Beets with Orange Sauce

For some reason, beets have never held a huge appeal for me, at least as a cook. I don't know why this is. I love beet soup. My mother used to make this wonderful cold beet soup in the summertime, which we would dollop sour cream into. Beet greens are good too. The French know how to use beets in salad. I ate beet salad all over France in 1973 on my post college trip.
But beets don't show up on our family menu much at all.

Frankly, if it wasn't for this blog project, beets with orange sauce would never show up. Way too 50s if you ask me. Again, golden beets were the only beets available, so the whole effect was rather yellow. I also did not have cornstarch. I substituted arrowroot, which is supposed to have the same thickening effect. My husband told me that I should not use as much as the recipe called for, so I didn't. It also did not thicken the way it was supposed to, so if you don't have cornstarch, get some before undertaking the recipe.

We ate the beets with short ribs. Tasted fine.

Beets with Orange Sauce

2 bunches beets

boiling water

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

3/4 cup orange juice

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons grated orange rind

1/8 tablespoon ground allspice

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons butter

1. Scrub the beets and cut off the tops. leaving one inch attached. Place in a saucepan and add boiling water to cover. Add the vinegar and cook until tender, about twenty minutes.

2. Drain beets, reserving some liquid. Skin the beets, then slice or dice them and keep warm.

3. Strain enough reserved beet liquid to yield one-quarter-cup Combine with the orange juice, lemon juice, orange rind and allspice. Add the cornstarch slowly.

4. Bring to a boil, stirring and cook until sauce thickens. Stir in the honey and butter and pour over the beets. Makes four to six servings.

Chocolate Surprise Cookies

This week involved a perfect extravaganza of baking on our part, and eating on the part of the acupuncturist, who finally asked us not to bake anymore because it was affecting his complexion. On Sunday, we made Chocolate Surprise Cookies. Now, I always feel that the word surprise in a recipe can be substituted with the phrase "watch out".
"Surprise! We're putting some weird unsuitable ingredient into your food. Hope it's edible!" Well, so it was with these cookies. The weird unsuitable ingredient was mushrooms. Now, the cookbook doesn't give any history for the recipes. We don't know what force moved some anonymous Pennsylvania cook to add mushrooms to chocolate cookie dough. I suspect, however, it was a recipe contest sponsored by the Kennett Square mushroom growers. Our creative anonymous cook decided that entries in the dessert section would be slim, so she would improve her chances of winning by figuring out how she could add mushrooms to cookies.
And she did okay. They were perfectly decent cookies. The mushrooms didn't add or detract from the taste. They were a conversation starter, as the acupuncturist, whose name is Jonathan, offered them to clients. Jonathan's clients, who are generally old, grew up in the sixties, so that sparked witty comments about the type of mushrooms in the cookies. The clients seemed to like them, and Jonathan certainly did.
The recipe called for glace cherries. Wikkipedia says glace cherries are candied cherries, boiled in sugar syrup. We put in maraschino cherries, easier and cheaper than tracking down real glace cherries. I have to confess, we also left out the amaretti crumbs, macaroons not being available.

Chocolate Surprise Cookies

1/2 cup butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 ounces (two squares) unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 fine macaroon (amaretti) crumbs
1/2 cup chopped glace cherries
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh mushrooms

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the egg, vanilla and almond extract. Stir in the melted chocolate.
4. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and stir into the batter alternately with the sour cream. Stir in the remaining ingredients.
5. Drop by teaspoonfuls, two inches apart onto a lightly greased baking sheet and bake about fifteen minutes, or until lightly browned. Makes about four dozen. (Ours were bigger, so they made fewer.)

Red Flannel Hash

When you look at the accompanying picture of this dish, you may ask yourself, "Why is this called red flannel hash?" Well, one of the active ingredients is beets. Beets are red, right? Well, at present, what seems to be available in the stores are golden beets. So what we have here is gold flannel hash.
What we ate, because of the guest cook on the blog, was modified, more healthy red flannel hash. My husband baked it instead of frying it, and mixed a half cup of chicken stock and an egg into it to make it hang together. Red flannel hash, according to Wikkipedia's article on New England cooking, is a staple New England dish. They don't say why. I do remember, growing up, that something called Harvard Beets were a staple in the restaurants we went to. So it was probably normal, in some circles, to toss beets into the hash. It was good, and we ate when I got home, at 9:00 pm rather than at 11:00 as we would have if I had cooked.

