Hot Cabbage Slaw

 Hot Cabbage Slaw (German Style)

    Bonus post today for Christmas Eve!! After making the stuffed cabbage leaves a few days ago, I had so much cabbage left over, that I planned to make a hot German style slaw. I used a recipe for a Hot Slaw that I found in my 1990 edition of The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It was different that another recipe which I've used and I did do some seasoning not in the recipe. Two egg yolks, water, butter and vinegar are stirred together (and stirred constantly) in the bottom of a saucepan until thickened. I had about 1 lb of cabbage chopped up already to go, so once the mixture in the saucepan was thickened, I stirred in my chopped cabbage and cooked it until it was softened and then I added my seasonings. 

    I like poppy seed in my hot slaw and I used 1 teaspoon in this dish. I hadn't had quite the full 1/4 cup of vinegar (Oops. I should have made sure I had enough before starting) so the other seasoning I added, was to help give it more flavor. I added about 2 1/2 teaspoons of Trader Joe's spicy mustard seasoning.  I also added 6 strips of cooked and crumbled bacon. I made sure to incorporate all of the seasonings and bacon with the cabbage. Although it wasn't as vinegar-y as I like, I am happy with it.  

Mom's Chocolate Cream Pie w/Merinque

 Mom's Chocolate Pie

        This is a special post. I baked this pie yesterday (12/23/2020) on the 2nd anniversary of my father's passing. My dad did most of the cooking growing up, but my mom would cook on her days off and would make this chocolate pie for my dad on special occasions.  She used the same recipe every time. The recipe she used for the pie crust (I can only assume) and the filling are in the 1960 Better Homes & Gardens Dessert Cook Book of which I have a 1965 fifth printing copy. My mother passed away 30 years ago this coming NYE and I don't know for sure what happened to her copy of this cookbook. I'd looked for one since I started collecting cookbooks and found my copy years ago at either an estate sale or an antique store. I recognized it and knew it was the right book.  

    I don't believe I've ever tried making her pie, but as part of how I honor my parents on the anniversaries of their passing, I make things they liked to eat or used to make. I have memories of baking this pie with my mom and sister, but no clear memories of the ingredients or the process.  I just remember as kids, my sister or I were the ones who had to do the stirring. 

    I started with combining the first three ingredients (sugar, salt and I used cornstarch instead of flour for my thickener) in a saucepan, followed by slowly adding the milk which I had pre-heated in the microwave and two one ounce squares of un-sweetened baking chocolate, chopped. I stirred this mixture continuously and after this mixture boiled, I cooked it for two more minutes and removed the pan from the heat. I stirred a small bit into my slightly beaten egg yolks and then stirred that into the chocolate mixture, stirring for two minutes and removing from the heat. After removing from the heat, I added vanilla and the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of butter; I forgot to add the butter for some reason, even though it was on the counter right next to the stove; in the long run, it did not seem to affect the pie. The recipe says to let the mixture cool to room temperature. 

    While the chocolate mixture was cooling, I made the pie crust (it did not look pretty) and baked it in my pre-heated oven. The recipe says 450 degrees! However, my oven is ancient and doesn't go that high, so I do my best, like I normally do. I baked it at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes I believe. I am pretty good at "eye-balling" doneness, so I just watched it.  Anyhow, once the shell was ready, I poured the chocolate filling into the pie crust and smoothed it out. 

    I beat egg whites, cream of tartar and half a teaspoon of vanilla for the meringue. I don't think it formed soft peaks like it really was supposed to before adding the sugar, but I've been having a problem with my shoulder and it was hurting from holding the mixer over the bowl. I slowly added six tablespoons of sugar until the mixture was a bit stiffer. It wasn't perfect, but it spread nicely over the filling and I was able to make some little peaks on top, before putting the pie in my oven at 350 degrees (I'd lowered the temperature after doing the crust) for 15 minutes. 

