Have you ever heard or read about how hard it is to photograph brown and beige things? Hope you can even figure out this is onions! I had to balance some of the onions on a fork with my left hand and try to hold the camera steady AND click the shutter with my right hand. All to show some added depth to the photo. And although this may not look all that appetizing, it’s actually very good. Would I kid you?

After just stating yesterday that I didn’t have any posts waiting in the wings, I looked, and oh yes, I had this one. I hadn’t posted it because I made the onion pepper relish to go with the beef sliders for the 4th of July, and thought the two were too similar. This one is less sweet than the relish – more suited for a slab of grilled meat probably, than the burgers and accompaniments. I still have some of this in the refrigerator (as well as the relish from the 4th), and assume it will keep for another few weeks since it’s “pickled,” so to speak, with the vinegar. Hope so, as it was delicious and very suitable for some meat things. I used it on a sandwich last week too.

We had some friends over for dinner a few weeks ago, and with the pork roast we did on the rotisserie (that I’d brined) I wanted to serve some kind of sauce or salsa, or something. Found a recipe for a pork rib roast with this onion marmalade. It was just a perfect fit. And oh-my-goodness deliciousness. It’s not difficult, although it does take some time (total cooking time about an hour) to sweat down the onions, then to continue to cook them down to a jammy consistency. If you started this first (when about to make a dinner) it would be done by the time you were ready to sit down).

The recipe came from Food & Wine magazine, May 2008. If you want to do the pork roast, just brine it, bake or rotisserie it until it reaches an internal temp of about 133 degrees (still pink in the middle). Remove and let sit for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving with this cold, room temp or hot onion topping. The leftovers will keep for several weeks.
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I’ve had very few days since I started this blog when I didn’t have a recipe to post. Uh, that’s today. Having been away for the weekend, I enjoyed preparing a simple meal on Monday night. Yesterday I spent catching up on one thing or another. My 2nd book club met in the morning and we discussed A Kiss From Maddalena, a touching story which takes place in WWII Italy. It was my suggestion we read it, and we all enjoyed it. It’s not really a romance, although from the title you’d think so. Sure, there is a romance in it, but mostly it’s about the hell that happens to the village itself and all its inhabitants during and after the war. The book is a tad bit hard to find. I read about it in Bas Bleu, a book catalog that I so enjoy reading. Sure, I can buy books cheaper at Amazon, but I like to support the little guys too, so at least once a year I order books from their online store. The book is no longer available there, though. What I love about Bas Bleu is the write-ups about books. My other book club is reading another Bas Bleu recommendation for our meeting tonight, The Covenant by Naomi Ragen. Really interesting read about an abduction in a Palestinian neighborhood in Israel. I’m leading the review tonight, so have some homework to do about that. It’s deeply discounted at Amazon, and no longer available at Bas Bleu (just a guess – because the author has been sued or accused by two different people/publishers for possible plagiarism in writing two other books).

Last week I made another batch of the roasted balsamic strawberry ice cream from a couple of weeks ago. That ice cream is so darned addicting. In my first batch I used a product called Tulocay’s Made in Napa Valley Blackberry Balsamic Vinegar with Pear. Having made the ice cream a second time with more pedestrian balsamic, I’m now craving more of this pear balsamic. So far I’ve been unable to find it. I’ve phoned several sources listed on their website, but they don’t carry that particular product. Will have to widen my search, or pony up to have it shipped from the producer. I bought it last year in Healdsburg (wine country) near where it’s made.

A second batch of the Thin & Buttery Chocolate Chip Cookies yielded a different cookie altogether. I made an alteration (know that it’s problematical anytime you make a change in a baked good) by using some Splenda instead of white sugar. I wanted my DH to be able to enjoy some of them. It totally changed the chemistry. Not a great cookie did it make. Although maybe it’s a good thing because I’m not craving them like I did the first, the virgin batch. I suspect, however, that I will make these again using the original recipe. They’re that good.

