Today I had lunch at the hotdog place on Route 7, and as I was sitting under a tree waiting for my hotdog, I decided to tot up the number of recipes I had to cook before I could finish a chapter. So I started counting unfinished recipes in the chapter on the Northeast. Wow. There were, 42 uncooked soups or appetizers, 38 recipes for fish, 23 for main dishes, 39 for vegetables, 60 for pies, cakes, etc. 60!! I couldn't believe it. And, finally, 38 recipes yet to go in Miscellaneous, which involves pickles, jams, punch, etc. That's 298 recipes, just in New England.
If I cooked two dishes from the cookbook four nights a week, I would finish up this chapter in 37 weeks. I'll never finish. I'm going to have to get serious about this. So far, in 6 months, I have made roughly 63 dishes. At the beginning, I had one post for two or three recipes. That's why it's roughly. When I think about Julie Powell, sauteeing away in her tiny apartment kitchen and knocking out all the recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, or Julia Child, taking 12 years to produce the damn thing, I feel inadequate.
So, gentle reader, we are talking about years here. I think for now, I'll focus on New England, and see if we can make some progress. At least until my family complains.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Shrimp a la Perea
Once again, my shellfish allergic husband was back in DC beavering away in the cause of informing people exactly what the US Congress might be doing on any given day, so I went for shellfish. I was intrigued by clams, after reading an article in the New York Times that said that New York and New Jersey were major clam producers. However, all the clam recipes either required deep frying, or baking, or steaming the clams to get them out of their shells and mincing them. So, shrimp, which don't need any of those things.
This is a terrific recipe for a dinner party. It is light, really fast to prepare (15 minutes flat)and tastes good. It also doesn't heat up the kitchen, which, as it turned out, was not important, since rain had been falling steadily since 10 am. It contains frozen artichoke hearts, which might be an issue if I was trying to make the dish in DC. However, the other supermarket in Great Barrington, Big Y, has frozen artichoke hearts. So much for living in the big city.
Shrimp a la Perea
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds large shrimp shelled and deveined, with the tails left on
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
2 ten-ounce packages frozen artichoke hearts cooked until just thawed, then drained.
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon parsley
1 to three tablespoons lemon juice
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet. Add the shrimp and saute quickly, stirring frequently until pink.
2. Add the shallots and garlic and cook two minutes
3. add the artichoke hearts, mushrooms, salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, and lemon juice. Cook stirring until mushrooms and shrimp are tender, about three minutes. Makes six servings.
This is a terrific recipe for a dinner party. It is light, really fast to prepare (15 minutes flat)and tastes good. It also doesn't heat up the kitchen, which, as it turned out, was not important, since rain had been falling steadily since 10 am. It contains frozen artichoke hearts, which might be an issue if I was trying to make the dish in DC. However, the other supermarket in Great Barrington, Big Y, has frozen artichoke hearts. So much for living in the big city.
Shrimp a la Perea
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds large shrimp shelled and deveined, with the tails left on
2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
2 ten-ounce packages frozen artichoke hearts cooked until just thawed, then drained.
1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 tablespoon parsley
1 to three tablespoons lemon juice
1. Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet. Add the shrimp and saute quickly, stirring frequently until pink.
2. Add the shallots and garlic and cook two minutes
3. add the artichoke hearts, mushrooms, salt, pepper, thyme, parsley, and lemon juice. Cook stirring until mushrooms and shrimp are tender, about three minutes. Makes six servings.
Cold Raspberry Soup
Last Friday, on a cool, rainy evening, I invited my old friends from DC, Marty and John, to dinner at the apartment. We had direction issues. These arose because you can't see the barn from the road, and because there is nothing that the average city person could identify as a driveway. I said, "Go through the hedge, and take the route that looks more like a driveway, and less like a grassy path." That's clear enough, isn't it? Well, they took the grassy path, and judging by their tire tracks, drove all the way up the hill to the orchard, possibly incurring damage to their undercarriage along the way. The grassy path has some major ruts.
But they got there, admired the apartment and sussed out its antecedants. It belonged to Mommio's husband, Poppio's aunt, or greataunt, Sophie. Anyway, we had a lovely time, talking about this and that. (I remember furnaces, and people who install them, formed at least part of the conversation.) Hey, if you are a middle-aged homeowner in New England, as we all were, furnaces are an important preoccupation.
The past week had been stinking hot with temperatures every day in the 90s, the kind of heat that makes you sweat uncontrollably even when you are sitting perfectly still in a chair, in the shade. Therefore, I wanted to serve cool food. I thought of cold soup. Most of the cold soup recipes in Heritage Cookbook involve a ripe avocado. If you have ever had anything to do, cuilinary-wise with avocado, you know that the ones they sell in the supermarket are not ripe.
