Month: February 2009

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Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Onion, and A Friendship Bread Update

1. Amish Friendship Bread Update

Above are two of the most recent Friendship Bread experiments. The one on the right, a whole-wheat version with honey, was quite good. Since then, however, I have developed a superior loaf with whole wheat, oats, and brown sugar. I’m setting out a new starter–I found the recipe on the Internet, of course–to make sure the recipe will work, so it will be at least 10 days before I post on this again.

2. Mashed Potatoes

It’s darn near impossible to beat the creamy, luscious tastiness of mashed potatoes. But since that lusciousness results largely from vast quantities of butter and cream, Fred and I have struggled to keep mashed potatoes on our slimmed-down menu.

I’m the problem. I pretend to be a normal cook, the kind of person who makes desserts with Kool Whip. But the truth is that I am a horrible snob when it comes to food–a dreadful, pretentious, unyielding, unforgiving snob. While others at our Weight Watchers meeting are raving about recipes that call for cake mix combined with diet soda (I only wish I were joking here), or fat-free HoHos, or the menu items at Chili’s that have less than 7 points, I can only smile weakly with supressed horror. Why are they not making cakes from scratch? Who eats at chain restaurants? And why do they not recognize that “fat-free” foods are the worst abominations of the agricultural/military/industrial complex?

My pretensions kept me from using fat-free sour cream or fat-free half and half in any mashed potato recipe. Buttermilk, which is rich but tends to be lower in fat, seemed an acceptable substitute. But the butter, with no “real” alternative, posed a thorny problem.

Luckily, I am a woefully inconsistent snob. I am a sucker for processed foods from the 1970s, the beloved companions of childhood. I will happily lap up cans of Spaghetti O’s, heaps of Hamburger Helper Lasagna, vats of Campbell’s Tomato Soup, and gallons of Kool-Aid. And it’s a good thing for these mashed potatoes that among those foods, margarine holds a special place in my heart.

My health-concious mother, lured by advertising claims that margarine was the healthy option, kept it on hand along with the wheat germ and the embarassing slices of whole-grain bread that encased our bologna sandwiches. My grandmother, across the street, was providing butter churned from cows my grandfather had milked by hand. But my palate, captivated by the salty, flavor-filled chemical overload of margarine, rejected the subtle delicacy of fresh butter. And so even today, there is always a tub of non-dairy spreadin my refrigerator–these days, it’s Brummel and Brown, which uses actual dairy products. It’s right next to the unsalted organic butter.

The Brummel and Brown is essential for this recipe if you are counting calories. If not, butter will do quite well. Roasted onions add flavor and additional liquid without resorting to a lot of cream.

Mashed Potatoes with Roasted Onion

Makes 4 servings

Preheat oven to 350. Take two whole, unpeeled onions and place on cookie sheet. Roast in oven until very soft, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let cool slightly, cut off ends, and remove skin. When onions have about 30 minutes remaining, peel and slice potato. Place in enough salted water to cover and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer on medium-low heat until potatoes are very soft, about 20 – 30 minutes. Drain potatoes and place in food processor with blade inserted. Add 1 – 2 tbsp. Brummel and Brown or butter, 2 -4 tbsp. half and half, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover until Brummel and Brown has melted. Add onions and process until just smooth. Add more half and half if needed and adjust seasonings. Serve hot.

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Waldorf Variations

The writeup of the Amish Friendship Bread saga is taking a bit longer than anticipated, primarily because it seems that everyone from Martha Stewart on up has something to say on the subject. While I try to sort out whether or not I should be worried about getting salmonella from starter that ferments on my countertop for 10 days, I’ll share with you a nice idea for red cabbage that I came up with on Sunday.

This recipe is a variation on Waldorf salad, a classic dish made with apples, raisins, celery, and walnuts with a mayonnaise-based dressing. I wanted to find a way to use a red cabbage and the 10 apples we bought in our efforts to save money by buying food we don’t need at a very low cost. Fred and I were pleased with the result. If you like Waldorf salad, you’ll enjoy this.

Red Cabbage Waldorf

Serves 4

1 tbsp. mayonnaise
1/4 cup fig preserves (preferably made with whole figs)
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
2 cups red cabbage, chopped
1 slightly sour apple (MacIntosh, Braeburn, Pink Lady, or similar), cored and chopped
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
Salt to taste

Puree mayonnaise, preserves, and vinegar in food processor. Put cabbage, apple, and walnuts into a bowl and pour dressing over top. Add salt to taste. Stir. Serve cold.

