Mom's Cook Books

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We're heading off to San Francisco on Friday. I had rather hoped to have my cook book project finished before we went, but it ain't gonna happen.

When my mom gave me her cook books 20-whatever years ago, I scanned them and made copies for the siblings. When I started the recipe website, it was one of the first things that went online. It's a great resource and I have a lot of fun going through the recipes and finding strange concoctions from years past. Only problem has been it's not searchable. The pages are all .jpg's with numerous recipes on them. The best I've been able to do is separate the recipes by category and then link the recipe title to the corresponding page.  Not very user-friendly because you need to scroll through the complete recipe index to find something, click on it, and then find it on the page.

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So... I've been busy cutting every recipe and making it its own .jpg and putting it on its own page, and tagging each page so - one day - they'll be better-organized and searchable.

There's only a bit over a thousand recipes...

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While it is definitely taking a lot of time, I must admit it's been a blast rolling down Memory Lane! I've been getting great ideas for future meals, ideas for work, and even found the perfect recipe for sister-in-law Joanna's birthday last week!

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But... a month after I started, I'm barely a third of the way through creating the pages... I'm making progress, but... not nearly fast enough to suit me. Patience is not one of my more readily-accessible virtues, so I'll dig deep and try to keep it all in perspective. Mom didn't collect them all overnight. I'm not going to get them all redone overnight.

The cover design was created by my father, the fireman. An artist, he was not, but he was a damned good cook in his own right. His veal cutlets with dirty potatoes were legendary, and his eggs fried in bacon grease until the edges were crispy... gastronomic heaven on earth.

Hopefully, the books will be completed by Easter... And y'all will be the first to know when it's done!

In the meantime, click on the link above and see what sort of things are in there... Dinner is only a click away!


Blushing Tomato Bread

I've been working on reworking my mom's cook books into something a bit more user-friendly.

The originals are two loose-leaf binders that she glued, taped, or otherwise affixed recipes she found in newspapers, magazines, from family, friends, along with many of her own hand-written creations. Over the years she added, subtracted, moved things around, crossed things out, made notes and comments... Things were spilled... They're real, working books with a lot of history.

I was always a bit curious why she gave me the books and not one of her four daughters but the answer was pretty much right there - four daughters. One recipe collection. She took the easy way out. She didn't have to choose which one of her girls got them.

The first thing I did when I got them was to scan them all and put them on discs for my siblings. I have the originals but everyone has a copy. And then when I started the recipe site, they went online, as well.

The problem with scanned images is they're not searchable. Some pages could have a dozen recipes on them but if you were to type in "chicken" in the search box, only the index would appear. And clicking on a specific recipe in the index brings up the page the recipe is on - you then have to find it on the scan.

My goal is to change that by taking every recipe and putting it on its own page and adding categories and tags. It's the perfect wintertime project.

I have already completed going through and creating the individual recipes. That was a long trip down Memory Lane! I actually went through every single recipe in the books. It gave me enough dinner and dessert ideas to last several years. Going through every recipe again and giving it its own page and tags shall take a bit longer, but as I said... it's the perfect wintertime project.

Mom baked a lot of bread and one recipe that caught my eye right off was for Blushing Tomato Bread.

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In true Mom-Fashion, I didn't have all of the ingredients and I only wanted one loaf, but that didn't stop me! First, I cut the recipe in half. I didn't have tomato juice so I used tomato sauce and a squirt of catsup. I added a bit of water to thin, and then added some garlic powder and black pepper along with the salt. I mixed it in the KitchenAid for about 8 minutes.  Voila!

I have to say, it was a pretty damned good loaf of bread. Nice crust and a really soft, fine-textured crumb. I could easily see this baked in loaf pans as a sandwich bread.

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So... off to toast some for breakfast... and then back to working on tags and pages and categories - and dinner ideas!

 

 


Goodbye, Cybil Shepherd

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We said goodbye to our little girl, this morning. A tearful, gut-wrenching goodbye.

We're not sure when Cybil Shepherd Dineen Martorano was born, but she adopted us on September 9, 2003. She was maybe a year old.

She had been picked up as a stray, was underweight, and we completely missed her the first time we walked through the Chester County SPCA. She was curled up in a ball in the back of her cage - shivering. The most pathetic thing you had ever seen in your life.

We brought her outside to a little meet-and-greet area they have. Victor had her on a leash and he sat on a bench. I sat on the curb directly across from them. She came over, laid her head in my lap, and that was that. We filled out the adoption papers and she came home.

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The next 11 1/2 years were full of fun and adventure. She traveled all over with us and was even Best Dog at our wedding. For 11 1/2 years she was an integral part of our lives. Spoiled rotten on the one hand, but the most gentle, loving, and giving dog on the planet.

