Figs and the Spread I Made From Them

So, here’s the deal: I cut up a boat load of figs and layered them into a big skillet. I poured (mounded) white sugar all over them. I poured in some lemon juice. There was a bit too much lemon juice for the first load along with some orange juice for a really tart batch and just a little bit of lemon juice for the second, sweeter skillet-full of figs.

I cooked both batches for about 5 minutes or so until everything was real mushy. Then, I pulsed it all in the food processor and returned the figs to the skillet to cook some more. We liked the second batch more than the first so I mixed both together and the final product is pretty interesting. This, when it cools, is going to be a nice fruit spread.

Broken Eggs

What to do with 7 broken eggs? I made a frittata. I was on my way back from shopping at Office Depot (Seagate 500 GB external hard drive for DeeDude to put all his stuff on and a more powerful shredder - everything on sale!!!) and Lucky’s (usual grocery items including….tada 18 eggs) and as I stood downstairs with DeeDude to carry things up to our place the lid to the eggs flopped open and they all tumbled out of their little eggy nests. Rolled right around in the bag and broken egg started pooling at the bottom of the bag. Well, at least it didn’t get on anything else.

Anyway, I didn’t have half and half or cream, so I used a little bit of 2% milk. I broke another 2 eggs open, so we had a total of 9 eggs. I used half a kielbasa, a bit of onion and some leftover fried potatoes from breakfast as the filling. Then, as it cooked together in the skillet I shaved parmesan cheese over top.

When it got mostly done with cooked scrambled eggy bits with uncooked eggs together I stopped stirring and let it go a bit longer on a low flame. Before it was completely done I put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes.

After I removed it from the broiler I let it sit awhile in the skillet and the edges shrunk away from the side of the pan enough so that it flopped easily out onto my hand and then upside down onto a plate. I put another plate on the bottom as it faced up and turned it right side up. That was the part I was sweating thinking the whole thing was going to stick in the pan or break apart as I tried to remove it. But, everything worked out well. It looks pretty enough to warrant a picture. I hope it tastes as good.

Master Cook Recipes

I’ve got a MasterCook Recipe Program. Mine is version 9.0. I purchased it from ValueSoft for $20. I just love this program. It's been around for years and years and the most wonderful thing about it is that you go online and download collections of recipes folks have put together. For Free. Sometimes they ask for donations, but for the most part it is just sharing their favorite recipes. Imagine, 1,000 chicken recipes. Or, a recipe swap some group did. Or real chef collections, like Alton Brown or Back of the Box recipes. I don't know how many collections I've downloaded, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out it was more than 50. Hey, I just looked...phhhht...it's 104 cookbook collections I've downloaded. That's more than 50 for a certainty. I love this program so much I created a page of links for it at my other website.

Lovely search where if you've only got blueberries and a box of cake mix, what could you do?

BlueBerry Dump Cake (From: Favorite Recipes from Quilters)

2 pt Blueberries,fresh
3/4 c Sugar
1 White cake mix (we used yellow)
1 c Nuts, chopped
8 tb Margarine (we used butter), melted

Pour berries into 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle sugar, dry cake mix and nuts over berries. Pour melted margarine over entire mixture. Bake at 325 for 1 hour.

Deedude liked this one. It got better as the days went by. We stored what we had not eaten in the fridge. Sort of like a super-charged Pop Tart.

Crab Cakes

I just made crab cakes using a recipe from Dennis’ father, Pete Evanosky. I had to follow him around the kitchen and write down what he was doing because he had never put it on paper. So, here’s what I did with ¾ of a pound of crab meat this morning.

Make bread crumbs out of 4 slices of bread. I used the food processor. Then, sauté up a diced onion and 2 slices of celery. I tossed the veggies into the food processor to make quick work of the dice. It ended up as more a mush than a dice, but I think that will be fine. Pete originally used half a green pepper, but I didn’t have that so we’re using celery instead. I let that cool and then mixed in a tablespoon of Old Bay Seasoning. Then, I mixed it with the breadcrumbs.

I beat up 2 eggs and mixed that in and added 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise. Finally, I mixed in the ¾ of a pound of crab meat. The original recipe calls for one pound of crab meat and 6 slices of bread, so I had to adjust the quantities. It’s in the refrigerator right now chilling for a couple of hours. I’ll make up little patties, coat them with corn flake crumbs, dot with butter and bake in a 325 degree oven for half and hour to 45 minutes.

