Maine Bicentennial, A Cookbook, and Me

I love discovering new foods, foods that people have brought to Maine, from their homeland. Juanita Cuellar Nichols submitted this recipe, and shares that her family came to NYC from Colombia. She has a childhood memory of her father flattening the balls of cornmeal dough into discs for stuffing with the meat and potato mixture. The recipe recommends Masarepa, a brand of precooked cornmeal, and for the life of me, I could find it nowhere. I was pretty sure that regular cornmeal would be too coarse to hold together for a dough. At last, I discovered Masarepa on a grocery shelf. So now I ran into a small problem with the dough. The recipe appears to indicate that you mix the cornmeal with Goya Sazon (I do think this seasoning is really meant to be used with the meat mixture) and salt and 2 tablespoons of oil, form it into a ball, knead, wrap in plastic wrap, and let rest twenty minutes. But how does all of that cornmeal bind together with a mere 2 tablespoons of oil? After researching on...

Guess who woke up to a breakfast of Red Flannel Hash?! The Resident Archaeologist thoroughly enjoyed the New England Boiled Dinner last night (see blog for that recipe) and wanted to surprise me with breakfast this morning. He even remembered that I like my eggs sunny-side up. I, of course, was not feeling sunny-side up until I drank some of that liquid energy called coffee. He did have to add in the beets this morning, since we forgot to add beets last night in the Boiled Dinner. Heavens, this is a mighty fine way to greet the morning! Gives you the nutrients you need to tackle whatever is on your to-do list for the day.  There are numerous ways to use leftover corned beef brisket. And my sweetheart is having fun imagining the different ways...reuben sandwich, corned beef and cabbage quesadillas, and so much more. An easy meat to prepare, with endless leftover possibilities. I must admit that my childhood memories of corned beef hash come out of a can. Fresh is the way to go, with...

 Have you ever encountered a person who becomes your best friend, in an instant? And you think, how did I never run into this person before? Why is it that we are best friends now, when I wish it could have been forever? Well, "that" is the way I feel about a New England Boiled Dinner. I have lived in New England all my life. Yet, no one has introduced me to Boiled Dinner. Til now. No worries. I'm grateful to have the new relationship now. But I'm just a little amazed that I've missed out for all these years. It might be as simple as the clam vs mussel issue (see Beer-Steamed Mussels with Corn and Basil blog). Maybe I tried corned beef in a can and that ended our relationship. (I did encounter red flannel hash in a can, and that was problematic, for sure). But I'm grateful to have experienced this meal, and with the expert guidance of the Resident Archaeologist, who knows how to cut the meat to get the best taste/chew experience. You have to cut across the gra...

Hahaha! The cookbook editors tucked this apple pie in the pudding section, making you "think" there was only one marvelous apple pie recipe (see blog for Westport Island Upside-Down Apple Pie) to be had in this awesome Bicentennial cookbook. No worries! You get to bake another apple pie, and it is a pleasure for me to share that This Apple Pie Is Like No Other. You're gonna love it! Easy peasy recipe. It calls for both apples and blueberries or rhubarb. But I was hankering for apple-only. I mean, it's apple orchard season, not blueberry or rhubarb season. There is this terrific crumb topping that is perfect. What makes it perfect, you ask? What makes everything perfect, my friends? Butter. Yesssss! Melted and poured liberally over the crumb topping. Then, here is where the recipe and I parted ways. It says to sprinkle cinnamon lightly over the top. Hah! I don't keep a jar of mixed cinnamon and sugar on hand for nothing! The pie needs a generous sprinkling of cinna...

 Just the title alone conjures up a magical food that might give you wings to fly away into a forest glen for a tea party with miniature tea cups and wee little cakes made of sweetness and light. No? Okay, let's settle for a meringue nut topping that is easy to whip up, yet elegant, with a cake hiding underneath it that melts in your mouth. This recipe calls for crushed pineapple, but my sweetheart is not fond of that fruit, so I decided to go without fruit the first time around. It also calls for lots of whipped cream spread over the cake, but I just added a dollop on top of individual servings. I think this would be fun with fresh blueberries, and yes, I might indulge in more whipped cream, if we had guests over. This recipe has been in Uncle John's family for three generations, a beloved cake to celebrate family birthdays. Thanks to Brenda Maxfield for submitting this "magical" cake!

 Having tried the crockpot for the Worster House Baked Indian Pudding (see blog), I decided to go with a good thing. Especially when I read the details of the recipe. Eight to ten hours in a slow oven? This is what crockpots were born for. Of the two Indian Pudding recipes in this cookbook, I lean towards this one. Worster House uses raisins as the fruit sweetener, and this recipe uses apples. I just have a personal preference for apples. It helps cut the heaviness of the molasses. In fact, I think another time around, I'd cut back on the molasses, as it needs to be more balanced with the light sweet flavor of the apples.  Again, I am a cold pudding person, when I do eat puddings. So I ate this cold, but the recipe recommends hot, with vanilla ice cream, which sounds delightful!

 Indian pudding was never on the table at our family Thanksgiving meals, when I was a child. But I had a family member in my first marriage who felt that Thanksgiving wasn't complete without it, so he would bring a can of it to our table each year. I never tried it, as I'm just not much of a pudding eater. This pudding was offered at the Worster House in Hallowell between 1925 and 1960. The person submitting the recipe got it from her grandparents, Thomas and Pauline Worster, whose slogan, at Worster House, was "Where Maine Goes to Dinner."  Love that slogan! This pudding must cook in a slow oven for four hours. Being as how I didn't have four hours to babysit it, I decided to tuck all the ingredients in a small crockpot and do it the easy way. It worked great. It says to serve it hot, with vanilla ice cream. I'm accustomed to cold puddings, when I do eat puddings, and so I tried it first cold, and thought it was fine that way. But I look forward to trying it ...