Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Stuffings

I love Philadelphia. If you poke around in corners of the city, you can find unexpected treasures. I found Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Recipes at the Tacony Library Book Sale. 

Find out about the Church that created the cookbook HERE if you want to know more about the particulars. Just scroll on down past the chickens.

Simpson-Fletcher's Soul Food Recipes devotes a whole chapter to Stuffings. I produce two of the recipes verbatim. I am making the Fish or the Capon. Or maybe Roast Duck. I hate Turkey. Happy Thanksgiving!

Sweet Potato Stuffing the Jamaican Way
from Ms. Thelma Graham

1 and 1/4 cups mashed Sweet Potatoes
7 slices toasted Bread cubes
6 links Pork Sausage
2 tablespoons Water
1/4 teaspoon crushed Marjoram leaves
1/2 cup finely chopped Celery
1 finely chopped Onion
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Sage
1/2 teaspoon ground Thyme
2 tablespoons Butter
1 and 1/2 teaspoons Salt

Combine toasted Bread cubes and Celery with mashed Sweet Potatoes. Mix and set aside. In a frying pan, put Sausage links and cold Water. Cover and cook for 10 minutes then pour off any fat and break links into small parts. Add chopped Onion to the pan and cook until Sausage is browned and onions are clear. Remove from heat and add all the seasoning. Mix well. Now add Sausage mix to the Sweet Potato mixture. Blend well and stuffing is ready for stuffing a large Capon.

Sweet Pickle Stuffing for Baked Fish
from Albert the Chef

2 cups Rye or Whole Wheat Bread crumbs
1 cup Sweet Pickles, minced
2 Celery Stalks, chopped
2 tablespoons Onion, minced
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/4 teaspoon Pepper
1/4 teaspoon Sage (optional )
2 tablespoons melted Butter

Mix all the ingredients thoroughly. Toss the crumbs so they are well coated with melted butter. Stuff the Fish cavity. This is enough for a 3 pound Bass or Trout.

Don Marquis' Baked Beans Nirvana

Don Marquis' Very Special Baked Bean Recipe

From "The Almost Perfect State"
By Don Marquis
Doubleday, Page & Company
1927

If you WILL eat beans, here is the way to prepare them.

First, you must have an earthenware Bean Pot, about six hands high, and of a dark bay colour. It is better if this Bean Pot is inherited from a favourite grandmother, with a porous texture (the pot, not the grandmother) that has absorbed and retained the sentimental traditions of at least three generations. But if you own no such heirloom (more precious than the rubies of an imperial crown!) a new one can be made to do.

Procure your white navy beans, and pick them over on a Friday night, not hastily or cursorily, but with love and care, one bean at a time, for this is both an art and a science on which you have embarked--it is more; it is almost a religious rite. Cast from you all split beans, all rusty or spotted beans, all too-wrinkly beans; save only such superior beans, smooth, hard, and shining, as a twelve-months' old child would love to poke up his nose.

Put these aristocrats to soak in water that has three or four tablespoonfuls of baking soda in it. Don't ask me why the soda. I am not arguing with you. I am telling you.

Some people say that after these beans have soaked all night they are ready to bake. These people lie. They are not ready to bake. They are merely ready to boil.

Boil them from ten o'clock Saturday morning until noon, in a pot with a piece of salt pork in it. And time your boiling so that on the stroke of twelve there is very little of the liquid remaining. For they must not go into the Sacred Earthenware Bean Pot, the Ancestral Amphora, too soupy or sloppy.

Put into the bottom of the Bean Pot a layer of Beans four fingers deep. Poke deeply into this one bay leaf. Put on top of this a layer consisting of pieces of just the right kinds of salt pork. On top of the layer of pork, dribble a thin layer of thick New Orleans molasses.

Put in another layer of beans. Into this second layer poke four or five slender curling strips of pungent shredded onion. Put a dab of mustard on the onion. Then a sparse layer of pork. Then another dribbled layer of molasses.

Pause and put your Ego in harmony with the Cosmic All.

Build up these successive layers of beans, pork, and molasses, alternating the subtle bay leaf with the poetic onion, until the pot is filled within two inches of the top. From time to time, a conservative sprinkle of black pepper, as you work from the bottom upward. From time to time hum a verse of "Old Hundred." Don't put in any salt; the pork salts all.

Let the top layers of pork and molasses be a bit thicker than any of the others.

Bake, slowly, in a moderate oven, from noon until six o'clock in the evening. Some say it must be a brick oven. Nonsense! Your Bean Pot itself is your bricky heat-retaining medium.