So I found a recipe for cold raspberry soup. This is a wonderful dish to serve on a hot night, and takes almost no time to prepare. You should make it in the morning, because it is supposed to chill.
Raspberries were great too, because I didn't have to buy them. Mommio, my landlady, has a raspberry patch that is producing the damn things much quicker than she could eat them.
Cold Raspberry Soup
4 cups raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups chilled dry white wine
1 cup water
1. Reserve one-half cup of the raspberries for garnish. Force the remaining through a food mill or blend in an electric blender until smooth.
2. Combine with the sugar, wine and water and chill well. Serve in chilled bowls, topped with the reserved berries. Makes four servings.
But they got there, admired the apartment and sussed out its antecedants. It belonged to Mommio's husband, Poppio's aunt, or greataunt, Sophie. Anyway, we had a lovely time, talking about this and that. (I remember furnaces, and people who install them, formed at least part of the conversation.) Hey, if you are a middle-aged homeowner in New England, as we all were, furnaces are an important preoccupation.
The past week had been stinking hot with temperatures every day in the 90s, the kind of heat that makes you sweat uncontrollably even when you are sitting perfectly still in a chair, in the shade. Therefore, I wanted to serve cool food. I thought of cold soup. Most of the cold soup recipes in Heritage Cookbook involve a ripe avocado. If you have ever had anything to do, cuilinary-wise with avocado, you know that the ones they sell in the supermarket are not ripe.
So I found a recipe for cold raspberry soup. This is a wonderful dish to serve on a hot night, and takes almost no time to prepare. You should make it in the morning, because it is supposed to chill.
Raspberries were great too, because I didn't have to buy them. Mommio, my landlady, has a raspberry patch that is producing the damn things much quicker than she could eat them.
Cold Raspberry Soup
4 cups raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups chilled dry white wine
1 cup water
1. Reserve one-half cup of the raspberries for garnish. Force the remaining through a food mill or blend in an electric blender until smooth.
2. Combine with the sugar, wine and water and chill well. Serve in chilled bowls, topped with the reserved berries. Makes four servings.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Cole Slaw
This book contains many recipes for that lost American dish, cole slaw. Just on two pages of the Midwest section there are, cole slaw, cabbage salad, and whipped cream cole slaw. Clearly whipped cream cole slaw was out, due to the lactose intolerant issue. Normally, this recipe would have been out, but I happened to be reading it at 8:00 am, rather than 5 pm, so I was able to give it the time it needed. It had to chill for 12 hours, after having the vegetables soak in ice water for one hour. I didn't chill it for exactly 12 hours, but I did pretty well (7 is closer to 12 than say, one would be.)
The recipe made a light, crunchy, slightly sweet salad with few calories. Don't let the one and a half cups of sugar give you pause. It works. The only thing I wasn't quite sure of was the shredding. I suppose, shredding cabbage or green pepper means grating it. I didn't have a grater, so I just cut things up as well as I could.
Cole Slaw
2 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 medium head cabbage, shredded
one green pepper, cored, seeded and shredded
one onion, finely chopped
lightly salted ice water
1. Combine the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds and mustard in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil twenty minutes. Cool.
2. Combine the cabbage, green pepper and onion. Cover with the ice water and let stand one hour. Drain vegetables through a double thickness of muslin, pressing to remove all moisture. (I used a salad spinner.)
3. Combine drained vegetables with cooled vinegar mixture and refrigerate 12 hours before serving.
Makes one dozen servings.
The recipe made a light, crunchy, slightly sweet salad with few calories. Don't let the one and a half cups of sugar give you pause. It works. The only thing I wasn't quite sure of was the shredding. I suppose, shredding cabbage or green pepper means grating it. I didn't have a grater, so I just cut things up as well as I could.
Cole Slaw
2 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 medium head cabbage, shredded
one green pepper, cored, seeded and shredded
one onion, finely chopped
lightly salted ice water
1. Combine the vinegar, sugar, celery seeds and mustard in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil twenty minutes. Cool.
2. Combine the cabbage, green pepper and onion. Cover with the ice water and let stand one hour. Drain vegetables through a double thickness of muslin, pressing to remove all moisture. (I used a salad spinner.)
3. Combine drained vegetables with cooled vinegar mixture and refrigerate 12 hours before serving.
Makes one dozen servings.
Coos Bay Crab Cakes
Wednesday night, I invited two very old friends, Tom the painter, and his daughter, Cathy, the lawyer, to dinner. What to serve? Well, one issue is, Cathy is lactose intolerant. So cheese, cream, milk, all those mainstays of my cooking, were out. However, she said she liked fish. So, since my shellfish intolerant husband was back in DC, this provided an excellent opportunity to serve shellfish. Also, it was hot, so I didn't want to turn on the oven. I also didn't want to get involved with oysters, since there's no R in July, nor did I want to deal with lobsters. So, crab cakes it was.
