Eggs Au Gratin

As much as I love making cookies and cakes from Mom's recipes, sometimes I seek out a savory recipe. In thumbing through Mom's recipe box, I came across this interesting recipe. Hard-boiled eggs were a staple of many meals in childhood and are still part of many meals now. 

This recipe is similar to and tastes a bit like Eggs Newport. The use of sautéd onions, instead of dried minced onions, may add an extra step, but give the Eggs Au Gratin a good oniony flavor. This dish could be served as a main dish or as a side dish to accompany almost anything. And the recipe could easily be increased or decreased in size.

Eggs Au Gratin 

• 2 large onions, thin sliced
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 6 hard cooked eggs, sliced
• 3/4 cup mayo
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3 Tbsp. grated Parmesan
• 1 tsp. prepared mustard
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper

In a large skillet, sauté onions in butter. Layer the onion and egg in a baking dish. Stir together the last six ingredients; spread over the top. Broil for 3 minutes or until brown and bubbly. Enjoy!

Grated Chocolate Cake

This recipe is a basic yellow cake with the addition of grated chocolate. It is deliciously similar to marble cake. When I made this cake, I might have used too much grated chocolate resulting in a more crumbly cake. I suppose my tendency to eyeball ingredient amounts instead of measuring precisely occasionally causes problems.

The ingredients for this cake are kitchen staples. One slightly unusual ingredient is cream of tartar, which is potassium bitartrate, an acidic byproduct of wine making. When used with baking soda, it helps the cake rise. Mom's recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate, but any type of chocolate could be used.

Grated Chocolate Cake 

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cup flour
• 2 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup milk
• 3 ounces chocolate, finely grated

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat thoroughly. Sift flour with cream of tartar and soda. Add flour to creamed mixture, alternating with milk; beating until smooth after each addition. Fold in the grated chocolate. Turn into a greased 9x5 loaf pan. Bake at 350 for an hour. Allow to cool. Enjoy!

Broccoli Orientale

I like broccoli. I most often enjoy it raw in salads or oven roasted. But I do like to mix up my meals, so I thought I would give this recipe a try. I don't know where Mom found this recipe. I assume that the use of water chestnuts is what gives the recipe its name.

When I made this recipe, I did not have pimento on hand. Pimento is a type of pepper, so another type of pepper could be used. But I had forgotten to get any peppers this week. So I used black olives instead. I think the substitution worked just fine. I also used almost a cup of water chestnuts because that was the size of the can. And I found that this was a good use of frozen broccoli that I steamed in the bag for a quick side dish.

Broccoli Orientale 

• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1/4 chopped water chestnuts 
• 1 pimento, diced
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 package frozen broccoli

Cook the broccoli according to the package. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add water chestnuts, pimento, and lemon juice. Heat thoroughly. Serve sauce hot over the broccoli. Enjoy!