Doctor Who RECIPES?

In gathering links for my previous post about Elisabeth Sladen (still very sad), I discovered a "Recipes" section on BBC America's Doctor Who website. The funniest: the Sonic Screwdriver, named for the Doctor's ubiquitous extra-terrestrial "jackknife" of sorts, but with alcohol. The most disturbing: erm, Dalek mini-cakes? "Exterminate" isn't quite the word I would use to describe it.

Our Sarah Jane

Publicity still from The Sarah Jane Adventures, from the BBC Radio Times

Totally not food-related, but I just had to express my sadness and shock over the passing of Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith, my most favorite companion on Doctor Who. Sladen appeared in various shows but Doctor Who her claim to fame, not only acting alongside two of the original series' Doctors (Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker) but appearing in two spin-offs (including the recent Sarah Jane Adventures) and in cameos with one more Doctor (David Tennant) in the new series (the newest Doctor, Matt Smith, did a cameo on her show).

This clip of her last regular appearance on the classic series (the last episode of The Hand of Fear) was posted on the Entertainment Weekly website in a tribute by Clark Collis.

'Til we meet again, Sarah.

Back in the Garden

It's refreshing to finally be back in my garden plot at Clifton Park. I found out today that mint really does grow like a weed. It grows EVERYWHERE, man. A month ago when I saw the dead-looking plant I thought "Oh well, that was nice while it lasted". Now the entire raised bed that I planted it in is covered in the stuff, much more so than the oregano that was growing and pulsating like it was alive. Also got a little sage out and planted some basil (too early perhaps) and dill (just right timewise). That and the guy that manages our little communal garden let me have some of his romaine and kale sproutlings.

Quinoa is Kosher for Passover, right?

According to The Atlantic's Uri Friedman, not necessarily. If you want to be absolutely sure, check with the Chicago Rabinnical Council, who say you can use quinoa. As long as it's from Bolivia, where quinoa production is chametz-free. And even then it's a pain in the tuchus:

...[The Chicago Rabbinical Council] recommends inspecting quinoa before Passover by spreading "one layer of quinoa at a time on a board or plate" and checking to be sure that there are no other grains or foreign matter mixed in with the quinoa"--a time-consuming exercise that Jews rushing to prepare seders are unlikely to embrace. [Friedman 2011]

And here I was struggling to find creative ways to avoid meat on Fridays. Silly me.

Random Bites: Tax Day Edition

Tax season bites. Looks like I withheld too little last year because I owed for the first time ever. Wow. I also made more in all of my part time work than I realized, which is great - though it did push me into a higher tax bracket. I'm not complaining about being taxed per se. I'm just kicking myself for not having changed my W4's sooner. Now I'm withholding nothing. Hopefully I'll get something back next year?

Just a few more bites as I recover from tax season.

1. The drive to cut back on my soda consumption has taken a slightly bumpy road, but I'm still on it. I now drink, on average, about two cans of soda a day. That said, I have gotten much more used to using that press-n-seal wrap on the half-empty can and putting it back in the fridge. I've also been a little generous in my definition of what counts as "soda". I haven't been counting it if it's normally caffeine-free, like ginger ale, or "all-natural", like one of those sugary sodas you might find in some of the more upscale natural food stores. The iced tea I keep brewing (thank you, Luzianne) has definitely cut down my soda consumption, that much is certain.

2. About those "upscale natural food stores": I don't have the cash to do all, or even much, of my shopping at places like the Good Life Organic Market in Severna Park or David's Natural Market in Columbia. I do love roaming around them to see the merchandise and hopefully pick up one or two things without breaking the bank. Good Life has hot soups (a small Senegalese Peanut Soup will cost $4), chocolates that I cannot avoid (a quarter pound for about $4.50) and more of those natural sodas. They also sell eggs individually - 35¢ per egg. David's is also a lovely store, and I have become addicted to the individually wrapped Dan's Chocolates that are conveniently located right by the checkout (50¢ each).

