Spaghetti Sauce and a fruit sauce suggestion

Okay. Time to start another blog with a least one recipe in it. I'm currently on the treadmill I don't have the access to my personal hand written cook book, so I'm going to have to wing it.

This is one of my favorite all-time recipes for one of my favorite all-time foods. Yes folks, spaghetti. As far back as I can remember spaghetti was something I could eat for lunch and for supper. It could be worse. I could have wanted to eat it for breakfast, but I'm not that far gone. I was always happy in school when some form of spaghetti, like American chop suey, was on the menu. All in all, in more than 40 years I've never gotten sick of eating spaghetti or some similar meal. As much as I adore Thai and Chinese food, none of it has the same staying power as Italian food with tomato sauce. I have to specify the tomato sauce, because the cheese sauces aren't nearly as good, a least to me.

When I was pregnant, my stomach was a bit touchy. I had really liked eating burritos. There were some spectacular ones you could get at the Lexington market in Baltimore. With my first pregnancy, all my pregnancy tests came up negative. I couldn't figure out why I was feeling nauseated all the time. I was also eating a lot of burritos. It didn't take long for my subconscious to connect the burritos with the nausea, though they were just guilty by association, and there was no causal relationship. Somehow logic just doesn't enter into it. Spaghetti on the other hand, seemed to go down just fine. I think it might have been the high carb load associated with the pasta. Remember, I was also heavily engaged in residency at the time, so I didn't have a lot of time for cooking. I could make spaghetti with meat sauce standing up with my eyes shut, half asleep. By the time I gave birth to Eric, I calculated that he was approximately 50% spaghetti. When I was pregnant with Marc, I was working at the Harbor Light Wall at a walk-in clinic that had a PapaGino's nearby. Marc came out approximately 40% PapaGino spaghetti with meatballs. Tara had a pretty high percent of PapaGino as well.

As with all the other recipes, this particular one underwent several transformations over the years. Initially, I liked it lumpy with chunks of vegetables in it. Sadly, young children aren't very fond of lumps. The idea of the peppers and onions was bad enough, but you would have thought the mushrooms were alien invaders. I was a bit stumped at first, because I really like the taste of the extra vegetables, and I knew they added to the nutrition of the dish. So here's the major lesson that I learned about feeding children: if they can't see it they don't know it's there. This is my explanation for the puréed nature of this sauce. For those of us who are mature enough to appreciate lumps in their food, you can just chop the vegetables and sauté them without having to turn them into mush.

Spaghetti with Meat Sauce

1 pound hamburger, lean
1 medium onion.
1 bell pepper.
1 package fresh mushrooms, (small package).
Two to three cloves garlic, minced.
Dried basil.
McCormick Italian seasoning.
One package Splenda.
Salt to taste.
Crushed red pepper (optional, can use dried Scotch Bonnet here ).
28 ounce can of tomato purée.
14 ounce can tomato paste.

Put a large saucepan, or sauté pan, on the stove top and set at medium-low. When the pan is heated, add the hamburger and sauté. Stir occasionally as it cooks. In between, put your medium onion, your seeded pepper and your mushrooms into your food processor. Process very fine. When the meat is browned, add the vegetables and sauté as well until they are wilted. Add garlic, basil, Italian seasoning blend on salt and crushed pepper. Feel free to add as much basil and Italian seasoning as you would like. Personally, I like to add a lot. Add the tomato purée and paste, and as muc go to sleep h water as it needs to get the sauce to the right consistency. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve over pasta.

It's time for me to go and get ready for work. I'm going to have to post this. One final thought and food suggestion. If you take 100% chocolate from Lindt and chop it up finally, you could toss it in with your fruit sauce. This is pretty good on top of ice cream, but it makes an excellent dessert just by itself. Sort of like dark chocolate covered raisins, but not as chewy. And yes, Eric, I am sending you a bar of dark chocolate. Or two.

Pies, brought to you by DragonDictate

Last night we had pie for supper. I hadn't originally intended to make just pie, but I wasn't very hungry after all the eating I had done, and I really wanted to eat some homemade apple pie. It's important to know that I haven't made a pie since the last time we had a Thanksgiving dinner, and I made that one for other people. Sometimes I even have to refresh my memory on how to make one. It went very smoothly, this time, so I feel like I can load the recipe up without doing too much cookbook consulting.

