Julie's Granola

Yes, it’s precious to announce this as my own recipe, since I openly adapt it from Carol Gelles, 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes. I think it’s an unspoken truism that any granola recipe is intended to be altered to fit what you have on hand, and what the saveur du jour happens to be. But I’ve tweaked it enough that it’s pretty much my own. But thank you, Ms. Gelles (or Carol, if I may).

A few ingredients notes: I like to use genuine sweetened carob chips. These days you have to hunt for them, because last time I looked, I couldn’t even get it at our local health foods store. Whaaaaaat—? Yes. But I seriously like carob chips in my granola, muffins, granola snack bars, and so on. I’m not going to try to make “chocolate” frosting, cake, or brownies out of it. But as a flavorful ingredient used like raisins or blueberries, they’re really quite nice. Be sure to used sweetened carob chips.

Cashew pieces: I’ve been buying raw cashew halves and pieces in a bag at the international store. Look for Swad brand, in the India aisle. Since childhood, I disliked cashews, but those were always Planter’s roasted and salted cashews. But when you them raw, you can toast them yourself, and season or not. Much more delicious.

And substitute stuff as you like. Just keep the overall quantities about the same: you need enough liquid-stuff to moisten enough for everything to get a little coated with the oat bran, wheat germ, brown sugar stuff. Also, the original recipe called for raisins. You could swap craisins or other dried fruits, nuts, etc. See notes after the recipe for more tips.

• 3 T butter
• ⅓ cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1½ to 2 T juice (apple, orange)
• 2 c. plain, rolled oats
• ⅓ c. sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds)
• ½ cup wheat germ (I use Kretschmar’s toasted wheat germ)
• ½ cup oat bran
• ⅓ cup raw cashew halves and pieces (or other nuts)
• powdered cinnamon (to taste)
• ⅓ cup sweetened carob chips (or chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350°F. (If your oven runs hot, set it at 325.)

Spray a 9-x-13-inch baking pan with Pam (Pyrex casserole dish is good). In a microwave, melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar and juice until dissolved.

In a big mixing bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients (except for the carob or chocolate chips, or raisins or any other dried fruit you might use). Pour the liquid ingredients over the mixture in the bowl and toss to get everything moistened. (Texture: you don’t want it soggy; if it seems too dry, you can add a little honey.)

Spread the granola mixture into the prepared baking pan and spread evenly. Bake, stirring and checking often, until dryish. The edges will brown first. Don’t let it burn.

Take it out; while it’s still hot, sprinkle cinnamon and the carob (or chocolate) chips over the top. The chips should melt a little bit, which is good. When it cools further, stir in any dried fruits you’re using.

Let it cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Tips:

• I suggest adding raisins or dried fruits after baking to avoid them burning. Burnt raisins are evil. I like chopped dried apricots, chopped dried, sweetened pineapple chunks, dates, craisins, etc.
• Any kind of nuts or seeds are a great addition; the original recipe calls for 3 T. sesame seeds, but I usually don’t keep those on hand, and they go rancid quickly. But I keep sunflower seeds and pumpkins seeds in the freezer; they’re right next to the sweetened carob chips!
• Granola: you know what to do. Sprinkle on yogurt with fresh fruits. Eat some out of hand as a snack. Eat it with milk as a dry cereal, or mix it in with other dry cereals. Sprinkle some on ice cream. This would be a nice garnish of a cold fruit soup or a fruit smoothie. And so on.

David’s Pancake

Y’all, this is really good. A friend shared this recipe with me back in about 1987, and I had never made it. She was older than me and had a lot of interesting stories from the 1960s and 70s. For years, I have wondered, “Who was David? . . . Probably an old boyfriend of hers. The Vietnam vet?” Finally, I Googled the recipe and realized she must have copied it right out of The New York Times Cookbook, by Craig Claiborne, published in the 1960s. The “David” is David Eyre, who was a food writer and editor for the NYT. The recipe is actually named “David Eyre’s Pancake.” So it wasn’t some groovy, super-talented, 1960s boyfriend of hers. She just copied it out of a book. See how important it is to cite your references?

The recipe card has languished in my recipe files all this time.

Actually, I think I tried to make it once, but it was a disaster because I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t have the proper equipment. I’m surprised I kept the recipe.

Over the past few years, I’ve been compiling and typing old recipes into a big Word document, and (not knowing if this recipe had gotten a fair shake in my kitchen back in the late 1980s) I decided to try it again.

And hey, it’s really good! Another name for this kind of preparation is “Dutch baby.” It’s like a big popover made in a skillet, or like a soufflé. And just like a soufflé, it can go in a sweet or savory direction. You need to pay attention to technique, but it’s not hard. (If I can do it, then anyone can.)

Here’s how I’ve made it into a resounding success.

Equipment: I use an approx. 6-inch diameter (seasoned) iron skillet (it’s heavy, it holds heat, and it’s fine to go into an oven); also, I use our little toaster oven/convection oven, on the convection setting. The little skillet fits perfectly in there. (Or, if you’re making more than one at a time, or using a larger skillet, use an actual oven; but it must be fully preheated.)

So here's the nutshell version: Preheat your oven. Mix the batter. Then, start on the stovetop: heat a couple tablespoons of butter in the skillet (the skillet should be on a pretty hot burner; once the butter foams, and before it turns brown, it’s ready); pour the rather liquid batter into the skillet; then place the skillet into a preheated 425-degree oven and let it cook, undisturbed, for about 15 minutes.

That technique I just wrote? That’s the part I didn’t understand before, but it’s the principle that makes it turn out well.

Here’s what happens: The batter starts cooking as soon as you pour it into the hot-hot pan. Then, during the 15-minute oven time, the pancake cooks and puffs up. With a 6-inch skillet, some of the butter may seep over the side as the pancake rises, but let it. The pancake usually doesn’t quite get entirely solid in the center. I mean, I don’t think you even would want it to get completely “done” in the middle. The edges balloon up and get done faster, and may even get a little crispy. The eggy, custardy, soufflé-like center will deflate when you pull it out of the oven.

You’ve got to eat it hot, right out of its miniature iron skillet. Very cozy. To protect your tabletop, serve it atop a potholder or trivet.

I like sprinkling over it some fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar, which makes the center kind of like lemon curd. It can be a breakfast, lunch, or snack, or possibly a dessert, if you added, say, a sweet fruit compote on top, or chocolate and whipped cream, or whatever. But see the suggestions at the end.

I think this makes one serving, but if you’re eating it with other foods, such as a fruit salad, it could be enough for two. Especially if you make it in a pan larger than a 6-inch skillet . . . but then you need to slice it in half (very unpretty). Better to use individual little skillets.

• ¼ c. flour
• ¼ c. milk
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• pinch of nutmeg
• 2 T. butter
• 1 T. confectioner’s sugar
• Juice of ¼ lemon, or jelly, jam, or marmalade

Preheat the oven to 425°F.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, milk, egg, nutmeg. [I would add a pinch of salt, too.] Beat lightly/don’t overbeat. Leave batter a little lumpy.

