Comfort Foods Make a Comeback

Comfort foods are being featured everywhere and it’s no wonder—they are good, they are usually hearty, and most are nutritious! Comfort foods are classic foods. The definition of classic: serving as a standard of excellence; traditional. Not all comfort foods are excellent, however.

Take tuna casserole; a lot of us grew up eating it on Fridays as a stand-in for a meat dish. It seems to me that people either love it or hate it. In my family we were divided on the “classic” version i.e., canned tuna, noodles, cream of mushroom soup, canned peas—all mixed in a casserole dish and topped with crushed potato chips, then baked until hot and bubbly and topping nicely browned.

I searched until I found a version that all of us could love—after all, it is really a filling, thrifty dish worth salvaging. In the 1953 version of the famous red-plaid Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, I found a version of tuna casserole or “hot dish” that my whole family could enjoy.

But when I unearthed this old recipe the other day, I thought it needed a face-lift to bring it up-to-date. I slimmed it down, cut out the canned varieties of foods and cooked it for a hearty lunch. Delicious! Here is the revised version:

Tuna with Cheese Swirls

1 ½ cups diced pared potatoes
1 cup diced celery
3 Tbsp. chopped onion
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp whole wheat flour
½ cup instant dry milk
1 ½ cups water
¼ cup water from vegetables
1 to 1-1/2 tsp. Lawry’s seasoned salt (or to taste)
1 small can tuna in water, drained
1 cup frozen peas
1 recipe Cheese Swirls (follows)

Cook potatoes, celery and onion in 1 cup water until almost tender, about 10 minutes; drain, reserving ¼ cup water. Heat 2 T. butter in small saucepan until melted; add flour and whisk until smooth. Add milk dissolved in 1 ½ cups water, whisking all the time. Add seasoned salt. Cook until smooth and bubbly and thickened. Pour into 10x 6 x 1 ½-inch casserole dish; add tuna, peas and vegetables. Mix well and keep warm while making cheese swirls.

Cheese Swirls

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp. sugar
¼ cup butter
1/3 cup reconstituted dry milk
½ cup sharp cheese

Combine dry ingredients with milk. Stir just till dough follows fork around bowl. Turn out on lightly floured surface. Knead gently for 30 seconds. Roll in 6 x 10 rectangle, ¼-inch thick. Sprinkle with cheese; roll as for jelly roll, starting at narrow end. Seal edge. Cut in ½-inch slices. Place atop hot casserole. Bake in hot oven (425) for 15-20 minutes or until biscuits are done. Makes 6 servings.

Cooking Class II: Novelty Breads

The second class in bread making will focus on Novelty breads (yeast doughs for English Muffins, bagels, foccacia and much, much more.

Monday, February 27, 2012, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.  Please call 800-254-9194 or email me at lgudrais@charter.net.  We are again limiting the class to six and the price will be $35 peer person.

Leap Year

Well, ladies, here it is—the day when the tables are turned and we females can pop the question or at least do the inviting to romance the men. This calls for great celebration and drastic action. If you were disappointed with Valentine’s Day—and your sweetie didn’t come through exactly—why not show him how it’s done? Our grub club group met in February and the theme was love. The dinner was perfect and could easily be the exact prescription for a positively romantic evening for two.


The menu:

Oysters on the half-shell

Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto

An array of olives

Hearts of romaine salad with love apples (tomatoes),

Artichoke hearts and a dressing with just a hint of sweetness

Love knot rolls

Beef Wellington for two

Hazelnut topped Asparagus

Heart-shaped red velvet cake with butter cream frosting

A delicious meal and bound to set a romantic scene. It may be a little fussy, but it might be worth it. When he finishes off the last crumb of the red velvet cake, you can drop on one knee (or not) and pop the question. He won’t be able to say no.

Hearts of Romaine Salad with Sweetness dressing

Arrange the inner leaves of crisp Romaine lettuce on a chilled salad plate. Cut tomatoes through the stem into wedges that look like hearts. Arrange them on the romaine. Arrange drained marinated artichoke hearts on plates and drizzle with sweetness dressing

Sweetness dressing

1/3 cup cider vinegar
2/3 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
½ chopped onion
1 tsp. celery seed
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper.
1 cup salad oil

Blend in a blender until well chopped. With blender running, pour oil through opening in blender cover very gradually until dressing is well emulsified.

