Vintage recipe test: Peanut Butter Bread

From my Oma's collection comes my copy of The Settlement Cook Book (the main title is actually The Way to a Man's Heart), given to her on Christmas 1945 from her dear friend Mamie. There were a number of settlement houses in the 19th and 20th centuries, one of the best-known being Chicago's Hull House. The Settlement House of this cookbook was a charitable organization that helped women in need and Jewish immigrants.

The author, Lizzie Black Kander, was a social worker there who was tasked with instructing these women how to be homemakers in America, and this cookbook was her answer. So although it's a cookbook, it's also a manual of sorts instructing women how to set a proper table, drain dishes, polish silver, pick up broken glass, and store milk. I'm sure my edition was updated for a 1945 kitchen, reflecting ingredients and conveniences that arrived after its original publication. Proceeds of the book benefited the house, and it was reportedly the most successful fundraiser of its kind. More than 40 editions have been printed since its first first sold-out printing in 1901, last revised at some point in the 1990s. My copy is the 27th edition.

Opening this book feels like opening a sort of treasure or time capsule. Each delicate page can contain as many as five recipes, sparsely described, often referring to a recipe on another page.  There are no food illustrations - we're used to that with vintage recipes - but there are occasional darling illustrations of children happily doing things: rolling pie dough, fishing, collecting eggs.

My maiden baking voyage from this book was peanut butter bread. As soon as I saw the recipe, I marveled at the fact that peanut butter bread isn't really a thing in modern the quick-bread world, for as much as the modern world loves peanut butter. It's hard to find recipes for it on the internet, where I found it described as Depression-era food.

Other than the peanut butter, there is no fat in this recipe, unless you count the milk (whole milk would have been best, but I only had 1%). I had to make my best guess as to what kind of peanut butter I should use, i.e., was the peanut butter of this era more like Adam's natural peanut butter, the kind you have to stir, or was it common yet to find homogenized peanut butter which is most common today? After some "history of peanut butter" Google searches I felt OK about using the no-stir variety (homogenized was common in the 1930s) from Adam's, which has no sugar.

I also wondered about baking powder, since that has changed with time as well with double-acting varieties being the norm in most kitchens. This recipe called for four teaspoons which seemed like a lot. I used the full four teaspoons and nothing crazy happened.

Making it, it is everything a quick bread should be: it comes together in the time it takes to heat the oven, especially with a Kitchenaid mixer. The batter is like that of bland peanut butter cookie dough. I took the liberty of sprinkling turbinado sugar across the top after pouring it in the pan.

So how did it taste? Fine, not remarkable. Like something you'd serve and eat with other things, but probably not something you'd eat, rave about and ask for the recipe. But it was a little more special than mere sustenance. Mrs. Kander advised waiting a day before eating it, which we did, so we'll never know the difference of tasting it fresh out of the oven. My parents were with us the morning of the inaugural slices, and it was a nice accompaniment with coffee and eggs, topped with salted butter, or strawberry jam, or Nutella, the latter of which I enjoyed that evening for dessert (sliced bananas atop the Nutella would have been even better). After day six, only the heel remained and it was so dried out and crumbly,  it was almost like eating a peanut butter cookie. We still ate it and didn't mind.

Appropriately eaten from one of Oma's plates

I don't need to make it again, though it was enjoyable to eat. As Mamie wished for my Oma in her inscription, I'd consider this experience a happy recipe try-out.

Try it for yourself, and maybe add in some chocolate chips, or cinnamon, or both. Or make a yummy glaze: chocolate, strawberry or simple sugar.

