Flaky Goodness

When we were in France a few years ago, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, the exquisite wines, and the relaxed enjoy-life atmosphere we observed. But probably more than anything, we loved the food.

Who wouldn’t? It’s absolutely delicious, no question about it. The cheeses are magnificent. The bread is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The butter is sweet and creamy on your tongue. The pastries are awesome.

One day, we ate petit dejeuner (in the US of A, we call that continental breakfast) at a café near our hotel. Our breakfast consisted of café au lait, orange juice, and a yummy croissant. Following breakfast, we began looking at the sights of the beautiful city on foot. We seriously were a half block away, and my husband’s nose began to twitch. He smelled chocolate.

Sure enough, we came across a patisserie that had pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) fresh out of the oven. He requested one (despite the fact that we had eaten breakfast only minutes before). They carefully placed the croissant in a pretty bag and playfully twirled the corners of the bag, making a beautiful package, which my husband, of course, ripped open immediately upon leaving the shop. He doesn’t appreciate artistry when it is between him and chocolate.

To this day, he still talks about taking that first bite of the croissant, so fresh that it poofed in his mouth and crumbs fell on his shirt. His mouth filled with buttery bread and rich chocolate.

Well, I can’t compete, of course, and don’t even try. Have you ever seen a recipe for croissants? Maybe some day when I have lots of time and little to do. Not today or tomorrow, I’m afraid.

But once in a while I get a hankering for a pastry. Thankfully, I came across a recipe by, believe it or not, Ina Garten, aka the Barefoot Contessa) for easy Danish pastries. I say “believe it or not” because I think the Contessa rarely offers easy recipes, despite her constant pronouncement of “how easy was that?” I always yell back to the television, “Not that damn easy, Ina!”

Her recipe calls for frozen puff pastry, possibly the best invention of all time (well, the printing press might be better, but printed word is becoming old school technology, and puff pastry never will!). You simply thaw out the pastry (which you can do in about 20 minutes), roll it to a 10 by 10 square, cut the square in quarters, and plop on a scoop of pie filling (I like blueberry). Her recipe is for cheese Danish, which is more complicated. I like the sweetness of fruit fillings. You then fold the pastry over the fruit filling and seal, using beaten egg as your glue. Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Come to think of it, adding cheese to the blueberry filling would make it twice as good.

Road trip!

I’m not a big fan of flying, though I admit it is the most efficient way to get where you’re going, particularly if it’s more than eight hours away. But anyone who flies in this day and age knows that flying is no piece of cake. Small containers of liquids in clear plastic bags, no water or food brought into the airport, removing shoes, belts, jewelry, cell phones, etc. from your person to go through security, with fingers crossed that you don’t set off the alarms anyway. And then, of course, my personal constant concern that the plane will plummet at any moment.

On the other hand, there is almost nothing I like better than getting from Point A to Point B via a car on a highway. While as a kid I used to hate our vacation drives from Nebraska to Colorado, now I love packing up the car with our luggage and a pile of mandatory junk food, loading a trashy audio book into the CD player, and hitting the road.

My husband and I used to do road trips on small two-lane highways, but we’re not as likely to do that anymore. But we will nearly always choose to drive to visit his mother’s house in Chicago or to our second home in Phoenix, since we can stay on an interstate highway the entire time. We split the drives into two days, and find it quite enjoyable.

Some day I would like to drive across the entire country on I-80. It starts in San Francisco, and ends somewhere in New Jersey. My experience with it, however, is only between Cheyenne and Chicago. Even so, there are opportunities to see military museums, pioneer villages, Amish-like communities, trucking museums, aviation museums, Indian villages, and on and on and on. On a recent trip to Chicago, we did, for example, stop and wander around what is purported to be (and I have no reason to disbelieve) the world’s largest truck stop. The Iowa 80 Truck Stop, located in Walcott, Iowa, just outside of Iowa City, is massive. The photo shows that the shopping area (which is just a small part of the entire complex) holds a semi-trailer truck. In fact, there are a total of three semis in the facility, with plenty of room for the rest of the essentials, such as Christian books, CDs, DVDs, car parts, naked women decals, etc.

One of the things I like best about road trips is eating the local foods. Every state has its own specialties. One of the most perplexing to me is (at the risk of offending any Iowans who happen to stumble upon this blog) the loose meat sandwich. I have given this sandwich several tries. I should like them. I simply don’t. To me, they taste as bland as, well, as loose meat sandwiches.

Ground beef, browned until it loses its red color, cooked with onions, served with mustard and pickles on a hamburger bun. No flavor. Sorry, my Iowa friends. Since, I, like Bill O’Reilly, am fair and balanced, here is a recipe so that you can try it yourself. Maid-Rite is the fast-food place where we have tried to like these local specialties.

