Cooking with Dee

Entries from July 2008

Stuffed Peppers

July 30, 2008 · 2 Comments

Serves 4

We grew up with stuffed peppers as kids and once I was an adult and got to make my own recipes, I came up with one that I continue to modify constantly.

Take a snug dish for four half-peppers, either 8X8″ square or an oblong or whatever pan you like.

Ingredients:

Two large peppers, I try for color, halved and seeded, de-ribbed and stemmed. Salt and pepper the upturned peppers in dish.

Take 1/2 medium onion and 1 large garlic clove, chopped finely, and sautee in olive oil with salt and pepper and a pinch of thyme until soft, no caramelizaton. Remove to large bowl.

For the meat, I prefer 1 lb. ground white meat turkey. Jim prefers ground beef, which I drain before adding to the mixture. Season with salt and pepper, pinch of thyme and marjoram/oregano. Add to large bowl.

3-4 canned tomatoes, seeded and chopped. Add to large bowl.

1 cup rice with two cups water or stock, cooked through about 17 minutes, boiled then simmered. Yep, add to bowl.

Grated fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and about 1-2 Tbsp. unseasoned bread crumbs.

You control the mixture here as to what you like. The rest can be leftovers for you or the dog!

Mix onions, garlic, meat, rice, tomatoes, about 1/3 c parmesan and taste and correct seasonings.

Fill pepper halves, spilling any extra along the sides inside the baking pan. Top with bread crumbs and additional parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, uncovered, until everything is warmed through and the peppers are cooked.

Note: Mom used to always boil the peppers before baking. Nowadays we prefer to keep all those good vitamins in and the peppers really do cook in this time. Cheers! Dee

Categories: Recipes

Concord Grapes, Redux

July 30, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Most people don’t read comments so here’s my original comment to aforementioned post:

“Concord grapes are mainly used in juices and grape jelly, also my home town was host to a winery which makes kosher wine from Concords.

Chautauqua is the home of the WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union). When alcohol was banned from the US Chautauqua County, with the most grapes per acre anywhere in the US, was forced to replace its vinifera grapes with table grapes.

Years later when wine enthusiasts wanted to take advantage of Chautauqua’s unique and very brief growing season they grafted vinifera grapes onto Concord rootstock. The upshot is that NY didn’t get the phylloxera virus prevalent in Napa simply because the ancient Concord rootstock is too hardy.

Just a little tidbit of extra knowledge… D”

I also see that the bunch of grapes I photographed are kind of grainy. I did get one of the valiant rootstock, however, to share. Whenever you eat a bunch of Concords or drink Welch’s juice think of it.

I also included a photo of the grape harvester Jim Deakin uses for his vineyards. When I was a girl, local school kids, the farmer’s kids, got out of school for a week to harvest grapes by hand. My sister and I thought it would be cool to get out of school for a week but our parents knew we were not prepared for that kind of backbreaking work, especially as we were age 8 and 6. All for now, must get dinner out of the oven and give you the recipe later. Dee

Categories: Editorial · Education
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How to Eat a Concord Grape

July 29, 2008 · 8 Comments

You are used to table grapes, seedless, of course, with edible thin skins.

Concord grapes are another animal altogether. Last year we went on a vacation to see relatives in upstate NY and Canada. My father-in-law Joe is a farmer/rancher, who now raises beef cattle and who ran a dairy for many years. So my Aunt Lorna arranged for him to visit a local grape farmer and see his huge mechanical harvester.

Concord Grapes

Concord Grapes

Proprietor of Butternut Hollow/Deakin Farms is none other than Jim Deakin, a good friend of my Aunt’s and my two other favorite English teachers on this planet, Joan and Margaret. He played host to us and our guests and showed us all the equipment that helps him and his crew grow and pick grapes. We thank him for his kindness and hospitality.

The boys 1/4 mile away (next door, where we lived) taught me at the age of eight the proper way to eat a Concord grape. Take the grape and squeeze the insides between your lips, discarding the thick skin. Suck the pulp in through clenched teeth. Two or three seeds will remain outside and should be properly spat upon the ground of the vineyard you are legally picking from. Swallow the pristine pulp.

We lived next to a vineyard for three years from my age 8-10 and were told we could eat all the grapes we wanted but if the Conti brothers, the owners, ever caught us having grape fights we’d be forbidden access. Every day en route to and from the school bus hut in September and October I’d eat at least eight bunches per day! Even now, as I can’t pick them fresh in Texas, I sometimes buy a bottle of Welch’s white grape juice just to remember the taste.

Perhaps I’ll find you an Italian recipe I had in cooking school south of Florence, Italy. It was grape-picking season and at harvest time they make schiacciata a’l uvo, sort of a sweet grape pizza with wine grapes in their skins and their seeds, strewn with sugar. It’s tasty but you can only order it in restaurants in the fall.

