"Favorite Recipes Presents: Medley of Meats - A Cookbook with a Musical Flair" - Drummer's Dumplings and Round Steak (for 11-11-11 & Spinal Tap)

Date I made this recipe: November 11, 2011 (11-11-11)

Favorite Recipes® Presents: Medley of MEATS – A Cookbook with A Musical Flair by Mary Jane Blount (Editor) and Nicky Beaulieu (Project Manager)
Published by: Favorite Recipe Press
© 1977
Recipe: Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak – p. 30

So yes, today is Veteran’s Day and I salute all those who have served and are currently serving our country. But since I’ve previously observed Veteran’s Day in this blog, it’s time to move so that we may pay homage to Nigel Tufnel, the daffiest “rock star” ever born.

Who is Nigel Tufnel, you ask? Well kiddies, Nigel (as played by actor Christopher Guest) was the “star” of the 1984 movie, This is Spinal Tap. And Nigel had a thing about the number 11, specifically as it related to amplifiers.

The plot of This is Spinal Tap, centers around a documentary/rockumentary film maker Marty DiBergi, played by actor Rob Reiner, who is following the comeback of a British rock band, Spinal Tap, as they tour America. Band mates Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, played by Michael McKean, and Derek Smalls, played by Harry Shearer, are more than happy to share their insights and musical talents with Marty. And guest stars Fran Drescher and Paul Schaffer (among others) just add to the fun and frivolity.

All these rock stars are a little bit off their nut, but none more so than Nigel. In the most hilarious scene in the movie (next to "Stonehedge"), Nigel explains to Marty how their amplifiers (as opposed to other band’s amplifiers) “go to 11.”

Nigel: “If you can see, the numbers all go to 11. Look right across the board – 11, 11, 11….”

Marty: “Amps go up to 10. Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?”

Nigel: “Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not 10…”

Marty: “Why don’t you make 10 louder and make 10 be the top number?”

Nigel stops chawing his gum for about a nanosecond, contemplates the request but then responds with “These go to 11.”

Reader, I’m telling you, every time I see the scene, I just die laughing. And you know right away if someone has seen the movie because anytime someone mentions something like “On a scale of 1-10…,” a fan always responds with “These go to 11.” And you either get it or you don’t. (And if you don’t, then you need to see the movie. Right now!)

Also paying homage to Nigel on 11-11-11 was my favorite local radio station, The Current. All day long, they played music celebrating Spinal Tap and Nigel and Nigel’s infamous 11-11-11. In fact, as early as Monday, they started reminding listeners to tune in to be part of the celebration. I love this station. (And a big shout out to DJ Mary Lucia who just rocked the afternoon for me with her playlist. I about head banged myself out of my car a few times on my way to and from the grocery store.)

My husband gets credit for reminding me way early on in the year about the significance of 11-11-11 but finding a cookbook to go with a Spinal Tap-theme was darned difficult. I looked through the few British cookbooks that I had and didn’t really find anything that spoke to me so that was disappointing (By the way, you have no idea how popular the fish, haddock, is to the British population until you’ve looked at a couple of British cookbooks. It seemed like every other recipe contained haddock. But alas, folks, I don’t “do” fish so I had to find something else.)

This left only one book that is musical in nature - Favorite Recipes® Presents: Medley of MEATS, A Cookbook with a Musical Flair – which I had not yet used for my blog. Let me assure you folks that this book was most certainly not intended to pay homage to a rock group as all the artwork inside is of marching band members, pom pom girls and majorettes. (The artwork is from the 70’s and it is hilarious) Okay, actually, there is a drawing of what appears to be a blue grass band on p. 6 and to me, that’s close enough. I did a lot better with today’s recipe: Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak; sure guitars are okay, but you need someone to set the beat, am I right?

I often run recipes by my husband to see what floats his boat and he selected this recipe despite the requirement of three cans of soup. “You do realize it will be very salty, right?” I asked. “Well, just buy low-sodium soup.”

I’m here to tell you folks, that I found plenty of no-fat or low-fat canned soups but I could not find, despite the enormous selection available to me, low-sodium soup. So I’m just warning you right now that this dish may make you feel like you’re eating a salt lick. I didn’t notice it so much but I did try to limit my recipe intake just to be on the safe side.

And on a scale of 1-10 for a recipe, I’d say this went to 11. It was tasty, not too salty and filling. About the only thing I’d add were I to make this over again, would be carrots and maybe potatoes to make it more like a stew. And while I’m not a fan of canned vegetables, there’s something about canned peas that just makes me happy.

So go ahead, crank your radio up to 11 and get going. And happy 11-11-11, Nigel!

Drummer’s Dumplings and Round Steak - serving size not indicated
1 2-lb round steak, cubed (I substituted beef stew meat)
1 chopped onion
1 bay leaf
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can onion soup (I used Campbell’s French onion soup)
1 can cream of celery soup
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 4-oz can mushrooms, drained
1 1/3 c. flour (1/3 for the “stew,” and 1 cup for the dumplings)
1 No. 3 can green peas, drained (*see Note below)
1 egg
1/3 c. milk
2 tbsp oil
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (I had to ponder this one for a moment as the soups provided an off-the-charts amount)
Dash of sage (optional—I used it)
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

*Note: I know I have old community and church cookbooks that explain how many ounces are in a No. 3 (or 2 or 4) can, but rather than look through them, I thought I’d use the internet. To my surprise, there were only about three links that discussed how much was in a can. The best I could come up with was 33 ounces or 4 cups. Well, that’s a lot of peas, people. I decided to use two 15-oz cans and we were swimming in peas. I bet you could get away with just one can if you wanted.

Place steak cubes in a 9 x 9-inch casserole. Combine onion, bay leaf, soups, Worcestershire sauce, mushrooms and 1/3 cup flour. Pour the soup mixture over steak cubes; cover. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for 2 hours. Stir well; add peas.

Beat egg, milk and oil together until blended. Sift remaining 1 cup flour, baking powder, salt and sage together. Stir into egg mixture until moistened. Fold in parsley. Drop batter by spoonfuls over casserole; cover. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes longer or until dumplings are done.

