When I was growing up, sauerkraut made an appearance at our family’s table at least once a week.  My Mom made a couple standard sauerkraut dishes, which included the classic skillet meal of pork chops, potatoes, and sauerkraut.  She included a generous sprinkling of caraway seeds on top to, how shall I say, lessen the affects of the sauerkraut on the digestive system.

I continue the tradition to this day and often serve sauerkraut meals to my family.  Maybe not once a week, but routinely.  My problem is that I am running out of ideas for new recipes.  Don’t get me wrong; I love the traditional skillet meal that I grew up with, but also would like to enjoy sauerkraut in other dishes.

Does anyone have a nice side dish, main dish casserole, or an unusual but tasty sauerkraut dish they would like to share?  I’d love to hear from you!

Although it’s not harvest time yet, I’m getting myself prepared!  One of my favorite root crops is the lowly rutabaga.  This is a vegetable that is not especially well known, or appreciated.  Seen mostly in northern climates, the rutabaga may be referred to as a “yellow turnip”, partly because they may be mistaken for a turnip in areas of the world where turnips are not grown. They are also called “wax turnips” possibly because they are often sold covered in a wax coating to help preserve them during shipping and storing. 

Once cooked, you’ll see why the rutabaga is a desirable root crop in the waning days of autumn.  The color is beautiful!  Cubed and added to stews or pot roasts, the rutabaga brightens and gives the meal a decidedly up-beat flavor and color.  A turnip just doesn’t do the same!

My family always made a “Harvest Dinner” in the fall when the garden was done.  Very simple, but filling and delicious, we just threw whatever we had in a big pot and put it on the stove to simmer.  Our ingredients included a big ham bone, lots of onion, potatoes, carrots, and of course, a big rutabaga.  After school, we’d come home, walk in the house and know immediately what was for dinner.  There is no mistaking the aroma of rutabaga! 

Besides our traditional Harvest Dinner, I’m wondering if you good people have cooked rutabaga in different ways.  Possibly some side dishes that are a little unusual, or in salads perhaps?  I look forward to your ideas!

Believe it or not, stuck away in my big freezer, I found several bags of French cut green beans left over from Thanksgiving.  It’s time to clean house and I would like a way to cook up those beans other than the classic green bean casserole that we all know and love, but have had enough of. 

I did stumble across an old scrap of paper with a soup recipe scribbled on it that looks pretty interesting.  The instructions aren’t really detailed, but the ingredients are simple.  The recipe for French Cut Green Bean Soup goes just like this:

Take a bag of frozen French cut green beans (about 4 cups), about 3 medium size potatoes, diced up, 1 good size carrot, sliced, 1 medium onion, diced up, 1 to 2 teaspoons of salt depending on how salty you like your soup, and put this all in a pot, cover with cold water.  Simmer until all the veggies are tender.  Then, mix together in a bowl, 2 tablespoons each flour and butter.  Add 1/2 cup of cream or half ‘n half and mix together.  Then put that mixture into soup and stir well.  Return soup to a gentle bubble for a minute, then turn off heat.  Then, add 2 cups or more of buttermilk, until you like the way the soup looks.  The buttermilk is the trick to this really good soup.

Like I said, this recipe was just scribbled on a piece of scrap paper, so that’s as precise as it gets! 

If you have any recipes you’d like to share that use French cut green beans, even if it’s just an old scribbled recipe that you dug up somewhere, I’d love to hear from you!

I have to admit here, I’ve never been a fan of cream style corn.  It’s too sweet for my taste.  But, my husband loves cream corn so I try to find ways to serve it.  There aren’t many ways I’ve been able to “hide” the taste of the corn, and when I do manage, it doesn’t make my husband too happy.  I guess I can understand, after all he would like to be able to taste his beloved cream style corn!