    I was pretty pleased with how the pie looked when it came out of the oven. After cooling for quite awhile, I cut myself a little piece and the filling hadn't held up as well as I'd hoped (pictured below), but it sure tasted good. It was just as good as I'd remembered.  Once the pie was completely cooled, I put it into my new Tupperware pie container and then into the refrigerator.  I declare this a tasty success, because although I forgot the butter, the piecrust wasn't super pretty and the meringue wasn't the best, it tasted like my mom's. That and that it was for my dad, were what was important. 

Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

 Stuffed Cabbage Leaves

    So today is Sunday, and I made this recipe yesterday.  It was good! Not super complicated, but it seemed like a lot of prep work.  This recipes came from the same cookbook as the last recipe, this 1959 Farm Journal's Country Cookbook.  

    One curious thing about this recipe was that it doesn't say to cook the sausage that goes in the filling and the second thing is that the recipe calls for you to put a whole, small onion in the baking dish with the rolls.  I didn't understand the onion thing, so I ended up doing some onion slices with what was left from the onion is used for part of the filling. The recipe called for seasoned rice and I chose to use  one cube of Knorr's "Caldo de Tomate", which is tomato bouillon with chicken flavor. 

    The first step was I browned the sausage and while that was working, I started chopping up the green pepper, onion and celery.  Next I put the cabbage which I had removed the core/heart from on a large pan and poured boiling water over it, covering with the lid. The hot water wilts the leaves and makes them easier to remove. I also cooked the rice in the microwave while all this was going on. Once the sausage was browned, I drained the grease and put the sausage in my mixing bowl.  I added butter to the skillet and cooked the onion, celery and green pepper, which I cooked for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. When the rice was done, I added that to my mixing bowl and then added the veggies, mixing it all up.  

    Now, one thing I changed was the recipe called for 'thyme', which I thought I had and didn't, so I modified the seasoning (Sometimes you have to use what you have on hand and that's okay).  Instead of one 1/2 teaspoon of thyme, I used 1/2 teaspoon of  Trader Joe's "Italian Style Sofrito" mix, which has onion, tomato, sea salt, garlic, chili pepper, parsley flakes, crushed red pepper, rosemary and sage; one 1/2 teaspoon of parsley flakes and one 1/2 teaspoon of Penzey's Spices "Ozark Seasoning", which has salt, black pepper, garlic, paprika, mustard, ancho, celery seed, caraway, allspice, ginger, cardamom and cloves. The recipe also calls for 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I mixed the seasoning in with the rice and sausage mix.  

    Once my filling was all ready, I took the cabbage and pealed leaves off, laying them on paper towels to dry off a bit. I sprayed a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray and used a spoon to scoop some of the filling onto leaves, one at a time. I rolled up the leaves with the filling into little "packages", placed them in my dish and secured them with toothpicks. The recipe calls for using a 1/4 cup of filling for each leaf, but I "eyeballed' it and it worked out fine.  I made 12 rolls aka "packages".  Once the pan was full, I poured the tomato juice and water over the rolls and added the rest of the onion, which I had sliced. I baked in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for one hour (my house smelled good). 

    I was hungry, so didn't let it cool for very, long, before I served myself a roll with a piece of buttered sour-dough bread.  I rather enjoyed this dish and plan to make it again. I proclaim it a success!! I am however plotting to try an all veggie and sausage (or without) version. You could easily leave out the sausage and season without the chicken and tomato bouillon, for a vegetarian dish and just do what I want to try, all veggies.  Maybe even crumbled tofu or paneer cheese would work.      

    So, as always, if you try this, let me know what you think. 

Farmer Jones' Special

 Farmer Jones' Special

    Farmer Jones' Special is a recipe I found in my copy of the 1959 Farm Journal's Country Cookbook. It's towards the back in a section called "Exciting Rice Dishes". This is pretty much a casserole. The recipe calls for putting the mixture into a 12" ovenware pie plate and I ended up using a 9"x13" baking dish. One, all of my pie dishes are not that big and there was so much, that I knew it would do just fine in a 9"x13" dish. 