Melt butter in a 12-inch or smaller skillet with heatproof handle. When butter is hot [foams/stops foaming], pour in the batter. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Sprinkle confectioner’s sugar and return to oven (to warm it, if desired).

Sprinkle with lemon juice; maybe add more confectioner’s sugar, or jelly, jam, whatever.

Yield: 1 or 2 servings.

Alternate treatments: Instead of lemon juice and powdered sugar, or jelly or jam, you could top it with chocolate or maple syrup, fruit compote, whipped cream, butter-sautéed sliced banana with brown sugar (and maybe a bit of rum) . . . anything you might put on any other pancakes.

But! You can also stir small-diced ham or crumbled bacon and grated cheese into the batter before pouring it into the pan. Or some chopped baby spinach and herbs. Or a duxelles of mushrooms. Or whatever . . . as you would an omelette. Yum!

Silog Breakfasts Are Great!

Filipino breakfasts are wonderful! They’re called “silog sets” or “silogs,” and they’re enough like American breakfasts they can slip right into Americans’ breakfast menus like a sunny-side-up egg off a greased rubber spatula.

Tapsilog: Filipino steak 'n eggs with garlic fried rice. Note the spicy-vinegar dipping sauce.

I’ve never eaten this stuff at a restaurant; I’ve only followed recipes and watched videos, but I think I’ve got the idea. In fact, I think it’s understood that everyone has her own way of making a silog breakfast, so there’s not any official way to do it . . . although for you there might be a perfect way of making it.

If you’ve never heard of a silog breakfast, or never seen it at a restaurant, then that’s only temporary. People in American coastal cities are catching on to this wave, big-time, so those of us here in the Midwest mid-sized cities will soon see it at our restaurants in the next decade or two! . . . But you don’t want to wait for a Pinoy food truck to come park on your Main Street.

My silog-set explorations come from a lovely, huge cookbook about breakfasts entitled Breakfast: The Cookbook, by Emily Elyse Miller. It’s one of those huge Phaidon cookbook compendiums: “the only book about _____ you’ll ever need.” In this case, it’s a huge collection of breakfast recipes from around the world. Like, almost everyone on Earth tends to have eggs for breakfast, but there’s a big difference between American sunny-side-up eggs, artfully folded, lightly sweetened Japanese tamago, Iranian scrambled eggs with dates and turmeric, and veggie-packed Korean omelet sandwiches. And guess what? They’re all delicious! . . . Same goes for porridge, toasts, sweet rolls, meats, and so on.

Back to the breakfast style in question. A “silog” is a Filipino combo-breakfast. You know how traditional American breakfasts have eggs (“how you want that cooked, sweetie?”), hashbrowns (or grits—a starch), and your choice of meat: bacon, ham, or sausage? And you can ask for a bottle of Tabasco to spice it up? Well, a “silog” is about the same thing, only it’s egg (usually sunny-side-up, but it’s your breakfast and your choice), a quick-cooking meat (thin-sliced, marinated, cooked steak; homemade longanisa sausage; fried sweet-cured pork; fried Spam; etc.), and garlic fried rice. To jazz it up, there’s a dipping sauce or garnish called sinamak, a spicy vinegar with ginger, garlic, onion, chilis, and black peppercorns (it varies with region and what you like; you can buy it at an international store, but it’s super easy to make on your own, and it lasts a long time).

(I love these kinds of cultural parallels. It’s like when I realized that both Korea and Germany have (a) a history as a divided nation, (b) powerful industrial economies, (c) a huge love of beer, of fatty meats, and of singing, and (d) fermented cabbage as a national dish.)

Anyway, the name of each version of the Filipino breakfast meal changes as the protein changes. The rice and egg are the constants, so the term “silog” is a contraction for sinangag (the garlic fried rice) and itlog (egg). Then, the first part of the meat-name is tacked to the front:

• Tapa (beef): Tapsilog
• Longganisa (sweet and/or garlicky pork sausage): Longsilog
• Tocino (sweet, meaty, fried cured pork): Tocilog
• Spam (yes, from the can): Spamsilog
• Bacon: Bacsilog

Why not also turksilog (turkey), chicksilog, hamsilog, and so on? Indeed, they really do stuff like this. There’s even a hotsilog (you guessed, it, with hotdog). I think “kielbasilog” would be good.

Here’s the fun part: it’s all easy to make from scratch, using ingredients readily available at any standard American grocery store. Ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil are the most unusual ingredients, unless you also count good white rice as an unusual ingredient, too.

Here’s the part that makes it especially perfect for breakfast: you can do most of the work the day before. The meat is prepped and marinated well ahead of time (or if you make your own Filipino sausage, then you can do up a big batch, freeze it, and use it here and there as you wish). Or, just use whatever meat is leftover. And the fried rice, like fried rice everywhere, uses leftover rice—such as leftover rice from Chinese takeout.

Sinangag: Filipino garlic fried rice.

The only real prep work is peeling and mincing garlic right before you fry the rice, though I bet a lot of people will just use minced garlic from a jar.

Breakfast-making needs to be simple, you know? You’re staggering around, you’re in a hurry, you haven’t had your coffee yet . . . (Please, please read this essay about breakfast by my beloved John Thorne. This one, too.)

I’ve found that I can use the same nonstick wok for all of it: cooking the garlic fried rice first, putting it in the oven to stay warm beside the serving plates; then cooking the meat and putting it in the oven, too; then rinsing or wiping the pan and doing the fried eggs. Ta-da!

Cooking tapa.

It’s a really tasty breakfast. It seems less heavy and salty than the traditional American breakfast. The garlic makes the whole house smell delicious. The runny yolk of the fried egg is a creamy dressing for the rice and the meat, and the meat and its juices dress the rice and the egg. The spicy vinegar dresses and brightens everything with ginger-black-pepper-pickled-onion flavor.

Tapa is thin-sliced steak cooked in a delicious marinade.

It's a lot like teriyaki beef.

Oh, I forgot to garnish my plate with anything fresh, like sliced tomato or cucumber, but yeah, you can do that, too, if you can think to do it before the rest is done. Because once this food is ready, it’s definitely time for breakfast!

I’m not gonna give you any recipes here, since I’m still in the phase of tweaking the recipes like I want. (Like, my cookbook calls for “sugar” in the tapa marinade, but I’ve decided to use “brown sugar.”) There are plenty of places to find recipes online (here’s a good one that introduces basic techniques for the big three meat choices, though you can find much simpler and perfectly fine recipes elsewhere; and this one has good commentary on the garlic fried rice), plus, again, that highly recommended, highly entertaining breakfast cookbook I told you about; it has good basic recipes, enough to get you started.

Scrambled Eggs with Dates and Turmeric

Hi! It’s time for another recipe! This is a new recipe for me, and we’re pretty pleased with it. I think you’ll like it, too. Scrambled eggs with dates and turmeric is pretty much what it sounds like, but below I give you some tips.

If you’re wanting to put more turmeric in your diet for its purported health benefits, this is a great way to do so. At the same time, the turmeric makes the eggs look temptingly deep yellow, which is a boon if you’ve got store-boughten eggs that are otherwise rather pale.

