It was one of those days. It had been a stressful day (because of some major work we’re having done around our yard). I recognized that I was very unsettled and needed something to soothe the “ravage beast” in myself. What better to do than make cookies? It made sense to me. We’ve been out of cookies in the freezer for awhile, and I had another one of Donna Deane’s recipes from the Los Angeles Times to try. She’s the Food Editor at the paper, and she wrote up an article the first week of January, about refrigerator cookies. I made one already – the Coffee Walnut Cookies – that were just wonderful.

Making the batter is cinchy easy. The usual stuff: butter, sugar, vanilla, flour, leavening. This one also had chunky peanut butter and chopped bittersweet chocolate. Roll the batter into logs, chill overnight and bake. I didn’t have any peanuts in my larder, so used walnuts instead.

The result: very good. The peanut butter taste does not predominate, which is interesting. This is basically a chocolate chip cookie with a peanut butter undertone, made into a refrigerator cookie for easy slicing. The cookies contain a lot of nuts by proportion – just make sure you chop both nuts and chocolate into pretty small pieces – otherwise when you try to slice these you’ll be doing “chopping” as you slice, which breaks up the dough. Now, it’s possible that if I’d had peanuts on hand, maybe the peanutty taste would be stronger. But I liked the walnuts actually.
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Over the years since the tri-tip roast became more visible at the butcher shop (or at Costco), I’d not been bitten by the bug. Lots of people raved about it. I wasn’t convinced. Yes, I had some here and there when someone else made it. After all, it looks like a fillet mignon. It just doesn’t taste like one, and it certainly doesn’t chew like one. But I read an article recently for tri-tip, extolling its virtues. So, when I visited my local, favorite butcher and they had Niman Ranch tri-tips, rib eyes and porterhouses, I figured if Niman Ranch was producing them, and if my butcher was showcasing the tri-tips with its very uptown relatives, then maybe they were worth reconsidering.

If you’ve never been much of a tri-tip fan, I won’t be convincing you otherwise. I don’t really think I am, either. This recipe doesn’t make tri-tip taste or chew any better than a fairly chewy piece of meat. But if you enjoy a bit of chew, this preparation may be just down your alley.

Tri-tip is a cut of meat that comes from the bottom sirloin. If you’ve ever had a sirloin from the bottom end and noticed that it was a lot more chewy and less tender, well, this is cut from that end. There are only two of them on every animal, so that’s why we don’t see them all that often. They’re very lean, I’ll give them that. Although there are some sinews and a bit of gristle, there’s really very little. So, if you’re going to eat red meat, this is fairly healthy. It needs marinating to give it more flavor, and to tenderize it. At least 24 hours worth.

The recipe comes from Bon Appetit, June, 2002. My DH enjoyed the flavor. My opinion? Eh. It’s not the preparation I didn’t like; it’s the cut of meat. If you go onto epicurious for this recipe, there are countless reviews of it. Some loved it. Others didn’t. Most people raved about the relish. I didn’t make the relish because I still had some mango-strawberry salsa I made the other night. But I think the cherry tomato relish would be a much better complement to the beef than the salsa. The marinade has a more savory taste, and a sweet salsa doesn’t go. It just doesn’t. But, no matter what, you can’t change the taste or the chew of the meat. So, knowing all that, you can decide whether you’d like to try this.

I don’t usually post recipes here that I don’t just love, but since I thought maybe other people would like the meat better than I did, I’m posting it anyway.
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From my notes about this, it came from an ad I read in a magazine in 2002. Most likely an ad for Jell-o products since the pudding mix features in a major way in this dessert.

Searching through my recipes for something I could make at home and transport easily, I flagged about four recipes and this one won out because it just sounded good to me. My favorite go-to recipe for transporting is my German Chocolate Chip Cake I wrote up last year. Perfect for a picnic, camping, or any big gathering. But last weekend was our son’s birthday and his request was for German chocolate layer cake. He’s likely been eating leftovers of that all week. So I didn’t want to make that cake since it’s so similar. Therefore, this brownie pudding pie was the ticket.

