Red Sauce with Crabs

12 small crabs*
olive oil for sauteing
6-8 cloves of garlic
a splash of red wine
Tomato sauce made with: 3 big and 2 little tomatoes, a little sugar, fresh basil to taste, and 2 bay leaves

Clean the crabs and saute them with the garlic in a little olive oil.  Add in the rest of the ingredients and cook until done.**
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*This reminds me of the time Grandmom and I decided to eat crabs since I was up there and Grandmom therefore had justification for buying them.  We both love seafood.  Grandpop does not.  Or rather, he didn't before their marriage, went through a 20-year period where he did like it after being tricked into eating it, much the same way he learned to appreciate rabbit, and then in recent years has returned to his original seafood-hating state.  So we went to the grocery store to purchase some crabs, which in New Jersey is not a difficult thing to do.  But lo and behold!  That day, there were no large, luscious Alaskan crab legs or Snow crab legs for us to take home and boil up with a hint of Old Bay and dunk in hot melted butter.  No.  The only crabs to be gotten in the midst of the summer were little blue crabs.  So we bought them, and took them home, and made this sauce with them, which we ate on top of linguine.  The funny part is that you have to understand that when this recipe says "clean the crabs" it doesn't mean "take all the meat out of the shells"-- it just means "run them bad boys under some water so you don't eat sand and crab poop."  So the crabs should be, and were, in shell.  Hard shells.  And they were little crabs.  So, we started out with a serving platter piled high, I mean high, with tiny cooked crabs, and we, seafood lovers that we are, and stubborn people that we are, commenced to eating them.  When we conceded that we were done, two and a half hours later, we had made it about 3/4ths of the way down, sucking every tiny claw to its very core along the way.  Grandpop had left the table after finishing his non-seafood alternative about a half-hour into the crab festival muttering something about how we were eating too much.  But, as anybody who has ever tried to eat a tiny crab can tell you, there ain't a lot of meat in them tiny crabs.  I think we got more calories from the linguine.  But it was a delicious and messy experience and, honestly, that's what eating crabs should be.

**"Until done."  Possibly the two most obscure words in the English language.  It assumes so much of the recipe reader, like that they know what done is, what it looks like, and about how long it takes to get there.  In this case, you should have a nice saucy tomato sauce (not cooked salsa), and your crabs should be safe to consume without fear of horrible digestive consequences.  So at least 30 minutes on medium-low (think "simmer").  Maybe an hour.  An added benefit to making this sauce is that you have deliciously crabby red sauce left long after you finish off your tiny crabs, which you can soak into good Italian bread (the sauce, not the tiny crabs) or coat more luxurious pasta with.  A good pasta sauce should go a long way.

Repurposed Food

Dear Blog Readers:

Today I admit that eating leftovers has its limits.  There, it's in print.  Remember the pasta part of the unsatisfactory bean and pasta soup?  That went into my freezer, to be removed and repurposed at some point in the future?  Well, I repurposed it into some Vegetarian Chop Suey.  Now, you would think that the very same person who wrote a whole tirade on how you really can't make good pastry without a fat is the now the exact same person who tried to make a beef and macaroni casserole with no beef and recycled macaroni.  Let me spell it out for you.  N. A. S. T. Y.  What's that?  Naaaaaaaaasty.  How was it?  NASTY!  And yet it sits in my lunch bag right now, along with some corn muffins that are even more bricklike than the edible doorstop, which I actually finished off.  I feel like I need to have a Guy Fawkes Day just for my leftovers.  TLC can even come over and do a reality show about my food hoarding, and if they pay me enough I'll pretend to have a breakdown watching the show crew go through my freezer.  If they pay off my student loans, I'll even pretend to have a breakthrough and let them come back six months later to film me eating single servings of things so they can dub that music over it that they usually play in made for tv movies during the part where the mother and daughter are reunited.  You know, a bittersweet piano solo with maybe some windchimes thrown in at the end.  Anyway, today is the day that I admit that there are worse things than thowing out more than one serving of food.  Like eating it for a week and hating every minute of it and then eating out, which definitely does NOT save money.