Pie is another thing that I remember very fondly from my childhood. My mother had to learn to make pie in United States after she immigrated. Pie appears to be of English derivation, not German. It wouldn't have made much difference if it were German anyway, since Mom couldn't learn cooking from her mother. From what Mom tells me Oma only could make pound cake, and nothing else. Given the amazing things Mom has turned out in her kitchen, learning to cook was a truly remarkable feat for her. Mom did very nice apple pies, but the undisputed pie champion was Grammy Houston. Her crusts were flaky and light and very delicious. Better yet, her fillings were tender and tended not to boil over. I remember watching Grammy make a pie and noticed that she put some butter into it as she was putting the pie together. I mentioned it to Mom, who said that she didn't think it was necessary. It wasn't until later that Grammy told me the butter kept the pie from bubbling out and destroying the oven.

Crust was another issue for me. When I first started making pies in West Lebanon, my crusts were terrible. They were tough and thick and didn't roll out right. Sometime either while we're still living in West Lebanon or after we moved to Maryland, I found a Better Homes and Gardens baking tips magazine. Along with a lot of delicious cookie recipes, the magazine explained in great detail how to make the perfect pie crust. It's this method that I've passed on to Marc. I know he put it to good use on quite a few occasions.

Apple Pie.

2 cups flour.

1 teaspoon salt.

2/3 cups shortening.

2/3 to 3/4 cup water, cold.

4-7 Cortland apples, sliced (number depending on size of apples).

2/3-1 cups sugar (depending on how tart the apples are).

1/4 cup flour.

1 teaspoon butter.

Cinnamon sugar (this is to SPRINKLE on top of the apples just before the crust goes on and should be a light brown cinnamon sugar mix, rather like what you would put on, say, apple pancakes before enjoying them).

One tablespoon apple juice (optional, only if apples are very very non-tart).

Start the oven heating at 425°F. Place 2 cups flour and 1 teaspoon salt in a big mixing bowl. Stir them together a bit. Add in shortening, and using 2 dinner knives, cut the shortening into the flour. Continue this until the dough resembles on a course meal. Gradually add the water, cutting it into the meal, until the dough begins to stick together. On a clean countertop surface, spread a sizable portion of flour. Take half the dough and form it into a ball, and place it in the center of the flour on the countertop surface. Flour up your rolling pin, and start rolling the dough out into a circular piece, big enough to cover your pie plate. I usually roll out a pie dough a few inches at a time and flipping it over, adding more flour underneath it every time I flipped it. This keeps the pie dough from sticking to the countertop and makes it easier to lift up off the surface. After rolling it out, I gently roll the dough onto the rolling pin and transfer to the pie plate, and gently release it onto the pie plate. (Note that gently is the key word here). After the dough is in the pie plate I ease it in so it covers all the surfaces without having to stretch the dough to do it. Next, I put in half of my apples. This usually fills it close to the rim of the pie plate. I sprinkle on half of the flour, sugar and cinnamon sugar at this time. I then fill it with the rest of the apple slices. Usually this is a mound several inches higher than the rim of the plate when I'm done. I sprinkle on the remaining filling ingredients in the following order: flour, sugar, cinnamon sugar, butter. I gently cut the butter into 4 little slivers that I placed strategically throughout the pie. After this, I trim the excess crust from the edge of the pie. Next, roll out the top crust, just like you did the bottom, and transfer it to the top of the pie. Generally, I like to rub some water onto the bottom crust were the two edges come together to make them fuse better. Trim the top pie crust so that approximately a half-inch hangs over the edge. Tuck the overhang under the bottom crust. Flute the edge of the crust by putting one finger underneath it and to making a small tent around that finger from the top of the crust. Finally, slice some vents into the top of a pie. Bake the pie at 425° for 20 minutes. Without removing the pie, turn the oven down to 350° and cook for 30 to 40 more minutes, depending on how soft you want your apples. Let cool before cutting.

Strawberry rhubarb pie is very similar. The crust, for instance, is exactly the same. Here's the recipe for the pie filling:

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling

Equal parts strawberry rhubarb, sliced, enough to fill a pie.

