Category Archives: Food
Classic French-Style Potato Salad
Potato salad doesn’t ALWAYS have to be mayonnaise heavy. Personally, I’m far more partial to those varieties without it. There are a lot of recipes for German style, with it’s bacon and sweet-sour tang. But once in a while I love me some French, with the bite of vinaigrette and stone ground mustard
INGREDIENTS
1.5lbs (680g) small potatoes (gold, red-skinned or a mix)
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp (30ml) Extra Virgin Oil Oil
1 tbsp (15ml) red wine vinegar
1 tbsp Dijon Mustard
1 tbsp Grainy Mustard
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
1 shallot, peeled and diced
5-6 cornichons (or dill pickles), diced
1 tbsp (15ml) cornichon juice
INSTRUCTIONS
Step 1 – Slice the small potatoes in half, or in quarters if larger. Place them in a large pot and cover by 1 inch with water. Add 1 tbsp of salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once the water is boiling, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for about 15 minutes until you can easily poke a knife into the potatoes. Drain immediately into a colander/strainer and rinse under cold water. The potatoes should have cooled slightly, but still be warm to the touch.
Step 2 – In a large bowl, combine the EVOO, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Whisk vigorously with a fork to blend and emulsify. Add Dijon mustard, grainy mustard, 3 tablespoons of the freshly chopped dill, the diced shallots, diced cornichons and cornichon juice. Toss to combine.
Step 3 – Add the potatoes to the bowl of vinaigrette. Toss gently to coat the potatoes evenly. If needed, season more to taste.
Serve warm or chilled, For serving, sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of freshly chopped dill.
Lemon Pound Cake
As much as I don’t bake desserts at home because then I’d have to eat them, I still crave poundcake from time to time. And there is no better flavor on all the earth in my mind than bright and cheery lemon.
So…. here’s something to make your tastebuds tingle.
This is one version of the 1920 Famous Ritz Carlton Lemon Pound Cake Recipe! Some recipes fade over time but this one seems as popular now as it was then.
Pound cake needs to be moist and dense, it needs to cut cleanly, and most of all, the flavor must must be butter! (This is no place for butter substitutes — if you can’t have butter, try another cake.)
10 ingredients
Produce
- 1 Lemon, Zest of
Refrigerated
- 5 Eggs, large
Condiments
- 6 tbsp Lemon juice, fresh squeezed
Baking & Spices
- 3 cups All-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp Baking powder
- 3/4 tsp Salt
- 1/2 cup Shortening
- 3 cups Sugar
Dairy
- 1 cup Butter, unsalted
- 1 cup Whole milk
Directions:
- Ingredients should be at room temperature.
- Measure ingredients carefully. (Ahem.)
- For a tender cake, don’t over mix. Mix until ingredients are just incorporated.
- Bake on your middle oven rack.
- Start checking at the 55 minute mark, but if the top isn’t even golden brown, don’t open your oven yet. (Opening and closing the oven to check a cake before it’s done causes it to fall.)
- Grease and flour a bundt pan or tube cake pan.
- Cool the cake before removing it from the pan.
- Gently loosen the sides with a knife, then lift out the center section. Run your knife around the center tube to loosen, and between the bottom of the cake and cake pan to separate.
Papal Cream Cake
My dad and I used to buy these at the local Polish bakery on Kinnikinnic Avenue when I was young. I don’t make them myself; just too rich and I end up making a pig out of myself. But really quite yummy.
Home Poland: Kremówka Papieska / “Papal” Cream Cake
Poland: Kremówka Papieska / “Papal” Cream Cake
Kremowka papieska (Papal Cream Cake)
It was apparently during a visit to his old home town Wadowice in 1999 that Pope John Paul II mentioned casually how fond he was of the cream cake or kremówka that he and his school friends had often pooled their funds to buy from a baker in the town’s market square. More or less inevitably, the next day the entire town was coming down with kremówka, suddenly rebranded as Kremówka papieska, the “Papal Cream Cake.”
