Summer solstice

 

Once again, I missed it. Oh, we remarked on the solstice and the longest day, but we didn’t celebrate it. I’ve always wanted to celebrate like they do in Scandinavian countries with picnics and bonfires and dancing around Maypoles. But what I really want is the fantastic spread of food associated with summer solstice. The menu usually includes many of the foods I love—salty, seafood, spreads, etc. It is, after all, a holiday that began in Sweden. And just for your calendars, depending on the tilt and rotation of the earth it can be anywhere from June 20 to June 22, but traditionally is celebrated June 24. The confusion in dates has something to do with old calendars, but I’m not going to try to explain it here.

This year, belatedly, I came across a menu that really spoke to me. I follow an online column called The Food Historian, by Sarah Wassberg Johnson, whose maiden name is a giveaway: she’s of Scandinavian descent. And she apparently gives a huge party for thirty or more people every year. This year, she published her menu and I’m sharing it with you, with due credit : The Food Historian Blog - THE FOOD HISTORIAN

Appetizers:

Deviled eggs; Fresh Pea Spread; Mushroom Pâté; Goat cheese; Creamed Pickled Herring; Rye Crackers

Sides: Dilled Potato Salad; Scandinavian Cucumber Salad; Pickled Beets; Pickled cucumber

Open Faced Sandwiches:

Salmon Cucumber Salad on White; Dill Havarti and Summer Sausage with Cucumber on Rye; Ham and Jarlsberg on Pumpernickel with Lingonberry Jam; Ski Queen Brunost on Rye with Strawberry Jam

Dessert:
Sandbakkels Small and Large with Jam and Whipped Cream; Midsummer Rice Pudding with Raspberry Sauce; Rommegrot Ice Cream

Drinks:
Rhubarb Gin & Tonics; Elderflower Punch.

Now, I’m not saying my dream midsummer menu would have all these choices. I’m not much on those sandwiches, except the salmon and cucumber, which I’d love. I’d fix the dill Havarti and summer sausage but leave out the cucumber, and I’d pass on the brunost, which translates to brown cheese. And it is very brown apparently. It’s made from leftovers of the cheesemaking process, boiled down until caramelized, and then shaped in blocks. Considered a good breakfast food. Not being a dessert fanatic, I’d probably pass on those too.

But, oh could I make a meal of those appetizers and sides! When I was young and in Chicago, we went to a wonderful restaurant called the Kungsholm and housed in the mansion built by inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick—think Harvester International. But back to food—the Kungsholm had an enormous buffet featuring all the foods from Johnson’s menu plus more in three stages: the cold appetizers, the hot dishes (such as veal), and dessert. I remember particularly the caviar, huge bowls of it. When I was newly married, my husband kept going back for more caviar, until my mother exclaimed she’d never seen a person eat so much of it. I’m sure the Kungsholm is where I developed or refined my taste for Scandinavian food. And a bonus: after the meal, you could attend the puppet opera. What I know of opera also comes from those trips to the McCormick mansion. But I digress from food.

If I had to pick one recipe from Sarah Johnson’s menu, I guess I’d choose:
Open-faced salmon cucumber sandwiches
For a small group, halve this recipe.

2 cans (5 oz. each) salmon

1 cup finely chopped English cucumber

2 scallions, sliced

fresh dill, minced

lemon juice or white wine vinegar

salt and pepper

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Mayonnaise to bind

Butter

Drain and flake the salmon, then stir in the cucumber, scallions, and fresh dill. Add salt and pepper and a splash or two of lemon juice or white wine vinegar and toss to coat. Stir in Dijon mustard and mayonnaise to coat.

Lightly butter enough thin baguette slices or cocktail rye for your party. Spoon salad onto buttered breads.

You can use tuna in this recipe instead of salmon, if you prefer. You can also use leftover grilled, poached or roasted salmon, but remember that it will be higher in fat content than the canned which will change the flavor. Canned salmon will provide a milder taste than either tuna or fresh fish.

You can find more of Sarah Johnson’s midsummer recipes at The Food Historian Blog - THE FOOD HISTORIAN

SKAL!