3. The Haute Dog Carte has a second location! It's at the Colonnade at Hopkins.

4. Speaking of businesses in Mt. Warshnin', Bansky's is just awesome, a beautiful group of people with awesome food.

5. I'm trying to find some huckleberries in the area! This is for an upcoming Snacking State-by-State post about food from Idaho. Rachel (Coconut & Lime) gave me the head's up that Atwater's at Belvedere Square sometimes sells huckleberry jam, but they have none at the moment. Will probably need to break down and mail order it online, like I almost did with poi for my upcoming Hawaii post.

6. If you didn't know this already: RuPaul's Drag Race (one of my guilty gay pleasures) is on every Monday night at The Hippo. Now I don't have to wait until it's posted online the next day!

Because Passover is coming up...

The Atlantic has quickly become on of my favorite sources for interesting articles about food, drink and such. Take Yoni Appelbaum's brief but thorough history of Manischewitz sweet Concord grape wine. In "The 11th Plague? Why People Drink Sweet Wine on Passover", the author grapples with the history behind the reality that Manischewitz wine isn't all that good, but people love it anyway. From raisin wine to cheap, easily supervised Concord grape production, through Prohibition and into the present day, Appelbaum lays out the history of Passover wine in America, and the uniquely American drink that Manischewitz became. It's even become a fad among hip young Jews and gentiles alike. For instance, as Appelbaum says:

...a modern bistro attracts a trendy crowd with offerings that include the Drunken Pharaoh, a Manischewitz-and-bourbon cocktail. Concord wine, it turns out, has hipster cred. It is also enjoying a boom in exports to Asia, home to the world's fastest-growing wine markets.

Catholic boy here will occasionally buy a canister of kosher macaroons at Giant when he finds them. As for the Manischewitz wine: I haven't tried it, but now I'm gonna have to go out and buy some just to see what Appelbaum is saying.

Strawberry Jam!

While in DC this Sunday, I gave a friend a lift home after our weekly soccer game. We stopped in the Harris Teeter for some grocery shopping. He found a sale on four pints of strawberries, and gave me two of them since he would never use them all. Yes, I did tell him he could freeze them. He doesn't cook though. And I am not one to turn down free food from friends.

I had to do something with these strawberries, and fast. I tend to procrastinate. Hell, while cleaning out the fridge today I just threw away a stroopwafel I brought home with me from Amsterdam - three years ago. You can't keep strawberries that long in the fridge.

I thought about cakes, crisps and cobblers, but I eventually settled on a strawberry freezer jam. I followed this recipe from the Gwen's Nest blog. It was surprisingly easy. All I needed were a packet of freezer fruit pectin, 3/4 cup sugar and two pints/pounds of strawberries. You also need about three pint size jars, or five to six half-pint (ie., cup) jars. They can be glass ones, though Bell does make special plastic freezer jars.

First, mix the sugar and fruit pectin (I should have used only half the packet since I halved Gwen's recipe, but I eventually dumped in the whole thing). Then moosh up the strawberries in a bowl, add the sugar-pectin mixture and stir for three minutes. Put into cleaned jars and close, and let sit for half an hour before freezing. And there you go! No need to even cook it.

I have never made a fruit jam. Okay there was that one tomato jam. All I have to do is bust out a jar if I want some fresh strawberry jam.

Snacking State-by-State: Georgia III - The Many Uses of Coca-Cola

Peaches and peanuts aside, by far Georgia's biggest export is Coca-Cola. First made in Atlanta in 1886, Coke is now bottled all over the world. Is it really any surprise that the Coca-Cola corporation has not just a handful but an entire collection of recipes from enterprising Southern and other'n cooks (not to mention all those chefs in the Coca-Cola test kitchens) using Coke products as ingredients in cooking.

