Jambalya

As suggested by Jimi, I am finally prepared to share the recipe and method for making my version of Jambalya. I managed to secure a set of photos using my cell camera.

Ingredient list:

1 Stalk Celery, sliced and diced

1/2 large green pepper, diced

1/4 pepper, red, yellow, and gold

1/2 onion, diced

3 chicken tenderloin pieces

1/2 kielbasa sausage

14 oz can crushed tomatoes

2 cups stock and water

1 cup long, white rice

extra virgin olive oil

1. Slice celery stalk into 4 pieces and dice into small pieces.

2. Cut 1/2 pepper into strips and dice the strips into small pieces

3. Dice additional red and gold pepper strips.

4. Dice 1/2 small to medium yellow onion.

5. Cut chicken tenders into 1 inch pieces. Also cut the kielbasa sausage into 1/2 inch pieces.

6. The chopped ingredients should look something like this.

7. The next step is sweating the veggies to extract the flavor. I chose the pan in the picture because it is one of my favorites for this meal. I covered the bottom of the pot with extra virgin olive oil and heated it until hot. I then placed the veggies into the pot and sauteed them for about 5 minutes, sweating them to release the flavor and sugars.

8. I then put the chopped chicken into the pot and browned it on all sides for about 2 minutes.

9. I then put the sausage pieces into the pot and heated the mixture.

10. Once the mixture is heated, add 14 ounce can of crushed tomatoes and chicken stock and water. Bring the mixture to a boil. Season with salt and pepper and any other form of spice that you feel needed. Some would add heat inducing ingredients at this point. I do not. I rely on the heat of ground peppercorns, applied liberally. Again it is season to taste. Also add 2 bay leaves.

11. Allow the pot to simmer for about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of long grained white rice to the mix and bring to a boil.

12. Reduce heat to low and allow rice to finish cooking. Should take about 20 minutes, but check the consistency of the rice by tasting. Season to taste again at this point. When rice is done, remove from heat and serve.

Serving suggestion. Spoon into a low, flat bowl and garnish with a sprig of parsley.

There you have Jambalya. I must confess this recipe came to me from my lady wife but she has assigned it to me for preparation. Maybe it is her way to give my something to do.

Blueberry Pie

I apologize to one and all for 'double posting.' Kelsey requested my blueberry pie recipe, and this seemed to be an easy way to get it to her. Hey, what's a food blog for?

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Ingredients:

4 or 5 cups of blueberries, fresh or frozen* (it is the size of your pie tin that will determine how many cups of berries you need.)*If using frozen berries, allow berries to thaw before assembling pie.

For this amount of berries:

1/2 cup sugar (3/4 cup if you have a deep dish pie pan and are using 6 cups of berries.)

1/3 cup all purpose flour (1/2 cup for ..... you get the idea.)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional, but I like it)(1 full teaspoon for ...)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 or 2 tablespoons of butter

Pastry for a two crust pie.

Method:

Mix the sugar, flour and cinnamon together in a bowl large enough to hold the berries, stir in berries.

Line a pie pan with the bottom crust. Pour the blueberry mixture into the crust. Sprinkle with lemon, dot with butter. Top with the second crust. Generously prick or cut slices into the top crust. Flute edges. Or whatever you do with your pies. Just be sure the top and bottom crusts form a pretty good seal because this can get messy, depending on how juicy the berries are.

Put pie into 450 degree oven. I put a piece or two of aluminum foil on the shelf underneath the pie -- not on the same shelf -- to catch drips. (Oven cleaning is no fun at all.)

Bake for 10 minutes. Only. Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees. Bake for about 40 more minutes. Or until the pie crust looks thoroughly brown.

Some people say that it is good to put an aluminum foil edging around the pie to protect the crust edge from getting too brown, removing it for the last 15 minutes. Personal preference here. I like dark brown crusty edges, myself.

I'm not well known for my blueberry pie, as I make it rarely. My Mother apparently made the best blueberry pie in the family, and that must have been some good pie, as all of the sisters were very good bakers. As was their Mother, Hansine.

Couscous

There are a lot of versions of couscous, and this one is not typical. This recipe tastes and looks a lot like Spanish rice. I first discovered couscous on a Rachel Ray program, and couldn't believe that it only required 5 minutes of cooking time. WooHoo! I also thought, based on my South Beach Diet book, that because it is a hard milled pasta, it had a lower glycemic index than rice, and thus would have less impact on my blood sugar. A recent Internet search indicated that couscous and white rice both have a glycemic index in the middle range, about 65.

