Sweet & Sour Cabbage

As an adult, I love recipes with cabbage; though as a kid I really, really hated them. This recipe I actually never ate as a kid but I love it now. Thankfully, my kids aren't quite as stubborn about what they eat as I was (okay, one of them isn't).

In a large sautee pan or a big pot:

• 2 Tbsp oil
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp white vinegar
• pinch salt, pepper, and dash of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup water

Heat ingredients until boiling and add:

• 1/2 or more of shredded green cabbage

Sautee until tender and serve as a side dish. For variation, sometimes I use apple cider vinegar instead for a very different flavour.

Recipe from: Great-Grandma Caroline Richter

BC Ferries Clam Chowder

According to those in the know, this is the best clam chowder recipe ever. It harkens back to the day when the food on BC ferries wasn't subcontracted to the White Spot. So, for the sake of history, I'm sharing the recipe here. INGREDIENTS: 5 1/2 oz. (160 grams) Ham or Salt Pork, chopped 26 oz. (743 grams) Potatoes, dicedt 12 oz. (335 grams) Carrots, diced 21 oz. (590 grams) Onions, diced 12 oz. (335 grams) Celery, diced 9 oz. (263 grams) Green Pepper, diced 1 tsp. Garlic Powder 1/2 tsp. White Pepper 1/4 tsp. crushed Thyme 1 litre (1.2 quarts) Water 9 oz. (252 grams) Tomato Paste 23 oz. (650 grams) canned Whole Tomatoes (crushed) 2 oz. (57 grams) Chicken Base 3 cups canned Clam Nectar 3/4 cup Water 9 oz. (270 grams) Flour 2 drops Tabasco sauce 3 drops Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp. Sugar 1 tsp. Salt 2 lbs. (900 grams) fresh Butter Clam Meat (chopped) 1 tsp. fresh Parsley (chopped) Sauté ham, potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, and green pepper in a saucepan for 5 to 10 minutes. Add garlic powder, white pepper, thyme, 1 litre water, tomato paste, tomatoes, chicken base, and clam nectar. Cover and boil for 30 to 45 minutes, until potatoes are tender. Combine 3/4 cup water with flour and add to the soup. Add tabasco, worcestershire, sugar, salt, clam meat and parsley. Heat to serving temperature. Yields approximately 3 litres (3.6 quarts). Apparently this recipe was included on a leaflet in the early 1990s ("A New Wave for BC Ferries") and it was presented with "Thanks to Quality Control Supervisor Stanley Wong". (thanks Chris Green for sharing this)

Gramma Richter's Family Borscht

I was eating borscht for lunch at work not long ago and due to the yummy smell of my lunch found myself fielding some questions about this yummy Eastern European soup. There are as many kinds of borscht as there are grandmothers who make it, pretty much; the main thing that they all have in common is that they are sour.

Most people equate borscht with beets, but it does not always have beets in it; there is green borscht, white borscht, and orange borscht as well. Borscht can have chunks in it or be a pureed soup; it can be vegetarian or full of beef or lamb or even chicken; it can be eaten hot or cold.

This recipe that I'm going to share here with you is my Great-Grandmother's recipe for white borscht that my dad shared with me.

Richter Borscht

Chop into cubes & sauté in a pot:

• with 1 Tbsp butter (optional: replace butter with 3 rashers of bacon, minced finely)
  
• 2 potatoes
• 2 carrots
• 2 stalks of celery
  

Add:

• 2 quarts chicken stock
• 1/2 cup precooked or leftover rice
• 3 green onions minced
• handful of beet leaves cut into strips (or other greens, I like spinach)
  
• 1 Tbsp minced fresh parsley

Simmer until vegetables are tender.

Then add:

• 1 tsp fresh minced dill
• 1/2 cup cream with one beaten egg mixed in
  

Bring to simmer again and then drizzle in:

• 1 1/2 Tbsp white vinegar

Heat to a simmer and then serve hot.

Chewy Gingersnaps

This recipe is a classic at our house at Xmas/Yule time. My Grandma has been making these cookies for as long as I can remember and everyone loves them. She always slightly under cooks them so that they're just the perfect amount of chewy and a little crisp around the edges.

I have, scandalously, toyed with her recipe and sometimes substitute cardamom for the ginger in this recipe to make something a little more unusual.

