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What Should I Do After A Meal? - Yahoo Recipe Search
Food52With my one year blogiversary approaching in over a week, I find it fitting that I should share another skillet cornbread recipe. As I described in my inaugural post, Garlicky Shrimp and Spinach Cornbread, my whole passion for recipe development started when I was chosen to be a finalist in the National Cornbread Festival Cook-Off in South Pittsburg, Tennessee. From the moment the announcer said “Ladies, start your ovens†, I knew I was…well, you can read the rest of that story here: Garlicky Shrimp and Spinach Cornbread. But what I didn’t mention was that I actually sent in several recipes for the contest. And after I started blogging, I had intended to share them; but after a year, I somehow hadn’t managed to do it till now. That’s surprising to me, because they’re pretty darned tasty! For example: Savory Ham and Swiss Cornbread Bake–chunks of ham, sweet/grassy bites of asparagus, and hard boiled eggs, smothered with a swiss cheese sauce on a cornbread crust. Whoa, back up. Hard boiled eggs? Yeah, I got the idea from a casserole that my aunt always makes at Easter time, with asparagus, cheddar cheese, eggs and mushroom soup. The only problem with her version is that she uses canned asparagus. Can we say muuuuushy?!?! Her kids finally convinced her not to make it this year. I’m not sure why they didn’t convince her to just make it with fresh asparagus! Nonetheless, I felt like the dish had great potential to be converted into a skillet cornbread meal. Plus, it’s a great way to use up Easter leftovers. One disclaimer though: When I made this the first time, I put the sauce on the bottom and the everything else on top of it. The ham and asparagus fared okay, but the eggs? They were like chewing on pencil erasers. So I switched things up a bit and put the sauce on top. That way everything remained all cozy and moist underneath. But I kept the picture from the original batch, so that it’d be easy to see what’s inside. Therefore, if you make it, yours will not look the same — but it will taste fabulous!Food52Dirt cheap is an interesting way to phrase this weeks contest and would allow all kinds of soliloquies if one so desired. Opening cans and dumping them into a pot is probably the cheapest on my wallet. I could spend the extra bucks on organic but then that would sort of defeat the purpose of dirt cheap, yes you can discuss and debate this statement all you want but if you are hungry and can't afford it then you don't care about what it will do to the environment down the road or what your future health ailments might be. But enough. So here is what I did and my reasoning. First off, while I can buy larger quantities and have left overs for lunch I won't. In this case it is one dirt cheap meal and I am actually going to put the dirt part of the statement to work for me. I always get a kick out of people saying they saved money because it was on sale. Anytime something green is leaving my wallet I am not saving money but spending it and if it is on sale I am just not spending as much. So back to dirt cheap dinners. Luckily at my grocery they often times offer pasta at ten boxes for ten dollars but if you buy one they have to sell it to you for one dollar not the usual price. Fresh garlic is the same way, often you can get a head for fifty cents. Unsalted butter these days often times comes in two packs for smaller families but unless I am going to steal margarine from the baked potato station at Wendy's it is about the best I am going to do, so a buck forty nine. Everyone should have salt and pepper and if you don't you won't be looking at this recipe but standing in line for Taco Tuesday and collecting up your four for a dollar soft shells and a super-sized cola. So the final couple of components for this dish are where you might have some expense. You can pay $2.99 for a packet of fresh sage or you can go by the garden center and buy a sage plant, not a start, but a plant for 3.99 and plant it. It will be big enough you can use the sage tonight and not kill it and down the road you will have something that has beautiful purple flowers, is a perennial so it will grow back after the snow has cleared and you will be able to use it for many years to come. The poor man's parmesan is not my idea and I think I saw Jamie Oliver create something like this once but I am sure he was not the first and, obviously, for eons many have used this sort of topping on all sorts of things. I don't waste bread. I make my own bread so I am very aware of the effort it takes to make a good loaf. I save the heals, odds and ends and if I dry them out they will not mold. I can then use them for all sorts of things. The almonds, quite honestly I have no idea of their cost, but I am guessing a little bag