Creating a Legacy in Real Time: Crockpot Lasagna

My business, Golden Delicious Legacies, is all about helping families preserve their culinary heritage and stories. So, most of my clients' recipes are centered in the past: Grandma's crispy fried chicken, Cousin Mildred's silky chocolate pie, or Dad's family favorite barbeque sauce.

Sometimes, though, a culinary legacy is being created in "real time". And blogging and POD (print-on-demand) publishing has opened doors for home chefs to put their culinary creations out there in real time.

Stephanie O'Dea is a mother, home chef, and blogger (www.crockpot365.blogspot.com) who last year came out with a slow-cooker cookbook called Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking. (http://www.amazon.com/Make-Fast-Cook-Slow-Everyday/dp/1401310044). This book covers everything you can cook in a slow cooker, from beverages to main dishes to "fakeout take-out.

Stephanie's book has become my go-to reference point for when I know I am going to be tired at the end of the day...like today. I love putting everything together for a meal, layering it in the crockpot, and then doing nothing at 6 p.m. except dishing it up.

Our house is up for sale and we have two showings tomorrow, so today will be spent cleaning like a madwoman and helping Chicago Man with any last minute repairs and fix-its we need to take care of.

For this evening's meal I chose lasagna. I've made Stephanie's lasagna several times this year and it always turns out great, and seems so much easier to make than the traditional oven-baked kind.

So here's the recipe straight from Stephanie's book, that in my book is sure to become a classic:

1 lb ground beef or turkey, browned and drained
1 25 oz jar of pasta sauce
10 dry lasagna noodles (traditional; not the no-cook kind per Stephanie. And like Stephanie, I eat gluten-free so I use brown rice noodles. Today I did not have lasagna noodles so I am using brown rice spirals).
15 oz container ricotta cheese

1 lb sliced mushrooms ( also added some chopped bell pepper I needed to get rid of)
2 handfuls baby spinach (optional) I like to use this!
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced (optional) I usually omit this
8 slices mozzarella cheese (I didn't have slices today so I used grated)
2 cups shredded Italian-style cheese
1/4 cup water

Directions:

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. Brown the ground meat on the stovetop and drain well. Add the jar of pasta sauce to the meat. Save the jar, you'll need it later.
     Spoon some of the meat and sauce mixture into the bottom of your slow cooker. Cover with a layer of uncooked lasagna noodles. Smear some ricotta cheese on the noodles, and add some mushrooms, a handful of spinach, and some egg slices if using. Put a few slices of mozzarella on top, and 1/2 cup or so of the shredded cheese. Add another spoonful of the meat and sauce mixture, and repeat layers until you run out of ingredients, or the crock is full.
     Put water into the empty pasta jar and shake. Pour the contents over the assembled ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 3 to 4 hours.  Check about an hour before serving, and push down the top noodles into the liquid if they are getting too brown and crispy. The lasagna is done when the pasta has reached the desired tenderness and the cheese has melted completely and has begun to brown on the edges.

Possum, The Other White Meat

My mother grew up on a cotton farm during The Depression and I've been hearing her stories all my life.

I did not fully appreciate them, though, until I turned 50. Then I really started to listen, because I realized I was not just hearing our family's history, but the history of our country.

Since she, her parents, and her five siblings were on a farm, they had plenty of vegetables, eggs, and chickens to eat and milk to drink, but not much cash. One time, my mother said her "papa" showed her a penny and said it was all the cash money he had.

Occasionally, they needed to forage in the woods for meat. One winter, mama said her Uncle Claude returned home to Mississippi from his travels. Uncle Claude was a hobo during The Depression and for years afterward. I guess it just became a habit.

I've heard that "hobo" stands for homeward bound, and eventually Uncle Claude did return home to North Mississippi. I remember him when I was a small child. He was a grizzled old fellow that was always telling stories. I guess it runs in the family. My mother and her sisters welcomed him home like he was a king, and I am proud of that.

