Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Georgian Style

 

This is an adapted recipe for mashed sweet potatoes that's in my mom's older version of Fannie Farmer. It was pretty good, but in the end, I think I'd rather just eat regular baked sweet potatoes with butter and salt, or even plain mashed sweet potatoes.

For this recipe, you'll need:
1 lb sweet potatoes
butter, salt for mashing
milk or orange juice for mashing
for topping:
1 tbsp. molasses
1 tsp. butter

Slice sweet potatoes and steam or boil until soft.

Remove skins and mash sweet potatoes with butter, salt & orange juice or milk, if desired.

Cook 1 tbsp. molasses and 1 tsp. butter in separate pan for five minutes.

FF says to 'pour' it over uneven surface of mashed potatoes, but it was basically crispy string at this point, so pouring wasn't so much of an option. Maybe thread it across, or arrange it. The softer spoonfuls can be drizzled, perhaps.

Bake at 400 until top is browning slightly. I'm not sure if mine was browning, but the molasses mixture had melted in, so I took it out.

This recipe was okay, it just wasn't as good as it sounded. I'd never had sweet potatoes with molasses, and in my head, I imagined something much more delicious than this was. It wasn't bad or anything, just not as good as I'd anticipated. Maybe it makes up for the revoltillos, which sounded sort of gross but turned out well. My son ate these, so I can't say they're a total failure, but I doubt I'll ever make them again.

Zucchini Italian-Style

My mom has a different edition of Fannie Farmer than I do, so when I'm at her house, I like to peruse her cookbook and see if I can find new recipes. Sometimes, the recipes are altered in my updated edition, and sometimes I find things in my mom's old one that I don't have. I'm not sure if I have this recipe, but I don't remember seeing it. This is in an older edition of The Boston Cooking School Cookbook.

For this, I used:
about 1/2 tbsp. butter
one onion, chopped
1 medium zucchini, sliced
1 large tomato, chopped
salt & pepper
cheese for garnish

Melt butter in skillet, cook onion until yellow, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, slice the zucchini and add to onions. Cover and cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Meanwhile, chop the tomato. Add to pan and cook about 5 minutes.

Pour everything in an oven safe bowl or pan and sprinkle with cheese, salt & pepper.

Bake in 375 oven until browning on top, about 20-25 minutes.

This recipe was sooo good. The cheese was all chewy and melty, and the flavors all went together perfectly. This is supposed to be a side dish, but it was so good I ate it as my dinner, since no one else at home that night likes squash. But I like it. This was super yummy and easy, and I finally found a day when it was cool enough to bake, so I'm glad I made it. Excellent recipe.

Hamburgers

I know what you're probably thinking--there's no way you made that delicious hamburger in the picture. And you're right. But I DID make hamburgers for dinner last night, and I did forget to take pictures of them, so I'm just posting a mouth-watering picture of a burger I got at this little diner across from the local gas station. They are as delicious as Fannie's for sure.

Fannie Farmer doesn't have much of a recipe for burgers. She doesn't have those fancy stuffed burgers that are all the rage lately. She doesn't even fancy them up like I do with bread crumbs and eggs and onions and all that fun stuff.

Fannie's recipe goes like this:
1 lb ground beef
butter for frying
salt & pepper

Just barely mix the salt and pepper. Do not handle the meat more than necessary or it gets tough and dry.

Shape the meat into patties and fry in butter 3-4 minutes per side.

I like my burgers a bit rare (my husband was scared to eat them without further cooking), so I probably cooked them less than that. I'd never fried hamburgers in butter before, so that was new. And I've never made them so plain. But, with tomatoes I had picked literally 20 minutes ago, how could they go wrong?

Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some days, I'm lucky I managed to make anything at all. Days like this, when I work all day, take my son to Tae Kwon Do, drive an hour to get home, work in the garden, unload the clean dishes, wash the dirty dishes, and THEN start dinner, well, remembering my camera just isn't going to happen. Lucky for me, everyone in my house likes burgers, so they didn't mind that they weren't fancied up. So, this 'recipe' is for a busy week night dinner. Can't get much more simple than this.

Little Joe's, Sauteed Zucchini, and Tomato Slices, oh my!

According to Fannie, this recipe is popular in San Francisco. I've never heard of it, but it sounded alright, and I had most of what I needed to make it, which is reason enough for me to choose a recipe.

