Last Wednesday, I began preparing for my first 1945 dinner menu by doing some marketing with the first of the menus in mind. Looking ahead, I noticed there are lots of steamed puddings to look forward to. Steaming is something we pretty much reserve these days for rice, veggies, and other main dish kinds of things - but dessert? It's very vintage. I wonder why it went out of style...
So I decided this morning that it was time to invest in some steaming equipment. As best I can tell, there are four basic things you need to have on hand: a big kettle-type pot, a rack that can be set on the bottom of the pot above some boiling water, a pudding mold (recycled cans from coffee, vegetables, etc. can be used as can ceramic or other baking dishes), and some wax paper or aluminum foil for covering the mold(s) tightly. I have a new chiffon cake pan that'd be perfect for a pudding mold, but I needed to find a kettle big enough - and tall enough - to hold it!
After spending about an hour in the kitchen aisles at Target, I settled on a 12-quart aluminum tamale steamer. (Luckily, tamales and other Mexican cookery are very important locally, so there were lots of pots available that looked like they would be suitable for steaming small and medium-sized puddings.) The pot has a ledge a few inches from the bottom and comes with a steaming insert that sits right inside that ledge. And luckiest of all, when I brought it home, the chiffon cake pan slid right on in. It's going to be perfect. I'm not yet sure which night I'll put this "new" dinner on the table but there'll be a Steamed Molasses Pudding on the menu for dessert!
I'm sticking with the vintage breakfasts, too - though I'm going to take it very easy with the Griddle Cakes, French Toast, etc. I'm going back through the menus a second time now, but I'm going to try and mix things up a bit by taking advantage of some of the suggested alternatives that pop up every so often. And once the weather really warms up, I'm going to shift from the winter menus to the summer menus. I'll be posting my breakfast menus by the week in the sidebar.
Speaking of breakfast, I left the house this morning with a lemon on my grocery list (see Tuesday's menu). What a wonderful surprise to get to work and find that a coworker had brought in a big carton of lemons from the tree in his yard to share with everybody! You gotta love citrus season. Another coworker asked me if I was a "grapefruit kinda person." Heck, yeah. That should slim down the grocery list!
4 comments:
Oh, lucky you, with all that free citrus floating around! I would be stewing up batches and batches of mixed citrus marmalades - my favorite! I am so jealous!
I love molasses in anything - can hardly wait to hear about the Steamed pudding! It sounds like something that will keep well, and you will be able to have a slice with afternoon coffee for a few days afterwards, too! :)
I'm seriously jealous about the citrus too! Why did I have to move to Boston from Vermont? Nothing is in season now!
Steamed puddings are awesome, especially in the winter. Spouse is English so he has actually grown up with these being standard fare in school, but it's a whole new world for me. My mom gave me her old copper basin though since she never uses it and it makes the perfect size for the two of us, plus leftovers the next day.
How wonderful to get citrus locally, something, as I am sure you remember, you can't enjoy here in NE.
I LOVE steamed puddings! It alwasy makes such a moist yet dense flavorful cake.
I'm enjoying the free produce while it lasts. The folks with trees in their yards seem so overwhelmed by fruit this time of year. (Kind of like my mom back home during tomato season!)
I heart molasses cookies, so the pudding should be tasty. And if it keeps well - perfect. We "bachelor gals" always have to give some thought to handling those leftovers.
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