Before it went so high-profile, kremówka probably started out as a confection devised by some smart town baker as a way to thriftily exploit extra or unsold ingredients left over at the end of the day. Even a careful baker would occasionally wind up with unsold plain sheet cake, shortcrust pastry, and sometimes even the pastry cream also called custard cream or créme patissiére — which is full of egg yolks and way too expensive to just throw away. When the improvised sandwich of pastry cream and cake or pastry proved popular, someone undoubtedly started making it on purpose in flats and selling it by the square piece — which is one reason why the boy-who-would-be-Pope and his friends would have been able to afford it. (At least one Polish source says that kremówka sometimes might contain a local brandy called winiak, but the Pope apparently made it known that this wasn’t the version he was interested in, but the simpler version that came from the bakery run by the father of one of his friends.)
The version of kremówka which has become standard for professional Polish bakers is simple. It calls for sheets of baked puff pastry on top and bottom — or in the less formal or less expensive versions of the cake, just on the top: the bottom is sometimes just regular short-crust pastry. Of course, when the recipe started to migrate into the home baking repertoire, change started setting in. (Click here to see a sampling of the many ways kremówka can look.)
Some versions of kremówka don’t use puff pastry at all, just short-crust pastry on both top and bottom, the pastry often enriched with egg yolks as in this Google-translated version. Other versions substitute thin layers of a plain sheet cake. Some recipes use a fast version of the rich filling based on pudding mix — see one roughly translated here. You can even find the occasional rare double decker kremówka, with both whipped cream and créme patissiére. And on its home turf in Poland, the Gellwe people (among others) market a kremówka mix. (Their TV ad is here if you feel like taking a look at it.) In any case, the pastry-cum-cake is popular enough with Polish people to have been voted one of the two Polish “national birthday cakes” for the EU’s 50th birthday celebrations.
We give both the puff-pastry and cake versions of the recipe below. As regards the pastry cream filling, please note: the amounts given below result in a cream layer that stands about half an inch thick in a nine=inch=square baking pan. We wanted more cream in our own version, so we doubled the cream part of the recipe when making the kremówka you see in the photograph at the top.
Directions:
Preparing the puff pastry for baking: wire rack underneath,
another one on top to keep the puff pastry under control
If you’re making kremówka with puff pastry: buy (or make) enough unbaked puff pastry to cover the bottom of an 8- or 9-inch baking pan twice.
When ready to bake, trim each piece to fit your cake pan: then score lightly where you will be cutting it later for individual servings. Be very cautious about this, as if you score the puff pastry too deeply, it will split apart while baking. But don’t be tempted to omit the scoring: if you do, you’re going to have serious trouble when you try to cut the finished pastry into separate servings later.
(A note here to home bakers who might feel inclined to make their own puff pastry for this: EuroCuisineLady did, and her experience suggests that a “rough paste” puff pastry might actually work better for this than the more complex puff pastry version; the top and bottom layers of the kremówka would be a little more controllable, and the flavor won’t really be impaired. The full puff pastry we used for our example above actually rose too high, even under the rack weighing it down, and got all over the place when we were slicing the kremówka up. A word to the wise…)
Place each trimmed piece of puff pastry between two sheets of baking parchment, place on a wire cooking rack, and place another cooling rack upside down on top of the upper piece of baking parchment. (This will keep the puff pastry under control while it bakes.)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F / 200 degrees C and put the puff pastry in to bake. After fifteen minutes, remove the top cooling rack and the top layer of baking parchment. Bake for another fifteen minutes until the puff pastry is golden. Remove from the oven, remove the second layer of baking parchment, and cool completely.
If you’re making kremówka with cake:
Grease well 2 8- or 9-inch baking pans / tins: coat with bread crumbs and set aside.
