RECIPES ON PAGE 1

+All-American Apple Pie

+"Ramona's" Chocolate Chip Cookies

+Chocolate Lebkuchen

+Cut-Out Cookies

+Pitzells

+Split Seconds (cookies)

RECIPES ON PAGE 3

+Black and Tan Frosting for Cookies

+Charmoula

+Fettucine Alfredo

+Game Day Slow Cooker Chicken Salad

+Mom Page's Scalloped Potatoes

+Pumpkin Bread

+Pumpkin Pie

+Salmon Cakes

VENISON:

Fantastic Fudge Pie

by Portia Little

Recipes, Roses & Rhyme

by Portia Little

Thanksgiving Dutch Apple Pie

Watching People Eat

I had a very early appointment for my dog at the vet’s and found that I would have a long wait.  I yearned for a cup of coffee.  The only place open so early was a truck stop café, new to me, and that was fine. When I opened the door, 13 male heads swung around from the counter seats to me at the door. They were started at the feminine invasion.  Big mouth, that I am, I blurted out:  “What is it?  Ladies’ day?”  They guffawed, and swung back to their coffee on the counter.

I got my coffee and sat at the only table, a tiny one in a corner.  I didn’t eavesdrop. In fact, I was immediately struck by the rough musicality of their voices while they slurped coffee in the infrequent pauses. The men were obviously joined in camaraderie, and it was also clear most knew each other and this was a regular morning affair.  The sound and rhythm of their voices was reminded me of a drinking song from a light opera—The Student Prince, perhaps.  In waves, there was some sort of an overture, a joke or bit of gossip perhaps, then a crescendo of laughter punctuated by a snort or two. I could tell that there was sort of a leader, the counter conductor, changing subject and tone between sips of coffee. I also heard a duet, two men in a teasing contest. It was wonderful watching them enjoy their morning coffee.

There is a caveat, however. Most people don’t like being watched, certainly not studied while they eat.  I was recently reminded of this. A picture of a baby, nearly a toddler, the daughter of a former student, crossed my desk the other day. The dark haired child was stunningly lovely, not cute. She was sitting on a lawn in a beautiful, rather classic, baby dress. The child obviously realized that she was being photographed. There was no doubt about it. While one hand was gathering red-sauced spaghetti into her mouth, the other, fingers spread, was gently smearing sauce over her lovely dress, and her _expression was utter disdain, even contempt, at being spied on during such a pleasure as  hands-on pasta. The photo is a treasure. Worth a thousand words? You bet. But the words are, “How rude you are to watch me eat!”

I love to eat at the finest possible restaurants once in a while, and I save to do so.

There, I can watch two types of people eat their gourmet offerings. Group one: The people who can afford to dine fine frequently. They know their food. They are precise in evaluations of each dish—taste, texture, plating and innovation. They are also comfortable eaters. Enjoyment comes before manners, although they are mannerly enough, sort of Emily Post with gusto. They dig in, but some magic keeps the sauce from their shirts.

Group two, includes me:  These dinners are unaccustomed to some of the silver-- a thingy to open clams, an extra plate (What’s this for?) or being served a portion of something so small that it looks as if you are supposed to either swallow it in one bite or put it in your purse. From the first group, one learns the joy of eating well comes with practice, practice that few of us can afford. The second group is clearly educational.

I need manners that the food deserves, many of us do.

The food deserves excellent service, too, and the truly great restaurants know that service complements the food. This is to say that the waiters, the maitre 'd and the sommeliers (especially) are well trained.  They have instincts about diners. Should they stand back? Should they hover in case advice on forks is needed, or questions asked, “What is this that I am eating?” This type of service is wonderful; it takes care of one’s every preference. It is a complex art.

But now, with the heat and humidity of August, I leave you with simplicity—a pleasant lemon cookie, easy to make, to pick up with fingers and to eat. I’ll be watching you. Enjoy.

RECIPE:

Lemon Butter Cookies

½ cup sugar

½ cup powdered sugar

¾ cup butter (preferred) or margarine, softened

¼ cup oil

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 egg

2-½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Yellow decorating sugar (optional)

In large bowl, beat sugar, powdered sugar, butter and oil until light and fluffy.  Add lemon peel, lemon juice and egg; blend well. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; mix well. Cover with plastic wrap, refrigerate 1 hour for easier handling.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Shape dough into 1-inch balls; roll in decorator sugar. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350 for 7-12 minutes or until set.  Immediately remove from cookie sheets.  Makes about 3 ½ dozen cookies.

