Oyster Stew

This recipe for oyster stew is very basic but very rich and tasty.  Of course I didn't use fresh oysters (forgive me, Frugal Gourmet!).  I'm sure canned oysters do not do this stew justice, but it was the best I could do.

Saute onion in butter, then add half-and-half (milk if you are afraid of arteries clogging), salt and pepper.  Simmer and then add oysters with their juice, heat just until hot (Frugal Gourmet cautions against overcooking the oysters).  Garnish with parsley and dinner is served.  Eat some salad to off-set the fat and cholesterol.

Bacon on Toast with Cream Sauce

So if you remember I had leftover bacon after I made the Yankee Pot Roast.  What to do?  Thankfully The Frugal Gourmet had the answer.  Now I didn't have any bread on hand, so what does a cook do in that situation?  Make baking powder biscuits of course!  I actually think this tasted even better because of the biscuits, but I will definitely try it with toast sometime.

Basically you make a cream sauce to pour on top of the bread and bacon.  The recipe for this is found with the Creamed Chipped Beef on Toast recipe in the cookbook.  All it contains is butter, onion, flour, milk, paprika and black pepper (Tabasco optional--I left it out this time).  Frugal Gourmet also adds sherry at the very end, but I don't ever have that on hand.

I learned something from this--leftover bacon is NEVER a bad thing.

Yankee Pot Roast

What is more comforting than Pot Roast and Vegetables?  This meal reminds me of quiet Sundays with my family.  Usually I make roast in the oven, but this recipe was made on the stove top.   This was supposed to be made in a Dutch oven, but since I don't own one, I just used a big soup pot.  To begin, I substituted bacon for side pork, since I had already bought a package of bacon for the previous bacon corn bread recipe.  Fry about 5 pieces of bacon (side pork) in the pot, then remove, leaving the fat in the pot.  Sear both sides of roast in the fat, season with salt and pepper, then add water, fresh parsley and thyme (I used dry thyme), sliced garlic, and a bay leaf (which I forgot to buy).  Simmer slowly, then add carrots, chopped yellow onion, and a turnip (which I could not find at the grocery store).  After 30 minutes add the potatoes and cook until tender.  Make sure there is a cup of water in the pot at all times; add more if necessary.  You can use the leftover juices to make gravy, but I opted to skip this step to keep things more healthy.

So remember the bacon was fried but removed from the pot?  I had 5 pieces of bacon which had no other purpose than providing fat in which to sear the roast.  Yummy fried bacon, just sitting there on a plate, staring at me.  Just sitting there.  Bacon.  On a plate.  Okay okay!  I ended up eating 2 pieces.  I hadn't had bacon for a long time, okay? 

Stay tuned for my next post, and you will find out what I did with the other 3 pieces.

Boston Black-Bean Soup and Bacon Corn Bread

Black Bean Soup?  Sounds healthy--until you add the butter, flour and cream...

After soaking the beans overnight, boil them for a couple hours.  Then drain most of the water, saving it to add back to the soup.  Puree the beans with a little of the water, add back to pan with the saved water.  Simmer this while making a roux with butter, flour, chopped yellow onion, dry mustard, black pepper and cream.  When this is thick add to pureed beans.  Simmer without scorching.  Serve in a shallow bowl with a slice of lemon (which I didn't have), a slice of boiled egg, and a whole clove.  This soup was very rich and creamy.  It could be made with skim milk instead of cream for a more healthy soup.

The Frugal Gourmet said this soup has been popular in Boston for generations and is a good way to make it through a New England winter (or even a Midwest winter, I would guess).

Now what goes with bean soup?  I thought bacon corn bread sounded delicious.  You use the same basic corn bread recipe I wrote about a couple weeks ago, but with a small change.  Fry up about 5 pieces of bacon, saving the bacon fat.  Then instead of using oil, add the bacon fat along with the bacon to the batter.  Yum yum!!!  I cannot begin to explain how good this smelled when I took it out of the oven.  It tasted even better.  Doesn't need any butter on top, but I intend to try a bit of maple syrup on a square from the leftovers.  What could be better than a bacon, corn bread, and maple syrup combination?

Chicken Brunswick Stew and Corn Bread

The store I was shopping at for my ingredients didn't have regular cup-up chicken pieces:  only boneless, skinless chicken and whole chicken.  This stew requires simmering with bone-in chicken with skin still attached, so I bought the whole chicken.  After all, I had cut up a whole chicken before.  No big deal.  No big deal...except I forgot that I was really, really bad at it.

Even though the chicken was already dead, I felt really sorry for it by the time I was done.  Poor little chicken.  I was supposed to fry the chicken in bacon drippings, but I opted for olive oil instead.  After the chicken was browned on both sides I added water, dry white wine, canned diced tomatoes, onion and a little sugar (to cut the acid in the tomatoes, I presume).  After simmering for 1 1/4 hours, I took the chicken out and added frozen corn, frozen okra, frozen lima beans, salt and pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco sauce.  After simmering another 30 minutes I added the chicken, minus the bones and skin.  Now let me just say I am not a fan of lima beans, and I almost didn't add them to to stew.  It turns out they were delicious in the stew!  I am a lima bean convert.  The stew was wonderful and mostly healthy.

The cornbread was a very basic recipe minus any sugar.  It was nice to have a savory corn bread.  I think all mixes I have made in the past have been sweet.  It is nice to have the option to keep it savory, and add honey or maple syrup if you want to sweeten it up.  A great side dish for the stew.

Pea Soup and Bannock Bread

I know what you are thinking:  can pea soup actually be good?  The answer is yes!  According to the Frugal Gourmet, Thomas Jefferson enjoyed a soup very close to this one.  It is super easy to make.  Boil peas in salted water, then drain (saving water) and puree with a little water.  Return to pan and add back rest of water.  Add sugar and a flour/butter roux.  Temper two beaten eggs with a little of the soup and then add eggs to mixture.  Soup will thicken a little, but still remains smooth and creamy.  The only thing I would change next time is putting a little less sugar in it.  It was too sweet for me but rather delicious!

Bannock Bread turned out to be a huge biscuit in a fry pan.  Just flour, salt, baking powder, Crisco, and water formed into a dough and kneaded for 15 minutes (I think I gave out after 10).  Then you press the dough in a large fry pan and "bake" on the stove top.  Your basic biscuit but a new presentation.

p.s.  Frugal Gourmet said I could use bear grease or oolichan grease (made from smelt-like fish) instead of Crisco, but I was fresh out.  (I personally would love to know what it tastes like with bear grease).