First, however, credit where credit is due: I got the idea from one of my newer favorite cookbooks, Breakfast: The Cookbook, by Emily Elyse Miller (London and New York, Phaidon Press, 2019), where it’s called “Date Omelet” and is on page 47: “Dates are an essential ingredient in Persian cooking. The dates provide an unexpected sweetness to a simple omelet and the addition of turmeric adds a bright color and an earthy note.” (Phaidon has a really fun selection of these gigantic “[fill in the blank]: The Cookbook” cookbooks.)

. . . Yes, yes, yes. I don’t know much about Iranian breakfasts (though a friend of mine from Iran once told me that at his house, “It’s not breakfast without feta!”)—but I do know that one’s breakfast eggs can definitely go in a sweet direction with success. Among the many omelet variations commonly suggested in midcentury American cookbooks is a “jelly omelet,” which I’ve tried and found actually pretty good (though the folded-over version is a little sloppy, since the jelly or jam melts and turns into drippy syrup). And also keep in mind other sweet eggy dishes, such as French toast, and any kind of sweet custard preparation.

So, dates in scrambled eggs. In addition to turmeric, I like to add some coarsely ground black pepper, in order to further ground the dish and temper the sweetness of the dates. My version is not terribly sweet. Anyway, it’s not rocket science; you can alter it however you like. Here’s how I’ve been making it. Extra tips at the end.

Scrambled Eggs with Dates and Turmeric

• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 tbsp. water
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp. butter
• 1/3 cup dates, chopped (approximate)

In a little bowl, stir together the turmeric powder with the water to make a smooth mixture (no lumps). Crack the eggs into a small mixing bowl, add the turmeric mixture, black pepper, and salt, and beat with a fork to combine ingredients.

Heat the butter in a nonstick skillet to coat skillet. When it starts to bubble, add the dates and sauté for a few minutes; just get them heated up and coated with the butter. Pour the egg mixture carefully into the pan; let the eggs start to set, then lift the edges with a wooden or heat-proof rubber spatula and let the uncooked eggs run underneath; push the cooked eggs gently toward the center. Fold or turn over as necessary to get them cooked.

Serving suggestion: Serve with pita, naan, or other flatbread; a chunk of feta cheese; a few oil-cured black olives.

Tips and comments:

For breakfast, Sue and I usually split a three-egg omelet, especially since we’re having other stuff with it. You can adjust quantities however you want.

Mixing the turmeric with the water, first, to form a slurry ensures that the turmeric will blend evenly with the eggs; otherwise, the turmeric can form lumps that are hard to break up with a fork or even a whisk. You don’t need that kind of hassle—it’s too early in the morning to be muttering “dang it!”

The reason for the gentle pouring and folding of the eggs is to give it a prettier presentation, with the dates clearly separate from the eggs. You can stir it all around if you want, but depending on how finely chopped your dates are, or how much they break up during cooking, it might look kind of, well, vomitous.

The nonstick skillet is a good idea, since you’re heating dates. Dates vary in texture (dryness) a lot. When heated, they can get really syrupy, and their sweet goo can really stick to a skillet, if it’s not nonstick.

Choice of dates: it’s up to you. I find this is a good use for leftover pre-chopped cooking dates (the kind that look like little nuggets that are coated with oat flour or whatever). This would also be really good with high-quality, soft dates that are only halved. Pit them, of course.

I like how the saltiness of the feta and olives plays off the sweetness of the eggs.

Extra points for making your own fresh flatbreads.

Effing Ham at Effingham

It’s Christmas Eve, and what are we doing? We’re driving home from Ohio. Sue’s mom passed away in the early morning hours of December 20, and her funeral was yesterday. We’ve been in Ohio since December 9. It’s been a long few weeks—yet much, much too short, too. . . . We’re just tired.

Tired and dazed. It will be so good to be home again, sleep in our own bed, be reunited with our kitties, and see if the world won’t start spinning on its axis again at some point. One thing’s for sure: 2020 will be an unusual year.

Over the many years we’ve driven to Ohio to visit Sue’s people, we’ve always had to drive through Effingham, Illinois. In recent years, it’s had so much highway construction, it’s been a real pain. All those lanes of traffic, merging interstates, exit and entrance ramps, and people driving like idiots. Many of them are, as Sue calls them, Ill-annoying drivers.

Time was, Effingham was a place where we’d plan to stop, knowing there were so many options for gas and fast food. But for years, now, it’s a place, like Indianapolis, that we just want to get through. We’ll stop almost anywhere before or after it, but our goal for a long time has been to slip through this gantlet of crazy traffic as efficiently as possible. And the monstrously gigantic, tacky roadside cross is not something we particularly like to see. I’m a Christian, but really—though I’m sure it was erected with all good intentions, it makes me cringe. And as a sign of Effingham’s impending traffic, it’s rather ominous: “oh boy, here we go.”

So, Effingham. We’ve taken to calling it “effing, effing, Effingham.” As in, “seventeen miles to effing, effing, Effingham—do you wanna stop and get gas before it, or after?”

(The image above is a screen capture from Google street view.)

But tonight, we made an exception. I think we’ve set a land speed record, this trip, returning from Ohio. We simply haven’t stopped much at all. But around Terre Haute, we realized we were getting peckish, also a little slap-happy. It occurred to us we wanted comfort food, home cookin’—breakfast. And we knew there’s a Denny’s in Effingham. You can always count on Denny’s, huh?

Slap-happy plus peckish equals hilarity; from Terre Haute to central Illinois, it became our mantra: Hey, let’s get some effing ham at Effingham!

And that’s just what we did.

It totally hit the spot, and it tickled us, too. I had to post about it on Facebook.

And the coffee was completely welcome. And the people who work at places like this, on Christmas Eve, serving people like us, are doing the work of God. Our gratitude knows no bounds. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

. . . So very looking forward to getting home.

Millet: “Often Called Birdseed in the U.S.”

It started with Aunt Carole giving me a bag of millet seed: “What do you do with this stuff?” She’d bought a bunch of it somewhere and hadn’t found anything decent to make with it. I suppose you can cook it simply, as a grain, like rice or quinoa or buckwheat kasha. It was flattering that she would think I had a clue about its usage.

It’s taken me a while to act on this uncommon gift. Millet. Millet.

It’s like tiny yellow balls.

Here in America, it’s a primary ingredient in birdseed mixes—in fact, of the inexpensive birdseed mixes. What birds eat it, exactly? Most simply flick it out of the feeder onto the ground. Mourning doves, with their muscular crops, can digest the stuff, I believe.

As I’ve told you (see sidebar “About Me”), I’ve been teaching myself Indian cooking. One of my references has been India Cookbook, by Pushpesh Pant (London: Phaidon Press, 2010). It’s thorough, well-organized, and provides a good introduction to the different regional cuisines.

In the glossary of that book, millet is defined as “an alternative to rice. The seeds can be used whole or ground and have a slightly nutty taste. Hulled millet is also often called birdseed in the US.” . . . Called birdseed? No, Mr. Pant, it is birdseed!



