It is interesting to note that the George Carlin assertion regarding the absence of blue food has been brought up in the context of mushrooms. I am willing to wager that George Carlin has seen the color blue occuring naturally on some of the mushrooms he has eaten.
1 1/2 cups grape juice
2 cups white wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup coarse non-iodized salt (sold as kosher or pickling salt)
4 cloves garlic -- peeled and crushed
1/4 cup prepared horseradish
2 pounds white turnips, cut lengthwise into 1-inch-thick wedges
Combine the grape juice, vinegar, water, salt, and garlic in a medium nonreactive saucepan, and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring once or twice to dissolve the salt.
Meanwhile, toss the horseradish and turnips together in a large bowl. When the liquid comes to a boil, pour it over the turnips until they are well covered. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate. Either the bowl or storage containers must be able to take the boiling brine; pack before or after cooling as appropriate.
The authors suggest grating your own horseradish. Having breathed in a house where this was done I do not.
For the red variant, substitute
2 cups cranberry juice
1 1/2 cups red vinegar vinegar
for the equivalent liquids and add
1 medium beet -- peeled, halved, and sliced about 1/4 inch thick
Proceed as above
The pickles will deepen in color and flavor within 24 hours and will keep, covered and refrigerated, for several months.
A recent addition to the wee wifey's vaste horde of cookbooks is the second edition of Campbell's promotional pamphlet "Cooking With Condensed Soups". It cost me 35 cents at the "Dress For Less" and would go for roughly ten times that on Ebay. There is no copyright date, and by the graphic style it could have been produced any time from the late '30s thru the early '50s. I'd be interested to know when it was actually published because the listed canned soup selection lists only one clam chowder, and tomatoes are among the ingredients.
Some of the recipes sound simply awful. Anyone who would use cream of celery soup in lamb curry or chop suey probably wouldn't even bother making such dishes. The tomato soup gingerbread cake doesn't sound half bad, but I wouldn't bother making it unless I ran a school cafeteria. The one recipe I found to be of interest is for something called Rum Tum Tiddy.
1 can condensed tomato soup
2 cups shredded American cheese
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1 egg, slightly beaten (edged, as the sportswriters would say)
6 slices toast
Heat soup over low heat and stir in the cheese until melted and blended. Add the mustard and egg, continue stirring over the heat until completely mixed. Serve by pouring over toast.
The wee wifey came up with a recipe, out of some ladies magazine from the '50s, called Ringtum Tiddy, which adds sliced onions, black pepper and whatsthishere sauce, and substitutes racing cheese slices for the easier to stir grated stuff. The biggest difference is that it uses three eggs, seperated and beaten. Folding in the stiff whites as a final step will completely change the texture.
An online search produced no hits for ringtum (or ring tum or rumtum) but consistantly bought up a Rum Tum Tiddy recipe which splits the difference. It calls for
1 tb Butter/margerine
1/4 cup Finely chopped onion
1/4 cup Chopped green pepper
3/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup Dry sherry
in addition to the canned soup and one beaten egg, and substitutes 3 cups of shredded cheddar (clearly an improvement) for the 2 cups of American cheese. The vegetables are sauted and set aside. Everything but the egg and sherry are heated together. The instruction to blend 1/2 cup of the cheese sauce into the beaten egg in a bowl, add it back into the remainder of the cheese sauce in the saucepan and continue heating no doubt avoids the risk of lumpiness. The sauted vegetables and sherry are added just before serving over crackers and toast. With the rest of the sherry on the side, it sounds like a perfect dish to serve on a crisp autumn morning.
Update:
The magazine which featured the ringtum variant was the May 1958 issue of Woman's Day. The wee wifey has issues; she formats the recipes in them for use with the Mastercook program. Anybody remember when home computers first hit the market? Standard question: "What would you use one for?" Standard answer: "Well, um, you could store your recipes in it..." The future is here, and we're part of it.
I acquired a bulk tub of peeled garlic cloves at Samuel's Society in the mistaken belief that the added convenience would mean that they would get used up quickly enough to be a worthwhile investment. It soon became obvious that I'd need to find additional uses for them, so in addition to putting four cloves into each jar of whatever else I was pickling I put up a jar of straight garlic pickles. I used the same recipe as for the green tomatoes I was pickling at the time. The results proved to be better than I anticipated; the flavor and crunch both came out just about right. I truly enjoy nibbling on the pickled cloves. There were flaws, however, and the following procedure includes corrections for them.
Trim the rooty bit from the bottom of each clove with a sharp knife. It does not pickle prettily. Fill sterilized canning jars with the trimmed garlic, stopping 3/4 of an inch below the rim ring because they absorb a lot of liquid. Add, at a bare minimum, an entire jalepeno pepper, cut lengthwise in quarters with all its seeds. If you want actual heat from the pickles a serious hot pepper is in order. Place it prominently at the side of the jar. Add one tablespoon of commercial pickling spice to each jar.
Put one gallon of cider vinigar in a non-reactive pot, and add two cups of sugar. This resulted in a distinctly sweet green tomato pickle but is a perfect balance for the garlic. Heat to just short of boiling, while stirring to dissolve the sugar, and then pour this, hot, over the garlic, filling the jars to just above the rim ring. Make sure the sealing rim is clean, cover, and hot water process per your best practice.
The resultant pickles can be included in a relish tray, or an antipasto if you are troubled by pastos. They would work quite nicely, perhaps sliced a ways, in a potato or egg salad, or sliced thinly into a salad of interesting greens. I would also include them in meatloaf, along with the traditional green olives, except that the wee wifey takes the meatloaf to work for her lunch.
The juice from these pickles produces a truly striking dirty martini, with a pair of the cloves on a toothpick as a garnish, but this is most likely a solitary pleasure.
Another superior pickling project next week. This week I'm taking it easy
1 quality box whitecake mix
1 set of what the instructions call for
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can cream of coconut (not coconut milk or juice)
1 tub extra-carrageeny whipped topping
1 fistful shredded coconut (toasted would be a nice touch)
Make the cake mix per instructions, in a 9 x 12 pan. Mix the two canned liquids, and pour three quarters of the result over the cake while it is still warm and in the pan.
You could probably do something with the remaining liquid, crushed ice and rum, but we just poured it all on the cake and found it to be a bit much. Anyway, let the cake set in the refrigerator for at least a day, then spread the whipped goop and sprinkle on the coconut. Have pretty little paper napkins available when you serve it - great for church fellowship or the office break room.
Oh, by the way, I neglected to send out thankyous to last week's Carnival contributors. I couldn't have done it without youse guys. Thanks.
The art of cooking is the art of balancing. Yin and yang, sweet and sour (and all the other basic flavors), crunchy and chewy. The most basic of balances at the core of all food preperation involves the four elemental states of matter. Earth - solid, Air - gas, Fire - plasma and Water - liquid. So that is how I'm organizing the Carnival.
Earth:
From Bebere, a nice, sturdy Quickbread.Earth mother comfort and nourishment.
From Dave at The Glittering Eye, we get Mustard Greens with Tomatoes, Onions, and Chilies, vegetables from the earth.
Altho it isn't something I would serve with Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea, Christine offers us a Chocolate Chip Pudding Pie which one might affectionately compare to mud. Earth.
The Physics Geek offers us a Fudge Truffle Cheesecake. Truffles are mushroom sclerotia growing underground. You can't get any earthier than that.
Richmond, of One For The Road, shares an old family recipe for funnel cakes. They are known as Wormy Pancakes. That makes them earth.
Amanda the Aussie Housewife describes how to make a Caeser Salad. She explains that those who make this salad are passionate about not including any chicken. I have decided that chicken recipes default to air. No chicken - not air; earth
Air:
Punctilious provides a road-map for making No-Carb 'Chips' and Salsa . The carb is the part of an engine which mixes air with fuel, so I'll stick it here.
Petticoat tails are lacey and airy, and I describe how to make them. The cookies by that name, for which I also provide a recipe, aren't so airy, they are a shortbread. It's my entry and my Carnival. I'll put it where I choose.
Tinker, of The Secret Life of Shoes submits a Balsamic Bleu Chicken Salad. I thought the Balsamic Bleu Chicken was an endaged species, but it is poultry, which is a bird, so it defaults to air.
Jim Holmes, the Frazzled Dad, defrazzled enough to post a recipe for Ginger Oil Chicken.
The DeputyHeadmistress of The Common Room writes about Cheese Moons. The poetry offered relates to the Moon as a sky ornament, so air.
Mensa Barbie lectures on the art of preparing a Soufflé aux Baies. Air is the key to the texture of a soufflé.
Everything and Nothing averages out to Simple Chicken Mozzarella. One more time. Chicken. Air.
Fire:
The Soup and Sandwich from Gullyborg are a roasted onion soup and a grilled sandwich containing smoked cheese. Fire.
Chiles Rellenos—third world county™-style were gonna go in fire even if they didn't feature roasted peppers.
Jennifer Kelly in Keewee's Corner confesses her Mississippi Sin. Baked dip with some heat to it - fire.
Muse Me-andered by to share the secret behind Baked Apples. It's about the application of heat
Kevin D Weeks doesn't recall whether the Koftas he had as a youngster tasted exactly like these, but all koftas of course classify as fire.
The Redneck Gourmet humbly submitted a serious recipe for General Tsao Tsungtang's Chicken. Yeah, I know, chicken = air, but this recipe is more about the control of heat than about the chicken it is applied to. I'll put things where I want.
Technogypsy tells us how to make Red Cooked Pork despite the dang FDA. It's all about the hot peppers.
Another one from the Frazzled Dad, detailed instructions for making Cinnamon Ice Cream. Proper cooked custard and a hint of heat to the flavor
Water:
Elisson of Blog d'Elisson shares Dat Ol' Home Cooked Fruit Compote, made by skillful application of water and other interesting fluids to the fruit.
A Weight Lifted up some Fabulous Fruit Smoothies
Thru a Sun Comprehending Glass we see Hot Chocolate With Shaped Marshmallows. Never mind the marshmallows. It's a beverage.
The Chief Family Officer tells us how to make Pan-Fried Tofu, which does indeed dewussify the stuff. The key is draining off the water. Here it goes.
It's Too Damn Hot and the Mean Ol' Meany is Too Damn Sober so he is undertaking the industrial production of Frozen Mudslides. Never mind the ice cream. It's a beverage.
The water category is running kind of sparse. Let's focus in the fact that the ingredients in the Spazzatino Roma from Riannan of In the Headlights simmer in their own juices.