"Larousse Gastronomique" & "As Always, Julia" & "The Hour" - Chicken Sautee a la Bourguignonne

Date I made this recipe: November 6, 2011

Larousse Gastronomique – The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery by Prosper Montagne - Introduction by A. Escoffier and PH. Gilbert; Edited by Charlotte Turgeon and Nina Froud (The First American Edition)
Published by: Crown Publishers, Inc.
© 1961
Recipe: Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – p. 262

Additional reading:
As Always, Julia – The Letters of Julia Child & Avis DeVoto – edited by Joan Reardon
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-41771-4
No recipe

The Hour by Bernard DeVoto
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company
© 1948, 1949, 1951
No recipe

Were it not for Julia Child, I would likely not have pulled Larousse Gastronomique off the shelf any time soon, especially since it weighs a ton and sits on my highest bookshelf, such that I need to stand on a chair to reach it. That would have been a shame because it’s a fun book to peruse.

So how did I come to cook from this book? Well, it was all because “Larousse” was mentioned in a very entertaining read, As Always, Julia.

In 1951, Julia Child was residing in Paris with her husband, Paul Child when she read an article about kitchen knifes published in Harper’s Magazine, written by Bernard DeVoto. When Julia wrote a fan letter to Bernard, his wife, Avis, answered. Bernard was a very busy writer and often left correspondence to Avis.

When Avis responded on behalf of Bernard, it triggered a correspondence between the women that lasted until Avis’ death in 1989.

Besides becoming a good friend of Julia’s, Avis championed Julia Child’s soon-to-be masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When Houghton Mifflin dropped the ball on the manuscript, Avis, who worked in publishing, brought the book to the attention of Alfred A. Knopf publishing and the rest as they say is history (or “l’histoire” if you’re French).

I have to tell you that reading the correspondence between these two ladies during this tense time of “will they/won’t they publish this?” was riveting. Without Avis, I doubt this book would have been published. Avis was also instrumental in securing Judith Jones, then an up-and-coming editor to review and test the recipes. Judith has gone on to achieve fame in her own right, and I enjoyed her recently published The Pleasures of Cooking for One. I tell you what, between these three women, they propelled home cooking and French cooking and really, all kinds of cooking, to the forefront and never looked back. They are my heroes.

A hero of a different nature though, is Avis’ husband, Bernard, who wrote the article that triggered the eventual publishing of Julia’s book. Bernard already had quite the name for himself but his book, The Hour, a book about the cocktail hour, cemented his friendship with Paul Child forever. And wouldn’t you know I happen to have that book on my bookshelf as well. (And who knew that one day I’d be able to tie all these books together?!)

Neither the As Always, Julia book nor The Hour have recipes per se but Bernard talks a lot about my favorite drink, the martini:

“There are only two cocktails. One can be described straightforwardly. It is a slug of whiskey and it is an honest drink…With the other cocktail we reach a fine and noble art, and we reach too the wars over the gospel that have parted brothers, wrecked marriages, and made enemies of friends.”

He goes on to talk about there is a misconception that women cannot make a good martini: “For instance there is a widespread notion that women cannot make martinis, just as some islanders believe that they can cast an evil spell on the tribal fishnets. This is a vagrant item of male egotism: the art of the martini is not a sex-linked character. Of men and women alike it requires only intelligence and care—oh, perhaps some additional inborn spiritual fineness…”

For the record, my dad taught me how to make martinis and was always impressed when I made them even better than he did. So what Bernard says is true: women rock the cocktail world.

Bernard totally wins me over though, when he talks about other drinks that while popular, are not cocktails. And he makes it clear as clear can be that “A martini, I repeat, is made of gin and vermouth. Dry vermouth.” Amen to that! He scoffs at Gibsons (p. 39), a drink made of gin and an olive and on p. 61 gives us all a worthwhile reminder: “Remember always that the three abominations are: (1) rum, (2) any other sweet drink, and (3) any mixed drink except one made of gin and dry vermouth in the ratio I have given.

I could wax on about this book but I do need to get to the recipe at some point (And no, I haven’t forgotten) but I tell you what, you need to read Bernard’s book. It starts slowly but after 30 odd pages, he just nails the art of the cocktail. And he’s funny in a dry whit sort of way-kind of like my martinis!

So anyway, okay, back to earth and to today’s recipe.

When Avis asked Julia for some casserole recipes with a French flair, Julia initially responded that she couldn’t think of any but then went on to say that she found some in “Larousse.” And that prompted me to pull the book from the shelf and see if I couldn’t find the recipes. Well—between the first and last copyrights, some pages must have changed or the version changed because the page numbers that Julia cited were not the pages with the recipes. So shoot.

But actually, that was all okay because Larousse Gastronomique is an encyclopedia (I had forgotten) and it was a blast to look through the recipes and definitions and whatnot, all from A-Z. There were food I had never heard of, photos and maps and all kinds of diagrams regarding food and utensils and everything in between.

Seeing as how Julia recommended some chicken casserole recipes to Avis, I was bent on finding one that worked (and let’s face it, making a calves’ head meal or something with eel was just not going to happen). And people, you have no idea what a challenge that was.

For starters, there are about 25 pages of chicken recipes. Each recipe is about a paragraph long, and unfortunately for me (and for you), the “main” chicken recipe isn’t so much a recipe as a description and you have to go back to the beginning of the chicken section to find it. And then it offered up no clues whatsoever, not to cooking time, not to chicken size. Nothing.

So then I read through all the little recipes but eliminated a good portion of them because they required that I make an additional sauce of some sort like tomato sauce or brown gravy. And just like the chicken recipe itself, the sauce recipes weren’t any clearer so I ditched those recipes tout de suite

This left with me tonight’s chicken dish. And so my hubby and I went to the grocery store where we reenacted a scene from one of my favorite episodes from I Love Lucy where Lucy’s mother is coming to LA for a visit but she doesn’t reveal any details in the telegram she sent (which was addressed to Micky Micado. Lucy’s mother did not like Ricky.)

Lucy: “Well, at least she wrote us a wire and told us she’s arriving at 9:30.”
Ricky: “Hooray for mother. AM or PM?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What day?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What airline?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
Ricky: “What happened to that woman’s brain?”
Lucy: “She doesn’t say.”
(From: I Love Lucy, California Here We Come episodes, The Hedda Hopper Story. Thanks to http://ultimateilovelucy.wikia.com/wiki/The_Hedda_Hopper_Story for providing the dialogue.)

Anyway, so Andy and I went to the grocery store:

Andy: “So what size chicken do you need?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, does it need to be boneless or not?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well, do we need a whole chicken?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”
Andy: “Well how long do you cook it for?”
Me: “It doesn’t say.”

So I bought a couple pounds of chicken breasts with ribs, hoped for the best and commenced firing:

Step 1 – “Fry in butter 4 slices bacon…” Okay—how much butter? It didn’t say. So I used about 4-5 tablespoons and that seemed to work. And then you add blanched onions and raw mushrooms. So far, I managed that just fine.