Love Knot Rolls

1 cup regular oats
½ cup honey
2 Tbsp. butter
1 ½ tsp. salt
2 cups boiling water
1 pkg dry yeast
1/3 cup warm water
¼ cup flaxseed meal
3 cups white whole wheat flour
1 ½ cups white flour
Cooking spray
1 tsp. water
1 large egg
1 Tbsp. regular oats
1 Tbsp poppy seeds
1 Tbsp. sesame seeds

Combine first 4 ingredients in a bowl and add 2 cups boiling water, stirring until well blended. Cool. Dissolve yeast in 1/3 cup warm water in small bowl; let stand 5 minutes. Add yeast mixture to oats mixture; stir well. Stir in flaxseed meal. Measure flours and add all the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the white flour to oats mixture; stir until a soft dough forms. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth and elastic (about 10 minutes); add enough of remaining flour to prevent dough from sticking to hands. Place dough in large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise until double. Divide dough in half; cut each half into 12 equal portions. Shape each portion into an 8-inch rope. Tie each rope into a single knot; tuck top end of rope under bottom edge of roll. Place each roll on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Cover with plastic wrap coated with cooking spray; let rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size. Preheat oven to 400. Combine 1 tsp. water and egg in small bowl; brush egg mixture over rolls. Combine oats, poppy seeds and sesame seeds; sprinkle evenly over rolls. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes until golden. (Adapted from Cooking Light January/February 2008.)

Beef Wellington for Two:

1 lb fillet of beef
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 med. shallot peeled and chopped
2 oz. Champignon cheese, rind removed
1 sheet puff pastry

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Season beef with salt and pepper, melt butter in med-high skillet, and add the beef to brown all sides. Remove beef from skillet, add shallots, cook 6 min or until golden, stirring often. Cool slightly, then add cheese. Stir until melted, then cool.

Lightly flour a flat surface, and using a floured rolling pin, roll out the puff pastry to thin rectangle. Spread the cheese mixture on the pastry, set the beef in the middle, and wrap the beef totally within the pastry, cutting off any extra wrapping.

Place seam side down on foil covered baking sheet and brush with melted butter. Bake in oven until thermometer inserted into the beef reads at least 140 degrees (rare,) or 150 (med.) let sit 5-10 min.

For a romantic touch, cut heart shapes out of remaining pastry and place on top of the wrapped beef before it goes into the oven.

Hazelnut topped Asparagus

1 lb asparagus, trimmed
one third cups chopped hazelnuts, toasted in oven
one half cup sliced roasted red peppers
one half tsp dried thyme
2 Tbsp butter

Bring lightly salted water to a boil in a sauce pan. Add the asparagus and cook about 2 or 3 min. drain. In skillet, melt butter, add asparagus and remaining ingredients. Toss until heated through and arrange on a serving platter.

Cooking Class II: Novelty Breads

The first class went really well last Monday.  We had six participants and everyone had an enjoyable and edifying experience.

The second class in bread making will focus on Novelty breads (yeast doughs for English Muffins, bagels, foccacia and much, much more.

Monday, February 27, 2012, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.  Please call 800-254-9194 or email me at lgudrais@charter.net.  We are again limiting the class to six and the price will be $35 peer person.

Cooking School Classes with Lynette

Behind the Kitchen Door Cooking School

With Lynette Gudrais

Come with me behind the kitchen door of Candlelight Inn and learn how to cook.  All my classes are geared towards basic, made from scratch, healthy foods---that are delicious, economical and manageable.  Seem like an impossibility?  Find out how to make it happen.  Classes (6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.) are limited to 6 so register early.  All classes are $35 per person and must be prepaid at time of registration. Call 651-388-8034.

 

Monday Feb 20 (6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.), Breads I

Learn basic bread baking.

