Sunday, Cooking

Today, I'm going a bit nuts in the kitchen.

Right now, I've got a ham in the oven, cooking low and slow a la Alton Brown's City Ham recipe. I've also got a pot of beans simmering so that I can make Tante Suzie's Pork & Beans. I've whipped up a batch of the master dough recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and have it rising. Later, there will also be asparagus.

I also have a big measuring cup filled with tomato juice, for the pork & beans. Trouble was, see, that I didn't have any tomato juice in the house, and I was ill-inclined to go out again (long churchy morning). Thank goodness for the internet! Did you know that you can make your own tomato juice substitute? One can of tomato paste to four cans of water. Doesn't matter what size can of paste you're using, just make sure you measure the water in that self same can. This'll also help you clean out every last bit of tomato goodness.

I've been making a concerted effort to eat more "real food" -- so, there's been a lot of baking. The Boy Bait was just the start. I've made two loaves of no knead bread this week, and as you might have gathered from the first paragraph, I've got more bread plans for this week.

And that's my Sunday. Light on cookbooks, big on love.

Garlic & Cheese Twists: Crunchy Goodness

I bought A Little Something when it was first published, making it one of the few cookbooks in my collection that I bought in a regular ol' bookstore, paying publisher's prices. Back in '98, I was four years out of college, and starting to entertain like a grown up...or, at least, like I thought grown ups entertained. Today's recipe was one of the recipes that made my eyes go wide. This? This is Grown Up.

Garlic and Cheese Twists

These look lovely on a buffet table, but you'll also enjoy munching them while watching a good movie.

Makes about 20

Vegetable oil cooking spray
2 puff pastry sheets (10 by 15 inches), thawed
1/2 cup milk
2 egg whites
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
2. Open the puff pastry and lay the sheets flat on a clean surface.
3. In a small bowl, beat the milk and egg whites together. Brush evenly over one side of each pastry sheet.
4. Sprinkle each sheet with 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and 1/2 cup cheese. Roll lightly with a rolling pin to adhere. turn over and repeat.
5. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the pastry into long strips. Twist each strip. Sprinkle evenly with remaining garlic powder and cheese.
6. Bake about 20 minutes, until golden.

For Cinnamon twists, omit the garlic powder and cheese. Substitute 1 cup sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon. After brushing each pastry with the milk and egg mixture, sprinkle each sheet with 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Roll lightly with a rolling pin to adhere. Turn over and repeat. Prepare and bake.

Okay, so it's not rocket science. It's not hard. It's not frou frou. It's dead simple, as long as you plan ahead far enough to defrost your puff pastry.

It's also really tasty, really pretty, and a bit of fun to eat. Breadsticks are all well and good, but puff pastry twists are flaky bits of crunchy goodness.

I made these once with my sister, Kelly, who's known for being a bit of a picky eater. I mixed up a peanut sauce for dipping, and while that wasn't entirely her favorite thing ever, the twists were a hit.

Even picky eaters like puff pastry.

If you take the "with a good movie" recommendation from the recipe description, you should also take my recommendation: Serve these with champagne. Puff pastry and champagne add instant elegance to any occasion, even if that occasion is a rewatching of "Megafault" on Netflix.

Attractive To The Eye and Soothing To The Smell: Poppy Seed Buns

When Mom got the Spratt/Bachman & Mellberg/McKenzie Family Cookbook 2008, she wanted to know if it had "her" recipes, the ones she remembered her grandmother and aunts making. It's all well and good to have a new-to-you Rice Krispies Brownie recipe on hand, but what makes a family cookbook really sing is to find the recipes you wish you'd snagged from your aunt's recipe box the last time you swung through North Dakota. Mom was very happy to find that the sweet poppy seed buns were included.

Poppy Seed Buns
Magdalena Berger Bachman

Dough:
2 cups warm milk
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cakes (pgks) yeast
2 eggs
1/2 c. soft shortening
7 - 7 1/2 c. flour

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 c. warm water. Mix well the milk, sugar and salt together with yeast. Add eggs and shortening. Add flour. Let rise. Punch down. Let rise again.

