The Best Gingersnaps Ever
I knew what I was going for. Not the pallid ‘snaps’ that pass in the stores, no, the real gingery cookies, with real snap.
I went to my old faithful, a book I got back many a year ago when I was a new bride, the Joy of Cooking. It is a great edition, and you can see, it is falling apart. I can’t part with it:
Here is the Gingersnap recipe, altered slightly because I wanted guaranteed ‘snap.’
Gingersnaps
(Makes about 10 dozen 2 inch cookies)
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Cream 3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
Stir in:
2 well beaten eggs
1/2 cup molasses
2 teaspoons vinegar
Sift and add:
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3 – 4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon cloves
Mix ingredients until blended. Form dough into 3/4 inch balls. Bake on a greased cookie sheet for about 12 minutes. As the ball melts down during cooking, the cookie develops the characteristic crinkled surface. At 12 minutes, take the cookies out, sprinkle top with the decorator sugar (bigger chunky sugar that won’t melt down into the cookie) and return to the oven for 5 or 6 minutes.
Remove from oven, cool.
Mine are not the prettiest – next year I will know to leave more room between the cookies – but they are the BEST gingersnaps I have ever made. They have a little soft chewiness, and a little crispiness, around the edges. They are SPICY!
The original recipe, in the Joy of Cooking, uses a little less spice and a marshmallow topping. The Joy of Cooking is a wise investment, and if you can find one of the older ones in a used book store, you will have a treasure house of old, tried and true recipes. The authors are Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, and my edition is a Signet Special, first edition, printed in 1973.
. . . Hurray for the Pumpkin Pie . . .
“You’ve worked HARD!” our water aerobics instructor told us. “You get a free pass tomorrow; you can eat anything!”
I wish she hadn’t said that. We did work hard, but it wasn’t just one day of feasting, it was pretty much four days, and we enjoyed ourselves too much. No matter how hard we had worked Wednesday morning, it wasn’t enough to cover four days.
Arriving at Papa’s and Grammy’s we were welcomed with a bubbling gumbo, a combined effort of Papa and Grammy; Grammy did all the shopping and chopping, and PaPa worked the roux, which is the butter and flour combination that makes that smoky flavored base for the gumbo. They had just finished cleaning and deveining about 40 pounds of shrimp for Thanksgiving, and threw a few in the gumbo. Oh YUM. The next morning was full of preparations, and then, mid-morning, the feasting began, with all the guys shucking oysters and eating boiled shrimp. As you drive up, you can smell smoke from an outdoor fire, and chairs and tables are out everywhere, but the shucking goes on down near the creek:
The house is beautiful, spacious and welcoming for so many people. The happy baby, who is now a happy toddler, was in heaven – he was surrounded by boy toys – tractors and golf carts and a Model A and all sorts of age appropriate toys, as well as cousins, aunts, uncles and a lot of hilarious rough housing. Why is it kids just love the terror of being turned upside-down?
For me, this was the best Thanksgiving with the family; finally I am beginning to figure out who is who from year to year. I still have to ask questions, but they seem more comfortable with me, and I had some really good conversations, sort of beyond the polite-passing-the-time conversations. I’m not that great in big crowds, but now I am beginning to have some good one-on-ones, and for me, that’s a great Thanksgiving.
And on, man, the food. Tables and tables of food. I don’t know how they do it, but I saw the list of cakes, and there must have been twenty cakes on THE LIST. They each have responsibilities, and somehow, it all works.
Three turkeys, all carved, and so much dressing (which I grew up calling stuffing, it all depends on where you grew up):
That green container is AdventureMan’s first foray into cranberry chutney. This one was a little tart, but tasty. As are darling daughter in law so diplomatically put it, “I would probably like it more if my taste buds were accustomed to having cranberries without sugar.”
About half of the sides were sweet potato casseroles; you can’t believe how good these are. This year this front dish was one of the favorites, squash cassarole:
This photo doesn’t begin to do justice to the desserts – holy smokes:
So the biggest brother blessed the food and we ate around one, then we visited for a few hours, people going back and grazing a little. Then the next generation cleaned everything up and got all the food packaged up and put away. About an hour later, that broccoli salad started calling me, and I went out to try a little more and discovered it was all put away, but a partner in crime knew where it was, and we pulled it out and had some, which started a whole landslide of second-platers, just when everything had been all put away, LLOOLLL!
It was a great day, a day full of thanks for all the things in life that really matter.
Pocher’s in Breaux Bridge, LA
“Where should we eat?” we asked our guide, and laid out some of the recommendations we had received.
“Oh, Poche’s isn’t for tourists,” he said, “There are nicer places where tourists go, places with tablecloths and sometimes dancing in the evenings. People like us who live here go to Poche’s.”
