Cooking with Chef Jo: Cooking for Health, Wealth, and Happiness in 2021

Usually, for the past 25 years, I've cooked a traditionally southern style New Year's Day feast of Ham, collards, black eyed peas, rice and cornbread. Since last year is carrying on into this year the focus has been global, I'm going global with my New Year's Day feast. It can't hurt, can it? Well yes, my waist line will definitely take a hit so soon after the indulgences of November and December pig outs. But, I'll work it all off, and then some come spring and summer climbing up and down through the garden several times a day, won't I? I'll keep telling myself until it's true. LOL

So come along with me as I plan my New Year's Day meal...

• In Spain they eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight, but they'll grace my morning oatmeal as a side dish. It won't be at midnight so I'll lose 4-5 hours of luck, wealth, health, and happiness. .But 
• In Mexico, they eat tamales, and a tripe and hominy soup. I'll pass on the soup. Tripe is a major no-no for my heart health. But I'll make two tamales. A heck, for all that work, I'll make some up for a freezer meals.
• In the  Netherlands, Oliebollen, or fried oil balls, are sold at street carts during New Year's celebrations. I'm wondering where I can get fish fat to make these. I can always call my brother-in-law whose originally from there. I have a mental picture of me cutting open fish oil capsules from my medicine cabinet, or worse, buying cod liver oil. Do they still sell it anymore? After I called him and asked him about the fish oil, and when he stopped laughing, he explained they hadn't used fish oil in hundreds of years. Olibollen was a Dutch donut hole.
• In Germany and Austria, they create little piggies out of fresh marzipan. This I will be doing because it's my heritage. Putting almonds on my grocery list.
• In Japan, soba noodles on New Year's symbolizes longevity, great health, nights of full sleep, and wealth. Definitely doing this one too. Again, it's my heritage. I'll even pit a link to my recipe for this here.
• In France, they enjoy galette des rois, or King Cake as it's known here. I think I can find a baby new year at the store to put in it.
• In Italy, it's a lentil and sausage (cotechino) casserole. Wondering where I can find cotechino? It's too late in the game to make some. Granted it only fifteen minutes once you have all the ingredients, but would take a hour of prep work for me and then it has to boil for two hours. I'll have a little less luck,
• In Poland and Scandinavian countries, Pickled herring is served. I've actually bought some in cream sauce two weeks ago.

So my New Year's day menus are shaping up. To eat all of this will take all three meals plus snacks to eat it all. I've added the comments and actions I'll be doing while eating all this food on New Year's day just for fun. 😏

Breakfast

12 Grapes

and a slice of King cake

Two very strong cups of hot tea,

Because I spent the last two days in prep and cooking!

Mid morning snack

3 Oliebollen

Another 2 cuppers of hot tea,

Because already it's been one of those types of days!

 

Lunch

My Favorite Wintertime Soup

Lentils and Cotechino

Another slice of King cake

Extra helpings can't be a bad thing, can it?

Mid afternoon snack

Creamed Pickled Herring on toast points

Can I stop eating yet?

Dinner

The transplant duo (us) demanded a southern traditional meal.

Hoppin' John

The tradition states you have to eat 365 black eyed peas to be lucky, 

healthy, & wealthy.  I've never eaten that many before! 

I even used the meat from the smoked hog jowl instead of baking a ham.  

God HELP ME! I managed to eat 209 peas. Yes, I counted.

Collard greens

I finally managed to make them like my step mother does, 

but I could only manage two bites, WAAAH!

Buttered carrots and corn

Meant to bring wealth- coins and gold nuggets. A single bite 

of each.  I stand up trying to force the food down into hollow legs.

 It worked as a child, but not now.

Cornbread

A paper thin sliver. I didn't butter it, but sopped up the butter 

from corn and carrots. I was so ever thankful when half of it fell into 

crumbled mush with the butter.

OMG! There on my plate sat a untouched, steamed Tamale!

My stomach made an ominous rumbling sound and 

the skin stretched way too tight was threatening to 

explode! I unwrapped it with trembling fingers. I had 

intentionally made them 2- bite size. My mouth refused to 

open and the  fingers went slack. The tamale dropped 

back onto my plate. I was done! I called for a wheelbarrow to 

roll me away from the table.

Fours later, I was getting ready for bed that I remembered the German  Fresh Marzipan Piggies! 