Filling:
Poppy seeds, raisins thickened with water and cornstarch. Add some sugar. Place small amount on circular shape of dough. Roll. Let rise. Bake.

Wow, we went from a standardized recipe to one a bit more ... trusting. Assume a 350°F oven, and think either "cinnamon roll" or "knish" when shaping your buns. Yes, I know they're different shapes, but either should yield good results. Personally, I'd go with "cinnamon roll" so that I get well distributed bits of bread and filling with every bite.

If you have a poppy seed grinder handy, by all means, grind those seeds! You could, of course, also buy pre-ground poppy seeds. The texture is lovely, and odds are, you don't have your own poppy seed grinder sitting about.

I know some folks are anti-raisin; feel free to substitute a dried fruit of your choice. Dates, apricots, or even apples would make a good substitution.

As for the sugar, add to taste -- I'm thinking a 1/4 cup is a good starting point. Mix up your filling, taste it, and add sugar if you think you need it.



I'm really liking digging through family food history; my grandfather passed away last month, and this is a ...non-maudlin... way to remember him and his. Speaking of his, the stern looking couple above are my great great grandparents, so were his grandparents (I have to double check if that makes this Magdalena-of-this-recipe, or Magdalena's mother-in-law). If any of the recipes in this book don't work out, well...we can probably pin the blame on them or their children. This will become important when I post the prune pie recipe.

Craving Flaky Sandwiches: Nutty Sweet Potato Biscuits

Wrapping up a week of recipes from The Fruit of the Spirit: 100th Anniversary of Bittinger Lutheran Parish, we turn to the one recipe that my friend Heather had dog-eared herself before showing me the book.

Nutty Sweet Potato Biscuits
Opal Fazenbaker

2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
3/4 c. chopped nuts
2 c. mashed sweet potatoes
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter or margarine, melted
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and nuts. In another bowl, combine sweet potatoes, sugar, butter and vanilla; add to flour mixture and mix well. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead slightly. Roll dough to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut with a 2 1/2-inch biscuit cutter and place on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 450° for 12 minutes, or until golden brown.

Yes, the same Opal Fazenbaker as gave us the "That's It Salad". I suspect if ever you are invited to lunch or dinner at the Fazenbakers, you're in for a heck of a meal.

Use leftover mashed up sweet potatoes, or if you're cooking strictly to make these biscuits, cook up your taters the night before; you want cold (or at least room temperature) mash to make these biscuits. And, for the love of all things holy, ignore the "margarine" option. There is no margarine option here. Use butter. If you can not bring yourself to use butter, use lard. Margarine has no place here. If you can not use animal products, still, please, don't use margarine. Use some vegetable shortening. Margarine is not going to give you the flaky soft texture you want here.

I read this recipe and think, "Damn, I want a sandwich!" I want to pull a biscuit apart, slather it with chicken curry salad, wrap a paper towel around it and run outside to eat it in the soft green grass. With a crisp white wine. Or a beer.

Oh, yes. These would be fine on a holiday buffet (choose your holiday...Easter ham, Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey, Valentine's Day sweet cream butter). They'd be great with a good lashing of Branston pickle and a crumbling of cheddar. They'd be out of this world as the base for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

...I really need to bake. Soon.

Feeling Older: Grape Nuts Bread

Growing up in the 1970s, I felt like there were somethings that were distinctly Refined. Grown Up. Sophisticated.

Baking bread was one of those things. When my dad let me help knead bread? I was puffed up with self-importance.

Eating non-sugared cereal was another. Shredded wheat. Bran Flakes. Grape Nuts.

Three cheers for The Milwaukee Ward Relief Society Cookbook, and Marian Loeffler's contribution, for combining my ideas of sophistication in one swell recipe:

Grape Nuts Bread
Marian Loeffler

1 c. Grape Nuts in 2 c. milk for 1 hour. Add 1 egg beaten. Stir together

1 c. sugar
4 c. flour
1 tsp. soda
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Sift dry ingredients, add to wet mixture. Let bread stand about 20 minutes in pan before baking. Makes 12 large muffins and 1 small loaf. Bake at 350°.

