Fruity Breakfast - Strawberry Compote

I didn't have any whip cream or cherries or this would have been prettier.

 
A nice addition to a bagel breakfast, this strawberry compote is really flexible and easy to make up. You can make a sugar free version by substituting apple juice for the water or adding splenda or Stevia instead of the sugar. Neither holds it's sweetness well when heated up, but it does help allay the tartness of the strawberries. You can use frozen or fresh strawberries. Either way they go mushy when you cook them. You also don't have to use lemons. I was out of lemons so I used a tangerine. You can also use lime or orange juice as well. The flavor is good either way.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound strawberries
• Juice of one orange, lemon, or lime
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:

I use a pie server to scrape the bottom of the pan during
heating to keep it from sticking and burning.

1. Cut up strawberries and place in pot
2. Add citrus juice 
3. Add sweetner
4. Add corn starch
5. Add water
6. Stir over medium heat for 5 to 15 minutes. Stir constantly to prevent burning and sticking to the pot. Bring to a slow boil till the mixture thickens

Serving suggestions:

Tastes great served over waffles, pancakes, bagels, or toast with a bit of whip cream on top if you'd like. If you want to be terribly fancy, add a cherry on top of the whip cream. In the picture above I've served it with cream cheese on a bagel.  You can double, triple, quadruple or more the recipe if you're serving a potluck breakfast with waffles or pancakes to a bunch of hungry academy choir members. Makes a great alternative to syrup. At least you get a little fruit in there that way.

Tom

Wham Croissants

I love this stuff. It's hard to get but the ABC bookmobile sometimes can bring it around when it visits. Also there's usually some available at camp meeting and some health food stores have it. It's not as common as the canned stuff since it's frozen, but it's worth getting if you can. A big roll lasts a long time. These warm sandwiches are great.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of butter softened
• 4 Tbsp digon mustart
• 4 Tbsp poppy seeds
• 1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce
• 1 small onion chopped fine
• Fresh spinach
• Swiss or pepperjack cheese

Directions:

1. Slice and fry wham in butter 
2. Sautee' poppy seeds and finely chopped onions
3. Spread croissant with sauteed seeds and onions with digon mustard and Worchestershire
4. Add slice of Swiss and/or pepperjack cheese. If you prefer you can use American or cheddar slices
5. Top with spinach and heat in the oven at 350 degrees until the cheese melts. You can wait till the cheese melt and then add the spinach, but I like the spinach a little wilted, so I add it first. Either way works.

Serving Suggestion:

A Wham croissant is great with handful of potato chips and a dill pickle. that's all you need for a light summer lunch. Simple.

Tom

Chinese Vegetables and Skallops

We've been looking at ways to use Loma Linda and Worthington Vegetable Skallops the past two weeks. Skallops are a versatile vege-meat and I particularly like them when we take them back to their roots. Soy and wheat gluten-based meat substitutes were brought to the Adventist Church by Dr. Harry Miller, erstwhile mission doctor and physician to Chinese leader Chiang Kai Shek. Dr. Miller set up a vegetarian meat substitute production plant that became Loma Linda Foods and from which sprang other brands like Cedar Lake, Worthington, and even Morningstar Farms which is available in almost every grocery store in the nation as a vegetarian meat substitute.

So using Skallops as a protein source with Chinese vegetables is appropriate given it's roots in Chinese food.  Using the basic fried with a corn meal coating version we showed you a couple of weeks ago, making a protein-rich Chinese vegetable dish is simple.

Ingredients:

• Fried cornmeal coated Skallops
• Bag of frozen Chinese vegetables
• Wok
• Olive or vegetable oil
• Rice or fried rice mix

Directions:

1. Prepare rice by package directions
2. Prepare Skallops or reheat them if already prepared
3. Heat oil in wok over medium heat
4. Add vegetables to oil and cook till thoroughly heated
5. Remove from heat and place in serving bowl.

Serving Suggestions:

This dish can be served like haystacks by placing rice, Skallops and prepare Chinese vegetables in separate bowls. Serve yourself by placing a bed of rice on your plate, a pile of Chinese vegetables on top of the rice and then place several Skallops on top of the vegetables. Add soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, sweet and sour sauce or whatever sauce you might like. There are all sorts of things you can add. I like to throw cashews, almonds, or peanuts into the mix. I also use chia seeds, flax seeds or quinoa as a healthy garnish. It's up to you. You can put nuts and the like in later or cook them in with the vegatables. Quinoa, however, is better if you start it in the oil in which you cook the vegetables before you add the veggies. 

