So, last night my husband, our son, and I were out for dinner at a chain restaurant. We all ordered rib-eye steaks, and they were quite good.
About mid-meal, our waiter, who seemed to have a bit of an odd personality, asked us, “Are your meals exceptional?” Now, he’s probably been instructed to say something like that as part of a customer service effort (kind of like being welcomed enthusiastically as soon as you walk into your bank – and don’t get me started on that). We all sort of looked at each other with confusion. How do you answer that question?
I’m used to a waiter asking if everything is okay or if there’s anything we need during a meal. But exceptional? Hmmm.
So on the way home, I asked my husband, “So, was your meal exceptional?” No, he responded; pretty good, but not exceptional.
“Have you ever had a meal to which you would have answered yes to that question,” I asked him. He thought a bit, and said, yes, he probably had, but he couldn’t think where. When I pressed him, he finally admitted that his most obvious “exceptional” meal was a sausage pizza at his favorite Chicago pizzaria.
I have definitely had meals, or parts of meals, that I would consider to be exceptional. I had the good luck to travel with an expense account before I retired, and I definitely had some exceptional meals at expensive restaurants in big cities throughout the nation. Most included fish. I prepare seafood and fish, but not particularly well, I don’t think. But when you have a good piece of fish prepared simply with a delicious sauce, it is often exceptional.
But if you held my feet to the fire and asked me to think of something exceptional that I have eaten in a restaurant, it would most certainly be a dessert that I ate in Paris. I know that sounds pretentious, but it is simply the truth.
It was our last night before we came home from our three-month European adventure. For three months I had been eating wonderful German, Italian and French food, but I was ready to come home and have some good ol’ American food. I can’t even remember what our meal was that night (though I vaguely recall some kind of veal and a very good salad).
We had rarely ordered dessert during our travels, preferring instead to get a gelato a bit later in the evening. But that night we threw all caution to the wind, and ordered a chocolate dessert (with a name I no longer recall).
Oh. My. Goodness.
The plate was covered with a custardy cream, and on top sat a warm piece of chocolate cake. When you cut into it with your fork, out came a soft drizzle of chocolate syrup, floating into the custard. It was, undoubtedly, the most delicious dessert I have ever had, either prior to or since that trip. It was truly exceptional.
But, being in Paris, the waiter obviously didn’t ask, “Is your dessert exceptional?” You must be kidding. In Paris? In France? On the contrary, he just knew it was.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Mom's Ribs
“What did Mom make for dinner every night when we were little,” I recently asked one of my sisters.
Our mother cooked dinner most days of the every week, except when she and our father would eat dinner out. On those occasions, my siblings and I would eat TV dinners, or canned ravioli, or perhaps Beanie Weenies, if my older sister got involved in the cooking. Don’t feel sorry for us. We considered those kinds of meals to be treats. At least I did.
But every other night she prepared a meal that included some kind of meat, some kind of starch (generally potatoes), and some kind of vegetable. She wasn’t big on fresh vegetables, so we generally ate canned peas, corn or beans. Again, don’t feel sorry for us. My mother was a fabulous cook, and we thought the canned vegetables were delicious.
But back to the question I posed to my sister.
“Fried chicken, breaded pork chops, pot roast, meat loaf, things like that,” my sister recalled.
Being so dedicated to providing my father and their four kids with a nutritious and delicious meal every night, I wonder if she ever struggled to think of what to cook for dinner the way that I do. Probably.
I thought most of the meals she made were delicious; some, probably not so much. For me, breaded pork chops – which were my father’s personal favorite – didn’t thrill me. I ate them, because my mother was not the sort who would become a short-order cook because one of her children didn’t care for a meal.
But I was surprised to learn, during this same conversation with my sister, that she wasn’t a fan of my mother’s roasted spareribs and saurkraut. “When I would come home from school and ask Mom what was for dinner, and she would tell me it was spareribs and saurkraut, I would be very disappointed,” admitted my sister.