1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar

1/3 cup flour.

1 teaspoon butter.

As with the apple pie, you put in half of the fruit, followed by flour and sugar in that order. Then you add the second half of the fruit and then the rest of the flour and sugar, followed by the butter. Generally, you don't need lemon juice in this, and cinnamon would be completely overwhelmed by the flavors of the strawberries and rhubarb. You bake the pie identically to apple pie.

First, it's important to note that the way I make pies is usually very slapdash. The amount of fruit I put in is about the same, but the quantities in pieces are somewhat different depending on the size of the individual fruit.

So, what about all that eating I did yesterday? Well, we had company visiting the dojo, up from Atlanta. Our dojo in Brookline has joined a new dojo cooperative. Because we rank up pretty far in the hierarchy, we are involved in all of the activities for the weekend. This included going to Parker's Maple Syrup Barn for breakfast, and then we went with our guest who was staying with us to Mary Chung's in Cambridge. Tara, of course, came with us. And what visit to Mary Chung's would be complete without another visit Toscanini's for ice cream afterwards? Sadly for my waistline, there were two incredibly good flavors, and I couldn't decide which one I wanted, so I had them both. Yum! The ginger was excellent, and the bananas Foster was to die for. Very banana-y. In fact, it was a pretty appalling carb day all around.

I'm thinking I won't put another recipe up this time. I've been dying to wax lyrical about a different topic, the topic of cheese. When I was a kid I never particularly cared for cheese. Of course, we pretty much just had American cheese or some form of cheddar at home. No np, let me correct that. Most the family just had American cheese or some form of cheddar. Mom had Limburger. When she ate it, we all had to leave the room. It wasn't until just recently that I discovered the joys of Stilton cheese. You see, our local grocery store is carrying an interesting cheese called blueberry Stilton. I discovered it about 4-5 months ago. It tastes a wee bit like blueberry cheesecake. After repeatedly enjoying it, I got ambitious and asked Doug to pick me up some apricot Stilton at Trader Joe's. He brought me back that, and also mango ginger Stilton. It was very hard to get myself to stop eating the mango ginger. The apricot, which I’m just eating now for the first time, is pretty good too, but I think I like the blueberry and the mango ginger are better. As far as carb count goes, the blueberry has the least and the mango ginger has the most.

I've also discovered a cranberry cheddar, that's quite nice, called Crandale. This is from Hannaford's as well. It has the least carb count of all of the fruited cheeses, and is quite tasty, but quite a bit more sharp than the other three.

Personally, I'm not wild about sharp cheese or particular strong flavored cheese. I tend to like the creamier, smoother flavors. This means I'm partial to Havarti and Monterey Jack. If I'm just eating cheese, I like some of the flavored Monterey Jacks. The jalapeno can be a bit much, but the garlic and mushroom flavored ones are pretty good. Of course, there's always mozzarella in its very many forms. If you can't slice it and shred it and throw it on top of something, you can always eat it as string cheese. One of my favorite meals is low-carb noodles, topped with a spicy marinara sauce, then shredded mozzarella, microwave for three minutes until the cheese gets crispy on top. The biggest problem with that is, it's addictive.

Time is flying. I'm going to have to get this post up and get on with finishing supper. Tonight's meal will be chicken and apple sausage with Brussels sprouts followed by apple pie. We're going to have to eat soon, because we want to go to Wallace and Gromit tonight. I'll see if I can post review on the other blog, afterwards. See you on the flipside!

Scones, Apple Pancakes, and Blueberry Pancakes

Here's another blog written using DragonDictate NaturallySpeaking. I'm writing this one at work, using my laptop computer. I wanted to see if I could get it to work here, and how well I would do with it. It's a bit hard getting used to it again after today's not using it, but hopefully if I use it every day both I and the program will become used to each other.

It will be particularly interesting to see how well this works with my recipes. The format of recipes is somewhat different than the format of regular paragraphs. This will probably take longer than it would just to type it. But if I get used to it I should be able to do it the increasingly quickly.

