Category: Main Dishes

Bob’s Liver and Bacon

My mother believed in providing nourishing meals to her husband and children. As you might expect, this led to some conflicts. My father, for instance, did not like cheese or mushrooms, but he ended up eating macaroni and cheese and cream of mushroom soup, and we kids faced a monthly dinner of liver and onions.

My sisters and I didn’t like the combination, but we choked down a little as we listened to a lecture about how much iron it had. Iron, we learned, helped our bodies make red blood cells, which we needed if we wanted to be able to run fast and work hard. We thought that we would do just fine with hamburgers, pot roast and fried chicken. I may have once pointed out that molasses cookies were a good source of iron too.

My mother was right, as you might expect. Liver is an excellent source of iron plus vitamins A, B and C along with other important minerals such as zinc and phosphorus. And if you are concerned about the calories and fat in the foods you eat, pork and beef liver have fewer calories and less fat than the same amount of steak or roast. One warning: liver contains so much vitamin A that it should not be eaten more than once a week.

Still, there is the problem of getting the family to eat liver. Jerri and I both remember liver and onions but not with fondness. That combination may have originated in England, where it is still popular and Americans developed a taste for it too. Liver and onions was so much in demand in the United States in the past century that fine restaurants advertised the dish and many cafes offered a liver and onion special once a week.

When Bob and I moved into our apartment in Madison, we agreed to share the kitchen chores equally. When Bob cooked, I did the dishes and he reciprocated. To begin with, we fried hamburgers, pork chops and chicken, opened cans of vegetables and boiled potatoes. After a few weeks, we began broadening our diets with other dishes. Bob introduced me to his mother’s hot dish and I reciprocated with Gus Gauch’s macaroni and cheese.

Sometime that summer Bob made me like fried liver. Instead of making liver and onions, he created his own recipe. it’s a winning combination of fried liver, bacon, creamed corn and boiled potatoes. Bob told me that his mother made liver and onions and gave him the same lecture I got about how it was good for him. Years later she confessed that she didn’t like liver and onions when she was having a second serving of Bob’s liver and bacon.

I brought the recipe with me when Jerri and I set up housekeeping in Virginia. Jerri’s salary as a teacher and my teaching fellowship provided enough money to live on if we were careful. One way to economize was to have liver and bacon twice a month. We could put a meal on the table for less than a dollar.

Economy was not the only reason we included liver and bacon on the menu. We actually looked forward to having a dinner of tender liver and home-smoked bacon from the meat market just a few blocks from our apartment. Today, unless you are very lucky, you will have to make do with frozen liver, but your dinner will turn out fine anyway and you can put a nourishing and tasty dinner on the table for under seven dollars.

Here is what you need.

INGREDIENTS:

1 lb. beef or pork liver
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 large or 4 medium potatoes
1 tsp. salt, divided
1/4 to 1/3 lb. bacon
1 can creamed corn
3/4 cup milk
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

PROCEDURE:

If the liver is frozen, thaw it. You can do this simply by putting the package in the refrigerator in the morning; the meat will be thawed when you are ready to cook dinner.

Put the slices of liver in a shallow bowl, cover them with milk and let them sit on the counter for fifteen or twenty minutes while you peel the potatoes. If necessary turn them once or twice to make sure that all surfaces are in the milk for at least a few minutes.

Peel the potatoes, cut them in quarters and put them in a saucepan with about three-fourths of a teaspoon of salt. Bring them to a boil and cook them for twenty to twenty-five minutes until they are tender. Test them with a fork. Larger pieces take longer to cook. Drain the potatoes and leave them in the covered saucepan to remain warm while the meat finishes cooking.

While the potatoes are cooking, put six to eight slices of bacon in a frying pan and cook them over low heat until they begin to brown on both sides. Remove them from the pan before they are crisp. Leave all the grease in the pan.

Mix a quarter teaspoon of salt and a grind or two of black pepper with the flour on a plate. Raise the heat under the frying pan to medium. Drain the liver slices, dredge them in the flour and fry them for about three minutes on each side. Check for doneness by cutting into one of the thicker pieces. It should be barely pink when you take it from the pan.

