Retro Recipes and Traditional Fare

fetadipWow, I was exhausted yesterday.  Somehow the kid's first day at school wore me out.  I'm not sure how that happened since all I did was sit around and wait for them to come home while I talked a bunch of jibber-jabber on Facebook

By mid-afternoon I was tired.  Doing nothing can suck the life out of you.  I decided I only had enough energy to make dip for dinner.  So I whipped up this Feta Pepper Dip.

However, as the dinner hour quickly approached, the responsibility of being a mother and a wife extinguished my extreme lack of motivation.  I am happy to report chicken and salad made it to the table along with this awesome dip.

Here's whatI love about it...the salty feta, with the slight heat of the pepperoncini and the tang of the lemon zest make a tasty little treat. The end all is to it up with barbecue chips.  The barbecue chips are really a must here, the sweetness of them adding another layer of flavor.

But I'm also thinking this would be some kind of heaven slathered on a grilled lamb burger.  That just might be lunch for us today.

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cake almond.honey Slowly, we are all starting to lead a gluten free life. Finding snacks and savories, without gluten is a conscious effort. And, it’s really not that hard. Gluten free pretzels dipped in homemade nutella is one of Levi’s favorites and cut up fruit is now always on the table. I am fortunate to live in sunny California where my local farmer’s markets are filled with ripe melons, crispy apples, and everything else that is in season.

With unexpected guests joining us for dinner, I needed a quick dessert. And using stuff in my pantry and fridge was my only option. A while back, I had bookmarked Anja’s recipe for her Apple Lemon Honey Cake. I had apples, I had lemons, and I had a brand new jar of raw honey. Perfect. Best of all, I didn’t have to drag out my Kitchen Aid Mixer to make it. Even more perfect!

This cake feels dense but it isn’t. Is light, not too sweet, and delicious all on it’s own or with a scoop of ice cream on the side.

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somethingfrom.jpg Recently I was at a library book sale and as usual I scanned for hidden treasure among the cookbooks. Browsing cookbooks is nothing short of a history lesson. Here's what I found, as men came back from fighting overseas and Americans travelled abroad for pleasure, their hunger for exotic recipes increased and so did the number of international cookbooks.

Cooking on a budget was a popular theme in times of recession like the 1970's. Curiously the cookbooks from the 50's and 60's were dominated by the use of processed foods. Browsing the volumes, I began to wonder, just how did processed food come to such popularity anyway?

Not long after my shopping trip I began reading Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Not a cookbook at all, but a rich and fascinating history of cooking in America in the post WWII period up until the early 60's. Suddenly it all made sense! 

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cornpudding souffleI was given this recipe by a friend over 10 years ago. and I have been making it for years. It’s perfect for a bar-b-que side dish that always gets rave reviews, and it does in fact feed a huge crowd. The original ingredients were filled with preservatives; Jiffy corn bread mix, canned creamed corn, canned corn, etc.

I haven’t made it for over a year and with this coming week being a holiday, the invitations to dinners and pool parties was on the agenda. All of the fresh corn at the farmers market inspired me to dig up the original recipe. I knew I wasn’t going to use the boxed ingredient, for two reasons; it’s boxed and it’s not gluten free.

After searching for creamed corn without all of the stuff in it, I decided to simply make my own. No, really, it’s not that hard. The additional ingredients of eggs, butter, and sour cream all still worked.

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babkaBabka (cake) is a big part of my childhood memories.  If you don't know what babka is, I guess the best way to describe it is a very spongy, brioche-like yeast cake.  It's sweet and usually has a fruit filling such as golden raisins.  It's a very dense cake and the dough can be very finicky and easily over-mixed.

My grandmother and my mother always had a babka marathon leading up to Easter Sunday.  A recipe only makes a few loaves and it seemed 10 or 12 were always needed for family, friends and church bake sales.

Babka is definitely not for the novice baker.  It helps to make it a few times with someone who is used to working with the dough.  It's one of those doughs that benefits from a familiar touch of knowing when to stop mixing or to add more flour.

My mom had been using the same babka recipe for years, but recently we were treated to a babka made my friend's mother Sharon.  The babka was fantastic.  It was the perfect texture and sweetness and just really stood out as an excellent example of what a good Polish babka could be. 

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