Soaking

Besides the advantage of economy, there is something homey about foods that require an overnight soak.  It says you are cooking with forethought.  It prevents the temptation to just get takeout, because the soaked food will want transformation into supper.  It avoids sodium overload from canned food.

My Chinese roommate would often have a fragrant soak sitting on our counter- herbs or buds that she couldn’t identify in English but which went into soup.  This, no doubt, is why her soups were flavorful and substantial even though so simple, with very few ingredients.  I imagine that old-time Hispanic households would quite often have beans soaking for rice and beans.  You can tell if beans have been cooked from dried rather than coming from a can- there’s a buttery softness to them.  My mother would soak white beans for a bean and ham soup.  In another post, I mentioned soaking washed brown rice in warm water for 20 hours or so before cooking, in order to sprout the grain for a softer, slightly sweeter end product.  I needn’t elaborate on the glorious end product that results from a country ham soaking overnight and landing in some fragrant pot the next day.

-Gina

Taste your lotion

What I mean by this strange-sounding bit of advice is that if you grab an apple or a cookie shortly after applying hand cream and find yourself grimacing at the off-taste, it’s likely your cream is full of petroleum-based goo and dyes and synthetic fragrance.  A more natural, plant-based lotion will, while not exactly tasting great, be more neutral.

I hope to put up some recipes for homemade creams eventually (still reading and testing), but in the meantime I can suggest two brands that pass the ewww test in my book: Burt’s Bees and Originals.

-Gina

The Stranger

“Years ago Thad Cohick started up a general store down Salladasburg way and the family still runs it today.  They sell everything from beaver traps to borax.  In the old days, lots of us would sit around the store spitting at the stove, eating Moon Pies and drinking ginger beer.  Thad drove a hard bargain.   Why, folks said he could get a flatlander’s last nickel.  But he never took in anybody that didn’t deserve it.

Back then the big revival meetings used to come through in the summer.  Folks would come from Steam Valley, Trout Run, and Antes Fort just to hear some good old hellfire preaching.  It was mostly social.  Well, one of them preachers really got to old Thad one summer.  He came down with a bad case of religion.  Said he was living his life at the foot of the cross.

When people said Thad was a changed man, a bunch of us lit out for the store to watch him in action.  We was sitting around jawing when little Mary English came into the store.  Thad fetched her a stick of horehound, took her penny, and waved goodbye.  Then he went behind the counter, put his fingers on the keys of the cash register, looked up to heaven and said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, Lord.’

We sure was impressed.  Later on, Mother Olabelle Reeve came into the store.  She was mother to half a dozen wayward younguns in the neighborhood.  Olabelle wanted some flour, so Thad gave her a sack, took her money, and helped her out the door.  Then he walked behind the counter, put his fingers on the keys of the register again and said, ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’

About an hour later, we heard brakes squealing and tires kicking up pebbles outside the store.  We looked out the window and saw a brand new pickup hauling a fancy horse trailer stop in front of the store.  Then out stepped a rich-looking dude and walked into the store.  He wore a ten-gallon hat, them high-heeled roach-killer boots, and a silver belt buckle.  Walked right up to Thad and said, ‘I got a fifty-thousand dollar racehorse out in that van, and I need a blanket for him.  Give me the best one you got.’

Thad went back into the storeroom and came out with a green blanket. 

‘That the best one you got?’ asked the gent.

‘Yep,’ says Thad.

‘How much?’

‘Nineteen-ninety five,’ says Thad.

‘What?’ says the dude.  ‘You expect me to put a twenty-dollar blanket on a fifty-thousand dollar racehorse?  Ain’t you got anything better?’

So Thad went back into the storeroom.  Now, we all knowed he only had one kind of blanket.  The colors was different, but they all cost the same.  We was dying to see what he was going to do next.

Thad came out with a brown blanket and put it on the counter.

‘How much is that one?’ asked the man.

‘Why, this one here costs forty-nine ninety-five,’ says Thad.

‘You expect me to put a fifty-dollar blanket on my fifty-thousand dollar racehorse?  You gotta have something better than that.’

So Thad went back again and this time he came out with a red blanket and said, ‘This one’s the very best I got.  Costs ninety-nine ninety-five.’

‘I’ll take it,’ said the stranger, and he paid Thad the hundred dollars, picked up the blanket and left the store.

Thad put the money in the cash register and put his fingers on the keys.  Then he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Lord, he was a stranger and I took him in.’

from Flatlanders and Ridgerunners:  Folktales from the Mountains of Northern Pennsylvania by James York Glimm

-Gina

Grandma flowers

For me, it’s red geraniums.  My grandma used to plant them in cinderblocks on a retaining wall, every single summer.

 When a co-worker saw my little pot of cyclamen, she said she liked these flowers because her grandma in Germany always grew them.

What flowers or other plants will you always think of as grandma’s?

