Category: Economy

It’s getting around that time of year when the heat goes on and you’re out in the sticks looking for a 12-point buck. It would be nice to come home to a fully-loaded table, especially with my favorite dessert from grade school. No, the lunch ladies did not add rum to the betty, but we’d get it at least once a week.

Rum Raisin Apple Brown Betty

This recipe comes from  https://civilwartalk.com/threads/rum-raisin-apple-brown-betty.150524/ .  It gets a little creative and replaces the traditional molasses with some spiced rum. You’ll still enjoy that deep sugary flavor, but with a little taste of rum to “spice” it up. This is a great dessert for this time of year.

Ingredients:
2 oz spiced rum
1/2 cup raisins
3 large Granny Smith apples
juice of one lemon
4 Tbsp salted butter plus more for pan (1/2 stick of butter)
3 cups stale breadcrumbs (You can buy these packaged at the grocery.)
2/3 cup brown sugar (dark brown sugar has more molasses)
cinnamon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Combine spiced rum and raisins and set aside to soak. To speed up absorption by the raisins, you can also cook them on very low heat until they puff up to fatness.
Peel and core apples and then slice them very thinly, and place apple slices in lemon juice and toss to cover.
Slice butter into paper thin slices.
Butter the bottom and sides of your baking dish. (Don’t use the sliced butter.)
Cover the bottom of the pan with 1/3 of the breadcrumbs.
Top breadcrumbs with half the apples and raisins and a third of the brown sugar and sliced butter, and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.
Add another layer of breadcrumbs and repeat the above two steps. Top with the remaining breadcrumbs, brown sugar, butter and another sprinkle of  cinnamon. If you like spiced rum, drizzle some more over the pudding before baking.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until apples are tender and the top is a golden brown.  Serve warm with ice cream (cinnamon and vanilla are both good with this.)

Two more recipes for the betty, which is an old English word for a baked pudding, plus a rum raisin sauce are found here:

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/587377/Apple-Brown-Betty-a-delight-dating-back-to-colonial-times.html

This and other Colonial-era dishes were ways for thrifty or poor housewives to stretch the contents of the pantry and use up imperfect things like partially spoiled apples. Apples were easier and cheaper to get in North America than in England, very plentiful back then just as they are now, and kept well when stored in barrels with straw. Any variety will do for the betty, but some varieties like Granny Smiths and Greenings are best for baking.

There is also Louisa May Alcott’s favorite dessert, apple slump, also known as apple grunt.  https://paperandsalt.org/2012/02/01/louisa-may-alcott-apple-slump/

The term ‘grunt’ apparently comes from the sound the apples make when they are cooking.

And then, because the word ‘pudding’ has a distant British origin, you might be interested in a dessert called Spotted Dick. It’s a steamed pudding cooked in a specific pudding cylinder form, loaded with raisins (which they call currants) and served with a custard, which is a cream sauce made with egg yolks, ½ & ½, vanilla, sugar and cornstarch, which they call corn flour. And the use of ‘dick’ may come from pudding originally pronounced “puddick”.  And quitcher giggling!

Spotted Dick recipe: https://britishfoodhistory.com/2014/01/23/spotted-dick/

Custard sauce recipe:  https://britishfoodhistory.com/2012/03/02/proper-custard/

This dish goes way back in time, is simple and easy to prepare and uses suet instead of butter. You can probably substitute butter for suet if you prefer it, but do include the custard sauce with it, along with a good hot beverage.

The point to this is that in Them There Olden Days, they knew what worked and what didn’t and how to make the most of a small budget, and they knew what was good for you, at lot better than the hysterical warnings that hammer us now.

Maybe it’s time we all return to more simple, basic things, like good food and the company of real friends and occasionally take a break from the hue and cry and howling of the PC social justice howler monkeys.

They don’t know what really matters in life. They may never learn.

Be damned to them!

This one’s for Aysel, because she wants slow cooker / Crockpot stuff, so this one comes from the Crock-Pot cookbooklet (Dump Recipes) I found at the checkout stand at the grocery store. It’s a recipe card booklet published by  http://pilbooks.com/cookbooks/browse-cookbooks/

Galic and Mushroom Roast  with gravy

You need:

1 boneless beef or pork roast – 3 to 4 pounds

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (to cook the beef or pork)

1 to 2 – 12 ounce jars of beef gravy

1 to 2 – 4 ounce cans of mushrooms, drained

1 medium onion sliced thin

3 cloves of garlic, sliced – in my view, the chopped garlic in the jars is just as good, so that would be about 3 teaspoons of chopped garlic

Season the roast with salt and pepper.  Coat the roast with flour and brown it in a large skillet 5 minutes each side over medium heat.  Note: the recipe does not say cut into chunks but the cooker time (8 to 10 hours) should make it tender enough to fall apart on the fork.

