A Heritage of Humor – Stories from my Kitchens

Post #749 A Post in Pictures

October 30, 2020 at 11:40 AM | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I get ideas for recipes from everywhere. One thing I’ve found over the years is that people love to talk about food. I do. Nearly everyone I talk to does. People on the ‘net do. Even on my favorite judge show, she often says phones are for more than taking pictures of your food. So when I see an opportunity to use someone else’s recipe, I jump at it.

Recently on FB, one of the guys that I used to work with (although we never traveled together) posted one of his favorite recipes. But this time he did something different. Instead of just posting a picture of the finished product, or a plateful of it, or worse, a picture of the empty casserole dish and a “Yum!” comment, he posted a series of pictures he’d taken of putting the dish together, then the finished product.

I haven’t made this dish yet, but I plan to soon. It contains all the things I love in spicy cooking. I got his permission to share the pics, so here they are in correct order. Take a look and see if you can figure out what he’s made.

He calls it Chicken Jalapeno Popper Casserole. Ever had a Jalapeno Popper? It’s a jalapeno pepper with the top cut off and the inside carefully cleaned out. It’s stuff with cheese, sometimes wrapped in bacon, then dipped in batter and deep fried. They are delicious, hot, gooey, and wonderful. Served with a dipping sauce of any kind, just make sure it’s fresh and spicy.

The casserole is simple. Preheat your oven to 375. Prep a baking dish or casserole dish by spraying it with a non-stick vegetable spray. Place cooked shredded chicken (white, dark, or a mix) in the bottom of the dish to cover completely up to two inches deep. Sprinkle your favorite spice blend over the top of the chicken. I like things spicy so I’d use cumin, garlic, chili powder, and cayenne. But it’s to your taste. Top that with a half cup to a cup of sour cream (no, not mayonnaise although it looks like it.) Spread the sour cream evenly, then top with enough jalapeno peppers, cleaned and sliced lengthways to cover completely and generously. If you remove all the seeds and ribs (the white part of the pepper) it will reduce the spiciness. Top the peppers with cooked crispy bacon bits. If you make these at home, be sure to get all the bacon grease off them. I do this by cutting the bacon into quarter inch pieces and frying them until crispy. Then I use a slotted spoon to remove them to a triple layer of paper towels. Once they’re cooled, I wrap the paper towels around them with a twisting motion and squeeze hard to get all the grease. You can use as many or as few bacon bits as you like. Obviously, my friend like bacon. Finally, cover the bacon bits with a cup to two cups grated cheddar cheese. If you like an extra hit of heat, mix in some shredded pepper jack.

Cover the dish with a piece of foil that’s been sprayed with the vegetable spray to keep the cheese from sticking to it. Bake for thirty minutes to allow the cheese to melt and the flavors to blend. Remove the foil, bump up the oven to 425, and cook until the cheese turns golden and crusty. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for ten to fifteen minutes. Serve as it, or with tortilla chips, or warmed corn or flour tortillas. Have some salsa, pico de gallo, sour cream, or guacamole (or all of them) for side dipping.

Okay, that’s his recipe. I’d make a couple of changes. I’d add a layer of black beans with the chicken. And I’d add a layer of corn tortillas under the chicken. But that’s just me.

The next picture I want to share with you gave me kind of a laugh (which was its intent), but there was a lot of truth to it too.

It was a different time. I was very young back then, but I do remember the mind set.

Hope you enjoyed all this. I’m going to get a shingles shot later today, so I imagine my weekend is also going to be shot. Take care, be safe, and if you haven’t done it so far, VOTE! Please.

As always,

UPDATE: I just heard from the owner of the recipe. I goofed on the sour cream layer. Its a mix of 8oz of cream cheese, a half cup of heavy whipping cream or whole milk, and a half cup of chicken broth. Although he now says he wants to try the sour cream to see what it’s like. 🙂

Post #748 Good Ideas Not Tried

October 25, 2020 at 4:19 PM | Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

I’m on the internet constantly doing research, reading articles, following current trends to see what’s going on, and generally looking for something to make me laugh. Occasionally, I run across something that makes me giggle at the beginning, then makes me think, then makes me giggle again. Like these beauties.