With Chinese vegetables, you also stretch the Skallops farther if you're serving them for potluck. They get a little expensive but they are so good. You might station a helper by the Skallop bowl and dole them out sparingly, especially to the kids (and some grownups sadly) who might clean out the Skallops in one go. With a "server", you can share out the Skallops more fairly and without having to single anyone out for being a little enthusiastic in their spooning up the Skallops.  Just a trick I learned in my years of happy potlucking.

Tom

Skallop Kebabs

This is a good summer dish you can cook on the grill. Loma Linda or Worthington Skallops, fried up the way we showed you last week form the protein part of these vegetarian kebabs. There are a lot of permutations and you can use whatever vegetables pop your cork and it'll probably be fine. Here I've offered some suggestions.

Ingredients:

• Loma Linda or Worthington Skallops pan fried with cornmeal coating 
• Green, red, and/or yellow bell peppers. Just about any peppers you like will do.
• Sweet onion cut in large chunks
• Pineapple (for a sweet tang to your kebabs)
• Medium to large mushrooms
• Black olives 
• Other raw vegetables you like and can manage to get on a skewer
• Seasoning you like
• Wooden kebab skewers

Directions:

1. Prepare the Skallops so they are already cooked.
2. Alternately skewer veggies, fruit and Skallops on wooden kebab skewers
3. Sprinkle seasonings you like over the kebabs. Some nice combo seasonings are available to give you anything from a Cajun to Mexican to Italian seasonings or simple seasoned salt.
4. Place skewers in your barbecue grill or grill them in the oven until the veggies begin to soften. Watch them close so that the edges or the Skallops don't get singed.
5. Remove when done and serve.

Serving Suggestions:

Serve Skallop-kebabs on a bed of rice or with potato salad, macaroni salad or whatever starches you like. Set out some sauces like sweet and sour, teriyaki, ranch dressing, barbecue sauce or something more haute cuisine if you desire - anything that makes you happy.   Kebabs are great grilled over charcoal and give you something to grill now that you've become a vegetarian.

Bon appetit'.

Tom

Vegetarian Skallops

Vegetable Skallops are an interesting meat substitute. Vaguely a sort of vegetarian seafood, they are really good and can be used in a variety of ways. SDA Vege-food giants Worthington and Loma Linda both make versions of this basic vege-meat. I send up prayers of thanksgiving for Dr. Harry Miller (the subject of the biography "China Doctor") who imported Chinese seitan and tofu variants and built a vegetarian foods industry that's helped keep SDAs eating vegetarian for comin on a century.


This week we're going to look at the standard preparation method for Vegetable Skallops. I'm not saying you can't make them a different way, but this week's recipe and the recipe for the next two weeks are all based on this basic corn meal coating version. I really do like these things. It's by far the best seafood substitute that either Loma Linda or Worthington do. Fishy products are really difficult to imitate, but Skallops are definitely a tasty substitute.

So here we go:


Ingredients:

• Loma Linda or Worthington Skallops (both come in small and large cans)
• Cornbread mix or corn meal. I like cornbread mix because it has a little flour in it and it sticks to the Skallops better.  Martha White cornbread mix is made with vegetable oil, unlike Jiffy.
• Vegetable oil
• Two or three eggs (optional) and milk
• Season salt or your favorite seafood seasonings

 Directions:

1. If you are using an egg wash (and you don't have to) mix two or three eggs with a little milk in a bowl. You'll use this as a first stage dip for your Skallops.
2. Dump cornbread mix into a big bowl and add spices to taste (optional).
3. Heat oil in large skillet to medium heat.
4. Dip each Skallop into the egg wash (optional) and roll in cornbread mix. 
5. Gently place each corn meal coated Skallop in the oil and lightly brown on each side. 
6. Drain on paper towel and blot gently to remove excess oil

Serving suggestion:

Skallops can be served as you would fish or other fried seafood. I always make up a little tatar sauce out of onions, mayonnaise, cream of tartar and pickle relish.  Ketchup is also nice or eat them plain. You can also make them up into kebabs (see next week) or with Chinese vegetables (two weeks from today).




 Skallops are my second favorite vege-meat after Tender-Bits and that says something because there are some really good vegetarian meat substitutes out there.




Tom King

That Old Basagna!

That old basagna!

