Oh, what a lovely slice of deliciousness. Coconut flavor in the bread and on the top, and lemon caramel drizzled over the top. This one’s really, really good!

One of my book clubs came to my house awhile back, and not only did I review a book (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry: A Novel by Rachel Joyce), but I also needed to prepare some mid-morning food for everyone who came. We had a really interesting discussion about this book. It’s one of my favorite books I’ve read in the last couple of years and I think this book “experience” was enhanced by a group discussion.

I made coffee, had fresh fruit, some Biscoff cookies, this bread, and also some chocolate/banana small cake bites too. I’ll write up the cake recipe too – soon. When everyone left, I packaged up everything and put it in a big ziploc bag in the freezer for my Scrabble group that came to my house a couple of weeks later. But I’ll tell you – I had a hard time staying out of that bag during the ensuing weeks because I wanted some of this bread.

The recipe – I read about it on Orangette, but it comes from a book titled Lemons by Alison Roman (not available at amazon). I’ll need to frequent some used book stores to see if I can find it. You can buy it from the publisher for $14, (which seems pricey for a 48 page cookbook), so I’d like to find a used copy if I can do so. I have a couple of lemon cookbooks, but if this recipe is any representation of what’s contained in that cookbook, then I need to own it!

The recipe is just slightly different than most tea bread recipes, in that it uses coconut oil (melted). And it does have a coconut topping that’s baked along with the bread. Then you make a lemon juice mixture to go on top. Here’s where my cooking went off the track (in a good way). I set the lemon juice and sugar in a small saucepan on the stove, then walked 10 feet away and began working on something here at my computer. I lost track of time, and the aroma of lemon juice/sugar didn’t seem to alert me that I needed to get back to it. When I finally smelled it, I dashed over to the stove and discovered that the mixture had turned to a light brown caramel. I didn’t want to make another batch, so I just used it anyway – I used a spoon to drizzle the lemon-caramel over the top of the finished bread. It was a delightful change/mistake that I’ll probably do the next time I make it, so I’ve included it in my recipe below. It gave it a lovely crunch, in addition to the unsweetened coconut flakes that were also slightly crunchy.

What’s GOOD: the coconut and lemon flavors are prominent (which I liked). There isn’t much of anything made with lemon that I don’t like, but this tea cake is particularly good, and I want to bake it again, because I didn’t have enough of it the first time around.

What’s NOT: not a single thing. Worth making for sure.

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Okay, listen up my friends. If you’ve learned to trust me when I tell you – these cookies are beyond wonderful. Not to be confused with the previous recipe I gave you  for “safari anzac cookies” (the one provided by the African safari camp chef and posted here in November). These are mostly ordinary cookie ingredients, but an altogether different method and a tweak or two.

When I made the last iteration of these cookies (I’ve now made 3) I was less than pleased, although all my friends raved about them, and I agreed they were “good” but they weren’t perfect. I suppose if I were the more professional kind of blogger I wouldn’t have even posted the last recipe – since I wasn’t satisfied with them. But I did because everybody loved them, yet I wasn’t sure what in the world I could do with them to make them better or “right” in my book.

So, I do what I tend to do best – I researched. I went on the web and looked up things about the CHEMISTRY of cookie baking. The myriad of sites I went to had varying opinions about why one ingredient resulted in this type, or that method made the cookies a different way. But before I even did that, I went to my cookie recipe file (in my MasterCook program) and looked at each and every recipe I have in there (a couple hundred) and examined my photos, and analyzed the ingredients. And as I got down to the R’s in my list I came across my old recipe for Ranger Cookies. They’re a crispy cookie that contains oatmeal and corn flakes and other various things. But I was really looking more at the cookie dough ingredients than anything else – not the add-ins. And I remembered how good those cookies are. Don’t know why I don’t make them more often because I really like them.

Then I went on the web and researched. What I learned was this:

(1) using all butter makes for a very crispy cookie that may spread;

(2) adding shortening will help cookies to be more firm in height (less spreading) because shortening melts at a higher temp;

(3) eggs add tenderness (well, of course) and they’re a binder as well, something to hold the batter together;

(4) molasses makes cookies darker, sweeter, and since it’s a liquid, cookies tend to spread some because of it which causes quicker browning;

(5) melting the butter/shortening and molasses before baking also encourages spreading, creating a thin, flat cookie; and then

(6) cake flour tends to give cookies a more cake-like texture – duh, that’s why it’s called cake flour!

