Orange Glazed Sweet Potatoes (Gluten Free)

 It seems to be a Thanksgiving tradition to have two kinds of potatoes at our dinner, white mashed and sweet. I am actually not sure how this thing got started. It may have been when the kids were younger and requested mashed sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, which, although schmaltzy, are really good. The cookbook continues to provide me with sweet potato recipes, so this is an opportunity to make them. My husband, Bob, does not care for sweet potatoes, so they do not usually appear at our table.
As sweet potato dishes go, this one is okay. Note that the sweet potatoes are supposed to be mostly cooked before you orange glaze them. (I didn't.) In fact, in a spectacular failure to read the recipe I neglected to buy orange juice when I went to the supermarket on Tuesday. So around 1:00 on Thursday, halfway through the four hour cooking marathon, I took Watson, the corgi, out to CVS to buy a bottle of orange juice. So, to make your Thanksgiving, or whatever, go more smoothly, be sure to buy orange juice and precook the sweet potatoes. Unless you want to get out of the kitchen for a few minutes and walk the dog.
The recipe author envisioned serving the potatoes whole. I sliced them, which seems like a better strategy when dealing with several side dishes. People may take what they want and leave the rest. I also only put in the brown sugar. It was plenty sweet.

Orange-Glazed Sweet Potatoes

6 medium sized yams or sweet potatoes, scrubbed and boiled or baked until barely tender and peeled. (Peel these first. If you cook them first, you risk burned fingers.)
1 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place the already cooked yams or sweet potatoes in  greased shallow baking dish. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small pan an bring to a boil, stirring. Pour over the potatoes and bake thirty minutes, basting occasionally. Makes six servings.

Baked Hominy and Tomatoes (Gluten Free)

This dish is actually made from hominy grits, not whole hominy as the title might lead one to expect. Hominy grits make a very tasty, versatile side dish. Dress them up with lots of cheese, and maybe canned tomatoes, and you can't go wrong. I decided to serve ham because the yms like ham, and because I needed a ham bone for a soup recipe. Hominy casseroles go well with ham, and everybody likes cheese.
The only potentially tricky element to this recipe is estimating the correct amount of uncooked grits you need to produce the three cups of cooked grits needed for the recipe. I listened to some helpful advice from a kitchen elf and made a monumental amount of grits, three times what was necessary.  Grits are like rice. You use half of the uncooked produce to make the correct amount of cooked produce. To get three cups of cooked grits, cook one and a half cups of raw grits in three cups of water.
My husband Bob and I had been at church working on the rummage sale, so we did not prepare ahead of time. This is an easy recipe, but it does take time, about 20 minutes to cook the grits, and 45 minutes to bake the casserole. We ended up eating just as the World Series came on. Like I said, grits, cheese and tomatoes--you can't go wrong.

Baked Hominy and Tomatoes

3 cups canned or homecooked hominy grits
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups canned tomatoes or tomato puree
1/4 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Combine the hominy, butter, tomatoes, and cheese. Add the salt and pepper and pour into an oiled baking dish or casserole.
3. Bake about forty-five minutes.
Makes eight servings.

Fried Oysters (Gluten Free)

Last Sunday, I returned from an almost three month long sojourn in the United Kingdom where I either dined on reheatable Indian food from Tesco or vegetarian dishes from my daughter's student vegetarian cookbook. Having a desire to see the rest of the family we invited son and daughter in law (and grandbaby to be) over for dinner. After a couple of at cross purposes text messages, we ascertained that, yes, daughter-in-law did like fried oysters so they went on the menu.
The South section has about a million oyster recipes, so I figured I had better strike where the striking was good. This meant that Bob, my shellfish adverse husband, would have to eat something else as an appetizer. He is not generally crazy about this, but went along.
I bought a jar of oysters from the Fishery, our local fish store. If you have ever tried to open oysters, you will know that this was a wise move. For years, I had a scar on my left hand from where the knife I was holding slipped off the oyster into the bottom of my index finger.
Step one says to dry the oysters on paper towels. Our paper towel supply was depleted, so I just did the best with the few squares we had that I could. If you want to make fried oysters, I  suggest you lay in a supply of paper towels for the evening. It also pays to read the recipe all the way through because I  did not notice until this moment that the oysters were supposed to be dipped in beaten egg and cornmeal twice and then let stand for twenty minutes. I dipped once and fried immediately.
It would take a more discerning palate than mine to tell the difference. However, Julia Child says follow the recipe, so don't cut corners the way I did.

