Recipe - Aunt May's Famous Wheatcakes

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RECIPE:
MAY PARKER'S FAMOUS WHEATCAKES

Originally made by my pal Pete's Aunt May, these wheatcakes are a great, hearty alternative to the standard pancake and will get your day off to a swinging start.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup Buckwheat Flour
• 1 cup Sifted Whole Wheat Flour
• 2 teaspoons Double Acting Baking Powder
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 2 cups Buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons Molasses
• 2 Egg Yolks, Beaten
• 1/4 cup Melted Butter
• 2 Egg Whites, whipped to stiff peaks

DIRECTIONS:

• Mix buttermilk and molasses, set aside
• In a separate bowl, mix together flours, powder, soda and salt
• Add egg yolks, melted butter and buttermilk/molasses mixture to flour mix
• Fold whipped egg whites into batter until blended - Don't overmix or thicken! Batter will set up slightly after mixing.
• Cook on hot greased griddle until small bubbles appear on top - Flip and cook until bottom is lightly browned. Serve hot with butter and syrup to your favorite nephew in a stack of  6-8 wheatcakes.

NOTES:

This recipe is really flexible to modifications and changes - the important part is the Molasses and the Buckwheat flour. I have substituted milk for the buttermilk, margarine for the butter, AP flour for the whole wheat flour and made the recipe without separating or whipping the eggs, just throwing it all in a bowl and they still make hearty, slightly fluffy pancakes that fill you up many times over better than pancakes. A great recipe!

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

New...Old Recipes Coming Soon!

Now Playing -  The Bomb by Bitter:Sweet

 

Life -  

 About a month ago, I found a few old cookbooks at Goodwill to go with my beloved Mexican cookbook. I have become a total sucker for cookbooks from the fifties and sixties. Not just their recipes but the way they did things and the little comments and intros are fantastic.But above all else, the recipes themselves take center stage. Food back then was made from scratch. None of these recipes in my other books where the bulk of the soup or the sauce is a can of super-salty, over processed Campbell's Soup. The cookbooks with a focus on crockpot cooking have been especially notorious for that and as we get healthier, I really want to get away from it in my cooking.

Of course, on the flip side is the prevalence of daring, odd or hard to find ingredients that were somewhat commonplace back then. Some I'll never find out here, some I could find, but would end up paying too much, and some of them, like Cracked Pig's Feet.... well.... I'll never cook that.

So we've decided in addition to working through our regular books and reviewing them here, we'll pick a recipe from one of our four "Old" cookbooks every once in a while. (And as I come across them, I'll post the Uncookable Recipes here) To start out with a bang we have chosen one from all four to make this coming week.

I'll do a proper focus on each of these books later but in short...The cookbooks we currently have are:

THE UNCOMMON COOK BOOK by Ruth Mellinkoff [1968]
I'm excited about this book. Not only are they simple, unique recipes with fantastic titles (Like Divine Chicken Divan) but she makes note about how well each freezes and whether you can make it ahead.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Joe's Special: Beef And Spinach San Francisco Style

THE COMPLETE BOOK OF MEXICAN COOKING by Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz [1967]
I've had this book for almost a year and though we've only made a few recipes out of it so far, all of them have been fantastic and the Enchilada's are the best we've had since we moved to Maine.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Otro Pollo Verde (Another Green Chicken)

THE ART OF SOUTH AMERICAN COOKERY by Myra Waldo [1961]
I haven't investigated this book much yet, but it looks like a nice compliment to the Mexican one.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Canja (Chicken And Rice Cream)

OLD WARSAW COOK BOOK by Rysia (That's right, just Rysia) [1958]
This is subtitled "Hundreds of Polish Specialties with many additions from Cuisines the World Over"  It doesn't lie. There are fifteen recipes just for cold soups alone and an entire chapter on mushroom dishes. Most have 5-7 ingredients and a brief paragraph of prep. Simple but very intriguing.

