Ham Week to New Year’s Day
Ham Week
Ham week is the best week. What, you don’t celebrate ham week? Oh, man, you don’t know what you’re missing: fat chunks of ham stirred into scrambled eggs for breakfast; thick-sliced ham sandwiches on chewy, whole-grain bread for lunch or, just to mix it up, maybe on a couple of nice, light slices of Wonderbread smeared with Miracle Whip—that’s right, Miracle Whip, none of your fancy, high end mayonnaises; the quick trip to the fridge to snag a small hunk from the big, blue roasting pan, soaked in pan drippings with maybe the last piece of pineapple or maraschino cherry toothpicked on. Ham week rocks. The Christmas ham at the family dinner is nice, but it’s the magic of the leftover ham in the week between Christmas and the New Year that makes it all worthwhile.
Ham with pineapple
Ingredients:
Bone-in ham
Brown sugar
Canned pineapple rings
Maraschino cherries
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put the ham in a big blue roasting pan. I suspect that a roasting pan that’s not blue or even one of those disposable aluminum roasting pans you can pick up in the baking aisle at the grocery store might work, but in almost 35 years of marriage Ann has never baked a ham that was anything less than fantastic in her big blue roasting pan, so I suggest you find one. Honey-baked hams are great. Don’t use one in this recipe. Spiral cut hams are convenient. Save them for a different meal. For ham week, you want to start with an unsliced ham with the bone still in it. Trust me on this.
Use a sharp knife to score parallel lines in the fat all around the ham. Note that you are cutting through the fat, not cutting the fat off. Pork fat is an essential ingredient of almost any holiday meal worth eating. That’s where the flavor lives. You’ll be making New Year resolutions soon. Give up fat then. For now, leave the fat on the pig. Make another set of cuts perpendicular to the first set so the ham is cross-hatched all the way around. Dig your hands into the brown sugar and smear it onto the ham, putting a thin layer of brown sugar on all exposed surfaces.
Use toothpicks to attach pineapple rings all around the ham. Toothpick a maraschino cherry to the hole in the middle of each ring, and any other spot that looks like it could use a maraschino cherry. Ideally, an adorable toddler should help with this step.
Pour in the juice from the canned pineapple. Put the lid on the roaster (or cover with foil if you can’t fit the lid over the giant ham you got) and put it in the oven. Bake at 375 degrees until it’s done, probably somewhere around 20 to 25 minutes per pound. The USDA suggests using a meat thermometer and making sure it has reached at least 145 degrees before declaring it done, but you’re going to be taking the lid off and basting the ham with the juice from the bottom of the pan every fifteen to twenty minutes, so good luck waiting for it to reach that temperature before someone tries to sneak a taste. Let the ham rest a few minutes then slice and serve.
Green bean casserole
Go old school here. Nothing healthy, nothing fancy, just classic Midwest holiday family food. This is why God created canned beans and cream of mushroom soup. You’ll want to double or triple this.
Ingredients:
2 cans french style green beans
1 (10 1/2 oz) can cream of mushroom soup
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups crispy fried onions (the canned kind–don’t try to fry onions yourself for this. But you know that).
Salt and pepper to taste
Worcestershire sauce (this isn’t really necessary, but it’s so much fun watching Ann try to remember how to pronounce it again every year)
Directions
Mix the soup, milk, and Worcestershire sauce if you’re using it in a casserole dish. Add the beans and half the fried onions. Bake at 350 degrees for a half hour or so. Stir, top with the rest of the onions, and bake another five minutes or so.
Mashed potatoes
Ann was shocked to learn that we ate instant mashed potatoes growing up, and once I tasted her potatoes I understood why. I think the secret is coming to terms with the fact that potatoes are just a vehicle for delivering melted butter.
Ingredients:
Potatoes (Yukon Golds are good, but you can use what you’ve got). Cook at least two per person–you’ll want leftovers
Butter–to taste. My taste is at least 1/2 stick if you’re cooking for four people, but your mileage may vary.
Milk–Maybe a cup, maybe less. You’ll be mixing it in gradually til you get the right texture
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Peel the potatoes. Quarter the potatoes or cut them smaller, but make all the pieces roughly the same size so they’ll cook evenly.
Put the potatoes in a pan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook until fork tender, about 15 minutes.
Drain the potatoes, cover, and let them rest a few minutes . Add butter and begin mashing, using a potato masher or an electric mixer. Mix or mash them, adding milk a little at a time until they are the consistency you like. Put them in the serving bowl and add a little more butter to melt on top.
Macaroni and cheese
I’m seeing a trend here with the “nothing healthy, nothing fancy” theme. Go with it. Christmas comes but once a year.
Ingredients:
For the topping:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for the baking dish
2 tablespoons olive oil OR 3 or 4 slices of bacon. I recommend bacon.
2 cups crushed Cheetos—crunchy, not puffy
2 large cloves minced garlic (or more; really, can you put in too much garlic?)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese—real cheese, not the stuff from the green can
1 teaspoon salt
1 pound dried macaroni
1 stick unsalted butter
6 Tablespoons flour
4 cups whole milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 pound grated sharp cheddar cheese (and yes, grate it yourself, don’t use the pre-grated stuff in this.)
½ pound grated smoked gouda cheese
½ cup grated Parmesan (again, real cheese, not the green can stuff)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Butter baking dish.