Official Name: State of Georgia
State Nicknames: The Peach State, Empire State of the South
Admission to the US: January 2, 1788 (#4)
Capital: Atlanta (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Augusta (2nd largest), Savannah (4th largest), Columbus (3rd largest)
Region: South, Deep South, Lowcountry (specifically along the coast); South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (west), Tennessee & North Carolina (north), South Carolina (northeast), Atlantic Ocean (east), Florida (south)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: grits (official state prepared food), peach (fruit), Vidalia onion (vegetable)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: again, grits, peaches and Vidalia onions, among many other things, among them: Coca-Cola, boiled peanuts, pecans, pralines, okra, and other typical foods of the Deep South

Elizabeth Candler Graham, direct descendant of Coke founder Asa Candler co-authored the Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola cookbook with Ralph Roberts in a quest to find some recipes, hoping to find 20 or 30.

As the research progressed, we found to our pleasant surprise that in the over one hundred years of its existence, Coca-Cola has inspired a lot of recipes. So instead of just a few, we found literally hundreds of recipes using Coca-Cola or other products of The Coca-Cola Company. In fact, we found ourselves with too many recipes and were forced to leave out some of the lesser ones. [Candler Graham and Roberts 1998, p. 4]

I almost considered making an entire meal using Coke as an ingredient, but stuck with an entrée and a side instead. These may have been two of the rejects from the book, though I had great success with one of them.

The recipes: Fruited Coca-Cola Pork Chops with Caramelized Sweet Onions

To make both recipes, you need the following.


The entrée: Fruited Pork Chops

* shoulder or loin pork chops (4 about 1/2" thick - I got a package of 5 leaner, skinnier ones, which I now somewhat regret as I will explain below)
* salt, pepper and ground ginger (got them all)
* one apple and one lemon or orange (each less than a dollar - for the citrus I went ahead and used a tangelo instead, with little change)
* 1/2 cup Classic Coca-Cola (you can get the corn syrupy stuff, or splurge and get a bottle of the Mexican stuff with real sugar for about $1.50. Not too easy to find, but you can get it at Wegman's or Eddie's of Roland Park. Drink whatever you don't use)
* brown sugar and corn starch (got 'em)


Quickly brown the pork chops in a greaseless pan, then sprinkle them the salt, pepper and ginger, set them in your baking dish, and add the following: an apple slice on top of each pork chop, a citrus fruit slice on top of each apple slice, brown sugar over each pork chop, and Coca-Cola around the pork chops.

Like so.

Bake for about 45 minutes at 350° (the thinness of my pork chops probably necessitated a shorter baking time, which I did not consider at the time). Next stir in the corn starch and put in for about 15 minutes more.

The side dish: Southern Caramalized Vidalias, er, Mayans


For this recipe, you need a liter of Coke, a little A1 and two nice big sweet onions. The recipe, of course, calls for the very Georgian Vidalia onion. I could not find these anywhere at this time of year, so I begrudgingly settled for the not-as-special Sweet Mayan variety from Mexico. It wasn't the same, but it was doable.


Chop the onions into pieces, and pour in enough Coke to cover - the recipe says you will "float" the onion pieces in the Coke.
Next, add A1 Steak Sauce or a reasonable facsimile, cover and microwave on high for 20 minutes. When done you will have a mess of sweet, caramelized onions that you can serve on steak, mashed potatoes or anything else you like. I mixed some with some homemade tomato sauce and ate it on linguine. It wasn't as disturbing as it sounds.


I have to be frank: the onions clearly turned out better here. I could almost see myself just eating them straight out of the bowl. They certainly made the pork chops more interesting. I am largely to blame for how they turned out, since I did not adjust the time for the thinness of the chops, resulting in a drier, less juicy pork chop. Yes, even with all Coke and those fruit juices, the pork chops ended up pretty flat. Not so the onions, which I have eaten with potatoes, taro root and that linguine I mentioned above. I'll be making the onion dish again

Served with a Coca-Cola-free potato salad

Now heading out of Atlanta Hartsfield, the world's busiest airport, for the only state in the union that is not landlocked at all. In fact, it's our only Polynesian state, and the absolute southernmost state in the Union (sorry, Florida and Georgia). It's Hawai'i, the land of mahi mahi, poi and Spam.