Why don’t more people here cook millet as a side dish, a grain? I know there are people interested in it because it’s gluten-free. But as a side dish, I guess it must be hard to beat rice and other more popular grains. So millet, I thought, might be better as a flour. And, being interested in flatbreads recently, I consulted my book.

There are some recipes in the “Breads” section of the India Cookbook that use millet flour. I decided to try the simplest one first.

And it is simple, indeed! Bajare ki Roti (Millet Bread) is not something I’ll try again. It is, essentially, millet flour plus water and a pinch of salt, mixed to a “semi-hard dough,” and allowed to sit for half an hour. Then (more or less) you make it into “flattened rounds” with your hands, then cook on a hot griddle or tawa on both sides . . . well, maybe I wasn’t doing it right, but it sure didn’t “puff up,” and instead of getting “crisp,” it just got hard. Like you might expect, actually.

And buttering it didn’t really help much.

For a breakfast, it was pretty grim. I’d gotten up early to grind the millet seeds into flour in my spice grinder, straining it through a wire sieve to make sure it was smooth. I’d followed the instructions pretty carefully, and the results were flat, hard disks that might have been used as hubcaps, if they were not brittle.

Sue and I gnawed on them for a bit, sipping coffee, then Sue got up and found a cup of yogurt. I kept chewing on the one I’d taken, just for the point of it. The flavor was indeed kind of nutty. Yeah . . . nutty, gritty, dense, hard, dry, bland. We agreed they might be welcome if you were, say, going on a long sea voyage, in the eighteenth century.

We didn’t throw them away, however. Because I had another plan!

I redeemed them, and also my labor in making millet flour in the first place: Another recipe in Mr. Pant’s book is “Bajari-Methi na Tepla,” or “Shallow-fried Fenugreek and Millet Bread.” This flatbread recipe uses many more ingredients, including whole wheat flour, and it definitely showed more promise. And apart from my time, what did I have to lose?

These teplas use equal parts whole wheat flour and millet flour. I made “millet flour” by pulverizing, then running through a sieve, the “Millet Bread” I’d made previously (yes, it was that dry, even with the oil it was fried in).

Additional ingredients include coriander powder, cumin, turmeric, chili powder, ginger, brown sugar, salt, and fenugreek (methi) leaves (although it’s harder to find fresh methi leaves, you can buy them dried at an international store, and they keep for a while if you seal them up really well).

The dough is moistened with yogurt (it calls for “soured natural yogurt,” but I used plain yogurt). (You can see why my bread-baking often doesn’t “turn out,” since I often don’t follow recipes very closely . . .)

And guess what! These were great! They even puffed up a little—how exciting! The methi/fenugreek leaves give it a distinctive butterscotch-like flavor. They’re really delicious alone! I had one of the first teplas out of the pan and noshed on it while I fried the rest. I had to restrain myself from having any more!

And that is the story of the millet. Aunt Carole, this is a great recipe! If you are wanting a recipe for millet (flour), here you go.




Fried Fenugreek and Millet Flatbread
Based on Pushpesh Pant, India Cookbook, p. 622.

Mix together the following:
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. millet flour
1 t. ground coriander
1 t. ground cumin
1/4 t. turmeric
1 t. chili powder (to taste; depends on how hot your chili powder is!)
1 t. ground fresh ginger
2 T. brown sugar
pinch of salt
4 T. dried fenugreek leaves (find these at an International grocery)
2 T. vegetable oil (plus more for shallow-frying)
1 c. plain yogurt (or more, to make semi-soft dough)

Dough should be semi-soft, light, rather sticky.

Knead the dough briefly on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and roll into balls, flattening them with your hands (hence the name tepla, apparently), and roll with a rolling pin into rounds 4–5 inches in diameter. Keep rolling them out as you fry them.

Heat a little oil in a heavy-based skillet over medium-high heat (as for pancakes). Add a tepla and shallow-fry about 2 minutes until dark patches form on side facing pan. Turn over and cook another minute or two, until dark patches form on the second side. Repeat with remaining dough balls until finished. Serve hot.

I would recommend having these for breakfast, perhaps with some plain yogurt, or yogurt and chopped tomatoes. Or chutney, if you’re into it. I think they’d be a yummy platform for simple soft-cooked eggs, too.

They are great as a snack, too!

Here is an informative cooking video for making a very similar recipe: “Methi Thepla or Dhebra, by Bhavna”. Bhavna points out that her family really enjoys these methi thepla as a snack while they’re traveling. What a great idea!

Though teplas are slightly sweet, I think they are definitely more in the “savory” category.

Corn Griddlecakes an’ Sorghum Molasses

Another cool morning here in Central Missouri! This spring, we’ve had remarkably warm weather remarkably early, so these brief “cool-downs” have been especially welcome. And it makes one hungry for a warm, hearty breakfast!

I’ve been dipping into some small-time, down-home Ozark-cookin’ cookbooks, and Sue and I have given our Jane Austen reading a rest, in favor of reading more of the colorful folk tales Vance Randolph collected from southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Plus, last weekend was the Big Muddy Folk Festival in Boonville . . . so I had a hankerin’ for something, well, “indigenous.”

You can’t get more indigenous to the Ozarks than corn (and ham, and greens), and old-fashioned sorghum molasses is a regional treat that those poor, deprived people in big cities rarely get to have. But it was our breakfast today, and you can’t ask for anything more delicious at the breakfast table.

Recently, my favorite recipes have been coming from the sixty-year-old Good Housekeeping Cook Book, edited by Dorothy B. Marsh (New York: Rinehart, 1949). I love it because it provides tons of basic, foolproof recipes without much reliance on premade, frozen, boxed, canned or “glassed” foods. The following formulation is a golden example.

I’m completely paraphrasing this; the original appears on pages 443–44 of the book and is a variation of the basic “step-by-step” Griddlecakes recipe.

Corn Griddlecakes

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup corn meal [not too coarsely ground; also, I prefer yellow because it’s so pretty!]
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons melted butter, margarine, vegetable oil, or other fat

Instructions: I’m not going to retype the book’s method, because I’ll bet you know what to do to heat the griddle or skillet to the right temperature, to know when to flip the cakes, etc. And you know how to mix the batter, too: Combine the dry ingredients and set aside; beat the eggs and beat in the rest of the liquid ingredients; then combine all together with as little stirring as possible.

The cakes will be about 4 inches in diameter; this recipe makes about 12 cakes.

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The jug of sorghum we’re currently enjoying is from a Mennonite producer, Daniel Hoover, in Bates County, Missouri. You can order it here!

Notes on the Cakes

I recommend making a double recipe of these corn cakes, so you have plenty of leftovers!

You can also make up your own convenient “corn cakes mix” by combining all the dry ingredients and putting them in a jar; all you have to measure out in the morning is about 1 1/4 cup of the mix plus the liquid ingredients.