So back to the winter in the 1930s when Uncle Claude came home. During his travels he had learned to cook possum with "sweets"--sweet potatoes.

Mama's brother, my Uncle Edward, propped up a washtub with a stick, put some bait under it, and caught a possum. He fattened it up on acorns, and eventually it was ready for Uncle Claude to skin, dress, and cook it over a fire with the sweets.

My mama is a bit evasive about how it tasted; she comments more about how good the sweets were but said the possum was not that bad. I guess it was really tender. Uncle Claude learned how to cook in the hobo camps.

And, I guess if you are hungry you will eat just about anything.

Fannie Flagg, in her Original Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook, includes a recipe for roast possum, but it's a joke (kind of) because she does say, "For Yankees or anyone else who cannot locate possum, substitute pork." and the recipe directions refer to pork, thankfully.

But I wanted to post the recipe here since, even though it's kinda embarassing, possum is part of my culinary heritage. And since, like all the rest of our family recipes, Uncle Claude's is lost.  So here it is, Fannie Flagg's Roast Possum:

1/2 cup herb stuffing mix
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoons chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped celery
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage
1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1 plump possum or two 1-lb pork tenderloins
1 lemon, cut in half
salt
pepper
1/2 cup apricot jam
2 tablespoons bourbon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine first 8 ingredients in a bowl; mix well. Rub tenderloins with cut halves of lemon and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Make a lengthwise slit down center of each tenderloin, cutting to within 1/2 inch of bottom; open tenderloins. Fill centers with stuffing, pull outer edges of each tenderloin together over stuffing, and tie each tenderloin with kitchen string. Place on a rack in a shallow baking pan; bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until done. Transfer to a serving dish. Combine jam and bourbon and spoon over meat. Yield: 8 servings.

And be thankful you are eating pork and not possum!

If Cotton is the "Fabric of our Lives" Family Recipes Are Our Heart

Family dinners at my grandparents' house were special, and I know yours were, too.


My grandparents lived in a tiny white "crackerbox" house in the Buntyn-Normal neighborhood of Memphis, and even though it was only about 800 square feet, it never seemed small.

The kitchen and dining rooms seemed just right, even when my grandma has multiple casseroles in oven and pots, pans, and bowls all over the stove and countertops. Even when she added the extra leaves to the dining room table to accommodate out-of-town family.

My grandmother had several sets of dishes that she kept in a sideboard in the dining room. My favorite were a set of brown and white dishes with a Thanksgiving, or harvest, theme. She had purple and burgundy glassware to go with them. I wish I still had them. I don't know what happened to them after she passed away in 1983.

She always had a tablecloth on the table, and Wedgewood blue candles in silver candle holders. When I was old enough, she let me light the candles and then snuff them out with the snuffer at the end of the meal. I felt so special!


The food, of course, was amazing: succulent pork roast with savory tomato gravy ladled over mounds of rich, creamy mashed potatoes;  baked macaroni and cheese that managed to be crispy and creamy at the same time; sweet potatoes baked with tangy lemon slices and lots of brown sugar; crispy fried chicken; sweet, vinegary German potato salad, asparagus casserole with hard-boiled egg which I would not eat as a child but would love to try now.

My grandfather cooked, too, but differently. Navy bean soup, spaghetti, pork shoulder roasted to perfection in his backyard pit, and quail that he raised in pens also in the backyard.

Sadly, none of these recipes has survived. Nor were my cousin Lucille's masterful coconut and German chocolate cake recipes ever written down.

What we were thinking?


It's the same in Chicago Man's family--how would I love to have a slice of his grandmother's thick, homemade cherry cheesecake--but that recipe is lost as well.

Golden Delicious Legacies, a division of Golden Legacies, is dear to my heart. I want to assist others in p reserving their family's culinary heritage and the stories that go along with each recipe.

I love the whimsical name, Golden Delicious Legacies, that Chicago Man thought of, and I feel such passion and joy about helping others keep the essence of their family--their recipes--from being lost like ours are.