Maine Bicentennial, A Cookbook, and Me

 In this pandemic, it has not been easy to find canning jars. More people have been gardening and trying their hand at canning, I guess. So I buy jars when I can find them. And I've just recently run out. Nothing in the stores. So I went rummaging in the barn, to see what I could find. Only quart jars. So these pickles are done up in quart jars. Not a problem, really, but it is rather a large amount of pickles to open up, with just two people in the home. The handwritten "mustard pickles" recipe in the cookbook is very charming. Reminds me of my grandmother's handwritten recipes. This makes up a large amount, so I cut it in half. I also did not use cauliflower, nor green tomatoes, nor peppers nor stuffed olives. All I wanted, really, was the pickle, and some onions, and of course, mustard! Unlike the chow-chow, which seems to be lots of ingredients, and time-intensive, this recipe made up rather easily. I sliced the onions and cucumbers in the food processor the night...

 This recipe is another first for me. It was rather fun to note that the recipe was submitted by Melissa Bailey of Penobscot, Maine. Not sure if we are related, but always interesting to encounter someone with my maiden name. I was a little nervous about attempting this recipe. I mean, there are gorgeous pictures of Yule Logs all over the internet and in glossy food magazines. Could I even get this cake to look anything like a log? I followed the recipe exactly, and was quite pleased with the cake result. After baking, I rolled it up, as directed, in a tea towel, to cool. Then I tackled the filling and, well, it just didn't work for me. I have no idea why. So I went looking for an alternate filling recipe, and found one with cream cheese, which seems to be just the right ingredient for the heavy cream and confectioner's sugar to blend with. I gently unrolled the cake, spread the filling, and rolled it back up. The recipe does not mention to do this, but I then wrapped the cake ...

 There were no lamb shoulders to be found at the stores where I shop. So I chose a semi-boneless leg of lamb. And kept the preparation simple. Gave it a good rub with freshly ground salt and pepper, and lemon zest and garlic. Popped it in the oven at 425 for about 20 minutes, then reduced the heat to 350 for about one hour and twenty minutes. My goal was to pull it out at 130 degrees (rare), but of course, the less-dense portions of meat were already medium or medium well. Which simply means there was meat to my liking (medium to medium well) and meat to my husband's liking (medium rare), depending upon where you slice. For a meat that I've never attempted before, I think this came out marvelously well. We enjoyed it for our Christmas dinner, and it was really delicious. I will, of course, keep looking for lamb shoulder. Perhaps more available around the Easter holiday? This recipe completes the Flesh and Fowl chapter in the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook. This is a grea...

 By the time I got to this recipe, we were past the "season" of green tomatoes. So, I looked for a comparable relish recipe that uses red tomatoes...and proceeded to purchase the "greenest" tomatoes at the market! Hats off to Etta Pratt McIntire. The recipe makes up tons of relish (also called chow-chow), so I had to cut back a bit.  We have yet to use the relish, and I think I read somewhere that it is best to let the flavors blend for a couple of weeks, so I'm reluctant to open a jar. I'm afraid my review of flavor will have to wait. I will say that relish takes patience and time. There is simply a great deal of chopping up to do. Even using a food processor, I still found that for canning relish, you just need to set aside a large block of time.

 This has been a great idea, cooking thru this cookbook...in great part because I have tried things I've never tried before, and have fallen in love with new-to-me foods.  Sure, I've had sausage before. But fats don't agree with me much, so I try to limit sausage in my diet. Truth is, I read this recipe and was somewhat intrigued and somewhat intimidated. I wasn't sure I'd be able to make sausage "from scratch." And what if it was too fatty for me? My first stumbling block was that we did not own a meat grinder. So I tried borrowing one. Not much luck. Was loaned one, but it was too rusty. By this time, the Resident Archaeologist was intrigued, and headed out to find one. They are just not that easy to find (the hand crank kind). But he managed to find one, and called it an early Christmas present for us. He even found sausage casings, which it turns out are shelf stable so they just hang on the rack at the store. The grinder attaches easily to the counter...

