Cheesy Grits, and Oyster Stew on New Year's Eve

Speaking of fried grits – as we have done and will again – my daughter hosted Christmas for family and friends this year. To keep the pressure down, she and her daughters prepared some casserole dishes a day ahead, then heated a spiral ham and the casseroles on Christmas Day.

One of the casseroles was Cheesy Grits. Not only were they delicious that day (I had two helpings) but I brought some home and had fried cheesy grits for several breakfasts. Yum!!

The preserved lemons turned out great. I put some in jars and printed out a simple little cookbook of preserved lemon recipes and gave them as gifts. I saved some, of course, and have used them in salad dressing and in a bread pudding. Yum!! again.

New Year’s Eve rushes in as I write this, and I’m off to prepare our traditional oyster stew. Butter and half-and-half, chicken stock, oysters, sautéed green onions and a few herbs and spices. Rich and tasty. It’s no time to pull punches. Celebrate! Some steamed shumai on the side. Yum, yum, yum. Maybe finish the evening with hot buttered rum. Yum a rum rum, yummy. (No, I haven’t had a wee drop as yet.)

Recipe for cheesy grits:

One cup grits cooked according to box
1/2 lb of sharp cheddar cheese
2 to 3 cloves garlic squeezed
Dash each of Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce
1/2 stick of butter
Fold in two beaten egg whites after cooling
bake at 350 for about 1/2 hours

I can see adding sautéed onion, green chilies, green onions, variety of cheeses. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR with many more to come.

Season’s Treatings

 

Being the season that it is, I have started making food treats for friends, family, and neighbors . Yesterday it was seasoned nuts and candy day.

I made two kinds of fudge, some chocolate truffles (I sneaked Craisins into them) as well as some spicy-seasoned roasted pecans and maple syrup sugared walnuts.

Here’s a tip: Do NOT wear a white sweatshirt while working with melted chocolate. Duh. ‘Nuff said.

SWEET AND SOUR NOTE

This morning I put the preserved lemons that have been pickling on the counter for the last month into the gifting jars. (I’ll make a little recipe booklet to go with them.) I found some very nice glass metal-ring-closure jars at the dollar store, the kind that snap over the edge. Pretty, and reusable.The plastic ones I had looked at earlier were $3.95. I got better for $1 each, but of course when I went back to look for more the stock had been wiped out.

I wasn’t sure about the lemons since this is the first time I have made and used any. They’re great! I’ll write more about them in future. They do make an attractive, tasty, and usual gift, not to mention enhancing some of the things you cook. 

THE FRUITCAKE ALTERNATIVE

Today it will be cookies. Chocolate chip pretty much meets universal approval (I’ll leave out the nuts in at least some of them for my un-nutty friends). Years ago I discovered that using the basic toll-house cookie dough recipe, but that mixing in candied fruit (a la fruitcake variety) and nuts (in some) instead of chocolate chips, makes a delightful and different-tasting cookie. I wowed some of my mid-western tradition-bound relatives with these years ago. I still have some Mexican spice and lavender cookies in the freezer. Need no more.

GET A GRIP

Here’s another tip that, when I told my husband, we both went “duhhh…” He had been looking for a flat rubber jar opener thingy the other day and I admitted that I probably had banished it the last time I cleaned out the drawer, along with several other seldom-used or useless implements. But then I saw a tip that recommended using rubber gloves if you have trouble gripping the jar and/or twisting the lid. Duh. I’ll  pick up a new “kitchen” pair at the store. Garden gloves would work fine too, and more attractive and easier to store in a drawer.  

IN ANY CASE, HAPPY HOLIDAYS WHATEVER YOU CELEBRATE, AND WISHING YOU A SWEET AND SAVORY NEW YEAR.

 

 

 

The Egg and I and You and the Little Red Hen

 Let’s talk about eggs for a minute. I’ll try to be brief, since this is one of my favorite subjects, and once I clamber onto my soapbox I can go on for a long time. With age and aches creeping up on me, it’s not so easy to get down from that box so I’ll be careful.

