Holm Family Cookbook

Little known fact - our family has married into royalty - strange but true. In the small grotto of Hollister, CA, our cousin, Patti Knoblich, married the ‘Cot King (Gary Gonzales) and has summarily been crowned the ‘Cot Queen! If we are so proud of our nobility, you are probably scratching your head and wondering, “What is a ‘Cot?” for crying out loud.

If you grew up in an agricultural area of Northern California before the 70’s, you knew that a ‘cot was an Apricot! Yes, before Silicon Valley became the computer capitol it is today, it was the capitol of ‘cots. In the 1920’s and 30’s, over 2,737 apricot growers farmed over 18,631 acres, one family being Frank and Mary Gonzales, parents to Gary, who was bequeathed the Gary, King of ‘Cots, and is now our cousin Patti’s husband; i.e. family royalty.

Our family has been intertwined with ‘cots for generations now. Our dad Wayne, and his brother Ken Calhoun used to “cut” cots for their father’s cousin that had orchards in the Nile District (now Fremont), when they were as young as 7 years old (no child labor laws back then, kept them out of trouble!), being paid 7 – 10 cents per box. They “cut” the apricots in half, removed the seeds, and would lay them on flats to dry. Our mother Tilli and her friend Nancy Henry Lyons used to pick and cut ‘cots in Turlock when they were in high school in the 40’s, for 10 cents a box (and the boxes were big, no complaining about minimum wage okay).

With H.P., Cisco, Apple, 3Com and Adobe moving into town and cementing the fields, most growers have moved East to the San Joaquin Valley where apricots are predominately found today. We Californian’s are proud to be the producers of over 95% of all apricots grown in the United States!

There are songs written about apricots, Apricot Stone,  an Apricots Restaurant you can dine in, an Apricot Hotel you can stay in (if you are traveling to Istanbul?!), and even a celebration in honor of the mighty apricot, the Apricot Fiesta in the town of Patterson!

So in the middle of winter when you are longing for those juicy summer stone fruits, choose a dried apricot, they’re good for you! Here's one of the Gonzales Family recipes, give it a try, or visit their website www.apricotking.com for more apricot ideas, or purchase apricot products, a couple of my favorites are Apricot Puddles and Apricot Pepper Syrup.

Mom's Favorite Apricot Squares

Ingredients (filling)

12 oz. (2 heaping cups) dried Blenheim apricots

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups water (about 12 oz.)

Directions (filling)

Place the apricots in a large saucepan and add water. It should cover the apricots by about an inch. If it doesn't add or remove water. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes or until apricots are tender and most of the liquid is absorbed. Drain and save any remaining liquid.

Combine the reserved apricot liquid with the sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in chopped apricots and set the mixture aside to cool.

Ingredients (crust)

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 tsp. Salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 cups flour

chopped walnuts or almonds (optional)

Directions (crust)

In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Mix in the flour and add nuts. The mixture will be crumbly.

Directions (assembly)

Set aside about 1 1/2 cups of the crust mixture. Pat the remaining mixture into an ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake the crust in a preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Remove crust from oven and spread apricot mixture evenly over it. Sprinkle with reserved crust mixture and more nuts. Return the pan to the oven and bake for an additional 30 minutes or until the squares begin to turn a light, golden brown.

Remove from oven and place the pan on a rack to cool. Cut into 2" squares.

To learn more about our mighty California 'Cot visit califapricots.com, apricotproducers.com or apricotfacts.com.

Nancy, Cousin to the Queen of 'Cots

 On a recent business trip to Las Vegas, my boss and I got out of our conference late one evening and walked over to Crystals Retail & Entertainment at the new City Center on the Las Vegas strip next to the Bellagio. Crystals is basically a mall with upscale shopping, clubs, and dining. Once inside Crystals, the unique design of Mastro’s Ocean restaurant caught our eye. Since it was late and we’d had some appetizers earlier, we opted to give the bar a try. We ordered cocktails and were thoroughly entertained with a live pianist and my bubbling and smoking lemon drop martini. We observed and smelled some well crafted meals being served to the others sitting in the bar and restaurant and decided we really needed to give the food a try. Some of the meals that we saw and smelled were filet mignon and huge misting seafood towers. We ordered a king crab gnocchi dish that was covered with a light alfredo sauce. The dish was finished off with a fine breadcrumb crust.  I usually do not like gnocchi as it is too gummy, however, this gnocchi melted in your mouth and the taste was incredible. In addition to the order of gnocchi, we ordered a side of sautéed broccoli and a side of garlic mashed potatoes, which left us with enough food to feed four or five people. Mastro’s Ocean is fairly pricy, but the presentation, quantity, and quality of the food and the excellent service make it one of those special places that you just have to try. 