Put the roast, gravy, mushrooms, onion and garlic in the crockpot/slow cooker. Cover it. Set the temperature on LOW and cook for 8 to 10 hours.

They have it served over a bed of rice. I should think diced, boiled red potatoes would also be a good choice. And I’d use at least 2 cans of mushrooms and 2 jars of gravy but that’s because I love both ‘shrooms and gravy.

If you want to get more flavor, you can also use Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb, but follow the recipe the first time you make this meal. The Mrs. Dash seasonings are all salt-free and add a lot of flavor. I have several different kinds that I use a lot.

After you follow the recipe the first time, then you can put your own spin on it. And since chillier weather is coming on, think how nice that will be when you walk in the front door and it smells like supper’s waiting for you.

Those are some of the nicest strawberries I’ve found in a long time. Unfortunately, they no longer exist. I ate them.  Haha!

Last week, Aysel wanted to know if there is a slow cooker version of the red beans and rice that I love to fix in the cold season.

Well, I had a better idea. Since Aysel is the Chief Cook and Platefiller at her domicile, and I do a bunch of crock pot stuff myself, the best place to look for slow cooker/crock pot stuff is at the Betty Crocker site, in the Slow Cooker recipes section. This is the link to that section:  https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/preparation/slow-cooker-recipes

Aysel, you should be able to find there a wealth of stuff to fix, including chicken pot pie and beef stroganoff. They even have coffee mug desserts, and if you’re pressed for time as you say you are (and you want to keep Hubby away from the cookery stuff) this is your go-to site.  I would get several slow cookers or crock pots, because the inserts can be removed if there is still food in them, and stored for another meal. Or use those eminently useful plastic storage containers that are microwavable.  I have to go to the hardware store and get a couple smaller sized cookers next month.

Anyway, my recipe for BBQ beans with smoked sausage is very simple and very hearty.  One 14.5 oz can is two servings.

2 cans of red beans in chili sauce (or other sauce, your choice)

BBQ sauce – your favorite brand, about half a standard bottle

1 (one) big link of smoked sausage. Use 2 links if you’re feeding more people, or stretching this for two meals.

spicy mustard – whole grain mustard works well if you want more spiciness but not heat

Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder (both are optional)

about a half cup of chopped onion (get the frozen seasoning mix from Pict-Sweet, it’s more convenient)

Put the beans into the crock pot, add the BBQ sauce, add about a half cup of the mustard, two teaspoons of the OPTIONAL Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder. Use a dessert spoon if you don’t have a measuring spoon.

Stir this mix well, add the onions or seasoning mix, stir again, and then place the smoked sausage links on top of the bean mixture. Do not immerse the sausage. It will steam and cook up nicely sitting on top, which is how it’s supposed to work

Put the lid on. Cook on low for 5 to 6 hours. You can let it go longer, if need be.  And tell Hubby to leave the crock pot alone. It needs time to contemplate the Meaning of the Universe and must not be disturbed. Yoda would agree with me on that.

Make some cornbread from one of those package mixes if you’re pressed for time. Takes about 8 minutes to mix the batter and 20 minutes to bake in the oven.  Slice up some veggies like zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, and put those on a plate with radishes, baby carrots, and whatever else suits your fancy.  Also, dill pickles go well with this, especially the refrigerator dills, or use your favorite brand.

And for dessert, get the cotton-pickin’ apple pie at the bakery and some ice cream.

Leaving the BBQ beans in the crockpot/slow cooker lets you reheat them (about 45 minutes) for another meal.

Last, but certainly not least, adjust the mustard and other flavoring ingredients to suit your personal taste.

Owing to the increasingly strange behavior of Those Who Insist Trump Stinks (TWITS), and because the President has sort of reddish hair and is getting picked on a lot, I have provided a photo of the noble orange.