 If you have noticed, eggs have been absolved from health iissues. They are no more guilty of adding cholesterol to your system than is lettuce. It all depends on your genes .Why? Well, you have to understand the function of an egg a bit.

Within a hen’s body, the future eggs develop gradually, starting with a pin-head sized yolk. The yolks, suspended in the hen’s body like a cluster of grapes at the top of the oviduct, develop and increase in size gradually, so there will be a constant stream of fully developed eggs being laid. When a yolk reaches optimum size, it breaks free of the little sac of tissue that has been holding it, and starts its journey down the oviduct. 

At this point, it can be fertilized, with sperm deposited in the blastodisc (which, when fertilized, is called the blastoderm). That is thick spot on the yolk, which you can usually find by examining the yolk when the egg is broken over a saucer. If you don’t see it, place another saucer rim-to-rim on top of the first, and flip it over to examine the other side of the yolk.) You can tell if an egg has been fertilized only after it has been incubated for a short time, when bloody veins spread across it. If you find little blobs of gray-colored stuff in your egg, it’s only a drop of blood released when the yolk broke free at the start of this journey.

If you have wondered what the little white strings on the sides of a yolk might be, they are chelaza: spiral membranes that attach to a thin membrane at the top and bottom of the egg, and hold the yolk in the center of the egg while it continues to develop. It spirals down the oviduct, with the white (albumin) forming around it until in the final steps, the shell is formed around the whole business, and the egg is laid. 

So what is the albumin (egg white)? It’s a protective fluid formed around the yolk to protect it while the egg is developing. Albumin is about 90% water, with the other ten percent a mixture of proteins. Think of it basically as functioning like amniotic fluid. (Gotta love those egg whites!) Egg white is quite useful when whipped into foam for meringue, for example, or it is also used to make glair, a binder for paints with many industrial uses, and also used in apply gold to manuscripts.  
 

The yolk, on the other hand, provides most of the nutrients for the developing chick. A chicken egg is ready to hatch after about 21 days of incubation. Think what a powerhouse that yolk needs to be! Three weeks – and a golden glob becomes a live chick with feet, eyes, blood, bones, feathers, and all the other features we expect.  

So when eating an egg, 90 percent of the nutritious stuff comes from that yolk. Nutrition or uterine fluid – what will it be? 

BUYING EGGS: 

I try to buy free-range eggs from local farmers when I can. They are likely to be fresher than eggs kept in lockers in stores. Free-range hens have natural lives and the opportunity to consume bugs, minerals, and other material from the soil. There is no happier sound than a hen cruising through spring grass, sort of humming to herself in contentment as the sun warms her back. Ahhhh….. As well, her eggs are going to be fully nutritious as she picks up proteins and minerals from the ground. Her eggs will have strong shells and will store longer, too.  

Terms such as “cage free” and “nest free” simply mean that they are allowed out of cages, but not necessarily outside. Not as good as the above, but not as bad as battery hens, crammed into cages three to a cage, unable to move around much, the ends of their beaks cut off so that they don’t peck each other in frustration, their optimum feed ration doled out automatically each day. (Feed to product ratios are studied and applied to determine the highest yield per unit, hence the most profit – one reason that smaller hens, such as Leghorns, are used for egg laying. Same goes for broiler fryers, and we don’t want to think about how they are raised commercially.) Needless to say, battery hens are highly stressed and, although I have no proof of this, I suspect that their anguish and maddened frustration may release hormones or chemicals into their eggs that we don’t want to consume. At the very least, it is inhumane to support this kind of business. 

A “vegetarian-fed” hen can never be free-ranging. It’s unnatural, like trying to raise a vegetarian dog. It just does not make sense.

OK, enough of that.

When purchasing a carton of eggs at a grocery store, make sure that all the eggs are in the carton point down. Eggs used to be sorted and packaged by hand, with care to place them point down. I’m pretty sure that most egg producers do this automatically with machines now, since so many eggs appear with points up in cartons. The problem is that many eggs these days are almost equally round on both ends and can fool machines. The human eye can tell the difference, though. The eggs to the right apper to be upside down!

