Oh my goodness gracious. Rain. You’ve probably heard we’ve been having rain here in Southern California. It’s unbelievable. On Monday we had such a torrential rain that it overwhelmed the area drains around our house. The dozens of small 3-inch drains around the exterior of our house work fine under normal conditions. But not with the downpour that occurred. Water began pouring in a back door because our driveway (which is above the level of our home) just funneled water towards the house and the drains just couldn’t handle it. Too hard to explain, but water poured in our back hallway (underneath the door, pictured below), down into our wine cellar, and flooded into our family room about 6-8 feet. I was busily shoving pool towels everywhere I could, but it couldn’t begin to staunch the water flow. I took this picture above from inside our living room. At that moment in time this morning it wasn’t raining. We also had water seep into a downstairs bedroom (where we’ve had a problem before). We spent thousands of dollars getting a water barrier put in so it wouldn’t happen again. Uh, well, something didn’t work right because we did have more water, although nothing like it was before the repairs were done some years ago.

At right is a photo of our back hallway door (a door we never use). Those are dry towels waiting for the next onslaught. During the worst of it on Monday, I had dozens of towels by the door, which hardly made a dent in the flow. The water was up the door about 6 inches, so if I’d opened that door we’d have had a much bigger flood. Now we have a sump pump ready to operate during the next storm, expected today.

When we bought this house about 6 years ago, I can’t say that I gave much thought to rain/water/drain issues. We live in a desert environment, and although we do get rain every winter, it hardly makes a blip most of the time. We knew from the home inspection that we could have a problem, and tried to rectify the specific areas as best we could. We have our drains cleared fairly regularly (hmmm, not often enough, obviously). What we didn’t know was that an end cap on one of the gutters had come off so water from our roof was pouring down into a small flat pad just outside this door pictured. We’ll get that fixed as soon as we can. We’ve plugged the gutter end with a towel. Won’t stop the flow, but should force most of the water to flow to the other end where it might go out the drains.

Here’s a view from our front door looking west. The pool is out past the opening there. During the worst of the rain, water was coming towards the front door like a small river because our next door neighbors had a flood too, and water seeks its lowest level, so it poured over to our side. Unfortunately the ground here is not level, but tilts back toward the house. Don’t know if it’s always been that way or not. Surely that’s not what  you’d want. We’ve never had a problem with THIS before.

Rain filled up this area (and further back from where I’m standing) like a lake, and rose, and rose, to the point that it began seeping into our front door (up about 3-4 inches above the brick entranceway). The rain was so heavy we couldn’t begin to help. I stood in our doorway, in tears, knowing there was nothing at all we could do. Thank God, the rain subsided just as I was moving in more towels, pulling our Turkish rug out of harm’s way, pulling furniture out of our front hallway. Trying to find more and more towels. Trying to protect the hard wood flooring from damage.

The French drain shown at right looks so innocuous there. But debris can so easily fill it up when you have a lake covering the drain altogether.

There are people in the world, like Haiti, who are suffering terribly, and would probably welcome rain. Our problems are trivial when you compare the two.

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A craving hit me – chocolate. (A sign that I’m feeling better, I think, since I haven’t had any such cravings in weeks.) I could have made chocolate chip cookies (our favorites as well as half of the western world) but decided to dip into the to-try file and see what I could find. This recipe, from Dorie Greenspan, from her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, that appeared in Bon Appétit in November of 2006 just sounded right. These cookies are on the dry side. Or then, maybe I baked them a tad longer than I should. I don’t know. They’re awfully good, though. Note the spices – cinnamon and cloves – which added a grace note to the taste – unless you know those spices are there – you’d have a hard time identifying them. And yet I could taste the cloves. As I say, there’s not enough of either to distinguish, really, but because I knew they were there, yes, I could taste it. You or your guests probably couldn’t identify the flavor.

I used to make a crackle-topped chocolate cookie years ago, that was totally different – it was a much softer and moister cookie. They were rolled in powdered sugar, so when the tops cracked, you could really SEE the fissures in the cookie tops. But I can’t find that recipe, so don’t know how they differ from these. The calorie and fat aren’t all that bad with these, even though there’s 10 ounces of chocolate in the batch. I didn’t get 50 cookies – more like 40 at the most.