I also had the cabbage issue, so I looked for a recipe with cabbage. We ended up with an excellent summer menu, crab cakes and a Midwestern, mayonnaiseless cole slaw and talked until after 11. In DC, everyone leaves around 10 so this party was a huge success. Tom brought a bottle of champagne, and since Cathy doesn't really like wine, he and I drank almost the whole thing. I got to demonstrate the cork popping technique that I have used to send champagne corks rattling onto garage roofs in the ghetto, onto neighbors' lawns in my neighborhood, and into the street when Obama won the 2008 election. This time the cork went into the high grass that surrounds the apartment.
Coos Bay Crab Cakes
1 pound crab meat, picked over to remove bits of shell and cartilage
2 eggs lightly beaten
2tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish ( I left this out, feeling that the amount of vacation spices piling up on the counter was getting unmanageable.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup crushed cracker crumbs
butter,( or in this case, margarine)
1. Mix together the crab meat, eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, horseradish, salt, pepper, Worcestershire and one half cup of the crumbs.
2. Form the mixture into eight cakes. Coat with remaining crumbs.
3. Heat butter (margarine) to a depth of one-eighth inch in a heavy skillet. Add the crab cakes and fry until lightly browned on both sides.
Makes four servings.
I also had the cabbage issue, so I looked for a recipe with cabbage. We ended up with an excellent summer menu, crab cakes and a Midwestern, mayonnaiseless cole slaw and talked until after 11. In DC, everyone leaves around 10 so this party was a huge success. Tom brought a bottle of champagne, and since Cathy doesn't really like wine, he and I drank almost the whole thing. I got to demonstrate the cork popping technique that I have used to send champagne corks rattling onto garage roofs in the ghetto, onto neighbors' lawns in my neighborhood, and into the street when Obama won the 2008 election. This time the cork went into the high grass that surrounds the apartment.
Coos Bay Crab Cakes
1 pound crab meat, picked over to remove bits of shell and cartilage
2 eggs lightly beaten
2tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon prepared horseradish ( I left this out, feeling that the amount of vacation spices piling up on the counter was getting unmanageable.)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup crushed cracker crumbs
butter,( or in this case, margarine)
1. Mix together the crab meat, eggs, mayonnaise, mustard, horseradish, salt, pepper, Worcestershire and one half cup of the crumbs.
2. Form the mixture into eight cakes. Coat with remaining crumbs.
3. Heat butter (margarine) to a depth of one-eighth inch in a heavy skillet. Add the crab cakes and fry until lightly browned on both sides.
Makes four servings.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Beet Relish
Summer is the time for canning. There is all the bounty of the garden, and the time to sweat over the stove. I love canning. I especially like the end, when all the sparkling jars are lined up on the counter, their colors somehow enhanced by the process. I feel like Mrs. Ingalls, laying away for the winter. Of course, it hardly ever works that way. We don't even eat half the stuff I can. But I still do it, in honor of all those farm housewives.
Since I am at the apartment, canning presents difficulties. No knives for chopping, no big pot for sterilizing the jars, etc. etc. So I asked Mommio if I could use her large, heroically well equipped kitchen for canning. She was puzzled, especially by the idea of beet relish, but she said yes.
You, dear reader (s)(?) might be puzzled as well. Why choose beet relish out of the 30 or 40 relish and jam recipes still pending in this book, when I could be canning something my family and friends might actually eat, like apple chutney, or green tomato mincemeat? Why, indeed? Well, the choice had to do with available ingredients, namely cabbage, as well as with the quantity made by the recipe. The actual farmer gave me a cabbage a week and a half ago, and three quarters of it remained. So, clearly, whatever I made had best contain cabbage. Also, I had bought a dozen six ounce canning jars. I didn't want to make 22 quarts of something. Thus, beet relish.
So, I brought all the assembled ingredients, including fresh horseradish, which looks like something one Zulu warrior might open another Zulu warrior's scalp with, to Mommio's kitchen and set to work. If you are not supposed to covet your neighbor's goods, I suppose that includes their Revereware pots. Mommio appears to have a complete collection, which made me drool. It ran from the extremely tiny, used probably to melt butter, to the large kettle, which I used to cook the relish. Then there was a largish aluminum pot, which Mommio informed me was rejected by some people, including her picky daughter. I used that to sterilize the jars.
As I began peeling and chopping the beets, it occurred to me that beets were probably not the best medium to use in a spotless kitchen maintained by a particular, 86 year old cook, especially the day the cleaning lady had come. But, c'est la vie. Pretty soon, my hands looked like Sweeney Todd's , and I tried to remember not to wipe them on my pants.
