Category: Memoir

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Nothing to Do With Food

This post has nothing to do with food.  When I was a kid my Dad drove a beat up Chevy.  It was a sixties type of car, not real fancy but got us from Point A to Point B.  Dad literally drove that thing until it fell apart.  Ten years ago I bought a 2006 Ford Taurus used with 15,366 miles on the odometer.  I wanted a reliable car that I could drive until it fell apart.

The manager at the local auto shop I use told me this car was the best 06 Taurus he had ever seen.  I said no.  I told him this was the best 06 Taurus he’ll ever see.  The CD player just might keep and never spit out your CD.  Every now and then the fan for the AC sounds like Tweety Bird.  But I just got the car back from the shop after its 60,000 mile maintenance.

I plan on driving this thing until it falls apart but I might not live that long.

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Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Source: Zannie’s Black-Eyed Pea Dip | The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

  • 2 to 3 cups cooked Black-eyed Peas
  • 1/4 whole sweet onion, chopped
  • 1/4 cup Sour Cream
  • 8 slices Jalapenos
  • 1 cup Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese
  • 1/2 cup Salsa
  • Hot Sauce (optional)
  • Garlic powder, a dash or two
  • Salt And Black Pepper To Taste

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Drain black-eyed peas and mash, leaving some whole.

Add all other ingredients, stirring to combine.

Spread into a 1 1/2 quart baking dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.

Serve warm with tortilla chips.

I stole this recipe.  I did the usual change one or two things but refuse to claim this recipe as an original.  Instead of canned beans I prepared my own from dried beans.  The hot sauce is optional because I forgot to add it and when we started to chow down the dip didn’t really need any more heat.  As far as bean dips go this recipe is a keeper.  There were only six people at the gathering and we ate it all.  So the recipe serves six.

The stuffed mushrooms all got eaten too but that’s another recipe for another day.

Helpful Hints –  This is a Texas thing, black eyed peas for good luck at New Year’s.  So here are a few hints.  Salsa is not optional and I think I used a half cup but since I tossed and didn’t measure it might have been a little less or a little more. Hell on the Red from Telephone Texas.  Use a different salsa but the dip won’t taste the same.  If you like your dip spicy add more jalapenos.  Add hot sauce too but it better be a good Tex-Mexican hot sauce.  Don’t do the sriracha thing that everyone else does or it won’t taste the same.  

 

 

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Your Grandmother’s Dressing (this is the real deal)

Here’s the real deal.  This handwritten recipe is your Grandmother’s dressing recipe.  The picture was provided by a reliable source and confirmed as authentic.  Note the date of the copy, November 2001.

Well the mystery is solved.  But when I’ve made Grandmother’s recipe it was never this one.  It was (Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing.  See?  You can change traditions while remaining traditional.

And the cornbread had to have been Jiffy.

 

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Aunt Charlene’s Cornbread Dressing

  • 1 pan cornbread
  • 1 large loaf white bread (no heels)
  • 1 tsp dried sage
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 cup onions, chopped
  • 1 cup celery, chopped
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • broth from boiling neck, gizzards, and liver of the turkey
  • canned chicken broth, as needed

My wife’s Aunt Charlene was a hell of a cook.  After Aunt Charlene passed her granddaughter compiled a booklet of family favorite recipes.  This dressing recipe was the first recipe listed.  At Thanksgiving this year I asked several family members to tell me what ingredients were in the annual dressing.  Well, this is what Sherlock uncovered:

  1. Before the age of convenience, packaged seasoned dressing mix was not used.  Just an old simple loaf of white bread and sage, salt, and pepper.
  2. Somewhere down the line packaged dressing mix replaced the plain white bread.
  3. Three eggs!!!  ugh…
  4. The gizzard broth gets used for gravy and not the dressing.

And there you go.  The annual Thanksgiving dressing recipe is now (Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing because I think Charlene’s recipe was identical to your Grandmother’s dressing recipe.

An unconfirmed recollection from an unreliable source noted Grandmother probably used Jiffy cornbread mix.  If you don’t know Jiffy it was a a small box mix to which you added eggs, milk, and baked.  Boom.  Cornbread.

Fascinating to see how traditional family recipes change yet curiously remain the same.

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(Not) Your Grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dressing

  • One Texas Corn Bread recipe
  • Two 14 ounce packages dry traditional seasoned stuffing mix
  • One large sweet onion, diced
  • 2-3 stalks celery, diced
  • one stick butter
  • 1-2 quarts chicken broth, low sodium
  • Sage, thyme, salt and pepper
  1. Prepare a dish of Texas Corn Bread the night before you make the dressing.  Set aside.
  2. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.  Saute the onion and celery until soft, about five minutes.
  3. Cut the corn bread into large cubes.
  4. In a very large mixing bowl gently mix the corn bread, dried stuffing mix, vegetables and chicken broth.  Add herbs, salt, and pepper to taste.
  5. Transfer dressing to a very large baking pan.
  6. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until heated through.

This is really not your Grandmother’s recipe but a close approximation.  I know it’s not the “real thing” because Grandmother (yours not mine) didn’t make a fresh tray of Texas Corn Bread for her dressing.  I have no idea what corn bread she used but the important take away is you want a 50/50 ratio between corn bread and dried stuffing mix.  Grandmother also added a couple of beaten eggs and some neck meat to her dressing.  I prefer to leave these ingredients out but the family won’t let me.

