A stuffed rooster eyes the fresh eggs.

This is our oldest grandson, Logan, 15. He, his sister Taylor, and our daughter Dana arrived Friday  from where they live in Placerville, California. They usually come to visit for a week or so every summer. Lots of swimming in the pool and spa, visits to friends, and visits with the newest young cousin, another of our grandsons, Vaughan, who is about 22 months old. Logan brought along the latest batch of eggs from his chickens. He’s taken up raising them, and is enjoying it a lot. He has 2 laying hens, 4 chicks, and one tiny baby chick. They’re a variety of types: 2 bantys (bantam), 1 baba rock (a layer), 2 reds stars (one of them a layer), and 1 banty rooster. The baby chick is an unknown variety so far.

We had lovely scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese. Delicious. Thanks, Logan.

Posted a year ago: Syrian Pita Bread Salad (oh, yummy, a regular around my house)

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Whenever our grandchildren come to visit I rack my brain trying to find family-friendly recipes that both the kids and adults will enjoy. And recipes that are relatively easy. I have several casseroles that have been favorites over the years (Chili Spaghetti, for instance). For this dinner, I wanted something, well, similar, but different. All of our grandkids really savor pasta, so I turned to a 1970’s recipe given to me by a friend (also named Carolyn). It may be much like lots of other casseroles – pasta, ground beef, onion, garlic, tomato sauce, corn, thyme, oregano, Worcestershire and a bunch of grated cheddar cheese on top. Along with a green salad, this was dinner. The kids liked it – enough to have seconds. I didn’t have any ranch dressing, though, so they had to make do with my homemade blue cheese mock Caesar vinaigrette.

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A year ago: Zinfandel Sausage Sauce for Pasta (a family favorite, made with Italian sausage)
Two years ago: Grilled Sweet Potato Salad

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You like this one?

Or this one?

There’s a whole lot of picture-taking fun going on at my house these days. What with my new camera and all. We had friends over for dinner and I set the plate on the corner of our island with the evening sunshine glowing through the window. Perfect shot (the second one above). I still have to work on the focus – the front edge of the bread was not where I wanted the focus to be. I’ll get it eventually.

This recipe is so different. I had this at a charity cooking class a few weeks ago, but wasn’t able to get a photo of it because it was dark (we were outdoors) by the time they served it. But it was SO good. The dish is not all that hard to do – you marinate the meat overnight (olive oil, red wine, oodles of garlic, lots of lemon zest and juice, some fresh oregano and rosemary sprigs), buy some raw pizza dough (Trader Joe’s sells it that way if you don’t want to make your own), and make the cheese slather (Feta, mayo, yogurt, sour cream and a bunch of garlic).

Now is where the story of this dish gets funny – do as I SAY, not as I DID. I forgot to re-read the recipe. Forgot to re-read the part that says you bake the lamb in the oven for 12 hours (yes, really, 12 hours) at 200. Covered in olive oil. So as it approached dinnertime, our friends had arrived, and I’ve removed the meat from the marinade and I’m thinking we’re grilling the meat. Then I glanced at the recipe. Oops. Wrong! Oh well, we’ll just have to grill it anyway. It took about 20 minutes to grill the meat to 125 internal temp and while it was allowed to rest on the cutting board, my DH put the pizza dough ovals on the grill. I’d rolled and pressed them out into about 8-inch long pieces, using my rolling pin. The ovals were spread with some olive oil on both sides, then onto the hot grill they went. Took about 2 minutes to be softly grilled, then they’re turned over and you spread on the Feta cheese slather on top. Cook another minute just so the cheese slather is heated through and you’re done. Remove to a piping hot plate. Meanwhile, slice thin pieces of the lamb leg and pile it onto the flatbread, garnish with some red chile flakes if you’d like (I used Italian parsley instead), maybe some salt and pepper, and it’s ready to serve.

