Tag Archives: food

HAPPY BLOGOVERSITY, Beginning Year Four Today …

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I’ve been so busy, busy lately that I almost passed the day by without acknowledging it …

Thank you everyone for your visits, comments, and sharing your own valued work on your own blogs. Isn’t the blogosphere wonderful?

Since I can’t throw a party and serve you all champagne and canapes, here’s one of my favorite recipes that you might want to use over the holiday season.

Thank you and blog on …

RUMAKI

  • 40 slices of gluten-free bacon
  • 40 livers, duck or chicken
  • 80 water chestnuts
  • 2 c wheat-free soy sauces
  • 4 T. freshly-grated ginger
  • 8 garlic cloves
  • 4 finely-slivered spring (green) onions
  • 1/2 c. brown sugar
  • toothpicks

Note: You don’t need to use wheat-and-gluten-free products for this unless – like me – you are alergic to wheat-and-gluten. Also, this recipe is easily cut down or increased depending on the number of guests. 

Half the livers and the bacon slices.

Mix the rest of the ingredients (the marinade) except for the water chestnuts in a large accommodating bowl.

Wrap a piece of liver and one water chestnut with one of the half-slices of bacon. Secure with a toothpick. Continue the assembly process until you have eighty rumaki. You can go ahead and drop each in the marinade as you go along so that they don’t dry out.

Cover the bowl and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. Line about three baking sheets (depending on the size) and spray with oil. Place the rumaki on the baking sheet and broil – not to close to the source – watching carefully that the rumaki don’t burn. Serve as soon as they are done.

I know some people fry Rumaki, but I think that that’s messy and time-consuming.

Enjoy with a fine wine or a nonalcoholic spritzer of your choice.

I don’t drink, so I can’t suggest a wine – Cindy (The Only Cin) feel free to chirp in here – but this is my favorite spritzer courtesy of dear off-line friend, Barb Stone (The Lists of Buddha Lists).

SPRITZER

  • Ice
  • Spiced Organic Cranberry Juice (or another you favor)
  • Mineral Water
  • Fresh mint sprig (optional)

Fill a glass with ice. Then fill the glass a quarter full with juice. Add the mineral water. Stir. Add mint sprig. Serve.

©2011, Jamie Dedes, all rights reserved

Illustration ~ courtesy of Public Domain Clip Art

RED-SCARE JELLO

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Mary Geneva Doud “Mamie” Eisenhower (1896  - 1979)
Wife of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 
First Lady of the United States (1953 – 1961)
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Here is your bit of “DC gossip” for the day: a Jell-o dessert recipe, for the holiday of Thanksgiving! It is Mamie Eisenhower’s famed Red Scare Thanksgiving Jell-o Dessert and it is best served chilled, to family members you hate … This vile thing is exactly what the Eisenhowers used to force-feed the Soviets … MORE

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Like any other era, the ’50s in the U.S. had good and bad going for it. Some folks wax nostalgic and think it was the best of times. It probably was for some of us. I don’t know if that decade had the corner on hokey, but there was a lot about food that was odd indeed.

Anything labor-saving was hot in post-war America. Consequently prefab foods were a hit, especially TV dinners. 1954 was the year Swanson’s put on their big push. Their frozen TV dinners were just 98 cents at the local Safeway grocery, which was fast putting the mom-and-pop stores out of business. After great drama and much battle with the dairy industry, food manufacturers were able to introduce yellow food coloring into margarine, which made it even more attractive to consumers than it was before. Fake butter! Does it get any better than that? The foods I found particularly irritating and unappealing, though, were the gelatin desserts.

Gelatin, collagen made from animal skin and bone, has been around for forever and used in both sweet and savory dishes. Apparently, though, the ubiquitous, jiggly dessert we now know, is relatively new culinary treat. Gelatin desserts were popular because they were sweet, cheap, and easy to make. That probably still accounts for its popularity. Non-cooks like my mother loved it. Apparently, so did such prestigious homemakers as Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower, a.k.a. Mamie. She was our First Lady.

When Mamie’s recipe for Frosted Mint Delight was published in one of the women’s magazines, my mother decided that this pedestrian dessert was, in fact, quite elitist. By god, if it was good enough for Mamie, it was good enough for us. We had it at Christmas “just like the Eisenhower’s!”  What! Ma, can’t we have baklava like the other Lebanese peasants? 