Categories: Education
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Food Memories and Cravings

July 29, 2008 · 1 Comment

Many years ago my mother found a recipe in the New York Times for matzoh ball soup. Now I can make my own stock, to be sure, but these were the lightest and fluffiest and tastiest matzoh balls I’ve ever eaten. As I recall there was a touch of vodka to enhance flavor, and some club soda for the lightness and fluffiness.

No matter the research I have not been able to find this recipe and if I did, their copyright policy probably would prohibit me from posting it. Given my luck lately with permissions, anyway.

Does anyone have a recipe anything like this or access to the real thing? Even if I have a date of publication I can find it.

Nothing like taste memories and cravings. Sometimes in summer it’s fresh cherries and in the fall it’s always Concord grapes, the type that go into Welch’s grape juice and jellies. In winter it’s hearty stews, especially beef carbonnade. And in spring it has to be peas and pencil-thin asparagus.

Margie’s doing great on pears in an earlier post! Nothing like good home cooking to get folks reminiscing about childhood memories. Cook well tonight. Dee

Categories: Recipes
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My Pizza

July 28, 2008 · 1 Comment

I generally do a white pizza, no sauce. Use the dough recipe I gave you but I usually substitute one cup of whole wheat flour for unbleached white all-purpose flour. Make the dough and proof 1.5 hours. Cut into two pieces and shape back in a ball and let it rest 15-20 minutes.

Roll out to fit baking pans. The whole wheat flour allows for more elasticity and a thinner and healthier dough.

I try to find whole milk mozzarella. For most dishes I prefer absolutely fresh mozz in water but on pizza it just waters everything down. So today I got about 3/4 lb of Cappiello mozz that I put in the freezer for 20 minutes and will shred in the food processor momentarily after I freeze the blade (going to freeze the blade and bowl of the processor).

Two bell peppers, today I used one red and one yellow. One container mushrooms, button or cremini, cleaned and sliced. I saute both separately, the peppers until they’re nearly soft and the mushrooms until they give up all their liquid.

One stick of pepperoni, thinly sliced. Parmigiano Reggiano to top.

To assemble place thin crust on two cookie sheets that are smaller than half-sheet pans or you can free-form your own crust. If on a sheet pan use knife or pizza cutter to trim overhanging dough. Brush with olive oil. Add all toppings and top with mozz and parmesan.

Bake 10 minutes in 450 degree oven. Slice and serve after sitting for 2-3 minutes.

Enjoy your pizza, which I’m going to do in about 15 minutes. Cheers! Dee

Categories: Recipes
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Margie’s Pears

July 28, 2008 · 4 Comments

Jim’s mother has the largest pear tree I’ve ever seen, so tall that I don’t know how she and Joe pick the ones up top without bringing in a small crane!

Every year they pick the tree clean and Margie goes into canning mode. In the six years I’ve known her I’ve never been without a jar or ten of her preserves. I’ve not been able to join in one of these marathon sessions but should make the time to do so. I’ve always been a bit freaked out by canning. And since I can’t grow anything here besides windowsill herbs, I’d have to go out and BUY a boatload of whatever I wanted to can, thus going against nature’s bounty and immutable laws.

Generally there are two varieties of preserves: pear butter (Jim is working his way through a quart jar of that); and chunky pears with lots of cinnamon. The chunks are great on top of vanilla ice cream or mixed into yogurt.

We thank Margie for being a frugal country wife, mother and grandmother. She just bought seven goats to mow the pasture. A couple of weeks ago I came back from a visit with pickling cucumbers and baby onions. I hear that next to the term “frugal” in the dictionary is her photo. She actually figured out (she’s from a line of math geniuses that may actually include Alexander Graham Bell, and her son and my husband does calculus in his head but doesn’t have a clue about his shirt size) that every six years the days remain the same so she could re-use paper wall calendars! All she had to do was move Easter and Thanksgiving. We should start buying her pretty calendars every Fall so she’s not tempted to go back to the old John Deere.

A few months ago a fellow nurse friend of Margie’s asked her and Joe to help themselves to all the pecans that had fallen to the ground from their tree. It took Joe 45 minutes to use the special shell-cracking mechanism for pecans, and Margie the same amount of time (they work together like a well-oiled machine) to shell and pick them. The result was a stuffed quart bag of pristine, fresh pecans that are ours and I take them out of the freezer bit by bit, toast them in the oven and use in chicken salad or on top of an ice cream sundae. You should have seen my quart bag. What a mess, but then I’d never picked pecans before. It’s always good to learn new things from the experts.

Categories: Editorial · Education
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Grills

July 28, 2008 · 1 Comment

I’m changing the tone here, dear readers. Let’s talk about grills. Sure I’d love one of those huge Ducane built-ins right off the kitchen on the patio, with built-in frig and wine frig. But I live in an urban environment where it’s illegal to grill anything on site, except down in the fireplace area where there are two grills for use by us “lofties.”

Let’s see, main criteria are: ease of use; portability; and easy to clean.