Last night my DH and I went to Laguna Beach. First it was dinner, at the Sundried Tomato Café, a fabulous restaurant (serendipity, since we didn’t have a plan about where to eat). I had a glass of Ferrari Carano Fume Blanc (one of the few white wines out there – other than champagne – that I truly enjoy, since I’m mostly a red wine drinker), an exceptional Caesar salad and a perfectly ripe avocado stuffed with a spicy-dressed Oregon bay shrimp salad (an appetizer, but was ample as an entrée). We ran into friends, Jackie & Don, as we were leaving. The restaurant is one of their favorites! Then we walked to the Laguna Playhouse to see The Marvelous Wonderettes. That may have been one of the best plays (actually this was a musical) I’ve ever seen there. We both just loved it. It’s all the music from our past – a step back in time to 1958 with four girls who are friends, who are asked to sing at their Senior Prom. In the first half they tell their stories (of love, school, teachers, growing up, etc.) using music of the era. In the second half they have returned for their 10-year reunion, and sing more of the 50’s and 60’s era songs. The costumes were just darling (I can’t believe we wore stuff like that, but sure enough, I did) and the four women had great voices. If you live in Southern California, I highly recommend you try to see this musical. It’s playing through August 31st. (And it’s opening in New York at the end of August.) Go have dinner (at about 5:45 pm, to give yourself ample time to walk back to the theater for the show at 7:30) at the Sundried Tomato over on Forest.

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After a weekend of consuming more fried things than I normally eat, I wanted to cook something a bit more simple. Last week I’d purchased a big bunch of Poblano chiles and red bells, just for this recipe. Yesterday morning, while the weather was still very cool, I broiled the peppers and removed the skins. My DH grilled the chicken thighs (that’s what I had in the freezer) which I’d marinated in lime juice, olive oil and garlic, along with some planks of eggplant, and it took just a few minutes to make the sauce. The longest step was browning the onions.

I didn’t really want to use heavy cream, but decided to thin it out 50/50 with fat-free half and half. The only problem with that is that the sauce would be too thin, so I just whisked in two tablespoons of flour to the broth when it was added, and it thickened the sauce just fine. I didn’t have any Jack cheese, so found some soft herby cheese in the refrigerator that worked fine. I used less cheese than the recipe indicated. This was delicious. I liked the sauce, liked the strips of poblanos (they’re very mild; in fact they really have no heat whatsoever), and the cream sauce was quite light. The onions added a nice sweetness to the dish. I happened to have had chicken thighs instead of breasts, but that probably didn’t matter a whit. This is pretty enough to be a company meal – would be especially good with some rice on the side to sop up some of the sauce.
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A few shots from a very fun weekend in San Francisco. My daughter, Dana, has not, in previous decades, been all that interested in traveling. She WANTS to travel, but leaving home and hearth gives her a bit of trepidation. She has been to New York and Philadelphia (when her brother graduated from Wharton School with his MBA), Hawaii (family vacation we planned), Baja California (on a cruise) and Seattle (another family trip we did). I lured her out this time by offering her a trip to San Francisco for a mother-daughter “bonding weekend,” I called it. I packed the calendar with activities from the moment we arrived until we left mid-afternoon yesterday.

We actually met in Berkeley on Friday night at Chez Panisse. I think this is the 4th time I’ve been there now. It was delicious, as usual. Then we parked my daughter’s car at one of the BART (rapid transit) stations in Oakland and whisked on over (under the Bay) to the city late that evening.

We stayed at a hotel near Union Square (Hotel Rex – okay, not exceptional, rooms are a little tired), used the cable cars many, many times, to get from there to the Embarcadero, the marina area and Columbus Circle. They are just so fun to ride. I never tire of the cable cars.

They’ve re-done the Square (a good thing) and it’s now a teeming center of activity. A concert was a-happening as we left yesterday.

