What's in Grandma's Recipe Tin? -Oatmeal Cookies

Welcome to my newest food blog project! I have been trying to think of a good project idea for a while, but nothing really jumped out of me as a fun idea. My grandmother is currently preparing to move out of her apartment and bequeathed to me three large containers full of newspaper clippings and recipe cards that she had collected over the years, with the words "You'll probably throw them away, but if you wanted to look through them..." So I took them with me and spent an entire day looking through all of them. I narrowed it down to one tin-worth of recipe cards and newspaper clippings to try out, and was thinking of the best time to try them and it hit me: blog project! "What's in Grandma's Recipe Tin?" is the perfect title for this project.

The inaugural recipe for this project is Oatmeal Cookies.

Oatmeal cookies are delicious, but they're not that exciting. They're pretty basic. So why did I choose it this time? Because look at the recipe-there's no flour in the ingredient list. I thought at first that maybe it was a missed ingredient, but then I noticed there are no eggs in there either, another standard for most oatmeal cookie recipes. That made me start thinking it was written this way on purpose after all, and therefore, was much more interesting as a recipe. I mean, no flour, no eggs, how was this cookie supposed to hold its shape? How would the butter and sugar not just melt out of it, leaving a mess of caramel and oats on the sheet pan? I had to see how it would work out. And if it worked out, it's a viable gluten-free cookie recipe and for people who need that, what an exciting thought!

 

I made these Friday night and they weren't very hard to make. First step was mixing the oats with the brown sugar. I used old-fashioned oats, not the quick-cooking kind. 

 

 

After those were blended together, I added the butter, cut into cubes, and mixed it really well until it was blended.

(Sorry the font is different for this, the picture wouldn't let me add a space and freaked out and only let me add a caption instead...)

 

At this stage, it was almost like a shortbread dough in texture. It doesn't say to, but I refrigerated it at this point for a while to help it stay firm. A while later, I used a small cookie dough scoop to make uniform-size cookies. Some cookies need to be shaped delicately, but since these are so precarious, they actually do better by being rolled tightly into a ball. Don't be afraid to squeeze them into a ball, they'll retain a better shape when they bake.

The wet fork is really an important step because the dough would just crumble if you pressed it with a dry fork. The ones that were pressed down less held their shapes better. I recommend just a gentle pressing down, maybe to about 1/4" thick or so.

The ones with the browner edges were more delicate and crumbly, but the thicker ones held their shape better. Those ones were chewier. Both were delicious, but the crumbly ones are SUPER crumbly. Like, make sure to eat them over a plate or the sink or something cuz you'll end up with crumbs everywhere if you don't!

This recipe made about 5 dozen cookies with the size of the scoop I used. The texture held up the next day when I took them to my family gathering where my father proceeded to gobble them up and then commandeered the rest of the bag. Luckily I have another bag set aside to take to work tomorrow to share with my coworkers.

This was a simple cookie, a delicious gluten-free option for somebody who can't eat gluten and really misses traditional cookies. This was a great inaugural recipe for this project. I get to share them with my friends and family. And hopefully over the course of this project, I'll get to share a lot more delicious food with my friends and family, especially my grandmother, who will be reading along with the blog posts. Grandma, when you read this, know the recipe turned out great! Thank you for passing the recipes on to me!

Holiday Soiree: Nochebuena

Source

The Holiday: Nochebuena(Spain, Latin America, the Philippines)

Nochebuena, or "Good Night," is the celebration of Christmas Eve in Spain and other countries who have been colonized by Spain. It usually consists of a gigantic family meal, after Mass, depending on the country. The country I focused on for this holiday, was the Philippines. The traditional food for this meal is roast suckling pig, but that was a bit much for one person in an apartment to deal with, so I picked some other traditional Filipino foods that I have always wanted to try, but never had a chance to. Researching through the internet and speaking with one of my coworkers led me to feel confident that I had picked out appropriate foods for this meal. 

The Food: Lumpia, Pancit, and Suman Malagkit

All of my recipes come from the internet, so I am going to post links to them and share pictures and explanations, rather than type out the recipes here.

 

First up, is Lumpia.

