Mariner's Cookbook

Sauerkraut! by Mariner, posted Jul 22, 2017

Everybody who knows me knows that, especially since I retired, I despise weekend traffic. Too many people going too many places, too fast, and too rude! Since I don't want to be seen on the 11:00 PM news, being hauled away by the police for a "road rage" incident, I just stay home. This may seem to have little to do with food and cooking, but it explains (at least in part) why I am able to put together this article about making sauerkraut.

Quasi-Csabai by Mariner, posted Feb 05, 2017

I was 13 years old when John Kennedy faced down Nikita Khrushchev, during the Cuban Missle Crisis, and I lived about 12 miles north of the Florida State Line. For my entire life, up to that point, Emergency Preparedness - or as we called it then, Civil Defense - was a significant focus in the lives and education of school children in the American South, and those conditions shaped the minds and spirits of an entire generation of Southern children.

Slow-Cooker "Baked" Beans by Mariner, posted Nov 04, 2016

This time of year, many of us are looking forward to several, if not many, celebratory gatherings with family and friends. Quite often those gatherings are organized around a feast of some sort, which means food and cooking are on my mind... again.

Quick and Easy Italian-Style Sausage by Mariner, posted Oct 16, 2016

Let's be clear about this, right from the start. This recipe is not an Italian Sausage recipe. For one thing, there's no fennel in it. For another it has a lot of what Americans think of as traditional Italian seasonings, that do not appear in any of the "real" Italian sausage recipes I have ever found. So, what we really have here, is a fresh pork sausage that attempts to taste the way most Americans might think an Italian sausage ought to taste - hence the appellation, "Italian style".

Bologna by Mariner, posted Oct 02, 2016

As a child I was never a great fan of bologna, but I could eat it without gagging. It wasn't that I disliked the flavor, or even that we had it so terribly often that I grew tired of it — in fact, although we had bologna more often than other cold cuts, we rarely ate cold cuts at all. It just never inspired any great desire in me, and this response continued pretty much into full adulthood. This all changed while I was visiting my sister this past summer.

Liver Pudding, Mariner's First Try by Mariner, posted Sep 22, 2016

Not long ago, I posted my Grandma's recipe for Liver Pudding (as remembered by my Mother), and.early this week I decided to give it a try. I ran into several problems, however, the greatest of which was procuring the main ingredient: pork liver.

Fish Sausage by Mariner, posted Aug 29, 2016

"Why fish sausage?" you might ask. Well, following these experiences, so might I.

Olive Loaf by Mariner, posted Aug 10, 2016

Olive loaf has always been one of my favorite sandwich meats. While I was growing up, it was an expensive treat, only to be had once in a great while.

Tartar Sauce by Mariner, posted May 02, 2016

For most of my childhood, ketchup was the only dressing I ever knew about for fried fish. During that time, my family didn't eat in restaurants very often, and when we did, we didn't usually order fish of any kind. Somewhere along about my freshman year of high school, I discovered fried fish sandwiches at some of the fast food establishments, and those sandwiches were dressed with tartar sauce - a new experience for me. Naturally, I wanted tartar sauce on my fried fish from that point on.

"Buttermilk" Biscuits by Mariner, posted Mar 06, 2016

This morning I decided to try my hand at biscuits - specifically faux Hardiee's® buttermilk biscuits. Searching the Internet for existing recipés yielded quite a few hits, and many used some very strange ingredients (strange to me, anyway - like mayonnaise!); anyhow, the one that hit home with me was actually not in a published recipé, but in a comment made to one.