Chewy Gingersnaps

Cream together:

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1 cup white sugar

Add:

• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses

Mix together with a whisk in a small bowl:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 Tbsp ginger (or cardamom instead)
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt

Mix dry ingredients into wet. Make sure the dough is thoroughly mixed then wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for about an hour.

Roll into balls; I have a cookie dough scoop for this that gives me totally even blobs of dough like a little ice cream scoop. I think this is probably the best cookie invention ever and you can get them in a variety of sizes.

Roll each dough ball in white sugar and place on baking sheet. Press lightly with a fork or fingers.

Bake cookies in a pre-heated 350F oven for about 12-15 mins. I would do a small test batch at 12 mins to see what they're like when they're cooled a bit because they will crisp as they cool.

The exact time you want to bake them will depend on how big you make yours and how chewy or crisp you like them. I like to make them little so I don't die of guilt if I eat six of them, while my daughter likes to make six cookies out of the whole batch of dough because she doesn't have the patience to bake more than one tray of cookies.

Linsensuppe

Linsensuppe is a German lentil soup that is utterly fabulous. I've made this dish for company and potlucks so many times. Even people who claim to not be fond of lentils usually love it.

I blame the bacon.

Brown:

• 4 rashers of bacon, minced
• 4 – 6 sausages, sliced into rounds (pretty much any type will do, but I like bratwurst best)

Heat together in a large pot:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 finely diced onion
• 1 leek, finely chopped
• 3 carrot, finely diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 bay leaves

Add:

• 1 can of lentils, well rinsed
• 4 cups of water or stock

Simmer for about a half hour. Good with a loaf of dense artisan bread or homemade biscuits and butter.

Finnish Cardamom Bread (Pulla)

This recipe is a hand-me-down from a Finnish fishing family that lived close to my dad when he was growing up. They pretty much adopted him into the family because he spent so much time there, hanging out with their kids (and probably for the amazing pickled fish and baking that their mom would do.)

Helmi would make this bread for the men to take on the fishing boats with them, but dried into rusks instead of fresh so that it would keep longer. Either way, it's fabulous and I'm sure that this is the source of my cardamom addiction as an adult.

This recipe makes a LOT of bread; don't expect it to last long though, it's SO good.

Pulla

Cream together:

• 1 lb butter (NOT MARGERINE)
• 2 1/2 cups white sugar

Add:

• 1 dozen lightly beaten eggs
• 1 quart whole milk
• 2 Tbsp ground black cardamom (I use 3 because I really love cardamom)
• 2 tsp yeast (can make a sponge with the milk first if you prefer)

Mix in:

• About 15 - 17 cups of flour

Don't add too much flour, you want the dough soft but not really sticky. Because this is a sweet bread, it will tend to be a little stickier anyways, so be careful.

Drizzle a little oil on the top of the dough and turn it so that it's oiled all over to keep it from drying out. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

Punch dough down and shape. The traditional shape for this bread is braids, but you can make it into buns, loaves, rings.. whatever you like. This dough makes KILLER cinnamon buns.

Let dough rise again until doubled. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a pre-heated 350F oven.

Recipe from: Helmi Liimatta

Lazy Biscuits

Much as I like homemade food, sometimes I really crave instant gratification. These biscuits are totally homemade but are quick enough to make that I'd consider them to be as instant as I get in the kitchen. They're based on a recipe from my 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook, which is a really good reference book for all those archaic things that you might want to know how to make. For some reason I'm delighted by all the instructions for making fancy tea party sandwiches; apparently I didn't have enough tea parties when I was a child. (yes mom, I'm blaming you). When I make these for company, I use the biscuit cutter that my sister made for me when she was in eighth grade metal shop. It always makes them better!

Lazy Biscuits

Pre-heat oven to 450F

Mix together in a bowl with a whisk:

• 4 cups flour
• 2 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

In a 2 cup glass measuring cup combine:

• 2/3 cup canola oil
• 1 1/3 cups milk

Pour all the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir it up with a wooden spoon, then your hands, as it gets stickier.

Dust the counter generously with flour and dump the dough out onto it; pat it out to about an inch thick, adding more flour as necessary.

You can cut out biscuits with a cutter if you like but I prefer to cut it into squares with a knife. No one cares if they're pretty unless they're for company.

Bake for about ten minutes or until golden brown on top.

Optional:

• add 1/4 cup of sugar and cut out with a generously sized biscuit cutter for shortbreads
• add minced herbs and serve with stew