Coconut Cookies

 Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/4 c. flour (I used 3/4 whole wheat, 1/2 white)
• 1 tbsp. milk/cream
• 1/4 tsp. baking powder 
• 1/2 c. finely shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Cream butter, then add sugar, beating until light
3. Add vanilla, egg, milk and mix thoroughly
4. Mix flour and baking powder, then add to butter mixture and stir to combine
5. Stir in coconut 
6. Arrange by on a cookie sheet and bake 8-12 minutes until golden brown on edges.

 These were pretty good, a basic cookie, a bit plain for me, but good enough. My son liked them and we all ate them in a few days, so they were a success overall. If I made them again, I'd add some spices and maybe raisins to make them more interesting.

Basic Marinara/Spaghetti Sauce

This was basic sauce with red and green peppers as additions.

 I've made several different versions of spaghetti sauce from two different editions of Fannie Farmer cookbooks, and I don't like any of them. She was apparently not familiar with Italian food, or else I'm spoiled by my Italian mother's sauce so nothing else compares. While I don't remember my mother ever using a recipe, and my Italian grandfather's recipe apparently takes 4 hours to make, I know exactly how it is 'supposed' to taste. I have been making spaghetti sauce since I started cooking (don't we all start with spaghetti?) and even my very first pan of it tasted better than the ones in this century-old cookbook. So I can safely say, I'm thoroughly disappointed in Fannie's options where sauce is concerned.

So, I'm posting a version of my own recipe. This is a pretty basic one, though you can add in some optional veggies to make it more chunky.

My basic recipe:
4 tbsp. olive oil
1 med/large onion
2-4 cloves garlic

About 6 cups chopped, crushed or diced tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1/2 tsp. salt (you can add more later, but you can't take it out once it's in there, so err on the side of less)
1 tbsp. basil
1 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. thyme
(or substitute about 3 tbsp. Italian Seasoning if you don't have all three of those herbs)
small pinch of fennel seeds

Just the basic sauce, this time with a lot of onions.

Optional add-ins for variety: sliced or chopped mushrooms, zucchini, eggplant, carrots (I never use these but I see them fairly often in canned sauce), celery, red or green bell peppers, parmesan cheese (I always add this on top, but some people like it cooked in), 1-2 tbsp sugar if your tomatoes aren't very sweet, 1 can tomato paste if you really need a thicker sauce

1. Heat oil in large skillet over medium/low heat
2. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes, stirring frequently
3. Add garlic and fennel seed and cook 1 more minute
4. Meanwhile, chop tomatoes. Taste for sweetness, and add sugar if your tomatoes are sour or you just like sweeter sauce. If using canned, drain some of the juices and reserve in case you need it for step 6.
5. Add tomatoes and herbs and salt
6. Increase heat to medium and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are completely cooked and some of the liquid boils away. If using fresh tomatoes, this sauce will be much thinner than canned sauce, so if you want, you can cook it down further to thicken. If using canned tomatoes, watch the sauce and add back in some of the reserved liquid if it gets dry or begins to stick.

This sauce is simple and no-frills, but it's always delicious and never fails for any type of Italian food requiring a red sauce.

Tomato Sauce (For Spaghetti or Pasta)

I made a recipe for spaghetti sauce earlier this year, but this one is a vegetarian sauce. And really, a very strange sauce, if you ask me! I mean, what kind of spaghetti sauce doesn't have onions or garlic? It's just unnatural! But anyway, I wanted to make this one more like the recipe, instead of just adding the usual things that I do to make my own. This time, I really followed the recipe.

For this, I used:

2 tbsp. olive oil
About 5 fresh tomatoes (FF calls for tomato paste as well, but I'd feel awful buying tomatoes of any kind with the amount I have in the garden, and since it cooks for 45 minutes, it has plenty of time to thicken up!)
1 grated carrot
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. dried basil (or 2 fresh, if you have it)
3 tbsp. butter

• Heat the oil in a large sauce pan or skillet.
• Chop or put the tomatoes through a food processor. I used 3 c. per Fannie, but then it cooked down so much that I had to add another 2 c. and cook them separately, then mix it in to make enough for the pasta. So save yourself from my folly and start out with a lot more tomatoes than the original recipe states. This is supposed to make 4 c. sauce, but I used about 6 c. fresh tomatoes and it cooked down to less than 3 c. So, if using fresh tomatoes, use lots!
• Add tomatoes, carrot, salt & pepper, and basil. 
• Simmer 30 minutes. 
• If dry, add a bit of water. I used some whey from the cream cheese I made the other day.
• Simmer another 15 minutes.

