A week of heavy foods (1/22-1/28/11)

I'm so far behind on updates here.  My intention was to do one a week or so.  Yet, here we are, two weeks behind.  The semester is up and rolling, and my food plan is working well, so well that my freezer is bursting at the seams.  That's all fine and good, but hasn't left me much time for updates here.

Two weeks ago, I rounded out the previous week's comfort food indulgences with more of my mom's comfort foods, and some of the kids' favorites:  Lasagna, Hamburger Stroganoff, hearty Hodge Podge Soup, and Apple Crisp.

The Hamburger Stroganoff is a hit across generations.  My brother's one son adores it (I believe my mother, in knowing so left him a special copy of the recipe before she died) and my boys love it too.  As most of my mother's recipes, it too has cream of something soup in it.  Whatever, cream of whatever haters.  It rocks.

Hamburger Stroganoff
(from Sally W.--I have no clue who she is)

1/2 c. minced onion
1 clove garlic,minced
1/8 c. butter
1 lb. ground beef (I used 2 lbs ground turkey)
2 Tbs. flour
1-8 oz can mushrooms (I used fresh)
10 1/2 oz c. cr. of chicken soup, undiluted
1 c. sour cream
2 tbs. minced parsley (I omitted)

Saute onion and garlic in butter over med heat.  Stir in meat and brown.  Stir in flour, salt, pepper, and mushrooms.  Cook 5 minutes.  Stir in soup.  Simmer uncovered 10 minutes.  Stir in sour cream.  heat thoroughly.  Sprinkle with parsley.  Serve in ring of noodles or rice.  ( I used whole wheat noodles).

And yes, it rocked.  Rocked to the point that the boys almost came to blows over eating the leftovers.  I figure that if I'm using ground turkey, it's ok to use cream of soups, you know?  I know I could substitute the "lite" cream of soups or use light sour cream.  If only Aldi carried those options.....

I served that delight with Apple Crisp, a recipe card not written in my mother's hand and inscribed "for Peggy Hubble" which indicates it came to her after marriage but when she was still young enough to be referred to as "Peggy" OR that the owner of the recipe knew her before marriage when everyone referred to her as Peggy.

Apple Crisp

6 cups (6 med) peeled, sliced cooking apples (I used whatever we had)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
3/4 c. firmly packed Br. Sugar
1/2 c unsifted flour
1/2 c. rolled oats
1tsp. Cinnamon, if desired (I say the more the merrier)
1/2 c. butter or margarine

Preheat oven 375F.  Slice apples in 8-9 in. sq. pan.  Sprinkle with lemon juice and water.  Combine Br. sugar, flour, rolled oats and cinnamon.  Cut in butter until crumbly.  Sprinkle over apples.  Bake 40-45 minutes or until apples are tender.

Of course, this was a hit:)  And it's not much different than any traditional apple crisp recipe, it was in my mom's recipe box, so it counts!

Also, to freeze, I made a triple batch of Hearty Hodge Podge soup.  It's not much to look at, that's for sure.  Sort of a grayish brown mess.  But it's yummy and satisfying and filling.  And easy to make, too.  I wouldn't recommend tripling the recipe of you don't have a HUGE pot.  Mine wasn't big enough and that caused all sorts of problems.   I didn't really notice that the recipe card says it serves 12-14, and there I went, tripling it.  So, if any of you want any, let me know....I actually did give two quarts away and ended up throwing some away that went bad over time.  I have at least two gallons in the freezer.

Hearty Hodge Podge Soup

1 1/2 lb. Ground beef (I used turkey)
1 medium onion
1 clove garlic
3 cans dilute Minestrone (or if you buy the ready to heat, be sure to omit water later on)
1 can pork and bean in tomato sauce (I used vegetarian)
salt
1 1/2 chopped celery
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tbs. Worchestersire sauce
3 c. water

In large sauce pan, cook beef, onion, garlic till beef is browned and onion is tender.  Stir in soup, beans, 3 c. water, celery, W. sauce, and oregano.  Simmer covered for 15-20 min.

This freezes well, thankfully!

And finally, we finished off the week with my mom's lasagna.  It's certainly by no means a traditional lasagna, no more so than her "chili soup" is traditional chili.  However, it is the lasagna I grew up with and it's the lasagna that I think of when I think "lasagna."  We have a whole other one in the freezer just waiting for another week.  There were three small pieces left over.