Once you venture into Nebraska (my state of origin), you find the runza. On the road, these are primarily found at the cleverly-named Runza Hut. While I loved these as a child, my experience as of late is that they taste about the same as a loose meat sandwich. I blame it, however, on the bread.

Here is a recipe for homemade runzas that I have had since childhood:

One recipe yeast dough
½ lb. ground beef
3 c. chopped green cabbage
1 c. chopped onion
Salt and pepper

Prepare dough and let rise.

Brown ground beef for until it loses its red color; add onion and cabbage. Cover and cook until both are wilted, stirring often, about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Roll dough ¼ in. thick. Cut into squares. Place some of the meat filling on each square, and pinch corners together. Place upside down on greased baking sheet and let rise for 20 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

10 servings.

My recollection is that they are quite good. I think the key is the bread.

Now then, as you near Chicago, your local eating choices are much more pronounced, and much yummier. Pizza, Italian beef sandwiches, and hot dogs (they only call them Chicago-style hot dogs when you are not in Chicago), to name but a few. There are Dunkin Donuts about every three blocks, and locally-owned pizza joints everywhere you look. And here’s a point of note: Most people think of deep-dish pizza when they think of Chicago pizza. My husband, who hails since birth from the south side of Chicago, knows only thin-crust pizza. It might be a north side/south side thing. I don’t want to get in the middle of a turf battle, but I must say that the pizza from his neighborhood joint is, without question, the best I’ve ever eaten this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

On our way to Chicago, we stopped in a small town a ways east of Council Bluffs, Iowa, to get breakfast and use the facilities. We chose Subway, as it was just off the interstate. Located just behind the Subway restaurant was a small diner, long-since out of business. It made me sad to think of the passage of locally-owned dining establishments such as this. Instead of a breakfast sandwich that tasted pretty much like a breakfast sandwich from any fast-food place, we could have enjoyed homemade biscuits and gravy. Those were the traveling days.

Crock Pot Overstock

Yesterday afternoon, my new crock pot arrived by UPS. I was very happy. That brings my total up to three. The problem is, I rarely do crock pot cooking. Sigh.

To be fair, I brought one of the crock pots into my marriage. My first marriage. That means it’s older than 1977. It still works just fine, despite its orange and brown pre-disco era appearance. That’s, of course, because I rarely use it.

Then, sometime in the last couple of years, I decided I needed to get a newer, fancier crock pot to sit unused in my pantry. That one has an automatic shut off, and a cool, stainless steel exterior. The problem is, it’s large enough to cook a meal for an entire New England township. My husband and I hardly qualify.

So, I got on Amazon the other day and ordered a three-and-a-half quart crock pot – the perfect size to cook a meal for my husband and me. Which, of course, I won’t. At least not very often.

Perhaps part of the problem is I like getting deliveries. Remember the movie The Music Man? "Oh ho the Wells Fargo wagon is a'comin' down the street, oh please let it be for me!"

I think crock pots are wonderful. That’s why I own three of them. I especially think they are an excellent tool for working families. Coming home from work and having dinner mostly ready is awesome. Throw some biscuits in the oven, and you’re good to go.

And what can I say about those wonderful slow cooker liners that they now sell? Now you don’t even have to spend a lot of time scrubbing out that crock pot. They should have thought of that a long time ago.

I must confess that I didn’t use the crock pot(s) much even when I was working. The reason? My husband, who works from a home office, didn’t like the smell of a pot roast cooking all day long. By the time I got home, he was so sick of the smell that he didn’t even want to eat the crock pot’s contents. I can see his point. Coming home to the smell of a pot roast tender enough to cut with a fork nestled amidst carrots, celery and potatoes is one thing. Smelling it all day is another.

Now, however, I take my granddaughter to piano lessons every Thursday from 5 to 5:45 p.m. Since I don’t get home until almost 6:30, the crock pot is coming in handy. Since I am home most of the day, I can turn it on in the afternoon on high, and my husband doesn’t have to smell cooking meat all day long – only for a few hours. So I can come home after delivering my granddaughter to her mother and father and not have to worry about fixing dinner. And the size is simply perfect for the two of us.

I wonder if they make them smaller. Perhaps I should check Amazon…….

Recipe Madness

Every week when I make my grocery list, I give a passing glance at all of my cookbooks, and then proceed to plan on making the same things that I make every week. I really think I’m the least creative cook on the planet.

The thing is, I have nearly 75 cookbooks on the two bookshelves I have in my kitchen. In addition to my cookbooks, I subscribe to a monthly cooking magazine, all copies of which I keep on a bookshelf in my bedroom rather than throwing them away. As if this isn’t enough, I have electronic recipe boxes on allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com, both which are full of recipes. And whenever a new and interesting cookbook is published, I get it from the library. I think I’ve got a mental illness!