Then make the cake mixture:
8 ounces butter
3 cups flour
3 tablespoons water
3 egg yolks
A pinch of salt
Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender. Beat the egg yolks into the water: mix into the flour. Mix well. Divide in halves and spread/press each half to completely cover the bottom of one of the baking pans. Bake for approximately 30 minutes in a medium-low oven (325F / 160C): remove and let cool. Remove from pans when cooled.
…Whichever version you’re making, the custard cream filling is the same.
Custard cream:
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
A pinch of salt
6 egg yolks
Scald the milk and vanilla. In a heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, flour, salt, and egg yolks. Stir until very well blended (ideally, whisk to make sure there are no lumps). Add milk gradually. Cook over low flame, stirring constantly, being careful to scrape bottom of pan.
Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 3 minutes, still stirring constantly. When finished cooking, remove from heat and pour cream into a bowl; allow to cool, stirring occasionally until cold.
When the custard cream is cold:
Whether you’re using puff pastry or cake, spread the custard cream thickly over the bottom layer. (If the custard is at all runny, put one baked layer back into a baking pan of the appropriate size and then do the spreading.) Then top with the second baked layer.
Dust with confectioners’ sugar. Cut and serve (possibly with thick whipped cream on top, if you like). A note about cutting: This is where calling this dessert a “cake” comes slightly into question, as it doesn’t handle like a cake at all: the thick pastry cream center makes that impossible. The kremówka will always squish down somewhat when you slice it. However, it tastes so good that no one’s going to care…
Classic Easy Beef Lasagna is so quick and easy to make it’s even perfect for a weeknight dinner. When it comes to lasagna there are a few simple truths.
— Read on deliciousrecipes79.blogspot.com/2019/03/classic-easy-beef-lasagna.html
Do you like brie? Our daughter is crazy about it and we are almost as “bad” as she is! I’ve eaten raclette in Europe and the idea of hot cheese is interesting but it’s not something that I actually think to make around the house during a normal week. Being a Wisconsinite you’d think maybe I would…. but I came across this and loved it.
This baked brie is topped with balsamic caramelized onions and wrapped in puff pastry, making for an elegant yet warm and cozy appetizer!
— Read on thecozyapron.com/baked-brie-with-caramelized-onions/
Dundee Marmalade
A few years ago some nutcase tampered with a bottle of over-the-counter pain relief and the world of tamper-proof packaging. But the world didn’t always need tamperproof packages. We won’t go into the “why” about that, but we will talk a little about the how.
I seem to be on a reminiscence roll recently. This particular sidetrip is thanks to a new product on the grocery shelf by James Keiller and Sons. It was a jar of ” ‘TipTree’ ” Marmalade. I haven’t tried their marmalade; I suspect the name is more a function of the fact that they are no longer producing in the Dundee area of the U.K. and this is an effort to distinguish them from the McKay family of products which claim to continue manufacturing in Dundee. So, long story short, this semi-ADHD personality got distracted in the grocery store!!!!!!
CONTINUING A TRADITION
The story of Dundee Marmalade begins back
in the 18th century when a Spanish ship took
refuge from a storm, in the harbour at Dundee.
On board was a consignment of Seville Oranges
– which a local grocer decided to purchase.On taking them home to his wife, the couple
discovered the oranges were too bitter to eat.
The grocer’s wife saw the potential in the oranges
and boiled them up with sugar, to create the
delicious preserve now known as Dundee Orange
Marmalade.Although the recipe has changed a little since
then, we respect our heritage and are the last
remaining producer of this iconic product in
the Dundee area. We’re proud to continue to
make our marmalade in traditional copper
pans today and to see the end results enjoyed
around the globe.
The current product looks like any other jar of marmalade. But life wasn’t always thus. I remember when I first spotted the jar on a grocery shelf in Canada. It was a white-ish crockery jar. That alone was unique enough. All the store bought preserves I’d ever seen in the U.S. (as a young adult) were sold in clear glass jars. This alone was enough to catch my attention. But more to the point, there was no hard lid on the container. About 3/8″ from the top of the container was a narrow groove. On top of the container was a little piece of parchment like paper, folded over the top and tied with a piece of narrow cloth ribbon so that the tie sat in the groove. NO impediment here to potential poisoning. NO impediment here for someone who wanted to hurt or injure. Just naive packaging for an innocent world.
