A wisdom in happy food

I've just finished the main parts of the brilliant Mark Girouard's book The Victorian Country House. After describing Philip Webb's somewhat tortured work on the house called Standen in Sussex (finished c1894) and of how he typically would deny himself nice food, Dr Girouard writes,

One can't help feeling that Webb would have been a happier man and a greater architect if he had helped himself to more strawberries and cream.

Standen House, from its official website, https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/standen-house-and-garden :

More at https://associationoftimetravelers.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-wisdom-in-enjoying-happy-things.html .

Cozy Rye and Oat Porridge

Cozy Rye and Oat Porridge

serves 2 or 3

with ideas for getting ahead the night before you serve it for breakfast

Put into a saucepan and cover until needed:

         ½ cup oatmeal

         ½ cup rye flakes

         1 tsp ground cinnamon

         2 dates cut up

         pinch of salt (unless the nuts you'll be adding are salted)

Meanwhile, set aside (in the refrigerator of course if waiting to serve):

         about ¼ cup cranberries (frozen are fine)

         1 mandarin orange, peeled and sectioned

Also set aside (just on the counter by where you'll be assembling):

         almonds to taste (I used about ¼ to 1/3 cup)

         your cinnamon container from which to take what you need

When ready to start cooking, add to the saucepan:   

         1 cup milk

         1 cup water

Bring to a boil, simmer about 5 minutes, stirring sometimes.

Meanwhile, mash just with a fork, no need to be very mashed:

         2 soft bananas (this is why you don't need to add a real sweetener). 

When the porridge is cooked, stir in and heat just a bit:

         the bananas

         about 2 tbl almond butter (this makes it really luscious)

Pour into bowls and top with the other fruit (in pretty patterns if you'd like), more cinnamon to taste (maybe ¼ tsp), and almonds.

Inspired by Sea Buckthorn & Rye Porridge in Porridge by Anni Kravi

Cooking Hints and Tested Recipes, 1937

Homemade "Bisquick" mix for whole-grain and olive-oil lovers

My Homemade Bisquick®

Mix together:

5 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2-1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp cream of tartar

2 Tbl sugar

Stir in well but lightly

1 cup olive oil

Stir in

1/2 cup wheat germ

1 cup milk powder

Store in refrigerator.

Note that this seems to work best -- resulting in moister and more flavorful dishes -- with older Bisquick recipe books, which I enjoy collecting. Either the formula is closer to the older Bisquick, or the Bisquick cookbooks themselves have more flavorful recipes -- or both! These 2 are by far my favorites:

A cute little Bundt pan!

November 15, 2019
Happy National Bundt Day! I always found Bundt cakes waaaaay too huge for the little sugar etc we eat in this house, but then I discovered this while looking at the fun egg bite tray I talk about at https://favoritefoodthisweek.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-fun-breakfast-egg-treat.html ; it's a cute little Bundt pan! www.kohls.com/product/prd-3369270/Food-Network--Pressure-Cooker-Accessory-7-in--Fluted-Cake-Pan.jsp . (You too have probably also seen the really mini Bundt pans, made all in one bigger pan like cupcakes, but I wanted something that was larger than individual size...)

I'm using mine in an oven, which the package clearly says you can. Just take a normal Bundt cake recipe you like and divide the recipe to fit the size of this pan (pour water into the pan and then into a big measuring cup to find how many cups). You'll also have to adjust the time (down) to bake it.

BTW, it says it's nonstick, which I don't usually adore, but this seems to me to be hard anodized aluminum, which does not have the health concerns of either nonstick nor aluminum. But I could be wrong.

And what recipe will I try first? (Forgive me if my lack of experimentation so far is frustrating, but I wasn't sure how long this pan would be available on the market...) I'm finding that my homemade biscuit mix is making it extremely easy and fun to make as-healthy-as-possible breads and desserts; I use it for recipes like I see at https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/cranberry-apricot-coffee-cake/50829274-9f7a-4dc1-a636-e4b72a679fee  and https://www.food.com/recipe/blueberry-bundt-cake-380155 . I think I've shared that before on this site, but since the search doesn't work great here, I'll re-post it...

Another happy site!

I've been meaning to start this site, and voila, just did....Enjoy! Um, what does it have to do with kitchens? Answer: Anything you like! You can tuck in meal plans, have food holidays, etc!

https://ofholidayscalendarsandplanners.blogspot.com/

A fun breakfast egg treat!