Chop kale & onion while oil heats.

 For this, I used:

3 tbsp coconut oil for cooking
1 onion
1 bunch kale leaves (FF says 1 lb. spinach, but I have neither spinach nor a cooking scale, so I just used the handful of kale I had from the garden. I adjusted cooking times accordingly.
1 lb ground beef
3 eggs (or 4, depending on how many people are eating)
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
salt
tobasco

Cook for about 10 minutes, or until onions are translucent, stirring often.

Add ground beef and cook until pink is gone. Beat the eggs, add a splash of Tobasco, and pour over mixture. Cook til eggs are solid, stirring occasionally.

Top with parmesan, salt & pepper, and lots of splashes of Tobasco (if you like that kind of thing).

This wasn't the best recipe I've made, but it was alright. I paired it with sauteed zucchini (yesterday's post) and added some sliced tomatoes from the garden for a complete paleo meal. It was tasty enough, just not very exciting (until I started splashing Tobasco all over it). My son even ate a huge helping without complaining. I gave him a huge scoop, since he won't eat zucchini, and figured he'd give me a lot of trouble. But all he said was that it didn't taste like sausage and eggs, and then, to my surprise, he ate his entire helping, kale included. Apparently, he really likes kale now. Also, he thought the Tobasco bottle looked so cool that he wanted to try it, and shockingly, he splashed drops all over his and ate it all up. This is a kid who thinks the gingersnap 'oreos' I bought him were hot. So go figure. But hey, if he's not complaining, I'm not complaining!

For my son's sake, I'd call this a roaring success, even though personally, I found it a little plain without a heavy dose of Tobasco to liven it up.

Sauteed Zucchini

 This is a super easy side dish I made to go with Little Joe's. Fannie Farmer lists several adaptations, but I stuck with the most simple recipe, the basic one from the cookbook, because I had my hands full with the main dish.

For this, you will need:
Olive Oil
2 cloves garlic
1 medium/large zucchini (FF says 1 lb, but I don't have a cooking scale, so I just used one whole one.
Salt & pepper

Chop the garlic and add to oil in pan. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring, then add zucchini, sliced.

Cook for about ten minutes, until zucchini is tender. Do not let it get mushy!

Remove from pan, sprinkle with the garlic, salt & pepper. Voila.

This was one of the easiest recipes ever. And it was pretty tasty. The garlic did tend to sink between the slices of zucchini, and it got a bit toasted. Bits of it were browned and crispy, but it didn't burn and they were actually really good when I scooped them out and sprinkled them over the zucchini slices.

I served this with Little Joe's and tomato slices with salt & pepper. They were really good.

How-To: Can Tomato Juice

I started making tomato juice because while canning stewed tomatoes, I kept coming up with tons of juice after I'd filled the jars with tomatoes. So I started straining off the juice and canning it according to Fannie's directions.

Here's how:

Wash tomatoes and cut out any spots and cores/stems.
Cut in pieces and simmer over low heat until soft.
Strain through a sieve or food mill.
Reheat juice to boiling point, add salt, sugar, and spices to taste (all are optional--I only add salt).
Pour into clean, sterilized jars, leaving 1/2-1/4 inch headspace.
Wipe rims with clean, damp cloth to make sure there isn't any tomato on the rims.
Place new lids onto jars, tighten with rings.
Process in a boiling-water bath for 10 mins (pints) or 15 mins (quarts).

I don't make much, since I strain it off my tomatoes before boiling it and canning it. I get about 1-2 quarts per 5 quarts of tomatoes.

Banana Nut Bread

This is a simple banana bread that I think I've made a few times before. It's pretty simple to make, too. If you're looking for classic banana bread that's not too sweet, this is it.

You will need:
3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
optional: 2 tbsp. flax flour

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan.

Mash the bananas and add the beaten eggs.

Stir in flour, sugar, baking soda, and flax. Add walnuts and pour into loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hr or until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from rack, cool for at least 10 mins before slicing.

