Mexican New Year's Eve

Jorge with Memo

I left for Mexico, two days after graduating from Pleasantville High School in New York. I originally went to perfect my Spanish but within two weeks met Jorge Luis Jimenez. We were married and had two children. We lived 10 years of our 26 years married in Mexico, eight of those in Mexico City. It was there that I was graciously taught Mexican Traditions and food recipes by family, friends and the help!

Liz @ 9 months

Today being New Year's Eve, I thought I would share the Mexican family tradition. First of all, understanding the daily meal hours is important. Mexican eat breakfast before 9am, lunch (a heavy dinner) between 2-4pm and dinner (a light fare) between 7-9pm. On holidays, like Christmas and New Years, an exception is made and the heavy "comida" is eaten just after midnight. On New Year's Eve, each place setting has a top plate (at Abuelita's house is was a fluted glass plate) and 12 red grapes - with seeds. At the stroke of midnight, everyone stands at their plate and tries to eat their grapes the fastest. The person that does, will have good luck in each of the 12 upcoming months, represented by the grapes. I NEVER won as I could not stand eating the seeds!!

The meal that night was usually bacala "dried cod fish" hydrated in salted water days before then sauteed in olive oil with tomatoes and black olives. There was also a smoked ham - smoked at the local bakery. Served with roasted potatoes, corn or other vegetables, rolls and flan. As you can imagine, we ate late and then went to bed in the early morning. I was never partial to the fish dish but loved everything else, especially the flan - that's another entry!

For me the best part of New Year's Day was going to the Pozole Restaurant around the corner with the whole family. We would take up 3 large tables and eat Pozole. So after mush ado, here is the Mexican Recipe or both white and red Pozole:

Pozole: The White Recipe - Customary in Guadalajara, Mexico

2lbs pork roast - chopped into 2" cubes
4 cups diced onion
4 cloves garlic
3 bay leaves
4 cups of Hominy - can be bought along any Hispanic Food aisle in USA
2 tbsp Cumin
2 tsp salt
6 cups of water

Combine all ingredients into large stock pot and cook for about 3 hours or until meat is tender. Remove meat and shred, put back into pot along with any of the following to make Red Pozole, if desired. Buy 3-5 ancho or guajillo dried chiles. Remove the stems and seeds then place into separate pot. Cook with 2 cups of liquid from the Pozole broth until tender then purify in the blender. Strain while adding back to the Pozole Soup. Now you have made the traditional Pozole from Jalisco and Michoacan, Mexico.

The most important part of this meal are the garnishes! The first three are crucial the rest are optional:

• Dried Oregano - you can get Mexican Oregano - has a different flavor than Italian
• Cilantro - diced
• Avocado - diced
• radished - shredded
• cabbage - shredded
• onion - finely diced
• Chile piguin - ground
• Tostado chips or regular corn tostitos

So whether white or red, spicy or not, Pozole is a great hot meal for the "morning after" New Year's Eve  or any other night that is spent up too late!!

Feliz Ano Nuevo a todos! 

Nana's Meatloaf - Morgan Susan Wilklow's Favorite

I love meatloaf and apparently by making it as much as I do, my niece, Morgan LOVES it! Morgan lives here in Colorado Springs and we are blessed that she and her sister come spend a lot of time with Dave and  I. Delaney loves Pot Roast but Morgan is the meatloaf girl. I was out of the house yesterday when she came over to visit and the first thing she asked was whether I had any meatloaf for her to have for lunch. Unfortunately, I did not. So she ate popcorn....but I promised her that WE would make some loaves today. I usually make a large loaf pan for myself and Dave. I cut 1/3 of it off and drop it off at her house most weeks. But I got some mini loaf pans this fall and we make up 4 mini loaves of meatloaf today. I know every family has their favorite meatloaf recipe so here is ours!

Nana's Meatloaf:
1 lb of ground beef (I always prefer 93% or leaner meat)
1 egg
3 tbsp ketchup
1/3 cup minced onion
2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 tbsp salt (I use Kosher Salt in cooking ALWAYS)
1 tbsp pepper
2 slices of bread diced (slate or cold bread works great) OR use flavored bread brings good flavor
Plain or flavored bread crumbs
Tomato Paste

Meatloaf is the perfect food to prepare with your hands. Add all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix with your hands constantly bringing up the mix from the bottom of the bowl and integrating. Heat oven to 375*.  Pour about a cup of bread crumbs on to a sunken plate. Shape the meat mixture into a loaf shape and then place on top of plate with bread crumbs. Roll meatloaf until all sides and the ends are covered in bread crumbs and put into large loaf pan. (I prefer a stone loaf pan or heavy metal one. If using glass, turn down your temperature to 350* and watch that is does not burn on the bottom.) Finally, open can of tomato paste and smear along top of meatloaf covering all meat exposed to the heat. Then place in oven and cook for 50 -60 minutes. I have learned to put a tent of FOIL on top of the loaf pan for the first 45 minutes so as to not burn the tomato paste.

