At times, I have been a bit of a cook. Here is a spot for a few favorite recipes. Not all of them are mine. My plan is to add more recipes as I cook things. Enjoy. If you give any a try, please send your comments to me via e-mail.
I find casseroles great for parties. You can't overcook them. And they travel well.
Mark Appelbaum's Sweet Potato Casserole: This is the best, most classic,
Sweet Potato Casserole I know of. Terrific for
impressing the relatives on Thanksgiving. It's simple to make, but it's a lot of
hard work, so I've included a schedule for breaking up the work.
Ingredients:
I usually try to break the cooking into a two-day process. Wednesday and Thursday, for a Thursday Thanksgiving. Start on TUESDAY, two days before serving, and buy all your ingredients. (If you want some topping, like marshmallows or marshmallow fluff, make sure you have it on hand.) That night, before you go to sleep, take out two big pots and put them on the stove. Put some salt out on the counter.
Wednesday morning, early, pick a pot big enough to boil the potatoes. Fill that pot with salted water and bring the water to a boil. Prick the potatoes with a fork and put into the water. Boil for at least 25 minutes. (Large potatoes require 45 minutes and overcooking is not a problem.) Drain off the water. Put the lid back on the pot and leave it out to cool. (There's no point burning yourself peeling the potatoes.)
That evening, cut and peel the potatoes and place them into the other pot. (I use two pots to save trouble, but if you have only one pot, you can clean it now and reuse it. You can also use a large bowl for this part, but make sure it has steep sides.) Mash thoroughly, by any means necessary. Then mash in the butter, brown sugar, bourbon or rum (to taste), nutmeg and cinnamon (also to taste). Cover and refrigerate. You've done more than enough work for today.
Thursday, early, while all the hulabaloo of fixing all the other Thanksgiving stuff is getting started, you're ready to roll. Take the potato mix out of the fridge. Get out your mixer and whip the milk into the potatoes, slowly, a bit at a time. Start with half a cup and then keep adding milk until the mix is smooth and light and fluffy. (Warning: This will usually take more than just half a cup of milk. Make sure you have at least a cup for a casserole of this size.)
Now, scoop it all into a covered casserole dish. The casserole will rise a good deal, so don't fill it all to the top. No more than 3/4 way to the top if you don't plan a topping. No more than 2/3 if you do. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour. The original recipe calls for a last minute sprinkle of brown sugar on top, but I've always been a marshmallow fan. Top it how you like and serve hot.
For a big Thanksgiving, I usually double the recipe and make two casseroles. I rarely have any leftovers. Enjoy.
Pork and Beans Casserole: This is a recipe I got from my Mom.
I think she just got it from a label. Most of the ingredients are specified by
brand name, which is usually a tip-off. Terrific for
a covered dish to bring to a picnic. Has a nice, hard-core barbeque flavor.
Sort of a "no vegetarians need apply" kind of dish. It's simple to make,
and not too expensive.
You can prepare it a day in advance and then put it in the oven an hour before
the picnic.
This is triple the original recipe and serves 12.
Ingredients:
The original recipe specified pork chops, but, for picnics, I find boneless pork to be best. The boneless pork ribs work well. The are easy to slice up into cubes, which is what you need. Start by cutting the pork into cubes, as if for stew.
Brown the pork in a big pot (or the casserole dish, if it can handle the stove top) with the salt and pepper. If the pork is very lean (as pork often is these days), you may want to coat the bottom of the pot with a little cooking oil. While the pork is cooking, chop the veggies. After the pork is browned, set it aside (in the casserole dish if you aren't using it on the stovetop). If there is a lot of grease, drain it off and throw it out.
Keep the pot on the heat. Throw in the butter. After it melts, toss in the garlic, onions, and butter and sautee them. (The original recipe says just to sautee the onions and peppers, but I always sautee the garlic as well.)
Put the sauteed veggies on top of the pork in the casserole dish (or dishes if you don't have a really big casserole) and then add all of the remaining ingredients: the baked beans, chili sauce, mustard, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir it all together. Put the whole thing into the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour.
That's it. Bring it to the picnic and be the hero for sharing real meat.
