Gracious Grandmothers Club, part two

A few months ago I talked about a cookbook that I inherited from Noel's grandma. Today at work I was looking at that "Gallery of Regrettable Foods" cookbook, which includes dozens of horrifying food pictures like the one above. Inspired by those images (well inspiration may not be quite the right word) I decided that it was time to revisit the Gracious Grandmothers Club, and their litany of fabulous recipes.

I don't know exactly when this book was written, but judging by the type-setting and the plethora of disgusting jello recipes, I'm going to guess late sixties, maybe early seventies. Noel's grandma lived in Middletown, Ohio for most of her life, and these recipes seem pretty appropriate for a town named "Middletown". There are endless pages of suspicious sounding casseroles, fried things, heavily buttered vegetables, and actually some quite delicious sounding cookie recipes that I think I might actually try. If there's one thing midwestern grandmas get right, it's cookies.

Anyway, here are a few more gems for you to enjoy:

Salmon Squares

2 cups cooked rice

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups cottage cheese

1 (1 lb) can salmon, drained, flaked

1 small onion, chopped

1/4 cup chopped green pepper

2 tsp soy sauce

1 cup cracker crumbs

Combine all ingredients except crumbs. Spoon into a buttered 12 x 7 inch baking dish. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes. Cut into squares.

Ok, I give this one some props for the soy sauce, which was a pretty unique ingredient in this book. Tess Young was trying to be creative I think. But cottage cheese and salmon mixed? This sounds gross to me, and I feel like the consistency is probably unnervingly wobbly. I do however like the specifity of calling it "Salmon Squares" and then also including "cut into squares" in the directions.

English Muffin Pizzas

1 lb ground beef

2 tbsp chopped onion

1 tsp horseradish

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 lb sharp cheddar, grated

1 tbsp catsup

1 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp chilli powder

english muffins

Mix all ingredients, refrigerate. Slice English muffins. Spread mixture on untoasted side. Brush with melted butter. Put under broiler until done.

First of all, I'm normally a fan of English muffin pizzas--in my dorm days they were a pretty common staple. But this does not sound like pizza to me at all! It sounds like a weird meatloaf mixture, spread on a muffin, and then topped with BUTTER! Bleh. Plus, it doesn't specify whether or not the hamburger is supposed to be cooked, which is not reassuring. Kind of a midwestern steak tartare maybe? Because "put under broiler until done" doesn't sound like any kind of extensive e-coli-killing is occuring.

And here's what you've been waiting for: the prerequisite disturbing jello recipe.

Cinnamon Red Jello Salad

2/3 cup red cinnamon candies dissolved in 1 cup hot pineapple juice

Add 1 pkg lemon jello

and 1 1/2 cups crushed pineapple

Pour half into 8x8 pan, let set until firm.

Cream together:

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup chipped nuts

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

and enough mayonnaise to moisten.

Spread over set jello, pour remaining cold jello on top.

Pretty and red for Christmas.

No, I didn't add the last sentence. It was really there. In the recipe. Along with the pineapple, mayonnaise, celery, cream cheese, lemon jello, and cinnamon candies. Yum.

Starters: Amish Friendship Bread

When I was little I loved loved loved sourdough stuff. We had a sourdough starter that my mom kept in the back of the fridge, and I thought that "feeding" the sourdough was the coolest thing ever. Plus, my dad made some pretty awesome sourdough pancakes, and we often had sourdough bread and rolls. Somewhere along the way the sourdough vanished....I'm not sure if it got left behind in one of our many moves, or if my mom just decided it was too much work, but the sourdough pancakes just stopped appearing on Saturday mornings.

I've been thinking about trying to start a sourdough of my own, and I'd bookmarked several recipes, but then one of Noel's co-workers gave me an Amish Friendship Bread starter, and I figured I might as well give this a shot since I already had the starter.

Basically you "feed" the starter once, on day six of its cycle, and then on day ten you bake two loaves, and get four more starters out of it. You're supposed to pass the new starters on to friends (a culinary chain letter of sorts), hence the name. The starter itself looks a little disturbing, it's very bubbly and lumpy, and it smells awful--somewhere between sour milk and really strong beer. But at least you only have to smell it twice, when you feed the batter once, and when you mix it into bread at the end.