Fried Oysters

12 large plump oysters ( ours came in a jar.)
1 egg
2 tablespoons water
 yellow corn meal
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
fat for deep frying
lemon wedges

1. Drain the oysters and dry on paper towels.
2. Beat the egg with water. Dip the oysters one at a time in the egg, then in corm meal seasoned with salt and pepper. Dip them in egg again, then again in corn meal. Let stand thirty minutes.
3. Preheat the fat to 375 degrees. Fry the oysters until until corn meal is golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve with lemon wedges.
Makes two to four servings.

Salmon with Avocado (Gluten Free)

Looking back to the days when I posted ten to twelve recipes a month on the blog, I realized that I was able to do so because Bob and I ate this stuff for dinner. So, Friday, I went through the cookbook looking for fish recipes that my dear husband would eat. Basically, he eats any kind of fish that is not shellfish. I settled on the salmon with avocado because...it sounded good, and looked relatively easy.
What we have here is broiled salmon spread with a mild guacamole. Quick and easy, but not something to set the culinary world on fire.  Bob liked it. Laura liked it. It's something mildly different than just plain broiled salmon. If you wanted to make it more exciting, I would advise more garlic as a contrast to the mild tasting salmon.
If all the fans of avocado meatloaf are wondering, the recipe comes from Washington State, not Southern California.  So it probably wasn't in the mythical avocados for every occasion cookbook that I imagined the avocado growers wives publishing in 1948.

Salmon with Avocado

1 salmon fillet (about two pounds)
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter
3 ripe avocados peeled and seeded
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 sprigs parsley
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 clove garlic chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Place the salmon flat, skin side down, in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper and dot with the butter. Place in the oven and bake exactly twenty minutes. Remove the salmon from the oven and pour off any liquid that has accumulated. Carefully transfer the salmon to a hot serving platter.
3. Meanwhile, combine the avocados, red pepper, parsley sprigs, onion, lemon juice, garlic and salt and pepper. Puree in an electric blender, stirring down with a rubber spatula as necessary. When blended, spoon the mixture over the hot salmon. Sprinkle with the parsley.
4. Trim the lemon and slice thinly. cut each slice in half. Use the garnish the dish. Makes six to eight servings.

Potato Stuffing or Filling (Gluten Free)

Last Monday, our son and daughter-in-law came to dinner. It's kind of funny. Every couple of weeks or so, our son calls up, sort of to check in on the old folks, and announces that they will come to dinner. They are extremely considerate. When I was in and out of the hospital for my hip replacement operation, they brought dinner no less than three times, on top of a busy work schedule. But anyway, they were here, and I used the opportunity to check off two of the dwindling number of recipes in the New England section of the cookbook.
The last time I was at Safeway, they had an amazing, buy one, get one free offer involving those giant roasting chickens that Purdue used to call oven stuffer roasters. I had actually forgotten about them because Bob has been doing most of the cooking lately. For some reason, I took something down to the freezer and found it stuffed with two huge chickens. I had been toying with the idea of corned beef and cabbage for dinner, since I love corned beef and cabbage, but seeing the chickens brought me back to my senses.
I remembered the Potato Stuffing and decided to go with that, although I did not use it to stuff the chicken. Cooking was kind of a rush, because I had tutoring before and did not get home until 5:45. Bob had put the chicken in while I was explaining the mysteries of decimals to my tutee. I had to clean up the kitchen and start cooking. He had also considerately boiled three potatoes for the mashed potatoes.
I was able to make the stuffing gluten free by using gluten free bread as the bread cubes. Everyone,  my daughter-in-law particularly, spoke highly of the result. She said she wanted to dive right in to it. This is a woman who really likes potatoes in virtually any form. However, I found it kind of blah, meaning lacking in flavor.  I added garlic powder to pep things up, but if I was going to make it again, I would add a chopped onion sautéed in butter.
Now that I think about it, using it to stuff the chicken would definitely add flavoring. But I would still add a chopped onion. This is an easy recipe to make, so if you have some left over mashed potatoes, or a few boiled potatoes, it would be a way to quickly dress up roast chicken.