Peanut Butter Bread
adapted from The Settlement Cook Book

2 c. flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. sugar
2/3 c. peanut butter (I used Adam's No-Stir crunchy)
1 1/4 c. whole milk
2 T. turbinado sugar, for topping

Grease a standard loaf pan well with shortening, butter, or other greasy thing of your choice. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of your mixer, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the peanut butter and milk and beat at low speed to prevent milk splashing, then increase to medium speed until thoroughly mixed. Pour into the loaf pan, sprinkle with the turbinado sugar, and bake 45-50 minutes, or until the bread is golden and a toothpick comes out clean-ish (a few moist crumbs are okay). Let the bread cool in the pan for a few minutes on a cooling rack, then turn out of the pan to cool completely.

Eat it the first day. I dare you. Or follow Mrs. Kander's suggestion and eat it a day later.

Vintage recipe test: Curried Scrambled Eggs, Beurre Noir

Let's just cut to the chase: this was so good. How it's taken me this long to put curry powder in my scrambled eggs is a mystery. With chopped onion and bell pepper, plus bacon, it's a winning formula.

But the beurre noir! This was a revelation. When browned butter is drizzled over these eggs, it takes the flavors to new heights. The hint of sweetness from the caramelized milk solids is reminiscent of getting a little maple syrup from your stack of pancakes on your eggs, but more appropriate.

Bless you, Chef E.G. Stockton from La Jolla, California, for revealing this amazing Sunday morning breakfast to us.

"Your eyes will sparkle after your first mouthful of Chef Stockton's concoction, but if your palate craves more mild treatment, a slight pinch or even a few grains of curry powder will suffice," it says. No, incorrect. Do this recipe as written.

A truth: "When accompanied by hot biscuits [or an English muffin] and strawberry preserves [or huckleberry jam], this makes a breakfast long to be remembered!"

Curried Scrambled Eggs, Beurre Noir
adapted from Cooking Bold and Fearless

6 eggs
1 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. salt
6 T. cream (or milk)
4 slices bacon
1 small onion, minced
1/2 green (or red) bell pepper, minced
1/4 c. butter
My 2019 addition: a few fresh cilantro leaves, for garnish

1. Fry the bacon until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside. When cool, chop fine. Discard excess grease but leave about 2 tsp. in the pan for frying the veggies and eggs.

2. While the bacon is frying, beat eggs until light. Dissolve curry powder and salt in milk/cream, and add to beaten eggs.

3.  With the heat now on medium, using the greasy bacon pan, fry the pepper and onion until tender and delicately browned. Add the egg and chopped bacon and reduce the heat to low. Scramble with as little stirring as possible.

4. Meanwhile, place butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Let it melt, bubble, pop, subside and brown. It will smell nutty and heavenly. Remove from the heat and place in a bowl so as not to continue browning/blackening.

5. When the eggs are cooked to your liking, plate and drizzle a small amount of brown butter over the scramble. Top with cilantro. Serve with your biscuits and jam.

From the summer kitchen

With the deck project having taken away crucial barbecuing space this summer, and with the milder temperatures not preventing me from turning on the oven, it's been a slightly different kind of summer table spread. Here are the things I remembered to document:

For breakfast...

Dutch babies. I experimented with a couple different recipes, including a gluten-free variety, to get the perfect baby for all. These were a special request for Joel's dad's birthday breakfast.  Pictured here was the first try, and my favorite basic recipe from a 1974 Scandinavian cookbook from Sunset magazine (thanks, Mom!), baked in a cake pan. It has a little lemon zest and cardamom in the batter, which is simply nice. I mean, it's really hard to screw these up. But they always feel special.

Buttermilk sandwich bread...which I used for croque madames...in honor of the final stage of the Tour de France, which as I might have mentioned before, I won. 

Blueberry scones. Made on a slightly hungover Sunday morning after a night out with my gal pals, who sent me home on my bike with a pint of freshly picked blueberries in my pannier. I used a recipe for whole-wheat buttermilk scones that called for raisins, which I subbed with the berries. The scones were a tad dry (whole wheat flour AND oatmeal) so the berries added a nice burst of juice and flavor.

