Archive for 2009

by Katherine Tomlinson

In the Beginning Was the Recipe…

I was looking for my mother’s recipe for Mincemeat Cake. It was not in the yellow binder where I keep the family recipes copied out by my sister in her meticulous art school handwriting and decorated with whimsical drawings.

The recipe wasn’t in the manila folder where I keep the loose recipe cards and the torn magazine pages and the newspaper clippings and the scribbled instructions on the backs of envelopes, school notebook paper and old invoice forms from my grandfather’s general store. (There’s even a recipe copied out on a soft paper napkin worn to the consistency of Kleenex.)

My mother had a recipe box like all good mid-century housewives and she kept many recipes in that box, but the ones she cherished the most and used the most often were in an old school binder with a coarse cloth cover that was rubbed through to the cardboard beneath. When I inherited the binder in the late 80s, it was falling apart and I transferred the contents over to the aforementioned yellow binder.

A lot of the loose recipes in the folder are starting to fade with age. Some of the oldest date back to the early 50s and the paper has browned and the ink lightened until you almost need to be a forensic documents examiner to piece together the instructions. My mother’s recipes are written out the way she talked and almost seem interactive with their asterisks and inserted comments. “I usually use twice the amount of ginger,” she notes on a recipe for ginger snaps, making me wonder why she didn’t just write out her version of the recipe.

Sometimes she addresses the recipient of the recipe directly as she did with all the family recipes she typed out and sent to me in Los Angeles when I first moved here. (“Will feed six unless they are Tomlinsons,” she wrote on her recipe for macaroni and cheese, which was the best I’ve ever had.)

Reading some of the recipes is like traveling in a culinary time machine—all those references to “oleo” and directions to melt chocolate in a double boiler, instructions rendered obsolete by the invention of the microwave. The recipes also show a high degree of brand loyalty. It was always “Pet” Evaporated Milk and the 10X brand of confectioner’s sugar. (In fact, that’s what it’s called in all my mother’s recipes—10X sugar.)

When I finally found the recipe—stuck between the pages of Jane and Michael Stern’s Square Meals, I realized two things right away. It was the recipe I remembered my mother making but it was not her recipe. The instructions were written out in a hand unfamiliar to me. It’s fussy writing, with little circles dotting the Is.

My mother had two kinds of handwriting—the elegant, grown-up penmanship she used to sign her canvases and our report cards and the messy scrawl she used to communicate with herself in grocery lists and refrigerator reminders and notes. She doodled on her notes, a habit my sister inherited.

I’ll never know the name of the woman who passed this recipe on to my mother, but she would have been a friend. Because sharing the food you love is one of the things friends do.

Somebody’s Mincemeat Cake Recipe

2 cups (1 jar) prepared mincemeat

2 cups chopped walnuts

1 tsp. vanilla extract

¼ cup rum or cognac

1 tbsp. grated orange rind

¼ cup orange juice

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup mayonnaise

3 cups flour

1 ½ cups flour

¾ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

In a large bowl, mix the mincemeat, walnuts, vanilla, rum (or cognac), orange rind, orange juice, buttermilk and mayonnaise.

Combine dry ingredients and sift into the wet mixture. Blend thoroughly.

Pour into a greased and floured tube pan (or use one that’s been sprayed with Pam) and bake at 325 degrees for two hours.

Remove from oven and cool on a rack.

Frost with buttercream icing using a cookie press.

Buttercream Icing

¼ cup butter, unsalted

1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar

1 tbsp. milk

Beat ingredients together. The mixture will be very stiff.
Put into a cookie press and press frosting designs on top of cake.

Garnish with candied fruit.

by George

A step by step guide to cooking a better bacon explosion.

When I first heard about the Bacon Explosion after reading about it on The BBQ Addicts site I knew it was a stroke of genius.  Meat sushi…how brilliant! At the time, I never thought I’d ever make one.  But life is full of unexpected surprises.  Before long, I found myself thinking about it constantly.  On a daily basis actually.  I thought about how relatively boring the BBQ Addicts made theirs.  They were the originators so I have to hand them that but I couldn’t help but feel the Bacon Explosion could be improved.  So when my friend OJ told me he was coming out to visit from NYC (he loves to eat) I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to get a few other people together and make this glorious log of meat with our own little spin on it.  I expected it to be good but let me tell you, the end result was fantastic!

