Dinner from Murdo, South Dakota

This is an amazing cookbook that you are not able to find easily in bookstores anymore. It is packed with recipes from different villages in all US states. 

Given that these are old recipes from villages, and all the stories about the villages the book includes, it is not the kind of cookbook you use for a quick meal. But it is a leisurely Saturday morning and I have all the time to prepare a meal from it and read the stories along the way.

Leisurely Saturday also means being lazy about going out for grocery shopping, so working with what I had on hand, the choice was a Cabbage and Beef Bake (page 281); a recipe from Murdo, South Dakota. Mudro was established in 1913 and is now an Antique town with just over 600 people. Anyone reading this is from Murdo or been there? I'd love to hear from you.

The dish begins with making a tomato sauce from scratch - six tomatoes, rosemary, thyme and 1 Tbsp sugar simmered on medium heat for 45 minutes. 

Despite the cold weather we had, the jardin's rosemary and thyme, particularly the thyme, have never looked better. So out into the jardin to pick up the herbs and get the sauce going.

In a separate pan, brown 1 lb ground beef with 1 onion (chopped) in 2 Tbsp of butter (about 10 minutes), season with salt and pepper, then leave on low heat until the tomato sauce is ready.

Mix all, add 1/4 cup rice and cook on medium heat for another 10 minutes.



Butter a small casserole dish, arrange the pieces of half a cabbage cut into 6 slim wedges at the bottom, add the meat mixture on top and bake, covered, in a 350 oven for 1.5 hours. Enjoy as any Murdoist would. 

Keeping Vampires at Bay with Garlic Night

Garlic night included pasta, Caesar salad and garlic bread.

Croutons were made from scratch - pieces of baguette sprinkled with salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and olive oil and toasted in the toaster oven (the first batch was burnt, so the exercise was done twice).

The Caesar salad was based on a Martha Stewart recipe which I mentioned in an earlier post (Simple Pasta and Caesar Salad Dinner). Many have asked for the dressing recipe and so here is the anchovy-free version:

- 2 cloves garlic, crushed

- 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

- 1 Tbsp lemon juice

- 1/2 tsp dijon mustard

- 1 egg yolk

- 1/4 (or less) olive oil 

6 other garlic cloves were used for the garlic bread. I simply crush the garlic, melt some butter, then mix and spread on the bread. Parsley is sprinkled on them prior to baking for taste and colour.

Toaster oven is perfect for garlic bread. It gives them the softness on the bottom and crunchiness on top.


I will be sleeping soundly tonight knowing that I have injected enough garlic to keep neighbourhood vampires away.

Dining With My Pet Fish

Guests at Hotel Monaco in San Francisco can have a pet fish, at no extra charge, to keep them company in their room. Alone on the road again, with no dinner plans beyond room service, made this offer very appealing. So I ended up dining with my one-night pet fish (who I named Laura). Food descriptions below, based on the menu, sound more fancy than they tasted, but at least I had Laura to keep me company (and I were glad my cat stayed home).

Salade de Chevre et Fruits

Organic greens with goat cheese, pears, grapes, rum soaked golden raisins and honey vinaigrette.

Wood Oven Mac and Cheese

Macaroni baked (I guess in a wood oven) with bechamel sauce and white cheddar cheese. Best way to describe it is rubbery. 

More Muffinmania at somerville kitchen

This is one of the most interesting cookbooks I own. It has about 30 muffins recipes that you may not find anywhere else. I highly recommend it for any muffins lovers - if you want to buy it, click on the picture to the left, you'd help me generate money to feed my cat.

Tonight's muffins were Carrot Muffins (page 39) - a simple recipe with flour and baking powder; carrots and pecans; butter and icing sugar (giving them a very light and cake texture).

Quoting a muffin expert tasting them: "these muffins were really good and quite interesting. They tasted like scones but felt like cake - a sweet bread sweetness; a most delicious and unique semi savoury muffins."

More on muffins and my muffins helper at Muffinmania at somerville kitchen.

Mom's Chicken Soup

Mom's chicken soup begins with making chicken broth from scratch. She boils the chicken in water with a bay leaf, cinnamon stick, peppercorns and salt.





Once the chicken is cooked, she strains the broth and separates the chicken pieces. The clear broth is put in the pot again, and she adds the chicken pieces, rice (1 cup rice for each 4 cups of liquid) and chopped parsley. She simmers the soup on low heat until the rice is cooked. Yummy!

Bring Back the Jell-O Days

Yesterday's 70's Sunday Gourmet Dinner brought to mind a dessert that was popular few decades earlier - Jell-O. While Jell-O today is associated with post hospitalization food, or at best cafeteria or all-inclusive desserts, it definitely had its days. There is no reason why we can't bring back the elegance of Jell-O, so join me in making, celebrating and promoting Jell-O.

 

My first attempt at this was a mixture of raspberry and strawberry Jell-O chilled in champagne glasses. Bananas were added to half of the glasses. Elegant, tasty, and probably healthy in its own way. 

Anyone knows the origin of gelatin? Find out at Jell-O Wikipedia.

Become somerville kitchen friend on Facebook and follow our interesting Jell-O stories and discussion.

70's Sunday Gourmet Dinner

I inherited from a friend 100's of Gourmet and other cooking magazines from the 70's - 90's period. So tonight's dinner was based on recipes from the 70's when butter was the queen of the kitchen.

The main dish was Chicken Poblano Carolina's  which is chicken breasts stuffed with Monterey Jack cheese, fried then baked.

The chicken is served with a chili butter sauce where the recipe, in the 70's style, called for 1 cup of butter. This was reduced to 1/4 cup at somerville kitchen. But the highlight of the meal were those delicious Wild Rice Pancakes for which I am sharing the recipe.

1/2 cup cooked wild rice
1/3 cup finely diced carrots 
1/3 cup finely diced celery
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/3 tsp crumbled dried or fresh thyme
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup flour



Cook the vegetables and the thyme is some butter over medium heat for 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, whisk in the egg and milk, add the cooked rice and stir in the flour with salt and pepper to taste. Scoop the batter in 1/4 cup drops onto a hot griddle, flatten the top and cook over medium heat for 2 - 3 minutes on each side. Easy and tasty, worth the try.

A 70's inspired beats and blue cheese salad with balsamic-oil vinaigrette was also part of the meal.