A Recipe for Happiness

Any of you who have been reading here for more than a year will know that I make the same thing for our New Year's Day dinner every year: pork for health, greens for wealth, and black-eyed peas for happiness. My New-Orleans-raised mother always made this, and now I do.

Every year, for my entire adult life. 

That means that I've been talking about this here for fifteen years now, and yet, I have never given you a recipe.

So now I will.

New Year's Day Black-Eyed Peas 

Ingredients

1 pound of dry black-eyed peas

1 ham bone

4 tablespoons canola oil, lard, or bacon grease

4 tablespoons flour

1 large or two small onions, diced

1 bell pepper, diced (I always use red, because I don't like green, but green is traditional)

2 stalks celery, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 small can plain tomato sauce, or half a can tomato paste

1 bay leaf

Method

1) Pick through and rinse off the black-eyed peas. I always pick through them and rarely find anything, but this last time I found a pea-sized rock, which is why I always do it.

2) Soak your black-eyed peas in a big pot. You can soak overnight, but I never think ahead that far. I just cover them with water, bring them to a boil, and then turn off the heat and leave them to sit for an hour or two.

3) Drain the water off, and put fresh water in the pot to cover the black-eyed peas and the ham bone. I always have a ham bone from Christmas, and this is a good use for it. If you don't have the bone, you can just use ham, but don't put that in yet.

4) Simmer the black-eyed peas until soft, about an hour or so. The ham bone won't be soft enough yet, but that's okay. It can stay in there.

5) Dice up all your vegetables so they're ready to add to the roux. It will look like too many vegetables. It is not.

This is what makes it taste good.

6) Make a roux with the oil, lard, or bacon fat. Heat the fat on medium heat and then sprinkle in the flour. Use a flat spoon to scrape and stir the flour around. This will take fifteen minutes or so. It will look pretty separate the whole time, but that's fine. You can be a little more negiligent to start, but once the flour starts browning, you really need to stir pretty constantly. When the flour is a medium dark brown color, it's done.

Done roux.

7) Add all the vegetables except the garlic to the roux and cook on low heat until the vegetables are soft. Then add the garlic and cook just a minute longer.

8) Dump all the vegetables into the black-eyed peas, add the bay leaf, the tomato product, and ham now if you didn't have the bone, and simmer the whole thing on low heat uncovered for a long time. Like two hours.

9) When the ham on the ham bone pulls off easily, remove the bone from the pot, let it cool a bit, and then pull all the ham off. Shred it and put it back in the pot and continue simmering.

10) Toward the end of the cooking time, you need to be scraping the bottom of the pot and stirring it frequently so it doesn't stick. This is also when you want to taste it and see if it needs more salt. I wait until now to do this because the ham adds quite a bit of salt and the whole thing reduces so much that it would be easy to over-salt it earlier in the cooking.

When the black-eyed peas have broken down quite a bit to thicken it all and there isn't much liquid left, it's done.

Done black-eyed peas. You can see it's about two inches lower than when it started cooking.

Some of my kids like these on their own, and some like them on rice. Either way, add butter and vinegar to taste at the table.

This makes a lot of black-eyed peas, but if you're going to spend four hours making anything, you'd better make enough for leftovers. Also, they freeze really well, so don't be afraid to make a lot. It just means more happiness--and delicious food--for you.

Happy New Year!

It's Cookie Season!

'Tis for sure the season to be making, gifting, receiving, and eating cookies. When I was in high school, my church youth group used to gather at my house to make like five different kinds of cookies. Then we would make up dozens of cookie plates to deliver to nursing homes and the elderly homebound of our parish.

That was fun, but only because there were a lot of people doing it. It's not something I would do on my own, not being a naturally enthusiastic baker.

I do bake a lot, though, and that is because I have three eating machines in my home*. Cookies are my alternative to buying snacks.

Mostly I make standard cookie-jar cookies, of the sort that are sturdy, have some protein, and will hang out quite happily in the cookie jar all week (with a piece of bread to keep them from getting hard).

But when I want to make a true dessert cookie, I make Mexican Wedding Cookies. 

I had never made them before this year. They are not the easiest cookie to make, because they aren't very forgiving of winging it, which is my typical baking style. Mexican Wedding Cookies are essentially a shortbread with nuts, and shortbread is somewhat finicky.

I tried a couple of recipes, but the one I use over and over again is this one. I like it because they hold their shape well, but I do have a few (uh, ten) notes for you if you want to try them.

First, and most importantly: This recipe doesn't have any salt. BOO. All recipes need salt. I always use salted butter, but they need more salt than that. I add about 3/4 of a teaspoon, but you could start with 1/2 teaspoon and see if you think it needs more after you taste the dough.

Second: You have to use walnuts. The oil in walnuts is important to this recipe. I used almonds once, and they did not hold together.

Third: Some of the walnuts absolutely do need to be ground. Not an optional step. The ground walnuts help them hold their shape better than just pieces of walnuts. Last time I made them, I actually ground them with my immersion blender right in a bowl, which was much less of a hassle than a food processor. Although you can make the whole recipe in a food processor if you want. I did that the first time I made them, and it worked just fine.

Fourth: For the chopped walnuts, you can absolutely just crush them in your hands, so as to avoid having to use a cutting board and knife. I hate dirtying two dishes just to chop nuts. Walnuts break easily enough in your hands to skip the knife.

Fifth: Because this is essentially a shortbread, the dough is weird. It's more like biscuit dough or pie dough than cookie dough, in that it looks impossibly crumbly when you're mixing it, but will hold together if you squish a bit in your fingers.

This is while I was forming the cookies, but you can see all the crumbs at the bottom of the bowl. Never fear; it's supposed to look like that.

Sixth: This dough really does need to be chilled. I usually shove it in the freezer for fifteen minutes or so, because I'm impatient.

Seventh: When forming the cookies, if you squish the dough together quite firmly and then roll it just a couple of times in your hands (too many tries at rolling it will make it fall apart), they will mostly retain the round shape that I think is appropriate for these cookies.

Eighth: Be careful of overbaking. The recipe says the tops should be lightly browned, but you can't really see that very well. Better to carefully flip one over to see how brown it is on the bottom.

Perfect. And you can see they don't really spread, which is handy for fitting the whole recipe on one pan.

Ninth: You really have to leave them on the pan to cool for awhile, or they will just fall apart while you're rolling them in powdered sugar.

Tenth: Rolling anything in powdered sugar makes a huge mess. But I'm sure you already knew that.

Powdered sugar just waiting to explode all over the place.

Because these are a slightly more involved cookie than most, I make them for things like the silent auctions of baked goods we have at school sometimes as fundraisers. They tend to go for quite a bit of money, because they are unusual.