Lasagna

1 can Italian style peeled tomatoes, size 2 1/2 (I used chopped, and had to look up what a size 2.5 can is, information readily available on the web, so look it up yourself if you need to because now I forget)
1 cup water
1 tps salt
1ps oregano
dash pepper

Simmer uncovered for 1/2 hour.  Ad i can tomato paste and 1 cup water.  Continue simmering meanwhile brown:

1 1/2 lb. ground round steak (again, no surprise, I used ground turkey) in
1/3 c. oil (or less)  (I used coconut oil)
1 tps garlic pwd
1 tps salt
pepper-dash
parsley, sprinkle (I omitted)

Add meat to sauce (after draining grease) and simmer 1 hr.

Layer: sauce, noodles, sauce, cheeses ending with layer sauce and sprinkle of Parmesan.

Cheeses:  1 pint (or 2) cottage cheese (mix 1 egg, beaten with) (I used 1 pt. of cottage and 1 pt. of ricotta)
                1 lb. mozzarella cheese, sliced (I used grated and used less than a pound)
                Parmesan, grated (please, dear friends, not the gnarly nasty crap with the green label on a plastic
bottle...use the real stuff.  They sell it at Aldi, inexpensively.)

I also used whole wheat lasagna noodles, not the new fangled kind that you don't cook.  I like whole wheat pasta.

Bake 350F for 30 min. (Best made ahead).

I made mine on Saturday and cooked it Wednesday and it was droolishious.

Now I want to thaw the other one and eat it this week, but I shan't.  I shall wait until the middle of February or March when I need a pick me up.

Kids' Favorites and Winter

This weekend, I started a new endeavor: to do a modified "once-a-week cooking" regime. It was also the last weekend of winter break *and* moderately cold. I'm teaching three sections this semester of more-or-less the same course, and I'm making very few changes, so I had very little prep work to do. The kids aren't involved in any activities right now. Therefore, the weekend was slow and restful. In fact, I spent a late morning both Saturday and Sunday sleeping in and reading in bed.

Since I desperately love winter cooking and cooking comfort foods, and since I do so well cooking big, I've planned to double everything that I cook for the next few weeks, while it is cold and before the semester and Spring soccer heat up. So, this was a perfect weekend for me to prepare several of Mom's recipes, including two of my kids' favorites and one of my favorites.

Since it was Sunday and we'd all be home for dinner, I decided to double up for Sunday dinner, with two recipes from Grandma: Burger Bean Cups and Coffee Cake. All families have those staple comfort foods. The differ from family to family and region to region and decade to decade, but we all have them. In my family, one of those staple comfort foods for me growing up was Burger Bean Cups. It was one recipe I'd request when I'd know I was in college and going home for the weekend. My kids liked it as well. I've made it for years, and my mom would make it frequently when we'd visit. It's very much a 1970s classic, including both green beans and cream of mushroom soup. Who knows where she got this recipe. There's no provenance indicated on the recipe card, but she did go to the effort of typing the card on an unlined, unadorned recipe card.

Burger Bean Cups

1 can cr. of Mushroom soup
1 lb. gr. beef
1/3 c. fine dry bread crumbs
1/4 c. finely chopped onion
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 tsp. salt
dash pepper
1 pkg. (9 oz.) frozen cut gr. beans (cooked and drained)

1/4 tsp. dried dill leaves

Thoroughly mix 1/4 c. soup, beef, bread crumbs, onion, egg, salt, and
pepper. Divide into 4 mounds on waxed paper. Flatten each into
5-inch circle. Turn up edge of meat to form a 1/2-inch rim; remove from
paper. Place in shallow baking dish. Combine remaining soup, beans
and dill. Spoon into burger cups. Bake at 350 for 30 min.
Makes 4 burger cups.

Now, obviously, a mere four bean cups won't do me much good. There are five people in my immediate family, and Brendan was eating with us. Plus, when do my boys ever eat just one of something they like? So, I more than tripled this recipe and made 8 bean cups and froze the extra seasoned meat and beans separately (not made into cups).

Also, there's no need to add the salt. Really.

Whenever Mom came to visit, whenever we'd visit her, and pretty much whenever she went anywhere, we could count on her bringing her Coffee Cake. In fact, she had a special "Coffee Cake" pan and anyone who knew her well, knows exactly what pan I speak of: silver 9"x11" baking pan with a sliding lid. Oh, yes, she also made other baked goods in it--rice krispie treats and chocolate chip squares mostly. She may have made non-desserts in it, but I can't think of any.