                                                                                          
How the egg is stored in the carton is important. The “fat” end of the egg contains an air pocket. As the egg deteriorates it releases moisture through the shell, and this air pocket forms between the shell and the membrane. The larger the air pocket, the older the egg, or if it breaks down the egg deteriorate faster. You know what it’s like to break an egg and have it slop out of the shell flat and runny. A fresh, properly stored egg from well-fed hens will stand right up in half-round position in the middle of the white.  

You can hold the egg to a strong light and actually see the air pocket on the end. Not that you could do this in a store, but if you are curious, give it a try at home. 

Thin, brittle shells are also a sign of poor nutrition. A hen needs lots of calcium, either from grazing the ground or from an additional calcium source – traditionally crushed oyster shell or even egg shells. Some feeds include calcium using a “scientific formula,” but I think it’s nicer to let a hen decide for herself what she needs. Her own body informs her when something is lacking.  

So – employ some common sense (whole eggs are nutritious) and some compassion (use free range eggs when possible, cage-free otherwise) and enjoy your eggs! I have one for breakfast just about every day. Unlike carbohydrates or less easily digested proteins, an egg can get me through to even a late lunch without growling (physically or mentally).

I Yam What I Yam with Raisins

So…I decided to enter a contest for cooking with raisins. I never have done such a thing, and the prize isn’t much, but now and then we need to stretch ourselves to try something new and different, right? Adds the spice to life, so to speak. So here is my first attempt. If nothing else, it’s a tasty dish and completely original.  Perfect side dish for the cold days of winter! Try it and enjoy.

I  Yam What I Yam with Raisins

Ingredients:

One to two deep orange yams, depending on size.

One medium yellow onion

One tart cooking apple

1-1/2 C dark raisins

about ½ C butter

Nutmeg, freshly grated if possible

Cinnamon, freshly grated if possible

salt and pepper

PREPARATION:

Heat oven to 350 

Use ½ of the butter to grease the sides of a 1-1/2 to 2 quart casserole dish (you won’t need to grease the bottom). 

Peel yams and slice about 1/8” thick. Try to find long narrow yams about 2” in diameter. If you have fatter yams, cut them in half lengthwise before slicing.

Peel onion and cut into thin slices.

Peel and core apple and cut into thin slices. 

COOKING METHOD:

Melt ½ of the butter in a small skillet. Add the onions, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and cook slowly, stirring frequently, until onions are translucent. (Use a little more butter if necessary.) 

Place ½ of the onions in the bottom of the casserole.

Add ½ of the yams, overlapped in rows, on top of the onions.

Add a layer of apples, using all of the apple, overlapped in rows. Sprinkle with spices.

Top with a layer of raisins, about ¾ inch deep.

Repeat layers: onions, yams, spices, and a thinner layer of raisins.  

Cover casserole dish and bake in a 350 degree oven until yams are fork tender, about 45 minutes.

 

The Old Black Cookbook

Cookbooks cram my kitchen bookcase. The titles change constantly as I replace old volumes with examples that reflect my current culinary interests. But standing tall between newer, more colorful covers is a shabby, spineless, stained, and tattered old volume known in the family as “the old black cookbook.” It is the one thing my oldest daughter, Robin, asked for when she got married. It is the one thing I had to deny her, although I later found a copy in an antique store and sent it to her.

It took a while for me to figure out why I couldn’t part with it. My mother had given me the cookbook when I got married. Officially titled the Good Housekeeping Cook Book, it had taught me most of what I knew about cooking. I could flip it open to any topic without referring to the index. Many of its recipes were old favorites. But my attachment went deeper than that. Family memories, I realized, were stuck to its pages with fruit juice and shortening and sugar, more evocative than any album of photographs. The cookbook was a twenty-five-year chronicle of our lives. 

 

A dozen more years have passed, but the cookbook is still on the shelf. I slip it into my hands, and it falls open to pages that make me smile. Did I ever really need a recipe for pot roast or pork chops? In the earliest days of marriage, of course, we had little money for such luxuries. The festive recipes then included hamburger or chicken or fish, all terribly cheap. Daily fare most often featured rice or macaroni or cheese. A quick flip to the cheese pages, and I am transported to a time before children arrived, to a place far away: to a time and a place where these recipes for Welsh Rabbit and Cheese-Onion Pie were in constant use. And here is the old favorite “payday special” (meaning the day before payday) — Baked Cheese Pudding. I see my notations that halve the ingredients to make the recipe suitable for two.

