Goodbye, Wendy's #1

I read the news today, oh, boy...


OK, so it's not that dramatic, but I did read in the paper (The Columbus Detached) this morning that the original Wendy's restaurant, store #1, located at at 257 E. Broad Street in Downtown Columbus, would be closing this Friday, March 2, 2007.
According to the newspaper, Dave Thomas opened this restaurant on November 15, 1969 as Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers.

I've captured the story and posted it here (the original story probably won't be available online after a week or so...).
According to the story, this store hasn't been profitable since COSI moved from its downtown location directly across the street from Wendy's in 1999 and the required repair and renovation costs to the existing building are too high.

I've been to this Wendy's a number of times and it's a very interesting place, filled with memorabilia from Wendy's history, including the original drive-through sign, instructing people how to order - the drive through was a new thing back then...

I remember the first time I went there - it was in early mid-late July of 1986. I had just graduated from college a couple of weeks before and had traveled over from Dayton to apply for a job at some Columbus hospitals. After applying at St Anthony's (where I would eventually be hired), I stopped at this Wendy's for lunch. it was a pretty big splurge for me that day, since I was running a bit low on cash - after all, I needed a job! I think I had a chili (their hamburgers never quite agreed with me) and a Coke. I might have even sat at this very table...
It's one of the old fashioned kind they used to have that was supposed to look like ol'timey newspaper ads. Kitschy, yes, but that was Wendy! I have many other memories of Wendy's, since I used to work at the one near the now defunct/demolished Salem Mall in Dayton during college (Salem Mall death photos here...). Actually, I worked at McDonald's AND Wendy's at the same time for about 6 months. I would work at Wendy's during lunch , then after that shift I would change into my McDonald's uniform in the Wendy's bathroom, order and eat (usually a chili) in the Wendy's "dining room" -in my McDonald's uniform - then walk two storefronts over to work the night shift at McD's. And yes, I stunk awful by the time I got home...

So with all of these memories swimming in my head this morning, I decided to take Boogie downtown for lunch. We had several errands to run today, so I figured what the heck. He'd never been there, and I thought it would be fun for him to see the place before it was gone.
When we arrived and finally found a place to park a block and a half away, we discovered that that seemed to be the same thought half the people of Columbus had, too - the place was jammed packed and we waited among a genial and generally nostalgic crowd for about 40 minutes to to get our meal. I could hear many people telling stories of their first visits to Wendy's, their visits to this original store and past working experience at other Wendy's stores. It was a long wait, but kind of fun. Every one was looking at the memorabilia on the walls taking pictures and talking to each other.

(the original Wendy)

I guess a fun time was had by all. And the food wasn't bad either. Boog had a Kid's meal with chicken nuggets (way tastier then McD's) & I had the chicken sandwich which was quickly commandeered by my dining companion:


After our meal we still had 7 minutes left on our parking meter, better than a few of our fellow diners who received $20 meter violation tickets. It was odd, they didn't seem to care. Their last meal at the original Wendy's seemed more important.

I have other memories of Wendy's - Founder R. David Thomas was a hefty contributor to Children's Hospital and a huge advocate for adoption. His passing in 2002 was a very sad day for all involved in both endeavors.

So, we had our meal, had our experience, took our photos and went on our merry way, off to do the grocery shopping, then home to try to stay warm and play Lego with mommy... one more day to remember.

Enjoy,
Lorence

Classic Stuffed Green Peppers

This is a recipe we've made for years, from our well worn 1985 Betty Crocker Cookbook, given to me by my sister for Christmas that year. You'd think after 20 years of making this recipe, I'd have it memorized, but right there on page 39, I've got the page corner turned in so I can find it easily. Once I get it opened and get started, it pretty much flows from my head, but I always seem to need to have the book to get started. And of course, I don't follow the book's recipe exactly. I use tomato soup (my wife's idea), I add oregano and basil, and use real garlic, eliminating the salt and garlic salt.

