World's Second Best Meatloaf

The World's Best is from the New York Times,  We had the second best this week.  I pubbed the recipe before. Meatloaf with Kickass Topping.  

We ate it again this week and it was soooo good.  Changes to the original recipe:  Bread crumbs made from stale baguette soaked in a little milk, and a wee bit of parsley from the garden.  It was still wonderful and we ate the rest in sandwiches for lunch.  I think I like meatloaf sandwiches (cold) as well as meatloaf fresh out of the oven, but it's really a toss up.   I baked potatoes with the meatloaf, and we had them with all the trimmings:  bacon bits, snipped chives from the garden, sour cream and whipped butter.  Plenty of salt and pepper.  I always choose a pretty small potato, but Significant Other opts for a king sized one.  Green beans and salad round out the meal.

 We only eat this a few times a year and I always buy the ground beef (ground daily) at the butcher counter.  I would no more dream of making this with turkey than with octopus.  Sometimes ya just gotta each beef.  Lots of zinc and b-vitamins as well as protein and well, flavor.

The garden is about gone.  Age the last ripe tomato and the last cuke yesterday.  Two more little green tomatoes is all she wrote.  Pulled up the cucumber vines and made pesto from the basil plants.  Parsley about gone, from us.  Lots of mint and rosemary and sage and also oregano.  Must remember to bring the oregano in.  In never lives all winter, but hope does spring eternal.  I have to take cuttings from the coleus and cut the geraniums back and bring them in, too.  Fall chores are about the same as spring chores, without the payoff of color and good eats. 

I think the hummingbirds have migrated.  Can't decide whether to put out one more batch of nectar.  The little birds need to stoke up for their long journey.  It hurts my heart to think of them flying over the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season.  How do they make it and return to our yard and feeder year by year? 

Flocks of blackbirds massing in the treetops.  Cat is intrigued. 

The cleomes that reseeded themselves are still blooming.  What with the geraniums, coleus, and cleomes, I spent very little on flowers this year.  Trade with friends.  Gardens are for sharing.

The Cheeseparer

Real Fried Apples

My mom occasionally made fried apples.  As a young bride, I made them, too, usually with liver and onions, which my mom wouldn't have made since she hated liver from the time she had to eat lots of it because she was anemic.

When was the last time you got fried apples in a restaurant?  In spite of New England's apple harvests, I don't see fried apples.  Apparently Cracker Barrell has them, but they're gunked up beyond recognition. 

I looked on the web and did not find the authenticity I had hoped for in the fried apple recipes.  Why not?  Some of them had the apples chopped us?  No way.  You slice them thinly with the peels on.  Others had great quantities of sugar added.  Another heresy.  You only need about 1 teaspoon for two apples, or 1/2 t. per apple.  Maybe a smidgen more with Granny Smiths, but don't go overboard.  Cinnamon is not required or desired.  We are not having dessert here, we are enjoying a side dish with pork, a mostly savory side dish.  So don't make a crustless apple pie in a skillet. No sirree.

We used Cortland apples recently and they don't brown nicely or get all that tender, but they were tasty.  Here's what you do for real fried apples:

Heat 1 T. unsalted butter and 1T. canola oil (the yin and the yang) in a large cast iron skillet.   Arrange 2 thinly sliced apples with the peeling still on (more fiber, don't cha know?) in the skillet.  Cook over medium heat until apples become softish.  Sprinkle with a little salt and 1 t. sugar.  Cook and stir until apples start to brown--if this doesn't happen turn up the heat a bit, but watch carefully or they will burn.  When the apples are cooked and have a pale caramel color, remove from heat and serve.  Great with anything pork.  Now wasn't that easy?

 In the fall, apples are cheap and will keep for a time, refrigerated.  When past their prime, make applesauce (super easy in the microwave) and if they go bad, throw them out in the snow for the squirrels and watch the fun.

Yours in cheeseparing frugality,


The Cheeseparer

A German Food Weekend

We were going to the Oktoberfest, but I had misplaced a financial document that had to be located in the very messy home office, so instead we went to the German deli and picked up a pound of bratwurst and some good rye bread.  I buy sauerkraut (imported from Poland or Germany) at Ocean State Job Lot for chump change.  We had a huge can and the makings of a meal.  So much kraut was leftover, that I dug around in the freezer and found two pork steaks (or were they boneless ribs?) and two sausage (provenance unknown) and fried them up and braised them in wine and added to the kraut.  Cooked two big potatoes with jackets on and let cool, then chopped them up and fried them in canola oil with lots of chopped onion.  Better than the first night.  We ate the leftovers tonight.  Also sliced, using the Cuisinart, a couple cukes and made a salad with onion and a sliver of yellow pepper.  Salt, pepper, and sour cream and mayo thinned with a little of the white wine I put in the kraut and the sausages.  And dill.  Cukes play nicely with dill.