Ingredients:
1 cup of couscous (I recommend the whole wheat variety)
1 can of diced tomatoes (stewed tomatoes also work well)
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic (garlic powder or garlic salt would also work)
1 1/4 cup broth (chicken or vegetable, though water also works)
Salt, pepper, parsley,oregano, basil (optional, or use your favorites)
Enough olive oil to cover the bottom of a large frying pan

Dice the onion, saute in a medium/large frying pan with enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, over a medium high heat until translucent -- about 3 to 5 minutes. Turn the heat to medium and add (diced) garlic and saute another 2 or 3 minutes. Add the seasonings with the garlic.
Add the canned tomatoes and water, turn the heat back up to medium high, until the liquid comes to a boil. Add the couscous, immediately remove from heat, stir just to mix, and put a lid on the pan. Let it sit, off the heat, for no less than 5 minutes. Do not remove the cover during this time. If the rest of your meal isn't done yet, it doesn't hurt it to sit for 10 or 15 minutes.

Just before serving, remove lid and fluff the couscous with a fork. Voila. This makes enough to serve 6 generously, maybe 8. It keeps well and reheats in the microwave. With all the tomato and onion, you don't really need another vegetable, but it does go well with a green vegetable. I've had broccoli and green beans both alongside it, and tonight we had Stouffers Spinach Souffle. It also goes with just about any kind of meat from fish to sausage to chicken. We had baked chicken breast with it tonight. We're trying to avoid spending a lot of time in public places -- the flu seems to be widespread here, and I'd like to stay healthy if at all possible. So I'm cooking a bit more than usual. (I like to sprinkle a little bit of parmesan cheese on top of it.)

Pie Crust

Hi everyone,

This is my oh-so-easy and oh-so-delicious pie crust recipe (I can't claim I invented it, but who can these days?) My mom's mom used to hassle my mom about not making pie crust from scratch, and really once you try it hand made, in my opinion, there's no going back. And since it's pie season let's all give it a try!

For a 2-crust pie (halve this for 1 crust, obviously.)
Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2/3 to 1 cup butter
4 to 5 tablespoons of water
Teaspoon of salt (Optional)

It's useful to use a pastry blender, which is pictured above. Otherwise I have used a fork and a potato masher before. Put the flour in a bowl, and cut the butter into a few pieces into the bowl to help speed the blending. Use the blender or whatever to cut the butter into the flour. Add water gradually, until the mixture sticks together but not to your hands. Knead the dough a few times, and think of your loved ones who will enjoy the pie you are making. In other words, knead with love. For 2-crusts, separate dough in half and roll them into the proper size. It's not often the prettiest crust on the block, but it's the most tasty for sure, and that's what matters to me!

Cranberry Bread

I went to the St. Paul Farmers' Market on Sunday and there was someone there selling 2 lb bags of cranberries. And larger - 2 lb was the smallest bag you could get. They called out to me so I decided to buy some and make some cranberry bread at Andy's when we were done at the market. I barely made a dent in the bag, but they do freeze well, so I think I'll have lots of cranberry bread in my future.

The original recipe came from a cookbook that my mom got from The Great Flatlands Rider. It has been adapted since then (we don't like nuts in our bread, or zest of any kind) and has become a fixture for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's really my mom's recipe but I've been helping since forever, so I feel ok about posting it here:

Cranberry Bread
"very nutritious"
Ingredients:
2 cups flour (1 cup white, 1 cup wheat)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup halved, raw cranberries (be generous)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup orange juice
1 egg slightly beaten
1/4 cup warm water
2 Tbs. vegetable oil

Sift together the first five ingredients (in italics). Stir in cranberries and wheat germ.

In a separate bowl, combine egg, OJ, water, and oil. Add to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Spoon into a greased loaf pan.

Bake for 50-60 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Bread is done when a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn over onto a rack to finish cooling.

Authentic school day lunch

The bell rings sometime in the 1950s in Van Dyke elementary school on the shore of Trout Lake in Coleraine, Minnesota. It is time for lunch.

It is a short walk across the park and up the hill home. It is a small town, nearly everyone in town lives close enough to school to go home for lunch if they choose to do so.

Here are the ingredients of a very common, very familiar school day lunch. We're getting ready to have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Mmmm, mmmm, good.We mostly purchased food at Shoemaker's Red Owl. Red Owl stores were franchised by Gamble-Skogmo, remember Gambles Hardware stores? The rights to the Red Owl brand were later acquired by SuperValu. SuperValu still operates chains of grocery stores in several markets, including this one. The local SuperValu grocery chain, the successor as it were to Red Owl, is Cub Foods. I went to Cub and bought the cheapest white bread available, the house brand pictured above, Cub Foods Giant White ($1.69 for a pound and a half loaf). My recollection is that Taystee was the bread of choice in our house but Taystee wasn't available in the local Cub and I believe that if Taystee was not available in the 1950s that we most likely would have gone with the cheapest white bread available, most likely the house brand. I believe that my choice of bread is a choice of an authentic bread.