Topping:
Put the Cheetos in a plastic bag (or, if you bought the snack size Cheetos, just leave them in their bags) and use a rolling pin to crush them. Don’t grind them down to a fine powder—you want a little texture.
In a large skillet over medium heat, heat butter and oil OR cook bacon, rendering as much of the fact as you can, remove the bacon from the pan, add the butter to the bacon grease and heat the butter.
Add Cheetos and garlic. Cook for five minutes or so, stirring. Transfer the Cheetos to a bowl, stir in the Parmesan and salt, and set aside. If you used bacon instead of olive oil, crumble the bacon and stir it in, too unless you’ve already eaten it. And, seriously, if you’re cooking bacon, why haven’t you already eaten it?
Macaroni and sauce:
Boil the macaroni, then drain it.
Melt the butter over medium-low heat. Gradually stir in the flour to make a roux, then continue to cook it several minutes, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, until it is a light golden color. (I don’t know if it really makes a difference to use a wooden spoon, but somehow wooden spoons and cast iron skillets make cooking more fun). Gradually pour in milk and cream, stirring constantly. Raise the heat to medium-high and bring the sauce to a low boil, then reduce to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and cook a few minutes more until the sauce is thick and coats the back of a spoon.
Add the paprika and salt. Add the cheese in three batches, stirring until each addition is completely melted before adding more. Remove from heat.
Combine the drained macaroni and the cheese sauce and stir. Transfer macaroni mixture to a buttered baking dish and put it in the oven on a baking sheet (to catch the cheesy overflow). Sprinkle the topping over the macaroni and bake until golden and bubbling, about 20 minutes.
NEW YEAR’S DAY
Every year I drive Ann crazy by reminding her that we need to fix some black-eyed peas (Grandma Lisle would say crowder peas—is there a difference?) on New Year’s Day for good luck, and every year I end up not fixing them. I feel like I’ve cheated myself out of decades of good luck.
Greens and black-eyed peas
Ingredients:
1 pound dry black-eyed peas
Thick sliced bacon
1 onion (if Ann won’t be eating)
Ham bone from Christmas ham, plus as much of the ham as you can get
A mess of greens
Salt and pepper to taste
Hot sauce
Directions:
Fry bacon in a dutch oven or other heavy pot. If you think Ann won’t be eating this, dice an onion and cook it in the bacon grease. Otherwise, leave out the onion. Chop the greens. Cook the greens in the bacon grease until wilted. Rinse the black-eyed peas and add to the pot. Add water until the peas are an inch or two under water. Add the bone and some meat from the Christmas ham. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer, cover, and cook until the peas are tender. Put the hot sauce on the table so folks can spice it up to taste and serve with cracklin’ bread.
Cracklin’ bread
I love sweet cornbread, but I don’t think I knew such a thing existed until I was grown. On reflection, that’s probably not true—I’m sure that Kathy, the only one of us who was skinny, occasionally snuck sugar into cornbread she made because, in one of God’s cosmic jokes, the skinny one had the sweetest tooth; but for the most part, our cornbread was not sweet.
In Florida, sometimes Grandma Lisle would brighten her cornbread up with cracklin’s. Mama and Grandma Lisle would take a big piece of cornbread and stir it into a tall glass of buttermilk and eat it with a spoon. I want to say that Grandpa Lisle used sweet milk (that’s “milk” to any Yankees reading this, and yes, Yankee was a term I heard used in all seriousness growing up—when Westminster sent me a letter telling me that roommate assignments for the freshman dorm had been made, and my roommate was from New Hampshire, Grandma Lisle sat me down and warned me that “Yankees are different from us,” forgetting that her Missouri-born grandson was a bit of a Yankee himself). I never developed a taste for buttermilk, with or without cornbread, as anything but an ingredient in biscuits or pancakes, so I can’t recommend Mama and Grandma Lisle’s cornbread-buttermilk mush. Instead, use the cracklin’ bread to soak up the pot likker from the greens and peas.
Ingredients:
¼ cup butter or about 4 Tablespoons bacon grease
2 cups cornmeal
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ cups buttermilk
1 large egg
1 cup cracklins (if you can’t find cracklins, you can substitute a cup of thick bacon cooked crispy and crumbled)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt the butter (or bacon grease) in a cast iron skillet and swirl to coat the pan. Mix the cornmeal, baking soda, and baking powder in a bowl. Mix the cracklins, fat, buttermilk, and egg in a bowl, then stir the liquid into the dry ingredients until its just mixed. Don’t overmix; it can be a little lumpy. Pour the batter in the skillet and bake 25 minutes or so, until it is golden brown and a toothpick comes out of the middle clean.
SUPER BOWL SUNDAY
Some people say that Thanksgiving, with its celebration of food and family is the quintessential American holiday. Others say Christmas, and the way it melds crass commercialism with the child in a manger. Still others, of course, point to the Fourth of July. Good choices, all, but all wrong. The quintessential American holiday is Super Bowl Sunday, when all across the continent we gather together to eat, watch television commercials, and boo the Patriots.
You can get on the internet and find a cornucopia of recipes for amazing Super Bowl spreads. I encourage you to spend all day the Saturday before the game making your Buttermilk Fried Chicken & Waffles with homemade peach marmalade barbecue sauce, especially if you’re inviting me to your Super Bowl party. But regardless of the gourmet selections you plan to add to the sideboard, a real Super Bowl party needs to start with the holy trinity of game day snacks, the tried and true recipes we served when the kids were young as we proudly watched the game on our brand new enormous 32-inch screen.