Crispy Honey-Mustard Breaded Eggplant

1 large eggplant
breading
ample seasoned breadcrumbs
a 2:1 mixture of mustard to honey -or- a prepared honey-mustard from the store
about 1 C. buttermilk

1/4 C. butter or oil

Wash and peal your eggplant, cutting off the green stem part at the top.  Slice it in half longways, then into wide strips about 1/2" thick (1 cm) by 4-6 inches long (10-15 cm), basically the size and shape of a deck of cards*.  But this is the vegetable world we're talking about here, so don't get your perfectionism on.  Just make sure they're not too thick.  Preheat a large a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat.  DO NOT PUT ANY OIL IN IT!!!  When a drop of water sizzles in the pan, lay your eggplant pieces in there on a single layer, doing batches if you have to.  Cook them on each side until they get dark golden brown on each side, then remove them to a plate.  When all your eggplant slices are brown, prepare three dishes or bowls: one with honey-mustard, one with breadcrumbs, and one with buttermilk.  In the meantime, slice your butter into pats into a large glass baking dish or just put the oil in the bottom of the dish.  Either way, put the dish in an oven preheated to 400F.  (Don't stress that I didn't tell you to preheat the oven until this point-- you have plenty to do while the oven gets hot enough after this point.)  Dredge your eggplant slices well until coated on each side in each of the three bowls in this order: honey-mustard, breadcrumbs, buttermilk, breadcrumbs.  When you're done, put the breaded pieces in the glass baking dish and return it to the oven.  Bake for 30 minutes, turning them about 15 minutes into the process, or until they are done on both sides.  They may or may not technically be what is described as "crispy".  This is okay.  They will still be "crunchy".  Voila!  Serve while hot.  Makes about 6 servings.
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*I hesitated to use words like "filet" or "steak" or "tender" even though this recipe is inspired by a couple of different baked-chicken recipes I like, because I wasn't sure those words were descriptive enough for the purpose-- the key to getting a good texture with eggplant, which has a lot of water in it, is to slice it thin enough to cook the water out without burning it.

So, eggplant that is not a "steak" or a "tender" but is styled after "chicken".  At this point, I basically have made a challenge to myself to see how long I can go without buying meat in the grocery store.  ('Cause is espensive.)  But yet, I still crave meatiness more than I (or my waistline) can afford to get it eating out.  So, this is my first attempt at vegetable chicken-like food.  The prior vegetarian main dish recipes posted here are pretty satisfactory in the "red meat replacement" category, but honestly, I have been eating more of, and there are more vegetable-based recipes for, pretend red meat than I ever ate of the real thing.  So, I've been wanting something I could use in my kitchen with all the great chicken recipes I have.  This recipe is pretty tasty both in flavor and in texture, and I hope to use eggplant successfully in other recipes in the future.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

As many green tomatoes as you want!
plenty of salt, olive oil, fresh peppermint and leaves, sliced garlic cloves, and hot peppers

Slice the green tomatoes.  Salt them well and let them sit at least 12 hours.  Rinse them and, in prepared jars, layer the tomatoes with the fresh herbs and sliced garlic, and fill the remaining space with olive oil.  Stuff whole hot peppers down the side of the jar or wherever you can find space.*  Put the lids on the jar and can as appropriate.  Serve on slices of Italian bread.**

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It's Lent, and Lent reminds me that springtime is just around the corner, and the fresh bright taste of pickles is just what I need to suit my mood.  Technically, pickles tend to be more of a fall-winter thing, I know-- it's what you do when you're sick of eating whatever your garden is producing fresh and what you eat when the trees and garden are bare.  Maybe that's why I think of pickles in the springtime, then-- it's the freshest thing around until the first peas and baby carrots come up.  Great-grandmom Canduci made plenty of pickles in her day, as well as Great-grandpop Canduci, who is still known for his homemade smoked sausage.  Apparently the girls of the family got out of the sausage making and procuring festivities.  So while my Grandmom and her sisters were at home making pickles, my Great-uncles were off learning the ins and outs of hog-slaughtering!

*If you're new to canning, I will warn you now: spicy things get spicier the longer they sit.  I guess the flavors have a longer amount of time to come out of the food.  But the point is: don't put too many hot peppers in your tomatoes, because however hot the resulting combination is today, it will literally double, triple, and quadruple its hotness over the space of a few weeks and months.

**Drool.  If there's anything better than good Italian cooking, it's good Italian cooking served alongside a good, fresh, crusty-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside Italian bread.  It should scrub your gums a little (and hold up to a dip in the soup) but be flavorful enough to take unsalted butter in liberal amounts without a processed bread aftertaste.  In Riverside, you can buy this bread at the supermarket and pay about $2 for it.  New Jersey shoppers laugh in the face of Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for the most part, which peddle things we can get or make on our own under the guise of "gourmet" or "exotic" items.  It is a sad state of things when a good loaf of bread is exotic and saleable at exotic prices. 

