Courage in the Kitchen

A couple of years ago when I was at the supermarket trying to find two cans of dark red kidney beans for Jerri, I asked a young woman adding cans to her shopping cart for help. She was, I would guess, under thirty and very capable. In about two seconds she found the dark reds hidden next to their light red cousins. After thanking her, I asked what she was cooking for dinner.

“Oh I’m pretty much a heat and eat cook,” she answered. The phrase has stuck with me, for I too am a heat and eat cook occasionally. Give me a can of corned beef hash and I can turn it into a delicious breakfast just by adding heat and making toast. I’m fairly talented at baking frozen pizzas too, and I can warm a can of clam chowder that always makes me think of Ishmael and Queequeg eating supper at the Try Pots on Nantucket.

Aunt Dorothy’s recipe for Beef Tips In Gravy is not heat and eat, but it is simple enough for the most timid cook. The results will surprise you and your guests. Imagine how you will feel when someone at the table exclaims, “This is delicious! The meat is so tender and the gravy is wonderful.”

You will need to prepare yourself for the inevitable question: “Can you give me the recipe?” You could of course confess that it’s just cans of stuff and dried soup mix and spoil their enjoyment. Or you could say, “It’s a recipe from an old aunt, and I don’t have her permission to share it.” A true statement and everyone will be happy, including Aunt Dorothy.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2–3 lbs. beef
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sherry
1 package dried onion soup mix
1 4 oz. can mushroom pieces and stems

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 325º.

Trim any excess fat from the meat and cut it into one-inch cubes or one half- by two-inch strips. Mix the meat with the soup, the soup mix, sherry and mushrooms in a bowl.

Put everything into a three quart casserole and bake covered for about three hours. Stir after each hour and add a little wine or water if the gravy seems to be drying out or getting too thick.

Serve over rice or noodles with bread and salad.

NOTES: Any inexpensive cut of beef will work. Use a dry or semi-dry sherry. Do not use cooking sherry, as it is simply cheap wine with salt added.

Aunt Dorothy said that the mushrooms were optional. She also noted that you can cook this recipe in a crockpot: Stir the ingredients together and put them in the crockpot set on high. After an hour reduce the heat to low and cook for about six hours.

This recipe will serve six to eight people, but you can cut it in half. Be careful to add no more than half a package of dried soup mix, as it has a lot of salt in it.

Shortly after I was born, my parents moved into an apartment in Hayward, but within a year they had bought a house on the east side of the city along Highway 77. They both wanted a place of their own with room for a garden, a garage and a fenced front yard where their firstborn could play safely. A year later Grandma Hopp gave me a young Canada goose as a pet to play with.

As you can tell from the photo, Jeep and I became good friends.

Chuck with goose — Chuck with Jeep the goose in Hayward

Mom told me that Jeep was also a watchgoose. When I turned three, I learned how to unlatch the gate. “Jeep would squawk like crazy when you tried to go out in the street,” my mother told me. After a couple of close calls running after a three-year-old, however, Mom had Dad put a hook out of my reach on the gate, so Jeep reverted to his role as playmate.

As happens with men and geese, particularly ganders, as they get older, they get meaner, and so it happened with Jeep. Thus, when I turned five, we returned Jeep to Grandma and Grandpa Hopp. Saying goodbye to him was a major turning point in my life. No one ever told me what happened to him, but my guess is that he ended up in a roasting pan. Grandma was fastidious about not eating her pets, but Jeep was my pet, not hers.

My fifth birthday was important for another reason. A few months after turning five, I entered kindergarten. It was exciting to meet new kids and get to play on the swings, slides and merry-go-round. Even more exciting were the people I met on my way home from school every afternoon. I never had much time to visit on my way to school in the morning, but there was no bell calling me to class at home.

My mother walked me to school the first week or two, but after that I was on my own. As best as I can remember, my classmates also walked to school by themselves. Mom lectured me about how to walk safely the mile between our house and the school building. Before I soloed, she followed a half block behind me as I crossed the railroad tracks and Highway 63 and looked carefully before crossing any streets. In a few days she felt confident enough to let me go on my own, though she met me the first few times before I crossed the highway and tracks on my way home.

My mother was already in the habit of baking treats for anyone who stopped in. This included me, so I generally got home with plenty of time for a snack before supper. There was homemade bread, of course, but on most days I could also count on a cookie or a piece of cake. The recipe below is from one of her friends.

I doubt that I ever had Mrs. Elwick’s Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake, simply because I think I would remember the name if I had, but it’s a delicious way to turn a common ingredient into something special. Mom may have served it to me years later. I can almost hear her: “Try this, I got the recipe from Mrs. Elwick. It’s got oatmeal in it, but it’s good.”

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

PROCEDURE:

Pour boiling water over the oatmeal in a small mixing bowl, cover and let it stand for twenty minutes. Beat the butter until it is creamy, then gradually add the sugars and beat the mixture until it is fluffy.

Preheat the oven to 350º and grease a nine by thirteen-inch baking pan.

Blend in the eggs and vanilla and stir in the oatmeal. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and spices into the creamed mixture. Mix the batter well and pour it into the greased pan and bake the cake for fifty to fifty-five minutes. Test for doneness after fifty minutes. A toothpick stuck near the center of the cake should come out clean when the cake is done.

Let the cake cool a bit but do not remove it from the pan while making the icing. Spread the warm cake with Lazy Daisy Icing.

Lazy Daisy Icing

INGREDIENTS:

6 T butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 T whipping cream
1 cup Wheaties, flaked coconut or chopped nuts, or any combination of the three

PROCEDURE:

Cream the butter and brown sugar, stir in the cream and fold in the Wheaties, coconut or nuts. Spread the icing on the cake and broil it for three to five minutes until bubbly.

NOTE: You can substitute half and half for the whipping cream.