Potato Stuffing or Filling

2 cups mashed potatoes
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
2 cups tiny white bread cubes
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
1/2 teaspoon thyme
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat the potatoes with the eggs. Heat the butter in a skillet and brown the bread cubes in it. Sprinkle with the marjoram, thyme, salt and pepper and stir into potato mixture.
3. Add the milk and mix well. Turn into a greased baking dish and bake forty-five minutes. Or use to stuff a five pound chicken.  Makes four servings.

Chestnut soup from Alain Ducasse (Gluten Free)

Chestnuts are another food that has deep childhood associations. My family lived on a dairy farm in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, but we were odd dairy farmers. My father had grown up in Europe, going to a series of Swiss boarding schools, before his mother brought him back to the US where he went to high school at Pomphret, a boarding school dedicated to the education of the sons of the lesser known Boston elite. Then he went to Harvard, and contrived to get thrown out in his senior year for not doing any work in a history seminar. You have to admit, it's a strange background for a dairy farmer.
My mother went to one of the upper class New York day schools, and then to boarding school at Foxcroft, in Middleburg, Va. , where, along with getting a pretty decent education (my mother never failed to blow me away by the depth of her knowledge) she fox hunted on a horse named Nonchelant which belonged to her aunt. Again, a pretty weird background for the wife of a dairy farmer.
World War II had something to do with my father's lifestyle choice, and my mother came along for the ride. So it was that on vacations, we would end up staying with our New York cousins, not exactly country mice, but nonetheless, dazzled by the big city. I have a vivid memory of being somewhere on the West Side, maybe near Lincoln Center, where we used to go to see the Nutcracker, and buying chestnuts from a vendor for the first time. The vendor had a charcoal brazier on a cart. with chestnuts spread across a piece of sheet metal. If people were buying, the chestnuts had time to cook but not burn. They were handed over in a small paper bag which kept our hands warm while we ate the chestnuts. The nuts themselves were creamy, warm and comforting, something like a miniature baked potato.
When I got back to New York as a graduate student, I barely had time to hang out in any of the places that would attract chestnut vendors. When I did run across them, their chestnuts were disappointingly charred. It was like eating a baked potato that had frizzled in a campfire.
But I have always had a soft spot for chestnuts. One November, my husband and I went to Paris, and frequented a bunch of little neighborhood bistros. In one, I ordered a soup whose name I did not recognize, but didn't have the nerve to ask the waiter about. When the soup came, I did ask. It turned out to be chestnut soup. It was delicious.
At Christmas, I looked for some sort of cream soup to start Christmas dinner. All the soup recipes in the NYTH cookbook had either been served or contained the dreaded shellfish. On the Food Republic website, I ran across this recipe and thought "yes" "aha." It was French, it was chestnuts, and hey, the recipe said only 20 minutes prep time. So I bought some chestnuts, which were surprisingly available in DC, ( I think I bought my chestnuts at Whole Foods, but it might have been Magruders.)
Actually I bought quite a few chestnuts. The recipe said 2 1/2 pounds to make soup for four people. We were expecting eight people, so I bought five pounds. On the night of the 23rd, I sat down to start peeling the chestnuts. It was an excruciating task. I had to pierce the annoyingly tough and slippery skin, and then pry the meat out. It wasn't easy and resulted in many nicks and cuts to my hands. After an hour and a half, I had peeled maybe half the chestnuts. As I slumped over my measly collection of peeled chestnuts, Laura blew in. She is a friend of my daughter's now living in our basement, and sort of ministers to us old people , as well as working 55 to 60 hours a week. Laura made me a fresh cup of tea, and looked at what I was doing. "Boil them first," she advised, as she disappeared out the door with the puppy.
So the next day, I threw the rest of the chestnuts into a stewpot and boiled them for an hour. This resulted in rendering the tough, slippery skin somewhat more flexible, so it was actually possible to peel the shell off the nuts, instead of having to pry them off. It did not mean the operation went a lot faster, however. After another hour and a half, I had peeled the last of the chestnuts into the big china bowl and was ready to totter off to bed.
It was clear to me that Alain Ducasse, although he was a world famous chef, or because he was a world famous chef, had not factored peeling the chestnuts into the prep time. He was too busy creating a world image and opening restaurants around the globe, after all.
As far as the cooking went, our friend Tim stepped in and did most of that. I do know that everything had to cook for far longer than 45 minutes. One little throw away line startled me. I could see from the photo, the soup had been run through a blender. However, blenders were not mentioned. It did say, at the beginning to step 7, "Blend the soup thoroughly." It didn't mean mix it up. It meant, run it through the Cuisineart.
According to my husband, the soup was not all that great. Our guests had a wonderful time however. Nothing damped the Christmas spirit.  
My advice is to use frozen chestnuts if you can get them, and to be prepared to doctor the soup with herbs and spices.

