Seafood Saturday! (also not a Columbia Classic :( )

During November, Lunch Bunch Book Club was hosted at 'Kennyhannas of Ft. Pierre' for an Asian-style steak house dinner which provided a great experience and great inspiration for home cooking. Thank you, Kennyhannas!

 

At home I've begun a regimen called 'seafood Saturday'. So far we've had fried walleye, coconut shrimp (twice), and oyster stew (also twice), with appropriate accompaniments such as popovers, vegetables, desserts.

 

Tonight's dinner took a leaf from Kennyhannas (stir-fried, large shrimp) with fried rice (and salmon dip with crackers, our own addition).

Every dinner needs atmosphere, right? It's already snowed here... Somewhere It's Snowing. 

 

The shrimp (fried in a cast iron grill pan with olive oil), was served with chili sauce and hoisin sauce (a Chinese barbecue-like sauce) on the side. Fried rice was direct from the Sun-bird seasoning packet (using brown rice), with the addition of water chestnuts. In our view,  the fried rice needed a little more salt or additional soy sauce, to be seasoned correctly.

 

The work New Year's Day potluck included salmon dip, thus it has been on my list of dishes to prepare, and was a hit. Apparently the Amish (re 'Amish Cooking' book) do not prepare appetizers, and the Columbia Classics major on shrimp dip, but Google is my friend.  I also had to work around the personal preferences - one hates pimientos, the other can't eat pepper or anything spicy.

 

Salmon Dip

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons chopped pimento peppers (left out)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parlsley
1 teaspoon grated onion (minced, not grated; doubled or tripled the amount of onion)

1 (7 oz) can salmon, drained, bones and skin removed (mistakenly purchased a 14 oz can so used it all - just the right amount)

1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed (substituted 1 squeeze of dill paste)

 

Directions

1.       In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, sour cream, butter, [pimentos], parsley and onion; beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Stir in the salmon and dill. Cover and refrigerate until serving.

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Chinese Ringnecked Pheasant in South Dakota snow

 

 



It's a New Year! 2016 and Peach Kuchen

January 2 has been declared (by my dear spouse) a Day for Peach Kuchen!

Atmospheric 80s music: you know, Girls Just Want to Have Fun .

After I found my recipe (in the 1991 Emley Family Reunion cookbook), I realized it wasn't complete so had to review a few recipes online to make sure I added the right amount of sugar to the dough. The results looked almost exactly like this, and tasted divine:

Peach Kuchen
Dough:

1/2 c. shortening
1 tsp salt
1 c. milk, scalded
¼ c. sugar
1 pkg yeast
1 whole egg plus 1 yolk, beaten
3 cups sifted flour

1.      Scald milk (heat on low fire until there are bubbles on the edge and a film rises to the top); add to shortening and salt in a large bowl. Cool to lukewarm.

2.      Mix yeast and sugar into the milk/shortening, let stand 5 minutes.  Add eggs. Add flour, mix thoroughly (may need a little more flour).
3.      Knead into a smooth dough; place in greased bowl and let raise 1 hour.
4.      Split dough into thirds , pat into the bottom and up on the sides of 3 pans (9” round, square or pie pans); let rest in a warm place until the custard is done.

Custard:

1 pint whipping cream
2/3 c. sugar
3 eggs
 
5.      Cook custard over a low/medium burner, stirring until it begins to coat the spoon. Set aside.

Fruit:

1 ½ large can sliced peaches or plums

6.      Pat the dough down in the bottom and up the sides of the pans.

7.      Spread fruit on top of the dough
8.      Pour custard over the fruit
9.      Sprinkle with cinnamon.
10.   Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes (custard is soft, crust is slightly brown).
11.   Serve warm, room temperature, or cold.

This recipe brings back happy memories of my sister-in-law Alice Hilmoe teaching me to bake Kuchen in our first home. Also many memories of baking and eating it.

Herbed Chicken and Vegetables - not a Columbia Classic

I've been missing this cooking blog after my long absence. Of course, I have been cooking and enjoying it, but also really enjoy writing about cooking, so here goes!

Our New Year's Eve dinner was Herbed Chicken and Vegetables from a cookbook that was a Christmas gift - Amish Cooking.  I have some doubts that it is truly Amish - there are quite a few convenience foods included - but the recipes look good and I will intersperse them with Columbia Classics in this season.

Another writer included the actual recipe in her blog, in case you would like to try it. Did you know you can also find Amish Music on a blog?

I doubled the recipe and used 4 chicken hindquarters, and about six potatoes plus two quartered onions, since we had no carrots. (I think you would need to parboil the carrots first, if you were using them, because I'm not sure they would get done enough.)

The chicken roasted at 425 degrees for about 35 minutes, and then we took it down to 350 degrees and put in some 'Grands' biscuits for 15 minutes. The chicken, potatoes and onions were roasted to perfection when the biscuits were done.

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I believe it's time to make the kuchen! I made peach kuchen a couple of months ago for a breakfast potluck at work, and it will be my next post!