Garlic Toast

Garlic Toast

A hearty soup can become a complete meal if it is accompanied by a substantive slice of garlic toast. The secret to a "substantive" slice of garlic toast is a tasty, large amount of cheese on a thick slice of bread. Thick slices of wheat bread or sourdough bread are excellent. A wimpy slice of standard white bread will not make a meal.

For two slices of bread, mix the following:

1 cup of grated Cheddar - I  prefer medium Cheddar. The Pepper Jack and Medium Cheddar is my favorite combination. You may  prefer another combination.

1 cup of grated Pepper Jack cheese.

4 tablespoons of Garlic Olive Oil  (olive oil with 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder will work)

a dash of salt and pepper to taste

Mix these ingredients well.

Toast the bread lightly, then add the cheese to the lightly toasted bread and return to the toaster. Continue to toast until the cheese starts to brown. Remove and serve.

Do not overdo the olive oil or it will pool up in the bottom of the toaster or oven and could catch fire. You could toast the bread then place the bread and cheese mixture on aluminium foil and place back in the toaster or oven.

The soup above is a ham and bean soup with chopped steamed potatoes, carrots and asparagus pieces. The beans are Great Northern Beans. See the posting for Senate Bean Soup (5/21/12) for an excellent basic ham and bean soup.

If you want serious garlic bread with an extensive history, take a loaf of french baguette bread, slice it down the middle and pile on the cheese mixture and toast. You do not need to lightly toast the bread first. With garlic bread made this way you can place the bread on some aluminum foil and place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes at 300 degrees.  Texas toast is another popular form of garlic bread that is often served with soup.

Tough Times Spam Chili

Tough Times Spam Chili



With tough times from the devastation of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, many had to prepare food with modest resources. This recipe will deliver a substantial and relatively healthy meal with some canned goods and one cooking pot or dutch oven.

Ingredients

2 cans of Spam

1 large can of baked beans or two 12 oz cans

1 12 oz. can of diced tomatoes; Italian diced tomatoes are excellent and they reduce the need for additional spices.

1 can of condensed french onion soup

1 can of condensed mushroom or garlic mushroom soup

1 tablespoon of chili powder

1 teaspoon of curry powder

1 small, 10 oz. can of diced tomatoes and green chilies. This 10 oz. can reduces the need for additional spices, particularly if you lack the chili powder and curry powder.

4 slices of bacon if you have it. Dried bacon bits will help instead.

Heat the cooking pot and add some cooking oil or bacon, if you have it, and add the diced Spam to the pot and brown the mixture. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir as you bring to a slow boil. Stir and slow boil for at least 30 minutes. Rice stores well. If you have some, boil and add to the Spam chili when served. You should not need to add water. The condensed soup will give the dish an excellent chili texture. With the support of the rice you should be able to serve at least six and possibly eight people.

This dish should store well without refrigeration. If there is any question, reheat and bring to a slow boil for 20 minutes. Dried potato flakes store well and can be used in place of the rice. Just mix potato flakes with some of the bottled water. Old, dry bread could be used if you place the chili  on top of the bread. You will not notice if the bread is old and dry.



If Times Get Really Tough.

Spam, canned baked beans, and canned tomatoes are the basics. Make sure you have several cans of each (for emergencies) along with bottled water. If you do not have a source of heat for cooking, the Spam, beans and tomatoes can be eaten directly from the can. Mixing the three cold ingredients in a bowl would make a more tasty dish. The acidity of the tomatoes helps with the storage of the food once the cans are opened.

Stuffed Potatoes

Stuffed Potatoes

A dish of stuffed potatoes, also called twice-cooked potatoes, is an excellent way to prepare a tasty meal with modest resources.

Ingredients

8 small to medium new red potatoes or the more traditional 4 large russet potatoes. I prefer the new red potatoes.

1/2  cup sour cream

1/2 cup melted butter or margarine

 1 cup chopped green onions or shallots

1 cup  bacon bits

2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

1 teaspoon Paprika

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper


Boil the potatoes in their skins until cooked. You can bake the potatoes which would require baking at 400 degrees for about 60 minutes or more for large potatoes. Cut in half and scoop out the inside until about an eighth of an inch is left.
I  add  an extra potato to replace a potato I might mess up in the scooping process. The extra potato is added to the stuffing mix.

Prepare the stuffing mix. Combine all ingredients except for 1/2 cup of bacon bits, the paprika and the cheese. Mix well by hand or with a mixer.

Stuff the mix into the shells. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes.

 Mix the cheese, the remaining half cup of bacon bits, and the paprika together and place on top of the stuffed potatoes.

Place the stuffed potatoes back in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes until the cheese is melted.

