Sweet Potato Pudding

Enjoying a moment away from the holiday cooking frenzy with Bruno, the CatBaby.

Sweet Potato Pudding

This is a recipe for people who love sweet potato or pumpkin pie but would like to feel a little better about indulging.   I test-drove this on two picky family members who won't settle for some holier-than-thou bran-flake-and-cedar-shavings substitute.   These are people who don't give two whoops if it's good for you or not if it tastes bad.  (Nothing wrong with that -- food that's good for you shouldn't taste bad.)

And away we go.

Equipment you will need:

• 9" x 13" glass baking dish
• electric hand mixer

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 2 good-sized sweet potatoes
• 4 eggs or 1/2 of a 16-oz. carton of egg substitute
• 3/4 c. milk or fat free half and half
• 3/4 c. honey
• 1/4 c. molasses (light or dark -- we like the dark)
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1 tsp each ginger, cloves, nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp. salt or salt substitute (or leave it out -- up to you)

Cook squash and sweet potatoes in regular oven (350F for about 70 minutes) or microwave until tender.  Let cool.  Scoop into a large mixing bowl, cut into small chunks and add eggs, milk, honey, molasses, spices and salt.  Beat with hand mixer until pureed.  Pour into greased baking dish and bake at 325F for about an hour -- can be put in the last hour the turkey's baking.

Makes about a dozen servings.  Serve as dessert, warm with whipped cream or topping or vanilla ice cream, or as a side dish to your dinner.   No crust, not much fat (depending on your egg mixture and milk choice) and lots of fiber, vitamin A and a little iron, too.

Dirty Aul' Mashed Potatoes

Black Irish Friday, a new Thanksgiving tradition

Himself carves the bird.

One of the best things about this Thanksgiving was that the next day, instead of rushing to the malls, etc., we spent it together instituting a new tradition, Black Irish Friday.  (If you don't know what "Black Irish" is, here's the general idea.)  This pretty much means that we had a laid-back Thanksgiving-style dinner with just whomever happened to be at the house.  This year it included our neighbor, who's a Cleveland police officer, our daughter Arah and her boyfriend Sam, and of course, us.    It was a lot of fun and we plan to do it next year if I don't do the big Bredenbeck Family Thanksgiving, which is gonna be another blog post in itself.

And of course, it wouldn't be a laid-back meal without fuss-free food, and it doesn't get much more fuss-free than Dirty Aul' Mashed Potatoes.

Equipment you will need:

Steel stock pot, 5-quart or 8-quart
Good cutting knife
Hand mixer
Spatula

Ingredients:

5 lbs. russet, redskin, Yukon Gold or any other white potatoes
2 T powdered chicken or vegetable bouillon (we like Wyler's, Vegeta or Jamison's Soup Base)
1 2-oz. container dehydrated onions
1 T McCormick's Vegetable seasoning blend
12 oz. light or regular sour cream
1/2 c. real or fake bacon bits (optional)

Cut up the potatoes any old way you like, with the skins on (gasp!  yes, it's true!), put into the stock pot with about 4" of water in the bottom, add bouillon or soup base and dehydrated onions and simmer, covered, until potatoes are tender.  Using hand mixer, mash and then beat the potatoes.  If it looks like there will be too much liquid,  drain a little off; you can use it for gravy now or soup later.  When the potatoes are fairly well mauled, throw in the sour cream, the McCormick's and, if you like, bacon bits. Turn mixer to high speed, scraping sides of bowl.  At some point, you will have to stop and remove potato peels from the mixer blades, but hey -- you didn't have to peel potatoes, did you?   When everything is nicely blended, return to stove top and continue to beat over low heat for about 2 minutes until potatoes are very hot; serve.

Makes plenty for 6 hungry people and a ton of leftovers.   If you want to get all fancy and make potato pancakes with the leftovers next day, we won't stop ya.

Note:  Once the potatoes are whipped, do NOT set this back over a lighted burner unless you are beating it with the mixer.  At best you will scorch the bottom, at worst -- well, you know that cake they made on "The Little Rascals"?  Yeah.  BOO-WOW, baby, all over the stove and, if the Kitchen Gods are really up for some fun, the stove hood and even the ceiling.   If you're not serving it immediately, keep it on the stove center, which should still be hot from the turkey or whatever beast you're roasting.  (You could put it in a large Pyrex or glass serving bowl and zap it in the microwave at the last minute, too, but remember, there is air beaten into the mixture, so cover it with Saran wrap to avoid the Boo-WOW Factor.)

World's Simplest Roast Chicken

Place setting for two at Casa Reyna Del Cielo, Tres Piedras, NM

 

We don't eat red meat, but we still eat chicken and fish.  About once a week, I roast a chicken.  It's a really easy recipe, makes the house smell wonderful, and isn't a lot of work.  I swear to you, I will never give you a recipe that's a lot of work. Gracie doesn't cook that way. 

(One of these days, I'll tell you how I came to be nicknamed Gracie, but for now, let's just roast this bird.)

Equipment you will need:  

• 9" x 13" roasting pan 
• Heavy duty aluminum foil 
• Baster

Ingredients:

• 1 4- to 5-lb. roasting chicken
• garlic powder
• 1 tsp. ground sage
• 1 tsp. ground thyme
• McCormick's Perfect Pinch Vegetable or Garlic & Herb
• 1/2 tsp. dried lavender blossoms (I swear to you, I am not going to go all Gwyneth on you, but this really is the secret ingredient)
• 1 chopped onion
• 1 T brown sugar or Sugar In The Raw
• paprika

Preheat oven to 350F.  Place enough aluminum foil in the pan to cover and seal the chicken inside.  (Don't ask me how to figure this.  Eyeball it.  This is not a sewing class.)

