Waffle Brunch Dish

Here is a good recipe for Sunday mornings. My wife's Great Aunt came up with this.

Waffle Casserole By Helen

12 – 14 frozen waffles 3 cups milk
2 T butter ½ t salt
½ pound mild cheddar cheese ¼ t cayenne
6 thin slices cooked ham 6 eggs
paprika 1 green pepper, sliced into rings

Prepare waffles in toaster. Generously butter a baking dish. Spread remaining butter on waffles. Line bottom of dish with 6 waffles. Cover with layer of one-half of the cheese, top with ham slices, remaining waffles and cheese. Sprinkle with paprika.

Beat together milk, salt, cayenne, eggs. Pour evenly over waffles and cheese. Refrigerate 3 to 4 hours. Bake in 325 degree oven 35 minutes, top with green pepper rings, and bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Let stand at room temp about 10 minutes.

Persian Deep Dish Pizza

OK. The following recipe is niether Persian, or deep dish pizza. But it is inspired by Persian Food and deep dish pizza. Persians have a way of making rice that it comes out of the oven with a nice buttery crust that is crunchy and a tender inside. I tried to copy that texture with this recipe, and make it a little similar to things that I grew up with.

Persian Rice with Eggplant, Onion and Tomato

Take 1 cup basmati rice and cook it with the juices of 1 32 ounce can of whole tomatoes (about 1 cup tomato juice) and 1 cup chicken broth. Add 1 T butter. When rice is done, press it into the bottom of a WELL BUTTERED 6 inch spring form pan, pressing the rice up the sides, almost like a deep dish pizza, creating a well in the center.

Meanwhile take 1 small eggplant and slice it. Fry the slices in olive oil until brown on each side. Slice 1/4 onion into thin slices. Place onions on top of rice in the springform pan. Top with eggplant. Finally take the tomatoes from the can and crush them by hand onto the top of the whole mess. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 375 for 1 1/2 hours. When it comes out of the oven let it cool for 7 minutes. Invert the whole mess onto a plate and remove the springform pan, leaving the nicely browned crust with the goodies inside. True Nirhvana. Serve with Kebabs or something of the like. Take the recipe and convert it to memory and lord it over everyone you know.

Key Lime Pie Weather

Its that time of year. If you are in a metropolitan area, chances are you can find Key Lime in the store now. If you have never seen a key lime before it is just a regular lime, only smaller, smaller than a 50 cent piece. The only reason I write about this is because we had an excellent trip to the Keys a couple years ago. We stayed in Key Largo but went all over the Keys. It was a goal/priority changing experience. When we were down there we ate a lot of Cuban food and Key Lime Pie. We had such a good experience that we started cooking Cuban food and Key Lime Pie. There is an excellent Key Lime Pie recipe in Key Lime Deserts.

The wife is making one now from fresh Key Limes. Here is a recipe in case you get a hankering for Key Lime Pie. Hint - you don't really need Key Limes, any limes will do.

Key Lime Pie

Filling

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 T cornstarch
1/4 t salt
2 c water
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 T butter
1/4 cup Key Lime juice (squeeze them!) or regular lime juice
1 t grated lime peel
1 9 inch graham cracker crust, baked and cooled

Meringue:
4 egg whites
1/4 t cream of tartar
6 t sugar

Combine the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt. Pour mixture into a saucepan, and gradually stir in water using a wire whisk over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly until thickened. Gradually stir in yolks. Cook 2 minutes. Whisk in butter, lime juice, and peel. Cool slightly and pour into pie crust. Chill in fridge until cold, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Beat egg whites and tartar until foamy. Gradually beat in surgar until thick, stiff and glossy. Top the cooled pie with the meringue, spreading to seal edges and making peaks with the back of a small metal spoon. Bake 5-6 minutes until golden.

Creature of Habit

Yeah. Sorry I have been so slack jawed in the updates lately. A lot has been going on. The baby's cochlear implant is cranked up to maximum volume and experience! Most excellent. As far as she knows she is a 4 day old infant with respect to sound.