Not me. That was one of my favorite meals. Except that at some point during my youth, Mom decided to start putting apples in the saurkraut. I never enjoyed it quite as much after that. I would try to pick out the apple, but since the meal was cooked in the oven, the softened apples pretty much became part of the saurkraut. Oh well.
Mom was not big on recipes, unfortunately. She wrote down a few of her specific dishes, such as her cole slaw dressing and her gazpacho. But as for her regular main dishes, not many recipes. Sometimes I try to recreate her meals from memory, but mostly I go on the Internet or look at my cookbooks and see what I can find.
That’s what I did recently when I developed an overwhelming desire for these baked spareribs. And I found my recipe in a somewhat surprising place – one of my Lidia Bastianich cookbooks!
I would link to her recipe on her website, but it’s not on her website, so I will simply tell you that the recipe comes from Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, copyright 2002.
Spare Ribs Roasted with Vinegar and Red Pepper
6 servings
1 rack (about 3-1/2 pounds) pork spare ribs
Sea or kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
12 cloves garlic, peeled
4 fresh or dried bay leaves
1 cup (or as needed) canned chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 to 2 teaspoons crushed hot red pepper
Cut the rack of spare ribs between the bones into single ribs. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Pat the spare ribs dry and season them with salt and pepper. Toss them in a roasting pan into which they fit comfortably with the olive oil, garlic, and by leaves. Pour in the broth and roast, turning occasionally, until the liquid is almost completely evaporated and the ribs are golden brown, 45 minutes to an hour.
Meanwhile, stir the wine, vinegar, honey, and crushed red pepper together in a small bowl until the honey is dissolved.
Brush all sides of the ribs with some of the vinegar glaze, then pour the remaining glaze into the roasting pan. Continue baking, turning every few minutes, until the glaze is syrupy and the ribs are mahogany brown and sticky to the touch, about 30 minutes. Spoon off as much of the fat as you like before serving the ribs.
I used a rack of baby back ribs instead of pork ribs since they seem more manageable, and I was cooking only for my husband and me. It took the whole hour before the liquid came close to being evaporated. And I’m not sure my ribs were ever sticky to the touch, but they did turn a lovely golden brown.
I served the ribs with saurkraut (sans apples), mashed potatoes, and corn. I, of course, mixed all of these courses together on my plate and had one big delicious supper. The meat came off the bones easily, and the flavors went terrifically with the saurkraut.
Here’s to you, Mom!
Our mother cooked dinner most days of the every week, except when she and our father would eat dinner out. On those occasions, my siblings and I would eat TV dinners, or canned ravioli, or perhaps Beanie Weenies, if my older sister got involved in the cooking. Don’t feel sorry for us. We considered those kinds of meals to be treats. At least I did.
But every other night she prepared a meal that included some kind of meat, some kind of starch (generally potatoes), and some kind of vegetable. She wasn’t big on fresh vegetables, so we generally ate canned peas, corn or beans. Again, don’t feel sorry for us. My mother was a fabulous cook, and we thought the canned vegetables were delicious.
But back to the question I posed to my sister.
“Fried chicken, breaded pork chops, pot roast, meat loaf, things like that,” my sister recalled.
Being so dedicated to providing my father and their four kids with a nutritious and delicious meal every night, I wonder if she ever struggled to think of what to cook for dinner the way that I do. Probably.
I thought most of the meals she made were delicious; some, probably not so much. For me, breaded pork chops – which were my father’s personal favorite – didn’t thrill me. I ate them, because my mother was not the sort who would become a short-order cook because one of her children didn’t care for a meal.
But I was surprised to learn, during this same conversation with my sister, that she wasn’t a fan of my mother’s roasted spareribs and saurkraut. “When I would come home from school and ask Mom what was for dinner, and she would tell me it was spareribs and saurkraut, I would be very disappointed,” admitted my sister.
