Sunday Strata

We sliced a French baguette last night thinking we'd use it for appetizers. Alas, we didn't. But I figured that it would make a great strata for Sunday morning. I buttered a roundish, shallow ceramic casserole (12x14) andI layered the whole bag of slices into the casserole that has a handled lid. I topped that with a cup of grated sharp cheese and 1/2 cup cooked bacon. (We had lots of bits of things in the frig from making dinner Friday night). Then I sautéed a whole sliced sweet onion with chopped parsley, sage leaves, salt and pepper, minced garlic and thyme leaves in olive oil. I topped the cheese with the onion and sprinkled 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan. I poured an egg-cream over it, pressed down to get everything creamy and put on the cover to sit overnight. The egg-cream was 8 eggs and two cups light cream with some salt and pepper. I'll bake it at 325 degrees for 50-60 minutes and serve it with a spinach-egg-mushroom salad (see the recipes), a fresh greens salad with avocado and apricot-thyme goat cheese sprinkles, and chunky apple cake (see the recipes). Now I'll gave time in the morning to write!!

Homely Hominy - With Chicken, Chiles, Olives and Peppers

Just to make sure you understand, the British definition of homely is 'simple but cozy and comfortable.'  This, of course, relates to space or location but in this case it relates to my description of hominy. My idea of comfort food.

I've always loved hominy and I'm not sure why because I've never known anyone to serve it to me and it wasn't used in my household growing up. It's a comfort food, like grits (which is ground corn). Hominy is dried corn kernels.  When cooked it is chewy and flavorful and it is a staple in the Mexican diet. I had planned to pressure-can the hominy that I found in the Portugese section of our grocery store on the South Coast but I learned that the pH is unbalanced for that purpose. Because I had already soaked it overnight, I wanted to use them immediately. I filled the crock pot with 1 qt. organic and free-range chicken broth, some minced onion flakes, freshly ground pepper, some chili-salt, 2 T. cumin and 2 tsp. paprika and set the crock pot on high.  About two hours later I had a perfect pot of hominy that I will figure out how to serve to Colin and Gerry, after having a nice-sized bowl of it myself for lunch! Because I've already added the seasonings, I think I will serve it which some chicken cooked in a mole sauce with diced peppers.

Update! They loved it. I sliced some frozen chicken breasts 1/4 inch thick and sauteed them in a bit of olive oil until they were cooked. I placed them in a casserole and covered them with some Tacolicious Mole Rojo Braising Sauce that I got on sale at the Williams-Sonoma outlet, added a half a can of Trader Joe's fire-roasted diced green chiles, 1/2 jar of Trader Joe's corn and chile salsa, and 1/2 can of Trader Joe's sliced black olives and then spread it with 1/2 pint of sour cream. I baked this for 1/2 hour at 350 before we left for Norwood and brought the chicken dish and hominy home.

Once home, I sauteed some small red,yellow and orange peppers and added the rest of the cans of chiles and olives and the jar of corn salsa.  On very hot plates, I plated the warmed homily, topped it with the chicken in sauce and then with the peppers.

It was delicious.  I'd serve it another time with tiny-sliced and baked corn chips and chopped cilantro rimming the dish.

They ate every bite (with the exception of a couple cups of hominy - there were about 2 left of 7.)

A Hill of Beans

I love legumes and we use a lot of canned cannellini, kidney and garbanzo beans in soups and spreads. I decided to take my daughter Beth's advice and pressure can our own beans.  The beauty of this approach is that we know that our own jars are not lined with BPA, a chemical that can leach out into the food.  My pressure canner was unearthed a few years ago after being in storage for eleven years in its original box. I'd last used it around 23 years ago. To be honest, pressure cooking makes me a bit nervous but I'm feeling adventurous and I have the time, so here's to new renewed adventures.

I decided to can four types of beans but gave up on one of them when I realized what work went into peeling softened fava beans. I'll buy those canned, thank you, when I use them. So cannellini beans, kidney beans, and northern beans were on the agenda. I soaked them all in large bowls overnight and ended up with a hill of them.

I found my instruction manual that came with the canner in with all my appliance manuals that I take care to keep current when one appliance gets tossed and another takes its place. At the same time, I also found an updated manual on the Presto.com site that included instructions for canning beans because my manual had no mention of canning dried beans. I guess it wasn't au courant in the 80s as a DIY project. Go figure. Anyway, I inspected all the parts of the canner and it was in excellent condition - what a surprise! Even the seals on the vent and the rim were in great shape. (Hardware stores keep all these things in stock - surprising, too, that the parts are standard. I found this out because I had to make a trip to the hardware store - I needed a new canning funnel and jar lifter, having no idea where they are at the moment. I found my water bath canner, too, but it was empty of most of my equipment.)

I found two boxes of quart jars in the basement in mason jar boxes that had followed me from Lunenburg, MA to Fairview, TX and back to MA and NH and then MA again! They were a bit filthy having been used years ago and stored when empty. I found I had boxes of new lids and used, clean jar bands - we were in business!

Now, I won't say the first batch was easy. I was nervous about the steps. I have canned hundreds of jars of tomatoes and marinara sauce  - but never legumes. However, getting the canner up to pressure on an electric stove and keeping it at 11 pounds constant pressure was an eyes-on-the-job for 90 minutes. I cooked the beans for 1/2 hour on the range top before hand (as the recipe recommended) and didn't add salt but will add seasoning when I use them. Keeping the Electrolux burner at 11 pounds of pressure meant varying from 1.8 to 2.2 on my controls. The second batch was much easier because I knew what I was doing. (I will admit I called to Gerry to help me lift the canner several times - it was quite heavy.  In addition, I asked him to open it when it released all its pressure.)

I ended up with 14 quarts of BPA-less beans - 5 northern, 3 kidney, 5 cannellini and a few mixed jars. There's so much satisfaction hearing that healthy pop that proves that your jars are vacuum sealed. I think the next time I do this, I'll order some heirloom beans from Rancho Gordo after I get their recipe book: Heirloom Beans.