HAPPY NEW YEAR, FRIENDS!

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 29,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 11 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

And yes, it probably is easier to just buy a packet of the stuff from the grocery store, but what’s the fun in  THAT? I use a LOT of taco seasoning – not only to add flavor to the ground beef we stuff into taco shells or flour tortillas, but also for tortilla soup, taco soup, enchilada casseroles, black beans – you name it. You already know I like to buy my spices in bulk from Penzey’s, and this recipe is just the excuse I need to buy their fresh, high-quality chili powder, paprika, cumin, etc. in bags.  And, while I’m lucky to live close to a retail store, you can mail order from their catalog, too.  See what my freezer door looks like because of how close I live to Penzey’s?

Anyway. This recipe makes about a cup and a half of seasoning. Which seems like a lot, but really it isn’t. To season a pound of ground beef, you add two heaping tablespoons to the browned, drained beef, plus 1/2 – 3/4 cup of water. Or you can add more or less of each, depending on your taste. That’s the beauty of making your own – you can adjust it to suit the needs of the people for whom you cook. Or yourself. Or both.

I’ve adapted this from other recipes I’ve seen floating around, so I feel safe in calling this

MEG’S TACO SEASONING MIX

Make this right in an airtight container that holds at least 16 ounces. Use a Mason jar or something plastic. Or, a zip-top plastic freezer bag.  All measurements are suggestions; adjust to your taste.

6 Tablespoons chili powder

5 Tablespoons paprika

4.5 Tablespoons cumin

2.5 Tablespoons onion powder

2.5 Tablespoons garlic powder

2 Tablespoons corn starch

1 Tablespoon oregano

1/2 Tablespoon salt

1/4 teaspoon (are you paying attention? Not Tablespoon - Teaspoon!) cayenne pepper

Combine all and store in an airtight container.

…Alternatively, layer spices into a 2 pint Ball jar and go “ooooh, cool, pretty, spices, in layers, now where is my camera…”

Use 2 heaping Tablespoons of mix + 1/2 – 3/4 cup water to turn browned ground beef into taco filling.

Yummy!

(I don’t have photos now – but next time I make this I’ll add them.)

First, you need dough. The easiest thing is to buy a fresh one at your grocery store. 99 cents at Trader Joe’s! Second easiest is to keep those frozen bread doughs in your freezer – but then you have to remember to get it out and thaw it, like, weeks  days many hours in advance, and honestly, who has time for that? When I want stromboli I WANT IT NOW.

Your third option is to make your own. The lowest-impact method would be to remember 2.5 hours before dinnertime to throw the ingredients into your bread machine and run the dough cycle. Again, I’m no master of forethought, so…

I usually end up making my own. I base mine on the BH&G New Cookbook’s (and yes, that book was a bridal shower gift too) pizza recipe.  You know the one – with the red plaid cover. Anyway, here’s how I do it:

In a bowl, put 1.25 cups AP flour, 1 package active dry yeast (about 2.5 tsp from a jar) and 1/4 tsp salt. Add 1 cup warm water and 2 Tbsp cooking oil. With electric mixer, beat 30 seconds on low, then scrape bowl, then 3 minutes on high speed. Or two – I never time myself. Till you’re bored. Then, with a wooden spoon, stir in as much of 1.5 – 2 cups more flour, then turn the whole blob out onto a floured work surface and knead in the rest. 6-8 minutes of kneading, till the dough is moderately stiff and smooth and elastic. It won’t be sticky. Cover and let it rest, at least 10 minutes, as much as 30 or so – till it starts to rise. It doesn’t have to double. But if you forget about it and it does, that’s OK, just punch it down and proceed.

Now, on your floured work surface, roll that dough out into a pizza pan-sized circle. Next: Fillings! On the half closest to you, leaving room around the edge, layer sandwich-sliced pepperoni, hard or genoa salami (or both!), and lunchmeat ham, alternating with slices of provolone and mozzarella cheese.  Don’t be shy with the cheese; you’ll regret it.  Sprinkle the toppings generously with dried oregano. Fold the other half of the dough over top the fillings, moisten the inside edge of the dough, then crimp with a fork to seal.

Transfer the whole thing to a baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal (or flour). With a sharp knife, make a couple of slices on the top of the dough so it doesn’t explode. Because that would be bad.

Bake this in a preheated 375 degree oven for, um, I dunno, 15 minutes? I never time myself. The dough will be golden brown and either there will be cheese oozing out the top or you’ll be able to hear the filling sizzling inside.

Remove from oven, let sit for a few mins before slicing. Serve with your favorite marinara, warmed, for dipping. My favorite brand is Don Pepino in the yellow can. It’s yummy!

Enjoy!

Mom replied: 

Last summer I made (for different meals) fried tomatoes, and then warm cabbage slaw.  I really thought of Grandma Losch [her own mother] then.  Hmm,  will/does anything food-wise make you think of me? I think of you often when I make applesauce.

