Thursday, November 20, 2014

Great Expectations - Chopped-No-More Eggplant

I am expecting!!  Ha ha, no, not at my age (not at any age) - I am expecting a UPS delivery.  Even better, I am expecting a book, a real book with a cover and real paper pages.  Which can only mean one thing:  I am expecting a cookbook!

I got bitten by the Kindle bug years ago, and almost never buy real paper books anymore, but when it comes to cookbooks and knitting books, I remain a traditionalist.  Never mind that I already have hundreds of cookbooks; the collection still grows, albeit a lot slower than it did 20 years ago.


My latest acquisitions are Ina Garten's Make It Ahead which I found at BJs, and Emeril's Cooking With Power,  which I ordered from Amazon and awaited the delivery with much glee.  First of all, I adore Emeril Lagasse.  He's the best in the business, the man who made Food Network what it is (ruler of the airwaves) and a funny and fabulous teacher.  I learned so much about cooking from watching him 5 nights a week, every week, back when Food Network was more than a 24 hour game show.  I have most  of his cookbooks and I swear by his crawfish étouffée recipe even though there's no roux in it.

This book contains about 100 recipes which are made in either the crockpot, multi cooker (that was a new one for me) pressure cooker, and deep fryer.  I've already read through it twice (Yes, I read cookbooks.  So do a lot of people) and have a bunch of recipes I have to try.  Linguine with clam sauce.  Shrimp and lima beans.  Crawfish étouffée (this one has a roux). Stuffed calamari in a smoky tomato sauce.  Jerk chicken with rice and peas (but without 8 of the 9 Scotch bonnet peppers called for in the recipe).  And that's just for the crockpot.

After doing a little research, I learned that a multi cooker is a rice cooker with a split personality; an appliance that can't decide if it is a rice cooker, a steamer, a slow cooker, or an electric frying pan.  After a little more hand's on research at Walmart, I decided there is little difference between my rice cooker/steamer, and a multi cooker, certainly not enough to justify the purchase of yet another electric appliance.  I am pretty confident I can prepare the vast majority of Emeril's multi cooker recipes in my spiffy rice cooker, like the seafood soup with coconut milk and tamarind.

Successful delivery!



Okay, I really didn't need another crockpot cookbook since I have nine others.  And this recipe did not come from any of them.  It came from my grandmother, who never owned a crockpot in her life.  Actually, this recipe is a joint effort between me  my wonderful cousin, Cary Altschuler.  He threw in the food processor while I threw in the crockpot.  Besides the hardware, you will need:

1 eggplant
1 medium onion, chopped
olive oil (or canola or corn oil)
Kosher salt and black pepper


Coat the inside of the crockpot with some no-stick spray.  With a sharp, thin knife, pierce the eggplant in a few spots on all sides, and then place the eggplant into the crockpot.  Add about a half cup of water; cover and cook on High for three hours.  Turn the eggplant at the end of each hour.  When it is done, it will be soft to the touch and look like has collapsed.  Using tongs, carefully remove it to a baking dish.


Cut the eggplant in half, and remove the skin.  It should peel off fairly easily.  Break the eggplant up just a bit, and along with all of the juices in the pan, place it into a food processor bowl fitted with the chopping blade.  Add the onion.


With the processor running, pour a thin stream of oil through the feed tube until the eggplant-onion mixture holds together.  Try not to overprocess.  Remove to a small bowl and add salt and pepper to taste.  Refrigerate overnight.


This looks nothing like my grandmother's chopped eggplant, by the way.  She chopped hers, noisily and laboriously, in an old fashioned wooden bowl, using a double bladed hand chopper.  The physical work involved was considerable, which may account for why she only made it once a year.  Her finished dish looked somewhat like a relish, while this version is more like a dip or spread.

Taste-wise, this version is lighter and a lot less oniony.  She used two medium onions, and although she tried to get the milder Bermuda variety, most of the time those onions were extremely pungent and sharp to the taste.  And wonderfully odiferous, which is how Uncle Red was able to track it across three counties.  I used a sweet onion, or part of one equivalent to a regular medium onion, and it was very mild.  But wait ...


Allowing the eggplant to sit overnight is critical.  First of all,  the dish solidifies, making it both spoonable, dippable (is that even a word?) and spreadable.  Second, and most importantly, the flavors really come together and bloom during their restful evening, so when you taste this the next day, the onion will be much sharper on your senses, even if you used a sweet, mild onion as I did.  I remember my grandmother saying that this dish took a lot of salt, but I would recommend you wait until the next day to add salt.

This is good on toasted bagels or Wheat Thin crackers or matzo.  It would probably work really well as part of a Jewish or Mediterranean appetizer and salad table.  I suppose it is an acquired taste, but it was one I acquired at a very young age. So good, really.



Wednesday, November 19, 2014

You Must Remember This ... A List is Just a List ...

It's a toss-up as to which Humphrey Bogart film is my favorite:  The Maltese Falcon, or Casablanca.  Both of them have such great stand-alone lines.  It's the stuff that dreams are made of.


I have drafted my menu for Thanksgiving dinner, and it is, for me anyway, very simple.  No turducken - I surrender, for now at least.  One appetizer, one protein, one vegetable and one dessert.  Indeed I am restraining myself, but nobody will be going hungry.

