Recipes and Cooking category archive

This is a very simple recipe that works quite nicely. It has the added advantage that it can be prepared early and kept in the refrigerator until ready for the final step of prep.

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized head cauliflower
1/2 stick butter
1/2-2/3 cups bread crumbs (I recommend Panko)
1/4-1/3 cup grated cheddar cheese or to taste

Procedure:

1. Trim away any leaves, core cauliflower, and break it apart.
2. Steam until tender (approx. 15 mins. at med.-high). Allow to cool a bit for easier handling.
3. Arrange cauliflower pieces evenly in a casserole dish.
3. Melt butter in skillet over low heat, then stir in bread crumbs until the butter is absorbed.
4. Carefully spoon the bread crumb mixture evenly over the cauliflower.
5. Top with grated cheese. Refrigerate until ready for the last step.
6. Bake at 350 Fahrenheits until headed through and cheese is nicely melted (approx. 20-25 mins.). Serve hot.

Note: Mixing the bread crumbs with butter makes is less likely that they will fall to the bottom of the dish.

In a fascinating article, Jeffrey Miller explores the history of the much-maligned fruitcake and explains why they last forever.

For example, I did not know that fruitcakes were the Roman Imperial army’s MREs. (And I would not be surprised if some of those Imperial fruitcakes weren’t still around languishing in the back of a cupboard somewhere.)

This is a very simple, very tasty, very satisfying meal. We had this for supper last night. And we will be polishing it off tonight.

Ingredients:

1 regular-sized (15.5 oz.) can red kidney beans
1 regular-sized (15.5 oz.) can black beans
1 small (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
1/2 lb. ground beef
2 stalks celery
3 cloves garlic
1/2 large red onion
1 bell pepper (red or green)
1/4 cup chopped mushrooms (or 1 small can chopped mushrooms)
Herbs and spices to taste (I commonly use pepper, basil, and dill)

Procedure:

1. Slice celery crosswise and coarsely chop the other vegetables.
2. In a large pot or Dutch oven, saute vegetables in olive oil until the onions are wilted.
3. Add ground beef and sear until well broken up and browned.
4. Add remaining ingredients, including the liquor from the canned items, and the herbs and spices. (This makes a thick soup; if you want a thinner one, add a bit of water.)
5. Simmer for approximately one hour. Taste occasionally, adding additional spices as desired.
6. Serve with sour cream or plain yogurt topping (optional).

Makes approximately four servings.

The Phryne Fisher mystery I’m currently (re-)reading makes frequent mention of Irish soda bread, so I decided to try my hand at baking some.

I followed this recipe, which I suspect is less than authentic, as it calls for margarine (this recipe claims to be authentic).

I deviated from the recipe in a couple of ways.

As we commonly do not buy oleo, I used butter instead, and I did not brush the loaf with a buttermilk and butter mixture. Rather, I put a dish of water in the oven and brushed the loaf with the hot water a couple of times as it baked, a trick that makes for crustier crusts.

It was quite tasty and very well received by the household. Half the loaf is already gone, and the rest might now survive tomorrow.

This is based on Craig Claiborne’s recipe for salmon souffle in his New York Times Cookbook, 1961 edition. I frankly prefer tuna to salmon in this recipe. (Claiborne is my favorite cook book writer; I’m working on wearing out my third copy of this book and my copy of his New York Times International Cookbook is held together with library tape.)

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We ad libbed this recipe last night and it was very well-received, so I thought I’d share it.

Ingredients:

• 2 Leeks
• 6 or 7 button mushrooms
• 1/4 large onion or half a small onion
• 2 or 3 cloves garlic
• pepper and basil (and other spices as desired) to taste
• Approx. 3 tbs. butter

Procedure:

1. Wash leeks and mushrooms thoroughly. Note that sand can collect in the leaves of the leeks, so be especially attentive to them.
2. Trim leaves and roots from leeks, then slice leeks in 1/2-3/4 inch segments.
3. Quarter mushrooms.
4. Chop onions.
5. Melt butter in saucepan at medium heat, then saute onions and garlic until onions are wilted.
6. Add spices, leeks, and mushroom; saute until done, stirring occasionally (15-20 mins.)

Serves two.

H/T Susan for coming up with the idea.

This is a simple recipe, but we’ve come to really like it, especially when served with sauteed baby bella mushrooms.