in the baking section probably goes for top dollar or at least 99 cents. Is this the cheapest meal, well probably not but for my family anytime they enjoy something and it is this inexpensive I am good with it and I am guessing it is less then the Golden Corral, or human CAFO as I like to call it, but then again I haven't been to one of those in a long time so I have no idea what it costs. Oh and BTW, the real value of this meal is both girls like to jump in and help make it and it is one where they easily can. - thirschfeldFood52My Grandma Hogan lived for desserts. She was NOT an outstanding cook, but her sweet tooth rendered her incapable of becoming a poor baker. As a child, I remember savoring a slice of apple pie that tasted magical. Every other apple pie I'd tasted was made with a double pastry crust, and the syrupy filling never masked the mushiness of the apples. Knowing the typical textures I'd encountered before, I recall wondering if my Grandma Hogan's version even contained apples. (It did!) Grandma only baked that pie every so often. I don't remember her serving it at holiday meals; she would make it if one of her children requested it, or occasionally when she "just felt like pie." I didn't just enjoy Grandma's pie for its unique crust and its irresistible contents. To me, it embodied Grandma's attitude that not all aspects of life should be serious: sometimes, we should just eat, laugh, and enjoy. When we sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" at my Grandma Hogan's 80th birthday party, I couldn't help but think of the sparkle I'd always seen in her gaze when she served or encountered dessert. I asked Grandma Hogan for her apple pie recipe when I was a sophomore in out-of-state college craving a taste of home, and she gave me her recipe. One of my sisters asked her for the recipe a couple of years later, and Grandma gave it to her. About four years after that, my sister and I discovered that our recipes featured slightly different quantities and different types of apples. Nevertheless, both versions had received rave reviews each time we had baked them. I have to admit that, over the years, I have added a few of my own tweaks to the version of the recipe I received. Even so, I think of Grandma Hogan every time I bake it. Sometimes the baking process ends in tears, but the pie experience always yields smiles and laughter. Grandma Hogan fought a long battle with Altzheimer's that was largely terrifying for her, but she managed to retain the childlike sense of lighthearted mischief that made her who she was until the end. I have to say, my sister and I believe that the differences in recipes were a result of the latter. Whatever the truth might be, Grandma herself sampled slices of what was once her own creation several times before her death last November. Each time, she commented that whoever had baked that pie sure knew what they were doing. I want to be remembered for this recipe because it's proof to me of the reality of love: that love lasts, wrapped tightly in positive memories, even after you don't even remember who you are. I want to see that sparkle that shone in Grandma Hogan's eyes in future generations.Food52{This is a first person biography of a Mexican restaurateur in Los Angeles that I published through AltaMed. It is one entry into a book that served as a fundraiser for uninsured individuals. The recipe is prepared by Rogelio Martínez and served at Casa Oaxaca in Culver City, CA and Santa Ana, CA.} Casa Oaxaca Rogelio Martinez Juarez 3317 West First Street Santa Ana, CA 92703 Tel: 714.554.0905 I was born twenty minutes from the city of Oaxaca in a small town called Tlacochahuaya. My mother, Carmen, and my father, Ricardo, were native Zapotecos. I have six siblings and we all speak our native dialect as well as Spanish. My name is Rogelio Martinez Juarez. I dropped out of school in the eighth grade. I decided at that time that I wanted to be a baker. I came to this decision because nobody else in town wanted to be a baker. It was considered the lowest of the low in the economic class structure of the town. To learn how to bake, I went to one of the largest hotels in Oaxaca, Hotel Victoria, and asked for a job. They saw my enthusiasm and decided that I would be a good employee. They taught me how to bake and also how to Cuchariar (perform spoon service) at the tables of their most important clients. Spoon service is the art of dishing the plates artistically while at the table in front of the client instead of preparing the dish in the kitchen. I enjoyed this very much and decided that in addition to being a baker, I would also be a professional server. By the time I was 22, I had become a true professional in the food service industry. I had worked in all the fine restaurants in the city of Oaxaca and some in Mexico City. My eagerness as an