 Yia-Yia Stella travelled here from Kotronos, Greece. Her family settled in Massachusetts, and she eventually moved to Biddeford, Maine. I love the picture of her, and it appears she is frying something, maybe this very recipe? When I think of "fried dough" my mind naturally wanders to the summer fairs, where I get my annual treat of fried dough, the size of a plate, slathered in melted butter and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar. This fried dough is similar, but the recipe suggests twisting the dough into a cruller or wreath shape before frying. So I decided to try making a "cruller." I loved crullers when I was a kid...nowadays they have lost that fascinating name and are called "sticks." Wish we could go back to "cruller." This dough is not a sweet dough, so you definitely want to butter it up and sugar it up. You can also dip it in melted chocolate sweetened with sugar (maybe with a dash of almond flavoring). Or dip it in maple syrup. ...

 This is a "stand alone" recipe, in my opinion. It is originally paired with String Beans with Lamb (see blog), however, I decided it's such a great recipe that I wanted to be able to access it separately, as a side for other meals. And, since I didn't cook it with the Lamb recipe, I can make it tonite with chicken! I changed it up a wee bit. It calls for sauteeing the fine egg noodles in lots and lots of butter. I don't handle lots of butter well. So I chose to just cook the egg noodles quickly in boiling chicken broth, then I threw in bulgur wheat (at the health food store, or buy a box of Tabbouleh in the rice section at the grocery store), which is wonderfully quick-cooking, rather than cracked wheat. Then I took it off the heat, covered the pan, and let it sit for the bulgur to plump up in the hot broth. Added a little EVOO and a couple squirts of lemon, and served it with chicken thighs and a mix of broccoli and cauliflower, and rolls (see Aroostook County B...

 This recipe has been handed down through the generations in Phyllis Pruett's husband's family, and it is a Pruett family tradition to serve it at Thanksgiving and Christmas, with a hard sauce. I was a little hesitant to try this recipe. It seemed so similar to the Pop-Corn Pudding (same page, see blog) and I had managed to curdle the milk in that recipe. I did not want a repeat incident here. The recipe mentions crackers that are not widely available now (Common Crackers), so it is suggested to substitute Saltines. I used the mini-saltines, and crushed them. Where the recipe directs putting in the oven to cook with no oven temp mentioned, I became very wary. How could I prevent the milk from curdling? Not only that, the recipe also requires adding more milk at some point in the baking process, and stirring, then bake longer ("til spoon comes out clean"). Too little instruction here for my comfort level! I googled Saltine Cracker Pudding and Allrecipes.com came to the...

 In the Joy of Cooking cookbook, the "eggnog in quantity" recipe quotes Mark Twain--"too much of anything is bad, but too much whisky is just enough."  This egg nog recipe has both cognac and rum. A goodly portion of the first and some of the second. It calls for heavy cream, but I don't do well with lots of fat in my diet, so I went with the light cream. It also calls for whole milk, and 2% still gives plenty of flavor. We toasted to Christmas, with one small addition to this recipe. Nutmeg sprinkled on top. It is a nice tradition at the holidays. And while Twain is one of my favorite writers, I'm afraid he has it wrong on the whiskey. Too much is too much. I'm glad the recipe donor adds the caution "more than one 'first timer' has asked for a third mug. That almost always proves to be one too many." Of course, the recipe is just as tasty when you omit the alcohol. Cheers!

 I compared this recipe to another roll recipe (Tea Rolls and Bread, see blog), and there are two differences, well, three. This recipe uses shortening instead of butter. And, it has an additional ingredient of potato flakes. Also, there are only two risings, whereas Tea Rolls rise a total of three times. The recipe donor writes about memories of visiting her grandparent's farm in Hope during her childhood (Hope is right around the corner from where I live). I shall have to wander over that way and see where their family farm is. She says it is still there "humming along, as it has been for nearly 230 years." I had to cut down this recipe considerably, since it makes up way more rolls than our household of two could manage to consume. But no matter the quantity, these rolls serve up satisfaction with any meal. I do think the potato flakes contribute to making this a heavier roll, but that just adds to the satisfaction, in my mind. A great roll for all occasions. Slightly ...

