t’s Fall weather here in Philadelphia and New Jersey shore environs. So different than the heat in Southern California that we left behind last week. Very pleasant. Cool nights. Even some rain. Cool and windy even. We stayed with friends in Newtown Square, a rural village outside Philadelphia for a couple of days and are now in a rural area near Ocean City (DH’s home town). He attended his high school reunion last night, catching up with people he hasn’t seen in awhile. I didn’t go – I don’t know anyone. I went out to dinner by myself. Had a mediocre meal at a local restaurant and tavern.

Today DH and our hosts went out boating. I just didn’t think I could manage boating with my broken foot and boot. I’m not very nimble with this boot on level ground, let alone a rocking boat. They had a good time and I enjoyed my solitude.

Here are some photos from our host’s home.

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It was late last year that I first read about the No-Knead Bread on one of the food blogs I watch regularly. Since I have and do make homemade yeast bread (not often, but on occasion), it was not a big deal to think about it and do it, although I could hardly believe it could be THAT good when making it is THAT easy. Truly it is.You need little more than flour, salt, water, yeast, a heavy-duty iron pot (like Le Crueset) with a lid, and about 24 hours. Of that 24, only about 5 minutes of it requires any hands-on work. The rest of the time the bread is just sitting, doing its thing. And really, you absolutely do not knead it. I love the ciabatta bread from Il Fornaio or La Brea Bakery. But I had no idea making that kind of holey moist bread could be such a cinch. I’ve made it for guests several times. And just for us several times too. It keeps just fine for a day at room temp. I usually slice it up on the 2nd day (if there is any left over, that is), wrap the slices in foil, then pop them in a ziploc plastic bag and into the freezer.

If you head over to Jaden’s Blog – Jaden’s Steamy Kitchen, you’ll find a long and beautifully photographed blog posting all about this bread. And how her 4-year old son (who is adorable besides) made it. If he can do it, you can do it. A fellow named Jim Lahey, of the Sullivan Street Bakery in New York (photo at top is from the bakery’s website), developed this recipe. I found watching the video of making this very helpful. It’s on the New York Times’ website. Hope it’s still there. Here’s the link to it. I’m glad I did because I might have done a couple of things differently. I used an oval Le Crueset pan (with lid) and it worked just perfectly. I will say that the bottom crust is VERY firm, which requires a firm hand to slice through. You can use a smaller pot and you’ll likely have a higher-rising bread. By the way, Le Crueset does not guarantee the black knobs on their pots will survive in an oven over 400°. However, several other people who have made this bread say they have had no problem with the knob. I used one with side handles and no black knobs. You may also use any other kind of pot – with a lid. If the dough comes out too moist, remove the lid sooner in the baking process. In my Dacor oven (runs a bit hot) I bake this at 425° for 30 minutes, then remove lid and continue baking for another 15. Each oven is different. Initially the crust was too hard, which is why I reduced the temperature and removed it earlier from the oven. I also mix the flour – half bread, half regular all-purpose. Others who have made this say you can vary flours in small quantities. If you add too much whole wheat, however, it most likely will not rise sufficiently.

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You know the lyrics . . .
Going on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again.

Yes, we’re going on a jet plane and we’ll be back in 10 days or so. I hope to blog some while I’m gone – maybe about the food I’m eating. We’re going to Philadelphia, then to Ocean City, New Jersey, to attend DH’s high school reunion. Maybe the scenery will be beautiful enough for a few photos. I hate lugging my laptop and accessories. I hope to find enough computers here and there to use other people’s, rather than trying to log onto some wireless networks. Anyway, stay tuned. I’ll be back. And hopefully upon my return I’ll be back in the kitchen doing some cookin’.

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What is more American, really, than beef meatballs? Not much, except maybe hamburgers and hot dogs. Seems like in years past, as in the 1970’s, every party you went to, hostesses served meatballs. Then they seemed to go out of vogue. I served so many of the darned things, I was tired of the usual currant jelly and mustard combination for the sauce. Remember those guys? I even had a copper chafing dish (a hand-me-down from my mother) that I used for them.

These days you never see chafing dishes except brought in by caterers. They really were functional, but they took up SO much space to store. People seemed to move to more casual entertaining. I sure did. After years of not using the chafing dish I finally gave it away. I have a cupboard in our garage that I’ve usurped for big serving things (my big coffee pot, for one), but my DH really thinks ALL the shelves in the garage belong to him, so I have to fight for shelf space. Just like the vendors in grocery stores fight for one more can width of space for their products. Visibility. Visibility.

