Blog.EmealsForYou

This rant is about the food but it really goes much deeper than that, it’s about maintaining our touch on our own family history.  How many of you have gone to a family gathering and asked a cousin or sibling, “what do you know about …?” The conversation usually turns to an agreement that you should have asked someone who is no longer alive the question years ago.  We constantly allow moments to go by that could and should provide us with family treasures to pass along to the next generation and beyond.  I guess it is like everything else, we expect someone will know the answer to our questions, but those “someones” are getting older and more forgetful.  So the bottom line is one less tie to those who went before us; one less interesting fact not shared.

What brought this on was a recent discussion I had with a good friend about recipes handed down from generation to generation.  She was planning a family reunion and was putting together a family recipe cookbook and fact sheet for all those who were to attend.  Each family was requested to submit some facts about themselves and their families along with a favorite recipe, perhaps one passed down from an ancestor.  This is a great idea and one that should be part of everyone’s family reunion.

Many of the recipes found here and on my website have come from past generations of family cooks.  Some were taught to me, some were shared by those around me and some I absorbed by just being in the kitchen growing up.  One that always makes me smile is a recipe for sweet cabbage.  You see, back in the dark ages when my wife and I were beginning to date she only ate white bread.  No matter how many kinds of breads my family put out on the table she would always ask for Wonerbread, so much so that my father began to call her whitebread.  I mean there was chewy rye bread, hard rolls and flaky horns but she would always say, “don’t you have any Wonderbread?”  Needless to say the great varieties of bread went along with a wonderful assortment of “old country” dishes.  So years later when I was looking for my father’s sweet cabbage recipe, and had tried all avenues with no success, it was whitebread who had somehow written the recipe down.

The moral of the story is to get those stories and recipes before it is too late.  BTW - my wife still makes the sweet cabbage and yes hers is better than mine.

(from the Dessert Collection at emealsforyou.com)

Profiteroles- huh?  Profiteroles- what?  Cream Puffs- Oh yeah!

For those of you who suffer from Juliachildaphobia, the fear of French cooking, I offer an easy way of breaking that fear.  Yes, I did say easy. 

Pâte à choux, or as we normal humans call it, cream puff dough is one of the easiest and I think most fun things to make.  There is something rewarding about dumping flour into buttered water, stirring a little and there it is…this wonderful and extremely versatile pastry dough.  Shown above with hot fudge sauce, the profiterole is the classic quick dessert.  Fill the cream puffs with ice cream, berries, pudding or or even whipped cream and you have a fast, impressive dessert.  Leave the sugar out of the recipe and make them spoon-size and you have an excellent appetizer shell to load up with your favorite chicken, ham or shrimp salad. Make a bunch and freeze them, they stay forever in the freezer and you can take out just what you need.

Any way you choose to use them; your friends and family will be impressed and you don’t have to tell them how much fun it was to make them.  Who knows… you may even say, “Bon Appetit” when you serve them.

Profiteroles (Cream Puffs)

Place water, butter, salt and sugar in a pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add flour, stir until mixed, place back on low heat and stir for 2 minutes. Immediately remove from heat and add to bowl of food processor, add eggs and pulse until just mixed.
(you may use a mixer instead) Place large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper, space 2 apart. Bake at 400 degrees for 18-22 minutes, until golden brown. Turn off oven, remove from oven and quickly poke a few small holes with a toothpick in the sides of the puffs to allow steam to exit. Return cookie sheet to oven, open oven door and let puffs sit for 20 minutes in oven.

Cut off and reserve top, fill with ice cream, place top back on. May be served with caramel or hot fudge sauce.

For cream puffs fill with vanilla cream. For éclairs make cream puffs and drizzle melted chocolate on top.

This recipe and menu recipes may be found on our website emealsforyou.com

I’ve decided to post some cooking tips to help you save time and sanity.  I prefer if my readers would send in specific questions; just send a comment below or email me with your questions.  If it is your wish that I not publish your comment but still want the answer simply type the word “Private” in the first line of the comment.

Here we go:

Putting 1 Tb of white vinegar into your rice while it is cooking will make it fluffier.

Always have meat and fish at room temperature prior to cooking so that it will cook evenly.

No matter how hard you try; the area around the bone on chicken legs and thighs remains pink.  Try heating it in the microwave for 1 minutes just before serving it.

To get better browning when sautéing put a teaspoon of butter into the pan along with your oil.

The oil in a pan is ready for cooking when it appears to shimmer and slightly smoke.

Leave meats and fish in the pan, don’t keep flipping them as you want them to develop “caramelization”… the browning that gives added flavor.

Start pan-roasted meals on the stove top to develop the flavor then finish them in a 325 degree oven, to ensure even cooking.

Be careful when adding salt and pepper to a sauce before you are done reducing it… reducing will maximize the flavors and you should adjust the final salt and pepper just prior to serving.