This sauce was a bit strange and very different from the usual spaghetti sauce I've made before. But it wasn't bad. A bit plain without onions and garlic, so I'd use it on an exciting pasta like mushroom ravioli or zucchini-stuffed lasagna rolls. 

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.

Traditional Waffles

Still haven't perfected the amount to add to each section of waffle iron.

I love breakfast. You know how they say it's the most important meal of the day? Well, it's also the most delicious. Breakfast is why I can't go gluten-free. Breakfast is why bacon was invented. And how can you argue with bacon?

Can't argue with waffles, either.

Luckily for me, my son also loves breakfast. I can hardly get him to take one bite of dinner, even if he's never even heard of the meal I've made. But breakfast, that's a different story.

Dark spots are flax seeds.

I let him pick this morning, and he wanted waffles.

Here's our recipe, loosely based on Fannie Farmer:
Mix in bowl:

2/3 c. whole wheat flour

1/3 c. white flour
2 tbsp. flax seeds (obviously not in Fannie's recipe)
1 tsp. baking soda

Using a large-mouth jar, mix together:
2 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk/buttermilk/sour milk/or yogurt (I use mostly milk, with a bit of yogurt to activate the baking soda)

Pour dry ingredients into jar and shake until just mixed, about 10 seconds. Lumps are okay and normal here.

Pure goodness.

Pour a bit into each section of waffle iron and cook until brown. 

You can't overdo it with butter.

Top with butter and syrup. We were out of maple syrup, which I didn't realize until I'd already made the waffles, so we had to use strawberry syrup, but they still tasted pretty good.

I usually add half whole wheat to my recipes, but this time, I used 2/3 and it was still incredibly light and fluffy. You would never know I'd used any whole wheat at all. I don't know what it is about this recipe, but it's always light as air. I credit the jar.

Pea Soup

Pea soup is a staple in our house. My sister likes it so much she told me I wasn't allowed to make it at anyone else's house because she'd miss it. So I brought over the bone from the ham because pea soup is one of the only ways I know how to use a ham bone (even though I've never actually had a ham bone, I just know they are supposed to be in pea soup).

I've made pea soup enough times that it's on my list of 10 things I can make consistently well. But Fannie Farmer's recipe is quite different from the one I usually make, which I don't think is from a recipe, it's just a bunch of stuff that seems to go well in pea soup.

Here is Fannie's take on this classic.
You will need:
4 c. water
1 c. dried split peas
1 ham bone
1 chopped onion
salt and pepper


Optional add-ins: celery, parsley, thyme or rosemary, bay leaf

I usually make mine with carrots, celery, and potatoes. But this time, I wanted to use the Fannie Farmer recipe instead of my own, so I only used carrots, because that's what my mom had.

For herbs, I usually use rosemary, because I love the flavor it adds. But my mom didn't have any fresh rosemary, so I used thyme this time.

Fannie says to heat the water to a boil, add the peas, then remove from heat and sit for an hour. That's how I make beans when I need a quick soak, but peas usually take a fraction of the time that beans do, so I've never done this. But this time, I did as Fannie said.

My mom didn't want me cooking hot food for hours in the house, so I used a crock pot from this point on. When the soak was done, I turned on the crock pot and added the remaining ingredients.

Fannie says that once the peas are soft, remove ham bone, rub through a sieve or mash with blending fork, dilute with milk, and season with salt and pepper.

I found this soup way too thin. I usually use 2 c. peas, which I should have done here. It was really...soupy. I know, it's soup. But I like it so thick you could almost eat it with a fork. But the flavor here was good. However, I have my own non-recipe pea soup down to a T, and I like it much better, so I think I'll stick with that one, the tried-and-true recipe I've been making for years.

Overall, I'd say this is a 3 out of 5.

French Dressing (salad dressing)

Cool separating effect of oil, vinegar, and salt.

I've been so busy lately that it's hard to find a spare moment to cook. This evening I realized that after gardening, repainting the closets in our new house, and blanching 5 batches of cabbage, I hadn't cooked anything all day. So I threw together some salad dressing, which is called French Dressing according to The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, but is nothing like the red-orange French dressing you get on a salad bar. This is more like what I'd call Italian dressing, aka, vinaigrette.

