Category: Food and Drink

I'm doing an extra post today, partly for you and partly for myself because my paper recipe is getting difficult to read and I'm really starting to appreciate being able to Google my own recipes when I need to make something.

This was my great-aunt Edith's recipe for rolls.  With the egg and the sugar, they're rich and slightly sweet.  I make them for every big family dinner and they're always a hit.  My husband would probably like it if I made them every week.

Aunt Edith's Dinner Rolls

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening (butter flavored Crisco works well)
1 cup boiling water
2 eggs
2 packages of yeast
1 cup warm water for yeast
6 cups flour
1 tablespoon salt

Cream sugar and shortening together.  Add the boiling water.  Beat the eggs and add them.  Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Combine salt and flour and add to egg mixture along with yeast solution.  Mix all thoroughly (dough will be soft and somewhat sticky) and continue kneading for several minutes. I use my KitchenAid mixer, which makes the kneading a no-brainer, but if you mix these by hand you'll want to knead until you're satisfied with the consistency of the dough. Cover bowl with a dishtowel and let rise for one hour.  Punch down and shape.  These make great cloverleaf rolls (three balls of dough dropped into greased muffin tins), but lately I've been rather lazy and I just fill a 13" x 9" pan with larger balls of dough to make individual rolls.  This dough also makes great cinnamon rolls, if you're feeling really ambitious.  Once you've shaped all the rolls, cover lightly and let rise for another hour.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes or until the rolls are nicely browned on top.

This time of year, I find myself invited to a lot of parties where I'm expected to bring some sort of snack food.  Here's one thing I make quite often:

Garlic Cheese Ball

1 – 8 oz. package of cream cheese
2 to 3 cloves of garlic, pressed
2 thinly sliced green onions
A splash of Worcestershire sauce
A couple dashes of Tabasco sauce
A few twists of black pepper from the grinder
A shake or two of paprika

Cream together by hand or with a mixer.  Form into the shape of a ball and roll in approximately 1/2 to 3/4 cup of coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans.

If you're feeling creative, there are plenty of other things you can add, including:

Finely grated carrot
Finely chopped green and/or red pepper
Roasted red pepper
Grated cheddar
Pesto

I was going to say you wouldn't want to add all of those at once, but why not?  It's going to be tasty no matter what.  Be creative!

I always buy a box of Nabisco Sociables crackers with which to serve this, mainly because they're what my grandmother always used to buy, and this was originally her recipe.

A cheese ball might not be particularly fancy, but it's always delicious and a hit at parties.  If you try it, let me know how it went.

I’m not going to cook anything for Thanksgiving this year, but I still have some lovely recipes that YOU may feel free to use if you’re going to cook.

For your Thanksgiving cooking and dining pleasure:

• Pumpkin Pie
• Cranberry Sauce

My husband and I (and probably a few friends) are planning to pig out at a chain buffet restaurant.  $10 bucks a person for an all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving feast vs. hours of slaving over a hot stove that trips the breaker every time I turn on more than two burners.  Hmmm…decisions, decisions…

Yes, we’ve gone the buffet route numerous times and we’ve never regretted it.  If we end up with an unsatisfactory meal early in the day, there’s nothing stopping us from finding another restaurant and trying again at suppertime.  We can’t lose!

Now that there's a chill in the air (however temporary), I'm starting to think of making my favorite cold weather foods.  At the top of the list is my family's minestrone recipe.  It's from an era when Italian food was still considered a novelty in the U.S., so it should come as no surprise that my grandmother's copy of the recipe was titled "Mama Mia's Andante Minestrone" – a nice Italian stereotype complete with a little play on the slow-cooking aspect of the dish.

I'm not saying it's a particularly authentic minestrone, but it's still delicious on a cool day.  Here's the recipe, with the title suitably shortened:

Minestrone

1 cup dry Great Northern beans (rinsed)
1 package stew meat (or a soup bone, if you can still find such a thing)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1-2 cloves pressed garlic
1-2 ribs of celery, sliced
1 tablespoon oregano
1 tablespoon parsley
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 small can tomato sauce
1 small can tomato paste
1 small head of cabbage, chopped
1/2 cup dry shell noodles

Early in the day, brown the stew meat in a little olive oil in the bottom of a soup pot, add beans, fill pot with water and simmer through the afternoon, uncovered, occasionally stirring and adding water as needed.  Workday option:  brown the meat in a frying pan, place it in a crockpot with the beans, fill crockpot with water and cook all day on "Low" (covered, of course). 

