Recipes

My friend La Bethulia dropped by the other day and left me with two lovely fresh eggplants. Wanted to cook them up and freeze them, but since I have more than enough ratatouille in the freezer, wasn’t sure what to do with them. At last weekend’s Farmer’s Market, though, I came across a guy who was selling what he called “eggplant lasagne.” Could I make that?

Quite a few recipes for concoctions by that name inhabit the Internet. I downloaded one from Epicurious, because I had most of the ingredients on hand. The only thing it called for that I didn’t have was ricotta…but I figured a workaround. It turned out really well. Here’s how it came down:

You need:

Two eggplants, sliced lengthwise into quarter-inch-thick slices
Salt
Thyme
Marjoram, oregano, or mixed herbs (I used herbes de Provence)
half an onion, chopped
a couple of garlic cloves, minced
1 egg
1 cup Greek-style yogurt
a roll of mozarella cheese, sliced up
2 16-ounce cans diced (or other) tomatoes
1 small can tomato paste
splash of red wine
olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese plus more as topping
canned or bottled roasted peppers

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Salt the eggplant slices generously. Skim the bottom of a large rimmed baking pan or two smaller pans with olive oil. Place the eggplant slices in a single layer in the pan; rub the top sides lightly with more olive oil, and sprinkle with thyme. Bake the eggplant in the hot oven until browned and pliable.

Meanwhile, sautée the chopped onion in some more olive oil. As the onion begins to brown, add the garlic, stir a bit, and then stir in the canned tomatoes, the tomato paste, and (if desired) a slosh of red wine. Allow to simmer for a few minutes, until you’re ready to assemble the casserole.

In a small bowl, mix the egg, 1/4 cup Parmesan, and the yogurt together well. Add about a tablespoon of herbes de Provence and mix this in, too.

When the eggplant slices are done, remove them from the oven and turn the heat down to 375 degrees.

Use more olive oil to grease an oblong baking dish. Layer enough eggplant to cover the bottom of the dish. Spread about half the yogurt  mixture over the top of this layer. Spread about half the tomato mixture over this. Spread sliced mozzarella over the tomato mixture. Lay several canned peppers atop the cheese layer (slice them so they’ll lay flat).

Add another layer of eggplant, followed by the remaining yogurt mixture, then a layer of mozzarella (if you still have any), and the remaining tomato sauce. Sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese generously over the top.

Cover the pan with aluminum foil and bake at 375 degrees for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake another 15 minutes, until bubbly and hot all the way through.

This turned out to be amazingly delicious. Served with a green salad, it made enough to feed a guest for lunch and still have plenty to freeze in six or eight individual  portions.

You could add any number of other goodies to it: mushrooms, Italian sausage, a layer of spinach, a sprinkling of broccoli. And it’s gluten free. Try it out!

So yesterday I got so carried away with relating the results of the conversation among La Maya, JS, and moi that I forgot to give you the recipe for the amazingly gorgeous pancake I whipped up.

This spectacular dish is spectacularly simple. For guests, you can create the illusion of even more magical simplicity by having everything set to go (coffee brewer prepared; bacon or sausages ready to cook, fruit cut up and sautéed or ready to sauté if necessary, table set and condiments in place) before they arrive.

Ingredients are minimalist: butter, eggs, milk, and flour. The amount of milk equals the amount of flour. Obviously, amounts of all depend on the number of folk you hope to feed.

Four people can be served comfortably with the 4- to 4 1/3-quart pan size proportions, assuming you provide something like bacon, sausages, or salmon to supplement. Use a frying pan or “everyday pan”: it should be broad and shallow and oven-proof, because at 425 degrees the pancake will puff up like a gigantic popover.

You’ll need a blender for this frolic.

Pan size	Butter	Eggs	Milk & flour
2 – 3 qt.	¼ cup	3	3/4 cup each
3 – 4 qt	1/3 cup	4	1 cup each
4 – 4½qt.	½ cup	5	1¼ cups each
4½ – 5 qt.	½ cup	6	1½ cups each

Preheat oven to 425 degrees
Time:  about 25 minutes.