These are good. Really chocolaty. Crumbly. But good kind of crumbly. A bit hard to form – that was the toughest aspect of making these – the dough balls were a bit hard to make – smash them too much and they fall apart before they’ve even entered the oven! The dough does need to be chilled – or at least it did for me. But they’re altogether tasty. And ideal with a small glass of milk.
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A year ago: Radicchio Salad
Two years ago: Chinese Meatloaf

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If you’re looking for a low calorie, but special kind of dinner, this is it. Pork tenderloin is a very low-fat meat – do note that there’s only 6 grams of fat per serving. And some of that comes from a single slice of bacon. But do read on. This was from a Phillis Carey cooking class for lighter and healthier meals. Phillis hit the mark here. I don’t know about you, but when I’m really trying to cut fat and calories, what often is lacking is flavor. Read the rest of this entry »

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My friend Norma, for whom I’ve been making puddings and other soft foods for some months as she recovers from chemo and radiation, asked me if I’d make her a chocolate cake. Sure, I said. She had a recipe she wanted me to try from a magazine. It was a Joanne Weir recipe – I found it in my copy of Joanne’s cookbook, Joanne Weir’s More Cooking in the Wine Country, and also online. According to the story, when Joanne was growing up, her mother (a professional caterer) would ask her daughter what kind of cake she’d like for her birthday. Always, Joanne craved this chocolate cake with frosting. Read the rest of this entry »

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Aren’t these cute? I bought a new silicone pan the other day – I probably should have placed something in the picture so you could see the relative size of these little guys. They’re small – about 1-inch square. A little bigger than bite-sized. These are lemon and ginger mini-muffins. With a tart lemon glaze on top. The recipe is from an old Bon Appetit, but is credited to the Baldpate Inn in Estes Park, Colorado. I made a couple of changes to the recipe – I added some minced crystallized ginger to the batter and I added the lemon glaze on top. An easy recipe, really. A mixer is not needed, as everything is stirred up by  hand. They’re good. Maybe not sensational, but tasty. My only caution is to not overwork the batter – you know how muffin batters are – they don’t like to be over-handled. Just mix it up until the streaks of flour have disappeared. You can make these in regular muffin tins (in a paper liner) too – that’s how the original recipe makes them.
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A year ago: Turkey Meatballs
Two years ago: Gingerbread Pudding Cake

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Gee, that recipe title is a mouthful, isn’t it? If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you may recall that there’s only one person I know who gives recipes such long names. Because she’s afraid we won’t realize all the tasty goodness and goodies in any recipe. Yup. Phillis Carey. This one’s from a “light and  healthy” cooking class. And it’s delicious. And quick. EASY! It likely will require a trip to the market – specifically for the kale and zucchini – and maybe the chicken sausages – but as long as you’ve got canned cannellini beans and tomatoes on hand, then this recipe comes together in a jiffy. You add the kale – and it will seem like a LOT of kale, but once you put a lid on it, it will reduce down. Just don’t overcook everything – the kale just needs to cook until it’s tender, no further.

Pictured at right is the “soup” when I’d just added the kale – notice the mound. It cooks down, though. This dinner would likely require less than 25 minutes, maybe 20 if you didn’t serve anything else with it. And it’s a one-dish meal (it could be, anyway). Phillis suggested serving this with brown rice. If I were to serve it I think I’d serve it over a very small portion of pasta. But I liked it as-is, just served as a kind of soup with a very little bit of juice to it. Is that called a dry soup? I think so. Or sometimes the broth part is served in a separate bowl in Asian cuisines. That’s not the case here – it’s the chunky stuff that makes up the ragout/soup.

Phillis suggested that if you’d like some other textures and flavors in this, add some raisins during the last bit of heating, and then sprinkle on top some pine nuts (toasted would be best). I’ve included them in this recipe because they added a lot of texture and flavor to this dish when I made it. Delicious, that’s all I have to say. And low calorie too. This may become a real staple in my soup library.
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A year ago: Beef – an informative essay
Two years ago: Brandied Apricot Bars

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Now that I’m feeling better (I’m better, but not yet well, let’s put it that way) and back in the kitchen, I decided I’d make something totally different. A more-or-less vegetarian entree. So I leafed through the vegetarian goddess’ book – Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Nothing I’ve ever made from it has been less than outstanding. So I was certain this would be another winner.

As you readers of my blog know, I’m not a vegetarian, but sometimes eating a meatless meal appeals to me. My DH is always open to whatever I make. He never complains. And very rarely asks for anything – whatever I’m in the mood for is okay in his book. He makes it so easy to cook for. I searched through bean stews (no), steamed veggies (no), eggs and cheese concoctions (no), salads (no to that too). Then I spied the chapter on savory tarts, pies, turnovers and pizzas and settled on making a galette. And a mushroom one at that. Mushrooms are almost meat-like in their consistency and taste. I do like them a lot. This one contains shiitake and button varieties. Shiitake because you need their heightened flavor, and button for their filling-nature.