Lumpia is the Filipino version of eggrolls, and it shows the influence China has had on the Philippines. I have heard about the amazingness that is lumpia for years, but have never had a chance to try it, so I was really excited to make these. I had planned on doing the Philippines when I was doing my Countries of the World project I scrapped, so I had purchased a package of lumpia wrappers several months ago when I was at one of the local Asian markets and they've been in my freezer ever since.

My simple camera doesn't have a panoramic setting, so here are a couple pictures showing the grand total of ingredients used in all the recipes! As you can see, it's a lot! This is what I have noticed about most Asian recipes. They utilize a lot of ingredients and require a lot of prep work. Based on the time and effort it takes to put into it, I can see and understand why it can cost so much money to buy it at a restaurant.

 This is the lumpia filling. It's missing the onions because I forgot to add them. I did remember the green onions, though.

 Here is a pre-rolled and rolled version of the lumpia. They are bigger than they should be because the wrappers were freezer burned and they all stuck together. Each lumpia has about 3 wrappers for each one because I couldn't get them apart. They're more like egg rolls or miniature burritos, but lumpia should be much more delicate and small than mine ended up being.

 Here they are frying in the pan. Technically they should be deep-fried, but I found pan-frying in a lot of oil worked just as well. These have been turned over but should be a little darker than this.

Here is the delicious final result. They are as amazing as they were promised to be! I feel sad that it's taken this long for me to have these in my life. I will hopefully have lumpia much more often now! I might try out some of the varieties I've seen in the frozen section of the grocery store.

Next up is, Pancit.
Pancit is akin to chow mein, but generally it uses rice noodles instead of wheat noodles. According to my coworker, this dish is pronounced "Pahn-sit," and I'm glad I asked because I was saying it differently. So, now you know too!

This dish cooks in several steps. First is the meat and vegetables. It starts out like a basic stir-fry. Then you add the liquid and seasoning and simmer for a while. The meat and vegetables are then removed from the pan and you add the soaked noodles to the liquid to continue cooking over heat. I found the best way to soak the noodles, which as you can see in the very top picture, the package with the shrimp on it, are very tall, is the cut the top of the package off, fill the package with cold water and let it sit in the dish drainer for a while. Every few minutes, I pushed down on it to get the top of the noodles to get them into the water too. This worked really well.

 Once the noodles have soaked in the cold water, you remove the vegetables and meat out of the liquid and put the drained noodles into it. Let them cook until they turn translucent and then add the meat and vegetables back to it. Most of the liquid absorbed into the noodles and I found I would have liked a bit more. I halved the recipe, but if I make it again, I'd probably do 2/3 of the liquid instead of half.

This is what the final product looks like. This is a nice one for people who need to have a gluten-free diet. Most noodle dishes are prepared with wheat noodles, but this is just rice. The flavor and texture is awesome and I couldn't stop eating it!

Those two dishes made a filling and delicious meal and I was running late that night, so I held off on the dessert until the next day. My choice for dessert was Suman Malagkit. This looks really complicated, but it's actually quite simple. The most complicated step is finding the ingredients. The banana leaves can be found in the freezer section of most Asian markets and I had some leftover from my cities in America project, so I didn't have to buy more. The cool thing is, because they're a byproduct, they're super cheap. They are also gigantic, so be prepared when you work with them that you will be dealing with a leaf that is nearly as tall as you are.

 Here is the rice and coconut mixture on the stove before it's heated.

 Here it is after it's been cooked and has absorbed all the coconut milk. It's not fully cooked at this point.

 I cut down the banana leaf to a reasonable size and used small strips of them to tie it up.

 The rice sticks together really well, but I tried to spread it out a bit.

 Folded up like a little present.

 

The strip has been used to tie the package together and keep it from opening up in the steamer.

 

 Here they all are in the steamer.

 You can see how the leaf gets darker as it steams. It imparts a slight banana flavor into whatever food you cook in it.

The finished product. You can see it's akin to a tamale, except it's made of rice instead of corn. The texture of the rice is great and I liked the flavor, except it was too salty for my tastes. I think if I was to make this again, I would either cut the amount of salt in half or leave it out altogether. I liked the coconut flavor mixed with the slight banana flavor. The rice is very tender, sort of like a rice pudding. This is also gluten free.

I have never had Filipino food before, and this just makes me want to keep exploring it. I love learning about new cultures through the food they eat. It's a very intimate way to get to know people. Maybe next year I'll have to make some of this for my family's Christmas Eve dinner...! We can call it Nochebuena too!

