My DH said to me as I came home from a morning out, “Kerry’s wife is out of town, so I invited him over for dinner; hope that was okay!” Well, sure, it was, but I needed to scramble to figure out what to make. I defrosted chicken breasts and made a quick grocery list. DH went shopping for that as well as for all the food we’ll need this weekend for family coming to visit. I’m preparing all new stuff for that, with only one recipe I’ve ever made before, and it’s not on the blog. So a bunch of new recipes to come.

Digging through my files I came across one from a cooking class I took eons (like 20 years) ago, taught by Alan Greeley, a well-known chef/owner of The Golden Truffle. An institution in our part of the world. For whatever reason, we rarely go there. It’s a distance to drive (30 minutes), but their food is good, so don’t know why it’s not on our go-out-to-dinner radar.

First I found a quinoa recipe that sounded good, and to me, the grilled chicken was perfect to serve with it. The quinoa salad had a slightly Asian twist to it (recipe to come), so this chicken rendition, which also contained a squirt of soy sauce, was a perfect accompaniment. The chicken didn’t quite get to marinate the full 5 hours (recipe said up to 5 hours), but it got about 2 hours, and I used my handy-dandy vacuum container to help the chicken absorb some of it.

The sauce has a myriad of ingredients – jarred chile sauce, fresh lemon and lime juices, brown sugar, soy, garlic, coarse ground mustard, salt, Worcestershire, chipotle chile and balsamic vinegar. And you know that if a sauce like this has sugar in it, (there’s sugar in bottled chile sauce too) it will tend to burn and/or stick to the grill. Cooking at a lower heat is your secret to success. The sauce is piquant (one of my favorite words when something is both sweet and sour), which comes from the sugar and the citrus juices. The original recipe also called for the zest and juice of an orange, but I didn’t use that part. What makes this recipe Belizean is probably the use of the fresh citrus juices and the chipotle chile. The original recipe also called for some habanero, but I thought it was hot enough with just the chipotle. You can add a jalapeno chile if you’d like – mince it up and add at the beginning. What’s probably not Belizean is balsamic vinegar. But hey, it’s one of those great umami tastes, so why not?

Save a little bit of the barbecue sauce just after you make it, as it tastes good as a dollop on top of the chicken when it’s served. Do not serve any of the sauce that has been in contact with the raw chicken! Salmonella fast track there!

Grill the chicken as you normally would – don’t overcook it – the chicken breasts I used were relatively thin and didn’t need pounding, and they cooked through in about 3 minutes per side. Then I put a spoonful of the sauce on top and served it. I happened to have some fennel fronds on my chopping board (that went in the quinoa salad) so I put that on top. Cilantro would be the more obvious choice if you have it. I have leftover sauce (I made the full recipe, but only marinated 3 chicken breasts) so will make this again in the next week or so and try grilling the chicken on the outdoor grill; we’ll see how that works.

What I liked: how easy it was to make the sauce (simmered for about 20 minutes). It’s a different kind of sauce – not your typical barbecue sauce – much of the flavor comes from the jarred chile sauce, a tomato-based one. Tasting the sauce by itself it’s hard to pick out what is in it. It was great – not necessarily the most flavorful I’ve ever made, but it was very good.

What I didn’t like: how quickly you can burn the chicken (because of the sugar in the sauce), so do use a low temp.

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With a lovely double-thick pork chop to grill, I searched for a rub or glaze to go on it and found this one, a VERY easy glaze to slather on the meat half an hour or so before grilling. It’s a Bobby Flay recipe, although I found it at The Way the Cookie Crumbles, and she found it at Smitten Kitchen’s blog. About the only change I could discover was the addition of fresh rosemary. Since I have a huge supply of that in my garden, I definitely wanted to include it!

The glaze has a pronounced mustard-i-ness – the most important ingredient is mustard. But not the yellow ballpark stuff – we’re talking grainy mustard and Dijon both. And once mustard grills, it really hardly tastes like mustard anyway. The photo at right shows the dry stuff:  garlic, smoky Spanish paprika, rosemary, salt and pepper. But that’s it. It takes about 3-4 minutes to put it together. I slathered it on the pork and let it sit at room temp for about 30 minutes before my DH grilled it to 150°.

Result? We loved it. The glaze had a ton of character and flavor. Bobby Flay says you can use this on any kind of meat (beef, pork, chicken, lamb). I’ll be trying it again on a different type of meat. You can also cut meat into cubes, marinate it in the sauce, then push the pieces onto skewers to make kebabs. You do want to use a relatively quick-cooking meat with this glaze.

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A year ago: Black Raspberry Ice Cream Float
Two years ago: A photo of a Riddling Rack used as an herb garden
Three years ago: Lemon Oregano Vinaigrette

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When I tell you I used a lot of herbs on this-here pork roast, I’m sure you’d believe me, right, looking at the picture above? And yes, indeed I did.

It was good to be back in the kitchen again, actually enjoying cooking. It’s been over seven weeks now since my DH had his heart surgery, and I’ll admit, I was sure glad I had tons of photos of our Australia and New Zealand trip to fill in the gaps. Because for nearly every day of those seven weeks I haven’t felt a bit like cooking. Even when some of our kids and grandkids arrived, I still wasn’t in the groove. But by January 1st I seemed to make a turnaround. (Mostly it’s because my DH is feeling so much better and I’ve begun to trust that he’ll be back to normal sometime very soon.) I’d found some of these marvelous racks of pork at Costco. They only carry them around holiday time, so my DH (finally interested once again in meister-ing at the barbecue) grilled this one and I have a second one in the freezer. We did a nice, big dinner on New Years’ Day (evening). Lots of the family helped in one way or another. I bought some appetizers (hot, nacho dip with chips), did the grilled pork, an apple side dish, mashed potatoes, the corn, sugar snap peas and bacon sauté I posted a few days ago, and daughter Dana made a big green salad with one of my favorites, the Caper-parmesan dressing.

Back to the pork. Here’s what I did: I created an herb rub with fresh, minced rosemary, some dried sage (if I’d had fresh I’d have used it – if you have some, use 3x as much as in the recipe below), kosher salt and garlic. With a bit of olive oil to lubricate it, I slathered the pork rack with oil, then patted on the wet herb rub. Once on a tray, it went into the refrigerator for about 3 hours or so to just sit – uncovered – and absorb some of that good herb stuff. I removed it from the refrigerator half an hour or so before we wanted to begin grilling.

First the rack was seared at high heat on the grill – browning all the sides – without burning, hopefully, and acquiring a lovely dark golden color. That took about about 5 minutes each side. Then the heat was turned down to about 300°, it was put over indirect heat and baked for about an hour. Dave used the meat thermometer to cook it until it reached exactly 150° internal temp. It was removed to the kitchen, I tented it lightly with foil and it rested for about 15 minutes before we sliced it up. The very center of the roast had just a tinge of pink, but the entire roast was juicy and succulent. It was fantastic. The herb rub had permeated the meat – maybe not all the way to the center, but enough – and many of us at the table remarked about the delicious taste of the exterior edges that were heady with the herbs and salt. I’d make this again any day. The apple walnut sauce (like applesauce, sort of) will be up soon.

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A year ago: French Glazed Carrots
Two years ago: Turkey Breakfast Sausage (making your own)
Three years ago: Raspberry-Almond Truffle Tart

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On Thanksgiving Day our daughter-in-law Karen brought over a container of this soup for us to enjoy as we all stood around the kitchen cooking. Her sister Janice had made it (thanks!). It was so delicious. She also sent along the recipe (from Cooking Light, 9/2009). Janice uses soy milk, and says that she is able to buy soy half and half. I’d never heard of it until now. Will have to look for it!

This is the kind of soup that sticks to the ribs. Would be great for a cold night, even New Years’ Eve around the fireplace. You could alter the proportion of corn and potatoes to suit your tastes. You’d swear it has bacon in it and there is none. The natural sweetness of the corn just shines through. I’d make this anytime.
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A year ago: It’s December (a list of things I like to bake most Christmases – maybe not this year)
Three years ago: Cardamom Crumb Cake

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We entertained a group of friends for an early (1:00 pm) dinner on a recent Sunday. I had to hustle to get a full-on dinner ready by 1:00, because I didn’t start until about 10:30 when we got home from church. I’d done what I could the night before, and fortunately my DH helped me a lot. This recipe has been in my to-try file for years. It was originally published in the Los Angeles Times food section in a column called “Culinary SOS,” in which readers request a recipe from a restaurant somewhere in the L.A. area, or they ask for a long ago recipe that appeared in the newspaper.

Someone had written in asking for this specific recipe served at a cafe in Pasadena called Happy Trails Catering & Cafe. The marinade is what makes the dish, no question. And there’s nothing in it that’s unusual, but I’d guess the secret to the recipe is the 1/2 cup of defrosted orange juice concentrate. That’s what gives it the zingy taste. I served it with the Grilled Panzanella Salad from a few weeks ago (this was the third time I’ve made it), the  watermelon feta mint salad that I serve all through the summer. And I made a peach crisp with maple cream sauce , which I wrote up a day or so ago.

The recipe didn’t indicate to do so, but I whizzed the marinade in the blender, which made it an homogenized mixture, which didn’t separate, even days later. About a third of it you remove to serve drizzled over the top, and the 2/3 you use for marinating and basting. The original salad at the cafe was served with greens, pea pods and diced red bell peppers. I served it as an entree, on a bed of dressed greens.

The chicken was wonderful. Definitely I’d make it again. Loved the marinade or sauce – loved that I had a little drizzle of it to put on top – just in case the chicken was dry (it wasn’t). My DH grilled it over a slower grill setting than usual (at my suggestion because I thought the chicken might burn with the sugar from the OJ concentrate) if cooked too high. He did it perfectly – it was tender and moist, and oh-so flavorful from the marinade. Once cooked I sliced the chicken in wide pieces and laid them on the dressed greens. And instead of including the sesame seeds in the marinade I sprinkled them on top just before serving.

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A year ago: Orzo Risotto
Two years ago: Danish Ground Round Steaks with Onions
Three years ago: Siciliana Sauce

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Swordfish is one of the fishes that I truly enjoy. Mostly, I’d say, it’s a texture thing. I like that’s it’s more firm, almost meat-like. And swordfish has a distinctive taste. In this preparation the swordfish shines through but is accented with the Greek type additions – lemon juice, fresh oregano, white wine, garlic and olive oil. We don’t have swordfish often – it’s one of the fishes that’s highest in mercury, so we definitely do NOT want to eat it with any frequency. And pregnant mothers or women who might become pregnant are advised not to eat swordfish. With that in mind, I don’t eat it but a couple of times a year.

The fish steaks were washed gently and dried. Then they were marinated for a few hours in the refrigerator (or 30 minutes at room temp). My DH grilled them about 4-6 minutes per side until they were just tender. Well, a correction –  he took them off the grill, we sat down to eat and discovered they were still quite firm and chewy. I cut my steak in half and touched my finger to the center – it was just lukewarm. Back they went on the grill – for a very short time – and then the fish flaked easily with a fork. Now, it won’t flake as easily as halibut, for instance. It’s a firmer fish to begin with – it’s more dense. Maybe that’s a better way to describe it. Anyway, the lemon juice just highlighted the fish altogether. My DH professes to not like swordfish very much. It’s not that he won’t eat it, but he says he’d never order it out. He just prefers other fish. But he admitted this was really good, and he’d have it anytime the way I made it. I have another 4 or 6 swordfish steaks in the freezer, so we’ll be having this again, for sure. In six months.

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A year ago: Bing Cherry Compote (oh, was that ever good – it’s cherry season so I should make it again)
Two years ago: Irish Cream Brownies
Three years ago: Pasta a la Puttanesca (a big family favorite)

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Ah yes. You will believe me when I say it was delicious, right? When all you can see is the pitiful bone left after serving a big dinner to guests? And you’ll forgive me for not taking a photo of the finished roast? I hope so!

If it were cooler weather I’d have made some kind of soup with the bone, but alas, it’s too hot in the kitchen or our outdoor patio dining area to make or eat hot soup. So this bone got chucked in the trash. But the meat that came from it was quite good. Good enough that I’d make it again. Easy enough too.

I turned to one of my favorite barbecue cookbooks of late, Steven Raichlen’s The Barbecue! Bible. You don’t find all that many recipes for barbecued lamb anywhere. Raichlen has several in this book (well, the cookbook has 500+ barbecue recipes). Anyway, I had all the ingredients on hand  (always a good sign). All it took was to buy a bone-in leg of lamb and making the relatively simple marinade. And cutting a bunch of slits in the meat to stuff in little slivers of garlic and fresh ginger.

There you can see all the little studs of garlic and ginger. And the Worcestershire and soy marinade. The meat sat in the frig for about 8 hours with the marinade. Once drained, it went onto the barbecue with indirect heat (no searing of any of the meat) with a drip pan below the grates. It stayed there for about 2 hours, until the meat thermometer hit 160°.  This meat wants moderate heat, not high heat. It’s a roast, you know! It sat for about 10 minutes lightly tented with foil before we sliced and served it.

With the pineapple relish stuff Raichlen recommends in the book. Raichlen has traveled the world over for ethnic recipes, and he certainly adheres to the adages in the book, The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. If you haven’t read it, Thomas Friedman dissects how, in our global economy, we can so easily buy (now) a Thai urn, kites from China, saffron from Spain, lentils from Morocco. Or talk to a computer expert in India as if he or she is 20 miles away. And the products are all available at our local stores. In this case Raichlen doesn’t care that the meat preparation is a South African method, and the relish served with it is Vietnamese. And he suggests it be served with Persian-steamed rice. I don’t actually know what that means, Persian rice that’s steamed, or is it a particular cooking method that makes rice steamed in the Persian style. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I didn’t serve it.

Back to the Achar. It’s a relish composed of fresh, diced pineapple mixed with a bit of Vietnamese fish sauce. Now, I can already see you turning up your noses! Here in Southern California we’re used to fish sauce because we have a sizable Vietnamese community near us. And oodles of Vietnamese restaurants too. We’ve learned to appreciate all the different foods from that country. But almost everything is seasoned with fish sauce. It’s even standard in regular (non-ethnic) grocery stores. It’s like soy sauce to the Japanese, paprika in all forms to the Hungarians (they don’t even put black pepper on the table, just salt and paprika), salsa or pico de gallo to the Mexicans. So, there’s fish sauce for the Vietnamese. It’s a condiment served on every Vietnamese table. And it doesn’t taste like fish. You’d think it would, being called “fish” sauce and all, but it’s a salty liquid that comes from anchovies. In the picture, the bottle of fish sauce is there in the background. In the center of the bottle label is a graphic of three crabs – Anglos call it the “Three Crabs” fish sauce. It’s the premium brand. Below you can see the relish – with the chiles and sugar. This mixture doesn’t require any marinating time – just mix it up and serve it.

It went really well with the lamb, even though it IS a Vietnamese relish served with a South African barbecue lamb dish! The only thing I’d change next time – I think I’d do a butterflied leg of lamb instead. There wasn’t enough meat on the roast I bought. I know that the bone-in is a better way to roast, but the boneless is so much easier.

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One year Ago: Peach Cobbler
Two years ago: Barbecued Beans
Three years ago: Crisp Apple Pudding (my all-time favorite, my mother’s recipe)

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Sandwiches? Well, I use that term loosely. They were gorgeous, thick double baby lamb chops, seasoned with a Moroccan rub, grilled, served on/in sangak bread (it could be pita also) with two side relishes – one a tomato and the other shallots. We did end up cutting the meat off the bone and cutting the little fillets into slices and laying them in the bread you can see there underneath them, with the delish relishes. The wraps were a little unwieldy and drippy, but oh—so very good. Then after our plates were nearly slicked clean we picked up the lamb rib bones and gnawed away to get the last of that grilled protein.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about the planning (or lack thereof at that point) for an upcoming dinner with a group of people coming to stay at our house. My cousin Gary brought them – seven adults, close friends of his – for the college graduation of Matt, the 8th person (who didn’t stay with us, but ate dinner here). My difficulty was that this group has a whole myriad of food allergies. And none of them the same, except for one, which was nobody liked spicy hot food. We had allergies to corn, mushrooms, soy, Brussels sprouts, gluten (my cousin), red meat (that was a preference of most, not an allergy), citrus (ditto) and chocolate (ditto). We also had one strict vegetarian in the group too.

So I had my work cut out for me. I wavered between all different kinds of menus. Nobody had concerns about spices, just heat, but I wasn’t sure enough about that to try making a mild curry, for instance. Each time I emailed Gary with questions, it took a week for him to gather the responses. One reader of my previous post about this upcoming dinner suggested kebabs – that way people could skewer their own likes and dislikes (vegetables) and everybody would be happy. I did consider doing that, but wasn’t certain Dave would enjoy keeping track of everybody’s skewer on the grill. And had I done chicken kebabs, I really wanted to use a lemon-juice marinade, but that was a no-no. So instead I decided we should rotisserie chickens. That was a safe protein for everyone except the vegetarian. I finally put together the menu a few days before the big day/dinner and it came off well, I think. Everybody seemed very happy. Here’s what I did:

For appetizers I set out a cheese tray with 4 different cheeses on it, with Vinta crackers and Gary’s GF crackers to go with it. I put labels on each so people would know what they were trying. I also made an easy packaged herb mix dip that was ho-hum. That was served with pita chips.

The brined rotisserie chicken: I’m not going to write up a traditional recipe here, but will give you the link to my PDF recipe. My DH bought the biggest whole chickies he could find at Costco. I brined them – not in my usual jarred brining mixes (because they both contained some citric acid), but in a mixture of salt and sugar (about 3 T of salt and 1 T sugar dissolved in water in each of 2 freezer Ziploc bags).  They were filled with water so the birdies were nearly submerged. They brined for 24 hours, and I turned them over once. I drained them for about 20 minutes, then patted them dry with paper towels and left them out to air dry for about 30-45 minutes. I tied the wings and drumsticks up tight to the bodies, liberally spread them with vegetable oil, then I chopped up about 1/4 cup of fresh rosemary and patted that on the two birds. Put sprigs of rosemary into the cavity too. Onto the rotisserie they went until the instant-read thermometer registered 180°. That took about 1 1/4 hours. They sat on the grooved cutting board for about 20 minutes, tented in foil, and were carved. It was THE juiciest chicken I think we’ve ever made. The brining is the secret.

Mango Salsa: I wanted to serve something alongside the chicken, but the group couldn’t handle citrus or heat, so I made my old standby Mango Salsa, which can be made with either mango or pineapple. I just left the jalapenos and chili powder out of half of it and served two bowls, making sure everyone realized which was which. A few people did take the heated one, so I combined them both at the end, which we’ll eat with the leftovers. This salsa is very easy – some red bell pepper, red onion, cilantro, a dash of sugar, and lime juice (if you want it). Then for those who can handle the heat, a minced small jalapeno pepper and about 2 teaspoons of chili powder, which adds flavor but almost no heat.

Asparagus: After the chickens came off the grill, Dave reconfigured the barbecue and I tossed about 3 pounds of fresh asparagus in about 3 T of EVOO. They went into my new Williams-Sonoma grill basket. What a treasure this new gadget is! It’s $39.95, but if you were on the Williams-Sonoma email list, it was offered at half price (plus shipping) a few weeks ago, for just one day. I ordered one for me and one for my friend Cherrie. Happy day! The asparagus was thicker stemmed than some I’ve purchased, so they took about 10 minutes on the barbecue. Dave stirred them a few times. Once off the grill I sprinkled them with just a tiny bit of flake salt and they were served. There was nary a single spear left.

Bean Salad: Actually, this salad is called The Best Bean Salad (by Paul Prudhomme). I’ve posted it before, but it’s perfect for a side dish to a grilled dinner. I think it looks like confetti, doesn’t it? It was some vegetable protein for the no-animal-protein person in the group. It has a pronounced vinegar flavored dressing (and just 2 T olive oil for the entire recipe). You can vary what you put in it, but it calls for canned beans (I use black, white and black-eyed), Napa cabbage, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, red bells, red onion. Also some fresh basil and dried oregano. The starch in the beans absorb most of the vinegar, so it shouldn’t be sharp at all and it’s especially good with a grilled meat. Ideally make this 24 hours ahead, or at least 6-8 hours before, so the dressing has time to soak in.

Watermelon Salad: I’ve talked about this salad in the last couple of weeks already, but it’s a recipe I turn to over and over again. Nobody dislikes it. It’s VERY easy to put together as long as you have watermelon, Feta cheese and mint. Dave helped me slice up the watermelon a few hours ahead, then the Feta and minced fresh mint were added just before eating (if you leave the mint on it for awhile it develops dark edges – you want it to be fresh and zesty, not wilted). One of the guests professed a dislike for watermelon, but she tried it and pronounced it wonderful.

Meringue and Berry Parfait Dessert: This is a sort-of-a-new and ridiculously easy recipe. I’ve made it before, but I changed it a little bit this time, so will write it up as a new recipe. Stay tuned tomorrow.

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A year ago: Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce
Two years ago: Zucchini Ribbons
Three years ago: White Wine Vinaigrette

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These skewers were so pretty. And very tasty. At the Tarla Fallgatter cooking class two weeks ago she made these mozzarella-walnut bread-tomato appetizer skewers. The brown cubes you see in the
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