Sunday 16 October 2016

Funeral Potatoes



My family lived in Montreal when I was a child, and the neighbourhood we lived in was incredibly diverse in terms of people's cultural backgrounds and religions. On our street alone, my mother's closest friends were Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and Mormon, respectively, and all the neighbours would get together for everything from barbecues to birthday parties.

Naturally, being such a close-knit community, we also gathered together whenever there was a death in the family. Funerary customs may have differed slightly between our various cultures, but the main themes of togetherness and food were universal. The matriarch of the Mormon family died during the summer before we moved away, and everyone on the block attended her memorial service. The family itself was quite large, and with all of us in attendance as well, you can just imagine how many people filled up their backyard. The gathering overflowed to the next-door neighbour's yard and out into the street, and there must have been at least 20 enormous buffet tables that kept being replenished every time we cleaned them out.

Aside from the trembling mountain of jello desserts that shall ever be burned into my mind, the one dish that I remember from that gathering was an incredible cheesy potato casserole thinger that one of the 90 aunts prepared for the buffet. She must have made a dozen trays of the stuff, because as soon as one tray was scraped clean by the ravenous horde, another would swiftly take its place. I remember this dish so clearly because it was so very different from the types of potato dishes that my Nordic/Slavic relatives made: it was a creamy celebration of gooey cheese and potato, and I must have had three helpings of the stuff.

I'd forgotten all about it until I started doing research into funeral foods around the world and came across this recipe on a blog about common Mormon recipes. Go figure. Apparently the dish is affectionately nicknamed "funeral potatoes" because it always shows up at luncheons after Mormon funerals, especially in Utah. Lucky mourners!

This is an incredibly delicious dish, and when people are in mourning, calories don't count. True fact: every tear shed negates about 50 calories, so go for seconds. Fifths, even.

Funeral Potatoes


Ingredients:

  • 6 tablespoons salted butter (or Earth Balance)
  • One large bag of frozen, shredded hash brown potatoes
  • 1 large Spanish onion, grated
  • 1/4 cup flour (gluten-free or regular)
  • 1 cup milk (dairy, soy, rice, or almond)
  • 2 cups chicken or onion bouillon
  • 1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack or Gruyere cheese (or Daiya Shreds)
  • 1/2 cup grated old* cheddar or (Daiya shreds)
  • 1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt (or soy-based substitutes)
  • 2 cups plain potato chips, crushed
  • 2 tablespoons finely chopped green onions or chives
  • Salt
  • Pepper
*I've made this with smoked applewood cheddar, beer cheddar, and even jalapeƱo havarti. It'll be delicious no matter what cheese you use.

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 350 or 375 degrees, depending on how hot yours gets.
Grease a 9" x 12"baking dish with some extra butter or Earth Balance, and set aside.

In a large, non-stick skillet or stock pot, heat your butter (or substitute) on medium-high, and once it has started to bubble festively, add in your onions.

Turn the heat down to medium and stir regularly until the onions soften and begin to go transparent.

Add in the flour and stir to blend into the butter, and after a minute or two, add the milk. You may have to whisk this to eliminate any lumpy bits.

Use that whisk to incorporate the broth, increasing the heat slightly and whisking regularly until the mixture starts to thicken a little bit. Lower the heat even more, and stir in the grated cheese and sour cream, blending everything together thoroughly. Taste it, and adjust salt as needed. If you're so inclined, this is where you'd crack some pepper into it.

Turn the heat off completely and add the hash brown potatoes into the mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon to coat everything thoroughly. Transfer this into your baking dish, smooth it with a spatula, and then sprinkle the crushed potato chips and chopped green onions over everything.

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 15-20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 20-30 minutes. You're aiming for a nice, golden-brown topping that has bits of cheese bubbling up through it here and there.

Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before allowing the masses to descend upon it.


Yeahhhh. That's a big dollop of creamy comfort food, right there.



Lead photo credit: jumanggy via Foter.com

Wednesday 12 October 2016

Put Brandy in It


"'Drink this.' I dashed some brandy into the water, and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks."
- Dr. Watson, from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes 

Those of you who know me well are thoroughly aware of how much I love the Sherlock Holmes stories. Although I'm fond of the modern Cumberbatch depiction, Jeremy Brett's Sherlock is the one that won my heart, and I've devoured all the Arthur Conan Doyle stories so many times over that I could probably recite them verbatim.

One thing that I noted as I pored through those stories was how Dr. Watson doled out brandy at every turn, as though it were a cure-all for any illness. Has someone fainted? Give them brandy. They're sobbing in abject misery? Brandy. Elderly person complaining of something or other? Brandy them up.

Personally, I think this is a rather wonderful way of tending to various ills, whether physical or emotional. Below is my own recipe for a hot toddy. Although I make these when I feel a sore throat or a head cold coming on, I've also been known to cup them in my hands and sip them slowly when grave news has come my way. 