Mastro's Ocean restaurant and bar

The dining room

The bar

I live in the boonies, the San Francisco Chronicle doesn't even deliver out to my neck of the woods, so I do a lot of searching online for recipes, restaurant recommendations, foodie updates, etc. Here are few of the media websites located in Northern California that are easy to navigate with more foodie information than you can shake a stick at….

The East Bay Express, has some great restaurant reviews, here's one of my favorites on "A Sampler of Barbecue Styles." 

Another favorite in the Bay Area is Dining Around with Gene Burns on KGO radio. We actually were one of Gene’s guests when we launched our cookbook, quite an adventure for us country folk! A current blog subject is “Recipes to keep you warm,” I could use that on this dreary, cold, gray Sunday.

Our friend Courtney Townsend posted a Hoppin’ John recipe and story this week in the San Francisco Sentinel.

I always enjoy the “Cheap Eats” story in Diablo Magazine.

Our sister Susie has had a number of recipes published in the Lodi News-Sentinel food section. This week there is news of the new California Street Pub opening in Lodi, sounds like fun to me! You can also visit the pub virtually on their facebook page.

A somewhat new phenomenon, yelp, has plenty of personal restaurant reviews, but remember that these are just one man’s opinion. yelp is often a restaurateur’s nightmare if someone on their staff was having a bad day, please don’t take an individual "yelp" too seriously.

SFGate, home of the The San Francisco Chronicle provides recipes, restaurant reviews from the pro's and the readers, food and wine event guide, bargain bites and much more. Here’s a Farm Granola recipe from Frog Hollow (they grow the sweetest and juiciest organic peaches in the world!).

Mangia!

nancy

My husband and I spent Super Bowl weekend with our friend Julie Martin.  We figured we had been doing this for about 20 years. Most years we do not care which team wins, but we still make it a party with all the typical Super Bowl fare.

Julie had prepared the following food for us to enjoy:

Chili with cheese and Fritos

Salami, assorted cheeses and crackers

Potato skins

Cheese stuffed bread sticks

Jalapeno artichoke dip

Guacamole

Spinach dip

Cajun popcorn

Salsa, cream cheese and tortilla chips

Fruit platter

Brownies (for our sweet tooth)

Brown sugar smokies

Sweet and sour chicken wings

Julie Martin's 2010 Super Bowl spread

A new recipe for us this year was brown sugar smokies. These were little smokie sausages wrapped in bacon, sprinkled with brown sugar and then baked. YUM!!

But our all time favorite is the sweet and sour chicken wings.  They are sweet and sticky and fall off the bone.  The recipe is below.

~Wendy Howe~

Sweet and sour chicken wings

Sweet and Sour Chicken Wings

Ingredients

2 lbs. chicken wings

1 package onion soup mix

2 – 18 oz. jars apricot pineapple preserves

Preparation

Mix the jars of preserves with the package of onion soup mix. Cut off the bony wing tips and discard.  Cut each wing in half at the joint.  Place them in a single layer in a greased, shallow 9 x 13 baking dish and cover with the preserves mixture. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Jicama is one of those vegetables that I buy with good intentions of using and then end up having to throw it away because I didn’t use it in time.  When I do use jicama, I usually just cut it up into strips or chips and serve it on a crudite platter or eat as a snack.

I recently had some jicama slaw as a side dish at a restaurant and decided to try some of my own.  After trying different jicama slaw recipes, I came up with this one. It is very colorful and has interesting flavors and textures. I like to add nuts and fruits to my salads and found that pistachio nut meats were a great addition. I think pepitas or sunflower seeds would work great too. (Trader Joe's carries a wide variety of nuts at very reasonable prices, so I recommend looking for your nuts there.) Small chunks of oranges would work well too. Just go crazy with it.

Jicama slaw

Nutty Jicama Slaw

Ingredients

2 cups red cabbage, very thinly sliced

1 cup of julienned carrots

¾ cup of jicama, peeled and julienned

1 to 2 tablespoons minced cilantro leaves

5 green onions (bulb and white part only) chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

3 tablespoons fresh lime or lemon juice

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon honey

½ teaspoon chili powder

¼ cup pistachio nut meats (or other nuts, such as sunflower seeds, pepitas)

Instructions

In a medium salad bowl, mix all of the produce. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the olive oil, rice vinegar, juice, salt, pepper, honey, and chili powder. Mix the dressing into the greens. Add the nuts just before serving.

