Perfectly cooked salmon that’s pre-marinated in a lemon herb mixture, then served with a lemony beurre blanc (i.e. lots of butter) sauce with capers. Each serving gets just a little bit of sauce, so it’s not so awfully wicked.

Surely I have no shortage of salmon recipes here on my blog, but I’m always open for another new preparation, especially when it’s served with this delicious, butter and lemon caper pan sauce. The recipe came from a recent cooking class with my favorite instructor, Phillis Carey. It’s not difficult – in fact it’s quite easy – although the sauce can be a bit tricky.

The SALMON: First you’ll marinate the salmon for no more than an hour. 15 minutes is better than no time in the marinade, but 1 hour is ideal if you can make the time. Then you either grill the salmon (you could do it on a stovetop grill also), or you can do long, slow baking, or you can do a slow broil. Read the recipe for instructions on doing any of those methods. My favorite method is the slow broil. Even the phrase sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Broil means high-high heat. And yes, it does, but to do a slow broil you put the fish on a broiler pan and place it 8-10 inches below the broil element. That way you don’t have to turn the fish over – it cooks completely this way. It’s a Phillis technique, and I’ve used it numerous times since she first taught it at a cooking class I went to about a year ago.

The SAUCE:  Well, the sauce is really a buerre blanc and Phillis just makes it a little different with the addition of capers. You could also use dill or basil if you don’t like capers. I do, so I knew I’d love the sauce. The only thing to remember about making the sauce is to NOT allow the mixture bubble or boil or the sauce will separate and it’s ruined. Well, you could serve it, but it would just look like hot butter. When you add the butter gradually and keep the temp below a simmer, the sauce is slightly thickened. You need to serve it immediately, however.

The other trick to the sauce is to have EXACTLY 1/4 cup of liquid in the pan when you start to make it. If you have more, then you’ll have to add more butter. Less and the sauce will be too buttery. Once you remove all the shallots, pour out the liquid and measure it. If it’s a smidge over, put it back on the flame and reduce it to that perfect 1/4 cup. Beurre blanc isn’t a sauce that can easily be increased for a larger quantity – make it in 2 pans and ask someone else to help with the last-minute butter additions. If you’ve never made a beurre blanc, I might suggest you make it once – do it for a weeknight dinner so you understand how the chemistry works. Serve it over relatively plain chicken breasts or another kind of fish.

What’s GOOD: the fish, if cooked properly, is meltingly tender and tasty, and the sauce! Oh yes, the sauce is so darned good. Buttery. Rich. Understand, though, that you only eat a little tiny bit of it – it’s all you need!
What’s NOT: only the careful work needed to make the sauce – that’s why I suggest you make it once before you try it for guests. It’s not difficult.

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It’s not often that I buy a kitchen utensil purely for the beauty factor. The first time I saw this (at a cooking class, being used by the demonstrating chef) I was smitten with the gorgeous lines. Not knowing what it was called, I searched around and couldn’t find it. Three months went by and I went to another class and aha! They had them on their store shelves. It was my lucky day because the store was offering an anniversary discount, a one-time item discount AND my 10% off class discount. So I got it at almost half off!

The can is part of Curtis Stone’s line of kitchen ware. He’s a celebrity chef (Australian) although I think he lives here in the U.S. The oil can is available online several places, and it’s at amazon too. It’s called the Curtis Stone Go With The Flow Oil Can 750 mil. There are 2 sizes – here’s the smaller one – Curtis Stone Go with The Flow Oil Can, 16-Ounce. My photos weren’t anywhere near as nice as the one above from chefscatalog. And it shows both sizes. The prices at amazon are not discounted, I don’t think – the big one is $69.99, and the smaller one $55.99. Expensive for a container for oil, I know . . . but I just had to have it.  The reviews on amazon do say that some people have a problem with the spout leaving a drip, and that the gasket in the middle (where you unscrew the top portion) doesn’t seal as well as some folks thought it should. If I have more data about this later, I’ll update this post. But for now, the ever-so pretty oil can is sitting right next to the stove, and it’s filled with grapeseed oil. That’s my go-to oil most of the time. I do use olive oil and EVOO  – those are both in bottles on a tray nearby.

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Why don’t we make compound butter more often? Is it because we think a finishing butter is too rich, too many fat grams? Just something that’s over the top? But compound butters are SO very easy to make. And they give a grand taste to a piece of grilled meat.

