my friend john and i love snacks. and whenever we would visit his mom at her cozy cute house, she would always make us little snacks and treats. bowls of tiny nuts, or crunchy things. little tiny fruits. or crispy shrimps in panko crumbs with yummy dips etc.
well, one day…john and i were looking for something a little more sub-sub-substantial (a can of beans, some black-eyed peas, some nescafe and ice??)…
no way! we were looking for some spicy grilled cheeses on texas toast. we’d gotten thee idea from one that we’d shared at some weird stand at a figure-8 race once. and john just got it in his head that we needed to duplicate this comforty spicy treat. so we went out to the store, furiously perusing the isles for the perfect bread, cheese, toast, butter, and yum…spicy peppers.
when we arrived at his mom’s with groceries in tow, she thought we were both nuts. but we perservered. we got out pots, pans and spatulas, and concocted our tasty sandwiches with a dance in our pants. because gosh darn it…cooking with friends? is super fun.
anyway…those sandwiches we made were pretty dang yum. but after experimenting with some ideas i had on the subject…i found the following recipe. i think it’s pretty tasty. and i hope you like it.
SPICY GRILLED CHEESE recipe altered from one found on Epicurius
INGREDIENTS:
3-ounces tomato paste
2 tablespoons chopped canned chipotle chilies
1 tablespoon light molasses
6 slices sourdough bread – cut to texas toast thickness
6 thick slices of cheddar cheese (i like extra sharp…but you can use mild, or even american cheese if you want)
2 plum tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices (optional)
1 small red onion, thinly sliced (optional)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves (optional)
lots of butter (of course) room temperature
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS:
- Blend tomato paste, chilies, and molasses in processor until smooth.
- Spread tomato/pepper mixture over 1 side of each bread slice.
- Arrange 3 bread slices, sauce side up, on work surface. Divide half of cheese among bread slices.
- If desired, top with tomatoes, then onion, cilantro, and remaining cheese.
- Cover sandwiches with remaining bread slice, sauce side down. Spread butter on outside of sandwich tops and bottoms.
- Heat pan or griddle over medium heat.
- Cook until bread is golden and cheese is melted, about 5 minutes per side.
Makes 3 sandwiches
July 30th, 2006
Grama Dee grew up during the Great Depression in one of the most poverish towns in Missouri. They raised rabbits and chickens to eat and growing up in such dire straits as she did, she was not one to ever waste food.
Many times I would watch her in disbelief as she scraped the mold off some old bread and eat it with a slab of butter. When she caught my looks of shock and horror, she would roll her eyes at me and say…”Julie Anne, a little mold never hurt anyone.” I begged to differ…but that’s beside the point, because old habits die hard, and for her…wasting food just wasn’t an option. Many times she would scrape our plates clean, and then…when the last spoonful of green beans just could not be eaten…she would save it in an old margerine tub, put it in the refrigerator to be eaten another time.
This used to drive my mom crazy because whenever my grama came over for dinner (which was a few times a week at least), we’d have 20 margerine tubs full of food that NOONE was ever gonna touch. But then Grama Dee would come over again the next day or so, and sure enough…she’d take out that margerine tub full of those 10 green beans and eat them. So nothing ever really did go to waste.
Anyway…one of the most important food memories that I (and everyone in my family) has of my Grama Dee, is her most beloved Depression staple, ketchup spaghetti. From the time I could slurp down a noodle, I’ve been eating it. And it’s my dad and cousin Brian’s favorite food. I’m not kidding, it really is. There are so many memories surrounding this one dish, that they’d be far too many to write here.
But one of the most comical, was the first time my poor brother-in-law, Mark encountered this infamous dish. Now, Mark is 100% Italian (or EYE-TAIL-YUN as Grama Dee used to say) and he was horrified that a spaghetti noodle could be so abused. IN EVERY WAY. But he was a good sport, and for my sister (and our grama) he obliged us all, and tried a bite. After his first gag reflex kicked in…my dad howled with laughter, and my poor grama was never able to convince Mark to eat another bite, no matter how many times she tried.
Yep, true enough, ketchup spaghetti is not for the weak of palette, because unless you were raised on the stuff like I was, I can’t imagine most people would react much different than Mark did. But as gross as it must seem to most, it is the one food I hold dearest to my heart, and will never, EVER tire of eating until the day I die.