Not me. That was one of my favorite meals. Except that at some point during my youth, Mom decided to start putting apples in the saurkraut. I never enjoyed it quite as much after that. I would try to pick out the apple, but since the meal was cooked in the oven, the softened apples pretty much became part of the saurkraut. Oh well.
Mom was not big on recipes, unfortunately. She wrote down a few of her specific dishes, such as her cole slaw dressing and her gazpacho. But as for her regular main dishes, not many recipes. Sometimes I try to recreate her meals from memory, but mostly I go on the Internet or look at my cookbooks and see what I can find.
That’s what I did recently when I developed an overwhelming desire for these baked spareribs. And I found my recipe in a somewhat surprising place – one of my Lidia Bastianich cookbooks!
I would link to her recipe on her website, but it’s not on her website, so I will simply tell you that the recipe comes from Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen, copyright 2002.
Spare Ribs Roasted with Vinegar and Red Pepper
6 servings
1 rack (about 3-1/2 pounds) pork spare ribs
Sea or kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/3 c. extra-virgin olive oil
12 cloves garlic, peeled
4 fresh or dried bay leaves
1 cup (or as needed) canned chicken broth
1 cup dry white wine
½ cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons honey
1 to 2 teaspoons crushed hot red pepper
Cut the rack of spare ribs between the bones into single ribs. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Pat the spare ribs dry and season them with salt and pepper. Toss them in a roasting pan into which they fit comfortably with the olive oil, garlic, and by leaves. Pour in the broth and roast, turning occasionally, until the liquid is almost completely evaporated and the ribs are golden brown, 45 minutes to an hour.
Meanwhile, stir the wine, vinegar, honey, and crushed red pepper together in a small bowl until the honey is dissolved.
Brush all sides of the ribs with some of the vinegar glaze, then pour the remaining glaze into the roasting pan. Continue baking, turning every few minutes, until the glaze is syrupy and the ribs are mahogany brown and sticky to the touch, about 30 minutes. Spoon off as much of the fat as you like before serving the ribs.
I used a rack of baby back ribs instead of pork ribs since they seem more manageable, and I was cooking only for my husband and me. It took the whole hour before the liquid came close to being evaporated. And I’m not sure my ribs were ever sticky to the touch, but they did turn a lovely golden brown.
I served the ribs with saurkraut (sans apples), mashed potatoes, and corn. I, of course, mixed all of these courses together on my plate and had one big delicious supper. The meat came off the bones easily, and the flavors went terrifically with the saurkraut.Here’s to you, Mom!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Kitchen Essentials
I haven’t posted a blog entry for a while because we have been in Arizona, busily setting up the home we bought in Phoenix last March.
Setting up a new home has been an interesting experience for me. We have lived in our house in Denver since we were married 18 years ago. We have no intention of moving to Phoenix permanently, or even of becoming so-called snowbirds, any time soon. All but one of our children, and all but one of our grandchildren, are here, so here is where we want to be most of the time. Instead, our plan is to get out of Dodge when we see or hear about some bad weather coming. We will probably be in our Arizona house a few weeks at a time throughout the winter.
But, when we are there, we want it to feel like home. For me, that means being able to cook and eat at home. So I headed straight for the kitchen to begin my nesting.
My kitchen in Denver has everything I need. In fact, my family mocks me for some of the can’t-live-without appliances and accessories that I have purchased over the years. I don’t use the term lightly. Frankly, the mocking is often well deserved.
For example, do I really need that long, thin olive dish that I have used exactly never? What about the teeny-tiny propane torch to heat up the sugar on the top of the crème brulee that I have made once? Then there’s the food mill that I felt was a critical purchase because my beloved Lidia Bastianich uses it to make her red sauce. I used it once only to discover that it was an extreme pain in the you-know-what. Oh, and don’t forget those three crock pots which attract dust in my basement storage room.
Setting up this new kitchen, particularly since we are on a budget as we are now making a new house payment, has required that I think carefully about what sorts of things I really CAN’T live without to be a good cook as opposed to those things I THINK I can’t live without.