My quandary remains then to find ways to use cream style corn in dishes without having to make a second meal for myself.  I will tell you that I have tried one dish that’s surprisingly pleasing to both of us.  This is a corn chowder using both frozen corn and cream corn.  I just make sure there’s enough bacon, salt, black pepper, Dijon mustard, and Worcestershire sauce to mask the sweetness of the cream corn.  It turns out pretty well.

Other than cream corn in corn chowder, have you used it in some casseroles or other side dishes with success?  If you’re not a great cream corn fan, I’d love to hear how you, too, have “hidden” the cream corn in some of your dishes.  And, if you are a fan of cream corn and really crave certain dishes, I’d like to hear from you, too, so I can make something nice for my husband, even if I don’t eat it!

Have you seen the word “shallot” used in a recipe and just don’t know what they are?  Have you confused them with scallions?  I did at first but now know the difference.  I finally got brave and decided to try using shallots to see why so many people like to cook with them.

Shallots offer the best of both worlds when you want an onion and garlic flavor.  They are milder than most onions, and they don’t leave your breath a disaster zone like garlic.  Shallots are perfect when you’re making a savory sauce using wine.  They carmelize just like onions, but you have to be sure and saute them on a lower heat because they are quite delicate.

Now, when to use them and what to make with them.  I don’t think they are suitable for every purpose.  For instance, I wouldn’t cut up a bunch to use in my chili or spaghetti sauce.  But I would saute them in a base for any nice cream soup.  Also, any sauce for salmon, or really any grilled fish would be good. 

Have you made any dishes that would sing praises to the Shallot?  I’d like to find more ways to use them, but I’m running out of ideas.  Help!

Even though alfalfa sprouts have taken a hit due to some outbreaks of salmonella back in the 1990’s, I’m still a huge fan.  I love those crunchy little things! I’ve even sprouted my own years ago, but now prefer to buy them from my friendly neighborhood grocery store.  They’re flavorful and packed with nutrients. 

Take the same care with sprouts as you would any other vegetables, and you should be able to enjoy your fair share. Choose only crisp sprouts with the buds attached that are being kept in a refrigerated section of the grocery store. Do not buy any musty or slimy sprouts. Be sure to keep the sprouts refrigerated at home in a cold setting, no higher than 40 degrees Fahrenheit. As always, wash your hands thoroughly before and after handling any raw foods. Give your sprouts a good bath in cold water and thoroughly rinse and drain them with clean water before use.

Now that we’re done with that, what am I going to make with my sprouts?  I love them on salads, but what have you tried that made you go “yummy!”  I do enjoy a nice grilled provolone cheese and sprout sandwich.  What do you think about some sort of soup?  Have you mixed them in a meatloaf?  Tossed them into a pot of spaghetti sauce?  I know there must be different ways to eat sprouts, but can’t think of anymore right now.

That’s why I look forward to your ideas! 

If you live anywhere in the South, you are familiar with black eyed peas.  Not a pea, of course, but a legume, the black eyed pea has deep roots in Southern cooking tradition. 

Probably the most well know dish with black eyed peas is Hoppin’ John. This is a pretty simple dish to make but is so warm and comforting.  Of course, you can tweak the recipe to suit your own taste, but a basic recipe would be this general method as follows:

Rinse and soak about a cup of black eyed peas in cold water over-night .  The next day, take a nice, meaty ham bone, put it in a big soup pot and cover it with cold water.  Bring it to a boil, turn it down and let that ham bone simmer for a couple hours.  Then, pour in your black eyed peas and let them cook slowly until they are just about tender.  Meanwhile, cook about one cup of good, long grain rice.  Take the ham bone out of the pot and trim any of the good ham off the bone.  Add the meat back to the pot and mix in the rice when it’s done. 

This is an easy recipe to play around with.  I also like to add some onion.  Don’t forget to salt and pepper, too.

So, here’s my dilemma.  I’m tired of my plain ol’ Hoppin’ John.  Does anybody have some ideas to jazz it up?  Or, even better, does anyone have some suggestions what I can make with black eyed peas OTHER than Hoppin’ John?  I’m looking forward to your input!