The Recipe we have chosen to make this week from it is: Chicken With Tomatoes

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Recipe Review - Parmesan Pork Roast

Now Playing -  Brutality by Black Box Recorder
 

Cookin’ With Kris

Photo from Taste Of Home of the recipe

 PARMESAN PORK ROAST

The Taste Of Home Cookbook

Pg. 129

Recipe:

1 boneless whole pork loin roast (4lb)

2/3c grated parmesan cheese

1/2c honey

3t soy sauce

2T dried basil

1/2t salt

2T minced garlic

2T cornstarch

1/4c cold water

1.Cut roast in half, transfer to 3qt slow cooker. Combine cheese, honey, soy sauce, basil, garlic, oil and salt; pour over pork. Cover and cook on low until pork reaches 160 or 5 ½ - 6 hours.

2.Remove meat to platter, cover with foil to keep warm. Skim fat. Transfer juices to small saucepan. Stir together cornstarch and water until smooth, combine with juices. Heat to boiling – cook and stir until thickened. Slice roast, serve with gravy

Modifications : I didn’t have any dried basil, so I used 2T of italian seasoning, which was essentially just basil anyway. We served ours with mashed potatoes.

Rating (out of 5)

Kris – 4

Linz – 4 ½

Review: An easy to make roast with an interesting mix of flavors. The soy sauce and honey really compliment each other, while bringing out the tanginess of the parmesan. The sauce cooks down to a rich, dark red with pieces of smoky parmesan and basil. I think the sauce could have been improved by using freshly dried basil, rather than the rather old italian seasoning I had to substitute. I should have used my remote thermometer that Linz gave me for Christmas, as the five hour cooking time left the meat quite flavorful but dry. We ended up roughly shredding it and eating it atop mashed potatoes with the sauce as gravy. We’ll try this one again.

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Cooking With Kris!

Now Playing -  White & Nerdy by Weird Al Yankovic

 
New Series - Cooking With Kris!

I love to cook. Which is a good thing, since Linz does not. I find the entire process fun and enjoy trying different recipes, making modifications or our own versions of things. I tend towards crock pot meals, primarily because its fits our schedule but also because our kitchen and supplies out here in Maine leave a bit to be desired. (We bought a good chunk of our kitchen supplies from Goodwill or on the cheap, because we have better versions out west or plan to buy nice ones once we move more permanently)  

I've decided to start sharing recipes here, both from cook books and our own home & family recipes, along with our modifications and reviews of how they were. When I can, I'll also include photos of the cookbook's version of the food as well as how it actually looked. 

Be warned - I make food to taste good, not look pretty - my photos will be of food that's placed on a plate to eat, not artfully poured tureens of beauty in natural light with colorful sprigs of fairie wings, so don't expect that. I want to share what our actual family's meals look like. And whether it was worth eating.

Also, don't expect a very focused look at specific food - my wife and I like to eat as healthy as we can without sacrificing taste or making silly stretches to avoid types of food. We're both simple people raised in The West with no real dietary concerns outside of watching our weight. Meat and potatoes types of people. We eat meat, cook with butter, salt and sugar. My grandma used to cook her popcorn in bacon grease and I still do occasionally as well. That's the way we roll. I'm also on the constant search to find authentic recipes for delicious Mexican food, something that is sorely missing out here in Maine.

I hope you try out a few of the recipes and let me know what you think and if you see something I might want to try, send me a link!

The ROUS FAMILY -   

  

 

 

 

 

Hillbilly Cuisine! - Cookies!

Now Playing -  
I Will Survive  by The Puppini Sisters

Life -  

 

 The other night, at 3am, while I was straining to concentrate on my PTCB studies, I decided that I needed a cookie. But not just any cookie. I needed the motivation that comes from a hot, crispy-chewy-scrumptious cookie that can only come from cooking the thing yourself. So I hopped over to AllRecipes and found a basic Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. It was one for 4 dozen. I wanted... like, three. So I made it adapt the recipe to one dozen. Hear those distant rumblings? Trouble brewing, that.