Dining-In: A Culinary Tour of America-Portsmouth, New Hampshire

The Location: Portsmouth, New Hampshire

2013 population: 21,440; 88.5% white, 3.9% Asian, 3.9% Hispanic. 2013 per capita income: $40,437

Prior to the European invasion, Portsmouth had been home to the Abenaki and other Algonquian language-speaking tribes. Martin Pring is the first recorded European to explore the area in 1603. By 1630, Europeans were colonizing the area. A British fort, Fort William and Mary, was built near the village of Portsmouth, giving it added protection. Portsmouth is located on a river harbor that opens to the ocean, and is thus a strategic location for trading. Other industries included lumber, ship building, and fishing. By 1645, enslaved Africans were being used as a labor source. Portsmouth profited greatly from their role in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

The city was first incorporated in 1653. In 1679, it was named the capital of the colony of New Hampshire and also became a place of refuge for Puritan exiles from Massachusetts. In 1774, Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth and warned people that the British were on their way. During the Revolutionary War, the slaves helped defend the city from the British. Once the war ended, in 1779, a group of 19 slaves submitted a petition to the state asking them to abolish slavery in exchange for the role they had played in the state and the nation's freedom. The petition was ignored, but New Hampshire did eventually unofficially abolish slavery in 1783 when they changed taxation codes and reworded the state constitution. It was not officially abolished in writing, however, until 1857, when the state passed legislation that stated that a person's decent may not be used to deny them citizenship to the state. Though it wasn't until New Hampshire ratified the 13th Amendment on July 1, 1865, that it was truly and officially ended.

Portsmouth was incorporated as a city in 1849. Though President Lincoln toured through the state of New Hampshire, and the state sent soldiers to fight, the state itself was too far north to have had any battles fought on its soil. Though Portsmouth lost many men to the war, the city itself remained unscathed.

Today, there are many museums and historical buildings dedicated to preserving the early American history of Portsmouth. The city itself now is considered a politically liberal city with many colleges and universities. The publishing company, Heinemann USA, is located in Portsmouth. Portsmouth is home to a plethora of well-known names throughout history. A few recent names include: Ilene Woods, the voice of Disney's Cinderella, Brooke Astor, philanthropist, Samantha Brown of the Travel Channel, and Tom Bergeron, tv host.

The Food: New England Clam Chowder and Brown Bread

I couldn't not do New England clam chowder at some point in time with this blog project. It is so quintessentially New England that it would be criminal of me to neglect it. I know there are several types of clam chowder, but I wanted the traditional New England kind, with a dairy or dairy-like base and no tomato products in it. And soup needs bread, right? One of the most famous kinds of New England breads, is Boston baked bread, the brown bread with raisins, baked/steamed in a cleaned out metal can. But this isn't Boston and so I couldn't do that one. But I found a similar bread and made that one instead. The bread recipe comes from my own recipe collection, at this point in time, the source is unknown. The clam chowder recipe came from online.

Raisin Rye Bread
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup water, 105-115 degrees
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup butter
1 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. caraway seeds
1 1/2 cups rye flour
2 3/4-3 cups white flour(I only needed the 2 3/4 and probably could have used less. I had to add a bit of water to get it to mix properly because it was too dry.)
1 cup raisins

1.) In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
2.) In a saucepan, combine the milk, molasses, and butter.
3.) Heat to lukewarm, 110-115 degrees. Pour into yeast mixture.
4.) Stir in the salt and caraway seeds. Beat in the rye flour and white flour with the raisins.
5.) Form a soft dough. Knead on a lightly floured board.

6.) Let rise in a buttered bowl, covered, until double in bulk, about 1 1/2 hours.
7.) Shape into a round loaf. Let rise on a buttered baking sheet, covered, for 30 minutes or until almost doubled. Slash the top.
8.) Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom.
9.) Let cool on a rack.
Makes one loaf, 16-20 slices

The bread was kind of tough to knead. I had to add water to it to get the flour to incorporate fully and I feel like it never rose as much as it was supposed to. In spite of all that, the flavor was fantastic! I bet you never thought that a caraway flavor would taste good with raisins, but it does! This is a nice, rustic bread that is good with lots of butter on it. I am going to try toasting a slice today and I bet it will be really great that way! This was super easy to make.

