Nostalgic Sunday Brunch

On a lazy Sunday, after the guests have checked out of the Inn; when John is watching the big screen and the kids are battling it out over Monopoly, I love to rattle the pots and pans. Here are two of my favorite (and simple) comfort food classics.


HAM AND SPINACH ROULADES

24 slices boiled ham, thin cut
2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, cooked, drained
2 cups packaged cornbread stuffing
2 cups sour cream
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Cream Sauce:

8 tablespoons butter
8 tablespoons flour
4 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
Paprika
Parmesan cheese, grated

Combine well drained spinach, stuffing, sour cream, salt and nutmeg. Spread a moderate layer on each ham slice. Roll up and place seam-side down in buttered casserole dish. In a saucepan, over low heat, melt butter then whisk in flour. Blend well. Add milk and continue stirring over medium heat until thick. Add Cheddar cheese and remove from heat. Stir constantly until all the cheese is melted. Pour over ham roulades. Sprinkle with paprika and grated Parmesan cheese. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 15 minutes covered and another 15 minutes uncovered. Makes 24 rolls; allow four roulades per person. Serves 6.

Wine Suggestion: Beaujolais, Burgundy, dry red

STRAWBERRY BETTY

1 quart strawberries
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
4 cups bread cubes, without crust
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons butter
Heavy cream for garnish

Wash and hull berries, mix with lemon juice and brown sugar. Put berries in a shallow
1-1/2 quart baking dish. Mix bread cubes, white sugar, and lemon rind. Sprinkle mixture over strawberries and dot with butter. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees F. for 25-30 minutes. Serve warm with heavy cream. Serves 6.

Wine Suggestion: Monbazillac, Bordeaux, sweet white

In the Kitchen with Risotto

I've decided once a week to hang up the tried-and-true; procure an ingredient that I had never cooked with, and let the creativity flow. So many times I fall into the rut of cooking what is familiar...definately the dark side of being a Comfort Foodie! But I've been reading Amanda Hesser's novel "Cooking for Mr. Latte" and today it has inspired me to try "risotto". I once caught Giada on FoodTV's Everyday Italian making a sweet risotto with raspberries for Valentine's Day - which wasn't enough to convince me. I'm the queen of pilaf, a brown rice babe - till now, risotto, has been foreign territory (is it pasta or is it rice ?). Amanda's "Creamy Risotto with Lemon" (page 141) jumped off the page and turned out to be a fabulous initiation. The secret to making great risotto is not to oversaturate the grains with liquid while it is cooking. Only add more broth (chicken or beef stock) once the previous amount has been absorbed. Sticking to this method will conjure a fluffy grain that is still firm to the bite. I adapted her recipe by adding 1/4 cup reconstituted Porcini mushrooms (with the water for soaking) half way through the process and substituted sour cream for the creme fraiche. This fabulous dish was served with grilled wild mushroom chicken sausage, and a simple salad of Vidalia onions and fresh garden tomatoes. Delicious! Italian cooks have recognized risotto as a comfort food for centuries.