Lamb and Feta Cheese: This is another recipe I got from my Mom.
It is the most wonderful lamb dish imaginable, and also the simplest to prepare.
It tastes best straight from the oven and is terrific served over rice.
It makes its own gravy.
Ingredients:
Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Put lamb cubes into a 9x13" pan in a single layer. Cut the Feta cheese into chunks and the tomatoes into wedges. Place them on top of the lamb.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes (less if you like you lamb rare). Serve over rice. Spoon juices over top.
Bernie's Chicken and Rice: I got this recipe from my Dad, who is
a terrific cook who likes to improvise.
Because he likes to improvise, Dad has no idea where this recipe came from
originally, or what the original looked like. You may also note that there
are no amounts for some of the ingredients. Dad wings it.
This dish cooks up on the stovetop and stores forever in the freezer. I usually freeze
it in small containers. Terrific for insuring that you get a healthy and tasty
meal at the office (if your office has a microwave). Plain simple fare,
but a complete meal. You can leave out the salt for a healthier alternative.
You could serve a lot of people with this dish. I'm not sure how many.
Ingredients:
As you can see, Dad's recipe doesn't specify much in terms of quantities. Dad tends to experiment, so you will have to as well. I have put together a few variations. They are listed below. The first thing I do is use 2 cups of rice (and 4 cups of water). I always use brown rice, but Dad usually uses white rice. I usually buy a whole chicken cut up. An alternative is to buy two chickens and cook the breasts separately. Chicken breasts work fine in this dish, but they are a bit snazzy and I don't miss them if I leave them out and use them in something else.
In a large pot, boil salted water. Add the rice and bring the pot back to a boil. Then add chicken and spices and carrots and, again, bring the pot back to a boil. Turn the heat down to get a low simmer for 1/2 hour to 40 minutes. When there is only five minutes left, add the peas. That's it. Serve it up or freeze it.
My modifications to Dad's recipe:
1) When I want to freeze and store, I de-bone the chicken and put the bones in cheese cloth and add the cheese cloth bag with the bones to the pot along with the chicken. Then, at the end, when everything EXCEPT the peas are cooked, I pull the bag of bones out of pot and discard them. That way, it's easy to put the final dish into individual meal-sized containers for freezing. In order to keep the peas from getting too mushy, I add the peas after the dish cools and before I put it into the containers. The microwaving will cook the peas plenty. Make sure you re-heat it to steaming hot. It tastes much better good and hot.
2) I usually use more rice than Dad. I find that 2 cups of rice works well. I like to go light on the carrots, because they are so sweet. I find that a pound of big carrots, chopped into one inch chunks works well. If I am feeling particularly lazy, I just buy a one pound bag of sliced carrots. (It doesn't taste as good, but it saves all that chopping.) Sugar snap peas or snow peas, still in the pods, make a good substitute for regular peas. One small package of frozen peas or sugar snaps seems to work just fine. (I usually use fresh, rather than frozen snow peas.) If you use snow peas, only let them cook for three minutes or so. Otherwise they get too mushy.
3) I also had an older recipe that included mushrooms, which I may not have written down (in any event, I can't find it). Suffice it to say that one or two jars of whole button mushrooms works well.
4) My pot can hold double the recipe, especially if I leave out the chicken breasts. You can feed a small army, or at least a platoon.
My mom taught me that an easy way to impress is to throw some butter and olive oil into a pan and sautee some meat, add some veggies and serve over noodles. An even better impression can be made by adding some garlic or onion, but these days, my system isn't tolerating either too well, so the first entree has neither.
Chicken Semyaticha: Here's a simple recipie that's easy on the
digestion, but with an interesting combination of flavors. I named it after the
village in Russia my grandfather came from, although someone else may have named
it first.
Ingredients:
I just came up with this one evening, so all of the quantities are approximate.
Take out a big pan and put it over a low flame. Toss in the butter and olive oil, add the black pepper and oregano, and cover until hot.
When things heat up, toss in the chicken, and braise until browned. Then raise the heat to medium, pour in enough white wine to cover the bottom of the pan, toss the asparagus on top and re-cover until the asparagus is lightly steamed.