Step 2 – “Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ‘ordinary way.’” Okay – define “ordinary way” because it sounds like we’re talking about a whole chicken cut up into parts although again, it doesn’t say.

Step 3 - “When the chicken is half-cooked…” Okay, stop right there. How would I know when the chicken is “half-cooked?” Because like everything else with this recipe it doesn’t say!! So for this portion of our program, I thought about a chicken recipe I made really early on for this blog where you put the chicken in a pot, (no oil or butter required, just the chicken) covered it and cooked it on high heat for about 45 minutes. So I went that route and the chicken was perfectly tender. Score one for me!

Step 4 – “Take the chicken out and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.”

Here’s where the thing almost derailed: there just weren’t juices left to dilute in the pan and so I added butter…and then more butter…and then more butter. And then after cooking down the red wine (and butter), I added the tablespoon of butter and flour (At last, we have a measurement) but didn’t know how much flour to add to the butter. I ended up using about a teaspoon of flour to one tablespoon of butter.

Well. The butter/flour mixture sat like a blob in the pan so I had to whisk it to get the huge lumps out and then I tasted it and “yech.” And I mean “yech.” It was so sour I almost spit it out. So to save it, I added sugar in small increments until it wasn’t so awful. (Well, it awful but infinitely more edible).

In the end, the chicken was good, the onion/bacon/mushroom mixture was good, but the gravy was forgettable. Next time around, I’d either add the wine straight to the chicken or I’d drink it and call it a day. If I were you, I’d lean heavily toward drinking! (And throw in a martini to boot, compliments of Bernard DeVoto!)

I served this chicken with wide noodles and green beans. As to what side dishes Larousse recommends well…it doesn’t say.

Chicken sauté a la bourguignonne or matelote – serving size…it doesn’t say
4 slices bacon
12 small onions (pearl onions)
12 small raw mushrooms
1 cup red wine
Butter

Fry in butter 4 slices of lean bacon cut in a big dice and blanched. Add 12 small onions, blanched; cook till golden and add 12 small raw mushrooms. (A note about blanching: to blanch means that you cook items for a very short time period in boiling water and then you place the items in a cold water bath to stop the cooking. I couldn’t really find a definitive time to blanch items on the internet so I went with about a minute. My guess it was probably less but since it didn’t say….

Drain this mixture and brown quickly in the same fat a chicken cut into pieces in the ordinary way. When the chicken is half-cooked, put the garnish back in the pan, cover and cook for 15 minutes.

Take out chicken and garnish. Dilute the juices in the pan with 1 cup of red wine, boil down to half and thicken with a tablespoon of butter worked together with flour. Strain.

Set the chicken on a dish, surrounded with its garnish and pour the sauce over it.

"The Mystery Chef's Own Cookbook" and "The Nancy Drew Cookbook" - Baked Sliced Ham and Apples & Dave's Deviled Potatoes

Date I made these recipes: October 30, 2011

The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book by The Mystery Chef (John McPherson)
Published by: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc.
© 1934, 1943
Recipe: Baked Sliced Ham and Apples – p. 77

The Nancy Drew Cookbook – Clues to Good Cooking by Carolyn Keene
Published by: Grosset & Dunlap
© 1973 – 1974 printing
Recipe: Dave’s Deviled Potatoes – p. 59-60

I am not a big fan of Halloween. It’s too cold, too dark and when I was growing up, it often snowed. Trust me it is not fun to wear a Halloween costume under a winter coat.

And speaking of snow, the east coast got blasted this weekend by an early (for them) snowfall. This prompted all the local media to remind us Minnesotans of our huge 1991 Halloween blizzard. I cannot believe 20 years have passed since that debacle.

On that Halloween, a rain shower quickly turned into a ton of heavy, wet snow that just kept and falling and falling and falling. While we are used to a big snowfall in these parts, it was hard to get around the cities; snow plows got stuck, roads were only half plowed, mail wasn’t delivered, schools closed and so on. In a word, folks, we were truly snowed in. Well, true confession: my husband brought me to work the next day as driving in this stuff is a challenge to him and I went in on the day after that (the weekend) to get some work done as I was under deadline. Let me just mention that while I made it there and back safely, I also managed to spin the most beautiful doughnut on the freeway without hitting a thing! (So.proud). Darned ice!!

So back to the snow, this did not deter some intrepid trick or treaters who now have a great story to tell their children when they grow up. And in the blink of an eye, Halloween is once again upon us. The sun is out and it appears we are safe from a snowstorm this year. Hooray.

Given my track record of dark, cold and snow, I usually ignore the date all together. Yes, that’s my house, as dark as dark can be. That glow you see? It’s the TV. Otherwise, we usually settle in for a couple hour’s worth of “Just ignore them and they will go away.” (That is very Scrooge of me; I’m getting an early start to Christmas.) Actually, we don’t have many kids in the neighborhood and our street is pretty much ignored by the masses. And that’s good because we never stock up on candy except for ourselves, naturally!

But as I was working on my cookbook list on Saturday, I remembered that I had recently purchased The Nancy Drew Cookbook and if that doesn’t say mystery and spooks and whatnot, then I don’t know what does.

And then, taking a little liberty with the title, I also chose to make a recipe from The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book.

In this instance, The Mystery Chef is a man who took the place of a friend on a radio show about cooking and food and built a following of fans although of course, his identity remained a – key point here - mystery. Well, with the advent of the internet, it is no longer a mystery—his name is John McPherson. A clever mystery problem-solver however, could also determine his identity by looking at the copyright information: “Copyright, 1934 by John McPherson.” Move over, Nancy Drew!

So while John’s book is not quite related to today’s theme, it was close enough for me.

As to Nancy Drew, I hardly know a woman in my age category who didn’t read Nancy Drew as a kid. My teeny, tiny library at Sacred Heart Catholic School (grade school) actually carried most of the Nancy Drew books and I believe I managed to read them all—twice! I still love solving a good mystery which might be why I became an attorney. Not that attorneys solve mysteries but sometimes when putting a case together, you often become your own little Nancy (or Ned) Drew.

Tonight’s meal was really easy to make and it kept with my Halloween theme: Ham and Apples (I remember getting caramel apples as a kid for Halloween) and Dave’s Deviled Potatoes for that little Halloween devil in all of us!

