I had your birthday marked as today — and was going to wish you a big, happy one! So sorry. Hope it was terrific.
I just found out that Farmer Jones’ strawberry fields are open for picking, which is exactly what I plan on doing Thursday afternoon. Love your posts, Ronnie.
Submitted by Val Foster (valeriefoster@charter.net)
365 Days of Food
#157 Strawberry Jam (by JoeFoodie)
Using our fresh picked strawberries, we made jam this evening. A fun, if labor intensive, process. The jam is delicious - lots of strawberry chunks, super sweet with a slightly sour finish.
We had a strawberry patch in our backyard when I was a kid. If there was a big harvest my mother would cook up some strawberry jam and the house would smell like the cotton candy concession at an amusement park. Then there came the time when someone knocked over the filled Mason jars. It was proibably my brother, nicknamed Moose for obvious reasons. My mother had just filled those jars and hadn’t yet sealed the tops. All the thick red liquid spilled onto the kitchen floor like molten sugar lava. It was a complete disaster. Strawberry season was over and my mother, who had worked so long and hard, never made strawberry jam again. I am so happy to read that someone is doing it. BRAVO!
If you do it again, try adding peppercorns to some. DELISH!!
Hi Gillyf
I wrap baked apple pies in double plastic wrap and find that they keep well in the freezer for up to one year.
Hope your birthday was fantastic! Apple pie is a terrific tradition. If you make several at a time, how long can they stay in the freezer?
submitted by gillyf
Yesterday was my birthday so I ate a big fat hunk of …. APPLE PIE!
Because apple pie is better than any cake I can think of, especially store-bought cake, except for, maybe, Magnolia Bakery coconut cake. But if I bought one of those I would pick at it all weekend until everyone in my family ate half the cake and I ate the other half.
I love apple pie and my mother served one for every birthday of my adult life. There was always a candle stuck in the middle, just as if it were a cake. And so the tradition continues.
This year for the first time my grandson Zev tried the apple pie and declared it delicious. He’s kind of fussy and doesn’t eat much, so I consider his validation a great honor.
Btw, the best apples to use for pie are Rhode Island Greening, Granny Smith, Idared, Jonagold, Stayman, Golden Delicious, Braeburn, Gravenstein, Newton Pippin, Winesap, Northern Spy and Baldwin. Some of these are only available in Farmer’s Markets and farms. If you can get them, you might want to do what I do — make several pies when the good apples are ready and freeze them (fully baked). They are fine for about a year (wrap them in double layers of plastic wrap). Thaw and rebake to crisp the crust: place the thawed pie in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.
Here’s the recipe:
Apple Pie
crust:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon grated fresh lemon peel, optional
1/2 cup cold butter
1/3 cup cold vegetable shortening
4-6 tablespoons cold milk, juice, water or melted ice cream
apple filling
To make the crust: Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and lemon peel, if used, in a large bowl. Cut the butter and shortening into chunks and add the chunks to the flour mixture. Work the fat into the flour mixture until the ingredients resemble crumbs (use your hands, a pastry blender or the pulse feature of a food processor). Add the liquid, using only enough to gather pastry into a soft ball of dough (start with 4 tablespoons). Cut the dough in half and flatten each half to make a disk shape. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it stand at least 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly flour a pastry board or clean work surface. With a rolling pin, roll one half of the dough on the floured surface into a circle about 1/8-inch thick, making sure the circle is larger than the pie pan by about 1 inch. Place the dough in a 9” or 10” pie pan. Pour the apple filling into the pastry-lined pan. Cut the butter into small pieces and place on top of the filling. Roll out the remaining dough and place it over the filling. Gently press the bottom and top crusts together along the flared edge of the pie pan. For a fluted rim, press your thumb and index finger against the outside of the rim, or crimp it with the tines of a fork or the blunt side of a knife. Cut steam vents in the top crust with the tip of a sharp knife or the tines of a fork. Bake the pie for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown.
Apple Filling:
3 pounds pie apples (Rhode Island Greenings, Granny Smith, Gravenstein, Northern Spy, Golden Delicious, Idared, Stayman, Winesap, Baldwin, Jonagold, Braeburn
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter
Peel and core the apples then cut them into slices. Place the slices in a bowl. Add the 1/2 cup sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and flour and toss the ingredients to coat the apple slices evenly.
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My Dad took me to a baseball game once and all I talked about afterward was the hot dogs. He laughed about it for ages, but really, hots dogs are an integral part of the baseball game experience, don’t you think?
Like chili and guacamole and nachos are for football.
Like popcorn and basketball.
So, the World Cup is coming. What do soccer lovers eat while they watch?
I called Tigin, an “Official Soccer Bar” near where I live. They say the fans there order Fish and Chips or Shepherd’s Pie for the afternoon games but if it’s a morning game they’ll probably go for the full Irish Breakfast (bacon, eggs, black and white pudding, grilled tomatoes and baked beans).