So that’s what I did the other night. But, a few days later, with the leftovers at hand, I decided to try to do the long baking of the meat, per the recipe. Since the meat was already cooked and pink in the middle, I figured half as much baking would do it. What was left fit into a Teflon-coated bread pan, and it was covered with olive oil as directed. So I ended up baking it at 200 for 6 hours. You pour off the olive oil after baking. The meat was so tender you could cut it with a fork. Not a bit of the oil had really penetrated the meat, but it insulated the meat from drying out during the long time in the oven, I suppose. I sliced the meat into thin pieces while Dave grilled some more of the pizza/flatbread on the barbecue. We were a bit more careful with how thick the dough was (a little thicker this time and obviously smaller – about 4 x 8 inches), added more of the Feta cheese slather than we did the first time, then sprinkled the meat all over it.

This time, though, I made a bit of a detour – I mixed up a small arugula salad (just an oil and vinegar dressing on it) and arranged it on top, sprinkled on some fresh diced tomatoes and a bit of fresh basil. And served it. Oh my goodness yes, it was delish. Definitely better than the first round. Since the marinade was still okay I stuck it in the freezer and can probably re-use it a second time. It was never left out at room temp, so it should be safe to do that. I probably could have saved the oil from the baking too (it took more than I’d thought) if I filtered it, but I tossed that out. The hardest thing about this dish was rolling out the pizza dough. Darned, but it can be resilient, not wanting to spread out. I certainly haven’t perfected tossing dough in the air.
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It was a couple of years ago I bookmarked a recipe over at A Year From Oak Cottage, Marie’s blog originating from the south of England. This one, for little savory sage muffin with some crumbled goat cheese and grated apple. The apple (one, whole) is almost invisible – you can’t see it, nor could I taste it. But it adds some moistness to the crumb, for sure. Marie had suggested having these with soup, so that’s exactly what I did. With some delicious creamy tomato soup.

You mix these up by hand, the dry ingredients, then adding the wet stuff, lastly stirring in the goat cheese. A bit of Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top and you’re done. Bake for about 18 minutes until golden brown. I liked these a lot – they’re made in the small mini-muffin tins, and the recipe makes exactly 24.  It just happens that I have a sage bush in our kitchen garden, so am always on the lookout for other ways to use them other than roasts and chicken. I used a lot more sage than Marie’s recipe indicated (about 2 T.) but even at that, the sage flavor wasn’t overpowering at all. I also added an additional pinch of cayenne and just a tetch more sugar. Thanks, Marie!
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A year ago: Frosty Strawberry Squares (an old, old Sunset recipe from the 70’s)

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I don’t get very many comments left on my blog. To those of you who do leave them occasionally, a thank you is in order. But when I read other people’s blogs, and write a comment there, some people have 30-80 comments on each one. Some of the comments don’t say a whole lot (like “looks good,” or “great photo,” or perhaps the most common . . . “can’t wait to make this.” But I get the feeling that those people aren’t really going to make the recipe, whatever it is. They’re just saying something nice.

Some people, I assume, are scared to leave comments – they’re not very savvy about blogging, and want to protect their anonymity. Comments left here on my blog go nowhere but here on my blog. No one tracks them, sells email addresses or anything like that. It’s just little-old-me. And you can leave a comment without your name appearing, although your email address is required to submit a comment. But it doesn’t get published with the comment. Lots of people have screen names they use like “cookiebaker,” “grillerman,” “sadiesmom,” etc. That’s fine. Some bloggers and commenters use their real names, others don’t.  I guess it’s up to you. I do approve/screen all the comments, so I won’t get any crackpot messages. Spam is something you don’t see on my blog – I get somewhere between 60-100 a day left on various posts on my blog. Fortunately some free software called akismet runs in the blog background and captures those, which I delete every few days. I don’t even look at them anymore, just do a global delete.

So all that rhetoric is a preface to say that last week I was absolutely thrilled to receive a comment from Joanne Weir. She’d read my write-up about one of her recipes (stewed eggplant & tomatoes) from one of her cookbooks. Although I’ve attended numerous cooking classes with her, she doesn’t know me at all. Her classes were always very full, and I was just another face in the crowds. I’d drive miles and miles to go to a Joanne Weir cooking class, if she’d ever have any here in Southern California. She lives in San Francisco, and you can see her PBS TV series (filmed in her own kitchen) if you hunt for it in the listings. She has her own website – and does offer culinary tours in Italy and France, but they’re very pricey. Two or three of my friends and I keep up with anything-Joanne-Weir. We tell one another if we’ve made another Joanne recipe from one of her books (I don’t own her newest book Tequila).

