Collectible Cooking

"The Pioneer Woman Cooks" - Simple, Perfect Chili

2012-02-08T13:46:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: February 5, 2012 (Super Bowl Sunday)

The Pioneer Woman Cooks – Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond
Published by: William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0-06-165819-8
Recipe: Simple, Perfect Chili – p. 82-83

Today is Super Bowl Sunday and as a lifelong Packers fan, I can’t say I’m all that impressed with today’s teams – the New England Patriots and the New York Giants. The Giants, after all, beat my Packers (in one of the most surreal Packers games ever), knocking them out of the playoffs with a huge thud. And yet, I didn’t want the Patriots to win and they did not in fact win and so life was pretty good.

But even though I didn’t give a rip about the game (and to prove it, I watched Law & Order reruns all night!), I do care about celebrating the Super Bowl with “Super Bowl” food and so this chili recipe came in darned handy!

When this cookbook came out a few years ago, I put it on my “Looks Interesting” list and thought it would be a while before I bought it, but a friend of mine got it for me as a hostess gift for my annual holiday party. (Thank you, Nan!). I’m a sucker for a good story and lots of photographs and this had them both.

And then last year, the book was made into a TV show on the Food Network – The Pioneer Woman - and now every week or so, I get to see Ree Drummond actually make these delicious recipes.

I should tell you though, that I almost didn’t watch her show. Color me jealous (because I am) but when the Food Network advertised it, they stated that something like millions of people read her blog. What?? I can guarantee that millions of people don’t even know mine exists!

So of course she turned that hit blog into a hit book that is now a hit TV series featuring Ree and her handsome husband, “Marlboro Man,” and her adorable kids and her dogs and her cattle and her second kitchen that she has to drive to in order to get there as it’s in another building on the ranch. My kitchen, although not the smallest I’ve cooked in, is at the back end of my house—no driving needed. During a typical Minnesota winter, this is a good thing! (By the way, my husband's nickname is "Dude" and he is also handsome. He does not however, round up steer for a living.)

So I had every reason not to watch her show, right, except I tuned in to the first episode “just to see” and I actually like it. And when I read that she chose to do her own hair and makeup rather than get up early to have it done for her, I grudgingly decided to keep watching. You’ve got to respect a female television personality who wants to do her own thing!

Out of all the shows that I’ve watched so far, my only complaint is about the last one I viewed on February 4th. Call me crazy, but I do not want to see kids holding up bottles of pond water while she’s trying to make something - ew! (The kids’ science project was to collect water samples.)

And out of all the recipes in this book (complete with step-by-step photo instructions), I had a hard time choosing one as they all looked fantastic. But nothing says “Super Bowl” like a good chili and so that was that!

Ree gives you the option to add beans, jalapenos and tomatoes with chili to the recipe. I used beans (pinto and kidney), skipped the jalapeno and added tomatoes without green chilies since I am a northern Midwestern gal and I don’t “do” tongue-searing food. I’m happy to report that it was all good – every last bite of it!

As for my Packers, they’ll be back. In fact, during the 70’s and 80’s, that was the team mantra: “The Pack Will Be Back!” (True fans know to add the word “someday” to the end of that sentence!)

By the way, Ree met her husband while on a stop home on her way to Chicago where she intended to apply to law school. As a “second-career” attorney who went back to law school after years in the workplace, let me just commend your husband for stopping you from doing something foolish by proposing!. A law degree ain’t cheap and in today’s economic market, it’s hard for many attorneys to find work. But everybody needs cookbooks, right? You done good, Pioneer Woman!

Simple, Perfect Chili – makes 6 servings
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 pounds ground beef
One 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup masa (corn flour, found in the Mexican food section of many supermarkets) (Ann’s note: I got mine at a co-op and measured out only what I needed – sweet!)
Optional ingredients:
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
1 can diced tomatoes and chilies (the author recommends Rotel brand)
For serving:
Shredded cheddar cheese
Chopped onion
Fritos

Begin by measuring the spices: chopped garlic, oregano, cumin, cayenne and chili powder.

Place the ground beef in a large pot and throw in the garlic. Cook until the beef is brown and then drain. (Ann’s note: I had myself an Oprah “Ah Ha!” moment in the kitchen. I put a colander over an empty pot and threw in all the browned ground beef. Well this was just slick as all get-out and eliminated the need to drain the beef spoonful by spoonful. I am a GENIUS!)

Pour the tomato sauce into the beef mixed, followed by the spices and the salt. Stir together well, cover, and reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. If the mixture becomes overly dry, add in ½ cup of water at a time as needed. (Ann’s note: water was needed if I didn’t want to scorch the bottom of my pan!)

After an hour, place the masa in a small bowl, add ½ cup water and stir together with a fork. Dump the masa mixture into the chili. Stir together well. Taste, adjust the seasonings, and add more masa paste and/or water to get the chili to your preferred consistency, or to add more corn flavor.

Add the beans, jalapeno, and tomatoes if desired. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve with shredded cheddar, chopped onion, and Fritos.

Ree’s Helpful Hint: To freeze the chili, allow it to cool completely, then place it in 1-cup portions in freezer bags. Flatten the bags for easy storage in the freezer.

"Casserole Treasury" - Baked Alaska Meat Loaf

2012-01-30T18:47:00.003-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 29, 2012

Casserole Treasury by Lousene Rousseau Brunner
Published by: Harper & Row, Publishers
© 1964
Recipe: Baked Alaska Meat Loaf – p. 16

When the going gets tough around here, the tough get going on making a comforting dish, like Baked Alaska Meat Loaf!

It wasn’t that the last two weeks were necessarily bad but they weren’t necessarily good, either. And the lack of sun was making this gal quite unhappy. So I was all fixed and ready to go for a casserole but then couldn’t quite nail the recipe until my husband intervened.

So I ran a few by him: “Tuna Casserole,” one of my favorites, got me that “look” and so I moved on. “Beef and Cabbage with Rice” got me a “hmm” and “Cheese-Spaghetti Casserole” got me a definite “No” (all because of the cheese). “Well, then you select something,” I said and handed the book over.

He came up with “Hearty Turkey Soup” and that earned him my first “No,” and then a few dishes with booze as a primary ingredient – intriguing, but no – and then a casserole with both blue cheese and sour cream (“So in other words, something light.”) that also earned a “No.”

Not to be deterred, he finally suggested today’s Baked Alaska Meat Loaf recipe in honor of the good people of Fairbanks, Alaska, who woke up to -50 degree temperatures. Say it with me now – “Yowza!!!” (For the record, I’ve cross-country skied in -30 but that’s as low as I go.)

Baked Alaska Meat Loaf is the perfect combination of everything I love – meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The author even suggested my favorite mashed potato accompaniment – peas!

And so we had Baked Alaska Meat Loaf and peas and watched the SAG Awards (Screen Actors Guild Awards) and life was pretty good. And we didn’t have to endure -50 degree temperatures to boot.

Baked Alaska Meat Loaf - serves 6 amply
2 pounds lean chuck ground
2 eggs slightly beaten
2 scant teaspoons salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 ½ cups soft bread crumbs
¼ cup minced onion
½ teaspoon dried oregano or 1 ½ teaspoons fresh, chopped
½ teaspoon dried sweet basil or 1 ½ teaspoons fresh, chopped
2 tablespoons minced parsley
3 ½ cups fresh mashed potato (instant will do)
2 eggs yolks
Paprika
Parmesan cheese (optional)

“This is a sort of cross between a regular meat loaf and a shepherd’s pie, but to my mind better than either and more appealing to the eye.”

Blend well in a mixing bowl the meat, eggs, salt and pepper, crumbs, onion and herbs. Pack firmly into a round ovenproof bowl and bake 1 hour and 20 minutes at 400.

Drain off the liquid which will accumulate and invert the bowl on a wire rack to drain completely. Pat the loaf dry with paper towels and slide it onto a shallow casserole or a Pyrex pie plate somewhat larger than the loaf.

In the meantime, prepare the mashed potatoes. Beat them until they are fluffy and beat in the egg yolks. (Author’s note: As indicated above, you can use your favorite instant mashed – an 8-serving box.)

Frost the meat loaf thickly with the potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika and grated Parmesan cheese (if you use it) and set the loaf back in the oven 25-30 minutes, or until the surface is golden. Serves 6 amply.

Serve with green peas mixed with tiny white onions.

"The Global Gourmet" by Concordia (College) Lnaguage Villages - Pakistani Curried Chicken

2012-01-17T17:54:00.003-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 15, 2012 (2012 Golden Globe Awards night)

The Global Gourmet by Concordia Language Villages
Published by: Concordia Language Villages
© 1992
Recipe: Pakistani Curried Chicken – p. 131

Never mind that baseball season is over, today was a double-header: Green Bay Packers v. NY Giants game followed by the Golden Globe Awards.

Yes, well, of the first item (the game) we shall not speak except to say that the Packers were obviously overtaken by aliens. In fact, I thought that filming wrapped on Men in Black III, but apparently nobody on the Packer’s staff got the memo. (From: Hollywood, To: Packers, RE: filming – Men in Black III will be filming extra scenes at Lambeau Field on Sunday, January 15, at 3:30 p.m. Please inform your players and staff….)

So let’s turn out attention then, to something that was a little more uplifting – the 2012 Golden Globe awards ceremony.

In years past, I used to be able to keep up with all the nominated movies, miniseries and TV shows but alas, not anymore. Since I abhor going to movie theaters, I hadn’t seen a single film (although my god, I certainly saw more than my share of the same preview clips, over and over and over again). And since I don’t have HBO or Showtime, I was also unfamiliar with most of the nominated TV shows as well.

Anyway, with a lack of football recipes to make, I turned my attention to the group behind the Golden Globe Awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press, and decided to find an internationally-oriented cookbook to celebrate their event.

And so turning my eyes upward to my bookshelves, I found what I thought would be “just the thing” – The Global Gourmet – written and published by Concordia Language Villages. (Concordia Language Villages is a (foreign) language immersion (summer) camp for those wishing to learn a language or bone up on their language skills. The Villages is sponsored by Concordia College, a well-known college located in Moorhead, Minnesota (near Fargo, ND)).

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not really seeing “foreign” in a recipe for “Spinach Salad with Chutney Dressing” or “Pomegranate and Escarole Salad.” So I flipped and flopped my way through this book until I found three recipes, two from India and this one from Pakistan and decided on the recipe from Pakistan. (Of course, even these three recipes were submitted by American cooks who got the recipe from the Indian and Pakistani women who created them.) (And for extra points and the win, please explain to me what a recipe for "Arkansas Chicken and Rice" is doing in a cookbook called The Global Gourmet.)

I liked this dish although now that I’ve made it, I’m thinking I should have substituted yogurt for the sour cream called for in this recipe. It’s not that I don’t love sour cream, but it really masked the spices and that is not a good thing. (And thank goodness I used only one cup of the recommended two or I never would have tasted anything else.) That being said, my house smelled like a spice cabinet for about two days.

The other thing I liked about this dish was that it called for very little chopping and far more measuring (of the spices) and this was a good thing seeing how I was trying to watch the football game (why, I do not know) and cook at the same time. Chopping involves knives and given how the game went down, those quickly became dangerous weapons. But a measuring spoon? Not so much.

Pakistani Curried Chicken – serves 6
¼ to ½ cup shortening or vegetable oil
1 ½ medium onions, sliced
3 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 ½ teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons ginger
1 ½ teaspoons garlic powder
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
1 (2 ½ to 3-pound) chicken, cut up (Note: the author says you can substitute chicken pieces (thighs, breast, legs) for 1 cut-up chicken)
4 to 5 cups water
1 ½ to 2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
Salt to taste
1 to 2 cups dairy sour cream (Ann’s note: try yogurt instead)
Cooked fluffy white rice, if desired

In large stove-top casserole or Dutch oven, heat shortening until very hot; brown onions, about 15 minutes. (Ann’s Note: Whoa! I almost had burnt onions on my hands. I suggest you turn the heat down.) Stir in the seasonings.

Brown chicken pieces in spice mixture. Add water, cover and cook about 45 minutes or until chicken is done. (And again—I’m not sure whether the chicken was intended to be boiled or not so you might want to turn down the heat just a little.) Remove chicken and set aside.

Add tomatoes and cook until sauce-like, about 30 minutes. (And for the third time, check your heat! I turned my burner down to medium for this step.)

Add the chicken and heat through. (Because I bought ridiculously large chicken breasts, I shredded the chicken meat before adding it to the sauce.) Stir in salt and sour cream. Serve with rice; add whole what pocket bread, chutney and a yogurt drink if desired.

"The Walton Family Cookbook" - Cousin Carole's Split Pea Soup

2012-01-10T17:54:00.002-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 8, 2012

The Walton Family Cookbook by Sylvia Resnick
Published by: Bantam Books
© 1975
Recipe: Cousin Carole’s Split Pea Soup – p. 36

“I want to be a writer, daddy.” John-Boy Walton on the TV show, The Waltons
“I want to be a writer, daddy.” Ann Verme, circa 1971, channeling John-Boy Walton!

When I first moved to Minneapolis after college, my friends teased me that I was emulating the fictional Mary Richards, played by actress Mary Tyler Moore from The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Not so. I actually wanted to be John Boy Walton—well, not really since that would have involved a sex change but you know what I mean.

For those of you who don’t know, The Waltons started out as a 1971 TV movie titled The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. In it, actress Patricia Neal played Olivia Walton before actress Michael Learned took over the role on TV. (Most of the kids in this movie though, moved over to play the same roles in the TV series.)

Anyway, I don’t remember much about the movie but I do remember that Olivia was thrilled to get a bird’s nest from her children for Christmas, even if it did have (in her words) bird poop on it.

Is that not the stuff that just warms your heart, or what? At any rate, this movie set the stage for John-Boy Walton (as played by actor Richard Thomas) to tell his father that he wanted to be a writer (make that “a writer, daddy.”)

Well, as an aspiring writer myself, this had a huge impact on me. And so for as long as the TV series ran, I walked around imitating John-Boy by telling everyone “I want to be a writer, daddy.” Mind you, by the time the series ended in 1981, I was two years out of college with a degree in what ended up being “English Literature” and living in Minneapolis.

My first job though, was as a writer but not quite in the way either John-Boy or I envisioned. I was hired as a Savings Correspondent for a local savings and loan association (remember them?!). Not only was I charged with cleaning up their standard letter file (“Dear Customer, Thank you for opening your account with us”), but I also had to write the not-so-standard letters, many of which said something like: “Dear Customer. We are sorry to inform you that we have temporarily misplaced your $10,000 deposit, but rest assured we are doing everything in our power to locate that money…”

You might think that writing something so mundane was not challenging, but it was. And I was good at it. I got lots of compliments from some of the people for whom I scribed a letter telling me what a good job I did.

And so at that point, I was thinking that maybe in a few months I could go out and find myself a real writing job. Instead, I got promoted to a New Account Representative, and started down a path that had absolutely nothing to do with writing and everything to opening up certificates of deposit for people. Believe it or not, I was rather irritated that I was promoted as I really liked my job; my employer was momentarily stymied as to why I would look a gift horse in the mouth. I know, I know—but there was John-Boy out there writing and if he could write, so could I.

Thirty-plus years later, this is what I have to show for myself: a few articles here and there in various company newsletters, the best (I’m told) thank you notes ever, a spectacular holiday letter that puts all others to shame, and this blog. Oh, and I am friends with a few journalists so there’s that.

By the way, The Waltons was loosely based on writer Earl Hamner, Jr.’s child memories of growing up in Virginia during the Depression. And this is important because while the show’s story lines stayed pretty true to that time period, this cookbook, written in the 70’s, does not. I am pretty sure that Earl’s family (and therefore the Waltons) did not munch on the following: Mexicali Bean Dip; Antipasto Special; Meatballs Ole; Nippy Hamburger in a Dish (featuring a jar of melted cheese spread) or anything closing resembling the majority of dishes found in this book. And so finding something that the Waltons would have actually eaten was a challenge.

Toward that end, I narrowed it down to Bean Soup, Beef and Vegetable Stew (“Stew a la Waltons”) and this recipe for Pea Soup. My husband nixed the idea of the bean soup, the vegetable stew sounded good but had a lot of ingredients so that left the pea soup for which I had only to buy a ham shank and barley.

Now I like barley and I like split pea soup but I can’t say as the two combined rocked my world. I would have much preferred adding potatoes but the recipe didn’t call for it so I didn’t use them.

I also am not a fan of salt and yet this recipe called for three tablespoons – whoa! So I added a tablespoon after the soup had been simmering a while, and that wasn’t enough, so I added another, and then it still wasn’t quite right so I added a little bit more (not a full tablespoon) and suddenly the recipe teetered on the edge of being too salty. I hate it when that happens so my warning to you is to taste and re-taste as you add the salt and then stop immediately when you’ve hit the jackpot!

The recipe also said to discard the onion (which, although it didn’t say, you put in whole) but I like onion and so I chopped it up and added it back to the soup.

Unlike the TV show, I am not a fan of this soup—it’s okay, but it’s not great. But you can make it for yourself and then decide – just like John-Boy and I decided we wanted to be writers, daddy!

(PS—I almost forgot to mention the Baldwin Sisters, famous on Walton’s Mountain for “the recipe”…for moonshine! But remember, it was always consumed “for medicinal purposes.” Those two ladies cracked me up to no end and made me want to be a moonshiner…but only after I became a writer, daddy, of course!)

Cousin Carole’s Split Pea Soup – serves 6
1 8-ounce package split peas
1 4-ounce package fine barley
1 onion (whole)
3 small carrots, finely chopped
3 tablespoons alt (or to taste – no kidding!)
A meaty ham bone, 1 pound short ribs or 1 pound shank meat
3 1/3 quarts cold water

Add all the ingredients to the water in heavy soup kettle, partially cover and cook over a high flame for 20 minutes. Remove cover and skim off excess fat from water with wooden spoon.

Again partially cover (allow lid to sit lopsided so pot is not completely covered) and cook over a medium flame for 45 minutes. Stir ingredients through now and then to prevent sticking. Cover tightly and simmer for 1 hour. Remove and discard the onion.

Author’s note: This soup tastes best if allowed to stand and thicken for at least an hour before serving. Stir through and reheat on a very low flame. If desired, other vegetables such as cauliflower or okra may be added during last hour of cooking.

"The Best of Byerly's" (Byerly's is a Minnesota upscale grocery store chain) Lentil Soup

2012-01-03T18:15:00.002-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 1, 2012

The Best of Byerly’s – A Recipe Collection from the Test Kitchen of Byerly’s Culinary Specialists (Note: Byerly’s is a Minnesota upscale grocery store chain.)
Published by: Byerly’s
© 1996
Recipe: Lentil Soup – p. 52

Well Happy New Year, everyone!

Given what a bad year it was (my dad died) I was oh-so-happy to see 2011 bite the dust. And to make sure that 2012 started off on the right foot, I decided to make lentils as lentils (and beans and peas) are supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. (And this is because they resemble coins – who knew?).

So I wasn’t taking any chances. But I tell you what, my day almost derailed before it even got started.

My husband and I live across the street from a commercial lumber yard. Nine times out of ten, the place is pretty quiet; they don’t run a third shift and so are usually done by later in the afternoon. Every once in a while, a commercial semi comes in to load up but they are not around for very long. (Well, they used to illegally park next to the lumber yard and then run their cabs all night but that problem seems to have been solved.).

At any rate, for whatever reason, the lumber yard has this “thing” about snow. In the “old” days (and by “old” I mean “as of two years ago…”) they used to plow the snow with a fork lift truck with a big steel box attached to it but that was loud and silly. So they switched to a company-owned truck with a snow plow attachment and that was much better…

…At least until 3:45 a.m. on New Year’s Day when the plow truck woke me up from a sound sleep. We’d had a little bit of snow fall on New Year’s Eve and I guess that was cause for great concern and alarm and so the plow man was dispatched and he proceeded to scrape up the 6-8 flakes that fell as well as half the asphalt.

Now, let’s review the crucial components of this early-morning snow-scrapping expedition: 1) it was Sunday morning and the yard is not open on Sunday; 2) it was New Year’s Day and that is a holiday that is carefully observed by the company so again, no one was there and 3), it was 3 freaking 45 a.m.!!!!

It goes without saying that I about killed that driver who then spent the next hour plowing and therefore keeping me up. I was this close to going outside to confront the man but figured I was just too scary looking at that hour and so I’m saving it for when the yard is open again.

So I dealt with the snowplow serenade as best I could, and by “best I could,” I mean that I posted all about this on Facebook, including the fact that I awarded the company my Corporate Jackass of The Year award. Oh yeah, I was just a little ticked!

So I read for a while and then turned off the light and was just about asleep when I heard the “thump, thump, thump...thump, thump, thump” of the paper delivery person’s car stereo.

Sigh. (You should know the thumping stereo is also an ongoing problem that we are working on with the newspaper company.)

So okay, fine, I finally decided that I should just get up and get on with my day, thinking to myself “at least I can watch the Packers play the Lions.”

Right. For whatever reason, instead of broadcasting a pivotal game between the Packers who clinched the division (and are defending Super Bowl Champions) and the Lions who oddly enough are in playoff contention, they showed those hapless Vikings (Vike-Queens) versus the Bears. I mean…what? WHAT? Sure, the Vikings are the local team, but for those of you who don’t know, the Wisconsin border is 45 minutes away; there are Minneapolis-St. Paul suburbs that are further out than that.

At any rate, I was not a happy camper. But thanks to modern technology (i.e. the Internet), I was able to track how my team was doing online, although the longer the game went on, the more nervous I got that this, too, would not end well. It was quite the shootout, with both teams scoring one after the other, but in the end, the Packers won in a very close game and I felt like my New Year’s was back on track. And when I finally got around to making this soup, it sealed the deal.

You should know that this is one of my favorite soups, ever. It’s ridiculously easy to make and although I’ve never done it, can be made vegetarian by eliminating the Canadian bacon and using vegetable broth instead of chicken broth.

The other thing you should know is that although I’ve made this soup several times over, this is the first time I’ve posted a recipe from this cookbook, one of the two Byerly’s cookbooks I own.

As I noted at the top of this blog, Byerly’s is a local, upscale grocery store chain. When I first moved here, everyone said “You have to go to the Byerly’s in St. Louis Park (suburb)” and when I did, I could see why—they had (have) chandeliers over the frozen food section, they had carpeting on the floor, they had their own in-house home economist, a huge deli and takeout section and so on and so on. In fact, it used to be (and maybe still is) that Byerly’s was a “must see” stop on bus tours of the Twin Cities.

Eventually, Don Byerly, Byerly’s founder, sold his business to the Lund family that still runs Lunds grocery stores. Lunds is another upscale grocery store (alas, no chandeliers). To avoid large-scale meltdown by the grocery-shopping public, each store retained its own name so Byerly’s stores retained their Byerly’s name and Lunds stores retained theirs and so all was well with the world.

And so to recap, despite a rocky start to the New Year, all is well with the world if a) the Packers win and b) if you make this “lucky” soup. But take it from me, this soup is just so darned good, you’ll want to make it just for any old reason, any old time.

Lentil Soup – makes 16 cups
1 (16-ounce) package dried lentils
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup chopped Canadian bacon
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
2 cups thinly sliced carrots
1 ½ teaspoons minced garlic
1 (14 ½ -ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 (46-ounce) cans chicken broth (Note: this is a lot of broth but I’ve always found it cooks off pretty quickly so have extra on hand)
¾ cups uncooked rosamarina (Orzo) pasta
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
-freshly grated Parmesan cheese (if desired)

Rinse lentils in strainer. Heat oil in Dutch oven. Cook bacon, onion, celery, carrots and garlic 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in lentils, tomatoes and chicken broth. Simmer, covered, 45 minutes. Stir in rosamarina, salt and pepper. Simmer, covered, until lentils and rosamarina are tender (about 15 minutes). Ladle into soup bowls; sprinkle with Parmesan.

Ann’s note: unbeknownst to me, my husband used up all our celery on another dish so I checked the Internet and discovered I could use 1 teaspoon celery seed to equal 1 cup chopped (fresh) celery.

"The Omelette Book" - Italian Omelettes with Greens (Mixed Vegetables)

2011-12-26T17:30:00.004-05:00

Date I made this recipe: December 25, 2011 (Christmas Day)

The Omelette Book by Narcissa Chamberlain
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
© 1984
Recipe: Italian Omelettes with Greens – p. 108-109

Faithful readers know that I’m weather-obsessed and this year was no exception. After a very rough year during which my father died, I was dreading this year’s holiday season. Besides all the hoopla that is Christmas, and the absence of my dear dad, there’s the snow and the cold and the darkness. Every year my fondest wish is for warm weather and no snow at Christmastime. This year, I got my wish.

Last week, the temperature started warming up in Minneapolis and the gloomy skies went away, replaced by brilliant sunshine. By the time we got to Christmas Eve, the temperature hit 40 degrees. Yesterday, Christmas Day, my husband, Andy, and I went for a walk along the Mississippi River. Amazingly (and thanks no doubt to a well-paid lawn service provider) some of the stately homes along the river had green grass. Many of the trees still had their leaves on them (okay, so they were dead leaves but still….). The temperature was a balmy 42 degrees. Had the earth turned on its axis?

Apparently it has. Today I went for a walk with a friend of mine at Como Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. The temperature was 48 degrees. (Update: the temperature was 52 degrees today and we shattered a previous record high of 51 degrees, last seen in 1936. Oh yeah!!) If not for the wind, I might have walked in my summer shorts (tanning season cannot start fast enough). My husband is out for a bike ride. It’s 4:00 and the sun is just now fading for the day. Life is good. And this omelette helped to make things even better.

Out of all the recipes in this cookbook, the one that caught my attention was the Italian Omelettes with Greens. And by “greens,” the author means a sautéed mixture of onions, peas, green pepper, zucchini and tomato. The dish all but screamed “spring” and with the weather we’ve been having, it might as well be spring. (By the way, there’s a song by the same name – It Might As Well Be Spring – from the musical, State Fair. Life is just full of musical connections like this!)

So “spring” it was on Christmas Day! The recipe is very easy and flavorful (and so healthy – right?) and in our house, was a team effort; I got the veggie mix ready and my husband became Omelette Man. Not that I’m a slouch but he has way better technique than I do when it comes to crepes and omelettes and whatnot. I think it’s all in the wrist.

The omelette batter for this recipe is in part what drew me to it. It’s almost like a crepe instead of an egg omelette as it calls for you to add a mixture of ½ cup of milk and 2 tablespoons flour to the egg batter. So our omelettes had the consistency of a pancake without all the cakiness (if that’s a word).

The recipe calls for you to make a small “crepe,” then put a tablespoon of the veggie mixture on top and then add more batter on top. Well this got messy. So you might want to consider making a frittata instead by adding more batter to the pan and then adding your vegetables. We even had grated Parmesan cheese at home to finish the dish. After making a couple of the smaller omelettes, Andy opted for the frittata approach and I have to say he nailed it!

Whatever you want to call these, they are delicious. Sure, I could have gone with a more traditional egg and ham and cheese omelette (and lord knows, with 5 cookbooks about eggs, I had enough recipes to choke a short order cook), but would that have said “spring” to you? Probably not. And I’m all about spring, even on Christmas Day.

Speaking of which, and maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else think it’s weird to show the movie, Ben Hur, on Christmas Day? Although it’s been a while, I’m pretty sure the movie ends around the time of the crucifixion and Easter. Then again, maybe TCM (Turner Classic Movies), was channeling spring as well. Hmmm….”Dear TCM, RE: Ben Hur and today’s weather….”

Happy Holidays!

Italian Omelettes with Greens – serving size not given (perhaps 6 small omelettes?)

2 tablespoons oil
½ onion (I had half a red onion on hand and so used that), sliced
½ cup cooked peas
1 medium green pepper, finely chopped
1 small zucchini, finely chopped
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and diced
½ teaspoon oregano
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup milk
4 eggs

Sautee the sliced onion in the oil until softened. Add the peas, green pepper, and zucchini and cook slowly for 20 minutes. Add the tomato, oregano, salt and pepper and cook 3 or 4 minutes longer.

Stir the milk gradually into the flour until smooth, then add the eggs, salt and pepper to taste and beat for 5 minutes.

In a tiny frying pan (and note, they do mean “tiny” here—use the smallest you can find), put 2 tablespoons of this batter and cook slowly until set. Place 1 tablespoon of the vegetable mixture upon it and cover with 2 tablespoons of the egg batter. Turn carefully and cook gently on the other side. Remove to a warm platter and repeat until you have used all the batter and vegetables. (Ann’s note: we still had leftover vegetables so I guess we’ll just have to make some more omelettes!)

"The How-Not-To-Miss-The-Cocktail-Hour-Cookbook" & "Cooking with Music (Boston Symphony Ochestra" - Shrimp and Artichoke Casserole & New Orleans Rice

2011-12-21T19:31:00.007-05:00

Date I made these recipes: December 19, 2011

The How-Not-to-Miss-the-Cocktail Hour Cookbook by Edward W. Lowman with Robert O’Donnell
Published by: David McKay Company, Inc.
© 1964, 1971
Recipe: Shrimp and Artichoke Casserole – p. 194-195

Cooking with Music – Celebrating the tastes and traditions of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc.
Published by: The Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc.; printed by Wimmer
© 1999
Recipe: New Orleans Sunday Brunch Rice – p. 106

People, as an attorney, I cannot help but examine the title of The How-Not-to-Miss-the-Cocktail-Hour Cookbook and want to poke holes in it. The issue in this case is not “how not to miss the cocktail hour,” the issue in this case is WHY would you miss the cocktail hour? Stupid title, stupid question!

That being said, I do have my own “rules” about cocktails—during the week, 5 (p.m.) is pushing it, 6:00 is about right. On weekends, I still hesitate to do brunch cocktails because then I’m shot for the rest of the day. And that takes all the fun out of evening cocktails.

But the reason I selected this book is not because I didn’t want to miss a cocktail hour but because I didn’t want to miss some holiday musical performances that I was scheduled to participate in. It doesn’t do me much good to be cooking at the time I’m supposed to be performing, now does it? (Although I do joke about imbibing a martini during some of the pieces I play as it sure couldn’t hurt my playing and might in fact help!)

So I was all set to make this shrimp casserole but then in between things, I bought the Cooking with Music book by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and since all my events were musical in nature, thought I should use both cookbooks for the blog.

But herein was the problem: I didn’t want to make two entrees and the soups didn’t really float my boat and lord knows, I do NOT need one more bite of sugar during this holiday season or I will go into a diabetic coma. So at the last minute, I decided to make the New Orleans Sunday Brunch rice to accompany the shrimp even though the two taste flavors did not necessarily blend together. I had a craving for rice and this recipe called for rice and (sage) sausage and so there it is! Problem solved.

And so that settled that. But still, the problem of finding time not to miss the cocktail hour and finding the time to attend my musical events and finding time to actually cook this stuff became a problem. And so I decided to wait until all events were over so I could cocktail and cook while singing along to the radio. I’m nothing if not a multi-tasker!

So my first musical event of the season was a joint holiday concert with my concert band, The Calhoun-Isles Community Band, and the Plymouth Community Band. That event took place on a Sunday but luckily, I prepared for dinner in advance by plopping a roast in the crock pot. (And I tell you what, that roast was good until the last drop! Check out last week’s blog posting for the recipe.)

Then on Tuesday, the 13th, my community band, The Calhoun-Isles Community Band (CICB), celebrated its 30th anniversary by playing selections from the very first concert as well as some holiday pieces. We invited the band’s original conductor to lead us in Stars and Stripes Forever and we also honored one of our former band members (and our group’s announcer) who passed away this year. And in between all that (with a couple of bad band jokes thrown in by various band members), we played what I think was a spectacular concert. We have 84 active members (several are on leave until after New Year’s making us a 100-member band in total), a 26 member clarinet section (of which I am the section leader) and 4 tubas. How could we go wrong?! (In fact, at times like these, I can’t help but quote Bill Murray from the movie, Ghostbusters – “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”)

And then on Sunday, the 18th, a friend invited me to her church in St. Paul as her church was performing Handel’s Messiah as a sing-along. And who doesn’t like a sing-along? So my friend and her daughter and a friend and I went and warbled with about 200 other people and had a blast.

Now this was not my first rodeo as a sing-along artist (Just so we’re clear, under no circumstances is a sing-along the same as karaoke!). In the early 90’s, the SPCO (Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra) used to invite the public to a sing-along performance. I will never forget the first couple of years as we (my friend, Carol, who goes to these with me) were clearly the newcomers to the “chorus.” Charging up the aisle, proudly clutching their musical scores to their bosoms and extremely dangerous in their “We Sang The Messiah with the SPCO” green sweatshirts, were the ladies who had been there, done that. They even had stripes on their sweatshirts, like cheerleaders and high school sports athletes, indicating the numbers of years they participated in the event. They didn’t scare us: we came, we sang, we eventually got our own damned sweatshirt!

Through the years, the SPCO performed The Messiah as a sing-along and then didn’t and then the Minnesota Orchestra did and then didn’t and various other community orchestras did and then didn’t. Word on the street (and even in print) is that most professional orchestras loathe having all of us rank amateurs singing along to this piece. Well sue me! I may be rank but I’m no amateur! The other beef, this time from management, is that if the performance goes over two hours, the musicians (all union members) get paid time and a half.

And so time was of the essence for most performances with conductors under the gun to get everyone the hell off the stage in 1 hour 59 “don’t think I’m kidding” minutes. Sadly, much is often lost in the translation, such that a beautifully slow piece like “Surely, He Hath Borne Our Griefs” became “Shirley, Shirely, Shirely!! Other pieces started sounding like Carol Burnett’s “Tarzan yell” because we are too rushed to enunciate the words. Tick tock people, we have a stage to vacate.

So lucky for us, for Sunday’s performance, the church’s musical director slowed everything down so that we didn’t die an early death from hyperventilation. (And may I just note he graduated from the Eastman School of Music? In musical circles, that is quite the pedigree.) He cued us when appropriate and gave us kudos for hanging in there. The pianist helped out by playing the soprano’s top note on the Hallelujah Chorus (“Give me a ‘C,’ a bouncing ‘C!’”) so that they wouldn’t train wreck. (The sopranos have to hit a high G and that is no easy task. That is way out of the comfort range for this mezzo soprano!) All in all, it was a total team effort.

So we sang together and ended together (always a good thing) and patted ourselves on the back and then we left. As of Sunday’s performance, I am now officially done with playing/participating in holiday concerts and can now concentrate on unearthing my Christmas CD with Alvin and the Chipmunks on it (singing “The Chipmunks Song” a/k/a “Christmas Don’t Be Late”) and get into the real spirit of things! (“Me? I want a hula hoop…”).