Baked banana buttermilk donuts. My local kitchen supply store had a sale during the 4th of July on all products that were made in the U.S.A., which included a donut pan I've lusted after for years, so I took it as a sign and bought it. Thanks, America. Because I had buttermilk and overripe bananas, I looked online to see how to combine it into donuts. We topped these with Nutella. It tasted more like a muffin. But donut shaped.

(If you can't tell, I seem to have a lot of buttermilk to deal with.)

For dinner:

Roasted dill salmon. Dill doesn't often get its day in our house, but I had a real craving for it and this recipe from the New York Times was quick and delicious. You simply make a marinade of 1/4 c. lime juice, 2 T. olive oil, 2 T. soy sauce, 2 T. maple syrup, 3 T. chopped fresh dill, 1/4 tsp. turmeric and a pinch of saffron (if you have it - I didn't), and a crushed garlic clove. Place salmon fillets skin side down on a lined rimmed baking sheet (smaller is better), season with salt and pepper, and pour the marinade over and let it sit for about 15 minutes as the oven heats to 425. Then transfer it to the oven for about 10 minutes and serve with rice or whatever. 

Sesame soba noodle salad with roasted mushrooms and tofu. It's probably one of my favorite meals and I don't make it often enough. It's so savory, crunchy (that's cucumber in there...not avocado) and satisfying and I'm always glad to have leftovers for lunch. The recipe comes from Melissa Clark's Cook This Now...like so many recipes I post on this blog.

Soupe au pistou. I held onto this recipe from my Milk Street mag a couple months back for pesto season. It's weird because you'd think the last thing you'd want to make in summer is soup, but this celebrates all its flavors and it was so, so good. Fresh tomatoes, green beans, carrots, beans, garlic and small pasta go into the soup, and the pesto is added as a garnish. It's nice to have a partner who works from home and can prep this on a weekday afternoon and tend to it as needed (cooked from dried beans), otherwise this would have definitely been a weekend meal. 

Chicken Milanese with tomato, mozzarella and basil salad. Because after a long day, it feels good to take a meat pounder to some chicken cutlets. The basil dressing that goes with this is divine. Another gift from Melissa Clark via the New York Times.

Chicken tinga tacos. This is something Joel makes and it's one of my forever favorites. I don't care about other recipes for chicken tacos or burritos anymore. I contribute the pickled onions and a side of Rancho Gordo beans. 

For dessert:

Smoked paprika peanut butter cookies. I got the recipe from David Lebovitz's blog and was totally starstruck (in the nerdiest of ways) when he shared my post on Instagram and used it as an opportunity to link to the recipe again. To be honest, I was expecting more smoke, but ultimately these were just strangely colored but very delicious, chewy peanut butter cookies. 

S'mores blondies. If these aren't viral on the internet yet, they will be. Gooey as all get-out. I took to calling them power bars. 

Marion Cunningham's Boston Brown Bread Muffins

I'd never heard of Boston brown bread until a few years ago at Christmas when my mom cracked open a can of it and we marveled at cylindrical bread from a can. It was actually really good, and it had wholesome ingredients. I still don't understand it.

This recipe for Boston brown bread muffins is a little less novel but no less tasty. It's also difficult to say "Boston brown bread" a few times fast - or even once.

I've made these muffins twice and they're a new favorite for me. The first time I made them with yogurt in place of the buttermilk, the second time I made fake buttermilk from regular milk and vinegar.  Both batches turned out and I didn't detect a difference.

By the way, if you're looking for a good no-nonsense cookbook, I highly recommend Cunningham's The Breakfast Book. I've posted multiple recipes from on this here blog over the years (quick bread, banana ginger bran muffins, beet marmalade with bannocks, all sorts of toast inspiration). I take this one to bed sometimes and fall asleep dreaming of tomorrow's breakfast.

Boston Brown Bread Muffins
from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book

Makes 12 muffins

1/2 c. rye flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. cornmeal
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 egg
1/3 c. molasses
1/3 c. packed dark brown sugar
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 c. buttermilk (or thinned out plain yogurt)
1 c. golden raisins

Heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Line or grease a muffin tin.