Rotel Queso Dip
Kathy was the first member of my generation of the Wright clan to become a cheese snob. If you doubt me, let it slip into a conversation sometime that Velveeta is your favorite cheese and watch her face. I say that without judgment, since I can be something of a cheese snob myself. Facts is facts. Here’s another fact: Velveeta may not be cheese, but the mixture of Rotel and Velveeta is a miracle of cheesy goodness.
Ingredients:
1 can (10 oz.) Rotel (Yes, other brands of diced tomatoes and green chilies exist, but why wouldn’t you stick with the classic? If you just have to change things up, buy the Rotel with lime juice and cilantro added).
16 oz. Velveeta (Again, stick with the classic, not some generic Veveeta wannabe).
Directions:
Start by doubling the ingredients. They sell Velveeta in a 32 ounce box. Why wouldn’t you buy that instead of some little mini-version. And having bought 32 ounces, why wouldn’t you use it? No, buy the big box and buy two cans of Rotel.
Cut the Velveeta into cubes. Toss the cubes in a crock pot. Add the Rotel. Melt and stir. You can add a sprig of cilantro or some green onions on top if you’ve watched too much Top Chef and want to impress with your presentation chops, but you’re fooling no one.
Serve with tortilla chips. You can, of course, cook some hamburger or sausage to stir in, or even stir in refried beans, but all this really needs is fake cheese and salty canned tomatoes.
Lit’l Smokies
Miniature hot dogs. Great for pigs in a blanket. Perfect for the furtive snack, cold straight out of the fridge. But they were made for game day.
Ingredients:
As many packages of Lit’l Smokies smoked sausages as will fit in your crock pot.
Barbecue sauce—Gates is good, but there’s nothing wrong with Smokestack. This probably isn’t a Bryant’s dish, but I could be convinced otherwise.
Directions:
Dump the Lit’l Smokies in a crock pot. Cover with barbecue sauce. Eat. In the immortal words of Monty Python, Get ‘em while they’re hot, they’re lovely.
Artichoke Spinach Dip
I can see how someone reading this could get the idea that we never fed our kids healthy vegetables. Not true. After all, what’s more healthy than spinach? Especially if it’s smothered in mayonnaise and sour cream?
Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sour cream
1 can (8 oz) sliced water chestnuts
1 (10 oz) package frozen chopped spinach
1 can (14 oz) artichoke hearts
1 round loaf sourdough (or rye, or whatever you like) bread
garlic, salt, and pepper, red pepper flakes
Grated parmesan cheese if you want
Directions:
Thaw the spinach. (Pop it in the microwave for a few minutes if you’re in a hurry). Squeeze and drain as much of the moisture out of the spinach as you can. Drain and chop the artichoke hearts and water chestnuts. Mix together the mayonnaise and sour cream (and garlic, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, soup mix, or whatever else you want to add to spice it up)
Add the veggies. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours. Hollow out the bread to make a bowl. Fill the bowl with dip. Sprinkle parmesan on top if you want. You can put it in the oven at 350 degrees for fifteen or twenty minutes if you want to serve it hot, but I like it cold. I recommend more than a sprinkle of parmesan if you’re making this a hot dish.
VALENTINE’S DAY
I have a lot a strong points. Really. But a flair for romantic gestures definitely is not one of them. As this is being written, Ann and I have been married almost 35 years. In that time, I have fixed exactly one Valentine’s Day meal. I bought 2 filets mignons and seared them in a cast iron skillet, bought a jar of roasted red peppers and cut one in the shape of a heart to top Ann’s filet, then served the steak with sautéed asparagus and mushrooms sautéed in butter and a little wine. With that, I retired from romantic dinners.
Fortunately, Ann makes up for my failings. This three-course dinner of crab cakes, shrimp and grits, and bread pudding might be the best Valentine’s Day meal she ever made.
Crab Cakes
I asked Ann for her crab cake recipe and she sent me to an Andrew Zimmern post at https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baltimore-style-crab-cakes. I’m not going to say she lied about where she got her recipe, but if she really chose to fix me crab cakes with a recipe from a guy who raves about the taste of dung beetles I may need to reevaluate our relationship.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 large egg
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon hot sauce
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat
20 saltine crackers, finely crushed
1/4 cup canola oil
Lemon wedges, for serving
Directions:
Whisk the mayonnaise with the egg, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce until smooth in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, lightly toss the crabmeat with the cracker crumbs. Gently fold in the mayonnaise mixture. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Scoop the crab mixture into eight 1/3-cup mounds and shape into 8 patties, about 1 1/2 inches thick. In a large skillet, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the crab cakes and cook over moderately high heat until deeply golden and heated through, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the crab cakes to plates and serve with lemon wedges.
Shrimp and grits
I asked Ann how she made her shrimp and grits and she sent me to a Mario Batali recipe at https://abc.go.com/playlists/null/video/VDKA0_99sqpzoc. Now I think she’s just playing with me.