Ingredients:

  • 2 generous tablespoons of brandy 
  • 1 tablespoon honey, maple syrup, or agave syrup 
  • 1/4 of a fresh lemon 
  • 1 cup freshly boiled hot water 
  • 1 bag of orange pekoe or other black tea 
  • 1 thin slice of ginger (if desired) 

Preparation:

Bring a kettle of water to a rolling boil. 
Pop the teabag into a small pot and cover with a cup of water. Allow the bag to steep until the tea is as strong as you like it best. 
Pour the honey or syrup into the bottom of your favourite mug, then add the brandy and lemon juice, and stir together to make a glorious slurry. If you're adding in a slice of ginger, pop that in now. 
Add the steeped tea to this mixture, stir it well, and enjoy it while it's hot. 

These drinks have a way of warming people to the core after an autumn or winter funeral, when everyone is back inside and in need of soothing. They're great served with ginger snaps or shortbread biscuits, especially the rosemary cookies mentioned in a previous post.

Blessings to you.




 Lead photo credit: shutterbean

Sunday 9 October 2016

It's Chowder



“The lore has not died out of the world, and you will still find people who believe that soup will cure any hurt or illness and is no bad thing to have for the funeral either.” 
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Yes, it's another soup recipe, and you know why? Because soup is glorious and comforting and is a major theme of this blog—just check the URL. There will be many more soups in the future as well, I promise you, but this one holds a special place in my heart.

My apologies for the delayed post: I've been trying to publish at least one blog post a week, but I've been travelling and immersed in various bits of strangeness over the last couple of weeks and haven't been able to concentrate on my own writing. Mea culpa, dear readers.
The days are growing cooler, with nighttime temperatures that just barely skim above freezing. It's a nebulous time in which the days are still quite warm, but we can start to see our breath once the sun begins to set. I've set fires in the wood stoves almost nightly, and heaps of hand-knit, warm woollen socks have been pulled out of storage.

This soup has been a favourite of mine since earliest childhood, and I have made it on countless occasions when I have needed its comfort. 
I need its comfort this weekend. 
It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and although there is much to be thankful for, this is also a time of grief and loss for me: for what might have been, as well as for old wounds whose scabs have been torn open rather cruelly and needlessly. 

I've made several different versions of this chowder (chowdah, to my east coast friends!) to suit different people's dietary needs, but it's gorgeous in all of its many incarnations. I'm sharing the original (pescetarian + dairy) recipe that my family has been preparing for the past 40 or so years, with vegan and AIP-compliant variations listed afterwards.

This chowder is made in three parts and then combined.

Winter's Clam Chowder




Ingredients:

Part 1: Broth
  • 4 cups water
  • 2 cups firm white potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 3/4 cup white onion, diced (or 1/2 cup onion, 1/4 cup thinly sliced leek whites)
  • 3/4 cup carrots, peeled and diced
Bring the water to a rolling boil in a large soup pot, then add the potatoes, onions, and carrots. Bring the heat down to a simmer and cook until the vegetables are tender (usually 8-12 minutes).

Part 2: Sauce
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour (standard or gluten-free, your call)
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
  • 2 cups milk (or 1 cup milk, 1 cup half-and-half cream if you'd like this soup to be really rich and creamy)
  • 2 cups old cheddar cheese, grated

Begin part 2 once you've set the vegetables to simmer.  Melt the butter in a saucepan on medium heat, then whisk the flour in bit by bit to make a good, thick roux.
Slowly add the milk, whisking quickly the entire time.  Add pepper and mustard, then add the grated cheddar in small quantities, using a spoon to stir the mixture in order to blend it evenly.
Once it's completely mixed, pour this mixture into the vegetable broth. 

Part 3: Clams
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce (gluten-free/vegan as required)
  • 3 cans (10 oz ea.) baby clams, including the juice
  • 1 tablespoon fresh parsley, minced
Combine these three ingredients in a bowl, and then add to the soup pot. Use a large spoon to stir everything thoroughly, then allow to simmer for 5-10 minutes longer. 

You can serve it immediately (preferably accompanied by really good bread and a crisp white wine), but the soup is even better the next day once all the flavours have had a chance to combine.



Vegan version:

Swap out the clams for diced oyster mushrooms, and use coconut, soy, almond, or rice milk in lieu of dairy. You can add a bit of miso paste to get the briny umami note that the clam juice would have provided.
To thicken it, you could try using Daiya shreds, but I've never tried using them in this way. I have, however, made the soup thick and creamy by adding pureed white cannellini beans to it.



AIP version:

Use diced yucca, turnip, sweet potato, or rutabaga instead of white potatoes, OR eliminate that ingredient entirely and just pack the chowder full of other fish instead. I like to add chunks of white fish to mine, as well as crab meat and shrimp.
Coconut milk is ideal for adding creaminess as well as a tiny hint of sweetness. If you'd like this thickened, pureed steamed cauliflower works like a charm, though I've also used a roux made with a tiny bit of tapioca flour mixed with olive oil for that purpose.

I hope this soup comforts you and your loved ones beautifully.