--“The Complete Book of Baking,” Pillsbury

Zesty Baked Trout

by Portia Little

Enjoy today's catch baked with a spicy topping

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 1/2 pounds trout fillets

3/4 teaspoon lemon and pepper spice

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt butter with lemon juice in shallow pan. Coast both sides of fillets with butter mixture. Lay fillets side by side, overlapping slightly if necessary, in pan. Mix spices together; sprinkle over fillets. Bake 20-25 minutes or until fish flakes and is done. Serves 5-6.

Note: This recipe also works well with other fish fillets, such s catfish.

Recipe from:

Finger Lakes

Food, Fact and Fancy

by Portia Little

Thanksgiving

If it’s the parts that make the whole, you could put that whole 20 lb., bronzed turkey in the middle of the table and you still won’t have Thanksgiving dinner. Although there seems to be a turkey on the cover of about every magazine except “Popular Mechanics,” “TIME” and “Gentleman’s Quarterly,” (They sometimes put human turkeys on their covers.), I think it is the side dishes that turn the turkey into a feast. We all know that certain things are mandatory: mashed potatoes, stuffing in the bird (call it dressing if it is in separate dish), and pies. 

Because He-Who-Must-Be-Fed is sage addict, and I have to double stuffing, super-sage half, cover the breast of the bird Extreme Sage and bake the rest under foil. It’s ok, he eats it for breakfast for three or four days. HWMBF also has certain side dishes that must be on the Thanksgiving table even if we don’t have them again for months. Also, these sides and relishes must be served a certain way. For instance, bread and butter pickles, dills and pimento-stuff olives always go in a cut glass, Victorian relish dish that has three divided sections. There are other olives, too, green, black and Kalamata, but they do not go in that glass dish.

Other families have olive “musts,” too. For those with youngsters, pitted black olives for children are mandatory. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving with out black olives on their ten little fingers. I believe this practice stops when either they are 16 or when their fingers are too big to wiggle into those little holes.

Like the other givens, pumpkin pie is traditional because of that song about going to Grandmother’s. (Why does Grandmother always have to do all the work? Perhaps now she isn’t.)  But I’ve notice lately that pumpkin cheesecakes appear more and more. Sure, the cheesecakes are more complicated than pies, but pumpkin ones are pretty easy to make for cheesecakes.  HWMBF likes pumpkin cheesecake and Dutch Apple Pie (mince, too at Christmas).

While cooking for the holidays, a wife knows that her mother in-law hovers over her (Mother-in-laws always arrive early.), whether over the wife’s shoulder at the stove or glaring down from behind the Great Stove and Oven in the skies. I know that many husbands, like HWMBF, restrain from saying, “My mother didn’t make it that way.” But wives know that’s what they are thinking. Wives read their husbands signals well. An arched eyebrow while examining Brussels sprouts; a loud, “Ahem…” when the yams come out of the oven; and a sigh, seeing the creamed onions. Uh-huh, all signals to say “my mother always made it better.” 

Now, HWMBF is usually very pleased with my cooking, but I know his likes and dislikes. I know that the cranberry sauce should be lumpy with berries, not smooth, that most pies require something called “real whipped cream,” and that Cool whip is first cousin to plastic. So, succinctly our Thanksgivings includes, along with the turkey, the above relishes and also celery hearts and tiny sweet jerkins. Yams (without marshmallows) are ok, but skip any cooked carrots, and include braised leeks as sides. I add two favorites of mine: spiced apples (Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite) and spiced peaches.

I like the crabapples so much that one year I was frustrated that the markets didn’t have them. My friend, Pat Amos, whose family has orchards in Williamsburg, was kind enough to drive me around the orchard’s paths until we came to a crab apple tree that she recommended.  That ride is a very pleasant memory. The spiced crabapples on the table always bring back that lovely sunny autumn afternoon.

So it will be easy for me Thanksgiving, the 20 lb farm-raised bird is ordered, the ingredients for the sides are on hand, and HWMBF will be around, too. He always comes to the kitchen to see if his stuffing is just right, “I need,” he says,  “to give you some sage advice.”

Sprinkle ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese into you usual piecrust. Spread cheese around, pushing some up the sides of the crust. Reserve in freezer while making filling.

Filling: 4-6 large tart (Granny Smith) apples, peeled, cored and sliced.

Put 1-teaspoon cinnamon, ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, and 2 tablespoons cornstarch into a large bowl. Mix well. 

Sprinkle 1-teaspoon vanilla and 1 teaspoon lemon juice over the mix. Add apples to the bowl.  Melt 4 Tbs. melted butter and pour mixture over the apples. Turn all with spatula to coat apples. Spoon mixture into reserved piecrust. With fork, arrange apples in a neat heap, higher in the center. Sprinkle topping over the apples and bake 1 hour and 15 minute at 350 degrees. Put drip pan on shelf below pie.