Cheats and Tips – Use Pepperidge Farm dried stuffing mix.  If you don’t Grandmother will hurt you.  If you are pressed for time substitute corn bread from a bakery.  If you are pressed for time AND lazy, Pep Farm has corn bread stuffing mix.  One stick of butter may not be enough and three may be too much.  You can always add more melted butter but once you add it, you can’t take it out.  With the chicken broth allow the texture to be your guide.  You want your dressing moist but not too soggy if you know what I mean and I think you do.  Go easy at first with your herbs, salt, and pepper.  Remember the dried stuffing mix is already seasoned and the broth will have sodium in it as well.

Is it dressing or is it stuffing?

Dressing because you don’t want to stuff the cavity of the bird for a number of reasons.  I’ve always baked my dressing in a separate pan.  And speaking of pans, you might need more than one baking pan.  This recipe makes a lot of dressing.

And while we’re sort of on the topic of Thanksgiving don’t forget the Squash Casserole.

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Texas Corn Bread

  • 1 1/2 cups yellow corn meal
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
  • 8 tablespoons margarine, melted and cooled
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Mix together dry ingredients.
  3. Beat eggs.  Add butter, margarine, and milk.
  4. Add wet to dry and mix until smooth.
  5. Pour into an 8 x 12 greased baking dish.
  6. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden brown on top and/or the sides are brown.

 

Adapted from a recipe in Delicioso! a cookbook from the Corpus Christi Junior League original copyright date December 1982.  The only change I’ve made over the years was to substitute light brown sugar for white sugar.  This is the family’s go to corn bread recipe.

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The Boxes

Nice box, eh?  We have two of these boxes in the kitchen cupboard.  And they are full of recipes.  Every now and then you need a reminder of why you started something.  Like this food blog.  I get questions all the time about this blog.

“Why did you start the blog?”

“How come there are no pictures of food?”

“Why don’t you have more recipes?”

  1. I was inspired by two books.  One was a community fund-raiser cookbook where everyone shares a recipe and the book is sold as a fundraiser.  The other book was a collection of Aunt Charlene’s recipes complied by her granddaughter after Charlene died.  I thought to myself, hey when you’re gone your recipes are gone with you.  So I started this blog.
  2. I cook.  I am not a photographer.  I’ve also made the conscious decision to not make this a for profit endeavor.
  3. When I have more time you’ll get more recipes.

The Boss and I were out for lunch and I got the following question:

“Why don’t you make that breaded chicken dish you made for the kids all the time that was breaded and baked, not fried?”

Then it hit me.  I started a food blog with the intention of capturing recipes from the past in a place where they could live on and enjoyed by others.

Did I mention I have two boxes of recipes?

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Banana Oat Pancakes

I took some vacation days in a valiant “use ’em or lose ’em” effort.  Today is the first day of an extended weekend in which I have nothing planned.  So without any work to be done I did what most people would do with plenty of time on their hands.

Make pancakes.

When The Architect and The Doctor were kids I made pancakes all the time.  Nowadays with just two in the house and one a non-pancake lover I don’t make pancakes that often anymore.  But I had time, two very ripe bananas, and buttermilk in the fridge.  And I was getting tired of banana muffins so…

Banana Oat Buttermilk Pancakes

  • 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/3 cup all-purpose white flour
  • 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
  • 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 beaten eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 2 tablespoons cooking oil
  • 1/3 cup low fat milk
  • 2 ripe bananas, smashed
  • Dash cinnamon

In a medium mixing bowl stir together flours, rolled oats, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate mixing bowl combine eggs, buttermilk, milk, and oil. Add egg mixture to flour mixture all at once. Stir batter just till blended.  Add two smashed bananas and fold gently into the batter.  Allow the batter to sit for 15 – 30 minutes before frying.
For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup of the batter onto a lightly greased preheated griddle or heavy skillet. Cook several pancakes at a time over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes, or till the tops are evenly bubbled and the edges are dry, then turn and cook until golden brown on the second side.

TIPS

The banana in the batter will burn easily so cook these cakes at a lower temperature than you normally use for pancakes.  I finally figured out medium was a good temperature.  The pancakes will take a little longer to cook but they won’t turn out dark brown.  These pancakes are pretty sweet by themselves but knock yourself out if you want to eat them with real maple syrup.  Fresh fruit would be better.  And peanut butter would be the best.

Peanut butter and banana pancakes.  Yup.

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What About Just a Little Meat?

 

Followed over time, vegetarian diets were associated with a substantially lower incidence of diabetes, indicating the potential of these diets to stem the current diabetes epidemic.

We see the same step-wise drop in rates of another leading killer, high blood pressure. The greater the proportion of plant foods, the lower the rates of hypertension, and the same with excess body fat. The only dietary group not on average overweight were those eating diets composed exclusively of plant foods, but again there was the same incremental drop with fewer and fewer animal products. This suggests that it’s not black and white, not all or nothing, any steps we can make along this spectrum of eating healthier may accrue significant benefits.

Source: What About Eating Just a Little Meat? | NutritionFacts.org

Source: PLOS ONE: Taiwanese Vegetarians and Omnivores: Dietary Composition, Prevalence of Diabetes and IFG

Source: Millennials and A Plant-Based Diet. Better Food, Better Choices.

Each and every meal is a choice.  Make good choices.  In my 20’s I pursued a vegetarian lifestyle for about two years.  Towards the end of that period I was eschewing dairy and eggs.  Then I stopped my veggie ways.  The reason?  I missed pizza.  The lessons learned however were not lost.  I thoroughly enjoy meatless meals now but if I want a piece of dead cow, I’ll eat dead cow.

Try not to get caught up in right vs. wrong.  Use your common sense.  Do not become the woman who fed her 11 month old nuts and fruit.  Just nuts and fruit!

Make wise, informed choices.  Understand as I have your need for calories decrease with age.  You have to eat less the older you are.  Strive towards more plant based meals and you’ll be OK.  Just don’t get too fruity or nutty about it all.