I serve this meat with either baked potatoes or mashed. If making baked potatoes, I wash, poke and wrap them in foil. I turn the temperature up to 400* and place the foil covered potatoes in the oven on the same rack with the meatloaf and cook together for 1 hour.

Meatloaf keeps about a week in the frig and can also freeze well. My dad loved meatloaf sandwiches. Mom would slice the cold meatloaf into 1 inch slices and place on regular bread and smear with ketchup.   I think he ate it cold but it could be warmed in the microwave at work for a heartier lunch!

Rouladen - Terri Wilklow Wiebke's Recipe

In honor of my sister, Terri's Birthday...I won't say how many for fear of retaliation, I will share her Rouladen recipe today. Rouladen is a German dish consisting of thinly sliced beef, bacon, carrots and onions. Seared and cooked in broth until tender and served over spatzle. Eileen Wiebke, Terri's mother-in-law taught Terri

how to make this beloved recipe years ago and it is one of Steve's, Terri's husband's, favorite.

Rouladen: 
Rump or Round Roast - have your butcher slice either of these cuts into large thin slices for rolling
2 cups diced onion
1lb cooked sliced bacon
2 cups diced onion cooked in bacon fat
Carrots (peeled and sliced longwise into thin in 2-3 inch pieces)
Salt and Pepper

Lay out meat slice, salt & pepper, sprinkle with onions, lay two 1/2 strips of bacon and 2-3 carrot strips. Start to roll and place into middle of roll while rolling. Then secure with cooking string OR toothpicks sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. In a large dutch oven heat olive oil and sear each side of meat roll (leave for a couple of minutes so as to NOT have meat stick to bottom of pot). Only sear 4-5 at a time and remove once done. When all have been seared, turn down heat and replace rolls to dutch oven. At this point, add 6 cups of beef broth, cover and let cook at least 2 hours. Once tender, remove rolls onto serving platter and make the gravy with flour and water, salt and pepper to taste.

Make up some spatzle (found anywhere you can buy german food), an egg noodle or serve with regular egg noodles, boiled potatoes and red cabbage (heated). If you use the spatzle, Eileen Wiebke and her daughter-in-law, Terri, serve it with a farina and butter sauce. You simply melt a stick of butter in a frypan, add about 1/2 cup farina until the mixture looks not quite runny but not thick, when stirred it should not stay in clumps, nor have too much liquid. Adjust with more farina or butter as needed. Let cook over a slow burner until it begins to turn a golden brown, but do not let it become brown in color. Serve over the cooked, strained spetzle. Eileen would have told you that it adds a nutty butter crunch, Terri's son Brett would say it's just delicious!

PS: I have changed this recipe around my way, of course, I don't want to have to peel and slice carrots so I have replaced them with baby peeled carrots. I will also use dehydrated minced onions instead of diced up onions, this saves on the tears! I also wrap the raw bacon around the outside and secure with the toothpick, to save having to take the time to cook it and dice it before rolling. By having the bacon on the outside and searing it, this gives the gravy a rich flavor. Lastly, I will sometimes add a cup of wine or beer to the gravy and reduce for about 10 minutes. Also I have added 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp paprika and 1 tbsp sugar to authenticate the real German seasoning. I also cook my Rouladen in my pressure cooker and it takes all of about an hour from start to finish.

Irmgard Cates, my sister-in-law, a first generation German, makes her Rouladen in a slow cooker. She makes it with the pickles instead of carrots and of course some unknown German spices! She then hand ties each roll with a thin cooking string. She serves it with spatzle and heated red cabbage and her wonderful cucumber salad (which I will share if she ever gives me the recipe!) She also puts a heavy dark bread on the table for dipping into the delicious gravy.

Whichever version you decide...enjoy! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TERRI!

Nonnie's Pot Roast - A recipe from Bernadine Wilklow

Nonnie was my dad's mother. She was a frugal woman having lived through the Great Depression. My dad recounts the years when sugar was rationed. Nonnie, Grampy, my grandfather, Uncle George and my dad were each given 1/2 cup of sugar each week. They could eat as much as they wanted BUT if there was enough left over and saved at the end of the week, Nonnie would make them a cake with the sugar and everyone would enjoy the cake. My dad loved vanilla cakes and fondly remembered saving his sugar so his mother would make that cake at the end of the week.