Put the sour cream in a bowl. Spoon a little bit of gravy from the pan into the sour cream. (Cold sour cream in a hot pan curdles badly.) When the sour cream is just warm, turn off the heat under the pan, and spoon the sour cream over the chicken and asparagus.
Serve over noodles.
I create a lot of beverages ad hoc and tend not to write them down. I will try to rectify that situation here.
"Perfect" Non-dairy Hot Cocoa: I am both lactose intolerant
(which I handle with Lactase) and have an occasional true milk allergy. Tasty
substitutes for milk are hard to find. I accidentally stumbled on an easy way to make
really terrific hot cocoa without any milk products.
Makes one demitasse cup.
Ingredients::
Put the water on the boil. Put the dry cocoa in the cup. When the water comes to a boil, pour just enough in the cup to smooth out the cocoa. Then add the frosting and stir until smooth again. (If the frosting was refrigerated, the resultant mixture may not be hot enough. You can heat it a bit in the microwave, BUT FOR NO MORE THAN TEN SECONDS. Sugary liquids boil over VERY rapidly.) Finally, fill to the top with boiling water and enjoy!
We Americans can't have a meal without dessert. So long as we are destroying ourselves, we might as well go in style.
Three-layer Fudge: The name of this wonderful treat is a bit misleading.
A bit more brownie than fudge and not really much like either. Imagine the chocolate
dessert equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The flavor of the peanut
butter leads you to the jelly, which leads you back again. Now, replace the peanut
butter with chocolate and the jelly with a vanilla cream. It's so rich that one small
square is almost too much to handle. But it's so addictive that it will be hard to
stop at three or four.
As with so many other of my favorites, I did not invent this dish. I discovered it in the early 1980s at a New Year's Eve party in New York City. I refused to leave until my host gave me the recipe.
First (bottom) Layer, crumb mixture -- Ingredients::
Grease a 9-inch square cake pan. In a separate sauce pan, put the first six (6) ingredients and heat over low heat until mixture coats spoon. Take pot off heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Put final mixture into cake pan and press down with spoon. Place in refrigerator while preparing layer number two...
Second (middle) Layer, creme filling -- Ingredients::
Squish the butter, cream cheese, and pudding mix all together in a bowl until they are well-blended. Then beat in the confectioner's sugar and milk. Spread the filling over the crumb mixture (above) and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Third (top) Layer, glaze -- Ingredients::
Put both ingredients in a double-boiler with hot (not boiling) water. Melt together. Spread over filling. Refrigerate until firm.
Cut into small (1 inch) squares and serve. (I recommend taking them out of the pan and serving on a plate. Much easier to manage that way.)
Pumpkin Pie: This is another of my Mom's recipes. I promised my
brother, Sid, to put it on the web. Everyone seems to have their own favorite
pumpkin pie recipe. This is the one we grew up with.
Ingredients:
Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 45-55 minutes until set.
Note that Mom didn't include a recipe for the crust. You can either make your own or buy one. Just pour the mixture in and bake. Then let cool. (The next time I make this recipe, I will make notes and add detailed instructions here.)
Sugar Cookies: When my wheat allergy is especially problematic, I
often rely on Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix, which I heartily recommend.
They have plenty of recipes on their
WebSite.
I tried their sugar cookie recipe, and decided it needed some modifications. You
can try their version and try mine, and see which you like best. Here is my version:
Ingredients:
Cream butter and sugar together, add egg and vanilla and beat together. (I find it easiest to soften the butter in the microwave first and then stir in the sugar. Then beat an egg, add the vanilla, and then add the vanilla-egg mixture to the butter and sugar and mix.)
Add Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix. Spoon onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. One slightly heaping teaspoon makes a big cookie. Leave plenty of space between the cookies, they will spread. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 12 minutes; edges should be light brown. Let cookies cool slightly and use spatula to remove from cookie sheet.
The big difference in baking my version is that no rolling is required. The big difference in taste is that mine have a lot more butter and sugar. Mmmm! You can also experiment by adding caramel chips or white chocolate chips.