Well, that's a very, very slow quick bread...

And yet I can taste it. The soaked Grape Nuts, releasing their nutty maltiness into the milk. The sugar -- which I'd like to take out a tablespoon or two and replace with some brown sugar.

I imagine this will taste good with a slather of butter and some honey, or a dab of mustard and sliced ham. Oh, yes. Sliced ham will play nicely with this. The smokiness, the sweetness... it calls out for Grape Nuts bread.

A bit of Google-Fu suggests that this Marian Loeffler might well be Mrs. Charles Loeffler; if so, then she and her husband are regular contributors to health-related charities in Milwaukee.

Depression Era Recipes, by Patricia R. Wagner: Dumplings

Some books never seem to go out of print. Depression Era Recipes, by Patricia R. Wagner, was first printed in 1989, and was on its eighteenth printing by 2000. Chefly Husband picked up a copy for me at a book sale recently, because he's nearly as much of a cookbook freak as I am. Nearly. And, with all the turmoil in the financial sector these days, and frantic rhetoric, I thought a focus on the Depression suitable for this week. I like this bit from the acknowledgements:

The Depression wasn't all soup lines and poverty. The information related herein is intended to show how people coped with the Depression, their diversions and what life was all about, what they had and how they spent their leisure time. Not all of these recipes have been personally tested by the author. But if they were good enough for Gramma Signe, Aunt Minnie and Mom, they're good enough for us.

So, some of these recipes might just not work. Or they might be a little too 1930s for today's tastes. That's part of the adventure!

On an administrative note, I'm tagging these all as 1930s recipes, even though the book was printed 50 years later. It makes sense to me.

The gingerbread recipe made me miss home, and especially miss a lovely lady who was a family friend for years before she died. She took me to a gingerbread restaurant for my first slabs of cake-like gingerbread, and she also took me to experience my first-ever chicken and dumplings.

Dumplings

2 c. flour
1 t. salt
1 1/2 c. chicken broth, boiling
1/2 c. flour
1-2 qts. chicken broth

Mix together well to make a soft dough. Put the 1/2 c. flour on a bread broad; put dough on top. Let cool enough to handle. Then roll like pie crust. Cut in 1" x 2" strips. Let these dry 15 minutes. Drop into boiling chicken broth and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Let's fix some of the problems with this recipe. First off, the bread "broad" is clearly supposed to be a bread board. Next, if you try to mix everything together in the first step, you're going to be in a world of hurt. So, mix together, please, the first three ingredients. Then, roll out, using the 1/2 c. remaining flour to coat board, rolling pin, etc., to make easy to handle. Roll and cut as above. Finally, heat the 1 - 2 quarts broth to a boil, and add the dumplings.

So, why dumplings? Well, if you're trying to make a bit of meat stretch a long way, this is a great way to get the flavor of chicken into a less-expensive vehicle. If, say, you needed to keep a laboring man strong for work, he could eat the actual chicken, while the wife and kids had dumplings.

There's no leavening used in these bad boys, which I could go on and on discussing various religious reasons why this might make the recipe ideal for whatever, but here's why I dig the leavening-less nature of the recipe: I never end up with good leavening in the house. If I need soda or powder or yeast, I have to go out to shop. Everything needed for these dumplings, I have in my pantry right now, even though I haven't done maintenance shopping in a few weeks.

If anyone's interested in a Depression-era recipe for chicken broth, let me know; the book has several, most involving carcasses, skin, giblets, and the like. Frugality, folks. It's what's for dinner this week.

After The Dining Hall: Banana Bread

Back in college, I lived in the dorms. I lived in the dorms, I cooked in the dorms, I baked in the dorms. My first year, that mean trekking to one of the updated dorms -- Anderson Hall was a notorious pit -- to find an oven. It was worth it, though, for the pies, the cookies, the 1,000 calorie slightly alcoholic cream puffs... And, with this recipe from The Kitchen Survival Guide, the quick breads.