I slapped the beets on to boil and turned to the cabbage. As I said, we had three-quarters of it left. One of the three quarters had been removed from the whole. I chopped that up, and bingo, it provided six cups of cabbage, as requested. Sigh. Half a cabbage left. The horseradish was kind of woody. I wondered how fresh it was, but, at that point I wasn't going out for more horseradish.
Pretty soon, the mixture was boiling on the stove, as were the jars. Sweat, the constant companion of summer cooking, was rolling off my brow. It was time to fill the jars. I took a quick peek around the kitchen to look for tongs. Mommio makes her own grape jelly and her own marmalade, the ingredients of which come from The Vermont Country Store. However, she does not sterilize her jars, so she didn't seem to possess a set of tongs.
No matter. I am an old hand at fishing jars, rings, and lids out of a kettle of boiling water with a wooden spoon (and burning myself). Mommio's wooden spoon seemed to have belonged to a salad set. It had a shorter handle than the wooden spoons I used. But I persevered, only burning myself two or three times, and filled up my jars with a beautiful deep crimson mixture. The amount of relish almost exactly equaled the amount needed to fill nine jars. How did it taste? Okay. Like beet-cabbage salad with a lot of sweet vinegar.
Beet Relish
6 cups cooked chopped beets
6 cups shredded raw cabbage
3/4 cup freshly grated horseradish
3 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1. Combine the beets, cabbage, horseradish, salt and pepper. Heat the vinegar, add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Bring to a boil.
2. Add the vegetable mixture and cook tenty minutes. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Cool and store in a cool, dark, dry place.
Makes about 5 pints.
Since I am at the apartment, canning presents difficulties. No knives for chopping, no big pot for sterilizing the jars, etc. etc. So I asked Mommio if I could use her large, heroically well equipped kitchen for canning. She was puzzled, especially by the idea of beet relish, but she said yes.
You, dear reader (s)(?) might be puzzled as well. Why choose beet relish out of the 30 or 40 relish and jam recipes still pending in this book, when I could be canning something my family and friends might actually eat, like apple chutney, or green tomato mincemeat? Why, indeed? Well, the choice had to do with available ingredients, namely cabbage, as well as with the quantity made by the recipe. The actual farmer gave me a cabbage a week and a half ago, and three quarters of it remained. So, clearly, whatever I made had best contain cabbage. Also, I had bought a dozen six ounce canning jars. I didn't want to make 22 quarts of something. Thus, beet relish.
So, I brought all the assembled ingredients, including fresh horseradish, which looks like something one Zulu warrior might open another Zulu warrior's scalp with, to Mommio's kitchen and set to work. If you are not supposed to covet your neighbor's goods, I suppose that includes their Revereware pots. Mommio appears to have a complete collection, which made me drool. It ran from the extremely tiny, used probably to melt butter, to the large kettle, which I used to cook the relish. Then there was a largish aluminum pot, which Mommio informed me was rejected by some people, including her picky daughter. I used that to sterilize the jars.
As I began peeling and chopping the beets, it occurred to me that beets were probably not the best medium to use in a spotless kitchen maintained by a particular, 86 year old cook, especially the day the cleaning lady had come. But, c'est la vie. Pretty soon, my hands looked like Sweeney Todd's , and I tried to remember not to wipe them on my pants.
I slapped the beets on to boil and turned to the cabbage. As I said, we had three-quarters of it left. One of the three quarters had been removed from the whole. I chopped that up, and bingo, it provided six cups of cabbage, as requested. Sigh. Half a cabbage left. The horseradish was kind of woody. I wondered how fresh it was, but, at that point I wasn't going out for more horseradish.
Pretty soon, the mixture was boiling on the stove, as were the jars. Sweat, the constant companion of summer cooking, was rolling off my brow. It was time to fill the jars. I took a quick peek around the kitchen to look for tongs. Mommio makes her own grape jelly and her own marmalade, the ingredients of which come from The Vermont Country Store. However, she does not sterilize her jars, so she didn't seem to possess a set of tongs.
No matter. I am an old hand at fishing jars, rings, and lids out of a kettle of boiling water with a wooden spoon (and burning myself). Mommio's wooden spoon seemed to have belonged to a salad set. It had a shorter handle than the wooden spoons I used. But I persevered, only burning myself two or three times, and filled up my jars with a beautiful deep crimson mixture. The amount of relish almost exactly equaled the amount needed to fill nine jars. How did it taste? Okay. Like beet-cabbage salad with a lot of sweet vinegar.
Beet Relish
6 cups cooked chopped beets
6 cups shredded raw cabbage
3/4 cup freshly grated horseradish
3 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1. Combine the beets, cabbage, horseradish, salt and pepper. Heat the vinegar, add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Bring to a boil.