Chestnut Soup

2 shallots
3 stalks celery
3 cloves garlic
2 slices bacon
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon peppercorns
2 quarts chicken stock
12 ounces porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon black pepper, ground
2 1/2 pounds chestnuts, peeled
1 tablespoon olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
2. Peel and cut the shallots and celery into  large chunks. Peel the three garlic cloves.
3. Heat a flameproof casserole dish and put in two slices of bacon, 1/8 inch thick. Color well (this means brown deeply) on both sides and then take the slices out and keep them warm.
4. Add the chunks of shallot and celery and the whole garlic cloves to the bacon fast. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes. Add 2 1/2 pounds of peeled chestnuts to the casserole dish. Sweat for three minutes, stirring. (this means saute for three minutes.)
5. Take out about 20 chestnuts and set aside. Then add a bay leaf and the peppercorns. Add the chicken stock and put the casserole dish in the oven for 45 minutes. (I would turn the heat up to at least 300 degrees, 350 if you have to, or allot 90 minutes for the chestnuts to cook.)
6. In the meantime, clean the mushrooms. Slice the caps of 2 firm mushrooms into thin slices and keep cold on a plate covered with plastic wrap.  Chop the rest into small dice.
7. Once the chestnuts are soft, run the contents of the casserole dish through a blender or Cuisineart. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding salt and freshly ground black pepper. Keep hot. Cut the two slices of bacon into fine lardons and cut the 20 reserved chestnuts into quarters.
8. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan and brown the chestnuts for two minutes. Add the diced mushrooms, salt lightly and cook for an additional two minutes.
9. Add the small lardons, stir and adjust the seasoning. Sprinkle with mushroom slices and serve nice and hot.

Christmas Pudding (Gluten Free)

