In a few days I’m going to post a recipe that’s really designed to go with this – a broiled salmon (in the photo) with an Asian glaze to go on it. And this salad, this noodle salad, is the bed on which you would place the salmon fillet. But this noodle dish is good on its own, so that’s why I’m posting it separately. Except for bean sprouts, I could make this salad almost any day of the week, since I almost always have carrots, celery, green onions, cilantro and spaghetti on hand.

This salad is not overwhelming with Asian flavors – probably another reason I liked it so much. The recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. It’s served at room temp. You can have everything chopped up and ready ahead of time. Just don’t throw it all together until you’re about ready to serve it. I also recommend you use low sodium soy sauce. Actually I reduced the amount of soy sauce in the recipe (1/2 cup instead of 2/3) because it could tend to be too salty. If the salty soy doesn’t bother you, then use the 2/3 cup. Phillis said she usually uses sugar snap peas instead of celery – it would make it ever-so much prettier with the bright green of the peas. She also uses agave nectar when she makes it, so I put that in (and reduced the amount because the original called for 1/4 cup sugar). If you don’t have agave, use the full complement of sugar.

Surely this salad would be good as leftovers – just tuck it away in the refrigerator and toss it again when you want some. Possibly the bean sprouts wouldn’t survive more than a day, though, and add some more cilantro too. Celery sometimes gets soggy once it’s in dressing. But the taste would be fine. Serve it with any kind of grilled fish, I would think. Or pork chops with an Asian hint. Or chicken also with an Asian bent.
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Two years ago: Lentil Soup (my dad’s recipe)

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Looking for a simple, easy but very tasty recipe for roasted sweet potatoes? This has got to be it. There’s nothing in this but olive oil, fresh garlic, fresh rosemary and some salt. I mean, how hard is that? This recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. Oh so good. She served these with a pork tenderloin dish, but really I think these would go with many meal combinations.

There is some confusion about sweet potatoes and yams, but the last thing I read about them said that here in the U.S., anyway, we really only get sweet potatoes, just whether they’re yellow-fleshed or orange fleshed. I’ve always been partial to the yellow fleshed – what I thought was just sweet potatoes. And I thought the orange fleshed things were yams. Not so. Did you know that sweet potatoes are part of the morning glory family? True yams, on the other hand, come from the African continent, are black skinned, and grow to great lengths – like 5-6 feet. So definitely, we know only sweet potatoes here.

Anyway, this recipe requires the dark orange fleshed sweet potatoes. Do seek out the longer, skinnier ones, not fat ones, as they won’t cook as evenly. All you do is peel them, slice off the ends (the little fibers that run from one end to the other come together at each end, so always throw out both end pieces), then cut them into 3/4 inch coins. Toss them with the oil, garlic, rosemary and salt. Pour them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for 25 minutes. See? I told you it was easy.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open MC – 14 contains photo)

Two years ago: Bloomin’ Sourdough (a sourdough bread appetizer sort of like a blooming onion

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Some of this recipe is a repeat from yesterday. The original came from an article in Gourmet Magazine in September, 2006. Yesterday I separated the sweet and sour cabbage from the pork and gave it it’s own posting – so you (and I) can make it on its own. But if you want to make this recipe in total (it’s easy, really), then this is the one. The bacon was fried up, crumbled and drained. Then the onions were cooked, the cabbage added. While it simmered away, the pork chops were seasoned and pan fried, to get a good brown crust on them. Then they went into a 450 oven for just a few minutes (about 5, I’d say) to finish up. Really, they could have been completed right on the stovetop in the frying pan. What you DON’T want to do is overcook these. Once ordinary pork reaches its peak of cooked-ness, at 145 F. it is DONE. Past that, and it begins to dry out and become more like shoe leather. I used a meat thermometer to make sure these expensive chops didn’t even approach shoes.