Recipe Carnival readers and participants, especially those who favor fire, may be interested in another event announced in the comments to one of the submissions. Hooked on Heat will be a fortnightly assemblage of spicy recipes sharing a common star ingredient. Sounds like fun.
The gmail account Beth set up for the Carnival is pretty cool. It caught 193 spam for the week without mislabeling any valid mail while only letting 3 thru. One of these three was addressed to Dr. Recipe Carnival, whom, they asserted, had explicitely or implicitely expressed interest in the conference they are promoting. Not on my watch, the good doctor didn't.
Update:
This is the first Carnival to appear at the recently announced new time. From now un you have until Saturday morning to submit entries. Take advantage of the extra time and post something.
Between weather-related landline problems and unfamiliarity with the mailing list I haven't done a complete job of announcing the Carnival, so do the contributors a favor and spread the word.
As long as not too many people have missed it, and it fits where I can use it, I'm adding one more post. Professor Bainbridge has Souped-up Store Bought Risotto by the sophisticated use of water. Just make sure to check for storm warnings before pushing the boat right out.
Obtain a suitable petticoat or half-slip. Cut a peice of stiff craft wire one third as long as the petticoat. Form a small eye at one end of the wire and stitch it to the waistband of the petticoat. Twist the fabric about the wire, and down to the other end, leaving only the lace at the hemline untwisted, and fasten with a running baste spiraling opposite the twist. Attach to the costume by stitching thru the eye and the base of the tail, and form the wire so as to give a suitable lilt.
But seriously, folks, there is in fact a Scottish shorbread cookie known as petticoat tails. The name was generated by translinguification from the French "Petits Gateaux Tailles" meaning "little thingumabobs".
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
1 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons whole milk
2 teaspoon caraway seeds
Instructions
Mix caraway seeds and salt with flour. Melt butter in milk, heating gently and stirring occasionally. Remove from heat as soon as butter has melted. Make a well in center of flour, pour in liquid, add sugar. Blend completely, then gently knead by hand until the dough forms into a flattened ball. Wrap the dough in plastic; refrigerate for 1 hour.
Roll the dough into a circle about 1/4 inch thick. With your fingers, flute the outside rim of the circle as you would the edge of a pie crust, so that it looks like the ruffled edge of a petticoat. Cut out a circle about one third the diameter of the rolled circle from the center of the dough and set aside.
Using a long, sharp knife, cut the fluted ring into quarters, then cut each quarter into four wedges. Flute the edge of the small reserved circle and cut into quarters. Place cookies on a greased paper on a baking sheet. Bake until golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes at 350 F (177 C). Dust with powdered sugar and let cool on a wire rack.
A recipe turned up on one of the email lists describing itself as Buffalo Chicken Lasagna. I suspect it is more correctly some quiet upscale suburb of Buffalo. It was approximately this recipe, only without the cholesteral and salt and fat. The only touch they neglected was gluten-free lasagnoodles.
The basic notion appealed to me, so I decided to start with a proper lasagna recipe, and combine it with my established variant on hot wings.
* 8 ounces lasagna noodles
*1/4 stick (1/8 cup) butter
* 2 cloves garlic, diced
* 1/2 cup chopped onion
* 1 pound boneless chicken breast, diced
*1/2 tspn Thai red curry paste
*1/4 tspn cumin
*1/4 tspn powdered ginger or galengal
*1/4 cup sriracha chili sauce
* 1 jar (about 16 ounces) spaghetti sauce, a basic meatless one
* 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
* 2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
* 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions; drain and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium pan. Fry the garlic in the butter until it turns frothy, add the onions and fry till transparent. Add chicken and stir-fry for four minutes. Turn down the heat, and stir in the curry paste and spices, stirring until everything is the same shade of red. Now add the sriracha sauce, stir until blended, add spaghetti sauce, stir again, and simmer over minimum heat for one hundred fifty seconds or so.
In a 2-quart buttered baking dish (about 11x7x2-inches), layer 1/3 of the lasagna noodles, 1/3 of the sauce and 1/3 of the cheeses. If you use a pound of string cheese, cut or torn into smaller strips, instead of the grated Mot, you will recapture the classic stretchy stringy fun. Repeat layers twice. Bake lasagna for 30 minutes, or until thoroughly heated and bubbly. Let stand for 8 to 10 minutes before cutting and serving. Serves 6 to 8.
How about if we get out of these clean clothes and into a dirty martini?
I'm not a snob about liquor brands. I appreciate my Signatory bottling, in 1995, of a single malt distilled at Highland Park in 1975, but I'm perfectly happy with Clan MacGregor in a Rob Roy. The one place where I stickle is on the making of a martini. A martini is to be made with gin, and enough vermouth that you are aware of its presence. You could use vodka, but if so, the drink is to be identified as a vodka martini. Kind of like a home run record with a nastarisk by it.
Being as I am an avid generator of contradictions, I also enjoy one variant martini, and consider it worthy of sharing the name. That's the dirty martini, wherein olive juice stands in the place of vermouth. Merely whispering "olive juice" as you pour the gin doesn't cut it. The disruption of clarity is an important component of the dirty experience.
The brine from those uniform black olives from Jumbo California provide a most elegant dirty, but the taste does nothing for the gin. Green salad olives garnished with an extruded strip of pimento are an improvement, and a couple of them on a toothpick make the minimal garnish for a martini, but the tanginess of anything more than what clings to the ice on a splashthru will take control of the taste.
At the current moment, the Big Lots stores around here are selling pouches of Pescado Pete's Coastal Style Olives, with roasted peppers and garlic, for a good-sized pittance. These olives are not made as martini garnishes, like the ones stuffed with jalapenos or almonds or rhinoceros horn, but to be nibbled upon. The juice in which they are cured complements cold gin quite nicely.
Place your martini glass and cobble in the freezer. Nibble enough of the olives that you begin to sense the heat, and then a couple more. About five, total. Now wander off and accomplish something whilst the equipage chills.
Upon your return, you can nibble a couple more olives. Remove the paraphenalia from the freezer, and place five clear cubes of ice in the cobble. Pour one tablespoon of olive juice over the ice cubes, and swirl to coat. Pour the non-remaining juice into the glass, swirl once, and brutally discard. Now add a second tablespoon of juice, so you actually get to taste it. Pour in two and one half ounces of your Silver Sapphire gin, or your Vawn Cough vodka. I'll stick with my Calvert's. Quite affordable, and with a lovely citrus top note. Shake, briskly but not vehemently, with a slight rotation at the wrist, until your hand is chilled. Pour, and enjoy. The olives are not a suitable garnish because of the pits. The peppers are strikingly red, but almost dry enough to shake over pizza. Privately, I enjoy a clove of the mildly cured olive in my glass. While enjoying, remember, as best you can, the formula for martini enjoyment. The version I first heard is that one is just right, two are two many, and three are not enough.
The Swiss do not, as a matter of fact, melt queso over their enchiladas. The Chinese do, however, stuff chile peppers, and this is a Chinese recipe. The title is in the tradition of our practice of calling the wee wifey's beloved Moo Shu Roo "Pork Burritos with Plum Salsa".
1 lb. raw shrimp
5 medium mushrooms (as noted)
4 scallions
6 water chestnuts
1/4 cup roasted peanuts
1/4 lb. ground pork
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 Tbsp. light soy sauce
4 turns of the pepper grinder
2 Tbsp. cornstarch
2 Tbsp peanut oil
5 large chile peppers
Shell and devein the shrimp (or pay extra for them) and mince. If you are using the traditional dried Chinese black mushrooms, soak them in water until soft. Gently squeeze dry, cut off the stems and mince the caps. Shiitaki mushrooms, widely available fresh, are a convenient substitute. Small ones in the groceries around here are about the size of the reconstituted black ones. Similarly mince the remaining plant ingredients. Mix the mince with all the remaining ingredients except the peanut oil and peppers.
Split the chili peppers in half lengthwise, and deseed. Exercise all due caution, and you shouldn't be rubbing your eyes anyway. Stuff the pepper halfs with the stuff you mixed together. Fry in the peanut oil over medium heat, about three minutes on the meat side and another two on the pepper side.
One could also substitute napolito for the mushrooms, garlic for the scallions, jicama for the water chestnuts, pinõn for the peanuts, chorizo for the ground pork, olive oil for both of the others, and salsa popular de habenero for the soy sauce, mixing and matching to taste. The garlic would not be inappropriate in an otherwise Chinese mix; it would just be typical of a different region than where this came from. If you want to go farther in the Mexican direction, Chihuaha or Jack cheese could be added. If you want to go all the way, play with the filling, but follow the procedure posted here, which I would not presume to edit.
1 lb. boned leg of lamb
1 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
3 Tbsp. chicken stock
1 tsp. light brown sugar
1/4 tsp. five-spice powder
3 leeks
2 Tbsp. peanut oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
1/4 tsp. salt
Slice the lamb very thinly across the grain. This is easiest to do when the meat is just barely frozen. Cut the slices into strips about 1 inch by 2 inches. Mix the soy sauce, chicken stock, brown sugar and five-spice in a non-reactive bowl, and add the meat so as to marinate for 15 minutes. Wash the leeks, trim off the green portion, and slice the white bulb into pieces aesthetically compatible with the strips of lamb.
Arrange all ingredients within reach of the stove for quick stir-frying. Heat a skillet or wok over a high flame to the point that a drop of water tossed on it sizzles away. Without turning down the flame, add the oil, garlic and salt, and fry for half a minute. Add the meat and marinade, and stir for 2 minutes. Add the leeks and stir one more minute.
This recipe comes from northern China. Egg noodles would be more appropriate than rice for serving with it.
I have no use for red tomatoes, except as an ingredient in cooked sauces or at the core of a Bloody Mary. Green tomatoes, however are one of my favorite vegetables. I'm not particularly into the classic fried green tomatoes (recipe conveniently posted recently by the Acidaughter) but do several other things with them instead.
The simplest thing to do with green tomatoes is to slice them (strive for even thickness), sprinkle with a seasoning herb blend, and George them, that being my verbing of the noun George Foreman Grill. I also dice them, and stew them with sauteed onions, garlic and okra. No particular recipe for this. Just dice everything (except the okra, which I buy frozen in the bag). Heat up some oil in the bottom of a big pot, and when it is hot, throw in the garlic and stir. When it turns frothy, throw in the onions and stir. When they turn translucent, thro in the tomatoes and stir. Turn down the light, simmer for ten minutes, throw in the okra and simmer till tender.
The absolute best thing to do with green tomatoes is to pickle them. I used to buy pickled green tomatoes at the grocery, but I haven't seen those for years. Anyway, mine are better. I just put up several pounds of them, and may do a bushel or more after the first frost.
