The Food Thread

wolram

Eky thump, i better start learning about clam chowder, i have never had any,
shell fish are difficult to get round here, fresh muscles are not, i had to ditch over half of the last batch i bought, England is pathetic for fresh sea food

wolram

Do most people use milk or tomatoes in clam chowder? i think i would prefer tomatoes, as i have never been fond of mixing dairy products with meat or fish, except for stilton cheese on steak.

Moonbear

Gaaaaahhhh...tomatoes aren't allowed anywhere near good clam chowder! That's the southerner's version (Manhattan is south of Maine). Might as well toss some clam juice in a Bloody Mary.

New England clam chowder is made with cream and butter and so thick you can stand a spoon up in it.

Turbo, what's the current "local" view of someone moving to Maine if their grandfather was from there? Are they too far removed and still "from away" or is that close enough to return and be accepted as a native Mainiac?

wolram

What is this American? fad for butter in cooking, butter is ok in cakes but with meat and fish dishes

turbo

You're still "from away." There's a joke in a book of Maine humor by Jim Brunell titled "Over to home and from away" in which a transplanted couple has a baby that is born in Maine. She takes him to the local general store, showing him off and saying "he was born in Maine, and he's a real Mainer". An old fellow playing checkers near the wood stove says "just 'cuz the cat had her kittens in the oven, that don't make 'em biscuits."

turbo

Woolie, just boil some chopped potatoes and onions, drain (save that water to use as a future soup-starter), and add cooked clams, salt and pepper, cream (and maybe some milk) and butter, and reheat until simmering. You can play with this basic recipe (everyone has a favorite variation or family "secret"), and come up with some great stuff. Some people use this as the basis for a more general "seafood chowder" with crab, lobster, haddock, cod, scallops, as well as the clams. There is a little restaurant in Bucksport called McLeod's that has seafood chowder to die for. The Snow Squall restaurant in South Portland had pretty good chowder about 15 years ago - I haven't been there for a while. This morning for breakfast, I polished off the last of the left-over oyster stew (made by the same method as the traditional clam chowder, with celery added to the potato and onion) - Killer!

Evo

Christmas Cookies.

I'm planning on making an assortment of homemade christmas cookies.

So far I'm planning on oatmeal chocolate chip, cherry winks, russian tea cakes, gingerbread cookies with lemon icing, reeses peanut butter cup cookies. Maybe some rum balls.
Fudge!!

Ooooh, ranch oyster crackers would be good too.

Any other suggestions?

turbo

I don't have the recipe, but when I was a kid my mother used to make some really tasty cookies for the holidays. I think her basic recipe was a lemon-flavored sugar-cookie and after she had cut them out and laid them out on the cookie sheet, she would use the back of a measuring spoon to make a depression in the center of each and spoon a dollop of home-made crabapple jelly into each depression. Baking them kind of glazed the jelly, so they weren't sticky/gooey. I liked them best when they were still a bit warm from the oven, but they tasted great cold, too, especially with a glass of milk. If you like to experiment in the kitchen, you might try to make something like this.

Evo

Yeah, thumbprint cookies. I have a good recipe for those.

turbo

I am stuffed from our Thanksgiving dinner. Smoked (fresh, locally raised) turkey (smoked breast-down with strips of bacon covering her back), squash, mashed potato, coleslaw made with with bread-and-butter pickles, New England baked beans, flaky biscuits, home-made cranberry sauce, and more. Killer meal!

Evo

Mmmmmm, sounds yummy!!

turbo

Time for an easy do-it-yourself recipe. My wife made this a couple of days ago, and I finished the left-overs this morning. MMMMM!

Next time you're at the market, buy some soft flour tortillas the diameter of your round casserole dish or cake pan.

Saute some chopped onions, bell peppers and jalapenos with a little salt and pepper in a cast iron frying pan with butter or olive oil. When they've started to carmelize, stir in some hamburg and brown that, as well. Then stir in a can or two of black beans (drained). Lightly oil your casserole or cake pan and put in a tortilla. Cover with a layer of the browned hamburg/bean mix, put in another tortilla and repeat until your pan is full. Top it off with a layer of shredded Monterey Jack and bake in a preheated oven at 350 deg or so until the cheese starts to brown. Presto - a great black bean casserole. The more adventurous of you might want to experiment with adding some more spice to the mix, or if you have folks to feed that don't like things real hot, you can serve this with salsa on the side. I like our green tomato salsa with mine - just for the flavor of the salsa - the casserole was already spicy enough on its own.

radou

Turbo, this recipes are worth gold, don't give them away just like that. I'd think about charging for them.

Joke aside, this sounds really good.

Moonbear

I agree, that sounds really yummy...and easy! I think the next time I have to bring something to a potluck luncheon, I might try that.

turbo

I'll PM you with my mailing address. Once you try this one, you'll gladly send me $10. And it is REALLY good and it's falling-off-a-log easy to make, as Moonbear said. I'm glad my wife likes spicy foods - no matter which one of us is doing the cooking we're pretty liberal with the jalapenos and habaneros.

Edit: For those of you that are not watching your waistlines, you can put some shredded cheese on top of the beans and h'burg at every layer.

scorpa

Sweet something even I can make!!! That sounds very good, i don't think ive ever had black beans before but im sure they are good.

Astronuc

Sounds like a multilayer quesadilla - one could use chopped or shredded chicken in place of hamburger.