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Soup Kitchen

After-the-Party Veggie Soup

March 7, 2020

It happens after every dinner party. The guests head home. I clear away the wine bottles, and whatever fell behind the bar. And then survey the food table leavings. Invariably, there, next to the plate holding one sad, smushed pie remnant, and the half cookie that fell into somebody’s ginger ale, I will find most of a tray of fresh veggies. They are still gallantly cheerful, the brightest color in the after-party glow. It makes me feel they deserve a good send off. Soooo….I came up with this day-after-the-party veggie soup. Simply a saute of vegetables made with the veggie-tray broccoli and cauliflower florets, carrots, and celery trimmed down to tiny, plus onion and broth, it’s really easy to make. Add a little crusty bread and some good cheese and you’ve done the lonely, leftover veggie-tray proud–and yourself a big, nourishing favor. Continue Reading…

Bread Box

Portuguese Egg Bread

February 5, 2020

Perfect for your Easter morning! Suzana B. wrote in search of this Portuguese Sweet  Egg-Bread recipe her husband fondly remembered from the late ’70s. With mashed potatoes and some of the water used to boil the potatoes in the mix, it bakes up into wonderfully light-textured loaves with deep-orange-hued crusts. Makes four 9 x 5-inch pan loaves, or, 4 braided or round loaves. Continue Reading…

Meaty Mainstays

Kirk Douglas’ Favorite Meatloaf

February 5, 2020

Before there was Michael Douglas, there was Kirk Douglas, Michael’s 1940s matinee-idol father.  If it weren’t for Ant Man, in which Michael had a nice role, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which my son Noah considers “epic” for its special effects (first sci-fi shot in Cinemascope), my boys as kids would have been unfamiliar with either of these actors. But back in the ’60s, Kirk was very much top of his game, starring in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, and alongside John Wayne in three films, making Kirk much sought after by celebrity columnists. Which is where this meatloaf comes in. Continue Reading…

Holidays 2019

Holidaze! Sweets & Treats

December 20, 2019

The sun is shining in through the windows, lighting up the mixing bowls and rolling pins, cookie cutters and pudding tins on my slate kitchen table. It’s the Friday before Christmas. A “jolly good” time to do some Holiday cooking, don’t you think? If anybody want’s to join me now–or, is looking for some delicious recipe inspiration for Holiday meals over the next two weeks,  here’s a round-up of a few favorites.  There are cocktails: Not A White Russian,  snacks: Cheddar Crackers,  Pub Cheese,  Vintage Tea Sandwiches , savories: Wine-Poached Pear and Rosemary Tart, Sherried Crimini & Walnut Loaf,  Ancho-Braised Lamb shanks , empanadas picadillo hand pies,  duck and andouille gumbo, shortrib stroganoff, porkchops with sauerkraut + apple stuffing. There are fruited lovelies: Raspberry Fool,  wine poached pears,  mincemeat tarts . Cakes– Monica’s All-Natural Red Velvet Cake, Melting Apple Cake,  Double-Chocolate Bread Pudding with Barley Malt Caramel, Ginna’s Hubba Hubba Apple Cake, Apple Almond Cheese Tart, chocolate-covered Amarena cherries, German Chocolate Cake, Dressel’s Chocolate Fudge Whipped Cream Cake , Dreamsicle Cake, vintage no-bake refrigerator cakes, and of course, cookies! Fresh Cranberry Bars,  Gingerbread Cookies,  Jam Tart Bar Cookies, Old-Fashioned Butter Cookies,  Lutz’s Raspberry Nut Bars,  Coffee and Molasses Dream Bars, Grandma Bertha’s Apricot Delights, Marshall Field’s Chinese Chews, Banoffee Tarts.  As you finish your year with loved ones far and near, remember that food is a love note that lasts. Cheers to you for the meals you create with that in mind. Happy, happy, Holidays, from Monica Kass Rogers!