For years I had a full-sized (in terms of grilling space, not height) Smoky Joe that I loved. Still can’t believe I gave it away five years ago when we moved to Texas. The handle held the top on and it was easy to toss in the back of the Jeep with hardwood charcoal, chimney and newspaper, food, tools and go to the beach for a cookout. Even better, if I placed the top on and closed the vents, it was cold 20 minutes after cooking and ready to transport home. The only downside to this incredibly affordable Weber is that the grate position cannot be changed and you really need to open all the vents and use the cover to finish cooking food like steaks or chicken, making it more like an oven. This was the grill we used to feed 20-30 people at our local park every July 4th and it brings back wonderful memories.

A couple of years ago we bought a Coleman Road Trip grill for about $100. It uses small propane tanks and folds up like traveling luggage with wheels so it can be toted anywhere. The cooking plates are easy to clean especially if you have a deep or wide sink so they can be soaked before scrubbing. The plates are mostly solid, however, so sometimes food tends to steam rather than grill. It works well for our lifestyle, however.

When living in California, we had a large deck so splurged and got a Uniflame gas grill with four burners and a side burner. It had cast iron grill plates and we used it nearly every night. One winter evening we burned a whole canister of propane using it as a heater to keep us and our dinner guests warm! But with living in 1,000 sf in the big city, we chose to give it to cousin Val the Vet (Zoe’s surgeon). It was a $300 grill and I would buy one again in a heartbeat if we had the big yard and patio and an environment that wasn’t 100 degrees and 98% humidity for the six “normal” grilling months per year.

I bought the Smoky Joe pre-Jim, and didn’t do any serious research but lucked out. For the Uniflame and Coleman, Jim, who could be a professional internet shopper, checked out Consumer Reports and priced it online and at every store in the area. Yes, he can spend six hours researching a $100 purchase which is part of why I love him but sometimes he drives me crazy! So these were informed purchases that hopefully you might consider for your needs. But not if you have the Ducane setup out back…. Happy grilling! Dee

Categories: Editorial · Education
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Recipe H-e-double toothpicks

July 28, 2008 · 3 Comments

A fellow blogger has run afoul of a myopic mini-dynasty by modifying a recipe on her blog. I’m sure she would agree that when each of us reads a recipe we see things a kid doesn’t like so substitute, and make other changes. I do try to a do a new recipe as written, taste the results and make changes according to my tastes.

Food bloggers are being hampered by huge publishing firms from printing any of their recipes (denying permission and not allowing any modifications to their recipes because they are “perfect.”)

No-one was looking for the 18 year-old nut recipe I gave you yesterday but they still wouldn’t allow me to print it with appropriate credit to the sources. Don’t you think if I credit the magazine, article, author and publisher that it would help magazine sales rather than hurt them?

OK, I’m not a Michelin-starred chef (if I was one why would I be asking for a recipe) but they’d give it to me. But serious cooking bloggers are out there and are being threatened by huge corporations because we’re raising interest in their products via a mechanism that their lawyers don’t understand.

It’s too bad because cooking is a creative enterprise and if we bloggers find a new twist or change things about you’ll sue us. That’s the bad side of patent law. The good side is our side and we will make that known in due time.

It looks as if the magazine industry is going the same way as movies fighting television. The new technology (witness iPods et al) is going to win out and your ways are going to have to change to deal with it. Bloggers are here to stay, at least for the next XX years. Dee

Categories: Editorial
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Cooking is an Art

July 27, 2008 · Leave a Comment

All art is derivative

Michelangelo had Ghirlandaio
Florentines had studios

Writers had patrons as well

Cooking is an art
Artists experiment

Lawyers have something to sell

Reputations and magazines
Goliaths to sue Davids

The Davids are rising up

We’re helping you sell
Your current merchandise

It’s best you treat us well.

DAC 7/08

Categories: Editorial · Education · Recipes
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Hello, Censors

July 27, 2008 · 2 Comments

Dear Censors: You’re so brave to come down hard on those who formally ask to reprint recipes legally. We’re now in your gunsights and all those who reprint your recipes willy-nilly are safe. It’s the good guys who ask permission who are surveilled. Sounds like TSA and homeland security. Give me your bra, ma’am. It appears to have underwire in it.

Dear Readers: I’m very new at blogging and whenever I ask to reprint a recipe with appropriate credit (the last one was published in 1990 so people are not knocking down the door to get it) my request was summarily denied by Conde Nasty.

Other bloggers are having the same problem dealing with copyrights. I believe that publishers and bloggers, since they are destined to co-exist, should come to some sort of truce.

I know that if you want a recipe you want the recipe and not a link to a recipe and certainly not something I’ve amended to meet my family’s needs that was inspired by a published recipe that is copyrighted and I can be sued for sharing with you.

So I must tell you that recipe-wise, I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall until I can sort this out. Please let me know what you’d like to see on this site. Just register and post. Don’t use your real name and just let me know what you think. You can be bestgreekcook or whatever! I don’t ever find out who you are.

I’ll keep writing and hope you enjoy and respond to my posts. Enjoy your day!

Categories: Editorial
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