Then, while I assembled the ingredients, I realized where I was living. I was no longer residing in my comfortable, well-appointed home in Idaho. I was in a trailer house in Maine, where we were doing our darndest to live frugally and lightly. We also hadn't gone shopping for a bit.

I had the flour and the baking soda, and the eggs... kind of - more about that in a second - and I thought I had sugar... But I only had half of what I needed, reduced recipe or not. So I topped off the measuring cup with the large grained "Natural Cane" sugar we use with our coffee. In it went with the brown sugar and the requested butter (Not really "Softened" per se...) It should be noted that I do not own any mixing bowls. I have regular bowls and popcorn bowls. One of which was dirty and the other was a slightly cracked black Halloween bowl. So the Skull-Encrusted one it was!

Mixing large grains of sugar and cold butter in a flimsy $1 bowl? Not easy. Eventually, I'd bullied it into a paste and added the minuscule portions of salt and soda. Now the eggs... Oh, crap. AllRecipes, in all it's computerized wisdom had decreed the need for "1/2 eggs" Crap! So I scrambled one up good in a cup and poured it into a little measuring cup. It came to roughly a 1/2 cup, so I guesstimated half of that... I may not have been very exact.

But it started to look like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough! Apart from the chocolate chips. OH CRAP! I don't have chocolate chips! Luckily, I did have a Ferrera brand Chocolate Orange from Christmas! (I Don't know if you've ever had a Ferrera brand Chocolate Orange, but they're terrible, that's why we still had it. The Terry's brand oranges are heavenly and amazing. The Ferrera ones are like orange flavored soap rubbed smooth on the sweaty pits of migrant workers.) So I chopped it up and added it to the mix.

At this point, it should be noted - I do not have an oven. Well, I have an oven, but it's not hooked up to the gas. (They left it with a leak for three days after installing it and tried to charge me for the leaked gas, so I told them to shove their canister somewhere unpleasant) But I do have a toaster oven! It's cookie time!


After ten minutes, the cookies looked like dough still. After twenty, they looked like dough with runny edges. After twenty-five though... they started actually cooking! So... thirty minutes or so later, I had four cookies, fresh from the oven. This is what they looked like -

They weren't too bad. A little heavy and without the crispy texture I'd hoped for, but I think that came more down to my tiny batch recipe than anything else. And the orange pieces were still pretty crappy. So I got my cookies. After about an hour of work and impatient waiting, I got three questionably edible cookies. (I saved one for Linz)

Also, in case you ever wonder whether you can cook a Chocolate Chip Cookie on a cast iron Skillet at 3:30 in the morning... the answer is no, no you can not.

The ROUS FAMILY -     

 Coming Soon - More Shrunken Head Madness!

 Dead Babies!

Stephen King !

Audio Books! 

My cold little writing room

Now Playing -
Soon by My Bloody Valentine

Life - 

Not a lot going on in the last couple of days. Moved a fridge, which required the removal of three doors and almost the door of the fridge itslef, but it was mostly uneventful. We've also started introducing our boys to Scout (My brother's overly protective, nippy DevilDog) After a slightly heartstopping moment earler when she came upstairs and confronted Pooka, who acted shocked that all dogs did in fact not want to be his friend and be drooled on, we installed a baby gate on the stairs and have been slowly letting the dogs meet each other through the gate outside. This will no doubt be a very long process.

We have been watching and enjoying LEVERAGE on DVD. It stars Timothy Hutton, who has begun looking like Gary Oldman as he ages and is a different con or heist each episode. The cast is excellent, with perfect chemistry. Check it out!

Made McClanahan's Creamy Shepherd's Pie yesterday for lunch and quickly won over a skeptical mother and brother. There's something about the name Shepherd's Pie that puts people off. For lunch today, it was slow roasted Gumbo, which meant I was up at 7am to get it prepped so that it would be ready for lunch. Good stuff. We've decided to try using Okra in other dishes. It may become my secret ingredient. (Not that it would be a secret once someone has looked at a dish, Okra's pretty obvious.) Tonight, my brother's grilling mysterious root vegetables and pork on the grill... Will keep you updated on that.

