It IS about the love isn’t it? Whenever I am in the kitchen using an old and treasured recipe, I am reminded of this truism. When I prepare a recipe handed down to me from older generations, I am caught up in memories of that person, feeling their presence very much with me. Sharing food is love multiplied and gratitude floods my soul when I see people appreciating a special dish I have made for them for it is then that I remember that I am nourishing their souls and spirits as much as providing nourishment for their bodies. I find this especially true with elderly folks; the memories they share about special family foods, the taste of a dish their parents or grandparents made, their own time spent happily cooking for their families when they were younger and stronger remind me of the power of love and how love provides the greatest sustenance of all.
Category Archives: Musings
Snow Ice Cream
Surely you enjoyed snow ice cream as a kid! My first thought when I looked out my window this morning was “I want snow ice cream and I want it for lunch!” What else would a person think of with this much snow on the ground? Just a quick trip outside to the yard to scoop up the clean snow and you’re almost there! This recipe uses raw eggs; omit them if you like if they don’t agree with you. Snow ice cream melts fast so this is the quintessential “make and eat immediately” recipe. Turn your snow day into a FUN day; your kids will love it and so will you! Winter kitchen frolic!
Snow Ice Cream
1-12 oz. can evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
1 gallon fresh clean snow
In large bowl add milk, the beaten eggs, vanilla, and sugar and beat briefly with an electric mixer to blend well. Add the snow and stir gently, folding well. Scoop into bowls and top with sprinkles! GO on: smile, do a snow day happy dance and say ahhhhh!
Cookies & Books & Buttermilk
Holy Moley! So, what began as a desire to use the last of the buttermilk chilling in the fridge evolved into a very fruitful three days of cookie baking at my house. And okay, well, yes, a second motivation, admittedly, is being engrossed in an interesting new book and knowing that using that buttermilk is going to net me a stash of cookies (and plenty to share also, added bonus!) for enjoying with late-night page turning of that very book. It all sounded good to me, and before I knew it, I was on a mission!
I ended with three very different batches of cookies whose common ingredient is buttermilk. The Dark Brown Sugar Cookies and the Lemon Bursts both use buttermilk in their glazes and Betty’s Molasses Cookies use 1/2 cup in the dough.
Because we’re all about added bonuses around here, the kitchen, the entire house, is fragrant with strains of cinnamon, ginger, and cloves with a fresh zesty lemon scent layered on top. It’s enough to make me believe my next retirement venture just might be transferring this heavenly aroma into perfume: “Spiced Essence of Winter Kitchen Days”. I’d buy a decanter for sure.
Braised Cabbage & Spicy Croutons
Not sure about you but there’s something about winter that leads to a craving for cabbage, turnips or carrots at my house. I bought cabbage yesterday but wasn’t sure what I was going to use it for. Until lunch time today.
This recipe from my cookbook collection has just enough bite from the red pepper flakes to thoroughly warm you and your kitchen on a very cold day. The croutons are quickly prepared and set aside then a quick simmer of the cabbage and you’re all set. 25 minutes from start to finish resulting in a dish that can stand alone as it did for my lunch or a large bowl for serving on the side, its intended purpose at my house tonight with meatloaf.
I did use 2 T. of butter today instead of the one tablespoon the original recipe calls for because I cut the bread into two-bite pieces. Eating the croutons with your fingers provides the chance to really taste their olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flake seasonings. 15 minutes at 300 is perfect for braising the cabbage until it is just tender. Use your electric skillet for preparing this as you will need the room to spread out the six large cabbage wedges. I drizzled 1/2 tsp. more olive oil over the bowl before digging in.
Thanks to friend, Dodie Conrad, for supplying me with the fresh parsley sprigs from her indoor pot. Our market didn’t have fresh parsley today, and Dodie rescued the recipe by bringing over that small, but essential, ingredient. Yet another advantage of living in a small town to be sure. =)
Braised Cabbage & Spicy Croutons
Ingredients
1 T. olive oil
1 T. butter
1/3 coarse bread baguette torn into 1” cubes to equal 2 cups
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1 small head cabbage cut into six wedges
1/2 cup water
Salt and pepper, to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish
Lemon wedges for garnish
Directions In large skillet, heat oil and butter over medium heat. Add bread, garlic powder, and crushed red pepper flakes. Cook and stir 3-5 minutes until golden brown. Remove croutons from skillet with slotted spoon and cool on paper towel.
Add cabbage to skillet, overlapping wedges if needed. Season with salt and pepper and add water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15 minutes or until tender. Place cabbage on serving platter, drizzle with small amount olive oil if needed. Sprinkle with croutons and garnish with parsley and lemon wedges.