The First List

Deviled eggs with a shrimp garnish
Spritely biscuits with honey butter
Small layered salad
Maple glazed turkey
Sausage and chestnut stuffing
Sweet potato "pie"
Broccoli spears in creamy garlic sauce (crockpot)
Cranberry mold
Staten Island peach cobbler

Everything is subject to change based on availability of ingredients and just how lively I am feeling.



And of course, I will gladly share all my recipes with you.  I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

A Turducken Before Dying

Holiday Headlines:  Taxonomists try to classify turducken - with the help of an earworm:

It was a one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater
(One-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater)
A one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater
Sure looks strange to me (One eye?)

That's too weird, even for me.  How about Frankenbird?

Why now am I obsessing over the Ultimate Big Bird Dish, a whole turkey stuffed with a whole duck, stuffed with a whole chicken?  That's right, it is finally time to plan out my menu for Thanksgiving.  I start by making a list, but then I start almost everything in my life by making a list.  List-making is a family trait, and a lot more positive one than my proudly unaltered nose or that clinical depression thing that's been stalking me my whole life.  My grandmother always had a pile of shopping lists and notes to herself on the corner of  the kitchen counter.  Without any conscious forethought, I started doing the same thing once I was living in my own place with my own kitchen.  I should not have been surprised then, the year I went to spend Thanksgiving with my Uncle Marty (my grandmother's son and my mother's older brother) and Aunt Helen at their home in Cape Coral, Florida, that he also had a neat stack of lists and notes to himself on the corner of his kitchen counter.  

I consider list-making to be a useful obsession.  I make lists at work, on legal pads, of course,  and stack them on the right-hand corner of my desk.  Few things feel as good as checking a task off those lists, which include drafting petitions, writing up orders after trial, completing online training, and trial prep.  My home lists are much more pedestrian, including things like cheesy puffs, tomatoes, and kosher salt.  I also make cooking lists, based on the ingredients I have hauled home from Publix and BJs or for a planned menu for potluck, or for a holiday.  

Those holiday dinners happen a lot less frequently these days.  Family members scatter, develop impenetrable grudges, or pass on.  With all that being said, I am preparing Thanksgiving dinner this year for a party of five, and that means lists, lots of them.  What to make, what to buy, when to buy, preparation schedule.  I love this kind of stuff.




So the first item on my list is turkey, right?  Actually no, it's deviled eggs.  Then the salad, the bread, and finally, the bird.  So now I add the turkey to the list, right?  No, not yet.  Not this year.  This year I am going to find the Holy Grail and serve it for Thanksgiving dinner - TURDUCKEN.


Turducken is a made-up word, like the winter holiday of Hanukwanzamas, to describe something that doesn't really exist in nature.  It is a mostly boneless turkey that has been stuffed with a duck which has been stuffed with a chicken.  There are layers of richly-flavored stuffing between the different birds.  This behemoth is roasted in the oven for 12 or 20 hours, and when carved, will feed half the population of Omaha, Nebraska.  Still only two drumsticks, though.  Bummer.

I not only want to serve turducken, I want to prepare it myself.  Which creates a couple of huge logistical problems, the biggest one being that once again, I waited too long to properly plan this.  Another problem is that I can bone a chicken breast but not much beyond that.

I will cook a turducken before I die.

Now I did come across a recipe for a totally boneless turducken which relies on the breast of each bird to make a nice roulade which is then wrapped in bacon.  This sounds entirely manageable, except for one small problem - duck breast has disappeared entirely from the refrigerator cases at BJs.  This situation has persisted for several years and has really put a crimp in my cooking, as I have a number of really awesome recipes using duck breast.  So I would have to order the duck online, at ridiculously inflated prices and then, to add insult to injury, pay UPS or USPS a usurous sum of money to ship the darn thing.

And there stands the conundrum.  Maybe I'll try it for Hanukwanzamas after floating a bank loan.  Or maybe I will learn how to debone a turkey before next Thanksgiving, because whole duck is still available at the local supermarket.

A girl can dream, can't she?



Tuesday, November 18, 2014

That does it ...

... I am buying a new crockpot.  Or so I told myself this past Saturday, right after court, not one minute later.  A smaller one, about 4 quarts.  I was down to one crockpot for the first time in many years.  Old Faithful died the other day.  I know, I didn't mention it.  But he was almost 40 years old, which in crockpot years is about 280 ... or is that dogs?  Anyway, I was heading out for weekend court (don't ask because I can't tell) and on the way back I stopped at a really cheesy Walmart for a new crockpot ...

... and now I am the proud owner of a brand-new, 4 quart crockpot to replace Old Faithful.  I am also resolved never to go back to the particular Walmart.


Very sleek, right?  All black, very classy like a good cocktail dress, and most importantly, a removable stoneware crock.  And cheap, did I mention cheap?  I think I paid more for it the first time, in 1975.  So now I can go ahead and cook that cute little spaghetti squash, but before that, I am going to bake an eggplant.  In the crockpot.  Forget the parm (I am utterly opposed to frying anything), this eggplant is going to get the Brooklyn Jewish treatment.  This is the eggplant dish for which my Uncle Red would take a bus, the subway, the Long Island Railroad, and a taxi.  Apparently he could sniff when my grandmother had a batch ready.  Since he lived in Brooklyn and we lived in the Five Towns on Long Island, believing that might take a leap of faith, at least until you got a good look at his nose. Trust me, he could smell that eggplant dish.