entrepreneur was beginning to show in my character and I made the greatest venture in my life: I immigrated to the United States and established myself in Los Angeles. During this period, I never faltered in my desire to be a professional in food service. Among the finest of chefs in Los Angeles, who knew me as “Elvis” because of my hairstyle, I became known as the hardest of workers. I worked for Mark Peel and Nancy Silverton at Campanile and for Wolfgang Puck at Spago. I worked for many, many important chefs and restaurateurs in Los Angeles but the most significant for me was my relationship with Frederic Meschin at The Little Door on Third Street. In retrospect, I now realize that after so many years in L.A., my overwhelming drive and my crushing loneliness in Los Angeles led to me becoming an alcoholic. In 1986, when President Ronald Reagan issued amnesty for immigrants, I applied to become a resident of the United States through La Hermandad Mexicana. By this time, I had married a woman from Santo Domingo Albarradas in Oaxaca, named Angelica and we had two children, Diana and Aldo. I petitioned and promised La Virgen de Juquila that if she allowed me to bring my family over from Oaxaca, I would stop drinking. I applied for myself and for my family and we were granted amnesty and residency in 2000. I stopped drinking to fulfill my promise to Juquila and we began to live together in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles. Frederic at The Little Door helped me to purchase a triplex in the area. We were so happy. I was 36 years old. In 2004, with the money we saved from my tips, we decided to start two businesses: ServiOax, an import/export shipping service and Siete Regiones, a bakery. The bakery was moving along slowly and closed after three months but ServiOax grew tremendously. On the days that I had off from my work as a busboy at The Little Door, I would fly back and forth from LAX to OAX with packages from all the Oaxaqueños in the area. I would carry up to seven boxes and suitcases myself. I did everything I could to make the business a success. One day, during a routine revision of all our shipments, we found contraband hidden in one of the packages. It was at that point that I became frightened with the business and decided to return to my original plan: Opening a restaurant. Since my friend Fernando Lopez at Guelaguetza was operating and serving Oaxacan food in Los Angeles, I traveled south a bit and found a Mexican city in Orange County called Santa Ana. In 2007, I chose the first location that I was offered and leased 3317 West First Street and I called it Casa Oaxaca. After 17 years of working as a busboy in Los Angeles, I had realized my dream of owning my own restaurant. Angelica and her brother Gilberto became my financial partners and we braved the business of a small family restaurant. The building at 3317 was formerly a house of prostitution and we discovered that someone had been killed in the restroom. The floors were uneven and nothing worked right but we were never detoured. We fixed it, cleaned it, painted it and designed it to be just like we were dining in our towns in Oaxaca. The menu, handwritten on a notepad, was a combination of seven dishes that we loved the most including our favorite moles and tlayudas typical of our towns. It was very hard. I thought that since I knew the service side of the business, I could make it a successful endeavor but quickly I realized that I lacked business experience. I lacked fluency in English. I lacked capital. I lacked the close-knit community of Oaxaqueños that lived in Los Angeles. Even though I only went 45 minutes away, I was immediately forced to understand that I could not rely on that network to make this business work. It was just my wife and I and our faith in La Virgen de Juquila. Together, we built a clientele, as they say, slowly but surely. In 2011, we finished the year with close to $500,000 in sales. We have ten employees and a Facebook business page and people on Yelp! seem to really enjoy our food. After years of financial mismanagement, we established a banking relationship with City National Bank and we bought our first iPad and were trained to manage our ADP payroll through an App! There are days when we think that we just can’t bear another day and there are days when we can’t believe our good fortune. I still bake our Pan de Yema daily and I perform spoon service for special corporate parties, weddings and quinceañeras. There was one day this year that really made me reflect on my life and my chosen vocation. My mother, Carmen, died at the age of 86 in September. On Día de los Muertos in November, I went home to spend time with my father and to pay tribute to her contribution to my life. I was in the living room of my house in Tlacochahuaya with my father and we were eating a dish