A super easy pressure cooker recipe for country ribs. Not only was it easy, but the flavor of the sauce was outstanding. You can see the little pieces of onion in the sauce.

Going to the freezer, I grabbed a small package of the Berkshire pork we purchased last summer. I’m embarrassed to say that this is the first of it I’ve used (we bought a quarter of a 4-H Berkshire pig). My freezer has been just overflowing. I’ve not purchased any fresh meat for months (except for additional chicken which we eat often), in an attempt to use up some of the good stuff we have in the freezer. But with just two of us eating, it takes awhile to make much of a hole in the jam-packed freezer contents.

In addition, I didn’t even think about how I’d  prepare it. So I went to Eat Your Books, searched for “country ribs” and it told me in the short form what ingredients are in each recipe. Choosing one, yup, I had all that was needed. I can’t say that I have ever done country ribs in a pressure cooker. What a winner of a recipe this is. 25 minutes in the pressure cooker and it was done! Wow. Ordinarily I would have simmered the ribs for awhile in water, then we would have grilled them on the barbecue. Not needed with this recipe. It came from Pressure Cooking for Everyone by Richard Rodgers.

First the ribs were browned in oil in the pressure cooker pot. That was easy and took just a few minutes. The ribs were removed, then I lightly sautéed an onion, with a bit of garlic added in at the end. Catsup was added, some jalapeno jelly (or you could use apricot preserves instead), chili powder and some water to give it just enough saucy consistency. The ribs were added back in, on went the lid and I brought the pressure cooker up to steam and it cooked for 25 minutes. I brought the heat down right away by putting the pressure cooker under the cold water faucet in the sink. Done. While it had been hissing away I made a green salad and some cauliflower.

The pressure cooker pan did have a bit of grease in it, so I spooned that out, then scooped out the remaining barbecue sauce onto the cooked ribs. Oh, it was fantastic. This recipe was so easy – I’d make it again any day. And I just loved the flavor of the sauce.

What I liked: the flavor of the sauce was just right as far as sweet scale. Because the onions are chopped, they don’t disintegrate, and I liked that little bit of texture in the sauce too. Easy to make too. I loved how quickly it cooked too. Just what a pressure cooker is for!

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. (If you were going to make mashed potatoes or rice on the side, I’d suggest you double the amount of sauce as you’ll want some to spoon onto the side dish.)

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This time of year there isn’t all that much variety in fresh vegetables. We went to our local farmer’s market the other day and about all I saw was broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Swiss chard, cabbage and potatoes. Well, there were salad vegetables of many varieties (including some cute little baby turnips that the produce guy told me I should use like fresh radishes, which I did). Asparagus has begun to show up, but it’s early days for that treat, and most of the stalks available are pencil thin. Not the kind I prefer to buy, and they were really expensive too. So I bought cauliflower and broccoli.

But I needed a new way to make cauliflower, so I did a little search around and found a roasted version using thick planks, or slices (including the root end to hold it together). I google searched for “cauliflower slices” and a recipe from the Seattle Times matched up with my idea of what it should be – roasted at high heat and seasoned with oil and balsamic vinegar, plus a bit of butter. And some thyme. It was altogether easy to make – it cooked completely in my little Breville Smart Oven that my DH bought me for Christmas. What a fun tool that’s been for heating small things, broiling things and in this case roasting a small pan of cauliflower. Would you believe me if I told you that I’ve not owned a toaster oven before? So far, I’m loving it.

So, you have to slice the head – remove any of those leafy tendrils and then slice 1/2 inch planks, leaving the root on to hold the pieces together. Meanwhile, heat your oven, or toaster oven if you have one that can accommodate this, to 400°. I lined my tray with foil (for easy cleanup) then added the butter, along with the oil and balsamic – heat in the oven while you slice up the cauliflower. Dip the slices into the mixture, bake for 15 minutes, turn them over and bake another 10 and they’re done. If you happen to have some fresh thyme in your garden, sprinkle that on top. I didn’t so I sprinkled a bit of dried thyme instead. It was fork-tender and just really tasty.

What I liked: how easy it was to make and how quick it was to bake. My little toaster oven heated up in about 5 minutes, and then it bakes for a total of 25 minutes. Definitely I’d make it again.

What I didn’t like: nada, nothing. Next time I might try to use fresh thyme if I have it, but that’s a very minor detail. I can’t say that it looks all that pretty, but cauliflower is what it is – kinda bland looking no matter what you do to it or with it.The balsamic gives it a roasted color at least.

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My friend Gloria was telling me the other day about a chicken dish she’s been making for many years, and is a top favorite of her husband, Grant. A recipe she said she’d pulled out of a Martha Stewart Living magazine years and years ago. She didn’t have the recipe handy, but described it to me, so I went online to search, and voila! it was there at the website. This technology is amazing sometimes!

The recipe is very, very easy. Actually when I opened the pouch of chicken breast(s) I discovered there was just ONE in it. But it was a large one, and once I pounded the chicken to an even thickness between pieces of plastic wrap, there was ample for the two of us. I made several changes to the recipe: (1) I used a lot less sliced almonds [the recipe called for 1 1/2 cups for 4 servings]; (2) I left the almonds in their full sliced shape and didn’t chop them up [I wanted to see the bigger pieces, which also meant not as much stuck to the chicken, I suspect]; and (3) I drizzled the finished servings with a bit of freshly squeezed lemon juice [this part wasn’t even IN the recipe but I thought it needed a little something to brighten the taste]; (4) I didn’t bake them at all [the original recipe has you brown the chicken, then put the pan into a hot oven for 10 minutes]. Because I had pounded the breasts thinner, I  knew they wouldn’t need to go into the oven. They cooked in about 6 minutes on the stove top. I also sprinkled the top with some chopped Italian parsley, but that was just for show.

It’s really very very easy to make. I know, I said that already. Forgive me! The chicken breasts are dipped in a mixture of egg and a little tiny bit of water, into bread crumbs, then into the egg again, and finally into the almonds. They’re sautéed in a bit of oil and butter. That’s it! I drizzled the lemon juice onto each serving when it was on the plate and then sprinkled on the parsley. Dinner was cooked and on the table in less than 30 minutes.

What I liked: obviously, how easy it was. The flavor was good. Not exactly over the top – I mean, there’s just chicken, bread crumbs and almonds in it. Well, a little egg. And the lemon juice. It gets lovely-pretty brown (the little bit of butter helps that along). Next time I might try Panko crumbs instead of plain bread crumbs.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all. Next time I might possibly sprinkle the top with some lemon zest (you wouldn’t want to put it in the breading mixture because it would burn). I just didn’t think of doing  it this time.

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Check out the steam wafting up from those little grilling babies? An easy side dish for a weeknight meal, or for guests – although you will want to do the grilling at the last minute if at all possible.

Another winner of a recipe from Food52. And it was a winner of a contest at the website for the best Brussels sprouts recipe. Yes, they’re delicious. I know – the food blog police are going to come after me for over-using the word delicious. I need to write down a bunch of other adverbs to help me describe the taste of things. Let’s see . . . salty, succulent, good texture, bright with flavor . . . how’s that? They were all those thing as well.

First you simmer the whole Brussels in water (with a tiny slit in the root end) for exactly 5 minutes. Not a moment longer. Why? Because after they drain and cool, you’re going to grill them for awhile to get all that good blackened flavor all over them – and they cook sufficiently more on the grill. A bit of olive oil goes all over them, then they’re rolled or tossed in a simple mixture of pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, celery salt. You might be tempted to cut the sprouts in half, but don’t. They’ll take up too much room on the grill (well, at least they would on my indoor grill you see above in the photo) and they might fall apart more readily. So control the urge and just grill them whole. Takes about 12 minutes or so and then you sprinkle them with your choice of additions – lemon zest (yes, I did that one), Parmesan cheese (I did that one too, but most of it didn’t cling to the sprouts so what was the sense of wasting the cheese?) and/or bacon (I opted not to add this one). If you have any of the seasoning mixture you can toss the sprouts in that again after grilling them. I didn’t have any so they were ready to serve. There were 4 of us for dinner that night, and everyone slicked the plates clean. I’ll be making these again.

What I liked: how easy they were, and the seasoning mixture that clings to the outside edges. Oh, and the blackened pieces were so good! Definitely worth making.

What I didn’t like: well, the only thing I’ll mention is that I thought they were too salty. The original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of kosher salt. With the addition of celery salt too, I thought it was too much. Next time I’ll leave out the kosher salt and see how it tastes. I’ve made a note of it in the recipe. But I’m sensitive to salt in lots of things. No one else at the table noticed.

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Oh my goodness. Oh my gracious goodness, are you going to like this stuff. I could hardly keep my tasting spoon – that very spoon you see in the photo – out of the cruet.

It has so many possibilities – on a salad, yes, even a green salad. Or on sliced tomatoes. On green beans. On steamed cauliflower. On broccoli – oh yes, broccoli for sure. Or on some sliced beef (fresh out of the oven or with leftovers), or some sliced leftover pork roast. Or a dunk for shrimp. Or, or, or! The list could be endless.

The venerable duo of Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs have their own website. If you’re not already reading it, you should be – Food52. They’re the hard-working team who created (edited and wrote) the monstrous cookbook, The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century. Sorry for mentioning that book so frequently, but I surely do love that cookbook! Anyway, after Amanda and Merrill collaborated on that book, they decided to start something else because they so enjoyed working together. That’s what Food52.com is all about. That’s food 52 weeks a year, and a good part of their blog come from contributions from home cooks just like us. This recipe included.

As a part of their blogging (and it’s an ongoing thing) they have contests for everyone’s favorites. I think the duo does most of the honing down of lists, then they ask readers to try them, taste them and vote. As a result of that contest, a book was written, The Food52 Cookbook: 140 Winning Recipes from Exceptional Home Cooks. I gave the cookbook to two of my friends for Christmas. I wanted one for myself, but I know where all the recipes are on the site, so I printed out the ones I knew I’d want to try and have already prepared two of them. So far, so good! If you want to look at the contest winners, you can do just that with this link. This particular recipe by “linzarella” won for a category they call “wildcard.”

This dressing – or sauce – has such an unusual list of ingredients – it drew me in immediately. It’s yogurt, some crème fraiche, honey, lemon juice, lemon zest, Dijon, prepared horseradish, salt and pepper. That’s it. Combine it in a bowl, or even easier put it into a lidded jar and shake. Done. How easy is that?

Having read what people had to say about this recipe, I know that it’s delicious on green salad, even though that probably wasn’t its original intent. As Linzarella explained about her development of the recipe, she isn’t a fan of chiles, so she uses horseradish as a way to gives things a kick. What would it be good on? Sliced tomatoes. As a dip for artichokes. Or asparagus. It has a hint of sweetness to it, and you don’t use much on any one serving. I could even see it as a dollop on sliced oranges. You might think the horseradish would overwhelm – it doesn’t AT ALL. Unless you don’t like horseradish, in which case stop reading. It could be a dip – for vegetables even. And I’m always wanting some kind of something to put on top of leftover meat or fish – like chicken, shrimp, sliced beef (this would have a natural affinity for sliced roast beef), even pork, or lamb. Ah, halibut. My mouth is watering . . . Someone suggested it would be good with corned beef and cabbage. Sounds divine. Or if you’re wicked, just spoon it out of the bowl directly to mouth. Do note, using about a tablespoon per serving, there are just 22 calories and 1 gram of fat. This recipe is going onto my Carolyn’s Favs list, just so you know, in case that tells you anything!

The photo at right shows some of those Kumato tomatoes (they’re really good in case you haven’t tried them) with a dollop of the sauce on top, some freshly minced rosemary and a few little pieces of kumquat. And a little pepper too. This was absolutely delicious!

What I liked: oh, ahhh, just everything about it. Can’t wait to find other things to use it on … . .

What I didn’t like: can you guess? Nothing at all!

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As I’m writing this, my mouth is watering. Just remembering the slightly sharp taste of the artichoke hearts, the Romano cheese and onion do it. So good, and so very easy. As long as you have marinated artichoke hearts on your pantry shelf – and some Romano cheese (Romano has a stronger flavor than Parmesan – but if Parmesan is all you have – go for it). I always have red onion and mayo. But you’ve got to start with a fresh baguette loaf too.

All you need to do it chop up the onion and let it sit in some vinegar water for 10 minutes or so to take away that harsh bite, drain it, blot it dry, then mix it with some chopped marinated artichokes, some grated Romano cheese and some mayo. Really, how much more simple can that be? You don’t have to pre-bake the baguette slices – as long as you bake these in a hot oven (400°) it crisps up the slices during the baking time. Spread some of this on top of each baguette slice, bake and you’re done. Instant appetizer almost. Or a quick lunch? And if, by some strange chance, you have some leftover topping, pile it on top of the flattened chicken breast, top it with some buttered bread crumbs, or just plain Panko crumbs, and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Also easy.

The recipe came from yet another Phillis Carey cooking class – this one was about planning for Thanksgiving. The mixture can be made ahead a day or two – just assemble and bake at the last minute.

What I liked: well, the flavor altogether. And how easy it was.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

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Today I’m going to tell you about a really simple, easy dinner entrée. I’d defrosted some chicken breasts and needed to come up with something very easy and very quick. Walking into my kitchen pantry I spotted a jar of Trader Joe’s Thai Green Curry Sauce. I wrapped the chicken breasts with a slice of bacon, plopped them into the bottom of a small casserole dish (just big enough to hold the chicken with a little room left over). Then I poured the Thai Green Curry Sauce all over it, put it into a 375° oven for about 25 minutes and it was done. Meanwhile I also put a pan of olive oil rubbed broccoli in the oven to roast along with the chicken, and I made some egg noodles which served as a bed for the chicken and was great with the sauce drizzled all over it. Dinner was done in about 45 minutes.

What I liked: The chicken didn’t need to be browned. The bacon added lots of flavor. The sauce was an easy one – just pour it out of the jar. The curry flavor is very subtle – I might like it a stronger element, even. My DH loved this dish. He wanted seconds, but there weren’t any!
What I didn’t like: the sauce is pretty soupy – the jar contains enough to serve 4 people (I wrote the recipe that way), so with only 2 people and 2 chicken breasts, there was a lot of sauce. Also, the sauce is very spicy. If you don’t like spicy, you won’t like this.

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Do you still have leftover turkey in your freezer, needing some way to use it? Try this delicious, head-to-toe-warming soup with lots of full-bodied flavor.

As soon as I read this recipe over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, I knew I’d be making it – what with leftover turkey in my freezer and all the ingredients I needed to make this.  Kalyn said the original recipe came from a Sunset cookbook. She adapted it some, and I did too. We all put our own little twist on things, don’t we? I added some peas. Some of the packaged “Minted Peas” from Trader Joe’s. Those little guys are really delicious – they’re nothing more than plain frozen peas with a few little cubes of butter with some minced mint in it. As it cooks the butter melts and provides flavor. If you don’t have a TJ’s or can’t find the minted peas, just add regular frozen peas and some fresh mint (probably about a tablespoon) in addition to the fresh cilantro. I doubled the recipe and used the full 15-ounce package of peas. Use less, or whatever you’d prefer. Another great addition to this soup would be some sugar-snap peas or Chinese pea pods (chopped). I always try to figure out a way to add some other vegetables to soup. This soup is fairly carb-centric if you don’t. And peas just added to the carbs as well.

The making of this soup is a slight bit different – you start with some chicken broth – add some coins of fresh sliced ginger and fresh garlic – plus some soy sauce and freshly squeezed lime juice. That simmers for awhile, then you add in light coconut milk, some brown sugar or Splenda, the cubed or shredded turkey or chicken meat and allow that to simmer briefly. Add in a few seasonings, then the cooked rice only long enough to heat it through. That’s when I added the peas – but I really dislike peas that have cooked much – they turn gray. Not appealing. So in this soup you heat through the peas and serve it right away quick with some fresh cilantro sprinkled on top. This soup came together in less than 30 minutes. I served it with a slice of fresh ciabatta bread and that was dinner. I have enough leftover for another dinner for 2 and a package I’ll freeze to serve 2. Doubling the recipe serves 6 if you’re eating it as dinner.

If these flavors appeal to you, I’m sure you’ll like it. Thanks, Kalyn, for a great recipe.

What I liked: how easy it was to put together. It’s full of flavor too. Loved the peas in it with the addition of mint. And a great use of leftover Thanksgiving turkey!

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

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Looking for something simple for dinner? Something to make with leftover chicken or turkey? This is your ticket – easy – tasty and very, very healthy (only 4 grams fat per serving).

Yes, indeed, I’ve copied the title exactly – honest, I didn’t make it up. Some of you – those of you who are “of a certain age” will remember Dinah Shore. She was a famous singer and entertainer back in the day. She produced many a vocal album, was the spokes-singer-woman for Chevrolet for years (remember “See the U S A in your Chevrolet?”). I can sing it in my head and just did!  One of her Chevrolet commercials is available on youtube if you’re interested. She had a long-standing relationship with Burt Reynolds (20 years her junior). Was married more than once, I believe.

During the 1970’s she had her own talk show, and I was a young stay-at-home mom at that time, so I must have watched her show regularly. It was about that time that I bought a small orange covered 6×9 3-ring binder, pictured below. I’d not been married all that long so didn’t have a huge repertoire of recipes anyway. I began copying all of my favorites into the binder and as the years progressed I added more and more. I scotch taped some recipes in there. I folded some newspaper articles, even a couple of pages that came loose from my then favorite cookbook. My mother even wrote a couple of recipes in the book at some point. I typed some, and some were written in by hand in blue, black or red ink. Some recipes now have a big, huge X over them. Tried and discarded, obviously!

Many of the old-old recipes you’ve read here on my blog come from this binder. Most of the recipes have been transferred to my MasterCook software program, but there are still a few that haven’t made it there . . . . yet. This particular recipe is in the binder, neatly typed on my old Olympia portable typewriter my parents bought me when I went away to college, and I did write in Dinah Shore as the origin for the recipe and I wrote “from her TV show” and “winner of her cook-off.” The recipe isn’t in Dinah’s cookbook I own – it may not have ever made it into any of her cookbooks. Who knows. The recipe isn’t available anywhere online – I searched as I was writing this post.

Dinah had a helper at home – maybe she was Dinah’s full-time cook? – Pauline Bumann – who contributed lots of the recipes or to their collaboration. But Dinah was a good cook all by herself. She loved to entertain, and did so often according to the cookbook stories.

Dinah was a gracious host on the show. (Dinah Shore died in 1994 from ovarian cancer, age 77.) You can’t equate Dinah to an Oprah, for instance, but Dinah was entertaining and witty. A convivial host, as I recall. Dinah published several cookbooks. I own the 1983 Dinah Shore Cookbook. Can’t say that I cook from it anymore, but I haven’t given it away, either (oooh, I have a very hard time giving away any of my cookbooks, if you haven’t ever figured that out). Anyway, on the show she’d occasionally demonstrate a recipe, and this is one of those. My recollection is that cooking a quick meal didn’t have the traction that it does now. There WERE no 30-minute meals, hardly. We had Minute Rice, canned creamed soups that went into everything, and boxed cake mixes. But I don’t believe there were any easy-to-make entrees particularly. I’m not even certain you could buy packages of just chicken breasts at the market in the early 1970’s. You bought a whole chicken. Period. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Not all of the ingredients are piled up here on my board, but you can see the bacon, garlic, mushrooms (only add if you happen to have them, as I did this time), onion, celery, applesauce, curry powder and garam masala.

To cut to the chase here, this is a really simple recipe but it has good flavor in it. Sometimes I enhance the flavors a little bit – as I’ve become a better curry cook in the ensuing years, I know what enhances curries (like garam masala seasoning, for instance). But if you want a simple, weeknight dinner using some leftover chicken or some leftover Thanksgiving turkey, try this. Use whatever condiments you’d prefer. Don’t like raisins? Use dried cranberries. Add mushrooms if you want (I did this time, although they’re not in the original recipe). Don’t have any bell peppers? Eliminate them – they’re mostly for garnish anyway. Add cilantro or Italian parsley if you want. Add some minced apple to the garnish if you’d like. And if you don’t like curry powder – well, don’t use it – just  call it it a chicken and gravy instead. It’s a healthy dinner in any case if you don’t use much bacon.

What I liked: how easy it is. What a great use of leftover chicken. Maybe I need to start a new subject category here on my blog for “leftovers,” since they seem to be such a problem for people. The dish has good flavor – certainly not gourmet fare by any means, but it’s tasty and great for a weeknight.

What I didn’t like: can’t think of a thing. Obviously if I’ve been making this since the 1970’s, it’s something I like! Don’t expect haute cuisine, though. This is simple food.

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Don’t you agree with me – you can never have enough recipes for preparing salmon? Fillets of salmon are one of my favorite fish (swordfish is by far my favorite, oh and maybe lobster, especially after eating it twice while we were in New England recently). I like salmon because it has ample texture – I’m not so crazy about soft fish. I eat them (like sole, tilapia, orange roughy), but they’re not my favorites.

So when my new friend Didi emailed me about a salmon recipe she’d made, I said sure I’d like to try it. And it was lovely. It came from an America’s Test Kitchen show, apparently. It’s attributed to Cook’s Illustrated, anyway. And it was tender and flavorful with lots of herbs to augment it. Plus, it’s very easy too – you may not think it when you look at the recipe, but it came together from start to finish in about 20-25 minutes. The fish is poached on a bed of sliced, fresh lemon, with some shallot and herb stems added in, plus a little white wine (I used vermouth) and water. Once cooked through, you remove the fish and boil down (reduce) the poaching liquid, squeeze the juices through a sieve and add more fresh herbs, some chopped-up capers, shallot, honey and a little jot of olive oil. That becomes the vinaigrette. Serve the fish with the vinaigrette on top. Done.

If I were a first-rate blogger I’d not be posting this until I made it a second time and altered just one thing – figured out how to alter it, that is. My only “beef” with the dish was that the vinaigrette flooded the plate. Well, maybe flooded is the wrong word – there wasn’t that much, but it moved on over to the cauliflower I’d put on the plate, rather than staying around the salmon. So, I think the vinaigrette (sauce) needs to be thickened just slightly – maybe 1/4 tsp of flour. Or cornstarch. Or butter might do it too. The other option would be to serve the fish in its own small dish to contain the vinaigrette. If you look at the photo at top, you can’t even see the vinaigrette because it had already migrated across the plate. Of course, the salmon was partly on a hill, so there’s no way the juices could stay put.

The salmon was served with my quickie take on one of Kalyn’s recipes for cauliflower (steamed, mashed with a potato masher, added in light sour cream, a bit of shredded Cheddar) plus some delicious sweet and sour cabbage a friend gave us. Altogether a nice dinner. And the salmon was low calorie too, plus the fact that salmon is so good for us!

What I liked: the mild, flavorful vinaigrette – it didn’t detract from the salmon at all. The dish was so easy to make, too.

What I didn’t like: the sauce was a bit too thin (see my discussion in the 2nd paragraph above). Add a little flour maybe, or cornstarch. Or butter. To thicken the juices just slightly. Or, serve the salmon in its own little dish. That would be the simplest if you have such dishes.

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