Tag Archives: recipe

It Only Sounds Like a Dirty Word

Posted in Main Course, Recipes, Whimsies by

The day after we got home, having driven for three full days from our desert home to our Denver home, with a stop in Antelope Canyon and other places, I found myself wanting roast chicken. In the past, I haven’t had a lot of luck roasting a chicken. It makes me too nervous. Therefore, generally when I get a roast chicken yearning, I head over to Whole Foods and buy a rotisserie chicken. This time, however, I apparently had lost my mind and decided the way I could solve my lack of success with roast chicken is by spatchocking the chicken. And inviting family to try it out.

Ha! I may have caught you off guard. You may or may not know what it means to spatchcock a chicken. In a blog post originally published on December 17, 2017, I told you all about spatchcocking. I have included that blog post below.

None of our children had ever heard of the word spatchcocking. They were duly impressed with my efforts  However, I will tell you that I thought roasting two chickens on one pan along with a whole slew of brussel sprouts didn’t produce the crispy skin I desired. There was too much steam going on. Nevertheless SPATCHCOCKING.

I got a text message from our daughter-in-law Jll yesterday. The text read: Learned a new word this week, and now here it is at Costco. I think you should blog that you are a trend setter and Costco is following your every move…..
The truth is, as you will read in the blog post from way back in 2017, spatchcocking has quite a history. You should give it a try……

IT ONLY SOUNDS LIKE A DIRTY WORD

The week following Thanksgiving, I was having lunch with a friend at our favorite Chinese restaurant. As we poked our chopsticks into the sesame chicken, I asked her if she had a good Thanksgiving. She said her Thanksgiving had been nice, not the least because she had a total of two – count ‘em – two complete Thanksgiving dinners. The first dinner was good, she admitted, but the second, ahhhh, the second.

She spatchcocked the turkey, my friend told me with reverence.

It’s an understatement to say that I was impressed. I was certainly impressed that the woman had spatchcocked a turkey. But I was mostly impressed that I knew what the word spatchcocked meant.

I frankly don’t know exactly how I knew what it meant. Perhaps it’s having watched Food Network since its very beginning when Emeril Lagasse was getting applause from his studio audience every time he added more garlic or wine to whatever dish he was making (and perhaps spatchcocking). What I do know for certain is that I didn’t learn the term from my mother, who never spatchcocked a thing in her life. She may or may not have butterflied a chicken, but I believe she died without having ever heard the word spatchcock.

Not to wander too far from the point of this blog post (on the off-chance there is, in fact, a point), I looked up the word to see if I could learn its etymology. Here is what Wikipedia says about the word’s origin:

The word comes from “dispatch cock”, that is, a fowl that is dispatched quickly, and is first attested in 1785.

So there.

But as I read on in the article, Wikipedia suggested I also see blood eagle. Foolishly, I clicked on the link (as I often do on Wikipedia which then takes me off into a link-clicking route that may end up explaining the history of crochet stitches). It seems blood eagle is a type of human execution in which the victim lies prone on a table, his/her ribs are severed from the spine with a sharp tool, and the lungs are pulled through the opening to create a pair of “wings.” I’m telling you, those ancient Brits knew how to torture.

But back to spatchcocking, which is simply another word for butterflying. In other words, you use your kitchen shears or poultry shears and cut out the backbone of some kind of poultry, thereby allowing the bird to lie flat and roast or grill more quickly. The result is a crispier skin.

And, my friends, with chicken, it’s all about the skin.

My mother used to make Cornish game hens. She did not spatchcock them. Instead, she stuffed them with wild rice, slathered them with butter, sprinkled on salt and pepper, and roasted them in the oven. They were heavenly.

One day a year or so ago, I invited Addie, Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith to dinner. I was serving Cornish game hens.  They were thrilled at the prospect. As excited as they were for dinner, they were equally disappointed when instead of little tiny hens lying on their plate, there were spatchcocked hens. Cut in half, no less. They would have been more impressed with KFC.

Ever since that lunch in which I was reminded about spatchcocking, I have been itching to get my hands on something to spatchcock. So last night, I made Cornish game hens, and as you can see, I got my chance…..

 

 

I mixed up about a half stick of butter with a couple of cloves of minced garlic, 1 t. chopped fresh rosemary, and 1 t. dried thyme (which came from my summer garden). I didn’t have any lemons, but lemon zest would have been good too. I salted and peppered the hens on both sides. I then put some of the butter under the skin, and (like my mother) slathered the remaining butter all over. I roasted them at 375 degrees for about an hour. I let them sit for about 10 minutes to rest……

Yum.

For kicks, you could drink a shot of Fireball Whiskey every time you read the word spatchcock in this blog post.

Summer in the Sausage

Posted in Appetizers, Recipes, Whimsies by

My mom made dinner almost every night of the week when I grew up. On occasion, there would be a few things to munch on before Mom served our meal. Nothing fancy, mind you. Often she would open up a couple of cans of Vienna sausages…..