 I'm told every baked bean baker worth their salt has a preferred dry bean. The beans for this recipe are recommended to be Jacobs Cattle or Soldier beans. I couldn't find Jacobs Cattle in the stores, but I found Soldier beans at the local health food store. My new-to-me bean pot is getting a good workout with this cookbook. This is baked bean recipe #3, not counting the "Gloria" beans (B&M canned!), for which I did not need the bean pot. Only one more bean recipe to go, as we move into the home stretch of fourteen more days til the end of the Bicentennial and the end of the recipes in this cookbook. Look for that recipe to go into my bean pot soon! I did not have salt pork on hand, so substituted three thick slices of bacon, cut into chunks. And, after consultation with my uncle in Vermont, who sugars off every spring and knows all-things-maple-syrup, I decided to add a bit of maple syrup to flavor these beans. Why? Just because I had some syrup on hand and spur ...

 This cake hails from one of the northernmost points of our state, Van Buren, in Aroostook County. I studied at UMPI, and I have a friend who lives in Caribou, so I'm familiar with the far reaches of our beautiful state. Claudette Rossignol submitted this recipe, and she tells a hilarious story about how to clean fiddleheads, which you'll just have to buy the cookbook to read. Read it sitting down and I guarantee you will fall out of your chair laughing. This is a beautiful, moist cake. I guess the oil contributes in a large way to the heaviness of the cake, but not heavy in a detrimental way. When you cut a piece, just don't let your eyes be bigger than your stomach, because a little goes a long way to filling you up. I like the walnuts in the cake, as they compliment the fiddleheads. In fact, I'd probably add more, next time around. I did not use the recommended raisins. Just because I didn't want to fill up the cake space with too many flavors. When dealing with ...

 I don't know much German, but I can't help but notice that this cake uses two German words to identify it, loosely translated "Quick Cake."  It really doesn't take a whole lot of time to prepare this cake, so probably is an apt name. Just unusual, since the donor's grandmother, who created this recipe, does not come from Germany. She was born right here in Maine and lived most of her life in Maine. I'm really curious how she came to name the cake. As I made the batter, I wondered how it would spread to reach the sides of the cake tin. There just wasn't all that much batter. I had to add a little water to get the ingredients to blend well, and so that I could then dip a fork in water and carefully spread the batter to the edge of the cake pan. The egg whites beat into a beautiful froth. I added the recommended amount of sugar, but it turns out it is overly sweet that way, so next time around, I've made a note to cut back a bit on the sugar. The mer...

 You are not gonna believe the amount of forethought and effort that goes into a simple flavored drink in 1891. We are so privileged to have such an incredibly wide variety of beverages available in this 21st century, ready-made. I was excited, at first, to consider a drink with the first ingredient of raspberries. Yum, right? The second ingredient was not quite so exciting. I mean, who drinks apple cider vinegar? Mostly just health nuts, right? Fortunately, the third ingredient gave the inner child in me hope. Sugar, and lots of it. I won't go into the full recipe from 1891, you'll have to get the cookbook to truly enjoy it. But suffice to say that the recipe includes 12 hours of sitting in the sun, and a night banished to the cellar. Eventually, the concoction ends up over a "gentle fire." And how to store this delightful liquid? "Bottle while warm and seal the corks with sealing wax."  I, of course, availed myself of a more modern recipe. Come to find out...

