The 3-Week Plan: Day 12 and 13

There isn´t much to say about day 12. I was eating alone and made French Toast for myself, or something resembling French Toast. In England they call it "Eggy Bread" and eat it with ketchup, which doesn´t sound particularly tasty to me (perhaps because I detest ketchup). I am firmly Americanized in regard to French Toast, which is called Fattiga Riddare in Swedish, (= poor knights) and eaten with jam or sugar and cinnamon; I insist on syrup. It doesn´t have to be maple syrup to please me, ordinary Ljus sirap (light syrup, which is actually more golden) is fine. A cousin of French Toast is Bread Pudding, which I also enjoy, but the husband not so much, so I rarely make it. It´s basically jam sandwiches soaked in egg and milk and cooked in the oven. Yum! You may call this dessert, I call it dinner when I feel like it.

And very pretty-looking beans they are!

Day 13 is Saturday and improv day and I decided to have some proper food, even though I was eating alone again. I haven´t been able to get the cornbread out of my mind since Divers&Sundry shared her recipe (which you find in the comments) with me the other day, and I decided to make it and have something suitable to match. I can´t quite get my mind around what catfish is, so I went with black eye peas, or beans, as they are called here. I googled for a nice-looking recipe and found Dave´s Georgia-style soup, stew, or pot or what you want to call it. It is not unlike Swedish yellow pea soup, but that is a lot more creamy than Dave´s seem to be according to his photos.

I halved the recipe; the beans come in 900 g bags, which is almost exactly 2 pounds, so I took half that. I let it soak over night, then added 1,5 liters of water, four cubes of vegetable boullion, 2 fried regular size onions, 240 g of fried bacon (they come in 120 g packets), and skipped the ham. I added whole grain white pepper, since it is a slow-cooking thing. No salt, and as it turned out, with the saltiness of the bacon and the boullion, it doesn´t need any.

Dave says to keep this on the stove for 8 hours (!) after soaking, but the reviewers seem to think four was enough. I tried my beans after 3 hours and they were thoroughly cooked, but I wasn´t quite hungry yet then, so I let it sit for another hour, while doing my excercises for the drawing course I am attending. After that, I was both frustrated and hungry!



Now, this is important: when Americans speak of corn, they don´t mean korn, which is tempting for a Swede to think. They mean maize (Sw. majs), also called Indian corn, as of corn-on-the-cob (Sw. majskolv). Corn in Britain can mean oats (Sw. havre) or even wheat (Sw. vete). Swedish korn is barley in English, and it´s the stuff they make malt whisky of, while the American bourbon whiskey is at least partly made from corn - I mean maize. Confusing, eh?

The corn (maize) flour I bought comes from Italy and is called farina di mais per polenta. Polenta is a maize porridge, mostly known to Swedes from fancy restaurants where it is left to cool and congeal, cut up, grilled and served with meat. Don´t get the wrong kind, or you will end up with a very boring and sad sponge cake.

I made the cornbread pretty much like I make sponge cake. The trick is to mix the dry ingredients and the wet separately, and then stir just enough to mix it. The mum-in-law taught me to use one of the whisks, it´s a really good trick. It came out very nicely, I think. Perhaps Divers&Sundry will please grade my attempt?

I understand black eye peas are traditional on New Year´s Eve in the southern States, and is considered to bring luck for the new year. Well, I am certainly impressed enough to make this one of my standard recipes and make it for guests as well. We´ll see how it does in the freezer, but I don´t think it matters much if the beans fall apart some.

After having done the dishes, I poured myself a well-deserved G&T and knit some on my scarf while watching Guy Ritchie´s "Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows".

PS. If you are Swedish and reluctant to try American/English (ok, the Brits are officially on the liter scale, but so often prefer "old money") recipes because you can´t get your head around "cups", check out your local ICA or Coop for quarter liter (2,5 dl) measuring cups. They now also come with cup- and half cup measuring lines, as you can see in the picture below. Liters on the right, cups on the left. Thank the good ol´ internet & multiculturalism for that one. DS.