I’m not sure if this is the correct forum, but I’m assuming that cooking is an art. Plus, Uke, a terrific cook, is a moderator here and I assume he’ll have some suggestions.
Yesterday, I inherited a meaty hambone. I’d really like to make some cabbage soup with it and want to make it really spectacular. Can anyone give me a great and simple recipe for homemade cabbage soup? What about other soups?
I’d also like to make some cookies. Any good cookie recipes?
I dunno…I hear “meaty hambone” and I’m immmediately thinking “Split-pea soup!” and “Bean soup!”
My grandpappy made his cabbage soup like they did in the old country (Bohemia, in his case)…as a potage maigre, a meatless soup for poor people. There’s no real recipe with measured ingredients, but this is how it comes together:
Brown sliced onions in butter (or fat of preference) with a small handful of caraway seed. Add sliced cabbage (salt and pepper to taste) and stir until it begins to break down a little. Add peeled potatoes cut in largish chunks (Idahos are good, as they break down and thicken the broth), and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cook until everything’s tender. Now…drop in ONE RAW EGG for each diner, and let them poach. Just before serving, stir in a little sour cream and let it heat through. Make sure everyone gets an egg when you serve it out!
Hey Uke, thanks for the suggestions!
I would make split pea or bean soup, but I loathe peas and beans. Too bad, I know.
This is what I was thinking about doing – would you please let me know if this will work into something edible?
I was going to take the hambone and put it in a huge pot and put a bunch of water over it. Then I was going to boil the bone for a couple of hours. Then I would add some cabbage, carrots and potatoes and have it all simmer for an hour or so.
Would I have to add salt or other spices?
Geez, cooking is hard.
Yup, that’d work. It’s very difficult to mess up soup. It’s basically liquid flavored with meat and/or veggies, plus whatever else you think would taste good, or you want to clean out of the fridge.
You might want to simmer the bone for a few hours today, then let the stock cool overnight and skim off the congealed fat tomorrow, if fat bothers you.
The vegetables will taste better if you brown them a bit (in butter or some of the reserved hamfat) before you put the stock back into the pot. Don’t forget onions and celery, which are a basic ingredient of nearly every soup. A leek wouldn’t hurt.
Salt and pepper are necessary (taste first, as the hambone may be salty), and paprika is always nice in a Mitteleuropean soup…add it while you’re browning the veggies.
Thanks for your help, Uke. I’ll let you know how it turns out!!
These are really, really good. I am not terribly fond of dates on their own, and never would have been inspired to try this recipe if I had not tasted one of these at a local bakery first. No one is able to figure out what the rice krispies and dates are unless you tell them.
Ranger Cookies
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1-1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups Rice Krispies
3.5 oz can of sweetened flaked coconut (1 1/3 cups)
1 cup chopped pitted dates
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream together butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir into creamed mixture.
Stir in rice krispies, coconut, and dates.
Form into 3/4” balls; place 2.5 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees until lightly browned (approximately 10 minutes.) Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet.
Makes 5 dozen.
Another recipe I highly recommend: Try the recipe for “One Bowl Double Chocolate Cookies” which is printed on the back of the Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate box. Swoon! I just made some of those to send to my niece in college this past week, and it’s like taking a hit of intravenous chocolate.
A comment I forgot to add earlier: Use only REAL vanilla flavoring. Artificial vanilla flavoring is an abomination which should be outlawed. If you care enough to spend your time on making something from scratch, it deserves to have the real thing in it.
Also, (things I learned at my mother’s knee), if you ever use a bought cake mix, it will always be improved if you add a little bit of real vanilla flavoring to it. Cheap, fake vanilla flavoring is what gives mix cakes that “cake mix” taste (not that most people are able to distinguish that as inferior any more… 
)
Yes. Yes, it is. 
For some reason, I want that as a sig. Can I use it, Ike?
-Soup
I almost forgot my suggestion!
I have no idea how to make it, but it’s my all-time fav sweet.
It’s called divinity, I think. You make it with egg whites, corn syrup, confectioners’ sugar, and other such goodies.
:drools:
-Soup
oh man… divinity fudge, if that’s what you’re talking about, is literally the best thing ever. My next door neighbor was a lonely old lady who baked a lot. So we would get a call from her every once in a while asking if we wanted a cake or something, cuz she didn’t eat much but loved to bake. she was a damn good baker. And I used to go over there and talk to her for like 30 minutes each time, after I got past like the age of 10 when you have an instinctive fear of old people. she actually had a really interesting life, she was like 90 and had done all this crazy stuff back in the 20s and 30s.
Um… right. so one time she made this divinity fudge. And, like I guess I’ve already said, it was the best thing I have ever experienced, of any kind.
OK, so it’s not better than sex. But the phrase ‘better than sex’ is, of course, inherently contradictory. Then again, I’ve already made my point and now I’m babbling. Before I was babbling, but now I’m really babbling.