Bakin-n-Bacon

Perfecting Pancakes

Remember when I ate at the classic diner in Philly in July and commented on how I could never make pancakes like those diner cakes I like so much? We'll, I'm quite a bit closer now.

I've made many changes to my standard pancake recipe, although stupidly I keep forgetting to write down the changes to make sure they stick. I think, however, that I have a handle on the differences that have transformed my pancakes into something quite similar to those lush diner cakes.

First, I am substituting cake flour for some of the all purpose flour which my original recipe used. Second, I use more liquid than normal. Third, I use a tad more leavening, and finally, I don't oil my skillet. I'm using a nonstick skillet with a very flat bottom, one that I purchased with pancakes in mind. I noticed that many nonstick skillets seem to have a hump in the middle that makes the pancakes cook unevenly. Therefore I was on the lookout for a perfectly flat bottom with a nonstick finish (although someday I hope to get a carbon steel pan and season it myself). I picked up a Vollrath 12" nonstick skillet at Northwestern Cutlery in Chicago. Vollrath is based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and manufacturers their pans right here in the U.S.A.

I found that when I oiled the skillet, the pancakes cooked up spotty instead of evenly brown, so I just quit adding oil or butter. The nonstick surface on the Volrath works great and I get that even look I've been after for years, ever since I was a short order cook in my teens.

I tried to take a photo of the crumb of the cakes, but my camera refused to focus and I refused to let me pancake get cold while I was fiddling around with the camera. You can see how fluffy it is, though.

These puppies nearly melted in my mouth, yet they weren't mushy. Now if only I am accurately remembering the recipe...

Pancakes
Serves 4ish

1 cup (4 oz.) cake flour
1 cup (5 oz.) unbleached all purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups buttermilk or soured milk OR
3 tablespoons buttermilk powder and 1 1/4 cups 2% milk
Dash of vanilla extract (optional)

Put the dry ingredients in medium mixing bowl and stir to combine. Separate the egg and put the yolk in the melted, but slightly cooled, butter. MIx the white with the buttermilk or milk and vanilla extract, if using. Pour the egg/butter mixture into the milk mixture, stirring well to combine.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients all at once. Stir to combine but don't over beat (you will have a few lumps left in the batter). Heat skillet over medium high heat and when a drop of water starts to sizzle, it's ready. Pour batter into the skillet to achieve the size of pancake you want, then wait until bubbles start to form on the surface of the batter. Peek under the pancake to make sure it's brown enough, then gently turn it over and cook for another 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until browned on the bottom side. Eat. Yum.

Retro Recipes

As the old saying goes, "everything old is new again." I've been seeing a lot of retro recipes out there lately. Most of them are as icky as they were 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Seeing a rash of retro recipes got me to reminisce about my high school home economics class. I won't tell you how long ago it's been, but since it was actually called home economics I'll bet you have an idea. I remember the sewing part, which I didn't like very much, where we made aprons, potholders and a couple of shirts. I was more interested in the cooking part. We made cakes, cookies, and other easy stuff you could make in 40 minutes with little equipment. One of my favorite recipes was for Parmesan potatoes. These were an easy side dish that I made frequently after learning the recipe. It was red potatoes sliced thick (about 1/3 inch), dipped in egg, and coated with a Parmesan/bread crumb coating, then baked. I still had the recipe although I hadn't made it since college. But since I had such a positive memory of the dish, I decided it was worth an attempt to see if my memory was true.

Of course I made a change right off the bat - I long ago banned the green can of Kraft Parmesan "cheese" from our house, so we had to "settle" for real Parmesan-Reggiano. The spices were simple, just salt, pepper and paprika. I sliced the potatoes a little more thinly so they would cook in a reasonable time. I hate undercooked potatoes.

The potatoes were served with French onion soup - a weird combination, but I just wanted to try the recipe, so if they didn't work out it would be no big deal. The French onion soup was delicious since I made homemade beef broth for it. I really should have photographed the broth-making process since it turned out so well. The broth was full of body and even without reducing it set up like Jello in the fridge. I had to thin it a bit so the soup wasn't too thick. I made the broth in the oven which worked very well.