Uh – not one of the glamour shots of the century, but we were having lots of fun here. This was with the Segway Electric Tour Company. These things are just the greatest. I took a segway tour in Paris two years ago – one of the most fun things I’ve ever done, IMHO. This time it was with about 16 others, and we toodled all over the wharf, North Beach and the Embarcadero area. They have several tours (about $70 each, online), including an advanced one that goes down Lombard Street (wheeeee), and a nightime one too, all about 2 1/2 to 3 hours long, including at least 45 minutes of training. We did the beginner’s because my daughter hadn’t ever done this before.

We also went to see Beach Blanket Babylon, a very funny, corny musical revue with garish costumes and comedy. Very entertaining. Might not have been my first choice of something to do, but knew my daughter would like it. Indeed she did.

Yesterday we had a lunch tea (Tea for Two, they call it) at the Leland Tea House about 8 blocks from Union Square. I chose it because it’s a more casual atmosphere than some of the starched tablecloth kind of establishments that serve afternoon tea in the area. The tea and food were delicious. I’d go back there. All the food is made on premises, fresh every day.

We really didn’t go to San Francisco for the food, although we certainly ate well enough. We had lunch on Saturday at Castagnola’s in North Beach. Right on the wharf. Food was really quite good, although overpriced. The waitress steered us to choices that were out of the mainstream for tourists (i.e., she said no on clam chowder, lobster wontons and fish and chips). The food was actually better than I would have expected (we had calamari, oysters rockefeller, caesar salads, and copious amounts of sourdough bread and butter from Boudin). We had dinner at an old-time Union Square restaurant called Sears Fine Food. Nothing remarkable, but good, plus we got in and out there in time to get to the theater.

Yesterday we did the tea thing, some shopping, took the BART from the city to Oakland. Then it was time for tearful goodbyes as I flew south and Dana drove back to her home in Placerville, about 2 hours away. Dana had a great time. (That’s progress.)

My DH spent the weekend on our boat in San Diego, took our other daughter and her family plus a group of their friends out sailing for several hours on Saturday, then took some other friends sailing yesterday. He drove north just in time to pick me up at the airport last night.

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Can you hear the lyrics? I’m taking a short trip to San Francisco. My daughter who lives in Northern California is going to meet me there and we’re spending a weekend together. I’ve spent hours plotting nearly every minute of the 48 hours we’ll be together. I wish I’d realized the trip I was planning coincided with the BlogHer conference in San Francisco – I didn’t put two and two together in time to go a day early and attend that too. Maybe next year. Several of the food blogs I read are written by women I’d just be thrilled to meet and they’re going to it. Alas.

I’m not taking my laptop – there simply won’t be time to blog while I’m there, so I’ll post again on Monday, most likely. And at the moment I don’t have any recipes lurking around to be posted. So, Tasting Spoons will be silent for a few days . . .

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This is another installment in my so-called series on fruits and veggies, all based on the book “How to Pick a Peach,” by Russ Parsons. Here in California, peaches and nectarines are in high season. And they are delicious this year, I must say.

What I Learned:

• Peaches and nectarines are nearly interchangeable (other than the obvious: the nectarine has no fuzz) from the consumer’s point of view.
• White-fleshed fruit is better and sweeter than the golden fleshed (yes, really).
• As consumers we seem to prefer red-toned skin of the fruit, but really the best P’s and N’s are those with a golden tone to the skin. The red is a breeding technique (a genetic variation actually) and doesn’t indicate anything; in fact, it hides whether the fruit is ripe or not.
• Parsons tells an interesting tale about a marketing experiment: A tasting panel was given two nectarines: one a fairly tasteless red variety, the other a great-tasting gold. Sitting around, tasting and talking about the fruit, the consumers unanimously agreed that the gold was a much better nectarine and that was the one they would buy. Then, on the way out the door, the panelists were offered boxes of nectarines as a thank you. One held the preferred golden fruit, the other the red. To a person, the consumers picked the red fruit to take home. Red sells.
• Growers have bred out peaches with the tiny beak at the bottom – it tends to break during packing and shipping, which can cause the entire case to rot.
• All nectarines are grown in California; peaches come from 28 states, but more than half from California.
• The greatest demand for white-fleshed fruit is from Asia – used to be that more than 80% of the fruit went to Taiwan. Not true any longer as we’re tending to recognize the value in the white-fleshed fruit.
• The difference between a nectarine and a peach is simply one gene. They’re so closely related, though, that sometimes peach seeds will sprout a nectarine tree. [Isn’t that amazing?]
• Nectarines are a slight bit more acidic with a lemony top note. Peaches tend to be muskier and richer in flavor.

