Tortilla Mini Quiches

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Tortilla Mini Quiches

Tortilla Mini Quiches

Extra flour tortillas? Here’s some ideas! First, try this quiche. Quick, tasty and a great presentation for the holidays ahead. Make these tortilla bowls separately, too. Perfect for serving chopped avocados, sliced green onions, and work for sour cream and salsa if plated first. Or use them to serve a side salad with your favorite Enchiladas. How festive is that! (Check out our Mexican Food Category. We love love love Mexican Cuisine.)

Try this Easy Delicious Dessert too, Fruit Burritos. Perfectly Vegan!

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Olive Dip

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Olive Dip

Olive DipWinding down … Summer about to end. Squeezing in as many barbecues as possible. Enjoying icy wines in the now less than 3 digit heat. If you’re doing the same and need a new quick dip recipe here it is! This recipe is inspired by the 3 ingredient dip recipe in the latest Wine Enthusiast magazine. The September edition has a beautiful Porchetta, a Beer Braised Chicken and so many more delicious recipes. It’s an amazing issue!

I’ve changed up the recipe because I love Greek olives but any black olive will do. I’ll bet homemade green olives would work, Leonard! (My cousin, who cures his own.) Instead of Parmesan (I was fresh out) I used Asiago. Take a look at this easy recipe. You’ll love it!

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Chick Pea Pasta e Fagioli

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Chick Pea Pasta e Fagioli

Chick Pea Pasta e Fagioli Light, quick, vegetarian easy … Spicy Chick Pea Pasta e Fagioli. Use vegetable broth or stock for a true vegan experience or add chicken broth if you prefer this taste.

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Estrada’s Style Macaroni

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Estrada’s Style Macaroni

Look Alike Taste Alike

Getting close to breaking the code! Just know this recipe is a knock off. The basics of the recipe are similar to the original but some of the products I suggest weren’t even available 100 years ago. In fact, the pasta here lacks the size (diameter) of the Estrada’s macaroni. The secret in part is to cook the pasta past the al dente stage to produce a softer larger noodle. This recipe can be tweaked and maybe even made more healthy in the eyes of some. In 1914 when this restaurant was opened the food experience was different and this recipe is meant to recapture that moment in history. Thank you Debbie for one of the original Estrada’s pitchers … And too helping with the taste test. I have made some changes after this taste test. The roux is all important.

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Sweet and Sour Carrots

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Sweet and Sour Carrots

Sweet and Sour Carrots

 

Reminiscent of Mama Tosca’s! It was a sad day when I found myself moving to Bakersfield, California … following my husband’s job.  I was leaving my hometown, the only place I knew, and moving to what was often a joke in the latest Hollywood film. Half the family decided to stay behind and we never quite recovered. I’d been used to 105 temperatures of the summer, one of the biggest complaints about Bakersfield. So, I was already ahead. We settled in quickly and other than the reputation I wasn’t quite sure what was negative. As my husband used to say, You always try to make it a good thing. How was I going to do that this time. Well, remember my love is food and food is love!  I was going to find the best food in Bakersfield! Right out my backdoor was a brand new restaurant, Mama Tosca’s Ristorante Italiano. Nothing like pasta to make a place homey and comfortable. It became our very favorite. Now, I’m back in my hometown after almost 30 years and I never quite understood what was supposed to be negative there. I found many more wonderfully delicious places to eat. Basque Food, oh my, no place better! And one of the local hangouts, Luigi’s since 1910 … Meet the Who’s Who and there are some! Luigi’s could always bring a smile … always packed with people sitting tightly together … and the food! So, if you find yourself traveling through Bakersfield you’ve got to stop at one of these places. Yep! They’re still in business.

One of the dishes brought to your table at Mama Tosca’s when you first arrived was marinated carrots. After years of business it is no longer part of their menu. It was my three year old daughter’s favorite at this restaurant. I’ve been trying to duplicate it for years but because of my fading memory (or my palate’s) I can’t quite get it. Oh, btw it was never sprinkled with parsley (nor bell pepper added) as it is here. My children didn’t like “the green stuff.” This recipe is again one of my mother’s but it doesn’t approach the taste of Mama Tosca’s. It’s good, just different. Surprisingly, the recipe most like Mama’s is my French Dressing, here. Yes, it absolutely works Missy. Just for fun check out my daughter, here. She’s definitely grown up.

