Anchovy Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

The big day finally came. Fiance is now daughter-in-law, and I am someone's mother-in-law, God wot. The cookbook played no part in the nuptials. However, I decided to have a group of various relatives and my out of town friends to dinner on Friday night before the wedding, and made anchovy stuffed cherry tomatoes for that. I have to say it was one of my more unsuccessful efforts. Roughly three-quarters of them were left the next morning. This was not entirely surprising because they weren't very good.
Anchovies are salty little mothers, and the stuffing turned out to be overpoweringly salty and fishy. I added about a quarter of a cup of mayonnaise to the mix to get it to hold together. Anchovies, chopped hardboiled egg yolks, and capers do not a cohesive filling make. If one was committed to making this dish, it's hard to know how to advise them. Possibly, you could try mixing in cream cheese to lessen the saltiness. Or, one might soak the anchovies, but part of the charm of anchovies is their oily goodness, and soaking would surely do away with that. After my cousin Lou efficiently cored all the tomatoes, too.
Well, here's the recipe.

Anchovy Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

18 to 24 cherry tomatoes
6 hardcooked eggs
12 flat anchovy fillets, chopped.
1 tablespoon drained chopped capers.
Freshy ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley;

1. Cut a small piece off the end (away from the stem) of each tomato. Scoop out the pulp and discard. Place tomatoes upside down to drain.
2. Combine the egg yolks, anchovies, capers, pepper and parsley and use to fill the tomatoes. Chill. Makes ten servings

Potato Salad II

As I believe I have mentioned before, I am not a huge fan of variations in the potato salad department. Some variations, like adding cheese to deli potato salad, are okay. Not using mayonnaise, not really okay. This potato salad calls for heavy cream, which is then whipped, and sour cream. This potato salad is acceptable. if bland. It's just not the kind I like.
It calls for "waxy potatoes." This is an old fashioned expression, so do not expect the vegetable man at Safeway to know what you mean, unless his grandmother came from Ireland. It refers to a low starch potato that will hold its shape after boiling. According to The Cook's Thesaurus, found at http://www.foodsubs.com/, red potatoes, round white potatoes or yellow Finn potatoes are waxy potatoes.
The cooking directions are somewhat tricky. The idea is to have the potatoes be firm, but probably not crunchy. Mine were crunchy. I made this some three weeks ago, before we went on vacation, so I can't say if I chilled the potatoes or not. Probably not.
About thin mayonnaise. This direction probably originated in the days before Helman's when cooks made their own mayonnaise, and made it thin or thick as desired. Thin mayonnaise will pour off the spoon instead of glopping.
The final direction was to serve it as soon as possible. Since we eat when my husband gets home, and that depends on the vagaries of the Congress of the United States, I did not serve it as soon as possible. It seemed not to suffer any ill effects from sitting around for 45 minutes or so. So, I would say not to worry about that too much.

Potato Salad II

1 pound waxy potatoes
2 tender ribs celery, approximately
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
juice of half a lemon
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/4 cup cooked ham

1. Cook the potatoes in jackets, another old fashioned expression. It means don't peel them first.) taking care not to overcook them. Let cool then chill.
2. Peel potatoes. Cut them first into thin slices, then cut each slice into thin matchlike strips. Place strips in a mixing bowl.
3. Cut the celery ribs into two-inch lengths. Cut each lenth of celery into very thin strips. There should be about half as much celery as potatoes. Add celery to potatoes.
4. Whip the heavy cream until it is the consistency of thin mayonnaise. Do not whip until stiff. Stir inthe sour cream, vinegar, lemon jice, salt and pepper. Pour over potatoes and celery. Mix gently without breaking potatoes.
5. Cut the ham into very thin strips and scatter over the salad. Serve as soon as possible.
Makes four servings.

