by Alter, Judy
Dash of Worcestershire
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of dry mustard
2 eggs
Ground saltine crackers
Beat everything but the crackers together and then add enough ground crackers to make it a mixture you can shape with your hands into patties about three inches around. Sauté until browned on all sides and heated through (doesn’t take long and they burn easily—do this at medium heat). Serve with lemon or ketchup. Most diners will eat two, so this recipe serves three generously. (Real croquettes are shaped like logs, but they’re not as easy to brown evenly and work with; shaping them into patties is much easier.)
Potato casserole
2 lbs. frozen hash browns, thawed
1 can cream of chicken soup
2 c. grated cheddar
½ c. chopped onions
½ c. softened margarine
¼ tsp. each salt and pepper
1 16-oz. carton sour cream
Mix all together, being sure to add the sour cream last. Place in a buttered 9x13 casserole.
Topping
2 c. crushed Corn Flakes
¼ c. margarine or butter, melted
Mix Corn Flakes with margarine or butter. Sprinkle over potato mixture. Bake 45 minutes at 350°. For the café, Kate made six of these a day. One will serve ten.
Green Beans Vinaigrette
3 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled, some of the grease saved
3 scallions, chopped
Vinegar to taste
1 28-oz. can cut green beans (but not French sliced), drained
Fry bacon and remove from the skillet to drain on paper towels. Leave enough grease in the skillet to sauté scallions. Pour in vinegar to taste, and add drained green beans. Crumble the bacon over the beans. Serve hot.
Easy Beef Wellington from the cooking class
Olive oil
4 pieces frozen puff pastry dough squares
2 thick, small pieces of beef tenderloin
Salt and pepper
1 egg
Thaw puff pastry as package suggests.
Heat 1 Tbsp. olive oil in skillet to high. Brown steaks quickly on both sides. Meanwhile, lightly grease a baking sheet or cover it with parchment paper.
Use two pieces of the square dough for each steak. Lightly grease the edges of each square with olive oil on the tip of your finger. Put the steak on one piece. Lay second piece of dough over the steak, olive oil side down, and use your fingers to press the two pieces of dough together firmly so the seal is complete. If you want, you can flute the pastry edges, pinching between fingers as you would a pie crust.
Whisk egg and brush tops of both pastries. Bake for 20 minutes at 350o or until pastry is nicely browned.
Mushroom sauce to top Beef Wellington
Classic Beef Wellington is topped with foie gras beneath the steak and the dough, but many people don’t like foie gras and this is a good substitute, but it’s not necessary. The steaks are good without.
1-2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1-1/4 c. chopped mushrooms (any kind you like)
½ c. chicken stock, generously measured
1 Tbsp. flour
Salt and pepper
Mince garlic and chop mushrooms. Heat olive oil in skillet and add garlic for one minute. Then add mushroom and most of the chicken stock, reserving 1 Tbsp. Mix flour with reserved chicken stock until flour dissolves, without lumps. Slowly stir into mushroom mixture and thicken. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Chicken piccata from the cooking class
4 boneless chicken breast halves
1 egg
1 Tbsp. milk
Flour
Cornmeal
4 Tbsp. butter
Juice of ½ lemon
½ cup chicken broth
Mix milk and egg in a shallow bowl; mix flour and cornmeal in a second bowl.
Pound chicken until it’s as flat as you can get it—¼ inch is the goal. Dip breasts in egg mixture and then in flour/cornmeal mixture.
Melt butter in skillet over medium heat. Sauté chicken breasts until browned on both sides, adding more butter if necessary. Remove to platter when browned and cooked through.
Reduce heat. Add lemon juice to skillet. Add broth slowly. Stir to loosen browned bits from bottom of skillet. Return meat to skillet and cook five minutes until warmed through.
Serve with thin lemon slices and chopped parsley for garnish.
Gram’s mild and tentative chili
1 lb. ground beef
Enough oil to sauté onion, garlic and beef
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1 cup beer
4 tsp. chili powder or more to taste
½ tsp. Tabasco
2 tsp. salt
2 c. beans, preferably canned pintos
Brown onion and garlic; add hamburger and cook until all pink is gone.
Add everything else except beans and simmer for 60 to 90 minutes. Stir occasionally, and add more beer as needed. Taste and add more chili powder as needed. Add beans and heat just before serving.
Optional toppings served on the side at the café: chopped purple onion, grated cheddar, and saltines to crumble (shh! Don’t tell Gram—she didn’t approve of crumbling crackers into chili or soup).
Gram’s Sunday Cake
1 box cake mix
1 box instant pudding
½ c. oil
4 eggs
1½ c. sour cream
Sugar and cinnamon
Mix together everything but sugar and cinnamon. Spray Bundt pan with Pam or similar coating. Mix cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle on all sides of prepared pan. Add the batter, evening it out—it will be thick. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes (check with a long kebab skewer or something similar); it often has to cook longer. Cool five minutes and remove from the pan. DON’T WAIT ANY LONGER. Run a knife around edges of pan and tunnel in the middle, and then top with a plate, invert, and gently shake to remove the cake from the pan.
Ranch eggs—a Sunday special at the café
½ lb. bacon, cooked until crisp and set aside; 3 Tbsp. drippings reserved
1 tomato, coarsely chopped
4 green onions, sliced
Clove of garlic
½ tsp. chili powder
Salt (Be careful—tomato sauce is salty.)
8-oz. can tomato sauce
12 eggs
Enough milk to scramble eggs (or cottage cheese, sour cream, whatever you prefer)
Mix everything (except bacon, eggs, and milk or whatever) and simmer. Separately in skillet, with bacon drippings, scramble eggs. Add a little more salt and pepper. Serve eggs topped with sauce and bacon, broken into bits. Pass tortillas.
ABOUT JUDY ALTER
Murder at the Tremont House is the second Blue Plate Mystery from award-winning novelist Judy Alter, following the successful Murder at the Blue Plate Café. Judy is also the author of four books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries series: Skeleton in a Dead Space, No Neighborhood for Old Women, Trouble in a Big Box, and Danger Comes Home. With the Blue Plate Murder series, she moves from inner city Fort Worth to small-town East Texas to create a new set of characters in a setting modeled after a restaurant that was for years one of her family’s favorites.
Before turning her attention to mystery, Judy wrote fiction and nonfiction, mostly about women of the American West, for adults and young-adult readers. Her work has been recognized with awards from the Western Writers of America, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame. She has been honored with the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement by WWA and inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame at the Fort Worth Public Library.
Follow Judy’s website www.judyalter.com or her Judy’s Stew and Potluck with Judy blogs. Or look for her on Facebook or on Twitter.
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