I think these cookies eventually went for $40 at the silent auction last week.

Okay! If you actually read all of that, I hope you'll try making these cookies. They are invariably a hit, and are definitely something different if you're looking for a unique cookie to contribute to a holiday event.

* I refer here to my rapidly growing boys. My daughter doesn't even come close to their level of consumption.

Growing Food: Rhubarb Pudding Recipe

Well, we are gardening for food here on Tuesdays, so it makes sense to have recipes that use that food, right? Right. And the very first is for one of the very first things to come out of the garden in the spring: rhubarb.

Rhubarb bouquet.

Rhubarb seems to be a polarizing food. People who like it, really like it. And people who don't, really don't.

If you're in the second camp, I am sorry. Come back later. But if you're one of those who really likes rhubarb, this one's for you.

Some back story on this recipe first. It is one that the MiL used to make from an old set of cookbooks she has*. The recipes noted the place of origin, and this recipe was supposedly Pennsylvania Dutch. 

It is not a pudding in the American sense. It's kind of like a crisp, except the topping doesn't have oats or nuts in it. I could not find anything similar to it online, and actually called the MiL to get the recipe. The recipe as written is extremely sweet. The MiL makes it with more rhubarb and less sugar, and so do I. 

Rhubarb Pudding

Ingredients for fruit base

4 cups rhubarb, cut in about inch-long chunks

1 egg

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Ingredients for topping

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup loose brown sugar (NOT tightly packed)

pinch of salt

1/4 cup cold butter, cut into cubes

Method

1) Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

2) Beat the egg with the sugar and salt in a medium bowl until thoroughly combined, then stir the rhubarb into it until it's all mixed together. Put in the buttered dish. (I actually use my 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup to measure the rhubarb, then dump that into the casserole, use the Pyrex to mix the sugar, egg, and salt, and then pour it over the rhubarb so I can mix it together right in the casserole.)

3) In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, brown sugar, and salt, and then cut in the butter with a pastry cutter. Spread this to cover the top of the rhubarb in the casserole.

4) Bake 35-40 minutes. Let cool and serve with cream.

What this makes is an extremely simple but incredibly tasty dessert. The topping reminds me of shortbread, which makes sense, given the ingredients.

Topping and base, ready to be combined.

Notes

1) If you're new to cooking with rhubarb, remember the leaves are toxic and can't be used. Only the stalks are edible.

2) If you want it sweeter, you can up the sugar in both the rhubarb base and topping. The original measurements were for a full cup of sugar for only three cups of rhubarb, and a packed half cup of brown sugar in the topping, so my version about halves the total sugar.

3) You can make whipped cream to top it, but we just pour straight heavy cream right on top. It doesn't need the extra sugar that is typically in whipped cream, and anyway, who wants an extra step before you can start eating?

Puddles of cream are a beautiful sight indeed.

My gift to you, fellow rhubarb lovers. Happy spring.

* I think it was the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery, although the MiL will have to tell us for sure.

A Very Handy Recipe

Maybe this isn't true for every household, but in ours, it's surprisingly annoying to be without bread. Thanks to my foul flour situation, we have been without bread for five days now, and it has made me realize how reliant I am on it for quick meal additions. Toast is a lot faster than fried potatoes in the morning.

I still had two cups of flour from the bit Ms. Amelia gave me to make Jack's birthday pancakes on Sunday, though. And while two cups wouldn't get me very far with sourdough bread--each loaf takes at least four cups--it is enough to make this quick bread. 

I found this recipe a long time ago when I was searching for a way to use up the large quantity of quick oats and white whole wheat flour that we kept getting from excess commodities. I really like it because it's not as sweet and cakey as most quick breads--banana bread, I'm looking at you--but it has enough honey and dairy in it to make it a stand-alone bread. It's delicious with butter and jam, but it can also be eaten by itself.

I've changed some things in the recipe (of course), including doubling it for two loaves and nixing the unnecessary oats on the top and bottom, so this is what I do.

Full-Fat Honey Oat Quick Bread

Ingredients

2 cups quick oats

2 and 2/3 cups white whole wheat flour

2 cups all purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2.5 teaspoons salt

2 cups full-fat plain yogurt

2 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil or butter

1/2 cup honey

1.5 cups whole milk

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees and grease two large loaf pans. (Use your butter wrappers!)

2. Melt the butter or coconut oil. I do this in a big Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave. Mix in the honey. Add the yogurt and eggs and combine thoroughly.

3. In a big bowl, mix all the dry ingredients.

4. Dump the wet mixture in the big bowl with the dry mixture and combine thoroughly.

5. Add the milk and stir until just combined.

6. Scoop half the batter into each greased loaf pan and smooth out the tops.

7. Bake about 50 minutes, until it's brown on top and a butter knife comes out clean when you poke it in there.

8. Slide the butter knife around the edges to loosen the loaves, then let cool most of the way before removing.

Notes

1. I usually freeze one of these, which is why I make two. So handy to be able to pull one out later without baking again.

2. I've never made these as muffins because I loathe cleaning my muffin tin, but I suspect this batter would be very good for muffins.

3. Because of all the dairy in it, I store this in the refrigerator. You can toast to heat slices, or use a microwave.

4. My children love this with butter and peach jam. It is, indeed, astoundingly delicious warmed in the microwave to melt the butter and then slathered with jam. Almost like cake. But way healthier.

I didn't take a photo of this when I made it yesterday, but here's one of Jack and Poppy enjoying a woodstove picnic, which later included a slice of this very bread.

Jack had a sore throat (the dreaded mucous season has definitely arrived), so I made them a fruit shake* and they drank it by the fire. Because the only way to drink something that cold in December is to be three inches from a heat source.

* For some reason, I dislike the word "smoothie." So I call them fruit shakes, which will probably ensure lifelong confusion for my children.

T.T.: A Modern Switchel Recipe

Cubby started football last week, so of course I bought him a case of Gatorade to bring with him to his three-hour practices.

. . .

If you believed that, you have not been reading here long enough.

I don't like the disposable plastic bottles or the ingredients in Gatorade. But there is no denying that it goes down easy for boys who have been running around a football field in the sun for over three hours. They can't drink too much cold water without getting cramps.

So what to do?

Grandma Post knew!

Grandma Post was the MiL's mother. She was the daughter, wife, and mother of farmers, all of whom spent many, many hours haying in punishing upstate New York heat and humidity every summer. She knew how to keep them hydrated. And how she did it was switchel.

My first experience of switchel was at her house in the summer. She had some in her refrigerator for her son who was running the farm. Switchel is the traditional drink for summer hydration because it can be consumed in larger quantities than plain water. 