Actually, in addition to Alvin (a classic, I assure you), I have several Boston Pops CDs, most of them under the baton of the late, great Arthur Fiedler. And one of my absolute favorite holiday pieces is A Christmas Festival Overture by another late, great, individual, composer Leroy Anderson. My band has played that piece several times over the course of my tenure with them and it never disappoints. It’s a medley of several Christmas tunes, ending with a rousing mix of Jingle Bells and Oh Come, All Ye Faithful. Every time I get done playing that “barn-burner,” I always say to myself “I can’t believe I just played that.” It’s an awesome piece – listen to it on YouTube some time and be amazed.

So anyway, I was really happy that I found the Boston Symphony Orchestra cookbook when I did. The book is fun and it breaks up into sections: the symphony, the pops orchestra, small chamber groups, the chorus and so on, and tells you a little about each. (Little known fact to some of you may be that John Williams, famous for his movie scores, conducted the Boston Pops prior to Keith Lockhart taking over. Oh yeah, I’m up on this stuff!)

So on to the food, batting first is the shrimp artichoke casserole and batting second is the New Orleans rice. The “cocktail” book warned us that this was a rich recipe and indeed it was. So why then, did the author then go on to suggest serving this over a biscuit? Wow. My stomach is full just thinking about that! Not that the rice wasn’t rich but it seemed like a better choice than a biscuit.

I thought the casserole recipe was tasty but the sherry taste was almost overpowering…not that this is a bad thing…but I think a little bit less than the quarter cup it called for might have been good. Besides, you can just imbibe the sherry you didn’t use while you’re making the casserole and all your problems will be solved (including not missing the cocktail hour).

The rice also called for a quarter cup of white wine but that amount was fine. And although I am a red wine drinker, I had plenty of white wine on hand – four bottles to be exact. Every time I have a party and serve white wine, I have leftovers and I guess I lost track of how many bottles I was storing in my refrigerator. Must rectify that problem ASAP! I would combine them into one, full bottle but they are all different varietals and I’m not sure how that would go over. On the other hand, it’s for cooking and so who cares?

The rice recipe also called for ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper but since we are not big fans and I didn’t want a taste sensation that really didn’t work with the shrimp casserole, I left it out. I also did not put the shrimp casserole on top of the rice since I didn’t know if I’d have an ingredient fight on my hands or not. I thought each recipe was good and stood on its own but you can decide if you want to marry the two together on the same plate or not.

And so that concludes our cocktail hour (which was not missed) and my holiday concert music lineup and all kinds of fun and favorite things. Happy Holidays!

Shrimp and Artichoke Casserole – serves 4
1 15-ounce can artichoke bottoms (I used artichoke hearts)
1 pound cooked, cleaned shrimp
½ pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons butter
¼ pound butter
½ cup flour
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon MSG (Note: since MSG is now the evil ingredient, you can leave it out or substitute other seasoning mixes for flavoring. The author uses Accent and I did as well.)
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
¼ cup dry sherry
Salt and pepper t taste
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Arrange artichoke bottoms and shrimp in a greased casserole. Saute mushrooms in 2 tablespoons butter until brown (about 5 minutes) and add to casserole. Melt ¼ pound butter in double boiler, stirring in flour, salt, and MSG. Gradually add milk while serving constantly. When sauce is thick and smooth, add Worcestershire and sherry. Pour into casserole and sprinkle cheese on top.

Bake for 20 minutes in preheated 375 oven. (I went a little longer to make sure the casserole was heated through.)

Ann’s Notes: every single recipe in this book uses MSG but the author notes that you can use Accent (seasoning); if you have problems with MSG, leave it out. Also, the author developed a set of abbreviations used throughout the book to let you know what you should be doing: SA means Set Aside; R means refrigerate; RO means refrigerate overnight and F means to freeze. He also uses (and I love this) “TAG” – Time Away From Guests. For this recipe, after you sprinkle the cheese on top, you can “SA” (Set Aside) the casserole before baking it. And just so you know, your TAG time is 2 minutes – not bad!

New Orleans Sunday Brunch Rice – Yields 4 servings (recipe submitted by Wendy Putnam, BSO violinist)
1 ½ cups jasmine rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (14 ½-ounce) can chicken broth, with water added to equal 2 ½ cups
1 pound bulk sage sausage
6 minced scallions or green onions
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ teaspoon cayenne
Salt and pepper
¼ cup dry white wine

Saute the jasmine rice in olive oil over high heat for 1 to 2 minutes while constantly stirring, until the rice is golden in color. Add chicken broth and water, and reduce the heat to simmer. Cover and cook the rice for 15 minutes. (Note: I had my heat on too low and so had to cook it for another 15 minutes to ensure that it was done. I’d recommend medium heat versus low to maintain a good simmer.).

Saute the sausage until browned, then add the scallions. Mix well, remove from the heat and let rest until the rice is cooked. Combine the rice and sausage mixture in the pan over medium-high heat until the ingredients are heated through.

Add the garlic, cayenne, and salt and pepper to taste shortly before serving. At that point, add the white wine, mix thoroughly, and let entire mixture sit over low heat for a few minutes before serving.

And then (and this is Ann’s note) take a fork and proceed to eat this scrumptious mixture from the pan. And then abandon the fork and just use your fingers. If you’re alone in the kitchen at this time, you can do these things without anyone being the wiser.

"The Unwatched Pot" - Pot Roast with Fruit (crock pot cooking)

2011-12-12T13:59:00.001-05:00

Date I made this recipe: December 11, 2011

The Unwatched Pot – A crockful of recipes for electric slow cooking by Paula Franklin and Hamilton Beach
Published by: Dorison House Publishers
© 1975
Recipe: Pot Roast with Fruit – p. 40

I’ve mentioned before in previous postings that there are some kitchen appliances that I could not live without. It was most remiss of me not to mention my war horse – my Hamilton Beach “Crock Watcher” Crock Pot.

I’ve had this crock pot since 1978 or so when I shared an apartment off-campus with three other friends while in college. Aside from accidentally breaking the cover (Hamilton Beach sent a replacement), this crock pot has survived several cross-country skiing road trips (yum—a day on the trails and then dinner!) as well as a slight dent from being banged up while I was putting it away. Nothing stops this sucker and that’s a good thing. And okay, the crock pot colors are your classic 70’s orange and brown but what’s your point? If it works, it works.

As we all know, crock pots are just a phenomenal time saver. During school, my roommates and I would throw something in the crock pot, head off to class, and it was all done and ready to roll as we filtered in. Similarly, yesterday (Sunday) my community band (Calhoun-Isles Community Band) and I played a joint holiday concert with the Plymouth Community Band and I wanted something I could cook and ignore while I was gone. Enter, today’s recipe.

Out of the several mouth-watering selections in this book, I chose this one because it was all about pot roast, and who doesn’t love a pot roast, and because I had every ingredient on hand save for the beef itself. I am a huge fan of Trade Joe’s apricots and so had them at the ready and I also had a half pack of Trade Joe’s dried prunes. And we just so happened to have a bottle of Trader Joe’s beer on hand (not light beer, but who cares) and so it was the perfect entrée.

You may think (although you’d be wrong) that fruit and beef don’t go together but this was delicious. In fact, I’ve seen this recipe in several cookbooks and almost always the recipe is in the “cold weather cooking” section. I don’t know the origins of the recipe—could be German or Scandinavian, but who cares! You just need to know that it’s easy and filling and be done with it.

Pot Roast with Fruit – Yield: 6 servings
¾ cup dried prunes, pitted
¾ cup dried apricots
½ teaspoon ginger
1 can light beer (or whatever beer you happen to have on hand) (Note: I’ve also seen this same recipe with brandy as the alcohol—works.for.me.)
1 4-pound chuck roast
2 tablespoons shortening
1 large onion, sliced thin
3 tablespoons brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ cup honey

Soak dried fruits, with ginger, in beer for 1-2 hours. Heat shortening in skillet and brown meat on all sides. Transfer meat to cooker, add other ingredients, and pour marinated fruits over all.

Cook on low 10-12 hours, on high 5-6, or on automatic 7 hours. Note: I cooked my roast on automatic and part of it fell apart but the other part didn’t. Had my schedule been different, I might have elected to go with low to make sure the meat was really tender. Not that it matter as we inhaled it anyway.

Holiday Party Food - "Finger Food," Pestos, Tapenades & Spreads," "Delicious Dips," Pillsbury's Best of the Bake-Off," "Sugar Spoon"

2011-12-08T20:10:00.005-05:00

Date I made these recipes: December 2-4

Finger Food by Confident Cooking
Published by Bay Books Australia
ISBN: 978-0681020535
Recipe: Savoury Shortbread with Tomato Jam – p. 93

Pestos, Tapenades & Spreads by Stacey Printz
Published by: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 978-0-8118-6589-0
Recipes: Balsamic Fig & Caramelized Onion Tapenade – p. 62 and Avocado-Chevre Spread – p. 75

Delicious Dips by Diane Morgan
Published by: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 10-0-8118-4220-7
Recipes: Roasted Butternut Squash Dip with Crème Fraiche – p. 27 and Blue Cheese Dip with Chives – p. 59

Pillsbury’s BEST 1000 Recipes – BEST of the BAKE-OFF® Collection, Edited and adapted by Ann Pillsbury and the staff of Pillsbury’s Home Service Kitchens
Published by: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-470-39559-2. Original publication date: 1959
Recipes: Jim Dandies (chocolate-cherry - p. 361 and Hawaiian Moon Drops (pineapple, nuts and coconut) – p. 367. The Jim Dandies recipe was a Junior (Award) Winner created by James Petersen, Withee, Wisconsin. The Hawaiian Moon Drops recipe was a Senior (Award) Winner created by Mrs. Lyell Roberts, Chisholm, Minnesota.

Sugar Spoon Recipes from the Domino Sugar Bowl Kitchen
Published by: American Sugar Company
© 1962, Second Printing
Recipe: Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies – p. 6

For the past couple years, Target has aired a hilarious series of commercials showing a shopping-obsessed lady working out in order to get ready for Black Friday. Let me just say that I know how this woman feels.

Right around Black Friday, I started working out in order to get in gear for my annual holiday open house. Besides recipe planning, there’s ingredient shopping, decoration shopping, alcohol shopping (Absolutely essential!) and of course food preparation.

To expedite cookie baking matters, I took a moment or two or sixty to pre-measure and sift and whatnot all the dry goods. Then I put them into plastic bags and labeled them, for example: “Lemon bars base – 1 cup flour + 1 tsp salt…” I created this trick years ago when I did a lot of baking for a party and it works great. When it comes time to add the dry ingredients, you just locate the correct bag and fire away. Easy as pie…hahahahaha….

And for those of you who bake, you know that best results are achieved if your butter and dairy are at room temperature so if I made three baked goods that day, I took out all the required butter and eggs in advance so I could just get cracking when the time came. (Pun not intended but now that I look at it…eggs…cracking….)

As to my savory items, I left those all for one day so I could use my cutting board for veggies only. I also bagged those ingredients and labeled them accordingly although at the end of the day, we had one leftover bag of minced parsley and rosemary that my husband failed to see. That was my bad though, as I failed to include that in my tutorial when he took over making some items.

So that’s the back half of the equation. The first half of the equation is deciding what recipes to make. This year, all my hot food items came from magazines and almost all my cold savory items and desserts came from books. And since this blog is all about cookbooks, I’m only going to list the recipes from the books I made but will take a moment at the end to tell you where I found my hot food items because dang it all, they were great!

So speaking of cookbooks, when it comes to shopping for party food cookbooks, my desire to have a “collectible” cookbook goes out the window. Instead, I’m looking for recipes that are relatively easy to make and can be eaten without utensils; I rent plates and glassware for the party but draw the line at renting forks. We all have our standards.

So with that criterion in mind, I started stockpiling books early on (usually on sale) and made dishes from these recent acquisitions: Finger Food; Delicious Dips; Pestos, Tapenades & Spreads and Pillsbury’s Best 1000 Recipes – Best of the Bake-Off® Collection. I also made recipes from previous party cookbooks: Barefoot Contessa Parties!; Betty Crocker Party Book, Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook and The New Basics Cookbook.

And with that, let’s commence firing. First up is the Finger Food book. This book was published in Australia and let me tell you folks, thank goodness for the internet so I could look up US equivalents to grams and millimeters and whatnot. And I also have to credit this boss of a kitchen scale I own as it measures everything in the measurement system of your choice. Need ounces? Check. Need grams? Check. Check, check, check!

This year’s winning recipe was for Savoury Shortbread with Tomato Jam and by god, my guests were lucky to have some of that jam to eat as it was so good I could have eaten the entire bowl. I stuck to the recipe and made the shortbread with bacon and parmesan cheese although next year I might try some of the other recommended herbs and cheeses.

I think the thing that made this jam so yummy was that the vine-ripened tomatoes are roasted first and that just added sweetness to the dish. And yes, I know that tomatoes are not even close to being in season, much less “vine-ripened” at this time of year, but such is life. When it comes to party food, one must do what one must do. (That being said, I passed on my husband’s recommendation for an asparagus dish as it is pretty darned pricey at this time of year. We won’t even talk about how I nixed his suggestion for a scallop appetizer!)

Although the dough-making process took a minute or two, I thought this dish was pretty easy and I’ll likely repeat it next year. You know the saying – “If some if good, more is better!”

Next up, I used the Delicious Dips cookbook to make Blue Cheese Dip with Chives. This was so easy and so good that my guests pretty much finished off the bowl. In fact, one of my guests suggested to another guest that she finish it off but the other guest wasn’t that fond of blue cheese dip. “All the more for me,” my friend replied!

And then we have the equally delicious Roasted Butternut Squash Dip with Crème Fraiche. My only disappointment is that I thought the dip would be thicker but no matter. It’s so tasty I’m almost tempted to heat it up and eat it as soup. Wouldn’t be the first time…

My other little quibble is that crème fraiche certainly makes the dish but I needed such a small amount (2 tablespoons) that I almost passed on it. I bought it already made from my grocery store but now need to figure out what to do with the rest. I thought about making it myself but the ingredients that I needed (again, in small amounts) were almost more than the pre-made stuff. But here’s a question for all of you: Is it me or does the dairy lobby have it in for us cooks? I’m hard pressed to find anything I need in small amounts and am tired of paying high prices for a tablespoon or so for a recipe. Further, why do they list serving size for things like heavy cream as “1 tablespoon” and then “number of tablespoons per container: one million? I am math-challenged and so when a recipe calls for ¼ cup, I do not want to do the conversions on this, I just want the carton to tell me. We must unite on this!

Okay, rant over. Moving on…

Pestos, Tapenades & Spreads yielded two recipes, Balsamic Fig & Caramelized Onion spread and an Avocado-Chevre spread. Both were really good but the making of the fig and onion spread yields the better story: all was going well until I was instructed to add 1/3 cup of oil to the chopped onion and fig mixture. People, this was way too much. When I tasted it, all I could taste was olive oil and that is never a good thing. (And so to cleanse the palate, I ate a cookie that I had just made! Wow that was so much better!)

So I drained the oil as best as I could using two paper towels in the process and then caramelized some more onions and then added the now-drained onion and fig mixture to the skillet and cooked the entire thing for a couple more minutes. To me, this made all the difference although the yield was so small for my party needs that I made another batch and this time I added the oil in increments – no fool me!

Now although I have yet to blog about The New Basics Cookbook, I’ve gone to it time and time again over the years to find recipes. I guess I just haven’t felt like I found “the one” to post. And this year’s appetizer, although a hit, was such a bitch to make that it’s not going to make it this year, either!

The recipe is simple: 3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese plus ¼ cup of Mango Chutney plus finely copped pecans on the outside.

So I started to put this together thinking that this would take me mere minutes. I mean with two main ingredients, how hard could this be?

Well people, it was hard! The cheese and the chutney didn’t bind well at all so I pulsed the cheese in my Cuisinart thinking that the consistency (shredded versus grated) might be the problem. It was not. The balls just wouldn’t hang together. So I put them in the freezer thinking that would surely make things better but it didn’t. So I tried the Cuisinart again and this time added more chutney to the cheese and there was slight improvement. Mind you, I still walked around the kitchen with more cheese on my hands and on the counter than in the cheese bites but whatever. By this time, the damage was done and these are off my list for next year! If you have a hankering to try them go ahead but be warned that this is a messy operation.

So those are my savory cookbook recipes. In the cookie department, I tried a couple new recipes from the Pillsbury Bake-Off® book with mixed results although I do love the retro nature of the cookbook. And seeing as how I recently acquired all my mom’s copper cookie cutouts, I made a sugar cookie recipe from my Domino Sugar Spoon Recipe book. (By the way, my mom ordered these cookie cutouts from Kellogg’s for $1.50 plus two box tops!)

Back for another year were Ina Garten’s Lemon Bars, a peanut butter/Rice Krispies/chocolate chip and marshmallow bar and the glorious Almond Bonbons from last year’s party (See my blog post from 12/8/2010). (By the way, I goofed last year when I made these bonbons, now called Boo-Boo Bonbons, added the entire can of almond paste to the recipe and they were spectacular. So I repeated that mistake again this year and they were once again a gigantic hit.

Before I got on with the baking though, I re-read my Pillsbury recipe ingredients and saw that two of the cookies called for “shortening.” Hmmm….sometimes when people say shortening they mean butter (or margarine—ew) so to be sure, I called Pillsbury and talked to the Dough Boy (nah—just had to say that) and the woman assured me that shortening meant shortening and butter meant butter. Okay then, shortening it is!

I also contacted the Domino sugar people with a question about their sugar cookies: I didn’t want to make 7 dozen cookies so I wondered if the cookie dough would freeze. Well, I tell you what, they weren’t sure! What?! I know that my book is older (1962), but come on, isn’t that a basic request?

So to be on the safe side, I asked my friend, cookbook author, and baker extraordinaire, Kim Ode, if I could freeze the dough and she said sure. She also said I could halve the recipe, including one egg which you put in a measuring cup, beat slightly and then pour out what you need. After all that though, I decided that there was no way the dough could make 7 dozen cutout cookies and so I made the entire batch and I was right! But thanks, Kim, for saving my butt on that one. (By the way, Kim is the author of Baking with the St. Paul Bread Club and is also author of an upcoming cookbook (release date is March 1, 2012) Rhubarb Renaissance. I cannot wait!

Okay so comments: the Jim Dandies (maraschino cherry and chocolate) were easy to bake but a pain in the butt to finish. If the marshmallow on top of the hot cookie was supposed to melt, it didn’t and that marshmallow mound make the cookies extremely hard to frost. As for taste, they cookies were okay but the texture was too “cakey” for our tastes.

Similarly, the Hawaiian Moon Drops (crushed pineapple and lemon extract) were easy to make but they were a little large in size for our party and again, the cookie was more “cakey” than we prefer. Both were tasty but I think we might try other cookies in the book next time around.

Once I got past the sugar cookie freezer question, the sugar cookies were easy to make although our oven did a number on a few of them that ended up in the hot zone. Let’s just say some reindeer looked as brown as they actually are! (And reader, why does this always happen when I’m getting ready for a party? I’ve never had my oven be so wonky as it was this year!)

Before I get to the recipes and ingredients, let me tell you where I found some of the other recipes I made this year:

Coconut Macaroons, Food and Wine Magazine, December 2011, made by chef Danny Cohen. These.are.to.die.for.

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, Family Circle, April 17, 2010. This makes two loaves for 24 slices total. I cut each slice in half for my party. This recipe was delicious.

Chicken Meatballs with Sweet Peanut Sauce, EveryDay with Rachael Ray. Go online to find the recipe. Note that this recipe does not give a yield. I doubled the chicken (use a mix of white meat and chicken thigh for a moister meatball) and it still wasn’t enough. These were my most popular party meatballs ever. One Rachael Ray reader who made these meatballs suggested baking them at 400 for 25 minutes and I have to agree that this made for a great meatball.

Meatballs a la Pizzaiola by Giada DeLaurentiis, Food Network Magazine (go to foodnetwork.com to obtain the recipe). This made about 36 meatballs (as stated—go figure!) and they were yummy. Note: you may have a hard time finding smoked mozzarella (I got mine at Broder’s Cucina Italiana in South Minneapolis) and Giada didn’t suggest an alternative although you might want to consider smoked provolone if you can find it.

(St. Louis) Toasted Ravioli, Food Network Magazine, October 2011. Note that this recipe said “serves: 4-6.” Okay, that’s pretty vague because who knows how many people will want to eat. We used 4 packages and had a few leftovers. I microwave the leftovers for 30 minutes and serve them with my leftover sauce. They are delicious!

Savoury Shortbread with Tomato Jam – makes 48 (and it does indeed make 48 shortbreads but it doesn’t make nearly enough Tomato Jam so you might want to double the jam recipe)
Tomato Jam
5 vine-ripened tomatoes, quartered
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
1 small red onion (I’m going to sound like the late Andy Rooney here, but I have yet to see a “small” red onion. Just sayin…)
2 cloves garlic
100 ml olive oil
1 ½ tablespoons soft brown sugar
1 ½ tablespoons red wine vinegar

Shortbread
250 g butter (about 18 T) at room temperature
1 tablespoon hot water
3 ¼ cup (405 g) plain flour (“plain” flour is the same as regular flour; do not use self-rising)
½ teaspoon sweet paprika
300 g bacon (about 8 ounces)
1 ¼ cups (125 g) grated Parmesan
60 g poppy seeds (about ¼ cup)
Small fresh basil leaves, to garnish

Preheat the oven to moderate – 350 (180 C or Gas 4). Place the tomatoes on a roasting tray and roast for 30 minutes. Cool slightly, then puree in a blender or food processor until just smooth. Toast the fennel and cumin seeds in a dry frying pan for 1-2 minutes, or until fragrant. Cool slightly, then grind the seeds to a powder.

Puree the onion, garlic, ground spices and half the olive oil in a food processor until well combined.

Heat the remaining olive oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion mixture over low heat for 25-30 minutes, or until the onion is just beginning to caramelize. Add the sugar and vinegar and cook for a further 2 minutes, then stir in the tomato mixture. Cook over very low heat, stirring occasionally, for 1-1 ½ hours, or until the paste is thick and there is very little liquid remaining. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. (Note, the jam will keep up to 4 weeks in the refrigerator.)

To make the shortbread, beat the butter in a bowl until pale. Gradually add the hot water. Sift the flour and paprika into the bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until smooth. Stir in the bacon, Parmesan and ¼ cup (60 ml) water, then season well with cracked black pepper, adding more water if necessary. Roll into four logs 3 cm thick. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. Spread the poppy seeds out on a clean work surface and roll the logs in them until evenly coated. (Note, these can be made one week in advance and stored in single layers in an airtight container.)

Preheat the oven to warm – 325 degrees or 170C /Gas 3 and lightly grease two baking trays. Slice the logs into 5 mm thick slices. Place on the prepared trays and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until pale and crisp. Cool completely.

To serve the shortbread, top with 1 teaspoon tomato jam and a small basil leaf.

Variations: Grated Cheddar, chopped fresh herbs, finely chopped nuts or a spice mix can be used to flavor the dough.

Balsamic Fig and Caramelized Red Onion Tapenade – makes about 1 1/3 cups
1 tablespoon olive oil, plus 1/3 cup (NOTE: I found the 1/3 cup to be too much and suggest you add it incrementally and taste along the way)
1 medium red onion, chopped
1 cup chopped Black Mission figs
¼ cup balsamic vinegar, plus 2 tablespoons
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons honey (optional—but I used it and thought it added a little something!)

Heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Saute the onion until soft and beginning to brown, about 4 minutes. Add the figs and the ¼ cup balsamic vinegar and continue to sauté until most of the liquid is gone and the mixture is slightly caramelized, 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the fig mixture to the bowl of a food processor. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and add the honey (if using). (Note: the reason I added honey is that the taste of the 1/3 cup of olive oil was overpowering. The honey helped take away that taste.) Pulse until the ingredients start to come together. With the machine running, gradually stream in the remaining 1/3 cup oil and pulse until a coarse paste forms.

Avocado-Chevre Spread – makes about 1 ¼ cups
2 medium avocados split and flesh scooped out
One 5-ounce package of chevre (i.e. soft goat cheese)
3 teaspoons lemon zest
4 to 5 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove, minced
¼ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper

Place the avocado, chevre, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic and salt in the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth. Season with pepper.

As the author notes, this recipe is an alternative to guacamole and is great in sandwiches!

Roasted Butternut Squash Dip with Crème Fraiche – makes about 2 cups
1 butternut squash (1 ¾ to 2 pounds)
1 very small yellow onion, cut in half lengthwise, stem and root end trimmed
2 large cloves garlic, skin left on
2 tablespoons pure olive oil
2 tablespoons crème fraiche (crème fraiche is a soured cream. It’s kind of a cross between sour cream and cream cheese. To make your own, you’ll need heavy cream and buttermilk. Instructions can be found online by using Google)
1 ¼ teaspoon crème fraiche
1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Freshly ground white pepper

Preheat the oven to 350F. Brush the flesh of the squash, the onion and the garlic generously with the olive oil and arrange the squash and onion cut-side down on a rimmed baking sheet. Tuck a skin-on garlic clove in each cavity of the squash. Roast until very tender when pierced with a fork, about 50 minutes. Set aside until cool enough to handle, about 20 minutes.

Use a spoon to scrape out the flesh of the squash and put it in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Discard the skins. . (Note: I’ve never roasted a squash before and was surprised that it was very watery when I scooped it out. Consequently, the dip was a little thin in the consistency department but the taste was great). Squeeze the garlic pulp from the cloves and add to the workbowl along with the onion. Puree until smotth. Add the crème fraiche, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, and a few grinds of (white) pepper. Process to combine and then taste and adjust the seasonings. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately. (Now that being said, the author notes that you can prepare the dip up to 3 days in advance. Cover and refrigerate and then rewarm in a microwave or on the stove-top in a double-boiler just before serving).

Blue Cheese Dip with Chives – makes about 1 ½ cups
1 cup (4 ounces) crumbled blue cheese
¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chives
Freshly ground black pepper

In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix together the blue cheese, mayonnaise and sour cream. Stir in the chives and add a few grinds of pepper. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve immediately (This dip can be prepared up to 3 days in advance. Serve at room temperature).

Notes: some people like big chunks of blue cheese but I like mine a little smaller so I pulsed the cheese in my food processor until I got more even chunks. Also, for whatever reason, Minnesotans seem to love the combination of French and Blue Cheese dressing. Not that I’m knocking it—it’s good, but I don’t recall seeing that combination done in restaurants anywhere else. But here—go out to dinner with a group of people and almost every request for the salad dressing will be “French and Blue Cheese.” If you do that, you’ll seem like a native!

Jim Dandies – makes about 3 dozen
1 ½ cups sifted Pillsbury’s Best All Purpose Flour
½ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt + 1/8 teaspoon for frosting
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup shortening (*do not use butter)
1 unbeaten egg
¼ cup maraschino cherry juice
2 tablespoons milk + 1/3 cup for frosting
4 squares (4 oz) unsweetened chocolate – 2 squares for cookies, 2 for frosting
½ cup walnuts, chopped
¼ cup chopped maraschino cherries
18 large marshmallows, halved
¼ cup butter or margarine for frosting
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 – 2 ½ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

Sift together 1 ½ cups (sifted flour), ½ teaspoon soda and ½ teaspoon salt; set aside. Cream shortening and brown sugar then add the egg (which you should beat well). Mix. Add one-half the dry ingredients as well as the maraschino cherry juice and 2 tablespoons milk. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix well. Blend in (melted) two squares of chocolate, walnuts and chopped cherries. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

Place one marshmallow half on the cookies, cut-side down (while hot), then cool on the rack. Frost with Chocolate Frosting; top each with a nut half.

To make the frosting, in top of double boiler over boiling water, cook the milk, butter, remaining two squares of chocolate and 1/8 teaspoon salt until thick. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 to 2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar until of spreading consistency.

Note: as stated above, if the marshmallow half was supposed to melt on the hot cookie it didn’t. So this left this huge marshmallow-mounded cookie that I now needed to frost. Right. In retrospect, I should have just microwaved the cookie for a couple seconds to melt the frosting but I didn’t. Oh well, they looked funny but tasted good.

Pillsbury wants you to know that if you use Pillsbury’s Best Self-Rising Flour, you may omit the soda and salt.

Hawaiian Moon Drops – makes about 4 dozen
3 cups sifted Pillsbury’s Best All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup shortening (*do not use butter)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla + 1 teaspoon for frosting
¼ teaspoon lemon extract
2/3 cup drained crushed pineapple; reserve juice for frosting (Note: my husband made these and had to add more juice. Lucky for us, we had a couple cans of pineapple juice on hand.)
1 cup walnuts
1 ½ cups toasted coconut
½ cup pineapple juice (for frosting; use reserved juice from pineapple can and add more if needed)
¼ cup cornstarch
½ cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter (for frosting)
2 drops yellow food coloring
1 ½ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

Sift together (sifted) flour, baking powder, soda, salt; set aside. Cream butter and sugars (brown and white) together. Blend in 2 unbeaten eggs, vanilla and lemon extract. Beat well. Stir in drained crushed pineapple. Add the dry ingredients gradually and then the chopped walnuts. Blend thoroughly.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 375 for 12 to 15 minutes. Frost with Lemon Frosting and dip tops in toasted coconut.

To make the frosting, combine in saucepan ½ cup pineapple juice, ½ cup water and ¼ cup cornstarch. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 drops yellow food coloring. Blend in confectioners’ sugar.

Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies – yield: about 7 dozen cookies
1 cup Domino Granulated Sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup soft butter or margarine
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
Egg white, slightly beaten
Domino Granulated Sugar

Cream sugar, salt and butter or margarine thoroughly. Beat egg, lemon rind and extract into creamed mixture until light and fluffy. Sift together flour and baking powder. Gradually stir into creamed ingredients.

Roll dough 1/8” thick on floured board. Cut into fancy shapes. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush with egg white; sprinkle with sugar. Bake in moderate oven 350F, 11-12 minutes or until light brown around edges. Remove to cooling rack. Store in airtight container.

"Favorite Recipes Presents: Medley of Meats - A Cookbook with a Musical Flair" - Drummer's Dumplings and Round Steak (for 11-11-11 & Spinal Tap)

2011-11-12T19:57:00.007-04:00

Date I made this recipe: November 11, 2011 (11-11-11)

Favorite Recipes® Presents: Medley of MEATS – A Cookbook with A Musical Flair by Mary Jane Blount (Editor) and Nicky Beaulieu (Project Manager)
Published by: Favorite Recipe Press
© 1977
Recipe: Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak – p. 30

So yes, today is Veteran’s Day and I salute all those who have served and are currently serving our country. But since I’ve previously observed Veteran’s Day in this blog, it’s time to move so that we may pay homage to Nigel Tufnel, the daffiest “rock star” ever born.

Who is Nigel Tufnel, you ask? Well kiddies, Nigel (as played by actor Christopher Guest) was the “star” of the 1984 movie, This is Spinal Tap. And Nigel had a thing about the number 11, specifically as it related to amplifiers.

The plot of This is Spinal Tap, centers around a documentary/rockumentary film maker Marty DiBergi, played by actor Rob Reiner, who is following the comeback of a British rock band, Spinal Tap, as they tour America. Band mates Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, played by Michael McKean, and Derek Smalls, played by Harry Shearer, are more than happy to share their insights and musical talents with Marty. And guest stars Fran Drescher and Paul Schaffer (among others) just add to the fun and frivolity.

All these rock stars are a little bit off their nut, but none more so than Nigel. In the most hilarious scene in the movie (next to "Stonehedge"), Nigel explains to Marty how their amplifiers (as opposed to other band’s amplifiers) “go to 11.”

Nigel: “If you can see, the numbers all go to 11. Look right across the board – 11, 11, 11….”

Marty: “Amps go up to 10. Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?”

Nigel: “Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not 10…”

Marty: “Why don’t you make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number?”

Nigel stops chawing his gum for about a nanosecond, contemplates the request but then responds with “These go to 11.”

Reader, I’m telling you, every time I see the scene, I just die laughing. And you know right away if someone has seen the movie because anytime someone mentions something like “On a scale of 1-10…,” a fan always responds with “These go to 11.” And you either get it or you don’t. (And if you don’t, then you need to see the movie. Right now!)

Also paying homage to Nigel on 11-11-11 was my favorite local radio station, The Current. All day long, they played music celebrating Spinal Tap and Nigel and Nigel’s infamous 11-11-11. In fact, as early as Monday, they started reminding listeners to tune in to be part of the celebration. I love this station. (And a big shout out to DJ Mary Lucia who just rocked the afternoon for me with her playlist. I about head banged myself out of my car a few times on my way to and from the grocery store.)

My husband gets credit for reminding me way early on in the year about the significance of 11-11-11 but finding a cookbook to go with a Spinal Tap-theme was darned difficult. I looked through the few British cookbooks that I had and didn’t really find anything that spoke to me so that was disappointing (By the way, you have no idea how popular the fish, haddock, is to the British population until you’ve looked at a couple of British cookbooks. It seemed like every other recipe contained haddock. But alas, folks, I don’t “do” fish so I had to find something else.)

This left only one book that is musical in nature - Favorite Recipes® Presents: Medley of MEATS, A Cookbook with a Musical Flair – which I had not yet used for my blog. Let me assure you folks that this book was most certainly not intended to pay homage to a rock group as all the artwork inside is of marching band members, pom pom girls and majorettes. (The artwork is from the 70’s and it is hilarious) Okay, actually, there is a drawing of what appears to be a blue grass band on p. 6 and to me, that’s close enough. I did a lot better with today’s recipe: Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak; sure guitars are okay, but you need someone to set the beat, am I right?

I often run recipes by my husband to see what floats his boat and he selected this recipe despite the requirement of three cans of soup. “You do realize it will be very salty, right?” I asked. “Well, just buy low-sodium soup.”

I’m here to tell you folks, that I found plenty of no-fat or low-fat canned soups but I could not find, despite the enormous selection available to me, low-sodium soup. So I’m just warning you right now that this dish may make you feel like you’re eating a salt lick. I didn’t notice it so much but I did try to limit my recipe intake just to be on the safe side.

And on a scale of 1-10 for a recipe, I’d say this went to 11. It was tasty, not too salty and filling. About the only thing I’d add were I to make this over again, would be carrots and maybe potatoes to make it more like a stew. And while I’m not a fan of canned vegetables, there’s something about canned peas that just makes me happy.

So go ahead, crank your radio up to 11 and get going. And happy 11-11-11, Nigel!

Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak - serving size not indicated
1 2-lb round steak, cubed (I substituted beef stew meat)
1 chopped onion
1 bay leaf
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can onion soup (I used Campbell’s French onion soup)
1 can cream of celery soup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 4-oz can mushrooms, drained
1 1/3 c. flour (1/3 for the “stew,” and 1 cup for the dumplings)
1 No. 3 can green peas, drained (*see Note below)
1 egg
1/3 c. milk
2 tbsp oil
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (I had to ponder this one for a moment as the soups provided an off-the-charts amount)
Dash of sage (optional—I used it)
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

*Note: I know I have old community and church cookbooks that explain how many ounces are in a No. 3 (or 2 or 4) can, but rather than look through them, I thought I’d use the internet. To my surprise, there were only about three links that discussed how much was in a can. The best I could come up with was 33 ounces or 4 cups. Well, that’s a lot of peas, people. I decided to use two 15-oz cans and we were swimming in peas. I bet you could get away with just one can if you wanted.

Place steak cubes in a 9 x 9-inch casserole. Combine onion, bay leaf, soups, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms and 1/3 cup flour. Pour the soup mixture over steak cubes; cover. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 2 hours. Stir well; add peas.

Beat egg, milk and oil together until blended. Sift remaining 1 cup flour, baking powder, salt and sage together. Stir into egg mixture until moistened. Fold in parsley. Drop batter by spoonfuls over casserole; cover. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes longer or until dumplings are done.

"Larousse Gastronomique" & "As Always, Julia" & "The Hour" - Chicken Sautee a la Bourguignonne

2011-11-08T17:40:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: November 6, 2011

Larousse Gastronomique – The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery by Prosper Montagne - Introduction by A. Escoffier and PH. Gilbert; Edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud (The First American Edition)
Published by: Crown Publishers, Inc.
© 1961
Recipe: Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – p. 262

Additional reading:
As Always, Julia – The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto – edited by Joan Reardon
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-41771-4
No recipe

The Hour by Bernard DeVoto
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
© 1948, 1949, 1951
No recipe

Were it not for Julia Child, I would likely not have pulled Larousse Gastronomique off the shelf any time soon, especially since it weighs a ton and sits on my highest bookshelf, such that I need to stand on a chair to reach it. That would have been a shame because it’s a fun book to peruse.

So how did I come to cook from this book? Well, it was all because “Larousse” was mentioned in a very entertaining read, As Always, Julia.

In 1951, Julia Child was residing in Paris with her husband, Paul Child when she read an article about kitchen knifes published in Harper’s Magazine, written by Bernard DeVoto. When Julia wrote a fan letter to Bernard, his wife, Avis, answered. Bernard was a very busy writer and often left correspondence to Avis.

When Avis responded on behalf of Bernard, it triggered a correspondence between the women that lasted until Avis’ death in 1989.

Besides becoming a good friend of Julia’s, Avis championed Julia Child’s soon-to-be masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When Houghton Mifflin dropped the ball on the manuscript, Avis, who worked in publishing, brought the book to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf publishing and the rest as they say is history (or “l’histoire” if you’re French).

I have to tell you that reading the correspondence between these two ladies during this tense time of “will they/won’t they publish this?” was riveting. Without Avis, I doubt this book would have been published. Avis was also instrumental in securing Judith Jones, then an up-and-coming editor to review and test the recipes. Judith has gone on to achieve fame in her own right, and I enjoyed her recently published The Pleasures of Cooking for One. I tell you what, between these three women, they propelled home cooking and French cooking and really, all kinds of cooking, to the forefront and never looked back. They are my heroes.

A hero of a different nature though, is Avis’ husband, Bernard, who wrote the article that triggered the eventual publishing of Julia’s book. Bernard already had quite the name for himself but his book, The Hour, a book about the cocktail hour, cemented his friendship with Paul Child forever. And wouldn’t you know I happen to have that book on my bookshelf as well. (And who knew that one day I’d be able to tie all these books together?!)

Neither the As Always, Julia book nor The Hour have recipes per se but Bernard talks a lot about my favorite drink, the martini:

“There are only two cocktails. One can be described straightforwardly. It is a slug of whiskey and it is an honest drink…With the other cocktail we reach a fine and noble art, and we reach too the wars over the gospel that have parted brothers, wrecked marriages, and made enemies of friends.”

He goes on to talk about there is a misconception that women cannot make a good martini: “For instance there is a widespread notion that women cannot make martinis, just as some islanders believe that they can cast an evil spell on the tribal fishnets. This is a vagrant item of male egotism: the art of the martini is not a sex-linked character. Of men and women alike it requires only intelligence and care—oh, perhaps some additional inborn spiritual fineness…”

For the record, my dad taught me how to make martinis and was always impressed when I made them even better than he did. So what Bernard says is true: women rock the cocktail world.

Bernard totally wins me over though, when he talks about other drinks that while popular, are not cocktails. And he makes it clear as clear can be that “A martini, I repeat, is made of gin and vermouth. Dry vermouth.” Amen to that! He scoffs at Gibsons (p. 39), a drink made of gin and an olive and on p. 61 gives us all a worthwhile reminder: “Remember always that the three abominations are: (1) rum, (2) any other sweet drink, and (3) any mixed drink except one made of gin and dry vermouth in the ratio I have given.

I could wax on about this book but I do need to get to the recipe at some point (And no, I haven’t forgotten) but I tell you what, you need to read Bernard’s book. It starts slowly but after 30 odd pages, he just nails the art of the cocktail. And he’s funny in a dry whit sort of way-kind of like my martinis!

So anyway, okay, back to earth and to today’s recipe.

When Avis asked Julia for some casserole recipes with a French flair, Julia initially responded that she couldn’t think of any but then went on to say that she found some in “Larousse.” And that prompted me to pull the book from the shelf and see if I couldn’t find the recipes. Well—between the first and last copyrights, some pages must have changed or the version changed because the page numbers that Julia cited were not the pages with the recipes. So shoot.

But actually, that was all okay because Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia (I had forgotten) and it was a blast to look through the recipes and definitions and whatnot, all from A-Z. There were food I had never heard of, photos and maps and all kinds of diagrams regarding food and utensils and everything in between.

Seeing as how Julia recommended some chicken casserole recipes to Avis, I was bent on finding one that worked (and let’s face it, making a calves’ head meal or something with eel was just not going to happen). And people, you have no idea what a challenge that was.

For starters, there are about 25 pages of chicken recipes. Each recipe is about a paragraph long, and unfortunately for me (and for you), the “main” chicken recipe isn’t so much a recipe as a description and you have to go back to the beginning of the chicken section to find it. And then it offered up no clues whatsoever, not to cooking time, not to chicken size. Nothing.

So then I read through all the little recipes but eliminated a good portion of them because they required that I make an additional sauce of some sort like tomato sauce or brown gravy. And just like the chicken recipe itself, the sauce recipes weren’t any clearer so I ditched those recipes tout de suite

This left with me tonight’s chicken dish. And so my hubby and I went to the grocery store where we reenacted a scene from one of my favorite episodes from I Love Lucy where Lucy’s mother is coming to LA for a visit but she doesn’t reveal any details in the telegram she sent (which was addressed to Micky Micado. Lucy’s mother did not like Ricky.)

Lucy: “Well, at least she wrote us a wire and told us she’s arriving at 9:30.”
Ricky: “Hooray for mother. AM or PM?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What day?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What airline?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What happened to that woman’s brain?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
(From: I Love Lucy, California Here We Come episodes, The Hedda Hopper Story. Thanks to http://ultimateilovelucy.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hedda_Hopper_Story for providing the dialogue.)

Anyway, so Andy and I went to the grocery store:

Andy: “So what size chicken do you need?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, does it need to be boneless or not?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, do we need a whole chicken?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well how long do you cook it for?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”

So I bought a couple pounds of chicken breasts with ribs, hoped for the best and commenced firing:

Step 1 – “Fry in butter 4 slices bacon…” Okay—how much butter? It didn’t say. So I used about 4-5 tablespoons and that seemed to work. And then you add blanched onions and raw mushrooms. So far, I managed that just fine.

Step 2 – “Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ‘ordinary way.’” Okay – define “ordinary way” because it sounds like we’re talking about a whole chicken cut up into parts although again, it doesn’t say.

Step 3 - “When the chicken is half-cooked…” Okay, stop right there. How would I know when the chicken is “half-cooked?” Because like everything else with this recipe it doesn’t say!! So for this portion of our program, I thought about a chicken recipe I made really early on for this blog where you put the chicken in a pot, (no oil or butter required, just the chicken) covered it and cooked it on high heat for about 45 minutes. So I went that route and the chicken was perfectly tender. Score one for me!

Step 4 – “Take the chicken out and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.”

Here’s where the thing almost derailed: there just weren’t juices left to dilute in the pan and so I added butter…and then more butter…and then more butter. And then after cooking down the red wine (and butter), I added the tablespoon of butter and flour (At last, we have a measurement) but didn’t know how much flour to add to the butter. I ended up using about a teaspoon of flour to one tablespoon of butter.

Well. The butter/flour mixture sat like a blob in the pan so I had to whisk it to get the huge lumps out and then I tasted it and “yech.” And I mean “yech.” It was so sour I almost spit it out. So to save it, I added sugar in small increments until it wasn’t so awful. (Well, it awful but infinitely more edible).

In the end, the chicken was good, the onion/bacon/mushroom mixture was good, but the gravy was forgettable. Next time around, I’d either add the wine straight to the chicken or I’d drink it and call it a day. If I were you, I’d lean heavily toward drinking! (And throw in a martini to boot, compliments of Bernard DeVoto!)

I served this chicken with wide noodles and green beans. As to what side dishes Larousse recommends well…it doesn’t say.

Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – serving size…it doesn’t say
4 slices bacon
12 small onions (pearl onions)
12 small raw mushrooms
1 cup red wine
Butter

Fry in butter 4 slices of lean bacon cut in a big dice and blanched. Add 12 small onions, blanched; cook till golden and add 12 small raw mushrooms. (A note about blanching: to blanch means that you cook items for a very short time period in boiling water and then you place the items in a cold water bath to stop the cooking. I couldn’t really find a definitive time to blanch items on the internet so I went with about a minute. My guess it was probably less but since it didn’t say….

Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ordinary way. When the chicken is half-cooked, put the garnish back in the pan, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Take out chicken and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.

Set the chicken on a dish, surrounded with its garnish and pour the sauce over it.

"The Mystery Chef's Own Cookbook" and "The Nancy Drew Cookbook" - Baked Sliced Ham and Apples & Dave's Deviled Potatoes

2011-10-31T18:46:00.005-04:00

Date I made these recipes: October 30, 2011

The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book by The Mystery Chef (John McPherson)
Published by: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.
© 1934, 1943
Recipe: Baked Sliced Ham and Apples – p. 77

The Nancy Drew Cookbook – Clues to Good Cooking by Carolyn Keene
Published by: Grosset & Dunlap
© 1973 – 1974 printing
Recipe: Dave’s Deviled Potatoes – p. 59-60

I am not a big fan of Halloween. It’s too cold, too dark and when I was growing up, it often snowed. Trust me it is not fun to wear a Halloween costume under a winter coat.

And speaking of snow, the east coast got blasted this weekend by an early (for them) snowfall. This prompted all the local media to remind us Minnesotans of our huge 1991 Halloween blizzard. I cannot believe 20 years have passed since that debacle.

On that Halloween, a rain shower quickly turned into a ton of heavy, wet snow that just kept and falling and falling and falling. While we are used to a big snowfall in these parts, it was hard to get around the cities; snow plows got stuck, roads were only half plowed, mail wasn’t delivered, schools closed and so on. In a word, folks, we were truly snowed in. Well, true confession: my husband brought me to work the next day as driving in this stuff is a challenge to him and I went in on the day after that (the weekend) to get some work done as I was under deadline. Let me just mention that while I made it there and back safely, I also managed to spin the most beautiful doughnut on the freeway without hitting a thing! (So.proud). Darned ice!!

So back to the snow, this did not deter some intrepid trick or treaters who now have a great story to tell their children when they grow up. And in the blink of an eye, Halloween is once again upon us. The sun is out and it appears we are safe from a snowstorm this year. Hooray.

Given my track record of dark, cold and snow, I usually ignore the date all together. Yes, that’s my house, as dark as dark can be. That glow you see? It’s the TV. Otherwise, we usually settle in for a couple hour’s worth of “Just ignore them and they will go away.” (That is very Scrooge of me; I’m getting an early start to Christmas.) Actually, we don’t have many kids in the neighborhood and our street is pretty much ignored by the masses. And that’s good because we never stock up on candy except for ourselves, naturally!

But as I was working on my cookbook list on Saturday, I remembered that I had recently purchased The Nancy Drew Cookbook and if that doesn’t say mystery and spooks and whatnot, then I don’t know what does.

And then, taking a little liberty with the title, I also chose to make a recipe from The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book.

In this instance, The Mystery Chef is a man who took the place of a friend on a radio show about cooking and food and built a following of fans although of course, his identity remained a – key point here - mystery. Well, with the advent of the internet, it is no longer a mystery—his name is John McPherson. A clever mystery problem-solver however, could also determine his identity by looking at the copyright information: “Copyright, 1934 by John McPherson.” Move over, Nancy Drew!

So while John’s book is not quite related to today’s theme, it was close enough for me.

As to Nancy Drew, I hardly know a woman in my age category who didn’t read Nancy Drew as a kid. My teeny, tiny library at Sacred Heart Catholic School (grade school) actually carried most of the Nancy Drew books and I believe I managed to read them all—twice! I still love solving a good mystery which might be why I became an attorney. Not that attorneys solve mysteries but sometimes when putting a case together, you often become your own little Nancy (or Ned) Drew.

Tonight’s meal was really easy to make and it kept with my Halloween theme: Ham and Apples (I remember getting caramel apples as a kid for Halloween) and Dave’s Deviled Potatoes for that little Halloween devil in all of us!

Baked Sliced Ham and Apples (to serve 4)
2 large, thin slices raw ham (1/4 to 1/3 inch thick) Ann’s note: I used one large pre-cooked ham steak and that was sufficient for two of us.
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 cooking apple
½ cup brown sugar
Butter

Remove bone from ham. Mix together the mustard and vinegar. Spread the mixture thinly on the ham. Slice apples very thin and spread 2 layers on the thin slices on ham. Sprinkle well with brown sugar. Now roll the ham the long way, starting from the fat side and folding the fat into the center. Hold together with metal butcher skewers. Place in baking pan and put a few dabs of butter on each ham roll. Bake in a moderate oven (375) for 25 minutes. Baste 2 or 3 times while baking.

Ann’s Note: What am I, a culinary school graduate? I didn’t bother to roll the ham slices as that is just way too much work. Besides, I couldn’t find my metal skewers, assuming I even have any. So I put the ham in a baking pan, spread the mixture mustard and vinegar mixture, put the sliced apples on top of the ham, sprinkled the sugar and then put dots of butter over the ham slice and it worked just fine. As to the apples, the instructions didn’t say to peel them or core them or anything, so I left them peeled and took out the cores when needed.

Dave’s Deviled Potatoes – serves 4
4-6 medium potatoes
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons softened butter
1/3 cup warm milk (or, in place of the above ingredients, one envelope of instant potatoes)
½ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
(optional) 4 slices bacon for topping

Wash, pare and cut potatoes into 4 pieces each for faster cooking. Cover with boiling water, add salt and cook (covered) from 20 to 40 minutes until tender when tested with a fork. Drain. Add softened butter and warm milk. Mash until free of lumps. (If you are using instant potatoes, follow directions on package.)

Heat the sour cream in a small saucepan over a low flame. Add mustard and sugar to the sour cream and mix until well blended. Stir potatoes into the sour cream mixture. Blend in chopped onion. Put the potato mixture into a 1 quart casserole.

Heat the over to 350. Bake for 12 minutes.

“Nancy’s Topper”
Add a surprise by frying 4 slices of bacon in the skillet over low heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels, crumble, and sprinkle on top of deviled potatoes.

"The Sunday Cook Collection" (recipes from the Milwaukee Journal) - Cheddar Chowder

2011-10-24T19:30:00.003-04:00

Date I made this recipe: October 23, 2011

The Sunday Cook Collection by Grace Howaniec (recipes compiled for the Wisconsin magazine of the Milwaukee Journal)
Published by: Amherst Press
ISBN: 0-942495-27-6; © 1993
Recipe: Cheddar Chowder – p. 37

So there I was thinking about the upcoming Packer-Viking game and wondering what I could make that was football related, and there it was—just sitting waiting for me to pick it up: The Sunday Cook Collection, written by a columnist for the Wisconsin magazine of the Milwaukee Journal. Just so we’re all on the same page, Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. And back in the day, Packer games used to be played in Green Bay and Milwaukee. So this was perfect.

And then, honestly as if I hadn’t already hit pay dirt, I opened up the book and found the recipe for Cheddar Chowder. Packers + Cheese = Wisconsin, no?

Of course, as these things go, the game was played here in Minneapolis, not Wisconsin. In what is now known as the Mall of America Field…or whatever. I can’t keep up, and more importantly, I don’t care. (This field should not be confused with the actual Mall of America where fun can be had…unlike most Vikings games these days).

Any who…the Packers won, 33-27 and that’s all I’m going to say about that or my blood pressure will go up (because to me, that was one, close call!). I’m thinking it was the fact that I made Cheddar Chowder that saved the day. That’s me—all about the team!

This dish was really easy to make although I’m not sure I was fond of chopping the vegetables in the food processor. On the other hand, it was a time saver and with a game about to start, well….

And that concludes yet another Packer-related meal, brought to you by a (sometimes) “Sunday Cook.”

Cheddar Chowder – makes 6 servings
2 medium baking potatoes
1 large carrot, peeled
1 rib celery, rinsed and drained
1 small onion, peeled
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
2 cups water
4 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups skim milk
2 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)
6 ounces smoked, cooked ham sliced, diced (the author notes that she used Oscar Meyer 96% fat-free ham).

Peel and quarter potatoes. In work bowl of a food processor fitted with metal blade, dice potatoes using Pulse/Off button until potatoes are ¼-inch pieces (should make about 2 cups). (Ann’s Note: I didn’t measure so I’ll take the author’s word for it). Remove potatoes to large kettle. Rinse work bowl (hmm…didn’t do that, either), then repeat dicing process, separately, with carrots (to make ½ cup), celery (to make ½ cup) and onion (to make ¼ cup).

To potatoes in kettle, add diced carrots, celery, onion, salt, pepper and water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium and boil about 12 minutes; set aside. Do not drain.

In small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour gradually, stirring until smooth. Let cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Slowly whisk in milk; cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Add grated cheese; stir sauce until cheese is melted.

Stir cheese sauce into undrained vegetables in kettle. Stir in diced ham; heat 2 minutes over medium-low heat.

"Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Together" by Rachel Ray - TV Dinner for 2

2011-10-17T23:11:00.004-04:00

Date I made this recipe: October 16, 2011

Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Togethers by Rachel Ray
Published by: Lake Isle Press
ISBN: 1-891105-11-6
Recipe: TV Dinner for 2: Salisbury Steak with Wild Mushroom Gravy, Smashed Potatoes with Garlic & Herb cheese and Chives, and Creamed Spinach – page 118-119

Today, for one brief shinning moment (“that was known as Camelot”) I became Rachel Ray in the kitchen.

Okay, small white lie: I tried to become Rachel Ray in the kitchen but failed.

Well, is failed the right word? Perhaps I’m being overly hard on myself. Here’s what she is that I am not: I am not overly perky, I do not make up new food words like “EVOO” (around here, we call it olive oil), “stoup” (soup and stew) or “Yummo.”

Last time I checked, I did not have a talk show although let me just say that if I did, I would be damned funny. Ask anybody. Ask me—I don’t lie!

And I do not have a staff of people to spin food plates in the air because without “people,” I honestly don’t know how she can make three different things to eat at the same time without burning them. Not that I did that, but I came close.

Frankly, any recipe that starts with the word “meanwhile,” as these did, should be eyeballed carefully. I do not do “meanwhile”—as in “meanwhile, while the steak is cooking, start the potatoes.” Or “meanwhile, while those two things are cooking, start the spinach.”

No. Just say no.

Today’s “TV dinner for 2” was a delicious dinner of Salisbury steak, potatoes and creamed spinach. But ala Rachel, one had to start one recipe, then another and then another until voila—the entire meal was done at the same time.

To this I say “This is why God invented the microwave.” A little plate touchup at 30 seconds and you are ready to go. And this means you can take your time and do things right, because people, there were a few landmines in this recipe.

Let’s start with the steak. On its face, the recipe was easy enough. Mix the meat and condiments together, pour 1 tablespoon olive oil into the pan, cook for 6 minutes on each side and you’re done.

In practice, I put the olive oil in the pan, then the meat and about three minutes in, a cloud of greasy smoke (not a kitchen fire smoke, but just a meat-singing smoke) erupted over my stove. So I turned on our kitchen fan, a/k/a “turbo prop,” opened a window, and one day later, I am here to tell you that our kitchen still smells like greasy burgers.

I am happy to report though, that the steaks did not turn into hockey pucks. And they tasted good. But the pan was something else again. Let’s just say it had a good soak.

So my advice to you is to use more than one tablespoon olive oil, to lower the heat from medium-high to medium and to be ready to air-condition your house in an instant.

As to the gravy, all was well until I put the flour into the pan and then for one, brief shinning moment I almost had a glue ball.

Now I’ve told you readers that I follow recipes to the letter so I dutifully readied my tablespoon of flour to add to the mushrooms. But then Rachel said “add a sprinkle of flour.” So did this mean don’t use the entire thing or use the entire thing? This was unclear. And so I added the entire tablespoon, got the glue ball but then saved the day by adding the broth. But let me tell you folks, it was touch and go for a minute there.

Next, we have the potatoes. Rachel suggests cooking them for 8-10 minutes. I went with 11 and a half minutes and thought they were just a bit underdone. The Boursin cheese was a yummy (not to be confused with Rachel’s term,“Yummo”) addition such that I probably used a little more than suggested but no harm, no foul. And to clarify, I did the meat, then made the potatoes in their entirety and then moved on to the spinach.

Now, I don’t want to call Rachel a liar (because there’d go my chances for my own show), but a quarter cup of cream (or half and half) was way too stingy for the creamed spinach. For one thing, it started to evaporate before I even had a chance to add the spinach to the pan. So I added more and more until what do you know—I finished off the container. And yet it still seemed a little dry (as opposed to creamy). And it was a little flat in the taste department although that can probably be perked up by the addition of some onion or even nutmeg. If Rachel was here, she’d know what to do but since I am not Rachel, I just forged ahead with her recipe, almost as written.

But I do believe I nailed one thing of Rachel’s and that is the thirty-minute meal. Or okay, maybe 40 minutes but even Rachel has said that 30 minutes is a challenge. But I came darned close. And “close” for a home cook is almost as good as nailing it all together.

As to the TV dinner theme, I blogged a few years ago about my love for TV dinners and when I saw this dinner for two, I just had to have it. What is not to love about a three- or four-part meal (depends on whether you get dessert or not), in a tin-foil tray wrapped in tin foil? And you get to watch it in front of, wait for it, a TV set! Isn’t it great that these dinners were invented specifically for this purpose?

Tray tables anyone?

Recipe: TV Dinner for 2: Salisbury Steak with Wild Mushroom Gravy, Smashed Potatoes with Garlic & Herb cheese and Chives, and Creamed Spinach

Potatoes
1 pound russet potatoes (2 large potatoes), peeled and chunked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup half-and-half or cream (eyeball it)
3 ounces (1/3 cup or half of one small container), garlic and herb cheese, such as Boursin
2 tablespoons chopped chives (6 blades), or 1 scallion, thinly sliced

Meat and gravy
¾ pound ground beef sirloin
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (eyeball it)
½ small onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon steak seasoning blend, such as Montreal Seasoning by McCormick, or coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil (evoo), 3 tablespoons (3 times around the pan—but Ann’s note: not all at once!)
1 tablespoon butter
6 crimini or baby Portobello mushrooms, sliced
6 shiitake mushrooms, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to state
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup beef stock

Spinach
1 box (10 ounces) chopped spinach, defrosted in microwave
1 tablespoon butter, cut into pieces
¼ cup half-and-half or heavy cream (Ann’s note: I suggest adding a lot more than this)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Ann’s Note: I’m going to list the steps to make each dish separately from start to finish: if you want to emulate Rachel, go to page 119 of her book

To make the potatoes
Place them in a pot with water. Cover pot, bring to a boil and lightly salt. Leave uncovered and simmer at rolling boil until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and return them to hot pot. Smash potatoes with a little half-and-half or cream and garlic herb cheese. Smash and incorporate chives. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To make the steak and gravy
Combine the meat, Worcestershire, onion and steak seasoning or salt and pepper. Form 2 large, oval patties, 1 inch thick.

Preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add a tablespoon of evoo and meat patties to hot pan. Cook 6 minutes on each side until meat is evenly carmelized on the outside and juices run clear. Remove meat and cover with loose aluminum foil to keep warm.

Add 1 more tablespoon evoo and the butter to the pan, then the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add a sprinkle of flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes more. Whisk in stock and thicken 1 minute

To make the spinach
To a small skillet, add butter and cream and heat to bubble over moderate heat. Add the defrosted and “dried” spinach and salt and pepper. Cook until spinach thickens with cream, 3 to 5 minutes.

"I Never Forget A Meal" - Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce

2011-09-26T19:16:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: September 25, 2011

I Never Forget a Meal by Michael Tucker
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 0-316-85625-8
Recipe: Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce – p. 44-45

One of my favorite TV commercials is one where a couple of animals are watching TV in someone’s house, (Well that’s narrowing it down, isn’t it?) and one of them is using the remote, changing channels, saying something like “Nope, nope, seen it, seen it…” (Try as I might, I could not find this commercial on the internet. Drats.)

That’s about how I felt about all the cookbooks I pulled off the shelf since, oh say, August. “Nope, nope, not quite right, seen it….”

I don’t know why I was so indecisive (except I have a lot on my plate, and I don’t mean my dinner plate), but I must have let The Picnic Cookbook (by Nika Hazelton) sit for weeks before deciding that nothing in the book tripped my trigger. Frost warnings were sounding by the time I put it back on the shelf.

The same held true for the Coastal Living (magazine) Cookbook. So long, summer, maybe next year?

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I pulled two New York cookbooks off the shelf and then just couldn’t make up my mind about what to make. By the time I decided that maybe a cheesecake would be nice, it was 9/15, my bank account was nearly on fumes and, as most of you know, cheese cake ingredients are expensive so there went that.

Also collecting dust was a Mexican cookbook written entirely in Spanish. I can read Spanish but by the time I got around to actually translating one of the recipes, Texas had decided to rejoin Mexico and we’re now back to 49 states. Kidding. Maybe.

So there I was, at my computer, once again staring at my collection waiting for inspiration, and I spied actor/author Michael Tucker’s I Never Forget a Meal.

Ha! I thought. Well I never forget to…um…cook? Clean? Cook and clean?

Needless to say, game on!

First, for those of you who don’t know who Michael Tucker is (and you know who you are), he played the lovable Stuart Markowitz on the TV show, LA Law. LA Law ran from 1986-1994 (was it really that long ago? And yes, I know this dates me), and told the story of an amazing cast of characters working at an LA law firm (thus the title. Isn’t it amazing how that all works?). Michael Tucker, as attorney Stuart Markowitz, was married on TV and in real life to fellow actor Jill Eikenberry who played attorney Ann Kelsey. I loved those two!

But even more loveable than those two were Leland McKenzie (played by actor Richard Dysart) and Douglas Brackman, Jr. (hilariously played by actor Alan Rachins), founding partner and managing partner respectively of McKenzie Brackman law firm.

Every week, the long-winded Douglas Brackman would review the firm’s cases with the rest of the partners, and every time Leland would tell him to “Move along, Douglas.”

Can I tell you how much I love that line? I use it all the time, particularly in business meetings that are going long. Sadly, with the workplace getting younger by the minute, nobody knows what I’m talking about. But I do and am I not the only one who counts?

Okay, so before I move along myself, I must make one other comment and that is about the outfits, particularly the blouses worn by actress Susan Dey, who played attorney Grace Van Owen. All a friend of mine (who love clothes) had to say to me was “I bought a ‘Grace Van Owen’ blouse today” and I knew of what she spoke. One year she even made me a GVO blouse for my birthday (sniffle). Now is that a friend, or what?

So okay, back to Michael (Stuart Markowitz) Tucker, I loved him on the show and I love his books. And I particularly love that he and Jill have a house in Italy (and so he includes a lot of Italian recipes in his books). Or do I? Not long ago, I decided there’s only so much “I have a farm in Africa/villa in Italy/apartment in Paris” that I can stand (and no, I’m not jealous much) so by the third book, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read more. But hooray for us, it took a different path (talking about how he and Jill took care of Jill’s mom—and hat’s off to you for it) and we were all good again. The book I’m “reviewing” here is his first.

Unlike Michael, there are many meals best forgotten and only a few that are memorable. And here they are:

1. Somewhere in Florida, circa 1968, an Italian restaurant served me Italian Wedding Soup. Whether or not it was actually canned Chickarina Soup (made by Progresso and loved by me) is debatable but at that point, the entire state of Florida became my new, best friend. I would like to note that I was not quite nine at the time.
2. In the early 70’s, we went to San Francisco for a family vacation and stumbled into (and out of) a little Italian bar and restaurant that served us a wonderful four-course meal. I cannot recall what I had but I can recall that my dad was thrilled to be served tripe and that my teetotaler mother had way too much wine. It is one of my brother and my fondest memories.
3. While on our honeymoon in Provence visiting friends, we went to a newly-opened restaurant and were attended to by waiters in formal wear carrying around enormous domed platters of food. At one point, the waiter came up to us and whispered “Your fish is almost ready” and then when it arrived, he and another server counted to three before removing the domes. This has to be one of our favorite honeymoon stories. We had never before seen such behavior from servers and likely never will again. And talk about respect for that fish….
4. Let me just say that the bouef bourgignon at the Schlumpf Museum in France saved my life and possibly my honeymoon and that’s all you need to know about that.
5. All of the food we had on our trip to England in 1994. Eh, what?!
6. The meal I had with my friend, Susan, at Gramercy Tavern, in NYC, one week after I took the Minnesota Bar Exam. I couldn’t tell you for certain what I ate except it was delicious. The lack of certainty is caused, in part, by the most excellent martini I imbibed before dinner…and after…but I digress.
7. Can we talk about Marcus Samuelsson’s newer Harlem restaurant, Red Rooster? We went with another couple this summer and ordered that night’s special—braised and then BBQ’d (if I’m recalling this right) pork butt…or shoulder…for three (or four as it turned out) that came with corn bread and to which we added an order of mac and greens. Prior to that we ordered and shared two appetizers. And then we had dessert. We are now all proud members of the clean-plate club. And major fans of the restaurant. And are probably 10 pounds heavier. Now if I could just have that recipe for the spread that came with the bread….
8. And my number-one all time memorable meal was at Delfina restaurant in San Francisco. It was 2001, I was about to start law school and to celebrate that and our 10th wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to SF. And then we snuck in at Delfina and the rest is part of my culinary history. We started with bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and basil, followed by pasta with fresh beans, peas and goat cheese, followed by sea bass with an olive tapenade (and to be clear, we are not usually fish fans), followed by (I think) cherry clafoutis for dessert. And wine, lots of great California wine. (We brought back 6 bottles). Ten years later, it still beats out all other competitors.

Now, as to this recipe, Hey Mikey, we liked it! In my family (from Sicily), we do not usually make a Bolognese when marinara sauce with meatballs and sausage on the side will do, but this was good. If I have complaints, they are minor, for instance, faithful readers know that I don’t like when recipes aren’t specific and so when Michael says to “add 6 cups canned tomatoes, drained,” what kind of tomatoes did he mean? Because people, Kowalski’s grocery store had about a bazillion different kinds of tomatoes. You could get whole, diced, petite diced, stewed, tomatoes without salt, tomatoes with salt, tomatoes with basil and other Italian spices, Mexican tomatoes (“You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay…”) and so on and so on (and on and on and on) and so for a minute, I didn’t know what to do.

So I used petite diced but I’m not sure that was the right choice as the sauce was chunkier than I like.

As to the addition of the milk (1 cup milk), well, again, what kind of milk (does whole make a difference?) and furthermore, is it me or shouldn’t this addition have made the sauce creamier, because if so, it still looked rather “liquidy” to me.

Finally, Michael said to “add the wine and cook until evaporated.” Huh? All of the wine evaporated or some of it? Because waiting for all of it to evaporate took a long time, and so to kill time, I added the wine to the sauce and then had some for myself. (Maybe that’s why it took longer than I thought?)

Anyway, at long last it was all done and it was good and tasty (and memorable!) and we served it with rigatoni and called it a day. (And please note that you can serve a hearty sauce like this with something delicate like angel hair pasta but you will be cursing your decision ever after as you will spend more time wiping it off yourself and others than making the sauce in the first place. Go with heartier pasta and you’ll be happy).

Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce – serves 8
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
1 large yellow onion
3 stalks celery with leaves
3 carrots
4 ounces pancetta, finely chopped
1 pound ground chuck
1 pound ground veal (not easy to find in the Twin Cities but Kowalski’s carries it)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 cups dry white wine
1 cup milk
Nutmeg (fresh is preferred but I used dried although sparingly)
6 cups canned tomatoes, drained (see comments above)

Heat the oil and butter in a heavy, deep pot. Finely chop the onion, celery, and carrots and sauté them until just cooked. Add the pancetta and cook for a few more minutes, then the ground chuck and veal, salt and pepper and cook gently until the meat has just lost its color. Add the wine and cook until evaporated. Turn the heat down, add the milk and some freshly grated nutmeg. Let the milk evaporate. Add the tomatoes, stir, and let simmer for a few hours, stirring.

"It's a Picnic!" & "Summertime Food" - Barbecued Frankfurters and Black Beans with Anchos

2011-08-30T13:26:00.006-04:00

Date I made these recipes: August 29, 2011

It’s A Picnic! by Nancy Fair McIntyre
Published by: Gramercy Publishing Company
© 1969
Recipe: Barbecued Hot Dogs – p. 8

Summertime Food by Miriam Ungerer
Published by: Random House
© 1966, 1989
Recipe: Black Beans with Anchos – p. 215

This week is State Fair week here in Minnesota and if my friend, Dan, is correct (and I think he is), then temperatures will drop on or around Labor Day, heralding the (unofficial) start of fall in Minnesota.

When I whined last year about how the temperatures were 100 degrees one day and then 70 the next, Dan pointed out this weather phenomena to me. I wasn’t quite convinced until this year when sure enough, in a span of a few days, we’ve gone from 86 and humid to today’s balmy temperature of 69. I.am.freezing.

This (low temperature) weather makes me ornery. Really, really ornery! And sad because I love summer and hate to see the end of hot weather, a great tan, being outdoors (in an urban setting, of course!) and summertime food. Not that there’s a timer on when one should stop making summer salads and barbecues, but my friends, our days seem to be numbered.

And so this is why, in an effort to keep the dream alive, I made these two summertime foods. Sure, I still have Labor Day left but we could have snow by then and I don’t want to take any chances.

