Vegetables: Boil Until They're Dead

I know it's not at all fashionable to say so, but I actually do like vegetables boiled until they're good and dead sometimes. Mmm, greens cooked until they're sort of green grey, and then doused with capsful of vinegar! I have been known to eat and enjoy canned green beans, right out of the can. A little mushiness on occasion is okay by me.

I come by this honestly. First off, I was a child in the 70s, and cuisine was not yet haute. Secondly, I come from my family. For your approval, one of my aunt's recipes in
Favorite Recipes from Caldwell, Idaho:

Vegetables
Robbie Busse

Green beans (fresh)
Tomatoes (fresh)
1 onion, diced
3 strips bacon
Salt

Clean beans and tomatoes; cut into bite sized pieces. Place in saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and dash of salt. Fry and crumble bacon. Add to vegetables. Let boil together until beans are tender (about 20 minutes).

Canned vegetables can be substituted for fresh.

Before we start getting all appalled at the idea of cooking green beans for 20 minutes at a boil (honestly, either cook 'em for 10 minutes, or for over 40 minutes -- half measures aren't doing you a kindness in most cases), let's embrace the surprising goodness of this recipe: Yes, it's from the 1970s, but it explicitly calls for fresh veg.

I've not been to Caldwell in decades, but when I did go out that way, I remember lots and lots of farmland outside of town. My first real exposure to asparagus was seeing it grow like a weed in irrigation ditches. So, when my aunt specifies fresh veg, you can trust that they are fresh fresh veg.

About the only ingredient I really question in this recipe is the salt. I'd think that the bacon would bring enough salt to the party, and, if it didn't, that the correct way to fix it would be to add more bacon. This surprises no one. There's always room for more bacon in my pots.

I will have to ask Aunt Robbi why this recipe isn't called "Green Beans" or "Green Beans & Tomatoes." Is it "Vegetables" because the method is to be used with any fresh (or canned) veg you have on hand? Is it "Vegetables" because that was the easiest shorthand when it came to saying "eat your vegetables"? My Idaho cousins were too young or too not born yet to be veg eaters when this cookbook came out, so...it's a bit of a mystery. I don't recall having this dish at my dad's table, nor my grandma's, so I'm guessing Aunt Robbi picked it up once she left the nest.

The Original Potato Soup; Favorite Recipes from Caldwell, Idaho, Compiled by the Caldwell Jay-C-Ettes

I'm a sentimental sort, so you can imagine what happened when I ran across my grandma's name in
Favorite Recipes from Caldwell, Idaho compiled by the Caldwell Jay-C-Ettes (Bev Ron Publishing Company, Kansas City; 1974). I got all choked up, and then saw that her name was right next to "Potato Soup." Potato soup! Our Christmas Eve tradition, right from Grandma's own recipe! What is a sentimental blogger to do? I ask you? That's right. Post it, and compare.

Potato Soup
Rowena Green, Portland, Oregon

6 large potatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
1 (12 oz.) can condensed milk
8 strips bacon, diced
1 tsp. salt
Dash pepper
Savory salt

Boil potatoes and onion with salt until tender. Fry bacon until crisp. Drain water from potatoes; add milk and bacon. Add pepper and savory salt to taste. Heat until warm, stirring often.

Let's start off with the important bit: Dad's first soup catastrophe? So not his fault! The recipe says "condensed milk"! Ladies and gentlemen, do not use (sweetened) condensed milk. Use evaporated milk. And, Daddy, no more shame.

When you drain off the water, you don't need to drain off ALL the water -- you have 6 potatoes, and need more than 2 oz. of milk for each spud's share of soup. I'm known to not drain off any water. There. I said it. For "savory salt," try Lawry's seasoned salt. If you refuse to do so, try a seasoned salt from Penzeys, or a lovely sprinkle of paprika. I really do suggest you cook your bacon first, and then cook the soup in the pan you made the bacon in. First off, that means you'll only have one pan to wash, and second off, it means you get more bacony goodness infusing your soup.

You might wonder how Grandma -- an Oregonian through and through -- had a recipe end up in a Caldwell, Idaho cookbook. Turning to the club officers page of the cookbook, we find that the State Director of the Jay-C-Ettes for 1974-75 was none other than Robbianne Busse, my aunt. I wonder how Aunt Robbi makes her soup.

Savory Snacks: Bacon & Cheese Paste, and Scotch Eggs

Presbyterian Palate Pleasers's second recipe sealed the deal on this twelve-and-a-half cent purchase.

C.&.B.'s (Sandwich Filling)

1-1/2 lb. cheddar cheese
2 to 3 slices bacon (uncooked)
1 small onion
Green pepper (as desired)

Place all ingredients into a food grinder and mix well. To serve, spread on slices of party rye or English muffin and place under broiler to toast. Serve warm. Mixture may be kepet in refrigerator in a tight container for a week or two. The above amounts may be varied according to personal taste.

