Not just your mother's potato salad

Making certain old standard dishes at my mother's house is a risky business. You know the dishes in question -- comfort foods, the dishes that always remind you of home and family and good times (whether they were truly good or just in selective memory). These foods vary from culture to culture, from family to family. For me, it's turkey stuffing, mac and cheese, meatloaf, bow ties (a vaguely Italian dish named for the pasta that is used), potato salad. These are foods that never taste quite right at your best friend's house, or the way your mother-in-law or your neighbors make it. No restaurant makes those dishes properly.

These are the dishes that you want to make just like Mom made. These are the dishes that give meaning to the phrase "you can never go home again".

It is potato salad of which I write.

Let me start in the beginning, which is the logical place to start. Logic ends with that point.

It had been springtime here in New Mexico. I could tell because the calendar said it was late April. Not only that, but one of my apple trees had blossomed (unfortunately not the self-pollinating tree). It was a glorious display. My asparagus had sent up the first spears and I greedily ate the raw shoots moments after harvesting, because that's what you do with the first asparagus. Birdsong filled the air as they hunted for mates, flies buzzed around the horses, and the horses' tails were working as their winter coats flew off, hair by hair, into the warm breezes.

Definitely spring.

One afternoon when it was almost hot and felt kind of summerish, I got the notion that I had to have potato salad. Just like Mom used to make -- the only way it can be made, after all. The next time I went into town I bought a bag of organic Yukon golds. I couldn't make the dish right away, as I had to be out and about too much over the next few days, so I stored the potatoes in a cool, dark place till I needed them.

For three days I thought about potato salad, because it was spring.

Then it wasn't. New Mexico changed its mind. The thermometer dropped to 10° overnight. A frigid wind blew through my valley straight from the North Pole, not even pausing at the spaces in the wall of my cabin. I had to build a fire in the wood stove, the first time in weeks. Fortunately I hadn't gotten around to moving the logs outside yet. Procrastination does have value.

By morning there was a few inches of snow, and though the sky was blue at that point it clouded over shortly and snowed again. Several times.

Somehow the notion of making a batch of potato salad wasn't as attractive as, say, a hot pot of thick potato soup. Not that I made the soup. I made cornbread instead, but that's another story.

Springtime again... maybe

And thoughts returned to potato salad. I decided to go for it.

Mom's recipe is pretty simple, but it must be exactingly followed. That's the risky part about making one of these family recipes if you're at Mom's house. She wants it to be made just like she has always made it. And so does the rest of the family. No fooling around. No experimentation. Just tried and true.

Well. 

If you've read other stories of my cooking here, you no doubt are aware that following directions is not exactly my thing. I wasn't at Mom's and what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Plus I didn't have all the ingredients.

I'm sure you're wondering how that could be, since I had been wanting the potato salad for a week and I had been to the grocery store in that time. I can only say that I didn't feel like buying mayonnaise. I rarely use the stuff and so any leftovers after making this recipe would just go to waste. I figured I could fake it. That's pretty much my approach to life anyway, so why not with potato salad?

Why go by the rules when you can invent something new? Choosing a route off the beaten path is always entertaining. Yes, there's the risk of getting lost, of attacks by dragons or saber-toothed tigers, of death rays and carnivorous plants, quicksand and... you get the picture. But adventure! Excitement! And the possibility of treasure.

No different with cooking, though that's just my opinion. I've had my failures (I just threw out a batch of sourdough that refused to rise and was sad that even after a second chance it chose to remain a lump of flour and water). I've had some dubious results that probably no one but me would like. But sometimes... treasure!

Okay, today's potato salad isn't everybody's treasure. For one thing, I don't put sugar in it, for another -- faked ingredients. But I did have potatoes. And celery. That was a good start, right?  The rest of the ingredients were what I had in my fridge and in my garden that survived the snow.