2. Add the vegetable mixture and cook tenty minutes. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Cool and store in a cool, dark, dry place.
Makes about 5 pints.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Pressed Chicken
I would call this chicken mousse so my readers would know that it is a cold dish that uses gelatin. It is a good summer recipe, and However, in South Carolina it is known as pressed chicken. Making this in the confines of the apartment kitchen presented certain challenges. One was the knife situation.
The apartment has no decent knives, or indecent knives for that matter. What it has is a Gerber carving set donated by me to the cause last summer when I was dismantling my parents' house. Now, as excellent as Gerber knives are, they are not suited to chopping and mincing. The blades are too thin. This recipe requires a lot of chopping and mincing. Also, there is the issue of the whipped cream. The apartment lacks an egg beater.
Since this recipe has to chill several hours, I decided to be organized. I began at 8:00 am chopping up the chicken breasts I had poached the previous day when Mommio came to dinner. I wasn't organized enough to hard boil the eggs at the same time, so I set them to boiling as well. I went on to the celery and green pepper, when I discovered the shortcomings of the Gerber knives. You can't do the thing where you put the palm of your hand on the top of the blade and rock the blade back and forth chopping the veg up fine.
When I came to the whipped cream, first I tried to whip it in a bowl using a fork. My husband can do this with egg whites, and if I wasn't so lazy, I probably could too. Then, I had a brain wave, and got out the blender. I remember my mother doing this, and saying you had to be very careful, or you would end up with butter. Well, she was right. I ended up with butter. The butter went into the meat veg mix, and I added more mayonnaise to hold things together.
It turned out very well. The gelatin did not separate. A handsome dish that would be just the thing to serve when your college roommate comes to Sunday lunch.
Pressed Chicken
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 cup boiling chicken broth
2 cups cut-up or diced cooked chicken
2 cups diced celery
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated onion
1/2 cup blanched almonds split
1/2 heavy cream whipped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup green pepper, finely chopped
6 hard cooked eggs, chopped or left whole
salad greens
1. Soak the gelatin in the water. Add the broth and stir to dissolve the gelatin.
2. In a bowl mix together the chicken, celery, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, onion and almonds. Fold in the cream, mayonnaise, green pepper and dissolved gelatin.
3. If the eggs are chopped, fold them into mixture. Pack mixture into a lightly oiled mold or loaf pan. If the eggs are left whole, pack half the mixture into mold or pan, arrange eggs length-wise on top and pack in remaining mixture.
4. Chill several hours. Unmold on a bed of greens.
Yield four servings.
The apartment has no decent knives, or indecent knives for that matter. What it has is a Gerber carving set donated by me to the cause last summer when I was dismantling my parents' house. Now, as excellent as Gerber knives are, they are not suited to chopping and mincing. The blades are too thin. This recipe requires a lot of chopping and mincing. Also, there is the issue of the whipped cream. The apartment lacks an egg beater.
Since this recipe has to chill several hours, I decided to be organized. I began at 8:00 am chopping up the chicken breasts I had poached the previous day when Mommio came to dinner. I wasn't organized enough to hard boil the eggs at the same time, so I set them to boiling as well. I went on to the celery and green pepper, when I discovered the shortcomings of the Gerber knives. You can't do the thing where you put the palm of your hand on the top of the blade and rock the blade back and forth chopping the veg up fine.
When I came to the whipped cream, first I tried to whip it in a bowl using a fork. My husband can do this with egg whites, and if I wasn't so lazy, I probably could too. Then, I had a brain wave, and got out the blender. I remember my mother doing this, and saying you had to be very careful, or you would end up with butter. Well, she was right. I ended up with butter. The butter went into the meat veg mix, and I added more mayonnaise to hold things together.
It turned out very well. The gelatin did not separate. A handsome dish that would be just the thing to serve when your college roommate comes to Sunday lunch.
Pressed Chicken
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 cup boiling chicken broth
2 cups cut-up or diced cooked chicken
2 cups diced celery
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon finely grated onion
1/2 cup blanched almonds split
1/2 heavy cream whipped
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup green pepper, finely chopped
6 hard cooked eggs, chopped or left whole
salad greens
1. Soak the gelatin in the water. Add the broth and stir to dissolve the gelatin.
2. In a bowl mix together the chicken, celery, salt, black pepper, lemon juice, onion and almonds. Fold in the cream, mayonnaise, green pepper and dissolved gelatin.
3. If the eggs are chopped, fold them into mixture. Pack mixture into a lightly oiled mold or loaf pan. If the eggs are left whole, pack half the mixture into mold or pan, arrange eggs length-wise on top and pack in remaining mixture.
4. Chill several hours. Unmold on a bed of greens.
Yield four servings.