Pouding Chômeur

Sticky Maple Pudding-Cake

December 5, 2019

Rich, sticky, sweet and gooey, it’s really like an upside-down cake, minus the fruit. Simple vanilla cake batter baked in a pool of maple syrup caramel , Pouding chômeur literally translates  as “pudding of the unemployed.”  First created by factory workers during the Great Depression using a handful of ingredients, it was for decades the sort of home-food fare that Québécois kept to themselves. Like Johnny Marzetti, the Cleveland area noodles-and-sauce hotdish that moms customarily put on tables, but most restaurants eschewed, this sticky maple pudding quietly endured out of the spotlight. Continue Reading…

Thanksgiving

Senator Russell’s Sweet Potato Casserole

November 23, 2019

Calling down to Georgia’s State Capitol offices and the Culinary History Society of Georgia, nobody could comment on the gustatorial habits of Richard B. Russell, Jr. (1897 – 1971), the politician this much-requested dish is named for. But tracking down this  recipe, one thing is sure: the man had a sweet tooth. Continue Reading…

Sweet Things

Deconstructed Pumpkin Pie (Pumpkin Mousse, Maple-Pecan Brittle + Sugared Pie Crust Twists)

October 31, 2019

There are people out there who don’t like pumpkin pie. (Cue collective Midwestern gasp!) But there are other  pumpkin possibilities. And since making this lovely dessert for my family one Halloween of years past, my boys have asked for it again and again.  Roasted-pumpkin mousse layered with maple pecan brittle and cinnamon sugar “pie crust” twists, I suspect this will be the classiest pumpkin you’ll put in your mouth this Fall.

 

Continue Reading…

Classic Casseroles

Johnny Marzetti Casserole

October 7, 2019

Johnny Marzetti could very well be America’s best loved and longest standing comfort casserole. A mix of ground meat, tomato sauce, garlic, onion, cheese and noodles, the dish has populated community cookbooks nationwide for decades. It’s been called Salmagundi, Hamburger Hotdish, Elbow Goulash—even Irish Monkey (!) But as the story goes, Johnny Marzetti is both the “real” name of this dish, and, the name of one of Columbus, Ohio’s most prominent early businessmen whose brother Joe and sister-in-law Teresa had a restaurant called Marzetti’s. I just wrote a cover story for the food section of the Chicago Tribune on this : ) Please enjoy the story of the men, the myths, and the legendary dish–and  do try my version! Unlike bland, community-cookbook renditions which often include processed cheese food and canned soup in the ingredient list, my version gets its deep, rich flavors from fresh herbs, garlic, a blend of Italian sausage and ground beef, red wine and the real star: oven roasted and caramelized tomatoes and onions—the best possible way to transform these vegetables into flavor-packed morsels of goodness. Continue Reading…

Gone But Not Forgotten

Madison Guerrilla Cookie (….or comes close!)

October 3, 2019

I first posted this story exactly three years ago. In the interim? I’ve had another dozen letters from Madison Guerrilla Cookie fans asking me to repost it. So! here you go. Enjoy.

I just had a great conversation with Monica Eng of WBEZ about how people’s recollections of recipes they loved, but lost, can sometimes eclipse their experience of the actual recipe : ) I once spent weeks tracking down a recipe from a long-closed-restaurant for a mushroom barley soup that ran in the Tribune more than 30 years ago and didn’t exist in searchable archives. I was thrilled when I finally found the thing, complete with the actual dated clipping. I typed it up, e-mailed the recipe to the guy who requested it and in short order, got a reply stating that the recipe was the wrong one. “The soup I remember,” said barley-soup lover, “had much more bacon in it.” Ha HAH! And so it goes. Recipes are fluid things, as are our memories of them.  Not always entirely accurate. Or could it be that the cook the night barley-soup-lover had the dish, went “off recipe” and was extra generous with the bacon?

Well,  relatedly, the recipe for the Madison guerrilla cookie is of that ilk. First created by Mary MacDowell (UW MA ’67) riffing on ingredients from 1960s Tigers Milk protein bars, MacDowell shared the recipe with ’64 UW graduate Ted Odell, who tweaked the ingredients and baked them for the Quercus Alba Bakery. Hearty and filling, the cookies were sold in six- and twelve-pack sleeves through the Mifflin Street Co-op and other University of Wisconsin shops and became a student staple.  I should say, a MUCH beloved student staple. Continue Reading…

Pie Revival

Key Lime Pie

August 29, 2019

The story of Key lime pie is delightfully odd, including Cuban sponge “hookers”, mystery aunts, canned milk and curing. The classic filling: sweetened condensed milk, egg yolks & lime juice, has been around since the mid 1800s.

Key limes, those leathery little yellow-green golf balls otherwise known as Citrus aurantifolia, once thrived in the Keys as a commercial crop. That was before the local lime growers figured out they could make more money running tourist fishing boats, and sold off their groves. Key lime trees still grow in Key West backyards, but the big groves are in Mexico Continue Reading…