If you haven’t figured it out by now, I like lemony food. Lemon in salad dressings, lemon in chicken and fish, lemon in desserts, lemon in vegetables, lemon in sauces, and lemon in rice. It helps that we have 2 lemon trees!

This recipe has been in my to-try file for a few years. It’s from Cooking Light, from July 2010. Not all that long ago. And I’d clipped it out because I like Southwest food and as I scanned the list of ingredients, I knew I’d like the flavors (leeks, garlic, lemon juice – yea – coriander, saffron, cilantro and chopped green chiles). Oh yes, some lemon zest too. I adapted the recipe only insofar as making it in my rice cooker rather than on the stovetop, but it’s really no different, so I’ve left the recipe as-is below for cooking on top of the stove.

Making it for guests, I prepared the entire recipe, which serves 8. After eating 2 dinners with it I packaged up the remaining in ziploc plastic baggies and they went into the freezer for some night when I think we should have some carbs. There is very little fat (2 T. butter only), and the recipe is very low in sodium too. I liked it.

What’s GOOD: it’s fairly easy, although it’s certainly not like just boiling some rice – it has lots of other stuff in it – note the color from the saffron, although I really couldn’t taste it at all. Sometimes it seems a waste to use saffron if you can’t taste it. Oh well. I liked all the various textures in it – I love cilantro too.

What’s NOT: nothing really – not a “wow” recipe, but it was good.

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Is it about this time of year when we get tired of the same-old veggies? We’ve done broccoli, onions, cabbage umpteen times. And potatoes in so many forms. Here’s a new combination – nothing new about the ingredients, but it’s the putting them together that makes the difference.

Actually, as you’ve probably read here many times, I don’t make potatoes (of any variety) much. I never keep them on hand because we do try to limit carbs. We do eat them, but not at every dinner meal for sure. Mostly I make 2 veggies or a veg and a salad rather than make a carb. Not that we don’t love them – oh, we do – but we think it’s better for us. When we go out to eat I usually order 2 vegetables and eliminate the carb. If I can. Of course, if it’s served to me, I do dive right in. That’s the problem!

But when Phillis Carey made this Yukon Gold and sweet potato mixture at a class some weeks ago, I was quite taken with the flavors. Not only did it taste good, but the color combination added a nice look to the plate. Usually these different types of potatoes cook at different times (sweet potatoes take less time to bake) but Phillis said it was just easier to do them all together. Indeed! The peeled and cubed veggies are tossed with some olive oil and salt, roasted for about 30-40 minutes along with fresh sage leaves and it’s done. How easy is that, as Ina would say?

What’s GOOD: the flavors, absolutely! The ease of making, for sure. And I loved how they look on the plate. If you like carbs and don’t mind the calories, try this!

What’s not: nothing. I can’t say this is a “wow” kind of dish, but it’s tasty and easy. What more could you want?

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Oh my goodness is this stuff fantastic. But then, I love tiramisu – if it’s made with the right proportions of liquor/syrup/coffee and a creamy filling. This one contains no coffee – just orange, a Grand Marnier orange syrup, mascarpone, whipped cream and pistachios.

This is going to be one of those “trust me – you’ll like it” kind of recommendations. This dessert is SO delicious, and you’ll be glad when you taste it. It’s not hard to make – really it’s not – and the results, after 6-8 hours of chilling is worthy of any company meal.

When Phillis Carey made this at a class a few weeks ago, I took a bite and swooned. We’d watched her make it – it seemed really quite simple. She explained that when she can find ladyfingers in the grocery store – these are the moist ones usually right next to fresh strawberries (not the dried Italian type) – she buys a couple of packages of them and always keeps a pair in her freezer. No extra packaging required, she said. Just stick them in the freezer. Whenever she uses them, she just stocks up again, so she’ll always have some on hand. Obviously Phillis likes tiramisu as I’ve attended at least 2 other classes where she’s made different variations on a tiramisu theme.

You make an orange scented simple syrup with Grand Marnier and that is brushed on the ladyfingers and they’re layered with a creamy orange mixture. That’s done twice and chilled for several hours. Toasted pistachios are chopped and sprinkled on top – on top of a layer of whipped cream that’s scented with some of the Grand Marnier simple syrup.

