friday feast: beaucoup biscuits

September 23, 2011September 7, 2017 ~ jama ~ 34 Comments

“Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.” ~ Carl Sandburg

Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit!

Go on, grab one (a biscuit, not my buns, silly). You’re perfectly entitled — Autumn is officially here and September is National Biscuit Month. Not that I need any excuse to indulge my biscuit love. You know what I’m talking about. When they’re warm from the oven, you ever so gently break one apart and that little column of steam rises. Oh, tender, flaky bliss: a pat of butter on each half, melt, melt, maybe a drizzle of honey or a lick or two of jam. With each heavenly bite, the South rises again and again.

I freely admit to never having successfully made biscuits from scratch. Yes, I’ve consumed my fair share of ‘whomp’ biscuits (Dough Boy goodness in a can), but I’ve always felt genuine-for-real homemade biscuits should be left to the experts. Most often, they are kind, huggable grandmas wearing faded flowery aprons who never measure ingredients but their biscuits turn out perfectly every time. Anyone have a Southern grandma I can borrow? Continue reading →

lovin’ chicken spaghetti

September 6, 2011September 7, 2017 ~ jama ~ 21 Comments

Bawk bawk!

*scatters feed*

Excuse me while I wiggle my wattle and fluff up my feathers. Just exercising a little poultry pride, cause I finally made Chicken Spaghetti!

See, when I first came online in 2007, reading all the cool kidlit blogs and learning who’s who and what’s what, having an inkling that I’d somehow like to stir in a few vittles with my books, the blog, “Chicken Spaghetti,” caught my attention right away. I learned it was written by Susan Thomsen, who once worked for the New Yorker, published this most excellent article about Poetry Friday with the Poetry Foundation, and eventually went on to also blog for PBS Parents’ Booklights. And yes, dang it, she lived with two chickens (and two cats and a snake)!

I’d eaten a lot of chicken dishes in my time, but had never heard of Chicken Spaghetti — *pause while 80% of Americans gasp* — not once. You’d think since I live in Virginia (and by all accounts, CS is a Southern dish), someone, somewhere at sometime would have mentioned it. Or brought it to a neighborhood potluck, anything. But lo and behold, I remained a Chicken Spaghetti virgin right here for close to 30 years. One could say I’d never been plucked. Till now.

*prance, peck, preen*

Shortly after discovering Susan’s blog, I promised myself I would try her recipe, cause it’s pretty much my job to investigate these things and make the necessary sacrifices on your behalf (hee!). You know, just in case you’re a CS virgin too.☺

I’ve since learned it’s quite the beloved casserole, comfort food at its easiest and most satisfying, forgiving when it comes to variations and experimentation. Key ingredient? SOUP! Cluckity cluck!

We’ve all grown up with cream of mushroom soup something — throw it into tuna casserole, pour it over pork chops, an easy way to make scalloped potatoes. Susan’s recipe calls for cream of mushroom and cream of celery (isn’t she brazen?), with black olives and pimiento. I don’t know, whenever I hear the word, “pimiento,” I feel I should don a smoking jacket.

Not having one handy, I wore my “Babette Eats Oatmeal” black t-shirt, polka dot capris, green Merrell clogs and set to work. The recipe suggests using a pre-cooked deli chicken as a shortcut, but I felt it would be easier to poach a couple of breasts rather than debone an entire chicken. Once you chop up the onions and peppers and pre-boil the pasta, you pretty much just combine everything and then bake.

Just in case you’re wondering why Susan named her blog Chicken Spaghetti, here’s what she said:

I love that casserole; there are many versions. When I first thought of starting a blog, I was going to devote it to the various incarnations of the casserole but realized that would get boring fast. When I was growing up, chicken spaghetti, always served with spinach/mandarin orange salad (with poppyseed dressing), was a popular ladies’ lunch at church and such. I kept the name when I decided to write about books because it was kid friendly and reminded me of my Southern childhood.

CHICKEN SPAGHETTI

1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
3 T butter
1 chicken, cooked, deboned and diced (grocery store deli chickens work great)
1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of mushroom soup
1 can (10-3/4 oz.) cream of celery soup
1 jar (2 oz.) pimiento, drained
1 jar (2-1/2 oz.) sliced mushrooms, drained and chopped (I sauté fresh ones)
1/2 can (6 oz.) black pitted olives, drained and chopped
1 package (16 oz.) long spaghetti, cooked
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 375. Sauté onion and bell pepper in butter. Then pour in the soups, pimientos, mushrooms, chicken, olives, and spaghetti. Season with the seasonings. Put the melange into a large casserole dish. Top with cheddar cheese. Bake at 375 for 45 minutes, or until cheese is nice and melted.

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Yum! This is a big recipe and we enjoyed the leftovers for days (of course there’s just two of us here, but if you have a big family, it’ll probably disappear instantly). Make it soon if you haven’t tried it yet — will really hit the spot on a cool Fall day.

♥ Check out some variations on this recipe here.

♥ Some of my favorite posts from Chicken Spaghetti: her famous “Best of” Book Lists, Poetry Friday, and her musings about real chickens! I think she lives with three chickens now: Lovey, Queen Elizabeth III, and Loretta Lee II.

Thanks so much Susan (pick a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep)!