Place chopped onion in bottom of pan to serve as a "bed".  Trim excess fat from chicken.  Sprinkle McCormick's blend all over the chicken.  Make sure you get the folds of the legs and wings, and the underside.  Place breast side up in the pan.  Sprinkle sage, thyme and garlic powder on top.   Crumble dried lavender over breast area.   (You're going to think I'm nuts for adding this until you try it and see how good it tastes; then it won't quite be roast chicken at your house without it.)  Seal in foil as if you were wrapping a package, crimping edges  Leave a little headroom for steam.

Bake at 350F for about 1-1/2 hours, then turn your oven's temperature down to 275F and bake for about another hour.  (You can play fast and loose with this -- as long as the temperature is between 250F and 275F and the foil remains sealed, you can bake it for another hour or even two.  You don't want to know how long I've let it go some days when I'm busy or distracted.  The trick is to keep the foil sealed and the temperature low after the initial blast at 350F -- to what our grandmothers called a "slow oven".  Long cooking won't hurt this dish; in fact it will tenderize it.  Keep your foil sealed and it will stay moist.)

About fifteen minutes before dinner, open your foil (slit it open and peel back), baste chicken with juices, and sprinkle paprika over entire chicken.  Sprinkle brown sugar over the chicken breast.   Bake another ten or fifteen minutes until sugar forms a glaze.

Serves a family of four or five, or makes enough for at least two meals for two.  As long as you're using the oven, bake a couple of sweet potatoes along with it, split open, add butter and sprinkle 'em with maple hickory smoke seasoning. 

The MFing Cranberry Sauce, I Kid You Not

My God; it's full of stars....

Every year, I get asked to bring cranberry sauce to my sister-in-law's home for Thanksgiving.

Over a few years of making it, I developed what is probably more a technique than a recipe.  It generally includes a lot of cursing and swearing, since a.) I do not like cranberry sauce b.) I do not like the "Growing Up Walton"-style production pressure invoked by most major holidays and c.) I especially do not like peeling and chopping apples, which this recipe involves.  You Have Been Warned.  

It became known as the MFing Cranberry Sauce because, well, that is what it usually ends up getting called, at least once or twice, some years more than others.  This ingredient is quite optional and I assure you its omission will not affect the quality of the end product, though if you're like me, you might not have as much fun making it. 

OK, let's get started.   You will need:

4 poly bags of cranberries

2 12-oz. cans frozen apple juice concentrate

2 c. water

1 quart orange juice

5 cups cane sugar (or more, to taste)

1 15-oz box golden raisins

6 small or 5 large Macintosh or Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped

2 large navel oranges 

Equipment:  Huge enamel pot, wooden spoon vegetable peeler, tiny cookie or canape cutter in star shape

You presumably have the first hard part out of the way in having the apples peeled, cored and chopped.  Let's get the next PIA out of the way by dealing with the oranges.  Remove the peel in the largest intact pieces you can take off, or halve the oranges and scoop them out. Remove membrane and chop orange pieces.  Use a tiny-tiny cookie cutter, as for canapes, and cut small star shapes out of orange peel (or you can do this freehand with a scissors if you're good at it).   Set aside. 

Put cranberries, water and orange juice in large (8-quart) enamel or stainless pot with lid.  Cover, set burner to low and bring to a simmer -- you will hear the cranberries popping, which is why you keep the lid on.  If you don't have sense enough to keep the lid on, you will next year. 

When most of the berries have popped and are starting to look mushy, add sugar and apple juice, stir in and dissolve. Add apples and oranges.    Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.   The mixture should thicken up a bit (this is because the fruit pectin is doing its thing, the same as when you make jelly).  Add raisins and orange peel stars, cook another 10 minutes, until "stars" are translucent, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and pour into a large glass serving bowl.   Pick out a few of the stars and arrange on top.  This keeps pretty well for a few weeks in the fridge, so you can apply liberally to T-day leftovers.   You can also freeze a bunch and trot it out again at Christmas.

Stuffed Peppers, or, You Have To Start Somewhere

I'm always posting our dinner menus in status updates on Facebook.  Often, friends ask for recipes.  The other night it was stuffed peppers.  For want of a smoother introduction, here's the recipe:

2 c. bulgur wheat

1 28-oz. can seasoned diced tomatoes

1 T McCormick's Vegetable Season Blend

1 4-oz. can tomato paste

1 chopped onion

1 T olive oil (optional)

2 tsp. dried thyme

4 tsp. dried basil, divided

1 8-oz. bag finely shredded mozzarella cheese

6 large, blocky green peppers

1 28-oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 T honey

Cook 2 C bulgur in 4 salted water, cool. Mix in a 28-oz. can of diced seasoned tomatoes, a tablespoon of McCormick's Vegetable seasoning (or any of the salt free season blends), onion, 1 4-oz. can tomato paste, a chopped onion, 2 tsp each of basil and thyme, 1 T olive oil (optional) and 1 8-oz. bag finely shredded mozzarella cheese. Blend well. Remove the tops and take seeds out of 6 large, blocky-shaped green peppers. Stuff the seasoning mix in the peppers, placing in a 9" x 13" glass baking dish. Pile any leftover stuffing around the base of the peppers. Mix 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes with 2 T honey and 2 tsp basil. Pour over all. Bake at 350F for about an hour. Top with Parmesan and shredded mozzarella. Good with a loaf of warm sourdough bread and herb butter.

Serves 3 really hungry people, 4 moderately hungry people or 1 family of 8 if the kids all hate green peppers.