Baked Sliced Ham and Apples (to serve 4)
2 large, thin slices raw ham (1/4 to 1/3 inch thick) Ann’s note: I used one large pre-cooked ham steak and that was sufficient for two of us.
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons vinegar
1 cooking apple
½ cup brown sugar
Butter

Remove bone from ham. Mix together the mustard and vinegar. Spread the mixture thinly on the ham. Slice apples very thin and spread 2 layers on the thin slices on ham. Sprinkle well with brown sugar. Now roll the ham the long way, starting from the fat side and folding the fat into the center. Hold together with metal butcher skewers. Place in baking pan and put a few dabs of butter on each ham roll. Bake in a moderate oven (375) for 25 minutes. Baste 2 or 3 times while baking.

Ann’s Note: What am I, a culinary school graduate? I didn’t bother to roll the ham slices as that is just way too much work. Besides, I couldn’t find my metal skewers, assuming I even have any. So I put the ham in a baking pan, spread the mixture mustard and vinegar mixture, put the sliced apples on top of the ham, sprinkled the sugar and then put dots of butter over the ham slice and it worked just fine. As to the apples, the instructions didn’t say to peel them or core them or anything, so I left them peeled and took out the cores when needed.

Dave’s Deviled Potatoes – serves 4
4-6 medium potatoes
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons softened butter
1/3 cup warm milk (or, in place of the above ingredients, one envelope of instant potatoes)
½ cup sour cream
1 tablespoon mustard
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
(optional) 4 slices bacon for topping

Wash, pare and cut potatoes into 4 pieces each for faster cooking. Cover with boiling water, add salt and cook (covered) from 20 to 40 minutes until tender when tested with a fork. Drain. Add softened butter and warm milk. Mash until free of lumps. (If you are using instant potatoes, follow directions on package.)

Heat the sour cream in a small saucepan over a low flame. Add mustard and sugar to the sour cream and mix until well blended. Stir potatoes into the sour cream mixture. Blend in chopped onion. Put the potato mixture into a 1 quart casserole.

Heat the over to 350. Bake for 12 minutes.

“Nancy’s Topper”
Add a surprise by frying 4 slices of bacon in the skillet over low heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels, crumble, and sprinkle on top of deviled potatoes.

"The Sunday Cook Collection" (recipes from the Milwaukee Journal) - Cheddar Chowder

Date I made this recipe: October 23, 2011

The Sunday Cook Collection by Grace Howaniec (recipes compiled for the Wisconsin magazine of the Milwaukee Journal)
Published by: Amherst Press
ISBN: 0-942495-27-6; © 1993
Recipe: Cheddar Chowder – p. 37

So there I was thinking about the upcoming Packer-Viking game and wondering what I could make that was football related, and there it was—just sitting waiting for me to pick it up: The Sunday Cook Collection, written by a columnist for the Wisconsin magazine of the Milwaukee Journal. Just so we’re all on the same page, Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. And back in the day, Packer games used to be played in Green Bay and Milwaukee. So this was perfect.

And then, honestly as if I hadn’t already hit pay dirt, I opened up the book and found the recipe for Cheddar Chowder. Packers + Cheese = Wisconsin, no?

Of course, as these things go, the game was played here in Minneapolis, not Wisconsin. In what is now known as the Mall of America Field…or whatever. I can’t keep up, and more importantly, I don’t care. (This field should not be confused with the actual Mall of America where fun can be had…unlike most Vikings games these days).

Any who…the Packers won, 33-27 and that’s all I’m going to say about that or my blood pressure will go up (because to me, that was one, close call!). I’m thinking it was the fact that I made Cheddar Chowder that saved the day. That’s me—all about the team!

This dish was really easy to make although I’m not sure I was fond of chopping the vegetables in the food processor. On the other hand, it was a time saver and with a game about to start, well….

And that concludes yet another Packer-related meal, brought to you by a (sometimes) “Sunday Cook.”

Cheddar Chowder – makes 6 servings
2 medium baking potatoes
1 large carrot, peeled
1 rib celery, rinsed and drained
1 small onion, peeled
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
2 cups water
4 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups skim milk
2 cups grated sharp Cheddar cheese (4 ounces)
6 ounces smoked, cooked ham sliced, diced (the author notes that she used Oscar Meyer 96% fat-free ham).

Peel and quarter potatoes. In work bowl of a food processor fitted with metal blade, dice potatoes using Pulse/Off button until potatoes are ¼-inch pieces (should make about 2 cups). (Ann’s Note: I didn’t measure so I’ll take the author’s word for it). Remove potatoes to large kettle. Rinse work bowl (hmm…didn’t do that, either), then repeat dicing process, separately, with carrots (to make ½ cup), celery (to make ½ cup) and onion (to make ¼ cup).

To potatoes in kettle, add diced carrots, celery, onion, salt, pepper and water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium and boil about 12 minutes; set aside. Do not drain.

In small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour gradually, stirring until smooth. Let cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Slowly whisk in milk; cook, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Add grated cheese; stir sauce until cheese is melted.

Stir cheese sauce into undrained vegetables in kettle. Stir in diced ham; heat 2 minutes over medium-low heat.

"Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Together" by Rachel Ray - TV Dinner for 2

Date I made this recipe: October 16, 2011

Rachel Ray 30-Minute Meals Get Togethers by Rachel Ray
Published by: Lake Isle Press
ISBN: 1-891105-11-6
Recipe: TV Dinner for 2: Salisbury Steak with Wild Mushroom Gravy, Smashed Potatoes with Garlic & Herb cheese and Chives, and Creamed Spinach – page 118-119


Today, for one brief shinning moment (“that was known as Camelot”) I became Rachel Ray in the kitchen.

Okay, small white lie: I tried to become Rachel Ray in the kitchen but failed.

Well, is failed the right word? Perhaps I’m being overly hard on myself. Here’s what she is that I am not: I am not overly perky, I do not make up new food words like “EVOO” (around here, we call it olive oil), “stoup” (soup and stew) or “Yummo.”

Last time I checked, I did not have a talk show although let me just say that if I did, I would be damned funny. Ask anybody. Ask me—I don’t lie!

And I do not have a staff of people to spin food plates in the air because without “people,” I honestly don’t know how she can make three different things to eat at the same time without burning them. Not that I did that, but I came close.

Frankly, any recipe that starts with the word “meanwhile,” as these did, should be eyeballed carefully. I do not do “meanwhile”—as in “meanwhile, while the steak is cooking, start the potatoes.” Or “meanwhile, while those two things are cooking, start the spinach.”

No. Just say no.

Today’s “TV dinner for 2” was a delicious dinner of Salisbury steak, potatoes and creamed spinach. But ala Rachel, one had to start one recipe, then another and then another until voila—the entire meal was done at the same time.

