Home Made Croutons

Here is how Paul makes croutons. We use these for his Caesar Salad (recipe just posted today - see below) and - one of Thelma's innovations - in our Split Pea Soup. Like everything, the better the flavor of your olive oil and butter, the better the final product will be.

Cut stale bread into cubes the day before and let dry. You can also use dried french bread as we did here, but it is easier and tidier to cut it before it dries.



In a large skillet, heat a couple of tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and add an equal amount of butter.





When melted, throw in the bread cubes and toss quickly so that the oil gets on each piece.





Toast over medium high heat, turning each with tongs as it browns until all sides are brown.


Drain on brown paper (brown paper grocery sacks are the best) or paper towels.

Use right away, or store at room temperature. They will keep for a few days, unless people come past and snack on them! :-)

Save That Hambone: How To Make Split Pea Soup

Split Pea Soup is not hard to make, and if you have a hambone left over from the holiday, it's a perfect thing to do with it. The better the ham was, the better the soup will be.

Trim your hambone to remove excess fat remaining on it. A little fat is nice to add richness and flavor to the soup, but in balance. Same goes with the meat. Some ham meat in soup is excellent, too much is not.

Sort your dried split peas before cooking, just as you would sort dried beans. Remove any small rocks or bits of stems.

Put the hambone in a pot with one or two packages of dried split peas (depending on how much soup you want) and add a bay leaf. Cover with water. Don't add any salt - the hambone will be salty enough. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down. Simmer until the peas are soft. It will take about an hour to an hour and a half.


Remove the hambone and set aside while you prepare the peas - you'll come back to it later. Remove the bay leaf and throw away. Leave the broth in the pot.

This next part is VERY important. The hulls of the peas don't have a good texture for the soup so they need to be removed. Once I got a bright idea to just run it all through a blender to puree it. This was very bad - it just made the hulls too small to strain out, and we didn't like the soup. I had to throw it away.



Using a slotted spoon, dip the peas out of the broth into a cone shaped colander (sometimes called a "chinois") or jelly sieve and mash to separate the pulp. This is easiest if you do a few spoonfuls at a time and just keep adding until you've mashed all the peas. Scrape the last bit of pulp off the outside of the sieve and throw away the hulls that are on the inside.

If you don't have a chinois, you can use a large mesh strainer, or even a cheescloth bag - that would be messy but would suffice in a pinch.


Put the pulp back into the pan with the broth.

Trim the ham meat from the bone and cut into cubes. Add this to the soup.



Bring to a simmer and the soup is ready! Stir and ladle into bowls. Serve with homemade croutons. Lots and lots of croutons! It would also be great with garlic toast.

This is an old fashioned dish that deserves to come back to our tables. Paul taught me how to make this. We never had it when I was growing up, but Mama did say that some neighbors made it when she was a little girl in the 1940s. It's a wonderful way to get the last bit of flavor from a good ham bone!

How to Make Poached Eggs and Eggs Benedict

We have always loved Eggs Benedict, but rarely made them. The main work in them is making the hollandaise sauce. We have discovered that packaged Hollandaise Sauce Mix is really excellent - especially if you put a few drops of fresh lemon juice in it to brighten the flavor.

Hollandaise Sauce holds really well, so make it first, according the the package directions. Add 1/2 tsp of fresh lemon juice if you have it, and set aside in its pan. You can reheat it if it cools off.


You will need one half of an English Muffin for each egg. This dish is very rich, so two eggs will probably be more than enough for even the heartiest eater, and one will be sufficient for most.
Split and toast the English Muffins. Butter them if you like, but it is not necessary because of the sauce. Set them onto the plates.

Take Canadian Bacon slices or Ham slices and fry lightly just until warm and lightly browned. I usually use regular ham, since I am more likely to have it on hand. Set one slice on each English Muffin.

Eggs Benedict is made with poached eggs. Poached eggs are cooked in water or steam until the white is set. You can use an egg poaching pan, or if you don't have one, there are a couple of other ways to poach eggs.

I have a pan, pictured in the top photo: a little aluminum pan with a top piece that has round depressions or wells in it to hold the eggs. You put water in the bottom, spray the depressions with cooking spray, break the eggs in to the wells, cook for a few minutes.

One way to poach eggs is to use a ring to contain the egg. You can buy egg rings from restaurant supply houses or make your own. I would have said save tuna cans but they have been redesigned recently and you can no longer remove both top and bottom of the can. You can still do so with the 8 oz cans of pineapple or water chestnuts. Use a can opener and remove both top and bottom from the can. Remove the label, wash well, and save to use in the future for poaching eggs and for cutting out large circles of dough.

Take a small saucepan or skillet and put about an inch of water in it. Add a half teaspoon of vinegar to the water. Bring to a simmer.

Grease the inside of your egg ring can and put it into the water. Crack your egg into a small dish then pour it into the ring without breaking the yolk. Cook as above and use a slotted spoon to remove when done.

The other way is to use a saucepan, with water as above, but with no ring. Instead, once the water has come to a fast simmer, use a spoon to stir the water rapidly so that it spins like water going down a drain and pour the egg into the center of it, then stop stirring. The spinning will help keep the egg white concentrated until it has cooked enough to stay together. This is the way that Thelma (Paul's mother) made poached eggs.

Whatever method you use, keep watching so as not to overcook. When the white is all white,
they are done. If the yellow starts lightening around the edges there isn't a moment to spare. You want the yolk to be runny for this dish - even if you do not usually like runny yolks! That said, you can still use an egg if you accidentally overcook it. Practice will make it easier.

Use a slotted spoon to scoop up the poached egg, shake off excess water, and set it on top of the ham.

Now reheat your Hollandaise sauce if needed and ladle it over the eggs. Use a whisk if necessary to keep it from getting lumpy (mine in the picture got lumpy! Ooops!)

Serve immediately.

Maple Furniture and Llama Fur

Picking up on the post below about the Little White House, here is one of our beds. This one is quite similar to the beds in FDR's getaway home, and it dates from the same era: my grandparents bought the suite for my mother when she was a young child.

Actually it is Nick's bed - he has the dresser and chest of drawers that go with it, but uses a different bed. The dresser you see here was Thelma's (my mother in law).


The quilt was a mark-down somewhere (tip: always buy "all cotton" when it comes to quilts - cost is a bit more but it is so worth it) several years ago, and the shams I bought last year at Walmart. That cute little bolster I found at a yard sale. Check out the detail on the ends:



That is just printed fabric on the ends but it looks embroidered. Isn't it pretty?

And the Llama pillow... well there is nothing softer than llama fur, so that is a sneaky way of getting a stuffed animal on the bed in a home that is between cats! :-)