finefortips

Welcome to Depression Cooking with Clara. Clara is 91 years old, and since she experienced the Great Depression first hand, she's decided to show the country how to cook her favorite childhood meals, you know, just in case. With the state of the economy such as it is, and fears of another depression looming, you would think these videos would be rather disturbing, but they're not. As she cooks the food that kept her and her family going, Clara shares her memories of those very hard years, but she does it with a twinkle in her eyes that leaves me optimistic. Enjoy.

I don't know how I missed it, but there it was, sitting at the bottom of the white plastic bin where I store my potatoes and onions…a single russet. A single potato is never a good thing. Do you wait to buy more, and hope it blends in? Do you waste all that gas and heat, cooking one single potato? One of the few practical uses for these rogue spuds is to make a small batch of potato gnocchi. Let me disclose right up front that I really don't like gnocchi that much. They're "Aight" as Randy Jackson might say, but I never go out of my way to eat them. However, I love to make them. This is an interesting recipe to make , and just about the most fun thing you can do with a single potato (assuming you lost your Mr. Potatohead parts long ago). There is no such thing as an exact recipe for gnocchi. If you don’t like cooking by feel, and need exact measurements before attempting to cook something, this recipe is not for you. Potato sizes vary, the starch/water contents ...

I w as very excited when I saw Huevos Rancheros on my ass ignment list for About.com. It's one of those breakfast r ecipes that I love, but never remember to make. Huevos Rancheros simple means ranch-style eggs, and if you've ever worked on a ranch, like I have (I picked corn one summer), you understand the importance of a hearty breakfast. There are many variations of this dish, all which includes some kind of eggs to pped with some kind of tomato and chili-based sauce. This video recipe shows a fairly traditional preparation with two slight twists. I like my ranchero sauce kind of smooth - where as most classic versions are quite chunky. Also, instead of the plain tortilla base, I slip in a slice of cheese for a little quesadilla action. If you decide to go ahead and try this (and when you see the money shot at the end, you really won't have much choice), you should follow my lead and have it with the rice and beans. I love homefries the much as the next ranch hand, bu...

This very simple, roasted chicken video recipe is an example of how appearances can be very misleading in the kitchen. The sauce is built from the caramelized lemon and chicken juices stuck to the bo ttom of the roasting pan, which take the form of an unappetizing black tar. If you didn't know any better, your instincts would tell you to discard the darkest bits before making the "jus." That would be a big mistake. While it looks like it would taste like a charcoal briq uette, it actually tastes like….taste. To borrow the catch phrase from a currently running soup commercial, "I like the taste of taste." As many of you already know, there are four primary tastes, salty, sour, bitter, and sweet. If you take a small bit of the black tar from the bottom of the roasting pan, and pop it in your mouth, instead the one-dimensional burnt flavor you may expect, you should get an intense, very intense, combination of all four tastes. I'm not sure why this is, but when...

I'm in the middle of doing my taxes, and while making so little money does make it fairly straightforward, there is still a lot of paperwork to get through. So, since it is pouring rain in San Francisco today, I thought I would link to six great stew recipes, all perfect for days like this. I hope to be back with a new video tomorrow, so until then you'll just have to sit and stew. Budget Beef Bourguig no n: Succulent Beef Stewed in Cheap Merlot When the weather cools, and I see football on television, I think of two things; hey, look at the size of that guy's neck, and, this is a great time of year to make stew. This video recipe for Beef Merlot is one of my favorites, an d a take-off on the venerable Beef Bourguignon, beef braised in…( more ) Aunt Mary's Pollo en Crema - Sorta Salvadorian Chicken Stewed in Cream Aunt Mary's was a popular brunch restaurant here in San Fr ancisco that served a wonderfully homey array of Mexican and Salvadorian dishes. Michele and I...