Well, yes, of course there are food memories that I tie directly to my mom in particular, and to my growing up in general! Rather than email them to her directly, I thought they deserved a blog post of their own. Here they are, in no particular order, addressed directly to my mom:

• I remember when you would bake pies, you would give me the scraps of dough to roll out, then we would prick them with a fork, place them into a small tin pie plate and bake them. I loved eating those homemade “crackers.”
• Of course, I remember you making sand tarts at Christmas! That’s why I attributed this recipe to you. You can’t imagine how tickled I was to learn that my future mother-in-law made the exact same cookies. That was another indicator that I was marrying the right man.
• I remember when you tried to convince me that tossed salad tasted so much better when I cut up the ingredients. I am sure that was your way of getting out of making a boring old salad, but it was my early introduction to the kitchen and, even though I suspected I was being conned, I enjoyed slicing carrots and placing them atop iceberg lettuce. (Back in the days before arugula and field greens and balsamic vinaigrette.)
• I remember how most of our family meals – and we mostly ate dinner as a family – included a meat, a potato, and a vegetable, with a fruit for dessert. I also recall you saying that was what dad preferred, and how he really didn’t like “one-dish meals.”
• I also remember that on the infrequent occasions he was out of town and it was just “us girls” for dinner, you would always fix something “one-dish” like hamburger pie, chicken pot pie, spaghetti with meat sauce, or lasagna. Or pizza!
• During dinner prep, being asked to go down to the basement and get a vegetable and/or a fruit out of one of the freezers, or off of the canning shelf, to prepare for dinner.
• Wrapping meat in freezer paper, so that the side of beef we’d just purchased would last for months and months.
• I also have memories of food that I would not eat. Liver & onions comes to mind. Or pickled tongue.  (GAH.) Scrapple, puddin’, and all those butchering by-products. I was not a fan of the gamey birds that sometimes showed up.  Venison was a push – OK in baloney and ground, but not as a steak. Giblets in gravy, yuk! And – sorry to say this – I was not a huge fan of that canned “Swiss steak” you made lots of in an attempt to salvage some particularly tough beef.
• And let’s agree not to talk about the liver pate, OK?
• I remember that you insisted that “jelly was too hard to make!” which was really your cover story, told in a convincing enough fashion that your mother-in-law kept you supplied with black raspberry jelly year-round.
• Doing corn.
• Gardening! Looking back on it now, I was less impressed then than I would be now. Then, the garden was, to me, the thing that stood between me and a ride to the pool. You would make us brave heat and humidity and gnats and sweat bees and pull weeds in order to “earn” our ride. Of course, it was that garden that made me love yellow wax beans and limas.
• Pork & sauerkraut for good luck on New Year’s Day. I can’t not make this each year – it’s a must.
• Making milkshakes in the workhorse Waring blender on Saturdays for lunch. That blender is still going – I use it now to make smoothies for the kids.
• Turning Aunt Vivi’s grapes into juice.
• That year that you had all those apples and were elbow-deep in turning them into freezer-ready apple dumplings, such that you decided Richelle’s grandma would be entirely qualified to take me for my driving test. I came home, giddy at having passed the test the first time, and you immediately dispatched me to drive over to Uncle Bill’s store for some ingredient that you need. Was that a legitimate need, or just a chance to let me go do what you knew I was dying to do (drive!)?
• I can totally picture the kitchen at our farm house. Every cupboard, the stove, the sink, the wallpaper – all of it. And if I try really, really hard – I can smell it.

It’s one thing to reminisce about things you remember from long-gone grandparents. But this is cool because I get to share my memories while my mom’s around to read them! I hope my mom will weigh in with memories of her own that I may have forgotten to include.

Thanks for the memories, Mom!

Grandma Sara, with my sister (r) and me (l)

Grandma Sara died five years ago at the age of 89, and I ended up with her recipe box.  My initial thought was to collect her favorite recipes into a cookbook and distribute it to family members, but then I thought a blog would be better… because I can add posts as the spirit moves me, and it’s interactive.  I grew up not three miles from her farm, and as a result we gathered ’round her dining room table for many holidays and birthdays.

The best memories I have of things she made are her Amish-style sugar cookies and molasses cookies and chicken corn soup (link is to Grandma Losch’s recipe, with rivels – I don’t recall Grandma Sara’s having rivels), and how she always made my dad an angel food cake for his birthday because she knew how much he loved it.

Baby me with Grandma Losch, 1967

The more I considered the blog idea, the more I thought it should be a plural possessive Grandmas’.  Grandma Losch cooked more by feel than by actual recipe, and lordy, could she ever cook for a crowd.  Aside from the fact that she had to feed five kids, she also made a living as a cook for a fraternity house at Susquehanna University and had her own restaurant in Millerstown PA for a time.  She was her own worst critic in the kitchen – she’d serve up a slice of lemon meringue pie so good it would bring tears to your eyes with the disclaimer that “it got a little weepy” and maybe wasn’t her best effort.  If you looked up “comfort food” in the dictionary, her picture would illustrate the entry. Food was love to Mary Losch, and if you didn’t sit yourself down at her kitchen table and eat – no matter the time of day or your current state of hunger – it was practically an insult.

Some of her recipes are captured in cookbooks of recipes collected by the members of her church, and I’m pulling out some of the best ones here as time allows.   My favorite food memories connected to Grandma Losch include that she would make me a red velvet cake each year for my birthday, and made the best pig stomach and chicken pot pie. She also made some delicious pork & sauerkraut on New Year’s Day, as is the tradition in Central PA.

I wrote about them yesterday on my other blog, Soup Is Not A Finger Food, but this tribute more fittingly belongs right here, where their recipes live.