I leap ahead a few pages and a decade of time, and I’m in “eggs” — a section that saw heavy use during the years that my younger daughter, Erin, raised chickens in 4H. Nearly every recipe on these pages is familiar, from Deviled Eggs to Eggs Divan, from Eggs Foo Young to omelets. I flip to the dessert section and find the recipes for eclairs and custards that saved us from total inundation not only by eggs, but by milk. Those were also the years that both girls raised dairy goats.

 The kitchen aromas of that period seem to waft from these pages: the sour scent of milk being made into cheese or yogurt; the sweet fruity smells of peaches, blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, or plums, bubbling into jams and jellies; pungent cinnamon and cloves in simmering apple butter; soups and rich stews fragrant with our home-grown tomatoes, corn, peas, snap beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs; the mouth-watering aroma of baking bread; the savory scent of the spicy ketchup I simmered on the stove all day, half-gone from “sampling” by the time it was done. The old black cookbook was often open on the counter, its pages dusted with flour or spattered with fruit. The pages of the pie section are among the most soiled and heavily used, a testimonial to holidays with memories encrusted in pumpkin and mince meat and apples. Among the cake recipes I find old birthdays, bake sales, grange dinners, potlucks, company meals.

Drop it, and the old black cookbook flops open at the cookie pages. I must have baked these brownies and chocolate chip cookies hundreds of times. My notes run alongside, doubling the ingredients. The page with the huge brown splot was Erin’s doing, a spill during her first experiments with baking.

Freezing, canning, carving, converting — I learned them all from this book, and passed what I learned to my daughters. And although I rarely refer to it these days, the old black cookbook has a permanent place on my shelves.

Baked Cheese Pudding

(from Good Housekeeping Cookbook: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1955. Some ingredients have been changed - such as cheddar instead of processed (ugh) cheese)

[Note:  add chopped onion, bell pepper, dill, or parsley to taste.]

Heat oven to 325º

6 bread slices, cut into 1 ½” squares   

½ lb. cheddar cheese

3 eggs

½ t. salt

½ t. Paprika

1/4 t. dry or prepared mustard

2½ C. milk, or 1-1/4 C. evaporated milk plus 1-1/4 C. water

Few slices stuffed olives (optional)        

In greased 1 ½ quart casserole, arrange alternate layers of bread and cheese, ending with cheese. Beat eggs till frothy; stir in rest of ingredients; pour over cheese. Bake, uncovered, 1 hr. Makes 6 servings

 

The Keurig: a Report on a Change of Heart

OK, so I laughed at these things for a long time. An expensive machine to make a cup of coffee. Mostly my ridicule was over the cost of the little pre-filled portion packs that you had to buy for it. Expensive! I checked them out at the supermarket the other day and the cost came to about $1 a cup, although I’m sure that I have seen them cheaper elsewhere. 

But then I visited a couple of friends who had them. Fresh, hot coffee in a minute! (literally). I still thought it all a bit silly until one friend explained that you could buy a “K-cup filter” that you could fill with your own coffee. Less environmental impact from throwing away the commercial packets, less cost, more satisfaction from being able to use your favorite coffees.

I was watching sales, but most of the units on sale were for models that required the commercial packages. Then the other night Gary came home from his weekly hiking outing with a big grin on his face. He usually stops at Costco for a Polish dog for “supper” when the hike is over, and proceeds on to a local bookstore to check out magazines and new books. So it seems that he saw this Keurig on sale at Costco, with 60 “portion packs” included, and a nice rebate.

So when he came in with that grin and a look of excitement, he was holding something behind his back. “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” says he, and when I nodded expectantly he revealed the box with Keurig in it.

