Tag Archives: spices

Vegetables and Salads

Avocados with Cilantro Dressing

A fresh, green, tangy way to dress up your avocados,

  • Avocados
  • 2 T fresh lime juice
  • 2 T chopped fresh cilantro
  • 1 T salad oil
  • 1 T chopped green onion
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1/4 t sugar
  • 1/8 t ground pepper

In blender combine all ingredients. Blend well. Drizzle over 2-3 ripe, sliced avocados.

Avocado

Persea americana, or the avocado, is possibly thought to have originated in the Tehuacan Valley[6] in the state of Puebla, Mexico,[7] although fossil evidence suggests similar species were much more widespread millions of years ago. However, there is evidence for three possible separate domestications of the avocado, resulting in the currently recognized Mexican (aoacatl), Guatemalan (quilaoacatl), and West Indian (tlacacolaocatl) landraces.[8][9] The Mexican and Guatemalan landraces originated in the highlands of Mexico and Guatemala, respectively, while the West Indian landrace is a lowland variety that ranges from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador to Peru,[8] achieving a wide range through human agency before the arrival of the Europeans.[9] The three separate landraces were most likely to have already intermingled[a] in pre-Columbian America and were described in the Florentine Codex.[9]

Wikipedia contributors, “Avocado,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Avocado&oldid=815535461 (accessed December 21, 2017).

Desserts and Sweets

Our Dad’s Cookies

I have no idea if these cookies were based on the oatmeal cookies from Dad’s Cookie Company out of St. Louis that started making them shortly after the turn of the 20th C. All I know is that Mom used to make them regularly, and they do contain rolled oats.

Ingredients for our Dad’s cookies

  • 1 cup butter or margarine
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1-1/2 cups rolled oats
  • 1-1/2 cups flour
  • 1 cup coconut
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1 t baking powder
  • 1 T molasses
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1/2 t vanilla
  • 1/2 t each allspice and nutmeg

Cream together the margarine and sugars. Sift all dry ingredients together. Work in the butter and sugar mix and form balls. Do not press. Bake at 325 F for 12 minutes.

Dad's cookies
Paper batik, Carol
Pickles, Salsas, and Miscellaneous

Green Bean Mustard Pickles

Mom always preserved jars of tangy and savory green bean mustard pickles when the beans were being harvested in great quantities from our garden. They make a fabulous condiment and side dish, a way to bring garden beans onto the table when fresh beans aren’t available.

Ingredients for Green Bean Mustard Pickles

  • 5 lbs. green beans
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2-1/2 lbs. brown sugar
  • 1 cup dry mustard
  • 2 tbsp celery seed
  • 2 tbsp turmeric powder
  • 1 t salt
  • pinch garlic powder
  • 3 pints vinegar

Preparing Green Bean Mustard Pickles

Wash and cut beans into small pieces. Cook in salted water 20 minutes. Mix flour, brown sugar, mustard, celery seed, turmeric, salt, and garlic powder. Add vinegar and blend till smooth. Boil 5 minutes. Add beans and bring to boil. Bottle at once in hot sterile jars.

Our House
Our House by Rayna, 2008
Desserts and Sweets

Meatless Mincemeat

Although true mincemeat, as the name suggests, usually contains chopped beef, beef suet (fat), and at times, venison, here is a tasty meatless version that’s great as a pie filling. Red wine can be substituted for the rum, if desired, but the favor will change accordingly.

Pyes of Mutton or biefe, must be fine minced and seasoned with Pepper and salte, and a lyttle Saffron to colour it, suet or marrow a good quantytye a
lyttle vyneger, prunes, great raisings, and dates, take the fatteste of the broth of poudred biefe, and if you will have paste royall, take butter and yolkes of egges, & so temper the flower to make the Paste.

From "A Proper New Booke of Cookery," transcription of the edition in the British Library, published in 1575 by William How. Medievalcookery.com

Dried fruit and nuts

Meatless Mincement Ingredients:

  • 1 large firm, tart apple, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup pecans, chopped
  • 1/2 cup fruit peel, chopped
  • 1/2 cup sugar, golden, packed
  • 1/4 cup butter, unsalted
  • 1/4 cup rum, dark
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon, ground
  • 3/4 t allspice, ground
  • 1/2 t nutmeg
  • 1/4 t ginger

Mix all ingredients together. Cover with a plate and let stand at room temperature up to 6 hours to meld flavors before using. Servings: Filling for 1 pie.

Vegan tweak:

Substitute coconut oil for the butter and orange juice or kombucha tea for the rum.


Desserts and Sweets

Speculaas

Dutch Spice Cookies

These cookies, crisp when they come out of the oven, soften wonderfully into chewy treats when stored for a week or so. The variety that our Dutch friends introduced us to  years ago were baked in the shape of windmills.

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1 t nutmeg
  • 1 t ginger
  • 1/2 t baking powder
  • 2 cups soft butter
  • 3 T sour cream
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 T cinnamon
  • 1/2 t cloves
  • Grated rind of 1 lemon
  • 1 t unsweetened cocoa
  • 1 egg

Put flour, sugar, salt, spices, cocoa, baking powder, and lemon rind in a bowl. Mix in butter with fingers to make crumbs. Add egg and mix again. Add just enough sour cream to hold together and make a stiff but not crumbly dough that rolls easily.

Divide in half and press onto 2 cookie sheets without sides; roll 1/8″ thick. Cut dough in strips 2 x 3″ and bake at 375ºF for 15 minutes. Break one open to see if done. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and loosen with a spatula.

Store airtight. Better if aged for one week.

Dragon with Mechanical Attachments, by Talon
This is not a windmill. It is a dragon with mechanical attachments. By Talon.