-Gina

Pepperpot

This is a good dish to take advantage of the late-summer tomatoes and peppers that are filling the farmers’ markets right now.   I’ve adapted the recipe from, I believe, a Moosewood cookbook.  The original is vegetarian, but in our house, pork products rule!  Of course, Afro-Caribbean versions call for pork tripe.  If you use that, I’ll consider you to have real peasant cred.  Otherwise I commend my Slovakified version.

1 lg onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp olive oil

1 lb smoked sausage, diced- a Polish or German hunter’s sausage would be nice, or if you have a Trader Joe’s nearby, we like Gerhard’s Smoked Chicken-Apple Sausage

2 lg or 4-6 smaller sweet peppers, seeded & chopped- mix them up, any kind or color of bell, Hungarian, Anaheim, cubanelle, etc.

2 tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or 1 cup tomato sauce

salt & pepper to taste, 1 tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika, 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves

6 cups stock or vegetable cooking water

1 cup white wine

Saute onions and celery in oil over medium-low heat til onions are translucent and fragrant.  Add sausage and garlic and stir another few minutes.  Stir in Hungarian paprika, cinnamon and cloves, then the peppers.  Stir over medium heat to let the flavors start to come together.  Add the rest of the ingredients, going light on salt at first.  Bring to a boil, then put on low heat and let it simmer a good hour.  1 1/2 hours won’t hurt it a bit.  Taste and adjust for salt, adding a pinch of sugar if it seems too acidic.

Serve with a dollop of sour cream in each bowl, and some good dark bread.

-Gina

Tri-Tip

When I moved to California, I noticed that if people eat beef, often it is a “tri-tip” cut.  What is this tri-tip, I wondered- I’ve been eating beef all my life, and presumably a cow’s a cow.  As it turns out, the rest of America knows this rear belly piece mainly cut up in chunks as “stew meat.”  Grocers for some reason thought it unseemly to have only a small section in their display cases for this cut since there is only one tri-tip per side of beef.  This seems a silly reason to ignore a lean, inexpensive, meaty-tasting cut, as Californians apparently figured out.

Tri-tips are often cooked on the grill, and my father-in-law Joe does a mighty one in the smoker, but I also find they do well in the oven.  They’re good for a no-fuss special supper since either grilled or roasted, they only take about 30 minutes to cook.  Now with the fall root vegetables coming out, you can take advantage of the oven being on to roast some squash along with the beef.  Often tri-tips are marinated or dry-rubbed ahead of time, but you don’t really need to do so.  Leave it on the rare side, taking it out of the grill or oven at around 130 degrees internal temperature and finishing on a board lightly tented with aluminum foil for at least 10 minutes.

The most famous marinade for tri-tip in California is “Santa Maria,” which basically involves lots of salt, pepper and garlic.  The prepared Santa Maria Seasoning you can buy in stores around here has MSG, so I would avoid it (I once had someone describe the ungodly smell coming from an MSG factory!).  Below is a tri-tip wet marinade from the book Sacred Meals by Fr. John David Finley, an Orthodox archpriest who here gathered some of his family’s favorites.  We bought the book as a souvenir from our honeymoon in the Santa Maria/Santa Rosa region.

If you can’t find tri-tip as a cut in your area, you could use this marinade as a base for a good beef stew!  Combine the garlic seasoning with some flour, toss the stew meat in it and shake to remove excess, then brown in oil and add some onions and garlic, sauteing on low heat til the onions are tender.  Add the beer, just a few tablespoons soy sauce or Worcestershire, some broth or water, a little S&P, and whatever other vegetables you have on hand, bring to a boil, turn the heat down and let it simmer on low til everything’s tender.  Add some lemon juice towards the end, or leave that out.  If you can’t beat the beef marketers, join ‘em!

Fr. John’s Tri-Tip Marinade

1 onion, sliced in 1/4″ wedges

12 fl oz beer

1 c soy sauce

1 1/2 c water

1 tbsp crushed garlic

juice of 2 lemons or 4 limes (Fr. John makes the intriguing suggestion of substituting kiwis, peeled and pureed with the soy sauce- kiwi being a natural meat tenderizer)

lots of coarse ground black pepper

California Garlic Powder (garlic powder + parsley) or Suzie Q’s Santa Maria seasoning to taste

Rotate meat in marinade a few times.  Fr. John says that the trick to tri-tip is to make sure you slice across the grain.  This will probably mean starting from the large side of the cut.  Sliced leftovers will make a great sandwich the next day.

-Gina

June Meyers’ Authentic Hungarian

Check out this website for a Hungarian home cook who decided to finally write down the recipes her family had passed on for generations.  Don’t you want her as your Hungarian grandma?

If you have time, by all means browse her recipes and read the stories attached.  They fill me with a longing I can’t quite explain.  This is not just the way to eat, it’s the way to live.  My husband’s Slovakian family, who emigrated here after the war, still has this something, whatever it is.  But will it survive another generation?

 I love this gem from the cookbook, called Gypsy Bacon:

My father was born in Romania. His Grandfather taught him how to make Gypsy Bacon over the campfire and he taught his children. I remember sitting around the camp fire in the local Forest Preserve, holding a stick with a chunk of smoked bacon over the coals. Potatos were buried in the embers and opened cans of pork and beans were standing on stones in the campfire. Someone was alway dropping their bacon on the dirt or the grass. Pick it up and burn off the dirt. Eat it. Delicious.

