Welcome to the last hurrah of June. Many of you emailed for a copy of Clifford Burdette's sourdough instructions, and stay tuned. There may be more. You also brought to our collective mind both ice cream and tomato pie. The latter two are well suited for this holiday weekend, as we always can find reasons to celebrate July Fourth.
Some of us are traveling this weekend, and one of those travelers sampled an elegant dish in a faraway restaurant. "It was chicken with peaches and Grand Marnier, and was served with mashed potato mousse. Heavenly. Please, one of you gourmet readers, tell me how to make a meal of this type."
One more call for recipes: Tell us how to prepare the favorite dish at your holiday meal: corn? squash? ribs? casserole or salad?
TOMATO PIE
Nancy Seale's tomato pie has been well tested. This one came first from Fare Exchange and bears Nancy and Friends' seal of approval.
Southern Tomato Pie
4 tomatoes, thickly sliced
1 prebaked pie shell (homemade or store-bought)
8 fresh basil leaves, chopped
1 sweet onion, sliced and sautéed until transparent
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup freshly grated mozzarella cheese
1 cup freshly grated sharp Cheddar
1 cup mayonnaise
Slice tomatoes, and place on paper towels to absorb moisture. Remove, pat dry and place sliced tomatoes in prepared pie shell. Sprinkle basil and onions on tomatoes. If desired, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Combine cheeses and mayonnaise, and spread on top of tomatoes and onions. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned. Cut in slices, and serve warm.
ICE CREAM
Now begins a generous serving of ice cream.
Billie McEwen of Manchester, Tennessee, began, "This recipe came from a friend in Collegedale many years ago. It's easy, and I always had requests to share the recipe."
Homemade Ice Cream
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 pint whipping cream
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
Enough milk to fill the freezer container
1 can chocolate syrup for chocolate ice cream (optional)
Mashed fruit of your choice for fruit ice cream (optional)
Mix sweetened condensed milk, whipping cream and vanilla extract. If you choose to add chocolate or fruit, do so at this point. Put in ice cream freezer, and add enough milk to fill container.
Freeze according to directions on your ice cream maker.
Joy Yates sent a trio of ice cream recipes from Cleveland, Tennessee, laced with sweet memories of Sunday afternoons with her father cranking the ice cream on the back porch, "with family members dropping by. My mom, Juanita O'Dell, just passed away a couple of months ago at the age of 92. She loved to cook and to experiment in the kitchen.
"We would make the trip to the ice house to get ice to make the ice cream. You couldn't buy ice at a convenience store back then, but only at the ice house in Johnson City, Tennessee. Mom's original recipes included eggs in which she made a type of cooked custard and added the milk. As she was a great cook, she learned to change the recipe to make it easier and adapt to newer ingredients found in the market."
The three ice creams here were collaborations of both O'Dells.
O'Dell Ice Cream No. 1
6 cups milk
2 cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 (8-ounce) container Cool Whip, thawed
1 (5.2-ounce) package vanilla instant pudding
Mix well, and pour into ice cream freezer.
O'Dell Ice Cream No. 2
1 quart half-and-half
1 (8-ounce) carton Cool Whip (or 8 ounces sweetened condensed milk)
1 (5.2-ounce) package vanilla instant pudding
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar (optional)
Mix well the half-and-half, Cool Whip and vanilla instant pudding. If mixture is not sweet enough, add sugar to taste. Freeze.
Variations:
* You can use chocolate milk and chocolate pudding to make chocolate ice cream.
* You can add strawberries or peaches or other fruit to vanilla ice cream mix.
* You can substitute 2 cups whipping cream for 2 cups of the half-and-half; this will make a richer ice cream.
Ice Cream No. 3
This recipe is very simple and tastes like a Frosty.
1/2 gallon chocolate milk
8 ounces Cool Whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Mix and freeze according to directions on ice cream maker.
Nancy Frye's ice cream is full of peaches, and so will July hopefully be.
Here's her introduction. "My family has made this peach ice cream for years. It was from a very old cookbook published by the Tennessee Telephone Pioneers of America. It is the absolute best I have had. You will not be disappointed."
Deluxe Peach Ice Cream
6 cups mashed peaches
2 1/2 cups sugar, divided
3 eggs
2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 quart milk
1 cup whipping cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Combine peaches and 1 cup of the sugar. Stir well, and set aside.
Beat eggs until frothy. Combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, flour and salt; stir well. Gradually add sugar mixture to eggs, beating until thick. Add milk, and mix well. Pour egg mixture into large saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until it coats a spoon, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, and cool. Stir in cream and vanilla. Add peaches, stirring well.
Pour mixture into chilled freezer can of 1-gallon freezer. Freeze according to manufacturer's instructions.
This recipe came originally from Inda Adams.
And finally, Sally Worland of Chickamauga, Georgia, has a tried-and-true ice cream plan for her big family, who "always look forward to the sound of the ice cream maker churning the delicious fruit or plain vanilla ice cream. Our White Mountain ice cream maker, given to us by our good friends Denise and Chuck, does a wonderful job making the ice cream very creamy. My recipe is very simple but delicious."
Peach or Strawberry Ice Cream
48 ounces of fruit and juice
2 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 gallon half-and-half
1 tablespoon vanilla
Save out a few pieces of fruit before you mix all ingredients together in your ice cream canister. If necessary add milk to the fill line.
Churn according to your ice cream maker's direction. After it quits churning, add the few pieces of reserved fruit, so that there are some bigger pieces of fruit in the final creamy mixture.
One of the ice cream experts above explained that for their family it's always an electric freezer, prepared in the garage because it's a messy process. Another remembered the hand-cranked version, and as I typed these six recipes the memories returned: stray salt on the tongue, the children being called to lick the dasher as it was freed from the finished cream - and also that the men around the table were summoned to turn the crank.
Why just the men, I began to wonder? My guess is that today, in homes where hand-crank is still the custom, women are considered as strong as men for that task. Tell us whether this is so in your home.
Attached to the corpus of this column, between the lines, should be the usual gratitude and the fond hope for more. Look carefully.
REQUESTS
* Chicken with peaches and Grand Marnier
* Favorite holiday dish
TO REACH US
Fare Exchange is a longtime meeting place for people who love to cook and love to eat. We welcome both your recipes and your requests. Be sure to include precise instructions for every recipe you send.
Mailing address: Jane Henegar, 913 Mount Olive Road, Lookout Mountain, GA 30750
Email: chattfare@gmail.com
Jane Henegar