Remember a couple of weeks ago when I wrote up the Stacked Enchiladas? They had these crispy, crunchy onions as a garnish with drizzled Mexican crema? Well, the Stacked Enchiladas are long gone, but I’d put the remains of these onions in a little plastic baggie in the refrigerator. You know how sometimes you poke around in there and find all kinds of gems? Maybe moldy gems. Perhaps something unidentifiable? And then, perhaps some tasty gems when you’re trying to throw together something in a hurry, and it doesn’t LOOK like there’s anything in the darned thing? This was lunch yesterday – Dave and I shared this one sandwich. It was some wonderful Citterio rosemary ham from Trader Joe’s, a little smear of Best Foods mayo, some pale ale mustard, sliced vine-ripened tomatoes, a few thin slices of avocado, a good grinding of freshly ground black pepper, and then I topped it with the vinegary red onions and some feathery leaf lettuce. Lo and behold – a magnificent sandwich. It’s the crunch that is the lure for me. I’ll make these again just for other dishes. I used some of the onions in a tuna salad sandwich a week or so ago, which were also delicious, and still had some left. These aren’t nibbling onions – they’re far too sour, vinegar-y (just like they’re supposed to be) but laced on a sandwich they’re sensational. Here’s a repeat of just the onions.

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One of the joys of reading food blogs is finding new recipes that are tried and true. Naturally, celebrated chefs know how to cook. Often they cook things that are quite complex and complicated. AND time consuming. Sometimes famous chefs actually pay a recipe developer to create recipes for the cookbooks they “write.” Kind of boggles my mind that chefs are willing to take that kind of risk to put their name to a cookbook and then pay somebody else to develop recipes and claim them as their own. Not many do this (I hope). Food magazines do this too, but one hopes that the developers know what they’re doing and work hard at creating something special. For all kinds of tastes.

But when you find a blog with photos taken in a home kitchen, you’re assured this is the real thing. These aren’t professional photos (although some of them could rival those taken by the glitzy pros who do the photography for cookbooks and magazines). One of my favorite blogs with fabulous photography is Lucullian Delights. Ilva, originally Swedish, is a wonder behind the camera lens. You never know what you’re going to find on her blog – food sometimes, but also scenes from her home territory, Tuscany.

So, back to cookies. I’ve been reading Culinary Concoctions by Peabody for many months, and always enjoy reading her witty and sometimes pithy posts. And when she posted this recipe, I knew I needed to give it a whirl. (Her photos are great too, by the way.) It’s really been made in a home kitchen AND it’s good. You’ll see Peabody’s link over there on the right in my list of blogs I read. And these cookies, these cute little mounds, are just plain deliciousness. You’ll notice the little flecks of orange peel, and the hint of chopped dried cranberries. I must admit, though, that I made a boo-boo from the original recipe. Can you imagine that I made a mistake? I forgot to flatten the cookies just before baking. Guess what? It didn’t make a whit of difference. I may have added a minute of cooking time, but that’s about it.

Cookies last a good long time in my house because after cooling them, they’re always piled into freezer Ziploc bags and frozen. I don’t eat a cookie every day. Maybe every other. And this recipe will be a keeper, and they are just perfect with a cup of afternoon tea or coffee. The batch I made a month ago is just now gone, so it’ll be back to the kitchen for me. Soon. Thanks, Peabody.
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Credit must go to my daughter, Sara, for this recipe. She read it in one of my issues of Gourmet Magazine, when we were trying to figure out what to make for dinner one evening. Our families were together, and she recalled reading this recipe. We tried it, and it’s been a fixture on my summertime menu ever since. It really could be made any time of year, but seems like it goes so well with grilled meats, even though it’s done completely in the oven.

Although the preparation is simple, you do have to be hanging around in the kitchen off and on for the better part of 2 hours. It’s amazing that onion halves in a 400° oven take nearly 2 hours to settle into soft silkiness, but they do. Don’t skimp on the olive oil as it definitely enhances the flavor, and don’t allow the pan to dry out because the wine and oil will definitely burn. Generally I add a bit more red wine and always have to add additional water towards the end of the baking time. If you don’t have fresh thyme, you may use dried. Be generous with the herbs.
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This could be another garlic post. But it’s not. Although there certainly is garlic in this dish. I think it’s the combination of garlic and lemon juice that gives it the tart and tangy flavor. The carrots, when cooked, become mellow, so it’s a perfect foil for the dressing.

