Is a dish a gratin if you bake it in a gratin dish? Well, hardly. But once I poured this mixture of crimini mushrooms and fresh spinach into the gratin dish and sprinkled the top with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese? Well, it became a gratin in my book, even though it wasn’t in the recipe title.

Immersing myself in planning a dinner party is always fun for me. Am I weird? My first decision is always what meat I’m serving, then everything else widens the circle of tastes for the dinner. One of our guests is bringing an appetizer – probably two since she wants to try something new. Another couple will bring a salad. So I’ll round out the meal. My focus this day was on deciding on vegetable sides, and my darling DH and I were driving somewhere and I was giving him a heads-up about the menu [oh, mistake]. He asked what sides I was going to make and I told him I hadn’t decided yet. He said, just make veggies you know and like. How about those brussels sprouts with maple syrup? I said no, I’ve made those about 3 times in the last couple of months. And I mentioned that not everyone likes brussels sprouts. He said – he said – oh, you don’t want to know what he said – he has no understanding of anybody who doesn’t like them! I told him I was going to make a Gorgonzola sauce to go on the beef tenderloin. He said, am I barbecuing it? I said no, I’m going to pan sear it and roast in the oven. Why not let me rotisserie it? I said no, I didn’t want to rotisserie a very expensive beef tenderloin. (Too risky in my book.) I could tell he was starting to get a little annoyed. I should have changed the subject right then, but we kept going. He got back to the sauce – he said to my thought on a gorgonzola sauce – what? No, that’s too heavy. I said no, I didn’t think so. He said yes, I’ve had a blue or Roquefort sauce on steak once that just masked the taste of the steak, and I want to taste the steak. Then he said oh, what’s the other sauce I love, uhm, what is that one? I said no, I’m not making a Bearnaise sauce. (He loves-loves Bearnaise sauce, and I’ve made it innumerable times, always with a butterflied leg of lamb. And over asparagus a time or two. But that last couple of times I did make it it didn’t turn out well. It separated. I followed the same recipe I’ve always done, yet it failed me. So I wasn’t going to make that one – I don’t think it goes so well with beef anyway.)

That kind of conversation is why I normally don’t discuss menus with him. One of the things I love about him is that – usually – he lets me do whatever I want for every meal I cook. I like that. I like making dinner decisions because I’m the one cooking it. Always. Dave doesn’t cook except to grill. My decision is that I’m going to make a cabernet wine sauce, but I’m also going to offer some nice, Point Reyes blue cheese for guests to sprinkle on the filet if they choose. I really did think about making two sauces, but that’s too darned much work.

The night after I made this vegetable dish my DH came up to me as I was going back and forth from my computer (looking at Eat Your Books to find a dessert sauce for the cheesecake) to my cookbook shelves about 10 feet away, and he asked me what I was doing. Are you still working on vegetables?  I said no, I was on to dessert now. So which veggies have you decided to serve?  I said both of the ones I tried (the other one is a baked onion dish coming up here on my blog in a day or two). Then I told him I’d decided to make a cabernet sauce for the steak and . . . right then he interrupted me and said honey, you serve whatever you want. I always love whatever you cook so don’t pay any attention to me. Hmmm.

Anyway,  I enjoy the searching for recipes, and wanted to try some new veggies to go with the beef. Recently I was doing lots of filing of recipes I’ve clipped from here and there, and found at least 20 I want to try. But this one came from reading blogs (Food52, specifically). Apparently it’s a recipe from Nigel Slater. I believe this dish is intended as a vegetarian entrée, although I really don’t know since I don’t have the book from which this came. The cookbook is Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch. (There are 2 volumes to this – this recipe is in the 1st volume, linked here.) I think Nigel did call this a Gratin since I found some references to it online, in other places. What drew me to the recipe was how simple it was. Crimini mushrooms quartered, sautéed in some butter until they’ve given up their juices, white wine added and cooked off, then a little cream and milk added in and stirred around. It’s suggested that if time permits, allow the ‘shrooms to sit and vegetate in the cream for awhile – the cream becomes much more mushroomy. I did just that. Meanwhile, I steamed the spinach – that took about 2 seconds, squeezed out the water and then I added the spinach into the reheated mushroom mixture. A little bit of grated Parmigiano was added in then, and it was all tipped into a gratin (there’s that word) dish. There’s very little creamy mixture (it’s cream and milk). More cheese was grated all over the top and into an oven it went for about 25 minutes. In my version of the recipe below, I have added more cheese – there was barely enough to get crispy brown in the Food 52 version I made (see photo at top).