Last year, prior to our kitchen remodel, I ordered a 2-burner hot plate to use in our temporary kitchen. It’s a very attractive thing – found it on one of the shopping channels. It worked wonderfully well during our construction phase, but it’s now stored away in the laundry room. But WITH the hot plate came two equally attractive round cooking pots. They are nothing extraordinary. I had to go look up the brand – Command Performance Gold. Made in China. Hmmm. No wonder the set was such a bargain. But they look very nice. They are stainless steel with a gold band around the middle, gold handles and glass lids. You can cook in them too, although I’m sure they’re not up the standards of All-Clad or Calphalon. But they’ve served me well.

So, when we had a kitchen warming party after our kitchen was completed, I used the 2-burner hot plate for two of the dishes I was serving. The butternut squash soup with jalapeno and ginger, that is one of my favorite recipes now, went in the larger pot, and the meatballs went into the smaller pot, to be refilled from a big pot in the oven keeping things warm. I made lots of the meatballs.

Normally I’d make my own meatballs, but we had about 30 people coming, and just didn’t have time, so I did something I rarely do – I went to Trader Joe’s and used their -cooked mini-meatballs in their frozen cases. What a Godsend they were. And they are delicious. I suppose they have some filler in them, but it’s not pronounced. It made the compiling of this dish a snap. Really, I mean it. It couldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes prep time to get ready. The sauce needs to be cooked a little bit, but not much. Then the whole batch went in the oven (or a crock pot would work just fine too) to be warmed through. How easy is that?

Everybody seemed to like meatballs. I had 4 pounds of them, and they were all gone. What does that tell you? You need to make these the next time you have a party. They are sweet – because of the cranberry sauce and the bottled chili sauce – so I don’t think they’d make a very good sauce for pasta, for instance. But they taste just fine as leftovers with a vegetable and green salad.

This recipe came from a Cape Cod cookbook: Mystic Seaport: A New England Table. The book was published by the Mystic Seaport Museum and much of the book contains fried things, particularly fish items, but this recipe jumped out at me, especially for the holidays, since it uses cranberries. The book is already out of print at online bookstores, but is available online at the Museum (click the link above). I found the book in an independent bookstore somewhere several years ago. I’ll be making this again and again. Try it.
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I must start off stating that the above picture is not this dish. I’m still not able to walk or stand much, so am still having to resort to internet photos. BUT, it looks similar.

So, now that’s off my chest, I can tell you about how easy this is to make. Don’t we all have a baked brie recipe of some kind? And it’s not exactly baked brie season, if there is such a thing, but hot, oozing brie reminds me more of the winter, maybe even Christmas or Thanksgiving. So save this for some cool night when you’re having some friends over.

A few nights ago Jenny, the daughter of friends of ours came to our house and cooked dinner for us. Her parents, Marty & Julie, joined us too. Jenny is such a delight, a teacher, and loves to cook. She made a lamb stir fry dinner, Texas caviar, spinach salad and the cutest cookies (chocolate chip dough with a Reese’s peanut butter cup baked in the center – oh yum were they good). The entire meal was just delicious. AND, she brought a wedge of brie to snack on too. That’s what made me think about the baked brie.

What’s different about this preparation is that after you bake the 2 half-pound rounds of brie, covered in the crescent roll dough, you put it in the microwave for about a minute or two to just finish off the heating/melting of the cheese. What a clever method, I thought, when I first had it. It doesn’t stay in the microwave long enough to soggify the crescent dough. And you serve this with sliced apples as the sled upon which you place the brie. Not crackers or bread, which would just add to the high carb nature. But apples. So, you’re getting a little bit of healthy thrown in with all the cheese. I think I haven’t ever used the 3 apples. More like 2, I think. But, buy 3 just in case you like the apple slices bigger than I do.

I don’t remember where this recipe came from – it may be a Tarla Fallgatter recipe (she teaches classes here). My notes don’t tell me, so I can’t be certain I’m giving proper credit for this recipe. But, from whence it came, any way you do it, it’s mighty good.

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This recipe doesn’t even begin to qualify as gourmet. It’s nothing but cinchy easy. I don’t buy Pillsbury biscuits much anymore. They probably have transfats in them. But they sure do make it easy to provide some bread for a company meal.