I waddled to the kitchen and there they were on a plate grinning at me. They were positively daring me to eat one!  I  grabbed one and viciously bit its head off, SO THERE! In reality, the head equaled about 1/4 tsp of marzipan. I even managed a very small bite of a Tamale. I wanted all the bases covered. I was done with NINE countries New Year traditions for wealth, health, and luck for 2021 to head off my doom and gloom Sunday's post,

I went to bed. New Year's Day was almost done. If things are bad next year, I think I'll do five four, er um, three new countries plus the southern traditional. As I finished my nightly prayers, I added...

God, Thank you for helping me get through a mountain of food and the resources to buy what was needed.  May the traditions claimed come true for us this year. Now, someone pass me some Tums. Amen and Amen!

Back to real time. I'm busy grinding almonds for the marzipan for the Germany recipe. The tamales are made and awaiting the steamer basket. Most have been vacuum sealed and in the freezer for a couple of "TV dinners night. Two are wrapped in plastic wrap to keep them moist before steaming. Japan's soba broth is chilling out in the refrigerator.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Counting Down to the Beginning of 2021-From My Soapbox

I  hope y'all had a peaceful and joyous Christmas. Now, just when you thought 2020 will never end, it's less than a handful of days left in the year. I wish 2021 would be better, but I think it won't be for a while. I'm getting on my soapbox for some hard truths.

Believe it or not, this thought is not political in nature. Parties come into power and go out of power. It's happened every four years a presidential vote  has been cast. In my lifetime the vote of the people have been counted 15 times so far.  Did he make a effective president or an ineffective one? That's only will  be debated until infinity comes to pass. I look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs pyramid as a guideline and how far we've fallen in the last year. We've (people world wide) taken hits on all levels they'd achieved or thought they had achieved. Not just towns, but entire nations!

Homesteaders probably fared better than urban areas but they were still hit because of shortages. Shortages. I'm talking about just generalities. There were shortages in seed thereby reducing produce availability to fatten or replenish our larders against "famine," The cockeyed weather freezing, drowning or scorching crops. It happened to the big commercial farms too reducing supplies to outlets leading to nation wide shortages. A virus shut down all but essentials with stay at home order for a majority of states here in the US for months. In fact, some states are reinstating shut down rules again. So production mulls are closing again. The country might have survived a couple weeks of this, but not months worth. No wonder the economy is in the toilet with very little encouragement to ramp back up. Fear mongering is at its highest point in decades. For the situation to improvement will take years not months. To make that happen means people have to work and not be so complacent in the future. There's 6 billion people who need to get their backsides together and work it out...not wait on the government to solve all their problems.

A tiny microscopic bug is tettering nations just like Spanish Flu and the Black Death did in their times. We got cocky in our modern medicine, it couldn't happen again, but it did. The testing kits are reading false positives and false negatives so are we any better for them? Does that increase your Maslow security needs? Probably not. They are close to a vaccine against it. I have the antibodies for the original virus, but guess what? There is now a mutated form so I can get it again. The virus isn't as high in fatalities as in the beginning because they know how to fight it even with high risk patients like me. As a side note, the active virus pictured looks almost like a Christmas card, doesn't it? Or, is that too morbid?

Now that I've looked back at 2020, what's ahead in 2021? More of the same I'm afraid to say. The problems we are facing today didn't evolve in several months or several years. It's like when the real estate balloon popped two decades ago and banks started failing. We are facing the same type of situation again now. Nobody is 100% safe from the effects. They'll have a vaccine next year (maybe). What percent of effectiveness can you accept because no anti viral is 100% effective. Then, there are folks like me that can't take them, or refuse because of their belief systems.

We, as a nation, pride ourselves as the land of plenty. But, millions are out of work and businesses are closing. Raw materials that were cheaper to import, now we have to depend on our own manpower to supply again at a more expensive price. Everyone is touting "Buy American," but how many folks can afford the higher price tags to do this? An off-the-grid, fully self sufficient homestead sounds better as each day passes. BUT will the powers that be let us keep it? So many restrictions are being passed to prevent you from living this way. Of course, you could try flying under the radar and praying you are not caught. Big brother is always watching you. Shades of 1984, anyone? Not that I'm paranoid or anything as I watch our rights slip or be corrupted into oblivion.

