A Skillet, a Spatula, and a Dream Read online

  A SKILLET, A SPATULA, AND A DREAM

  A writer's life . . . with recipes

  by Barbara Bretton

  Copyright 2011 Barbara Bretton

  Photographs and illustrations by Barbara Bretton

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  RETRO FAMILY FAVORITES

  CROCK POT: SPANISH CHICKEN

  CROCK POT: BEEF BURGUNDY

  DADDY'S FIESTA MEAT LOAF

  MOM'S PORK CHOPS AND POTATOES

  GRANDMA'S TURKEY STUFFING

  SMALL BITES

  WATERCRESS TEA SANDWICHES

  BRUSCHETTA

  CHICKEN SALAD TEA SANDWICHES

  MAKE AT HOME TAKE-OUT FAVORITES

  KUNG PAO CHICKEN

  SHREDDED BEEF IN SPICY SAUCE

  PEKING PARK SZECHUAN SHRIMP

  LAKE TUNG TING SHRIMP

  MULTICULTURAL KITCHEN

  CATHY THACKER'S FAJITAS

  SPANAKOPITA

  PASTA PUTTANESCA

  ALMOST PERFECT CHICKEN PAD THAI

  SALADS

  MILLIE'S FAMOUS COLE SLAW

  HOT AND SPICY PEPPER SALAD

  BANZAI SALAD WITH GINGER DRESSING

  GREEK SALAD A LA OLD NEIGHBORHOOD

  STAYING HOME TONIGHT BROCCOLI SALAD

  PARROT SALAD

  COLD SHRIMP WITH BASIL MAYONNAISE

  SOUPS

  SUPERWOMAN SYNDROME PASTA FAZOOL

  DEADLINE SOUP

  MUSHROOM BARLEY SOUP

  SNOWY DAY CREAM OF CELERY SOUP

  CAPE MAY CLAM CHOWDER

  KANSAS CITY STEAK SOUP, NEW JERSEY STYLE

  TEX AMISH CHICKEN CORN CHOWDER

  A.C. ZUPPA A LA WISEGUY

  VEGGIE FARE

  PORTOBELLO BURGERS

  TONI TENNILLE'S MUSKRAT CASSEROLE

  SWEET STUFF

  CHRISTMAS BROWNIES

  HOT FUDGE SAUCE

  BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

  WONDERFUL WHEATIES CAKE AKA VELVET CRUMB CAKE

  GREAT MOLASSES SPICE COOKIES (WITH ONE REALLY WEIRD INGREDIENT)

  MY MOTHER'S RICE PUDDING

  ROSE'S FAMOUS SOUR CREAM COFFEE CAKE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  INTRODUCTION

  If you don't count lunches or the year my husband was overseas or the times we picked up a bite at the diner or called out for pizza or the times I cooked for a multitude instead of just for two or the dozens of eggplant parmigiana dinners I made for us before we got married, then it's safe to say I've cooked somewhere in the vicinity of 25,128 meals in my forty-plus years of wedded bliss.

  Think about that for a minute. Twenty-five thousand times I stared blankly into the glare of the refrigerator's bulb and wondered what on earth I was going to do with an egg and a piece of broccoli that could reasonably be called a meal. Twenty-five thousand times I stepped up to the stove with nothing but a skillet, a spatula, and a dream.

  In fact, it's a lot like the way I feel when I sit down at the computer to start a new book. Trust me, an empty plate can inspire the same fear in a writer's soul as an empty page.

  I'm a work-at-home writer who loves to cook but I can do without the fuss that surrounds it. I don't want to clean the stove or scrub out the sink or slice those little Xs in the bottoms of a bucket of Brussels sprouts. I don't want to plunge my writer's hands into a writhing mass of ground beef when I'm making meatballs. And don't ask me to reach inside a dead turkey because I'll just have to draw a line in the stuffing. I love big bold flavors, one-pot meals, delicious salads, chill-chasing soups, and home-baked goodies but my favorite recipes are the ones that come with stories attached.

  I don’t trust those big antiseptic kitchens with the lighting straight out of E.R. and the counter tops that can pass for gurneys and the medicinal pantry shelves. How can anything delicious spring from such a sterile environment? Oh, I know they say that big country kitchens with lots of dark wood cabinets and stone hearths and copper molds nailed to the walls are passe but I don’t much care. These are the kitchens with stories to tell, the kinds of stories I want to hear.

  The perfect kitchen doesn't have to be enormous or state-of-the-art. It only has to be big enough to hold your family's heart and soul, a fact I've known since I was a little girl, cooking next to my mother in a small apartment kitchen that somehow managed to contain everything that was important to me.

  I learned to cook in my mother's kitchen. I learned to read and write and knit there too. If I close my eyes I can still see the overstuffed red chair in the corner near the window, squished between the table and the radiator, piled high with yarn and books and love.

