If you’re not a reader, you may want to skip on over this post, as it’s all about a book. A marvelous book. However, If you aren’t a reader, but know someone who IS a reader of literature, then buy the book as a gift.

Pat Conroy was not exactly a prolific writer – he wrote a number of books, but they took him years to complete as he threw so much of himself into all of his writing. There was always travail and angst with each one. Sadly, Pat Conroy died in 2016 of pancreatic cancer. His wife collected a bunch of his writings, speeches, articles, etc. and published a book posthumously, A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life I’ve ordered that one, but haven’t read it.

To understand Pat Conroy means a journey through a very tumultuous military brat childhood being abused both emotionally and physically by his tyrannical father, a Marine fighter pilot. His mother and most of his siblings received the same. He wrote a novel about his upbringing, about his father –The Great Santini: A Novel – which angered legions of people in his life, including his family, because up to that point they’d all been stoically silent about the father’s abuse. To understand Pat Conroy means watching how he elevated himself out of the miasma of his childhood, not always successfully. He suffered from depression. He had a hard time writing sometimes, though he was gifted from the get-go. Teachers took him under their wings, mentors mentored him. He was married three times, and he suffered terribly from the breakup of the first two.

I don’t remember which of his books I read first. It might have been Beach Music: A Novel. Then I read several of his other books. I even owned his cookbook, The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes and Stories of My Life, but I think I discarded it in my last iteration of giving away books (one of about 400 last year). His cookbook was fun to read, but I found that the Southern cooking style he used was too heavy and fat-laden for me to experience much in my own kitchen. But his novels. Oh my goodness. What treasures they are.

And this book, My Reading Life, is a treasure beyond compare. What Conroy did in this book was tell stories about the people in his life who influenced his reading. It began with his mother, who never got to go to college, but she was a reader and instilled it in her children. One of Conroy’s sisters is a poet and poetry looms large in this book too (sadly, I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry except for Billy Collins).  And it included early teachers, then later on men and women who came into his life and recommended books. As an example, he said that the first page of Look Homeward, Angel was the best first page of any book he ever read in his life. That got my attention and I’m going to look for a used copy of that book soon. The Russians also captured his attention – War and Peace (Vintage Classics) was a particular favorite of his because of the writing style. He read that book over and over during his life, gleaning gems to help him in his own writing (as have countless other authors). Conroy was a master story-teller. About his family and even his closest friends. I laughed out loud so many times as I read this book. I attached little plastic flags in many places so I can go back and re-read them. One was about a praying mantis he observed and his mother’s very clever one liner. Oh so very funny. Then about the Japanese man, Mr. Hara, who’d had his passport stolen (this was in Paris while Conroy was trying to finish one of his books) whose English was “velly bad.” I roared reading that one. And about a librarian in a Beaufort elementary school who was not a mentor (Conroy escaped into the library at lunchtime because he knew no one and wanted to hide – – and yes, he wanted to read). He got the last laugh with her too once he became a teacher at that school.

I just can’t recommend enough that everyone who enjoys reading, should read this book. I must thank my friend, Jean P, who recommended we read this book in one of my 3 book clubs. I’m so sad that cancer has stilled Conroy’s voice forever.

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Maybe it’s just that I love mashed potatoes, and I feel guilty every time I eat them! And yet these are somewhat redeemed because they’re blended with a lot of spinach (healthy) and mounded on a big portobello mushroom (healthy!).

In either case, this is a dish you will want to make. I can’t wait for the weather to turn a little cooler and I’ll be making this as my dinner entrée. It was served at a cooking class alongside a steak, but I was just taken with the mushroom. If you served a whole mushroom, it could easily be your dinner as I expect to do it that way.

You probably already know that when preparing portobellos (they’re also called baby bellas) you need to remove all those black gills on the under side. They contain a dark ink I’ll call it – and it turns anything that touches them black and ugly. So, use a spoon and scrape out all those gills until you get down to regular mushroom flesh. Do that first!

