Just recently I learned how easy – and I mean EASY – it is to cook raw beans in a pressure cooker. So a few weeks later I was about to cook a different kind of bean, and didn’t know how long it would take to cook, so I went online to read about it. That led me to one site, to another, and to yet another and bingo – I found a chart. A wonderful chart that lists just about every bean known to man, and what the cooking times are for traditional stove-top cooking, pressure cooker times, and slow cooker times.

I tried to save the chart and had some trouble, so I contacted the website and asked them if I could use their chart here on my blog. They were kind enough to send me a revised PDF file so you can download it and keep it on hand.

So, thanks to the folks at Delectable Planet for helping – now you, too, can have a copy to keep in your kitchen. If you want to go to the actual chart on their webpage, click here.

What I do is tape these kinds of things inside my kitchen cupboard doors. I have a few such must-haves – some 3×5 cards with my favorite salad dressings are there, and now this 2-pager with info about beans. Also my grilling chart graces another interior cupboard door so we never have to go far to look up what temperature to cook pork. Or chicken, etc. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t seem to remember from one time to the next, usually several weeks in between, the different temps.

printer-friendly PDF  – bean_chart was kindly provided by Delectable Planet

Tweet

Do you like crab? I sure do, yet I don’t get it – eat it – very often. Rarely, in fact. But this, oh, yes, I could eat this every so often. It takes some doing (i.e., there’s quite a bit of prep involved) but the result is succulent, sweet, ever-so tender and nearly falling apart with deliciousness.

I do hope all of you – since you’re foodies like I am – watch America’s Test Kitchen (the TV show). I have it automatically record on my Tivo, so I never miss a program. There have been many of them recording lately (more than one a week), and every single recipe they’ve made has been something I want to try. Which means I need to remember, the next time I’m at my computer, to go online to the TV series’ website to print it out. The website is different than the regular Cook’s Illustrated website. Why? Because you can get these recipes for free, whereas all the others are only available to subscribed members.

What I had in my refrigerator was one of those plastic “cans” of fresh crab, but they’re stabilized somehow and keep for quite awhile under refrigeration. You can get it at both Costco and Trader Joe’s. They’re one pound containers, with very little liquid. So, here’s the short-list of what has to be done:

1. Toast the panko in a nonstick skillet until the crumbs get golden brown
2. Soak the crab meat in milk for 30 minutes
3. Chop up some raw shrimp which is added into the mixture
4. Chop and cook some onion, celery and garlic
5. Combine the drained crab and shrimp with the veggies, a little jot of cream, Dijon, hot pepper sauce and lemon juice, some seasonings and form into balls and let them rest, refrigerated, for awhile
6. Gently – oh so gently – pat the toasted panko crumbs on both sides of each one
7. Fry the very fragile crab cakes in some vegetable oil until golden brown, turning them with 2 spatulas and serve them immediately!

It took me about an hour to do all that prep, and when I got to the final part of frying, I had a tough time keeping the crab cakes in one piece. The instructions are clear – fry over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes with oil shimmering in the pan, turn them over (using 2 spatulas, mandatory), add a bit more oil, turn down the heat, and continue frying for another 2-3 minutes until they’re done. If you cook them long enough – and at the absolute perfect temp (whatever that is) the crumbs have turned a dark golden brown and they help hold the crab cakes together.

What there isn’t in these crab cakes is a stick of filler. No bread crumbs (the panko is just on the outside, none in the mixture), or eggs. Or flour. Nothing. So you can imagine how fragile they are. But I managed to get 5 of them to come out beautifully. The other two, not so much. But oh well, it didn’t make them taste any less delicious, so what does it matter, right? Be sure to use fresh crab, not canned. And be careful about how salty the crab is – crab meat from King crab legs are often quite salty. Soaking the crab in milk is a great step – moisture is provided and it takes away any kind of off-flavors that might be lurking in the shellfish.

