blog archive for 2009

 Goetta ready to be cut and fried                     Lots of oil is key to crispy goetta

My mom has been asking me the same question for years… “Jilly,I have this pork loin, how do I cook it?” I guess my answer is so riveting, she can’t seem to remember it from year to year. But there is one thing my mom knows about pork and that’s how to turn it into goetta. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. I can’t think of a single friend I’ve met outside of Cincinnati who knows it. I’m not sure if it’s a German dish or a Cincinnati dish, (which was settled by lots of Germans—my parents being 2 of them), but everyone in Cincinnati knows it. (I think it's a distant relative of a similar dish in Pennsylvania called scrapple.)

 I grew up on goetta. My mom, not being an adventurous or curious cook, makes it just like her mom. It’s kind of hard to explain and certainly doesn’t make anyone’s mouth water when I try-- ground leftover pork, pinhead oatmeal (apparently only available in the Queen city), and onions, cooked for 3 hours into a sort of mush. Yummy—huh? Anyway, after cooking you pack it into a bowl or loaf pan and chill overnight. Just before cooking, you slice the mixture thinly and fry it in a skillet in lots (and I mean lots) of Crisco or vegetable oil. It's crispy, and salty and greasy, and as kids  we ate it with buttered rye bread with jelly---go figure. 

No other food can take me back to my childhood like goedda. As a result, I decided it was time I learned how to make goedda myself to pass the tradition onto my kids—although they don’t quite embrace it like me and my sisters do. So this Christmas, I made goetta for the first time by myself, with my mom rattling instructions from the dining room table—more water, stir,less onion, Jilly………..ah childhood. Here's the recipe:

 Joan's Goetta

8 cups water

1 teaspoon salt 

2 1/2 cups pinead oatmeal

1 onion, diced

1-2 pounds eftover cooked pork, ground

1. Bring water to a boil with salt, add oatmeal. Simmer for 2 hours or place in oven (uncovered) at 325F for 2 hours. Stir in onion and ground pork. Cook 1 more hour in oven. Press into bowl or loafpan and chill. Slice and fry until crispy.  

My favorite Christmas movie is A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote. If any movie embodies the spirit of season, this is it. It's an autobiographical account of Capote's childhood when he was a boy and lived in the country with relatives. It's set in rural Georgia, and is the story of him and his aunt who is also his best friend. Every Christmas they scrape together their pennies and buy the ingredients to make fruitcake to send to folks. These folks are not friends per se, but folks that have touched them in some way and those they admired--not people they know personally, or have even met. People like President Truman, the mailman, the bus driver who they waved to everyday,a couple from California they befriended when they broke down by their house, the missionaries from Borneo who were passing through. Geraldine Page as the auntis amazing. As the butt of jokes for many years, it’s hard to believe that fruitcake could hold the kind of appeal it does in this movie. So, in the spirit of fruitcake, here is a recipe for Stollen that appeared in our December issue. It’s a fruitcake of sorts that you'll love. There is also a recipe based on dried fruit, but in a compote not a cake. It is so refreshing and uses fresh oranges and grapefruit which are at their peak this time of year. It’s come to be one of my holiday traditions and tastiest Christmas memories.

 Sam juicing clementines                                 Compote

Five Fruit Compote 

3 oranges or clementines sectioned and juice reserved
2 red grapefruits sectionedand juice reserved

1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup yellow rasins
1/2 cup dried cranberries orcherries
1 cup dried apricots

1. In a saucepan dissolve thesugar in the water. Add the raisins, cherries and apricots, let stand 30minutes. Combine dried fruit mixture, oranges, grapefruit and reserved juice.Chill.

