Brian Francis's Blog, page 18

Bazaar-o-Rama Week 3

Good lord! It's time for another exciting round-up of all the stuff I bought at church bazaars last weekend. Fasten your seat belts.

Click here or on the Bazaar-o-Rama tab in the upper right hand corner.

Reader Recipe: Snicker Doodle Cake

On Christmas Eve, caker children around the world wait for the arrival of Mr. Snicker Doodle, a kindly old elf in polyester pants and snap-on sunglasses who leaves treats like powdered cheese, pipe cleaners and Eggs in Bologna Cups. In return, children leave him Snicker Doodle Cake and a mickey of Captain Morgan rum.

Okay, I made that up. There’s no Mr. Snicker Doodle. But thankfully, there is Snicker Doodle Cake, named after, oh, who the hell knows? Truthfully, I’d forgotten all about it until Caker Cooking reader and fellow blogger Debra emailed me her mother’s typed recipe, along with some of her own adjustments. I made the original, but I’m sure Debra’s revised version is just as good.

Warning: It looks simple enough but Snicker Doodle Cake is addictive. As in it should be renamed Heroin Doodle Cake. Only that’s not as easy to say.

Thanks, Debra! Do YOU have a caker recipe you want to share? Just email it to cakercooking at gmail dot com.

1 cup flour
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
pinch salt
Combine and add to this mixture:
1 egg beaten in ½ cup milk
Mix very well and add ½ cup melted butter and mix again well.
Put in greased and floured 8 x 8 pan and sprinkle with granulated sugar before baking. Serve hot or cold.

Note: Debra suggested baking at 350° for 40 minutes which worked out great.

Source: Caker Debra. Check out her blog, My Immaculate Convection.
















Hey! Don’t forget to visit the second wacky week of Bazaar-o-Rama by clicking here.

Bazaar-o-Rama Week 2

My thrilling annual tour of church bazaars continues with a second amazing week of fantastic finds!

Check out what I scored by clicking here or by clicking on the Bazaar-o-Rama tab in the top right hand corner.

The Greatest Chocolate Dessert Ever

Cakers have a tendency to make some pretty big claims in their recipes. Often, you’ll see things like “Easiest Ever Zucchini Bread” or “Better than Sex Pudding” or “The Cheese Ball Guaranteed to Make You Friends.”

Cakers are good salespeople at the best of times but we’re also pretty competitive with one another. Think about it – there you are, all crammed into the same community cookbook. If your Tomato Soup Cake recipe isn't the easiest or best-tasting, or doesn't promise to help people win Lottario, chances are someone will pass over it and chose a recipe that does.

Anything with the words “chocolate” and “greatest” in the name deserves a whirl in my opinion so I served The Greatest Chocolate Dessert Ever to company the other night. They all agreed it was delicious. (It's the Skor bits that make your eyes roll back in your head.)

“But is this the greatest chocolate dessert ever?” I asked. Everyone, not surprisingly, said no.

Oh, well. The woman who submitted the recipe got me to make her version instead of “The Classic Chocolate Dessert” recipe that followed – which was exactly the same. “Skor” one for marketing.

1 chocolate cake mix
2 packages chocolate pudding
1 bowl of cool whip
4 Skor bars

Method: Bake cake according to recipe. Let cool. Mix pudding mix according to recipe. Smash the Skor bars into teeny pieces. Cut the cake into small pieces. Do not crumble. Place ½ cake in bottom of large bowl. Place half pudding mix on top of cake. Add ½ container of cool whip. Add 2 crumbled Skor bars. Continue to make layers. Chill for approximately 2 hours.

Hey! If you haven't checked out Bazaar-o-Rama '13, click here. I'll update it every Friday!

Hey again! Caker Christmas is around the corner! Starting December 2, I'll be posting three freaking times a week. Goodies! Crafts! Bric-a-brac! And more!

Source: The Chocolate Town Cookbook, St. Stephen, New Brunswick

Bazaar-o-Rama 2013

It's baaaa-ack!

Bazaar-o-Rama is my annual tour of church bazaars. Featuring special guest appearances by meat pies! Wacky crafts! Doilies! Seniors! And more!

Check out my weekly round up by clicking here or going to the "Bazaar-o-Rama '13" tab. I'll be posting updates every Friday, all month long.

It's a bazaar world. Let's explore it together.

Fish Fillets Noord Zee

Recently, I was approached by Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers to participate in a Vincent Price cook-a-long with other food bloggers from around the world. Turns out that Vincent was also a gourmet cook. (This makes him more scary in my eyes.) Mother thought it was a good way for me to make friends, so I said yes.

Folks, I’ve seen a lot of frightening recipes in my day, but none as terrifying as the one Jenny sent me. The recipe called for “plaice fish” (Where do I find that? Aquarium World?), something called a “fluted tube” (sounds painful) and FOUR cockadoodle frying pans! To make matters worse, I had to whip this up on Halloween night. Have you met the kids in my area? Trust me, they don’t take kindly to waiting.

Anyways, I did what any caker would do and simplified, simplified, simplified. Here’s Vincent’s recipe, followed by my cakerified version. Which is better? I'll leave that in your capable hands, dear reader.