 Unfortunately, I forgot to add the walnuts until I had already poured the batter into the pan. I love walnuts, so I can't believe I forgot them! I really wanted nut bread, but I didn't think I could mix them in without getting batter all over the loaf pan. So I just sprinkled them over the top. They did get a little dark, but they added a nutty, toasted flavor that I actually really liked! Next time, I might sprinkle a few over the top just because I liked them so much. But I will definitely remember to add them to the batter as well. Nice to know there's an alternative, though. The bread still turned out great, like usual. A classic.

Creole Tomatoes

I made this quick side dish to go with the revoltillos I posted yesterday. It was alright, but of the many tomato recipes I've tried, this one was pretty forgettable. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything special. Which I guess is okay for a side dish. It gave us some extra veggies and no one complained about it. If you're drowning in tomatoes, like I am, go ahead and make this. It's just not the best tomato recipe out there (so far during this challenge, that goes to the salsa).

Here's what I used:
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion
1 green bell pepper
6 medium tomatoes
dash of cayenne
1 tsp. thyme (or more if you have fresh)
salt to taste
2 tbsp. fresh parsley, for garnish

Here's what I did:

• heat butter in medium cast iron skillet
• chop onion and add to skillet
• chop pepper and add
• cook 5-10 minutes on low heat, stirring frequently
• while onions cook, core and quarter tomatoes
• when onions are translucent, add tomatoes, cayenne, thyme & salt
• cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
• garnish with parsley 

Like I said, this wasn't the star of the show, but it did a good job filling its role. Couldn't compete with the strongly-flavored revoltillos. This needs to be served with something bland like baked chicken.

Revoltillos

I was looking through Fannie Farmer for a stove-top recipe that uses ground beef when I ran across this one. It looked really weird, but I thought I'd try it.  I made it for a dinner with my sisters, and when I told people what I was making (I pronounced it in what I imagined was the Spanish way, ray-VOL-tee-ose), my sister said, "You're making something called 'revolting o's'?" I couldn't defend it too staunchly, since frankly, the recipe did sound a little gross (Olives and raisins? Who came up with that combo?). So I let it slide when everyone called it Revoltio's all week, pronounced like Spaghetti-O's.

Since it had raisins, and sounded vaguely curryish, I used ground lamb instead of ground beef for it. I'm guessing this is a Spanish food, seeing as it has olives and bay leaves in it, but I really have no idea. I do know that it was surprisingly delicious.

Unfortunately, the pictures aren't too lovely, as I forgot my HTC phone, and my iPhone camera is worthless. So if it looks especially ugly, don't let that deter you. It's actually quite good.

Here's what I used:
1 c. brown rice
2.5 c. water
1/4 c. olive oil
3 medium onions
3 green bell peppers
3 cloves garlic
1 lb. ground lamb (Fannie calls for 2, and if I had it, or made it again, I'd use 2)
5 bay leaves
3/4 c. ripe olives
3/4 c. raisins

Directions:

• rinse rice, then add it to a sauce pan with the water, simmer on very low heat for about 40 minutes or until the water is absorbed and the rice is tender. If the water is all absorbed and the rice is still chewier than you like, add more water and cook longer.
• while rice is cooking, heat oil in large cast iron skillet with lid
• chop onions and add to skillet
• chop peppers and add to skillet
• cook about 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent, stirring often
• mince garlic, add to pan and cook about 1 minute, stirring constantly to keep it from sticking
• add ground meat and cook until browned 
• add bay leaves, olives and raisins
• cover pan and cook on low heat 15-20 minutes, stirring once or twice. If it begins to stick reduce heat or remove from heat if it's been at least 15 minutes.

I served this with creole tomatoes, which don't really go with it so well, but I have sooo many tomatoes that I wanted to make a side dish with them. Shockingly, despite the weird name and ingredients, everyone enjoyed the revoltillos. My sisters (even the picky one) said it was good, my mom, husband and brother in law all ate it, and even my son finished his plate, though he thought the meat tasted funny since he's used to ground beef. I served these with creole tomatoes, which everyone also ate without complaint, though I don't think it was a very good match for this dish.

Overall, I'd definitely call it a success.

Minestrone

Since my family is Italian, I can be pretty picky about Italian food. I have made minestrone a few times, trying to perfect it so it's just like my mom's. I finally got it perfect last summer, but I thought I'd give Fannie's version a shot anyway. It wasn't as good as my mom's, but I was pleasantly surprised that it was pretty good, since some of her recipes have come up way short. After all, no one can cook like our moms. That's the whole reason I picked this cookbook when I decided to undertake this whole learning-to-cook adventure.

