Christmas Past

Every other year, my grandparents would come for Christmas. I went to school exactly one block away from my house. From school, you'd cross the street, walk to the end of the block and turn the corner. As I approached that corner I would be so excited hoping for a glimpse of their car parked in front of our house. Nana and I had a special Christmas ritual when she came; we'd make the bows for all the gifts. Since she and Grampy drove down from Cape Cod, they'd have wrapped the presents, but bows would have been smooshed on the journey. Nana and I would sit down with long strings of ribbon and she'd show me just how to make the first loop over my thumb, then each loop to the side growing in size until the bow was finished. We'd staple the middle and tape our handiwork to each gift. It was something special we always did, just the two of us. I didn't often cook with Nana. The treats at her house were usually made and waiting when I arrived, but I do remember making applesauce with her. Once you're old enough to be trusted around a stove, it's the perfect thing for a child to make, since other than the chopping and peeling, all the stirring, tasting and sweetening and spicing can be done by even the smallest of cooks. NANA'S APPLESAUCE

INGREDIENTS:
2 apples (although make as much as you want!!)
1 t lemon juice
1 T water
1 tsp sugar (although this you should change depending on how sweet your apples are and how you like your applesauce).
1/2 t cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
Peel, core and chop your apples (this is the job an adult needs to do). Put them in a saucepan on the stove. Add the lemon juice and water and let the apples cook down until they are soft and mushy. Add the sugar and cinnamon, I wrote you how I like it, but this is a perfect experiment for beginning chefs to try adding a bit more of each until it's how they enjoy it. You can serve it homestyle or make it smoother by putting it through a food mill or mashing it with a potato masher.

Why I Love My Husband

Growing up, I never was allowed to eat processed food. I wasn't even really aware of the whole "not allowed" part. We just didn't. It has often lead to cravings for things that I'm not actually even sure I like. Once in high school I wanted nothing but Spaghettios. For weeks, I was dying for Spaghettios. And then I had them, and they were SO gross. But tater tots? Tater tots are not gross. Tater tots are crispy balls of joy. And when we were first dating and I had a fabulous, talented repertoire of say, maybe, two whole dishes that I knew how to cook, we ate a lot of chicken nuggets and tater tots. They weren't regular chicken nuggets though, they were some special organic, all white meat, magically healthy chicken nuggets that I got from a health food store near where I lived. It's been years. (Fine, a freakin' decade!) But the other day, I decided that I really, really, really wanted to eat chicken nuggets and tater tots. And then I searched. And I could not find a single store bought nugget that I felt okay about. So I didn't buy any and I whined about it loudly and frequently. And this is why I love my husband. Because he made me, especially from scratch, without a single word, comment or expectation, homemade chicken nuggets. They are delicious. They might not fool a kid raised on the packaged (or fast food restaurant) ones, but they certainly were enough for me.


HOMEMADE NUGGETS

Ingredients:
2 boneless skinless breasts
1 t paprika
1/2 t red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
bread crumbs
egg

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Salt and pepper the chicken breasts generously. Cut the breasts in chicken nugget sized pieces. In a small bowl, whisk an egg. Add a bit of pepper to the egg. On a plate, put the bread crumbs, between a half cup and a cup, mix in a teaspoon of paprika and the red pepper flakes, a bit more salt and pepper. Then take the raw nugget hunks and dip in egg, shake, then dip in the breadcrumbs, shake again and place on a cooking sheet lined with tinfoil. Bake at 400 F for 10-12 minutes. You can flip them at 5 minutes.

Unholy Revelation

This past week, my father was diagnosed with Celiac disease. On the grand list of things that could be wrong with a person, it's not really that bad. But it's not fair. And I don't think I'm taking a too small and self-centered view of things to say that it's less fair for my father. My father loves food, passionately, nearly fanatically. It should tell you something that when I was reading Jeffery Steingarten's book The Man Who Ate Everything and I got to the part where he's checking the codes on ketchup bottles to find the ones that were bottled in summer when tomatoes are at their freshest, that I was reminded of my father. He has that level of intensity about food. The bread at the local supermarket isn't up to his standards, so he special orders it. They know him in the bakery department. How is someone who thinks most lovely, gluten packed breads aren't up to snuff supposed to get by with a substitute? It's just plain old not fair.

