A Recipe From Grandma

I was going to bake Snickerdoodles this week but when I got out the mixing bowls my husband asked “Can we have Special K cookies instead?”  I haven’t made them in a long while so I said yes.

Special K cookies come to me from my Grandma Routley.  They’re a family favourite.  My cousins love them too.  One bite and we are transported back to Grandma’s kitchen, and to all the happy memories that come with it.

I think the recipe originated in the 50’s, probably either published on a cereal box or in a women’s magazine.  There was a fascination with recipes that incorporated convenience foods back then; Campbell’s soup casseroles, green beans with canned friend onions, that sort of thing.  Regardless of where Special K cookies originated, we continue to love them.  They have a nice light texture, with a pleasant contrasting crunch from the cereal. 

I published this recipe on Facebook last December so while the cookies were in the oven I looked to see if I still had the photos on file.  Since I do, I’ve decided to share the recipe again here in my blog.

To make the cookies, you’ll need:

2 c. sifted all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 c. butter (Grandma actually used Parkay margarine I think.  I like regular, salted butter best for this recipe.)

1-1/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs, beaten

6 c. Special K cereal

Measure the flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl and stir them together with either a whisk or a fork.

Cream the butter and sugar together and then mix in the vanilla and egg.  Beat until well combined.

Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture and mix well, then add 2 c. Special K and mix it as gently as possible through the dough.

Drop teaspoonfuls of dough into the remaining cereal, rolling to coat.  Place the coated dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart.

Bake the cookies at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes, until lightly browned.  

Transfer the cookies from the cookie sheet to a sheet of brown paper (I use a cut up grocery bag) to cool.  Store the cooled cookies in an airtight container.

I'm Thinking About Christmas Cards

I enjoy a holiday celebration.  I look forward to New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Canada Day, Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, Christmas, and all the holidays in between.  If it’s an opportunity to cook a special meal, bake some treats, or make a greeting card, I’m on it.  That being the case, and me being an arts and crafts, DIY kind of woman, I’m sure it surprises no one that I’ve been thinking about Christmas cards today.

The good folks at the post office tell us that the habit of sending Christmas cards is dying out.  Each year, fewer and fewer of these greetings travel through the mail and that makes me sad.  I really, truly love the process of making and sending Christmas cards, and the delight found in receiving them in my mailbox.  What a lovely thing it is to look forward to the mail with anticipation instead of dreading its usual freight of pizza flyers and bills!

Not that I’m criticizing or complaining. I get it.  We’re all crazy busy, with ever-increasing demands upon our time, so most of us have switched to the more immediate (and often less expensive) options offered by email and social networking.  Goodness knows I spend enough time on Facebook for several people!  And I love e-cards, especially when they have cool flash animation.  I understand that because we have the option of pressing the “send” button and knowing that our message will be received almost immediately, the process of buying and addressing cards, purchasing postage, and getting to the post office to mail them can seem like a huge commitment of time and effort. 

Until pretty recently, I drove myself crazy every Christmas season.  It was a matter of honour to make my gifts, to decorate every inch of my house both inside and out, to make my cards, to write newsy, individual letters to family and close friends, to do Christmas baking, attend Christmas concerts, and to do some sort of volunteering.  I would start my Christmas planning in January and still there would be an inevitable meltdown sometime in December, together with at least a couple of all-nighters where I pushed myself to near-exhaustion in order to get my presents done on time.  I felt a tremenduous obligation to meet some illusive, unattainable Christmas-making standard, and it took me a long, long time to realize that no one had set that standard (or had any expectation that I’d meet it) other than me.

Our move from big house to much smaller apartment was a turning point for me.  I couldn’t carry all that Christmas stuff with me even if I wanted to.  Gone are the Christmas dishes, a good three-quarters of my seasonal decorations, and my impossible Christmas-making standards.  Last year found us with only a wreath on our door and a tree in the living room.  No decorations spread throughout the house and there was very little baking in my cupboards. Christmas dinner was a roast chicken shared by just the two of us.  It was lovely.

Why then, even after the great simplification, do I continue to make and send Christmas cards?  Because it gives me pleasure to do so.  I relish the process of choosing paper, planning the design, setting up an assembly line of sorts, and then completing my cards.  If they turn out as I’d planned them, so much the better.  I like to see the stacks of addressed envelopes sitting on my desk.  I enjoy making the trip to the post office and checking out the Christmas decorations and storefronts along the way. 

Do I expect people to send me cards in return?  No.  It’s a delight when they do but I know that they’re busy.  I’m just grateful to continue this one part of making Christmas that brings me so much joy.

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Red card designed by Sharon Annis, using papers, stamps and materials from Stampin’ Up

Blue and white Christmas tree card designed by me, using paper from WalMart, a stamp from Stampin’ Up and glitter glue from the dollar store.