Marie Lockwood

It's bacon paste. Bacon & cheddar paste. You take raw bacon, and you grind it up with cheese, and you call it macaroni. (No, you don't. You call it "C & B.") Me, though, I'm calling it bacon paste.

And there's nothing at all wrong with that.

Okay, there's one thing wrong with this -- odds are, it looks like other processed cheese products one might have in one's fridge, but THIS one has raw pork fat in it. So, put a little warning on your crock of cheesy bacon paste, so that no one confuses Ms. Lockwood's masterpiece with some port wine cheese spread.

There is nothing about that recipe that wouldn't make me want to buy this cookbook. But, just turn the page, and there's another classic savory snack recipe!

Scotch Eggs

4 hard-boiled eggs, cooled and shelled.
Roll lightly in flour.
1 beaten egg with little milk for dipping in before coating.
Fine bread crumbs
8-oz. sausage meat, with herbs added, if desired.
Deep-fat or oil to fry.

Divide sausage into 4 equal parts and smooth over eggs. (Try to cover egg all around.) Coat these with egg and milk mixture and roll firmly in bread crumbs. Deep fry and drain on paper. Remember, the sausage must cook through, so don't rush the frying process. Serve hot or cold. May be cut in half or in large slices. Excellent as an appetizer or on a picnic. This recipe was received from Jenny Cannon, who is from England.

Carol Alphin

First, I must say, the typesetter left out the period after "Fine bread crumbs," not me. Diligently capturing typos makes me twitch.

Now, I love me some Scotch eggs. They remind me of Chefly Husband, who has made them for children's menus and called them "dinosaur eggs." They remind me of the Maryland Renaissance Festival, where, I swear, a day without a Scotch egg is as close to a sad day as one can have at the RennFest.

A bit of hyperbole goes a long way on a blog. The statement above is not hyperbole.

I think it's sweet that Ms. Alphin doesn't claim the recipe as her own, but rather credits a Brit. Does it add authenticity to the Scotch-ness of the recipe?

Ms. Alphin's from the great Pacific Northwest, originally -- even went to Pacific Lutheran College. I don't know what brought her out to Hagerstown, but in Hagerstown she was and in Hagerstown she is. My crazy little brain likes to make up stories to fill in the details and connections, so in that c.l.b., somehow this recipe for Scotch eggs is what inspired the RennFest to have Scotch eggs, and...

It's not at all a likely scenario. But it stars yummy, savory snacks.

Gender at the Grill: Rumaki on the Hibachi

I'm pretty much assuming that anyone reading a rather-colloquial English-language blog in 2011 knows what a barbeque is, and doesn't need a history lesson about the word's French roots or a detailed description of what a kettle grill is. Betty Crocker's Outdoor Cook Book makes no such assumptions, coming as it does from that time before blogs and ubiquitous suburban Webers.

The barbecue at home is the aristocrat of outdoor meals. though its mood is informal, food often is as sophisticated and service is as elegant as in a dining room--but much less trouble if plans are carefully made.

This is where women, experienced in the day-to-day organizing of menus and meals, shine. They know the importance of the complete shopping list; of cleaning, or peeling, or otherwise preparing vegetables in advance; of having tools sharp and handy; and of not asking one burner or one oven to produce a whole meal at the same time. There is plenty for everyone to do before and during a big cookout. Most women I know are quite content to concentrate on advance preparations and the duties of a hostess, and leave the more dazzling duties over that hot bed of coals to the males.

...I don't quite know where to begin with this pretty little insight into women's happy role of prep cook. No, really, I don't, because as much as I like to rail against outdated sexist gender role expectations, I have to admit: when it comes time to slap the meat on the grill, I'm usually handing the tongs off to Chefly Husband. So, boo on the gender role expectation that I fully embrace in real life!

If there's a broiler around, though, I'll reclaim the same dishes that otherwise I'd get all Donna Reed-y about outside.

Rumaki on the Hibachi
A delectable do-it-yourself chicken liver appetizer for guests to prepare while host or hostess finishes dinner preparation. Pictured on page 139.

6 chicken livers
6 strips of bacon
water chestnuts
brown sugar

Cut chicken livers in half; slice water chestnuts (about 3 slices per nut). Marinate in Teriyaki Sauce (p. 94) for 4 hr. Drain; cut 6 bacon strips in half. Wrap chicken liver pieces and water chestnut in bacon strip. Fasten with toothpick and roll in brown sugar. Arrange appetizers on hibachi over hot coals. Grill until bacon and liver are tender, 15 to 20 min. Turn often. Makes 12.

