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Quarantine Cooking

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deluxestogie

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Eta plate of spaghetti.

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Bob
 

deluxestogie

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Garden20201130_5562_ViennaEnchiladas_4_500.jpg


................................Quarantine Cooking
Grow Your Own
Cigars^

That is a book I will not be writing.

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These Chicken Vienna Sausage enchiladas were nutritionally adequate. That's the nicest thing I can say about it. These little sausages, when cold, make a wonderful "ham" salad. But inside the enchilada, it somehow surrenders all of its flavor. Canned chicken tastes just fine in enchiladas. But the Vienna Sausages taste like neither pork nor fowl. It may be that the rich flavors of the green salsa and the cheese overpower the poor little sausages.

So, like a plain, baked potato with a glass of milk, these enchiladas will keep your metabolism happy, but won't do much for the reward center of your brain.

Bob
 

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Latkes with Sour Cream and Raspberry Jam

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Caution: History Lesson
[Latkes (potato pancakes) are said to be a Hanukah tradition. The Hanukah holiday itself is a celebration dating from the end of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid government of Judea, dating to about 160 BC.

When Alexander the Great had conquered all he could, then died young, his four generals parceled out Alexander's Empire. Cassander got Macedonia and Greece. Ptolemy took Egypt and Judea. Lysimachus eventually ruled Thrace and most of Asia Minor. Poor Seleucus had to settle for part of India, all of Persia, and all of Mesopotamia. (That's roughly from New Delhi to Bagdad.) Unhappy with it's meager share, the Seleucid Empire subsequently took over Judea as well, and bumped into the Maccabees.

Latke, is Yiddish. The word, "latke", seems to have come originally from eastern Europe (Russian: ЛАТКА is a baking dish for making casseroles).

"Latke" became common in the English language only in the early 1960s. A tradition? Why not.

The potato first reached Europe (from the Andes) toward the end of the 16th century (AD)--more than one thousand seven hundred years after the Seleucids and the Maccabees duked it out. The arrival of the potato in Europe saved the continent from starvation. So that was a good thing. It likewise saved the Irish from starvation, until a potato blight swept across Europe as well as Ireland. Irish diets at that time consisted almost entirely of potatoes and milk. (Blights of various sorts are always a risk with widespread monoculture of a single species of plant.)]


I made my latkes from a box of latke mix (purchased for 89 cents years ago from the clearance shelf of the grocery store, with a "best if used by" date of Jan 2017), and fried them in olive oil. You can make them with shredded potato, egg (or just egg white), onion, and salt. I suspect you could make them with instant potato flakes as well. They've got to be fried until they are crunchy on the exterior (Bob's Rule). They are often served with applesauce, rather than sour cream.

Bob
 

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Latkes with Sour Cream and Raspberry Jam

I made my latkes from a box of latke mix (purchased for 89 cents years ago from the clearance shelf of the grocery store, with a "best if used by" date of Jan 2017), and fried them in olive oil. You can make them with shredded potato, egg (or just egg white), onion, and salt. I suspect you could make them with instant potato flakes as well. They've got to be fried until they are crunchy on the exterior (Bob's Rule). They are often served with applesauce, rather than sour cream.

Bob
I made a batch this weekend myself. I should technically call them Hash Rounds as I used peanut oil to fry them. I stumbled into the kitchen Saturday morning wondering "what can I make for breakfast that's not the same old same old.... Latkes!" I grabbed a few spuds and subjected them to the box grater, then grated 1/4 of an onion, salt, pepper, dash of AP Flour, and into the cast iron skillet. Accompanied with some eggs and cheese they were delicious and just as fast to make as pancakes.
 

deluxestogie

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Accompanied with some eggs and cheese
A genuine world tour!

Potato from the Andes.

Peanut oil:
"The Arachis genus is endemic to South America. ... From this primary center of origin, cultivation spread and formed secondary and tertiary centers of diversity in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay."
Hen's egg:
"The chicken probably was domesticated for its eggs (from jungle fowl native to tropical and subtropical Southeast Asia and Indian subcontinent) before 7500 BCE."
Cheese:
"Earliest proposed dates for the origin of cheesemaking range from around 8000 BCE, when sheep were first domesticated. Since animal skins and inflated internal organs have, since ancient times, provided storage vessels for a range of foodstuffs, it is probable that the process of cheese making was discovered accidentally by storing milk in a container made from the stomach of an animal, resulting in the milk being turned to curd and whey by the rennet from the stomach."
Bob
 

deluxestogie

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I made up four of these little casseroles. Three were in small ramekins, and the fourth, baked separately, in a 16 ounce ramekin (shown).

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The smaller ones are about perfect for a single serving, whereas the larger one is twice as much as I will eat at one sitting.

I mixed a can of cut green beans, a can of petite diced tomato, some cottage cheese, a half-pouch of Velveeta cheese sauce (leftover), some sour cream, a bit of finely diced Spam, two beaten eggs, and assorted herbs, spices, salt and pepper.

Baked at 375°F for 60 minutes (3 small ones); 75 minutes for 1 large one. [Once bubbles come out from the center, I just allow it to brown as much as I like.]

I believe that "ramekin" is 17th century French for "TV dinner".

Bob
 

Iowalez

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Merry Christmas! My pathetic attempt at cooking a holiday meal today was shrimp and vegetable tempura. Not shown was a cold ice beer. This is not up to.my usual standard and I wouldn't serve it to a guest. But it tasted okay. Since my big surgery in early September at Mayo Clinic Hospital, my totally no longer OEM plumbing system is not happy with a lot of foods, and my food preferences changed massively. I no longer like chocolate! Shrimp is on my "can eat" list and I had everything on hand to make it. I just didn't put any effort into the batter. It was too thick, and I knew it. I just don't feel like doing complex cooking. But I can't stand most prepared frozen meals, either. I didn't eat it all so the cats got what was left.IMG_20201225_150413.jpg
 

Iowalez

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Another lazy, pathetic session of cooking involved marinating some chicken in Stubbs citrus chili marinade for a day, then coating in seasoned flour and baking in a small casserole dish, and cooking some quinoa, both items from December's mobile food bank. I decided I wasn't hungry enough to open a can of green beans to go with this. White wine made supper taste better. This was my New Years Eve supper, before I opened the champagne. We get lots of canned fruit from the food bank. Maybe I should use it up making a rumpot.IMG_20201231_165217.jpg
 
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