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B8 - Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 10, 2012
Cook’s
Question
Corner
If you are looking for a recipe but can’t find it,
send your recipe request to Anne Harnish, Cook’s
Question Corner, in care of Lancaster Farming, P.O.
Box 609, Ephrata, PA 17522. There’s no need to send
a self-addressed stamped envelope. If we receive an
answer to your question, we will publish it as soon
as possible. Check your recipe to make sure you
copy the right amounts and complete instructions
for making the recipe. Sometimes we receive numerous answers to the same request, but cannot
print each one.
Answers to recipe requests should be sent to the
same address. You may also e-mail questions and
answers to [email protected].
QUESTION — A Kutztown, Pa., reader is
seeking recipes for spaghetti sauce using whole
tomatoes.
QUESTION — A regular reader from Picture Rocks,
Pa., wonders if anyone has a recipe for old-fashioned
sponge candy or something called “puff candy.” The
reader writes that it’s covered in chocolate and full of air
spaces, like a sponge.
QUESTION — Mrs. Dan Yoder, Thompsontown, Pa.,
is wondering if someone knows where to find the really
dark buckwheat pancake mix, or the dark flour. She’s
looking for a type that can not be found in most bulkfood stores. Readers can contact her at 717-535-4673.
QUESTION — A Pennsylvania reader is looking for
a pecan cake recipe, with coconut cream frosting added
to it, that can be made with boxed cake mix.
QUESTION — Cynthia McElwain, White Hall, Md.,
is trying to find a recipe that her mother used to make
when she got it in a recipe book along with her new stove
range in 1946. The recipe consisted of beef cubes, cutup potato cubes and 1-2 tablespoons sprinkled starch.
She writes that it’s baked in a small roaster pan and
might also have celery in the ingredients.
QUESTION — A reader from New Holland, Pa.,
is seeking an ice cream recipe she lost that she had
clipped out of the paper a few years ago. The cake was
a devil’s food cake mix, which used chocolate instant
pudding. In the recipe there was a peanut butter layer
over the cake, vanilla ice cream and whipped topping. It
made 2 cakes in 9x13-inch pans.
QUESTION — Moriah from Monroeville, N.J., is
looking for a cucumber soup recipe.
QUESTION — Charles Woolstrum, Crawford County, Pennsylvania, would like to buy sour black apple jell
or get a recipe for it. He said there is no sugar in it and
it keeps forever.
QUESTION — A Pennsylvania reader would like a
recipe for a butter sauce similar to the one in the breakfast pizzas commonly sold for fundraisers.
www.lancasterfarming.com
ANSWER — A Berks County, Pennsylvania, reader was looking for recipes for homemade soft pretzels. Thanks to Rebecca Stoltzfus, Kirkwood, Pa.;
Sherry Martin, Denver, Pa.; and Renee Gruber, Hershey, Pa., for sending in variations of the following
recipe. Renee writes that these are a Sunday night
favorite at her home.
ANSWER — Marion Blank, Strasburg, Pa., was
searching for recipes for gluten-free pizza. Thanks
to Erla Horning, Pen Yan, N.Y., for contributing the
following recipe.
She writes that this is her favorite pizza dough.
She has her own grain grinder and grinds her rice
flour fresh each time, using natural brown rice.
(White rice does not produce good flour.) The best
gluten-free cookbook she has found is “Gluten Free
is Delicious.”
Homemade Soft Pretzels
2 tablespoons warm water
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1/3 cup brown sugar
Gluten-Free Pizza Crust
1-1/3 cups warm water
2 tablespoons dry yeast
4-1/2 to 5 cups flour
1 cup warm water
Dissolve yeast in 2 tablespoons warm water. Add
1 tablespoon honey
sugar, 1-1/3 cup warm water and 4 cups flour. Knead,
3 tablespoons olive oil
adding additional flour to make a soft dough. Tip:
2 cups rice flour
After kneading, allow the dough to sit for 5 minutes.
2/3 cup instant dry milk
This allows the gluten to relax and the dough will
1 teaspoon salt
roll out better.
1 teaspoon dry oregano leaves
Using a pizza cutter, cut off a strip of dough.
4 egg whites
Roll out dough, shape (or wrap around a hot dog)
2 cups tapioca flour
and then dip in a mixture of 2 tablespoons baking
3-1/2 teaspoons xanthum gum
soda dissolved in 2 cups hot water. Place on a well
1 teaspoon dry basil
greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with pretzel salt.
1 teaspoon garlic powder
Bake 6-8 minutes at 425 F. (If desired, you can omit
1/2 cup hot water
pretzel salt.) Once baked, brush or dip in butter and
Dissolve yeast in warm water; add honey and oil.
sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. This recipe yields Add rest of ingredients. Beat with mixer until lumps
16-18 pretzels.
are gone. Grease two 12-inch pizza pans. Preheat
Note: You can make pretzel-dogs by wrapping oven to 400 F.
dough around a hot dog.
