If you’ve never been a user of recipe software, you’ve probably not paid any attention to the little links I include with every recipe (just above the red recipe box on nearly all my posts) that indicate you can download a MasterCook file. It will import directly into the recipe program – it just simplifies importing a recipe from the web and usually needs no other steps.

I’ve been a MasterCook user since the old-old days – back to about MasterCook version 4, I think it is, and with each new version, I’ve migrated to it. A few years ago Sierra sold MasterCook to another company, ValuSoft. Oh so sad at the time, because Sierra had decided the program wasn’t worth keeping and they no longer wanted to invest in updating it, upgrading it or improving it. Whether Sierra just didn’t know how to market the product (that’s my guess) or whether most of the computer geeks who worked on the program just couldn’t get into recipe software, I don’t know.

It’s been a few years, and those of us who have been die-hard MC users have continued to use it. ValuSoft has done a couple of revisions, but the changes were very minimal – mostly to make the program compatible with newer operating systems and to fix some bugs.

In the ensuing years I’ve continued to LOVE the program, and have been faithful to it. It had some glitches (not liking being shared on a network, though a few people were able to do it). I had a couple of big issues – once my computer shut down when I had a recipe in process and the program wouldn’t start after that. But fortunately, there have always been some fantastic resources to go to for help. Pam Erickson and John Shotsky run a Yahoo Discussion Forum (and have for decades) to address MC issues and to coach newbies to the program. I’m telling you about this because IF you decide to buy MC, I highly – HIGHLY – recommend you go to the Yahoo MasterCook Discussion and join the group (no charge, just sign up).  Once you’ve joined, you can choose to receive all the daily questions people query about – from old version questions to the newest 14 (in individual or digest form) OR you can choose to not get any of them (that’s what I do, but that’s because I’m a relatively seasoned user). I just go to the website when I need to, input a search string and see if others have had the problem. If not, I post my own question and usually within a day the moderators have answered my questions. On the issue of the program not running, I sent via email the cookbook that was having the problem and the moderator fixed it for me. No charge. Just fixed it – bless her heart! Every single time I’ve had trouble in the past they’ve been able to resolve my problem.

Now, to current news. Sometime in the last year ValuSoft was sold to a group of 3 investors and they have taken a look at MasterCook and they like it. A lot! Not only have they updated it, but the 3 investors and their families have been using MC for awhile. That’s the kind of support MC needed – once people use it, they love it. MasterCook 14 was released about 3 weeks ago, and I purchased it right away. Because I would prefer to have my own CD, I purchased the program (which I downloaded and it worked immediately) but I also purchased the CD for an additional $6.99. The program is $19.99 if you are new and it’s $14.99 if you upgrade your current version (plus the $6.99 for the CD) so it all is about the same price. If you’re interested, here’s the link to purchase the program.

What’s new – well, there are a lot of things. The software itself has been updated some (new color scheme, font adjustments, email capabilities) but with the purchase you also get a 1-year subscription to a presence on mastercook.com where you can store your recipes/cookbooks (probably will have to pay for that after a year, though) so you can access your recipe database from any computer where you have the program loaded. I haven’t done that part yet, but will sometime soon. Since I have a blog, and most of my favorite recipes are already on the blog, I can access it (and I do) when I’m out, or at the grocery store. But for all of YOU with your own recipe collections and no blog to go to, once you have all your recipes in MasterCook and you upload them to the cloud, then you’ll be able to access yours anywhere, anytime. Your cookbooks and recipes can also be stored on other cloud storage locations like Google Drive, SkyDrive, & Dropbox.

There’s also a new widget that will allow you to grab (copy) an online recipe and upload it to your mastercook online cookbooks. There’s a default cookbook (called Web Import) at the website and once you highlight, click the widget, up comes a box, you check it over, categorize it and click Save. All done. Works beautifully. For those of you who are MC users already, you don’t have to use the Import Assistant anymore. It’s seamless! Whoopee!