This recipe card indicates that she got the recipe from her sister-in-law, my Aunt Dee; however, buried deep in the recipe box is a very similar recipe in my grandmother's hand, my mom's mom, and Dee's mother-in-law. So, maybe Dee got it from Grandma Maute. It's not a highly unique recipe. It could have come from anywhere, but from now on, we all know it as Grandma Hubbell's Coffee Cake.

Coffee Cake

2 c. brown sugar
2 c. flour
1/2 c. shortening
1
tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 c. buttermilk
1 tsp. soda

Mix sugar, flour, shortening, cinn and salt together keeping out 3/4 c.
crumbs to use on top of cake. (I use pastry blender for mixing crumblie
portion.)

Bake 350 for 30 min.

This is one recipe I didn't double this weekend, being stupid. I just assumed that there would be leftovers for the next night or for breakfast. That's always how it worked at Mom's house. Silly me. Brendan, Nathan, Aidan, and Tynan went to town on it, even fighting over the crumbs.

There were no leftovers within minutes of my cutting the cake.

What is January without beef stew? I wouldn't know, since I've never experienced one. With snow in the forecast, I decided this would be a good week for some beef stew. Ideally, this recipe is best when it's baked in the oven, but it was more convenient to use the crock pot, plus I didn't have an oven proof pot large enough to double the recipe. Doubled, it just fits into my large crock pot.

Mom got this recipe when we lived in Coshocton, Ohio, Susie Tileston.

Susie's Stew

1 1/2 lbs stew meat, salt, pepper (here, Mom added in at a later date, 1/2
tsp basil)

carrots, potatoes, celery, onion <--on top of meat V-8 (2 c?) or
1 tomato sauce 8 oz, 1 tbs. bouillon

3 or 4 Tbs. tapioca

mix liquid and tapioca and pour over.

Bake 3 1/2 hrs at 325

This turns out fine in the crock pot on low and doubles well. At a later date, Mom copied a similar recipe on the back. I'm sure it's fine as well, although I've not made it, nor do I doubt that I ever will. Why would I? Susie's Stew is awesome.

2 lbs stew meat cut in 1 1/2" pieces
2 med onions-cut
3 stalks celery-cut
4 med carrots-cut
1 c tomato juice
1/3 c tapioca
1 tbs sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp basil
(2 med potatoes)

cover and cook 300 --2 1/2 hrs then add potatoes, cover and cook 1 hr until
done.

Finally, I had a couple of cans of chicken due to expire soon. Who knows why I had them in the cupboard since I don't like canned chicken. Maybe I got some wild idea that canned chicken would be good in my lunch? They were on sale? Who knows. Anyway, seeing as I missed my opportunity to use that chicken to pay off library fines during "Food for Fines" and couldn't stand to see it go to waste, I decided I had to figure out a way to use it up. Because one of my children really, really likes rice-based, creamy, baked casseroles, and since no one else in the family really dislikes them *and* they make such good left-overs, which means Brendan will finish them off, I decided to look for some "chicken and rice" kind of thing.

As it turns out, there was such a recipe in the recipe box. It's not one I ever remember Mom making, although I'm sure that there are many meals I've forgotten. The recipe card doesn't look well worn like so many others, but two things drew my attention: The name of the recipe and the provenance.

It's a typical 1970's casserole. Nothing special, but the name "Golden Chicken and Rice" just made me feel warm and sunny. Also, in the late 1960s and early 1970s we lived in Coshocton, Ohio. Both my brother and I remember those years as good years, and I think my mom did, too. She made some good friends there, including Susie. But her closest friend, I think, was an elderly woman, Nina Haus. Nina, a widow, had immigrated with her husband to the United States from Romania, before Communist take over. Nina loved children, gardening, cooking, and hand crafts. She became a motherly figure for my mom, whose mother died while we lived in Coshocton. This recipe is recorded as one of Nina's. Again, it's not unique by any means, there are hundreds if not thousands of similar recipes. But, it was Nina's. And that was important to Mom.