These chops look huge,  I know. I didn’t weigh them, but they’re not very thick – less than an inch. The pork is mildly seasoned (salt, pepper) but I wanted something more, so I seasoned them with Italian herb seasonings. The steaks were dried off well before I did that. Then they went into a hot, hot sauté pan (one that can go into a hot oven) to brown on both sides. Once they were browned, into the oven they went. Once out, I sprinkled them with some of the reserved bacon, and I added some minced Italian parsley. Ideally you put the pork chop ON the cabbage, or partly on it anyway. They go great together. An easy weeknight dinner. This was all we had for dinner and it came together in about 45 minutes if I include all the dicing and chopping. We loved the cabbage – that part of it is a real keeper. And the pork chops were very nice too.
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A year ago: Tiramisu

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Even though it’s still the peak of summer here in Southern California, my mind is already jumping ahead to Fall. Onto some cooler evenings. Onto what few trees we have here that do change color. But we have weeks and weeks to go before that even beGINS to happen. September is usually the hottest summer month we have here in the Southland. Actually August was cooler than normal and with the exception of a few days of blisteringly-hot and humid weather, September has been mostly in the 80’s. More humid than usual, though.

But in Carolyn’s kitchen, my head was leaning towards some Fall things like gingerbread, sausages and onions, stews. I’ve put out the Fall decorations – a pumpkin wreath on the front door, some ceramic pumpkins that grace our kitchen island. A couple of Halloween candles. There must be more of them in the closet, so I’ll have to look further.

With cabbage in the refrigerator, I decided to try some of the new pork chops we bought from the meat truck, Personal Gourmet. And a recipe from Gourmet magazine in September of 2006 attracted my eye. I had all the ingredients on hand. Love it when that happens!

This was an EASY dinner. The pork chops were seasoned and browned, then finished their cooking in the oven (briefly). I made the cabbage easily enough – and tomorrow I’ll actually print the complete recipe – the combination of the pork chops and the cabbage. But this cabbage recipe can really stand on its own, so that’s why I’m writing a post about this alone. I’ve extracted it from the combo recipe provided in the magazine. As you can see in the photo above (when it was cooking) I used both red and white cabbage. Pretty, I think! I’d definitely make this again – it’s simple, straightforward, and has a delicious piquant taste with the sweet and sour both going for it. I used Splenda for the sugar, but otherwise I made this almost exactly as written. Just be sure to cook the cabbage JUST until it’s barely done – further and the color fades and it becomes mushy.
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A year ago: Chicken Posole
Two years ago: Green Beans in Garlic & Olive Oil (one of my most favorite recipes – so easy and SO delish – I can eat a mountain of them)

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Did every cook make these back in the 1960’s? I sure did. And I have no recollection whether I read some recipe for it, or if I just made it up. It might have been when Reynolds began marketing foil. You young-uns out there won’t realize we didn’t always HAVE foil. My recollection is that baking food in foil packages (particularly fish and chicken) was so very popular because we were introduced to this fabulous new product that you could throw away after using. No mess. Little or no cleanup.

Since I was new to cooking back then, I doubt this recipe in its original incarnation was my own invention. I tweaked it, changed the ingredients a bit. And I made it very often. I did start adding dried thyme to it somewhere along the line, and the butter which makes everything succulent. When I was researching this recipe online I found several recipes at the Reynolds’ website, and some included adding an ice cube to the top of the veggies just before sealing up the packet and baking at 450 for 20-25 minutes. I wouldn’t, because the squash makes sufficient liquid, along with the butter.

You can also add mushrooms, corn, green onions, sweet potatoes, even celery, green peppers. Let your imagination fly – or just refer to whatever resides in your vegetable bin. Though I highly recommend you include some onion – it perfumes everything in the pouch. Add garlic if you’d like, and grated cheese can be sprinkled on the top as soon as you open the pouches (I.e., don’t cook the cheese inside the pouch). If you grill it on the barbecue, it will take much less time, like about 20 minutes or less  – be careful it doesn’t scorch if you put it directly over the heat/coals. The oven provides a more gentle heat. And the fragrance here in my kitchen was delightful – the onion and the thyme, I suspect.

Here’s the first layers – some canola oil spray first, then potatoes, onions and carrots.

The next layers – zucchini and some yellow crookneck squash.

Here I’ve added the butter, thyme, salt and pepper.

Here are the little pouches when they went into the oven.

You want to seal them well – definitely don’t want any fluid to leak out. When the butter melts inside, it coats all the veggies.
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A year ago: Creamed Spinach & Basil
Two years ago: Cape Cod Meatballs (appetizers)

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Since I made Melissa d’Arabian’s salmon cakes, I also made her recipe for orzo risotto. Now she calls it Orzo with Thyme & Lemon Zest, but during the 30-minute Food Network segment, she mentioned more than once that it’s kind of like risotto except it’s pasta, not rice.