And my personal favorite: Always peel your asparagus!

BTW - I still have  a few asparagus peelers to give away.  (see promo)

Products I like: SACO cultured  Buttermilk  Blend - in the baking aisle of your grocery, powdered buttermilk that keeps forever in the frig and you just make as much or little as you need.

Next time: Finding your Cooking Comfort Zone!

(from the Chicken Entrée Collection at emealsforyou.com)

I find the easiest way to make friends in the neighborhood is to cook something really fragrant…allow me to explain.  We did this in our home in the Chicago suburbs and then again after we moved.  A couple of houses ago we installed a microwave- range hood that faced our neighbor’s driveway.  I would cook my usual meals, usually with a lot of garlic and Jim would call to ask what I was cooking that smelled so good.  Back then Jim didn’t cook except for the occasional grilling, now it is hard to keep him out of the kitchen, but then again Brenda doesn’t really try too hard.

I first had these chicken thighs in San Francisco about 25 years ago.  We were walking around the Cannery on the Wharf and could smell these wonderful wisps of very fragrant cooking.  Being of the large nose variety I was able to pinpoint the location, a small street vendor cart in the courtyard.  They served these on crunchy sourdough bread and we instantly found a new favorite.  Years later we would call our youngest son and have him go into the garden and get some fresh thyme, add the other ingredients into a baggie and place it in the frig.  Once home I would simply light the gas grill and wait for the neighbors to react.  You see they smell as good cooking today as they did all those years ago.  Got any crunchy bread?

Many of you who have cooking questions are using the search function of this blog.  If your question happens to hit on a word that is included in one of the post then you will see it.  However, if you have a specific question please either email me (at the right top of blog) or post a comment to a specific post and I will get the answer to you.  If you would like me to respond to you directly; email me with your question and I will respond via email with your answer.

For the person who wanted to know how many 35 -40 count shrimp are in 5 oz you are looking at between 11 and 13 shrimp… hope this helps.

Okay, so now you’ve planned your meals, shopped for the ingredients and now you are ready to prepare these meals for your family.  This is where it can get a little crazy if you don’t take that planning just a little further.  No problem if you act simply and logically….many of us have the simply down pat it is the logically we need some help with.

Let’ s dive in… one of the secrets to actually enjoying meal preparation is to, wait for it, organize your cooking methods.  Many are now saying, I just don’t have the energy to put forward the effort needed to do anything but throw the stuff into a pan, turn on the stove and dump the “finished” product onto a plate.  WRONG!  Look, you don’t put your pants on first and then your underwear, so why are you cooking as if being unorganized qualifies you for a merit badge.  I recently made fun of Rachael Ray’s ability to carrying all her ingredients to the cooking area in one trip (see What Do We Get Out of Those TV Cooking Shows - A Rant) but it is that kind of organization that will help you get used to being a better cook and enjoying it more.

You have to learn to make the most of your time.  Decide what you need for the meal at hand, pots, pans, ingredients, serving plates all of it.  So if you were making a pasta dish; start the water on the stove before you do anything else.  If you are going to need the oven, turn it on, pre-heat it to save time later.  Set out all the ingredients you will need.  Every wonder why recipes list the ingredients in the order they are put into the meal?  This is so you will have them out and ready when the recipe calls for them.  Set the table while the meal is cooking, please, at a point that doesn’t require you to stir or add something.  Even better, get the kids or your significant other to set the table for you.  Unless you have a pedometer on and are trying to improve your health by walking;stop all the trips, short as they may be, to the pantry, closet, frig, table wherever, put that energy into the meal.

By simply organizing your meal preparation you will be amazed at the time you save… more importantly you may even enjoy the meal more…just a little!

(from the Dessert Collection at emealsforyou.com)

For those of you following along with the last two posts, yes I did make the cupcakes from scratch and the cranberry cream scones were pretty good.  Now that I have handled those burning questions I also promised to let you know if I cooked anything I thought you would like; so here it is… Cheesecake.

Actually I made some other meals that were very good, Pork Chops in Creamy Peppercorn Sauce with Garlic Mashed Sweet Potatoes, London Broil with Red Wine and Mushroom Sauce (Quick Gravy on the site) to drop some names.  All are found on the emealsforyou.com site; but probably what you want to read about is the cheesecake.

I gave our friends’ daughter the choice of desserts as it was her birthday as well as my grandson’s.  Rachel usually chooses Profiteroles or Carrot Cake but this time it was cheesecake.  This was absolutely fine with me as I knew I would be short on time with all the other cooking I had to do.  I like this cheesecake as it is what I call New York style, creamy but firm…no crust.  My wife likes it when it is still a little warm and creamier but I like to make it the night before and let it firm up in the frig overnight.