That world exists no more. We have refined and modified our packaging so that people no longer make fun of the fact that even adults can’t get into childproof pillboxes. The mechanisms have been replaced with multiple lid layers or paper or metal caps underneath the lid. We have managed to make people safer in a world where people now think it’s acceptable to intentionally harm others.
I have no idea WHY humans have changed in this way. There is a text in the Old Testament that talks about the “weak” saying they are “strong” and over the years it’s come to mind that we live in a world where people who see themselves as disadvantaged can and do feel so helpless that they are willing to lash out and do the unthinkable — even at the risk of dangerous responses to their actions — because all of the “normal” ways of attracting attention to their needs have proven fruitless.
It’s a terrible place to imagine yourself being. How would you feel if you had a legitimate complaint and you had tried for years and years to get someone in authority to listen to your needs and yet no one has even given you a listening ear.
I suspect that terrorists are people like this. If you live in a country that is ruled by power hungry criminals and no system exists to redress your just complaints why not lash out? Nothing else has worked. Surely, if you are going to suffer unjustly (or at least you see it as unjustly) then why not share the pain; inflict a little pain on the people who are harming you — maybe if they are touched then they will understand and respond to your injustice. Of course such actions more often result in retribution than do they result in change. Weak people behaving as if they are strong only works so long as those who are truly strong restrain their anger. After all, those U.S. gun owners who think their cache of weapons is going to keep them safe from a U.S. Military with all it’s high powered and sophisticated weaponry if that military were turned on the population because of civilian unrest. Those dreams of resistance are nothing more than middle age examples of teen aged bravado.
I find it sad that marmalade can no longer be sold in paper covered crocks. I doubt that the product was any better because of the alternate lid — but I am certain that world was better because of the lack of need for such caution.
As for me, I’ll buy my one annual jar of marmalade but I’ll slather most of my toast with apricot jam or maybe blackberry jam. Marmalade’s a bit too bitter for me. 🙂
Pierogi
Polish Pierogi are a Polish cultural tradition but that doesn’t mean that all pierogi are created equal. The recipes for this Eastern European version of pot stickers and wontons can be as varied as their creators.
A great many cultures have their version of stuffed dumplings. Here are just a few:
maultaschen
zwetschgenknodel
shish-barak
potstickers
wonton
ravioli
After my grandparents and parents had passed I stumbled into a world where pierogi with dairy were far more common than the version I had grown up with… in fact a few years ago I struggle to find a printed version of the dough that matched the version I had been using. Now that was culture shock for this poor Polish American boy. 🤨🤨🤨🤨
I thought I’d share this dairy version of the pierogi just for fun. 
Pierogi Dough
- 2 Eggs (room temperature)
- 2 tablespoons. Sour Cream
- 1 cup. Milk
- 3 1/2 cups. Flour
- 1 teaspoon. Salt
Mix and knead the ingredients as with any dough. Develop enough gluten to that they hold up to the frying process without puncture and ending up with the “filling” as “outing”.
Cut into rounds with 3″ or 4″ round cutter
Pierogi Filling
- 1 pound. Ground Meat browned
- 2 cups. Mashed Potatoes cooled so you can work them with your hands
- Salt; to taste
- Pepper; to taste
- (add 1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves, or celery leaves to the mixture if you wish)
Mix ingredients and fill each pierogi with about 2 tsp filling, fold over and crimp the seam (use a fingertip dipped in water and run your fingertip around the edge of the pierogi before folding)
Pierogi Topping
- 1 Onion; for frying
- Oil; for frying
Fry the onion and reserve. Shallow fry the pierogi until done and browned on both sides. Top with fried onions. Enjoy!
Prep. 1 hr
Cooking. 20 min
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