Sources:

Candler Graham, Elizabeth, and Ralph Roberts. Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola. Hambleton Hill Publishing: Nashville, 1998

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Fruited Pork Chops". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006.

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Southern Caramelized Vidalias". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006. Originally submitted by Rod Rives of Birmingham, AL.

Deen, Paula. "Boiled Peanuts". Featured on the Paula's Home Cooking episode "Boat Day". Copyright The Food Network, 2010

Fairweather, John. "How to Make Boiled Peanuts in a Slow Cooker". From eHow Food, date unknown.

Georgia Peach Council. "Rich History of GA Peach". Copyright Georgia Peach Council, date unknown.

Hanley, Lucy (editor), and Alice Moffatt (food editor). The Best Basic & Easy Recipes of Savannah. John Hinde Curteich: Savannah, 2000. Distributed by Dixie Postcards & Souvenir Sales.

Yearwood, Trisha, with Gwen Yearwood and Beth Yearwood Bernard. Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours. Clarkson Potter: New York, 2008.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Georgia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Georgia".

Snacking State-by-State: Georgia II - That's What I Like About Peaches

Georgia is one of the leading producers of peanuts in America, and it is also a leading producer of peaches. According to the Georgia Peach Council, the peach has been grown by Cherokee farmers since the 1750's, and harvested for sale in Georgia since before the Civil War, started by Raphael Moses in 1851. Georgia sells over 2.5 million bushels of peaches annually - down from an all time high of 8 million in the 1920's, but still a lot (Georgia Peach Council 2011)

Official Name: State of Georgia
State Nicknames: The Peach State, Empire State of the South
Admission to the US: January 2, 1788 (#4)
Capital: Atlanta (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Augusta (2nd largest), Savannah (4th largest), Columbus (3rd largest)
Region: South, Deep South, Lowcountry (specifically along the coast); South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (west), Tennessee & North Carolina (north), South Carolina (northeast), Atlantic Ocean (east), Florida (south)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: grits (official state prepared food), peach (fruit), Vidalia onion (vegetable)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: again, grits, peaches and Vidalia onions, among many other things, among them: Coca-Cola, boiled peanuts, pecans, pralines, okra, and other typical foods of the Deep South

Since Georgia is the Peach State, this post needs a good standard peach recipe. And where better to turn than that most famous of Georgia chefs... Trisha Yearwood!? Yes, the Grammy award winner, Grand Ole Opry member, Garth Brooks family member (he's her hubby) and Monticello native. Yearwood now calls Oklahoma home (again, the Garth Brooks thing), but brings America her Georgia family recipes in her book Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen. Yearwood says her family knows her as much for her food as her singing.

As the singer notes, the peach cobbler is an important part of the Southern home cook's repertoire: "You can't be considered a serious southern cook if you don't know how to make peach cobbler" [Yearwood 2008, p,. 192]. Her recipe is quite the easy one, and it worked out well for me.

The recipe: Peach Cobbler


For this peach cobbler you will need:

* peaches (two 15 oz or four 8.5 oz cans, in syrup - Yearwood recommends canned peaches instead of fresh, which she says work better in recipes such as this. More so, she suggests you use freestone instead of clingstone peaches "because they are tender and tasty" [Yearwood 2008, p. 192]. You would not believe just how difficult it is to find canned freestone peaches here.)
* 1 stick butter (got it)
* self-rising flour, or all-purpose flour mixed with a little baking powder and salt (got 'em all, too)
* sugar and milk (got those)

This recipe is, as Yearwood notes, easy. Melt the butter in a 9 x 13 pan in the oven.