“Hello Dear” card designed by me, using paper from My Mind’s Eye (www.mymindseye.com)

Changing Direction

I haven’t been writing much lately and I do apologize.  I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with this blog and where I want to go from here. 

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had some health problems in recent months.  Lately, they’ve affected my outlook on cooking because I am often not hungry and so eat only because I know I need to.  Eating for sustenance rather than enjoyment takes a great deal of the pleasure out of cooking.  I’m sure this will change soon (I usually have a huge appetite and a tremendous enthusiasm for food) but right now—for the first time in my life—I find myself viewing my kitchen time as a chore rather than a pleasure.  That, of course, makes it a challenge to write about food.

Being sick for a long time has affected my outlook about food in another way that is both more esoteric and more fundamental.  I realize that, while cooking is certainly a great love of mine and that my passion for food was the driving force behind starting my business, it is really only one of many interests in my life.  I am by nature a dilettante, constantly interested in different and diverse things, constantly wanting to move on and learn more. 

My hiatus from work leaves me unable to continue with catering, at least for a while.  I’ll have to save up some money before I can work for myself again.  I'm sad to have to leave my business behind even temporarily but, oddly, in its own way, taking a break may be a good thing.  Changing my focus will enable me to look at the broader range of my interests with renewed curiosity. 

Which brings me back to the subject of my blog:

I do want to continue writing about food, and about local farmers and food producers but

I want to write about other things too.  I want to write about grocery shopping and budgeting, about arts and crafts and photography, about making new stuff from old, about seasonal celebrations, about activities in and around the area, about gardens and how stuff grows, about fun stuff to do with kids…about all the things that interest me really.  So you’ll be seeing some changes here.  Much of my writing will continue to be food-centric but many other subjects will come up too. 

Please bear with me while I find my way in this new direction.  If you have suggestions about what you’d like to read about or comments on what I do write about, I’d love to hear them.  Thanks for your patience.

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Illustration:  http://handletteringcite.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/its-considered-golden-too-citing-a-spanish-proverb/

Beefs Again

I remember my mom being a pretty good cook when I was little.  That is, until she joined Weight Watchers.  Don’t get me wrong: I think that as weight loss programs go, Weight Watchers is a pretty sensible one.  It’s just that they preach the practice of substitution.  That’s not such a bad thing either.  I frequently substitute one ingredient for another if I’m looking to make a recipe more healthful.  It’s just that my mom, bless her heart, had no idea which ingredients made suitable substitutes.  She didn’t lack in creativity but her tofu dog chow mein with its sauce made from watered down low calorie ketchup and cornstarch was a turning point for me:  It was the exact reason I realized that I had to learn to cook.  It was a matter of self defense.

By the time I moved out on my own, I’d mastered the basics of putting a meal on the table.  My dishes were simple and my repertoire small, but at least my meals were palatable.  I found that I liked to cook.  The process of preparing a meal was soothing to me and the act of stocking my cupboards gave me a sense of security in what were, for me, very uncertain times.  

I decided to expand my cooking horizons and, in doing so, discovered a couple of things:  First, that I could tell what a dish would taste like just by reading a recipe and, second, that when I cooked for others, they enjoyed my food enough to want to put their knees under my table again and again.  It was very gratifying.  I started to look for recipes everywhere.  I bought women’s magazines in thrift shops.  I clipped recipes from newspapers.  I brought home cookbooks from the library.  

All this took place in the days before computers were commonplace, even in offices.  I know that some of you cannot imagine such a time, but it did exist.  I learned to type on an ancient Royal typewriter given me by my granny.  It had a cast iron body and a key movement so stiff that I nearly sprained my baby finger every time I typed an “A.”  Photocopies were out of my price range so, unless I was clipping from a magazine or a newspaper, I transcribed my recipes using that old typewriter and the yellow, inexpensive typing paper commonly used for rough drafts at that time.  The finished sheets were compiled in a binder, in the order I transcribed them.  No sorting or index here:  I found—and continue to find—the recipes in that book purely by spatial memory.

As my confidence in the kitchen grew, I came to realize that—despite being scarred by the tofu dog stir fry experience—living on a budget meant embracing the art of substitution.  I couldn’t just run out to the grocery store every time I came upon a recipe that called for an ingredient I didn’t have.  I learned to shop mindfully, to build a pantry, and to adapt my recipes to the ingredients I had on hand.

One day, while searching through a magazine from the library, I came across two chicken recipes.  Both were made with a yogurt marinade that later became a coating for the chicken as it baked in the oven. 

 

I knew for a fact that there was no chicken in my fridge, nor would there be until payday, but there was a blade steak.  I went home, cut the blade steak up into cubes, made the marinade, put it all together in a Ziploc bag, and popped it in the fridge.   

