Fourth Sunday in April - April 25

Butter and Rhubarb and Bacon, Oh My!

Ok. My second go round and it did actually get easier, but I think it's because I'm landing on meals that have the same ingredients! In fact, I'm getting a little better at the preparation part and a little wiser as to the ways of the cookbook. This was the menu:

Spanish Soup

Baked Halibut

Potatoes a l'Aurora

Corn Fritters Cabbage Relish

Stewed Rhubarb with Pineapple and Raisins

Old Fashioned Marble Cake

Spanish Soup

I sauteed the pepper and onion in LOTS of butter, added the flour and browned it. I got beef stock and added it and two cans of tomato paste. Added salt, pepper and Tobasco. I actually did this the day before and stuck it in the fridge. When I got it out Sunday morning, I added the Worcestershire, horseradish and rice. The horseradish was strong,but not offensive. It was pretty thick and probably meant to be thinner. Still, very good and tasty without being too ketchupy. Nice, strong tomato soup that would do great in cold weather months.

Baked Halibut

Arranged thin slices of fat pork in the bottom of a pan, sliced a white onion thinly over that and added bay leaf. I laid the slices of Halibut (pretty expensive at Central Market, only place to get it) on that combination then I spread a butter paste over the fish. However, the paste wasn't thin enough, it was more like globs of butter and flour, salt and cayenne. Over that I put cracker crumbs with thin slices of pimento and bacon!!! On fish!!! BUT, it came out beautifully. It cooked perfectly after an hour and 15 minutes. Nice flaky white fish with lots of flavor and no fishy smell or taste at all.

Potatoes Aurora

Had to make a white sauce first which is just flour and milk, but don't pour the milk in too fast or it will curdle. I used boiled red potatoes and cooked them with the white sauce. The recipe called for sliced egg and parsley in a ring around the potatoes for presentation, but I didn't have an egg slicer and tried to follow the directions on slicing eggs the old fashioned way.....uh, no.....I ended up chopping the eggs and serving on top of the potatoes...presentation still nice, but note to self: buy an egg slicer!

Corn Fritters

My sister, Jane gets the credit for these. I did the easy part mixing up the ingredients: corn, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, white pepper. She actually fried them for me and they came out really well. A bit small to feed 7, but still good. A tad salty, but that's probably from the salt used in canned corn. Would have been much better with corn cut off the cob...or less salt than the two teaspoons called for.....

Cabbage Relish

Fancy word for cole slaw and this is a classic example of how our tastes have changed in 100 years. Way too bitter!!! It was cabbage and onions finely chopped with a "relish dressing" mixed in. Dressing ingredients: mustard, salt, flour, sugar, cayenne, butter, egg, vinegar, celery seed and cream. Great dressing, but not good with the onion...I think that's what threw it off. We had to serve it in lemon baskets? I asked myself the same question...what the hell's a lemon basket? So we cut lemons in half, scooped them out and served the relish in them. It was a really small amount and we had ALL this cabbage, so we served it in the lemon half and on the side, after we added about a 1/2 cup of sugar to cut the bitterness.....waaay too much for any one person....we all took one bite and said, "interesting", "different", um, "do I have to eat all of it", "oh, this certainly has a kick" and "what F*&^ is this S%$#"!!!! Actually, I think I could have added a lot more cream and none of the onion and had a good slaw recipe.....next time.

Stewed Rhubarb

I don't know about you, but heaven for me is gonna be a BIG house with a BIG porch and LOTS of rhubarb...This stuff is "da bomb". And I must say, I cooked it to a T. It was perfect. I cut up the stalks and cooked them with white raisins in just a little bit of water, very slowly in a medium oven....also did this the day before...chilled it overnight and then served with fresh pineapple slices. Uh, YUM!!! Best fruit dish so far, but this book loves rhubarb and so do I!

Marble Cake

This was fun to make....had to find mollasses, again at Central Market, I liked the label on the
"Brer Rabbit" brand so I bought it. Cake came out kind of like a coffee cake, with a nice "Cruella de Ville" swirl in the middle. It was a tad dry, another egg would have helped and maybe five minutes less in the oven....

Most expensive ingredient: Halibut

Hardest to find ingredient: White pepper

Strangest term: Sultana raisins (who knew they were just white raisins!)

A really fun menu, kind of complicated, but still a nice challenge and it made for a wonderful culinary experience. I'm glad Ihave four weeks to rest!!!