Grandpa's Home Cooking

Sinful Pleasure

I dare you to quit eating this sinful pleasure. Once you taste it, you'll not stop eating it until it is all gone. When you serve your guests my favorite French appetizer, Pate & Onion Marmalade on Toasted Baguette slices, the platter of this food will disappear so fast that folks will be looking at you as if to say, "You got anymore of this?" That's when I say, "Dinner will be served shortly ... does anyone need another glass of wine?" You'll see some heads nodding ... and when they get a whiff and taste of your new wine selection, a Trimbach Alsatian Gewurztraminer, they'll be wondering how your table can be better than what they've had. Nancy and I consume this combination on our old fashioned front porch for an outdoor spring, summer, or fall meal.

Just set out a platter with a slice of pate, a jar of red onion marmalade, and a basket of toasted baguette slices that have been brushed with extra virgin olive oil after being toasted. Set a table knife on the platter and let folks fix their own.

Here's what you need:

1. An outstanding liver mousse.  Your local gourmet stores will likely offer a variety of pate. My favorite would be a Goose, Duck, and Pork Mousse.  Chicken liver mousse is a favorite of a lot of folk and we like it too.  A Southern Season occasionally sets out a 12 inch loaf of Goose, Duck, and Pork Mousse. Just ask the folks behind the food counter to cut and wrap a 1 1/2 to 2 inch slice. This is plenty for 2 people. Chicken liver mousse is more reasonable and quite good. If you are a vegetarian, you can buy vegetarian pate and it is good and quite reasonable. 

2. A great Onion Marmalade. We love the imported Mussini, which is a sensational red onion marmalade. You can order this from A Southern Season. You might want to make your own. I'll publish a recipe soon.

3. 1 or 2 French Baguettes, sliced (ask the bakery to slice the baguettes for you) 

4. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

5. Wine is so fine with this appetizer.

You can easily transport this meal to your favorite lawn concerts. We do.

We discovered onion marmalade in France when we traveled to Normandy with Nancy's brother, Chuck, and his wife, Morrisann. Chuck and I wiped out a large bowl of onion marmalade that is served at a delightful seafood restaurant in Bayeux. Here is a picture of the restaurant:

 

Grandpa's Winery Bruschetta

Simple and loaded with flavor, Grandpa's Winery Bruschetta is the perfect accompaniment to a glass of Italian wine. I love wine and this appetizer is a perfect match.  Don't forget to eat the fresh basil while your at it. It's all good!

This appetizer and a glass or two of Italian red will set you free. You better make a large tray of this appetizer because they'll disappear in a hurry. (This little plate was for the photograph.) Then I'd bring on a large tray of Grandpa's French appetizer. (This will be my next post!)

Ingredients:

• Jar of Sun-Dried  Tomatoes (packed in extra virgin olive oil and herbs)*
• Best Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Baguette or 2, sliced **
• Fresh basil leaves
• Sea salt for the table

* You'll find jars of sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil in the produce department of a Harris Teeter; on the grocery isle at a Whole Foods; at A Southern Season (call them toll-free); and who knows where at your local giant supermarket. Ask the store manager to walk you to the product.

** Ask the bakery to slice and bag the baguette for you.

Instructions:

Toast both sides of the slices of baguettes in your toaster oven or range oven. Brush one side of the baguette slices with your best extra virgin olive oil and plate the slices. Some may then choose to lightly salt the toast with fine sea salt. Use a fork to set slices of sun-dried tomatoes on each slice of toast. Garnish the plate with fresh basil (and expect it to be eaten too).

Once upon a time, before I was a grandpa and Nancy was a grandma, we did an 8-day walking tour of Tuscany. Our little group walked 8 to 10 miles a day through vineyards, forests, and farms in Chianti. We had picnics under the shade of glimmering olive trees. Sometimes we had lunch in a village home, and another time in a farm yard. We enjoyed several late afternoon wine tastings at vineyards along the walk. One vineyard offered a tray of sun-dried tomatoes on toast points to eat while sampling their wine.  We stayed at quaint inns, including a  150 year-old farmhouse that served sumptuous 7-course dinners and wine from pitchers filled from their barrels. Am I serious? I am.  We did our walking tour many years ago and it is one of the most memorable vacations we've had. Nowadays you'll find these walking tours provided by a Vermont company, www.vbt.com/.

Here is a still picture I took as we approached a vineyard in Tuscany.

 

Baked Sicilian Olives

Here's a great appetizer to eat while sipping wine. Set plates about for guests to nibble while sipping. This is a munchie that is reasonable in cost and easy to prepare.  