Sterilize a batch of pint canning jars. Slice the tomatoes top to bottom into six wedges; plums or romas will stack well enough cut into four. Trim off the stem scar and any bruises. Put four peeled garlic cloves, sliced in half, on the bottom of each jar. Some jars also get two quarter sections, partly seeded, of a jalepeno pepper, just to add some tang, but not heat. Fill the jars with tomato segments to just below the rim ring. Add one tablespoon of commercial pickling spice to each jar.
Put one gallon of cider vinigar in a non-reactive pot (I use Pyrex but stainless is fine), and add two cups of sugar. Heat to just short of boiling, while stirring to dissolve the sugar, and then pour this, hot, over the tomatoes, filling the jars to just above the rim ring. Make sure the sealing rim is clean, cover, and hot water process per your best practice. If you don't have an established best practice, check with your county extension service or do a little research on line or at the library. It is actually quite simple
The pickles will last several months on the shelf (unless the seal pops - if it does; discard). Once they are opened, I find that with discipline a pint can last a few hours.
The discussion of this particular delicacy began when Jacques Chirac insulted British cooking, and really picked up once the discussion of thinks to be admired about British cooking really took off. I'd contemplated posting about the stuff some time back, when I found a can of the stuff; the topic was to be whether Heinz was hurting the US job market by producing the stuff in England.
I actually started searching for recipes when the trigger was to have been Chirac. Other than the one ArmyWife worked with, margarine based, they were all so British as to use suet as the shortening. No thank you. I split the difference and used butter, and also averaged out some of the other ingredients.
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/4 cup raisins
Let the butter sit out for a little while, till it starts to soften. Didn't take long in our kitchen this time of year. Blend each ingredient into the butter in order, mashing with a fork until you get to the raisins, for which you stir rather than mash.
Tear off a long piece of wax paper, and grease it. I was going to use the wrapper from the butter, but someone thoughtfully threw it out for me so I used a quick spritz of cooking spray, and doubled up the paper to spread it around. Dollop the batter into the middle of the wax paper, bring the ends together and fold over for a nominal seal, and roll it up into a sausage. Twist the ends and tie with bits of string. Cover with water in either a saucepan or the crockpot. Boil for two and half to three ours, or slow cook on high for six. It is suggested that you slice while hot and serve with a sweet sauce; I'm inclined to use butterscoth icecream topping as long as it's all about sweetness.
In the course of my research I learned that a hospital in Gloucester, England, changed the name on their dessert menu to spotted richard to spare the sensibilities of patients who had been exposed to USian slang, but changed it back due to the resultant confusion. Fact of the matter is that "dick" in this instance is short for "puddick", which is a variant of pudding, which is in turn a variant of the French "boudin" and originally meant sausage and is the reason for the traditional shape.
Chocolate and chili have worked well together for centuries, in everything from molé sauce to brownies. This recipe will be a treat to those who appreciate heat, but a shock to those who don't. Please share it wisely; if you don't, your victims have my permission to express their displeasure.
1/4 stick butter
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce
1 cup pecans
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Melt the butter - 30 seconds in a cup in the microwave will suffice. Stir in the hot sauce, which should be neither a showoff faceburner nor a vinigar-tasting one like the Frank's the wee wifey puts on her french fries. Pour over the pecans and stir to coat evenly. Place in a baking pan and cook 10 minutes until pecans are lightly browned. Stir frequently to prevent burning.
Pecans from above recipe
36 Caramels
2/3 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet. Arrange pecans, flat side down, in clusters of five. Place one caramel on each cluster of pecans. Heat until caramels soften, about six minutes and remove from oven. Flatten caramel with buttered spatula. When cool enough to handle, remove from pan to wax paper. Melt chocolate chips in microwave, stirring until smooth. Note that strictly speaking, chocolate becomes plastic rather than melting; judge readiness by how it moves when you stir rather than waiting for the chips to all run together on their own. Start by flashing for one minute, and use twenty second increments if more heat is needed. Spoon melted chocolate over caramel topping on pecan halves, taking care not to cover the pecan heads and legs of the turtles
The wee wifey has just returned to work, after two months off, and they have her on light duty. Someone decided this means she should work second shift instead of third, and this has her out of kilter enough to do little else besides work and sleep. This has led to the development of the following wondrous gourmet recipe.
1 tub of sour cream
1 packet dry onion soup mix
2 packets ramen noodles
Prepare the onion dip and the noodles, each according to the standard recipe. Drain the noodles (this is always a good idea if you use the flavor packets since they are mostly salt). Spoon the dip onto the noodles until they are well coated (about 1/4 of a batch; I make sandwhiches with my share of what is left). Eat slowly and savor.
I've posted some recipes which have been blue ribbon winners for us. This one wasn't, and that is the source of the name I've given it. Altho my wee wifey had picked the recipe on the basis of its having won at the South Carolina State Fair, the judge at the Wisconsin fair took one look at this cocoa-rich chocolate cake, determined it to have been burned, and disqualified it. I wanted to enter it the following year, expressly identifying it as not being burned, but was outvoted.
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup butter -- softened
3 cups sugar
5 eggs -- room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup buttermilk
Preheat oven to 325F. Generously grease a 10" tube pan and dust with cocoa. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder into a medium size bowl. In a large bowl, cream shortening & butter to blend; gradually add sugar, beating until light & fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Alternate adding portions of the flour mixture, milk and buttermilk, beating until batter is smooth and well-blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven 1 1/4 hours or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 15 minutes. Invert on a serving plate. Cool completely before serving. Makes one 10" cake
I don't think I was any more than ten years old the first time I baked a creative cake on my own. I had fallen in love with the Mandarin Chocolate sherbet sold at the local Bask & Robbins, so I substituted orange juice for some of the liquid called for in the directions of a dark chocolate mix, and folded in a small can of mandarin oranges. It was pretty good, but didn't have the bittersweet intensity I sought even then. Some day I'll experiment once again with this premise and will post either a chocolate orange cake recipe or one for chocolate marmalade.
In the meantime, here is a recipe which has almost nothing in common with that one; only the orange flavor is a link but it still caught my attention when it showed up on my wee wifey's Blue Ribbon recipe mailing list. This cake was a State Fair winner, and the recipe is presented straight out of the Gold Medal cookbook because it doesn't need tweaking. In particular, it doesn't need a heavy gream cheese orange almond frosting.
2 cups all-purpose flour and 1/4 cup cornstarch
or 2 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 cup ground almonds -- (2 ounces)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter -- softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1/4 cup flaked coconut
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 12 ounce can almond paste or filling
1/4 cup milk
ALMOND ORANGE GLAZE:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter or margarine -- melted
1 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
GARNISH:
slivered almonds
orange zest -- if desired
Heat oven to 350°. Grease bottom and side of 12-cup bundt cake pan with shortening; lightly flour. Mix flour, almonds, baking powder and salt; set aside.
Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in marmalade, coconut, almond extract and almond paste until blended. Beat in flour mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture, until blended. Pour into pan.
Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely.
Drizzle Almond Orange Glaze over cake. Garnish with almonds and orange zest.
Almond Orange Glaze:
Mix all ingredients until smooth and thin enough to drizzle.
My wee wifey was browsing the cookbooks at the Bookcellar, and made a comment about there not being any interesting microwave cookbooks there. One splendid gentleman nearby responded that there could not be such a thing. As a gourmet he considered the microwave to be only suitable for defrosting and reheating, and marginally acceptable even for those tasks. We responded by asserting that the microwave is the ideal place to prepare that quintessentially gourmet vegetable, the artichoke. I made the same point as a comment to a Carnival recipe a couple weeks ago, and will track down the link when I get home.
I stopped at a St. Vinnie's thrift store in the course of my travels this week, and did find a worthwhile microwave cookbook, Southern Living's Microwave Cooking Made Simple. Southern Living cookbooks are all excellent. One entire shelf of the wee wifey's collection contains nothing else. Being on the road it is not yet practical for me to experiment with anything which will require refrigeration before and after preparation, so I'm offering my take on one of their recipes aimed at young microwavers.
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
I cup peanut butter
6 cups cold cereal
Careful selection of peanut butter makes a difference. Some of the cheaper brands are highly sweetened. This is never good, especially in combination with the rest of the sugar here. I like chunky, but for this purpose it should be a brand with really small chunks.
The recipe called for wheat or corn flakes, but I suspect that was done to avoid the crisped rice traditionally and commercially used for this purpose. I went with tradition, but if I'd had access to an earthy-crunchy store I'd have tried something more exotic. Come to think of it, a syrup with more flavor, such as Alaga, would also be interesting.
Combine the sugar and syrup in a large microwave-safe bowl. Heat on HIGH for five to six minutes, until it starts bubbling. Stir in the peanut butter, and then fold in the cereal. Make sure the cereal is all well coated, but don't get so aggressive that you crush it.
You could line a pan with wax paper and pour the goop in, slicing bars with a sharp buttered knife once it sets up, but I just followed the cookbook's suggestion due, once again, to the exigencies of travel, and put teaspoon dollops onto sheets of wax paper and chilled until firm.
You will be glad to know that I packed toothbrush and toothpaste, and that coworkers protected me from overdose.
My son believes that the entire nature of our neighborhood can be summed up by the fact that the local gas station, which doubles as a convenience mart, sells seven varieties of pork rinds but no tortilla chips. I believe he's being pessimistic. Many people who live around here would never set foot inside that store, in fact they buy their gasoline at the other end of their travels, and do their shopping a ways to the westward, where the two major chain groceries have altered their stock to compete with the nearby member-owned earthy crunchy store. Be that as it may, and despite the fact that the cracklings calld for in the original recipe are harder and greasier than pork rinds, I offer up the following recipe traditional Hutterite recipe.
1-1/2 cup brown sugar
1-1/2 cup crushed pork rinds
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup raisins
1 cup broken nut bits
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Walnuts would be traditional, but either cashew bits (and cashews are much cheaper when not whole) or unsalted sunflower seeds (whole, in this case) would work well.
Mix all the ingredients, and then add flour a little at a time until you get a dough which holds together when rolled into a ball about the size of a hailstone the size of a golfball. Flatten with a fork like you would for peanut butter cookies, and bake in a 400 degree (Farenheit) oven (preheated) for ten to fifteen minutes (and yes, I know that parenthetic expressions don't belong in a recipe).