Pictured at left is the mushroom filling. Have you ever made a galette? It’s SO easy. SO forgiving. It’s a rough kind of pastry – not rough tasting – but rough in the presentation, I suppose you could say. It’s merely a buttery pastry dough rolled out in a ROUGH sort of round shape, it’s moved to a baking pan/sheet, the filling is piled in the middle and the edges are turned gently up over the filling. Then it’s baked, of course. You don’t have to glaze it, but it’s more attractive that way – this one was brushed with some melted butter. Usually there’s some of the filling visible in the center. There’s nothing prissy about making a galette, if you get my drift. This mushroom filling has some added flavor enhancers (tomato paste, a little bit of Dijon, some sherry vinegar, red pepper flakes and rosemary). You could add cheese, I suppose, but not having made Madison’s galette before I made it mostly her way. The recipe calls for a mushroom stock (home made, and way too much trouble), but I used Penzey’s chicken concentrate (diluted with water) instead. I also used less stock than Madison called for – I couldn’t imagine using over 2 cups of the sauce, so I made it with only a cup of stock instead. So my recipe here includes the few changes I made. Once the mushroom filling is made, it’s strained of all its juices (so the crust won’t become soggy, I’m sure), then you pour or drizzle any of the sauce over the baked galette. Pictured above is the pastry with the mushroom filling before you wrap the edges. You just gently roll the edges up and over, partially covering the filling and brush the pastry with melted butter. You can also make these in individual servings, like turnovers or as smaller galettes. No change to the recipe, just prepare 6 of them, folding the edges in as shown above or completely sealing them in a turnover.

The bottom line? Delicious. The mushrooms are meaty textured, satisfying and very tasty. The pastry was so tender and flaky. Because the mushroom filling was drained well before the filling was put into the pastry, the bottom pastry was perfectly cooked (and not soggy at all). I had to patch the outside edges in a couple of places, but moistening my finger with water and pressing the patched pieces in was successful. We both enjoyed the galette very much, and I’d make it again. Only change I’d make is to add some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese to the filling (and that’s not in the recipe below). The leftovers were also delish – I placed the pieces on a square of aluminum foil, and that on a baking sheet, heated it at 350 for about 20 minutes. The pastry was still tender, flaky and not a bit soggy.
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Two years ago: Mulligatawny Soup

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The other day I was looking through a cookbook that I’d not cooked from, yet. Actually I’m not sure I remember how I came by this cookbook. There’s no note inside. It’s called Parisian Home Cooking: Conversations, Recipes, And Tips From The Cooks And Food Merchants Of Paris . By Michael Roberts (he’s an American but lived in Paris for some years). Under the chapter for chicken and poultry, there are numerous recipes for simple chicken. Most, either stovetop or oven preparation, and none of them all that complicated.

Starting off, we didn’t have all the specific ingredients. The chicken was boneless – a mistake – but it’s all we had; and I didn’t have any chicken feet, a calf’s foot, or a pig’s tail – I’m not kidding you – that’s also in the recipe. I’ve learned enough over the last 20 years to know that we American’s are just so Victorian, or fastidious, I guess. We don’t like animal odd parts. We don’t like to look at fish heads. Or dead fish eyes on the fish head. And not all that many of us eat offal, the oddball organs and other things that comprise a whole steer, pig, chicken or lamb. I do like foie gras, but I don’t eat organ meat anymore in general because of the high concentration of bad fats. So we miss out, I suppose, on some awfully good flavor.

But the author cautioned in the write-up that if you don’t have good AGED red wine vinegar, don’t even bother to make this. I don’t know about your local markets, but mine don’t carry anything but the cheapest of red wine vinegars. Stuff that’s most likely mere vinegar with a dollop of red wine, perhaps food coloring to make it look like it’s red wine, it’s bottled and they call it red wine vinegar. If you ever take an honest-to-goodness taste of this stuff, you’ll probably agree with me, it’s awful. I won’t even use it for salad dressings or in cooking. Not having visited any wineries lately where I might have found some good red wine vinegar, a few months ago I resorted to buying a bottle of Cabernet Wine Vinegar at Williams-Sonoma. It’s been aged for 8 months, according to the label. And it’s expensive, I will say, but then I don’t use much of it at any one time. But Williams-Sonoma no longer carries it, I guess (I can’t find it on W-S’s website, anyway). However, several online places carry Banyuls 5-year aged. I’m going to look for that when I’m shopping at some of the high-end markets in our area. Through Amazon it’s $23.95 for a 750ml bottle.