In a large bowl, combine the dry (i.e., the first five) ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, molasses, brown sugar, oil and buttermilk until well blended. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the dry mixture until combined. Fold in the raisins.

Fill each muffin tin about 2/3 to 3/4 full, depending on the size of your tins.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. These babies are great plain but divine with salted butter.

The time of my breakfast life

When was the last time you listened to Bill Medley's "Time of My Life," the one featured in and made famous by Dirty Dancing...like intentionally listened to it? For me, it had been at least 15 years. I thought I didn't love it. But it turns out, I really do.

That has nothing to with this post, other than timing. On Sunday mornings, it's everything. Timing is something that I have worked on for decades as a home cook, i.e., getting everything on the table, hot, at the same time. Without dirtying a million dishes. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Most times, it's close. Here's what it looked like this Sunday.

1. Start the water for the coffee and scoop the coffee into the French press.
2. Turn the oven to 425. Get out a roasting pan, cutting board and sharp knife.
3. Wash and cut potatoes and put directly onto pan. Toss with olive oil and seasoning (Everyday Seasoning from Trader Joe's).
4. Put the potatoes in the oven. It's not completely preheated yet, but it won't hurt anything. Set a timer for 15 minutes as a basic guide.
5. Take bacon out of fridge. Place slices on a cold skillet and turn to medium.
6. Pour the water into the French press and subtract the time from the current timer to know when to plunge it.
7. Slice last night's leftover focaccia horizontally into sandwich halves. Place cut-side up on a separate baking sheet and set aside.
8. Slice cheese and place on one half of each pair of focaccia.
9. Plunge French press.
10. Flip bacon.
11. Check potatoes. They're close.
12. Flip bacon.
13. Take a plate out and place paper towels on it for the bacon.
14. Flip bacon.
15. Get a few eggs and whisk them in a bowl with some milk.
16. While you're at it, pour some of that milk in a mug along with fresh coffee for sustenance.
17. Flip bacon.
18. Remove bacon from the pan. Drain bacon on the lined plate. Pour off a little fat from the pan and place it back on the burner. Lower heat.
19. Add eggs to the bacon pan and scramble.
20. Take the potatoes out. Turn off oven.
21. Turn on the broiler and place the focaccia slices (with cheese) underneath to toast and melt.
22. Keep stirring the eggs and watching the focaccia.
23. The focaccia is toasty. Remove from the broiler and place each sandwich pair open-faced on individual plates. Top with bacon slices.
24. Eggs are done. Top bacon focaccia sandwich half with eggs. Top with other half of focaccia.
25. Place potatoes alongside egg sandwich. Garnish with that little piece of bacon you saved.
26. Place plates on table. Grab Tabasco. Enjoy.

Another smoothie gets its picture taken

My blender might be my first/oldest appliance, now that I think about it. It was the perfect college gift. If you had a blender in college, I figured, it meant you were healthy and liked to have fun, because it can be used for both nutritional smoothies and blended margaritas. That's how I intended to use mine, at least. But I was never really satisfied with the way it blended ice - it left large ice chunks in a watery mess. So I primarily used my blender for a smoothie concoction of cran-raspberry juice, yogurt, frozen berries and banana during my senior year of college. I did this a lot and felt healthy.

When I noticed my pants getting tighter and examined my diet, I realized how much sugar I was consuming each morning. Since then I've equated smoothies with dessert and consume them as such, i.e., almost never. For the last decade, my blender has lived in a dark cupboard and is used occasionally for blending soups and other odd-jobs.

Randomly, on Thursday, some online health food gurus began working their ways into my brain. I needed to get more greens with every meal, they said. Smoothies were the way. On Friday, I made a smoothie. But it was a grown-up one, with gobs of spinach, some blueberries, banana, kefir and maca powder. The gurus also said you really need a high-powered blender, but since I didn't add ice, my trusty Oster pulled through just fine. The result: kinda brown, not too sweet, a little nutty and tangy. Thick and luscious.