Bibb Lettuce Salad
Bibb lettuce is more commonly known as Boston lettuce. Although I am definitely of the more is better school when it comes to salad dressing, this recipe makes 4 tablespoons of dressing and is just fine. About the two or three heads of lettuce, heads of lettuce must have been smaller back in the day. We used part of one head for a small salad for three people.If this salad was going to be your vegetable course, you might use an entire head for four people.
Bibb Lettuce Salad
2 or three heads Bibb lettuce
1 teaspoon Dijon or Dusseldorf mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon whine vinegar or lemon juice
3 tablespoons or more peanut oil or olive oil
1/2 clove garlic finely minced
1. Pull of the leaves of the lettuce and rinse well under cold running water. Cut or tear the leaves into bite-size pieces. Shake to dry.
2. Put the mustard into a salad bowl and add the salt, pepper, vinegar, oil and garlic, stirring with a wire whisk. Add the lettuce and toss. Makes four servings.
Bibb Lettuce Salad
2 or three heads Bibb lettuce
1 teaspoon Dijon or Dusseldorf mustard
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon whine vinegar or lemon juice
3 tablespoons or more peanut oil or olive oil
1/2 clove garlic finely minced
1. Pull of the leaves of the lettuce and rinse well under cold running water. Cut or tear the leaves into bite-size pieces. Shake to dry.
2. Put the mustard into a salad bowl and add the salt, pepper, vinegar, oil and garlic, stirring with a wire whisk. Add the lettuce and toss. Makes four servings.
Green Beans with Brown Butter Sauce
The Berkshire Farmer has gone, with husband and dog, on vacation, to the Berkshires, no less. In general, the Berkshires have the virtue of being far cooler than Washington, D.C. in the summertime.As a young person, I remember vividly getting off the plane in Albany to blue skies with white, fluffy clouds and wondering why the hell I lived in DC. However, not this year. The temperature hovers around 90, and promises to stay that way for three more days at least. Even at 5:30 in the morning, when the dog gets up to pee, it's about 75 degrees. The dirt roads exude clouds of dust. And there's nothing to do except sit under a tree, sweat and read A Season in China, a biography of Edgar Snow, the first Westerner to interview Mao, who wrote Red Star over China. At the urging of my kids, I took Jean Hewitt with me. "You can blog from Massachusetts, Mom." I thought it might be an opportunity to hit the farmers' markets and make some of the more improbable recipes, such as rhubarb marmalade.
Opportunity arose almost immediately upon our arrival when we invited Mommio to dinner. Now, Mommio is not my mother, although I am far closer to her than I ever was with my own mother. She is the mother of my best friends from childhood, and presides over what the British would call an estate, a collection of rental houses, barns and assorted outbuildings. We are staying in one of the assorted outbuildings, in an apartment tucked into a corner of a vast 19th century carriage house/garage/barn. Much as it is in Britain, the house that this structure belonged to was torn down during World War II to save taxes. But the barn, which used to be known as the Green Barn, remains now the property of my friend, her daughter. We're staying here because the farmhouse, my family's house, is, A. uninhabitable, and B. in the process of being sold to someone else.
The apartment has one large room with a kitchen and sleeping area. The kitchen dates mainly from the 1970s, although I suspect the stove is older. It has very little counter space and was equipped by my friend, who, I suppose, figured people on vacation wouldn't really cook. For example, there is a blender, but not an egg beater.
So, on Monday afternoon, with the temperature in the 90s and the fan blowing on the dog, I began to cook for Mommio. What I would have liked to serve her, the contents of a large box of vegetables thoughtfully left by the actual farmer, was out, because she doesn't like cabbage or broccoli. So Jean Hewitt's many cabbage recipes had to be left for another time. I settled on green beans, because she grows those in her garden. I left Green Beans Southern Style for another time, figuring Mommio's reaction to that would be similar to my mother's. My mother liked to tell a story about a wartime bride in Tennessee where my father was stationed, who tearfully took my mother aside and explained about the frozen green beans. "I biled 'em and I biled 'em and they're still green."
So we had Green Beans with Brown Butter Sauce and Bibb Lettuce Salad to go with our little tiny steaks, pan fried on the top of the stove. I moved pots, bowls and plates here and there, parking some on the top of the microwave and periodically went into the bathroom to wipe the sweat off my face with a washcloth. I had to break off about 45 minutes from the appointed time when I realized we had no flour. I did what any neighbor would do, and went up the hill with a tea cup and borrowed some from Mommio.
When Mommio arrived, she announced that she hadn't been invited to dinner in a coon's age. Since she is 86 and most of her friends are the same age, it's not surprising that they've given up dinner parties. She also said she wasn't very hungry, also not surprising considering her age and the heat, but she did all right when dinner came. We sat at the table and talked until after 8:30. I offered to walk her up the hill to her house, but she declined, saying she was perfectly capable of walking by herself.