I NEVER use garlic salt - I don't even own any. If you've got it, throw it away ad start using the real thing. Just crush it a bit and mince it up. And for more Garlic ideas, checkout Garlicster, garlic recipes galore...

I start with 3 large green peppers. I try to find peppers with 4 lobes (look on the bottom and count...). They cut in half easier, more evenly and sit inthe pan better - more balanced. They also look better and that never hurts.
As for rhe beef, around these parts, it's impossible to find a package of ground beef that is just 1 pound. For some reason, the groceries package the meat in 1.3 pound packages now. This works out pretty well, though, especially given the size of the peppers in the stores these days.

ok, here's the recipe with my modifications:
Classic Stuffed Green Peppers
Ingredients:
3 large green peppers
1.3 pounds lean ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup Minute rice (dried pre-cooked rice)
1 small can (6 ounces) tomato sauce
1 12 oz can condensed tomato soup
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tablespoon Dry Oregano
1 tablespoon Dry Basil
3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
A big bowl of ice water (to cool the peppers down after parboiling and before stuffing)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°.
Cut the peppers in half from top to bottom, making 6 halves. (see the photo above)
Remove stem and seeds. This can be done easily by holding the pepper in the palm of your left hand (open end up) with the stem facing you. Place you right thumb on the stem and insert your right index and middle fingers into the pepper just behind the seed head. Pull up on the bottom of the seed head while gently pushing on the stem and the whole thing should come out cleanly. You can also precut the top of the stem area to make it even easier.
Once the stem and seeds are out, trim the membranes down.
Place the prepared peppers in a large pot of with enough boiling water to cover them for about 3 or 4 minutes. Remove the peppers from the boiling water and quickly immerse directly into the ice water to stop them from cooking.Brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic in a skillet and drain any excess fat.

Add the can of tomato soup, basil, oregano, and rice. Stir to blend well.

Line a baking dish (9x13) with foil.
Stuff each pepper with meat mixture and lay them in the lined baking dish.

Top each pepper with some tomato sauce.

Cover the baking dish with foil and bake in oven for 45 minutes.
After 45 minutes, uncover the baking dish and top the peppers with mozzarella. Put the dish back into the oven and bake a few minutes longer, until the cheese is nicely melted. I like to turn the oven to broil to just brown the cheese a bit, too.

On the side, a crusty sourdough with tomato butter never hurts. Last time we made this we also had a bottle of chianti (no liver or fava beans, thank you ...) that went along very well, too.

As always,
Enjoy,
Lorence

Matthew's own Pizza Quesadilla

It's close to bedtime but Matthew's hungry...There's not much in the house to snack on, so he comes up with a tasty creation on his own, the Pizza Quesadilla. So simple, so easy. He picked all the ingredients and put it together himself. Take a look...

Ingredients:
A flour tortilla
some tomato sauce
shredded mozzeralla cheese
sliced pepperoni
dried oregano flakes
other "toppings", like black lives, hot pepper rings, thin sliced green pepper...

Ok, so far so good. Time for assembly now:

First, he smeared some sauce onto one side of the tortilla...
Then he sprinkled some shredded cheese onto the sauce...
Added some olive pieces...
Topped that with a generous helping of pepperoni slices...
sprinkled the whole setup with oregano...
And more cheese (you can't have too much, can you?).
Then fold it over in half...
And pop it inthe microwave for about 20 to 30 seconds (daddy did that part)...
Slice it up and eat it up!
Damn good! Well done, Boogie!

Enjoy, we did!
Lorence

Kale Soup post updated - now with PHOTOS!

The Creamy White Bean Soup with Kale, Garlic and Sausage post from October, 2006 has been updated with photos, including a pretty complete visual step-by-step of this easy recipe.

I do have one hint/enhancement for it, too - throw a third can of beans into the pot and another cup of broth.

Yum...Tonight's was great.

Enjoy!
Lorence

Brown Sugared Fried Plantains

The first time I had fried plantains was at Starliner Diner about 15 years ago as a side dish with the Media Noche sandwich.