Groundhog Day

Writing movie reviews isn’t really my thing, but it seems appropriate today to mention one of my all-time favorite movies, Groundhog Day. It’s a great movie on several levels: great acting, great comedy, great premise, and interesting life philosophy thrown in for flavor. I guess it’s the philosophy that speaks to me most—that doing it over and over will finally result in getting it right.


None of us will really get a second shot at our daily lives, but when it comes to eating, we do it over a lot. And if we’re talking leftovers, it rarely comes out better the second time. However, we are all faced with leftovers and unless you have no guilt about tossing all uneaten food you have to figure out some good ways to serve them.

When I was growing up, my mother fixed a Sunday night leftover buffet. She just reheated everything leftover from the week and put it out on the counter to help yourself. Those were the days before the microwave, so it took a lot of saucepans and bake ware to accomplish this and there were a stack of dishes afterward (I know, I washed them).

Psychologically, I rebel. Food just doesn’t seem as good reheated and served a second time. So I went on a hunt to find a way to re-cycle food and make it even better—well, at least as good.

First stop, my cookbook collection and I found three that deal with this subject exclusively: the oldest, Magic with Leftovers by Lousene Rousseau Brunner was published in 1965; Miriam B. Loo’s, Never Say Leftovers was written in 1982 and The Leftover Gourmet by Patricia Rosier and Jessica L. Weiss was published in 1991. I picked a philosophical tidbit as well as a representative recipe from each one.

Magic With Leftovers states, “A little ingenuity goes a long way in making cooking with leftovers interesting, challenging and economical…the thrifty cook never throws away leftovers. A tablespoon of many vegetables can be added to vegetable or cream soups. A strip of bacon can be crumbled into a one-egg muffin.”

Stuffed Green Peppers

1 ½ cups chopped leftover beef or lamb
2 large green peppers or 4 small ones
2 Tbsp bacon fat
2 Tbsp. chopped celery
2 Tbsp chopped onion
Three-fourths cup cooked tomato with juice or juice alone
1 cup bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
1 Tbsp. butter or margarine

Split peppers lengthwise, remove seeds and membrane, and parboil 2-3 minutes in boiling salted water. Drain and turn carefully upside down to drain further.

Heat bacon fat in skillet and sauté celery and onion until yellow. Add meat, tomato or juice, bread crumbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Lay pepper halves right side up in greased shallow casserole or pie plate and fill solidly with mixture. Sprinkle tops with additional bread crumbs, dot with butter, add about 2 tablespoons water to casserole and bake 25-30 minutes in a hot oven (400 deg). Serves 4

Never Say Leftovers is full of tips that apply to the use of leftovers such as:

1. Add leftover fish to shrimp cocktail sauce and use as a dip.
2. Combine juices from cans of fruit with orange juice, club soda, and any flavor sherbet for a refreshing drink.
3. Leftover mashed potatoes make a nice addition to the meal when shaped into patties, dusted with flour for easier handling and sautéed in butter.

Mashed Potato Puff

2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
One-third cup milk
2 eggs, well beaten
½ cup grated Cheddar cheese
One-third cup chopped onion
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
One-fourth cup grated Parmesan cheese

Heat oven to 350 deg. Butter an 8-inch pie plate and set aside. Combine potatoes, milk, and eggs. Blend well. Fold in Cheddar cheese, onion, and salt and pepper to taste. Place in pie plate. Top with Parmesan cheese and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Serves 4

From The Leftover Gourmet, “The aid of the blender, food processor, freezer, microwave oven and other kitchen tools now widely available, made it easy to reprocess foods and give them totally new identities.”

Hot Chicken/Turkey Timbale

1 cup warm chicken stock
½ cup light cream
4 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
½ tsp. dried tarragon
½ cup Swiss cheese, grated
1-1/2 cups cooked chicken or turkey, cut in large chunks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put the ingredients in a food processor and process for 10 to 20 seconds. Spoon the mixture into 6 buttered ramekins and set them in a pot of hot water. Bake at 350 deg. For 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove timbales from the oven and let stand for a few minutes to set. Run a knife around the edge and unmold. Serve immediately. Garnish with chopped pecans or walnuts. This makes a great luncheon dish served with soft warm rolls and a salad.