I love grilled cheese sandwiches. I can’t eat them anymore unless I’m not planning on doing anything for two days. No gall bladder anymore, so the fats burn through me like a toxin. But, when I could eat cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches were on my menu all the time. They were one of the first things I taught myself to make. When I was a kid, I buttered two slices of bread on the outside, unwrapped a piece of cheese and slapped it in between, and fried it up in a small skillet. When it was ready and golden toasty melty cheesey gooey good, it went on a plate and got cut in half on the diagonal. A few years later, I was at junior college and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich from the snack bar. She used TWO pieces of cheese, and put dill pickles on the side! And added a handful of french fries. I was blown away, but mostly from the amount of cheese. A few years later I was in a restaurant and saw something called a croque-monsieur which was described as a hot ham and cheese. But it was way more than that. It was a grilled cheese with grilled ham in it! another OMG moment, where grilled cheese rose to a new level and adding fillings along with the cheese opened a whole new aspect of cooking. Mixing cheeses and breads along with the middles brought my grilled cheese repertoire to a point where it was practically gourmet cooking. Someone even suggested substituting the butter on the outside of the bread with mayonnaise for a tangy golden crust. I’m told. Then I saw the ad above. There are some things I will try. This isn’t one of them. It sounds like it should be a good idea, but when I consider it for longer than a minute, it loses its appeal.

Then there’s this. I’ve never been a fan of jello salads, or jello molds. I like jello, and as a kid would eat the fruit cocktail jello mix. But apart from the convenience of using the can as the mold, I can’t see too much to say for it. I like pineapple. I like lime and jello. I can’t see them all together. In a can. I use pineapple in cooking pretty often, but this should stay in the magazine. If anyone tries this, let me know how it goes.

When we were small kids, I was in third grade I think, we got a shared present for Christmas called Candy Factory. It was similar to the Easy Bake Oven in that you used a light bulb to melt small pieces of chocolate, poured it into small plastic molds, waited for it to harden, then crammed it into your mouth. The first two or three times we used it, it was standard chocolate candy. Then we got “bored” and started adding things. We used nuts, and peanut butter, and marshmallows, but hit our favorite when we added Rice Krispies. It was like making our own Crunch bars! I have no idea whatever happened to that toy, but in retrospect giving a group of kids the ability to make their own candy might not have been the best idea in the world. The magazine ad above is unique in that I’ve never heard of most of the ingredients. I’m willing to bet they’re from Great Britain since one of the main ingredients if from Cadbury’s and the Rice Krispies are called Bubbles. But that’s just a guess. But knowing what the ingredients are, I can imagine making it with the stuff we have.

This one sounds like something I want to try. The trouble is cooking in a microwave can return problematic results. I love cheesecake. The one thing I’d do to give this a more traditional flavor is use a two bowl system. I’d put graham cracker crumbs mixed with a little melted butter in one bowl, mix the cheesecake in another bowl, then put the cheesecake into the first bowl and chill. I’d also top the finished dessert with the bit of sour cream and more graham cracker crumbs and some fruit. But that’s just me. So this is one I’ll likely make, and with luck I’ll make it soon. I love cheesecake. The first one I ever had was one I made from a box mix that contained everything to make a basic cheesecake – just add milk. Since I’m the only person in the house with a passion for cheesecake, I don’t make it very often. Usually, to get my cheesecake fix we’ll get a single piece at the store. One way I really like it is frozen. Eat it just like a popsicle. My mouth is watering.