To this I say “This is why God invented the microwave.” A little plate touchup at 30 seconds and you are ready to go. And this means you can take your time and do things right, because people, there were a few landmines in this recipe.

Let’s start with the steak. On its face, the recipe was easy enough. Mix the meat and condiments together, pour 1 tablespoon olive oil into the pan, cook for 6 minutes on each side and you’re done.

In practice, I put the olive oil in the pan, then the meat and about three minutes in, a cloud of greasy smoke (not a kitchen fire smoke, but just a meat-singing smoke) erupted over my stove. So I turned on our kitchen fan, a/k/a “turbo prop,” opened a window, and one day later, I am here to tell you that our kitchen still smells like greasy burgers.

I am happy to report though, that the steaks did not turn into hockey pucks. And they tasted good. But the pan was something else again. Let’s just say it had a good soak.

So my advice to you is to use more than one tablespoon olive oil, to lower the heat from medium-high to medium and to be ready to air-condition your house in an instant.

As to the gravy, all was well until I put the flour into the pan and then for one, brief shinning moment I almost had a glue ball.

Now I’ve told you readers that I follow recipes to the letter so I dutifully readied my tablespoon of flour to add to the mushrooms. But then Rachel said “add a sprinkle of flour.” So did this mean don’t use the entire thing or use the entire thing? This was unclear. And so I added the entire tablespoon, got the glue ball but then saved the day by adding the broth. But let me tell you folks, it was touch and go for a minute there.

Next, we have the potatoes. Rachel suggests cooking them for 8-10 minutes. I went with 11 and a half minutes and thought they were just a bit underdone. The Boursin cheese was a yummy (not to be confused with Rachel’s term,“Yummo”) addition such that I probably used a little more than suggested but no harm, no foul. And to clarify, I did the meat, then made the potatoes in their entirety and then moved on to the spinach.

Now, I don’t want to call Rachel a liar (because there’d go my chances for my own show), but a quarter cup of cream (or half and half) was way too stingy for the creamed spinach. For one thing, it started to evaporate before I even had a chance to add the spinach to the pan. So I added more and more until what do you know—I finished off the container. And yet it still seemed a little dry (as opposed to creamy). And it was a little flat in the taste department although that can probably be perked up by the addition of some onion or even nutmeg. If Rachel was here, she’d know what to do but since I am not Rachel, I just forged ahead with her recipe, almost as written.

But I do believe I nailed one thing of Rachel’s and that is the thirty-minute meal. Or okay, maybe 40 minutes but even Rachel has said that 30 minutes is a challenge. But I came darned close. And “close” for a home cook is almost as good as nailing it all together.

As to the TV dinner theme, I blogged a few years ago about my love for TV dinners and when I saw this dinner for two, I just had to have it. What is not to love about a three- or four-part meal (depends on whether you get dessert or not), in a tin-foil tray wrapped in tin foil? And you get to watch it in front of, wait for it, a TV set! Isn’t it great that these dinners were invented specifically for this purpose?

Tray tables anyone?

Recipe: TV Dinner for 2: Salisbury Steak with Wild Mushroom Gravy, Smashed Potatoes with Garlic & Herb cheese and Chives, and Creamed Spinach

Potatoes
1 pound russet potatoes (2 large potatoes), peeled and chunked
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup half-and-half or cream (eyeball it)
3 ounces (1/3 cup or half of one small container), garlic and herb cheese, such as Boursin
2 tablespoons chopped chives (6 blades), or 1 scallion, thinly sliced

Meat and gravy
¾ pound ground beef sirloin
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce (eyeball it)
½ small onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon steak seasoning blend, such as Montreal Seasoning by McCormick, or coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Extra-virgin olive oil (evoo), 3 tablespoons (3 times around the pan—but Ann’s note: not all at once!)
1 tablespoon butter
6 crimini or baby Portobello mushrooms, sliced
6 shiitake mushrooms, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to state
1 tablespoon flour
½ cup beef stock

Spinach
1 box (10 ounces) chopped spinach, defrosted in microwave
1 tablespoon butter, cut into pieces
¼ cup half-and-half or heavy cream (Ann’s note: I suggest adding a lot more than this)
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Ann’s Note: I’m going to list the steps to make each dish separately from start to finish: if you want to emulate Rachel, go to page 119 of her book

To make the potatoes
Place them in a pot with water. Cover pot, bring to a boil and lightly salt. Leave uncovered and simmer at rolling boil until tender, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the potatoes and return them to hot pot. Smash potatoes with a little half-and-half or cream and garlic herb cheese. Smash and incorporate chives. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To make the steak and gravy
Combine the meat, Worcestershire, onion and steak seasoning or salt and pepper. Form 2 large, oval patties, 1 inch thick.

Preheat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add a tablespoon of evoo and meat patties to hot pan. Cook 6 minutes on each side until meat is evenly carmelized on the outside and juices run clear. Remove meat and cover with loose aluminum foil to keep warm.

Add 1 more tablespoon evoo and the butter to the pan, then the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper and sauté until tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Add a sprinkle of flour to the pan and cook 2 minutes more. Whisk in stock and thicken 1 minute

To make the spinach
To a small skillet, add butter and cream and heat to bubble over moderate heat. Add the defrosted and “dried” spinach and salt and pepper. Cook until spinach thickens with cream, 3 to 5 minutes.

"I Never Forget A Meal" - Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce

Date I made this recipe: September 25, 2011

I Never Forget a Meal by Michael Tucker
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN: 0-316-85625-8
Recipe: Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce – p. 44-45

One of my favorite TV commercials is one where a couple of animals are watching TV in someone’s house, (Well that’s narrowing it down, isn’t it?) and one of them is using the remote, changing channels, saying something like “Nope, nope, seen it, seen it…” (Try as I might, I could not find this commercial on the internet. Drats.)

That’s about how I felt about all the cookbooks I pulled off the shelf since, oh say, August. “Nope, nope, not quite right, seen it….”

I don’t know why I was so indecisive (except I have a lot on my plate, and I don’t mean my dinner plate), but I must have let The Picnic Cookbook (by Nika Hazelton) sit for weeks before deciding that nothing in the book tripped my trigger. Frost warnings were sounding by the time I put it back on the shelf.

The same held true for the Coastal Living (magazine) Cookbook. So long, summer, maybe next year?

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I pulled two New York cookbooks off the shelf and then just couldn’t make up my mind about what to make. By the time I decided that maybe a cheesecake would be nice, it was 9/15, my bank account was nearly on fumes and, as most of you know, cheese cake ingredients are expensive so there went that.

