Candy Cake

This one comes to you from my youngest. I don't know whether or not I mentioned it, but my one-of-a-kind, can't-be-beat, beef heart and burgundy chili was actually, well, --beat. Soundly. At the church's Chili cook-off / dessert bake-off, there were 15 chili entries, and 9 awards. Which means mine was judged one of the 6 worst. ( I figure the judges hadn't the discerning palate I had previously credited them )

But the evening wasn't a total wash. In fact, we brought home a winner in our midst after all. My youngest, the aspiring baker, made her grandmother's "Candy Cake" and entered it in the dessert category, where there were 18 entries and merely 4 prizes. She, unlike her old man, brought home the goods. And I promised her a spot on the blog with her winning entry.

The really cool part of all this is, though my LCB doesn't like to cook, nobody has made this cake in our house since her mom passed away. (I'm not much of a baker, and I don't really care for cake). So, by Hope making the cake from Grandma's recipe, and the LCB assisting to see if it was they way she remembered, they were both able to bridge across an emptiness that's been too long there. Made the LCB cry, but I think it was the good kind of crying.

OK, enough sappiness, here's how you make these incredibly rich little squares:

50 Caramels
1/2 cup evaporated milk

Melt the caramels and 1/2 C. evaporated milk in a double boiler.

1 box German Chocolate cake mix
1/3 cup evaporated milk
3/4 cup melted margarine
1 Cup chopped nuts. (We used walnuts)

Mix the cake mix, milk, margarine, and nuts.
Put 1/2 the batter in the bottom of a 9x12 pan.
Bake for 6 minutes at 350 degrees.
Put 1 Cup chocolate chips sprinkled over the hot cake.
Pour caramel mix over chocolate chips.
Sprinkle the rest of the batter on top. (It's more like a dough than a batter)
Bake 15-18 mins at 350.
Cool for 15 mins.
Refrigerate 1 hour.

Cut into squares and enjoy!

Cheddar Garlic Biscuits

My LCB's favorite place to eat is Red Lobster. She loves it. I'm not sure why. Actually, I do kinda know why. She likes consistency. And if we go to RL in Maryland, or in California, or anywhere in between, she knows that if we go to Red Lobster, she'll get something she likes. I prefer family owned restaurants. I like variation. Sure, you get some dud meals from time to time, but you also can hit on some real delicious surprises. Anyways, let me try to re-rail the conversation.
One of the LCB's favorite things at RL are the cheddar-garlic biscuits we get prior to the meal. So one day, when she was craving those biscuits, but not seafood, I decided to google them. Now, it turns out, they're all over the internet, but at the time there was one or two sites that had them. They're all pretty much the same, because like most good things, they're pretty simple. This recipe came from Cooks.com. When you get right down to it, there are very few things that aren't made a bit better with garlic butter. Here's the recipe:

2 c. Bisquick
2/3 c. milk
1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 c. butter
1/4 tsp. garlic powder

Mix Bisquick and cheese; add milk. Spoon on an ungreased cookie sheet (makes about 12). Bake at 425 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Brush with melted butter and garlic powder.

Salami Coronets

Sometimes you just want a good snack. Everyone's gone to bed. Time to hit the recliner, pour a good drink, and TIVO up a good program, or pop in a DVD. When I get those rare moments, I don't usually want to spend a lot of time on the prep. So one night, watching Emeril, he was doing a whole show on late night snacks. He made these Salami coronets, (That's what he called them, I'd have called them something much more sophisticated, like probably -- salami rolled up with cheese) One of the things he mentioned, that I've taken to doing, was that he kept a container of this cheese in his fridge. It's the simplest stuff in the world to throw together, and it's handy to have around. I've used it on genoa salami, hard salami, and pepperoni, and I've stuffed it into olives. It would also make a good stuffing for jalapenos. It's just:

1 8oz container of Ricotta cheese
1 8oz pkg of cream cheese
Some chopped chives
some chopped basil (or oregano)

Mix all that together until it's blended real well, then go find stuff to smear it on. Makes an excellent accompaniment to a classic Clint Eastwood flick, or a black-and-white Bogart picture.