…..slice them in half, and we would grab them and eat them as fast as we could. Nothing fancy in which to dunk the sausages; just plain ol’ Vienna sausages. The first time I opened up a can of Vienna sausages and laid them in front of Bill, I believe he thought I’d lost my mind.

But perhaps more often than that, Mom would lay out summer sausage and a hunk of cheddar cheese. Actually, in the Gloor household, summer sausage might be an appetizer; it might be a picnic lunch; it might be a snack in the afternoon. We fought over the end pieces, for reasons I now can’t even begin to remember. What I know, however, is that to this day, if there is summer sausage available, I can’t keep my hands off of it.

I had never thought about making summer sausage or even how it was made; it was just one of those things you buy in your neighborhood grocery store’s deli. Still, our neighbor here mentioned that he made his own summer sausage, and shared his recipe with me. One of my challenges for 2018 was to prepare food I have never made before. With this in mind, I gave it a try this weekend…..

I had everything on hand except the home meat cure. I checked the grocery stores, but like the Elmer’s glue I sought last week, I couldn’t find it at Fry’s. I’m pretty sure, however, that it isn’t an ingredient in slime. Anyway where do you go if you want an unusual ingredient and you want it fast? Amazon, of course.  Dear Amazon: one bag of Morton’s Quick Tender Home Meat Cure, some Elmer’s glue for slime, and a kangaroo to give to Bill for his birthday please. Two days later – ding dong.

My neighbor stressed the importance of getting the fattiest ground beef, so I started with two pounds of 80% lean hamburger meat. To that, I added liquid smoke, mustard seeds, finely minced garlic,  coarse-ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes. I shaped the mixture into two tightly formed logs…..

The meat logs were wrapped in aluminum foil, shiny side against the meat. I placed the aluminum-wrapped meat into the refrigerator for 24 hours.

The next day, I punched holes into the bottom of the foil with toothpicks and placed them on a broiler pan into which about a half-inch of water was added to the bottom…..

The meat was baked at 325 degrees for an hour-and-a-half, and then removed to cool on the counter for a bit before it is once again placed into the refrigerator for another 12 hours.

After 12 hours, I unwrapped the meat, and there’s what I found….

Friends, it is good. It is, in fact, delicious. Even made from scratch, I can’t proclaim summer sausage to be health food. I haven’t had the guts to look at the ingredients in the curing mixture, but I’m pretty sure salt is the number one ingredient. Remember, that’s how Laura Ingall’s mom preserved her meat over the long Missouri winters. I don’t remember ever hearing Laura say, “Ma, I’m a bit concerned about our blood pressure. Could you cut back a bit on the salt?”

But the flavor is delicious and I haven’t even tried it with cheddar cheese and a piece of melba toast. Yum. Here is the recipe I used for my sausage…..

Homemade Summer Sausage

Ingredients
2 lbs. 80% lean ground beef
2 T. mustard seed
1 T. finely-minced fresh garlic
2 T. liquid smoke flavoring
2 T. meat curing mixture (I used Morton Tender Quick)
1 t. coarse black pepper
1 T. red pepper flakes

Process
In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients using your clean hands just until thoroughly combined. Form into two equal logs, and wrap each log in aluminum foil with the shiny side facing the meat. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

Poke holes in the bottom of the logs using toothpicks. Place the logs on a broiler rack into which you have added about ½ in of water.

Bake in a preheated 325 degree oven for 90 minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly on the counter. Place the sausages into the refrigerator to chill for 12 hours.

Enjoy!

 

The Perfect Day

Posted in Main Course, Recipes, Whimsies by

It’s January – that time when 87.882 percent of the U.S. population begins to think about losing weight. Of course, nowadays nobody says they want to “lose weight.” Instead, they say they want to “get healthy.” Which is code for I want to lose 15 lbs. so that I don’t pop the final button on my jeans and no one thinks they are looking at the Titanic when they see me from behind. You know. Healthy.

Since January 1, my email inbox has been filling up with message after message about exercise and healthy eating. I got really excited recently when I got an email from Silver Sneakers, which is a free fitness program for seniors with which I am truly impressed. They actually send useful information for people my age. The email was entitled A Perfect Day of Eating.

AWESOME, I thought. Breakfast: A Cinnabon cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee, followed by a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal; Lunch: A hot dog all the way, French fries, and a Diet Coke; Dinner: A grilled bone-in ribeye steak, Brussel sprouts with bacon, a baked potato topped with a generous helping of butter and some more bacon, a dry Tanqueray martini, up with two bleu cheese-stuffed olives, and a dish of toffee fudge ice cream for dessert.

A perfect day of eating.

Alas, that wasn’t their idea of a perfect day of eating. Their recommendation — Breakfast: a piece of fresh fruit, a handful of raw almonds, and some oatmeal; Lunch: steamed vegetables with olive oil MISTED on top, a bowl of vegetable or bean soup, and fresh fruit; Dinner: a raw salad (obviously dreamed up prior to Romaine lettuce being DANGER DANGER DANGER), more vegetables on top of brown rice, 1-2 oz. of animal protein (Seriously? 1-2 oz.? Who are they kidding?), and yes, you guessed it, fruit for dessert.

