GIFTS FROM THE KITCHEN AND THE HEART

Gifts from the Kitchen and the Heart

            Holiday shopping may be where it is ‘at’ presently, but there is another way to tackle that unfilled shopping list. Cooking in all its forms has often been defined as a labor of love, a gift from the cook to those meant to share the food created. So, what better expression of that warm sharing than those gifts created in your kitchen?

            We usually try to find an individualized gift meant to please the receiver both in appearance, taste and size. With gifts from the kitchen you can omit any worries about size unless the receiver is a gourmand and would find the offering insufficient. But they are likely to be polite and just try to savor the gift. If you make preserves of special pickles you can even partially fill your Holiday list during the summer and early autumn and store the product in a cool dark place until the gifting season.

            As for appearance, packaging can still be done with a lacy ribbon or sprig of winterberry and the edible part is beautiful by definition. And it is very easy to individually tailor gifts to the taste of the receiver. There is that special friend who always needs to receive dilly beans and dill pickles, different family members are partial to currant jelly or peach conserve, others like blueberry jam and the grandchildren always count on gram’s lemony chocolate chip cookies.

            With family and friends scattered far and wide these days, such personalized gifts also send with them the flavor of long held relationships. A special example is my memory of the year my younger son was traveling the world with a backpack and two cameras. For 6 months we had communicated by letter (before the time of universal email), which I had to send to cities or towns at ”Poste Restante”, where he would pick up his mail. Christmas came and I sent him a large coffee can filled with buttery cookies from a family recipe to Auckland, New Zealand in care of “Poste Restante”.  Apparently he made quite a spectacle sitting on the wide Auckland post office steps outside and eating every one of those cookies right there. I never did ask him if he got a stomach ache.

            Baked gifts are particular favorites this season and can be both savory and sweet. Many cookie recipes make 3 to 4 dozen cookies, which can be distributed for more than one recipient. Gluten free versions can be made easily of many of these, by substituting rice flour for wheat flour. Some of my favorite gifts are savory crisps made with cheese and pecans.

                        Savory Manchego Crisps

            Preheat oven to 350 degrees . Toss thoroughly 3 cups coarsely shredded aged Manchego cheese with 2 Tblsp. flour (or 3 Tblsp. rice flour for gluten free). Spoon level tablespoons of mixture 4 inches apart on parchment lined baking pans, spreading the mounds slightly. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool crisps completely on the pan and remove with a thin spatula. Will keep for several days stored in an airtight container between layers of wax paper (36 crisps)

                                    Pecan Cheese Crisps

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix 1 ½ cups coarsely shredded Parmesan cheese (6oz) with ¾ cups toasted chopped pecans. Place 1 Tblsp. on parchment lined baking sheet, slightly flatten and bake 7-8 minutes. Cool and store like Manchego crisps. (24 + crisps)

            The recipe of Lemon squares originally came from my friend Jane Button and has deliciously served many throughout the years. (24 + crisps)

                                    Lemon Coconut Squares

            Blend 1 ½ cups flour with ½ cup packed brown sugar in a bowl and cut in ½ cup cold butter until crumbly. Spray a 13x9 inch glass dish with a butter flavored baking spray. Press the flour mixture evenly into the bottom of the pan and bake at 250 degrees for 10 minutes. Meanwhile combine: 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1 ½ cups shredded coconut, 1 cup chopped walnuts, 2 Tblsp. four, ¼ tsp. salt, ½ tsp. baking powder and ½ tsp. vanilla. Spread on top of the baked crust mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. While baking, combine 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 Tblsp. melted butter and juice of 1 lemon. Drizzle lemon mixture over the baked cake while still warm. Allow the flavors to blend overnight, before cutting in desired size squares. Cookies will keep in pan lightly covered for several days.

            Most cooks have their own Holiday favorites to savor and to gift and as these gifts are created in the kitchen their aromas continue to fill the house as added harbingers of  the season.

            (I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

THE SHRINKING DECEMBER DAYS

Those Shrinking December Days

            I have always felt that Dr. Einstein missed something in his musings on relativity to account for “the shrinkage of days of December”. (My husband, a physicist assures me that he did not!)  Still, although Dr. Einstein was a most sociable man, I am told, he never really had to cope with the demands of the Holiday Season in practical terms. Friends, cafes, restaurants and ‘weinstubes’ undoubtedly kept him comfortable during the winters in Switzerland and Germany when his mind was on other things.

            This year the annual “shrinking day” phenomenon seems to have been made worse, since December sort of crept up on us while we basked in ignorance of the seasons. November felt like early October even with the leaves mostly gone. The grass was green, the days warm for no more than a light jacket and the occasional late tourist could be still sporting shorts. Thanksgiving was almost a surprise occurrence and suddenly it was December, without even a few snowflakes to give us fair warning that the calendar was filling up with events, parties, family visitors and that shopping list, which still looked quite unfilled.