Oven Baked Chicken

The Simplest Chicken Recipe Ever

1 roaster chicken
potatoes, washed and peeled, and cut into large chunks (at least 1potato per person)
garlic powder
oregano
salt

Put the potatoes in the bottom of your baking dish, which is preferably a deep but not necessarily large or wide glass dish or casserole.  Rinse the chicken in the sink.  If you're buying your chicken in the US, take out the bag of organs stuffed, aptly, in the chicken's body cavity.*  Season it all over with the garlic powder, oregano, and salt, all to taste, but make sure to rub all of these well into the chicken's skin.  Place the seasoned bird on top of the potatoes in your dish, and then bake it at 350-400F for about 1 hour, or until fully cooked.**
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*In the Canduci family, you don't throw the guts away, you save them and make something else out of them at a later time.  Like gravy.  But people tend to have strong feelings about organ meat, so I'm not going to try to sell them on anybody in this post.

**I don't buy into that BS about "until the chicken reaches 160F internally."  A) Even if you have a meat thermometer, you have to be a meat thermometer pro not to stick it in some part of the relatively small chicken that is going to give you an inaccurate picture of how hot your chicken is.  B) Meat (and most other things) continue cooking after they're removed from the source of heat (this is why you should run your hand under cool water for about 10 minutes after your burn it), so waiting until the chicken is, thermally speaking, "cooked" to remove it from the oven pretty much guarantees it will be over-cooked by the time you eat it, unless you're in the habit of plunging your chicken in an icewater bath immediately after you take it out of the oven.  There is a better way than getting salmonella or taking your chicken on a polar bear swim.  Cook the chicken at the oven temperature the recipe recommends for 30 minutes per pound of chicken.  After that time, take it out, make a slice into the breast, and inspect the color of the meat and juice.  If the meat is light pink or white and the juice is clear, your chicken is, for all practical purposes, done with its time in the oven.  If the meat is dark pink, or if the juice is pink or bloody, put the chicken back in for at least another 15 minutes and then check it again.  (More like 30 minutes if the meat is a pretty dark pink, and if it looks "rare", well, you've got 45 minutes looking at you between now and dinner.  Sorry, just sayin'.)  After it's done according to the above guidelines, remove it from the oven and let it sit out on the counter, covered in a little tinfoil tent for about 5-10 minutes.  If you feel crafty you can even stick your meat thermometer in the appropriate place on the chicken (or leave it in there, if you were using it all along) and watch the temperature of the chicken continue to rise as it sits on the counter.

White Spaghetti with Chicken

1-1/2 to 2 lbs chicken, defatted and cut into pieces
5-6 garlic cloves, sliced
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil for cooking
1/4 C. red wine
parsley and salt and pepper to taste
1-2 pototoes, cubed
1 1/2 C. frozen peas
1 lb spaghetti, cooked

In hot oil, fry the chicken pieces just a little bit-- don't let them get brown.  Then add in the onion, garlic, parsley, and potatoes.  Add in the red wine and let everything simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes.  Add in 4-5 glasses* of water-- enough to cover the chicken-- and the package of frozen peas.  Let it simmer until there is enough sauce for the spaghetti.  (Note from 4/89-- "Too much water.")
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Mystery Ingredient solved: it was a quantifiable amount of peas.  There is still no direction on spaghetti, but I'm guessing that is due to the cooking style of Great-grandmom, which basically dictated that you put in as much spaghetti as you have people to feed, and they'll eat it and like it!

Okay, first things first.  There is a mystery ingredient that I need to get with my cousin Judi to clarify what it is.  It may be spaghetti, since it's not (as far as I can tell) mentioned in this recipe other than in the title.  The 1 lb is my thought on how much spaghetti you would need to go with this sauce.

*I'm not sure if Great-grandmom Canduci was talking about her juice glasses (6 oz.) or water tumblers (12-16oz.)  Either way, it's a lot of water.  Based on the rest of the recipe, what I would do is get to the point where you would be adding in the water and peas, and add in the peas first.  Then, stir everything around in the pot so it's in an even layer on the bottom, with chicken pieces and onions and the like peeking up amongst the peas.  Then I would add in enough water to just go over the top of the peas and proceed as directed.

Vegetarian Hot-Hot Dish

5 medium potatoes, partially peeled and cut into large chunks*
3 medium carrots, fully peeled and sliced into coins
1/2 C. white beans
1/2 C. cooked barley
1/4 C. bread crumbs
oil for cooking
salt and pepper to taste
1 TB. molasses
1 TB. lemon juice
1 TB. Worchestershire sauce
1/4 C. prepared Korean BBQ sauce
1/3 C. ketchup
1/4 C. milk (optional)
1/4 C. butter (optional)