The other really wonderful thing is that v. 14 allows me to upload a MC compatible file to my blog that also contains the photo I have with the recipe. So if you have the program you can import the complete recipe from my blog or anywhere else on the web (and photo) directly into your MC program. So, you’ll now see two links on all my recipes – one for older MC recipes since MC5, and another link for just MC14. So, see, there’s another reason you should buy this. I don’t get anything if you to buy MasterCook 14 – I’m just encouraging you to do so. So in the case of my blog, you have to go TO my web page to do this (can’t do it from a blog reader) and click so you have up just the blog post you want, click the import button – the program figures out what to grab, it does, and that’s it.

Pam Erickson, the wonderful person who has dispensed advice all these years from Yahoo is on staff with the new ValuSoft Cosmi. The folks there have taken her seriously (she’s a programmer and also a cook) and she’s part of their team now. I feel like I know her (I don’t) since I’ve communicated with her numerous times over the course of about 12 years!

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A real Stradivarius violin; photo from broadconversation.com

Until a couple of nights ago I’d only read about the famous violins, the Stradivarius. Then we went to a concert at our local outdoor amphitheater 2 nights ago and listened to a gifted young 21 year old woman, Caroline Goulding, play a real, honest-to-goodness Strad. During the concert I didn’t know she was playing one, but I noticed what a true sound came from it – it was unbelievable. I was awed. She played Mozart’s Magic Flute, for about 20 minutes, nearly nonstop, and all from memory. Amazing.

I don’t play the violin. Never have, but I wondered as I sat there soaking in the sound at the spirited playing by this young woman, that she must be playing a really good instrument. At the end someone read it in the fine print of the program – she had played a Stradivarius! Wow. I wished I’d known all through it. Not that I didn’t pay attention to it, but I’d have paid MORE attention!

For those of you who aren’t musically inclined, a Stradivarius, commonly called a “Strad” is a superb violin made by Antonio Stradivari (from the town of Cremona in Italy) back in the late 1600’s and early 1700s. The one Caroline Goulding played is called the General Kyd Stradivarius and is believed to have been made in 1720, which is on loan to her. At the rare times Strads come up for sale, they go for millions and millions of dollars. Stradivari also made harps, guitars, violas, and cellos–more than 1,100 instruments in all, by current estimate. About 650 of these instruments survive today. Experts, to this day, don’t truly understand why a Strad plays such a special tone and resonance. From Wikipedia: it is known for certain that the wood used included spruce for the top, willow for the internal blocks and linings, and maple for the back, ribs, and neck. There has been conjecture that this wood was treated with several types of minerals, including potassium borate (borax), sodium and potassium silicate, and vernice bianca, a varnish composed of gum arabic, honey, and egg white.

If I had a bucket list, that would have been on it, to have listened to a Stradivarius. So there’s your music lesson for today!

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Suffice to say, I have a big house. And hard as I try, sometimes I don’t get to all of my magazines in a timely manner. Ah-hem. We had to clean out a big bookcase a few days ago. We had some kind of a dead critter we could smell, but couldn’t ever find, darn it, and did a whole lot of work trying to locate the source of the smell . . finally after about 10 days the smell went away. We suppose the critter was in the walls somewhere. Meanwhile, in this said bookcase we were convinced the critter had to be newly dead and decaying under (answer: no), I found about five 2007 Gourmet magazines. Geez – that was 6 years ago! They’d gotten tucked into a shelf and forgotten. So I’ve been trying to catch up with those first. And I ran across this very interesting set of statistics. They’re old numbers – I actually tried to find out some of these statistics based on 2012 numbers, but they weren’t readily available, even on the internet!

Number of broiler chickens produced in the US in 1955: 1.1 billion

Number of broiler chickens produced in the US in 2005: 9 billion (I did find this number for 2008 and it was 9.8 billion)

Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach market weight (around 6 pounds) in the 1950’s: 17

Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach that same market weight in 2006: 6. (No kidding? No wonder chicken farmers like using growth hormones!)

Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 1975: 39

Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 2006: 88

Approximate number of chickens processed per hour in the nation’s largest slaughterhouses: 25,000

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We visited friends who live in Pasadena 2 weeks ago – had a wonderful dinner with them at the Arroyo Chop House (steak). Wow, was it ever good. And we shared two bottles of Silver Oak Cab. Oh my! 1992 Alexander Valley and 1993 Napa Valley. We all agreed the 1993 was the better one, but both were enjoyed.