So, I was very presumptuous and sent her a private email. Thanked her for leaving a comment, told her I was a huge fan of hers, owned most of her cookbooks, and that my all-time favorite recipe of hers (and expected her to laugh) is Sicilian Tuna Salad. I also asked about her fiancé (she’s recently engaged). I follow her own blog too. She was kind enough to respond back, and said “Sicilian Tuna Salad?” What cookbook of mine is that from, she asked? Well, it’s not in any of her cookbooks that I can find. But it was at one of her classes. Or perhaps it was one of the Sur la Table’s group recipe classes – where the staff combed through and demonstrated their favorites from all the cooking classes that year from various chefs. But the recipe was credited to Joanne. Unless the folks at Sur la Table made a mistake. Well, it’s still a favorite anyway.

I do have some other favorite Joanne Weir recipes – some of them I haven’t posted here on my blog – note to self – make the warm chocolate cinnamon and coffee tart sometime soon. Also the white peach belllinis. Check out the fiery Feta & pita bread appetizer. Maybe the escarole salad too. Nevertheless, it’s still the tuna pasta salad that trumps them all. It’s just so simple, really. I decided to fix the salad, because I haven’t made it in a long time. I posted about it in 2007, but I’m going to repeat it here since I know I have new readers who likely haven’t read through my ancient posts.

If you like tuna and pasta, but don’t like the usual mayonnaise-based gunk that goes on it, you’ll enjoy this salad. It’s full of herbs (basil, cilantro and Italian parsley) and a bit of capers too. And lemon juice. All those kinds of things that make it Sicilian. It’s a relatively dry pasta salad, so if you prefer a wetter one,  add some more olive oil just before serving it. I make it with pennette (little penne) as my first choice of pasta.
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A year ago: Apple Buttermilk Scone Round

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It occurred to me to stop yesterday as I was driving to my friend Norma’s house (to deliver 6 of these little babies) to take a photo of a stop sign, or a red light. Something startling to make you, my readers, stop everything and make this recipe. In lieu of that, I hope the photo above will make you salivate. It should, because once you’ve tasted this divine pudding, you may never have any other pudding. Bar none. Ever.

The recipe came from Dorie Greenspan, from her book, Baking: From My  Home to Yours. And I think the bloggers out there who call themselves TWD (Tuesdays with Dorie, where the entire group makes a single recipe from this very cookbook each week) made this a month or so ago. I read countless blogs about a butterscotch pudding, so I just assume it was Dorie’s recipe. Nothing, though, prepared me for the sublime taste of this pudding. What’s in it? Milk, some cream, butter, brown sugar, some regular sugar, vanilla, egg yolks, cornstarch and . . AND . . . single malt scotch. That’s the best part. And believe it or not, there’s less than a tablespoon of Scotch in the entire recipe, but it permeates everything. Every, single, solitary, bite. Oh, my.

It just so happens that many years ago, my DH and I did learn to enjoy single malt Scotch. We were in Scotland, staying at a lovely inn, and before dinner we visited a pub, where the bartender suggested we both try about 4 or 5 single malts. He poured about a tablespoon into each glass, had us taste each of them, and decide which one we liked best. He didn’t charge us for the tastings, which was very nice! My husband chose one of the more peat-y ones. I chose Dalwhinnie, a smooth honeyed elixir of a single malt. At Heathrow en route home I stopped into the duty-free and bought a bottle of Dalwhinnie. I’ve had it ever since. There is about a cup left in the bottle, and it’s been at least 20 years. But, my readers, there will be less and less because it’s gonna get used up making this pudding. Soon.