Corn, in all its forms, is the official grain of the Americas, and leftover corn cakes are more versatile than regular pancakes when it comes to having with a dinner:

—They can go with anything down-home, like with greens and ham, say, or with a bowl of bean soup. Use them like cornbread.

—They can also go Mexican—topped with salsa and sour cream or guacamole, next to some huevos or refried beans; treat them like pudgy corn tortillas.

—Eat them with a bowl of chili!

—Or travel vicariously to South America, serving them beside grilled steak, roasted bell peppers, and a chimichurri sauce.

—They also make good breakfast sandwiches, filled with a fried egg and a couple pieces of bacon, and topped with some maple syrup. (Mmm! Maybe if we have a couple more of these cold mornings—!

Maa Pies and More, Ashland, Missouri

To all my readers in Central Missouri: Here is a small restaurant that I sincerely hope you’ll try. It’s a new place, and you might not have heard of it yet. In fact, it’s the kind of place that my Columbia friends might never hear of, because this is the kind of place that locals flock to and love, and keep “mum” about, in hopes that “outsiders” don’t discover it: Maa Pies and More, in Ashland, Missouri.

Since it’s in Ashland, it’s convenient for everyone traveling between Columbia and Jefferson City. Seriously—if I were still commuting, I would consider getting up early at least one day a week, so I could pull off the highway at Ashland and sit down for a bit over coffee and B&G, before heading to the office.

(Wait, you don’t know what B&G is? Repeat after me, in a reverent tone: bis-cuits–an’–gra-vy. If you’ve never had it, then you need to try some this winter! As my own mom would say, “This is food that sticks to your ribs!”)




Let me tell you what Maa Pies and More isn’t: It’s not a place that is going to serve you “prosciutto-wrapped-sun-dried-tomato-cornichon-with-crème-fraîche-ciabatta,” or “seared-ahi-tuna-and-celery-root-pureé-with-a-balsamic-reduction-and-brown-butter-caper-sauce.” No, no, no!

It is also not a place for you to go if you dislike people, or if you are feeling blue and wish to stay that way.

Here is what it is: A small local “mom-and-pop” café, proudly serving you breakfast, lunch, and desserts (pies!) with care and attention to how you want it. What kind of bread do you want for your sandwich? Do you prefer it grilled? Would you like ice cream on your slice of pie? It’s how mom would treat you if she was making you a lunch—am I right?

“Mom-and-pop” is a perfect adjective for this café, which is owner-operated and owner-staffed: William Linzie, a bighearted man who loves meeting people, will greet you when you come in the door, help you find a seat, and take your order. There’s a good chance he’ll introduce you to some of the other customers. His wife, Joycelynn, who loves cooking and is too modest about her talents, is the one making most of the food (yes, and the pies!). You will probably meet both of them when you’re there. Why, it’s almost like having lunch at a friend’s house.

And by the time you leave, you will most likely be calling them your friends.




I hear that the “locals” are warming up to the place—and here we’re talking about people of all stripes. The Linzies are proud to have such a diverse clientele. As we ate there recently, he was telling me how great it feels to see so many different people enjoying his restaurant.

That Maa Pies has won the approval of many of the local “oldtimers” seems particularly enlightening for those of us who enjoy good local cafés: Some of the older fellows, I imagine, can be tough customers; these men are capable of saying, quite bluntly, “Well, this doesn’t taste very good. Not enough black pepper.” I mean, they’ll say it to their own wives! So if a café doesn’t cut it for these tough customers, they won’t come back.

But they keep coming back to Maa Pies! It’s an excellent sign.

What’s on the Menu?

There’s an online menu here, but I’ll summarize briefly. First, they’ve got breakfast—they open at 8 a.m., Tuesday through Saturday—with the above-mentioned biscuits and gravy, breakfast plates (combinations of eggs, sausage, biscuits, bacon), and breakfast sandwiches. Also (and this is no surprise, since pies are a specialty), they have quiche, yummy, yummy quiche!




The cinnamon rolls (which I haven’t yet tried) look like a breakfast unto themselves; they’re huge and covered, not just “sprinkled,” with a whole bunch of chopped pecans. (Generous is the word: just like mom, right?)

Lunches are sandwiches, hot dogs, wraps, and sides, and Tuesday through Friday, there’s a daily special. The sandwiches are not fancy, high-falutin’ concoctions of trendy ingredients. So just relax and enjoy a gool ol’ turkey sandwich, or bologna, roast beef, BLT, or polish sausage. If you’re feeling opulent, you might choose the triple decker!




The daily special is a surprise—there’s no pattern to it—it’s whatever they felt like making that day. It could be lasagna or any other kind of “blue-platey” special.

If you’re having lunch there for the first time, I encourage you to try the pulled-pork sandwich, which is one of their specialties.




Honestly, their pulled-pork sandwiches count as a Public Service. I expect soon, all the other restaurants in Ashland will be sick and tired of telling people, “Oh, the pulled-pork sandwich place? That’s Maa Pies—just go west on Broadway and look for it on the right. The place with all the cars parked around it.”

Finally, the Pies

As soon as you get there, look in the front case to see what they’ve got, because they tend to sell out! If you are wanting to get a particular pie to-go, put your dibs on it before you dine!

The fruit pies are wonderful; when we were there, we had blackberry, and it was just sweet enough to be perfect! I admire cooks who get the sugar right in a fruit pie.

They heated it up for us and served it à la mode. Oh, boy! I love me some good, homemade pie!




Here’s something else: Joycelynn will make pies for you by request—cream pies, for instance, or whatever kind of pies you want. She just needs your order 48 hours in advance. I understand they do catering of pies for events. As in, lots and lots of pies.

The pie they’re most famous for is called “apple caramel crisp with pecans.” When we were there last, it was (understandably) sold out. As with the cinnamon rolls, they’re generous with the pecans, which give the caramel-drizzled crust a wonderful texture.

If there’s something wrong with you and you’re not interested in pies, there are Bundt cakes available, plus other pastries, such as Danishes, and the cinnamon rolls.




You might be wondering about the prices—some bakeries charge big bucks for their creations—all the pies here are twelve dollars. And everything else on the menu is under ten; most is under five.

One More Thing

Remember what I said: “This is not a place for you to go if you dislike people, or if you are feeling blue and wish to stay that way.” Why do I say this? Because William and Joycelynn really want you to have a nice time at their restaurant, and they want you to feel at home. They will chat with you. William, in particular, likes getting to know his customers, and he’s a friendly and personable guy.

Again, it’s the “mom-and-pop” thing—at Maa Pies, you will be treated not just as a guest, but as a friend and neighbor—indeed, like family. So put Maa Pies on your list for breakfast and lunch, and be sure to check out the pies and pastries, too!

Ginger-Peach Oat Bran Muffins

Peaches are in season—hallelujah! And you know how it goes: You get a big mess of ’em, then soon discover that your strategy of “doling out” those precious, special gems isn’t working—you wake up a few mornings later to find they’re getting softer than they ought to.

And this is why people bake with fresh peaches. Otherwise, you would just suck them up raw, like you should’ve done in the first place!




