A happy camper am I. Could that be a song? Camping isn’t required to make or serve this delicious salad dressing.

Scanning through my new favorite salad dressing book (I think I’ve made 3 or 4 of them from this book in the last 3 weeks) Vinaigrettes & Other Dressings: 60 Sensational recipes to Liven Up Greens, Grains, Slaws, and Every Kind of Salad, this one is a winner for sure. You don’t need a blender, just a wide-mouthed sealing type jar. It starts with a little bit of molasses and honey. I warmed them in the microwave since they were both viscous, for sure. Then I added in the other ingredients – sherry vinegar, minced shallot, salt and extra virgin olive oil. Chopped pecans are also in the ingredient list. Easy peasy. Shake it up and set aside.

With each and every recipe the author, Michelle Anna Jordan, recommends what kind(s) of salads each dressing – in her opinion – are best for. In this case she suggested a cold sweet potato salad and a root vegetable salad. Well, I thought it would be really good with a rougher lettuce salad – by rougher I mean some cabbage, even head lettuce, Romaine, but not the softer tender greens so much. I had some Savoy cabbage, celery and did mix in some arugula, Romaine and head lettuce. As I write this, I’m going to make this salad again – I still have some of the roasted figs left over. So tomorrow I’ll give you a little overview of the salad itself. I didn’t make the dressing with the pecans – we were going to a family dinner where there is a nut allergy, so I left them out, but when I make the salad this time I’ll add in pecans. Pecans are one of the few nuts that don’t seem to absorb dressing (and get soggy). Perhaps if I were making this to keep around for awhile I’d just keep the nuts out and toss them in when I toss the salad.

The recipe indicates the dressing will keep for up to 3 days. I don’t know why it wouldn’t be good for a week for sure, but that’s just my opinion. I haven’t tested the theory as the dressing was used up in just 4 days at my house.

What’s GOOD: it’s sweet and sour all at the same time. If you taste it alone, it has just a bit of an acid twang, but once mixed with a salad, it seemed perfect to me. I could pick out the sherry vinegar in it – I liked it. You can also add a bit more oil or honey, etc. to suit your own palate. It doesn’t have to be made in a blender – there isn’t anything in this dressing to emulsify it (like mustard or dairy), so it’s just fine made in a glass jar. I don’t believe I’ve ever made a salad dressing with molasses before, and I was little timid about that – wondering how it would taste! It really is delicious.
What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. I’ll be making this dressing again for sure.

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Oh, yum. I hate to use that word, but there’s really no other one to describe how scrumptious these are. Just slightly caramelized and enhanced with some Grand Marnier, honey, fresh lemon strips and fresh thyme sprigs. If you happen to have fresh figs, please do try these.

The other day I saw fresh figs at the market. I’ve probably mentioned it here before, but I’m no fan of Fig Newtons, which was mostly my introduction to figs from my childhood. If you’re of a certain age, then Fig Newtons were just about the only kind of fig anything there was. Growing up, we had a fig tree in our back yard, and my mother never did anything with figs except put them in a fruit bowl for my mom or dad to eat them out of hand. Fig Newtons? My dad loved them. He could eat them day in and day out. Not me. I didn’t mind the occasional fresh fig, though.

So, on the rare occasion when I see figs – now’s the season – I don’t usually know what to do with them. But then I got the idea to roast them – seems like nearly every living plant life is enhanced by oven roasting. I did a search online for “roasted figs” and up popped a recipe from my favorite Paris blogger, David Libovitz. He did something wonderful – fabulous – with fresh figs. My plan was to use them in a green salad. We’d been invited to dinner at our extended family and my task was to bring a green salad. I wanted something different. Something kind of special. So I made a salad (I’ll tell you about that in a day or two) with these figs beautifying the top.