New England Clam Chowder-Dairy and Gluten Free
I have made the base for clam chowder in the past, when I worked in the restaurants I used to work at, but have never actually made it from start to finish before. I think it's a soup that people are intimidated by for some reason, but there is no reason to be. I wanted a recipe that was dairy-friendly and this one is! It's also gluten-friendly for those who need that. The original recipe that I will put in my sources section, has instructions for using canned and fresh clams. Because I used all canned, I will only write out the recipe the way I did it.

3 (6.5 oz.) cans chopped clams with liquid (Strain these with a strainer into a bowl. Keep the clams separated from the juice because you will add them at different points in the cooking process.)
1 (8oz.) can clam juice
3 strips bacon, chopped (I recommend freezing the bacon before chopping, it will make it so much easier.)
Olive oil, if needed (I ended up needing it, my bacon did not give off much fat.)
1 small onion, chopped
2 leeks (I used one large and it was enough.)
1 cup finely chopped celery, with leaves
2 Tbsp. sweet rice flour (Can use regular flour if gluten is not an issue for you. I had the rice flour on hand so I used it.)
1/2 cup white wine (I didn't have any on hand, but you'll note that sherry is listed as an optional ingredient in this recipe, at the end. I used it in place of the white wine at the earlier step instead.)
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram or thyme (I had marjoram on hand so I used it.)
1 bay leaf
Pepper
1-1 1/2 cups almond milk or alternate to dairy milk of choice (I used coconut milk and it was wonderful in this. Not the kind from the can, the kind from the cardboard carton like you would use for cereal. You'll find it at the store in the same place as the almond milk. Probably the same brand too.)
1/4 cup sherry, optional

1.) Cut off and discard root ends and green tops of leeks. Slice leeks in half lengthwise, remove outermost layer and discard. Run leeks under water, separating layers to rinse out sand. Slice leeks thinly.
2.) Cook bacon in a large pot, until crisp. Remove bacon from pot and leave about 2 Tbsp. bacon fat in the pan or use olive oil to make up the difference, if there isn't enough.
3.) Add chopped leek, onion, and celery to the pot and saute over medium heat until tender, about 5 minutes.
4.) Add flour and wine and stir about 30 seconds. Working slowly at first to avoid lumps, stir in the clam juice and deglaze the pan. 

5.) Add potatoes, marjoram, bay leaf, and pepper. Liquid should cover the potatoes. If it doesn't, add water to cover, and bring to a boil.
6.) Reduce heat to simmer and cover, for 15 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. Remove the bayleaf and discard.
7.) Using an immersion blender, puree about 1/3 of the potato mixture. Mix in the almond milk, reserved bacon, and the clams, and heat back to a simmer. Add sherry, if desired.

This was fabulous! I am looking forward to reheating this tonight because you know how soup always tastes better the next day. I ate this with the bread and some potato chips and it was a perfect meal for a chilly winter night. The clams and clam juice weren't smelly, which is nice. If I had had Saltine crackers or some oyster crackers, that would have been a lovely addition to the soup.

Clam chowder is easy to find in canned form at the grocery store, or in restaurants, but it really is not hard to make from scratch. If you have always wondered what it's like to make, you really should try it out. It did not take long at all, I had much better control over what went into it, and it tasted delicious! If you want to try out a dish that screams "New England," this is it!

Sources:
New England Clam Chowder Recipe

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Slavery in New Hampshire

Change-it-up Breakfasts

So, I have been eating what I thought was a healthy breakfast of shredded wheat cereal and milk during the work week for about a year now, and healthy snacks of AkMak crackers and Trader Joe's brand Triscuits throughout the day. I would eat other stuff with it and for lunch, of course, but I noticed that almost daily I was having problems with feeling bloated and having heartburn. Sorry if that's TMI, but I finally got to the point where I realized I either needed to change my diet or medicate myself to take care of the problem. Heartburn over an extended period of time is not good for the body and can lead to cancer down the road, so I knew I needed to take care of the problem. I am not a fan of medication if I can alter my behavior/diet instead. What I wasn't sure of is the root of the problem, exactly: too much fiber or too much gluten? A little bit of both? I decided to cut all those items out of my diet for a while and replace them with gluten-free items. So, I am eating gluten-free crackers and popcorn/rice cakes with my snacks throughout the day, and finding them quite tasty, actually. My most exciting change, though is breakfast. What to do that isn't milk and shredded wheat, is low in sugar, and can be prepared quickly in the morning? I came up with a few options I thought I'd share here...

