Fennel. Fresh fennel, in the bulb. I think I first had it in about 1985, served to me by a friend. She and her husband are Italian, and she shaved thin pieces into a green salad. I was blown away by the taste, asked her about it, and have been using it ever since. I buy a fennel bulb every week or so and usually it’s reserved for salads, in small little slivers. I rarely take the time to shave the fennel with a potato peeler to get the paper-thin type I was originally served. I even enjoy munching on raw fennel too. It’s like celery, but with more flavor. The hint of anise in fennel is very subtle.And my friend Joan brought some fabulous Baked Fennel with Parmigiano-Reggiano one time to an Italian meal we shared with travel friends when we were heading for a trip to Tuscany together. I’ve written up that recipe already – click on the title in the previous sentence to get to it. But, other than that dish, I’ve not had it cooked. Until now, that is.

I don’t remember where I was referred to the blog, Rustic Food, or just “Rustic.” But Batul lives in England and uploads some very interesting recipes now and then. A recipe has not been posted since January, however, so Batul must be on hiatus. The recipes are different, with lots of Middle Eastern overtones. This one is no exception. Fennel Fritters. They sounded so unusual. I printed out the recipe nearly a year ago, but just made them to accompany a grilled steak for our dinner. My DH loved them. I loved them.

Here you see what the diced up fennel and onion looked like. I did this by hand, so I could control the size better than in the food processor. But, you might be able to use the processor on this anyway. I didn’t have fresh dill, unfortunately, but used some dried (never as good). I had Greek feta on hand, which is a bit less salty than some, so did add a little bit of salt. Taste it before you add the raw egg and make a decision about that yourself. I also added a few grinds of black pepper and about a tablespoon of sour cream to the mixture.They were very easy to fry – just a little bit of olive oil in a nonstick pan, and the fritters/pancakes took about 2 – 3 minutes per side, I’d say. Maybe less on the 2nd side. They were easy to turn, even though the mixture is quite soft. You don’t get little air bubbles to tell you they’re ready to turn, like you do with pancakes. Have a heated oven and hot plate standing by, so you can transfer them to keep warm while you do another batch.

Fennel, when cooked, turns into this lovely smooth texture and very mellow. But the fennel in these fritters doesn’t cook completely – there’s still a bit of crunch to it. The pancake reminded me of egg fu yung, something I haven’t seen on Chinese restaurant menus since I was a youngster. Eggy. Soft. I’ll be making this again. I had some sour cream languishing in the refrigerator, so also put a little dollop on each pancake to serve. Batul’s recipe called for a dollop of yogurt on each fritter. But, it really doesn’t need it. Really. The original recipe didn’t say how many it served. I thought maybe about 4 (leftovers, thank you), but oh well. They’re low in calorie and fat. We ate them all, except for one lone pancake. So plan accordingly. Or maybe you can have more restraint than we did.
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Did you know that there are people out there who do nothing but proofread? It sounds like a pretty boring job to me, but it’s oh-so-very necessary. I think they’re now called “copy editors,” but I’m not sure since I worked in advertising, not in the publishing world. I bring this up because I wish I’d had one when I hit the “publish” button a few days ago. One nice feature of blogging software is spell checkers. Good thing. Even though I consider myself a very good speller (I even came in 2nd in a spelling bee back in junior high school), when you type and read, and re-read your own copy (the word copy means the text) you often make typing, spelling and grammatical mistakes. And when you go back and re-phrase things, move sentence structure around sometimes, you forget to go look at sentences from beginning to end.

Most of my recipes reside within my own recipe software program. I’ve mentioned it before, MasterCook. It’s a great little program. But, it’s only as good as the human (frail as we are) person who types in the ingredients and taps in the instructions. Some years ago I printed out a completed copy of all of my recipes and they live in two huge 3-ring binders here in my kitchen. When I go back and refer to them I sometimes notice little things about the recipes that need fixing. I’ve done a global spell-check of my complete cookbook, but there are some small errors that need to be fixed. Grammatical errors. Dangling participles. Detached phrases. Incomplete sentences. So I’ve attached little yellow stickies here and there to remind me to do that. One of these days I’ll get to it and fix all of them. The trouble is, as perhaps many of you have noticed yourselves, unless you have a GRAMMAR checker, you don’t know when a sentence contains something out of order. Like when you type is instead of it. The spell checker won’t notice that because the word is correctly SPELLED.

That’s why proofreaders, or copy editors, are so needed in the life of the printed word. To digress momentarily, during all the years I worked in the advertising field, and during the 17 years my business partner Audre and I owned an agency, we spent hours every week proofreading. We didn’t have copy editors, or someone who did nothing but that. All account exec reciprocated with one another to proofread everything that went out of the house. Sometimes ads were proofread more than once. Not enjoyable time, but vital. If we ran an ad for a company and misspelled the name of an important piece of equipment used, especially acronyms, or wrote in that the applicant needed 10 years of experience, when in fact they only needed 1, those were glaring errors, and our client wasn’t very pleased about paying big bucks when they might get very few applicants or applicants that were not at all qualified for the position.

That particular ad business is called recruitment advertising. There are lots of these firms out there and most people don’t even know they exist. Lots of HR departments don’t choose to spend time writing up and placing ads in newspapers and professional journals (or on Monster either) as their time is much better spent interviewing people. So recruitment ad agencies do that for them. That’s what we used to do. Big ads, splashy ads, color ads, but mostly they were the smaller in-line black and white ads in local papers under the help wanted section. Ads for accountants, clerks, engineers, production people, scientists, nurses. You name it, we’d write up ads for them. Each of the account execs (we had about 7 or so) wrote up the individual ads and then they got proofread with someone else to make sure all the details got included, and that the fine print, like the company’s phone number, address, and company name were spelled correctly. We proofread for spelling and completion, but also for grammar too.

Although recruitment ads generally use a kind of “help wanted shorthand” too. Lots of incomplete sentences. Lots of words left out, to save space. Space is money.
So, we get to the crux of the matter. When I typed in the recipe for the Bloomin’ Bread the other day (thank you again, Karen, for this awesome recipe), I failed to notice that there was no olive oil in the list of ingredients, but it was included in the instructions. I should have noticed. I’m pretty good at that kind of thing, usually. But not that day! Often when I type in a new recipe (here at home anyway) I re-write the instructions. To make them more clear, or in the proper order. Or to elaborate on something too. So my apologies to anybody who had already printed out my recipe for the Bloomin‘ Bread – it contains a little error. It really is a small error – it’s only 1/4 cup (or less) of olive oil. But what’s pesto, for goodness’ sake, without some olive oil, I ask you?

Fortunately, I think that if any of my readers out there DID try it without the olive oil, it probably tasted just fine. But, to be true to the recipe, the pesto does include a little bit of oil. Perhaps less than a traditional pesto, which is fine because the cream cheese and goat cheese both add fat.

If you want a corrected PDF recipe of the Bloomin’ Bread, click here

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I come from the school of taste that says cookies are supposed to be crisp. I suppose I should qualify that – most cookies are meant to be crisp. Surely there are some that simply can’t be crisp by their very nature. My mother loved persimmons, and every year she made persimmon cookies. More like little bite-sized cakes than cookies to me. I like persimmons, but not that kind of soft cookie. My preference, always, is for crisp. Some years ago I read a very in-depth article in Gourmet Magazine about cookie standards, and exactly what makes a cookie come out crisp vs. soft, vs. crisp outside, soft inside. That kind of thing. It was fascinating reading the chemistry of it all. I still have the article, although I rarely refer to it.

One thing I know for sure is that using butter makes for a crisp cookie. I haven’t used margarine for anything in many, many years. I used to use Plugra unsalted for all my baking, but have found that it’s too HIGH in butterfat, if you can believe that! So I use grocery store types at the high price end because I don’t want butter that is watered down. Grocery store brands usually contain less butterfat and added water. So I use Danish Creamery, or something similar. I always keep a pound of butter in the refrigerator and usually one in the freezer. Just in case I feel inspired.

Last night after I’d gone upstairs to go to bed, my DH’s blood sugar went a little low, so he rooted in the freezer hoping to find a frozen cookie somewhere. No luck whatsoever. We ate the last of the homemade cookies about 3 months ago. Since my broken foot on July 6th, there’s been zip-zero-nada baking going on in this kitchen unless he did it. He’s never made cookies in his entire life, so that wasn’t about to happen! But, now that I have my walking papers, he said, please make some cookies. As a Type I diabetic, my DH doesn’t eat many desserts. Or at least, he’s very careful about when and why he eats anything sweet. But he does enjoy an occasional cookie. Some sweets I’m able to incorporate Splenda, so he can have all he wants. I have yet to try chocolate chip cookies using all Splenda. They might be just fine.

Over the years I’ve collected plenty of cookie recipes and make a variety throughout the year, and enjoy having something stashed in the freezer for the occasional afternoon cup of tea, or a snack now and then. My first choice, though, is always chocolate chip. It used to be the usual back-of-the-bag Nestle’s recipe. But, because I’ve had trouble a time or two with the recipe (the cookies would come out too flat) I’ve made one significant change to the master recipe: I add approximately one tablespoon of additional flour to the mixing bowl. If I happen to use Plugra butter (remember, more butterfat) I add 2 tablespoons. I’m also a fan of chocolate chip cookies WITH nuts. Any nuts could be okay, but walnuts just float my boat, as they say. So, these cookies are chocolate chocolate chip walnut cookies.

This time I wanted to do something different, so I added 2 heaping tablespoons of Dutch process cocoa to the batter too. And, I used Nestle’s relatively new “Chcolatier” chips that are made with bittersweet chocolate, rather than the usual milk chocolate chips in the yellow bag. So these are really chocolate bittersweet chocolate-chip cookies with walnuts, with 1 T. of added flour.

A few months ago I had trouble finding Dutch Process cocoa when I ran out, so since I needed some new spices and herbs anyway, I ordered it through Penzey’s. If you don’t know about Penzey’s, you’re missing a real treat. I buy nearly all my herbs and spices from them now. Even though I live in a busy urban area teeming with grocery stores, and my local markets carry just about everything. But nobody had Dutch Process cocoa. This cocoa from Penzey’s is fragrant and dark. The label says it has twice as much cocoa in it as grocery store varieties. Good!

I don’t know about you, but I always make one pan of cookies to make sure the batter is right. That’s what I did here, and they came out just fine. And if you don’t have one of these scoops shown above, you should. If you’re a cookie baker, this scoop makes short work of putting the dough onto sheets. I use large sheet pans with a Silpat on each one. There are three sizes of scoops – they’re made in Britain. This one is the tablespoon size. The larger is more for muffin sized scoops. The smallest, the teaspoon size, I don’t know what I’d use for. My scoop came from the Baker’s Catalog (the one associated with King Arthur Flour). Click here if you’re interested.

If you want the recipe, click here for the original Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie from Nestle’s site. If you use rich butter, just add a T. of extra flour, and about 2 T. of Dutch Process cocoa. Dutched cocoa is processed differently than regular cocoa, a very fine smooth powder that easily dissolves in liquid and disperses in baked goods.

So, DH, these are for you. Look in the freezer in the Ziploc bags in the door. So, excuse me, I need to make a cup of tea.

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Who’s he, you ask? Well, Jack Orr was my Dad. And he made an extraordinary soup when the mood struck him. It didn’t strike often, and only when he was away from home. This is the only cooked thing my dad ever made except for grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and an occasional steak. And those were all on the outdoor grill. At home, if he had a hankering for this soup at home, he insisted my mother had to make it. But when he was on a trip visiting relatives or friends, and it was the right season, he’d offer to make “his” lentil soup.

My Dad was an engineer. He liked things to be lined up just so, whether it was transistors on the workbench, ohmmeter manuals on the shelf, pencils in his pocket (you know, those little plastic sleeves? yep, he had them) or vegetables on the cutting board. When dicing and mincing for this soup, each vegetable also needed to be cut “just so” in size. And he didn’t like to make this alone. He always wanted somebody to be there to fetch things for him. When my parents would come to visit over Christmas, this soup was a standard event one evening for sure. I did my best to have all the ingredients on hand every year. My Dad would pamper this soup for several hours, although once you add the lentils, they do reach a point when the texture of the lentil may go over the hill if it continues to cook.

The first order of business was the bacon. It was minced up fairly small, then allowed to render in a moderately warm pan for awhile. Meanwhile, you began chopping and mincing the onions, celery, carrots and garlic. Part of the fun of making this was the drama my dad made out of it. He really wanted an audience, and because it was my kitchen, that would normally be me as his number one fan club and schlepper. We tasted things often, added this and that, tasted again. Thyme was a necessary addition. I love the herb, so was glad to fetch that. Sometimes a quick trip to the market was required for something – maybe a fresh bag of dried lentils or an additional can of chopped tomatoes. When it was finally done everybody needed to ooh and aah a lot, otherwise my dad’s feelings would be hurt. He wanted his efforts to be recognized. And appreciate them we did.

One visit I decided I’d best write down his recipe. Although I will admit that his recipe was not precise in the least. Unlike the engineer in him, this was adaptable to what you had on hand, or from his whim to add something different.

As the years have gone by I have added the Italian sausage to the soup, and that’s the way I make it all the time. So the recipe below accounts for my tastes (sausage, more dried herbs, always some carrots, sometimes using low sodium chicken broth instead of water).

My daughter Dana doesn’t like soup. Or stew. Still doesn’t particularly like soup or stew, but will eat a few kinds if push comes to shove. When she was young she wouldn’t eat this. My Dad simply couldn’t understand how anybody wouldn’t like his lentil soup. He did everything in his power to cajole Dana to have just a little bit. And maybe she did try a couple of mini-spoons, but she didn’t like doing it. But she’s come around as an adult. Maybe it’s just because it’s her grandpa’s soup. I don’t know, but at least she will eat it now. My Dad has been gone about 11 years now, but his legacy lives on in this recipe. I hope when you make this, somebody will ooh and aah about it. My dad will be smiling from heaven.

Ideally this should be made a day ahead. You know how soups and stews are – they really like to meld their flavors over a 24+ hour period. But most times this was started in the morning and eaten for dinner along with some sourdough rolls. You might want to work this into your fall repertoire so it’s ready for cooler weather when it arrives. Here in So. California it’s going to be 86 today, so I’m not quite ready to slave over a hot stove. But this will be on my list as soon as it turns cooler. I don’t have any left in my freezer, so it needs a new supply.
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Hooray. We’re home from our trip. Exhausted, but home. We flew out of Philadelphia at about 5 pm yesterday. Our flight was cancelled, but we were re-booked to Chicago O’Hare, then to L.A. Arrived at LAX at 11:45 pm California time, and made the fastest trip from the airport to home, ever. About 45 minutes from Parking Lot B to the garage. I saw the doctor this morning and I have an okay to do anything reasonable. Still have some pain walking, every step, so need to do some exercises 3x a day to loosen up those tendons that have atrophied during my long sojourn without walking. But, now that I don’t have to wear the gosh darned BOOT, I can stand. Made my first grocery store visit (Trader Joe’s) this morning.

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OMG. This bread. Oh, this bread. It is so out of this world, I can’t believe it. While we were visiting with our friends Karen & Phil, where they now live in a town west of Allentown (Bethlehem) Pennsylvania, she showed me her 3-ring binder that has become her “favorite recipes” file. I always enjoy leafing through other people’s recipe collections. So, I ran across this recipe for bread, mentioned something about it to Karen and she said, let’s have that for dinner.

This picture shows you what it looked like, slathered each direction and ready to be sealed up in foil. You can visualize the concept from the title – like the bloomin’ onions from Outback Steakhouse. But this bread, of course, isn’t deep fried, but it blooms something like it. It’s such a clever idea, why didn’t I think of it? You make a batch of fresh pesto, mix it with cream cheese and goat cheese, spread it on the bloomin’ style cut of the bread, bake and serve. The cutting of the bread is not difficult, but does require a good bread or serrated knife. You cut the bread almost through, turn the bread 90 degrees and cut again almost through, thus creating these little tall towers or cubes of bread about 3/4 inch or up to 1 inch square and about 2 inches high. Higher if you use a taller loaf, of course. Then you slather the pesto mixture on all 4 sides of the bread. Use a big plastic spatula and spread the cheese mixture down into the bread. Try to cover all sides of each little tower. It does this without working too hard at it if you just do it like you would sliced bread.

Once baked, you grab the very top of each tower and pull. Usually it breaks off right at the base and you have this warm, soft, garlicky mushy bite of unbelievable bread. What was left on the bottom (see picture at top) was cut up into pieces, baked in a hot oven very briefly and became croutons for the Caesar salad we had with dinner. Get thyself to the grocery store and try this. My only suggestion: Karen decided to use ready-made pesto this time since we were tight on time. But the garlic flavor is much less pronounced, so I’d add more fresh garlic to the cheese mixture in the food processor, then add pesto to your liking.
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We’re on the home stretch with peaches these days. Now is the time to make or freeze any of those peach favorites before it’s too late. I still have some sliced peaches in the freezer from LAST summer that didn’t get made into peach ice cream, as I’d intended, until sometime soon. A couple of weeks ago my friend Cherrie and I attended a cooking class with Tarla Fallgatter. Tarla made mostly tapas, and certainly not traditional ones for sure. But the group always wants a touch of sweet at the end, so Tarla whipped up this very simple dessert. Very homey. Very comfort food. Very peachy.

It’s more cake than it is fruit, and it doesn’t serve out into squares or shapes, so Tarla used a large scoop for it. She had forgotten the vanilla ice cream to serve with it, so we drizzled a bit of half and half on top. I’d recommend the ice cream. You can use any kind of stone fruit for this, but this one was peaches and raspberries. It was still warm, almost hot out of the oven. Delicious.
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Fresh tuna, scallops and shrimp on skewers.
The Main Dining Room at Seaview. This used to be a country club when my DH was growing up. Now it’s a Marriott. Absolutely lovely. Near Absecon (ab-SEE-con), right on the water. Lovely setting, huge hotel, golf, and dining room.

Eggs Benedict ala Seaview

View from the hotel to the shore

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What fun, when you are served something that is a known quantity (green beans) and they’re cooked in an altogether different, new way. You think you know every way possible to make simple green beans. Not so. People who live around these parts (South Jersey, it’s called) are quite proprietary about their corn and tomatoes. My DH swears that he’s never tasted anything like Jersey corn and Jersey tomatoes. None, anywhere, compare to the texture and flavor he remembers from his youth. I’ve had them before when visiting here, but it was never so good as last night.

Our hosts, Meredith & Harry, served us a delicious dinner of grilled lamb, Jersey corn, Jersey tomatoes with basil, Jersey cucumbers in a sour cream sauce and Jersey green beans. Absolutely delicious, every mouthful. The corn – Jersey corn – was young ears, and beyond tender. Like melting in your mouth, almost. No butter or seasoning. Fabulous! But it’s the green beans that I went back to for seconds. Meredith told me how she made them. And excuse me, I may go grab some for breakfast. They were that good. Very, very garlicky. Hmmm. Breakfast, you say? Where’s the mouthwash?

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC – 14 contains photo)

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All the homes along Cape May, NJ are up high – to weather the hurricanes that might blow through. This was a gorgeous private home along the ocean front. Wish I could have stopped in for a spot of tea. Doesn’t that look like the kind of place where it would be ever-so nice to sit in the front room and have some tea?

View from the restaurant where we had dinner the other night in Somers Pt. NJ

View from Ocean City across one of the inlets. Marshland in the foreground.
Stove Pipe mushrooms growing in the front yard of our hosts. Funny-looking things.
Some of the friends going to the 50th high school reunion in a vintage car. Our hosts, Dave and Ellie are in the center. My DH is on the right. Another friend, Kathy, far left.

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