Many years ago when Doug and I lived in West Lebanon, Doug went to a bookstore and purchased a recipe book. I was a bit surprised at the book city bought. At first I thought it was rather strange since the recipes were very different from what I was used to. I eventually figured out that it was an English cooking book for baking. What I found particular helpful with the book or all the recipes for scones that it had. I did find the recipes for scones seemed a bit dry and bland, when using an English recipe. Since that time, I have updated the recipes. There's a little bit more sugar in these recipes, as well as more fruit.

Raisin and Currant Scones

1 3/4 cups flour.

1/2 teaspoon salt.

1 teaspoon baking soda.

2 teaspoons cream of tartar.

3 tablespoons butter.

2 tablespoons sugar.

1/2 to 2/3 cups golden raisins.

2/3 cup milk.

Cinnamon sugar to taste.

Preheat oven at 425 °F. Mix first four ingredients in bowl. Rub in three tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Mix in sugar, currants, and raisins. Then add milk and mix until soft dough forms. Dump onto floured counter top and knead for one to two minutes. Pat into 8 to 9 inch round. Rub top with some milk and then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Cut into eight equal wages. PAM cookie sheet. Place wedges on cookie sheet and bake at 425° for 10 minutes.

The scones are really great. They're moist and soft with a crunchy outside. Sometimes I would make them and take them with us when we went skiing. They travel really well and stay nice and fresh for most of the day. They also freeze really well. I also have a recipe for apple scone, but I generally use the recipes straight from the cookbook and I don't have the cookbook with me right now. I'll try to put it in another post.

I'm also going to include a recipe for apple pancakes. I first started off making more traditional apple pancakes with minced or shredded apples mixed in with regular king cake dough. Somehow it just didn't seem apple--y enough. I eventually modify the recipe to where it is now. Surprisingly enough, it took me several weeks to determine that this was basically potato pancakes done with apples. The taste is pretty different though.

Apple Pancakes

8 to 9 large Macintosh apples, peeled and shredded finely.

4 eggs.

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour (add more if apple is especially juicy)

butter for griddle.

Cinnamon sugar.

Set griddle or frying pan on low. Mix together, apples and eggs, sugar and flour. Put 1/3 to 1/2 cup on hot buttered griddle and flatten out. Slip when browned, and brown other side. Cook on low. When done serve sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

These pancakes are incredibly yummy. They're also not very low in carbs. As a consequence, I haven't eaten them very often recently. Tara and Mark are especially fond of them, and I know Eric likes them as well. These are great to eat but a lot of work due to all the shredding.

As my final recipe for the day I'm going to discuss blueberry pancakes. My general feeling regarding fruit and pancakes is the more the better. I feel there should be just enough dough in a king cake with fruit in it to hold the pancake together. Sometimes that almost seems like too much! This was another recipe that I created by starting with a relatively mild recipe and just adding more fruit until achieve this effect. You can also make the recipe without the blueberries and makes a very nice regular king cake. They're very good at sucking up syrup, which some people really appreciate.

Blueberry Pancakes

2 eggs

milk to make 1 cup liquid when joined with eggs.

1/4 cup Saco buttermilk powder (may substitute one to two very large tablespoons of yogurt here).

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour.

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 pint blueberries, rinsed.

Put griddle onto heat at low setting. Whisk together eggs and milk. (I mix these in a measuring cup, and gently place the eggs in first then add enough milk to make 1 cup of liquid.) Add dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly blended and without lumps. Add cleaned and drained blueberries. Drop by very large tablespoons onto hot greased pan. Spread them out a bit. When browned on one side flip and brown on the other side. Serve sprinkled with plain sugar. You can also have them with maple syrup, if you wish.

As you can see I have very many recipes that work well with breakfast. Some of them are low-carb and some aren't. I've always really liked breakfast, and if I hadn't come up with some low-carb replacements for all these wonderful breakfast treats I probably would be back eating and fat again.

This is probably enough dictating in enough recipes for any one day. I'm going to save this particular version and will load it up on the Internet this evening when I'm home. I do find them having to sit with my arms crossed across my chest to keep from typing things since that is still going to be faster than dictating. Part of it is the cause to think my way through the next sentence. Sayonara, for now.

Berry Sauce, Cranberry Applesauce, Latkes

Got a long stint in the treadmill today, so I may have time to post to 2 blogs. I suspect Tara is still waiting for the recipes in this one, so I’ll start off here.