The final result is a very sweet, soft quick bread, with a faint sourdoughy tang in the background. The original recipe calls for a lot of cinnamon, I've made it that way twice, and it's really good warm. One time I tweaked the recipe to make a chocolatey version, which didn't quite taste right warm, but was delicious cold. I'm thinking next time I might try butterscotch, or maybe lemon. It's been fun having new tasty bread every ten days though, and I've been giving one of the loaves away each time, which makes other people happy too, so I figure it's good all around. Except for the horrendous smell of the starter....

Amish Friendship Bread

1 cup amish bread starter

3 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 cup oil

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda
2 cups flour

2 small boxes vanilla instant pudding

First--don't use metal bowls or spoons when making this. I'm not sure why, but it was in CAPITALS in the instructions I got. Combine the last six ingredients, set aside this dry mixture. Mix together the wet ingredients, then stir in the dry. Lightly grease two 8 x 4 inch loaf pans. Mix an additional 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon, dust the pans with half of this mixture. Pour the batter into the pans, and sprinkle with the rest of the cinnamon sugar. Bake for 50-60 minutes at 325 degrees. Cool on wire racks until bread loosens from the pan (about 10 minutes), then carefully remove loaves to cool further. Wrapped well in foil this will keep for up to a week.

Variation: reduce cinnamon to 1/2 tsp, use chocolate pudding mix instead of vanilla, substitute one tablespoon of flour with one tablespoon of cocoa powder, and stir in 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. Sprinkle the loaf with just plain sugar instead of cinnamon-sugar, and bake as directed above. (Sadly, I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate loaves, but they actually turned out better than the regular ones, they rose better.)

So if you want a starter, let me know. I've got lots!

Ridiculously Addicting Crackers--don't say I didn't warn you!

This kind of feels like I'm cheating at the whole blogging thing, since this 'recipe' doesn't require any cooking, or even much assembling. In fact, it's quite possibly the easiest snack to make, ever. But what it has going for it is that it's enormously tasty, the crackers look cute, and then if you take it over to someone else's house when they ask you to bring a snack, at least you put some effort into it. I mean, you could've just bought a bag o' Nacho Doritos, but you made at least a tiny effort, and produced these delicious little crackers. (Plus these don't turn your fingers orange, or give you funny Dorito breath afterwards.)

I found a few different recipes for these on allrecipes.com, and this is my version, which takes elements of several of them. I'm pretty specific about what brands to use, mostly because since there are only 4 ingredients, I think that you need the best ingredients. Plus, I've tried them with several different brands and sometimes they definitely turn out better than others. If you get it right, they're salty and crunchy and tangy and spicy all at once. (Ooh, I almost said Yum-O right there, and I got annoyed and quit watching Rachael Ray more than a year ago!) So, um, Yum-EE!

Ranch 'Firecrackers'

1 (14 oz) box of oyster crackers

(the Trader Joe's version is the best--I use two 8 oz boxes and they turn out perfectly)

1 (1 oz) packet ranch dressing mix

(the Hidden Valley Dips brand is best)

1 - 2 tsp red pepper flakes

(depending on whether you want just a little heat, or 'firecrackers')

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp vegetable oil

In large bowl gently stir 1/2 cup oil into the crackers. Once the oil seems fairly evenly dispersed, gently stir in the ranch dressing mix and the red pepper flakes, trying to avoid breaking the crackers. Stir carefully for a few minutes until the spices seem evenly appied. If you used the TJ crackers you won't need more oil. If you used say, the generic Fry's brand, stir in another tbsp of oil at this point.

Let the crackers sit for about half an hour, giving them another stir every five minutes or so, to make sure that the ones at the bottom don't get soggy. Once all the oil is completely absorbed you can either rapidly devour them, or store them in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. I'd just give them a gentle shake before serving them again.

Vegan-friendly Baking: Cupcakes

I bake a lot (in case you hadn't noticed the title of this blog) and I end up taking a fair number of baked goods into work, since it's a really easy way to make sure that nothing gets wasted. There are several vegans at work who always look hopeful, until I have to disillusion them by informing them that there are eggs or milk in whatever it is they were hoping they could eat. So, this week I was taking cakes into work again, and I decided that it was about time that I attempted something vegan.