What’s GOOD: the clean, fresh taste of the crab – no filler, just good flavor all around. And texture from the panko – gosh those panko crumbs do a great job providing texture. Be sure to serve these the moment they’re out of the pan – I mixed up a salad and already had it on the plate so it was easy to place the crab cakes next to it and whisk the plates to the table. Except for taking the picture you see at the top!
What’s NOT: if I had to complain about anything it would be the amount of prep. But then, some things do take awhile to prepare – you want good flavor? then sometimes it requires some elbow grease, like these did.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Ah, chocolate. White chocolate, dark chocolate and cocoa bound together into a light-textured cookie with some slivered almonds. Perfect with a fresh cup of coffee. Or for any chocoholic.

How many times have you made something, from a recipe on the ‘net, from a major site on the ‘net, and had it go wrong? After I mixed up this batch of cookies and had the first tray in the oven, I went about entering it into MasterCook, so I ended up at the Barefoot Contessa site on the Food Network. Saw 5 stars. Good. I copied all the ingredients and directions over, then thought I’d glance at the reviews. Oh my.

Well, there was a bunch of stuff there. Good and bad. Some people thought no wonder it failed because it’s not Ina’s recipe. It’s from Kathleen King. Some people watched the segment on TV and said that absolutely she used 2 1/2 POUNDS of butter, not 2 1/2 CUBES of butter. Big difference, obviously! Some people who made these actually put IN 2 1/2 pounds of butter and thought the cookies were just fine. Really? Others thought the dough was dry (mine was). Too dry. Still others had added in an extra egg yolk (I put in a 2nd egg). Others added some oil. Others reduced the amount of flour. My cookies were already mixed up completely, so I didn’t have a lot of options. I tasted a cookie from the first tray, and although it hadn’t completely cooled yet, I thought they might be a tad dry. So that’s when I added in the extra egg, assuming it could still be mixed up in my stand mixer. Yes, that worked. The motor was barely able to keep the beater moving and mix in. The batter was much more like a typical cookie dough. It was far too late to add in more butter – others who tried this a 2nd time added in 3 cubes of butter instead of the 2 1/2 and thought that was perfect. Others felt that using unsalted butter was just off, but I only had unsalted, and I thought the cookies were salted sufficiently. And, just so you know, some people made the recipe exactly as printed and thought it was fine, even though the cookies were slightly dry.

What surprises me, after reading about 50+ reviews, is that people at the Food Network should have double-checked the recipe and put a disclaimer or something ON the recipe, if not from the beginning, or at least after all these people have commented that there’s something wrong with the recipe. If the recipe IS correct, then put a statement there stating so. Or state that there was an error during the taping of the show, that 2 1/2 cubes is correct.  Or, is it really 2 1/2 pounds? It has been my experience that once a recipe goes up on the Food Network, it’s there and there it stays forever, without change or correction. They never (seem to) alter anything. Ever.

Fortunately, most cookies are a flexible medium. The science of them isn’t as exact as, say, a cake, or even a muffin or scone. Plus, what tastes good to one person may be awful to someone else. It could be the type of chocolate. It could be the texture. It could be the addition of nuts. It could be the sweetness. I prefer less-sweet cookies. Others think cookies need to be more like candy to suit them. So I guess you could say that cookies can be quite forgiving.

So when all was said and done, really all I did was add in another egg. The texture was much better – it had just a hint of crispy on the outside, and lovely, decadent softness on the inside. I happened to have some extra bitter chocolate chips on hand, so decided to use them here.  I used Valrhona white chocolate and chopped the pieces myself from a small block. I’m not usually a fan of white chocolate – to me, if I’m going to eat chocolate, I want real CHOCOLATE – the dark stuff, not this by-product that is called chocolate. To me it isn’t chocolate at all.

As I was making these cookies I was already writing up this post in my head. Already starting to tell the story about why I made them. That day (last Sunday) we were going to Pasadena to go out to dinner with friends there (that’s about an hour’s drive north of us). Wayne and Lucy, when they come to our house, always come bearing gifts – flowers, or some homemade basil oil Lucy’s made, or some candied nuts she’s whipped up. Something. So not having anything in my larder that would qualify, I decided to make cookies. I also have some of the wonderful Lindy’s Cheesecake left over, so I’ll probably take a couple of slices to them. It’s over a week old, and needs to be eaten or be thrown out!

What’s GOOD: oh, well, the chocolate, first and foremost. I enjoyed the extra bitter in these cookies, but regular chocolate chips would be just fine. I liked the texture from chocolate chips, the white chocolate chunks, and mainly the almonds. If you like white chocolate, this will float your boat. You could even interchange the volume of white to dark. In fact, you could put in other nuts, or peanut butter chips instead of the white. The add-ins are quite flexible. Do note that I’ve changed the recipe slightly (added an extra egg for some extra moisture).
What’s NOT: really nothing as long as you make the necessary changes to the recipe (which are in the recipe below). A good all-around chocolate cookie with lots of extras in it.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

The easiest of sauces – you can make it as sweet as you prefer – I made it on the tart side. It would be great on top of French toast, breakfast yogurt (I can attest to that one since the left overs have garnished several morning bowls), or as a fruit puree with a creamy dessert like cheesecake. Yum.

If you read my blog regularly, you already know that I made Lindy’s Cheesecake and wrote up a post with a very brief history of Lindy’s deli in New York City. It closed in 1957, but the famous cheesecake lives on in home kitchens, and perhaps a lot of restaurants too, since the recipe became public. It was recently listed in Saveur magazine as one of the top 100 recipes ever.

When I made it, I decided it needed something along side – something with some color. It’s too early in the season for reliably sweet strawberries, so I decided to use mangoes. It was perfect. The recipe came straight out of the Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition – 2006. Maybe it was in Rombauer’s earlier editions, but this is the book I own because my old one from the 1950’s was falling apart. I looked up many other recipes, and they were all the same – mangoes, sugar of some form and either lime or lemon juice. Plus just a bit of water to make the sauce almost pourable. That’s it. See? I said it was easy!

I whizzed it up in the food processor, although the blender would likely work just as well. I used the frozen mango chunks from Trader Joe’s. You could use fresh mangoes too. Do defrost the frozen ones some so they will puree. Add some citrus (the lemon juice or lime juice) and add as much sugar as you want – I used about a rounded 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. You can use regular sugar too. Either one. And then some water – the texture of the mangoes will determine how much water you’ll need – you want it thick, but not so you can’t pour it. In the photo at top you can see it’s almost the consistency of pudding, but it spread out flat once I put it on the plate with the cheesecake.

What’s GOOD: the delicious FRESH taste of mango. Citrus does that in all of its guises. I made mine on the tart side since the cheesecake was already plenty sweet, but use your own judgment based on what you’re serving it with. It keeps for several days. I think the recipe said 3, but I don’t know why it wouldn’t keep a week. It is also fantastic drizzled over Greek yogurt for our breakfast. And I just know it would taste wonderful on French toast.
What’s NOT: it was perfect for how I needed to use it, as a sauce for cheesecake.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Can you just imagine the mouth-feel of a bite of that cheesecake? Smooth, rich, a little tiny bit citrusy, in between being a dry cheesecake (not a bad thing) and a wet cheesecake (some people prefer that type). This one leans more toward the dry, I suppose, but not DRY, if you get my drift.

Oh my goodness, is this cheesecake beyond delicious. It’s not something I make – hardly ever. It’s not something I even crave. Now my DH, that’s another story. Cheesecake is his #2 favorite dessert, 2nd only to carrot cake. I do have a recipe for a cheesecake here on my blog – it’s a very tall, light and airy cheesecake. I had it the first time back in about 1970, when I was living for a brief time in Oklahoma. It was called a Gourmet Cheesecake. It contains many egg whites whipped separately, so it retains height during baking. And it’s got a much different (light) texture. I do love that cheesecake. But, since I was cooking for several couples coming to dinner, I decided to try a new recipe, at Saveur.

