a winter meal

Winter calls, of course, for comfort food. For a dish baked in the oven, the warmth and smell of it permating the house. For blankets of creamy cheese sauce. For turkey and broccoli, which is the family name for this heavenly dish, sometimes known elsewhere as Something or another Divan. Why divan? isn't this anothe name for sofa/couch? Why does divan equal cheese sauce? I don't know. I could Google it right now, but it's winter, and I'm conserving body heat and energy, so I'm going to rest in my ignorance.

We only had this when there was leftover turkey, which meant after Thanksgiving or after Christmas, which were the only times we had turkey. My mother would never have dreamed of making turkey just so there would be leftovers (as we have sometimes done), so it was a rare treat, remembered fondly and yearned for.

There were dozens of recipes for this or dishes like it floating around in the '50s, I think, but my mother got hers from a restaurant, now forgotten. She liked what she'd ordered so much (and probably it was called Turkey Divan), that she asked the waiter if the chef might give her the recipe. He told her that the chef was stingy with his recipes, but that it was really easy, and he described what went into it, my mother scribbling it down on the back of an envelope: sliced turkey, broccoli spears, a white sauce enriched with cheese.

My version is only a little different from hers--I don't use frozen broccoli, and I don't used Kraft's Olde English Cheese. But otherwise, it's the same, and it produces a dish where the whole is immeasurably more than the parts.

Jo's Turkey and Broccoli

2 tbs butter or olive oil

2 tbs flour

1.5 cups milk

1.5 cups grated cheese of your choice

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2-3 broccoli crowns

a cup or cup and a half of leftover turkey

paprika

Melt butter in a saucepan, and add the flour to it (or to the oil), stirring over the heat until it's absorbed. Stir in the milk and continue stirring until it thickens into its white-sauceness. (This time, I was doing 2 other things at the same time, and I let it start to boil, which you are never supposed to do to white sauce, but you know--it turned out fine.) When it's thickened, add salt and nutmeg and grated cheese, stirring until it melts in. (I mostly use cheddar, but I add other cheese to it, depending on what's in the fridge.)

Cook broccoli until just starting to become tender, and slice or separate the florets--you don't want anything to be so big that it will stick up and mar the cheese-sauce blanket. Slice or chop the turkey. Put the broccoli in one layer in an 8-inch baking pan, and the turkey over it. Pour cheese sauce--it will probably be thick, so spread it to the edges and corners. Sprinkle lightly with paprika.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling around the edges and the top browns slightly. Eat with moans of pleasure.

I always think of my mother when we have this, of her wonderful cooking, her curiosity. I can see her talking to the waiter, her eager friendliness, maybe almost flirting a little (she was a very attractive woman), my father looking on benevolently--because for him, everything she did was right.

macaroni and cheese

This post is dedicated to my daughter S, who loves macaroni and cheese with a passion--I always try to make it for her if she visits (and once made it for her at her house; a small disaster because of the difference in our ovens). I must say it's a pleasure to know of something that will always delight her; if only my older daughter V had a favorite dish so I could do the same for her--if she has, she's not telling.
Kevin at Seriously Good has come up with a Mac-and-Cheese Off, and I had to post on mine, even though it is extremely ungourmet, not in any way tarted up, perhaps boring. We like it that way (although we don't agree that it's boring). I haven't used a recipe for years, although long ago I had it written out on an index card, one of the few dishes of my mother's that I carried into my first marriage. It's her recipe, possibly originally from the Joy of Cooking (although it's not quite the same) and all I've changed is the type of cheese (Mom was a fan of Kraft American).
Here it is--basic, homey, and delicious.
Sue Bee's Macaroni and Cheese
2 tbs butter (you can use oil if you want, although the taste will change)
2 tbs flour
2 cups milk (I've used skim, 2%, and whole--all work fine)
about 2 cups grated cheese
2 cups macaroni
Paprika
Melt the butter in a sauce pan, add flour and stir into a roux, cooking it gently for a half minute or so. 1 Add milk and stir constantly over low heat until the lumps dissolve (smash at them with your spoon if necessary). Continue cooking over lowish heat, 2 until the sauce thickens enough to coat the spoon a little. 3 Add the grated cheese 4 and stir until melted (you shouldn't need the stove here--the heat of the sauce should melt it).
In the meantime, if you're efficient, you'll have had water boiling for the macaroni. Sling it in and simmer it until it just starts to soften (I take one or two out and eat them to see how they're coming along). When they get there, drain and put in your preferred dish (I use a 9x13 pan), then pour the sauce over, mixing everything around until the cheesiness is nicely distributed.
As a last touch, sprinkle with paprika (this is more for aesthetics than flavor, but we can't do without it). Bake at 350 degrees for a while. I don't really time it any more, but I think it's supposed to go for about 25 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbling a little around the edges.
Serve right from the pan, because no one is interested in waiting any longer. It's good with vegetables like broccoli or green beans (also a nice color contrast), but we never put the vegetables into the mac and cheese in the interests of innovation or saving time as I've seen some recipes suggest.
mac and cheese footnotes:
1 When I first made this I had no idea what a roux was, but now I take pleasure in using the right word.
2 You're supposed to cook it over low heat, but I confess that I often turn up the heat after the lumps are gone, which works OK if you stir madly.
3 Knowing when this is partly a matter of experience, but I find that the feel of the spoon (I always use a wooden one) against the pan changes when the sauce starts to thicken--it moves against the pan bottom in a more silky way.
4 This particular mac and cheese had a mixture of two kinds of cheddar (an Irish cheese, I think, and Helluva Good Cheese Extra Sharp Cheddar), plus the end of a piece of Swiss. If I'm making it for S, it has to have a high proportion of yellow cheddar, since she disdains the white version. Confession: I once used a judicious mixture of yellow and red food coloring when I had only white cheese: no one guessed.