The primary reason for that is that it has ginger in it. That's what allows a person who is exerting himself to drink it without getting cramps, as he would with plain water.

The traditional ingredients for switchel are water, vinegar, ginger, a bit of lemon juice, and a sweetener like maple syrup or honey*.

 I made traditional switchel for Cubby last football season, and he really didn't like the vinegar in it. 

He never would have made in on a haying crew.

I suspect the vinegar was mostly a lemon juice stand-in for farmers who didn't have access to fresh lemons, anyway, so now I just use all lemon juice. Not from fresh lemons, though, because I also don't have regular access to fresh lemons. Also, you would have to squeeze a LOT of lemons. The bottled stuff is fine.

All of my switchel ingredients come in bottles actually, but if you have fresh ginger and lemons, knock yourself out.

The resulting drink is pretty much like a slightly gingery lemonade. Very palatable for those of us not raised on traditional switchel, and just as refreshing.

So if you, too, have a child sweating their life away on a field somewhere (or it you yourself are the sweater), give switchel a try. No plastic bottle, no food dye, no strange ingredients. Perfect.

Modern Switchel

Ingredients

1/2 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup maple syrup or honey (if using honey, you'll probably need less, but I haven't tried it)

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 quart water (warm if using honey, to dissolve it better)

Method

Add all ingredients to a quart-size canning jar and shake it all up. Either keep the jar cold in the refrigerator, or pour the switchel into a big water bottle filled with ice to take to the football or hay field. Cubby has a 32-ounce insulated water bottle that I fill with ice in the morning before adding the quart of switchel to it, and it's still icy for afternoon practice. 

Although I measured so I could write out a recipe for you, it will probably not surprise you that I don't actually measure anything when I make it myself. I just go by taste. As should you. Start with the measurements if you want, but add more or less sweetener, more or less ginger. You can even try some apple cider vinegar in place of some of the lemon juice if you want it more traditional.

Salud!

* Molasses is also traditional, but the one time I made it with molasses, A. was absolutely horrified and actually spit it out. So I guess it wasn't traditional for his family. Molasses does have a very strong flavor, so unless you're a fan of molasses already, I wouldn't recommend it.

T.T.: Streamlined Snack Cookies

I freely admit that I spend more time in the kitchen than is probably reasonable. But all that time in the kitchen inevitably leads to certain efficiencies. I know my style of scratch cooking is time-intensive, but I see no need to slavishly follow recipes if it leads to unnecessary steps and more time.

Such was the case with this cookie recipe.

I developed it several months ago while searching for a cookie recipe that used more oats than flour. I am absolutely buried in oats thanks to the government commodities program and our generous neighbors. I think I have at least twenty pounds of oats on hand at all times. 

In addition to an oat-heavy recipe, I wanted one that would be acceptable for school snacks. I have Many Opinions on school snacks, all of which I will spare you. All I'll say is that I've completely sworn off any pre-packaged snacks for my kids at school.

But they still need to eat. And they need relatively healthy snacks that will last at least a week without refrigeration. 

Those snacks also need to be portable, not too messy to eat, and not annoying and time-consuming for me to make.

I've found cookies to be the best option for portability and longevity. So I needed a snack cookie that used lots of oats, was relatively healthy, lasted a long time in a classroom, could be transported easily, wouldn't fall apart, and wouldn't take too much of my time.

That's a lot to ask.

But I figured it out. These cookies have a bit of protein from peanut butter and walnuts, are sweetened minimally (but still acceptably--no need to be penitential about it) only with honey, and are mostly oats. They're as close to a "healthy" cookie as I could get while still being recognizably a cookie, and therefore fun to eat.

I actually started with this recipe I found online, but I've eliminated most of the steps and dirty dishes. It's just one big bowl, one measuring cup, one spoon, and one pan. It takes me exactly 15 minutes to mix the dough and get the cookies in the oven. With only 12 minutes of baking time (the entire batch fits on one pan, so it really is only 12 minutes), that's less than 30 minutes for a week's worth of school snacks for three kids (plus some extras for the kid at home).

Wait, I lied. There is one other small bowl for melting butter and so on. Still fewer dishes than the original recipe, and FAR fewer steps.

I also changed some of the ingredient amounts, so it's not really that recipe anymore. It's mine. And now it can be yours.

Snack Cookies (makes about 30 small cookies)

Ingredients

1 cup flour (can be all-purpose, white whole wheat, or a combination--the more white flour, the more it will have a dessert cookie texture)

2 cups oats (old-fashioned or quick, but NOT instant)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt (use a bit more if using unsalted butter)

1/2 cup nut pieces (I use walnuts)

3/4 cup raisins or chocolate chips (or a combination)

8 tablespoons butter (I use salted because that's all I buy)

1/3-1/2 cup honey (more honey means more like a dessert cookie)

1/2 cup peanut butter 

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Method

1) Combine oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nuts (I break the pieces up smaller in my hands as I'm adding them, because I can't be bothered to dirty a knife and cutting board to chop them), and raisins/chocolate chips in a big bowl and mix all together.

2) Melt butter, honey, and peanut butter all together in a small bowl in microwave (or a pot on the stove) and add to the dry ingredients. 

3) Slightly beat the egg in that same bowl the butter, etc. was in (always reduce dishes!) and add it to the big bowl, along with the vanilla.

4) Mix all together thoroughly with a sturdy spoon. It will be quite dense and sticky. You can put it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so if you want to get it a little less goopy. I usually don't bother, though.

5) For each cookie, scoop out about a tablespoon with a spoon and drop it onto an ungreased, unlined pan.  These don't spread, so you can put them very close together, which is why you can bake the whole batch on only one pan. If you've chilled the dough, you can roll it into balls and smoosh them slightly flat on top to make neater cookies with a more uniform shape. 

6) Bake at 325 degrees for about 12 minutes in the top half of your oven (if they're in the bottom half, they'll brown too much on the bottom before they're done). These will not brown much on top, so check the bottom of one to see if they're done. When the bottoms are a medium brown, take them out. They will be a bit crumbly right out the oven, so either leave them on the pan to cool for a few minutes, or just be careful when transferring to a cooling rack.

Although I give specific ingredients and amounts, I must admit to playing fast and loose with measurements when I make them. I do measure the oats and flour, but the rest of it I usually just eyeball. You can also use different nuts, or different chopped dried fruit or M&Ms . . . it's extremely forgiving. 

When I'm feeling indulgent, I'll use 1/2 cup raisins and 1/4 chocolate chips, rather than all raisins.

Unlike most cookies, these are actually better after they have been stored for a day or so, rather than freshly baked. They soften up a little bit and are less crumbly after being in a jar for awhile. 