 

In a word, I love it! My usual routine had been to prepare the coffee maker at night, stumble into the kitchen in the morning and turn it on – feed the cat – return for coffee. And then throughout the day go back for another cup of the coffee that had already sat on the hotplate for two hours to “gain strength”  and reheat it.  Sometimes I reheated it a couple of times if I forgot to drink it. By late afternoon it resembled run-off from a street freshly surfaced with macadam but I didn’t want to make another pot, and it was too much trouble to boil water and pour through one of those little plastic things that sit on top of the cup (usually my cup runneth over when I do that.) 

Now it takes no more time to brew a fresh cup (one minute!) than it did to reheat one (1 minute 40 seconds) and the preparation time of filling the filter makes it about even – but so much more satisfying. I find I am drinking less coffee but enjoying it more.  

Of course, since my counter space is limited and my kitchen cupboards are full, I had to rearrange things a bit to make space for the Keurig. That meant removing a few appliances (including the old coffee-maker, which I’ll keep for gatherings) and the only place they could go would be the set of closets in the hallway – where I already keep things like the Dutch oven and the waffle maker. BUT of course, the hall closets were full. So I wound up cleaning out the closets, which was a chore I had already planned on doing (again). But then I had to find space for some of the closet contents. I moved the sheet sets that we use regularly, including pillow cases, to the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, where only some extra blankets and throws were stored. I eliminated five or six sets of old sheets – about 20 years worth – and donated them to St. Vinnie’s.   (They were fine: we had just found fabrics and colors that we preferred.)

After a day’s work (which involved some additional cleaning and rearranging) we were good to go! It has only been a couple of weeks, but we’re already comfortable with our routines. And the closet is tidy. No small feat!

Hot Weather Treats – Hot Ice Cream and Frozen Grapes

Not long ago I was fascinated to read about a revolutionary new way to prepare grapes. The piece went on and on about drying them. The clincher was, drying them on the vine as a new gourmet food item to hit the markets. What, they never heard of raisins? Never had raisins dry up in a bowl on the table? I’m sorry, this seems a bit desperate.

But last weekend we escaped the city heat by visiting some friends who live in the foothills just inland from the ocean. They suggested driving down to a seaside town that has an oyster fishery to purchase some fresh mollusks for a supper barbecue. Which we did, feasting among oohs and ahhhs as the several versions created by our host were served. In a word, we were piggies, but in such a good cause. I shall revisit barbecued oysters sometime in future, but the point of this regards the little frozen treat that we carried in the car to munch on during our ride to the oyster farm. Frozen grapes.

That’s right – frozen grapes, and they were amazing, refreshing, and delicious. A bit of a crunch through the frozen skin, then a big squirt of grape juice from the innards. Who needs Popsicles?

 The recipe is easy: Purchase grapes (preferably the seedless red variety – any color would work, but do make sure that they’re seedless). Wash, strip from stems, and freeze. You can place them in a zip-lock bag and lay it out more or less flat until they’re frozen, then put them in a plastic container with a tight lid. I’m thinking that these would make interesting “ice cubes” in a cold beverage or cocktail.

Speaking of hot weather treats, I recommend an old family favorite that I haven’t encountered anywhere else. We always called it “hot ice cream.”

I vaguely recall a story from childhood. It had something to do with a very demanding king and his chef. One day he tells the chef (threatens him, actually) that he wants something “cold as winter and hot as summer.” Facing the dilemma, the chef finally comes up with the hot fudge sundae.

This family recipe is somewhat like a sundae in reverse, only skip the hot fudge. Instead, cook some pudding and when it is thick, but still hot, spoon it into serving bowls. Plop a generous serving of ice cream in the middle, and serve it instantly. Any pair of flavors will do: my preference has been for dark chocolate pudding with creamy vanilla bean ice cream. Try it once and you’ll be hooked.

Fair Warning on Foods

I subscribe to the USDA alerts, which gives notices of foods and drugs with potential problems, withdrawals, etc. The warnings for cat and dog foods at different times have been important to some of us…often the foods are distributed in discrete geological areas or through certain brands or vendors, and the problems are less ubiquitous.

 USDA Food and Drug Alerts

Still, they are effective in warning about health risks and problems and well worth knowing about in case you have something already in hand that is being withdrawn from outlets.  

