Welcome to My Kitchen

How is your pantry? I recently spent a half hour sorting and straightening in mine. After sending a few items to the food bank for someone else to enjoy before they reach expiration dates, and stacking like items together, ingredients are in order and easy to locate. What I did find was the following list of items that need using up in the next month.

1 box turkey flavor stuffing mix

1 gallon home dried apples

1 bottle Thousand Island salad dressing

1 can whole berry cranberry sauce

2 packages Chicken Ramen

2 packages onion soup mix

Candied Fruit

1 quart mayonnaise

1 cup peanut butter

The stuffing mix has been used up in a baked chicken recipe. The Thousand Island dressing is destined for a Rueben casserole. I ate the Ramen. The onion soup went into the slow-cooker along with a pot roast and the peanut butter went into cookies for Sunday coffee hour. Dried Apple pie was the result for part of the apples, and a crisp for the rest. The recipe I use came from a dried fruit workshop put on by Equa-flow Dehydrators in the 1970’s.

Dried Apple Pie

1 1/2 quarts dried apple slices

water

pastry for a two crust pie

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Place dried apples in a large glass or ceramic bowl. Add water to cover one inch above apples. Soak 3-4 hours until soft. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the water.

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Line pie plate with pastry. Arrange drained apples in crust.

Mix together sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over apples. Dot with butter. Mix lemon juice with reserved water and pour over apples. Add top crust and seal edges. Cut slits in crust to let steam escape.

Place in pre-heated oven and bake 10 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake an additional 40-50 minutes, until apples are tender and filling bubbly. Yield: 6-8 servings.

Candied fruit lasts indefinitely, but I don’t want it taking up space all year so my plan is to mix it with raisins in hot crossed buns for Easter. There is a biscuit recipe waiting in my test file that calls for mayonnaise. That leaves the cranberry sauce. Readers, any suggestions?

Following up on reduced, salt, fat, calories, vegetables, good for you, are rated favorably in all those categories. But, when ranch dressing is added, a ploy for getting kids to partake, salt, calories and fat rise.

Homemade Ranch Dressing is very easy to make, much lower in salt and fat, and depending on ingredients used, much less preservatives. It keeps well in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Homemade

Ranch Salad Dressing

1 tsp onion powder

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp finely crushed dried parsley

1/4-1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp cider vinegar or lemon juice

2 cups mayonnaise, regular or reduced fat

2 cups buttermilk

1-2 tsp Accent (MSG)

Combine all ingredients except the Accent in a medium bowl and whisk until well blended. Whisk in Accent, 1/2 tsp at a time, until flavor is pleasing to taste. Chill 1 hour before serving. Refrigerate any leftovers. Yield; 1 quart.

Note: if you are allergic to MSG you will have to substitute salt, but again add 1/2 tsp at a time, don’t over salt.

My sister Billie O’Mack visited Antarctica last fall and she brought back a cookbook called Fit for a FID, by Gerald T Cutland, first published in 1957. It is now sold by the Antarctic Heritage Trust. Not having much for seals, penguins or cormorants around here, I probably won’t be doing a lot of cooking from this book, but it does present a method of blanching to get rid of strong gamey flavor of cormorants that might work for local birds.

The first bit of advice is a lengthy hang time, 2 weeks for cormorants. Skin the bird, to get rid of more gamey flavor. Rinse the bird well until water runs clear.

Now place the bird in a large kettle of COLD water. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, skimming off any foam that rises to the surface. Once it comes to a boil remove from heat drain and rinse the bird in cold water to remove any foam and pat dry with toweling. Then proceed with your desired recipe. The book recommends copious amounts of beef suet be laid over the game birds for roasting.

Macaroni and cheese is one of my favorite foods, and I haven’t met very many versions of the dish that I don’t care for, except, boxed varieties. I recently tried Greek-Style Mac ‘n’ Cheese from the Better Homes and Gardens recipe site, http://www.bhg.com/recipes. Three kinds of cheese and Kalamata olives make this a rich and satisfying dish, definitely not low salt or fat.

Greek-Style

Mac ‘n’ Cheese

2 cups dried elbow macaroni

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 Tbsp butter or margarine

2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp ground black pepper

2 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 1/2 cups shredded American cheese

1/2 cup Kalamata olive halves

2 Tbsp crumbled feta cheese

snipped fresh oregano, optional

Cook macaroni according to package directions; drain. Set aside.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.In a medium saucepan cook onion in hot butter until tender. Stir in flour and pepper. Add milk all at once. Cook and stir over medium heat until slightly thickened and bubbly. Add first two cheeses, stirring until melted. Stir in cooked macaroni and olives. Transfer to an un-greased 2 quart casserole.

Bake uncovered, for 25 to 30 minutes or until bubbly. Top with feta cheese and oregano. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Yield: 4 servings.

Still to come in future columns, a half a dozen cake recipes and several breakfast casseroles.

Add your favorite recipes to the queue by sending them to: Welcome to My Kitchen, c/o The Odessa Record, P.O. Box 458, Odessa, WA 99159, email them to: therecord@odessaoffice.com (recipe in the subject line), or drop them in the Welcome to My Kitchen mail tin in The Odessa Record office. Put the ice-melt where you can reach it before stepping on the ice.