What’s GOOD: everything about this. It’s easy, really tasty, elegant – particularly elegant when you consider how easy it is to make – no sauce to make. The chunks of mushrooms have a great meaty feel (which is why this can be served as a vegetarian entrée). The cheese adds a particularly wonderful nutty taste, as Parmigiano always does. If you do make this as a vegetarian dinner, serve it over toast or English muffins and pour all that cream stuff on it so you get all the nuances of mushroom flavor.
What’s NOT: nothing other than the cream mostly runs off. It coats all the veggies, but it isn’t thickened, so it doesn’t hold together like one made with a cream sauce. It probably could be done with less cream altogether in that case!

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That’s the pork sirloin roast resting in my slow cooker. I hadn’t yet added the bed of beef broth and balsamic vinegar. Until recently I’d never even prepared a pork sirloin roast, but they’re available for a very reasonable price at Costco. One of these little puppies would serve a nice dinner for 4 or maybe 5.

When I opened my freezer door the other day, one of these roasts that I’d vacuum sealed just about fell off the shelf (uhm, can you tell my freezer is full?). I managed to grab it before it dented my hard wood floor! Fortunately, I’d recently read Kalyn Denny’s blog, Kalyn’s Kitchen for just this very roast (hers said sirloin tip – mine was just sirloin) done in the slow cooker. Perfect!

Her recipe is the epitome of easy. That’s what slow cookers are for, right? The pork is seasoned well, browned well, placed in the slow cooker and then you add beef broth and inexpensive balsamic vinegar. My slight changes included using a different herb and salt mixture. I added fresh rosemary sprigs, and lastly, later on, you add a bunch of thick-sliced onions to the slow cooker during the last 60-90 minutes. Kalyn had used red onions. I had sweet onions that needed to be used.

There’s the finished product. There is more pork underneath all those onions, and the brothy sauce is also moving around on the plate. It’s not a thickened gravy – just the broth, balsamic, the herbs and spices and whatever good pork flavor was picked up during the slow cooking. I garnished it with flat-leaf parsley and some fresh green onions.

The roast fell apart as soon as we started to slice it. No slicing here, just pull off some pieces and serve it with the tender and very tasty onions and a small ladle of the balsamic broth.

What’s GOOD: it’s all delicious. The onions are great – sweet, juicy. The pork is fork tender. Be careful not to over cook it or it will become dry. It depends on the size of the roast. If the roast is done, remove it and then finish cooking the onions until they’re totally limp and ready to eat. It’s such a simple recipe, too.
What’s NOT: nothing at all. A great recipe for a healthy and easy dinner.

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If you like thinking outside the box when you make soup, this will tick all the items for soup-making for you. Chicken, garbanzo beans (chickpeas), artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives and couscous with an apricot hint. It’s delicious.

No credit is due me on this recipe – it’s all Phillis Carey. She was inspired by an online recipe at food.com for this, but it certainly was way outside my box, but oh-s0 good and worth it. Do not, under any circumstances, be dissuaded once you look at the ingredient list. Half of the items are spices. This soup is healthy. Hearty. Chickeny. Comforting. It could be the Moroccan version of chicken noodle soup. I might like this better than that, actually. If you make a batch for freezing, go ahead and cook the couscous, but put it in a separate plastic bag and seal it inside the larger bag of soup. You can still freeze it all in one gallon bag, but with the smaller well-sealed bag inside.

The soup (the broth part) contains onions, ginger, garlic, all the spices, some white wine, chicken broth, the garbanzo beans and a can of diced tomatoes. It needs but 10-15 minutes of simmering to be ready. Meanwhile, get all the add-ins ready (canned artichoke hearts – no, not the marinated kind – the Kalamata olives, shredded chicken) and on the side some cilantro and almonds.

Then, make the couscous in a separate pan – it uses chicken broth, a little bit of honey (yes), oil, lemon juice, zest, salt and some diced up dried apricots. Phillis did say you could use dried cranberries or currants if you don’t have or want to use apricots. Couscous takes no time at all – just add it to the hot broth mixture, cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Fluff it up just a little.

