#78 Rice Cookbook

#78 Rice Cookbook

When I was a kid there were two kinds of rice, rice and Uncle Ben's Converted Rice. I was never real sure what "converted" rice was but I knew we couldn't afford it. After I was married, I considered myself very posh because I could have "Minute Rice". In just 5 minutes I could have a dish full of mutated, plastic tasting muck. Yum, I actually liked it. Then something happened in the 90's, I discovered "Rice" and the heavens opened.

What a difference in taste and texture. In my humble little home, I have no fewer than 9 different types in my cabinet, there would be 10 but I'm out of Glutinous-sticky rice. It's also rather amazing, if I was blindfolded and put to the test, I bet I could tell the difference between them all. Of course they would have to be cooked correctly, there's an art to that.

So what kinds do I have you ask. There are long and short grained white, a brown short grain from Australia, a Mediterranean Arborio, a Thai Jasmine, a long grained Basmati, Wild Rice and Dirty Rice. Okay I threw the last one in to see if you were paying attention. Dirty Rice is just dirty because of the stuff that's added to it. I also have Minute Rice but I swear I don't use it any more unless I'm really rushed. Also Wild Rice is more of a grass seed than a rice but they call it rice and it's in this book so it's good enough for me.

We had kind relatives who lived in Minnesota and they would often send us a package of Wild Rice, which grows there, for Christmas. This was a very treat since at one time it was worth it's weight in gold. It is wonderful, rich and nutty and it makes neat curls when it cooks. I have a Thanksgiving Soup recipe I make that uses it and everyone loves it. Now they can grow it in lots more places, this one came from Ontario and it's cheap enough to use more than just once a year.

Of course if you're cooking risotto, don't even start without a good Arborio rice. It's really worth all the stirring when you taste the creamy texture. I make one and place big grill scallops on top, it's so good! Then you need the Thai for coconut rice and I could eat Basmati anytime, with anything. Looking back it's hard to believe I used to make the family eat only Minute Rice, I just didn't know any better. So cookbook #78 is Rice Cookbook from the Australian Women's Weekly series. My sister just found 5 of these cookbooks at an estate sale last week. She'll enjoy them I'm sure.

#77 Easy Vietnamese-Style Cookery

#77 Easy Vietnamese-Style Cookery

Rats, I did it again, I started eating before I remembered to take a picture of our Vietnamese take out dinner. It is just so good, we pray and start eating right away so it doesn't get cold. They had it all displayed so nicely with the spring rolls and all the meat and shrimp grilled on wooden skewers. It was so pretty but you wouldn't know it from this photo, sorry. I've decided the thing I love about the food is the Fish Sauce. It's made from the liquid drained from salted, fermented anchovies. If you remember from earlier posts you know I don't like fishy, fish but this stuff is great. They use a very mild one that doesn't have the strong aroma or taste. Yum, see the baby giving the thumbs up in the photo, it's just that good.

Speaking of anchovies, my daughter was eating a Caesar salad at The Outback restaurant the other day when she saw this very strange thing curled around the lettuce. She fished it out and laid it on the side of her plate. After some poking and sniffing she decided it must be an anchovy. When the waitress cleared the plate, she looked kind of funny. About two minutes later the manager appeared at her table, apologizing profusely. He said they freshly blend their Caesar dressing each day and somehow that one long slimy anchovy had made it through the blender whole. So they got all their drinks free and coupons for free meals! It kind of reminds me of the time my sister and I were eating in a restaurant in California and she found a cockroach in her lobster bisque. The manager rushed and apologized, he said, "he was so sorry, they were usually in the salads". Blah, some how that didn't make us feel much better but the free bottle of wine helped a bit. The cookbook for today is #77 Easy Vietnamese-Style Cookery, again it's from the Australian Women's Weekly series.

#76 Soda Pop! From Miracle Medicine to Pop Culture

#76 Soda Pop! From Miracle Medicine to Pop Culture

According to the calendar of events I've been using, today Coca-Cola was invented. Now I was all excited because I have a few Coke recipes but something didn't seem right. My Granny Berta was born the same year Coca-Cola was invented and I was pretty sure it was in the same month. She was born in May so something didn't add up. So I looked on Coke's website and found it was May 8th, 1886 when Dr. John Pemberton mixed up that first batch in Atlanta, Georgia. I figure they should know.