Ingredients (all organic)

• 3 lbs gold potatoes
• salt
• celery
• garlic tops
• green onions
• white vinegar (a couple tablespoons at most)
• Icelandic yogurt (or other plain yogurt)
• dill pickle juice (a couple tablespoons at most)
• sour cream
• black pepper, ground
• olive oil (a couple tablespoons at most)

[EDIT: 05/01:  Last night I decided the recipe would benefit from some olive oil, since oil is one of the ingredients in mayo.  So I did add a splash or two and that gave a richer taste.]

Directions

1. Boil potatoes till cooked but still firm - if you're going to want salt in your recipe, add some to the water. 
2. Cut potatoes into little chunks when cool enough to handle. 
3. Sprinkle a small amount of white vinegar over potato pieces and mix. Cover and cool, mixing occasionally so the vinegar will be absorbed uniformly.
4. Chop celery into thin slices.
5. Chop garlic tops into small pieces.
6. Chop green onions into small pieces.
7. Add the chopped ingredients and the rest to the potatoes when cool.  You'll have to experiment with quantities so add the yogurt, pickle juice, and sour cream in small amounts, tasting as you go.
8. Chill before serving.

Note about Icelandic yogurt: It was in the grocery store and I hadn't seen it before. It had interesting stuff on the container including a list of all the nasty stuff that wasn't in it. It's thick, like Greek yogurt. I liked it and will get more.

My mother would not approve of my potato salad. She would taste it and be polite, but I know she'd be comparing to her own. Mine would come up a faint second best. But you know, I haven't lived at home for a long, long time. I've been making potato salad for decades and each time I make it I follow my own taste buds. At first my potato salads and all the other comfort food dishes did taste like Mom's. Over time they evolved. Sometimes the changes came about because I didn't have the exact ingredients, sometimes because I had no reference to compare to. Mom lives far away and I don't get to enjoy her cooking much anymore.

And you know, when I do go home and eat a meal there, I compare her dishes to mine. And I wonder why what she makes doesn't taste like it used to.

[EDIT 05/01/17:  Google for some reason won't let me comment or reply to comments on my own blog!  So don't assume because I don't reply that I haven't read your comments!]

Bread baking adventures - baking on a grill

In another life I was a mad scientist. In this one I'm a modern contrarian.

As those who know me are aware, my idea of fun is to try something new and different without reading the directions. I guess it must be something in my personality, or my astrological chart or some deep-seated neurosis from my childhood.  Be that as it may, reading -- much less following -- directions is so not me.

I decided some years back that because I love sourdough bread, I should make my own. How that developed is a story for another time, but I am now accomplished at baking bread on top of a wood stove (not in a Dutch oven).

That's well and good, but as spring progresses, the days are warming up to the point where I don't particularly want to be building fires in the wood stove, even first thing in the morning. So my most recent adventure is learning how to bake a loaf of bread on an outdoor grill.

Oh no, no, no. Don't you go thinking I'm weird. I Googled it and discovered baking bread on a gas grill is old hat. Lots of people do it (and here I thought I'd come up with something unusual). Besides, this is legitimate research: The other day I got invited to a friend's house to make pizzas in her new outdoor pizza oven. I want one, not so much for pizza (though I'd use it for that, too) but for break baking.

But wow, what an investment in time and labor to build one. Hence the grill. If I learn to use it and like baking bread outdoor enough to keep using it, maybe I can justify building a nice wood-fired oven over in a corner of the yard.

So okay. Research.

Not that I was going to read the directions closely, mind you, but I did skim through a few web pages to get the gist of it. Part of my tendency to skim is because unfortunately much of the info out there for the weird projects I do is useless (poorly written, written by people who've obviously never done it, or the instructions call for equipment I don't have). I figure if the instructions have to be worked around there's no point in reading closely, right? 