Somehow, that scrawny runt we brought home that day got old. Well... her body got old. Mentally, she was still a puppy - and that was the most difficult part for us to deal with. She wanted to run in the snow, chase rabbits, and jump into the car to go for a ride, but her body just said no. We didn't notice much of a change, at first - heck, we don't run in the snow as fast as we used to, either - but we started catching on when she wasn't all that excited about going for a ride in the car. It had been just about her favorite thing to do and would get all wound up when you just mentioned the word car. It was getting more difficult for her to jump into the back seat and she was a smart dog.

We called her Parnelli Puppy because she was f-a-s-t. The dog could run like a banshee. As the years went on, she'd still get up speed, but it wasn't as fast and it wasn't sustained. I can totally relate. She was happy to watch the rabbits - and bark like hell at them - and save the running for romps in the front yard - or over to our neighbor, Neil, who would get down on the grass and wrestle with her. As I said, she was a smart dog.

And then, this past summer, Victor noticed a huge increase in her water intake. We took her to the Vet and found out she had renal failure and was running on about 25% of her kidneys. They prescribed a renal diet that she refused to eat. Our dog - the dog who would eat anything and everything - stopped eating. She was listless and lethargic. We though the time had come. So... the Vet said go ahead and cook for her. I worked in Nutrition and Dietetics. I wrote renal diets. We moved her bowls from the kitchen into the living room so she would have better - and safer - access to her food and water. It had the double bonus of giving Nonna more room to get by in her walker. Piece of cake.

For a month or so, it was. She ate everything I made. And then she stopped eating it, as well. Lazarus had risen from the grave only to slide back down, again. And, she had a noticeable limp, favoring her right hindquarter. Back to the Vet and not an overly-optimistic prognosis. I brought home some canned dog food from work - and she scarfed it up. She started getting feisty, again, started getting active, again. Started scooching us like she used to do. Lazarus had risen, yet, again.

Her kidneys seemed to level out, but her legs got worse. She started avoiding anything but carpeted floors because she would lose her balance. I have to tell you that it's actually kinda funny to see a dog just kinda plop over the first time you see it. It gets painful to see on a regular basis.

And then the day came when she couldn't get back up, yet she dragged herself outside to pee, because she refused to pee in the house. But she couldn't get herself back in over the threshold without help.

The Vet had told us that Cybil would let us know when it was time to go. And she told us, this morning. We were with her and held her as she went to sleep - to dream of chasing rabbits and burrowing in the snow.

There is a hole in my heart that cannot be described, yet, my heart is so full of the love she gave us for so many years.

Dammit, I miss you, Cybil Shepherd.

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Chicken in Puff Pastry

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I had chicken cutlets, I had bacon, I had puff pastry. I had dinner!

This was seriously a clean-out-the-refrigerator meal, tonight. Little pieces of this and that, combined into a pretty tasty dinner.

It started off with about 2/3 lb thin-sliced chicken breast. Next was 5 slices of bacon. Bacon and chicken are a natural combination. Add a bit of onion, garlic, bell pepper, and tomato, and it's a downright party.

I chopped up the bacon and threw it into a skillet. After it started cooking up a bit, I added the onions. The smell of bacon and onions cooking together is gastronomic heaven. Add a bit of garlic, and it is over the top perfection.

Into that went a bit of bell pepper and chopped tomato. Salt & pepper.

I cooked off the chicken breasts in the same skillet and let everything cool.

I had 2 sheets of puff pastry, so I cut them in half and centered about a half-cup of shredded cheese on three of the pieces. I next split the bacon mixture into thirds - one part on top of the cheese. Finally, the chicken. Since it was small cutlets, I just added two pieces per bundle. The last half of puff pastry I cut into thirds and just added it to the top of each. Waste not, want not...

I wrapped them up end-to end and crimped the sides with a fork. Then onto a sheetpan and into a 420° oven for 20 minutes.

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Some parsley buttered noodles - just a few - finished the plate.

None of us cleaned our plates. It was just too much! I really could have cut one in half. The good news is we have lunch for tomorrow.

It really was a fun dish and one that is rife with possibilities. I just have to try and remember portion size next time...


Gumbo and Hot Sauce

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I have to admit I really do lead a charmed life. I mean... How many people have a container of homemade gumbo given to them at work? Count me as being the one!

One of the fun things about my job is that I talk about food all day long. And bein' that I've now been there over 13 years, I've gotten to know some pretty fun people. I've seen people meet, get married, have kids, and send the kids off to school. Back in my little corner of the store, it's like a mini-version of Cheers.

What's fun are the folks I get to see on a regular basis. We catch up on the basics and talk inevitably falls back to what we've been cooking, lately.

One such conversation led to turkeys and turkey gumbo.