After letting the potatoes bake for about 40 minutes, I pulled them from the oven and tested one. It wasn't half bad. I wasn't as wowed with them as I was as a 17-year-old accustomed to underseasoned food and meals from a box, but they were good. They could have used more Parmesan cheese so the outsides would be more crisp. Actually, pan frying these would probably be really good, but of course more fat and calories (I say that like it's a bad thing). But even just baked on parchment they had a little crunch and decent flavor.

I probably won't make them again for another few years, but it was a nice trip down memory lane.

Beans, Beans, are good for your heart...

I won't repeat the rest of the rhyme but I'll bet you can finish it. Beans and cornbread (or alternately beans and 'taters) is the state meal of West Virginia. "Beans" in this instance means pinto beans exclusively. I confess, until I moved here I had never eaten a "brown bean" as they are also known. Even during my three years as a vegetarian, when I consumed a multitude of bean concoctions, I didn't have pinto beans.

Since I became a resident of the great Mountain State (no snickers from those living in Colorado, please), I've had pinto beans regularly. They are an easy, nutritious (if you don't put a ton of fatty meat in the pot) and delicious (if you do put a ton of fatty meat in the pot) meal. I usually make them in a crockpot so we can enjoy them on a weeknight.

Astute readers will notice that the photo above left does not depict pinto beans. Those, in fact, are yellow eye beans, a variety I spotted recently at the Farmer's Market. I thought they would be a nice change of pace from the standard brown beans. I first saw yellow eye beans on the Rancho Gordo website. Rancho Gordo has unique, fresh, high-quality heirloom beans and other tasty foods, all at a price I just can't justify. If I ever win the lottery I will buy several pounds of Rancho Gordo beans and see if they are indeed worth $5/lb plus shipping. I've heard really good things about the quality of Rancho Gordo products but can't see spending 10% of my weekly food budget for one pound of beans.

In my opinion, all great beans have a pork product as their soul mate. I chose to pair peppered bacon with the yellow eyes, so I fried up diced bacon to render out some of the fat. I then softened chopped onion in the bacon fat, and added two large cloves of minced garlic. Since I'm a fan of carbonara, so I decided to deglaze the skillet with white wine (in this case, vermouth so I didn't have to crack open a new bottle). Just after I poured the vermouth into the pan, I panicked. Wine is an acidic ingredient, and if there is one no-no when making beans, it's adding an acid before the beans are fully cooked, lest the beans refuse to become tender. But I was committed at that point, so I let vermouth cook down until syrupy, hoping that would neutralize some of the acid. (Maybe I should put a Pepcid in the pot?) A generous amount of kosher salt went into the crockpot along with the bacon mixture, beans and water. After adding black pepper I set the crockpot on high and crossed my fingers hoping for a positive outcome.

Many myths abound about ingredients that will a) keep beans from becoming tender or b) counteract the "windy" effect beans have on some people. Acid seems to be an ingredient that might keep the beans from cooking properly. Salt is essential to flavor the beans and has no effect on whether they soften. The biggest problem I have found with tough beans is that they are too old. It's hard to tell just how long the beans have been sitting on your supermarket shelf, or if they have been stored properly.

Baking soda and a few herbs like epazote are supposed to keep the flatulence down to a minimum. I've not noticed any difference in the "outcome" by adding any ingredients or by pre-soaking the beans. Usually beans don't have a deleterious effect on my digestive system, but just in case I try to eat beans when I don't have any social situation planned for later in the day.

After three hours of cooking, I noticed the beans boiling a bit too rapidly so I turned the crockpot to low. I tested one of the beans and it was still crunchy but had softened up somewhat. I hoped for the best and replaced the lid.

On eGullet, Russ Parsons posted a thread about cooking beans in an oven for just 1 1/2 hours, with no presoaking, and achieving tender, fully cooked beans. I think he's full of beans. He must have access to fresher product than I do, because I've never achieved that result in so little time. Have any of you ever cooked beans in just an hour and a half?

These beans may have taken more than an hour and a half, but the results were delicious. This may have been the best pot of beans I've ever made. They were tender but not mushy, and the flavor was exceptional. No one ingredient overpowered the rest, but instead combined into a glorious whole. With a shot of Crystal hot sauce, they were exquisite. I'm off to the Market to get more of these pretty and tasty beans.