Ingredients:
1 cup stone ground grits
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 Tablespoons butter (plus 4 tablespoons cold; cubed)
3 pounds shrimp (21-25 size; peeled and deveined; tails on)
2 Tablespoons spice rub (below)
Black pepper
Olive oil
1/2 yellow onion (diced)
3 bell peppers (1 red & 1 yellow & 1 green) diced to ¼ inch
2 ribs celery (1/4-inch dice)
3 cloves minced garlic (minced)
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup cream
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 bunch chives (sliced)
1 lemon (halved)
Spice Rub
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon onion Powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme
Directions:
Mix sugar with grits, then follow the package instructions for cooking the grits. Season to taste and stir in a few tablespoons of butter to finish.
Season the shrimp with the spice rub) and black pepper, rubbing the spice mixture into the shrimp.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat. Add the shrimp and sauté, tossing as they cook for 1-2 minutes, or until just opaque. Remove the shrimp from the pan.
Add another tablespoon of olive oil, then add the diced onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic. Cook the veggies until the onions are beginning to brown, then deglaze with the Wine. Add the Worcestershire, chicken stock, cream, chives, and cubed butter. Stir well to combine and bring to a boil.
Simmer the sauce until it darkens, about 20 to 30 minutes. Add the shrimp and toss to coat.
Spoon grits onto shallow bowls and top with the shrimp. Squeeze fresh lemon over the shrimp and serve immediately.
Bread Pudding
I don’t know where Ann got this one, but it’s a keeper. The first time she made it, she followed the recipe and actually mixed a full cup of bourbon into the sauce. That was a dessert designed to get you where you were going. She’s backed off on the amount of bourbon she uses since then.
Ingredients:
Bourbon Sauce:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup Kentucky bourbon whiskey
Bread Pudding:
1 loaf French bread, at least a day old, cut into 1-inch squares (about 6-7 cups)
1 qt milk (32 oz)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups sugar
2 Tbsp vanilla
1 cup raisins (soaked overnight in 1/4 cup bourbon)
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Directions:
Bourbon Sauce:
In a saucepan, melt butter; add sugar and egg, whisking to blend well. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. (Do not allow to simmer, or it may curdle.) Whisk in bourbon to taste. Remove from heat. Whisk before serving. The sauce should be soft, creamy, and smooth.
Bread Pudding:
Preheat oven to 350°F
Soak the bread in milk in a large mixing bowl. Press with hands until well mixed and all the milk is absorbed. In a separate bowl, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla, and spices together. Gently stir into the bread mixture. Gently stir the raisins into the mixture.
Pour butter into the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking pan. Coat the bottom and the sides of the pan well with the butter. Pour in the bread mix and bake at 350°F for 35-45 minutes, until set. The pudding is done when the edges start getting a bit brown and pull away from the edge of the pan. Can also make in individual ramekins.
Serve with bourbon whiskey sauce on the side; pour on to taste. Best fresh and eaten the day it is made.
ST. PATRICK’S DAY
Green beer. Drunken parades. Kiss me I’m Irish t-shirts. That’s not the St. Patrick’s Day a good Baptist boy in Springfield in the 1960s grew up with. No, for me St. Patrick’s day was more the leprechaun from the magically delicious Lucky Charms than drinking car bomb cocktails in a dimly lit pub, swaying with strangers singing When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Not that we were completely unaware of The Troubles. Paul Evans’ 1961 album Folk Songs from Many Lands was in heavy rotation on the stereo console at our house, so I got my share of The Wearin’ of the Green, and I’m still likely to send the dogs off howling when I break into the chorus of Kevin Barry:
Shoot me like an Irish soldier
Do not hang me like a dog;
For I fought for Ireland’s freedom
On that dark September morn—
All around that little bakery
Where we fought them hand to hand
Shoot me like an Irish soldier
For I fought to free Ireland
The dogs don’t like my singing, but they do like lamb. So this one’s for them.
Irish Stew borrowed from https://thestayathomechef.com/irish-stew/
Ingredients:
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 lbs lamb shoulder or beef chuck
1 tsp kosher salt
½ tsp black pepper
1 large onion
3 leeks
3 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp flour
22 oz Guinness Beer
2 cups lamb broth (recipe below: you can use beef broth if you’re not up for making lamb broth)
4 carrots
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into 2″ pieces
3 sprigs thyme or 1 tsp dried thyme
Directions:
Peel the carrots and potatoes and cut the carrots into ½ inch pieces and the potatoes into 2 inch pieces. Mince the garlic. Trim the root off the leeks and strip off the tough greens. Cut the leeks lengthwise and rinse any grit off under water. Slice the leeks into ½ inch pieces. Cut the lamb into 2″ chunks, pat dry, and sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper.
Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a Dutch oven over high heat. Add the lamb and brown well. Don’t crowd the pan—brown the lamb in small batches. Set the lamb aside.
Lower heat to medium and add remaining the tablespoon of olive oil. Add the onion and leek, cook until softened, then add the garlic and cook a few more minutes. Stir the flour into the vegetable mixture and cook for 3 more minutes.
Add the Guinness, stirring and scraping up browned bits on bottom of pan then add broth. Return the browned lamb to the pot, including any juices, along with the carrots, potatoes and thyme.
If the lamb and vegetables are not fully covered add enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil, stir, then lower heat so it is bubbling gently and cover. Cook 2 hours then removethe lid and simmer for another 30 minutes until the lamb falls apart and the sauce has reduced and thickened.
Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusty bread. The brown bread recipe below’s not bad, but you might ask Eric for his cheesy chive soda bread recipe, which sounds better.
Lamb stock
Ingredients:
3 to 3 ½ pounds of meaty lamb bones
1 medium-size onion, peeled and chopped
2 shallots, peeled and chopped
1 rib celery
4 sprigs parsley
3 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
2 cloves
1 ½ Tablespoons herbed vinegar or white-wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste, optional
Directions:
Put the lamb bones in a large pot, cover with cold water and bring to boil over medium-high heat. As soon as water boils, remove from stove and drain, discarding the water. Rinse the bones and return them to the pot.
Add the vegetables and herbs and fill the pot with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and continue to cook at gentle simmer 2 1/2 to 3 hours until the broth is reduced and concentrated.
Strain the stock, discarding the bones and vegetables. Refrigerate the broth. When the fat has risen and hardened, skim it off top. The stock can be refrigerated until ready to use. Before using, reheat the stock and simmer gently, uncovered, over low heat for several hours to reduce to about a cup and a half. Add vinegar and salt and pepper.
Brown Bread borrowed from https://www.tastecooking.com/recipes/irish-brown-bread/
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups stone ground whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups fine whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 Tablespoons wheat germ
1 pinch of kosher or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 tablespoons salted butter
15 ounces buttermilk
1 large egg
1 Tablespoon oats to sprinkle over loaf before baking
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon.
On the stovetop, melt the butter, then pour into a small bowl with the buttermilk. Add the egg to the buttermilk and butter mixture, and whisk together.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon. The consistency should be wet, but firm. Pour the dough into a greased or parchment paper lined loaf pan and sprinkle oats over the top. Back for 50 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.
Irish Whiskey Bread Pudding This wasn’t as good when I made it as the bread pudding Ann made in the Valentine’s day menu but I think that was me, not the recipe. I used some of the bread from the brown bread recipe, and that probably wasn’t the best choice. http://realirishdesserts.com/recipe/bread-and-butter-pudding-with-rich-whiskey-sauce/
Ingredients:
FOR THE PUDDING
8 slices white bread, buttered
3/4 cup raisins
3 Tablespoons Irish whiskey
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups cream
2 cups (scant) milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoons Light brown sugar
FOR THE WHISKEY SAUCE
10 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
3 Tablespoons Irish whiskey
Directions:
Put the raisins in a small bowl and add three tablespoons of whiskey. Let it soak overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Remove the crust from the bread. Butter the bread slices and put four slices of bread, buttered side down, in an ovenproof dish.
Sprinkle the bread with the raisins, half the nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon sugar. Place four more slices of bread, buttered side down, on top of the first layer and sprinkle with the rest of the nutmeg and 1 tablespoon sugar.
Beat the eggs, then add the cream, milk, vanilla, and the rest of the sugar and mix well. Pour the egg/cream mixture over the bread. Sprinkle the brown sugar on top. Bake for 1 hour, or until the liquid is absorbed and the pudding is browned.
While the pudding is baking, melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the sugar and dissolve over gentle heat. Remove from heat. Add the egg and whisk vigorously. Add the whiskey and whisk gently until combined. Pour the whiskey sauce over the pudding before serving.
Burnt oranges I wasn’t sure about the bread pudding—it made for a heavy ending to a heavy meal when served with the Irish stew and brown bread. So I tried something a little lighter: burnt oranges. The recipe called for Seville oranges, which are (1) really bitter and (2) hard to find. I tracked some down and ordered them from a grove in Florida, but I probably won’t try that again (though I’m definitely going back for more of their tangelos, which were amazing). They were miserable to peel and seed. Seedless navel oranges would make this worlds easier to make. The back story on this dessert is pretty interesting and can be found at the site where I stole the recipe, http://realirishdesserts.com/recipe/dean-swifts-burnt-oranges/
Ingredients:
4-6 large oranges
2/3 cups sweet white wine (I used Marsala)
4 Tablespoons butter
6 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups fresh squeezed orange juice
2 Tablespoons Irish whiskey
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400F. Remove all of the zest from the oranges. Put the zest in a bowl with the white wine.
Peel the zested oranges and separate out the segments. Pull off as much of the pith as possible. Remove any seeds if you don’t have seedless oranges.
Heat the wine and zest on the stove in a saucepan. Mix the orange juice with half of the sugar in another saucepan that can also be used in the oven and bring to a boil. Lower the heat slightly and let the mixture cook and thicken until syrupy. When it has thickened, add the orange peel and wine mixture and bring to a boil again, then cook rapidly to reduce and thicken again.
Add the orange segments to the orange syrup and let it simmer gently on the stovetop on medium heat for about 2 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400F or broil. Dot the oranges and orange syrup with the butter and sprinkle the whole mixture as evenly as you can with the remaining sugar.
Put the pan in the oven and heat through until the sugar begins to caramelize and turn a golden brown. If you’re using the broiler be very careful not to let the oranges burn.
Remove the pan from the oven. Warm the whiskey gently on the stovetop or in the microwave. Pour it over the caramelized oranges and set it alight; let it flame until it burns itself out. Serve either warm or cold, with whipped cream topped with a little orange zest.
