Lentil Soup

Soup! Winter weather just requires it, and the best thing is, you can make a big pot and have it all week. This recipe from Sunset Books 1977 version of "Favorite Recipes for Soups & Stews" is inexpensive and so easy, there is really no excuse, so grab a bag of lentils and get cooking:

There is hardly anything I need to say because this recipe is just SO easy. One thing is, you will be rewarded right away with delightful smells as the onion and bacon cook. You certainly don’t need to use bacon - you can leave it out if you don’t eat meat. In which case, I’d use a little Worcestershire sauce to make up for the flavor. You could also use pieces of cooked chicken or turkey in this soup, or sausages sliced into bite size bits. A final thing to note is that this makes a big pot, so if you won’t be able to eat it all, plan to freeze serving sizes in plastic zip bags which can be tossed right into your lunch bag to re-heat in the microwave at work. All you need is fresh bread and YUM. 

Lentil Soup

2 cups lentils

2 quarts water

2 slices uncooked bacon, cut in pieces

1 medium-sized onion, sliced

¼ cup chopped carrots

½ cup chopped celery

3 Tbsp chopped parsley

1 clove garlic, minced or mashed

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

½ tsp oregano

1 can (1 lb.) solid pack tomatoes

2 Tbsp wine vinegar

Wash the lentils and place them in a pan with the water, bacon, onion, carrots, celery, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper and oregano. Cover pan and simmer for 1 ½ hours. Add the tomatoes and break them up with a spoon; add the vinegar and simmer 30 minutes longer. Taste, and add more salt if needed. Makes about 10 servings.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie – it’s just not Thanksgiving without it, but once you realize how easy it is to make, you might want it more often. Like for breakfast!

I have to admit to using an old standby, the recipe from a can of Libby’s 100% Pure (canned) Pumpkin (see below) which never fails, though I swap out the evap milk for the same quantity ½ and ½. It’s fast, easy, yummy and familiar. However, one year I decided to do a taste test with one “traditional” pie versus one Bourbon Pumpkin Pie which I saw in Gourmet Magazine. Which one won? The Gourmet version did, and you can say because it has fewer eggs and ads sour cream for a little tang, or is more heavily spiced, or is creamier… or you can just say BOURBON.

First of all, you need to make a crust. Click here for my FAMOUS three minute Cuisinart “no roll” crust and thank me forever. If you’re in a rush, fine. Go ahead and use frozen dough. I will avert my eyes. (Below: my pie crust, right out of the Cuisinart. No rolling! Trust me.)

After you blind bake your crust, let it cool while you prepare the filling, as follows:

BOURBON PUMPKIN PIE

1 (15 oz) can pure pumpkin

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup sour cream

2 large eggs

¾ cup sugar

3 ½ Tbsp. bourbon

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

¾ tsp. ground ginger

¼ tsp. ground allspice

¼ tsp. salt

·         Whisk together ingredients and pour into cooled shell.

·         Bake until edge of filling is set but center trembles slightly, about 45 minutes (filling will continue to set as it cools). Cool completely.

·         Serve at room temperature. For added depth of flavor, add bourbon to the whipped cream you dollop on top of each slice!

going into the oven - and out of it! (Note in photo below the filling is puffed up. It will settle.)

NEW COOKBOOKS!!!!!!!!!!

What is the best thing in the world for a collector? Adding to their collection! Sadly, my good friend Leslie's grandmother passed recently, but it was an honor to be invited to the estate sale preview to buy some of her amazing collection of cookbooks. I really do believe that cooking recipes once loved by a dear one is a way to keep their memory alive.

In this case, a new haul of books is also exactly what I needed to break out of a cooking rut. Lately I've been wiped out after work, so I make the same few things over and over again - but now there is NO EXCUSE for me not to once again pick out wild and wacky concoctions from years past and blog about them for your amusement.

Get hungry, folks, cause I'm gonna get reading, and then I'm gonna GET COOKIN! - stay tuned...

Mushroom Quiche

Real Men, I was told in 1982, don't eat quiche - but for a girl's pool-side brunch, quiche is just the thing!

Just LOOK at all these mushrooms!!! YUMMMM!!!!!!!!

I love this recipe from “The Eggs & Cheese I Love” by Jules J. Bond, 1978, probably because it contains my favorite product in the world, Worcesershire sauce. This recipe also calls for shallots, but I had some nice scallions which I used instead, which just goes to show how adaptable quiche is. You can throw in nearly anything you have, and Ta-Da! Lunch. If mushrooms aren’t in season, might I suggest…lobster?

Mushroom Quiche

1 pie crust **

2 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. minced shallots

1 lb. firm button mushrooms, sliced thin

1 tsp. lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

½ tsp. grates nutmeg

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

½ cup light cream

4 eggs

½ cup grated cheddar cheese

Heat butter in a skillet, add shallots, saute for about 3 minutes until they are translucent and soft. Do not brown. Add mushrooms and lemon jice, saute for 3 or 4 minutes over moderate heat until mushrooms are soft and most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from fire, season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and Worcestershire sauce.

Beat eggs, cream and cheese in a bowl until well blended and smooth, then blend with the mushrooms.

Pour into crust and bake in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes until the quiche is well set.

Serves 6

** Oh, Pour into crust, you say - so I need to make a crust? 

Yes you need to make your own crust. No I do not approve of using pre-made crust. Just NO. If you have a food processor, you have no excuse – that’s what my mother told me, after she taught me her 2 minute pie crust recipe, and she wasn’t kidding. Below is a similar recipe from The Grand Master, James Beard, who embraced the Cuisinart whole heartedly. Mother's variation on this is even quicker - no egg, and she doesn't even roll the crust, and it is splendid. I used it here with a strawberry pie (mmmm!!!) 

