When you want a very tasty, VERY green, and very EASY side dish, this will fill the bill. The only hitch is that it must be made at the last minute in order to keep the peas fresh and bright green. Peas can go from perfect to over-the-hill in no time flat. These were seasoned with some crumbled thyme (dried) and a couple of pinches of sugar. Some salt and pepper and you’re done. I sauteed them in a mixture of extra virgin olive oil and butter.
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You’re going to l-o-v-e this salad. I really mean it. It’s worth every second of effort to make it. The pecans need to be seasoned and caramelized a little bit, you need to soak the dried cranberries in bourbon (or omit this step if you don’t want the alcohol – soak them in orange juice instead), and you need to chop up all the salad stuff. And, the apple needs to be sliced just before serving. And you have to make the vinegar and oil dressing (easy, however).

This recipe has been in my to-try file for many years. What’s funny about it is the real title – “Even Men Love This Salad.” I found it on the recipe bulletin board at Martha Stewart’s website 15 years or so ago.  (I was unable to locate the recipe there now.) The contributor, Susan (no last name given) said that every time she served it men told their wives to get the recipe. She mentions that yes, indeed, there are lots of flavors floating around in this salad, but she says when you put it all together, it’s sublime. I absolutely agree.

I did make just a few minor changes to the recipe – Susan used black raisins – I used dried cranberries instead. She added frisée greens to her salad. I thought there was enough salad quantity without it (there was) so I omitted the frisée. There’s a LOT of celery in it. Don’t eliminate that – it’s an essential ingredient somehow. The pecans are just mildly warm from the cayenne, but they are wonderful in this salad, or for nibbling if you have leftovers. Susan didn’t soak the onion – I do, to remove some of the harshness, the sharpness of raw onion. I actually tossed everything together except the pecans, but her recipe indicated adding the cranberries, Feta and pecans on top when it’s served. If you eat radicchio and Belgian endive very often, you know that they have a slight bitterness to them. The caramelized pecans and the dried cranberries totally balance that. MAKE THIS SALAD! Okay?
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Why don’t I make crème brûlée more often? It’s not hard. Doesn’t take all that much time, either. Maybe it’s because it requires a water bath – that’s a bit of a nuisance – and when you broil them to caramelize the sugar-dusted tops, you need to pack the ramekins in an ice-crowded pan. But other than that, they’re a very simple dessert. And much beloved by most people.

My former business partner, Audré, found this recipe and raved about it. She was in a ginger stage, if there is such a thing, back in the early 80’s. At the time, she liked and wanted ginger in all different kinds of foods, and she told me I just had to make this. I did. Oh my yes. Wonderful.

Some years later I attended a cooking class taught by Hugh Carpenter, and he prepared a type of crème brûlée in which he dotted the bottom of each ramekin with a small glob of raspberry jam. I was enamored with the taste contrast of the raspberry and the crystallized ginger, so have made it that way ever since. But I didn’t have any raspberry jam in the pantry, so I opted to use some ginger jam, spiced ginger jam, to be exact. The tiny pieces of crystallized ginger and the jam stay on the bottom of each ramekin, so you get a nice little surprise when you finally get to the nether reaches of the ramekin.

The ginger lightly perfumes the crème brûlée , but it isn’t until you get into it that you realize the ginger is even there. Be sure to make this in time to chill the finished ramekins so the custard sets up to its smooth goodness.
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Oooh, were these ever tasty. It’s been some months ago that I made these for a dinner party. In reading through the “recipes to try” in my copious stack, I found this. I’d read about it over at Serious Eats. It’s actually a Daniel Boulud recipe, from one of his cookbooks, was written up by Dorie Greenspan on her own site, but the recipe is over at Serious Eats, a food blog in which she participates.

Here’s a photo of the coffee bean/cardamom/sugar mixture before it began to caramelize.

