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Peg and I don’t eat a whole lot at a time, and we’re headed away for holiday, so I needed to make a small batch of scalloped potatoes for dinner. We always add ham, and I had one on hand.

• Two medium potatoes
• 3 T butter, divided
• 2 T flour
• 2 C milk
• 1/2 t pepper
• 1 t salt
• 1 C cubed ham

Peel and pare the potatoes thinly.

Melt the butter and flour to form a roux, cooking slightly. Whisk in the milk, add salt and pepper, and bring the mixture to a boil until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Spread 1T butter around the inside of a one-quart casserole.

Place a thin layer of white sauce in the bottom of the casserole. Alternate adding potatoes, cubed ham, and white sauce to fill the casserole.

Cover with foil and bake at 350F For 50 minutes. Uncover and bake another 30 minutes…

We like to serve ham and green beans with it.

Peggy signed us up for meatballs for the annual W1GZ Holiday Party. W1GZ is the call sign for the Montachusett Amateur Radio Club. Peggy and I are both hams.

So, anyway, Peg did a search and found “The World’s Best Meatballs” from a clever lady named Kristen. Well, never one to leave well enough alone, we slightly modified the recipe ( we wanted a less “Italian” meatball than Kristen was offering) by removing the Parmesan cheese and the garlic, and opting for half beef/half pork in the meat department.

Herewith, I guess we can call them “John’s Best Meatballs”, because they did turn out quite nicely. In fact, I’m doing this post as someone asked for the recipe!

Preheat oven to 450F and grease a large rimmed cookie sheet.

• 1 # ground pork
• 1 # ground beef
• 1/2 C breadcrumbs (I used panko)
• 1/4 C milk (any %)
• 1/4 C chopped parsley
• 1 C beef broth, divided (1/4 C in meatballs)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 T salt
• 1 t pepper
• 1 t oregano (one might argue removing this would make it even less “Italian”)
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes

Combine all but the ground meats in a large bowl, mixing well to form the panade, which will bind the meatballs.

Add the meats and mix until just combined, but not over mixed, which can toughen the meat texture.

Portion and roll meatballs about 1″ in diameter, spacing them closely on the cookie sheet. I use a small portioning scoop to make the work go faster and get better consistency than I manage on my own.

Pour the remaining 3/4 C of beef broth in the cookie sheet, and bake the meatballs for about 25 minutes, turning once halfway through.

The Hawaiian Meatball conclusion

This recipe came from Taste of Home and called for frozen store-bought meatballs, but hey, we can make those, right?

• 1 20 ounce can unsweetened pineapple chunks
• 1/2 C packed brown sugar
• 1/4 C cornstarch
• 1/2 C cider vinegar
• 2 green peppers, cut into 1″ pieces
• 1 10 ounce jar maraschino cherries, drained
• 1 recipe of “John’s Best Meatballs”
• salt and pepper to taste

Reserve the pineapple juice. Add enough water to make two cups. Place the juice, brown sugar, cornstarch and vinegar into a saucepan. Mix well, then heat gently to a boil; cook until the sauce thickens.

Combine the meatballs, peppers, pineapple, and sauce in a slow cooker. Cook on medium until the peppers are tender, mix in the cherries, and serve over white rice if desired.

For as long as I can remember, Mom made “Mrs. Cheney’s Apple Cake”, or a variant thereof.

Mr. Cheney owned and operated Cheney Orchards in Brimfield Massachusetts. I grew up in the adjacent town, Monson, but Dad grew up in Brimfield, and at one time or another, worked in the orchard for Mr. Cheney.

Mrs. Cheney, his clever wife, was a college-educated (nearly scandalous at the time) home-economics teacher in Brimfield. My Aunt Joann had her as a teacher. Well, Mrs. Cheney was the author of a number of (oddly, apple-related) recipes, and I can remember seeing printed recipes for the taking at the orchard when we visited in the fall.

Herewith, Mrs. Cheney’s Apple Cake (one of many variants):

5 apples, pared & sliced (Macintosh preferably)
½ c. sugar
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

Mix together and set aside.

3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 eggs
1 c. oil
1/3 c. orange juice
2 tsp. Vanilla

Mix all ingredients together well.

Grease and flour a bundt pan.

Alternate layers of batter and apples, beginning and ending with batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 90 minutes (1 ½ hours) or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Peggy is allowing me to make cranberry sauce for dinner at my sister Jackie’s Thanksgiving.

She even found a recipe for me. Most recipes on the web contain cranberries, sugar, orange juice and either ginger, vanilla, nutmeg or something like that.

The recipe was gleaned from the www.jocooks.com website and it’s listed as the world’s best cranberry sauce. We will see and report.

(Later that same day)

Preliminary results are excellent! This is some very tasty sauce!

Thanks, Jo!

Followup: I neglected to add the vanilla called for, and the sauce was none the worse for it. I can’t even think that vanilla would be necessary.

Insofar as we left all of the leftover sauce at my sister’s house, I made a new batch on Friday to appease the spousal unit for whom this blog is named. I measured only the sugar (3/4C) this time, using a 12-ounce bag of cranberries, the zest, juice and pulp of one navel orange, and 1/8 t of nutmeg. No vanilla. The pulp, I opine, adds a bit more flavor and texture to the mix.

We’ll see what the boss says…

Following up in 2020. Everything was great, and I’ve been instructed to make this again! Well, requested, but I know what she meant…

I chased down the connection to Jo Cooks, and found a bad link, depending on your browser, so I’ll put the recipe here, but with FULL CREDIT to Jo Cooks (jocooks.com) for the recipe.