Stollen

Ingredients
Stollens:
8 cardamom pods
1 cup 2% reduced-fat milk,scalded
1/2 cup yellow raisins
1 cup dried cherries
3 tablespoons dark rum ororange juice
2 (.25-ounce) packagesactive dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1/3 cup sugar, divided
3 1/2 cups all-purposeflour, divided
1/2 cup (1 stick) coldbutter, cut into 8 pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon finely gratedlemon rind
1 egg
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup slivered almonds,toasted
10 ounces almond paste
Topping: 1/2 cup salted butter 1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Place cardamom pods in asmall bowl. Add hot milk. Let stand 10 minutes.
2. Combine raisins andcherries with rum. Let stand.
3. Combine yeast, warmwater and 1 teaspoon sugar. Set aside until mixture foams, about 10 minutes.
4. Remove cardamom podsfrom milk. Squeeze pods open. Scrape small black seeds into milk. Discard pods.Stir milk into yeast mixture. Add 1 cup flour; beat well. Cover this mixture(called the “sponge”) with plastic wrap; let rise 30 minutes.
5. As the sponge rises,place 2 cups flour and butter in the bowl of a food processor. Add salt andremaining sugar. Pulse 6 or 8 times.
6. Drain fruits, reservingsoaking liquid. When the sponge is ready, add it to the processor; add lemonrind, egg and egg yolks, and soaking liquid from dried fruits. Process 20 or 30seconds, until dough is thoroughly mixed. Then, with a few quick pulses, mix infruits, almonds, and remaining ½ cup flour. Scrape dough, which will be quitetender, into a large oiled bowl, and refrigerate overnight.
7. In the morning, punchdough down, and divide into thirds. On a heavily floured board, gently pull andpat each portion of dough into a 10 x 14-inch oval. Divide almond paste intothirds. Cover half of each oval, the long way, with bits of almond paste,patting with your hands (don’t worry about getting it neat). Fold the otherhalf of the dough over it, enclosing almond paste and making a pastry that is aplump half oval
8. Gently transfer toparchment-lined baking sheets, shaping if necessary. Let rise until dough ispuffy, though not quite doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.
9. Preheat oven to 350F.
10. Bake 20 to 30 minutes,until golden brown. Using 2 spatulas, transfer to a wire rack; cool about 10minutes.
11. Towards then end ofbaking time, place ½ cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whenbutter melts, lower heat and let butter cook until browned and fragrant, about8 minutes. Don’t stir the butter as it browns, but you can shake the pan alittle.
12. Spoon browned butterover the tops. Sift powdered sugar generously over tops. Let cool at least 20minutes, until sugar sets slightly. Serve, in thin slices, slightly warm or atroom temperature.

Makes 3 stollens (10 servings each).

Note: Make stollens ahead,wrap well and freeze up to one month.

Recipe by Crescent Dragonwagon, "Holiday Breads," December 2009.

Nutritional Information
Per serving: 220 calories,10g fat, 36mg chol., 4g prot., 27g carbs., 1.5g fiber, 92mg sodium.

Yes, I am blogging past midnight on Christmas eve, because as every parent knows, you  have to out last the kids, and mine are wound up as their cousins are in town.. Tonight we had a great dinner where everything went right and everything tasted great--even to me. A friend gave me a smoked turkey which went perfect withe the red pepper pesto I made the day before. I popped the salmon in the oven with a bit of seasoning and let the pesto carry the rest. The salad is a true winner. The cake is a family tradition, which honestly I'm quite over, but it is a must for my kids.  You can find the pesto, salad and potato recipes here on our website. Here is the menu.

Roasted salmon

Smoked turkey

Red pepper pesto

Arugula salad with apples, feta and oranges

Au gratin potatoes

Mashed butternut squash with manchego cheese

Sauteed garlic green beans

 Red Velvet Cake

Our food stylist, Teresa Blackburn, calls herself a "human sponge." She's one of those people who just knows a lot...and all of it interesting. I call her a universal expert, like my friend Robin who lives in a cabin on a lake in remote Michigan. She knows just about everything too. If I put them in a room together I think it would explode or start smoking at the very least. I bring this up because I just stumbled upon a blog by an artist called Maira Kalman, an artist Teresa was very familiar with (of course) and whose children's books she had bought years ago. Her artwork is priceless and her writings are quirky, insightful and oh so much fun. Check out this blog from her on the New York Times website. It's her view of the state of food and eating in America--it's pure genius. Just like two of my favorite friends, Teresa and Robin. Here's the link. 