The Ingredients:
2 pounds of thick cut style bacon (2 packages)
2 pounds of sausage (we used beer brats)
Your Favorite BBQ sauce
Your Favorite pork rub seasoning
Pepperoni (Deli sliced thin)
Prosciutto (Deli sliced thin)
Capiccola Ham (Deli sliced thin)
Velveeta Cheese
Jalapenos (Diced Marinated)

The first step is to weave the bacon mat.  You can use any brand of bacon you want but I think it’s fairly important to use thick cut bacon so that you can weave it well.  Otherwise the strips are too thin.  It looks more complicated than it really is…It’s relatively simple.  You just lay out 6 strips of bacon going in one direction and then weave another 6 strips horizontally to form a mat.

Try to get the mat as tight as possible but don’t worry if it’s a little bit loose.

Next throw some pork rub seasoning on the mat to give it some flavor. I used some Famous Dave’s Pork Rub.

Now it’s time to add the sausage layer.  We used Johnsonville Beer Brats for the sausage. All you have to do is take a sharp knife and slit the casing lengthwise down the sausage so you can peel it off.

Once the casing is peeled off you can start pressing the brats down on to the bacon mat.  One sausage actually fills up the mat from end to end so it’s perfect.

Fill up the mat with a thin layer of sausage. I left the last sausage whole in this picture just to show you what the sausage looks like before it’s smashed.

Next step, add the pepporoni layer.

Then a layer of the prosciutto…

and finally a layer of Capicolla…

Now here comes the fun part. The original recipe calls for pre-cooking the second pound of bacon and crumbling it up on top of the sausage layer. Instead, I decided to pre-cook a second bacon weave and lay it down on top. This weave was 5×5 instead of 6×6 like the outer weave.

Next is the cheese.  I knew I wanted to do some kind of cheese when I first started pondering my own bacon explosion but I wasn’t sure what kind to do.  I finally decided on Velveeta cheese because the thought of nacho cheese dripping out of my bacon explosion was just too orgasmic to pass up. I sliced two pieces of cheese and laid them down side by side horizontally on the cooked bacon mat.

Then last but not least I add a generous amount of diced pickled japlapeno’s on top of the cheese. I have to say, the jalapenos added a really nice kick to the bacon explosion.  Not too hot but not to mild either.  Like a jalapeno popper in my bacon explosion. The vinegar from the pickling juice soaked nicely into the meat and added some nice flavor to the explosion.

Now that we were done adding the toppings it was time to start rolling the explosion.  I was worried about this part because I didn’t want any of the meat to fall off or cheese to come dripping out.  That being said, I didn’t have any issues…everything stayed intact nicely. The trick is to roll the sausage layer first with all of the filling inside.  Seal everything up inside nicely with the sausage since the sausage is pretty much like play-doh.  Then roll the outside bacon weave seperately over the sausage roll.

Next, roll the bacon weave over the sausage roll.

Now that the whole thing is rolled up, sprinkle some more pork rub on top of the bacon explosion to give it some more color and flavor on the outside. I don’t know why, but I thought it would be a good idea to measure the finished product before I cooked it.  This thing packed a solid 3″ from top to bottom.

Now, it’s time to cook it.  The recommended method for cooking the bacon explosion is to cook it in a smoker.  I personally don’t own a smoker but I do own a grill so I turned my grill into a smoker.  I never smoked anything on my grill before but I found that it was pretty easy to do.  You get some hickory wood chips from your local supermarket or hardware store, put them into a piece of foil and wrap the foil up. Poke some holes in the top of the foil and put it on one side of the grill.  Then you turn up the heat under the wood chips so that they start smoking in the foil.  Once they start smoking you turn off all the burners except for one underneath the wood chips.  Put the bacon explosion on the side that has no burners on underneath so that it cooks indirectly.  I also added a foil pan underneath so that it catches any drippings from the bacon explosion.  Also, if you notice I put the bacon explosion on one of those grill plates that you use to cook vegetables on the grill so they don’t fall through.  I found that was a nice platform for transporting the explosion so that it doesn’t do anything crazy like fall apart or fall down into the grill.

Now you close the grill cover and let that baby cook low and slow.  Make sure that it doesn’t get too hot in there.  You want to keep it between 250-275 degrees in there.  If it gets to hot, turn down your burner.  My grill has an internal thermometer so I used that to keep track.  For every inch of meat you need to cook it for about an hour. So mine took about 3 hours to cook since it was 3″ thick. .  You’ll know it’s done when you stick a meat thermometer in and it reaches 165 degrees.

Here’s the finished product.