Vincent's recipe
Cook 4 medium potatoes in salted water until very tender. Drain and mash. Beat in 3 tablespoons butter and enough hot cream to make fluffy potatoes that are still stiff enough to be pressed through a fluted pastry tube. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Keep warm over simmering water.

Poach 4 fillets of plaice (about 1 ¼ lb.) in a cup of water with a ½ pint of dry white wine, the juice of one lemon, ½ teaspoon and ¼ teaspoon of white pepper for 5 minutes. Remove fillets and keep warm. Boil liquid over high heat until reduced to a ¼ pint.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter in each of 4 small frying-pans. In one, sauté 4 oz. of button mushrooms for 5 minutes. In another, 4 oz. shrimp for 5 minutes. In a third, toss 4 oz. herring roes floured for 5 minutes; in the last, cook 4 sliced scallops for 5 minutes.

Fill a forcing bag, fitted with a large fitted tube, with the mashed potatoes and press out fluted ribbon down the centre of a large serving platter. On one side press out 3 ribbons from centre to edge of platter, making 4 evenly divided compartments. Arrange the fillets on the other side in the long compartment. Put platter into a warm oven to keep warm.

Sauce:
In saucepan beat 2 eggs with 1 tablespoon flour and ½ pint cream. Strain ¼ pint of reduced fish liquid into the egg-cream mixture and cook, stirring rapidly, until sauce is hot and slightly thickened. Be careful not to let it boil. Stir in ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste, and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.

Presentation:
Pour sauce over fish fillets only and garnish with parsley.

MUCH EASIER CAKER VERSION
Take a box of fish sticks and cook according to package directions. Cook instant mashed potatoes according to package directions. Open can of shrimp. Open can of water chestnuts (because who can afford scallops?) Make tapioca (because who can afford herring roes?) Open can of mushrooms.

Put the potatoes in a Ziploc bag with the tip cut off and squeeze it out in some squiggly lines on a platter. Then arrange your mushrooms, shrimps, water chestnuts and tapioca in the compartments. Then add your fish sticks and sprinkle with dried parsley. Eat and ponder what you’re going to do with all your spare time.

What did my fearless fellow food bloggers get up to with their Vincent Price recipe? Check them out:

Emily of Dinner is Served 1972 – Beef Heart Stewed
Cathy of Battenburg Belle – Deviled Shrimp and Rice
Sally of My Custard Pie – Deviled Rib Bones
Ruth of Mid Century Menu – Unwealthy Wellington
Angela of Glamorous Glutton – Steak Moutarde Flambe
Lauren of The Past on a Plate – Ayrshire Poacher’s Roll
Mimi of The Retro WW Experiment – Chinese Chicken
Carol of Craftypants Carol – Deviled Crab
Erica of Retrorecipe – Cucumber Crocodile and Melon Monster
Susie of Bittersweet Susie – Carolina Deviled Clams

Source: Cooking Price-Wise with Vincent Price

(With all due respect, who's really the wise one here?)










P.S. Bazaar-o-Rama 2013 starts this Friday! Check back for all the crap treasures I found my first weekend.

Soda Cracker Squares

There are times we hope no one will see us. We may be picking our nose at a red light. Or wearing those jogging pants with the questionable stains. For me, it’s after work. Why? Because I inhale so many soda crackers while waiting for dinner, it’s embarrassing. I’m paranoid someone’s going to put a hidden camera in my kitchen and put me on “World’s Scariest Videos.”

I wanted to call these Soder Cracker Squares because I suspect many elderly cakers pronounce it that way. Hang out in the mall food court on a Tuesday afternoon and chances are you’ll hear words like “zink” inside of “sink” or “warsh” instead of “wash” or “padaydas” instead of “potatoes.” As in, “Let me give myself a warsh in the kitchen zink before I peel the padaydas.” (Pray that you’re never, ever on the receiving end of that sentence.)

While these squares are a little on the sweet side, the soder crackers add a punch of saltiness that keeps you coming back for more. And that instant coffee gives you a much-needed kick (if the sugar don’t do the trick). Now excuse while I go get me a drink of soder pop.

Melt
1 small package chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon butter
Add
1/3 cup cold instant coffee
1 ½ cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
35-40 broken, salted soda crackers (See note)
Mix and press into a greased 8”x8” pan. Keep in fridge.

Icing:
Icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon shortening
1 tablespoon butter
salt and cream

Note: 1 column


Source: 20th Anniversary Cookbook of the Mount Royal United Church, Saskatoon










Before you go!
My novel, Natural Order , has made it to the Top 40 books for CBC's Canada Reads 2014! If you can spare a moment, please consider swinging by the Canada Reads site and cast a vote for it before November 3. (Titles are in alphabetical order.) There's a porcupine meatball in it if you do.
Thanks!
Brian

Shreddies Clusters

It’s a fact: my mom was addicted to Shreddies. There wasn’t a morning in the ‘80s or early ‘90s that you wouldn’t find her sitting at the kitchen table in her housecoat, scarfing down a bowl while a dribble of milk ran down her chin. One time, we ran out of Shredddies and she tore screaming out of the house. Eventually we found her huddled in a corner of the backyard, gnawing on a window screen (I guess it was a texture thing) so my dad sent her away to a cereal detox place.