The combination sounds a bit odd – butter, herbs and lemon juice. And when the instructions suggest you MIX this together, just remember that an acid and butter are kind of like oil and water – they just don’t blend. The herbs stir in just fine, but it’s difficult to get the lemon juice to incorporate in the butter mixture. Just keep trying and it will absorb most of it.

So you get all that done ahead. Heat the oven. Spread each biscuit (top) with some of the butter/herb mix and arrange them into a 8-inch round cake pan with an edge of each biscuit overlapping the previous one. That way you kind of make a spiral. Use a Teflon pan if possible. If there’s some lemon juice left over in the mixing bowl just pour it over the biscuits anyway. Will make them more tangy.

Likely these would be even better made with a regular homemade biscuit – even Bisquick ones rather than the Pillsbury rolls. But I never remember these unless I see the Pillsbury tubes at the grocery store. So won’t somebody try those and let me know? They’re probably even better than this recipe. I’ve had this recipe for years – it was given to me by a friend, so I don’t know the origin. I even looked on the Pillsbury site and this recipe was not there. Kind of surprising, actually.

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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click link to open in MC – 14 contains photo)

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Story telling seems to be the order of the day with this recipe. From the journal of Carolyn’s life. I can hardly write up this recipe without explaining how I came to make this dish, let alone how I knew about it. I actually spent about a month in the Philippines in 1965. My first husband was a Navy Officer and just before the start of the Vietnam war, I embarked on a trip around Asia, trying to meet up with the aircraft carrier he was on. But the war intervened. I had the choice to go home, but decided I was up to the challenge of traveling around and finding my way. The air ticket was paid for, and I knew I could stay very economically on the military bases around Asia.

International travel was new to me – very new. I was 24 at the time with the ink barely dry on my passport. And likely I was very naive as well. With hat, gloves, raincoat, high heels (that was simply the way people traveled back then) and suitcase (with no wheels) in hand, I first went to Hawaii and then on to Japan. Stayed there for about 2 months – alone – on a U.S. Navy base. In a family barracks with a bathroom down the hall. But the price was right. A dollar a day it cost me to live there. (There are some nice perks to being part of the U.S. military “family.”) Bus service traversed the base and I could shop in the military exchange, use the library, go to the movies for a quarter, attend wives’ functions at the officer’s club if I cared to, and venture out the gate of the base and explore the town of Yokusaka. I attended free Japanese language classes and befriended the very kind Japanese teacher who invited me to her home one evening. That’s when I first ate gyoza, a staple of the Japanese cuisine. Now you can buy it at Trader Joe’s, of all things! I could also eat at the two officer’s club restaurants on base. I couldn’t cook at the barracks where I stayed, so I ate out 3 meals a day. Fortunately, it didn’t cost much. And the food was good. I went into Tokyo a couple of times, took a tour, also took a 2-day military-run tour to Mt. Fuji, which I enjoyed very much. But most days and most hours of every day I was alone.

To entertain myself. I did a lot of reading and letter-writing to my family at home.Eventually the ship headed for the Philippines and I flew to Manila. I arrived late in the afternoon, after a very rocky flight on Air France, where the pilots received multiple trays of wine into the cockpit (permitted at the time). I discovered that I’d missed the three-times-a-week flight to the U.S. Navy base I needed to get to. At that point I was standing in the air terminal in Manila. It was hotter than hell. And humid. And I was very, very alone.I’d gone to an information desk and they had no suggestions. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t like the thought of finding a hotel in Manila to stay for 3 days until the next flight went out. I was a little scared and very unsure of myself. But I’d read that if you’re in a foreign place and you have a problem, perhaps the American Embassy can help. I could have phoned the Embassy, but no, I took a taxi there. In my high heels, my hat, my gloves, my suitcase and my very sweaty body. Maybe all that dressed-up paraphernalia helped me, since a kind secretary took pity on me and offered to drive me to the bus terminal.

That bus trip, in itself, is another very engrossing story, but it would take another 5 paragraphs to tell it. Let’s just say that I sat behind the driver. Passengers of all ages, shapes and sizes piled on, with their cages of live chickens hanging out the windows, luggage stacked on top of the bus, and off we went. It t’was the most frightening bus journey I’ve ever made in my entire life. And eventually, 3-4 hours later I arrived in the base-side town of Olangapo. It was about midnight.

