Recipe-less

I've still been looking at too many cooking magazines lately. So another inspired but no specific recipe meal:

Grilled zucchini, sweet onion, red pepper, kale, and steak seasoning baked with fresh parmesan and crumbled ritz crackers.

Herb low fat cream cheese on a warm brown-at-home baguette, topped with hard boiled egg, watercress, tomato, and a little low fat mayo.

Very nice for a hot summer day.

Dinner is Late

About 7 months late. That's how long since my last post. Eh. Been busy. Here's another for old time's sake. I set dinner on the table and got out the camera. "This is going on the internet, isn't it," my partner stated. "Yup."

I don't have names or recipes cuz these are 'inspired' by various recipes I've looked at over the last week but I didn't follow anything. This is ranier cherries and fontina cheese on a pizza crust with a hefty dose of rosemary and tarragon from the plants my mother gave me for mother's day this year. Fabulous. 

Pork chops marinated in hard cider, black and red pepper, garlic, and onion. I used my panini grill--another big thank you, Mom, for getting me that for Christmas. I use it constantly.

Cucumber, tomatoes, red lentils, mung bean seeds, red onion, feta, and mint, in a dressing of raspberry vinegar, honey, oregano, basil, olive oil, and a pinch of salt, over a pile of spring greens.

If only my children would eat what I cook.

Grease! or butter...whatever

Yeast! 

You want your bread to be so soft and light

You got a growin' thing, you gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger it can rise too far
So add some sugar now, just a pinch from the jar

Yeast is the word

Learning to bake can be a royal pain
When your bread don't rise, It's just a crying shame
The top is burning, a disaster so real
So take it out right now, you just ruined your meal

Yeast is the word

(is the word that you heard)
It's alive, can't mistreat it
Yeast needs the time, a warm place, and devotion
Yeast is the microbe we're eating

Time to make some bread! And I’ve got a carton of buttermilk in the fridge that’s about to go bad, so…

Buttermilk Bread

6 cups buttermilk

1 cake dry yeast

½ c lukewarm water

Flour

1 ½ T salt

2 T sugar

2 T butter

Heat buttermilk, stirring constantly until scalded.(Scalding breaks up the proteins in the milk, that’s why you see it so frequently as a step in bread recipes; it’s all about the texture.) Remove from fire and let cool. Add yeast which has been softened in the water. Add sufficient flour to make a medium batter. Beat until smooth. Cover and set in a warm place and allow to stand overnight. (This creates a fermented batter, with a greater depth of yeasty flavor, called a ‘sponge’. I love that term and that’s what it looks like.)

Add sugar, salt, butter, and enough flour to make a dough just stiff enough to knead. Turn onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Allow to rise until double in bulk and work down. Let rise again until double in bulk. Form into loaves. Place in well-oiled pans. Cover and let rise until double in bulk. Bake in hot oven, 450°, about 45 minutes.

From Mrs. W.H. Juedeman, Bristow, OK, printed in The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, 1936.

My kitchen is not very warm so this process took most of the day. That’s fine; it gives more time for the flavor to develop. Here’s the end product, a soft dense texture with a hint of sourness from the buttermilk. I would absolutely make it again. It’s very similar to my mom’s famous dinner rolls.

A bowl of homemade tomato soup is perfect with the bread, slathered with Laughing Cow blue cheese spread. The soup is my last hurrah to the tomatoes of summer. Never any recipe there, just whatever is at hand to add to the tomatoes, in this case: zucchini, carrots, roasted Anaheim chilis, a little chicken stock, and tons of garlic. My daughter didn’t want the soup, or the Laughing Cow, but she did eat the bread…smothered in ketchup. Which proves the old adage: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him eat the stinky cheese.

Eggs and biscuits

Sometimes one acquires leftover odd ingredients from an experiment that isn’t likely to be repeated. In my case, it’s a box of sugar cubes leftover from building a replica of the Washington monument for a 5^th grade project. (Used a sander to shape the sides--powdered sugar flying everywhere. It was sure fun getting that tower glued to wobbly poster board into the building. Ever notice that when your kids have a project, YOU have a project? We got an A on that one.) 

So it’s been awhile, and I still haven’t had enough ladies over for afternoon tea to put a dent in it, and sugar doesn’t go bad, does it? So I think I’ll be trying this recipe from the Glenwood Cook Book, 1933. Maybe for an evening snack tonight with some caffeine-free tea. 