Heh heh heh – that’s exactly the kind of places we want to go. We call them the Michelin Red R’s – good local food at reasonable prices. Off we go to Poche’s.
When we walk in, it’s like walking into a grocery store, but we knew we were in the right place. At the end of the counter is the serving line, and the daily specials. They still had rabbit. You don’t find a lot of rabbit served in the US, so this was a treat for the little French country niche in my heart.
AdventureMan had the Etoufee:
You can see, the portions are gi-normous. We could not eat our entire meals, nowhere near, no matter how delicious they were. We did buy some of the Poche’s Pecan Praline for the drive back to Pensacola, oh yummm.
This is a really fun place, a real people’s place. It’s just north of Interstate 10, outside of Breaux Bridge. You can even order from them online, or see what they’re serving for lunch today by going to Poche’s.
Here are their daily specials:
DAILY PLATE LUNCHES
Monday-Saturday 10:30AM – 2PM
Monday
Smothered Beef, Pork Backbone Stew, Baked Chicken, Crawfish Etouffeé, Mashed Potatoes, Pork & Beans
Tuesday
Smothered Pork Chops, Smothered Rabbit, Meatball Stew, Crawfish Etouffeé, Fried Chicken, Smothered Potatoes, Green Beans
Wednesday
Marinated Pork, BBQ Ribs, Stuffed Pork Chops, Crawfish Etouffeé, Fried Chicken, Potato Salad, Field Peas
Thursday
Pork Roast, Sausage Stew, Crawfish Etouffeé, Fried Chicken, Corn, Yams
Friday
Fried Catfish, Fried Shrimp, Crawfish Etouffeé, Chicken Stew, Marinated Turkey, Potato Salad, Cole Slaw
Saturday
Pork Backbone Stew, BBQ Ribs, BBQ Chicken, Stuffed Pork Chops, Boneless Pork Chops, BBQ Ribeyes, Green Beans, Fried Potatoes
Sunday Menu
10:30AM – 5PM
BBQ Lunches – A Tradition for over 30 Years
BBQ Chicken, Pork Steak & Sausage served with Homemade Potato Salad, Rice Dressing, & BBQ Sauce, Fried Catfish, Fried Shrimp, & Crawfish Etouffeé
Dinner Menu
Monday – Saturday 2PM – 8PM
Fried Catfish, Fried Shrimp, Crawfish Etouffeé, Potato Salad, Cole Slaw, French Fries
Bon Creole in New Iberia
“OK, but I want to eat lunch at Clementine’s,” I replied, as AdventureMan is scheduling some Cajun Country Swamp Tours for the afternoon and the next day. We drive back into New Iberia, and make sure we are going in the right direction on the one-way Main Street, only to discover Clementine’s is closed on Monday. Oh, Aarrrgh.
But I love my iPhone. I love it because I can put in an address, and it shows me how to get there, when to turn, where we are . . . I love it. I love it because I can put in “great food in New Iberia” and up comes names – and ratings. The highest rating other than Clementine’s is a place called Bon Creole, and it is on the one way street, St. Peters, going in the opposite direction of Main Street, so we turn around and head back in the other direction.
We are HUNGRY. So when we miss it the first time, and have to go around the block, AdventureMan says “I think I saw it, but it looked closed.” I think I saw it, too, but it looked . . . like some dive. As we come around the second time, we see a button-down-shirt-and-chinos kind of guy coming out, so we know it must be open, and he looks like a working local, not some tourist like us. And did I mention we are hungry? We decide to give it a try.
You walk in and order at the counter. I can’t say we got a warm welcome. The woman behind the counter wasn’t rude, she was just working hard, and there really wasn’t a smile. I ordered the daily special, but it was already gone. “OK,” I say, “I’ll take the gumbo, and some potato salad.”
“Potato salad comes with it.” She doesn’t even look up from writing down the order. So far, we are not encouraged, but there are a goodly amount of customers inside, and as we wait for our food, we get to listen in on all the town gossip, which is not unlike town gossip in most towns, who drinks too much, who is going out on who, and can you imagine someone wearing that to church?
Our food arrives, a bowl of gumbo, a bowl of rice and a bowl of potato salad, plastic utensils.
And then, with the first bite, everything changes.
“Oh, WoW!” I say, and my eyes open wide. “Wow!”
AdventureMan is having the same experience. “This is REALLY good!” he says.
We are quiet now, eating this totally delicious seafood gumbo. We are both busy trying to figure out how they made it taste so seafood-y, lots of shrimp, maybe some crab, but the gumbo itself, essence of shellfish, it is SO good.
What if we had judged by the exterior and had ended up in some plastic and mediocre place? What if we had missed this totally awesome seafood gumbo? This gumbo was seriously GOOD.