Until next time ...

It's Not Easy Being Green - Roasted Brussel Sprouts with Maple Vinaigrette

I love vegetables, especially if they are green.  Sure, I have a warm relationship with carrots and yellow squash and parsnips; red, yellow and orange bell peppers tickle my taste buds, and of course cauliflower makes me smile. Lately I've even made peace with beets, but at the end of the day, it's the green stuff that I like to cook and eat.  High up on that list is the cute little Brussel sprout.  No, seriously. Brussel sprouts are cruciferous vegetables and those, my friends, are good for you and even if they weren't I would love 'em.  If I prepared them, George Bush the Elder would have eaten his broccoli and he would have liked it.  What is corned beef without cabbage?  Choucroute garnie without sauerkraut?  Cheese sauce without cauliflower?


Brussel sprouts are awesome.  They look like tiny cabbages and they taste even better.  I will often serve them with corned beef instead of cabbage, along with boiled new potatoes of roughly the same size as the sprouts.  We always had them steamed or boiled, with a little salt and butter, but the new, better way to cook them, at least according to the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, is to roast them in the oven.  Roasting vegetables enhances the natural flavors in a different way than boiling.  Natural sugars are caramelized, and marry well with the salt that is usually added before cooking.

I decided to try combining roasted Brussel sprouts with a maple vinaigrette that was part of a recipe for boiled Brussel sprouts. Threw those random numbers in the air and came up with a winner, at least according to Robert, who did declare "don't lose that recipe!"  As if I would:

1 pound fresh Brussel sprouts
2 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt
ground black pepper

For the vinaigrette:
4 tablespoons sherry vinegar
4 tablespoons maple syrup (not top grade)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons walnut oil
freshly ground nutmeg
salt and pepper, to taste



Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Trim the root end of the sprouts, and pull off any yellowed leaves.  Place the sprouts in an aluminum baking dish (or a rimmed baking sheet).  Pour on the olive oil, and sprinkle with the salt and pepper.  Shake the pan gently. back and forth, so that the sprouts are evenly coated with oil and seasoning.  Place in the oven for 35 minutes, until the Brussel sprouts are light brown on the outside and tender on the inside.  Shake the pan occasionally while roasting.

While the sprouts are roasting, whisk the vinaigrette ingredients together.

Carefully move the hot Brussel sprouts to a nice serving bowl, and pour all or most of the vinaigrette over.  Serve immediately.  Leftovers can be served chilled from the refrigerator, or at room temperature, or even gently reheated.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Monday, String Beans - Green Beans and Tomatoes

When I was a kid, I hated my grandmother's string beans.  She was such a good cook, why were the string beans so freaking awful?  Well, they were canned, but truthfully, I don't mind canned vegetables.  They were reheated within an inch of their life, but I like overcooked vegetables.  No, these were so damn bad I would pretend to eat them, stuffing my cheeks like a squirrel, head to the bathroom, and spit them out.  All those green beans, and their bad tasting, inedible strings.  Gack!

Since then, the strings have been bred right out of those beans by genius scientists who should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their contribution to eaters everywhere.  Now, either fresh or frozen, the appropriately renamed green beans are high on my favorite vegetable list.


I first found this green bean and tomato combination, called "Papa's Greek Beans" in a southern cook book by James Villas.  Since then, I've seen this pretty basic recipe all over the South, with and without bacon.  Since I was up to my elbows in pork belly at the time I was cooking the green beans, I decided to save the bacon for another day.  This is my bacon-free variation of the recipe:

1 pound frozen whole green beans, defrosted (I use Publix brand)
1 - 14.5 oz. can stewed tomatoes, original recipe
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and black pepper, to taste

Place the green beans in a medium pot.  Add the tomatoes with all of the juice, and the remaining ingredients.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover the pot and simmer for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.  The green beans should be very soft.


Sorry the photo turned out so dark.  But you can still see how everything cooked down together so that all the flavors melded.  Nothing al dente here, I can assure you.  Crudités have their place, I suppose, but not on my dinner plate masquerading as a vegetable I'd be willing to eat.  I'm sure all my southern friends would agree.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Footloose - Braised (Salt) Pork (Belly)

I had two more weekend shelters recently - that's five total in case you were counting, and that's two trips to Orlando and all that jazz, so I had to fill up my car.  There is a Wawa on Orange Avenue, and when I stopped, music both in and outside was blaring:

Now I gotta cut loose, footloose
Kick off the Sunday shoes

Please, Louise, pull me off of my knees
Jack, get Mack, come on before we crack
Lose your blues, everybody cut footloose

... and THAT brought me to the salt pork soaking in my fridge. 


Doesn't that look like bacon? (Get it, Bacon?)





Anyway, these are those two pieces of Smithfield salt pork, that I picked up yesterday at the Spanish grocery.  I did not remove the skin this time, but I did make shallow crosshatch cuts across the top.  Then I soaked these in just-plain-cold water for 24 hours, changing the water a total of 4 times.  Each time I changed the water, I rinsed out the container and dried the inside to get out as much lingering salt as possible.  I also rinsed and patted dry each piece of pork before placing it in the fresh water.



At this point, I would have liked to slice off a small piece and fry it off so I could taste it for saltiness, but I came home from court to a complete dearth of electricity.  Robert reports that there was a very big boom and the house went dark.  KUA was on the job almost immediately, as you can see from my kitchen window,  but there was another loud boom and we are still dark.