(the funky inside of the Starliner Diner)

(Starliner's Fried Plantains)

(The above photo is by another Columbus food blogger, ColumbusFoodie. She has a great blog!)

I had never even heard of plantains before and was surprised at the flavor. A few years later, I found them at the grocery store and decided to try to make something similar to Starliner's. Since I don't have a deep fryer, this proved to be quite a challenge, and one that I was just not up to. Nope, time to take a different tack. I search on-line and talked to some friends at work that were familiar with plantains. A coworker of Puerto Rican descent told me how to cook green plantains like a baked potato - I wasn't happy with the results, though - way too starchy for me. I was looking for the sweet flavor I'd had at Starliner, so I tried just pan frying some ripe yellow ones, then tried again with some that were much more ripe, almost all black. I've decided that somewhere in between is where I like them -yellow, at least with some black spots, heading towards black, and they shouldn't feel hard when squeezed. GourmetSleuth.com has a very nice graphic showing these stages, along with a good description of each stage and plantains in general (and some recipes, too).

If I can only find green plantains, I put them in a paper bag for a few days (or more) to ripen them up.

Making the fried plantains is pretty simple - peel, slice and pan fry in butter and oil, sprinkling some brown sugar at the end. I also like to serve the them with a sour cream and hot sauce dip.

Ingredients:
2 very ripe plantains (almost black , but not too squishy)
1 Tablespoon of butter
1 Tablespoon of oil (vegetable, corn, even olive works o.k.)
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
4 Tablespoons of sour cream
1 Tablespoon of finely minced onion
1 teaspoon of Mexican hot sauce, such as La Victoria Salsa Brava or Bufalo Picante Clasica

Directions:
Peel and slice the plantains to about 3/8" thickness

ripe plantains ready for slicing & frying

Sliced and ready to fry

Heat a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the butter and oil.



Add the sliced plantains to the hot grease, and lower the heat to medium low.


Cook until golden on the bottom, then flip them over and sprinkle them with the brown sugar.

Serve the plantains with the dipping sauce.

To make the dipping sauce:
Put the hot sauce and onion in a small bowl and add the sour cream. Blend well




Enjoy!
Lorence

Thanks, Lucy...

Saturday.

I suppose I wasn't really looking forward to Saturday, but the day passed uneventfully and I don't feel any different. At least not yet.

You see, I turned 45 on Saturday.

The day began well, as I opened up the morning paper and went to the part that I like best... The comics page. Yes, yes, I know we've got a mess in this world, what with the quagmire in Iraq and our leader in denial, not to mention the myriad of social injustices occurring on a daily basis in this country and around the world. I know that there is plenty of important stuff to read about. But My Saturday morning dose of semi-reality comes by way of the Columbus Dispatch, and, given the source, I head for the most real part first - the comics.

To my great surprise and intense pleasure, the Peanuts strip was actually VERY good on this personal milestone Saturday. First of all it was completely non-preachy. Second, it didn't involve a football, a baseball, or anyone insulting anyone else. And, for a third reason, the strip actually made me feel good for a change (Peanuts seldom does that for me. Sometimes I don't even read it).

Here it is - Click on it to for a larger version and see if you can figure out why I like this strip...


So he spelled my name wrong. It was close enough for a major smile from me.
Thanks, Lucy!

Enjoy!
I did.
Lorence

Sausage Pasta with Goat Cheese

One of our favorite restaurant's here in Columbus is Figlio (actually, there are two of them in town and another in Dayton). They create the best pizzas (those great gourmet wood fired pizzas!), pastas that will spoil you for any other, and simple yet elegant salads. Their desserts (oh, the Chocolate Mousse...) and particularly their coffee are absolute standouts. I believe they use a custom blend created for them by Columus' own Stauf's Coffee Roasters and I've never had smoother coffee anywhere. It almost feels like I'm sipping liquid silk when I have cup there. Friends that know far more about wine than I do tell me their wine list, while not large or fancy, is a perfect match to the dishes coming out of the kitchen. The Owners of Figlio are no wine slackers, though, having recently opened Vino Vino - A Wine Bistro adjacent to the Grandview Figlio location. My wife has been there a few times and loves their crab cakes, too.