But sometimes – my gosh – things are withdrawn for reasons that sort of defy common sense. I’m still kind of chortling about this one that was posted a day or two ago: 

30/2012
Subject: WIMBERGER'S OLD WORLD BAKERY & DELICATESSEN ISSUES ALLERGY ALERT ON UNDECLARED MILK, SOY AND WHEAT IN KAISER ROLLS, SEEDED ROLLS, BRAT BUNS, FRENCH BREAD, PRETZEL ROLLS, PRETZELS, PIZZA DOUGH, HOAGIE ROLLS AND BAGUETTES

Now, I realize that soy could be a problem for some people, but wouldn’t any reasonable person suspect that milk and wheat might be present in bakery goods?

 And while I’m on a bit of a rant – what on Earth is “fat free half & half”? Good for you? It has to be mostly chemicals. Bah. And what is this jazz about fiber-fortified water? What fiber? Cellulose ? Pectin? Gum Arabic? No, really?  Eat some cardboard and dissolve some gelatin in your drink, and save some money. Good grief, Charlie Brown.

The Big Cheese

Somehow over the years, macaroni and cheese became a dish only suitable for children. Worse yet, the public cognizance of it was pretty much confined to boxed pasta with powdered, colored cheese product. Bleah. No wonder its popularity decreased below the bottom line, right down there with green Jell-O.

None-the-less, those of us old-timers who remember mac and cheese with fondness are tickled to find that it is suddenly reinvented as a gourmet dish,  served in restaurants at every level of culinary class from buffets to experimental fusion glamour. One restaurant menu even calls their dish “adult mac and cheese.”

The fact is, just about everyone loves mac and cheese, although many kept the liking as a guilty little secret. Well, the secret is out and mac and cheese is in -- which is a boon to potluckers.

So the other night we attended a surprise birthday party arranged by the wife of the “birthday boy” to take place at a local motel meeting room and “potluck” in participation. Since the family has a couple of about-to-be-teen children, I figured that there would be a bunch of kids. So I finally decided to take a large casserole dish of mac and cheese and some chocolate chip cookies. No matter what other “adult” fare showed up, I figured the kids would be happy with that.

Sure enough, when I waited a bit for the “rush” to the food table to die down and walked through the room to get into the line, I passed tables of kids with heaps of mac and cheese on their plates. Three boys under 12 had nothing but mac and cheese, and others had a healthy helping. Most adults had a serving as well. I had to dig around the edges of the dish by the time I got there. I will say that I make some of the very best mac and cheese I have tried, including offerings at restaurants (I’m always curious to compare).

My “recipe” conjures up enough for a small crowd (10” square casserole dish or approx. 13”x 9” baking pan, about 4 quarts. You can adjust amounts up or down or any size or to any taste.)

INGREDIENTS: (amounts are approximate according to taste)

* 1 pound macaroni (elbow, shell – your choice but something that holds sauce well)

*1 pound cheddar cheese (medium or sharp) or combination of cheeses (good way to use up bits and pieces).

*1 quart milk

*6-8 tablespoons butter, softened

*Flour: about 1/3 cup, plus 3 tablespoons

*½ to one each red and green bell peppers and yellow onion (amount depends on size and taste)

*about 2 teaspoons mustard flour (this mixes with tossing flour, but you can use regular mustard in the sauce itself if you don’t have the powdered version, about 1-2 tablespoons)

*red pepper flakes or seasoning

*granulated garlic or fried dry garlic or garlic powder or 2 finely-chopped garlic cloves  – if you wish. Dry stuff goes in tossing flour, chopped goes in sauce.

*dried breadcrumbs, enough to cover surface of dish (seasoned crumbs are OK. I used some garlic/herb crumbs that I made from a leftover hunk of a loaf.)

Method:

Heat oven to 350

Oil your casserole dish or baking pan liberally, included sides.

Put on a large pan or kettle of water. You add a bit of salt if you wish. When it comes to boiling, add pasta. Add some oil to keep foaming down if you wish. Cook to semi-tender, drain and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix approx. 1/3 C flour with mustard flour, dry garlic product, pepper flakes. Set aside. (If using fresh garlic, add to processed veggies per below.)