Red Flannel Hash

3 cups finely diced cooked corned beef
2 cups finely diced cooked potatoes
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Peanut oil
Catchup

1. Combine the corned beef and potatoes in a mixing bowl.
2. Melt the butter and cook the onions in it until thoroughly wilted. Add the Worcestershire, salt and pepper and blend lightly.
3. Brush a skillet with oil and spoon the corned beef mixture into the skillet, pressing down to cover the bottom fully. Cook over moderate heat until well browned on the bottom.
4. Serve with catchup if desired.
Serves 4.

Sandra's Tomato Sauce

Sandra's Tomato Sauce is the next to the last entry in the sauces category. The only thing left is Game Sauce, for which one needs game, after all. My son's friend Jake, the hunter, might come up with some sort of game bird, depending on what he's up to, and I might be able to make the game sauce sometime.
However, I have to say, Sandra's Tomato Sauce is bland and more or less uninteresting. My husband called the spice requirements "timorous." Even with the added pepping up of more spices, the sauce didn't amount to much. We ate it on spaghetti squash, which is kind of peculiar. It looks like spaghetti but it doesn't taste or feel like spaghetti at all.

Sandra's Tomato Sauce

1/2 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 two pound three ounce cans tomatoes in tomato puree
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 leaves fresh basil or one half teaspoon dried basil
1 sprig fresh oregano or one-quarter teaspoon dried oregano

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the onion in it until tender. Add the tomatoes and cook uncovered one hour or until well blended.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and cook five minutes.
Makes two quarts

Maple Walnut Bars

This week we had guest cooks on the blog, notably my husband and another family member. The Maple Walnut Bars were made by the other family member, who likes to bake. Unfortunately, the guest cooks did not want to guest write.
The bars used up the last of the granulated maple sugar and a cup of chopped walnuts. They are delicious without being sickly sweet. Don't think maple walnut ice cream. They are also extremely easy. One minute I heard the noise of the mixer and the next minute, the bars were sitting on the counter.

Maple Walnut Bars

1 cup shortening
1 cup soft maple sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts
confectioners' sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream the shortening and maple sugar together. Beat in the eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt and stir into batter.
3. Stir in the walnuts and spoon into a greased eight-inch square baking dish. Bake thirty minutes. Cool in the dish. When cold, cut into bars and coat with confectioners' sugar. Makes 16.

Stock Pot Soup

Today, I stayed home from school with a case of bronchitis that has fluid rumbling around inside my lungs. The prospect of a whole free day had me thinking about the cookbook. I did do an inventory of uncooked recipes this summer. Even though I had cut the soup and appetizer inventory in half, for example, I still had a long way to go. It seemed like a great opportunity to tackle one of those long involved recipes, like stock pot soup which has to cook for four to five hours. I would rather wait until cooler weather sets in, but I've got the time now, so I decided to fog up the windows with soup steam and turn up the air conditioning.
So after I dropped my husband, who is going to San Francisco, off at the Metro, I went to the supermarket. This recipe has a long ingredient list, and is not cheap. Also, nowadays, it's not easy to find things like beef bones. Meat, as the butcher guys at various supermarkets have patiently told me, is delivered already partially butchered. There are no stray bones at the supermarket. Chicken is the same. I needed a 3 pound whole chicken, and actually couldn't find one at Safeway. It's all prepackaged.
I went first to my local Safeway in the drizzle, but beef bones and the three pound chicken were not to be had. So I drove up to the Westbard Giant on River Road, where I had actually had a conversation with the butcher about veal shanks. They had three pound chickens and beef marrow bones. As far as a veal knuckle goes, the refrain of the butcher guys is, "I haven't seen those in ten years."
This recipe is a reminder of how much food and cooking have changed over the last 50 years. What was 50 years ago basically extra stuff, bones, chicken wings, chicken carcasses, now has to be purchased specifically, or left out because it's not available. I have always preferred whole chickens to chicken parts, and cut up my own chicken. This yields chicken backs, which my husband calls chicken asses, that can be used for soup. A search in the freezer under the refrigerator produced only one chicken ass.
When the kids were young, I could usually count on 4 or 5 chicken asses lurking down there that I could make into soup. But now, since we are down to two diners, and I don't cook as much as I used to, there are fewer asses.
I dragged all the bones, wings, vegetables, etc. home, having to come through the back because a "suspicious package" had been discovered at the local high school, and an impressive collection of fire equipment was parked in front of my house. I dug out the big pot and started tossing in ingredients. One thing about this recipe is, it's long, but not fussy. Only the turnips have to be peeled. We aren't directed to cut anything up. I broke the unpeeled carrots in half so they would fit in the pot. I didn't even peel the onions, although I did stick each of them with four whole cloves, as directed.
The whole preparation process took about 15 minutes. Then, I set it to boil and began emptying the dishwasher. At 2:30 I put in the brisket. I think my stockpot holds at least 10 quarts, but there would have been no room for the chicken. Also, the idea is to serve the brisket and chicken when hot, and right now, there's no one here to eat either one with me.
At 3:45, when I woke up from my nap, I took out the brisket, inspected it, found it not done on the side that had not been submerged in the water, and stuck it back in the pot. Then I turned off the gas and went off to Office Depot to spend my teacher supply money, something I had not had a chance to do since school started. When I got back, the house was full of a wonderful meaty smell. I dredged out the bones and cooked vegetables and drained the soup into two large bowls.
Right now, I'm running the dishwasher to clean the large size canning jars so I'll have something to put my stock in.
While this has a lot of ingredients, some of which are not obtainable, it is not a difficult recipe. Some day this winter, when the weather forecast is calling for a foot of snow, lay in the ingredients and boil away. You'll be glad you did.

