Date I made these recipes:
Monday, September 5, 2016 – Labor Day and the last day of the Minnesota
State Fair
Food Festival , USA
Published by Laurel Glen
ISBN: 1-57145-775-5; © 2002
Purchased at BCPA (Bloomington Crime Prevention Association)
annual sale, June 2016
Recipe(s): Isanti County
Potato Festival, Cambridge ,
MN
The Great Southern
Food Festival Cookbook by Mindy B. Henderson
Published by Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 978-1-4016-0361-8; © 2008
Purchased at Arc's Value Village
Thrift Stores– Richfield , MN
Recipe: West Virginia
Blackberry Festival, Nutter Ford, West
Virginia
Readers, I don't know what has gotten into me, but I have never been so inspired to cook recipes
related to the Minnesota State Fair. Ever. I mean, over the 36 years I've lived here, I
have maybe visited the fair a handful of times.
But for whatever reason, I just keep wanting the show to go
on and so this was my one, last gasp at fair-related foods. And of course, I wouldn't be the collector I
am if I didn't have a couple of cookbooks that celebrates food festivals.
Not that the Minnesota State Fair is a food festival per se,
but it is the largest attended gathering that celebrates all that is
agriculture and agriculture is food, right, so there you go?
And then there's the food served at the fair itself which
ranges from alligator (on a stick) to turkey drumsticks ("stick"
already included) to pasta (on a stick) casserole (on a stick), deep-fried
pickles (on a stick) and other assorted items both on a stick and not on a
stick. I know other state fairs serve
food on a stick but these type of yummy creations are what the Minnesota State
Fair is known for and rightly so.
That said, what did I have to eat during the two days I was
at the State Fair? Brace
yourselves: a foot-long hot dog (love
it) and a bag of cheese popcorn, neither of which was served on a stick. I hang my head in shame.
And, as my friend, Laura, reminded me, I had a half of a
chicken wrap sandwich at the Hamline Dining Hall and let me say, I felt all
kinds of Catholic and Methodist mixed guilt (note to self: look up Methodist "guilt") over
this because the dining hall is known for all kinds of Minnesota staples
including your ham loaf and your Swedish meatballs but I did not sample and was
not interested in this fare. If there is
a special hell reserved for State Fair goers who do not partake of all the food
offerings, then I guess I'm in like Flynn!
Anyway, so there I was, contemplating the end of the State
Fair and all that goes with it, and then (as often happens), I glanced over at
a bookshelf and there was the Food
Festival, USA cookbook. And so I
grabbed that and The Great Southern Food
Festival Cookbook and we were off and running.
Now as you probably know (and for sure TV chefs will tell
you), food is best eaten when is season but given that grocery stores now carry
all kinds of foods year-round, I decided to go with food I liked and take it
from there.
Technically, given that this is early September, I am not
off-track by making recipes from festivals that have already taken place (Gilroy Garlic Festival takes place the
last weekend of July and the blackberry festival took place the first weekend
in August) and hey, I'm ahead of the game for the cheesy potatoes as that
festival doesn't start until the end of September. Brilliant!
So. Throwing caution
to the wind, I started to mark off potential recipes from each book, and before
you knew it, I had bookmarked more recipes that I could possibly make. Each book contains some great options making
it so difficult to choose.
The Food Festival,
USA book divides up festivals by sections of the United
States , and so you'll get a sampling of all kinds of
festival foods from these areas: Northeast; South; Midwest; Great
Plains ; West/Southwest, and Pacific. It also includes a directory of "Festivals
by Month" and a "Directory of Festivals by State" but I liked
flipping through it section by section rather than month-by-month.
Here's a sampling of festivals and dishes and let me just
add a disclaimer that I'm not saying you have to go to these (because I'm
sorry? Chitlin Jamboree?) but rather
that these were the interesting ones that caught my eye!
Northeast: National Lima Bean Festival, W. Cape
May, NJ – Saturday of Columbus Day Weekend – recipe: "Key Lima Pie"
South: Alabama Chitlin Jamboree, Clio, AL – Always the Last
Saturday in October – recipe: "Sausage Roll." But if that doesn't
float your boat, and I'm guessing it won't, then maybe the Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival in Warren , AL
Midwest: Lingonier Marshmallow Festival, Lingonier , IN Tyler ,
MN
Great Plains: Houby
(Czech for "mushroom") Days, Czech Village, Cedar Rapids, IA –
Saturday and Sunday of the Weekend After Mother's Day – recipe: "Koblihy
(Doughnuts)" that contain not one scrap of mushrooms, go figure!
West/Southwest: Tucson Solar Potluck and Exhibition, Tucson , AZ – Second
Saturday in May – recipe: "Solar Garden Soup" and, bonus event: International
Rhubarb Festival in Silverton ,
CO
The Pacific: Fillmore
Orange Festival, Fillmore ,
CA
So that's the way the Food
Festival, USA
So again, here's a sampling of festivals, included because
they caught my attention:
April: Big Squeeze Juice Festival, Palm Bay Florida ; Chicken
and Egg Festival, Moulton ,
Alabama
May: Poke Salat Festival, Arab, Alabama
June: RC and Moon Pie Festival, Bell Buckle, Tennessee (Let me just
say that I almost made this recipe because...well, of course, right? RC
[Cola] and Moon Pies go together.
Everybody knows that, don't they?
Don't they??)