Back to work tomorrow. Bah. I feel like very little Day Offage has been accomplished this week and the following sets of days off will just get more packed as Christmas approaches.

Writing - 

I'm really happy where I'm sitting with the rewrites on The Whispering Ferns, so far I'm around 2500 words in, and it's sounding a lot smoother and getting to the action faster. Better and faster, always a good thing!

Unfortunately, my new writing room, AKA the closet is quite chilly. Maybe I'll write more when the feeling returns to my fingers.

The Last Sentence - 

"Some Folks say you can't see the forest for the trees, it's the other way around out here."

From - "The Whispering Ferns" (WIP)

A pretty decent day

Now Playing -
Veronica by Tricky

Life - 

Quite an interesting day yesterday. We woke up early, just before seven, with a lot of things planned. Ate a little breakfast, wrote a bit, prepped a crock pot for dinner, then we headed out on the town. We ate at Mama Inez, a local "American Mexican Food" restaurant. We eat there every other week on Fridays, when they have their fajitas special. Their food is good, though not super Mexican. They have a dish called the Cheese Crisp however, that is unlike anything we have ever found in other towns. Thick flour tortilla chips, three cheeses, some sort of creamy enchilada sauce... Very good.  When we lived in Missoula, we attempted to replicate it with very little success.

After that, we dropped our leftovers off at my work so that we wouldn't have to drive back home (Which I just realized that I forgot to pick up last night...) and went to the local Catholic Bookstore. My wive's family is Catholic and she was raised in the religion, though neither of us are practicing anything. We do both have a lot of interest in religious items, being history fans. We were there yesterday for a bit more of a nefarious reason; my brother and I are going as Catholic Priests for Halloween (Easy costume, super comfortable) and we bought a couple of props for the costume there.

From there, we headed directly to Idaho Falls, fifty miles to the North. Idaho Falls is like a richer, more conservative, snootier version of Pocatello. They have some better stores, like Target and Barnes  & Noble, but as a general rule, we aren't fans of the people there. Most have a holier-than-thou attitude. Anyway, we did a bit of shopping at a few craft stores, checked out the mall and hit a movie before heading home.

The two high points were without a doubt, Target and the theatre. Target has some great Halloween stuff this year, a line called Haunted Heraldry, with crowned skulls and medieval style designs and a line for kids with gloopy monsters in bright colors. We didn't buy anything, but I very seriously considered quite a few items.

I love the theatre in Idaho Falls. It's an Edwards Theater, fourteen screens. It has a grandeur to it, with it's giant lobby and wide seat that the one in Pocatello doesn't pull off. They were also showing the movie 9, which the Carmike in Poky declined to show. Great movie and we had the theater essentially to ourselves at 2:30 in the afternoon.

After that, the evening went a bit off the rails, there was a bit of drama with one of Lindsay's friends, but we still managed to have some excellent Corned Beef. We were both in bed by 11pm, which is why I'm now up at 6am... this could be a long day.

Movie Reviews - 

I've decided to review movies and things on here too, in the same format as my book reviews. And while I REALLY wanted to give "9" a nine, I figure that I should change to a five out of five rating, since I post five blurbs too.

 9

Directed by Shane Acker

Starring the voices of Elijah Woods, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly

2009, 79 minutes

Gorgeous visuals  --  Evocative Danny Elfman Score  --  Brilliant Design and Non-Stop Action Sequences --  Giant Robot Apocalypse!

5/5

THE HOLIDAY

Directed by Nancy Meyers

Starring - Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law

2006, 138 mins.

Predictable  --  Light-Hearted  --  Cute, But Over-Long  --  Diaz is Stiff and Over-The-Top at the same time  --  Winslet's side story with the old screenwriter stole the film

3/5

Writing - 

Wrote a chapter last night, I'm up to over 36,000 words in Graves.

The Last Sentence - 

"Aren't we?"

From - "Graves" (WIP)

(I never claimed that the Last Sentence would be a thrilling one...)