We have a restaurant chain here in the West (California, Oregon and Arizona) called El Torito. There are “regular” restaurants (maybe 20-30 of them), and also about 10 called El Torito Grill. For some years our family frequented the Grill for Sunday buffet-style brunch. It was the best bargain in town. This was when our children were ravenous teenagers and even into young adulthood. Our son could put away plates and plates of food from this place and still be hungry for more. Back then it was about $12.95 for brunch. If they even serve brunch now, am sure it’s a whole lot more money these days. One of the staples amidst the hot trays for the brunch was this Sweet Corn Cake. It’s kind of a cross between a soft cake and a savory pudding. It’s served with most of their entrees as well. It is sweet, although it’s supposed to be a side dish to an entrée, not a dessert. But, as good as it is, you could likely serve it with a bit of cream and call it dessert. The recipe was printed in the Los Angeles Times many, many years ago.

It’s made with masa harina. Shortened to the word “masa,” it’s a finely ground corn flour that’s mixed with lye – a staple of the Mexican diet. The recipe also calls for lard. Now I don’t have lard in my pantry, so I just substituted additional butter, or you could use shortening too. I also didn’t have quite 10 ounces of frozen corn, either, but once it’s whizzed up in the food processor (or blender) it hardly mattered. And the corn I did have was the scorched, roasted corn from Trader Joe’s, so it gave the cake a bit of a dark fleck. Those alterations made no difference in the scrumptious taste.

My opinion is this recipe should be made in 150% quantity (so it’s deeper in the pan), or maybe even double. You’d have to watch the baking time – naturally it would take longer. And doing it in a food processor won’t make the corn into complete mush. It takes no time at all to mix it up, but note that it takes a good long while to bake (covered with foil) and an additional 15 minutes to sit. So, start an hour and a half ahead of serving time! Serve it hot.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

In the most recent issue of Food & Wine, I spotted a recipe for Spanish mackerel (I don’t think we can even GET mackerel in this part of the world; at least I’ve never seen it) with a Cauliflower Tabbouleh. Well, I promptly discarded the part about the mackerel and extracted the part about the tabbouleh.

Tabbouleh (or tablouli, plus other spellings, I’m sure) is a Middle Eastern cold salad mostly composed of bulgur wheat. I well recall the first time I had tabbouli with bulgur wheat, in about 1966. A friend of my mother’s served it at a lovely luncheon (back in those days ladies did lots of luncheons in one another’s homes). At the time I was mesmerized by the delicious combo of the chewy bulgur wheat, lemon juice, cucumber and fresh tomatoes. My DH doesn’t care much for tabbouleh, or I’d make it occasionally, but then, it’s really high in carbs, which we try to limit. So that’s why this recipe – made with cauliflower instead of bulgur wheat – looked like such a WOW recipe. I had to try it, pronto. My DH still didn’t like it, but our guests were totally mystified about what it was – one thought it WAS bulgur wheat.

This version is a bit different than the traditional tabbouleh that I know, since it contains smoky paprika, shallot, sherry vinegar and preserved lemon. No lemon juice. I may add a squeeze of the juice if I make it again, just because I like lemon juice so much, and it’s a required ingredient in my book. What I started with was one of these new-fangled colored cauliflower heads. It was a gorgeous golden yellow color even inside. Made it more interesting to look at than traditional white, but it did taste the same. The recipe came from Jason Wilson, chef at Crush, a restaurant in Seattle.

If you’re looking for a way to use vegetables, in a different way, this will fool lots of experts. They absolutely would NOT know this is cauliflower. Yes, there is a tiny bit of crunch to it – I mean, the cauliflower is raw – but cauliflower is mild to the tooth. You drop the florets into the feed tube of the food processor fitted with a coarse grater attachment – no pressure to be on it – allow the pieces to shred all on their own. The photo here shows what the shredded cauliflower looks like.

Then you make a fragrant small pan of oil, garlic, cumin, paprika and shallot. It’s cooked very briefly, then tossed in the cauliflower. After that you add the other ingredients: just the rind of some preserved lemon, mint, tomatoes, sherry vinegar, parsley and chives. That’s it. No cooking other than the minute or two with the garlic and fragrant spices. Different? Yes. Tasty? Yes. Repeat it? Well, maybe, maybe not. I fiddled with the proportions (more tomato, parsley and mint), but that’s all. I used very little preserved lemon, but maybe it was too much. The dish had a quite tart taste. Lemon juice in lieu of sherry vinegar might be better too.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

Doesn’t everybody need one more recipe for preparing zucchini? I really like the stuff, and this recipe was so easy to make and my DH nearly licked the pan. I’m sorry I didn’t buy more zucchini so I’d have leftovers. The recipe that gave me the idea was from a 2003 issue of Gourmet magazine. But I doctored it up some (adding thyme, lemon juice, Italian parsley and fresh mint the second time), so I suppose it’s really my own recipe now. My DH said next time I should add even more lemon juice. Guess that could be at your own discretion. In any case, I liked this a LOT and will definitely make it again. I have an Oxo brand mandoline and wrote up a post some time back about how much I like the thing (besides the fact that it was only $70 rather than $250 for the fancy French models). I set the dial for 1/8 thick and sliced away. It was done in no time.