I am happy to report that the barbecued franks were pretty tasty albeit a little salty for my taste. Could have been the hot dog or it could have been the ingredients, I don’t know. Sadly, I can’t recall the last time I had a hot dog—last year maybe? This makes me feel so, well, un-American all of a sudden! Must fix that.

As to the beans, well, I am unhappy to report that they were a complete failure. Not a minor failure, a complete bomb. And I’m scratching my head to understand why.

My husband pointed out that for whatever reason I’ve never had good luck with black beans. Whether it’s because they are hardier than other beans or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that I followed the directions to the letter – and then some – and they were still inedible.

As directed, I soaked the beans overnight. Actually, it was more like a night and a half. And then I cooked the beans and celery for an hour and then added the rest of the ingredients and cooked for two more hours. And…nothing. So I kept them on the stove longer, adding water so they wouldn’t burn and still nothing. So I put them in the microwave at various intervals, adding water again so they wouldn’t burn and nothing. Nothing plus nothing plus nothing equals nothing.

Finally after what seemed a bazillion hours after I started, I pulled over the garbage can and dumped the beans into the waste basket. Good thing I made only half a recipe as I hate to waste food but not only were the beans not done but there wasn’t any flavor to the beans.

I remain mystified.

And so, dear reader, we had hot dogs for dinner and that was that.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find my long underwear.

Barbecued Hot Dogs – serving size not noted although hint, you will use 6 frankfurters!
6 frankfurters
¼ cup chopped onions
2 Tbsp salad oil
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp paprika
6 Tbsp chili sauce
6 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp vinegar
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Dash Tabasco

Saute the onions in the salad oil. (Ann’s note – I think 2 Tbsp oil is too much for a ¼ cup of onions but that’s just me.) Add all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes. Score the frankfurters and marinate them in the sauce a couple of hours.

Black Beans with Anchos – serves 6 to 8
1 pound dried black (turtle) beans
2 dried ancho chili peppers (Ann’s note: dried anchos are really dried poblanos. If you don’t see anchos in the grocery store, but do see poblanos, use that as a substitute.)
1 or 2 stalks celery
3 small strips smoked country bacon (also known as “speck”)
1 cup mined onion
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt to taste
Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Pick over, rinse, and soak the beans in cold water to cover overnight. (Or bring to a boil, simmer one minute, turn off heat, and let soak for 1 hour before proceeding.) Drain.

Wash the anchos, split them and discard the stems and seeds. Pour on just enough boiling water to cover them, weight them under it, and leave to soak for an hour. Then puree them along with their soaking water.

Cover the beans and celery with fresh water, bring to a boil, and let simmer for 1 hour. Do NOT add salt. Add the bacon. Saute the onion and garlic in a little oil and add them to the beans along with salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste.

Continue to simmer the beans until tender, which usually takes about 2 hours, sometimes less. (Ann’s note: Ha! Liar, liar, pants on fire!) It’s a good idea to bake them for the latter hour because they’ll be less apt to stick. Black beans should be a little soupy; the juice cooks to a dark, thick pot liquor treasured by most bean fanciers.

"Honorable Hibachi" & "The All-Color Cookbook"- Barbecued Chicken and an American Salad

2011-08-23T19:49:00.007-04:00

Date I made these recipes: August 21, 2011

Honorable Hibachi by Kathryn Popper
Published by: Simon and Schuster
© 1965
Recipe: Barbecued Chicken – p. 123-124

The All-Color Cookbook – illustrated in full color – Edited by Eileen Turner
Published by: Octopus Books Limited, London
©1976
Recipe: American Salad – p. 22

Some people are very good at taking what seem to be disparate ingredients and turning them into an outstanding dish. (In fact, to see that in action, watch Food Network’s Chopped). I am not one of these people. But I am pretty good at tying together cookbooks and recipes that don’t seem like they work into an overall-themed dinner. Like tonight’s dinner. I will tie these two items together, just wait for it.

So first we are going to talk about hibachi grills and then we are going to switch gears to talk about a salad that I think is perfect for tonight’s The Glee Project finale.

Now, I can’t honestly say I’ve seen too many hibachis in modern-day cooking stores, but when I was a kid, this is the only grill we used in my household and my dad was famous for his hibachi barbecued chicken. So it was a no-brainer for me to make the Barbecued Chicken recipe from this book.

No doubt my dad got his inspiration to use the grill after spending time in Japan in WWII, first on Iwo Jima and later on Okinawa. Given how Japanese houses don’t have a lot of space, this thing is the ticket.

To me, the most fabulous feature about this grill, though, was its portability. It weighs about as much as a beverage cooler and that’s how our hibachi logged endless miles to a beach just down the hill from my house. We should have put an odometer on that thing as there was hardly a summer’s day that we didn’t go down to Sand Point Beach to have a picnic.

Once at the beach, Dad would fire up the little grill, mom would pull out a thermos of ice-cold lemonade and life was good.

At home, dad usually cooked on Sunday and he’d set the hibachi up on the step nearest our back door and cook away, slathering the chicken with his version of “doctored-up” BBQ sauce. Yum-my!

So when I found this book at an estate sale last year, I snapped it up, thinking that I might make something for dad out of this book as he would surely get a kick out of it. Alas, he died before I could do that and so today’s recipe is in his honor. I actually have my dad’s BBQ sauce recipe in my family cookbook but this one worked out just as well.

As to my The Glee Project tie-in, I will proudly admit that I was in Glee club in school (in actuality, it was a class rather than an extra-curricular activity). It was an all-girls glee club – guys did not join glee clubs back then - and we most certainly did not do anything close to show-choir performances made famous on the TV show, Glee. And maybe this was a good thing?

At any rate, I was also in an after-school group called Music Makers, and one December, both groups performed in a holiday concert along with the junior and senior high band and my dad came to see the production.

So I’m standing next to Florence (Flo) who was just a panic and we sang this song involving roses. (I don’t recall that we ever sang holiday music for the holiday concert—go figure). And during rehearsals, our instructor wanted us to over-enunciate the word “roses” to make it stand out more. And of course, Flo and I overdid the entire thing, causing everyone to laugh, including our instructor.

Anyway, we’re singing away, nailing every song we sing and we then came to the “roses” song and both Flo and I struggled to keep it together during this piece. And we made, it, just barely, and there was much rejoicing. But I could see my dad trying to keep from laughing as well (he sat up front) and afterwards he congratulated us for pulling it off. By the way, dad was no slouch in the singing department, either. In high school, he played Captain Corcoran in a production of the H.M.S. Pinafore and in college he was in the mixed chorus at Michigan State University.

And so anyway, not only am I a fan of Glee (well, this season was a little wonky but still fun) but also the new hit show that aired this summer on the Oxygen Network, The Glee Project, where contestants vie to land a seven-arc spot on Glee.

When I came up with this convoluted idea to make two disparate recipes for one themed meal, it was with the knowledge that I had The All-Color Cookbook in my collection. What cracks me up is this book was so named because all the photos in the book were in color. Well there’s an idea. At any rate, in my mind All-Color = True Colors = a song performed by both New Directions on Glee, and most recently by the contestants in The Glee Project. And since the finale of the show was yesterday, I decided this colorful salad would be the perfect accompaniment to my dad’s memorial hibachi chicken. And it was!

And that’s how I tied the Honorable Hibachi cookbook and my dad to The Glee Project, True Colors and The All-Color Cookbook. Ta da! “Hello? Ryan Murphy…?”

Before I get to the recipes, I have a few notes to pass on to you. First, in the interest of true confessions (not to be confused with True Colors), I have to admit I don’t own a hibachi and the one my father used is sadly long gone. But we made do with a gas grill and then just to make sure the chicken was done, we microwaved it for a couple of minutes. (To my father’s chagrin, when my mother was on chicken detail, she always overcooked the chicken, not wanting us all to die from salmonella poisoning.) I thought about making enough BBQ sauce to put on the chicken after the fact but didn’t but if I made this recipe again (and I would), I would reverse that decision.

As to the salad, it was pretty colorful as written but I decided it had too much red (peppers and tomatoes) and so cooked some carrots and threw those in.

Barbecued Chicken – serves 8 (Note: allow 2-3 hours to marinate the chicken)
1, 3-pound broiler-fryer, cut into 8 pieces
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup lime or lemon juice
1 tsp grated lime rind
½ clove pressed garlic
1 tsp chili powder
½ tsp salt
3 drops Tabasco sauce
1 small onion, grated (Has anybody figured out how to grate an onion without making a supreme mess because I sure haven’t.)
¼ tsp black pepper
3 Tbsps catsup

Mix marinade ingredients well and pour over chicken pieces in a non-metal bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours, turning pieces occasionally. (Oops. I guess I forgot that part!) Remove bowl to room temperature ½ hour before cooking. (And apparently forgot this step as well—not that it mattered).

To use a hibachi: oil hibachi grill and adjust to highest level over high bed of glowing coals. Drain excess marinade from chicken pieces and place them on grill. Baste often with marinade and turn frequently to brown evenly. Grill until tender and thoroughly cooked. This will take from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size and tenderness of chicken and variation in bed of coals. As coals burn down, adjust grill to lower level.

To use a gas grill: We skipped all of the above and grilled the chicken for about 30 minutes (despite the fact that the breasts were gargantuan) and then microwaved them for about 4 minutes to make sure they were cooked through.

American Salad – serves 4 (a/k/a True Colors Salad)
(Note: since this book was published in England, they listed both Metric/Imperial and American measurements. Nice touch.)
1 cup cooked sliced green beans
½ cup cooked or canned and drained sweet corn (Note: I used two cobs of fresh sweet corn, took off the kernels and boiled the kernels for about a minute. Fabulous!)
½ red pepper, diced
½ cup sliced raw mushrooms
2 tomatoes, sliced
½ cup cooked sliced carrots (my addition)
French dressing
1 small onion, if desired, for garnish
Black olives, if desired, for garnish

Ann’s Note: I had a friend over for dinner and since I wasn’t sure she would like raw onions, I thinly sliced the onions and boiled them for about 2 minutes. The flavor wasn’t as strong as a raw onion and they still kept their crunch.

Mix all the ingredients in a dish and toss in the French dressing. Garnish with black olives and thin slices of raw onions. Serve with cold chicken (or in my case, hot chicken) or turkey.

"Cookin' with Coolio" - Sweet Chocolate Potato Pie

2011-08-07T19:24:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: August 5, 2011

Cookin’ with Coolio – 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price by Coolio, The Ghetto Gourmet
Published by: Simon and Shuster/Atria Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4391-1761-3

Recipe: Sweet Chocolate Potato Pie – p. 186-187

So Monday was Coolio’s birthday. Y’all know Coolio, right? He’s a gansta! Actually, he’s a gansta, hip hop and G-funk artist who was born Artis Leon Ivey, Jr. on August 1, 1963.

If you’ve seen the movie, Clueless, (and why wouldn’t you – it’s cute!) then you’ll know Coolio from the soundtrack song, Rollin’ with My Homies. He’s perhaps better known for his breakout hit, Gangsta’s Paradise. Oh yeah, I keep up.

At any rate, so there I was, checking out cookbooks at Borders one day, and holy cow, who knew Coolio wrote a cookbook? So I had to have it figuring it would come in handy one day and sure enough, this Monday I read that it was his birthday and so “Way to use that cookbook for your blog, Ann!”

Now I am no prude, but I could not, in good conscience, make some of the recipes because reprinting them would have caused my eyes, and yours, to burn out. Let’s just say this book is definitely full of gangsta language. Um, lots of it.

So by default, I baked Coolio a pie (instead of a cake) for his birthday as it was about the cleanest one I could reproduce for public viewing. (That being said, his book is a hoot.) And I was intrigued by the sweet potato and chocolate combination so there it is. There’s always a reason I choose a recipe.

Sadly, I can’t say the pie did much for me and part of it could be due to operator error. For whatever reason (perhaps it was the high humidity the day I made it), the pie filling just didn’t seem right. Not that I’ve ever made a sweet potato pie, but I guess I was expecting a dense filling and instead it was kind of runny. And the butter didn’t really incorporate into the filling, either and that was a puzzlement.

But I baked it anyway, hoping for the best, but in the end, I just couldn’t taste the chocolate. And chocolate was the main ingredient that tripped this cook’s trigger enough to make it. Instead, the spices were almost overwhelming. Still, we’re eating it so it’s not like it was a total waste but I really wanted to nail this sucka for Coolio for his B-Day, you know what I’m sayin’?

So maybe you all can play around with it and see if you get better results. Or maybe wait until Christmas dinner when Coolio intended it to be served. Cooler weather (okay, in these parts, really cooler weather) might just help the filling set up better.

Sweet Chocolate Potato Pie - serves 8-10
One 1-pound sweet potato
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup chocolate milk
2 eggs
1 dime bag ground nutmeg*
1 dime bag ground cinnamon*
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
One 9-inch pie crust, unbaked (Note: I’ve never used these before and was annoyed to find that they come in packs of two. I didn’t want two, I only wanted one! So now I need to find another pie to bake…eventually. And sure, you can argue that at least I'm prepared for the next pie but that's not the point!).

*Dime bags – street slang for the dollar amount of drugs one is buying. As an example, pot used to come in nickel bags ($5 a bag) or dime bags ($10 a bag). Not that I have any experience with this stuff but I did go to college in the 70’s so….For your purposes, Coolio explains that a dime bag or “dahym bag” is a tablespoon. After making this pie, I’d say use a tablespoon if you really want a spicy pie (like pumpkin only with sweet potatoes) and use less if you want less spice. I could have used even less and been fine.

Boil the sweet potato(s) whole for 40-50 minutes, or until done. Don’t undress its sexy sweetness, so make sure to keep it in its skin.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Run cold water over the sweet potato, then slowly and seductively remove the skin.

Now, break apart the sweet potato into a bowl. Knead it slowly, gently, like you’re making love to this hot potato. (I can assure you my mother would not have reprinted this last instruction! And quite possibly never made this pie but that’s another story for another day.)

Add the butter and mix well with a hand mixer.

Stir in both sugars, the chocolate milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is smooth.

Once you’ve beaten that mixture (“into submission,” adds Coolio), pour it into your unbaked pie crust.

Bake for 55 to 60 minutes.

Make sure you don’t get too excited and serve your pie too soon. Let it chill out for 10 minutes, then serve it up.

"Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals 2" - Spanish Beef and Rice and Spicy Chopped Salad with Tortillas

2011-07-25T19:37:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: July 24, 2011

Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals 2 by Rachel Ray
Published by: Lake Isle Press, Inc.
ISBN: 1-891105-10-8
Recipe: Spanish Beef and Rice on top of Spicy Chopped Salad with Tortillas – p. 138-139

People, how cosmic is this: the day I decided to finally make a Rachel Ray recipe, she makes an appearance on the Food Network Star. It’s like I subconsciously planned this because until the FNS aired, I had completely forgotten that she would be on that episode.

When I first started watching the Food Network, our Rachel was a rising star. And, believe it or don’t, there just wasn’t that much programming (or at least it seemed to me) on the Food Network at that time, at least not anything like there is now. There are so many new shows popping up that even I can’t keep track.

At any rate, when she was first on, I liked her. She had lots of energy, lots of humor and recipes that could be made in 30 minutes. Loved it! But then the bloom fell off the rose for a while (as it did with Paula Deen) and I tuned out. Too many silly words like “stoup” for soup/stew kept cropping up, and that danged EVOO even made the dictionary. Enough, already! But of course, Rachel kept on going. Now she has an empire with her shows, cookbooks, cookware, a magazine and her own talk show. We can all thank (or blame, depending on how you look at it) Oprah for that one. She took a liking to Rachel and there was no turning back. So note to Oprah: my friends tell me I am absolutely hilarious, I’m a decent cook with a fantastic cook book collection and I’m half Sicilian. Call me!

At any rate, as conflicted as I feel about Rachel (although I do subscribe to her magazine), her cookbooks have a wide variety of recipes. And I needed a wide variety because I was getting together with a group of friends and one of the friends does not eat dairy. And we were supposed to bring Tex-Mex food. I know--you were like me, right, thinking cheese and sour cream and whatnot. So rather than succumb to making salsa, I went on the hunt.

After looking through my four Rachel Ray cookbooks (well, one is sort of a cookbook – it’s her $40 a Day book), I found a perfect recipe that contained not one drop of dairy AND it was darned tasty to boot. Like really tasty. Like I had to tell myself to quit nibbling prior to this party or there wouldn’t be any left.

The beauty of these two recipes is that each one can stand on its own. You can make the Spanish Beef and Rice and call it a day or you can just make the salad. But if you make the rice, then know that Rachel intends for half of it to be used for a Stuffed Chili recipe on p. 139. I could have easily cut down the rice mixture as I did not intend to make the other recipe (although it sounded good).

As to the salad, my palate does not tolerate a lot of heat and given that I was serving this to others, I cut way back on the amount of chilies she used. In fact, I used one, fresh jalapeno and that was that. I opened a can of green chilies but decided that was too much heat. I thought the one jalapeno I used was perfect, but if you’re sure you can stand the heat, fire away!

One more note before I go: the group of friends I got together with is comprised of four other attorneys and me, who worked together on a legal work project that was so bad we dubbed it “The Gulag.” Over time, instead of referring to ourselves as The Gulagees, we became “The G’s.”

One of our mates, nicknamed Tex, was back from Texas, where she now lives, for a short visit and a fellow G, nicknamed TEA, held a Tex-Mex picnic in Tex’s honor in her back yard. Actually, that should have been a “Don’t Mex with Tex” party as this little lady has been busy rounding up, I kid you not, rattlesnakes from some of her neighbors’ yards. Take that, snake! (There is no amount of money in the world that will get me near a snake, much less a rattler. She's a better woman that I, that Tex!)

Anyway, it was great to be all back together again. We email each other constantly (almost always starting the email with "G's..." and have some of the most hilarious war stories ever. One of these days, we’re going to get those suckers published but in the meantime, I have the blog and you have two really good recipes. (Or, as Rachel would say, two really "delish" recipes!) Enjoy!

Spanish Beef and Rice (warning: serves 8!)
2 cups beef stock
1 and ¾ cups water
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups white enriched rice (Note: I looked up “enriched rice” but really couldn’t figure out what the difference was. I used “regular” white rice and it was fine.)
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil (once around the pan)
1 & 2/3 pounds ground sirloin
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
2 cups tomato sauce
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cumin (2/3 palmful)
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (a couple of handfuls)

Bring beef stock, water, and butter to a full boil in a medium-size pot. Add rice, reduce heat and cover pot. Cook 20 minutes, until rice is tender and liquid absorbed.

Heat a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil and beef and season with salt and pepper. Brown meat, 2 or 3 minutes. Add onion, garlic, bell pepper and Worcestershire. Cook 5 to 7 minutes, until veggies are just tender. Add tomato sauce, cloves, cumin, and parsley. Bring up to a bubble, then reduce heat to low.

Combine cooked rice with meat mixture and serve with Spicy Chopped Salad with Tortillas and taco dressing. (Ann’s Note: If you make the entire batch, reserve half of the beef and rice for the stuffed pepper recipe – Double-Duty Dinner: Stuffed Chilies with Beef, Rice, Spinach, and Cheese, p. 139)

Spicy Chopped Salad with Tortillas – makes 4 servings
2 hearts romaine lettuce, chopped
3 tablespoons canned or jarred slice jalapenos, drained (Ann’s warning: this would have made this salad spicy, all right! I used one, fresh jalapeno and it was fine.)
3 tablespoons salad olives, Manzanilla with pimento, drained
1 vine-ripened tomato, seeded and chopped
½ red onion, chopped
1 cup broken tortilla chips (any variety)
2 tablespoons jarred taco sauce
The juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or fresh flat-leaf parsley (Ann’s Note: some people do not like cilantro and since I had the fresh flat-leaf parsley on hand, I used that).
¼ cup olive oil (eyeball it)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Combine first five ingredients in a bowl, and toss with tortilla chip pieces. In a second bowl, combine taco sauce, lime juice and cilantro or parsley. Whisk in olive oil in a slow stream until dressing is well combined. Toss salad with dressing to coat ingredients evenly, and serve.

"Recipes of Note: A Collection of Favorite Recipes by Toledo Symphony Members "- Chinese Crunch Salad

2011-07-19T12:34:00.004-04:00

Date I made this recipe: July 16, 2011

Recipes of Note: A Collection of Favorite Recipes by Toledo Symphony League Members
Published by: Toledo Symphony League Members
Copyright/publication date unknown
Recipe: Chinese Crunch Salad – p. 34

Although I don’t usually purchase spiral cookbooks, especially those from churches, for my collection, I made an exception for this one because it came from the Falling Rock Café in my hometown of Munising, Michigan. (And the reason I don’t is because they are hard for you, the reader, to find.)

I was almost out the door on what will likely be my last visit to the area when I spotted this book. And then I spotted a few others. And this was amazing considering days before I thought I had bought all the cookbooks there were to buy from the place. So I obviously was meant to have this book.

And didn’t it come in darned handy today when my community band held its annual picnic after a performance at the Hopkins Raspberry Festival’s Band Festival. So it’s a symphony cookbook instead of a community band cookbook - so sue me!

My only challenge with this cookbook was finding something that could sit out in the heat for an hour while we played the concert but this Chinese Crunch Salad practically leapt off the page. Another sign in the universe!

This recipe is a piece of cake to make – chop some napa cabbage, slice some green onions, sauté the ramen noodles with a couple of other ingredients (in butter, naturally) and make the dressing. I put the dressing in a separate container, stuffed the cabbage mixture into my trusty yellow Tupperware bowl, circa 1980 something, and went off to play.

Lucky for me and my group, we performed first out of all the bands because the sun came out and it became very humid, very quickly (although nothing like the steam heat we had for a concert last night. I felt like I took a shower sitting down). The crowd was large and receptive, we played well and the picnic food turned out to be delicious, this recipe included.

Were I to change a few things, I might add some shredded carrot for more crunch and color and perhaps some sliced water chestnuts for additional texture. Otherwise, this turned out to be a quick and easy and refreshing salad on a hot day.

And speaking of which, one of my childhood neighbors is back in Munising visiting her family and posted on Facebook that she went swimming in Lake Superior the other day. After the steamy weather we’ve been having, it’s almost worth the eight-hour drive back up there just to take a quick dip in the ice cold lake. Instead, I have to settle for a shower.

Anyone know where I can get some beach sand?!

Chinese Crunch Salad – serves 6-8
1 large head napa cabbage
5-6 green onions, thinly sliced
1/3 stick butter
2 packages ramen noodles (do not use seasoning packet)
½ cup sesame seeds
½ cup slivered or sliced almonds
Dressing
½ cup oil
½ cup sugar
¼ cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon soy sauce
Salt and pepper, to taste

Slice napa cabbage very thing; toss with sliced onion and place in a large salad bowl.

In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Crumble ramen noodles in package, and add to butter; stir-fry noodles for 3 minutes. Add almonds, and stir-fry for 2 more minutes. Add sesame seeds and stir-fry all ingredients until lightly brown, about 2 minutes longer. Cool mixture.

Combine dressing ingredients in a small jar; shake well until sugar dissolves.

Toss all ingredients together with the dressing. Serve immediately.

"Mmmmm - A Feastiary" & "The Rainbow Cooks" -Lemon Ribs and Potato Salad - July 4, 2011

2011-07-04T17:55:00.010-04:00

Date I made this recipe: July 3, 2011

Mmmmm – A Feastiary by Ruth Reichl
Published by: Holt, Rinehart and Winston
© 1972
Recipe: Lemon Ribs – p. 107

The Rainbow Cooks – Soups, Salads & Specialties by The Rainbow
Published by: The Rainbow
© 1974
Recipe: Potato Salad – p. 30

People, where to begin this blog? Perhaps first with a rousing “Happy Fourth of July?” Or how about “And now a word or two…or twenty about Ruth Reichl?” Or how about a word or two about shopping for used cookbooks (now numbering 1,304…and growing)?

How about I tell you everything and call it a day?!

Let’s start with the 4th of July, a date that cries out for picnic food. I actually selected the Lemon Ribs recipe weeks ago, not necessarily for the 4th, but seeing as how I was out of town so much, and seeing as how the recipe was for ribs, it was a perfect entree for the national holiday. So perfect that meatballs dunked in a vat of this sauce might just replace my go-to holiday party meatball recipe. It was beyond yummy…or rather, Mmmmm good!

The potato salad was a last minute Hail Mary as my husband is not exactly fond of the stuff. But as I told him, it’s not the 4th of July without potato salad or baked beans (he’s not a fan of those, either) and so choose one! Period.! Wouldn’t you know, he actually liked this potato salad?! And so we had ourselves a tasty feast while, hahaha, watching (The Next) Food Network Star where they were showcasing 4th of July food—go figure!

And so on to the books!

I could write volumes about Ruth Reichl: former New York Times Restaurant Critic, former Gourmet Editor-in-Chief, author of several books, including perhaps, her most well-known book, Tender at the Bone, and as of this season, one of the judges on Top Chef Masters. But I had no idea that she wrote today’s featured book, Mmmmm – A Festiary until I made my (at that time) annual pilgrimage to Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in NYC and found this tucked away on a shelf. As I am wont to do, I uttered (with almost disbelief) “Who knew?” I had no idea Ruth had written anything before Tender at the Bone. I really should get out more. (And people, can I tell you how giddy I am that I’m finally heading back to NYC this week and am practically chomping at the bit to land, already, so I can go shopping at Bonnie’s? Better news: she ships!!).

Anyway, what I especially loved was reading Ruth’s bio on the back book jacket, written long before she became mega famous: “Ruth Reichl has been a book designer, cooked for a co-op of fifty, managed a shore store, had a three-line speaking part in Z. Brought up in New York City and Norwalk, Connecticut, she attended College Marie de France in Montreal and obtained a master’s degree from the University of Michigan. She now lives in New York."

Can.you.stand.it?!! From designing books to the editor of Gourmet? I want that job trajectory!

As to the book, I absolutely love it, from the artwork to the photos to the recipes. As this book is now out of print, I feel fortunate that I nabbed it when I did but sad that some of you may have to work a bit to find it. Trust me, it’s worth the hunt.

And before I leave my unabashed adoration of Ruth (“Ruthfest 2011”), let me just say that I really loved having her as a judge on Top Chef Masters because she was critical but kind. I found myself nodding my head in agreement at her critique of the food prepared by well-know chefs and the damned thing is, I didn’t even get to taste any of it! Note to self: see about getting on the show as a guest judge….

Okay, so enough of that book and on to The Rainbow Cooks cookbook. The fact that this book was in the shape of a rainbow was what sold me although until I bought it, I had never heard of this organization – The Rainbow. But people, if you read The Rainbow Story, you’ll see that the proceeds of this book were used for The Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in California. And so even though it’s years later, I still felt like I was cooking for a cause.

I found this treasure at an estate sale last October. The homeowner, an older woman who was moving to an assisted living facility, had a huge collection of cookbooks. The sale was conducted by a church organization that helped the elderly move – yet another cause I can get behind.

And speaking of charitable causes, for the past two months, I have been on the road, back and forth to Michigan, my home state, to pack up my dad’s estate and to get things ready for an estate sale. A good portion of the contents were donated to two public libraries in the area, St. Vincent DePaul’s thrift stores in the area and in Minneapolis, Arc’s Value Village thrift stores. In theory, I should just donate and run but I can’t help moseying over to the cookbook section and, well, the last trip the other day yielded 6 new cookbooks for my collection. But since all proceeds support individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities and their families, I don’t feel guilty at all about my new “donate then shop” routine!

Okay, so, about the cookbook (yes, I know, once again I digress…), all the recipes in here sounded really good but as previously mentioned, it’s not the 4th of July with potato salad so this selection was a no-brainer. It is not heavy on the mayonnaise, and that’s good as I hate a goopy potato salad, but has a little more salt than I’m used to. Still, did that render it inedible? No. In fact, dear reader, I just polished off a small bowl of it while writing this.

Although I have no evidence to support my theory, it seems to me that you were either brought up in a “potato salad with relish added household” or you weren’t. Mine was a definite “weren’t.” Mom made hers with potatoes, celery, onions, hard-boiled eggs and radishes, topped with paprika. And okay, don’t jump on me for this, but she used Miracle Whip. It’s all we had in the house!

But I can’t tell you how many recipes I’ve seen, including this one, where pickles were added. And all I can say about the pickles in this recipe was that I wish I had added more. In fact, I wish I had more on hand but I used up all the sweet pickles (all three of them!) in the refrigerator on this recipe. Damn! Live and learn.

For fun, I bought “Teeny tiny potatoes” (yes, that’s the label) from Trader Joe’s that were about the size of a baby carrot. Cut then in two, and you had the perfect bite.

Before I conclude and get to the recipes, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about the Falling Rock Café in my hometown of Munising, Michigan as it has been a constant and great source of fun cookbooks for me for the past several years (I mean, who else has the Y2K Survival Guide and Cookbook or Madam Wu’s Art of Chinese Cooking cookbook??!).

Now that my dad is gone and the house is for sale, there’s no need for me to make a butt-busting 8-hour (one-way) car trip to the area and I am bereft at the thought of missing out on a stop at the café. Lucky for me (and you) they are on Amazon and Alibris so check them out! And in an “It’s a small world after all” moment, I recently discovered that Nancy, Falling Rock’s owner, and I have both shopped at Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in New York. It’s no wonder, then, that their cookbook section is a veritable treasure trove of fun stuff. So if you happen to be in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula anytime soon (and why wouldn’t you be?), be sure to stop and shop, get a phenomenal sandwich, locally-made ice cream and a great cup of coffee and relax in one of their many comfy chairs. Trust me, all the world’s stresses will melt away in mere minutes.

So happy eating everyone and happy 4th!

Lemon Ribs – serves 4-6 (instead of 4 pounds, we used 1 and it was perfect for two people)
4 pounds spare ribs
1 can frozen lemonade
¼ cup brown sugar
½ cup jelly (Ruth’s note: Try different kinds – I prefer marmalade, but apple is good as is currant. For a real treat, try chutney. Ann’s note: we used grape and it was outstanding!)
1 lemon, sliced

Parboil ribs 10 minutes. This removes most of the excess fat, but it’s not absolutely necessary, so don’t if you don’t feel like it. (Ann’s note: not only did I not feel like it but today’s meat is so devoid of any fat that parboiling them wouldn’t have rid the meat of anything! Sad—fat can be a good thing!)

Meanwhile, mix lemonade, sugar, and jelly in a pot, stir to boiling, reduce heat, and simmer 2 minutes.

Place ribs in a large pan. Cover with lemon slices and brush with glaze. Bake in 350 oven for 1 hour, brushing every now and then with more glaze.

Potato Salad – serves 6
3 c. cooked, peeled potatoes, chilled, then diced
1 tsp. vinegar
1 ¼ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. sugar
½ c. chopped onion
¾ c. mayonnaise
2 hard boiled eggs
1 stalk celery, diced
½ c. chopped sweet gherkin pickles

Sprinkle potatoes with vinegar, salt, celery seed and sugar. Cover and refrigerate (overnight if you wish) until 1 hour before serving.

Add onion, mayonnaise, celery and chopped pickles to marinated potatoes. Coarsely chop eggs and fold in last. Garnish with paprika and parsley and refrigerate until served.

"The Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant Seafood Cookbook" and "Zabar's Deli Book" - Pan-Fried Oysters and Macaroni Salad

2011-06-20T18:18:00.006-04:00

Date I made this recipe: June 18, 2011

The Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant Seafood Cookbook – Introduction by Jerome Brody
Published by: Crown Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 0-517-54907-7; © 1977
Recipe: Pan-Fried Oysters – p. 17

Zabar’s Deli Book by Susan Katz, with Murray Klein, Saul Zabar and Stanley Zabar
Published by: Hawthorne Books
© 1979
Recipe: Macaroni Salad – p. 82

So today is Father’s Day and it’s the first one without my dad who passed away in March.

That said, it didn’t seem odd to me that he wasn’t here for the occasion. Maybe it was because he lived in Michigan and I live in Minneapolis, or maybe it’s because (sadly) Father’s Day isn’t celebrated to the extent that Mother’s Day is. (I mean, we’re talking, what, maybe one rack of FD cards to every 4 for mom???).

Earlier in the day, my husband and I went to nearby Stillwater, MN, to watch a pro-am bike race (as in bicycles) where there were tons of dads with their young kids, trying to make their way through the sizable crowd that gathered. As to the bicyclists, well, hats off to every single one of them who roared up one of Stillwater’s hills that is 20% grade. And they did it 20 times. Just recently I stood in some killer (as in cute) heels for two hours at my dad’s memorial service and had rubber legs the minute I sat down. Clearly some conditioning is in order.

At any rate, I think my dad would have liked watching the race with us. That man was a regular Charles Atlas; he hunted until he was 85 (he died at age 87), cross country skied, swam in Lake Superior every summer (something I won’t even do anymore) and went on an African safari with my brother and sister-in-law for his 87th birthday. You know what? This wears me out evening writing it.

And so onto the food. My dad was born in Manhattan and age three, the family moved to a farm in New Jersey, not all that far from the Jersey Shore. And after New Jersey, he moved to Michigan where I was born and raised. My dad had a fabulous garden, fabulous fruit trees and bushes and access to the freshest of lake (Superior) fish, and yet he practically salivated all the way back to New Jersey on family vacations, just waiting to have raw clams and oysters. He and my aunts and uncles and cousins would down these mollusks with lightning speed whereas my brother and I held back for many years before venturing toward the big metal tub to select our appetizers. Just like a martini, raw seafood is an acquired taste!

So I thought it fitting that I make a dish for dad on Father’s Day straight out of The Grand Central Oyster Bar & Restaurant Seafood Cookbook.

Lo, though I have been in and out of Grand Central numerous times in my life, I never once stopped at the Oyster Bar. My bad. This cookbook is pretty comprehensive as to fish recipes and a not-too-shabby selection of sides.

After hemming and hawing for days (weeks?), it came down to oysters or clams and I went with oysters because they are meatier. In fact, some of the oysters we bought (from Coastal Seafoods) were pretty darned big.

I would be remiss (and totally out of character) if I did not take issue with something in the recipe or instructions and today is no exception. The directions were to coat the oysters in the flour and bread crumb mixture, then dip it in the egg wash, and then back into the flour and bread crumb mixture…and then fry! Right. Nooooooo! This was definitely not a Top Chef moment…or even Next Food Network Star moment. I had flour everywhere. Who.knew?!

That aside, the oysters were great and made me want to get in my car, stat, to get to the Jersey Shore for more!

So every oyster has to have an accompaniment, and today’s was out of the Zabar’s Deli Book. For those of you who don’t know, Zabar’s is a fabulous deli on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. I’ve been buying my coffee beans from them for years. Not only does it taste good but it’s far less expensive than buying it locally, even with shipping (which I almost never pay because I buy four pounds at a time and so get the shipping for free).