I have a cookbook called "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. (In case you're wondering why I own such a book, I tried going dairy-free last year, but I couldn't quite hack it. I missed cheese too much.) I hadn't made any of the recipes yet, although I had drooled over several of the pictures, so I decided to start with the very first recipe, Golden Vanilla Cupcakes, for my first foray into the world of vegan baking. I went and bought soy milk and soy creamer and even organic raw sugar, since I vaguely remember someone saying something about processed sugar being non-vegan.

The cupcakes were really easy to make once I had the proper ingredients assembled. They came out a pretty pale yellow color, and once topped with a little powdered-sugar frosting, they were quite delicious looking. They had a nice sugary vanilla flavor, I didn't miss the eggs at all in terms of taste, but the cupcakes had a slightly odd texture. The crumb was very coarse, and they were almost spongey, which I wasn't quite sure about. But, since I'd never made anything vegan before, I figured I'd just take them to work and see how it went.

They got rave reviews, from vegans and non-vegans alike. One person actually told me that it was the best day of his life to be able to eat a cupcake again! So, if you're vegan they apparently might change your life. If you're not, you might find the texture a bit odd, but the end result is still quite tasty.

Vanilla Vegan Cupcakes

from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2 tbsp cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup canola oil

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp orange extract (or almond or caramel)

1/4 cup soy creamer

1/2 tsp clear vanilla extract

1/4 tsp orange extract

2 - 3 cups powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Whisk the soy milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

Beat together the curdled soy milk, oil, sugar, vanilla, and other extract. Sift in the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until mostly smooth.

Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon fill each cupcake liner until about 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. They don't brown much, so stop baking when a toothpick comes out clean, don't wait for a color cue.

Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack before frosting. In a small saucepan warm the soy creamer over medium heat. Remove from heat, whisk in the extracts, and enough sugar to reach the consistency you want. I used just about 2 cups of sugar, which made for a thin glaze-like frosting. If you want a thicker frosting just keep whisking in the sugar. Once the cupcakes are fully cooled, spread with frosting, then refrigerate to set frosting. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Mysteries are my favorite!

I've always loved mysteries. In second grade we had this day where we got to change our name, and the teacher called us by our fake name all day. I was Nancy...as in Nancy Drew of course... although I also adored Trixie Belden. I was convinced that when I grew up I was going to be a detective/ballerina when I grew up. I figured that ballet would offer me an entree into high society, and I could solve crimes among the important types who thought they were above the law.

In about fourth grade I became obsessed with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and his silly little "moustaches". And I got paranoid that I was going to get hit by a car and die, and no one would be able to identify me since I didn't have a drivers license yet, so every morning I wrote my name and phone number on the bottom of my shoes, just in case. (Sad but true. Just ask my mom!)

Then came middle school, and a sudden adoration of cheesy suspense: Mary Higgins Clark, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, I read 'em all. In high school I tried cozies: Jill Churchill, Elizabeth Peters, Dorothy Gilman, etc. In college I went for the more classic British type mysteries: Georgette Heyer, Patricia Wentworth, Joyce Christmas, and company. But really, I was slightly saddened by the fact that I couldn't find anything I loved as much as I had loved Nancy Drew.

Then, however, I started working at Bookmans, and found shelf upon shelf of awesome books. Fred Vargas, Henning Mankell, Donna Leon, Arnaldur Indriðason, Ian Rankin, Peter Lovesey...I could seriously keep listing for a while. I fell in love with these authors, all of whom happen to be either European or ex-pats. There are certain similarities that most of them share:

(1) Cynical, quirky, humorous detectives, who are usually divorced, or alchoholic, or both. The characterization is believable, and while admittedly sometimes a bit stereotypical, still interesting. And, importantly, all of their detectives are actually detectives...not caterers or housewives or cats or craft shop owners who just happen to solve crimes on the side.

(2) A vivid sense of place. Each writer conjures up the locale of their respective detectives with accuracy and ingenuity, whether it be Ystad, Venice, Bath, Paris, Edinburgh, or Reykjavik. These books are all glimpses into other places and cultures, which adds additional interest to the policework that forms the main part of the story.

(3) An intriguing crime, where the detective's mental prowess is important--none of these authors write books that are what I call "CSI-ish" or "forensic". That's what I hate about most current American authors that I've read, the importance of the detective has been lost, it's all about the science of the crime, and I find that much less enjoyable. These books require the detective to actually detect, sometimes successfully, and sometimes not. They aren't the type of books that always have a happy ending, sometimes the criminals get away with their crimes, and sometimes the detective can't even figure out "whodunit".

