Sometimes it just seems that a dinner requires a different kind of bread. I love ciabatta loaves – they’re so tasty and so easy. Buy them, serve them. But, once in awhile for a company meal or for breakfast I will serve some different kind of bread. I think the first time I served these it was for a breakfast for my group of girlfriends along with fresh fruit, juice, coffee and yogurt. They were a big hit.

The recipe came from Gourmet Magazine, back in 1999, according to my notes. I’ve made them several times and never been disappointed. The goat cheese adds a little zing to the texture and the flavor. Sometimes I have chives in my garden, which makes it particularly easy to throw together. Make these when you have a simple protein and sides, not with something like a hearty lasagna or beef Stroganoff which would overwhelm the subtle goat cheese and chive flavors of the muffins. Instead, serve it alongside a simple grilled pork chop, or chicken breast. Or quiche. Or chili. Or make them for Sunday breakfast, which is my favorite.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC; 14 includes photo)

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I was reading a blog over at Tea and Cookies a few days ago about the blogger’s younger years and how she developed a love of cooking. It’s a cute story, if any of you want to click over to read it. She poses the question in her posting about how it happened that she ended up with a food gene since her mother doesn’t really like to cook and rarely cooked when she was growing up. She wonders how she and her brother ever developed their love of cooking with that kind of background. Good question!

So this got me to thinking about the food gene in my DNA. In the last week or so I’ve mentioned my mother’s cooking a couple of times. Maybe a bit disparagingly. I’m having some guilt pangs about that, although my mother died 10 years ago. I’ve written some of this before – my mother and father both grew up during the Depression. Money was very hard to come by. Both families were farmers in the San Joaquin Valley of California. They grew some of their own food. Both families had chickens. Neither had cows. One family had pigs. One family grew tomatoes some years. The other grew hay and tomatoes. Or corn. Remember – crop rotation. Can’t grow the same crop year after year as the soil is leeched of nutrients that way. My mother and father, both in their 20’s, actually met one summer, in line, in their respective family’s trucks, waiting to deliver the tomato crop to market, to a group cooperative, I think it was, actually. My mother was accompanying her father to the market that day. The trucks were in side by side lines, and a conversation began, chatting from one truck to the other. Finally, my mother climbed onto my dad’s family truck and the two talked and got to know one another. A romance was born atop a truck full of tomatoes. Awww.

So that brings me to my early years . . . my mother never really complained about the cooking she had to do. She was a housewife and stay at home mom when that was the accepted profession for every wife. We had simple meals. Entertaining usually meant gathering in our backyard over a simple picnic table with my dad wielding the tongs and spatula at the grill. We ate hamburgers and hot dogs, home made potato salad and cole slaw and strawberry shortcake. Bisquick was one of my mother’s favorites. Along with Minute Rice. We had some canned vegetables and some fresh. Frozen vegetables came into existence during the 50’s, I think, and my mom was a happy consumer of frozen spinach, corn, peas which we ate in rotation with occasional fresh zucchini or yellow squash inserted. I think you get the picture!

My recollection about how food piqued my interest started in 7th grade when I took Home Ec. I looked forward to the class, but retain no memories whatsoever of the food we made with the exception of the one meal I made at home. We’d done chicken sub gum and egg fu yung with white rice. So I asked my mother if I could recreate the meal at home. I made it all alone and I was so proud I could hardly contain myself. I was 13. The chicken was quite bland, considering how much I enjoy spices and seasonings now, but my mom and dad gave me all the praise I needed to nurture that little gene somewhere.

I don’t remember cooking full meals much at home even after that success. My mother did the cooking. She did enjoy baking, though. She made great pies. She was quite well known in her circle of friends for her great pie crusts. She tried her darndest to teach me her technique (she of the Crisco, ice water type) to no avail. She made great apple, berry and stone fruit pies. And she baked cakes from scratch and other desserts as well. So I learned how to do some of those, but I never got the pie crust thing down. (Now, I use a butter-based crust that whips together in the food processor and succeeds well enough. I still can’t do the Crisco type.) So, I began helping her with baking, and I suppose that’s a gene I did inherit from my mother.

