We asked readers for some of their beloved holiday recipes and got an avalanche of replies.
That’s a good thing.
But we also got some that didn’t exactly make our deadline. That includes these three from Jan Greene of Brandon :
PRALINE SWEET POTATOES
Base:
3 medium sweet potatoes
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs (lightly beat)
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk
Topping:
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 cup chopped pecans
Peel and cut the raw sweet potatoes into chunks. Boil until soft. (Like mash potatoes.) Mix all base ingredients and cooked sweet potatoes with an electric mixer until fluffy. Place in a greased 9 x 9 baking dish. Mix all the topping ingredients and sprinkle on top of sweet potato base.
Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour or until topping is browned and bubbly.
If you make ahead, store in refrigerator until ready to cook and add 15 minutes to cooking time. This is very popular in our house I always have to double the recipe.
MASHED POTATO CASSEROLE
3 pounds potatoes (boiled until soft)
8 ounces cream cheese (cut up)
1/4 cup butter (cut up)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs (lightly beat)
1/4 cup onions, finely chopped (I use my mini food processor to make them really fine.)
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
Mash the potatoes with electric mixer. Add cream cheese, butter, and sour cream until blended. Add milk, egg, onion, salt and pepper. Beat until fluffy.
Place in a 9 x 9 baking dish. Refrigerate several hours or over night. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until brown.
FROZEN CRANBERRY SALAD
(Can be made a week or two in advance. Just take out of the freezer an hour or 2 before serving.)
16 ounces fresh cranberries (wash and grind in food processor)
2 cups fresh apple (peel, core and grind in food processor)
1 pound bag mini marshmallows
8 - 9 ounce-container frozen Cool Whip
1 cup white sugar
Combine cranberries, apple and sugar. Let stand over night. Add marshmallows and cool whip. Mix well. Freeze until the day of you dinner. Remember to remove from freezer an hr or 2 before to thaw.
Had something of a blog summit on Thursday. I read over at Sticks of Fire that Tommy was going to be supping at Goody Goody so I offered to invade the sanctity of his lunch and he obliged.
Goody Goody is closing in a couple weeks. Seems they’ve sold the land to condo developers for a pretty penny. They might reopen somewhere else, but for now, the former drive-in is planning to shut the doors on Nov. 30.
I met up with Tommy at lunchtime and we had a nice chat over a couple baskets of burgers, fries, onion rings and chocolate shakes.
Yes, we had the special sauce on the burgers. Why go to Goody Goody without trying it, you know?
The fries were crisp. The onion rings were steaming hot. But that was okay. We weren’t really there for the food. It was more to absorb the ambience of another Tampa haunt that’s going by the wayside.
We had to fight off half of The Greatest Generation to get in. The place was packed.
Yvonne Freeman, the 77-year-old manager who has worked there since she was a carhop in the 1940s, said there were no menus to be had. “We had a batch printed up but people have been taking them.”
“I used to come here when I was younger,’’ one elderly woman said as she was waiting in line to pay. She seemed like she was touched by the last chance to eat at the diner.
For more photos from the restaurant, click here.
I get lots of e-mail from folks who love food.
One of those is my friend Jolie, author of the blog average everyday sane/psycho supergoddess. She sent along a link to this site, which celebrates - and mocks - the weirdness found on Weight Watchers recipe cards published in 1974. Each serving comes with a side dish of snarkiness.
An example:
Chicken Liver Bake: enjoy it with the ashes of a loved one.
Or maybe what’s left of the chickens are in that urn. Maybe the chickens were your loved ones.
But chickens never love back enough. And that’s why you have to KILL them. And eat their livers ritualistically. And then they’re a part of you forever. Forever.
Nice.
The other favorite link of the week, is the one I found at Boing Boing, which posted a photo of Mexican candy cigarettes in the shape of an iPod.
Fresh Start, Inc is a Bay Area company that assists consumers who want to apply for a new social security number. Founder Bob Metzgar charges $200 for his guidebook, and $800 more to walk you through the process. Call (813) 748-4141 for more information.
The Social Security Administration has specific reasons for granting new numbers. You can download the application for free.
Other identity theft prevention, protection and resolution resources include the Identity Theft Resource Center, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.
In a ripped-from-the-headlines satire, The Onion has broken the news on a gigantic story with major national security implications:
Redbook Reporter Refuses To Disclose Source Of Recipe
November 9, 2005
ATLANTA—A federal judge said Monday that magazine writer Nancy Steuber will be held in contempt of court if she continues to withhold the source of a recipe for maple-glazed ham published in Redbook magazine in February.