When I’m actually in NY, as I will be in a few weeks, I love going to Zabar’s to find the latest food items I can’t find anywhere else. They also have one of the most compact but fun housewares departments I’ve ever seen. It’s all good.

Many of you might be familiar with Zabar’s from watching the movie, You’ve Got Mail. There’s a hilarious scene that rings fairly true where Sally finds herself in the Cash Only line and has to be bailed out by Tom Hanks. Let’s just say the people in line as well as the cashier were not amused that she tried to pay with a credit card.

I had my own hilarious moment at Zabar’s years ago when I was buying coffee. I was in a hurry as I had to get to the airport, and this woman tried to line-jump in front of me. So we mixed it up right then and there in the coffee bean section of the store arguing about who was there first. (She said she was and she was SO lying!). At any rate, I finally said “I was here first and I have a plane to catch” and so I won and that was that. As my father always said “First fender in….” (The semi-New Yorker also came out in me years ago at the airport when some little chickie poos in stiletto heels tried to jump the cab line at LaGuardia. Let’s just say that I and a Korean man who was sharing the cab with me prevailed that day as well. It’s a jungle out there….)

Anyway, as to the deli book, this one is fun as it gives a little food history, a little Zabar’s history and some awesome recipes. My dad wasn’t especially fond of macaroni or potato salads but he would have appreciated NY deli food. I mean, what’s seafood without a deli accompaniment??

So eat and enjoy. And Happy Father’s Day dad! You don’t need to be here to be appreciated.

Pan-Fried Oysters – serving size not noted
1 pint (approximately 28 oysters) oysters, shucked and drained (reserve oyster liquor and set aside for another use)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup fine bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp. light cream
1 tsp. salt
Generous sprinkling of freshly ground white pepper
8 tbsp. (1 stick) butter

Drain oysters and pat dry with a paper towel. Thoroughly mix flour and bread crumbs in a bowl. Beat eggs with cream and salt and pepper in another bowl.

Roll oysters in crumb and flour mixture, then in egg, and then in crumbs again, coating thoroughly. (As noted above, good luck with that!).

Heat butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat until just sizzling.

Fry oysters until nicely browned on one side, 3 to 5 minutes.

Turn carefully with tongs, and brown on the other side for 3 to 5 minutes.

Drain on paper towels. Serve with lemon wedges or favorite seafood sauce.

Macaroni Salad – serves 4-6
4 cups cooked, drained, cold elbow macaroni (8 ounces uncooked)
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
½ teaspoon celery seed
1 tablespoon grated onion (or more, to taste)
1 cup celery, chopped
½ cup parsley, minced
¼ cup pimiento, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Mix mayonnaise with vinegar, mustard, celery seed, and onion; pour over macaroni, and toss to coat. Add remaining ingredients and toss again. Chill thoroughly for 2-3 hours.

"The Ham Book" & "Insatiable" - Glazed Ham Ring with Red Devil Sauce and Macaroni and Cheese

2011-04-27T18:33:00.009-04:00

Date I made these recipes: April 24, 2011 (Easter Sunday)

The Ham Book by Monette R. Harrel and Robert W. Harrel, Jr.
Published by: Donning Company Publishers
ISBN: 0-915442-14-0
Recipe: Glazed Ham Ring with Red Devil Sauce – p. 136-137

Insatiable – Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess by Gael Greene
Published by: Warner Books
ISBN: 0-446-57699-9
Recipe: Almost Like Mom’s Macaroni and Cheese – p. 19-20

People, you would think that having a book called The Ham Book would make Easter planning a walk in the park but you’d be wrong!

The first recipe in this book is for a traditional southern ham weighing 10-12 pounds. Let’s pause here for a moment: I do not have access to southern ham (nor do I need to one) and there are only two of us in this household so we didn’t need that big of a ham. I’m not even sure my oven could handle that puppy!! Besides, ham is expensive and we would have practically bankrupted ourselves had we gone with that recipe. So that was out.

Also out was canned ham as called for in many of the entrée recipes. Aside from chuckling over one of this season’s Mad Men episodes where Pete and Peggy have to advertise a canned ham, there’s nothing about a canned ham to recommend itself to me. If you’re going to go canned, go with SPAM. (Note to the good people at SPAM – Call me! I think I have a new jingle for you!!)

Lucky for me, I found a ham ring (i.e. loaf) recipe that was pretty easy and did not call for canned ham. And there was much rejoicing.

I have to say, though, that my husband looked less than enthusiastic when I told him we were having ham ring and even less so when I said it was topped with Red Devil Sauce. Silly rabbit – he was probably thinking that this would be spicy given the name but as we know, ketchup is not a spice…unless you live in Minnesota.

So, I got out my Cusinart, chopped the ham, added there rest of the ingredients, got out my ring (Jell-O) mold and holy cow – talk about overflow. The instructions said to gently pack but even if I would have really jammed it in there, we are talking too much meat. I could have easily have made two ham rings. And okay, sure, they said it the recipe would serve 8-10 but did they really think all that meat mixture would fit in one ring mold? Hardly! So I resorted to Plan B and plopped the mixture on a baking sheet (with the 1” sides as directed) and made a huge, and I do mean HUGE ham ring. It came out just fine.

The sauce was pretty easy to make although I must say the color was off-putting. Remember mixing your ketchup and mustard together on a plate and then dipping your meatloaf in it? (Well, at least I did!). Well, that’s the look we had going on. But it was tasty and that was all that mattered.

And so in the end, The Ham Book redeemed itself but alas, it gets put back on the shelf, never to be used for the blog again. Rules are rules. One recipe only, not exceptions unless I decide to make one; I feel I’m good as is.

In a complete about face from my usual scalloped potatoes, I decided I was in the mood for macaroni and cheese and remembered that Gael Greene’s book had a recipe that sounded yummy. (Thought for the day: Is it because I was deprived of mac and cheese as a child that I am so fixated on it?) And indeed, the recipe turned out to be fantastic. But oh my word, reading her book to get to the recipes was another story.

For those of you who don’t know, Gael Greene was a well-known food writer/critic for the New York magazine. Well, perhaps it was a stretch to say “well-known” since she tried to remain anonymous as much as possible and is famous for her many hats that hid her face from inquiring restaurant servers. Gael also spent two seasons as a judge on Top Chef Masters, a show I far prefer to the original, Top Chef (although careful readers will note that I watch the original show all the same). This year they changed the format and so Gael will only guest star. Bummer, that. (P.S. - Gael still writes about food - check out her Insatiable Critic blog - www.insatiable-critic.com)

Anyway, back to her book. It’s been a while since I read it but back in her youth she was known more for… well…shall we say sexual exploits than her culinary skills (thus the title)? Not that I’m a prude but I’m not always comfortable with books like this because I feel like a peeping Tom (or rather a peeping Ann). My best advice to Gael and to Paula Dean (who also wrote a similar book) is “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” I’ll forgive Gael though since the mac and cheese was exactly what I wanted.

And there you have it, Easter 2011. Questions?

Glazed Ham Ring with Red Devil Sauce – 8-10 servings
Ham ring
About 1 pound ground cooked ham
1 pound ground beef
½ cup chopped onion
¾ cup fine cracker crumbs
1 egg, slightly beaten
½ ten-ounce can tomato soup
Glaze
½ ten-ounce can tomato soup
1 egg, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat the oven to 350.

Combine the ingredients for the ham ring and mix well. Pack lightly into a ring mold or form in a ring on an inch deep baking sheet or pack lightly into a 9 ½ x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan. Brush with Red Devil sauce before and during backing. Bake for about 1 hour. Pour off excess fat and let stand 5 minutes, then turn out on a platter. Fill the center of the ring with warm potato salad, whipped potatoes or green peas with small potatoes. Serve with Red Devil Sauce. (But caution: if you plan to serve the sauce on the side, make sure to put it in a separate bowl, otherwise you will cross-contaminate your food!)

To make the sauce, combine all ingredients and cook, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. I used medium heat.

Almost Like Mom’s Macaroni and Cheese – serves 2 as a main course, 4 as a side dish…or just me!

Olive oil spray or ½ tbsp mild-flavored olive oil, plus 1 tbsp for tossing later
½ lb small elbow macaroni
1 tbsp salt
2 ½ cups shredded or chopped firm cheese (Gael notes “Needless to say, my mother used Velveeta, but I make this with sharp cheddar and Emmentaler, half and half. Once I threw in some leftover Brie, a triple crème from France, and a half cup of crème fraiche and the result was celestial.”)
Optional: ½ cup chopped baked ham or snipped crisp bacon
1 cup whole milk
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
4 tbsp fine dry bread crumbs
¼ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Preheat oven to 350.

Spray the bottom and sides of a shallow 6-cup metal baking dish with olive oil spray. Bring several quarts of water to a rolling boil. Add tablespoon salt. Boil macaroni until just tender: Drain well. Immediately turn macaroni into baking dish (a flat baking pan gives more crispiness than a loaf pan). Use a pan that can go under the broiler later. Toss macaroni with tablespoon of olive oil. Then add (cheddar) cheese, optional ham or bacon, milk, salt and freshly ground pepper and mix well.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove from oven, close oven door, and stir. Taste for seasoning. Sprinkle fresh bread crumbs and grated Parmigiano on top. Bake another 15 minutes. If there is still some milk in the bottom, return to the oven for another 5 to 10 minutes. If topping has not browned and crisped like Mom’s used to, stick it under the broiler (three or four inches away from heat) and brown, watching so it doesn’t burn.

"Good Things to Eat Are Hard to Beat - United Methodist Church, Mason City, IA" - Chicken Casserole

2011-04-05T18:11:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: April 3, 2011

Good Things to Eat Are Hard to Beat – A Cookbook from First United Methodist Church – Mason City, Iowa – 1977
© 1977

Recipe – Chicken Casserole – submitted by LaVonne Oleson – p. 151

“We’re on a mission from God…” Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) – The Blues Brothers

People, I couldn’t help but think of this line from The Blues Brothers movie during my week-long quest to find a casserole to make. And not just any casserole, no sir. I had ideas. Big ideas. It just took me a while to get there.

This all started a week ago when I suddenly developed a craving for a shepherd’s pie (sans lamb). This was all very simple—I wanted ground beef, cream of mushroom soup (naturally) and veggies, topped with mashed potatoes. In theory, finding a recipe among my 1300 cookbooks should have been a slam-dunk; in reality, not so much.

I found ground beef, tomato soup, green beans and mashed potatoes and that was a no. I found a couple of tater tot recipes, one of which had no vegetables (WHAT???) and one that called for only peas. But I wasn’t interested in tater tots. I wanted mashed potatoes.

I found an inordinate number of recipes for ground beef and corn (mostly from Iowa community cookbooks) but no. I found a few recipes for ground beef and hash brown and once again no.

Nothing I found seemed to do the trick. So I thought about life as we know it and then changed my search to chicken and noodles and maybe some broccoli thrown in. And again, you would think this would be easy but hell, no!

I found plenty of chicken divan recipes but those didn’t contain noodles. Then there were your chicken and rice recipes and while I loved rice, now I was obsessed with noodles.

There were plenty of recipes for chicken and soup, chicken and broccoli and soup, chicken and stuffing (tempting…but no) and on and on. There was Mexican chicken, Peruvian chicken, Moroccan chicken but no freaking chicken and noodles and cream of mushroom soup.

I was on the edge of despair. I pulled everything off the shelf that I thought could yield the recipe I wanted but no. I can tell you that a cookbook for three-star meals did not contain said recipe, nor did the Junior League of the City of New York yield what I wanted. It goes without saying that none of my international cookbooks had anything nor did any of my Jewish cookbooks (The cream of mushroom soup alone disqualified them, never mind the milk I had to add to a chicken casserole. Jewish recipes do not mix meat and dairy.).

But finally, just when all hope was lost, I once again reviewed my community cookbooks and voila, there was a chicken casserole recipe containing…wait for it…chicken AND cream of mushroom soup AND milk and noodles! No broccoli was harmed in the making of this dish but such is life. I was just happy as hell to finally score something that satisfied my craving. But I was halfway to my pantry to start pulling ingredients when…wait a second…aw nuts! I have to mix up the ingredients and refrigerate the concoction for 24 hours. Shoot.

And so I had a minor setback, so what? My mission from God was complete. I bought the few ingredients that I needed, mixed up my casserole, refrigerated it and then on Sunday popped the thing in the oven for 1 hour and…ahhhhhh. “Heaven, I’m in heaven….”

Now I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t express a few concerns. First, I try not to cook from community cookbooks seeing as you all will likely have a hard time getting your hands on the same book. But when a craving hits, a craving hits and that’s all there is to it.

Second, two cans of mushroom soup (plus ½ tsp of salt plus 13 ¾ oz chicken broth—what’s up with that) might be a bit much for those concerned about their salt intake. I am not a big salt person and didn’t find it super-salty but I definitely tasted the salt in the soup. That being said, I hesitated using reduced sodium soup because it was not as god intended and I wasn’t sure if the taste would fall flat or not.

Third, green pepper is a major ingredient in most community cookbook recipes and yet I’m not overly fond of it. And so I left it out and call the Iowa State Police already, I don’t care.

But other than that (“…Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play”) this worked for me. I actually like the fact that all I had to do was pop this in the oven on Sunday and that was that.

Now that the weather is warming up, I should be done with the need for this kind of casserole although one never knows. My latest craving is not for another casserole but rather another viewing of The Blues Brothers, if nothing else to hear them utter the word “penguin.” (“Penguin” is what we called the nuns in my Catholic grade school…among other things that cannot be repeated in mixed company.) Blockbuster, here I come!

Chicken Casserole – serving size not indicated
2 cups chicken (diced, cooked) or ham, beef, etc.)
2 cups (8 oz.) macaroni (uncooked)
2 cans mushroom soup (I’m pretty sure she meant Cream of Mushroom)
1 soup can milk
1 (13 ¾ oz.) can chicken broth (or substitute)
1 small onion (finely chopped)
½ green pepper (finely diced)
1 (2 oz.) jar pimiento (diced)
1 (5 oz.) can water chestnuts (finely sliced)
½ pound Cheddar cheese (grated)
½ teaspoon salt

In 9 x 13 inch pan, refrigerate overnight the above ingredients, well mixed. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

"The Ballymaloe Cookbook" & "Baking with the St. Paul Bread Club" - Potato and Fresh Herb Soup and Irish Soda Bread

2011-03-21T21:15:00.006-04:00

Date I made these recipes: March 20, 2011

The Ballymaloe Cookbook by Myrtle Allen
Published by: Gill and Macmillan
ISBN: 0-7171-1339-6; © 1977, 1984, 1987
Recipe: Potato and Fresh Herb Soup – p. 17

Baking with the St. Paul Bread Club by Kim Ode
Published by: Minnesota Historical Society Press
ISBN: 10: 0-87351-567-6
Recipe: Irish Soda Bread – p. 85 (recipe submitted by Karen Vogel, a bread club member)

You can thank chef (and Food Network star) Bobby Flay for the fact that I cooked a belated ode to St. Patrick’s Day.

As per usual, I was up late at night, minding my own beeswax and Bobby came on with a show titled “Bobby’s Ireland.” Well that’s succinct!

One of the places Bobby visited was Ballymaloe which I gathered was a cooking school. But that name sounded familiar to me for reasons other than the cooking school so I went to my cookbook shelves to investigate. And sure and begorrah, people, I had a Ballymaloe cookbook just waiting for me! It’s like the heavens opened up and St. Patrick just pointed to the damned thing. Thanks, Paddy!

My version is by Myrtle Allen who may or may not be related to Darina Allen who currently runs the cooking school. Google and Wikipedia are usually so good about telling me these things but not this time around.

Anyway…nothing really hit me in this cookbook (certainly not lamb, a meat I loathe) until I went back to the beginning and found the soup recipe. Since potatoes are to Ireland what pasta is to Italians, I thought that would be a fine dish for a blustery day. The only issue I have with the recipe is that I could not find a definition for “creamy milk” (What the hell, Google?!) so I used whole milk. And all was well with the world.

And that completes the main course portion of our program.

As to bread, I am not a bread person but my dad and my brother and my husband (and really, most men I know) are. And since my dad just passed away, I reviewed the bread book several times over to see about making something that dad would have liked and I found some…but they all contained yeast. I don’t do yeast. The times I used yeast, my bread became a doorstop it was that hard.

But for all you yeast-phobic cooks out there, I am happy to report that Irish Soda Bread does NOT feature yeast and therefore passes my culinary test and what the heck—it’s even Irish. What better accompaniment could there be to (Irish) potato soup than Irish Soda Bread? The gods had spoken! (That being said, one of these days I’m going to put on my big girl undies and just make the Bittersweet Chocolate – Ginger Bread (with yeast) already! Page 138 if you are interested)

In the interest of fair disclosure, I should tell you that while I have had the pleasure to meet and greet many a cookbook author in my day, I also know personally Kim Ode, author of Baking with the St. Paul Bread Company. In fact, it’s kind of hard to miss knowing Kim seeing how she plays trombone in my community band (Calhoun-Isles Community Band – www.calhounislesband.org) and could, if she wanted to, smack me upside the head with her trombone slide as she sits right behind me. I am pleased to announce that she has not yet done so, tempting as it may be for her.

Besides being an accomplished musician and our band’s librarian (Marian), Kim writes for the local newspaper, (Minneapolis) StarTribune. When I first started reading her byline, she had a column about odds and bits (for 10) of Minnesota life but then she switched to writing for the Taste section. And somewhere along the line she started breaking bread. I am in awe.

So when Kim’s book came out and I told her about my yeast-phobia, she threw her arm around me and said “Let me tell you about yeast.” She even told me I could call her with questions. Believe me, I thought about that but who wants to get a call from me on a Sunday afternoon saying “Help me! Help me! There’s yeast in my kitchen and I don’t know what to do?!”

And this is why I chickened out and made non-yeast bread. So sue me. But dang it all, it was pretty good. And it was huge. So huge that I cut the bread into four large chunks to ensure that the middle was cooked – that kind of huge. (Added bonus: Irish Soda Bread toast!!) My husband is in hog heaven and I’m pretty chuffed that I managed to bake a bread (yeast or no yeast) that I don’t have to use on a door and that was (magically) delicious!

And there you have it—St. Patrick’s Day (with a few extra days thrown in for luck) 2011! We now return to our March (Madness) programming, already in progress…..

Potato and Fresh Herb Soup – serves approximately 7 (not unless you are feeding leprechauns!)

4 tablespoons butter (55g/2 oz)
1 cup peeled diced onions (110g/4 oz)
1 cup peeled diced scallions (110g/4 oz)
3 cups peeled diced potatoes (425g/15 oz)
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly-ground pepper
Sprig of any 3 of the following: parsley, thyme, rosemary, lovage (1/2 leaf), bay-leaf (1/2 leaf) (This time Google pulled through: lovage is a leafy plant that, from what I gather, does not grow here in North America.)
5 cups stock (1.2 liters/2 pt)
1 cup creamy milk (see my note above: I used whole milk) (250 ml/8 fl oz)

Toss the potatoes and onions in hot butter and then sweat them on a gentle heat for 10 minutes, as in the Basic Soup recipe. (Not reprinted here). Add stock and herbs and cook until soft. Remove tough herb stalks. Puree the soup, taste and adjust seasoning. Thin with creamy milk. (Ann’s Note: this last direction was a puzzler. The soup wasn’t that thick to begin with and “creamy milk” suggests it is to be used as a thickening agent, not a thinking agent. But what do I know?!)

Irish Soda Bread – makes one large loaf. (The author points out that this bread is not the sweeter and softer version many of you are used to. I thought it was great)

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup old-fashioned oatmeal
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
2 cups buttermilk
Extra butter to grease your hands so the dough won’t stick (this not in the original instructions!)

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl mix whole wheat and all-purpose flour, oatmeal, salt and soda. In a small bowl mix together eggs and buttermilk. Add to flour mixture, and mix well. This dough will be very heavy (and sticky). Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead just to make sure that all flour is moistened. Shape into a round, and place on a greased baking sheet. Press additional oatmeal into top. With a sharp knife slash an X across loaf. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes.

Ann’s Note: I baked it for 45 minutes, then took a small piece out of the top and found it to be too moist. I put it back in for another 10 minutes then cut the bread into chunks and then put it back into the oven for about another 10 minutes. Perfect! But let me just say that prior to this, I was once again thinking that I was not meant to be a bread baker. I can only imagine what would have happened had I tried to make yeast bread!!

"Bitchin' In The Kitchen: The PMS Survival Cookbook" - Tuna Casserole

2011-03-17T17:01:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: March 6, 2010

Bitchin’ In The Kitchen: The PMS Survival Cookbook by Jennifer Evans and Fritzi Horstman
Published by: Kensington Books
ISBN: 1-57566-165-9
Recipe: Tuna Casserole – p. 115

You know, my late mother had a great sense of humor but when she gave me this cookbook a few years ago, I have to tell you I had a ‘scratch-your head” moment. Let’s just say since PMS was off the table, this led me to believe she might have been commenting on my….assertive personality from the “Bitchin’ In the Kitchen" reference. Or not – one never knew with her. I’m going to go with the fact that I think she wanted to contribute to my cookbook collection and thought I would be amused by this. And I was…once I got over my initial “What are you trying to say?" irritation!

For those of you in a burning hurry to cook and without regard to what you stuff in your face, this is the book for you. This book contained everything from Jell-O to a vodka martini (I prefer gin) to sweet to salty, to a combo of the two. It is the perfect cookbook, PMS or no PMS!

Since I was missing my mom, I decided to make the tuna casserole. Mind you, my mother never made tuna casserole and in fact, didn’t make too many casseroles at all, but there’s no reason I couldn’t get behind one of life’s favorite food groups. You’ve got your tuna, your cream of mushroom soup, your noodles and if you really want to get crazy, your peas. Let’s just say I got crazy.

The only thing I would switch is that I think I would have preferred potato chips on top instead of the breadcrumbs. In fact I know I would have preferred it but too late now. That didn’t mean I didn’t attempt to eat the whole thing it’s just that potato chips just make a casserole you know what I’m saying?

Okay, now off you go – start bitchin’ in that kitchen!

Tuna Casserole – serving amount not listed but depending on your mood, this could well be a serving for one!
2 cups cooked noodles, egg or fusilli or what’s in the cabinet
1 6-ounce can tuna, drained and flaked
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Optional: 1 cup frozen peas (this may scare some of you)
1 tablespoon butter (for the topping)
3 tablespoons dry bread crumbs (for the topping)

Put the noodles, tuna, soup and peas into a buttered 1 ½-quart casserole dish and bake at 400 for 25 minutes. Top with the topping (or potato chips). To make the topping: in a saucepan, melt the butter and add crumbs, browning them. Sprinkle on top of casserole. Serve it up!

"Perfect Cakes" - Blueberry Crumb Cake

2011-03-02T20:08:00.004-05:00

Date I made this recipe: March 1, 2011

Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri – author of Cookies Unlimited, Chocolate, and How to Bake
Published by: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 0-06-019879-6
Recipe: Blueberry Crumb Cake – p. 62

When I was a kid, my mom read to me and my brother from this wonderful story book that has since gone AWOL in my parent’s house. (Drats!) One of the stories was about a little boy who complained to his mom that he was tired of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wanted something else in his lunchbox. His mother then read off a long (and I mean long) list of sandwich options: egg salad, tuna salad, ham, ham and cheese and on and on and on. And after all that, the kid opted to return to the simplest sandwich of all: peanut butter and jelly.

My husband’s birthday is today, Tuesday, and on Sunday night, I handed him this cookbook and said “See if there’s something in there you like.”

Of course I had several options in mind: anything chocolate would do, most of the layer cakes would do and I was particularly salivating over a Coconut-Raspberry Layer Cake (p. 201) but it was not my birthday and so what I wanted didn’t matter. And so alas, those yummy recipes were left in the dust when he opted for the very simple, very easy Blueberry Crumb Cake.

Thinking back, I should have seen this coming. Andy loves fruit and is especially good at making fruit pies and so like the little boy in the story, he returned to the simplest recipe in the book and there it was. Might I just say that after I got over my disappointment, I was relieved that I didn’t have to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen?

And so I baked this crumb cake using Chilean blueberries (because you sure can’t find them at this time of year in Minnesota…or really anywhere in the continental United States) and had the whole thing ready when he came home from work. And for one second, he really was like a little kid in a candy store: “Oh. I didn’t think you’d make it this quickly.”

Well dude, it is your birthday after all! Of course I had it ready for you. Duh….

Not only is this cake a snap to make but it’s really good. And every day is somebody’s birthday so even if it isn’t yours go ahead and make it anyway. Any excuse for a party….

Blueberry Crumb Cake – about 24 servings

Cake Batter
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off)
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups (1 ½ pint baskets) blueberries, rinsed, picked over, and dried

Crumb topping
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I did not have the time or inclination to hunt down a fresh nutmeg pod so I went with dried nutmeg and used a little less than ¼ teaspoon)
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

One 9 x 13 x2-inch baking pan, lined with buttered foil.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, mixing well.

In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer, beat the butter and sugar with the paddle attachment on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until soft and light. One at a time, beat the eggs, beating until smooth after each addition. (Note: sometimes I just really need to pay more attention to instructions. I saw the command “beat the eggs” and added all the eggs – 2 whole eggs and 2 yolks. And then of course I saw the next command below: “Add the yolks.” I’m happy to report that nothing bad happened. But just so you know, when it says “beat the eggs,” it means “beat just the whole eggs and nothing but the whole eggs.)

Beat in the vanilla.

Decrease the mixer speed to low. Add half the flour mixture, then scrape down the bowl and beater with a rubber spatula. Add the yolks and mix well. Finally, add the remaining flour mixture.

Use a large rubber spatula to give a final stir to the batter, then scrape it into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Scatter the blueberries evenly over the batter (don’t press them in).

To make the crumb topping, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a bowl. Stir in the melted butter and rub to coarse crumbs with your fingers. Scatter the crumbs as evenly as possible over the berries.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the cake is firm and the crumbs are well colored.

Cool the cake in the pan on a rack then cut into 2-inch squares.

Serving: this is casual food—it can be served on a plate or eaten out of hand.

Storage: keep at room temperature, covered with plastic wrap.

Variations
Cherry Crumb Cake: substitute 3 cups (1 ½ pounds) pitted sour cherries for blueberries.

Apricot Crumb Cake: substitute about 16 medium apricots, rinsed, pitted, and quartered, for the blueberries. Arrange the quarters in rows, cut side up, on the batter.

Peach crumb cake: substitute 3 cups peeled, pitted and diced peaches for the blueberries.

Ann’s Note: If you are making this recipe in the winter when fruit is not in season, don’t forget to check the freezer section of your local grocery store!

"Rao's Cookbook" - Minestrone

2011-02-27T18:15:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: February 26, 2011

Rao’s Cookbook – Over 100 Years of Italian Home Cooking by Frank Pellegrino, Preface by Dick Schaap and introduction by Nicholas Pileggi
Published by: Random House
ISBN: 0-679-45749-6
Recipe: Minestrone – p. 34

As “promised” in last week’s blog, this week’s recipe selection is from Rao’s Cookbook. Rao’s is an Italian eatery in East Harlem, New York.

Just like last week’s risotto, minestrone was not something anyone in my family made. I don’t know why that is, especially since my Sicilian grandparents had a huge garden, but it is. Instead, my grandma made pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans). My Aunt Rose reports that whenever she (Aunt Rose) had a baby, my grandma would fix pasta e fagioli for my grandfather to eat while she was gone and then hit to road to help my Aunt Rose with the new addition. And by all reports, grandpa didn’t seem to mind at all (and really, if you tasted the recipe, you wouldn’t, either!)

Perhaps minestrone was never an item of the family table because it does take some work to chop all those vegetables. In fact, it occurred to me that some people will not want to make this recipe because it is a little labor intensive but you should. It’s very good and so healthy, too!

Just like the mushroom risotto recipe, some substitutions were made: instead of fresh fava beans, I used frozen lima beans. And don’t ask my why my grocery store was out of fresh zucchini but they were and so I used more potatoes. And at $5.99 a can, San Marzano tomatoes were out of the question and so I substituted a $2.99 can instead and I doubt that anyone could tell the difference. These days, 3 bucks is 3 bucks! I also like macaroni in my minestrone and so I boiled a small amount of shell noodles that I had handy and added them to my bowl. Yum-my!

I think my brain is frozen as of late because it took a while for it to sink in that the Academy Awards are on Sunday (tomorrow). (First I spaced out President’s Day, then the Oscars—what’s next?) Don’t ask me how I could miss that event what with the endless press and speculation and whatnot but I did. And normally, I would make something that was Oscar-worthy and blog about it but the beauty of this cookbook is that I don’t need to because…

Rao’s is so noteworthy that anybody who is anybody in the acting world has eaten there. In fact, the cookbook is filled with quotes from the rich and famous: Woody Allen, Vic Damone, Fran Drescher and the like. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but reading this cookbook is about as close you’ll ever get to eating at Rao’s, never mind mixing and mingling with celebrities. The place is tiny, everyone has their own table (so to speak) and if you don’t, you just about have to have a note from God to get in on any given night. I don’t have a table and I don’t have a note and so there it is. So just like the “losers” on Oscar night, practice your “I’m so happy for him/her” look and just suck it up!

Now if this cookbook and recipe doesn’t do it for you as a consolation prize, then you can always go out and purchase one of Rao’s bottled sauces from your grocery shelf (depending on where you shop). But just like those San Marzano tomatoes, the sauce is expensive (to my budget) so I say buy the danged book, buy the ingredients and make the recipes yourself. You’ll thank me later! (Or you can thank me now – your choice: “I’d like to thank the Academy… and Rao’s…and Ann without whom none of this would be possible….”)

Minestrone – serves 6 to 8
½ cup fine-quality olive oil
1 cup chopped onions (note: I had some leftover Spanish onion from the risotto so I used half Spanish and half yellow onion for this dish)
1 cup chopped whole leeks
¼ cup minced Italian parsley
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
2 cups peeled and diced tomatoes
2 cups diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced zucchini
1 cup fresh fava beans
1 cup fresh or frozen green peas
2 cups canned imported San Marzano Italian plum tomatoes, with juice
4 cups Chicken Broth or water (Note: if you have this cookbook and want to make homemade broth, see the recipe on p. 8)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 to 2 cups cooked cannellini or kidney beans (Note: if you have this cookbook and want to make homemade beans, see the recipe on p. 12. I have the book and I still used canned beans!)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
¼ cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

A note from Ann: many cooking shows stress the important of evenly chopping or dicing or slicing your vegetables and you will want to follow suit (to the best of your ability) because you want everything to cook evenly. So be prepared that dicing your vegetables may take a while longer than you’d like but you’ll be happy that you went to the trouble. Besides, I find chopping or dicing to be particularly relaxing!

Heat oil in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. When hot, stir in onion, leeks, parsley, and thyme. Lower heat and sauté for about 5 minutes or until onions begin to brown.

Add the remaining vegetables, one at a time and sauté each for about 3 minutes: potatoes, carrots, celery, zucchini, fava beans, and peas. When all the vegetables are sautéed, stir in tomatoes, broth and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for about 1 hour, until soup is quite thick. (Note: when I made this soup, it was pretty thick to begin with given all the vegetables in it, so you may need to add a bit more broth or water than called for so that you don’t end up with a stockpot of vegetables).

Add cooked beans, mashing some against the side of the stockpot with the back of a spoon as you stir them in. Cook for an additional 5 minutes. Remove from heat and sit in basil. Serve sprinkled with Pecorino Romano cheese. (And if you want macaroni in your minestrone, start cooking it separately before you add the beans so it finishes at the same time as your soup. Place some of the macaroni on the bottom of the bowl add the soup and then the cheese.)

"White House Chef - Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen" - Wild Mushroom Risotto

2011-02-24T14:56:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: February 23, 2011

White House Chef – Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen by Walter Scheib and Andrew Friedman
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-471-79842-2
Recipe: Wild Mushroom Risotto – p. 130

So Monday was President’s Day, a day celebrated by all of 5 people (including my mail delivery person) and a day, naturally, where we in Minnesota were once again dumped on by snow. Actually the snow started on Sunday and that snowstorm was partly responsible for this dish being made.

To back up: I am a fan of Top Chef (when I’m not yelling at the TV over who was wrongfully eliminated) and a couple of weeks ago, the cheftestants had to make an Italian dish to satisfy the owners of Rao’s restaurant, located in East Harlem, New York. And since I happened to have the Rao’s cookbook on hand (published in 1998), I thought this would be a fine time to make something out of the book in honor of that episode.

Well, as per usual, I ended up in the valley of indecision – what to make, what to make? I noted that Rao’s had a couple of recipes for risotto but decided against making that recipe for several reasons: 1) my people are from Sicily and we don’t do risotto. Northern Italians make risotto; 2) I hate standing at the stove stirring the thing. It makes my arms fall off and my arms were already sore from snow shoveling; and 3) most importantly, one of my favorite cheftestants, Tre Wilcox, was eliminated for not cooking his risotto properly and this made me mad and so I was determined to pout and find something else to make.

And so I narrowed down my selection to two choices, neither of which was risotto and planned to grocery shop on Sunday after I met with a friend for our weekly business planning meeting at Barnes and Noble (we’re starting a consulting business together).

Any who, when I rolled into the Barnes and Noble parking lot at 10 a.m. the sky was clear as a bell. Actually, it was overcast but to Minnesotans, that’s the next best thing to being clear at this time of year. But by the time I left at 2:30, it was blowing a gale and by 5:00 it was a total whiteout. So grocery shopping was the last thing I wanted to do at that hour and so I didn’t! Problem solved. I would just wait until Monday.

But wait! All of a sudden it dawned on me that Monday was President’s Day and perhaps I should cook from the White House Chef book that’s been sitting on the shelf? Brilliant!

Except…I had a really hard time finding something to make from this book. Many recipes called for several items to be made for the complete dish, for example, chicken and biscuits, sweet potato filling and homemade ravioli and whatnot and I just was not in the mood to make multiple things. And then there were several recipes calling for bison (not a fan—I mean, it’s a modern-day Wooly Mammoth, no?!) and a few calling for veal chops. Veal is hard to find in these parts and expensive so that was a no. So once I eliminated those items plus complicated dishes plus summer dishes (there’s optimism and then there’s reality), I was left with…what the ?? Risotto??? Nooooo!

Yup. So I photocopied the recipe, checked my larder and was all set to go shopping on Monday to make risotto in honor of President’s Day.