How is that a perfect day of eating? Sigh.

The other day I was making our bed. Bed making, my friends, is not a strenuous task. Suddenly a spasm in my back sent me reeling to my knees. I was able to relax, and with some ice applied to the area of the spasm and a couple of ibuprofen, I managed to avert a spend-the-day-on-the-couch crisis. Still, I gave myself a stern lecture. In fact, I heard both of my sisters’ voices in my ear saying, Kris, you must exercise to strengthen your core.

Turns out I listen to myself better than I listen to my sisters. Go figure. I have, indeed, begun doing core exercises, as well as walking. It seems those Nordic walking sticks that I bought this past fall are good for more than retrieving items that roll under the couch……

Though I poke fun at the term get healthy, the fact is I really have no desire to return to the weight I was on my wedding day. That ship (not the same one for which people mistake my rear end) sailed quite some time ago. I do, however, want to be able to make a bed without having to call paramedics.

I won’t, however, call steamed vegetables with a MIST of olive oil a perfect lunch. Nope. Not gonna happen.

I did make a relatively healthy dinner last night, however. Healthy if you call a meal made with five eggs, cream, bacon and cheese healthy, and I do. It’s got spinach, people. I got Bill to agree to eat quiche by bribing him with Dairy Queen for dessert….

 

Bacon and Spinach Quiche

Ingredients:
1 (9 inch) pie crust
5 eggs, beaten
1 c. heavy cream
1 -1/2 c. spinach, chopped
6 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Whisk eggs until well blended. Add cream, onion powder, salt, and pepper. In the bottom of your pie crust layer chopped spinach, bacon, and shredded cheese. Pour egg and cream mixture into the pie crust. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until egg mixture is firm and the top is golden. Cut into wedges and serve warm.

Nana’s Notes: I used a frozen pie crust. You can use any kind of cheese you prefer. I just happened to have cheddar cheese in my refrigerator. Bribe your spouse with Dairy Queen.

It Only Sounds Like a Dirty Word

Posted in Main Course, Recipes, Whimsies by

The week following Thanksgiving, I was having lunch with a friend at our favorite Chinese restaurant. As we poked our chopsticks into the sesame chicken, I asked her if she had a good Thanksgiving. She said her Thanksgiving had been nice, not the least because she had a total of two – count ‘em – two complete Thanksgiving dinners. The first dinner was good, she admitted, but the second, ahhhh, the second.

She spatchcocked the turkey, my friend told me with reverence.

It’s an understatement to say that I was impressed. I was certainly impressed that the woman had spatchcocked a turkey. But I was mostly impressed that I knew what the word spatchcocked meant.

I frankly don’t know exactly how I knew what it meant. Perhaps it’s having watched Food Network since its very beginning when Emeril Lagasse was getting applause from his studio audience every time he added more garlic or wine to whatever dish he was making (and perhaps spatchcocking). What I do know for certain is that I didn’t learn the term from my mother, who never spatchcocked a thing in her life. She may or may not have butterflied a chicken, but I believe she died without having ever heard the word spatchcock.

Not to wander too far from the point of this blog post (on the off-chance there is, in fact, a point), I looked up the word to see if I could learn its etymology. Here is what Wikipedia says about the word’s origin:

The word comes from “dispatch cock”, that is, a fowl that is dispatched quickly, and is first attested in 1785.

So there.

But as I read on in the article, Wikipedia suggested I also see blood eagle. Foolishly, I clicked on the link (as I often do on Wikipedia which then takes me off into a link-clicking route that may end up explaining the history of crochet stitches). It seems blood eagle is a type of human execution in which the victim lies prone on a table, his/her ribs are severed from the spine with a sharp tool, and the lungs are pulled through the opening to create a pair of “wings.” I’m telling you, those ancient Brits knew how to torture.

But back to spatchcocking, which is simply another word for butterflying. In other words, you use your kitchen shears or poultry shears and cut out the backbone of some kind of poultry, thereby allowing the bird to lie flat and roast or grill more quickly. The result is a crispier skin.

And, my friends, with chicken, it’s all about the skin.

My mother used to make Cornish game hens. She did not spatchcock them. Instead, she stuffed them with wild rice, slathered them with butter, sprinkled on salt and pepper, and roasted them in the oven. They were heavenly.

One day a year or so ago, I invited Addie, Alastair, Dagny, and Maggie Faith to dinner. I was serving Cornish game hens.  They were thrilled at the prospect. As excited as they were for dinner, they were equally disappointed when instead of little tiny hens lying on their plate, there were spatchcocked hens. Cut in half, no less. They would have been more impressed with KFC.

Ever since that lunch in which I was reminded about spatchcocking, I have been itching to get my hands on something to spatchcock. So last night, I made Cornish game hens, and as you can see, I got my chance…..