That is also, obviously, authentic cheese. Actually, of course, it's not cheese, it's not even processed cheese or even processed cheese food. It is processed cheese product, less than 51% cheese. I think I was probably at least college age before I ever even considered the idea that Velveeta wasn't "cheese". It sure was cheese where I lived.Butter, not margarine. You have to remember to leave the butter out for a while so that it will be soft enough to spread. I forgot and used the modern method of a microwave oven to produce spreadable butter.Here's one of the few tricky bits. You have to butter the second piece of bread after you have placed the sandwich in the pan for grilling. Note that the soup has already been started. The soup is authentic as well. Again, it seems to me that I was college age before I even noticed that there were brands of soup other than Campbell's. In another bow to authenticity I used a can of water with the can of soup concentrate. TOPWLH reports that in her house they often actually used what the can directions list as an alternative, milk. We never did that that I can recall.Those looking carefully will no doubt observe that TOPWLH declined complete authenticity, requesting that her sandwich be made of sunflower whole wheat bread and actual cheddar cheese. I think she just doesn't recognize what a wonderful opportunity she passed up.

Over easy, it won't be long now. It is a bit tricky when doing only a sandwich or two to get the first couple done properly without burning. TOPWLH had a sandwich that was a trifle dark but she pronounced it OK.Voila, lunch. I was pretty sure that authenticity called for the sandwich to be cut into two pieces but I had a hard time deciding whether the cut should be diagonal or longitudinally across the middle. I settled on the diagonal cut but seeing the picture now it just doesn't seem quite right. I have a vague memory of big halves and small halves of the sandwiches.So, how was it?

It tasted very, very familiar. Familiar is not necessarily a bad thing.

A final note, it isn't very authentic at all, actually. The 1950s was a simpler time, a time when people lived on farms and produced healthy food products for all of us to eat. Today is, of course, the day of agribusiness and the corporate welfare program known as corn subsidies. I am not sure it is true and I am not going to do the research right now but I have heard it said and personally believe it to be true that the largest receivers of "crop support payments" are Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill, the corn giants.

Today's quiz: Guess which of the products pictured above includes on the ingredient list "high fructose corn syrup".

Brownies

I've been making these brownies for 25 or 30 years. We've always called them Susan's Brownies because I got the recipe from Sue Smith, from the Mayflower Resort on Deer Lake in northern Minnesota. The recipe says Hershey's Brownies. They're ridiculously easy to make, and wildly popular. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. You'll need 1 cup plus 1 tablespoon of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 stick (1/2 cup) of margarine, 4 eggs and 1 can (16 ounce size) of Hershey's syrup. The margarine should be soft.
Mix the sugar, flour and margarine together. Add the eggs, then the syrup. Pour into a greased cake pan. Bake for about 30 minutes. The typical toothpick test does not work for this one. The cake pulls away from the side of the pan a bit when it is done.

The brownie doesn't rise much -- eggs are the only leavening ingredient. It has a dense, moist texture, much like a chocolate torte. According to my life partner, it is the frosting that 'makes' these brownies. I'm not so sure, but the frosting is a necessary part of the recipe. It, too, is ridiculously easy. Frosting: 6 tablespoons of milk, 6 tablespoons of margarine, and 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Put in a pan, and bring to a hard boil. Boil about 1 minute. Remove from heat and add 3/4 cup chocolate chips. Stir until smooth. It will be a very, very thin frosting, which sets up as it cools. You can wait a couple of minutes until it starts to set up, or just pour it, very slowly, over the top of the cake while it is hot. This should be done while the brownies are still warm.

TJ volunteered to test the brownies, and declared that they were awful. No one else needs to eat any of them, he says. He will make the sacrifice and eat them so that no one else needs to suffer.

He is a very, very kind child.

Chicken and Mushroom Fried Rice

Chicken and Mushroom Fried Rice

It's what's for dinner. And like most of my cooking, the directions are approximations and open to liberal ad libbing.



Ingredients:
1 cup bean sprouts
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup sliced and chopped mushrooms
1 cup cut up cooked chicken
3 cups cold cooked regular rice
2 green onions (with tops) sliced
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons soy sauce
Dash of white pepper
A little ground ginger

Directions:
Rinse beans sprouts under running cold water. Drain. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in 10 inch skillet until hot. Rotate skillet until oil covers bottom. Cook and stir mushrooms in oil over medium heat until coated; about 1 minute. Add bean sprouts, rice, chicken and onions. Cook and stir over medium heat, breaking up rice, until hot, about 5 minutes.