Options

A range of tasty options exist. One of the easiest is to include seafood in the mixture. Use 6-8 ounces of canned crab meat, imitation crab meat, diced clams or tuna. Drain the seafood before adding to the mixture. Adding 1/2 cup of blue cheese dressing to the mixture is popular.


Campfire Stuffed Potatoes

A different form of stuffed potatoes in Australia is a simple and tasty dish. Take a potato, slice it into half-inch wide pieces and place buttered onion slices between the potato slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Wrap each potato in heavy foil and bury in the campfire coals. You can rest the potatoes on top of the coals. You can also do this with sweet potatoes. In my younger days the potatoes were buried in the coals and cooked without the foil. This was a basic aboriginal cooking method. If you do not have a campfire try an oven at 400 degrees for at least 60 minutes. If I have the time I mix half a cup of olive oil with a tablespoon of bacon bits, half a teaspoon of dried basil and a half teaspoon of garlic salt and bast the onion slices and potato slices before baking.

Beef Soup

Beef Soup

This beef soup recipe has an interesting ancestor - Irish Stew. Originally Irish stew was a complete meal made from low-cost locally available ingredients. The meat was usually from sheep. It was often called lamb stew, but I doubt the meat came from lambs and was probably from sheep too old for producing wool. Cutting the meat into small pieces and cooking for some time was a necessity. Potatoes were also a major ingredient along with carrots from the home garden. The Irish immigrants changed their traditional recipe and beef often replaced lamb or mutton. If you wish to change the following soup recipe to a thicker stew dish often served on a plate rather than in dish add a few tablespoons of dried potato flakes. The Gaelic term for this dish is "stobhach gaelach."

Ingredients

3 lbs. chuck steak diced into 1/2 cubes

4 slices of bacon

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tsp. pepper

2 tsp. salt

3 medium onions diced

1 8oz. can tomato paste

2 12oz. cans of Guinness stout. If you do not have stout or a similar dark beer, use beef broth.

3 cups diced carrots

1 can of peas

1/2 cup of olive oil

3 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

1 teaspoon Italian spices

1 teaspoon garlic powder


Place the bacon and olive oil in the pot or dutch oven and brown. Add the beef then the other ingredients after the meat starts to brown. Slow cook for at least 60 minutes.


I often serve this dish with thick slices of sourdough bread or garlic bread.

Hungarian Stuffed Green Peppers

Hungarian Stuffed Green Peppers

These stuffed peppers are made in the Hungarian tradition with good Hungarian Paprika and slow cooked for 90 to 120 minutes at no more that 300 degrees. I have also prepared for multiple meals by making an excess of the meat and rice mixture used to stuff the peppers. This extra stuffing mixture is ideal for making meatballs or rissoles. My preferred use of the extra stuffing mixture and the tomato sauce is in stuffed eggplants. The tomato sauce can be replaced with a 50/50 mixture of bread crumbs and grated cheese. (See the last photograph.)

Stuffed medium Yellow Peppers

Hungarians like stuffed vegetables. Whether it is cabbage, kohlrabi or peppers, stuffed vegetables are on the menu in every household. Hungarian stuffed peppers aren’t really Hungarian. This recipe has Turkish origins and was adopted by Hungarians during the Turkish occupation in the 16th and 17th centuries. When the Turks invaded Hungary in the 16th century, they brought their cooking customs with them. These included the use of the spice, paprika. They also taught the Hungarians how to cook stuffed peppers and eggplants. The Turks also introduced coffee to Hungary.

Hungarian yellow peppers give this dish its distinct taste, although any kind of bell peppers can be used. Multicolored bell peppers, including green peppers, have thicker skin and may take longer to cook. In the recipe below we use large green peppers, not the traditional Hungarian yellow peppers shown above. In many ways the stuffed peppers of Hungary and Turkey were another adaption of rissoles, common in cooking cultures around the globe. A modest amount of the most expensive ingredient, meat, was well used to provide tasty and less expensive dishes. In many countries, bread served as the combination ingredient. In the case of Hungarian stuffed peppers, rice was the major combination ingredient.

This is an easy recipe to prepare and if you make extra stuffing mixture you can use the extra stuffing as the base for a number of other different meals.

Large Stuffed green Pepper

Ingredients

6 medium to large green peppers

1 lb ground beef

1 lb ground pork

1 lb ground mild Italian Sausage

3 eggs

3 16 oz.cans diced Italian tomatoes

1  12oz. can tomato paste

2 cups of chopped white onions

3 cups cooked rice

3 Tbsp. imported sweet Hungarian Paprika

2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1/2 cup sugar or sugar substitute

1/2 cup olive oil


Take the tops off the peppers, clean out the seeds and dice the tops of the peppers.

