Popovers from the past

Yesterday's anticipation of Cheese Gougères has led to today's recipe for good old popovers. Here, Mary, as you requested, is Mom's recipe. I remember them filled with melting butter (Please don't remind me that it was really margarine!) and homemade strawberry jam.

Mom's Popovers

Sift:
1 1/2 C. flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Beat:
3 eggs

Add:
1 1/2 C. milk

Stir eggs and milk into the flour mixture.
Beat thoroughly.

Fill muffin pans 2/3 full. (Recipe doesn't say anything about greasing them, and I can't remember ... but can't hurt to grease the pans.)

Bake at 450° for 15 minutes, then at 350° for 20 minutes more.  I can't really make out that last number. My recipe card is tattered and ripped there. It looks very much like a 20, but it could be 30. Check after 20.

This is even quicker than gougères. Send photos!

Gougères du Soleil

Dear Mary,

Right after you texted for my recipe for Gruyère popovers I panicked. Haven't made them in so long ... where is that recipe?? I recently gave away some old cookbooks -- those I thought had not a single good recipe. Maybe I gave that great recipe away!! At first I couldn't find it, and I called Patrice, at all three numbers, but no answer. 

Then I did find it, because I would never give away my Classic Cuisine of Provence by Diane Holuigue. 

I know you're in a hurry. Here it is. (And will you text me a photo of the finished puffs so I can use it here? ) OK, OK, here's the recipe:

Gougères du Soleil

Pastry

1 C. cold water

pinch salt

5 T. butter, diced

1 1/4 C. flour

4 small eggs

Filling

1/3 C Gruyère cheese

salt

pepper

And these ingredients, which I don't add:

10 anchovy fillets, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely diced

10 black olives, pitted and diced

4 sun-dried tomatoes,diced

The choux pastry: Place cold water in a saucepan with the salt and butter. Bring to the boil, stirring to make sure the butter melts completely by the time the water boils. (Further boiling evaporates the water, so just bring it to the boiling point.)

Remove from heat and add the flour, all at once. Stir well, with wooden spatula, then return to stove for the count of 20, or until the mixture rolls off the sides of the saucepan and clings in a ball to the spatula. Remove from heat again. Add the eggs, two at a time, stirring in completely each time. 

Fold the filling ingredients into the pastry. When Patrice and I would make these for Christmas Eve,  we might have added more cheese, but be careful. 

Spoon into small balls on a lightly greased baking sheet, well-spaced to allow for swelling. We used to make then into a circle like a wreath -- with a little space between them. Then you can pull them apart. 

Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes, reducing heat if they brown too early. Remove when golden brown. Best served immediately out of the oven.

They'll go fast, so don't forget to photo them quick!

Chili and Cornbread

Dear Teresa,
Yes, after 40 years your chili recipe is still the best! I wonder if you still make it. I remember it came from a book of recipes for diabetics. You were interested in good nutrition way before the rest of us. I made it Sunday and shared some with a neighbor whose husband always did the cooking. When he died she was reduced to take-out every day. She really appreciated your chili. So did we!

Teresa's Chili

2 pounds lean round steak (I often use less -- Sunday it was a pound of London broil. I've used hamburger too, and then it's very quick.
4 C. sliced onions
4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 T. bacon bits (I use about 1/8 pound real bacon.)
4 T. chili powder
1 T. flour
1 can tomato juice (I use tomato sauce and water usually.)
1 large can tomatoes
3 bay leaves
1 t. salt
1 T. dried oregano
1 T. wine vinegar
2 t. light corn syrup (I use honey.)
2 C. red kidney beans (I usually use dried beans and cook them ahead of time, but this time I used organic canned beans, and they are good.)

Cut the meat into cubes, removing fat. Brown meat in an iron skillet. Remove and set aside. Fry the bacon, if using it. Remove when crisp and then sauté the onions until slightly brown and clear. Mix the chili powder with flour in a small bowl, and add enough tomato juice to make a paste. (If using tomato paste, add a little and then some water.) Add it to the onions. Put this in a large pan with a lid. Add meat and the can of tomatoes and remaining juice or tomato sauce. If using sauce, add some water. I added somewhere between one and two cups. Simmer 1/2 hour.

Add the rest of the ingredients, except beans.  Cover and simmer 2 hours. Add the kidney beans 15 minutes before serving.

We warm the beans and serve them on the side.

This is great with cornbread, and this is the easiest recipe I know.

Cornbread

Melt 3 T. butter in a 10" skillet in a 500° oven (yes, that hot!).
Mix together
1 C. cornmeal
1/2 C. flour
1/2 teaspoon each: salt, soda, baking powder
1/2 T. sugar

Add
one egg
1 C. buttermilk

Pour into hot iron skillet. (I tried my expensive other skillet, and it turned out badly.)  Swirl it around so the butter gets mixed in, but not completely. Bake until firm, about 10 minutes.

This makes a kind of dry cornbread, so we like to add a small can of corn to the batter.

Light lit lunch

I'm trading my sweet tooth for a veggie passion. In the process, learning to spice. This lunch, for instance: spinach sautéed in olive oil (could be steamed instead.) Squeeze of lemon & good salt (Whatever you like: I choose mine because the box is pretty & the crystals large.), 0–fat Greek yogurt with cumin, curry, & sugar. Ciabatta sliced thin, dabbed with olive oil, baked at 350° until crisp. Turn it once to brown both sides. I use leftover bread, save it in a glass jar. The book is The Analyst by John Katzenbach, a fat page-turner I'm reading with Lesley & Teresa. JK used to write in Miami, as did his wife Madeleine Blais, who wrote In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle, about a turnaround high-school women's basketball team, among other works.