Mom's Remedy for the Blue's

As puberty crept up and I became a passive passenger on the roller coaster of hormones, there’d come days that I just couldn’t shake the blues. It was a Jekyll and Hyde scenario that would haunt me for most of my fertile years. I never thought to look at the cause: my body was gearing up for a wham-bam of reproductive activity. I would only treat the symptoms, which were moodiness and the ability to bite someone’s head off. My mother, Champion of Chocolate, held the key to my happiness.
We were driving in her car one night, my mother in that flame red Cadillac sedan Deville, when she turned to me and said, “How’s about a hot fudge sundae?” They were words of salvation as we pulled into Turner’s ice cream parlor. That old building, near Hyannisport, with its clapboard siding and rickety double-hung windows, had been written about by JFK. A yellowed note signed by the former president hung in a frame on one of the “if-these-walls–could-talk” walls. I don’t know if the gray-haired woman who sat behind the counter, in her starched man tailored blouse and apron, was Mrs. Turner—I just assumed it. Both the building and the woman were relics of the “Olde Cape Cod” that Pattie Page sang about. It was decades before Ben met Jerry, and imported ice cream was nothing but fiction. This was honest to goodness homemade stuff, with flavors like penuche pecan, fresh summer melon, and the unicorn of all delights, frozen pudding—a concoction of cream and dried candied fruit that seemed like a cross between holiday eggnog and cannoli filling.
We’d sit in that quaint shop that had never been renovated, to look the part, and be served hot gooey chocolate fudge, the kind where you can almost taste the sugar granules between your teeth rather than the pasteurized goop that floats over soft serve today. A young girl, working her summer job, would open a refrigerator and pull out a large stainless steel bowl with a spatula stuck right in it. She’d give the contents a few turns and top the heavy glass dish that held our overflowing dessert with a healthy dollop of freshest whip cream on Earth.
We made outings to Turner’s a weekly event. Mom always went for the fudge. I experimented with ice cream and topping combinations, growing particularly fond of ginger ice cream with claret sauce. The spicy bits of candied ginger were tempered by the sweet red sauce that tasted more like jelly apples than wine. I brought many of my girlfriends to Turner’s – girls that hadn’t yet found a food outlet for their hormonal highs and lows. I was very surprised when my senior year science teacher didn’t accept my thesis topic on “The Science of Ice Cream and Emotions”. I suppose it was too far-fetched a topic for the times. In 1972, PMS was only an acronym used for “post meridian standard”.
Over thirty years later, mom’s remedy for the blues, i.e. hot fudge, along with its curative powers, still has the ability to pull me out of the lion’s den of emotion.


Mom’s Remedy for the Blues Hot Fudge

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Melt chocolate, sugar and butter in top of double boiler over low heat, until sugar is dissolved.
2.Stir often to avoid burning.
3. Slowly add milk. Stir till blended smooth.
4. Add baking powder and vanilla. Stir till thick

Recipe Riddles - August

In honor of National Peach Month! If you've never tried making this, your in for a surprise; it's the one-pan wonder of the dessert world! Hint: Just what kind of truck is it?

Passing the Torch

Being a fifth generation Innkeeper, I come from a long line of home baking matriarchs - women that utilized homemaking and baking for gains in an era when women were scarce in professional kitchens. Like Bubbe (my mother's grandmother), Grandma Lil, and Mom - baking, and a persistent sweet tooth, are in the DNA. When my son, Austin, showed signs of interest I made room for him to start experimenting. He started with box mixes for brownies and cookies; eventually moving up the ranks to scratch recipes, and from there adaptation. I stood by and watched with proud adoration as he chose to add chocolate chips to a batch of P'nut Butter Cookies! He says, "Baking makes me happy. When I'm in a funk, it turns my mood around." While he was at sleep-away camp this summer he producded an article for the camp newletter entitled: "Making a S'more", and reported that "it was a hit! Everyone knew me as that-marshmallow-guy!" Now, that's how to make a Jewish mother kvell!

PEARL JAM in Woodstock

I've long since lost the butterflies when a celebrity walks through the doors of my house. Maybe that's because here at The Wild Rose Inn I've met so many, or maybe because I meet them on common ground; at the end of the day we're all just folks in need of a comfy bed. I was fascinated that two members of the legendary "grunge" band PEAL JAM would come for a visit. Though I didn't know their music well, I did recognize that they held a status with Generation X the way The Rolling Stones did with me. Mike McCready, one of the founding members of the band was on a strict diet, as are many guests these days, and he requested the use of our private kitchen to prepare his meals. He has been dealing with Crohn's disease since he was a teenager - and made one simple request: pick up three pounds of extremely lean chopped meat! I asked him about his diet, and this was the jist of it: "The thing that has really been working for me right now is my diet and this book by Elaine Gloria Gottschall, called "Breaking the Vicious Cycle." And this doesn't work for everyone but, for me, it's worked. And it's basically a diet, of no sugar, no starch - so, no potatoes, no fries, no refined sugars. And it's tough. We have to make bread out of nuts and all sorts of stuff, but it's the only thing that's put this [Crohn's] thing in remission without being on a ton of drugs. Actually, it's the best I've felt since I was probably 15 or 16. " It was a pleasure meeting both Mike and Stone Gossard (who wasn't on a diet, but loved the fact that I served Green Tea!) My kids, being under the radar as far as popular music is concerned, chose to watch "Sponge Bob" reruns rather than meet the band!