The only caution: don’t overload the sauté pan. Reason: because the slices are thin and a bit more awkward to turn (not like using a spoon to just stir it around) the ones at the bottom would get done too quickly and the slices on top would still be mostly raw. Use tongs and a spatula to turn them over about every 30-45 seconds. If you’re in a rush, do two pans at the same time. When the zucchini is still raw, they’re kind of like thin planks and it’s just a bit more time consuming to rotate and turn, that’s all. I made these again last night for guests – I used a combination of zucchini and yellow crookneck squash – and added the mint to the mixture, which was very nice and eliminated the zest. This recipe (and variations of it) will become a regular member of my veggie repertoire.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

In preparing a dinner for guests the other evening I wanted something bright green on the plate. Regular broccoli didn’t sound right. Zucchini would have worked, but I wanted something brighter. Lots of other veggies flitted through my mind, but none seemed just right until I thought about broccoli rabe. Seems like it’s only been the last 5 years or so we can even FIND broccoli rabe (rapini) in our regular markets. Sure enough, found some easily enough. I always thought broccoli rabe was just young broccoli, but according to wikipedia, it’s its own genus, more related to a turnip than broccoli. Mine sure looked more like broccoli, so I wonder if our stores are selling young broccoli or broccolini and just calling it rabe (or raab, or rapini). Mine didn’t look anything like the photograph at that site (theirs is mostly leaf; mine was mostly stem).

In my rush to get dinner on the table, though, I forgot one step. I followed the recipe just fine from step two on. I just forgot to blanch the rabe beforehand, so it was a tad bit on the crunchy side. Still good, but the stems were a bit firm for my taste and everyone else’s, for that matter. But I like the preparation – garlic, red pepper flakes, some chicken broth and pancetta. I didn’t use the pancetta because it would have been superfluous with the Zinfandel Sausage Sauce with pasta I’d made. Hopefully next time I’ll remember to blanch it first! I definitely liked the sauce on the rabe and it was quite easy to make once you start.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

We’ve been eating out a lot lately. For a variety of reasons. So I haven’t cooked much for several days. Also, I had only one “story” in the bank – the blog bank – so to speak – a post I wrote up last week, but haven’t yet posted. But yesterday I thought – hmmm – I need to use up some of the frozen stuff in the garage freezer.

You see, in July we’ll have a quarter of a 4-H pig arriving, so I simply MUST make room for this new part of a pig in my freezer. My kitchen Sub-Zero freezer, which is amply sized, is absolutely jamb-packed full. So, there’s trouble in river city. I need to make a conscientious effort to cook some freezer items. If you haven’t read my previous post about the 4-H pigs we’ve had over the years, you may want to read about it.

Therefore, I looked around at what was in there – a couple of pork roasts, some pork chops, a steak or two, a pan of lasagna from last fall and also found a flattish package that appeared to be meat, but the writing on it was smudged so I couldn’t read it. Oh well, defrost it anyway. My friend Cherrie calls these “mystery meat” dinners. And yes, this was mystery meat in some kind of sauce.

Once defrosted it appeared to be country ribs, already prepared in a thick marinade. So, I baked them, made a salad, and scrounged around in the refrigerator for any vegetables I might have. Sure enough, there was a whole head of cauliflower about a week old. What to do. Lacking key ingredients for nearly every recipe I looked up, I decided to wing it. And it was delicious.

Here’s what you do:

The mystery meat? Well, it was country ribs. They had been in the freezer for way too long, and I baked them a tad too long. But they were edible. With a lovely green salad, it was a simple, but delicious meal. I liked the cauliflower best – the truffle salt added a nice undertone that was undefinable, elusive, but very tasty.
No recipe for this one – it’s too easy.

Tweet

How did the word “yum” ever come into being? It’s not a very pleasant sounding one, to my ears, and yet I do use it. Probably too often. I don’t even like the look of the word in print, either. And yet, it conveys the meaning very well. Maybe I liked it better before Rachel Ray started using the word “yum-o,” which I think is really a rank permutation of a not-very-good word. Makes me think we can’t come up with adjectives to describe something that tastes really, really good. Something that wakes up the taste buds, or soothes them, whichever the case may be.

