Couldn't sleep. Worked on uploading some pictures in anticipation of traveling to San Francisco next month to see my mom, brother and sisters.
In recognition of home here's some comfort food. This basic recipe could be used to make egg nog before all the chickens got salmonella and eating raw eggs became a no-no. It works fine for making a custard too though.
My grandmother Margaret R. Williams taught me how to make this. Gram was a school teacher in Montana. Kid's loved her. She loved teaching. She was an independent woman, loved to drive and cuss. I'm just kidding about the cussing part. She grew up on Sarpy Creek near Hysham Montana.
She had no use for slow drivers, tailgaters (defined as anyone visible in your rear view mirror in the wide open roads of Montana) or "wolf packs" (defined as more than one car in a line ahead of Gram)...making it hard for her to pass. As she got older she became quite fond of saying "I think that person may have had a stroke." whenever someone didn't move away from a green light as quickly as she would have liked.
Here's the recipe for custard. Very simple very good. Expand it to make as much as you would like. The basic proportions go something like this -
1 egg (more if you like an eggier custard..relax it will work out fine)
1 cup of milk
2 Tbs sugar (to taste)
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of nutmeg
beat the egg, add the milk and vanilla, pour into a baking dish or cups, sprinkle nutmeg on top, place in a pan of water if you want to get fancy about it and bake at 350 degrees (F) until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Serve with nothing, fresh raspberries, caramel.
A second comfort food that Gram liked to make. Again very simple. Milk toast
One should know that milk toast has a bad reputation with macho men. I learned from googling that Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man, whose name was, of course, created from the name of a timid food. When you eat your milk toast you could take a lesson from James Thurber's Walter Mitty and pretend it's an elk roast you killed with your bare hands and cooked over a camp fire with your Indian partner Crazy Wolf.
This milk toast is a good thing to eat when you can't sleep. Just a cup of warm milk with salt and pepper is good to. The milk toast is a nice excuse to eat some butter though.
Milk Toast
Make some toast (browner the better...almost black would be good)
Heat up some milk
Put a lot of butter on your toast
Place toast in bowl and splash on warm milk
yum
No comfort food post would be complete without a recipe for macaroni and cheese. For my money nothing beats a good box of Kraft Mac and Cheese. You could spend the rest of your life unsucessfully trying to duplicate that artificial yellow cheese color and flavor.
Just for fun you can make your own too.
There are two ways to go about it.
Simple Mac and Cheese
Boil the pasta (stir it and use enough water that it doesn't stick together)
Drain the water
Cut up some hunks of Velveeta Cheese
Put the velveeta on the hot pasta in the pan you cooked it in
Add a lot of butter (or not so much...or use olive oil)
A little milk
Stir it slowly
More complicated Mac and Cheese
Make a white sauce (see roux instructions from yesterday)
Melt some butter in a pan
Add some flour until the butter is absorbed and about pea sized pieces
Cook a little (don't let it brown...this is white sauce)
Let it cool off a little...(this is for you beginners...you don't really have to do this but it makes it less likely you will get a lumpy white sauce)
Add milk and whisk quickly (if you don't whisk it quick you will start to make a pancake..sort of)
A fork works almost as good as a whisk
Add milk as necessary and bring to a bubble
Now that's as thick as it will get
Add cheese(s)
You could use velveeta but then why bother making the white sauce.
I'd try a yellow cheese, a white cheese and some parmesean cheese.
One very last comfort food classic. The always popular Grilled cheese sandwich.
You need the Velveeta again. Heat up a frying pan, preferable a non-stick one. Slice some Velveeta onto two pieces of bread. Butter the outside of the bread. Fry it up baby. Eat that warm cheese.
A couple of cakes.
Actually I don't do much baking. It takes more precise measurements than I generally care to do. I will make bread, puff pastry, cream puffs, cinnamon rolls, or a Swedish tea ring on occasion.
My recommendation for would be cooks is to take a basic cooking class. To have fun cooking you need to learn the basics. What things go together, how to make a sauce, a stock, soups, baking, sautaeing, boiling.
I think to be a good cook you need to love food (probably means love to eat) and have a sense of what goes together.
Oh yes the two cakes.
The first is a Salmon Cake
Get some salmon (a cheap can from the grocery store is fine)
Crunch up some saltine crackers
Rough cut up an onion (dice an onion but leave the pieces pretty big...country style)
Beat an egg or two or three depending on how much salmon you have
Combine salmon, cracker crumbs, diced onion, and egg(s) in a bowl.
Form salmon mixture into patties
Saute (cook in a little oil in a frying pan) until brown
Potato Cake
Leftover mashed potatos
Beat an egg or two or three (depends on how many mashed potatoes you have)
Combine the eggs and potatos
Salt and pepper
Form into patties
Saute until brown