I prefer this served cold or better yet, at room temperature. It will keep for at least a week, so I suggest doubling or tripling the recipe. You’ll be very glad to have some leftovers to serve at another meal.

On one California road trip I bought this cookbook: The Good Cook’s Book of Oil and Vinegar by Michele Anna Jordan (it’s no longer in print, but if you’re intrigued you can find a used copy). She focuses in on specifics about all kinds of oils and various vinegars, and she knows her stuff. I’ve used a number of recipes from the book over the years, but this is probably my favorite. And it’s easy. The toughest job is slicing the carrots. In the picture above I cut them much thicker than usual (note to self: re-read the recipe before I begin!). I prefer them when they are very thinly sliced, so use your mandoline or food processor slicing blade if you have one. The benefit of the thin slice is that more of the dressing permeates the carrots. And do give the carrots time to marinate in the dressing – it’s much better. And for goodness’ sake, don’t overcook the carrots. You don’t want to be eating carrot mush, and the thinner the carrot slices, the greater the risk of overcooking. Oh yes, I almost forgot, whatever you do, do not use those abominable “baby” carrots in the little bags. You know, don’t you, that those really are not baby carrots – they’re big carrots trimmed down to look like baby carrots. I prefer using young carrots, but even medium sized ones will work fine in this recipe.
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If we’d wanted these ribeye steaks to turn out any better than they did, I don’t know what we could have done to make them so. The recipe is very exact in its cooking method, and with the help of my meat/oven thermometer, they cooked to perfection. The smear underneath is a puckery sauce made ahead and plopped on the hot plate just before serving.

Up until last night’s dinner, we’ve been a bit disappointed with steak we’ve purchased lately. The Costco ribeyes weren’t all that tender, and even the steaks from Whole Foods weren’t very tasty or tender, either. So we decided to splurge on our next steak dinner and buy U.S.D.A. Prime meat, only available at a local, independent butcher (Pacific Ranch Market in Orange Park Acres).

It was money well spent, as these steaks were outstanding in every way. The recipe comes from Hugh Carpenter, a prolific cookbook author and entertaining instructor. He came to my attention about 16 years ago with classes he taught in Los Angeles and Pasadena. I’ve purchased several of his books, and a couple of years ago he taught a grill or barbecue class at Sur la Table in Newport Beach (SLT is rarely doing guest chefs anymore, so don’t look for him there or at any other SLT store . . . perhaps I’ll write a rant about the Sur la Table cooking school on another posting . . . I used to be a big fan, but no longer). This was the recipe he prepared that night, and it’s been a success every time. I believe it’s from his book Hot Barbecue printed a few years ago, which I do not own.

Buy the best quality meat you can afford. Make sure you have a very reliable meat thermometer like the one pictured here. This little number has been a lifesaver for me more times than I can count. And as good as anyone thinks he/she is as a grill king, it will make a believer out of you that every cook needs one. This particular model by Polder tracks the temperature in the grill oven as well as the food so you can make adjustments. The method of cooking is this: the steak is marinated for a few hours. Meanwhile, make the Amazing Glaze sauce and allow it to cool.

After removing some to serve on the finished plate, drain the steaks, blot them dry and let them sit in remaining glaze for about 40 minutes. Heat grill to medium high, sear the steaks for one minute on each side, then put them on a rack on a baking sheet and place back in the grill at 300° but not over the direct heat. Watch the meat thermometer carefully and remove them when they hit 120°. Allow to sit for 5 minutes covered loosely with foil. Serve! You won’t be disappointed.
Happy grilling . . .
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Since today I’m posting a recipe that came from another blogger, I thought I’d explain a bit about how I got to doing this blog in the first place. Sometime last Fall I read an article in a magazine that listed the URL addresses for about 4-5 food blogs. I’d never heard of a blog before that. I took a look at them and found I was reading their entire blogs, sometimes years in the past. I was fascinated. Mesmerized. Greedy for more. Hooked on more and more blogs. Nearly every food blog has a list of other food blogs that those bloggers read (sometimes called a “blog roll”), and I quickly began looking at all of those too. Then I heard about Google Reader and decided to give that a try. Once you have a Google account you access the Reader and as you find blogs you want to read (the blogs have an RSS feed, it’s called) you simply add them to a subscription within Google Reader. Then I added the Google Reader to my Favorites so it’s only two clicks away and I now have a list of all the blogs I frequent. I don’t have to go to each individual blog site. New postings show up within Reader when they’ve been updated. They’re viewable in a shortened version, usually, and if I want to see the full read, then I click on over to see the actual website itself. Otherwise, I read the blog from the Reader.