We are very lucky in that I happen to know quite a few people who are very knowledgeable about the subject and who shared a ton of resources with me that I could pass along to my parents. But it's not going to be an easy transition. Clearly, my mother is going to have to learn to bake all over again and I don't plan on letting her do it alone.

As a starting place, I've gone through and marked recipes on this blog as gluten-free. Some will need you to check labels carefully, but if you're cooking for someone with Celiac disease, that shouldn't be anything new. As I try out new recipes that are gluten-free (and don't suck) I promise to share them, and tag them. I'll also be experimenting with substitutions in my current recipes. I have quite a few that use flour only as a thickening agent, which should be an easy thing to fix, but I don't feel comfortable advising how to best switch the thickener until I've tried it myself.

Since I'm a complete amateur at this, feel free to let me know if there's any information or labeling that doesn't seem right.

I have faith that in time my mother and I will be able to produce baked goods that are up to snuff, but I hope my father's tastebuds survive the journey.

Monkeying With Tradition

Those of you who know me well know that I don't like to mess with tradition, particularly around Christmastime, but desperate times call for desperate measures. You see, Christmas has always meant a pork pie. My nana has always had a pork pie. Like any good French-Canadian, her mother used to make them for Christmas Eve. Of course, Nana Grenon wasn't much for a recipe, so she showed my grandmother what to do. I tried to write that recipe up last year, but there were too many variables. You see, in my family, a pork pie recipe works a bit like this: grind up some leftover pork with some onions, mix some salt and pepper and poultry seasoning with mashed potatoes, toss it all together with leftover pork gravy and tuck between two pie crusts. How much? How wet? How fluffy? The answer to all three is enough, which isn't exactly helpful for recipe writing.

But this year Nana had a bit of a challenge for me. She needs a pork pie recipe without pork so that her holiday guests can share in her favorite holiday meal. I'd needed to improvise one some time ago since Ryan doesn't eat pork. And so here I am, the ultimate traditionalist, monkeying with tradition.

You'll have to bear with me a bit for this recipe. It's really for my Nana, but I'm sharing it with you. I know that there are parts where she'll be thinking "I know that!" or "That's not how I'd do it!" So Nana, you're probably right, do what you think is best! And there are parts where you'll be wishing I gave better instructions, but I'm afraid it can't be helped. I did my best.

PORKLESS PORK PIE
This amount of filling makes a slightly scant 9" pie. I don't want to be guessing at proportions which is what I'd be doing if I wanted to make it more stuffed.

Using up Thanksgiving leftovers? No problem. Get 12 oz of cooked turkey instead of the raw. You'll need to grind it up using your meat grinder.

INGREDIENTS:
1 recipe dough
12 oz ground turkey - preferably a high ratio of fat, so 93% fat free if you can get it. 99% fat free will taste like cardboard. Also as this is not a whole package of ground turkey, you can use the rest for something else, white turkey chili would be great.
2 C mashed potatoes
1/2 a large onion chopped - this was about a cup for me
2 garlic cloves chopped
2-3 tablespoons butter
approximately a 1/4 C of homemade turkey gravy
salt and pepper
6 leaves fresh sage (Nana - I have these in the house, you can use poultry seasoning to taste if you prefer!)

DIRECTIONS:
Make the dough and put it in the fridge. In a large pan, melt a tablespoon of butter and add the garlic and onions and a small pinch of salt. Saute for 3-5 minutes until softened. Add the ground turkey and brown over medium heat, using your spoon to break apart the meat until crumbly. Add salt and pepper to taste, plus the well minced sage leaves. Thanksgiving leftover version - still cook those garlic and onions, but mix it in with your meat grinder turkey. Then mix it with the potatoes by hand, skip the food processing step below.