Surely, if we’re going to have a really nice, well-marbled steak, we don’t think we NEED any more fat calories on it, right? But did you know that almost all restaurants put some kind of finishing fat on steaks? Rarely are they taken off the grill and whisked directly from grill to plate to table. Fish, particularly, is usually finished with a little slab of butter. You don’t SEE the butter once it’s delivered to your table, but it’s there nevertheless. Unless you ask the server not to. It’s why steaks and fish specifically, are so luscious at a restaurant. And you wonder how come? . . . you may think it’s the quality of the meat or fish, from a purveyor you can’t visit. Probably not! It’s the butter!

A compound butter is nothing more than some butter mixed with herbs, usually, or garlic, and it’s rolled up into a log shape and chilled, then a chunk is allowed to melt on top of a piece of grilled meat as soon as it comes off the grill. Just in time for it to melt completely.

This one, from Steven Raichlen’s book, Barbecue! Bible Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades, Bastes, Butters, and Glazes. In his chapter on finishing sauces, there are several types, but this one spoke to me since we have a tarragon plant in the kitchen garden. It’s mixed up with some lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic and lemon zest. If the butter is at room temp it’s very easy to mix it up with a fork, then you scoop it onto a piece of plastic wrap and gently roll it into a log shape and chill.

Once the meat is grilled, slice off a little chunk – a coin – and place it on top – in a place where it won’t all melt off an edge, but almost puddle on top if that’s possible. Ideally serve this with a nice steak or a flavorful fish steak. Even salmon, though it will be hard to keep it on top – I’d advise you rub the butter on each piece in the kitchen.

What’s GOOD: it’s easy to make, even several days ahead. It offers a nice, subtle succulence to a piece of grilled meat. If you have extra, use it on some al dente green beans or broccoli. Or on pasta.
What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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Instead of a tart being made IN a pastry shell with a rim, this one is served individually on a little pastry (pie crust) round. The ricotta filling with lightly toasted fennel seed in it, is spooned on top and the candied kumquats and their syrup are drizzled on top.

Recently we had friends over for dinner – Darci and Tim and Cherrie and Bud. Darci brought dessert, this luscious kumquat tart that wasn’t exactly a tart, but OH was it ever delicious! She has a kumquat tree that provides prodigious quantities, so she’s always on the lookout for something new to do with them. She found the original recipe at epicurious. But the recipe came from a 2003 Gourmet magazine issue. She’s made this several times, and because she had some difficulty slicing the traditional tart style in her early iterations, she changed the method a little bit and made pastry rounds from Trader Joe’s pie crust dough (in a box). She baked the rounds on parchment, allowed them to cool, then when we were ready for dessert she put a round on each plate, scooped the fennel-scented ricotta filling/sauce on top, then spooned the candied kumquats on top of that. Oh my goodness, was it ever good. She candied the kumquats the day before, and the ricotta mixture is really easy to make – a little sour cream, the toasted & ground fennel seeds and that’s it.

My little kumquat tree (that lives in a pot on our patio) produces maybe 200 kumquats a year, and if I used them all in this recipe, I’d still have some left over. I still have some fruit on my tree, but not nearly enough to make this, however. You could use oranges in this recipe, or tangerines, I think, although you wouldn’t need quite as much sugar in the candy part. They just wouldn’t be quite as cute as the tiny coins of kumquats. But the taste would be just about the same. And, this dessert is really very easy to make – once you have the kumquats candied – they do take some time to half and de-seed. That’s the most time consuming part.

What’s GOOD: the sweet and tart of the kumquats for sure, and the light fennel scent in the ricotta sauce. And I just loved the crust – as I ate it I thought it tasted almost like shortbread, but of course it wasn’t, it was a kind of a thick pie crust. Altogether delicious.
What’s NOT: only the tedious part of de-seeding the kumquats. A bit of a nuisance, but worth it.

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As I look at that picture above, my mouth is watering. I can’t wait to have some more of it. I won’t eat it for breakfast, but I could. This salad is very, very different – of course – you need to like Brussels sprouts since you eat them raw (finely shaved) in this salad.

Numerous times I’ve mentioned recipes I’ve acquired as a result of reading Farmgirl Fare’s blog. Susan and her husband own a farm in the middle of Missouri never-never land (meaning they live way out in the sticks). They raise sheep, hay, and donkeys, dogs and cats as well as a myriad of their own vegetables every summer. Susan shares their seasonal changes (including a gushing river during springtime), farm stories and interesting photos every single day, particularly of Susan’s beloved donkeys. One of my all-time favorite recipes is a Susan one – Garbanzo Bean, Feta and Cilantro Salad. I could eat that salad every day for the rest of my life, I think. Which reminds me that I need to make it again very soon.