Eat from six in the evening until midnight--and without fear of indigestion. The thorough cooking has taken all that sort of thing away.

Each separate bean of all these beans retains its form--almost. Almost. Not quite. Each bean is ready to melt tenderly into amalgamation with his neighbor bean. At the touch of the serving spoon the touched beans lose their individual identity, yield up their pride, merge gently into a kind of Bean Nirvana.

Some eat them with vinegar. Very good. Others with tomato catsup. I eat them with a squeeze of lemon juice. Ambrosia!

Green Sauce (Sauce Verte)

I made Salsa Criolla yesterday to accompany a roast.  It started me thinking about Fresh or Uncooked Sauces and how good and easy they are. I did the Green Sauce below in a food processor.

I served this Green Sauce from Silvana Franco's cookbook Salsas and Ketchups with Grilled Shrimp and Filet Mignon at a dinner party I catered. I always make it fresh before service. I discovered I had no lemon and substituted a small Tangerine. Such an inspired-by-emergency solution. So good. I believe this cookbook, published in 1995, is out of print. It is worth searching for, if only for the Banana Ketchup recipe.

Green Sauce (Salsa Verde)

6 Scallions, finely chopped
2 Garlic cloves, minced
1 Onion, finely chopped
2 Green Chilies, finely chopped
6 tablespoons chopped fresh Cilantro
6 tablespoons chopped fresh Parsley
1 tablespoon capers, well drained and finely chopped
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
1 Lemon, freshly squeezed juice and grated peel (or one Tangerine)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in a large serving bowl and toss together. Season to taste and serve immediately.

"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." - Charles Lamb

Homegrown Asparagus becomes available in Pennsylvania April through June. It is at its best in May. A list of pick-your-own farms in Eastern Pennsylvania can be found HERE. 

Every Asparagus lover has favorite ways to eat Asparagus. This recipe for Chinese Asparagus Salad is one of my favorites.

The photograph comes from Petr Kratochvil. 

Chinese Asparagus Salad

2 pounds fresh Asparagus
1/4 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 teaspoon Sugar
1/2 teaspoon Vinegar (Cider or White Wine are good)
1/2 teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Sesame Oil

Some folks peel Asparagus and you can if you want to. I never do. I just snap it. Wash the Asparagus well. Cut the spears diagonally across in 1 1/2 inch lengths. Cook the pieces of Asparagus for one minute in boiling water. Then drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Mix all the other ingredients (soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, salt and oil) together in a large bowl. Add Asparagus and toss.

Happy Belated Birthday Lord Ganesh

I am so happy to have found a fine blog Simple Indian Recipes.

I was looking for Pumpkin recipes. Fall And Winter are the seasons to eat Squash and Pumpkin. I share my find with you, cher Reader.

I found an entire page of Pumpkin recipes that truly go from Soup to Nuts. You want to go there if you cook for Vegans and Vegetarians at Holiday time. I plan to make a Curry. See a recipe for Pumpkin Burfi below.

I am so happy to share Lord Ganesh made in Pumpkins for your enjoyment. This year Diwali falls on October 24.

Sweets are part of the annual Diwali Festival of Lights. Pumpkin burfi made out of vari tandul and boiled pumpkin, sugar, ghee. I will be back when I know what the English equivalent of the Indian ingredients is to translate.

Ingedients:
1 cup Red pumpkin boiled and smashed
1/2 cup Vari tandul
1/2 cup Grated coconut
1/2 cup Sugar ( +/- as required by you)
1 cup Water
1 pinch Kesari colour
2 drops Vanilla essence
3 tbsp Ghee + little for geasing the plate
1/4 tsp Cardamom (elaichi) powder
2-3 pinch Nutmeg (jaifal) powder
1 tsp each Charoli and Charmagaz
1/2 Cashew (kaju) pieces for garnishing.

Method:
1. Heat ghee in a kadai, add the vari tandul and roast the same as you roast for the sheera.
2. When it changes the colour to brown slightly, add 1 cup of water. Cover and cook till the water is dried up in slow flame.
3. Add the sugar, boiled and smashed pumpkin, grated coconut, and kesari colour. Keep stirring and cooking till it leaves the kadai.
4. Add elaichi powder, vanilla essence, charoli, charmagaz and mix well for another two minutes.
5. Transfer it into a greased plate. Allow it to cool. Cut into desired shape. Garnish with cashewnuts and serve.

