Archive | October, 2011

From the Depths of the Cookbook Shelves

12 Oct

The Sarah Daft Home is an assisted living facility for the elderly in Utah.  The Sarah Daft Home Cookbook is quite possibly the most enjoyably dated and delightfully unappealing cookbook I’ve ever had the pleasure of perusing.  As someone who is endlessly fascinated by the used-to-be-relevant content of old cookbooks (warning: that link right there will take you directly to a tutorial on how to cook and eat a porcupine), the Sarah Daft Home Cookbook has provided me with an almost embarrassing amount of amusement.

The book starts things off right with a few advertisement for local businesses.  This particular ad has the unfortunate effect of seeming as though it was written in the voice of Norman Bates:

The recipes in the book read like they were written by two ladies sitting around and talking to one another about what they like to cook.  Take, for example, this recipe for something called penny muffins:

Okay, so then you set them aside to rise and then…?  Did Mrs. E. J. Raddatz have to excuse herself to go answer a knock at the door?  WHERE IS THE REST OF THE RECIPE?  I mixed my batter at noon, just like you told me to, but then what?

Mrs. Charles Wilkes seems to suffer a similar predilection for intrigue when it comes to her recipe for delta gamma muffins:

That’s it.  There is nothing else written about those muffins.  At least the woman above her, Mrs. H. N. Mayo has the decency to at least suggest mixing and then cooking the ingredients, albeit somewhat mysterously in an oven that is described as being nothing other than “slow.”

Some recipes seem to be so popular, more than one lady chose to submit her favored recipe, as in the case of these competing recipes for the attractively named shrimp wiggle:

This recipe for Japanese salad seems to be an effort in composing a dish made entirely of items one would never, ever encounter while in Japan, but might possibly encounter if forced to create a dish while blindfolded and harvesting ingredients from a cartoon cat’s shopping cart:

Many of the recipes in my copy of the book have been marked by the previous owner.  Some notations seem to be indications of a successful effort (lots of underlining and a small, modest check mark), while others speak volumes with the simplicity of their verdict:

Pork cake and burnt leather cake?  Inexplicably, both get a yes.

Bread crumb pudding?  No.

Brain timbale?  Let me see what I will need to make this.  Oh, yes, now I see: brains.

I like how this page starts off with a recipe that seems like it could be a real thing, but then the rest of the page just seems to give up as it goes along, eventually descending into gibberish:

If you are looking for a copy of this cookbook to claim as your own, I am sorry to inform you that it is long out of print. My copy was gifted to me by a friend (on account of the fact that the author of the cookbook shares the exact same name as me, down to the same middle initial), but I did find one copy available on Etsy.

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Apple and Cheese Quiche

10 Oct

My son came up with the idea for this quiche.  No, really.  He came to it completely on his own, with no prodding whatsoever from his food-centric mother.  This may not sound all that impressive to a lot of people, but considering the fact that most dishes invented by children tend to be either a) deliberately revolting (mud pie with worm sauce, or the ubiquitous poo sandwich), or b) something Willy Wonka would have for breakfast (chocolate chip chocolate cake pancakes with chocolate sauce and chocolate whipped cream), I think my son’s rather creative, yet entirely edible, recipe idea is fairly admirable.  Cheese and apples are a classic pairing, and when combined in the custardy filling of a quiche, they’re the perfect savory end to a chilly fall day.

I once read that kids are 65% more likely to eat food that they have helped make.  Though I find most statistics or factoids about children and their habits to be largely misleading (because if there is one thing you never, ever want to do, it’s read up on how old “most” other children are when they master toilet usage or stop lisping the sound of the letter s), my experiences with cooking with the help of children has proven this statistic to be almost universally true.

Kids like to help.  They may not be very good at it (I am being honest here, so try not to gasp too loudly when I say that, look, kids are messy and uncoordinated, so when you cook with them, things are not going to look like they emerged from a professional cooking show), but allowing them to take part in an adult’s everyday activities gives them the confidence to tackle their own activities with a bit more focus and interest.  Even though my kid tends to drop most items I hand him in the kitchen, splash the contents of a bowl against the wall whenever he attempts to handle a whisk, and grow incredibly tired of my repeated reminders to keep his hands away from the burners on the stove, he’s also comfortable in the kitchen and eager to assist.