I'm not sure it's the answer to my weekday breakfast, because my stomach started growling an hour earlier than normal, so if I want to keep this up I'll need to experiment with things, perhaps adding more protein or eating something in addition to the smoothie, or just be more prepared to have a morning snack.

If you want to try my version, here's the approximate recipe. Both the kefir and maca powder were purchased at Trader Joe's. 

2 cups of spinach

1/2 c. frozen blueberries

1 banana

1 c. low-fat kefir

1 T. maca powder

1/2 c. cold water

Serves 2

Around and about

 The river is still in a rage. But what a view! This was from late March.

Bread before/after. Don't get me started on baking bread unless you really want to hear an earful because I love talking about it, almost as much as I love eating it, or listening to it crackle when it comes out of the oven and starts to cool, or getting the perfect design on top. These are magical things in my life right now.

A scene from an incredible night featuring a magical collaboration between the Spokane Symphony and local artists, playing and interpreting Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Inspiring. My favorite movement of the Vivaldi seasons is winter. But in this performance, it was fall. In real life, SPRING. Late spring.

On a cold, rainy Saturday we made our first-ever trip to Mike's donuts in the valley. The apple fritters did not disappoint. I'd like to think this is Mike himself. Does anyone know Mike?

 I came out of the hallway after vacuuming to find these two curled up in their respective places. (Luna is not normally allowed on the furniture, but she's really taken to that chair by the window, and if it keeps her from getting up on the other things, then we're OK with it.)

 I love these. I still don't know how to pronounce ranunculous.

 Friday night, eating burgers and drinking wine by candlelight at a record store. Like we do. (At Garageland, at least.)

 Fresh orange rolls. I'm declaring this to be my Easter tradition, even though I come from a long line of other delicious baked-good Easter traditions, not the least of which is hopping bunny rolls. If you're interested in the orange-roll recipe, I posted the recipe here.

RaNUNculous? RA-nun-CU-lous?

 Friday night table is set for our dinner date with PBS Newshour JUST KIDDING. But we did watch The Amazing Race, which we DVR'd from the night before.

Who needs ham for Easter dinner when you can make Pasta Primavera?  Joel made the sauce, I made the noodles. A new favorite veggie pasta dish for me. I like the idea of a pasta for all the holidays.

Friday morning bathroom - before. Generally, there was nothing offensive about this bathroom and the stenciling from the 90s. But our house is covered in this green.  I wanted something cleaner and a little brighter. Enter: Rodda paint #0622 Serene Setting...

Saturday morning - after. The wainscoting still needs some touch-ups, but I'm not thinking about that right now.

These April days have mostly been soggy ones, but if you get out at the right moment, the sun hits you and all the colors are suddenly bright and the earth smells incredible. 

Lately I've been thinking about headwinds and tailwinds. Maybe because it's been so windy with all these changes of weather. But it was prompted by an interview I heard on Freakonomics about our tendency to believe that our lives are harder than others'. The headwinds come and become our focus as we struggle to get through them. But there are also tailwinds in our lives that make certain things easier for us. We may notice them giving us a boost at first, but as they continue to push us forward, we stop noticing them. If we pause to notice the seemingly invisible tailwinds, we start to realize how well we are set up in our lives, beyond the major things we're quick to rattle off when asked what we're thankful for. This is what makes daily gratitude journals so powerful and often life-changing. I've worked to make this a habit in my life for years, but something about framing it this way really made sense to me. In case you want to listen to it on a particularly windy day (or read the transcript): Why Is My Life So Hard?

On nurturing your favorite cook and/or baker this Christmas

When I got my first apartment after college, I bought a handful of things for the kitchen, probably from an aisle or two at Target: measuring spoons and cups, a dish-drying rack, some kitchen towels. Nearly everything else was covered by gifts and hand-me-downs. For someone who's never had a wedding registry, I've cleaned up quite well over the years, thanks to the loving folks in my life who know how much time I enjoy in the kitchen.