Easy crust, yummy quiche - a total hit at brunch! 

Banana Soup

Every Mother's Day I like to make something that my mom used to make for me, and today I offer the simplest treat which, you will find, is also one of the best. The combination of OJ and banana elevates the flavors of both and will light up your morning! I love you, Mom.

Banana Soup:

1 Banana, sliced
1 cup fresh-squeezed Orange Juice

* Pour OJ over sliced bananas in a bowl, and eat with a spoon

Like cereal, but BETTER.

Carrot Cake

 

What do you do with an over-abundance of carrots because your juicer quit working? Why, you make carrot cake! (Or in this case, delicious little carrot cupcakes.) Because come on, who wants to juice when you can eat cake instead?

(Did I mention I had a lot of carrots?)

I googled a recipe for a low-cal version of carrot cake, and also found a low-sugar version in one of my hippie cook-books, the 1976 “Bake Bread” by Marguerite Bencivenga. Between the two, I came up with something not too sinful that still tastes like cake rather than like a hockey puck – success! I should point out that I made a straight up, regular, full fat and sugar, cream cheese frosting. Because I might substitute part whole wheat flour and use less oil, but I will NOT MESS WITH FROSTING.

I’m not giving a traditional recipe here, because you can find those easily (and for about 500 calories a piece!) but do try this version. I made cupcakes, which require less baking time – and pay attention so they don’t become dry! As soon as you can smell them, they are close to done. Since there is much less oil than a traditional recipe calls for (1 cup or more less!) you need more carrots (on average one more cup) to increase the moisture, but it will never be quite as moist. That’s why you NEED the good frosting! However, if you omit the frosting (WHAT!?!?!?) then it is “carrot bread” and you can pretend you’re eating health food. Sure…..

Carrot Cake

4 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 cup all purpose white flour

1 cup all purpose whole wheat flour

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

3 cups grated carrots

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

·         * Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan (or place cupcake papers into cupcake tins – approx. 18)

·        *  In a bowl, beat together eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in carrots; fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.

·        * Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes (30 min for cupcakes), or until you smell the cake and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

·        *  Frost when cooled. (see below)

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 box powdered sugar

3 oz cream cheese

2 Tbsp milk

½ lemon

·        *  Cream the cheese and ½ box of powdered sugar, and add milk and juice of lemon

·        * Add sugar till taste and consistency are right; beat till smooth. You may not need the whole box of sugar. (Oh come on, who am I kidding? Of course you will!)

·         * Frost cooled carrot cake or cupcakes.  

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, topped with Pecans. YUM!!!

Green Goddess Dressing

Open any mid-century book on California Cooking and I guarantee you’ll find a recipe for one thing: Green Goddess dressing. (See three examples of my CA Cook Book collection, pictured above - all have it.) Since on St. Patrick’s day my friends and I had a “Green Food Till You Puke Pot Luck”, I decided one dish that I had to bring was Green Goddess Salad. It’s green, its slightly bizarre, and everyone loves it. (I also made green fondue, which is another story entirely, and rather disgusting.) See me and my friends in our green finery – Green Goddesses, all of us: 

One of my favorite books on California Cooking is a 1950 edition of the “The New California Cook Book” by Genevieve Callahan. (pictured at top) Not only is it filled with tons of actually tasty things, but Genevieve is knowledgeable and chatty and tells us background on her recipes. She notes, for example, that Green Goddess Dressing was famously served at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel in honor of the English actor George Arliss, who appeared in a play called The Green Goddess in the 20s. (And to think, I had always just assumed it was some hippy BS!) The other thing I adore about this book is that the previous owner, Mrs. Vera A. McMillan, had written ALL OVER IT, and stuck clippings and other recipes in its pages. She clearly was a “Health Nut” who had saved coupons for “Dr. Fearn’s Soya Bean Capsules” and other delights. I am sure she knew my grandmother.

This dressing is simple and everyone loves it, but one thing that always bugs me is that I have never seen “tarragon vinegar” for sale anywhere. Was this something that went away over time? A culinary mystery. Instead, I used white wine vinegar and some dried tarragon. Also, you can adjust the amount of mayonnaise and sour cream to taste in case you prefer one to the other, and “heavy cream, soured” is just sour cream. Some variations on this recipe call for onion juice (1 tsp) or onion and/or garlic powder (very 50s). Finally, to make a dip for veggies rather than a salad dressing, eliminate the mayonnaise entirely, and you can also eliminate the anchovies (which are said to be a later addition anyhow) and it is still excellent.

Green Goddess Dressing

1 clove garlic, grated

3 Tbsp finely chopped anchovies, or anchovy paste

3 Tbsp finely chopped chives or green onions

1 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp tarragon wine vinegar

½ cup heavy cream, soured

1 cup mayonnaise

1/3 cup finely chopped parsley

Salt and coarse black pepper

Combine ingredients in order given. Chill, then pour liberally over coarsely torn mixed greens – roamine, chicory, and escarole or head lettuce and leaf lettuce. Toss until well-coated, adding more salt and pepper as needed. Serve in individual plates or bowls, to accompany the main course. You’ll mop up your salad plate with French bread when you finish! Makes about a pint.

Oh, did I mention I put just a drop of green food coloring in the dressing? You can barely tell... see, I saved most of it for the frosting on the green cupcakes above. Note also that the green fondue is cropped out of this photo. You're welcome!