Today, I made the Christmas pudding. This made me feel like some 19th Century housewife, possibly Mrs. Cratchit. I gather, from reading I did as a child, that the Christmas pudding had to be made at least three weeks before Christmas, wrapped in muslin and stored in the cold store. In the 21st Century, we are going to London on Friday to see our daughter graduate from her master's program, so if I wanted to make this traditional dish, I had to get started early.
Christmas pudding is pretty much the same thing as plum pudding, which, by the way, does not contain plums.  It is a steamed, bread and dried fruit based pudding dating from medieval times. In the 18th Century, the British referred to raisins as "plums" which is why we talk about plum pudding.
The pudding has a religious affiliation, with a tradition saying it should be made the 25th Sunday after Trinity Sunday, and that it contains 13 ingredients representing Christ and the 12 apostles. The pudding should be stirred by every member of the family stirring from east to west to celebrate the direction the Magi went to get to the Christ Child.. For your information, Trinity Sunday is a movable feast that occurs anywhere from the middle of May to the middle of June. In 2013 it was May 26.
I am not going to take the calendar off the wall and count Sundays. Certainly, today is Tuesday, not Sunday, so we are not following the ancient rule in this house. Also this pudding has 15 ingredients, which could include The Father and the Holy Spirit, if we wanted to be theological about it.
Dishes with unusual ingredients start with a veritable pilgrimage around the city looking for said ingredients. Since I wanted the pudding to be gluten-free, I had to go to Giant Food in Chevy Chase to buy gluten free bread crumbs. Giant, or at least that Giant, has an excellent selection of gluten free products. Otherwise, in my opinion, it's virtually worthless as a grocery store.
Then, there was the suet. Wagshalls, on Massachusetts Avenue, opposite the American University Law School, has suet. I went there today, with my tires spitting through the wet snow. Wagshall's also has a choice selection of high-end meat and a lady butcher. My husband Bob wants us to have beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner. "Buy it at Wagshall's" he said.
Personally, I think there ought to be a law that if the customer may have to take out a loan to buy a food product, the store has a responsibility to tell the customer how much the food product costs. In this case, it was $33 a pound, more than crab meat. I handed my ATM card over in a somewhat stunned condition and drove home with the tenderloin and the suet.
After taking Watson, the puppy, to frolic in the snow and having lunch, I settled down to make the pudding. There is nothing difficult about it.The hardest part of making this is finding the suet. I suggest a farmer's market in your town, with a farm that sells grassfed, home butchered beef. You just basically throw in all the ingredients, mix them up and put them into a greased pudding basin or 22 ounce can and steam away.
This recipe makes a lot of Christmas pudding, three in fact. We are only having 12 people to dinner on Christmas, not an entire clan, so I cut the recipe in half and made one 1 1/2 pound pudding.
 Since the recipe says to put the basin or cans on a rack, it would probably be a good idea to do so. I don't have a rack that would fit in my stockpot, so I turned over a little baking dish and set the pudding basin on that.
When we get back from London on the 22nd, we will have our Christmas pudding in refrigerator, and we won't have to buy it at Heathrow!

Christmas Pudding

1 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups finely grated or ground beef kidney suet (This is also known as caul fat.)
1 cup soft bread crumbs (I used Aleia's Gluten Free Panko Crumbs, available at www.glutenfreepalace.com.)
1 cup currants
1 cup raisins
1 cup mixed candied fruit peels
1 cup finely chopped, peeled tart apple (like Granny Smiths)
2 cups flour (I used Bob's Red Mill Rice Flour to make it gluten free.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 cup unsulphured molasses
1 tablespoon baking soda, dissolved in one cup boiling water

1.  Mix together the brown sugar, suet, crumbs, currants, raisins, peels, apple, flour, salt and spices.
2. Beat the eggs and molasses together and add to sweet mixture. Stir in the dissolved baking soda. Spoon into greased one-pound pudding basins or coffee cans. Cover with wax paper and then a cloth or aluminum foil. Set in a steamer or on a rack in a pan with boiling water extending two-thirds of the way up basins or cans.
3. Steam three hours. Cool. store in freezer or refrigerator. Steam to reheat, about forty-five minutes. Serve with hard sauce. Makes three one-pound puddings.

Potage d'Haricots Rouges (Louisiana Red Bean Soup) (Gluten Free)