The cooking of this is just a tad different than usual. Instead of using a big pot of water, and cooking the pasta in it and draining out the water when it’s done, you cook the pasta in just enough chicken broth (and water) to reach that peak of just-barely-done al dente, but also creamy enough to make you think it’s risotto. Throw out that old-school thinking that says you have to cook pasta in a whole lot of water and that bit of starch in the water must be tossed out. All the starch stays IN the pot and helps make the pasta sticky.

There’s nothing fancy about this. In fact, I’ve made a similar dish even recently, but not prepared this way which uses twice the amount of liquid as pasta and no draining needed or desired. This one is flavored with red pepper flakes, garlic, lemon zest (I used lime because I didn’t have any lemons) and some thyme. I used dried thyme, not fresh, only because Ina Garten explained recently that she thinks fresh thyme is too strong, so she prefers dried. Or was that about oregano. Oh dear,  I don’t remember now. I also added in a bit of butter at the end, too, but it probably wasn’t needed. I liked this, and it certainly was EASY. All made in one pot.

If you go online to read about the recipe at the Food Network, you’ll find lots of comments from people that there was too much water in the recipe. I agree – I used just the chicken broth and added about another 2 tablespoons (not 2 cups) of water at the end because the pasta wasn’t quite done and the broth was all gone. So, you need to watch it very carefully at the end so it doesn’t burn and stick in the pan. I used a nonstick pan because there really isn’t any oil or butter in this to keep it moving around the pan without sticking. My recommendation is that you make it more soupy than you think it should be because once you put it on the plate, it’s still absorbing liquid. By the time we ate it the first time it was too dry. I’d whisked it over to my kitchen photo location and snapped a couple of pictures and by the time I put it on the table about 60 seconds later – well, it was a bit too dry – too dry to be called risotto-like, anyway. But the taste was good. Certainly good enough for a weeknight dinner. My recipe reflects the changes I made – click on the link in the first paragraph if you want to see Melissa’s original (with too much water) recipe.

If you make this with the salmon cakes like I did, just have everything else ready before you start cooking everything, because you need to pay attention to both the orzo and salmon almost constantly at the end. I will make this again just because it’s SO easy. So quick.
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A year ago: Ginger Ice Cream
Two years ago: Siciliana Sauce

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Really, I’ve always liked garbanzo beans (chickpeas). Love them? No. But that was until I tried a recent recipe for them (the utterly unbelievably delicious garbanzo bean salad with Feta and Cilantro, that came from Farmgirl Fare’s blog, and she got it from a book called Falling Cloudberries). So, my antennae are on alert now for anything garbanzo beans. Therefore, when I read this garbanzo bean salad recipe at 5secondrule’s blog, I knew I had to try this one too.

Using canned garbanzo beans makes any chickpea dish easy. I know it’s no trouble to boil beans, for goodness’ sake, but they’re so inexpensive in a can. And the canned ones are at the perfect peak of softness. Or firmness; whatever bite descriptor you prefer! And, I didn’t have to heat up my kitchen. I almost always have canned garbanzos in my pantry, so it was no problem for me to pull out the ingredients for this salad. I had all the ingredients on hand (some Thai red curry sauce, cilantro, fresh mint from the garden, fresh lime juice and fresh tomatoes). Oh yes, some light coconut milk too. Who would think that a garbanzo bean salad would have coconut milk in it. This isn’t a hot dish, but a cold, perfect-for-summer salad. It takes just a few hours of merging the flavors and it’s ready to serve. There is just a hint of heat to this. The original recipe called for Thai red curry paste. I didn’t have that, but did have a bottle of a sauce from Trader Joe’s. I knew it was good because I’ve used it before for something else. I do, now, have a partial jar of red curry sauce in the refrigerator, so will have to figure out what to do with it. Meanwhile, we’ll have eaten up all of this salad in no time. It’s good. It’s a tiny bit spicy. It’s a tiny bit creamy, but you don’t realize there is coconut milk in it. Above all remember that this salad comes together in a jiffy.
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A year ago: Noodles in Jade Sauce
Two years ago: Caramelized Apple Gingerbread