Push rice mixture to side of skillet. Add 1 tablespoon oil to skillet. Add eggs, cook and stir over medium heat until eggs are thickened throughout, but still moist. Stir eggs into rice mixture. Stir in soy sauce, white pepper and ginger. About 4 servings.

More bologna

I actually didn't mean to post here, but I have this bologna picture. Nothing much new to report except that we had this beauty for dinner, along with eggs, pancakes, and a nice spinich salad. Blueberry pie followed.



Access to two blogs might be too confusing for a geezer.

Spaghetti Carbonara

When I was studying abroad in Nantes, France, I took the opportunity to do some traveling around Europe, as many of you know already. For spring break that year, some friends and I went to Italy where I discovered my favorite pasta dish of all time - Spaghetti Carbonara. Turns out they have it in France too, I just hadn't been paying attention. It quickly became my default order any time I happened to see it on the menu. When I got back from France, it became something of a personal quest to learn how to recreate it. I started with some recipes I found online and then adapted them to my liking. Here you go:

Ingredients:
1 pound spaghetti
8 ounces bacon, cut into 1-inch segments
3 large eggs
3/4 cup grated parmesan
1/2 cup half and half
garlic salt
Coarse salt & freshly ground pepper

Directions:
1) Cook spaghetti according to package directions in a large pot.
2) In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp but not burnt (I sometimes have to start over with the bacon, oops!) then transfer to a paper towel lined plate.
3) While pasta is cooking, whisk together the eggs, parmesan and half-and-half. Season with the garlic salt as you prefer - the amount of garlic is something of a personal preference. Or you can use actual garlic and cook it with the bacon. It's entirely up to you. It's good both ways.
4) Once pasta is done, drain well but do not rinse. Transfer to a large bowl and immediately add the egg mixture. Stir rapidly - the heat from the pasta will cook the eggs but if you don't stir it, you end up with scrambled eggs instead of a creamy sauce.
5) Add the bacon, season with salt and pepper to taste, and toss to combine.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do - it's pretty rich and you will have leftovers if you're only cooking for two people. Sometimes I try to split it but 1.5 eggs is a little hard to measure. :-)

Ring baloney

Get a ring of baloney from Shoemaker's Red Owl.

Remove from package, place in large pot.

Cover with water.

Heat to boil.

Simmer for, oh about 15 minutes I'm going to say. After all, it is sausage, it is already cooked. All you really need to do is be sure it is heated all the way through.

Remove from water, place on dinner plate.

Use the sharp knife to slice into about one inch segments. You'll need the sharp knife, that skin is tough.

Serve with ketchup.

Goes well with boiled potatoes and creamed vegetables.

Feta Fish

I believe that there is a request for the recipe for Feta Fish. It is really more of a process than a recipe, but here it is. Ingredients: Tilapia, or some other mild whitefish. (TT and I made it for the first time with grouper.) Olive oil, seasoned pepper and feta cheese.Late edit: If you line the pan with tin foil (aluminum foil for you young 'uns), clean up will be much easier. Process: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread a little olive oil on a cookie sheet. (Remove frozen fish from the plastic, or use fresh fish.) Place the fish fillets pretty size up and drizzle with olive oil. Season generously with seasoned pepper. (It doesn't need salt, as the feta cheese is a little salty.) Top each piece of fish with a generous tablespoonful of feta cheese. Or a little more, or a little less, depending on how you're feeling in the moment. Bake for about 20 minutes. (Or 10 if you're using fresh fish.) It should look like the photo below when it's done. Watch it so it doesn't overcook. (This is probably just a touch overcooked, but it was very good.)

Leftovers make good sandwiches for lunch the following day. If you like it, thank TT. He ordered feta grouper at a restaurant in Florida, and we decided to try making it ourselves at the house later in the week. Tonight we had it with brown rice and green peas (not creamed) left over from Friday.

For dessert I tried Emily's recipe for Opal's Apple Crisp. It was excellent! I used Honey Crisp apples, and added just a sprinkling of nutmeg along with the cinnamon. TOPWEH also liked it. He is used to my recipe for apple crisp which has brown sugar in it, but until I told him that it was Opal's he didn't notice the change of ingredients.

The crust is crunchy, which is one of the things I like best about Apple Crisp -- it should be crisp, right? The Honey Crisp apples didn't hold their shape too well, but the flavor was sweet and tart. It's apple season in Michigan -- just past, really -- so there are a lot of good apples available locally at this point. Thanks, Emily.