Shred cheeses (food processor is great for this) and put in the bowl with the dry ingredients and toss to coat cheese.

.

Finely chop vegetables (processor is great – but don’t over-process: you want colorful bits to show in the sauce. Process fresh garlic with the veggies if you are using it.) Set aside.

In a large heavy pot, melt about 3 T butter until bubbly, then carefully and quickly stir in flour one spoonful at a time. Stir until thick and golden. Add milk SLOWLY (even better if you heat it first) and stir constantly to avoid lumping. When sauce starts to thicken a bit, add cheese one handful at a time, stirring rapidly until it is incorporated. Add chopped veggies and stir. Add mustard here if using prepared. When it has all incorporated, taste and add salt and/or pepper if you wish. Add “optional” items (see below). Add drained pasta and stir to heat.

Pour it all into your baking pan or casserole. Sprinkle bread crumbs across the top and dab with butter.

Bake at 350 for about half an hour, or until crumbs are starting to brown to your liking.  You can hold this in a warming oven set to medium for several hours. Cover with lid or foil and go take a nap.

Variations:

Add canned chile con carne with or without beans.

Add some fresh or frozen or canned corn kernels.

Add robust red wine or mellow beer (gradually and taste as you go, some can be overwhelming).

Add balsamic vinegar (but not with wine or beer), about 1/3 cup, but taste as you add little at a time since strengths and flavors differ widely.

Be creative with herbs, but don’t overdo. A little parsley or dried celery leaf or dill can add a bite of flavor.

Sprinkle chopped green onion over the top.

Add some chopped kalamata olives to the sauce, or sprinkle over the top.

Sometimes simpler is better. The kids got the unenhanced version above, and loved the simplicity and familiarity of it. You can challenge adults a bit more, but keep it “comfort food.”

Hot Days Call for Leftovers and Grilling

I try to cook only as much as the two of us can eat at a meal, but of course there are always exceptions. A roast chicken, for example, can provide a number of meals for two people. Rice and beans are hard to cook for two (unless the beans come out of a can, which is not wicked). And I sometimes cook more than we need for one meal  in order to freeze or repurpose for others.

So, with the heat hitting us this week and the AC broken beyond repair, leftovers are a blessing. As is the grill. I admit to being a bit unskilled with the grill, but as time and need demand I get better.

I didn't take a photo, but I figured that Cuisinart wouldn't mind my using theirs.
I recently puchased one of these, and it's wonderful!

Monday I had coupons for a fresh loaf of Artisan bread from a local market for 99 cents. It was still warm when I picked it up. Ahhh….I had some cheeses in the fridge to use up – a chunk of Swiss and a chunk of very aged cheddar. I decided to make fondue for lunch (I’ll address the making of fondues another time) and, since it was for lunch and included cheddar, I elected to use beer. Some fried crumbled garlic (from the Indian section at the Asian store – I could have rubbed the fondue pan with fresh garlic, but I like a good garlic flavor with cheddar and beer), a shot of hot sauce, some red pepper flakes, a little nutmeg, broken French bread, and we were good to go. I added a small salad of shredded lettuce and a piquant tepanade-style mixture of olives and a few other veggies, for contrast. I figured the extra fondue sauce would make good mac and cheese, or some other dish.

Tuesday I still had some pieces of broken bread. So for breakfast, I melted a couple of tablespoons of butter in some olive oil in a heavy skillet, sprinkled in an herb mixture (Italian) and the bread pieces, and tossed them around over medium heat until they were golden brown and crunchy.  A poached egg over the croutons and we were in heaven.

At lunchtime I sliced the butt of the loaf that I hadn’t used the previous day and toasted the slices (whole) in the skillet in much the same way only with flavorful olive oil and less butter. I sautéed some bits of roasted red pepper and sun dried tomato in olive oil in a heavy saucepan (the oil on the tomatoes was enough for this) and heated the leftover fondue in the same pan (added a bit of milk to loosen it up a bit) and poured over the toast. I had boiled some eggs in the morning, so made stuffed eggs (mayo, mustard, capers, salt and pepper mixed into the yolks) – two halves each – and browned a few pre-breaded butterfly shrimp in the toaster oven. A couple pieces of fresh pineapple and we were good to go.