As I read the stories other people wrote, I was intrigued, but kept talking myself out of being a blogger. It looked like it would take too much time. Writing stories every day??? How could I fit that into my busy schedule? And doing photos all the time? Whoa! Yes, I have a digital camera, but I don’t have photos of most of my recipe collection (which now numbers over 400). Most of the bloggers use a free blog service. The only limitation is whatever the provider allows in html conversion. I know nothing-zippo–nada about writing computer language (htm and html) which is actually how these stories get into the ether so you can view it. I type into a limited word processing kind of window, and I can add photos and links, make something bold or italic, but that’s about all I can do. My words and photos get converted into html and somehow, magically, when I click the button called “publish” it appears on the website. One of my photos graces the top of the blog, and I can add elements, they are called, like my list of books I’m reading. Then I upload the pdf to my website – I output the recipe from within my MasterCook recipe program (more on that in another post) and print it to a pdf file, then upload it to my website. The link is available, so I paste that into a hyperlink, and when you click on that, at the bottom of each post, you get my pdf file from my recipe collection.

So six months have gone by since I began following the long list of bloggers I read, and suddenly one day I decided I wanted to do this too. I’ve always wanted to write, but never found a niche that was right for me. I don’t have the creative bent to actually write fiction, but explaining cooking, or telling stories about our travels and food, etc. would be a cinch. I just hope I won’t become too long winded and you folks out there get bored reading my stuff.

Only one other thing: at the top is a line to make a COMMENT. That’s a place for you to add something. Any of you who would like to comment, I’d be very appreciative. Otherwise I have no clue whether my posts are even being read. I’ve subscribed to a free service (Feedburner) that is supposed to give me stats on my readers.

So, now on to today’s recipe. One of the early bloggers in blogdom, I suspect, is Kalyn’s Kitchen. Kalyn Denny lives in Salt Lake City and is an avid advocate of the South Beach diet, which works for her. Her recipes are usually low on carbs, and she uses a lot of vegetables, which I like. I’ve been trying to incorporate more vegetables into our diet. We eat them every day anyway, but now I’m often making two vegetables and a protein with no carbs except those contained in the natural vegetables themselves. Since Dave is a Type 1 diabetic and has been for nearly 60 years (yes, really), he needs to watch carbs – at least count them carefully to calculate how much insulin to take at each meal – and it doesn’t hurt me a bit to reduce carbs either.

Now don’t get me wrong. I really, really like vegetables. But cauliflower wasn’t up there on my yes-list at all. So, until this and one other recipe, cauliflower wasn’t one of the vegetables I prepared very often. Steamed, plain cauliflower is not something I’d ever order. I eat it because I know I should, but not usually with much interest. So when I read Kalyn’s recipe for the vegetable with bacon and mushrooms, I thought ah-ha. I like mushrooms. Bacon is something I like a lot too, and have found that even half of a slice of bacon can impart tons of flavor. I buy lean, thick sliced bacon without sulfates (Niman Ranch is probably the best, available at Trader Joe’s and I also buy some from Whole Foods that’s without additives). Normally I buy a package, use a slice or two, then roll up each remaining bacon slice and freeze them individually on a cookie sheet, then pile them into a Ziploc bag to pop back in the freezer. It takes no time at all to defrost a slice of bacon.

As I prepare this dish (I’ve made it innumerable times in the last 6 months) I have a very hard time keeping my fingers out of the pan. As the cauliflower begins to brown, I just have to test it often – you know – to find out if it’s the correct texture of done-ness, right? This is best eaten just after making it. Although I have reheated it, it gets a bit soggy. So, try to make just enough for the one meal. I also have added garlic to this and enjoyed it too.
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It was an easy decision when he told me his men’s Bible study group would be meeting at our house this morning, and I knew I needed to bake something for the boys to eat. So I turned to my newest cookbook, Baking: From My House to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan (amazon.com, $26.40). Now, I’d never heard of Dorie before a few months ago. She’s an accomplished and witty writer, and now I’ve joined the legions of bloggers who are part of her fan club. She has her own blog, where she wrote yesterday about winning a James Beard Award for this book.
She collaborated with Julia Child some years ago for one of her books, and also with Pierre Herme.This is my second Dorie recipe. I’ll write about the other one, ginger-scented brownies, another day. I don’t bake muffins very often – we rarely eat them anymore, probably since I realized how laden they can be with fat, sugar and overall carbs. But since I know how Dave likes carrot cake, this seemed fitting for the group. They were easy to mix up – I did use my stand mixer, but on very low speed and only enough to blend the ingredients, and then I stirred in the coconut, carrots and raisins (I used golden). My muffin tin makes larger than average, so I only got 7 muffins from this recipe. They’re delicious – the way muffins are supposed to be, not a cake posing as a muffin. What I really liked is the balance of spices – you can definitely taste the spices, but they don’t overpower at all. Dorie nailed it on this one.