Believe me when I say, "The fat lady hasn't sung yet." It still can get a whole lot worse in 2021 before it gets better. Unless God comes down and smites everyone, it will happen. Knowing my history and seeing what's going on world wide (even with all the fake news going around), it's insane and scary world beyond our front and back doors. Let's hope I'm wrong, but prepare for if I'm right.

So what's the answer for all this doom and gloom I'm spouting? Tighten your fist, treat others as you want to be treated, and knuckle down. Supply for yourself and others if possible. Recycle or upcycle all you can. Don't know how to do something, learn by talking to others, researching, and try it. You may surprise yourself. Love each other. Protect each other. Respect each other. Shop locally if you can. It all starts with one person, is that you?

Thanks you for reading this far. Have a safe New Year's Eve and ringing in the new year. Raise a glass of whatever brings you cheer for me, because I'll be snuggling under my quilt until it is 2021. I can't soar with the eagles in the morning when I've been grounded with turkeys all night. I'm too old for that stuff, I've got near 50 hungry mouths to feed in the morning including mine.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Cooking with Chef Jo: Christmas Eve-Roasted Stuffed Quail

At my old homestead, we used to celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. My children were all grown up with families and extended families of their own so Christmas Eve seemed the best night to do this on. This freed up their Christmas morning to enjoy their individual families, afternoon with Poppa Jack (my dad with a total of 4 generations in attendance), and the evening with their in-laws. It worked well for a decade or two before my children permanently moved to others coasts and countries.

I knew my father would serve prime rib (standing rib roasts), turkey, and a ham. Yes, we normally had 75 family and friends (now the number is close to 100) in attendance. In my own household, my children, their spouses and their children numbered just 20 head of folks ages 1-50ish. I cooked for both events at my house and my father's. It would have been impossible without a full restaurant kitchen and equipment otherwise. Still, we managed each year.

So as you can imagine, it was difficult to find something different to prepare on Christmas Eve dinner at my home. One year, I did whole groupers stuffed with seafood, hushpuppies, German coleslaw (basically sauerkraut was used instead of fresh cabbage), German potato salad, and a selection of cheesecakes and pies. Two members of my family do not eat seafood so they has to settle for grilled T-bone steaks. After that I settled on stuffed quail or Cornish game hens.

On this homestead, we are lucky enough to have our own quail to eat. For roasting whole quail, I take the time while butchering to pluck the birds leaving the skin intact. Normally when I spatchcock quail, I remove the skin with the feathers rather than plucking the feathers. I'll butcher the birds both ways. Plucking the feathers takes longer and the entrails are removal is more tedious with such a small bird.

My wild rice stuffing recipe can be found here. Quail are small birds and won't hold much stuffing (about 2 TBS at most) so place remainder of the wild rice stuffing in an heavily buttered, oven safe dish as a bed for the quail for roasting. It all begins the day before or today actually.

 Roasted and Stuffed Quail

Serves 2-4, It depends how big your appetite is.

What you'll need

1 gallon of water

1/2 cup kosher salt, or any non-iodonize salt you prefer

1/2 cup orange juice

6 cloves garlic, smashed

6 peppercorns

2 bay leaves, large

6 sage leaves, either fresh or dried

4 whole. skin on quails

4 TBS or 1/2 stick of melted butter 

2 tsp rubbed sage

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp ground rosemary

1/2 tsp thyme

                                                            1/2 tsp ground black pepper

                                                            1/2 tsp salt

                                                           4 TBS oil

Putting it all together

• 8-10 hours before service, place first seven ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil.
• Boil for 5 minutes stirring frequently until the salt dissolves.
• Remove from heat, cover, and let liquid cool to room temperature. This will take an hour or two.
• Place quail in the brine liquid.
• Place a plate on top of the birds to keep them under the brine.
• Refrigerate for 6 hours.
• Prepare rice stuffing.
• Mix ground herbs and spices in the melted butter and set aside to let them rehydrate a bit. 
• When the stuffing is cooked set aside until you can handle the rice without burning yourself.
• Remove quail from brine and rinse the birds inside and out.
• Let drain at least 20 minutes.
• Brush quail with butter and herb mixture inside and out.
• Stuff the birds.
• In a large cast iron skillet, place oil and heat until hot.
• Place quail breast side down first, and then brown on all sides.
• Remove quail from the pan.
• Place remaining rice stuffing in the hot skillet.
• Place quail on top of the stuffing.
• Cover loosely with foil.
• Place in 400 degree oven.
• Bake 20 minutes.
• Baste birds with remaining butter mixture.
• Return skillet to the oven and bake uncovered for additional 10 minutes. A meat thermometer inserted into the breast should read 165 degrees for well done quail. The stuffing in the skillet should be crisp on the outside and moist in the middle or under the quail.
• Transfer stuffing and quail to a serving plate.