No, that's not some sort of a fricken fracken insult. Fraughan, pronounced as frocken, is Gaelic for the bilberry. similar to the American blueberry. A fool is simply a sort of whipped cream dessert, related to the flummary, syllabub and mousse. You could simply defrost blueberries in syrup, and put them in a bowl with Krool-Whip and have an approximation of this, but I hope you won't. Instead, bookmark this for when the berries are in season, and do it right.
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons sugar
3 to 4 drops almond extract
2 cups fresh blueberries
4 shortbread cookies
1/4 cup slivered almonds
Whip the cream with an electric mixer to the soft peak stage and fold in the sour cream, sugar and almond extract.
Cook all but a few of the berries over a low flame (you do have a gas stove don't you, no serious cook uses an electric one) until they start to soften and break up, about eight to ten minutes, then remove from the flame and let cool. Put a couple tablespoons of the cooked berries into each of four chilled parfait glasses, fold the rest into the cream mixture and add to the glasses. Crumble one cookie over each, and top with the berries you didn't cook and the slivered almonds. Refrigerate until it is time for dessert.
I worked Thursday, and my wee wifey didn't work thursday night, so we went out for the evening. When we finally got home, I went to bring up Mastercook on her computer, and , not knowing it takes four minute to load all twelve hundred cookbooks, I assumed the program had gotten corrupted again and went to bed without tracking down the recipe I'd planned to post for the Carnival. Even without my contribution, it is of course worth checking out.
Rammer posted detailed instructions on preparing artichokes. I agree with him that the stem should be left fairly long, but ignore most of the other details. Just pull off the first five leaves from the stem, and slice off the very top to remove the worst of the spikyness. Leave the fuzzy choke; it is easy enough to scrape out with a spoon after cooking. The microwave is the way to cook them, but the article he linked left out the most important part. Wrap the described setup tightly with saran wrap. This produces a de facto pressure cooker, which was what we used to cook artichokes in. Before unwrapping, poke the wrap with a fork or knife to vent the superheated steam. Then proceed as Rammer described. This will be our dinner tonite. I might even try a flavored mayonnaise as he suggests, rather than my usual practice of melting butter in lemon juice in the microwave.
Also worth noting: Daily Dave has posted his long-awaited mango-habenero dip. I like stuff where the heat has a creep to it.
I happened upon this recipe in a cookbook the wee wifey had out of the library, but she returned it before I could write down so much as the title of the book. Extensive online searching turned up description of the cuisine from which it came, but even the closest recipe I found lacked this version's distinctive touch.
6 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed or sliced
2 small whole diavoletto or other hot pepper to taste - diced or ground
2 cups boiling water
Simmer the garlic and the peppers in the water for 15 minutes, and then strain the water into another larger pot with some water boiling in it so as to produce, in total, enough water to cook
1 lb. spaghetti
until it is al your particular dente. Drain the spaghetti but do not rinse, toss with a little olive oil and fresh ground pepper, and serve.
Rather than go out to the Italian market to buy a couple of little devil peppers, I was going to try a tablespoon of crushed red pepper, but the spice cabinet first yielded some dried pasillo peppers. I tore up two of them, and dropped the shreds and seeds into the boiling water. The flavor was delightfull, but the heat was nowhere near devilish. Next time perhaps I will try a couple of fresh habaneros instead.
OK, I did try a couple of fresh habaneros, seeded and diced. A considerable quantity of grated parmesan has proven appropriate. I would suggest this variant only for treating a head cold or livening up a pasta salad.
Daily David mentioned in his recipe posting last week that he is tuning a recipe for a dip featuring mango and habenero. Sweet fruits and hot peppers make a deliteful combination for those who appreciate heat, and I was inspired to dig out a succesful recipe of ours which uses a similar combination.
We took a fourth place ribbon with this at the Wisconsin State Fair a few years ago. From what I've seen of the judging there, it would have probably placed higher if the heat were backed off a bit. The reaction I got when I brought a jar to a Miller Park tailgate party was that the heat level was just right. Depending on whether you are preparing this for fuddy-duddies or fans of consuming beverages at sporting events, you can seed fewer or more of the peppers.
6 cups peeled, diced peaches
1 1/4 cups red onion, chopped
2 jalapeno pepper, chopped
2 jalapeno pepper, seeded, chopped
1 red pepper, seeded, chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, loosely packed
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 clove, finely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
Simmer for 5 minutes. Pack into hot jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes (0-1000 ft.), 15 minutes (1001-6000 ft.), and 20 minutes (above 6000 ft.).
My son's grandmothers hated each other, and disapproved of their offspring's chosen spouse, but they both doted on him. Both were sure our decision to educate him at home was doomed to failure, so they took it upon themselves to augment our home schooling; he usually responded by acting ignorant.
My wee wifey's mother-in-law was not the most famous cook in the family, but she was a locally respected food writer and cooking instructor. When Emrack was seven, she decided it was time he start learning to cook. Rather than tell her that he had been cooking for himself, under supervision, for a year, he created the following recipe with far less tutelage from her than she thought would be required. She was far more surprised than we were at how perfectly it came out.
2 cups water
1 of those things you put in water to make soup
1/4 teaspoon curry powder
1 box of that frozen vegetable that looks like trees
1 big measuring spoon of cream
I'm using his words, as exactly as I remember what I was told. Translations are of course boullion cube, brocolli florets and tablespoon.
Heat the water until it isn't really boiling (a pretty good way for a seven year old to say simmer) and add the boullion cube and curry powder. Once the cube has dissolved, add the brocolli and simmer until it is litely cooked. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream. The seasoning turned out perfectly, which isn't surprising considering he had plenty of experience experimenting with curry in his ramen noodles.
This soup is not named after a pickup truck bedecked with bling, but if you read on, you will see that the reverse may be true.
2 medium potatoes
3 carrots
1 parsnip
1 leek
3 stalks celery
2 quarts beef consomme
1 pound frozen peas - defrosted
3/4 cup rice
1/4 cup minced parsley
So, what's this consume, eh? Some brands of packaged beef broth claim it is a direct substitute, but it isn't. Consomme is correctly a seasoned, reduced, clarified beef broth. You could start by cracking the bones from some roast beef, and simmering and skimming and adding tomato paste and a couple of bay leaves and simmering some more and straining and simmering and skimming but you probably won't. You could start with the boughten beef stock and add a beef boullion cube and maybe a vegetable boullion cube, but you would do well to look for low-sodium broth, as those boullion cubes are pretty much flavored salt. The most likely solution is four cans of Campbell's condensed beef consomme. If you add the full four cans of water you will be a tad over two quarts; you could measure out enough water to make it exact if you want. In any case, adding a scant teaspoon of instant coffee to the liquid will bring out the beefiness, but more than that will make it bitter.
Peel the potatoes, carrots, parsnip and onion, and wash the leek and celery, and then slice them all. Peeling the parsnip is especially important because for some reason they seem to always be coated with wax wherever I've gotten them. Simmer the vegetables in the consomme for 15 minutes, add the peas and rice, and simmer for 20 minutes more. Add the parsley, and maybe a pinch of salt if whatever stock you used wasn't salty enough already.
You could probably make this soup in the crockpot on the high setting by lengthening the cooking time, but that would rule out the final historic detail. Bring the soup to a full boil, and pour it on the Savoyard soldiers, scaling the the wall, thereby scalding them. This historic action, "L'Escalade", took place in Geneva, Switzerland the night of December 11th, 1602, and is remembered every year with speeches, parades, and soup. Geneva being a city noted for wealth, any reference to it no doubt adds class to your SUV.
I found this recipe, and the history behind it, in a delightful cookbook entitled Cooking Round The World With A Wooden Spoon, by Frederique Fredge, which I happened upon while thrift shop shopping. I picked up the book to see if I wanted to further burden our vast collection with it, and opened it at random to an incident from the author's childhood which took place one block north and two miles east of our house. The author being in some sense a neighbor, I of course brought her book home. Milwaukee's Vliet Street farmer's market, also known as the Haymarket, was at one time the city's melting pot, the place to buy live chickens, fresh vegetables, and assorted ethnic cuisines. It was the original home of Speed Queen Barbecue, which John Kerry failed to go to when he campaigned in Milwaukee. The Haymarket was torn down to build the Lake Extension to the freeway system, and then the Lake Extension was in turn torn down to make downtown Milwaukee harder to drive to and thus more attractive to do business in. The resultant empty space will someday again be a thriving business district when all the other projects are completed and the demand for development space outweighs the feelgood restrictions put on this one area.
Once I thought of the name, I had to develop the drink. At first I was thinking rum-style, with lots of juice. After reading the book Party Drinks, everything fell into place.
2 oz. Bourbon Whiskey
2 oz. Mango Nectar
Juice of 1/2 lime
Shake with ice in your cobble, and strain into a tall glass.
Add six oz. Club Soda.
One of the reasons crockpot users are so enthusiastic about them is that you can set up a meal before you leave for work, and have dinner ready when you get home. What most folk don't realize is that you can also set up breakfast before you go to bed and have it ready in the morning.
I first ran into the idea on the Usenet frugalista group almost a decade ago. The recipe posted then was:
Overnite Rice Pudding:
1 cup rice
6-8 cups milk
1 cup sugar (I would recommend brown sugar for flavor; and I certainly wouldn't do like the creator of this recipe and consider using two cups of sugar)
1/4 cup dried raisins
cinnamon to taste (I'd start with a quarter tee)
Cook on low over night.
I loved the concept, but the use of milk turned me off. We eat lots of cheese, I eat lots of yogurt, but I having drunk any milk since I was a calf and haven't poured any over cereal in at least fifteen years. We rarely even have any in the house. Besides, regular rice in the microwave is so fast and easy that I'd find it silly going to this much work to cook it. So when our life shifted to where doing something like this made sense for us, I went looking for other recipes.
Green Chili Grits:
2 cups regular grits
6 cups water
1/2 teaspoon paprika (optional)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
4 to 6 ounces chopped mild green chile (New Mexican if you have it)
1 or more jalapeno chiles, seeded and finely chopped
dash cayenne
Combine all ingredients in the Crock Pot and cook on low for 6 to 9 hours. Whatever is left after breakfast can be refrigerated in a loaf pan, and then sliced and fried for dinner.
Overnite Oatmeal:
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 to 1 cup chopped dates, apples, or raisins, or combination, optional
4 cups water
dash salt
maple syrup or granulated or brown sugar, to sweeten
Spray Crockpot with non-stick spray. Combine ingredients in crockpot; cook
on low for 8 to 10 hours. Stir in sweetener when almost done. Serves 8 as found, which is more people than I've made breakfast for in a while, but adjusting is a simple matter of arithmetic.