September: Irmo Okra Strut, Irmo , South Carolina
October: Gautier Mullet Festival, Gautier , Mississippi
Now out of all these fabulous festivals and fabulous recipe
possibilities, I narrowed it down to two items:
blackberry and potatoes, or "Potatoes Two Ways" as Andy called
it, seeing as how I could not just get by with one potato recipe. Plus, in keeping with our tangential State
Fair theme, the Cheesy Potato Slices
recipe hails from Isanti County (Cambridge , MN ) an area that Andy and I drove to just last weekend to
go to Lake Mille Lacs just north of Cambridge . We didn't have a reason to go to Lake Mille
Lacs except we have never seen it and felt like a road trip. We drove, we saw, we ooed, we aahed, and then
we came home.
And once we touched town at Casa Verme/Martin, I pulled my
grocery lists together and the next day, commenced firing.
I started out with the Blackberry
Buckle recipe and it was really easy to make. You make your (raw) cake base, to which you
add blackberries, the crumb topping, and then bake! My only boo-boo, and it was minor, was that I
tried to hurry the butter-softening process and almost liquefied it by keeping
it in the microwave too long. So instead
of a crumble, I ended up with more of a spread but no matter as it baked up
just fine.
Then there were the "Potatoes, Two Ways ." I don't know about you, but I cannot envision
how a cheese + combination would not make someone happy; these two recipes made
me ecstatic!
Up first: Cheesy Potato
Slices where potatoes and cheese are combined with fresh herbs for a
winning combination. This recipe though,
took longer to bake than stated.
Directions indicate to bake 15-30 minutes covered, and then 10-12
uncovered. Often, when recipes are
halved, they require half the baking time but not in this case as we clocked in
just under an hour before the potatoes were done. Nonetheless, it was indeed
cheesy and therefore delicious!
Up second (and last):
Creamy Potato Gratin with Gorgonzola,
Pears, and Pecans and this recipe proved a tad more challenging to make.
First, I got us off to the wrong start by par-boiling the
potatoes for too long. This is all
(chef) Jamie Oliver's fault! I looked up
instructions on the internet about how long to par-boil potatoes (as called for
in the instructions) and Jamie Oliver's instructions popped up first. They said cook for seven minutes and then
cool for three.
I realized after
the fact of course, that Jamie probably meant (but did not say) this cooking
time to apply to whole potatoes. The recipe though, called for the potatoes to
be peeled and thinly sliced.
And so seven minutes in that hot bath pretty much cooked my
potatoes in whole, not in part and...drat.
Now what?
So I carried on with the rest of the recipe as best I could and
duly layered my potatoes and pears and cheese and pecans and garlic cream sauce
and put it in the oven. And then,
because I made half the recipe, halved the baking times which were 25 minutes
under foil and then 20-35 minutes longer without foil until "almost all of the cream mixture is
absorbed and the potatoes are tender."
Well now, all my potatoes were tender before I started and
my cream sauce was pretty much all absorbed
instead of almost all absorbed, but don't let this stop you because the taste
was great. Andy suggested layering this
differently (were I to make this again) and he might be right. Sometimes, it's all in the wrists and the
baking vessel!
Please note that each recipe has a different baking time and
temperatures which is why I made the blackberry buckle one day and then the
"Potatoes, Two Ways" on another day, one behind the other.
This concludes – I swear – cookbook and recipe recaps that
are Minnesota State Fair-related.
Enjoy your fall.
Blackberry Buckle –
from The Great Southern Food Festival
Cookbook and West Virginia Blackberry
Festival, Nutter Fort, West Virginia
Filling:
¼ cup (1/2 stick butter)
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups fresh blackberries
Crumb Topping:
½ cup sugar
¼ cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
For the filling, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 7 x 7-inch pan. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg; beat well. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt
together. Add the flour mixture to the
creamed mixture alternately with the milk and vanilla. Pour the batter into the prepared pan; cover
with the blackberries.
For the topping, combine the sugar, butter, flour, and
cinnamon together in a bowl and mix until crumbly. Spread the topping over the blackberries and
bake for 45 minutes or until done.
Cheesy Potato Slices –
from Food Festival, USA and Isanti County
Potato Festival, Cambridge ,
MN
6 medium, unpeeled russet potatoes
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon rosemary leaves
½ teaspoon thyme leaves
½ teaspoon chives (fresh or dried)
¾-1 cup butter
½-1 cup grated cheddar cheese
¼ teaspoon paprika
Preheat oven to 425F.
Scrub potatoes well and slice very thin.
Spread in layers in a lightly greased 13 x 9-inch or larger pan. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme,
and chives and dot with butter. Bake,
covered with foil, for 15-30 minutes.
Sprinkle with grated cheese and paprika.
Bake another 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are tender-crisp and cheese
is melted.
Creamy Potato Gratin
with Gorgonzola, Pears, and Pecans – from Food
Festival, USA and the 2000 Gilroy Garlic
Festival, Gilroy , CA
– recipe made by prize-winner Camilla Saulsbury of Bloomington , IN
10 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/3 cup Marsala wine
1 ¼ cups heavy cream
3 large russet potatoes (1 ½ pounds), peeled, thinly sliced,
and partially cooked
2 large pears, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
8 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled
Salt and freshly cracked pepper
1 cup pecans
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
In a small pan filled with water, parboil the garlic cloves
until tender, about 8 minutes. Place
cloves and Marsala
in a blender and puree until smooth.
Combine with cream and set aside.
Preheat oven to
400F. Lightly grease a 12 x 8-inch
rectangular glass dish and arrange 1/3 each of the potatoes and pears. Dot potatoes with 1/3 of the Gorgonzola and
sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.
Top with 1/3 of the pecans and 1 teaspoon rosemary. Repeat layering 2 more times. Pour garlic-cream mixture over the top.
Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes longer or until
almost all of the cream mixture is absorbed and the potatoes are tender.
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