 This is an awesome way to serve lobster! And I discovered that the "big box" grocery offers to cook your lobster while you shop, so all I had to do was bring those babies home, crack them open to get the meat, cut meat in chunks, dip in a simple batter, and drop into hot vegetable oil til golden brown.  If you are not familiar with making homemade batter, just listen to the advice in the recipe, as it is good advice--the batter needs to be "like salad dressing." I did have to play with the ratio of milk to flour, til it looked right, but I've never really met a batter dip that didn't need a little play to get it just the way you want it. I was a little worried that the lobster meat might get overcooked, but I kept a close eye on the batter bits in the oil, and pulled them out the minute they browned up. Serve with fried onion rings, ketchup, sriracha mayo, and cocktail sauce. Yum!

 I chose to count this recipe separately, even tho it is simply a mini-recipe attached to another recipe (Margery Tucker's Chocolate Roll with Chocolate Sauce, see blog). I figured, you know, if someone has no clue how to make a chocolate sauce, you would need a recipe, right? I mean, chocolate sauce is just not part of my intuitive cooking skills, since my mother was a diabetic and we just didn't have much for sweets in the house. Therefore, few recipes for sweets were taught to me in my childhood. I used a good brand of baking chocolate. I followed the directions carefully. I don't know. It just didn't come out like I expected it to. It looked watery and thin. It tasted okaaay. But not really what I was going for. *sigh* I'm gonna weather this little culinary fail. I will do some research and try again. Meanwhile, I did try it on the chocolate roll and it was okay. I'm sure, with a little advice from some of my baking friends, I'll figure out how to do it ...

 I was in the bakery section of the grocery store, the day I decided to make this recipe. So I studied up on the chocolate rolls for sale there. They looked absolutely gorgeous, with this deep dark thin chocolate layer, spread with whipped cream that peeks out the end of the roll. So, I knew what it was supposed to look like. And I followed this recipe so carefully, I swear I did. Now, I did console myself that the person who donated this recipe from her aunt Margery did mention that Margery was the Blaine House chief cook for 25 years. She was well-practiced in making this recipe. So if I am trying this recipe for the very first time, I'm sure Margery would tell me to just try again, it takes practice. Right?  Aaagh! Next time around, maybe I should use more melted chocolate. You see, the chocolate layer that gets rolled up? It just didn't look chocolatey enough. Maybe use a darker chocolate next time? I don't know. And go see "Chocolate Sauce" blog for that part...

 Can you wait a minute while I put on my Andy Williams Christmas album? It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, you know! I read the story behind this cake (love these family stories as much as the recipes in this cookbook). And I tell you, I was wary. Fruit Cake, really? I'd never met a fruitcake I liked. Why would I start now? But the story intrigued me, because the donor, Claire Breton, of Lewiston must have read my mind. She was wary, too, years ago, when her mother-in-law, Dolly Breton, offered up this cake to family at the holiday gatherings. But Claire was also bold, and tried it and loved it. So I, too, determined to be bold and try it, in part because of her encouraging story, and, well, in part because I am baking every single recipe in this book, in spite of my inner voice warning of historic bad encounters with fruitcakes. Am I ever glad Claire, whom I've never met, encouraged me to try this recipe. I did not include pineapple, since we are just not fond of it...

Having already enjoyed Steamed Brown Bread and Aunt Geri's New England Brown Bread (see blogs), I was looking forward to trying this recipe. I like the choice of raisins or dried cranberries, but had to go with raisins, not having any cranberries on hand. I will try the cranberries another day. Of the three bread recipes in the cookbook, this turned out to be the heaviest. Which is fine, I think that is part of the appeal of a brown bread, and one expects it to be heavier. The lightest brown bread turned out to be the Steamed Brown Bread, and I suspect it was the All Bran cereal and the white flour that contributed to that lightness.  I'm quite fond now of the brown bread cooking method I've discovered to sort of "fix-it-and-forget-it"--pour your bread batter into a well-greased tin can, place tin can in crockpot and pour boiling water from your tea kettle into crockpot, about 1/2 to 2/3 up side of can. Turn crockpot on high for 3-4 hours. I learned to put parchme...