Regards, June Meyer.

Prepare a smoked cured slab of bacon, with the rind still attached, by scoring it in 1 inch square sections down to the rind. Cut off a 3 by 3 inch secton for each person. Skewer it on a long fork or stick and hold it over the fire until the bacon starts to cook and sizzle and the rind shrinks and curls up the bacon sections. Is your mouth watering yet? Sprinkle paprika over bacon, eat by cutting off an inch cube with a knife and topping it with chopped sweet onion and hearty rye bread. Serve with cold beer and Schnapps chasers. The taste is wonderful, good on those cold nights around the campfire. This type of bacon can be bought at german or hungarian deli or meat markets. The bacon is firm, not soft. It is cured in a way which permits you to also eat it in thin slices on bread as an appetizer.

-Gina

Natural Drains

To keep drains clear, pour about 1 cup white vinegar down them every week.  I do this before bed so it can sit all night.

Every few weeks or if you notice water draining slowly, pour some baking soda (about 1/2 cup) down the drain and follow up with a cup of white vinegar.  Let that percolate about 15 minutes and follow up with some boiling water.

This was my first foray into more old-fashioned and natural approaches to household tasks, and since commercial drain cleaner is one of the most toxic products we use in homes, if you do nothing else “natural” then please do this.  It takes some regular maintenance, but works.

-Gina

A tip for the Starbucks generation

When traveling in Greece, I noticed that in cafe’s they would always bring you a glass of water when you order coffee.  This is especially appropriate when the coffee is strong, as in my opinion it should be.  The water is refreshing and cuts the impact of the coffee on your stomach, without cutting the flavor of the coffee.  You can sip longer and leave without a headache, with a pleasant warmth rather than a jittery buzz. If I had a coffee shop, as I’ve sometimes thought of doing, I would serve coffee this way.

So if you have someone drop by and put a pot of coffee on, bring them a glass of cool (not iced) water, too.  Don’t ask them, just bring it.  You’ll refresh as well as warm them.

-Gina

Red sauce

“Gravy” as the Italians would have it.    I get ideas for what to post from what people who have visited were searching for.  Someone was searching for how to make tomato sauce, so I’ll give you my best estimation for a fresh pasta sauce, gleaned from Italians and the people who love them.  It’s not really a recipe, it’s just a suggested method.

This being high summer, you really need to find good, fresh San Marzano tomatoes.  These make superior sauce.   You can tell sauce tomatoes from others because they’re usually smaller and more oval than the beefsteak type of tomato.  They should have a deep, bright red color.

Wash them, trim ends, and cut in half.  I prefer to gently squeeze out the seeds.  I don’t bother trying to remove the skins, but if you’re particular about having skins in your sauce, you can shock the whole tomatoes briefly in boiling water and then once they cool, the skins will slip off.  Or you could strain your finished sauce at the end (you might lose some garlic and other good bits if you do this, but some people prefer a smooth sauce anyway).

Mince some garlic and warm it in olive oil over low heat for 3-4 minutes.  You want the oil to absorb some of the garlic flavor, but be careful not to burn the garlic.  I don’t usually make my sauce with onion, but if you like onion in it, chop and saute with the garlic for another 5 minutes or so.*

Add tomatoes, a few pinches of salt, a splash of red wine, and either black or red pepper as you prefer.  If you’re using dried herbs, add some now.  I’m kind of a purist here,  preferring only basil and only fresh basil if I can get it (which now in summer you should be able to).  Oregano is a pizza and stew herb in my opinion, but if you like it in your sauce, go right ahead.

Gently simmer this for 20 or 30 minutes while you prepare the basil.  Gently wash and dry the basil, removing leaves from the stems.  Make a stack of leaves and roll them, then cut in thin ribbons- this is a “chiffonade.”  Add to the sauce just before it’s done, and adjust the sauce for salt.

This is really all you should need to do.  If your sauce seems too acidic, add a pinch of sugar or baking soda.  If it’s not flavorful enough, check first for salt, then add some garlic oil if you have it, or more herbs.  If you’re searching around for flavor, though, your tomatoes are probably at fault.  It’s really tough to get good tomatoes these days.  If you’re having trouble finding good ones, canned San Marzano tomatoes are not bad at all.

This all is assuming you want something like a jar tomato or spaghetti sauce.  This time of year, I’m all for a “raw” sauce of chopped tomatoes, garlic, olive oil and basil tossed with hot pasta, maybe with some lemon juice or peel, which uses only the heat of the pasta to bring out the flavors.

*Let me mention a technique I learned from an Indian cookbook that makes highly flavorful smooth sauces.  You boil peeled, quartered onions in some water and oil, then drain and puree them.  You can freeze the puree in an ice cube tray and add a cube or two to a sauce.  This also eliminates onion-chopping tears.

-Gina