This dessert is a bit on the complicated side, I will admit. It’s not really difficult, but yes, a bit time consuming. Worth the time? Well, yes, for me it was. The result was a seductive custard, a pot de creme style with this elusive taste of cardamom and the delicious creamy coffee. But it was the cups that attracted me to the recipe at first – seeing the cute little espresso cups Dorie used. I mean, how many of us have espresso cups we rarely use? Eh? I certainly do.

Here are the details: you grind up cardamom pods (I had green ones) in the food processor, then chunk up coffee beans in there too. Not too finely. Then you add that to a heavy-duty saucepan with sugar and heat it, stirring constantly, until the sugar melts. My arm got a tad tired during the stirring process, but you don’t want to burn it, so you have to stir and stir. Finally it began to melt. You continue to stir until the sugar begins to darken, and caramelize. I had some difficulty seeing exactly when that was because I was using a dark colored, nonstick Calphalon pan. Eventually the coffee began smoking, so I figured it was caramelized enough. The stuff is a kind of glumpy dark mass at that point. Then you carefully pour in cream and milk (don’t burn yourself) and heat it until the glumpy mass breaks down and the sugar melts into the milk. You let this mixture steep for about 20 minutes, then strain out the solids (beans & pods). It was a glorious dark coffee latté color.

Meanwhile, you heat up the oven to 300°, and whisk together egg yolks and sugar until they’re pale and thickened. Then you slowly add the coffee mixture and stir until combined. It does make a bit of foam, which needs to be scooped off. I ate the foam right then and there, which was quite delicious.

The mixture is poured into espresso cups and you bake them in a water bath for about 40 minutes. These can be made ahead and refrigerated. I made them earlier in the day and left them out at room temp for about 3 hours. I served them with a small dollop of very lightly sweetened whipped cream on top.

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A few days ago I purchased about 5+ pounds of ground turkey at Costco. Definitely a bargain, as long as you have plans as to how to use it all. Half of it went into making some turkey breakfast sausages which now reside in the freezer. The other half I used to make turkey meatballs. I’d seen a Kalyn’s Kitchen recipe for them, and decided to use her formula as my jumping off point. We’re trying to cut down on calories and fat in our house, so making turkey meatballs was a good plan. I just wanted them to be full of flavor.

I made very few changes to Kalyn’s recipe. I used fresh garlic, but you could easily use granulated garlic as she did in her recipe. I added some salt and pepper too. Since I had egg whites in the refrigerator, I used those instead of whole eggs, but that’s not any big deal. I added a nip of cayenne too. And, I added some olive oil to the turkey mixture because I found that really added some moisture to the turkey breakfast sausage. I may have used a tiny bit more cheese (I had pecorino in my refrigerator) too. The result? Wonderful. I happened to not have any cucumbers or tzatziki sauce or anything similar, so I opted to use a vegetable/tomato kind of chunky sauce on them instead. We liked them a lot. And now I have about 4 more dinners in the freezer. I made larger meatballs than Kalyn did, so we’ll just eat fewer of them, that’s all.
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I was reading through a rather lengthy article in the January/February issue of Cooking Light, and was quite fascinated by some of the info. No matter how much I think I know, there’s always more to be learned about the different cuts, the methods of cooking, and how lean or fatty any cut is . . .

The article was titled “How to buy the best beef,” and was written by Aliza Green, the author of a new book titled Field Guide to Meat. Photo at left is from the article itself.

How about these factlets: (1) we Americans consume 63 pounds of beef a year (wow, no kidding?);(2) In 1976 we ate 89 pounds per person per year (yikes); (3) 90% of the beef we eat is grown right here in the U.S., with most of the balance coming from Canada; (4) cattle weigh about 1000 pounds at slaughter, and are 18-24 months old.