Except…Monday was another stormy day and my husband informed me when he got home around 4 that our alley hadn’t been plowed yet. Those who live in these parts know what that can mean to you and your car—if the alley hasn’t been plowed yet, you can get stuck in it. Nothing more embarrassing than that let me tell you…well, except if the alley is plowed, oftentimes the plow creates a wall of snow at the end of the alley that one must clear, kind of horse jumping. And so you gun it (the car) toward the end of the alley with the hope that your speed and momentum will help you get over the wall because if you don’t, you get stuck on that very same wall. And don’t snicker-we’ve all done it. And talk about an award winning photo—I’m not kidding when I say that your car can look like a beached whale, tires spinning uncontrollably with you (and all the neighbors who witnessed this) shoveling to get you off the damned thing. I hate winter!

Anyway, so shopping on Monday was out of the question. So that left Tuesday and so I shopped on Tuesday (hooray!) but then was out of the house Tuesday night and so that left Wednesday for prep and cooking. And hey, if the paper couldn’t get delivered on Monday because of the storm, then I think I get a pass for celebrating President’s Day two days later! As far as I know, nobody has started a movement, similar to Christmas, to have every day be President’s Day, but I am ready to lead the charge—just say the word!

As to the recipe, there are two things that you should know: morel mushrooms, one of the intended mushrooms, do not grow at this time of year. And when they do grow, you will likely need to find them at a farmer’s market because I don’t recall too many grocery stores carrying them. And so I had to substitute and there was really nothing I could think of to use that would bring out that earthy flavor that wild mushrooms impart. And so the flavor was good but not as great as it could have been.

The other thing you should know is that I thought that the lemon zest masked the taste of the mushrooms. Perhaps it wouldn’t if I had used the right mushrooms but at this time of year, beggars can’t be choosers.

Other than those two things, I liked the dish and would make it again if I had the right mushrooms. I also liked that this recipe does not use parmesan cheese and that’s a good thing as it would have been too heavy.

One last item about the recipe: I did not make the roasted garlic puree that the recipe called for. I’m sure it was good but because of time constraints, I started this dish later in the evening and just wasn’t in the mood to roast garlic. But if you have time, I think you should.

So that’s how my intention NOT to make Rao’s risotto turned into me in fact making a White House Risotto on President’s Day! Fear not, readers, for I will be making a Rao’s recipe in the next few days.

And speaking of the White House, the entire time I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer stamina of those working in the White House kitchens. It’s one thing for me to putter around my kitchen, deciding on a whim to ashcan something like the roasted garlic puree, but it’s another to do that in such a famed kitchen serving presidential families as well as state visitors day after day after day. Yikes. Toques off to you, chefs!

Wild Mushroom Risotto – serves 4
For the mushrooms
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon very finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon very finely chopped shallot
6 ounces mixed wild mushrooms, such as morels and chanterelles, wiped clean and cut into bite-size pieces (about 1 cup)
¼ cup dry white wine
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the risotto
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup finely diced Spanish onion
1 tablespoon finely diced shallot
1 cup Arborio rice or other risotto rice
¼ cup dry white wine
5 to 6 cups homemade or store-bough low-sodium chicken or fish stock, simmering in a pot on a back burner
2 tablespoons crème fraiche or heavy cream
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon roasted garlic puree
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the garlic puree
1 head of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
Water
Salt and pepper

Saute the mushrooms: Heat the oil in a 10-inch, heavy-bottomed saute pan set over medium heat. Add the garlic and shallot and sauté until softened but not browned, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and sauté until they begin to give off their liquid, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the white wine and let it reduce until nearly dry, 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

"Favorite Southern Recipes of the Duchess of Windsor" & "Chocolate - A Little Indulgence" - Smothered Chicken and Hugs N' Kisses Torte

2011-02-14T23:35:00.005-05:00

Date I made these recipes: February 14, 2011 (Valentine’s Day)

Some Favorite Southern Recipes of The Duchess of Windsor with a foreword by The Duchess of Windsor
Published by: Gramercy Publishing Co.
© 1942
Recipe: Smothered (with love?!) Chicken – p. 46

Chocolate – A Little Indulgence
Published by: CQ Products
ISBN: 13: 978-1-56383-230-7
Recipe: Hugs N’ Kisses Torte – p. 104 - 105

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that Prince William, Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson and Catherine (Kate) Middleton are going to be married in April. And today, the press was all atwitter about who the bridesmaids would be and duh, of course the maid of honor is her sister, Pippa, and William selected his brother, Harry, to be his best man (actually, in England they are called “supporters.”) And there was much rejoicing.

But Wills (and Kate) and even Chuck (and Di) would not have been in the positions they are in (grandson and son to the current Queen) if not for Chuck’s Uncle David, formerly known as King Edward VIII of England. (Full name: Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. Wow - only 7 names?!)

King Edward, you see, was quite the gad about town and was at yet another party when he met and fell in love with an American, Wallis Warfield Simpson, a divorcee twice over. And just like that he up and quit the throne for the woman he loved. I mean who does that? Because “if I were King of the For-rest…” (Thank you, Wizard of Oz), I don’t know as I’d give up my golden throne and all the accoutrements that come with it for some average-looking American socialite. But give up the throne he did and they married (and got demoted to Duke and Duchess of Windsor) and spent the rest of their lives in “exile” (so to speak), traveling the world and living the high life. Meanwhile, Wallis became one of the most hated women in England and so okay, you’re a Duchess, but honey, was it worth it?

Stepping into the suddenly vacated post of King was Edward’s younger brother, Albert, who just happened to be Elizabeth II’s father. Albert (whose name was changed to King George VI) never, ever expected to be King and it is said that the Queen Mum (Elizabeth’s mother) never forgave Wallis for forcing her fragile husband into the throne. Actually, the entire Windsor clan was quite pissed and I do not mean “pissed” as in “drunk” (as the Brits call it). I mean royally (hahaha) ticked off at Wallis. Quite.

For those of you who have seen the recent movie blockbuster, The King’s Speech, you’ll know that King George suffered from a stammer. Luckily the man was able to overcome it to speak to his people during WWII and encourage them to be brave and to solider on and work together and stiff upper lip and all that. But he also smoked and was not in the best of health and when he died at an early age, Elizabeth took over the throne and still reigns today.

So before we go any further, a few bits of trivia:

 The current Queen is technically known as Elizabeth II because another Elizabeth came before her – Elizabeth I, King Henry VIII’s daughter.

 As another aside, the current Queen should thank her lucky stars that Henry decided his daughter would be Queen. Most of the time the title fell to the King’s son and if there wasn’t a son, it fell to the next male relative. Henry didn’t have any sons that lived and so the first Queen Liz got the job. But believe it or not, there are currently monarchies around the world that still hold to the idea that the crown goes to the man. We don’t have time to go into what I think about that.

 Don't ask me why but I recently had not one but two people as me why a Queen’s husband is never a King. Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Philip, is not King Philip but rather Prince Philip, and that’s because the male spouse of a sitting Queen can never be higher in rank than the Queen herself. When the Queen dies, the crown passes to either the son (e.g. Prince Charles will become King Charles when the Queen dies) or a daughter (e.g. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will become Queen when her father, King Carl Gustaf dies. Her mother, the current Queen, Queen Sylvia, does not inherit the throne. That being said, if a sitting King marries, his wife is called Queen. Okay, so now that we got that all cleared up…)

 Despite the fact that I have not one drop of British blood in me, I am a major Anglophile…actually make the Royalphile (if there is such a word…and spell check suggests there isn’t). I began reading about the British Royal Family when I was a teenager. I also watched Prince Charles’ investiture as Prince of Wales on our black and white TV back in 1969And finally, I knew all about Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Charles’ second wife, way before you did because several publications (Time, Life and Newsweek) ran several articles about Prince Charles’ love life and she was one of the named contestants in hot contention to be “Mrs. Queen of England.” (Diana was barely born at the time of these articles). And even though King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1939, there were enough articles after the fact to keep me busy reading for years and years.

Anyway, back to our story: so without a kingdom to rule, the newly-named Duke and Duchess of Windsor took to traveling the world over and spent a lot of time in America where they were the toast of the town. And somehow the Duchess found time to pull together recipes for this cookbook. And after seeing a promo the other day for The King’s Speech, I remembered that I had this book and thought it would be perfect to cook from it for Valentine’s Day seeing as how King Edward abdicated the throne for “the woman I love.” And believe it or not, they were married for 35 years, separated only by his death in 1972. Awwww……

And speaking of royalty…the second cookbook I chose to cook from for the chocolate portion of our program was purchased at the Minnesota History Museum after I attended an exhibit about chocolate. And chocolate is tied to royalty as follows: European and English royalty sponsored trips to the New World by explorers and conquistadors and whatnot and these explorers discovered that chocolate was being used by Mexican and Latin American indigenous tribes as currency (and as indicators of wealth) and thought it would be a great idea to bring it back to their own countries. At first people were lukewarm about eating chocolate because it was unsweetened (and only consumed by the very wealthy) but once someone figured out to add sugar to it, it became incredibly popular and now companies all over the world are churning out chocolate in record form to be purchased and given to Valentines today and every day as a sign of love and affection. And again with the awwwww…..

And speaking of awww….this cookbook contained recipes for beverages, appetizers, main dishes and dessert, all of which contained chocolate, but it was the recipe for this Hugs N’ Kisses Torte, made with Hershey’s Kisses, that spoke to me. Who doesn’t love a kiss on Valentine’s Day?!

I’ll eventually get around to seeing the movie (and therefore the events leading up to King George taking the throne) but for now, here are the results of my latest attempts in the kitchen. The chicken was incredibly tender but alas, lacking in flavor so salt and pepper were in order. The torte on the other hand, had lots of flavor, namely sugar. But that is one taste sensation that is fine by me!

Enjoy…and Happy Valentine’s Day…and God Save the Queen. Quite.

Smothered Chicken – approximate yield: 5 to 6 portions
1 large stewing chicken
Salt, pepper
Paprika
½ cup thin cream (thin cream is basically Half and half)
4 tablespoons chopped celery
½ cup sliced carrots
¾ cup milk (although the recipe doesn’t say, you should use whole milk if at all possible)
1 teaspoon parsley
Sage (The Duchess does not give an amount nor does she say whether to use leaf sage or rubbed sage. You decide.)
Few drops of onion juice

Have chicken disjoined as for frying. Season with salt and pepper and a dash of paprika. Roll in flour and brown quickly in fat, then place in baking dish. Add remaining ingredients. Cover the dish tightly and bake in a hot oven (400F) for about 2 hours or until chicken is tender. When it is done, uncover and brown top. Add more milk while cooking if necessary. Serve from the baking dish.

Chicken may be cooked in the morning, for one hour, placed in the refrigerator, and an hour before dinner returned to oven to finish cooking.

Hugs N’ Kisses Torte – makes 8 servings
1 (8 oz) package Hershey’s kisses, unwrapped
½ C. plus 1/3 C. heavy whipping cream, divided
2 tsp. butter, softened
½ tsp. vanilla
1 (10 ¾ oz.) loaf frozen pound cake, partially thawed
10 Hershey’s Hugs, unwrapped (Note: I’m not sure what these are and a search of Hersey’s website didn’t help. Since they were only garnish, I left them off.)

In a medium saucepan over low heat, place unwrapped Hershey’s kisses and 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream. Cook, stirring frequently, until chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla, mixing until butter has completed melted. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl and place in refrigerator until mixture is firm enough to spread, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, slice thawed pound cake horizontally into 3 even layers. Place bottom layer on serving plate and top with 1/3 of the chocolate filling, spreading evenly. Top with second cake layer and spread another 1/3 of the filling over cake layer. Place remaining cake layer on top.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat remaining ½ cup heavy cream at medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold in remaining chocolate mixture, mixing gently until well incorporated. Spread mixture over top and sides of cake and place in refrigerator about 6 hours. Garnish top of torte with Hershey’s Hugs chocolate before serving.

"The Tail-Gate Cookbook" - Salt-fried Hamburgers with Cheese Sauce

2011-02-07T21:25:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: February 6, 2011 (Super Bowl Sunday)

The Tailgate Cookbook by April Herbert
Published by: Funk & Wagnalls
© 1970
Recipe: Salt-fried hamburgers with Cheese Sauce – p. 21-22

Okay, fair warning: I will get around to talking about today’s recipe but first a word about my (Green Bay) Packers: Woo Hoo!

Okay, I suppose that was really two words but who cares? My boys won Super Bowl 45 (I don’t do Roman numerals) last night against those evil Pittsburgh Steelers. Wow. Double wow!

So of course I watched the game but then again, I didn’t. See if you can follow this logic: I’ve been to Lambeau Field three times in the last couple of years, the last time being this fall against the Detroit Lions. And each time, I go in full battle gear: Cheesehead, green and gold beads, Packer jersey or t-shirt or sweatshirt, depending on the weather. Short of dyeing my hair or painting my face, I am good to go. (By the way, my husband inadvertently wore a “Lion’s blue” (team colors) shirt to the game and was lucky to walk out of Lambeau alive. It was cool enough for him to wear a jacket the entire game and that was a good thing!)

But when it comes to watching the game I get superstitious as does the rest of my family. I used to wear my Cheesehead while watching but then we’d lose the game. And I used to wear my Packers apparel but then we’d lose the game. And so I quit wearing anything Packer-related since I wanted them to win their games, particularly this one.

I also believe, as does my brother, the ultimate Packer fan (and shareholder), that if we watch the entire game on TV, we will jinx them, especially if things aren’t going well for us. Yes, I know, rather odd. On the other hand, we could both argue that it’s nothing more than brilliant strategy on our part. My solution is to flip between one channel and the next during the course of the game; my brother’s solution is to leave the room for a while!

So…the game started out great and my husband, the world’s most reluctant Packers fan there ever was tuned in as well. He never watched sports before marrying me and cannot believe the person I become when I watch the game. (For the record, when you marry a Verme, you marry the Packers. That is just the way it goes. It’s a total 2 for 1 deal).

Anyway, he says I go crazy and I totally disagree. I mean, define crazy? I am just an exuberant fan. I yell at the TV, I armchair coach--is there a Packer fan out there who doesn’t do that? Nope.

Okay, so as I was saying, the game started out great. We got a touchdown and then we intercepted a pass and got another touchdown. FAN-tastic! But then the Steelers came back and got a touchdown right before halftime and Grrrrr. This was not so fantastic.

So the halftime show started and Zzzzzzzz. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Black Eyed Peas but they were not their best and really - was it too much to ask that we just get on with the game already?

The Packers came out to start the 2nd half and got the ball on the kickoff and within minutes, mere minutes, they got three penalties. They looked sloppy, very, very sloppy. And my stomach started to churn. And then the Steelers woke up and started playing better and my stomach really started to churn. And so I told my poor husband that it was time for me to start flipping the channel because to my logic, if I quit watching the game so intently, we would prevail. And people believed it or not the man was peeved—peeved! He was peeved because he didn’t want to watch the game in the first place (because I get “so crazy”) but now he invested all this time and effort only to have me flip a station to channel 10 so I can watch a rerun of The Closer, one of our favorite shows and then flip back again. There’s no satisfying some people.

Anyway, if you ask me, the Packers should be damned glad that I did that. I watched The Closer for a few minutes and then flipped back to the game. “Well this is much better” thought I, as the Packers got another touchdown. So back I went to The Closer. But then I flipped back again and again and ouch—things were not so hot. And so I got myself into a “to watch or not to watch” conundrum (that is the question) and was just totally undecided about what to do and what to watch and oh….did I mention that I went and poured my first martini? (Talk about being thrown off one’s game!)

By this time, I was giving the “Last” button on my remote a workout. And now Pittsburgh was closing in and the score was 25 to 31. Holy crap! Time for more gin!! And then I flipped back to the game Pittsburg had the ball…and so I flipped back again and again and damn it—Pittsburg still had the freaking ball and the clock is ticking down to the 2 minute warning…and then it’s a minute something. I could hardly stand it. Never has a minute seemed so long! I started welling up and praying (as Packer fans do) “Oh Lord, please. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease.” And apparently God heard my plea because the heavens opened up their quarterback threw an incomplete pass that landed in Tramon William’s hands (he’s a Packer) and voila! We got the ball back with about 30 seconds to go in the game and….Victory!!! (For the record, I do know their quarterback’s name but the spelling is hard and he is with the enemy so what do I care? I call him something else anyway…and it’s not nice so I won’t print it.)

And there was much rejoicing and rejoicing and rejoicing! Wow. Super Bowl champions! I love it!

As to the meal, this was an absolute no-brainer. Last year, a friend gave me a used copy of today’s book – The Tailgate Book. I must say that I know that tailgating menus have ramped up a bit but honestly—cold cucumber soup at a tailgate party? Beef Bourguignon at a tailgate party? Peaches with mincemeat at a tailgate party? It just seems so…well, let’s say it’s not likely on a tailgate menu in Green Bay, home of beer and brats and cheese.

And so, the winner of the Green Bay Packer indoor tailgate party was…burgers with cheese sauce! These were easy to make and fun to eat. And my husband, the world’s most reluctant Packer fan, inadvertently cemented this dish in the Packer (tailgate) Hall of Fame by adding green pickle relish to the top of his cheese. It was so pretty with that green and gold and I teased him that he really was a true fan after all because I sure didn’t think to add the relish! He says “not” and has already asked me when the season starts up again (“Duh honey – August”) but not out of interest, oh no—he’s dreading the start already! On the other hand, I cannot wait. In the meantime, I am basking in the glory of that win, an absolute bright spot in an otherwise cold and grim February (as was my green and gold burger.)

Life is good.

Salt-fried hamburgers - serves 4
1-2 tsp regular salt or garlic salt
1 pound ground beef or hamburger
Buns

Sprinkle 1-2 tsp salt in frying pan, and place on very high heat until salt begins to brown. Add 4 large hamburger patties, and sear on both sides; lower heat and cook to desired doneness. Add cheese sauce.

Cheese sauce – serves 4
1 ½ Tbs. butter
1 Tb. Flour
½ cup milk
Dash garlic salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce
4 oz. cheddar cheese, slivered

Melt the butter over very low heat. Add flour and then milk (add the milk gradually) and then the spices (garlic salt, pepper and Worcestershire). Add cheese, stirring constantly and remove from heat as soon as cheese is melted. Serve immediately. (You should start making the cheese sauce while your burgers are cooking).

"The Mike Douglas Cookbook" - Mike Douglas' mother's Skillet Luau

2011-01-31T20:44:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 30, 2011

The Mike Douglas Cookbook – Recipes Made Famous on the Mike Douglas Television Show by Mike Douglas with Dan Morris
Published by: Funk & Wagnalls
©1969
Recipe: Mother Dowd’s (Mike Douglas’ mother) Skillet Luau – p. 123

People, my guess is that you are either in the crowd who recognized the name Mike Douglas right away or you aren’t. And so perhaps a history lesson is in order—television history, that is.

Mike Douglas was a talk show host in the 60’s and 70’s. Dick Cavett and Merv Griffin were also talk show hosts. Big time talk show hosts. Think “pre-Oprah.” Oh, and white. And uh…male.

At any rate, I watched a lot of TV during that time period but I have no recollection of watching any of these shows at my house. My friends’ homes, yes, but mine, no. Either we didn’t get them on the channels we had (for the longest time we only had one station – CBS) or my mother was watching something else. (That being said, my parents religiously watched The Tonight Show staring Johnny Carson on NBC but as the title indicates, that show was at night. It was a rite of passage to finally be allowed to stay up late to watch Johnny who came on in my area at 11:30 at night).

Still, you had to be living under a rock not to know who these three hosts were. Out of the three, only Dick Cavett is still alive and kicking and writing hilarious editorials for the New York Times. (And I mean hilarious…and educational. Things you never knew about a particular guest are now being revealed; it’s like reading the Enquirer only better. I mean, it is the New York Times after all!)

Anyway, the other day after reading one of Dick’s columns, I decided I was in the mood for some talk show-host fare and so went and retrieved Mike’s cookbook from the chef. Dick, if you read this and you have a cookbook, do tell—I promise to give you equal “air” time.

One of the things about Mike Douglas that I figured out is that “Dowd” was his real last name, as evidenced by recipes titled “Mother Dowd’s (whatever) that came from his mom’s collection. I think that’s sweet…and very telling of the time. Many a person referred to his or her mom or in-law back then as Mother “Smith” or Mother “Anderson” or Mother [Insert your last name here]. Actually, to this day, I still refer to one of my best friend’s moms as “Mother Erdman.”

And as it happens, we ended up making one of Mother Dowd’s dishes but not before perusing the likes of recipes submitted by: Sammy Davis, Jr., Kaye Ballard, Carol Burnett, Sebastian Cabot (Mr. French from the TV show, Family Affair), Louis Nye and a whole lot more. With the exception of Carol Burnett, some of you may be puzzled by these names and so if you acquire this cookbook, I urge you to start Googling these people and educate yourself on these late (for the most part), great actors.

Now it’s probably a good thing that Mike Douglas passed away before I wrote this because his mom’s recipe for skillet luau was okay but not great. In fact, the flavor profile was pretty flat. I’m thinking it would have been better with the addition of some onion and the substitution of the cream of chicken soup for a mixture of cornstarch and water. But that’s just me. I will tell you this – my kitchen still smells of curry (yet another dish to make in the summer!). Luckily, I like the smell of curry although all of a sudden I have this overwhelming desire to fly to India!

This recipe is a breeze to make so play with it a little and adjust the ingredients to see if you can hit the mark that I missed. And when you have a moment, go to YouTube and put in “Mike Douglas Show” or “Dick Cavett show” or “Merv Griffin” show and see how it’s done – masters, all of them!

Mother Dowd’s Skillet Luau – serves 3-4
½ green pepper, cut into ¼-inch strips
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tsps. curry powder
2 Tbs. butter
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted, about 10 ¼ ozs.
½ cup water
2 cups cooked chicken, ½-inch cubes
½ cup pineapple tidbits, drained
Toasted slivered almonds for garnish

Note: you can spend a buck or two (or three or four) and buy already-cooked and cut chicken or you can buy a package of boneless, skinless breasts and microwave them until done.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, saute pepper, garlic and curry in the butter over low heat until peppers are tender. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil stirring constantly.

Serve over rice. Garnish with toasted slivered almonds.

"Ralph's Italian Restaurant" - (Italian) Meatballs (from Ralph's Italian Restaurant in Philadelphia, PA)

2011-01-20T15:18:00.006-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 16, 2011

Ralph’s Italian Restaurant – 100 Years and 100 Recipes by Jimmy Rubino, Jr. with Ted Taylor
Published by: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 0-7833-2060-1; Copyright 2000
Recipe: Meatballs – p. 114

I’ve mentioned before that I watch the Food Network and Top Chef (on Bravo) pretty regularly and one of the newer shows on the Food Network that I like is Food Feuds, hosted by Chef Michael Symon. Make that Iron Chef Symon since he is also one of the Iron Chefs on another show I love, Iron Chef America.

Anyway…the premise of Food Feuds is that Michael travels to a city to decide once and for all which restaurant out of two makes the better (fill in the blank – cake, cupcakes, crab cakes, Philly cheese steaks, etc.). Michael goes to each restaurant, watches them make their product, gives them a list of criteria that he is looking for and then judges which one is better. As much as I adore Michael (who has the cutest laugh ever), I always feel sorry for the “loser.”

In one of the latest episodes, Italian Feud, two Italian restaurants, Ralph’s Italian Restaurant and Villa di Roma, both located in Philadelphia, went up against each other for the “best meatball” title. Villa won. And maybe Villa has a cookbook with their favorite recipes, including meatballs but alas, I do not have it.

But kids, I’ve said before that I have a cookbook for just about everything and would you believe, I have Ralph’s cookbook? And the meatball recipe was in it? And so of course I had to make it.

So let me give you a couple of “fair warnings” right off the bat: These meatballs are best made in the summer when you can vent your kitchen because my kitchen and mud room smelled like garlic oil for days and days. And speaking of garlic oil, this recipe calls for 5 cloves of garlic. I used 4 and I can still smell the garlic every time I open my refrigerator to get leftovers. (I’m half Sicilian but I must have missed out on the garlic gene along the way because I can tolerate it in small doses only and this was no small dose!).

Also, you will find people on both sides of the aisle debating about whether frying the meatballs or baking the meatballs is better. Ralph fries his meatballs (Villa di Roma bakes) and they get a lovely crunchy coating on the outside while still staying moist on the inside. But I’m kind of a baking gal myself and I quit frying the meatballs years ago at the direction of my Aunt Rose who knows everything there is to know about meatballs and more! So when Aunt Rose says “bake,” we bake! And I personally think the flavor is better but that is my palate.

Being particularly lazy the day I made the meatballs, I used a jar of sauce rather than defrost my own, homemade sauce that is still stuck in the freezer. If you want to save time, you can do that as well.

Meatballs – makes 12 to 15
½ loaf Italian bread
Water (enough to dampen the bread)
1 ½ lb. ground beef, veal and pork (mixed)
5 large garlic cloves (minced) – Warning, Warning, Warning! Use 5 cloves at your own risk!!)
½ cup Pecorino Romano cheese (grated)
1 tablespoon salt
¾ tablespoon black pepper
¼ cup fresh parsley (chopped)
4 cups vegetable oil

Soak bread in water, enough to dampen for 2 hours. Drain the bread of any excess water.

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together with fingers, making sure everything is mixed very well.

Start to roll into meatballs a little bigger than the size of a golf ball. (Yet another reason to make these in the summer—my golf bag is a lot handier to get to in order to make the perfect golf ball meatball!). You should get about 12 to 15 meatballs.

Add 4 cups of oil to a medium size fry pan. Heat oil on medium flame. When oil is hot, add 6 or 7 meatballs to the pan. Make sure there is room between meatballs for even cooking. Cook on each side for about 3 minutes. Place meatballs on a brown paper bag to drain off the oil. (Ann’s note: your meatballs will be very brown but no worries—they are still moist and tasty).

1/27/11 - a reader posted a comment that in this episode, Ralph's baked their meatballs and Villa fried them. I knew I should have kept that episode on my DVR a while longer! The ingredients were also different than what is listed here. So thanks for the correction. Maybe Ralph eventually decided to go with the more healthy option of baking their meatballs?? Ann

"You're Cooking it Country" - Chicken Casserole (Loretta Lynn's)

2011-01-10T18:31:00.008-05:00

Date I made this recipe: January 9, 2011

You’re Cooking it Country – My Favorite Recipes and Memories by Loretta Lynn
Published by: Rutledge Hill Press
ISBN: 1-4016-0179-0
Recipe: Chicken Casserole – p. 143

The beauty of having a large collection like mine is that I can pretty much pull a book to meet a theme at the drop of a hat. I may not have the exact thing, like this week’s book, but darned close.

So what inspired me to cook something from Loretta Lynn’s cookbook? Would you believe The Kennedy Center Honors that was broadcast on December 28th?

Now on the off chance you watched the Honors (and I do every year), then you might be scratching your head wondering why I singled out Loretta Lynn when she wasn’t even honored? Well, she wasn’t, but fellow country singer Merle Haggard was. And I don’t have a Merle Haggard cookbook (I’m not even sure he has one) but I did have Loretta’s so there it is.

And if you really must know, it wasn’t so much Merle himself who inspired me to cook “country” but rather some walks down memory lane I had that involved country music.

For whatever odd reason, you can pretty much drive through every state in the union and find country music playing on a radio station. And although the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where I’m from is miles and miles and miles from anywhere, much less Nashville, TN (considered the home of country music), my grade school and high school bus driver managed to find country music on the bus radio for the drive home.

Every day, around 3:00 or whenever school got out, we listened to the Beechnut Chewing Tobacco (pronounced “Tuh-back-a) Hour on the radio. I mean how hilarious is that? Might as well have been the Jack Daniels Alcohol Hour! (Now there’s a thought). And for those who are wondering how on earth a chewing tobacco commercial ended up on the radio, it’s because back then, those commercials were not only allowed but encouraged …and then the federal government decided that maybe marketing this stuff to young adults was a problem and so it stopped and phooey on that! But to this day, I can sing most of the old cigarette commercials and some of the ones for booze as well. We won’t go into the reasons why these are most memorable to me as we don’t have time.

Anyway, one of the commercials during that radio show was for Campho-Phenique. Every day, I’d hear the announcer say “Camp-ooooooooo-phenique” and knew that shortly I’d be hearing all about chiggers.

Yes, chiggers. Chiggers are little mites that reside in tall grasses and weeds and Campho-Phenique is just the product to treat them. As far as I knew, we did not have chiggers in the U.P. but if we did, then apparently Campho-Phenique was the solution. (Not that I know what it does, just that it exists!)

And so there I was, watching Merle get his accolade during the Kennedy Center Honors and I started thinking about Beechnut Chewing Tobacco and Campho-Phenique and chiggers and whatnot and I thought that cooking country would be kind of fun and so I found Loretta’s book and there you have it.

Now I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that despite listening to country music on the school bus radio, I am not a big fan of the music. But southern country (food) fare is another story (except for things like possum – recipe included in Loretta’s book – or squirrel or whatnot.). It wasn’t hard to find a recipe to cook out of this book and being in a comfort-food kind of mindset, I selected the chicken casserole. It had everything in it I love—chicken, cheese, rice and sour cream. Oh, and two kinds of canned cream soup (you’ve gotta have cream soup in a casserole. It’s the law). Sad to say, there wasn’t a vegetable in sight, green or otherwise, but heck, you can just microwave some frozen veggies and at them to your plate – instant balanced meal!

Chicken Casserole – makes 8 servings
6 large chicken breast, boiled and cut up
2 cups cooked rice
1 (10-ounce) can cream of chicken soup
1 (10-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
8 ounces sour cream
¼ cup white cooking wine
1 egg, beaten
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
3 cups cracker crumbs (Ritz works the best)
1 stick butter, cut into small pieces
Paprika

Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl combine the chicken, rice, chicken soup, mushroom soup, sour cream, wine and egg. Pour the mixture into a buttered 13 x 9-inch casserole dish. Sprinkle the cheese over the casserole and top with the cracker crumbs. Arrange the butter on top. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake for 40 minutes.

"Cook's Country Best Lost Suppers" - Horseradish Beef Stew

2011-01-01T19:29:00.006-05:00

Date I made this recipe: December 30th and December 31st, 2010

Cook’s Country Best Lost Suppers from the editors at America’s Test Kitchen
Published by: America’s Test Kitchen
ISBN: 13: 978-1-933615-44-8
Recipe: Horseradish Beef Stew – p. 59

It’s hard to believe that another year is coming to a close. (Actually, the phrase I like to use it "Well, there's another year shot to hell.") I don’t know where the time went.

My family came into town again this year to help ring in the New Year and I wanted something that wasn’t too involved or complicated and that would satisfy my dad’s cravings for meat and potatoes. My dad has a pretty evolved palate but at the end of the day, the man likes his beef. Dad also likes horseradish and so this recipe, with its 2 cups of horseradish, is perfect.

I only have two very small complaints about this recipe: first, I personally hate when recipes tell me what size pieces to cut (“1 ½-inch cubes, “1-inch pieces…”). Are you like me? Do you want to pull out a tape measure for accuracy? (Believe it or don’t, I have a tape measure in my kitchen that I use to measure cake pans. I wasn’t in the mood to take it out to measure potatoes and carrots so there it sat/sits! It’s the littlest things that drive me nuts.

Second, my vegetables were still a little crisp after the 1 ½ hours of final cooking time. If this were anyone but America’s Test Kitchen, I would cut them some slack but people, the “Test” in the title says it all—these people regularly test recipes for a living. So either my oven was just being ornery that day or they need a “do-over.” Just saying…

Since this stew was pretty hearty, I accompanied it with a tossed green salad and bread…and then threw in some ice cream for dessert…and oh what the heck, some cookies (from The Finnish Bistro down the road). Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve – we’re allowed!

Here’s hoping you all have a great year!

Horseradish Beef Stew – serves 8
4 pounds boneless beef chuck-eye roast, trimmed and cut into 1 ½-inch cubes
Salt and pepper
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 onions, minced
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 ½ cups low-sodium beef broth
2 (8-ounce) jars prepared horseradish (I used creamy horseradish)
1 teaspoon dill seed
1 ½ pounds red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pound carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
4 large Portobello mushroom caps, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Adjust oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Pat the beef dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of the beef and cook until well browned on all sides, about 8 minutes, turning as needed. Transfer the beef to a bowl. Return the pot to medium-high heat and repeat with 1 tablespoon more oil and the remaining beef.

Heat 1 tablespoon more oil in the pot over medium heat until shimmering. Add the onions and ¼ teaspoon salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly whisk in the broths, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in the horseradish and dill seed.

Return the beef, along with any accumulated juices, to the pot. Bring to a simmer, cover and transfer the pot to the oven. Cook for 50 minutes, then stir in the potatoes and carrots. Cover and continue to cook until the meat is tender, 1 to 1 ½ hours longer.

Meanwhile, heat 1 ½ teaspoons more oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add half of the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until they have released their juices and are brown around the edges, 7 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer the mushrooms to a bowl. Repeat with the remaining 1 ½ teaspoons oil and the remaining mushrooms.

Stir the parsley into the stew and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve, sprinkling individual portions with the mushrooms.

"Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes 2" - Bourbon-Mustard Brisket (Crock Pot)

2010-12-26T18:35:00.007-05:00

Date I made this recipe: December 25, 2010

Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes 2 by Sandra Lee
Published by: Meredith Books
ISBN: 978-0-696-23815-4
Recipe: Bourbon-Mustard Brisket – p. 162

The other day, one of my best friends and I had a small disagreement about my math skills. When I said (yet again) that math was not my strong suit, she got mad and said she was tired of me saying that I didn’t do well at math. Based on her observations, my math was fine.

Yes, well, I hate to disappoint you honey, but this recipe showcases why I went to law school instead of getting an MBA (no math required!): The cooking time for this brisket was 12-14 hours and somehow I got it in my head that if I put it in by 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve that it would be done by 6 p.m. on Christmas Day! “Perfect,” thought I. Six p.m. is a great dinner hour, especially for someone like me who pushes the envelope with 8 p.m. (or later) meals.

For those paying attention, and who can count, you can see where I erred, right? Because there I was, about 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve, watching some stupid movie with a stupid plot and a horrible ending when all of a sudden I had a “wait a minute…” moment.

So I counted on my hands (yes, my hands!) and shoot—my roast would not be done by 6 p.m. but rather by 6 a.m.!!!

Well now what was I supposed to do? I contemplated pulling the plug on the crock pot and refrigerating it until morning but was unsure if that was a good thing for the meat or a bad thing and then I thought about waking my husband to discuss (because unlike me, he is really good at math!) and finally decided that since he is an early riser, I’d leave him a note to pull the plug on the meat at 7 a.m. and then I’d deal with it later.

By the time I hauled ass downstairs on Christmas morning, the roast was saved and our house smelled delicious. And I was actually pleased that my meat was done and all that was left was salad and potatoes – like I meant to do that!