Orange biscuits

2 cups flour

4 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

2 T shortening

1 T grated orange rind

3/4 cups cold water

orange juice and cube sugar

Sift dry ingredients, work in shortening and add grated orange rind moistened with 3/4 c water. Roll to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into biscuits. On half the rounds place a cube of sugar which has been moistened with orange juice. Cover the sugar with another round of dough and press together gently. Spread the tops with powdered sugar slightly moistened with orange juice, sprinkle a fine grating of orange rind over them and bake at 450 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

Here’s another recipe from the same cook book I want to try. I do essentially the same thing with shrimp and feta cheese in place of the eggs and American. That with some nice crusty homemade rosemary bread to sop it up with. Hmmm, maybe that would be good tonight too. Could sneak some zucchini into it.

Spanish Eggs

2 T salad oil

1 onion

1 green pepper

2 c tomatoes

1 t sugar

1 T Worcestershire sauce

4 T dry bread crumbs

American cheese

1 t salt

Put oil into saucepan and in it sauté, until golden brown, the onion and pepper, finely chopped. Then add tomatoes and bring to boiling point. Add remaining ingredients and cook until onion is soft. Pour into an oiled shallow baking dish, and break into it as many eggs as desired. Season eggs. Cover with grated cheese and bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

Here it is: with summer squash added to the vegetable saute, and feta instead of American cheese.

Zucchini Bingo!

Let’s play Zucchini Bingo! (From Garden Way’s Zucchini Cookbook by Nancy Ralston and Marynor Jordon, 1977)

To start, sauté in a 10 inch skillet 1 cup zucchini, sliced, and 1 medium onion, sliced, in 2T margarine. Now make a selection from each category to make a prize-winning dish. For example, B3, I9, N5, G1, O8.

B (Vegetables, 1 cup, chopped)

1. Peas, Celery
2. Tomatoes. Mushrooms
3. Tomatoes, Eggplant
4. Summer squash, Celery
5. Tomatoes, Corn
6. Tomatoes, Green peppers
7. Green peppers, Carrots, Celery
8. Peas, Mushrooms
9. Green peppers, Celery
10. Green peppers, Mushrooms

I (Meat, ½ lb. cooked)

1. Chicken, chopped
2. Ground lamb
3. Turkey, chopped
4. Ground pork
5. Tuna
6. Ham, chopped
7. Bacon, crumbled
8. Ground beef
9. Ground veal
10. Ground pork sausage or Italian sausage

N (Sauces, 1 cup)

1. Bechamel sauce
2. Fresh tomato sauce
3. Tomato-cheese sauce
4. Sour Cream  sauce (1/2 c sour cream with a can of cream of whatever soup)
5. Sour-cream tomato sauce
6. Chicken veloute
7. Cheese sauce
8. Mornay sauce
9. Custard sauce
10. Mayonnaise sauce

G (Bottom, 1 cup cooked)

1. Vegetable squash
2. Rice
3. Barley
4. Noodles
5. Macaroni
6. Spaghetti
7. Green noodles
8. Use acorn squash shells
9. Use baking dish
10. Use scooped out zucchini shells

O (Top, ½ cup)

1. Bread crumbs
2. Bread crumbs and cheese
3. Crushed potato chips
4. Cracker crumbs
5. Grated Swiss
6. Grated Parmesan
7. Grated Romano
8. Grated Mozzarella
9. Grated Cheddar
10. Grated Gruyere

Bake at 350°F. about 30 minutes. Serves 2-4.

You are looking at B5, I1, N6, G3, O4 with yellow summer squash instead of green zucchini and a little creole seasoning, ready to go into the oven to brown on top, right in the skillet cuz I avoid using any extra pans I have to clean up later.

Verdict: It's a winner! But this is how I cook anyhow...find whatever is at hand and throw them together. I have very picky kids who don't like food mixed together so I set aside some of the corn, tomato, and chicken that went into this and left them plain for the girls. We're all happy. Now it’s your turn to play.

Tacodile

Who can predict what recipe is destined to become a classic? Back in the 80s, on a visit to relatives in Oklahoma, my Aunt Linda made this layered taco dip for us and my mom promptly acquired the recipe. What was new and attention-getting then has become such a staple you can find a version ready-made in any grocery store deli section.

Taco Dip or Salad

First Layer

2 cans bean dip

Second Layer

4 mashed avocados mixed with 2 t lemon juice

Third Layer

8 oz. sour cream

½ c mayonnaise

1 pkg taco seasoning

Fourth Layer

Shredded cheddar cheese

Diced tomato

Chopped lettuce

Fast-forwarding to my daughter’s 2 birthday party, a time she was completely fascinated by Teletubbies and crocodiles--only she pronounced it “taco-dile”. So we had a polka-dotted cake made like Dipsy’s hat, tubby custard, and this layered dip shaped into a crocodile with tortilla chip scales down its back and olive claws. Hmmm, looking at it now it bears more of a resemblance to a road kill possum.