As for chicken feet, a calf’s foot or a pig’s tail . . . uhm . . . I can’t say I’ve seen that at any of my markets, high end or not. Perhaps I could ask for it at one of the few stores I frequent where there’s an honest-to-goodness butcher visible. My guess is they likely won’t have it either. However, the Asian markets near us probably would. I don’t frequent them very often, but next time I’m there I’ll look. So this recipe I/we made didn’t contain any one of those three items. Roberts explained that adding one of those three things would add immeasurably to the flavor in the dish.

This dish was relatively easy to make. As I’ve explained recently, I’ve been under the weather. I AM getting better, but my DH offered to make dinner if I’d coach him. No problem. I sat at our kitchen island with the cookbook at  hand, a chopping board in front of me and was the laid-back director of the cooking theater. Dave said he had fun doing it! The dish was good. Next time I’d make more sauce so I’ve upped the quantity in this recipe below. I’d also add mushrooms at the end (not in the original recipe). We/he served it with French glazed carrots and a nice green salad.

My DH (dear husband, just in case you’re a new reader and don’t know my code) had a good day on Sunday. He was the speaker at a Sunday School class at our church. He gave a 20-25 minute speech about “Hope.” He talked about the fact that he’s been a Type 1 diabetic since his 8th birthday, and mostly about the fact that he’s a double amputee. At the end of his talk numerous people in the audience had questions – mostly about his artificial legs and how they work. He also mentioned that when he was diagnosed as a diabetic in 1947, the doctors told his parents that he likely wouldn’t live past the age of 28. They never told Dave that. He’s 70 now and doing well, thank you! Anyway, I was SO proud of him – Dave is a story-teller and speaks to and with people with ease. He doesn’t often speak to groups, but his speech was very interesting, well prepared and very nicely executed. So he was on a roll on Sunday, as they say, and he was ever-so proud of himself when HE put dinner on the table for us. I’m going to be back at the cooking helm now, I think, since I’m feeling better every day.  But I was grateful that he wanted to make this dish. He did it very well – VEDDY VEDDY well.
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A year ago: Breakfast Egg Muffins
Two years ago: Chicken with Red Wine Vinegar Sauce (oh my goodness, I made this exact dish, different recipe, 2 years ago. Serendipity, I think)

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This recipe goes way back in my repertoire. Given to me by a friend from college. One evening when I visited her home many years later, she made these carrots, and I’ve made them oodles of times since. I forget about them because they’re not one of those veggies that are all that good for us – they’re a carb rather than a true vegetable. But carrots were all there was in the crisper. Since my DH was cooking the dinner, I knew these would not be difficult for him to make.

I sat at our kitchen island and gave him directions. I did some of the chopping (slice the carrots on the diagonal if you can – makes them much more attractive) and coached him along the way with the preparation. They’re NOT hard by any stretch of the imagination. But they do require a couple more steps (to get sugar and clip some fresh parsley out of the garden) before making them.

Obviously it’s the sugar that makes them French. And they’re oh-so succulent when they’re cooked just right (meaning they’re not overcooked). Well, they do have some butter in them too – that makes them especially tasty as well. This dish is a very nice colorful veg for a company meal. It can be made ahead and reheated just before serving too. That’s always nice, isn’t it, to have something all done and all you have to do is reheat it. Dave was a happy camper with these carrots – he made them all by himself and he wanted to dig in for seconds.

When the carrots were perfectly cooked, sometimes you still have an abundance of water in the pot. Remove the carrots, boil down the sauce a bit, then put the carrots back in for a re-warm and serve. See, these are really quite versatile.
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A year ago: Homemade Turkey Breakfast Sausage
Two years ago: Raspberry-Almond Truffle Tart

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Every year Epicurious does a prediction of what’s going to be UP and DOWN as far as food for the coming year. Where I live we’re not really in the epicenter of the food biz. We certainly have some good restaurants within a 20-mile radius. We could drive to Los Angeles more often where we might find a more serious mecca of dining, but the traffic is awful. What used to be a 60-minute drive in moderate traffic, is now usually a 90-minute tortured drive of brake lights and flaring tempers. So we stay closer to home and enjoy what good restaurants we do have. There really are many good ones, but they’re not necessarily at the forefront of gastronomy. California offers more healthy alternatives – from Pacific Rim cuisine, to that eclectic kind of California-esque cooking that’s ever so popular. Lots of salads, vegetables, even tofu and sushi. We have ample barbecue, steak in all forms and sizes, burger joints, and pho (Vietnamese soup). There’s comfort food, formal food, cheap and high-end Italian food too.