Variation: Appetizers may also be baked in the oven. Place on a wire rack over a shallow roasting pan. Bake at 400° (mod. hot) 20 min., or until bacon is crisp. Turn occasionally for even browning.

I remember the first time I had rumaki. It was in a tiny rowhouse on Capitol Hill, in a teeny kitchen that, frankly, looked a bit scary. But my friend Nancy was working magic with water chestnuts and teriyaki sauce, and bacon. Bacon! She popped her liver-less rumaki under the broiler and I was hooked. So tasty. So salty. So sweet. So crunchy.

I like chicken liver, but have never had rumaki with chicken livers. I did find out that some of our good friends are chicken liver fans--Chefly Husband was talking about making a strawberry risotto with grilled chicken livers, and they swooned--so maybe this recipe will come out and play soon.

Christmas Eve: Potato Soup

It's Christmas Eve in DC. On Christmas Eve, we don't use cookbooks. No, we fly by tradition, and tradition means Potato Soup.

My Family's Potato Soup

Take your sauce pan or soup pot, and put it on the stove. Cut up a package of bacon and frizzle up the pieces in the pot. Cook until just this side of crispy (unless Kelly is going to be at dinner, in which case, cook until well and truly dead on the crispy side, and then you'd best be cooking more than one package, too), and remove to a plate lined with paper towels. Drain off fat. Remember that Dad had a crock of bacon fat in the fridge, and wish you had one, too. Remember that you only ever cook with bacon fat when you are also cooking bacon, so you don't need to store bacon fat up for other purposes. Get on with cooking.

Peel one potato per person coming to supper. Cut into a chunky rough dice -- these do not need to be perfect cubes, but they should be roughly all the same size so they'll cook evenly. Drop your chunks into the pot you just cooked bacon in. (You didn't wash it out, did you? You want the brown crusty bits for flavor.) Chop up one onion, fine, and add it to the pot. Cover potatoes with water -- just cover, no more -- and turn on the heat. Bring it to a boil, then drop to a simmer, and simmer for 20 minutes. At 20 minutes, you should be able to slide a knife point easily into and out of the potato chunks. Open a can of evaporated milk, and pour it into the soup. Stir and leave on the stove just long enough to warm up the milk. Crumble in the bacon, and stir.

Serve up in bowls. and remember the bowls that it should be served in (they have roses on them), and garnish with a pat of butter and a good hefty sprinkling of seasoned salt (Lawry's is the family tradition). Buttered saltine crackers may be served on the side.

So, that's the soup. It's from Dad's side of the family -- I know Grandma made it (that's her in the picture, on the right), but I don't know if her mom made it. Dad's first time trying to make it went...adventurously, as he used condensed milk instead of evaporated. Sweetened condensed milk. It was vile. Momma makes it (she's on the left of the picture), I make it, Kelly makes it (she's the cutie with the doll in the middle). We've the sense and family knowledge to know that sweetened condensed milk is no the way to go.

Anyway, we make potato soup. It's what we do.

You might be surprised that we don't cook up that onion in the bacon fat. You can do it. Heck, sometimes? I do. But never on Christmas Eve. The milder, less caramelized flavors taste like family Christmas. When Momma or Kelly makes it, there's often no onion, or one pot done with no onion. Aunt Linda abhors onion. She has many fine qualities, but can't eat onions.

We also don't add salt during the cooking, mostly because there's a shit ton of salt in the bacon, and we add salt when serving. If you can't bring yourself to use seasoned salt, or can't imagine not correcting seasoning on the stove, add salt your way, and garnish with paprika for the lovely color.

I do try to be truthful here on Take One Cookbook... traditionally? We garnish with margarine and we spread margarine on the crackers. I don't stock margarine in my house, though, and I'm here to tell you: BUTTER TASTES BETTER. Not just in general, but specifically in this soup, butter is better.

If you want a smoother texture to your soup, do not be tempted to cook the potatoes until they fall apart into a mush. When they fall apart like that, they're "blown away" and not in a good way. It will taste like paste, and it will be grainy and gross. If you want smooth, get out a blender, and purée some of the soup, adding it back in to the whole.

One can of (evaporated) milk will get you easily through 4 people/potatoes. If you have more people coming to table, I would suggest adding an extra can if you have more folks:

1 can = 1-4 servings
2 cans = 5-8 servings
3 cans = 9-12 servings (you need more bacon at this point, too)

So, that's Christmas Eve in our family. Christmas Day doesn't have set rules/tradition for meals, but Christmas Eve is set in stone. It's in our blood.

A bowl of potato soup is Christmas Eve.

Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain: Alubias Rojas de Tolosa con Berza

I've been plotting out my course for the new year. See, like a lot of people, I make food-related resolutions, and money-related resolutions. This year, however, I'm making a food-AND-money-related resolution: I'm going to cut back on my food expenditures by planning ahead and actually bringing a home made breakfast and lunch to work with me, rather than going out. Even just walking to the grocer's near work to buy a frozen whatnot adds up, if not in pennies, then in healthfulness. I like to cook, I cook well, what I cook tastes better than what I'd pick up at the grocer's, and so, darn it, I should do it. I was going through old favorite recipes, and kept running smack up against ones that I'd written about here. So here we are, back at the good ol' blog!

We're starting the new year celebration a touch early with a festive sort of cuisine in Delicioso! The Regional Cooking of Spain by Penelope Casas (Alfred A. Knofpf, New York; 1996). I was lucky enough to get to go to Spain a few years back and walk the pilgrim trail to Santiago; it was an amazing experience, and odds are I'll pepper these posts this week with pictures and stories from the Camino. Like... this one from kilometer 99...a little over 60 miles from Santiago.Pilgrims carry stones with them from their homes and place them along the route; I had one from my mother's yard in Oregon, and one from my yard in DC.



I ate amazing food in Spain, none of it fancy. Really, not fancy at all. Soups. Stews. Lentils. Cheese. Really filling and tasty. Today's recipe reminds me of that food.

Alubias Rojas de Tolosa con Berza
(Red Beans with Cabbage)

Start prepartion 1 day in advance.

A dollop of cabbage, placed in each bowl of beans, is a delicious complement to this bean stew based on the outstanding red beans that grow in Tolosa in the Basque province of Guipúzcoa along the banks of the Oria River. you can use any kind of red bean to make this dish, but the results will be best with Tolosa, Adzuki, or other dark red beans, sometimes available at food specialty shops.

Serves 4

1 pound small, deep-red dried beans
1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half crosswise
1 large carrot, scraped and cut in half crosswise
1 small leek, well washed
A 1/4-pound piece slab bacon, preferably fresh (otherwise cured)
1/4 pound sweet chorizo
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons imported sweet paprika

Sauteéd Cabbage
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small head cabbage, coarsely chopped
Salt
Freshly ground pepper

Soak the beans overnight in water to cover. Drain, then combine in a large pot with 6 cups fresh water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, add the onion, carrot, leek, bacon, and chorizo. cover and simmer 1 hour.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large skillet, add the chopped onion and garlic, and sauté slowly until the onion has wilted. Stir in the paprika, then add to the beans. Season with salt, cover, and continue cooking about 30 minutes more, or until the beans are just tender. Wipe out the skillet.

While the beans are cooking, prepare the cabbage. Heat the oil in the skillet and sauté the onion and garlic until the onion has wilted. Add the cabbage, salt, and pepper and stir-fry about 10 minutes. Cover and continue cooking until done to taste.

Serve the beans in soup bowls, accompanied by crusty country bread. Heat the cabbage, transfer to a serving bowl, and pass separately. Typically, a spoonful or two of cabbage is placed in the soup bowl, off to one side--not mixed into the beans.

Yes, please. This would be such a welcoming dish to find at a pilgrim's table after walking 30 kilometers (or even after 3). Hearty. Simple. Serve it with the bread (oh, the bread in Spain!) and a glass or two of wine. My thoughts on wine: stick with Spain, and stick with northern Spain. An Albariño would go great with this, and I know--Albariño is from the northwest of Spain, and Tolosa is in the northeast, but it'd still taste great. I'd go a bit off-local on red, too, and pour a Ribera del Duero.

I feel like going off for a bit on the wines I tasted along the Camino, but I suspect I'll be wandering through that topic a few times this week.

The County Fair Cookbook, Lyn Stallworth & Rod Kennedy Jr.: Swiss Cabbage Pie

I was a 4Her from early on. It helps that my dad was an Extension agent, and helped get 4H going in our town; my sister is now the secretary for 4H in that same office. I was part of 4H sewing, cooking, forestry, photography, and rabbits...a lot of clubs! I went to 4H camp (which has mixed memories for me, especially as my first-ever high fever was at camp, and so there are some hallucinations wrapped up in my recollections of the senior counselors). The best part of 4H, though, was The Fair.

Come the third week in August, life moved to Canby. Even before we had 4H projects of our own, we'd go and watch Dad judge the photography. Mom would talk about when she made cookies for her county fair, and ate so much dough she was ill. My sister and I showed our rabbits, had our sewing skills evaluated, demonstrated recipes, and once and a while even thought about going to see the rodeo.

To say I love my county fair -- and, yes, though I've been gone for 19 years, I still think of that as my fair -- is an understatement. So, when I got a happy reminder that, yes, I have a cookbook blog, it was easy to pick a seasonal choice: The County Fair Cookbook by Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy, Jr. (Hyperion, 1994). The book is divided up by region, focusing mainly on the United States but including some Canadian fairs. The recipes represent both their region and the homey comfort of county fairs in general, and are accompanied by loving descriptions of the fairs themselves. There's even a page dedicated to my fair, but we'll get to that later on this week. For now, let's go to the Eureka County Fair, in Eureka, Nevada. The fair runs the first or second week of August, for three days. Just take Route 50 out of Reno.