Make the vegetarian ground beef crumble out of 1/2 C. white beans (chopped in the food processor or lightly mashed), 1/2 C. cooked barley, 1/4 C. bread crumbs, and 1 TB. of the Korean BBQ sauce.  Heat a generous amount of cooking oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add in the crumble mixture and let it sit and sizzle for about 5 minutes undisturbed.  Break it up and turn it with a spatula so that you have crumbley pieces (uncooked it's sort of a paste), about 5-10 more minutes.  In the meantime, put your potatoes and carrots in two pots over high heat and bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-high and boil until done.  Remove the crumbles from the heat when they're done.  Drain the potatoes and carrots; set the carrots aside.  Using the pot you cooked the potatoes in, melt the butter and scald the milk.  Add the potatoes back into the pot and mash them well, adding salt and pepper to taste-- I used about 1 tsp. of each.  In a small bowl, mix together the lemon juice, molasses, Korean BBQ sauce, ketchup, and Worchestershire sauce.  Preheat the oven on the "broil" setting.  In a glass baking dish, put the cooked crumbles in an even layer on the bottom.  Spoon the sauce over top.  Layer on the cooked carrots, then top with your mashed potatoes, smoothing them to make sure they are an even thickness over the whole dish.  Put the baking dish in the oven and broil until the mashed potatoes begin to brown, about 5-10 minutes.  This is pretty delicious served over top of fresh salad greens, as shown, but would also be just as good served alongside a couple of cooked vegetables.
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This dish is hot, hot, hot!  Okay, it's not that hot really.

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*Being a woman, I'm well-versed in the benefits of a diet high in B-vitamins such as the ones found in the skins of potatoes.  To make a compromise between flavor and nutritional quality, I peel my patotoes in stripes (instead of peeling all of the skin off) and use them that way.

The name of this recipe is tongue-in-cheek in more than one way.  Way number 1: "hot dish" is a midwestern staple that has potatoes and ground beef, much like this dish, which has a vegetarian "ground beef" crumble and mashed potatoes on top.  Way number 2: the prepared Korean BBQ sauce makes it kinda spicy (ha ha ha "hot dish", "hot-hot dish").  Way number 3: during a time when I had a burning need to own a pet rabbit, the perfect pet (I never did get one), I discovered that there is a breed of rabbits called the Hothot.  Also there are dwarf Hothots.  Since this is vegetarian, it's rabbit food!  Yes, congratulate me.  Creative Writing degree successfully used once again.

Boost! Pickles

I couldn't resist trying the Boost! pickles as I was stirring them today.  (I forgot to mention earlier-- stir your pickles about once a day to ensure that all your produce gets well-steeped in the pickling solution.)  One word: BOOSTALICIOUS!  I'm guessing that they got flavorful sooner than I expected due to the acid content in the Boost! as well as the vinegar.  But don't mistake me: these are sweet and tangy pickles with a lovely citrus flavor from the Boost! and not at all too harsh.  Success! 
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2 unripe peaches, sliced thinly
1 regular sized cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced
about 1 C. each of white wine vinegar and Boost! syrup (enough to cover the produce)

Combine all in a non-reactive dish* or casserole and let sit in the refridgerator until mature, about 2-3 days. 
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*If you be making pickles, I assume you know what a non-reactive dish is but, then again, you may not...so, a "non-reactive dish" is one that won't break down in the presence of the acid in the vinegar or impart weird flavors to your food.  No Grandma's special wood salad bowl that you never clean except with salad dressing, also preferably no metal mixing bowls or plastic storage containers.  Although I have been known to make and store pickles in all of the above.  (Except the wood bowl.  I don't have one of those.)  Basically your pickles will taste a little better and also less likely to give you cancer at a later date if you make them in something glass or ceramic.

Normally I wouldn't post a recipe with an uncertain outcome (see "Edible Doorstop"), but pickles take some time to mature and I'm afraid that if I wait until they're definitively good or bad I will have forgotten all about posting them as a recipe...or eaten them all.  They get their name from a beverage manufactured and (for the most part) consumed exclusively in Riverside, NJ, a town which is a mile square and also, coincidentally, my home town.  It's a cola-like substance, but not carbonated, and instead of the mediciney flavor of more mainstream colas (Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc.), it boasts a lemon-lime flavor.  And more caffeine, I am convinced, than Mountain Dew.  It's potent.  Why do I keep typing it with an exclamation point?  Because that is its actual name.  Not just "Boost", but "Boost!".  That's pretty much how you have to say it, too, because of its deliciousness and high caffeine content.  My personal favorite way to enjoy it is as a Boost! slushie, but I got inspired to make pickles out of the concentrate when I got down to the pickle-making I meant to do this week.  (Did I mention that Boost! is sold only as a concentrate, so you can mix it as strong as you like?  I'm surprised it hasn't caught on with the long-haul truckers and night owls before now.)  Should you feel a deep burning need to either drink Boost! or make these pickles out of it and don't live in Riverside, NJ, the website where it can be purchased is http://www.takaboost.com/ 