 

 

I mixed up about a half stick of butter with a couple of cloves of minced garlic, 1 t. chopped fresh rosemary, and 1 t. dried thyme (which came from my summer garden). I didn’t have any lemons, but lemon zest would have been good too. I salted and peppered the hens on both sides. I then put some of the butter under the skin, and (like my mother) slathered the remaining butter all over. I roasted them at 375 degrees for about an hour. I let them sit for about 10 minutes to rest……

Yum.

For kicks, you could drink a shot of Fireball Whiskey every time you read the word spatchcock in this blog post.

Baking Angels

Posted in Desserts, Recipes, Whimsies by

My dad was a professional baker, as was his dad before him. My brother baked with Dad from the time he was old enough to hold a rolling pin in his chubby little toddler hands. He has worked in the baking industry his entire life, and still does. My sister Jen says she can’t bake a lick, though I’m not entirely sure that is true. My sister Bec is the one in our family who we count on when we want baked items at our family gatherings. Bundt cakes and brownies are her specialties. Ask Bill, who enjoys the fruits of her labors.

As for me, I absolutely LOVE to bake. However, for the most part, I stink at it. There you have it. My name’s Kris, and I’m a Horrible-Baker-Who-Should-Be-Better-Because-My-Dad-Owned-A-Bakery. Maybe there’s a support group.

So, now that I’ve given you background, let me tell you a story.

The other day I got a hankering for biscotti. You know, those hard cookies that you dunk in coffee or tea, or if you’re in Italy, maybe Vino Santo after a wonderful dinner al fresco. My favorite biscotti recipe comes from Giada di Laurentis, but they contain pistachios (yum) and dried cherries or cranberries. Though I shouldn’t eat the dried fruit, I could possibly let that slide; however, the pistachios are a firm no-go on my low fiber diet, no matter how delicious they are.

So I got the notion to bake chocolate biscotti. I knew Bill would be happy, and I was confident I could find a recipe for chocolate biscotti without nuts. And so I did, Double Chocolate Biscotti from Once Upon a Chef blog.

Biscotti are not terribly hard to make. The trick is that you mix the dough, form it into a log, and bake it for a half hour or so. You then remove the baked dough from the oven and slice them into the familiar biscotti shape. Then, bake them again for 10 minutes or so, until they sort of dry out and become hard.

The reason I’m a sort of hit-or-miss baker is because I’m sloppy and apparently quite forgetful. I’ve always been sloppy; I grow more and more forgetful as I grow older.

So, using my beloved Kitchen Aid mixer, I mixed the ingredients, all of which, surprisingly, were in my pantry. I took the sticky dough and formed it into two carefully shaped logs. I was about to put them in the preheated oven when the guardian angel in charge of food preparation landed on my shoulder and said, “You forgot to put in the chocolate chips, Stupid.” Who knew angels used such hurtful language?

So here was my conundrum. The logs were beautiful, glistening with chocolaty goodness. As I saw it, these were my two choices: 1) Dismantle the logs and put the dough back in the Kitchen Aid mixer, add the chocolate chips, and re-form into new logs; or 2) Change the name from Double Chocolate Biscotti to simply Chocolate Biscotti and don’t do a damn thing…..

As you will see from the photo, I chose the former solution. I just could picture Bill’s face when he bit into a soft chocolate chip in his cookie. These are doubly chocolaty delicious, he was bound to say…..

Double Chocolate Biscotti

Ingredients
1-3/4 c. plus 2 T flour, measured carefully
¼ c. plus 2 T unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t. baking soda
¾ t. salt
1 stick butter, at room temperature
¾ c. plus 2 T granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each egg and scraping bowl with a spatula. Add the vanilla. Then add the dry ingredients and chocolate chips and mix on low speed until just combined.

Dust a work surface with flour. Scrape the sticky dough out onto the work surface and dust the top of the dough to make it workable. Shape the dough into a ball and cut in half. Form each half into a log, and place on the parchment-lined cookie sheet. Shape into longer logs about ¾ in. high and 2 in. wide. Allow enough space for the logs to spread a bit while they bake.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until firm to the touch. Let the biscotti logs cool on the pan for about 5 minutes. Carefully remove logs onto a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, slice the logs on the diagonal into ¾ in. slices. Don’t worry if they crumble a bit.  Put the cookies back onto the cookie sheet on their sides (cut sides down), and place back in the oven for 10 minutes to dry and harden. Cool on the pan for a few minutes; then transfer to a cooling rack until completely cool.

Little House on the Prairie

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I’m an early riser. It’s unheard of for me to sleep until 7; it’s not uncommon for me to get up around 5:30. However, yesterday morning, I awoke bright and early at 4:45, and talked myself into staying in bed until 5, when I finally heard the birds awakening.

I posted my blog and then went downstairs to fix coffee and open the windows to let in the cool morning air. I was settling down for my first cup of coffee when I suddenly had a hankering for a crumb-topped muffin. I started trying to figure out where I could buy one, and then reminded myself that I have all of the necessary ingredients to make them myself.