Swiss Cabbage Pie

"When he was a kid on the ranch, my husband's grandmother took this down to the hayfield around two p.m. as an afternoon snack with coffee," says Ethel. "I collect cookbooks, and when we lived on a ranch I'd find a great-sounding recipe and realize I didn't have most of the ingredients called for. We were seventy-five miles from one town, and a hundred and fourteen miles from another. You learn to substitute. I've created a few new recipes out of necessity."

Serves 6 to 8

1 loaf unbaked bread (can use frozen purchased dough)
1 pound bacon
8 cups shredded cabbage
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups cream or half-and-half
1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese (optional)

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
1. Roll out the bread dough about 1/4 inch thick and place it in a 9-inch pie pan. Crimp the edges, as you would a pie.
2. Cut the bacon into small pieces and brown them in a large heavy pot. Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the grease. Stir in the shredded cabbage and cook over moderate heat, stirring, for 1 minute.
3. Over low heat, add the salt and pepper, eggs, cream and the cheese, if you are using it. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring. Put the mixture in the crust and bake for 30 minutes, or until the filling is set and the edges are golden brown.

Remember, folks, that in my book, cheese is NEVER optional. Cheese is essential. Also, if you got frozen dough for this, please thaw it according to package directions before starting. Do not try to roll out frozen dough.

You could buy your cabbage pre-shredded in a bag, if you're not keen on deconstructing a head of cabbage on your own. But, as Mary Frances over at the Gluten(-)Free Cooking School shows, it's cheaper, tastier, and just more pleasant to do it yourself. Go on over to GFCS, and see how easy it is. Plus, as Mary Frances says, "After a long day, it’s sometime really fun to hack into a large vegetable with a big, long knife."

My copy of The County Fair Cookbook is massively dog-earred, and I've yet to plot out just which recipes will show up on this blog. So, if you have a favorite fair, let me know, and I'll see if we can get up a recipe from there, or at least from nearby.

The Devil You Say!: 'Hell' Balls

In the quasi-excitement of a work deadline followed by a missing cab topped by a presidential candidates' debate, I completely missed posting the last of this week's recipes from Favourite Kentish Recipes! Apologies. The Devil made me do it.

'Hell' Balls

4 oz. cooked game
4 oz. cooked ham or lean, cooked bacon rashers
2 oz. chutney
Pinch of cayenne pepper
2 or 3 stoned olives, chopped
1 tablespoon game gravy
1 large egg, beaten
2 oz. (approximately) fresh white breadcrumbs

Mince the game and the ham or bacon and mix thoroughly with the chutney, cayenne pepper, olives, gravy and 1 dessertspoon of the egg. Form the mixture into 12 balls and roll them first in the remaining beaten egg and then in the breadcrumbs. Fry in shallow oil until golden brown. Serve with a side salad. Serves 2.

"Serve with a side salad." Hee! I'm sure a saucer of iceberg with a wedge of hot house tomato and a slathering of salad cream will be just the thing with my helping of six (six!) Hell Balls.

I'm sorry; 'Hell' Balls. Of course, the spicing and dicing and mixing makes it pretty clear this is hellish along the lines of a deviled egg being devilish. Still, it sounds like a good way to use up sundry leftovers in the fridge. And it's kind of fun to read a recipe that has olives and gravy all mixed up with chutney and bacon. It is everything one hopes and fears for in a British cookbook.

It also would taste damned good, I'd wager.

Credit for selecting this recipe goes to Chefly Husband, who also likes a good/bad recipe title.

Favourite Kentish Recipes; Appledore Chicken Pie

I've loved cookbooks since I was a wee thing, but I didn't start collecting them until I went to the U.K. with my mother, aunt, and sister for an extended holiday. I fell in love with a series of small cookbook booklets by J. Salmon Ltd. press, each representing a different region of Great Britain (no Northern Ireland, alas). This week, we'll look at the first one of these booklets, Favourite Kentish Recipes. Don't know where Kent is? It's in the bottom right-hand corner of England. The booklet was compiled by Pat Smith, with illustrations (very pretty ones, at that) by A. R. Quinton. There's no copyright date inside, but I bought the booklets in 1998, so I'll assume a 1990s copyright (for tagging purposes).