The next morning, I emptied the bag into my slow cooker, and that night I served the beef over egg noodles.

My husband is no fan of yogurt but he loved this dish and asked what it was.  I told him it was called Beef Tzigane, and that it was cooked in a Hungarian style sauce.  He had a second helping at dinner and then finished the last of it for lunch the following day.  

I thought no more about that blade steak in yogurt marinade until he asked, while we were grocery shopping one day a couple of months later,  “Can we have beefs again?”

"We had beef just a couple of days ago,” I replied.

"No!”  He exclaimed, “I mean that beef dish in the Hungarian sauce.”

“Ah!”  The penny dropped.  I added yogurt to my cart.   

The dish has remained a favourite at our house ever since.  It may not be the prettiest girl at the dance but it turned out to be the one that came home to meet the family.

 

I made Beef Tzigane last weekend.  I served it with short grain brown rice, roasted carrots and turnips, and cabbage and apple slaw.

If you’d like to try this recipe, you’ll need:

2-1/2 lbs of lean beef blade steak or roast, cut into cubes

2 c. yogurt

2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. cayenne (adjust the amount to your own taste)

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. powdered ginger

1 thinly sliced onion

Place the beef cubes in a Ziploc bag. 

Put the yogurt in a bowl and stir it a bit so it loosens up.  Mix in the garlic, salt, cayenne, cinnamon, paprika, and ginger.  Pour the yogurt mixture into the bag, zip the bag closed and then use your hands to move the ingredients around in the bag so that the beef is evenly coated with the yogurt mixture.  Marinate the beef overnight, in the refrigerator.

In the morning, place the beef and marinade in the slow cooker and add the onion.  Stir to mix the onion through the beef.  Put the lid on the slow cooker, set it on low and cook it for 8 to 12 hours.  Don’t open the lid because heat will be lost.  It doesn’t need stirring and the longer it cooks, the more tender the beef will be.

That’s it.  When it’s supper time, serve it with your choice of side dishes and enjoy.

Our First Good Food Box

Today we received our first Good Food Box.  The contents are pictured above.  Pretty good for $10.00 I think. 

The Good Food Box program hopes to make wholesome food more affordable for all of its participants.  It operates by buying fresh, top quality produce directly from farmers and from wholesale clubs. (Here in the valley, the program works with the Old Farm Market.) Customers pay the cost of the food itself while distribution overhead is subsidized. 

In Duncan, the Good Food Box program operates through Warmland House, a community facility that provides temporary housing to those struggling to find stable housing, and emergency shelter our community’s homeless.  Assembling the boxes requires 15 to 20 volunteers and 8 hours of labour.  Many of the volunteers are Warmland House clients. 

The food for the Good Food Boxes is bought in bulk and dropped off at the program’s warehouse. Volunteers then divide up the produce into portions and put the boxes together. The boxes contain the maximum amount of produce possible for the price.

Every month, each Good Food Box contains 5 pounds of potatoes and 2 pounds of carrots.  The rest of the contents vary from month to month depending upon what’s seasonally available and offers the best value.  Like CSA boxes, the contents are determined by the program’s operators.  Unlike CSA boxes, Good Food Boxes are sourced from more than one provider, and the program operates on a month-by-month basis.  Customers do not have to sign a subscription for multiple months or for a full season.

There is no qualification requirement for participation in the Good Food Box program.  Poor, middle class or well-to-do; everyone can purchase a Good Food Box. (Or two or three if they want to: There is no limit on quantity purchased.)  The more people who join in, the greater the buying power becomes and the greater the value the program is able to offer its participants. 

If you would like to purchase a Good Food Box here in Duncan, payment must be made at Warmland House by the last business day of the month.  Boxes are distributed on the third Monday of the following month.  If you are not in Duncan, you may still be able to participate in the program.  There are Good Food Box programs all across Canada.  To find one in your area, Google “Good Food Box” followed by your community’s name.

Balance

You'd never catch anyone saying this now! It's a good reminder that how we think about food and how we think about physical beauty can change over time.

Loving food as much as I do, I think a lot about it. I read a lot about food history, food anthropology, and nutrition. I read cookbooks like novels.

I've learned that nutrition and health science are constantly changing, as are our societal standards of health and of physical beauty. We are constantly striving to be thinner and stronger and healthier; trying to measure up to images and standards presented to us by others--images and standards often based upon nutritional trends and fads.

Diet and nutrition trends come and go but common sense remains constant. It doesn't matter what others think about how you look. It matters that you are healthy and that you're happy with who you are.

Life is about balance: Eat a wide variety of foods from all the food groups but don't obsess about diet. Try to get some exercise every day but don't worry that you'll never make the cover of Vogue or Women's Health.