First is fruit (berry) sauce. Berries tend to be low carb fruits and are full of nutrition and fiber. Strawberries in particular have been studied and found to be chock full of anti-oxidants and other stuff that reduces cancer risk. It makes a nice treat for breakfast, even for dieters. The biggest problem with berries is that they have a short season, after which they are hideously expensive (and bound to get more expensive due to increased transportation costs), and don’t taste nearly so good. For this reason, and to replace the maple syrup I can no longer eat, I devised this berry sauce, which is dead easy to make and oh, so yummy. It goes on pancakes, French toast, puffy omelets, ricotta custard and, according to Eric, ice cream. In fact, if you poured a bunch of it in a bowl and floated 3 or so balls of ice cream in it, you would pretty much have that Becher dessert I mentioned previously—the only one Germans will let you have after supper.

Berry Sauce

2 bags of frozen berries (about a pound each)

2 tbsp lemon juice (if it’s blueberries. Don’t usually add for other berries)

½ cup baking Splenda.

Toss the berries and lemon juice into a large, thick walled saucepan and heat over medium high until all berries are melted and bubbling. Turn down to simmer and let them cook for another 10-15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let sit until it reaches room temperature. Pour into blender along with Splenda and puree. If you like your sauce lumpy, you can skip the blender and just add the Splenda. Pour into a container. I prefer qt size ball jars, myself.

Of course, you can always use ½ cup sugar, if you don’t care about carbs and you’re not into Splenda.

Here’s another that will no doubt be needed before long:

Cranberry-Apple Sauce

1 bag fresh cranberries (usual grocery store size—not sure of the weight, but I know it’s not the humongous family size you get at a wholesale store)

1 Macintosh apple, washed and cut into quarters

¼ to ½ cup water

Splenda to taste (probably at least a cup)

Toss the berries into a large, thick walled saucepan along with the apple and the water. If you have an applesauce grinder, you don’t have to peel or core the apple. If you don’t, and intend to use your blender, peel and core the apple first. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium high, then turn down to low and cook until the apple puffs up and disintegrates. Pour into applesauce grinder or blender and process. Add Splenda to taste after, while the mixture is still hot. Place in a ball jar.

This last recipe is adapted from Grandma Elaine. The original uses sugar. One caution with all these sauces—pay very close attention to what they’re doing on the burner. It’s easy for them to boil over and wreck your cooking surface.

Brief pause—I was further along already in writing this, diligently using Word so I wouldn’t suddenly lose my post, when that crappy Microsoft program froze on me. Thankfully, they’ve had to deal with their stuff going on the fritz before, so the bulk of it was preserved in auto-recover.

On to the final recipe. This is one I also enjoyed for lunch growing up. My mother called it German Potato Pancakes, and it’s apparently a traditional food in that country. Doug calls it Latkes, and also has fond childhood memories of it. Different names, exactly identical recipe. It’s important to use some form of russet potato to make these, because those are the potatoes that mush up properly, allowing a crisp outside and soft inside when they’re done. It’s also important to shred the potatoes. Chopping them up in a food processor won’t cut it. For hand shredding, I prefer a mandolin shredder. I’ll see if I can post some information later about more mechanical devises that make the shredding less tedious.

Latkes (German Potato Pancakes)

4-5 Idaho Russet potatoes, either peeled or scrubbed vigorously

1 medium onion, chopped

2 eggs

½ cup flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Oil for frying

Shred potatoes and place in large mixing bowl. Start frying pan on medium heat and add ¼ inch of oil to the pan. Put the rest of the ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly (this is one of those times when using your hands is almost a must). Press a heaping servingspoonful of potato mix into the oil and gently spread with the back of the spoon until about ¼ to 1/3 inch thick. Fry until brown on one side, then turn over and finish on the other side. If the frying is going too fat, turn the heat down a little. When done, transfer to a plate with paper towels, to drain the fat. Serve with applesauce or cranberry apple sauce. (just applesauce is the traditional way to go)

For those who don’t want to go through the bother of making their own applesauce, you can generally fake it with a little effort. You may have to check around to find the best product. Stewart’s Macintosh applesauce, if you can find it, is good. Motts is not. Just doesn’t cut it. You could also get Trader Joe’s Gravenstein applesauce. It doesn’t have any sugar, but you can add Splenda or cinnamon to taste and have a slighter lower carb version. Apples are not a particularly low carb fruit, though they’re better than bananas, watermelon and pineapple.