The figs . . . cut off the stems, halve them, then pour in the glaze stuff (Grand Marnier, warmed honey, fresh thyme, brown sugar). Toss them around gently, place them cut side down and roast for 15 minutes (if they’re really ripe and sweet) or longer, like 30 minutes (if they’re younger unripe figs) until they’re caramelized. I baked mine cut side up (I misread the directions) and ended up turning on the broiler at the end just to give them that golden crispiness. I let them cool to room temp (I did them a couple of hours ahead of time) and covered them with plastic wrap. I just placed them on the salad – on the top – so they’d look beautiful. But oh gosh, were they delish. I think they’d be wonderful with vanilla ice cream, especially with some of the saucy stuff drizzled over the top. Or served on the side as a garnish or condiment along side a pork roast or chicken, or lamb.

What’s GOOD: everything about them. Who knew roasted figs could taste so darned good, I ask? Succulent, seedy (of course, that’s what figs are all about but in a good way) and these are perfectly caramelized. I thought they were terrific on a green salad.

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever.

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This just LOOKS like an ordinary bowl of rice. Oh my, no, it isn’t. It’s spectacular rice. You’ve got to make this if you are a risotto-lover and you also crave lemon in just about everything.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to me to enhance risotto with lemon juice? It just hadn’t. But I saw Nigella Lawson make this recipe on one of her old-old TV shows, and when she put the spoonful in her mouth (and you wait for the oohs and aahs that every Food Network host makes), well, I just knew I had to try this version. The truth of the matter is that about 2 weeks ago I came down with the flu. I thought I’d managed to get through flu season, but no, I didn’t. I was down for 2 full days. I watched every single TV program on my Tivo and then some, although the first 2 days I couldn’t watch any food-oriented programs as my stomach lurched, but after 2 days that part improved – that’s why I was watching an old Nigella Lawson program. Anyway, for those first 2 days I couldn’t eat a thing, and even on day 3 I was only able to down some corn flakes and sip sparkling cider off and on all day. And even though it’s been 2 weeks (as I write this) I still have times when my stomach gives me a little turn. I’ve barely eaten any meat – a little bacon, a little chicken, one fish dinner that didn’t go down well. We spent the weekend at a lovely resort and I had difficulty eating some of the wonderful food. And yesterday my stomach revolted a little after I had breakfast. So when dinnertime came around, I craved carbs only. Not my usual shtick, for sure. I know . . . too much information, right? Sorry.

On to the recipe . . . there is nothing that difficult or unusual about this risotto. It contains shallots and celery (that’s a bit different), butter, Arborio rice, broth (I used chicken because I didn’t have any vegetable broth), a fresh lemon (preferably a home grown or organic one), olive oil, and the final fillip to this version – an egg yolk (that IS different), 4 T. of heavy cream, fresh rosemary and of course, Parmigiano. I added on the chopped chives to give the dish some color. The recipe calls for a quart of broth – I had to add about another cup of water because the rice wasn’t quite done, but that was easy enough.

This was all we had for dinner. No salad. No veggies. And it was so comforting. Oh yes! My hat’s off to Nigella for a spectacular recipe.

What’s GOOD: well, everything about it was fabulous. And I mean fabulous. This recipe is going onto my FAVs list if that’s any indication of how much I liked it. I’d use words like unctuous, smooth, silky, comfort food. I just loved the lemon juice and zest added in, and the egg yolk? Well, I’d never thought to add one, but when mixed with the cheese and little jot of cream, well, that’s how the dish went from ordinary to unctuous. Make this, okay?
What’s NOT: only the 30+ minutes of near-continuous stirring required, but I managed to keep it on a very low heat (I forgot to get out my battery operated Stirr thing that would have just kept the mixture moving while I did other things like zest the lemon, chop rosemary, etc.). I didn’t actually stir it continuously, it just seemed like it.

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Nothing revolutionary here except these have some lime juice and zest as well as lemon. And they’re certainly citrus-potent, sweet, acidic, textural from the shortbread type base and delicate all at the same time. Worth making.