Now Nana usually combines the ground meat and the potatoes by hand, but I did it in my food processor. Don't over process because you don't want a paste, but make sure the mashed potatoes and turkey don't have any big chunks left. Working with warm or room temperature potatoes helps matters. The resulting mixture should be sort of fluffy and crumbly but should smoosh together if you press it. See below:


Moisten with a 1/4 C of turkey gravy. You don't want this too wet, just moist and flavorful. If it's too dry (a real problem especially if you started with dry mashed potatoes) use more gravy or some chicken stock in a pinch. Taste this. You have to. Add more salt and pepper as needed, clearly how much you add depends on how seasoned your potatoes, gravy and turkey were to begin with. Don't worry if it feels like you're adding a lot of salt. Anything that's made primarily from a mild flavored meat and potatoes needs salt.

Preheat the oven to 325 F (Nana cook this however you would normally, if you don't use 325/45 minutes tell me and I'll fix it in this recipe!).

Roll out the bottom crust and place in your pie plate. Fill with the turkey and potato mixture. Top with another tablespoon or so of butter, pinched off.


Then roll out the top crust, add the top, pinch the sides closed, cut slits in the top and bake for 45 minutes or until the crust is golden and the pie is warm.

Merry Christmas!

Gingered Cranberry Sauce

My mother-in-law is an incredibly lovely woman. This year she welcomed my family to her beautiful home for Thanksgiving. Since Ryan and I weren't arriving until the night before, she asked for a shopping list so that she could get the ingredients we needed for our Thanksgiving cooking. I dashed off an e-mail. She went to the store. The end result was that we had both whole cloves and fresh ginger in the house, but not the ground cloves or ground ginger that we needed for the pumpkin pie. I felt terrible because I hadn't said to get ground cloves and ground ginger, I just wrote cloves and ginger. My mother-in-law felt terrible because she hadn't known that I meant ground ginger and ground cloves. Then on Thanksgiving morning as we were wallowing in our respective guilt, she mentioned that she'd picked up a couple of bags of cranberries that she thought might be turned into sauce. A teensy tinesy little light went on in my head as I remember a friend of mine passing along a recipe for gingered cranberry sauce. I ran to the computer and in a true stroke of kismet learned that the recipe called not only for fresh ginger, but also whole cloves. I felt better. My mother-in-law felt better. And thankfully, the cranberry sauce was good. Delicious even. I may have been eating it straight out of the pot. And later out of the tupperware. But we won't discuss that. This is about heart-warming family moments at the holidays not dirty little secrets.

GINGERED CRANBERRY SAUCE
adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Below is a doubled version of the recipe because we made a lot of sauce. But when do you make sauce except at Thanksgiving? And don't you usually have a lot of people there?

INGREDIENTS:
2 12 oz bags of cranberries
1 1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 C water
2" plump knob of ginger minced
8 whole cloves
juice of a clementine (the original recipe calls for zest of 2 oranges, but we only had clementines and they don't zest well, at least not with a box grater)

DIRECTIONS: Put your cranberries in a colander and rinse them. Go over them carefully and pull out any mookie ones (squished, white). Also pull off any remaining stems. Put in a saucepan with the sugar, water, ginger, cloves and clementine. Heat to a boil then lower to a simmer. Cook until the berries pop. I found this to be incredibly forgiving, I just let it cook while I was doing other things and stopped it when it looked saucey enough. If you don't want any chunks you could puree or strain this, but I liked it the way it was. Refrigerate before serving if you like it cold.

Farm Fresh?

I grew up in a small town, the kind that seems almost made up, with one traffic light in the center of town, and the four corners of that intersection marked with a post office, a drugstore, a bank and a church. Outside the snug one mile border of the town, in almost every direction, there were farms. The closest was nothing but a small stand run by the parents of a boy I went to school with. But there were so many others. One lay across the border in another state and had delicious caramel apples. Another one was up in the hills and felt forever away from my small child perspective. But the one we used the most had corn you could feed to the animals, a cement outbuilding with a window where you could buy fresh cider and a small red painted farm store. We would go and look at the animals, and on the way back stop and my daddy would buy me an apple and polish it up on his flannel shirt. When I got a little older, they branched out and started selling cider doughnuts, plain and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. Now that farm is packed weekends. People that moved into the subdivisions that have been slowly eating away open space pack up their children into their extra-large SUVs and descend upon my tranquil childhood farm like locusts. Last time I went I stood in a line that wrapped around the whole farm store and down the porch just to buy my cider doughnuts. I don't begrudge them their success; many local farms have been forced to sell, but I do miss the way thing were. Also sad? I read the ingredient list on the back on the doughnut bag. I don't think I could identify anything after the first three ingredients. So I think the time has come for me to part ways with the farm and their doughnuts. But I do have a back-up plan. Come next fall, expect to hear my opinion on these cider doughnuts from Smitten Kitchen.