Polenta in the evening, cornmeal mush in the morning

Last night we had a great dinner. DH cooked a maple/sorghum-glazed pork loin on the grill; I made polenta and braised Brussels sprouts. It was more a fall than a spring menu, but it all sounded good so we went for it. Of course the pork was pink perfection thanks to the grillmeister, and the polenta was smooth, creamy and totally lump free. The secret? I made it in my microwave rice cooker. I have fallen in love with that device - it makes perfect rice and lump free, silky polenta - with virtually no stirring. I cooked the polenta, water and salt on high for 5 minutes, stirred it, then cooked it on medium-low (4 of 10) for 15 minutes. I stirred it again and cooked it for another 5 minutes on medium-low. I need to buy another rice cooker for backup in case I somehow break the unbreakable plastic (if anyone can do it, I can).

I scooped the leftover polenta into a plastic wrap-lined loaf pan. (A smaller loaf pan would produce more attractive corn meal mush slices.) The polenta chilled in the fridge overnight, and the next morning I sliced it into half-inch slices and fried it in vegetable oil. Bacon grease and/or butter would have made it even better, but I was trying to be nominally healthy this morning (what has gotten into me?!). It takes a while for the mush to get brown and crispy, but when it's finished, the mush has a crunchy shell covering silky smooth corn goodness. I made my own syrup from muscovado sugar, water and a touch of butter, although maple syrup is lovely too. Corn meal mush is a Southern treat I had never seen until I moved to West Virginia. I'm sure glad I was introduced to it. Those of you from the South are probably screaming "That isn't cornmeal mush!" and you are correct, but since I call polenta "Italian grits" I feel what I made was definitely in the spirit of cornmeal mush if not technically so. Traditional cornmeal mush is different in that the stoneground cornmeal used to make it is not as refined as the meal used to make polenta. I feel it's a quibbling difference, although born-and-bred Southerners may disagree.

We ate the mush this morning with leftover pork. Pork is a meat perfect for all meals. All hail the pig!

Things like this, discovered a food that I had never before seen, make me want to live in other cultures so I can absorb the culinary delights each has to offer. It would be wonderful to live in Thailand, China, Italy, Greece - just about anywhere, really - for a year so I could really get to know the secrets to great foods. Until I win the lottery I will have to settle for great cookbooks and television programs to discover interesting foods from across the globe.

The Morel of the Story

A friend dropped off a treasure the other day: fresh morel mushrooms that he had handpicked earlier that day. Now that's what I call a GOOD friend. Morel season is fleeting; by the time this gets posted, they will probably be but a memory. Luckily, they will be a tasty memory.

The past few years have been bad for morels - it's been too dry and too cold. The recent rains and warm weather were ideal for them this spring, though, and I am told it was a bountiful harvest. Last night's frost probably damaged any that were left, so I am glad we got them while the gettin' was good. If we ever get a farm, I hope it has tasty wild mushrooms we can harvest. If not, I will definitely try to transplant some, although I have no idea how difficult that is. My guess is that they grow wild in the right conditions, but that it is difficult to know exactly which area will be suitable if you are trying to propagate them. It's worth a shot at any rate.

I decided to keep the preparations simple to highlight their earthy flavor. I began by sauteeing shallots in a bit of butter. I added the mushrooms and cooked until most of their water was released. Then I added the remnants of two bottles of red wine and some homemade beef stock (too bad I can't find veal bones here so I could make veal stock, would would have been even better). I let the wine and stock reduce until they were a syrupy glaze to the mushrooms. We served these delectable treats with a London broil, mashed potatoes, and a salad with strawberries, pine nuts, and shaved Parmesan Reggiano. It was a very simple yet utterly delicious meal. MMMMmmmm....

Orange You Glad I Didn't Fool You?

Since it was All Fool's Day yesterday, I thought about writing a post that would fool everyone, but I'm just not that clever. However, I did make a fitting dessert for the occasion. Several years ago I stumbled across a recipe called Orange Fools. A fool is a dessert made with whipped cream and fruit puree. According to the Joy of Baking website,

Dating as far back as the sixteenth century, this classic British dessert has seen its popularity ebb and flow. A fruit fool is made with cooked or raw fruit that is puréed or mashed, then sweetened, chilled, and finally folded into stiffly beaten whipped cream (there should be streaks of the white cream showing where the fruit has not been completely folded into the whipped cream). Traditionally fools were made with tart fruits such as raspberries, gooseberries, blackberries, loganberries, and rhubarb but today virtually any fruit can be used.