First time I ever had gumbo was in Uncle Sam's Yacht Club. It was pretty amazing that the US Navy could come up with a damned good gumbo that fed 5000 people. The secret, of course, was the Louisiana cooks on the boat weren't following an Armed Forced Recipe Card.

But fast-forward past gumbos made with my old roommate and former brother-in-law Tim Beech and bastardized versions made with so much filé powder that they couldn't be scraped from the pot, to Saturday afternoon...

In walk two of my more favorite customers - sans kids, but with a tupperware container of turkey gumbo they had made - along with a bottle of Sauce Boss Liquid Summer hot sauce!!

I was psyched! Really psyched!

We all know I love food. I especially love food that folks make from scratch - that they love making. And sharing! We had talked about the gumbo, and here it was - in my own little hands!

Sunday I baked a loaf of bread, and Sunday night, I cooked up some rice, heated the gumbo, and feasted! It was great. Every single drop.  Even Nonna licked her plate clean! It was rich, flavorful, lots of different flavors and textures... It made my Yankee heart smile.

And the hot sauce is really good, as well. it's made by a Guitar-playin' Gumbo-maker named Bill Wharton - The Sauce Boss. Heat, but with flavor. Unusual in a hot sauce. I can see a few different uses for this.

I don't have the recipe to share, but suffice to say, it was excellent.

Thanks for a great meal!


Lentil Soup

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When Providence hands you a ham bone, have Victor make Lentil Soup. Well... that's what I do. You, of course, need to find your own Victor to make your soup - or make it yourself.

I'm sorry... It's not that I don't share, it's just that timing and travel and all that can get in the way of things. You know how it is...

But we did have a most excellent ham bone and whilst I was working, Victor was simmering away...

I had frozen a loaf of the crusty bread I had made a few days ago just for this. And it was the perfect accompaniment.

Lentil Soup

  • 1 meaty ham bone
  • 4 quarts water
  • 3 cups lentils
  • 1 small onion, chopped
  • 3 stalks celery, diced
  • 3 carrots, diced
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • Tabasco
  • Salt and pepper

Chop and saute onion in soup pot.  When translucent, add water, bay leaves, and ham bone.  Bring to boil and then simmer, uncovered, about an hour or so.

Remove bone and let cool. Cut or pull meat from bone and set aside to add to soup.

Add lentils, carrots, and celery.  Cook about 20 minutes or until lentils and vegetables are tender. Add ham and simmer another 10 minutes, or so.

Add cayenne, Tabasco, and salt and pepper, to taste.

Serve with crusty bread and butter.

He used small lentils du puy but brown lentils will work just fine. Red or yellow lentils will fall apart, so, unless you want a stew, stick with a firmer lentil.

Leftovers are even better than the first time around...

 

 


Ham and Eggs

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Our first home-cooked breakfast of 2015 consisted of organic free-range eggs cooked in imported Irish butter, ham flown in from Oklahoma, and tater tots.

Yep. Tater tots. Or, rather, their non-national-brand store equivalent. I suppose I'm committing the ultimate in gastronomic faux pas, but... such is life. I didn't feel like frying potatoes.

This is the fun of eating at our house... Meals are an amalgamation of foods that work together because we say they do. It's a bit of no-rules cookery. Like spreading homemade blueberry peach jam and imported Sicilian blood orange marmalade on store-bought toasted wheat bread. It works. Well, in fact.

The star of the meal, of course, was the ham. And boy, did it taste good wrapped in toast and dipped in runny egg yolks. When all of those flavors and textures get together... well... it's one of life's ultimate joys. Simple things can bring the biggest smiles - and a belch, if you eat it too fast!

Breakfast really is one of my favorite meals - and it is probably the messiest meal to cook. For me, anyway... It takes lots of pans to do it up right, not to mention the accoutrements... It's also one of the most difficult to cook - as a cook. My time at the Old Post Office in Carnelian Bay on Tahoe's North Shore taught me that one. Cooks have one definition of what something like an over-easy egg is - but the general public has a totally different idea. And don't even get me started on bacon... There are just so many variables and so many personal ideas of what they all should be.

I quit that job on Mother's Day, 1976. After we closed. I stuck it out, although I really wanted to walk early in the day. I still remember it almost 39 years later. It was not pretty.

Almost 39 years later, I get to cook breakfast the way I want to - and to mix tater tots with organic eggs and imported-from-Oklahoma ham, if I want to.

It's fun being a rebel.

 

 

 


New Year Ham

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I've had city hams and country hams. Spiral cut and out of a can. Bone-in, bone-out, Virginia hams, Kentucky hams, and Honeybaked hams. Brown County Indiana hams, Niman Ranch hams, Cure 81 hams, and ham from Polyface Farm. Sliced hams, deli hams, hot hams, cold hams, picnic hams, deviled hams, ham salads, and just about every other kind of ham there is to consume.