This is terrible, does that mean March 25th wasn't really Lobster Newburg day and is April 19th really Garlic Day. I had been so confident of my facts, after all the calendar I have been using is put out by a group that practices home schooling. All these people are teaching their kids at home and they can't get the date right for Coke? Wow, just wait till their kids take their ACTs and they find out all the stuff Mom was teaching them is bogus. I feel I should write someone, are they using Wikipedia as their encyclopedia too? Shame on them!

Anyway the reason I was pretty sure today wasn't the day Coke was invented was like I said, my Granny Berta and Coke were always linked. She was born just 13 days after Coca-Cola and if there was any one who loved Coke it was Granny. The first thing she asked when you stepped in the door at her home was, "do you want a Coke?". Not just any Coke either, the cute little 6 oz. green bottles that she'd get in a red wooden Coke crate. She had these little stretchy knit jackets that she would place on your bottle and when they were empty, she called them dead soldiers and really seemed to mourn their passing. She drank at least 4 to 6 each day and I don't remember ever seeing her with a glass of water in her hand. I swear she could tell you within 50 miles where it was bottled just by the taste, she was a real connoisseur. Also, you know how all that Cola is suppose to be so bad for you, well she lived well into her 90s!

With all those Cokes around you would think she would have tried the French Onion soup with Coke or the easy Cola Chicken, I don't think she ever did but I do somewhat remember a Coca-Cola Cake. I'm not sure it was this same recipe, I don't remember miniature marshmallows. I should give it a try, my drink of choice is now Coke Zero and there's always one at my side. So to all those little home schooled kids, this one's for you, #76 Soda Pop! From Miracle Medicine to Pop Culture by Gyvel Young-Witzel and Michael Karl Witzel.

#75 Atkins The Complete Cookbook

#75 Atkins The Complete Cookbook

Rats! I'm all excited one of my friends from the States is making her first trip to Canada next month and she and her husband will be staying with us. I'm thrilled, I can't wait to show her around and I was really looking forward to dazzling them with my cooking skills. When we knew each other 25+ years ago I didn't do much cooking but boy could we both eat. We were both skinny and could put away a ton of food. They're great cooks and I thought finally I can cook a few meals for them. I had tried cooking on one of my trips to their home in Colorado. They live way up in the Rocky Mountains and I found out something I hadn't known. When you're at high altitudes it takes forever for water or anything else to boil. Everything cooks in a different way.

The dish I had decided to do for them there in Colorado was crab rangoon with a nice dipping sauce. These are deep fried and I put my oil on to heat, waited 15 minutes and tossed in the rangoon. I waited and waited, at home they were golden brown in about 3 minutes tops. These poor things were bobbing around for 5 minutes, then 10 minutes. After about 20 minutes in "hot" oil I put them out on a plate. We sat down and poor Robert popped one in his mouth and got a very strange look on his face. Suddenly the rangoon was flying across the table. I know I'm not the best cook but no had ever spit out my food. Turns out just because the oil wasn't boiling didn't mean it wasn't hot and Robert had seared his entire mouth.

So I was looking forward to redeeming myself and proving to them I could cook. I'd been planning all sorts of meals in my head. I knew Ukrainian would be all new to them, see post #70. Then I wanted to dazzle them with a Green Thai Curry with coconut rice and spring rolls. Then some BBQ and maybe a Mexican Fiesta with a few friends over to meet them. It was going to be great fun stuffing them but then I got the call.

They had just one simple request, all they really needed has Atkins bars and canned shakes. They eat one for breakfast and drink one in the afternoon. They're all skinny and healthy and rats there goes my cooking extravaganza! I remembered I had an Atkins cookbook in my collection and I just got it out, blah it's pretty sad. Oh well, I don't want to kill them with kindness so I guess I'll just peel a carrot or two and hand them a can opener. So cookbook #75 is Atkins The Complete Cookbook, Lose Weight with Hundreds of Low Carb Dishes. By the way, I'm sending the book home with them.

#74 The Book of Spanish Cooking

#74 The Book of Spanish Cooking

Today is National Paella Day so this calls for a Spanish cookbook. I have a bunch of the cookbooks in this series from HP Books. They were all brand new and only $2 each at sale for school text books. For some reason they had lots of food related books and I stocked up.