In other news, I have continued experimenting with my Dragon Wings, and have posted an update to the original recipe.
Update:
My wee wifey just sent me another recipe for crockpot cereal:
1/4 cup cracked wheat
1/4 cup buckwheat groats (kasha)
1/4 cup oatmeal (real oatmeal or at least what they now call od-fashioned)
1/4 cup pearl barley
1/4 cup brown rice
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups water
Combine all the ingredients in a crockpot set on LOW temperature and cook overnite. Again, quantities can be adjusted, as long as your crockpot is small enough that you aren't starting with a thin layer on the bottom.
One of the benefits of living in the inner city is the grocery shopping. Anything exotic which makes it to the store doesn't sell and winds up getting closed out. I got a dozen tins of King Oscar sardines with pesto for fifty cents each, and three bottles of Woodford Reserve bourbon for half price because it isn't Seven Crown or Crown Royal. At the same time, produce also gets closed out instead of discarded, because some of the customers are frugal enough to pay a bit for it. Last week I spotted nicely ripe bananas for nineteen cents a pound, and this is what my wee wifey did with them. It is rich, dense and moist, yet not heavy.
Best Banana Cake -
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar -- divided
2 egg yolks -- beaten
1 cup very ripe banana pulp -- mashed
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites
Butter and flour a 9" or 10" tube or Bundt pan. If a 10 inch tube pan is used, double the recipe; a high cake will result.
In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter until soft; gradually add the 1 cup sugar, beating constantly. Continue to beat the mixture until it is light and fluffy.
One at a time, add the egg yolks to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition.
In a separate bowl, combine the banana pulp, sour cream and vanilla.
Gradually combine the wet and dry ingredients, beginning and ending with the dry; beat the batter well after each addition.
Beat the egg whites until soft mounds form; gradually add the 1/2 cup sugar and continue beating until the egg whites are stiff. Fold them into the batter.
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake the banana cake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted at the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow it to cool 10 minutes before inverting the pan.
NOTES : Makes one 9 or 10 inch cake. By the way, if you wind up with a little extra batter, as happened this time, baking it in a Corel coffee mug will distract would-be nibblers until it is time to present the cake. Serve with powdered sugar sprinkled on top, spread with your favorite frosting, or plain with Strawberry Coulis to spoon over the slices.
Strawberry Coulis (Strawberry Sauce)
1 package frozen strawberries in syrup
Defrost frozen strawberries. Dump into blender or food processor & blend on high.
Taste, if you want it sweeter add powdered sugar a bit at a time. I don't use any extra sugar.
Use as a sauce for ice cream, cake, pancakes or as a dipping sauce for sugar or butter cookies.
NOTE: You can make coulis with other fruits: Frozen fruit, dump in blender & add about 1/2 cup powdered sugar (to start). Taste. HOWEVER, blackberries & raspberries require straining of the seeds, blueberries sometimes need to be strained for the skin; peaches & strawberries are the easiest.
A CHOCOLATE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1/3 Cup milk
3 Oz. cream cheese
2 1/2 Cups confectioners suga -- sifted
1 Square unsweetened chocolate -- (1 oz.) melted
1 Tsp. vanilla
1 Dash salt
In mixing bowl beat milk and cheese until smooth.
Gradually add your sugar, beat again until smooth.
Stir in your melted chocolate, vanilla and salt, beat until blended.
We developed this corn salad from the ears of corn sold by Mexican street vendors, which we first encountered many years ago at Chicago's old Maxwell Street market. It is a season to taste and measure by eye project rather than a precise recipe, and has been consistantly popular at potlucks and family gatherings.
frozen corn - 2 16 oz bags
mayonaise - two dollops - heaping serving spoons
parmesan cheese - sufficient to coat mayoed corn
seasoning - to taste, as described
Leave the bags of corn in the refrigerator to defrost. Dump into a microwave-safe mixing bowl and flash for a couple of minutes, just till warm, and drain off any liquid. Add mayonaise and mix, then add cheese and mix until coated and mayo is absorbed. When my wee wifey makes the salad, she uses a tablespoon of adobo seasoning, plus half a teaspoon of red pepper. The adobo is more salt than aything else, so I just use half a teaspoon of red pepper and half a teaspoon of cumin powder. The salad can be served hot or cold, but the flavor improves with a few hours in the refrigerator for the flavor to meld, so flash it again for a few minutes if serving as a side dish.
BERRY VINEGAR
2 cups wine vinegar (red or white)
1 pound berries (cranberries, blueberries, strawberry or raspberries)
1 bunch herbs - your choice (optional), cut up or chopped
BASIC PROCEDURE
Put the vinegar into a medium, nonreactive saucepan and warm over low heat just until it begins to give off vapor (do not bring to a boil). Stir in cranberries, blueberries, raspberries or strawberries and cook for 1 minute.
Pour the mixture into a 1 quart mason jar and allow to cool to room temperature, about 10-15 minutes. Add the herbs at this point if you wish. Store the jar out of direct sunlight and away from heat for about a week, shake it every now and then while the mixture steeps. The vinegar will absorb most of the pigment from the fruit.
Strain the contents through a fine sieve into a 4-cup glass measuring cup. Mash the fruit with a potato masher before straining it. Discard the fruit residue and rinse the sieve. Rinse the Mason jar and return the strained vinegar to the jar. Dampen a flat-bottom coffee filter and fit it into the sieve. Rinse the measuring cup, place the sieve on top, and pour in the vinegar a bit at a time, allowing it to drip into the measuring cup. Transfer the vinegar to flasks, bottles, or cruets. The vinegar should be ready to use immediately, with a shelf life of at least 1 year.
YIELD: 2 cups
CRANBERRIES: Cook the cranberries (a 12 oz bag is fine) in about 1/4 cup of water until the cranberries start to pop. Mix with the vinegar.
My wee wifey's personal favorite combinations:
blueberry-basil with red wine vinegar(an absolutely gorgeous deep claret color) cranberry-tarragon with red wine vinegar
raspberry with white wine vinegar (a beautiful red color)
strawberry-cilantro with red or white wine vinegar (not as intense a color as the raspberry if using white wine vinegar).
Use as you would just about any vinegar in a recipe.
Basic Vinaigrette:
1 cup fruit vinegar, 1 cup olive oil 1 TBSP crushed Italian herbs/seasoning.
It is OK to use frozen fruit , just don't use the ones which have sugar added.
Fancy stoppered bottles and cruets are commonly available at thrift stores. See any homebrewing text or website for advice on how to clean them before use.
Update:
I just took a look at the lovely bottle of rasberry vinegar on our kitchen table, and noticed that it has gained in clarity by virtue of a bit of precipitate at the bottom. I therefore recommend that if you are making this for gifting or entertaining that you filter it into a storage jar and let stand a week before transferring into the fancy container, and filter again at that time.
Surely other people call the pudding by that name. After all, there was a pasta restaurant in Chicago called Busghetti, and I know a sawed-off jarhead who shakes a tower by way of bathing. Anyway, as in the ice cream recipe a while back, the pudding adds both flavor and reliable consistancy.
1 4-serving-size pkg. cook-and-serve butterscotch pudding mix
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 Tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups toasted pecan halves (see below)
Line cookie sheet with waxed paper; set aside.
In 2-quart saucepan, combine pudding mix, granulated sugar, brown sugar, evaporated milk, and butter. Cook and stir over medium heat until mixture boils (about 12 minutes). Clip a candy thermometer to side of pan. Reduce heat to medium-low; continue boiling at a moderate, steady rate, stirring frequently, until thermometer registers 234F, soft-ball (fast pitch) stage (8 to 10 minutes). Remove saucepan from heat. Remove candy thermometer. Stir in pecans. Beat with a wooden spoon until candy just begins to thicken but is still glossy (about 3 minutes). Working quickly, drop by teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet. (If candy sets up too much, add a few drops of hot water and stir until smooth again.) Let stand until firm. Makes about 30 pieces.
You can get toasted pecans from the fancy nut shops, but they are easy to do and you can save a tad. It's pretty much just coat them with melted butter and set on a cookie sheet in a 350F oven. A quarter stick should do for a cup and a half of nuts. Some people add seasonings to the butter. The hot sauce and whatsthishere sauce are great for munchie nuts, but out of place here. A quarter teaspoon of cake spice stirred into the butter would work far better here. Once she nuts start to brown, turn off the oven, but leave the nuts in till it cools down.
While on the subject of recipes, I need some help formulating a mixed drink which I have in mind. What else besides blended American Whiskey and Mango nectar would go into a Foxtrot?
I was in the break room at work a couple of weeks ago, preparing my lunch, when the on-site engineer for our E911 provider came in for his. He was curious about what I was making, and I explained that it was microwave fried rice which I got at the Asian store by my house.
"An Asian grocery? I've been looking for one up here. I want that chili sauce, you know, in the squeeze bottle."
"Sriracha sauce," I answered. "I went thru half a cup of it last night."
That raised his eyebrows. I explained that I was trying out a new recipe, and had achieved proof of premise but it needed some tuning. I have applied what I learned, the results were everything I hoped for, and here is the recipe.
2-1/2 lbs chicken wings
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter (or, I suppose, margarine)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup sriracha chili sauce
1/2 tspn Thai red curry paste
You can buy the whole wings, disarticulate them yourself, and dispose of the tips, or pay a bit more and get the prepared drumlets. Either way, pierce the skin with a fork where there is fat under it. Preheat the oven to 425F and put the chicken in it on a cookie sheet.
When the wings have been in the oven about 20 minutes, start on the sauce. Finely dice the garlic. Melt the butter in a medium pan. Cutting it into pats will conserve a little energy. Fry the garlic in the butter until it turns frothy, then turn down the heat, and stir in the curry paste, stirring until everything is the same shade of red. Now add the sriracha sauce, and stir until blended. If you pour the melted butter into the sauce instead it will congeal and not blend properly. Turn the heat down to the minimum.
Now get the wings out of the oven, noting the time, and transfer into a heat-resistant bowl. Don't dump them in; you want to get rid of the hot grease in the pan per your best prectice. Pour the sauce over the wings and toss (stir deeply and forcefully enough that the wings are trading places) until well well coated. Now you dump the wings back onto the cookie sheet, and ladle any remaining sauce over them. Return to the oven and bake for a total time of an hour. If you put the sauce on for the entire oven time the sugar in the sriracha chars, and if you follow the common practice of applying sauce to cooked wings the flavor is external to the wing. This way you get a complex flavor with a smoky note similar to that of the cheap oatlay peppers.