The decor at Figlio stresses their simple elegance, the only real wall decorations being some sort of seasonal fruit or vegetable hanging from what looks like thin metal wire, & always with one piece hanging higher than all the rest. the tables are covered with a bright white table cloth, then topped with butcher paper stamped sparingly with the Figlio logo. The superb waitstaff are all dressed in bright white shirts and black skirts or pants - the whole place just smacks of stylistic minimalism without being pretentious.

So, other than the obvious (Go to Figlio when you're in Columbus!), why am I telling you all of this? Well, in addition to the well deserved praise I've just heaped upon this place, Figlio is one of those artsy creative places that occasionally changes their menu items, adding new ones, taking some away...always with care to maintain a nice balance for their patrons. One dish they had many years back was a pasta (penne, I think) in a red sauce with sliced sauteed italian sausage and topped with goat cheese. My wife an I both enjoyed this dish (until she discovered their Chicken Diablo, her ever steady, one and only now), and I really wanted to be able to make something like it at home. My version of their pasta is the recipe below. It's nowhere near as good as Figlio's was, but we enjoy the flavors and have it often, especially since it's simple and quick.

Sausage Pasta with Goat Cheese
(Serves 4)
The Ingredients:
4 hot italian sausage links, sliced about 1/2 inch thick
3 cans (6 ounces) of tomato sauce (yep, just plain old small cans of sauce - we usually use the cheap stuff...)
1 pound of pasta, whatever kind you like. We use either thin spaghetti or penne
1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
1/2 teaspoon dry basil
Chevre Goat cheese, at least a tablespoon per serving, more if you really like the stuff. And you will really like the stuff..

The Directions:
Pour the tomato sauce into a medium sauce pan over low heat.
Add the sliced sausage, oregano & basil and cook on low for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The flavor of the sausage will infuse into the sauce during this time.
After about 20 minutes, prepare the pasta per package label directions (If you are using fresh pasta, let the sauce cook a few more minutes since the pasta will be ready faster).
When the pasta is done, drain it well and portion it out into pasta bowls. Top the hot pasta with the sausage sauce and a generous dollop of goat cheese, then serve it while still steaming.

That's it. Like I said, it's nice and simple and quick, yet it will taste like you actually worked hard to make it.

Enjoy!
Lorence

Chicken Breasts with Tomato Butter

I knew I was going to have to make something quick last night since we were heading to my son's school Christmas show, so I dug this recipe out a couple of nights ago for the small bit of night-before prep it requires. That prep is simply making a sweetly pungent tomato butter that tops a simple sauteed chicken breast. The dish itself was a fast cook, since all that's done is just pan sauteeing the chicken until done. The seasoned flour on the chicken makes for a nice thin yet crispy crust. The R.O.I. on that little prep was huge!

Chicken Breasts with Tomato Butter
The Ingredients::
4 Table spoons of butter at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon of finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup of flour
Salt and pepper
4 boneless, skinless thicken breasts
(try not to get the monstrously large., hormone laden type - they're too thick to be pan sautéed).
2 Tablespoons of olive oil

The Directions:
Combine 3 Tablespoons of the butter with the garlic, tomato paste and parsley.
Scrape the mixture onto a piece of plastic wrap and use the wrap to help form the butter into a cylinder. Wrap the cylinder tightly and chill.
Combine flour, ½ tsp. salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper.
Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture.
In a large frying pan, melt remaining 1 Tablespoon of butter in the olive oil over medium-high heat.
Add the chicken and reduce the heat to medium.
Cook, turning once, until chicken is just done, about 10 minutes.
Serve immediately, topping the hot chicken with slices of the butter.

some variations to explore:
For the butter:
=Use Shallots instead of garlic
=Use sun-dried tomoato instead of tomato paste
=Add chopped black olives to the butter
=Substitute fresh basil for the parsley

For the chicken: (don't do too much here...the chicken should be kept simple)
=Add some cayenne tot he dredging flour for a bit of extra kick
=Try Penzey's Shallot Salt inthe dredging flour instead of your usual salt

This recipe came from "First for Women" magazine, sometime in the early-mid1990's. I have several recipes from this magazine but I can't find a single one online. I'll post a few more as I make them.