Lucy, about 4-5 years ago, decided she wanted to have chickens. In the area where they live it’s zoned so she could, and she had someone turn her cute-as-a-bug greenhouse into a chicken coop, with about a 10-12 foot “run.” Most times we visit I go out there and take a look at all of the special chicken varieties she has – every one is different, with and without topknots, or puffy feathers on their legs. Different colors and combinations.

Anyway, as we departed for dinner Lucy handed me the the above egg tray as a gift. Lucy is always so thoughtful. Anyway, it’s been nearly 2 weeks since we had dinner with them and I’ve not wanted (hardly) to break these eggs because they’re so darned cute. I know that’s silly, because a chicken egg is, really, just a chicken egg. I love the green ones, and the speckled ones. When I made the chocolate loaf cake a couple of days ago I finally did use some – the recipe called for 3 eggs. These eggs above are relatively small, so I used 4 eggs. So now I’m down to 8 eggs. I love, love, the ceramic egg carton tray – I’ve always wanted one of those – but convinced myself that I’d not use it enough to warrant buying one. But now I do have one.

For Easter this year we are having 10 for dinner. I rooted around in my garage freezer and found the ham from our Kurobuta (Berkshire) 4H pig. It’s not huge, but I hope it will be enough for 10 people (2 of them young children). One family is bringing an appetizer and bread. Another is bringing a salad, and another bringing dessert. So I will provide all the parts that go with the ham – asparagus with chile butter  and those wonderful roasted root vegetables with the olive relish that I made a couple of months ago. And I probably need to make the mustard sauce I love so much with ham. The recipe for the ham – really just heated up low and slow, go to Kurobuta ham. I doubt I’ll be making anything new for this meal, but will rely on old favorites.

Here on my blog I have a page of recipes that are particularly suitable for a holiday dinner. Some are Christmas oriented, others with a more Thanksgiving bent, but you can pick and choose. There are LOTS of recipes there – my Holiday Page.

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As many of you probably know, Google recently announced they’re discontinuing Google Reader, my old standby for reading blogs. To say I was dismayed was an understatement. I suppose I’d have been willing to pay for the service if they’d offered that option rather than eliminating it, but they don’t want to support it at all. Obviously it contributed nothing toward their bottom line which is a problem for any company wanting to make money! I read that thousands of folks out there in the blogosphere have rattled Google’s cages asking them to reconsider. I didn’t want to wait until the last minute to find out.

Going online to search about other RSS readers, I found numerous articles. Feedly is a popular one as well as NewsBlur. Some work only on i-devices. Some have a fee attached. Some are still free. Some have other features, others have very few. Lots of people want readers for news feeds. That’s not me. Food blogs are kind of a different animal, I suppose. One link I found had a comprehensive list of every RSS feed reader known with a check-list of the features. I finally settled on one and went about trying to load it. One of the options with some was an ability to import the existing feeds. I did that initially with bloglines. It seemed like the best choice for me, for my needs. I created an account (free) and pressed import and the screen went somewhat gray. It was still operational, but nothing happened. It took awhile for me to figure out that the site was having difficulty.

Well, what I’ve learned is that nearly every other RSS reader site has been overwhelmed with people like me setting up new accounts and importing their Google RSS feed file. It was supposed to be a seamless transfer, one would hope. But I understand, these other websites have had trouble with their own capacity to meet the needs of all these new members. Within a few hours a message was available telling me that their site was overwhelmed and to stay tuned. I did.

Eventually the site displayed my list. I looked at it in confusion. Huh? It was difficult to maneuver in the two available display styles. I didn’t like either of them, and I found one important feature missing – the ability to click a button saying I’d read all the displayed feeds. Since they imported all of my feeds (including a bunch of blogs that are no longer in operation – which I needed to unsubscribe to anyway), all the blog entries were showing as new (even though I’d read most of them over on Google Reader). I had to click on each individual post/feed to prove to its system that I’d read it. I worked at it for an hour or more. It also didn’t return to the right place once I’d completed each one, so I’d have to scroll and hunt. It displayed in columns, and once one was deleted, it re-arranged itself, so I couldn’t find my way. Very confusing and time consuming.