 Lacking the original Ashby beans of Caribou, Maine, I followed the advice of the recipe donor, whose mother used Great Northern beans when necessary as a substitute. The recipe is a pretty standard bean recipe. The difference is in the beans, primarily. I decided to compare this recipe to Baked Yellow-Eye Beans (see blog) on the page facing this recipe. Aside from the bean difference, Yellow-Eye Beans recipe had no salt pork and no ginger (altho I did add salt pork to the yellow-eye beans and that turned out to be a yummy decision).  I am surprised by the ginger addition. And not sure that it really stands out, flavor-wise. Maybe I should have used more (I halve most of the recipes in the cookbook, since they are just for myself and the Resident Archaeologist). Well, as any New Englander knows, beans are just a fine food any time of the week or year, but Saturdays are as good a time as any. As those beans baked (confession: I baked them off Sunday morning while I was in churc...

 Sometimes, an ingredient is right where you never look. For the life of me, I could not locate macaroons, not in the local grocery, nor the "big box" grocery. I finally bought a small package of gluten-free fancy (read: expensive) macaroons with chocolate that I found locally. Then a family member and her partner tested positive for COVID-19 (not from our household, nor were we in close contact) so we went shopping at the dollar store to make up a gift bag of goodies to drop at their doorstep to help ease the quarantine. And wouldn't you know it, there was a box of macaroons, for the right price of one dollar! I was so happy to find it! This recipe dates to 1935, and recommends rolling the cookies into crumbs with a rolling pin. Thanks to modern inventions, I used our food processor and had loads of crumbs in a few pulses. Then I used another modern invention, the electric (Cuisinart) ice cream maker, and a pistachio ice cream recipe that came with the machine, substitut...

 *Warning, when you open the jar, it won't be peaches!  I had to substitute what was in season, by the time I got to this recipe, and the only similar fruit to peaches that I could still find in the stores? Pears. Now, pears and I have had a bit of a battle, in that I buy them green at the store, and they never, ever seem to ripen, then suddenly they are overripe and not suitable. So I did a bit of research, and found that you can't just put them in a paper bag (tried that, it didn't seem to help). You need to put ripe bananas in the bag, too, as the bananas give off some sort of gas that helps ripen the pears. Oh my, what a surprise when I found that it worked! In 2 1/2 days, in a bag with ripe bananas, my pears ripened to perfection (not too soft, not too hard). The Cinnamon Pears are now stored on the shelf, to bring out on a winter's day when I'm craving fruit. For the record, I've never canned fruit, except my grandmother's pear marmalade. So I do rathe...

 It was already nearly the end of June when I decided to cook my way through the Bicentennial Cookbook. So I realized that some ingredients might be seasonal, and therefore, not readily available, in the six months and twelve days that I planned to attempt this cooking adventure. Sure enough, fiddlehead season had already passed us by. I did try to find frozen fiddleheads, with no luck.  My husband and I love Thai food, but he is not fond of fiddleheads (me, I love 'em, can't get enough of 'em). So I decided to just use whatever vegetables we had on hand, and I will do a proper Thai Fiddlehead Stir Fry next spring.  The thin strips of steak fry up very quickly, so I cooked all the veggies first and then set them aside to quickly cook the meat. It looks beautiful on a plate and tastes so good, you won't need to order out Thai ever again (altho please do, we want to support our local restaurants, especially in this pandemic!). This is the 200th recipe in the cookbook. And...

 I figured that while I still have a few of those delightful 7-Up Cake "baby bundts" (see blog), I would try this Apple Cream, which is a recipe Marie Louise Gosselin Baril made for her family in the 1930s in Little Canada in Lewiston, submitted by her grandson, Rolande Lachapelle. I cooked the apple to mush, as directed, but not really mushy enough, as I discovered. You see, you pair it with a little sugar and whipped egg whites. Egg whites are one of the transformative wonders of the baking world, transitioning from a clear gooey substance to an ethereal white cloud. So I found that the apples need to be the consistency of sauce, in order to not weigh down the white cloud too much. So, my picture does not do the recipe justice, as the apples were soft but still chunky, not light as sauce. I would also give thought to what kind of cake might best compliment the apple cream, such as an apple spice cake, or a plain spice cake.