Serve with a side of broiled asparagus wrapped in bacon that has been dusted with Parmesan cheese after broiling, corn niblet soufflé, and some homemade yeast rolls for a high end, fancy dinner. You could just serve it with any vegetable for a Sunday night dinner. Y'all enjoy!

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Christmas Goodies Tasting and Making Shortbread Cookies

 Since I had to mail my fruitcake to my family this year, I checked on their basting progress. Usually I don't do this until two weeks before Christmas... not the week of Thanksgiving. The question in my mind was did it have enough baste/soaking time to be my fruitcake. I was pleasantly surprised that the nonalcoholic version was just as moist and tasty without the additional final baste and soak time. Now whether or not the alcoholic version fared as well...I dunno. I'll have to make some phone calls this week and find out. 

No, I don't randomly send out or take my fruitcakes to everyone. These are friends and family who request them--all eleven of the families. The same went for my grandmother's oatmeal raisin, molasses, gingersnap, and peppernut cookies, and my mother's sharp cheddar cheese cookies. They are a dyed in the wool requests because they are too labor, cost, and ingredient intensive to mass produce for anyone who won't eat and enjoy them. Each box that went out was personalized to that person's/family's likes and dislikes so nobody got anything they didn't want.

For decades, I've done this for my huge family of 4 generations and have 7 siblings instead of buying them commercial gifts. For brothers, sisters, and my children, and grands there would be special handmade Christmas ornaments and a little something extra...also handmade. Being the oldest of them all and having five children, I set the example. It made Christmas more enjoyable and financially easier on everyone. 

This year I made shortbread and butter cookies for everyone. This included my neighbors and friends here next week.  I personally love both cookies. They are relatively low in sugar but huge in taste. A shortbread crust bases all my cheesecakes, not the cream cheese and whipped cream version, but the real cheese cheese cakes made with ricotta cheese. It's the way I learned to make cheesecakes decades ago. 

I always have ricotta cheese around from making mozzarella or hard cheeses during the year. I never let a good whey go down the drain, and it freezes wonderfully. I extract every gram of protein out of it now that I don't have medium to large livestock that enjoy it. I do save the whey for baking and give to the chickens during the winter months. The chickens thoroughly enjoy the warm whey in the winter. The extra protein in the absence of bugs is good for them.  With all this chatter about cheesecake it almost sounds as if I'd follow up with my baked cheesecake recipe if you didn't read the title of this post, doesn't it? But it's all about my husband's great grandma's shortbread cookies. I used to listen to stories about her at family get togethers. If I remember the stories correctly, she was still living when my beloved was born. So to me, this was one of those stories recanted in a time when I was alive which makes it part of living history for me. She died in 1963 at age 105 years young and my husband was 15 so he had lots of memories of her.

According to the family, she had an German embossed rolling pin that she used just for these cookies at Christmas similar to the one pictured left. I don't have one of those so I substituted my own version pictured below. Where she got the recipe from I don't know. But, it became part of my dearly departed husband's memories and family legacy. No one other than I successfully replicated the taste of her cookies according to the family. I guess it was the honor, respect, and the love that I put into making her recipe. The pictured version is my decorating this 4 ingredient cookie, but I made it five for added flavor. Grinning

Great Grandmother Havers' Shortbread Cookies

Makes 8 dozen

What you'll need

3 cups unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted twice*

4 1/2 cups twice ground all purpose flour, sifted*

1 1/2 cups corn starch, sifted *

1 tsp vanilla (not in original recipe)

Note- * General instruction for all sifted ingredients- measure after sifting. If you do not, there will be too much of the ingredient in the recipe.

* Firmly pack flour into measuring cup. Add it to a blender and pulse it until ground again. Sift contents of the blender onto parchment paper. I believe this is now called pastry flour. Spoon into measuring cup and measure out 4 1/2 cups for this recipe. My husband's great grandmother used a hand powered flour mill to grind the flour again.