Incredibly, they will last at least three whole weeks in a jar in a classroom snack box with very little deterioration in texture or flavor. I only know that because I have one kid who has a tendency to forget about snacks from previous weeks that didn't get eaten. So when I've found, say, a few cookies in a jar in his snack box that contain chocolate chips, and I know I last made the cookies with chocolate chips almost a month ago . . .

Well, they just last a really long time. I would never have kept them that long on purpose, but I did try those particular aged cookies myself, and they were fine. You can also freeze them with no problems.

My boys will eat two a day for the four days of school, and eight of these cookies fit just right in a wide-mouth pint jar.

In case you were wondering, I've never had a jar break in a backpack or at school. Canning jars are very sturdy.

So there you go. Zero-waste, relatively healthy cookies that don't take hours to make. My small but important contribution to parents everywhere.

Bonus school snack tip: The best savory snack I've found so far is popcorn. Just don't overdo the butter, or it'll get soggy in the jar.

T.T.: German Red Cabbage

Last week, Jackie commented asking for the MiL's red cabbage recipe. 

Well, Jackie is in luck! The MiL's red cabbage recipe used to me mine, too, and so I can give you this recipe without asking the MiL to send it to me.

The original recipe came from a cookbook the MiL has. It's from a now-closed famous German restaurant in New York City called Luchow's. The restaurant opened in the 1880s and didn't close for a full century. The cookbook really evoked the atmosphere of the place, and every time I read the cookbook, I regretted that I never got to visit the actual restaurant. Just click on that link up there and feast your eyes on the illustration of the interior.

Anyway.

I found the original recipe online here. 

I used to double this recipe to make five quarts of red cabbage every year when we lived at Blackrock, and I would freeze it in quart jars. One of my favorite winter meals was kielbasa with German red cabbage and mashed potatoes. I can't get good kielbasa now, so I haven't even bothered making the cabbage in some time, but it really is delicious.

I made several changes to the original recipe when I used to make it, so I suppose you could say this is a new recipe.

German Red Cabbage

Ingredients

1 medium-sized red cabbage

2 tart apples (optional, but delicious)

2 tbsp. chicken fat (use it if you have it!) or vegetable oil

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

2 cups water

1/2 cup red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

1/3 cup sugar 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 cloves

1 bay leaf

Method

1) Wash and core cabbage. Cut into about 1/4-inch ribbons.

2) If using apples, wash, peel, core, and dice.

3) Heat fat in large pot. Saute onion and apples until soft.

4) Add everything else and bring to a boil.

5) Cover and simmer about 45 minutes.

6) Uncover and simmer another 30 minutes, to make the cabbage completely tender and to reduce liquid a bit. The original recipe called for a lot more water and then flour to thicken it, but I always just started with less water, no flour, and reduced the liquid by simmering more.

7) Taste and adjust salt, sugar, and vinegar as needed. It shouldn't be noticeably sweet or noticeably acid. You're looking for a balance between the sweet and acid, sort of like with this coleslaw. 

As I mentioned, I haven't actually made this in about five years, so I might be forgetting something, but I think this was pretty much what I did.

Also, if you decide to make this in quantity as I used to do, I would recommend freezing it rather than canning it. I canned it one year, but I found it had an over-cooked taste that way. And anyway, I'm not 100% sure this recipe has enough vinegar in it to make it safe for water-bath canning, so freezing is the way to go.

Prost!

T.T.: Custard for Karen.

On last week's Friday Food post, Karen. left a comment saying that she needs to figure out how to make custard.

I chose to interpret that as a request for a recipe, despite the fact there was no actual request for an actual recipe in the comment.

I'm skilled at finding hidden meanings, you see.

Okay! So! Custard.

The recipe I use is from The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, by Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated fame. I don't actually remember how I acquired this cookbook, though I suspect it was in the bargain bin at the Barnes and Noble A. and I used to go to like twenty years ago in search of air conditioned relief from our stifling basement apartment in Albany, New York.

Remember bookstores? Yeah. Those were the days.

Anyway.

I don't actually like the cookbook all that much objectively--it trades rather heavily on nostalgia for old fashioned Vermont farms and cooks--but I do like this recipe. It's the only custard recipe I've ever used.

That said, I have changed it a bit.

To start, I always make a double recipe. The original recipe says it will serve eight. Maybe eight normal people, but it certainly will not serve my six family members. A double recipe is a LOT of custard--like half a gallon--which is exactly how much our custard-hogging family will eat. We never have leftovers.

I also adjusted the amounts of milk, cream, and eggs. I use slightly more milk and less cream, because cream is much harder for me to get than milk. And I use slightly more whole eggs than separated egg yolks, because I loathe separating eggs and also very much dislike having stray egg whites hanging around in the refrigerator.

These changes don't matter as much, however, as the baking. This is tricky, I will not lie. For one thing, it involves a water bath. Water baths are a pain, what with the weight of all that water in a giant pan that is also filled with heavy custard, and the boiling water sloshing all over when you try to move the pan. Getting the custard dishes out of the water bath is also impossible to do without soaking your oven mitts with hot water.

But it's the baking time that will make or break a custard. The texture of this custard is supposed to be very smooth. I would even say silky. And it will be, but only if you don't overbake it. 

I have to admit I often do. The baking time depends so much on the size and shape of the dish you're baking the custard in, and I have to change that sometimes. When the custard is overbaked, it will separate a bit and weep moisture and is definitely less appealing. Although it's certainly still tasty and will be eaten if it's overbaked, so don't be too intimidated.

You ready? Let's go.

American Baked Custard--adapted from The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook*

5 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

3 egg yolks (you can use a leftover white or two to make these nuts)

7 whole eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

grated nutmeg

1) Heat oven to 325 degrees. Bring a kettle of water to the boil. 

2) Butter two large casserole dishes. I use an oval one that's just under 2 quarts, and a rectangular one that's just over 1.5 quarts. You want dishes that are relatively wide and shallow, not deep.

3) Find a big roasting pan or Pyrex casserole dish that will hold both of your casserole dishes. Put the buttered dishes in the bigger dish.

3) Using a big Pyrex measuring cup--mine is 4 cups--measure out your milk and cream and put them either in a big microwavable bowl, or in a pot on the stove. Heat the milk and heavy cream until bubbly at the edges. 

4) In that same Pyrex measuring cup, whisk together everything else but the nutmeg. Then temper the egg mixture (this just means warming it slightly so the eggs won't scramble) by whisking in a cup or so of the hot milk mixture and then dumping the tempered egg stuff in with the rest of the milk mixture in the big bowl. Whisk until completely combined. 