~merry~

I think capers are probably some of the ugliest looking things that I eat. While up close the pickled capers look like the body part of an amphibian or reptile, they are actually immature flower buds picked from a prickly plant that is native to the Mediterranean. Pickled capers add a salty, tangy or lemony flavor to recipes and can usually be found with the olives and pickles at the grocery store. Sometimes Costco carries an industrial sized 25-ounce jar of capers at the same price of a 3-ounce jar at other stores. Although the 3-ounce jars are probably of much higher quality, my unrefined palate is unable to make the distinction, therefore, I use the capers that I buy at Costco.

Several years ago I found the recipe below in an advertisement for capers. As with most recipes that I find, it has been tweaked a bit. It is very easy and is one of my favorites.

Chicken and Capers, serves four

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut or pounded to 1/4 inch thick

2 tablespoons powdered instant chicken bouillon

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced (about 3 cups)

3 tablespoons capers

1/2 cup white wine

Instructions

Rub the chicken with the bouillon powder. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Sauté the chicken on both sides until golden brown. Remove to a warm serving platter. In the same pan, sauté the mushrooms until lightly browned. Add the wine to the skillet with the mushrooms, bring to a boil, and reduce the wine by half. Add the capers, keeping the skillet over the heat just long enough to heat them through. Pour the reduced wine-mushroom mixture over the chicken.

~merry~

For weeks, every time I walked to and from my car I passed my dwarf Meyer lemon tree with ripe lemons just begging to be picked.  Since it’s been so cold and rainy, I was really in no mood to have a load of lemons sitting around the house just waiting to be made into some chilled lemon concoction. Finally, a couple of Sundays ago I was out planting bulbs (yes, I was a few months behind in getting them planted, but I’m an optimist!) and I finally got them picked.

Dwarf Meyer lemon tree

I squeezed the juice out of all of the lemons and poured the juice into plastic ice cube trays and froze them. Once frozen, I took the lemon cubes out of the trays and put the cubes into plastic bags and stored them in the freezer. The very next day, I came down with the flu. When I have a sore throat and stuffy nose, I like to drink honey, lemon, and tea, so my timing for getting the flu couldn’t have been better!  I was able to prepare my honey, lemon, and tea with very little effort.

Now that I’m up and about and cooking again, I have found having frozen lemon cubes on hand to be a huge convenience. I have used the lemon cubes in salad dressings and marinade.  On Super Bowl Sunday I used a lemon cube in a marinade for Red Glazed Pork Loin Chops.  Although the recipe instructed me to broil the chops in the oven, I grilled mine and they turned out great. (Grilling is a lot less work for me--If I used the oven I would have had a pan and rack to scrub—my husband cleans the grill.) The next day I made a salad with an Asian dressing and cut the left over pork into very thin strips and put the strips into the salad. This too was very tasty.  With the Chinese New Year just days away, this recipe will make a nice dish for a Chinese New Year celebration.

Red Glazed Pork Loin Chops from cooks.com

Ingredients

4 boneless pork loin chops, cut 1" thick

2 tbsp. hoisin sauce

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. minced green onion

1 tsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tsp. soy sauce

Instructions

Combine hoisin sauce, brown sugar, green onion, lemon juice and soy sauce. Place pork chops in utility dish or plastic bag; add marinade, turning to coat. Cover dish or tie bag securely and marinate in refrigerator 1-2 hours. Remove chops from marinade; reserve. Place chops on rack in broiler so surface of meat is 5-7 inches from heat. Broil at low to moderate temperature 12-15 minutes, turning once. Brush with remaining marinade during broiling, if desired.

Gung hay fat choy!  ~merry carter~

You may be wondering why there hasn’t been a Cowgirl post on our blog for a few days. Well, our main blogger and her daughter have been stuck at home too sick to sit at the computer. Also, our mom recently had surgery, so we’ve been busier than all get out. Needless to say, with both the mom of the house and grandma down and out, who is gonna make the chicken soup?? I didn’t have the ingredients or the time to make homemade, so the next best thing was to buy some at one of our favorite restaurants in Livermore.