I was going to do apple pancakes as well, but I’ve run out of time, thanks to Microsoft. That’ll have to be another day. Eat well!

Chili, Ricotta Custard, and Puffy Omelet

I figure 3 recipes is about as much as I should be throwing up at any one time. As it is, I'll have to hurry a bit, since I'm also starting to study for maintenance of certification with the ABFP.

Last night I made some chili and took advantage of the opportunity to figure out just how much chili powder was "throw in as much chili powder as you like." I knew it was a lot, but I've got to say, I surprised even me. You'll notice I'm also giving a lot of leeway as to what to throw into the chili. Good chili can contain a whole bunch of different things, though there are a few ingredients that must be there.

Birgit's Flaming Chili

• 2 lbs ground meat (beef, turkey, buffalo—used buffalo last night, very good)
• 1 large onion, or 2 smaller ones, chopped
• 1-2 bell peppers, chopped
• 1-2 tsp minced garlic (to taste)
• Sliced mushrooms (Optional. We prefer Crimini)
• 2 small zucchini, shredded (also optional, but it’s a really cheap way to add bulk and nutrition without changing flavor)
• 1-28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 bottle of beer (choose your poison. This is a necessary ingredient.)
• 2-15 oz cans of beans, drained (any bean is fine. I like to use black soy because it has more protein and is low in carbs)
• 2 tbsp cumin powder
• 2/3 to 1 cup of chili powder, or to taste. (I prefer the dark red chili powder)
• 2 Habanero peppers, minced. (take the seeds out first. Also, can substitute pepper flakes or Scotch Bonnet powder to get it properly hot)
• Salt to taste

Saute the ground meat over a medium low flame until brown. If you are using just turkey or buffalo, add a little oil since the fat content is low. When meat is brown, add onions, peppers, garlic and mushrooms and sauté until onions start turning translucent. Add the rest of the ingredients and turn heat up to medium. Once the chili starts bubbling, turn the heat to simmer and cover. Simmer for about an hour.

You can throw in some super-sweet corn towards the end of cooking, if you like. When serving, add some shredded Mexican cheese.

This was really good last night. Yum!

I have also developed the following recipe for a ricotta custard in my ongoing quest for really great low carb breakfasts. It’s not bargain basement low, but it’s not bad, when it comes to carbohydrate count. Even better, it’s warm and cozy and fills you up nicely. In other words, it’s great comfort food.

Ricotta Custard

• 15 oz Ricotta cheese (I personally prefer the whole milk version)
• 2 oz cream cheese
• 3 jumbo eggs (or 4 small ones. You can substitute eggbeaters if you absolutely must)
• ½ cup Splenda (here again, sugar will do if you must)
• 1 tbsp vanilla (the more the merrier)

Preheat oven to 350 F, or convection oven to 325 F (I usually use the convection setting on my toaster oven, so you may need to add more time if you are using a regular oven). Put all ingredients into a glass mixing bowl. Using electric beater, beat until smooth. (You can probably use a blender for this). You can cook this in 2 cup pyrex containers, splitting the batter into thirds, or you can divide in half or just cook in one large pyrex bowl, about a quart size. Spray your cooking container with PAM and add batter. Bake for 22 minutes for the smallest size, 25 minutes if divided in 2, and 30 minutes if it’s all on big happy custard.

I like to eat this with a little sugar-free jam on top, or with some fresh blueberries. Lots of fresh blueberries. I suspect any fresh berry will do, as would a nice fruit sauce (later post).

Here’s another Tara request. This is also a recipe that Mom used to make me for lunch when I was a kid. I really adored it. A few years ago I came in possession of an old, general cookbook that Grandma Annie used to have and low and behold, there was the recipe! It was easily modifiable into a low carb version that is really, truly low carb.