"Fool" is believed to have originated from the French word "fouler" which means "to mash" or "to press".

Until I came across the recipe in a magazine, I had never heard the term fool used to describe a food. But how can you go wrong with fruit and cream?

Unlike the description from the Joy of Baking website, the recipe I followed indicated to completely fold the fruit into the cream, so my version is more homogenous than photos on the Joy of Baking site. Also, I didn't think to use a martini glass, which would have worked better than the goblets I used. But no matter, it tasted great. Another difference in the recipe I used versus other recipes I've found is that you make an orange curd instead of just using a fruit puree. I used a navel orange plus a blood orange that was withering in the fridge drawer. The blood orange zest and juice boosted the color, and to enhance the flavor a bit more, I used a couple teaspoons of frozen concentrated orange juice. I could eat that stuff with a spoon!

An orange fool is a Dreamsicle for adults. I adore the combination of orange and cream and Dreamsicles were a special treat when I was a kid. I suppose I could have "kicked it up a notch" by adding liqueur, infusing an herb or sprinkling in a spice, but sometimes simple is just fine. And speaking of cream, I've been thinking back to my days on the prairie in North Dakota, where in our very small town of 1,000 people there was a creamery. It's been closed for many years, but when I was little, my mother and I would take our plastic Tupperware jug, walk the two blocks to the creamery, and have the rich, thick, ivory cream ladled into our container from a large tank. Even as a kid I loved cream and I had to fight the urge to dunk my head in the tank and lap up the luscious liquid.  Today's ultra-pasteurized, homogenized cream is a far cry from the heavenly substance found in that tank.

Here's a tip to get the most out of the crap cream we have today. Don't beat it on high speed. I know it's faster that way, but I find I get more volume and a more stable whipped cream if I beat it on low speed. I have a good hand mixer with a whisk attachment, but this applies even to an old Sunbeam mixer with post-type beaters. Use low or medium-low speed. I use speed 2 out of 7 on my Cuisinart. I never bother to chill the bowl or beaters unless it's really hot in my kitchen and still have great success.

By using a lower speed, I guess it gives the cream more time to set up, thereby incorporating more air. At least that's my theory. Last night I took half a cup of ultra-pasteurized cream that had been in the fridge for a month and it more than quadrupled in volume - I got over two cups of firm whipped cream. I also take the cream a bit farther than most people recommend - I go beyond firm peaks, until it almost starts to clump up for butter. There's a fine line there, but on low speed it's harder to over whip. By beating it a bit more I find it tends not to water out as easily and I've kept it for a few days without  weeping. This is especially nice if you are using it as a pie topping.

Besides being the perfect ending for All Fool's Day, it's an easy, delicious dessert that can be made any time of year out of just about any fruit.

Orange Fools
Serves 4

2 large oranges
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon frozen concentrated orange juice (optional)
2 large eggs
1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream

Zest the oranges and mince finely. Squeeze 1 cup juice from oranges and in a small heavy saucepan simmer until reduced by half.

Remove pan from heat and add sugar and butter to juice, whisking until butter is melted. Whisk in egg until combined and cook over low heat, whisking, until thick enough to hold marks of the whisk and first bubbles appear, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add zest and frozen concentrate if using. (A little orange liqueur wouldn't hurt either.) Pour into a small bowl set in ice water and stir until cold. (You may also pour into a bowl, cover the surface directly with plastic wrap, and place in the fridge until cold.)

In another bowl beat cream until it holds stiff peaks and fold in orange curd gently. It's preferable to have a few streaks remain. Spoon into martini glasses or goblets and garnish with mandarin orange slices and mint leaves, if desired. If you want to gild the lily, rim the glasses with orange tinted and flavored sugar.