of Guajolote Enchilado con Pasta de Frijol in front of the altar we created for her. I remembered the taste of her food in that meal I realized at that moment that every day since I left my home in México at the age of 22, I have been attempting to feed that taste to all the people whom I have come across in my life at Casa Oaxaca. Recipe Blurb: This recipe is as authentically Oaxacan as they get. Mexico’s diverse indigenous ethnicities offer a striking variety of food. The turkey in dried chiles is a great example. The chiles in this recipe are very mild and simply give the turkey a nice smoky flavor. Using these types of chiles often constitutes a sauce that is called an adobo. What makes this dish stand apart is the avocado leaf. Used mainly in Oaxaca and a few other regions in Mexico, the avocado leaf adds a hint of anise and bay leaf flavor to the beans and the turkey. There have been concerns about toxicity levels in avocado leaves, but Mexican food maven Diana Kennedy puts it to rest in her 2003 book “From My Mexican Kitchen.” She said that toxicity reports stem from a 1984 study at the University of California at Davis, which showed that dairy goats suffered some toxic effects from ingesting very large amounts of avocado leaves (the toxic agent remains unknown). The crucial point, according to Dr. Arthur L. Craigmill, toxicology specialist at Davis and one of the authors of the study, is that the toxic effects were traced to the Guatemalan avocado (Persea American) and not Mexican avocado leaves (Persea dryminfolia), a different variety. So be sure to buy the Mexican variety from a specialty Mexican food market. This dish is a unique one that should be reserved for a special occasion or to impress your friends.Food52I may have mentioned my Bella, my bubbe a few times she was an enthusiastic cook, she made quite possibly the worst chocolate chip cookies of all time,though her cole slaw, apple cake & applesauce with plums were legendary. And then there was this recipe, the chicken that she'd make the first night Sandy was home from California, or for Rosh Hashanah, or Seder (Seder would be a rather loose interpretation of what happened it was more like here's some matzoh hurry up the soup's getting cold, though to be fair they were communists - they didn't have much patience for religion, but boy did they love a parade). I have made one small change- that is brining the chicken in pickle juice before marinating it- and I'm almost 100% positive that had Bella known you could do this she would. Now that I think about she always bought kosher chicken, which would have been salt brined already. This chicken is great cold, warm hot, even after sitting for a few hours in a kitchen that maybe is so hot one would think there was a portal to hell in one of the cabinets. The ideal accompaniment is Bella's Cole Slaw, and Waks' Kasha varnishkes-- that is if you want a glimpse into my childhood-..... Make sure the room is about 110 degrees, there's ceiling fan on full blast and a small table fan also on high blast blowing right into your ear, the breeze from the fan will not abate the heat but it will be so strong that you'll have to tuck your napkin under your your thigh. The table should be covered in an flowered oil cloth and it should be a little too small so you are always bumping elbows with your brother, the dog should be under the table, she's big enough to trip anyone who gets up much to the dismay of your grandmother who has already accidentally tripped over the dog, who is larger than she is. The doorbell should ring at least 2x and the phone should ring thrice-at least one time it will be some fehkacta meshuga from the place (no one will know what place), one of the visitors will be Danny (Danny was in the camps, he escaped and was part of the Israeli resistance- we think)- Danny will bring a large block of government cheese or a carburetor or maybe a hairdryer he will have a private conversation, then do a shot of slivovitz with your grandfather he should pinch your cheek before disappearing back into the night. The meal should start with matzoh ball soup with lots of fresh dill and finish with apple cake, green grapes, blueberries and cantaloupe and the table should radiate love with a nearly audible ferocity.Food52This pot pie really tastes nothing of the Thanksgiving meal, although I assure you you probably have all the makings for it after the main event. I should note also that you really could tuck any number of things into this pie. Have some brussels sprouts that Aunt Judy made? What about those roasted green beans I see way back in the corner of the fridge? Those would do nicely under a buttery blanket. I’ve started with the very basics of a Leftover Turkey Pot Pie, but you should feel free to add to it whatever happens to be lurking in your fridge after the holiday.