But on to THIS salad. Knowing that Susan’s an expert at salads, when I read about this one I knew I’d have to try it. Admittedly, I have a number of Brussels sprout recipes on my blog already, but this one – well, it’s certainly unusual – but that’s what makes it so good! Not everyone likes Brussels sprouts, I know, and especially raw ones at that. Which is why you need to cut/slice/shave the sprouts as thinly as possible. It helps to have a mandoline or a slicer blade on your food processor (I used the latter, though I have both – I just thought doing 2 lbs. of Brussels would be faster in the food processor). I used my middle-thin slicer.

The Brussels I bought were large – larger than I prefer – but that’s what was available. So I recommend that you halve them if they’re big, AND cut out the core. On the large sprouts, the core was well developed – just like a big honkin’ cabbage kind of core on a small scale – it was tough, so you do need to take that extra step – a nuisance, I know – but necessary.

Don’t be dismayed by the long ingredient list here – half of it’s the dressing (make double and use on green salads). The salad itself contains the Brussels sprouts, of course, Pecorino cheese, chives or green onions, lemon juice, and a number of optional additions to suit your taste (like dried cranberries, which I used), garbanzo beans (one of Susan’s favorites), raisins, almonds. I made this a few hours before a summer barbecue party recently, and I loved it, but I think I liked it even better the following day. In that time lapse, the dressing had softened the sprouts a little bit. The salad is chewy – know that going into it. It has to be healthy with all the cruciferous vegetable in it, although maybe offset by the fat grams in the dressing. But it’s altogether delicious!

What’s GOOD: the combo of flavors from the chewy Brussels sprouts, to the sweetness of the dried cranberries (or raisins), to the garlicky dressing that is just delish. The Pecorino cheese adds a kind of nuttiness to the flavorings – those dry Italian cheeses often do that. I loved it all, and even better the 2nd day.
What’s NOT: nothing really, unless you don’t like Brussels sprouts or the chewing of them when they’re raw. It’s not going to break your jaw – it’s just a chewy salad, that’s all.

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Need a really quick, easy and healthy slaw for summer? You could eat this any time of year, but it’s perfect for summer entertaining. It starts with the pre-cut packaged broccoli slaw from the grocery store. The rest is cinchy easy. The apple and pecans are what make this – well, maybe the curry powder added to the dressing also gives it an interesting twist.

It’s not often that I use a prepackaged anything, yet I know the package of broccoli slaw at the grocery store is probably quite healthy. It’s nothing but broccoli STEMS and carrots, I think. You could make your own if you have sufficient broccoli stems and carrots on hand. The mixture is tossed with a yogurt/mayo dressing which has the addition of some curry powder (I used a medium – meaning hot – heat level in mine and liked it a lot). The dressing is nothing but equal quantities of yogurt and mayo (and you could probably use nonfat or low fat of either or both), honey, rice vinegar, pepper and curry powder. Easy.

If you have some red cabbage on hand, add that to the salad mixture – my store bought package didn’t have it included. You do have to cut up a tart apple into julienne pieces – I peeled a green Granny Smith, cut off the domes on all 4 sides of the apple, put it through my alligator slicer and it made short julienne. That was really, really easy to do. Then I added pecans.

The nice thing about this is that it keeps for days. I made this the day of a summer dinner party we were having, and it was still wonderful 4 days later. As I’m writing this, we’re going to someone else’s home today for a barbecue and I’m going to use the 2nd package of broccoli slaw and just add another apple and more dressing to what I have left over from the first batch. The recipe came from Lydia over at The Perfect Pantry, a blog I’ve been reading for years and years.

What’s GOOD: the crunch for sure – of everything, including the pecans. The apple and pecans make this salad (to me anyway) and the dressing is very light. It’s got to be very healthy as well!
What’s NOT: gee whiz, nothing at all. It’s easy to make and great for a crowd.

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This is a lesson in what to do with left over Artichoke Heart & Lemon Dip. The recipe, posted yesterday, made more than I’d expected – there was about a cup left over. It became the base for this fantastic pasta to which I added chicken cubes, more artichoke hearts (cut in quarters), broccoli and peas.

Perhaps you’ll recall reading the post yesterday about the artichoke lemon dip (picture at right) I made for a dinner party we had. Even so, I had a bunch left over. As I began thinking about it, pasta sounded like the best way to use it – my friend Darci suggested it – and I just started thinking about what would taste good with it – fresh broccoli florets, cubed chicken, more canned and quartered artichoke hearts and some frozen peas. It was cinchy easy to make.

First I got all the different additions ready – I steamed the broccoli in the microwave, and I prepped the artichokes too. I buy Trader Joe’s canned (not marinated) artichoke hearts. The two cans I opened (one for the dip and the next day another one for the pasta) had fairly large hearts, and the outer ends were quite tough to eat (I tested one), so on each heart I cut off about 1/2 inch and discarded it.