Puffy Omelet (also known as Omelet Souffle)

• 4 eggs, separated
• Juice of ½ lemon (or a whole lime)
• 1 tsp lemon zest (dried lemon peel works here as well)
• ¼ cup Splenda (sugar if you must)
• Butter (or PAM) for the pan

Preheat oven to 350 F (not convection oven). Add the lemon juice, zest (or dried peel) and splenda to the egg yolks. Put a 10 inch frying pan on the burner on low. Mix the yolks on high speed until lemony yellow and lightly thick. Time on this varies with the total quantity of lemon juice you toss in. Rinse your beaters off thoroughly, then whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, and all the bubbles in the whites are too small to be seen. Fold the yolks gently into the whites. Butter or PAM the frying pan thoroughly, making sure to get the sides as well. Gently pour the eggs into the pan and spread evenly. Leave on the burner for 2 minutes, then transfer to the oven for 8 minutes. When done, slide gently onto a large dinner plate to either serve, or gobble up immediately.

This is great by itself, but is enhanced in a big way with fresh, sliced and Splenda’d strawberries. You can also serve with berry sauce, or a low carb jam. I prefer the berry sauce.

So, treadmill is done. 3 recipes are enough. I’ll sign off for now and will write more later. I think berry sauce is in order for the next go-round!

Per Tara's Request: Selected Family Recipes

New blog, new subject. I’m starting this one in response to my daughter Tara, who wanted some of the old recipes she remembers from growing up, which are currently just available in a battered notebook in my kitchen. See, some of them are things I found in various odd places, like calendars or magazines, tried and then jotted down so I won’t forget about them. Some are old family recipes from my Mom, or Doug’s family, and some I just made up. Some I don’t cook much anymore, since I’ve gone to low carb eating.

When I was growing up, one of my favorite treats was German pancakes. My mom would make them for me for lunch oftentimes, on those occasions I was home. It was great! The only weird thing was that we never got them for breakfast, because she thought they were inappropriate for that meal, unlike every other American out there. It wasn’t until I was an adult and went back to Germany for a visit that I realized she was just like every other German, who really thought pancakes were inappropriate from breakfast and who were also very rigid in their views as to what it was proper to eat when. I can remember clearly sitting in a restaurant in Garmisch-Partenkirchen arguing with a waitress about whether I could get a piece of cake for dessert after supper. Absolutely could NOT due it! Never mind Garmisch was a tourist area that had lots of experience with foreigners and their weird food ideas, never mind the kitchen probably harbored some leftover cake from the 3pm Kaffee und Kuchen extravaganza Germans have every day. Nope. Wasn’t happening. For dessert you had Becher, and that was that. Since that time, I’ve warned everybody that I run across about to head to Germany to make SURE they don’t miss the Kaffee und Kuchen hour or two, or they’ll have no opportunity for cake the rest of the day. And that would be a tragedy.

Anyway, when I grew up, I took the opportunity to eat pancakes whenever I felt like it, usually at breakfast. I’ll confess, it took a couple of years of doing it before I stopped feeling like I was getting away with something. Over the time, I gradually changed the recipe, due to adjusting it more to my taste and to making it increasingly dead-easy to produce. The current version is thin and flexible, like crepes, and is very good with maple syrup, fruit syrup, applesauce and other fruit sauces. I generally make it in butter, now vegetable oil, like my mother used to do, because that’s how Doug like it. You could also season your non-stick pan and pretty much do it without fat if you want to. The current version uses a blender, but you could also do it with a whisk or a mixer if you have to.

Birgit’s Blender Pancakes

Put into the blender container:

4 eggs

Enough milk to combine with the eggs into 2 cups

1/3 cup sugar

½ tsp salt (optional)

Start blender.

While blending, add 1 cup flour and continue to blend until mixed, and free of lumps.

Heat frying pan on medium low, while your blending stuff. Melt butter in the pan, or add some oil or PAM, and pour in enough batter to make whatever size pancake you want. Cook until top looks less liquid and bottom is light brown, then flip and cook on other side. Serve.

Tara and Marc prefer little dinky pancakes, while Eric and I like them bigger. Eric like to put a bunch of applesauce all over the top and then fold them over and eat it like a thin pancake lasagna. Or is that a pancake quesadilla? Probably the quesadilla. Doug will eat whatever you put in front of him, though he’s been known to make them himself, since I’m not doing it any longer.

