Little Susie Homebreaker

Re-Inventing the Onion

One odd thing about belonging to a farm share, or a "veggie scheme," is that sometimes you end up with a surplus of a seasonal item that you cannot seem to eat quickly enough.

I've had a couple of "red cabbage tantrums" that won't soon be forgotten.

This summer, the bountiful crop in my refrigerator has been the onion. I've amassed purplette cocktail onions, gold cippolines, blanco di maggio, Italian roasting onions, scallions, leeks, and Stockton Reds.  They are more than a simple martini and tomato sandwich could tear through.

I decided to make onion soup, and destroy three or four pounds of alliums in one giant chop.

But I couldn't remember how to make the classic French recipe, and when I looked it up, it all seemed like such a bother... straining out all the herbs, the toast and melted cheese, the perfect beef broth, blah blah. Plus, I didn't even have many of the essential ingredients they asked for, like beef broth, parseley, etc.

Don't get me wrong, I love gourmet meals in the style of Louis the XIV— I would just rather loll around on my satin pillow while someone else prepares them.

So instead, I decided to make a "quick" onion soup that was more in the style of making hippie lentil stew... and was I ever in for a surprise.

This was the best thing I have made all summer. This was one of those "you will see God" type soups. Actually it was practically a jam, it was so caramelized. Furthermore, I know the secret of not makign yoruself sick with onion-crying

Are you ready for love? Here it is:

3 or 4 pounds onions, any kind

1 quart of broth, fresh or organic canned (I used chicken broth stored in my freezer for months)

1 or 2 c. Arugula
4 or 5 T. Basil
1 T. of olive oil
Half a stick of butter
1/3 bottle of red wine (Some merlot that was sitting around)
Thyme

Get out your Cuisinart and put on the attachment they call the slicing disc. Stuff your onions in the tube and watch them get sliced to smithereens, without you shedding a tear. All you have to do is take the paper onionskin off first.

(Someone commented in this blog previously that a Cuisinart is a luxury item. I don't think it's any more a luxury item than a toaster or a coffeepot, and arguably more useful. There isn't a commercial kitchen in this country that operates without one. You can find them for as little as a dollar at a garage sale, and not much more at a discount shop.)

Melt the butter with a small amount of olive oil in a dutch oven. Add the sliced onions and cook down on medium high heat, stirring frequently. If you have to go out and make a phone call, just turn it down really low, and when you com eback to it, turn it up and keep stirring. You can do this several times, if you've got the time to keep making phone calls and talking to your neighbors and checking your email, which is what I did. The onions aren't going to fuck up on low heat.

Don't strain out any of the vegetables. You're going for a "jammy" look.

When ready to serve, ladle into bowls and then top with your favorite cheese: parmesan, Goat, gruyere. Or you might like Sour cream or yogurt, creme fraiche—oh, don't get me started, Sally!

You could add croutons, or just make butter yourself a nice slice of bread. You may not make it that far if you're too absorbed gulping spoonfuls out of the pot.

Mom's Baked Apples with the Marshmallow Buttplug

There's something about a cold snap that begs for baked apples. Baked apples with ice cream, pecans, brown sugar... and gooey, toasted marshmallow melting on your tongue.

Go ahead, tell me how bad you want it!

When my friend Steve Harsin visited me this fall to help catalog my dad's library, he shared his mother's baked apple recipe with me, which involved plugging the cored fruit with a marshmallow, before you pop it in the oven. It's a brilliant improvisation on the old Betty Crocker standby. 

I stuffed the apples with a flourish. "It's like a marshmallow buttplug!"

Steve said: "If my mother heard that, she would die."

Baked apples are easy-peasy to prepare, and will blow your Thanksgiving guests' minds. People have forgotten the  tasty genius of a basic baked apple, and they'll worship you for reminding them of what's right and good in the world.

Just remember, Don't Tell Steve's Mom.

Choose some apples that are a little tart. You really can't go wrong as long as they're crisp and flavorful.