Appledore Chicken Pie

1 chicken, or joints, to give 1 1/2 lbs. of raw chicken meat
2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
2 or 3 rashers of bacon, de-rinded and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh herbs, finely chopped or 1 teaspoon dried herbs
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 oz. flour
8 oz. shortcrust pastry

Set oven to 375°F or Mark 5. Remove the chicken meat from the bones. Place the bones in a pan, cover with water, put on a lid and simmer for 2-3 hours to produce some stock. Roll the meat in seasoned flour and put a layer in a pie dish. Cover with the chopped bacon and egg slices. Finish with the remaining chicken. Sprinkle the herbs over the meat. Cover with a pastry lid, making a hole in the centre and bake for 1 hour. Reduce the temperature to 350°F or Mark 4 and cook for a further 1 hour. If the pastry appears to be browning too rapidly, protect with a piece of greaseproof paper. Remove from the oven and, through the hole in the pastry, top up with some of the hot stock from the bones. Serves 4.

If you're newer to cooking, you might not catch that the salt and pepper were supposed to go into the flour, seasoning it. You also might not be used to the term "shortcrust pastry." It's a basic pastry/pie dough, that's basically 1 part fat to 2 parts flour, with a little water. Because we live in the golden age of the internet, there is, of course, a website to help you out: ShortCrustPastry.com. No joke. If you're not up for making your own crust (or using a Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust, which even Chefly Husband will use in a pinch -- it tastes just fine), you can also use puff pastry for your pie lid. Mmm. Puff pastry.

I like these booklets in part because they translate themselves, early and often. Yes, gas mark whatever is listed, but also degrees Fahrenheit. Units of measurement tend to be given in "standard" as opposed to metric, but there's a ton of charts in the back to help you adjust to what you're used to.

For the bacon, you could use standard supermarket bacon... I'd recommend getting some thicker, dryer slices from the butcher, though. Or, if resources permit, get some proper Irish or English bacon rashers. ...just thinking of good English bacon makes me hunger for a hot English breakfast. How long until I go to Northern Ireland? Only 9 more months...

I Don't Think It Means What They Think It Means: Home-For-Lunch Quickie

The editors of Good Housekeeping's Quick 'n' Easy Cook Book seem to rather miss the point of a home-for-lunch quickie in this recipe:

Home-for-Lunch Quickie

1 can condensed cream-of-celery soup, undiluted
8 eggs
1/4 teasp. pepper
2 tablesp. butter or margarine

Empty soup into bowl; stir well. Add eggs and pepper; beat just enough to blend. In saucepan, melt butter; pour in egg mixture. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally with fork, until set but still moist. If desired, serve with crisp bacon slices.

Makes 6 servings

Wait....seriously???

At lunch time, a "quickie" had better be referring to some speedy nookie, not ... whatever the hell this is. A ... cream of celery custard? If it were baked, I could try and wrap my head around it as a souffle of some sort, but...

Why are we having a 6 serving dish at a lunchtime quickie? How many folks are coming home for this quickie? And, why are we beating eggs into undiluted celery soup and then thinking anyone will eat it?

I swear, this might just have to become a Cook The Books recipe, just to see how beyond creepy it really is. This recipe is the antithesis of hot sex during the lunch hour.

The teasing mention of bacon isn't enough, even, to make this work for me.

Bad Titles Work, Too: Valdez Clam and Onion Soup

Sometimes, recipe choice is all about a good title. Sometimes, though, it's the really bad title that wins the day. My sister told me that if I focused on an Alaskan cookbook, I'd have to post a salmon dish; I knew I needed to post a fish dish of some sort, and went hunting. Alaska "Sourdough" Cookin' has plenty of salmon dishes, it's true, but nothing quite to compare with this:

Valdez Clam and Onion Soup

2 cans (7 ozs.) minced clams (1 pint)
4 slices bacon, sliced
3 cups onion rings
3 cups milk
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1/2 tsp. salt
6 slices hard toast
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Fry bacon; add onion and cook until tender. Combine milk, seasonings and clams; heat. Place toast in 6 individual, heated soup bowls. Cover with onion rings and top with clam mixture. Sprinkle with cheese and serve immediately. Serves 6.

Now, Alaska "Sourdough" Cookin' was printed 13 years before the Exxon Valdez spilled oil all over the Prince William Sound, but I'm here to tell you, there's no way I can hear "Valdez" and not think "horrible oil spill." Combine "Valdez" with "bivalve shell fish" and I'm going to think it's all a horrible, twisted joke. Who'd want to eat a filter-feeder named after pollution gone wild?

...the recipe itself sounds tasty, though.

edit So, it was pointed out to me that my trying to puzzle out the "what kind of onion rings do they mean" issue was pretty pointless -- use raw, as you're cooking them up in bacon fat. That being said, let's use canned, crispy, fried onion products as a garnish, like you'd put on top of a green bean casserole if you were any of the hordes of community cookbook contributors whose efforts line my shelves./edit

Looks like an easy recipe to cut in half (in some cases, thirds -- take only 2 pieces of hard toast, not 3) to make 2 large meal-sized servings.