Then, next in order is to make a batch of mashed potatoes, and at the last you throw in a bag of baby spinach (cooked briefly) along with some grated Parm, sour cream, butter and milk. The potatoes and their accompaniments probably aren’t all that healthy, but everything else about this dish IS. The mushrooms are brushed with an oil/balsamic vinegar mixture and broiled briefly, then seasoned with salt and pepper. You do need to mop out the juices in the mushroom when you broil it on its underside (up). It creates too much fluid and would make the potatoes soupy. Just use a paper towel to remove the liquid that oozes out. Then you pile in the potatoes, top with green onions and bake for 10-15 minutes to heat them through, but still leaves the mushrooms solid enough that you can move it with a spatula. You could also sprinkle with some more green onions. Delicious. For a mushroom meal, use a big honkin’ mushroom, but if serving as part of a dinner, I’d buy smaller portobellos if you can find them. Otherwise, cut each big portobello in half to serve.

What’s GOOD: all the flavors in this dish are ever-so-tasty. But then, I am a sucker for good, flavorful mashed potatoes. The spinach gives it some pretty green speckled color, and some healthy elements. The mushroom is also a great “plate” for the potatoes and if you buy a big mushroom, it will easily be a meal.

What’s NOT: nothing really – a bit of fuss to make the mashed potatoes – but that’s about it!

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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Just plain vegetable soup, but all green, and with a modicum of Italian seasonings. And good Parmigiano cheese on top.

When I got home from my road trip a week ago, I didn’t crave salads (my usual lament) because I’d had lots of salads on the trip. What I craved was soup. And vegetables. Eating out almost 3 meals a day (a couple of times Cherrie and I had an ice cream cone for lunch when we’d had an ample breakfast) you learn soon enough that most restaurants don’t serve vegetables. A few here and there, but mostly restaurants serve carbs along with protein. We ordered a side veg a couple of times (to share) and often Cherrie and I shared an entire meal (a salad and entrée both) which worked really well. We enjoyed dessert just a couple of times, aside from the aforementioned ice cream cone treat we had twice.

So, once home, a trip to the store gave me all the makings of a green minestrone, a soup I’ve been wanting to make forever.

This soup – I had it once, in northern Italy, at least 25 years ago. I’d gotten a bout of food poisoning, actually, and was really quite sick (from some fresh mozzarella at a roadside diner). I visited a pharmacy and they’d given me something which helped, but they confirmed my food poisoning diagnosis and suggested it would take about 2 weeks to work itself through. About 10 days later, we got to Northern Italy, and I finally thought I could tolerate some soup, and the waiter suggested their green minestrone. Oh my, was it ever delicious. Except for 7-up, toast and yogurt, I’d hardly eaten a thing, so maybe it was my frame of mind, or just that I was feeling slightly better. That soup – that glorious fresh green taste – has stayed with me all these years. I’d researched green minestrone recipes some years back and found a couple, and just hadn’t gotten around to trying either of them. Until now.

As is usually the case, when I start making soup, I improvise. I used the recipe only as a guide to add my vegetables of choice. Maybe this soup should be titled Green and White Minestrone, because there are lots of white ingredients in it (onion, nearly white carrots, fennel and the mostly white leeks).

One thing that’s unique in this recipe is the addition of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rinds. You save those, don’t you? I have about 2 years’ worth of them in my cheese bin (probably better to freeze them, but I might never find them again if I did that), and two of them went into this soup. Once they’ve expended their lovely essence to the soup, you scoop them out and throw them away.

I tried to time the vegetables so they’d all be perfectly cooked through (barely). Generally it worked – if you are so inclined, remove the vegetables when they’re nearly done, then add the others, until you have everything to the perfect point of done-ness, then add them back in just long enough to warm through. There’s a little bit of pasta in this soup – you can add however much you’d like. I guessed mostly at the quantities of each item. I like the frozen peas to be bright green – they add a nice fillip to the top of the soup – I always add them almost like a garnish. If you rinse them under the hot water tap, they’ll all defrost and be warmed through.