Which is what I proceeded to do. I preheated the oven to the necessary temperature, and was just putting the crumbly topping onto my muffins when suddenly there was a click and the sound of electronic equipment sighing, and the house went dark and silent.

The electricity had gone off.

Since Bill has been doing demolition and rebuilding in the family room, it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities that he might have done something that resulted in our house losing electricity. But since he was upstairs (I had just heard the sound of him walking around and getting ready to come downstairs) I gave him a pass, figuring that the entire neighborhood was probably without power.

Thankfully, it was almost 6 by this time, and the rooms were sufficiently light, if really, really quiet.  Nevertheless, I suddenly felt like Ma Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie. Except I wasn’t worried about angry Indians or rabid wolves attacking me.

I called my next-door neighbor to confirm that it was the entire neighborhood that was part of the powerless prairie. Doesn’t it just feel weird, she asked me. And it did. She had called the power company and was told that the power would be back on by 9:30 at the latest.

The first thing I did upon hanging up was to save the coffee by putting it in a thermos pot. (That’s kind of Little House on the Prairie-ish, don’t you think?) But if you have coffee, you can handle almost everything. This theory was born out when I heard a knock on my door a bit later and our neighbor from across the street had awakened to no electricity. And I don’t even have a cup of coffee, she whined. Our coffee was gone by that time, so I commiserated and she returned to her powerless house empty-handed.

You don’t really understand just how much we rely upon electricity. Bill was forced to read the junk notices we had put into our recycling bin the night before for entertainment since he reads all his news from the internet on his iPad. I kept promising things I couldn’t actually produce. How about a piece of toast with peanut butter, I asked. Except then I realized my toaster won’t work. Maybe I could drive over and get some bagels for breakfast, I said. Except then I remembered that our garage door is electric.

Actually, Bill was able to release some sort of lever or other and get our garage door to open manually, which was good because he had someplace he had to be at 8 o’clock. Pa Ingalls would have just taken the donkey cart. Even though I had no place to go, it made me feel better. At least I could go get some toilet paper if necessary. One always feels the need to buy toilet paper in an emergency. That’s why it’s the first thing to go when blizzard-shopping.

The electricity finally popped back on around 9:15. The first thing I did was to preheat my oven once again and bake some crumb muffins. They were even better for having to wait. And I again appreciated my 21st century conveniences.

Crumb Cake Muffins

Ingredients
1-1/2 c. flour
½ c. brown sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. salt
¾ c. milk
1/3 c. canola oil
2 eggs

Crumb Topping
1/3 c. granulated sugar
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. salt
½ c. butter, melted
1-1/2 c. flour

Process
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with liners, or spray with cooking spray.

Make crumb topping: Combine sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Slowly pour in melted butter and mix. Add flour and stir until moist. Spread on plate or parchment paper to dry.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In another large bowl or measuring cup, mix milk, canola oil, and egg. Pour wet mixture over dry ingredients and stir until moist.

Fill muffin tins and top with crumb topping. Bake for 15 – 17 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Noodles

Posted in Main Course, Recipes, Whimsies by

A couple of weeks ago when our family was visiting us in AZ, we were eating at our favorite pizza restaurant here in the Valley of the Sun. As we ate, I asked a variation of the age-old question: If you were eating your very last meal, what would you have?

I learned several interesting things from that question. The first thing I learned is that if you’re going to try to ascertain the answer to that question from an 11-year-old boy, you’d better phrase the question carefully. I unfortunately worded it as such: Hey Alastair, if you were on death row and they were bringing in your last meal, what would you have ordered? Okay, okay; I admit that perhaps you shouldn’t ask a child any questions that relate to Death Row. Lesson learned. Because Alastair – who loves good food – couldn’t be pinned down to the food part and instead concentrated fully on the Death Row part. Despite my pressing him further and further, his answers continued to be along the lines of a cake with a file in it, or a piece of sausage in the shape of a key.

But the other interesting piece of information I learned, particularly once I rephrased the question to be if you were on a desert island and could only eat one thing, what would it be?, was that my daughter-in-law Jll chose lasagna.

I thought about that conversation the other night when I cooked dinner for my sister Jen – who had arrived that day for a week’s visit – and her daughter Maggie and the family. I had texted the dinner invitation to Maggie earlier in the day, and didn’t know technology could work that fast when her response of YES! came almost before I set down my phone. Such is the life of a mother of two, including a very busy 3-year-old, as she prepares for the arrival of her own mother.  I had some of my red sauce in the freezer, so making lasagna was going to be simple. Or at least as simple as making lasagna can be.

As we sat and ate our lasagna, Caesar salad, and French bread, we learned that Maggie’s husband Mark would also choose lasagna as his last meal. Funny, that. I like lasagna, but who would choose lasagna when you could choose a wonderfully dry and ice-cold Tanqueray martini, a perfectly-cooked bone-in ribeye steak with a dollop of herb and garlic butter, a crisp salad with a mixture of homemade Roquefort cheese dressing and the homemade Italian dressing made by my favorite childhood restaurant Husker House, and crème brulee with that crackly burnt-sugar topping?