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/back-to-the-land/

 Finished Risotto                               Joy (right) and I

While it pains me to hear it, my sister loves The Olive Garden’s shrimp and asparagus risotto. So I decided to teach her how to make risotto over Thanksgiving weekend. As it turned out, I happened to make turkey stock the day before from the leftover turkey bones and meat, so we used that in place of chicken broth. After a quick trip to the store for Arborio rice, shrimp  (we wanted raw and definitely wild, domestic shrimp), fresh asparagus, and good Romano cheese (which is cheaper than Parmigiano-Reggiano and just as good in this case), we opened a bottle of red wine and rolled up our sleeves.

Joy at work                                                  Risotto in progress

Cooking with my sister is always a reality check for me, as her kitchen is limited in terms of equipment. I managed to uncover a Costco braising pan that worked just fine for the risotto,  a cutting board for chopping and a few knives (hers were terrible, which I find to be true in most kitchens). After a lesson in olive oil (what exactly is extra-virgin and how is it different from Wesson and which should I use when?) and why you add oil and butter to the pan together (so the butter won’t burn), I chopped onions and garlic and got her measuring the rice (which spurred another lesson in dry measuring cups vs. wet). I got all the other ingredients ready as she stirred the hot broth into the rice and drank her wine. My sister is a good sport about her lack of cooking skills, and her sons and husband love to tease her about her disasters in the kitchen. But she’s genuinely interested in food and does try. Come time to add the asparagus to the risotto, she was skeptical that it would be cooked enough (we were feeding our parents after all). But she saw that tossing it in during the last 5 minutes of cooking the risotto was all it needed—ditto for the shrimp. We tossed together a quick arugula salad  and heated up a baguette and sat down. The verdict once it hit the table—better than Olive Garden’s—I couldn’t have asked for more.

Risotto with Shrimp and Asparagus

This is an adaptation of a recipe that originally appeared in Relish that uses proscuitto. We replaced it with shrimp, but left everything else the same.

5             cups hot chicken or turkey broth
1             tablespoon olive oil
2             tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1/4             cup minced yellow onion
1             garlic clove, minced
1 ¼            cups short-grained risotto rice (such as Arborio)
1             pound asparagus, tough ends removed and cut in 1-inch pieces
¾             pound raw, peeled shrimp, chopped

1/2             cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Romano cheese
1/4             teaspoon salt

Instructions

1. Bring broth to a simmer over medium heat.
2. Combine oil and 1 tablespoon butter in a heavy saucepan and heat over medium heat. Add onion; sauté 5 minutes. Add garlic; sauté 30 seconds or until fragrant.
3. Add rice; cook 5 minutes, stirring to coat well. Add 1 cup broth; cook, stirring constantly, until absorbed. Continue adding broth by small ladlefuls, stirring constantly and allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding more, until the rice is tender but still firm to the bite and creamy, about 20 minutes in all. Add asparagus and shrimp during last 5 minutes of cooking.
4. Remove from heat and stir in the Parmigiano, remaining butter and salt. Serve immediately. Serves 4.

Per serving: 410 calories, 14g fat, 17g prot., 55g carbs., 4g fiber, 1420mg sodium.

Cabbage, beans and a ham bone comingle for a great bean soup (left), made even better with a can of stewed tomatoes (right).

Have a Honey Baked Ham bone left over from Thanksgiving? Me too. Or my sister did. And to me, a ham bone means only one thing--bean soup. So after wrestling it away from my mom (who wanted the remains for ham salad—not as noble an endeavor as soup in my opinion), I took it off my sister’s hands and hauled it home. There I combined it with what meager items I had in the fridge. Fortunately I always have dried beans. I  salvaged an old red onion, a couple of not so fresh carrots, some garlic and half a head of cabbage. At the last minute I decided it needed a can of stewed tomatoes—I think it was the best bean soup I’ve ever made.