Anyway we have been eating standard fare lately. Here are 2 recipes that I think deserve maximal highlighting. These are dishes that I got on a trip to Ledyard.


Darlene's Dilly Veggie Pasta Salad

2 3/4 c medium shell pasta or rotini cooked and drained. Place in a large bowl.

Add:
1 c halved cherry tomatoes
1 c sliced green pepper
1/2 c chopped green onions
1/2 c sliced ripe olives

Dressing:
Whisk together 1/2 c olive oil, 4 T lemon juice, 4 T white wine vinegar or cider vinegar, 2 tsp. dill weed, 2 tsp. dried oregano, 2 tsp. salt (or less), 1/4 tsp. black pepper. Pour over veggies and pasta. Toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate. Serves 8.

Darlene’s Baked Chicken Breasts

4 large or 6 medium chicken breasts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
3 oz can of sliced mushrooms with liquid
1 C sour cream
½ c cooking sherry

Place uncooked chicken breasts in baking dish. Combine rest of ingredients and pour over chicken. Sprinkle with paprika. Bake uncovered for 1 to 1 ½ hours (probably 1 ½ or more) at 350.

Sorry no photos... I have been 'borrowing' the camera from the surgery residency lately. I plan to purchase one soon.

Baby's Cochlear Implant

The surgery went well. We go on Tuesday to turn it on. You can't turn the implant on all the way at first, it tends to freak people out. She has to go to a couple sessions and then a bunch of sessions where they fine tune it. More news at it develops.

Louisville Part 3

When we went to Louisville we had a day free to look around the state. We had initially planned on checking out a national park but there was a terrible accident and we were stuck on the interstate standing still for 3 hours. Finally I drove the rental car through the median and turned around. We were the first car to do it, but when people saw us do it the dam broke loose. We decided to go visit a distillery. We visited the Woodford Reserve Distillery.



They took us on a tour of the entire facility. It is the only distillery in the US that makes whiskey in copper stills.



They ferment corn, barley and rye in these huge vats. Then it is distilled in these huge copper stills.



They can only make about 8 barrels of whiskey a day. It takes 2500 gallons of mash to make the 8 barrels.


The barrels then get rolled down the track to the old stone warehouses.


The whiskey then ages for anywhere from 4 to 7 years. After 4 years they start tapping the barrels for little samples. They bring the sample to specialized testers who know when the whiskey is just right based on how it tastes and smells etc.

Woodford Reserve is a straight bourbon, meaning it gets bottled straight from the barrel without any additives. The inventor of bourbon - Jim Crow - started the distillery. It is a truly high class operation with an excellent product.

Man in the Field - Ledyard

I have a new man in the field! We will be getting reports from time to time on things like livestock shows, rocky mountain oyster feeds, church pot lucks and the occasional news tidbit from Ledyard.

His first submission was concerning beef commercials.

Your recipe for the Kentucky Brown (sp?) looks interesting.
If I may put in my two cents worth as an indigenous rural Iowan---- The quintessential essence of the hot beef, pork or turkey commercial can best be experienced at the cafeteria of a livestock auction salebarn like in Algona or Blue Earth, MN. That way not only do you get the food aroma, but there is a certain amount of hay, straw, livestock, and cigarette and cigar odors permeating the air.
The time- tested commercial is two slices of white bread ,(of course) filled with your choice of meat, then cut diagonally, separated enough to put in one or two generous scoops of mashed potatoes, then the entire works smothered in gravy. Nirvana!

On my last trip to Ledyard I was surprised to see a bottle of my favorite hot sauce, which apparently belongs to our man in the field.



I also learned of a breaking to the Grocery Store (seen on the left) followed by a high speed, but evidently unsuccessful car chase.

Of the incident, our man in the field says:

I didn't know anything about a high speed chase, but heard someone broke into the basement, then couldn't get upstairs as there is no way to.

No news yet on when the Broken Arrow will reopen. It was once a fine eating and drinking establishment in Ledyard. It is now a fine storage facility for collectibles like stoves, welding equipment and the like.