Also collecting dust was a Mexican cookbook written entirely in Spanish. I can read Spanish but by the time I got around to actually translating one of the recipes, Texas had decided to rejoin Mexico and we’re now back to 49 states. Kidding. Maybe.

So there I was, at my computer, once again staring at my collection waiting for inspiration, and I spied actor/author Michael Tucker’s I Never Forget a Meal.

Ha! I thought. Well I never forget to…um…cook? Clean? Cook and clean?

Needless to say, game on!

First, for those of you who don’t know who Michael Tucker is (and you know who you are), he played the lovable Stuart Markowitz on the TV show, LA Law. LA Law ran from 1986-1994 (was it really that long ago? And yes, I know this dates me), and told the story of an amazing cast of characters working at an LA law firm (thus the title. Isn’t it amazing how that all works?). Michael Tucker, as attorney Stuart Markowitz, was married on TV and in real life to fellow actor Jill Eikenberry who played attorney Ann Kelsey. I loved those two!

But even more loveable than those two were Leland McKenzie (played by actor Richard Dysart) and Douglas Brackman, Jr. (hilariously played by actor Alan Rachins), founding partner and managing partner respectively of McKenzie Brackman law firm.

Every week, the long-winded Douglas Brackman would review the firm’s cases with the rest of the partners, and every time Leland would tell him to “Move along, Douglas.”

Can I tell you how much I love that line? I use it all the time, particularly in business meetings that are going long. Sadly, with the workplace getting younger by the minute, nobody knows what I’m talking about. But I do and am I not the only one who counts?

Okay, so before I move along myself, I must make one other comment and that is about the outfits, particularly the blouses worn by actress Susan Dey, who played attorney Grace Van Owen. All a friend of mine (who love clothes) had to say to me was “I bought a ‘Grace Van Owen’ blouse today” and I knew of what she spoke. One year she even made me a GVO blouse for my birthday (sniffle). Now is that a friend, or what?

So okay, back to Michael (Stuart Markowitz) Tucker, I loved him on the show and I love his books. And I particularly love that he and Jill have a house in Italy (and so he includes a lot of Italian recipes in his books). Or do I? Not long ago, I decided there’s only so much “I have a farm in Africa/villa in Italy/apartment in Paris” that I can stand (and no, I’m not jealous much) so by the third book, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read more. But hooray for us, it took a different path (talking about how he and Jill took care of Jill’s mom—and hat’s off to you for it) and we were all good again. The book I’m “reviewing” here is his first.

Unlike Michael, there are many meals best forgotten and only a few that are memorable. And here they are:

1. Somewhere in Florida, circa 1968, an Italian restaurant served me Italian Wedding Soup. Whether or not it was actually canned Chickarina Soup (made by Progresso and loved by me) is debatable but at that point, the entire state of Florida became my new, best friend. I would like to note that I was not quite nine at the time.
2. In the early 70’s, we went to San Francisco for a family vacation and stumbled into (and out of) a little Italian bar and restaurant that served us a wonderful four-course meal. I cannot recall what I had but I can recall that my dad was thrilled to be served tripe and that my teetotaler mother had way too much wine. It is one of my brother and my fondest memories.
3. While on our honeymoon in Provence visiting friends, we went to a newly-opened restaurant and were attended to by waiters in formal wear carrying around enormous domed platters of food. At one point, the waiter came up to us and whispered “Your fish is almost ready” and then when it arrived, he and another server counted to three before removing the domes. This has to be one of our favorite honeymoon stories. We had never before seen such behavior from servers and likely never will again. And talk about respect for that fish….
4. Let me just say that the bouef bourgignon at the Schlumpf Museum in France saved my life and possibly my honeymoon and that’s all you need to know about that.
5. All of the food we had on our trip to England in 1994. Eh, what?!
6. The meal I had with my friend, Susan, at Gramercy Tavern, in NYC, one week after I took the Minnesota Bar Exam. I couldn’t tell you for certain what I ate except it was delicious. The lack of certainty is caused, in part, by the most excellent martini I imbibed before dinner…and after…but I digress.
7. Can we talk about Marcus Samuelsson’s newer Harlem restaurant, Red Rooster? We went with another couple this summer and ordered that night’s special—braised and then BBQ’d (if I’m recalling this right) pork butt…or shoulder…for three (or four as it turned out) that came with corn bread and to which we added an order of mac and greens. Prior to that we ordered and shared two appetizers. And then we had dessert. We are now all proud members of the clean-plate club. And major fans of the restaurant. And are probably 10 pounds heavier. Now if I could just have that recipe for the spread that came with the bread….
8. And my number-one all time memorable meal was at Delfina restaurant in San Francisco. It was 2001, I was about to start law school and to celebrate that and our 10th wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to SF. And then we snuck in at Delfina and the rest is part of my culinary history. We started with bruschetta with fresh tomatoes and basil, followed by pasta with fresh beans, peas and goat cheese, followed by sea bass with an olive tapenade (and to be clear, we are not usually fish fans), followed by (I think) cherry clafoutis for dessert. And wine, lots of great California wine. (We brought back 6 bottles). Ten years later, it still beats out all other competitors.

Now, as to this recipe, Hey Mikey, we liked it! In my family (from Sicily), we do not usually make a Bolognese when marinara sauce with meatballs and sausage on the side will do, but this was good. If I have complaints, they are minor, for instance, faithful readers know that I don’t like when recipes aren’t specific and so when Michael says to “add 6 cups canned tomatoes, drained,” what kind of tomatoes did he mean? Because people, Kowalski’s grocery store had about a bazillion different kinds of tomatoes. You could get whole, diced, petite diced, stewed, tomatoes without salt, tomatoes with salt, tomatoes with basil and other Italian spices, Mexican tomatoes (“You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay…”) and so on and so on (and on and on and on) and so for a minute, I didn’t know what to do.

So I used petite diced but I’m not sure that was the right choice as the sauce was chunkier than I like.

As to the addition of the milk (1 cup milk), well, again, what kind of milk (does whole make a difference?) and furthermore, is it me or shouldn’t this addition have made the sauce creamier, because if so, it still looked rather “liquidy” to me.

Finally, Michael said to “add the wine and cook until evaporated.” Huh? All of the wine evaporated or some of it? Because waiting for all of it to evaporate took a long time, and so to kill time, I added the wine to the sauce and then had some for myself. (Maybe that’s why it took longer than I thought?)