EASTER
I would love to tell you how to make that unbelievably delicious leg of lamb we serve every Easter, or fill you in on the secret that makes our Easter lamb stew so ridiculously good that the kids turned it into an Easter tradition that rivals Christmas ham week, but I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do that because, truth is, I’ve never cooked a leg of lamb, and neither has Ann, and though we made a pretty passable goat stew after we got home from the trip to Greece that we took for our 25thanniversary, we don’t have a lamb stew tradition either. Our Easter tradition was church in the morning, then getting together with grandparents and cousins, usually starting out at Grandma and Grandpa Skelton’s place for Easter dinner and ending up playing games at the Cool Crest arcade, where Adam developed his love of gambling from raking in the loot he won off the tokens Grandpa and Grandma Skelton gave him. So for Easter, this is what we’ve got.
Sunrise breakfast
Before there was Cool Crest, there was the sunrise service. Growing up, that was always at the lake and I don’t know why anyone would want a sunrise service anywhere else. Easter, even more than Christmas, is about hope and the sight, the feelof dawn’s color shading into the sky over the water on a cool morning while a small crowd gathers to greet it is hope made tangible. The song is a cappella, and starts quietly, tentatively….“Low in the grave he lay….” Nothing too hopeful in that. But it builds, and by the time the chorus comes around, the old men are limbered up, and ready to belt it out in rumbling basses: “Up from the grave he arose (he arose), with a mighty triumph o’er his foes (he arose)….” It’s Easter morning. Keep hope alive.
Then it’s back to the church basement.
Ingredients:
Long folding tables and folding chairs.
Bacon and sausage.
Pancake batter.
Coffee and milk.
Directions:
Set up the chairs and tables. Have the men fry the bacon and sausage and mix up the pancakes while the ladies sit and have a cup of coffee for a change. Eat. Break down the tables and get cleaned up for the real Easter service (which was never as real to me as the sunrise service was).
Easter eggs
Mama believed in Easter eggs. Lots of them. Dozens of them. But Mama also believed that wasting food was a sin. So on Easter, we colored enough eggs to outfit a Tyson chicken farm, then we spent the next month living off of boiled eggs: plain boiled eggs, deviled eggs, egg salad, and a particularly nasty creamed eggs on toast breakfast that made the turkeyhamloaf we ate throughout January to get rid of Christmas leftovers seem like a gourmet delight by comparison. By the end of April, as I peeled the last of the eggs I’d been taking to school for lunch all month, trying to ignore the fact that the “whites” were red or blue from dye that had seeped in, while the yolks were a sulfurous green, I felt a lot like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke. Still, it’s Easter. You can’t have an Easter egg hunt without eggs, so here are two alternatives.
1. Buy a dozen eggs and a package of Paas dye. Make sure you have some vinegar on hand. Follow the directions on the package. Drop some of the eggs in the cup of dye and leave them there forever to get deep colors. Do the kits still have the little copper egg dipper? Make sure to use it to dip some eggs halfway in the dye, the turn them over for multicolored eggs.
2. We’re old, so now it’s plastic eggs you can fill for us. Hank turned two just days before Easter this year; we took a Royals helmet filled with plastic eggs as an Easter basket for him. Here’s a pro tip we learned a little too late: don’t let a two year old open the plastic eggs that are filled with Teddy Grahams first, unless you want to watch excited looks turn into disappointed scowls as he realizes that the rest of the eggs are filled with goldfish crackers.
CINCO DE MAYO
I’ve only made this meal one time, and it wasn’t on Cinco de Mayo. But it should have been. If you actually follow the recipes, it’s an all day affair. You can buy a rotisserie chicken, a couple of packages of tortillas, a can of refried beans, and prepared sauces if you don’t want to devote your life to fixing one meal.
Guacamole
Ingredients:
3 avocados (count on 1 avocado per person, and adjust the recipe accordingly. Use avocados that are pretty ripe, but not mushy–you want a little texture in the guac)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt or sea salt
1/2 lime
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 red onion
1/2 small jalapeño
2 Roma tomatoes
1 clove minced garlic
Directions:
Dice the red onion as finely as you can get it. Do the same with the jalapeño after discarding the seeds. Dice the tomatoes.
Cut the avocados in half, remove the seed, and scoop the avocado flesh into a bowl. Some people say if you put the seed in the bowl with the guacamole until you serve it the seed will help keep it from turning brown. I’ve never tried this and have no idea whether it works, but it’s worth a shot.
Add the lime juice, salt, and cumin and mash it together into the avocado with a fork or potato masher. Don’t make a paste–leave some chunks of avocado. Stir in the onion, jalapeño, tomatoes and garlic. Cover the bowl if you’re not going to serve it right away.
Chicharrones
Confession time: I haven’t actually made this. But I’m going to. The recipe came from https://www.mexicanplease.com/homemade-lard/. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s primarily a recipe for rendering your own lard. After all, you’re going to need that lard for the tortillas you’re going to make.
Ingredients:
2 pounds pork back fat
salt
ancho chili powder
Directions:
Cut the back fat into evenly sized pieces about 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch. Put 2 Tablespoons of water in a large pan. Add the fat to the pan and cook on medium low, stirring occasionally.
Render the fat from the pork. Pour off fat into another pan through a sieve or cheesecloth periodically as the fat renders. When the fat is rendered down as far as it will go, turn the heat up to high and fry the chicharrones for five minutes or so. Remove the chicharrones with a slotted spoon, put them in a bowl lined with paper towels, sprinkle with salt and ancho chili powder or the spice of your choice.