Guess who lost track of a big bag of onions in her pantry?  You’ve got it… yours truly.  They have just the first signs of sprouting so it’s not a total loss, but now I’ve got to use them immediately.  So, what do you suppose I should do?

The easiest thing that comes to mind is make some French Onion Soup.  I’ve only made this a couple times in my married life as my husband doesn’t seem to rally around meatless meals. 

The quick and easy method I use for French Onion Soup is this:

Peel onions and cut into circles.  Throw in a big pot with some oil and a little butter and saute until transparent.  Then add some canned beef broth until it looks like you’d expect French Onion Soup to look like.  Pretty simple.  Then to serve, lay a toasted piece of hearty bread with mozzarela or parmesan cheese on top. 

You see why I’m looking for help.  Not very imaginative.  It’s okay, but how would you make onion soup or any other onion dish that’s really spectacular instead of just edible?

I’ve discovered a new favorite vegetable at our farmer’s market.  Beautiful, bright green, crunchy Kale.  It took some doing to figure out not only what it is, but how to cook the stuff. 

Kale has a distinctive flavor.  It may look like turnip greens, collard greens, or mustard greens, but it has a very different flavor.  Kale is somewhat “spicy”; I wouldn’t say bitter, but it could be if not cooked correctly. 

The first time I cooked a batch of kale, I just pan seared it in a huge skillet with some oil, salt and pepper, until it was all wilty.  It was okay, but not good.  The flavor was a little bitter. 

The next time I cooked kale I basically boiled it in a big pot in chicken broth.  That was very disappointing because the kale was really limp.  I missed the crunchy texture I had by pan searing.  And the kale was still a little bitter, not spicy like they were before cooking.

Then I remembered some collard greens we had at a potluck one time.  They were fabulous and the lady who made them told me she just made them like normal, pan seared them with some bacon, salt, pepper, and a little touch of brown sugar.  Ah ha!  Back to the drawing board.

The results were perfect!  I put some cut-up bacon in a giant skillet and cooked the pieces down a little, but not until they were crispy.  Then I mixed just about a tablespoon of brown sugar into the bacon and bacon fat and piled the kale in, stirred it together a bit, added some salt and a generous amount of fresh ground black pepper.  I put on a cover and let the kale simmer for a good 15 minutes or more, until it was just nice and tender but still a touch crispy.  Yum!  The natural spicy flavor was somehow restored with the brown sugar and bacon combination.  Great!

Do you have a success story to share about cooking kale?  It’s an unusual green, but well worth the effort.  The crunchy green leaves hold up so well, I think that’s why I prefer it now to most other greens.  Are there soups or casseroles that you’ve tried making with kale?  Other than making kale as I have, are there some recipes and methods that you’ve had success with?

My husband makes the most fantastic cranberry relish I’ve ever had!  It’s so easy and delicious; all he does is puts whole, fresh cranberries in the food processor with a cut up orange, peeling and all, with just a dash of sugar.  It’s so yummy!  But, he makes gallons of it at a time.  Okay, that’s a little bit of an exageration.  We still end up with a pretty big container leftover after every Holiday meal.  His cranberry relish is delicious, but I can’t eat that much.  I also don’t want to throw it away.  Help!

I did see a delightful recipe recently for a, believe it or not, grilled sandwich made with cranberry sauce or relish.  You take pumpernickle bread, butter one side of each piece of bread, then you layer some sliced turkey (presumably leftover as well) with some cheese (whatever you have, they recommend Brie, but I never have that in the house, so maybe Monterray Jack or Swiss) and, finally, a little cranberry sauce or relish.  Put your bread together and grill your sandwich in a skillet until toasted on both sides and cheese melts a bit.

I haven’t tried this sandwich yet, but the next Holiday meal we have, I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to give it a whirl.  It will be interesting.

Have you ever used leftover cranberry relish or sauce in any sort of dish and had good results?  Let me know… Christmas dinner is coming soon and we’ll have plenty of leftovers to experiment with.