This recipe produces significant heat, and as I expected, they are hotter when the sauce bakes for only the second half hour. They are, at least for my taste, into the pleasure-pain realm suitable for bar wings. They are not so hot that the first one numbs you and the rest don't hurt. If you think they should be, as for a Mancamp type occasion, you could experiment with additional curry paste, or add a few drops of ego-grade hot sauce. I don't see the need.
Update:
I was negligent, and took the announcement that the Carnival of Recipes was delayed till Sunday meant that I had till Sunday to get my submission in, and thougght I was doing just fine getting it in late on Saturday. Anyway, it is up, and my entry is in.
I must point out that if made per the recipe, the wings will tingle the taste buds, not incinerate them. In fact, upon extended eating, I am not getting the cumulative burn I got from the first test batch. If you like the heat of common commercial wings you will like these. If you need to do damage, increase the amount of curry paste or resort to your show-off hot sauce, as suggested above.
Further Update
I've made a couple more batches of these wings. I can go thru a double batch - 5 pounds of wings - all by my lonesome in about three days. I found that 1-1/2 times the curry paste (3/4 teaspoon in a standard batch) noticeably increased the heat, and a double dose (1 teaspoon in a standard batch) got my nose running. More interestingly, I found that adding ground cumin (1/4 teaspoon in a standard batch) to the sauce at the same time as the curry paste enhances the dragon nature of the wings.
This is a fun recipe for young people ready to work with knives; remember that sharp knives are more controllable than dull ones and thus actually safer. It isn't something made much at home any more, and it is distinctly different than the store bought variety. It has been a big hit for the wee wifey on Girl Scout overnights. Any apples will work, but you want to stay closer to the Granny Smith end of the spectrum than the Fuji end. Tart apples can mean adding more sugar - to taste, of course. Splitting the apple down the middle and then excising the seed area will increase yield over slicing fruit segments off the core. One can also leave the peel on for cooking and fish it out later. This trades one kind of labor for another, and also adds color and pectin to the sauce.
9 pounds apples -- peeled, diced & cored
50 disks Brachs cinnamon hard candy
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup water
sugar -- to taste, optional
cinnamon oil or flavoring -- to taste, optional
red hot sauce (such as Tabasco) -- to taste, optional
Peel, core & fine dice apples, put in crockpot with water, lemon juice and candy (cinnamon disks). Cook on low for 8-9 hours
Mash with potato masher & taste. Add sugar (very sparingly as there is sugar in the candy), cinnamon oil/flavoring and red hot sauce. With the hot sauce added, the flavor resembles hot pepper jelly.
If you want a smoother applesauce process in a blender or food processor. It can be kept in the refrigerator or put up in 1 cup or pint canning jars and processed in boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Might as well introduce the kids to canning while you are at it.
By the way, I made a first trial of the recipe I mentioned last week which will require sriracha sauce. It needs a little tuning, and the correction of one significant process mistake, but the concept is valid. For those who appreciate heat, the best way to maximize it will be Thai red curry paste, which should be available where you get the sriracha.
My wee wifey works third shift. The kitchen is closed and few places deliver that late, so potlucks are a fairly regular events. A couple of weeks ago she made this salad, and I got to eat the surplus. I liked it so much I started shoveling it into my mouth and bit my tongue so hard I raised a blood blister. I planned to post the recipe then, but when I went to get it off her computer MasterCook crashed. She tells me that it "gets tired", probably because her recipe collection is so huge. I looked for the recipe online, but what I found differed significantly. I was going to post it last week, but wound up using the carrot slices in the lamb stew instead.
2 1 pound packages frozen carrot slices
1/2 bunch celery -- diced
1 medium green pepper -- diced
1 medium onion -- diced
1 10 ounce can condensed tomato soup
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup vinegar -- wine or flavored if possible
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt -- to taste
1/2 teaspoon pepper -- to taste
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon sriracha chili sauce
Slightly undercook carrots so that they are cooked but still a bit crisp. Microwave, one package at a time on high for 6 minutes, or modify the stovetop instructions similarly. Drain. Set aside in a non-reactive bowl.
Combine the remaining ingredients in a non-reactive pot. Heat to boiling and simmer 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Pour over drained carrots. Let sit for several hours. Serve hot as a side dish or cold as a salad.
She uses a fruit flavored vinegar such as blueberry or cranberry vinegar -- whatever is on hand. She makes these at home; maybe someday I'll post the procedure. Otherwise a red wine vinegar is an excellent choice.
Sriracha is like ketchup, only made with chili peppers rather than tomatoes. If you substitute Dave's Insanity Sauce, adjust quantity accordingly.
Update:
The new recipe Carnival has been posted, and one otherwise Happy Dog points out that the sriracha chili sauce is not always ready to hand. Hopefully the Insanity Sauce isn't either. Altho the sriracha contributes a little something specific to the flavor, any hot sauce can provide the hint of a bite as long as you adjust the amount. I would try about a teaspoon of common hot sauce or two or three drops of ego stuff.
I have an entirely new recipe in development which expressly requires sriracha chili sauce, so I would encourage people who have the opportunity to get some to do so.
The Instapundit is correct that today instacuisine, regardless of the cost of ingredients, is more prevalent than time-intensive cooking. Money spent can be recovered, but time spent is gone forever. There are, however, multiple ways to trade money for time. One of these is by buying the correct tools. When the project is slow cooking, the correct tool is, whodathunk, a slow cooker, commonly known by the trademark Crockpot. Prepare the ingredients, load it up, go off and do your thing, and hours later your time-intensive luxury food is ready.
Irish Potato Stew
1 1/2 Lbs Lamb -- cut in 2" cubes
1 Tbsp shortening
2 Med onion -- chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
4 C beef broth
3 Med red potato -- cut in 2" cubes
1/2 Tsp salt
1/4 Tsp pepper
1/4 Tsp celery seed
1/4 tsp marjoram -- crushed
1/8 tsp thyme -- crushed
1 pkg peas, frozen -- partially thawed
6 tbsps flour
1 pkg sliced carrots, frozen -- partially thawed
Melt the shortening in a large skillet, then brown the meat by quickly and briefly stir-frying. Combine browned meat in slow-cooker with all but the last three ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until meat and potatoes are done. Skim fat - there are tools which can be bought for this task also. Add peas and carrots, then flour dissolved in 1/2 cup cold water. Turn control on high; cover and cook on high for 15-20 minutes.
One way I've traded money for time is by using the frozen sliced carrots from our version of copper penny salad, the recipe which I've set aside till next week. If you use scraped and sliced fresh carrots, include them in the slow cook. Note that we merely scrub and blind the potatoes rather than peeling them. This is not done to save time but to add nutrients and flavor.
Oh yes. One more way to balance time and money. Slow cookers can sometimes be found at thrift stores for around five dollars, but don't count on getting one on your next shopping trip.
This is simply the most reliable recipe we have found for homemade ice cream, giving consistently good results when my wee wifey turned successive Girl Scout troops loose with the recipe. Our son won Grand Champion in 4H when he was only 6 years old with this, in competion against teenagers. You can use any instant flavor pudding, altho we've been told not to use lemon pudding . I use chocolate fudge for chocolate for a richer flavor. Pistachio is good also. Some people like this better than fancy gourmet ice creams, but it doesn't have the chocolate intensity of my favorites, Godiva Belgian Dark and the Aldi Grandessa Chocolate Fudge.
Note that this recipe calls for uncooked eggs. We have no problems using these, but there is some slight risk involved. Maintain clean working conditions (I've seen washing the egg shells suggested), do not leave the unfrozen mixture standing out, and do not serve to the immune-impaired.
Goof Proof Ice Cream
1 large egg
1/2 cup sugar*
3 cp milk
1 small package instant pudding mix*
1 cup half & half
1 tsp vanilla extract.
In a large bowl, beat eggs until light & fluffy. Beat in sugar, milk and pudding mix until smooth. Stir in half & half & vanilla. Pour into ice cream canister. Churn freeze. Put in freezer to harden after churning. Makes 1 quart. The recipe can be doubled or tripled without adjustment for larger batches.
*For sugar restricted diets substitute sugar free pudding mix, 1/4 cp sugar
& 2 TBSP fructose.
If you want to make a rocky road type of ice cream, add the chunk ingredients after, churning but before putting into the freezer to harden.
Or maybe Picama Jickles, or you can throw in the Phillipine name for the root, and put together a blue ribbon tongue twister.
Jicama by itself does little for the tongue. It has, to put it politely, a delicate flavor. What it has in abundance is crunch. I love crunch, in cookies and in carrots. I seek it in pickles, but nothing comes close to a jicama for keeping its crisp thru heat and vinegar. You could use them in a standard dill pickle recipe, but that delicate flavor calls for something more substantial. Here are two variants found online long since, as I have tuned them.
Pickled Jicama
1 1/2 to 2 pounds jicama, scrubbed
2 tablespoons salt
Water
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon dry dill weed
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried hot red chilies
4 sprigs fresh cilantro
1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
1/2 cup finely chopped sweet onion
1/4 cup sugar
Peel jicama and cut into sticks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches long. Place sticks in a nonreactive bowl, sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the salt, and add enough water to cover. Stir until salt is dissolved, then let stand at least 1 or up to 2 hours; drain.
Pack jicama upright into 2 wide-mouthed 1-pint jars. In each jar, put half the mustard seed, dill weed, chilies, and cilantro.
In a 2- to 3-quart pan, bring to a boil the vinegar, remaining 1 tablespoon salt, onion, and sugar. Boil, uncovered, for 1 minute, then pour hot mixture into jars to cover jicama. Let cool, then cover tightly and chill at least until next day or up to 1 month. Makes 2 pints.
Grampa's Sinkamas
1 large jicama
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
6 cloves garlic
ginger, sliced - shorten a fresh root about a half inch by slicing thinly
red hot peppers - start with half a tee as above; I like'm hotter
water
Peel and cut jicama as above. Brine soak and drain as above. Boil sugar, vinegar, 2 cups of the water, garlic, ginger and peppers together. Pour over sinkamas in jar. Refrigerate when cool. This recipe, as found online, calls for garlic bread. That just makes a mess.
Either recipe can be hot processed per your best practice for storage.
So you've made every pumpkin pie recipe posted to the Carnival, and you still haven't used up the case of pumpkin which seemed like such a bargain at the warehouse club. The rest of the world considers pumpkin to be a vegetable. We had a visitor from Australia who told us that pumpkin pie was one of the oddest things about U.S. cuisine. This recipe is the farthest from pie I could come up with.