And yes, I will have to do some creative work-arounds for baking bread on a grill. For one thing my grill is older. It doesn't have a fancy two-level rack system to keep the bread from getting scorched by the flames, nor does it have a built-in thermometer. For another thing I want to use the heavy enameled cast-iron bread baking bowl I always use, not a stone cloche (really?) or a pizza stone (could I just use a rock?) or doubled cookie sheets (who knows where mine are). 

And for that matter... where is my grill, anyway?

So, earlier today I decided I should be proactive and get the grill out from where it's been stored for several years. I had to use a shovel to dig a hole to lower it so I could pull it out from under... no, no point in going there. Let me simply say I got it out of where it's been stored and tugged it over to my yard next to the house. Opened it up and whoa. Good thing I was being proactive. Lots of dust in there. It would be a good idea to see if the grill would even ignite and hold a flame, and of course doing so would burn off the cobwebs, too.

Then the next question: Which, if any, of my propane tanks actually had gas in it? Hint: None of the small tanks that I can lift. I eyeballed the four-foot tall tank that requires my using a hand cart to move it. I thought about how I'd have to unhook it from what it was hooked up to, and the gymnastics that would entail. I thought about how much easier it would be to get a propane tank filled next time I'm in town. 

See how these things go?

Looks like I will bake this next loaf of bread on the wood stove after all. It's not nearly as warm in the house as I thought. A fire would be nice. Yes it would. Really.

Is It Soup or Is It Compost?

I don't often want to cook. No, let me rephrase. I rarely want to cook. How this plays out in the real world is that when I get the urge to play chef I usually don't have a lot of ingredients available to cook with.

Yesterday I got the urge to make spaghetti sauce. Mmmmm - that nice tangy red sauce that goes over pasta, and that you enjoy with warm bread fresh out of the oven. Mmmmm.

Well, not at this house.

Background info

If you haven't read other stuff I've written, you might not know some important facts about me that influence my culinary efforts:

• I live in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico. Nearest town - nearest store - is 30 miles away.  
• I believe that processed foods are bad for people, so I focus on raw and organic, which tend to be bulky, space-consuming ingredients.
• I also live in a teensy tiny house. I don't have much storage space, including space to keep much food.
• I like the concept of gardening, but the practice of gardening has been less than fruitful.
• My chickens are apparently on strike. Or maybe they're too darned old to lay eggs. And no, I'm not going to eat the chickens. That's another topic, thank you very much.
• And in the winter when I've already got a fire going in the wood stove, I try to do all my cooking on it. Why waste propane?

Combine the above with an only sporadic interest in cooking and you can imagine that not only is there not much meal planning going on here, but when I do decide to cook, what I want to eat and what I make are not necessarily going to be the same thing.

Yesterday's Spaghetti Sauce

So yesterday I get the urge for spaghetti.  First I built up the fire in the wood stove and started heating some olive oil in a suitable sized pot.  Then I started sauteing onions - I happened to have some that weren't growing too much greenery.

I went through the fridge and saw that the celery was getting old, so I chopped up some of that for the sauce and chopped up some for the chickens. I saved the stem end plus a couple inches of stalk to sprout and become more celery someday*.

Rummaging around, I found some carrots that were ready to use now or to feed to the critters in a day or two more, so carrots got chopped up and added to the pot to saute. I like the sweetness that carrots give to a sauce. The ends and mushy parts I saved for the horses.

Time to add some tomatoes. I checked in the cupboard - uh oh. One measly can of chopped tomatoes and one of tomato sauce. I have learned to check the expiration date on any food stuff I find in my house, and unfortunately these cans were... quite old. Old enough to start kindergarten.

I grow tomatoes in the house all year long, but I don't use grow lights. Thus in the dead of winter the plants are not enthusiastic about producing fruit, so no help there.

So no red spaghetti sauce. Time to regroup.

Today's Soup

As you may have concluded, following recipes is not my thing.  I like to wing it when I've succumbed to the urge to cook.  So... if I wasn't going to be making red spaghetti sauce, it was time to explore my other options.