So, I read the predictions with a slightly askance eye. Will it have any bearing on our eating habits? I’m not sure. You decide:

MOVING UP: Fried Chicken

Really? Hmmm. I’m not so sure we even HAVE any restaurants that feature fried chicken. Fried food doesn’t feature much in most California restaurants. Sure there’s some – like calamari, zucchini sticks, jalapeno poppers and french fries. But not many others. Seems to me that most appetizer menus feature fried food. I rarely order any of those things with the exception of calamari. But maybe I need to dust off some of my 1960’s era cookbooks and find some new methods for making fried chicken at home. It’s just not very healthy, which is why I never attempt to make it.

MOVING DOWN: Burgers

Somehow I doubt burgers are going to take a back seat in most places in our neck of the woods. Everybody loves burgers. And with fries. What is popular here in California is turkey burgers – I do order one on occasion.

MOVING UP: Mini Whoopie Pies

This surprises me. These aren’t popular here at all. As I recall, they’re quite the thing in the midwest somewhere, near their origin. You know what they are? Two soft cookies sandwiched together with a kind of marshmallow filling. I’ve made them, but they’re altogether too much sweet/sugar for me.

MOVING DOWN: Mini Cupcakes

Personally I’ve not even SEEN mini-cupcakes. With the popularity of places like Sprinkles, where the regular-sized cupcake reigns supreme, how could mini-cupcakes even be on the radar?

MOVING UP: Lamb

Hmmm. Maybe so, but it certainly is a pricey ingredient here in our stores. Costco has good deals on lamb, but I think they only carry boneless legs from Australia and racks of lamb. I do enjoy Colorado lamb, though, and seek it out when I can. But have you looked at the fat content? That’s why it’s normally a big treat for us – not only for cost, but for calories.

MOVING DOWN: Pork

Barbecue certainly has made a big impact here in California. We find barbecue (beef and pork mostly) in lots of places. A few restaurants that truly do the barbecue thing (long, slow smoking) are quite popular still.

MOVING UP: an Immunity-Building diet

This has to do with eating foods that are now known to be helpful for building your immune system. I’ve read some about this, but not enough as I couldn’t recall any of them. Apples, onions, organic tomatoes, chicken soup, broccoli, green tea, Vitamin D rich foods (salmon, sardines, tuna), yogurt and chiles all feature large in such a diet.

MOVING DOWN: the Omega-3 foods

I was surprised to read this, but the reason is logical – so many of the Omega-3 fish contain so much mercury, that it’s considered almost more like a health hazard. Some are recommending pills rather than eating the real thing. Besides, we’ve so over-fished our waters there are only so many kinds of fish we can eat. Sad.

MOVING UP: Butchers

It’s becoming a new “in” profession. I’ve been quite disappointed of late when I have visited a store with a real butcher – sometimes they have no idea what I’m asking for. Has made me wonder if the apprenticing has changed its methods so greenhorns are allowed to wait on customers and only one real butcher even works there. I wish I knew more about it.

MOVING DOWN: Mixologist

All those fancy drinks (like martinis and other blender drinks) are apparently going to move out of fashion. We’re not much into trying all the fancy drinks as we’re mostly wine drinkers. We don’t even sample beers much either.

MOVING UP: Homemade beer

Speaking of beer, guess there are now kits for making your own rather than paying the premium prices for some of the boutique brews. This doesn’t even figure on my food radar. Sorry.

MOVING DOWN: Mad-Science Cocktails

Kind of a repeat of the Mixologist downturn. People have been oversaturated with the fancy, crazy cocktails.

MOVING UP: Vancouver

Partly this is because of the Winter Olympics, but Vancouver has become a new mecca for fine dining, I guess. We were even there this past summer for about an hour (before our cruise ship headed out to sea), but had no time to seek out a restaurant.

MOVING DOWN: Barcelona

Seems like there aren’t all that many people who would be affected by this – I mean – flying to Barcelona just to eat? Kind of an expensive trip, I’d say. We’ve been there once, and were quite amazed at the fine dining available. Enjoyed it a lot, but it isn’t exactly going to figure strongly in any of my travel plans in the near future.

MOVING UP: Potluck Dining at Home

This sounds like a great idea. Especially with our current economy and less expendable income at our fingertips.

MOVING DOWN: Formal Dining at Home

So few people do formal dining anymore. We here in California probably started the trend toward casual dining at home about 15+ years ago, so this isn’t news to us.

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