If you find yourself in New Iberia, hungry and looking for some seriously good gumbo, here is where to find Bon Creole:
Bon Creole also has a lot of fried dishes; we were just looking for something not-fried, but if you like fried, you too will like Bon Creole.
“How Was Your Day?”
We were all standing in line, a very long line, at Pensacola’s Greek Festival at The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church when my son asked how our day was. (AdventureMan and the Happy Baby were off exploring.)
“Oh, it was GREAT!” I enthused. “Time passes so much faster when you’re retired and you spend your time having fun!”
“So what did you do?” he asked.
“Oh! We went to water aerobics, and stopped by the bank to cash a check so we would have money for the weekend. Then your Dad vacuumed so I can mop the floors tomorrow, while I cleaned upstairs, dusted, did the bathrooms, etc. At lunch we went to Chow Time, and drove down here to check out parking, and then I had a quilting meeting this afternoon, and then we met you!”
As I finished, their faces were somewhere between blank and confused . . . and I realized my idea of fun was a relative thing.
Here is what is fun. Fun is getting to CHOOSE when you vacuum or mop the floors, or wipe down the blinds, or clean the bathrooms. Fun is having the time to do it even on a weekday, not having to scramble on Sundays to get it all done, like we used to. Fun is not having gobs of money, but having enough that we can go to the bank and take some out when we need it for the weekend. Fun is meeting up with our son and his wife and our grandson because our schedule isn’t full with business meetings, and working late at the office. Fun is having groups we belong to because we really want to.
The truth is, in many ways, we are busier than we ever have been, but it is busy-ness of our own choosing.
Fun is even babysitting your grandson when he gets sick, just because you can, or helping carry him around a big festival, taking turns, so everyone gets to eat. It’s fun because we can, and because this is what we have chosen.
EnviroGirl and I picked up the dinners while AdventureMan and L&O Man scouted for seats in the tent so we could sit and eat dinner – moussaka, chicken, lamb, all kinds of specialities. There was also a very long dessert line – this festival is all about the food, and the music and dancing. I’ve taken some photos for you, but once we had the food, I didn’t get a chance to get any more photos. We only had to stand in line about thirty minutes; although there is a huge crowd, there is also a system, and they get people in and through the serving lines very efficiently.
Taste of India in Pensacola – They’re Back!
I didn’t want to say anything. There is only ONE Indian restaurant that I know of in Pensacola, and it is just a short drive from where we live. When we moved here, it was really really good, and we went there often. Then it changed hands, and it was still OK, but not the same. Then when we went in, it was all different, and the food was NOT spicy – they dumbed it down! We were disappointed, but we didn’t want there to be NO Indian restaurants in Pensacola.
We think maybe it changed hands a time or two. We wanted to go back, but had been so disappointed by the dumbing-down that we just couldn’t do it. Today, we had decided to give it one more try.
We are so glad we did. Once again under new management, the Taste of India is great tasting food once again. The buffet had a good assortment of tasty dishes, mostly veg, which we like, but so rich and flavorful that you don’t even miss the meat. There were also several really good condiments, home made and delicious.
Yes. It is a little spicy, meaning tasty. It is not bury-your-mouth spicy, only tasty spicy. Only go to Taste of India if you like REAL Indian tastes, fresh fresh fresh and delicately made. It was a delight to be able to eat there and enjoy the food once again. Lucky lucky us, and lucky lucky Pensacola to have Indian food of this calibre. 🙂
There is a lunch buffet, and there is a dinner and take out menu. It looks like they are doing some improvements to the building, too. Welcome back, Taste of India!
Polonza’s on Palafox
We tried to go to Polonza’s on Sunday morning, after church, but it was closed. (It’s now open for on Sundays, hurran!) We tried to go during the Saturday morning, but it was closed (I think it still is.) Polonza’s is perfectly located in the middle of what we call ‘The Church Souk’, i.e. next to the Methodist Church, catty-corner from Christ Church Episcopal, just down the street from 1st Baptist, the Lutheran Church and the Presbyterian churches, and several others. It only makes sense to open on Sundays for brunch.
Service was attentive without being intrusive. (Very good!) He brought us extra sauce when we asked, and was quick at refilling our glasses and asking if we needed anything.
They do a booming lunch time business during the week. Great lunch specials, sandwiches, main dishes, lots of choices for sides, and BBQ, wooo hoooo.
Whoda thunk? The soup of the day was GAZPACHO, which AdventureMan said is almost exactly as good as mine, and mine is really good.
I couldn’t resist trying the BBQ chicken, which was good. I loved their BBQ Sauce, a little vinegary, not too sweet. You’ll notice I ordered the vegetables (in addition to the sweet potato fries 😦 )
AdventureMan ordered the BBQ Pork Sandwich, which he said was also really good.
Overall, a very positive experience. If you get there between 11:30 and 12:15 you will have to wait for a table on a week-day.