 

Crab and Krab

 

Thanks to neighbor, Margaret Johnson, Jordan and I have discovered the ubiquitous crab canapes that are so popular right now. So recently I put crab on the shopping list. I wanted canned, either chunks or flakes since the real thing is something like $59 a pound, and the last time I looked even at Central Market you had to buy a whole, pre-frozen pound. She came home with a pouch of imitation crab. I stuck it in the freezer and asked for the canned real thing. I tend to be a bit scornful of imitation anything.

Imitation crab was developed in Japan in the 1970s as a low-cost alternative to the real thing. It is generally made of whitefish, most often pollock, treated with natural and artificial flavors, sugar, sodium, and starch. Then it is molded into sticks and painted with food coloring to resemble the real thing. The good news is that it tastes much like real crab. It is, however, not as nutritious. Real crab is high in protein, nutrients, and minerals. These are washed away from the fish during processing. Imitation crab is also higher in carbs. Both are, however, about the same in calories.

But being frugal I couldn’t just leave that faux crab, so one night for a friend I made a salad. Since faux crab is pre-cooked, it’s great for salads and dips. The salad was pretty much like I make tuna or chicken salad, except for one key ingredient: Old Bay seasoning. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients

1 lb. imitation crab (sometimes called Krab)

½ c. celery, minced

3 Tbsp. red onion, minced

½ tsp. Old Bay seasoning

2 tsp. lemon juice

Salt and pepper to taste

½ c. mayonnaise

1-1/2 Tbsp. fresh dill

           Cut the crab into bite-size pieces. Mix everything thoroughly and chill. Serve in a lettuce leaf. Serves four generously. It was really good!

And here’s the crab canape recipe:

Ingredients

½ cup butter

 7 oz. crab meat, fresh or canned (I’d stick with the real thing here)

1 jar Old English Cheese spread (Kraft)

1 Tbsp. mayonnaise

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. Old Bay seasoning (optional but it gives the mixture more zing)

6 English muffins, split

           Melt butter on stove and stir in crab meat. Then, off heat, add the mayonnaise, garlic, and Old Bay. Split the English muffins and cover each open half with the cheese mixture, being sure to spread all the way to the edges. Freeze for twenty minutes for easier cutting.

Quarter each muffin half and place canapes on baking sheet. Heat broiler to Low and broil for 5-7 minutes until they are warmed through, and cheese is bubbling. If you want a golden top, switch broiler to High but watch carefully that they don’t burn.

Makes about four dozen.     

Stay cool and pray for rain. I heard it might possibly rain Monday.                                                                                                       

 

Green noodles, pesto, and a quick appetizer

 

Years ago, I had a friend who fixed lemon spaghetti. The single mother of two, she struggled to keep her budget balanced. She confessed that one night, with a beau coming for supper, she had no money for groceries and simply used what she had in her pantry. The result was spaghetti with lemon butter.

We were in graduate school together, and during that time, I ate a fair number of lemon spaghetti suppers. Fast forward a few years, and I was the single mother of four youngsters who loved pasta. Over the years I’ve changed and adapted the recipe, adding new ingredients one at a time. It’s now a much more complex dish and a family favorite.

Green noodles

1 16-0z. pkg. spinach egg noodles

1 stick butter

8 oz. mushrooms, sliced (I always buy whole and slice them myself)

4 scallions, chopped

1 can quartered artichoke hearts

1 ice-cube size piece of pesto, thawed or 1 Tbsp.

Juice of one lemon

Grated fresh Parmesan

Cook and drain noodles. Melt butter in the skillet. Sauté the mushrooms and scallions in the butter. Stir in artichoke hearts. Add pesto and lemon juice to taste—I like lots; the mushrooms soak up the lemon and are delicious. Add artichoke hearts and noodles and toss to coat. Top with Parmesan. Serve with baguette slices, and you’ve got supper!

