In the kitchen: A taste for experimenting, a knack with the mixing bowl

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In the kitchen
A taste for experimenting, a knack with the mixing bowl
by Mickey Strang

Mickey Strang in her culinary domain. Photo by Barbara Clark

Despite cooking two to three meals a day for more than 50 years, I'd feel deprived if I couldn't spend time in the kitchen. What's made cooking such fun is that I experiment with ingredients and try to develop new recipes. Fortunately, both John, my husband, and our kids (when they still lived at home) have been willing to try anything set before them.

Since the 1940s, if I came up with something particularly good, I've sent the recipe off to home magazines such as Sunset and Better Homes and Gardens. From time to time, they agree-to the extent of publishing the recipe and sending me a check for it.
Our move north coincided with one other aspect to my hobby: I've been sending recipes to cooking contests as well-again, with a little success. No big wins. I was a finalist in some contests, a semifinalist in some others, and a few seconds and thirds. I'll keep trying, however; participating is almost as much fun as winning, though not as financially profitable. (Winning either the Pillsbury Bake-off or the Chicken Contest would be wonderful. Alas, I've not even made the finals on either.)

Living in Humboldt is wonderful for anyone into experimental cooking because not only do we have all the great fresh local products from fruits and vegetables to lamb, fish, and cheese, but also the grocery stores carry a variety of the more exotic ingredients unavailable to us in our previous haunts.

How do I get ideas? Partly from reading cookbooks and food magazines to see what others have done, partly from being willing to try strange and exotic combinations when we eat out, partly from periodically going through the refrigerator and pantry to see what's there and what might blend well, and partly from a spirit of adventure in wondering just how some combinations of flavor and texture might work.
Best of all, my hobby is creative-it can be artistic (depending on presentation), it's fulfilling as well as filling, and, if I fail, there's always the garbage disposal and tuna sandwiches for supper.

Brandied Chocolate Pear Puff
1/2 package of frozen puff pastry sheets (one sheet)
2 peeled, cored and thinly sliced California Bartlett pears, slightly under-ripe
2 tablespoons brandy
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Allow the puff pastry sheet to lie flat for at least a half an hour. Roll pastry sheet into a rectangle and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Set aside.
Peel, core and thinly slice Bartlett pears and place in a bowl. Sprinkle brandy over the pears and toss to coat. Place chocolate chips in a single layer down the middle third of the puff pastry sheet and top with pear/brandy mixture. Carefully fold the two sides up over the filling and seal the ends. Bake in a 375-degree oven until puffy and golden brown. Cool before slicing.

Cooking tip: Adding more brandy to the pears will enhance the flavor of the recipe, but this is subject to personal taste.

Mickey Strang of McKinleyville also has six recipes printed in Sunset's Kitchen Cabinet cookbook, a compendium of the best of each decade for the past 75 years. In addition to sending off a recipe a week for publication, she is board secretary of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center where she also serves on the editorial advisory board of Senior News.