Let the liquid fat sit a few hours to solidify, then use it or put it in a jar in the fridge.
Tortillas
Obviously you can buy pre-made tortillas, but not many things are better than a hot tortilla fresh off a cast iron skillet.
Corn tortillas
Ingredients:
2 cups Masa Harina (Mexican corn meal)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
Directions:
Mix the Masa Harina and salt in a bowl. Add one cup of water stir it together. Slowly add the rest of the water until you can need the dough into a ball. You may need a little more or a little less water–you want to end up with a ball of dough that isn’t crumbly (too little water) or sticky (too much water).
Divide the dough into golfball-sized pieces and roll them into balls. If you have a tortilla press, use it to press the balls into tortillas. We don’t. If you don’t either, put a ball on a piece of plastic wrap, cover it with another piece of plastic wrap, and press it with the bottom of a skillet until it is as flat as you can get it.
Heat a cast iron skillet on medium heat. Cook the tortillas about a minute on each side. If you’re not going to eat them right away, you can keep them warm by wrapping them in a damp (not wet) towel and putting them in a crockpot or oven on warm.
Flour tortillas
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
3 Tablespoons lard–yes, lard. I said it and I meant it.
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup warm water
Directions:
Stir the salt into the flour. Mix in the lard. Use your hands. Stir in the water. Knead together into a ball. Cover and let it sit for an hour or so.
Divide the dough into golfball-sized pieces and roll the pieces into balls. Use a rolling pin to roll the balls as thin as you can. You should end up with a tortilla five or six inches across.
Heat a cast iron skillet over medium high. Cook the tortillas one at a time in the skillet. Cook about a minute (maybe less–it should be forming bubbles, but not burning) on one side, then flip and cook the other side about a minute. Keep them warm in a crockpot or warm oven.
Refried beans
Ingredients:
2 cups dried beans–pinto, black, or a combination
1 onion
1 Tablespoon lard
1 teaspoon salt
Water
1/2 onion (yes, this is a second onion)
2 cloves garlic
More lard
Directions
Dice one onion. Put the beans in a pot and cover with water. The water should be a few inches above the top of the beans. Add the onion and lard. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add salt. Continue to simmer, covered, until the beans are soft.
Dice one-half onion. Saute the onion and garlic in the lard. Add 4 cups of beans (including some of the juice). Saute on medium low heat, stirring and crushing the beans with a wooden spoon as you go, until the beans reach the consistency you like.
Mexican Flag enchiladas
Ingredients:
Chile verde enchiladas with corn tortillas and asadero cheese (recipe below)
White chicken enchiladas with white corn tortillas (recipe below)
Chile colorado enchiladas with flour tortillas and queso de oaxaca (recipe below)
Directions:
Make chile verde, chile colorado, and white chicken enchiladas following the recipes below. Assemble enchiladas in a rectangular dish, with the chile verde on the left of the dish (using corn tortillas and topped with asadero cheese), the chile Colorado on the right (using flour tortillas and topped with queso de Oaxaca), and the white chicken enchiladas in the middle (using white corn tortillas and topped with Monterey Jack cheese).
Chile verde Recipe from Slim’s Last Chance in Seattle, WA, at http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/chili-verde-recipe0.html?oc=linkback
This recipe would feed an army. I left the original quantities in, but put the amount I actually used beside them in parentheses.
Ingredients:
Olive oil
5 (1 ¼) cups diced onion
1/2 cup (2 Tablespoons) chopped garlic
1/3 cup (1 ¼ Tablespoons) chopped serrano peppers
1/3 cup (1 ¼ Tablespoons) chopped jalapeno peppers
5 (1 ¼) pounds cubed pork shoulder
1 quart (1 cup) chicken broth
15 to 20 (4 to 5) Anaheim peppers
12 to 15 (3 to 4) tomatillos
3 Tablespoons (2 ¼ teaspoons) garlic powder
1 (1/4) teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon (3/4 teaspoon) ground cumin
1 Tablespoon (3/4 teaspoon) Mexican oregano
1 91/4) teaspoon ground coriander
2 (1/2) teaspoons salt
1/2 cup (2 Tablespoons) corn flour
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add olive oil. Stir in the onion, garlic, serrano and jalapeno peppers and cook until soft. Remove from heat and set aside.
Put the pork shoulder in a large heavy bottomed pot, coated with oil, over medium heat and sear until well browned on all sides. Deglaze with the chicken broth, and then add sauteed onions and peppers. Turn heat to low, cover and let it simmer for 10 minutes.
Put the Anaheim peppers on a sheet pan. Peel the outer paper skins off the tomatillos, then coat with olive oil and put on another sheet pan. Put both pans in the preheated oven and roast until the peppers are charred and the tomatillos are soft, about 20 minutes.
Remove pans from the oven and place the peppers in a plastic bag to let them steam for 5 minutes. Peel and seed peppers, and then puree them with the tomatillos in a food processor. Add the puree to the pork mixture, stir, and then let simmer on low heat.
Combine the garlic powder, black pepper, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, ground coriander and salt in a small bowl, then add to pork mixture and stir well.
In a small saute pan, mix 1/8 cup olive oil with the corn flour, stirring over low heat for 2 minutes to make a masa roux.