Paella is a lovely dish, I don't make it often since I don't have a traditional pan and the seafood can be a bit hard to gather. I should give it another try, I have the saffron it calls for. Right on the little jar it says that saffron is the most expensive spice on earth. It takes more than 75,000 crocus blossoms to make a pound of saffron. Of course a pound would be a lifetime supply for me and probably half of Canada. Each strand then has to be hand picked from the flower and there are 225,000 of them per pound. So that's a lot of saffron pickers. You figure minimum wage, picking 8 to 10 hours a day, well you do the math, it's expensive. You do only use a few precious strands but it does add it's own unique flavor and that beautiful yellow color. You could get the yellow from turmeric but it's just not the same. All those clams, shrimp, mussels and whatever else you throw in deserves the best.

My sister has been planting many different varieties of daffodils, see photo, maybe she should switch to crocus. She could probably get enough saffron for her own personal use and sell a bit on the side. Two or three hundred plants and you could put the kids through university. By the way, go KU they're playing today! So cookbook #74 is The Book of Spanish Cooking by Hilaire Walden.

#73 Home Cookin' With Dave's Mom

#73 Home Cookin' With Dave's Mom

Dave Letterman has the cutest little Mom, Dorothy, she has such a great smile. My Mom had a great smile too and today was her birthday. She's been gone a long time but I still miss her so much. It was so great growing up with a Mom who thought everything you did was brilliant and that you were the most talented, gifted child around. It was a blessings to have her as a parent.

I used to be hooked on the Dave Letterman Show, I watched it faithfully for years and years. It came on late and I'd tape it and watch it the next day, I'd never miss it. I loved watching when Dorothy would be on. She was there every Thanksgiving and Dave would send a crew to her house and try to guess what kind of pies she had made for the big dinner. I tried the Key Lime pie recipe on page 157 and it was very good.

Dorothy covered the Winter Olympics one year for the show and did a great job in front of the camera. Her smile was always in place but I got the feeling, that she never really got Dave's sense of humor. He would kid around and try to show off for her and usually all he got was a bewildered, "Oh, David". I'm sure she wanted to add, "grow up" but she never did. It probably drives him nuts that she doesn't seem to find him all that funny. Poor Dave, but I'm sure he drove her nuts too.

Anyway, a few years ago I just stopped watching Dave. I don't know why, maybe I wanted him to grow up. I turned the show on last night just to check it out. He always wore a double breasted suit when I watched, now he seems to like a three piece with a vest but the rest was just the same old stuff. He has a son now, who's is 5 years old and the most amazing thing is he just got married last week. It's about time if you ask me, maybe he is growing up a bit. I did read somewhere that little Harry, his son, doesn't get his humor and his Mom has to explain, "Daddy's just teasing honey". Ha, sounds like grandma so maybe he'll be a good influence on old Dad. Cookbook #73 is Home Cookin' With Dave's Mom by Dave's Mom, Dorothy with Jess Cagle.

#72 Williams-Sonoma Seafood

#72 Williams-Sonoma Seafood

It says on my calendar that it's Lobster Newburg Day, I have no idea who decides these things but I do love lobster. Just plain melted butter is fine with me but sauce is great too. I like the Newburg sauce with it's sherry, egg yolks and heavy cream. Another good one is Mornay sauce with onion, cheese and a hint of nutmeg. The important thing is the sauce should be subtle so it doesn't over power the lobster.

This is a great seafood cookbook, of course all the Williams-Sonoma books are well done and have you ever been in one of their stores? They are so beautiful! They have great seasonal displays, I'm sure they have out all the pastel KitchenAid mixers and the bunny cake pans and cookie cutters. Just check out their Easter section on their web page, I would so like those bunny plates.

They also carry very expensive food products. You can buy "Sloppy Joe Starter" for $12.95 or a box of cupcake mix for $14.00. You really pay for the joy of doing it yourself. Then there's the gadgets, they have all the utensils, slicers, graters and peelers that you could ever want.

Red Lobster just had a commercial on TV, it's Lobsterfest that's a laugh. I'll post their photo of the meal. Now is there anyone out there who has gotten anything even remotely looking like that at the restaurant. We sure haven't, in fact, we've given up on them. They can only fool me so many times with their chewy, tiny over cooked selections. Besides I can make my own Red Lobster style, garlic cheese biscuits so I just don't need them any more. Cookbook #72 is Williams-Sonoma Seafood.