If you search the internet for this, you will find many variations, especially regarding the cooking time; recommended times range from 30 minutes to an hour. This is what we’ve found best.

Ingredients:

Small white potatoes, 5-7 per serving, depending on their size.
Olive oil.
Herbs and spices to taste. I commonly use garlic powder, pepper, basil, rosemary, and dill.

Procedure:

1. Wash potatoes, then roll them in olive oil until coated thoroughly.

2. Place on cookie sheet or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

3. Sprinkle with desired seasonings on both sides.

4. Cook in oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

The cooked potatoes will be hot and will hold heat tenaciously. I recommend cutting them in half.

This is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch desert. The name comes from the legend that, when you set the finished pie on the windowsill to cool, you must remain there shooing away the flies that swarm it.

This version comes from the Neffsville Mennonite Cookbook, which was compiled by the Women’s Missionary and Service Commission of said church, in Lancaster, Pa. There are three shoo-fly pies in the cookbook, but this one’s so good I haven’t bother to try the other two . . . .

I’ve had this cookbook for 35 or 40 years. Many years ago, when I worked for Amtrak, we held residential (meaning that the trainees stayed over for several days at the training site) training classes at various hotels in the Lancaster area, as Lancaster was central in the terms of Amtrak geography, convenient to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Chicago. Shoo-fly pie became one of my favorites.

When I was purchasing the frozen pie shells (making your own pie crust is not worth the effort), I mentioned that I was planning to bake shoo-fly pies. The lady behind me in the check out asked, “What’s in it?” I said, “Sugar.”

Frequently, if someone has never had it, he or she is told, “Imagine pecan pie without the pecans.” Frankly, that is a comparison of desperation, because there really isn’t anything else quite like it.

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Food-borne frolics.

They eat egg pie.

I sort of followed this recipe, except for sauteing up some red pepper, celery, and red onion and using country ham instead of bacon and omitting the Parmesan cheese and not bothering to measure anything except for the half-and-half.

Afterthought:

There is a quite excellent little restaurant in these parts that does indeed offer “egg pie” on the menu. It’s quiche in disguise.

They throw a great breakfast. If you are in these parts, give them a visit.

As regards measuring, the marvelous “Cajun Comic” Justin Wilson once did a cooking show. He would pour herbs and spices into his hand while saying “[some quantity] [some spice],’ then pour them into a measuring device, which showed that the quantity was accurate.

After a while, one knows what a teaspoon of something or other looks like.

I have a new podcast up at Hacker Public Radio.

It is quite well-bread.

You too can podcast at HPR. The topic need only be of interest to hackers, and everything is of interest to hackers.

H/T to Dave Morriss for fixing the typo in the shownotes.

I made this today.

It was a complete ad lib effort inspired by a reference in the first Corinna Chapman story by Kerry Greenwood. Although there is a book of Corinna Chapman recipes available, the recipe for this “Seed Bread” is not in it; in the book, Corinna, who is a baker by trade, states that it is her secret recipe, and I reckon it is.

The book also refers to “kibbled wheat” and “kibbled oats” as part of the secret recipe. “Kibbled wheat” appears to be what in the States we refer to as cracked wheat; “kibbled oats,” steel-cut oats. I didn’t have any on hand and, frankly, I’ve never been a big one for oats, except in the form of oatmeal cookies.*

I must say, my experiment was quite successful and I look forward to trying it again. The finished product is quite savory. You can click the picture above for a larger image, in which you can see the seeds embedded in the loaf. Perhaps I’ll even give the oats and wheat a try.

Ingredients:

• 1 cp. warm water
• 1 packet yeast
• 1 1/2 cps. white flour, approx.
• 1 1/2 cps. rye flour, approx.
• 1 tbs. each dill seed, fennel seed, sesame seed, caraway seed, or to taste
• 1 tsp. coriander (the reference in the story referred to coriander seed, but I didn’t have any of that, so I ad libbed)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. light brown sugar

Procedure:

1. Dissolve yeast in water and proof.

2 Add seeds, salt, and sugar.

3. Add white flour and stir well.

4 Add rye flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring after each, until dough is stiff and firm enough to knead.

5. Pour out on floured board and knead until firm and springy. If the dough feels a little sticky, knead in additional flour as needed.

6. Pour a bit of olive oil into a bowl and coat dough with the olive oil, then cover and allow to rise (approx. 1 1/2 hours, depending on heat and humidity).