And I’m such a novice at this blogging stuff . . . how’d I do all this and post the recipe before 8:00 am, you ask? I baked the muffins yesterday, sealed them up in a Ziploc bag. I wrote up the recipe last night without tasting it (I had no doubt they’d be wonderful). This morning I dashed downstairs in my jammies a few minutes before 7:00 and cut one muffin in half, snapped the photo, grabbed a half to nibble on (delicious) and zipped back upstairs before the guys began arriving. Now it’s from my kitchen to yours.
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A short time warp to 1981. Dave and I were on our first trip to England. At a small pub and restaurant in Ilminster, Somerset, an older gentleman simply pulled up a chair as we were served our dinner. Friendly sort, he was. Said he enjoyed hearing Yanks talk. Shortly, he called over to the bartender and asked him to phone his wife to come join us, which she did. That began a friendship that has withstood the years. Jimmy (a retired RAF Wing Commander) had a hundred and one WW II war stories to tell. Pamela, who had also served in the WAAFs (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force), the ground transport wing of the RAF, had an equal number of stories to tell, and among other things, she was a professional chef. To this day, we still discuss food whenever we talk. Either in person, or on the phone. Sadly, Jimmy passed away a few years ago. But we have visited them and now her many, many times over those years.

But the summer of 1990, when two of our children were nearly graduated from college, we took them to England and Ireland for a few weeks and included a visit to Jimmy & Pam. The weather was fair that day, the sun shone brightly, and we enjoyed a multi-course luncheon on the back lawn. It was glorious. It was magical. It was memorable. They were so happy to meet our children. We were so proud to show them off. They were so delighted it was a pretty day. We were thrilled to enjoy Pam’s cooking again. Jimmy was in rare form, warbling on about his military past (mostly he ferried planes from Canada to England) to our kids, and Pamela had outdone herself with an elegant meal. We had a Pimm’s, with fresh cucumber, mint and raspberries (pronounced raws-brees) on special twigs in each drink. We had a summer pud(ding), a very seasonal treat only available in mid-summer when berries are at their peak. Our daughter vividly remembers that summer pud to this day. A summer pudding is made in a large round bowl, with layers of soft de-crusted white bread, sugar and fresh berries. It sits for 24 hours while the berries give up their juice to soak into the bread, then it’s unmolded onto a platter and served with whipped cream. And, naturally, we had some good English tea. The main dish was a large, cold poached salmon elegantly festooned with layered, thinly shaved cucumber slices to resemble fish scales. What was almost comical was that our daughter didn’t eat fish. So poor Pamela insisted on returning to the kitchen to cook her an egg.

It’s the soup that has become one of my regulars and it may be one of the very simplest recipes I make. When the weather turns hot (it will be in the mid-90’s in Southern California today), I remember this soup, which is so refreshing. As long as you have the frozen peas (only the very best will do, the smaller the better), consommé or beef stock, the half-cream (that’s half and half in British-speak), and the fresh mint from the garden you’re in business. Allow to chill thoroughly before serving. You can make this with fat-free half and half, although most of those products contain some sugar or sweetener, which doesn’t always taste as good as a natural dairy product in a savory soup. Sometimes I add a splash of cream sherry to the mixture too.
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I really like to have a bunch of different ways to prepare boneless chicken breasts. But I think it’s easy to ruin them because they often get overcooked and are dry and somewhat tasteless. We buy them because if we are meat-eaters, we like to eat healthier sometimes. Having made and discarded at least a hundred recipes for chicken breasts, I was skeptical when Phillis Carey began talking about her method for chicken breasts. After the first sample some years ago of one of her recipes, I knew that SHE knew what she was talking about, and SHE knew how to prepare them.