As am aside, I don’t use Crisco anymore because it’s hydrogenated (medical researchers tell us that’s not such a good thing to eat) so I seek out Spectrum brand non-hydrogenated shortening. It’s carried at some of my local grocery stores, but not all – it’s in a blue and white round plastic tub next to the Crisco. If they carry it. If you can’t find a non-hydrogenated shortening, you can use margarine, but I don’t know how it would work because it’s basically an oil and when it gets warm it melts. The whole idea behind the shortening is that it doesn’t melt easily – except at high temp, higher than the melting (flash) point of butter.

SO, keeping all those do’s and don’t’s in mind, I swapped out some of the butter and added the non-hydrogenated shortening. There were no eggs, but liquid was needed, so I added a little swig of milk. I took out the molasses altogether and used a combo of white and brown sugar. I used all-purpose flour and left the leaveners the same. When I started out making these, I had no idea whether they would turn out – I took one thing from one recipe, another from a different recipe, added a couple of things and removed some. And I changed the method of mixing too. I’m not usually as adventuresome about creating cookies because there truly IS a chemistry to baking, but perhaps not as critical as in baking a cake with specific ratios needed.

Here’s what I did: first I creamed the softened butter and shortening together and mixed it until there weren’t any streaks of shortening. Then I added the sugars and vanilla. Meanwhile, I’d made a mixture of the flour (all-purpose) and baking powder, soda and salt. Into the cookie batter I added oatmeal and unsweetened coconut and mixed that well enough, then I added in the flour and milk until the batter was pulling together, then I added the seeds (sesame, flax and pumpkin). It looked good. The batter tasted right too. I baked just one sheet of them and let them rest a few minutes after baking to see if they were okay. More than okay!

I’ve given away most of these cookies already and can’t wait to make another batch. These cookies aren’t exactly like the ones we had on safari (those were much thicker and almost jaw-breakers to bite through) but I’m so happy with the results of my experimentation that I don’t want to try yet again. I’d thought about making yet another (4th) iteration with adding more cookie part and less add-ins, but have concluded these cookies are just perfect. I mean it. They are.

What’s GOOD: these are just magnificent cookies, if I do say so myself. Love the seeds. Love the texture and the crispness. Love everything about them. Try them and you’ll see what I mean.

What’s NOT: absolutely nothing. These are a winner!

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Well, this one isn’t healthy, what with the cream in the sauce, but if you only have 1-2 tablespoons of it, it can’t be too bad. A tender (and lean) pork tenderloin that’s brined in spiced-up buttermilk is browned in a pan then oven baked. THEN, you make the insanely wonderful sauce with cilantro, jalapeno, lime juice, goat cheese, butter, and more than a tetch of heavy cream.

Oh my goodness, is this recipe wonderful. I almost forgot to post it. It came from that great Diva class I attended in December, with Diane Phillips and and Phillis Carey (this is Phillis’ recipe). The pork is merely a vehicle for the sauce – I’m telling you – you’ll want to lick the plate it’s so good.

The brine in this is composed of sugar, ancho chili powder, regular chili powder, smoked paprika, cayenne, cinnamon and buttermilk. Easy, providing you have all the ingredients. The thick-sliced bacon is wrapped around the pork once it’s brined for 24 hours and tied onto it. The fat from the bacon bastes the pork while it’s roasting in the oven. The pork is browned and then it’s roasted in the oven for about 20 minutes.

It helps if you’ve made the cilantro pesto ahead of time – it’s not hard to make at all. It’s a typical pesto (oil, pine nuts, garlic), but instead of basil, it uses cilantro. The sauce is a combination of cream and butter, with some crumbled goat cheese (you can see it in the photo at top). The pesto is stirred into the sauce just before you’re ready to serve it – so it doesn’t actually cook – it’s just heated up. It’s SO full of flavor.

The pork needs to rest for about 6-8 minutes after it comes out of the oven (to help pull back the good juices, so you don’t lose them as you slice), then you slice the tenderloins about 1/2 inch thick. The bacon, which has crisped up during the roasting, is chopped up and sprinkled on top once you’ve drizzled the sauce on top. Oh my. Fabulous.