Want more recipes that my family enjoys, along with a bit of history of my four kids and me? Check out my cookbook/memoir, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books (Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books (Stars of Texas Series): Alter PhD, Dr. Judy: 9781933337333: Books (amazon.com))

A cooking note: if you have an abundance of basil, perhaps in your garden, you can make your own pesto. Pine nuts are traditional, but in a nod to Texas I usually use ground pecans. Here’s a basic recipe:

 

Pesto

2 large cloves garlic

2 c. loosely packed basil leaves  

2 Tbsp. ground pecans

2 tsp. lemon or lime juice

2 Tbsp. parmesan

2 tsp. salt

½ tsp. black pepper

⅔ c. good olive oil

Process garlic and basil until finely chopped. Add remaining ingredients except olive oil and process until smooth. Then, with motor still running, add olive oil. I toss it over pasta, cooked potatoes, and fresh green beans, whatever comes to mind. Here’s the hint though: store it in the freezer in an ice cube tray, so you can pop out one cube at a time.

I’m on a pesto kick as I write this, so here’s a quick appetizer: Take a log of plain goat cheese, either 4 oz or 11 oz. depending on the number of guests, and carefully split it lengthwise. It will want to crumble, and you may have to patch it back together. Spread pesto over one split surface and reattach the other half of the log. Roll in toasted sesame seeds and serve with crackers.

 

 

 

 

The Joy of Finding a Lost Recipe

 

Longtime friends that I don’t see often, including my goddaughter, will be in Fort Worth for the Van Cliburn Piano Competition, and they want to come to the cottage for lunch one day. So we are mired in that, “I’ll fix something,” vs. “No, don’t go to any trouble. We’ll bring something” argument. In truth, I would feel a bit inhospitable if I let them bring lunch, and maybe there’s an element of not wanting them to think I’m too old or otherwise incapable.

At any rate, I decided since they’ve been in the East for years now, it’s time to serve them a Tex-Mex lunch. And I knew just the recipe I wanted. But I couldn’t find it. I could picture the sheet of paper it is on—with a box around the recipe. Jordan suggested we talked about what was in it so we could reconstruct it, but I couldn’t even remember that. All I remembered was Mexican, chicken, and so delicious that I fixed it frequently.

I have two appallingly thick folders of recipes in the file rack by my desk, and I went through each, carefully, page by page, twice (yes I can be obsessive when get an idea in my mind!). No luck. Just when I gave up and was considering a recipe for chicken enchilada pie, I remembered that slim folder by the side of my file rack. It mostly has old favorites from a previous existence, but every once in a while, I stick a favorite in there. And there it was: Queso Chicken Casserole. So here it is for you: I recommend it highly—and it’s easy.

You can tell this is a 
much loved
recipe

Ingredients:

32 oz. can refried beans, plain

1 can Rotel, probably the original

½ sweet onion, diced

¾ lb. Velveeta, diced

3-4 cups shredded chicken (yes, by all means use rotisserie chicken)

1 cup corn

½ cup cilantro, chopped

Grated cheese, either Mexican blend or cheddar

Lightly grease a 9 x 13 pan. Spoon refried beans into the pan and spread evenly (you may want to heat them a bit to make spreading easier).

Mix onion, Rotel, Velveeta and saute over medium heat in a large skillet, stirring a bit until the cheese is completely melted. Stir in the chicken and corn and mix.

Carefully spoon the chicken/cheese mixture over the refried beans, distributing it evenly. Then top with cheese. The recipe calls for Mexican blend, but I always prefer cheddar, and I go a bit more generous than the ½ cup called for.

Bake aat 350^o until casserole is bubbly and cheese on top is melted. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve immediately with corn chips. I think I’ll also add a spoonful of guacamole in a lettuce cup for pretty presentation.

Olé!

My new, favorite-ever dinner

 

I know some time ago I wrote about spatchcocked chicken—that method whereby you open a chicken and lay it flat so that it cooks evenly and much more quickly. And I’ve mentioned sheet pan chicken here, though I don’t know that I’ve actually written about how to do it. But combining the two is now my favorite dinner. It’s simple and simply delicious. Here’s a breakdown of what I did:

Spatchcocked sheet pan chicken

Vegetables

Choose vegetables that can stand up to prolonged, high temperature cooking—things like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots. To me, the best addition to the vegetable lineup is a sweet onion. So delicious when cooked in the chicken drippings.

Beets would be good except that they would bleed all over everything else. If you like turnips, throw them in. Fresh green beans are a medium addition—good but not great. Do not use things like broccoli or asparagus that you normally cook quickly.