For anyone who likes red beans and rice, here’s how I fix it:

1 can (14.5 oz) red beans canned in chili sauce

1 smoked sausage of your choice

1/2 to 1 cup of rice

1 14.5 oz can of beef or chicken broth

1 chorizo sausage, mild or hot – your choice

Olive oil

A cooking pan of your choice.

Pour some olive oil into the pan. Squeeze the chorizo out of its tube. Start with medium heat. Let the chorizo start to disperse, then add the chili beans, rice and broth. Keep simmering on medium heat, stirring occasionally, and cover when you are not stirring it. Add the smoked sausage when the rice is truly cooked. Brown rice will take longer to cook than milled white rice, so you may need to add more broth.

The cook time should take about 30 to 45 minutes. Very filling, and good on a cold winter day. Add some cornbread (and lots of butter)  plus favorite beverage, a side of cut-up veggies and a good book or pry some dinner conversation out of your kids while you eat. For dessert: your choice, but apple pie with ice cream is always good.

This is a quick and inexpensive solution to feeding a large crowd, too.  The portions per item are below.

Note: one can of beans provides two servings. The same thing with broth: you may need to add more liquid if you use brown rice instead of milled white rice. The hot or mild chorizo will provide all the flavor you need, and the smoked sausage ditto. One big link of smoked sausage will give you two to three servings, or you can stretch it by slicing it into coins. Drop some cut up green stuff from green onion tails on top of the red beans and rice.

This time it’s about stench. Stinky foods that, when you include them in a meal, not only make you happy but may benefit your health

Garlic, for example, is known to have beneficial properties including being able to unclog your arteries, reduce blood clots, and drop your blood pressure, as well as scaring off werewolves and vampires. It has a plethora of species both wild and domesticated. It has been tested and found to be effective against candida, cholera, staphylococcus, salmonella, dysentery, and typhus. The most familiar species is Allium sativum, which you can buy in many forms at the grocery store. I found that ants don’t like the way it smells, either, when the bulbs are on my countertop.

And then we have the very familiar cooking ingredient, the noble onion, which also comes in many forms, including but not limited to the spring or green onion, with the long green tails still attached; the mature bulb onion, which is what you get at the grocery store. When the bulbs are harvested, it is after they have produced a flower head, which matures into a set of smaller bulbs, which are allowed to cure and then bagged and sent to your hardware store for spring planting.

I think French onion soup – or just plain old onion soup – is the best thing since sliced French bread. And the recipes all call for  the same basic ingredients:

sliced onions

beef broth (some recipes call for chicken broth, too)

thyme and a bay leaf or two

garlic

some wine (white or red, your choice), about a cup

salt and pepper,  and in some recipes brown sugar or Worcestershire sauce

butter and olive oil – to cook and soften the sliced onions, to a clear state only – NOT fried!

baguette slices and some cheese – Swiss, gruyere, mozzerella – you choose what you like, because when you put the soup into the oven-proof bowl and put the baguette slice and cheese on top, and then put it under the broiler for about 3 to 5 minutes,  it always comes out gooey and good.

I found that the best way to slice a big round onion is to use a mandolin for it, and put it right into the pot.

That’s your basic recipe.  Some cooks prefer Vidalia onions, because they don’t have the sulfates that make your eyes water. Others don’t have a real preference. The Bermuda or red onion is extremely hot when raw, but when sliced and put in to the pot for soup, it loses the tear-generating proclivity, as do all onions when cooked, including the yellow or Spanish onions in the second photo.  Some recipes also ask for flour to thicken the soup, but I think that’s a personal preference.

I don’t think it makes any real difference. They’re all good. This one is from All Recipes, and looks quite easy to follow.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/13309/rich-and-simple-french-onion-soup/

Whether you use a slow cooker or a Dutch oven or a plain old covered stockpot, the best way to cook it is slowly, on low heat so that the onions won’t burn, for about 30 to 45 minutes, to develop the flavor.

I don’t see how something this good can possibly be bad for anyone, except perhaps someone allergic to alliums in general.

Whatever you do, it’s good stuff and cold weather is coming up in a few weeks. Something like this on the hod will also keep well until you’ve disposed of it properly with a spoon, a bowl  and preferably briefly under broiler. You can also freeze it for several months. Put it with a salad and some good crusty bread and butter on the side, and a slice of my grandma’s pineapple upside-down cake (yes, I found that one) with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and you’re home.

And please remember to thank the farmers who produced those onions in your soup bowl.