            Remarkably, all this activity has its necessary counterpart in food. We need food for not just potlucks and visiting friends and family, but there is the necessity of everyday meals that can not be ignored even in face of the “shrinking day” phenomenon. So, it is time to plan and regroup in the kitchen for everyday meals that are simple and meals that can serve multiple occasions.

            Eggs are not only breakfast food or decorative luncheon additives.  The Spanish adopted that concept centuries ago with the Frittata. This is really a simple and quick egg dish with some eggs, potatoes or some other firm vegetable, cheese, light meat for flavoring and an optional colorful touch. Surprisingly it is quite delicious and filling. Pre-cooking the potatoes in a microwave oven, simplifies the process.

                                    Potato, spinach and Canadian bacon frittata

            Microwave 5 oz spinach in a glass bowl covered with wrap 1 minute, until wilted. Squeeze out most of the moisture and set aside. Peel and slice 2 -3 large potatoes in ½ inch slices. Place in the glass bowl and microwave covered for 5 minutes.  In another bowl beat 5 large eggs with 2 Tblsp. half-and half, ½ tsp. salt and 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce. Stir in ¼ cup crumbled Feta cheese and set aside. Set oven rack about 5 inches below heat and turn to broil. In a large oven proof pan pan melt 1Tblsp. each butter and olive oil and sauté the microwaved potatoes until golden. Stir in 4 oz. Canadian bacon cut in julienne strips, spinach and egg mixture.  Using a large rubber spatula, turn mixture until large curds form for about 2 minutes. Spread mixture evenly in pan and cook for another 30 seconds. Sprinkle an additional ¼ cup crumbled Feta cheese on top and place pan under the broiler for about 3-4 minutes to brown. Allow to cool for 5 minutes after removal from the oven, then cut in wedges to serve.

            Variations on chili are very useful at this time, since a hearty bowl can serve a simple supper for a crowd or be the source of pre-made dinner for several days during the week.

                             Black Bean and Corn Chili

Black bean and corn chili has eye appeal with the contrasting colors as well as a distinctive taste. Soak 2 cups black beans overnight in cold water. Drain, place in a pot with 1 tsp. salt, cover with 2 inches of water and bring to boil. Turn the heat down to simmer and cook for 45 minutes. While the beans are cooking brown 1 ½ lb. lean ground beef in a large pan in batches and remove from the pan and set aside. Pour off any excess fat and add 1 large chopped onion. Cook over medium heat until onion is browned. Stir in 1 ½ chopped stalks of celery, 1 Anaheim pepper and ½ bell pepper, coarsely chopped and continue to cook on medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir in 2 chopped garlic cloves, 1 tsp. ground cumin and 1 Tblsp. chili powder. Stir for about 1 minute and add ½ cup water. Deglaze the pan with the water by scraping the bottom of the pan free of any stuck material. Transfer the vegetables to a 3-4 quart pot.

            Drain and rinse the cooked beans and add to the pot, as well as 1 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes, 2 cups water, 2 Tblp. tomato paste, 1 Tblp. Worcestershire sauce, ½ tsp. sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to boil and cook on low heat for 40 minutes. Add the meat and continue to cook for an additional 20 minutes or until the beans are the desired softness. If chili appears too thick, add a bit more water. When ready, drain and rinse the contents of an 11 oz can of steamed corn niblets and add them to the soup. Adding the corn last, keeps the color contrast best at the table. Serve the chili hot with chopped onion and grated cheddar cheese on top. Large corn chips for dipping and garnish along the edges are always an attractive addition.

            December days may appear to be shrinking by decreased daylight hours this time of the year and the multitude of activities we cram in them. Fortunately we can alleviate the problem by judicious planning and some easy recipes.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

AFTERGLOW...OR... CHALLENGE?

Afterglow ..or..Challenge?

          Thanksgiving without a certain food excess just would not be Thanksgiving. Days of planning and preparation invariably leave our tables groaning under the perfectly brined and glazed turkey, mountains of savory stuffing and mashed potatoes, string beans glistening in the candle light next to balsamic roasted onions, the latest gourmet version of an unusual salad, sweet potatoes competing with corn pudding as a side and the predictable mystery side dish from aunt Florence.

            If you have celebrated Thanksgiving with a large or extended family, that table is bound to look several hours later like the remains of a demolition derby. It amazingly gets tidied up for the grand finale of pies and other sweet and tempting morsels, which despite pleas for ‘not one more bite” disappear regardless of our good intentions for moderation. The conversation starts to lag and someone finds the TV schedule for THE GAME. The house settles to a pleasant afterglow.