It’s extremely easy to make. You do have to make a batter for the brownies, but it’s an easy one. Once baked and cooled, you make instant pudding to layer on top of that, and top with a thick layer of Cool-Whip (or real whipped cream if you’d prefer). If you want to be fancy, shave a bit of chocolate on the top for decoration. The cake doesn’t need anything else (like ice cream) because it’s already very moist with the pudding layer. Perfect for just slicing and serving on paper plates with plastic utensils. What’s interesting is: although you use an instant pudding mix, and Cool-Whip, for goodness’ sake, when you combine it all, you don’t realize you’re eating fake whipped cream and instant pudding. Somehow, the combination, or the zing of chocolate fools you to think you’re eating real whipped cream (would I kid you about this?) and you don’t exactly know there’s a pudding layer. It tastes kind of like mousse. Nobody has to know you didn’t slave on this – it looks like you did.

Because my DH is diabetic, I did substitute some Splenda for sugar in the brownie part, and I used sugar-free pudding so he could have some of this. But you can use whatever suits your fancy. It’s just the combo of the brownies, pudding and whipped cream that kind of just melt in your mouth. Not super gourmet by any means. Easy? Yes. Tasty too.
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I remember, back in the mid-1990s, when chicken chili arrived on the food scene. We were in the thick of trying to revamp our old favorites (mostly with beef, veal, even lamb) into more healthy versions featuring chicken (ground or cubes) or turkey. The first time I made turkey meatloaf let’s just say that I was under-whelmed. But many creative cooks have figured out ways to give ground chicken and ground turkey a lot more flavor, yet look like those old beef favorites. For awhile I tried mixing half chicken/turkey and half beef in things like meatloaf. Then I got fed up with the lack of texture and flavor and went back to all beef versions. We just didn’t eat them very often.

But chicken chili is an altogether different animal, so to speak. It’s really not exactly chili. At least this one is almost more like a thick soup or stew, but with all the trappings of chili. This has all the stuff we like – beans, meat protein (chicken instead of beef), chiles, chili powder, cumin, then you serve it with all the usual garnishes (in this case: sour cream, grated cheese, cilantro and salsa). I even added a bowl of crumbled-up Fritos to the chili garnishes to add some crunch. There is more than an average amount of butter in this dish. I used what was called for, but wonder if it would taste just as good with less. As our friend Bud says, fat is the sled on which flavor rides. Maybe because there are so many sort-of bland things in this, the butter becomes a necessity. Next time I will try it with less. I also think this will serve more people than the recipe indicated. Although, the crew eating this were all very hungry from a hard day’s work (see below).

The recipe was in the February, 1996 issue of Gourmet magazine. It’s from “The Kitchen for Exploring Foods,” (a catering company) in Pasadena, right in our neck of the woods. You can find the recipe on epicurious.com easily enough, and read the 186 reviews (the 10-12 I read all raved about it). If you have made any of my recipes, just trust me on this. The chili is gosh-darned good. I made a double batch (I was feeding a crowd) so purchased 3 very large, whole chicken breasts, bone and skin attached, roasted them in the oven (400 for 35 minutes), then cut off the meat and into small chunks. The chicken does NOT get simmered in the chili for any length of time – you don’t want the chicken to give up its flavor and moisture to the soup, so add at the last minute and just heat through.

Our son and his wife were moving back into their house a few days ago (it’s been about 13 months for the major remodel to be completed). My DH was there to check off the boxes and furniture as the movers brought them in the door. I offered to bring a meal for the family helping – Karen chose dinner. But, the caveat was they have no cooktop or oven yet (the wrong one was delivered, and now they must wait another week or two for the right one to arrive) so I had to bring dinner in a crock pot or something else that could be plugged in. Chili seemed like the easy choice. Basically a one dish meal with a salad and dessert. See cook’s notes at the bottom of the recipe for more details. My changes are marked in RED.
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Files: MasterCook 5+ and MasterCook 14 (click links to open in MC; 14 contains photo)

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Wow, is that not a gorgeous photo? If I do say so myself. Must be the colors, the mango, and the strawberry against the black bowl!