5) You can either pour the combined mixture right from the big bowl or you can put it back in the Pyrex cup, which has a pouring spout. In either case, you're going to pour that mixture into your buttered casserole dishes through a sieve. The sieve will catch any of the remaining unincorporated egg. This isn't strictly neccesary, but it creates a smoother final product and I always do it. Grate nutmeg all over the tops of the custards.

6) Transfer that giant, heavy dish of custard liquid into the oven, AND THEN pour hot water all around the casserole dishes to a depth of about 1 inch. Much easier than putting the hot water in and trying to slide an even heavier, and sloshing, dish into a hot oven.

7) Bake about 40 minutes, but check at around 30 minutes. The center should still be wobbly and barely set, although the edges will be set. I usually think it's not done, but it usually is. I think erring on the side of underbaking is probably better with custard. A handy rhyme for you: When in doubt, take it out.

8) Remove custard dishes from the water bath (careful of that burning hot water!) and let cool until at least not burning hot--maybe 30 minutes on a cooling rack--then put in the refrigerator. The original recipe says it can be served warm or cold, but we only like it cold.

I don't have any photos of the finished product, but here it is before going into the oven.

Repeat after me: When in doubt, take it out. (I need to take my own advice.)

* Update: I have further edited the recipe to use even less cream, plus fewer yolks and a bit less sugar. So now I usually make it with 5.5 cups milk and .5 cups cream, 2 yolks and still 7 whole eggs, and 3/4 cup sugar.

T.T.: One Coleslaw To Rule Them All

(Not to worry--more questions about remote living will be answered tomorrow. I just decided it wasn't so much a Tuesday Tips thing, so remote questions get their own day.) 

Summer has just begun, and that means that coleslaw season is upon us. I have mentioned more than once that I have a really good coleslaw recipe. My children agree. A., who doesn't like mayonnaise-heavy salads, agrees. The MiL agrees. She makes it, too. The MiL's friend Jane agreed, too, and asked me for the recipe many years ago.

It is not a mayonnaise-y, very sweet coleslaw, of the sort available at delis. I don't care for that kind of coleslaw, but I really love this one. I can drink the dressing on its own.

This is the only recipe for coleslaw I ever use, and I'm going to share it with you now. Because sharing is caring, and more people need this recipe.

The recipe comes from Serving Up the Harvest, which is a wonderful book with recipes to use garden produce by Andrea Chesman. I discovered just now that it's available online in Google Books, which means you can see the actual recipe (and the rest of the book, too) right here.

I'm still going to write it out for you here, though.

Andrea Chesman's Creamy Coleslaw

8 cups shredded green cabbage

3 carrots, shredded

1/4 Vidalia or other sweet onion, finely chopped (I just use a yellow onion)

1.5 cups buttermilk (I use plain yogurt)

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

3 tablespoons cider vinegar (if you add the previous three ingredients in this order, you can use the same tablespoon measure for all of them)

1/4-3/4 teaspoon celery seed

salt and pepper (she gives no measurements for this, but I would say at least a teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper)

This will make a TON of coleslaw. The recipe says it serves 8, but I think it serves more like 12 as a side dish. I usually make a half recipe for my family. 

I use a food processor for shredding when I make a whole recipe of this, but my box grater to make smaller quantities. Either way, you're going to get cabbage and carrots all over the place. Shredding is messy.

Anyway.

All you do is mix together the vegetables, mix together the dressing ingredients until smooth, then combine them both. She notes that the coleslaw will look dry when it's first mixed, but the longer it stands, the wetter it gets. This is true. 

She also notes that you should refrigerate it at least an hour. Longer is better, though. I usually make it in the morning to have for dinner.

To be honest, I don't measure the celery seed, salt, and pepper. You're going to need to taste it to make sure the balance of flavors in the dressing is right, anyway. Especially the salt.

You need a picture of my coleslaw, right? I thought so.

You probably didn't need this, actually. I promise it tastes better than it looks, though.

Tuesday Tips: Pandemic Pots de Creme

Another recipe! What is happening here? Am I turning into a recipe person?

No. But it's sort of hard to spread the gospel of the easiest, most delicious dessert in the world without giving you a recipe. That would just be cruel. And really, if you like chocolate, you need to try this.

"This" is pots de creme. It is, apparently, a very traditional French dessert. Not always chocolate in France, but always chocolate in my kitchen, which is definitely not French. And this is definitely not a traditional pots de creme recipe. I suspect a traditional French cook would not even recognize this, but it's absurdly simple and delicious, so we're running with it.

There are dozens upon dozens of recipes for chocolate pots de creme, which is sort of like a cross between a chocolate mousse and chocolate pudding. It's what I imagine the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory would taste like.

I had never had it nor heard of it, however, until the MiL made it many years ago, using a recipe she got from her MiL.

Her MiL--A.'s grandmother, known as Bae--had a definite dramatic flair and loved a good story. When she and her husband were in their sixties, they left Blackrock to the care of their adult children and spent a couple of winters running a hotel on the Carribean island of Bequia.

I mean, why not, right?

I have no idea where they came up with this plan, but there is no doubt that Bae got many, many stories out of the experience. Some were about eating whale meat. Some were about the sailboat--pleasantly named The Friendship Rose--that brought supplies to Bequia and was the only way to get to the "big town" on the bigger island. And one was about the pots de creme.

Bae claimed she got the recipe from the cook at the hotel. The MiL, however, tells me that the recipe actually came from Bae's copy of Joy of Cooking. It's still in the newer editions, too, although the version Bae made is now listed as a variant of the main recipe.

Apocryphal origin story aside, she did indeed make this recipe a lot on the island for the guests at the hotel. The recipe as written has exactly five ingredients: chocolate chips, milk, eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract. In a traditional pots de creme recipe*, the ingredients are combined on the stove top and then baked in a water bath, like a custard.

This recipe, however, is made in a blender (or food processor). The milk is heated very hot, them dumped in a blender with all the rest of the ingredients to be whizzed around until smooth. The hot milk melts the chocolate chips and cooks the egg. The resulting liquid is refrigerated until it's chilled and is solidified a bit. This method is much more to my taste than messing around with a pot on the stove and a water bath in the oven.

Given the problem of supplies on Bequia, I asked A. how his grandmother got milk. He said they used evaporated milk, powdered milk, and shelf-stable milk in cartons. 

I've always made this recipe with whole milk, but I was intrigued by this. What if I could make it with evaporated milk? If I could, then it could be made with almost all pantry ingredients. (The exception being the eggs.)

So I tried it with one of the cans of evaporated milk I keep in the pantry. I always double the original recipe for our larger family, so I was delighted to find that a regular can of evaporated milk is exactly 1.5 cups. Which is exactly the amount needed for a double recipe. 

Serendipity.