I had the most relaxing time I've had in oh a year maybe!? when I went to a Kohl's I finally discovered nearby and got for like half price what they call an Egg Bite Tray; from https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-3369230/food-network-pressure-cooker-accessory-silicone-egg-bites-with-lid.jsp :

This shows how it looks inside the electric pressure cooker. I used mine differently than the recipe that comes with it; here's my recipe...

My Egg Bites

Made using Food Network-Kohl's silicone Egg Bite Tray, found in their electric pressure cooker area, and a 6-quart (or larger) Instant Pot. You can adapt this to another electric pressure cooker….and I'm sure other flavors and such ideas will work nicely too!...FYI Kohl's site says the tray is safe to 375 in an oven, so one could also adapt this to an oven, placing it on a rack placed in a pan with water…

I found it marvelous to put these together the night before, everything before actually cooking. If you don't do that, it may need a little more time (maybe 1 minute) to cook if you like me are using frozen vegetables.

There is no need to oil or anything.

Put into each egg cup

         some frozen mixture of onions and sweet peppers

Mix well together in a shallow biggish bowl with a fork

         3 eggs (if yours are not large but medium or smaller, use 4)

         salt and pepper

         about 2 Tbl whole milk

"Spoon" the egg mixture into each egg cup; I found a round ice cream scoop worked great, because it wasn't too huge but would hold the goopy mixture well. I had to do more than one scoop each, though. The manufacturer recommends going no higher than ¾ up the sides at this point.

Top each with

         whole black olive

         mozzarella shreds

If you're putting these together the night before, put on the lid and refrigerate. I also put out my Instant Pot on the counter ready to plug in, with the rack inside the pot, plus a measuring cup for the below water ready. FYI, I found it took about a half hour total for the egg bites to be all ready in the morning; it wasn't too bad, because it takes probably 20 minutes to make my coffee and say toast my bread anyway, so I started the egg bites first and kept going.

Put the Instant Pot's rack on the bottom of the pot. Note if your electric pressure cooker's rack does not have handy handles on the sides to lift out the egg bite tray, you may want to rig up something with foil or string, because it will otherwise be awkward to get out the hot tray…

Pour into the pot (because you're going to be steaming these really, though at pressure)

         1 cup water

Remove the lid if you had it on, and put the egg bite tray on top of the rack.

It works best if you can cover the egg bite tray with something that will hold up in the cooking but protect the eggs from getting watery (though I think it will work anyway, à la poached eggs); I used a shallow small stainless steel cake pan with the flat side against the egg bite tray. Baking parchment may also work, but I didn't try that yet…(Apparently the lid that comes with the egg bite tray is not heat-safe.)

When you're ready to cook, set your Instant Pot to cook at LOW pressure for 6 minutes. (Of course follow the instructions for your own Instant Pot. In mine, I pressed Manual then Pressure Cook and any arrow buttons to make it the right pressure and time.)

Turn off the Instant Pot.

Let the Instant Pot sit for 10 minutes.

Then if necessary release the pressure manually (my pressure was completely down already).

Remove the lid.

Take the egg bite tray out carefully. Set it on a dinner plate as it will be rather wet underneath.

Let it sit 5 minutes.

Then just turn the egg bite tray over onto another dinner plate; they should just slide out!

Enjoy!

For your eating and other pleasure...

I've re-opened my site that features fun stuff for potentially every day,
https://bkofhappydays.blogspot.com/

...though some days are still blank, and it's so old that I'm sure there are outdated links. I very well may not update it. However, I've found that as I'm going through probably the hardest time of my life, because my dear love has passed away, I am being helped by ideas and encouragement that pull me through each difficult day, and I thought Hey, I'm definitely not the only one in this universe with this problem, and maybe someone else will be encouraged.

What I'm doing when I feel like it is taking this idea and making it truly my own, pasting in magazine articles I like etc., which of course are copyright so I'm not doing anything else with them, but you are very welcome to make say a notebook with ideas like this for yourself too.

Take care, everyone. Life is so precious; enjoy it...

101 All-Time Favorite Cranberry Recipes, 1970

By Ocean Spray longish ago. I like the drawing style...though of course it doesn't reflect history accurately.

Welcome!

...to a slowly but surely evolving newish site with the same very old address. Hope you enjoy it. I've made it easier to get the free things I offer by putting them in the sidebar, and I hope to add more and more.

from a 1932 cookbooklet (um, just so you know, you probably don't have to be afraid you'll encounter gelatine recipes here)

Bordon's Eagle Brand 70 Magic Recipes, 1952

We could all use some magic in our food, I think!