What’s GOOD: there is not anything about this recipe that ISN’T good. I’m telling you, you need to make this. Would make a fantastic company meal, for sure. Not hard to make – don’t be misled by all the ingredients below. It’s not all that hard to do. You’ll be emailing me afterwards, telling me how much you loved this.

What’s NOT: only that it’s not all that healthy,  unfortunately. I’d serve it with rice so you can sop up every tiny bit of the sauce. It’s that good.

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What’s there not to like about apple comfort food in a cobbler? This one’s made with brown sugar, which gives it almost a caramel flavor, and the biscuits on top are also made with brown sugar.

Recently I’d been looking through my to-try recipes, and decided I really needed to try this one – an apple cobbler made with brown sugar. And truly, this one has some very different flavors. The apples are cooked a bit in a big pan with butter and brown sugar added in, plus a bit of flour and cinnamon. The mixture has a butterscotch or caramel flavor. Granny Smith apples hold their shape, so this cobbler doesn’t disintegrate to applesauce. The recipe comes from Jennifer’s Bake or Break blog. She used different apples (Gala and Pink Lady) but I prefer Granny’s when I’m making a cobbler.

Once the apples are cooked a bit in that mixture (see photo) they’re poured into the baking dish. They’re not cooked through at all, but they have a lovely ooey-gooey wet brown sugar glaze all over them.

I could hardly not sample a piece of apple – the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon mixture makes them taste wonderful. I already knew this was going to be a great treat.

Then the biscuits needed to be made. They’re a standard kind of biscuit recipe but it does use only brown sugar, so they have a darker color from the get-go. They’re moistened with butter, milk and sour cream.

I plopped the biscuit mixture by small amounts (I used a cookie scoop so they’d be uniform in size) on top of the apples. There’s a photo of the baking dish before I put it in the oven.

The oven temp is 400° F. I think if I made these again I would reduce it to 375° only because the biscuits get very dark colored. They weren’t burned at all – the brown sugar gives them that color, but I think they wouldn’t have gotten quite so firm on the top. Just a thought.

I made this a few hours ahead of time, but it was still a little bit warm when we served it, along with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Yum.

What’s GOOD: as I said, comfort food for sure. Loved the caramely, butterscotchy taste to the apples. I think the dish needs more apples, so I’ve upped the number in the recipe below – but I didn’t increase the other ingredients. I think there is enough of the brown sugar mixture to cover 2 more apples. It was really delicious. Everybody loved it, and especially with the ice cream along with it.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of. It’s a great recipe. Thanks to Jennifer at Bake or Break.

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After Christmas the weather turned cool, and I was craving soup. Having just watched Ree Drummond make this on her show, I decided it would do just fine for one of the family dinners I had here at home after the 1st of the year.

There are a multitude of ingredients in this – chicken, canned tomatoes, black beans, red and yellow peppers, onion, tomato paste, lime and all the toppings (avocado, sour cream, cheese, tortilla chips and cilantro). But once you begin assembling this it comes together pretty quickly. It’s all made in the slow cooker. I chose to use the high setting, so it took about 5 hours (8 hours on low). Into the bottom of the slow cooker goes the chicken, then the seasonings, tomatoes, chicken broth, chopped up onion and bell peppers, a small can of tomato paste, the canned black beans and a chipotle chile in adobo sauce for flavor. My slow cooker has the option of cooking on the stove, so I heated up all the ingredients in the insert, then plopped it into the slow cooker base, on went the lid and I looked in on it once to stir it a little bit, and it was done. My granddaughter Taylor helped make the toppings.

We set up an assembly line – into the big soup bowls went the soup then each person could choose which toppings they wanted. If you have smaller eaters, this will probably serve more than 10. I did have just a little bit left over, but not much.

What this soup is, is a very easy dinner. And it serves a bunch of people. The chicken breasts make it very easy to put together. Next time I’d use some chicken thighs, I think, and add a few breast pieces. Chicken breasts all by themselves (boneless, skinless) really don’t have much flavor. I tasted the soup all by itself and can’t say that it was all that special. In fact it was kind of ho-hum. BUT, once you add all the toppings, that’s where the flavor lies. There’s almost zero fat in the soup. I added in some pork soup base (Penzey’s) to add some further flavor, but even with that the soup part is kind of plain. So, word to the wise: use lots of toppings – don’t skimp on them because they provide the flavor. Also, once I removed the chicken breasts and cut them up into smaller bite-sized pieces, the chicken began to fall apart. So, don’t do much stirring after you’ve done that part.