While you melt the butter, dump out the peaches and save half of the liquid (so drain half the peach syrup into a bowl, and the rest of the syrup just dump out). Mix the drained syrup with the milk and dry ingredients.


Next, pour into the pan, and arrange the peach slices in the pan before baking at 350° for an hour.

Mmmm. Peachy.

What can I say? It was easy, and it was very buttery and luscious. I have to agree: I definitely like freestone peaches better than the clingy variety. And while it is definitely best right out of the oven, especially with vanilla ice cream, it is almost as good after being nuked for a minute in the microwave.


And that's what I like about Trisha Yearwood's cobbler.

Sources:

Candler Graham, Elizabeth, and Ralph Roberts. Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola. Hambleton Hill Publishing: Nashville, 1998

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Fruited Pork Chops". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006.

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Southern Caramelized Vidalias". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006. Originally submitted by Rod Rives of Birmingham, AL.

Deen, Paula. "Boiled Peanuts". Featured on the Paula's Home Cooking episode "Boat Day". Copyright The Food Network, 2010

Fairweather, John. "How to Make Boiled Peanuts in a Slow Cooker". From eHow Food, date unknown.

Georgia Peach Council. "Rich History of GA Peach". Copyright Georgia Peach Council, date unknown.

Hanley, Lucy (editor), and Alice Moffatt (food editor). The Best Basic & Easy Recipes of Savannah. John Hinde Curteich: Savannah, 2000. Distributed by Dixie Postcards & Souvenir Sales.

Yearwood, Trisha, with Gwen Yearwood and Beth Yearwood Bernard. Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours. Clarkson Potter: New York, 2008.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Georgia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Georgia".

Snacking State-by-State: Georgia I - Boilin' Goober Peas

We head a little farther north, to the capital of the New South and its sister cities throughout the Peach State. I have lots of family in Georgia, and I'll have more once my sister moves there later this year. Maybe this post will help her acclimate a little better.

Official Name: State of Georgia
State Nicknames: The Peach State, Empire State of the South
Admission to the US: January 2, 1788 (#4)
Capital: Atlanta (largest city)
Other Important Cities: Augusta (2nd largest), Savannah (4th largest), Columbus (3rd largest)
Region: South, Deep South, Lowcountry (specifically along the coast); South Atlantic (US Census)
RAFT Nations: Cornbread & BBQ, Crabcake, Gumbo
Bordered by: Alabama (west), Tennessee & North Carolina (north), South Carolina (northeast), Atlantic Ocean (east), Florida (south)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: grits (official state prepared food), peach (fruit), Vidalia onion (vegetable)
Some Famous & Typical Foods: again, grits, peaches and Vidalia onions, among many other things, among them: Coca-Cola, boiled peanuts, pecans, pralines, okra, and other typical foods of the Deep South

As its capital, Atlanta, is also "capital of the New South", Georgia is not just the nexus of all edible things Southern but home to great food diversity - again, Atlanta is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the country. But Georgia also has a few foods that are its own, at least at first. Though I've already discovered that Delaware was a center of peach production on the East Coast at one time, most of us think of Georgia when we think of peaches. Georgia also comes to mind (can you hear me, Georgia?) when sweet, sweet Vidalia onions or the world's most popular soft drink pops up. I will touch a little bit on all of this in the paragraphs that follow.

Driving from Maryland to Georgia a few years ago on a visit to my brother-in-law in Hinesville, I had to stop a few times to abate the hunger. Once I passed into South Carolina I started seeing constantly heated containers of boiled peanuts in every convenience store. No I did not see them in North Carolina, though my cousin's wife, born and raised in the Tar Heel State, fondly remembers them. They are also a staple snack all over Georgia, so states one "postcard cookbook" I picked up in Savannah a few years ago:

Peanuts are Georgia's most valuable crop. Every Southerner knows that "goobers" or "goober peas" is another name for peanuts. This much-loved legume was immortalized in a Confederate ballad, that says, in part, "...But another pleasure enchantinger [sic] than these / Is wearing out your grinders, eating goober peas" ... "I wish this war was over, when free from rags and fleas / We'd kiss our wives and sweethearts and gobble goober peas!" [Hanley and Moffatt 2000; note: I sang that song on stage in fifth grade]

No less than the Lady herself Paula Deen gets all giddy over her goober peas in the "Boat Day" episode of her show. I've made them before, and I'll make them again, this time the Lady & Sons way.