A few nights later my friend Cherrie made this (her big baking dish is shown at top) and everybody went nuts over the dessert. I brought some home and enjoyed every little tiny morsel of it. So, if that’s not enough testimony that you need to make this, I don’t know what is!

What’s good: just everything about it – the orange flavor, the Grand Marnier, the creamy texture, the comfort aspect of a soft and very tasty pudding dessert. Fabulous.

What’s not: nothing – just plan ahead. Can’t be made the day before (although the left overs I tasted 2 days later were just fine to me, but Phillis cautioned us that the cream would begin to separate).

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Ultra-lemony chicken soup. All the descriptors are present for Avgolemono (a Greek lemon and egg soup) but with added vegetables and this time with pasta, not rice, which is more traditional.

What I had was about 3-4 cups of cubed chicken from a store-bought one some days ago, and I sure needed a chicken soup that would use it all up. With lemons on our trees, what better combo could there be but Avgolemono, an egg-lemon soup. It’s probably common on Greek-American menus, and it’s really very simple to make. Since I don’t often follow a recipe exactly, sure enough, I decided to take a slight fork in the road. I wanted to eat all the vegetables, not just use it for flavorings and then throw them out. Checking on wikipedia, I discovered that my desire to enjoy all the vegetables is not all that unusual in Avgolemono.

First I went to my one and only Greek cookbook, Festival of Greek Flavors; A Mediterranean Culinary Adventure and used that as a guide. It’s just that the recipe I consulted had you strain out all the vegetables – therefore it only contained the pasta. Period. Too boring for me! Its recipe also called for starting with a whole, raw chicken, and obviously I wasn’t doing that, so I had to make a variation, but I kept true to nearly all of the rest of it. I sautéed onion and celery in olive oil, then added bay leaves, dried dill, chicken broth and let that simmer for awhile. Then I added small pieces of thin capellini pasta and cooked it until barely tender. Meanwhile I started on the egg-lemon sauce. This is essential to the soup, and really gives it its true lemony flavor. In a blender I combined fresh squeezed lemon juice, whole eggs (I had very small eggs, so I used 4 instead of 3) and whizzed it up until it was very, very frothy. That’s an essential part of this soup too – once you combine it in the soup pot, you want to retain some of that eggy froth. By the time I took a picture of it, though (above) the froth had all disappeared. Anyway, you add some cornstarch dissolved in a little bit of water and lastly a cup or so of the hot broth out of the soup pot – this is done to temper the eggs – otherwise you’d have cooked eggs in the soup. Not good! The lemon-egg mixture is poured into the soup and brought to JUST below a simmer. I added in the chicken and allowed it to heat up very gently and then scooped about 1 3/4 cups into each serving bowl. It looks like there is cream in this soup, but there is none at all – it’s the egg mixture that gives it that creamy look.

Just as added information, the cookbook had 3 different egg and lemon sauce variations – one using whole eggs (the one I used), one calling for dividing the eggs and whipping up the egg whites, which would definitely keep some of that frothy meringue kind of quality to the soup once combined; and thirdly a sauce made only with egg yolks. I was into making it easy for myself, so did the first option. Such a sauce is used in various ways in Greek cuisine – as a sauce on fish (that would be delicious with its lemony flavors) or vegetables.

What’s GOOD: everything about it. A definite make-again soup. I liked the texture of the barely cooked carrots (I added those later just so they’d be that way). The flavor – wow – so very lemony and creamy. But there isn’t a speck of cream in it. Altogether delicious and EASY.

What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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A quick and easy dip or spread made with canned salmon, some cream cheese (light would be okay), a little butter to help smooth it, lemon juice, Kalamata olives and a bit of anchovies to give it some flavor depth. Serve with baguette slices or crackers.

The basis for this recipe came from The Wednesday Chef blog, way back in 2008. Luisa made this, but hers was with tuna. Now, I have canned tuna, but it’s really expensive stuff that I have shipped a couple of times a year from Washington, young tuna that don’t contain so much mercury, and I just didn’t feel like using my pricey can of tuna on this in case I didn’t like it. I needn’t have worried – I loved it, and I’d guess the tuna version would be just as tasty as the salmon one. I have 6-ounce cans of salmon too – from the same purveyor – but I don’t seem to use the canned salmon very often, so for this I decided to try the salmon.

This pate – or tapenade – that’s what Luisa recipe called it – named so probably because it has olives in it, and tapenades DO contain mostly olives. This concoction isn’t olive-centric – it’s salmon and cream cheese centric, but with all these other added flavors that do everything to enhance the salmon. Things like lemon juice, the anchovies, lemon juice, pepper and the butter. There is a short discussion on Luisa’s blog about leaving out the butter – the original recipe (click on the blog link above if you’d like to make Luisa’s version) called for more butter, more anchovies, more olives too (and the recipe didn’t specify Kalamata, just “black olives,” but I just couldn’t quite see a ripe black olive doing a thing for this mixture). I keep pitted Kalamata olives in my refrigerator at all times. And I buy a little bitty jar of anchovies once or twice a year – I buy the most expensive one I can find at my local Italian deli – and use a few, then refrigerate it. It keeps nigh on forever as long as it’s covered in olive oil. I thought the butter was needed, but I didn’t use as much as the original called for.

Everything except the chives is whizzed up in the food processor until it’s super-smooth, then spooned into ramekins, or some kind of serving bowls. The recipe makes about 3 ramekins worth. The recipe indicates you can use it right away, but I think the flavor is better once it chills overnight. Besides, it’s something you can make the day before a dinner party if that’s what you’re making it for. This recipe makes quite a bit, and it’s rather difficult to make half a recipe, what with salmon or tuna cans at about 6 ounces. IF you have some leftover tuna or salmon, by all means make a half a recipe!

When I made it we were having dinner guests, so I toasted a baguette slices for it, but this would be just dandy with crackers, or toast for that matter. It’s probably fine with celery sticks too. Sprinkle chopped chives on top if you have them – don’t go buy chives just to put on it – some minced parsley would be fine. Even some fresh dill would work too.

What’s GOOD: I loved the stuff – but it does have a definite fishy taste – a good kind of fishy taste if you get my drift. The anchovies add depth of flavor and you really can’t taste them. I used ample lemon juice which was really good in it. It’s also EASY!
What’s NOT: nothing whatsoever. I’d definitely make this again.

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Need a new idea for pork tenderloin? That pork tenderloin that is such a lean piece of meat which doesn’t have all that much flavor to start or to end with, but is redeemed if it’s baked to a deep pink and served with a nice sauce?

What you’ll need to make this pork dish is a whole lotta mushrooms. About a pound, give or take. One of the really interesting things Phillis Carey did during the class where this was prepared, was show us 2 piles of mushrooms – one was shiitake and one button. They were approximately equal size – the piles – but one weighed half as much as the other. If you’ve ever picked up shiitakes and considered their weight, well, they’re quite light. Since they’re so darned expensive it’s really helpful that you use half as much weight of them as the button mushrooms. The shiitakes not only add flavor, but a very different texture to this sauce, so do seek them out.

The pork tenderloin must be trimmed well – of any visible fat. Well, not every speck, but at least remove as much as possible. And most often the tenderloins have a layer of silverskin on one side and end which should be removed. Not only is it tough and not really edible, but it’s presence means the pork won’t pick up any particular flavoring. Even though you may brown it, that caramelization (Maillard effect) won’t be effective if silverskin is in the way. So do take the time with a small and very sharp paring knife and cut away that silverskin.

Once it’s trimmed and ready, put it on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Or use a Silpat if you have one. Once you put the tenderloin in the oven you’re about 25 minutes from being ready to slice and serve the meat, so have the sauce ingredients all prepped before you start. Don’t start cleaning mushrooms after you’ve put the meat in the oven, okay? And do have the rest of your dinner all ready to go – the pork will need to rest for a few minutes, but it will hold the heat and re-absorb all those good juices.

Meanwhile, whip up the sauce. Clean the mushrooms – I keep hearing some experts say that mushrooms don’t absorb much, if any, water if you wash them. Phillis absolutely says wipe them with a paper towel – her perspective is that all mushrooms we buy at grocery stores are raised in indoor beds anyway, so all we’re wiping off is the specialized (almost fake) soil. It’s not like dirt from your backyard. And she definitely feels that mushrooms absorb liquid because she watches how much longer it takes to cook out any fluid in them. So anyway, whichever way you clean them, slice them up. Melt butter, cook the mushrooms until all that liquid has evaporated, then add wine. Chicken broth is next, the little bit of cream (well, 1/2 cup!) and bourbon.