How to Choose & Store:

• Remember, red doesn’t mean better. Choose from the background color – golden, not green. If it’s hung on the tree to near maturity, it should have a distinctive orange cast.
• If they are still firm, leave out on your counter until fully ripened, then refrigerate. Do not chill under-ripe fruit – it will turn mealy and dry.
• Don’t peel nectarines, but peaches should be peeled. Cut a shallow X in the blossom end, then blanch quickly in boiling water, then place in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. The skins should peel right off.

Parsons gives recipes for Peach Gelato, Nectarine-Cardamom Ice Cream plus Nectarines and Blackberries in Rose Geranium Syrup. But he mentions his favorite (no recipe), which is merely fresh peaches and shortbread.

– – – – – –

Or how about a peach shortcake? I had some buttermilk golden raisin scones in the freezer – I baked those, smeared on some Devon Cream (both of these items left over from the luncheon tea about a month ago) and sliced the peaches on top. And then I drizzled about a teaspoon of heavy cream over the top. My market doesn’t have any white-fleshed peaches (yet), but these yellows were just fabulous. I searched for the ones that had less red on the skin – they all were quite red, but I spotted a few with less red than others.

Here are the recipes I’ve posted so far for peaches or nectarines:

Southern Peach Cobbler

Peach-Raspberry Streusel Cake

In case you’re interested, the photo at the top was taken in my kitchen, but the nearly setting sun happened to be narrowly slotted right into my photo area. I re-arranged the peaches with that lovely warm highlight on the center of the bunch. Makes it almost look like they are luminous, doesn’t it?

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There are a whole lot of variations on beef stew out there. Even Asian. And my friend Cherrie’s version made with the addition of currant jelly and cream. I used to make a kind of bland one in the crock pot some years ago too. But my all time favorite is this one, which I hadn’t made in years and years. My DH doesn’t really love stew. Even he doesn’t know why. I had made this for him before, but I hoped that perhaps with a few modifications, he’d like it better. Oh, indeed he did. He wanted seconds, even. I didn’t add potatoes this time – just carrots, mushrooms and the flavoring vegetables.

This recipe has the strange name because it was a version prepared by a dear family friend named Ruth Cormack. After her husband died in the last 1970’s, she developed Alzheimer’s and one day when I phoned her she didn’t know who I was. She was still living alone at that time. It was heartbreaking to me. I didn’t have the phone numbers of any family, plus I lived hundreds of miles away from her, so I don’t know what happened to her. She had rather unpleasant step-daughters who probably neglected her. Sad story. But beef stew will forever be linked with my friend, Ruth. She lived in San Anselmo (a beautiful suburb of Marin County, across the bridge from San Francisco). I hope that where she’s observing me from a heavenly cloud, she’s smiling because I’m sharing her recipe.