Back to the soup – add in the additions to the soup (so they heat through), get a soup bowl ready, scoop in some couscous, then, if you can and are willing to be patient, carefully pour the chicken and chickpea soup around the outside of the mound of couscous. It looks really pretty that way. Otherwise, just add the soup and couscous to a bowl and garnish with cilantro and almonds. And one Kalamata olive on top.

If you’re a lover of spices and flavor, this one is IT. If you’re intimidated by all the spices, maybe mix those up the day before and keep them fresh in a little sealed jar. Don’t make more than you need – remember, mixed spices lose their flavor after about a month.

What’s GOOD: the myriad of flavors in this soup. I love soup in all shapes and sizes. And this one – the flavors. Loved them all – the artichoke hearts, the beans, the apricot couscous. Wow. All delish.
What’s NOT: can’t think of any down side to this flavorful soup. Worth doing, even if you do have to dig out all of your spice bottles to do it!

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A bit more complex than some slap-together kinds of dinners. The mushrooms need to be cleaned, chopped, cooked, then mixed with Gorgonzola cheese, shallots, wine. Most of it goes in the pocket in the chicken breast. If you have extra mushrooms they can be added in the simple pan sauce.

When I got down to it, I had forgotten to buy fresh basil, and it’s a fairly major ingredient in this recipe. I substituted fresh thyme instead, but it not only lost some of that unique flavor that basil brings to just about anything, but I also lost the beauty of tendrils of basil to garnish the top. So, if you make this, do as I tell you, not as I did! Buy basil!

The crimini mushrooms were cleaned and chopped, then cooked with garlic and shallot. Then some wine is added and reduced down before you add the cheese and some basil. The chicken breasts are carefully slit along the side to create a nice-enough pocket, the mushroom mixture is stuffed in there and you try to seal it back up. Carefully sauté the breasts in olive oil, just to brown them (all the cooking through happens in the oven), then they go onto a baking sheet and are roasted for about 12-15 minutes. Meanwhile, fix the rest of your dinner and make the sauce (wine, cream, red pepper flakes and more fresh basil). Serve quickly with the sauce spooned over the top. I had more mushrooms that I could fit inside the chicken breasts, so I added them to the sauce.

Dinner took me about an hour to make, start to finish. The chicken breasts I had were large, so I ended up cutting each breast in half. Thankfully the filling stayed put when I did that. The picture above is one breast and would make a really large serving for a hungry person. The recipe came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey last month. If you don’t like Gorgonzola, you can use goat cheese or Feta.

What’s good: the chicken is very moist and cooked through – pan browning, then baking them assures they’re cooked just enough, but not enough to dry them out. Love crimini mushrooms. And the sauce. Yum. Ideally I’d have served this with some kind of white carb like potatoes or rice, but we had roasted vegetables on the side instead. Mashed potatoes would have been lovely, especially if there was ample sauce to go on top of them.

What’s not: not a thing unless you don’t like making or eating a delicious mushroom cream sauce!

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Oh gosh, you’re going to love this bread. Or cake. Or cake made in a bread pan, masquerading as a loaf bread. Whatever it is, it’s marvelous. Easy. And better than any banana bread I’ve ever made, and I thought I had a really great one!

My radar wasn’t fixed – I mean tuned in – to making banana bread. Hadn’t even thought about it. Until I got an email from a new friend, Jerianne. A friend I’ve made as a result of my blog. This new friend lives about 25 miles from me, but we met for lunch several weeks ago. She’d found my blog somehow – I don’t recall if she told me how she happened to find it, and she started reading and she emailed me about getting together. We really enjoyed talking.  We have many common interests besides food. We are of a somewhat similar age. She loves to cook. We talked all about my blog, how and why, and we talked food for it seemed like hours. We’ve agreed to get together again sometime soon. She’s a Christian too, and she said a lovely prayer over our lunch.

Here’s a photo of Jerianne and me (J’s on the right) the day she took me to lunch (thank you again, Jerianne!). A week or so went by and Jerianne sent me an email with this recipe attached, telling me that I really, really needed to try this banana bread. She thought it was one of the best she’d ever made. Well, and it was called a prize-winning one, so why wouldn’t it be special? When I saw bananas, some very ripe ones, at the market, they called out to me and I made this bread. Oh my. Yes, yes, yes!