Place butter in a shallow pan and set in oven to melt.  Meanwhile, zap the eggs in the blender at high speed for one minute.  With the blender running, gradually pour in milk and flour, a little at a time.  Blend about 30 seconds after all ingredients are added.

Remove the pan from the oven.  Pour in batter.  Return pan to oven and bake 20 to 25 minutes (depending on pan size), or until puffy and browned.  Serve immediately.  Dust with nutmeg, if desired.

When this “pancake” is done, it puffs up like a popover, but because it fills a whole frying pan, the effect is somewhat like a big, savory soufflé. Guests are amazed, children are tickled, and the result is delicious.

Suggested toppings:

My personal favorite is slices of fresh lemon with powdered sugar served in a shaker or bowl.  Sprinkle on sugar and then squeeze lemon juice over it.

Also wonderful are sliced strawberries, peaches or other fruits in season.

Sooo good: sautéed apples; offer with sour cream or Greek-style yogurt.

In theory, you could serve the pancake with canned pie filling, if your guests favor the fantastically sweet.

Or you can simply serve with honey, maple syrup, or fruit syrup.

It is, BTW, astonishingly frugal. But we don’t need to tell that to our friends.

😉

On New Year’s Day I was lurking in the baking aisle at the Safeway, where I came across a handsome mid-thirtyish man (born 30 years too late, darn it!) searching the shelves frantically. “Do you see any cornbread mix?” he asked.

Well, no. Neither of us could see any cornbread mix.

“We always have black-eyed peas and cornbread for New Year’s, and my two kids are looking forward to it. I’ve been to two other stores and can’t find any cornbread mix!”

“Cornbread is pretty easy to make from scratch,” I suggested.

“No, no,” said he. “They can tell the difference. They won’t eat it unless it’s made from a mix.”

OMG! Poor babies!

We found a box of corn muffin mix. “Look,” said I. “This has got to be the same stuff. Just mix it up and pour it in a baking pan. They’ll never figure it out.”

He studied the corn muffin mix box. “Oh, they’ll figure this one out, all right. Somewhere I’ve gotta get actual, real, cornbread mix.”

He went off in search of another grocery store. I picked up a package of flour and went off in search of dinner.

LOL! During all of this anxious study, neither of us thought about the Marie Callendar’s just up the road. They surely would have sold him some cornbread, already cooked and hot. And no doubt it comes from a box.

Given half a chance, I’d have shared this recipe with him, adapted slightly from James Beard (mine has no cream but more sugar):

Extremely Good Cornbread

1¼ cups milk
1/3 cup melted butter
More butter to grease the pan
1/2 cup flour
1½ cups yellow cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar (the crunchy turbinado type is very good)
1 Tbsp baking powder
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Melt the butter. Generously grease an 8½ x 11 baking pan with some more butter, and leave a teaspoon or more of butter on the bottom of the pan.

Pour the milk into a 2-cup measuring vessel. Add the eggs. Using a fork or wire whip, beat the eggs thoroughly into the milk.

Place the greased pan, empty, into the oven to preheat. This should melt the chunk of butter you left in the pan.

While the pan preheats, pour the egg-milk liquid into the dry ingredients. Add the 1/3 cup melted butter. Mix together well using a wire whip or wooden spoon.

When the batter is mixed and the pan is hot, lift the pan out and place it on a heat-proof surface. Quickly pour the cornbread batter into the pan and immediately return the pan to the oven. Bake the cornbread about 15 to 18 minutes.

Cut in squares. Serve hot with butter and honey.

Now, if that weren’t bad enough for your health, I’ve come up with something that is truly suicidal. You’ve heard of fried polenta? Well…why stop with mere fried cornmeal mush? Go for

Fried Cornbread

Leftover cornbread
Olive oil
A little butter
Herbs to your taste (I used some herbes de Provence)
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice a few squares or oblongs of cornbread. Now cut them in half horizontally, so one side is baked and the other is the inside of the cornbread.