Nonnie's Pot Roast:
1-2 lbs of roast (Nonnie used chuck, I prefer leaner cut like round)
Seasoning - I use a steak mix from Sam's but salt and pepper works
Olive oil
2 sliced onions
2 cups baby carrots (Nonnie would use large carrots and cut them into chunks)
4-6 potatoes peeled and quartered
4 bay leaves
6 cups of water
Beef bouillon - 4 cubes or 2 tbsp. base (found at any supermarket)

In a large dutch oven (or heavy pot) saute the roast in olive oil until seared on all sides. Before searing, I use the steak seasoning as it has all the flavors we like. Add the onions and saute with the roast. Then add the water and beef bouillon cook until tender about 2 hours on med-high heat. Add the carrots and potatoes and cook another hour on low heat. Remove the roast, carrots and potatoes in a dish and proceed with making the gravy. Let the roast set for about 15 minutes, slice roast and arrange on dish with vegetables.

Gravy: 
Bring broth in dutch oven to a boil. In closable plastic container add 1/4 - 1/3 cup flour to 1 cup water and shake until not lumpy. When broth comes to a boil, slowly add the flour and water mixture and stir while the broth turns into a gravy. Allow to boil slowly for about 10 minutes on med-low temperature constantly stirring. Strain into a servicing dish. Reheat in microwave the meat and vegetables if cold and serve with the hot gravy.

PS: I actually use a pressure cooker to make this dish because is cooks much quicker - total cooking time is about 1 hour. I also omit the potatoes since I much prefer mashed potatoes with the delicious gravy. This has always been a favorite of my mother and now is a favorite for Delaney Wilklow, my niece! I hope this soon becomes a favorite in your family.

Nana's Banana Bread - a recipe by Lily Tobin Hey

Lily Gertrude Tobin Hey - approx. 18 yrs old

Lily Tobin Hey was my grandmother on my mother's side. We were very blessed growing up as we had the pleasure of knowing and sharing our early childhood with both sets of grandparents. Nana and Daba, our grandfather would come to our house, in Connecticut and then New York, at least once a month for a visit or we would go visit

them. I can remember with anticipation waiting for them to arrive because we always did fun things and Nana would bring a couple of loaves of her famous banana bread.

Nana's Banana Bread Recipe:
1/2 cup butter or margarine (Crisco can be used)
1 cup sugar
3 bananas mashed (darkened and ripe)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup chopped nuts - walnuts or pecans (Optional)
3-4 maraschino cherries

Bring butter or margarine to room temperature. Peel and mash bananas and butter with a potato masher until completely blended and liquified and then add the sugar. Mix together the dry ingredients thoroughly and then mix with the banana mixture until light and fluffy. Next add nuts if desired.

Oven @ 350* grease a loaf pan and pour ingredients into pan. Place maraschino cherries on top of the mixture along the center of the batter in the loaf pan. Cook for 1 hour or until the cake tester comes out clean.

PS. I live at high altitude so I put in an additional 2 tbsp. flour into the mixture and cook @375* for 1 hour.
Sometimes I loosely cover the top of the loaf pan with foil as to not burn the top and then remove the last 20 minutes of cooking.

This bread has always been my all-time favorite. Nana would usually make it with the cherries along the top and inevitably the 4 Wilklow children would fight over who would get a cherry.  She would usually put four so we each got one. But there was also the times when the "fantom cherry thief" would appear in the kitchen and pluck a cherry right off the top of the banana bread and no one every saw who did it!!

This banana bread recipe is so close to my heart because it represents my Nana who put such love in making it for her 4 grandchildren and making sure there were enough cherries for each of us to have one!!!

Turkey Soup - Carol Hey Wilklow's Recipe

On Christmas it was a tradition to have turkey. Mom would debone the meat put that away for sandwiches and other yummy dishes and then the bones would go into a large black-speckled stock pot. It would be filled up over the bones, and then an onion, and celery would be added along with some salt and pepper. That stock would come to a boil and then simmer for about 4 hours on low heat. She then scooped out the bones and tossed them away. The day after Christmas, the magic began!


Carol's Turkey Soup:
2 finely chopped onions - about 2 cups
6 stalks of chopped celery - about 4 cups
4 cups of chopped carrots
6 cups of chopped turkey meat
Add any "extra" gravy - to give a rich flavor
Add any "extra" stuffing - purely bread, onion, celery etc mix to thicken the soup
Salt and Pepper to taste

Allow this to cook for about 2 more hours, then mom added 4 cups of Minute Rice and cooked for about a hour until all was cooked and integrated. Mom was always pushing Dad away from the stove or us kids as we tried to taste and give her advice about the seasoning. Mom would serve this with some fresh bread either baked by her or bought at the store.

I have since added some Mrs. Dash to that recipe as I believe it gives it some depth.

This recipe is wonderful, hearty and freezes well. It is also a great gift to family and friends.

Enjoy!

PS. You can also make this with just a turkey breast. Some years Mom would put in chopped tomatoes instead of the rice....but this one has always been my favorite and my family's.