Whatever you do, do it for you. Do what you need to feel healthy and happy, and remember: Moderation in all things including moderation! 

Photo:  http://pinterest.com/source/cw.routledge.com/

 

Ginger Scones

In the small town where I used to live there was a café owned and operated by hardworking English couple.  They’d established a good clientele, many of them retired, who made a visit to the restaurant part of their daily routine.   

One of things that brought customers back to the café day after day was the baking.  The owners would come in during the wee hours of the morning and produce—from the restaurant’s single, elderly, four-burner-one-oven, home-style, electric stove—a wonderful array of scones, pies, and pastries both savoury and sweet. 

As might perhaps be expected, years of working from before dawn until after dinner service eventually took their toll.  The English couple sold their restaurant to the local baker.  He viewed the café as another venue through which he could market the products from his bakery and was confident that they were fine enough to please the café’s long time customers.

I was working at the bakery at the time the café changed hands, and moved from working in the bakery to working in the restaurant.  The baker had not required that the café’s original owners leave any of their recipes but he had hired one of their long time employees to continue on as cook.  She was instructed to teach me the restaurant’s recipes and routines, and this she did very well.  She did not, however, like sharing her kitchen or working for her new employers, and quit just a few months after they took over the restaurant.  I stepped into the kitchen in her stead.

I enjoyed my new job but noticed that many of the café’s long time customers remarked upon the scones.  It was not that there was anything wrong with the scones provided by the bakery—they were fine—but the customers missed the ginger scones baked by the original owners.  The baker did try to make a ginger scone but he flavoured it only with dry ginger and it didn’t measure up to the wonderful, strong ginger flavour the customers had come to expect.  

I decided to experiment with a ginger scone of my own.  I used crystallized ginger in my scones, together with dry spice, and baked them in wedges with crunchy sugary tops.  They were an instant hit. 

I’m still a big fan of crystallized ginger.  I enjoy its particular balance of spicy and sweet, but it’s a treat around here; I don’t always keep it in the pantry. 

This week I was fortunate enough to have a quantity of crystallized ginger on hand, left over from canning pears so I decided to make some ginger scones for our Meatless Monday dessert.  I split the scones and dressed them with hot peaches and cold vanilla yogurt.  They were lovely.

If you would like to make this dessert, you’ll need:

• 1/2 c. finely diced crystallized ginger
• 2 c. all purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 c. cold butter
• 2 eggs, beaten (Reserve 1 Tbsp. egg white for brushing on the top of the scones)
• 1/3 c. whipping cream
• More sugar for sprinkling on the top of the scones
• 1 pint jar of canned peach slices
• 1 Tbsp. (approximately) cornstarch 
• Vanilla yogurt

Begin by dicing the ginger.  Set it aside.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, ground ginger and salt.  When they’re combined, cut in the butter just as you would for making pastry.  I actually break the butter up with my fingers, squishing it into flat flakes of butter rather than cutting it into chunks.  The pieces of butter should be quite coarse.  When I break the butter up with my fingers they end up being about the size and shape of corn flakes.  If you’re using a knife or pastry cutter, they should be no smaller than a large pea.

Once the butter is incorporated, add the diced crystallized ginger, tossing lightly to distribute it through the dry ingredients.  Beat the eggs and cream together and then add them to the dry ingredients to make a stiff dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead it just until it sticks together.  Form the dough into a ball and roll it out into a circle about an inch thick.  Score the dough into wedges.  I make four wedges when using it for dessert (each wedge makes two servings) but it’s more usual to make six or even eight scones from this amount of dough.

Line a baking sheet with parchment and then place the scored dough round onto the paper.  Brush the top of the dough with the reserved egg white and sprinkle it with sugar.  Be generous; the sugar and egg white will form a lovely, crispy top crust.

Bake the scones for about 15 minutes, until they are golden brown.

While the scones are baking, drain the syrup from your canned peaches into a small saucepan and mix in the cornstarch until it’s dissolved.  Heat the mixture over medium-low heat until it comes to a boil and thickens.  Add the reserved peaches and stir them gently into the thickened syrup.  Keep them warm on low heat until the scones are done.

When the scones are baked, take them from the oven and cut the round into wedges.  Split the scones in half.  If you’ve baked large scones like I do, allow one scone for every two servings.  Place the scone halves on dessert plates and spoon the peaches over them.  Top the peaches with vanilla yogurt and serve your dessert while it’s still piping hot.

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[1] You can read about my pears canned in brown sugar syrup with ginger at

     http://awordfromauntb.blogspot.com/2011/10/pears-in-brown-sugar-syrup-with-ginger.html


This post is linked to Think Pink Sundays, hosted by Flamingo Toes