There was half a head of cabbage waiting for me to remember it - actually quite fresh. I chopped that up (saving the stem end for growing a new head of cabbage*) and added it to the pot to cook.

I had some organic chicken broth that I was going to use last Thanksgiving and didn't. Its expiration date hasn't even been reached, how lucky for me and for my dog Joe. Some of the broth went into the pot when I decided the veggies were cooked enough and some went over Joe's kibble.  He liked that.

I added some water and leftover coffee from the morning to cover the veggies (I like to add coffee because it adds a richness to sauces), plus some garlic and some salt, and let it all cook a while.

When it started smelling good I gave it a first taste. Hmmm.  I rummaged around in the cupboard and found a can of organic black beans and one of pumpkin. Dogs seem to like cooked pumpkin a lot, so Joe got a tablespoon of pumpkin before the pot did.

For a final touch, I added some dried oregano and basil - I grew those and dried them myself, I'll have you know!

The soup was smelling real good and the occasional taste confirmed it, though it hadn't cooked long enough to have fully blended by the time I went to bed.  I put the pot outside in the cold (it was in the 20s out there) rather than heat up my fridge, and put it back on the wood stove this a.m. to continue cooking.

If I was going to do this right, I'd put the soup in a blender and I'd add some sherry. I'm too lazy to do the blender and I don't have any sherry, which is too bad because I can tell that would really provide an extra depth and richness that the soup calls for.

I'm working - in my own way - on a loaf of sourdough for this evening.  By the time the bread is done the soup will be perfect.

But I still want the spaghetti, darn it.

---

*I did say that I don't garden well, but I'm always hopeful. 

How to Make Sauerkraut

By Lif (“experimentation in the kitchen is fun”) Strand

Sauerkraut, like all fermented and cultured food, is really good for you.  Fermenting improves the nutritional value of food.  It may sound yucky, but anything you eat that is  produced through the breakdown of carbohydrates and proteins by microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts and molds increases your overall nutrition, promotes the growth of friendly intestinal bacteria, aids digestion and supports your body’s immune function.  But beware!  Commercially prepared fermented and cultured foods have preservatives in them and are no longer “live” foods.  They’re just junk food in disguise.

Oh, and just let me add that fermented beverages - beer, wine, cider - are only sorta good for you, since the alcohol that's produced tends to kill off the friendly bacteria in your guts.  Just sayin'.

Equipment what I used (and/or what normal people use):

·         Large stainless steel bowl (any large bowl would do, I just like stainless steel)

·         Wooden spoon (you don’t really need a spoon, but I had one out on the counter just in case.  Plus I also like wooden kitchen utensils)

·         Stainless steel coffee cup to use for “bruising” the cabbage (you can use your hands or a cooking mallet)

·         Grater

·         Knife to chop pieces that are too floppy for the grater

·         Chopping block

·         Stainless steel fermenting container, holds at least a gallon (ceramic sauerkraut crock, glass container with wide mouth or large canning jars).

·         A dish or something that won’t absorb liquids or react to them (glass or stainless will do) that is just smaller than the diameter of your fermenting container. 

Ingredients:

·         Cabbage (4-5 lbs or so)

·         Salt (1 - 1 ½ tsp per lb to taste)

·         Some other spices if you want (juniper berries, caraway seeds, coriander for European style, or ginger, garlic, hot peppers for more Asian style)

Directions:

1.       Plant some cabbage a few months before you plan to make the sauerkraut.  It’s easier if you use a tight head cabbage, like most everyone is used to seeing in the grocery store.  Loose headed cabbage is fine, though - practically any veggie can be fermented. 

2.      Buy a couple heads of cabbage after you give up on growing your own.  They should add up to about 4-5 lbs.

3.      While your cabbage is still green and crispy (before it gets all yellow and soft because you either forgot about it or kept putting the project off), first clean them, then peel off the outer leaves and put them aside.  Shred the rest (except for the hard stem part) into sauerkraut sized pieces.  You can do this slowly and tediously with a knife, or you can use a hand grater or maybe even a food processer – whatever you use, make sure the pieces are thin.

