this was so long ago that i can't actually remember when it was. sure, i could have checked the timestamp on the picture just now but... i didn't. get over it.
bill & i stopped at a deli in swarthmore in the hopes that we could grab some nice beer (the italian deli by our place offers a nice selection) and basically hit paydirt. bill took a while browsing the beer, so i wandered into the other room-- the actual deli room-- and lo! there was fresh everything-you-can-imagine. including "springfield brand garlic & basil napolitano's pasta" which is manufactured at 186 saxer avenue, springfield, pa 19064. this is so local that i actually know where it is. and that's big, cause i'm... not directionally inclined. (except when it comes to parking in center city. that i rock at.)
SO. i wanted to experience the pasta as fully as i could which meant keeping the recipe simple:
pasta (water & salt for cooking)
butter
grated cheese
i followed the package instructions for cooking (6 minutes in boiling water), tossed with butter and sprinkled with cheese.
it was... fucking amazing. really. and LOCAL! points for greenness.
... so. why the radio silence? oh, lots of reasons. i'm gearing up to go to grad school at OMFGDREXEL. bill's just submitted his application for grad school at OMFGDREXEL, only to him it's more like, oh, just drexel, because he's been there before. additionally, we're watching out eating AND our budget here at chez bitchy, so the meals sort of run together. plus, christmas totally burned me out and my camera is dead. we're on the hunt for the 3-year service plan and really hoping a lot that "i forgot to close my water bottle before i stuck it in my purse and why no i don't use a protective cover for my camera, as you can see by the scratches and smudges!" doesn't void it.
but i'm working my back, slowly. i promise, mommy.
(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.
total haul: ~14 dozen husbanded: ~2 dozen net haul: ~12 dozen bake time: 8 minutes notes: less a tablespoon or two of flour. don't use insulated baking sheets.
i'm not going to type out all my christmas cookie recipes. i'm just not. because, gentle readers, it's a pain in the ass.
BUT. (haha, see what i did there? the segue? from ASS to BUT?)
here are my resources:
cookies by lou seibert pappas, copyright 1980, nitty gritty productions
joy of cooking by irma s. rombauer and marion rombauer becker, copyright 1975, the bobbs-merrill company
the international cookie cookbook by nancy baggett, copyright1988, stewart, tabori & chang, inc.
favorite brand name old fashioned holiday recipes, copyright 2004, publications international, ltd.
the internet (i had to google the quaker oats oatmeal cookie because... i bought generic oats? last winter? in the midst of a HUGE oatmeal kick? and then it got warm again?)
cookies was bought second-hand from the helen kate furness library in wallingford, pa, for (i THINK) thirty-five cents. it's now held together with duct tape. joy of cooking was... a gift? or i bought it for myself. THAT narrows it down, doesn't it? the international cookie cookbook is a loan from my mama, who probably means to get it back someday, so i should probably copy out the one recipe i use. favorite brand name... was a gift from my mother-in-law and is full of fantastic recipes that i don't make, plus two super-easy fudge recipes and a biscotti made with cake mix that i do.
i'll be wrapping up the holiday baking on friday (or saturday) and then focusing on christmas dinner. and sometime in there, i SWEAR i will blog about bûche de noël. AFTER THAT, i promise a pasta-making tutorial for dear julia.
and, speaking of julias, while you're at it, you MIGHT AS WELL make a thousand. (this? is pretty much julia child in a nutshell. and my baking philosophy.)