Dave and I had two of the little ramekins after dinner last night. Dave said, uhm, can I have another one? No, you can’t, the rest are going to Norma & Mike. Oh darn, he said. But, then, maybe you could make another batch tomorrow? Maybe? It wasn’t that hard, was it, he asked? Well, it’s not exactly like stirring up a boxed pudding mix, that’s for sure, and there were more steps in this version than in many, many puddings. But now that I’ve done it once, it wouldn’t be so hard to repeat it. And, I DO have the Dalwhinnie.
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As I’m sure I’ve said here before, I don’t know that I’ve ever met a chocolate chip cookie I didn’t like – – except perhaps store bought. Those I can’t abide. So it was no surprise that I was intrigued by Peabody’s (Culinary Concoctions by Peabody blog) recent recipe for mocha CC cookies using mini-chocolate chips. Peabody made the cutest little cookies, after rolling them around in granulated sugar before baking. And adding coffee extract to the dough, too. They just sounded so good!

There are a couple of things that are different about these cookies:

1. The dough contains powdered sugar

2. You must chill the dough for 20 minutes before forming and baking the cookies.

One exceptional thing about these is that I used some good quality mini-chips that I purchased at Surfas. (Surfas is a Los Angeles culinary store, mostly food and hard-to-find cooking things, with some equipment too, mainly caters to the professional trade). These little mini-chips are really solid with the chocolate flavor (bittersweet), and I could truly taste the difference between those and the usual grocery store types. But if that’s all you have, by all means use them. Peabody used the mini-chips (I think) because she wanted to make little bite-sized cookies instead of traditional ones, so bigger (regular sized) chips would have been too big. I tried to make in-between sized cookies. They’re very tender. And very chocolaty, with the back-hint of coffee. Worth making. Easy. Did I say chocolaty? Maybe next time I’ll add in about 1/2 cup of finely minced walnuts too. But these are delicious as-is.
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A year ago: Field Greens with Fire-Roasted Poblano Chiles (salad)
Two years ago: Panna Cotta with Fresh Strawberries

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Can you say that five times fast without stuttering? Will you laugh with me as I say this is a mouthful? Ha! These luscious quesadillas are filled with cheddar, jack and goat cheese. And mushrooms. Draped over them are strips of grilled (marinated first) skirt steak. On each quesadilla is a dollop of salsa verde (tomatillos, jalapeno, garlic and cilantro), and the light colored sauce on the steak is aioli mayonnaise zipped up with mustard, vinegar and chipotle chiles in adobo sauce.

Skirt (flap) steak is thin and takes a short time on the grill.

Skirt steak – also called flap steak – is a fairly thin meat that is very flavorful. It’s a tender cut, but likes to be marinated too. Only caution – don’t overcook it or it will be tough. Grilling the meat for about 4 minutes on each side is about right. Adjust a minute either way depending on the thickness.

There are several steps to this steak entree. However, I assure you, it will be worth the effort. I just wish I had a sous chef here in my kitchen to do some of the chopping and mincing required. When I win the lottery . . . Since that’s not likely to happen anytime soon, guess I’ll have to do the work!

All the steps in this meal are quite easy, however, so don’t let the length of the recipe deter you from trying it. First you need to marinate the meat overnight (makes it more tender and lots more flavorful). You can make the aioli the day ahead (it’s cinchy, actually). The salsa verde isn’t all that hard since it’s cooked in a saucepan, then poured into a blender with the other ingredients. So really, it’s not all that difficult either. That you want to make an hour or so before eating as the cilantro begins to break down after that.

The quesadilla is baked in a 400 oven for about 12 minutes.

Meanwhile you need to get all the quesadilla filling ready. They are assembled about 20-30 minutes before dinner and are popped in a 400 oven. During that baking time, you’ll prepare the steak – it gets drained, blotted with paper towels, then grilled (outdoor or inside stovetop) for about 4 or so minutes each side until it’s barely done and still pink in the middle. For the quesadillas you will use – if available where you live – Mission brand tortillas. (Frankly, I never buy them, because they’re a kind of cheap-o brand – others are better.) But for this purpose, you want a more pastry-like flour tortilla and Mission brand are exactly what’s needed. Once the quesadillas are baked, cut them up into wedges (each person eats half of a quesadilla), put them on a piping hot plate and add the skirt steak strips, the salsa and the aioli. Garnish with a few sprigs of cilantro and you’re done. The recipe is Phillis Carey’s, from a cooking class a couple of weeks ago. If you like Mexican food, you’ll really enjoy this. It’s easy enough to make these kid-friendly too or for the palate-challenged (without the chipotle chiles if you so choose). Make the sauces, just reduce the “heat” if you must.
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A year ago: Lemon Ginger Frozen Yogurt
Two years ago: Avocado Butter (an appetizer for crackers)

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We're proud of this good-old flag in our backyard.

I hope all of you and yours are enjoying a pleasant day today. And that you’ve remembered to say a prayer for all of the soldiers, current and past, who have served our country, to protect us, our land, our flag, our democracy. Our freedoms.

Yesterday I “bit the bullet” and bought a digital SLR (that’s a single lens reflex – meaning a camera with interchangeable lenses – and not a point-and-shoot). A Canon Rebel Xsi. I’ve got a 50mm lens (the standard) and the smaller telephoto lens too (the EF-S 55-250). It came as a package at Costco, for a good price. It is one complicated camera to learn. I’m sure I’ll make lots of mistakes, will likely grumble and fuss, but overall I know I’ll be thrilled with the new addition. It’s for pictures like this one below that I bought the camera. This shot was taken in ambient light on my kitchen counter, with the telephoto lens.  I wanted that narrow depth of field – so the apple front-and-center was in focus, but everything else was mostly out of focus. I succeeded.

In between some cooking, celebrating our daughter-in-law’s birthday, church and lots of nice quiet time, I’ve been snapping pictures everywhere I can. And enjoying our weekend. In a month we’re going to take a vacation, so I really want to know enough about the camera that I can take candid shots without having to read the manual. I’m like most people – impatient to get to the good stuff – and don’t enjoy reading a manual on anything. But this camera will have me in knots in no time if I don’t. So, I’m watching the video and reading the darned manual.

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Years ago – more like eons ago – I used to bake some bacon-wrapped meatloaves. I was a working girl then, and by the time I got home at night, it was already 6:30 and dinner needed to be quick. The only way to get meatloaf (a cheap meal) on the table in any kind of timely manner was to make the mounds of ground meat a bit smaller. I must have followed a recipe because I wasn’t very creative in those early days of my cooking history. Since then I’ve mostly made a family favorite meatloaf with a sweet and sour tomato sauce based glaze. But with a hunk of ground beef in the refrigerator, my mind swung back to that little loaf I used to make. I wasn’t in such a jam for time, but thought the little meatloaf globes would make cute little “presents” on the dinner plate.

For this version I adapted a recipe I found at grouprecipes.com. What I liked about it was the addition of lemon juice to the meat mixture. And I added some crushed dried thyme (probably my favorite herb). And then the bacon slice on the top too gave it some extra deliciousness. In doing some searching on the ‘net I found another mini meatloaf recipe with the globes of meat stuffed into a muffin tin. I liked that idea, so I adapted this one to that technique. Now, my muffin tin is a bit larger than some – the kind that offers extra width for the muffin tops, so am not sure this will fit into a traditional muffin tin. You might need to use a ramekin instead. The half of a bacon slice gets draped over the top of each little loaf and tucked gently down the sides. Perhaps these cook in less time, but I gave them 40 minutes, and they seemed perfect to me. If you want to make a larger quantity of them, just line the muffin tin with plastic wrap, pop in the meatloaf globes, tuck in the bacon slices, then freeze. Once solid, remove, wrap up and put in a freezer bag for easy pop-out (and remove the plastic) for a quick dinner. If time is of an essence, but you want an inexpensive meal, this would make a perfect center point.

Want to know what else I served with this dinner? My DH grilled some fresh zucchini slices that were marinated in a vinaigrette dressing. I made the spinach and berries salad (a favorite – see the photo at the top in my blog design? That’s the spinach & berries salad). And with the last of our strawberries, I made strawberry gazpacho. That also is a big fav in my book. Fresh strawberries, onion, red bells, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and tarragon. Marinates overnight, then is whizzed up in the blender. I was out of cucumber, but I didn’t miss them actually.
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A year ago: Cashew Caramel Cookies
Two years ago: White Wine Vinaigrette

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