But maybe there should be 32 different dishes for each country playing?
If you’re a soccer fan, you probably already know about www.bigsoccer.com. That site has game schedules and also a list of pubs near you that will be showing the games so you can watch with fellow fans. (Also everything else there is to know about soccer.)
But if you’re home, what do you cook?
That’s easy if Italy is playing (pasta). Or Mexico (nachos). Or the United States (barbecue). But what about Slovenia. Or Ghana?
I have to do some thinking. Don’t want to serve the same old thing all the time.
I’ll keep you posted.
Click here to ask Ronnie a question: http://ronniefein.com/ask
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Children and adults alike can’t deny the allure of strawberries. The fruit’s flavor is hard to resist, especially because it offers a guilt free way to satisfy your sweet craving. Strawberries are available year-round at your local grocery store of course, yet there’s nothing quite like…
There are no strawberries quite as delicious as the ones you grow. My parents had a strawberry patch in our backyard. They put the plants within metal-framed concentric circles that were built upward, almost like a pyramid. If the bunnies didn’t get the berries first we would wait until they were ripe and pick them by the bowlful. My Mom would make strawberry shortcake once or twice and insisted they be made with biscuits. She made what we know as her famous upper-lip sneer for what she considered fake strawberry shortcake made with yellow cake. Biscuits soaked up the strawberry juices and the whipped cream but they never got soggy. We ate hem too fast for that to happen.
Strawberry shortcake recipe: www.ronniefein.com
A while ago I mentioned I was using a new coffee maker. My old one, a Braun, was still fine but it was so old everyone I knew made fun of me for keeping it. It also didn’t match anything else in my kitchen.
I still can’t throw the old one away. It’s in my garage.
But I’ve been using the new Cuisinart for a few weeks now. It’s stainless steel and black and looks good in the kitchen and it makes good coffee. It took some getting used to (with the old Braun you could see from the outside how much water is in the tank; this one you have to look inside and it’s more difficult to tell).
My mother also once had an old pot that she never threw away. Not a coffee pot, but a small, one-quart saucepan that was lightweight and well used and full of lumps and bumps. It wobbled on the burner. She never used it. It was just there in the cabinet.
I once asked her why she kept it and she told me that when she heard the announcement on the radio that World War II was over she and everyone else in the neighborhood ran outside with pots and pans and started knocking them together.
It was her victory pot and she could never let it go.
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I can vouch for how great this ketchup is, and so worth the extra effort. Actually, this recipe got me thinking about devising one without sugar. I know it won’t be half as great, but then I can post it on my blog! Keep up the great work, Ronnie. Your posts are terrific.
Submitted by Val Foster
Originally, ketchup was tomato free. Ketchup apparently began in China, as a sauce called ke-tsiap, made from fish brine mixed with herbs. (pic via flickr)
Yes indeed and then all of a sudden someone used mushrooms instead of fish and the first vegetable ketchups were born. Along came cucumber ketchup, grape, walnut and lots of others.
I’ve made tomato ketchup (and other kinds of ketchup too). The tomato ketchup was really tasty, thick and tangy so I thought I would try it out on my father-in-law, who was a ketchup devotee. He said “this ketchup is delicious but it isn’t Heinz.” I said I knew that, but did he like it? And he said again “it’s delicious. It isn’t Heinz.”
To this day I don’t know whether he was just comparing the two or whether he liked Heinz — or mine — better.
But in case you’re at a Farmer’s market and can buy a load of tomatoes, (maybe this will have to wait till the end of summer), and you want ketchup that’s tasty, thick and tangy, try my recipe:
Ketchup
8 pounds tomatoes, quartered
4 medium onions, finely chopped
2 cups white vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons celery salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cinnamonstick
1 tablespoon ustard seed
2 dried hot chili peppers, optional
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon whole cloves
Place the tomatoes and onions in a large, deep pot and bring to a boil over high heat. (Do not add water.) Lower the heat and simmer the vegetables for about 30 minutes or until they are soft. Strain the vegetables through a sieve or strainer extracting as much liquid as possible, and reserve the juices. Wash the pot and pour in the reserved juices. Stir in the vinegar, brown sugar, white sugar, celery salt, ginger, nutmeg and allspice. Place the cinnamon stick, mustard seed, hot peppers, black peppercorns and whole cloves in a small piece of cheesecloth (tie it closed with kitchen string) or in a small muslin cooking bag. Place the bag of spices in the pot. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook the mixture for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, or until the mixture is thick. Discard the spice bag. Pour into jars prepared for bottling (follow manufacturer’s instructions) or spoon into plastic containers and keep, covered, in the refrigerator. Makes about 1-1/2 quarts