Once the beans are soft, heat olive oil and add onion, garlic and celery in a frying pan.  Saute until vegetables are just beginning to brown lightly, then add oregano and parsley.  Transfer vegetables to soup (if you started this in a crockpot, pour the meat, beans and water into a soup pot on the stove) and add salt, pepper, tomato sauce and paste, cabbage and noodles.  Simmer 30 to 45 minutes until cabbage is soft.  Add additional salt to taste before serving.

This recipe makes a lot – I generally save it for when I'm having company.  It's great reheated, though, even if you've frozen the leftovers.  I wish I had some right now – I don't care if it's breakfast time.  Perhaps next week…

Pharmgirl mentioned yesterday that she just finished reading "You: The Owner’s Manual" and is on the alert for evil high fructose corn syrup in the food products she buys.  She is now boycotting her erstwhile favorite bottled balsamic vinaigrette.

I happen to have two lovely recipes for salad dressing with balsamic vinegar, so this seemed like the perfect time to share them.  Both contain LOTS of fresh garlic, but they’re so delicious that it’s well worth the risk of bad breath.

Spicy Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 tbl. Dijon mustard
2 cloves pressed garlic
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbl. balsamic vinegar
Salt & pepper
A few drops of lemon juice

Mix in small bowl or shake in jar.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Country Dressing

2 cloves pressed garlic
1 tbl. honey
Salt
1 tbl. balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil

Mix in small bowl or shake in jar.  Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

They’ve both delicious and a little spicy from the garlic, but the first one has an especially noticeable bite thanks to the Dijon mustard.  Try either one on a mixed greens salad with apple chunks and walnuts.  Mmmm!

I’m not exactly a model of self-restraint when it comes to desserts and sweets anyway, but the instant the weather turns hot I start craving ice cream constantly.  I’m not all that discriminating about it either, as evidenced by my purchase of a McDonald’s "cone" yesterday. (McD’s chooses not to discuss the nature of the cone’s contents, which should strike all of us as suspicious.)

I’ve become a connoisseur of various ice cream and frozen custard store chains’ offerings.  My favorites:

• Baskin-Robbins – When I was growing up, we often had Baskin-Robbins ice cream cakes for our birthdays.  My favorite flavor, then and now, was Mint Chocolate Chip.  Everyone in my family thought it tasted like toothpaste, but I still got my Mint Chocolate Chip cake almost every year.  Other good Baskin-Robbins flavors:  Chocolate Almond and Butter Pecan.
• Dairy Queen – It’s not fancy, but there’s something about a chocolate-dipped cone from Dairy Queen that really hits the spot on a hot day.  The little fragments of chocolate that fall off while you’re eating it often hit spots on your clothes, too.
• Sonic – I live for the 99-cent Junior Banana Split, although I usually limit myself to one per summer.
• Sheridan’s Frozen Custard – I have a love/hate relationship with them because their portion sizes are obscene, but I still enjoy their Strawberry Shortcake, even though I usually end up eating about 1/3 of it and throwing the rest away.

There are some local shops that serve ice cream and custard treats I particularly enjoy, including:

• An ice cream flavor called Cinnameg:  vanilla ice cream with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove
• My favorite custard concrete flavor, Lemon Pie, with light vanilla custard, lemon pie filling and graham cracker crumbs
• Any good chocolate malt (not milkshake)

Finally, a cool party treat that combines ice cream and alcohol – what could be better?

• Carton of orange sherbet/vanilla ice cream blend
• Orange flavored vodka
• Mix in blender and serve

What are your favorite ice cream flavors and other frozen treats?

Last night I went to a social gathering and brought a pitcher of my fabulous Tootsie Roll Martinis.  I didn’t even end up drinking one (I wanted to make my 6:15 a.m. yoga class today), but everyone loved them so much I figured it would be worthwhile to share the recipe.