Since I’ve attended Phillis’ classes for about 5 or more years, I soon learned she was writing a cookbook about chicken, Fast and Fabulous Chicken Breasts, published by The Casual Gourmet. Click here to go to a website where you can buy her books; it’s a store where she teaches in Encinatas. Once available, I bought one and continue to use the book regularly. Obviously, I recommend it. Phillis is a kind of casual, no-nonsense type of chef – not in her manner (she’s very cute and funny), but in her recipe design and preparation. She uses some canned things to save time (rather than making beans from scratch, for instance), but she knows how to punch a recipe with lots of flavor. That’s what I like, and it’s so important with chicken breasts, which don’t really have a ton of flavor to begin with. So it’s the sauce or what goes on it or with it that provides it. Click this to go to Phillis’ website to learn about the other places she teaches, etc.

So, on to chicken breasts. Until I met Phillis I certainly didn’t understand the cooking chemistry of chicken breasts. With or without a bone, the normal shape of a boneless chicken breast means that some of it cooks quicker (obviously the narrower, tapered end) and the thicker, meatier portion takes longer. Duh. We all know that, right? So, what do we do about it?

Preparing boneless chicken breasts (Phillis’ method):
(1) Remove the chicken tender and reserve it for something else (or I usually cook it with the dish, but a lot less time and remove it early).
(2) Remove any obvious fat and specks of bone if there are any.
(3) Have ready two pieces of plastic wrap – put one down on a flat surface and place a chicken breast on it, shiny side up, i.e. not the side where the chicken tender was. Place the 2nd piece of plastic wrap on top, then using a pounder (not the spiky side, but a flat side, or one of these pounder things pictured here) gently but firmly pound the meaty end only of the chicken breast. It will take about 10-12 whacks, and not heavy handed ones, to flatten the breast to an even thickness. You don’t want to make it as thin as the tapered end as that would be too thin, but pound to about 1/2 inch or a little less. The chicken breast kind of squishes around inside the plastic wrap, but hold the tapered end to help keep it in place.
(4) When cooking, if possible roll the short, tapered end under, which will help keep it from drying out (an optional step).

What I also learned was that prepared this way, it takes but minutes to cook a chicken breast whether pan frying it or baking it and it will be fully cooked, tender and juicy. Maybe I remember all those stories about salmonella and thought all chicken needed to be cooked much longer. Not so. And I’ve had much better success with chicken ever since. Thanks to you, Phillis.

Now on to the recipe itself. I’ve prepared this several times. It would make a very nice dinner for guests, but it’s also simple enough for a family meal too. If you want more of the sauce to spoon over linguine or rice or polenta, double the volume of the liquids, and add more garlic and prosciutto if desired. If I’m out of prosciutto (I try to keep a package on hand of the vacuum sealed type), I use thick-sliced smoked bacon, which is just fine. The breasts are lightly breaded and seasoned, then pan-sautéed to develop a lovely golden brown.

The only other caveat is: don’t use a non-stick pan, as you can’t develop the browning (I think it’s called the fond) necessary to flavor the dish. If you haven’t got one, well, maybe you should acquire one, but in a pinch, use the non-stick, but I think you’ll be disappointed.
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A citrus dressing is not always the appropriate fit for every meal. But when it is, this recipe is my go-to citrus dressing. It may not be the right fit for a side green salad either, depending on the ingredients with which you compose your salad, i.e., I wouldn’t use it with tomatoes, fennel, onions, or many of the other myriad vegetables you might use in a salad. The flavor of the citrus is just so BRIGHT in this salad, it needs to stand almost alone. I have no doubt you’ll like it if you try it.

This came from a cooking class Cherrie and I took at Our House, South County, the cooking school in San Juan Capistrano, which we frequent with some regularity. Actually, I found this exact recipe on RecipeZaar, so perhaps the cooking school found it there too. Unless you have an extensive citrus garden, you may have to plan ahead to make it since it requires limes, lemons and tangerines. When tangerines are in season, freeze some juice in ice cube trays, then put them in a double plastic zip bag, so you’ll have it on hand. I’ve also made this with blood oranges instead of tangerines. I almost always have shallots on hand, and y’all know how fond I am of garlic, so that always exists in my pantry too. I usually use Splenda as the sweetener instead of sugar, although I didn’t include it in the recipe. We have a Valencia orange tree on our slope, and a Meyer lemon tree, so I freeze juice and zest every year, so I don’t waste much of the fruit.
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