Maine Bicentennial, A Cookbook, and Me

 Yes, we are mid-January. 2021. Aaand I know my personal challenge was to finish all the recipes in the Maine Bicentennial Cookbook by the end of 2020. So what are we doing now? Well, beer has a life of its own, and I had to let the bottle sit around in the kitchen, doing its fermenting thing, for a week. Then sit around in a cooler location for a week. Today's the day! I chilled the beer, popped the cork, and boldly toasted the new year.  This beverage gives you the refreshing taste of sweet nature: essence of spruce, brown sugar, a splash of lemon juice, ale yeast, and water. On another go-round I'll try honey as the sweetener. And I'll be more adventurous with the spruce. I was so concerned that the spruce flavor would overwhelm. But it didn't! In fact, I could have added a wee bit more. Have you ever tasted mead? This beverage is really rather like mead. How do I know? I was gifted a bottle of mead at Christmas. No spruce essence, but it was pretty good. In fact, I ...

 Appearing in the State of Maine Cookbook, published in 1920 for the Centennial, this recipe clearly dates well before 1920. And it is not really what we would call a beer today. I decided to give it a whirl, looking up a modern recipe. Not having all of the equipment for beer production, I'm glad there are alternatives. I purchased Spruce Essence (yes, it's a thing). It is highly concentrated. So I did the math to figure out that the amount of beverage I'm making only needs 4 milliliters of Spruce Essence. Plus dark brown sugar, water, and a splash of lemon. Boil it up, and while it is boiling, do what bread bakers call proofing. Put the yeast (not the kind for bread, it needs the kind for ale) in a small amount of warm water for ten minutes. When the boiling mixture is done (thirty minutes), place it in an ice bath, and watch it plummet to 70 degrees F, at which time you bottle the stuff and pour the yeast mixture into the bottle and cork it. Tip the bottle upside down se...

 I've been looking forward to this meal for months! It looks so seafood-scrumptious! And naturally, we had to wait until New Year's Eve... I noticed that the recipe calls this a soup. And so I talked with the Resident Archeologist about doing a roux to thicken the soup, since we really wanted to have more of a sauce poured over rice. A roux was "at the ready" but I soon realized that the soup cooks down such that you don't even need to thicken it.  Not sure why, but I chose to use frozen chopped spinach, where it calls for spinach. We discovered that it is "too chopped" and that it just goes everywhere and wasn't quite the texture on the tongue that we were looking for. Next time, we will buy baby spinach and just gently wilt it at the very end of cooking time, which will look so pretty and lend better flavor than the frozen spinach. Pay attention to the order of cooking the seafood. Whatever just needs warming, pop into the pot for the last five min...

 My middle stepdaughter got her deer this season (her first!). We are very happy for her. Her freezer is getting pretty full, since both she and her boyfriend like to hunt. So she gave us some venison for our freezer. And I was delighted to be able to cook some of it up for this recipe. I'm actually not a mincemeat eater...altho I made mincemeat cookies for my dad every Christmas until he died, and he loved them. I plan to make either mincemeat cookies or small pies with this recipe, for some friends who love mincemeat. I cut back on the amounts in the recipe, as it clearly makes a big batch. I also studied up on beef suet and chose to use vegetable shortening instead, adding in beef stock to make sure there was plenty of moistness for the venison. The donor says this recipe comes out of "an old cookbook, All Maine Cooking, by Ruth Wiggin and Loanna Shibles" and so I found it amusing to read the ingredient portions: "one package golden raisins" "1 jar red j...

 I have this childhood memory of a gallon jar setting on the counter at my grandfather's general store in a little town in Vermont. It seemed to be filled with murky liquid, yet when a person reached in there, out came a whole pickle. She would hand the clerk a nickel and start to munch on the prized snack. These pickles hide in the murky liquid just as well as those pickles of my childhood, but I anticipate the joy of pulling out a pickle and biting into that crisp mustard-y sweetness. The little cucumbers are not quite ready yet, so the taste test will have to wait a little longer. Looking forward to these awesome pickles! The recipe calls for a gallon jar, but all I have are quart jars, due to the pandemic run on canning jars. Which works rather well, fitting maybe seven or so small cucumbers in a quart jar. This recipe completes the Preserves chapter of the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook. It's tough to pick a favorite, but I know we are just loving the "Stinky F...

This recipe presented two distinct challenges. Firstly, I live in a parsonage and I'm not likely to receive permission to dig up the lawn just to try my hand at cooking bean hole beans. Secondly, we are now solidly in winter, and even if I had opportunity to dig a hole, it's not the right time of year. So I allowed as how baking the beans in the oven would have to do for now, and we'll see what summer brings. Who knows, maybe the church will want to offer a bean hole bean "suppah" as a fundraiser. The picture shows off pea beans, and yet the recipe calls for yellow-eye beans. I must say, were I pressed to pick a favorite bean recipe, I did so love the Baked Yellow-Eye Beans (see blog). But when it came time to try this recipe, there were no yellow-eye beans in the pantry. So I used pea beans. I do like pea beans, but I have to wonder if these beans were getting a little old. They seemed to take longer to cook. I checked the difference between the Yellow-Eye Bean r...

 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...