As a result of Mark’s proclamation, much of our conversation at dinner that night revolved around making lasagna. I created a bit of a controversy when I admitted that while I liked lasagna, I found it a pain in the booty to make.

Maggie was astounded. She doesn’t share my sentiment. But let me be clear. The most troublesome thing for me when it comes to lasagna is the noodles. Cooking lasagna noodles is flat-out messy. Dripping water, noodles splashing back into the cooking water as you try to retrieve them, noodles sticking together. All-around messiness.

Maggie, however, uses the lasagna noodles that cook as your lasagna bakes. I’m all for convenience, but I fear that any kind of pasta that you put uncooked into a dish soaks up too much of the liquid as it cooks. So despite the ease, I continue to cook my noodles before I begin the layering process.

I will admit that I like my lasagna very much. I use a meat sauce from my favorite Italian chef, Lidia Bastianich. It involves using pork neck bones, which result in the most flavorful sauce imaginable. Of course, no matter how careful I am, a few little bones will make it into the sauce. But the best part of using neck bones is that after a couple of hours, you remove them to cool. I, however, begin nibbling on them almost immediately, always burning my fingers in the process. Lidia’s sauce also involves ground pork and ground beef, so the flavor is delightful. Don’t tell Lidia, but sometimes I substitute Italian sausage for the ground pork. The sauce cooks for a couple of hours, making the house smell like an Italian home on Sunday. It’s pure heaven.

Here is a link to Lidia’s sauce, though it doesn’t come from her website. As for the lasagna, just like dressing for Colorado springtime weather, it’s all about layering.

Include as many layers as your pan will hold, and then eventually this happens…..

And maybe that is worth a last meal.

Heads or Tails

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As the temperatures hovered dangerously close to 80 degrees these past few days in AZ, you would think I would be focusing on grilling or making fancy salads. Nope. Oddly, braising is what sounds good. Maybe it’s a fortuitous that St. Patrick’s Day is on the horizon as I can satisfy some of my braising needs by cooking a corned beef.

My mother was a traditional cook, at least during the years when I was growing up, and she did a lot of braising. I remember eating beef pot roasts and pork roasts and spare ribs that she would cook slowly in the oven until they were tender. I remember beef stews and green beans made with ham hocks and vegetable soups made with beef shanks.

But what I was recalling as of late was a stew that she made occasionally that featured oxtails. Little pieces of beef that came – not shockingly – from the tails of a cow. I’m guessing probably not necessarily an ox, but at least some sort of beef. Oxtails probably stemmed from the mentality that was common among people who grow up on farms: you don’t waste any part of the animal.

Mom didn’t necessarily take this philosophy to heart, as I don’t remember her ever serving us, well, heart. At least not beef heart. I remember battling my brother and sisters for the chicken heart, that teeny-tiny, chewy organ that comes in the little sack that frequently is shoved inside a chicken, along with a liver or two, a few gizzards, and the neck. Since chickens, as most animals, only have one heart (earthworms have five hearts, but I wouldn’t want to eat a single one of them), it was a valuable commodity. Livers were first runner up, and we happily gave Dad the gizzards.

I don’t have my mom’s recipe for Oxtail Stew, but I sure remember the meal. I recall that they varied in size but I always seemed to get the small ones. But mostly I remember that they were extremely slippery. I loved them. I joyfully picked up the scalding little devils with my fingers and gnawed until I got most of the meat, not necessarily an easy task, but I have always been good at getting meat from a bone. I think I was a hyena in a former life.

I decided to make Oxtail Stew.

Since I didn’t have my mother’s recipe, I did what any normal 21st century cook would do: I went to Pinterest.  There, I found a yummy-sounding recipe for oxtail stew cooked in a slow cooker. That sounded spot-on to me, so I invited my brother Dave and my sister Bec to dinner where we could eat with our fingers and reminisce about Mom. I warned Bill (who had never eaten oxtails) that it was likely that he was going to have to swallow his pride and eat with his fingers, something he is loath to do unless it’s a pizza.

But first I needed to find oxtails. None at Basha’s. None at Fry’s. AJ’s Fine Foods took 15 rings before they answered the telephone and then, upon my request for their meat department, sent me to a black hole which produced no meat department. Cross them off my list, then and forever, no matter how fine their food is.

However, when you’re on the hunt for any unusual cut of meat or any unfamiliar vegetable, your best bet is to hit the Mexican markets and/or the Asian markets. Bill and I set off on our adventure, where our intent was to hit the Mexican market first and if that produced no results, go a bit further into the Asian part of Mesa. We lucked out on our first try and found delicious-looking oxtails at Los Altos Ranch Market…..

uncooked-oxtails-los-altos-market-2-17

Those oxtails eventually became this……

oxtails

After eight hours in a slow cooker, the meat was indescribably tender and tasty, and the broth was rich and packed with flavor. I served the stew over mashed potatoes, and there was none left at the end of the meal. My assessment? I was sad that they were so tender that they didn’t provide my desire for slipperiness. However, my brother (looking carefully around for Mom’s ghost bearing some sort of weapon) said he thought mine were better than Mom’s. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

Here’s the recipe…..