Green Beans with Brown Butter Sauce
1/4 cup butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup grated shap cheddar cheese
1 pound green beans cooked and drained
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1. Brown the butter lightly in a heavy saucepan, but do not allow to burn. Add the flour and gradually stir in the broth.
2. Add the bay leaf and bring to a boil, stirring. Cook one minute. Stir in the cheese until melted. Remove bay leaf.
3. Arrange the beans in a serving dish and pour sauce over. Sprinkle with the pecans. Makes six servings.
Opportunity arose almost immediately upon our arrival when we invited Mommio to dinner. Now, Mommio is not my mother, although I am far closer to her than I ever was with my own mother. She is the mother of my best friends from childhood, and presides over what the British would call an estate, a collection of rental houses, barns and assorted outbuildings. We are staying in one of the assorted outbuildings, in an apartment tucked into a corner of a vast 19th century carriage house/garage/barn. Much as it is in Britain, the house that this structure belonged to was torn down during World War II to save taxes. But the barn, which used to be known as the Green Barn, remains now the property of my friend, her daughter. We're staying here because the farmhouse, my family's house, is, A. uninhabitable, and B. in the process of being sold to someone else.
The apartment has one large room with a kitchen and sleeping area. The kitchen dates mainly from the 1970s, although I suspect the stove is older. It has very little counter space and was equipped by my friend, who, I suppose, figured people on vacation wouldn't really cook. For example, there is a blender, but not an egg beater.
So, on Monday afternoon, with the temperature in the 90s and the fan blowing on the dog, I began to cook for Mommio. What I would have liked to serve her, the contents of a large box of vegetables thoughtfully left by the actual farmer, was out, because she doesn't like cabbage or broccoli. So Jean Hewitt's many cabbage recipes had to be left for another time. I settled on green beans, because she grows those in her garden. I left Green Beans Southern Style for another time, figuring Mommio's reaction to that would be similar to my mother's. My mother liked to tell a story about a wartime bride in Tennessee where my father was stationed, who tearfully took my mother aside and explained about the frozen green beans. "I biled 'em and I biled 'em and they're still green."
So we had Green Beans with Brown Butter Sauce and Bibb Lettuce Salad to go with our little tiny steaks, pan fried on the top of the stove. I moved pots, bowls and plates here and there, parking some on the top of the microwave and periodically went into the bathroom to wipe the sweat off my face with a washcloth. I had to break off about 45 minutes from the appointed time when I realized we had no flour. I did what any neighbor would do, and went up the hill with a tea cup and borrowed some from Mommio.
When Mommio arrived, she announced that she hadn't been invited to dinner in a coon's age. Since she is 86 and most of her friends are the same age, it's not surprising that they've given up dinner parties. She also said she wasn't very hungry, also not surprising considering her age and the heat, but she did all right when dinner came. We sat at the table and talked until after 8:30. I offered to walk her up the hill to her house, but she declined, saying she was perfectly capable of walking by herself.
Green Beans with Brown Butter Sauce
1/4 cup butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup grated shap cheddar cheese
1 pound green beans cooked and drained
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1. Brown the butter lightly in a heavy saucepan, but do not allow to burn. Add the flour and gradually stir in the broth.
2. Add the bay leaf and bring to a boil, stirring. Cook one minute. Stir in the cheese until melted. Remove bay leaf.
3. Arrange the beans in a serving dish and pour sauce over. Sprinkle with the pecans. Makes six servings.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Camping Hamburger
Even though I made this on a stove and not over a campfire, don't assume that I couldn't make it over a campfire. As the members of my long suffering family, who have been dragged through the state parks of the Eastern United States, will attest, I can make a lot of stuff over a campfire. This is the ultimate tightwad dish. You make camping hamburger when you were going to make regular spaghetti, but at 7:30 at night, you went to the cupboard and discovered that someone else had used up all the tomato sauce the week before. It substitutes tomato juice and ketchup for tomato sauce. Now, tomato juice is not a staple in our family, so I did have to buy that, but we have ketchup and we had ground beef and all the other stuff. Net cost of dinner, $2.37 for tomato juice.
The verdict is, it makes somewhat sweeter, more watery spaghetti sauce than our family is used to. The watery-ness was undoubtedly due to the fact that I did not shake the can before I opened it. It is hard to correct that particular mistake, also. Anyhow, it's fine if you are out of spaghetti sauce.
Camping Hamburger
1 pound ground beef chuck
1 onion chopped
1 cup broken up spaghetti
2 1/2 cups tomato juice
1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano (use more)
1/2 teaspoon basil (ditto)
Brown the meat and onion in a heavy kettle. Add the remaining ingredients, stir and cook very slowly about forty-five minutes. Makes four servings.