What makes this version stand out from the other more mundane recipes are these ingredients: lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, a bit of sugar and some allspice. Not things you’d normally associate with beef stew. And I’m really happy with the changes I made to the good-old tried and true recipe. I added a heap of mushrooms, used a mirepoix to help flavor the broth, also added some chicken broth (you could use beef or chicken), and I thickened it a bit more with some added flour that I tossed around on the raw mushrooms. I made it with my new pressure cooker (see p.c. notes at the end of the recipe). It’s not exactly stew season around here, but we actually had a cool day when I made this. Try it and see what you think.
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When I spotted nice, jumbo, fresh Poblano chiles at the market I got to thinking about what would go well with them, and I remembered a dish I ate at a wonderful Pasadena restaurant, the Parkway Grill. At one visit, years and years ago, I ordered as an entrée their stuffed Poblano. I believe it was an appetizer (albeit, a hearty one), but I ordered it as my entrée. At the time I’d never had a Poblano, so was particularly impressed with the flavor, not only of the chile itself, but the fresh corn and cheese that melted out of it. I wanted to lick the plate. On the occasions that I’ve been back (not numerous, alas, since it’s about 40 miles away), it’s never been on the menu again, and likely they’ve changed chefs several times in the interim anyway. Some years ago I did try to make it, but just didn’t know what I was doing; didn’t have a recipe, so was kind of flying blind.

This time I used several internet recipes as guides (not including one that’s been copycatted all over the web that includes ½ cup of pecans), adapting it to fit what I wanted and what I had on hand to put into the chiles. We had fresh white corn on the cob, fresh red and yellow bell pepper, and I just kind of winged it from there. I tasted the mixture a few times as I went along, to see if it tasted anything like what I remembered. Well, it’s been so many years, I can’t be sure, but the combination of Poblanos (which are a very mild chile, by the way) and my addition of chipotle chile in adobo sauce, plus a little squirt of concentrated chicken broth, a little feta, a bit of garlic here, a bit of cream there really added to the flavor. I forgot to add the egg (I’d intended to) so the mixture kind of fell apart. I’m glad I took a photo of it in it’s BEFORE state, since it was quite difficult to serve AFTER. If I were going to make this again, I might try to find cotija cheese (a crumbly Mexican cheese), but the feta worked just fine. I was very pleased with the salty crumbly addition. If you like more heat, add a larger chipotle chile. If you don’t like heat at all, eliminate the chipotle altogether.

A word to the wise: if you broil the Poblanos too long, the flesh of the Poblano is somewhat compromised – it becomes too fragile to handle. So, just char the peppers until they’re black, not any longer. That means hanging around in front of the oven perhaps more than you want to, but it’ll be worth it. My recollection is that the chile I had originally was still almost chewy and crunchy, so perhaps they didn’t even char it and/or remove the skin. I simply don’t remember.

My result? Absolutely fabulous. This would make a delicious entrée – there was surely enough quantity to be one. I served it with some leftovers which didn’t exactly go with it (the Mexican chicken I made a few nights ago). I think perhaps a small green salad would have been the best thing to go with it. There really was enough filling  to make another pepper so if you can find medium-sized ones, make three!
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You’ve heard it here before – I have a very hard time passing up any chocolate chip cookie recipe. Good old Tollhouse is still my fav, but occasionally I’m tempted by another. Fickle cookie person that I am! What made this one unique was cornstarch. I know, cornstarch in a cookie? As I was reading Anna’s blog, Cookie Madness (I don’t know HOW that girl makes so many cookies, sometimes 2-3 batches a DAY!), she was talking about her very favorite CC cookie recipe, from Wellesley. She elaborated that they’re not the best-est looking cookie in the parade, but they’re thin, buttery and crispy, if you bake them right. She also mentioned that there’s a very fine line between looking done, and being just right – with crispy edges – and being overdone. That’s the secret. All RIGHT, I thought. Let’s give this a try.

Anna talked about the difficulty with her perfect recipe, of baking these so they come out at the perfect stage, so she decided to add one tablespoon of cornstarch. Hoping to encourage the crisp edges, but deter the overdone cookie. I’m never sure about adding either more liquid (like a dash of coffee, for instance) or dry stuff, just because it could change the chemistry of a cookie, big time. I’m glad she tried the combination. It works! In this case I did add some walnuts. If you’re a CC cookie purist, then you’ll omit those, I guess.