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Sugar snaps are a regular in my veggie drawer. Normally I add them raw, to salads, or nibble on them as a healthy snack. I forget that they can also be a side vegetable – served hot. The other night when I made Mongolian Pork Chops, I decided to spice up a big pan full of sugar snaps and mushrooms to serve along with it. This is SO easy, it’s hardly worth creating an actual recipe. It’s nothing but sugar snaps, some sliced mushrooms, a little bit of butter, some rice wine vinegar (seasoned type) and a tiny dribble of dark sesame oil. And a sprinkling of salt and pepper. I know, you ask, butter is not used in Asian cuisine, but I heard a quote from Wolfgang Puck today – he was preparing Asian lobster, and he added butter. His explanation – he said “I’m not Asian, so I can add butter.” Sounds good to me! If you prefer, you can substitute extra virgin olive oil.

We served these to guests two nights in a row and they were heartily devoured. The few leftovers we had were grabbed up the next day by me. Cold. Right out of the plastic baggie I’d put them in.

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A year ago: Asian Baby Back Ribs
Two years ago: (EASY) Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

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As I was starting to work on this post, Dave walked by me here in the kitchen, and said, “tell them DH says [see, he even knows his nickname] this is great, and it would even be good as a complete meal.” Yup. I agree. But then I’d have eaten way too much of this, and it’s not exactly low calorie. So maybe I should stick with just a serving and enjoy it twice.

We had meatloaf with it. We’ve had a catastrophe (a refrigeration type) here at our house, that, as I write this, isn’t yet rectified. A 10-month old Kenmore refrigerator/freezer quit freezing. The refrigerator part works fine. Just the freezer went on the fritz. Everything in the freezer was defrosted. This unit lives in our garage. About $200+ worth of frozen meats (mostly) that lives in that freezer had all reached 32 degrees. I discovered it nearly 10 days ago. A quick trip to a local grocery store to buy dry ice at least kept the worst scenario from happening. The next day I was on the phone to Sears about our 1-year warranty. They informed us that they couldn’t get here for 11 days. ELEVEN DAYS! I said. What do you mean, eleven days? I have hundreds of dollars worth of meat that’s going to go bad. This is under warranty. You can’t do this. You know, yada yada. They had no sympathy. I escalated my request to a supervisor. I don’t know what country the Sears customer service people are from, but I had a very hard time understanding every person I spoke to. After all the ranting and raving, we’re right back to where we were – 11 days wait.

So, every day or two my DH, bless him, has been making a trek to the grocery store for more blocks of dry ice. As I write this we’ve spent well over $100 on dry ice to keep the entire lot from defrosting again. We have no idea whether they’ll even have the part that will be required to repair it. Truly I don’t know what I’ll do if they tell us we’ll have to wait for them to ship replacement parts. Maybe I can take them to small claims court. You think? For the cost of all the dry ice. Think I’d win? I can tell you for sure I’m never – EVER – buying another appliance from Sears. Period.

So anyway, I had to move as much of the frozen stuff as I could into our kitchen freezer. Which is huge. But full. I decided to start SERIOUSLY using some of the frozen meats. So far we’ve had 2 packages of pork chops, 4 packages of chicken breasts. Some breakfast sausages, and tonight we devoured some meatloaf that I’d made a year ago into serving sized “loaves.” So I’m working on it.

The weather here is stinkin’ hot. There’s no other word for it – it’s dreadfully hot. So a comfort meal of hot meatloaf and a hot veg didn’t exactly appeal. But it’s what we had ready to fix. It was so hot we had to eat dinner in the house in the A/C. It was close to 100 today. I probably won’t post this story until next week. I’ve got too many stories lined up. A good thing, really.

So, back to cauliflower. I remembered I’d saved a cauliflower recipe recently but had to find it. Why or how I ever even GOT this recipe baffles me. I had the web link in my recipe software – from a radio station in New Zealand. Huh? Why was I looking at recipes online at a radio station in New Zealand, I ask you? Guess I’ll never know. Someone must have mentioned it. I do read a couple of bloggers from down under. Anyway, the author must be a chef somewhere there.

Basically this is steamed cauliflower covered in a cheesy cream sauce and topped with some pan-sautéed bread crumbs and parsley. The latter absolutely MADE the dish, so don’t get lazy and not make that part. They provide some lovely crunch to it. But they won’t be crunchy on leftovers since they absorb too much moisture. I used a whole passel of pots and pans to make this (too many, really, but it turned out to be worth it). My DH can tell you all about that since he washed them all for me. I’m SO lucky to have a hubby who likes to wash dishes!