Beef Heart and Burgundy Chili

Chili is one of those things that most people love, and nobody makes it the same way. This is my favorite chili recipe. I'll try to get some pictures taken next time I make it. This time, it didn't hang around long enough!

1 lb. Ground meat. (beef or turkey)
1 1/4 lbs. cubed beef heart
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, freshly minced
1 can Kidney Beans
1 8 0z. can Tomato Sauce
16 oz. Burgundy
1/3 cup Masa Flour
1/3 cup chili powder
1/8 tsp cayenne (more or less to taste)
Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
Salt & Pepper to taste


Brown the ground meat and heart along with the onion and garlic in a stock pot. While you're browning the meat, put some worcestershire sauce in with it. I usually go 3-4 turns around the pot with it. This is also where I add about a good pinch of coarse salt, and a few turns of fresh ground pepper.
When the meat's cooked through, drain it, and return it to the stock pot. Add:
chili powder, cayenne, tomato sauce, burgundy, and Kidney Beans. Stir all of this together, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Let it simmer for about 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, mix the masa flour with some warm water until it makes a thin paste. (It should kinda glob off a fork) Mix this paste in with the chili to thicken it up some. Then let everything simmer about 5 more minutes. After I add the masa, I usually have a bowl, and let the rest of it simmer for the rest of the day.

Home-made Flour Tortillas

I didn't get out today, or very much yesterday. Thank goodness for the internet, I was able to get my LCB a Valentine's day gift. But I never made it down to the card shop to get a card. We've been in the midst of a snow-rain-sleet-ice storm the last couple of days, and the roads weren't passable. It's been really cold, and windy, and when it gets like that around here, I start thinking about sunny, warm, dry places. Places like Tijuana, or Tecate. Two border towns in Mexico I used to love to visit.

One of the greatest things about spending the day in Mexico, is the food. My daughters and I loved getting fresh tortillas from the tortillarias down there, and "street tacos" from the vendors. Nothing can compare to a freshly made tortilla with a little butter. Of course, tortillas are a staple in Mexico, and they're used for tons of different dishes, but they're also delicious by themselves when they're right off the griddle. Around here, we can find some commercial corn and flour tortillas, but it's nearly impossible to find un-cooked tortillas. And sometimes, that's what I want, so I can cook the tortilla myself. If you try that with store-bought tortillas, they'll either burn, or get over-crisp, like a cracker.

So I headed to an old standby of mine, Allrecipes.com and found exactly one (1) recipe for Whole wheat flour tortillas. Looking that over, and remembering what I saw those wonderful Mexican ladies do, I adapted the recipe for regular flour tortillas which were surprisingly easy to make. Some of these, hot off the griddle, with a dab of butter, and some mariachi music in the background, and for a few minutes, I was able to forget about the wind, snow, ice etc... Felt like being back in Mexico for a bit. Here's the recipe:

5 cups flour
1/2 cup lard
2 tsps salt
1 1/2 cups boiling water

Put the flour, lard, and salt in a big mixing bowl. With your hands, rub the mixture until it's the consistency of a coarse meal. (when I say "rub the mixture", I took it between both hands and just rubbed it together in the bowl until I couldn't feel any more lard.)
Make a loose mound with a well in the center. Once the water's boiling, pour it into that well, and with a wooden spoon, mix it all together until the dough is smooth.
Roll the dough into golf-ball size balls, and set them on a tray. Once all your dough is rolled, flour your surface, and take one of the balls, and pat it flat. (the original recipe says to let them sit for an hour or so, but I wasn't that patient) With a well-floured rolling pin, roll the tortilla out as thin as you like, I like them to be almost paper-thin. You'll have to keep changing direction with the pin, in order to keep the tortilla round. Another thing I've learned, is you'll want to start in the center of the tortilla and roll towards the edges. Otherwise it'll wrap around the pin. You have to keep flouring the pin too.
Once you have the size you want. Take it right over to a hot, cast-iron skillet, and let it sit there until little bubbles start to form. Once they do, turn it over and cook it for about 30 seconds, then turn it again and cook 30 seconds on that side. Move it to a plate or a tortilla warmer, and start on the next one.
I cooked about 6 of these, and rolled out the rest. The un-cooked ones I put in a zip-lock bag and into the fridge to use later. Now we'll be able to have fresh tortillas anytime we like. I'm just beside myself.

