I Speak of Dreams

Savory Breakfast Brunch Bread Pudding for Six

 Ingredients

• 12 slices of sourdough bread
• 6 Eggs
• 3 cups of milk (whole or reduced-fat—your choice)
• ½ lb sausage (bulk or skinless links)
• ½ teaspoon salt optional
• ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
•  optional 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

 Instructions:

The day before:

• cube the bread and allow it to stale. This is important, otherwise the pudding is soggy

Night before serving:

• saute the sausages until brown. After they are done, drain and reserve fat and slice the sausages. Refrigerate.

Morning that you are going to serve the dish:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
•  Butter a baking dish thoroughly ( I use a rectangular glass pan). You can also use the reserved sausage fat.
• Have a larger pan available to set the baking dish in.
• Place the bread cubes in a large mixing bowl, and lightly mix in the sausage slices.

Alternatives:

1. Folding beaten eggwhites into mix

a. Separate the eggs, and beat the whites until foamy, and then add ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar, and beat until stiff but not dry

b. Beat the yolks until light yellow, and slowly beat in salt and milk

c. Pour the yolk-milk mixture over the bread cube mixture, mix lightly to coat all cubes, and allow to soak for 15 minutes. You may have to stir again. The idea is to have little or no liquid at the bottom of the bowl.

d. Optional: fold in ½ cup of grated cheese

e. Fold the eggwhites lightly into the bread mixture

f. Spread evenly in the greased baking pan. Place baking pan inside the larger pan in the oven, and add hot water to the larger pan

g. Bake for about 30 minutes,

h. Optional scatter the remaining cheese over the top.

i. Bake for another 15 minutes, and test the center with a knife. It should come out clean.

j. Serve.

2. Easier method – beat whole eggs.  Not as puffy but just as delicious

a. Beat the whole eggs until light and foamy.

b. Slowly beat in salt and milk

c. Pour the egg-milk mixture over the bread cube mixture, mix lightly to coat all cubes, and allow to soak for 15 minutes. You may have to stir again. The idea is to have little or no liquid at the bottom of the bowl.

d. Optional: fold in ½ cup of grated cheese

e. Spread evenly in the greased baking pan. Place baking pan inside the larger pan in the oven, and add hot water to the larger pan

f. Bake for about 30 minutes,

g. Optional scatter the remaining cheese over the top.

h. Bake for another 15 minutes, and test the center with a knife. It should come out clean.

i. Serve.

Sweet Potato Casserole topped with Marshmallows

This dish has evolved over time.  My mother used to make it from scratch, roughly following the Joy of Cooking recipe "Candied Sweet Potatoes", and adding marshmallows for topping.  It might have been her mother-in-law's recipe.

I use sweet potatoes much more often than my mother did -- it was a holiday dish in her household.  Mostly I buy fresh ones and peel and oven-fry them, like cottage potato fries.

This recipe works better with the canned sweet potatoes in light syrup.

Because the family met at a restaurant on Thursday (long story), we had the home-made turkey feast on the Saturday following.  My step-son requested that I bring the sweet potato casserole with marshmallows.

This recipe is fairly infinitely expandable, given the limits of your serving dishes:

Ingredients For every 5 people

• 1 29-ounce can of cut sweet potatoes in light syrup
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  Bottled is fine
• 1/2  tablespoon grated, moist ginger.  Fresh is the best but bottled is fine; Japanese pickled ginger (gari) is not. Powdered ginger will not do.
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• about 1/4 bag of tiny marshmallows. Don't use stale ones; they won't puff properly.