More disturbing than my lack of ability to count though, is why Sandra Lee called this book “Semi-Homemade” Slow Cooker Recipes 2? Yes, I know that’s her brand and yes, I know she uses cake mixes in her desserts but this was a slow cooker book for Pete’s sake! What on earth is “semi-homemade” about a slow-cooker recipe? And if the answer is “because she often calls for you to use frozen, chopped onions instead of chopping them yourself, then I call foul: did she expect you to grow the onion yourself in order to change this from “semi”-homemade to “homemade?” Ponder that one for a while, will you?

Lucky for me, my husband and Sandy, nothing else about this recipe was confusing or confounding. You dump the stuff in the crockpot, plug it in and hours later, you look like a regular Julia Child when you pull the sucker out of the pot.

I made some Yukon gold potatoes to go along with this dish, adding a little milk, butter and creamy horseradish. Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about for an easy-peasey holiday dinner. So enjoy!

By the way, I am equally challenged by geography and directions. Last week, I dropped a friend off at her home during a snowstorm and promptly got turned around by the directions she gave me for a shortcut home. Long story short, I should have been going toward Minneapolis and ended up in an unfamiliar part of St. Paul. So I called my husband and after giving him the names of a couple of cross streets said “Where the hell am I?!”

Turns out I was close to our state capitol in St. Paul. And the state capitol is great and it certainly was a beautiful beacon through the snowstorm, but it was in the exact opposite direction of where I needed to be. A few turns later, and I was on the right track, crawling through the snow on my way home…during rush hour…oh yeah.

Bourbon-Mustard Brisket – serves 6
2 large sweet onions, peeled and sliced thick
4 pounds beef brisket, rinsed and patted dry
2 teaspoons garlic salt, Lawry’s®
2 teaspoons salt-free lemon pepper, McCormick®
¾ cup spicy brown mustard, Gulden’s®
½ cup honey brown sugar BBQ sauce, Jack Daniels®
¼ cup bourbon
½ cup light brown sugar, C&H®

Place onions in a 5-quart slow cooker.

Season brisket with garlic salt and lemon pepper and place on top of the onion, cutting to fit if necessary.

In a small bowl, stir together remaining ingredients and pour in slow cooker over brisket. Cover and cook on LOW setting for 12 to 14 hours.

Strain and defat cooking liquid. Serve as sauce on the side.

"Anna Del Conte's Italian Kitchen - I Dolci (Sweet Things)" - Sauteed Apples with Almonds and White Wine

2010-12-18T17:10:00.006-05:00

Date I and my husband made this recipe: December 17, 2010

Anna Del Conte’s Italian Kitchen – I Dolci – Sweet Things by Anna Del Conte, Illustrated by Flo Bayley
Published by: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0-671-87032-7 (copyright 1993
Recipe: Sauteed Apples with Almonds and White Wine (Mele Alle Mandorle E Al Vino Bianco) – p. 40-41

‘Tis the season to indulge and indulge I did on this yummy dessert my husband and I made for a dinner party we hosted on Friday night.

The menu was Italian. I made my recipe for Italian wedding soup (it’s actually a Good Housekeeping magazine recipe that I’ve made 100 times now so I consider it mine, all mine!) and my family’s recipe for homemade manicotti shells and filling (and sauce) and I wanted something to finish off the meal.

Believe it or don’t, I have a cookbook of Italian dessert recipes and so I flipped through that and found this recipe for sautéed apples and whipped cream…and damned if this wasn’t good.

What I loved about the recipe was that it was pretty easy and light. Italians are not big on dessert and most of the well-known recipes are rather heavy – tiramisu being the biggest offender. We never, ever had tiramisu in my family growing up and honestly, I don’t feel deprived. Now Italian cookies, on the other hand, (and cannolis) are another story!

So anyway…besides being light (and sorry- whipped cream is light, right?) this recipe used white wine as well as Calvados (apple brandy) and since it ‘tis the season to indulge in food and alcohol, I decided that this.was.it. Hic!

All I’m going to say is that coring the apples would have been a whole lot easier with a melon baller but did I have one? No! I must rectify this ASAP. Let me also just say that you would think that whipped cream with Calvados would clash with a dry martini but you’d be wrong! (Sure, the cocktail hour was in full swing but I had to sample the dessert, didn’t I?)

By the way, we spread the whipped cream on a beautiful glass plate we got for a wedding gift 20 years ago and with the apples and caramel sauce on top, it was photo-shoot worthy. And we should have taken a photo but hey, we had eating to do!

Happy Holidays!

Sauteed Apples with Almonds and White Wine – serves 6
6 equal-sized large apples such as Granny Smith
1 unwaxed lemon, scrubbed and washed (You will need to zest the lemon using a vegetable peeler)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cloves
2/3 cup Calvados or applejack
¼ cup granulated sugar, or more according to the sweetness of the apples
½ cup sweet white wine (we had Pinot Grigio on hand and so used that)
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup sliced almonds
1 ¼ cups whipping cream (we used 1 cup – sue us!)
¼ cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

Peel the apples, then cut them in half and remove the cores. Make 6 incisions in the round side of each half, taking care not to cut right through it.

Remove the zest from half the lemon using a swivel-headed vegetable peeler, taking care to leave behind the bitter white pith. Squeeze the juice.

Heat the butter in a very large sauté pan in which the apple halves will fit comfortably. Add the lemon zest and voles to the butter and when the butter foam begins to subside, slide in the apples, cut-side down. Saute until golden, then turn the halves over and brown the round side. This will take about 8 minutes. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent the apples sticking.

Turn the heat up, pour over one-third of the Calvados, and let it bubble away for 30 seconds. Turn the heat down to low and add the granulated sugar, wine, lemon juice, and 2/3 cup of hot water. Cover the pan with the lid or a piece of foil and cook 5 minutes. Turn the apples over carefully and continue cooking until they are tender. Cooking time varies according to the quality of the apples; do not overcook them or they may break. If necessary add a couple of spoonsful of hot water during the cooking.

When the apples are ready – test them by piercing them with the blade of a small knife through their thickest part – transfer them gently to a dish using a slotted spoon. Let cool.

Remove the lemon zest and cloves from the pan. Add the cinnamon and almonds and sauté over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the syrup is thick and the almonds are caramelized, about 5 minutes. Draw off the heat.

Whip the cream. Add the remaining Calvados and the confectioners’ sugar and whip again. Spread the cream over a shallow serving dish. Make 12 hollows in the cream with the back of a spoon and lay the apple halves in the hollows, cut-side up. Spoon the syrup-coated almonds over the apples. Serve at room temperature.

"Everyone Comes to Elaine's" & "Rocco's Italian American"- Parppardelle Bolognese (in memory of Elaine Kaufman)

2010-12-17T14:58:00.006-05:00

Date I made this recipe: December 15, 2010

Everyone Comes to Elaine’s by A. E. Hotchner
Published by: Harter Entertainment
ISBN: 0-06-063818-X (copyright 2004)
No recipes – just a darned good read!

Rocco’s Italian American by Rocco Dispirito
Published by: Hyperion
ISBN: 0-7868-6857-0 (copyright 2004)
Recipes: Mama’s Marinara – p. 116 and Pappardelle Bolognese - -p. 141

Today’s blog marks the passing of one of the most famous ladies to ever grace the island of Manhattan…and no, I’m not talking about Lady Liberty. I’m talking about Elaine Kaufman.

Before you all start hooting like owls (Who? Who?) let me head you off at the pass: Elaine Kaufman, owner of the eponymous restaurant, Elaine’s, was the grand dame of the New York restaurant world.

I’m not sure how it was that I came to know of this lady, I only know that I never visited her restaurant because a) I was too lazy to haul ass from the Upper West Side (of Manhattan) where I usually stayed, to go to the Upper East Side to eat and b) I was not star-worthy (and I don’t mean Michelin!) and therefore would have been seated in her self-proclaimed “Siberia” section; it’s cold enough here in Minnesota, thank you very much!

At Elaine’s if you were somebody, you sat up front. If you were a little nobody, and were privileged enough to get the nod to come in, you sat in Siberia, the place where waiters seldom ventured and everybody who was nobody sat.

Elaine was known for a number of things, but most especially for her temper and for her affinity for throwing people out of her place. And for assault charges (later dropped) filed against her. I guess when she said there were no tables available, she meant “No Tables Available.”

In 2004, A. E. Hotchner, actor Paul Newman’s former cooking partner, wrote the book, Everybody Comes to Elaine’s. The book chronicled the fabulous wild ride that was the Elaine’s experience and the rash of stars, politicians and other power people who came to her restaurant in the 40 years (at the time) she ran it.

Sadly, this book did not contain recipes (and I have a few like that in my collection) and so I did some research, found what I think is Elaine’s menu (Italian) and then set out to find a cookbook and a recipe to gap-fill for Elaine. And this is how I came to make Rocco Dispirito’s recipe for Pappardelle Bolognese.

Actually, when you think about it, it’s pretty funny that I cooked a dish in honor of Elaine (I mean really – how many people knew she had a last name?!) with a recipe from a guy named Rocco? (By the way, Rocco had a reputation of his own to deal with. As the young chef and owner of Rocco’s 22nd Street, Rocco and company were filmed for the TV Show, The Restaurant. I only needed to watch half an episode to know I wasn’t interested in seeing such trauma drama on a daily basis but luckily, it appears that Rocco, as well as Elaine, mellowed in their later years!

As to the recipe, the only thing I did different than Rocco was to use my family’s sauce recipe. I tend toward that vein in general and on this particular day, I needed to make some sauce for a dinner party I’m having tomorrow and I figured Aunt Rose’s was probably just as good as (nay, better than) Rocco’s Mama! I also took the lid off and let the sauce simmer a while longer than directed so that it would thicken.

So anyway, a New York institution has gone to greener pastures and the restaurant world will be a little worse off because of it. R.I.P., Elaine!

Mama’s Marinara – 6 portions
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
½ yellow onion, peeled and chopped fine
3 tablespoons olive oil
Two 28-ounce cans tomato puree
One 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon sugar
Red pepper flakes to taste
Salt

Cook the garlic and onion in the olive oil in a sauce pot over a medium-low flame, about 10 minutes or until garlic is tender and onions translucent, not brown (this is called “seating” because it will draw out a lot of moisture and flavor).

Add all the tomato products. Pour the chicken stock into one of the 28-ounce cans. Fill it the rest of the way with water and add that and the sugar to the pot. Stir and bring to a simmer. Taste and season with red pepper flakes and salt, and cover. Simmer the sauce for about 1 hour. The sauce should be fairly think but not watery and very smooth. Uncover and simmer for 3 minutes if it is too think for your taste; add a little water if it seems thick.

Pappardelle Bolognese – 4 portions
1/8 pound ground veal (2 oz)
1/8 pound ground beef (2 oz)
1/8 pound ground pork (2 oz)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and diced
4 stalks celery, rinsed and diced
1 yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 glass red wine
2 cups Mama’s Marinara (see page 116)
2 cups chicken stock
Salt and red pepper flakes
¼ cup grated Parmigina-Reggiano
1 ¼ pound pappardelle (As the author notes, “pappardelle is an extra-wide, flat, long noodle, similar to fettuccine but wider.” In Minneapolis, you can get fresh-cut pappardelle at Broder’s Cucina Italiana on 50th and Penn Avenue. Because that was a little out of my way, I got “fresh” linguine pasta out of the refrigerator case at my local grocery store. Note that the cooking time for fresh pasta is 2-3 minutes, tops.)
Salt
Pepper

In a stockpot, over high heat, brown the meat in the olive oil. Lower the heat and add everything else, except the pasta and cheese, cover, and simmer 1 hour.

Meanwhile, bring a big pot of water to a boil. Add a handful of salt when it begins to simmer. Cook the pasta in salted boiling water, drain, and toss in the pot with the sauce. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Serve with the Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Ann’s Notes:
 Veal is hard to find so if you can’t locate it, just increase the beef or pork.
 I wish Rocco would have given some guidance to how much wine constitutes a glass. I went with 8 ounces but probably could have cut back as I needed to reduce the sauce.
 Speaking of reducing, I maybe went another half hour with the cover off the pot to thicken the sauce.
 I used Pecorino Romano instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano because I happened to have that one hand and because my family prefers Pecorino. The tastes are vastly different – Parmigiano Reggiano is made from cow’s milk and is sweet and nutty in taste; Pecorino Romano is made from sheep’s milk and is tangy and salty (but not much) in taste.
 You will not be likely to find dry Pappardelle pasta unless you visit a specialty foods store but as I mentioned, Broders Cucina Italiana in south Minneapolis carries sheets of homemade pasta that can be cut to order for linguine, fettucini or pappardelle. You can also use the sheets to make lasagna. Remember to follow the (short cooking time) directions. www.broders.com (Not to be confused with borders.com!)

"Barefoot Contessa Parties!" & "Betty Crocker" & "Adventures in Mexican Cooking" & "Culinary Kudzu" & "Wild Women" & "Complete Book of Dressings"

2010-12-08T18:24:00.006-05:00

Dates I made these recipes: December 3-5, 2010

Betty Crocker Party Food – 100 Recipes for the Way You Really Cook by Betty Crocker
Published by: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-470-17349-7 (copyright 2007)
Recipes: Mini Corn Dogs on a Stick – p. 80; Roasted Carrot and Herb Spread – p. 48; Smoky Bacon and Horseradish Dip – p. 58

Girl Food – Cathy’s Cookbook for the Well-Balanced Woman by Cathy Guisewite and Barbara Albright (Cathy Guisewite is a cartoonist who drew the incredibly popular Cathy comic strip.)
Published by: Andrews McMeel Publishing
ISBN: 0-8362-3173-2 (copyright 1997)
Recipe: What Was I Thinking When I Said, “Stop by Anytime,” Major Grey’s Marvelous Mango Chutney Cheese Spread – p. 92

Adventures in Mexican Cooking by Ortho Books staff; recipe manuscript by Angelo Villa and Vicki Barrios
Published by: Ortho Books
ISBN: 071549057206
Recipe: Guacamole II (Avocado with sour cream) – p. 77

The Complete Book of Dressings by Paulette Mitchell
Published by: Macmillan
ISBN: 0-02-052962-7 (copyright 1995)
Recipe: Ranch Dressing – p. 112

Wild Women Throw a Party by Lynette Rohrer Shirk
Published by: Conari Press
ISBN: 10: 1-57324-284-5 (copyright 2007)
Recipe: Bar Nuts – p. 108

Culinary Kudzu: Recollections & Recipes from Growing Up Southern by Keetha DePriest Reed
Published by: Pecan Street Press
ISBN: 0-9719877-1-8 (copyright 2002)
Recipe: Mee Maw’s Trash (Chex Party Mix) – p. 106

1995 KCMR Cookbook – Cookies, Bars, Candies, Frostings) by KCMR Radio, Mason City, Iowa (a series of these spiral-bound books was given to me by a friend from Iowa)
Published by: KCMR Radio
Copyright 1995
Recipe: Deluxe Chocolate Marshmallow Bars submitted by Lorraine Brinkman and Irmgard Becker – p. 47

Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook by Betty Crocker
Published by: Wiley Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-470-87403-5 (copyright 2010 – Second Edition)
Recipe: Almond Bonbons – p. 132

Barefoot Contessa Parties! By Ina Garten
Published by: Clarkson Potter/Publishers
ISBN: 0-609-60644-1 (copyright 2001)
Recipe: Lemon Bars – p. 200

Well, folks, we’re into December and you know what that means, right? Time for a holiday party!

My husband and I just threw our annual holiday extravaganza, Mistletoe Madness, and as per usual, the two of us were racing against the clock to get things done before the first guest arrived. I told him I felt like we were on Iron Chef America when we looked at the clock and both said, in unison, “10 minutes remaining.” And so we chopped and baked and sweated until time expired, after which we threw up our hands, platted the food and presented it to our “judges” – our party guests.

I don’t want to say that our friends are a tough crowd but we do have a lot of friends who are phenomenal cooks and total foodies and so there’s always a little bit of sweat equity (and fear) in every recipe. We needn’t have worried, though, as everyone seemed to enjoy this year’s offerings.

As I did last year, I started putting recipes and books aside the minute the party was done; I am nothing if not organized. Then I run everything by the recipe selection committee (my husband, Andy) who gives a final up and down vote. After that, I go through each recipe, make a spreadsheet of ingredient categories (vegetables, meat, dairy, dry goods, etc.), cross check the doors, and we have liftoff! I try to get all the dry ingredients early, leaving meat and dairy until the last minute to ensure freshness. (That being said, I suspect that some of my cookies didn’t fare as well as I hoped because the baking soda wasn’t band-box fresh. I hate to throw out ingredients but it’s not for nothing that Martha Stewart keeps harping on this topic.)

Back in the buffet table saddle again were the chafing dish meatballs (with chili sauce and grape jelly) I made from last year as well as my martini dip. (For recipes, see December 2009 on my blog). More recipes from Betty Crocker’s Party Book were also added to the mix, one of which my guests liked but I was lukewarm about (a carrot herb spread) and one that was a home run – Smoky Bacon and Horseradish Dip. And because they were so popular, I’m breaking my rule about posting more than one recipe from a cookbook and will give them to you here so you don’t have to stress about trying to find them. And the reason I mention difficulty in finding them is…

…that Betty Crocker couldn’t find one of the recipes, either!

Actually, it wasn’t Betty but rather LaVone who couldn’t find the recipes; Betty must have been out that day. LaVone manned the B. Crocker Hotline (of course there’s a B. Crocker hotline!) and when I asked a question about the Smoky Bacon and Horseradish Dip I totally stumped the panel: “What book is that from?” “What page is it on?” “Do you know when it was published?” “What are some of the ingredients?”

Okay, seriously “Betty?” How could you not know about the existence of a book you published in 2007??? I’m afraid I’m going to have to ding you for that one. But alas, “Betty” had no record of this book and so she had to take the info, consult a product specialist and call me back with an answer to my burning question: “If this recipe is made in a crockpot, do I have to keep it warm in a crockpot when serving or can I keep it at room temperature?

You’ll be pleased to know that Betty gave me the green light to serve it at room temperature and it was promptly inhaled.

By the way, some of you may recall that last year at this time I asked Betty a question about another recipe in this party book and the response was that she didn’t know “because the recipe hadn’t been tested.” I’m not sure I’ve recovered from that answer because how on earth can B. Crocker of all fake people not test a recipe?

But anyway, enough about Betty’s dip let’s talk about the other recipes I made. Here’s the complete lineup: (* indicates recipe is included)

Meatballs with chili/grape sauce (see December 2009 blog)
Crunchy Potato Bites
*Mini Corn Dogs on a Stick (Betty Crocker Party Food)
*Major Grey’s Marvelous Mango Chutney Cheese Spread (Girl Food)
*Guacamole Dip with sour cream (Adventures in Mexican Cooking)
*Roasted Carrot and Herb Spread (Betty Crocker Party Food)
*Smoky Bacon and Horseradish Dip (Betty Crocker Party Food)
*Ranch Dressing (The Complete Book of Dressing)
Martini Dip (see December 2009 blog)
*Bar Nuts (Wild Women Throw a Party)
*Mee Maw’s Trash (a/k/a Chex Party Mix) (Culinary Kudzu)
Sour Cream Drops (A Salute to Chocolate)
*Deluxe Chocolate Marshmallow Bars (1995 KCMR Cookbook – Cookies, Bars, Candies, Frostings)
*Almond Bonbons (Betty Crocker Christmas Cookbook) (a runaway hit!)
Cherry Winks
*Lemon Bars (Barefoot Contessa Parties!)
Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
Hot Mulled Cider (see December 2009 blog)

Winners this year were: Meatballs, Corndogs, all the dips except the Ranch Dressing (at least to my palate), both the nuts and the Chex Mix and the Lemon Bars and the Almond Bonbons. That’s not to say that people didn’t eat everything, it’s just that some were inhaled whereas others were merely nibbled.

Before I get into the recipes, let me just say that I think the Food Network should contact us to put together a “Making Of…” video as what goes on behind the scenes is infinitely more interesting than party day, to wit:

I took my eye off the oven for one second and managed to scorch the first pan of bar nuts. Nuts!! So we went back to Trader Joe’s where the nuts are decently priced (still expensive, though) and Andy took over at the helm. In between times, we had the vent fan going at full throttle. (And how ironic is it that this recipe came out of the book, Wild Women Throw a Party?)

Andy lobbied hard for the mini-corn dogs saying “they would be fun” only to curse up a storm when putting them together one hour before party time. Cutting up the biscuit dough required for the corn dogs (and we made a double batch) was laborious and all the while he kept muttering “next year I’m using phyllo dough!” (I’m not sure that will work but am hesitant to call B. Crocker back seeing as how they can’t even find the damned cookbook the recipe came from.).

When it came time to assemble the almond bonbons, I started to wrap the almond paste around the ball of dough when in fact it was the exact opposite. Good thing Andy was there to set me straight. (I was pretty tired at that point and that is never a good time to have to read detailed directions) As I said earlier, these were a big hit and looked very festive with some green and red sugar sprinkles on them. I told a friend who came to the party straight from the Vikings football game (I am a die-hard Packer fan) that the sugar sprinkles also came in purple and gold (Vikings colors) but there was no way in holy hell I was putting those colors on a cookie! (She laughed).

It is never a good idea to leave just-baked lemon bars on a back burner of the stove top (the burner was not on) because the heat from the oven almost over-cooked my lemon filling. Just saying! It was not my intention to do so but I had an open area so I took advantage of it and it almost cost me a pan of bars. And Oh Ina, Ina, Ina! (As in Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa). You made the rolling out of the dough sound so easy but it was an absolute nightmare! The dough was supposed to be a half-inch thick and yet some parts were as high as the Hoover Dam, others were scarce on dough, while other sections were crumbly because the dough didn’t hang together…and yet they were inhaled and praised to the high heavens. Go figure. (And might I also say “Whew.”)

The Deluxe Chocolate Marshmallow Bars were almost a disaster because I did, in fact, follow the directions that said to spread the melted marshmallows evenly over the cake. No way should you do this because those marshmallows do not spread well at all (much less evenly) and they started pulling up big chunks of cake with them! So just leave them sit on the cake and you will thank me for it, I promise.

Some final comments: Oven temperatures are NEVER accurate and so I always have an oven thermometer in my oven at all times so I can make sure to bake things at the correct temperature. Believe it or not, I have to set my oven to 380 if I want it to get to 350 (and it’s a new oven and the calibration was checked by the service department. But alas, even they said the oven temperature will still be off, regardless of what they did to it. Phooey).

Also, I often cook things back to back if they are going in at the same temperature but this year, I think the cookies suffered a bit because of it. It’s not that the oven wasn’t at the correct temperature because it was (see note above) but baking one batch of cookies when the oven was just turned on and cooking another batch at the end of the cycle can yield different results. Next year, I think I will bake a couple at a time and then stop.

Almost all recipes are “off” on the count of how many to make. In some cases, I cut the recipe in half and it was just right but more often than not, I had to double the recipe to get enough yield for the party.

Finally, at the end of the day, nobody cares what you made or how you got there, it’s just time to have fun. While I do have a rep for making really good food, all from scratch, it’s the people that make the party fun…and I have fun friends.

Happy Mistletoe Madness, everyone!

Mistletoe Madness 2010 – Recipes

Mini Corn Dogs on a Stick – 40 servings (1 corn dog each) (We doubled this recipe)
40 wooden toothpicks
1 package (16 ounces) cocktail-size hot dogs (about 40 pieces)
1 can (12 oz) refrigerated flaky biscuits (10 biscuits)
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
½ cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon sugar
¾ cup ketchup (for dipping)
¾ cup yellow mustard (for dipping)

Heat oven to 400F. Grease cookie sheet with shortening or spray with cooking spray. Insert toothpick into narrow end of each wiener. Separate dough into 10 biscuits; carefully divide each biscuit horizontally into 4 rounds. Wrap sides and top of each wiener with dough round, pinching edges to seal. (Note: It took about an hour to do 80 wieners. Plan ahead.).

In a pie plate, mix egg and m ilk. On a plate, mix cornmeal and sugar. Roll each wrapped wiener in egg mixture, then roll lightly in cornmeal mixture. Place seam side down on cookie sheet.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until tops are light golden brown and bottoms are golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet with spatula. Serve with ketchup and mustard.

Major Grey’s Marvelous Mango Chutney Cheese Spread – Makes 8-10 servings
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
3 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Few drops of Tabasco pepper sauce
1 jar (10 ounces) Major Grey’s mango chutney, chopped
5 strips of bacon, cooked until drips, drained and crumbled
6 scallions (including tender green tops), chopped

In a medium bowl, using a fork, stir together the cream cheese, 1 ½ cups of the Cheddar cheese, and the pepper sauce until combined. Spread the mixture over an 8- to 10-inch serving dish, smoothing the surface evenly.

Spread the chutney over the surface. Sprinkle the chutney with the remaining 1 ½ cups of Cheddar cheese, the bacon, and the scallions. Serve immediately with crackers or celery sticks. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers for up to two days.

Guacamole Dip (with sour cream) – makes about 2 ½ cups
2 large avocadoes, peeled and coarsely mashed
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/3 cup sour cream
1 small clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
1 tomato, diced
½ onion, minced
Few sprigs cilantro, slightly chopped

Combine ingredients in order given. Stir briefly after adding each ingredient. (We skipped the cilantro as people either love it or hate it. We aim to please!)

Roasted Carrot and Herb Spread – 20 servings
2 pounds baby-cut carrots
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 medium onion, cut into 8 wedges and separated
¼ cup olive or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
¾ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Baguette slices or crackers, if desired (Note: I think it’s hilarious that they mention serving it on baguette slices or crackers, if desired, because one of my friends wanted to just sit down and eat the entire bowl with a fork!).

Heat oven to 350F. Spray jelly roll pan (Betty says to use a 15 ½ x 10 ½ x 1 inch pan) with cooking spray

Place carrots, sweet potato and onion in pan. Drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. Stir to coat. Bake uncovered 35 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender.

Place vegetable mixture in food processor. Cover and process until blended. Spoon into serving bowl. Serve warm, or cover and refrigerate until serving time.

Ann’s notes: This dish did not live up to my expectations but my guests loved it. I thought the carrot was too coarse and too sweet and the spices fell short of making this the savory spread I was expecting. I think, though, that this is a recipe you could tweak without too many problems.

Smoky Bacon and Horseradish Dip – 24 servings (This is now a new party “must” for me!)
1 clove garlic finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped (1/4 cup)
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, cubed
2 cups shredded Gruyere cheese (8 ounces)
1 cup half-and-half
8 slices peppered smoked bacon, crisply cooked and chopped (My husband was so cute. When he looked at the price, he said “Can’t we just pepper it ourselves?” Hahahahahaha…no.)
2 tablespoons cream-style prepared horseradish
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
French or herbed bread crumbs, if desired
Water crackers, if desired

Mix garlic, onion, cream cheese, Gruyere cheese and half-and-half in 1 1/2-quart slow cooker.

Cover and cook on low heat setting 2 ½ to 3 hours or until mixture is hot.

Stir in bacon, horseradish and parsley. Cover and cook on high heat setting about 15 minutes or until mixture is hot. Serve with bread cubes or crackers for dipping.

Betty says that you can use precooked bacon slices found in the deli section of the supermarket. There’s no need to cook; just chop and stir into the mixture.

Betty also says (because I called and asked) that you do not need to serve this mixture warm; room temperature is just fine. But if you do serve it warm, keep it in the crockpot as putting it in a fondue pot will cause it to burn. You need low heat or no heat at all.

Ranch Dressing – makes ½ cup (I doubled the recipe)
¼ cup low-fat cottage cheese
¼ cup low-fat buttermilk
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon minced shallot
¼ teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon minced fresh oregano (or ¼ teaspoon dried oregano)
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme)
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
Dash salt, or to taste

Ann’s note: I did not like the oregano in this dressing at all, at all, at all! It just didn’t taste like the ranch dressing I was used to. Were I to make this again (and I won’t be), I might lower the amount of oregano and/or leave it out all together.

Place the cottage cheese, buttermilk, lemon juice, shallot and mustard in a blender; puree until smooth. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Taste; adjust seasonings. Stir before serving.

Advance preparation: If dried herbs are used, allow the dressing to stand for 15 to 30 minutes before serving. This dressing will keep for 2 days in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator.

Bar Nuts – serves 8 (I doubled the recipe)
8 ounces whole almonds (it doesn’t say but I used unsalted)
8 ounces cashews (it doesn’t say but I used unsalted)
½ cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cumin
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Toss the almonds and cashews in a bowl with the honey and oil. Sprinkle the salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper over the nuts and toss to coat.

Bake 15 minutes, stir, and bake another 10 minutes until crisp and golden. (I followed this direction the first time and baked for 15 and then got another 5 or so minutes in and they all charred. When Andy remade them, he started at 10 minutes and then checked after 5 and left them another 5 and then pulled them out. So I’d say no more than 20 minutes tops or you’ll be left crying over charred nuts (expensive charred nuts) like I was!)

Cool and separate into individual nuts using oiled fingers. (And good luck with that. We still ended up with clusters!).

Store in an airtight container.

Mee Maw’s Trash (Chex Party Mix) – serves…a lot. And I mean a lot!
2 quarts mixed nuts
2 quarts pecans
1 (15-ounce) bag pretzel rods
1 (7.5-ounce) bag Bugles (plain)
1 (16-ounce) box Corn Chex cereal
1 (16-ounce) box Rice Chex cereal
1 (16-ounce box) Wheat Chex cereal
2 cups butter
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/3 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon seasoned salt
2 teaspoons red pepper

So about this recipe…I can’t stress enough about how much this makes. We added all dry ingredients to a roasting pan and overflowed so we took out half the cereal. It was still full to the brim and so to mix the cereal with the butter and spices, we dumped everything into a garbage bag so we could coat it all. There was no question of stirring it every 20 to 30 minutes as directed or we would have had a mess in our oven. So I suggest cutting the recipe down into fourths and then go from there. That being said, I liked this recipe because of the addition of the nuts (and boy, will you want to go light on those as they are pricey) and the Bugles, especially the Bugles, because what woman out there hasn’t pretended they were fake fingernails?!

As to the cookbook that contained this recipe, Culinary Kudzu turned out to be the elusive Holy Grails of cookbooks. I saw it mentioned in a magazine a few years back and the article noted that it was out of print making it hard to find and they weren’t kidding! I finally found this a while back on somebody’s website and was downright giddy with excitement. (Kudzu, by the way, is a plant that grows and grows and grows pretty much taking over lawns and other grassy areas. And “Mee Maw” is what many southerners call their grandmother.)

Preheat the oven to 250F. Melt butter in a large roasting pan in oven (I opted for the microwave) and stir in the seasonings. Gradually stir in remaining ingredients until evenly coated.

Bake 2 hours, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool.

Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Deluxe Chocolate Marshmallow Bars – no amount given
¾ cup butter or margarine
1 ½ cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cup flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 Tbsp Baking cocoa
½ cup chopped nuts (optional)
4 cups miniature marshmallows
1 1/3 cup chocolate chips
3 Tbsp butter or margarine
1 cup peanut butter
2 cups Rice Krispies

Cream butter and sugar then add eggs and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa; add to creamed mixture. Stir in nuts if desired. Spread in a greased jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes. Sprinkle marshmallows evenly over the cake. Return to the oven for 2-3 minutes. (And then I recommend you skip this next part: “Using a knife dipped in water, spread evenly over cake.”) Cool the cake. For the topping, combine chocolate chips, butter or margarine and peanut butter in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat stirring constantly until melted and blended. Remove from heat. Stir in cereal. Spread over bars. Chill.

Almond Bonbons – makes about 3 dozen cookies
Cookies
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ package (7-or8-oz size) almond paste

Almond Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon almond extract
4 to 5 teaspoons milk
Decorator sugar crystals, if desired
Note: I made these cookies late on Saturday night and think I accidentally used the entire can (versus package) of almond paste. And if you ask me (and you didn’t) the bonbons were the better for it!

Heat oven to 375F. In large bowl, beat flour, butter, 1/3 cup powdered sugar, 2 T milk and the vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Cut almond paste into ½-inch slices; cut each slice into fourths.

Shape 1-inch ball of dough around each piece of almond paste. Gently roll to form ball. One ungreased cookie sheet, place balls about 1 inch apart.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set and bottom is golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix all glaze ingredients until smooth. Dip tops of cookies in the glaze and sprinkle with sugar crystals.

Lemon Bars - makes 20 squares or 40 triangles
For the crust
½ pound unsalted butter at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

For the filling
6 extra-large eggs at room temperature (Note: use large eggs if you don’t have extra-large on hand)
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest (Ina said 4-6 lemons, I used two)
1 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup all-purpose flour
Confectioners’ sugar; for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour and salt and, with the mixer on low, add to the butter until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into a 9x13x2-inch baking sheet, building up a ½-inch edge on all sides. Chill. (Note: as previously stated, this dough was a bitch to work with. I ended up using a 9x13 pan and most definitely was well over her ½-inch edge but that’s life.)

Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes until filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.

Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

"The Great Year-Round Turkey Cookbook" - Turkey Cumberland with Apple-Sweet Sausage Stuffing

2010-11-28T18:46:00.006-05:00

Date my husband made these recipes: November 26, 2010 (the day after Thanksgiving)

The Great Year-Round Turkey Cookbook by Anita Borghese
Published by: Stein and Day
© 1979
Recipes: Turkey Cumberland – p. 99 and Apple-Sweet Sausage Stuffing – p. 136

We usually spend Thanksgiving Day with my husband’s family but this year, everyone’s schedule was such that we ended up having T-Day on Friday. And this was no big deal except I had to work and so Andy ended up doing all the cooking. He is a fine cook so no worries there. My job this year was to hand him some recipe books and magazines and let him go to it. His job: make the turkey, stuffing and dessert.

One of the books I got in my huge haul (47 books) from an estate sale this October is today’s featured book: The Great Year-Round Turkey Cookbook. Yes, I know, the point of this book is that one can cook turkey year-round but hey, Thanksgiving was upon us and so one must do what one must do.

Normally my rule is to make one recipe per book but who are we kidding here? Turkey and stuffing go together and so I’m posting two recipes for your consideration. We opted to turn the stuffing into “dressing” cooking it separately outside the bird; both recipes were good although the turkey was a little less moist that anticipated.

But speaking of moist turkey, because the schedules were so goofy on Thanksgiving Day we decided to take a run up to Key’s Café to get take out turkey dinners as it was just the two of us. Key's is your basic comfort food restaurant and they make a damned fine turkey dinner all year round. It is not unusual for us to grab some take out turkey in the middle of summer. When you get a craving, you get a craving.