Variation: with mango pulp, apple pulp, papaya pulp.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 45-60 minutes
Serves: 5-6

Trashcan Potatoes - Guest Author La Motocycliste

Over the weekend, I tipped over the trashcan, and harvested enough French Fingerling potatoes for a good meal for two.

Growing potatoes in a trashcan is fun and easy. In case you think, "Potatoes are cheap, why do all this work?" price heirloom varieties at Whole Paycheck sometime.

A lot of communities have gone to high tech trashcans that can be emptied by an automated garbage truck. This leaves the householder with old trashcans, which can be used for low tech urban potato farming.

The first step is to locate a sunny spot. Potatoes are not really choosy, but they do like sun and water. If your sunny spot is over a patch of dirt, cut the bottom off the trashcan with a Sawzall or a hacksaw. If your sunny spot is over concrete, drill drainage holes in the bottom of the trashcan. If the trashcan is really disgusting, clean it up a bit.

Next, put your trashcan on your chosen spot and fill it with four inches of cheap potting soil with a handful of bone meal mixed in. Head off to choose your potatoes. You need about a quarter pound organic potatoes per trashcan. Look for potatoes with nice big prominent eyes. If you have potatoes that have started growing in your pantry, use those.

Cut up the potatoes so you have one or two eyes per piece. Many people leave the potatoes out overnight to skin over, but I have never bothered. Put the pieces about six inches apart on top of the dirt in the trashcan, then cover with another couple of inches of potting soil and another handful of bonemeal. Don't bother to tamp down. Water so that the dirt is as wet as a wrung out sponge. Cover the trashcan with a piece of chicken wire or an old screen to keep critters out.

Keep the dirt moist, and in 2-3 weeks you should see sprouts. Potatoes grow along the stems, so when the sprouts are 8 or nine inches tall and have nice glossy leaves, shake some more dirt along the stems. The plants will grow towards the light, so keep covering the stems as they grow. Keep them watered and the potato plants will grow for about three months. Eventually they will die down. Stop watering. When the plants are deceased, knock over the garbage can and pick out your potatoes.

Note: Reposted from dkos. For those who learn more easily from seeing than reading:

Polish Dill Pickles

Is there a difference between a Polish Dill Pickle and a Kosher Dill Pickle? No difference, although I think a Polish pickle has much more garlic. I am sure pickle enthusiasts will disagree.

A Kosher or Polish pickle is made without using vinegar, uses a crock or glass jar (with a weight if necessary) to keep the cucumbers submerged in the liquid, and involves lactic acid producing fermentation. 

I was going to type the recipe and then I discovered Danny Mac's Kitchen video. Lots of good suggestions in the comments. Seeing is believing. Making Pickles is easy and you can do it even if you think you cannot cook. After four days of fermentation, you can make Pickle Soup.

There is more than one way to sour a Pickle. A charming Russian Lady gives us her system which includes Lemon and Apple Cider Vinegar. So yummy.

In my house old fashioned winter preparation starts with pickling cucumbers. So enjoy my grandmothers old fashioned Naturally Fermented Kosher Dill Pickles - Рцепт Малосольных Огурцов.

Beautiful Soup So Rich and Green

BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
- by Lewis Carroll

January is National Soup Month. I love soup both hot and cold. The soup recipe below had its start with a recipe by Poppy Cannon in Eating European at Home and Abroad published by Doubleday in 1961. I altered it to suit our family. Poppy Cannon (August 2, 1905 - April 1975) was at various times the food editor of the Ladies Home Journal and House Beautiful.

Perhaps best known for her books on food, Miss Cannon was also the author of 2,000 magazine articles on a variety of topics, and wrote newspaper columns ranging from fashion and travel to race relations as well as poetry and fiction. Read more...

Emeril LaGasse makes this Portugese soup with linguica sausage added. I have tried that and my children like this Vegan version better.

Ingredients for Caldo Verde Soup:

6 Potatoes
4 tablespoons Olive Oil
¼ teaspoon Black Pepper
1 tablespoon Salt
1 Dried Hot Pepper (optional)
4 cups shredded Greens (Kale or Turnip are especially good)
2-6 cloves fresh Garlic
2 quarts Water

Wakame finely shredded with scissors (optional and to taste)

Peel and slice the potatoes. Cover with water and add olive oil and peeled garlic cloves, and cook until tender. Remove the Hot Pepper. Mash the potatoes and garlic in the broth. Add salt and pepper. Then add 4 cups shredded fresh greens or one large package of frozen greens and the wakame if using it. I almost always use frozen because it’s faster than shredding fresh greens and the results are good. Cook for an hour or until the greens are tender.