Ingredients:

• 8 ounce's, drained seedless Kalamata olives*
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1-2 Tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon teaspoon fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
• Additional herbs for presentation (I love leaves of  basil for garnish)

* Tell guests the olives are seedless, but remind them to chew carefully in case a seed was missed.

Instructions:

Pour olives in a bowl of cold water and let them soak for 10 minutes. Drain the water and return the olives to a bowl of fresh cold water to soak for 1 hour. You'll do these to remove the briny taste of olives that come from canned olives.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Place the drained olives in an ovenproof baking dish. The olives should touch but not be more than two deep in the dish and should fill the bottom of the bottom of the dish.

Whisk together the olive oil, vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes, thyme, and rosemary. Pour the mix over the olives.

Bake the olives in a preheated oven for about 20 minutes until they start to crinkle.

Use a slotted spoon to move the olives to serving plates. (you don't want the liquid dripping on your furniture or your friends clothes. Set small napkins about. Garnish the plates with an herb such as basil and serve. You might even want to chop some basil and sprinkle the herbs over the warm olives.

 

Dates Stuffed With Cream Cheese And Almonds

Simple to prepare and reasonable in cost, fresh Middle Eastern dates stuffed with cream cheese and almonds are elegant to serve and absolutely delicious. Every time I prepare this appetizer the platter is cleaned before you know it! Try them. You'll like them.

Cut each date lengthwise a bit more than halfway through, separate the fruit, and remove the seed. Dispose of the seed. Bring the two halves nearly together and stuff the inside of the date with cream cheese. At this point, I cut the date in half. Then I push a smokey almond in the center of each half date. 

You're looking at a pound of dates. The cost at our super market was $7.99 a pound. In this case a pound offered 24 dates. Stuffed and cut, the pound yielded 48 hors devoures.

The yellow flower was cut from one my many pansy plants that I plant each fall in my front and backyard beds. The plants produce many flowers that grow regardless of the temperature. We often have mild winters, but even when it is icy, the pansies flourish. I've had plants sealed in a frozen layer of water, which actually magnifies the beauty of the flowers.  The flowers are happy, happy now as we are having temperatures in the 60's, but we have many blooms like this one when the temperatures are in the 20s. My pansies produce orange, purple, and yellow flowers. 

Delicious Sea Scallops

R.C. Wilson often asked, "Just what is a scallop?" "It's a muscle." "A what?" "It's a muscle that powers the sea Mollusk to swim freely. Scallops don't have brains, but they do have eyes." "Well, how do they know where they're going if they don't have brains?" "Ah well, ahh?" 

These beautiful shells are not clinging to a rock beneath the ocean like other shellfish.  What are shellfish? Shellfish is a term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of mollusks, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Say what? Well, a lot more could be said, but what's the point? They are delicious seafood! And yes, they are rich in nutrients.

Aren't there little baby scallops good too? Yes. They cook in half the time and are also very tasty!

Jumbo scallops can be pricey. I love fresh jumbo scallops. But if they're priced at $23.99 a pound, I mosey on over to the frozen seafood department. There I'll find a bag full at half the cost. They taste the same but are a little smaller. I usually just salt them and fry them in a little olive oil. Today I added a tablespoon of butter to the oil and seasoned them with Herbes de Provence. You can also season them with thyme.

What are Herbes de Provence? They are a collection of herbs frequently used for cooking by people who live in the south of France. It depends on which French person you talk to as to what this collection might include. I've found there are a lot of combinations. When you buy a bottle of herbs labeled Herbes de Provence it might contain dried  marjoram, rosemary, thyme, sage, savory, fennel seeds, and basil. Others might, for example, include lavender, ginger, coriander. Whatever! The bottle you buy or the mixture you prepare is likely to be very good. 

So why not get busy and prepare some delicious scallops. Salt them and roll them in Herbes de Provence and cook them just so. Yum. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients:

• Fresh or frozen jumbo or large scallops
• Salt
• Herbes de Provence
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1 Tablespoon butter

Instructions:

Season the scallops with salt and Herbes de Provence. 

Heat olive oil on a medium high stove top burner. Add 1 Tablespoon butter. Use tongs to set the scallops in the hot skillet. Cook them for 1-2 minutes until the one side is golden brown. Gently turn the scallops with tongs and cook them for 1 -2 minutes until the second side is golden brown. Use your tongs to take them from the skillet to a pretty plate and serve them.  They are this easy to prepare!

If you use the baby scallops, they'll cook to a golden brown in exactly 1 minute on each side.

Whether jumbo, large, or small, they are fine dining. Scallops can be served as a main course or as an appetizer. 