  Years later I wrote my first three books at my own kitchen table. When it was time to make dinner, I would push my Royal portable typewriter aside and start cooking.

  And I was standing in that same kitchen in February 1982 when I received The Call that changed my life, the call from an editor who wanted to buy my book.

  I’m not a fancy cook. Not really. Sometimes I pull out all the stops and take down the china and the crystal and the silverware (on Thanksgiving, for instance) and put on a show. Mostly, though, I’m a creative and erratic cook whose best work is done in a huge pot or a giant salad bowl. My happiest meals are enjoyed curled up in the corner of the sofa with a big bowl of something spicy and delicious on my lap and my husband sprawled in the opposite corner with his own

  bowl of something great. One-pot cooking. One-bowl eating. Fabulous soups. Stews. Pastas. Steaming oatmeal with raisins or dried cranberries. Orzo with butter and Parmesan and crushed red pepper flakes. In the summer, Caesars and gazpacho and Greek salads piled high with feta and thinly sliced red onion.

  See what I mean?

  I'm Barbara Bretton and I'm glad you found me. Let's cook.

  BACK TO TOP

  RETRO FAVORITES

  Do you remember fondue parties? They were to the 1970s what Mexican food is to the new Millennium. If I had a nickel for every fondue party we held back in the old house, I'd--well, I'd definitely have a bigger balance in my checking account.

  We were the only couple with a house so everyone trekked to our place on the weekends for fondue. I mean, it was a Capital Letter Event. Roy and I supplied the big dining room table and the wine and beer and soda, the fondue pot, and at least a dozen sauces and dessert. Danielle and Carlos brought the chicken. Tanya and Jay brought the beef while Norma and Wayne schlepped two Bloomie's bags filled with veggies on the Long Island Railroad from Manhattan to North Babylon.

  Imagine a huge oval table set up in the dining room. (Okay, so maybe the dining room was part of the living room. No need to get picky.) The fondue pot had the place of honor in the center of the table, its electrical cord snaking over the edge and out of sight. It makes me queasy to think about it now but that pot was filled with bubbling hot oil that we used to basically deep fry the meats and veggies. And what, you ask, did we do with our fried goodies once they were done? Well, we did exactly what you'd think we would do: we dipped each piece into the richest, most luscious sauces you could imagine. Mustard/cognac. Horseradish. Gloppy concoctions made with sour cream and snipped fresh herbs. Honey and teriyaki and shaved ginger and garlic. We didn't know from fat content and cholesterol back then and we didn't much care. We knew what we liked and what tasted good, but mostly we knew we were having fun.

  The smell of hot Wesson oil hung like fog by the time the evening was over and we slept with the windows open even in the coldest of January nights but I am so glad we had those silly fondue dinners back in the day. Times change and people change along with them and sooner or later, all you have left are the wonderful memories. If I close my eyes, I can still see th
e pecan wood of the dining room chairs, the five-shades-of-gold needlepoint cushions I made for them, the cream and deep gold wallpaper, the stereo piled high with music to scarf fondue by.

  But it wasn't all fondue. Sometimes we broke out our Crock Pots...

  CROCK POT SPANISH CHICKEN

  Ingredients

  Slow cooker

  Maybe two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts (that amount works well in our medium-sized slow cooker)

  3 six-ounce cans of tomato paste

  1 can or bottle of beer

  A jar of green olives and their brine (how many olives depends on how much you like them; you do want about one cup of brine) (don't hesitate to bump up the volume with water if that's what your taste buds tell you to do)

  Salt and pepper

  Cayenne pepper

  Garlic powder

  Method

  Add tomato paste, beer, olives, and brine to the slow cooker and mix to combine thoroughly. Rinse and pat dry your chicken breasts then sprinkle salt, pepper, cayenne (to taste), and garlic powder on each one, both sides Place the chicken breasts in the slow cooker with the tomato paste mixture. Cook on low for six to eight hours depending on your slow cooker and the size of your chicken breasts. Serve over fideos or angel hair pasta.

  BACK TO TOP

  ***

  CROCK POT BEEF BURGUNDY

  Cooking with red wine. It didn't get more sophisticated than that back in the early 1970s. I conjured up my inner Julia and turned away from Boone's Farm apple and the ubiquitous sangria and reached for the burgundy. Actually I had to reach for the burgundy because that was the difference between plain old beef stew and four-star Boeuf Bourguignon. You see, my husband doesn't do stew. He had a frightening encounter with beef stew as a kid and never quite recovered. But Beef Burgundy--well, that's another story.

