Hugs & Wham Bams

Look! See? I didn't go to hell in that handbasket, I don't care what they told you.

I know. I've been AWOL a turribly long time and I really do apologize. It was just one of those times when, for no discernible reason, sitting down and yapping about what's been happening here seemed -- I dunno -- totally without socially redeeming value. Or something like that. In any case, here I am, with hugs and coffee, trying to get back in your good graces.

Not that I haven't been busy. Seems like there's always something going on to keep me from playing in traffic. Like, fer instance, I have renewed my sporadic interest in crochet this past few weeks. Mom was great at it and so was my sister. Fortunately, youngest dotter Patti learned from them because I never did enough of either crochet or knitting to even have bragging rights. In fact, I had to have Patti give me some tips when I started up again because, come to find out, there were a couple of basic things I've been doing wrong all this time. It worked out well. I learned something new and she got to feel good because she taught me instead of the other way around. Which tickles me plumb fuschia, that's what.

The occasion is the advent of a couple of brand new great-grandbabies. Yeppers. Patti's oldest son is about to become a daddy and her stepdaughter is about to become a mommy and I'm about to welcome great-grandbabies number five and six, by golly. Which led me to think I could crochet a couple of baby afghans for the kidlets. Of course they might be in kindergarten before I finish the project but, hey, my heart's in the right place.

Adventures in the kitchen are always in progress no matter what else is happening. Which is why I just stumbled onto what is apparently a long-time traditional recipe I never knew about before. Like most recipes, there are seemingly infinite variations but the most basic has been reduced to a three-ingredient wham-bam-cook-and-eat. Have y'all tried Cranberry Chicken? Have y'all done it this way? Lay your chicken in a baking dish. Boneless, skinless breasts or thighs work just fine. Mix together one 16 ounce can of whole berry cranberry sauce, one envelope onion soup mix and one cup of (take your pick) Russian, Catalina or French dressing. Pour the mixture over the chicken and bake at 350 degrees fairyheight for 1 hour. Serve with rice.

Okay, I can't tell you how that tastes because I didn't do it that way. The thing is, whenever a recipe calls for a package of this or a can of that, lately I've gone Googling to see if it's something I can make from scratch for cheap -- and with better control over what's actually in it. Or not in it, like assorted chemicals that will keep it from spoiling until about 2917. Found a couple of recipes that worked out really well.

ONION SOUP MIX: Mix together: 1 1/2 cups dried minced onion, 2/3 cup bouillon powder or granules (I used chicken but you can use beef or vegetable), 2/3 cup onion powder, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar. (I did not add the sugar.) Store in airtight container. Four to five tablespoons equals one packet of onion soup mix.

CLEAR FRENCH DRESSING: Blend together: 1 cup olive oil, 4 tablespoons red wine vinegar (I used balsamic vinegar) 4 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon each salt, dry mustard and paprika. Dash of cayenne. (Again, I did not add the sugar. As far as I'm concerned, the cranberry sauce had more than enough sugar already. And if I'd made my own from scratch, it would have had less.)

So I mixed the whole cranberry sauce with the dressing and 5 tablespoons of the onion soup mix, poured it over my chicken breasts and baked it. It smelled like heaven as it baked. How did it taste? Oh. My. God. This is one of those dishes that is too good to be legal. (Peering cautiously out the window to see if the Food Police have surrounded the place yet.)

I had it with rice but one cook mentioned layering Stove Top stuffing in the bottom of the baking dish, then adding the chicken and sauce. That sounds like a dandy variation. Another thing to keep in mind is that the sauce would work wonderfully well with turkey or pork. Something I'm going to experiment with is using it with meatloaf, mixed right in with the hamburger.

But don't take my word for the fabulous meal this makes. Wham-bam one up your own self. You'll see.