I love cookbooks. I can sit literally for hours and peruse a cookbook. I was positively giddy with happiness when my mother-in-law offered me her old Joy of Cooking last time we visited her. Joy of Cooking tells you how to do EVERYTHING. In addition to telling you how to clean a fish and cut up a chicken, it explains how to prepare wildfowl, from plucking it of its feathers to hanging it up to tenderize. Here is an actual excerpt from Joy of Cooking:

…(P)roper care immediately after shooting determines the ultimate excellence of flavor in wild birds. While the bird is still warm the neck is split and the carcass bled. To keep the blood for use in sauces, see 339. Check the neck for any undigested food and remove it.

Some birds ….. are cooked with the trail still inside, see 440. Although quail and a few other smaller birds should be plucked, drawn and cooked within 24 hours of killing, it is important in general not to pluck or draw any wildfowl until you are ready to cook it, since the added surface exposure of the carcass to air will induce spoilage….. .

To tenderize and improve flavor, it is advisable to hang many wild birds…. . How long to hang depends first on age….. A second consideration is the weather. In muggy periods, ripening is accelerated…..However long birds are to be hung, suspend them, undrawn, by the feet in a cool, dry, airy place.

I doubled-checked our homeowners’ association guidelines, and found nothing that prohibits me from cutting and hanging wild game from the patio overhang in my backyard. That’s good to know in case my husband suddenly decides he wants to serve wild turkey for Thanksgiving this year.

But I digress. My point is, with so many cookbooks, so many recipes, so many options to make interesting and imaginative things, shame on me for serving baked chicken thighs with olive oil and lemon juice almost weekly.

So I have made a resolution. Starting immediately, I will serve at least one meal from one of my recipe sources each week. I will choose a different source each time.

Last night I prepared Shrimp and Chorizo Stew from the Food Network Magazine, and it was absolutely scrumptious. I cut the recipe in half, and cooked it in my little 2-1/2 quart cast iron Dutch oven that I bought at IKEA last time we were in Phoenix.

My husband, (who, whenever I ask him what he would like to have for dinner, will always request some sort of a sandwich – ugh) seemed to enjoy every bite.

I will not, however, dress a deer in my back yard, no matter what.

The Pear Necessities

Awhile back, I committed to using the produce that my backyard is yielding. I seem, unfortunately, to have lost control of it. My pear tree in particular seems to be producing more pears just as quickly as I pick the existing pears.

Perhaps that’s just my imagination. I spent one full afternoon a week-and-a-half ago picking all the pears that were within my reach. I had one of those long pickers that is supposed to enable me to reach the pears at the very top of the tree. No such luck. I was able to get most of the pears that were ready to be picked on about the bottom three-fourths of the tree. There, looming at the very top, are pears practically sticking their tongues out at me that I will never be able to reach. A feast for the squirrels, though, as I noted, they seem to take one bite and commence to throw them onto the ground beneath the tree. Little devils.

Oh well. Considering that I have lived in this house for 18 years and have never harvested one single pear, I should be happy with the ones I picked.

At any rate, I did as the websites instructed. I placed them in two boxes and put them in my cool basement to ripen, and promptly forgot about them. However, this morning I bolted up in bed and cried, “Eureka!” Well, I didn’t actually do that, as it would probably have given my husband a heart attack, but I did remember that there were two boxes of pears sitting in my basement.

I went downstairs and carefully peeked into the box. Just as I had been promised, the pears had ripened. Well, most had ripened. A few had totally rotted, and a few hadn’t done much of anything. But most were a golden color with specks of brown, and just gave a bit to my touch.

So this afternoon I spent several hours making Caramel Spice Pear Butter using a recipe that I found in my home canning magazine. You core seven pounds of pears, dice them into pieces, add water and cook the bejesus out of them. In the meantime, you magically turn sugar into caramel.

Seriously, it does seem sort of magical. As I stirred and stirred, before my very eyes, a cup-and-a-half of plain white sugar turned into deep, rich caramel. Yum.

Using my food processor (what did I ever do without it?), I pulverized the cooked pears, and then added the caramel to them, along with cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. I let the mixture cook until it was a thick, gooey pot of deliciousness, and then I filled eight jelly jars with the pear butter, and set them in some boiling water to process.

Keeping with the pear’s history of apparently reproducing right before my very eyes, it almost appeared that I hadn’t made a dent in the pot. There was still so much pear butter remaining. So I filled up two more jars and a plastic container. Those I didn’t process, so I will have to share the excess with my friends, family, and neighbors.