Note: If you are cooking for dedicated hot food haters, make Caldo Verde without the hot pepper and serve Louisiana hot sauce or Tabasco as a condiment. Ms. Cannon writes that this soup may be made with a combination of cabbage and spinach. I found that combination insipid. She also does not include garlic. I don’t think she would recognize my version but I must thank her for the fabulous start.

And to those who know and love Lewis Carroll as much as I, please forgive the poetic license and quotation wantonness. I know the soup spoken of was Turtle, Mock Turtle.

The Other French Onion Soup

It is icy and cold in Philadelphia. I want hot comforting soup. January is National Soup Month so I am republishing this easy Soup recipe.

This onion and cheese soup is simple to make, really tasty, and does not require any special cooking skill at all.  The quantity is infinitely expandable, just maintain the proportion of  equal weights of onion to potato. Serves 2 to 4 people.

3 large potatoes
3 large onions
8 ounces Swiss Cheese (quantity to taste)
Garnish of Minced Celery Tops

Peel onions and potatoes and place them in a deep soup pot. Be generous about removing outer layers of onion that are too tough to cook. Add enough water to cover the vegetables plus one inch above them. Bring water to a boil, then turn down and simmer until onions and potatoes are very soft. Grate the cheese. Mash the vegetables in their own broth when tender. Season with Salt and Pepper. Stir the cheese into the hot soup and serve. Garnish with minced celery tops.

Note: Do not overcook or it will be glue. Cook only until the vegetables can be pierced with a fork. You want some texture in your soup.

You may wish to substitute another cheese or garnish (minced parsley, bacon bits, etc.).  I prefer the combination above, as taught me by an elderly French woman whose surname I never learned. She was Madame Sophie always. A little green salad and some good bread and I feel a happy well fed person.

Can City Gardens Feed Us?

I live in Philadelphia. The urban gardening movement is strong here. Just like London.

Right now I am inundated with Roma Plum Tomatoes from one plant grown in my tiny backyard. I am giving them to neighbors.

In other news, City Farmer News has received another award for their coverage of sustainable and urban agriculture and related urban planning. Greenys interested must go there for good information. 

The Christian Science Monitor has an excellent article about urban agriculture helping the working urbanite to fresh food self sufficiency. And the photo below is part of an excellent slide show that helps us understand the vastness of our food chain. Do you know that 60% of the apple juice sold in the US comes from China?

Could city farming be a solution for Bangkok’s urban poor?

A group of nutritional experts say the trend could be harnessed to improve access to food for Thailand’s growing numbers of urban poor. 

By Flora Bagenal, Correspondent / August 10, 2013

The garden was set up in 2003 by a group of janitors who decided to use empty space on the building’s roof to grow food to take home to their families. In the 10 years since, it has blossomed into a fully functioning urban horticulture center, complete with trellises crisscrossed with vines and rows of potted herbs and spices. It covers an area roughly 4,000 sq. meters (about 4,300 sq. feet), that otherwise would be an expanse of unused concrete.

The guerrilla garden is one of several small city farms dotted around Bangkok. And now, a group of nutritional experts say the trend could be harnessed to improve access to food for Thailand’s growing numbers of urban poor. 

Zucchini Bread and Butter Pickles

I love Bread and Butter Pickles. I have always made them made with Cucumber. This is the perfect recipe for those who have so many Zucchini in the garden that the neighbors refuse to take anymore and hide when they see you coming. 

The origin of the name and the spread of their popularity in the United States is attributed to Omar and Cora Fanning, a pair of Illinois cucumber farmers who started selling sweet and sour pickles in the 1920s and filed for the trademark Fanning's Bread and Butter Pickles in 1923 (though the recipe and similar ones are probably much older). The story attached to the name is that the Fannings survived rough years by making the pickles with their surplus of undersized cucumbers and bartering them with their grocer for staples such as bread and butter. - wikipedia

Zucchini Bread and Butter Pickles 

1 large Onion, sliced 1/8 inch thick
6 cups small Zucchini, sliced 1/8 inch thick
1/4 cup Salt
2 cups Cider Vinegar
1 cup Sugar
1 teaspoon Turmeric
1 teaspoon Celery Seed
1 teaspoon Mustard Seed 

Place the Zucchini and Onion in a large bowl. Salt thoroughly.  Cover and leave overnight. Combine all other ingredients and bring to a boil. Add Zucchini and Onions  to the pickling brine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Pack pickles into hot sterilized pint jars. Fill jars to 1/2 inch of the top with pickling brine and seal. These pickles make excellent bread and butter sandwiches.