For each person, use at least one medium potato. Peel and cut into chunks. Do the same with carrots (or use baby carrots). Peel the onion and cut into chunks. I tend to get carried away with the vegetables and end up with more than will comfortably fit in my pan. You want them to be in a loose single layer, not crowded in.

Choose a sheet pan or roasting pan with a good, high rim because this produces a lot of juice, and things could get messy. Line the pan with parchment paper; lay your vegetables out on the paper. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper, and drizzle with olive oil.  You could also sprinkle the chicken with a bit of dried thyme or other herb of your choice. To me, just cooking in the drippings gives them wonderful flavor, and they don’t need more.

Chicken

Spatchcock it: using heavy kitchen scissor, cut along the backbone until the opens up into one large, flat piece. Flip iy over and press firmly on the breast bone. You’ll hear it crack. Want to watch a video about spatchcocking, go here: spatchcocking a chicken - Bing video

A good view of what your spatchcocked chicken should look like

Season the chicken by carefully pulling the skin back and putting salt and pepper directly on the meat. Kind of rub it in with your fingers if you need to. Then gently pull the skin back into place. Pat dry paper towels over all the chicken to dry it and ensure crispy skin. Place the chicken, breast side up, directly on the vegetables.

Bake at 450^o for 40-55 minutes. Test by pricking the fat part of a thigh with a fork or skewer. Juices should run clear.

This makes great leftovers. I sometimes lunch on just the vegetables.

 

 

A hot plate, some pasta, and leftovers

 

A pasta concoction--what ingredients can you identify?

As the name indicates, I started this blog to explore cooking with a hot plate instead of a stove because I now cook with a hot plate and a toaster oven—and I can’t use both simultaneously or I’ll blow the circuit breaker. I’ve gotten comfortable enough with my induction hot plate that the recipes I choose aren’t necessarily geared to that heat source. But today I want to talk about pasta and the hot plate.

Pasta is a great dish for the hot-plate cook—it offers an easy way to entertain, and in this day, when pasta is no longer red sauce over spaghetti, you can experiment all you want. Pasta is also a great way to use up leftovers. Whatever you choose to put in your sauce, pasta allows you to cook from scratch and to deal with individual foods in your final dish.

Most recipes call for cooking the pasta and, while it’s cooking, making the sauce on another burner. If you only have one hot plate, you obviously can’t do that. My trick is to cook the pasta, whatever shape and size you want, and rinse thoroughly in cold water when you get it to al dente stage. Remember, it will cook a bit more when you reheat in your sauce. Rinsing gets rid of most of that loose starch that makes cold pasta clump. Sure, it will chill while you make the sauce, but when the sauce is ready, you can dump the pasta into the skillet and reheat. Once, in the novel, Saving Irene, I had Henny James, the main character, pour a little olive oil on the pasta to keep it from clumping (I’ve been known to do that). I was roundly criticized by a reader who otherwise loved the book but claimed no self-respecting Italian would ever do that unless they were making aglio e olio (basically garlic and olive oil pasta).

An aside: I’ve discovered the advantages of serving pasta in soup plates. It makes everything so much easier. The pasta can’t slide off the plate. And I also always have parmesan or pecorino in my freezer, for spontaneous pasta meals. But back to leftovers.

One evening I was preparing to leave town the next day and wanted to use up what I could from the refrigerator. Prowling around, I found some good, thinly sliced ham left from a sandwich project, a stub of zucchini, and some asparagus that wouldn’t last much longer. I had spinach fettucine in the cupboard—just the right amount.

I sliced the zucchini thin, julienned the ham, and cut the asparagus into bite-size pieces. I used salt and pepper generously on the vegetables. Then a dollop of butter—maybe 1/8 cup--went into the skillet, and I sautéed the vegetables a bit longer than the ham—they needed to cook, and the ham was precooked and very thin. When the vegetables were cooked, I added the ham and well-drained pasta to the skillet, stirred, and heated on low until thoroughly warm. Just before dishing, I gently blended in a good-sized dollop (heaping tablespoon) of sour cream and some parmesan. Surprised myself both at how good it was and how much I ate.

