One of my favorite blogs that I read regularly is Homesick Texan. Lisa Fain, the native Texan who’s homesick but lives in New York City, has become famous in the blogging world because she’s recently had her own cookbook published, aptly titled The Homesick Texan Cookbook (of course). I started reading Lisa’s blog years ago, and enjoy her writing style and love her recipes. As she explains about this recipe, she picked up an old (used) cookbook from her grandmother’s shelves – one of those community-based ones, like the Lakeland Baptist Church Women’s Club – you know, that kind of thing. Hers was a North Texas type cookbook, and this recipe jumped out at her.

Cheese balls certainly used to be big-time popular. I certainly remember them from back in  “the day.” I’ve made many over the ensuing decades, and my one and only (that’s here on my blog) is a Bombay Cheese Ball. But last week I wanted to try something new and this one is really quite easy. If you have some leftover bacon strips from breakfast, that will cut down on the cooking time. It’s the only thing that must be cooked; otherwise it’s just a variety of ingredients either added to the cream cheese or chopped up finely for rolling the cheese ball in, to make it look pretty.

I was surprised the bacon flavor wasn’t more prominent – but maybe I needed some of the bacon fat included. I used thick sliced. My cousin Gary, who helped cook while he was here over Christmas, made this, actually. I cooked the bacon and grated the cheddar cheese. He did all the rest. I had a wicked sinus infection that started about the 20th of December and I didn’t begin to get better until Christmas morning (a full 3 days after I started taking an antibiotic), so Gary really was helpful in the kitchen.

We served it 3 times over several days, and each time I just sort-of mashed the cut side flat and put it that side down on the plate and nobody knew it had already been served before. The last chunk of it I mixed up with some chopped-up Brie and about 2 ounces of chopped smoked salmon and made a batch of the Smoked Salmon Pillows you’ll find on my blog from a couple of months ago.

What I liked: certainly the flavor. The bacon, the cilantro, the garlic, even the lime juice. Also liked the spiciness of it. Liked the nuts which added a nice crunch to it. It kept for several days too.

What I didn’t like: only thing was the way the outside coating completely covered the ball – I think it would be nice to see some of the cheese – just prettier, that’s all. So chop up those coating items more coarsely so they don’t totally envelop the cheese as you see in my photo.

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Oh goodness. I could have eaten an entire plate of these appetizers, they were so good. Hot, right out of the oven with that little dollop of tomato jam on top. Oh yes.

A couple of months ago my friend Cherrie and I went to a cooking class taught by a private chef, Megan Barnett. Her class was all about bacon, yet she managed to give us a whole variety of different dishes. I’ll be sharing at least one more recipe from the class (a winter greens salad). She also made shrimp and grits, a buttery mac ‘n cheese, and a pork belly dish. I already have a great shrimp and grits recipe, rarely make mac ‘n cheese although it was truly delicious, and didn’t care for the pork belly (in an Asian marinade and sauce). But these cheese bites? Yes, yes.

First you have to make the tomato jam – there’s not much to making it, really – except a bit of time spent over the stove. You could use any leftovers for sandwiches or in any kind of sauce. The cheese mixture is easy to put together too – although you do have to cook up the bacon first. Otherwise, it’s very easy to make. Then the mixture is spread on baguette slices (clear out to the edges) and broiled. Done. Dollop on the jam and serve. You can’t have just one, I guarantee!

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Actually, I didn’t make these. Tarla Fallgatter made them at the cooking class here at my house a week or so ago. They looked incredibly easy, really. She did, however, make them with smoked salmon (so you don’t even have to cook the salmon since it’s smoked-cooked). But I liked these well enough that I might even try them with regular salmon. However, I think you’d need to cook the salmon before making up the filling. In either case, though, they looked very easy to put together. Yes, it’s done with puff pastry. Trader Joe’s sells it in flat boxes and you just need to defrost it well before starting on this. See photo at right. It’s an 18-ounce package.

The filling is a mixture of the salmon, some goat cheese, chives, a tiny bit of egg and a little bit of cream. See, I told you it was easy. The remaining egg  is gently brushed on top of each of the little pillows.

You roll out the the puff pastry to a 12-inch square. Tarla’s instructions said she put 9 little mounds of salmon, but I see from the photo that initially she made 12. I think she removed 3 and made it 9 (see 2nd and 3rd photos). I was busy taking pictures and didn’t see her do that.

After folding over the one side of the pastry, she gently pressed her fingers around each filling mound. She cut them with a rounded-edged cutter. I don’t have blunt-edged pastry cutters, but she said a small glass would work – someone else suggested a shot glass. Yes, those would work just fine.

Once the pillows were cut out and placed on a pastry-lined baking sheet, she poked each one in the top (for steam to escape), then brushed them just on the top (not down the sides) with egg yolk. It’s important to NOT let any of the egg glaze go over the sides as that will prevent the pillow from rising properly. Tarla didn’t chill them, but the instructions say to chill for awhile before baking. Do let them cool for 5-10 minutes before serving so people don’t burn their mouths! But do serve them warm.

What I liked: very tasty – full of taste, actually. And as long as you have all the ingredients, they’re quite easy to make. It’s not like you have to make the puff pastry – just buy it. They make a very elegant appetizer.

What I didn’t like: although I liked the smoked salmon, I think maybe the regular salmon would be even better, but that’s just my personal taste.

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The first time I had this was probably 50 years ago. Oh my goodness, do I feel old writing that! The recipe, if you can call it that since it’s nothing more than a couple of ingredients, is from my friend Linda’s mother, Van (Linda is a childhood friend that I still see once in awhile, and she still lives just a few doors from the house I grew up in, in San Diego). Anyway, Linda’s parents are both deceased now. But her dad loved to fish, and he caught hundreds and hundreds of pounds of tuna each year. The family would have a tuna-canning-fest. I can still remember being given a couple of the short, fat Mason jars packed full of tuna, garlic and onion, as I recall. I don’t believe it was smoked tuna, but just “canned” tuna. Van had a big canning kettle and I vaguely remember the family all complaining about the big job it was, to can dozens and dozens of jars of tuna.

Tuna isn’t something we eat with as much regularity anymore, what with the amount of mercury in it. On Wikipedia I found this statement about tuna: Due to their high position in the food chain and the subsequent accumulation of heavy metals from their diet, mercury levels can be high in larger species such as bluefin and albacore. Also, according to Wikipedia, a can of StarKist brand tuna contains about 10 TIMES the amount of mercury as other similarly labeled grocery-shelf tuna.

I’ve told you, my readers, about the albacore tuna that I do buy online, though. It’s by Carvalho Fisheries. They catch young tuna, and as such, younger tuna haven’t consumed enough metals in the sea to have as much measurable mercury in their flesh. I’ve been buying Carvalho’s tuna for about 8-9 years now. Each time, I buy a 12-pack of regular low mercury albacore in its own juices. Last time I ordered I also got some salmon and some smoked albacore. That’s when I started using the smoked version in this simple-easy appetizer.

First, though, you cut up half of a red onion, cut that half in half, peel it and remove the ends, then  thinly slice the onion. As thin as possible. Into a bowl those little slivers go. I add water to cover, then add a jolt (probably about 2 T. ) of vinegar or red wine vinegar and let that sit for 30-60 minutes. What that does is remove the harshness of raw onion – soaked onions make that raw onion taste mild and sweet. If you’d like it actually “sweet,” just add a little dash of sugar to the brine and you’ll have sweet onions. Phillis Carey shared that tip with one of the many cooking classes I’ve been to, and it’s a great little trick.

There you can see one of the crackers (I prefer crackers to bread, but it’s completely up to you) with a little bit of the big flakes or shards of tuna with the onions on top. Makes two delicious bites per Vinta cracker. Nothing else is needed – no sauce – no mayo – no nothin’. It’s just good the way it is.

When I make this I start an hour ahead, soak the red onions and leave them out on the kitchen counter. Then I open the can of tuna, put it on some kind of tray or plate, the onions in a small bowl and surround it with crackers. How simple is that?

There’s a photo from Carvalho’s website of the Coastal Albacore. It’s a traditional tuna-sized can. I still have several in my pantry at the moment, just waiting for my next tuna recipe. My favorite is the Sicilian Tuna Salad. Pasta, herbs, a delicious lemony dressing, and the tuna.

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So the story goes, there’s a market (grocery store) in Houston called the Central Market. I’ve never been to Houston (except at the airport), so have no personal experience at this mega-market. But apparently they make something there call “Love Dip.” It’s a big favorite of a lot of Houstonians, and the market will not release a single thing about how they make it. So someone in the Food department at the Houston Chronicle decided to try to replicate it; hence, their version (no longer online) tastes quite similar. They called it “Mock Love Dip.” Lisa, from the Homesick Texan blog adapted it from their recipe, to remind her of her hometown (she lives in NYC now), and she wrote it up on her blog in 2007.

I made it back then – this was before I’d started my own blog – so I didn’t photograph it. Just fixed it, served it, and enjoyed it. A friend of ours (who spent a lot of years in Houston) asked me recently if I’d heard of Love Dip. Well, indeed I had. And I thought it probably was on my blog. But no, it wasn’t. We’re fixing that right now!

As so often happens, as I go about the prep for a recipe, I find I don’t have something in the ingredient list. In this case, I didn’t have any salsa. BUT, I had all the ingredients to make salsa, so I just added those in kind of willy-nilly to the food processor bowl, and I decided to use up a half of an avocado I had in the fridge. Now the avocado isn’t an original ingredient in this dip, so if you want to make Love Dip true to it’s Houston Chronicle version, eliminate that. And as luck would have it, I didn’t have 8 ounces of cream cheese either, but I did have 4 ounces, and a 5-ounce little log of soft goat cheese. So I used them both.  I also added lime juice, not lemon, but that’s a fairly easy exchange. I hope Lisa will forgive me for tinkering with her recipe!

Most likely I also added more of the salsa ingredients than she did too – here’s a picture of what I put in it. I didn’t exactly measure it, just tossed those things in the workbowl. I love cilantro anyway, so wanted more of that in any case. From the top: both yellow and red cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, a part of an Anaheim chile, green onions and cilantro.

First, though, I whizzed up the two cheeses to get those blended before I added veggies. Then I added in everything else (except the lemon and lime juice). Lastly you add the citrus. I tasted it several times to add in a bit more salt and pepper, and another little squeeze of lime juice. I used more than Lisa indicated, but you use your own taste buds to determine what’s right for your palate.

What I like: how EASY this dip is to make. Well, especially if you have some salsa right on your refrigerator shelf. There’s nothing to it, really. I like the fact that there are a good amount of veggies in this – so you’re getting some fiber along with the cheese! It also keeps for a few days too, and it’s versatile – not only can it be a dip, but you can use it as a sauce for chicken or fish. I like it with fresh veggies, but you can also use chips, pita bread, baguette (toasted) slices, or crackers.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. It’s delish. Is it healthy? Well, probably not very, with all the cheese in it, but you could use low-fat cream cheese. I’d bet you couldn’t taste the difference. I just didn’t have any.

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Most everybody’s heard of The Moosewood Cookbook. This recipe comes from that book. I don’t own it, but found numerous references online about it. But then, my friend Sue, who fixed it for us when we were visiting, has changed the recipe a little bit – or maybe somebody else did. In either case, it’s not any longer the Moosewood recipe – it really has become her recipe. But we won’t quibble over this. Suffice to say this is one very great recipe. Delicious. Easy. Even a bit on the healthy side (feta, of course, does have fat in it and so do walnuts, but that latter is healthy fat).

You need to make this dip. Just toasted walnuts, some feta cheese, a bit of water (to help lubricate the blender so it will puree), some cayenne, paprika, parsley and a little bit of olive oil. Whiz it up and you’re DONE. See, I said it was easy. If you read the notes below, you’ll find the original list of ingredients, and I’m suggesting that you can use all or some of the variations. If you like garlic, add it. Or oregano. Use cilantro instead of parsley, maybe. Try low-fat feta cheese. Whatever combination is up to you, but just make it. Thanks again, Sue. She is such a good cook (she’s blushing as she reads this)!

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A year ago: Pineapple Aachar Relish
Two years ago: Peach Cobbler
Three years ago: Barbecued Beans

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This recipe had been languishing in my to-try file for about 5 years, just waiting for the right opportunity when I had some good tasting, ripe and very red tomatoes. This is a Mario Batali recipe, from his cookbook that he did with some help by Gweneth Paltrow, Spain…A Culinary Road Trip. But actually, I’d clipped the recipe from an article in Food and Wine Magazine.

In the headnote to the recipe, Mario explained that the tomato concoction resembles a gazpacho – the very traditional type they make in Spain – that contains a goodly amount of fresh, toasted country bread in it. Since I love gazpacho, I thought this was a shoe-in for me.

You start with some freshly chopped garlic, then add the chunked-up tomatoes (no need to peel or seed them) into a food processor. Add some olive oil, sherry vinegar (an essential ingredient – do not substitute regular vinegar) and some salt and pepper. That’s IT. I stopped the processor once to scrape down the sides and blended it until it was smooth. Poured it into a serving bowl and refrigerated it for a few hours before serving.

Now, the garnishes are a little unusual. The recipe calls for Serrano ham, a unique ham from Spain. A quite salty ham in case you’ve never had it. In Spain the ubiquitous noontime snack is a ham sandwich. Almost always made with Serrano ham. I could hardly eat such sandwiches because the meat is SO salty. I’m not even sure you can buy Serrano ham in the U.S., so I substituted some andouille sausage I had on hand. Then I added the diced-up hard boiled egg. From the photo at top, you can see the little bowls of both. But I’d suggest that if you garnish the baguette slices (with the dip on top) it’ll be a lot easier than asking your guests to do it. If you had shaved pieces of ham, that might be fine. If you had slices of egg, that might work too, but to get diced egg and diced ham to stick on the dip was difficult. Just so you know.

What I liked: The flavor was wonderful. Everybody liked it – we had a bunch of family at our home that day and even the grandkids liked it. You don’t have to add on the ham or egg. But in any case, the flavor combo was really delicious. I’d make it again. The recipe also said that if you have leftovers of this, just add some water (a little bit) and serve it as gazpacho (soup). The dip was also very easy to make!

What I didn’t like: As I explained 2 paragraphs ago, diced garnishes were a bit difficult to stick to the dip, so either compose the bread slices in the kitchen or make the ham and egg pieces much larger.

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Three years ago: Sweet and Sour Eggplant
Four years ago: Joan’s Pasta Salad (one of my favorites)

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We’re back home from our 8-day trip to Colorado. And I need to write up some posts just about the journey and the sights we saw, places we stayed, etc. Plus, I have several posts to write about some of the delicious food Sue fixed for us while we were there. Meanwhile, here’s a recipe I made before we left – and I took some of it along to give to Sue & Lynn, our gracious hosts in Denver.

It must have been a year ago that I purchased David Lebovitz’ book – a memoir of his life in Paris – called The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City. I started reading it, got about half way through and somehow the book got put down somewhere – under something or filed in a book shelf somewhere – and I couldn’t find it. Then just recently it popped up in that unlikely place and I picked up where I’d left off. At the end of each chapter he inserts a recipe. Some of them I’d already read on his blog, and perhaps I’d read this one there too, but it didn’t galvanize me into action like it did this time.

A nut mix that’s baked with an elusive glaze. If I didn’t know what was in it because I made it, I’d never have suspected there was smoked paprika in it. Or unsweetened cocoa, either. Or cinnamon, for that matter! And because there’s not a lot of any of those spices, none of them overwhelms. But put together, the mixture is ever so delicious. There is some sugar (dark brown) and some maple syrup. And a touch of butter. And pretzels. In my mixture above, the pretzels I used were little short bite-sized logs rather than the twisted pretzels he called for in his recipe. And I used hazelnuts, cashews and macadamia nuts in my mixture (you can vary what you put into it). You combine half pretzels and half nuts.

The mixture gets tossed with all of the glaze ingredients and it’s roasted for about 15 minutes, cooled, then you do have to break the stuff apart (the sugar acts as a kind of glue/glaze – although it’s nowhere near that kind of sweet). In one recipe he said it will keep a week; in another he suggests 5 days. Anyway, use it up in a few days.

This would make a really nice hostess gift too – just attach a little note that suggests eating it soon. Likely this mixture would not freeze well with the sugar glaze on it. I haven’t tried it, but my instinct is no, don’t try. Just know this is one of those recipes you need to make and eat.

What I liked about it: it was easy to make. I liked that I could vary the nuts and make it something a bit unusual. (He didn’t recommend walnuts in this mixture, fyi.) We ate them for about a week, with no noticeable change in flavor. We loved the flavor – the crispy sweet glaze that doesn’t overwhelm.

What I didn’t like: I do keep a supply of different nuts on hand in our garage refrigerator; but if I didn’t, I’d have had to make a trip to the market for nuts. I don’t stock pretzels in my house at all, so a trip to the store was needed for those. Therefore, it’s not exactly something you could whip together at the last minute. And hopefully you’ll have it all eaten up before it gets stale since its shelf life is short.

