Thursday's Kitchen Quotes

"Campbell's condensed soups are not sauces."

Prairie Gourmet

Vintage Recipe Day

On Wednesdays I'll feature a recipe from one of my vintage cookbooks.


Due to the current economic slow down, the recipe this week comes from "How to Eat Better For Less Money" by James Beard and Sam Aaron. The book was originally published in 1954 and reprinted in 1970. I cannot believe this is from a James Beard collection. Perhaps it is because of the alcohol included that makes this a bit gourmet:


Sweet and Sour Frankfurters


1 pound frankfurters, cut into 2 inch lengths
4 T oil
1 onion, cut rather coarsely
1 green pepper, seeded and shredded
1 cup pineapple chunks with juice
2 small tomatoes, peeled, seeded and quartered
2 T cornstarch
1/4 cup white wine or dry vermouth
2 T white-wine vinegar

Steam the frankfurters for 10 minutes in a little salted boiling water. Keep warm.


Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the onion, green pepper, pineapple and juice, and tomatoes. Cook just until well blended and heated through. Mix cornstarch with a little water to make a paste and stir it into the skillet with the vinegar and wine. Stir until smooth and thickened. Mix in the drained frankfurters and simmer 5 minutes. Serve with steamed rice. Serves 4.

Nowadays it may be cheaper to use pork instead of hot dogs or franks. It might also make this recipe at bit more tolerable. Disclaimer: I have not prepared this recipe nor do I intend to do so.

Metropolitan Rural - NYE Part 2

Always on the look-out for different food or beverage presentations, I found some very long-stemmed martini glasses at TJ Maxx, four red and four green, on the clearance shelf for only $3 each. They were the perfect vessels for a pre-dessert cocktail at our progressive dinner. In keeping with the season, I decided to make one of my favorite lighter drinks, The Metropolitan Martini.I've seen many different versions of The Metropolitan, but the recipe I prefer is slightly tart. It is the perfect color for holiday entertaining and an excellent transition from a heavy main course to a light dessert. This is similar to a Cosmopolitan Martini except it uses raspberry flavored vodka.

Here's my recipe per glass:

2 oz. Absolut Raspberry Vodka
1/2 oz. triple sec liqueur (i.e. Cointreau, Grand Marnier)
1.5 oz cranberry juice
juice of 1/2 lime

Pour into all ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice cubes and shake at least 20 times, then pour into a glass. All that shaking makes it nice and cold with tiny ice slivers and you can practice your dance moves while you shake.

This is light and refreshing enough to have on a hot summer evening too.

Ahh! Choux!

For 23 years, my husband and I and three (originally four) other couples have celebrated the holiday season with a progressive dinner. We each host a course and progress from home to home, taking approximately six hours to enjoy an evening of libations and gluttony. Course hosting is alternated each year, so that one only prepares the main course every four years. Originally the party was held between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but we moved it to New Year's Eve about a decade ago when we discovered we all were simply watching TV that night.

This year it was my turn to do dessert and I decided to keep it on the light and easy side. There are time that simple recipes yield amazing results. This was one of those times.

Choux (pronounced shoo) is one of the easiest pastries to make and always looks elegant. Most people know choux pastry as cream puffs or eclairs. If you've never made choux pastry, you must try it because you will rarely fail and it's so much fun watching how they puff up when baked.

This particular recipe idea (I made some substitutions) came from Bon Appetit in a 1998 issue. Profiteroles are simply small puffs stuffed with a filling. In this case, it is ice cream.

PEPPERMINT PROFITEROLES WITH CHOCOLATE SAUCE

Ice Cream:

2 pints vanilla ice cream, softened
23 hard re/white striped peppermint candies,crushed
1 1/2 teas. peppermint extract

Place ice cream in large bowl. Fold in candies and peppermint extract. Cover and freeze until ice cream is firm, at least four hours.

Cream Puff Pastry:

3/4 cup water
6 T (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, cut up
1 1/2 teas. sugar
1/8 teas. salt
3/4 cup all purpose flour
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line heavy baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine water, butter, sugar, and salt in heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring until butter melts. Add flour all at once and stir over medium heat until the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and forms a ball (about 2 minutes). Let cool 10 minutes.

Beat 3 eggs into the dough, one at a time. Transfer dough to a pastry bag fitted with 1/2 inch tip, or spoon dough directly onto the baking sheet in tablespoon size (makes sixteen 1 1/2 inch mounds) and spaced about 2 inches apart. Beat the 4th egg and brush it over the dough mounds.
Bake pastries for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven temp. to 350 degrees and bake until golden brown. Using a skewer, pierce the side of each pastry to allow steam to escape and bake them another 5 minutes longer. Then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely. (can be made up to 1 week ahead and stored frozen in plastic bag)

Chocolate sauce:

1 cup whipping cream
9 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

Bring whipping cream to simmer in saucepan. Remove from heat & add chocolate. Let stand until chocolate softens (about 5 minutes). Whisk until smooth.

Assembly:

Cut the pastries crosswise in half. Place 1 scoop ice cream into bottom of each & top with other half. Spoon some warm chocolate into bottom of 8 bowls. Place 2 profiteroles atop the sauce and spoon additional sauce over the puffs. Sprinkle with additional crushed peppermints and garnish with fresh mint sprigs.

I saved time and used Haagen-Dazs Pepermint Bark Ice Cream instead of making my own peppermint ice cream.

The result was a quick, but simply elegant finish to a great evening.

New beginning

2008 is now history and so are all previous posts on this blog. It's a new year and a new beginning for Prairie Gourmet You can look forward to great food recipes from my decades old recipe collection of eclectic cuisines - from home cooking to gourmet, from easy to complicated. In addition, I'll pass on cooking tips I've learned through experience as a caterer and as a mom. I may recommend products, but only if I use them personally. I'll also be including entertaining and presentation ideas. I hope you'll decide to follow along and join the party.