Honestly, if a 24 hour salt-leaching soak hasn't worked by now, I'm declaring this experiment a failure.  I never really did go to Hogwarts anyway, and just because some people have called me a witch at various times in the past doesn't make me so.  So it's time to get on with the penultimate step,  the dry rub, so it will be ready for some nice braising in the near future (assuming KUA is successful, otherwise, no slow cooker, no oven, no nuthin').

I wanted a salt-free rub, so I hit the cookbooks, and came up with this slight variation of Steven Raichlin's salt-free lemonade chili rub.  He writes that he got the recipe from "Kansas City barbecue guru Paul Kirk."  I'm glad he did.



Oven-Braised Salt Pork Belly

2 nice pieces of salt pork, about 3/4 pound each (I used Smithfield brand, which I found in the Spanish grocery.  Publix carries Hormel brand salt pork in what looks to be 1/2 pound pieces)

Salt-Free Dry Rub: 
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
1 individual packet Crystal Light pink lemonade powder   
1/2 tablespoon dried parsley
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Use a fork or a small whisk to mix this together.  Use 1/4 cup for each top and bottom of the pork.  Pat the rub into the pork, and used any extra to cover the sides.  Place in a dry container, covered, in the refrigerator for 2 hours.  Remove the pork and with dry paper towels, brush off all of the excess rub.  Discard the used rub.  Dry off the pork as best you can.

In a large deep skillet, heat a small amount of olive oil, to just cover the bottom, over medium high heat.  carefully add the pork, skin side down.  It is going to spatter like nobody's business, so use the longest set of tongs you have when turning the meat, and stand as far from the stove as you can. Also keep your cooking hand covered with an oven mitt or a kitchen towel to avoid splatter burns.



When the pork is well-browned on both sides, remove to a 9 x 13 baking pan.  Do not discard the fat in the pan.  Prepare the braising liquid.

Braising Liquid:
1 onion (or 1/2 large sweet onion)
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 medium apples, unpeeled, cut into thick slices or into wedges
2 cups apple cider

In the same pan in which you fried the pork, add the onion and sauté a few minutes.  Add the garlic, thyme, rosemary, and black pepper.  Continue sautéing until the onion begins to show brown edges.  Add the apple slices and cook just 5 minutes, then add the apple cider and stir everything together with a wooden spoon, while scraping up any good stuff on the bottom of the pan.  Bring up to a boil, lower the heat and simmer while you set up the pork for the oven.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  With a slotted spoon, remove the apple slices from the braising liquid, and place around the pork.  Then carefully pour the sauce over the pork, gently pushing the cooked onions back into the sauce.  Cover the pan with aluminum foil, sealing it tightly.  Place in the oven to cook for a total of 2 1/2 hours, turning the pork skin-side down after 2 hours.  Then remove the pan from the oven, and allow the pork to cool enough to handle.  Use the tongs to grasp the sides of the pork, remove it  from the braising liquid, and place the pieces in a clean pan.  Carefully remove the skin from each piece.  Place the pan with the braising sauce into the refrigerator or freezer until the fat hardens enough to be removed.  While that is going on, sear the top of each piece in a very hot pan.  

Serving options:  I cut each piece of pork belly into 3 or 4 squares, and placed them into a baking dish with the apple braising liquid.  I had added some more apple cider to the liquid, since it seems to have picked up some of the salt lingering in the pork.  The entire dish can be reheated, or just one portion at a time.

And I am STILL not completely satisfied.  Next time, I take the skin off at the beginning.  Having said that, this was so delicious.  It gives new meaning to the phrase "meltingly tender."

Saturday, November 15, 2014

All you happy children, we wish the same to you - Butter Chicken

Ear worms are running my life.  They are my Muse.  If that's not the definition of crazy, I don't know what is.  My younger brother has been on my mind lately, and I associate this children's rhyme with him.  One day he came home from elementary school singing this (I can only guess the class was learning the days of the week) and it's been in my head ever since.  Since my brother is a 60-year old pediatrician with two grown daughters, that's a hell of a long time to have an ear worm.


Do any of you remember this one?
Today is Monday, today is Monday
Monday -- string beans

All you hungry children, come and eat it up!

Today is Tuesday, today is Tuesday
Tuesday -- spaghetti
Monday -- string beans

All you hungry children, come and eat it up! 

From there it just continued, adding all the fabulous foods coming down the pike as the week progressed:

Wednesday -- soup
Thursday -- roast beef
Friday -- fresh fish
Saturday -- chicken
Sunday -- ice cream


Apparently there are a number of different versions; my memories change the line "all you hungry children, come and eat it up" to "all you happy children, we wish the same to you."  Also, I don't remember a single word about spaghetti, and fish wasn't necessarily fresh in the version my brother was singing. (Still. fish on Friday was de rigueur in those pre-Vatican II days, so at least that was consistent.)  And I distinctly remember on one of the days, all the happy children were getting bread and butter, and to be honest, I'd rather have that instead of string beans.  Which is yet another upcoming blog post.

Today is Saturday and I would like to talk to you about chicken.  Incredible, edible, affordable chicken.