Halloween Pumpkins

Halloween is my favorite holiday. How could it not be so? The air is crisp, the harvest is home and dressing up your hearth or porch.. Here are some pictures and websites to help you plan your decorations and help you celebrate. 

The Zombie Brain Pumpkin comes from skulladay.com. 

Pumpkins can be carved and they can be painted, etc.

Oil based glossy house paint works the best, especially if you want to put your pumpkins outside on the porch. Oil based paint is durable, glossy and adheres well to pumpkin rind. A decorated pumpkin will last without rotting from Halloween through Thanksgiving.

Glossy acrylic paint is a good choice if you are working with children. It washes off.  Do not buy small containers of hobbyist paints unless you are only going to paint one or two pumpkins. Go to an art supply store for premixed acrylic paints in a wide variety of exotic colors in a generous size.
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Spinach Casserole for the Vegetarian in Your Life

Spinacia oleracea in Flower

It is challenging to come up with a vegetarian entrée that even meat eaters will enjoy. This casserole is The One. It is simple to make and tastes delicious. I serve this to my Vegetarian on holidays every year.

Spinach Casserole

2 Eggs, well beaten

6 tablespoons Flour

1 package chopped frozen Spinach, 10 ounces

1 1/2 cups Cottage Cheese

1 1/2 cups Cheddar Cheese

1/2 teaspoon Salt

Thaw Spinach and drain thoroughly. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat eggs and flour in a bowl until smooth. Stir in Spinach, Cheeses and Salt. Pour into a greased 1-quart casserole. Bake for one hour. That is it. Eeezy Peezy. Enjoy.

Ms. Mary Walker's Cucumber Soup

This is cucumber season. We are inundated with them. What to do? Make this delicious Cucumber Soup. I give it to you verbatim - straight from Ms. Walker's keyboard.

A note from Ms. Walker:
It's not my recipe. It comes from a 'Marks and Spencer' (British Dept. Store) cookbook called 'St. Michael's Cookery Book' - published in 1980, which I picked up at a flea market when I was visiting relatives a few years ago.

I don't need credit - but it you want to publish it and allot credit, it should be the original 'St. Michael's Cookery Book' by Jeni Wright..

Chilled Cucumber Soup
(VERY British)

2 tblsp butter for frying
1 onion (about 2inch) finely chopped
1 European cucumber diced (WITH skin and seeds - which is why it should be a European)
1-1/2 tblsp flour
20 oz hot milk
10 oz chicken stock
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
And to finish - 1/2 pint heavy cream
chopped fresh mint
green food coloring - if desired

In 3 or 4 quart saucepan - saute onion and cucumber in butter - then cover and cook gently for about 5 minutes

Stir in flour and cook for a further 2 or 3 minutes - stirring constantly

Remove pan from heat and gradually stir in hot milk - stir thoroughly. Stir in the stock and return to heat. Bring to gentle simmer - stirring frequently. Season with salt and pepper and nutmeg

Lower heat - 'half cover' so steam can escape - and simmer very gently for about 20 minutes - stirring occasionally. Be sure it doesn't stick or burn.

Puree with an electric 'stick' blender or in a food processor. Should be consistency of heavy cream!

Allow to cool before refrigerating. Serve chilled with cream and mint - if desired. OR - in the winter I serve it hot with croutons. YUMMMMM!

Let me know what you think. I usually make a double batch so I can share with neighbors.
When cucumbers are in season and available I usually make the onion/cucumber sauté 'base' and freeze it until I'm ready to make soup - which is what I used this morning.

NOTE: If European cucumbers aren't available - you can use regular cukes BUT you would need to peel and seed them - so you would need 2 or 3 to equal one European.
Good Luck.

Small Space Spiral Herb Garden

Spiral Gardens are the new hot idea for small space gardening. You can tuck one of these small gardens into the most unlikely tiny spaces. This technique is particularly suited for growing Herbs. Nothing tastes better than fresh Dill or Basil. 

You can use all sorts of  things to make the spiral from the grand to the mundane. Use bottles, bricks from an old building, river stones. You will get lots of building instructions and information at The Micro Gardener. As is usual for me, I just winged it when I made my spiral garden. Turned out just fine.

These gardens are particularly suited to Herbs. Choose one tall imposing plant like Zucchini for the center. Trust me, no family needs more than one Zucchini. Or maybe one lovely Okra. Do not forget that elevated beds need extra watering to do well.