ruthcooks

OK, I ordered some too--part for me and part for a Christmas gift for my SIL, who eats Clementines by the case.

When I was growing up in the 40s and 50s, we had oyster stew for Christmas Eve supper and went to the Methodist Church for the children's program. Back at home, my brothers and I were allowed to open one present before bedtime. Our Christmas stockings were not special ones, but rather my dad's work socks, with an orange in the toe, nuts and that old fashioned coconut candy which I've seen called "chop suey". There was one gift each from Santa Claus (no gifts from parents), the inevitable dollar from my paternal grandfather, books from my maternal grandmother and great aunt Ethel, a homemade apron from great aunt Bertha. Sometimes there would be a gift for all like a record player. Christmas morning we would open the rest of the gifts, the grandparents would come and we would have a turkey dinner which almost exactly repeated our Thanksgiving dinner. Friends of my parents would usually show up Christmas night for turkey sandwiches on hamburger buns. Absolutely none of this--with the sole exception of opening one gift on Christmas Eve--got passed on. Looking back, it doesn't seem so much like tradition as a dull sameness. I'm sometimes sorry that I didn't institute some new traditions for my family, but I do have a tradition with my grandchildren. Each year I give each child one special Christmas tree ornament so they will have a start when each leaves home.

Here's what I do to foil the "double dippers": I cut finger foods into one bite pieces, never serve finger foods without plates, and always put a spoon in everything that can possibly be dipped into. Even if it's someone else's food, I'll sneak in a spoon here and there. And I've never observed anyone double dipping if they can take as much dip as they like and put it on their plates.

The recipe for Praline Cheesecake is now in RecipeGullet. Find it HERE

Look here for Three reasons your cheesecake may crack Rolling out cookie dough: My favorite tip of all time is to roll out cookie dough using powdered sugar instead of flour. The re-rolls will get more crisp but not tough. When my kids were little, I used to make a big batch of dough for them to roll out, cut and decorate to their heart's content at Christmas time. They loved eating their own cookies, and I could seek perfection in my special recipes.

There are at least three reasons why cheesecakes crack: 1) overbeating after adding the eggs 2) NOT running a knife around the edge when the cheesecake is done (to release the tension) 3) cooling too fast I prefer plain or fruit cheesecakes, but I do have a Praline Cheesecake with brown sugar and pecans which is quite good. Would you like this recipe?

Praline Cheesecake Serves 10 as Dessert. This recipe is from my cookbook, “Nobody Cooks Like Ruth: Menus from Cherotree,” and is my son Chris’s favorite cheesecake. The funny thing is, I don’t remember ever using the topping although Chris swears I gave it to him with the recipe. The topping makes it much richer so you’ll have at least 12 servings. Crust: 1 c graham cracker crumbs (about 12 squares) 3 T sugar 2 T unsalted butter Filling: 3 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened 1-1/2 c packed light brown sugar 2 T flour 3 extra large eggs or 4 large 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/2 c chopped toasted pecans Topping: 3/4 c light brown sugar 1/4 c unsalted butter 1/4 c heavy cream 1 c toasted broken pecans For crust: combine crumbs, sugar and butter and press onto bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees. For filling: Combine softened cream cheese, brown sugar and flour until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is incorporated but do not over mix. Blend in vanilla and nuts. Pour over crust and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Turn off oven, remove cheesecake and loosen cake from rim with a sharp knife. Return to turned off oven and let cool with oven door ajar until cheesecake is totally cooled. Combine brown sugar and butter in a medium saucepan and cook until bubbly. Stir in cream and pecans and let come to a boil. Pour over cheesecake. You may add topping before or after cheesecake is cooled. Keywords: Dessert ( RG1513 )

My German grandmother made potato pancakes. My recipe seems to have disappeared, but was probably pretty standard, grated potatoes, onion, egg. These were distinctively non-Jewish, fried in lard or bacon fat and served with pork chops or bacon and homemade applesauce.

I don't suppose that you might wish to offer these particular recipes for those of us who indulge only on the holidays, Ruth?? We are already into December ... no rush, mind you ... ← I don't remember any particular recipe, just that I've seen some pretty high calorie counts. That is, on the rare occasions I bother to read them.