Skim the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil. To ensure that the cornbread browns, add a teaspoon or so of butter…or more, according to gluttony taste. Preheat the pan over medium heat.

When the pan is hot enough to melt the butter into the olive oil, set the pieces of cornbread in the pan, baked side down. Sprinkle some herbs over the top surface of the bread. Go on about your business while the bread fries…but pay attention, because this happens surprisingly fast.

When the bottom side is browned, gently flip the bread over and brown on the other side. Season as desired with salt and pepper.

Et voilà! A hearty and tasty side dish. You could probably sprinkle a little Parmesan over it, if desired. It’s very good. Indeed. This may be the highest and best use of cornbread.

Except for entertaining small children, of course.

It rained all night. Today it’s still overcast and damp out there. Down at the church a number of coreligionists remarked that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…something that is remarkable in a place that very rarely looks like a European’s idea of the season.

My son having made it amply clear that he’d just as soon not find his mother on his doorstep midday on Sundays, I joined some choir members singing at a nearby hospice. That was a good thing to do.

Arriving home an hour later, I was cold, hungry, and lonely. Thought I might mull some of the leftover wine that’s sitting on the kitchen counter, but then thought no; it actually was a decent bottle of wine. Got it on sale and hesitated to waste it by dumping spices and orange peel into it. So that left…what? Tea? Coffee? How festive…

But what’s this in the back of the larder? Lo, an ancient, half-forgotten flask of dark rum! Now that’s  festive. What could be better on a dim and chilly day than a mug of hot buttered rum?

Checked my Joy of Cooking to refresh the memory. Alas, this edition is not the REAL Joy—I left that behind when I ran off with the harmonica player. The fools who took it upon themselves, some years ago, to “update” that great classic, left out much of what made the Joy a joy. Among the missing: a recipe for hot buttered rum.

Luckily, this old lady’s memory is not so far gone that she couldn’t dredge up the way to make the stuff. Embroidered on it a bit by using demerara sugar (that crunchy brown stuff you can get in grocery stores now) instead of regular white sugar or the even more old-fashioned sugar cube. Good. Very good.

Here’s how to make hot buttered rum for one (or for as many as you please):

For each boozehound, get yourself a large, pleasing mug. Have on hand a bottle of decent rum, some water in a kettle, a cube of unsalted butter (salted will be OK, if that’s all you have), a bunch of sweet spices such as clove, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and some sugar.

Put the water on the stove to boil.

While the water’s heating, place a tablespoon or so of sugar in the bottom of a mug. Add ground spices to taste (I used them all, being somewhat undisciplined by nature). Pour a jigger of rum over the sugar and spices and stir to mix. Let this steep while the water comes to a boil.

Once the water does come to a boil, fill the cup with hot water. Add a pat of butter (about a tablespoon, give or take).

Consume. Be careful. It’s hot.

Other than a third of a bottle of rum, the larder is pretty bare today. I’m out of food and out of money, and even if I could afford to buy groceries don’t feel much like driving around in the rain. So I decided to make bread, of which I’ve had none for the past week.

The kneaded dough lends itself to nice little lunchy hors d’oeuvres, as follows:

Make some bread. I use a bread machine to knead the dough, but find that baking the result in the oven makes a loaf that tastes more convincingly handmade. So…

Get out the bread machine.

Put in two cups of hot but not scalding water. Add a tablespoon of active dry yeast. Then measure in five cups of white flour or a combination of white and whole wheat flour, as desired. Add about two teaspoons of granulated salt or a scant tablespoon of chunky sea salt. Turn the machine to “knead.”

Go away while the machine kneads the bread. When the kneading cycle ends, come back and tear off a few chunks of dough–two pieces about a tablespoon or two in volume for each munchie you wish to cook. Close the lid and leave the rest of the dough to rise.

Pat the little pieces of dough into circles. In the center of one, place a piece of cheese, a pecan, or both. Cover with another circle of dough and pinch the edges together.