Sheik Al-Mishee (Eggplant Fit for a Sheik)

Cinnamon on meat? You bet. This is wonderful comfort food. Soaking the eggplant before it is used removes any bitterness.

1 large eggplant, sliced, soaked in salt water for 20 minutes, and rinsed. (If I'm slicing, I peel the eggplant, if chopping, I leave the skin on.)

1 lb. ground beef

1 large can chopped tomatoes or sliced fresh tomatoes, I've substituted a can of tomato soup too.

salt

2 crushed garlic cloves

2 med. onions, chopped

Olive oil

1-2 med. potatoes, chopped

cinnamon

Cook the onions in a drizzle of olive oil until tender. Add beef, salt to taste, garlic, and cook until browned. Grease a baking pan and put a layer of the meat mix. Add a layer of potatoes, sprinkle with salt, and a layer of tomatoes, sprinkle with cinnamon. Add a layer of eggplant, sprinkle with cinnamon. Repeat until all is used up. Actually, I just chop it all up and stir it together anymore. Bake 350 degrees until the eggplant and potatoes are tender when poked with a fork.

Originally from Finest Recipes From the Middle East by Yasmine Betar, 1957, a spiral bound cookbook my mother picked up back in the 1970s when she was first learning to cook Arabian food. This unassuming little book has seen a lot of use.

Tomato and Leek Tart and Desert Manna

Tomato and Leek Tart

2 cups seasoned bread crumbs

¾ cup almond butter

scant 1/4 cup butter

2 cups sliced leeks

Olive oil

1 T flour

1 cup crème fraiche or sour cream

8 oz. peeled, sliced tomatoes

½ cup grated gruyere cheese, or swiss

Mix crumbs, almond butter, butter and pat into 8 inch tart pan to form crust. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 min. Meanwhile, cook leeks 5-7 min in a drizzle of olive oil, until tender. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Stir in crème fraiche, boil to thicken for several minutes. Spoon into crust. Lay tomatoes over the top, sprinkle with cheese. Bake until the cheese is melted and bubbly.

If you’ve never cooked with leeks before, make sure you slice them open and rinse them well; they often have sand and dirt trapped between the layers (umm, crunchy). Speaking of sand crunchy veggies, my Dad was always bringing ‘unique’ things home and throwing them on the kitchen table for my mom to figure out how to cook. One day it was faqa’, a truffle that suddenly appears in the Dahna desert after a rain. They resemble ugly potatoes and, like leeks, have to be cleaned carefully or else they’ll provide a hefty crunch, and a trip to the dentist, to your evening meal. After scrubbing and rinsing and scrubbing and rinsing and peeling and scrubbing and rinsing and chopping and rinsing, my sisters and I decided that only people who had been wandering in the desert for 40 years would consider this to be manna from heaven. Its name appropriately sounds like something you yell at another driver on the interstate.

Iowa's Romanticizing of the Old South

(what language is that on the canned ham?)

An excerpt from Treasured Recipes of the Old South by Mrs. Marie Kimball published by the John Morrell Company, Ottumwa, IA, 1941 (third printing).

"The talents of the broad-hipped, ample-bosomed Mammy who presided over the plantation kitchen have often been celebrated, and justly so. She was touched with the same spark of genius that has animated the great cooks of all times. By her magic she has called forth dishes that are unrivaled anywhere. What is more delicious than her ham, crunchy with sugar and spice, her golden fried chicken, tender brown biscuit, or snowy-white light bread? Most important of all, the plantation cook has left behind her a living proof of her virtuosity in the form of treasured recipes which offer us a real taste of life in the Old South."

Apparently Mammy used lots of Morrell pork in her dishes, including the featured bacon and peanut butter canapé recipe made by cutting bread into rounds, frying it, spreading it with peanut butter, and putting a piece of crisp bacon on top. I can hear the banjos playin’.

(The black girl has a WTF? expression.)

Gloria’s Glorified Tomatoes sound darn good though:

"Wash 6 medium-sized tomatoes and cut in half. Sprinkle with salt, black pepper and sugar, and dot with butter. Place under broiler and broil until tender. Have a small round of buttered toast for each tomato, place on them thin rounds of Morrell Pride Tender Ham, broiled, then the tomato, and cover with the following sauce: Cream 3 T butter, add gradually 2 T sugar, ¾ t dry mustard, 1/8 t salt and 1/8 t black pepper. Add 1 egg beaten light, with 2 T of vinegar. Cook in a double boiler until thick, stirring constantly."