The recipe: Boiled Peanuts


For boiled peanuts, all you need are:

* peanuts (these must be raw, not roasted, which is not that easy to find in Baltimore - I figured the North Carolina-based supermarket chain Harris Teeter would obviously have raw peanuts, but no - not at their Columbia location, and not at their Arlington location. Fortunately, I remembered that Giant does indeed sell bagged raw peanuts from Jimbo's Jumbos. This is the best we're going to do here unless we grow our own - which I am planning to do this summer. A bag of jumbo raw peanuts cost $4.)
* salt (a lot of it - kosher preferably)
* You don't need any other seasonings, and Miss Paula doesn't use them. But I decided to Ches-ify mine by adding a generous helping of Old Bay (about 2 or 3 tablespoons). Fortunately, Old Bay is well-loved throughout the South, so this may not sound as strange as you might think.


Boiled peanuts are particularly easy to make: take a pound of raw peanuts and about a 1/2 to 3/4 cup salt per pound, boil for a few hours and there you go. But I decided to save myself the need of having to constantly watch over it by throwing them in the slow cooker (okay I lied - I did not do this the Lady& Sons way).


When I threw them in the slow cooker, I should have put them on high for 5 to 7 hours, as this eHow article suggests. I started on low for 4 hours, and then bothered to look up the article (wah waaaaaaah). But what turned into a day of boiling peanuts paid off, as I finally got soft, hot boiled peanuts!

I have to differ with Paula Deen on the salt amount. I know they're supposed to be salty, but these had so much of it! I am not alone on this, as even proper Southerners have told Miss Paula as much in comments to her recipe. My favorite comment comes from "bradfordrb" from Columbia [I assume South Carolina]:

Lord have mercy, Paula! I do declare, there is too much salt in that there recipe of boiled peanuts. You trying to send us all to meet our maker and give us a blazin' heart attack? [comment on Deen 2010]

In addition, my attempt to Old Bay-ify these peanuts didn't bear any fruit, er, legumes, as the Old Bay taste completely got washed away by the salt. In the future, I will turn up the Old Bay and turn down the salt. But the peanuts were still good, and I ate some on the way to Rehoboth Beach recently.


Sources:

Candler Graham, Elizabeth, and Ralph Roberts. Classic Cooking with Coca-Cola. Hambleton Hill Publishing: Nashville, 1998

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Fruited Pork Chops". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006.

Coca-Cola Company. "Recipe: Southern Caramelized Vidalias". Copyright The Coca-Cola Company, 2006. Originally submitted by Rod Rives of Birmingham, AL.

Deen, Paula. "Boiled Peanuts". Featured on the Paula's Home Cooking episode "Boat Day". Copyright The Food Network, 2010

Fairweather, John. "How to Make Boiled Peanuts in a Slow Cooker". From eHow Food, date unknown.

Georgia Peach Council. "Rich History of GA Peach". Copyright Georgia Peach Council, date unknown.

Hanley, Lucy (editor), and Alice Moffatt (food editor). The Best Basic & Easy Recipes of Savannah. John Hinde Curteich: Savannah, 2000. Distributed by Dixie Postcards & Souvenir Sales.

Yearwood, Trisha, with Gwen Yearwood and Beth Yearwood Bernard. Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen: Recipes from My Family to Yours. Clarkson Potter: New York, 2008.

Some information also obtained from Wikipedia's "Georgia" page and other pages, and the Food Timeline State Foods link to "Georgia".