(4) They are well-written. Don't look for mid-air collisions of bullets (yes I'm talking to you David Baldacci) or other ridiculously improbable plotlines. Don't look for two page chapters or huge margins (yup, James Patterson, your secret is out). Expect to have to actually read (I realize I'm still talking about genre fiction here, I'm not saying it's War and Peace or anything, but most of these are very well-written books). Expect quirky characters, fascinating sub-plots, bizarre crimes, political subtexts, and surprisingly beautiful moments, particularly if you try Fred Vargas.

I highly recommend any of the European authors I discussed. So if you haven't read a mystery in a while, give one of these authors a shot! (No pun intended. Since they're European there are very few handguns in these novels anyway.)

Miniatures

The other day Amy rescued these tiny white bowls out of dreck, and now I can't quite decide what to do with them.

My first thought was condiments....some sort of meal where you need dipping sauces. Fondue? Tapas? A french fry smorgasbord?

They look quite cute holding grape tomatoes, and I'm sure olives or smallish artichoke hearts would look equally appealing, but the more I look at them, the more I think desserts....miniscule ones. Tiny ice cream sundaes? They'd be adorable, but unsatisfying I think. Itty-bitty shortcakes? Again, delicious, but insubstantial. Small puddings? Although only a gluttonous Borrower would be able to finish one, I think I'd want to eat three, which sort of defeats the whole purpose.

Then I thought about how at Montana Avenue they have those sugary, cinnamony, puffily ginormous doughnuts that come with a little pot of creamy sweet dipping sauce. Everytime I eat one I end up with sugar all over my chin and sauce all over my fingers, and a smile of contentment on my face.

So I think maybe I might have to have a doughnut party. I figure items needed: deep fryer (check), tiny dipping bowls (check), doughnuts (must find good recipe), dipping sauce (ditto), and people to eat the doughnuts (that's you guys!). Mmm....doughnuts!

What To Do With Black Bananas

I got home from work yesterday to discover that the bananas on the counter were really yellow, ok almost black, and smelled supremely banana-y (banana-ish?). Considering that the Amish bread starter that is proofing on the counter is making my whole kitchen smell like I'm brewing beer, I really couldn't handle the beer/banana combination that was occurring, so I decided that the bananas would have to become banana bread, pronto.

I have several 'fancy' banana bread recipes I've been wanting to try...two from Orangette's blog, a Martha Stewart one, an Alton Brown one...but since I was rushing I decided to go to the tried and true Betty Crocker Cookbook, the 3 ring one with the red checker-board cover. It had exactly what I wanted, a basic banana bread recipe that was super easy. I went from yellow-black (yack? blellow?) bananas, to golden-brown banana bread in less than an hour, including 45 minutes of baking time!

The end result was just what I wanted: simple and delicious. The sugary top crust is slightly crunchy, but the rest of the bread is smooth and moist, with an occasional lump of banana goodness. The bread also makes your kitchen smell tantalizingly fresh and cinnamony, and will totally smother any overpoweringly yeasty smells, I promise.

Betty Crocker Banana Bread
Slightly tweaked

4 large overripe bananas

2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/4 cups white granulated sugar

3 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash ground cloves

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 tsp cinnamon

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves, set aside. In a food processor puree together the bananas, eggs, oil, and sugar, until mostly smooth (or mash the bananas with a potato masher and stir in the rest). It's ok if there are a few lumps left.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once, stir until just combined. DON'T overmix! Divide the batter between two lightly greased 8x4 inch loaf pans. Combine the additional sugar and cinnamon, sprinkle over the tops of the loaves.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, then rotate and cover loosely with foil if necessary, because the sugar makes them brown quickly on top. Bake an additional 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for at least 20 minutes before attempting to take the loaves out. Carefully remove them from pans to a wire rack to continue cooling, and for best results let the bread rest until the next day before slicing. But you can dig in right away; a slice of warm banana bread makes a lovely snack!

Makes two loaves, about 24 slices, and should keep for about a week if well-wrapped.