The recipe is in several places on the internet, and attributed to a county fair winner in 1981. It contains the standard stuff for a banana bread, with an addition of sour cream. I had light sour cream in my refrigerator, and it worked just fine. The bread also contains a lot of bananas – to get 1 1/2 cups I needed 4 medium sized ones. If you have really large bananas, probably 3 would be enough to measure 1 1/2 cups. My advice: measure!

It was all mixed up in my stand mixer and poured into a GREASED loaf pan. I had a bit too much for my loaf pan (fill the pan about 3/4 full), so I had to pour some of the batter into a smaller one (which I gave as a gift to our friend Joe who stayed with us the other night – Yvette, did you like it?). Likely you could scale down this recipe by about 1/5 and have just the right amount. It’s pretty hard to do that with standard measurements, but it could be done.

Then, you sprinkle raw sugar (turbinado) on the top of the raw batter – it adds a lovely crispy top. Don’t not do that step as you’ll be forever changed about adding that to any loaf breads. Loved it. The baking times varied a bit – some said 45 minutes, some an hour. I know loaf breads needed to bake until they reach about 205°, and it took about 55 minutes to do that. The bread MUST stay in the pan for a little while. Why? It’s a very, VERY tender bread/cake, and it could easily stick. If you want to be sure about this, put buttered parchment paper on the bottom of the bread pan. The large pan came out perfectly, but the little one was a little harder – it left a little bit stuck to the bottom.

After about 20 minutes I gently shook both pans to make sure the breads were loose and very carefully rolled the pan over onto my other hand and forearm, then quickly but gently placed it on a cooling rack. Be extra careful doing that – I very nearly broke the loaf in half. When I tell you it’s tender, it’s really, really tender, okay? Allow it to cool completely before slicing. Jerianne, thank you SO much for sharing this recipe with me! It’s a real winner.

What’s good: every single, solitary thing about this is wonderful. A definite do again bread.
What’s not: nothing whatsoever. What a lovely gift it would make, too.

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Not to be outdone by the Good Housekeeping Seal, BA has decided to give us a list of their go-to food products; the ones that always give reliable results, that have the taste, purity and complex flavors that exemplify an outstanding product and bang for the buck. These are not in any particular order of importance; it’s just their 50 top pick brands they rely on in their test kitchens. Amongst the judges the most hotly contested item was peanut butter (see #2 and #34). The article is available. If you want to read more, put in “seal of approval” on BA’s website and it will bring up everything they have regarding the products and the article and side bars.

