Portobello Mushroom Fajitas

Tomorrow we're celebrating my older daughter's birthday with a fajita party. My husband and younger daughter are preparing steak fajitas and chicken fajitas, and these vegetarian fajitas for me.

Portobello Mushroom Fajitas

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 clove garlic -- minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 pound fresh baby portobello or crimini mushrooms -- thinly sliced
cup sliced bell peppers
cup sliced Anaheim chilis
1 thickly sliced onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons lime juice
6 flour tortillas
salsa,
guacamole
Heat oil, garlic, cumin, and salt in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat.
Cook mushrooms, onions and peppers oil for 4 to 6 minutes, stirring frequently, until vegetables are crisp-tender.
Sprinkle with cilantro and lime juice.

Spoon about 1/2 cup mushroom mixture onto each tortilla; roll up.

Actually tomorrow they will make a marinade of oil, garlic, cumin and salt. Marinate the vegetables in it and grill the vegetables.

Soda Cracker Tortes

Here's another dessert recipe from Mother's recipe box.

3/4 cup soda crackers rolled into fine crumbs
3/4 cup chopped pecans
teaspoon baking powder
3 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
cup sugar
teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
1 cup whipping cream

Combine crumbs, nuts and baking powder. Beat egg whites with salt. Add sugar, gardually. Add vanilla. Fold in the crumb mixture. Put into muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. While still warm, whip the cream with powdered sugar and spread on top. Referigerate.

Beaten Biscuits

You can’t get much more Southern than beaten biscuits. They are hard to make, very hard to make, but worth the time and energy. You really do have to beat the biscuit dough. I believe in White Lily flour for biscuits, self-rising for regular biscuits and all-purpose for beaten biscuits. White Lily is very soft, low-gluten flour that just makes wonderful biscuits. Most of the recipes call for lard, which I don’t eat. Here are some versions using butter. The proportions of flour to fat vary greatly. One recipe uses no leavening. The biscuits are raised by the beating.


Beaten Bisuits from Nathalie Dupree's New Southern Cooking

6 cups All-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Salt
1 tablespoon Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking powder
1 cup Shortening (I use butter)
1 cup Milk

Mix the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl or in a food
processor fitted with a metal blade. Add the shortening and cut in or
process until the mixture is the consistency of coarse meal. Pour in the
milk and stir or process just until the dough holds together. If it is
dry or crumbly, add more milk. If it is too wet, add more flour. Knead
briefly in the food processor, then turn out onto a floured board or beat
1,001 times with a rolling pin. when it's ready, the dough should "snap"
when you hit it. Fold the dough in half. Roll out the folded dough until
it is 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a 1-1/4-inch biscuit cutter into small rounds.
Prick each round with a fork, making two parallel sets of holes in the
biscuit. Keep rolling out the dough, folding before cutting, until all
the scraps are gone and you have made about 100 biscuits. Preheat the oven to
350 degrees. Place the biscuits on a lightly greased pan. Bake for 30
minutes, until crisp, but not browned. They should open easily when split
with a fork. They will keep for weeks tightly covered in a tin or in the
freezer. Split in two before serving.

Food Processor Beaten Biscuits
This one has lots of butter.
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, chilled
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup ice water

Mix flour with salt, Cut butter into small pieces and work into flour, as if making pastry. Mix milk and ice water together. Pour mixture into flour mixture and beat until mixture forms a ball. Continue to "beat" the dough 2 minutes in a food processor or 5 minutes with a mixer.

Roll out dough 1/8-inch thick on a lightly floured surface and cut out circles with a 1 1/2 inch biscuit cutter or the lip of a small glass. Place the rounds on ungreased cookie sheets, prick on top with fork tines, and bake at 350 degrees F until they just begin to brown on the edges — 15 to 20 minutes.

Makes 36 biscuits.

Beaten Biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup butter, chilled and cut
into small pieces
1/3 cup light cream
2 tablespoons cold water (optional)


Directions
1 Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2 Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar together.
Use a fork to "cut" the butter into the flour until it looks
like coarse meal. Using a standing mixer, or a wooden
spoon, mix the dough as you slowly add the cream. Mix well
to form the dough into a ball, adding water if needed.
3 Place the dough onto a tabletop, and knead slightly.
With a mallet or a one-piece rolling pin, beat the dough a
few times to form it into a rough rectangle. Fold the
dough over, and then beat it out again. Repeat this process
until the dough becomes white and blisters form on the
surface, about 15 minutes.
4 Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 2
inch rounds, and prick the top a few times with the tines
of a fork. Place on greased baking sheets.
5 Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden.