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Bean Salad

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Bean Salad

Bean SaladYep, this is another old recipe. Mom’s salad recipes are on my mind as Mother’s Day approaches. Of course our eating habits are quite different from the 60’s. I’ve made a few changes to this recipe but it can even be brought closer to date by simply adding blanched green & yellow beans instead of the canned variety … Just as mom’s Layered Salad might better include baby spinach leaves or a spring lettuce combination instead of iceberg to make it more palatable for many. Those are easy fixes. But sometimes it’s just fun to “remember when” and leave the recipe as it was … Especially on Mother’s Day! OK, I have to admit 3/4 cup sugar in the dressing is way too much. Yikes!

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Depression Era Soup

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Depression Era Soup
Worth Revisiting

Funny how conversations change to food when you least expect it. And even more so to the Great Depression and food. Julie and I were conducting some minor business when we fell into such a conversation. I was interested in her four ingredient Depression Soup realizing many of our Comfort Foods today were the economical dishes created back then. Meat was a premium and often eaten only once a week with most meals predominately vegetarian. Butter & bread were often made at home and sliced bread was a luxury. Now we think of homemade bread as luxurious. Recipes with lots of ingredients weren’t practical. Sometimes it was the cost and others it was lack of availability. If you’re a Baby Boomer you might relate. Our grandparents and parents were hit hard and their food habits were heavily influenced. If you’ve ever heard clean your plate … Or have eaten SPAM or hot dogs as a meat substitute … or have eaten Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or Mock Apple Pie with Ritz Crackers you’ve experienced a bit of that history.

As with many old recipes measurements are often missing. Sometimes it just doesn’t matter and this is just one of those times. The main ingredients are white potatoes, fresh green beans, whole milk and butter. I couldn’t help but add a little onion but you don’t need to. This soup thickens nicely without any addition of flour. Read on for the recipe. And enjoy over and over this winter.

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Slaw

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Not The Usual Slaw

Rutabaga or Turnip

SlawHave you ever heard of mashed rutabagas in place of potatoes for a Thanksgiving side dish? Or was it Christmas? Well, I have! What do you know about this vegetable? Maybe more than I because my knowledge is slim. Not so many years ago I’d be looking for turnips for a recipe and unknowingly pick up a rutabaga. (It’s ugly cousin.) When my “turnip” cooked up yellow … yikes! If the top hadn’t been removed (I tell myself now) and I hadn’t thought they were turning a bit yellow because they were getting old I wouldn’t have made such a mistake. Ha!

Did you know this root vegetable is a cross between a cabbage and a turnip. So, guess what! This slaw is versatile … make it with cabbage, turnips or rutabagas. And don’t fear the ugliness of the rutabaga … it cleans up nicely and really doesn’t taste much different from a turnip … neither having a strong flavor in my opinion. My excuse for ground black pepper!

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Winter Salad with Dill Dressing

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Cauliflower, Red Cabbage & Romaine

Winter Salad with Dill Dressing

Here is an additional side choice for the Beef Carbonnade Dinner. The dressing can second as a low calorie veggie dip too.

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Cheese Enchiladas and Beans

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Cheese Enchiladas and Beans

My first taste of enchilada came early.  Estrada’s Spanish Kitchen was a family owned restaurant in Visalia established long before my parents were born. It was fine dining … Frequented for forty some odd years by our family.

The old Victorian house on Main Street was a business on the first floor and a family home on the second. It was our family’s favorite place to eat especially Christmas Eve … Forty six years in a row according to my brother. As a kid it seemed to take forever for the food to be served. I amused myself when young … picking the enormous wax covered wine bottle that was providing more temptation than candle light … seeing coins embedded in the wax … digging. Yep, I was disciplined. My brother, more self disciplined, just explored the upstairs bathroom, the only one available. But I bet he was really looking for Susie.

I have tried to recreate the tastes of Estrada’s dishes. (Estrada’s taste alike here) A friend married into this restaurant family not too long ago, and had mentioned the recipes were definitely a family secret. Yes, I asked. He said, I could give you the recipes but then I would have to kill you. Of course he was kidding! Do I have to even say that? There were about a half dozen of these Estrada’s restaurants throughout California owned by the same family. Only one now exists … Daly City. (Closed Feb 3rd, 2019)

In my teens, mother, every few months, would form an assembly line of hot vegetable oil, heated canned enchilada sauce, corn tortillas, cheese and onion. She and I would make two dozen enchiladas, some to be eaten … some to be frozen. We used Velveeta cheese … Considered a healthy alternative to cheese in those days.

(For this dish, I will be using a quick sauce recipe I picked up from a former neighbor about 40 years ago. I was shocked at the time to find enchilada sauce got the red color from peppers not tomatoes. Labeling was yet to reach today’s sophistication.)

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