Good Banana Bread versus the Edible Doorstop

Good Banana Bread

1 egg
1 overripe banana, thoroughly mashed
1/3 C. brown sugar mixed with a little water to make a syrup
1/3 C. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 tsp. baking soda
2/3 C. flour
1/3 C. boiling BOILING YES I SAID BOILING water

Butter a small loaf pan and preheat the oven to 325F.  In one bowl, combine the eggs, mashed banana, brown sugar/water combo, vanilla, and oil.  In another bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda.  Mix the two together, scraping the bottom to ensure that all the wet and all the dry make friends.  Pour your BOILING water over the top in one fell swoop, then quickly stir it into the batter.  Pour it all into the loaf pan, and put in the oven for 45 minutes.  Do not peek!  Once the 45 minutes has elapsed, turn off the oven without opening it and let the banana bread sit in there another 5 or 10 minutes, then remove it and let it cool still in the pan another 10 minutes before trying to get it out.  At this point you can slice it. 

You could probably include 1/3 C. to 1/2 C. chopped nuts of your choice.  I would have, except I used mine all up on the edible doorstop.  I may still try and polish that turd by ressurecting it (not to mix my metaphors or anything) as an incorporation in an original dessert creation.  I mean, heck, it's already original if one of the staple ingredients is "edible doorstop".



Good Banana Bread

versus

Edible Doorstop

I have been deeply discontented with the banana bread I made a couple of days ago and which recipe I refused to post here on the blog.  Discontent can be a constructive thing if, you know, you construct things out of it.  Like freedom movements and better banana bread recipes.  Otherwise you basically wallow in your own disgust.  I have been discontented with my life the last few weeks, even though I know better.  How can one person be happy and discontented at the same time?  Not only am I well aware that there is the greater portion of the world that would be delighted to have my life, I know that even me from ten years ago would be astounded that I would not be content with the life I have today. 

So, I put my favorite tunes on Pandora and set out the build a better banana bread.  This banana bread recipe was inspired by my favorite gingerbread recipe, which came from a recipe book called “Ashevittles” published by the Catholic diocese of Asheville, North Carolina, and by an inspired conversation with one of my very best friends.  In addition, the idea for a brown sugar/water combo (to replace the molasses that normally goes in the gingerbread) came from her dad’s banana pudding recipe. Which just goes to show that the people who touch your life are a source of much good and happiness.

Vegetarian Meatballs in their Media Debut

Vegetarian Meatballs

So here's a picture of the vegetarian meatballs.  They can also be fried instead of baked (with or without sauce), and I haven't tried it, but they hold up well enough that I bet you could actually simmer them in a sauce on top of the stove.  The recipe makes about 3-4 servings of about 3-4 meatballs.  No, I'm still not going to call them "beanballs" or "vegetarian balls" or anything besides a meatball.  It's meaty, it takes the role of protein in a meal, it's a meat.  Unless you can point out to me the greater Meatabeast of Central Africa, I refuse to linguistically acknowledge that all meat must come from animal muscle fiber.  Just call me "Dona Quixote".

A word on all the vegetarian recipes all of a sudden: of course health professionals have been telling us all for years now to eat less red meat and more fiber, but mainly  my sudden interest stems from the fact that I can buy enough protein for a "serves 4-6 meal" for between 25 and 50 cents.  (50 cents if I feel lazy and use precooked canned beans.)  Whereas the same amount of meat would cost $3-$6.  Plus I get to hold over everybody's heads how healthy I am and how I go look at the ducks in the park and feel self-righteous about not wanting to eat them.

Vegetarian Men Cannot Bake Banana Bread

I would post to you a delicious banana bread recipe, except I haven't found one yet.  I have had relatively good success with my latest cookbook trial, from whence came (with modifications and improvements) some of my recent posts.  However, the banana bread I made was, sadly, lacking.  It tastes good, don't get me wrong.  But apparently a good banana bread recipe is like the Holy Grail or a piece of the One True Cross: everyone supposedly has one, and yet it cannot be found.  To do justice to the male vegetarian author of the cookbook, my family recipe for banana bread is all wrong in other directions, and it was authored by women who were not vegetarians. 

Apparently banana bread is an equal opportunity offender.  Its offense appears to fall into one of two categories: overly dense (vegetarian cookbook), or overly sweet (my family recipe).  Now I don't know about you, but I do not intend to use my baked goods for doorstops, nor do I consider it acceptable to have the sugar-to-flour ratio be 1:1 (not even kidding-- this is why diabetes is more prevalent in the American South).  In addition, the vegetarian cookbook committed the previously here-chronicled crime of listing 3 bananas and 2 eggs as enough wet ingredients for 2 cups of flour and assorted leavening.  No wonder it's a doorstop.  I had to add some milk just to be able to pour it in the loaf pan.  If I hadn't added the milk I probably would become known in history as the original discoverer of biodegradeable bricks. 

