In The Kitchen For Christmas

Last Saturday was the big baking day.  My girls and I, along with Solanah and Dana, spent hours in the kitchen loving every minute of it.  We made; white apricot fudge, red velvet fudge, pistachio tart, scones, vegan cupcakes, chocolate pretzels, brownies and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  Needless to say I have some happy neighbors now that the goodies were given away. 

Ruthie cooking the fudge

Pistachio tart

White apricot fudge

Red velvet fudge

A few days later the girls and I were in the kitchen again.  This time building gingerbread houses.

We are counting down to Xmas using the alphabet (started Nov. 30th) and it was G for gingerbread day.  We have done a for angel, b for baby, c for caramel apples, d for delicious (as seen above) e for elf, and f for fun.

Most recipes can be found on my Pinterest page

My Week In Sunday Morning

What hips are for.

Loretta!

The girls slept in their fort.

Joey smells bacon.

Bacon upside down pancake

Remembering we have a bottle of champagne-perfect for mimosas.   

Rooster Tofu Recipe

• There was a bit of interest in my recent post that included Rooster Tofu skewers.  They are delicious!  Enjoy
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• 1 (8 ounce) container extra firm tofu, drained and sliced into large chunks
• 1 zucchini, cut into large chunks
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into large chunks
• 10 large mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons sriracha chili garlic sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1 jalapeno pepper, diced
• ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Place tofu, zucchini, red bell pepper, and mushrooms in a bowl. Mix sriracha sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, onion, jalapeno, and pepper in a small bowl, and pour over tofu and vegetables. Toss lightly to coat. Cover, and allow to marinate at least 1 hour in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil the grate.
3. Thread tofu and vegetables on to skewers. Grill each skewer 10 minutes, or to desired doneness. Use any remaining marinade as a dipping sauce.

Jumping Into Fall

My Gracie is such the poser!  

It is beginning to feel like Fall.  If you know me you aren't surprised my favorite part of each season involves food.  We jumped right in and baked pumpkin bread last week as the perfect back to school breakfast treat.  This is a family recipe that just happens to be vegan.  (which does not translate healthy)  I LOVE this bread!  It may well be my favorite all time food.  Many have baked pumpkin bread for me once they learn of my pumpkin crush.  I always feel bad because it never even compares to ours.  Family recipes are like that aren't they?

Coedith's Favorite:

4 cups sugar (we started using raw for our favorite vegan)

1 cup oil

5 cups flour

2 tsp. cinnamon 

1 tsp. cloves

3/4 tsp. salt

3 tsp. baking soda

1 large can pumpkin (I prefer the consistency of canned to fresh for baking.  Libby's is the brand to use.)

You can add raisins, craisins, nuts and our personal fave chocolate chips

Combine sugar and oil

mix dry ingredients and add alternately with pumpkin to sugar and oil

Bake at 350 degrees for 1hr and 15min. or until toothpick comes out clean

Okie Girl Eats: Bug Pie

Sour cream and raisin pie-which I grew up calling "bug pie"- is my favorite.  

Here is the recipe:

• 1 cup raisins
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 egg yolks
• baked pie crust 
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  MERINGUE:
• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons sugar; I half this with brown sugar

Directions

• In a small saucepan, place raisins and enough water to cover; bring to a boil. Remove from the heat; set aside.
• In a large saucepan, the sugar, cornstarch, salt, cloves and cinnamon. Stir in sour cream and milk until smooth. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat to low; cook and stir for 2 minutes longer. Remove from the heat. Stir a small amount of hot filling into egg yolks;(otherwise your eggs will cook in the filling) return all to the pan, stirring constantly.Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.
• Drain raisins, reserving 1/2 cup liquid. Gently stir liquid into filling. Add raisins, and nuts if desired. Pour into pie shell.
• For meringue, in a small bowl, beat egg whites and salt on medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, on high until stiff peaks form. Spread over hot filling, sealing edges to crust.
• Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour; refrigerate for 1-2 hours before serving. 

Okie Girl Eats: Buttermilk Pie

Buttermilk.  I wonder if the poor lil' Okies acquired a taste for buttermilk due to the fact they rarely had fresh milk.  It is not an easy taste to enjoy, but many of my Okie relatives would beg to differ.  I do enjoy buttermilk as an ingredient, especially in this buttermilk pie.  Think in terms of pancakes, we have regular pancakes and then we have buttermilk pancakes.  The same with pie, we have custard pie and we have buttermilk pie- very similar, yet the buttermilk adds a deeper and richer flavor.  It took me two tries to perfect this pie.  My first attempt was undercooked.  This was embarrassing as I made it to take to a luncheon and didn't realize until I was there and sliced it.  The next one was a little too sugary, and finally number three sliced like a dream and was just sweet enough.

Here is the recipe:

2 c. sugar (I liked 1.5)
2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
5 lg. eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. butter, melted
1 tsp. vanilla
1 unbaked 9" pastry shell

Combine sugar and flour in a large bowl, add eggs and buttermilk, stirring until blended. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour into unbaked pastry shell. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until set. (give it a shake, if it wiggles give 5 more min.) 

Mav and I stumbled upon this little pie cart Saturday night.  We were full from dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant, but couldn't pass up pie!  I dream of having an airstream to bake and sell pies out of.  I would name it Sweetie Pies.

Okie Girl Eats: Homemade Maple Syrup

  I did a couple of different things with our pancakes this morning.  I added crumbled bacon to the batter and I made our syrup.  (I prefer Bisquick for making both pancakes and biscuits.)  I just can't bring myself to buy store bought syrup unless it is 100% pure maple syrup, and at the rate our family of goes through syrup that gets costly.  Then I was reminded by my mother of the syrup she made when I was a child.  Here is the recipe:

• 1 cup water
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp maple flavoring

Boil water, add sugar and flavor.  Serve when smooth and combined. The syrup will be more the consistency of pure maple syrup. 

