A Full House

My father is coming East for a visit this coming weekend!  A Friday-to-Monday hit-and-run visit, but since he's pushing 84, I'll cut him some slack!  He's been back east before - my parents did a lot of travelling back in the day - but it's his first visit here since we moved from San Francisco back in 2001.

My sister Eileen and her best friend Renee are flying back with him, and  Renee's daughter Samantha will be driving up from Maryland where she's a nurse at Johns Hopkins.  A dual family reunion!  It's going to be one big slumber party weekend!

Saturday afternoon we're going to have a BBQ, inviting Victor's family and a few friends.  About 20 folks.  A small, intimate gathering! :)

I'm working on the menu...  I've already made homemade chicken chipotle sausages, and will pick up a couple of chickens Wednesday at the Farmers Market to start soaking in buttermilk.  Cold fried buttermilk chicken is definitely on the menu, too - along with a couple of London Broils in a Pumpkin Butter and Steak Sauce marinade... Simple, yet tasty!

And, of course, lots of homemade potato salad, pasta salad, and whatever else I can dream up between now and Saturday afternoon. (I always panic about not having enough food - as if.....)  And we're going to have Pineapple Cream Pies for dessert.  My mom made the best pies and this was a favorite of my dads (and me!!!)

So...  I'll keep ya posted on what's what - and I'll post some pictures after everyone leaves!


I Got The Cook Books

Mom And Her Girls

In redoing the recipe website and blog, I had to completely redo my Mom's cookbook pages.  While most of the site had been updated at one time or another, I have resisted doing Mom's cook books because, well... it's a real pain in the butt.  I have had to retype every single recipe title, and manually link every one to its page in the book.  There are hundreds upon hundreds of pages - and even more recipes.  But it will have been worth the trouble when I'm finished

My Mom was a great cook.  She really enjoyed being in the kitchen and creating fun dishes.  No small feat for a woman with six kids to feed every night!  And she was innovative.  She could look at a recipe, figure out what she had on hand, and rework it to fit what she had - or what she liked.  Dinner was always an adventure in our house.

And Desserts.  We had dessert virtually every night.  She also loved to bake, make fudge, whatever... Dessert was important - and I still have dessert every night!

Re-typing all of those recipe titles has really sent me spinning down Memory Lane!  How I remember her Chinese Casserole and fabulous soups and stews. And her Pineapple Meringue Pie...  My version of "comfort food" is decidely different than the boxed Mac and Cheese of so many people.  Mom made REAL Macaroni and Cheese - from scratch - with whatever pieces of cheese she had leftover in the 'fridge.  It was just the best.

It was great growing up in San Francisco, because we had access to so many different ethnic cuisines.  I was weaned on exotic-spiced foods and it definitely paved the way for my culinary journey through life.  there is nothing I won't try - and very few things I don't like.

Mom gave me her cookbooks a few years before she passed away.  She also had 4 daughters, but she knew I was the one who would appreciate them the most (that, and the fact that we have no kids meant they might stay intact for another generation to enjoy!)  I scanned the books immediately, and gave a copy to all my siblings - and then posted it on the web.

10+ years have taken their toll on the tables and layouts of the original compilation.  Within a few days I should have new, neat and clean links to everything!

And in the meantime, I'm copying down recipes and page numbers because there are an awful lot of recipes I want to revisit really soon!


Posole

Wild Rice In a recent issue of Smithsonian magazine, I spied an article about Native Harvest and the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota. They spoke of having real Wild Rice - actually wild and collected by canoe (not cultivated as with wild rice sold in the stores.) Intrigued, I went to the website. What fun for a foodophile! Real, natural, minimally processed food! I ordered a couple of pounds of wild rice - and a couple of bags of hominy.

Hominy is not something I grew up with in San Francisco. Other than hominy grits when I was in the Navy, it just wasn't part of my dietary routine. But my grocery store treks and natural curiosity about food found me buying dried hominy every once in a while - and then wondering what to do with it!

Posole has been the usual dish - it's a stew of sorts, usually made with pork and peppers, simmered for hours and just plain ol' good. The native harvest hominy looked interesting - and am I glad I bought some!

It is probably the closest thing our ancestors had when they arrived here many moons ago! Just flat-out great!

So... I made Posole.

I didn't follow a recipe, I just threw things into the pot. I simmered some pork for a couple of hours until it was fall-off-the-bone tender. I added onions, peppers, garlic, tomatoes... LOTS of chipotle powder and other chili powders from the cabinet, salt and pepper, and a bit of cloves. I then added the cooked hominy, and let it simmer even longer.

What a treat.


Mommie Dearest

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Okay - a strange title for a foodblog, but I could really use a mommy hug right now. It's been one hellava summer. Victor's surgery, my wisdom tooth, then - and I'm sure it was from the pain meds and a complete change in diet for me - I was in and out of the hospital most of the week with bleeding intestines.I have no food restrictions, I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. I just have to stay away from NSAIDS - pain meds that are blood thinners. I didn't. My bad.

And then, to make a bad summer worse, my Unkie Dick passed away this morning. Only 77. Besides being just a fantastic and wonderful guy, he was also my very last uncle. I'm not ready to be the oldest generation. A mommy hug would be good right now.