The verdict is, it makes somewhat sweeter, more watery spaghetti sauce than our family is used to. The watery-ness was undoubtedly due to the fact that I did not shake the can before I opened it. It is hard to correct that particular mistake, also. Anyhow, it's fine if you are out of spaghetti sauce.
Camping Hamburger
1 pound ground beef chuck
1 onion chopped
1 cup broken up spaghetti
2 1/2 cups tomato juice
1/2 cup ketchup
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon oregano (use more)
1/2 teaspoon basil (ditto)
Brown the meat and onion in a heavy kettle. Add the remaining ingredients, stir and cook very slowly about forty-five minutes. Makes four servings.
Hominy Casserole
I had been intending to make this for a couple of months. Cans of hominy were stacking up in the pantry, along with unopened packages of seaweed, jams from the early oughties and overlooked containers of shortening. Once again, faced with a week of what sailors used to call short commons, I started rummaging around in there to see what could be unearthed and eaten. Hence hominy casserole.
Now, hominy is sort of interesting stuff. According to Laura Ingalls Wilder, my source of information for much of 19th century frontier food, it was made by treating corn with lye. It then puffs up into white softish balls. Wikkipedia, my source for checking things that appeared in Laura Ingalls Wilder, says, yup, she was right. Hominy was treated with lye, and was invented by the indigenous people of Guatamala around 1,500 (or earlier, according to some sage on the Wikkipedia discussion board.) It's also called nixtamal, which is an Aztec word.
I learned all about nixtamal and about 14 other words pertaining to corn when I went to Mexico. But, right now, it being ten years later, I can't quite remember what nixtamal is. However, hominy is this kind of frontiery stuff that people eat in Mexico, El Salvador and the Southwest. When hominy is dried, it is ground up into hominy grits, and southerners eat it for breakfast.
My father, the farmer, and my mother, the former New York debutant, who were every bit as sarcastic and dismissive as I am about other cultures (In fact they were worse, but we won't get into that.) used to drive down to Mexico in their later years to get away from Berkshire winters. Unfortunately, from their point of view, the only way to get from New England to Mexico was through the American South. Let us say the culinary offerings did not appeal. Their description of a southern continental breakfast was danish and grits.
Hominy, despite its rich ethnic and historical roots, tastes kind of tinny, like the can. At least it does to me. But hominy casserole is cheap, quick and easy. And it's in the cookbook. So here it is.
Hominy Casserole
3 twenty-ounce cans whole hominy
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (I think more's better)
1 tablespoon chili powder.
2 cups shredded sharp cheese
toasted tortillas
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Drain the hominy. Blend together the tomato sauce and chili powder. Make layers of hominy, tomato sauce and cheese in a buttered casserole, ending with the cheese. Sprinkle with crumbled tortillas and bake fifteen to twenty minutes. Serves six.
Now, hominy is sort of interesting stuff. According to Laura Ingalls Wilder, my source of information for much of 19th century frontier food, it was made by treating corn with lye. It then puffs up into white softish balls. Wikkipedia, my source for checking things that appeared in Laura Ingalls Wilder, says, yup, she was right. Hominy was treated with lye, and was invented by the indigenous people of Guatamala around 1,500 (or earlier, according to some sage on the Wikkipedia discussion board.) It's also called nixtamal, which is an Aztec word.
I learned all about nixtamal and about 14 other words pertaining to corn when I went to Mexico. But, right now, it being ten years later, I can't quite remember what nixtamal is. However, hominy is this kind of frontiery stuff that people eat in Mexico, El Salvador and the Southwest. When hominy is dried, it is ground up into hominy grits, and southerners eat it for breakfast.
My father, the farmer, and my mother, the former New York debutant, who were every bit as sarcastic and dismissive as I am about other cultures (In fact they were worse, but we won't get into that.) used to drive down to Mexico in their later years to get away from Berkshire winters. Unfortunately, from their point of view, the only way to get from New England to Mexico was through the American South. Let us say the culinary offerings did not appeal. Their description of a southern continental breakfast was danish and grits.
Hominy, despite its rich ethnic and historical roots, tastes kind of tinny, like the can. At least it does to me. But hominy casserole is cheap, quick and easy. And it's in the cookbook. So here it is.
Hominy Casserole
3 twenty-ounce cans whole hominy
1 1/2 cups tomato sauce (I think more's better)
1 tablespoon chili powder.
2 cups shredded sharp cheese
toasted tortillas
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Drain the hominy. Blend together the tomato sauce and chili powder. Make layers of hominy, tomato sauce and cheese in a buttered casserole, ending with the cheese. Sprinkle with crumbled tortillas and bake fifteen to twenty minutes. Serves six.
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