You could certainly steam the cauliflower ahead (and reheat it), make the cheese sauce ahead (and reheat it). You just pour the hot sauce over the hot cauliflower, sprinkle on a bit more grated cheese and the crispy crumbs. I’ll definitely make this again. Delicious!

First I started out with the hot steamed cauliflower. I poured the florets into a bowl just large enough to contain them.

I’d already made the cream sauce: An onion (halved) goes into the pan with milk, plus garlic cloves, bay leaf and whole peppercorns. That’s simmered awhile. Strain out the onion and spices. Then you make the actual cream sauce with some butter and flour, adding in the strained milk. The grated cheddar cheese went in after the sauce was thickened and as soon as it melted (off heat) it was poured over the cauliflower.

Then you sprinkle the reserved cheese over the top and it melts almost immediately. Salt and pepper it lightly.

The parsley breadcrumbs were made in a separate pan, sautéed with a bit of butter until they turned crispy brown. Oh are they ever yummy. Sprinkle them all over the top and serve absolutely immediately. To raves.
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A year ago: Peach Galette
Two years ago: Southwest Eggs Benedict

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Last night we had some friends, Bob & Peggy, over for dinner. Bob is recovering from open heart surgery, but after just two weeks he felt up to coming to our house for dinner. Bless his heart! They have minimal air conditioning at their house, so I was grateful they’d come here, rather than me needing to package up everything  (hot) and take it to their house. Their kitchen is not air conditioned. Peggy said, don’t go to too much work. So instead of finding all kinds of new recipes, I decided to use some old tried-and-true ones.

No special appetizers – just some tortilla chips and a cheese dip. I did make a garbanzo bean salad that I read about yesterday on somebody else’s blog (I’ll write that up as a separate post, though). I had some meatloaf frozen which became the main dish of the meal. But instead of spreading it with my usual sweet and sour sauce, I decided to dig out the recipe for Red Peppers for Cold Meat that I wrote up last year. Perfect for a spoon full on top and along side a baby meatloaf. Then I made a watermelon salad that’s so refreshing in this hot-hot weather. And an old family standby, a chocolate cake from a mix. So here’s what I made:

Meatloaf – last time I made meatloaf, I froze them in individual portions (about 4 inches by 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches. Not only do they defrost a bit easier, but they take a lot less time to bake too. I used my old favorite, the meatloaf mixture only from my Sweet & Sour Meatloaf.

Red Peppers for Cold Meats – well, I’d used it before as a relish for baked meatloaf, and knew it tasted great. This time I had less red bell peppers, but I had a poblano/pasilla chile, so added that to the mixture. This time I used more onion too. The preparation of it is certainly flexible. It keeps for a long time in the refrigerator.

Minted Watermelon & Feta Salad – this pairing is a match made in heaven. If you haven’t ever tried it, well, you’re missing something special. I was ever-so skeptical before tasting it the first time over a year ago, but now I’m a true convert. Especially when watermelons are in season (now). There is a Tomato & Watermelon Salad too, with red onion, but this one is a Martha Stewart recipe. I made it with watermelon, feta and mint since I had ample tomatoes in the red pepper mixture and in the garbanzo salad too.

Garbanzo Bean Salad with Thai Curry Sauce – Ever so easy to do. Couldn’t believe how easy. Uses canned chickpeas and bottled Thai red curry paste/sauce and coconut milk. Yes, this really is a cold salad. And extra delicious. Stay tuned in a few days for that recipe.

German Chocolate Chip Cake – this is an old family standby that normally uses a German chocolate cake mix. I didn’t have one, so used a regular chocolate cake mix instead. It’s so simple – spread the cake batter in a 9×13 pan, sprinkle it with sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and about 2/3 cup of chocolate chips. Bake as usual. Some of the nuts and chips sink down into the cake; some stay on top. And the sugar/cinnamon mixture gives the cake a finished look without making frosting. Especially good with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have any, so I used whipped cream instead.

A year ago: Feta Tomato Gratin (easy appetizer)

Two years ago: Apple Cherry Walnut Green Salad

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