We love coconut in our house. I make a coconut cream pie by making a vanilla custard and adding two cups of shredded sweetened coconut to it and putting it in a pie shell, crumb or dough. Another variation of this one is making a very stiff whipped cream and add two cups of shredded sweetened coconut to that. As they rest in the fridge, the custard or cream pick up the flavors of the coconut and make a wonderful coconut cream pie. This one above looks delicious. This one is the baked custard pie and looks easy as, well, pie. If it does what it says it does. You mix it all together and it’s supposed to separate layers while baking. So, I’m trying it this upcoming week. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

So what funny things have you guys seen that looked intriguing on the surface but “aren’t worth the calories”? Share your pain and laughter with us all.

As always,

PS – So all the things that were taking up my time previously have been accomplished and major life change is behind us. Life goes on as it usually does. Warm weather is behind us with very little hope of returning. Leaves are rustling underfoot thick around the ankles. So now we’re facing several weeks of cooler weather moving into cold and freezing. Usually January brings a little bit of a thaw so there’s that to look forward to. But then February comes back in force. Whee. November is also going to be busy for me. Has anyone heard of NaNoWriMo? It’s an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. It means 50,000 words in 30 days. That comes to slightly less than 1700 words per day. I’ve attempted it a couple of times in the past, and once got all the way to 26,000 words before life intervened. However, Hubster is supporting the effort and I like the project I’ve selected. I’ve done a ton of prep on it so I think I’ve got a good shot at completing it this time. There’s no charge for the competition, and no award other than recognition of completion. But I’ll have a finished rough draft of a novella at the end of it. Wish me luck!

Post #747 You Know What Keeps the Doctor Away

October 9, 2020 at 6:19 PM | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Post #747 You Know What Keeps the Doctor Away

It’s that whole apple thing, right? Does anyone out there like apples? When I was a kid, apples were a big part of our lives. Mom loved two kinds, Macintosh and Red Delicious. I didn’t know there were any other kind until I was in my late teens. I ate so many apples, by age fourteen I couldn’t look an apple in the face. I got out of the habit of eating apples. Recently, I got back into the habit in a big way.

We got big things coming up this weekend so we’ve got a few guests in the house. This morning, I made apple smoothies for breakfast. So good! I put fresh apples, apple sauce, apple cider, a splash of vanilla, a sprinkle of cinnamon, some walnuts, and ice into the Ninja and blended the hell out of them. So so good.

But then, the plan for the day was a visit to the apple orchard. A half hour drive through some of the prettiest parts of Vermont, and we were parking in the dirt. Of course, the first thing you do when you go to this orchard is take a moment to appreciate the view. It’s at the top of a mountain and you can see mountain peaks all the way to the horizon. I swear you can see all the way into Canada. The far mountain are so far away, they have a blue cast to them. Everyone else took pictures, but I just stared.

Then it’s a walk down to the orchard store. Last year, this was a small shed contraption, but this year it’s a new barn building with clean walls, coolers, and scales. Bins of apples and pears, and sometimes veggies and berries crowd the middle. You can grab bags of your favorite apples, or select a few from the bins. Next to the coolers are shelves with apple products on one side, and counters with hot apple cider and cups to serve yourself on the other side. There’s also two apple cider slushie machines but due to the cool weather they weren’t the popular item of the day.

I convinced everyone that we needed to get into the orchard and pick our own apples. Have you ever had a fresh picked apple? It’s like the difference between a cookie from a package and a cookie from the oven. Just no comparison. We grabbed a picker, a wire basket on a long pole, a couple of bags, and a map of what was ripe and off we went.

We were on the hunt for our favorite, Honey Crisp, but I was really looking for anything on a tree. I wandered into an area full of Jonagolds. There were also Banana Sweets, but I never found them.

I kept walking around looking for the tree with my memories from when I was eight years old on them, but never found it. I remember trees that I could climb, branches to wrap my arms and legs around, apples just barely out of reach. One thing I did see that came back from 50+ years ago. Apples rotting on the ground with one bite taken out of them.