Anyway, at long last it was all done and it was good and tasty (and memorable!) and we served it with rigatoni and called it a day. (And please note that you can serve a hearty sauce like this with something delicate like angel hair pasta but you will be cursing your decision ever after as you will spend more time wiping it off yourself and others than making the sauce in the first place. Go with heartier pasta and you’ll be happy).

Classic Bolognese Meat Sauce – serves 8
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter
1 large yellow onion
3 stalks celery with leaves
3 carrots
4 ounces pancetta, finely chopped
1 pound ground chuck
1 pound ground veal (not easy to find in the Twin Cities but Kowalski’s carries it)
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 cups dry white wine
1 cup milk
Nutmeg (fresh is preferred but I used dried although sparingly)
6 cups canned tomatoes, drained (see comments above)

Heat the oil and butter in a heavy, deep pot. Finely chop the onion, celery, and carrots and sauté them until just cooked. Add the pancetta and cook for a few more minutes, then the ground chuck and veal, salt and pepper and cook gently until the meat has just lost its color. Add the wine and cook until evaporated. Turn the heat down, add the milk and some freshly grated nutmeg. Let the milk evaporate. Add the tomatoes, stir, and let simmer for a few hours, stirring.

"It's a Picnic!" & "Summertime Food" - Barbecued Frankfurters and Black Beans with Anchos

Date I made these recipes: August 29, 2011

It’s A Picnic! by Nancy Fair McIntyre
Published by: Gramercy Publishing Company
© 1969
Recipe: Barbecued Hot Dogs – p. 8

Summertime Food by Miriam Ungerer
Published by: Random House
© 1966, 1989
Recipe: Black Beans with Anchos – p. 215

This week is State Fair week here in Minnesota and if my friend, Dan, is correct (and I think he is), then temperatures will drop on or around Labor Day, heralding the (unofficial) start of fall in Minnesota.

When I whined last year about how the temperatures were 100 degrees one day and then 70 the next, Dan pointed out this weather phenomena to me. I wasn’t quite convinced until this year when sure enough, in a span of a few days, we’ve gone from 86 and humid to today’s balmy temperature of 69. I.am.freezing.

This (low temperature) weather makes me ornery. Really, really ornery! And sad because I love summer and hate to see the end of hot weather, a great tan, being outdoors (in an urban setting, of course!) and summertime food. Not that there’s a timer on when one should stop making summer salads and barbecues, but my friends, our days seem to be numbered.

And so this is why, in an effort to keep the dream alive, I made these two summertime foods. Sure, I still have Labor Day left but we could have snow by then and I don’t want to take any chances.

I am happy to report that the barbecued franks were pretty tasty albeit a little salty for my taste. Could have been the hot dog or it could have been the ingredients, I don’t know. Sadly, I can’t recall the last time I had a hot dog—last year maybe? This makes me feel so, well, un-American all of a sudden! Must fix that.

As to the beans, well, I am unhappy to report that they were a complete failure. Not a minor failure, a complete bomb. And I’m scratching my head to understand why.

My husband pointed out that for whatever reason I’ve never had good luck with black beans. Whether it’s because they are hardier than other beans or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that I followed the directions to the letter – and then some – and they were still inedible.

As directed, I soaked the beans overnight. Actually, it was more like a night and a half. And then I cooked the beans and celery for an hour and then added the rest of the ingredients and cooked for two more hours. And…nothing. So I kept them on the stove longer, adding water so they wouldn’t burn and still nothing. So I put them in the microwave at various intervals, adding water again so they wouldn’t burn and nothing. Nothing plus nothing plus nothing equals nothing.

Finally after what seemed a bazillion hours after I started, I pulled over the garbage can and dumped the beans into the waste basket. Good thing I made only half a recipe as I hate to waste food but not only were the beans not done but there wasn’t any flavor to the beans.

I remain mystified.

And so, dear reader, we had hot dogs for dinner and that was that.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find my long underwear.

Barbecued Hot Dogs – serving size not noted although hint, you will use 6 frankfurters!
6 frankfurters
¼ cup chopped onions
2 Tbsp salad oil
2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp paprika
6 Tbsp chili sauce
6 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp vinegar
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Dash Tabasco

Saute the onions in the salad oil. (Ann’s note – I think 2 Tbsp oil is too much for a ¼ cup of onions but that’s just me.) Add all the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 15 minutes. Score the frankfurters and marinate them in the sauce a couple of hours.

Black Beans with Anchos – serves 6 to 8
1 pound dried black (turtle) beans
2 dried ancho chili peppers (Ann’s note: dried anchos are really dried poblanos. If you don’t see anchos in the grocery store, but do see poblanos, use that as a substitute.)
1 or 2 stalks celery
3 small strips smoked country bacon (also known as “speck”)
1 cup mined onion
2 or 3 cloves garlic, minced
Salt to taste
Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

Pick over, rinse, and soak the beans in cold water to cover overnight. (Or bring to a boil, simmer one minute, turn off heat, and let soak for 1 hour before proceeding.) Drain.

Wash the anchos, split them and discard the stems and seeds. Pour on just enough boiling water to cover them, weight them under it, and leave to soak for an hour. Then puree them along with their soaking water.

Cover the beans and celery with fresh water, bring to a boil, and let simmer for 1 hour. Do NOT add salt. Add the bacon. Saute the onion and garlic in a little oil and add them to the beans along with salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste.

Continue to simmer the beans until tender, which usually takes about 2 hours, sometimes less. (Ann’s note: Ha! Liar, liar, pants on fire!) It’s a good idea to bake them for the latter hour because they’ll be less apt to stick. Black beans should be a little soupy; the juice cooks to a dark, thick pot liquor treasured by most bean fanciers.

"Honorable Hibachi" & "The All-Color Cookbook"- Barbecued Chicken and an American Salad

Date I made these recipes: August 21, 2011

Honorable Hibachi by Kathryn Popper
Published by: Simon and Schuster
© 1965
Recipe: Barbecued Chicken – p. 123-124

The All-Color Cookbook – illustrated in full color – Edited by Eileen Turner
Published by: Octopus Books Limited, London
©1976
Recipe: American Salad – p. 22

Some people are very good at taking what seem to be disparate ingredients and turning them into an outstanding dish. (In fact, to see that in action, watch Food Network’s Chopped). I am not one of these people. But I am pretty good at tying together cookbooks and recipes that don’t seem like they work into an overall-themed dinner. Like tonight’s dinner. I will tie these two items together, just wait for it.