The taste? Well, just imagine the sweetness of pears coupled with the rich creaminess of caramel, and add a touch of spiciness from the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Sheer yumminess that will grace my toast tomorrow (and many tomorrows after that.

Next up -- the apples!

Friday Night Bites

When I was working full time, Friday nights were the night that my husband and I inevitably went out to dinner. Even if I cooked every other meal at home during the week, we looked forward to celebrating the end of the work week by eating dinner someplace where I didn’t have to cook and he didn’t have to wash dishes.

I don’t think this is particularly uncommon. I think many families – especially families where both adults work outside the home – dine out on Friday night. I can tell by the number of often-naughty children that are present at our neighborhood Italian restaurant on Friday nights. The parents, fortified by a glass of red wine or a cold bottle of beer, frantically attempt to keep their little peanuts busy until the pizza and garlic knots blessedly appear at the table.

Growing up, my family didn’t go out for dinner on Friday night. There were probably a variety of reasons for this, but being Catholic was not the least among the reasons. Until the mid-1960s (upon the conclusion of the second Vatican Council) American Catholics were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays. Even after 1965, you couldn’t eat meat on Fridays during Lent. And what was the point of going out to dinner if you couldn’t eat a steak or fried chicken? Or so my father thought.

Nowadays eating seafood is a pleasure. Salmon on a cedar plank, or grilled tilapia with lime juice, or steamed mussels are a yummy treat. But in Nebraska in the 50s, there was no fresh salmon or mussels, and who had ever heard of tilapia? Instead, my mother made salmon loaf out of saltines and canned salmon, or opened up a package of frozen fish sticks, or made the predictable tuna noodle casserole every Friday night.

But here’s the kicker: On Friday nights, near midnight, my mom would heat up her best cast-iron skillet and make my dad a fried t-bone steak. Nearly every Saturday morning at about 12:02, my dad was munching on a sizzling hot steak covered in A-1. Even the Pope couldn’t point any fingers.

Now that I’m retired, I no longer have a desire to eat dinner out on Friday nights. Restaurants are too busy and noisy. Instead, nearly every Friday I get out my best cast-iron skillet and fry my husband and I a yummy steak, ala mama-in-the-50s. Maybe not a t-bone, but more likely a New York strip or a boneless rib-eye. While I like to gnaw on a bone, I think boneless works better in a fry pan. There is something about a steak that is heavily seasoned with salt and pepper and then fried at a very high temperature until it’s crusty on the outside and pink on the inside. I serve it with a salad covered in homemade bleu cheese dressing and vinaigrette, pour a glass of red wine, and call it a feast.

Sonofagun, we'll have big fun

This past weekend, my sister and I threw a grand party for our sons, both of whom turned 30 within a month of each other. A monumental birthday for the both of them.

And speaking of 30, there were 30-some people in my backyard, enjoying beautiful weather and each other’s company. And, of course, they were all waiting to be fed.

When my sister and I began discussing the party, and most importantly, what to feed 30-40 people, we considered Italian, we considered Mexican, and we considered good old-fashioned hamburgers and hot dogs. Suddenly, voila! I knew exactly what to make to celebrate this momentous stepping stone birthday most appropriately. A Cajun shrimp boil!

Eight years ago, my husband and I had a similar feast to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary, and it was tons of fun. Moreover, it is a relatively easy (though not inexpensive) way to feed lots of people. And it gets everyone involved. After all, what’s more fun than eating with your fingers?

I elected to only include shrimp in my seafood feast, though many seafood boils include crab and/or crawfish. I wanted to keep it relatively simple. And, though I love most all seafood, and shellfish in particular, I am not a big fan of crawfish. They look too much like scorpions to me.

My husband and our middle son did the cooking, which involves boiling layers of food in an appropriate order according to cooking time. Our feast included little red potatoes, kielbasa, corn on the cob, and, of course, shrimp. To spice things up, we cooked with onions, garlic, and Cajun spices. The spices gave excellent flavor and a wonderful kick to all of the tasty ingredients.

In all, it takes about a half hour to cook everything. We had a table waiting, covered in butcher paper. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite as delightful as looking on as all of the ingredients are literally dumped on top of the table in a crazy mixed-up jumble of spicy goodness.

No eating utensils need be used, though we offered forks for those not wanting to pick up the hot potatoes and sausage with their hands. Most ignored the utensils and dug in with their fingers. Everyone ate standing up – enhancing the shrimp with cocktail sauce and Old Bay seasoning, or drizzling hot sauce on top of the already-spicy kielbasa. Nice, ice-cold beer and pop to wash it all down.

Even the grandkids got into the thick of things, eagerly ripping the tails off the shrimp and gulping them down, followed by lemonade. How can you not love kielbasa and shrimp?

Our sons had a grand celebration as they enter this next decade of their lives.