Warm the creamed corn in the microwave or in a small saucepan while the liver is frying.

Diners can smash their own potatoes and cover them with creamed corn, choose their slices of liver and bacon and dig in. Pass the salt and pepper as some folks may like to grind a little pepper on their corn (as I do) or add a bit more seasoning to the meat.

Gluten-free Chilean Quinoa Tabbouleh

One of our great-nieces and her husband have twin sons with wheat or gluten intolerance. Although most of us don’t think about this particular allergy, people who are allergic to wheat or other grains with gluten such as rye and barley need to avoid recipes or prepared foods that contain it. Ordinary soy sauce is made from wheat, and many commercial products such as pasta sauce, ketchup and mustard often are thickened with wheat starch.

However, many gluten-free foods are now available on store shelves and lists of gluten-free alternatives to common diet ingredients are now easy to find on the Web. For example, most supermarkets today sell both bulgar and buckwheat groats. Bulgar is made from wheat and contains gluten. Buckwheat groats are cracked buckwheat seeds which have no gluten.

We like pilaf pilaf which is made from cracked wheat or bulgar, but we also like kasha, kasha which is made with buckwheat groats. If you are careful to make your kasha with gluten-free chicken broth, you will have a wonderful side dish with no gluten that tastes different but is just as delicious as pilaf.

Another example is tabbouleh, an Eastern Mediterranean vegetable salad commonly made with bulgar or couscous, both of which contain gluten. Made with quinoa, it is a delicious gluten-free side dish. Quinoa originated in the Andes and has been cultivated for at least three thousand years by the Andean people. The Incas thought of it as sacred and called it the “mother of all grains.”

Though it has no gluten, it does have a lot of protein, dietary fiber and minerals that make it a healthful ingredient in your next batch of tabbouleh.

Kristi makes this salad often. Her introduction to the recipe says it all: “This makes quite a large dish, but it is SO good! This is one of our favorite summer dishes.” 

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups quinoa
4 cups water
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
5 T fresh lemon juice, divided
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tsp. minced garlic
1 cup fresh corn kernels
1 cup finely chopped red onion
4 plum tomatoes
1 cup diced cucumbers
1 ripe avocado 

PROCEDURE:

Shuck two medium ears of sweet corn and use a sharp knife to cut the kernels from the cobs. You should have about a cup of corn kernels. Put them in a container and microwave them on high for about 2 1/2 minutes. Check that they are lightly cooked, and set them aside to cool.

Put the quinoa and water into a medium-sized saucepan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover the pan and simmer until the liquid is absorbed and the quinoa is translucent. This will take ten to thirteen minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and fluff the quinoa with a fork as you transfer it to a large mixing bowl. Let it cool to room temperature.

While the quinoa is cooling, wash and peel the cucumbers, leaving small strips of green for color. Slice the cucumber lengthwise into quarters, trim off the seeds and chop it into a half inch dice. Wash and chop the tomatoes, also into a half inch dice. You should have about a cup of each vegetable.

Remove the husks from the onion and garlic. Chop the onion into a quarter inch dice and mince the garlic.

Wash and coarsely chop the cilantro into three-eighths to half-inch pieces.

Wash and juice two or three lemons.

Sprinkle the quinoa with the salt and pepper and stir. Use a fork to fold the ingredients together from underneath the grains of quinoa. Fold four tablespoons of the lemon juice and the oil into the quinoa, then fold in the cilantro and garlic.

Toss the avocado with the remaining tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent discoloration.
Fold the corn, onion, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado into the quinoa. Let the salad rest for three or four minutes, then taste and adjust the seasonings.

Serve at a cool room temperature within two hours of preparation.

NOTES: Kristi says that the recipe makes enough to serve eight to ten people. If you offer it as a side dish, we think that it will serve twelve or more.

If your tabbouleh seems too dry, add a little more olive oil and lemon juice.

Tabbouleh is pronounced “tah-BOO-luh.”