            Unless you have made the miraculous discovery of benevolent gnomes in your kitchen, the hostess is faced with the monumental task of dealing with a colossal leftover problem. A couple of teenage sons with their bottomless appetites come in handy at times like this. However, they do grow up eventually and it is time to view this leftover bonanza as a challenge. The turkey bones and scraps will make a sturdy turkey soup, some of the turkey will find it’s way in sandwiches with tangy onion dip, arugula and a dab of cranberries. While turkey pieces heated up in leftover gravy is the easiest day after Thanksgiving dinner, most of the time the gravy seems to be one item that has been consumed in its entirety.  Here is a decidedly different take on that concept.

                        Turkey with sun-dried tomato cream sauce

            Thinly slice ½ medium onion and sauté with 1 cup sliced mushrooms in 1 Tblsp. olive oil for 5 minutes, stir in 2 minced garlic cloves and 1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes. After 1 minute stir in ¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes (drained from oil and patted dry) and ½ cup white wine.  Cook until volume is reduced by ½. Stir in ¼ cup chicken broth and add turkey (3-4 cups) cut up in large pieces. Stir in ¼ cup grated Pecorino or Romano cheese and ¼ cup heavy cream. Heat through and serve on mashed potatoes browned on a pan in a bit of butter or toast.

            Leftover stuffing is easily incorporated in a variety of breakfast bakes that use bread crumbs, eggs and cheese. A novel way of presenting such is in muffin form. Leftover bread stuffing of any kind can be used in this recipe as long it is relatively dry. Cornbread or rice stuffing would work equally well, with some adjustments in the amount of liquid used.

                        Sausage and apple stuffing muffins

            Coat two 12 place mini-muffin pans with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown ½ lb beakfast or Italian sausage, casings removed and stir in 3 minced garlic cloves during the last minute of cooking. Drain the sausage and break up in small pieces. In a bowl mix the sausage with 1 small apple peeled and finely chopped and 2-3 cups cooked dressing broken up in small pieces Fork beat 4 eggs with 2 Tblsp. chicken broth and mix in the sausage-stuffing mix. Let stand 10 minutes and spoon the mix in prepared muffin tins, packing the mix down only lightly. Sprinkle with a bit of grated cheddar cheese.  Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden. Cool muffins in the pan and loosen with a sharp knife to remove from pan. Serve hot.

            It may have started as a challenge Thanksgiving evening, but the ready source of partially cooked meals from that mountain of leftovers is bound to make your kitchen schedule lighter as you ease in the Holiday Season.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

THE VERSATILE SOUP

The Versatile Soup

            What does an everyday cook do when he/she has to leave town for a couple of weeks and the refrigerator still shows a variety of produce and leftovers that just won’t keep?  One could go in denial, shut the door and face on return a level of mold and odors unacceptable in polite society. Besides, did not the wise Ben Franklin intone: ”Waste not – want not!” The simple answer to this dilemma happens to be – ‘Make Soup’!

            Soup seems to have been the answer to this problem long before the invention of the refrigerator, when cooks needed to create tasty meals from perishable materials. After all, Pot-Au-Feu, Petite Marmite and Minestrone have been enjoyed and date back for centuries. In the old folk tale “Stone Soup” a bunch of strangers persuade the citizens of a town to share their food in making a soup. This concept has ingeniously evolved in a community in New York that teaches young people about cooking by having everyone bring a vegetable and making a communal soup as a potluck supper.

            Well, my refrigerator was a more prosaic matter. It started by my wondering what to do about 3 parsnips. We could have had roast vegetables again, but then there were other items that needed attention. So, vegetable soup was the answer. The basic components of any soup are: meat or vegetable stock: some form of starch such as potato, rice, pasta or barley; a variety of vegetables to give both sweet and tart flavors and herbs and salt for the savory taste of it all.

 Such a combination is guaranteed to yield a healthy and nourishing meal and depends only on what is available in your refrigerator and kitchen. If using leftover barley, cooked pasta or rice, stir these in the soup a couple of minutes before the soup is finished cooking. At this point you can also add any cooked leftover chicken, ham, sausage or even hot dogs cut in small pieces. As a child I recall my mother serving “cork soup”, so called because of hotdogs cut up to resemble small pieces of cork. She claimed it was a trick the cook used to stretch available soup at the music conservatory kitchen if too many of her fellow students showed up for lunch.