The recipe (which I halved):
1/2 c. salad or olive oil
2 tbsp. vinegar
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1/2 clove garlic

Add all ingredients to jar and shake. Remove garlic before serving.

For this one, I followed the recipe closely. I didn't think it had enough vinegar, so I ended up doubling that. And I like garlic, so I added a whole clove, cut in four.

It was pretty tasty, but will probably be even better the next day, once the garlic has sat in the oil a while. I have a couple other dressing recipes I like, but this one is super fast and easy, so I'd definitely make it again if I was in a hurry.

Salt effervescing.

Apologies for the many, many pictures, but this was so cool to watch as it came together. I usually make dressing in a bottle so I don't get to see the cool mixing process. It was really sweet watching it through the wide mouth of the jar.

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

What can be more classic than a chocolate chip cookie?

These are classic chocolate chip cookies, whether you use nuts or oatmeal or neither. I used oatmeal, since I had some on hand and didn't have any nuts. If you haven't realized by now, I'm a big believer in using ingredients that are already in the kitchen. I rarely go out and buy a special ingredient for a recipe, and almost never buy one I don't think I'll use up or use again (the only exception I can think of is cream of tartar, which I did end up using one more time after I bought it for snickerdoodles).

Anyhoo, on with the recipe.
 

Use hubby to cream butter.

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 c. dark brown sugar (I used only 1/4)
• 1/2 c. white sugar (Again, 1/4)
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/8 c. flour (I used 1/2 c. white, the rest whole wheat)
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I always leave this out, since I can't stand the taste of salt in cookies)
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts (or oatmeal, if making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies)
• 1 c. chocolate chips (I used 1/2 c. mixed dark/milk/butterscotch chips)

I altered this recipe, but I stayed truer this time than I usually do. I have adapted this recipe over the years to make my favorite oatmeal raisin cookies in the world, but the recipe is so altered I don't think it would be recognizable. This time, I tried to stay fairly close to the recipe. 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375. Cream butter, gradually add sugars until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Mix flour & baking soda and add it to wet mix, blending well. Stir in oatmeal/nuts and chocolate chips. Put on greased cookie sheet and bake 8-10 minutes or until browning at edges.

Before & after.

These turned out really well. My son said they were his favorite cookies now. And even though he'd probably be ecstatic if I gave him a bowl of sugar and a spoon for dessert, he said these were just a little too sweet (and this was after I cut the sugar AND the chocolate chips in half). So, they were plenty sweet. The flour mix was just right so they weren't too heavy. I put them in for 10 minutes, and they were just a little too brown for my liking, but still very good. Next time I'll only use 8 minutes if I'm using a gas oven, which seems to run a little hotter than the electric one I'm used to.

These cookies are easy and delicious, a classic recipe that should be in everyone's repertoire.





PS, the answer to the first question is...Nothing!

Coleslaw

This recipe is very simple and goes with the recipe for old-fashioned dressing I posted yesterday. Really the recipe is so easy it's barely a recipe at all, aside from the dressing.

This side.

I had some trouble grating the cabbage, so I ended up using that side of the grater that's never been used before, the one with three wide slots. The regular large grating side made the cabbage too fine. But the wide slots gave a perfect coleslaw shred.

The Fannie Farmer Cookbook says:

• Shred cabbage or chop fine. 
• Chill in refrigerator. 
• Just before serving, mix with cooked dressing, using 1/2 c. dressing for each 2 cups cabbage. *The dressing recipe makes about a cup, so I used 4 cups of shredded cabbage (1/2 head).

Optional: add 1/2 tsp. caraway seeds or celery seeds, 1 tbs. minced onion or 1/4 c. finely cut green pepper.

I thought those were weird add-ins, as I've never had coleslaw with peppers. But maybe that's because I'm used to a typical southern slaw. This was a bit different, as it didn't have a mayo based dressing. The vinegar was very tangy. At the bottom of the recipe, it says:

"For variety, add grated carrot or a few slices of stuffed olives...celery, apple, or crushed pineapple..."

Okay, I've never had slaw without carrot. That's not 'for variety' in the south, it's a requirement. Pineapple is optional, I agree. But then, I have an ingrained opinion of what Southern food is like. Southern Slaw does not include olives. So much ew.