And surely, mashed potatoes are mashed potatoes, after all. I do enjoy them immensely. More than rice. More than pasta even, but now we know they’re not all that good for us because they’re a high glycemic carb. That means they digest quickly, turn into sugar which pours into our bloodstream faster than we’d like food to do – we want food that sticks to the ribs, but in the low glycemic way – like grains do – to sustain energy, to keep us going for hours before another meal. Like brown rice does. So these days, mashed potatoes are a real, honest-to-goodness treat. I try to slap my hands when I reach for a 3-lb. bag of Yukon Gold at the market. Once in awhile I succumb, though.

Last week I attended a cooking class about comfort foods. I’d signed up for the class months ago, and didn’t even recall the subject until my friend Cherrie and I arrived at the class. Ah yes, “comfort on a plate” it was titled. We got four recipes altogether (short ribs, these mashed potatoes, green beans, and a chocolate dessert). They were all relatively simple to make, but they sure did rate high on that comfort factor. The short ribs and mashed potatoes with the sauce from the ribs poured over the potatoes . . . oh yes. Comfort for sure.

This recipe is nothing all that different as far as prep. While the potatoes are simmering (starting with COLD water, by the way) you sauté the shallots under low, low heat, so they turn golden brown, but not burned. The potatoes are riced, if possible, tossed with a bit of cream and butter and truffle oil is poured in at the end. That’s it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

One of the students in the class asked with a low voice and eyes downcast, if the chef would remove her portion before she added the truffle oil. You don’t like truffle oil? the chef blurted out. No, she said, I don’t like mushrooms. The chef said, there’s nothing in truffle oil that even remotely tastes like mushrooms.

We know that truffles are a mushroom. A much-prized one I might add – to the tune of several hundred dollars per mushroom. But they have the most elusive, yet unique flavor. But one tablespoon of truffle infused oil in a big pot of mashed potatoes? To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even TASTE the truffle oil. But anyway, the chef said she’d give her a small portion of both so she could taste the difference. Most of the rest of us were teasing the poor young woman. She did speak up later and said she liked the one with truffle oil, so she would never disparage a truffle again! So, in case you’ve never had truffle oil, I heartily suggest you try it. You can buy very small bottles of it in some places. Or larger bottles as well.

Prior to this above dialog, one of the other students in the class asked why the chef would put chocolate in mashed potatoes? She’d only seen truffle candy and couldn’t quite get the incongruity of mashed potatoes mixed up with chocolate. We all got a good laugh about that.

But oh so good are these potatoes. Delicious. Smooth. Comforting. Hot. And yes, yummy.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

I seem to be on a run lately with rice and pilafs. Sometimes I go for months, literally, without eating a grain of rice. I’ve had it several times in the last 30 days. A few weeks ago I made a real oldie, an Armenian Rice and Pasta Pilaf similar to Rice-a-Roni. It was scrumptious. Then, just for fun I made the real packaged Rice-a-Roni. Oh, it was icky. My DH is so spoiled – he ate one bite and left the rest. The leftovers were tossed in the garbage. That’ll teach me to try to cut corners.

For this side dish I wanted something lighter – pilaf can become a major component of the meal, and I didn’t want the rice to stand out. But just plain boiled rice is way too boring for me. I turned to my favorite chef, Phillis Carey, and her book, The Casual Gourmet Presents Fast and Fabulous Entertaining Menus and found this lemony rice that fit the bill entirely.

Salmon was on the menu, and it has a lovely sauce on the side, so wanted rice to complement it. This side is flavored with onion, saffron, lemon zest and just a bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. Since I was making a huge portion to feed 12 (actually I think I had enough to feed about 20 since no one took very large portions), I gathered up all the ingredients ahead of time – I did a mis en place – the tray to “put in place” or “everything in place” for this. The onion was chopped in a bowl, lemon zested in a covered little bowl, salt and pepper measured, saffron also in its own tiny bowl, the quart container of chicken broth, the rice measured and sitting in a bowl and the timer all set to the minutes needed, just waiting for me to tap the top to start the clock ticking. All these items were on a tray beside the range, ready to go. That’s the mis en place. The pan was already on the range with the measured butter in it. So, when our guests arrived I was able to quickly make this and set the timer – without having to refer to the recipe time and again.

It was easy to do – sauté the onion, then add the rice and sauté that briefly. Then you add the broth, saffron, (and I added a jot of lemon juice), seasonings and you simmer it covered for a short time until just barely tender. Toss with the lemon zest, cheese and garnish with Italian parsley. Done.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

Without much of any equivocation, I can say that asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables. I like it  just about any way it comes – even raw – but the best prep for me is oven roasted. So when I was reading a posting over at A Year from Oak Cottage, a blog I read regularly, and Marie talked about preparing her crumbled asparagus, I perked up, printed out the recipe, and tried it.

The greatest of superlatives are needed here. Fabulous. Delicious. Moist. Pretty. Perfect. All those things. I made these for a dinner party last night, and I’d say the winning recipes of the evening were the dessert (yes, I’ll post it in a few days) and this asparagus. I made two pounds of asparagus, and there are maybe 4 spears left. Of course, I was serving 12 people, but everybody loved these, with me included.