#71 Mary Engelbreit's Queen of the Kitchen Cookbook

#71 Mary Engelbreit's Queen of the Kitchen Cookbook

As Mary Engelbreit tells us, "Life is just a chair of Bowlies". She's just so cute! I've done some artwork myself and it appears to me, she only uses a black pen and colored pencils but her pieces glow. They're so happy and cheerful, I have lots of her books, magazines, cards, magnetics, I'm a sucker for Mary. I love her art work with it's checker boards and cherries. My sister likes her style so much she tiled a black and white checkerboard around her kitchen fireplace and she has cute little Mary ceramic knobs on the cabinets. It makes cooking fun I'm sure.

This cookbook is beautifully done, a work of art and I bet the recipes are good too. She's one of the few big licensing artists that appeared to do her own artwork and I'm guessing she cooks as well. I know she has a staff to put the projects together but I think she was sitting down at the drawing board and turning out her own designs. She has a studio in Webster Groves, MO not far from where my design partner and I worked for many years. I wish I had run into her at the grocery store, I bet she's as nice as her designs. After all, the lady made paper dolls, I love paper dolls. We didn't have a lot of money for stuff when I was a kid and one of my favorite activities was drawing my own paper dolls. I could do this for hours. Mary always had a paper doll in each of her magazines. It's a shame it ended it's long run with the Dec/Jan 2009 issue. I'll miss it. So Mary, I hope you invested wisely and have a ton of dough to see you through these leaner times. I still think you're great. So cookbook #71 is Mary Engelbreit's Queen of the Kitchen Cookbook.

#70 Ukrainian Daughters' Cookbook

#70 Ukrainian Daughters' Cookbook

When we first moved to Canada, I had never heard of perogies. There was this huge section for them in every frozen food section in all the grocery stores. It turns out Canada has a very large Ukrainian population and they have worked hard to keep their heritage alive. You should see Ukrainian dancing up here, it's amazing. We have been blessed with two sets of friends who are Canadian Ukrainians and they sure know how to celebrate the holidays. Their Christmas is 12 days after our traditional December 25th and if we work it right we can celebrate two or even three times. The foods are wonderful and really suited to our cold climate.

For those who don't know, perogies are little dough packages filled with potatoes and onions or cheese. You can boil them or fry them and then you add the toppings. You cook bacon and onions until they're golden brown and then add butter and sour cream. They are wonderful! There's other filling but these are my favorites. This is real comfort food, in fact my niece went through a time when all she wanted to eat was perogies. She was having a hard time finding them in the States but when she came up here for a visit I could see that she had all she wanted. We even have Ukrainian Fast Food at our malls!

There's also cabbage rolls, nalysnyky, little crepes, poppy seed cakes, lemony paska Easter breads, beet soup and lots of other things. In fact at Christmas it is traditional to have 12 different dishes. Each one has a meaning and it's a great feast. This year we celebrated with Barb and Lois. Since it's Barb's birthday today I decided to feature this cookbook and some of her food creations. The Ukrainians also do beautiful decorated Easter eggs, I've tried my hand at this and it's not easy. You use real bees wax that you melt over a candle and do lots of dipping in dye. You don't blow the egg out first and they can blow up if you don't do it right. Say Wendy, we should do a few this year! Anyway, the cookbook for today is #70 Ukrainian Daughters' Cookbook. Happy Birthday Barb!

#69 Chicken Collection

#69 Favorite Brand Name Chicken Collection

This is another one of my quick Chicken posts. Guess what I'm doing today. As you know I collect cookbooks from Goodwill and book sales. Well I got this great idea, if I volunteered at a big book sale maybe I could get first pick at some of the cookbooks. I have no idea if this will work or not but I'm dragging my daughter and my friend Wendy off to sort books. The public will be dropping off their books for the Raise A Reader book sale and we'll be sorting and boxing them up. We'll be doing this for two Sundays and then in April they'll have the big sale. Wish me luck, even if I don't get any new cookbooks, it's a good cause. The cookbook for today is #69 Favorite Brand Name Chicken Cookbook.

#68 BBQ Food for Friends

#68 BBQ Food for Friends

I found a Brisket, I found a Brisket!!!!! This is cause for great rejoicing. Usually when I ask the butcher if they have any briskets I get a strange look and a NO. Yesterday I asked and he handed me a package of four little steaks. I told him, "no, I want the whole thing". He said he did have one but he was shaking his head as he walked away to the cooler. He came out and showed it to me and I told him "yes, that's just what I want". He tried to warn me that it would be very tough and difficult to cook but I say not the way we do it back home. So off he went to wrap and price it. This seemed to be taking a long time so I pushed open the door and there he was cutting off every bit of extra fat! I didn't have the heart to tell him I wouldn't mind some of that, he looked so proud as he handed it to me.