Once you’ve scooped portions into bowls, add the hot peas, the minced parsley, the grated cheese, and lastly a little drizzle of EVOO. Perfecto!

What’s GOOD: well, if the flavor wasn’t good, I wouldn’t be posting it – I loved all the green veggies, and the broth was extra special because of the Parmesan rinds in it. Just remember – a vegetable-laden soup will be only as good as the broth you cook it in. I use Penzey’s chicken broth concentrate, which I think has tons of good flavor. Altogether good soup. Even though it’s still like summer here in SoCal, I gulped down the hot soup and savored every bite. I love the toppings too.

What’s NOT: hmmm. Lots of chopping and mincing, I suppose, but get someone to help and it’ll be done in no time.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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That’s me (on the right) with my friend Cherrie, in British Columbia, having breakfast.

A few days ago I got back from a road trip. A 2+ week, 3500 mile road trip. I had posts all set up while I was gone (so you wouldn’t miss me). I have a new car, and I wanted to take her on a nice, long “spin.” Originally I was going to go by myself, because I had lots of places I wanted to stop, to do my own thing, but the end destination was to stay at Sooke Harbour House, in Sooke, British Columbia. This inn, an elegant, old, cozy place holds a warm place in my heart because Dave and I stayed there at least twice, maybe three times over the years. It has a nautical theme, situated right on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, facing south, toward the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It’s on Vancouver Island, about 20+ miles west of Victoria. The inn has a lovely old knotty-pine trimmed dining room overlooking the views. There are lots of places to sit around the property (providing it’s warm enough and not raining), and most rooms have a small deck or patio to enjoy the view, to listen to the bird calls, with distant fishing boats plying the waters. All the rooms have fireplaces, and many have hot tubs on the decks, outside, or somewhere close by. It’s a very romantic place to stay.

To tell you the truth, though, I wasn’t sure how “happy” I would be staying there. By myself, without my DH. In this very romantic place. But, I really did WANT to go. Dave and I had been planning a trip up the West Coast for a few months off, when he had his stroke and died so suddenly. That’s been 3 1/2 years ago now. I thought I was (maybe) ready to do that kind of trip.

But when my BF Cherrie heard about it, she said she’d like to go with me. Oh, happy day! She and I travel well together – we’ve done numerous trips over the  years (twice to England without our husbands). I knew I’d have a grand time if she shared it with me. And indeed, we did have a great trip.

We drove from where we live in Orange County, California, up the west coast to San Luis Obispo, then Paso Robles, then we kind of whizzed through the Bay Area (except to have lunch with my cousin Gary) and went to Santa Rosa (to eat at a specific restaurant), then we drove to the coast, Old Highway 1, and stayed on it all the way to Port Angeles, Washington. In that interim of northern California, Oregon and Washington coastline we encountered terrible air from the forest fires still burning in many places. Sometimes we couldn’t even see the ocean (part of the reason for the Hwy 1 slow road). Eventually we took a ferry across the Straits to Victoria.

After our stay at Sooke, we took a different ferry through the San Juan islands to Anacortes, and onto Whidbey Island. It’s a place I used to live (in a former life) and I wanted to revisit what I could of where I’d lived there. We stayed at another old, charming inn, before taking another ferry off the south end of Whidbey to Mukilteo. We bypassed Seattle except via freeways and headed for Portland. Stayed in an AirBNB there (more on that later) and just went all over there, enjoying the good food and Powell’s Books. Cherrie flew home from Portland since she’d been gone for about 12 days by that time (and her husband missed her!), and I did the rest of the trip by myself. I drove down through Oregon and stayed with a friend of Cherrie’s JaneAnn, in Rogue River, then hightailed it to Placerville, where my daughter Dana lives with her family. Two days there and then I did another straight shot home.

I’ll be sharing more of the trip in the next week or so, but just thought I’d give you an overview of what we did. I’m very happy to be back home, in my own bed, enjoying my own shower, and petting my kitty, Angel.

When Cherrie and I were up north, it was cool, even a little drizzly in a few places, and we both talked about how we couldn’t wait to get home and make some tummy-warming soups. That’s my goal today (I’m writing this on Thursday), to make some vegetable soup. I have it in my head that I want to make a green minestrone – a soup that I had once in Italy, and I have a recipe for one, but just haven’t ever gotten around to making it. That’s going to happen today, so if it’s as good as I remember, I’ll share it here!

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Ever done pizza on a grill? I did once years ago. It’s easy, really. This one has leeks on it, and that makes a difference – leeks just add a depth of flavor to things.

As much as I love pizza, I know it’s not exactly a healthy meal. I really do eat few bread-type carbs. I seem to make up for the calories in other ways – I don’t do this to diet. I know a lot about diabetes since my DH was a Type 1. And it was only in his last 25 years, I’d guess, that doctors figured out that blood sugar was directly related to carb consumption (whether they be bread, potatoes, rice, fruit or sugar or any kind). I began preparing a low-carb diet for us starting way back then, but even more so once we both retired. Dave loved pizza too, but he couldn’t stop eating it if is was put in front of him, so we kind of banned it from our menu. Ready-made pizza (like frozen from the grocery store) has never been all that great tasting – once in awhile I succumb getting a thin crust one. So that leaves making it from scratch.

Here on my blog I have one favorite pizza – I’ve mentioned it before – it’s one our daughter Sara introduced us to when she was visiting one weekend (when she was in college). There are other pizza recipes on my blog (just type in “pizza” in the search box top left), but this one, Pizza with Chicken, Red Onion, Pesto & Olives, is one I’ve returned to many times over the years. My mouth is watering as I type.

But I digress . . . pizza isn’t something I make much as a widow – I have my DH’s problem of not being able to stop eating it. But this pizza I’m writing about today, was really good. Really easy and worth the trouble to make your own dough. It’s from a cooking class with Susan V a few weeks ago. She made the dough earlier in the morning, so it had had a chance to do one rising before all the students arrived for the class.

She punched it down and let it rest another hour or so, then began working with it. She used cornmeal underneath the dough so it wouldn’t stick and used a pizza peel very successfully. Susan doesn’t like Trader Joe’s pizza dough – she says it sticks and she simply can’t roll it out. So she chooses to make her own, always.

Meanwhile, she sliced the tomatoes (I’d slice them thinner than you see in the photo above) and set them in a colander to drain. You don’t want lots of juices – save them, though, and put them in something else as the juice of tomatoes contain a lot of flavor. Add it to soup or a stew, or even a salad dressing. The leeks are sautéed in a little oil and cooked for 15-20 minutes until they’re very soft. You remove them, then sauté the pancetta until the pieces get lightly brown on the edges. Drain them on a paper towel and set aside.

This recipe makes 2 pizzas – enough for 4-5 people, unless they’re really hungry. Susan divided the pizza dough in half and rolled them out to about 12” rounds, I’d say. Onto the peel it went and she placed both on the heated grill (medium-high). She cooked them until the TOP of the dough began to puff up – it gets these lovely little peaks and valleys. That took about 2 minutes! She brought them inside, turned them over (see photo) and patted them down, to break the puffy peaks underneath. She only cooked them on one side up to this point. Then she put all the toppings on to cooked side (leeks, pancetta, mozzarella, olive oil and lots of sliced basil, and lastly the sliced tomatoes). Back to the barbecue for only a few minutes (max 3-4). It doesn’t cook anything on top (the toppings) but merely cooks the dough on the other side and heats up everything and melts the cheese. Remove, slice immediately, and serve.