We had the evaporated-milk pots de creme Sunday night, and I could not tell a difference in taste or texture from the whole milk version. If anything, it was a little thicker, since, of course, evaporated milk is thicker than whole milk. 

A. thought he could detect a slight difference in mouth feel and taste, but he enthusiastically endorses both versions. As do the children.

So I think you can pretty much use any sort of milk you have on hand. Most recipes online call for cream, too, which I have never tried in this. The versions with cream might be better, but I assure you that you can make this with any kind of milk, and it will be delicious.

Well, maybe not skim milk. That might be too thin. But you can definitely make it with evaporated milk, which pleases me greatly.

So if you bought evaporated milk this spring when the world went crazy and we all went along with it, but now you don't know what to do with that can? Now you know. Make this. You won't be sorry.

Pandemic Pots de Creme (makes enough for six generous servings)

Ingredients

1.5 cups milk or evaporated milk

2 cups chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark, or milk, depending on how sweet you like things)

2 eggs

3-4 tablespoons sugar (adjust depending on your preferences and the sweetness of your chocolate)

a pinch of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method

Heat the milk until bubbly on the edges, either in the microwave or a pan on the stove. It will probably get a skin on the top. That's okay.

Put all the rest of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend for about ten seconds, just to break the chocolate chips up a bit. This makes it easier for them to get totally melted in the next step. 

Pour the hot milk in all at once and blend until smooth, leaving the round stopper piece off the top of your blender or food processor and covering the top opening with a dish towel. This is an important safety step whenever you're blending any hot liquid. 

Pour the mixture into small bowls or ramekins, then refrigerate at least two hours, until thoroughly chilled.

Serve with cream on top. You can use one of those cans of whipped cream, I guess, if you're sticking to pantry items here. Or you can really go for broke and do like us: Just pour some cream directly on top to make a lake of cream over the chocolate. You get more cream this way, without all that air from whipping to get in the way. 

This must be the least-fancy recipe ever when it comes to ingredients and method, but it yields a very fancy-looking dessert. Even if you don't have cute little ramekins to serve it in. Or even matching bowls.

I, obviously, have neither. And it doesn't matter, because this magic recipe is delicious no matter what it's served in.

I think we could all use a little more liquified chocolate in our lives, right? Well, here you go. Chocolate comfort for a very strange time.

Update #1: I no longer use any of the added sugar in this recipe. It's sweet enough for us without it.

Update #2: I was having trouble for awhile with this not thickening when it was refrigerated, and I finally determined that doubling the recipe was causing the problem. So now, if want to make the quantity as written in this recipe, I do half at a time in the blender. No more problems with thickening.

Tuesday Tips: A Gift for You

As some of you may have figured out by now, I am not a recipe person. To a rather ridiculous degree, actually. I don't follow them (certainly not well . . .). I don't write them. I am just not into recipes.

But I have a recipe for you today. Because as far as I can tell, there is nothing like this on the entire Internet, and that must be remedied.

It's a recipe for spiced nuts that I made up several months ago and have been making ever since. It started because my mother gave me a five-pound bag of raw almonds, and I wasn't sure what to do with them. I mean, roast them, of course, because almost all nuts are better roasted. And all nuts are better with seasonings.

But when I went searching on the all-knowing Internet for spiced almond recipes, what I found mostly fell into two categories: sweet, or spicy-hot.

I like cinnamon-sugar roasted nuts as well as the next person, but I wasn't looking to keep something covered in sugar around as a snack in my pantry. I also wasn't looking for anything that would burn my sensitive mouth, or my children's. 

So I used the general method and made up my own recipe, with a spice mixture consisting of only salt, paprika, and garlic powder. The resulting nuts are delicious on their own, but when they're eaten with sharp cheddar cheese--I prefer to take a bite of cheese, then a few nuts--they taste surprisingly like nacho cheese flavored Doritos. 

I can't explain this, but I know I like it.

I kept thinking I should actually measure ingredients and time baking and all that jazz so I could share these with you, and now seemed like a good time, what with the holidays coming up. These are, in my opinion, an excellent option for gift-giving. (Assuming, of course, that you know the recipient isn't allergic to tree nuts. But you're all intelligent enough to know that without my admonitions.)

I mean, they're tasty, convenient, portable, shelf-stable, and not filled with sugar, which I think we all get enough of this time of year. Is there a better gift for those random people you don't know well enough to buy a gift for, but feel like they deserve something? Nope. 

Here we go.

Spiced Almonds

Ingredients

3 cups raw almonds

1 egg white

1.5-2 teaspoons regular ol' table salt (I like mine pretty salty, so I use the larger amount, but if you're not into a lot of salt, you will obviously use less)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

2 teaspoons sweet paprika (all the spiced almond recipes online that use paprika call for smoked paprika. I don't care for smoked paprika, but if you think you'd like that, have at it)

Method

Dump your raw almonds in a pile directly on a half-sheet baking pan. You do not need to line the pan, oil it, or anything else.

Beat your egg white in a small bowl with a fork for one minute. It will be frothy. 

Dump the egg white on top of your pile of almonds and mix it around with your hands until the almonds are all coated. 

Sprinkle on the salt, garlic powder, and paprika, then mix with your hands again until all the spices are evenly distributed. Spread the almonds out into one layer in the pan.

Bake in a 325 degree oven. After about ten minutes, use a spatula to stir the almonds around and loosen them from the bottom of the pan. They'll be a bit stuck, but you won't have to pry them up or anything.

Bake fifteen more minutes (for a total baking time of 25 minutes), then remove from the oven and let the almonds cool on the pan.

When they're cool, put them in a jar with a screw-on lid. 

Ta da! That's it.

And look, I even took a picture of the finished product for you.

I probably should have had them artfully strewn across a decorative platter, but . . . no. Here they are in the jar, because that's what they look like in my kitchen.

Now go forth and roast some nuts. You won't be sorry.

Let's Talk Chutney

Do you like chutney? Do you even know what chutney IS? Yeah, I didn't either, other than that it sounded impossibly British somehow.

Turns out, chutney is kind of British, but only by way of India. It's a condiment, made from pretty much, well, anything. Mostly fruit, with the addition of hot peppers, vinegar, sugar, and spices. Sound kind of gross? It does, I admit, but it totally works.

My introduction to chutney came a few years ago courtesy of the MiL's friend Jane. Yes, her name really is Jane, and she is originally from Yorkshire. They do chutneys in a BIG way in Britain. Jane makes her own, from whatever fruit she might come across. She even sells it at her church's bake sales and things. Jane's practically a professional when it comes to chutney.

I think the first of her chutneys I tasted was an apple chutney. I tasted it from the jar and honestly, kind of shuddered. It was just very . . . strong. What with all the spices and the heat and the vinegar, chutney is not a bland food, to say the least. But put it on a curry, which is the traditional use for it, and some strange alchemy happens.