One of the recipes Tara wanted was for brownies, so I’ll add that one, too. This one I adapted from one of the big, general cookbooks. I think it was Fannie Farmer. I modified it by happy accident one day—didn’t have enough eggs—and the result was better than the original, so this is the one I go with. I’ve also simplified the production, so it’s not that much harder than mix brownies, and oh, so much better. The one problem with this version is that it hardens up pretty fast. That means you need to eat what you want fresh, then put the rest in Ziplocs and freeze immediately. They microwave reheat into chewy goodness whenever you want them after that. The dough is pretty good, too. I’m personally not a great fan of edges or corner pieces, since I prefer gooey or soft center pieces, but the edges of these are such a chewy delight, I will eat these right away—all for corners if I’m allowed to!

Not that I’m doing that anymore. Sigh.

Brownies

6 tbsp butter

3 oz unsweetened chocolate

1 ½ cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract (ok to be a bit liberal with this)

¾ cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 F

In microwave, melt butter and chocolate in a glass bowl. (2 min on high for my microwave). When thoroughly melted (and not burned), mix in sugar, then eggs. When thoroughly blended, add vanilla, and then flour. Mix well. Grease or PAM (or use silicone bakeware) an 8 or 9 inch square pan and then pour in batter. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes of so, until they’re no longer volcanic, then cut into whatever size square you prefer.

These are a staple of Marc’s social life, or at least they were, until he discovered how to make pies. I think he still does this when he doesn’t have enough time to overwhelm people with the ooey, flakey goodness of apple or strawberry-rhubarb pie.

One final family recipe, also requested by Tara:

Chicken with Rice

Preheat oven to 350 F

1. Spray PAM onto rectangular pyrex pan
2. Add 1 cup rice, spread onto bottom (traditionally Uncle Ben’s converted, but you can splurge with Basmati or brown rice if you wish)
3. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp dried onion (minced) and Lawrie’s Seasoned Salt to taste.
4. Place 4-5 chicken breasts (kosher are the best, because kosher chicken is simply the best anyway) on top, skin side up and bone side down.
5. Pour 1 2/3 cup boiling water over the breasts and rice.
6. Sprinkle more Lawries onto the chicken.
7. Cover with tinfoil, or a glass cover, and bake 1 hour. OK to add more water after this if it appears a bit dry.
8. Remove tinfoil and bake ½ hour more.
9. Serve

This recipe is from Elaine, my mother-in-law, and is adored by my family. Doug really likes the top parts of the rice, and the edges, to be crispy, so we generally never add the extra water. Lawries is a favorite seasoning from his family, and finds its way into all sorts of things. For instance, if we grill hamburgers or steak, his always need a lot of Lawries on both sides. Eric’s version of mashed potatoes (and Tara’s too) generally end up vaguely orange from the amount of seasoning the dump in it. They view this similarly to how I view ginger—you can never have enough in food such that a little more wouldn’t make it even better.

I’m really serious about the kosher chicken, as well. Grandma Annie told me it was better than regular chicken and was even good cold, something I didn’t believe until I tried it. Until then, I always ran screaming from cold chicken because it got an added taste I really despised. I think it has to do with how the kosher ckicken is prepared. It’s against the rules of Leviticus, apparently, to eat bloody meat, so when you kosher something, it’s raised eating only certain things, then slaughtered and the blood carefully drained out, then packed in salt to draw out the rest. Then rinsed. I think it’s the residue of blood in some other kinds of chicken that causes the taste. It’s also never tough. I finally determined what made some boneless chicken so tough: The meat is ripped off the bone before rigor mortis has a chance to set in and then pass. Rigor mortis is when the muscles contract after death. It’s a temporary state. If there is no bone to keep the muscles stretched, they end up tight permanently, and thus tough. Now, isn’t that more than you ever wanted to know about chicken meat? Hmm. In any case, that’s one reason why some chefs prefer to bone their own. It’s usually past that stage before they get to it.

So, enough for now. I’ve still got to eventually post pie, spaghetti sauce, and a bunch of my cool new low carb recipes, along with some other high carb delights most of my family can still eat.

Sayonara for now.