Onward to my adaptation of Fannie's minestrone.

1 c. dried white beans (I used Great Northern)
4 quarts water
tsp salt

Onions in the pot with herbs.

1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. butter
tbsp dried parsley flakes (or handful fresh)
2 onions
1 tsp. thyme (fresh if possible)
4 tomatoes
2 carrots
8 small kale leaves
2 c chopped cabbage
2 c sliced zucchini
2 tsp dried basil (or fresh if you have it!)
1/2 c. parmesan cheese, plus extra for garnish

Optional: potatoes, green beans, pasta, corn, green peppers, celery stalks and leaves, substitute beef broth for 2-4 c. of water

After addition of pureed beans.

• Soak the beans about 8 hrs (longer is fine) in 1 quart water. You can soak them overnight, or, if you know you're making this for dinner, put them in the water first thing in the morning, and they'll be soaked by the time you're ready to make dinner. 
• Drain water from beans once soaked, add 2 quarts of water and cook in a pot with a lid for about 1-1.5 hrs or until soft.
• When beans are done, add olive oil and butter to a large pot (do not overheat--oil should not smoke)
• Chop onions and add them to pot along with parsley and thyme
• Stir onions frequently for about 2 minutes
• Between stirring, pour beans and their liquid into a blender or food processor and process until smooth. Add to the pot.
• Chop carrots and add to pot
• Chop kale and add to pot. If you don't have kale, you can use any kind of greens. Fannie calls for Swiss chard. You could use spinach, etc, just make sure you adjust cooking times. Spinach or Swiss chard should go in after all the vegetables, since they take very little time to cook. I used kale, adding it here because it takes a while to cook.
• Chop tomatoes and add to pot
• Cover and simmer 15 minutes
• Add zucchini, cabbage and 1 quart water (or beef broth). I just used water. I had blanched my cabbage earlier this summer, so I used that. It cooled the pan down a lot, since it was still frozen, so I waited until the soup began to simmer again before starting the timer.
• Cook for 20 more minutes
• Add basil and 1/2 c. parmesan, stir and adjust seasonings. I added some oregano at this point, along with the basil, and some more salt. 
• Garnish with  more parmesan.

This looks all complicated from the long set of directions, but it's really not. It's time consuming to chop all those veggies, but it's not stressful if you don't worry about adding everything at once. I tried to add each thing in order, then go on with chopping the next thing and adding it as I went. It turned out pretty well, though I realized when it was almost done that I didn't have any parmesan. It was much better as leftovers when I added parmesan. But when I made it, I just garnished with regular grated cheese. It wasn't as good without parmesan.

Simmering in the pot.

Still, it was really good despite the fact that unlike my mom's, it doesn't have potatoes, noodles, garbanzos, or green beans. Since I don't have any of those things, it worked out well. It's the flavor that really makes it minestrone, and this one has it, at least more so than any restaurant minestrone I've had. So I'd say it's a success. I'd make it again for sure, especially if I didn't have a recipe for minestrone already. And I think next time I make it like my mom's, I'm going to change up the beans and do them as Fannie does. I really liked the thickness they added to the broth.

Okra, Tomato and Corn Saute

This is a really tasty vegetable side dish. It would go great with just about any meat dish, but I'd probably pair it with pork or beef and cornbread, or something similar.

This was another recipe I cut in half, approximately, just because I didn't want to end up with a whole bunch of veggies in containers in the fridge. Fannie says the whole serves six, so this was just right for 3.

You will need (to
serve 3):
1 tbsp. butter
1 small onion
1 small green pepper
1/2 lb okra
1 medium tomato
1/2 c. corn kernels
pinch of fresh oregano (dried if you don't have fresh)
salt & pepper to taste

Melt butter in cast iron skillet. Add onions and peppers, finely chopped. Cook 3-4 minutes, stirring often.

Add okra, cut in 1/2 inch pieces, and cook for 2 minutes, stirring often.

Add tomato, chopped, along with corn and oregano. Cover and cook 10 mins over low heat.

 Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy. This was so good. All the flavors blended really well, and you can alter the amounts of any of the veggies according to what you have.