Recently I met my friend Gwen for lunch. She, who still works in the big-mad-crazy 70+ hour a week corporate world, and always has oodles of fascinating stories to share about her work life. She flies back and forth to Chicago, meets with corporate attorneys, leads meetings, does long-term strategic planning, guides her staff, smooths CEO feathers and all those kinds of things. I keep telling her she needs to write a book. One of her rare down-time activities is baking, and she makes mounds of Christmas cookies each year, so when she mentioned these lemon-lime coconut macaroon bars she’d made recently, I knew I’d want to try them.

The recipe was in a very recent Sunset Magazine. And as I mentioned above, they’re similar to many lemon bar recipes, except there is toasted coconut in the pastry/cookie base part, and the filling is loaded with lemon and lime juices and zest from both.

What’s GOOD: well, the citrus-centric flavor, of course. These are very tart and sweet and loaded with flavor. I liked the coconut addition in the pastry base – it gave a nice – and different flavor to the bars that I enjoyed. The bars are on the wet side, so the powdered sugar dissolves onto the top – at least it did for me – within 10 minutes or so. Just sprinkle the sugar on before serving.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. Easy to make.

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No, this isn’t a Caesar dressing . . . it’s a simple vinaigrette but with an egg yolk added in to give it heft, unctuousness and to emulsify the dressing so it “holds.”

I’m on a tear, as the saying goes, trying new recipes for salad dressings from the new book I bought, Vinaigrettes & Other Dressings: 60 Sensational recipes to Liven Up Greens, Grains, Slaws, and Every Kind of Salad. So far, I’m loving this cookbook, only because it contains a whole bunch of new dressings with just one or two little things that make each one different. Love that! In this one it’s the egg and 2 T. of heavy cream. Not a lot, when you divide that up amongst several salad servings. I put it on a hearty green salad. The author suggests serving it on a leek salad, or a frisee salad with a poached egg on it, a grilled tuna salad, salad Nicoise or a grilled salmon salad.

Some people are fearful of raw egg – if so, you may not want to make this. Or, buy the pasteurized eggs that can be found in some stores. Or easier yet, take a look at this blog post about how to do it yourself. You merely have to get the egg to 138° in order to make it safe.

This dressing does require a bit of wrist action – you do have to whisk in the egg, the heavy cream, then the oil and vinegar (or lemon juice). Other than that, it’s cinchy easy to make. Get all the ingredients out and at-the-ready before you start and it comes together in a jiffy. I’ll be making this one again.

What’s GOOD: the smooth silkiness, the richness of it. Pretty color too. Delicious.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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So it is, each year somebody writes up a collective essay about the cookbooks from last year. This one about 2012. I read about it over at Eat Your Books (on their blog). The folks over at EYB write up frequent posts (and you don’t have to have an EYB account in order to follow their blog), always interesting, and this one particularly so. Since I assume you, my readers, are just like me, I keep saying I’m not going to buy any more cookbooks, and then something comes along that woos me to break that promise to myself. And since I have an amazon prime account (no shipping fees for most of their products), I convince myself that I’m saving money. (Sure!)

In addition to telling me about what cookbooks were the most popular sellers last year, they also quote some statistics about the buyers of cookbooks (more men? or women? what ages?) and this article also provided their take on cookbook trends. Their blog post was based on statistics in an article by PW, Publishers Weekly, but EYB just condensed it to the most important facts. So what did it have to say?

You probably already heard that Jerusalem: A Cookbook (above photo) won the IACP award for 2012. I’d read many blogs and magazine articles touting the recipes in the cookbook during the year, so I gave in and bought that a couple of months ago. So far I’ve not made anything from it, and I stuck the book on my bookshelf when we were entertaining recently, and intend to dig it out again and continue reading through it.