7. When dough has approximately doubled in size, shape into a loaf and place in loaf pan or on cookie sheet and allow to rise for approximately 20 mins.

8. Place in oven preheated to 400 Fahrenheits and bake until a knife inserted into it comes out clean (approx. 30 mins.). If you wish a crustier loaf, place a pan of hot water in the oven and, after the bread has started to cook, brush the top of the loaf with water a couple of times, say, at the 10 and 20 minute marks.

Makes one loaf.

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*I have the same feelings about oats as Dennis the Menace once expressed about carrot cake when he said, “Nothing this good could come from carrots.”

Almost every recipe that calls for veal can be made with chicken. This is a quick and easy recipe that turns out a special dish.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, skinned and boned (you can also use thighs or, as we called them where I grew up, “short joints”)
1 cp. flour, approx.
herbs and spices to taste
1/2 stick butter
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tbs. capers or more to taste*

Procedure:

1. Mix flour with herbs and spices. I commonly use pepper, tarragon, poultry seasoning, basil, garlic powder, and a bit of rosemary.

2. Slice meat into strips no more than 1/4″ thick.

3. Dredge meat in flour mixture until it is thoroughly coated.

4. Melt butter in skillet over medium heat.

5. Saute meat in skillet, turning as needed, in a single layer until golden brown. If you have more than will fit at once, place done pieces in a serving dish and keep in oven heated to about 200 Fahrenheits.

6. Once all the chicken is done and removed from the skillet, add lemon juice to the skillet and mix. (If necessary, melt more butter in the skillet before adding the lemon juice.) Stir the mixture, using a whisk or fork to loosen any bits of meat sticking to the pan.

7. Add capers.

8. Pour sauce over chicken and serve immediately.

Serves two.
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*Classic piccata recipes do not necessarily call for capers; they should.

The first veal piccata I had was in a long-gone Italian restaurant in Center City Philadelphia near my hotel at 18th and Market. It contained capers and I loved it. The next time I ordered veal piccata was in a different Italian restaurant on another business trip. It contained no capers and was quite boring.

This is a little breakfast recipe that’s elegant in its simplicity. It’s my spin on a recipe from the Nero Wolf Cookbook.

Ingredients:

• 2 link sausages
• 2 eggs
• butter
• spices (salt, pepper, paprika, tarragon, chives to taste)

Procedure:

1, Brown sausages in skillet, then drain on a paper towel.

2. Generously butter a shirred egg dish (I use a six-inch cast iron skillet inherited from my mother).

3. Sprinkle with pepper and other spices of choice.

4. Bake 15 minutes in oven preheated to 350 Fahrenheits.

5. Gently slide out of baking dish and serve.

Serves one.

Serving Suggestion:

Serve over cheese toast, that is, toast topped with melted cheese.

This is a CC-SA image from the internet. We started eating before I thought of a picture.

What distinguishes soda bread from other breads is that baking soda, not baking powder or yeast, is the rising agent. No rising time is required before baking.

There are dozens of recipes across the innerwebs, some very simple, some not so much. Here’s the one I made yesterday, adapted and simplified from this one, which has a silly reliance on electrical appliances so as to seem much more complex than it is.

Ingredients:

• 2 cps. white flour
• 2 cps. white whole wheat flour
• 1/8 cp. maple syrup (I’m guessing here. I used my mother’s old measuring standard: “one pour.”)
• 1 tbs. baking soda (Again, I used “one pour.”)
• 1/2 stick butter, softened and cut into pats
• 1 3/4 cps. cultured buttermilk, approx. (read the label, make sure it’s “cultured” and not ersatz)
• 1 egg

Procedure:

1. Combine dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix.

2. Cut in butter until it is thoroughly mixed in.

3. Add egg to buttermilk and beat slightly with a fork or whisk.

4. Stir buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients a bit at a time. (Note: The dough will not mix up into a nice spongy ball like a yeast dough. Rather, it will be wet and a bit sticky. Coat your hands with flour before handling it. Be ready to add a little more flour or buttermilk if needed to produce the required consistency.)

4, As soon as it sticks together, dump it out on a floured board and knead until it consents to holding itself in shape of a loaf, about four or five times. The loaf will be craggy, not smooth like a yeast bread.

6. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake in an oven preheated to 375 Fahrenheits for approximately 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in it comes out clean.