Good food could be a comfort even in the 1700s

Of course! From my post over at https://associationoftimetravelers.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-comfort-of-good-dinner-and-good-inn.html :

A Great Supper Salad

A Great Sardine Dinner Salad

Put onto each plate (or onto a platter for more people) in order:

         salad greens (baby kale is nice)

         sliced cucumber

         chopped chives

         sardines in olive oil

Then dab on in order to taste:

         creamy yogurt

         mustard

Top with:

         coarsely chopped parsley

         black pepper

Very adapted from Nigel Slater's A Piquant Sauce for Tinned Tuna in his Real Fast Food

(This is nice served with the same book's Bulghur Wheat with Mango and Mint, which I changed to Quinoa with Peaches and Mint.)

Recently...

I've been discovering some wonderful new interests which I've been pursuing...and have also been the caregiver for a dear sick person. So this site might change again but it may take some time -- but the address will remain the same, and I won't be deleting old posts. In other words, my apologies if this isn't fresh for a while; this may be a very long process...

Kitchen decor, 1917

From Interior Decoration for Modern Needs, including not only interesting ideas but of course jarring reminders of the time travel required to visit what this writer saw (also a jarring reminder of how copy and paste can work from an old ebook):

by little devices, a kitchen can be made a pleasant place. To aid the appearance of the shelves, for example, the jars should be uniform and the tin boxes painted white with perhaps a blue stencil. China boxes and jars are obtainable, but one can paint her own tin boxes and choose a design from the kitchen china to stencil on. Such little niceties are appreciated by the cook and give her something to show off to the neighbor's maid.

The matter of kitchen curtains is always one of much dispute. Crisp white muslin curtains add to the freshness and attractiveness of a kitchen. Scrim, edged with sunfast to match the paint, is washable and effective; or white cotton with turkey red binding is also serviceable. Striped glazed chintz window shades certainly give "tone" to a kitchen.  

Imagine a white painted kitchen with blue and white linoleum and a blue table cloth and china and at the windows a striped glazed shade of blue and white. Ten to one the news flies round the neighborhood and your maid outlasts Mrs. Jones' ! Japanese toweling may be used for kitchen window curtains as it matches the design of so many china patterns. A stenciled border around the walls, of any simple conventional pattern, could be used in conjunction with this. Use the same stencil on the cupboard doors.

A green kitchen could be worked out in a very wily way. Green flooring, white walls with a stenciled border of green shamrocks and cambric curtains at the windows. Whereat an appreciative song would float up from below stairs "Just a bit of Ireland dropped from out the sky so blue." 

another idea from the same book:

 

(More colors in the rest of the house can be read over at https://associationoftimetravelers.blogspot.com/2019/05/home-color-schemes-1917.html .)

Now You Can Make Roses, 1952

Complete with many pedagogical tips! I've noticed that 1950s magazines can be pretty bossy, and now I see that can be true of cookbooklets too.

Minty Fish recipe!

Minty Fish

Saute in olive oil in big skillet

         1 medium red onion cut in half then sliced

When it's almost cooked, add and cook briefly

         2 big garlic cloves minced

         about 1 red pepper chopped (I used frozen)

On top place

         1 lb thin fish fillets (I used flounder)

Cover and let steam about 4 minutes.

Sprinkle over to taste, about:

         1 Tbl anchovy paste

         1 Tbl capers

         at least 2 Tbl black olives

         pinch of sugar

         2 Tbl cilantro

         2 Tbl parsley

         ½ tsp chili flakes

Turn over and stir a bit and cook until done, turning again if necessary.

Taste and stir in to your taste, maybe about:

         2 Tbl balsamic vinegar

         1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Put on top and let steam covered over a low flame until just done, maybe 3 or 4 minutes:

         a big handful of fresh greens, such as spinach or arugula (frozen would work too)

         a big bunch of mint's leaves (no need to tear them)

Serve with crusty whole grain bread, and if you need more vegetables something like steamed green beans, carrots, potatoes with parsley and olive oil.

Very adapted from Top Santé's Müller Light's Sea Bass with Herb Dressing, a recipe by award-winning Christine Bailey; I also tried her Chicken with Olives and Preserved Lemon from the same article and it was amazing! but I didn't change it hugely so of course I'm not presenting that -- but she has a website, https://www.christinebailey.co.uk/ .

Kitchen furnishing advice, 1905

From The Book of the Home: An Encyclopaedia of All Matters Relating to the House and Household Management by H.C. Davidson along with "a hundred specialists," 1905, published in London (hence the American remark is especially interesting):

A capable housewife is always careful to have the kitchen as well appointed...as the drawing room, for the comfort of herself and of the household...depends largely upon it, and she cannot expect to obtain and keep respectable servants unless she provides them with proper accommodation.