Yes, I’ll be making these again. And again. They’re that good. I did change the recipe just a little bit – only the proportions – because I ended up with too much mayo left over, but this isn’t one of those exact kinds of recipes anyway. If you want to use less mayo altogether, as long as you rub each spear with enough mayo so the crumb mixture will stick, do so. Nobody will know it’s rubbed with mayo – it isn’t visible. Maybe you could coat the spears with olive oil and it would work too. You dip the spears in the mayo (rubbing it on with your fingers worked best), then my DH helped by rolling the spears in the panko crumb-cheese mixture. It does help to have two sets of hands since you muck up your fingers in the mayo and further muck them up if you go back and forth to the crumbs.

So, I suggest you get yourself to your local farm stand or market and make these right away quick. Asparagus season is almost over, and I’ll be making these again soon. Buy plenty because you’ll eat more of these than you anticipate!
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet

If you happen to need an absolute fast (and a bit flashy) but easy topping for broccoli, you’ve come to the right place. It’s so simple and easy, I’m almost embarrassed to tell you about it. Use this when you want that mound of broccoli to have a bit more flair than it does, just sitting there on a plate.

This little sauce or topping is nothing more than a mixture of bottled mayo and good mustard. The only no-no is you can’t use hot dog mustard. No, you can’t. But either the French stuff (I use Maille mostly), or any kind of Dijon. Even flavored mustards work too except sweetened mustards.

Mix up a bit of mayo, maybe 1/4 cup for 3-4 people, or up to 1/2 cup if you’re serving 5-6 people, and spoon in one or two tablespoons of mustard. Mix up, then TASTE IT. It should have a pronounced mustard taste. Add pepper if you’d like, but it’s fine as is. If you’re hesitant because of the guesswork in this, dip a tiny bite of broccoli in the sauce to try it, then decide if it needs more mayo or more mustard. Put a large dollop of it on top of your just steamed broccoli. Kids love it. Adults love it too. I don’t even use a recipe – it’s just the mayo and mustard to your proportions.

Tweet

Only vaguely do I recall when Rice-a-Roni came on the market. Way so many years ago. 1958 to be exact. It was a time when food producers were coming up with just the beginnings of boxed mixes. Cake mixes had been around for awhile, but not much of anything else. I thought the rice mixture was quite good. Tasty for such an easy combination in a box. But then the food police told us about sodium, and I began noticing how much was in lots of the foods I purchased. There still is a lot of sodium in many prepared foods. I started avoiding those products, especially after the medical experts told us we were only supposed to consume a max of 2,000 milligrams a day. It’s easy to consume double or triple that if you eat out and/or eat pre-packaged foods. Because Rice-a-Roni was so high in sodium I stopped buying it. By the way, it’s now owned by Quaker Oats.

Beginning in the late 1960’s I started avoiding nearly all packaged and ready-made foods altogether, in favor of making things myself, adding only fresh food, fresh vegetables, my own herbs and spices. And I’ve continued to adhere to that with only a few exceptions. There are a couple of cake mixes I do use for some family favorites. I do buy an occasional frozen vegetable, some Trader Joe’s mixes (that contain no additives or preservatives). And once in awhile I buy Pillsbury biscuits because I have one recipe that is just so good and easy. I try to buy organically fed meat. Sometimes I buy organic produce. Not always, depending on the quality or freshness of it.

Having done a search for this posting today, I discovered that the combo of rice and pasta is an Armenian thing. I thought it was Italian, but no. The founders of Rice-a-Roni actually created it from something served to them by an Armenian neighbor. Thus, the rice boxed mix was born. And why they must add so much sodium to it is beyond me. But they sure enough do.

Because I always walk right past that boxed mix section in my grocery store, I’d forgotten all about the rice/noodle combination until a recipe was printed in my local food section last week. Labeled Carrie’s Rice, it is identical to hundreds of other pilaf recipes out there on the internet. Some add mushrooms, garlic, maybe some dill weed, pine nuts perhaps, but they all contain noodle-type pasta or orzo, white rice, butter, onion and chicken broth. Some recipes brown only the pasta; others brown both pasta and the rice. If you use low-sodium chicken broth, as I did, you’ll likely want to add some salt to it. And you can vary the amount of butter. Many recipes call for a full stick of butter for 1 cup of rice and 1 cup of pasta. I cut it down by half, and think that was still too much. So I’ve reduced the amount even more in the recipe below. It’s a very quick side dish. The kids will like it, and since you’re doing all the cooking of it, you know exactly what’s in it. Unadulterated rice, pasta, butter and canned broth. Maybe some onion, and/or garlic too.
printer-friendly PDF

Tweet