Unusual Potato Cakes

Max, you know how I love onions. I am convinced that part of my good health is due to eating lots of onions. The better half says that because I eat so many onions, no person, ill or well, will get close enough to spread their germs.

You know that I am NOT cooking until next week, but this recipe tempts me to break that rule. It was passed on by a good friend, who like us, lived in California for a while. She got it from someone from Spanish Forks, Utah years ago, and she swears that it is do die for.

Cris doesn’t know where Spanish Forks is and neither do I, but someone there sure knows how to cook.

Deviled Potato Cakes from Spanish Forks, Utah:

6 potatoes, cooked
1 4 ½ ounce can deviled ham
3 tablespoons minced onion
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons minced parsley
1 tablespoon mustard
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup butter
1/3 to ½ cup evaporated milk

Grate the cooked potatoes with a grater. Combine the potatoes, ham, onion, flour, parsley, mustard and salt. Form into 6 to 8 patties. Brown one side slowly in butter in a skillet. Spoon the milk over the patties. Cook until the milk has evaporated and bottom of the patties are crusty. Carefully turn over with a pancake turner. Cook until the other side is crusty.

Serves 6 to 8.

One Last Apple Recipe

I know, Max, that we have barely scratched the surface of apple recipes, but enough is enough! Still I had to share this one, last apple recipe with you. Except for the addition of the apples, it is your basic sweet potato casserole that everyone makes for Thanksgiving. The difference here is the apples and the fact that the fruits are left in chunks and not mashed as is usual.

No, of course, the original recipe did not call for bourbon, but bourbon and sweet potatoes just go together like crackers and peanut butter. They are a natural mix. This recipe came from a cookbook out of New England, and you know that they do NOT use bourbon. Such a shame too.

Apple Sweet Potato Casserole:

6 sweet potatoes, baked and peeled
6 Granny Smith apples, peeled
1 stick butter
½ cup brown sugar
¼ cup maple syrup
Roughly chopped pecans
¼ cup bourbon

Use a fairly large casserole with lid, and grease well. Cut the potatoes and apples into small bite-sized pieces, mix, and put in the casserole. Pour the bourbon over the sweet potatoes and apples. Melt the butter and sugar in a small sauce pan. Add the syrup and pecans, and then pour over the top of the casserole. (Casserole can be fixed to this point up to a day early and held in the refrigerator. Allow to come to room temperature before baking the next day.) With cover on the casserole, bake for one hour at 350 degrees.

Serves 8 to 10 as a side dish. Reheats well in the microwave too.

Different Potato Recipe

Mmmm. Fish Fries. We had a lot of catfish in our Fish Fries, and the big ones down south were sometimes even held outside. Huge cast iron skillets over grills and pots of grease for the french fries and the Hush Puppies. I could eat my weight, which is considerable, in Hush Puppies.

I remember well the first time my husband, product of the West Coast, had Hush Puppies. We were down in South Carolina on a visit and stopped at a cafeteria type place for dinner. It had some nice looking fried fish and after ordering it, the woman at the serving counter asked if he wanted Hush Puppies to go with it. Only problem was that he couldn’t understand her thick accent and kept asking her what she was saying. I finally had to interpret, and we all learned that he had never heard of a Hush Puppie. I suppose that before the chain fast food fish places came along, people outside the south hadn’t heard of Hush Puppies. Needless to say, he was an instant convert to the cornmeal balls.

Now that fresh tomatoes are coming on in the garden, it is time to think of interesting ways to use them. Personally, I could eat a plate of sliced tomatoes for lunch and dinner and never tire of them, but there are those who want some variety.

I have seen this recipe in only one place. It is in a North Carolina cookbook from the early 1950’s, but the recipe was supposed to date from about 1900. The author explained that Albemarle was a county in North Carolina that was famous for its variety of potatoes. Wonder if they still have that local industry? This is almost a meal in itself. Just add a salad and dessert.

Albemarle Potato Surprise:

2 cups hot mashed potatoes
1 egg, beaten
dash pepper
1/2 cup grated cheese (any type you like)
Melted butter
6 Tomato slices
Butter bread crumbs
Additional grated cheese

Mix the egg, potatoes, pepper, and 1/2 cup of cheese together. Shape into thick patties. Place on a well-buttered baking casserole like the KitchenAid 3-Qt. Casserole, and brush with melted butter. Place a tomato slice on each patty, sprinkle with buttered breadcrumbs and a little cheese.

Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Serve at once.

Serves 6.

For efficiency, make up your regular mashed potatoes (plus 2 cups) one night for dinner. Please, no instant! Then prepare the Surprise the next day. Or to really cut down prep time, go ahead and make the patties in the casserole while fixing dinner. The next day all you have to do is slice the tomatoes and add the crumbs and cheese. Easy and quick meal.

More old ways to cope with summer heat

Max, you are so right. The effeminate younger generation does not know how to deal with the heat, except for turning up the air conditioner.

We also planned our kitchen use in the summer. We picked those vegetables at the crack of dawn so they were cool and wet from the dew. Our meals were almost entirely fresh vegetables and like you, we planned to eat a lot of leftovers for supper. When possible, we tried to can in the mornings before the kitchen reached triple digit figures.

Cool, hearty salads were a big part of every meal. Here is an example from an 1880’s cookbook of dealing with summer’s heat. Note that you can make this up hours, or a day in advance when it is cooler, and being served cold, it tricks the mind into thinking cooler. The difference with this potato salad is the pimientos. They are not there just for the red color, but if you have real, fresh pimientos, they add a rather different flavor. Cooling the potatoes in the oil and vinegar hints of a German Potato Salad, but then you add a little mayonnaise, which produces a rather traditional potato salad. I think you will enjoy this different salad.

I really don’t know why more people don’t raise their own pimientos. Canned pimientos are rather expensive and the fresh one taste so much better, and they are easy to prepare and freeze.

Potato and Pimiento Salad From the Victorian Period:

6 large potatoes
2 small cans pimientos, or 1 large red pepper (pimiento if possible)
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons parsley
2 tablespoons onion
2 hard-boiled eggs
salt and pepper to taste
4 tablespoons mayonnaise

In large pot like the KitchenAid Covered 3-Qt Pan, cover the potatoes with water, bring to a boil, and cook until just tender. Drain well and peel the potatoes. As soon as you can handle the potatoes, slice them and add the oil and vinegar. Stir and let stand for 1 hour.

Meanwhile in a food processor, mince the parsley, the onion, pimientos, and chop the eggs. After an hour, stir these ingredients into the potatoes along with the mayonnaise. Taste. You may want to add more onion, or mayonnaise. Store in refrigerator.