Recipes in this column:  

Mushroom-Bacon Quiche;

Fresh Plumb Crumb

Plums Are Good in August

by Sally D. Ketchum

“The grass is greener on the other side of the fence.”  While we adults pretty much understand this is a natural yearning to be ignored, it is a passionate feeling in childhood that is a big nag for a little kid. I longed for certain things, some reasonable, like Nancy’s naturally curly hair (I was tortured with Toni home permanents.), and some quite silly, to see a real wrestling match (Surely, it wasn’t fake as my father said.), and to have a horse (We lived in the city.)  One longing involved food. I yearned for a certain meal, and this brings me to my subject today: plums. 

The background: My middle class mom was usually able to come up with gingersnaps or sugar cookies (on occasion a Fig Newton from my father’s hoard) for occasional treats for me and my childhood friend, Jutta. Jutta is German, and her family kept many of the customs of that country. Most fascinated me, as foreign things arouse the curiosity of children.  So when we played at Jutta’s house and her mother offered us saltines, common salt crackers, I thought they were nearly magical just because Jutta’s mom handed them out.  My mother was disappointed with me when I related news of this great treat, and perplexed that I valued saltines over the gingersnaps.  This was, she explained, a case of “greener grass the other side of the fence.” (I realize now, of course, that my mother was a Cookie Snob, and that saltines are, perhaps, healthier than many other things.)

One day, invited to Jutta’s table for a simple supper, heated canned purple plums were served over egg noodles as the entrée.  How marvelously strange, I thought, hot purple food. I wondered what other strange things people eat in other countries. When I related this menu to my mother, she was peeved and asked me some serious meat and potato questions about dinners. I’ve kept touch with Jutta through adulthood, but it was only recently that I mentioned the noodles and plums.

Jutta had to think a moment. “Oh yeah, I remember that.”

“Was it an old German recipe?” I asked.

“Oh no,” she laughed. “My mom was very frugal. We were helping a lot of relatives in German after the war, too. Money was short. So mom just cooked noodles and threw whatever was in the cupboard over them. We had some strange stuff. That night it was canned purple plums.” I was let down, of course, and I lost my desire for more plums on noodles. (However, I have learned that plums are the choice of fruit in Central Europe to incorporate in meat recipes, especially recipes for pork and poultry, as in pork stew and goose stuffing. Some of these recipes may seem strange to Americans. On the other hand, they are showing up on many fine dining menus.) But plums, plums without noodles? Oh, boy! I love them whether purple, burgundy, green and nearly black.  I am very happy: it’s plum time now.

Plums go far back into history. In fact, during the Middle Ages, the word, “plum” meant every type of fruit that could be dried, including raisins. So the Christmas plum pudding might not have any plums in it at all!  A variety of dried fruits were common since drying food was a main type of preserving food before refrigeration, and many wild plums, easily obtainable, were edible.  Cherries, peaches, apricots are also members of the plum genus (Prunus domestica), and of interest to us in cherry country, since the plum is considered closest to the cherry, the main difference being size.

Now that the cuisines of other countries are entering American cooking, I think we will see more recipes with plums accompanying fatty meats, in stuffings for poultry and in some stews. Still, these days, it’s still great simply to have a bowl of colorful plums sitting on the kitchen table.  Just now recipes for plums are all over, in magazines and online and traded at parties. I notice that they are for dishes that are especially delicious and that, although some recipes are long, they are quite easy. I’m going to try a few—one plum of a kitchen task.

Request: He-Who-Must-Be-Fed put by 30 quarts of dill pickles (not icebox pickles) last summer. He was not satisfied with their “crunch.”  He would like reader tips on producing a crisp, crunch dill pickle.

Sally Ketchum is a northern Michigan food writer. A Green Gage plum tree grows outside her kitchen window.

Fruit mixture:

5 cups chopped, pitted plums

2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca

3 eggs

1 ½ cups sugar

½ cup all purpose flour

½ teaspoon nutmeg

3 tablespoons milk

TOPPING:

¾ cup rolled oats

¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup margarine or butter, melted.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.  In medium bowl, combine plums and tapioca; set aside.  In large bowl, lightly beat eggs; stir in sugar, flour, nutmeg and milk.  Gently fold in plum mixture. Pour into greased pan.  In medium bowl, combine rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Stir in margarine; sprinkle over plum mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

The Breakfast Experience

by Sally D. Ketchum

    First things, first.  Being an ardent lover of food and a morning person, too, breakfast is my immediate daily concern. In fact, opening my eyes mornings to greet the world is a, “Hey, I’m awake, I’m alive and I’m hungry,” experience.  So I’m focusing on breakfast today, but first I want to reminisce about breakfast nooks. Unless you live in a rather old house, the breakfast nook is probably a thing of the past, and I think that’s too bad.