Wash and core apples with a cheap but effective APPLE CORER. It works a lot faster than a paring knife.

Don't quite pierce the bottom of the apple; just drill down to about the last quarter inch. Your opening needs to be almost an inch wide.

Place in baking dish. Fill the centers of each apple with 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar, a teaspoon of walnuts or pecans, 1 tsp. of butter, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I actually don't measure anything in this recipe myself, I just use my fingers and approximate!

I've given you the basic ingredients... but you could substitute or add anything you think tastes good with apples.

For the final touch, take a marshmallow and rudely stuff it in the top of each apple, pushing down the other ingredients into the cored hole. It doesn't matter that the marshmallow pooches out at the top— baked apples are suppose to be messy.

Fill your baking pan with about 1/4" of water, so the apples are sitting in a shallow bath.

Bake uncovered in a 375 degree oven until tender when pierced with a fork. Time varies with apple size, but it's about 30-40 min. Yum yum yum! Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, like an apple sundae.

Photo from Simple Recipes.

If You Want to End War and Stuff You Got to Sing Loud

Alice's Restaurant

by Arlo Guthrie

This song is called Alice's Restaurant, and it's about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice's Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song "Alice's Restaurant."

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in, it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on- two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn't live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant, in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog.

If I Could Have Stuffing Every Day

Why do we only eat stuffing once a year? Everyone says it's their favorite part of Thanksgiving, and yet we starve ourselves.

It's bread pudding, and that gives you a clue right there. I love bread. I love pudding. Pour on the butter and let's have a party.

I make two stuffings, one traditional and one for the vegetarians, although that's a bit of a joke because the carnivores eat all the veggie dressing too.

I used to buy loaves of bread and dry them out before cutting them into cubes by hand, but I decided that is not where the labor-intensive hours count. Instead, I support buying unseasoned bread crumbs ahead of time. The key is UNseasoned. Seasoning is an area where you can make your homemade stuffing shine.

Buy fresh herbs. Actually, if you live near me, come over and get some for free, because I have enough parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme to sink a dingy off of Plymouth Rock.

Just cooking up  fresh herbs in butter and garlic is enough to set the whole day right. Saute them with your onion, your celery, and if you want my other secret, diced fennel bulb. YUM. You can even skip the celery entirely if you want.

My famous star of the stuffing comes next:  I chop up oysters and saute them... more butter, please!  I love the taste of shellfish in poultry dressing. Of course you have the sizzling ground sausage mixed in there as  as well... pork, shellfish, and turkey flavors cannot be beat!  Sometimes I add baby shrimp, too.

I'm big on nutmeats. Pecans. I have a Cajun feel for stuffing. If I could come up with 'gator meat to throw in, I bet it would be heaven. Brazil nuts, or pine nuts work alright too, but remember this is NOT a candy bar. Peanuts and almonds are not your friend in the stuffing department.

I like raisins. I like capers. I like to throw everything in but the kitchen sink as long as I think it will harmonize.

I always buy a separate package of giblets and livers to cook, just for the stuffing. You can't get enough of that stoned turkey flavor.

I learned a great lesson from a Cauldron cooking class I took at Mariquita Farm: the most flavorful part of any bird comes from the gelatinous body parts. That's why chicken feet are the quintessential flavor orgasm of any hen. More than anything you can do to enhance your chicken stock, it's the feet that make it POP.

During class, we cooked in an enormous witch-size iron cauldron, so I cleaned about 100 chicken feet. Nasty things they are, especially for a sheltered city girl like me!  They made me think, "so this is what dinosaur toes must have looked like."

But the flavor of the broth was off the hook. I don't blame you if you use canned broth, but if you're determined to make homemade stock, get some of those feet from the butcher. Just a handful will make you a shaman in the kitchen.

What do you like in your stuffing? Are you a purist, or surrealist when it comes to additions?