Stock Pot Soup


4 pounds, more or less, fresh or cooked chicken carcases, beef bones or veal bones
3 pounds chicken wings
1 veal knuckle
2 beef marrow bones
2 large onions, each studded with four whole cloves
3 cloves garlic
6 carrots
4 leeks, trimmed split in half and well washed
3 white turnips, peeled
3 bay leaves
2 cups dry white wine
6 tablespoons coarse salt
16 peppercorns
6 sprigs parsley
Top leaves and outside ribs of six celery stalks
3 pounds brisket of beef
1 four-pound to five-pound chicken

1. Place the carcasses, wings, veal knuckle, marrow bones, onions, garlic, carrots, leeks, turnips, bay leaves, wine, salt, peppercorn s, parsley and celery in an eight to ten quart kettle. Add cold water to within two inches of the kettle rim. Bring slowly to a boil and skim frequently as necessary. Let simmer so that the broth barely bubbles four to five hours.
2. One hour before the broth is to be removed from the stove, add beef brisket and chicken. Cook until brisket and chicken are cooked and tender. Remove the chicken and brisket, which may be served at this point, using as much broth as necessary.
3. Strain all the broth and store in pint and quart containers. Refrigerate overnight. Skim off all fat, then freeze the stock. Makes five to six quarts strained broth.

Maple Apples

I wanted to make a dessert for our family dinner, but I hadn't done any advance planning. I bought a bar of dark chocolate at Whole Foods, thinking maybe I could make chocolate cookies. Then I started looking through the cookbook and realized that Maple Apples were the perfect dessert for the season. We had all the ingredients, decent apples from the Homestead Farm in Montgomery County, Md. and a small jug of maple syrup that was left over from my sister's Christmas stockings.
I'll let you in on a secret. I don't really like maple syrup on pancakes, so maple syrup in our house lasts a long time. We used to have these little jugs kicking around the house for years. The only problem was, the little jug contained one cup, and the recipe called for two cups. After rummaging through the pantry for ten minutes and not uncovering another little jug, I pulled out the big bottle of Log Cabin syrup and poured a cup of that into the maple syrup. Worked fine. I wouldn't use only Log Cabin, but half and half was an acceptable substitute. The recipe says whipped cream is optional. Don't leave it out. It makes the dessert. The apples turned out puffy, soft and sweet.
The apples simmered in the maple syrup, the ham simmered with the dumplings, the potatoes fried, and the house was filled with wonderful smells. Son told us about his trip to Japan. I was impressed, I'll tell you. When a person one has known all their life, who can't remember to turn out the lights when they leave the house, is representing the United States government with a major trading partner, that's impressive.
This was a great fall dinner, with the weather cooperating and getting down into the 50s at night.
One thing about the apples, they should all fit in the syrup. Since the big pot was taken up with the ham, I wedged in four apples in the smaller pot and put the last one on top, thinking to rotate it. I ended up leaving the last one in for another 15 minutes so it would cook.

Maple Apples

6 tart, firm apples, such as Cortland or McIntosh (Cortland are better. You can get them now at farm stands.)
2 cups maple syrup
2 cups water
sweetened whipped cream

1. Remove the core from each apple, but otherwise leave them whole. Remove the peel from the upper half of each apple.
2. Combine the syrup and water, add the apples and simmer until tender, about one hour. Serve cold, with sweetened whipped cream if desired. Serves six.