German Potato Salad 1974

I'm not sure who Rhoda was; I think maybe a neighbor when my parents lived in Ann Arbor.

6 medium potatoes, boiled in jackets (I used Yukon Gold.  Boil until *just* done.)
6 slices bacon
3/4 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons flour
1 - 2 tablespoons sugar (I used 1)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt (I used 1)
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
Dash of pepper
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vinegar (the plain white stuff)

"Peel potatoes and slice thin.  Fry bacon slowly in skillet, then drain on paper.  Sauté onion in bacon fat until golden brown.  Blend in flour, sugar, salt, celery seeds, and pepper.  Cook over low heat, stirring until smooth and bubbly*.  Remove from heat.  Stir in water and vinegar.  Heat to boil, stirring constantly.  Boil 1 minute.  Stir in carefully the potatoes and the crumbled bacon bits.  Remove from heat, cover, and let stand until ready to serve."

* I don't like greasy texture so I drained all the bacon fat, then reheated about a tablespoon to cook the onions.  When I stirred in the flour, etc., I got onions coated in dry flour and spices, not anything that could bubble, but when I added the water and vinegar, the sauce turned out just fine.  So you don't need to use a ton of bacon grease in this.

I peeled the potatoes because I was serving this to guests but if I were making it for myself, I wouldn't bother, especially with Yukon Golds that have tender skins.  I thought this was plenty sweet with 1 tablespoon of sugar so I would highly recommend you start low and add to taste (you can't make this not-sweet, though, since you need to balance the vinegar).

I overcooked the potatoes.  They should have sliced better and not broken up so much when I folded them into the dressing.  Oops.  Tasted fine, though.

Jake's Stir Fry

There is no picture of this hearty, filling comfort food.

There are reasons for that.

But please be assured that it tastes much better than it looks.

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10 oz sliced mushrooms
1 green pepper cut in small (1 cm) pieces
1 clove garlic (or to taste), pressed or chopped fine
1 lb hamburger

Pinch smoked paprika
Pinch cayenne
Salt & black pepper to taste (fresh ground black pepper recommended if available)
Dash A1
Dash Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp cream cheese (about a 1/4" thick slice off a typical block)
¾ cup sour cream

1 tsp “Better than Bouillon”, Marmite, or similar to bring back the umami. (Do not add Vegemite. Vegemite is an abomination.)

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Brown mushrooms over med-high heat to bring out flavor. Flip infrequently to allow browning.

Add green pepper. Stir occasionally.

When the pepper starts to turn brighter green, add the hamburger and garlic. Salt immediately; when the salt is added affects the texture.

Brown the hamburger. Add the spices and sauces, stirring them in.

Stir in the cream cheese and sour cream. Stir in your chosen umami enhancer to taste.

Serve over mashed potatoes.

Banana bread

This has a bit less oil than some banana bread recipes.

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a loaf pan.  Will bake 55 minutes.

4 overripe bananas
1 1/2 cups flour (I usually use 1 cup all-purpose and 1/2 cup whole-wheat)
1/2 cup sugar, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 egg
big pinch of allspice

Cream butter and sugar.  Toss dry ingredients together (no need to actually sift).  Add egg and mashed bananas to the butter mixture and combine thoroughly.  Fold dry into wet.  Spread into loaf pan and bake 55 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool on a rack.

Vanilla (or banana or coconut) pudding

You can combine this with coconut, or with bananas and vanilla wafers, if you wish.

2/3 - 1 cup sugar, as you prefer
3 eggs, beaten
dash salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch

2-3 tablespoons flour
2 cups (1 pint) whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond flavoring

Optional:

Shredded coconut

Slivered, toasted, almonds

Egg whites for meringue topping
3 - 4 ripe bananas, sliced about 1/4-inch thick
1 box of vanilla wafers

This is important: Have everything measured out and ready to go before you start.  The custard will thicken pretty fast once it gets going and you don't want to risk burning it.  I guess you could do this over a double boiler but I never have.