And anyway, it’s time to share with you a new oat bran muffin recipe! Click here to see the ones I’ve posted so far.

Here’s why I’m addicted to oat bran muffins: They’re delicious, compact, and portable. They’re filling without being fattening (that is, they have lots of fiber), but they never make me feel, well, bloated. With all that fiber, it’s good for the, ah, digestion. And then there’s the whole oat-bran/cholesterol thing.

Also, I believe one or two oat bran muffins, plus some good, fresh fruit, makes an excellent breakfast for losing weight (kind of like “Slim Fast,” minus the spooky additives and outrageous price tag). Great for snacking, too.




Ginger-Peach Oat Bran Muffins

As I’ve mentioned before, the basic recipe’s a blank slate that can be taken in all sorts of flavorful directions, and I can make up mixes ahead of time, making a morning’s baking very easy.

Note that the basic recipe doesn’t include the egg yolks, and uses instead only two tablespoons of vegetable oil (or olive or canola—your choice). Additional liquid can be skim milk or 2 percent, or evaporated skim milk, or low-fat yogurt, or fruit juice . . . take your pick.

So, here’s the basic recipe (for convenience, I usually buy a big bag of oat bran at the bulk store, then make up several batches with the dry ingredients, then store in the fridge in zip bags):

(((Preheat oven at 425 degrees F)))

2 1/4 c. oat bran cereal
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/3 c. brown sugar

To the basic dry ingredients, I add these special flavors for this recipe:

--1/4 or 1/3 cup chopped candied ginger (see below)
--a small pinch of ground cloves (optional)

In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients:

--3 egg whites, or equivalent in egg substitute
--2 tbs. vegetable oil
--3 very ripe peaches, pitted, peeled, and mashed, including all their juices

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, then stir to combine. If necessary, add additional liquid (yogurt, milk, water, etc.); consistency should be similar to corn muffin batter.

Spoon into prepared muffin tins (use paper muffin cups or spray with Pam). (Makes 1 dozen.)

Bake for about 13 minutes and check; they might need to go for about 15 or 17 minutes total. Don’t overcook them. They’re done when they’re a little golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.




About Candied Ginger

Oh, yum! If you haven’t yet “discovered” candied ginger, you’re in for a real treat! For baking, it’s a wonderful “secret weapon.” Baking tends to mellow its intensity and bring out its pure sweetness. I like to add chopped candied ginger to a pumpkin pie. Ooh, I bet it’d be good with cooked sweet potatoes or butternut squash, if you’re taking it in the “brown sugar/cinnamon” direction.

Also, I think it’s delicious as a zippy little snack—sweet and hot, very intense!—or as an addition to a really good cheese platter, just like you might include a few dried apricots or nice big golden raisins. A little goes a long way.

(Okay, now my mouth is watering!)

Where do you get candied ginger? Well, you can often buy little bitty jars of it in the “spices” section of a regular supermarket—for an arm and a leg! Seriously, that’s too dear for general cooking. Like cardamom, candied ginger is something worth going to an international grocery or bulk store for.

You can buy bulk candied ginger at Global Foods in St. Louis, for instance, or at the Dutch Bakery in Tipton. The price might vary widely, from three to five dollars a pound, but this is more or less like the price of dried apricots, so it’s not outrageous (and still better than buying it off a supermarket spice rack). Like raisins, candied ginger keeps well on a shelf, and it’s great to have on hand for any number of purposes, so I encourage you to try it out!

Ham in Ramekins

Hah! Just when you thought I was finished cracking you over the head with egg recipes, I found another one!

I have to say, this is a nifty idea, and impressive. And funnest of all it’s retro.

(Hmmm . . . Mother’s Day breakfast ideas~~~~!)

Unfortunately, I cannot relocate this recipe online. Gosh, it was there a few weeks ago, as a Googlebook or something, but now I can’t find it. But I did note the actual publication information, if not a Web address, so now which is more enduring?

By the way, here is a somewhat similar recipe, Baked Eggs and Mushrooms in Ham Crisps, which appeared on the cover of the February 2002 issue of Gourmet Magazine. (I remember the day that issue arrived in the mail: it was so lovely I zoomed right to that recipe and read it immediately!) The main difference with it is that instead of using ramekins, it uses a slice of ham, cooked to form in a muffin tin, as the serving vessel. Check it out—it has rave reviews—a real keeper!

The present recipe, however, is much lighter, since the eggs are whipped, and less chewy, since the ham is minced.

A lot of egg recipes take advantage of the contrast of yolk/egg—think of deviled eggs, or the “goldenrod” eggs I told you about earlier, or your basic sunny-side-up eggs, with that lovely gooey yolk to dip your toast into—and this one is in that category. However, it is the only one I’ve seen that simultaneously takes advantage of the whites’ ability to form a fluffy cloud of meringue. Fascinating!




From “Recipes for April Bills of Fare,” Good Housekeeping Magazine, vol. 56 (January–June 1913), p. 560. (Sorry folks, no hyperlinks for you; just my careful typing.)

Ham in Ramekins

Line small ramekins with a thin layer of minced ham, seasoned with chopped parsley and a little celery salt. Separate four eggs and beat the whites to a stiff froth, add one-fourth teaspoonful of salt; and fill the ramekins with this, making a slight depression in the center of each; into the nests slip the unbroken yolks. Dust thickly with grated cheese and bake in a moderate oven, just long enough to set the eggs.

A few notes: you might try different types of ham. I used “city ham,” minced to smithereens with my knife, and it stuck pretty well to the sides of my glass ramekins (you will not want to skimp on it); but then minced country ham might work better. I don’t know.

Don’t have celery salt? Neither do I. So I used my mortar and pestle to powder some celery seeds, then mixed in a tiny bit of salt. Ham really doesn’t need any salt added, though.

I tried a few samples using just a plain slice of ham, poked down into the bowl, but as it cooked it got kind of tough; I think it contrasted too much with the fluffy eggs. You don’t want to have to use a knife with this.




As I made the recipe, I wondered what was meant by “a stiff froth,” and I decided as I worked that it means a meringue—key word stiff—so I stopped beating it once the eggs just started to hold peaks.

I would consider omitting the cheese—or make sure to use a type that will stay very soft after baking and while serving. The store-brand cheddar I used got a little hard. Or maybe they sat too long as I took my pictures!

Next time, maybe I’ll try some crumbled feta or goat cheese. Or, maybe just use a light sprinkling of cheese instead of the “thick dusting” it calls for. (There’s also Velveeta, which melts so nicely, but I know you never use that stuff. Right? —Right.)

And . . . since you’ve read this far, here’s a bonus retro recipe for you, from the same place—Good Housekeeping Magazine from 1913, same article, p. 559. I haven’t made it yet, but it sounds like fun. If you try it, let me know how it turns out!

Mint Potatoes

Wash small potatoes and rub off the skins with a coarse towel, or pare and scrape them. Put into boiling water with sprigs of mint sufficient to flavor them well; and cook until done, drain and serve with drawn butter.