Tootsie Roll Martinis

1 cup creamy chocolate liqueur (Godiva, Vermeer, etc.)
1 cup Irish cream liqueur (I like McCormick, but Bailey’s is good, too)
1 cup vanilla vodka
1/2 cup clear chocolate liqueur (optional)
1/4 cup Grand Marnier

Mix together in a pitcher and add ice to chill and provide a little much-needed dilution of the alcohol.  Don’t skip the Grand Marnier – it’s the secret ingredient that makes these martinis taste like a Tootsie Roll instead of just chocolate alone.  Garnish martini glasses with actual Tootsie Rolls or chocolate syrup-coated rims if you’re the kind of person who does that sort of thing.

Enjoy!

Every day last week when I went to our office/studio area to check my e-mail and write my blog entries, I noticed an odd odor.  It was sweet and pungent and I suspected that my husband might have left some food in the garbage can by his desk a bit too long.

Over the weekend, I remembered to ask him about it while we lounged on the back porch and he knew exactly what I was talking about.  "It’s my gum," he said, pulling the pack from his pocket.  "It smells like an apple core that’s been left to rot in the trash.  But it tastes good!"

It was the new and highly-touted Extra Cool Green Apple gum.  My husband went on to say that he really liked the gum, but he didn’t think he could keep buying it because of the smell.  It stank up the office, his car, and anywhere else he happened to take the pack.

It’s an odd dilemma to have to weigh flavor versus excessive odor when it comes to selecting gum.  Maybe Wrigley should develop some kind of gum container that seals in the smell.  Otherwise, I think we’re through with the Cool Green Apple gum.

I know it’s rather soon for me to return to the subject of cooking, but I cooked something for dinner last night that turned out well, so I figured I’d make a note of the recipe here.  I pretty much made it up as I went along with a little guidance from some miscellaneous curry recipes.  My husband and I both liked it a lot.

Pork Tenderloin with Curried Fruit Sauce

1 pork tenderloin
1/2 cup diced pineapple with juice
1 tablespoon raisins
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 cube chicken bouillon
1/2 cup water

Bake whole pork tenderloin covered at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes.  While it’s baking, combine other ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat slightly and simmer until tomatoes and pineapple begin to cook down and the sauce thickens slightly.  Remove tenderloin from oven, slice into medallions, pour sauce over meat, and return to oven.  Bake uncovered for another 25-30 minutes.  Serve over steamed rice.  Serves 2.

I used canned pineapple, but fresh would be much tastier.  Instead of white rice, it might be interesting to go with brown rice or couscous – anything neutral to counter the spicy sauce.  As a side dish, I sauteed fresh green beans in olive oil with a little bit of salt, sesame seeds and red pepper flakes as garnish.

It’s been a while since I shared a recipe so I thought I’d pass along one that I’ve enjoyed since childhood.  I almost hesitate because it’s heavily dependent on an ingredient that can be hard to come by, but it’s so good that it’s worth a little extra shopping effort.  Without further ado, I present:

Butternut Pound Cake

3 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
2 sticks butter or margarine
5 large eggs
1 small can evaporated milk with water added to make one cup
2 tablespoons vanilla butternut extract*
3 cups flour

Cream shortening, butter, sugar and salt.  Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition.  Alternate adding portions of the flour and milk, ending with flour.  Mix in the vanilla butternut extract.  Note:  This can be beaten with an electric mixer or mixed by hand; an electric mixer will produce a lighter cake and hand mixing will create a more dense cake.  Pour into a Bundt pan and place into a cold oven.  Set oven for 325 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes (do not open oven during baking).  Cool in pan for 20 minutes and turn out.  Cake may seem alarmingly brown on the outside, but that’s the way it’s supposed to look.

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*I’ve observed that vanilla butternut extract is easier to find in the southern U.S. than in the Midwest.  I can only speculate about its availability in other parts of the U.S. and abroad.  McCormick makes an Imitation Vanilla Butter & Nut Flavoring (which is the brand I buy these days).  I found a few other brands online, but many were colorless, which would rob this cake of its beautiful, deep yellow color.  Don’t be fooled by a flavoring called Butternut Extract – it’s not the same!

This cake serves a lot of people, so it’s a great choice for a party or potluck.  Keep an eye out for the flavoring and try it the next time you’re in the mood for cake.