Overall, I would not really recommend this recipe, as it was sort of weird flavored and not what I'm used to. But if you've never had coleslaw, it's an easy one and you might like it.  

Old Fashioned Dressing

This is a good dressing that can be used on vegetable and fruit salads, according to The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. However, I'd find it very weird on fruit salad, I must say!

Here's the recipe:

Sift into a small heavy saucepan:

• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. dried mustard
• 2 tsp. sugar
• a dash of cayenne
• 2 tbs. flour

Stir in slowly:

• 1 egg
• 2 tbs. butter
• 3/4 c. milk
• 1/4 c. vinegar

Cook over low heat, stirring, until slightly thick. Cool.

Variations:

1. Cream dressing: Use cream in place of milk and butter
2. Tangy dressing: Add 1/4 tsp. celery seed. Thin with orange juice.

I made the regular old fashioned dressing to go on coleslaw. It wasn't a very typical tasting slaw, for sure. But, it was okay. I used apple cider vinegar, because that's what I had. It was very vinegary. I don't know if I'd use that much again. I might cut it by a tbs. or two. Also, I cooked it a minute too long I think, as it got very thick, almost like paste. I added a bit of milk and it thinned out, but be careful of cooking it too long.

I forgot to take pics, like I usually do of dressings. So I don't have one except the coleslaw pic.

Basic Cake Recipe

This was the top once cooked.

This recipe is called Cottage Pudding in The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, though I'm not sure why. It's just a regular old cake mix. The kind you'd make if you didn't want to buy a cake mix. I'd call this yellow cake, I guess, since it came out pretty yellow.

Here's the recipe:

Preheat oven to 400. Butter a shallow cake pan, 8X8, angel food cake pan, or cupcake tins.
sift together:
1 1/2 c. flour (*I use 1c. whole wheat and 1/2c. white because I don't like the doughy quality of things made with all white flour. Whole wheat gives it a bit of texture and flavor and it always tastes better to me. But I don't like to use all whole wheat, as it doesn't hold together as well and can be coarse).
2 tsp. baking powder (I used 1tsp. baking soda instead, since I don't like to use baking powder for health reasons)
1/2 tsp. salt (I always leave this out, as I'm very sensitive to the taste of salt in stuff and don't like salty cake)
1/2 c. sugar (I used xylitol)

Mix:
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 c. milk (I also added 1tbs. yogurt to activate the baking powder, or you can use buttermilk or milk that's slightly souring)
1/2 c. butter, melted
Stir into the flour mixture. Pour into pan. Bake until browning, 20-25 minutes. 

This can be used for lots of things--cobblers, upside down cakes, or any basic cakes. You can serve it with sauces, crushed or stewed fruits, pie fillings or toppings, etc. You can also add chocolate chips, or just about anything else to the batter. Possibilities are endless, since this is a basic cake. You could even do a confetti cake.

How-To: Blanch Cabbage for Freezing

The finished product.

Today's recipe isn't so much a recipe as a technique. Fannie Farmer has plenty of these. Keep in mind this cookbook was originally published in 1896, so it has lots of old-school techniques for preserving things as well as using every possible part of an animal (including brains).

Anyway, on to the technique at hand.

The inside of the head.

First, chop cabbage into whatever size you want. I usually use squares about 1-1 1/2 inches for use in soups and other dishes, so that's what size I used for blanching.
Meanwhile, bring a kettle of water to a boil. You need to have enough to submerge the cabbage.I keep mine in a steamer basket so I can dunk it in the boiling water, lift it out, and bring it to the ice water all in the same basket, but you could also use a cheese cloth or a colander. 

Once the water is at a rapid boil, dunk the cabbage for 90 seconds.
While that is happening, prepare a large bowl of ice water (I put a tray of ice cubes into a large bowl of cold water).
Remove the cabbage from the boiling water and dunk in ice water for 90 seconds.

Take it out and pat it with a towel to remove some water or let it drain a few minutes while you stuff it in bags for freezing. I try to pack mine pretty tightly into sandwich sized bags with ziplocks. Also, my sister gave me a tip to put a straw into an unzipped corner and suck the air out to give it a sort of vacuum seal. That way it will be packed tighter, with less room for freezer burn.




Once packed in bags, put it in a freezer for later use.

Icebox Cookies

It seems like most people either like to cook, or they like to bake. People who like to bake, more often than not, have a sweet tooth. Which explains why I like to bake. One of my all-time favorite recipes is one I adapted from Fannie Farmer a few years ago to make oatmeal raisin cookies.

This time, I went with a different recipe to make refrigerator cookies (ones that you put in a roll in the fridge and then slice off thin slices to bake).

I love these crumbling old pages!

Here's the recipe:

Cream:
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Beat in:
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. white sugar
1 egg
Sift together & add to first mixture:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt

Bake at 250 for 15 minutes or 400 for 5 minutes.

I'd never made these before and I wanted to experiment some. It says to vary them, add chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, coconut, spices, etc. So...I did.

I added black walnuts, 1/2 c. coconut, a handful of raisins, almond extract, and nutmeg. All this made the flavor very good. What didn't make them good...

My mom had some ground flour she needed to use up. So she told me to use it. It turned out to be a mixture of millet, quinoa, and spelt. I used 1 c. of that and 1/2 c. organic white flour. They were a very strange texture! I recommend 1 c. whole wheat instead. That gives cookies more body and flavor than plain white flour, so I usually use a mixture of whole wheat and white. I wouldn't recommend the odd mixture of flours I used! Also, these cookies are very sweet. I used only 1/2 c. xylitol in place of the 1 c. sugars, and they were still *very* sweet. I had to drink milk to calm down the sweetness.

Overall impressions: My sister said they tasted like cornbread (I blame the millet flour), my mom liked the flavor, my son said they were weird. I think I'll try again with wheat flour.

For more epic fails on my part, some by my own experimentation and some from following the recipe, see my Disaster Chef blog posts.

Blueberry Pancakes

 Blueberry pancakes are a summer staple in our house. My mom made them for us when we were kids, and I still love them just as much as my own son, who loves pancakes of all varieties.

I might need to work on my photography as much as my cooking!

I have tried to use gluten-free flour when I have it, and it's incredibly tender and tasty. I actually like it better than flour pancakes, if you can believe it. But I didn't have gluten-free flour this week, so I'll post on that some other time.

Today, I went with a more traditional recipe for blueberry pancakes.

The recipe for basic pancakes from my Fannie Farmer Cookbook:

Wild blueberries work well and have more flavor.

Mix in one bowl:
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
2 tbs melted butter

In second bowl, mix:
1 c. flour (I use 1/2 white and 1/2 whole wheat)
2 tsp. baking powder (I used about 1 tsp baking soda instead)
2 tbs sugar

Dump all dry ingredients into the liquid at once, and mix until just moistened. Add extra milk if needed, until batter is about as thick as heavy cream or a bit thicker. I did have to add extra milk to mine.

Last, fold 1/2 c. blueberries into the mix, pour into hot skillet and cook until bubbles appear around edges. You can check under the edge of a pancake to make sure it's browning before you flip it. I always use cast iron pans, which work great for pancakes, and a metal spatula.

Butter is your friend.

Pancakes can be tricky for a newbie cook, but it's one thing I've perfected since it's one of my son's favorite breakfasts. The trick is getting the batter the right consistency. With these, we topped with simple butter and maple syrup, but you can get fancy and add blueberry syrup or any number of toppings. I'm sure I'll make some others this year and try to post some recipes.

For now, enjoy!

Cream Sauce, or Basic White Sauce

I made this sauce to go on Bubble & Squeak, a recipe you can find in this post. This is for a basic cream sauce, which can be used on any number of things. So make sure to mark it if you use cream sauce. This one is delicious, and simple enough that even a kitchen klutz like me can make it. Here is the recipe from my mother's edition: The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook. I love the little pictures of utensils in her tattered old edition.




I did not use a double boiler, as I do not have one. I just used a sauce pan. Of course I messed it up a little, as the pan was already too hot when I added the butter, so it immediately started to brown *facepalm*.  Also, my Fannie Farmer (as we call the cookbook around our house) calls for using warm milk if you're a beginner, which of course I did. It didn't turn out half bad. I was a bit proud of myself afterwards, I admit, since it turned out good despite the browned butter fiasco.

I was so stressed while making this that I didn't take any pictures, but since it's a staple and basic anyway, I'm going to go ahead and add it to the blog. It's a must for anyone wanting to move on to more complicated dishes. One day, I will master it (use Dracula-esque voice here, and feel free to add an evil laugh at the end).

Pictures in my mom's Fannie Farmer.