Prepare the stuffing mixture. Combine and mix the ground meat, rice, eggs, salt, pepper, paprika, sugar, olive oil and one cup of chopped onions.

Prepare the tomato sauce. Combine the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, diced green pepper tops, and one cup of diced onions. Note: Tomato Sauce may not be the most descriptive term. Salsa may be a better term. In Hungary the term would be "lesco"(LEH-choh). This is a traditional dish of peppers, tomatoes, and paprika and serves to enhance a range of meat, soup and stew dishes as well as serving as a side dish.

Place the peppers in a cooking pot. Add the meat and rice stuffing mixture to the peppers.  Add the tomato sauce until the peppers are covered.

Slow cook the stuffed peppers at 300 degrees for two hours.  With large peppers, a half pepper may be a single serving for most. I serve the peppers with the tomato sauce and nothing else.

Options. Some have placed the rice in the stuffing mixture uncooked. I prepare a rice mixture and combine a 6 oz.packet of Uncle Ben's wild rice with two cups of plain white rice. Slow cooking the peppers for two hours will ensure the rice is cooked. If you do not have diced Italian tomatoes, add a teaspoon of Italian seasoning to diced or crushed tomatoes, fresh or canned.

Some substitute ground turkey for the ground beef to make the meal a little more healthy. Cooks who have a good track record with this dish stress the importance of sugar to enhance the spices. They also stress the importance of slow cooking and the use of  Hungarian sweet paprika. A dutch oven makes an excellent alternative to the traditional saucepan.

Stuffed Peppers Ready To Be Covered In Tomato Sauce

From My Time In New York

I fell in love with this dish when serving as a lowly  beginning professor at Columbia University in the early 1970s. Three blocks from Columbia was a Mom and Pop restaurant, The Green Tree Hungarian Restaurant. Pop met you at the door and closely monitored and ensured quality service. Mom was very much in charge of the kitchen and often came by the table to make certain you were pleased with the cooking. While the restaurant is long gone, I have many fond memories of the tasty modestly priced food, great service and friendly family atmosphere.


The New York Times Dining Out Guide from May 1977, reported:

GREEN TREE HUNGARIAN RESTAURANT 1034 Amsterdam Avenue - New York


"Trim and spotless, the rough, white plaster walls are hung with colorful patterned rugs, glazed earthenware and garlands of dried red peppers. This is acuisine de femme, with women doing all the cooking ......  The food is hearty and warmly fragrant, and portions are large. Appetizers are unusually good; among them, stuffed peppers filled with rice and meat in a sweet-sour tomato sauce or sauteed brains, eggs and onions.........

 The food is hearty and warmly fragrant, and portions are large. A friendly and convivial restaurant offering hot, lusty and well-seasoned four-course dinners with coffee for under $9. Reminiscent of the homey, Bohemian cafe-restaurants of Europe, the Green Tree is a favorite with students from Columbia and Barnard. Diners seated at oilcloth tablecloths are supplied with paper napkins and get familial concern from waiters and owners. Dishes that have held up over time are golden, aromatic chicken soup; cold beet borscht; potato pirogen, filled dumplings fried and topped with cool sour cream; stuffed roast chicken, beef or veal goulash. Beers and wines are moderately priced."

Making Use of Extra Meat and Rice Stuffing Mix

Try stuffed eggplant with bread crumb and grated cheese topping. 

Meat and Rice Stuffed Eggplant

Paprika

A small bowl of Spanish pimentón

The spice paprika is a common spice that comes in a range of versions. Paprika is mostly ground red chile peppers. Because red chili peppers range from very sweet to very hot, we must expect a range of tastes in paprika. We chose the sweet hungarian version of paprika. Spain and Hungary are considered the biggest producers of paprika and both countries produce both hot and sweet forms of paprika. In Spain paprika is known as "pimenton".

Tomatoes For Canning and Cooking

Tomatoes For Canning and Cooking

Tomatoes the Super Food.

It is Fall and the home garden is producing tomatoes by the bucket full. Every time I checked, the health  value of tomatoes has increased. A recent WebMD article reported on 10 reasons to eat tomatoes. Some of the reasons will certainly get your attention, such as a substantive reduction in the risk of pancreatic cancer. See http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/health-properties-tomatoes. My most recent effort to ensure that I have access to plenty of tomatoes all year is the canning of tomatoes as a salsa base. My most recent salsa recipe is a chili tomato salsa.

  Recipe:

 Chili Tomato Salsa

Ingredients

Half of a 5 gallon bucket of tomatoes, diced, with skin on.
                              
2 large green peppers.

1/2 cup of sugar or sugar substitute.

1 large sweet onion, diced.

1 packet Mrs. Wages Tomato Chili Base.
This chili base is easy to get from the Internet. If the Mrs. Wages Chili Base is not available, use 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon curry powder and 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce.