Spoon half of dough on each pan. (Dough is very
gooey.) Use a greased plastic bag over your hand to
ANSWER — A reader from Elizabethtown, Pa., spread dough in pan. Let rise 10 minutes. Bake at
was searching for a recipe to make a doughnut 400 F for 5-7 minutes.
that she buys at Root’s farmers market. The reader
Layer with toppings of your choice. Re-heat until
thought it had some apple and raisins in it and was
pizza is hot and cheese is melted.
called an apple fritter. Thanks to Orpha Baltozer,
Springfield Center, N.Y., a reader from Myerstown,
ANSWER — A Leola, Pa., reader was searching
Pa.; the Weaver family, Ephrata, Pa.; and Mrs. Harold
for a good frosting recipe for cookies that need
Diller, Hagerstown, Md., for supplying variations on
to be stacked on top of each other in containers.
the recipe below.
Thanks to Myra Byers, Mercersburg, Pa., for contributing this recipe.
Apple Fritters
1 cup raisins
3 cups plus 2-3 tablespoons water
4 cups chopped apples
3 tablespoons yeast
1/4 cup sugar
Cook raisins in 2-3 tablespoons water until soft.
Add chopped apples and cook until slightly soft. Set
aside.
Mix 3 cups water and yeast with sugar. To the
yeast mixture add and combine the following:
6 eggs
1-1/4 cups melted butter
2-1/2 cups mashed potatoes
1 cup sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Cooked apples and raisins
4-1/2 pounds flour (added last)
Roll dough out to 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick (approximately) size and cut. (She writes that they use
canning jars rings to cut them out and said largemouth lid size makes a generous-sized doughnut.)
Let rise till approximately doubled in size and deepfry at 375 F. Dip in a glaze made of the following
ingredients:
6 cups confectioners’ sugar
6 teaspoons vanilla
12-16 tablespoons hot water
1 stick melted butter
3 teaspoons cinnamon
Stir glaze ingredients until smooth.
Frosting
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
Mix ingredients together for 5 minutes. Frost
cookies. Allow frosted cookies to sit for at least an
hour before stacking. Myra also places a towel between cookie layers.
ANSWER — A Berks County, Pennsylvania, reader was looking for recipes for flavorful hummus.
Thanks to Zoe Rohrer, Lancaster, Pa., for contributing the following recipe, adapted from the “Simply
in Season” cookbook.
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
4 cups cooked or canned chickpeas
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup tahini (sesame paste)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large roasted red pepper
2 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground cumin
Place everything in a food processor or blender
and puree until smooth. It may need to be thinned
with a little water. Serve with veggies, crackers,
chips, or use as a sandwich spread.
The Lowly Meat Pie
Mystery Meat No More; Meat Pies are Gaining Ground
Jocelyn Noveck
AP National Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Consider
the poor meat pie. Historically
speaking, it hasn’t always had the
best associations attached to it.
But pity the meat pie no more:
Much loved in Australia, Britain
and elsewhere, but traditionally ignored in the U.S., it’s showing signs
of hitting trend status here, too, with
high-end fillings old-timers apparently never thought of.
Chunky steak, for example, or
Thai chicken curry. Those are two
of the flavors offered at a new takeout spot in midtown Manhattan, the
first U.S. outpost of an Australian
chain called Pie Face, which opened
in January and has a line out the
door at lunchtime. Ten more stores
are planned in the city by year’s
end, and more later in other cities,
including at airports and train stations.
“We’re doing much better business in this store than in any of our
70 stores in Australia,” said Wayne
Homschek, an Australia-based
American who founded the chain
with his Aussie wife, Betty Fong.
“The question isn’t whether Americans are liking it, it’s why haven’t
they picked up on it before?”
In supermarkets, too, meat pies
are getting more shelf space, analysts say, thanks at least in part to
the rising cost of beef. The Department of Agriculture projected late
last year that beef prices would remain high for the next few years.
“The meat pie is a less expensive
and filling alternative to a steak,
a big burger, a meat loaf — even
chicken,” said Phil Lempert, the
food marketing analyst known as
the Supermarket Guru.
Last year, Lempert explained, supermarkets were reluctant to raise
prices when the cost of beef went
up, a result of a tighter cattle supply
due to the rising price of their feed.
“So now, they are making room for
alternatives,” he said.
Add to that the rising popularity of food trucks, Lempert notes,
with ethnic food that often includes
a type of meat pie. “It’s exotic, inexpensive, and easy and fun to
eat,” Lempert said. Plus, he added,
Americans have gotten much more
used to handheld foods — burritos
and the like — in recent years.
Tanya Wenman Steel already is
a convert. The editor-in-chief of
AP Photo/Richard Drew
Baker Angel Perez removes baked pies from the oven at Pie Face in
New York. Much loved in Australia, Britain and elsewhere, but traditionally ignored in the United States, meat pies are showing signs of
hitting trend status here too.
Epicurious.com says she sees huge
interest whenever her site posts a
meat-pie recipe or mentions them
in stories.
“I’m obsessive about them,”
said Steel, who grew up in England, which explains a lot. “I grew
up with Cornish pasties” — portable meat pies that originated in
More MEAT PIE, page B9