    My childhood home had a breakfast nook, one with a window looking out onto a rather ordinary back yard. But the nook was a comforting place because it brought everyone together for meals. Although the house had a large dining room, Mom only served special dinners there, holiday feasts and a few Sunday meals.  Usually, we ate in the nook.

    Although I have heard that breakfast nooks are coming back into favor now, it seems to me that kitchen islands have mostly replaced nooks in homes.  It is true, as John Donne so poetically (and clearly) wrote, “No man is an island entire to itself.”  This is especially true at breakfasting at kitchen islands because, there, island eating means life rushes by and swirls around you. There you are, donut in hand, when a passing child elbows you to attention to display a new loose tooth. Shortly thereafter, an approaching teen, who intends to unload a back pack that seems to hold supplies needed for another Lewis and Clark expedition and gym shoes, forces you to shift, mug and donut, to the island’s end. Finally, the spouse comes down to the island to eat, and to first shake the comic section of the newspaper in your face before he disappears behind it.  No, islands are not for me; I’ll take a nook any day, any meal.     

    Nooks are shelters, even hiding places, from the realities of a hard world. Nooks urge us to gather together, whether refuge for a young family, empty nesters or a single person and a neighbor dropping by for coffee. Most of all, I think that nooks are snuggle spots for children and also places for the child in each of us.

    Of course, nooks lead me to the subject of breakfasts.  As I recall, in my childhood, we set the table with two boxes of cereal (one for dad that no one else could chew) and the usual juice glasses, coffee cups on saucers, etc. A couple of mornings a week, pancakes or waffles glorified breakfast, but I don’t recall breakfast for guests. My mother didn’t thrive on bed and breakfast. However, I love houseguests and making breakfast for the gatherings around my large table that He-Who-Must-Be-Fed built for me. (We have no nook.) Since HWMBF is a night person and I am morning, we have only coffee together as he starts his day and I have a second cup with him.

    But, I go all out for guests. I really love doing so.  It isn’t difficult, my easy philosophy is lots of food, dishes in general categories with diets out the window.  (I think that since I offer variety, dieters can pick their requirements. Not leading them into temptation is not my responsibility as hostess.) So I have my numerous categories: breads/pastries, beverages, meats, eggs, fruits, staples (sugars, syrups) and, always, a surprise. Bacon, sausage links and ham comprise meat (Canadian bacon is too expensive for me.). Beverages are the usual drinks and juices, although I do keep caffeine-free and green tea in bags handy. I like to jazz up store-bought jumbo-sized tubed cinnamon rolls by unrolling them and adding chopped nuts or fruit (dried cherries or apricots, chopped dates, etc.) and re-rolling them before baking them. I also serve rye and multi-grain toast and a breakfast cake. A secret: I bake a favorite cake, from a mix or a doctored mix and served it unfrosted with butter on the table.  Spice and butter pecan cake mixes work well.  Further, rustic as we are, I like to serve it half “pulled” apart by fingers.  Folks get the idea and seem to think it’s fun.

    My surprises?  Pesto along side the rye toast.  Mimosas along side pure orange juice.  Fresh berry and melon cups using as many kinds of berries as you can find.  A spoonful or turkey or chicken salad on a cucumber slice.  A quiche with herbs, especially parsley and oregano.  Thin apple slices in blueberry pancakes or muffins.  O’Brien potatoes (home-fried and flecked with red and green peppers). 

    Perhaps, I like extremes. I’d love a morning cup of coffee in a nook across from HWMBF; but also, I love a houseful of company gathered for a large breakfast at my kitchen table. Time is here for summer guests, and that means good times, starting at breakfast.

The author says that her largest challenge is to cook a large breakfast with hot dishes to serve outdoors in northern Michigan. Easiest is a one-pan breakfast over a campfire.

RECIPE:

Mushroom-Bacon Quiche

3 eggs

½ cup evaporated or whole milk

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

One 7-ounce can sliced mushrooms,

    drained

1 ounce real bacon pieces

    (half of a 2 ounce bottle)

Half of a 4-ounce can of sliced black olives,

    drained (optional)

1 frozen 9-inch pie crust.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the eggs, milk, cheese, mushrooms, bacon and olives.  Pour into the frozen crust.  Bake for 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Serves 6.

Recipe by Laura Karr, “The Can Opener Gourmet”

Recipes in this column:   Apricot Cookies;

Citrus Spinach Salad

Apricot Cookies

by Kas Winters

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter

1/2 tsp. salt

2 egg yolks

2 cups flour

1 pkg. dry yeast

1/2 cup half and half (milk)

Filling:

1 package dried apricots1/2 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

Directions: