A Christmas Story Meatloaf Dinner: Braised Sweet & Sour Cabbage

     I was in the mood for meatloaf after receiving my vintage Universal Chopper and my mind was immediately drawn to the movie "A Christmas Story" where the family is seen eating the same dinner every night, namely meatloaf, mashed potatoes and braised red cabbage.  So what better way to break in my new kitchen gadget than by recreating that dinner.

Hashed Leftovers

     Many times after the holidays we're left with mounds of leftovers from an overindulgent feast of Brobdingnagian proportions and we're completely flummoxed as to what to do with them.  I didn't even cook this much for Christmas but I did have a rather large turkey and now I'm left to decide what to do with the leftovers.  Part of it is getting mixed up into turkey salad using the Chicken Salad Recipe but with the rest I'm left to get creative.

Adult Tartar Sauce

   
     I made this recipe while playing around one day trying to come up with something better than regular old tartar sauce.  I consulted a couple of my old recipe books for ideas and revisited some of the better ingredients in my remoulade  recipe I wrote oh so long ago.  I like remoulade, it's just a pain to make and involves tarragon which goes brown quicker than an avocado in a heat wave.  Dried tarragon has no flavor because it doesn't dry well so it was off to come up with something that has the flavor of remoulade but not the headache.

White Coffee Pot Maryland Fried Chicken

     Like the Harley's Sandwich Shops I've written about before, White Coffee Pot was a restaurant chain that was purely Baltimore.  Unlike Harley's and Little Tavern, White Coffee Pot dished up real home cooking with a smile in a diner atmosphere complete with jukeboxes at the tables.  Unfortunately time and circumstance caught up with this venerable brand and put and end to the best cup of coffee in Baltimore.

1924 Fish Florentine Recipe

     This recipe comes from a 1924 edition of "Recipes For Everyday", a publication that was available though Crisco.  As you can imagine, Crisco is an ingredient in all of the recipes.  Now I don't have anything against Crisco, I use it when baking cakes because there really isn't a substitute but I don't want to eat it in everything everyday.

Chicken Soup Recipe, Depression Era

     I've tried many ways of making chicken soup over the years and while they were all good they weren't fantastic I was always looking for something else.  This started as a research project into Depression Era cooking.  One of things that Herbert Hoover promised as president was "A chicken in every pot" and there's a reason for this, chicken was expensive, especially young chickens.  Chickens were kept for laying eggs and after 5 years when they stopped laying that's when they ended up as dinner.

1930's Meatloaf Recipe

 

I've been holding on to this recipe for quite some time now and for a really odd reason.  I just kept misplacing the handwritten recipe paper.  Yeah I feel like I'm addlebrained at times but you have to understand that I've moved, twice, in the past 2 years (and we're moving again soon) and stuff always gets misplaced when that happens.  In the meantime I cooked this recipe every time I found the recipe card for it and then promptly misplaced it again.  Well I finally found it again and decided to cook it last night for dinner.  Usually I have a side of mashed potatoes and some sort of vegetable with it and my wife loves it.  Try it with some Southern Cucumber Relish and the vinegary sweetness balances out the rich taste of the meatloaf.

Glazed Pork Chops and Onions

This is a nifty little recipe that comes by way of an obscure cookbook printed by the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in the 60's.  It was put together from submissions by Marylanders who sent in their cherished family recipes which have to date back farther than the 1960's.  This recipe serves as a reminder that there are more ways to cook onions than mere frying.  It was often popular in the vintage era to pre-boil onions then roast them in the oven.  This serves to bring out the sweetness of the onion especially with Bermuda Onions.  I've learned a couple of things from this recipe especially the nature of Bermuda Onions which are extremely hard to find in the States these days having been displaced by Granax variety onions grown in Vidalia, Ga., Walla-walla, Wa., Maui, etc.  Organic red (Spanish) onions are the same thing as the old Bermuda onions and readily substitute in any recipe calling for Bermuda Onions.  Another thing I learned was about onion sizes.  Onions as sold in stores currently are super jumbo sized compared to what was available in the vintage era.  It is best summed up this way: Small onion - 2oz, medium onion - 4oz, large onion - 8oz.  Most of the onions I test weighed at work today ran from 3/4 to a whole pound which is great if a recipe calls for 2 large onions diced, sliced, julienned or what have you but not so great when you need them whole.  I did manage to find 2, 1/2 pound organic red onions that worked perfectly in this recipe.  The sauce is interesting but mixes with the onion juice to taste oh so divine in the end.

More Salads For Dinner and a 1926 Recipe For French Dressing

Since I've been working so much lately and my usual shift has me ending my work at around 6-7pm I'm really not in the mood to go home and cook dinner.  So most days when I'm scheduled like this I'm satisfied to make a salad with some leftover chicken on it or whatever I happen to have on hand.  The prep is easy, I get to try one of the numerous lettuce mixes we sell at work along with some nice heirloom tomatoes and overall the meal is not too heavy to digest before bedtime.  One thing that I needed to do though was lighten up the salad dressings that I used.  We had been in a rut with heavy creamy dressing like ranch or blue cheese, great tasting but too many calories and too bloating before having to go to sleep.

Haluska, Hungarian Cabbage & Egg Noodles

Because of my Hungarian ancestry, I am of course fascinated with Hungarian cuisine.  Real Hungarian cuisine not the bastardized recipes that most Americans are familiar with.  Hungarians, it is said, have more ways to prepare cabbage than any other ethnic group from Eastern Europe and more incredibly, none of those ways involves boiling the cabbage.  Hungarians are strictly against boiled cabbage because it destroys the wonderful flavor and texture of this lowly vegetable.  Most Americans are familiar with the slimy cabbage that is procured on St. Patrick's Day, but a whole new world awaits and you may grow to love cabbage if you give it a try Hungarian style.  Previously I posted my recipe for Hungarian Coleslaw but here we have a hot dish that is light, packed with vitamins and full of great flavor.

Mock Tenderloins

Depression era cooking is a fascinating aspect of vintage recipes.  Much of the recipes that have survived are frugal recipes that cook for a family using very little money yet still striving to stay healthy.  The others are what I call "make do" recipes that are often in imitation of something that would have been more expensive.  Such austere recipes were often tasty in their own right, even if they fell short of what they were trying to imitate.  Here is one such recipe, mock tenderloins of course are a frugal replacement for true tenderloin that would have hit the purse hard for someone not making as much as before.  This recipe comes from 1930 or 31 and luxuries such as this would be fondly remembered after '32 when the depression was at it's worst.  Today we are locked in the Great Recession, sugarcoating what is otherwise a repeat of the last great depression.  We've much to learn from these frugal recipes of yesteryear since they are every bit as cost effective now as the were then.

Authentic Hungarian Chicken Paprikash

One of the crucial elements of frugal cooking is ethnic recipes.  Many Americans adapted the recipes of Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Russians, etc. to suit their tastes.  These were people who were used to living frugally back in their home countries and Americans learned much from their cooking styles.  It also started the downward decline in the formerly popular "meat and potatoes" type of meals that were prevalent through the boom years of the 1920's.  Hungarian cooking is usually typified by the ubiquitous Goulash, a stew of beef, onion and paprika.  While Goulash is tasty in it's own right I much prefer Paprika Chicken (Paprikash).  Formerly we had been using a mentally recorded recipe passed down from my great grandparents and while it was good, there was something missing.  That something was good quality paprika.  Most paprika sold in the US is of inferior quality, having a dull red color.  True Hungarian paprika is a vibrant red and has an unmistakeable smell similar to fresh red bell peppers.  Getting good Hungarian paprika can be tricky, but not to worry the good Spanish sweet paprika is equal to it.  Check out TJ Maxx, Marshalls or Home Goods for tins of Spanish paprika marked Pimentón Dulce this is the really great sweet Spanish Paprika.  Also you will need some Hot Hungarian Paprika, it doesn't make the dish spicy but it adds a little kick.  Hot Hungarian paprika will be darker in color than the vibrant red of sweet paprika.

Cuban Bistec Palomilla

My first experience with Bistec is when I was in the Philippines and my mother in law made Bistek Tagalog.  Although the Filipinos lay claim to it, Bistec is really an Spanish dish.  Essentially just sirloin steak pounded flat and marinaded then pan fried until browned it's the ultimate tasty treat.  This recipe for Bistec started when someone stuck a menu for a new Cuban restaurant in my front door.  It's wildly expensive so I have no real intentions to go try it out however it fanned the flames of interest in Cuban Cuisine.  It's Florida after all and we have such a Cuban community here but I never really entertained a Cuban dinner before now.  The real recipe here is for the marinade.  Cubans call it Mojito Sauce but the rest of Caribbean calls is Mojo.  The real difference is the absence of hot peppers to be found in the rest of the Caribbean Mojo recipes.  Cuban cuisine was very popular from the late 30's up until the Cuban Revolution although I don't know how many Americans outside of the Cuban community in Florida would have been familiar with it.

1930's Egg Dinner

I spent quite a bit of time with my grandparents when I was growing up so this is a meal I became quite familiar with for dinner.  My grandfather sometimes called it scrambled egg mess but it is straight from the lean days of the Depression.  Usually it contained no meat, however you could include some ham or spam if you had some on hand.  Otherwise it was made of 3 ingredients that were rather cheap back then and even cheap now, Onions, Potatoes and Eggs.  Ofttimes it was made of leftover baked potatoes from dinner the night before but it was a great way to feed a family for a little bit of money.

Traditional Recipe Steak Fajitas

I went looking some time ago for a really traditional fajita recipe.  Actually the only real recipe you need is for the marinade as everything else is just straightforward.  After sifting through many many marinade recipes I finally came across one that was supposed to have originated in Northern Sonora in the 1920's.  It blends in at least 2 ingredients that definitely mark it as Norteño cuisine, Red Wine Vinegar and Worcestershire Sauce. You can use any cut of steak you wish, but skirt steak is the most traditional although it may be out of the price range of some people (including myself).  I chose to use Organic Sirloin and it came out excellently so don't be too worried about using a cut other than skirt steak.  You will need to grill the steak to get the optimal flavor.

Southern Recipe Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Buttermilk has 2 flavors, true buttermilk, sometimes called sweet buttermilk is the water extracted from cream during the process of making butter.  Cultured buttermilk has been treated like yogurt and allowed to ferment.  All recipes that I have encountered, even the old ones, refer to cultured buttermilk which is well because sweet buttermilk is impossible to find unless you make your own butter.  The secret of good buttermilk fried chicken is the soak in the buttermilk itself.  The acidity helps to tenderize the chicken making it oh so juicy and delicious.  The chicken can be pan fried or deep fried but there's no getting around the fact that you need hot oil to cook it.  If you have an aversion to fat I can't really give you a low fat recipe for buttermilk chicken as it will not truly be Southern style any longer.  My advice is to live your life.  Eating fried foods once is awhile isn't going to kill you, eating them every day on the the other hand is not healthy.

Noodles And Pot Cheese

Noodles and Pot cheese is a meal that my dad has been talking about for awhile now.  He remembered as a kid growing up in New Brunswick, NJ his parents going out to the dairy farm down the road and one of the things they would buy every so often was pot cheese.  It took me a bit of looking but pot cheese in essence is just a curdled milk cheese, a way for farmers to use up leftover milk after the cream has separated and been skimmed off.  While skim milk is what is traditionally used in this recipe, it's important to remember that unless you've had organic skim milk you've never really experienced what real skim milk is.  The commercial dairy skim milk is little better than powdered milk mixed with alot of water and lacks the taste and richness of true skim milk which is closer to 2% milk in flavor and richness.  So if you're going to do this, go organic and get some organic skim milk.  You will also need some cheesecloth and a colander.  1 quart of milk makes enough pot cheese for 4 servings and it needs to be used up within a day as it doesn't keep well.

Easy Recipes for Sweet or Savory Crepes

Crepes have been around for a long time and each country has their own version of the crepe.  They were truly made famous by a French chef who invented Crepes Suzette.  There are 2 ways to make crepes, the sweet way with wheat flour for desserts and the crepes gallette way with buckwheat flour for savory dishes.¹  Most Americans think making crepes is some sort of wizardry, harder than it really is.  If you can make a pancake, you can make crepes.  It is however helpful to have some specialist equipment such as a crepe pan.  Crepe pans are flat with very low sides that make it easier to flip the crepes when they are cooking.  The pans can be found in non-stick and blued steel versions.  I recommend the non-stick for beginners because the blued steel pans require a bit of seasoning before use.  Also helpful is to have a long thin metal spatula called an icing spatula.

Country Chicken Fried Steak Recipe

This was a challenge levied by one of my likers on Facebook to come up with a good chicken fried steak recipe... Challenge accepted.  It had been literally over 20 years since I had eaten chick friend steak and even the mere mention of it conjures up thoughts of white haired Southern gentlemen in their seersucker suits and lapel pins sipping mint juleps on the verandah.  Well it's not as bad as all that.  It's certainly a recipe that goes back quite a bit but started out as a way of making use of tougher cuts of meat.  I used sirloin when I made it and although it was good, I think if I do it again I'd make use of the more traditional round steak.  The key to an awesome crispness is the double dip coating method and of course the meal is not complete without the gravy.  Far from being the nasty wallpaper paste gravy found in so called Southern restaurants, this is a creamy bechamel, the original incarnation of White Sauce.

Crisco Chicken Croquette Recipe

When I first made this recipe I was a little concerned about the mixture being damp.  As it turns out there was no need for it, just make these a little beforehand and refrigerate and they will be perfect.  I served mine with a Bechamel Sauce and it really made the meal sing.  The recipe itself is from the ad above, however I had to make a couple of modifications to get it to work but it's essentially the same recipe.