Putting it all together

• Sift flour and corn starch together.
• Place sugar and butter in a mixing bowl.
• Beat on high until the mixture is fluffy and light (of course, Great Grandmother did this by hand)
• Add the flour mixture in 1/2 cup increments beating well between additions. Continue until the all the flour mixture is fully incorporated.
• (Great Grandmother's instructions) Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thickness using the imprint rolling pin on the last roll to get the impression to cut the cookie. Cut cookies apart.
• (My version) Scoop 1 tablespoon of dough and roll into a round ball. Flatten it to form 1/4" thick circle. Or, press in center like the mini Hershey Kiss and strawberry jam variations above, and then, flatten slightly. Like thumb print cookies.
• Fill the thumb print cookies with strawberry jam, lemon curd, chocolate, or fig preserves as I did.
• Place cookies on ungreased baking sheets.
• Bake 300 degrees for 20 minutes.
• Let cool on the pan before removing.
• Decorate as desired.

Warning-It's very important not to remove the cookies from the pan before it's cooled or it will crumble in hundreds of pieces if you do.

You must work quickly when rolling out the balls. The heat of your hands will melt then butter too quickly. You need the butter to be in the semi solid state to have the fine crumble that is classic to shortbread. You may put the dough in the refrigerator and bring it out to room temperature(between 60-72 degrees) before rolling the balls if it gets too warm. This is why I never make her shortbread in the summer time in Georgia. I'll make the bases of cheesecakes in the winter or springtime and freeze them until I need them.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Chef Jo

Are You Ready for Christmas? Yes and No.

 Again for the second year I'm not going home for the holidays. My children and grandchildren won't be visiting us neither (not that they ever have). It's just Mel and I. The first couple of years I made a point of attending all the family get togethers (4th of July, Thanksgiving, or Christmas). That all changed when I couldn't drive because of my seizure in July year before last, and the loss of my vehicle this year. No, we haven't replaced it yet. It's a relative low priority.

Mel won't let me drive her Blazer even though I paid for it. She says I shouldn't drive anymore, but that's her opinion. We both can't be gone from the homestead at the same time for over twenty-four hours because of the critters. We really can't  afford to pay someone to do our chores, nor pay for a motel room to go anywhere. So we're both kind of stuck. But other than me having not seeing my family, we are both right where we want to be.

As far as decorating our homestead for any holiday or season, we take a bah-humbug approach. All the time and hassles of us putting it up, changing it, taking it down and storing it away is just too much trouble. But, we do buy a new American flag for the front of the house just after Memorial Day each year. The winds blowing through this hollar rips them to shreds in a year. With Mel's depressive state during winter, there's no merriment nor giddiness here. 

Holidays are just another day except for our main meals of the day. I always try to make them special. I prepare favorite foods on birthdays, lamb for Easter, a grilled feast for the 4th of July, turkey for Thanksgiving, and a standing rib roast for Christmas. Of course, there's all the fixings/sides to go along with it. We rarely exchange gifts anymore because if we need or want something, we get it for ourselves during the year.

There's almost something sad about only roasting two ribs worth of of a standing rib roast when I used to make servings for 50. Beautifully roasted to perfection (rare to medium) with the centers of the crowns filled with Yorkshire pudding and a side of my homegrown and made horseradish sauce. But still with beef prices soaring this year even locally sourced, I'm thankful I don't have to buy two full racks like days gone by and still have enough ribs to grill during the year. Of course back then, I was buying a whole heifer each year too. Now, I make the pudding in a 6-hole muffin tin. It's good, but not fabulous as the pudding cooked in the meat.

Since my father is bedridden now, my brothers and sisters plus families come to visit during Christmas week instead of all coming at once Christmas day. Plus, my chef daughter and I aren't there to help cook in mass. To be honest, those days are gone for me. Plus, I'm six hours away now, and my chef daughter and her immediate family live in Ireland. That's a far piece to travel for home for the holidays for the five of them. But still, I miss going home and catching up with everyone. 

Mel may or may not visit with her niece and family during the holidays. It all depends on how bad her depression is. I know we have to make the hour trip to her hometown the first week in December for my doctor's appointment. Maybe they'll get together then. They've missed the quarterly meet ups the past two times because of the COVID stuff and the baby being ill. That's the only family she keeps in contact with other than sporadic phone calls or Facebook.

So what are y'all doing for the holidays? Are you ready yet? Nineteen days and counting.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo