Peperonata is a sauce. Or a kind of relish. Not exactly a condiment, but surely it could be. You could even eat it plain with a piece of toast – or as an appetizer on baguette slices you’ve toasted. It means “stewed sweet peppers,” and that’s exactly what it is. Note the tiny basil and parsley flecks in the sauce.

Last week I promised I’d give you a recipe from my write-up about bell peppers, and some other recipes that were at the forefront of my mind took first place. And, truth be told, I think I liked the scones and tea sandwiches better than I liked this bell pepper dish. Not that it wasn’t good – it was – but it wasn’t great. And yet, some people might think this was terrific. If you’re a lover of bell peppers, you might just think this was the cat’s meow. The taste is gentle – nothing about it pushes the taste envelope – and sometimes that’s a good thing. When you want to have some vegetables, or in my case I wanted a sauce to serve on these stuffed eggplant things, well, this might be the right thing. Last time I served these (they’re a ready-made product from Personal Gourmet) I made a creamy tomato sauce. This time I wanted something altogether different.

The recipe came from the book I told you about when I wrote up the essay about bell peppers, How to Pick a Peach by Russ Parsons. The recipe is also available online at the Los Angeles Times. He got this recipe from a book called Honey from a Weed: Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia by Patience Gray. Parsons recommended that of the 4 recipes included in the book, his favorite was tuna-stuffed peppers. But they were meant as an appetizer, finger food actually, and it just didn’t appeal to me. I had all the ingredients for the peperonata, so I went with it.

It was quite easy to make – the onions were gently sautéed in olive oil, then you add some chopped tomatoes (not a lot), the roasted and peeled peppers and a roasted jalapeno. A bit of red wine and that cooks a short time and then you add a kind of basil-parsley pesto (pictured at left) – it contains garlic, basil and parsley only. That cooks a really short time and it’s done.

You can eat it hot, room temp or cold. In the finished picture at the top, you can see the flecks of basil or parsley on the peppers. The green mixture kind of muddies the color, I thought, but it’s the flavor that’s important, ya’ know? The color contrast of the peppers with the pesto (above) was so pretty. Then it was gone . . . once I stirred it in.

What’s GOOD: it’s easy. It’s tasty, although not off the charts – at least not my charts. It’s versatile – it could be mixed with pasta too.
What’s NOT: only that it wasn’t a “wow.” But if you like more subtle flavors, have a bunch of bell peppers to use, this mixture works!

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When you say a sauce is a Béchamel, it conjures up a fancy something-or-other. This sauce is anything BUT fancy. It’s a simple butter-flour-milk gravy with the only added ingredient being some tomato paste. Claude Monet called it a Tomato Sauce, but I’ve re-named it.

When I went to my account at Eat Your Books, I put in “tomato sauce” and began perusing through the dozens and dozens of them from all my cookbooks – looking first at the list of ingredients. There’s no quantity, just the major items named. I looked at Italian style sauces mostly, since I wanted to put something on the eggplant rollatini you see above. After I’d studied about 20 or so (with the usual list of ingredients like onion, garlic, fresh or canned tomatoes, basil, parsley) this one stuck out because of its lack of canned tomatoes and because of the milk. A plain tomato sauce from canned tomatoes just sounded so blah to me – or something that might easily overwhelm the subtle cheeses in the rollatini.

You didn’t ask for a history lesson about Claude Monet, but you’re going to have one anyway, since he was quite a foodie. Years ago I purchased the book Monet’s Table : The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet, and eventually found the companion book, Monet’s Cookery Notebooks both written or compiled by Claire Joyes. I’m embarrassed to tell you that until now I’d never cooked anything from it. The first book (above) is mostly lavish photographs of the property and his paintings with stories about the entertaining Monet and his family did at Giverny, his home for so many years. The 2nd book has more stories and photographs of the interior of Giverny, and recipes (not all that many). He shared the home with his 2nd wife and his mistress, who was married to another man (Monet supported her and her family – husband and children – for many years – most likely so he could have this other woman [Monet’s mistress Alice], by his side). I’ve read several books about Monet or the Impressionists, including  Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet. I really liked that one. The other one about Renoir was Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland.

Monet was always interested in food – and even when he and his first wife Camille (who died very young, soon after their 2nd child was born) were nearly destitute and living in a hovel in Paris, they would not only have food, but they’d share it with others – mostly other starving artists like he was. He didn’t become famous until some years later – after his wife had died. He caused a huge stir by painting Camille on her deathbed – not when she was alive, but once she had passed. He was inordinately proud of that painting. That kind of thing simply wasn’t done back then. He kept the painting nearby for the remainder of his life, even after he remarried. Once a few of his paintings sold he was finally able to buy a home, first in Paris, then later outside Paris and he spent nearly all of his remaining years at Giverny. Monet didn’t cook at all – or nearly so – but he was passionate about food, which is why there are recipes attributed to him. Maintaining a nice home with servants was just part of his history – if you were a gentleman in that time, you just did. Once he established himself at Giverny he had enough wealth to have servants. He made most of the decisions in the family about what they would eat and when. The Cookery Notebooks book is filled with recipes, and more stories about the entertaining style. Monet was well-traveled and he fell in love with food in many places he visited. Likely he served dishes that were sometimes unfashionable only because they were not French or even known to most French.

Being a fan of the Impressionists in general, I have always liked Monet’s paintings. Dave and I have sought out his paintings in museums around the world – in addition to most of the other Impressionists too. The most notable was a small room at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, where they house 43 Renoirs. We were on a tour of the museum and the guide, a very dour young woman, gave us 20 minutes to see the entire room. Most of us were very unhappy about that! But they would not allow us to linger longer than that.

For many years I had this van Gogh painting hanging in my house. A very, VERY cheap copy of it. It was the only picture in my daughter’s bedroom when she was a baby. There weren’t many baby-oriented wall decorations back then, and I used it because of the yellow color scheme I did in her bedroom.

So now, let’s get back to this tomato sauce, huh? There was nothing to it – making it – I melted some unsalted butter, added some flour, stirred and cooked that for a minute or two, then poured in whole milk that I’d heated just to boiling. The sauce thickened almost immediately. I seasoned it with salt and pepper, then added some tomato paste out of the tube I have in the refrigerator. I did this half an hour before I was going to plate our dinner, so all I had to do was re-heat it on the range and add some chopped up tomato. The fresh tomato in and on top was not in Monet’s recipe, but I really did think it needed a little spark of color. I had some vine-ripened tomatoes which worked perfectly.

What’s GOOD: it was very easy to make. This sauce isn’t a sauce for pasta – it doesn’t have enough heft, in my opinion, but was perfect for the nuanced eggplant. It would be nice on cooked vegetables, on fish. You could put some cheese in it – like Gruyere or Parm and give it some different flavors. It wasn’t anything extra special, but it fit my need perfectly.

What’s NOT: no problems or dislikes.

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The easiest of sauces – you can make it as sweet as you prefer – I made it on the tart side. It would be great on top of French toast, breakfast yogurt (I can attest to that one since the left overs have garnished several morning bowls), or as a fruit puree with a creamy dessert like cheesecake. Yum.

If you read my blog regularly, you already know that I made Lindy’s Cheesecake and wrote up a post with a very brief history of Lindy’s deli in New York City. It closed in 1957, but the famous cheesecake lives on in home kitchens, and perhaps a lot of restaurants too, since the recipe became public. It was recently listed in Saveur magazine as one of the top 100 recipes ever.

When I made it, I decided it needed something along side – something with some color. It’s too early in the season for reliably sweet strawberries, so I decided to use mangoes. It was perfect. The recipe came straight out of the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition – 2006. Maybe it was in Rombauer’s earlier editions, but this is the book I own because my old one from the 1950’s was falling apart. I looked up many other recipes, and they were all the same – mangoes, sugar of some form and either lime or lemon juice. Plus just a bit of water to make the sauce almost pourable. That’s it. See? I said it was easy!

I whizzed it up in the food processor, although the blender would likely work just as well. I used the frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe’s. You could use fresh mangoes too. Do defrost the frozen ones some so they will puree. Add some citrus (the lemon juice or lime juice) and add as much sugar as you want – I used about a rounded 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. You can use regular sugar too. Either one. And then some water – the texture of the mangoes will determine how much water you’ll need – you want it thick, but not so you can’t pour it. In the photo at top you can see it’s almost the consistency of pudding, but it spread out flat once I put it on the plate with the cheesecake.

What’s GOOD: the delicious FRESH taste of mango. Citrus does that in all of its guises. I made mine on the tart side since the cheesecake was already plenty sweet, but use your own judgment based on what you’re serving it with. It keeps for several days. I think the recipe said 3, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t keep a week. It is also fantastic drizzled over Greek yogurt for our breakfast. And I just know it would taste wonderful on French toast.
What’s NOT: it was perfect for how I needed to use it, as a sauce for cheesecake.

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An easy sauce – relatively speaking – to make to fancify a lovely grilled steak.

Deciding that we would have a really nice dinner, I planned ahead a few hours and marinated the steak first. I can’t say that the marinade was all that memorable, although it was a bit different because of some additional spices used (from Ree Drummond’s website, Pioneer Woman). She served the marinated steak with canned beans. I wanted something a bit more sophisticated, but next time I wouldn’t mix the two (the marinade and the mushroom sauce). So, I’m just giving you the recipe for the sauce. Truth to tell, I liked the sauce a whole lot better than the marinade!

Anyway, the sauce is fairly straight forward – have mushrooms? Can make! You will need a shallot, a little bit of cream, some good Scotch whiskey (I have a bottle of Dalwhinnie single malt that I bought about 12 years ago at the Glasgow airport that still has about 1/3 remaining – it was almost a waste to use that good single malt for a sauce – but it’s the only Scotch I had in the liquor cabinet!). Lemon zest adds a nice piquant addition – you really won’t quite know it’s there, but it adds a bit of flavor depth.

The rest of the dinner came together rather quickly – Brussels sprouts, parsnips and a nice green salad. Sometimes it’s the right thing to have a plain steak – my DH’s go-to version utilizes garlic salt and that’s it – but this time I wanted it to be something different. Nice. Fancy. It was.

What’s good: the mushroom flavor, and you can distinguish the Scotch, so if it’s not your thing, you can leave it out. Use a little medium or cream sherry instead. Yes, I’d make it again, but I would try to do it an hour ahead – it’s a bit labor intensive at the last minute. Not for long, but I wouldn’t want to be making it when I have a house full of people.

What’s not: really nothing – next time I would try to find some of the more exotic mushrooms, though. Am sure the flavor would be enhanced!

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Do you ever wish you had something to serve with or on sausages? Sausages are kind of – sort of – bland and plain if served all by themselves. Mostly I serve them with good mustard. Well, here’s an easy gravy that goes well with just about any kind of sausages (here it’s with German Bratwurst and a Nuremburger sausage).

It’s just amazing what you’ll find on the internet nowadays. I wanted something to serve with sausages, so I did a search for “what to serve with sausage” and up came a long list of links, mostly to something called sticky onion gravy. Having never heard of sticky onion anything, I took a look at nearly all the recipes. This is a British sauce that is a favorite in pubs. If you’ve ever been to Britain, you know about bangers and mash (bangers just means sausages – but they’re nothing like American breakfast sausage or raw Italian sausage, nor are they anything like German bratwurst either). Usually they are served with mash – mashed potatoes. And in some pubs they spoon on an onion sauce or gravy to go with it. I would assume it’s called sticky because this sauce is thickened with cornstarch and one hopes it will stick some to the bites of sausage.

Finally I settled on a recipe at ask.com and after making it and tasting it, I made some changes to it. Ideally you would serve this with mashed potatoes. We try to limit carbs – particularly white carbs – so I served this with braised red cabbage and apples on the side.

The onions do need to cook awhile – and you particularly don’t want to brown them. That point was stressed in most of the recipes, including Jamie Oliver’s version. So you cook them long and slow (about 30 minutes or more), then you make the sauce part (beef broth, some wine, balsamic vinegar, a little sugar, and I added some Worcestershire and sherry vinegar also). It can sit on the stove over very low heat for awhile – just add a bit more water if it gets too dry.

Mine did just that, so I didn’t have all that much sauce. If you don’t want to use wine, just add more water. The taste of the beef stock or broth will determine how flavorful it is – I used Penzey’s soup bases for the broth and with 2 cups water with it and a cup of wine.

We’d purchased some really good sausages from a deli – they were already cooked, so all I had to do was simmer them in water for 6-8 minutes and they were ready to serve. The onion sauce is spooned over them – about 1/2 cup per serving. If you have mashed potatoes, it would make one delicious morsel with a bite of sausage, an onion draped over it, then pushed into a little bit of potato. Yum.

What’s good: that it goes really well with sausages or some kind of meat. It’s not rich. It’s not some “wow” sauce you’ll want to make for special occasions – this is a simple saucy gravy to give some  extra flavor, texture and moisture to a protein you’re serving or as a sauce for mashed potatoes. I think it would be great with left over roast beef or roast pork.

What’s not: it does take some time to make – at least 45 minutes.

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Do you ever wish when you served a simple dinner (like a piece of grilled fish, or a chicken breast) that you had something to put on it, or next to it. Something that would fancy it up a little bit and give the protein some other texture and flavor? Something that you already had on hand – not something you had to make – but could just grab from the refrigerator? This is it. It will keep for at least 6 months in the refrigerator.

Are you like me – on some nights when I make dinner, I just don’t have the energy to create some kind of sauce or relish. I don’t want to make rich, calorie and fat laden sauces all the time. I love-love the Mississippi Comeback Sauce a lot. But it’s composed of mayo – at least half of it is mayo. Not all that healthy. I also love-love the Bell Pepper Relish for Meat too. That one’s not particularly fat-driven, but it’s sweet. Not always the right thing, depending on what kind of meat you serve it with. Oh, and the Siciliana Sauce is also a good one. It’s a tomato-based sauce, also somewhat sweet. And Romesco Sauce too.  That one is served with Shrimp in the recipe I have here on my blog, but I always have leftovers and I use it on a bunch of different things. It is mostly composed of bread, peppers and almonds. I think the first time I had that it was with pork. But it would be equally good with chicken too.

What I was doing was catching up on my blog-reading – I probably subscribe via RSS to about 100 blogs. Probably too many, but fortunately they don’t all post every day. If I go a week without looking at them it can take me a couple of hours or more to go through them all. Anyway, I was reading Food52 and the story about this recipe caught my interest. Torrisi’s is a venerable restaurant in New York City. They have a sister restaurant called Parm, too. Anyway, this is a sauce adapted some from Torrisi’s owner and written up in New York Magazine. So this is their authentic sauce. In the story about it that caught my eye – they said somebody had cradled the sauce on the train for an hour or so to bring it in to the Food52 team. That got my attention.

The write-up suggested that you could throw this together from canned stuff on your pantry shelves. Well, maybe New Yorkers always stock cherry peppers. I don’t, so those had to be purchased (canned). The only problem was, the cherry peppers at our market aren’t hot – they’re peppers, in multi-colors, mostly red, but they’re called “Sweet Cherry Peppers,” although there isn’t any added sugar in it at all. Or heat. So I had to improvise a little bit. I’ll have to look at our local Italian deli and see if they have hot cherry peppers. Anyway, this contains the (hot) cherry peppers, roasted red peppers, a few fresh tomatoes, olive oil, red chili flakes, dried oregano, sugar and salt.

It’s very cinchy easy to make – throw everything in the food processor, whiz, and it’s done. Yea! Pour into a container and chill. Or not if you’re using it immediately. I think it would make a great (and easy) dip to put out with bread. Or sturdy crackers maybe. It’s more liquid-y than I had anticipated from the photo at Food52, but it doesn’t distract from the taste.

Because the cherry peppers were sweet, not hot, I added some Sriracha sauce (or you could add any kind of hot-sauce-heat, like Cholula, Tabasco or whatever). I added about 2 T. of Sriracha for the cup of Spicy Sauce. Add more if you like it hotter. Here are the possibilities for using this: on eggs (fried, scrambled, in a frittata), in sandwiches, with roast pork and potatoes, on stir-friend greens, on brisket, or stirred into soups, stews and pots of beans. I served it with some roast chicken. All of those sound good! It’s also pretty darned good straight out of the container on a spoon!

What’s good: how easy it was to make – pile everything in the food processor and whiz. Done. I’m sure this will keep for weeks – the only “fresh” thing in it was a few cherry tomatoes and those would be mostly “pickled” with all the other ingredients. It should be fine for a long time – the recipe indicates 6 months!
What’s not: it’s a thin sauce (not watery, as there isn’t any in it, but the cherry peppers are brined and did have a bit of liquid).  There’s not much of any way to avoid that. Be careful not to over-process it – you don’t want it to be a puree – it needs some substance.

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What do you do when you need something to go on top of fish, but you lack anything to make it with? Well, if you just happen to have an orange, a lemon and a lime on hand, you can whip up an easy salsa. Then what do you do when you don’t have any fresh jalapeno or serrano pepper on hand? You use some chipotle chile in adobo sauce to heat up the juices!

Going online, I saw a few recipes and the inspiration for this one came from Martha Stewart’s website. I didn’t stray too far from that online recipe, although I changed proportions and the type of heat used. I wasn’t about to make a trip to the grocery store, so I made do with what I had. The orange was almost over the hill. The lemons were fresh from our tree, and the limes were a gift from friends who have a tree. I had cilantro, fortunately. And a shallot – I almost always keep a shallot or two in a little bowl on my kitchen counter. They come in handy, and when you need them, well, you really need them.

Use all of the orange and lemon segments. First, though, zest part of the lemon and orange (using all of the zest would have been too much) and also zest a little bit of the lime, and use the juice from half of it. Add finely minced shallot, a little tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a little tetch of the chipotle chile in adobo sauce. Use your own judgment about how much – it’s hot, so be careful. Add and taste, add and taste! The recipe calls for a little sugar – honey is nice, although I used a substitute so my DH wouldn’t have a problem with the carbs in it – honey or agave would be the ideal sweeteners for this. Or sugar. Finally, add cilantro, and you’re done. I let it sit for about 20-30 minutes while I finished up the salmon in the Sous Vide (20 minutes at 140°) and made some corn to go with. It was an easy dinner and very tasty. Very healthy.

Easily this could be a salsa for chicken too. I’d make more of it, that’s all. The chipotle chile adds heat, of course (you don’t have to use it, though), and it also tinted the liquid just a little bit on the brown side – you can see it in the top photo. Rice would be a good side for this as it would soak up some of those liquids that spread all over the plate. Nothing wrong with those juices, but we wasted them as they floated around on the full plate.

What’s good: it’s very easy; healthy; tasty; just a little bit spicy. Yes, I’d make it again.
What’s not: really nothing at all. I liked it.

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Although it’s post-Thanksgiving, and very few of you will be even slightly interested in a recipe for cranberry sauce/jelly, I didn’t really want to let it sit in my holding pen (drafts) until next year, so I’d best post it anyway! It’s SO simple – it contains nothing but fresh cranberries, port wine, sugar, juniper berries, and black pepper. It stews briefly, then you let it cool and sieve it to remove all the skins and the spices. It doesn’t catch all the seeds unless you have a really good sieve.

Cranberries have a lot of natural pectin in them. That was news to me – more food chemistry to keep in mind – not that I’ll ever need to know that again! When you make this cranberry gelée (that’s French for jelly and it’s pronounced like zhe-LEH), you know that it doesn’t have to be reduced down or any kind of thickening agent added because it just naturally “gels.”  You can see how thick it is by looking at what’s stuck to the side of the bowl in the photo above.

In our family I always make an adaptation of my mother’s old recipe for a raw cranberry relish that contains fresh cranberries, a fresh orange, an apple, sugar and powdered ginger. But we DO have a couple of family members who prefer the old-fashioned stuff – they’d probably prefer it straight out of the can – but they eat 2 T. of it and what in the world do I do with the remaining 2 cups of it? Most years it is poured down the garbage disposal once it’s languished in the refrigerator long enough to grow green stuff on it. So I just thought I’d make it this year. It’s really good. I truly liked it – most people at our Thanksgiving dinner table took some of both, and everyone seemed to like them equally. The port wine used in this isn’t so prominent that it tastes boozy. Not at all. But you can taste it.

Actually I don’t own any of the Canal House Cookbooks. I’ve read about them, though. This recipe was at Food52, which I read several times during the 2 weeks leading up to Thanksgiving in case there were some nuggets of new recipes. Under the heading of “genius recipes” I found this recipe. It looked easy enough (it was) and it sounded like it would have some really good flavor (it did). I may even make it again next year. Meanwhile, it was used in turkey sandwiches numerous days after Thanksgiving.

What’s good: the port wine-y flavor – I think I liked that the best, yet it doesn’t overwhelm it. Also how easy it was to make. Truly. Good flavor. If you go to the Food52 site (link above) you can read about all the variations people did to the recipe (like, no juniper berries? use cloves or rosemary).
What’s not: really nothing. But, it is just cranberry jelly/sauce!

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The good news is this stuff above has zero fat in it. Unless there is a trace of fat in the tomatoes. Just remember that tomatoes are actually a fruit. We tend to forget that. And actually, this saucy stuff took a bit of sugar, even though tomatoes are in their sweet prime here these days.

When I read the write-up and recipe over at Kate in the Kitchen, I was intrigued. I went off and did something else for several hours, and then got to thinking about Tomato Jam. It just sounded so interesting. I remembered it was from Kate’s blog (fortunately) so I quickly re-found it and saved it to my recipe software. Kate got the recipe from the cookbook: Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes. You can find the recipe at the Herbivoracious website.

In the ensuing couple of weeks I’ve thought about it several times. I take that as a sign that I’m supposed to fix something if I can’t get it out of my mind! Then when my DH happened to mention that our corner farm stand was offering 10+ pounds of tomatoes for $10, I said sure, do it. So obviously, I had a few tomatoes to use up. After two rounds of caprese salad, I gave a couple of tomatoes away, then STILL had about 8 tomatoes. Tomato jam, coming up!

The jam is cinchy easy to make. Truly. I tweaked the recipe just a little – both from the original and Kate’s too, but not by much. I used less salt, less sugar, and maybe a tetch more rosemary. I love rosemary (Kate doesn’t, so she used lemon thyme, oregano and parsley, I think she said, instead of the rosemary). As you can see, the recipe can be altered to suit you or your family. You and your taste buds.

The tomatoes are peeled raw (top photo)  – providing you have the Messermeister Pro Touch Swivel Peeler (otherwise you need to dunk them in boiling water for a minute and peel them hot) and chopped, then combined in a good, sturdy pot with all the other ingredients (lower photo) to simmer gently for an hour or more. It oozes out a lot of juice, but by simmering it long and slow, eventually all the watery juice boils off, leaving you with a jam consistency.

The recipe below makes about 1 cup. But you may want to make more. It surely could be canned too (in a water bath), then you could put it on your pantry shelf for up to a year. You could freeze it in small containers and it would keep for at least a year also. Or, make it in a small batch and use it up within a week. I’d really be surprised that it wouldn’t keep longer than that – it’s got a lot of sugar in it – it’s like fruit jam, so why wouldn’t it keep? If anybody knows more about that I’d welcome comments. I have a condiment in the refrigerator that I made 6 months ago (the sauce from the Ribeye Steaks with Amazing Glaze). It’s still just fine – no mold or off flavors.

What I didn’t know was what I was going to DO with the stuff. So okay, I have about a cup of tomato jam. Now what? I went on the trusty internet – amazing what you can find if you look – I discovered it’s great over cream cheese. (It was fantastic that way – loved it!) It makes a great condiment on meat sandwiches. It can be used instead of ketchup. And it can be served on toast in the morning too. I’m thinking it would be great on a piece of grilled fish. Or grilled chicken. There are plenty of recipes for tomato jam out there – all different. Every one of them has a little different use for it.

What I liked: the flavors, of course. I just love complex flavors and there are ample (from the tomatoes themselves, the rosemary, the lemon zest although you really can’t pick that out, and the lemon juice). This jam is very versatile.

What I didn’t like: well, if I’d made a big batch, apparently it would take awhile to cook it down (maybe more than 2 hours) but doing just this batch was fine. Love the stuff. Nothing I didn’t like!

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It’s been years ago that I found this recipe on a MasterCook (that’s the recipe software I use) user’s group recipe exchange. What got me was what she wrote about it – that she makes it up on Sunday, uses it for a family barbecue and always has leftovers to use all week long on everything you can think of – chicken, fish, even tomatoes and other veggies.

I think the gal who uploaded it was Terry Pogue – at least that’s the name I have on my original sheet for this. Whether it’s her original recipe, I don’t know. I also found it online at www.cookingjunkies.com and her name is associated with the recipe there as well. I just want to give credit where it is due. I’d want other people to do the same for me. The point is – I have no idea whatsoever what the title means or where it came from.

It’s not news that I love cilantro. And avocados, so putting the two together can just be a perfect duo for me. What makes this different is the addition of vinegar and water (plus the green onions, serrano chiles and a little bit of olive oil). We were grilling ribs (it wasn’t meant to go with the ribs since they had lots of barbecue sauce on them already) and some Italian sausages, so I made up a batch of the sauce – it makes a LOT – and served it that way. Not everyone at our dinner took any of it to go with the sausages, but those who did said they liked it a lot. I liked it a lot. Next time I think I’d make a 1/3 recipe (using one avocado) which would be fine for a dinner for 4-5, I think. It had to have made nearly 3+ cups of sauce. I gave half of it to our daughter-in-law, Karen, and I still have a big bowl of it! You don’t use a lot of it. It doesn’t stick much to the meat – you kind of dip it into it and try to get some onto the fork. It’s not a smooth sauce at all – it’s chunky and liquid, actually. Which is why I added less vinegar and water to it than indicated. Perhaps it depends on how much cilantro is in a “bunch,” too. Seems to me that cilantro bunches have less cilantro in them than they used to – do you agree? Maybe making the cilantro mixture in the blender would also emulsify it better as well. I just stirred it in at the end. The avocados are diced up and added after you’ve mixed everything else.

What I liked: the piquant taste (piquant=tart, from the vinegar), but it goes exceedingly well with a piece of protein. There’s almost no fat in it – I added about 2 T. to the entire recipe, so really hardly any at all. With all that acid, the avocados stayed perfectly green for many days.

What I didn’t like: it was just a tad too soupy to me, so that’s why I’ve reduced the vinegar and water in the recipe below – add more if you think it needs it. You don’t want it floating all over your plate!

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MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file, run MC, then File|Import

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