Canadian Bacon with Apples and Red Wine

Marian & Nino Tracy have lots of ideas, and they're not afraid to share them. In the introduction to Casserole Cookery: One-Dish Meals for the Busy Gourmet, they discuss the proper equipment for cooking and serving casseroles.

We use several sizes of earthenware casseroles, both French and Mexican types. The French type with the cover and a long handle works very well. We have a low one for most dishes and a deep one for the very bulky recipes. A very shallow one, a sort of earthenware pie plate, is necessary for some seafood casseroles. We also use individual Mexican casseroles with lids when the spirit moves us.

Casseroles look best with simple china and linens in robust colors. Nothing thin or dainty will do. We use tablecloths made of gaily striped percales, mattress ticking, or checked gingham, which we sew together out of lengths of material bought chiefly for design and color. Cork mats are practical because the food is usually really hot. For buffet suppers a set of trays in a good clear color with not mats, plain contrasting china, and individual casseroles are attractive. Gaily figured glasses from the five-and-ten-cent store are good if your breakage is high. Serve simply. The casserole itself will appreciate this and so probably will your friends.

So, we're called to set cheerful places, folks. I have never sewn my own table linens, but have been known to press pretty sheets or duvet covers at tablecloths in a pinch. I'm a big fan of mismatched colors on a table, and have casseroles in any number of crayon colors. My basic china is white, with accent pieces with a dark blue rim; it pretty much goes with anything and calls out for yummy casseroles, stews, and the like. Like, this one:

Canadian Bacon with Apples and Red Wine

Time: 45 min.

Ingredients:
1 lb. Canadian bacon
1 No. 2 can sweet potatoes
4 large cooking apples or 1 No. 2 can sliced pie apples
1 cup red wine -- claret would be best
2 tablespoons brown sugar
grated peel of 1/2 lemon
pinch of cinnamon
salt and pepper

Core, peel, and slice apples. Frizzle the bacon a few minutes. Place sweet potatoes on bottom of low buttered casserole. Arrange apple slices in layer above sweet potatoes. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, grated lemon peel, salt and pepper, and go easy on the salt because the bacon is quite salty. Top with a neatly arranged layer of bacon and pour in the wine. Bake in a medium oven (350°) for 30 minutes. Serves 4.

Menu
Canadian bacon with apples and red wine
Salad: Mixed greens (water cress, chicory, endive, and a little chopped parsley, for instance) with French dressing (2 parts olive oil, 1 part vinegar, pinch of thyme, pinch of marjoram, and, of course, salt and pepper)
Hot buttermilk biscuits (prepared ones that come in tubes)
Coffee

Story
When we say claret would be best, we expect controversy. So use waht you prefer, but don't blame us if it fizzles.

Aaaah, old cookbooks! Casserole Cookery often uses canned ingredients, and refers to them by the can size number, not by ounces. So, what's a good casserole cook to do? Look up the info from a handy dandy Extension service! University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers a cheat sheet for can sizes; you'll need about 2 1/2 cups of cooked sweet potatoes for this recipe.

Full disclosure: I'm the daughter of a former Extension agent, and the sister of an Extension secretary. Of course, even if I weren't, I'd send you their way for information galore -- I adore Extension. (Go, 4H!)

If you're not British, you might be unsure about the term "claret." Yes, yes, it's red wine, but more specifically, it's a Bordeaux-style wine. If you don't want to splash out for French wine in this dish (though, really, you can get some yummy ones for not much money), look for a wine with a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and/or Carmenere. Or, ask your wine guy or wine gal to point you towards a Bordeaux-style blend.

And, in the "learn something new every day" category: frizzle is a real, honest-to-goodness word. It means to cook with a sizzling sound, or cook until crispy and curled. Not too surprising, once you accept the word as real, one finds that it actually came from mashing up the words "fry" and "sizzle." So...frizzle up some bacon, folks. And then smile at the Tracys, who ended their story with a rhyming word. Just because they could.

Jelly Omelet

I grew up in Oregon, but have spent half a lifetime below the Mason Dixon line. Still, I was shocked the first time I heard someone ask for jelly on an egg sandwich.

Sure, I've put pickles (sweet and otherwise) with peanut butter, but... jelly with eggs?

Yes. Jelly with eggs. Witness this offering from The Pooh Cook Book:

Jelly Omelet

(Yield: 1-2 servings)

2-3 eggs
Small skillet, 7-inch
1 Tablespoon butter or margarine
2 Tablespoons jelly
Salt and pepper

Break the eggs in a bowl, add a little salt and pepper, and beat with a fork until the yolks and whites are thoroughly mixed.