The cheese came out perfect and it actually complemented the meat very well. Notice the swirly layers of meat. Perfect.

We cut it up into thin sushi like slices.

You can eat the meat alone or you can serve it on a piece of bread. Enjoy!

by Katherine Tomlinson

Jenna Petersen started writing full-time in 1999 when her husband said, “You’re only happy when you’re writing, why don’t you do that?” In 2004, her dream came true when her literary agent called to say she’d just sold to Avon.

Since then, she’s been a Waldenbooks Mass Market bestseller, a Bookscan bestseller and won the Bookbuyers Best Award for Best Historical Romance. She also helped launch the Avon Red line under her Jess Michaels name.

In addition, she has run The Passionate Pen since 1999. This popular site for aspiring authors gets nearly 200,000 hits per month and contains information on literary agents, publishing houses, articles about writing and the industry, links and Jenna’s Diary toward and beyond publication. This year the site celebrates its ten-year anniversary with events and prizes each month.

GFG: Shakespeare called music “the food of love.” Do you listen to music when you write? (I can only listen to music without words, otherwise I get distracted)

JP: I don’t, actually. Like you, I can only listen to music without words and after a while, even that becomes too distracting. So I generally don’t write with anything, though I have been inspired by songs.

GFG: Flowers and candy are the traditional Valentine’s Day gifts. What’s your favorite flower? Your favorite sweet?

JP: I love lilacs for their beautiful color and heady scent. And… really any kind of chocolate is good for a sweet. I’m a traditional romance writer in that way.

GFG: What made you sit down and write your first novel? How long did it take you to finish? How long did it take you to find a publisher?

JP: I had some crackpot notion that it would be “easy” to write a romance. I was disabused of that fact very quickly. It took me about three years to actually finish it, though I wasn’t writing the whole time. That book has never been published and will never be. It took me five years and over 15 books to get published from the time when I actually started writing full-time.

GFG: You just published A RED HOT VALENTINE’S DAY in January and you have another book coming out in March. What’s next after that?

JP: Yes, my book HER NOTORIOUS VISCOUNT comes out on March 31 (it’s actually counted as an April release). Then on April 21, my next Jess Michaels release comes out, TABOO. And in November another Jenna Petersen release, WHAT THE DUKE DESIRES. Currently I’m writing a book that will come out in February 2010. It’s a Jess Michaels release but it’s untitled. So lots of being busy and travel coming up. I’ll be all over the place in the next few months. Readers can always check the News section of http://www.jennapetersen.com for more info on where I’ll be and when.

GFG: Who are your favorite authors?

JP: In romance, Kathryn Smith, Jacquie D’Alessandro, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas. Also Neil Gaiman, LM Montgomery and Thomas Harris.

GFG: Tell us how you met your husband! Is he a romantic?

JP: My husband and I went to high school together, actually. So we’ve known each other a long time (we’ll celebrate 12 years married on March 21). He is very romantic. Not only is affectionate and a gift giver, but he has supported me in pursuing publication from the very start, even when it was very hard. So I definitely give him props for that.

GFG: Is he jealous of the hot heroes you create for your books?

JP: I don’t think so. No one compares to him.

GFG: What was served at your wedding reception? (If you had one.) What flavor was your wedding cake? Did you keep a slice to eat on your first anniversary?

JP: We didn’t have a wedding reception or cake. We were married in a hot pink house in Burien WA with a woman in a weird robe for witness. It wasn’t exactly a traditional wedding (but it is a good story).

GFG: Where’s the most romantic place you’ve ever eaten? Was it romantic because of the setting or because of the company?

JP: Actually this year my husband took me to a wonderful Japanese restaurant called Nishino’s in Seattle. We were back there for my brother’s wedding (which was the day before my birthday) so earlier in the week just the two of us slipped away from the family. He had made special plans for a six course meal there and it was lovely. Especially since he’d put so much special thought into it.

GFG: If you were planning an intimate Valentine’s Day dinner, what would you serve?

JP: Actually this year my husband made me dinner for Valentine’s Day. He made a wonderful filet mignon with roasted vegetables and mashed cauliflower. Not only was it healthy, but it was so tasty.

GFG: If you could double-date with any couple in history, who would it be?

JP: You know, most of the most interesting couples in history didn’t seem to get along that well. I’m not sure I’d actually WANT to spend time with them.

GFG: How about breakfast in bed? Does that ever happen at your house?