Sometimes recipes bear repeating. And sometimes when you change a part of a recipe it makes it different enough that you, my readers, need to know about it. Originally this recipe was for pineapple salsa, but one time years ago I didn’t have pineapple, and I did have mango, so made it that way instead. It was the same recipe, just different fruit.

The Pineapple Salsa was posted last year. However, I didn’t have a photo because that was just after I’d fractured my foot. Now we’ve got a photo, at least of this version! The other night I had some super thick pork chops from Niman Ranch (ordered online, and on sale some months ago). I brined them for a couple of hours, DH grilled them with our tried and true method (mark them over direct fire, then off to the side, reduced heat, until they reached 150 in the center) and served this salsa on the side. I didn’t have red bell pepper, so substituted strawberries. Delish.

If you click on this link for the Pineapple Salsa, just substitute mango and strawberry for the pineapple and red bell pepper.
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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.

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It was a week or so ago and my daughter, Dana, mentioned to me in a phone conversation that she’d had a really, really tasty chicken dish at her sister-in-law’s home. She thought I’d like it too. A few days later Dana made it herself, and again, raved about it profusely, and the next morning she faxed me the recipe.

Now, the recipe came via Dana, via Ahnalinn, via her friend Laurie. But, after doing a tad bit of sleuthing on the internet, I found out the recipe was actually from Sunset Magazine, in 2004. Sunset does some great stuff. Maybe, in 2004, I hardly knew what panko was, so didn’t know what a great addition it is (now) to my pantry. And I likely didn’t clip out the recipe because of that.

Why do we use panko, you ask? Because when you bake with it, the crumbs stay crispy. I read just recently what it is that the Japanese producers do to make it that way (i.e., how’s it different from American or European style bread crumbs), and maybe it was the way it was torn or pulled, or something. Anyway, the panko crumbs don’t soak up fluid the way ordinary bread crumbs do. So it stays crisp. At least more crispy than the traditional.

The chicken does have three steps (coating, baking + sauce), but they’re easy steps, so don’t be dissuaded from trying this. I did slightly pound the breasts, a Phillis Carey tried and true technique that’s always worked for me – you want to make each breast about the same thickness, so the thinner parts don’t dry out. Then you dip them in a mixture of butter, Dijon and garlic. Then you dip those in a panko, parsley (actually I didn’t have any parsley so that was eliminated in mine) and grated cheese mixture, then you bake them in a terrifically hot oven. While the chicken is baking, you mix up the easy sauce – mayo, mustard, sesame oil and a tiny squirt of soy sauce. That’s it.

I served it with Brussels sprouts, a few tomato slices, and some wild and brown rice. Absolutely delicious. Moist, tender, and the crust was nice and crispy. And the sauce, well, what can I say, but it was so easy and really good. Thank you to Dana, Ahnalinn and Laurie.
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Finding a new salad dressing recipe is always a good thing in my book. I could have made one of my tried and true recipes the other day, but when there are so many other NEW ones to try, I’m easily swayed. I’m so glad I was, as I’ll be making this over and over. I love lemon juice-based dressings. And the addition of oregano was so extra good. It’s nothing difficult – I made about a quart of it because I was making a huge, HUGE salad to serve at our son Powell’s 40th birthday party. Oh, gosh, does it make me feel OLD to now have a 40-year old son. He’s successful, happy, has a darling wife and they have an adorable young baby, so life is good for him. That makes us proud.

This recipe started from one published in Gourmet, April 2006, and it was from the Signature Room at the 95th, a restaurant in Chicago. I changed the recipe a little bit – added more garlic, did my usual crush-the-garlic-with-the-salt thing that I do with several of my other salad dressings. Other than that, it’s the same recipe. You should try it.
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