Instructions

• Drain the sweet potatoes, reserving the canning liquid
• Place sweet potatoes in your mixer bowl (best) or a bowl for a hand-held mixer (second best) or a hand whip (most work, least desirable outcome)
• Using a potato masher (best) or spoon (more work) roughly mash the sweet potatoes.  When they are lumpy but fairly well mashed:
• Start the mixer.  Add the lemon juice, grated ginger and salt.
• Working in 1/4 cup units, beat in the reserved canning liquid until the sweet potatoes are light and fluffy, but not runny.  You probably won't use all the canning liquid.
• Taste the mashed sweet potatoes.  The dominant note should be sweet and yammy, with a bit of a tang from the lemon juice and a bit of bite from the ginger. Adjust the seasoning by adding more lemon and/or ginger, if you like.
• Transfer the sweet potatoes to a serving dish that can go under the broiler. For a one-can preparation, you will end up with about 3 cups of mashed sweet potatoes.  I use a regular loaf pan which will hold about 4 cups.  You want the mashed sweet potato layer to be pretty thick (at least an inch) so the marshmallows don't overwhelm.  If you don't have a loaf pan, you can use a larger container and line it with heavy-duty aluminum foil, using the foil to create a smaller shape.
• You can make ahead to this point and refrigerate for up to a day. 
• To serve: heat the mashed sweet potatoes as you see fit -- if you are using a glass pan, you can microwave them, or put them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes
• Start the broiler. 
• Cover the hot mashed sweet potatoes with the mini-marshmallows.  The depth of the covering depends on your family's appetite for marshmallows
• Broil the dish, watching constantly.  You just want them a little puffy and brown, not all blackened.  They'll catch on fire if you aren't careful.
• Serve.

 

I didn't take pictures this time, but when I make it again for Christmas I'll come back and add the photos.

Fire and Ice Pickles from Flexitarian Gracie in Life at Blogher

Recipe shamelessly stolen from  Flexitarian Gracie in Life

Photos by me  (click all photos to embiggen)

... I'm making these right now myself, and they're so entirely addictive that I just had to share them. Besides, pickles are holiday food... kinda. Pickles need to be on your holiday table, right next to the candied sweet potatoes and the tofurkey. [Liz: yuuuck] In fact, I'm pretty sure that if kids aren't allowed to root around in a pickle dish with black-olive-covered fingers, they'll grow up warped and angry. And who wants that on their conscience?

.... I did not invent this recipe. But I wish I had. And if I ever find the person who did, I'll recommend them for canonization.

Now, my interpretation of the recipe....well, instructions.  With photo illustrations. 

Ingredients

• One big jar of the cheapest, rubberiest whole dill pickles¹ you can find.  Back to Flexitarian Gracie's advice

 

Now. I cannot emphasize to you enough that these need to be cheap pickles. The soggy kind of pickles. The ones that sit in dusty rows on the bottom of the pickle shelf because outside of a General Store no one would ever actually want to eat one.... If you go out and buy the expensive Clausson, guaranteed-crisp pickles then you are setting yourself up for an Epic Pickle Fail, and I won't be held responsible. Get the cheap ones, and make sure they're whole.

 

• One head of garlic
• Several pounds of sugar--I recommend baker's sugar
• Your favorite hot sauce.  Gracie recommends Tabasco; I prefer Cholula.  Just don't use a supermarket brand.

 

Procedure

• Drain the pickles -- that's right, just discard that cheap pickle brine

• Rinse the jar and set aside, together with the lid. You are going to put the pickles back into the jar

• Slice the whole pickles into 1 inch chunks² (update-- trim the stem end and the blossom end so all slices have two cut sides exposed to the syrup).
• Separate the head of garlic into cloves; lightly smash the cloves, trim the stem and head end, and peel. Some people don't know about smashing garlic cloves to peel them.  Instructions follow.

• This head of garlic is a little tired.  I discarded the cloves that showed any green, as they tend to be bitter or have an off taste

• Here's a clove of garlic, ready for the smashing treatment

• How to smash: using a cleaver (best) or large flat bladed knife, put the knife over the garlic clove

• and press down. Sometimes I use my fist on the flat of the blade.

• the smashing treatment loosens the skin.  Then

• Trim the stem end

• Trim the root end
• and use your hands to peel the skin off. If you find the texture off-putting, wear gloves.
  