4.      Every few cups worth that you’ve shredded and put into your bowl, sprinkle some salt over the cabbage and pound it with the stainless steel cup (or squeeze and mash with your hands).  When you’re done with all the shreds, they should be kind of beat up and soggy.  Taste the cabbage – you want to taste some salt flavor but you don’t want it real salty. If it’s too salty, add more shredded cabbage or rinse part of it with water, drain and mix back into the batch in the bowl.

5.      Add your spices and mix well.  I wanted caraway seed but I didn’t have any, so I put in powdered coriander, dill (because I like it) and a good amount of ground cumin (because I really, really like cumin and besides, cumin seeds look like caraway seeds, so that’s pretty close).  I also went outside and gathered about a teaspoon’s worth of ripe juniper berries.  I’m not fond of gin so I figured a few berries - maybe 15 - would go a long ways.

6.      Shovel all that cabbage out of the bowl and into the fermenting container – the crock or jars or whatever.  Note that if you didn’t have a large container, you can still do this with a few smaller containers if they’re at least a quart each.  You want at least 3 inches between the packed cabbage and the top of the jar.  Pack it in tightly – the nice thing about glass is that you can see air bubbles, but oh well, I was using stainless steel, so it was a matter of smushing it with my stainless steel cup.  The cabbage shreds are supposed to be submerged in their own liquid.  Oops.  Mine was all moist and soggy but as much as I packed the cabbage with the cup the vegetable matter wasn’t going to be submerged in liquid.  Add a little water if you have to – just enough so that the shreds are fully submerged, because any veggie stuff that’s exposed to air will rot (ewwww!)

7.      Arrange the leaves you set aside earlier over the top of all the shredded cabbage, making sure the shreds are totally covered.

8.      Now you need a weight to make sure the shreds stay below the liquid and away from the air.  Place your weight on top of the leaves – it could be a plate or bowl or even be a resealable plastic bag with rocks inside.  A plate is good because as long as the water is above it, you know your cabbage isn’t exposed to the air.  You don’t want a whole bunch of water, mind you, but you want that cabbage covered.  A little mold might form in your crock, but if it’s just surface stuff just scrape it away and remove anything that’s discolored compared to the rest.  Let your nose tell you:  Sauerkraut doesn’t smell great but it shouldn’t smell rotten.

9.      Over the first 24 hours keep your cabbage at room temperature.  Check it 3 to 4 times and press it down to make sure that the water level rises to just above the cabbage.  Any time that there isn't enough water to completely cover the cabbage, mix a brine in the proportions of 1 teaspoon of sea salt with 1 cup of water and add brine to just above the level of the cabbage.

10.  For the first few days, store at room temperature, then move your crock to a cooler location, such as a basement.  You can cover it if you want, but remember, this is fermentation and pressure can build up so if you’ve got a good seal, burp it every day or two, especially in the beginning when it’ll be bubbling – hey, that’s what happens in beer, too.

11.  The rest is up to the sauerkraut gods.  The cabbage ferments all by itself – the microbes that do it are on the leaves (and on those juniper berries I added).  Let it do its thing for a week and then give it a taste.  Check every week until it’s sour as you like.  That could be a soon as a week, but if it’s cooler or if there weren’t so many microbes on the leaves it will take longer.  Just remember, fermented foods are the most potent source of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) there is.  The longer sauerkraut ferments the more probiotic support it offers your digestive system, and isn’t that why you are doing this in the first place?  No?  You just wanted to make Reuben sandwiches? 

12.  Store it in the fridge in its own container or in tightly sealed jars at that point to stop the fermentation – it’ll keep for months, because it is alive!

Disclaimer:  I’m an irreverent cook and  stuff I make rarely comes out the same two times in a row.  Follow these directions at your own risk!