That's how I discovered that chutney is DELICIOUS.

But still, I only used it on curries, which we don't really make all that often. Then the MiL was making her usual corn tortilla and cheese microwaved until the cheese melts, but she added some chutney on it. And Cubby, as is his habit, begged for a bite. He took that bite, then he took another, and another, and another.

Cubby loves chutney on corn tortillas with cheese.

And why not, right? It's sweet, but savory, with a little bit of heat. It is, in fact, much like a fruit salsa, but with a lot more spices in it.

Chutney, as I have mentioned, can be made from almost anything--pears, apples, red tomatoes, apricots--but the most useful application for chutney for me is as a way to dispose of multitudes of green tomatoes. Of which I always have many.

So, without further ado, here is Yorkshire Jane's Green Tomato Chutney, exactly as she wrote it out for me last fall in her very British voice. Make some. You won't be sorry.

Yorkshire Jane's Green Tomato Chutney

2 lbs. green tomatoes

8 oz. onions

8 oz. apples

4 oz. sultanas (yellow raisins)

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. dry mustard

8 oz. sugar

10 oz. malt vinegar

All measures are English. Although the vinegar isn't too far off, I'd be inclined to start with less and if you use American vinegar its acidity is 5% and English is 4% and I used to be aware of this back in Houston but then I forgot and all my pickles made after I came here are much too strongly vinegary so I'd dilute with water to get to 4%. We don't use measuring spoons (or measuring cups either) and the teaspoons mean just that: a teaspoon rounded so there's as much above the lip as in the bowl.

Chop the tomatoes and put them in a preserving pan with the peeled and chopped apples and onions. Add about half the vinegar and cook gently until the tomatoes and apples are soft, keeping the mixture well stirred. Then add the rest of the vinegar and all the other ingredients and continue to cook steadily until the chutney thickens. This should not take longer than 15 minutes. This chutney has a tendency to dry out, so make sure you don't overcook it; pot while it is still slightly runny and cover.

Some notes from Kristin: This next time I make this, I'll probably use just a bit less sugar, as I like it a little less sweet. Chutney is all about the balance of flavors, so make sure to taste it and adjust the vinegar or sugar or whatever as needed. Chutney will be about the consistency of jam when it's cooled, but it will thicken as it cools, so you don't want to cook it to the consistency you really want it to be in the end, but a little runnier. If that made sense. It did, despite Jane's admonition, take longer than 15 minutes for me. I canned this using, I think, the directions for a different chutney recipe in my Ball Blue Book of Preserving. Jane later told me this should sit in the jars for about a year to reach the optimum flavor, and it will keep in the refrigerator for just about forever. Months, anyway, so you don't absolutely have to can it if you don't want to.

Edited to add with some more notes because I just made this and remembered some stuff: Probably the reason I had to cook it longer than 15 minutes is because I double the recipe. Duh. Also, I use only about half the cayenne called for because I can't take a lot of heat. As written, this recipe will make a pretty spicy chutney. I didn't have yellow raisins this time, so I just used regular ones. I think the yellow raisins are specified just because the end result is a pale green chutney and yellow raisins look prettier. I didn't have malt vinegar this time, either, so I used plain white, but I meant to use cider vinegar, except I grabbed the white first and chucked it in before I thought about it. You can see with what great care I cook.

Who Wants To Eat a Mock Shoe?

You would, if it had a stick and half of butter in it. Would it make you feel better to know that it's actually spelled "maquechoux," and is just one of those crazy French words that's pronounced not at all phonetically? In this case, it's pronounced, yes, "mock shoe." So. I make maquechoux every year. It's a Cajun kind of side dish. Not one I learned from my mother, however. My mother, as far as I know, has never had maquechoux. But that's because my mother has never had several dozen ears of corn to dispose of in a pleasing and tasty manner. But I do! Enter maquechoux. Maquechoux has very few ingredients: corn, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, butter, salt, water, cayenne pepper. The end. It's a side dish, meant to be served hot. I make a batch of it at the height of corn season (which is now--HELP) and freeze it for the winter. My batch is three quarts and maquechoux is, incidentally, fantastic dumped over mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes aren't very Cajun, but what the hell. Neither am I. The MiL REALLY loves maquechoux, by the way. In fact, I make it mostly for her. Oh, did you want the recipe? Yeah, I thought so. I know what happens when I casually mention some food and fail to give you a recipe. Anarchy, that's what. Here we go . . . Not Mama Sue's Maquechoux

Ingredients

12 ears fresh corn

1.5 sticks of butter (the original recipe I use calls for a full 2 sticks, but I think that's overkill)

1.5 cups chopped yellow onion

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped (the recipe says to peel--I never bother) OR .5 cups canned whole tomatoes, mashed with their can juice

.5 cup water

Salt and cayenne to taste (I use MAYBE an eighth of a teaspoon of cayenne--but I'm pretty wimpy) Instructions

1) Cut the corn from the cob (using, of course, my patented no-flying-corn-kernels method--not really on the patented part). Scrape the cobs with the blunt edge of the knife to remove the "milk." Set aside.

2) Heat the butter in a large, heavy pot over medium heat. Add onions and bell pepper. Cook, stirring, until golden and soft, about 10 minutes.

3) Add corn, tomatoes, and water. Cover and simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes.

4) Add salt and cayenne and cook until corn is very tender, 20-30 minutes more.