 My friend, Karen, submitted the Pistachio Cake (see blog), so I already knew a recipe with 7-Up would surely be tasty. And it is!  It is so easy to put together, and if you have mini-bundt pans, this makes the perfect mini-bundt recipe. Don't be put off by the baking time (1 and 3/4 hours). Not at all that long to bake. I think maybe it took 25 minutes in the mini-bundt pans. Half the recipe fills 2 mini-bundt pans, and makes up a nice large plate of the sweet little cakes. I already had a simple frosting of confectioner's sugar and milk mixed up (used it for gluing the almonds to the Bowdoin Logs-see blog). So I drizzled some frosting over the cakes. Mighty tasty, and look out, because they are so small, you can't eat just one! My husband tried one out, and the bowl of frosting was on the counter, along with some leftover sliced, toasted almonds. Invention is his middle name, so he dipped the little cake in frosting, then dipped it in the almond bowl, then popped it in hi...

 Here is where the Resident Archaeologist shines. Me, I had no patience whatsoever for this recipe. I sliced the chunk of ice cream. I chopped up the Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers into tiny crumbs. I attempted to then roll the ice cream chunk in the crumbs, to make it look log-like. That is where I kinda lost it. It ended up looking like a rather gruesome soggy spotted hot dog. I gave up and marched upstairs to wail about the Log Fail.  Now, I knew that the Resident Archaeologist likes nothing better than a Food Challenge. So he swiftly made his way to the kitchen with an idea in mind. Who knew that our Sushezi would be the perfect Bowdoin Log log-maker?! What is a Sushezi, you ask? It is a plastic gizmo that looks rather like a log and is typically used to form sushi rolls. He proceeded to place the ice cream in both halves of the Sushezi, closed it up, extruded the "log" and then rolled it in the cookie crumbs and wrapped it in waxed paper and placed it in the freezer. Go...

 We are not much for pineapple, around here, so I substituted peaches. And added a can of mandarin oranges, fresh cherries, and a banana, with a lovely, light custard dressing. Ta-da! Allow me to introduce to you a fruit salad that is simply heavenly, and quick and easy to prepare!

 Baked beans go oh-so-well with brown bread. And yes, I confess to having shied away from brown bread as a child, having been introduced to a loaf that tasted sour and not to my liking. But the brown breads in this cookbook  are fabulous and will make you a Brown Bread Believer, I promise (see Steamed Brown Bread and Aunt Geri's New England Brown Bread blogs...I've yet to bake the other brown bread recipe). I was about half-way thru the recipes in this cookbook, and fretting a bit about how to bake beans without a bean pot. When luck and a prayer brought a bean pot into my life. A friend posted on facebook that she was ready to give away a few things she didn't need anymore. One being a bean pot. Just a simple bean pot, brown-and-cream colored. I said yes please, and met her halfway between our homes, at the Searsmont United Methodist Church parking lot, to pick it up one rainy day. That sweet little bean pot had the happy experience of cooking the first bean recipe I have ...

 I always say, if it works, and you're happy, don't mess with happy. I tried out Steamed Brown Bread (see blog) in a tin can in a crockpot, and it was delicious! So, why not try this brown bread in the crockpot, too, I said to self. And I am happy to report another delicious brown bread was the result of that baking decision! This brown bread does not have raisins. And no All-Bran. It does have cornmeal and bread crumbs. And what self-respecting brown bread can be without molasses? It steamed for hours and hours in the crockpot, and was done just about the same time as the Baked Yellow-Eye Beans (see blog). Making for a great meal that can be found in many Maine homes on a Saturday night (or any night).