When I got married the first time I was 20, and cooking was what was expected of me. I didn’t resent it – I looked forward to it. I suppose it was a form of relaxation. I worked for some years, stayed home when my daughter was young, then went back to work full time in the 1970’s and worked continuously until I retired in 1995. During that time I shed one husband and married the love of my life, who also really enjoys food and entertaining. We’re a good match.

Generally, when I’m not down with a broken foot like I am now, I do all the cooking and he does the dishes. Although in recent years he took on breakfast. He enjoys doing that, although we eat the same breakfast every single day, by choice. It used to be fruit smoothies (mango, to be exact), but we’re eating more low carb now, so have our single sausage link, half a piece of toast (usually with a tad of peanut butter on top) and a very small scoop of Greek yogurt. Coffee, but no juice.

In all those years I’ve derived a huge amount of satisfaction from cooking. I love entertaining (although I will say that now that I’m in my mid 60’s, cooking a full dinner is a lot of work . . . rarely can I put on a dinner that meets my satisfaction anyway, in less than about 6-8 hours of preparation) and probably the most important thing to me is what people say about the food when it’s served. Hopefully they enjoyed it. I cook what I like and not everyone’s tastes are like mine.

I love hearing stories from friends about their cooking experiences. About the history of a certain family meal. About the failures too. Those are always good for a few laughs. And believe me, I’ve had my share of them too. I probably won’t share recipes here from something that doesn’t taste good or that was an abject failure. I’ve read other bloggers who do post such recipes. I doubt I’ll do that. Since I still have about 300 recipes to go (to post here) I’ll be at this a good long time giving you recipes that are GOOD, rather than things that aren’t.

So, I know I have people who come visit my blog now and then. Rarely do people comment, though. But, I’d love to know how you happened to get a food gene. Surely you have one since you read this blog, right? Tell me about your food gene.

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Is a salad just a salad? Or can it be lifted to some higher elevation of flavor. Well, obviously I think the latter. Why didn’t I think of this combination myself? I just never would have thought to put fresh mango in a salad. But putting it with spinach is just a marriage made in heaven. Strawberries aren’t too unusual in salads these days – I’ve seen them listed often in magazines and cookbooks.

I’ve mentioned Phillis Carey before – the cooking instructor. She’s another one of Cherrie’s and my favorite teachers. This is one of her recipes. And a lovely one it is. Nothing difficult. You can make the candied pecans ahead of time, the fruit can be sliced and refrigerated a few hours before, and Trader Joe’s carries baby spinach pre-washed. So it’s a cinch to put together with the balsamic and orange juice dressing. It’s the mangoes, though, that “make” this salad in my view. Mangoes have such a unique piquant, tart and sweet taste all at the same time.

Remembering the first time I ate fresh mango transports me to the Philippines in 1965. How I got there, and why, makes for another story about lumpia, a sensational appetizer that is ubiquitous (to me, anyway) with that country. Mangoes are as everyday there as perhaps apples are to us. And those were the most juicy succulent mangoes I’ve ever had in my life. Because of that introduction to mangoes, I’ve enjoyed the fruit ever since. So I just loved this salad when it was served to me and have made it many times since.
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I know. You’re going to think I’m nuts. Strawberry Gazpacho? What more unlikely combination could there be? Savory tomatoes with sweet, juicy strawberries? Well, trust me on this one. It was served to me at one of the cooking classes I attended in Coto de Caza. And Tarla Fallgatter, the instructor, said we’d really like it. And like it we did. I liked it so much I made a batch the next day. And another batch a week after that. And the week after that.