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A year ago: Grilled Pound Cake with Balsamic Peaches
Three years ago: Cauliflower Tabbouleh (a real unusual salad – maybe not to everyone’s taste)
Four years ago: Grilled Sweet Potato Salad (a favorite)

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Last weekend we were invited to a Kentucky Derby party. It was great fun, with lots of good food to eat, and a big-screen TV to watch the horses and jockeys getting ready for the big race. The host passed a hat around the room with a pile of $2.00 tickets (bets) on all of the horses, so everyone at the party had one, and we knew there would be for sure one winner. Under 20 horses ran the race and there were over 20 of us at the party, so a few guests had chits for the same horse. I don’t know a darned thing about race horses (other than immensely enjoying reading the book Seabiscuit: An American Legend a few years ago). I don’t own a big floppy hat (only one woman wore a hat – and it was one of those “fascinators” like we saw recently at the Royal Wedding). Hers was very cute, small and chic. Anyway, I grabbed one of the bet tickets and passed the hat on. My DH grabbed one and I paid no attention to what horse he drew. We sat with anticipation and watched the race, sipping delicious Mint Juleps. I do love those things! I knew my horse was #16 and I watched as they led the horse up into the gate and noted the jockey’s green silks with a red V on his back. As we all watched, riveted to the big screen, what happened but that green silk eased up, and up and up. And won! I hooped with excitement. And discovered that my DH had drawn the same horse. SO, all that said, it means that we each won $43.80, since Animal Kingdom (the horse) had odds of 20-1. What fun!

Everyone at the party brings something, so I made a feta dip/spread. A VERY easy dish to make – took about 10 minutes total to put it together. I had the recipe in my to-try file and had all the ingredients on-hand. The combo of feta cheese, olive oil, garlic, oregano, lemon juice and some herbs is whizzed up in the food processor, allowed to chill for awhile, then when it’s served you drizzle some olive oil on top and sprinkle it with some red chili flakes. Serve them with baked pita chips or pita crackers. It was a good dip or spread – salty for sure since the Israeli feta I had was relatively high in sodium. My advice is to choose a feta that’s lower in sodium since you also add some capers to it, and they’re salty too. The recipe started from a Cat Cora one I found in Southern Living last year, but I added to it (a bit of sour cream to try to tame the salt, the capers, the EVOO garnish) so it’s not any longer an authentic Greek spread. You can use this as a sauce if you thin it some with milk – I think it would be good on grilled (plain) chicken or particularly good on grilled fish like swordfish. The leftovers could be tossed with pasta too.

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Two years ago: Ham and Egg Cups with Pesto, Tomatoes and Mozzarella
Three years ago: Molten Chocolate Cake with Caramel Sauce
Four years ago: Baked Onions with Thyme

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Yes, I know. This looks like a vegetable, doesn’t it? And it can be served as one, but I’ve always served it as an appetizer. An unorthodox one, to be certain. Who serves green beans as an appetizer? Well, I do. Especially if you have a meal that is more carb-centric. I always like finding a recipe for a veggie-oriented appetizer – more healthy for us, I think. And this one certainly is – especially if you use egg whites (like Eggbeaters) instead of whole eggs. The original recipe I started with called for canned green beans. Yuck. I never used anything but fresh ones, left whole.

So, exactly what is this? Well, it’s a veggie dish with some onion, bell pepper, bread crumbs, Parmesan, sherry, garlic (lots) and seasonings. If you really want to make it look pretty, layer the green beans (pre-cooked to al dente) in one direction. That’s not hard to do because you leave the green beans whole. Once it’s baked, you can more easily cut the little rectangular shapes as servings. I did do that. I cut smallish cubes of the beans (barely holding together because of the eggs and bread crumbs) and served them on a large platter with a little spatula for people to help themselves. Actually the spatula is a cookie spatula, but it was the perfect size for serving this dish. Then I suggested people take a serving on an appetizer plate. With forks.

Be sure to layer the green beans in a casserole dish (or even an edged cookie sheet would work) so the beans are about 1/2 inch thick. Higher than that and the beans will fall apart when served – because the egg part kind of sinks to the bottom. My dish above was too small (so they were thicker than they should have been), so the beans did kind of fall apart when served. But it still tasted good. Nobody seemed to mind. And I served the leftover beans as a side veggie reheated in the microwave.

Where we live we have a small town in north central California called Gilroy, near Monterey. It’s the garlic capital of the world. Once a year they hold a Garlic Festival – always in mid-summer. When it’s way too hot to go to Gilroy, in my opinion. But they have ample booths and cooking contests. Everything possible is served with garlic, including garlic ice cream, in case you’re interested. We’ve never been to the festival. But we’ve stopped in the town and one time I purchased a cookbook of compiled recipes from local restaurants, festival contributors, farmers and growers. This recipe came from “The Garlic Cookbook,” one I must have given away awhile back. If you’re interested in garlic recipes, they have a section on their website with dozens of them (this one not included – probably too old).

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A year ago: Cranberry Pudding Cake
Three years ago: Almond Crusted Orange Roughy

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