And Here We Are
Back again after two months of writing but not posting! It feels redundant introducing and telling you about myself; if you have clicked over here, we are surely already acquainted. Whether you know me as Cak, your sister or aunty, or think of me as Katy or Miss, from Tasty Crust and Lahainaluna years on Maui, or, if I know you here in southeast Missouri and you still call me Cathi, (and that includes those who call me only “Greer”), I definitely welcome you! Each name, and nickname, combine to supply my voice and each contributed in creating, this, my Country Ohana Hawaiian Southern Methodist Kitchen! Hele Mai, do come in!
A new year begun, fresh calendar pages on our walls and our i-phone screens testify to it, and hopefully you are as excited about the year 2015 as I am. I LIKE blank calendar pages and the idea of “new beginnings”, and after much mental hemming and hawing, two things have become clear to me. One, Waiting on Things To Be Perfect is useless because, Two, Things Already Are Perfect just as they are. Those conclusions led me to making my first New Year’s Resolution in the past twenty years, and that is to remember this truism, “The best time for anything, is now.” And so, here we are.
As this new adventure begins, I mightily thank all of you who so highly recommended retirement! Purposefully choosing how to spend my time is a new concept for me; I think of it as a gate, standing, as my Lahainaluna colleague, Mr. Manzano, so clearly wrote on overtime slips, “WIDE open!” Passing through that gate has revealed to me interests never fully explored, a primary interest being that I enjoy writing about food, and, I like spending time talking story about food. Talking story is a favorite pastime in Hawai’i, and we all especially love talking story about food: you know, ‘oh this buggah some onolicious!’ and ‘Aisus! This really broke da mout so ono!’ and that is how you get ‘da scoop” on all things Yummy. If my personal slant on Life 101 creeps into these pages too, well, that’s just the way I roll. Writing a food blog seems a simple exercise in journaling and I see this space less as a formal exercise in writing and more as appending my kitchen notebooks. Somehow, that takes the pressure off. I expect to enjoy this journey, especially with your company as you share from your seat at the table as well.
Do come back again, and often. I will do my part by posting lots of recipes and photos, but it is your participation that decides the success of this venture, so post a comment, share a story, alter a recipe and tell us how it turned out. I have so much to learn about writing a blog and your patience is not only needed but much appreciated. Thankfully, I can take advantage of purchased help available from the web hosting company of this site, and I do so because knowing what I want to feature here is a far cry from knowing how to make it happen. Making it happen, however, is exactly what the technology wizard fella did for me today and you can expect to see more positive changes to the site as I learn to make them. You surely KNOW I did the happy dance today when, with the web tech’s help, there suddenly appeared shiny links for clicking, sharing buttons for pushing, and favorite web sites showing up all sparkly in the sidebar! My great-grandmother Minnie would say that I am “flat out messin’ with God Almighty” no doubt but then Minnie probably never resorted to writing down a recipe in her life. Soon, I hope to learn enough to feature ALL the Blogging Bells and Whistles I find on other web sites, but Not Having Everything Perfect immediately means only that I am comfortable in believing that you are kind enough to keep reading as construction continues. I do know that clicks are good things in the world of blogging, and I am so grateful that you made a First Click and a First Visit because the perfect time for visiting, you know, is now.
Readers who use my cookbook will recognize many recipes posted; I began with the dishes I made leading up to and through the holidays 2014 because they are fresh in my mind . Don’t fret now, if you are feeling you have no reason to read my blog since you already have the cookbook because I love trying new recipes every bit as much as you and I’ve been cooking up a storm the past few days so that you have some new recipes to check out already! If you fill out the short ‘sign up by email’ form on the left sidebar, you will receive notifications of all new posts and know quickly when a recipe is new to you. I promise nothing too fancy, nothing overly time-consuming (time-consuming for me equals ‘special project’), and nothing that I can’t stand behind recommending. Your time is valuable and I don’t expect you to waste it. My pledge is to keep improving the content and the quality you find here, especially the photography. Please feel free to change and alter and share these recipes in any way you choose and to use the comment and sharing buttons. If you are sharing, please link readers back to this site.
Finally, (how did I become too wordy so quickly?) the intent of this site is NOT about my ability as a cook because many people who read food blogs are already excellent cooks. What the site IS about is sharing and being of use to you, the reader. Think of this spot the same as you would if you were sitting in a doctor’s waiting room leafing through one monthly magazine or another and coming across a great-sounding recipe; the only difference is you don’t have to scrabble around in your purse or backpack looking for an old envelope or receipt to write on and tracking down a pen to use; just click the shiny new printer button and there you go! We’re all in this together you know: everybody, all around, together, at the table, ho’okipa style. Remember, the perfect time, for sharing, for anything, is now.