Slow Cooker Oxtail Stew

Ingredients
2 – 3 lbs. oxtails
2 T. flour, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste
8 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 large onion, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
½ lb. mushrooms, cleaned and cut in half
½ c. red wine
1-1/2 c. beef broth or stock
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 T. tomato paste

Process
Cook bacon in large skillet until crisp. Remove to a plate, and crumble.

Coat oxtails in the seasoned flour, and cook in the bacon grease until brown on all sides. Cook only a few at a time to aid in browning.

Place vegetables, wine, stock, bay leaf, thyme, and tomato paste into slow-cooker. Add the bacon and the oxtails to the vegetables.  Cover with lid and cook for 8 hours or until oxtails are tender.

Serve with mashed potatoes, rice, or noodles.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

The Big Easy

Posted in Appetizers, Recipes by

I was fairly untraveled as a child and even as a young adult. Though my family took a vacation each year, we almost always went to Colorado, and mostly to Estes Park. I wouldn’t change a thing about our vacations, but suffice it to say that I was close to 20 before I ever boarded an airplane.

Back in those days, flyers dressed up for the trip, wearing a good dress or suit. The idea of blue jeans or – heaven forbid – sweat pants on a flight was absolutely unthinkable. Flight attendants – aw, heck, we can call them stewardesses because they were absolutely always young women — wore business attire, shoes with modest heels, and hats.

I remember being about 21 or 22 years old, and yearning to visit exactly three places before I died. Today we would call them my bucket list. So my bucket list cities were New York City, San Francisco, and New Orleans.

But our recent Mardis Gras party got me thinking about New Orleans, and recalling all of my visits to that interesting city. And it was the first of my three dream bucket list cities that I was able to visit. I traveled with a woman I scarcely knew, familiar with her only because she taught my brother and sister at Leadville High School. Her name was Lily, and despite the fact that I traveled 1,300 miles with her and lived in the same hotel room for probably close to a week, I recall very little else about her. Isn’t that funny? But what I do recall is that she wasn’t an ax murderer (as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t get hacked to pieces) and we had a good time together. And then never did a single thing together again.

mi0002859504We didn’t have a lot of money, so I’m certain we didn’t go to any fancy restaurants, though I’m afraid I also couldn’t tell you what restaurants we did visit. I remember that we went to Café du Monde and had beignets and café au lait and stayed in a nice hotel near the action. Other than that, the single thing I remember is that we went to a jazz show in the French Quarter and watched musician Al Hirt play from front row seats. Non-vocal jazz never really being a favorite musical genre of mine, I’m sure I must have heard of him from my dad. At the end of the show, he came down from the stage and shook the hands of a few people, INCLUDING MINE. Having not met many famous people at that time in my life, I was thrilled.

The other two times that I have visited New Orleans, Bill has been my traveling companion. The first time he and I visited, I remember being conned by an expert con artist, who bet me $10 that he could tell me where I got my shoes, and I bit. The answer, of course, was on my feet. Lesson learned.

During that trip we dined at Commander’s Palace, where Bill ate what to this day he proclaims was the best dessert he’s ever eaten (and the man knows desserts) – Commander’s Bread Pudding Souffle. We also tried Muffuletta sandwiches at Central Grocery, where they were created. Muffulettas are sandwiches made from salami, ham, mortadella, cheese and a delicious olive spread.

And, of course, beignets at Café du Monde.

The second time we visited, we ate brunch at Commander’s Palace, where we ate what I would call the best dessert I’ve ever eaten – Bananas Foster. Oh my.

But just as my primary memory of my first visit to New Orleans is seeing Al Hirt, my primary memory of that visit is ducking into a hole-in-the-wall place where we had the most delicious oysters on the half shell that I have ever eaten. The guy shucking the oysters was like a caricature of a guy shucking oysters. He had been a so-called cut man for boxers in his younger days, and as he told Bill story after story, he kept shucking oysters. He shucked way more than the dozen we had ordered, but didn’t charge us a penny more.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been to all three of the cities that I dreamed of as a young woman. Interestingly, though I enjoyed them all, out of the three, I would say that only New York City is someplace I could return to again and again, and have. I enjoyed San Francisco and certainly found New Orleans interesting and the food amazing, but neither are places that I yearn to revisit.

The sound you just heard is that of my sister Bec fainting.