• 12 oz cranberries (1 bag), rinsed
• 1/2 C orange juice, fresh or store-bought
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 Tbs orange zest

Assemble all ingredients in small saucepan. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally

Reduce to medium heat and boil for ten minutes, watching in delight as the cranberries pop (OK, my flair on the recipe…)

Cool and serve at room temperature.

Stores up to two weeks in fridge, six month in freezer.

Not so much a recipe as a story. This is take two of my adventure. My first pass resulted in giant lifeless (yet tasty) masses of dough.

This time I did better, not the least of which is that I only used two apples. I bought a package of Pepperidge Farms puff pastry dough. I rolled the squares out to about ten inches, then cut those into quarters. I put some apple mixture in the middle of the squares. Wet two edges with water, and folded one corner over to form a triangle. I did not do a good job sealing, and was glad to have used parchment!

I also used an egg wash.

Baked at 400F for about 12 minutes.

The apple mixture was two peeled and pared Macintosh apples, about 1/3 C sugar, a dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg, and half a dash of ground clove, mixed well to coat the apples.

I’m blown away by how easy this can be. I had been making small batches of bread pudding over the past year, I suppose, using mostly day-old loaves of the indigenous Market Basket Cinnamon-Raisin Swirl Bread (which is also awesome as French Toast, BTW…).

Serves 4-6

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Ingredients:

• One apple (Macintosh works wonderfully)
• Two large eggs
• 1 1/2 C milk
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t nutmeg
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 5-6 slices of cinnamon-Raisin swirl bread
• 1 T butter

Cut the bread into cubes about the thickness of one slice. Peel and core the apple, and pare into thin (1/8″) slices. Dredge the apple slice in sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Whisk the eggs until well blended, add vanilla and milk, and mix well.

Butter a 1 1/2 Qt ovenproof dish well. The remaining butter is dolloped onto the bottom of the dish. Fill the dish with the bread cubes, top with the egg mixture, taking care not to overfill. Push the bread down into the egg mixture.

Bake for 50-60 minutes at 350F. Pudding should spring back when depressed, and very little, if any, liquid remaining. Bake another 5-10 minutes as necessary.

Let it cool for a bit – it very much resembles lava when it comes out of the oven. It’s absolutely delightful with vanilla ice cream.

Here’s a photo of a batch last week (#coronavirus #self-quarantine) using a Cortland apple.

Mom always made chocolate bread pudding, so I suppose I was at least 35 or 40 before I had anything else. Peg once ordered “regular” bread pudding in a restaurant and offered a taste. Doh! For all these years I’ve eschewed this delightful stuff?

Now, many years later, I’ve made many a batch of bread pudding, but wanted a small one to avoid wasting leftovers.

And being as I’m a cheap Yankee, using hamburger buns left over from the ham radio club picnic yesterday seemed a good idea.

• 3 hamburger buns
• 1/4 C raisins
• 1/4 C sugar
• Sprinkle of nutmeg
• Sprinkle of cinnamon
• 1 C milk
• 1 egg
• 1t vanilla extract

I coarsely cubed the bread, added the raisins and spices. I mixed the egg and sugar, added the milk and vanilla, then mixed all ingredients.

I used a muffin tin, filling all six cavities, then baked for 30 minutes. The puddings came out of the oven all puffed up, and collapsed as I wrote this.

Always good with a bit of creme anglaise, too. I just have to post a recipe.

I was at the market just as the snow from the latest Nor’Easter was starting to fly in earnest. I was ostensibly there just for bread, but saw this beautiful crown of broccoli in the produce aisle, and one of Peg’s favorites, Cream of Broccoli soup, came to mind.

1 large crown of broccoli, cut into 2″ pieces
1 small onion, quartered
2 C water
1T Chicken base
1C Sour cream
1C half & half
salt, pepper, nutmeg to taste

Peel the broccoli stems if necessary. The fiber does not break down nicely.

After cutting the broccoli and onion, put them in a stock pot with the water. Cover and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes or until broccoli is tender. The onion will be tender by that point as well.

I used an immersion blender to break down the vegetables, then added the chicken base, salt and pepper, then let the mixture cook for a while longer.

When ready to serve, stir in the sour cream and half & half. Add very little nutmeg – just enough so you can almost taste it. Adjust salt & pepper.

Ladle into bowls and serve (grilled cheese sandwiches come to mind…)

Yes, this is different from the other recipe – simpler and easier to make.

2# yellow potatoes, peeled and diced 1/2″
1 small onion, finely diced
1# bag of frozen corn
4-5 oz ham, diced 1/2″
2T Butter
3T Flour
2C Milk
2C Water
Salt
Pepper

Looking at the lead times of ingredient preparation, I usually start with the potatoes. Peeled and diced to about 1/2″, the potatoes are put on to just boil – we want them tender, but not already cooked through.

While the potatoes are cooking, dice the onion and ham. The ham should be about 1/2″ dice as well.

When the potatoes are ready, drain them in a colander and put the pot back on the burner.

Melt the butter and saute the onions until just tender, then stir in the flour and mix thoroughly, and cook this roux for about two minutes.

Whisk in the water, then mix in the corn and ham. Bring this mixture to a boil for two minutes, then add the milk and potatoes, season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer until the potatoes are fully tender.

Serve with oyster crackers or Saltines.

I find that the other recipe, with red bell pepper, really bests this version, but I didn’t have any peppers last night. And this was pretty good.

Have fun cooking!