On Thanksgiving, Key's is open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and I just had to hoot when they informed me by phone the day before that turkey would be served starting at 10 a.m. I’ve eaten a lot of odd things during what I consider to be the breakfast hour but never have I considered turkey and fixings. Guess I’m behind times on that one. We opted for a more civilized 1:00 p.m. pickup but then put the dinners in the refrigerator and lounged around for a couple of hours before eating. And the beauty of that was that we could get comfortable and eat our dinner at the same time – perfect.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Turkey Cumberland – makes 6 to 8 servings
6 pound turkey
Salt
¼ cup margarine or butter
½ cup red or black currant jelly
¼ cup Port wine
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
Cayenne pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cornstarch combined with 2 tablespoons cold water
Turkey stock or chicken broth (optional)

Wash and pat turkey half thoroughly dry with paper towels. Rub cut side of turkey half with salt. Place cut side down, in shallow roasting pan just large enough to fit comfortably. Preheat oven at 325. (Note: this chapter of the book talks about using cut-up turkey and mixed parts, thus the reference to “pat turkey half.” We used a whole turkey and nobody was the wiser.)

Melt the margarine or butter in a small saucepan with the current jelly. Heat, stirring, until the jelly has melted. Remove from heat and stir in the Port, mustard, lemon juice, vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt and a dash of cayenne, or to taste. Brush the turkey all over with the currant jelly mixture.

Roast until meat thermometer inserted in center of inside thigh muscle adjoining the body registers 180 to 185 degrees or until tender when pierced with a sharp-tined folk, brushing with the currant jelly mixture every 20 minutes. If the wing starts to brown too much, wrap it in aluminum foil. Set turkey on a wooden carving board and allow to stand 15-20 minutes before carving. Meanwhile, spoon off excess fat from the roasting pan. Add the remaining currant jelly mixture along with the cornstarch mixture. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Lower heat and simmer a few minutes. If the sauce is too thick add a little turkey stock or chicken broth and heat thoroughly.

Apple-Sweet Sausage Stuffing (no serving size given but likely 6-8 people)
1 ½ pounds Italian sweet sausage
2 cups chopped onions
1 ½ cups diced celery
2 cups peeled, diced, tart apples
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon marjoram
½ teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
8 cups whole grain bread cubes, toasted in moderate oven until dry and lightly toasted
¼ cup freshly grated Parmesan, Romano or Sardo cheese

Slit sausage and remove casing. Break up the sausage and sauté in a skillet, turning and continuing to break up until lightly browned. Remove the sausage with a slotted spoon and place it in a bowl. To the fat remaining in the skillet add the onions and celery and sauté a few minutes longer. Add the mixture to the sausage meat in the bowl.

Beat the eggs lightly and add the sage, marjoram, thyme, basil, salt, and pepper. Add to the sausage mixture. Add the toasted bread cubes and the cheese and mix well. Stuff the turkey immediately (or place in a separate pan and bake at 325 along with the turkey). You’ll have to check periodically to make sure it doesn’t dry out.

"All About Sausage by Oscar Mayer & Co." - Wiener Cheesaroni

2010-11-25T16:18:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: November 21, 2010 (the annual Packer-Viking game)

All About Sausage by Oscar Mayer & Co.
Published by: Oscar Mayer & Co.
© 1973
Recipe: Weiner Cheesaroni – p. 50

Today marked the 100th meeting of the Green Bay Packers (yay!) and the Minnesota Vikings (boo!). And what a glorious meeting it was with the Packers winning 31-3. Tee hee hee. All I can say is payback’s a bitch: last year with Brett Favre as quarterback (having left the Packers in a huff 2 years before), the team I call the Vike-Queens smoked us. But this year to my great enjoyment, we royally embarrassed our rival as well as our ex-quarterback (traitor!) causing the Vikings owners to fire coach Brad Childress (that’s “Chilly” to those in the know), and Brett Favre to “re-evaluate” the game. Many sports announcers (and me) took this to mean he might sit out the rest of the season but of course not. Yesterday he announced (and not for the first time) that he didn’t MEAN he was going to quit. It just meant he was evaluating the rest of the season. Uh huh, right. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

At any rate, prior to the game, I decided to pay homage to my Packers by making something that just screams “Wisconsin:” sausage and cheese.

Now I have to tell you that I already knew, deep down in my gut, that this dish would probably not live up to the standards set by the back-to-back home runs of Craig Claiborne’s meals and it did not disappoint; it wasn’t a total disaster but it was close. In fact, when I informed my husband that I was making “Weiner Cheesaroni” for dinner, his cute little nose curled up in a gesture I can only describe as the universal signal for “Ew.” Honey, not every recipe can be a winner.

Here’s what is inherently wrong with this dish: it’s not the wieners or cheese or even macaroni that’s the problem, it’s the addition of caraway seeds and green onion. As I’ve said many times before in this blog though, I make the recipes as written and so like it or not, I went with ingredients I knew would be problematic and they were.

So here’s what I think could possibly salvage this next time around: scrap the caraway seeds and the green onion and use real onion instead. I’d sauté it first so the onion isn’t so sharp. And I’d add real cheese to the dish as well to make it extra creamy. Nothing against Campbell’s soup but in this case that canned flavor was just too much.

I’m not sure what to substitute for a spice, if anything, but definitely pass on the caraway seeds or you, too, will experience an “Ew” moment!

And speaking of “Ew” moments, I’d say the Packers handed Vikings fans enough “Ew” moments to last a lifetime. Go Pack Go!!

By the way, when I told the name of this dish to a coworker, he said “It sounds like a great name for a band!” (How true is that?!) Since “cheesearoni” sounds like Beefaroni (a popular canned macaroni product from the 60’s) we also promptly launched into the Beefaroni song. Okay, everybody: “We’re having Beefaroni. Made from macaroni. Beefaroni’s full of meat. Beefaroni’s really neat. Beefaroni’s fun to eat. Hooray! For Beefaroni!”

Thank you, thank you. I’m here all week…..

Wiener Cheesaroni – serves 5
1 pound package (10 wieners) ((I used half the amount but did buy Unsinger’s wieners, made in Milwaukee, WI).
7 ounces macaroni, cooked
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) condensed cheese soup
2/3 cup milk
½ cup chopped green onions
1 teaspoon dry mustard
½ teaspoon caraway seed

Preheat oven to 350. Cut half the wieners into bite-size pieces; combine with remaining ingredients in 2-quart casserole. Top with remaining whole wieners. Cover and bake 30 minutes, or until heated through.

"The Chinese Cookbook" by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee - The Best Fried Rice

2010-11-18T21:03:00.004-05:00

Date I made this recipe: November 14, 2010

The Chinese Cookbook by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee
Published by: J.B. Lippincott Company
© 1972 – Fourth printing
Recipe: The Best Fried Rice – p. 352-353

So I’m of the mind that if some is good, more is better and so if some Craig Claiborne was good, more of him and his delicious recipes was better – way better! And that’s how I came to cook from The Chinese Cookbook written by Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee. And honestly, when that man says this is a recipe for “the best” fried rice, he was not kidding. This was so danged good that I honestly could have eaten it all in one sitting, with no apologies to my spouse whatsoever.

Now you may be thinking “So what’s the big deal? There are tons of Chinese cookbooks out there.” Au contraire, Pierre, there are now, but trust me, back when this was written, there just wasn’t a lot available.

And so as I discussed in last week’s blog, Craig once again broke ground, taking some of China’s best recipe and breaking them down into something that most Americans could make without too much work and for this I most heartily thank him.

So what to make, what to make? Lo Mein? Kung Pao Chicken? Chinese Pork Buns? (Oooo-I love Chinese Pork Buns!). All so good but I couldn’t decide so I threw the book over to my hubby and he said “How about the fried rice?”

The man is genius.

Here’s what I liked best about this “best” fried rice—it was not greasy. Not one little bit greasy, not one little bit overly soy-sauced and just oh so tasty. Like I said, Andy was in grave danger of going hungry for the evening because I could not quit shoveling (and I do mean shoveling—with chop sticks, naturally) this dish into my mouth. I think I came up for air now and then but am not sure.

And those of you without a wok have no fear—Target sells a perfectly decent one for not a mere $29.99 (and they threw in a wooden spatula to boot!). If all else fails, (and I’ve never done this) but use a large skillet or even a soup pot so you can rapidly stir the ingredients and mix things properly.

The only substitute I made in this dish was that I forgot to get peas but I had a frozen package of mixed veggies and used that instead. So there were bits of corn and green beans in the dish. Who cared? Oh—and the instructions to slice the shrimp in half lengthwise? Yeah, right. I chopped them into three pieces and that’s all there is to that.

Eat and enjoy. And speaking of enjoy, “enjoy” rhymes with “La Choy.” La Choy is an American company that produces Chinese food items and when I was growing up, this was as close as I was ever going to get to Chinese food without going to Chinatown…only of course, this stuff didn’t taste anything like Chinese food…but I digress. So show of hands, how many of you are old enough to remember the jingle for this (American/Asian) product “La Choy makes Chinese food...swing American!” (Perhaps you had to be there).

This dish doesn’t taste anything like canned Chinese food and for that you will thank me and Craig Claiborne and Virginia Lee.

The Best Fried Rice – yield 8 to 12 servings (unless you’re me in which case, one. One, big serving)
5 cups cold cooked rice (cooked at least one day in advance)
1 cup small raw shrimps, shelled, deveined, and split in half lengthwise
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons peanut, vegetable, or corn oil
2/3 cup cubed Chinese sausages (2 small) or cooked ham
3 eggs
½ cup cooked fresh or frozen green peas
1 tablespoon salt, approximately (Okay—only if you like eating salt licks will you like this much salt. We went with one teaspoon and that was plenty.)
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
½ cup chopped scallions, green part included

Flake the rice so that the grains do not stick together. Set aside.

Combine the shrimps with the soda and salt and let stand 15 minutes or longer. Rinse thoroughly in cold water and pat dry on paper toweling.

Heat the oil in a wok or skillet until it is almost smoking and add the shrimps. Cook, stirring quickly and turning them in the oil until they turn pin, about 30 seconds. Remove them to a sieve fitted over a mixing bowl and let them drain well. Return the oil from the drained shrimps to the pan.

Add the sausages or ham to the pan and cook just to heat through, stirring. Add the rice, stirring rapidly, and cook until thoroughly heated without browning.

Do the following quickly: Make a well in the center of the rice and add the eggs, stirring constantly. When they have a soft-scrambled consistency, start incorporating the rice, stirring in a circular fashion.

When all the rice and eggs are blended, add the peas and the salt, stirring. Stir in the oyster sauce and the cooked shrimps, tossing the rice over and over to blend everything. Stir in the bean sprouts and cook, stirring and tossing, about 30 seconds. Add the scallions and serve immediately.

"Craig Claiborne's Favorites" - French Pot Roast with Red-Wine Sauce

2010-11-10T20:44:00.006-05:00

Date I made this recipe: November 7, 2010

Craig Claiborne’s Favorites (Series II) from The New York Times
Published by Times Books
© 1975
Recipe: French Post Roast with Red-Wine Sauce p. 291 (September 21, East Hampton, “Side Dish, Front and Center” with Pierre Franey) (Note: this recipe calls for an overnight marinade plus 3 hours of cooking)

Back around the first of October, I was listening to the radio show, The Splendid Table, when I heard Lynne Rossetto Kasper and guest, southern writer, John T. Edge, talk about the influence Craig Claiborne had on American cooking. At the time, I made a mental note to make something of his, seeing as how I have a couple of his cookbooks but one thing led to another and here we are in November. Time flies when you are having cooking fun!

I don’t know as I had much knowledge of Craig until I started reading James Villas’ cookbooks several years ago. Craig and James were good friends and James often mentioned cooking with Craig (and partying with Craig) in his books.

Like James Villas and John T. Edge, Craig Claiborne was from the south. There’s just something about southern cooking and southern life that intrigues me even though I can’t imagine living there (because of critters—like snakes and whatnot).

Craig, though, branched out beyond the south, not only with his recipes but with his writing; as restaurant critic and food editor of The New York Times, he got to go around the world without leaving Manhattan. The availability of a vast variety of food is one of the many things I love about New York.

What I really like about this cookbook is that each chapter is a theme. On one page, you can find a recipe for Black Forest Cake, taken from the entry on February 9 (1975) titled Pride of the Forest, and a few pages later, you’ll find a chapter titled Persian Cookery. Let me just say that I had a hard time selecting a recipe but am glad I waited until now to make the pot roast with wine—a perfect dish for a fall day. (Let me also just say that my house had a wonderful mulled wine smell in it for two days thanks to the wine and spice marinade this roast had to rest in!).

And speaking of marinade, you should know that you need to plan in advance to make this recipe. Your meat has to marinade minimally overnight (if not longer) and then you need to allow 3 hours for cooking time. Making the marinade was a piece of cake though, so don’t let a little thing like that deter you! You should also know that I emptied out two bottles of wine for the marinade but drew the line at opening a third bottle and that was wise because as it is, the stuff splashed all over my refrigerator and floor. Oops! (And no, I didn’t have a little nip as I was preparing the dish.) (And let me just say that this is when it pays to lay in a case of “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s!).

And speaking of wine, let me just mention that Craig (and James Villas) often cooked and collaborated with Frenchman (chef) Pierre Franey. Craig and Pierre share this recipe and Pierre likely had a hand in the wine selection, both for the table and the pot roast.

And speaking (once again) of the pot roast, the pot roast is actually a “side dish” to a potato recipe they named Potatoes Chateau Chinon (p. 292). I decided long ago to make one dish per cookbook and while these potatoes sounded good, I was more interested in the roast and so went with the side dish instead. (And by the way, isn’t making the roast a side dish creative?) But you, dear reader, are not held to my standard so knock yourselves out!

Finally, I have waxed poetic about James Villas cookbooks in previous blogs but that’s more due to his mother (and co-author), Martha Pearl Villas. That was one damned funny woman and to this day, her recipe for Coconut Cake is one of the best things I’ve ever made. You can read about her and it on my blog posting from June 27, 2007; you can also link to it by clicking on “Martha Pearl Villas” in the “Labels” section on the right-hand side of the page. Martha Pearl passed away last January and my, oh my how I wish I had met that woman! She liked to give everyone grief in the kitchen and I have no doubt that Craig and Pierre caught an earful from her on more than one occasion!

To listen to The Splendid Table discussion about Craig click: http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/listings/101002/

French Pot Roast with Red-Wine Sauce – 6 to 10 servings
1 5-6 pound round beef roast
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 ¼ cups chopped onion; use 1 ½ cups to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
2 ¼ cups chopped carrots; use 1 ½ cups to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
1 ½ cups chopped celery; use 1 cup to make the marinade and the remainder the next day
2 cups chopped leeks, optional (I like leeks so used them in the marinade)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 sprigs parsley
1 teaspoon each of leaf sage, dried rosemary, marjoram, and coriander seeds (Note: you will need to make a cheesecloth bag of these spices)
4 to 5 cups dry red wine (or whatever is necessary to cover the roast)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
¾ cup diced salt pork or 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup flour
2 cups beef broth

Place the beef in a mixing bowl.

Combine the vinegar, 1 ½ cups each chopped onion and carrots, 1 cup of celery, all the leeks (2 cups), garlic and parsley in a saucepan. Tie the sage, rosemary, marjoram, and coriander seeds in a cheesecloth bag and add the bag. Bring to the boil, stirring.

Pour the vinegar mixture over the meat and add enough wine to barely cover the meat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cover closely and refrigerate overnight or longer, up to 3 days.

….24 hours later, after having poured your own glass of wine….

Remove the meat and pat it dry. Strain and reserve 3 cups of the liquid. Discard the remaining liquid and vegetables.

Heat the pork (or just the oil) in a heavy Dutch oven or casserole and cook, stirring, until it is rendered of fat. Scoop out and discard the solids.

Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper. Add it to the Dutch oven or casserole and brown well on all sides. Transfer the meat to a warm place.

Add the remaining ¾ cup each of chopped onion and carrots and remaining ½ cup of celery. Cook, stirring, until onion is wilted. Sprinkle with the four and stir to blend thoroughly. Add the reserved marinade and beef broth, stirring with a wire whisk. When the mixture is thickened, add the meat. Cover closely and cook over low heat about 3 hours or until the roast is thoroughly tender.

Remove the meat and keep it warm. Cook the sauce down to the desired consistency. Slice the meat and serve with the sauce and with potatoes Chateau Chinon.

"Cooking from the Heart - The Hmong Kitchen in America" - Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken

2010-11-01T19:56:00.005-05:00

Date I made this recipe: October 31, 2010

Cooking from the Heart – The Hmong Kitchen in America by Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang
Published by: University of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5326-3
Recipe: Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken – p. 114-115

Today, class, many of you are going to get a geography/sociology lesson. This book is about Hmong (pronounced “Mung”) recipes and depending on where you live in America, you may not be familiar with this culture.

The Hmong people are mountain people from China, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. My husband says that they are basically a people without a country and that’s because they haven’t really settled in one place.

During the Vietnam War, the Hmong assisted the United States in fighting the Laotian Communist government. Although many Hmong settled in camps in Thailand during and after the war, many were brought to the United States by religious groups offering them refugee status.

Today the highest concentration of Hmong is in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. In Minnesota, they primarily live in an area of St. Paul called “Frogtown” and a drive by the Hmong Market the other day (a cross between an outdoor farmer’s market and a grocery store) prompted me to use this cookbook (recently issued, I might add).

For those familiar with Asian foods, Hmong food is pretty similar. This dish was something I had never had before and seemed like a good thing to make on a Sunday.

And speaking of making this…you might be tempted, like I was, to chop your veggies in a Cuisinart. Resist that temptation. I went a bit overboard and pulsed the entire stuffing mixture and let’s just say that had to be the most unattractive stuffing I have ever seen. Luckily it tasted better than it looked. My husband really liked the flavors but I am not a fan of mint and felt like I was sucking on a Mojito. I suggest adjusting your ingredients accordingly.

Before I leave you with the recipe, let me pass on a few recommendations for books and movies that do an excellent job of providing a peek into Hmong life.

A book that is just absolutely outstanding is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. This book chronicles the life of a Hmong family dealing with a young daughter who has epilepsy. The family doesn’t know the Western term for this affliction and so they dub it “the spirit catches you and you fall down.” This book highlights the challenges of Western medicine in dealing with traditional Eastern methods of treatment, including the sacrificing of animals and the summoning of a “witch doctor” to eliminate the evil spirits. It is enlightening as it is moving and I’m sure you will be blown away.

The movie that I highly recommend is Gran Torino, starring (and directed by) Clint Eastwood. Here’s the best thing about this movie: the screenplay was written by local boy, Nick Schenk, who happens to be a friend and former writing collaborator of my brother-in-law, Ben Martin (Ben and his buddies had a retrospect of their cable shows many years ago at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis’ modern art museum. This was a well-deserved high honor). Ben was just busting his buttons with pride on Nick’s behalf when this movie came out. Although the story is based on experiences with the Twin Cities Hmong community, for various and sundry reasons, the movie was made in Detroit. Oh well.

Gran Torino is the story of a grizzled old Korean War veteran (Eastwood) who is having a hard time dealing with the “Huh-mong” people who live next door. At the beginning of the movie, Eastwood’s prejudice against the Hmong ring out loud and clear. But of course things change and his attitude takes a complete 360 after a series of events take place. It’s a great movie and to Nick I say – “Well done!”

One a final note, you will need more time that the recipe calls for when roasting this chicken. The recipe said to roast it for 40 minutes, then baste with coconut milk and then cook approximately 30 more minutes. Nuh uh. The meat was pink and we had to put it in the microwave. Be sure to use a meat thermometer (although note, ours was not much help!)

Whole Roasted Coconut Chicken – serving size not indicated
(A note at the end of the recipe indicates that this recipe was adapted from the Hmong Recipe Cook Book, edited by Sharon Sawyer. (First Presbyterian Church, South St. Paul, 1986).

1 young frying chicken, at least 5 pounds
3 teaspoons salt (you will reserve some of this for later)
½ pound lean ground pork
4 to 6 hot Thai chili peppers, minced (more or less, depending upon desired heat)
1 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 cup toasted peanuts, coarsely ground
1 cup mint leaves, chopped
1 cup fresh cilantro sprigs, chopped
5 green onion, white and green parts, chopped
1 can coconut milk (14 ounces)
1 tablespoon fish sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash the chicken well with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Remove the giblets and refrigerate for use in another dish. Sprinkle the chicken inside and out with 2 teaspoons of salt.

In a large bowl, mix the ground pork, chili peppers, pepper, and the remaining teaspoon of salt. Add the peanuts, mint, cilantro, green onions, and half of the can of coconut milk and mix well. Stuff the chicken with about two-thirds of the pork mixture. Put the chicken in a baking dish, breast side up. Tuck the wings underneath. Loose the skin over the breast and push the rest of the stuffing under the skin, patting the surface to distribute the stuffing equally. Sprinkle the chicken with the fish sauce, and cover.

Bake for 40 minutes. Remove the lid and pour the rest of the coconut milk over the chicken. Baste several times with the pan drippings while the chicken continues to cook. It is done when a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the stuffing registers 170 degrees and the chicken is golden brown (about 30 more minutes). (NOTE: as I stated before, use your meat thermometer religiously during this process. I recommend using it on the stuffing and the meat or you will get wacky results!).

"In the Kitchen with Love" by Sophia Loren - Baked Pasta

2010-10-28T22:37:00.006-04:00

Date I made this recipe: October 24, 2010

In the Kitchen with Love by Sophia Loren
Published by: Doubleday & Company, Inc.
© 1972
Recipe: Baked Pasta I – p. 42-43

A week ago Monday was my Aunt Rose’s 92nd birthday. Wow—what an accomplishment. She’s closing in on her mother’s record (her mother being my Grandma Vita who lived to be 97 years old). In her later years, my grandmother forgot how old she was and locked and loaded on age 85 (or 86 or 87) depending on when you asked her. “Grandma, how old are you?” we asked. “You believe-a me? Eighty seven. You believe-a me?”

Like we were going to tell her we didn’t!

At any rate, I felt like I should cook something Italian in honor of my aunt (technically, we are Sicilian) and although I have quite the collection of Italian cookbooks, most just didn’t do much for me when I looked through them—at least as far as birthday-appropriate recipes went. But then I saw the cookbook (one of two) written by actress Sophia Loren and thought “Perfect!”

My aunt, like Sophia Loren, is beautiful inside and out. And call me biased but in the cooking department, there is no comparison. Oh, I’m sure Sophia is no slouch but she’s not my aunt.

Now had I really wanted to pay homage to my aunt, I would have made her sauce recipe or at least one of her pasta dishes from our family cookbook. But as simple (and delicious) as her sauce recipe is, I’m not ready to share that yet. So you have to accept Sophia as your substitute du jour. It bites, I know!

Another thing that my aunt and Sophia have in common is that food coming out of their kitchens is made with love—just like the title of Sophia’s book says. As I’m writing this, I am harkening back to all the fabulous meals we ate when we visited (my grandmother lived with my Aunt Rose and Uncle Alex). Why I wasn’t 1000 pounds is beyond me. (My grandma always encouraged us to eat – “mangia, mangia” – because in her eyes we were too skinny – ha!). But contrary to popular belief, most of the food Italians eat is not fattening. Delicious, yes; fattening, no. Of course, how much you eat in one sitting makes all the difference!

Sophia’s cookbook has a range of delicious-sounding dishes but in the end, I decided that simple was better and so settled on baked pasta. Oh, I toyed with making a dish with vermicelli noodles (my last name, Verme, means “worm” in Italian and “vermicelli” means little worm) but didn’t really like the rest of the ingredients.

The number one dish I really wanted to make, and have for years, is a pasta and eggplant recipe. You see years and years (and years and years ago), this recipe was featured in and article and photo shoot about Sophia in Good Housekeeping Magazine. For whatever reason, that photo and recipe stuck in my head, particularly the noodles since they are long and crimped and I had never seen anything like that before. But as much as I would have loved to make that dish, my husband is not fond of eggplant and so there went that. (But let me just say that this dislike only means that every Christmas when my family breaks out the caponata (an appetizer containing eggplant) that’s all the more for me!)

Sophia’s recipes are all written in prose and so creating a shopping list was a little challenging. As it is, the first grocery store I went to was out of fresh basil and I completely forgot about it at the next store and so used dried. And to my amazement, Sophia didn’t include garlic in her sauce recipe. I mean – what the heck is that all about? (For the record, Aunt Rose uses garlic but one must be careful. If you move beyond sautéing it to browning it, it will become bitter).

So anyway…belated birthday wishes, Aunt Rose! (Of course I sent her a card—I mean, as if…). This recipe is good but still pales in comparison to your cooking.

As grandma would say “Mangia, mangia!”

(By the way, one of my favorite episodes of I Love Lucy was when Lucy and company were in Italy while back in New York, Little Ricky celebrated his birthday. Lucy, of course, was upset at missing Little Ricky's big day. In an attempt to cheer Lucy up, one of the little boys who shined shoes at the hotel announced “She’s-a my birthday, too.” Lucy then decided to throw him a party complete with presents. Well, deciding if some is good, more is better, the little boy recruited all of his friends to come to the party where they all announced “She’s-a my birthday, too!” I have seen this episode a hundred times and it is always funny - always!) (And just so you know, for me, October 9th was "She's a my birthday, too!")

Baked Pasta I – serves 6 or so
1 onion, minced
1 large can diced tomatoes (I used Pomi a boxed, chopped tomato)
1 8-oz ball mozzarella
Fresh basil leaves (or a handful of dried if you don’t have fresh)
½ teaspoon of sugar (or more, to taste)
Pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper
1 pound penne pasta (or rigatoni or ziti)
Olive oil (for sautéing)
Grated cheese, preferably pecorino but Parmesan is okay (about 4 oz or so)
Bread crumbs (for sprinkling over the top—maybe a couple of tablespoons)
Small chucks of sausage (If desired—although note, she doesn’t say whether the sausage should be cooked or not and so I passed on using it.)

Sophia says to use 1 tablespoon olive oil to sauté your minced onion. I think that’s too much. I always just coat the bottom of the pan with oil and then put in the onion.

Heat the oil over medium heat then sauté (or brown but I prefer sauté) the onion. Then add tomato pulp (Sophia recommends you run whole tomatoes through a sieve but I tend to go with diced tomatoes for less fuss, less muss). She says to use ½ to 2/3 cup per person; I used 1 large box (24 oz) of chopped tomatoes as it just seemed easier. This makes your sauce a little thicker so adjust according to your taste levels (i.e. you might want to use a blender or Cuisinart to puree the tomatoes).

Add the salt, pepper and sugar and cook over moderate heat for about 20 minutes.

When the sauce is ready, cut the mozzarella into thin short slices then prepare the basil leaves by rubbing them with a clean, dry cloth.

Boil the pasta as directed and then drain. Add a little bit of the sauce to the pasta and stir.

Grease the bottom of a fireproof casserole with oil or butter (or lard, if you have it) and dust with bread crumbs. Add one half of the pasta to the casserole, then more of the sauce, then mozzarella, then some of the basil, grated cheese and sausage if you decided to use it. Cover this with the remainder of the pasta, pour over the rest of the sauce, add a little more cheese, a “veil” of breadcrumbs on top, and finish off with a few drops of oil or a pat of butter or lard.

Put in a hot oven (I set mine to 350) for a few minutes, so that the mozzarella will begin to melt and “bind everything to perfection.” I started with 15 minutes, but the cheese wasn’t melted, so I went another 10 and then decided enough was enough – let’s eat!

"Cooking with Spirits" - Beef Stroganoff Neumann

2010-10-20T21:47:00.004-04:00

Date I made this recipe: October 17, 2010

Cooking with Spirits by Ruth Vendley Neumann
Published by: Reilly & Lee
Copyright 1961
Recipe: Beef Stroganoff Neumann – p. 80

How do I love [the TV show] Mad Men? Let me count the ways--thirteen of them to be exact, one for every episode in this terribly short season. (Note to Matt Weiner—I.want.more.now.)

A few months back, when Mad Men started its 4th season, I made a recipe from The Madison Avenue Cookbook, written, oddly enough, by a former advertising man.

So it seemed fitting to end the season with a nod to the show and what better way to do so than to make a recipe from a cookbook called Cooking with Spirits (spirits being “alcohol” for those unfamiliar with that term)? Alcohol, after all, plays a pivotal role in this series. Back then, drinking in the office was part of the daily work life and even in the early 80’s, my coworkers and I would partake in an occasional liquid lunch with full knowledge and approval of management…mostly because they joined us! Yes, I know—how times have changed…

…but not in my house! I have quite the retro drink cart in my home as well as another beautiful wooden liquor cabinet a friend made me. Although many of the bottles are for show, a few did come in handy for this recipe as I had both red wine and the requisite bourbon on hand. This is especially helpful on a Sunday when the liquor stores are closed (at least in Minnesota; nearby Wisconsin is much more flexible allowing the sale of spirits at a gas station. You’ve got to love that—gas up and get gassed all at the same time!)

So anyway, I got a late start and barely got this dish done in time for the finale but it was worth it. The only complaint is that I am used to my stroganoff being a little thicker than this one was but that’s about it. (By the way, I consider stroganoff a typical 60’s dish along with chicken Kiev and beef burgundy—another perfect touch to celebrate a show taking place during that time).

Before I leave you, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few things about the show. First, was there ever a funnier character than this year’s Miss Blankenship? You had to love the episode where Don, for whom she worked, came in and she yelled at the top of her lungs: “GOOD AFTERNOON. YOUR DAUGHTER’S PSYCHIATRIST CALLED.” In addition to her lack of discretion, Blankenship had an amazing knack for announcing Don’s visitors after they had already been seated in his office. It’s a darned shame that they killed her off this season but such is life. RIP, “Ida.”

And then there’s one of my favorite characters, Roger Sterling. Roger is the king of one-liners and has a knack for making hilarious comments when least expected. My personal favorite was from a couple seasons ago when Don and Betty entertained Roger as well as fellow ad-men Crab Colson and Duck Phillips. When Roger introduced the men to each other he said (and I quote) “Crab, Duck. Duck, Crab.” I say that line all the time if for no other reason than it is funny – damned funny.

At any rate, this is a fun dish that doesn’t involve duck or crab (couldn’t resist) but does have those spirits that Mad Men is known for. Until next summer (sigh)…

Beef Stroganoff Neumann in bourbon and red wine – serves 8 generously2 lb. lean beef, cut into 1-inch cubes and rolled in flour
¼ lb. butter
1 lb. fresh mushrooms, sliced, or 2 3-oz. cans broiled mushrooms
6 medium onion, sliced thin
1 cup canned tomatoes
1 cup dry red wine
2 tsp. celery salt
¼ tsp. pepper
1 tsp. paprika
1 clove garlic, minced
3 beef bouillon cubes
T tbsp. bourbon
1 tbsp. cornstarch
1 cup sour cream
1 cup pitted ripe olives, liquid reserved
½ cup liquid from can of ripe olives
Noodles or rice

Brown meat in butter over low heat. Add mushrooms and onions and cook 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, wine, seasonings, garlic and bouillon cubes. Cover and simmer at low heat for about an hour or until meat is tender. Mix bourbon and cornstarch until smooth, and add to meat mixture. Cover and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Then stir in sour cream and ripe olives and simmer for 10 minutes longer. If extra liquid is needed for gravy, add liquid from lives. Serve with hot buttered rice or egg noodles.

"The Horoscope Cook Book" - Macaroni and Cheese

2010-10-09T11:26:00.005-04:00

Date I made this recipe: October 7, 2010

The Horoscope Cook Book by Sonia Allison
Published by: St. Martin’s Press
© 1971
Recipe: Macaroni A La Reine – p. 92

So I found this book a while ago and as you might suspect, it contains both recipes and horoscopes. Seeing as how today is my birthday (October 9th—this makes me a Libran for those of you keeping track), here is a sample of my horoscope from this cookbook: Libra -“Character Study – Librans tend to be tall, very handsome and slender people, with long slim hands and legs. (True, true, continue!)They usually have symmetrical and classic features, beautiful complexions, fine skins, soft and expressive eyes – in blue or brown – round faces, high cheekbones, thick straight hair (not on your life. My hair is a bush, a tree AND a shrub!) which can be either dark or very fair and well-proportioned limbs. All Librans are inclined to put on weight in middle age, due to overindulgence of rich food."

Okay, let’s stop right there. I did make a “rich food” dinner two nights ago but I definitely did NOT overindulge. I’m not sure I even “ulged.” No sir. And that’s because I was already feeling the weight of my middle age! (Up until then, and aside from the hair, eyes, skin and face comments, this person had me at “Hello.”). I mean seriously, about six years ago I gained a stomach and never looked back. And while I was feeling kind of thin this summer, now that fall is upon us, it’s all over but the crying. When it’s cold in Minnesota the body adjusts by craving carbs. It’s ridiculous but there it is.

Aside from the fact that making this dish would be playing into the authors hands about loving rich foods, was going to give it a pass because I just wasn’t sure about the Stilton cheese. It seemed like it would be too overpowering. But people, I am glad I went ahead with it because it was de-licious! I considered other recipes and was even willing to pull a “it’s my birthday so I get to decide” card and switch it up if I needed to but lucky for me, and you, I didn’t need to go there.

I will say this about food and I don’t think that it is indicative of one zodiac sign or the other: when it comes to birthday meals, I want what I want and what I usually want is comfort food. Having a fall birthday (even though I hate fall) is conducive to that.

As far as comfort food goes though, we never had mac and cheese growing up (it was just not a Midwestern thing and I’m sorry, Kraft in a box doesn’t count) and because of that deprivation and because this recipe had potential I made this dish. The best thing is that it took less than a half an hour to make (unless you add in the time for my husband to go out and get the butter that I assumed we had on hand). I mean who wants to celebrate a birthday tied up in the kitchen for hours on end? Not this gal!

Okay, back to my horoscope: “…They are artistic, fond of grace and elegance in all things, perceptive, amiable, generous, affectionate, well-balanced…” (Sop it, you’re killing me!)

Happy Birthday, fellow Librans!!

Macaroni A La Reine (Macaroni for the King…or Queen!) – serves 6 as an horsd’oeuvre
6 oz. elbow macaroni
2 oz. butter (1/4 cup)
3 oz. Stilton cheese
¾ pint double cream (2 cups whipping cream)
¼ level teaspoon powdered mace (you can also substitute nutmeg or allspice)
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
3 tablespoons fresh white breadcrumbs
About 1 extra oz. butter (1/8 cup) for the top

Lightly butter 6 individual heatproof dishes. Cook macaroni in boiling salted water until tender. Drain thoroughly. Put butter into saucepan. Thinly slice cheese and add with cream, mace and cayenne pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously until smooth, thick and hot. Season to taste with salt. Add macaroni and mix thoroughly. Transfer equal amounts to prepared dishes. Sprinkle with crumbs and top with flakes of butter. Glaze under a hot grill and serve straight away. (Note: I used one large casserole and that worked out fine. I also baked it for about 10-15 minute just to make sure it held together).