What’s GOOD: everything about this pizza was good. I wanted more (my downfall when it comes to pizza) than the one slice I got. It looks like fun making it – get your family involved – they can use their own selection of toppings. It’s easy (except for the 2 risings of the dough which takes awhile).

What’s NOT: just that making your own dough takes awhile. Nothing about this was difficult, though.

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Plenty of flavor here, and you just won’t believe how easy the cheese sauce is.

At a recent cooking class, the instructor, Susan, said she prefers top sirloin steak to any other kind. So I had to stop and think . . . when I first met my DH, he wouldn’t even try anything else except top sirloin. I thought it was too chewy and sometimes tough. Eventually, I lured him to ribeye (my favorite) and he never went back. When we’d have Sunday night family dinners (mandatory for the teenage kids to be home) we often had a big one that Dave did on the grill. His favorite way was with Bearnaise sauce on the side, but for me, that sauce was a lot of work to make, and sometimes it failed, so I gave up on that. But oh, THIS sauce. You won’t believe it!! It’s nothing but a container (or two) of Boursin or Rondele cheese, very gently heated until its melted. That’s IT!

But, there’s one other unusual item in this steak preparation – it’s marinated with oil, balsamic vinegar and a little bit of FIG PRESERVES. Interesting, huh? The marinade doesn’t penetrate the meat very much, but it does leave a little residual of the fig on the outside, and that gets nicely caramelized when it’s grilled. Altogether delicious. This steak is so cinchy easy, you won’t believe it. The key to the meat is cutting it into thin slices – I’d probably slice it even thinner than shown above – that way if there are any tougher bits, they’re manageable. Or, you could certainly make this with a ribeye, New York, filet mignon, or even flank steak. I’d put a tenderizer on the flank, but the others don’t need it.

Once the steak is off the grill and resting for a few minutes, heat the cheese and pour onto the individual servings. Or, you could serve it on the side. The sauce is not overwhelming at all – you might think it would be, but no. Altogether delicious.

What’s GOOD: how easy this meal is to make – marinating for a couple of hours, draining, grilling, then melting the cheese. How much easier could it be?

What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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Uh, huh! More chilled soups in my repertoire. This one using yellow squash and chicken broth. With so few ingredients I was amazed at how flavorful it was.

My new favorite thing – chilled soups from easily accessible summer produce. As I write this I’m still finishing up eating a batch of chilled zucchini soup (my second batch in recent weeks). In the interim I attended a kind of a cooking class (sans recipes, what’s up with that?) where they made a raw cucumber soup. I’m not quite so fond of that kind (raw) – I prefer the cooked one.

This soup, though, came from a class taught by Susan Vollmer, who used to own a cookware store here in my county, but she closed it down (mostly, she says, because Amazon cut into her business too much) and is retired. But occasionally she gives a class in her home. It was a very warm day, and Susan was in and out of her kitchen door many times tending the barbecue, but first she showed us how she made this soup and then gave all of us a bowl. I have all the ingredients in my refrigerator as I write this, to make a batch.

It’s a very simple recipe, and yet it has plenty of flavor. Perhaps it depends on what kind of chicken broth you use – the more flavorful – the better the soup. Yellow squash doesn’t have a ton a flavor (does zucchini have a little more flavor? I don’t know . . . just wondering) so you need the other ingredients (chives, chicken broth, sour cream) to have enough. I don’t mean to sound “down” on this soup – I actually liked it a lot, and I love yellow squash. Someone mentioned in the class – have you noticed that you no longer see the crookneck – apparently the growers have bred that aspect out of it – now you see both zucchini and yellow squash lined up like soldiers. Usually next to each other.

