Bonus Post: Ceviche Costa Rica Style

My hands smell like limes, and I don't have a cocktail in front of me. Astute observers might conclude that I've been making something else with lime juice. And, it's true. I've been making ceviche, but if you're used to having ceviche at your local tex-mex place, you might be a little cautious when you see mine.

Ceviche, Costa Rica Style
1 lb bay scallops (sea scallops work, too, but are more expensive, and
need to be cut into bite-sized bits)
4 limes
1/2 bunch cilantro
1/2 red onion (or, you know, any other onion you have around)
1-2 glugs olive oil
salt
saltine crackers
mayo
ketchup

Place scallops in a clean, non-reactive bowl or jar. Cover with the juice of 4 limes -- the scallops need to be covered in the juice. Add cilantro and onion, both finely chopped, salt, and olive oil. Let marinate in the fridge overnight -- it helps to put plastic wrap over the bowl, letting the plastic rest on the surface of the ceviche to make sure there's no air getting in. Serve on crackers, garnished with a mixture of mayo and ketchup.

I say the recipe is mine; it's not. It's really my dad's (that's him in the picture above..handsome devil, no?). See, way back in the 80s, Dad went on sabbatical to Costa Rica, and he ambitiously took my sister and I along. I look back at that and have to realize: I am now two (nearly three) years older now than my dad was when we went. It is a weird feeling. Anyway, long digression short, my grandma came down to stay with us for several months, and with the anniversary of her death this month, I'm all sorts of nostalgic for all things family.

Back to the fish. My dad fell in love with ceviche down there, and when we got back to the States, he worked and worked to recreate it. He had the darnedest time finding cilantro (this was Oregon, in the early/mid-80s, after all), and no one had heard of ceviche. He prevailed, and this is how I know ceviche.

Dad and I would stand around the kitchen counter, spooning the fish out of a tall jar onto a saltine, and then dolloping on a ketchup/mayo sauce (mix 1 part to 1 part).

I know that sounds strange. I know that we're conditioned now to think only of tortilla chips and maybe some salsa when eating ceviche.

The saltines and Marie Rose are authentically 1984 Costa Rica. I will vouch for it. Give it a try. Throw caution cautiously to the wind. If you end up hating it -- and I've never met anyone who does -- you can always rip open a bag of Tostitos and uncap a jar of Jardine's.

I've got a bowl of ceviche tucked into the fridge, and tomorrow evening, I'll be eating it with friends.

Costa Rica style.

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.

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.