Banana Bread

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour
Yield: 1 loaf
Can be made ahead? Yes. The day before. Cool thoroughly and then wrap in foil. Store at room temperature or refrigerate.
Can be frozen? Yes. Cool completely, slice, then wrap in foil and store in a plastic bag. Defrost at room temperature, still wrapped. Toast before serving.
Can be doubled? Yes. Use 2 bread pans.
Good for leftovers? Yes. Will keep well wrapped in foil and in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 5 days.

3 very ripe bananas
2 eggs
2 cups flour, measured after sifting
3/4 sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup chopped nuts, such as walnuts or pecans

Preheat the oven to 350°F. with the rack in the center position. Butter and flour a 6-cup loaf pan, knocking out the excess flour.

Use a fork to mash the bananas in a large bowl. Add the eggs and mix well. Sift the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda over the bananas. Stir well and mix in the nuts. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn the cake out ont a wire rack to cool.

Now, kids, it's wrong to steal from the dining hall. Even if your breakfast is costing you $12, and you couldn't finish all that healthful stuff you put on your tray. It's wrong. It's just wrong. And it's certainly not how I ever got bananas to make banana bread in college.

:shifty eyes:

I did find out that the tiny tiny freezer in the tiny tiny dorm fridge was just the right size to stash overripe bananas while waiting to have enough to make a loaf of banana bread. And eventually I figured out that I could hide a toaster oven behind some books, and never have to leave the room for some study break banana bread goodness...

That would be wrong, too. Always follow your dorm rules. Never have forbidden appliances. Or volatile liquids used for flavor in cooking...

:shifty eyes:

I like my banana bread sliced thick, and slathered in butter. I also like it as the base for chicken or ham salad sandwiches, or with sliced apples and brie. And I think I've made my position on pecans quite clear; I'd go for walnuts here.

Cooking the Books: Popovers for Piglet

This is what happens when popovers don't pop over. Epic failure.

I'm at a loss. This recipe has never failed me. Ever. My chefly husband tried to console me with a well-meant, "Popovers are notoriously difficult!" Yes, well, this recipe has never, ever failed.

Lessons learned: I may well have figured out how to bake in my tiny tiny half-sized oven, but the tricks needed can't be used on popovers. Anything that requires me to not open the door for 25 minutes is just going to bomb.

:sigh:

I was really looking forward to the popovers. Not only for beautiful blog fodder and a great wrap up to The Pooh Cook Book, but because I was craving them. For breakfast.

:sigh:

Trust me: it does work, this recipe. But you need enough room in the oven for good air circulation. And it wouldn't hurt to have a window on your oven door.

Chefly Husband says that, since the only leavening agent is the eggs, the oven must have been too cold. Since the bottoms are burned, I'm thinking that, in theory, the oven temp was just fine...until the pans went in and blocked all circulation. So, hot on the bottom, cold on the top, not good for popovers.

When I try it again -- and I will -- I'll either cook 'em one pan at a time, or try stacking them... it is entirely possible, however, that my oven is not meant for popovers.

The Pooh Cook Book, by Virginia H. Ellison; Popovers for Piglet

When I was a very little girl, I loved the library more than almost anything else. I fought to get my library card (I could read early, but didn't bother to learn to write my name until forced), and remember churning through the downstairs collection. One day, I checked out The Pooh Cook Book, by Virginia H. Ellison.

Oh. OH! I loved this book. I loved it so much...I forgot to return it. More than once. I think I must have paid to have it replaced at least three times. I remember finding one lost copy shoved deep down in the couch months later. Finally, my mother bouht me my own copy. I loved it. Even the foreword pulls me in:

The Pooh Cook Book is particularly useful for special occasions, real or invented, and meant to make what might be an ordinary day into a festive one -- almost as good as a birthday or a holiday. A small amount of imagination can turn the simplest dish into a party dish to celebrate the first day of school or the last, losing a first tooth, a rainy day in summer, the first snow of winter, or the first snowdrop or crocus or violet of spring.