1 (12-ounce) bag Great Northern beans

1 ham bone with some ham attached

½ red onion, diced

2 carrots, diced

½ head green cabbage, coarsely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 (14-ounce) can stewed tomatoes

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

1. Place beans in a Dutch oven and cover  with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil and boil 2 minutes. Cover and let sit 1 hour. Drain beans and return to Dutch oven. Add ham bone, onion, carrots and water to cover (about 10 cups). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer  1 ½ hours. Remove ham bone. Return any meat to soup. Add cabbage and cook 30 minutes. Add crushed garlic and tomatoes; cook 10 minutes. Add additional water if needed. Season with salt and pepper.

My son, Sam loves molasses cookies. Our favorite, as I’ve mentioned before are the Silver Palate Molasses cookies, which are thin and  crispy and perfect. But recently I happened upon a molasses cookie I thought was even better. It was in the most unlikely of places—a country ham store. Our friend Bob Woods (aka Hambobs) makes the best country ham I‘ve ever tasted. He  cures and ages them in an old shed in Murfreesboro, Tenn. He doesn’t make a lot (I’m not exactly sure how many), and when he’s out he’s out, and his answering machine will simply say, “We’re out of hams for this year. Call back next year." Anyway, during a visit last year to see his operation, he had these cookies sitting at the register in little bags. I asked for the recipe and was given this. They’re super simple to make. Halfway into the recipe I realized I was out of molasses and used sorghum instead. They were not as “dark” but every bit as good.

 Hambob’s Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies

1 cup shortening (1 stick Crisco), slightly melted

1 ½ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup molasses or sorghum

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ginger

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and molasses. Sift flour with spices. Add to sugar mixture. Roll into balls the size of walnuts and coat with granulated or turbinado sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheets 2 inches apart. Bake  12 to 15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

 Do not flatten or overbake. 

 Fly fishing stream                                    View of Mt. LeConte from the Lodge

Every now and then you happen upon a place so perfect you can’t believe your luck. Such was my luck last weekend at the Lodge at Buckberry Creek (buckberrylodge.com). Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, just above Gatlinburg, it’s an amazing place — rustic, yet luxurious, tucked away high in the mountains, but not so remote that you have to be airlifted in. It’s the kind of place you’d see in a movie — perfect in every way, yet full of kind, quirky characters to keep it interesting and fun. The minute my daughter, her friend, Maggie and I walked in the door we felt like family.

 It’s run by the effervescent and huggable Buddy, an avid out-doors-man, who resembles everyone’s favorite uncle. Soon after we arrived, he pulled out a scrapbook of fishing pictures. No sooner did I mention that I’ve never been fly-fishing and would love to try it than our fishing lesson with a guide was set up. We met Brad, our guide, a true mountain man (and waiter from the night before — I loved this place), early the next morning for a trip straight through the Smoky Mountain National Park, to his favorite fishing “hole” in Cherokee, N.C. After a ride through the mountains, some elk spotting (and some accompanying car sickness from my daughter Nora), we arrived in Cherokee. After securing our fishing license, Brad led us to the “trophy section” (perfectly appropriate for us I thought) of the Raven’s Ford Tributary on the Cherokee reservation.

Jolly Ranchers Required

            almost in  waders and felt boots                  Nora and Maggie ready to fish

After gearing up in our neoprene waders and felt boots,which felt a bit like being “vacuum-packed,” (neoprene is super clingy), wewere ready for the water.  But notbefore a handful of Jolly Ranchers were tucked in all our pockets. “Fishermen’sfriend” said Brad. Why is a mystery to me, Brad and I’m sure many others, butnonetheless a tradition.