Over medium heat, melt some butter in a small skillet. Place the filled dough circles in the hot butter and brown on both sides, flipping them over midway through the cooking process.

Serve with whatever you wish to drink. A light salad would sort of make this into a meal. More or less.

These make a great snack for kids or grownups. They go pretty good with hot buttered rum, too!

🙂

Oh. The rest of the dough? Let it rise in the bread machine. When the rising cycle ends, turn the dough out onto a floured board. Shape it into a loaf or two. If you’re doing free-form loaves, you can either make them into long baguettes or into a round loaf. Or if you prefer, shape it into a pair of loaves to fit into a couple of traditional bread pans.

Cover these with a clean dish towel. Let them rise again—probably about a half-hour or forty minutes. While they’re rising, preheat the oven to about 400 degrees. Then put the risen loaves into the oven and bake until they sound hollow when tapped with a fingernail—about 40 or 50 minutes. Good to eat!

 

Shortly before Thanksgiving the choir had its annual silent auction. This rather swell event is the big fund-raiser of the year, and people go all out to make it fancy and fun. It includes a very nice catered dinner.

Well, among other amazing things, the decorating committee adorned the dinner tables with a fantastic array of beautiful and colorful fresh fall produce. Mile on mile of dinner tables…

After the event ended, guests were invited to take the veggies home with them. So much free food!

I grabbed an armful of gorgeous Brussels sprouts on their stalks. On the stalk is absolutely the best way to get them: they stay fresh forever and are soooo succulent!

Day after Thanksgiving, M’hijito and I had some of them with a lamb dinner I cooked up—at that time, we tried a recipe I’d spun off a magazine article, and it worked incredibly well. This, to be described later as part of this year’s not-a-turkey holiday meal plan.

The rest of them…a lot of them…sat in the produce drawer until I realized I’d better cook them before they spoiled. In the meantime, I came across a giant bottle of roasted red peppers at Costco, the Home of the Lifetime Supply of Everything. So here’s what became of the sprouts and the peppers.

This combination is incredibly delicious!

Brussels Sprouts that Taste Great

• fresh brussels sprouts, cleaned and quartered
• a handful of pecans (more than one handful, if desired)
• sprinkling of herbes de Provence (or other herbs, as available or desired)
• one or more large canned roasted red peppers
• dollop of olive oil
• a little butter, if desired
• salt and pepper to taste

If the sprouts come on a stalk, pop each one off the stem, wash them and as necessary discard any wilted outer leaves. Cut each sprout in quarters. Cut the pepper(s) into bite-size pieces.

Skim the bottom of a frying pan with some olive oil and heat gently over medium to medium-high heat. If you’re using butter, add this, too, so it will melt into the olive oil. Add the pecans and stir them around for a few minutes to begin browning (don’t overdo this step). Then add the sprouts and herbs, stir well to coat with cooking oil and distribute herbs, and cook over medium-high heat until the veggies are nearing the “done” stage to your taste. IMHO, they’re best served al dente—still a little crisp. Shortly before you’re ready to serve, add the peppers and stir around so they will be warm and will add their flavor to the dish. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

This is so incredibly simple and so incredibly delicious!

Not only that, but once cooked, the sprouts seem to last forever in the fridge. I used them in three or four more meals, occasionally adding more of the yummy roasted peppers. One particularly handy variant is to reheat a bunch of them and serve them over a little pasta, sprinkled with Parmesan.

Oh…and there’s more. It turns out dogs like Brussels sprouts. Not only will certain golden retriever puppies scarf up pieces you carelessly drop on the floor, the stem makes an awesome chew stick for your pup! Charley, who’s now verging on 50 pounds and is sprouting (heh) all his adult teeth, made off with the thing and chewed at it for quite a while, until his attention wandered. He came back to it several times—never was able to pull it apart, and unlike other chew toys, it did not splinter or peel off pieces that might choke him.

Image of sprouts on the vine: Wikipedia; no artist given. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.