Double Butter Burgers

Before I get into the food processor wars, I want to briefly delve into a diversion about luscious burgers. After needlessly ruining many a burger in my youth by overcooking, underseasoning, and a multitude of other sins, I think I finally have a great burger recipe. It involves an unusual ingredient and interesting assembly procedures, but many of my friends say it’s the best burger they’ve eaten.

I start with ground chuck. If your burger looks fattier than mine in the photo below, you might want to cut back a little on the next two ingredients. To this freshly ground chuck, I add some butter and peanut butter. I’m not going to publish the actual measurements in case I want to enter this burger into a competition sometime. Most competitions clearly state that the recipe cannot have been published prior to entry in the contest.

You can see this is not health food, by any means. Salt, pepper and a bit of special sauce (OK it's Worcestershire) round out the patty ingredients. Not terribly complex, but when you are starting out with good meat, you don’t need to embellish that much. One of the problems I have with many burger concoctions is there are too many ingredients – eggs, breadcrumbs, tons of seasonings. You might as well just make meatloaf.

I form the burger into balls. Each ball is patted pretty thin. To half the balls I add cheese – whatever kind you like is the right kind to use. I have used cheddar, blue, pepper jack and Colby jack with excellent results. I put the two halves together and let my husband, the Grillmeister, work his magic.

The end result is pretty darn tasty. Oh, and those things that look like dead worms on top of my burger are sauteed red onions. I'm no Andrew Zimmern.

Taking Stock, Making Stock

Yesterday I took a mental health day to regroup. I needed to chill since I have been running around like the proverbial headless chicken for weeks. First I missed work due to a nasty cold, then I got inundated with tasks when I returned. I needed a day to reflect and relax.

While I was taking stock and catching my breath, I decided to make stock. For quite some time I was in the habit of making my own chicken and beef stock, but I got lazy (I would say busy, but then again I'm always busy) and stopped for about a year, relying instead on canned broth. However, after reading Michael Ruhlman's impassioned pleas to either use homemade stock or just plain ol' water, and never to use canned stock with all of its tinny, chemical tastes, I decided he was right - homemade stock is miles beyond the canned stuff and I needed to make it again. A bag of chicken backs at the butcher's last week got me started, and now I'm on week two of stock making. Last week it was chicken and beef, this week just chicken.

The process for stock making could hardly be easier. I don't know why I stopped in the first place. If your grocery store doesn't cut its own chicken to have extra backs and necks, buy some wings, drumsticks or thighs on sale and use those. The extra meat in the thighs and drumsticks will add flavor, even if you will be spending more. But if you have a butcher or grocer who cuts up chicken, just ask them for the backs and necks. I get mine for 29 cents per pound, which actually makes it cheaper to make my stock than to buy the canned stuff. Beef stock ends up being more expensive, but it is loads better.

I almost always make a brown stock, so named because the meat is roasted first to impart flavor and drive out impurities. The chicken pieces (which I probably should have cut up into smaller bits) went into the oven for about 40 minutes until they were golden brown. My cat kept watch at the oven to make sure the chicken didn't escape.

After roasting, I put the parts into a 12 quart stockpot and just barely covered them with water. Some people say they can't make stock because they don't have the equipment. This is utter nonsense. If you don't have a large stockpot, you can use a smaller pot with less meat, but the end result will be the same. It will be more effort per pint of stock, but not having a big pot shouldn't stop you. Also, you can pick up an inexpensive pot to use if you have space to store it. I think mine cost $25, and that included a colander and lid.

I put the pot on to a low simmer for about 3 hours. When I say low simmer, I'm talking 195 to 205 degrees. A bubble or two should emerge every few seconds, but the stock shouldn't boil. If it boils, the stock will still be usable but it will be cloudy. It's mostly an aesthetic thing, although some folks say the flavor is compromised too. I say if it boils a little, oh well. That happened to me last time because I didn't watch it when I was getting it up to temperature. This time, though, the stock stayed at the right temperature and the result is pure liquid gold.

After around 3 hours, I put in some aromatics to add flavor. I used parsley, thyme, onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Some people don't use garlic, some people add different herbs, and it's all good. The beauty of stock is that you can play with it, and you don't have to follow to hard and fast rules. I would usually use more onion, but that's all I had available so I didn't worry about it.