Initially, when I considered this recipe, I thought it was a soup made from red beans from Louisiana. I checked on the Internet for Louisiana red beans and did not find anything specific. On further consideration, I believe the soup is actually a soup that originated in Louisiana that is made from small red beans. So don't drive yourself crazy trying to buy something called Louisiana red beans, because I'm not sure they exist. Happily, small red beans are available at Safeway or you can use kidney beans, available everywhere.
I planned to make this ahead of time for Thanksgiving, and got as far as boiling the beans with two ham hocks on Monday. When you look at the recipe, you will not find ham hocks. but I couldn't remember what the meat element was when I was at the grocery store, so I bought ham hocks.
This time two years ago, I had never eaten a ham hock.  As I move into the southern chapters of the cookbook I have been  introduced  to these smoked pigs' ankles and have become a fan. Ham hocks are particularly good in soup. They add a rich, meaty, smoked flavor to the beans.
I had the ham hocks, so I used the ham hocks. Feeling virtuous because I was getting a start on Thanksgiving dinner, I instructed Bob to take the soup  off the heat in an hour and a half and went off to do something else. Bob dutifully turned off the beans, and they sat on the stove for two days because I was always doing something other than moving on to the next step.
Thursday afternoon, I got down to the soup. I had skipped a step by boiling the beans and not adding the onions, bacon and garlic. So I sauteed the onions and garlic with the bacon, scraped them and the spices into the beans, added a tad (maybe a cup) more water and recommenced boiling. After half an hour, the beans were ready to be run through the blender.
"Time to get soup all over the wall," I announced to Tim and my brother, who were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and taste testing stuffing. In the past, I have painted the wall of the kitchen with a rainbow of different soups. I remember hot pumpkin soup going up like a perfect Vesuvius all over me and the wall under the horrified gazes of my children as I struggled not to spout a corresponding volcano of curses.
Years of doing this have taught me a few things. I don't fill the blender as full, and I don't get soup on the wall. Soup went from blender back into saucepan without adding to the decor. I took the ham hocks out and disposed of them. When I am making split pea soup, I cut the meat off the hocks, but not this time.
The soup was an enormous hit. Tim, an old Alabama boy, was fulsome in his praise. "This is superb," he said. Just for the record, Tim is always polite about what he eats, but he doesn't go nuts unless he really likes something.
This is a great soup for winter. Bean soup may not sound terribly elegant, but you could certainly serve this, dressed up with the chopped parsley and hard cooked egg, at a dinner party.

Louisiana Red Bean Soup

4 cups dried Louisiana red beans or kidney beans
1/2 pound lean slab bacon, without rind, cut into cubes
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon sage
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
tabasco sauce to taste
chopped parsley
chopped hard cooked egg

1. Soak the beans overnight in water that extends one inch above their level. (I did not skip this step, although I often do. It probably shortened the cooking time.)
2. Next day, drain the beans and put them in a heavy kettle. Add three quarts of water and bring to a boil.
3. Cook the bacon in a skillet until most of the fast is rendered. Add the onions and garlic and cook until onions are translucent. Add the celery seeds and sage. Season with salt, pepper and Tabasco and pour the mixture into the beans. Simmer the beans until they are very tender, two to two and one-half hours.
4. Let the beans cool and put them through a food mill or sieve or puree them, a little at a time, in an electric blender. If necessar, they may be thinned with a little broth or water. This soup will keep well in the refrigerator.
5. Heat the soup thoroughly and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley and hard-cooked egg and if desired, garlic croutons. Makes three and one-half quarts, about one dozen servings.

 

Black-eyed Pea Soup (Gluten Free)

Black-eyed Pea Soup, from the great state of Louisiana, was executed by a guest cook on the blog, notably my husband Bob. I planned to have the soup for Wednesday night supper. Lately, Bob has been cooking on Wednesday nights because I have been hauling up to the Democratic National Committee on Capitol Hill to make calls for Terry McAuliffe, who as of today is the new Governor elect of Virginia. (The Berkshire Farmer buffs her fingernails.) I suddenly remembered around lunchtime Wednesday afternoon that I had not started the black-eyed pea soup in the crock pot, and told Bob about it as I flew out the door.
To combat blandness, and , he confessed because he didn't read the recipe all the way through, Bob put the four slices of lemon that were supposed to be a garnish into the soup. The result was a piquant, lemon infused soup where the smokiness of the ham hock blended with the lemon flavor to produce something very nice indeed.
The recipe as written is supposed to be cooked on top of the stove, but 4 hours on high in the slow cooker produces the same result. He also did not soak the beans. I suspect that Monsanto or some other agribiz company has fiddled with the genetic make up of dried beans so we no longer have to soak them. Please note that this is only an opinion, not an accusation. I have no direct information about what Monsanto does or does not do.
So when I got home from a hard night of dialing the telephone numbers of Marylanders who were not home, or not answering their phones, we ate hot soup. (In case you are wondering why I would be calling residents of Maryland during a campaign to elect the governor of Virginia, we were combing the Obama lists for people to volunteer to knock on doors on Election Day.
By the way, black-eyed peas are actually beans, like kidney beans, and are eaten all over the world. 