  Ingredients

  6 slices bacon (no, this isn't a health food recipe)

  3 lbs. chuck, cut into two-inch chunks (I prefer a lean round roast; the slow-cooking will tenderize it beautifully)

  1 sliced carrot

  1 sliced onion

  3 tablespoons flour

  1 pound mushrooms, sliced

  Burgundy

  1 can beef broth (or homemade beef stock if you're lucky enough to have some lying around)

  1 can tomato paste

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  1 bay leaf

  1 teaspoon crushed thyme

  1/2 pound small white onions

  Method

  Cook bacon. Drain on paper towels and set aside. Add beef cubes and brown well. Do not burn. Put beef cubes in slow cooker. Brown sliced carrots and onions, season with salt and pepper. Stir in the flour. Cook for two or three minutes--again don't let it burn--to get the raw taste out of the flour. Add broth, tomato paste, garlic, bay leaf, bacon, and thyme then add mixture to slow cooker. Peel the white onions and add them to the slow cooker.

  Cook on low for 8-10 hours. (High 4-5 hours.) Saute the mushrooms in 2 tablespoons butter then add them to the slow cooker with a healthy glug of the best Burgundy you can afford. Remember: if you can't drink it, don't cook with it.

  Simmer in slow cooker for another 30-60 minutes. Serve with noodles or potatoes or whatever you like.

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  ***

  DADDY'S FIESTA MEAT LOAF

  Before my parents retired and moved here from New York City, I had never seen my father cook anything more than fried eggs and toast. What a shock it was to see him in the kitchen that first week, whipping up a meat loaf! Who knew that a budding Emeril Lagasse lurked behind his New York Mets sweatshirt?

  This was the first thing he cooked and it was an unqualified success. The sauce is so good that I've used it on everything from chicken to fish to baked potatoes, all with spectacular results.

  Bon appetit!

  Ingredients

  1/2 cup chopped onion

  1/2 cup chopped celery

  1/4 cup chopped green pepper

  2 tablespoons butter

  1 bottle Heinz Chili Sauce (12 oz)

  1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

  1 cup soft bread crumbs

  1 egg, lightly beaten

  Salt and pepper, to taste

  Saute onion, celery, and green pepper in butter until tender. Stir in chili sauce.

  Method

  Combine 1/2 cup of this mixture with the ground beef, bread crumbs, egg, salt and pepper. Form into a loaf in shallow baking pan.

  Bake in 350 degree oven for one hour. Let stand five minutes before slicing. Serve remaining sauce over meat loaf.

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  ***

  MOM'S PORK CHOPS AND POTATOES

  Ingredients

  4 pork chops

  1 can Cream of Mushroom soup

  1/2 cup sour cream

  1/4 cup water

  2 tablespoons chopped parsley

  4 cups thinly sliced potatoes

  Salt

  Pepper

  Method

  Brown chops in skillet. Blend soup, sour cream, water, and parsley. In 2 quart casserole, alternate layers of potatoes, sprinkled with salt and pepper, and sauce. Top with chops. Cover. Bake at 375 for 1 hour. Makes four servings.

  That's the basic bones recipe that my mother used as a jumping off point. She always added Tabasco, Worcestershire, a touch of dry mustard, and other goodies to this. Experiment!

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  ***

  Grandma El's Turkey Stuffing

  My Grandma El (who died in 1989) has an alarming habit of reappearing in my life at Thanksgiving. Two years ago she appeared in the form of an audiotape made twenty years earlier. A tape that opened up avenues in my life and heart that I still haven’t fully explored.

  Anyway, I was on my hands and knees in the dining room, searching through the buffet for the china and glasses I needed to wash and dry for tomorrow and there she was. A tiny slip of weathered paper tucked behind the iced tea glasses S gave me for my birthday. They’re very silly glasses, tall and skinny with parrots painted on the side. Bright red and green and yellow birds with big smiles on their beaks. It would have been easy to overlook Grandma but she fluttered out from behind those glasses.

  Actually it was her stuffing recipe that did the fluttering. The simplest stuffing imaginable. (I can excuse the margarine. She believed in the holy trinity of margarine, lecithin, and dolomite.) Written in her own hand. The curves and angles of her letters are so familiar to me, so strangely dear now that she’s gone and I can think of her without heat. She’s long gone and so are her clothes and her books and the smell of her Tigress perfume but here she is before me, as real and immediate as she ever was in life.

  All the photographs in the world couldn’t bring her back to me the way this simple little recipe did. Her recipe is my stuffing recipe. Sure I’ve changed it over the years (recipes are starting points, not destinations) but the essence, the Grandma El-ness of it, remains.

  Ingredients

  2 finely chopped onions

  1/2 cup margarine (please use butter!)

  1 large loaf of stale white bread

  1/2 cup hot water

  1 cup finely chopped celery

  2 teaspoons salt

  1/2 teaspoon pepper

  1 1/2 tablespoons Bell's Seasoning (definitely the secret ingredient)

  1 egg, well-beaten in a separate bowl

  Method

  Cook onions and celery in melted butter until soft but not browned. Add the remaining ingredients including the beaten egg. If not moist enough, add more water or melted butter. If too moist, add more bread crumbs. Make sure you use a fresh box of Bell's Seasoning. It's the secret to any stuffing you make.