I appologize for how dark this picture is. I imagine it must have been taken 45 years ago. It's the only one we have of DeeDude's dad and interestingly enough I found it on the internet. It was part of a collection of one of DeeDude's long lost cousins. And, doubly unfortunately, I can't find the link anymore. Maybe if they were to see it they'd contact us.

How I Make Kraut

Here’s what’s for dinner: Kraut and Wurst.

I chopped up a big sweet onion, peeled and diced up a potato. Set that to sautéing in a little olive oil. Thought better of it and chopped up 3 strips of bacon to add to the mix. If I’d thought of it earlier maybe I wouldn’t have added as much olive oil. Peeled and chopped up an apple and added that too. Dissolved a beef bouillon cube in a cup of water and added that. Considered and then added in half of my cup of apple juice I’d been drinking. I didn’t measure that one, but figure it was about 1/3 of a cup. I may add more as the afternoon progresses.

Then, the final ingredient. I added a quart of sauerkraut. That is going to bubble away on the stove for a few hours. We want to watch the Sopranos at 6:00 pm and seeing as how I don’t like to be eating while we watch it I figure dinner will be at 5:30 or thereabouts. So, this is going to simmer away a little over an hour. Then, it can sit around for awhile and I'll reheat it. The potatoes and apples will be mush by the time dinner comes, but will have flavored the dish and the potato (according to my neighbor Phil) is what will make the gravy. I'll have to go see about finding a lid for the skillet.

I’ve got 4 Saags bockwursts to have with the meal. We'll have boiled potatoes too. Just a nice German dinner tonight.

DeeDude has been sick ever since he finished doing the taxes last week. The willies, fever, the yuckies and a sore throat. Also, I hear him sneezing every once in awhile. He's promised me he will telephone the advice nurse tomorrow if he still has a sore throat. But, this is the first time in years that he's had a really bad cold. It reminds me of the cold I got right after I quit my job oh so many years ago to write. I was sick for 3 months. But, it wasn't all in vain. I got psychic at the end of it.

Potatoes

Well, I’m glad I did it that way. Which was to make the potato dish tonight rather than with our Easter dinner tomorrow night. We’re having a spiral cut ham. Yum. And, I wanted to have potatoes au gratin. That’s the way my mother always used to do it and that’s what I wanted to have. Except I’ve always made them from the box. Only once, years ago did I attempt to make them from scratch. I can’t remember how they turned out, but seeing as how I didn’t repeat that particular move I can only say they must not have been very good.

So, today at the grocery store I thought how hard could it be? I bought the fixings for home made potatoes au gratin. I figured this was scalloped potatoes with cheese. While I’m in line I asked the lady in front of me if she knew how to make them from scratch. She said, “Oh, I always make them for him. He likes them fine.” Him was her husband who was ahead of her in line. So, she told me. Cut the potatoes real thin, like you were going to make potato chips. Then, she said to layer potatoes, thinly sliced onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper, sprinkle with some flour, dot with butter and then start in with your next layer. She said after it was all layered up you should pour in some milk and bake it for an hour until it was done.

Okay, so I decided to do a test-run tonight. I did as she said. She said she doesn’t measure anything. I gave it a whirl. She had also said she’d never tried it with cheese, so I did one of each. I used my small sized loaf pans with 2 russet potatoes and 1 onion. I guess I used up most of one stick of butter between the 2 pans and I don’t know how much milk I poured in; enough to see it all rise to the surface. One of the layers in one pan was cheese. So that one was the au gratin potatoes and the other was to be the scalloped potatoes.

They baked and bubbled and smelled wonderful. Except when you spooned into it the sauce was real runny and lumpy and that’s where it looked a mess. DeeDude tried some of each and said they were both great and we should just save them and have them with our Easter dinner. I looked askance at him and returned to the kitchen. I mean this looked horrible. The worser one to clump was the one with the cheese in it, but that was the one to brown up the best.

What, you might ask, did I do?

I hauled forth yea olde food processer and set to pulsing. Pulsed the whole lot of it into a smooth, really thick, potato soup that I thinned out with some water. Tasted fine and I decided that I will use that tomorrow night to pour between new layers of thinly sliced potatoes and onions. No clumping up because it will have already been blended and cooked and I feel it will be fine.

In future? If this tastes good I will make it this way from now on. If not I will make a white sauce and then use that to pour over the layers of onions and potatoes.