What’s GOOD: this feeds a small army and as a meal goes, this was a pretty easy one to make for a crowd. I had 10 people for dinner, and there was enough, fortunately. The toppings carry all the flavor, so don’t not offer them. I’d be very disappointed in the soup if there were no toppings! Just so you know. It was an all-in-a-bowl meal. I didn’t serve anything else with it – no salad or anything. I did make dessert, though.

What’s NOT: really nothing – just know that the soup isn’t all that flavorful all by itself. The toppings are what make it. If you were to use chicken with bones in, it might have more flavor, but we were into easy for this meal!

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Over the holidays, when my cousin Gary was visiting me, we both came down with bad colds (he caught it from me, I think), so there were about 4 days of the 10 he was here that we didn’t do anything at all. On New Year’s Day I finally decided I was well enough that I should cook a nice meal. Gary chose salmon.

As it happened, while I was watching hours and hours of TV, I decided to view Valerie Bertinelli’s Food Network show and she made this salmon. It was easy and she raved about it. It really wasn’t hard to make – at all – and makes a nice presentation. I like her show and am now recording it on my Tivo.

So, salmon steaks in hand, I made up the coating. It’s a combo of mayonnaise (she used low-fat, I used full because that’s what I had), Dijon mustard, and honey. Her recipe calls for a whole lot of honey, and I thought half was enough (and it was plenty sweet for me, so I’ve altered her recipe below). Half the mixture is set aside for serving (extra to dip into or pour over) and the other half is used to coat the salmon. Easy. Into a 375°F oven it went and baked for 6-7 minutes (don’t over bake it). Then you turn on the broiler (so put the fish into the right position for broiling even when you’re doing the baking portion of it). That takes another 5-7 minutes. As you can see from the photo, the collagen has begun to leak out of the flakes, meaning it’s almost past it’s prime. I try to be alert to that, but I didn’t peek into the oven until 6 minutes and it was done already. It all depends on the thickness of the salmon. Once out of the oven you garnish it with chives and serve. Dinner was on the table in less than half an hour.

What’s GOOD: how easy this is, and it’s very flavorful. Worth making for sure. I always have the ingredients on hand – except chives, perhaps, but as luck would have it I did have some for this. It could easily be Italian parsley or even cilantro to put on top, but the chives are a good match with salmon. There is a LOT of mustard in this recipe, but when it’s tempered with the mayo and honey, it loses its pungency somehow, but you can still notice it. In a nice way.

What’s NOT: not a thing. Easy, easy, easy.

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An elegant appetizer, a time to use those really good, BIG shrimp that you’ve saved for a special occasion. Diced tomatoes are added in and the piquant lime juice adds a zing.

It’s been a couple of months ago now, that my friend Cherrie and I went to the Phillis Carey Diva class. She prepared this that day, and I’d forgotten all about it, to share with you. It’s very easy to make – just have good shrimp to use (none of those little bitty things, or canned),  but you don’t want or need to use the gigantic shrimp, either. In fact, you can cut the shrimp into more bite-sized pieces, so there’s no need to buy the most expensive ones. Phillis always prefers to start with raw shrimp (all the shells removed, including the tail shell) and she sautés them in olive oil. Out they go to a waiting bowl. To the skillet you add lime juice and zest, add it to the shrimp, then you add some chopped white onion, serrano chile, garlic and more olive oil. That’s really it.

Phillis prefers to serve this with some fresh chopped tomato, the avocados, of course, and garnishes it with some sliced black olives (optional) and cilantro. Serve with a lime wedge. It can be made UP to 24 hours ahead (without the avocado and tomato and garnishes, though).

What’s GOOD: well, if you’re a lover of shrimp, then you’ll be in hog-heaven. If you like ceviche (a raw fish appetizer), this kind of is similar in that the lime juice somewhat “cooks” the fish. In this recipe you do cook the shrimp completely before adding in everything else. It’s a very satisfying appetizer – good textures. Lots of flavor.

What’s NOT: probably just the cost of shrimp these days! And finding good avocados without bruises! That seems to be a challenge for me of late.

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