I’m not going to say that it was everything I imagined, (A River Runs Through It comes to mind), but it was pretty darn close. Of course the first couple of casts felt very awkward, with a trove of instructions (similar to learning a golf swing-- head down, arms straight, knees bent, turn, rotate) from Brad—“arm up, hand here on the rod, tippet through finger, line loose, yet taught, wait, wait.” But after a few casts, you can easily get into the rhythm of the cast. My husband is an avid bass fisherman, and I’ve never quite gotten into it—sitting in a boat holding a rod in relative silence. I’m more of an action gal. But fly-fishing is different, as Brad said, you’re actually hunting the fish… hopping around on rocks sometimes in waist high water, casting and recasting. You truly feel atone with the water. And the promise of a fish is right in sight. Brad set us up, told us where to cast, then after a few casts, bam, I caught one. As did the girls.

Nora and Brad with a trout

We had to release them so didn’t get to cook them up for dinner, but that was OK, we were looking forward to the Wild Game dinner that night,featuring dove, boar, elk, pheasant, venison, and quail.

On returning from our fishing expedition, we headed down to their pavilion on the creek, where they had a slow cooker full of tomato-blue cheese soup, some of the best stuff I’ve ever eaten—despite the fact that I don’t even like blue cheese.  It’s super simple………and doesn’t require a neoprene suit. Here it is.

Lodge at Buckberry Creek Blue Cheese Tomato Soup

2             (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

1             cup heavy cream

½              cup crumbled blue cheese or goat cheese

1             teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

2            sprigs of rosemary (no stems)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Bring heavy creamto a boil in a large saucepan. Add blue cheese and stir until melted. Addtomatoes and Worcestershire and rosemary. Heat through. Add salt and pepper totaste. Keep warm in a slow cooker or serve immediately.

My daughter and I are always on the lookout for a good cup of hot chocolate. The other night, after a long day, I decided to have some for dinner. I had a bar of Scharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate that was sent to me at work. As I was out of milk, I resorted to heavy cream, which was the only dairy product in the fridge. I combined it with about a cup of water, the 3 ounce bar of Scharffen Berger, a smidge of sugar, and a dash of malted milk powder. I put it in a heavy pan over low heat, and left it to heat as I folded a load of laundry. I returned to the creamiest, best hot chocolate I've ever made. I've never paid that much attention to chocolate, as it's not my love. But in the past I've  tried to make it like this with whatever inexpensive chocolate I've on hand. It's always been grainy and not very good. But this was an epiphany. I don't know if the 70% cacao (on the label) was the key, or the Scharffen Berger brand, but you can bet, when it comes to hot chocolate, or melting chocolate in general, I'll choose Scharffen Berger. 

Best Hot Chocolate

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup water

3 ounces Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Chocolate 

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon malted milk powder (optional)

Dash of salt

 1. Combine all in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat. Fold the laundry or make a phone call. Return to barely simmering creamy hot chocolate. Stir well and serve in a mug all for yourself....... Actually will serve 2.  

I know it isn't customary to cook for your own birthday party, but I had all this roasted pumpkin left over from the healthy snack program at my son’s school and wanted to use it. So I decided to make some pumpkin ice cream to go with the maple cake my girlfriend was baking. I searched fruitlessly for a recipe that didn’t use a custard that must be cooked then cooled (didn’t have time for that, of course), so I decided to make some frozen yogurt. It was much simpler, and I liked the idea of the tangy yogurt with the rich pumpkin.

All mixed up and ready for the ice cream freezer.

I used the base of my favorite lemon frozen yogurt, then added the pureed pumpkin, spices, a dose of cream cheese for richness and a dash of heavy cream to finish it off. It was fabulous with the rich maple cake. However if you don’t have any of that on hand, a drizzle of warmed caramel sauce would be lovely.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Frozen Yogurt

3             cups Greek low fat yogurt (such as Fage)

1 ½             cups dark brown sugar

2             cups pureed roasted pumpkin

¾             teaspoon cinnamon

¼             teaspoon nutmeg

½            cup cream cheese, softened in microwave until creamy

1/3             cup heavy cream

Whisk all ingredients in a bowl until combined. Place in container of ice cream freezer and freeze according to manufacturers instructions.