I hope you are taking a slow weekend with family and friends, whether you're munching on bird or Sushi or Cadbury bars! I'm very thankful for all your support and good words this year, and I look forward to more of the same!

Some mad satire for you:

"Pardoned Turkey" to be He Held at Guantanamo

Scenes from a Bush Thanksgiving

White House Turkey Stuffed with Leaks and Donuts

This is rich.

Remember Walter Scheib, the brilliant chef who was fired by Laura Bush’s East Wing for using traitorous French cooking techniques? — You know, like sauteing. W. hates “green food” and “wet fish,” and Scheib must have suffered under such constraints. Now he's serving his revenge— blazing hot.

Walter has just written a tell-all recipe book, White House Chef, which he's dedicated to Hillary Clinton— Quelle Surprise d'Octobre!

The Times has the whole story. For extra crumbly-Oreo satire on the same, read The Swift Report. It's more damning than not finding WMD in Iraq... it's finding out the Leaders of the Free World have No Fucking Taste Whatsoever. And critics like these fourth-estate slow-food bitches are never going to let them forget it!

Let me whet your appetite:

Scheib was a cooking diva, the fair-haired boy at the top of his class at the Culinary Institute of America. He worked his way up through the finest hotels and resorts in the country, a wunderkind, before Hillary Clinton summoned him to the White House.

Scheib was thrilled to discover his new mission. Unlike the dull reputation of many First Family kitchens, Hillary encouraged him to go wild with “what’s best about American food, wine, and entertaining.”

Of course he cooked comfort food for the Clintons, and I’m sure Bill got his share of grilled peanut butter & banana sandwiches. But for public affairs, Scheib indulged his every nouvelle inspiration. He remained in the kitchen when the Bush family moved in, and made his quiet, pained adjustments.

But at last came the Cheney merengue.

Lynne Cheney, it seems, had a social secretary named Lea Berman who had no qualification for anything other than that her husband was a sugar lobbyist who gave beau-coup dough to the Bushies.

Berman was promoted in Bush's second term to run the First Lady's social affairs, and she was a real piece of trans-fat. She insisted Scheib create an inaugural dinner menu that paid honor to the corporate brand names of a dozen top GOP donors— like Dunkin' Donuts and Coca Cola. She'd tear out pages from Martha Stewart Living for Walter and tell him to make lunch look "just like the picture.” Whenever she saw anything on Scheib’s menus that offended her, like hummus spread, she would write “yuk!” in the margins.

Wouldn't you just love to see her trussed up in one of the pots in Muki’s Kitchen?

I can't wait to read Walter's entire recipe file. Damning with faint praise is nothing compared to being cursed with Kraft Singles!

After Scheib left the White House, an East Wing leak told The Wall Street Journal that the chef had been fired because he showed “a level of arrogance” in preparing scallops for the First Family even though the president detested them. Scheib protested: “If we had been told not to serve scallops, we wouldn’t serve them.”

But what did Walter do next? He offered one of his top secret recipes to listeners on NPR radio: "Seared Scallops in the Manner of An Old Friend." Gee, I wonder who that is?

The shellfish sound delicious, but I pine for the Inaugural Stuffed Turkey With Donuts recipe— a wonderful satire— that Deanna Swift provides on her blog! I'm sure you can make this recipe, but can you TAKE it?

Coca-Cola Brined Pilgrim's Pride Turkey with Dunkin’ Donuts Old-Fashioned Cake Doughnut Sweet and Savory Stuffing

Coca-Cola Brine

1 1/4 cups salt
1 quart Coca-Cola
2 bay leaves
1 medium onion, peeled and halved
2 cloves
1 10- to 12-pound Pilgrim's Pride Whole Butter Basted Turkey

1. Place salt and Coca-Cola in a large deep pot and whisk until salt crystals dissolve. Whisk in 4 quarts cold water. Pin bay leaves to onion halves with cloves and add them to brine. Let mixture cool to room temperature.

