Aunt Ann's Waldorf Salad

For my 16th birthday, a friend gave me a copy of “With Love, From My Kitchen”, which is basically a blank yet organized cook-book, to be filled with the favorite recipes of friends and family members. Since then, I have been slowly gathering the classic family favorites, as well as begging friends to write one or two of their favorites in for me; I like the idea of the recipes being written in their own handwriting, leaving a bit of their personality in my keepsake cook-book.

One recipe that is surrounded by wonderful memories is Aunt Ann’s Waldorf Salad. She wasn’t my aunt, but like most people who visit older people with their nieces and nephews, I called her aunt. We played games on the living room floor with the kids and scrabble at the dining room table, and she served this salad with dinner. I’d never had it before and managed to work up the nerve to ask her for the recipe. (I was still in my most dreadful shy stage back then.) I looked up traditional Waldorf salad, and I’m afraid this has been dressed up a bit, and sweetened with whipped cream. I can’t quite imagine I would enjoy plain mayo as the dressing after eating this.

Aunt Ann’s Waldorf Salad

2 C chopped red skin apples

1 1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 C chopped celery (TINY, in my opinion, is the way to go.)

1/4 C chopped walnuts

1/4 C raisins or chopped dates (dates all the way! Raisins are normal. Dates are extraordinary. Remind me to share Nan’s Date Cake recipe.)

1/4 C red grapes, halved

1/2 C whipped cream or cool whip (give or take a little… taste it and see what you like.)

1/4 C mayonnaise

ground nutmeg

In a medium bowl, toss apple with lemon juice. Stir in celery, nuts, dates and grapes. In a separate bowl, fold together whipped cream and mayonnaise. Spread dressing over the top of the apple mixture (I believe this helps keep the apples from browning if you keep it overnight) . Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Cover and chill 2-4 hours, or overnight. To serve, fold dressing into the fruit mixture.

This badly lit picture of the dressing-covered salad is the last picture I have. I meant to take pictures of it all mixed together, but I made it for our dinner on Resurrection Sunday, and somehow… we ate it all. I think we might have been licking the bowl, but perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Anyway, people really love eating this stuff.

(P.S., as long as you don’t get carried away with it, this recipe is HCG P3 approved.)

Fresh Peach Sweet Tea

Right now we have an abundance of late-season peaches in our fridge. They aren't the greatest quality, certainly not mouth-watering like the peaches we get in August. I would never cook with those peaches, they are best eaten fresh, with the juice running down your arm. The ones I'm dealing with now, while the flavor is fine, are not at all juicy and a bit mealy. What to do with all these peaches?

I wanted a special beverage for the dinner, and since I currently have about two pounds of loose leaf black tea waiting to be used (Bless you, dear friend who sent it to me!) it only made sense; Peach Iced Tea.

Here's what I came up with:

Fresh Peach Sweet Tea

Makes about 6 quarts

2 lb fresh peaches (about 6)
6-8 tea bags, or Tbs loose-leaf tea (I highly recommend loose-leaf)
2-3 C simple syrup*
8 C water

Put your water on to boil. While waiting, peel and slice peaches (as long as they aren't super mush, you can peel them with a regular vegetable peeler.) and put through a food mill or food processor. If you want you can then force the peach puree through a fine sieve.

When the water boils, turn off the heat, add your tea bags and allow to steep for 5 minutes. This will make a good strong tea without steeping so long it turns bitter.

This is my kind of tea bag. :)

Now, if you've forced the peaches through a sieve, you could now simply stir it into the tea. I wanted mine very smooth and not pulpy though, so I didn't sieve it. I put the peaches in cheese cloth and poured the tea over it, allowing all the peach juices to be brought out and the fibers left behind. Squeeze the pulp as dry as you can, there is really very little waste. Stir in as much or as little simple syrup as you like, keeping in mind that it's strong tea that will be served over ice, so you may want it a tad too sweet to start with. Enjoy!

* Simple Syrup is made simply by combining equal parts water and sugar in a sauce pan and bringing it to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cool and use in any sweet drinks you want.

Cherry Pancakes

Yesterday my mom and I picked probably 18 quarts of fresh sour cherries (all from ONE tree... and it was hard to tell we'd taken any! I can't wait for our own trees to be that size.), and I knew right from the start that I wanted to try recreating my favorite breakfast from Cracker Barrel - pancakes with tart cherries and whipped cream. The nearest Cracker Barrel restaurant is over an hour away - inspiration to make these at home.

First off, I needed a pancake recipe, since my mom's pancakes (which are VERY good by the way ;-] ) are much thinner and a completely different consistency. By doing a little research, I learned that greasing the griddle with shortening can help give the pancakes the crispness that I love at Cracker Barrel. And fortunately, we had some Redi Whip in the fridge left from my sister's birthday.

Here are the results!

Honestly... just as good as Cracker Barrel, only smaller pancakes, so you don't have to make yourself sick trying to eat them all and feel guilty for leaving so much on your plate!


Sorta Cracker Barrel Pancakes

2 C sifted flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
2 eggs
2 C buttermilk

Heat griddle on medium heat while mixing pancakes. Sift dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Beat eggs and buttermilk together in a separate bowl, then add to the flour. Mix well, but be careful not to over-mix - there should be a few small lumps left.
Grease griddle with shortening, then drop batter with a 1/4 C measuring cup, allowing each side to turn golden brown.