So I had my little 3 lb. brisket, it cost $21, I'm afraid to ask what they go for in the States. Probably cheap like turkeys, we pay $50+ for a turkey and I know they still almost give them away down there. Oh well, it was worth it! I wrapped it all up in foil and put it in the oven at 275 for about 5 hours. It came out fork tender and then the dilemma, which BBQ sauce to use? I like the smoky sweeter ones but some in the family likes the ones with a vinegar kick.

Here's a few of our imported sauces, see photo, except for the Tony Roma's, we can get that up here. We also have a hard time deciding which restaurants to go to when we visit Kansas City too. Last time we asked, KC had over 100 BBQ places. I know my brother-in-law had the goal of trying each of them, I'm not sure how many he's logged. We even have sauce tastings up here, kind of like wine tastings but with BBQ sauce and we don't spit it out. They are all great! So the cookbook for today is #68 BBQ Food for Friends by Jane Lawson and Vanessa Broadfoot. Okay down there, what's your favorite sauce?

#67 Fresh Flavours of Spring

# 67 Fresh Flavours of Spring

It's the first Day of Spring and I'm sure somewhere, Spring is in the air, just not here yet. In Kansas they're already watching for flowers to start poking their heads out of the ground. We'd just like to see the ground. Of course after the snow finally does melt, we get snow mold, see the last picture. It's a white or grey fuzzy mold that grows under the heavy snow all winter. I had a friend who had just moved to Canada, she was so thrilled that Spring had arrived that she hung all her bedding out on the line outside to air. This was right above a patch of snow mold and the whole family itched and sneezed until everything was rewashed and dried inside.

I'm sure Spring will get here sometime. In the mean time I may make new potatoes and creamed peas. That dish says Spring to me. Cookbook #67 is Fresh Flavours of Spring by Corning. I still love my Corning Ware casseroles!

#66 Easy Foil Recipes

#66 Easy Foil Recipes

This entire cookbook is recipes that you cook wrapped up in foil. I'm not sure why, but I make a meal that cooks in individual foil packages. It's not like I cook it over an open fire or on the BBQ, I'm not even sure where I got the recipe. Maybe it came home from camp with the daughter. Anyway I still make it and it's called "Hobo burgers" at our house.

Gee, I just Googled it and it appears it's called "Hobo Burgers" at lots of people's houses. Even Paula Deen has a version of it. It looks like it might have originally come out of a book of camping recipes from KOA. I've never been camping in my life and don't intend to start but I'll keep making this. Looks like I should have been adding green peppers all these years, that would be a nice touch. Mine are a bit bland, actually very bland and we end up using a ton of ketchup on them, see photo. The cookbook for today is #66 Easy Foil Recipes, Simple & Delicious Recipes Using Foil!

#65 Pillsbury, Healthy-Baking

#65 Pillsbury, Healthy-Baking

My calendar says it's Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Dough Boy's birthday. He was created by Rudy Perz. Perz was sitting at his kitchen table in the mid-1960s when he dreamed up the idea of a plump, dough figure that would pop out of a tube of refrigerated rolls. Since then, Pillsbury has used Poppin' Fresh in more than 600 commercials for more than 50 of its products. A Pillsbury spokesman has said there is no truth to the rumor that Fresh died recently of a severe yeast infection. So Happy 44th birthday! The cookbook for today is #65 Pillsbury, Healthy-Baking, Fresh Approaches to More than 200 Favorite Recipes.

#64 Irish, The Taste of Ireland in Traditional Home Cooking

#64 Irish, The Taste of Ireland in Traditional Home Cooking

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you've got your green on and you're all having some corn beef and cabbage today. Maybe a Guinness too if you're so inclined. I'm going to be having the traditional green St. Patrick's Day Peeps. Actually Peeps are more for Easter so I was surprised to see them in the stores already and in green no less.

I love Peeps and I want to share my favorite way of preparing them. You just take one or two Peeps, place them on a microwave safe plate and heat on high for about 15 seconds. The cute little Peeps will immediately start to expand. Be sure to watch carefully, they'll more than triple in size. Unfortunately by the time I took the picture, it had deflated like a ruined souffle. They're still delicious, gooey and melted, yum. So if you can't find the green ones for today, at least have some ready to blow up for Easter. The cookbook for today is #64 Irish, The Taste of Ireland in Traditional Home Cooking, by Matthew Drennan.