Here is the list of things that I have decided I can’t live without, in no particular order:
· One good chef’s knife
· A reasonably good paring knife
· One 10-12 inch cast iron skillet (to fry chicken and steaks) with lid
· One good 10-12 inch non-stick skillet (to cook everything else) with lid
· One decent sized saucepan with lid
· A Dutch oven that can be used on the stovetop and in the oven – preferably cast iron, and most preferably with enamel coating
· A coffee pot
· A toaster
· A cookie sheet
· 9 X 11 pan
· 8 X 8 pan
· Tongs
· A couple of wooden spoons
· A spatula
· Dining plates and utensils
· Steak knives
· A corkscrew
· A bottle opener
· A can opener
There’s probably more. My bigger point is that I certainly need far less than I think I do when I visit kitchen stores. After all, pioneer women probably cooked and baked using a cast iron pan and little else. This isn’t to say, however, that I have any intention of throwing away my electric waffle iron any time soon, despite the fact that I’m much more likely to breakfast at Village Inn than to fire up the waffle iron. And while I can’t currently afford to purchase a second one for my Phoenix home, you would truly have to pry my Kitchen Aid standup mixer out of my cold, dead fingers to take it from me.
Even though I never saw Ma use one on Little House on the Prairie.
Setting up a new home has been an interesting experience for me. We have lived in our house in Denver since we were married 18 years ago. We have no intention of moving to Phoenix permanently, or even of becoming so-called snowbirds, any time soon. All but one of our children, and all but one of our grandchildren, are here, so here is where we want to be most of the time. Instead, our plan is to get out of Dodge when we see or hear about some bad weather coming. We will probably be in our Arizona house a few weeks at a time throughout the winter.
But, when we are there, we want it to feel like home. For me, that means being able to cook and eat at home. So I headed straight for the kitchen to begin my nesting.
My kitchen in Denver has everything I need. In fact, my family mocks me for some of the can’t-live-without appliances and accessories that I have purchased over the years. I don’t use the term lightly. Frankly, the mocking is often well deserved.For example, do I really need that long, thin olive dish that I have used exactly never? What about the teeny-tiny propane torch to heat up the sugar on the top of the crème brulee that I have made once? Then there’s the food mill that I felt was a critical purchase because my beloved Lidia Bastianich uses it to make her red sauce. I used it once only to discover that it was an extreme pain in the you-know-what. Oh, and don’t forget those three crock pots which attract dust in my basement storage room.
Setting up this new kitchen, particularly since we are on a budget as we are now making a new house payment, has required that I think carefully about what sorts of things I really CAN’T live without to be a good cook as opposed to those things I THINK I can’t live without.
Here is the list of things that I have decided I can’t live without, in no particular order:
· One good chef’s knife
· A reasonably good paring knife
· One 10-12 inch cast iron skillet (to fry chicken and steaks) with lid
· One good 10-12 inch non-stick skillet (to cook everything else) with lid
· One decent sized saucepan with lid
· A Dutch oven that can be used on the stovetop and in the oven – preferably cast iron, and most preferably with enamel coating
· A coffee pot
· A toaster
· A cookie sheet
· 9 X 11 pan
· 8 X 8 pan
· Tongs
· A couple of wooden spoons
· A spatula
· Dining plates and utensils
· Steak knives
· A corkscrew
· A bottle opener
· A can opener
There’s probably more. My bigger point is that I certainly need far less than I think I do when I visit kitchen stores. After all, pioneer women probably cooked and baked using a cast iron pan and little else. This isn’t to say, however, that I have any intention of throwing away my electric waffle iron any time soon, despite the fact that I’m much more likely to breakfast at Village Inn than to fire up the waffle iron. And while I can’t currently afford to purchase a second one for my Phoenix home, you would truly have to pry my Kitchen Aid standup mixer out of my cold, dead fingers to take it from me.
Even though I never saw Ma use one on Little House on the Prairie.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, September 17, 2010
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…….
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…….
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
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 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.
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