    So, the first thing you do is pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Then you chop up your celery and onion.  The recipe calls for 1 cup chopped celery and I used a little more. I'd cut up 4 stalks and didn't want to waste it. You cook the celery and onion in butter/margarine until golden brown, cover and cook until tender. The recipe says to add the tomato juice, tomato paste and ground beef, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.  The recipe did not say to brown the ground beef first, but I did.  It just wasn't going to be cooked thoroughly unless you cooked it before adding to the vegetables. I cooked my rice in the microwave while I was doing all this. Once everything was done, I mixed it all together and spooned it into my baking dish, which I had sprayed with a bit of cooking spray. The recipe calls for 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese.  One, I used the powdered in a jar kind and two, I used way more than 1/3 cup. It is cheese and cheese is awesome, so do to your taste. I used the powdered kind, because I forgot to buy fresh Parmesan. The powdered kind was just fine.  Switch it up and use an entirely different kind of cheese, like shredded mozzarella or monterey jack if you wish. I like to salt and pepper on my plate sometimes, rather than adding during cooking, but feel free to add your 1 teaspoon of salt during cooking (you add that when you add the meat to the vegetables. 

    This recipe was good as is and I would definitely make it again. You can get at least 8 servings out of this recipe. The ingredients cost less than $10 and the most expensive ingredient was the ground beef, which was $5.79.  The rice I got for $1 and the tomato paste was under $1. The tomato juice I got (a pack of mini V-8 juice cans) was about $2.50. I only used two cans, but I am happy to have the extras in my pantry. And something I like, is that you can easily make this spicy by using spicy tomato juice, adding chili powder or maybe even finely diced jalapeno. I love garlic, but wanted to make it without this time.  I will sprinkle some garlic powder on what I have for lunch today and see how I like it. You could also add diced tomatoes if you like. If you don't like hamburger, use ground turkey. *If you are vegetarian, I think this could be made with diced tofu or paneer cheese. Just cook it before adding to the vegetables.*

      A nice garden salad and rolls or cornbread would round out this meal nicely. As always, if you make this, let me know how you like it. 

    The last picture below is a before/after photo of the filled baking dish.  :)

Hershey Bar Pie

 HERSHEY BAR PIE

    Here's a super short post about the pie I made for Thanksgiving. It was just me and I'd decided I wanted to cook all the food, just for me! At the last minute I also decided I wanted to make pie. Hershey Bar Pie is so easy. It's just three ingredients, plus anything you decide you might want to top it with . Unfortunately, I did not write down the weight/amount of the chocolate, but I used three packages of mini Hershey bars. There is 8 mini bars in each package. They were $1.50 each at my local Kroger grocery store. I bought whipped topping for under a $1 and a graham cracker pie crust for about $2. I added chocolate chips I had at home, so this cost me less than $5!!! 

    What you do, is make sure your Cool-Whip or the generic brand whipped topping like I used, is thawed and softened. If your whipped topping is too cool, when you mix it with the chocolate, it might make little "chippy" type bits.  This happened to me before and it wasn't bad. So as far as mistakes go, it's okay if that happens. It is not the end of the World. Unwrap the chocolate bars and melt them in a saucepan on low.  You can break them up into smaller pieces first, if you like. Take the saucepan off the stove. Use a large spoon or spatula to scoop the whipped topping into the chocolate.  I used a metal whisk to incorporate the topping with the chocolate. You can use a wooden spoon, but the whisk helps make sure it is completely combined. Spoon the chocolate mixture into your pie crust and sprinkle any toppings you like on top, before chilling the pie in the refrigerator. 

    I cut fairly big slices and I got 6 pieces from mine.  You can do smaller pieces, because this pie is pretty rich. I think it would be great with a nice hot, cup of coffee or tea. 

Ingredients:

Hershey Bars - About 3 or 4 large or 3 packages of 8 mini bars

Whipped Topping (aka Cool Whip)

Graham Cracker Crust

Toppings can be chocolate chips, toffee bar, nuts, coconut, etc... Be creative!