The TRENDS:

• Vegetarianism is ever-more popular.
• Middle Eastern cooking is the “it” cuisine at the moment. And it’s increasing.
• We are developing a greater respect for ingredients. We want to know where our food products come from and how it/they were raised so we can make a conscious decision about whether to buy.

And who buys cookbooks? The graphic at right I found at the Publisher’s Weekly website. You can (hopefully) read the fine print – 30-44 year olds buy more cookbooks than others. I thought it interesting that 13-17 year olds buy 3%. How about that? 69% of cookbooks are purchased by women (not surprising), although I suspect male buyers are increasing. I happen to love watching HGTV’s House Hunters and House Hunters International, and I would say that for at least 3 out of every 10 home buyers, men are the ones interested in having  a nice, big, updated kitchen because they do the cooking in the family.

Cookbook are certainly popular, and ever more so with each passing year. Here are the winners for 2012:

1. Barefoot Contessa Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust , Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, 428,105

2. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier , (her 2nd book) Ree Drummond, William Morrow, 267,909

3. In the Kitchen with David: QVC’s Resident Foodie Presents Comfort Foods That Take You Home, David Venable, Ballantine, 264,953

4. Eat More of What You Love: Over 200 Brand-New Recipes Low in Sugar, Fat, and Calories, Marlene Koch, Running Press, 132,796 (a friend told me about this one – it’s a book that is often recommended through Weight Watchers because it shows WW points, although it is not sponsored by WW)

5. Great Food Fast (Best of the Best Presents) Bob Warden’s Ultimate Pressure Cooker Recipes, Bob Warden, Quail Ridge, 122,665

6. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, Deb Perelman, Knopf, 114,547

7. The Chew: Food. Life. Fun., Peter Kaminsky, Hyperion, 109,020

8. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl (her original cookbook), Ree Drummond, William Morrow, 103,751

9. Weeknights with Giada: Quick and Simple Recipes to Revamp Dinner, Giada de Laurentiis, Clarkson Potter, 95,040

10. Hungry Girl to the Max!: The Ultimate Guilt-Free Cookbook, Lisa Lillien, St. Martin’s Griffin, 86,656

Want to know about hardcover, vs. paperback, vs. e-books? Hardcover cookbooks still outsell all others, but as a portion of total unit sales, hardcovers dropped from 49% in 2011 to 42% in 2012. And e-book sales more than doubled, up from 9% to 22%. I don’t know about you, but I still prefer a hard cover cookbook to an e-cookbook. Obviously, I’m contrary to the trend, though.

The article talked some about how much the Food Network influences our cookbook buying, and never let it be said that any one of the stars on FN (or the Cooking Channel, for that matter) passed up an opportunity to monetize their shows. Hence new cookbooks appear on a regular basis. One of the newest ones to join the ranks is Mario Batali’s two sons (ages 16 and 14) who just published their own cookbook based on recipes they made themselves (apparently) and presented in a hand-made form to their dad on his 50th birthday. I won’t be buying it, but it’s a cute idea – The Batali Brothers Cookbook. It would make a cute gift for a teenage son or grandson.

FYI: I have an amazon associates account, and if you happen to buy a cookbook through any of the links above, I get a few pennies.

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A happy camper am I when I find a new citrusy salad dressing recipe. EVOO, lemon juice, shallots, garlic, a little tiny bit of crème fraiche and chives. Delish.

I must say that amazon does a great job of letting me know when a new cookbook comes out that fits the kind of home-cook profile I must have on their background servers. They send me emails at least once a day about something, but when this one popped up, and I read the author’s name (I own several of her cookbooks), I jumped on it immediately. Michele Anna Jordan lives and works in the Sonoma area. She’s a writer, has been a caterer in the past, does a radio show and develops recipes, obviously!

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know that I make all of my own salad dressings. It’s a rare day that I’ll use a bottled dressing, and that’s only if I’m desperate for time. So with this new cookbook in hand, Vinaigrettes & Other Dressings: 60 Sensational recipes to Liven Up Greens, Grains, Slaws, and Every Kind of Salad, I flipped through the first section on sort-of standard vinaigrettes and this one spoke to me.