So I probably don’t have to tell you that ketchup spaghetti was born out of the Depression because all it required was spaghetti and ketchup and of course, the hillbilly requirement to any dish…BUTTER.
Times were tough, and that’s all I know. My grama used to tell me that when her family did happen to have a few extra pennies, they would fancy it up with some sugar, onion and ground beef. But most of the time, it was just simply noodles and ketchup. While my grama was known to mix it up every once in a while and make it with elbow macaroni, for my purposes here, I’d like to keep it real, and stick with the way she usually made it – with spaghetti noodles. So here it is…(and I’m giving you the fancified version, with the onion and ground beef, and if you’re too poverish for that, then you can just omit those from the recipe)…
KETCHUP SPAGHETTI recipe from Doris Foxworthy
INGREDIENTS: (see photo)
1/2 lb Spaghetti
1 24 oz bottle of Heinz Ketchup
1 lb Ground Beef
1 Medium Onion
1/4 stick Butter
1 Tbsp Sugar
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS:
- Cut up medium sized onion to a small dice.
- Cook the spaghetti according to package directions.
- While the spaghetti is boiling, heat a large skillet over high heat and throw in the diced onion with a little bit of butter.
- Saute the onion until it’s just translucent (not brown) and then add the ground beef.
- Saute the beef mixture until the meat is cooked through.
- Drain the cooked spaghetti and return to pot.
- Combine beef mixture and spaghetti.
- Squeeze in about 3/4 of the bottle of ketchup until the noodles are good n’ saucy then add the butter, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
- Heap a pile of noodles on your favorite plate and see what all the fuss is about.
I really, really hope that you like this ketchup spaghetti, but if you don’t? Well, I won’t feel so bad, as you probably only wasted less then $6.
January 18th, 2006
Six months after my Grama Dee passed away, my family was a sad mess. It was the first time in all our lives, that we’d not had our beloved grandma around to prepare us our New Year’s Day feast. And to add to that gloom, it was also the first anniversary for me and my siblings of my father telling us that he was divorcing our mother. Needless to say, January 1st, 1999 was not the happiest of days for me.
So in order to give myself a little bit of comfort, I decided that I would make my own little New Year’s Day feast. One of the essential menu items being my grama’s “squash” as she called it. But unfortunately, I’d never learned how to make my grama’s squash. So I furiously went through all my recipe cards she’d sent me over the years, and then realized that I did not have it. I really did not know how to make her squash. And when that fact hit me, well…I guess you could say that I had a bit of a meltdown. My back slowly slid down the front of my refrigerator, until my body was collapsed into a heap on the floor of my tiny apartment kitchen. My body racked with sobs, missing my grama, and our family traditions, wanting so much for my mom and dad to be together again, and feeling just plain miserable that our family had deteriorated so much in one short year.
Then somehow, the tears stopped, and it occurred to me that I was being stupid, because of course my Aunt Fran would know how to make Grama’s squash! She was her only daughter, and my Grama Dee had lived with my Aunt Fran and her family for over 20 years! Excitedly, I called up my aunt and said “Aunt Fran, I’m really sad. I want to make grama’s squash, but I don’t know how.” She cracked up laughing and said “Well, Julie Anne, all it is, is a can of pet milk, a half stick of butter, and some boiled yellow squash sliced up in a pot.”
I was dumbfounded. Something so tasty? THAT SIMPLE? No way. But yes, it’s true. I found out, that some of the tastiest things are no more than a can of pet milk and a stick of butter, plus a vegetable or two.”Sweetie…that’s it. And Grama Dee used to like a lot of pepper, so don’t forget to add lots of pepper.” I sniffled…”I remember. I won’t forget.”
And so, here it is. A recipe so simple, even my dad could make it (and he barely knows how to open a can of Campbell’s).
BUTTERED SQUASH recipe from Doris Foxworthy
5-6 small yellow squash
1 can pet milk
1/2 stick butter
dash salt
dash black pepper
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS
- Slice up your squash, in about 1/4″ slices.
- Add squash to a pot of boiling water (a medium-sized saucepan will do the trick).
- Boil until squash are tender, then drain.
- Return squash to pot, and add pet milk, butter, salt and pepper.
- Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and let simmer for 20 minutes stirring occasionally until sauce thickens slightly, and squash begins to break down
- Ladle a huge spoonful into your favorite bowl, and enjoy!
January 18th, 2006
Those words were once uttered by Chris Rock. And I say, “No there isn’t, Mr. Rock, indeed there is nothin’ wrong wid dat.”
