A Menu That Worked

Since I'm always interested in easy meal plans with lots of make-ahead components, I thought I'd share the menu from a recent afternoon get-together that I thought worked particularly well.  As you'll see, it's slow-cooker heavy, since-- lazy as I am-- I now own two of these workhorses!

In my small slow cooker:  Spinach and Artichoke Dip (8 oz cream cheese; 2 cups grated mozzarella; 1 can of artichoke hearts, drained of course; and 1 bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry.  Combine in the slow cooker and heat on "low"-- stirring every now and then--until it's all nicely melted.)  I assembled this about an hour before our guests arrived, and set out crackers, a serving spoon, small plates, etc., so that they could help themselves directly from the slow cooker.

In my large slow cooker: Pot Roast  This was a 6-lb beef chuck roast that I cooked overnight (12 hours) on "low" along with a cup of red wine; a can of beef broth; a package of frozen mixed peppers and onions; and (key) the drippings from at least six strips of bacon, which I also crumbled into the pot.  In the morning I added extra seasonings to taste, including paprika, caraway seed, salt, and a couple tablespoons of sour cream.

In the oven:  Slow-Roasted Tomatoes ...  Wow.  Last month I'd never even heard of this dish, and now I'm convinced that it's the perfect make-ahead side for wintertime!  Following this recipe from the most recent issue of Cooking Light, I baked plum tomato halves overnight in a 200-degree oven.  The next morning, I was able to chill them and later-- just before dinner-- reheat them, adding a sprinkle of mozzarella and fresh basil.  The taste was intensely rich, complimenting the pot roast so well; moreover, the (scant) leftovers reheated nicely on the next day, too, without any apparent change in texture or moisture.  I'm definitely making this again!

On the stovetop:  Mashed Potatoes, which I'd boiled the previous night, ready for day-of mashing with butter and cream ... and Steamed Asparagus, just a quick three minutes in a steamer basket.

Bread and Butter, of course; and then:

Dessert #1:  A guest asked "what to bring?" and I pounced on the offer!  She made a marvellous homemade Apfelkuchen-- and hopefully she'll also post the recipe on her blog, as I thought it absolutely perfect: light and mildly (not cloyingly) sweet.   I just couldn't stop cutting slices for myself!

Dessert #2 (and I might also label this "In the Refrigerator") I'd made a batch of Rote Grütze, a wonderful German berry dessert-- sort of a thick compote served with heavy cream-- which I love, love, love!  A German military wife hooked me on it last year, after which it became one of my go-to recipes.  And it's so simple!  While this version (also easy) calls for fresh fruit and cornstrach, I only stewed a large bag of frozen mixed berries and a small bag of frozen cherries together (with just enough water to cover) in a large pot; slightly thickened the mixture with a package of vanilla cook-and-serve pudding; and then added just a tablespoon of sugar.  I then chilled it overnight, and served it in bowls with a small pitcher of heavy cream... and wished that I didn't have to share!

As you'll note, I could do most of the work on the previous night, after children were in bed.  At that time I set up the pot roast, which began to cook shortly before midnight; prepped the tomatoes and put them in the oven to roast overnight; boiled the potatoes; and made the Rote Grütze.  On the morning of the get-together, all that I really had to do was throw the spinach-artichoke ingredients in a crock pot; season the pot roast; mash the potatoes; slide the tomatoes back into the oven; and steam the asparagus.  ...Yes, plenty of time left to stress over a wrinkled tablecloth and try to match the napkins (a losing battle)! 


I'd love to see examples of your successful menus!  If you have a post or an idea to share, please leave me a note in the comment box... And as always, thank you!  Although married for over eleven years, I still feel like a novice when it comes to entertaining.

Everyday Sacramentality

"Bread is revered in Hungary... and country folks still call it 'life.' As a child, if I dropped a slice of bread, I had to kiss it before eating it."