Sauerkraut needs to be massaged a bit when you take it out of the can.  If it's overly salty, rinse it.  You can add back the liquid with wine or chicken broth or a combo of both.  I always cook a couple strips of bacon, chopped,  a bit of onion and then add the kraut and the wine to that.  Toss in a bay leaf, some caraway seed, grate an apple if you feel industrious, and sprinkle with a little paprika.  I always dump a tablespoon of brown sugar, but if the apple is sweet, you may not need this.  Cook as long as you like, and keep adding wine the kraut becomes dry.  It just gets better and better.   Nestle the cooked  meats (short ribs would work if you aren't into pork)  into the kraut.  Slice the rye bread thinly and provide soft butter.  This is a meal that will live in your memory and it rids the freezer (night two) of odd bits of meat.  Never will remember where that sausage came from.  An adult child, perhaps?  Who knows? 

Gute Essen. 

the Cheeseparer, who found the missing document at the bottle of a pile of paper, as expected.  Luckily, it was in the first pile.  Is your home office messy?  How do you keep it tidy?  Inquiring minds would like to know.  

Potato Salad Three Ways

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As a kid I would never touch potato salad or anything potato-y except French fries and potato chips.  When I lived in Houston as an undergrad at Rice University, there was a fabulous Jewish deli in “the village,” a cute shopping area not far from campus.  Alfred’s was a small town girl’s indoctrination into matzo balls, kreplach, and sardine platters to say nothing of the delicious meats like pastrami, especially, piled high on the rye bread for a stunning sandwich.  I discovered olives that didn’t come in a can.  The potato salad always came on the plate with a sandwich.  When you’re away from home, you’re more likely to try foods that you would never touch with a ten-foot pole at home under  your Mom’s gaze.  I tried the potato salad.  Tasted good!  Who knew?  Alfred’s had a roast chicken with the stuffing under the skin that was totally to die for. 

Once the cultural barrier was broken, I ate Chinese, Mexican, Indian and Middle Eastern.   French, too!  It was four years of culinary adventure as well as academic learning.   I don’t recall the details from many of the courses I took, but I sure remember the food.

Here are three potato salad recipes.  The first is from my mother-in-law, a German woman from Silesia, now Poland.  I know the ingredients sound a little weird, but the whole is way better than the sum of its parts.  It’s great with bratwurst and grilled German treats. 

Omi’s Silesian Kartoffel Salat:

3 lbs. potatoes

1/1 lb. mayo

¼ lb cold cuts, diced.  We always used bologna

2 dill pickles, diced

2 apples, diced

1 medium onion, diced

3 Tablespoons capers,

½ cup of vinegar or pickle juice

1/8 lb. cooked bacon with fat

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together.  I prefer potato salad chilled.  Great for a party. 

Another German potato salad, this one from the late, lamented German restaurant in New York City, Luchow’s.

Note: no mayonnaise! 

Luchow’s Potato Salad

2 lbs. potatoes

½ c. beef stock or bouillion

½ cup onion, minced

 6 Tablespoons wine vinegar (red)

6 Tablespoons canola or peanut oil

1 teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black peppr

1 egg yok. 

Wash and scrub potatoes; boil in jackets until tender.  Let cool until they can be handled.  Peel and slice thinly.  Pour stock over to be absorbed by the potatoes; add onion.  Mix remaining ingredients; beat smoothly together and pour over the potatoes.  Garnish with finely chopped parsely.  Serve warm or chilled.  Serves 4.

Potato and Pea Salad with Chive Aioli  (from July 2001, Gourmet)

8 servings

3 lbs. small red-skinned new potatoes,

unpeeled

3 T. white wine vinegar

3 celery stalks, thinly sliced

1 ½ cups frozen green peas, thawed

1 c. mayonnaise

6 T. chopped fresh chives

1 T. Dijon mustard

2 garlic cloves, pressed

¼ t. cayenne pepper

Cook potatoes in large pot of boiling,

salted water until just tender, about

25 minutes.  Drain.  Cool.  Cut potatoes

into quarters.  Transfer to large bowl;

add vinegar and toss to coat.  Mix in

celery and peas.

Whisk Mayonnaise, 5 T. chives, mustard,

Garlic and cayenne pepper in a small bowl

to blend.  Add to potato mixture and toss.

Season generously with salt and pepper.

Cover and chill at least one hour to allow

flavors to blend.  Sprinkle with remaining

1 T. chives and serve.

The garlic and cayenne give this an intriguing little kick

These recipes would be great to take to a potluck.  Most people like potato salad, excepting my pre-eighteen-year-old self.  Note the ingredients do not break the bank.  Cheap, if fact.  How can you lose?  Email me if you like them!  

The Cheeseparer  with OldBroad blogging today. 