Cooling Cucumber Salad
I made this for the first time the other night; it was a big hit. It is also a great way to utilize all those cucumbers appearing in your garden 🙂
Cooling Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
3 English cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon dried mint
Mix the cucumbers and onion in a large bowl.
Combine the vinegar, water and sugar in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Pour vinegar/water/sugar over the cucumber and onions.
Stir in mint, cover, and refrigerate. Marinate half a day, and serve.
So simple! So easy!
Clemenza’s in Fort Walton Beach
We have friends we have known for a long time who live only an hour away, and while we don’t get together as often as we would like to, we manage about once a month. We try to find places “in between” which there really aren’t very many, but our friends mentioned, if we wouldn’t mind the drive, that they had found a new restaurant they were enjoying and they thought we would, too, Clemenza’s in Fort Walton Beach.
We read the reviews on UrbanSpoon, which I am beginning to think is a big mistake. Some just seem like sour grapes, some seem over the top without being specific, and some seem like hate mail – we pretty much disregard all those. So while a lot of people really enjoyed Clemenza’s, others complained about problems with service, and problems with tasteless food.
Our experience was very different.
For once, we arrived before our friends, and that is not that easy to do. We were seated, and while we were waiting, I had a glass of wine, just a glass of the house Chianti, which was OK, but a little sweet for my taste. AdventureMan asked me how it was, and I said “OK.”
A gentleman at the table next to us asked me how my wine was, and I said “It’s OK. It’s not bad” and he asked what I had ordered. I told him the house Chianti, and repeated that it was OK, did he want to smell it? (I can always tell a lot just from sniffing, and I only bother tasting if it smells really good.) He thanked me and said ‘no.’
Minutes later, AdventureMan said “I think that might have been the owner.”
“Oh no!” I said, but it made sense that it might have been. Mere seconds later, he appeared at the table with a new glass of wine and asked me to taste it. Heaven. A very nice red; he called it the upgrade, and it was truly an upgrade. I felt embarrassed, but also delighted at that kind of attention to detail.
AdventureMan asked one waitress if she had tried the restaurant’s Red Beans and Rice on the blackboard specials, and she laughed and said ‘no’ but she could assure us they were really good because the cook was her stepfather, and he served the best red beans and rice at home and she was sure we would be delighted if we ordered them.
This was all starting off pretty good!
My favorite pasta, so simple but I just adore it, Aglio Oglio was not on the menu, but I asked the waitress if the chef could do it, and off she went to ask, coming back with a big grin and telling me he would be glad to.
Better and better.
Our friends arrived, conversation was lively, the restaurant was almost full, and delicious looking dishes were arriving at other tables. We placed our orders, and told her there was no hurry, and there really isn’t. As much as we like good food, we meet up to enjoy one another’s company, and good food is just icing on the cake.
Oh, What icing.
We shared appetizers, an Caponata and Calimari Fritti. YUMMMMM. The Caponata was perfect, and the toast was a little garlicky and well toasted, so the caponata didn’t make it soggy. The Calimari were light and melted in your mouth. Great start.
Side salad:
In a short time our main courses arrived. My Aglio Oglio (garlic and oil) was perfect. A little spicy, as I had asked, and a perfect size for lunch, just enough, not too much, just right. Everyone was happy with their entrees.
Clemenza’s Carbonara:
Pizza Margherita (look at that wealth of fresh basil and that thin crust, baked in a wood-burning oven 🙂 :
When the food and conversation is this good (and my upgrade Chianti) you just don’t want to stop. We split desserts, Tiramisu and Mama’s Custard Pie, both excellent choices:
We lingered over coffee, and no one was shooing us out. It was a superb experience overall, delicious, tasty food, attentive service without being intrusive, just a great overall experience. We were impressed. We look forward to meeting up here again. 🙂
Baked Salmon Dijon
We took separate cars to water aerobics this morning as my computer kept telling me I didn’t have an aircard (?????) and AdventureMan had his own errands to run. First, though, I had to make a run to Joe Pattis to pick up some salmon steaks . . . I have a yearning for Baked Salmon Dijon.
So easy to prepare. So good!
Baked Dijon Salmon
Serves 4
Ingredients
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
• 4 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lemon, for garnish
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
3. Brush each salmon fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture, and sprinkle the tops of the fillets with the bread crumb mixture.
4. Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until it flakes easily with a fork. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of lemon.
This recipe, like many of the recipes I try comes from allrecipes.com, which sends me an e-mail every day with recipes I might like to try. At least once a week there is something of interest.
Once at the Geek Squad, my computer worked just fine. He mentioned sometimes an aging router can play tricks like that. Oh aaargh. I’m just glad everything is working fine for now. It’s all a mystery to me, why these computers work sometimes and sometimes they don’t, it’s all like smoke and mirrors, or magic.
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