These cookies were easy as pie to mix up. Oh, that phrase is a misnomer. Pie isn’t easy, according to me. But you get my drift. One bowl? Yes. Thin? Yes. Buttery? Oh yes. Delicious. Oh my yes. I think my first batch got overdone – I saw what she meant about the fine line. I baked these one pan at a time as Anna suggested . . . I used a Silpat on the cookie sheet . . . and when I peeked at the cookies at 10 minutes, they didn’t show any sign of crispy (browner) edges, so I left them in for ONE MORE MINUTE. At 11 minutes they were too done. Oh, dear! So, the next pan I cut down the time by 30 seconds. Still too done. Maybe the 10 minutes was right. But, you do have to remember, that once the pan is hot, when you put in the second batch, they’ll take less time. So I still have a bit of learning to do with this recipe. But it doesn’t matter once you taste them! When I removed them from the oven, believe it or not, you could actually see light through some of the cookies, they’re that thin. Notice in the picture that the top cookie almost looks slumped. My husband looked at them and said “what’s wrong with those cookies?” Hah. Funny guy.

If you like soft crumbly cookies, this recipe is NOT for you. But if, like me, you love crispy crunchy cookies, these guys will float your boat. And also providing you don’t mind eating or serving some ugly ducklings! My one time fling may turn into an affair. We’ll have to see. Thank you, Anna, for sharing this wonderful recipe with us.
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A small calamity happened at my house yesterday. I was replacing one of my cookbooks on the shelf, and all of a sudden there was this shelf shift, a tilt, and nearly every cookbook on that 3-foot wide shelf tumbled to the floor. The good news: not one cookbook landed on my sandal-clad toes. The bad news: the shelf is compromised. My DH said (later) that I simply have too many books on the shelves. Sigh. We’re going to try to fix it, but I don’t know exactly what we’ll do. It’s a custom-made bookcase. I’ll need to contact our friend, Darci the Decorator, and see what she can do. But what I ended up doing was stacking the contents of that shelf in myriad places in my kitchen until we figure out what to do about this dilemma. Post-script here: Darci the Decorator called the builder of the shelf, he’s stopping by today to permanently affix the shelves so we’ll not have the problem. Whew.

I knew I wanted to make chicken for dinner. And I had some fresh picked zucchini from our corner farm stand. I have numerous cookbooks on my shelves that I’ve looked at, but never cooked from. I wanted to remedy that! From the fallen cookbook stacks, I chose Diana Kennedy’s The Essential Cuisines of Mexico. This was a Christmas gift to me a couple of years ago (it was on my Amazon wish list), and although I’d glanced through the book more than once, I’d not ever cooked anything. Diana Kennedy is well regarded as one of the authorities of Mexican cookery. She’s written numerous books, and this one is a compilation of some of the favorites from her earlier books, all updated for ingredients and techniques plus lots of new recipes. She’s been called the Julia Child of Mexican cooking, and her book is amazing, really. Ingredients are well defined, history explained, and cultural differences explored. This recipe rendition came from Aquascalientes, from a chef/caterer, Señora Anamaría de Andrea.

The elements of this dish are remarkably ordinary – chicken, celery, onions, garlic, tomatoes, white wine and grapes. Who would think that combination could be so tasty?  There’s nothing in this that would normally be associated with Mexican (like fresh, hot chiles, chile powder, tomatillos, beans, cilantro). My DH deemed it fabulous. I sautéed some zucchini too (sprinkled with some mild chile powder), and rounded out the plate with one hot flour tortilla apiece. The recipe starts with a whole chicken – I bought pieces instead – and decided after preparing this that once the chicken was cooked and cooled, I’d remove the chicken meat from the bones and just reheat in the sauce. That way you could make it ahead, and you could serve it over a mound of rice if you wanted to, or pile a few pieces, sauce and a few grapes into a flour tortilla. Don’t skimp on the sauce in any way – it’s the sauce that makes the dish – once the chicken is cooked through, you whiz up the vegetables in the blender, then you continue to cook it with the wine and lastly, the grapes.
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