2. Add Pilgrim's Pride turkey, placing a large heavy pot or sealed zip-top bag filled with cold water on top to keep bird submerged in Coca-Cola. Place pot in refrigerator and marinate overnight.

Dunkin Donuts Old-fashioned Cake Doughnut Sweet and Savory Stuffing

6 cups Dunkin Donuts old-fashioned cake doughnuts, chopped
2 cups diced onion
1/2 cup butter
2 cups cranberries
2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1/2 tablespoon dried sage
1 cup chicken broth

Cook onion in butter or margarine over low heat until soft. Add
doughnuts, cranberries, rosemary and sage, chicken broth,
salt and pepper to taste. Mix gently but thoroughly.

Roast Turkey

Remove Pilgrim's Pride turkey from Coca-Cola brine.

Thoroughly rinse turkey under a slow stream of cool water, rubbing gently to release salt and soda residue, both inside and out. Pat skin and both interior cavities dry. Remove neck and giblets. Begin lightly spooning doughnut stuffing into the neck cavity, then into the body cavity. After the bird has been stuffed, secure the legs to the tail. If the band of skin is not present, tie the legs securely to the tail with string. Twist the wing tips under the back of the turkey so they won't overcook.

Roast turkey, breast side down, in a preheated 325 degree oven for 2 hours. During this time, baste legs and back twice with Coca-Cola.

Dig in, everyone!

Life's Too Short for Pants

The modern woman endures a lifetime love affair with pants. The tears will come, as well as the joys.

It started off with such a bang. It was in that golden period, between John Lennon announcing the Beatles were more popular than Christ, and the first copy of Ms. magazine appearing on our doorsteps, that something miraculous occurred. Across the fruited plain, in every school, in every grade and class, a voice appeared on the public address system, and announced: “Next Monday, girls will be allowed to wear pants.” Very often, there was a postscript: “Dungarees will not be tolerated.”

The next schoolday— I was in sixth grade— every single female appeared on campus in trousers, leggings, and yes, dungarees (that is to say, JEANS).

“Not tolerated” be damned. This was so much bigger than going bra-less. Can young women today comprehend a time in their mother’s lives when they couldn’t wear pants? How did we ever play kickball in a jumper?

There was only one hitch: It’s difficult to look great in pants. Trouser-liberators like Kate Hepburn were a rail-like exception to the rule.

Jeans were made originally for men to work in, at manual labor— not to sashay down the boulevard. There wasn’t a lot of call for making one’s derriere look fabulous. Most men don’t have much waist-to-hip differential, or would just as soon live with plumber’s butt and jackets that cover it all up. Early tailors never thought about making jean designs that held you in the right places and let you out in the others.

Of course that’s all changed now. You walk into a typical jeans store, and they have walls of folded denim and khaki, with signs directing you to styles like “curvy,” “low rise,” “classic,” “relaxed,” “boys cut,” and the enigmatic “long and lean”— is that an aspiration or a current appraisal?

Willow's Perfect Scones

I got up this morning and decided to bake something, something that would give me zest for life.

I found myself reaching for Willow's Perfect Scone recipe.

I get excited by the classic English scone— the tender one that teases you where the butter crumbles in the flake, the one that's just a little sweet— to get your attention— and makes you groan for lemon curd. Yeah, those scones. Not the hockey pucks.

Before I met Willow, I had no idea scones were so easy to make. People have been fooled by scone mixes and Starbucks-society to think they're not a simple home-cooked treat. Not true! The key is buttermilk. For lack of buttermilk, many cooks cave in and make waffles instead. 

The great thing about buttermilk is once you buy that bright yellow quart, you can leave it in the fridge for a lonnnnng time. It's not like regular milk, it's already sour. Just pick up a bottle next time you're at the grocery store without planning anything in particular. Or get the powder, if you're cautious.

Now you're ready to unleash the buttermilk fiend at any time: fried chicken that makes grown men sob, blowing your afore-mentioned waffles' minds, dressing up salads or anything spicy, and of course, making the unforgettable scone.