The article went on to explain about what info you can get from the new labeling laws. I knew most of that part. But it also gave a more detailed explanation of grain-finished– cattle fattened on grain, usually corn, during the 3-6 months before slaughter. Problem is that cattle don’t instinctively eat corn, so when they do they experience “stress” and other ailments, therefore they’re routinely fed antibiotics. And they also receive growth hormones (remember DES?) to increase their size (larger cattle = higher weight = more profits into pockets of producers). Grain-finished, however, means more value for our consumer dollar. Then there are the grass-finished. These cattle forage on grasses and legumes and the meat is leaner, lower in saturated fat, cholesterol and calories. This meat generally has a more gamy flavor. Problem: it’s more time consuming to raise, which therefore increases the expense. Most of such beef is imported from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Brazil. Many people believe that grass-fed cattle are a more sustainable choice. Lastly, there is dry-aging. It’s a traditional process preferred by many steak lovers. It concentrates, or intensifies flavors, as it hangs in temp- and humidity-conrolled rooms for 10 days to 2 weeks (longer the better). Most dry-aged meat is sold in large vacuum-packed packs. The time in-bag is called “wet aging.”

The article also stressed budget-friendly, lean and flavorful cuts. In addition to the usual that we probably know about already (tenderloin, flank and sirloin) it recommended the Bottom Round (best if marinated); Hanger Steak (rich and beefy, for searing, grilling or broiling); Tri-Tip (rich flavor, affordable, for roasting or grilling whole, then sliced); Shoulder Tender (like pork loin, to be sliced into medallions for grilling); and Shoulder Center Steak(moderately tender, to be served whole or sliced). Since I go for ribeyes, I generally don’t even look further, but perhaps I should.

Lastly, I was intrigued with the list of the top-selling cuts of beef. I think they did not include ground beef (60% of our beef dollars go to ground beef), since the list below is about “cuts” of beef:
(1) top round steak, boneless
(2) ribeye steak, lip on, bone in (yes!)
(3) ribeye steak, boneless
(4) loin top sirloin steak, boneless
(5) bottom round roast, boneless
(6) chuck under blade pot roast, boneless

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We do, sometimes, here in Southern California, get the absolutely most gorgeous sunsets in the world. The other night was no exception. It’s one of the benefits of living on a hill. Even a night or two later there was a completely different, but nearly equally gorgeous sunset too. No recipes today, just some reminders of God’s glorious world. And a jog to the mind that we need to take the time, now and then, to see his creation and smell the roses, so to speak.

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You know, this blog thing is always fun for me. I like to write. I enjoy cooking. And not that this post wasn’t fun – it was – once I got past the angst over wanting to write up this dinner at all. So you say, what’s the problem? Well – I’ve already written up these two. Instead of making something new and different, I craved the tried and true. Two of my/our favorite things. The Amazing Glaze steaks and the garlic green beans. You see, we food bloggers are somewhat driven – to keep making new and different things, to keep you, our loyal readers, interested. But just in case you haven’t made these two recipes from my previous postings, I’m telling you again, YOU NEED TO MAKE THESE TWO DISHES. Okay. Whew. Got that off my chest.

THE GREEN BEANS: they’re so easy. So garlicky. So delicious I have a hard time keeping my fingers out of the skillet after dinner is all overwith. Even when the green beans are room temp cold. The other night was no exception. I can eat these refrigerator cold too. Since they’re coated in extra virgin olive oil, they’re just as easy to eat chilled as room temp, or hot. But hot is my favorite. These call for an abundance of garlic, smashed and minced with salt on the chopping board, then lightly sauteed in a big skillet. The green beans are simmered in water until they’re just under-done, drained, and added to the garlicky skillet. Cook until the beans are done and serve hot with just a tiny glitter of kosher salt on top. Click HERE for the write-up about them.

THE RIBEYE STEAK: nothing short of awesome. I spotted some USDA Prime ribeyes at Costco the other day and that’s all it took. Had to have them. And there was no question what I’d do with them. Amazing Glaze. The best part is that I still have some of the sauce (the glaze) leftover from months and months ago when I made them last. It hasn’t even been in the freezer – just in a small container in the refrigerator. In all its barbecue-y, smoky chipotle goodness. My DH fired up the grill, and he used the Hugh Carpenter method of grilling the steaks – over the heat long enough to get grill marks on both sides, then on a rack on a pan off the heat for a few more minutes until the ribeye registers 123° or 124° on the meat thermometer. Briefly it rested under a foil tent (and I spread some of the amazing glaze over the steaks while they rested and re-absorbed all their juices), then we dug in. Click HERE for the write-up about the steaks and the amazing AMAZING GLAZE.