Cherry Chutney

If I were you, I'd put a nice slice of goose liver pate on one of grandma’s special plates. Then put some toast points and several tablespoons of  Kitsy’s cherry chutney on the plate. Then I'd garnish the dish with several pickled ramps. If you can’t find pickled ramps, garnish the plate with some pickled okra. As a last resort, I'd use cornichons, but I’d much rather have pickled ramps or okra.

I had to use truffle mousse pate and cornichons tonight because I couldn't get goose liver pate Sunday and we were out of pickled ramps. We ate the toast points, the truffle mouse pate, and the cherry chutney. But we left the cornichons on the plate. I would have eaten pickled ramps or pickled okra:-)

We enjoyed our spread, with a bottle of white wine, on the lawn at the NC Museum of Art ampitheater , while we enjoyed Joan Baez in concert. She sang her hits from the 60s. It was a beautiful Carolina August night ... we finally got a temperature that we could tolerate ... with nice gentle cool breezes. We finally got to hear her sing Blowin' in the Wind for the final encore, with everyone singin' with the gusto us boomers had in the '60s. The last time I saw Joan Baez live, before tonight, was in 1977, at the Sea Turtle restaurant bar, in Atlantic City, Florida. (near Jacksonville.)  I worked on the road in those days. I could tell you a lot of crazy stories about "the Jacksonville gig" (but I won't).

Getting back to the ramps. Would you like to try some fresh ramps? If you’re in Pocahontas County West Virginia close to Easter, just travel into the Monongahela National Forrest. Follow the Little Williams River until you come to a mighty bend in the road. Park there and spread your picnic on the bank of the river. Watch those rapids pourin' over the rocks. After you have eaten, or before if you like, get out a big plastic bag and an old broken off butcher knife and start walking up the hill. When you start getting’ near the top, start looking for the ramps. You’ll be looking for a broad leaf, not a scallion stem. Ramps are a cross between a wild leek and onion. When you dig them up, the bottom is going to look like a scallion. Eat one raw. It ain’t gonna taste like a scallion. Lord have mercy, after you eat one your breath will blow folks away. But  if you pickle them ramps or cook them up real nice, you might enjoy them a lot. You can also find ramps in NC’s Smokey Mountains, but I’d rather dig the critters in West Virginia.  I have included some ramp recipes elsewhere in this eclectic blog. If I haven't, hang in there and I will. 

By the way, Pocahontas County, West Virginia  is where you will find Pearl Buck’s cottage out in the country on beautiful unspoiled land.  It's a nice place to visit. Have you read her classic novel of China, The Good Earth?

Here's the recipe for Kitsy's Cherry Chutney. It is delicious! This is going to make enough chutney to fill 3 large canning jars. If this is more than you want, cut the recipe in half, as I did Saturday.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lb. fresh cherries (or whatever fruit you have), chopped 
1 lb. onion, finely chopped
2 lb. cooking apples, such as Granny Smith (4 will work)
2 c. cider vinegar
1 piece ginger root
1 tbs. whole cloves
1 tbs. whole allspice
1 tbs. peppercorns
1 lb. brown sugar
3 tsp. salt

Instructions:

Cover onions with water and boil 5 minutes; drain.
Chop apples; boil in 1/2 vinegar until the liquid disappears and the apples are soft (about 12 minutes) 
Put spices in a cheesecloth bag and put the bag in a pan with rest of vinegar and sugar.
Bring to boil, then simmer 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Let sit for 30 minutes, then remove spice bag.
Add onions, fruit and salt to the pan with apples.
Bring to boil, then simmer 2 hrs. 

Put the chutney in clean, hot jars, screw on the lids and turn upside down. Jars should seal; if not, store in fridge.

Our apple harvest season is coming soon and I'm looking forward to it!

Cream Cheese, Seven Pepper Jelly, and Crackers

Delicious, elegant, and inexpensive. This appetizer gives new meaning to the sales spin, "You can't eat just one." Best yet, it's simple. This is an appetizer that you can always have available to greet expected or unexpected guests. All you need is a bar of cream cheese, seven pepper jelly (or hot pepper jelly) and a box of white crackers.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz bar of cream cheese (two is better than one:-)
• 8 oz jar of seven pepper or hot pepper jelly
• 1 box of white crackers
• Bottle of wine or your favorite beverage.

I love Bremner wafers which are round white crackers. These are generally found in a gourmet shop. But any white cracker will work. In fact, I like the salted Nabisco soda crackers. The salt adds a little extra kick to the flavor.

Instructions:

Set out a plate of cream cheese, a jar of pepper jelly, a dish of crackers, and a knife. Let your guests spread their own crackers.

This is a great appetizer to serve with red wine!