If you ever want to spruce up a side dish to impress your family and friends, this one will do nicely. The recipe is included in the Rosie’s Riveting Recipes historic cookbook. Hollandaise sauce is quick and easy to make, and the ingredients are already in the fridge. Homemade also tastes better than a mix.
Everything is better with hollandaise sauce. Along with broccoli, it tastes great on asparagus, baked potatoes and my all time favorite breakfast. Eggs Benedict.
Gayle Martin
BROCCOLI WITH HOLLANDAISE SAUCE
1/2 cup margarine
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt, pepper
cooked broccoli
Put all ingredients, except broccoli, in the top of a double boiler or a small deep saucepan. Put over direct heat, and beat constantly with a dover beater* until the sauce is thick, smooth and foamy.
Serve on hot cooked broccoli, or other cooked green vegetables.
* A dover beater is another term for an egg beater
Back in Rosie’s day home canning made food stretch further and helped save money. This is also true today. Whether it’s fresh fruit grown in your home garden or on sale at your local supermarket, home canning can be a lot of fun, as well as a nice family activity.
Home canning may seem mysterious or intimidating at first, but there really isn’t much to it. You’ll need to invest in a few basic supplies to get started; a canner, which is a large, oversized stockpot with a special rack inside, a jar lifter, and a set of mason jars, all of which can be found at Ace Hardware. You’ll also need some canning pectin, which is available at your local supermarket. From there you simply follow the recipes inside the pectin box. Here’s how I do it.
Start with the prep work
I begin by filling my canner with water, placing the rack inside, and turning the burner on medium-high. (If for some reason your canner does not have a rack, place a folded tea towel on the bottom of the canner before filling it.) The canner uses a lot of water, and it may take as long as forty-five minutes, perhaps longer, before it reaches the boiling point. You’ll need to fill your canner with enough water to cover the tops of your jars by at least one inch. Water gets heavy, so I use a pitcher to fill mine.
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and wash your jars, caps and rings. Place the jars on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven. Drop the caps and rings in a saucepan filled with water. Heat the water until it begins to boil, and then turn the heat down to low.
Prepare the fruit
Prepare your fruit as directed by the recipes inside the pectin box. Do not deviate from the recipes. Once you’ve filled your jars, wipe away any excess that may have dripped on the top of the jar. Place a cap on the top and make sure the ring secure. Then, once the water in the canner has begun to boil, gently place the jar inside the canner with the jar lifter. Make sure your rack is on the bottom of the canner and never place a jar directly on the bottom of the canner. Cover and boil the cans for the time stated in the recipe.
And finally
Once you’ve finished cooking your jars carefully remove them from the canner using the jar lifter, and set them on a dish towel. As your jars begin to cool you’ll hear popping sounds. This means the caps are sealing. To test the caps once they’ve cooled press your finger down on the center. If the cap doesn’t move it’s sealed. However, if the cap should move it means it didn’t seal properly. Sometimes this happens, and if it does simply place the jar in the refrigerator once it’s completely cooled and use the contents promptly.
DO NOT try to lift the canner until it has completely cooled. A full canner will be extremely heavy, so you may need to bail out some of the water with a pitcher before lifting.
And, finally, the rings and mason jars are reusable, so be sure to hang onto them once the jar is empty. The only thing that needs to be replaced are the caps.
I love cooking full-course Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday dinners, even though it’s a lot of work. So much food to prepare in so little time. I have, however, figured out one quick little shortcut that helps save time, and confusion, in the kitchen.
I first discovered baked sweet potatoes at a buffet restaurant. The friend I was dining with pointed them out and raved about how delicious they were. I also noticed what an easy side dish it would be to prepare. Simply take a sweet potato, or a yam, quarter it, add a little butter, wrap it in foil, and bake it like a regular potato.
I tried it myself a couple of Thanksgivings ago, and it was a big hit. Much less prep time and less hassle than candied yams, with no added sugars or preservatives, no casserole dish to wash, and fewer calories to boot. Best of all, my guests loved them. No doubt Rosie, of the Rosie’s Riveting Recipes historic cookbook, would have approved.
We have an abundant supply of citrus in southern Arizona. So, what do you do when someone gives you a big bag full of fresh oranges? You do what Rosie would have done. Use them to create something wonderful. This recipe is easy to prepare and delicious. I had a dear friend who absolutely adored it.
Gayle Martin
ORANGE CHOCOLATE CHIP LOAF
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon orange zest *
1/2 cup orange just
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
OPTIONAL GLAZE
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup sugar
Preheat oven to 350F. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add orange zest and orange juice. Mix until well blended. Add flour mixture, a little at time. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour into a greased 9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan. Bake for one hour.
If desired, make glaze by stirring sugar and orange juice together in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the sugar is completely dissolved. Pour over loaf. Let stand for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
Place cabbage, green onions and almonds in a salad bowl. Break ramen noodles into small pieces and place on a baking dish. Add sesame seeds and toast in broiler until the noodles turn golden brown and crisp. Add to salad mixture.
DRESSING
3 to 4 tablespoons rice vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons sugar
ramen soup seasoning packet
salt and pepper
Blend all ingredients together in a small mixing bowl. Pour over salad mixture and toss.
***
Cover photo by Rob Resetar
Imagine the government telling you how much meat or chicken you could buy, or how much sugar or flour you could have. Strange as it may seem, at one time it actually happened. During WWII, the United States government devised a food rationing program to help insure that every family would have enough to eat. Rosie’s Riveting Recipesgives readers a glimpse into life on the WWII home front. A cookbook and a history lesson in one Rosies’s Riveting Recipes includes more than 180 economical, back-to-basics World War II ration recipes and short tales of life on the American home front interspersed throughout.