Risotto and Corned-Beef Stuffed Peppers are an easy-to-make dinner. Serve them with a light tomato cream sauce. Great with Colcannon.
Reconstructed
Nesco Honey Baked Cola Ham
The Nesco makes a great Honey Baked ham, whether you’re just warming one up from their store, or making your own. I hope you’ll try my Nesco Honey Baked Cola ham.
Just Say No to GMO Box Tops for Education
Say “Hell NO!” to GMO Box Tops for Education. General Mills spends millions of dollars to prevent labeling of processed, GMO foods.
Thousand Island Dressing with Balsamic Toasts
Recipes in this Post
Why would anyone want to write about Thousand Island Dressing? It’s yucky! It’s that reddish stuff that sits on the salad bar and congeals because no one wants it, and rightly so. It’s the “secret” sauce on the Big Mac and has become so common that you probably don’t even notice it on your sandwich anymore. That’s a pity because this is a grand dame of salad dressings with an interesting and honorable history.
Thousand Island Dressing is named for the archipelago of 1,864 islands that straddles the Canada-U.S. border in the Saint Lawrence River. Some of the islands are very small indeed. The one pictured above supports a single tree and two bushes. The dressing was popularized by May Irwin, a Canadian vaudeville star in the 1890s. She had a home in Grindstone Island, one of the Thousand Islands. She said that the dressing reminded her of the Thousand Islands, and enjoyed the dressing so much that she requested the recipe from Sophia LaLonde, a fishing guide’s wife who frequently made the dressing for her husband. Miss Irwin then gave the recipe to George Boldt, the proprietor of the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, who instructed his the hotel’s maître d’hôtel, Oscar Tschirky, to put the dressing on the menu. In 1950 the dressing became a standard and started its decline into the gloppy mess we have today.
One of the things we do at The Good Plate is to reconstruct packaged foods, so they taste better, and don’t have the preservatives common in packaged foods. I knew that venerable Thousand Island Dressing deserved a better place, and making it from scratch would make it one of my favorites, especially for seafood salads.
I made a crab salad for the dressing, and some Balsamic Toasts to go with them. This was amid Spane and his friend making Play Dough on the stove. There are little bits of homemade Play Dough all over the place. Time to clean!
Jambalaya in the Nesco
In the midst of the last move, I forgot to close out the old gas bill and was not reminded when I turned the new gas on. I got a nasty letter from the gas company saying that they are going to turn off my gas in the new place if I don’t immediately pay the old bill and that I have to call a certain phone number when I make the payment. To make sure that the payment is properly recorded, I went to the local gas company on July 2, 2013, and paid the bill in person. Then I called the special number at about 3:30 pm and got a recorded message that the gas company was open from 8:00 am to 5:15 pm. I figured that in the information age, the payment would be recorded and all would be well.
The Problem
I was wrong. When I got home yesterday, Monday, July 8, 2013, Spane and I were hungry, so I started dinner early, at 4:30. I chopped the vegetables, cut the meat, put butter in the pan, and turned the knob – and ……. nothing. No gas. I called the gas company, the special number and again was told that the office was open from 8:00 am to 5:15 pm, a full 45 minutes before the office was supposed to close. When calling the regular number, I got a nice woman to whom I kept on apologizing to because I was so mad, and she said the gas would be turned back on tomorrow, Wednesday, July 10, 2013, between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm, and to make sure that all pets were secure and gates open. I chuckled and said, “Humph, you didn’t seem to have any problems turning it off, did you?”
The Solution
That meant that today, I don’t have gas. I have been on the phone with them, and have asked for a supervisor. I’m still waiting for a callback, but I’m not waiting anymore to make dinner. I have a small *Nesco, and I’m going to make my Jambalaya in it. This is one of the reasons I have this wonderful roaster oven, so I can cook no matter what.
My recipe for Jambalaya follows and I have more recipes for foods perfect for the Nesco.
I also have an updated recipe for Jambalaya in the Instant Pot. It’s a set it and forget it kind of recipe, just as spicy and delicious.
Chicken and Rice Paprika Inspired By Hieronymus Bosch
This chicken and rice paprika is very easy to make and is comforting. You can spice it up if you wish, and it comes together in under an hour.
Homemade Charcoal Chimney Starter, Burgers Topped with Cheddar and Coleslaw
Recipes in this Post
There used to be a wonderful coffee-shop in Santa Monica called Nick’s. One day, I went in there and ordered something called a Nick Burger. It had coleslaw and swiss cheese on it. It was so juicy you had to eat it over the plate. It became my favorite burger, and tonight, I decided to recreate it, with a little zip.
I’ve been becoming very brave of late with my Weber. First I started out with Match Light coals because they were pre-soaked, and easy to get started. Then, I graduated to using charcoal fluid and regular coals. Then today, I realized I had run out of fluid, and the corner store was closed. I knew that there are specially made charcoal chimney starters, and I thought I could make one from scratch. It wasn’t difficult at all making a homemade charcoal chimney starter. No more relying on charcoal fluid for me!
Lobster Rose Petal Salad with Lemon Butter Dressing – Great Grandmother’s Recipe
When I was a little girl, my mother used to go on about how she loved going to her grandmother’s house when she would serve Lobster and Rose salad. I was always hoping that my mother would recreate the recipe, but she never did.
When my great-grandmother was making this salad, lobster was a lot less expensive. I decided that for my birthday, despite to cost, I would recreate Christina Jacobsen’s recipe myself.
Cream of Tomato Soup for a Rainy Day
Cream of tomato soup is wonderful any time of year, and so easy you will want to make it frequently.
Experiment in Cupcakes – Box Cake from Scratch and Boiled Frosting
Recipes in this Post
I had a dream, yes I had a dream. I dreamed of cupcakes with blue buttercream frosting.
I’m not much of a cupcake person, but they are nice if you’ve got a lot of kids. They are easy because you don’t really need a plate, and you don’t need a knife, and you don’t have to worry about someone saying their piece of cake is too small or too big. All the cupcakes are the same size.
Usually, I make a butter cake, similar to a 1234 cake, but it makes a three-layer cake, and that was just too much for cupcakes. I know that a regular box of cake mix makes enough for cupcakes, but I don’t like things that come in a box. So I made my own box cake with fresh ingredients.