Citronette. What IS that, exactly? It must be French, and I couldn’t find a true definition online, but I did find that it differs from a vinaigrette in 2 ways: (1) it uses lemon juice instead of vinegar (that’s the citron- part of the word); and (2) it’s unstable, meaning it doesn’t make an emulsion. It probably could since it has crème fraiche in it, but for this, you want a more clear dressing. Even with the dairy in it, it’s not a cream-style dressing.

Probably because of the crème fraiche in it. This one isn’t made in a blender or food processor – although I suppose you could, but then it wouldn’t be a citronette, you see (read above paragraph). Jordan just says combine the ingredients, in order, in a glass jar. The shallots, garlic, salt, lemon zest and lemon juice are allowed to mingle a bit before you add the oil – likely that draws out the flavors from the shallot and garlic. Then you add the crème fraiche, olive oil, pepper and shake vigorously.

Normally (and Jordan recommends) using this on a green type salad, but I had some lovely little cherry tomatoes and fresh basil and this dressing just seemed to call to a combination. Jordan does recommend using it within 2 days. Hope I can do that. It doesn’t make a huge quantity, so you should be able to use it up before it’s over the hill.

And here’s what I did with the remainder – I tossed it on freshly cooked Blue Lake green beans, and then sprinkled the top with my Peppered Pecans. Loved the taste – particularly all the garlic. This dressing is very garlicky, just so you know . . .I used 2 cloves of garlic, and by day 2 the garlic was very pronounced. If you aren’t a garlic lover, you might want to keep the garlic to just 1 clove.

What’s GOOD: the FRESH taste of it, but obviously that’s because of the freshly squeezed lemon juice. It has a lovely clean taste. Lots of flavor from the shallots and garlic. It would be delish on a green salad. Jordan recommends a salad with red onion, blue cheese crumbles, chickpeas, pasta salad, or over grilled fish. That last sounds wonderful.
What’s NOT: well, it’s a bit fussy, but really it’s only the shallots, garlic and chives that require fine mincing. Otherwise it’s simple.

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Believe it or not, the carrots above are cooked, not raw. This looks like a slaw, but it isn’t at all, although you can eat this hot, warm or cold.

My DH, as a diabetic, loves it whenever I serve him something that is sweet, but doesn’t contain sugar, or doesn’t appear to. In this case, the shredded carrots are cooked in orange juice. Carrots, of course, when they’re cooked, are sweet tasting anyway, but cook them in OJ (and a little bit of brown sugar) and they take on the sweetness of dessert, almost. I made these in the microwave. Actually I used frozen OJ concentrate, added some water to dilute it and put it in a large 4-cup Pyrex measuring cup. Then I added ground ginger. Be very careful and don’t add too much – it’s so easy to just guess – like I did – and use too much. Mine tasted fine, but it definitely was spicy ginger-hot. The carrots were tossed in there, and I stirred them around and cooked them for 1 minute on high. Stirred them, another minute on high, tasted them and they were done. Your own microwave might be different, so taste them each time and stop when they’re done to your liking.

The recipe came from a new cookbook called Cooking Caribe, although I found the recipe over at the Perfect Pantry blog. Supposedly the recipe serves 6, but I made it with 3 medium carrots and we ate it all, so I’ve adjusted it to serve 4. After cooking the carrots I allowed the mixture to cool for several minutes, then I drained off all the juice, added a bunch of fresh cilantro and salt. Salt wasn’t in the recipe, but I definitely felt it needed it. Not much, though.

What’s GOOD: These were just slightly cooked – not raw – but not soft or mushy at all, which is how you want it. The shreds of carrot were still distinct. the flavor was fresh – California fresh, I suppose with citrus in it. We didn’t have any left overs, so I don’t know how they would taste after a day or so. The cilantro would be over the hill, so if you make a lot, add the cilantro on top.