Classic Gazpacho from Gourmet - 1964

I suppose this recipe can be considered "vintage."  It must have come from the first Gourmet I ever encountered.   I've been making it since the early days of marriage, or at least since a blender entered our happy home.  Assume a food processor would work this as well. 

This is a great recipe for August, when the garden is bursting with cukes, tomatoes, and parsley.  Maybe you grow peppers, too, in which case you almost have a free meal. 

Gazpacho

In the container of a blender, combine 5 very ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped, 1 cucumber, peeled and chopped, 1 green (or red, orange or yellow) pepper, seeded and chopped, 1 onion, chopped, 1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley, and 1 garlic clove, crushed.

Cover the container and blend the mixture until it is almost smooth. Stir in 1 1/4 cups tomatoes juice, 3 T. olive oil, 1 T. vinegar, 1/4 t. paprika, and salt and pepper to taste.  Chill the soup thoroughly.

Serve the gazpacho in individual, chilled soup bowls.  You may serve diced tomato, peppers, cukes, etc. all peeled and seeded as above.  Homemade croutons are also a nice accompaniment.

Last fall when we were in Spain we ate Gazpacho for lunch every day and never encountered the same recipe twice.  Always different, always good.  And we didn't gain any weight due to the light lunch and all the walking.  Seville's was best in my opinion.

We're serving a thin-sliced Polish ham with ripe melon (99 cents at our supermarket) and eggplant salad.  It's easy to eat healthy in the summer.

Bon Appetit! 

The Cheeseparer

Photos to follow!

Going Bananas

We were gifted probably the world's worst banana bread this week, and I fed it to the little herd of Scottish Highland Cattle who are very big on that kind of food.  This banana bread looked all right, but it had no taste of bananas, it was dry, and there were weird "off" flavors of cinnamon and who-knows-what.

People, banana bread is a slam-dunk, and I am here to provide you the World's Best Recipe, bar none, and probably the world's simplest.  The recipe was given to me years ago when I had a baby and we lived in an apartment in Elk Grove Village, Illinois.  Right under the O'hare Airport instrument runway and across from United Airlines Flight Attendant Training Facility.  The Elk and their grove were down the road and there was a pump where you could fill you own water bottles

  Nita’s Banana Bread

1 cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
3 ripe mashed bananas
3 Tablespoons sour milk, buttermilk, plain yogurt or sour cream
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups white flour

Cream butter, add sugar, mix well and add bananas.  Mix salt, flour and baking soda and add to banana mixture alternating with sour milk.  Mix together lightly.  Pour into a 9 x 5  inch greased loaf pan.  (Non stick is great!)
Bake in slowish (325 degrees Fahrenheit) for 45-60 minutes, until tested inserted in middle comes out clean.   Cool on rack and remove bread from pan.  Eat and enjoy.
A handful of blueberries or raisins may be added after dry ingredients.


Please don't do anything dumb like substitute margarine or oil  for butter or only use 2 instead of 3 bananas, or you will not longer be baking the world's best, and in fact you may be baking the world's most ordinary.  Just a friendly word of caution.  And for God's sake, don't substitute applesauce for the butter or anything culinarily criminal like that.  Or we can no longer be friends.

The Cheeseparer

Wardrobe Malfuctions

This is not what you think.  All season long I have been considering (and reconsidering) buying a black jacket, because my old one is looking a bit shabby.  Thinking maybe I would try the new resale shop in town.

Last Saturday morning I woke up with the sudden knowledge that I bought a nice black jacket last year.  How, I don't know, but I'd forgotten it.  We had a busy, hectic, not to say traumatic spring this year, and well, I forgot.  Not in the bedroom closet, nor in the guest room closet, but hanging there in the cedar closet, in a dry cleaner's bag with my favorite skirt that I had also forgotten. Wore both to the MFA to the Alex Katz show, feeling very elegant.   


Normally, it would have been in the guest closet, because neither of the fabrics were wool, hence they didn't need to be in the cedar closet.  This morning, I woke up trying too remember when my grandmother had died.  1963.  How could I forget?  A stressed mind plays tricks on you.  I'm unstressing and hence, remembering stuff. 


In the days of yore, I kept an inventory by season of summer and winter clothes, with the age and condition of each garment.  When I stopped working, I no longer kept the inventory.  Now I'm thinking maybe it should be revived.  The nice thing about this is that you can cast you eye over what you have and the age and condition, and make some fill-in purchases.  No doing what I did this year and buying a new top for really old pants.  


There are many ways to be frugal, and clothes come right behind groceries.  Recently I have discovered The Sports Authority which has name brands of sportswear at good prices.   The chain had always flown under my radar.   Ocean State Job Lot always has good "lounge pants" at  $ 5 - $6.  Add a Walmart Faded Glory T-shirt for $5 and you have yourself a great set of pajamas for $10.00.  


Frugally yours, 


the Cheeseparer