Rivel Soup

Rivel soup appears to be a German-Menonite creation. Wikipedia, amazingly enough, did not have a definition for me, and their question software is too annoying to penetrate. However, there are many recipes for it on the internet, and the ones I looked at made mention of a German or Memonite origin. Rivels would be noodles if they had a shape. They are little bits of flour egg dough dropped into the soup. This is a tasty, easy soup to make, except the rivels need more than one egg yolk to be made into anything. Try two egg yolks, and then you may still need a little water.

Rivel Soup

1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg yolk
8 cups boiling chicken broth
1 cup corn kernels (freshly cut from cob, it says. If not that time of year, use frozen)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Place the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the egg yolk and with the fingers work together until mixture is crumbly.
2. Add the crumbs, a few at a time, to the boiling broth. Add the corn, salt and pepper and boil ten servings. Makes six servings.

Winy Apple-Raisin Pie

I had planned to make this back in the fall. Son and fiance had gone apple picking at Homestead Farm in Poolesville, where they have many varieties of apples, including tart pie apples. They kindly bought me some, but I never got it together to make Winy-Raisin Apple Pie. What I did have was the vermouth.

We are not martini drinkers in this house, except for son, who orders these exotic drinks from the past when we go out to dinner. The rest of us stick with humble, average white wine. When I did drink hard liquor, I drank Bourbon and orange juice, which earned me a raised eyebrow and a dusty bottle from the rest of my family. So anyway, although vermouth was a staple in my parents' house, it was not something you were likely to find on the bar in my house.

I made the pie for my husband's church potluck. He had signed me up for desert, so I couldn't work in either shellfish or eggplant or both. It also had to be made in about an hour and a half, because I was riding in the morning, and then we had to go out to Ikea in College Park to buy a single bed for daughter's room.

So I called husband when I left the barn and asked him to A. find me a recipe and B. figure out what I needed to buy. I told him I would call him again when I got to Potomac and stop to buy the ingredients.

He chose this one, which was certainly quicker than a cake, or cheesecake, which were the other choices. I bought the apples and dig it guys, ready made pie crust. This stuff is the best convenience food ever, and much better than what I ever made. After we got back from Ikea with a carload of boxed furniture, I got to work and whipped it out.It was very good and answers the question of whether you can make an apple pie with Granny Smith apples. You can,.

This calls for a latticework crust. If you don't know what that is, it's the crust that looks like an openwork basket. My husband did it, and instead of weaving the crust the way Joy of Cooking says to do, he just laid the strips going one way over the strips going the other way. It's definitely an option.

Winy Apple-Raisin Pie


Pastry for a two-crust ten-inch pie

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup dry vermouth (Martini and Rossi)

1 cup golden raisins

6 cups peeled, sliced tart apples

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

sweetened whipped cream


1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Roll out half the pastry and use it to line a ten-inch pie dish. Reserve remaining pastry for the top.

3. Heat the butter and vermouth in a saucepan and add the raisins. Simmer until raisins are soft. Drain and set aside.

4. Combine the apples, lemon juice, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. Add raisins and toss lightly. Pour mixture into the pie dish. Roll out remaining pastry and make a lattice work top for pie. Bake about forty minutes, or until crust is golden brown. If desired, serve with sweetened whipped cream on the side. Serves 6-10.

Cheese Soup

I am discovering, in the need to crank these recipes out, that many of the soups make a nice dinner on Sunday night and don't take too much time. Of course, I don't get to write up the recipe until the following Friday when things simmer down, but nevertheless, they get cooked, and we have something different to eat.

So, Sunday evening, we had Cheese Soup, from, where else, Vermont. It took about half an hour, and was tasty and required no weird ingredients that could not be purchased at Safeway. I highly recommend it in these last few weeks of cold wet weather before it gets hot. I just made it with Safeway extra sharp Cheddar, but if you had Vermont Cheddar, I bet this would be really good.






2 tablespoons butter

1 onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons flour

3/4 cup chicken broth

4 cups milk, scalded

3/4 pound finely grated sharp Cheddar cheese

1/8 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon celery salt

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper



1. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan and saute the onion in it until tender. Sprinkle the flour over all and cook two minutes.