I was totally unprepared for Olangapo. It’s a very un-Filipino-like town with little except bars and houses of prostitution. I count myself lucky that I eventually made it through the town in a taxi, to the gate of the military base. It was a Friday night and raucous American sailors were doing their best to spend their money, get drunk and make merry, I suppose. At one point, stopped at a light, a bunch of them approached the taxi (spotting me, a young blonde woman, alone, inside) and rocked the taxi, hitting the windows with their fists. They wanted me to come join their revelry. They hadn’t seen an American woman in awhile, I suppose, and they wanted inside the car. I was absolutely scared to DEATH. The taxi driver jumped the light and he drove hell-for-leather through the rest of town. On directions from the driver, I ducked down in the seat in the blocks to follow so the sailors couldn’t see me, and finally the driver delivered me at the bridge. I was shaking like a leaf. Big time. It was now about 12:30 am. Thinking back on it, I should have heavily tipped the taxi driver. I didn’t even think of giving him more than a regular tip. So, out I got from the taxi. Still with my suitcase, high heels, raincoat, hat and gloves. Picturing myself just makes me laugh now. I had to drag myself about 150 feet or so across a pedestrian-only bridge to approach the gate. There were no problems crossing the bridge – good thing! Everybody was already in town. Whew.

A couple of other wives I knew were already billeted there, so I tagged along with them. We had very slow days – breakfast at the officer’s club, lounge by the pool most of the day, dinner at the officer’s club, sleep. Repeat and repeat. I did see my then-husband some, but not much. I stuck like glue to the two other wives who were more worldly than I. Both had been Pan Am stews for some years so were far more well traveled than I. And they had friends everywhere in the world.

So now, we finally get to the focus of the food blog story. The lumpia. Perhaps lumpia are meant to be a main dish, but we had them only as an appetizer at the two officer’s clubs. And at the pool. And we wives ordered them every single day for lunch. I just l-o-v-e-d them. They’re similar to the Chinese style egg rolls that you know and enjoy, but slightly different. I liked dipping each one into the sauce that accompanied them. I was able, finally, to get somebody to tell me that they put maraschino cherry juice in the sauce. How odd, I thought. But, when you consider the number of maraschino cherries an officer’s club bar goes through, they were certainly resourceful coming up with a use for all that brilliant red, highly charged Red Dye cherry juice. No other recipe I’ve ever seen for them uses that ingredient. Not surprising, I guess.

Eventually, after that 5-month trip (I also went on to Hong Kong, back to Japan for another month’s stay, then home) I found a recipe for lumpia. I knew they were made with vegetables, minced up, julienned really, with shrimp, pork and chicken. I haven’t made them in many years. But they’re awfully darned good. If you don’t mind the prep and the fact that they’re deep fried.

I actually believe that trip I made gave me the lifetime urge to travel and I haven’t stopped since. But think about the maraschino cherry juice when you make this. And one frightened young woman taking a hair-raising bus ride across part of the Philippines, then a taxi ride through Olangapo.
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My friend, Sue, another of my friends who is a very good cook, served this sauce one night several years ago when we dined at their home. It was served as a major condiment on pork chops, I believe. And was it ever good! She told me the recipe came from a cookbook she’d purchased after hearing Lynne Rossetto Kasper talk about it on NPR. I tried to find the recipe online, but had no success at all. So, of course, I had to go buy the book too. Amazon being my good friend, it took no time at all to get it. I enjoyed reading it, The Italian Country Table, all on its own. The author includes lots of fun little stories about the different dishes, about the foodstuffs of Italy, and hundreds of little cooking tips. The sub-title of the book is: Home Cooking from Italy’s Farmhouse Kitchens.

The recipe suggests this can be served with almost any grilled meat. It would be wonderful with grilled Italian sausages, over chicken, or even served as a side to a pork roast. It has a jammy consistency. In fact, Kasper even mentions it in the recipe write-up, that’s it’s more like tomato jam than a tomato sauce. So, this isn’t a sauce for pouring over pasta. This is a tart and sweet reduced (side) sauce that will mound high on a spoon because it’s so thick and goes WITH a protein. Or maybe grilled onions. Or grilled portobello mushrooms. And one of the best things is that this sauce will keep for several weeks. The recipe indicates a week or so, but I’ve kept this much longer than that with no problem. You could also freeze it in small quantities too. I always double this recipe because we use it on lots of different things. Being this is the end of tomato season, you probably could make this with fresh tomatoes too; it just so happens that the author uses canned ones.
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My friend Linda T. is a very good cook. We always talk cooking and food and restaurants and all-things-entertaining as part of our conversation. She used to work for the Los Angeles Times (that’s how I knew her through the ad agency I co-owned; she was our outside rep).