It makes a lovely little respite on a hot summer night. It’s quite refreshing. It could be served in plastic cups, even, for people to enjoy – standing around before an outdoor meal. Or you could make it a sit-down course, but I like the appetizer idea better. It’s not difficult, although you will likely need to go shopping first – it’s not like you’re going to have all the ingredients on hand. But it’s worth doing so. And this is very low calorie too. Surprising – once you try this, you’ll be surprised too, as it’s very rich tasting.
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This doesn’t look much different than it did 2+ weeks ago, but thought I’d take another photo of my foot anyway. The upper calf is NOT as big around as the photo appears. Nothing’s really changed since the last picture 3 weeks ago. The bone isn’t healing very fast (according to the dr.). When people say how are you? my response is: the bone is still broken. I may be in this boot longer than I’d planned because it’s slow healing. Probable reason: I had too much movement in the boot during the first 2 weeks, so what little movement I did make (not knowing) probably kept reopening the fracture a little bit. So, now my foot is wrapped in an ace bandage, THEN it goes into the boot. My foot has much less ability to rattle around inside it. My foot and ankle still swell every day. Especially if I don’t lie down some a couple of times a day, which is ever so boring.

But today a “bone stimulator” was delivered to me that I will use once or twice a day until the bone heals. A little plastic boxy thing, about 5″ x 1″ x 1″ with an attachment that wraps around my foot and showers ultrasound waves to stimulate bone growth. Costs $3,000. Can’t rent it. Insurance will pay 80%. It better work, that’s all I have to say about it!

So, DH said about an hour ago, I’ll go shopping and maybe I’ll make grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Okay, he asked? Sure, hon. When he got home, I said, why don’t you go get the Cuisinart electric frypan. I’d asked him at least 2 weeks ago to go dig it out of the shelves in the laundry room where it lives, but he hadn’t done it. I bought it last year when our kitchen was being remodeled, and cooked with it and a 2-burner hotplate for the 4-month construction of the new kitchen. He dug that out, then brought in our ancient card table from the garage and voila, I have a kitchen setup that will maybe, just maybe, work for me. So here’s a picture of it. It helps that DH will be my schlepper – get this please, get that please, but he’s content to do that rather than cook. I’d far rather cook than schlep, so it’s a good combo!

I know, doesn’t exactly look exciting to you, but after not cooking for a month, this is a big deal for me. Now I’ll have to rethink our menus – what dishes can I cook in this frypan – and photograph them, since that’s been my biggest problem posting my tried and true recipes to my blog! One or two of my cookbooks have sections titled Skillet Dishes. I think I need to go research that, AND look through my entire main MasterCook cookbook and see what recipes will adapt to this. Bye now. I have a new project for the afternoon.

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For a year or so, my friend Linda has talked about her Bombay Chicken. About how good it is. About how great it is for guests. Just overall fabulous. So instead of waiting for me to get around to making it myself, she came up to visit us on Sunday and fixed it (remember, I’m still not cooking at all because of my fractured foot). We were delighted – not only to have her stop for a visit, but to fix this great dish. DH was thrilled that once again, he didn’t have to cook dinner! She made it with 6 chicken breasts, and we enjoyed 3 full meals out of it with another in the freezer because the chicken pieces were so big. This is worth making. It’s delicious and would make a great company meal. You can make it ahead, too, except for baking.

The rice is so tasty – I love all the additions – mandarin oranges, coconut, golden raisins, almonds. And the curry flavor is subtle – not overwhelming at all. And you could make it without the curry if you are averse to it. Linda says she got this recipe about 1974 from her Aunt Ida. What a winner. Thank you, Linda!
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Sometimes the simplest of ingredients can make the most magnificent of tastes. Such with this easy vegetable. It was only in the last 15 years or so that I have come to appreciate the flavor enhancements, the joy, of cooking with shallots. They have a kind of elusive taste. Not an onion. Not garlic, either. But somewhere in between. And you most likely know they’re expensive. Certainly more than onions. And since you usually use more quantity of shallot than of garlic, they can add up if you use very many of them. But I try to keep a few in my pantry all the time now. So I have them when I want them and don’t have to make a special trip to the market.