Another Egg Recipe: From My Favorite “Cookbook”

Are you getting tired of egg recipes yet? I hope not, because I have one more for you. (Look, I’m trying to be timely, what with Easter coming up!) But this will be all for a while, since I ran out of eggs. (Hey, Rhoda . . . when can I pick up some more?)

The following is a very simple idea, but it illustrates one of my favorite cookbooks. I’ve raved about this book before, and I’ll probably rave to you about it again!

It’s not really a recipe book so much as it is an idea book—a gentle introduction for how to go about improvisational cooking—in a healthy and vegetarian way. If you’re not vegetarian, you can still get a lot out of this book, because it glorifies vegetables, grains, eggs, and dairy products. It’s fun; it gets your creative juices going. And it’s simple; it proves that awesome cooking doesn’t have to be complex.

It’s an excellent book for a young person just learning to do his or her own cooking. (Hmm: think graduation gift!)

The book is Tassajara Cooking, by Edward Espe Brown. When it was originally published in 1973, Brown was the cook at the Berkeley Zen Center in California. Now he’s an internationally renown chef and cookbook author.

Here’s a link for purchasing a copy. Seriously—I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It opened doors for me; it gave me permission to play around in the kitchen, to “visualize” flavor combinations. It gave me basic guidelines that I still use today.




Since I’ve been talking about eggs, and a few recipes I’ve shared have been rather, um, rich, here’s one that you can feel pretty doggone good about. It’s from the “greens” chapter, and it appears on pages 68–69 of the 1973 edition. It follows such unusual and fun-sounding creations as “Green, Orange & Mushroom,” “Spinach Goes Bananas with Sesame,” and “Spinach Could Also Go Apricot”!

Greens Get Egged On

The egg can appear or disappear, but in any case the greens are meaty.


greens – oil – salt, pepper – eggs

Sauté-steam the greens until they’re nearly done. Stir in some beaten egg or eggs. With a few eggs and lots of stirring, the eggs will blend in much like a seasoning. With more eggs and less stirring, the effect will be more omelette-like. A few teaspoons of soy sauce can go in with the eggs. If you like onions, start by sautéing the yellow kind, or sprinkle on some chopped green onion as garnish.

Pretty easy, huh? Go try it! With a handful of strawberries and a piece of bread, with or without Tabasco or salsa, it would make an awesome lunch!

Poached Eggs, Veggified

I’m still groovin’ on these lovely fresh eggs! Here’s another way to treat eggs like they’re really special, and it’s a bit healthier than “À la mode sunshine” and “eggs goldenrod”!

And if you skip the sop, this can be a low-carb breakfast, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I have to admit, this is not so much of a recipe as it is a “construction.” And it’s something you can put together easily for breakfast, especially if you have the right leftovers.

The first thing is, Heat your plates. Seriously, this little step is so helpful for breakfast foods! For me, this is easy to accomplish, since the pilot light in our vintage Maytag oven keeps it nice and toasty in there. All I need to do is set the plates in the oven first, before I start cooking. Or, if I’m really on the ball, I’ll set them in there the night before.

This recipe/construction is three things: poached eggs, cooked greens, and a tomato sauce. It’s improvisational; do it however you want. Also, I like to serve it with good, whole-grain bread, to sop up all the juices.

Poached eggs—you probably have a favorite way of making them. Here’s a link to a fairly classical approach; Sara Moulton simplifies it quite a bit; and here’s a technique “Bony-Patoots” has recently suggested. (You know whose version is the one I use!)

Figure one or two eggs per person. Cook them the night before and reheat them, or cook them last. At any rate, they should be warm when you assemble and serve the dish. I like the yolks runny!




The greens can be spinach, kale, turnip, mustard, kohlrabi, or beet greens—whatever you like, or have on hand—and you can prepare them however you want. Here’s how I make cooked kale, and it’s fairly healthy (especially if you opt for olive oil instead of bacon grease). Or you can do a full-fledged southern-style greens dish, which is traditionally packed with pork fat and sodium—so delicious! Or heck, you can prepare the greens in the Indian fashion, as palak paneer, which is zippier than the previous two.

Or to make this even more quickly, you can use frozen spinach or canned greens—just heat it up in a pan and season to taste.

For the tomato sauce, to avoid conflicting spices, I would flavor it inversely to the amount of flavoring in the greens. If the greens are spiced up somehow, then I’d just use plain cooked (or even good raw) tomatoes. But if the greens are rather plain, then I’d use a flavored marinara or spaghetti sauce (even one out of a can), or a tomato-based salsa.

It’s best to keep the greens and the tomatoes within the same ethnic flavor palette, if you know what I mean. I wouldn’t try basil-and-garlic (Italian-style) tomato sauce with greens flavored with ginger, cumin, and fenugreek (as in some Indian greens recipes).

Again—serve on heated plates, or shallow bowls. Plate the greens, then the tomato sauce, then the perfectly poached eggs on top. Garnish if you want. (Crumbled feta? Some chopped fresh herbs?)

And be sure to offer some toast, biscuits, naan, whole-grain bread for sop—whatever fits.





Special thanks and an “Op Op, Hooray!” to our friend Jane Phillips, who turned me on to this yummy breakfast combo!

Eggs Goldenrod

Look, it’s another version of “à la mode sunshine”!

Yep, I’m still groovin’ on those awesome free-range eggs from my friend!

I found this in my beloved copy of The Good Housekeeping Cook Book (ed. Dorothy B. Marsh, New York: Rinehart, 1949). As with my friend’s mother’s recipe, this rich, warm dish with a white sauce and hard-cooked eggs takes advantage of the bright yellow yolks to make for a festive presentation.

Sure, you could just crumble the yolks with your fingers or smash them with a fork, as in my friend’s mom’s recipe. But in this case, pressing the yolks through a wire sieve makes them particularly fluffy. It gives them tons of volume. Definitely a unique presentation!




It takes a bit of effort to make this, especially if you don’t have the hard-cooked eggs ready-made. But I made it recently for dinner, with a bit of kiszka and a light, fresh green salad. A Stone Hill Chardonel paired well with it. Pretty darn good!




I more-or-less copy it from page 133, where it’s given as one of six variations of “Creamed Eggs.”


Eggs Goldenrod

6 hot, shelled, hard-cooked eggs
3 tablesp. butter or margarine
1 tablesp. minced onion (optional)
3 tablsep. flour
1/4 teasp. salt
Speck pepper
1 teasp. Worcestershire sauce (optional)
2 cups milk
1 tablesp. minced parsley
Toast

1. Hard-cook eggs, then peel off shells.
2. Partially fill base of double boiler with water; cover; bring to a boil.
3. Melt butter in top of double boiler over direct heat. Add onion and simmer until tender. Remove from heat. Add flour, salt, and pepper, mixing well. Add Worcestershire sauce, if desired.
4. Set top in place over boiling water. Slowly stir in milk. Cook, stirring, until smooth and thickened.
5. Cut hard-cooked eggs in halves, remove yolks. Cut whites in slivers; add to sauce. Heat; pour over toast. Sprinkle with yolks, pressed through sieve, and minced parsley.