Chicken is God's gift to the human race.  Like the rainbow in Noah's Ark story, it represents a promise to the people of the Earth.  By giving us chicken, God has promised that humans will never be forced to eat fish eyeballs or lamb fries (or any other sort of gonad), or pig brains, or any offal, or insects, or beating snake hearts, nay, any bizarre food unless they choose to do so (and hopefully get paid for such insanity, like Andrew Zimmern).   And especially for God's Chosen People, the chicken is a promise that we will never run short of Jewish penicillin.

I am an unabashed carnivore, and I love all the standard cuts of beef, pork, lamb and veal, as well as most forms of fin fish and shellfish, but if for some reason I had to choose a single source of protein for the rest of my life, it would be chicken.

Chicken can be prepared for eating in every way known to humans, except raw.  Boil, bake, roast, pan fry, deep fry, grill, sauté, poach, simmer, braise, stir fry.  You can smoke it, buffalo it, throw it in a crockpot, pressure cook it, seal it in a plastic bag and sous vide it, or even shove a beer can up its rear.   And chicken can be breaded, barbecued, tempura'ed, and stuffed.  There are almost as many recipes for stuffing for chicken as there are for chicken itself. 

Contrary to general belief, chicken is not bland in taste, although it is mild, and therefore plays well with all kinds of seasoning.  I would hazard a guess that there are so many recipes for chicken that they constitute a statistical universe.  And then there are chicken eggs, schmaltz, chicken liver, gizzard, and hearts, but that's definitely another couple of blog posts.

I grew up eating chicken that had been simply prepared.  Boiled soup chicken, broiled chicken quarters, chicken quarters dipped in butter, pressed into cornflake crumbs and then baked, chicken quarters drizzled with maple barbecue sauce and baked, whole chicken rubbed with a paste made of spices and a little corn oil, roasted and then cut into quarters.  Except for the skin on the boiled chicken, I loved it all.

I am a self-taught cook, but that doesn't mean I haven't learned a lot of good cooking stuff from others.  While I may have read The Joy of Cooking cover to cover when I was a newly married bride in 1974 (theoretically, I can skin a squirrel), my knowledge of the best recipes and cooking techniques came from watching my friends and relatives cook.  And so on chicken days, I thank my college (and lifelong) friend, Vicki Schumacher Granek, for introducing me to another way of preparing the ubiquitous quartered chicken.  Once I tasted her Hawaiian chicken, and watched her prepare it, there was NOTHING I could not do with quartered chicken.  Complex flavors, ease of preparation, all this from only 4 ingredients.  From that day forward, my chicken world expanded exponentially.  Once you see the recipe, you will understand exactly what I mean.


But not today.  Today I am going to give you the recipe for another super-easy chicken recipe which requires very few ingredients.  This relies on a really good bottled simmer sauce from Patak's Taste of India product line, Butter Chicken. Butter is not the overriding ingredient, so I have no idea where the recipe got its name, but it does have smoked paprika and other lovely spices in a tomato base.  Reading the ingredients reminded me of a very non-Indian dish, csirke paprikas (Hungarian chicken paprikash, which I do prepare from scratch) so I just had to try it.  I've also used Patak's Tikaa Masala sauce in the past, with great success.   

1 -15 oz. jar Patak's Butter Chicken simmer sauce
1/2 of a small onion
1/2 of a small green bell pepper
2 tablespoons butter
8 skinless chicken thighs


On medium heat, melt butter in a large deep skillet.  Add the onion and green pepper, and cook until the vegetables are nice and soft.  Push the vegetables aside to make room for the chicken, and then four at a time, place the chicken into the pan and brown it in the butter on both sides.  Take your time with this, as it will take longer to develop color without the skin.  Remove to a baking dish, and repeat with the last four pieces of chicken.  Return all of the chicken to the skillet and pour in the butter chicken sauce.  Add about a half cup of water to the sauce jar, cover and shake to get all of the sauce off the sides of the jar, and pour that into the skillet as well.  Bring the sauce to a boil, then immediately cover the skillet and reduce the heat to simmer.  Cook the chicken for an hour, stirring occasionally.  Cool, and transfer to a 9 x 13 baking dish.


Refrigerate overnight.  About an hour before serving, remove the fat from the sauce.  Add a little water to the pan, cover it with aluminum foil, and place it in a 275 degree oven for 45 minutes or until the chicken is as soft as butter.  Serve with rice or couscous.  Really tasty.


Friday, November 14, 2014

Food glorious food - No saveloys, please

Gack!  Another earworm.  And this one goes back to sixth grade at Number Six School in Woodmere, New York.  The Lawrence-Cedarhurst Union Free School District movers and shakers were extraordinarily imaginative when it came to naming the elementary schools.

Yes, that's my elementary school for sale

Sixth grade plays, very important.  We did H.M.S. Pinafore, while Miss Kass's class put on Oliver, which at that time was a fairly new musical.

Food glorious food
Hot sausage and mustard
While we're in the mood cold jelly and custard
Pease pudding and saveloys
What next is the question?
Rich gentlemen have it boys
In-Di-Gestion


Okay, a couple of things come to mind - this is America and kids are still hungry, and that's not necessarily parentless kids living in an orphanage. Our government supplies food stamps and other financial assistance to low-income families with children.  There are free breakfasts and lunches available from public schools.  If a family comes to the attention of DCF - my world and welcome to it - unless there is present danger, the family is wrapped with services to help keep the children safe in an intact family.  That includes financial assistance when warranted.  I realize that the victims of homelessness and human trafficking are likely to go hungry, but I don't think those numbers alone account for the percentage of American children who do not eat on a regular basis.  