But... Since mom is with Unkie Dick, I had to do the next best thing - make a dessert like she would have made.

My mother was queen of desserts. We had dessert virtually every night - and with six kids in the family, that was quite a feat. She could whip up something in a heartbeat, from scratch cookies to pineapple cream pie - or her most excellent fudge. And, as a modern housewife, she always had cake mixes in the cupboard. But a plain ol' cakemix cake was not mom's style. She had to doctor them up, create something new and wonderful. In short, experiment and have fun.

She had a Duncan Hines recipe pamphlet that she gave me with her cookbooks - and needing a mommy-recipe, I pulled it out tonight. Glancing through the recipes, I found a perfect "Mommy Dessert" - Buttery Cranberry Cobbler.

  • 1 pkg Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Butter Recipe Golden Cake Mix, divided (I used America's Choice yellow cake. Better ingredients)
  • 1 cup quick cooking oats (I used old fashioned, I never have quick cooking in the house)
  • 3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened and divided (I used butter)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 1 can (16oz) whole berry cranberry sauce

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch pan.

2. For topping, combine 1/2 cup dry cake mix, oats, and 1/4 cup butter in medium bowl with fork until crumbly. Set aside. (I added 1/2 cup walnuts - mom always improvised!)

3. For base, cut together remaining dry cake mix and remaining 1/2 cup butter with fork until crumbly. Stir in eggs and water until mixture is moistened. Spread on bottom of pan. (I used the mixer. Mom never followed directions, either.)

4. Stir cranberry sauce until smooth. Spread over batter in pan. Sprinkle with topping. bake at 375F for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes before serving.

I cut the dessert into 8 pieces - in honor of the 8 of us who used to sit around that table every night - and actually juuust a tad more generous than mommy used to be. It came out great! In fact, I may just have to go back for seconds.

It was the perfect mommy-hug. Thanks, mom.


Pumpkin Polenta and Perfect Pork

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We were at the Dr's office last week for a check-up on Victor's foot surgery and I came upon a magazine entitled Today's Diet and Nutrition. I'm usually game for a food-type magazine and hadn't seen this particular mag before, so I started perusing...

Opening the magazine at random, I immediately found a recipe for Maple Pumpkin Polenta! OMG! Three of my most favorite flavors in one recipe! I decided I had to try it! And am I glad I did!

Maple Pumpkin Polenta

  • 5 cups water
  • 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 1/4 cup coarse ground cornmeal
  • 1 cup pumpkin (canned, fresh-cooked, whatever)
  • 3 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 cup grated parigiano-reggiano or grana padana
  • 1 tbsp butter

Bring the water to a boil in a medium sized saucepan. Add the salt and olive oil, reduce heat to simmer, and gradually whisk in the cornmeal a small amount at a time to prevent clumping.

Cook the polenta, stirring often until it is tender and pulls away from the sides of the pan, about 25 minutes.

Stir in the pumpkin puree, maple syrup, and cayenne. Cook another minute or two, remove from heat, and stir in the cheese and butter. Adjust seasoning with salt, if necessary.

Serve warm.

It was so good!

Of course, I couldn't just serve polenta for dinner, so I stated thinking about what would go good with it - and decided a pork loin would fit the bill. I had already been shopping (What?!? Plan dinner BEFORE you go to the store?!?) and completely lucked out having ingredients to make a Pork with Leeks and Mushrooms from Bon Appetit.

Roast Pork Loin with Shiitake and Leek Compote

  • 1 large leek (white and pale green parts only)
  • a 1-pound center-cut boneless pork loin
  • 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon chopped fresh parsley leaves
  • 1 teaspoon unsalted butter or olive oil
  • 1/2 pound fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded and caps cut into 1/2-inch slices
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup dry red wine
  • 1/2 cup beef broth

Garnish: fresh parsley sprigs

Cut leek crosswise into 1/2-inch slices and in a bowl soak in water to cover, agitating occasionally to dislodge any sand, 5 minutes. Lift leek out of water and drain in a colander.
Trim any fat from pork. Season pork with salt and pepper and pat with 1 tablespoon chopped parsley. In a 10-inch oven-proof non-stick or cast-iron skillet heat butter or oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and brown pork loin, turning it. Transfer pork to a plate.

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In fat remaining in skillet cook mushrooms and leek with salt over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until liquid mushrooms give off is evaporated, about 5 minutes. Add wine and broth and bring to a boil. Put pork on vegetables in skillet and roast in middle of oven 40 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted in center of pork registers 160°F.

Transfer pork to a cutting board and let stand 10 minutes. If vegetable compote is too liquid, cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until almost all liquid is evaporated. Stir remaining teaspoon chopped parsley into compote.

I didn't have shitakes, but I had baby bella's and some mixed wild mushrooms that worked just great. I also added some asparagus to the roasting pot midway through the cooking process just for fun.

Definitely a keeper.

I usually make my polenta with non-fat milk - I just like it that way - and next time I make this, I probably will use it. I also think I might add juuuuust a tiny tad bit of chipotle powder instead of the cayenne. Who knows.

But I do know that I'll be making this again!

And I subscribed to the magazine!