Dinner and Movie

I have to say, I admire my parents' style of entertaining. Back in the day, they'd have friends in for fabulous dinner parties. The next morning, while my parents and their guests were still in bed, I would pad through the living room and dining room in my jammies surveying the damage. Empty bottles of wine were lined up along the mantle; small plates holding uneaten chocolate bonbons waited on the table (fine, maybe I stole a few for breakfast). So where was I whilst all the merry-making took place? My parents hired the best babysitter money can buy - Fred Astaire (actually, he was totally free). Since TV watching was a rare treat, and eating in front of the TV, absolutely verboten, my Saturday night dinner and a movie set-up was just about the biggest treat I could imagine. My father would make me a special pasta dinner and set me up with an old musical and I'd be in heaven. It became such a tradition for me that when I was old enough to babysit on weekends instead of stay home I really missed my special movie time.

Start out with Swing Time, one of my favorite Astaire-Rogers films, and another classic, chicken with shells. And while this very first dinner and a movie post is perfect for occupying small children so that you can have an evening to yourself on the cheap, stay tuned. I'm planning on featuring some of my favorite movies and meals that would perfect accompaniments, because even though I'm a grown-up now I still love settling down to a delicious dinner in front of a terrific film.


DADDY'S CHICKEN AND SHELLS
serves 2

INGREDIENTS:
1 large breast of chicken
6 slices bacon
1 C frozen peas
1/2 lb shells
1/2 C chicken stock
1/4 C - 1/2 C cream
2 T butter
1 T olive oil
1/4 C Parmigiano-Reggiano

DIRECTIONS:
Chop the bacon into medium sized squares. Cook in a skillet for 5-7 minutes or until crisp. Set aside. Then raise the heat to high and add your tablespoon of olive oil. Sear for 2 minutes per side, then add the 1/2 C of stock and reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for about 5 minutes or until cooked through. When it's done remove it from the pan and let it stand for a few minutes so the juices don't all run out when you cut it. After it has rested cut it into bite sized pieces. Cook the shells according to the package directions. When they're done drain them quite thoroughly. Make sure to shake them a bit to get the water out. Then melt 2 T of butter over them and mix gently to coat. Cook off half the chicken broth, then add 1 C of frozen peas and cook them for 3 minutes. Add the 1/4 C of cream and the chicken to the broth and peas. Add the shells and 1/4 C parm. Add the bacon. Mix gently and serve.

J-U-I-C-E spells Love

Let me tell you a love story. Once a long time ago, at a party, a thirteen year old girl with beautiful dark curls, fell into the lap of a handsome blue-eyed young man. He picked up a gold cigar band, slid it on her finger and told her he'd give her a real one someday. Six years later, he made good on his promise, and they were married. Like many couples they went through some difficult times, but their marriage lasted for over 60 years. My grampy is gone now, but yesterday would have been their 66th anniversary.
My grampy would show my nana he loved her in a million different ways. He would always call her "my bride". She loved having birds in the yard, so he would trap squirrels and then drive several towns over to release them so they wouldn't scare off the birds or monopolize the feeders. All over the house that he built, in the strangest places, there would be tiny notes, saying "Alice, I love you." She found one of them after he passed away. It was on a small light that had been mounted in a closet in their old house. But I remember one ritual he always had as one of the quieter ways he said "I love you."

My grampy was a carpenter and he woke up very early. Even earlier than any early bird, very small, grandchildren that might be visiting. Every morning he would bring my grandmother a glass of orange juice, with a tiny dish on top to protect it. When I was small, he would do the same for me. In that one small glass of juice, there were a million I love yous.