Enjoy!
Lorence

Skillet Stuffed Cabbage

I found this recipe in the September issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine in a section on "5 Ingredient Dinners". I made it a few weeks ago, and true to the magazine's word, it was extraordinarily simple, made completely on the stove top, and turned out far better than I expected. The twist in this dish is the addition of mint leaves to the meat mixture. I'm not big on mint but I really like stuffed cabbage, so this dish sounded intriguing to me, especially since the prep is far quicker and easier than the traditional stuffing of the cabbage, with the boiling and the rolling and the baking and all of dat... ok, ok, enough of my Schwarzenegger impression... On to the recipe.

Skillet Stuffed Cabbage
Ingredients:
1 28 ounces can of diced tomatoes
1 1/4 pounds of lean (90%) ground beef
1 8.8 ounce bag of heat and serve precooked rice pilaf (don't heat it!)
1 cup of loosely packed, coarsely chopped fresh mint leaves
1 small head of green cabbage (about 2 pounds), cored

For the rice,I used the Long Grain & Wild Rice package, but I'm sure the some of the others would work well, too, like the Original Long Grain, the Rice Pilaf, or the Whole Grain Brown.

Directions:
1. Transfer 1 cup of the canned tomatoes with some of the juice to a medium bowl. Pour the remaining tomatoes and juice into a nonstick 12-inch skillet.
2. To the tomatoes in the bowl, add the beef, rice, mint, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Mix to blend.
3. Remove 8 large cabbage leaves from the head. Spoon 1/2 cup of the meat mixture into the center of each leaf. Arrange the filled leaves, open side up, in a skillet over the tomatoes. Cover skillet and cook the mixture over medium-high heat for 20 minutes or until the beef loses its pink color.
4. To serve, place 2 of the stuffed cabbage leaves on each of the dinner plates. Spoon the tomato sauce over the cabbage.

The photo at the top is the pot-full just before the cooking began. I was so eager to eat this up when it was done, that I forgot to shoot the finished product. There is a good photo from the magazine here,though (there's nutritional info on the dish there, too). The mint infused into the beef mixture nicely and wasn't overpowering at all. I will definitely be making this again, but I'll have to fix something extra to feed my son, since, unlike most things we cook, he didn't care for it very much.

Enjoy,
Lorence

Dreaming of warm Sea Air and Seafood...

Today was FREEZING here in Columbus and all I wanted to do was stay warm. That got me thinking about our vacation to Ocean City, NJ, and, of course, the food. One of the first places we went on our first day there was for pizza. Good pizza. The pizza here in Columbus generally sucks (I do like Sporano's, though); it's almost impossible to find even a halfway good pie with a halfway decent crust. Most of it is on a wimpy thin crust with no edge to it, far too overloaded with toppings, and they keep trying to come up with "new" pizzas - who the heck wants a "Mariachi Chicken" or "Philly Cheesesteak"pizza? And the stuff isn't even cut properly. They chop the poor pie into little 2" squares instead of a decent slice.

Ok, calm down, Lorence...It's only pizza....What the hell am I saying! It's pizza! I need Real Pizza!!!

And, oh, to have real pizza! And to be able to introduce my son to the real thing was foremost on my list of things to do when we got to Jersey. That led us straight to Mack & Manco's

the best pizza I'd had in 30 years. We each got a slice and a birch beer, too. Birch beer quickly became a #1 favorite and I'm still trying to find it somewhere in town...

Mine was Tomato & spinach, Karen's was Mushroom and Olives:
While boogie was having a bit of trouble handling his Pep & olive slice. The trouble was only temporary as he made quick work of it and wanted more...
Later inthe week , we also tried one of the other boardwalk pizza places with similar results,
but it just didn't quite measure up to Mack & Manco's. So you know where to go when you get to Ocean City. You won't be disapointed.