Bourbon – well – it has a kind of earthiness to the flavor – if you’re not a fan, use brandy instead. But this sauce was really nice with bourbon, I must say. Most of the liquor is added in during the cooking, but one more T. is added at the end to give a little jolt of extra flavor.

Once the pork is ready, slice on the diagonal – take a look at the grain of the pork – it sort of curves like wrapping around on the diagonal . . . you want to slice it across that grain if possible. Serve with the sauce.

What’s GOOD: how easy this meal is to put together – and it’s very worthy of a company dinner, but easy enough for a weeknight dinner too. Loved the sauce and the heft of it. Full of flavor.

What’s NOT: really nothing at all.

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By chance do you still have some ham in your freezer or refrigerator left over from Easter? And you really need to make a tasty but healthy soup for a weeknight?

What I had was a big honkin’ ham bone, and some black lentils. I had those whole, round urad dal kind of black lentils that I bought at an Indian market. They needed to be used up anyway, so was glad for an opportunity. After doing a recipe search, I found one at the Food Network that would work with a few adaptations. This soup came together in a hurry, actually, although you do need to take the time to cook the beans. I used my handy-dandy Bean Cooking Chart to tell me how long to cook the beans [Urad Lentils (whole), 25-30 minutes] in the traditional way (i.e. not pressure cooker or slow cooker this time as I wanted the beans to soak up that ham flavor).

First I removed all the meat from the ham bone and stuck it back in the refrigerator. Into a big pot I briefly cooked some onion, celery, pancetta and bacon for awhile. Then I added the bone and broth (I used a pork broth, but chicken is fine) lentils and spices. Simmered that for about 20 minutes or so, then I added in some carrots and cooked the mixture further (about 10+ minutes because I wanted the carrots to be just barely tender and bright colored). I removed the ham bone, pulled off any further ham I could from it. Tasted it for seasoning and added in the ham cubes I’d removed at the beginning. It was VERY tasty – hearty, heart-warming. Freezes well too.

What’s GOOD: Healthy, hearty, stick to the ribs kind of taste. Delicious. Loved the thyme in it – but then I’m a fan of thyme anyway. After a couple of days it was even more tasty and I added water to thin it out some.

What’s NOT: Nothing at all.

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Chicken breasts stuffed with Black Forest ham and Swiss cheese, rolled in a very light breading of crumbs, flour and Parm, plus seasonings. They’re baked (no browning required) then served with a really, really tasty mushroom lemon sauce. Love the sauce!

Looking for an easy chicken entrée that would be great for guests? This recipe absolutely works – it’s just boneless, skinless chicken breasts (use smaller sized breasts if you can find them), pounded thin, rolled up with the ham and cheese, gently rolled into the breading mixture and baked for about 30+ minutes. You can make the chicken rolls ahead of time (a few hours anyway) and have everything else ready to go. The sauce doesn’t require the browned bits from browning the chicken because you don’t HAVE to brown the chicken ahead of time (easy!) and the simple creamy lemon mushroom sauce gets spooned over the sliced chicken pieces. All of it relatively easy to make and it will come together quickly if you have everything prepped ahead. The sauce could even be made the day before, but I think it would be best made just before serving – that way the mushrooms will still have perfect texture.

This recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey, and she mentioned that the sauce is also really good on salmon and even on left over chicken. I think the sauce would be good on a whole LOT of things – I just loved the lemony flavor in it.

What’s GOOD: how easy it is. How moist the chicken is and ever-so tasty with the mushroom lemon sauce. Lovely company meal – looks pretty besides having great taste.

What’s NOT: nothing at all. Just do the prep ahead of time.