"Full of sugar" to describe a recipe containing 4 TABLESPOONS of sugar? What about pecan pie with the equivalent of two CUPS of sugar? I've seen dessert recipes with over 1000 calories per serving. The person who wrote this article doesn't know from calories and richness. Oh yeah...if it's a holiday food and you don't eat it on the holiday, when ARE you going to eat it?

I am truly astounded by the variety of produce and the scope of your business, How many acres do you have? Your husband's pictures are truly beautiful, even though I've only made it through "F" so far. Do you make recommendations to restaurants, or do they just ask for what they want? How many CSA boxes do you do each week, and how do you decide what goes in them? Lots of details, please. And thanks for blogging.

Thanks for the suggestions. Making an entire cake from each is a bigger project than I care to take on right now. Perhaps one layer of each would be manageable. I wouldn't have thought of hot chocolate, but that is doable. Seems to me I've heard people say they prefer one chocolate for ganache, another for baking, another for glaze, etc. Anyone have an opinion on this? Is it possible to find one best chocolate for everything?

I too have a pink purse and a pink wallet. I'm not a bit daring, but pink is both my best color to wear and my favorite color. Karen, the customers decide if your restaurant is a tea room by looking at your menu. There were still quite a few in Nashville when I left four years ago, although none had the words "Tea Room" included in their names. More men are now patronizing these restaurants since soup and salad lunches became popular.

I've ordered premium baking chocolates, but never used any for baking because I always eat them first! Finally I have gathered together Scharffen Berger, Valrhona and KA's Merckens. Locally, I have Ghirardelli and Bakers. I have at least 7 ounces of each. Of course, I know I can just taste them, but what else can I do? I've thought of making a very small amount of ganache with each one, but I should really bake something, too. Brownies? Any one have any good ideas? And after I make all this ganache, anyone have an idea of what to do with it? Frost yellow cupcakes and taste again? Ideas, please. What could I bake that would give me the best idea of what each chocolate can do?

In the South, the ladies lunch on chicken salad and spiced tea in tearooms. A tearoom is defined by the absence of a grill and deep fryer in the kitchen. There are also lunches at "the club" (country clubs) and other private or public clubs such as those at colleges and museums. These ladies are likely to be older and more well off than the average.

It's not a Southern Food topic, but I started a thread here: Unusual Holiday Desserts Somehow it got lost in the shuffle...or is everybody eating pumpkin pie? Would love to see some new contributions to the thread.

I know what carob tastes like: chocolate with the chocolate left out. Think this: make vanilla pudding, put a teaspoon of cocoa in it and call it chocolate pudding. It's not bad, but it sure ain't chocolate. I've never had flops with my own food at a potluck. The worst thing I ever tasted was at a November gathering where one woman was on a macrobiotic diet. She brought a stupid looking fake turkey made out of some vile grain preparation. Everyone was raving, but when I took a taste I nearly had to spit it out: it smelled like the stuff farmers feed the hogs, and, for all I know, tasted like it too. When I was a kid, my parents belonged to a pot luck dinner card club. There was one woman named Frances who was known for being cheap, and she also hated cooking. Every month she would bring the teeny-tiniest serving dish. Sometimes it was filled with something inedible she made, but most often it held cottage cheese. Oh, goody. We came to call our smallest vegetable dish at home "the Frances dish". My dad was very picky about pot luck food, especially at church pot lucks. He wouldn't eat anything unless he knew who made it, and sometimes he wouldn't eat it BECAUSE he knew who made it. Usually his discrimination had more to do with the personality of the cook than the taste of the food. Neither he or my mother would eat something they called "those poor, pale pies". Nevertheless, everything was made from scratch those days. I didn't ask who made it and tasted it all. Not only do I have no bad food memories from those pot lucks, I have a couple of wonderful recipes from the card club that I had my mother track down for me years later.

Glad to see you blogging again, Abra. Walla Walla is neat neat. Some random thoughts... What is this trend of bloggers doing other people's recipes? It seems to me that you can tell a lot about a person's culinary preferences/philosophy when the person cooks from her own tried and true recipes, the ones she is passionate about. So French or Belgian or Dutch or whatever, let's see some of Abra's food, too. Is that cup of Hollandaise for dipping the fries? I'd think it was for the egg. Never mind, I'd drink it...er, eat it on everything. Assuming it's real. You might get a laugh out of Diane Mott Davidson's books. There is a small scare here and there, but the food sounds good. Mostly it's amusing, how she spends 90% of her time sleuthing and then tosses off her catering in a couple of hours. Do show everyone the boat load of stuff you have to cart around when acting as a personal chef. It's a rude awakening. Have you decided on your T'day stuffing yet?