When  my son, Micah, was about 3 or 4, he came upstairs one Sabbath to check out what was for Sabbath lunch. When he saw his mother extract a pan of lasagna from the oven, he stood there in the kitchen, put his hands on his hips and said, "Are we going to have that old basagna again?"

I really like lasagna and it's an easy Sabbath dinner or dish to take to potluck. Sheila made wonderful lasagna, but Micah, for some reason, didn't fancy it. Not sure why, but it didn't take long before Micah's opinion of "that old basagna" changed and it became one of his favorite Sabbath dishes.

I've done "basagna" before. This version is an easy one and quite good. Just a few changes in the ingredients. Here goes:

Ingredients

• Lasagna noodles
• Jar of spaghetti sauce (to avoid it being a little soupy, use a thicker style pasta sauce).
  
• Large carton of cottage cheese
• Can of sliced black olives
• Package of Morningstar Farms Recipe Crumbles
• 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 1/2 cup chopped bell peppers
• Shredded mozzarella cheese
• Olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.

   

   It looks like this going into the oven!

2. Cook 9 lasagna noodles according to directions.
3. In a skillet cook Griller Crumbles in olive oil with onions and bell peppers.
4. Place 3 cooked noodles in the bottom of the casserole dish.
5. Spoon cottage cheese in an even layer over the noodles.
6. Spread Crumbles, onion, and peppers over cottage cheese.
7. Spread layer of spaghetti sauce next then a light layer of mozzarella.
8. Next add 3 more noodles and repeat the layers above.
9. Add 3 more noodles on top with the rest of the sauce and a nice thick layer of mozzarella.
10. Cook at 350° for 30 to 45 minutes until the sauce begins to bubble and the cheese is melted with brown spots on top as shown in the photo above. 

Serving Suggestions:

The first picture I posted was only a partial lasagna because we were so hungry that we ate half of it before I remembered to take a picture. Next time I shot the picture right out of the oven and replaced the half eaten one. This is really good with the Grillers Crumbles in it. Serve it with a nice big salad, some garlic bread and iced tea (decaf of course) and you have a really nice Italian meal. It's easy to prepare and keep overnight and reheat for potluck next day. Lasagna is really easy to make and always a hit at potlucks. It's flexible. You can get creative with ingredients if you want. You can use spinach instead of the Crumbles, or make it with several different kinds of cheeses instead. You can hardly go wrong with it. Make it any old time. it's wonderful stuff!

Tom

Mammaw's Cream Corn

You'll notice I prepared this in a Wok. It's not because you
need a Wok to make it. It's just that I've worn all the non-stick
surfaces off the other skillets and I was using the cast iron
skillet for other things at the time. I prefer the cast iron skillet.

This is a nice vegetable dish for potluck. It's easy to make, tasty and easy to multiply. All you have to do is to multiply the ingredients. I'm a creamed corn fan. I wasn't when all I'd ever eaten was the canned stuff.

This is Sheila's recipe. She got it from her Mammaw. Mammaw was a tiny little elderly woman when I first met her. She wore her hair in a three foot long Indian style braid which she kept coiled on top of her head like a little tidy bird nest. She was a lovely woman and welcomed me to the family with open arms. She had a way with food. Like me, she tended to use every dish and pot in the kitchen when cooking, unlike Sheila who can make a 5 course meal and put it on the table without leaving any sign she'd ever been cooking. Like Mammaw, when I get done making a bowl of soup from a can it looks like the aftermath of firefight conducted by a division of US Marines.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• Can of whole kernel corn and a can of creamed corn or 8-10 ears of corn
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter or margarine
• 2-3 tbsp flour
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk

Directions:

1. In skillet melt margarine
2. Add cream cheese
3. Sprinkle flour into the margarine until it begins thickening
4. Slowly add evaporated milk and salt. Allow to thicken and cream cheese to melt.
5. Pour in can of whole corn and a can of creamed corn. If you want it just like Mammaw's, use corn on the cob. You should scrape the whole corn kernels right off the cob with a good paring knife. Then you don't have to add any canned corn at all. 
6. Allow to thicken. 

Serving suggestions:

If you make it up on Friday for a Sabbath potluck, simply put it in Tupperware® and heat it up in a skillet or microwave just before lunch. The whole kernel corn gives creamed corn some body. It's an easy side dish to go with the usual assortment of lasagna, enchilada casseroles, salads and main dishes.  Enjoy.

© 2017 by Tom King