I haven’t shown her these Shreddies Clusters for obvious reasons, but dang! Anyone could get addicted to these lil’ mountains o’ chocolate. You get the nutrients of Shreddies, the goodness of corn (syrup) and the salty crunch of nuts. They’re like a caker “super food.”

No doubt I’ll be seeing these gems on a bazaar table soon. That’s right! Bazaar-o-Rama is coming back! I try to shake off my loneliness by travelling around to church bazaars throughout November then post my highlights. Last year, I made friends with numerous senior women wearing eyeglass strings, purchased deformed knitted slippers and even ate a raisinless bran muffin. Who knows what high-jinks are in store for this year? Stay tuned.

1 package (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
2 cups Shreddies
½ cup chopped nuts

Melt chocolate chips, corn syrup and butter in small saucepan, stirring until smooth. Add Shreddies cereal and nuts, stirring until coated. Drop and shape into small clusters, a spoonful at a time, on aluminum foil. Refrigerate until set. Make 2 ½ to 3 dozen (1 ½”) clusters.

Source: Country Favourites Cookbook, Mitchell’s Corners Public School

Franks-and-Beans Pasta Bake

Every now and then, I leave behind my coil-bound cookbooks from the ‘70s and ‘80s and venture into the world to seek out modern day caker recipes. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. But they’re not that hard to find. I just look for words like “weekday” or “time-saver” or “1-2-3” in the title.

Recently, I picked up a copy of Woman’s World magazine because it's important to know what the heck is going on in a woman's world these days. Based on what I read, there's a lot of eating, dieting, hairdos, dieting, fall canning parties and dieting. Woman's World readers also seem to like exclamation marks! I counted 187 in one issue alone!

I came across the Franks-and-Beans Pasta Bake and thought I’d give it a whirl. I mean, do I need a reason to cook with barbeque sauce? It tasted pretty good. It was tangy and reminded me of summer. But my Eye-talian taste tester made me promise to never mix pasta with barbeque sauce again. I guess it crossed a line.

Anyways, at 544 calories, 21 grams of fat, 24 grams of sugar and 1,241 milligrammes of sodium per serving, all I can say is good luck with the diet!!!!!!!

8 ounces wagon wheel or rotelle pasta (see note 1)
1 ¼ cups barbeque sauce
¾ cup tomato juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, chopped
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed, drained
4 hot dogs, cut into 1/2” pieces
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese, 4 ounces

Preheat oven to 350°. Coat 2-qt. baking dish with cooking spray. Cook pasta according to package directions; drain. Meanwhile, combine barbeque sauce, tomato juice, Worcestershire and mustard powder. In large, non-stick skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion; cook stirring occasionally, until softened, 7-8 minutes. Add barbeque sauce mixture, beans and hot dogs; cook, stirring occasionally until heated through, 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in pasta. Transfer to baking dish; sprinkle with cheese. Bake 20-25 minutes or until bubbly and heated through. (See note 2)

Note 1: I couldn’t find wagon wheels, so I used pasta called “radiators.” What other pasta shapes are out there? Carburetors?

Note 2: Best eaten to Cher.

Source: Woman’s World, October 7 edition

A Very Caker Thanksgiving!

This Monday, Canadian cakers across the land will put on their buckled black shoes, dust off their Indian corn centre pieces and gather round the Thanksgiving table. Sorry, Americans. You’ve still got a few weeks to go before the Peanuts special airs.

If you’re not sure what to make for Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve put together a menu of previously featured recipes that are sure to please every caker at your table. I didn’t include a turkey because, in my family, we could never afford one. Dad just went out and shot the biggest pigeon he could find.

From my caker house to yours, may your cornucopia be full of canned corn, Stove Top stuffing and Tums.




Cheese Cookies
Set up the TV tables, put on your “Kiss the Caker” apron and pass around these savory little ditties. Cakers like them because they have the word “cookie” in the name.










Green Bean Casserole
You can’t go wrong with this tried-and-true classic. Canned beans, cream of mushroom soup and deep fried onion things. The only thing you’ll regret is not making more. Well, that plus the gas.










Potato Casserole
This was my favourite dish of 2012. You have to cut up the potatoes which takes time, but that’s what aunts are for. I’m making this for my Thanksgiving dinner and since no aunts will be there, I’ll get my elderly mother to cut the potatoes. It’s important to make seniors feel needed. Watch for thumbs, though!







Isabel’s 5-Cup Salad/Dessert
Is it a dessert? A salad? Who cares? It's all going down the same hole. Besides, no caker Thanksgiving is complete without miniature marshmallows.













JELL-O Pineapple Rings
My mom made these all the time. If you don't like pineapple, just suck the JELL-O part off.












Pumpkin Dessert
There’s no better way to polish off a meal than with a big helping of pumpkin pah. But who's got time to buy a crust? This Pumpkin Dessert is a cinch. Serve with a cup of Folgers. Remember: it’s three parts Cool Whip to one part dessert.