So, I went back to the list and read about The Old Reader. It is a beta reader right now (that means it’s still in a test phase – brand new – could have bugs). But it works fine for me. It was written recently in response to the fact that google is discontinuing its Reader function. It’s a very basic feed reader with all the best features of google, and it even displays in a bigger window than google’s did. The only trouble was that it took about 5 days for their storage to gear up to all the overwhelming requests for new accounts and imported feeds.

Now that it has done that, I’m very contented with theoldreader.com. All of my feeds have been imported, I easily deleted those blog feeds who have stopped posting. I was able to click the button immediately to say I’d read all the posts on those I had already read over at google. The settings function is seamless, giving me several options for viewing. I may try Feedly, since it has high marks in many places, and supposedly has more features than The Old Reader. One of these days. Meanwhile, I’ve deleted my Google Reader link on Firefox’s toolbar and replaced it with The Old Reader.

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For whatever reason, I haven’t cooked anything in the last few days that has been noteworthy. Or I supposed I should say blog-worthy. Don’t we all have days like that, or strings of days? I made some beef stroganoff and to me it was just blah. And it was a well-tested recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. Or Cook’s Illustrated. Can’t remember which. I took pictures of it, assuming it would be great since usually I rave about their recipes. Not that one. Toss those photos.

I have been cooking, but sometimes it’s been something from the freezer that I’ve already told you about. We’ve had several meals from my stash of soups. We’ve been out to eat, or been invited to friends, so I’ve not needed to cook anything myself. I fixed Trader Joe’s minted green peas – the last package from my freezer. I’m sad they’ve discontinued that one. I’ve made squash in a couple of ways – my mother’s old tried and true method of finely mincing, steaming it a bit, then adding in a bit of butter at the end. Who hasn’t done that a hundred times? I bought a nice chubby sweet potato a week ago and went to fix it tonight and discovered that it’s mostly spoiled. Today I defrosted some pork chops (boneless) that I’d gotten all prepared to do in the Sous Vide SVK-00001 – SousVide Supreme Water Oven, Brushed Stainless’>sous vide. But by the time I got to it, there wasn’t time to do it that way. So my DH is grilling them outside. We were invited to our son’s home the other night, and I did make some things – the very creamy rice pudding I posted a few weeks ago. And I also made Irish Soda Bread with Orange Zest that has been a favorite of mine. It’s Ina Garten’s recipe. I love that soda bread (pictured at top). My DH just said to me, as I pointed to the photo here on my computer screen, and he said “wow, that was unbelievably good; you can make that any time you’re willing to.” I’ve made nearly all of my usual rotations of salad dressings, relying on the Garlic VIP Salad Dressing most of the time. That recipe was the 16th blog post I did, back in 2007. I also heavily rely on my Creamy Garlic Blue Cheese Dressing too.

We’ve been buying meat for a couple of years now, from a guy who comes to our house, and he sold us a box of his duck legs. Oh gosh, are they good! But they’re not blog-worthy because they’re already cooked and they enclose a package of orange sauce to serve with it. It’s all “done” already – all I have to do is heat it through in the oven. How easy is that?

Maybe I haven’t mentioned it, but we’ve sold our vacation home in the California desert. We sold it because we just don’t use it enough. We love it – and we use it, yes, but not enough. That picture is taken near the country club a week or so ago. Dave and I got into our cute little black, shiny golf cart and just took a long, long jaunt around the complex, looking at all the ponds, the ducks, the herons frozen in place looking for fish alongside some of the ponds. We watched some of the golfers swing. And miss the green. Spring flowers are blooming to beat the band these days. In the photo above, the golf course is off on the right. We had lunch in our favorite café there (that overlooks the Olympic pool, outdoors) and ordered our very favorite item – an Oriental chicken salad. They use a Sysco prepared dressing on that salad. I’ll miss having that. We’re resigning our membership, so we won’t be able to use the clubhouse. On our last visit, we went to our favorite restaurants out there, Pacifica, on El Paseo, and enjoyed our fish-centric meal so much. Likely our very last lunch at the country club will be that salad. We hope some of our friends will invite us out there on occasion and take us there so we can have that salad!

