mama guest blogs: from the red recipe binder files

(also known as: blogger bail-out. because my mother hates to see me be lazy on the interweb.)

The Red Recipe Binder

My mother (Clare’s Mimi) says that I “couldn’t find the kitchen” before I got married, which is true. I lived at home. My grandmother did all the cooking. My only kitchen chore was drying dishes once in a while.

So when I got married and moved out of state I had to learn to cook or face a lifetime of what my new husband had eaten in his starving-student days. Fortunately, his cousin Beth gave me The Joy of Cooking, as shower gift. I read it like a novel, all 900+ pages. And I decided that maybe the Tuna, Noodle and Mushroom Casserole on p. 215 (subtitled “An excellent emergency dish”) was something I could tackle.

That’s where it all started. We didn’t have no stinkin interweb back then. We had home delivery of the daily and Sunday paper, and Mimi has always favored magazine subscriptions as gifts. So every month I would read Redbook and McCall’s and Good Housekeeping and cut out the recipes I wanted to try. And every Thursday I’d read the Food Section of the paper so I could cut out those recipes, too.

I scotch-taped each recipe onto a page of looseleaf paper and filed the pages in a 3-ring binder with sections for each of the chapters in Joy, starting with Beverages and moving on to Hors d’Oeuvre, Salads/Soups, Vegetables, Fish, Meat, Poultry, Breads and Coffee Cakes, Pies and Pastries, Cookies, and so on. I left out Canapes and Tea Sandwiches, Game, and Canning, Salting, Smoking and Drying.

The scotch tape is all dried out now, and a lot of the pages are ripped on the edge where the 3-hole-punch used to be. Paging through the tattered remnants of my homemade cookbook, it’s easy to see what foods fascinated and frustrated me in the 70s. There are a dozen different pie crust recipes, lots of fancy dinner party dishes like Coquilles Saint Jacques (which I am absolutely certain I have never cooked). There are five carrot cake recipes, including the definitive version from the first “new” Philadelphia restaurant, Steve Poses’ Commissary. The Frog-Commissary Cookbook http://www.amazon.com/Frog-Commissary-Cookbook-Steven-Poses/dp/0940159732 didn’t come out until a few years later, but somebody at work had the Commissary calendar (1979?). It was a pinup page-per-month calendar, with a hand-lettered recipe for each month. Porn for office girls.

If a recipe turned out especially well, I drew stars on the clipping. Like this one, which I’ve been making ever since.

Chicken and Sausage

Ingredients

1 broiler-fryer chicken, cut up (now I use skinless, boneless thighs)

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

1 tablespoon salad oil

¾ lb sweet or hot Italian sausages, cut in 2-inch pieces

1 can (28 oz) whole tomatoes, drained, reserving ½ cup liquid

½ cup dry red wine

1 cup sliced onions

2 medium green peppers, sliced

1 tsp basil, crushed (now I use fresh or fresh-frozen)

Pinch sugar

1 ½ cups sliced fresh button mushrooms (this was before we knew about portabellas)

1/3 c. flour

3 tablespoons water

Prep

Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Slice everything up and have it ready.

Cooking

In large skillet, heat oil. Add chicken and cook until well browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Remove chicken and set aside. Prick sausages with a fork and brown in the same skillet. Remove and pour off excess drippings. Add chicken and sausages back to the skillet. Add tomatoes, wine, onions, green peppers, basil and sugar and cook for a few minutes, stirring up browned bits from the bottom. Return chicken and sausages to the pan. Add mushrooms and stir until well combined. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, until chicken is tender. Push chicken and sausages to one side of the skillet. Combine flour and water until smooth; stir in ¼ cup of pan juices. Add to the skillet and cook until sauce bubbles and thickens slightly, about 5 minutes. Stir to mix everything together. Better the second day.

black bean quesadillas

originally i planned a pumpkin quesadilla out of last month's bon appetit but that seemed like a lot of work for a dish that might go over like a lead balloon and since we served five (FIVE!) kinds of beer and only two were less than 6% abv, i kinda wanted to make sure people ate up.

(what did we do before trader joe's?)

ingredients:

• shredded cheese blend of your preference (or you could, like, shred some cheese yourself)
• roasted green chilis
• tortillas (um, 8? i think i made 8.)
• one white onion, diced
• one can of black beans, rinsed
• spray oil

prep:

• dice onion
• make sure you have everything ready, this goes fast

actual cooking:

• preheat crepe pan (or flat-bottomed frying pan) to medium
  

• spray lightly with oil
  
  

• add tortilla
  

• spread chilis
  
  
  

• add a handful of beans
  

• and some onions
  

• and a handful of cheese-- don't skimp on the cheese!
  

• flip over the empty half and press down
• cover and allow to cook until melty and delicious
  
  

(ali & alex agree, augustus is nearly as delicious as black bean quesadillas.)

frou-frou grilled cheese with bacon, apples and onions

is it fair to try to re-create at home something amazing you had at a restaurant? because i'm obsessed with "the harvest" grilled cheese from house in media. so, umm, i tried to make it at home with some (read: huge) success.

ingredients:

• 3 5x5 ciabatta rolls (i actually used 1 1/2 5x10s from trader joe's)
• 4 ounces sharp cheddar, sliced
• one apple, peeled and shaved into strips
• bacon, ummm, i think it was like 1/2 a pound?
• 1 medium sweet onion, sliced and sauteed in the nearly-clean bacon pan (oh, yeah)
• butter for greasing OR a panini press

prep:

• make your ingredients look like this:

(cooked but not ALL THE WAY to the point of crispiness)

actual cooking:

• put one side of the bread face-up on a lightly buttered largish frying pan or griddle
  

• add cheese, apples, onions, bacon and a little more cheese

• put the top on and press down
  

(maybe put a preheated cast-iron skillet on top. maybe. but best to slightly grease the bottom first. trust me.)

• cook until the cheese is ooey-gooey, or toss it in the oven after a brief grilling so it gets melty while you make the next one. NOM.

uncle jim's absolutely deadly babyback ribs

over the weekend, we popped down to manassas, virginia, to visit my uncles jim & frank, and my brother j who's staying with them while he settles into his new job. during a whirlwind of construction, destruction and beer, jim found the time to teach me how to make his magical baby back ribs. i, in turn, made sure that if the marines happened to be hungry, we could feed them.

ingredients:

• onions-- for each full pan of ribs, i'd say 10 onions
• ribs
• st. louis dry rub or similar

prep:

• preheat oven to 300* 5-6 hours before you want to eat

actual cooking:

• peel & quarter onions to completely cover the bottom of the pan
• lay ribs over the onions & generously apply dry rub/seasoning
• cover with foil and cook for 5 hours until meat is falling off the bone
• no, seriously, it's that easy
  

(uncle joe was there, too, and was a tremendous help to me in the kitchen when my sous chef had to go see a zombie movie with his brothers-in-law.)

i don't eat ribs, as a rule, because of the BARBECUE SAUCE. these? nom.

kev agrees.