Enjoy!
Lorence

Etouffe Redux

I made a shrimp etouffe this past week and this time, I added a new twist I wish I'd thought of a long time ago. Instead of adding 2 cups Chicken Broth as called for in the recipe I posted back in July 2005, I used the shells from the shrimp and made a simple shrimp stock. Be careful, though! Shrimp stock can be powerful stuff and a little goes a long way!

I had the shell from 1 pound of shrimp, which I put in a medium stock pot and covered with water. I added some of the darker outer peel of the yellow onion I was about to use for the etouffe to give it a richer color (I think I saw that on an old "Frugal Gourmet" show), then got the mixture to a boil. After a minute or so of boiling, I lowered the heat to simmer for about a half hour (longer, perhaps an hour, would have been nice, but I was hungry!). I then let the stock sit for a few minutes and poured off the top clear portion into a measuring cup. Running it through a piece of cheesecloth would work well, too.

When I made the etoufe, instead of 2 cups of broth (16 ounces), I added 14 ounces of broth and 2 ounces of the fresh shrimp stock.

WOW! This gave the etoufe a much more complex and rich flavor with than before.

I froze the remaining half cup of stock for future use.

I also found this link on the Tabasco site outlining the process, and is pretty close to how I did it. Other recipes for shrimp stock get much fancier, and probably will have an even richer flavor, but for now, I'm stickin' to simple.

Enjoy,
Lorence

Quick Steamed Broccoli

Ok, so steaming broccoli isn't rocket surgery, but I've got a great way of doing it that never fails and always tastes good. The broccoli is always tender perfect without being too crunchy from being underdone or too limp and overcooked. And best of all, it only takes a couple of minutes of prep and 2 minutes or so in the microwave.

All you need is:
a head of broccoli
a bowl
some cooking spray (the butter flavored stuff works well)
some seasoning like Lawry's season salt
2 tablespoons of water
plastic wrap

Put the water in the bottom of the bowl.
Trim the florets from the broccoli head and arrange them in the bowl so the florets all face up (stems down).
Spray the tops of the broccoli with the cooking spray.
Sprinkle some seasoning over the tops of the broccoli.
Cover the bowl very tightly with the plastic wrap - you are creating a nice sealed "oven-to-table" steamer.
Put the bowl in them microwave a fire it up on high for about 2 minutes or so depending on the power of your microwave (ooh..."Fire On High", great E.L.O song from the '80's - this is a weird little anime video using the song which also has a great not-so-"subliminal" message at the beginning of it).

Enjoy - both the music and the Broccoli!
Lorence

Oven-Fried Mustard Chicken

Another old recipe from "First" Magazine from the early '90's, this is a good old standby for a tasty oven chicken breast dish. I've made it several times over the years and we always enjoy the tenderness of the chicken and the dijon flavor. Tonight's meal was made from a single chicken breast that weighed in at about a pound - they're just so large these days. I cut the breast up into 4 pieces and made the recipe below, along with some steamed broccoli and my son's favorite rolls - crescent rolls ( my piece of chicken came out a bit over-crusty around the edges, but I like the crunchy bits...).

Oven-Fried Mustard Chicken
Ingredients:
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup dijon mustard
salt and pepper
1 tablespoon butter
4 boneless chicken breast halves, about 1 1/2 pounds

Directions:
Heat the oven to 425 degrees.
Combine the bread crumbs, flour and paprika.
Combine the mustard, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 2 tablespoons water.
Melt the butter in a small bowl.
Line a shallow pan with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
Dip the chicken in the mustard mixture, then coat with the bread crumb mixture.
Put the coated chicken in the prepared pan.
Drizzle the butter over the chicken.
bake he chicken until browned and cooked through, 10 to 15 minutes.

When I make this, I like to double the paprika, halve the salt, and drizzle with olive oil instead of butter.

Enjoy,
Lorence