By suppertime it was too hot to cook in the kitchen.  I had some leftover roast chicken breast, and a cupful or so of brown and wild rice with chopped veggies, so I added chopped chicken and a raw egg to the rice. My goal was to use a large green pepper that was languishing in the fridge, so I cut it lengthwise, removed the seed head and pith, and made a “nest” of heavy aluminum foil for each half, leaving a flap of foil to fold loosely over the top so I could check to see if the pepper was done, as well as to open it up for browning on top if needed.  Stuffed it with the chicken and rice mixture. I put these on the heated grill and closed the lid, keeping the heat around 350. After about 15 minutes I moved the foil-wrapped peppers off the heat.

When they seemed about done (the tops browned nicely without exposure) I prepared some fresh asparagus by washing, snapping off the ends, and rolling in some melted butter and Italian bread crumbs (used my glass bread pan to melt the butter in the microwave and roll the spears.) Gave some spears of fresh pineapple a roll in the butter as well. Those I just put on the grill over medium flame. Added a pear-walnut-gorgonzola salad using a commercial mix of herbs and baby greens. Slices of purchased Black Forest roulade (way too much frosting!) for dessert.

Now I am running low on leftovers so will dig through the freezer for some that I put away for future use. The future is NOW.

I’m not sure why I get the cooking urge when it’s hot. Perhaps because I’m too lethargic to do much else!

Some Intentions, plus a Chinese Omelet

With Pride From Oregon

Chinese Omelet, or something like that...

I don’t intend to cater to diets, fads, gourmet food preparation. While I like to talk about kitchen tools – sometimes unusual ones – it’s often a matter of reassigning unexpected tasks to simple tools, or describing some of my favorites, some of which fall into the categories of “ethnic” or “antique”.

This should never have
happened to asaparagus!

I will be talking about foods, food history, everyday cooking (with and without recipes), condiments and spices, food ephemera , some food stories and memories, possibly some food fiction and art, and some blatantly subjective preferences, reviews, and remarks. Not to mention what I hope will pass as humor.

A rather suggestive title
for a Jell-O booklet!

I like to read cookbooks, but rarely stick to a recipe (except for baking: baking is chemistry and I don’t mess with the recipes much –except to add or change an exchangeable ingredient or flavoring). When I do share recipes they are often based on common sense rather than strict measures or ingredients.

Take today’s lunch, for example. My impetus was to use up the last of some fresh bean sprouts. We had already had sprouts in stir fries, salads, and sandwiches (I bought this enormous bag of the suckers at the Asian market, since they only come in a big bag. One-pound? Lots of sprouts, whatever. Tip: blanche them in boiling water for about 30 seconds, immerse immediately into very cold water, and they’ll keep for several days in the fridge. Tip, part 2: I just pour the hot sprouts into a large sieve or colander and shake and toss it under cold running water until they are cold.)

So for lunch I decided to make something akin to eggs foo young, but I didn’t want to mess with making little pancakes. So I made my mixture by cracking two fresh eggs (from local pasture-raised chickens) into a bowl, added about a couple of shots of soy sauce (a little more than a tablespoonful, but to taste) a dash of toasted sesame oil (to taste) and a tablespoonful or so of flour, just enough to thicken the batter a bit. Beat that together, then added chopped sprouts, chopped green onions (three or four average size, with green tops), a dash of pepper. Hold off on the salt, the soy sauce is probably enough. Heat a 10” skillet on a stovetop burner, add some peanut oil (about 2T) when hot, let the oil heat, shake it around to coat the bottom of the pan evenly, and pour in the mixture. Let it brown nicely on one side then flip (OK, I flipped in two halves) and cook on the other side just until the eggs are set.

Spousal review, “Mmmmm, that’s good. Still nice and crunchy.” (He uses an epicurean scale based mostly on crunch.)

Of course you can add to this for a large cake, or make two. Use a smaller pan for a one-egg omelet.

An Excellent Book on Culinary Ephemera