1. Butter (Fancy) – Celles Sur Belle (it’s a matured butter, best on bread and baked goods when butter is the star)

2. Natural Peanut Butter – Woodstock Smooth (for toast, sandwiches, etc.)

3. Dijon – Maille (France)

4. Coconut Milk – Goya (Spain)

5. Chicken Broth – Swanson’s Certified Organic

6. Chili Sauce – Tuong ot Sriracha (also known as Rooster)

7. Grapeseed Oil – Bel Aria

8. Olive Oil – Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin (Italy)

9. Fish Sauce – Red Boat

10. Soy Sauce – Kikkoman Less Sodium

11. Whole Grains – Bob’s Red Mill

12. Rice – Lundberg (all varieties)

13. Fire-Roasted Diced Tomatoes – Muir Glen

14. Canned Tomatoes – San Marzano (a U.S. product grown from Italian seeds)

15. Agave Syrup – Sohgave Amber

16. Sugar – Domino  (because it’s made from cane, not beets)

17. Puff Pastry – Dufour (sometimes hard to find)

18. Salt (everyday) – Diamond Crystal Kosher

19. Salt (finishing) – Maldon

20. Capers – Delicias (Spain)

21. Canned Beans – Goya (Spain)

22. Canned Tuna (in oil) – Whole Foods 365 Wild Tuna Albacore

23. Canned Tuna (in water) – Crown Prince Solid White Albacore

24. Tofu – Wildwood Organic Firm

25. Dried Beans – Rancho Gordo

26. Bacon – Applegate Organics – Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon

27. Pasta – Barilla (they said this won hands down)

28. Flour – King Arthur All-Purpose unbleached

29. Butter (baking and everyday) – Organic Valley

30. Finishing Sugar – Sugar in the Raw

31. Chocolate (cocoa) – Scharffen Berger

32. Chocolate (in bars) – Scharffen Berger

33. Vanilla Extract – Nielsen-Massey

34. Peanut Butter – Skippy (for baking and cooking and won raves for their spot-on salt balance)

35. Cider Vinegar – Bragg

36. Frozen Peas – Cascadian Farms

37. Black Peppercorns – India Tree Tellicherry Pepper

38. Mayonnaise – Hellmans/Best Foods

39. Cream Cheese – Philadelphia

40. Ketchup – Heinz

41. Tomato Concentrate – San Marzano (tube)

42. Tomato Paste – Hunt’s

43. Greek Yogurt – Fage (was made in Greece, but we’ve taken to it so much they now manufacture it here in the U.S.)

44. Dried Chilies (most versatile) – Arbol (BA buys their chilies from Marx Foods)

45. Dried Chilies (most popular) – Chipotle

46. Dried Chilies (most complex) – Guajillo

47. Anchovies – Ortiz el Velero (Spain)

48. Miso – Miso Master Organic (white)

49. Pomegranate Molasses – Al Wadi

50. Harissa – Les Moulins Mahjoub (this one contains some sun-dried tomatoes which is why BA likes it)

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Salt is in. In everything. On top of everything. In pinks, and grays and Kosher and flake. In and on (these cookies) in this case. You might wonder if there is anything anyone could possibly try to make a different chocolate chip cookie. Read on.

Well, I seem to be a sucker for any such new CC cookie. I still go back to my favorites in between trying any new one I come across. My DH brought home the new bag (3.5 pounds) of chocolate chips from Costco. I was dismayed because it wasn’t Nestle’s Tollhouse. Costco no longer carries those gigantic bags of CCs. They’ve come out with their own Kirkland brand of them. And I was prepared to be very upset – since I just plain LIKE the flavor of those Nestle’s chips. Sometimes I use Ghiradelli for some cookies, but mostly I resort back to the Nestle’s because they seem to have the best balance of sweet to chocolate. At least that’s what I thought. I must say, though, these new Kirkland ones are semisweet (just like Nestle’s), 51% cacao (I don’t know what Nestle’s is), contain real vanilla, and they’re from “responsibly sourced cacao.”  My best test was to eat some of the chips straight – to see what I thought of the flavor. I liked them. Wow, I actually liked them a lot. So, I guess it’s “move over Nestle’s, Kirkland/Costco has displaced you!” They are not Nestle’s chips in disguise – as I can tell these are a bit more dark chocolate than Nestle’s. They have a good balance of sugar to chocolate (that’s one of my beefs with some of the other premium chocolates – they contain too much sugar – to me).

So, back to the recipe. It was in the January 2013 Bon Appetit issue, and on the surface it didn’t look all that unusual from most other recipes – white and brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, soda, the chips and SALT.  The recipe makes a small batch – that’s good since it was a new recipe – why make a lot if you’re not sure you’ll like them?

There’s nothing unusual about the preparation either. I scooped the batter onto parchment lined baking sheets and baked them as directed. The first tray was slightly overcooked. One minute made a huge difference. The next sheet I cut down the baking time, turning the sheet at 5 1/2 minutes. If I look at the photo in the magazine, the cookie looks thicker, more dense, whereas mine were quite thin. Not too thin by any means, just thin. I sprinkled the salt (I used flake salt) on top of each cookie before it baked, but changed that because the first batch absorbed the salt. After that I sprinkled the salt on the cookies when I took them out of the oven, while still hot. That worked fine.

A few days later, as they sat, uneaten, in the freezer, I served them to my 2 Scrabble friends, and they both went absolutely NUTS over them. I mean to tell you, they could hardly stay out of the plate of cookies. I sent both home with a bag of them.

What’s good: well, this cookie is different. To me it has a flavor of salty caramel – it’s the brown sugar as it bakes, I suppose, since there is more brown sugar than white in this recipe. I liked the salt, and so did my friends. In fact, they LOVED the salt on top. They also loved the intense crispiness of the cookie. It really IS crispy, and it’s almost candy-like. When you sink your teeth into a bite, you have to bite clear through and almost tear with your teeth to separate the bite – the cookie holds on. Does that make sense? It doesn’t break off gently as in a buttery, more shortbread style. Nothing like traditional CC cookies. I also think these cookies are too sweet, but my 2 friends disagreed. So, I’ve put a note in the recipe below – use your own judgment.
What’s not: what’s there not to like about any CC cookie? I wish I didn’t like them as much as I do! I try NOT to bake them because if they’re around, I eat them. Not so much with this recipe, but that’s only because this particular version was a bit too sweet for me (see above). I also didn’t care for the candy-like texture, but I don’t eat candy. Hardly ever. If you love candy, you might go nuts for this cookie.