But as a nod to New Orleans, here is the recipe for the Hot Crab Dip that I contributed to Sunday’s festivities…..

crab-dip

Hot Crab Dip

Ingredients
1 T. olive oil
1 c. chopped onions
1 c. chopped green peppers
1 T. minced garlic
1-1/2 t. salt, divided
1 T. Cajun seasoning
1 lb. cream cheese, softened
1 c. mayonnaise
¼ c. fresh parsley
2 green onions, minced
1 T. fresh lemon juice
3 6-oz cans crab meat
½ c. Ritz crackers, crushed
2 T. butter, melted

Process
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat the olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, peppers, garlic, 1 t. salt, and Cajun seasoning. Cook, stirring, until vegetables are soft, 5 or 6 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor or blender, combine the cream cheese, mayo, parsley, green onions, lemon juice, and remaining salt. Process until smooth. Transfer to a bowl.  Fold in vegetables and crabmeat and place in an oven-safe dish.

Mix cracker crumbs with butter, and spread on top of the dip. Bake for 30 minutes, or until crackers are browned.

Potato, Potahto

Posted in Recipes, Side Dishes by

In the universe of unfairness, hovering right there near the top of the list is the fact that potato salad isn’t low in calories.

That injustice is right up there with the fact that I am only 5 feet, 2 inches, thereby being six inches too short for my weight; that Chip and Joanna Gaines aren’t going to do a total remodel of my house including, but not limited to, knocking down walls and installing a kitchen island and shiplap; that I don’t own a private jet that would take me on weekend excursions to Paris or Hawaii or to visit my grandchildren; or that I have 128 gigabytes of memory on my iPad Air, and not only will I never use that many gigabytes of memory, I don’t even know what a gigabyte is.

But potato salad. That’s the one that really hurts.

I mentioned yesterday that Bec made her delicious potato salad for Sunday’s Super Bowl party. It’s true that I had a spoonful of the potato salad with my burger. But anyone who has entertained a group of people – particularly if you’ve entertained a group of people after drinking two Bloody Mary’s – knows that you don’t really taste what you’re eating when you’re trying to figure out at the same time if there are enough brownies to feed everyone, and deciding to rely on the Jesus-And-The-Loaves-And-Fishes miracle.  That worked, by the way. The 9×9 pan of brownies not only fed everyone who wanted one, but there were 12 baskets to spare. Well, actually, three small brownies. Bec, by the way, also made the brownies. I really didn’t do anything except call it my party.

Yesterday at lunchtime, I scooped me up a spoonful of the potato salad that I had dutifully packaged up for Bec to take home but forgot to send with her (I’m blaming the Bloody Marys, though by the time she left, all that was left of the Bloodys was a bit of tomato juice in the corner of my mouth and the smell of the celery and bacon on my breath). My first bite confirmed what I already suspected: the potato salad was sublime. Because as good as potato salad is the first day, the second day is even better. So one scoop soon became two, and with it came the sad realization that I wasn’t going to lose weight by eating the entire remaining potato salad, even inasmuch as I would certainly have been ABLE to eat the whole bowl. You’ve heard of the grapefruit diet and the leek soup diet and the vinegar diet. You’ve never heard of the potato salad diet. BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST, even in the minds of the most creative weight loss diet book authors.

Many years ago, I came across a recipe in a Bon Appetit magazine. I know. Like I actually ever read Bon Appetit. I must have been in the fancy waiting room of the place where I get my mammogram.  But, whatever. The recipe was for Roseanne Cash’s Potato Salad. Normally, I don’t think a potato salad recipe would catch my attention, as I think on the rare occasions that I ever made potato salad, I would have used my mother’s recipe. Mostly I think I let someone else bring the potato salad. But this one caught my eye because it contained diced-up dill pickles. Though this might not be an exceptionally rare ingredient for potato salad, in my world, it was. Because Mom’s potato salad had no pickles, dill or otherwise.

So I tore out the recipe, creating a big hole in the page where the next reader was about to learn the secret ingredient in Emeril Lagasse’s Banana Cream Pie.

Sometime (literally, several years) later, Bec was visiting us in Denver and had occasion to make potato salad. “I have a really good recipe,” she said. “Oh, I have a better recipe than yours,” I challenged her. “Nope, I’m sure mine is better,” she stated firmly, probably making a mental note to bring up my obstinance during the airing of grievances at our next Festivus celebration.

“Mine is from Roseanne Cash!” I said with great jubilation.

“Seriously?” she said. “So is mine.”

Further proof, don’t you know, that great minds think alike.

And just so that I don’t leave you all hanging, here is the recipe for potato salad….

potato-salad-2

Bec, Kris, and Roseanne Cash’s Potato Salad

Ingredients
3 lbs. red-skinned potatoes, unpeeled and cut into 1-in pieces
8 dill pickle spears, coarsely chopped
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
5 hardboiled eggs, peeled and chopped
¼ c. mayo
2 T. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

Process
Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain well and cool. Transfer potatoes to large bowl. Stir in dill pickles, celery, onion, eggs, mayo, and mustard. Season with salt and pepper.

Can (and frankly, SHOULD) be made a day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Let stand at room temperature one hour before serving.