I put a big pot of water on the boil for the pasta, then got out a pretty large skillet (enough to hold the sauce and the pasta both) and gently began warming the dip. I added a bit of half and half to the dip to loosen it up some. I did not bring it to a boil but just below that. Then I added in the broccoli and artichoke hearts and warmed those through, then lastly I added the chicken and frozen peas, which took maybe 90 seconds to heat through. Once the pasta was done, I drained it and tossed it in with the sauce. Onto a plate, sprinkled it with freshly grated Pecorino cheese and dinner was done.

So, on the recipe below, I’ve given you the ingredients for making HALF of the dip. You could make the full amount, serve part of it as an appetizer and use the balance for the pasta. I didn’t want you to have to go find and print the other recipe, so it’s all contained below.

What’s GOOD: gosh, it was delicious. The artichoke heart dip (made into a sauce) lends a nice, subtle artichoke flavor. It has a nice creaminess to it, of course and it sticks to the pasta very well. I liked the combo of veggies (broccoli and peas and more quartered artichoke hearts). Altogether good!
What’s NOT: nothing, really. It’s so easy to make if you have the ingredients on hand.

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No mayo in this – but there is cream cheese. You use canned artichokes (not the marinated type), parsley, Parmesan (I used Pecorino), lemon juice and zest, and fresh garlic. Really very VERY easy to make. Delish too.

If you aren’t a reader of Simply Recipes, you should be. Elise Bauer runs the blog, but the recipes come from her as well as several members of her family. I’ve been reading her blog for years and years. I’ve made several of her recipes, and have a bunch saved to my MasterCook to-try file as well. This is one of them, and it’s a real keeper. Not only is this easy – cinchy easy – but it can be made ahead and will keep for a loooong time. With the left overs I’m going to mix some with pasta – maybe I’ll add some chicken, some half and half to thin it out a little bit, perhaps some peas. Zucchini would be a good addition too. You do need to make this dip.

What’s GOOD: the garlicky, zesty taste – you definitely taste the artichokes. And the garlic, I did mention the garlic, didn’t I? I used one large garlic clove – if you’re at all sensitive to that, use a very small clove, or half a one. Really good with relatively plain crackers. I used those heart-shaped water crackers, but Triscuits would also work well, I think.
What’s NOT: nothing at all. It makes a LOT – if you’re only having a few people I’d recommend halving the recipe. But make it you should.

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If you’ve never been a user of recipe software, you’ve probably not paid any attention to the little links I include with every recipe (just above the red recipe box on nearly all my posts) that indicate you can download a MasterCook file. It will import directly into the recipe program – it just simplifies importing a recipe from the web and usually needs no other steps.

I’ve been a MasterCook user since the old-old days – back to about MasterCook version 4, I think it is, and with each new version, I’ve migrated to it. A few years ago Sierra sold MasterCook to another company, ValuSoft. Oh so sad at the time, because Sierra had decided the program wasn’t worth keeping and they no longer wanted to invest in updating it, upgrading it or improving it. Whether Sierra just didn’t know how to market the product (that’s my guess) or whether most of the computer geeks who worked on the program just couldn’t get into recipe software, I don’t know.

It’s been a few years, and those of us who have been die-hard MC users have continued to use it. ValuSoft has done a couple of revisions, but the changes were very minimal – mostly to make the program compatible with newer operating systems and to fix some bugs.

In the ensuing years I’ve continued to LOVE the program, and have been faithful to it. It had some glitches (not liking being shared on a network, though a few people were able to do it). I had a couple of big issues – once my computer shut down when I had a recipe in process and the program wouldn’t start after that. But fortunately, there have always been some fantastic resources to go to for help. Pam Erickson and John Shotsky run a Yahoo Discussion Forum (and have for decades) to address MC issues and to coach newbies to the program. I’m telling you about this because IF you decide to buy MC, I highly – HIGHLY – recommend you go to the Yahoo MasterCook Discussion and join the group (no charge, just sign up).  Once you’ve joined, you can choose to receive all the daily questions people query about – from old version questions to the newest 14 (in individual or digest form) OR you can choose to not get any of them (that’s what I do, but that’s because I’m a relatively seasoned user). I just go to the website when I need to, input a search string and see if others have had the problem. If not, I post my own question and usually within a day the moderators have answered my questions. On the issue of the program not running, I sent via email the cookbook that was having the problem and the moderator fixed it for me. No charge. Just fixed it – bless her heart! Every single time I’ve had trouble in the past they’ve been able to resolve my problem.