Imagine that! Now I can say I’ve made Chicken Spaghetti’s Chicken Spaghetti! I’ve finally arrived, y’all . . .☺

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tales from high mountain by tara austen weaver

August 29, 2011November 1, 2017 ~ jama

A couple of years ago, I discovered a blog called Tea and Cookies — it was listed by the London Times as one of the 50 Best Food Blogs in the World. I was hooked instantly by Tara Austen Weaver’s fascinating stories of food, travel, cultures, family and friends, and oohed and ahhed over all the gorgeous photos in each and every post.

Just found out that “Tea,” as Tara’s friends call her, has written a book about the first few months she lived high in the mountains of central Japan. Always up for an adventure, she set forth for Takayama when she was just 22, fresh out of grad school. Tales from High Mountain: Stories and Recipes from a Life in Japan is a chronicle of her immersion in a foreign culture, living in a centuries-old, rural town with an established family. There are feasts, festivals, ancient temples, and many new “rules” and customs to learn.

Continue reading →

friday feast: barbara’s back!

August 12, 2011September 21, 2017 ~ jama ~ 23 Comments

Happy Poetry Friday!

It’s been awhile since my last Friday Feast, and I’ve missed the soul-enriching nourishment afforded by beautifully crafted poems. Only fitting that since the last poem I featured at the old LiveJournal blog was by Barbara Crooker, we begin the 5th course of alphabet soup in this new cyber kitchen with another of her food poems.

The subject? Pie Crust!

Oh yes, my Quest for Pie continues. ☺ And I am a crust person through and through. Not to say I don’t love all the fillings — it’s just that a light flaky crust defines a pie. Such a difference between bland cardboard or soggy goo, and perfectly baked, golden richness — just the right soft crumble, gently yielding its precise measure of flour, fat, and water, alerting your taste buds to pastry nirvana.

Making good shortcrust pastry is an acquired skill, a tricky proposition that requires flawless technique, practice, and that indefinable something only obtainable through the touch of human hands. And if they’re your mother’s hands? Then it approaches the sacred, a place where loving memories, family pride, and a desire to distill the essence of childhood prevails.

MY MOTHER’S PIE CRUST
by Barbara Crooker

Light as angels’ breath, shatter into flakes
with each forkful, never soggy-bottomed
or scorched on top, the lattices evenly woven,
pinched crimps an inch apart.
My ex-husband said he’d eat grasshoppers
if my mother baked them in a pie.
Smooth tart lemon, froth of meringue.
Apples dusted with cinnamon, nutmeg.
Pumpkin that cracks in the middle
of its own weight. Mine are good,
but not like hers, though I keep trying,
rolling the dough this way and that, dusting
the cloth with flour. “You have to chill the Crisco,”
she says. “You need a light touch
to keep it tender; too much handling
makes a tough crust.”

Gather the scraps, make a ball in your hands,
press into a circle. Spread thickly with butter,
sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, roll up, slice, bake.
The strange marriage of fat, flour, and salt
is annealed to ethereal bites. Heaven is attainable,
and the chimes of the timer bring us to the table.

Barbara: My favorite recipe comes from Betty Crocker (for whom I am sometimes mistaken — I even got a check from a magazine once, made out to her):

for an 8 or 9 inch double pie crust:

1-3/4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil (I use a heart healthy blend)
3-4 T. ice water

Stir the salt into the flour. Add oil, mix with a fork until the particles are the size of small peas. Sprinkle the ice water in, a tablespoon at a time. Gather into a ball, divide in half.

(This part is my special trick:) Wipe the counter, place a sheet of waxed paper down. Place ball of dough, top with another sheet of waxed paper. Roll into a ball two inches larger than your pie plate. Peel off the top sheet of the waxed paper. Use a small paring knife to help you. Remember that this is like Play-Doh; any tears can be pinched or squished back together, and you can’t hurt the crust!

Invert, and place the pie crust round in the pie pan. Peel off the bottom sheet of waxed paper (which is now on top). Pour in filling. Repeat with second crust. Once it’s in place, crimp the edges together, either with a fork, or pinch it with your fingers. Cut slits on top to vent the steam. Brush the crust with milk (I use a small paint brush), sprinkle with sugar. Most pies bake at 425 for 45 minutes, but this will vary depending on your oven.

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I’m anxious to try Barbara’s (Betty’s ☺) recipe, because I like to avoid hydrogenated fats (Crisco). My experience has taught me that using all butter makes the dough (though flavorful) hard to handle. A Crisco crust is great for flakiness and making lattice tops. I’ve used half-butter and half-Crisco to good results. Barbara agrees that the oil recipe probably wouldn’t work as well if you’re attempting to make a lattice top crust. But certainly for a single crust French Apple Pie, custard, pumpkin, or lemon meringue, the oil crust is fine. BTW, the wax paper trick really works!

Hmmmmmmmmmm — here’s something to inspire you to make a pie this weekend:

♥ Today’s Poetry Friday host is the Shockingly Clever Coffee Maven, Karen Edmisten. Coffee goes well with pie, yes? As does tea and lemonade and milk and water and juice and champagne and raspberry cordial and pencil shavings (just checking to see if you’re paying attention).

♥ To prove how daunting making a good pie crust can be, check out this post by Dorie Greenspan. Seems even she’s been terrified of rolling.