Bad Guys: Aaron Burr

 

 I've been reading "Fallen Founder: the Life of Aaron Burr" by Nancy Isenberg, which attempts to portray Aaron Burr as a midsunderstood man, who really wasn't such a bad guy. While I will admit that Burr was obviously tainted by the duel with Hamilton and that his tarnished image was unfair, I kind of feel like American history needs him as a bad guy. If all the founding fathers were really that great, then it just makes the current political leadership in this country even more depressing. We need to know that Hamilton picked fights and Adams was bad-tempered and that Jefferson could be petty, and that Burr was a murderous, lecherous, possibly treasonous man. I'll give us George Washington as a paragon of perfection, I think it's just as necessary to have a "good guy" to look up to, but I think Burr is needed as the archetypical antithesis of Washington's persona.

This is partially Isenberg's point of course, she points out that Burr has had popular biographies, movies, and even pornography (!!!) written about him, but up until now there was never a serious intellectual biography about him. Most historians of the founding era have been content to let him remain the bad guy, the scheming counterpart to the others' nobility. It seems like Isenberg has gone too far the other way though; her attempts to show that Burr's shady land deals and frank sexual affairs were just part of his era, or at least no worse than any of his other contemporaries on the New York political scene don't make him seen any less sketchy; they just make all the politicians, including the Clintons and other big New York families seem equally tarnished. I don't think that badmouthing everyone else is the right way to go about making Burr look less bad, but it is original, I'll give Isenberg that.

The two things that I learned about Burr that really interested me were (1) that he was Jonathan Edwards' grandson. (How did I miss this?!?) and (2) that he was pretty much an early feminist. His wife Theodosia was ten years his senior, a well-educated, articulate, political hostess, who was actually married to a British officer when he met her. He and Theodosia exchanged very intellectual letters discussing the educational philosophy of Rousseau and the feminist philosophy of Wollstonecraft. Their daughter Theodosia was educated in Greek and Latin, highly unusual for a woman of that era, and Burr treated both Theodosias as his intellectual equals, a refreshing mindset in a man of his status.

I do think that Isenberg brought up a good point here; that both Theodosias died young, and therefore Burr didn't have numerous progeny polishing his image for posterity the way that Adams and Washington and other founding fathers did. But all in all, I got the vague impression that the book was as much about Isenberg trying to resolve a crush on Aaron Burr as it was about revamping his image. If you're looking for an unusual lens for viewing early American history through, this book will fit the bill. Otherwise, I'd stick to David McCullough or Joseph Ellis, they're much more readable.

Sugar Free "Icebox" Pie

Given that we know about sixteen people that are diabetic (and I'm related to at least half of them) I've been thinking that I ought to come up with some more sugar free recipes. We celebrated my father-in-law's birthday last week, and since he was one of the diabetic people that we know, I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to test out a sugar free recipe from my mom. It's super easy, a no-bake pie, but it's delicious and refreshing, and you really can't even tell that it's sugar free.

I did make my own graham cracker crust, which makes it not quite sugar free, but you can easily buy pre-made sugar free crusts. I just like the taste of homemade crusts a lot better.

All it takes is sugar free jello, sugar free whipped topping, some ice and some boiling water, and a few add-ins if desired. I made two with orange jello, and split a small can of well-drained mandarin oranges between them. I made another with raspberry jello and added 3 oz of chopped sugar free dark chocolate. Both were really good....one of my mandarin orange ones came out with a slightly soggy crust, but the other one was fine, so I'm not quite sure what happened there. But each pie was creamy, cold, sweet, and quite pretty looking. I decided to forgo blowing out candles, since I was afraid that the heat of the candles might melt them a little bit, but they were festive in their own candle-less way. The raspberry chocolate one came out looking especially pretty. So make a diabetic happy, go make a sugar free pie!

Sugar Free "Icebox" Pie

one (9 inch) sugar free graham cracker pie crust

one (0.3 oz) pkg sugar free jello

one (8 oz) pkg sugar free whipped topping, thawed

2/3 cup boiling water

2 cups ice cubes

optional: 3 oz sugar free dark chocolate, chopped

or one small can no sugar added fruit, well drained

Dissolve the jello in boiling water, whisk till completely smooth. Whisk in 2 cups ice cubes, stir for 2 minutes, or until jello starts to quick-set, remove any remaining ice cube pieces. Fold in whipped topping. Fold in fruit or chocolate if desired. Spoon into graham cracker crust, refrigerate at least one hour before serving, serve cold. Refrigerate any leftovers.