So, this soup – yellow squash and white onion cooked together in some olive oil, then the chicken broth is added and the mixture is cooked for a brief time – it doesn’t take squash long to cook anyway. Susan had made the soup ahead of time and had used her immersion blender to puree it. She prefers it just slightly chunky, so the immersion blender did a fine job of it. Then she added lemon juice (plus more later on when she tasted it), sour cream, salt and pepper. It was chilled down for several hours (OR, you can eat it hot) and served with a little dollop of sour cream and more bright green chives on top. I slicked the bowl clean.

What’s GOOD: the overall taste is lovely – good for summer, or good even in the winter, served hot. The toppings kind of make the dish, and the lemon juice is an important aspect of the flavor profile. Be sure to use enough. Keeps for about a week, too, and it should freeze just fine. For me, a 2-cup portion makes a really nice lunch (it’s very low in calorie, too).

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of.

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I’ve been slow to get on the Hasselback Potato bandwagon. Now I’m definitely on the train! Gosh were these fun and tasty!

My granddaughter Sabrina was visiting with me (before she flew back to So Carolina to return for her sophomore year at Clemson University). She loves to cook (we also do art together – I worked on a Zentangle design, and she used acrylics to paint a sunset/landscape), so we worked in the kitchen together and she helped me slip the bacon in between the slices, and she made some squash for us for our dinner. We also had some of that Chili-Rubbed Salmon I made a few weeks ago, that was so good. These potatoes were a great side dish for the salmon.

These little beauties, these potatoes, are on the small side, but I THINK they’re better if they’re smaller. I suppose you could do a big potato using this method, but the smaller ones are just so CUTE! These were a Yukon Gold type and about 3” long. I had figured she and I would each eat two of them, but no, we just had one. They’re rich. And decadent. But the bacon – oh gosh, the bacon – they “make” this dish, IMHO.

First, you cut the potatoes – use two wooden style spoon handles, one on either side of the potato, so when you make the cut, you don’t cut all the way through. That, of course, is the whole thing about Hasselbacks – the little thin cuts. So the photo at left you can see the cutting. About 1/16” or 1/8 inch. At right you can see the two spoons on either side so you don’t slice all the way through.

It’s actually pretty easy to do. I used the back of my left hand to hold the spoons in place and used my fingers to anchor the potato. Requires a bit of dexterity, I suppose. If you have a kitchen helper, have them hold the spoons. Then, the next step is to partially cook the potatoes. Bring a pot of water to a boil and slip these already cut potatoes in it for FOUR MINUTES only. Remove and set aside to let them cool.

Meanwhile, you will have used a few slices of thick-sliced bacon and frozen them on a flat surface (a pan), then slipped them into the freezer so they stay super cold/frozen. You know, fat doesn’t actually freeze clear through, but it’s good enough. Then you put the little slips of frozen bacon into the slices, pushing them down gently. You don’t want to “break” the potato’s back so it’s important that you slide the bacon in carefully.

Then you melt some butter and slather some on the potatoes with a brush and into an oven they go. Now I veered off a little bit from the original recipe I found (at Food Network) because it said cook the potatoes at 350° for 2 HOURS. I didn’t have 2 hours of time to devote to that, so I cranked the oven up to 400° and baked them for about 35 minutes. They certainly weren’t as dark-brown-crispy looking as the originals were, but they were cooked through. The bacon was brown. They came out of the oven, I then brushed more melted butter (with green onions and garlic) on top and stuck them back in the oven for about 10 minutes. Perfectly done. I”ll be making these again for sure!

What’s GOOD: these were so fun, different. Very tasty – of course, the butter helps a lot. A lot of the butter oozed out onto the baking sheet, unfortunately. See all the fat on the Silpat lined pan above. But the bacon slowly oozed into the potatoes too, so they had plenty of fat to make it delicious. For me, the bacon was the star of the dish, but also loved the soft consistency of the potatoes too.

What’s NOT: only that they take a bit of work to get them ready to go. But not difficult, and if you have anyone to help, it’ll get done in no time.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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