We should all be so lucky to have a love like theirs.

A Formal Introduction

Any repeat readers among you know that we have long established my laziness, procrastination and scatterbrained tendencies as my leading character traits. So it should come as no surprise to you that it's taken a longer than polite period of time for me to get around to formally introducing you to my dear friend's new food blog. Oh sure, I tossed out a mention of it, but I didn't get much beyond that.

And this is bad because she is very much one of my very best friends. She's the one I call when I have something important to say, but she's also the one I call when I have absolutely nothing to say. She is my confidence. I cannot tell you how many nice things she says about me a day, but it's enough to make me feel like I have my own dedicated cheerleading squad. And these days, she's been my friend long enough that she's becoming my memory. Which is good, because someone's going to have to tell the stories of when we were pretty young things, I remember nothing (and admit even less). I've even spent countless hours filling her in on things that happened before we were friends so that she can remember that too.

In addition to being a stellar friend, she has actual culinary qualifications. Remember all those times I've mentioned my friend, who was a professional baker? Well that's her. The one whose grandmother actually knew Julia Child? Her again. How can you turn down talent like that?

The sum total of my foodie cred is that I'm the girl guys would ask back to their houses for the after party because I could make Kraft mac and cheese without measuring implements. That's all I've got. Better at using a stove than your average frat boy.

So basically, skedaddle on over to My Family Table. Be careful where you sit though. We have a very regimented seating hierarchy. Being close to our host is only part of our goal. We're also trying to make sure she hasn't run out of mashed potatoes.

Happy Father's Day!

Stereotyping of men never is at a more fevered pitch than on Father's Day. This is the day when, according to just about anyone who sells something, you should recognize Dad's deep abiding love of golf, fishing, power tools, using the TV remote or, of course, wearing and owning ties. These people have not met my father, because that's practically a short list of things he doesn't like (in fact, more than a few of those items he actively detests). Which is not to say my father is without interests. He is in fact, incredibly passionate about many things: travel, baseball, wine, music, movies and food. Oh yes food. Because when my father is passionate about food, it becomes an obsession. We've hunted all through France for the best tart citron. He calls orchards to hunt down his favorite Northern Spy apples. But there are few things that he is as passionate about as is he about blueberries. In fact, he's tried blueberries from just about everywhere until he's found the best. Because all blueberries are not created equal. Some are delicious and full of berry flavor while others are mealy and slightly bitter. It's not your imagination. So my dad knows exactly which type are the best, and where they are grown and actually has a contact so that he knows when he can get the best kind. And some of the luckier blueberries get to be baked into Jordan's Blueberry Muffins.

Jordan's Blueberry Muffins are somewhat of a New England institution. Or they were until the famed Jordan Marsh department store closed, leaving millions of people full of longing. Recreating the muffin, or finding someone else who can has become something of a quest for New Englanders ever since they stopped being readily available. Over the years, many recipes have surfaced, which surprisingly, are actually all very similar (which lends them some credibility). Here's the one my family has been using to showcase the very best blueberries my father can find.

Happy Father's Day Daddy!

JORDAN'S BLUEBERRY MUFFINS
or something pretty darn close

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick butter
1 C sugar (plus 1/4 C for topping)
2 eggs
2C flour
1/2 t salt
2 (1/2) t baking powder - the recipe we use calls for 2 1/2 t baking powder but many call for only 2 t.
1/2 C milk
2 C blueberries - you can use fresh or frozen
(1 t vanilla - we've never used this, but many recipes for Jordan's muffins call for it)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 375 F.
In a stand mixer (or large bowl) cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and mix until well incorporated. If you were going to use vanilla, I'd use it now. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients - the flour, salt and baking powder. Then add it to the creamed butter/sugar mixture in stages, alternating with the milk. Mix well. Then if you're adding fresh berries, add 1/2 C of them and mix with the mixer, then remove and fold in the remaining berries by hand. If you're using frozen, you can just put them all in at the same time.

There doesn't appear to be any consensus, but I'm all for greasing the muffin tin, including the top so that the muffin tops don't stick. You want to fill each cup to the top and then sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

We've always baked at 375 for the whole 25-30 minutes, but many recipes seem to have the temperature at 450 to start for 5 minutes then lowered to 375 for the remaining 20-25 minutes.