Maybe one time I mentioned my tried-and-true carrot cake, and she mentioned hers. Then she brought it recently for a get-together. Oh my goodness, was it ever GOOD. Her recipe is better than mine. Maybe one of these days I need to put her recipe and my recipe side by side and compare them. Hers has considerably more pineapple in it than mine, but that just makes it more moist and delicious. I don’t know the origin of this cake, but I remember first having “carrot cake” in the late 1950’s, or no later than 1960. It was REAL popular back then. Linda, if you’re reading and want to comment on the origin of your recipe, that would be lovely. But, 50+ years later there has been no diminishment of carrot cake’s popularity. And it’s just as good as ever.

Low calorie it is NOT, unfortunately. Delicious it is, though, and I highly recommend you try it. It’s not made in the layer format, but in a 9×13 Pyrex dish. Easier. Just as good as a layer cake in my book. And yes it has a cream cheese frosting too. Nothing so different there, even the proportions, whatever. It’s just gosh-darned good. And not very many recipes serve 16. You want small portions of this and maybe you can stay out of the pan for seconds. If so, you have more discipline than I do.

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So, what is it about bacon that is so darned good? It’s that crispy porky piggy flavor, naturally! As with most people, especially those of us trying to watch calories and fat, bacon became a treat, a once-in-awhile kind of treat at least 20 years ago. But I miss it. However, I’ve found that a little bit goes a long way. Of course, we know that, right? But when a recipe calls for 3 strips, I use 1. I’ve used turkey bacon and it’s okay. I probably should use it always, but I’d rather have less of the real thing and get more of the real flavor. But, what do you do with a big package of bacon when you only need 1 slice? Here’s one of Carolyn’s tips coming your way. Once I open a package of bacon, I remove the slices I’m using for that meal, then the remaining ones are separated and rolled up, placed on a metal tray – raw – frozen, then the rolls are popped into a Ziploc bag and stored in the freezer. Then, when I need one slice, it’s easy to pull out just one. Here’s a photo of the bacon rolls currently residing in my freezer.

The photo looks blurry, but it’s the vapor in the Ziploc bag you’re viewing. Because bacon is mostly fat, it defrosts in a jiffy. And with these little bacon rolls if I really only want a half a slice, a sharp chef’s knife will easily cut that one roll in half. If you cut it lengthwise, it’s already cut into pieces. But you can chop it a bit more, easily enough.

I do want to talk a bit about bacon itself. I used to buy grocery store bacon. And for some, it may be all that you can afford. I understand – I’ve been there too. But I’ve never liked all the tinkering our food manufacturers do with our foods, so I try to avoid chemicals whenever it’s feasible. Now that trichinosis is a thing of the past, we needn’t worry about acquiring the disease from uncooked pork. So we don’t need the nitrates and nitrites so commonly part of the curing process in bacon and other pork products. I avoid them whenever possible. And it’s easy to do so if you have a source for Niman Ranch bacon. It’s smoked, but uncured. Our Trader Joe’s carries it nearly all the time. It’s without preservatives, and has a gorgeous taste. It’s thick-sliced too, which I prefer. There’s a photo of the bacon above – it is a smaller package – 12 ounces I think, rather than a pound. That’s to make it a bit more affordable, I’m certain. But I use so little of it, a package will last me months and months once it’s in my cute little frozen rolls.

So now, the salad. The recipe for this was published in our local newspaper, The Orange County Register, in 1994. I clipped that little gem out and made it with some home grown tomatoes we had from our garden. It was absolutely fantastic, and I’ve been making it regularly ever since. I added the basil and the croutons to the original recipe. You can eliminate the croutons if you’re watching carbs, but I enjoy the crunchiness of just a few of them. Add as much or as little of the bacon as you see fit. The recipe calls for more than I use, and we’re content with it. Certainly you need good, flavorful tomatoes. But even in the dead of winter Trader Joe’s and Costco both carry a variety of on-the-vine type that are quite good. So you can really have this year around.

I searched around on the internet today to just see what kind of recipes are out there for BLT Salad. What’s unique about this one is the use of rice wine vinegar. It adds a lovely sparkle to the dressing. You can use low-fat or fat free mayo if you want, and it doesn’t really make any difference in the taste. Normally I would say nothing but Best Foods (Hellman’s) will do, but since the mayo is diluted, there’s no appreciable change in the taste. What a great summertime treat. It was delicious for lunch.

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