2. Gradually stir in the broth and milk. Bring to a boil.

3. Add these cheese, mustard, celery salt, Worcestershire and pepper ad stir until cheese is melted. Remove from the heat and serve immediately.
Serves 6.

Clam Cakes

We also had clam cakes for first cousin once removed. It actually calls for canned clams, so I didn't have to do the search through multiple venues for ingredients routine. I prefer Rhode Island Clam Cakes, which I made this summer. These were okay, but rather liquid-y, partly due to my not reading the recipe all the way through in advance.

One is supposed to chill the clam cake mixture for at least 2 hours, and let the cakes dry out four 15 minutes after dipping them in egg and bread crumbs. I skipped that step entirely since I had to toss the bread crumbs intended for dipping into the mixture to get it to hold together.So while the Rhode Island Clam Cakes were luxuriously puffy, these Massachusetts Clam Cakes were flat. They were okay. People seemed to like them.They probably would have been better with the egg and bread crumb dipping. If you decide to make them, give yourself plenty of time





Clam Cakes



2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons minced shallot

1 1/4 cup bread crumbs

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup cream

2 seven ounce cans minced clams, drained

1/2 cup minced celery

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

1 egg beaten and diluted with one tablespoon water

fat for deep frying



1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and saute the shallot in the butter until soft but not browned.

2. Add one-half cup of the bread crumbs, the lightly beaten eggs, the cream, clams, celery, lemon juice, parsley , salt and pepper. Chill the mixture at least two hours.


3. Shape into eight two-inch cakes. Dip the cakes into the remaining crumbs and then into the remaining egg. Coast the cakes with crumbs a second time. Allow the cakes to dry out for fifteen minutes.

4. Fry the cakes, a few at a time, until golden brown in deep fat heated to 375 degrees. Drain. Makes four servings

Rutabaga Pie

Rutabaga Pie! Are you serious? Rutabaga Pie? Or, as my daughter asked, "Are you going to tell people what's in it?" The answer is, yes. I made this on Tuesday evening for Wednesday when my first cousin once removed came down from New York on a business trip. Son and fiance and daughter all came to dinner, and we had a high old time laughing about the antics of her two year old and looking at my parents' 1942 wedding pictures. FCOR is about 35. She was born right after I got out of college, and I used to spend a lot of time hanging out at her parents' house. So, as cousins should be, I am someone she has known all her life. Her mother is the sister of my cousin Cricket, my one blog follower. If her mother ever gave me any cooking advice, she would be referred to as my Boston cousin. Anyhow, although I refrained from Rutabaga Pie all these years (and Rutabaga Salad, and Pot Roast with mashed rutabagas as well), on closer examination, one will notice it has all the same ingredients as pumpkin pie. Of course, except for rutabaga instead of pumpkin. Anyway, it tastes pretty much like pumpkin pie. The rutabaga taste (and smell) is disseminated in the cooking and mashing of the rutabagas. The recipe says to sieve the rutabagas. Don't bother. Just make sure you cook them enough so they will be chewed up by the blender. So, if you have a surplus of rutabagas, (which frankly seems unlikely unless you live on a rutabaga farm) here's something new to do with them. Rutabaga Pie 1 1/2 cups cooked, mashed, and sieved (unnecessary) rutabaga or yellow turnip 1 cup light brown sugar 2 tablespoons unsulphured molasses, 2 eggs lightly beaten 1 1/4 cups light cream 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon cloves 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 unbaked deep nine inch pie shell 1/2 cup heavy cream whipped sliced filberts 1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. 2. Beat together the rutabaga, brown sugar, molasses, eggs, light cream, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, salt and vanilla. Pour into the pie shell and bake fifteen minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees and bake about forty minutes longer, or until set. Do not over bake. 3. Cool. Serve topped with the whipped cream and sliced filberts. Makes six servings.