 It made more than enough for our family with enough leftover for us to have 2 or 3 more times.  

Okie Girl Eats: Pie Crusts

Ruth wanted to make a chocolate meringue pie for Mav for Father's Day.  We were all out of crust and needed to make another batch-we usually make about 20 at a time and freeze them.  Ruth is a great pie baker.  She began making crusts at about age 8.  Her best friend would come over and they would bake once a week for "school".  I dream of one day having a little pie shop in an old airstream called Sweetie Pies.  Of course we have a family pie crust recipe that we always use.  Here is the recipe:

• 3lbs crisco
• 15 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 3 TBSP vinegar
• 3 tsp salt

combine-shortening, flour and salt

combine eggs, vinegar with water to make three cups

mix all together-well require your hands

Like I said it will make a lot of pies!

Solanah came over and joined us and to add a few crusts to her freezer.  I found this picture of me and her when she was little rolling out pie crusts.  I am in my PJ's so I think it was probably early Thanksgiving morning.

Okie Girl Eats: Chocolate & Biscuits

 Chocolate and biscuits.  Sometimes they are called biscuits with chocolate gravy.  This recipe comes from the McClure side of my husbands family.  Mav remembers eating them as a child but hadn't had them since.  

His and my family come from similar backgrounds.  My dad is from New Jersey and his New York, my mom, as I explained here, was an Okie and his mom was born in Texas. 

 That's his grandpa JT in the first picture with the sailor.  Look at his outfit!  I love the leather jacket, open collar and striped shirt.  

JT left Texas and rode the rails out to So. California in the 40's where he met and married Mav's grandma Delight.  Judging by his clothes and the fact he was single without a family to provide for I have concluded life for him in California was much different than my Okie relatives.  

The people coming to California from Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas were all referred to as "Okies."  Only amongst themselves were the differences noted.  JT would tell of when Spade Cooley would start his show with "Let's have Okies on the left, Arkies on the right and Texans down the middle."  This was  a preventive measure for the fights that were sure to break out.  

So although our families are slightly different, there still are many similarities and one of them is food.  I don't know why I never had chocolate and biscuits before, but I am sure glad I have now.  

Here is the family recipe.  I hope you enjoy them.  I should say I hope you try them- because if you do, I know you will enjoy them. 

Oh, and according to Mav we ate the lowfat version.  We didn't put butter on our biscuits before pouring on the chocolate.  That is how they did it when he was little. 

• 1.5 cups of sugar
• .5 tsp salt
• 2.5 tbsp cornstarch
• 1 tbsp flour
• 3 c. milk
• 3 squares unsweetened chocolate, chopped (3 oz.)
• 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1.5 tsp vanilla

Mix sugar, salt, cornstarch and flour in saucepan.  Gradually stir in milk.  Add chocolate.  Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil 1 minute.   Remove from heat.  Slowly stir half the mixture into the beaten egg yolks.  Then blend the egg mixture into the hot mixture.  Boil 1 minute more, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and blend in butter and vanilla.  Cut hot biscuits in half.  Put a pat of butter on  hot biscuits and spoon hot chocolate gravy on top of biscuits.

Quick version: Cook large sized box of chocolate pudding (not instant) pour over hot canned biscuits.

Okie Girl Eats

Have you ever wondered about my name Coedith?  My name is Nichole Edith.  (Say them together) When Mav and I were dating he started calling me 'coedith, as a pet name that reflected my Okie roots.  He took that picture of me in a cotton field where I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley.  Okies are the people who came out to California to escape the dustbowl in Oklahoma during the 1930's.  The term is also used for those from Arkansas and Texas.   They loaded up all they had and headed to Californi-a.  Most became migrant farm workers.  That's the story of my mother's side of the family.  She was actually born in '36 while her parents were hitch hiking to Cal.  She was born in Yuma, Arizona.  Shortly after her birth they hit the road again.  She was born in April and hitch hiking in the desert sun resulted in a sunburn.  My grandma said my mother had practically no skin left by the time they got to the San Joaquin Valley.   That's my family pictured above while still sharecroppers in Oklahoma.  My grandma Lois is the little girl on the right end.  Her parents, Frank and Ehthel, stand on the opposite end.

 This all has heavy influence on how I wear vintage.  I will post on that another time, but for now I thought I would share a bit of my Okieness with you by way of food.   Here you have chili beans and cornbread with a couple variations.  Nothing fancy- pinto beans, ground beef, el pato, and a little chili powder.   Of course the original recipe had bacon grease added. (most things did) Now I must say my mothers childhood consisted mainly of plain beans and fried potatoes.  Occasionally there would be meat to go with the beans, beans that have evolved through out the years into the chili beans I cook for my family.  I bake the cornbread in muffin tins, but originally it would have been cooked in a cast iron skillet.  Traditionally we would have tacos the night before and use the left over meat in the beans.  

I have a picture of the meal plated.  Cornbread crumbled in with a dallop of mayo on top.  My mom was strongly opposed to us eating it this way when we were growing up, although other family members did and once I tried it I had to have it that way too.  My parents simply had their beans with saltines and a sliced onion.  Okies were poor and had to stretch a meal so if there was leftover corn bread you had it in milk for breakfast.  (Buttermilk is best- but not in my opinion.)   If you were fortunate enough to have chocolate cake...yep, you put your beans right on top of it.  (my mom doesn't approve of that either)

Look for more about Okie lifestyle, fashion and history in my posting future!