[Sca-cooks] Today's Comfort Food

[marilyn traber 011221]

Well, the chowder conversation got me thinking yesterday, so today, I decided 
to make some. Initially, I had intended to make just a corn and potato 
chowder, but when I mentioned my intentions to Margali, she told me to pick 
up some of those itty bitty frozen salad shrimp (9 zillion to a lb).

So, first I boiled a couple of large baking potatoes and a large carrot, skin 
on. When they were tender, I peeled them (Easier to do than it sounds, even 
hot, and boiling them skin on retains the flavor in the bits, which is what I 
wanted).

1/4 c butter
1/4 c flour
Med onion, chopped
Potatoes, diced
Carrot, diced very finely
2 15 oz? cans of creamed corn
1 lb of teensy cooked shrimp
Milk to cover
Salt and pepper (white, if you have it) to taste.

Melt butter, and add flour, stirring into a roux. When flour is no longer 
raw, add onions, and sweat until translucent (Thank you, A, for reminding me 
of the words for what I do). Drop in vegetables and shrimp, and add milk to 
cover. Salt and pepper.

Bring to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the roux decides to thicken the 
milk, and serve.

Served it with Oatmeal raisin bread. Margali's folks gave them a bread 
machine when they went up for T'day, so we've been experimenting with 
recipes. Unfortunately, the recipe book that came with the machine 
disappeared a couple days ago, so we've been finding recipes on the 'Net (and 
I've been playing with them a bit), and this one worked very well. It's from 
King Arthur Flour.

Basic recipe:

Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Bread 
 Ingredient List: 

1 cup of water 
1/4 cup molasses 
2 tablespoons butter, softened 
3 cups Bread Machine flour 
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats 
2 tablespoons dry milk 
1.5 teaspoon salt 
2.75 teaspoons regular active dry yeast OR 
2.25 teaspoons bread machine or quick-acting active dry yeast 
Bake on Sweet Bread cycle

Due to availability, I used regular all-purpose flour, and in addition to the 
oats, I added a 40 g packet of Kashi "Go Lean" Instant hot cereal with 
clusters- honey and cinnamon flavor, and, when it beeped to tell me it was 
time to add STUPH (part of its cycle) I added a couple handfuls of raisins. I 
was concerned that it might wind up a little dry, since I added  the cereal 
and raisins without adding any extra water, but it had what I consider a 
perfect, chewy texture.

So, that's the suffering you guys made me go through for dinner, with all 
your talk of comfort foods- oh, woe is me ;-)

Phlip