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Friendless Amish Bread

A couple of weeks ago, after some 20 years of effort, I finally secured a starter for Amish Friendship Bread. (Actually, “effort” might be too strong a word, since my exertions consisted primarily of watching languid thoughts meander across my brain: “Wonder if someone will ever offer me a starter for Amish Friendship Bread?”)

I’d first encountered Amish Friendship Bread when someone gave a loaf to my grandmother, and other family members had received loaves over the years. The concept was fascinating: The loaf began as a starter consisting of soured dough. The starter, filled with living cultures and bacteria and God knows what else, functioned as the leavening agent. You had to “feed” it to keep it alive, and as it grew you passed the excess along to your friends–hence the name “Friendship Bread.” Legend has it that the starter originally came from the Amish, who passed it around their community along with the recipe. But someone in the community obviously let the secret slip, and before they knew it people like me, who couldn’t even harness a buggy, were wanting to make it.

Once, in my late 20s, I asked my Granny about a loaf she’d received. “How do you make the starter?” I said.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Someone has to give it to you.”

“But how does that person make it?”

“Well, they get it from someone else.”

“But someone HAS to know how to make the starter.”

“I don’t know,” Granny repeated. “I’ve always just heard you had to get the starter from someone. I guess it’s a secret.”

“But it has to start somewhere.”

“I think you have to have a friend give it to you,” Granny replied, probably worrying, “And how will she find any with questions like these?” quietly to herself.

I gave up. I was in grad school, and we didn’t hang around with the kind of people who gave loaves of friendship bread to each other. That was for women who made crafts and attended PTA meetings. My friends wore black, hung out in smelly coffee houses, and believed that literary theorists like us were well on our way to eliminating war, hunger, and racism. Or at least to offering a scathing critique of those who were trying.

And then there was the problem of the bread itself. Resembling a forlorn, sunken loaf of bleached banana bread, it tasted like a gluey, sickeningly sweet cross between a liquified cinnamon roll and a week-old birthday cake from the supermarket. I was able to choke down no more than a slice or two before I had to throw out the remainder of what my Granny gave me.

Still, I longed for a starter of my own. I wanted a Foucault-loving friend who would show up on the door of my apartment in a black turtleneck, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and hand over a loaf of Friendship Bread with a starter in a hand-crafted wooden bowl with the recipe carved on the side. But that friend never materialized, and my desire for starter went the same way as my plans to take the Orient Express clear through to China and marry George Clooney.

And then just the other day Carol in my office piped up, “Would you like a starter for Amish Friendship Bread?”

Would I like to marry George Clooney? (Wait. I can’t answer that question in the same way anymore. Let’s rephrase.) Do I think Fred Wise is the best husband on earth? And so I eagerly awaited the arrival of my starter, in its wooden bowl covered with a towel and accompanied by a hand-lettered recipe on a home-calligraphied index card.

I was a little surprised, a few days later, to find a Ziploc bag on my office chair, filled with what appeared to be yellowish glue, with a two-page computer printout from the Internet taped to the side. The instructions told me to “mash the bag” every day for 5 days, add 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk on day 6, and mash the bag again every day until day 10. On that day I was to create more starter by adding flour, sugar, and milk to the bag, separating the starter into more plastic bags for my friends, and then baking a loaf of bread that included “1 lrg. Box instant vanilla or choc. Pudding” in its ingredients.

Experience with Microsoft AutoCorrect suggests that the errant capitals here don’t stem from an 18th-century love of creative spelling, and I have a strong suspicion that you won’t find “instant” anything in most Amish kitchens. Still, I believe in my Friendship Bread. Ignoring the “friendship” part by hoarding every new bit of starter for myself, I’ve embarked on a new project to create a recipe that I will actually like. As I type this, several bags of starter lurk about the kitchen–enough to make 32 loaves of bread.

There have been two failures so far, one an apple-cinnamon version and a whole-wheat variety that was good warm but tasted like sawdust once it had cooled. But there was also a very successful apple-black walnut bread, and two new whole-wheat versions have just emerged from the oven. I will post recipes as soon as I get the starter thing figured out. I’ll have to find an Amish lady. Or check the Internet.