the 5 things to eat before you die meme

Started by The Traveler's Lunchbox, this has been variously and wondrously interpreted by bloggers, including Faith at Mekuno Cooking (who tagged me); Karina at gluten-free goddess (she gives 5 foods to live for); Cookiecrumb (who includes a deathbed wish); and kitchen hand at What I cooked last night (he has 5 meals).
I had trouble coming up with my own list--too many wonderful things, of course, but also, how to interpret it--personal foods? universal foods? unique and amazing foods? My list turned out to be personal, but somewhat accessible.
1. Pizza in Italy. I didn't really know how good pizza could be until I went to Italy. The 1st one my sister and I had (a Pizza Margherita in an 8-table restaurant in a Roman alley) was a revelation that swept aside all the unsatisfactory experiences with Domino's and their like. (Actually, any food in Italy would be a good list item--almost everything we ate there was wonderful.)
2. My mother's torte, made always for Christmas dinner, and occasionally on other state occasions. We learned that my sister couldn't have it for her June birthday though, since the heat tended to uncrisp and even melt it. When we were young, the torte seemed like a miraculous and unique creation, but I know it now as a variety of dacquoise, meringue layers filled and frosted with whipped cream flavored with cherries and pineapple. It's one of those recipes that turns out to be more than the sum of its parts.
3. Warm bread you've made yourself. The taste is wonderful enough in itself, good even w/o butter (although butter is welcome), but it's even better because of the sense of accomplishment. I waited a long time to taste this because of my fear of yeast, one of several food-preparation fears I had: fear of yeast, fear of canning, fear of pressure cookers, and fear of deep-fat frying. I've conquered the 1st two, and I'm contemplating learning how to make doughnuts.
4. Pierogi, an eastern-European kind of filled dumpling for those of you whose grandma didn't make them by the dozen, filled most often with potato and/or cheese, but now available in other flavors. I'm part Slovak, and my grandma and aunts were great pierogi makers. I myself am a great pierogi buyer. Hmmm--maybe I have a fear of pierogi? Pierogi should ideally be served with fried onions, some sour cream, possibly sauerkraut, and some kielbasi sausage. It's a dish that will turn you Slovak (or Polish or Hungarian).
5. A BLT, with homegrown tomatoes and lettuce, which incidentally we had last night for dinner--tomato slices as large as dessert plates, Red Sails lettuce, bacon from The Sausage Shoppe (home-cured), and bread from one of my favorite bakeries, the Stone Oven. I was starting to feel sick last night, and the BLT made me feel cured, for a while at least.

Bloggers I'd like to tag (and who I'm pretty sure haven't posted on it yet): Barbara at Tigers and Strawberries; Liz at Pocket Farm; ladygoat at Foodgoat; Queen of the Kitchen; and Gina at Crazy Diamond.