What’s NOT: nothing, really, as long as you like cooked carrots. We do.

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Are you a cookie-dough eater as I am? Well, the almond flavoring in the dough was just spot-on, pungent but not overpowering, and I expected the cookies to take on more of an almond flavor. Alas, it faded during baking. But biting into these little morsels almost tastes like a sandy, but not quite. Oh, but these are delicious no matter what you call them!

When I think about baking cookies, chocolate chip are never far from the forefront of my mind. But I decided I’ve made enough of those – there was a bag of them in our Palm Desert house freezer, and when we sold the house in March, well, those came home with us. Most of them haven’t been eaten (because they weren’t my favorite-est recipe). Maybe that’s a good thing since I don’t hanker for one every day.

Anyway, I looked around at a variety of recipes and was going to make a different cardamom cookie than this one, but when I went online I couldn’t find anyone who had commented on that particular recipe. I’ve come to rely on other people’s reviews of printed or cookbook recipes. But as I looked, I found this one that sounded even better because it contained walnuts and almond extract. It didn’t contain any leavening, either. No soda or baking powder. And no eggs. I wondered how they would rise, assuming they would be flat-flat coins.

Making the dough was a cinch – flour, butter, walnuts, almond extract, ground cardamom, salt and powdered sugar. That’s it. Oh, that’s how – they’re like Russian tea cakes, the ones that are rolled in powdered sugar after they’re baked. They stay in that mound shape. So something about the chemistry of these (like shortbread) helps them retain their round form.

This recipe did suggest rolling them in more powdered sugar. I didn’t do that as I thought they were amply sweet already. Besides, the powdered sugar always ends up on my clothes and/or chin. The dough is rolled into 1-inch balls and baked in a 350° oven for 20 minutes (longer than many cookies) until they’re just beginning to get golden brown on the bottom.

What’s GOOD: the buttery taste, like shortbread. Easy – VERY – to make. No hassle at all. Yes, I’d make them again. Would be nice for Christmas cookies too. The cardamom is subtle (I added more than the original recipe indicated) as is the almond flavor. I liked the walnuts in these too.

What’s NOT: gee, nothing. Great cookie.

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It’s really a no-brainer that guacamole, coming from the tropics, would have an affinity to mango, also a tropical fruit. I was amazed at the flavor in this – you got the regular guacamole taste, but then the sweet unctuous mango hits your palate, and zing! Altogether delicious. Different.

Suddenly I realized I hadn’t posted this recipe from our Cinco de Mayo brunch a few weeks ago. It was a delicious guacamole – and so very unusual because of the mango in it. It had a more mango color than it did the regular green of guacamole. It also had tomatoes, a shallot, a little bit of onion, some minced serrano chile, cilantro and lime juice. Oh, and some dried chipotle chiles. But dried chipotle are sometimes hard to find, so use some chipotle paste instead – just be careful how much you put in it because chipotle in adobo is very VERY hot and could overpower the delicate flavors in this dish. The recipe came from an article in Food and Wine magazine (May, 2013).

Do make this just an hour or so before you want to serve it – even though it has lime juice in it to keep the avocado green, with all the other stuff in it, I think it might get brown if it sat overnight. Alternately, make it up completely EXCEPT for the avocado and add that in at the last minute. That would work too if you needed to make it ahead. In case you don’t have fresh mangoes at your grocery store, Trader Joe’s sells frozen mango chunks. I keep a bag in my freezer at all times.

What’s GOOD: the combination of mango and avocado is terrific. I liked the texture difference in this mixture also – you don’t expect to bite into mango when you dip a guacamole/salsa. Everyone loved it. The chipotle is a smoked chile – that gives it a different, deep flavor profile you don’t usually associate with guacamole, either!
What’s NOT: really nothing at all. It’s worth making.

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