So ladies, if you have an unwelcome suitor, by all means surprise him with some of that banana bread.  Otherwise, I'm open to suggestions for a better recipe. 

Zucchini Bread

3 eggs
2-1/4 C. sugar
2 C. shredded zucchini*
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 C. chopped nuts
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 C. oil
3 C. flour
4 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Mix together the eggs, oil, and zucchini.  In a separate bowl, whisk together** all of the dry ingredients except the nuts.  Combine the two mixtures, then fold in the nuts***.  Grease and flour two loaf pans.  Pour the batter equally into the two pans and bake for one hour or until they pass the toothpick test****.  Let cool before slicing.  Good with butter on top!
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"Good with butter on top!"  Once I got to four stars, I just gave up.  I think everything is good with butter on top, especially all things bread. 

****"The toothpick test" is what I call that part of the recipe that goes "until a toothpick inserted [in the middle] comes out clean."  Excuse me, but what middle, what is the definition of "clean", and why is this important?  All questions I used to ask myself when I was a less-experienced baker.  So I'm going to answer them for you. 

1) "In the middle": in all honesty, the best test is to poke the baked item in two or three places, one of which should be the middle, or the thickest part, whichever is thicker.

2) "the definition of clean": depends on your baked good.  For example, since this a fairly moist sweet bread, I would consider "toothpick emerges with a few moist crumbs sticking to it" to indicate doneness.  For a full-on cake (like a yellow cake or pound cake) I would hold out until the toothpick came out with nothing on it.  If at any time gooey stuff, even gooey crumbs, are apparent on your toothpick, put that bad boy back in the oven and try again in a few minutes.  While we're on the subject, unless you want to heat the whole house with your oven, get you some hot pads, take the baking pan fully out of the oven and close the oven door while you're checking it.  This prevents additional baking time while the oven regains all the heat lost while you crouched in front of the oven door doing the toothpick test.  (It goes without saying...or does it?...that you then set your baking dish on some other heat resistant surface like the stovetop after closing the oven but before trying to stick a toothpick in it.)  Incidentally, spellcheck wanted me to replace "stovetop" with "stevedore."  I don't think a stevedore would appreciate a hot baking dish being set on top of him, and since he's a stevedore he, like a mule (according to my uncle) is big enough to do something about it.

3) This is important because otherwise you will have pancake batter on your plate instead of a luscious fully-cooked baked good when you go to cut it.

***"Fold in the nuts": saving the nuts for last ensures that they are fully incorporated, and also prevents them sinking to the bottom of your bread while it bakes.

**Some people bother to sift things with an actual sifter.  Some recipes call for "thus and such amount sifted ingredient" which is a crafty way of saying "first sift this and get [ingredient] all over your countertop, then try to measure fairy dust, then repeat when you only have half as much as you need."  I avoid those recipes.  This recipe calls for the amount you need to dump out of the flour jar into the bowl.  Then use a wire whisk (like you use for scrambled eggs) and whisk all the dry stuff with the whisk.  It fluffs up your dry ingredients so your bread will be light and causes that much less heartache in he kitchen.  It's neater, too.

*Now the zucchini, on the other hand...shred you some zucchini.  If you happen to have a garden, rejoice in the amount of whole zucchinis you need to make up 2 cups of shredded zucchini. 