This cheesecake, comes from the famous Lindy’s Restaurant in New York City. Not to be confused with the current-day restaurant by the same name. Lindy’s was opened in 1921 on Broadway, and it was really a Jewish deli, but they became known for sturgeon, corned beef and blintzes. And, their cheesecake. Milton Berle used to eat there nearly every day. Lots of notables ate there regularly. The owners – Lindy Lindemann and his wife Clara – ran it (and another one some blocks away) for many years.  According to Wikipedia, Lindy’s was especially well known for its cheesecake, which was at times credited as perhaps the most famous in the United States. The cheesecake was immortalized in Guys and Dolls, where Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson sang its praises. You could even sing some of the songs from the musical while you made this. Ah, never mind. Most of you probably don’t know what Guys and Dolls was! The recipe for the cheesecake, fortunately, can live on in our own kitchens because we have the recipe. The famous recipe. The restaurant closed in 1957.

So, on to the recipe. This must – absolutely must be made in a 9-inch springform pan. Please don’t try to make it fit in an 8 incher. Or thinner in a 10-incher. In a 9-inch pan the cake rises up above the sides. When I peeked in the oven window about half way through and saw it I panicked! I thought it would spill over – not only ruining the cheesecake, perhaps, but also making a monumental mess on the floor of my oven. But no, it rose up, stayed up and peaked out about an inch above the top.

First you must make an easy crust – very similar to a pie crust – that contains the seeds from a vanilla bean, an egg yolk and lemon zest, then you chill it for an hour before pressing it with your fingertips on the bottom and all the way up the sides of the pan. The crust didn’t make it quite up to the top when I did it – but it didn’t seem to matter. Ideally, you can make the crust thin enough to go all the way up.

Then you make the filling. Do you even want to know how much cream cheese is in this? A full 2 1/2 pounds. A lot. It has a bunch of eggs and egg yolks in it too. And a little bit of orange and lemon zest. It has a little tiny amount of flour in it, vanilla and 1/4 cup of heavy cream. I can’t imagine what that little amount of cream does, but it’s added in at the very end of the mixing. Pour it into the pan and bake.

That was taken about 20 minutes after I took it out of the oven. I baked it to an exact 160° using an instant read thermometer. I stuck the probe into the side so there wouldn’t be a hole in the top. It took about an extra 7-8 minutes in my oven (over the 75 minutes suggested). First you bake it for about 15 minutes at 500°. Can you imagine? Yes. Then you reduce it to 200° and continue baking. The back side (you can’t quite see it in the photo above) got a little dark. I should have rotated the cake, but I was afraid it might deflate if I opened the oven door. Do try to leave ample room all around the cheesecake in the oven and don’t put it too close to the top, either.

In this photo you can see the crust is about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the sides. You can barely see the delineation in this photo. It took several hours to let it cool. After an hour or so, I took off the springform side – but first I used a sharp knife to make certain none of the cheesecake was sticking to the side and let it cool several more hours. The other interesting tidbit is that this cheesecake needs to chill for at least 8 hours or overnight. That was wonderful for me so I made it the day before our dinner party. I put the springform back on the cake to store it, covered well with foil.

When it’s cut, use a very thin, sharp knife and have a tall glass of hot water handy as the cheesecake wants to stick to the knife. Dip the knife in the hot water between each cut.  I used a wedge to remove it, but a knife will work too – the crust is sturdy enough to hold the piece together fairly well. The very center didn’t come out cleanly – it’s a soft filling, so a little bit of it stuck.

I made a mango puree (a coulis) to serve on it or on the side of it. I don’t think Lindy’s served it with anything. It really doesn’t need anything to adorn it, but I thought a bit of added color would be nice. I bought frozen mango pieces at Trader Joe’s and made the puree the day before also.  I’ll post that recipe tomorrow or the next day. Anyway,  dessert was all done the day ahead.