So first we are going to talk about hibachi grills and then we are going to switch gears to talk about a salad that I think is perfect for tonight’s The Glee Project finale.

Now, I can’t honestly say I’ve seen too many hibachis in modern-day cooking stores, but when I was a kid, this is the only grill we used in my household and my dad was famous for his hibachi barbecued chicken. So it was a no-brainer for me to make the Barbecued Chicken recipe from this book.

No doubt my dad got his inspiration to use the grill after spending time in Japan in WWII, first on Iwo Jima and later on Okinawa. Given how Japanese houses don’t have a lot of space, this thing is the ticket.

To me, the most fabulous feature about this grill, though, was its portability. It weighs about as much as a beverage cooler and that’s how our hibachi logged endless miles to a beach just down the hill from my house. We should have put an odometer on that thing as there was hardly a summer’s day that we didn’t go down to Sand Point Beach to have a picnic.

Once at the beach, Dad would fire up the little grill, mom would pull out a thermos of ice-cold lemonade and life was good.

At home, dad usually cooked on Sunday and he’d set the hibachi up on the step nearest our back door and cook away, slathering the chicken with his version of “doctored-up” BBQ sauce. Yum-my!

So when I found this book at an estate sale last year, I snapped it up, thinking that I might make something for dad out of this book as he would surely get a kick out of it. Alas, he died before I could do that and so today’s recipe is in his honor. I actually have my dad’s BBQ sauce recipe in my family cookbook but this one worked out just as well.

As to my The Glee Project tie-in, I will proudly admit that I was in Glee club in school (in actuality, it was a class rather than an extra-curricular activity). It was an all-girls glee club – guys did not join glee clubs back then - and we most certainly did not do anything close to show-choir performances made famous on the TV show, Glee. And maybe this was a good thing?

At any rate, I was also in an after-school group called Music Makers, and one December, both groups performed in a holiday concert along with the junior and senior high band and my dad came to see the production.

So I’m standing next to Florence (Flo) who was just a panic and we sang this song involving roses. (I don’t recall that we ever sang holiday music for the holiday concert—go figure). And during rehearsals, our instructor wanted us to over-enunciate the word “roses” to make it stand out more. And of course, Flo and I overdid the entire thing, causing everyone to laugh, including our instructor.

Anyway, we’re singing away, nailing every song we sing and we then came to the “roses” song and both Flo and I struggled to keep it together during this piece. And we made, it, just barely, and there was much rejoicing. But I could see my dad trying to keep from laughing as well (he sat up front) and afterwards he congratulated us for pulling it off. By the way, dad was no slouch in the singing department, either. In high school, he played Captain Corcoran in a production of the H.M.S. Pinafore and in college he was in the mixed chorus at Michigan State University.

And so anyway, not only am I a fan of Glee (well, this season was a little wonky but still fun) but also the new hit show that aired this summer on the Oxygen Network, The Glee Project, where contestants vie to land a seven-arc spot on Glee.

When I came up with this convoluted idea to make two disparate recipes for one themed meal, it was with the knowledge that I had The All-Color Cookbook in my collection. What cracks me up is this book was so named because all the photos in the book were in color. Well there’s an idea. At any rate, in my mind All-Color = True Colors = a song performed by both New Directions on Glee, and most recently by the contestants in The Glee Project. And since the finale of the show was yesterday, I decided this colorful salad would be the perfect accompaniment to my dad’s memorial hibachi chicken. And it was!

And that’s how I tied the Honorable Hibachi cookbook and my dad to The Glee Project, True Colors and The All-Color Cookbook. Ta da! “Hello? Ryan Murphy…?”

Before I get to the recipes, I have a few notes to pass on to you. First, in the interest of true confessions (not to be confused with True Colors), I have to admit I don’t own a hibachi and the one my father used is sadly long gone. But we made do with a gas grill and then just to make sure the chicken was done, we microwaved it for a couple of minutes. (To my father’s chagrin, when my mother was on chicken detail, she always overcooked the chicken, not wanting us all to die from salmonella poisoning.) I thought about making enough BBQ sauce to put on the chicken after the fact but didn’t but if I made this recipe again (and I would), I would reverse that decision.

As to the salad, it was pretty colorful as written but I decided it had too much red (peppers and tomatoes) and so cooked some carrots and threw those in.

Barbecued Chicken – serves 8 (Note: allow 2-3 hours to marinate the chicken)
1, 3-pound broiler-fryer, cut into 8 pieces
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup lime or lemon juice
1 tsp grated lime rind
½ clove pressed garlic
1 tsp chili powder
½ tsp salt
3 drops Tabasco sauce
1 small onion, grated (Has anybody figured out how to grate an onion without making a supreme mess because I sure haven’t.)
¼ tsp black pepper
3 Tbsps catsup

Mix marinade ingredients well and pour over chicken pieces in a non-metal bowl. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours, turning pieces occasionally. (Oops. I guess I forgot that part!) Remove bowl to room temperature ½ hour before cooking. (And apparently forgot this step as well—not that it mattered).

To use a hibachi: oil hibachi grill and adjust to highest level over high bed of glowing coals. Drain excess marinade from chicken pieces and place them on grill. Baste often with marinade and turn frequently to brown evenly. Grill until tender and thoroughly cooked. This will take from 30 to 45 minutes, depending on size and tenderness of chicken and variation in bed of coals. As coals burn down, adjust grill to lower level.

To use a gas grill: We skipped all of the above and grilled the chicken for about 30 minutes (despite the fact that the breasts were gargantuan) and then microwaved them for about 4 minutes to make sure they were cooked through.

American Salad – serves 4 (a/k/a True Colors Salad)
(Note: since this book was published in England, they listed both Metric/Imperial and American measurements. Nice touch.)
1 cup cooked sliced green beans
½ cup cooked or canned and drained sweet corn (Note: I used two cobs of fresh sweet corn, took off the kernels and boiled the kernels for about a minute. Fabulous!)
½ red pepper, diced
½ cup sliced raw mushrooms
2 tomatoes, sliced
½ cup cooked sliced carrots (my addition)
French dressing
1 small onion, if desired, for garnish
Black olives, if desired, for garnish

Ann’s Note: I had a friend over for dinner and since I wasn’t sure she would like raw onions, I thinly sliced the onions and boiled them for about 2 minutes. The flavor wasn’t as strong as a raw onion and they still kept their crunch.

Mix all the ingredients in a dish and toss in the French dressing. Garnish with black olives and thin slices of raw onions. Serve with cold chicken (or in my case, hot chicken) or turkey.