I think I should probably apologize, as I didn't take pictures of this as we did it. But it turned out so well, that I guarantee we'll be making them again, and I'll get some pics posted then.

Lumpia

When we lived in San Diego, I worked with a lot of Filipino folks. Occasionally, there'd be an event of some sort, and everyone would bring a dish in. My Filipino friends often would bring in lumpia (LOOM-pee-uh), which is a kind of egg roll. Unlike other egg rolls I've had, these were much narrower (about the diameter of your index finger) and longer, about 6 inches or so. They also had a lot more meat than veggies. I'm always a bit disappointed when I bite into an egg roll and find it's mostly cabbage, with a speck or two of meat.
Since we moved to Maryland, I know one Filipino person. Actually, I don't really know her, my daughters know her daughters. But we've met. Anyways, -- I can't find lumpia around here, so I figured I'd have to learn to make it. The recipe I found for lumpia is from Allrecipes.com, and it's pretty good. The filling is amazingly good. I just can't seem to get the wrapping quite right. It's not bad, but it's not the way those folks in San Diego made it. My egg roll wrappers come out of the oil all blistered, whereas theirs were never blistered. And the color on theirs was a perfect, even, golden color. Like a perfectly toasted marshmallow. But even if I haven't perfected the technique yet, I think the end product is enough to satiate my cravings from time to time. I'll let you all click over to the recipe, and I'll describe the wrapping. These aren't hard to make, but they do take some prep time. If any of you have any pointers, I'd be delighted to hear them.


The filling - pork, cabbage, carrots, onion, garlic, salt & pepper.

I usually start by arranging the wrappers in a star pattern, so they're easier for me to pick up. The first time I tried this, I kept getting double wrappers and not realizing it. So now I separate them first, and alternate them.


You'll put a wrapper in front of you, then put 2 Tbsps of the filling on it, making a line that goes from corner to corner. The recipe calls for 3 Tbsps, but that makes them real thick. Of course, you might prefer them that way, I dunno.



Then you'll take the corner closest to you, and fold it over the meat filling, kinda inching the meat up tight against the back of the wrapper. Fold those corners in, and roll it the rest of the way. Before you get to the end, put a drop of water on the tag end, then roll it up. That water will help the wrap stay closed.




Once you have all your lumpia put together, just deep fry them in whatever kind of oil you prefer, until they're nice and golden brown. Drain them on paper towels, and serve. You'll like these.

Crab Pretzel

When we first moved back here, somebody told my wife about crab pretzels. I hadn't heard of any such thing, but there are a lot of things I haven't heard of. So we went to an Italian place nearby, called "The Olive Tree". It's quite popular locally, for good reason.

One thing about living on the Chesapeake -- every eating establishment makes the "Best crabcakes in Maryland". It doesn't have to be a seafood place. I've seen the signs at bars, family restaurants, truck stops, Italian restaurants, Greek restaurants, you name it. Well, the Olive Tree is no exception.

But a friend of my LCB told her that their crab pretzels were "to die for". (I always hated that phrase). So we went, and she tried it, and of course, she loved it. It's a soft pretzel, smothered in a very rich cheese sauce, with lump crab meat all over it. I enjoy picking the crab meat out of it, but the whole thing is way too rich for me.

Anyway -- I have a recipe for a hot crab fondue, and after trying this crab pretzel, I thought, -- That's not so different from the crab dip I make. If I used a heavy cream in lieu of the wine, it would be just like this.

My recipe for crab dip comes from Recipe Source, and instead of the cayenne, I use Old Bay. So here's how we make the crab pretzel:

Use your favorite soft pretzel, and fix it according to the directions, then put it in a pie pan.