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Suffice to say, I have a big house. And hard as I try, sometimes I don’t get to all of my magazines in a timely manner. Ah-hem. We had to clean out a big bookcase a few days ago. We had some kind of a dead critter we could smell, but couldn’t ever find, darn it, and did a whole lot of work trying to locate the source of the smell . . finally after about 10 days the smell went away. We suppose the critter was in the walls somewhere. Meanwhile, in this said bookcase we were convinced the critter had to be newly dead and decaying under (answer: no), I found about five 2007 Gourmet magazines. Geez – that was 6 years ago! They’d gotten tucked into a shelf and forgotten. So I’ve been trying to catch up with those first. And I ran across this very interesting set of statistics. They’re old numbers – I actually tried to find out some of these statistics based on 2012 numbers, but they weren’t readily available, even on the internet!

Number of broiler chickens produced in the US in 1955: 1.1 billion

Number of broiler chickens produced in the US in 2005: 9 billion (I did find this number for 2008 and it was 9.8 billion)

Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach market weight (around 6 pounds) in the 1950’s: 17

Number of weeks it took for a broiler to reach that same market weight in 2006: 6. (No kidding? No wonder chicken farmers like using growth hormones!)

Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 1975: 39

Estimated number of pounds of chicken consumed per American in 2006: 88

Approximate number of chickens processed per hour in the nation’s largest slaughterhouses: 25,000

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I forget about making vegetarian (well, almost vegetarian) meals on any routine basis. I do a sort of a rotation of chicken, pork, some beef, a little bit of fish, and then it’s back to chicken, pork, etc. So when Phillis Carey made this dish at a recent cooking class, it just reminded me that I need to do this kind of meal more often.

A little backtracking . . . after about 9 months of diagnosing, chemo, healing then radiation for my friend Cherrie’s breast cancer, she’s just beginning to come out of the fatigue caused by the radiation (and the chemo too). Her oncologist told her to expect fairly extreme fatigue for 6 weeks at least after her last radiation treatment. She’s at 4 weeks now and she says she’s maybe feeling a glimmer of more energy. Not much, but even a little bit is good. So she suggested we go to a cooking class (a night class) which could be problematical for her since she often falls asleep at about 7-8pm. Sure enough, she started to nod off a couple of times, she told me. But not before we had 4 really tasty dishes at the class.

Phillis has a vegan son, and she’s actually teaching some vegan classes in San Diego, since she’s begun trying to find tasty dishes she can fix for him when he comes home to visit. This is one, although she does make it strictly vegetarian/vegan for him. Meaning no dairy, no prosciutto, no chicken broth, no butter.

This recipe DOES contain butter, prosciutto, cream (just a little tiny bit) and chicken broth, so you can pick and choose what you’d like to include or substitute. The dish is a two-step process – and they both come together in nearly the same amount of time. Start the mushrooms first, then get all the ingredients ready for the polenta. The latter takes about 7-9 minutes once the water and broth are at the boil. You want to serve this as soon as the polenta is done – once it sits it starts to firm up, and this is a dish to utilize soft, creamy (although there isn’t any cream or milk in it) polenta.

Prosciutto (chopped into small pieces from the thinly sliced type) is briefly cooked in olive oil, then removed and allowed to drain on paper towels until later. Butter is added to the pan and you cook the shallots and garlic, then the mushrooms (a mixture of shiitake, crimini or Portobello and button). After the mushrooms have released all their juices and it’s almost all simmered away you add the herbs, chicken broth and the little jot of heavy cream. Once they’ve cooked completely you add the parsley and Parm. Done.

Meanwhile you’ve made the polenta. Phillis always uses the Albers brand of regular cornmeal, not the pricey polenta grain. Once cooked she feels it makes little difference anyway. The dry meal is whisked slowly into boiling broth and allowed to simmer, with you stirring it very often, until it’s reached the right consistency. Then you add in some defrosted corn. Spoon it into bowls while it’s piping hot, then spoon the mushroom sauce on top and serve immediately! You can also add some Parm on top when you serve it.

What’s GOOD: all the flavors and textures going on in the bowl. This is comfort food for sure. The polenta is smooth and unctuous with the little bit of corn in it. The mushrooms are very tasty and have a toothsomeness to them. Altogether good, and not unhealthy, although there is a little butter and cream in it.

What’s NOT: nothing at all. If you’re a fiend for mushrooms make more of the sauce, as there isn’t all that much to divide onto 6 servings.

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