Holiday Cookbook: Melissa Bartel

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JANET HAMOUS
Although Melissa Bartel grew up around great cooks, she didn’t cook much until she got married and started living on a farm.

“I started cooking out of necessity,” said Bartel. “When you’re on a farm, farmers need to be fed. I was the only one who wasn’t doing something else.”

When life thrust her into the kitchen, Melissa realized she had picked up more than she had thought from her grandmothers, mom and aunt-who all loved to cook.

“They used to say they never had a church dinner in Alta Vista that my grandmother wasn’t in charge of,” she said.

And today, the same thing might be said of Bartel. She still lives on a farm (north of Hillsboro) and she still feeds the farmers. She is as comfortable serving large groups as she is cooking dinner for her husband, Rollind. Their five children are now grown up, and the youngest one went off to college this year.

“I will feed two of us or 200-it doesn’t matter,” she said. “My goal is to feed the world!”

Cooking for groups is a skill Bartel has refined over time. She takes normal recipes and carefully expands them to serve the desired number of people. To do that, she starts by increasing the main ingredients first.

“You don’t want to up the salt or the spices until you check for taste,” Bartel said. “You want a dish for 200 to still taste like it was made for four people. You do what you can to provide a quality product as fast and efficiently as possible.”

She also makes sure to cook enough.

“When you cook for a large group, you have leftovers-that’s just a fact,” she said. “I refuse to run out of food.”

Bartel specializes in wholesome, hearty foods prepared with taste in mind.

“I am a meat-and-potatoes cook,” she said. “I will never be a gourmet cook.”

Although Bartel uses some convenience items in her cooking, she rarely uses prepackaged foods that are already complete. She wishes she could teach everyone how to make the basic foods that are so often purchased pre-prepared today.

“I love to teach,” Bartel said. “I’d like to have home parties where you’d get people together and help them prepare and then eat the food. How to fry chicken, or how to bake a pie crust, for example.

“We also need to teach kids,” she added. “They don’t have home ec classes any more, and the classes they do have are showing kids how to use a microwave rather than how to cook.”

Bartel has combined her love of teaching with her love of cooking on many occasions. She taught a class for small children where they grilled pizza and she showed them how to use cooking tools, including knives -much to the chagrin of some adults.

“There are things you can teach them that will help them,” she said. “I’m going to reach people with food.”

She has also taught classes at the Kitchen Corner store in Hillsboro.

In baking classes, she has shared her expertise in making two of her specialty items: crescent rolls and cinnamon rolls. She’s also provided instruction in making bread bowls and pies. She’s taught a class on grilling, and she and Cheryl Jost did a class they called “Martha Stewart vs. the Real World.”

“I was the real world,” said Bartel.

Bartel admits to having a weakness for kitchen tools and equipment.

“I have every appliance known to man-and I use them,” she said. “They don’t just sit in the cabinet.”

Her kitchen boasts two mixers and two ovens. She had her dishwasher removed to make space for the second oven.

“I didn’t need the dishwasher,” she said. “You do dishes as you go along, and you never have a dish to do.

“People are always asking me what is the ‘best’ tool to buy,” she said. “It really depends on what you’re making which tool is best. I think that is why people get confused.”

Yet even with all the latest appliances, she still enjoys doing things by hand.

“I chop a lot,” she said. “It’s cathartic.”

And appliances aren’t Bartel’s only compulsion.

“Cookbooks? Let me show you,” she says as she opens the door to a cozy office virtually filled with cookbooks. Cookbooks line the shelves on two of the walls and overflow onto the shelves in the closet.

“I actually read them,” she said.

She has collected many antique cookbooks, the most treasured one being her grandmother’s copy of the third edition of The Household Searchlight. Tucked into it are some of her grandmother’s handwritten recipes.

So what advice does she have for the new cook?

“Keep it simple,” said. “People try to make cooking too complicated.”

Cooking is very forgiving, she added.

“If you make a mistake today, you can start fresh tomorrow.”

Recipes from the Bartel kitchen

Stuffed Spud Soup

2 lbs. frozen hash browns, thawed

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup chopped green onion

1 (10 oz.) can cream of chicken soup

salt and pepper to taste

3-4 cups half and half

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

parsley flakes or chopped chives for garnish

Sauté onion in butter. Add soup, half and half, and thawed potatoes.