8 oz. cream cheese
1 jar cheddar cheese spread. (like Olde English)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 lb. good crab meat. (none of that artificial stuff here)
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce.
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning.

Set up a double boiler, and melt the cheeses together. Once they melt together, and are nice and smooth, add the cream while stirring. This will thin it out just a bit. Now you can add everything else. Once it's all heated up, pour enough of it over the pretzel to cover it, letting it drip into all the spaces. Now if you like, you can sprinkle some shredded cheddar, or grated parmesan over it, and pop it into the oven at about 400 until the cheese melts. If you're not adding any more cheese, just put it in there for a few minutes to let everything heat up together. When it comes out, just use a spatula to slide it onto a plate, and get all the sauce on there.

This is a really easy dish, and folks will love it.

Seafood Ranchero

Well I promised a west-coast treat, and this is one of my favorites from a grocery store in Alpine, Ca. Daniel's Alpine Creek Market. We always just called it the creek. They had a great deli section, and one of their fish folks used to mix up a type of salsa they called "Seafood Ranchero". I could eat a whole tub of it in one sitting if I wasn't careful. It had teeny tiny shrimp in it, they called them bay shrimp. But here on the Chesapeake, I've never seen them. Maybe they're from the San Francisco bay. Folks here like big shrimp. Shrimp aren't used so much for an ingredient here, as they are the main dish, or a snack food. Around San Diego, they use those tiny shrimp everywhere. Shrimp burritos, shrimp dip, and of course, my favorite salsa. It's all good.

There's something else about this recipe that might make some Marylanders cringe. I use artificial crab meat in it. There's a good reason though, I picked some up today, I believe it was about 3.50 / lb, maybe less. A pound of good lump crab meat on the other hand, was going for around 27.00 / lb. Now you're putting this stuff into salsa. The other flavors are going to wreak havoc on that delicate sweetness that the real crab meat has. Use the fake stuff, it's mostly for texture.

One last thing -- I've seen holy wars break out on the internet over salsa. What makes a "real" salsa, what something should or shouldn't be called. I should tell you up front, -- I don't care. If you think this is more like Pico de Gallo, call it that, you won't hurt my feelings. If you think it's something else, call it that. Heck, for all I care you can call it french-fried apple danish. I really couldn't care less. -- But DO make it and try it. It's really delicious, and one of the things I missed the most when I first moved away from Southern California.


Some notes:
1. I run two of the three tomatoes through a chopper to get a better texture.
2. Chop the onion by hand. DON'T run it through the chopper. Don't chop it too fine, either. A food processor or mechanical chopper will cause a lot more cellular breakdown in the onion, causing more of the onion juice to be released, and the salsa will end up bland.
3. the serrano peppers should be chopped really fine. Use the chopper for them if you like.
4. I can't remember the count for the shrimp, but they should be really small.
5. You can add other seafood to it if you like. Fish, scallops, whatever.

OK, here's the recipe:

3 Big Tomatoes
1/2 - 1 onion
1/4 C. chopped cilantro
1-2 tomatillos
3 Serano peppers (seeded!)
1/2 - 1 clove of garlic (chopped)
2 tsp. cumin (more or less to taste, I probably use more)
juice from 1 Lime
1/2 lb tiny shrimp. (bay shrimp or salad shrimp)
1/2 lb imitation crab meat

Dice your tomatoes
Dice the onion
chop the peppers
quarter the tomatillos and put those through the chopper.
Take 2/3 of the diced tomatoes and chop them further in a chopper or food processor. Put the tomatoes, onion, cilantro, peppers, lime juice and garlic in a bowl and stir it all together.
If the shrimp are small enough, (about the size of your thumb nail) put them in whole. Otherwise, cut them in half or thirds, then put them in the bowl.
Put the imitation crab meat in a chopper or food processor and chop it up. Put it in the bowl.
Add the cumin
Stir everything up again.
Cover and put it in the fridge. The longer it cools, the better it gets.