Another nice thing is that you don't have to finely chop anything or peel the vegetables. They do have to be cleaned, of course, but then a few chops and it's ready to go. I let the vegetables simmer for about an hour, then I strained the entire batch into a large bowl.

I remember the first time I made stock. I was intently reading the recipe and saw that it said to strain it, so I set the colander in the sink. I didn't notice that I was supposed to strain it into a bowl, so I poured it all down the drain. Aarrrggghhhh! What a disappointment (not to mention an embarrassment).

Once you are finished with the stock, you need to cool it rather quickly to avoid any nasties growing in it. I have a method that has it ready for the fridge in 15 minutes. I use a thin stainless bowl that easily conducts the heat. The bowl is placed into the sink which has several inches of ice water in it. Finally, and I believe most importantly, I put two frozen bottles of water in the stock and stir those around. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I am an equal opportunity bottle freezer. One of those was Pepsi, the other Coke. Any plastic bottle will do. I've cleaned and reused those bottles for about three years.

The stock came down from about 195 degrees to 65 degrees in 12 minutes. How's that for quick cooling?

After the stock chills and the fat congeals at the top, ready to be skimmed (and used to fry potatoes!), the stock is ready for soup. I can also reduce this stock (by cooking it until much of the water evaporates) and use it in sauce making. You'll notice I didn't add any salt, so that I can reduce this stock down to gelatinous goo without it becoming salty.

However, since I don't make a lot of sauces, I usually just freeze the stock as is in freezer bags to use in soups. And boy, does it make a difference there. I made French Onion Soup with the beef broth I made last week, and it was just divine.

Kase Knephla (Cheese Buttons)

Making the knephla soup a few days ago, and researching the etymology of the word knephla, got me thinking about kase knephla (kay-za nep-fla), aka cheese buttons. Our family often served these on Lenten Fridays because they contain no meat. You must understand that in our family, a meal without meat was like a day without oxygen. After all, my grandfather raised cattle, my grandmother kept chickens, and my uncle raised pigs. I never saw a leek or asparagus until I moved away from home, but I was familiar with the various meat cuts and innards of every barnyard animal.

Kase Knephla was one of my favorite Lenten meals. I make them nearly the same as my grandmother, although I do add chopped parsley for a boost of flavor and a little color. Cheese buttons, as I will hereinafter refer to them since I know it's probably difficult for you to keep trying to say knephla in your head, are basically a German ravioli - an egg dough filled with cheese, onion and spices (well, salt and pepper anyway - that constitutes the majority of spice used in my family's cooking), boiled until the dough is cooked. After they are boiled, they are usually fried in butter with bread cubes. Maybe that makes them more like pirogi. Whatever you liken them to, they are quite tasty.

One quirk about this recipe that I'm sure will make many cooks cringe is that the filling contains raw onion. Almost every recipe I come across with onion in a filling instructs you to saute the onion first. But the sharp taste of the raw onion contributes to the traditional flavor of the filling. If you think that raw onion would be too pungent, I'm sure scallions would be an acceptable substitute.

Our family recipe calls for dry curd cottage cheese. That product is particularly difficult to find these days, unless you live in an area with a significant Jewish or ethnic German population. I don't even know if you can find it in my hometown anymore. I just used regular cottage cheese that I drained in a wire mesh strainer for about half an hour. I should have whizzed the drained curds in the food processor but I was just too lazy. I've read that fresh ricotta cheese is a good substitute for dry curd cottage cheese; however, I can't find that here either. So I just made do, which is what any good German grandma would do.

I used the food processor to make the dough, which is something that German grandmas don't usually do. In fact, I think I'm the only family member who even owns a food processor. (Me and all my newfangled contraptions) This dough is quite like an Italian egg pasta, but instead of adding eggs to the flour until you achieve the right consistency, you use a set amount of egg and make up the rest of the liquid required with water.

I rolled out the dough (I did it by hand but there is no reason you couldn't use a pasta roller) and cut it into squares, as the recipe indicates. You might think that with a name of cheese buttons, rounds would be more appropriate. You're right. However, I am sure that a frugal housewife realized that if you cut the dough into squares, it would be a) less wasteful and b) less time consuming.  So squares are the tradition, at least in our family. They are probably the same in other families in the area, because God forbid anyone would do anything differently from everyone else. Different is bad! Or so sayeth the townsfolk. That's one reason I don't live there anymore...