After sitting (chilling) for 24 hours the cheesecake had deflated some. It was then about level with the side of the springform, and the center sunk too. I know it was done, though the center was still slightly jiggly when I took it out of the oven. Obviously that means the center surely wasn’t as “done” as the outer parts, but when researching this on the ‘net, I read several places that a cheesecake should be at 160° so that’s exactly what I did.

What’s GOOD: there is everything good to say about this dessert – unctuous texture, smooth, decadent, rich, full of the cheesy taste you look for when ordering a cheesecake. It has the drier texture that is coveted by most cheesecake fans. It’s spectacular to serve – I showed our dinner guests the cheesecake before cutting it and asked everyone if they wanted the mango coulis on the side. We had left overs twice and oh, was it ever good then too. Maybe even better because we were eating it after an ordinary meal and the cheesecake absolutely stood out.

What’s NOT: there is nothing, whatsoever, I could say about this other than it’s fantastic.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)

MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

Simple, easy, tasty onions with delicious cheesy stuff on top. What could be better than that to accompany a hunk of meat?

When I read the recipe over at Kalyn’s Kitchen, I just knew I’d be trying it. I have a recipe here on my blog for Baked Onions with Thyme, that are a particular favorite of our family (that recipe came from an old Gourmet magazine). They’re quite easy too with lots of red wine added, but no cheesy topping, and they do take forever to roast – like 2+ hours. These, on the other hand, are thick slices of onions that are baked (roasted) in a hot oven for awhile, then topped with the cheesy stuff and allowed to bake longer – about another half hour – so the cheesy topping gets toasty brown and melts into deliciousness. So these take about an hour total in the oven.

Pretty much I followed Kalyn’s recipe, although I veered off slightly with the types of cheese I used. I made these twice, both times using slightly different cheeses (first: fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, Pecorino; second: regular Mozzarella, sharp cheddar, Gruyere and Parm. I preferred the 2nd grouping). Kalyn used pizza cheese and Pecorino. I think probably any mixture of cheese would work with this dish as long as you’ve got some of the soft melting cheese and some of the drier, high-flavored cheeses like Parm or Pecorino. The herbs just give the onions more flavor altogether, but you could probably vary those according to your taste, or by what you’re serving with it. If you’re doing sausages, add dill seed and fennel maybe. Italian steak or grilled Italian sausages? Add basil, thyme and rosemary. Chicken breasts are a basic palette, use whatever suits your fancy. Mexican? Add cumin and chili powder.

The cheesy mixture also has some mayo in it (to help bind it), Dijon, lemon juice, pepper, and in this version it’s fresh rosemary and fresh thyme. Those are the only two herbs still growing in my herb garden or what’s left of it from last summer. They survived our many nights of near freezing temps. As for the type of onion, I think you could use any variety – regular white or yellow, red or even Sweet onions. They’d all be just fine, although sweet onions contain more water, so they might take longer to roast (by about 5-10 minutes). The trick is to make sure the cheese mixture sort of sticks together when you mix it up. That way it will sort of stick together on the onion too. First, the thick onion slices are drizzled with oil, sprinkled with salt, pepper and herbs, then you roast them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. The cheese mixture is stirred together and spread on the half-cooked onions, and you can add more cheese (Parm or Pecorino) on top so it will get nice and golden brown.  Back in the oven they go to finish the cooking. After 20 minutes, check to see if they’re tender – add another 5 or 10 minutes. And if the top isn’t brown enough, turn on the broiler for just a couple of minutes.

What’s GOOD: how easy they are to make – you just have to be in and around the kitchen for a little over an hour. The cheesy mixture is quite simple – use what you have on hand. Really any kind of cheeses should work. I served these to dinner guests and they were lovely, but they’re also simple enough to be a weeknight side as well. They’re great left over too.
What’s NOT: nothing I can think of. Delicious.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you  put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

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!

printer-friendly PDF (created using CutePDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

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.

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

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!

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)
MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet

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!

printer-friendly PDF (created using Cute PDF Writer, not Adobe)

MasterCook 5+ import file – right click to save file (and remember where you put it), run MC, then File|Import

Tweet