Stir in cheese and heat gently. Garnish and serve. Serves 8-10.

* * *

Sweet Onion Quesadillas

1 medium-large sweet onion such as Vidalia or Walla Walla

Olive oil for brushing onion and tortillas

Four 6- or 7-inch flour tortillas

3/4 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese (can be with hot peppers)

Prepare grill.

Cut onion crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices and arrange slices on tray, keeping them intact. Brush both sides with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill onion on a lightly oiled rack four minutes on each side, or until lightly charred and softened. Transfer onion as grilled to a bowl, separating rings.

Brush two tortillas lightly with oil on one side and put oiled side down, on a platter. Divide onion and Monterey Jack between tortillas and cover with remaining tortillas. Brush tops of quesadillas lightly with oil.

Transfer quesadillas to a grill rack and grill until golden brown, about one minute. Sandwiching each quesadilla between two spatulas, flip over and grill until undersides are golden brown, about one minute.

Transfer quesadillas to a cutting board and cut into wedges.

* * *

Burnt Sugar Crispix Mix

12 cups Crispix cereal

1 jar (12 oz.) cocktail peanuts

Mix:

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup butter

1/2 cup Karo syrup

Boil 1 minute.

Stir in:

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon butter flavor

1 teaspoon burnt sugar flavor

Bake at 200 degrees for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes.

* * *

Broccoli Pecan Casserole

4 packages (10 oz.) frozen broccoli

2 sticks margarine, melted

1 envelope dried onion soup

1 cup pecans, chopped

1 cup sliced water chestnuts

bread crumbs

Mix together last four ingredients. Pour over broccoli. Top with bread crumbs. Bake at 300 degrees for one hour.

* * *

Stuffed Pork Chops

6 pork chops, 11/2 inches thick, cut for stuffing

11/2 cups seasoned stuffing mix

1/2 cup PET evaporated milk

3 tablespoons shortening

1 envelope dried onion soup mix

11/2 cups water

1 tsp. soy sauce

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

2/3 cup PET evaporated milk

2 tablespoons flour

Mix seasoned stuffing mix and evaporated milk. Let stand five minutes or until milk has been absorbed. Stuff pork chops with stuffing and milk mixture. Secure with tooth picks. Brown in large skillet in hot shortening. Drain. Combine dried onion soup mix, water, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. Add to pork chops. Cover and simmer 50 minutes. Mix two-thirds cup evaporated milk and flour. Remove chops to warm platter. Stir evaporated milk and flour into hot liquid in skillet. Cook and stir until thickened. Pour over chops. Serves six.

* * *

Southwest Chicken Salad

Dressing:

1/4 cup cider vinegar or vinegar

3 tablespoon honey

11/2 teaspoons cumin

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Salad:

1 tablespoon olive oil or vegetable oil

2 whole chicken breasts, skinned, boned, cut into 2-inch by 1/2-inch strips

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1 (1 lb.) pkg. frozen naturally extra sweet and crisp whole kernel corn (one 16 oz. pkg. frozen corn, broccoli and red peppers may be substituted)

1 cup chopped seeded Italian plum tomatoes or tomatoes

1 (15 oz.) can black beans, drained and rinsed

5 green onions, thinly sliced, including tops

2 medium avocados, peeled and chopped

1 head butterhead, Boston or Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces

1 small red bell pepper, chopped

8 oz. (2 cups) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

3 cups slightly crushed blue corn tortilla chips or tortilla chips

Garnish, if desired:

11/4 cups picante salsa

11/4 cups dairy sour cream

In small jar with tight-fitting lid, combine all dressing ingredients; shake well. Set aside.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add chicken; cook until no longer pink, about five minutes. Transfer chicken to very large bowl; sprinkle with garlic salt. Prepare corn according to package directions; drain. Stir into chicken. Cover; refrigerate about 30 minutes.

Add tomatoes, black beans, green onions, avocados, lettuce and bell pepper to chicken mixture; toss to combine. Shake dressing and pour over salad mixture; toss lightly. (To make ahead, recipe may be prepared to this point. Cover; store in refrigerator.)

Just before serving, add cheese and tortilla chips; toss gently. Garnish with salsa and sour cream. Serve immediately. Yield: 10 (11/2 cup) servings.

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