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An altogether different kind of salad – no traditional salad greens at all – just celery, celery root (julienned), celery leaves, shallots, horseradish and parsley, with a light lemon juice dressing. Has plenty of crunch.

If you happened to read my little essay the other day – about how salads are changing in 2013 (according to Bon Appetit), I mentioned I was going to make at least one of the recipes. There were 4 recipes in the article (carrot salad with yogurt and coriander, golden beet and jicama salad with crème fraîche, mushroom and watercress salad with bread crumbs – and this celery one). I’m a huge fan of celery leaves – mostly I add them to green salads. I wish that when I bought celery there would be twice as many leaves and less of the stalks. The leaves have SO much flavor. So when I saw this recipe which actually called for celery leaves as part of the salad, I knew I’d be trying it.

How do you feel about doing a bunch of slicing? Well, if you have a mandoline or one of the newer, cheaper kinds of slicers, it’ll take no time – hardly – to do. If you don’t, you will have to spend some time honing your knife skills on this salad. Especially the celery root! I do have a mandoline, and it made quick work of slicing the julienned celery root, shallot and the celery.

One of the really nice things about making a salad without greens, is that it will keep for a day or two in the frig even though you’ve put dressing on it. Because there’s nothing really to wilt. Although, eventually the vegetable will deteriorate – probably some of the water extrudes from the vegetables. But not it’s not like the wilting of a dressed green salad!

Here in the photos you can see the celery root. I cut it in half – and still have that uncut half. For the photo I just laid the uncut half next to the one I was using for the julienne. The cut portion is peeled (use a knife, not a potato peeler) and julienned. The below  photo shows you the pile of celery root. It isn’t exactly easy to do julienned cuts on my Oxo mandoline – you have to push the celery root really hard to get it to cut. But it does, and the root pieces are tender enough to eat out of hand and make a nice crunchy addition to a salad. I did not use the slices of celery root in the salad – just the julienned ones. So my salad didn’t have as much celery root.

The salad dressing is nothing but olive oil and lemon juice. The salad also has some lemon zest sprinkled over it, some prepared horseradish tossed into it as well as some finely sliced shallots. The other green in this salad is parsley and I used quite a bit. Next time I might try adding some fresh mint. My garden has but a few little leaves of mint left from the summer, and they have almost no flavor.  The thing to note is that the salad dressing is more of a 2:1 ratio (oil:lemon juice) rather than the 3:1 we’re used to. And it worked fine, although I did add more dressing to this salad than the recipe indicated.

What’s good: the overall FRESH taste of it. You can make all of this up ahead and just toss it before serving. It’s very different. And crunchy. It might make a better first course than as a side salad to serve with a full dinner. We both liked it very much, and yes, I’d make it again – just with a bit more dressing, that’s all. We both liked the celery root – and you can just barely taste the horseradish in it. I might add more lemon zest also. Next time I’m going to add some fresh mint. Just because.
What’s not: only make this if you have a slicing machine of some kind – it would be a lot a slicing to do by hand.

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What a tangle of goodness! Parsnips, carrots and shallots roasted with a glaze of olive oil, then tossed with a relish composed of green olives, parsley, mint, vinegar and oil. Delish.

When I read this recipe at a recent cooking class, I really didn’t expect a lot. Oh, was I wrong on all fronts. It was the olive relish that kind of put me off, or so I thought, and yet, once the vegetables were roasted (and they become so sweet when they’re caramelized in the oven like these were) the olive relish with it’s slight bitterness, was a perfect counterpoint to the sweet veggies. In fact, if I could have gone back for seconds – and more of the relish – I would have. But it was all gone.