 

Mix sugar, flour, and cornstarch together.  Add the salt and beaten eggs.  Add milk and bring to a boil briefly over medium-high heat, stirring constantly and thoroughly (scrape the bottom of the pan all over).  Cook until thickened.  Remove from heat; add vanilla and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature and then chill thoroughly.

 

Optional: 

Whip egg whites to stiff peaks, spread over top, and brown in the oven.

 

Top with coconut or almonds if you wish.  

 

For banana pudding:

Line the bottom and sides of a heat-proof casserole dish with some of the vanilla wafers.  Spread a layer of pudding over the wafers.  Dot pudding with banana slices (and wafers, if you have enough).  Repeat pudding and bananas until both are used up.  End with a pudding layer and dot top with the rest of the wafers.  Don't put banana slices on top or they will turn brown with exposure to air.  Top with meringue if you wish, or serve with whipped cream.

 

Picadillo

Latin American seasoned ground beef.  You can use this to fill tacos or serve it over rice, or . . . whatever, really.  It's sort of an exotic sloppy joe.

2 pounds ground beef, mostly-browned and drained well
2 potatoes, diced and browned slightly
1 can diced tomatoes, or about 2 cups fresh
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
4 cloves garlic, or more
1/3 cup raisins, rehydrated slightly (pour hot water over them, or microwave with water)
1/4 cup green olives, quartered
2 teaspoons cumin
1/2 teaspoon or more chili powder (this does not need to be spicy)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or allspice
1/2-ish teaspoon salt

Optional:
Grated carrot, kernel corn, celery, whatever needs to be used up.

Cook the onion and pepper (carrot, celery, corn, etc.) in a small amount of oil or reserved meat drippings until the onions are clear.  Put the meat and par-cooked potatoes back in the pan.  Add the tomatoes, raisins, olives, and seasonings.  Simmer gently, covered, until the potatoes are cooked through.  Better the second day, as stewed things generally are.

Texas Caviar

The story is that Texas caviar was invented in 1940 by Helen Corbitt, who was from New York and didn't even like black-eyed peas.  There are almost endless recipes for this, and you can add other vegetables as you see fit (a lot of people add kernel corn), but if you want to call it Texas caviar, the bean component has to be black-eyed peas; otherwise, it's just bean salad.  Texas used to be a leading grower of peas.

4 cups black-eyed peas (3 cans, rinsed and drained)
2 large or 4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
     OR 1 red bell pepper
4 ribs celery, quartered lengthwise and chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced, or to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice and zest of 2 limes
2 tablespoons dry cilantro, or equivalent fresh
1/4 onion, chopped.
Salt to taste

Mix everything and allow to marinate, stirring occasionally, for a few hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Serve as a salad or with scoop-style corn chips.

Angel Food Cake

Angel food cake is really easy to make. You can eat it straight or with berries or hack it up and make a trifle or you could just EAT IT STRAIGHT. You know, your choice. But eat it straight.

Hardware

An angel food cake pan. Yes, it's basically a single-tasker. Yes, some people fetishize multi-task tools. Yes, you can fake an angel food cake pan using a springform pan. Buy the pan. It's totally worth it. Did I mention that you can eat plain angel food cake? You can!

A large mixing bowl

A medium mixing bowl

A resealable container to keep your egg yolks in

A small bowl or ramekin

A whisk; a French whisk is best, because let's face it, we're making a meringue here and you can get more air into it with a French whisk...but you can also use a regular old balloon whisk

Can I use my stand mixer?

I have read that you should only do this by hand because it's so easy to over-whip your eggs with the mixer. I have only made angel food by hand because I like whipping egg whites. In my opinion, if you don't want to do it by hand, you don't have to. Use the stand mixer if you want to! 

Ingredients

The ingredients for this recipe are listed by volume, but you should measure at least the flour and sugar by weight. I know, you already knew that.