So I must be missing some other social or societal factor, and I don't claim to know all the answers.  But I will throw one idea out there.  Too many parents don't know how to food shop effectively and economically, and they also don't know how to cook.  I know I went through a semi-rant on this subject last month, October 20th to be exact, but it still irritates me that there are parents who are screamingly resistant to cooking for their children.  (It also irritates me that there are parents that blow their food budget on drugs, alcohol, and designer potato chips, but that's a whole other can of rutabaga.)

Cooking for a family can be easy and relatively cheap, but it takes time, it takes planning, and most of all, it takes sacrifice.  Oh, and at least one good all-around cookbook.  Mine have been well-loved and very well-used.


Food shopping is one of my favorite things to do in the world.  I hate the mall and I hate shopping for anything I can't buy online, but I'll spend hours wandering around any grocery from Publix to Pathmark, Walmart to Waldbaum's.  I never use coupons, but I am a very careful shopper.  BOGOs are my friend.

There are different ways of stretching a food budget, buying on sale being the most obvious.  Ground beef instead of steak, whole or quartered chicken instead of boneless and skinless chicken breasts, tilapia instead of ahi tuna; slipping an extra can of beans into the pot of chili or an extra cup of cut white turnips into a stew; serving an array of inexpensive side dishes, based on potato, rice, pasta, kasha, couscous, or one of the superfoods like quinoa, and vegetables; using prepared and processed foods as an ingredient rather than as the main event.  All obvious stuff to most of us, but if someone wasn't raised in a home where the parents cooked and shopped, not so obvious.  

If you've ever eaten in the home of a family with strong ethnic identity, you have probably seen some of this stretching.  Italian pasta, Hispanic rice and beans, Pennsylvania Dutch seven sweets and seven sours, Asian rice, Eastern European dumplings, and I know there are so many more but my brain is beginning to sputter.  Bread or biscuits. Soup.  You get it, I know you do.  The question is, all those parents of hungry kids - do they get it?  If not, why not?  And how can that be changed?

To say I am a crazy food obsessed cat lady would be a slight understatement, and I know that every parent is not going to embrace cooking as I have, but nothing feels as good as nurturing your kid.  I should know, I've been feeding a vacuum-cleaner-with-teeth for 27 wonderful years.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

What a difference a day makes - Aunt Ceil's Apple Cake with Cinnamon Crumb Topping


What a difference a day makes
Twenty-four little hours

Brought the sun and the flowers
Where there used to be rain

My yesterday was blue, dear
Today I'm a part of you, dear

My lonely nights are through, dear
Since you said you were mine

How about 3,652.421 days, hmmm?  What do you think that much time can do to a person?


I think I mentioned in a recent blog post that I was pulling stuff together to renew our passports.  Part of that stuff was a recent photo.  Another part of that stuff was to submit our expired passports.

Put the two together, and you get Shock and Aw-ful.  Incidentally the only reason I don't look even more like a candidate for the local mortuary in the picture on the right is because Brenda, my friend and paralegal, made me promise I would put on a little lipstick and comb my hair.

At least now the customs officials won't give me a funny look when I try to get back into the United States after a trip to somewhere.  Anywhere.  Any ship, as long as its first name is Carnival and it is sailing out of Port Canaveral.  I really have a one-track mind.  

The headaches are back, if in fact they ever left.  I had trouble falling asleep because of a headache, which outstayed its welcome, because then I woke up practically blinded by the light.  I could not open one of my eyes.  It hurt to lift my head, it hurt to breathe.  Other than that, it was a pretty good start to the day.  I like to look at the positive side of things.  For example, we were going to head up to Vienna ("Vy-Anna") Georgia this past weekend for the glorious barbecue blowout known as the Big Pig Jig.  But the week kept slogging along without either of us making a reservation or any kind of plans and then we realized there was no way we were going to make it, and that was okay.  Better than okay, because about 2 hours after that discussion, I found out I was on weekend shelter duty, and that if I had made reservations, we would have had to cancel and possibly face some kind of penalty fee.  

As Rob's Grandma used to say, "everything happens for a reason."  Sometimes I think my whole life is based on that belief, and that's also okay.


As it turned out, I had three shelter hearings to handle on Saturday.  Could have been a bad thing, but I had good CPIs and case management there, plus a judge I knew from the bad old days as a divorce attorney, and the whole thing was done and over by 9 AM.  Never mind that I had awoken at 5:45 that morning to get ready and drive up to Orlando; I will pay for that later, I know I will.  But for now, I'm still standing, and if I can stand, I can cook.  I can also food-shop, which is what I did on my way home, stopping at one of the Spanish groceries in my continuing search for pork belly.  I just happened to find a few other things ...



That's salt pork, two lovely pieces, and I am going to try some more Harry Potter magic to draw the excess salt out before braising it in the crockpot.  So into some cold water for a while, with the water being changed every 4 to 6 hours.  Wouldn't even consider cooking it for consumption until sometime tomorrow.  And two green tomatoes, rescued from a pile of red, ripe relatives and a pretty purple eggplant.  Maybe I'll fire up the old electric frying pan.  Maybe tomorrow.