Javelinas / True Love, Fifties-Style

2-2/3 C. all-purpose flour
1/3 C. whole wheat flour
1 TB. baking powder
1/2 C. milk
1/4 C. shortening
1/2 C. molasses
2/3 C. brown sugar
1 tsp. anise seeds
1 C. golden raisins
1 egg, separated
1 tsp. vanilla
granulated sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine the flours and baking powder.  In a separate bowl, blend together the shortening and brown sugar.  Add in the molasses and vanilla.  Beat in the egg yolk.  Combine the flour and egg mixtures.  Blend in the raisins and anise seed.  Add milk to moisten until the consistency is somewhat akin to scone dough.  Turn out onto a floured work surface and knead briefly, just until the dough hangs together well.  Pat into a round, then pat the round out to 1/2-inch (1 cm-ish) thickness.  Cut into rounds with a biscuit cutter --or-- use a pig-shaped cookie cutter.  Place them on a greased baking sheet about a half-inch apart and brush the tops with the reserved egg white.  Sprinkle them with generously with granulated sugar.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until done.  (They will rise somewhat and the sugar on top will brown.)
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The difference between Grandmom and me (so I thought) was that I had a more adventurous and reckless nature.  Grandmom doesn't go out of the house with the dryer still running.  I still occasionally put things in the oven that are going to take a long time before I leave the house on purpose.  I don't do so very often, because eventually I am overcome by the possibility of returning to my house to find it a smoking ruin.  It's never happened, but you try driving home hoping your house hasn't recently been put out by the fire department and see how inclined you are to do it again.  There you go.  Some people, like Grandmom, could not even bear the possibility.  I, on the other hand, eventually forget the possibility and live to tempt disaster once again.  And so I thought that was the way things stood amongst us, until Grandmom told me about her other fiance. Yes, all this time I thought Grandpop was her first love.  In my imagination it could have been taken right from a script for "The Donna Reed Show".  But oh, no, I was wrong.  She was about 20 years old, and she had been seeing this other boy from her high school since she was fourteen, so about six years.  Eventually, they got engaged.  And then, she and my Grandpop (who also went to the same school) both went to a party hosted by mutual friends.  At some point during the party, Grandpop called out "WHO WANTS TO SIT ON MY LAP?!"  And Grandmom decided that she wanted to.  She told me that at that moment she knew that she loved that other guy "like a brother", and she broke it off to go out with Grandpop!  So I guess I come by it naturally.

Bean & Nut Cutlets

1/2 C. canned or fully cooked (until soft) red beans
1/2 C. nut of your choice*
1 egg
1/3 C. Italian-style breadcrumbs + extra for breading (another 1/3 C. or so)
1 small onion, minced
1/4 tsp. salt
pepper to taste
Oil for cooking

Chop the nuts finely.  Mash the beans or process them in the food processor until they are finely chopped also.  Combine all ingredients.  Start heating the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Sprinkle the remaining breadcrumbs on a plate.  With wet hands, grab a golfball-sized chunk of cutlet blend (what exactly do you call a bean & nut cutlet before it's a cutlet?) and maneuver it into the palm of your hand.  Pat it to about 3/4-inch (2 cm) thick.  Drop it onto the plate with the breadcrumbs.  Gently turn it over to bread the other side.  (They can be kind of loose, so basically use the stickiness of your cutlety fingers to pick it up.)  Repeat until no more cutlet blend is is left.  Using a spatula, slide the cutlets one at a time into the skillet once the oil is hot enough.  Cook on each side, turning once, until both sides are a toasty brown and they are pretty firm.  They should feel like a loose salmon croquette when you poke them (not too hard!) with the spatula.  Once you remove them from the pan you can drain them or not.  I didn't, and they didn't seem greasy to me.  Yum!  Serve with your favorite meaty sauces, like BBQ or honey mustard.
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*I had some leftover hazelnuts, so I used half and half hazelnuts and walnuts.  I think any tree nut would probably taste fine, though, and even peanuts, especially if you were going for a Thai theme.

Once, way back in the day, I toyed with "being a vegetarian".  You know, as a "lifestyle choice", kind of like how some people are hipsters and some people take personal meaning from owning show cats.  I just want to say now that, no matter what I eat, in what quantities, and with whatever frequency, I will never "be a vegetarian".  I think very few choices in life really are portentious enough to warrant a state a being, and that those choices should be given respect.  I think some people would have us all believe that "being a vegetarian" and "not being a serial killer" are essentially equal life choices.  (Let's just pretend that we proceed to have a big "meat is murder" argument but not actually do it.  All I'm saying is, until you start prosecuting the lions in Africa, or admit that human beings should adhere to higher moral standards in the rest of their lives as well as their dietary choices "because we're more evolved", leave me alone.)

Sea Legs Salad / The Art of War at Lunchtime

1 pkg sea legs, cut into 2-inch (5cm)-long chunks*
1/4 onion, minced fine
1/4 C. mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste

Combine all in a bowl, tossing until the sea legs are well-coated with spices and mayonnaise.  Serve on a hard roll.
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*I think the official name for this product is surimi, but Grandmom has always called it "sea legs".  Another word for it is "imitation crab meat".  It is pretty crabby, I have to admit.  It's the stuff you find in your no-raw-fish-allowed sushi roll.  It's made of white fish, so it's definitely not vegetarian!