• Start layering
  • into the empty pickle jar
  • One layer of pickle slices
  • 
  • 2 to 4 peeled garlic cloves
  • 
  • 2 to 4 shakes of hot sauce
  • cover the pickles with a thick layer of sugar
  • 
  • repeat until all the pickles are packed into the jar.
  • you might have to use the butt end of a spatula to pack the sugar around the pickles enough to close the jar.
  • 
• Once you are done, put the lid back on the jar. That's right, there will be no liquid in the jar, just sugar and pickles when you start. Don't fret.
• 
• (you can see the last shake of hot sauce running down the side)
• Put the jar in the refrigerator (I usually date it) That's day 1.

• Taste/texture test after 3 hours: Pickles are already much crisper and the flavor is more complex.  Actually, the pre-treatment pickles were pretty nasty....as the center part of the pickles-under-development still are.

• Day 2: Turn the jar lid side down. If you think it's going to leak, set it in a bowl or something to catch the slight leakage
• 
• Day 3: Turn the jar lid side up.
• Uh oh.  This is when I started testing the pickles for deliciousness, but I didn't take a photo of the pickle jar.  Here's what was left at the end of day 3
• 
• Day 4: Turn the jar lid side down. If you think it's going to leak, set it in a bowl or something to catch the slight leakage
• Day 5: Turn the jar lid side up. Try to stop everybody from devouring the pickles before you want to serve them to company.

OK, so I didn't wait the whole 5 days.  There were a few oddities:

 

Some of the pickle slices, even those with two cut sides, were sort of shrivelled up¹ (like some Japanese pickles) but were still crunchy.  The slices that had only one cut side were still too sour/dill in flavor.

Back to Flexitarian Gracie:

The way the magic works is that the sugar is going to pull a lot of the water out of the soggy, cheap pickles, creating its own brine, and transforming those mush nuggets into crispy chunks o'goodness. Within a few hours your jar will be full of liquid. It's like a pickle miracle!

====

¹yikes.  I used kosher³ dills; this recipe from Deep South Dish said not to use kosher dills. I guess we will see in a few days.

Do not, however, get the kosher dills. They don't react well to this process and just turn into a shriveled mess. I once tried the large jar of Great Value dill pickles and they reacted the same way even though they were not marked kosher, so just a caution there

² Here's were I made a mistake. I left the stem and flower ends on, which meant that the syrup couldn't penetrate easily.  Slice off the stem end & flower end so all slices have two faces.

³ It turns out "kosher dill" may or may not mean "kosher" -- what it does mean is that there's garlic in the brine and in the jar.

Copper Carrot Coins Try #1 and Suggested Alternate

We are trying to change up the Traditional Menu around here, so I decided to try a few recipes from Kitchen Daily.  First up was Copper Carrots. 

Doesn't that look pretty?  I read the recipe and thought it might be good.

 

 

http://www.kitchendaily.com/recipe/copper-carrots-149910

Ingredients

• 5 pounds carrots, sliced into 1/4-inch-thick rounds
• 3 cups unsweetened tart cherry or pomegranate juice (I used pomegranite juice)
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Turkish bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper

Directions

Simmer carrots, juice, brown sugar, tomato paste, oil, bay leaves, coriander, salt, and pepper in a large heavy pot, stirring occasionally, until carrots are crisp-tender, about 20 minutes.

Strain, reserving liquid, (about 2 cups). Reduce liquid over high heat until it measures 1 cup and is slightly thickened.

Return carrots to pot with liquid to reheat, stirring to coat carrots with reduced juices, then serve.

This is what I really did:

Peeled the carrots

then trimmed them so that roughly the same size.  The smaller bits I reserved for another recipe later.

I then cut them into coins, making the smaller-diameter bits a bit thicker so that they would all cook evenly.

Here they are, all cut up, waiting to go into the cooking liquid

 

 

• In a large heavy pot with a lid, combine the pomegranite juice, brown sugar, , tomato paste, oil, bay leaves, and coriander, and bring to a boil. Note I did not add the salt or the pepper at this point as I thought the long cooking would overemphasize the salt and pepper flavors
• In another pot, bring 2 quarts of water to a boil
• When the juice mixture is boiling, add in the carrots.

As you can see, the juice mixture doesn't cover the carrots.  So add enough boiling water so the carrots are covered. 

Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until carrots are just al dente.  (It took about 12 minutes on my stovetop with my cooking equipment. YMMV.)

• Using a slotted spoon or a skimmer, remove carrots to a bowl and set aside.
• Bring liquid back to a rolling boil and reduce until the liquid is slightly thickened.
• Remove from heat, stir carrots back into liquid, and adjust the seasoning (this is where the salt and pepper comes in.)

Here's the finished product.  The carrots ended up an unappetizing brownish-orange, and the taste was...oddly bland, while tart (as you would expect from a pomegranite-based dish).

The base carrots were flavorful enough but maybe I just don't like boiled carrots.  Here's an alternative dish:

Mommy Carrots, or Sauteed Carrots and Ginger in an Orange Juice Glaze.

Ingredients

• 5 pounds carrots
• 2 cups orange juice 
• 1 knob of fresh ginger, about as big as two thumbs
• 1/4 cup of white wine (or water, if you have to).
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon cooking oil
• Salt

Directions:

• Peel, trim, and cut carrots into coins, as above
• Peel ginger and cut into slivers
• In a large pot, melt  the 1/3 the  butter and a bit of the oil
• Working in batches, saute the carrots until they are browned a bit but underdone-- still crisp. Add additional butter/oil as needed.  
• Hold the sauteed carrots in a bowl.
• When all the carrots have been sauteed, deglaze the pan with the wine or water, scraping any browned bits free. 
• Add the ginger and orange juice and bring to a boil.  Reduce until the juice mixture is thicker than maple syrup, but not as thick as chocolate syrup.
• Return the carrots to the syrup mixture and stir constantly until the syrup mixture forms a glaze on the carrots.
• Check seasoning (you may wish to add a bit of salt and pepper).
• Serve.

 

Jacques Littlefield's Memorial Chili Dog Doritos Casserole

Today is the 61st anniversary of Jacques' birth. He had a real taste for...well not haut cuisine. 

Original recipe narrative, which is much funnier

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011758.html

Chili-Dog Casserole by Sean Craven

Ingredients:

• 1 12 oz. bag of Ranch-flavored Doritos
• 1 16 oz. package of Nathan’s Famous hot dogs (skinless)
•  4 15 oz. cans Dennison’s original chili con carne (or Hormel or Wolf)
• 4 cups pre-shredded orange cheddar cheese, any brand (cheaper is better)
• 1/2 lb. extra-sharp cheddar (white, if you can get it), sliced thin
• About a quarter-cup of French’s yellow mustard 

(optional if your diners like spicy)

• 1/4 lb pepper cheese, Havarti or jack; reduce sliced extra-sharp cheddar to 1/4 lb.
• Vlasic pickled nacho rings or pickled jalapenos (add to your taste to the hot dog layer)

Tools

• Mixing bowl
• Saute pan
• Lasagna pan or pan measuring about 13 in x 9 in x 2 in.

Procedure

Serving time minus several hours (or even day before)

• Slice the hotdogs lengthwise into quarters, then thinly crosswise (about 1/4" wide)
• Saute the hotdogs briefly to brown
•  Remove to bowl, add the mustard, and toss. You can do this the night before, if you wish.

Serving time minus 1 hour or more

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
• Open one bag of Doritos and crush roughly -- you want large, flat pieces.
• Take out a large handful of chips and set aside.
• Open the bags of shredded cheese. Take out a handful and set aside.

Assemble the layers as follows:

One:

• Doritos (scatter just enough to cover bottom of pan)
• Shredded cheese, about a cup, scattered evenly over previous layer
• One quarter of the hot dogs, scattered evenly over previous layer
• One quarter of the sliced cheese, layered evenly over previous
• One can of chili, spread as evenly as possible over previous layers

Two:

• Doritos (scatter just enough to cover previous)
•  Shredded cheese, about a cup, scattered evenly over previous layer
• One quarter of the hot dogs
•  One quarter of the sliced cheese
• One can of chili, spread as evenly as possible over previous layers

Three:

• Doritos (scatter just enough to cover previous)
• Shredded cheese, about a cup, scattered evenly over previous layer
• One quarter of the hot dogs
•  One quarter of the sliced cheese
•  One can of chili, spread as evenly as possible over previous layers

Four:

• Doritos (scatter just enough to cover previous)
• Shredded cheese, about a cup, scattered evenly over previous layer
•  One quarter of the hot dogs
•  One quarter of the sliced cheese
• One can of chili, spread as evenly as possible over previous layers

Topping

The Doritos should be all used up. If not, no worries. Return reserved Doritos to bag and crush very finely, to crumbs. Put reserved cheese in Doritos bag & shake until crumbs & cheese thoroughly mixed.

Spread Doritos - cheese mixture over top of chili.

Bake in oven for 30-45 minutes, until center is hot.

Serve. And honey? This is how I feel.

Watermelon Salad: Theme & Variations

It's been a long time since I've done a recipe, but this was a hit.

Big win tonight: Watermelon salad.  It was inspired by a watermelon pico de gallo recipe published in the Mercury News, plus a watermelon hors d'ouevre I used to make

INGREDIENTS
About 4 cups of watermelon (cubed into about 1 inch pieces)
About 1/2 cup Bermuda (or other sweet) onion, diced to thumbnail size
About 1/4 cup fresh (leaf) cilantro, snipped into tiny pieces (dried cilantro won't do -- use parsley instead.  Not the same, but not bad)
Juice of 2 limes
Salt (plain, celery, or Lawry's) -- a few shakes

Combine and toss.  It's probably better if it sits in the reefer for an hour, but this wasn't bad.

We had babies & not-so-spicy fans to feed, so I didn't add anything from the chili family of flavorings

BUT if you want a bit of hot: before adding the lime juice to the rest of the ingredients, add a few drops of your favorite hot sauce.

Next time I make it I may add a few drops of sesame oil too.

Another thing that might be interesting is a few diced green mild olives, for some  salt/savory interest.

Ran Away & How To Cook Pork Chops

The daughter and I seized a travel invitation & are in Idaho.  We had plans to spend 30 days here between January and September 2009, but real life intervened.  It's been more than 18 months.

Tonight's dinner featured boneless porkchops, which I marinated for a bit & then steamed.  I don't have a copy of  Cuisine a la Vapeur here, so I searched for a recipe. The one I found suggested steaming for a total of 20 minutes, which seemed quite long. So I steamed on one side for 5 minutes, turned the chops, steamed for another 5 minutes and then pulled them off the heat. 

Steamed pork chops are sort of....pale looking, so you want to cook them to about 85% done, then let them rest, then either sear or pan-fry briefly.

Juicy and tender.

The other dish was butternut squash ravioli.  Jumper Girl selected a marinara sauce.  It was ok, but a very light cream sauce would have been better.

Simnel Cake!

I was over at the Scholar Family's new home Thursday night discussing the Easter Sunday family plan.  Scholar Woman asked who was to make the Simnel Cake, and Scholar Man and I turned to her in puzzlement.  Neither one of us had ever heard of Simnel Cake.

Good thing they had wireless.  Wikipedia explained succinctly and  we quickly pulled up a couple of recipes.  I made this version (pictured to the left) as it seemed the easiest.

What I forgot between agreeing to make it and Sunday was that I'd sent the electric mixer to the Scholar family.  Creaming butter and sugar by hand is hard work!

The cake got good results, especially pleasing from the pastry chef in the family.

Below the fold, how I'd make it next time.

This was really a labor of love as I loathe almond-flavored anything.  Even almonds.

Mele Kalikimaka

Presents opened.  Christmas Breakfast Pudding consumed. Waiting for Jumper Girl to be done in the shower so I can take mine.  I've got SF 36 on, showing the Holiday Log and playing Christmas tunes.  They just played Mele Kalikimaka so I found this Jimmy Buffet/Christmas lights version.  Enjoy.

They just threw a fresh log on the fire. All the best to you and yours.

Thanksgiving Debriefing

Took Jumper Girl to the airport last night.  We both had a great five days.