Let the chili mixture simmer for approximately 1 1/2 to 2 hours on medium-low heat, or until pork is nice and tender. Then stir in masa roux and simmer for 10 more minutes.
Chile colorado
Ingredients:
5 ancho peppers
2 pasilla peppers
2 guajillo peppers
3 cups beef stock
2 pounds chuck or short rib
salt/pepper
vegetable oil
6 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon cumin
2 teaspoons fresh sage
2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
5 cups beef stock
Directions:
Remove stems and seeds from peppers. Cover with 3 cups boiling beef stock and let steam, covered, til tender—about 30 minutes. Blend chiles and soaking liquid until smooth
Season and brown beef in dutch oven over medium-high heat in oil, then cut beef into ½” pieces. Add garlic, bay leaves, cumin, sage and oregano and stir for a minute or so. Add beef stock and bring to boil, then simmer uncovered for an hour. Stir in chile purée and simmer until meat is tender and sauce is thick.
White chicken enchiladas
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups shredded chicken (use southwestern roast chicken, below)
2 cups chicken broth
2 Tablespoons oil
12 white corn tortillas
1 large diced onion
3 4 oz green chilies, diced
1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
1 teaspoon paprika
½ cup cream
2 Tablespoons butter
1 cup sour cream
2 ½ cups grated Monterey jack cheese
Fry tortillas in oil to soften
Cook onions and jalapeños in oil. Add chicken, half of the green chilies, and ½ teaspoon paprika. Stir. Add ½ cup chicken broth and cream. Stir. Bring to bubble, then turn off heat and set aside
Melt butter and sprinkle in flour. Cook for one minute. Add 1 ½ cups chicken broth. Add chilies. Reduce heat and stir in sour cream. Add 1 ½ cups grated cheese and stir to melt. Add ½ teaspoon paprika. Spoon chicken on tortillas, add cheese, and roll. Put on casserole dish seam side down. Pour cheese mixture over top. Top with extra cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Southwestern roast chicken
Ingredients:
1 whole roasting chicken
½ onion, quartered
5 sprigs cilantro
1 Tablespoon cumin
1 Tablespoon ancho chile
3 Tablespoons mixed cilantro
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400. Put onion and cilantro in chicken cavity. Mix spices and olive oil into a paste. Loosen skin and spread the paste under skin. Roast for 30 minutes. Add broth to pan and roast about 45 minutes more, until golden brown (175 degrees with meat thermometer).
Fajitas
On the short list of my favorite things.
Ingredients:
Skirt steak from McGonigles
Fajita marinade from McGonigles
Red, yellow, and green bell peppers
Onions
Directions:
Go to McGonigles and get enough skirt steak and fajita marindade to feed your party. If you don’t live in Kansas City and can’t get to McGonigles, do the best you can with whatever skirt steak and marinade you can find.
Cut the peppers and onions into strips, put them in a bowl, pour in the marinade, cover, and let it soak for a few hours (or better yet, overnight).
Cover the skirt steak in marinade and let it soak, too.
Fire up the grill. Put the steak and vegetables on the grill and cook to your desired degree of doneness. Let the steak rest a few minutes, then slice. Serve with tortillas, guacamole, beans, cheese, and the other toppings of your choice. I wouldn’t complain if you had some chipotle peppers in adobo sauce available.
Elotes
Don’t be fooled by the quantities listed under Ingredients. That’s just to give you an idea of the ratio. You’ll want more than four ears of corn–lots more.
Ingredients:
4 ears of corn
1/3 cup of sour cream (or Mexican crema, if you can find it)
1/3 cup of mayonnaise
2 cloves of minced garlic
1 teaspoon ancho chili powder plus more for garnish
1/2 cup crumbled cotija cheese
salt
1 lime
Cilantro
Directions:
Shuck the corn and put it on the grill over hot coals. Cook until it’s lightly charred. Mix the sour cream, mayonnaise, garlic, ancho chili powder, and salt. Slather the grilled corn in the sour cream/mayo mixture. Garnish with cilantro and the cotija cheese. Sprinkle with ancho chili powder and finish with a little lime juice.
Double Chocolate Cayenne Cookies
I begged Kayta for this recipe. Eventually she gave it to me, though she made me grovel first. Here’s what she sent. I haven’t made them, but they were great when she did.
Adapted from The New York Times, David Leite, and Jacques Torres and Orangette
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup – 2 T. cocoa powder
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 ½ tsp. coarse salt, such as kosher
2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups; 10 oz.) unsalted butter, softened
1 ¼ cups (10 oz.) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. (8 oz.) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks, preferably about 60% cacao content, such as Ghirardelli
Sea salt, such as Maldon
The cookies are best if the dough is made a day or two ahead of time and cooled in the fridge, but if you want them the day of you can just roll them into balls and then refrigerate or freeze until firm.
Whisk together the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl cream the butter and the sugar. When it’s fully mixed and fluffy, add the vanilla extract and eggs and mix again thoroughly.
Stir in the dry ingredients, and, when almost fully incorporated, the chocolate chips.
Portion out the cookie dough and roll into smooth balls. Stir in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake them.
Roll the cookies in sugar (with a touch of salt) and then bake at 350°F until a finger touching the top does not cause them to collapse, roughly 12 minutes or so (I don’t actually time it).
They will be unbelievably chewy and chocolately with a slow burn.