1 cup cake flour 

1 1/2 cup superfine sugar, divided

12 large egg whites

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Substitutions

I wouldn't. A lot of times you can get away with cutting together flour and corn starch, but in this case you really, really want the more finely milled flour. And while you can use regular granulated sugar, you're going to be working with egg whites, and a superfine sugar like C&H baker's sugar will have less of a ripping and tearing effect because it dissolves faster. Honest, you'll get better results.

(I use superfine sugar in all of my baking.)

Separating whites

You don't have to be nuts about it. Classic prep says OMFG IF THERE IS EVEN A LITTLE BIT OF YOLK YOU NEED TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, but we're making this to eat. It'll be fine. (Especially if you use a stand mixer.) Use a two-container method to separate the whites, though:

1. Separate a white into your small bowl or ramekin
2. Put the yolk into your resealable container
3. Dump the separated white into the large bowl

That way, if you screw up separating an egg (you will) you only lose one white rather than the whole batch. A little bit of yolk will probably be okay...a total blowout is bad.

Holy cow...twelve whites? What do I do with the yolks?

KEEP THEM! Refrigerate them, or freeze them in an ice cube tray, or do what I do and make yellow cake. You'll need eight of those yolks for that. You can use the others for mayo or something.

Station Prep

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Look at your pan. See that pan? DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO IT. Think about how good the cake will taste when you eat it plain. Think about how fluffy it will be. Think about how angel food cake is light and airy and about how that is mostly achieved by NOT DOING ANYTHING TO YOUR PAN.
3. Seriously. There is no pan prep. If it's clean and dry, that's good enough.

Recipe

1. Sift together the flour and 3/4 cup of sugar in the medium bowl and set it aside.
2. In the large bowl, combine the egg whites, vanilla, cream of tartar, and salt.
3. Either by hand or with the whisk attachment on your stand mixer, whip the egg whites to firm peaks; Google a picture if you need help, but basically when you pull the whisk out, the peaks should hold for a second or so but then deform a bit.
4. Gradually add the remaining 3/4 cup of sugar to the egg white mixture as you continue to whip the whites to stiff peaks; congratulations, it's a meringue.
5. Fold the sifted ingredients into the whites. Don't mix it. Fold it. Your goal here is to integrate the ingredients but not loose all of that precious, precious aeration you worked so hard for.

Bake

40-45 minutes. Use the standard toothpick/skewer method to determine whether you're done.

Cool

Hey, what are those...leg-looking things on the sides of the angel food cake pan?

They're legs!

When the cake is done and you have removed it from the oven, flip it upside down and stand it on those legs. Don't worry--your cake will not fall out. Let it cool completely, then turn it back over. Run a paring knife between the pan and the top of the cake to loosen it, then pull the cake out using the tube. Turn it over again and put the cake on your cake dish or serving plate or what have you. Separate from the tube. Eat.

Did I mention you can eat it plain?

Archaic Aebleskiver

Equipment:

• Whisk or mixer with whisk attachment
• Knife for cutting apple
• Mixing bowls
• Spatula
• Aebleskiver pan 
• Pastry brush
• Skewer (You can use chopsticks if you don’t have a skewer.)

Ingredients:

• 1 apple (preferably tart and flavorful)
• Optional spices, possibly cinnamon and nutmeg
• 2 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 4 Tablespoons melted butter

Not in the batter:

• Additional melted butter for the pan
• Powdered sugar to top the aebleskiver

Peel and core the apple, then cut it into small pieces. Mix any spices in with the apple pieces. For softer, more cooked apples, heat the apple pieces. Set the apple pieces aside.

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Set them aside.

In a different bowl stir together the rest of the batter ingredients until smooth, then fold in the egg whites.

Heat the pan until a drop of water sizzles on it. Brush melted butter into the pockets then add batter, not quite a pocket full. When the batter is bubbly at the edges, shove in some apple, stick a skewer into the ball, and flip it. Keep flipping periodically. An aebleskive is done when a (wiped off) skewer emerges clean.

Rebutter the pan right before adding more batter.

Serve your aebleskiver with powdered sugar on top. Modern aebleskiver skip putting the apples inside and are served with jam and such.

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JKB