We get lots of nice mail from readers who respond to articles in Flavor and BayLife.
We received this nice note from a reader who enjoyed our “Taste Of The Nation” story last week by Karen Haymon Long about food you can order by mail.
From: Shaun M Keenan
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 7:51 PM
Ms. Long,
One little thing I wanted to share with you…up in the northern Upstate New York area (around Rochester), there’s a company who produces and sells “White Hots”....these hot dogs are unbelievable!! They are the official hot dog for the Buffalo Bills (sold at their stadium) (just a trivia point for ya—- has ZERO value here in Tampa other than maybe the bars that show Bills games could probably make a killing if they offered the darn things). The people who make and sell them (“Zweigles”) even offer to send them across country in iced down coolers.
If there’s any way the Tribune would allow you to purchase some hots from their site, I can assure you that you won’t be dissappointed.
Sincerely,
Shaun M. Keenan
Brandon
Got this promotional catalog from the Leifheit housewares company:
Wow. That’s a lot of energy for someone holding a pasta strainer. She looks like she’s hoisting the Stanley Cup.
That’s gonna be one helluva bowl of pasta.
I believe in my heart that there are times in life when consumption can help you attain a spiritual purpose, when pursuit of ultimate gratification can overwhelm the soul with fulfillment and become a grail unto itself. Then again, it depends on what you’re consuming.
And since I’m all about consumpting myself to the pinacle of gratification, I thought I’d go with my friend Rommie on Friday to a place in east Tampa we’d heard about named Frank’s Fast And Best Sandwich Shop. We’d heard this place had a 2-pound hamburger on the menu. We had to see that freak show with our own eyes.
Near the corner of 50th Street and 7th Avenue, Frank’s isn’t much bigger than a shotgun shack. I don’t think the place has more than 10 booths/tables inside.
But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in exterior wall adornment.
Hmmm. Our first signs that the rumor might be true.
A little diversity. Nice.
So they spelled calzone wrong.
You don’t spell it, son. You eat it.
“Monster Pizza?” As if we needed more reasons to eat there.
This, of course, cinched the deal.
Did I mention it was small?
Mind the sign on the wall, please.
I’ll have the Monster Burger. With Cheese, please.
Wait. Is that them?
You bet your boots those are ours.
This is the face of a man contemplating his place in the universe.
When we ordered, our waitress Crystal asked if we both wanted fries.
Before we could reply, she answered for us.
“Nah. You’ll only want one basket.”
How right she was. I think Rommie and I only ate one token fry each.
Band name: Token Fry.
Rommie wisely partitioned his burger before attacking.
Despite having more than enough room to get your hands on them, Monster Burgers do present a grappling challenge. So Rommie deployed his partitioning technique one step farther.
Mmmm. Oversized burger.
The tale of the tapeworm: In the end, I polished off three-quarters of the beast. Rommie devoured half. I could have done more, but I didn’t want to tax my system. As it was, I was already pushing the point from a gastrointestinal standpoint.
Damn thing should have been served with a defibrillator and a diaper.
Crystal asked if we wanted a box. We looked at her, like, “Are you kidding?”
After all, we needed to bring the antlers back to camp for proof of the kill.
An aside: Is it me or does Rommie’s face in this photo resemble a Russian icon?
Okay. Maybe it’s just me.
You’ll have to excuse my hallucinations. It’s the burger talkin’.
Back at work, Rommie paraded the half-devoured beast like he was showing off an offspring with pride. People gasped. Others ran to see the spectacle. It was truly a great, great showcase.
Later the next day, I got this e-mail from Rommie:
From: Rommie
To: Jeff
Subject: 29 hours ...
… after my first bite, I have finally finished the Monster Burger.
Pure chewing satisfaction indeed.
Am I the only one who thinks that this guy looks a little like Barry Gibb after too many chemical peels?
Anyway, LazyFat has a brilliant post about buying one of these masks for Halloween.
Every time I start to worry about what people are eating today, I think back on some of the stuff I grew up with that most people don’t eat today. Braunswager, mostly. Cream Chipped Beef. Pearl onions.
It kind of puts things in perspective.
And then I see stuff like this: a Safeway sandwich spread ad from 1955.
Ingredients: Pickle Relish, Vegetables, Salad Oil, Vinegar, Water, Peppers, Egg Yolk, Starches, Salt, Spices and “flavors.”
It’s amazing someone could walk upright without gastrointestinal distress after eating something like that.
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