First, though, I am finally going to make good use of those lovely apples I picked up in Georgia.  The apple cake recipe came from my great-Aunt Ceil, and the crumb topping came from another cake recipe I happened upon during a random internet search.  Of course, I've made some changes to both of them, but bringing them together on this blind date is going to be positively revolutionary.  


First, prepare the cinnamon crumb topping:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1 stick cold butter, cut into pieces

Mix the flour. sugars, and spices in a large bowl.  Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender or two knives, until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs.  Put the bowl in the refrigerator while you prepare the apples and cake batter.


Next, the apples:

5-6 apples, peeled and sliced fairly thin (use a combination of cooking apples)
2 rounded tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Combine the apples, sugar, and cinnamon in a covered container.  Toss together, and set aside.


Now the batter:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup V-8 Splash Tropical Blend

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and 3/4 cup sugar in a large bowl.  Make a well and add the oil, eggs, vanilla and V-8 Splash. Use a wooden spoon to combine wet and dry ingredients, and then beat with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray an 8 inch square baking dish with baking nonstick spray.  I used an aluminum pan, and placed it on a cookie sheet before sliding into the oven.  Spoon half the batter into the pan, then place half the apples over it.  Repeat with the remaining batter and apple slices.  Cover the entire top of the cake with the crumbs.  Put the baking pan in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.  Check the cake for doneness.  If needed, bake another 10 minutes.  Place the cake on a rack to cool.  Let the cake cool completely before cutting.


This cake is so freaking delicious, I surprised myself!!

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

An Inconvenient Truth - Quick Corn Chowder

The inconvenient truth is that I am waking up every morning with a headache.  I can't be sure if this is because my eyes need to be checked, or because one of my Yorkies sleeps on my head.

Another inconvenient truth is that there is nothing wrong with using convenience foods.  There, I said it and I'm glad.

I've never understood food snobbery, or any other kind of snobbery, for that matter.  My grandmother's favorite convenience food was Campbell's tomato soup.  It shows up in her fabulous cabbage soup and stuffed cabbage, and in a pinch, she could make a "Jewish" spaghetti sauce out of it as well.



She never made green bean casserole with Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, or California dip with Lipton's onion soup mix, but I sure did, and so did most of my cooking friends.  The vast majority of my recipes are "from scratch" but if a convenience food is good, why not use it?  Look at the ingredient list on the back of the box or jar and if you can pronounce everything on it, chances are it's pretty good.


Not every convenience food comes in a red and white can.  Prepared sauces for pasta and proteins, puff pastry, phyllo (filo), tartar and seafood sauces, salad dressings, bread crumbs, stuffing mixes, broths and stocks, cake mixes, pudding mixes, Jell-o, frozen vegetables, canned vegetables (you can't make Ratner's vegetable cutlet without canned vegetables), and on and on.  Hellman's mayonnaise is a convenience food.  So is barbecue sauce and dry pasta.   It's a good time to be a home cook.  And even Martha Stewart uses frozen puff pastry to make her pigs in blanket.


I have no idea where my mother got this recipe.  It's ridiculously good.


1 - 10 ½ ounce can Campbell’s Cream of Potato Soup
1 - 15 ounce can creamed corn
1 soup can half-and-half
1-2 tablespoons butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Stir all the ingredients together in a saucepan over medium heat, then top with a lump of butter.  Salt and pepper to taste. 



Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A Mom's Prayer for Veteran's Day: Put Down Your Guns and Pick Up Your Forks - Southern Boiled Dinner and Wings in Cola Sauce


I am a Mom, and Moms don't like war.  We don't like war for the obvious reason:  those are our sons, and now our daughters, who are sent by our government to Who-Knows-Where to fight Who-Knows-Who.  Sometimes to die.  Sometimes to lose limbs, eyes, brain function, sanity.  So it is now, and so it has always been, and so we have always prayed for peace, back to Biblical times and beyond:
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. - Isaiah  2:4                   
Prayers for peace notwithstanding, I cannot remember a time in my own life without the dark cloud  of war.  I was born during the Korean War, just 7 years after the end of World War II and the end of the Holocaust.  I came of age during the Vietnam War.   When I woke up this morning, we were at war in the Middle East, just as we have been since 2002.  And so it goes.

War is evil, perhaps the greatest Evil of all, but it is a necessary Evil because there have always been   depraved, greedy, power-hungry people in charge of certain governments, and to keep their rule intact, they must wage war.  To stop them, we must go to war as well.  Then, there have always been religious fanatics whose misguided Moms raise them to believe that to die in the service of their cause is a glorious and honorable thing, especially if they can take a few hundred of their enemy with them.

Sane Moms know that War is Hell, and the effect it has on our military sons and daughters can be life-changing in the worst possible ways.  Their sacrifice is immeasurable and today, this Veteran's Day, belongs to them.

And now, some hearty chow.