Here is my favorite biscuit recipe. I got it from my cousin. It is incredibly easy.

Betty Carol’s Whipping Cream Biscuits
2 cups White Lily self-rising flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
1 cup whipping cream
Combine all the ingredients into stiff dough. Knead the dough and roll out to about 3/8-inch thick. Cut out the biscuits and bake in a greased pan for 10 to 12 min. at 350. You don't really even need the sugar. it just helps the biscuits get a nice golden brown color.

Now, make some biscuits and make tomato sandwiches. Yum. My mother liked biscuits and gren onion sandwiches.

Old-Fashioned Refrigerator Desserts

Here's a link to an article on the early days of the Frigidaire, Fredericksburg millionaire John Lee Pratt, and two great old recipes. My mother made both of these desserts. The Nabisco chocolate wafers are still available. You may have to hunt for them.They're also make an excellent pie crust or crust for cheesecake. My daughter uses them to make the crust for her annual chocolate-cranberry cheesecake.

http://www.historypoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=1214&column_type=hpfeature

Coca-Cola Cake

Here's an old-fashioned dessert treat from my childhood. Don't you wish you could get real old-fashioned Coca-Cola to make it? But Classic Coke will work.



2 c. cake flour
2 c. sugar
2 sticks butter
1 c. Coca Cola
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. mini marshmallows
Put flour and sugar in large bowl. Mix Coca Cola, butter and cocoa; heat to a boil. Pour over flour and sugar and mix well with wooden spoon, do not use mixer. Add all other ingredients and mix well. Add marshmallows last. They will float on top. Put in 9 x 13 inch floured pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Put icing on cake 10 minutes after it cools.

Icing:
1 stick butter
2 tbsp. cocoa
1/3 c. Coca Cola
1 pound box powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp. vanilla
Heat to boiling point: butter, cola and cocoa. Pour over powdered sugar and add vanilla. Mix and spread after cake cools.

A Batch of Gumbo

I've been harvesting okra, bell peppers, chili peppers and tomatoes every day or so. That combination sounds like gumbo to me. I make a big batch of gumbo base and then divide the mixture, making half of it vegetarian and half of it with meat of some kind for my carnivorous family members. I make a lot at a time, because a good roux takes so long to make you might as well make a lot

Gumbo Base
This makes three or four quarts of gumbo, depending on how thick you like it and how juicy your tomatoes are

1 cup olive oil
1 cup flour
1/4 cup olive oil
2 large onions diced
6 cloves garlic finely minced
1 bunch celery washed and diced
4 pounds okra, sliced
2 quarts vegetable broth, heated. (I have an 8-cup pyrex measuring cup that makes this easy in the microwave)
8 cups peeled, seeded and chopped tomatoes
4 bell peppers, seeded and diced
4 chili peppers, seeded and chopped fine - use mild or very hot as you prefer
tablespoon Kosher salt
tablespoon Worchestershire sauce
teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 or 3 bay leaves
tablespoon chopped thyme

In a large heavy pot, slowly cook 1 cup of oil and flour together, stirring constantly until a dark brown. The browner the roux the tastier the gumbo. This takes almost an hour. While the roux is browning in another pan heat the 1/4 cup of olive oil and slowly add onions, garlic, peppers, celery and okra - one item at a time, continuing to stir. When the vegetables are tender mix with the finished roux and add hot vegetable broth all at once and stir well. When the gumbo has thickened add tomatoes and seasonings. Cook for 30 minutes or more, stirring frequently so it doesn't stick. Add water if it gets too thick. Remove bay leaves before serving. I divide the base into halves or even quarters at this point. It can be frozen for later use.

Black-Eyed Pea Gumbo
To half of the gumbo base I add one pound of dried black-eyed peas that have been washed, soaked overnight and cooked until tender. You can use two cans or two boxes of frozen black-eyed peas instead. Cook for about 30 minutes to blend flavors, stirring frequently.

Chicken-Sausage Gumbo
To half the gumbo base add:
2 pounds of boneless chicken cut into largish pieces and sauteed
2 pounds andouille sausages that have been cut into two-inch pieces and sauteed
Cook the gumbo about an hour until chicken and sausages are tender.

Shrimp and Crab Gumbo
To half the gumbo base add:
2 pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 pound crabmeat, picked over carefully
Cook about 20 minutes until the shrimp is cooked. Don't overcook your shrimp.

The good news is that you can make this any time because frozen okra and canned tomatoes work just fine. When you're using canned tomatoes try making part of the tomatoes a can of Rotel. That will spice things up.

Serve gumbo with fluffy white rice. Pass the Tabasco.