Sinterklaas Vooravond: 3 dishes for a Dutch holiday dinner

We held our annual De Vooravond Van Sinterklaas party yesterday (a day late, yes) and spiced our holiday fun with three decidedly Dutch dishes - runderlappen, hutspot, and brussels lof.  Although we can't recommend the last one, the first two were quite fun, so here you are!

Runderlappen

Runderlappen is basically meat and onions slow cooked in traditional spices, so start with 3lbs of round steak, pound it, saltand pepper it, then cut it into serving size pieces. Browned these pieces on both sides in about 1/2C of bacon drippings (I reserved these from preparing the bacon for the hutspot), then remove them to a slow cooker (with so much meat this took me several batches, and a little additional butter fat). After the final batch of meat is removed add 3 onions, sliced, and fry them slightly before adding 1C water, 3T vinegar, 1T mustard, 2 bay leaves, 1t whole cloves, and 10 peppercorns. Bring this to a boil, stirring to mix in the drippings from bottom of the pan, then pour over meat in the slow cooker. Add enough water (or broth) to just barely cover the meat and cook for 2-4 hours or until very tender. Turn meat every 1/2 hour or so. Serve hot with onions and some of the juice.

Hutspot

Hutspot is boiled potoatoes, onions, and carrots mashed together and served with meat. It's as easy as that. The recipes that we have seen call for about 6 onions, 6 carrots, and 8 potatoes to be washed, pealed, cut into pieces, and boiled in salted water alongside smoked sausages (Gelderse rookworst, to be exact). The vegetables are then removed and mashed together with 1/2C milk and 4T butter, then served with the sausages and cubed pieces of well done bacon. That's the traditional dish, but I left out the sausage and served it as the side starch to the runderlappen. I did serve it with the bacon, however, since I conveniently needed bacon fat for that dish!

Brussels lof

My computer translates this literally as "brussels praise" but I found a few web pages that make me think this is simply what the dutch call endive.  In any case, endive is popular as a cooked vegetable in the Netherlands and several other European countries.  In fact, the endive we were finally able to locate stateside had been shipped from Holland, and we don't mean Michigan.  I washed our endive, then sauted them in butter over high heat for about 2 minutes per side, after which I reduced the heat and added 3T lemon juice, 1t salt, and 1T sugar to the butter, covered the pan, and let it simmer for about 20 minutes.  I can't say we enjoyed this dish.  It was relatively flavorless, and next year I might try a different endive recipe, or I might search for a completely different vegetable all together.  Who knows.

Happy (Dutch) holiday cooking!

Yes, pumpkins were hurt in the making of...

Have you ever made "from scratch" pumpkin pie before? I looked online for recipes and found all kinds of great ones, each and every one of them calling for at least two cans of pumpkin. I'm not sure when canned pumpkin became a "from scratch" item, but with all the BPA warnings, and with a little time and a lot of curiosity on hand, I not only volunteered to make our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie this year, I opted to make it truly from scratch, meaning, that is, from a pumpkin. So I tried another online search, this time for "how to make pumpkin pie from a pumpkin," and I took the very first recipe that came up. It wasn't a fancy looking site, but the method seemed good, so Calvin and I shopped for our ingredients on Monday, and settled into the kitchen for an afternoon of baking on Wednesday (well, actually Calvin was settled into his bed for a nap and only I was scurrying around the kitchen). Turns out the recipe was relatively easy, and way better than relatively good, so now I'll share it with you.

I'll give you the rundown below, but The site link is here: http://www.pumpkinpatchesandmore.org/pumpkinpie.php

The only thing I did differently was to soften my pumpkin by cooking it on high in the microwave for 3 minutes before attempting to cut it in half (the site mentions using a hand saw, but I thought this was a better idea).

I got my 8inch organic pie pumpkin from Arbor Farms, softened it in the microwave (3min on high) before cutting it in half and scooping out the pulp.  I then cut it into small enough pieces to fit into my microwaveable dish (which, to me, means NOT PLASTIC, unlike the pictures on the recipe site), added an inch of water, covered it, and microwaved (again on high) for about 20 minutes (I had to do mine in two batches because it wouldn't all fit in the dish).

When done I was able to remove the skin by just lifting it off.  I then pureed the pumpkin using a hand held submersion mixer (great tool for this project!), and set it in the refrigerator for an hour while I made the crust (I used her recipe with whole wheat flour, but think my no roll recipe would work fine) and cleaned up the pumpkin mess. 

After pouring off any excess water I measured out 3 cups of pumpkin (I froze the remaining 2 or 3 - that was a lot of pumpkin!) and added to it the following:  1cup raw sugar, 1.5t ground cinnamon, 1t ground cloves, 1t ground allspice, 1/2t ground ginger, 1/2t salt, 4 eggs, and 18oz organic evaporated milk (which I found also at Arbor Farms - got to love them!).  I then mixed well with my hand mixer, poured into my waiting pie shell and slid it into the oven.  Just as she says on her site, man was it liquidy!  And boy did it cook up nicely.