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For about 2-3 years my DH Dave and I have been eating a breakfast that consists of one pork sausage link, about 1/3 cup of Greek yogurt (2%) and a half a piece of grainy bread with a thin slather of peanut butter on it. I’ve never added up the calories or fat grams of that breakfast, but we’ve decided to try limiting, even more, the carbs we eat. And to eat more healthy fats. That meant trying to make some kind of (tasty) turkey breakfast sausage.

Eating turkey sausage will be ever-so-much better for us than eating higher fat pork every morning. Note that one patty (which was all we needed) has 4 grams of fat. And we’re probably going to eat more eggs than we have in the past. So, I did a lengthy search on the internet and my own cookbooks for seasoning mixes for breakfast sausage. Knowing that ground turkey has so little taste all by itself I knew I wanted a fairly high-spiced combination. Finally found one that I liked the sound of, over at recipeczar.com. But never satisfied with just one recipe, I took some ideas I found in some other recipes: one suggested adding olive oil to the turkey mixture (great idea, I thought, to give the meat more moisture); another mentioned finely minced red onion (I used onion powder) and some ground ginger.

I bought a big quantity of ground turkey at Costco and mixed up the sausage by hand. The photo at right shows the mounds of herbs and spices added. Once mixed up thoroughly, I patted them out into small patties and put them on a waxed-paper lined cookie sheet and froze them. Once frozen they went into a plastic bag for easy retrieval every day we want them. The plan is to remove them the day or night before, and just defrost enough for that next day. I know that ground turkey spoils very quickly, so they will stay in the freezer until needed. The photo above shows the patties – they’re much smaller than they appear – each one is about 1 3/4 inches in diameter, maybe 2 inches. And they’re quite thin.

Several recipes for turkey breakfast sausage cautioned about not overcooking the patties. After all, we know that turkey meat is very lean – and it will go from just right to overdone (meaning dry and inedible) in no time at all. So if you make these, keep that in mind. The first time you cook them, designate one as a test patty (cut it open to determine how long it really takes to be “done” on your stove and in your skillet). Then make a mental note of how many minutes that was – likely it will be less than you think. They definintely take less time than pork. And don’t saute them at a high temp. I heated the pan first, drizzled about a teaspoon of olive oil in the pan then set the patties in the pan. They lightly sizzled for about a minute on each side, then I put the lid on and allowed them to steam for about another minute or two.  Done. The texture isn’t as firm as pork, but it was so tasty I didn’t miss it.

I don’t recommend you pan fry them from a frozen state – by the time you get the inside cooked through the outsides will be dry and overdone. Not good. If you cook these right they’ll be tender and moist inside. If they are dry, you’ve cooked them too long or at too high a temp. My evaluation? Absolutely great. We both really liked them. Liked the flavorings. Just enough cayenne to give it some oomph. And hints of all kinds of other things, none of which you could pick out.
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Just before Christmas we had a real cold snap. The first morning after we’d had significant rain down here in the lowlands, our close mountains were just blanketed in snow. We don’t see this all that many times a year, so it’s always spectacular when it happens. I don’t have a telephoto lens, so with my point and shoot Canon I zoomed as much as I could. We live near the top of a hill, and in the foreground are other hills in an area called Lemon Heights. Those are close – you can see the houses. The snow covered mountains in the background are about 30-40 miles away, to the north of us, mountains that ring the north side of the San Gabriel Valley.

The mountains are kind of pinkish because the sun was just coming up. The sun hadn’t peeked over the very top of the hill we live on, so the houses in the foreground were still in moderate darkness. Because of the weather, the main freeway from here to Las Vegas was closed for a part of several days from snow and ice. The Grapevine was closed briefly too, the major artery that connects the big basin of Los Angeles from the San Joaquin (wah-keen) Valley to the north, where so much of the fruits, nuts and vegetables are grown that supply a lot of our nation.

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