A plop of filling goes on each square, which is then folded into a triangle, the edges sealed and the buttons boiled until the dough is tender. The recipe says that takes 15 minutes, but I feel 7-8 minutes is more appropriate for a fresh pasta. I never get all the edges perfectly sealed so, as with any filled pasta, there is always the danger of leakage. I've found that having the water at a lazy boil mitigates this danger. I allow the water to come to a full, rolling boil, but turn it down and let it mellow before dropping in the buttons. Then I monitor the boiling fairly carefully, making sure that it maintains a boil, but just so. This time I didn't have any big explosions, so my theory seems to be validated.

As the buttons neared the end of their boil, I heated some butter in a wok (it's my favorite pan for frying stuff since it's so well seasoned). I threw in some fresh bread cubes to fry first (WRONG! I was supposed to add them last, but I screwed up). After the buttons were boiled sufficiently, I pulled them out of the water and added them to the butter and bread cubes. The bread had soaked up most of the butter so the cubes were a bit soggy. Next time I'll remember to add them last.

Even though I didn't do it last night, I recall eating these with ketchup as a kid. I hope the culinary gods will forgive me for that transgression.

Kase Knephla (Cheese Buttons)

Dough:
3 cups flour
2 eggs
1 tsp. salt
Water

Filling:
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs
Black pepper, to taste
1 small onion, finely diced
1 1/2 lbs. dry curd cottage cheese
4 tablespoons minced parsley

For Frying:
Cubed stale bread
Butter or cream

Bring several quarts of water to a boil and salt to taste. Mix flour, 1 tsp. salt, 2 eggs and water to make a firm dough. Divide into 3 parts. Roll very thin; cut into squares, about 3 inches. Mix remaining ingredients together and spoon onto squares. Wet edges of dough and fold over to form triangles. Seal edges with a fork.

Add buttons to water and boil gently for 7-8 minutes or until dough is tender. Melt a few tablespoons butter in large skillet or wok on medium heat. Increase heat to medium high heat and fry buttons for several minutes or until browned in spots, adding bread cubes toward the end of cooking.

 

How do you say 'I love you?' With meat, of course.

Nothing says I love you like...2 1/2 pounds of meat? I made my Valentine a heart-shaped meatloaf. It was quite delicious; perhaps the best meatloaf I've ever made. "Iced" with mashed potatoes and garnished with a bacon bow and carrot rounds, it was a hit. So was the veerry cute card the kitties bought DH (it had a kitten on it that reminded me so much of one of our own cats.)

As for me, I received both excellent chocolates AND a gorgeous bouquet of tulips and wildflowers. And he did the dishes - what more could I ask for?

Here's a slice of the cake. Sorry the plate is so messy, but that was actually my second piece. I was too hungry for the first piece to take a photo.

Now my attention will be turning to a surfeit of strawberries. I let the intoxicating aroma of REAL, FRESH strawberries get to me and bought a flat (12 pints). I'm testing out some of those Debbie Meyer's Green Bags with these. She claims that the bags will keep produce fresh up to 30 days. So far I am pretty impressed. I've had a bunch of Gala apples in a bag for two weeks, and they are as firm and unblemished as the day I put them in there, and they've been hanging out in the fridge where they usually get dried and wrinkled.

Last night we put some strawberries to good use in margaritas and we enjoyed a luscious fruit salad for breakfast this morning. Strawberry Cream Cake is on the agenda, and strawberry shortcake has been requested too. Strawberry shortcake is one of the few things I cheat on. I don't like the biscuit-y type recipes, and found a little round sponge cake in the Kroger bakery that doesn't have any artificial flavorings or unpronounceable ingredients. So I use those moist, tender vanilla cakes with some freshly whipped cream and strawberries tossed with just a bit of dark brown sugar, and it is as tasty as it is easy. I think that's is what we having tonight, because the strawberry cream cake is a lot more work. Any suggestions you have for these strawberries will be welcomed. Whatever I don't use in a recipe will go into a freezer jam if they start to get dodgy, but I'd like other ideas!