Perhaps you're already done with your shopping, but just in case you're out of ideas, here are a few things that I highly recommend for cooks - from the newbies to the ones who seem to have everything.

Little somethings

1. Measuring spoons. Most people already have a set, but having two sets can be a lifesaver from time to time. Plus, they come in all sorts of fun designs, like these, these and these ones. 
2. Pan scraper. Because new and seasoned cooks alike get stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. The best ones are the size of a credit card and are just as flexible, but I've learned they're not easy to find unless you go to the right kitchen store (we stocked up at a store in Petaluma, Calif., knowing we might not find them elsewhere). They are also a dream for scraping out dough remnants from your mixing bowl. If you don't know the difference, a hard plastic square variety still works great.
3. Paring knife. Another item it doesn't hurt to have a few of. I like the ones that come with their own plastic sheath, making it easy to stash in a lunch bag.
4. Cookie and biscuit cutters. People like me don't need much of a reason to make cookies, but the opportunity to use fun cookie cutters is a compelling incentive.
5. Poach pods. I'm lousy when it comes to poaching eggs the traditional way, so these silicone wonders changed my breakfast life. You simply simmer some water in a pan, crack an egg into each pod, float them on the water, cover the pan, and in 6-7 minutes you have a perfectly poached, English-muffin sized egg. It's really fun.

Joel uses the microplane for fresh nutmeg topping on our adult drinks

Solid gifts

1. Microplane. Your life is made instantly easier and fancier in owning one of these. I use it almost every time I cook for mincing ginger and garlic, zesting citrus fruits and grating nutmeg and really hard cheese. 
2. Baking stone. Those who are serious about good pizza and crusty loaves, and who don't happen to have a wood-burning pizza oven, shouldn't attempt either without a baking stone.
3. French Press or Aeropress. I don't like taking up space on my counter with coffee machines, which is one reason I've loved my French press for so long, plus it makes really good coffee for one or two people. After developing a post-dinner espresso habit, however, the Aeropress came into our lives, and none to soon. We love it so much, it even comes on vacation with us. It's lightweight, stashable, simple, and makes a mean cup of coffee and espresso-like sips. 
4. Whirley Pop: I am normally not an advocate for single-purpose appliances like these, but for people like me who make a lot of popcorn and like having a seasoned pot for it, the Whirley Pop brings much joy. Include a bag of Tiny But Mighty heirloom popcorn for extra loveliness. 
5. A cutting block with a good chef's knife. Don't underestimate the power of one good knife on a sturdy surface. 
6. Pasta maker. It took me awhile to drum up the courage to make pasta, but after my first successful try (after a major fail), I was hooked. I started off with an Imperia, before I got my Kitchenaid attachment (even more fun to use), which came with two attachments for spaghetti and fettuccine noodles. Once you know how to make pasta, I say, you're set for life.

Cookbooks: The basics

1. The New Best Recipe cookbook (or any big book from Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen). This was a gift to myself right after college, after one of my friends used it for a recipe for calzones with perfect results. Years later, I still use this regularly for basic recipes and guiding principles, and its recipe for molasses spice cookies. There are no photos, which I think is important because it makes you read their detailed instructions carefully. 
2. The Art of Simple Food. Alice Waters is a wonderful teacher in showing us how to prepare food in a way that celebrates what it is, without all the fancy nonsense.
3. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. I love venturing into this beauty of a book whenever I want to tackle something new. Turns out that it's not all that difficult. 

Once you know how to do it, you can bake these babies anywhere. These were made at Mom and Dad's.