Now, when it came to cornbread…my Grama Dee was known for just poppin’ a box of Jiffy cornbread mix in the oven, and callin’ that shit a day. Which, yeah I know…not very southern of her…but then again? It WAS pretty dang tasty. Anyway…as I was making my “good luck” beans this year, I didn’t happen to have a box of Jiffy in my vast and expansive pantries just then (SHOCK, i know since just about everything else is in there). I did have, however, a box of yellow cornmeal that was just begging to be joined with a little sugar, milk and eggs. So I scoured the web for a decent cornbread recipe and I stumbled upon a pretty tasty one from Jeremy Jackson found in his book titled “The Cornbread Book” and so I share it with you all here:
SWEET CORNBREAD recipe from Jeremy Jackson’s “The Cornbread Book”
INGREDIENTS (see photo)
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1-cup cornmeal
5 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2-teaspoon salt
1-cup milk
1/3-cup canola oil
1 large egg, slightly beaten
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly grease and 8 or 9-inch square pan.
- Sift dry ingredients into mixing bowl. Form a well in the mixture and add the milk, oil, and egg. Stir just until everything is combined – there should still be scattered clumps of flour, about the size of baby peas or BBs.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 24 to 30 minutes, until the cornbread is starting to brown slightly (especially at the edges) and a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve hot.
The only thing I changed was that instead of the square pan, I used a cast-iron skillet, it just seemed more legit to do it that way. As for the recipe…it was pretty tasty. Could you expect anything else from a mizzoureh-raised hillbilly boy? Nice work, Jeremy.
January 18th, 2006
For as long as I can remember, every New Year’s Day was rung in with a pot of my Grama Dee’s “good luck beans”. It was a sacrilege not to eat them, and let me just say, that when you are a very tiny person, a heaping spoonful of sludgy beans and pork fat is the last thing you want to be force-fed. But as the years multiplied, so did my acceptance of these beans. As did my growing fear and suspicions of the horrible bad luck that would be inflicted upon me if I did not partake of them. And so I ate them. Hesitantly at first, but 34 years later, I wolf them down as if my luck depended on it.
It’s been almost 7 years since Grama Dee passed away, and every year I spend my January 1st cooking up a pot of her infamous beans…in fear that if I do not, my next 365 days will be riddled with broken mirrors, black cats, bad boyfriends, and the inexplicable random firing from my job. And so it is out of that deep-seeded fear, that I now share with you this sacred secret recipe, in hopes that you too, can enjoy the “good luck” that lies miraculously within a 99¢ bag of beans. You may now also share in the longest running joke of my entire family which is…”I ate the damn beans, now where the hell is my good luck?”
GOOD LUCK BEANS recipe from Doris Foxworthy
2 lb bag of beans (great northern or navy work well)
1 ham bone or packaged salt pork
1 onion – diced
1 lg stalk celery – diced
Water
Salt
Pepper
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS
- Rinse beans under cold water and set aside.
- Dice up the onion and a large stalk of celery.
Grama Dee tip: To stop sobbing over your onions, bite down on a piece of bread while you are chopping.
- In dutch oven or large pot, sweat the onions and celery along with the salt pork over medium high heat (see the photo or learn how to sweat an onion)
- Add the rinsed beans to the pot, and add enough water to cover beans and meat (see photo)
- Throw in a teaspoon of salt and some pepper to start (you can always adjust the seasonings as you cook).
- Cover the beans with lid, leaving the lid slightly ajar.
- Turn heat to low and simmer for 2 or more hours, occasionally stirring the beans.
- The beans will be done when they start to break down and the water becomes kinda like gravy and look something like this.
- After your beans are cooked, you want to remove the big chunks of salt pork (or the hamhock/hambone) and begin to shred the pork (see photo). I usually just take two forks and pull the pork that way. once all the pork is shredded, throw it back into the pot (minus any bones of course) with the beans, and give it all a good stir.
- Dice up a little more onion, and throw it on a plate, like so.
- Slop a heaping portion of beans over the pile of onions, and begin to see the effects of your year’s worth of good luck!
Now, I know it’s hard to believe…but Grama Dee didn’t just stop with the good luck beans. A typical New Year’s Day menu would consist of such heart-stoppers as:
And don’t worry….I’ll be getting to all those recipes at a later date…but for now, you can just be happy knowing that a menu like that even existed. I know I am.
January 15th, 2006
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