Southern Boiled Dinner

About 6 quarts of water in a large, deep pot
3 large cloves peeled garlic
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons Paula Deen's House Seasoning
2 tablespoons Lawry's seasoned salt
2 tablespoons Tabasco brand chipotle pepper hot sauce
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter



1 - 2 1/2 pound smoked pork shoulder butt
1 pound fresh Brussel sprouts, stem end trimmed
1 1/2 pounds tiny new potatoes
1 or 2 small rutabagas (yellow turnips), peeled and cubed
1 pound Melissa brand boiler onions, peeled; leave the root end intact

Remove the plastic from around the pork, but leave the netting intact.  Place the pork in your pot, and cover with water.  Do not overfill, as you will be adding the vegetables a little later.  Turn heat on high, and add the House Seasoning, seasoned salt, and Tabasco to the water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium.  Tilt the lid onto the pot so some of the steam can escape, then cook for 1 hour.  Add the rutabaga and cook 15 minutes.  Add the butter and the remaining vegetables and cook another 20 minutes or until they are done.



Remove the pork to a cutting board, and while still hot, carefully pull off the netting and discard.  Cover with a little foil and let sit about 15 minutes.  With a slotted spoon, remove all of the vegetable from the liquid and place in a 9x13 aluminum tray or baking dish.  Discard the bay leaf. Turn the heat under the pot on high and bring to a boil.  Now reduce the liquid in the pot by at least half.  It will still be thin, but it will look richer and buttery.  Ladle some of the buttery liquid over the vegetables in the dish.

Slice the pork thinly and arrange over the vegetables.  Ladle more of the buttery pot likker over the meat.  Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for the next day's meal.  Reserve as much of the remaining pot likker as you like.  You can use it to moisten the dish before reheating, or put out as a gravy, or offer to real southerners with some corn bread for dipping.





Chicken Wings in Cola Sauce

This must be a southern thing, as I also came across a recipe where turkey legs are cooked in lemon-lime soda before being grilled ... anyway, I happened across this recipe for Wings in Cola while doing a random search, and the rest is history.  Delicious history.  Of course I tweaked it.  So it is a little sweet with a little heat. 



5 pounds frozen chicken wingettes (Cooking Good brand at $2.39 a pound.  Buy fresh if you like, but do the math first.)
Garlic salt
Onion powder
"Slap Ya Mama" brand white pepper Cajun blend, or cayenne pepper, totally at your own discretion
1.25 liter bottle Coca-Cola (use the real stuff, please)
1 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce, to taste (I used 2 glugs, which made it just a trifle spicy, which I liked)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the frozen wings in a single layer in an aluminum baking tray deep enough for the liquid.  Sprinkle liberally with the garlic salt and onion powder, and use a somewhat lighter hand in sprinkling over the Slap Ya Mama spice blend, or use a pinch of cayenne.  Combine the remaining ingredients, whisk together so that the sugar dissolves, and pour over the wings.  Cover the pan tightly with aluminum foil and place in the oven for two hours, turning the wings every thirty minutes.  Uncover the wings, and return to the oven for 3-4 additional hours, until the sauce is well reduced but not dried out and the wings are very tender and glazed.  During that time, continue turning the wings every thirty minutes.



Then eat them right away.  You can reheat them the next day and they are delicious, but these taste best right out of the oven.  Serve them to your favorite veteran.


Monday, November 10, 2014

Fish Fingers and Custard

In recognition of the recent season finale of Doctor Who, I prepared a fish dish.


Fish fingers and custard: what we are NOT preparing with those lovely frozen flounder filets I picked up for $4.48 a pound at the Walmart grocery, TARDIS sauce notwithstanding:  http://altonbrown.com/a-meal-fit-for-a-doctor/


And here is what we are preparing: pecan and cornmeal crusted flounder filets.

This is extraordinarily easy, and can be served for dinner during the work week.  You don't even have to set up a breading station.  The only pre-planning necessary is to place the bag of fish fillets in the refrigerator the evening before, so they will be completely defrosted when you are ready to cook them.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Put 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a 9 x 13 (or larger) baking dish and place in the preheating oven while you bread the fish.  Repeat with a second baking dish.  Check to make sure the butter doesn't burn.

Combine a cup of coarse cornmeal and a cup of pecan meal.  Season with a tablespoon of Old Bay Seasoning and use a fork to disperse it throughout.  Remove the fillets from their individual wrappers, but do not pat dry.  Bread the fillets on both sides in the cornmeal mixture, patting the crumbs onto the fish to help it adhere.  Remove the baking pan from the oven and place half the breaded fillets carefully into the melted butter/oil mixture.  Place in the oven and repeat with the second pan and remaining breaded fillets.  Bake until the breading is toasty, then with a spatula carefully turn each fillet.  Bake until the second side is also toasty and the fish flakes easily.  Don't  let the fish dry out.  Serve immediately with TARDIS tartar sauce.



And here's a variation I prepared and posted a couple of years ago:

Catfish nuggets are odd shaped pieces of catfish, ends and such, that are delicious but esthetically displeasing.  No neat fillets there.  At $3.99 a pound, I had to come up with something tasty.  And I did, using some of the pecan meal I picked up on our last trip to Atlanta.

Pecan meal is just finely chopped pecans, so you can certainly chop 'em yourself, but I like buying the meal because it is just the right consistency for breading fish and chicken.  For a pound of fish, all I do is  take some of the pecan meal and season it with garlic salt, pepper, dried thyme and paprika.  I then melt a stick of butter, and dip each piece of catfish in the butter, then the seasoned pecan meal.  Lightly butter a baking pan or dish, and place the prepared fish on it, single layer.  Bake in a 350 degree oven until the pecans are toasty, then carefully turn each piece over and return to the oven until that side has toasty nuts as well.  Yes, I really wrote that.