Now, to current news. Sometime in the last year ValuSoft was sold to a group of 3 investors and they have taken a look at MasterCook and they like it. A lot! Not only have they updated it, but the 3 investors and their families have been using MC for awhile. That’s the kind of support MC needed – once people use it, they love it. MasterCook 14 was released about 3 weeks ago, and I purchased it right away. Because I would prefer to have my own CD, I purchased the program (which I downloaded and it worked immediately) but I also purchased the CD for an additional $6.99. The program is $19.99 if you are new and it’s $14.99 if you upgrade your current version (plus the $6.99 for the CD) so it all is about the same price. If you’re interested, here’s the link to purchase the program.

What’s new – well, there are a lot of things. The software itself has been updated some (new color scheme, font adjustments, email capabilities) but with the purchase you also get a 1-year subscription to a presence on mastercook.com where you can store your recipes/cookbooks (probably will have to pay for that after a year, though) so you can access your recipe database from any computer where you have the program loaded. I haven’t done that part yet, but will sometime soon. Since I have a blog, and most of my favorite recipes are already on the blog, I can access it (and I do) when I’m out, or at the grocery store. But for all of YOU with your own recipe collections and no blog to go to, once you have all your recipes in MasterCook and you upload them to the cloud, then you’ll be able to access yours anywhere, anytime. Your cookbooks and recipes can also be stored on other cloud storage locations like Google Drive, SkyDrive, & Dropbox.

There’s also a new widget that will allow you to grab (copy) an online recipe and upload it to your mastercook online cookbooks. There’s a default cookbook (called Web Import) at the website and once you highlight, click the widget, up comes a box, you check it over, categorize it and click Save. All done. Works beautifully. For those of you who are MC users already, you don’t have to use the Import Assistant anymore. It’s seamless! Whoopee!

The other really wonderful thing is that v. 14 allows me to upload a MC compatible file to my blog that also contains the photo I have with the recipe. So if you have the program you can import the complete recipe from my blog or anywhere else on the web (and photo) directly into your MC program. So, you’ll now see two links on all my recipes – one for older MC recipes since MC5, and another link for just MC14. So, see, there’s another reason you should buy this. I don’t get anything if you to buy MasterCook 14 – I’m just encouraging you to do so. So in the case of my blog, you have to go TO my web page to do this (can’t do it from a blog reader) and click so you have up just the blog post you want, click the import button – the program figures out what to grab, it does, and that’s it.

Pam Erickson, the wonderful person who has dispensed advice all these years from Yahoo is on staff with the new ValuSoft Cosmi. The folks there have taken her seriously (she’s a programmer and also a cook) and she’s part of their team now. I feel like I know her (I don’t) since I’ve communicated with her numerous times over the course of about 12 years!

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We all know guacamole, right? Avocado, lemon or lime juice, maybe garlic? Maybe a bit of onion, cilantro and chili powder. Well, this one’s a twist on the regular one – a Thai twist with a Thai chile if you can find one, fresh ginger, fresh mint, and some fish sauce. Yes, fish sauce. It’s wonderful!

Really, I enjoy reading Food52. That website is just a treasure trove of recipes, and I don’t mean ordinary brownies or black bean salad. The contributors really offer some different riffs on standard recipes – like this one. At Food52, this recipe was what they call a “community pick.” That means the cooking community at Food52 (the readers and testers and tasters) picked it as something special. I agree.

It’s guacamole, but as I listed above, with some different ingredients. I couldn’t find any Thai chiles, so had to substitute a serrano instead. I had fresh ginger and garlic (which I smashed rather than grated). I had mint and cilantro. And regular basil, not Thai basil. But even with my minimal substitutions, this dip was just fabulous. We had guests over that night (I made half of a recipe – using just one avocado), and I can tell you that they scraped every last little smidgen of this dip out of the bowl pictured above. A good sign, of course! They raved about it, my hubby raved about it, and I got my fair share also. All delicious.

If you’ve never used fish sauce before, PLEASE don’t bypass this recipe thinking the guacamole is going to taste fishy. It absolutely doesn’t. Fish sauce smells fishy, but it doesn’t taste fishy and it adds a depth to almost anything you use it with. I always have a bottle of it in my pantry and it doesn’t require refrigeration. If at all possible try to buy the one with the picture of the 3 crabs on the label. It’s considered by most sources as the best.

What’s GOOD: just everything about the taste. I love it when someone comes up with a different taste change to a standard we’ve always made. I’ll make this again for sure!

What’s NOT: only a problem if you can’t get all the ingredients – like the herbs, but as you can read, I substituted several other items. This one’s a keeper.

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