À la Mode Sunshine

When you come into the possession of top-notch comestibles, it’s time to cook something special, something that celebrates the gestalt of that particular foodstuff, so delicious, perfect, and lovely.

Now that I have some really good eggs, I’ve been indulging in some particularly eggy recipes. Here’s one I got from an old friend who grew up in a rural area near Toledo; her mother used to make this dish for her back in the forties. It’s called “à la mode sunshine” (not “sunshine à la mode,” though I don’t know why). Its warm creaminess, and the golden rays emanating from the bright crumbled yolks, helped to make up for all those grumpy gray days that plague northern Ohio.

Also, it's a nice, and rather elegant, way to use up leftover hard-cooked eggs . . . in case you anticipate having an abundance after Easter!

(Hey, hold on a minute: I like you—so don’t eat this if you have troubles with cholesterol, okay? Make yourself some oat bran muffins instead!)


À la Mode Sunshine

You will need:

eggs
sliced bread for toasting
butter
flour
milk
salt, pepper
other optional seasonings to your taste


1. Hard-cook eggs; cool, remove shells.

2. Separate the whites from the yolks.

3. Chop the whites into fairly big chunks.

4. Mash the yolks in a separate dish.

5. Make a white sauce (per your taste). Add the whites to the white sauce. Adjust seasoning.

6. Spoon white sauce mixture onto plain (or buttered) toast.

7. Sprinkle the yolks (the “sunshine”) over the top to garnish.

Eggnogged Eggs, and Other Things to Do with Extra Eggnog

I used to have this problem with eggnog: Sue and I would always buy a quart of it, and then we’d each have a few small cups of it while we decorate the Christmas tree, or whatever, and then the rest of it would sit there in the refrigerator until it needed to be thrown away. (You know: Before it develops the ability to walk away on its own!)

Well, I’ve fixed that problem in recent years by using “nog” creatively as a flavoring ingredient in dishes that usually would take just milk. Yes, it’s got more fat than your standard 2 percent, blah, blah, blah . . . but I hate throwing away food. It’s a frugality thing. It makes me feel guilty to throw out food.

So here is one of my favorite ways to use up extra eggnog: scrambled eggs!




(By the way, note the lovely carton of Central Dairy Egg Nog: they haven’t changed the package design for as long as I can remember! I love the artwork! It easily dates back at least to the late 1960s.)

I don’t need to give you a recipe here—you just make regular scrambled eggs, only you use eggnog instead of the usual milk (or water). It makes for creamy eggs that are indeed rather sweet. I usually garnish with a bit of nutmeg. Or I’ll whisk some extra nutmeg into the eggs, and then garnish with freshly chopped parsley.

These are really, really good! Sue loves them.




They go well with our usual decadent Christmas breakfast—say, with good Burger’s ham, and with a slice of Christmas stollen. (By the way, my picture shows pieces of two stollens: one from Aunt Carole, which is about as healthy and low-fat as a stollen can be, and one from my sister-in-law, Karla, which is much more traditional. Both are awesome!)

I also like to serve grapefruit halves for Christmas breakfast. (I garnish them with a Maraschino cherry and with a drizzle of some of the cherry juice instead of plain sugar.)

This is all pretty sweet, but not overly so. The “eggnogged eggs” and the ham are sweet-salty, and the grapefruit is sweet-sour. Even the stollens combine sugary sweetness with the richer sweetness of candied fruits.

More Ideas

This morning, I made our oat bran muffins with eggnog as the liquid. Yeah, I added some extra nutmeg, and I even threw in a little rum! For extra appeal, I included a little handful of carob chips. Sue said the muffins tasted like candy. Wow!

And of course, you could make pancakes with eggnog, too. Then you wouldn’t need to add butter or use much syrup. Just some cooked apples would be enough.

Or, you could decorate your bowl of oatmeal with a bit of eggnog, the way you might add milk or cream.

Or! You could have a lot of friends and family over some evening for Christmas cookies and conversation. That’s another way to use up a quart of the stuff!

. . . Lots of possibilities! Now you never again will have to pour chunky old eggnog down the drain!

Dutch Letters!

I'm following up on a subject from a few months ago--remember the Dutch Bakery in Tipton? The Mennonite-run grocery and bulk foods store? Under the Giant 8-Ball? (How could you forget!)

Well, soon after that post, I got a comment from Michael, who said, "Anyone who reads this, you have, have, have to get a dutch letter. Flaky hand-crafted pastry with a delicious creamy almond filling, baked into, you guessed it, the shape of letters."

I had to admit, with my focus on bulk foods, I hadn't spent a lot of time exploring the Dutch Bakery's bakery. (Now that I write that, I know how silly that sounds.)

Then, another reader, who remains anonymous, reinforced Michael's comments: "Have to agree about the dutch letters. When I lived in Jeff City, I would stop there at least once a month on the way to KC and have been dreaming of them since. I went to the lake with the family this week and was so happy that road work on 52 made us swing through Tipton today. For under $20, I got 5 dutch letters, huge bags of roasted salted soy beans, cheese straws, pasta, and gummy butterflies. The dutch letters are just as good as I remember."

So: "Put it on the List."

(I have a nice big List, by the way.)

So: Recently Sue and I drove to Tipton for breakfast. They offer free coffee at the Dutch Bakery, but--well, we'd brewed up some good-tasting high-class coffee at home and brought it with us in our to-go mug. In part, because we didn't want to wait until we got to Tipton in order to have coffee. (You know how it is.)

We had other stuff to buy there, too. I needed some more oat bran, for instance.

I don't know if this is how they always do it, but they had them on big trays, stacked two or three layers thick, and it was the same five letters: L, o, v, e, and s. (You can buy them as individual letters, but you get a price break if you buy all five).




I'm not sure what the S is for, apart from conjugation or the plural. Maybe the S shape is the most fun to eat, with its sinuous form?

Then again, if the two ends of pastry on the O didn't match up perfectly, you might be able to turn it just right to make it look like a lowercase a, to spell SLave.

But that would be silly. (Hmm: buy ten letters, to spell out Love SLaves--? Hah!)

We took our white paper sack of letters and our mug of coffee to the little roadside park just east of the Dutch Bakery and, sitting at a lichen-dusted picnic table between an oak tree and a little shrine to St. Francis, ate a couple of Dutch letters.

Pretty tasty!




But maybe my expectations were too high; those were some pretty enthusiastic endorsements I'd gotten. But they seemed kind of heavy to me. Terrific, in the sense that they were substantial and satisfied the hungry belly--but although the almond filling was generous, light, and tasty, the pastry enfolding it seemed chewier and harder than I was expecting.

Did they overwork the dough, or over- or undercook it? It seems like it should have been flakier, more like a pie crust. Though perhaps they can't be too flaky, lest they lose structural integrity . . . I don't know.

I appreciate the fact that they were not iced or sugarcoated--they were sweet, but not overly so.

Oh, I'll get them again for sure--maybe these specimens were day-old Dutch letters or something. --But at least I'm not Dutch-letter illiterate anymore.