Golden Chicken Soup

1/4 c. onion
1/4 c. gr. pepper
2 tbs. oleo
(Dawn's note: don't you love saying the word "oleo?" Does anyone use that word
any more?)
1 can cr. chicken soup
1/2 c. milk
1/4 tsp hot pepper
sauce
2 cans boned chicken (5 oz each)
3 c. cooked rice (1 c. rice to 3
c. water) (Dawn's note: I used brown rice because that's all I use for anything
any more)
1 can onion rings (Dawn's note: I forgot to get the canned onion
rings, so I popped into Big Lots and picked up a small bag of off-brand fungyun
type onion rings from the Aisle of Lost Chips)

Saute onions and peppers
in oleo (there's that fun word again!). Add remaining ingredients and bake 10
min. at 450.

OK, so, I decided that the onion rings were to be a topping. It just seemed a little too gross to mix them into the the wet mess. As Brendan said when he saw the chicken, soup, rice, milk, etc. (all but the onion rings) sitting in a bowl, "This looks like cat puke, but I bet it will make good leftovers. I mixed all but the onion rings together, put it in a casserole dish, topped it with crushed onion rings, and popped it in the oven a few days later. I don't know if fresh and warm 10 minutes at 450 would be enough to heat it through, but it certainly wasn't enough time to warm it through cold from the refrigerator. In the future, I'll probably do the more typical "heat at 350 until heated through). Aidan and Brendan liked it. Everyone else ate it without complaint. Brendan finished off the leftovers a couple of days later.

Chili Soup

I grew up eating "chili soup." It wasn't until I went to college or later that I realized that most people don't automatically use "chili" as an adjective. The label on the recipe card simply says "chili," but I know I've seen "chili soup" in my mother's handwriting somewhere.

Since I've had my own home, I've made other chili recipes frequently and rarely made my mother's. It's not that I don't like her recipe. I guess I was just making my own way, finding my own preferences. One of the first recipes for chili that I made after getting married (and I got married rather young, right after college, so really didn't start doing any large degree of cooking until I was married) comes from the Sunset Vegetarian Cookbook. I'm surprised to find that this cookbook looks the same as it did when I first purchased it in the mid-1980s. That recipe calls for mustard seed, chocolate, cinnamon, and toppings, which all seemed quite radical back in the day. I'd never thought of putting cheese on top of my chili, let alone pickled onion. I've used a variation of this particular chili recipe for years. However, one day just a few years ago, I somehow agreed to host a gathering of my teenage sons and their friends to watch The Ohio State vs. University of Michigan football game. Being planned solely by the boys themselves, it was done rather on the spur of the moment, and as luck would have it, game day fell on the same day as our local holiday parade, an event my family has dubbed "the longest parade in the universe." In fact, this parade is walked in by seemingly every single citizen and organization in our community. It seems ever family in town has at least one member in the parade.

This little event and the spur of the moment planning on the part of the boys left me needing to make two crock pots of chili in a hurry. So, I tried something I'd never tried before. Chili seasoning packets. I also had at least two vegetarians coming, so I decided to just make both batches vegetarian, which saved the time to brown beef. In essence, I chopped some onions and opened up cans of beans and tomatoes, dumped it all in the crockpots, added packets of seasoning, and a few hours later, voila! chili that had the boys drooling. One young man asked me to give his mother my recipe for the best chili he'd ever eaten. Flattering, yet disappointing.

My first thought upon deciding to engage in this activity was that I'd start with one of mom's signature recipes: rhubarb pie, lasagna, hamburger stroganoff, strawberry jam, coffee cake, pumpkin roll, Dilly Bread, the list could go on.

But today just called for Chili Soup (pictures to come)

Peg Hubbell's Chili Soup

1 lb ground beef
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic



1 large can crushed tomatoes with puree
1 small can tomato sauce
1 can Bush beans in chili sauce
1 can Bush pinto beans or refried
1 can H2O or more
1 Tbs chili powder
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp sugar
Bay leaf, basil, oregano
salt, pepper

That's all that's written on the recipe card. I assume that she assumed any idiot could figure out you mix it all together, heat, and stir.

I doubled the recipe (which I frequently try to do so that I can freeze some and have leftovers) and I didn't use Bush brand beans. I assume that at one point, there simply weren't as many brand options available. Instead, I used Kroger brand beans "chili ready".

I served this with a green salad and corn meal muffins. The muffins tasted fine, but didn't look very appealing since, at the last minute, I realized I didn't have any white flour in the house and had to make them with whole wheat flour.

This recipe got a 5/5 with all of us enjoying it.