As with onions, once you cook them for awhile they develop this lovely seductive smoothness, and if allowed to caramelize, so the natural sugars in them darken and nearly burn, they have a whole other taste. Unforgettable, really.And then there’s the simple green bean. I go through spells of like and dislike with them. Sometimes I love them dearly, when they’re smooth and tender. Other times, after I’ve prepared some and they’ve been tough and stringy (even fresh) I’ve sworn off them for a season. I particularly like Blue Lake green beans. And don’t mind paying the price if the market carries them, as they more than likely will be tender. I also absolutely L-O-V-E haricot verts (heh-ree-ko-verr), the tiny little green beans originally made popular in France, hence the French name. They’re merely young green beans. If you grow beans yourself, just pick them very young and you’re most likely guaranteed of a tender mess of them. They’re available at my Costco, sometimes at Trader Joe’s, although they’ve been spotty as far as how fresh and tender they are. But if I find them at our local farmer’s market, I fall for them every time.

My mother used to make green beans quite often, and the usual method was to boil the heck out of them, until they were nearly mushy and quite gray. Sometimes she added a little onion, and some bacon. They’re really not too bad that way, but I prefer my green beans to be a little firm to the tooth, al dente, as they say. And I like them to be truly GREEN, not gray.In this dish, the shallots and the oil and vinegar are popped into a foil package to roast for an hour. You’ll want to serve this dish immediately when they’re done, so during that time you’ll cook the beans (the photo above is a combination of green beans and sugar snap peas) at the very last minute and combine them, pile them into a serving bowl and the beans will still be nice and green. Do be sure to scrape every last bit of shallots and balsamic glaze out of the foil package. If you’re not a real lover of green beans, this might convert you.
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My friend Linda emailed me one day just to tell me about this glorious apple cake. With the most unlikely name: Grandgirl’s Fresh Apple Cake from Georgia. Huh? She mentioned it again a few weeks later. We do share recipes all the time, and she’s a good cook. She still works full time, so can’t go to cooking classes much, if at all.

She has the MasterCook software also, and I’ve taught her how to use it, how to capture recipes off the web and easily import them into the software. It’s really quite easy. MasterCook is not expensive software, but it’s a very powerful program that accomplishes nearly everything I need to do to save my recipes. I have over 400 recipes in My Cookbook within MasterCook 9. It has a lot of functions that aren’t exactly “advertised,” but are subtle enhancements the program offers if you learn how to use them. Like scaling recipes. You’re having 10 for dinner and the recipe serves 6? No problem. Two keystrokes and you have the recipe re-sized for 10.One of the things I like the best is the fact that I can create my own custom cookbook design. In other words, I’ve set up a pretty design for all of my recipes. If you have printed out one of the recipes from my blog, the recipe was entered into MasterCook 9, then I converted it to a PDF file (for Adobe Acrobat) so you can print the exact recipe, with picture, in the format I’ve chosen.

I love working with MasterCook. One of its better features is how easy it is the copy and paste a web-based recipe into the program. It takes about 3 keystrokes to get to the import assistant, a small help screen that requires very little to get the recipe into MasterCook. I move a few things around sometimes (the program likes the recipe to be in a certain order), I hit a couple more keystrokes and the recipe is there. Sometimes a photo is available; if so, I import that too. I never forget that adage – a picture speaks a thousand words. Or, I use a fairly new feature called the Web Import Bar which will help you transfer a web recipe into the program. Also very easy.

So back to the fresh apple cake. Last weekend Linda drove up to our house (she lives about 50 miles south of us) on Sunday JUST to fix a wonderful dinner for us. Bless her heart! DH was delighted not to have to cook. I was delighted to finally eat two of Linda’s favorites that I’d not gotten around to trying. Grandgirl’s Apple Cake from Georgia was one of them. We’re still eating off the cake 5 days later. It’s SO SO good.

The recipe came from Paula Deen, and unfortunately it’s no longer available online at the food network, but you can find it at a couple of other sites if you do a search on the web for the title. It doesn’t need any changes or embellishments. It’s perfect just the way it is. It’s a dense, nutty cake. Just overflowing with apple flavor. And once the cake is baked, you pour over it this luscious buttermilk sauce that takes a bit of time to soak in. Please try this recipe. It doesn’t need anything to serve with it, but it’s good with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or even a drizzle of heavy cream too. So, thanks Linda, for another winning recipe.
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Whenever the family (our kids and the grandkids and/or other relatives) come to visit over the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter), I try to have something in mind for breakfast on the holiday morning. Some kind of a breakfast casserole, so I don’t have to become a short order cook for all the varied appetites. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a variety of brunch casseroles in my repertoire, and this is another one that competes for first place.

