Saturday, February 28, 2009

Friday - Heart Healthy

Did not do too much real cooking Thursday or Friday, enjoyed some leftovers and eating out.


Thursday lunch out at Beau Jack's in Bloomfield. Had special #6, a nice house salad, they even provided a chilled salad fork, with balsamic dressing, always on the side and a piedmontesse beef patty surrounded by steamed broccoli florets, looked and tasted really good. Healthy too.

Dinner at home was our leftover tuna casserole from Wednesday, which as usual, tastes better the second day anyway.


On Friday Deb and I had lunch at the Village Club and heard a speaker, Dr. Pamela A. Marcovitz who is the Director of Beaumont Hospitals’ Ministrelli Women’s Heart Center in Royal Oak, Mich. She was excellent and the Club, a women's club to which Deb is a member, provided a heart-healthy lunch to accompany her talk.


First course was a cream of cauliflower soup, no cream, but chicken broth and pureed cauliflower with parsley, everyone at our table raved about how good it was. They are going to add it to the Club menu as a result - great!


The main course was a broiled, served warm, chicken breast over a bed of fresh spinach with mandarin orange slices and a light raspberry vinaigrette. This would be very simple to replicate at home and I am sure we will this spring and summer. They did serve their traditional popovers, always a hit, and everyone at our table did have one, (some two, not me though), we were all healthy -- to a point.


Dessert was raspberry sherbet. Everyone was really pleased with the talk and the food. Dr. Marcovitz cited the foods we ate as really an important part of a healthy lifestyle and particularly a heart-healthy diet.


Back at home dinner was minted baby peas, salmon stuffed with crab, from Sam's Club, $9.91 for four servings and rice. Sam's, Costco and my third favorite Trader Joe's are my main food sources, although I have a several other, primarily local grocery and produce stores, for fresh items in reasonable quantities, I mean, just how many gallons of mayo can you use from the warehouse stores?


Tonight I am making Chicken Divan from the Gourmet Cookbook. Chicken and broccoli. I'll review later.

Bon Apetit!

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ash Wednesday - Meatless Meal

Well,

I wanted to make a meatless dinner for Ash Wednesday, thought of Tuna Noodle Casserole, but couldn't stomach the canned cream of mushroom recipe I ate for years. Saw VP Joe Biden on the news this evening with ashes on his forehead, thought that half of the Country probably was wondering what did he have up there? Felt like I was an insider.

I looked on line for a new recipe but most were worse than above, I did find one that was good, but I settled on a recipe from one of my many cookbooks.

My first choice was from my ever-present "Joy of Cooking", the 1997 edition by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer, her daughter and Marion's husband, Ethan Becker, updated for the first time sine1974. This recipe has sauteed vegetables; onion, red and green bell peppers and mushrooms to which you add 1/4 c of flour and 2 1/2 C of milk. Heat then add to the cooked egg noodles, 12 oz., and two cans of drained tuna, 1 C of grated sharp cheddar cheese mixed with some chopped parsley and topped with bread crumbs or crushed corn flakes.

I ended up using, for the first time in a very long time, "The Family Circle Cookbook, New Tastes for New Times, from the Family Circle editors and David Ricketts; a five ring binder book.

The recipe was basically the same but they added two stalks of celery to the veggie mix, a mir poux, but they had less milk, 1 1/2 C, which made it just a little dry, next time, and there will be a next time, I will use more milk, 2+ cups. FC did add 1 T of fresh dill to the dish, which I had on hand for salads and this was a great addition, I have never added this before and it added a great level of taste.

For my topping I used the crushed corn flakes, bought pre-crushed, to which I mixed with some Parmesan cheese and 1 T of melted butter.

This dish looked great and tasted even better, it was well worth the effort above and beyond the soup-based version.

Served with some steamed veggies and everyone went back for seconds which is a good sign.

I'll discuss my wine decanter soon.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin

Well I made my third recipe from my Boston School of Cooking Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer. This time I made a stuffed pork tenderloin.
Again a simple recipe, take two tenderloins, they usually come packaged this way, partially slice lengthwise, and pound out slightly, (my recommendation). The recipe then call for a stuffing, and now I think is when you have to be somewhat of a cook to make this work.
Fannie Farmer says add apples, prunes or other items to make a stuffing, then spread on one on the tenderloins, lay the other over and tie together. I used apples, prunes, dried cherries, bread cubes, chopped onions and sage. I added a little broth to bind together and it was excellent.
Roast at 500 for 15 minutes then lower to 300 for 20. I have a convection oven so I put it on convection roast, top came out beautiful but I should have turned halfway through as the bottom needed more time, did that and it was great. Served with my ever present asparagus, trimmed and peeled slightly.
Next time I am going to talk about how much I like the wine decanter our neighbors the Maly's gave us and what a difference using it makes.

Bon Apetit!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Chop Suey II


Made my second recipe from the Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fannie Merritt Farmer. It was as good as the creamed chicken I made earlier, which my wife and I had for lunch today, it reheated very well, even with the cream in the sauce.

The Chop Suey recipe is chicken and vegetables basically, and stir fried before the term became fashionable. This dish went together very easily and again made enough for leftovers. It looked and tasted excellent, on par with better Chinese Restaurant Chop Suey, and far superior to most.

The back of this book is interesting too. In addition to substitutions, they offer equivalents, weights and measures and capacity of canned containers, basic but always helpful, even if you are experienced. I learned that a "few grains" is less than 1/8th of a teaspoon!

They also have a list of advertisers in the back of the book, many are still around, Baker's Chocolate, Gold Medal Flour, Kellogg's and Gulden's Mustard to name but a few that I still use in my cooking. The ads are a page out of history as well, again a nice glimpse of the 1930's & 40's.

Next on the agenda Baked Pork Tenderloins, which I was defrosting anyway, these will be split and stuffed. I'll report back on tasting sounding dish.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

An Old Cookbook but new for Me

I always wanted to know how people ate in the 1930's and 40's. My Grandparents owned a bar then and they served chili and other bar food. My Mom used to talk about but I never really thought about how it tasted or was prepared. I loved watching old movies, think Fred Astaire, dining at some exclusive nightclub, and I wondered what they were eating and how it tasted.

At a recent estate sale I bought some old cookbooks, one of which is The Boston Cooking School Cookbook , Seventh Edition, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, published 1941 by Little, Brown and Company, Boston. This book was originally published in 1896 and as of 1941 there were 2,036,000 copies printed. I discoved that the last book completely edited by Fannie Farmer was the 1918 edition.

This is really a good basic cookbook and it has some fine dining recipies too, several mention truffles, a rarity I think even today. The book is not so recipe-specific as today's cookbooks are.

For example, the first dish I made, Creamed Chicken, was so simple, 2 cups of cooked cubed chicken, (I roasted a whole boneless and skinless chicken breast in the oven with just salt & pepper) and 2 cups of White or Veloute sauce. I used the latter which is basically a roux with milk and a little cream. Further suggestions are to make it a "Sauce A la Cadillac" with the addition of diced ham and asparagus spears. I chose this option as i had everything on hand and it was a great meal, really so simple and tasty.

The book also noted you could make a lighter sauce by omitting the cream, forward thinking I thought for the time, and gave several other substitutions and suggestions such as replacing the chicken with 2 cups of sliced celery or adding eggs or curry.

I served this over steamed rice and everyone really enjoyed it. We got six servings from this, with enough for leftovers for lunch.

I felt like I took a step to the past. Next dish will be Chop Suey II, I'll let you konw how that turns out, sounds great too.