2 lbs. of medium tomato  salsa from the local grocery store

1 12 oz. can tomato paste

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar

1/2 cup red wine or apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 cup dried potato flakes

Note: Many tomato canning recipes call for the removal of the skin. Wrong Move.  You substantively diminish the health properties of tomatoes when you remove the skin. If you have a problem with the skin, then dice the tomatoes very finely.

Combine all the ingredients in a large 10 quart-pot. Slow boil and stir for at least 30 minutes. Add the potato flakes and stir well just before bottling. This thickens the mixture.

This should make 7-8  one quart bottles.  With tomatoes you do not need to use a pressure cooker for the canning process. Steam canning will work fine because of the acidic content of the recipe. The vinegar certainly adds to the acidic content of the tomatoes.

Many Uses For Chili Tomato Salsa. 

This chili tomato salsa will provide the sauce for pasta and meat balls and similar pasta recipes. This salsa will provide the sauce for chili dishes. It will also serve as a salsa and chips dish. The sauce is great for use in a meat loaf recipe. For a quick tasty dish, brown one to two pounds of sliced Polish sausage, or bratwurst, with onions and green peppers, and a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan.  Add a quart of the  salsa. Bring to a slow boil and serve. This should take less than 15 minutes.

If Times Are difficult.

If their is an emergency or you are traveling light and you need a quick meal for yourself or a group try the following. You need cans of Spam, bottle/s of Chili Tomato Salsa and a loaf of bread. Allocate a cup of salsa, half a can of Spam and two slices of bread per person. Dice the Spam, brown the Spam in the bottom of a saucepan or "billy", add the salsa and bring to a slow boil while stirring, then serve over slices of bread.

For many years I enjoyed riding my motorcycle on the mountain roads of Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. When camping by the roadside I made my meals with the aid of a "billy" and a campfire. The billy has been described as follows:

A billycan, more commonly known simply as a billy or occasionally as a billy can (billy tin in Canada), is a lightweight cooking pot which is used on a campfire or a camping stove.

See November 11, 2010 posting for more on cooking with Spam.

Roasted and Grilled Baby Potatoes

Roasted and Grilled Baby Potatoes


It is Fall, and potato harvest time. We grow red potatoes and store them in the root cellar. As we harvest the potatoes we set aside the small or baby potatoes. These are often disregarded by the commercial growers. We love them. My wife, Judy, waits with salt shaker in hand, washes these small juicy potatoes and eats them raw. Most of these potatoes are from 3/4 to 2 inches across.


Roasted Baby Potatoes

Ingredients

2 to 3 pounds of baby potatoes
1/2 cup of olive oil

Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture


1. First, clean the potatoes and dice them into approximately one inch pieces.


2. Second, place potatoes, olive oil, and 1 tablespoon of  Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture in a bowl and mix well.

3. Third, spread the potatoes on a cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Roast for 30 minutes until lightly browned.

What is Al's Quick Fix Spice Mixture?

This is a multipurpose mixture to save time. I first started using it when time was short and I has to serve mashed potatos or mashed squash.

The ingredients.

1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon of Mrs. Dash Tomato,Basil and garlic blend
1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
1 teaspoon Paprika
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 tablespoon of dried parsley

Typically, I use 4 times the amount for each item listed above and place in a quart canning jar, so there is plenty of room to mix and shake the ingredients well.

If making mashed potatoes or mashed Queensland Blue Squash, I add 1 tablespoon of Spice Mixture for each quart of mashed potatoes.

Grilling Potatoes

If grilling the larger potatoes, mix the Spice Mixture with olive oil and rub the potatoes in the mix. For grilling the diced baby potatoes, prepare as above for baking and then wrap with aluminium foil and place on the grill

Leftover Roasted Baby Potatoes

Place the leftovers in a bowl sprinkle some cheese (or a 50-50 mixture of grated cheese and bread crumbs) on top and bake for 30 minutes at 300 degrees. If I had some bacon bits I sometimes mixed the bacon bits with the potatoes. Leave the lid off to keep the potatoes crisp.

Grandpa  Had It Easy.

Growing up in Outback Queensland I had pleasant memories of the home grown potatoes being available all year without any great storage facilities such as a root cellar.  In Northern Utah we get one growing season. In Springsure Queensland we were very close to the Tropic of Capricorn and Grandpa could grow several crops at different times to ensure a continuous supply for most of the year. In truth it was not that easy because the warmer climate did generate more pests and diseases. Grandpa did move the potatoes around to ensure the pests and diseases could not move easily from one years's potatoes to the next.  Baked potatoes, with the Sunday roast meat, often chicken prepared by Grandma were a constant and I counted on them every Sunday of the year.