I was in a tree, balanced on the branch, a ripe cool apple just picked from the tree in my hand. I took a huge bite, feeling the juice run down over my chin, and tasting that wonderful tangy sweet apple flavor. It was crisp and crunchy and tasty, and as near perfection as you could hope for. Nothing in the world tastes as good as that first bite of an apple. Every bite after that is old news. I munched that first bite full of excitement and vigor, then thoughtlessly tossed it to the ground.

Big mistake. My father, the Marine, ordered me out of the tree. He made me pick up the apple, sit on the ground, and finish eating it. All I wanted to be doing was climb the tree, but I had to eat that apple. You can get I never let him see me do that again. I did it again, but I never let him see me. It’s just the allure of the first bite that gets to me.

Once we finished picking our apples, we went to the orchard store and got hot apple cider, cold apple cider, apple cider donuts, apple pie filling, cherry pie filling, pears, and other stuff. Then we parked ourselves at a picnic table in the sun and ate apple cider donuts and drank apple cider.

Apple cider donuts are a treat at any season, but taste best in the Fall. I don’t know why that is, but the cool air and warm sun make them ambrosia. Apple cider is used as the liquid in the donut, and as the raising agent reactor. The donut is flavored with nutmeg, and fried in oil until perfectly cooked. While still warm, it’s dusted with granulated sugar and cinnamon. Lots of cinnamon. So good.

While we were sitting around enjoying the day, I grabbed a small Jonagold and took a bite. My mouth watered instantly. It was tarter than usual, but still sweet and apple-y. It was a good cooking apple and a good eating apple. It’s not my new favorite, but it’s high on my list. Partner/Spouse wants to make apple butter out of them. But I finished the whole apple; I did not toss it to the ground.

One thing I noticed as we were driving home, many yards in the area had full grown, fully mature apple trees with ripe fruit on them. I was so jealous. It can take upwards of five years to get fruit from a new apple tree, but some places have trees that are twenty plus years old. Gnarly, huge, looking like they’re full of wisdom and flavor. But I know that even if I had a tree in my yard, I’d never ever be able to eat all the apples it gave off.

So now, I’ve got a two quart jar of cherry pie filling that I want to eat. Straight out of the jar. Or maybe make some cherry hand pies. Or cherry turnovers. Yum.

So what are your Fall plans for the Fall harvest?

As always,

Post #746 Dinner At Our House

October 6, 2020 at 5:11 PM | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

We’ve got some changes coming up soon in our personal lives. No, we’re not moving again. And no, it’s not anything bad. It’s just different and working through the details is time consuming. Part of of it is my care for the FiL which is a full time project to start with; part of it is a change to our work lives; and part of it is changes to our personal time. Navigating through the changes is exhausting. Unfortunately, that exhaustion affects our health in different ways which adds to the general confusion. So something as simple as what to make for dinner becomes a major undertaking. Once the decision is made, it’s usually pretty straightforward in its execution. But getting to that decision can cause a lot of angst. There’s a meme for that:

Every single night for the rest of your life. I’m lucky because Partner/Spouse likes to cook as much as I do, and is much more adventurous in his flavors than I am. He takes it over whenever he has time, and discusses what to eat nearly every meal. But Lordy Gaw, it’s still a puzzle.

One of my favorite authors (now deceased) is a woman named Shirley Jackson. You may remember her for a short story many us were forced to read in high school called The Lottery. She’s also famous for a horror book called The Haunting of Hill House which spawned several movies and a mini-series. But she also wrote two memoir style books about raising her family in Vermont. And yes, I’ve been in love with Vermont for that long. In one of those books she exquisitely and accurately described the frustration of cooking for her family of six, not including multiple pets. She tried a new recipe but had to eliminate ingredients her family found unpleasant. She ended up with a hamburger meatloaf studded with cashews, and nearly cried at the dinner table as she watched her entire family pick out the nuts before eating while her oldest son complained that they always had hamburger. I laughed so hard, I had to put the book down. When I showed it to my mother, she laughed hard, took the book from me and read it cover to cover before giving it back. I still read those books today, but on digital format.