First, a bit on the prep: Buy a bag or jar of bacon bits. Not the fake junk, the actual stuff. And get some green onions and tomatoes and chop them up on Sunday, keep them in a leftover container for the week. Take a pound of bulk breakfast sausage, cook it, and divide it up into two ounce portions that you freeze and can take out on Sunday to thaw. Buy a pint size container of egg whites from the store to keep on hand. And shredded cheese, or a block of cheese that you shred yourself, is a must to keep on hand. I have a block of Monterrey Jack cheese that I cut up into 1 oz. cubes. I shred one cube on my grater, using the smaller holes so that it's finer and you get more with the same amount of cheese.

Breakfast tacos: I was quite proud of these. Take one of the 2 oz. containers of sausage and use half of it for this recipe. In a small frying pan, heat the sausage, and add chopped green onions. When this is all heated, add 1/3 cup of the egg whites, which equals 2 eggs, to the pan and scramble them until your preferred doneness. In the meantime, take two corn tortillas and place them on a microwave safe plate. Wet a paper towel and don't wring it out entirely. Set it on top of the tortillas for a minute before microwaving it, with the paper towel still on it, for 30 seconds. This should be enough time to steam them properly. You only need about a half ounce of cheese for these since everything has so much flavor already. Place half of the cheese directly on the tortillas, then top with half of the scrambled egg mixture, then the rest of the cheese. Top with chopped tomatoes and more green onions and salsa, if desired. Or whatever other topping you might want. This is very filling I have found. It can also be done with bacon if you like.

Egg Bowl: This is one of my new favorites. This one requires some prep work the night before you plan on making it. Get a bag of the potatoes O'Brien, the hash browns with onions and bell peppers in it, and take one 3/4 cup portion, which is a single portion, and fry them up in a frying pan with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. When it's done, place it in a microwave-safe bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Place in the fridge until the next morning. Use 1oz. of sausage and reheat it in the frying pan with more green onions and tomatoes until heated through. Add 1/3 cup of egg whites and scramble until finished. Take the plastic wrap off the bowl of potatoes and reheat for about 45 seconds in the microwave. Again, you only need about a half ounce of cheese for this. Place half the cheese on the potatoes before topping with the scrambled egg mixture. Top that with the rest of the cheese and more tomatoes and green onions if desired. Mix these all together and there you go! Again, this can be done with bacon if you want.

Oatmeal: I had a hard time working this one out. I have a love-hate relationship with oatmeal. It's so good for you but I never find it lasted very long for me before I was starving again, and took so much brown sugar to make it palatable that I didn't want to eat it anymore. I read in a cookbook once about ideas for adding savory toppings to it instead and decided to experiment with that. The one I worked out seems to do very well for me. Take a serving of oatmeal, which is 1/2 cup oats and 1 cup water, and place it in a microwave-safe bowl. Sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and add one tablespoon of the bacon bits to it. One tablespoon equals one strip of bacon, not too horrible, really. Stir this together and microwave for 2.5 minutes or until done. And that's it, it's flavored enough to be palatable, but without the sugar. I might try this out with milk or half milk and half water, just to get a bit more calcium from it.

I have not done this one yet but I want to try out an egg McMuffin with Canadian bacon, the egg whites, and cheese on an English muffin. I might try topping it with sliced tomatoes and green onions too. This of course has gluten, but if done in moderation instead of daily, might not present too many issues. Plus, maybe there is gluten-free English muffins out there if I look for them. I can't vouch for it yet, but that's my game plan.

I have been doing the oatmeal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the tacos or egg bowl Tuesday and Thursday. This way I don't eat too much eggs and sausage and I don't get sick of oatmeal. It's a good way to divide it up. My heartburn is much less than it was and I feel healthier. I definitely do better with a higher protein diet. I've even, oddly enough, actually lost some weight while eating like this. It takes some coordination and prepping on the weekend or the night before, but it can be done. Each of these takes less than ten minutes in the morning, significantly less time for the oatmeal. I would highly recommend this to anybody looking to change up their breakfast routine, or eat less gluten throughout the day.