All the recipes have been tested more than once. Most of them are simpler to do if you have a sister or a brother or a friend who can measure out ingredients; butter muffin tins and cookie sheets; help lick spoons and bowls; be a tester and taster of samples of everything.

Every recipe is somehow related to Winnie the Pooh (usually through a prodigious use of honey), and has a quote and illustration from Winnie-The-Pooh or The House at Pooh Corner. It's just a charming book.

I don't remember making many recipes from it, but I do remember making one recipe, over and over.

Popovers for Piglet

(Preheat oven to 425°F)
(Yield: 8-12 popovers)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
2 Tablespoons honey
1 Tablespoon melted butter or margarine
2 large eggs

Grease the muffin tins.

Sift the flour and salt together.

Add the milk, honey, and melted butter, and stir to blend.

Beat in the eggs.

Fill each muffin tin just under half full.

Bake 25-30 minutes or until sides are rigid and the top and sides of the popovers are brown.

Do not open the oven for 25 minutes to peek or the popovers will fall and not rise again.

If you like popovers dry inside, slit each with a sharp knife and bake 5 minutes longer.

Serve with honey butter or plain butter.

"I wish Pooh were here. It's so much more friendly with two."
-- Winnie-the-Pooh

I've never slit the popovers to dry them out. Never saw the point. And, as it was the 70s in Oregon, I never used butter; we were a margarine kind of people. This recipe has never, ever failed me; not once has a popover failed to pop. When my mom would have one of her friends over from college (so, this would have been 3rd grade for me), the grown ups would make soup (usually a chilled fruit soup), and I'd get to bake the popovers.

...I need to go buy some eggs.

Bonus Post: Handy Tips, And Biscuits

As we finish the first week of Take One Cookbook..., there's still a host of fun things from The Savannah Cook Book that I want to get in to and share. So...a bonus post!

Lots of cookbooks have handy hints and tips. Conversions. Substitutions. Ms. Colquitt doesn't disappoint -- she has a Potpourri section smack dab in the middle of the book. It wraps up this way:

Did You Know That

The secret of good seasoning is garlic -- but that you will be sorry if you take that too seriously?

That aspic made from the juice of pickled peaches or other fruit is an excellent accompaniment for cold meats? One pint of juice to one tablespoon (or one-half package) of gelatine is the proportion?

That the juice from pickled fruits also makes a delicious spiced French dressing?

That the juice from brandied peaches makes a perfect cocktail sauce for any kind of fruit?

That mushroom sauce turns warmed-over lamb or veal into something to write home about?

That if you put a little salt in the whipped cream which you serve on creamed soups, and add a little cut-up parsley, it will make it additionally attractive?

That a little baking powder in your meringues will keep them from falling?

That brown sugar is better than white for all kinds of punch stock, since it makes a thicker syrup, and that some people go so far as to say you should always use it for strawberry sauce?

That cole slaw is a fine accompaniment for fish, if you have no cucumbers?

That shredded lettuce makes a delightful garnish?

Why, no. I didn't know. I don't think I'd ever even considered taking garlic too seriously. Nor considered putting whipped cream on a cream soup. I've never felt the lack of cucumbers when having fish, nor thought of most shredded lettuce as delightful outside of a drive-through taco. And even most times, not then.

But I know things now, many marvelous things...

Doctor Science asked for the recipe for biscuits I mentioned. There are measurements in dry pints. Heck, it even ties in nicely with the discussion on scarcity, and baking powder from yesterday, too. So, a good close to the week, I think.

What? No Baking Powder?
Biscuits To Eat With Terrapin Stew

1 pint flour
1/2 spoonful lard
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk or water
pinch salt

Dissolve sugar in milk. Sift flour and salt, and rub butter and lard into flour and mix with hands very quickly on kneading board. Roll out very thin, almost like paper, and cut with sharp knife. Bake in moderate oven.

If you make some to go with your Terrapin Stew, do let me know. Until then, it's time to put The Savannah Cook Book back on the shelf.