Fresh Sour Cherry Topping

I didn't have a recipe, so hopefully this is what I did! :)

2 1/2 quarts pitted fresh sour cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar, or sugar to taste - I like the tartness and flavor, so I try not to over-do the sugar.
2-3 Tbs corn starch, dissolved in 1/4 cup water

Heat everything over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until bubbling and thickened. Test for sweetness before serving.


To serve pancakes Cracker Barrel style, lay out three pancakes in a row on a plate, slightly over-lapping eachother. Spoon plenty of cherries down the center and top with whipped cream.

Confession: I ate the left-overs for lunch, too.

Rhubarb Cake

This is a recipe that my grandmother has made as long as I can remember. She would bake the huge 13" x 9" pan, and then send most of it over to our house because she and my grandfather couldn't possibly eat the whole thing themselves.

It's basically a coffee cake with rhubarb in it... too much sugar on top makes a crunchy coating, delicate cake kept moist by the rhubarb, which adds a wonderful tang to off-set the sugar. Or is it the other way around? Either way, this recipe will always be a favorite with me.

We grow huge amounts of rhubarb. I sell a good deal of it by just putting it down by the road, but still we have much more than we will ever use in a year. This recipe uses 1 1/2 cups chopped, but I've been thinking about trying it with even more. The amount it calls for is by no means overwhelming, and I need to use up last year's frozen crop to make way for new. It's poking out of the ground now, getting ready to grow like crazy as soon as the warm weather finally arrives.

Rhubarb Cake


1 C sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C soft butter
1 beaten egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 C milk
1 1/2 C chopped rhubarb

Topping

1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp soft butter

Preheat oven to 350*

Cream sugars and butter; add beaten egg and vanilla. Sift in remaining dry ingredients. Make a well and add milk and rhubarb, stirring til thoroughly incorporated. Spread in a lightly greased 13 x 9 pan. Mix topping ingredients thoroughly (fingers turned out to be the most useful tool here), making sure not to leave any sugar dry. You may find a tad more butter to be helpful. Sprinkle over the cake and bake 40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temp.

I'm very tempted to wave my arm and say "Bon Appetit!" , but I'll content myself with a sorry little "Enjoy!" instead.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Raspberry Scones

I'm not a huge fan of raspberry flavored chocolate, but raspberries and chocolate are a totally different story. We have a bumper crop of our own raspberries stored in our freezers, and I'm forever trying to think of something different to do with them. When a sweet ingredient needs to be used up, I generally look to scones for the answer. The results this time are amazingly delicious.

Chocolate Raspberry Scones

2 C all purpose flour

1/3 C sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

6 tbsp butter, cold and cut into pieces

2 ounces dark chocolate chunks* or chips (about 1/2 cup)

3/4 C fresh or frozen raspberries**

1/2 C plain yogurt

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 375. Whisk or sift the dry ingredients together, then cut in the butter until it looks like coarse crumbs, letting some of the butter remain in small pieces. Mix in chocolate and raspberries. Make a well in the center. In a separeat bowl, beat together yogurt, vanilla and egg. Pour into the well in the flour mixture, and using a fork, quickly but gently incorporate the yogurt into the flour. Don't over mix. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead a few times till the dough comes together. Pat into a 7" round, about 1 1/2" thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Place on a pan with about an inch between each scone. Bake 18-20 minutes until golden brown. Cool for a few minutes, then drizzle with a glaze made of 1/2 C powdered sugar and 1 tbsp milk.



* I roughly chopped 2 ounces of semi-sweet baking chocolate. I actually like this a lot better than chocolate chips, having the varying sizes of chocolate pieces. Also, chips have a way of turning hard soon after the scones are out of the oven. The chopped chocolate didn't seem to do this.

** If you want to use frozen raspberries, like I did, don't defrost them first. Bust them up with a knife and throw them in as frozen as possible to prevent them from bleeding and dissolving into the dough.

Cranberry Coconut Scones with Orange Curd

Orange Curd

1 C sugar
1/4 C cornstarch
2 C orange juice
1/4 C lemon juice
3 eggs beaten until smooth
1/4 C butter
1 Tbs orange zest

Bend together sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Whisk in juice and beaten eggs. Bring to a boil and cook 1-2 minutes.

Remove from heat and whisk in butter and zest. Cover surface with plastic wrap and chill.

Coconut Cranberry Scones

2 C flour
1/4 C sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbs chilled butter, cubed
1/2 C coconut, shredded

1/2 C chopped fresh cranberries
1/2 C coconut milk, or milk

Preheat oven to 400* F

Mix dry ingredients, then cut in butter until mixture is a coarse crumb texture. Leave some pea-sized chunks of butter. Mix in coconut and cranberries.

Make a well in the dry mixture, and pour in the milk. Use a fork to pull the dry ingredients inward into the milk, just until combined. Do not over-mix.

Turn out onto lightly floured surface and form into a flat 8" round.

Cut into 8 wedges and place on a baking sheet 1/2" apart. Bake 18-20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Serve warm with orange curd and a sprinkle of coconut. Don't forget your cup of hot tea.