This week, in honor of the Thanksgiving season and holiday cooking in general, we're revisiting a question we asked our OneLISC crew last year. The responses are inspiring and delicious:
What recipe/food/dining experience brings you and your family comfort? Can you share a memory that is tied to the dish or experience?
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My family philosophy has always been that all situations can and will be improved with food. The phrase “is anyone hungry?” is easily as affectionate and endearing as “I love you.” This has led to an extreme over-protectiveness of all Thanksgiving dishes. Luckily, we’ve been preparing for COVID-era Thanksgivings for years by scaling back attendees and no longer inviting those who insist on bringing their versions of dishes, despite lots of passive aggressive attempts to get them just to bring booze and leave their casseroles at home. At this point, the only people who can be trusted are my parents and my spouse (and our dogs, who never offer to bring a dish).
Despite having very particular casserole preferences, no Thanksgiving would be complete without a cheese and pickle spread that we call a “relish tray” and fill-up on before dinner, and then Pumpkin Roll-up for dessert. Since I trust everyone can open jars and slice cheese – I will gift you all with my family’s recipe (which might be on the back of a Libby’s pumpkin can as well).
Pumpkin Roll-up Ingredients:
Cake:
¾ cup Sifted All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
½ teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
½ teaspoon Salt
3 Eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup chopped walnut (optional)
Cream Cheese Filling:
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
8 oz softened cream cheese
6 tablespoon softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375, grease a 15” x 10” x 1” jellyroll pan and line with wax paper
Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg and salt
Beat eggs and sugar in large bowl - add pumpkin and continue beating until thick and fluffy
Stir in dry ingredients all at once and mix well.
Pour batter onto prepared pan and spread evenly.
Sprinkle with nuts (optional)
Bake for 15 minutes
Remove cake from oven and loosen cake around edges with a knife
Invert cake onto a damp towel dusted with powdered sugar
Peel off wax paper and trim ¼” from all sides (and sample as a treat)
Roll up cake in towel from short side and place seam side down on wire rack and cool
While cooling make cream cheese filing by beating powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth
Unroll cake and spread with cream cheese filing.
Re-roll, refrigerate and enjoy!
- Andrea Rattray, National Underwriter, LISC
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Each year on January 1, Haitians eat Soup Joumou, a celebratory act of rebellion that was forbidden when we were enslaved. On January 1, 1804, Haitian rebellion leaders declared our freedom, and commemorated the occasion by eating this forbidden food. I learned to make Soup Joumou from my mother and grandmother, and my daughters have learned the same way. Each December 31, we gather in the kitchen of my childhood home in Queens to peel, chop, mix and season these ingredients with love, so our family and friends can enjoy it on the first day of the new year. This year, our family will not be traveling to New York to spend time with my relatives. Instead, we will commit our celebratory act of rebellion at home in Maryland, while my mother commits her celebratory act of rebellion in New York, FaceTiming as we prep and cook. Vive la révolution.
- Chantal Hart, Assistant Program Officer, LISC
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As the days get shorter, I look forward to the bright and warm foods that are as pleasing to the eye as they are nourishing. One of our household favorites is masoor dal (spiced red lentils). I first encountered the NYTCooking recipe years ago, but I make it so often that no recipe is needed. In fact, it’s such a forgiving stew that I often throw in whatever I have on hand including those hard-to-use winter root veggies. This dish pairs well with sautéed greens of any kind. If you’re feeling indulgent, serve your dal atop jasmine rice. Soo good!!! Read the recipe here.
- Bukie Adekoje, Grants Manager, LISC
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Holiday (or any excuse) Guacamole
1 medium-ripe Hass avocado, cubed
1 tablespoon finely diced onion
1 tablespoon finely diced tomato
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
1 jalapeño pepper, finely diced
1 lime, juiced Salt, to taste
2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
Preparation
Combine all ingredients except pomegranate seeds in a bowl and toss lightly with a fork (leave some chunks of avocado). Stir in pomegranate seeds and serve immediately with freshly made tortilla chips, or spoon or any other vehicle to dig in!
- Terry Benelli, Executive Director, LISC Phoenix
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Picnic table
Painted white
Against weathering & warp
Where we put the foods:
Cake
For birthdays, christenings, weekends, nice weather
Arak, beer, wine, juice cut with water
Slightly sweet tea
Kofte, dahl, masala, salsa, BBQ
Surinamese-Dutch, Lebanese-Swedish
Mexicano, Centroamericano American
Southern?
Middlin’
Centering
It’s not the plates or the place that’s great
It’s the people.
- Matt Perkins, Program Director, LISC
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I come from a huge, Haitian family. Nothing brings a smile to my face like my memories of us all under one roof, while the smell of griot, rice and beans, legume, and fried plantain escape from my aunt’s kitchen, especially because this year’s celebrations will look drastically different.
- Anonoymous
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My Aunt Nina was the smartest person that I knew when I was growing up near the Gulf Coast in Texas. She was well-read and could see trends coming way before they were hip. In the '70s, Mexican cuisine was taking hold in Houston, when it was becoming a restaurant city due to its increasing cosmopolitan nature.
Nina, who had a hankering for hot stuff, developed the Armadillo Egg - a pickled jalapeno (stem intact), deseeded and stuffed with Monterey Jack cheese (MJC) and enveloped in a combination of Jimmy Dean hot sausage, biscuit, and more MJC, and finally, rolled in pork Shake 'n Bake. The final product had a ribbed-like crusty appearance with a tail and so was born the Armadillo Egg.
The city's newspaper, The Houston Chronicle, would feature recipes and my aunt submitted her recipe, which was published. After purchasing my first home in San Antonio in the late '90s, I made a batch of Armadillo Eggs for my housewarming. They were a hit and I soon found myself being invited to people's homes for Armadillo Egg-making parties. I would proudly provide copies of my Aunt Nina's recipe - a yellowed copy from The Houston Chronicle. While there are many variations on the theme among Texas restaurants - substituting pulled pork or brisket or cream cheese, etc. - I know the woman who started the craze, or at least had a big hand in it. She was my Aunt Nina Hall.
- Lori Hall, Program Officer, LISC
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Ever since I can remember, Arroz con Leche has brought me comfort on cold winter nights.
Arroz Con Leche (Mexican Rice Pudding)
Ingredients
1 cup medium grain rice
2 ½ cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup milk (whole or 2%)
½ condensed milk
¼ cup raisins
Ground cinnamon
Steps
Put water, rice and cinnamon stick in pot on high heat until it boils.
Then simmer on low heat until rice is soft and water has almost evaporated.
While the rice cooks, mix the milk with the condensed milk in bowl.
Add milk mixture to rice with raisins and stir.
Simmer on low heat until milk mixture is warmed through.
If it is too dry, add milk a ¼ cup at a time to desired consistency.
Serve in mugs and top with desired amount of ground cinnamon or raisins.
- Vanessa Aguirre, Small Business Underwriter, LISC
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I love cooking my favorite comfort food for my family. Chicken curry, rice sticks, potato vegetable, parippu and papadums. Cooking a traditional Sri Lankan meal is akin to a spiritual process for me, and a reminder to be grateful for so many things: food to eat, family to love, a kitchen to cook in, and the tremendous luxury of clean, flowing water. Whenever I cook this meal I think of my time in Sri Lanka and the stories my father told me of his childhood. I feel the water running cool over my fingers as I rinse the dhal, and I am grateful.