Most people develop what I call dinner strategies to get through it all. When I first moved out from my parents house, I came up with seven breakfasts, seven lunches, seven dinners, and seven things for snacks. I ate those same seven things day in and day out for three months until I got used to being on my own. Normally, though, what happens through sheer necessity is most home cooks will eventually discover around twenty to twenty-five no fail recipes that their families always enjoy and are easy to make. I call it the Family Recipe List.

One of the first ones on our list is tacos. We could eat tacos any day of the week, not just Tuesday. And we can eat tacos several times a week. One time I ate tacos six meals in a row, including breakfast. Another favorite is spaghetti. We love that stuff. I’ve been making spaghetti for just shy of a half century. I still play around with the ingredients.

However, we did something last week that we truly love. I always forget about it until someone brings it up. We always enjoy the heck out of it, and it’s one of those super simple things to prepare. We call it the Baked Potato Meal.

I bake one medium or large potato for each person. Then I put out several items to top them. Last week, I put out heated canned chili with beans, heated shredded beef in gravy, cheese, bacon bits, barbecued chicken pieces, plain yogurt, butter, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, and a few other items. My only way to do this is canned chili and cheese. Cheese on the potato, chili on the cheese, cheese on top. There’s something about the flavor of canned chili that takes me back to childhood, the ultimate comfort food. Sometimes I throw onions on top. Not often.

Another thing we truly love around this house is home made soup. And it’s now the season for it. When the trees start to look like this:

It’s time to start thinking about soup. That’s my neighbor’s tree, by the way, and about half of those leaves are now on his lawn.

I am currently making another childhood favorite. My brother and I waited for this day to arrive, the day when Mom served beans and cornbread! She used white beans; I use pinto beans. I learned during my nutrition investigation phase that beans and corn in combo make up a complete protein. Of course, most recipes state that you have to have pork of some kind to cook with the beans, but that’s just for added salt. I usually use bacon, but I’ve also used smoked pork, and pork necks. I’ve never used fat back or salt pork, but I know people do. And I always throw in some dried chilis cuz we purely love the heat.

Last week, I made what I call my green chicken soup. I love having a ton of vegetables in my soups when they’re called for. There are times when they aren’t. But Partner/Spouse wasn’t feeling in top form last week (me neither but that’s a different story. In neither case did it have anything at all to do with the pandemic. We’re both feeling worlds better now.) Anyway, he wanted a clear chicken soup with noodles. One of my favorite dried soup mixes is Bear Creek. They make about a dozen different soups and chicken noodle is one of them. They are simplicity itself. Eight cups of water, one pound of cut up chicken, twenty minutes, and dinner is ready. However, the store didn’t have any instant soups at all. I’m a cook so that only made me hesitate for about a minute. I bought three boxes of chicken broth, a big package of chicken breasts, a box of mini ziti pasta, and some frozen green beans. When I got home, I chopped an onion and cut up half the chicken so I had about two pounds. I was feed three hungry adult males so I wanted to have plenty of soup.

I put two boxes of broth on to heat and added another three cups of water. Sounds like a lot, but I was going to be cooking this for a while and I wanted it to reduce by about a third. I put the onion and chicken into the boiling broth to cook. I didn’t want either of them to brown first because I wanted the soup to be clear and light for him. I also put in some dried garlic because all my fresh garlic was old and like a rock. I turned the heat down so the soup was at a rolling simmer and let it go for a couple of hours with just an occasional stir. When I felt the soup was ready, I added half a cup of pasta already cooked (that’s different from half a cup of cooked pasta, by the way), about two-thirds of a small bag of whole green beans, two stalks of celery sliced thinly on the diagonal, and a teaspoon of dried oregano. And I counted out twelve flakes of dried pepper flakes. I let the flavors cook and blend for about thirty minutes and called it soup.

It was good.

So these are the thought processes we go through when it’s time to make dinner. What are yours? Do you have any tried and true go-tos? Let us all know. Feel free to share this post as you choose.

And as always,