Baking: I started it at 425 for just 15 minutes, then dropped the temperature to 325 for another hour.  She says to keep it at 350 for 45-60 minutes, though, and I might do that next time.  The usual clean knife rule applies here.  I also coated walnut halves with brown sugar and butter and added these to the top for the final 5 minutes of baking.  Also, I had plenty of leftover crust and dough, so I painstakingly made minipies in a cupcake tin (getting the crust in takes forever!) and added them to the oven for the final 45 minutes.  Not bad.

Sadly, I have no pictures of the finished pie itself, mostly its murderous beginnings, but hopefully you'll get the chance to make one and see it for yourself - yum!

Brussels Sprouts. Yum.

Probably all parents have a favorite sound byte that they like their children to perform in company; for some it's a song, for others a cute saying, but for Calvin it's simply "brussels sprouts."  It may not sound like much of a sound byte, but when given, without fail, in response to the question "what is your favorite vegetable," it causes an almost universal widening of eyes and questioning tone.  Really, we get a kick out of it every time.  Is it true?  Are brussels sprouts really his favorite vegetable?  Believe it or not, yes.  Nine times out of ten, when asked what veggie he wants with dinner, sprouts are the answer, and that has led to some really creative cooking around here.  It's easy enough to keep a bag of frozen organic sprouts on hand for quick microwaving at lunch time, but dinners are another matter.  So here is the first of what will likely be a series of brussels sprout recipes we've come up with.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts (easy as pie, though not quite as good)

1 lb Fresh brussels sprouts.  Often we can find great organic sprouts in the produce dept at Meijer.  I clean them much like lettuce - by soaking them in tepid water, then rinsing them in cold.  I trim off the brown stumps and any bad spots, then shake them dry and put them in a bowl.

To the bowl I add 2-3T olive oil, 3/4t kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, and a touch of garlic powder.

Toss sprouts until they are well coated, then spread them on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for about 30-40 minutes, turning every so often (which I do by shaking the pan a bit).

When done they should be lightly browned and slightly crispy (which beats mushy by a long shot).  Serve them hot!

Another version that we have tried is to sprinkle them with parmesan cheese for the last few minutes of cooking - even yummier!

More bad news

This isn't actually breaking news, although it was news to me. Last June Tyson Foods started selling a line of 100% natural chicken. We were thrilled with the new line because it touted chickens raised without antibiotics or hormones and was priced within our standard grocery range. We weren't the only ones excited about the announcement and newspapers and blogs everywhere picked up the story immediately, but we should have known that it was too good to be true. In June of this year the USDA moved to rescind its authorization of the antibiotic free label, a move that Tyson Foods is trying to fight in the courts. The battle is over the fact that Tyson injects its chickens with Gentamicin (a popular antibiotic) before they hatch so that they can claim to have raised them without the medication, while the USDA is crying foul (and we say good for them). Since the antibiotic is believed to have cleared the birds' systems within a few weeks, it is likely that the chicken on the shelves is free of the drug, but I would like to be able to make that distinction for myself rather than choosing a product based on its misleading label. While it is good to know that the USDA organic labels might actually be good for something, it is ever so disappointing to see clearly the food industry we are dealing with.

http://www.naturalnews.com/024756.html

The verdict is in – BPA should be out.

Many worries about the safety of BPA, the estrogen simulating chemical found in some plastics and in the lining of most cans, have been discussed over the past year only to be kept at bay by the supposedly watchful FDA's constant "don't worry" attitude. In response to the growing concern a panel was assembled to review the data used to determine the safety of BPA in our food containers, and now the results are in. You've probably already seen the news – it was on the front page of newspapers across the country, our own included – but just in case you missed it, or skipped over it for the surfeit of election tidbits, we want to remind you about the importance of this panel's findings; for while the panel does not come right out and say that BPA is unsafe at current levels, it did find that the FDA "failed to consider the cumulative effect," did not study enough samples, and did not take into account recent studies that bring to light a greater concern. There are many more accusations put forth by the panel, and many great places you can go to read various views on the panel's findings (I will link a few of them at the end of this post).

Currently the FDA is planning to put in motion a new study and will get back to us, but in the meantime what do we do? It's relatively obvious that the panel believes there is some reason for concern, but will the FDA put into motion safe guards while we await their new determination? It's more likely we will have to be our own advocates and we believe it is better to be safe than sorry. And don't think this is only about infants and children; studies completed in September link BPA to diabetes and heart disease and suggest that the chemical may interfere with chemotherapies.  So what can you do?  Avoid #7 plastics; use fresh or frozen foods instead of canned; keep in mind that many metal drink containers (water bottles, coffee mugs, soda cans) are lined with BPA, so choose brands (such as Nalgene or Camelback) that are known to be BPA free; avoid heating foods in BPA laden containers, or putting foods in such containers if they are warmer than room temperature, as heat may cause increased leaching of the chemical; finally, use your economic powers to speak for you and try to purchase from companies that are either already BPA free, or those who are making the effort to remove the chemical from their shelves (Toys-R-Us or CVS to name two).

Because being informed is the best defense, here are some eye-opening articles, new and old:

The New York Times Well Blog "Panel Rebukes FDA on BPA Safety" (Oct. 29, 2008)

USA Today "Advisers: FDA Decision on Safety of BPA Flawed" (Oct. 31, 2008)

The EWG "Bisphenol A: Toxic Plastics Chemical in Canned Foods" (March 2007)

The EWG consumer tips to avoid BPA exposure (March, 2007)