                ~George Lang, The Cuisine of Hungary (1971) p. 345

How simple and natural an extension from this, to love of the Blessed Sacrament-- and vice versa!   (Yet Lang himself was Jewish.)   Faith seems so intertwined with a grateful awareness of basic needs; of dependence; of survival...

Does a society lose its faith when its loses its concept of a "staff of life"?  (Here I'm probably trailing into the ideology of the Back-to-the-Land Movement...!) Of course, it isn't as simple as this: if it were, then we'd be done with the matter in one exhaustive historical study.

Still, today in the kitchen I'm taking a fresh look at my pantry staples. Potatoes.  Bread.  Barley.  Rice.  Building blocks of Life in more than one way?

Milk soup: a grand tradition...?!

"Milk soup"-- have you heard of this?  Tasted it?  While flipping through my Hungarian cookbook (George Lang's classic, recommended by a Facebook friend), I was astonished to find a recipe for it; and still more astonished to find other versions online...

The personal significance:  My Polish grandfather, may he rest in peace, ate a bowl of this every day for more than 50 years-- but I'd always assumed that the mixture was his own quirky invention, because who else would eat what was essentially a white sauce with noodles, and nothing more?  My mother told me that this "milk soup" regimen began after his wartime imprisonment, when a doctor (either in the DP camp, or upon the family's arrival in the US) told him that he was malnourished and needed to "build himself up," so to speak.  This soup was his solution.  And he made the entire family eat it, every day...

My mom detested milk soup, or came to detest it.  While I often saw my grandfather eating it, I don't remember trying it myself; and he never pressured me.

Here's a whole online conversation about it.  And another.  Again, I'd never realized that milk soup was not just my Dziadzio's quirk, but a well-known recipe with many variations!

Rakott krumpli

As we sometimes joke to each other, my husband and I are both very much "ethnic wannabes."  We each have one immigrant Polish parent-- in his case, born in a Siberian gulag during the war; and in mine, born in a DP camp in Germany, where my grandparents had been deported for forced labor.  My husband's mother is half Polish and half German; and my father is half Polish and half Hungarian.  On either side, no ancestor arrived in this country before the twentieth century... Although my husband and I don't speak Polish, have never been to Poland (or Hungary, or Germany), and are decidedly "American" in our attitudes (as we always discover when speaking with actual Europeans!), still we cling to the idea of ethnic identity-- and admit that the attempt is, well, half pathetic.

Now, inevitably, our immigrant parents are aging; and our immigrant grandparents are dying.  Someday that direct link to the past will be severed...

While we've always been eager to claim our heritage in small ways (i.e. the framed Polish eagles on our walls), lately I've grown a little desperate!  Along with a great uncle on my father's side, I've been dabbling in Hungarian genealogy.*   I've also been reprinting family photos, displaying deceased family members' cherished personal effects, and-- the true topic of this post-- experimenting with Eastern European recipes.

For dinner last night I made a version of Hungarian rakott krumpli, which is an extremely simple-- but incredibly rich!-- potato casserole.  Basically, it consists of sliced boiled potatoes layered with lots of melted butter; sliced hardboiled eggs; meat (ham and/or bacon and/or sausage); and finally, sour cream, or a sour cream sauce, topped with a sprinkle of paprika.  Then, bake in a medium oven for about 30 minutes... The dish can be varied in many ways, including omitting the meat for a Lenten dish.  I used diced ham and added a layer of chopped cabbage for extra nutrition.

Here's one recipe; and here's another; and another.

The hardboiled egg and sour cream give rakott krumpli a very distinctive, old-world flavor (and I never would have considered using hardboiled egg in a baked casserole!  But try it-- it's delicious.).  I found that sliced cucumber and a glass of wine provided a fresh, pleasant contrast to the casserole's richness.

As I continue to mine my Hungarian and Polish cookbooks, I'll post about the results.  In the meantime, my husband agrees-- we're definitely making rakott krumpli again!


*Ironic, considering that my children are not genetically related to me!  But I'll save that reflection for another day.