It only took us 5 years to sell the house, and we took a bath on it. Some areas in California have not had much of a downturn (the Bay Area mostly), but other areas, yes indeed! It’s still in escrow as I’m writing this, but will close in a couple of weeks. We’ve made numerous trips out there packing, sorting and getting rid of clothes that have lived there for years and aren’t being worn. The houses there mostly sell furnished, so it’s just our personal stuff we must pack – and all the art, including many paintings I did myself, and nick-nacks. The kitchen – well, let me just tell you – the new owners are getting a treasure trove of gadgets and things. Most herbs and spices I’m leaving behind – they’ve been sealed up in jars, but during 13 desert summers they’ve been up to 88° for months at a time (houses are supposed to be left air conditioned – even if you’re not there – because if you don’t, the glue in cabinets will dry up and you might arrive one time and find most of your cabinets and everything in them – in a heap on the floor – so the houses are kept at 88° all through the hot months). So I’m not thinking any of those herbs or spices are worth keeping. Maybe the new owners won’t notice. I will tell them, in my lengthy letter I’m writing to them on our last day. I did bring back home all of my good Cutco knives (I ordered a second set for that house when we bought the house in 2000). And my old Nespresso machine which I’ll now put in my office upstairs.

We had a couple of sets of dishes out there, so have brought those back too, but we’re leaving plenty for the new owners. Including a set of white (very plain and ordinary) dishes for 12 that came with the house when we bought it. They’re gathering dust in the garage. They’ll be surprised when they open that cupboard. Maybe they’ll like them. We didn’t. The cupboards in the kitchen are full of varying dishes, pots and pans (including some Caphalon), bake ware, Pyrex, an ancient slow cooker, even a bread machine. Everything they could possibly need except fresh food. The freezer has a bunch of stuff in it, so we will be bringing all that back on our next trip. Whenever I cooked there, I’d just stash a 2nd dinner portion in the freezer. I’m even leaving them some cookbooks. Not ones that I particularly care about, or they’d be coming back home with me too.

Last night I made a big batch of deviled eggs for a luncheon. Or, as my Bible Study leader said, nobody wants to eat anything related to the devil, so let’s call them angeled eggs. Okay. I’ve made them before – and they’re here on my blog. Most people don’t expect curry powder to be in eggs, and yet, they’re SO delish. I also cut the eggs differently, across rather than lengthwise and I slice just a little flat space on the bottom of each egg half. That’s why they stand up and mostly don’t fall over. Go to the blog post if you’re interested in knowing more. I heard lots of raves, which makes me feel good.

Then I have a short story about my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The one I had has bitten the dust. My old one was about 30 years old. A few years ago I discovered the beater blade, a gadget you can use in most stand mixers that scrapes the side of the stand mixer’s bowls, so you don’t have to hand-scrape with a spatula when you’re mixing. I loved it, but sometimes it would get a bit out of adjustment, as you need to move the mechanism that holds the blade (or paddle) up in order to accommodate the extra depth of the rubber blades on the beater. This adjustment is done with some very minute adjustments of a screw underneath the tilt head. My DH had to adjust it the first time – I simply couldn’t make it work right. He figured it out. So this one day I knew it needed some adjustment. I tried to do it myself and thought it was okay. I was mixing up cookies. As the batter got progressively more firm once I added the flour the mixer was laboring a little. I slowed it down, and BANG, the beater blade broke in half. It was made of plastic with the rubber edges. Dang. I went back to the regular blade. A few weeks later I bought a new beater blade, making the assumption that it was my fault that the thing broke, and that another one would work fine. I installed the new beater blade and some days later I was, again, making a batch of cookies. The dough was quite firm, I’ll admit. I could see that again, the motor was laboring, so I made an adjustment to the screw, thinking that this new beater blade was different. Well, before it had hardly made 2-3 circuits in the bowl this brand new beater blade broke in half. Oh my. Since I hadn’t finished my cookies, I reverted to the standard batter beater that comes with it, but darn, if the entire head of the Kitchen Aid would wiggled back and forth. If I turned up the speed it would wobble even more. Not good. I tried adjusting the screw. No difference. I think that breaking both beater blade somehow threw out the alignment of the mixer. So, I had to buy a new one. I might have purchased some great new mixer, but because I have an appliance garage, with exactly 15 7/8 inch height clearance, it was quite clear – no newer model for me – I replaced my old stand mixer with the same 4 1/2 quart Kitchen Aid I’d had before. I just chose a different color, and I think I’ll live with the hand-scraping of the bowl from now on. Love the color!