Cookbooks for expanding horizons

1. Ratio by Michael Ruhlman. This book, along with Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal, has made me a much more confident cook because it's taught me principles of cooking. No longer do I need a recipe for a vinaigrette, beef stock or bread dough because I know the ideal ratio and key ingredients for making them. This breeds much creativity in cooking, too; people might think you're a real whiz kid.
2. Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. A great companion gift with the baking stone. There is no easier way to make your dinner more luxurious than by pulling a crackling round of bread from the oven. Thanks to this book, you'll usually find a bucket of dough in my fridge, ready to parse out over a couple weeks' time for loaves and pizza crust.
3. Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. There's a good variety of beautiful and approachable recipes in here. I make Deb's recipe for granola regularly.

An old trick on cold winter nights - soup on the stove, bread under the broiler, hands near all elements.

Pièce de résistance gifts

1. Pots and pans. This was my parents' Christmas gift to me when I was a senior in college. It made me feel like I'd arrived. I still love the set. It was from Macy's (Belgique brand) and it came with a stock pot, a large, medium and small sauce pan, a 10-inch skillet, and a steamer pot that fit on the large saucepan. I use them all.
2. Stand mixer. I was shocked when I received my Kitchenaid for Christmas. I was totally fine with the handheld mixer I had, but having the ability to machine-knead dough and whip egg whites while I readied other ingredients changed everything for me. And they come in such pretty colors.
3. Food processor. Another thing I didn't realize how much I'd love until I had one. I love mine for pasta dough, pie crust, big batches of well-whipped hummus, and pureeing nuts.
4. French or Dutch oven. My 5-quart red Le Creuset gets a lot of love. Everything I make in it looks so much more thoughtful, expertly assembled and delicious. And it just cooks things better, I'm convinced.
5. Cuisinart griddle/grill/panini press combo: I have fallen in love with this thing. I use it to grill meat, smash panini and fry pancakes. It's versatile and easy to clean, and I learned you can also buy waffle plates for it (!!). 

Recipe test: Edna Staebler's corn pudding

I just remembered a spare shelf I had high up in the kitchen where I've stashed the cookbooks I use less often. Over the last few nights I've taken a few of them to bed with me and marked some recipes to try. This is why, on Saturday morning, I made a very old-fashioned thing called corn pudding. It came from a cookbook from my Oma's collection: Food that Really Schmecks: Mennonite Country Cooking, written by Edna Staebler, published in 1968. It's my favorite kind of cookbook in that it really is a good read - you learn about Edna and her family and friends. I've read through this book a few times and love her no-nonsense, honest way of writing about community food, which is a collection of her mother's and friends' recipes, namely those from a friend named Bevvy. She writes about the first time she invited prominent people to her cottage home in Waterloo County, Ontario, how she pored over recipes she'd collected, and those from cookbooks in the library, hoping to impress these well-traveled guests. Finally, she realized, a typical North Waterloo County meal would be perfect because you couldn't have it anywhere else: "My dinner would not be elaborate, or exotic, with rare ingredients and mystifying flavours." She treated them to bean salad, smoked pork chops, shoo-fly pie, schmierkase and apple butter with fastnachts. "They ate till they said they would burst," she writes. Her food, and these recipes, are the result of recipe-swapping between Roman Catholics and Lutherans from the same European areas who settled among the Mennonites in North Waterloo, "till a way of cooking developed that is unique and indigenous to this heaven-blessed area that rejoices in its cultivation, preparation and tranquil digestion of irresistibly good-schmecking (tasting) food."

It was nice to learn that Edna lived to 101 years old.

So, corn pudding. This is pudding in the custardy sense, not in the gelatin sense. You just need corn, eggs, butter, milk, sugar, salt and a little bit of corn starch (or flour). Edna says it's great for any meal - alongside a salad at lunch or dinner, or at breakfast, drizzled with some maple syrup. This is ready for the oven in the time it takes to preheat it, so for that, I give it some convenience points.

As for taste, it was pretty corny. I liked the sweet/saltiness of it, and the custard was fairly light. Maple syrup was a nice topping, in the same way honey is a natural pairing with cornbread. I bet you could mix in some cheese instead, before baking, for a more savory pudding.