This recipe is akin to the hotdog sanwiches, in that it is simple, unpretentious, and very tasty.  If I had to pick between canned tuna salad and sea legs salad, I would pick the sea legs any day of the week.  Typically this is served at lunch, the most perilous time of the day if you're trying not to eat your weight.  (Incidentally, I found a picture of me from when I was fat, and I was pretty cute!  I'm glad for my health that I'm slimmer, but I think I let myself get too stressed out about it at the time.)  Anyway, if you're still having fat flashbacks like Steve Carrell's character in the movie remake of "Get Smart", lunchtime can be intimidating.  Not only is "finish, finish" fully in play, but there's also the added peer- (Grandmom-) pressure to "eat up the leftovers".  Because, you know, "must not throw away".  Except Grandmom made enough food the last three nights for a group of "4-6" and there's only 3 of you: you (see above need to not get fat again), Grandmom (practices what she preaches), and Grandpop, who has learned the fine art of "no" over 58 years of marriage.  Eventually you learn some survival strategies-- eat really, reaaaally slowly, take first helpings that are a third of what you would actually want, and learn to give the Italian Guilt Trip as good as you get it.  Yes, it's true: sometimes the only way to get Grandmom to cease and desist is to launch something like "You're trying to make me fat!  You want me to be fat?!?! (make "I caught a fish thiiiis biiig" hands)"

Vegetarian Meatballs, Italian-Style / When A Romantic Comedy Causes Noise Ordinance Violation

1 16oz. can cooked cannelini beans
1/3 C. Italian-style breadcrumbs
1 C. cooked barley (or rice would probably do as well)*
1/4 C. oatmeal**
1 egg
1/2 of a tomato, chopped
2-3 TB. of chopped onion
2-3 TB. Parmesan cheese + some for topping (if you prefer)
pepper and garlic powder to taste

cooking oil
spaghetti sauce

Process the cannelini beans in a food processor until they are coarsely chopped.  Combine them in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients (except for the cooking oil and spaghetti sauce).  Add more oatmeal or breadcrumbs if necessary until the mixture is about like a meatloaf would be in consistency.  (Ergo, cohesive but somewhat loose.)  Preheat the oven to 400F.  Put the cooking oil in a thin layer on the bottom of a glass baking dish.  One at a time, and with wet hands, form meatballs out of the bean mixture.*** Place them in the baking dish so that they don't touch each other.  Put the dish in the oven and bake them for 30-45 minutes, or until hot and fairly firm.  Remove them from the oven and pour a little spaghetti sauce over each meatball.  (I refuse to call it a beanball.)  Return them to the oven and bake about 5 more minutes.  Put your meatballs on a serving platter or dish.  Top them with spaghetti sauce and Parmesan cheese like you would a regular meatball.  Heck, if you feel extra crafty cook some pasta and serve them all in with that.
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*Yes, I used leftover barley.  Grandmom raised me well.  As further proof, I also used the beans, tomato, and onion from an unsatisfactory batch of Bean & Pasta Soup I made earlier this week without the benefit of chicken stock.  (Not intentionally-- I forgot I had bought seafood stock for the Loco Moco and didn't want to try that in my Bean & Pasta Soup, so used plain water as the base.  Yes, ugh.)  The pasta part of the soup is now sitting in my freezer, from whence came the barley.  Love me, love my leftovers. 

**You could dispense with the barley and rice and only use an equivalent amount of oatmeal if you wanted, although the barley gave the meatballs a nice bite.  I used the barley because a) I thought I could, b) FINISH FINISH NO THROW AWAY! and c) when I was making my grocery list I didn't include oatmeal because I knew I had some instant in the cabinet...instant maple-brown sugar flavored!  So basically what happened was this: I dumped the whole packet in, casually read the side of the paper as I was about to throw it away, and then hurriedly dumped out as much of the instant oatmeal as I could.  I then defrosted the barley.  Before I overcompensated with pepper they were some pretty maple syrup-flavored meatballs.

***This basically looks like you're playing a very slow and solemn game of "hot potato" with the vegetarian meatball.  And yes, the wet hands do really make it easier.  It has the same result as when you flour your hands before handling pastry or oil your hands before handling candy.  What this says about my vegetarian meatballs, I don't know.

Grandmom and I once had a shouting match over the tv.  Grandmom likes Romantic Comedies.  I do not, but hey, my choices were: sit in another room from the person I came to visit or watch a Romantic Comedy with her.  It happened to be "The Wedding Planner", starring J. Lo as The Lovelorn Underappreciated Career Woman Looking for Love and Matthew Mcconaughey as The Antihero Who Supposedly Wins the Audience with His Bad Boy Charm.  Long story short, by the end of the movie I was shouting at the tv like it was the superbowl for J.Lo's character to go with the nice Italian boy who came all the way from Italy to meet her, and my mild, gentle Grandmom was shouting right back, "BUT SHE DOESN'T LOVE HIM!!!!"   Only in an Italian household would two women watching a Romantic Comedy on a couch in front of the tv become loud. We may or may not have had ice cream afterwards.  Ice cream heals all wounds.