So back to making it…. I actually watched the clock to see just how long it took.  Using my Cuisinart it took exactly 12 minutes to get it into the springform and into the oven.  This includes the fact that I had to make it in two batches.  Now it does take an hour to cook and then another hour to cool in the oven but then again if you make it the night before that should be okay.  I think seven of the 10 of us had the cheesecake, and we were very generous with the slices, and we had about 1/3 left over.  The bottom line here is if you need a really good, inexpensive dessert to feed a crowd this is a winner.

P.S.  I served berries and hot fudge sauce on the side for those who aren’t a purist like me.

Julia Child, the goddess of cooking, started it all… and I must admit it worked.  Way back when, who’d have “thunk” you could get people to sit in front of their TVs and watch someone cook.  Today we have endless, and mindless for the large part, cooking shows available 24-7.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to anything that works to get more families together at the table eating food prepared in their very own kitchen.  I just would like to see more instructional cooking and a little less cook-entertainment.  Seriously, I want one of those ovens that you throw ingredients into an oven-proof container, pop it into the oven and then open the oven door below it to pull out a fully prepared, beautiful dish.

Here are a few that make easy targets, although I know many of you really like them.  I proceed at my own risk…..

Anyone tired of our all-American girl RR with her EVOO and endless energy?  When she is finished in TV she can get a job at Circ du Soleil as a juggler, carrying all those ingredients in one load, come-on.

How about learning Italian cooking while watching the bouncing boobs?

Do any of you dress up to make almost-homemade meals?

What’s with the guy who will eat anything, and I do mean anything, makes me want to lose my supper, not make it.

There are some good shows.  The Martha Stewart produced Everyday… shows offer quick and instructional cooking.  I like The Barefoot Contessa but do wonder when she makes 4 gallons of soup for two people.  Napa Style provides good entertaining ideas and you just can’t beat America’s Test Kitchen for techniques and solid cooking tips.

Well, it’s time to pull the plug on this show for now, I’m off to the grocery to pick up a box cake mix for my grandson’s third birthday party….NOT!

(from the Bread Collection at emealsforyou.com)

Our friend Jean is coming for a short visit this weekend.  Jean is the god-mother to our kids and a friend for over 35 years.  What this means is for a few days we’ll be having relaxing breakfasts over too much coffee, not the usual 5:45 A.M. bowl of cereal.

Jean is also the person who got us into cooking.  We would alternate between her house and ours for dinner parties, mostly cooking Julia Child recipes.  We’ll have a few dinner parties while she is here and I’ll keep you posted if I cook anything that I think you would like.

Back to the recipe… scones are the perfect leisurely breakfast food.  They almost demand that you take your time and relax before setting out to see what the day brings.  Try these and see if you don’t agree.

Cranberry Cream Scones

Sift together flour, baking powder, 4 teaspoons sugar, and salt. Add cold butter, cut into small pieces, and blend until mixture resembles cornmeal. Mix together two lightly beaten eggs and cream. Mix with dried cranberries into flour mixture. Do not over mix- mix just until it forms dough. Pat out dough onto floured surface and cut with a 2 inch round cutter. Brush tops of scones with an egg wash of 1 egg lightly beaten with 1/3-cup milk. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned.

I had the opportunity to engage in a conversation with a cousin last weekend at a family gathering. She, like a lot of women, is a single mom, working full time and going back to school at the same time. Needless to say this leaves little personal time.

As most of my conversations go we turned to the discussion of meals and meal preparation. I asked her how she handled the daily routine of meal prep. She told me her day started early, dropping her son off at school, then on to work… pick up her son, go home and throw something on for dinner; admitting she probably should do more towards a healthier diet. Cooking the family meal had become a chore, something that was loathed but had to happen. I truly believe she is in the majority in this thought process.

As our discussion progressed I asked her to imagine coming home from work and preparing a warm, bubble-filled bathtub… sinking into the sudsy water for 20 minutes of pure relaxation; rewarding herself for a job, both motherhood and professional, well done. This appealed to her; frankly I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t enjoy this. My next statement was to imagine coming home and taking the same 20 minutes, 20 minutes you will spend anyway on the usual fare, to prepare a great dinner, something she had looked forward to all day. So, this is where it begins. This is the start of the paradigm shift. You need to stop thinking of cooking as a chore and begin to think of it as a reward… something to look forward to. Good cooking takes the same amount of time as bad cooking; you just get more pleasure out of the good stuff.

Stop thinking about the chore and think about the end result, a reward for you and your family. Special meals are normal meals made special by the way we think about them. The other thing is that special meals don’t have to cost more than normal meals; chicken breasts prepared quickly can be very special.(a recipe follows) I’m not advocating forcing yourself out of the old habits and into the new habits 7 days a week. Why not try making one “special” meal a week. You may find yourself enjoying it, more importantly your family may realize just how special you are.