Rachel, I feel the same way about apple-cinnamon-spiced-cider-clove things as you do about rosewater. Guess who always gets the apple cinnamon candles? I have to leave the room, house, store, etc. when they are heating any of those spiced drinks. On the other hand I love rosewater, especially in my baklava syrup where most people use cinnamon, cloves or honey: I'm not fond of any of those. Still, I cannot imagine a recipe with 1 CUP of rosewater. That second recipe link in Megan's post is a horror: cornstarch-thickened, sweetened lowfat milk and rosewater. Surely the horrible, unidentifiable dessert was kin to that.

OK, here's your definitive answer. Suet is the solid white fat around the kidneys and loins of cattle and sheep. It is usually finely chopped for use in recipes. If you can get someone to show you a piece of suet and a piece of ordinary beef fat, you will readily see the difference in texture. Suet is harder, regular fat is slippery. When suet is rendered, it becomes useful for making candles and polishing leather, not for cooking purposes. In that case, the rendered fat is called tallow. Rendered regular beef fat is just called beef fat, as far as I know.

Thanks, Steven, I hadn't looked anywhere else, still hoping to find the one I had handwritten on a scrap of paper years ago. It was so long ago I don't even remember if I even tasted it or just dreamed about it. Sometimes I think I saw it in a bakery/restaurant, but then how did I get the recipe? As for theGoogle info, I'll search and see if anything looks yummy to me. Thanks again.

Years ago I found a recipe for Caramel Apple Bread. It got lost, and I'm still hoping to run across it. I feel like I'm calling, "Come Back, Little Sheba." Has anyone run across a recipe like this?

I'm posting this recipe for Abra here instead of in RecipeGullet because I have never made it. Perhaps if she tries it, she'll post the recipe in RG with her notes. Pumpkin Sage Bread Pudding 1 1lb. French baguette, cut into 1/2 to 3/4-inch dice 4 T. unsalted butter 1 large onion, diced, up to 2 cups 1 cup diced celery 1 T. minced garlic 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese (4 ounces) 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin 4 eggs plus 3 yolks 3 cups milk, plus more if needed 1 1/2 t. salt 1 T. freshly ground black pepper 1/2 cup chopped fresh sage leaves. Place bread cubes in large bowl. Saite onion, celery and garlic in butter over low heat until translucent. Add onion mixture to cubes, along with cheese. In another, medium sized bowl, whisk the pumpkin, eggs and yolks, 3 cups milk, salt, pepper and sage. Pour over bread mixture and toss to combine. Let mixture sit for up to 45 minutes to allow bread to soak up liquid. Add more milk if mixture seems dry. Pour into buttered or sprayed 9 x 13 inch pan and cover with sprayed foil. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours at 375 degrees or until pudding is set but still moist. Ruth's Notes: What are you going to do with that leftover 1/2 C. of pumpkin? I'd probably just toss in the entire can. I'd also use 5 or 6 whole eggs instead of messing with yolks. I might remove the foil toward the end and brown the top with a little more butter and cheese. The pudding would definitely stay more moist in a hot water bath, and I'd probably do this since dry bread puddings are the pits. Could this be made the day before? You'd probably have to add another cup of milk just before baking. For sure, you could cube bread, saute veggies and combine liquids the day before, then combine all with sage on the day of serving.

If they bake it on Monday, ship Tuesday/Wednesday, and you are not going to eat it until Thursday, you're eating a FOUR day old pie, best scenario. Personally, I wouldn't want to celebrate with a pie that's three days past its prime, much less pay over $50 for the priviledge. Fruit pies can be frozen uncooked and baked unthawed on Thanksgiving morning, or, if you don't have two ovens, on Wednesday night. If you don't bake, or don't want to, I'd look for something closer to home or with a better "shelf life".

Short ribs with either spaetzle or homemade egg noodles. Either can be made ahead, spaetzle cooked or noodles uncooked. For starch with veg, combine spaetzle with sauteed cherry tomatoes and snow or sugar snap peas; add shredded fresh spinach to the noodles just before draining.