The original recipe for this came from Gourmet Magazine some years back. I adapted the recipe just a little – I couldn’t find brioche or challah bread the first time I made this, and King’s Hawaiian bread was available. If you don’t have that where you live, it’s just a very soft, eggy and SWEET bread. It’s too sweet for sandwiches. But it makes great toast. And it’s probably wickedly bad for you because it’s made with white flour and contains a fair amount of sugar. But it makes wonderful French Toast – by this recipe or any other.

But, because Hawaiian bread IS so sweet, I knew I needed to reduce the sugar. So if you use different kinds of bread, you’ll want to adjust the sugar accordingly.

The pineapple, just the crushed, canned type, is what makes this different. There isn’t all that much in it, so you really can’t SEE the pineapple much – but you can taste it. You can serve this with syrup if you choose, but it’s already so sweet and flavorful – and moist – it doesn’t really need anything. Maybe some fresh fruit, fresh juice, hot steaming coffee and you’re done. As with many of my brunch recipes, I get all the ingredients ready the night before so it’s very easy to make this the morning of.
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(photo from artichoke-festival.org)
One of the things – – that I may have mentioned before – – is that when I attend a cooking class, even though I usually know what the menu is before I go, a class will often open my taste buds to something different. Not necessarily a different food. There aren’t many American foodstuffs I haven’t eaten (except deep fried insects, and most organ meat). No, I mean that the chef/instructor makes something with a different twist. Or, makes something that would not have appealed to me if I’d just read the recipe. But at a class, it’s there, he/she is making it and I eat it. And I find that I enjoy it. It’s one of those a-ha moments. Like wow, this is really good. That’s what keeps me going back to cooking classes.

So, this recipe came from a class several years ago, and I wrote on the recipe handout that it was “really good.” I have my own culinary shorthand for note-taking at cooking classes. I scribble all over the handout, adding little notes here and there, describing cooking techniques, alternatives to ingredients, and even food additions the chef mentions. You’d be surprised how frequently the chef forgets to write in an ingredient or has the wrong measurement. Then, when the dish is served I have my hierarchy of (adverb) superlatives that I scribble in larger writing after the dish is served:

• no superlatives means it’s not worth making

• “Good” means it’s okay, probably not worth making

• “Very good” or “really good” means better than average and probably worth making

• “Excellent” or “delicious” means it was really very, very good

• “Fabulous” or “outstanding” means I must make this dish

So this one was a Very Good on my scale. Worth making, but maybe won’t gain “oh my gosh” kinds of comments at a dinner party. But still worth doing. You can’t have every single dish be the recipient of the highest of superlatives.

The chef/instructor was Nadia Frageri. She’s a native Italian who lives in San Diego, and still has a very pronounced accent. In fact her speech is so thick you must pay very close attention to her speaking, or you’ll miss things. She’s a very accomplished cook. Doesn’t have her own restaurant. Doesn’t even have a website. I don’t think she does computers. I don’t think she does catering. Hasn’t written a cookbook, either. But she teaches lots of classes in the San Diego area, and some in our area of Orange County. Nadia isn’t flamboyant or a comedian like some instructors are – she doesn’t have a running glib commentary to offer; she’s just a very good cook and wants you to go home with some of her family recipes.

So this is one of Nadia’s recipes. She recommended buying the artichoke hearts frozen at Trader Joe’s. The last time I checked they weren’t stocking them, however. You don’t want marinated ones for sure. If you can’t find frozen, then use canned. But still don’t use marinated. The goat cheese is the trump card here. It gives the artichoke hearts and garlic and cheese mixture a softness it wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s quite easy to make, the mixture can be made up ahead, and you just have to have the Italian bread on hand. French bread will work, but it has a much firmer crust, which you don’t want. And a smaller loaf – smaller around that is – is what you want, rather than a 4-inch diameter loaf. Or buy 2 smaller loaves. The larger slices are too hard to handle as finger food. Try it and let me know what superlatives you’d give this one.
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