Yet Another Half-Assed Recipe from Kristin's Kitchen

What I make for dinner is often dictated by the meat that's at the top of our big, black hole of a chest freezer. This thing is packed with cardboard boxes of meat, and if a particular kind of meat is at the very bottom of the freezer underneath hundreds of pounds of meat, I have to REALLY WANT IT to risk frostbite to my fingers, a pulled back muscle, and the inevitable cussing that occurs when I go freezer diving. So. Easily accessible meat! It's what's for dinner! Yesterday I opened the freezer, grabbed the first package I saw, and ended up with a sirloin tip steak. Okay. Then I pondered what to do with it. My sub-conscious must have been hard at work, because it was only after I decided to make grillades and grits that I remembered yesterday was Fat Tuesday. (Wait. Before I go any farther . . . have I mentioned that my mom is from New Orleans? Yes? Okay. Let's continue then.) Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, which is, in turn, the beginning of the Christian observance of Lent, the 40 days culminating in Easter. Got all that? Fat Tuesday is also the last blow-out for Mardi Gras, a festival celebrated with particular abandon in New Orleans, the city that is also known for grillades and grits. Do you see how this all fits together? It's magical, really. Okay, so maybe grillades aren't (isn't?) really KNOWN by the general populace. First of all, let's get the pronunciation right. My family always pronounces it "gray-odds," so that, of course, is correct. Even though some people pronounce it "gree-odds." It tastes good however you say it, though, so let's move on. Grillades is (are? this is a hard one, man) a beef preparation. It is very similar to Swiss steak, except it's NOT Swiss, because the recipe calls for a roux. But of course. Grillades are (is? oh, screw it--who cares) also cheap, because you take a cheap cut of meat and simmer it a long time to make it succulent. Yay for cheap! Though I used the sirloin tip steak, Mama Sue (WHY do I keep calling her this? NO ONE calls her this) always used cube steak, and my recipe card calls for round steak. Any lean, thin, stewing kind of cut will work, I think. And I don't know them all, so don't ask me what the others might be. Do some homework, ask your butcher, whatever. Let's just get to the recipe, okay? Once again, copied off a recipe card of my mother's that she probably doesn't even know she has. Mama Sue's Mardi Gras Grillades and Grits 1 and 1/2 pounds round steak, about 1/4 inch thickness 1/3 cup flour 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (like canola) 1 large onion, chopped 1 green bell pepper, chopped 3 toes garlic, minced (remember, "toes" are Mama Sue-speak for "cloves") 1 16-ounce can whole tomatoes, with juice 3/4 cup water 3/4 cup parsley (I never use this, because I never have it) 1) Cut meat into 3-inch strips. If your meat is thick, you can pound it thinner with a frying pan or mallet. Or you can be lazy and just cut it into smaller squares. This will be discussed later, so make sure you read the directions all the way through. (Who just flashed back to third grade?) 2) Mix flour and salt together on a plate and dredge both sides of the meat pieces in this mixture, saving the remaining flour. 3) Heat 1/4 cup vegetable oil in a large, non-reactive (meaning not cast iron--tomatoes do bad things to the seasoning on cast iron) skillet on high, then brown the meat on both sides. 4) Remove meat and lower the heat to medium. Add reserved flour to the oil in the pan and make a roux, as described in the red beans and rice recipe. You'll notice that there's a lot more flour in proportion to the oil in this roux, which means it can burn easier, so be careful. 5) Add 2 more tablespoons of oil to the pan, then add the chopped onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Cook until the vegetables are soft. 6) Stir in tomatoes, water, and parsley. Check to see if you need to add salt. Then nestle the meat in there, making sure to spoon some of the sauce over the meat. 7) Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer about an hour. You want to be able to cut it with a butter knife. The time depends on the thickness of the meat. If your meat is thicker and you don't want to pound it thin or wait for-damn-ever for it to get tender, you can cut it into smaller squares instead of strips. That's what I ended up doing last night. The sauce is going to be pretty thick because of the flour, so you'll want to give it a stir and scrape the bottom of the pan every 15 minutes or so to make sure it's not sticking and burning. 8) Serve over grits. If you're afraid of grits, then you're a total pansy. You can use rice instead, if you have to and can live with your cowardice. And there you have it--a feast fit for Mardi Gras. Now, get to cookin', y'all!

Mama Sue's Just Good Red Beans

It appears I'll have a revolt on my hands if I don't give you the recipe I use for red beans and rice. It honestly didn't occur to me you'd want a recipe from me, because I'm not a foodie or a recipe writer. Or even a very good recipe follower. Therefore, I make no promises as to the ease of following this recipe. But here it is, straight from the recipe card that I copied off my mom's recipe card, with some additional explanations for you. I made the title up myself. Aren't I just precious? Mama Sue's Just Good Red Beans 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 pound red kidney beans (washed and picked through) 1 ham hock or ham bone (or ham or sausage pieces--maybe a cup? Andouille sausage would be traditional, but you can use kielbasa. Or turkey kielbasa. Or even the soy kielbasa substitute. My mom did that when my dad was vegan.) 1 and a half onions, diced 4 small garlic toes, minced (my mom calls cloves "toes"--weird, but cute. Just like my mom.) 1 green bell pepper, diced 1 celery stalk, diced 1 small can tomato sauce (or a half can of tomato paste, if that's what you have) 1 bay leaf 1) Soak the beans in a half pot of water. Use a big pot, 6 quarts or more. You can either soak them overnight or "quick-soak" them. Meaning, bring the beans and water to a boil over high heat, let it boil for a couple of minutes, then turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let it sit for an hour. 2) Drain the water from the beans, then refill with fresh water to an inch above the beans. Add the ham hock or bone now if you're using it and simmer for 2 hours. If you're using the ham or sausage, just add some salt for the first hour, then add the meat in the second hour. 3) Cut up all the veggies in preparation for adding to the roux. You're not going to want to try to chop and stir roux at the same time. You will burn the roux. Just trust me on this one. So chop first. It's like southern stir-fry! Except not. 4) To make the roux, use a large cast-iron skillet if you have it. But you can use any big pan. Heat the vegetable oil on medium heat until hot, then add the flour. Stir together until it's smooth. Then stand there stirring the roux over medium heat. This will take awhile. It's like risotto. Don't stop stirring, and watch the color carefully. Use a flat-bottomed spoon or spatula so you can scrape the bottom of the pan. You really don't want the flour to burn. The flour won't really incorporate into the oil like with a bechamel sauce, so it's okay if it looks separated the whole time. This'll take about half an hour. The color is kinda hard to describe. You're going for something similar to mahogany. Or chocolate. But not dark chocolate. Isn't this helpful? If the roux is a little too light, it won't make a whole lot of difference; it just won't be quite as flavorful. But if the roux is too dark, it will taste a little burned, so err on the side of caution. And if it gets too dark? Eh, I use it anyway. Because I'm too lazy to start over. 5) Dump the onion, bell pepper, garlic, and celery into the roux and mix it all up. Allow that to cook for awhile until the veggies are soft. 6) If you used a ham hock or bone, take it out of the beans, cool a little, then pick off the bits of ham and throw them back into the beans. 7) Stir the roux veggies, the tomato sauce, and the bay leaf into the pot of beans. Taste to see if it needs any salt. It probably will. 8) Simmer at least 2 more hours on medium-low heat, taking the top off for the last hour or so. It will reduce a lot and get thick. You'll need to watch it towards the end, stirring frequently so it doesn't burn. The loooong cooking makes the beans break down and thickens it all. That's what you're going for. It's going to be saucy, not runny. 9) Serve over rice. Butter and vinegar are traditional condiments for this. Put them on the table so everyone can fix their bowl how they like it. I love vinegar and always add about a teaspoon. You could also add hot sauce, if you're into that sort of thing. From my mother's table to yours. Let's all thank Mama Sue. (I don't really call my mom that. NO ONE really calls her that.) Enjoy, ya'll!