Black Eyed Pea Soup

2 cups dried black-eyed peas
cold water
1 small ham hock (Ham hocks from Safeway are huge. As far as I am concerned, bigger is better here.)
4 cups boiling water
1 bay leaf
2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
1 onion, studded with two whole cloves
salt to taste
4 peppercorns
4 thin slices lemon
paprika
1 teaspoon finely chopped parsley

1. Soak the black-eyed peas over night in cold water to cover. Next day, drain and place in a two-quart kettle. Add the ham hock, boiling water, bay leaf, celery, onion, salt and peppercorns (and lemon slices )and bring to a boil. Cook until peas are tender, two and one half hours to three hours. As the soup cooks, skim the surface as necessary.
2. Remove the ham hock and bay leaf and puree the soup either through a sieve or in an electric blender.  Spoon into four hot soup plates and top each with a slice of lemon. Dot the center of each lemon slice with a little paprika and one-quarter teaspoon chopped parsley.

Jelled Veal (Gluten Free)

Jelled veal is one of those 50s recipes in which the jelled state was thought elegant. I remember eating vast quantities of jellied beef consume for a first course was I was growing up. My husband, when he encountered it, called it beef jello and declined to eat it. Jellied consume was punctuated by jellied chicken soup. or chicken jello, if you will. I also remember a cousin's wedding in Westchester County somewhere about 1959 or 1960 which featured tomato aspic or tomato jello.
I must say, nowadays, the idea of jelled veal does not inspire universal delight in the populace. My extremely polite daughter-in-law made a very minor face when I was telling her and her husband about the jelled veal I made for Bob's cookout. So I was  gratified when Karen, one of the guests at the cookout, demanded to know if it was head cheese, and told me she grew up eating head cheese and just loved it. She was not dismayed by learning it was jelled veal.
I made it for the cookout because I have a theory about this nontraditional food. I figure if a large group of people is given the opportunity to try it, along with the hamburgers and hot dogs, some of them will try it and like it. It is unfair,  however, to serve it as the main dish. People who are repulsed by the very idea of veal would have to go hungry, and that is not hospitable.
Jelled veal is a day before dish. You have to boil 4 veal shanks and a veal knuckle for three hours, until the meat falls off the bones. Then, you boil down the broth, pack the meat into a loaf pan and pour the broth on top of it. Then, let it chill overnight.
I did all these things. Bob got the veal shanks at Union Meat in Eastern Market. I started boiling everything on Friday afternoon after I got back from the gym. The boiling was interrupted when Bob and I decided we really needed some coffee, and so walked up to Starbucks in Chevy Chase for an infusion of caffeine. I finished the whole process after we came back from a cabaret night at church. I took the meat off the bones, chopped it and shredded it, and poured the reduced broth on top of the meat.
The next morning, I checked it. Jelled to perfection.
To be honest, not too many people ate it at the cookout. Karen said she encouraged people to try it, and some did. My brother had some, and liked it well enough to eat some more for breakfast on Sunday morning.
So how does it taste? Well, like bits of cold meat, lightly held together with...veal jello. It's a little bland. It might be good on a sandwich with mayonnaise. But it is not in any way repulsive. So, if you want to recreate the 50s elegance of a summer buffet, try jelled veal and maybe tomato aspic.

Jelled Veal

4 veal shanks, split (The veal shanks available for sale now are only about two inches high, so splitting is not necessary.)
1 veal knuckle bone
1 onion, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
2 ribs celery, diced
4 sprigs parsley
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon salt
6 peppercorns, crushed
1 teaspoon chervil, if available (it wasn't)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped green pepper

1.  Place the shanks, knuckle bone, onion, carrots, celery, parsley sprigs, bay leaf, salt, peppercorns and chervil in a kettle. Add water almost to cover.
2. Bring to a boil and boil vigorously, skimming off scum, five minutes. Cover and simmer gently three hours, or until meat is very tender. Leave shanks in broth until cool enough to handle.
3. Remove and discard knuckle bone. Remove meat from shanks. Dice meat and place in a one and one-half-quart to two-quart bowl or ring mold. Add the chopped parsley and green pepper and toss.
4. Strain the cooking broth into a saucepan and reduce by boiling until liquid measures two cups. Pour over the meat mixture. Cool and chill until firm.
5. Unmold and serve as luncheon or buffet dish or as sandwich filling. Makes six to eight servings.