Morrocan Pumpkin Soup
2 cans chickpeas
3 Tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2 leeks (white and light green part only - or sweet onions) -- (about 1 1/2 cups) chopped
8 cups broth or bullion
2 cans pumpkin (not that silly pie stuff)
2 to 4 Tablespoon honey
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or one cinnamon stick)
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
2 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a large saucepan over med-low heat.
Add the leeks or onions and saute until soft and translucent, 5 to 10 min.
Combine the broth, pumpkin, chickpeas, sugar, spices, salt and pepperin a large pot.
Heat until it just reaches the boiling point, reduce heat to low, and simmer.
If using the cinnamon stick, simmer for 15 minutes and discard stick.
Check for seasonings and adjust as needed. Add cooked leeks or onions, stir and simmer 5 more minutes.
Serve with a dollop of plain yougurt
By the way, if you have in fact tried all the pie recipes, a comparison review would probably draw more hits than posting a recipe.
This pie, like an ordinary pot pie or one with four and twenty blackbirds, is meant to be part of the meal, rather than a dessert. This is not my wee wifey's own recipe, but it came from her Blue Ribbon collection. It was a winner at the 1988 Texas State Fair. Many years ago, herself baked a savory mushroom pie as an entry in the Chicago Park District Bake-o-rama. The judges liked it so much that they ate the whole thing (most entries were judged on small enough sampling that the competitors all got a taste) and then disqualified it on the premise that it wasn't a dessert pie. There was, by the way, no such specification in the rule book.
If you serve this to your guests as a first course you will probably confuse them. That's OK. For the perfect followup you can do what we did once for a Thanksgiving party. She baked a double batch of pound cake. I then carved various pieces, and assembled it with toothpicks to resemble a small roast turkey, which she then glazed with a golden brown icing. At least one person questioned why the bird was on the dessert table.
TARTE COTE D'AZUR (AN ITALIAN PIE)
1 eggplant, about 1-3/4 pounds
2 small zucchini, about 1-1/4 pounds, trimmed.
1 large onion, peeled
2 green peppers, cored and seeded
1 pound red ripe tomatoes, cored and peeled
1/4 cup olive oil
2 TB finely chopped garlic
1 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme or half the amount dried
1 bay leaf
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 cup coarsely chopped parsley
1/2 cup pitted black olives
1 recipe for a 2 crust pastry (or boughter crust if need be)
2 cups grated Fontina cheese, preferably imported
3/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese, preferably imported
(do not use sawdust spaghetti topping)
1 egg yolk
2 t. water
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Peel the eggplant and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes. There should be about 4 1/2 cups.
Cut each zucchini in half. Cut each crosswise into 3/4 inch pieces.
Cut the onion into half inch cubes.
Cut the green pepper into 1 1/2 inch cubes.
Cut the tomatoes into 2 inch cubes. There should be about 2 1/2 cups.
Heat the oil in the casserole and add the eggplant. Cook, stirring occasionally, about five minutes. Add the onion, zucchini and green peppers. Stir to blend the ingredients. Add the garlic, thyme, bay leaf, salt, pepper to taste. Cook about four minutes, stirring. Add the tomatoes and parsley and stir. Cook about five minutes. Place the casserole in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Stir in the olives and bake ten minutes longer.
Let the mixture stand until thoroughly cold.
Line a 10" pie plate with half the pastry, letting one Inch of the pastry hang over the side. About one-third of the mixture goes in the pie plate, a layer of Fontini and a layer of Parmesan cheese, and so on. Continue making layers until all of the mixture and cheeses are used. Brush the overlapping rim of the pastry with a little of the egg blended with the water. Cover with a second layer of pastry.
Seal by pressing the edges together. Flute, if desired, or use the tines of the fork to make a design all around. Use a small biscuit cutter to make a hole in the center of the top pastry. This will allow the steam to escape.
Brush the top all over with the egg yolk mixture.
Place the pie in the oven and bake 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 375 degrees. Bake 15 to 20 minutes longer or until golden brown on top. Six servings
6 large potatoes, boiled in jacket
salt
1 large salt herring
Bring the potatoes to the table in a bowl. Tie the herring to the light fixture above the dining room table. Each person peels his potato, dips it in the salt, and points it at the herring.
This recipe was found in "Mrs. Rasmussen's Book of One Arm Cookery" by Mary Lasswell. We collect cookbooks, and read them for entertainment. This one caught my eye because the dust jacket featured art by George Price, and proved to be every bit as fun as I expected. More strange recipes, like one for Salt Horse, originally a military insult for beef preserved by salting, especially if not well preserved. Now it has become a horse doover.
1 glass chipped beef or dried beef (this would now be the pressed beef,
as sold by Buddig's)
1 glass (in other words equal amounts; units would now be
packets of the beef) walnut meats
sufficient mayonaisse to make a spread
Run the meat and walnuts thru the food processor, separately. Mix, and blend with the mayonaisse. Serve on thin slices of whole wheat bread.
There are also serious recipes, and serious advice.
If we buy ten cents' worth o' somethin' -- don't enjoy it an' throw some of it out -- it was extravagant. If it cost two dollars an' we eat every crumb an' lick the dish -- it was a bargain!
The new Carnival of Recipes is up, and just like last week the Carnival convener has a special liking for the dish I posted. This is cool, but what would be cooler is feedback from people who try a recipe, any from any week's amazing assortment, for the first time and let people know how it turns out. Don't just read'em, make'm.
Or, as my wee wifey calls it, Amish Sauerkraut Salad.
3 pounds sauerkraut -- drained & chopped
1 red papper -- diced
1 green pepper -- diced
3 stalks celery -- diced
1 large red onion -- diced
DRESSING
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup salad oil -- peanut oil is nice
2/3 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup water
1 level tsp. caraway seeds
Combine sauerkraut & diced vegetables.
Heat & stir dressing ingredients until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture well blended. Pour hot dressing over the vegetable mixture & toss to combine. Refrigerate 24 hours before serving. You really MUST make this a day ahead. Right after you make it you'll find it "eh", but the next day it is fantastic. Great for potlucks & picnics where mayo is suspect. Perfect for slawburgers, with Dusseldorf mustard. Keeps well in the fridge, which is why the recipe is for a large batch. It wouldn't last otherwise.
3 Lbs. Okra
6 Hot Peppers
6 Cloves Garlic - Peeled
1 Qt. Distilled Vinigar
1-1/3 Cups Water
1/2 Cup Salt
1 Tbsp Mustard Seed
Clean okra and pack in clean canning jars.
Place one pepper and one garlic clove in each jar.
Combine remaining ingedients in stainless steel or other corrosion resistant pot and bring to a full boil. Pour over packed okra to 1/2 inch from top of jars. Cover jars with new canning lids.
Process in boiling water for ten minutes.
I've had this recipe in my collection for decades. It appears on the back of an old collection of recipes from women in the Democratic Party; it is Lady Bird Johnson's version of a traditional Texas pickle.
Unlike my previous recipe postings, we have never entered this one in competition. If we did, the most important thing with pickles for judging is appearance. The jar should be packed to just short of the shoulder with okra selected for consistant size and appearance, stacked neatly around the jar. I would go for two rows, pointing toward the middle with tips interlaced.
One final tip. When eating okra pickles if you are going to take a bite out one rather than putting the whole thing in your mouth, bite the tip rather than the stem end. This avoids possibel issues of spray.
Almond Pound Cake
2 1/4 cups flour -- sifted
5 Tablespoons corn starch
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup almond paste
4 eggs
10 Tablespoons butter -- ( 2/3 cup)
Cream butter & almond paste until fluffy. Add sugar gradually. Add eggs,
one at a time. Mix in flour mixture & milk alternately. Bake in a bundt
pan at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until done.
The original recipe came from Maid of Scandinavia, and called for 2 1/2 cup sifted cake flour. The cornstarch and reduced flour reflect my wee wifey's preferred aproach, as with the previous cake I posted.
Also in the tradition of that cake, this recipe has won several bibbons at county fairs, and going back 15 years, at the Chicago Park District Bake-a-rama.lI find it sufficiently intense as to be best if sliced very thin.
My wee wifey developed this salsa recipe based on one briefly sold in bulk at the deli department in local Jewel groceries.
20 plum tomatoes -- chopped
2 medium white onion -- chopped
15 sprigs cilantro -- chopped
juice of 2 limes
4 jalapeno peppers -- chopped - remove seeds from 2
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
Combine all items, refrigerate overnite. Drain and reserve liquid.
This can be scooped up with chips, but the best use is to layer it in a glass baking dish with boneless chicken breasts, refrigerate till dinner time and then bake at 325 F for about 20 minutes.
But that's not what I came to tell you about. The reserved liquid, mixed with one part vodka for 2-1/2 parts juice, produces a bloody mary very different from Jack's. It isn't as strong, and it looks anemic, but the pleasure of the mouth feel it gives is absolutely exquisite.
As for the vodka, I use 100% neutral grain spirits from the 1.75 liter plastic bottle, but Emrack uses Van Gogh. That's right, my son is a vodka snob. He showed up once to party with some of his coworkers bringing a case of Milwaukee's Best and a bottle of Grey Goose Citron. He also has strong preferences in rum and tequila, but sees no difference between whiskies. The Corby's which I could no longer get if I chose to because the distillery now produces fuel ethanol, the Jim Beam people around him, others more than myself, drank to excess when he was growing up, and the 1995 Signatory bottling of 1975 Highland Park single malt which he paid for as my Christmas present are indistinguishable.
I have a cookbook purchased specifically to provide a Carnival recipe sitting here next to me but I have to be back to work at 2:00 AM so I am doing something less labor intensive this week. I found out about the night work on Tuesday; as much as I want the Instalanche I don't dare host the Carnival until my work situation changes.
I found this recipe with an online search, and that is the story behind it. A couple of years ago, my wee wifey did a google for a white cake recipe, and this one came up. As she read thru it, she was thinking that whoever created the recipe thought like she does. Using all-purpose flour and cornstarch to emulate cake flour is a standard trick of hers. When she read to the bottom she saw why - she had submitted the recipe herself back when we first went on line.
INGREDIENTS:
* 5 tablespoons cornstarch
* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 2/3 cup vegetable oil
* 1/2 cup milk
* 3/4 cup water
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 4 egg whites
* 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
* 6 tablespoons butter
* 2 teaspoons orange zest
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
* 1/2 cup fresh orange juice
* 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and line two 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. Then grease and flour the paper.
2. Sift together the cornstarch, flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the oil, milk, water and vanilla. Beat until it forms a very smooth batter.
4. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until frothy, add the cream of tartar and beat until stiff peaks form. Gradually add the sugar and beat until very well blended.
5. Fold the egg whites into the batter. Pour batter into the prepared pans.
6. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool then frost with Orange Frosting.
7. Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the orange zest and salt. Beat in the confectioners' sugar alternately with the orange and lemon juices. Continue to beat until light and fluffy. Use to frost cooled cake.
This has won three Blue Ribbons at three different fairs.
When making the frosting make sure that you use fresh squeezed juice rather than bottled.
Original recipe yield: 1 -9 inch layer cake.
Update:
The Carnival for which this was intended is up, with more scrumptious recipes than you could get thru in a week, and some that look like they could become standards. The first one I checked starts with the comment that the blogger's first contribution was his most popular post ever. I'm at the same otherwise lowly level, and am seeing the same effect; in fact I'm still getting hits from last week's and the Carnival index. Once that news gets out, nobody will need to look at cookbooks again.
Oops. I don't know why we never have them any more, but the wee wifey tells me that she taught the Girl Scouts how to make the barbecue cups at Summer of Fun '78. I still say some folks will think they're a keeper.
No, even tho it is called a Carnival, it is in fact a greeting to good eating, and the latest of this weekly collection is now available for your delectation.
Those of you who appreciate fine recipes may also be interested in my wee wifey's Blue Ribbon mailing list, currently growing by leaps and bounds over at Yahoo.
We were hanging out one Saturday at the Bookseller, as we were inclined to do back when less busy, and the subject of Martha Stewart came up. One of the volunteers there mentioned, as evidence that Martha was off the deep end, having seen her advocate making one's own marshmallows. We immediately came to the defense of homemade marshmallows; they are vastly more enjoyable than boughten ones, unless said boughten ones are toasted over a campfire.
I found the following recipes online thru a google search as a convenience; both had in fact been posted by my wee wifey.
Easy Marshmallows:
* 1 package Jell-O (any flavor) -- (3 oz.)
* 1/2 cup boiling water
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
* confectioners sugar
This is a slightly softer marshmallow than a standard recipe, but as long as it isn't damp it's just fine.
Dissolve gelatin in boiling water, in saucepan, low heat. Add sugar; cook and stir until Jello is dissolved (do not boil). Blend in corn syrup. Chill until slightly thickened. Beat at high speed until thick, about 8 to 10 minutes. Pour into 8-inch square pan, lined with wax paper greased with butter or margarine.
Chill overnight. Turn firm mixture out onto a board heavily dusted with confectioners sugar. Carefully peel off wax paper and dust surface with sugar.
Cut into 1-inch squares or into shape, using cookie cutters dipped in sugar. Roll cut edges in sugar. Store tightly covered.
Really Good Marshmallows:
Ingredients
* 2 pk plain gelatin; or 2 TBSP
* 1/2 c cold water
* 2 c sugar
* 3/4 c corn syrup
*3/4 c hot water
* 2 ts vanilla
Instructions
Soften gelatin in cold water in a large bowl.
Place remainder of ingredients in good sized pot. Heat & stir.
In the meantime prepare a pan 8x8 by wrapping in aluminum foil & spraying
with Pam (or some similar item).
Keep stirring & watching the candy thermometer until it reaches 245F. Pour
into a bowl & beat on highest speed
Pour in a thin stream over softened gelatin. Continue beating for 15
minutes. Add vanilla or any other flavorings near the end of the beating.
Using a rubber spatula, scrape into the prepared pan. Let sit overnight at
room temperature.
Dip serrated knife in cold water to cut apart.
To finish: roll in equal amounts of cornstarch & powdered sugar OR coconut
OR chopped nuts OR a package of jello.
Variations: substitute brown sugar, substitute dark corn syrup, add
different flavorings, substitute juice for water.
My wee wifey is seriously into competitive cooking and baking. We have had health issues pop up the last three years in the time approaching the Wisconsin State Fair, but before that we consistantly brought home ribbons and occasional bonus prizes. She took the blue ribbon for honey baklava with the first batch she ever made, and the recipe is posted below, much as she provided it to her blue ribbon recipe mailing list. It is a lot of work to prepare, but the result is something far beyond what you would get from a bakery. The good news is that the preparation time is far less than the two solid days it takes to make the mini peaches with which she took the blue ribbon for sandwich cookies our first year in Wisconsin. These are the cookies about which she says "You know those things that look like they take a lot of work but really don't? This isn't one of them."
NOTE: If you don't have chinese cinnamon, use 1 to 1-1/2 tsp of regular cinnamon. Chinese cinnamon is subtler than regular. As an aside, this seems complicated, but if you read the directions it isn't--just time consuming. I created this recipe by combining 3 other recipes & then making the adaptation of black walnuts. I had never made baklava in my life until I submitted this to state fair. I wasn't even going to submit this, but I had extra time & decided to go ahead & make this up. It gets better if you let it set awhile. I took the leftovers to church about 5 days later and it was to die for!!
Also, for some reason the top sheet of phyllo popped up & would not stay down. I didn't think this would impress the judges, so I literally glued it down ... I used a bit of egg white as the glue and after it had dried (about 15 minutes) that top piece of phyllo wasn't going anywhere. If you aren't trying to score points on appearance you probably won't need to worry about this, but it's always nice to know this trick.
Syrup:
2 cups sugar
1 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tbs lemon juice
2 teaspoon black walnut natural flavoring
Nut mixture:
1 1/2 lbs walnuts (1# English walnuts, 1/2# black walnuts)
2 tsp Chinese cinnamon - powdered
Pastry:
1 lb phyllo dough - thawed
1 lb melted butter
Equipment:
Tall large pot for making the syrup.
Ladle (optional)
Candy thermometer.
Baking pan about the size of the phyllo sheets. I've used
stainless steel and have even used a jelly-roll pan.
2-3 inch paint brush for applying the melted butter.
Food processor for chopping the nuts with the powdered cinnamon
Electric Knife (optional) for cutting the pastry before baking.
otherwise a good, very sharp knife.
Procedure:
Thaw the phyllo dough inside it's plastic package, and don't open it until you're ready to go. If you forget, and you need to speed it up, you can thaw it in its sealed plastic package in warm water, but better to remember (I forgot once, can you tell? :-) ).
Chop the nuts with the powdered cinnamon in a food processor. Pulse it to get good control on the size. You want a fine chop, but not powder. This takes about 5-10 seconds. Do it in batches if necessary. You can do this by hand, but it's easier to find a friend with a food processor. :-) Put the chopped nuts in a medium-large bowl.
Put the sugar, honey, cloves, and lemon juice into a tall pot. Stir well and boil until 220 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer (soft ball). Remove from heat, skim any scum off the top and let cool. When cooled add black walnut flavoring.
Melt the butter in a saucepan while the syrup is boiling. Some people clarify the butter, I don't bother.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
OK, time to assemble, open the phyllo and unfold it.
Brush the inside of the pan with melted butter. It really goes much faster with a 3 inch brush for the rest. A larger brush will tear the phyllo, and smaller ones take more time and the phyllo can dry out.
You can cover the phyllo with a wet cloth if you want, (I use an apron). But if you open it and spread it out and do it straight through, I've been told you won't have to cover it. Make sure your butter is very liquid when you start.
Put six sheets of phyllo in the pan, brushing each sheet with melted butter before adding the next sheet. Put about 6 sheets of phyllo dough aside for the top layers. Actually, I just book-mark the last six sheets on the pile.
After the first six sheets, sprinkle some of the nut mixture over the buttered sheet in the pan (about 1/3). It's easier if you have two people, one to do the nuts, and one to put the sheets down and butter them.
Add another sheet of phyllo covering the nuts, then butter that sheet. Repeat the process until you get to the last six sheets (See the notes).
You want to use up the nuts at the same time you run out of phyllo, not counting the six sheets for the top layers, so try to plan it out. This is a little touchy, but if you get it secured at the edges first, it helps, just be delicate, but quick. :-) Don't worry about torn or broken up sheets, just put them in and butter them down. In the end, no one will know. Have no fear and keep working. :-)
Now place the last six sheets on top of the rest, one at a time, brushing each with butter after it is added. You should have a little butter left over. I just pour it over the pastry after I cut it, but that's not necessary, and after you've done it a couple times you can adjust the amount of butter you use.
Cut the pastry into triangle shapes, all the way through. My great aunt used an electric knife, and thought it made the cutting very easy. If you don't have one, use a *VERY* sharp knife. If it's not sharp, it's a real pain/disaster cutting the pastry. Make sure you cut all the way through the pastry.
Sprinkle the top with water.
Put the pastry into a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven. Bake for 1 hour, the top should be a medium golden brown when done.
When done, remove from the over and ladle the cool syrup over the hot pastry. Hot pastry - cool syrup, cool pastry - hot syrup. Let it sit for about 5-15 minutes, then drain off the excess syrup by tilting the pan, as much as as much as 45 degrees.
Let it cool to near room temperature before taking the baklava up, if you can wait, but you can eat those thin edges now, if you want. :-)
All told, it takes about an hour to make and an hour to bake.
Makes 60 to 90 pieces, depending upon size.
This baklava keeps well and freezes well, although I've never found a need to freeze it, it just disappears too fast. :-)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
NOTES :
The lemon keeps the syrup from crystallizing.
Don't worry about broken sheets, or stuck together sheets of phyllo, just piece them together and butter it down. Depending on the size of the pan you use and the size of the phyllo sheets, you probably will not fit the pan exactly, if it hangs over the edges, just fold it back over to the inside of the pan, and butter it down. Do this every 2-4 sheets. If the pan is slightly too big, just lay the phyllo well into each corner or if only one dimension is too large then alternate sides to get coverage. Remember there are a lot of sheets and it all works out, just have no
fear. Turn the overlying edges in and butter them down.
This week's Friday Feast wasn't up yet when I first logged on this morning, and Beth is launching a Carnival of Recipes, so here is the barbecue sauce I tossed together a couple of weeks ago.
1 large jar pineapple preserves (actually too chunky; next time I'll try jam)
2 cans tamarind nectar
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp dehydrated garlic
1 tbsp cilantro flakes
2 tbsp sriracha chili sauce
Simmer overnite in the crockpot on high.
Use
Note that if brushed heavily onto the skin of a split Cornish hen (or anything else) before grilling, the sugars will cause it to char. Brushing it on the top side of burgers every time I flipped them worked quite well, and Emrack and the others of his generation slathered it on everything I grilled except for the corn, with popular local and national brand sauces being ignored.