                                    The catch-all vegetable soup           

            Brown 1 chopped onion in 1 Tblsp. butter in a 3 quart pot over medium heat, stir in 1 clove chopped garlic, 2 stalks chopped celery, 1 tsp. dried oregano.  Cook for an additional minute and stir in 4 cups beef broth or 4 cups water and 1 Tblsp. ‘Better than Bullion’. Bring to boil and stir in 1 coarsely chopped potato, 3 cubed parsnips, 2 sliced carrots, 1-2 cups coarsely chopped cabbage, 1 Tblsp. Worcestershire sauce and 2 Tblsp. tomato paste. Cook for 20 minutes. Stir in 1 cup leftover sautéed Swiss chard, 3 cut up beef hotdogs and any leftover parsley, cook for an additional 5 minutes. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Serve hot, sprinkled with coarsely grated Parmesan cheese (optional).

            A stale piece of French bread made an excellent accompaniment to the soup, when lightly browned in butter on a hot pan.

            Like all good dishes that can be reheated, this soup comes with the bonus that it can be frozen and reheated at a later time. It can even make a meal for when you return home and the cupboard looks a bit bare.

            (I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

FALL PLEASURES

Fall Pleasures

            Our first rainy days in months have finally arrived after an incredibly colorful and sunny early fall. As the wind blows down the last of leaves on the garden that has been put to sleep, we rediscover the pleasures of time in the kitchen and reacquaint ourselves with old friends.

            The seasons come with their own tempo and flavors. Late fall seems to call for more substantial fare, with more complex flavors usually blended over time. Fortunately, while the total time required for these dishes may be a couple of hours, the hands on time is much shorter, since when everything is in the pot, it can happily simmer on it’s own. In addition, these dishes can be made ahead and even improve on standing, since that allows the rich flavors to blend. They can also be reheated and even frozen for future use.

            It is possible to simplify part of the cooking steps by making a large batch of the basic vegetable medley that serves as the flavoring agent of many cold weather meat dishes. This miracle flavor base is Italian Soffritto, though the French and the Spanish cooks have their own variations. Once prepared, it will keep in the refrigerator for several days and can be used not only for meat dishes, but works well blended in sauces for pasta, eggs and even fish. In addition to the basic vegetable ingredients my recipe also includes a small amount of liquid, allowing this thick mixture to be frozen in small batches and hence used for several months.

                                                Soffritto

            Dice 3 large onions, 3 carrots, 3 celery stalks and 3 garlic cloves.  Sauté  the vegetables in ¼ cup olive oil with a small pinch of red pepper flakes and 1 tsp. salt on low heat until very soft for about 15 minutes. Deglaze the pan by adding ½ cup white wine mixed with 1 Tblsp. tomato sauce and scraping up any vegetables stuck to the pan. Heat the mixture and cook on low heat until most of the liquid is absorbed. Use in preparing sauces in cooking or freeze in small batches for future use.

                                    Savory Beef with Fall Vegetables

            If this sounds like a combination of Boeuf Bourgoignon and Beef Stew, it is.

Cube 1 ½ lb. lean London broil in 1 inch cubes. In a heavy Dutch oven fry 2 slices bacon until crisp, remove and set aside. In the rendered fat brown the cut up meat in batches and set aside. Add 1 medium chopped onion to the pot and cook on medium heat until the onion is browned, stir in 2 chopped cloves of garlic and cook for additional 30 seconds. Add 1 ½ cups dry red wine and bring to boil, scraping up any browned food from the bottom of the pan.  Return the browned meat to the pot, stir in 2 cups prepared soffritto, 1 Tblsp. Worcestershire sauce, ½ tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, ½ tsp. pepper  and 2 Tblsp, tomato paste. Turn down the heat to simmer and cook for 1 hour. In the meantime scrub 4-5 red potatoes and cut in bite size pieces. Clean 2 large parsnips and 3 medium carrots and cut in bite size pieces. Clean and slice 4 oz. button mushrooms.

            Add the prepared vegetables, except the mushrooms, to meat after the hour of cooking. The vegetables need to be covered with liquid, so adjust the volume with water. Continue to cook on low heat for an additional hour, adding the sliced mushrooms 10 minutes before the end. Adjust seasonings, serve hot with crusty bread and garnished with chopped parsley.

                                                Cabbage, Carrot and Radish Salad

            Hearty meat dishes go well with a fresh fall vegetable salad. In a large bowl toss together 2-3 cups coarsely shredded green cabbage, 1 shredded large carrot, 4-5 large shredded radishes or a 3 inch piece of  Daikon radish, and 2 Tblsp. grated onion. In a small bowl mix together 3-4 Tblsp. light sour cream, 1 ½ Tblsp. white vinegar, 1 tsp. salt and ½ tsp. each dry mustard and celery seed. Add the dressing and mix thoroughly. Chill for at least 2 hours and mix again before serving.

            This is “slow food” at it’s best and served in the shortening days of autumn will bring comfort and love to those gathered around the table in a shared meal.

(I. Winicov Harrington lives in Waldoboro and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)