Heat the skillet with the butter and pour in the beaten eggs.

Keep over low heat. When the bottom of the egg mixture is firm and the top soft but not runny, spoon in the jelly evenly over the back half of the egg surface.

Loosen the egg mixture on the unjellied front half around the edge of the pan. Tip the pan away from you and flip the front half of the egg mixture over the back half.

Let it sit for a minute before serving.

...humming to himself in a rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and said that he must be going on.
"Must you?" said Rabbit politely.
"Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it -- if you --" and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder.
-- Winnie-the-Pooh

This, in a cookbook for children.

To this day, I've not mastered flipping an omelet in the pan (rolling/flipping it as it makes its way onto the plate is a different matter). I'm tempted to explain the "mix eggs, then heat pan" as a tailored instruction to a less-than-experienced child chef; for anyone who can crack and whip 3 eggs in quick order, I'd get the pan on the heat first thing.

It may also be my nearly unholy love for pork products, but... this would be great with crumbled bacon in it.

My early lack of exposure to this delight just goes to show I came by my love of cookbooks late; Fannie Farmer's famous tome has recipes for jelly omelets going way back.

Cooking the Books: Mulatto Rice

For all my thoughts of The Savannah Cook Book's Mulatto Rice as "pantry food," I must confess I had no bacon in the house, no onions, and no rice.

The last one isn't quite true. I've heaps of arborio, and piles of sushi rice, and various bits of basmati and jasmine. That said, I had no long grain white rice.

I hopped over to my local Safeway and got my supplies, and headed home to make a mess of food.

I cooked the rice separately, because I wanted to save time, and also because I was highly suspicious of the recipe -- I didn't think there'd be enough liquid in a pint of tomatoes to cook a pint of rice, and frankly, I didn't want to stand over it, fretting and fussing and wondering if I should add water or stock until it was done.

I recommend this method, also recommend that you use stewed tomatoes if you do the "I'm in a hurry" method. Diced tomatoes hold on to their acidity if they're just warmed through, and the acidity is not a welcome companion here.

I used a whole 12 oz. package of bacon, and removed just a touch of the rendered fat. After I removed the bacon (to drain crisp on a paper towel lined plate), I chucked in the diced onion and saw the white white onion take up the little black specks, and thought again about the "touched by a tarbrush" idiom -- such things one can learn in one day.

You don't need to add salt or pepper -- the bacon and bacon fat bring all the seasoning to the dish.

It's simple. It's homey. It's tasty. It's definitely worth cooking up, and makes me curious about cooking more recipes from The Savannah Cook Book (even if the descriptions and recipe titles are cringingly racist).

Mulatto Rice

One of the recipes The Savannah Cook Book is known for is Mulatto Rice. Evidently, it plays a big part in "Their Eyes Were Watching God," and people who want to know more about the dish end up finding Ms. Colquitt's tome. If the dish name makes you a little uncomfortable, well, wait 'til you read the introductory sentence.

Mulatto Rice

This is the very chic name given to rice with a touch of the tarbrush.

Fry squares of breakfast bacon and remove from the pan. Then brown some minced onion (one small one) in this grease, and add one pint can of tomatoes. When thoroughly hot, add a pint of rice to this mixture, and cook very slowly until the rice is done. Or, if you are in a hurry, cold rice may be substituted, and all warmed thoroughly together.

Originally when I decided on posting this recipe, I thought I'd lead into it with a bit of an excerpt about Pilaus, because it, again, speaks indulgently and patronizingly about "the old cooks" and "our admiring imitators," but I think there's plenty to wrestle with with Mulatto Rice.

Before reading this recipe, I don't think I'd ever heard or read the phrase "a touch of the tarbrush." It sent off alarms -- there's something going on here, surely. But it couldn't mean what I think it means...right? Perhaps it just means that the onions and the rice get dark from the frying...?

Yeah, no. It's as unappealing as can be. Really, the lead in to the next recipe, Mexican Rice," should have made it clear without me doing more web research. ("This seems to be a sort of first cousin to the dark horse above.")

And I still can't get past the idea that "Mulatto Rice" is somehow a "chic" name; what the hell were they calling it before they called it this? No, wait; don't tell me. I doubt I'll like it.

Stepping away from the socio-linguistic meltdown going on in my head, let's look at the recipe itself...

...this looks good. It looks easy. It looks like a pantry dinner -- using staples to quickly feed the household. And, really, bacon fat is always a good thing.

My husband, Nick, and friend, Mab, both asked if I was going to cook anything to go along with these blog posts; I've decided to cook one of the recipes a week. This week, I'm going to make Mulatto Rice (only in part because I don't really have a social occasion on the books that would call for gallons of Chatham Artillery Punch). I'll share the results here.

Is it wrong that I want to throw shrimp in this?