Cocktail Meat Balls (Gluten Free)

It's party gear up time! We are having an open house next Sunday. Hence, much cooking in advance. I came home this afternoon from riding to find the old metal meat grinder, which I thought had long since bit the dust, firmly screwed to the counter, and a bowl of ground pork sitting underneath it. Bob had started making the meatballs in vast quantities. He did the shopping and discovered that ground pork was almost twice the price of chops, so he bought chops and was grinding the meat.
These are easy to do ahead of time, since you can get to the browning stage and stick them in the freezer, letting the steaming in beef broth wait to another day. We mixed and rolled and browned for the rest of the afternoon. You will note that the recipe calls for two-thirds of a cup of cracker crumbs. If you want gluten free, you can either use the marvelously untasty Glutino crackers, or you can buy gluten free stuffing mix at Whole Foods and put that in the blender, or, you can blenderize gluten free bread. I used a fourth option, and mixed in ground almonds, available at Trader Joes and by mail from King Arthur Flour. It seemed to work fine.
This is a basic meatball recipe. Nothing in it indicates its Midwestern roots. It's easy, and if I was writing this recipe, I would say, put in a large onion.

Cocktail Meat Balls

1 pound ground lean pork
1 pound ground lean beef, round
2 eggs lightly beaten
2/3 cup cracker crumbs (see introduction for gluten free options)
1 small onion finely chopped
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 cup beef broth
1 tablespoon flour (use Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour if you want gluten free.)

1. Combine the pork, beef, eggs, cracker crumbs, onion, nutmeg, allspice, pepper, salt and sugar in a bowl. Mix well.
2. Form into one-half-inch balls. Melt the butter in a skillet and fry the balls in it, a few at a time, until browned on all sides.
3. Drain off excess fat. Return balls to skillet and add one-quarter cup of the broth. Cover skillet and steam the balls ten minutes.
4. Blend the four with the remaining broth. Add to skillet and bring to a boil, stirring. Makes four dozen.

Baked Custard (Gluten Free)

Michaela, Bob's old boss, came to dinner Wednesday night. We had corned  beef and  Brussels sprouts for dinner, so I was looking for something light  and easy, not to say gluten free, for dessert. It being the night  before Thanksgiving, it  did not seem like the time for pies.
 I have to say, baked custard is sort of a namby-pamby dessert. It doesn't have much flavor. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was known as invalid food. Mothers fed it to sick children.
The recipe calls for scalded milk. You scald milk  by heating it slowly, until a ring of tiny bubbles form around the side of the pan. The website  thekitchn.com,  says scalding milk "infuses it with flavor," so the cook can scald milk with vanilla beans, mint leaves or other herbs and spices. Scalding also speeds up the cooking process. If you run across a bread recipe that tells you to scald the milk, you should follow the directions, as scalding milk deactivates the whey proteins in the milk, which can keep the dough from rising properly. (Make sure the milk has cooled somewhat, otherwise when you mix it into the eggs, they will cook.
  I asked Bob to bring home some raspberries, and he inventively made a raspberry sauce in the blender. What you see in the picture is the raspberry sauce. Custard is a very pale yellow.   The cooking time seemed to be off. Hewitt says twenty-five to thirty minutes. It seemed more like 40  to 50 minutes before it solidified.

Baked Custard

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups milk, scalded
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat the eggs with the sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir in the milk. (Make sure it has a chance to cool.) Pour into a baking dish or casserole that has been greased on the bottom. Sprinkle with the nutmeg. Set baking dish or casserole in a pan of hot water and bake twenty-five to thirty minutes, or until a knife inserted in custard comes out clean. Makes four servings.