I am generally loathe to dole out advice regarding the raising of a child (because there are more types of kids than there are varieties of apples and types of cheeses, and what works for a Brie will most likely not apply to a Manchego, if that makes any sense at all) but I will say that leaving a door open for your kid to explore his food, where it comes from, and how it gets made is an invaluable step towards developing a healthy and realistic relationship with food.

This is not to say that we walk around all day harvesting kale and churning our own butter.  We do, however, have a kid who will approach food with creativity, and who will (as this point, at least) agree to take at least one bite of whatever new item shows up on his dinner plate.  Sometimes he never gets past that first bite (sorry, green beans), but other times, as in the case of this quiche, he eats the entirety of his portion, then asks for more.

Apple and Cheese Quiche

1 parbaked single tart or savory pie crust (the recipe for my favorite savory tart and pie dough can be found here, and you can find further information in that same post about parbaking the crust)

3 large eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

½ cup shredded or grated Parmesan cheese

1 medium apple (a somewhat firm variety works best here, but I’d stay away from a super tart variety like a Granny Smith), chopped into ¼ inch chunks, about 1 generous cup

pinch cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs and milk until thoroughly combined.  Add in cheeses, apple, and spices, and stir to combine.  Pour filling into a parbaked pie crust set on top of a baking sheet.

Bake quiche on the center rack of the oven for 35-45 minutes, until the center has set and the top of the quiche is puffed up and golden brown.

Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

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Heirloom Tomato Cobbler with Cheddar and Scallion Biscuit Topping

6 Oct

As if the very name of this dish wasn’t already completely unromantic and slightly clunky, let’s just go ahead and examine its most glaringly obvious head-scratching component: it’s a cobbler made of tomatoes.

I know it seems unlikely, but let me assure you, it works.  Juicy heirloom tomatoes made even more flavorful with a handful of basil and some quality time spent in a hot oven.  Soft and comforting biscuits with pleasantly crunchy tops and bursts of savory sharp cheddar enveloped within.  Put these two elements together and you’ve got nothing less than magic, I tell you.

And before you say it, allow me to tackle the next seemingly problematic tidbit about this dish: heirloom tomatoes in October?  Yes.  You can get heirloom tomatoes in October, and, thankfully, they are just the type of heirloom tomatoes you will want.  This dish does not require pretty, unblemished tomatoes, but rather calls out for those tomatoes you would like to chop up and maybe even hide a little before you eat them.

You don’t need beauty pageant tomatoes for this dish, you just need ripe, fleshy tomatoes that are bursting with flavor and willing to be cooked.  That, to me, is the very essence of the October heirloom tomato.  Summer heirloom tomatoes are for slicing and displaying atop a wonderful savory biscuit.  October heirloom tomatoes are for chopping and nestling beneath some biscuits.  It’s all so very convenient, I think.

Heirloom Tomato Cobbler with Cheddar and Scallion Biscuit Topping

2 pounds heirloom tomatoes, cut into 1-inch to 1/2-inch chunks

¼ cup chopped fresh basil leaves

salt and pepper

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks

¾ cup cold buttermilk or soured milk

¾ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 large or 2 small scallions, finely chopped (about 3 tablespoons total)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Place chopped tomatoes and basil in an 8-inch square glass baking dish.  Add salt and pepper to taste, then toss gently to combine.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.  Whisk or pulse to combine.  Scatter butter over the top of the flour, then cut into the mixture using a pastry cutter, or by pulsing 6 or 7 times in the food processor.  The mixture should resemble coarse crumbs with a few pea-sized chunks of butter remaining.  Gently stir in the buttermilk, or add through the feeding tube of the food processor while intermittently pulsing to combine.  Add the cheese and scallions and gently stir to combine, or sprinkle the cheese and scallions over the top of the mixture in the food processor and then briefly pulse just 2 or 3 times to combine.

Drop the biscuit mixture over the tomatoes, about ¼ cup per scoop.  You will end up with 9 biscuits total, 3 across and 3 down.

Bake the cobbler in the center of the oven for 40-45 minutes, until the tops of the biscuits are deeply golden and the tomatoes are rapidly bubbling.  Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving.

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