Some of my preferred local soups include “Caldo de Pollo” from Casa Orozco; “Avgolemono” from Demitri’s Taverna (Demitri swears that it cures everything!?); The Yin Yin (where our family has been dining since the early 60's) serves a great fresh "War Won Ton Soup"; there’s a little Mexican restaurant located inside the Chevron gas station at 1025 North Vasco Road, Los Primos (I think the name has changed but can't remember it?!), they serve a HUGE bowl of chicken soup and the best crispy chicken tacos in town; Uncle Yu’s at the Vineyard serves an Asian inspired Noodle Soup; and even our local Safeway serves a decent Chunky Chicken Noodle Soup when in a pinch.

I couldn’t decide which to purchase for my ailing sister and niece, so I chose two from the closest restaurants to my work, a Mexican and Asian chicken soup for us to compare. Well, Uncle Yu’s “Chicken Noodle Soup” won hands down (recommended by Lexie in the Bankhead Ticket Office, she eats it whenever she is feeling down and out). A light gingery broth, fresh vegetables, a boat-load of fresh noodles, white meat chicken, it was delicious, and the serving size was gargantuan!

If you do have time to cook, here are some recipe recommendations… at home, our favorite chicken noodle soup recipe comes from “The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook” by Christopher Kimball, down home American cooking at it’s best. A few chicken noodle soup recipes available online are: Tyler Florence’s (I like his because of the wide egg noodles and short cooking time), Food & Wine’s Classic Chicken Noodle Soup is a winner, and who else would you turn to in a time of culinary need than “Betty Crocker.”

Hope these recommendations help out the next time a bug hits your family or friends.

Get well soon, Nancy

If you live near a major metropolitan city, I've recently discovered a couple of cool foodie emails...

First, there's Groupon, a daily email featuring great deals on the best stuff to do, see, EAT, and buy in a variety of cities across the U.S. I received one this week for half off at Eos Restaurant in San Francisco. You can't beat that, something cool to do (or more importantly, eat) at an unbeatable price. For details visit http://www.groupon.com/san-francisco/

Second, is Tasting Table, delivering the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters everywhere, sounds like us! They have dining, wine, cooking, drink recommendations and more. Some recent San Francisco area topics included: Campton Place's Indian breakfast, the perfect churro, a vegan charcuterie plate, a toast to English muffins, the thrills of the classic Korean wrap, French toast with a Brazilian bronze, just to mention a few. For more info visit http://tastingtable.com/sf/index.htm

While I'm at it, a couple of interesting foodie blogs/forums to visit:

Chow - http://www.chow.com/blog/

RecipeZaar - http://www.recipezaar.com/members/community.php

Ciao, I mean, Chow!

nancy

My family’s consumption of leafy green vegetables is fairly limited. In an attempt to add more of a variety of leafy greens to our diet, I purchased some kale at Safeway. Not being familiar with all of the leafy greens, by the time I got home I forgot exactly which leafy green I had purchased and figured it was Swiss chard. So, I googled a Swiss chard recipe and cooked the kale according to the Swiss chard recipe. Afterwards, I discovered my mistake and found a kale recipe that was very similar to the Swiss chard recipe, so I was relieved that the recipe that I used was just fine. Fortunately, other than not knowing my leafy greens, it was not a huge mistake--no damage was done, and the kale turned out great.

I very rarely make a recipe without tweaking it (I omitted butter and salt, used less onion, and added pine nuts), so below is my version of the recipe that I used, which will work out fine for both Swiss chard and kale. ~merry~

Kale is rich in vitamins A, C, and K

Swiss Chard is rich in vitamins A, C, and K, potassium and iron

Sautéed Kale with Pine Nuts, makes 4 servings

Ingredients

1 bunch of kale (or Swiss chard)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1/3 cup chopped red onion

½ cup white wine

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Directions

Pull the kale (or Swiss chard) leaves off of the stems. Chop the stems into small pieces. Set chopped stems aside. Coarsely chop the leaves. Set the chopped stems aside.  In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic and onion and cook for 1 minute.  Add the chopped stems and the white wine.  Simmer for about 5 minutes or until the stems begin to soften. Stir in the coarsely chopped leaves and cook until the leaves are wilted (or slightly softened for the kale). The leaves will be a dark green. Stir in the lemon juice, Parmesan cheese, and pine nuts. Serve. 

Sautéing the coarsely chopped kale

Ready to serve!