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Click here for Mrs. Eisenhower’s so-called “Red Scare” Jello Dessert and background info. It’s a funny tongue-in-cheek thing, but it does go to prove Mamie was famous for gelatin desserts. It has been updated to include some contemporary products.

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If this old-time recipe appeals and you need to go gluten-free, you know the drill.  Be sure to find the brands that are allergy-free for you.

It strikes me that the really scary thing about this is that it was probably invented by a White House Chef – perhaps Francois Rysavy – not Mamie, and then just promoted as Mamie’s recipe by the PR people. Come on, Frank, couldn’t you come up with something better?

Mrs. Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s Frosted Mint Delight

The recipe

Serves 10-12

  • 2 1-lbs. cans of crushed pineapple
  • 3/4 cup mint flavored apple jelly
  • 1 pint whipping cream
  • 2 teaspoons confection’s sugar
  • 1 package unflavored gelatin

Have all the ingredients chilled.  Melt the jelly and mix the crushed pineapple into it. Dissolve the package of gelatin in one cup of the juice from the pineapple.  Mix the gelatin mixture into the jelly mixture.  Whip the cream, sweeten it with the sugar, and fold it into the mixture.  Put it into the freezer until firm.  Do not freeze solid.

FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO

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As of July 2009, Mexican Americans make up 10.3% of the United States’ population with over 31,689,000 Americans listed as of Mexican ancestry. Mexican Americans comprise 66% of allHispanics and Latinos in the United States. The United States is home to the second largest Mexican community in the world second only to Mexico itself comprising nearly 22% of the entire Mexican origin population of the world.

I love the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May), which is celebrated in Mexico and the United States. I love the people, the idea, the food, the music. So much color and spice.  You can link HERE to a hub with Mexican recipes (scroll down).  You can link to a short history of the holiday HERE.

♥ ♥ ♥

I don’t know how authentic this recipe is, but it was a hit with my family.  We made it for the first time the night of the first presidential debate (October 15, 2008 – Obama and McCain), which we watched together.  Unfortunately, the debate wasn’t as spicy as the soup.

ALBONDIGAS (MEATBALL) SOUP, Wheat-and-Gluten free

½-lb. ground turkey breast

½-lb. GF (about two) chorizo sausage, remove meat from casings

½ cup raw brown rice

1 large organic, free-range omega-3 egg

¼ cup fresh mint leaves, finely minced

¼ cup fresh parsley, finely minced

3 T. olive oil

1 large yellow onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

1-32oz container Pacific free-range chicken broth, gluten-free

1 14.5oz can of organic, diced tomatoes

1-cup homemade or store-bought salsa

1-cup white wine (optional, use left-over wine or substitute water or tomato or vegetable juice)

3 cups cold water

2 large green bell pepper, slivered

1 celery-stick, diced

1 large zucchini cut in half-moons

1 medium carrot, diced

2 fists of fresh spinach leaves

½ cup minced parsley

Cumin, Chili Powder, and Oregano to taste

Salt, optional (I don’t add it)

Toppings:

grated Anejo cheese or a quality Parmesan, optional

Diced avocado and sliced lime

Minced cilantro, optional

Prepare Meatballs: In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, chorizo, brown rice, egg, mint, and parsley.  Mix well and, using about a tablespoon, form into meatballs.  You should get around 25-30 meatballs.

Assemble and cook soup: In a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients, brown the onions in the olive oil until golden.  When they seem almost there, add the minced garlic, being careful not to let it get too dark or it will be bitter.  Next, add liquids to pot along with the herbs (except for the cilantro) and spices.  Bring broth to a boil and then lower to a simmer.  Add the meatballs, cover, and poach for twenty minutes.  Next, add vegetables except for spinach.  Cover the pot and simmer for about twenty minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.  Add the spinach for the last five minutes of cooking time. Before serving, try a meatball to be sure the rice is completely cooked.  If the rice is not cooked through, continue simmering for a few more minutes until it is.

With a salad, this serves six.

Mexican-American singer, Linda Ronstadt, singing Mi Ranchito that is from her album Mas Canciones, which won the 1993 Grammy Award for Grammy Award for Best Mexican/Mexican-American Album

Photo credit - a work of an employee of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, taken or made during the course of the person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.