Perfectly moist, dark chocolate cake, with light-chocolate whipped cream, and a pint of fresh raspberries dotted over the top. That’s it! Our family’s forever-favorite birthday cake. This is my simplified version of the Dressel’s Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream cake (without the buttercream and nuts, and with an easy-to-make version of stabilized whipped cream.) So good! Continue Reading…
What to do with the leftover corned beef? Make hash! It takes just three ingredients: corned beef, potatoes, and onions. (Well, six ingredients, if you include the vegetable oil, salt and pepper.) Really simple, really good. Your culinary goal? Achieving a nice mix of textures: slightly chewy + crispy corned beef cubes, crunchy-edged potatoes, and soft, silky onions. Here’s how!
The first time my parents drove to the tiny Texas town where I would spend my early childhood, Dad got lost. He found a filling station and asked the attendant where Riesel was — pronouncing the placename “Rye-zel.” The man blinked at dad for a few moments and then, eyes wide with belated recognition, said, “Ohhhh! you mean REEEEE-zel!” drawing out the eeeeeeeee’s in an impossibly wide-mouthed drawl. And so it was, we moved back to Texas. Mom had grown up in Houston and coached collegiate basketball in Texarkana. Then she made a serendipituous wide swoop North to coach at the University of North Dakota, where she met Dad, a South-side Chicago native, at the beginning of his vicarage in the frozen North. After a few winters there, Mom was very glad to get back to the Lone Star State. My brother and I benefited from the remoteness–and the heat. We ran around nearly naked for two years, in, and out, and all around the old wooden farm-house, with it’s big rooms, tall windows, and banana trees out back, where we used to sit on the porch steps and eat huge slices of Texas watermelon : ) And my mom’s cooking–lots of no-bean steak chili, and this chili mac made with dried New Mexico chilies, plenty of cumin, chili powder, garlic and onion, and the obligatory elbow macaroni, this dish is comfort that never fails to please. Continue Reading…
With a pandemic raging, daily life has taken on some sudden changes. For my family, with an nonagenarian dad upstairs to care for, and my husband’s company travel on hold, we are largely sequestered here in home offices, doing what we normally do, with restrictions. Added to the normal good-hygiene practices of frequent and now even more thorough hand washing, we’re adhering to the six-foot distancing rule when out in public, eliminating large-group interactions, and, like many of you, are doing a lot more cooking at home. The big question: “Is it safe to eat fresh vegetables and produce?” is YES. According to international food safety authorities, coronavirus needs a host—either an animal or human—to grow, so it’s impossible for it to grow in food. Carefully washing fresh vegetables in cool water, removing and discarding any bruises or imperfections, and then cooking them is best the way to go. Here at our home, our focus on nourishing, immune-boosting meals has meant plenty of oatmeal at breakfast, loads of citrus, garlicky stews, cruciferous veg, and of course SOUPS! Continue Reading…
It happens after every dinner party. The guests head home. I clear away the wine bottles, and whatever fell behind the bar. And then survey the food table leavings. Invariably, there, next to the plate holding one sad, smushed pie remnant, and the half cookie that fell into somebody’s ginger ale, I will find most of a tray of fresh veggies. They are still gallantly cheerful, the brightest color in the after-party glow. It makes me feel they deserve a good send off. Soooo….I came up with this day-after-the-party veggie soup. Simply a saute of vegetables made with the veggie-tray broccoli and cauliflower florets, carrots, and celery trimmed down to tiny, plus onion and broth, it’s really easy to make. Add a little crusty bread and some good cheese and you’ve done the lonely, leftover veggie-tray proud–and yourself a big, nourishing favor. Continue Reading…
Perfect for your Easter morning! Suzana B. wrote in search of this Portuguese Sweet Egg-Bread recipe her husband fondly remembered from the late ’70s. With mashed potatoes and some of the water used to boil the potatoes in the mix, it bakes up into wonderfully light-textured loaves with deep-orange-hued crusts. Makes four 9 x 5-inch pan loaves, or, 4 braided or round loaves. Continue Reading…
Before there was Michael Douglas, there was Kirk Douglas, Michael’s 1940s matinee-idol father. If it weren’t for Ant Man, in which Michael had a nice role, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which my son Noah considers “epic” for its special effects (first sci-fi shot in Cinemascope), my boys as kids would have been unfamiliar with either of these actors. But back in the ’60s, Kirk was very much top of his game, starring in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, and alongside John Wayne in three films, making Kirk much sought after by celebrity columnists. Which is where this meatloaf comes in. Continue Reading…
The sun is shining in through the windows, lighting up the mixing bowls and rolling pins, cookie cutters and pudding tins on my slate kitchen table. It’s the Friday before Christmas. A “jolly good” time to do some Holiday cooking, don’t you think? If anybody want’s to join me now–or, is looking for some delicious recipe inspiration for Holiday meals over the next two weeks, here’s a round-up of a few favorites. There are cocktails: Not A White Russian, snacks: Cheddar Crackers, Pub Cheese, Vintage Tea Sandwiches , savories: Wine-Poached Pear and Rosemary Tart, Sherried Crimini & Walnut Loaf, Ancho-Braised Lamb shanks , empanadas picadillo hand pies, duck and andouille gumbo, shortrib stroganoff, porkchops with sauerkraut + apple stuffing. There are fruited lovelies: Raspberry Fool, wine poached pears, mincemeat tarts . Cakes– Monica’s All-Natural Red Velvet Cake, Melting Apple Cake, Double-Chocolate Bread Pudding with Barley Malt Caramel, Ginna’s Hubba Hubba Apple Cake, Apple Almond Cheese Tart, chocolate-covered Amarena cherries, German Chocolate Cake, Dressel’s Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream Cake , Dreamsicle Cake, vintage no-bake refrigerator cakes, and of course, cookies! Fresh Cranberry Bars, Gingerbread Cookies, Jam Tart Bar Cookies, Old-Fashioned Butter Cookies, Lutz’s Raspberry Nut Bars, Coffee and Molasses Dream Bars, Grandma Bertha’s Apricot Delights, Marshall Field’s Chinese Chews, Banoffee Tarts. As you finish your year with loved ones far and near, remember that food is a love note that lasts. Cheers to you for the meals you create with that in mind. Happy, happy, Holidays, from Monica Kass Rogers!
Rich, sticky, sweet and gooey, it’s really like an upside-down cake, minus the fruit. Simple vanilla cake batter baked in a pool of maple syrup caramel , Pouding chômeur literally translates as “pudding of the unemployed.” First created by factory workers during the Great Depression using a handful of ingredients, it was for decades the sort of home-food fare that Québécois kept to themselves. Like Johnny Marzetti, the Cleveland area noodles-and-sauce hotdish that moms customarily put on tables, but most restaurants eschewed, this sticky maple pudding quietly endured out of the spotlight. Continue Reading…
Calling down to Georgia’s State Capitol offices and the Culinary History Society of Georgia, nobody could comment on the gustatorial habits of Richard B. Russell, Jr. (1897 – 1971), the politician this much-requested dish is named for. But tracking down this recipe, one thing is sure: the man had a sweet tooth. Continue Reading…