So that’s where I am today. I’ll be back in the kitchen soon. I have a long post I want to share with all of you – have you ever heard of Laurie Colwin? I’ve decided all my readers need to know about her. Coming soon.

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Not to be outdone by the Good Housekeeping Seal, BA has decided to give us a list of their go-to food products; the ones that always give reliable results, that have the taste, purity and complex flavors that exemplify an outstanding product and bang for the buck. These are not in any particular order of importance; it’s just their 50 top pick brands they rely on in their test kitchens. Amongst the judges the most hotly contested item was peanut butter (see #2 and #34). The article is available. If you want to read more, put in “seal of approval” on BA’s website and it will bring up everything they have regarding the products and the article and side bars.

1. Butter (Fancy) – Celles Sur Belle (it’s a matured butter, best on bread and baked goods when butter is the star)

2. Natural Peanut Butter – Woodstock Smooth (for toast, sandwiches, etc.)

3. Dijon – Maille (France)

4. Coconut Milk – Goya (Spain)

5. Chicken Broth – Swanson’s Certified Organic

6. Chili Sauce – Tuong ot Sriracha (also known as Rooster)

7. Grapeseed Oil – Bel Aria

8. Olive Oil – Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin (Italy)

9. Fish Sauce – Red Boat

10. Soy Sauce – Kikkoman Less Sodium

11. Whole Grains – Bob’s Red Mill

12. Rice – Lundberg (all varieties)

13. Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes – Muir Glen

14. Canned Tomatoes – San Marzano (a U.S. product grown from Italian seeds)

15. Agave Syrup – Sohgave Amber

16. Sugar – Domino  (because it’s made from cane, not beets)

17. Puff Pastry – Dufour (sometimes hard to find)

18. Salt (everyday) – Diamond Crystal Kosher

19. Salt (finishing) – Maldon

20. Capers – Delicias (Spain)

21. Canned Beans – Goya (Spain)

22. Canned Tuna (in oil) – Whole Foods 365 Wild Tuna Albacore

23. Canned Tuna (in water) – Crown Prince Solid White Albacore

24. Tofu – Wildwood Organic Firm

25. Dried Beans – Rancho Gordo

26. Bacon – Applegate Organics – Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon

27. Pasta – Barilla (they said this won hands down)

28. Flour – King Arthur All-Purpose unbleached

29. Butter (baking and everyday) – Organic Valley

30. Finishing Sugar – Sugar in the Raw

31. Chocolate (cocoa) – Scharffen Berger

32. Chocolate (in bars) – Scharffen Berger

33. Vanilla Extract – Nielsen-Massey

34. Peanut Butter – Skippy (for baking and cooking and won raves for their spot-on salt balance)

35. Cider Vinegar – Bragg

36. Frozen Peas – Cascadian Farms

37. Black Peppercorns – India Tree Tellicherry Pepper

38. Mayonnaise – Hellmans/Best Foods

39. Cream Cheese – Philadelphia

40. Ketchup – Heinz

41. Tomato Concentrate – San Marzano (tube)

42. Tomato Paste – Hunt’s

43. Greek Yogurt – Fage (was made in Greece, but we’ve taken to it so much they now manufacture it here in the U.S.)

44. Dried Chilies (most versatile) – Arbol (BA buys their chilies from Marx Foods)

45. Dried Chilies (most popular) – Chipotle

46. Dried Chilies (most complex) – Guajillo

47. Anchovies – Ortiz el Velero (Spain)

48. Miso – Miso Master Organic (white)

49. Pomegranate Molasses – Al Wadi

50. Harissa – Les Moulins Mahjoub (this one contains some sun-dried tomatoes which is why BA likes it)

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If you’ve read my blog for long, you know that I’m not a public health militant by any means. But I do like to be aware, maybe more than the average home cook, about what’s in the meat and produce we eat. I don’t like produce that comes from genetically engineered seed (GMO), but here in California the state recently voted down a bill that would have required fresh produce(rs) to tell us the origin of the seed and whether it was GMO. Sad.

In the last several years I’ve made more of an effort to buy organic beef (particularly beef, but not pork or lamb) because of the possible problems with mad cow disease. I still eat beef some, but when I buy it myself I try to seek out organically grown meat. So, when I read this little blurb the other day in Consumer Reports (February 2013 issue), little red flags went off. It’s scary. Here’s what it says:

Some 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are used on food animals, mostly to make them grow faster or prevent disease in crowded, unsanitary conditions. That overuse promotes the spread of drug-resistant superbugs and makes antibiotics less effective for humans.

Kim Howland [pictured in the article] from Enid, Oklahoma, knows how devastating that can be. She believes she carried home a MRSA infection from the hog-farming facility where she worked. The antibiotic-resistant superbug sickened several members of her family, including her husband, Cole, who needed emergency surgery to remove the flesh-eating MRSA infection.

Kim Howand has teamed up with Consumers Union‘s Meat Without Drugs campaign. “Grocery stores can make a real difference to public health by stopping the sale of meat raised on antibiotics,” she says. For more information, go to Consumers Union’s website notinMyFood.org

We all make choices about food, and the trade unions and marketeers know only too well how easy it is to befuddle us with information or write legislation that makes it look like we’re voting for something, when you’re really voting against. The bottom line, buy ORGANIC when possible!

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Once a year I do a round-up of the best recipes I’ve posted during the previous year. It’s fun doing this post. Not only do I enjoy looking back over the myriad of recipes I’ve tried (everything from soup to nuts, as they say), but I’m reminded how much I loved these dishes and wish that I’ve made them more times since. Also, I like looking at the photos I took – analyzing them from a distance now – wondering if I could have taken a better angle or color combination. I continue to hope that my photography has improved. In the photo above you can see my post list. When I create a post I actually hand write the title on these sheets, so I can keep track. Eventually I transfer them to an Excel file that I created some years ago. Next to some of the entries is an asterisk – those are the “best of,” the ones that are on the list below. 

APPETIZER: Corn, Green Chile and Cheese Dip. This one I have made several times this year. It’s an awesome dip to take to a gathering – it makes a lot. It’s a hot dip (containing corn, green chiles, a ton of cheese, and mayo to hold it together) and you use scoop-type tortilla chips to eat it.

APPETIZER (or a CONDIMENT): Tomato Jam. Oh, gosh, is this stuff good. As I’m writing this, I still have a small container from when I made this 6 months ago, and it’s just fine. It’s wonderful on meats – like steak or grilled chicken. It’s also good on top of cream cheese as a dip thing. Make this in the summer when you have good-tasting heirloom tomatoes. Would also make great gifts.

SALAD: Roasted Carrot, Feta and Arugula Salad – This salad was so different with the roasted carrots as the star attraction. The arugula and carrot combo was just delish. If you can find the multi-color carrots, all the better.

SALAD (SIDE DISH): This one I made oodles of times over the summer when corn was in season. Corn, Tomato and Scallion Salad. It’s truly a simple salad but a five-star one in my book. Great for a summer barbecue.

SALAD: I created this salad using my old Panzanella Salad recipe as the base, but made several changes to it – like adding cucumber and fresh mozzarella to it, and some arugula too. It was just fantastic with a summer barbecue. So I renamed it Summer Grilled Panzanella Salad.

SOUP: I just made this again a couple of weeks ago and loved it just as much as I did the first time. Crockpot Chicken Enchilada Soup. Exceedingly easy to make and just requires chopping up some garnishes (cheese, cilantro, tortilla chips) to round out the dish.

SOUP: Traditionally Soupe au Pistou is an all-veggie and bean soup. I added some chicken to mine just to get a little more protein. This soup is such a winner. Hearty and soul-warming. Not that hard to make, really. Worth the effort. Left overs can be frozen.

SAUCE, DRESSING or CONDIMENT: You could use this for just about anything at all – Sweet and Spicy Horseradish Dressing. It can go on a salad, on veggies, as a condiment for beef or pork. It’s mellow, so don’t be put off by the horseradish, thinking it resembles the stuff restaurants serve on prime rib. This is sophisticated stuff – easy to make too.

SAUCE (or SALSA) or CONDIMENT: Such an odd name – Little Girlie’s Green Sauce. You’ll have to go read my post about it. It was a wonderful sauce (or almost salsa) to serve alongside grilled meat. It makes a lot (next time I’d make half). Mostly it’s avocado.

VEGGIES/SIDES: After years of trying other kinds of cooked red cabbage, this is now my go-to recipe for Braised Red Cabbage and Apples. Although not difficult at all, it does require a couple of hours of slow simmering to reach its peak of perfection. Wonderful with grilled sausages or a pork roast.

VEGGIES/SIDES: I’m a real sucker for Brussels sprouts in almost any way, shape or form. This one was so different (shaved into a slaw and cooked), but won the hearts of all the eaters at our table. Brussels Sprouts Slaw with Mustard Butter.

VEGGIES/SIDES: I made this up based on something we’ve had at a local restaurant. Grilled corn is dipped into a chipotle seasoned mayo, then rolled in crumbled cotija cheese. Off the charts delicious. Particularly wonderful when corn is in season! Mexican Street Corn.

VEGGIES/SIDES: Such an interesting and different way to make green beans. Well worth the effort, although it does have a myriad of ingredients in it, topped off with some slivered almonds. But it’s the sauce (which includes some crème fraiche in it) that makes it. Also there’s some heat in these Feisty Green Beans.

MUFFINS: Gosh were these delicious. I still have 4 of them in the freezer. Chocolate Orange Muffins, loaded with orange flavor (zest) and some chopped bittersweet chocolate. They’re best right out of the oven.

CHICKEN: Definitely I need to make this again. The very best roast chicken I’ve ever made – Thomas Keller’s Roast Chicken and Vegetables. The most moist and tasty ever. Good for a Sunday dinner. The veggies are so good having soaked up some of the drippings!

CHICKEN: By far the best chicken curry I’ve ever made – Murgh Korma (Creamy Chicken Curry). Not hard to make, either.

FISH: Salmon with Leeks, Maple and Orange Sauce. Leeks are such a great flavor enhancer. I should use them more often. This would be a great company dinner entrée, and it’s not all that hard, either.

CHICKEN: I’m always on the lookout for different ways to make chicken breasts, and this one was a real winner – good enough for guests too. Spicy Chipotle Baked Chicken Breasts with Panko Crust.

SHRIMP: Risotto is not something I make very regularly because of all the stirring required. I think I made this for a company meal, and it was hard keeping up the stirring routine. But oh was it ever delicious. A Phillis Carey dish, and worth every calorie and stir. Risotto with Avocado Tomato Salsa and Shrimp.

CAKE: This one was fun – making a yellow cake from scratch that has the same tenderness as a boxed mix. It succeeds. Classic Yellow Cake with Fudge Frosting.

CAKE: Rhubarb is also a favorite of mine. Wish I grew some. Fern’s Rhubarb Cake is so moist and tender – it’s worth finding rhubarb just to make this. Not too sweet, not too tart, either.

DESSERT/CAKE (Sponge Pudding Cake): If you’re a chocolate fan, well, I hope you tried this recipe. It ticks all my buttons for chocolate – rich, warm, silky, bursting with flavor. It’s a pudding cake – one of those cakes that kind of makes its own sauce as it bakes. Sticky Chocolate Sponge Pudding.

ICE CREAM: And last but not least, if you don’t have a source for wattleseed (a spice indigenous to Australia) you may have to pass this one by. I adore this stuff and reserve it for a very special treat. Wattleseed is not available here in the U.S. but you can order it from Australia. Wattleseed Ice Cream.

That’s it for 2012.

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I hope all of you have a very blessed, happy and joyous Christmas Day. I don’t talk about my faith very much on this blog, but you probably already know that I believe – in the salvation and in the deep and abiding love of God. If you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, maybe today is the day to start. I’m saying a prayer for all of you – my readers.

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