Archive for the ‘Food Stuff’ Category
Turkey Tetrazzini
turkey Tetrazzini 1, 26-oz can condensed cream of mushroom soup 1.75 cups milk 0.75 cups grated Parmesan cheese 2 Tablespoons dry sherry 3 cups cubed, cooked turkey 4oz mushrooms, sliced and sauteed 8 oz spaghetti, cooked Preheat oven to 400 F. Mix the first 4 ingredients together. Stir in turkey, mushrooms, and spaghetti. Put into […]
Our Favorite Turkey Pot Pie
When we were young, we enjoyed special dinners of inexpensive, frozen pot pies. They were far from fancy, but they left us with a taste we crave. We've been a long time searching, but we finally found a recipe that gives us the taste from our youth. This recipe is very similar to one for […]
Our Moms' Meatloaf
Meatloaf is a wonderful thing. Everyone has a recipe, but not everyone's recipe suits our taste; many are too dense in texture, or have unexpected tastes from unexpected herbs and other ingredients that catch our mouths off guard. Some people insist that they know what makes the "best" meatloaf. I refuse to claim that our […]
Perfection Salad
For quite some time I have had a fascination for congealed salads or, as they are more commonly known today, Jell-O Salads, "congealed" rather having fallen out of favor as a descriptor since it seems to have developed unsavory connotations and association, as evidenced by the fact that discussing "congealed salads" at this recent, about-to-be-mentioned […]
Beard on Salads
Tonight I was thumbing through James Beard's American Cookery (1972, in a reissued edition), and noted these two remarks on the subject of salads. [from page 34] When a Pennsylvania housewife won a national prize for a jellied salad in 1905, she unleashed a demand for congealed salads that has grown alarmingly, particularly in the […]
In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Food Stuff
The Stag Cookbook : Some Recipes
The other day I saved a link (probably via BoingBoing) for The Stag Cookbook : Written for Men by Men, collected and edited by C. Mac Sheridan, with an introduction by Robert H. Davis; New York : George H. Doran Company, 1922; 197 pages [google books link], so that I could see what manly cookbooks […]
Slow-Cooker Minestrone
For one of our summer dinners with a vaguely Italian theme I wanted something new so I tried this Slow-Cooker Minestrone recipe. It didn't strike me as particularly summery but the result was so incredibly tasty that it didn't matter. I like its easy expandability. I'll write it more or less the way I made […]
Creamy Gazpacho
The creaminess refers in this instance to the texture of this delightful cold soup and not to the presence of cream–there is none in it. For years I've waned to try making gazpacho. For years Isaac said he didn't really care much for gazpacho. Then, he's the one to point out this recipe in Cook's […]
Sushi Portraits
A few days ago I read an article by Mark Bitman in the New York Times ("For Sushi at Home, Skip the Fish", 4 May 2010). It was interesting enough, had good ideas, and talked about making rice for sushi. All good. But all I wanted to do here was to show two of the […]
Grilled-Cheese Sandwiches
I just read a blog posting somewhere (I don't think there's a reason to single it out specifically) that wanted to talk about grilled-cheese sandwiches. Alas, they ended up talking about some unrecognizable food-from-Mars made with hearty textured artisanal breads made of grains with unpronounceable names and–worse!–insisted on a big block of "real" cheese, banning […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Personal Notebook
Friday Soirée IX: New Year's Supper
Okay, it clearly isn't a Friday night, but it also isn't the evening of New Year's Day when I was thinking about this program, either. I'm sure our imaginations can handle it. Hors d'Oeuvres — Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree If there's a concept that could use re-introducing for 2010, I think it's smart. That's smart as […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
The Atoms in Watermelon
I did not plan to become the expert on such an arcane topic–although I can answer the question as it arises–but once I had written a blog posting called "Atoms Are Not Watermelons",* my web was spun, my net set, the trap was ready for the unsuspecting googler who should type such an interesting question […]
In: All, Food Stuff, It's Only Rocket Science
Yumm! Peppermint!
This weekend Isaac and I did a bit of after-Christmas shopping. We didn't find much but we did see a few things. One of the more extraordinary was on the mark-down shelf at Target. Now, while I understood what the product was and what it was used for, I was caught off guard by the […]
In: All, Faaabulosity, Food Stuff, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Chocolate Bacon
I thought I'd mention that I'm sitting here right now, at the end of my light supper, enjoying a treat of chocolate-covered bacon. By that I mean, of course, actual bacon that's been dipped in chocolate. Our friend George decided to make some at Isaac's birthday party as a special experiment and we still had […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Food Stuff
Beard of the Week LVIII: The Big Oyster
This week's beard belongs to Mark Kurlansky, celebrated author of Salt and a number of other books. In fact, one of those other books is my subject at hand or, perhaps, at chin. (Photograph by Sylvia Plachy, which I took from this citation for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize in Nonfiction given to Kurlansky.) […]
In: All, Beard of the Week, Books, Food Stuff
Mouthwateringly Beautiful
"Blackcurrant Leaf Sorbet & Blackcurrant Jelly", photograph by Sara Taylor from 100 Great Desserts, by Mandy Wagstaff, p. 66. Some few years ago I bought a cookbook called In & Out of the Kitchen in Fifteen Minutes or Less, by Anne Willan, photography by Sara Taylor (New York : Rizzoli, 1995, 128 pages). I like […]
In: All, Food Stuff, Music & Art
A Summer Menu II
This week's dinner party was a more casual affair so I went with a more casual arrangement of dishes, what I've come to think of as a "salad menu". Brandy Alexander, featured cocktail Olives & Marinated Mushrooms (store bought) Cantaloupe sprinkled with coconut Pork Loin Braised in Milk & Herbs (slow cooker) Oven Roasted Potatoes […]
Personal Chocolate Cake
I am so enchanted by this concept–and ultra-simple recipe–for a personal, one-serving size, made-from-scratch-in-the-microwave recipe for chocolate cake that I'm putting a link to it here so I won't lose it before I get to try it. Y'all are free to try it, too. It's called "Chocolate Cake in 5 Minutes!" and takes only 3 […]
A Summer Menu
We had some good friends over for dinner last night. I tried to keep our menu on the light, summery side, but it was also the case that the supermarket had a really good sale on (beef) top round roasts, so that was to be our main course. Here's the menu we settled on: Cold […]
The Mystery of the Magenta Icing
Sometimes one provides one's own amusement without even realizing it; perhaps life is more Oscar Wilde-ish than we realize.† Especially with a memory-sieve like my brain, there's always my blog for little surprises and occasional delights. Yes, it was another google: "how to make magenta frosting". An odd request, certainly, but not beyond making sense […]
In: All, Curious Stuff, Food Stuff