Just recently I made parsnips in an orange sauce in the pressure cooker, and was reminded, as I am every time, that parsnips have so much flavor. Why don’t I cook them more often? I should, and you should! Both the carrots and parsnips were similarly shaped – there was one honkin’ parsnip in there that was cut in half lengthwise and across, which ended up on my plate – and it was cooked through and not tough. Some parsnips have a tough core – if you cut the raw parsnip in half you can tell – the center is really  hard and the core is extra firm, sometimes even slightly separating from the rest of the outer part – if so, cut out that core part. Ideally, try to select similar sized parsnips and carrots. And I’d advise ample shallots – oh are they good!

So, I made these at home and added more of the olive relish – because it was so darned good. The recipe came from Tarla Fallgatter, but I found it at Martha Stewart online. I served them at room temp, just because I was in a kind of cooking flurry so I didn’t put them back in the oven. I probably should have – I think they’re better hot, but even cold they were delish.

The veggies are slicked with olive oil, salt, pepper and some miscellaneous herbs (rosemary, thyme and Greek oregano), then are roasted for about 45 minutes. Turn the pieces over at least once so more sides of the veggies are caramelized. Meanwhile, prepare the olive relish. The original recipe calls for an olive I don’t know – cerignola – (it’s from a town in Italy – see photo at right that I found on the ‘net) but a pitted Spanish olive worked well enough. Just don’t include the pimento in the relish. Add some fresh parsley, fresh mint, some olive oil, salt, pepper and a little fruit vinegar and it’s done. Pour over the hot or warm vegetables and serve. If you want to, roast the vegetables ahead of time and at the last minute pop the pan back in the oven to reheat – just cover with foil so they don’t dry out – then toss with the relish. Serve to raves.

What’s good: every single, solitary bite. Unctuous, if you consider vegetables capable of being unctuous!
What’s not: nary a thing.

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Ever notice how flavorful butternut squash can be? And yet it’s such a nuisance to cut (sometimes I can’t even do it myself) and peel. But this soup is worth the hassle.

If you’ve visited Costco lately, then you likely have seen their package (2 pounds) of cubed, peeled butternut squash. Yippee for me! The only thing is – once you buy it, you need to cook it within a few days. Once cut, the squash doesn’t keep forever. So, given that, buy yourself one and make this tasty soup. Trader Joe’s also carries (sometimes) a similar package of butternut squash. And occasionally I see it frozen at some regular grocery stores. Or, if you’ve got some good muscles, do buy the fresher whole squash and do it yourself! This came from a cooking class I went to recently (Tarla Fallgatter) but I found the recipe online from Food and Wine, and it’s credited to Dean Fearing.

I happened to have some fennel on hand, so with the butternut squash all ready to go, this soup was very easy to make. The squash is roasted in the oven for 20-30 minutes (until tender). Meanwhile, gently sauté onion, fennel and fresh ginger in butter. Add the squash and chicken stock (or vegetable stock if you’d prefer a vegetarian soup) and cook until everything is tender. The soup is pureed (by blender or immersion blender), then gently reheated with the addition of a small amount of heavy cream. Toast some pecans, chop them, whip up just a little bit of heavy cream, add a sprinkle of cayenne pepper (yes, really) and dollop those on top. Makes for a lovely taste and a lovely presentation too.

At right is a photo I took at the class – see the difference in color? When I made it myself, I had a couple of bulbs of fennel. I like fennel. So I decided to add one whole medium-sized fennel to this soup. It calls for half of one. And when I roasted the butternut squash, I likely didn’t roast it long enough – I cooked it through, but it adds a lot of flavor if you allow the butternut squash to caramelize. So, you’ll notice from the photo at the top, mine is a much lighter color – both from the lack of caramelization and from the addition of more fennel. But as for flavor – it was wonderful both times. The ginger – I probably added a bit more than called for and it was only mildly warm. One day I ate the soup cold (because I was just lazy) – it was wonderful! That’s the photo at top – I didn’t whip the cream, I just drizzled about a teaspoon of cream on top, then added the toasted pecans.

What’s good: the additions of the fennel and ginger give it a lovely nuanced flavor. And the topping just kind of puts in a higher realm. It would make a very nice company first course, or add a sandwich or salad and it would make a nice dinner too. The fresh ginger gives this soup just a little bit of heat – I liked that part. I really liked the texture of the soup – using an immersion blender I didn’t completely puree the soup (which was fine by me) so with the addition of the pecans, there was bit of crunch and the fennel didn’t completely disintegrate either. Lovely, really.
What’s not: nothing at all. It’s good all around.

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