I think the main head-scratcher was figuring out what to eat with it. We paired it with some nice salty turkey bacon, which was good. Joel (who describes corn pudding as "interesting") thought it might be good on something, like a piece of toast. I agree with him there, especially since it kind of fell apart with a fork. Which gives it a few negative points for texture. 

Schmecks? I'll give it a B+.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it for yourself:

Corn Pudding

adapted from Food that Really Schmecks by Edna Staebler

2 c. corn - fresh, frozen (thawed) or canned

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs, beaten

2 T. butter, melted

1 T. sugar

1 T. flour or cornstarch

1 c. milk

pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350, and grease an 8x8" baking dish. In a bowl, combine corn, salt, pepper butter, sugar, and flour. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs and milk together, then pour into corn mixture and combine. Pour everything into the prepared dish and bake 35-40 minutes, until the sides look puffy and barely brown. 

Apricot Peach Orange-Flower Jam

Jam is a great way to deal with things. I had five nearly overripe apricots and a beautiful peach sitting on the counter. I didn't want to go to the trouble to make dough for a tart, nor did I think I had enough fruit to make such a thing worth it. So I set out to make a quick apricot jam, and at the last minute, I threw the peach in as the apricots and sugar were already boiling. In the last 5 minutes of cooking, I decided to add a few drops of orange flower water, just for fanciness. It really worked!

I used an Alice Waters recipe as a starting point, but this is a scaled down version with my additions. When I'm in the mood to make my next orange or lemon tart, I would love to glaze it with this stuff. If it lasts, of course. It probably won't.

Apricot Peach Orange-Flower Jam

10 oz. apricots, pitted and diced
1 large peach, pitted and diced
1/2 c. sugar
A few strips of lemon rind, with the white pith
1/8 tsp. orange flower water

Bring the fruit and sugar to boil, then reduce to medium heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir frequently. Add the lemon rind and continue simmering for another 10 minutes, adding in the orange flower water in during the last 5 minutes. Mash the fruit, a bit, if needed (the apricots break down easily enough, but depending on the ripeness of your fruit, it may need a little help). When the mixture is thick enough and leaves a path when you run a spoon through the middle, remove from heat and cool completely. Place the cooled jam into a clean jar and refrigerate for up to a year.

Just half a batch of strawberry freezer jam

Confession: I have never canned food, much as I love pickles and jams and a good canned pear. I admire those who do. Personally, sterilizing everything sounds like a major pain - and I'm really afraid of botulism. It sounds like an ordeal. Is it an ordeal? Maybe one day I'll bite the bullet and find out how easy canning really is. 

Freezer jam, though: I can get behind that. It's a lazy man's jam that tastes really special. I love the bright, fresh flavor of this method, which is really just flash-cooked off heat. 

I picked up a couple pints of strawberries at the Thursday Market last week, just enough for two cups of mashed berries. Because normal recipes for freezer jam call for 4 cups, I took a risk and used half the pectin packet and less than half the sugar it listed.

I had wonderful success, so if you're like me and don't want to make a whole boatload of freezer jam, give this a whirl. I love it on everything: my oatmeal, toast, pancakes, Monte Cristos, soft cheeses, and straight from the spoon.

Strawberry Freezer Jam for 2 pints of berries

2 pints strawberries, mashed with a potato masher, leaving some nice chunks (should make about 2 cups)
Half a 1.75-oz packet of pectin, or about .8 oz. (I use Sure-Jell - though you could use alternatives)
1 1/3 c. sugar

Place the pectin and sugar in a non-reactive skillet or pan and add 1/2 c. water. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil over medium high heat. Continue to stir and boil for a minute and remove from heat. Add the berries and stir for another minute.

Ladle the jam into clean small containers, as many as you need (I used three old jam jars). Cover and let sit at room temperature for a day to let it set, then freeze for a few months or, for immediate use refrigerate for a few weeks.