The book goes on to say that of course it is crucial to have comfy chairs in your kitchen! enough "for each servant and one or two over." One also must have in addition to the stove a table (round and folding if your kitchen is small) of course furnished with a tablecloth -- it seemed important to be able to make the kitchen attractive after any messy or dirty work was done -- so one had attractive comfy chairs and a bright rug that was rolled up when one might be messy, then put back down afterward, and also "pretty" curtains, and also "a picture almanac and two or three Christmas annual pictures [to] enliven the walls."

Other recommended furnishings were "a strong American clock...of the portable kind fitted with an alarm so that the cook can take it to her room at night and set it for the hour of rising," plus:

 A pretty butter print was also recommended -- "these really come under the head of luxuries, but they are so inexpensive that no one need be without them":

Hmm, it was recommended that one purchase "inexpensive crockery and cutlery" for the use of the servants! The next chapter is on "The Pantry," and features The Butler if one has one. But even without the butler, it was recommended that one have his pantry. There one has the expensive dishes and foods! It's recommended one count the silver every evening!! and have a safe. There are also interesting instructions on "hardening" one's fine china upon first buying it....

Marshall Field & Company's dining rooms

I'm reading a fascinating history of Marshall Field's, my by-far favorite department store when I lived in Chicago. It's Give the Lady What She Wants, by Lloyd Wright and Herman Kogan, who also draw from the work of Lloyd Lewis and Robert Wycliffe Twyman of the history department of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and others. The book is from 1952 so of course things have changed pretty much completely -- though a few of my very favorite dishes are from there from the last millennium! and many of my favorite memories are from relaxing there and admiring the beautiful products and surroundings.

Here's some of the history of their dining rooms! They were started at the behest of Harry Gordon Selfridge, who of course went on to start Selfridge's in England! It all started with a tearoom in 1890 with 15 tables with a red rose on each and a menu featuring what I still think of as typical of classic department store restaurants: chicken pie, chicken salad, orange concoctions, ice cream, corned beef hash (well, actually I've not encountered the latter). Eventually there were several restaurants, including one with an open grill and one serving "sandwiches in tiny baskets with bows on their handles."

I'm seeing nice websites about this store, including http://www.thedepartmentstoremuseum.org/2010/05/marshall-field-company-chicago.html and https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2008/12/11/department-store-restaurants-marshall-fields/ and http://americanhistory.si.edu/american-enterprise-exhibition/corporate-era/shopping .

My favorite bit of non-eating history! about Marshall Field's is that when none other than William Morris was popular, they dedicated a whole room to his and his people's offerings.

Probably not something you need nor want in your kitchen!

From my more-history site, http://associationoftimetravelers.blogspot.com/ , to do with kitchen appliances:

Kitchen cabinets c1925

One of our homes was custom-built and its kitchen has no built-in cabinets except for the sink area and open shelving and an oven niche in a large stone wall, and I love it so much
looking into kitchen from our living-dining room/The Hall:

 
...and miss it in our other place especially since its hung-up/high cabinets are literally starting to fall off the wall, yikes!!! So I'm trying to figure out an economical and attractive alternative. Here are retro thoughts from 1925 on that, from Modern Priscilla Home Furnishing Book:

In the kitchen the question of built-in furniture is more important than in any other room. First comes the decision of what to build in and what to buy ready-built. The kitchen cabinet is the outstanding example of such equipment. It is more convenient than a pantry and combines, in its cleverly designed spaces, a place in which to store food supplies, a shelf for food preparation, tills for money with which to buy food, reminders of what to buy, directions for preparing and serving food, and even (perhaps we might say often) a place where one may eat a cozy informal meal, in order to save work. A kitchen cabinet is much better bought than built in. It has been planned to achieve the greatest possible economy of space and it comes into the house entirely equipped for service.

Surely this "kitchen cabinet" is like the Hoosier cabinet my grandmother had; I've collected some pictures of such treasures:

The same chapter says it's preferred to have built-in things rather like I posted about just before this, such as "a closet to receive the food supplies [delivered] to the house," in an outside wall, so "no muddy feet insult the kitchen floor and you are free to leave the house." They suggest "above this compartment an iceless refrigerator" useful except in hot months and recommend space for inserting glass milk bottles.

Also, they say "the best built-in feature of all is the cabinet partition between kitchen and dining room. The wall is entirely omitted and in its place are installed shelves and drawers which open from either room," saving many steps because you put washed dishes away next to the place where they'll be needed next.

A kitchen feature I've never seen

From the 1919 catalog of the Sash, Door, Blind, and Moulding Manufacturers, Standard Design Millwork, a "cooler closet":