JP: My husband LOVES breakfast in bed, so this is usually my territory. I’ll make him pancakes or French toast or eggs and bring them up for him on a Saturday or Sunday morning. There’s something so nice about having yummy food just arrive and you don’t even have to get up.

You can find Jenna online at jennapetersen.com and passionatepen.com.

by Katherine Tomlinson

I don’t have a lot of pots and pans. If I had to, I could put dinner on the table with just one pot and a paring knife. And I’d have no problem eating with mismatched utensils if necessary. But take away my spices and it’s a whole other story.

I grew up in a household with a spice rack, but my mother’s culinary palette was much too broad and diverse to be contained, even in the deluxe, three-shelf version. This was in the 60s, way before the foodie revolution when pretty much the only way to get an authentic herbes de Provence blend was to make it yourself. Do you now how hard it is to find summer savory and chervil and lavender even now?

Nowadays, there are all sorts of subtle and different “curry” spice mixtures readily available. You can buy Bengal and Madras versions in any grocery, pick up green Thai curry powder or red curry paste from World Market or order complex and subtle blends from companies like chef Ranjan Dey’s New World Spices (http://www.newworldspices.com/ ). Back then, though, outside of the Indian subcontinent, “curry” pretty much meant the tin of chrome-yellow powder composed mostly of cumin and turmeric. This might have daunted another cook but my mother was made of sterner stuff. She’d grown up in the south and cooked like Paula Dean. And if she’d stayed in Virginia, maybe that would have been enough. Biscuits are, after all, the staff of life.

But she’d married an Army officer, moved to Germany and then France, traveling to Italy and Switzerland and taking the odd cooking course as she went. Sauerbraten found its way onto the menu, with crisp little potato pancakes on the side. There was a flirtation with escargot when she bought the reusable shells and single-purpose copper pan to cook them in. (The only person in the house who truly enjoyed these rubbery, garlic-infused morsels was my little sister, who was four at the time. Everyone else was meh.)

She invented a dish called “shrimp curry” and God only knows what was in it because it hit the family dinner table with a distinct “thud” never to return. I remember the sauce was disconcertingly pink and creamy but know for a fact that no coconut milk was used as a thickener, the way it is in most recipes today. I suspect mayonnaise might have been in there somewhere. My mother was very fond of using mayonnaise as an ingredient.

Her next attempt to coax the family toward more adventurous eating was “keema,” a traditional Indian dish involving ground meat and peas. My mother used ground beef (she was tired of making hamburgers) and peas. The peas were canned. The dish was greeted with even less enthusiasm than the shrimp curry had been.

My sister, who refused to eat onions, spent half an hour extricating miniscule slivers of the toxic vegetable from the keema before she even tasted it. Keema is not a dish that’s best served cold. My brother thought it looked like barf and expressed this opinion several times. Loudly. At which point, my neutrality toward the meal (it was better than stuffed peppers) became a lot more negative because, sadly, he was correct. I think the unpleasant texture might have had something to do with the canned tomatoes she’d used. To this day. I rarely cook with canned tomatoes because I hate dealing with the chunks of tomato end that never quite integrate into whatever you’re making.)

Our father, who had served in India during WWII, refused to eat it. He liked beef. And he could tolerate peas (although green beans were better) but he didn’t want them mixed up. And he really didn’t want any curry powder slipped into the mix. We ate a lot of meat loaf after that.

Despite my mother’s best efforts, curry did not seem destined to become a part of my life. And then I went to college and in my sophomore year opted out of the “food plan” that allowed me to eat in the cafeteria. I lost ten pounds because I wasn’t eating sweet rolls for breakfast every day. (The cafeteria made awesome sweet rolls.) I ate a lot of yogurt. And I discovered that you can make rice and beans taste like completely different dishes depending on the spices you use. Which is good because rice and beans are cheap. I started using spices I’d never heard of. And I discovered the secret of life. Spicy is better than bland.

Once I learned that, my destiny was set. I’ve gone way beyond the spice rack to the spice cabinet. I regularly use five kinds of pepper—white, red cayenne, dried red chili flakes, black pepper and coarse cracked black pepper. There’s probably a bottle of green peppercorns somewhere in the cupboard as well, most likely tucked behind the canister of wasabi powder or the container of dried dill weed I bought when I was making a salmon mousse and never used again.

I have seven different kinds of curry powder, all with different topnotes—saffron and tamarind and fenugreek and fennel. I make curry so often one of my wooden spoons is permanently stained yellow. And I’ve even made keema a few times.

Somewhere, my mother is laughing.