Food, Ramblings about This and That.

I’m a little surprised that I have never posted a recipe for Bread Sauce, but if I did, I can’t find it. Its a very easy recipe but I make it with ingredients similar to Mrs. Beeton but with the procedure adopted by my mother who was, without doubt, one of the greatest cooks I have ever known, I am talking gourmet here, not just everyday cooking. To make this, one of the oldest of British sauces, you take a small onion and stick it with cloves, how many is a question of taste, I use about 6 or so. You then place the onion in a small pan and add around 1/2 Cup of milk (minimum 2% won’t make a good sauce with anything lower) bring to the boil and then turn down the heat and “sweat” the onion for several hours. That is you leave the milk on the lowest heat and allow the onion to sit in the warm milk til the flavours are absorbed. Shortly before needed, remove the onion and cloves and then add about 2 oz of freshly made breadcrumbs. Bring the milk back to the boil and then allow the bread to simmer until it has expanded to a nice thick sauce. Add about an ounce of butter, some seasoning, and then finally some whipping cream, enough to thin down the consistency of the sauce again. Cover with Saran wrap until service. You can actually freeze this sauce I understand; I have never done so. Sunday night we had cold turkey and I had a baked sweet potato with some butter on it. I tried that in the States and decided I really liked it. Matt doesn’t like sweet potato for some reason. I do.

Today is Columbus Day in the States and Thanksgiving here in Canada. In my part of Canada, Oktoberfest is well under way with a parade and lots of beer drinking. Gemutlichkeit is in full swing. On Saturday I cooked the turkey breast (in other words the oven was on) and the sun shone all day so we had to have the air conditioner on because it was so warm in the apartment. Like a summer’s day. We are lucky we have large windows which overlook the park and in the winter months, the sun pours through them.

I have decided I hate blister packs. When you take 365 pills a day like I do, oh alright 364!! it is very frustrating to have to pop them out of their blisters. If only pharmaceutical companies read this blog. I don’t know why they use them, I know the company I used to work for (part of the P & G group) used blister packs, but I really don’t know why. Shelf life perhaps? I’ve never heard Matt swearing about it, so maybe he doesn’t mind and maybe lots of people don’t mind, but Matt doesn’t take nearly as many pills as I do. If you shake me I rattle.

We got a phone call on Saturday asking us to go see our doc after the ECGs we both had the other day. Actually it turned out, when we went in on Sunday, that she didn’t need to see me, but she was warning Matt that he had a ‘not serious’ problem which they would keep an eye on. Basically his heart is not pumping correctly. Poor bugger is going to be wearing a heart monitor for 2 weeks which he is not looking forward to. Hopefully it can be removed to shower otherwise no-one will be getting near him for a while. However it does turn out that his problem is why his heart is pumping out occasional blood clots which causes his TIAs. Now he is on Warfarin, that should be a thing of the past.

Here’s a weird one for you, although come to think of it we had a neighbour who used tomato soup in a cake, but sauerkraut!! Bick’s say it makes a very moist cake. It certainly looks pretty good. I’ll have to try this just for the hell of it.

Secret Ingredient Chocolate Cake

Source Bick’s

2 ¼ cups (550 mL) Robin Hood® All-Purpose Flour
½ cup (125 mL) cocoa
1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda
½ tsp (2 mL) salt
2/3 cup (150 mL) butter, softened
1 ½ cups (375 mL) sugar, granulated
3 eggs
2 tsp (10 mL) vanilla
1 cup (250 mL) water
¾ cup (175 mL) Bick’s® Wine Sauerkraut

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease and flour two 8” (20cm) round layer cake pans.
2. Combine first 5 dry ingredients. Mix well.
3. In a separate bowl cream together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together on medium speed of electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with water, making 3 dry and 2 liquid additions, combining lightly after each. Stir in sauerkraut.
4. Spread batter evenly in prepared pans. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool 10 minutes, then remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Fill and frost as desired.

Makes: 12 servings

Have a great day