Klutz-Proof Kluskis

You've seen me drooling over kluski noodles before. There's something special about a kluski. It seems to have more character, more substance, than other noodles. I don't really know why that would be since the basic recipe is a simple egg-flour-water concoction. Maybe it's because the kluskis aren't all neatly trimmed and regimented but rather rough and homely and blue collar, if you will.

In any case, given that the last few days have been the opposite of last week's mini-heat wave and my thoughts have turned again to cool weather food, I got to hungering after some good old-fashioned kluskis. Originally a Polish food, it's become a staple of Amish cooking in this country. You can order kluski noodles online, which is a good thing since they aren't necessarily easy to find in the local grocery stores. In this area, I can buy kluskis at the supermarket in the neighboring town but not here at our little market.

Which is why I thought, hey! I'll betcha even a klutz like me can make kluskis. How hard can it be?

Not very, as it turns out. Your basic kluski recipe seems to require one cup of flour per egg, plus seasoning and enough water to form a kneadable dough. Since I only had one egg on hand, that made the measurements simple. Here's how it went for me. For larger batches, just keep the 1 egg per 1 cup of flour ratio.

KLUSKI NOODLES

In a small bowl, mix together 1 cup flour (any kind) and 1 teaspoon salt, plus any other seasoning you wish. (I used 1 tablespoon of chicken bouillon, which is plenty salty enough by itself. All kinds of different herbs or spices would be fine, depending on your mood.) Make a well in the flour and drop in 1 egg that's been whisked fairly well. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and start mixing everything together. Add water as necessary, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the dough forms a ball and starts cleaning the bowl. (The amount of water you need will probably vary according to how big your egg was and the humidity.) Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead for about a minute. Pat it down flat and roll it out to the desired thickness. Kluskis are thick noodles but remember, they'll swell as they cook. I sort of forgot that swelling part so I cut mine bigger than I should have -- not that it really matters.

Let the dough air out for awhile. If you dust it lightly with flour, that will help it dry a bit. Put a kettle of water on the stove and set it to boil. For this much dough I used 6 cups of water, which seemed to work fine. Roll the dough up like you were going to make cinnamon rolls and cut it into narrow slices. When you unravel the slice, toss the resulting noodle onto a dish. When you finish, you'll have a nice tangled mass of noodles all ready to cook. (At this point, if you want to, you can let them continue to air dry for a while longer, then store, covered, in the refrigerator to cook later. Or you could freeze them to cook a lot later.)

Assuming you're too hungry to go for later, slide the noodles into the rapidly boiling water and stir gently to separate them and keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pot. When the full boil comes back, turn the heat down just enough to maintain the boil and let the noodles cook for 10 minutes or so, stirring a couple more times just to be safe.

After the 10 minutes is up, drain the noodles and pour them into a bowl. You can dress them up any way you want. For the above picture, I pan fried a can of drained tuna with 1 minced lemon drop pepper and added some of my homemade cream of chicken soup mix* and enough water to make a gravy. Poured that over the noodles and tossed everything together, then ladled some out onto a plate and sprinkled it with Parmesan cheese. Then I sat down and took a taste.

Oh my sweet sybarite soul.

Not only did it taste wonderful, it tasted wonderful through two very generous meals. I'm sure it could have been stretched even further had I added something like shredded chicken and mixed veggies. And who knew something this good would be that easy to fix. When even Madame Klutz, here, can do it, anyone can. I'm already plotting variations on the next batch. Wonder how it would work to knead minced onions into the dough? Yum!

*CREAM OF CHICKEN DRY SOUP MIX

Mix together in a bowl: 2 cups nonfat dry milk, 3/4 cup corn starch, 1/4 cup chicken bullion granules or powder, 2 tablespoons dry onion flakes OR 1 teaspoon each onion powder, basil, thyme and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Store in airtight container at room temperature. To use: combine 1/3 cup dry soup mix with 1 1/4 cup water. Mix well in small saucepan, bring to a gentle boil, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens. (Or cook in microwave 2 to 4 minutes, whisking each minute until thick.)