Tonight, I had the perfect ham - and it came from Oklahoma. Yes, Oklahoma. Home of Robertson's Ham. So perfect, that I'm going to order one for Easter. And maybe my birthday.

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The ham was a gift from our friends, Ann & Julie.

Did I mention I liked it?!?

The flavor was unbelievably rich. It had the perfect texture, the perfect moistness. I didn't do a thing to it. Nothing.

I wrapped it in foil and placed it in a 325° oven for an hour and 15 minutes.

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It came out perfect. I know I've kinda overused that word, tonight, but...

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It really was.

I've never been a huge-huge fan of spiral cut hams. I've bought them for the convenience, because they can be easy to slice when they're cut right, but this really has made me see the light. The little extra effort in cutting is worth the immense flavor you get when the ham isn't dried out from being cut in advance. And, of course, when it's the perfect ham to begin with.

And I'm totally embarrassed about having canned green beans on the plate! Really... I thought I had broccoli in the 'fridge. I forgot I used it. I buy canned vegetables for Nonna because she doesn't like her vegetables to have any crunch.

Oh well... At least the mashed sweet potatoes were fresh. Just added salt, pepper, and a pat of butter.

I'm going to go in and bone the rest of the ham and set the bone aside for Victor to make some Lentil Soup. I think it would be the perfect dinner for Saturday - along with that second loaf of bread I baked, today!

Ann & Julie... Thank you, thank you, thank you!  You've just made the holidays easier for years to come!

 

 


Crusty Italian Bread

 

The New Year needs to start off right - and that means a fresh loaf - or two - of bread.

I love my fresh-baked bread. There really is nothing better for making a dinner complete. It amazes me a bit that - after all of the thousands of loaves of bread I have made in my lifetime - I still enjoy making it so much. But I do. I really do.

This particular dough needs to slow-rise in the refrigerator overnight, so make the dough before you go to bed and bake it the following day! The slow rise adds character to the bread by allowing the yeast and bacteria to develop flavor. There's also talk that slow-rising, as well as using sourdough starters, are beneficial to people with issues with commercial breads. I dunno, because I have no food allergies or intolerances, but, if ya do, you may want to look into it.

This is a really basic bread - flour, water, salt, and yeast - my favorite four ingredients. It's rather amazing how these same ingredients can be combined just slightly different, shaped differently, and have such dramatic differences in flavor, crust, and texture. It's one of the reasons I love bread-baking so much.

This really is an easy bread to make and the dough is easy to work.

The origin of this particular bread eludes me. I have a ton of recipes on my computer dating back to the early days of home-computing - most in .txt files. Some of them are transcribed from a cook book my old Tahoe roommate Steve Johnson and I were once trying to write. It was the "Scraped off the Wall Cook Book" and the original files were lost in a computer crash in the early '90s. While some of the recipes survived, I've never been able to get up the energy to start it, again. This could be one of them. Or not.

Crusty Italian Bread

Makes two 14-inch loaves

  • 3 1/2 cups bread flour
  • 1 tsp active dry yeast
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • cornmeal

Combine the yeast and water in a mixing bowl and allow to proof. Add the salt and flour and mix, forming a somewhat smooth ball. Continue mixing about 5 minutes.

Turn the dough out onto the counter, knead by hand for a few seconds, shape into a ball, and transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, turn it to completely coat with the oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 30 minutes, then refrigerate for 24 hours. The dough will double in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to bake, return the dough to room temperature.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter. Cut it into 2 equal pieces and shape each into a ball. Cover with a towel and let rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven with a baking stone in it to 450°F.

Pat 1 ball of dough into a rectangle about 4" x 5". Fold in half, sealing the dough with your palm. Spin, and fold in half, again, also sealing with your palm.

Fold the resulting piece in half, again, sealing the edges with your fingertips. Roll into a 14-inch-long cylinder with slightly tapering ends.

Place on peel that has been liberally sprinkled with cornmeal.

Repeat with the remaining ball of dough.

Cover with a towel and set aside to rise at room temperature for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Make three diagonal slashes with a very sharp knife. Sprinkle lightly with flour and slide onto the baking stone.

Lower the oven temperature to 425°F.

Bake the bread for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and crisp, misting with water from a spray bottle 3 times during the first 10 minutes.

Cool the bread on a rack and serve at room temperature.

Eat one loaf tonight and freeze the other for another time when you want a quick loaf. Reheat in the oven - wrapped in foil - about 10 minutes at 350°F.

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Edited to add...

WOW! This is one crusty and light loaf of bread! The slow-rise - along with the misting in the oven - gave it a great crust and texture. I'll be making this one, again, for sure!