Chasing Borscht

I arrived in Woodstock with a backpack, a guitar, and two hundreds bucks which I had earned as a cocktail waitress in a hillbilly bar at my last stop. Lisa, my older sister, was finishing up her final year at Binghamton College. It was the first time I had visited her outside of our parent’s home. The apartment was dark and smelled like old wood and fish. She shared the crowded third floor walk-up with Rose, a polish exchange student, who insisted I try her version of beet borscht the first night I arrived. The table was set with an array of chipped dishes and mismatched flatware. I adore naked borscht with nothing more than a boiled potato and sour cream as garnish and was delighted to sample her old-world recipe. But in its place, Rose’s offering was a hot brown soup spiced with curry and made with raisins and sunflower seeds. I fished around the bowl for the beets, so overcooked that their natural blood red beauty had been bleached out hours before, like a miner panning for gold. To add insult to injury, there was no sour cream in their dairy-free kitchen. I applied for food stamps the minute I was settled and with my first allotment Lisa and I bought a chicken to roast and a box of crumb-topped Entenmanns donuts. It brought back bittersweet memories of our junk food inebriated childhood and we laughed, like little girls keeping a secret, at the irony of the purchase, thinking that all things come full circle.
“I never eat like this anymore,” she said dunking her donut into a glass of soy milk. “I’m a vegetarian now.” Her voice was filled with conviction.
“Yeah, me too,” I replied grabbing seconds.

Recipe Riddles - June

In honor of National Camping Week (the 4th week of the month)! I'm going to take a real stretch here and say that only ardent campers would recognize this recipe. Hint: One of the words IS the cooking vessel. Good luck!

Strudel Makes The Woman

My mom and dad began married life in a small ground floor apartment in a two-family house in Brooklyn. One day Grandma Lil decided it was her daughters turn to learn the family recipe for strudel; beautiful Russian strudel filled with nuts and plum butter. My mother watched as the dough was worked until paper thin. The filling wasn’t difficult, but the dough required a certain expertise. The crucial part was in the initial preparation; the dough needed to be pounded and stretched. They slapped it and banged it like two prize fighters; which is comical enough, both my mother and granmother barely reach the five foot mark. (I’ve often said: “You know you’re in a Jewish family when at ten years old your taller than most relatives!”) The beating continued, with the two of them drenched in sweat, until they were almost done. They were obsessively working the dough, hoping it would soom gain its elasticity and before they passed out from heat exhaustion, when all of a sudden there was a loud knock at the door. My mom wiped the sweat from her face and opened the door to find the landlady, who lived upstairs, looking impatient and frustrated. With her hands on her hips, she expressed wonder at how her tenants could possibly be cold –still. She had turned the heat up several times. My mom was puzzled. What she didn’t know was the standard rule of two-family living: If you need more heat, rap hard on the pipes. My mother and grandmother still laugh about that till this day.

Out to Launch

The "Recipe Deck" Series, published by giftware giant Boston Warehouse, launched at back in January 2005 at The Atlanta Gift Mart. Like proud parents going to their child's first recital, John and I flew down for a "Meet the Authors" reception. Each "deck" is a collection of 100 recipes, menus, and entertaining ideas - in a card deck format with a funky box for packaging. By the time this photo was taken at The NY International Gift Fair , one month later - 30,000 copies had been sold from our eight titles! You can find them at Le Gourmet Chef, Steinmart, Home Goods, and Marshall's not to mention hundreds of smaller giftware stores nationwide. Kudos to BWTC for making our dreams come true with such a beautifully executed product! In the works for 2006 are three new titles.