Wammy

When I was small I had a very best friend. She was the very best kind of best friend, with an infectious laugh, an old house filled with secret passageways and a tire swing and she lived right around the corner from me. We played countless games of tag, sardines, ghost in the graveyard and hide and seek, and when things got dull, we'd find new ways to torture her baby brother, like telling him the potato chips tinged with green gave you magical powers. When it was finally time to say goodbye we'd take turns walking each other home until one of our mothers hollered, and even then we'd walk to the midpoint together, part and slowly head back home alone. Back in those days, Chrissy and I were so close. And Chrissy's most beloved stuffed animal was a lamb named Wammy. So while I ate beef and pork and veal and lobster and crabs and liverwurst and calamari and all sorts of other things that many children would refuse, I absolutely, positively, under no conditions would try lamb. I couldn't. "But....but...Wammy!" I'd cry, and my patient and somewhat indulgent mother would sigh and let it drop.

I'm not sure exactly when I relaxed my ban on Wammy's relatives, but now only a very small part of me winces when I enjoy a delicious piece of lamb. Tonight my mother made this super easy recipe, and provided that you have no interfering attachments to the loveys of your childhood friends, you'll very much enjoy it.

DON'T WORRY, IT'S NOT WAMMY

INGREDIENTS:
2 pieces boneless lamb loin
1-2 cloves garlic minced
1 T fresh or 1-2 t dried rosemary
1 t olive oil for the loin plus 2 t for the pan
kosher salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS:
Mince the garlic and add 1/2 t kosher salt and mash together to make a sort of paste. Rubbing the lamb with the oil and add 1/2 t kosher salt plus as much pepper as you like. Then rub in the garlic mixture and pat on the rosemary. In a large cast iron pan add the 2 t olive oil and turn the heat to medium high. When the pan is hot, add the lamb loins and cook for 4 minutes per side for rare and 5-6 for medium.

Sunshine

It's been a long time. I am sorry about that. It's been very cold here, and very gray. We did have some lovely snow last week which now has receded to a disgusting slushy sludge. Today we had a slight reprieve and warmer temperatures which gave me just enough strength to pull it together and update this blog. And I should let you know that I have not made it through this cold snap by indulging in wintery treats like hot cocoa or rich stews. No, I have been making it through with my own little stash of sunshine. Real Florida oranges.

When I was a little girl, my Auntie Lee and my Uncle Ole lived in Florida. As anyone with relatives in Florida can attest, this can come with some serious perks: easy access to Disney World, swimming pools, and special packages of citrus fruit delivered right in time to rescue us from the winter doldrums. I can't even tell you how much better these are than regular store bought oranges. They are sweet and delicious and each bite is a nice summery break from the reality that February has only just begun.

Kitchen Things I Love: Desert Island Implement

Growing up, I had subscriptions to several teen magazines. They were always making lists of Desert Island Books or Desert Island Albums. They'd suggest which you should bring with you if you ever were on a desert island.

Oh yes, and there were quizzes where you'd choose your Desert Island Makeup, and learn some deep insight into your soul, based on your answer.

I have no idea what my desert island kitchen implement says about me, but you better believe if I could only take one thing with me, it would be my army fork.

My grandfather was in the U.S. Army and was stationed all over the U.S. as well as the U.K. and Japan. The original army fork was his, U.S. government issue, provided to him in his mess kit. My grandmother loved it. My mother loves it. I love it so much, that when I moved away from home, my uncle bought me my very own army fork, knife and spoon in order to preserve family relations.


You can use the army fork to mix salad dressing, scramble eggs, incorporate water into flour to create a dough. It has been the death of my whisk collection. I have more unused whisks than anyone wants to know about. I actually dragged some of them out of the corners of drawers and backs of cabinets just to show them to you. Need one? They're all practically in mint condition.


You can find your own army fork at an army-navy store. The set of 3 utensils is generally well under $10.

So what's your favorite kitchen tool, the one you can't live without, the one you would bring to a desert island with you?