Another suggestion: use canned salmon as your base. Add green peas (I love frozen petite peas), sliced green onions, chopped spinach. Season the vegetables and sauté in butter. Then sprinkle maybe 2 tsp. flour over them and stir to distribute evenly. Slowly make a sauce by pouring in white wine and half and half—maybe in equal parts. When the sauce is the right thickness (you be the judge), stir in some fresh or dried herbs—maybe a bit of basil or thyme or oregano. Stir in the cooked pasta and top with grated parmesan or pecorino for serving.

In general, spaghetti or angel hair, even fettucine, are best with light sauces. Richer, thicker sauces might call for tagliatelle or another type of pasta with lots of flat surface for the sauce to cling to. Tubular pastas like rotini, penne, or ziti are also good for heavy, meaty sauces—and for cold salads. Leftovers can make great pasta salads. Got some chicken from last night? Add some artichoke hearts, maybe quartered, some green onion, bell pepper if you like it (I don’t), sliced hearts of palm, cherry tomatoes halved, goat cheese--the possibilities are endless. Season with salt and pepper and herbs of your choice, and dress with a mixture of sour cream and mayonnaise or use as I sometimes do your favorite bottled vinaigrette (we like Newman’s Original Oil and Vinegar).

Go ahead, look in your refrigerator, and see what you find. Experiment and make a pasta dish for dinner tonight!

 

 

The Chicken Salad Controversy

 

Not my picture but the texture of the salad looks close.
Also, I liked the platter idea for serving.

When the weather starts to warm, Jordan shies away from “heavy” meals like pot roast and prefers salads. I’m with her a hundred percent, but there are two males in the family to feed. So we try for substantial salads—Cobb Salad (not Christian’s favorite), Big Mac Salad and Taco Salad (both Christian’s favorites). Don’t even mention Salade Niçoise because tuna is not on the list of recommended foods, even though I buy it by the case for Jordan and me.

So the other night I tried chicken salad. Christian and I have texture differences. He doesn’t like diced or even minced celery because it’s crisp where he doesn’t want crisp; I love celery in salads but hold the chopped nuts. To me, they are the wrong texture in the wrong place. So I put celery in the chicken salad, and he picked it out. And gave the salad only a B rating because it had no grapes and no nuts. The whole reason I liked the idea was that it had flavors different from the usual.

There is also the matter of how you like chicken cut for a salad—ruling out grilled chicken salad which is to me a whole different dish. Some liked it diced in nice-sized chunks (when I looked online for pictures of chicken salad, almost all showed chunks); some like it shredded, but you have to start with a warm piece of chicken to do that effectively. I used to whir chicken in the processor, so that it was really fine, and the salad came out with a creamy, almost spreadable texture. Now my choice is to mince it (partly so I don’t have to get out the processor). So here’s what I did:

Cilantro/Lime Chicken Salad

3 cups minced chicken (from a rotisserie chicken)

2/3 cup regular mayonnaise (light mayo or yogurt work but not as well)

1 tsp. garlic powder

½ tsp. each salt and pepper

2/3 cup minced celery (do string the celery before mincing)

¼ cup minced sweet onion

¼ cup green onion, chopped fine (you can use all sweet union or all green according to taste; I am on a sweet onion kick but wanted the color from green onion tops)

½ cup finely chopped cilantro (no need to stem it first)

Juice of one lime (more or less, according to taste—Jordan and I like more)

Optional: 1 sweet bell pepper, finely diced (if you cook with me much at all, you’ll learn I never use bell pepper: it doesn’t like me, and I don’t like it)

Mix it all together and chill before serving. Nice in an avocado half. Jordan offered “the boys” tortillas, so they could make it into a wrap, but I don’t think that idea went over well with either of them. A fruit salad might be a nice accompaniment. We had a traditional, tossed green salad. I’ll make this again and again this summer.

A note on stringing celery: somehow in raising Jordan, I never taught her to string celery. She used to stuff celery with cream cheese as an appetizer, and I’d get stuck with these strings. I have since tried to show her the technique. It’s like the time I watched Jamie struggling to peel a hard-boiled egg. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to peel them under running cold water?” I demanded. He said no. Now he knows. I’m quite sure my mom taught me those little tricks, along with a pinch of sugar in tomato sauces, but I never passed them on to my children.